Tethered

by Amy MacKinnon

“Linus has.” I don’t know if Mike hears me; my voice is nothing now.

  “I wasted two weeks at the same funeral home where I had to say good-bye to my wife, chasing down some figment of your imagination, when I could have been helping real victims.” He stops and I feel the vast expanse of this hearse begin to press against me, the way it echoes with Mike’s voice. “Look, I’m sorry, it’s got to be tough working there, living right there, it must get lonely, but . . .”

  I don’t hear the rest. The phone drops to the floor of the hearse. I shift the car into drive and peel away. My fist is full now. I press it to my face, swipe at my tears, then hide it all away in my pocket.

  MINIVANS AND SUVS crowd the lot of Kennedy’s Country Gardens. Men can be spotted here and there tying Christmas trees atop their cars as mothers fuss with infants’ hats. Speakers affixed to poles throughout the grounds play “Jingle Bell Rock” while swarms of children in brightly colored parkas roam free among the blue spruce. I pull the hearse into the farthest corner away from the holiday cheer, trying to forget Mike’s words, straining to remember both the arrangements Linus ordered and a pot for my ficus. A comb I keep in the glove box helps restore my composure.

  Without slowing to admire the row upon row of wreaths with tasteful bows—some dotted with starfish, others with holly berry (foresight)—I enter through a side door, careful to ignore the mistletoe (need to be kissed) above me. If I were to wander through the front rooms, I would have to bear witness to the crowds picking over the trendy amaryllis and common poinsettias (very beautiful), knowing each of those perennials will be tossed out with a dead balsam fir in a few weeks’ time. It’s better to take the long way to the florist shop and avoid the carnage. When I cross the threshold, I remove my hands from my pockets and notice the dog bite has bled through the dressings. It will need stitches.

  This time of year, the rear greenhouses are a forgotten warren where fertilizer, soil and seeds, all manner of pots—glazed ceramic, foam, cedar, terra-cotta, concrete—are stored until gardeners emerge from their winter respite, ready to splurge on the riches of spring. Here provisions are stacked everywhere, caked in dust, one on top of another, against the walls, covering every table. The scent of peat moss and cedar chips spilling from their bags onto the floor welcomes me. I pause at a haphazard display of birdhouses. They are intricately crafted, with lovingly designed shingles and white clapboard; several have roofs made of copper. I reach out to one; it’s cold beneath my touch, and when I start to pull away, a sparrow darts past me. If my grandmother were alive, she wouldn’t rest until she chased the bird from this place, mindful of the old wives’ tale that a bird caught indoors is a harbinger of death. In her own way, she tried to capture me, too. She tried. I take my time, stopping to admire a squared-off planter—cobalt blue—and then I remember my ficus.

  Lifting it from its place on the shelf, I struggle to carry the pot through the narrow passageway. A rough edge on the bottom, untouched by the glaze, scrapes my injured finger. I feel it with each step. I don’t notice him at first, intent on that spot, but as I make my way to the florist’s desk at the rear of the shop I hear a voice call out, “Hey, Mikey!”

  When I turn, there’s a man I nearly recognize just a few feet away, beckoning to someone I can’t see. Even as I need to flee, my feet won’t carry me from this place, and I stand exposed in the middle of the aisle. A salesclerk, Jeff, his arms overflowing with balsam greens, hurries past me, knocking my arm on his way. He stumbles, I do too, and then rights himself, never appearing to notice me.

  “Mikey!” The man motions to someone just beyond my sight. I can’t bear the thought of facing him, not now. It’s as if a tide has risen within me and is about to burst forth. I feel the pot slipping. Then a toddler appears from around the corner carrying with him a gaudy ornament.

  “C’mere, buddy,” the man calls to the boy.

  My grip strengthens and calm descends; I can’t allow the panic to swell again. I quicken my step, retreating to the florist’s shop in the adjacent room. It’s vacant save for the giant blue macaw dozing on her perch amid the display of silk poppies (extravagance). Many years ago she escaped and smashed the windshield of a delivery truck pulling into the lot. Now she’s capable of little more than brief bursts of flight, mainly hopping from roost to post, careful to drop her waste in a corner of the room. Mirabelle’s been here as long as I’ve been a customer, longer still, a fixture among the dried flowers and vine wreaths. There are photos of her everywhere. Bea is the manager of this department, the owner’s daughter, and the bird’s “mother.” She often uses the bird’s discarded plumage in some of the arrangements, though never ours. Usually I have a treat for Mirabelle in spite of the Do Not Feed the Bird signs Bea posted in her Palmer’s cursive.

  The pot has grown burdensome, and as I head across the room toward the counter to set it down, Mirabelle begins to coo. I check my watch; Miss Craig’s service is soon. If I hurry, there will be time for a cup of tea to help put away this day.

  “Hello?” I say, hoping Bea is just in the back room and not among the holiday throng. I don’t have the energy to search for her. This place, this home away from home, is beginning to feel claustrophobic.

  “Hello.”

  It comes from behind me. When I turn, no one’s there. “Hello?”

  “Hello.” It’s Mirabelle.

  I’ve never heard her speak. I laugh in spite of myself, an unfamiliar sound that jangles my nerves still more. It’s a day for odd circumstance. The macaw is peering out at me through her white irises, her face drawn in alternating stripes of black and white, though the rest of her is a painter’s wheel of yellows, blues, and greens.

  “Bea?”

  “Hello, Clara,” the bird says again, though her mouth hardly moves. I can’t help but smile when she cocks her head to the side, leaning toward me. I take a step and then another closer to the bird. If only I’d brought her a biscuit. She stretches her wings, flapping them ever so slightly, and I notice for the first time that while the underside of her tail is sunburst yellow, the top is sapphire. She extends her neck its full length so that her hooked beak is mere inches from me. I lean in and she nuzzles my cheek, her feathers a cushion of velvet. Closing my eyes, I lose myself.

  “I thought I was her favorite.” Bea’s at the register, Miss Craig’s modest arrangements on the counter waiting to be rung. She rips the ticket from the pot. “This too?”

  I pull myself away from the macaw and she flits to another perch. “Yes, separate check.”

  Bea’s a no-nonsense woman with gray streaking her once-blond hair, blue eyes gone watery, her figure resigned to the pudge of middle age, hidden beneath a red T-shirt bearing the nursery’s logo. There’s always dirt under her clipped nails, caked into the palms of her hands; today’s no different. When the time comes I’ll bury her with white violets (unabashed candor): She does not suffer fools gladly.

  “That must have been some treat you fed her,” says Bea, reaching for my check, each of us avoiding eye contact. She flinches when my fingertips graze hers but says nothing about my wound. “How’d that compost work out for you?”

  “I’ll know this spring.” I slide Linus’s credit card across the counter, mindful of my hand this time.

  “Let’s hope winter brings us some snow. I’d hate to start the spring off with a drought. I lost all my cosmos last year.” She puts both receipts into a small bag and then places it and an arrangement into the pot. She stands expectantly. “Did you get your tree already? We have some real corkers out front.”

  I shake my head.

  Bea’s voice grows quiet, her mouth turning down at the corners, twisted as if she’s bitten into something sour. “I don’t suppose you’d celebrate Christmas, would you?”

  I take the pot in my arms and turn to leave. Mirabelle swoops to her roost nearest me, leaning toward me. The down that collects along her throat is iridescent, a thousand colors blending to one. I can feel Bea’s eyes on me.

&nb
sp; “She said my name,” I say.

  Bea comes out from behind the counter, collecting Mirabelle in a protective embrace. Though her voice is light, teasing, Bea’s expression has taken on the guarded facade I’ve come to know so well from so many. “I think you’ve been spending too much time at the funeral home, Clara. Since the accident, Mirabelle can’t talk.”

  CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

  Miss Craig’s mother stands in the open doorway leading out to the funeral home’s rear parking lot. Gusts of frozen air whistle around her, flooding the vestibule as she takes a long last drag of her cigarette. Her nylon coat is too thin for this weather and there’s nothing to protect her hands or head; stringy hair whips her face. A navy blue handbag hangs from her shoulder, its contents bulging through a broken zipper. She wears polyester slacks, as if from a uniform, and I imagine Miss Craig’s face looked very much like her mother’s toward the end: a battlefield of hopelessness and yearning.

  “Hi, I’m early,” she says, stepping inside. Her voice scratches her throat; the blackened phlegm that lines her esophagus and lungs vibrates with each word. “My daughter’s on her way. She’ll be here in a minute.”

  I listen for Linus’s footfalls creaking down the hallway. He’s never forgotten to greet a family member before.

  “Hello, Mrs. Craig,” I say. Linus would shake her hand with both of his. He would hold her there, offer his condolences, and while she spoke of her daughter’s life and death, he would extend a hand to her shoulder and she would fall against him, comforted by his sheer mass and ability to absorb her pain, soothed if only while in his presence. I offer what I can. “May I take your coat?”

  “No, I’m still freezing.” She shoves her fists into the pockets of her windbreaker and lifts her shoulders around her ears. “Is it okay if I wait for my daughter here? I don’t want to go in . . . there . . . by myself. You know.”

  “Of course not. Let me show you to the sitting room. You’ll be more comfortable there.” It’s just off of the waking room where Miss Craig’s casket rests, set with leather wingbacks and comfortable sofas. I sit her in one of the chairs, knowing from this angle she won’t be able to see the simple box that houses all that’s left of her child. “May I get you a glass of water? Coffee or tea?”

  “Yeah, a coffee, regular. That would be great.” I turn to go and then, “Miss?”

  “Yes?”

  “The cops say she been in her apartment a few days before she was found.”

  “Yes.” The fresh bandage is snug around my finger. I gave myself the six stitches; it barely hurt. A brief nap and cup of chamomile tea helped me regain perspective. I’m fine now.

  “Who brought her here?” Mrs. Craig’s words are strangled. Her eyes fill, magnified and wavering until the tears are loosed.

  “I did.”

  “She must have looked real bad, huh?” She begins to rummage through her pocketbook, piling the detritus of her life—a plastic comb, mints, cheap lipstick, store-brand cough drops—onto the end table.

  I take a tissue from its box on a nearby table and hand it to her. She stops her searching and presses it to her nose, her breath coming in jagged bursts now.

  “She looked beautiful, Mrs. Craig.” I pat her shoulder, lingering there. I almost give it a squeeze. “I’ll get you that coffee.”

  Where is Linus? With this terrible cold, his arthritis has been bothering him. He could have fallen. I can’t imagine it would be anything worse than that, but when I turn the corner and see his office door is closed, the gnawing within me builds. He’s here, but ignoring his duties. Something must be dreadfully wrong. I reach for the handle, ready to burst through, when I hear him.

  “Lord, forgive me, I am not perfect and upright, no I am not that.” His voice carries through the oak door, his baritone vibrating through me. “Sometimes, Lord, I am overcome by the evil that lurks among us, within us, walking to and fro in the earth and back and forth among it.”

  The anxiety within me settles. Looking at my watch, I realize Linus isn’t late at all, he’s simply preparing for Miss Craig’s rites. He does this first, cleanses himself, he says, before conducting a prayer service. Those families who’ve never before affiliated themselves with a religious institution still crave some semblance of ceremony. They believe Linus holds sway and can help direct their loved one into the next world. It’s their fervent hope that it’s never too late.

  “Lord,” Linus says, “I am a sinner. There’s a boil down deep, growing, worrying at me, making me question if what I’m doing is pure of heart.” I start to leave, give him a few more minutes to compose himself. “Don’t make much difference if it’s a lie of omission or flat-out denial of the truth, and to lie like this to Clara . . .”

  I stop when I hear my name and press my ear against the wood. Down the hall, the back door opens and the cold air snakes its way here. The door crashes shut and a woman’s voice calls out, “Hello?”

  I will her to silence and continue listening to Linus. “Makes me feel like I should be reading Genesis instead of Job, Lord. All these years I never could understand how Abraham could pet the downy head of his boy, even as he laid his own child out on the altar, a knife behind his back.”

  The women’s voices rise and I press a hand against my free ear, blocking them out.

  “Can’t say I’m much different from Abraham, Lord, willing as I am to sacrifice my own child.” He’s taken by a hiccup, stumbles over his words. It’s not a sob. No. “What scares me, what has me looking round corners and back and forth, is wondering if I really am doing Your will. I’ve got to believe the lies, the deceit, have a purpose. That I really am doing right by Clara and Trecie. ’Cause in the dark days, faith is all a man’s got.”

  It’s as if a bind has been placed around my ribs, pulled fast and tight, the pressure intense. Pins and needles begin to work their way through the spaces in between the bone. He doesn’t mean it, he’s not lying, I can’t believe that. Linus is a man of honor, not of deceit. Mike could forsake me, yes, it was nothing, I was nothing to him. But not Linus. And Trecie? I simply misunderstood. He was praying, prayers can be interpreted a thousand different ways.

  “Excuse me!” A woman stands at the end of the hall, her stance angry and tensed. “My mother and me are waiting in the other room here.”

  “Yes,” I say. “I was just getting Mr. Bartholomew.”

  I turn the handle, but before I can push the door open, Linus has pulled it free. He catches me when I stumble.

  “I got you, don’t you worry,” he says, steadying me. His hands feel sure on me, the way I imagine a father’s would. I straighten myself quickly. Yes, I simply misunderstood him.

  “The Craigs are here.”

  “So I see,” he says, stepping past me.

  “Linus?” I call after him. He’s already started down the hallway to greet Miss Craig’s family. My insides quake, but if I don’t ask now, I never will. “How long have you known Trecie?”

  “Hmmm?” He pauses, turns slowly, his expression impossible to interpret. So unlike him.

  “How long has she been coming here. To play?”

  “Been a while now.”

  He starts walking again and I take the few steps and touch his arm, stopping him. “How long?”

  Linus removes my hand, takes it in both of his. “Now what exactly are you asking me, Clara?”

  I can’t say it. I can’t. He releases me and reaches the end of the hall, where Miss Craig’s sister is waiting, his hands swallowing hers the way they always do. “Miss Craig, I imagine you’re in a world of pain right now. I know what it is to lose a sibling, lost my own brother when I was twenty-six. It’s like losing half your memory and an arm, too. You have my sympathies.”

  Her anger crumbles and she drops her head. “It was just me and her growing up, you know? She had problems, the drugs, but she was a good person. She really was.”

  “Yes, she is, and don’t you worry that the Lord doesn’t know that.” He enfolds her in hi
s arms and holds her there a minute until her tears subside. “You go to your mother now. I need to get my prayer book and I’ll be right along.”

  She leaves and Linus walks back down the hallway toward me. He points to my finger as he passes. “What happened there?”

  “A cut. It’s nothing.” It’s beginning to throb again, so I hold it within my other hand.

  “Make sure you put some cream on that, wrap it up good. You don’t want no fluids coming into contact with it. You could get a terrible infection that way, you know that.”

  He steps into his office and reaches for his book, lying open on his desk. Before he leaves, he cups my chin in his massive palm and gazes at me just a moment too long. “I wouldn’t want anything to happen to you.”

  As he retreats down the hall, he hums a hymn, loud, without any sense of uneasiness. Something dark and haunting, its melody familiar, the words on the tip of my tongue—there!—and then gone again. It’s something I should know, tantalizingly close, a hint of something . . . toils and snares I have already come . . . I can’t be sure. When he disappears around the bend, I want to call to him, to ask, but don’t. I can’t say why.

  CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

  I’m dreaming. I know I’m dreaming, but still.

  An Asian woman’s just ahead of me, turning back every so often to smile, urging me forward with a wave. She’s tiny and barefoot, wearing a white ao dai that billows around her calves, caught in a breeze of her own making. Her hair is black, hanging in long uneven layers. She appears younger than I am, but so much older. I know her. We’re on a garden path, thick with a menagerie of flowers that hang from dense, snaking vines, suspended from nothingness. I want to stop and clip a stalk of hibiscus, hydrangea, rose, all conjoined on a single trailing stem, but there’s the woman. Just ahead.

  She turns a corner on the path and I can no longer see her. I walk faster, but as I do the vines begin to shift and sway, extending themselves toward me, plucking at my skin, pinching and snapping. I catch sight of her ankle as she turns into darkness.