I sit on the beach outside the last house on the island. The building towers over me, its shadow bringing a premature sunset. None of the houses are particularly appealing.
“What’s the big deal? It’s four walls and a roof. It’s not that important.”
And in the end, it really isn’t. My decision comes down to a single factor – there are no bodies inside. The huge, towering house at the end of the island is empty. The people who owned it are probably tucked tightly under expensive sheets in their big city condo somewhere. The house is locked tight. I pry open the front door with my crowbar. The air smells stale but lacks the stench of decomposition.
The house is cluttered with ugly antiques and even uglier paintings. Most of the artwork are just blobs of color on a canvas. Miss Bishop called the style “abstract”. I just call it crap.
Heavy curtains cover all the windows. The place feels like a cave. I pull open the curtains on the windows that face the ocean. Sunlight pours in and ignites pieces of dust in the air. I unlock and open up a wide set of French doors that lead to a deck outside. The fresh sea air makes me smile. Oliver darts out the door and pees in the sand.
“I guess this is it. Welcome home 2.0, Ollie.”
The giant house is at the northernmost edge of the island. The beach ends where the island does, dissolving into a dark, thick forest of craggy old trees. The forest looks like something out of a fairy tale. I imagine that at any moment I’ll run into a witch or at least a trail of breadcrumbs.
Oliver and I spend much of the rest of the day loading our supplies into the truck, driving down the road to our new house and unloading everything. The process brings back sickening memories of my family’s eviction from Flint. The big difference, of course, is that armed men aren’t standing over me while I’m doing it. And neither is my family.
Maybe that’s why it was so easy to leave Detroit. I’ve done it before. I was a nomad the moment the sheriff’s deputies knocked on our door. Two of them, one young, one old, the old one tipping his wide-brimmed hat to Mom as if in some way manners still mattered. Their dull brown uniforms, their badges catching reflected light and shimmering. The young deputy held the folded paper, our eviction notice, and for them it was just another day. For me, a part of me died. Not in some tangible way. My heart still beat and my lungs still filled with air. But death takes many forms. It comes in the shape of the clotted, soggy masses lying in the bedrooms and bathrooms of every darkened house I pass. It comes in the shape of grief too enormous to comprehend, like that felt by a fourteen-year-old girl dragging the bodies of her dead family one-by-one down the stairs and burying them in the deepest graves she could manage to dig. And it comes in the form of loss, when everything you know, everything you believe to be stable and solid and true evaporates like smoke all around you. There are lots of ways to die.
Sleep the first night on the uncomfortable sofa in front of the open French doors. Oliver curls up beside me. The night air has a pronounced chill. Winter is imminent. I’m not sure what winter means here. In Michigan, we’d probably already have had our first snowfall. Wonder if there’ll be snow in Charleston.
I dream I’m still in the house in Flint. The sheriff’s deputies never come. Dad’s business never closea. I celebrate my fourteenth birthday with a sleepover. Mom bakes German chocolate cake. My friends and I stay up all night talking about the boys at school we’ll marry. It’s decided I’ll marry Tyler Hannigan. Years and birthdays pass, fifteen, sixteen, and then we drive Grace to college at Michigan State. I date Tyler Hannigan for a few months our sophomore year in high school, but he’s dull and uninspired and I break it off. I’m valedictorian at graduation, and in my speech I talked about the future because in this dream Ihave a future. Go to college, a big one on the east coast. I become a surgeon. I feel the itch of the hospital scrubs against my neck. Dad holds my arm tightly as he walks me down the aisle. He cries as he lets me go. I kiss my husband’s lips. I hold my newborn son and watch the winter sunlight tickle his forehead. I watch my parents grow old, and I watch myself grow older, too. I run my wrinkled hands over the framed photographs on my mantelpiece. Contained in the wood and glass are the memories of the life I should have had. As I stare down at the snapshot lifetime in front of me, each photo vanishes. My children, my husband, my parents and my siblings, every Christmas and birthday and summer vacation disappears. I stand alone in an empty room, devoid of memory and stripped of the colors memory provides. I’m alone. The life that should have been is as dead as everything else.
I sit on the deck overlooking the beach below. Pull the heavy sweater tighter around myself. The air’s cool, but the chill I feel runs much deeper. How can I miss something I never had?
“That life, those memories, they aren’t mine. I can’t go back and get a do-over.”
When does grieving end? When do I finally accept this ridiculous existence I’ve been handed? And that’s all it is, existence. I’m alive, but this isn’t life. No matter how comfortable I’ve made it, this will always just be life’s shadow. There are no more colleges to go to, no husbands to kiss at the altar, no parents to watch grow old. Life now is just a forward motion. There used to be achievements and goals and setbacks and failures, but now it’s all just about getting through each day. Life is about shared experience. The moments become memories because they’re experienced together. Existence, it’s solitary. Life, is a group effort. Of all the things stripped away from me, life is the most painful. What I do now, it’s simply a conscious death.
I have Oliver. Maybe he’s here just to prove to me that I’m still alive, that all of this isn’t some fever dream. And maybe that’s how grieving ends. By conscious choice, by embracing what’s in front of me and letting the memory of a life that never was move on without me.
“Why can’t I just let this go?” Oliver whines. I rub his head.
My existence remains at the mercy of outside forces. Storms, gas for the generators, food, water, a safe place to live, all of it’s out of my control. And that’s part of the problem. For all the things I’ve been able to do, there are mountains of things that are still far beyond me.
But those are all problems to be solved. I don’t know how I’ll solve them. I don’t know if I can. Eventually, I’ll run out of all the things that are out of my control. Maybe I’ll fail. Maybe I’ll die. Or maybe I’ll figure it out. That’s been the pattern so far.
Climb out of the chair and sit down on the deck beside Oliver. His fur is matted. It isn’t as bad as it was when I found him, but he looks scruffy. I give him a kiss. Oliver licks my face. I don’t know how I’ll solve the problems that are yet to be. But I do know how I’ll solve this one. I lead Oliver back inside our strange new house and start brushing the mats out of his fur.
Night Swim
It’s gotten colder. Our long walks are less enjoyable. The sunbaked heat has given way to a brisk ocean chill that stings my cheeks and makes me regret not having warmer clothes. I put that on my mental checklist, although I’m not sure how much success I’ll have. Most of the stores I’ve invaded carried only lightweight summer gear. There aren’t many new shipments on the horizon.
The house has an elaborate fireplace. It’s the centerpiece of the living room, tall and overbearing, much like the house itself. Still haven’t gotten used to living here. The place creaks like a ship at sea. I wake up most nights in the dark, wondering who’s moving around upstairs.
The woods outside are littered with fallen branches and broken sticks. Many of our walks are taken through the woods, gathering firewood. I always underestimate how much I’ll need. Fires burn quickly. Most evenings, I’ve used up the supply of firewood before the sun goes down. I end up huddled under the covers upstairs with Oliver, practically choking him to grab his residual body heat. I found an axe in the shed outside. It’s hard to carry and even harder to swing. Cutting down trees is more difficult than it looks. Probably why lumberjacks were so beefy.
I sit in the cargo compartmen
t of the Land Rover, watching Oliver sniff the scattered debris in the Lowe’s parking lot. Wonder what he smells. Old dogs? Disintegrated fast food? Or does fast food even disintegrate?
I adjust my packages in the cargo compartment. A small chainsaw, some oil, a few more empty gas cans. The generators are using a lot of gas. Even with just the refrigerator hooked up, I’m going through an entire two-gallon can every few days. So far I’ve been lucky. Most houses had a can in the garage or the shed. But that won’t last, especially when I start using the chain saw. Driving as well is hard on my finite supply.
It’s probably time to start conserving. Ice cold water is nice, but not at the expense of warmth. As it is, I haven’t watched a movie since before we left the beach house. I haven’t read either, or done anything creative at all. There isn’t much reason to keep the generators running. Most of the time I spend gathering firewood or just stared off into space. My thoughts aren’t new or particularly deep. Most often, I don’t think about anything at all.
Oliver has followed his nose across the parking lot. He’s almost reached the distant cart corral. I call him back. He reluctantly returns.
“Don’t run off, dude.” I cuddle his face into mine, rubbing his ears as I do so. He licks me on the cheek.
“We’re in this together, remember? The last thing I need is for you to take off on me.”
The thought crosses my mind that I should get him a collar and a leash. But that means he’s my pet. And by extension, my property. I’ve never viewed our relationship that way. We found each other. Oliver made the same decision I did. What’s the word? Symbiotic. We’re both together by mutual need and desire. What I provide to Oliver, food and shelter and companionship, Oliver returns by his presence in my life. In a lot of ways, I need him more than he needs me. Maybe that’s why my knee-jerk reaction is to keep him tethered to me. Because without him, I have no reason to keep going. That’s the cold, hard truth. Oliver has become my purpose.
“No pressure, right?” I stand up and walked back to the truck. Oliver walks with me.
I’ve given up keeping track of time. For a while, I scribbled a new slash mark on a notepad each day, counting backwards to the last off-base calculation I made. I know my calculations are way off, and had been almost from the beginning. Time is for people who have somewhere to go. Days of the week and hours of the day have disappeared into the same antiquity as going to school or arguing with Mom. The seasons dictate our schedule now. I’m doing my best to learn that language. Even the beach has seasons. My naive assumption of perpetual sand and surf has been decimated. It gets cold here, and when it does I need to adjust. It’ll get warm again. Cold and hot, light and dark, these were the only timepieces of any value.
After a few awkward and hazardous attempts, I get the hang of the chainsaw. It’s the smallest one I was able to find, but it’s still large and unwieldy in my small hands. The harsh rattle of its motor shakes me from head to toe. But it cuts through trees like a badass. What would have taken me immeasurable hacks with the axe, I’m able to accomplish in a few moments. By dusk, I have a neat stack of firewood any lumberjack would be proud of.
I drag myself onto one of the uncomfortable ornamental sofas in the living room. The logs in the fireplace blaze. Heat is my reward. Pain in every nook and cranny of my body is the price I’m paying for it.
When I wake up, the fire has burned down to embers. I shiver and crawl off the sofa. It’s dark. The cold seems to permeate every corner of the big house. I rekindle the fire and soon the room begins heating up again. I can almost feel the individual molecules revving faster and faster.
Oliver is snoring. He lies on the couch in the same position from which I’ve extricated myself. His paws jitter. He’s dreaming.
I pick up a blanket from one of the armchairs and wrap it around myself. With a glance back at Oliver, I open one of the French doors. Oliver continues his dream running. I slip outside and close the door behind me.
The firelight casts a warm yellow glow across the deck. Beyond, the beach and ocean catch the white glow of the half-moon above. The air is cold. I pull the blanket tighter around myself. I sit in one of the deck chairs and pulled my knees up to my chin.
Without the generators running, the rhythmic rumble of the waves has resumed its dominance. It’s a primal sound, without beginning and without end. The sound and its permanence makes me feel connected to something greater. I feel dwarfed beneath it. Is that how people felt about God? To me the oceanis God. Omnipotent, neverending, mysterious, dangerous… the ocean is impossibly deep, and yet it provides a narrow shore into which I can access. The swell of the waves and the sensation of the salt water against my body, it’s a teasing hint at a vastness that would swallow me whole and never even be aware of it. Maybe that’s what God was all about. I don’t think I’ll ever know.
Despite the cold, or perhaps because of it, I throw off the blanket and run down the deck stairs to the beach. I strip off my clothes as I run, leaving pants and socks and sweatshirt in a Hansel and Gretel trail toward the surf. The water is as cold as I imagined it would be. Gooseflesh erupts all over my body. The waves are high, crashing like battering rams against the shore. I jump through the waves. I’m laughing. I have no idea why. The cold water is uncomfortable and the waves sting my cold skin. But maybe that’s the reason. The pain of cold makes me remember that I’m still alive. Not just living, but actuallyalive. When I can stand it no longer, I tremble back up the beach, gathering my clothes as I go.
I sit on the hearth in front of the roaring fire, huddled beneath the blanket and shivering. Oliver trots up beside me.
“I wish I could explain it. How I’m feeling now. It’s like standing in a hallway between two rooms. Behind me, it’s the past, everything that was, that used to be, all that I knew and took for granted. In front of me, it’s just a dark room. I don’t know what’s in there. And I don’t know why I have to find out. All I know is I can’t go backwards. And if I stay too long in the hallway, whatever’s coming, it’ll just come. Because whatever’s next, it’s inevitable. I can face it or I can get run over by it. I wish I knew what it was, whatever’s next.”
I pull the blanket around Oliver and the two of us sit in front of the fire. We’re huddled against the cold, but I know it’s more than that. Regardless of whether I’m measuring it anymore, timedoes pass. What’s coming, whatever the future holds, it moves relentlessly. I don’t know what any of it is. What it is, what it means, whether it’s good or bad. And not knowing, it’s the scariest part of all.
The Recovery of Time
A cold rain patters against the windows. Its drops leave streaks that connect and separate like subway trains crossing over tracks. The light is dull and soggy.
It’s an odd thing that I haven’t explored the house. Since time doesn’t carry much weight anymore, I don’t know whether it’s been weeks or even months since we relocated. I don’t even know how many bedrooms there are inside the house. Oliver and I only sleep in the living room. It’s where the fireplace is kept.
So I wander through the house. It’s more a museum than anything else. It’s stuffed full of heavy furniture and out of place knick knacks. I only recognize a handful of what I see. Old radios, pottery, metal toys that are rusted and faded. I pick things up, hold them, try to make them familiar. But it all seems alien. I miss the beach house and its stark simplicity.
There are four bedrooms upstairs, each more densely packed than the last. I open squeaky wardrobes and run my hands along the clothes hanging inside. I think the house might have been someone’s full-time home, since there’s so much crap contained inside it. But where have the owners gone? The beds are empty and the telltale stink of death isn’t present. Maybe whoever lived here was among the General’s first wave of victims. They would have gone to the hospital, back when hospitals existed.
I open a door at the end of the upstairs hallway. A steep staircase leads to the attic. Dim, gray light casts a pale pall over the stai
rs. Quick sniff. Force of habit. Still no bodies. I climb the stairs.
It was a teenager’s room. This room exists in stark contrast to the musty, claustrophobic age of the rest of the house. Posters hang on every wall, some bands I recognize from Grace’s room and others I don’t. An unmade bed is pushed against the far edge of the room, between the dormer windows. There’s a desk, a beanbag chair, bookcase, lamps, a dresser and another wardrobe. The dresser drawers are haphazardly closed. Clothes are strewn across the floor. Girl clothes. I can tell mostly by the underwear. Dirty. Gross.
I begin my excavation. That’s what it feels like, an archaeological dig. The desk is cluttered with papers and what looks like gum wrappers. The papers are schoolwork, math tests and an English paper. Bright red “B”s and “C”s decorate them. The girl’s name was Kate Moynihan. Her name is written on top of each paper in the same type of looping cursive I recognize from the popular girls in her own school. The style of handwriting was as much a badge of honor as the identical designer outfits and makeup on their faces.
I open the desk drawers. Tucked beneath a pack of notebook paper is the girl’s diary. The book is held closed by a flimsy lock. I take the small book in my hand. Heart races. I read Grace’s diary once, and had been both amazed and sickened by my sister’s innermost thoughts. Sickened mostly by how often she thought about sex. It was a near-constant topic. I hold onto Kate Moynihan’s diary with a combination of revulsion and curiosity.
I set the diary on the unmade bed and continue exploring. In the nightstand, I find Kate’s cell phone and charger. The phone is one of the latest smart phones. I hold it in my hand. The diary and the phone are Kate’s most intimate possessions. I know that because both had been so for Grace. My fingers trace the streamlined body of the phone. As I turn the phone over in my hands, I catch a glimpse of a smudge on the glass screen. I angle the screen into the dim light. It’s a fingerprint, smudged but recognizable. Kate’s fingerprint. I hold my own finger beside it. Kate’s hands were bigger than mine. Quick glance around the room for any photos. There are none. Of course there aren’t. They all live on the phone.
The First Year Page 19