The Book of Why

by Nicholas Montemarano

  It was winter and we were still in Chilmark, but in my mind it was spring and we were back in Brooklyn: the first bud in our garden, a walk beneath blooming cherry trees, Ralph chasing a tennis ball in Prospect Park. I laid my hand on Cary’s head as she slept and visualized the future we wanted. Cary would be writing songs again. I would write The Book of Why, and this would be its happy ending: the year of healing, the year of entanglement.

  But she lost more and more: words, weight, balance, pockets of memory. Some days, for long minutes, she forgot me; she stared and stared, but couldn’t name me. Husband, I would say, and she would repeat this word, would stare at me, and I would wait, would push aside my fear that she’d never remember, and eventually she would nod and say, Husband, and smile, and I would kneel on the floor at her feet and lay my head on her lap.

  The dog she never forgot, even though there were moments when she lost the name. Puppy or Pooch or Big Ears or Buttercup all meant Ralph. Even on the coldest, shortest winter days, when night came too early, there was always Ralph to lie with on the floor or bed. I’d watch them, or sometimes join them, and visualize a clean brain scan. I’d imagine the tumor shrinking from the size of a cherry to the size of a pea to the size of a mustard seed, to nothing.

  IF THIS WERE a fairy tale, I would end with a wedding.

  We were married in Flushing Meadows Park; it used to be an ash dump before Robert Moses turned it into the World’s Fair. We had the ceremony near the Unisphere, a stainless-steel globe twelve stories high. The fountains surrounding the globe sprayed us, and I wanted us to move, but Cary wanted to stay, so we stayed.

  When the officiant, Cary’s uncle, pronounced us husband and wife, Cary kicked off her shoes and waded into the reflecting pool; she walked to the base of the globe. If I wanted to kiss the bride, I had to follow.

  Our guests cheered when I took off my shoes, louder when I walked across the water, louder when I kissed her, then they took off their shoes and came into the water, too.

  Moments earlier, during the ceremony, her uncle had said, “Life can’t be predicted. No life already lived can prepare you for your own. You can’t plan your life,” he’d said. “Because, let me tell you, it’s already been planned for you.”

  Our friends stood around us in the reflecting pool, and we looked up through the world at the sun.

  The world had been built to withstand the burden of its own weight. But it was permeable: rain and snow would fall through its latticework; wind would blow from the inside as well as the outside.

  When I was eleven, my parents took me to Flushing Meadows to see the monument where a time capsule had been buried the year I was born. The capsule was fifty feet belowground. Credit cards, cigarettes, tranquilizers, a bikini, a Bible, a plastic heart valve—all of it waiting for someone to dig it up five thousand years later.

  All I could think that day and night and for the many days and nights that followed was: Five thousand years from now, five thousand years from now, there will be people five thousand years from now.

  When we walked past the Unisphere that day, there was a man climbing it. His name, I now know, was George, a toymaker from Queens, and he waved to us. There was another man, already at the top of the world, filming the climb. I said to my parents, “I want to do that. I want to climb the world,” and my mother said, “Don’t be ridiculous—that’s a fine way to kill yourself.”

  The year my father died, two Voyager spacecraft were launched, each containing a gold-plated record put together by Carl Sagan. People from around the world were asked to record a greeting for beings in the universe who might someday, perhaps billions of years later, find the spacecraft. I kept asking my parents if my voice could be on the record, if someone could hear my voice in a billion years, and they said no, but I could record my own message and bury the tape in the yard. But I never did.

  We in this world send you our goodwill. Dear friends, we wish you the best. Good health to you now and forever. We wish all of you well. Are you well? Hope everyone’s well. We are thinking about you all. Please come here to visit when you have time. We are happy here and you be happy there. Let there be peace everywhere. God give you peace always. Wishing you happiness, goodness, good health, and many years. May the honors of the morning be upon your heads. Friends of space, how are you all? Have you eaten yet? Come visit us if you have time. Welcome home. It is a pleasure to receive you. Good night, ladies and gentlemen. Goodbye and see you next time.

  Also included on Carl Sagan’s Golden Record: earth sounds.

  Thunder, wind, rain, crickets, frogs, birds, whale song, laughter, a heartbeat, the sound of a kiss, a baby crying.

  Also included: data from his wife’s brain and heart.

  She was hooked up to a computer; all she had to do was think and feel. She thought about war, violence, poverty, the challenges of being human, what it feels like to love.

  THIS STORY COULD also end with a walk to Prospect Park.

  It was her idea to come back to Brooklyn. It was too cold on Martha’s Vineyard, too empty off-season. She wanted to be around people again, to see her friends.

  A man who looks like me wakes to freezing rain against the bedroom window. His wife has been in bed two days; she hasn’t eaten.

  The dog cries to go out, but the man who looks like me tells her to lie down. She continues to cry, and he says, “No more—enough,” and she goes downstairs to cry by the door.

  He doesn’t want to get up. Doesn’t want to leave his wife alone.

  But the dog is restless; he hasn’t run her for two weeks. She’s been regressing. Seven years old, but acting like a puppy: chewing socks, shoes, table legs. She wants attention; she wants to play. Their last run, around the park, he cut short; he panicked and hurried home.

  The dog’s whine is pitched higher now; she’ll do anything not to have an accident. A few more minutes and he’ll get up. His wife is facing him, and he’s holding her hand, which is warm, and it occurs to him that nothing can go wrong as long as he’s holding her hand. He leans his head against hers and thinks how close he is to it. Only a few inches. Yet he can’t touch it. Even the surgeons can’t. So close, and he can hear the dog pacing down by the door, and he catches himself trying to befriend it, as ridiculous as that might sound, as if it has a persona and might be convinced to alter its course. Then, his hand on her head, he grows angry and imagines being able to reach into her, being able to perform the surgery on his own, as preposterous as that might sound years later, as I write about it. As if he can do what the surgeons can’t.

  He closes his eyes, takes a few deep breaths. He’s grateful to be able to hold her hand. The story he tells himself—one that might get him through the morning—is that as long as he’s touching her, nothing bad can happen.

  He remembers: electricity counts.

  He remembers: keep the switch of faith open.

  He remembers reading about a couple, married fifty years, that had never been more than ten feet apart. They showered together. When one used the toilet, the other sat on the tub’s ledge and read a magazine without the least bit embarrassment. They were both artists and worked in the same room. If one woke inspired in the middle of the night and wanted to paint, the other would come to their studio and paint too, or sleep on a cot near the canvas. If one woke thirsty, the other would come along to the kitchen for a glass of water.

  The man who looks like me decides, as he holds his wife’s hand and listens to her breathe, that he will one-up that couple. Forget ten feet; he and his wife, from now on, will always be touching.

  But there’s the problem of the dog.

  Not that the dog is a problem. Not that the dog hasn’t been a huge help. Not that the dog isn’t what his wife still responds most to. Not that she doesn’t reach to pet the dog even when she’s weak. Not that anything truly bad could happen—another story the man tells himself—as long as the dog is in the room.

  He makes a rule: The only time he’s allowed to stop touching h
is wife is to walk the dog.

  The dog likes the cold, likes to sniff yellow snow, likes to play invisible dog: she gets low to the ground, on her belly, whenever another dog approaches, as if the other dog won’t be able to see her, tail fanning out the snow behind her. She likes to sniff the other dog’s mouth and rear. The other dog’s owner, an old bearded man who looks like his terrier, likes to talk. Not that there’s anything wrong with talking. Not that talking isn’t the friendly thing to do when your dogs are sniffing each other and your leashes are tangled. This man wants to know how old Ralph is, is she a pure breed, how do you keep her so lean, how’d she get a male name. He likes to talk about his previous dogs—names, breeds, how long they lived, how they died. He likes to talk about the weather. Roads are icy, yes. More snow than predicted, yes. Plows were out early this morning, yes. Plowed in his car, now he has to dig it out. Not that there’s anything wrong with such conversation. Not that there’s anything wrong with saying have a nice day, careful on the ice.

  The man who looks like me yanks the leash, but the dog tenses: she won’t move until she has thoroughly sniffed a yellow circle in the snow. He pulls harder, and this time she gives in. He says, Pee, and she sniffs for a spot, finds one, squats, stands again and circles the spot, sniffs for a better one, squats again, stops, moves a few feet to the right, a few feet to the left, back to her original spot, and the man pulls on the leash, perhaps too hard, and says, Let’s go already—pee, for God’s sake! A woman and her daughter pass, and the man feels like a dope. Not for being angry with his dog, not for pulling too hard on the leash, but for saying the word pee. The girl is wearing a school uniform, and she’s holding her mother’s hand, and the man who looks like me waits for the dog to pee and hurries back to the house.

  He’ll heat some vegetable broth; he’ll break ice into chips to feed her; then he’ll get into bed and get up only if she gets up. And to walk the dog, of course. And to use the bathroom. And to eat. And to answer the door if the bell rings. Though he doesn’t have to answer the door or the phone; he doesn’t have to gather the mail in the foyer. As long as he takes care of his and the dog’s bodily functions, he can otherwise keep touching her, and nothing bad can happen.

  But when he goes inside after having walked the dog, she’s sitting on the edge of the bed, pulling up socks. This after days of her not eating or getting dressed. This after days of having to wash her in bed, her face and arms and legs, and drying her.

  When he asks what she’s doing she says—she says—that she’d like to go for a walk. This after weeks of her not having said much, of her not knowing the word walk, of her having to sign the word, her fingers walking.

  This story could end there—with the feeling the man has when he sees his wife pulling up her socks; when he hears the word walk come out of her mouth. He has read about such miracles. Spontaneous remissions. His readers have sent him letters. One day not long for this world, the next day dancing. He thinks now that walk is the most amazing word in the English language, in any language. There need be no other word. The dog knows this word and gets excited. His wife pulls on her boots. Stands. Smiles. Says, “Let’s go for a walk.” I’d like to hook the man who looks like me up to a monitor and record his feelings at that moment—the dog’s feelings, too—and send them out into space to be discovered and interpreted billions of years from now, and we could end the story there.

  Part Seven

  Hello Goodbye

  Nature tries to make amends: storm clouds part for the last minutes of sun. We stand on the lawn and watch a sun pillar rise from the horizon, flicker, then disappear: the umbilical cord connecting heaven and earth has been snipped, and true night, not the false night of the storm, begins to cloak the damage we survey now by flashlight.

  Sam’s car is still parked by the cemetery gate; a tree limb has shattered the windshield. Beneath the lone working streetlight, water gushes from the hole where a fire hydrant used to be. Boys stand beside the hole, reach out cautiously, pull back their hands before touching the water.

  A white cat emerges from the leaves of an uprooted tree with a dead bird, then walks slowly across a street empty of traffic.

  The front yard is a mess of roof tiles and glass. Gloria reaches for something shiny in the grass; her grandmother tells her to get back on the porch. She sits in a cloud of smoke from her mother’s cigarette. She signs to her mother, pats her hands together twice, right palm over left.

  “No school tomorrow,” her mother says. She flicks her cigarette onto the lawn. “School might not be standing.”

  A tree limb impales the house below a second-floor window. Jay brings out a ladder, tells everyone to get out of the way. He climbs up to pull the limb loose, but it’s in there good, he says, so he decides to wait until morning, when he can use a chainsaw to cut it into pieces.

  Sam sweeps glass too small to pick up by hand. A helicopter hovers above the hospital for a few minutes before landing on the roof. Dinah crosses herself. Gloria mimics her. She looks at me, and I look away. I put on work gloves and gather glass, dumping it in a trash can that doesn’t belong to the Fosters but must have blown onto their property as if sent for this very purpose. My ears are ringing. When I straighten after bending, my head becomes light. The world drains of color, and I can see only black and white. I blink, and color returns: the red stripes on my sneakers, the purple sky, the pink ribbons in Gloria’s hair.

  They offer us a room: water stains on the ceiling, toys piled high in the closet, dozens of empty hooks and hangers. The window has blown in; bunk beds lie side by side. There are no pillows, and the white fitted sheets are covered with glass. We remove the sheets and glass and sleep on bare mattresses.

  In the dark Sam says, “Now what?”

  “We go to sleep.”

  “You know what I mean,” she says. “The girl’s name.”

  “I don’t know what we’re supposed to do.”

  “Do you know her?”

  “I’ve never seen her before.”

  “Do you know any of these people?”

  “No.”

  “Are you sure?”

  “I decided years ago that I’m not sure about much, but I’m sure I don’t know them.”

  Ralph snores on the floor beside me. The buzzing inside my head is interrupted only by the helicopter bringing more wounded to the hospital.

  I wake cold in the dark, too tired to move my mattress away from the window. Sam faces away from me, knees to chest, fetal. She’s using her jacket as a blanket. Ralph is gone. Probably thirsty, pawing a toilet lid. Probably hungry, too.

  I walk through the hallway over the creaking wood floor: a child sneaking out of his room. I’m waiting for a bedroom door to open and my parents to ask what I’m doing up, tell me to go back to bed.

  At the top of the stairs I whisper Ralph’s name, then listen for her nails on the floor. I say her name again, louder. I hear something downstairs; might be her crying to go out, might be a dog on the street.

  When I reach the first floor, I can see that someone left a TV on, the volume low. The portable TV, which sits atop a larger one in the living room, is so tiny that I have to stand directly in front of it and lean in to see the people on screen. A black-and-white movie, a blonde telling a man in a fedora—a poor man’s Bogart—that she’s sorry, over and over she tells him, while he smokes a cigarette, pours himself a drink. He says goodbye. She says, “Don’t say that—please don’t.” He tells her they both knew from the beginning how this would end. The acting is melodramatic, but I don’t care. I do the math, as always when I see an old movie, and the numbers tell me the same thing: the actors, all of them, unless they’re children, sometimes even then, are gone. Yet here they are—their faces, their voices—in a year they’d never know, in a world they couldn’t have imagined.

  A voice in the dark, behind me—a whisper, it sounds like, but not words. I turn and wait for my eyes to adjust.

  She’s lying on the couch, Ralph beside
her. White pajamas, pigtails. Her dolls are on her lap, their hair standing up, brides of Frankenstein.

  “How did you pick their names?”

  She slides the palm of her right hand over the back of her left.

  “I don’t understand.”

  She keeps making the same sign.

  “Something about an airplane?”

  She tries a different sign; it looks like her hands are galloping.

  “Horse?”

  Her face laughs, but she makes no sound.

  “I’m sorry,” I tell her, and she tries the first sign again—slides the palm of her right hand over the back of her left.

  “She never lived near any beach.”

  Her mother is at the foot of the stairs, holding a flashlight. She wears white sweatpants pulled up to her knees, a long black shirt that reads: BORN AGAIN? WHAT MAKES YOU THINK YOU’LL GET IT RIGHT THIS TIME?

  “She’s telling you she used to live near the beach.”

  Gloria touches her lips with her index finger, then points.

  “If you say it’s true,” Evelyn says.

  “She has an overactive imagination,” Evelyn tells me. “Probably grow up to be a writer.”

  Gloria kisses two fingers, and they fly away from her mouth like birds.

  “Oh, that’s right,” Evelyn says. “She’s a singer.”

  She turns to Gloria. “What did we say about sleeping?”

  Gloria leans her face against her palm.

  “Then what are you doing down here?”

  Gloria points to the TV.

  “That’s my own fault,” Evelyn says. “Shouldn’t have taken that out. But I had to watch my shows.”

  “I came down looking for Ralph,” I tell her. “I thought she might be hungry.”