by Susan Wilson
As usual, they walked to the nearest McDonald’s. All around them were families with small children, teenagers banded together, and senior citizens sipping endless cups of coffee to kill the empty hours. “You want a Happy Meal?”
“No. Quarter Pounder with cheese.”
“Please.”
“Please.” Once a year, and his father had to correct his manners.
Adam doesn’t remember much of what they talked about. His father asked the usual litany of questions an adult asks of a child he barely knows: school, friends, sports.
School was fine, he told him. He had a couple of friends. He played baseball and basketball.
Just like his exchanges with Ariel. Brief and unadorned.
This time, Adam ate quickly. Did not want to prolong the interrogation, had nothing to ask of his father but one thing. “Will I see you again?” Meaning, “Are you coming back into my life?”
“Sure. Soon.”
The last words his father ever spoke to him. For the first time, Adam wonders why he never asked his father any questions. Why hadn’t he asked the important ones? He knows now that by this time Veronica had been dead for four years. Why hadn’t he asked about her? Had he known but not known? Suppressed the knowing? Certainly by this time, Stein would have weaseled that out of his subconscious. Along with why he never thought that his father was still alive. That after all these years, he’s never imagined him as still alive. And yet he’d never truly imagined that Veronica was dead.
A knock on his door, purposeful. At once, Adam jumps up; the hopeful grin hurts, as he wants to believe that someone has found his dog, maybe someone in the building who has been generously quiet about the illegal tenant in 3A. Adam wrenches open the door. Gina stands there, a gentle, empathetic smile on her face. A mourner’s smile. She carries a casserole dish, a carry bag full of bread and cheese and all the comfort food that she will press on him.
Adam wants to take her in his arms; instead, he goes into hers. The panic is gone. The hollow place is slowly filled as he tells Gina about Veronica being dead all these years, about his father living almost in the same neighborhood where Adam has been living since his expulsion from Sylvan Fields. She sits with him, holding his hand, rubbing his back. He doesn’t know if she’ll stay in his life, but right now, she’s here, and he is so grateful.
Gina is slowly knitting Adam back together. She takes care of his wounded face, applications of vitamin E and gentle cleansing. She feeds him, turning his inadequate kitchen into a source of delight. She lets him hope. She lets him howl. She lets him talk. She lets him be silent. She finds his phone, which has fallen behind the futon. She makes up a list of shelters and calls in her animal-activist troops. She promises that if Chance is to be found, they will find him.
She calls Ariel for him, recruits his daughter into helping. Day by day, they scour the neighborhoods, the good ones and the bad, hanging lost-dog posters, making calls. Ariel holds Adam’s hand as they walk the streets. Maybe it’s the fact that she’s simply growing up a little that has changed the dynamic of their relationship to something that, if not perfect, at least has the seeds of hope in it. Sometimes Adam thinks that, even absent, Chance has brought them together.
Ariel has Photoshopped a picture of a brindled pit bull into a reasonable resemblance of Chance. Adam can’t bear looking at the picture. Sometimes he wonders how he ever came to lay so much human emotion at the feet of a dog. Wonders if this is normal. Gina has lent him a plaque from her store with Rudyard Kipling’s poem “The Power of the Dog,” the last line of each stanza warning against giving your heart to a dog to tear.
Chapter Fifty-three
The only light that works its way into the cellar is a thin border of gleam surrounding the cardboard squares set against the rectangular windows. I can judge day from night only by the strength of that thin line as it goes from bright sunshine to dull streetlight glow. I’m not taken outside even to defecate. My cage grows ever smaller as I try to keep the mess to one side. I am fed, watered. Talked to in low mutters, but not the kind that means sweetness, but which indicates a surliness at my mess, at having to feed and water me. All too clearly, I understand what is coming. I’d left this place a champion; now I’m the underdog. Upstairs, the sound of toenails on linoleum. Men’s voices, challenging each other. Laughter. A sharp bark followed by the sound of a hand on flesh. Shaddup.
The cellar is divided into two spaces—the space where we live and the space where we fight. When I hear the sound of feet on the stairs, I look at the other two dogs in residence. The male lowers his head, his eyes barely reflecting in the dim light. He raises a lip at the scent of the challenger. This is someone he knows, someone he’s fought. A soft growl. He’s a tough one. Lost to him last time. The female circles three times and lies down. This isn’t her game.
I am on my feet. The idea of impending battle sends the adrenaline coursing through my body. I fill the room with my voice. Hey, pal, you just wait and see. Better look to your hind end. All sorts of flimsy challenges. Bravado. The truth is that I no longer want to obey the orders of these boys. The game that I once was compelled to play, that once was my job, has been supplanted by a new and better job. I am no longer a gladiator. I am a pet, a leash dog. I miss my man. I didn’t think that was possible, but that is the image that fills my mind, my man. Why hasn’t he come to get me? What is taking him so long? I stop barking and start howling.
One of the boys pokes me with a break stick to get me to shuddup. In one smooth action, he opens my cage and slips a muzzle over my mouth, then a pinch collar over my head. Good. Let them take me seriously, let them understand that I’m a danger to them, and maybe they’ll let me go. He doesn’t have to drag me from the cage; I leap, roaring and twisting in an attempt to intimidate him into letting go. He just laughs, and the pinch collar obstructs my breathing until my roar is squeezed off into a pitiful choking sound.
I will not be dragged. I pull against the one holding the short chain attached to the pinch collar, pull him toward the other half of the cellar. Pull toward the pit. Okay. Let’s do it. I may be out of shape, soft from good living and affection, but I’m still a dog. I’m still a fighter. Maybe a lesser challenger than this mass of muscle on feet in front of me, but I am. Woe betide the gladiator who doesn’t understand that there is a better life away from this pit. I want that life back, and the only way to it is through this moment. Then the boy not holding my chain, he does it: wraps my jaws together with silver tape. I am not a fighter; I am bait.
I will not describe what happens. A dogfight is best left to the imagination. Suffice it to say that it will be my last fight.
Chapter Fifty-four
It has been a very long time since Adam was with a woman. Even longer since he touched one who didn’t counter his efforts with instructions, with time limits, or with conditions. Adam knows that comparisons are madness, yet he can’t help but compare the soft curves of Gina with the exercise-hardened ridges of his former wife. Gina isn’t self-conscious about the shape of her hips, or the full, swinging weight of her breasts once released from her brassiere—breasts that are natural, unaugmented, soft and sweet. She doesn’t make excuses; she makes love.
In the end, Adam feels as though he’s been borne away.
They have left a side lamp on in the bedroom and have dozed beneath its gentle light. They wake and nuzzle and Gina reaches over to turn off the lamp. The streetlights outside his bedroom window keep the room flooded in a pale light; he hadn’t pulled the curtains, too hurried when they slipped into his room, drew back the heavy corduroy bedspread, and lay for the first time together. It wasn’t inevitable, this act. Like their friendship, this moment has never been a foregone conclusion.
Adam flops backward on the mounded pillows and pulls Gina to him upside down across his lap. He’s told her so much about himself, his life and troubles, that he’s ashamed he’s asked so little about hers. She’s come to him whole, not in pieces, and that’s how he imagines she’s always bee
n. But that can’t be true. There are photographs on the shelf in her store; an elderly man and a set of twins—her grandfather, with whom she lived from the time she was seventeen, and her siblings from her mother’s second marriage, no longer little kids, now young married people themselves. There are other people in her life. Certainly other men. Surely, Gina would have had someone besides lovers, surely someone better than damaged goods like him. “So why hasn’t some smarter guy than me snapped you up?”
Gina raises a hand and touches Adam’s face gently, tracing the route of his fresh scar. “I was married for two years. A long time ago.”
Adam begins to stroke Gina’s hair back from her face. Waits. He wants to know that she isn’t grieving for a lost love. “What happened?”
“I told him to get out.”
Adam shifts a little under Gina’s weight. “And did he?”
“Went without a protest. Easiest thing I ever did.”
“You are a very strong woman.” Adam bends and kisses her on the forehead.
Gina moves off him, sits up, and takes his face in her hands. “So are you, a strong man, even when it hurts.”
They lay quietly for a time, until Gina moves away from him, turning in the bed to look at him, putting her hand on the cheek without the slash. “Adam.”
“Yes?”
“You’re doing the right thing.”
Chapter Fifty-five
Adam has chosen his clothing carefully. Chinos, not jeans. A light blue dress shirt, but one that has been retired from business, demoted to weekend wear. No tie. A golf jacket, not a sports coat. On his feet a pair of Reeboks. At first, Adam thought that he’d wear his best suit, his most expensive shoes, his favorite understated tie, but when he took them out of the closet, they looked wrong, formal wear at the diner. The statement he wants to make needs to be spoken, not bespoke.
Adam has circled the block twice, ostensibly looking for a parking place, but there are several to choose from on this residential street. He finally parks directly in front of the house.
The three-decker house looms over an empty lot on one side and a more recent two-family house on the left. It is painted in graduated shades of brown, tan, and yellow, so that the third floor seems less substantial than the first two. A double driveway takes up the space between the houses, a thin grass strip of border between them; a light gold Marquis sits alone on the right side. The porch steps lead to twin front doors. He knows that one will lead to a stairwell, the other to the first-floor apartment. Adam checks the address in his hand—42 A, first floor. A fence encircles the property, rhododendron bushes softening the chain link. Adam opens the gate, careful to replace the latch. There is a small round table on the porch, tucked into the corner, a citronella candle full of dead matches in the middle of it. The last few nights have been cold, and a pair of chairs are folded up, leaning against the porch rail as if done for the season.
The door on the left is the one he wants. A brass plate with March written in script adorns the doorbell. All Adam has to do is push the white button. He shoves one hand into his jacket pocket, runs the other through his hair, over his face, forgetting that his cheek is quite tender even though the stitches are out. Adam feels a light scrim of sweat prickle against his exposed neck, beneath his arms. This is ridiculous, he thinks. He’s performed far greater acts of courage in the business arena, boldly facing down naysayers and enemies to prove his point. Asking Sterling Carruthers to marry him; asking for her hand from one of the most powerful men he’s ever known. Adam suddenly realizes that he’d either better push the damned doorbell or retreat before someone notices him standing out here like some anxious adolescent on his first date.
None of the other brave moments of his life ever felt so fragile. All the other times, he was absolute in his vision of the outcome. This time, this once, he has no idea what resolution he wants.
Adam presses his forefinger into the bell. Twice.
A woman opens the solid wood door, leaving the storm door latched. The screens are still in, and she looks at him through the fine mesh. She studies him, looks past him to determine if he’s alone. “You’re not a Jehovah, are you?”
“No.” Adam has forgotten to rehearse what he might say, fully expecting his father to be the one to answer the door. He hasn’t considered this, that there might be a wife.
They study each other through the door.
“I’m Adam March. John’s son.”
She nods slowly, considering this bit of information. “Yes. Yes, you are. Come in.” She unlatches the storm door and stands aside to let him in. The small foyer with an empty hat stand leads to the front parlor. He can smell something baking, brownies or maybe a cake, the aroma coming from beyond the parlor. The room is tidy, uncluttered. Old-fashioned furniture: a sofa and matching wing chairs, a mahogany occasional table with a pair of silver candlesticks on either end, a Revere bowl in the center. “Wait here.” She doesn’t invite him to sit.
He looks around the room but remains standing in the middle of the Oriental area rug. The pattern is worn in the center, but still beautiful in reds, blues, and yellows. Adam realizes he’s looking for something, some item that will connect him to this home. He walks over to the fireplace, where there are three matching silver frames. He studies the photos: a wedding picture, a baby picture, and a family group.
He is still studying the photo when the woman comes back into the room.
“That’s my family. My son, Carl, his wife, Jennifer, and their kids.” She doesn’t take the picture down, doesn’t touch it. “I’m Bea. John’s wife.”
“I’m Adam. And this is awkward.”
Bea March smiles at him. “I know it is.”
“Is he here?”
“Yes. I’ll take you to him. I have to warn you: He’s not well. Bedridden.” She looks away, studies the pattern in the rug. “It’s lung cancer. Couldn’t get him to give them up.” Bea pulls her gaze from the floor to meet Adam’s eyes. “I don’t want him riled up, and he’s already riled up knowing that you’re here. You probably have a million questions, but if you can keep it to a few, that would be best. I won’t have him tired out.”
“Just one. Just one question.”
“Okay. One question.”
Bea leads Adam through the dining room and down a short hallway. The scent of baking is now mingled with a mild pungency beneath an overlay of air freshener. She knocks on the door with a single knuckle and Adam can see how nervous she is. “Johnny, he’s here.”
There is a sound, a hissing susurration of air accented by an audible blip, like the sound made by someone clearing a piece of tobacco off his tongue. Bea doesn’t wait for an answer, but swings the dark-stained door open to let Adam in. John March is in a hospital bed, the head cranked up so that he is sitting at an angle, the foot bent slightly so that his legs are elevated. A white sheet is pulled up to his waist, folded down, and straightened over an orange thermal blanket, and Adam knows that Bea has just tidied him up for company. The gray face that looks at him is hollow-cheeked, a nasal cannula fitted under the nose. The eyes, deep brown, stare at him, assessing him, quite obviously reconciling this man with the boy he last saw nearly forty years ago. The boy he left behind, the boy he gave to the state. Adam swallows. The shape in the bed raises a hand, reaches out. That hand is shaking, trembling with nerves or with palsy. Adam can’t tell which, but his own hand is equally tremulous. There is a folding chair placed beside the bed. Bea touches Adam on the shoulder and points to it, then walks out of the tiny, claustrophobic room and shuts the door behind her.
Adam is close enough now to see the places where Bea has missed when shaving his father. His hair is steel gray, slicked back from his forehead and longish in back. Adam remembers that his father always wore his hair in what used to be called a pompadour, a style that required an application of Brylcreem. He remembers the tube on the sink in the bathroom, the smell of it. It comes back to him in a flood of recollection. His father, standing at the bathr
oom mirror, black comb sweeping this way and that. His dark brown hair turned jet black, glistening from the hair cream. He’d sing the slogan: “A little dab’ll do ya.” Adam would sing it, too, ask for a dab of Brylcreem.
It’s the first time he’s thought of that, ever. All the thoughts he’s ever had about his father have been of his temper, his fighting with Veronica, of her leaving. A little dab’ll do ya.
“Hello, Dad.”
His father smiles, and over the sound of the oxygen machine, his own voice a breathy susurration, he answers. “Hello, son.” He taps the covers with a hand that is bruised from the permanent line in his vein, and Adam wonders if he’s supposed to take it.
Adam gets one question, if he’s to play by Bea’s rules. One question after a lifetime.
John March licks his dry lips. “How you been?”
His father’s first question after a lifetime.
“Why, Dad? Why did you let me go?”
His father reaches up for the cannula, pulls it away from his nose. “I had no choice. I was alone.” He puts the cannula back but misses one nostril.
“Why didn’t you come back? When I was old enough? Why did you leave me in the system?” Adam reaches over and helps replace the tube.
“Complicated.”
Adam knows that he’s used up his allotted question, and he still has no answer. The old man is struggling to remove the cannula again, and Adam presses his hand away from his face. “I know it is. I just don’t understand why you stopped contacting me even once a year. But you know what? I managed. I succeeded. I have a daughter. You have a grandchild. You missed knowing her. You missed knowing me.”
There are tears in the old man’s eyes, but they seem less like tears of regret than tears of defiance. Adam sits back, taking a deep breath that is filled with the smells of illness and old man. Two eight-by-ten framed photographs sit on the bureau. For a moment, Adam thinks that one is a picture of Ariel that has somehow come into his father’s possession. The long blond hair, the angle of the chin to eye, the closed-lip Mona Lisa smile. Veronica. The other is of him, a gap-toothed five-year-old with a crew cut and wearing a plaid shirt. Sears portraits. The photographer had him hold a toy train. Adam remembers this. And the swoop of recognition, of memory, threatens to force him to run from the room. His father has kept those studio portraits, taken weeks before Veronica was dead and he was placed into the foster system.