That thought made me strangely happy.
“So. December 4?” he asked.
I nodded. “I’ll make the reservations tomorrow.”
HENRY
“Well, come on,” the big man called. “Time and tide wait for no man.”
I hesitated in the doorway. The people were all staring at me.
“Okay, the rest of you, back to what you were doing,” the big man said.
As if he had flicked a switch, everyone went back to work: back to the shelves, to their tables, their heads down in their books.
“Well,” he waved me toward him. “Come on.”
I made my way through the crowded room to where he sat.
“Good, good,” he said, as he looked me over. “I was worried there for a minute that maybe you were a bit tetched.”
“What are…what are all of you doing here?” I stammered. My mouth was not quite under my control.
“Well, reading, of course.” He laughed heartily, and I felt less afraid. He was a great bear of a man, with graying hair and beard still touched with red, his face full and rosy. His clothes were rumpled and plain; even looking directly at him I couldn’t tell what he was wearing.
Static suddenly whirred over the PA system, then horns kicked in with a blast.
“And listening to music, apparently. Would you turn that down,” he bellowed. “There’s people trying to hear.”
The volume fell as quickly as if he had turned the knob himself.
“Better,” he muttered. “Hot Fives. Louis Armstrong. Nineteen…twenty-seven, I believe.” He shook his head. “Great set, great set. Great man, that Satchmo.”
“Who are you?” I asked, completely baffled. I felt like I had just stepped into a movie or a fairy tale.
“Good question,” he answered, not answering. “I’m pleased that it wasn’t the first thing you asked. Just don’t ask me how I make a living and we’ll get along fine.”
“But…”
“The real question is, who are you?”
“I…” For a moment, I considered lying. “I’m Henry. Henry Denton.”
“Ah.” He settled himself into his chair, gesturing for me to sit down across from him. A look of understanding filled his face. “Of course you are.”
I sat down. “What? Who are you? No. Why…How can you see me? I thought—”
“You could also ask why you can see us, Henry, when no one else can.”
My chest tightened. “You mean you’re…People can’t see you? But—”
“But why?” The big man sighed. “Not an easy question to answer. Not easy at all.” He pushed back from the table, stood up and began to pace. Behind him, there was a wall of windows and through them I could see streetlights and the lights in the buildings across the street, along with a reflection of the room. I wondered what people would see if they happened to look up. Probably nothing. An empty room in a deserted building.
“There are no easy answers,” he said. “Especially not as far as who I am.” He gestured around the room. “Who we are”—turning his gaze back to me—“Who you are.”
I pulled back. “I know who I am. I told you already.”
“No,” he interrupted gently. “You told me your name. That’s got absolutely nothing to do with who you are.”
I guess I looked confused. I was confused.
“Let me ask you this: why are you here?” He ran one hand over and through his beard. “Why are you here, in a closed library, in the middle of the night?”
I couldn’t answer. It would have meant telling him about Sherry, about what I had done.
He watched me for a moment. “Well, what about everyone else? Why do you think everyone else is here?” He set both hands on the tabletop and leaned toward me. “Why do you think I’m here?”
I responded without thinking. “You already told me—you’re reading.”
“Clever boy.” He nodded his head, grinned a little and started pacing again. “Yes, we’re here because we’re reading. But why are we here?” This time, when he looked at me, his eyes asked a deeper question. “That’s what we’re trying to figure out.”
“You mean you don’t know?”
He smiled. “You sound so disappointed. Do you know how few people know why they’re anywhere? How few people ever find out? When they do, we turn them into saints. Or gurus.” He paused. “Or gods.”
“I don’t understand.”
He shrugged. “Of course you don’t. Most people go through their entire lives without understanding, without ever stepping out of the day-to-day to really look around. But you see, we’re luckier than them. We know what we are.”
“What are you?” I asked, because he wanted me to.
“We, Henry? We’re the damned,” he answered, his eyes locking on mine. “We’re doing penance for our crimes. And we don’t know when that penance will end.”
I looked around at the men and the stacks of books and papers. “The answer’s in here?”
“The answer’s in here,” he said, pointing at the books on the table in front of him. “Maybe.” His eyes twinkled, but I didn’t think he was joking. “Who’s your favorite author?”
The question took me by surprise. I struggled for a moment to remember the name of the person who wrote the book I had spent the day reading. “Saminger,” I said, feeling pleased with myself.
His smile was patient, and suddenly very warm. I realized that I had gotten something wrong. “Salinger. That’s a good place to start. See where he takes you.”
He sat back down in his chair and opened the top book of the stack in front of him. I realized he was finished talking, that I had been given a task to do and now I was expected to do it.
“But what’s…what do I call you?” I asked, before his attention disappeared into his book completely.
He looked up as if surprised to see me still standing there. He straightened, and when he spoke his voice was commanding, thick with a different accent. “You may call me…Tim.” Nearby, one of the others snickered, and Tim waited expectantly.
I was missing something.
When I didn’t respond, he sagged a little. “Oh great and powerful Tim,” he said, waiting for recognition, his eyes bright. When it still didn’t come, he sagged and slumped against his chair. “Oh, for Christ’s sake,” he muttered. “Monty Python? Holy Grail? John Cleese?”
“I don’t think I’ve…”
He shook his head. “That’s the trouble with youth today. No knowledge of the classics.” He picked up his book, opened it again to his page. “Just call me Tim,” he said as he started to read.
As I turned away, he was muttering to himself. “Great man, John Cleese. Great bit. Great bit…”
I made my way back downstairs to where Salinger was waiting for me.
RUTH
Sarah arrived just before Karen left to go to the movies the next afternoon. Jamie was sitting at the kitchen table with her. When the doorbell rang, I called out from Sherry’s room, “I’ll get it!”
I hadn’t seen Sarah in weeks, and I was shocked at her deterioration. Her flesh sagged away from her cheekbones and her skin was crepey. She was dressed in a loose blue and purple floral-print blouse and navy slacks. She had obviously bought the clothes after she started to lose weight, but she still seemed to swim in them.
With her right hand she held the handle of a small, rolling oxygen tank, its plastic tubing snaking up, then splitting into each nostril. Her shaking left hand held a cigarette, which she pressed unsteadily to her lips.
I must have given her a look.
“Oh, give up, Ruth,” she rasped, exhaling a blue plume of smoke. “Keep your judgments to yourself.”
“I didn’t say a word.” I leaned forward to give her an awkward hug. She smelled terrible, a mix of stale cigarette smoke and acrid sweat, as if she hadn’t bathed in weeks. “It’s good to see you, Sarah,” I said as I pulled away. My words hung in white clouds in the chill air.
“You too, Ru
thie,” she answered. “You’re looking well.” She took a heavy drag off her cigarette. “And don’t even try. I know I look like hell.” She blew out the smoke.
“You don’t look…” She did look terrible, and she knew it. “Come on, let’s go inside. I’m freezing.” I added, “You’ll have to leave that out here.”
She gave me a withering look as she dropped her cigarette to the concrete stoop and ground it out with her foot. “Do I look like an idiot to you? Of course I’m not going to smoke in someone else’s house. And around a patient…” She shook her head and hefted the oxygen tank up over the doorsill in a practiced, yet still uncomfortable-looking, motion.
I led her toward the kitchen.
Karen and Jamie stood up as we entered the room. “Mrs. Barrett,” I started. “This is my sister, Sarah Page. Sarah, this is Mrs. Barrett.”
“I’m pleased to meet you,” Karen said, a little stiffly, taking Sarah’s hand and shaking it. I could tell she was surprised by the way Sarah looked. I should have prepared her.
“And this is my friend Jamie Keller,” Karen said. Sarah reached for Jamie’s hand, forcing Jamie to reach past Karen in order to shake.
Sarah gave a watery smile. “Nice to meet you both.” Her voice cracked as she spoke.
Karen’s eyes flicked to mine, then away. “Ruth, I put some water on to boil when the doorbell rang.”
“Thank you, Mrs. Barrett.”
“We shouldn’t be much later than four.” They never were.
“I’ll be here,” I said, smiling.
Karen’s eyes gleamed a little. Her spirits were always lifted by her Tuesday afternoons out of the house. “Sarah, it was very nice to meet you.”
“Very nice,” my sister repeated.
“I hope we’ll be seeing you again.”
“God willing,” Sarah muttered, with the same watery smile. It made her look as if she had lost her mind.
The kettle on the stove started to whistle, and I lifted it away from the element. “Shall I make us a pot of tea?” I asked.
I heard the front door close.
“God no,” Sarah said, to my surprise. “I’ll be up all night. The bladder’s not what it used to be.” I didn’t like to imagine. My younger sister.
“Let’s go into the living room then. I’ll introduce you to Sherry.”
She followed me, the wheels of her oxygen tank squeaking along the hardwood floors. Vivaldi was playing, and I turned it down a little as we came into the living room.
“Music therapy?” she asked, teasing me the way she always did.
I shrugged. “Well, she might be able to hear.”
She pulled her cart to the edge of the bed. “Oh, she is a pretty little thing, isn’t she?” she cooed softly. She actually cooed.
“Yes, she is.” I stepped over to the bedside, gently stroking Sherry’s cheek with the back of my hand.
Sarah clung to her oxygen rig like she needed the support. “They never found the fellow who did this? The driver?”
I shook my head.
“He must have been drunk.”
I shook my head again. “The police don’t think so. He had just worked a night shift, and they figure he was in a hurry to get home. He had two boys of his own.”
“So sad.”
“Apparently he tried to go around her.”
She pursed her lips. “Is there any…?”
I shook my head. “No. The doctors don’t think she’ll ever…”
She nodded, saving me from having to say it. “You can touch her if you want to. Go ahead.”
Sarah double-checked my face to be sure I was serious, then gingerly reached out her left hand. Her yellow fingertips trembled as she stroked Sherry’s cheek. “I don’t know how you do it,” she said, barely above a whisper. “It must just break your heart.”
“Sarah,” I said seriously. “Listen, there’s something I want to tell you.”
She drew back from the bedside, all her attention on me. “What is it? What’s wrong?”
“No, no.” I shook my head. “Nothing’s wrong with me. It’s…I wanted you to come over here…” I took a deep breath, trying to figure out the best way to broach the subject with her. “Watch this.”
Holding my hand in the air in front of her face, I clenched my fist, flexed my fingers, rotated my wrist.
It took her a moment to realize what she was seeing.
“Oh my God, Ruth,” she gasped. “What happened to your arthritis?”
I hesitated before I answered. “Gone.”
Her face shifted in confusion, her fingers tightening around the handle of her oxygen tank. “But how? A new medication? A new…Some experimental drug? Oh God, Ruth, I’m so happy for you!” Her watery eyes sparkled. “When did this happen?”
“I’m not really sure.”
I had spent most of the past few days trying to answer that question, but I still hadn’t been able to figure it out. The trouble with chronic pain is that it is so easy to become accustomed to it, both mentally and physically. At first it’s absolutely agonizing; it’s the only thing you think about, like a rock in your shoe that rubs your foot raw with every step. Then the constant rubbing, the pain and the limp all become part of the status quo, the occasional stabbing pain just a reminder.
You are set to endure, hunched against it—and when it starts to ease, you don’t really notice, until the absence washes over you like a balm.
“Sometime in the past few months,” was the best I could do.
“And you’re only telling me now?”
“I…I didn’t really notice right away. The pain is always better in the summer. But when the cold weather hit, it didn’t come back.”
“You must have known,” my sister snapped. “It’s not like someone was slipping the pills into your food like you were a pet cat.”
“There weren’t any pills.”
“What?”
“There weren’t any pills.” I turned my eyes away, suddenly embarrassed.
“So what was it? Some sort of spontaneous remission?” She spat out the words with all the venom of a fallen true believer.
“I think…” I turned my gaze back to Sherry, motionless on the bed. “I think it was her.”
Sarah just gaped at me.
“I know how ridiculous that sounds. I know it sounds like I’m turning into one of those old women, the ones who send in all their money to the television evangelists, but it’s the only thing that makes any sense to me. My arthritis was terrible last winter. Then I started working with Sherry every day. And now,” I clenched the fist again to demonstrate. “I’m not taking any pills, I haven’t changed my diet. It’s the only thing I can think of.”
“You think this little girl healed your arthritis?” she rasped, leaning a little farther over the bed, eyeing Sherry curiously.
I nodded, bracing myself for her derisive laughter.
Instead, she asked softly, “And me? Is that why you wanted me to come over here?” For just a moment her voice was that of a sixteen-year-old girl, and I had a sudden vision of a funeral in a country churchyard in the rain, two coffins, two daughters holding one another.
I hesitated, then nodded.
“I don’t believe in God,” she said, looking me straight in the eye.
The remark took me by surprise. “I hadn’t—This isn’t about God,” I stammered.
“Well, what then?”
“I don’t know.” I shook my head. “I just know that I’m healed.” Again I clenched my fist, demonstrating, still transfixed by that simple motion, by the emotions that the movement raised in me.
“Well,” she said. “I’m at the point where I’ll try just about anything. How do we do this?”
“I don’t know,” I confessed.
She grinned at me, with her yellowing teeth. “Well that doesn’t do me much good, does it?”
“Well, I’m in contact with her all day. I bathe her and turn her and—”
“I know the routine.”
“So I don’t know when exactly it happened.”
“If it happened.”
“Or how,” I countered, glaring at her.
“Well,” she said, changing her tone, studying Sherry. “What if we try this the old-fashioned way?” She gently took the covers down from Sherry’s still form, freeing her arms.
“Here, let me,” I said, coming around the bed to stand alongside her. “I’ll take care of Sherry,” I said, taking hold of her tiny arm. “You…maybe you should unbutton your blouse…”
Sarah leaned forward slowly, opening her blouse to expose her brassiere. It looked new, and loose on her diminishing frame. I gently raised Sherry’s arm, supporting it under the elbow, turning her wrist to shift her hand.
For a moment, I felt guilty. I glanced at the doorway, feeling suddenly as if we were being watched. There was no one there. Guilty conscience.
As I turned back, I glanced at Sarah’s face. Her eyes were closed, her lips parted, her features…hopeful.
I knew I would be able to handle the guilt.
Gingerly, I touched Sherry’s hand to the pale, loose skin of my sister’s chest, just above the barely noticeable rise of her breasts. Carefully, I applied just enough pressure to smooth the tiny palm flat against the white skin, and then I just held it there.
“Can you feel anything?” I asked.
She shook her head. “I don’t know what to expect…”
I had no idea either. I held Sherry’s hand there for just a moment longer, then removed it, tucking her gently back under the covers as Sarah buttoned her blouse. “There you go, sweetie,” I told her. “All bundled up again.”
Straightening up from the bed, my eyes met Sarah’s and we just looked at each other for a long moment.
She smiled a little, bit her lip and shrugged.
“Well,” she said.
November 27–December 5
KAREN
Simon was singing when I brought him his cup of coffee.
“Hush little baby don’t say a word…”
The weather had turned cold almost overnight, the late gales of November blowing icy off the strait, the last of the leaves clinging to the wet pavement, the trees skeletal against the gray sky.
Before I Wake Page 9