Zen and Xander Undone

by Amy Kathleen Ryan

  “Not without that bastard hurting your back,” he says angrily.

  “That wasn’t your fault.”

  He nods, his eyes on Xander and Adam.

  They’re walking an arm’s length apart, Xander’s long legs moving like a dancer’s as she matches her stride to his. Adam has his hands in the pockets of his jeans, and he’s hanging his head as he talks to her. For the first time since Mom died, they seem to be listening to each other.

  “Those two,” Paul says, his eyes on them, thoughtful. “They’re great.”

  “Great?”

  “Together, I mean,” he says.

  I watch him for a second, his hazel eyes, the bright sun on his skin. When he looks at me, I know what he’s thinking. We’re great too.

  We let go of each other’s hands to climb the stairs on the railroad bridge. Adam and Xander are already standing there, staring at the horizon. We take our places next to them, and Paul lets his eyes wander over the rusty train cars strewn on the tracks underneath us. “This place is beautiful,” he says in quiet awe. “You can see forever from here.”

  That’s what I’ve always loved about the bridge over the railroad. It feels timeless to be among the treetops, and removed somehow from what happens in normal time. Looking at Paul, Xander, and Adam, their faces alight with anticipation as they watch for the train, I feel that I’m seeing their essences, who they are, or who they’ll be when everything is finally stripped away and we all join Mom, wherever she is.

  Xander looks at me. When I meet her eyes, she smiles.

  We hear a whistle. I turn to see the train puffing toward us.

  “What’s on it?” Xander asks, excited.

  “Coal!” I yell.

  “Cars!” Adam says.

  “Logs?” Paul squints at the train as it barrels toward us. “No. Those are huge pipes! HUGE! Look at how many of them!”

  “Get ready!” Xander screams.

  I watch her, pleading, Please don’t flash the engineer in front of Paul. Please.

  She doesn’t. Instead, she turns around, facing away from the train, and pulls down her pants. “Honk if you’re an ass man!” she screams.

  I hear a wild laugh and turn to see Paul unbuttoning his jeans. Adam has already yanked his shorts down.

  What the hell. I whip my shorts down to my knees and feel the rush of the wind on the tender skin of my ass.

  Turns out Xander’s right. Indecent exposure is a total rush.

  The Wee Hours

  IT’S JUST BEFORE DAWN. I’m standing on the porch with Xander, waiting for Adam to bring the car around. I look back at the house and imagine Dad finding our note, which is full of assurances that we’ll be fine, that everything is okay, that he doesn’t have to worry. I have a sick feeling in the bottom of my stomach about this. I know he’ll be beside himself, no matter how comforting the note or how many times we call from the road.

  “Stop worrying,” Xander says when she sees me looking in the living room window. “We’ll be back in a couple days.”

  “This is a bad idea.”

  “Then stay. Adam and I will go.”

  I take a half step away from her. My foot hits a hollow place in the porch, which makes a soft drum sound, too soft for Dad to hear, but I pause to listen for him anyway. Part of me wants him to come out and stop us. But I need to know the truth almost as much as she does. I need to talk to John Phillips in person too.

  “No you don’t,” Mom murmurs in a soft whisper of tires on pavement.

  It’s Adam parking the car, not Mom’s voice.

  I’ve stopped listening. She isn’t real, and I have to move on.

  Adam pulls up in front of the house.

  “Nice,” Xander says.

  The car is even nicer than Dad’s. It looks like a cross between a sports car and a luxury sedan, with shiny blue paint and white leather seats. Adam pops the trunk and then runs over to pick up our luggage. We’re traveling light, with only a couple pairs of pants and a few shirts, but our bags still barely fit in the small trunk.

  We close the doors quietly, and Adam eases away from the curb. I settle in the back seat, stretched out to take the pressure off my spine. I’m almost well enough to start physical therapy, which the doctor says will make me good as new, but right now I feel fragile.

  I look at Adam and Xander in the front seat, both of them squinting into the sunrise as we get on the highway. They aren’t talking, but there’s a kind of unity between them in the way they’re sitting next to each other. It’s a different kind of unity from when we three were friends. Somehow they’re closer now and I’m on the outside. Looking at Xander and seeing how calm she is with Adam around, I can deal with it. I’m even a little happy about it.

  Besides, now I have Paul.

  He almost came with us, but at the last minute he backed out.

  “It’s not worth what it would put my parents through,” he’d said, sitting across the table from me in the ice cream parlor where Mom and I used to go, a hot fudge sundae between us. It was the first time since Mom died that it felt right for me to be there. It used to be my place with Mom. Now it’s my place with Paul. “I’ll be here when you get back,” he told me.

  I liked the way that sounded, and I repeated it to myself later that night as I fell asleep.

  “What are you going to say when we get there?” Adam asks Xander.

  She cranes her neck to look at me, a quizzical expression on her face. “I have no idea.”

  The day goes by in a blur. First the rolling hills of Vermont and New York, then the flat lushness of Ohio and Indiana. There are tassels on the corn, miles and miles of green corn stretching out under a huge sky. So many white clouds. Then, in the evening, driving along the shores of Lake Erie, watching the metal bodies of boats dividing the water, leaving behind long streams of churning white.

  I sleep in the back while the two of them drive in shifts. I hear them talking in low voices when they think I’m asleep, sharing confessions with each other. Adam whispers, “I wish I’d told you sooner how I felt.”

  “I wouldn’t have listened,” she whispers. “I knew we’d only have the summer, and I couldn’t stand to lose another person.”

  A motion against the leather of the seat, and I open my eyes to see him stroking her yellow hair. “You won’t lose me.”

  It’s dark when we pull in to a roadside motel. Xander pays for the room while Adam and I wait around back. We all trudge up the stairwell, which is muggy with the smell of new carpet. The room is small, with a huge bed and a little sofa, onto which Adam collapses. Xander and I take the bed. It’s so soft, I fall asleep immediately.

  “We should get there by noon,” Xander says eagerly. We’re sitting in a diner, talking over our plates of eggs and enormous pancakes. Adam is hunched over a cup of coffee as though it’s the only source of warmth on the planet. Xander is bleary-eyed, but a subdued excitement plays on her features. “How should we approach him?”

  “Walking?” I say.

  “Riding dogs?” Adam suggests.

  “Zen, you’re the most normal one of us.”

  “Hey! Adam’s more normal than me!”

  She looks at him askance. “Yeah, but he’s not a Vogel. I think you should do the talking this time. It’s delicate, and you may have noticed during our long association that delicacy is not really my . . . um . . . forte.”

  “Fine,” I say. “Coward.”

  “Whatever. I’ll call Dad.”

  She leaves the table, and Adam and I dig in to our breakfast. I’ve managed only a few bites of my pancake, which is pretty greasy, when she comes back looking pale.

  “How’d he sound?” I ask.

  “I didn’t talk to him.” She bumps her shoulder against Adam. “Your mom blew an aneurysm when she heard my voice.”

  “Great.”

  “She says Dad is out looking for us.”

  “Did you tell her we’re out of town?” I ask.

  “No. I hung up.”
/>   “You hung up on my mom?” Adam asks, stricken.

  “Yeah. I didn’t know what else to do.” She seems a little disturbed, like she’s only now realizing what this is doing to Dad and Nancy. It’s making them crazy, and it’s not fair to them.

  We watch our eggs turn cold, and then the waitress brings the check. “Well, we’re committed now,” I say. “Let’s finish this thing.”

  The last leg of the drive seems very short, probably because I don’t really want to get to Milwaukee. I need to talk to Phillips, but I don’t want to.

  It’s a much prettier town than I imagined, full of red brick and tall buildings. The water of Lake Michigan comes right up to the downtown where all the skyscrapers are. We roam through the city looking for the Sheffield Street address we got from directory assistance.

  “Why don’t we just go to the university?” Adam asks Xander.

  “Classes aren’t in session,” she answers. “He’ll be home.”

  We finally find Sheffield and make a right turn. The houses are all old and colonial-looking, a lot like the houses back home. But not quite. They’re newer, with different plants in the gardens. I suddenly realize how far away we are from Vermont, and I get a sick feeling in my stomach. Dad must be so scared.

  “There it is!” Xander yells. “Twenty-two-oh-six! Stop!”

  Adam pulls over and we look at the house. It’s a tall, skinny Victorian with a turret at one corner, and a wraparound porch—the kind of house Mom would have called “splendid.” It’s painted a dark navy blue with white trim, but the paint is peeling in places, and the lawn looks patchy.

  “Yup, this is definitely the house of a literature professor,” Xander declares.

  She gets out, but stops when she sees something on the lawn.

  It’s a tricycle. A little red tricycle on its side next to the front door. “He has kids,” she whispers.

  It amazes me too. I don’t know why, but I always pictured him alone. Knowing he has a family makes me twice as nervous. “I don’t know about this,” I say.

  “We just drove a thousand miles!” Xander hisses. “We’re doing this!”

  Reluctantly I get out of the car and stand, stretching to loosen up my back. Adam turns off the engine and leans back in his seat. “I’ll wait out here for you.”

  I thought he’d come, but Xander doesn’t seem surprised at all. She just nods.

  Slowly we walk up the cracked sidewalk until there’s nowhere to go but up the porch steps. Then there’s nothing to do but ring the doorbell. Xander jams her thumb into it, but nothing happens. “It’s stuck!” she says.

  She turns to look at me, and I see my own bewilderment reflected on her face. “What now?”

  Crazily, I think that we can’t possibly get in, and that we have no choice but to leave right away. But Xander raises her fist to the wood of the door, pauses, and finally knocks.

  A squeal issues from inside, and the door swings open to reveal a little boy of about four years old with a giant chocolate milk mustache on his upper lip. He is naked except for a pair of bright yellow swimming shorts. He takes one look at us and runs away, kicking up his skinny little boy knees, screaming, “Daddy! Students!”

  I hear a frustrated “Oh!” and then footsteps from inside the living room.

  Suddenly, we’re face to face with him. We are looking at John Phillips.

  He’s a small man, smaller than Dad. He has a parrot nose, and a receding hair line. His eyes are brown and beady, and he has an overbite that makes his upper lip jut out. He’s very skinny, and his hands are long-fingered and thin-looking. He’s wearing very thick, heavy glasses that are sliding down his nose. Two red marks remain between his eyes, showing where his glasses are supposed to be. He’s holding a lot of papers, and they’re fanning from his hand, looking like they’re about to slide out of his grasp.

  He looks at us warily. “Can I help you?”

  We stare at him. I glance at Xander, whose eyes have wandered down to his house slippers, which are two stuffed green frogs sitting on top of lily pad feet.

  He is not at all how I imagined.

  “If you’re here to get into my Chaucer class, I’m sorry, but I’m already over-enrolled,” he says, and gives us a distant, professional smile. “I’ll offer it again next fall.”

  “We’re Marie Vogel’s daughters,” Xander tells him.

  “What?” Breathless.

  The papers he’s holding drop to the floor in a crashing flurry.

  Phillips

  I’M GLAD HE DROPPED his papers, because it gives us something to do. We help him pick them up. Xander even lies down on her stomach to get one that fell behind the couch. Finally he has them all stacked together. As I watch him line up the corners of the papers perfectly, I realize he’s stalling. He is completely stunned, and he doesn’t know what to do.

  Finally he seems to understand that any more tidying of papers would be ludicrous, and he puts them down on the coffee table, which is strewn with Legos.

  He straightens up, wiping his palms on the front of his plaid shirt, and stares at us.

  Xander shifts her weight from one foot to the other. I clear my throat and immediately regret the sound. Desperately I search for a way to set everyone in motion again, but I have only one idea. Since no one else is talking, I say it out loud. “Could I have a glass of water?”

  “Sure!” He sort of bounces on his toes, which makes me think he must be a jogger or something. People that old don’t bounce unless they exercise. He leads us to the back of the house to a very messy kitchen. A box of cereal is on its side, spilled all over the white kitchen island. “Jeremy!” Phillips yells. “I told you I’d help you get the prize!” He scoops up a couple handfuls, but quickly gives up and gets a cup out of the dishwasher. He fills it with water from a jug on the counter and hands it to me. I take a small sip because I’m not entirely convinced that the cup is actually clean.

  “So,” he says shakily. “If you want the statue . . .”

  “Oh, no! Keep it. You should have it,” Xander says. “That’s not why we’re here.”

  His dark eyes dart between us warily, like he’s expecting a coordinated attack. “Then why are you here?”

  The hysterical way he asks the question shows how totally bewildered he is.

  Xander looks at me and takes a step back, like she’s giving me the stage.

  Somehow I make my voice work. “We came here because we want to know. Did you and our mother—” I can’t make myself say it.

  “—do it?” Xander finishes.

  “We’re worried,” I talk over her. “We’re worried you had an affair.”

  He drops his chin to his chest. He hangs it there for a long time, his eyes screwed shut. When he finally opens his eyes, it’s with total resignation. “Wait here.”

  He trots out of the room, and we hear him climbing some stairs. Xander reaches for my glass of water and takes a sip.

  My heart is aching, throbbing, groaning in my chest.

  Finally he comes down holding an envelope in his hand. He gestures toward a room off the kitchen, and we follow him into a small study with a ratty couch and a glossy wooden desk. This is probably where he comes to hide from his family when he works, just like Dad hides in the basement. He gestures for us to sit on the couch, and he takes the desk chair, resting the envelope on his knee, his fingers placed protectively over it.

  “Before your mother died, she sent me the bird statue with this letter,” he says authoritatively. Suddenly he’s the professor again, which must be a shield he’s putting up between us, like he has to remind himself we’re no older than his students. “I’ll let you read it first. And then I’ll answer your questions as best I can.”

  He hands us the envelope. Xander takes it from him, unfolds it reverently, and holds it down on her lap so that we can both read it at the same time.

  Dear John,

  I hope this letter finds you well. I’m writing because I have some terrible news. I h
ave breast cancer, and they’ve only given me another few months. When I found out I was sick, I wanted to call you. I should have. But I know you’ve remarried, and I want you to be happy. I suppose I still feel guilty about everything that happened, and so I’ve kept my distance.

  The last time I saw you, I’m afraid I was cruel. I’m sorry for that.

  Every time I look at those doves, it makes my heart hurt a little. I remember you so well, especially now that I have so much time to sit here and think. Please know that you were a great love in my life. Part of me wanted to come with you. But in the end, I had to make the choice I knew I could live with.

  I could not believe a love that begins in the destruction of a family has a chance of surviving. This is how I learned to let you go. I taught myself to believe that we would not have been happy together. Despite my sadness over you, I have been very happy with James and the girls. If any family could mend a torn heart, it is mine.

  But still know that I think of you often. In these last moments of my life, I’ve wished so much that we could say goodbye.

  I’m a very lucky woman to have been loved by two men such as you and James. To know you both, to love you, has been a great honor.

  I’m returning these doves to you, John, to enjoy and remember me by. I wish you a long life and tremendous happiness with your family. Take it from one who knows, every moment you have with them is precious.

  Yours always,

  Marie

  Xander finishes before I do, and she raises her eyes to John’s. “So you did? You did have an affair?”

  “I’m afraid so.”

  The words drop like chunks of ice, making the room cold.

  Phillips looks between the two of us, seeming to comprehend something. “Oh, no!” He leans forward, his elbows on his knees. “When we met, I was married. That’s why she didn’t want you girls to know. She was ashamed she’d had an affair with a married man.”