“I won’t keep you any longer, I had to get Dad some juice.” Still clutching him in that overdone way. Cold mixed with her usual warmth, and he felt in some strange way more distant from Mom in her arms than he had in the basement. “Just know that I love you very much, Conner. And that I’ll always be here for you.”
“Okay, Mom. Thanks.” Her words were good, if icky as all heck, but they felt like husks, hollow and tossed by the wind. He wriggled out of her embrace, gave her a tight smile, and turned back to the basement steps. “He likes pear juice,” he said, looking back at his mother’s upset, but glancing away from her distraught eyes to fix momentarily on the microwave. Then he waved and turned, thundering down the stairs and taking the abrupt turn as smooth as a glider on a windless day.
***
The following Saturday, Katt woke from a nightmare. She’d been on a Christmas tree farm, in the proprietor’s office. Mr. Kemmelman, her bow-tied principal in second grade, stood rooted to the floor, which was bare ground. “I’m afraid you can’t use that axe,” he said, “but maybe if you kiss me.” He puckered up. Wooden dummy lips, an ill-made suit one size too small, rough-barked shins and ankles thrust into the mossy earth. Behind her, through walls that were mere outline, came the mallet-upon-stake sounds of chopping, mingled with happy family murmurings as on a tape loop. The axe hung heavy in her hands, not the long-handled kind, but a short one that felt as if a legion of dead men were invisibly pulling it down. Katt hefted it, saw it rise, felt it jar into the black bark, peel away a white-lined bird-wing of wood, angled rudely out from his shin. He shivered. “Mmm, that feels good. Another, please.” She obliged, each blow an effort, and yet she was removed from her sweat, from the draw on her muscles, from the deep womb-tingle the thwunk of the axe elicited each time it connected. White flying flinders, like glints of sunlight, filled the air. Behind her, an impossible treefall began, the cracking sounds like huge sequoias giving way, not like six-foot spruces. And now her principal’s crudely whittled base held no longer and he fell, stiff, smiling, arms open wide, directly toward her. Katt stood paralyzed, with joy, with fear. And he fell through a chorus of delighted family squeals, sight of all else blotted out, as he came on in endless angled threat, closer, closer, endlessly falling…
Katt woke with a start, thinking she had cried out, then realizing she hadn’t. Marcus lay beside her, still dozing. What am I doing? she thought, peeled raw for an instant, a moist pulp of panic exposed. The dream clung to her. She drew from the bed, dazed and awake, failing to shake it off. The faint pink walls throbbed like raw wounds as she went by.
In the shower, moving mindlessly through her ritual of shampooing and soaping and washing off, Katt vowed to end the madness. She’d dry off, wrap her bathrobe about her, brew coffee, scramble some eggs, split and warm and cream-cheese a bagel, there in the kitchen solitude, her mind strengthening its resolve. Then she’d go upstairs, taking her man’s head firmly between her hands, ignoring his questions, reverse what she’d let begin, undo it and disarm it forever, heal him, for the love of God, as her hands were meant to do. She’d confess. She’d plead for forgiveness. And then they’d discuss… divorce, she said it and she meant it and by God she would say it and mean it then too.
One last turn of the handle toward Hot-she loved a final blast of punishing hot water at her nape-then she shut it off, opened the opaque door a crack, and reached for the peach towel. She fancied him breathing suddenly right there, grabbing her hand, her cover somehow blown, wrenching her past the loud shudder of glass, a smack to her arm, misstep stubbing her toe and hurling her, still dripping water, to her knees before him-but her fingers found soft warm thickness and she drew it in and blotted herself and quick-tousled her hair.
In the bedroom, she negotiated the walls to keep as far away from Marcus as she could. He was sleeping. No need to pretend to normalcy, no need to cross diagonally if no one was watching. The house lay quiet. She crept down the stairs, sunlight knifing in through the kitchen windows. It laid bare her lovelessness. But no, Conner had to be kept in mind, her son, still in his bed, maybe up there staring at patterns in the ceiling. Surely she loved him. If she couldn’t feel that love, if it seemed horrendously distant, that was because of what she’d put upon Marcus, the toll it had taken and was taking. Even Sherry had been shut out. Messages left for Katt on the BBS had been read, she’d gotten ready to reply, and then simply froze on any words, exited, and turned the damned computer off.
She stared at her plate, vaguely remembering taking in the food-and before that, preparing it. She brought the dishes to the sink, reaching for the Ivory, her mind again on automatic pilot. Time was ticking by. For her husband it was running out. She’d opened the taut nexus of his hourglass, set the sand to seeping downward, made the narrow channel broader and swifter with the probe of her fingertip. One more fork, one more dish, it felt so satisfying to rack them in the drainer, watch the sheets of rinse water run off and drip to the mat beneath.
Katt dried her hands.
The phone rang.
Let it ring, let it fall silent. But no. Even now it was waking Marcus. Answer it, dismiss the annoyance, halt the empty greeting and the contrived shoehorn sales pitch in their tracks-and be on her way upstairs.
“Katt. Hi. It’s your mom.”
They were like an identifying logo, those words, an unwavering intro to newness and a lure into Katt’s past. The parlor, with its dark-stained angular antiques, rose to envelope her. “Mom, hi, can I call-”
“Listen, I just can’t get over the awful news about Marcus. Your father agrees.” Her father always agreed. “Are you holding it together? Is the marriage doing all right?”
Sure, except for the fucking strain impending death brings with it, wet blanket that way. “It’s fine, Mom.” Sounded odd. “That is, under the circumstances.”
“Katt, I don’t like the sound of that. Not meaning to be a busybody now, you understand?”
“Yes.” A prelude to rampant busybodyness. But her voice was bringing back the closeness and the woody air, Granny Hunt and her mother colluding over tea, gossiping about this or that man or woman cheating on a mate while Katt gazed over her playpen or played with dolls, taking it all in. They spoke deep truth, their moods bedrocked her childhood, gave it close confiding comfort. It felt so soothing to slide into it. She slid into it now.
“But the vows say in sickness and they’re good vows you two took when you hooked up so many years ago. They keep you in mind of the whole person, not just the hunky-dory times, but the ugly times too. You gotta, like the song says, stand by your man. Relationships take plenty of work, and never more so than when he’s felled and you nurse him and soothe him and baby him through it, giving your all, nursing him like Clara Barton in the Civil War or whatever war she was in. You gotta wipe his brow and rush for the bedpan and just be like a shiny beacon; and then when he’s all better… oh, Katt, I’m sorry, I’m so bad at remembering and it’s so awful about Marcus.”
“Yes, Mom.” Anyone else, she would have felt anger toward. But her mother crept inside into places she had long thought vacated, eased in and sank down roots along old rootways, every word coated with baby oil. Although Granny Hunt had died years ago, Katt always imagined her standing near her mother, that look that was not quite a smile glowing through her wrinkles.
“It’s just so precarious out there-people slipping their vows like dogs out of loose collars. Granny Hunt, she stayed with the same man for sixty-four years, loved him fiercely. Then he died and she started visiting her son and me lots. Maybe you recall that. They were good folks. Adopted me out of my horrendous lot, raised Bill and me, didn’t flinch a muscle when him and me realized, as one, that we were a seamless match. Your father, you surely know, is a magical man. He doesn’t say much. He doesn’t have to. But what he tells me is pure love that comes right back, that redounds on me. All you gotta do is give Marcus your love and take his in return and work work work to stave off the D-thing. Especially
now when Marcus needs you most. Are you hearing me, Katt?”
“Yes, I am.” She wanted to hang up but the hood of the cobra was hypnotic. It lulled. And wove. Gave its slow dance to the words. “Don’t worry, Mom. I’m giving Marcus all I have. Conner’s helping too.”
“That’s good, Katt,” said her mom. “Us Hunt women, every last one I know about, are a loyal bunch. We take our vows and we mean them-faithful one hundred percent, like Hortense.” There was more, much more, the drumming of thousands of tiny raindrops on a soft roof. As usual Katt asked her to fly out, and as usual Mom had the same penurious No out of her mouth before the offer was made. Airplane flights were too damned expensive. Phone calls got the job done. Kept her plugged in but out of Katt’s hair. On and on and on, as Katt felt the sunlight-swath dye down with a gray pour of cloud, heard the house tick and close about her once more.
By the time she hung up, her murderous resolve, not partaking of the least wicked or villainous feeling, had returned. She had to end this-in for a penny, in for a pound, all the way out to peace. The thought of undoing Marcus’s illness was madness, no less insane than having second thoughts, filling in the whittled tunnel, tossing out the knifeblade, and resigning yourself to a lifetime of bars. Belly full, she ascended the stairs, flappings of bathrobe whipping at her calves. She wanted her son, brooding in his room, to brood at least a half hour more before emerging. That would give her enough time to dig deep into her husband’s skull, under the pretext of once more massaging his scalp, and give his Huntington’s that one final push it needed.
***
The phone had awakened him. Two rings, then Katt had picked up downstairs. Sunlight pressed against the blinds and basked a soft glow across the walls, a glow that moved in steady scour like distant surf, though it ought to have simply rested on the painted surfaces. He couldn’t recall exactly when this light-scouring had begun, but constantly now it was with him, so subtle he hadn’t bothered to bring it up with his wife.
The disorientation that had struck him down at school had finally dissipated, at least in sufficient measure for him to feel good about leaving his bed and going about the house, his energy shelled out but intact. But now, waking to a new Saturday morning, he was content to reconstitute, his body-sense highly acute since Monday’s attack. Hadn’t lost body control yet, thank God. That’d surely be years, maybe a dozen or more, in coming. Meanwhile, and soon, he and Katt would have to start talking finances. He’d given up-or had taken from him-the Shakespeare class, emeritus professor Elihu Bremmer picking up his dropped reins. The department, though he couldn’t rely on their understanding and kindness past the summer, had agreed to pay his salary in spite of his incapacity. He harbored hopes, but surely they were vain, that he’d be able to pick up a full course load in September. How difficult could it be, after all, to adjust, to adapt- the mental equivalent of a wheelchair or crutches, all his careful cogitations on Shakespeare still there and fully tappable?
Footsteps outside. Gentle turn of the knob. Katt in her fuzzy blue bathrobe came in, gave a start when she saw he was awake. It was hard on her. He’d never seen her so upset before. “Oh hi, Marcus. Good morning.”
“Morning, sweets.”
She ambled toward him, her legs scissoring in and out of the whipped flap of terrycloth. “You want breakfast in bed this morning? I can fix some eggs.”
“No thanks. I’ll get up in a little while, come down and have something.” Her expression as she approached was a terrible contradiction, the horror she could not hope to hide and the beauty of the planes of her face, casting the same rhythm of light as the walls. She led with her knees onto the bed. “Come here,” he said, unnecessary as always but with a lust as puffed and empty as a popover.
“I’m here,” she replied. Her hand lay hot and loving against his cheek. Her bathrobe, as she bent, sagged down and he caught a glimpse of her breasts. Light-scour moved over them too in the brevity of his glance.
He stroked her thigh, made to tug her robe open.
Katt put her hand on his. “No,” she said, the weight in that quiet word crushing. You’re too sick, it said; we don’t want to strain you; you’re an invalid, now and until you die; we will never make love again. That was the bald subtext. He felt the urge to call her on it, but as usual he let it go. Their pattern: If she felt rage, she fumed and went off until it blew over; and he was used to hiding his thoughts and feelings from her, having in fact a whole inner life Katt never suspected-not to mention the lovers he’d enjoyed behind her back these many years.
“I think I’ll take a shower,” he said.
One hand lay upon his brow, a tension there. “Let me massage your scalp first.” Didn’t have to wait for him to give the go-ahead. She moved up into his thicket of hair, her fingers pressed in like ice cream scoops skimming thin wide curls of French vanilla from a solid freeze. He felt so magical in her hands, and never more so than now as she molded his weak head like so much clay. It was easy to go with her, to give in to the move and pause of her fingers, her deep concentration clear on her closed eyes. They had had, despite his sleeping around in recent years, a pretty decent marriage. Beautiful boy now coming into thoughtful adolescence. Years of health and love and laughter, grown less since his cheating had begun; but still there, indeed solidly there, as far as he could tell, and most obviously apparent on their twice-yearly escape to the pamperings of Bed and Breakfast inns.
So vigorous were Katt’s strokes that he felt as if he wore a tight skullcap humming with a low charge. Tufts of hair moved up and about her fingers, sticking straight out of his head, all angles like Dagwood upshoots. Never felt so good as now, almost as if she could touch the inside of his head and soothe the Huntington’s away. If this wasn’t sex-and of that he wasn’t sure-it was intimacy of a high order indeed. He felt close to her, his Pentacrest angel, his helpmate of so many years. She seemed to coax so many beautiful memories from him: their first year together in Iowa City, the tiny perfect home on Grant Street, marathon moviego-ing at the Bijou, Conner’s worldsplitting emergence from Katt’s stretched love there in the birthing room, the miracle of their son’s growth and unfolding. Somewhere in time, they’d diverged. Communication had foundered. He’d neglected-a shy boy from a silent indrawn family-to tell her how sweet she was. She’d kept all physical expression of endearment to the bedroom, where their couplings became increasingly rare and routine. The Saturday night special, he’d begun to call it.
Now, with her fingers pausing and wriggling like slow worms (such rapt attention he’d never seen on her face), a benign appreciation welled up in him. He would make it up to her in the time they had left, all those years of gross neglect, the way he’d taken her for granted, his pursuings and beddings of other women, his hidden life of resentment and regret. The luck of the draw had felled him, but he’d turn this final life crisis to good use-to redemption, if that was the word for it.
“You’re beautiful, Katt,” he said.
Too quiet. She hadn’t heard. But she knew he’d said something. “Hmmm?” she said, lips closed, eyes still shut and fingers still probing so precisely. Her reply rose up like bubbles from the depths of a deep-sea dive.
“I said you’re beautiful, and I love you.” Felt like an alien tongue. He wondered if he’d ever once used those words with Katt before.
Her fingers paused on his scalp, lifting, withdrawing to come down behind his ears as her warm palms touched his cheeks and her eyes, painfully moist, opened. She brought her face to his, kissed close to his lips, held there, her body taut, afraid to show her agitation. “I love you too, Marcus,” she said, a soft strained whisper. Then her arms came tight around him and she was shaking and sobbing, the floodgates letting go.
His head glowed from her massage, a warm open feeling of goodness and care. She had him in a body-vise, rocking him, frenzied in her grip as if she would melt their flesh into one. He gave her his best, an enervated bear hug. A logjam, it seemed, had finally broken up, and he felt th
at his waning days, however long they lasted, might fill with love-the ache of a slow ocean liner, the blasts of a long low loudly raucous horn, as two lovers, one aboard, one on shore, wave and look and linger, fastened to one vanishing face longer than anyone else might think reasonable, as it shrinks from petal to pebble to point, then gone.
***
Katt watched Marcus shut the door to their halfbath, heard the muffled clangor of the shower door moving on its track. The abrupt splash of shower water allowed her body to relax at last. Marcus would be taking his shower for a good ten minutes.
Time alone.
She stood naked before the sink, still shaking. Felt an urgent need to hurry. Picked up her toothbrush, and it clattered into the sink. Calm down, she told herself. He had said he loved her, a thing he’d never done, relying on looks and touch but never words. And she’d been hastening his disease along, probing his desiccating caudate nucleus like ultrasound in a womb, nearly able to see her flows of energy hurtling the process on. She spat out the splat of blue paste, water on bristles, sucked it in, again, again, washing the bubbly residue away with one hand. Craning at the faucet, she gazed up into her eyes, not two feet away. Murderer. So this was what a killer looked like. Normal, dead normal-always the shock of how much older she looked than, day by day, she imagined herself to be, yes; but the persistent facade of normalcy beneath her agitation was an outrage to the truth. Katt bit her lip. Saw the photo of her Grandma Jasper as a child. Stopped.
The Coed Killer came to mind. That’s the name they’d given him in The Coloradoan. Somewhere in Fort Collins or Loveland or Greeley, there walked a sick man, crazy in the head, holding down a normal job, smiled at by unsuspecting friends and neighbors; and twice now, by all reports, he’d kidnapped college girls and tortured them to death in ways only hinted at in the news. Was what she was doing to her husband any less heinous? She wanted to think so, but she knew better. And yet. Ah, that was the kicker. And yet, even knowing that taking his life, that hurrying nature on her way after jumpstarting the process, was wrong-even in knowing this, she did not feel evil. It seemed still like the right thing to do, her only choice.
Walking Wounded Page 8