Before Everything
Page 20
Privacy
Helen helps settle Anna onto the toilet, wiggling her cotton leggings down. Then stands at her side.
“It can take a while,” Anna apologizes, propping herself against Helen.
“I’ve got all night.” Helen kisses the top of Anna’s head. “That was a great vacation.”
“Was it?” Anna’s lids flutter, but her eyes stay shut.
Then a sprinkling, a faint tinkling of pee.
A smile pencils Anna’s lips. “That still feels good.”
Helen hands her some folded squares of toilet paper. “I can’t imagine.”
“That’s what you’re good at, Helen, imagining things.” Anna swipes lightly with the toilet paper and lets it drop.
Night Dose
Anna fidgets, thrashes, all knob and jut; there isn’t any comfortable arrangement of any limb. Helen shuts the window, drapes a cloth over the lamp, hoping the muted green light might help. She wishes Ming and the others would come. All day she’s wanted time alone with Anna. Now she needs the others.
“How can I help you?” The question itself so unhelpful. It’s probably time for more of whatever Anna’s been taking. Just feed a bit under her tongue the way Helen saw the nurse do earlier. She isn’t sure exactly what or how much. She won’t go out and ask for help—especially from Reuben.
“Your mom.” Anna flicks her wrists. Her fingers jab and retract, like she’s poking at something in front of her.
“My mom? What?”
Helen wedges a pillow under Anna’s leg. But Anna kicks her leg out from the blankets—the pillow dropping to the floor—then squiggles it partly back under.
“Tell me. About it,” Anna says.
Helen isn’t sure what’s needed. Anna knows everything.
“You remember—she knew I was angry with her. That haunted me for years. But when I became a mom, I understood the passing angers of my children. And realized Mom did, too. When Lucinda and Rusty were so angry, I’d remind myself that she put up with my rage that she was sick. Mom used to drive me crazy, saying, ‘You want me to help you pack your bags?’ Now when I’m having a hissy fit, I say it to myself.”
“I thought you’d never be okay. We were too young.”
Helen sees how hard Anna’s working to form each word, to shape this thought.
“But you’ve had a good life,” Anna says.
“I was okay.” Helen had been the same age as Andy and Harper.
“They’ll be okay?”
Helen eases down onto the bed. She adjusts, slipping partly under Anna to be extra padding. She feels Anna’s vertebrae sharp against her chest.
“They’ll be more than okay, Anna. They’re already okay.”
The bedroom door opens partway, and Helen waves them in. Ming and Caroline drop into chairs. Molly bends over the table, preparing the nighttime doses.
“Really?”
“You know they are. Anna, you’re inside them.”
“Even after I’m dead, keep telling me that.”
Divine Proportion
The total of lines 9 and 10 was line 7 multiplied by 11. Hello, my friend Fibonacci, meet Dearest One. And always, too, 1.61. The quotient of line 10 divided by line 9. Hello, Euclid. Anna keeps the leapfrogspringing forward always toward the golden ratio.
Still April
1
Patriots’ Day
Was he there? Had anyone heard from Michael? The calls came to Anna’s house. That made sense. Someone there with her all the time. But at Anna’s, the television off, unused, might as well have been unplugged. Same question. Same question. Had he gone to Boston? Everyone knew he’d been training. He’d made a big enough deal of it. Flat-out saying no, when people asked if Michael was honoring his sister. More than flat-out. Like they were morons for asking. “I run for myself, thank you very much.” Sounded selfish. His point exactly. It was selfish. For the self he pulled on running gear every morning, ran intervals and fartleks, just to loosen the spiral of the mind, have the singular, pure focus of body. After a long run, no matter how messed his body was, always that final shot of adrenaline. Can’t beat it. So alive. “That’s the risk,” he’d said, handing his phone to his wife, Felicity. He was leaving his phone with Felicity so that he could run outside of time. Time out from the vigil. Any day. It was hour to hour every day. “Perspective,” Michael said. He’d accepted it might happen while he was out of touch. Everyone else needed to get a life. It was unbearable—keeping up with their lives only so things would be in order for them to leave when the final call came about Anna. Now the hanger-rigged, antennaed television in the living room was switched on, volume down so Anna can’t hear. How much was she hearing anymore? Still. Skin powdered, rolled, a pillow wedged to keep her on her side, and then sometimes, out of nowhere, she was up, sitting up, lucid. “I’m not entirely sure,” the broadcaster says. The puzzled jigsaw of a developing story. Broadcasts of jerky sprints toward and away. What bits of news, known, repeated. Twenty-five thousand–plus runners. Oldest marathon. A handheld video. Body down. Filtered chalky light. Thick curtains of shouting. There are injured. Barrier fences crumpled, raked aside. Make a lane. Coming through. Let them in. Get them out. “He’ll be fine,” they say with each call. “It’s Michael,” someone says. “He’s got to be fine.”
Paired
Felicity looked at the phones—hers, Michael’s—on the table.
Orientation
Inside the Gatorade tent, it sounded like stadium risers collapsing. That happened a lot. Sideline mishap—there was even that official unofficial name. Sideline mishap. Always someone’s fat uncle or a kid positioned to cheer on Mom wound up in the local ER. From heatstroke to busted limbs.
“Or it’s a knucklehead with Roman candles,” the lady said to Michael. “Breathe.” She palmed light downward strokes on Michael’s chewed-up left Achilles. Felt to Michael like she was moving concrete, but in a seriously necessary way. Food. Massages. He’d been psyched to have tickets to the Gatorade VIP tent. Even if this lady was more granny than belly dancer, her hands felt spectacular. He’ll play this rubdown back to Felicity in a way that will have her eyes crinkle with jealousy. Facedown in your tiny little running shorts and her hands all over you? She’ll say head waggling, voice testy. Way cute. He had reason to feel proud and give himself a post-run thumbs-up. Shaved two minutes off his time. Beat his running partner by twenty minutes. Poor Jack bonked on the fourteenth mile but stayed in and limped to the finish. Now they were both princes on massage tables enjoying the Gatorade tent spoils.
Second time—“What the . . . ?” Michael sat up—wasn’t any collapsed bleacher or domino of trash cans. It wasn’t fireworks. Swung his legs over the side of the table. Up, but stuck, bolted to the table. The air sharp, stinging.
Jack was on his feet, bouncing, official, pointing at monitors hung throughout the tent. Right there, right outside, the scramble and screams, two men kneel. “We need someone.”
“I should . . .” Michael wanted to say, Help, go out and help. He’s a doctor. But he couldn’t speak. He couldn’t move. He jabbed his chest. “I should . . .” He could hardly breathe.
Jack tensed. “Forget it, man, we’re out of here.” Pulled Michael up. The drifting smoke on the screen was the powdery chemical bite inside the tent. Then they were out in it. Jack pointing them into a stream of moving bodies, foil-caped shoulders, crowds pressing forward, then left. Jack’s hand fixed on him, a slight pressure with every step, using Michael to crutch himself forward. Michael couldn’t keep track of their turns. Jack talking. As if to maintain orientation. Little stuff. Of no consequence. But it matters. It counts.
2
The News
Michael was home, safe. Still, they kept channeled, fixed to numbers and situations. They listened to radio news on the way to Anna’s. Came home tuned to radio.
All vigil. All the time.
At home, red light green light, they went about their lives. Or tried. There were always more errands, appointments, pay stubs. Held off to the end of the day, then checked in. How is she? How’s Anna? Admitted, “I don’t know about you, but I’m barely in my life.”
At Last
Reuben hooked his feet under the rungs of the hospital bed. He was glad for the quiet. For the rinse of morning light through the room. For a book he recognized and pulled from her table. “Go, go,” he’d said to the others. “We can’t bunch around all day watching and waiting,” then pushed away the mishmash of chairs collaged bedside. Now, finally, this quiet, the only sound the watery gurgle lacquering Anna’s each breath. He’d made sure of her comfort. He looked up from reading when her breath shallowed, caught, then huffed thickly, puffing openmouthed. He watched her sleep. She looked as he had seen her look all the mornings he’d watched her. He spoke quietly. “It’s only me. Just us.”
3
April 20
From the front of the meetinghouse room, creamy April New England light fans through the tall windows. Helen looks out at all the faces for whom Anna is their Anna. A my Anna for each person sitting in the main pews and for those that fill the upstairs balcony, that wide kaleidoscope of Annas. That shaping through time, that shifting specific story she’s been for everyone in this room.
And she was, also, of course, none of those Annas.
Helen welcomes everyone, explains how the afternoon will unfurl. “So many of you asked to speak,” she says quietly. “But Anna made me promise to keep the service short. And we all know better than to disobey Anna.” Actually, she’d rather announce, Anna made me swear this won’t drag on till we all wish we were dead.
“And starting out,” Helen continues, “it’s important to know that whoever we each think we were to Anna, however special, there were three that were her essence, were essential—no, are essential—above anyone or anything—her shining lights, her enduring Sparks.” Helen slips to the side bench to let Julian, Harper, and Andy come forward.
Next Anna’s brothers, Michael and Robert, stand up together, arms around each other’s waist. “Our big sister,” Robert begins, and Michael crumples, his taut runner’s body crunched into a knot. Robert, with a sweep of his arm, smooths Michael up to standing and carries on in his gentle, clear way. “When my brother and I were little punks, our big sister admitted us into her club. She let us have girl magic. That made us better men. That was my sister’s gift. She made each of us better versions of ourselves.”
Michael starts, “I have seen unbelievable things this week.” He gathers himself but doesn’t speak of the bombings, the images that repeat and repeat these last five days. He doesn’t mention that just yesterday the second of the two brothers responsible for the bombing was caught hiding inside a boat. Instead, with depth and humor, Michael catalogs phrases and gestures he’s observed this week in his children, in his nieces and nephews, in all the gathering friends, in Anna’s returning students—all wonderful, recognizable bits of his big sister. “She gave herself to all of us,” he says, and snugs closer to his brother. “It helps me so much to see her in each of you.”
Helen calls up the Friday women’s group—arm in arm, bangled in sparkling jewels and scarves—they sway. The chant goes on. And on. A lot of verses. Of hope and rain and love and tides. And more verses. Of wind and ocean. Layla had insisted this song was Anna’s favorite. Really? Really, you loved this song? Helen thinks, and then the blow, this electric new fact—there’ll be no postmortem, Helen won’t be privately conferring with Anna, there’s no going over the service with Anna later.
Helen does a quick spot check for Asa. He’s right there straight-backed at the edge of the last row. She knows he’s busy in his mind, making irreverent jokes to Anna, making Anna laugh. Asa believes that sad speeches have no place in this room. There’s his slight smile, which also, Helen knows, is for her. Keep steady. But mostly Asa is busy wisecracking, working to keep Anna’s soul entertained.
Then Helen calls up Reuben, the official not-husband husband, who three mornings ago, in the room that had for years been their shared room, was the one alone beside Anna, holding her hand well beyond the last moment.
Helen invites the stem-cell donor to stand. He’s reluctant, then stands, still grasping his seated wife’s hand. Helen had spotted them before the service began, people crowding to shake his hand. A man with a goatee pulled the donor into a big bear hug. When Helen greeted them, he asked if she might point out Anna’s children. He needed to apologize. He was Anna’s match. No donor rejection. Still, here they are. “I need to apologize.” Helen knew she should say something nice. Wasn’t that part of the job Anna gave her? Would it hurt to say, Because of you we got all these extra years? Instead she pointed out Anna’s children hiding together in the front pew.
For a moment she enjoys the donor’s discomfort as the hall fills with applause. But that dissolves, and she’s overtaken by her own gratefulness. Helen describes his correspondence with Anna, the funny aliases created in the first year when the hospital insisted they remain anonymous. “Of course,” Helen says, rolling her eyes, “because it’s Anna, after the requisite year she throws a you-saved-my-life dinner party, and they, like the rest of you here today, also became her best friends.”
Now Helen tells that first story of meeting Anna on the playground and all the wounded animals she mended and named Anna.
After an audible Awww bends through the room, Helen imitates Anna’s father’s growling declaration that it was a fanciful invention, that at best his daughter had a couple stuffed animals that needed sewing, and the room explodes into laughter.
This is what Anna wanted. What she promised. Don’t let it get boring.
Helen looks over to Ming, Caroline, and Molly. They nod approvingly, impressed that she’s holding it together. But Helen sees that the nod means that something else has been discussed between them. An agreement. No! Helen wants to shout. No way, I will not do this ever again. I will not do this for you and for you or for you. I will not tell all our stories. That story of the time in eighth grade when we tried to skip out on the restaurant bill, or all the afternoons riding around in Molly’s car, or when Caroline showed us the break in the fence and we climbed through vines and brush to claim the Farm.
I have done this for my mother. And now, here, for Anna. That’s enough.
But it doesn’t matter. It’s not enough. Looking at the faces in the room, she understands that this is what we do. We are here. And then we are not here. For a little while, we are a story.
Helen looks again to Asa. She was wrong. She will do this one more time. And he will do this for her. And knowing that, without knowing when, they will make a life.
Finally Helen nods to the band. They move with simple gravitas to their instruments “Hello, we’re the Lost Zeuses,” Jarrett says, waiting while a ripple of laughter acknowledges the band’s new name. “Here’s an original tune by our Anna, who was an original.” And the band begins to rock.
2015
1
Party
“Look, look, Amalie.” Reuben hoists the baby up and settles her down in the crook of his arm.
He swivels so the baby will find the flowered cake, its two lit candles—one for good luck. But instead the baby smiles up at Reuben.
The shock of love he feels! That familiar comfort of a baby’s weight in his arms.
“Let’s blow the candles out, my Amalie.” Reuben nuzzles his chin against his granddaughter’s feathery curls. “Now let’s make your first wish.”
2
Art History
Helen stands back from the large canvas. Nothing but trouble all morning. Been going at it hard. Pushing paint till she’s pushed the life out of the pigment. Mess upon mess. The color flat.
The composition heavy. Fussy. Static and lifeless.
She can’t get back to get what she’d seen that night.
But what had she seen? She looks at the wall tacked with preliminary sketches. Something’s there. There’s fluidity in those drawings, the bodies and the exterior shapes together create containment. Energy that allows for distinct figures. And intimacy. They are intimates.
But on the canvas there’s distance. Even alienation.
Helen knows better than to strain like this. Knows walking away is sometimes the most important moment of her workday.
She could go out for a walk.
She could call Asa, beg him to meet her for an early movie. Tell him to meet her home, in their bed.
She puts down the brush, leaves it globbed on the glass palette.
Then she’s out the studio door to the stairwell. Runs stairs two at a time. Up. Eight floors. Down to street level. Back up again. She pushes. Repetitions. Then more. Till she’s back in front of the studio door, hanging over herself, breathless.
There, by the edge of the barn, Helen sees she’s made a smudge. She’d not paid attention to it before. The mark, distinct, has bulk. Somehow she hasn’t painted over it in all her fussing. She squints. She isn’t sure what the shape is trying to become. This is how she works. Avoids ever saying it in interviews. Sounds flaky. But she tries to allow the initial marks to declare themselves. She feels first gestures might almost best be done blindfolded—letting memory hold the brush, letting deep memory without the instant judgment of self-observation hold the brush. Keep the censors away. At least for the first. These memory markings. What she hasn’t noticed or seems unremarkable at the time often provides surprise. The deep surprise. It is what might be discovered. Uncovered is more like it.