by Bret Lott
Slowly, carefully she stood, the box in her hands as though it were the crown of life it was, and laid it on the bed, this bed she and her mother shared in their purpose and design as procreators of the line of legitimate blood. Carefully, gently, she set the dress box on the bed as she set it each night, as every night, even as on the night she herself, Miss Emily Grierson, had borne the child, a night spent alone in this bed and pushing, her body fat with the food she had eaten both to nourish this love and to hide its proof from the Negro, herself the one to remove the bloodied bedclothes and burn them in the cellar furnace, the smoke they might produce evidence further to an ignorant town, a fallen world, that she was crazy for burning the furnace that spring morning, as they would tell one another and believe for the telling of it, her fingernails that self-same night she’d burned the bedclothes digging so deeply into the headboard above her they bled with blood the same red as on the seat of her gown the evening she had made this child with the nameless Yankee—who might well have been her father for the mordant, gilt green of his eyes—her silent and extravagant screams at the relentless pressure below only extravagant in the expanse of her mind as she swallowed them down to nothing in blood-red resolve to find what love is, screams made silent by bearing and heritage and a father with eyes so pitiless and cold she did not know or want to know what the sound of her own voice in rage and blood-filled resolve might sound like.
It was resolve that mattered, the resolve to find love. Not the luxury and pity of a self-indulgent scream.
Gently, slowly, she untied the ribbon as she did each night; slowly, carefully, she lifted free the lid.
There it had been, would be, and was now: the child she had made, nestled inside the gown that had borne the red smudge of red, that red the firstfruits of the child’s birth, her beginning of love, though the gown had become the night she had borne the child brilliant with blood, drenched in it, only to become this night as every night she could recall the powerless and caustic brown of old blood.
A baby, withered into the essence of gristle and bone, brown too with blood, its ribs and arms and legs fused into the gown, collapsed into themselves to become the real of the room itself, its skull with its fleshless grin, empty eyes, teeth not yet teeth waiting to form, all here for her to take in and take up as she had each night, and as she would.
Her child. Love. Love so precious she could not, would not allow its presence felt in so fallen a world as the one she now inhabited, a world rent with emancipation into chaos, a world loosed of its reign of history and order and lineage left to wander dully into the void of all time and eternity.
Here was the depth of love the contemptible commoners of this town could not know: the burden of a family’s history in a vulgar world that would shrug history aside, history settled as it was that night and this and those to come always and only with the bloodshed of birth.
She lifted the baby in its once-white nest as she did each night, weightless always in her arms as though history were not the crushing weight it always was, held it close this last moment before she would return the baby to its place hidden from the indigence of this town, her baby’s dignity—the whole of her class’s history—retained with the secret of its presence kept.
Rose, she whispered now, the name she had given the child the moment after its advent and the moment before its death, that single stranded moment between both when, mouth open in its only inhale and set to scream, the baby ready to hear herself for the first time upon the face of this world, Miss Emily Grierson strangled her, set her free for the great cold bald hereafter ahead of her, so that as the child made her way across the muddy disconsolate river of death she would have a name, and so a history: Rose, she whispered again.
Rose. Her mother’s name, she believed then and now and on to the end of all belief, the end of all time, the end of a history placed squarely on the backs of those worthy enough to bear it, those with the resolve to bear it.
Rose. Her mother’s name, she believed, though she had never heard it spoken, never knew a name existed.
HE WAS IN HIS CAR, THREE DOORS DOWN AND ACROSS THE STREET from her house. He had the lights off, the engine running.
He gave her ten minutes more. That was all. He looked at the clock on the dash, then held up his watch to the light from the streetlamp, saw they were two minutes apart. He could not say which time was correct, whether the car clock was two minutes behind or if his wristwatch was two minutes ahead.
But that didn’t matter. It was ten minutes that mattered. Only that.
He’d been out here a half hour already, waiting. This was one of her ploys, he knew. Get him here, a place where he ought not be, then make him wait.
He’d taken her call on the phone in the den, careful to catch it on the first ring. He’d held the receiver to his ear, heard nothing. Signal enough, he knew. Then, loud enough for his wife to hear, he said, “All right.” Then, “Yep, tomorrow. So long.”
Then he’d gone to the kitchen, opened the refrigerator, saw they needed milk.
“Going for milk,” he called out to his wife. “Back in a few,” he called out.
That was a half hour ago. There would be a story to give once he got home, always was. He’d gone out for milk or eggs or bread a dozen times at least in the last two months. Then, when he came home, he would give his wife the story. He would talk—he was good at that—and get his wife to believe the cataclysm, the car in a ditch he’d seen, traffic on Mathis Ferry Road tied up so bad he couldn’t move for forty minutes, or the electricity gone out at the Harris Teeter, no one allowed to leave the market. He could talk.
He thought he saw movement inside the front window, thought he saw the shadow of a figure, and he moved in his seat, blinked.
He looked at the car clock, saw the pale red numbers turn from 10:17 to 10:18, then held his wristwatch up again: 10:20. Seven minutes left.
Then her front door opened, and light spilled from inside onto her yard and the narrow brick walkway.
There she was, silhouetted in the doorway, and he smiled at his resolve, as though giving her ten minutes had flushed her out.
She stepped onto the porch, and he saw then, behind her, her husband. He slipped lower in his seat.
Her husband followed her out, and the two turned, faced the house. He could see she had her hands on her hips, saw, too, her husband reach to the porch light fixture, a carriage lamp to the left of the door. He saw the husband’s hands working.
Then came the flush of yellow light from the fixture, and he saw what they were doing: changing the bulb, and he wondered what she meant by this exchange, wondered what she wanted him to see in this act. He wondered what signal she was sending to him.
The husband stood back from the light and next to his wife. He put his arm around her, as though this endeavor were a triumph. How many adulterers does it take to change a lightbulb? he thought, and believed perhaps he had heard this joke before, that he wasn’t making it up right then, watching her and her husband. But he could recall no punch line.
The husband let go of her, gave her a gentle push from behind so that she headed toward the open door first. From where he sat in the car he could see the husband give his wife the smallest pat on the bottom, saw her turn and smile up at him, say something. He could see her face, her smile, her hair, all of it bathed in the yellow light from the new bulb.
Then she was inside, gone.
The husband still stood on the porch, looking at the fixture, admiring his handiwork, his hands now on his hips, just as his wife had stood. He looked at the light.
Then the husband turned, looked straight at him.
Though he knew the husband could not see him, down here in the dark and inside the car, he tried to slip even lower in his seat, tried to disappear.
Still the husband looked at him, hands on his hips.
Then, slowly, the husband raised an arm, and waved.
He swallowed, felt his face go hot. He tried to slip even deeper down, tr
ied to melt away, but there was nowhere for him to go.
The husband brought down his hand, stood with his hands on his hips once again. He looked at him a moment longer, then turned, stepped back inside. The door was closed, the husband gone.
A few seconds later the porch light went out.
He looked at the dash clock, saw the numbers: 10:19.
All of this in one minute.
He sat up, careful not to hold his wristwatch to the light from the streetlamp, that movement suddenly flamboyant, extravagant, and put the car in reverse. He looked behind him, left the lights off, and backed down the block to the stop sign four houses down.
Only after he’d put the car into drive, turned, and headed away down East Hobcaw did he turn on the headlights.
He pushed the garage door opener on the visor, saw the door lift before him.
There stood his wife in the doorway from the garage into the kitchen, waiting.
She had on her bathrobe, her arms crossed, her face white from the headlights on her, behind her the light from the kitchen.
He eased in, cut off the lights. Now she was lit only with the pale light from the garage door opener, her features gone. He turned off the engine, opened his door. He felt himself smiling. His palms were wet, his face still hot.
He said, “You wouldn’t believe what happened,” and pushed closed the door. Only then did he realize he hadn’t come up with the story yet, hadn’t figured this one out. He’d only seen her face in yellow light, smiling up at her husband behind her, speaking to him. And he’d only seen her husband, had only seen his hand, waving to him the whole way home.
But he could talk. He knew that.
He shook his head, stopped the smile. He let out a silent whistle, shook his head again. He stood beside the car a moment, hands on his hips, then thought better of this stance, instead put his hands in his pockets. He started around the hood of the car and toward her, his shoulders up, as though the garage had suddenly gone cold.
“You’re not going to believe what happened,” he said.
She said, “The milk.”
He stopped. He blinked, looked at her. He’d forgotten the milk.
Quickly he looked from her to the car, as though a gallon of milk in a Harris Teeter bag might miraculously appear on the front seat.
He took a breath, slowly turned back to her.
He said, “Well, that’s part of it. That’s a part of it.” He paused. Though he wanted to give a gesture, wanted to shake his head yet again, let out another silent whistle, wanted, even, to put his hands on his hips, nothing came to him.
She looked at him, waiting. He could hear from behind him the tick of the engine, felt, too, the heat off it.
He said, “This whole thing is incredible. You’re not going to believe what happened.”
She turned, headed back into the kitchen.
“MRS. JENSEN,” THE APPRAISER SAID, AND NODDED, THOUGH HIS eyes wouldn’t meet mine. I stood there with the front door open, the dog in the laundry room barking and whining. “I need to look around inside now,” he said. “If it’s okay.”
“Sure,” I said, and smiled. “Come on in. The dog’s just a barker. She’s a sweetie,” I said, like I had to let him in on some secret it was only me to know.
But he wasn’t here about the dog.
He nodded again, wiped his shoes on the welcome mat, his eyes still down. He couldn’t have been more than twenty or twenty-one and had on a tie and shirt, a corduroy coat, khaki pants, and loafers. He’d been outside the house, poking around, videotaping, writing things down on the clipboard he carried.
He was here to appraise the house, something Ben and I knew was coming but hadn’t really looked forward to. This was about the house, about how we were trying to get out from under all we’d been piling up for the last twenty-seven years.
Bankruptcy was the word, actually. Bankruptcy, and though Ben and I had seen on any number of videotapes the lawyer had us watch that the word bankruptcy wasn’t anything to be ashamed of, that in fact it was something good, a way to start over and make your life back into something it’d been intended for, namely solvency, it was still a word I wouldn’t use.
Twenty-seven years. Three kids, all grown and gone, the youngest, our Amber, no older than this boy here in our foyer, already away to college. And Ben and I starting over, like the lawyers on those videotapes were nothing other than people telling us how to put new vinyl siding up on our lives, like this was no more than me deciding to change my hairstyle, or Ben buying a convertible.
But this kid. This appraiser. He knew what this was about, I was certain. You didn’t come out at the request of the courts and make an appraisal if the owners were moving on into a bigger house or getting transferred. No, he knew.
The video camera hung by a strap off one shoulder, one of those industrial tape measures in his hand, that clipboard in the other. He looked off to the left into the dining room, then to the right, into the living room, where until last week we’d had the piano. Fifty-two years in the family, and we’d gotten a thousand dollars for it from Patterson Music, included in the price two old men sent out to move it for free.
Last night while I lay in bed trying to fall asleep, Ben downstairs and watching TV like he does now until four or five in the morning, I’d done the math in my head, a kind of sheep counting that didn’t do a thing for making me sleepy: fifty-two years into a thousand dollars was a little over nineteen dollars a year; three generations—my grandmother, my mother, me—into a thousand dollars was three hundred thirty-three dollars a generation.
One marriage into a thousand dollars was a thousand dollars.
Money.
I said, “You want some coffee?” and turned, still smiling, for the kitchen.
“That’d be nice,” he said. “If it’s not too much trouble.”
“This kind of trouble is nothing,” I said. “Coffee is no trouble at all.”
I knew he knew what this was all about.
He had the tape measure pulled out across the dining room floor when I came back in, two coffee cups in hand. I’d stopped at the laundry room door on the way out of the kitchen, whispered loud, “Missy, you hush!” to the dog, who hadn’t yet given up her yelping. She’s short-haired, splotched with black and white and brown and yellow, thirty-five pounds or so, and what I call Multiracial as a kind of joke when people ask what she is. “Multiracial,” I say, my face all straight when I’m out in the neighborhood with her on the leash, and then I watch their faces, the faces of these people who’ve somehow, as best as I can figure, found solvency in their lives, though you can never be sure about that, about what happens inside all these nice polite homes just like mine. But I watch their faces as a means to judge whether or not they have a sense of humor, whether or not they can see through how thin and stupid words are once you try to make them something else.
Stone Broke into Bankrupt into Starting Over.
Occasionally they get the joke, smile, shake their heads. But mostly people only glance up at me real quick, just to make sure they’ve heard the right word, and then nod their heads sagely, understanding. Then they move along.
Still the dog barked in the laundry room.
“Here you go,” I said, and handed him the cup. “Cream, no sugar, right?”
He looked up from his clipboard to the coffee cup, smiling as though the cup had made itself, presented itself to him of its own. “Exactly right,” he said to the cup, and nodded, lifted it to his lips, winced at it. The cup was one we’d gotten up in Mount Pisgah National Forest, at the gift shop at the Forest Discovery center up there. Back when we had money and traveled. Before an heirloom piano had been turned magically into a thousand bucks.
When the cup’s sitting on the shelf in the cupboard, it has a picture of Smokey Bear standing beside a green forest, waving. Only now, the coffee inside the cup, the forest was burned down, just crispy sticks; the joke of it is that when you pour hot liquids into the cup, the green disap
pears because of the heat, leaving behind the black burned-out picture beneath.
It seemed funny when we bought it, anyway.
But this kid didn’t even look at the picture long enough to think about it, those woods burned down to nothing, dead. He only looked at his clipboard, scribbled on the form there, and set the cup on the dining room table, started reeling in the tape.
“I have to get measurements for the rest,” he said, and nodded at the floor. He finished with the tape, turned and headed into the living room.
I sat on the staircase, my cup in my hands—this one had a picture of the state of Alaska on it, another trip we’d made—and sipped. Ben was asleep upstairs in the guest room, where he’d taken up residence the night after we met with the lawyer for the first time, his clothes filling the closet up there.
It’s a childish thing, I know, him thinking that if he went in there, slept away from me, stayed up late and let his job go to hell in a handbasket that things might work their way out. Or that it might get so bad something or someone would come to rescue him. Like I was his mommy or something.
But, in all actuality, it’s a nice arrangement: the entire closet all to myself, and that whole California king, the bed an artifact from the old days, when we were flush with money. When we ate out like we had no kitchen, like we’d never bought china. When we bought the kids every tape, CD, video, computer game they even uttered the name of. Back when we went places, Ben and me, alone: that cruise up the Alaskan shore, New Year’s in New York, Mardi Gras.