Ragged Company

by Richard Wagamese

  “Can I help you?” a woman’s voice called.

  She was coming around the corner of the house with a basket of clipped flowers, smiling, and though it wasn’t her, I imagined Sylvan as this older woman in a floppy straw hat, duck boots, and a baggy print dress to the ankles.

  “I’m not sure,” I said, rising. “I used to live here. A long time ago.”

  “Well, we haven’t changed much out here. A few things, but it was so charming the day we saw it, we wanted it kept the way it was. We did some work on the interior, but the yard is pretty much the same.”

  “I can see that.”

  “Would you like to look around?”

  “I don’t mean to bother you.”

  “Oh, no bother. Walk around and look. I’ll be in the kitchen if you’d like to see the inside. You and your friends are just visiting the city now?”

  “Yes. Just visiting again.”

  “That’s nice. Must be really nice to ride around in a big fancy car like that.”

  “Yes.”

  “You go ahead. Let me know if you want a peek at the inside.”

  I walked back to the car. I wasn’t certain that I wanted to look around and I was even less certain that I wanted to walk back through that door.

  “Well, what’s the scoop?” Digger asked.

  “She says I can look around. If I want, I can look inside.”

  “And?” Amelia asked.

  “And I don’t know. I’m scared, really. It all looks so much like it did back then that it’s like it never happened. When that woman came around the corner, my heart almost stopped because I thought of Sylvan. How she must be that age now and how she’d look like that.”

  “Is this where you made the wooden animals?” Dick asked.

  “Yes. I used to have my workshop around back.”

  “Can we look?” he asked.

  “Okay,” I said, heaving a sigh. “Might be easier if I walked with someone.”

  “Okay, then,” Dick said. “Can anybody else come?”

  “Well, I guess it’s okay if we all go. She was kind of impressed by the car.”

  “I’ll knock on the door and give her my card,” James said. “Always a good move to let them know who’s looking at their property.”

  We crossed to the walk together. I could see the woman peeking at us through the curtains and James spoke to her briefly while we stood and looked at the front yard. She smiled and nodded and we moved to the back. The bushes were taller and fuller but the shadow thrown by the trees and the house itself felt the same depth and colour. Haunting. It was haunting. The garage stood like it had always stood and I felt the odd rush of recollection, of time collapsing on itself, of yesterday reappearing in a heartbeat. Dick and I walked to it and looked in the window.

  “This is where?” he asked.

  “Yes,” I said. “There used to be work tools and benches and moulds and racks of material all over. Now it’s just a garage.”

  “Must have smelled real nice. I like how wood smells when you cut it.”

  “It did smell good. I always liked that smell, too. From the time I was a boy and carved that little cow, I liked how it made my hands smell. Old. Strong. Like the wood itself.”

  “Geez,” Dick said. “You ain’t had that smell on your hands for a long time, huh?”

  “A long time.”

  “Maybe you could make me somethin’ after? Then you could have that smell back.”

  “Maybe. I don’t know if I’d know how to start now, though.”

  “Your hands’d remember.”

  I smiled. “Yes. I suppose they might.”

  The back door opened and the woman stepped out. I walked toward the patio. “Are you the original owner?” she asked.

  “No,” I said. “We bought it from the original owner.”

  “My god,” she said, and lifted her hands to her face. “Then you’re the man whose wife had the horrible accident here.”

  “Yes.”

  “How is she doing these days?”

  My friends had moved around me while we talked and I looked at them before I could answer. I filled my cheeks with air and breathed out slowly.

  “I don’t know,” I said. “We haven’t spoken for a long time.”

  “Oh, that’s too bad,” she said. “It happens in a marriage. She looked fine when she came here, though.”

  I felt my heart drop out of my chest.

  “Sylvan was here?”

  “Sylvan. That’s right. What a beautiful name. Sylvan, yes.”

  “When? When was she here?”

  “Oh, a long time back now,” she said. “Must have been fifteen years, maybe more. She came with a doctor. He told me she needed to look around to help her memory come back. A really nice woman, very quiet. She spent quite a while in the house.”

  I sat down heavily in a patio chair. I couldn’t believe what I was hearing. Sylvan walking through this house like I was, working on memories. Sylvan. Alive and walking and talking and moving through the life we had shared. I could barely breathe.

  “Did you not know?” the woman asked. “The doctor said her memory was coming back in flashes and blips and he wanted her to come here to see if being in her old home again might trigger it fully. I guess she had no recall at all after the accident. Horrible. The neighbours told us all about it when we moved in. Horrible.”

  “Did she say where she was living?” Merton asked.

  “Well, no. We hardly spoke. I was rather shy about it. I’m not good around infirm people, I suppose. But the doctor left his card.”

  “Do you still have it?” James asked.

  “Oh, I doubt it after all this time. But my son has a marvellous memory. He can remember the smallest details about things you’d never consider important. He was here then. I’ll call him,” she said and disappeared into the house.

  Granite sat in the chair beside me. “How are you, Timber?”

  “I don’t know. This is too much. I never thought there was a chance. I never gave it any hope, all this time. Never once considered they might have been wrong about her condition back then.”

  “They get it wrong all the time.”

  “She looked so lost. She looked like one of those shells you pick up on the beach, beautiful but empty. You know something lived in there once upon a time but you get no sense of it. But you can still see beauty. That’s how she looked and I never thought she’d change. Never thought she’d come back. That’s what I couldn’t handle. That’s why I ran.”

  “No one could blame you.”

  “No need. I did a good number on blaming myself.”

  “If we find her, will you see her?”

  “God, Granite. How am I supposed to answer that? Right now I feel like running again. Fuck the whole thing. Go back to what I was.”

  “What you became. What you were is right here, right around you right now. You don’t need to run. You just have to grab this.”

  “See her?”

  “I think so. If you can’t, I’ll understand. So will the rest. But I think you owe it to yourself. I really do.”

  “She likely hates me.”

  “You don’t know that.”

  “Better if she does.”

  “You don’t know that either.”

  The woman came back out. “The doctor’s name was MacBeth,” she said. “Like the king. That’s how he remembered his name. Scott, my son. He said the doctor’s name was Lyndon MacBeth.”

  I walked to the edge of the patio and stared up at the trees over the garage, my old workshop, my castle. I remembered the play she took me to when we were very young in our togetherness. Macbeth. I didn’t understand it. The language was thick and hard to follow. But I felt compelled to go back. We went back four times, and when I finally got it I felt the world open up before me. Love brings you that. It opens up the world.

  “‘Was the hope drunk, wherein you dressed yourself?’” I said.

  “What?” Digger asked.

&n
bsp; “Oh, nothing. Just a line from a play.”

  “Oh, good. Thought you were losing it for a minute there, pal.”

  “So did I,” I said. “So did I.”

  Granite

  LYNDON MACBETH’S OFFICE was in an older brick building downtown. Frankly, I was surprised to see the name on the building directory given the amount of time that had passed. Timber looked at it posted there in little white plastic letters and trailed his fingers idly over the glass. I could understand how this was affecting him. In the car on the way downtown, I had thought about how I would react if I were given the opportunity to face the people of the past, to re-enter places, to allow my senses to prowl over remembered territories. It would demand a far greater covenant with courage than I believed I possessed, and I felt proud of Timber for the grit that enabled him to make this journey. We rode the elevator to the fifth floor in silence. The rounders kept a close eye on their friend, slipping surreptitious glances his way, watching him closely for any sign of crumbling or a move for the sidewalk.

  It was a cheery-looking place. One of those retro decors augmented by the retention of original wood and sturdy antique furnishings. There was an ebullient feel to it that heartened me. The receptionist was a round-faced woman in her thirties with sparkling eyes and a friendly voice.

  “Good morning. Is it still morning? My goodness. Afternoon already. Anyway, good afternoon, then. May I help you?” she said, all in one apparent breath.

  “We need to speak with Dr. MacBeth,” James said, handing her his card. “It’s a personal matter.”

  “Are you a claims lawyer?” the woman asked.

  “No,” James said with a grin. “A trust attorney, actually.”

  “Trust attorney,” she said. “Kind of an oxymoron these days, isn’t it?”

  James smiled. “I suppose. We need to speak with the doctor about an old file.”

  “Old file? Okay. Why don’t you give me the patient’s name and I’ll dig it out for him and then check if he can see you.”

  “Certainly. Parrish. Sylvan Parrish-Hohnstein,” James said.

  “Spell that, please?”

  James spelled the name for her and she scribbled it on a small pad.

  “Please wait here,” she said and walked into a room laden with shelves of files.

  We sat on the couches available and waited. Timber’s knees were quivering up and down and he breathed through his cheeks nervously. Digger gave him a nudge in the ribs and handed him a mickey. He drank in three small quick gulps. I wouldn’t have minded a shot myself right about then.

  The receptionist came out of the back room, smiled at us, and entered the doctor’s office with a small knock. I noticed she was not carrying a file. James and Margo were looking at me and I knew that they had picked up on this too. I shrugged.

  The door opened and a small, slender man dressed in a light tan suit walked out. He was in his forties with a balding head and small wire-rimmed glasses.

  “Mr. Merton,” he said. “I’m Dr. MacBeth. How may I help you?”

  “Doctor,” James said, standing and shaking his hand. “My client, Mr. Hohnstein here, is interested in some information about his wife. Sylvan Parrish-Hohnstein.”

  “Sylvan Parrish? She isn’t one of my patients.”

  “She’s not? We were under the impression that she was. Although given your age I would find that difficult to believe.”

  “She was my father’s patient. In fact, he spoke about her all the time. It was quite a case.”

  “Your father?”

  “Yes. He passed away five years ago. I came back for the funeral and stayed to take care of my mother and take over his practice. Never enough good psychiatrists in this town, it seems.”

  “Lyndon MacBeth, Jr.” Margo said.

  “Yes. But patients don’t seem to trust a ‘junior’ so I dropped it from my shingle once I went into practice.”

  “Do you have any idea where we can find her? Or who we can talk to who might know her whereabouts?” I asked.

  “Well, there aren’t many case files left from dad’s time—a few older people still on my list now, but nothing from that far back. I don’t even recall what happened in that case now. Once I got into medical school I lost touch with what Dad was doing. I’m sorry.”

  “Do you remember anything?” Timber asked quietly.

  “Only that she was a puzzle to my father. A great, intriguing puzzle. It had to do with memory, didn’t it?”

  “Yes,” Timber replied.

  “He kept her on even though she wasn’t funded. I remember that. He wouldn’t give up on her. He cared for her gratis all that time. He was interested in her and wanted to help, so he worked for free. It was a car accident, wasn’t it? A very horrible accident. I remember now.”

  “She was hit by a drunk driver,” Timber said. “She was in a body cast. They moved her to a private place after a while.”

  “That’s right. And the husband disappeared. He just … Oh, I’m sorry,” the doctor said, looking at Timber.

  “It’s okay,” Timber said. “They all know the story.”

  “Where have you been all this time, Mr. Hohnstein?”

  Timber looked out the window. We all watched him and waited. “Nowhere,” he said. “I’ve been nowhere all this time.”

  MacBeth studied him briefly. “I understand. She walked again. Did you know that? I remember my father being very happy about her physical recovery. She walked and her general mobility was fine.”

  “I heard.”

  “I wish I could tell you more. But like I said, once I got going on my own studies I lost touch with Dad’s work. There is one thing that sticks out to me, though. Would you like to hear it? It’s kind of odd.”

  “Yes.”

  “There was a jade plant in her room. She wouldn’t let anyone touch it. Dad was the only one she’d let water it for her until she got mobile enough to do it on her own. She guarded that plant. Screamed at people who went near it. I remember Dad telling me about that because it was the only emotional response he was able to get from her and it was a key for him. It gave him the motivation to keep working with her. Odd. And the plant had an odd name too. What was it?”

  “Eudora.”

  “Yes! Eudora!” MacBeth said, snapping his fingers. “If it wasn’t for that plant, my father might well have given up like everyone else did.”

  “I left it there,” Timber said.

  “You did?”

  “Yes. The last time I went to see her. It was all I had left of our life together. I couldn’t just throw it away, so I brought it to the hospital. I don’t know why. It just felt like the right thing to do.”

  “Well, it certainly helped.”

  “It did?”

  “Yes. The day she remembered the plant’s name, Dad was ecstatic at dinner. Ecstatic. Eudora. I remember now. After Eudora Welty, the writer.”

  “Yes. We loved her. Strange now to think that our favourite novel was called Losing Battles.”

  “But you didn’t lose.”

  “What?”

  “You have the memories. No matter what happens, you have the memories. You came back here from the nowhere you’ve been living in for a reason, Mr. Hohnstein. Whatever those memories are, they’re good. Because you came back. Because you returned to reclaim them. Some patients pay me a great deal of money to reclaim their memories. It’s a big deal.”

  “Even if I don’t find her?”

  “Even if you don’t find her.”

  “That’s not much comfort.”

  “It will be, Mr. Hohnstein. It will be.”

  “It will?”

  “Yes. Eventually, it will be. In fact, do you know what?”

  “No.”

  “I just remembered that my dad kept a personal journal of his work with your wife. That’s how much she meant to him. He kept a personal journal of it. Would you like it?”

  Timber just stared at him. Stared at him with a face as stunned into immobility a
s I’ve ever seen. MacBeth just nodded, clapped him lightly on the shoulder, and crossed the room to a credenza in the corner. He rummaged around the shelves and returned with a worn, leather-bound journal.

  “Here it is,” he said. “I’ve never read it. I don’t know what it says or whether it can help you much at all. But I do know that my dad would want you to have it. He cared about her. He really cared. It’s the best I can do.”

  Timber held the journal in his hands, turning it over and over, rubbing its surface with his palms. When he looked up, he was crying.

  “Thank you,” he said.

  “You’re welcome, Mr. Hohnstein. Welcome back.”

  Timber

  IT’S HARD TO READ the words of a man who loved your wife. Even a wife you dispossessed. Even a woman you deserted. Reading the doctor’s journal that afternoon in my room, I knew that he had loved her. Not in any romantic way, not in any needy, weird kind of way, but just loved her for who he saw—a woman struggling through the blackness, a beautiful woman reaching out for vague clues that eluded her as quickly as they appeared, a woman barricaded from herself by the thick bricks of amnesia. An abandoned woman. Even though she did not know that, the doctor did, and it made him even more desperate to see her through to reclaim herself from the darkness. He came to love the way she squinted into the corners of her room when he spoke with her, the pinched look I remembered that had always told me she was seeing everything. He came to love the way she stared into the mirror at her face and traced its outline with the tips of her fingers as if trying to coax recollection from the lines and hollows. He came to love the way she watched people as they spoke, as though the words themselves, the air they moved, had shape and substance and clues for her. He loved the way she grabbed at the world around her.

  They found the photo album I had brought while she still lay in her coma. I’d forgotten that. I’d sit there night after night and hold the snapshots up to her face and describe the day, the place, the happenings involved in each of them, hoping against hope that something in that effort would chase away the darkness, encourage the light. It had sat among her belongings until they moved her to a small four-bed care home that Dr. MacBeth used for severe cases. He had absorbed the cost himself. When they began to lay out the things I had brought, they discovered the photo album. Sylvan did not react at first, merely stared at it like she stared at everything, uncomprehending and vacant. Then, as the doctor began the practice of thumbing through the pages with her, she began to show signs of ownership. He found her one day, alone on the veranda, tracing the faces of people in the photographs like she traced her own in the mirror. She was quiet, staring at the snapshots with a calm, assured look, a trusting look, as though she believed her fingers could divine identity, conjure time and place, gather them in her lap like a child’s building blocks, allow her to build a simple structure of a life. It made me cry. The vision of her tracing the lines of my face softly, tenderly, like she had on those nights in our bed as I eased into sleep comforted by the delicate buds of her fingers, made me weep, deeply and disconsolately, until only the reading itself could ease my pain. She touched me every day like that, and the doctor wrote about the change in her look from trusting and innocent to frustrated and sad, the snapshots a captured world she could not re-enter.