At the time, in confused revulsion, Dennis turned away. When he did he saw that the Gann had come to: he’d opened his eyes and was scowling. “Fuck,” he said, and, “Fuckin’ that hurt,” and he pushed himself to sitting, ignoring Dennis’s suggestion that he might want to lie there a little longer. And in that next small moment before Kitty and Ava and Ginny Gann and some of the other Gann kids came bounding down the hill toward the court, Dennis struggled against the sense that there was in fact something funny about the incident: the squat, muscle-bound Gann, trying to impress Ava with all the foot-smelling, ankle-grabbing finesse of a caveman, suddenly being flattened by the graceful blur of this huge, bumbling boy. Was that the joke, or was it even more rudimentary: simply the ancient infantile comedy of peekaboo? On-off. Here-gone. Permanence-impermanence. Ho-ho-ho.
In any case, as Ginny Gann knelt before her son—palpating with her clinician’s impartiality the areas at the base of his skull and around his collarbones, looking into his eyes and asking him questions that he answered grudgingly, with robust adolescent embarrassment—Dennis was appalled to discover himself overcome with the urge to laugh. He suppressed it as best he could. It wound up sounding like a cross between a burp and a retch, and garnered suspicious looks from both Ginny Gann and Kitty, but the former quickly resumed testing her son’s mental faculties, and the latter was diverted by one of the little Gann girls, who, seeing her brother alive and well, was now begging Kitty and Ava to swing her between them by the hands.
That evening after supper, most of Batter Hollow strolled down to the new seven-square court for its inaugural game. Dennis could not help but feel proud when, in addition to the kids, several of the grown-ups lined up for a position, too: Jim and Katinka, who played with rangy, cutthroat flair; Don, who compensated for the deprivations of middle age with the canny grace of a former athlete; June, who, though light on her feet, proved gaily inept at getting the ball to land within bounds; and even Marty and Pearl Salinas-Buchbinder, who so rarely left the quiet of the ivy-covered Annex, where they liked to remain ensconced among their books and papers, the chamber music they favored wafting softly out the windows. The Gann parents didn’t come, but all the kids were there, including the one Fred had knocked down earlier, seeming none the worse except for a scrape, already scabbing over, at his temple. Meg Manseau, whose hips bothered her, and Neel Robbins, who was by then in his mid-seventies and the survivor of his first mild stroke, sat on folding chairs in the grass with the low sun at their backs, the midges arcing around them like pale sparks in the light. Dennis was given the honor of inhabiting the king spot first, but he didn’t hold his position long, and as soon as he got out, Neel summoned him over.
“What gave you the idea?” He gestured toward the court with his huge lavender teacup, which still contained enough of his evening Postum to slosh precariously as he pointed. Though it was a warm evening, Neel wore a cardigan and had a light shawl draped across his knees. His hair, backlit by the setting sun, looked as gossamer as the midges.
“Well, it was partly wanting to see if there was a way to get more people playing at once.” Dennis stooped a little to converse; Neel wore hearing aids now.
“Yes?”
“Yeah, with so many kids, the little ones especially get out quickly and then they have to wait in line. Also I’d been wanting to try out this idea from a class I took, the Art of Structural Design.”
“Remind me, you’re at . . . ?”
“Columbia.” Dennis always had the urge to say sir when he spoke to Neel. A vestige, perhaps, of his prep school days; at Clembrook the boys had addressed the headmaster as sir. Neel, for all his strident refutation of such formalities, nevertheless seemed to wear a mantle of authority as plain as the plaid shawl now spread on his lap. A paradox, Dennis thought when he was feeling fond of Neel. Hypocrisy, he thought when he was not.
“Majoring in . . . ?”
“Civil engineering. In this class we talked about the ethics of design.”
“Ah,” crowed Neel. He raised his Postum in tribute, whether to the seven-square court or to the ethics of design, Dennis wasn’t sure. “Chip off the old block,” he announced, enigmatically (did he mean Dennis reminded him of Don and Meg, or could he in some addled, grandiose way be referring to himself, to the legacy of Batter Hollow, even though Dennis had never been a student there?), but Meg just laughed appreciatively and smiled up at her son. “We like him.”
Dennis allowed himself to straighten now to his full, comfortable height and, surveying all the people playing or waiting for a turn on the court he’d made, feeling the sun baking on his back and the welcome chill of evening beginning to rise up from inside the earth, could not help basking in a sense of well-being. He had to admit, it felt good being praised by Neel Robbins. Whatever his feelings about the man, he was, after all, the paterfamilias of a vast community consisting not only of the people gathered here this evening, but all the legions of Batter Hollow alum who’d gone on to make names for themselves.
Not to mention he was the pater of Ava Robbins. Ava Robbins, admittedly too young for him, but ah! Long-armed and leggy, smooth and summer-brown of face, she was so alluringly, inscrutably serious: just look at her standing there now in line, one hand clasping the other elbow behind her back, feet planted wide, attuned to the game, attuned vigilantly, it seemed, to Fred, who’d made it to the number three square and was following the ball with a kind of jangling focus. Slack-jawed, he barked out one of his peculiar laughs from time to time, but on the whole was keeping it together and doing well in the game. Ava regarded Fred with such concentration she appeared oblivious to all else, insensible to anything not-Fred. When the ball next came to his square and he overshot, so that it cannoned clear beyond the asphalt court and bounced into the tall, prickly grasses down the meadow, her face crimped in a disappointment so reflexive it was as if she were actually wired to something: her brother, the ball, the disgusted groan of the Gann who went off to retrieve it.
Had Dennis ever watched anything with such concentration as Ava watched her brother? Even as he studied her, he could not help but be conscious of other things: the sweet July breeze on his arms; the pride that attached to him through the game being played on his court; his mother and Neel in their folding chairs beside him; the possibility that he might be observed, considered, by others. Although not by Ava. She was lost to herself. As if to confirm what he was thinking, a damselfly landed then on her head. Dennis watched as it folded and respread its wings, the needle of its body jewel-bright against her brown curtain of hair, and flew off again, unmarked.
It struck him that this quality of deep, obviating focus was something the siblings had in common, a kind of ingenuousness so pure it bordered on indecent.
• • •
THANKSGIVING FELL just days after Ava came back from Perdu. The Manseaus were hosting at their Jane Street apartment in the Village. Dennis and Ava had signed on to bring pureed peas, roasted root vegetables and apple cake. Dennis was clad in clean black jeans and a heathery green sweater Ava had picked out, Ava in a long brown A-line dress with blanket stitching and the amethyst drop earrings Dennis had given her on their seventh anniversary, purchased from the little cigar-scented antique shop in town. When they assembled in their front hall, loaded with CorningWare and a foil-covered roasting dish and the cake plate draped with a tea towel, Dennis caught sight of them both in the small mirror that hung next to the door and felt a heaviness in his chest. She had taken such care to adorn herself festively for the occasion, yet she looked so lost. He bent and kissed the top of Ava’s head. “You’re gorgeous.”
She gave him a seven-watt smile.
“Tell me about you,” he said in the car.
“I’m thinking about Fred.”
“I know that. Tell me about Ava.”
“Ava’s thinking about Fred.”
Miles passed.
“Do you feel like te
lling what you’re thinking?” He knew that Ava had been able to visit Fred twice before she left Perdu. The first time, by her account, Fred had been essentially uncommunicative. The second time he had been worse.
She began a movement now that was like washing her hands in slow motion, her trademark and oddly sensual gesture of distress. “I’m scared for him. I’m scared for him right now in prison, and I’m scared for whatever’s going to happen to him for the rest of his life. I’m scared thinking about whatever happened. And I’m angry, and that scares me, too.”
“Why?”
“I’m not supposed to be angry at him.”
“Why not?”
But she didn’t explain. After a few more miles she said, “I keep trying to picture it, all different versions of what might have happened. He didn’t tell me anything. He sat there in these clothes that weren’t his, the terrible prison-green shirt and pants—why do they do that?”
“What?”
“Make them wear those clothes. Is it to punish them psychologically? It is a kind of punishment. I never thought of it before, until seeing him. It’s a terrible thing, making them all wear the same clothes. Neel would have hated it!” She gave a rough little laugh. “Why can’t they just let them wear their own clothes? I can understand no belts and zippers and things, but why not let them wear their own T-shirts and sweatpants?”
Dennis considered. “There might be security rea—”
“And he was bouncing—you know that thing he does when he’s nervous, how he bounces his legs? He was bouncing everything, his legs, his back, his head—I was dizzy watching him. He didn’t tell me anything . . . and I don’t know if he knows. I don’t know if he even knows what happened. Oh, Dennis!”—a kind of horror seemed to loft this last utterance, his name, make it skitter wildly up an unstable ladder so that he felt an impulse to throw out a hand to catch it, catch her—“I don’t know how his mind works!”
Dennis thought of pulling the car over, putting his arms around her, taking her face in his hands. He glanced sideways. Ava looked like a closed-up shop. Her knees were drawn in to her body, her feet up on the seat so she could wrap her arms around her legs. It was a child’s pose. She looked straight ahead. Out the window the trees, lean and burnished, flew by.
“How can I help?” asked Dennis. “What can I do?”
“Nothing.” Her voice thin and absolute. Then, with more warmth, “You’re already doing it.”
“What am I doing?”
“Loving me.”
“That isn’t anything,” he said.
“It is,” she corrected him. “It’s everything.”
• • •
DENNIS’S PARENTS’ APARTMENT comprised two rooms: a small one in which they slept and a very big one in which they did most everything else. The sole apartment on the top floor of a five-story walk-up, it had a skylight, hardwood floors and one long cork-covered wall on which hung dozens of paintings as well as a lush vertical herb garden. By the time Dennis and Ava got there the other guests had already arrived. Kitty and Tariq had brought fourteen-month-old Dilly, who was walking around like a broken wind-up toy, with a steadiness of purpose and immoderacy of speed that were out of kilter with her sense of balance: every few seconds she seemed about to go over, but remarkably did not fall. Don’s brother, Uncle Chris, was there, too, with his husband, Richard, and their eight-year-old daughter, Li-Hua. The other guest was Gerta Hauptmann, an octogenarian friend of the family who had worked as a photojournalist in the days when few women worked outside the house. She looked like an elegant puppet, with her hair like a skein of yarn and her little bent figure that seemed to be made of chicken wire, and she favored such long necklaces, featuring such heavy clay beads, that whenever she pivoted unexpectedly Dennis felt the urge to duck.
“Ava,” said Meg in her soft taffy voice. This was after the initial greetings, the shedding of their outer garments, the setting down of their dishes with all the other potluck offerings already crowding the butcher-block island. “We were sorry to hear about Fred’s troubles.” She looked her daughter-in-law in the eye a moment before folding her in a second, prolonged embrace.
“Who knows?” Ava glanced down toward the sitting area where the rest of the company had gravitated.
“Just us, honey. Don and me. And of course Tariq.”
Don was even more discreet, saying nothing to indicate he’d heard about Fred, just smiling at Ava, crinkly-eyed, with extra frequency and warmth, reaching out to squeeze her hand or shoulder from time to time, and refilling her glass even more attentively than was his wont. Tariq, handsome in his trim, hygienic way, offered her only his usual impeccable manners. Kitty betrayed her concern by planting herself loyally in Ava’s vicinity and noting whenever Ava fell out of interaction for what struck her as too long, at which point she’d try to baste Ava back into the fold by sharing some anecdote about Dilly or, whenever she felt more drastic measures were called for, by plunking the child bodily in Ava’s lap.
All their solicitude came as a relief to Dennis, who realized only now how much effort he’d expended these past few days, hovering in his wife’s vicinity, trying to gauge and maintain the ideal balance between attentiveness and distance. For Ava never wanted comforting in the way his other girlfriends had. She reacted to the smallest expressions of his love with gratitude and sometimes tremulous awe, and anytime he offered more than she deemed sufficient, she would retreat, as if it overwhelmed her system. Dennis had taught himself to respect her need for distance, as he had done, for example, last week, in acknowledging her wish to map her own route to Perdu in an old-fashioned way, on a paper map. He understood that this self-containment was part and parcel of what he loved about her. But in times of duress, especially when all he wanted to do was step in and fix whatever ailed her, he found it difficult to remain both attentive and actionless.
Now in his parents’ apartment, while others tended to Ava’s silent distress, he let himself go off duty. He talked English football with Richard and Tariq (the former rooted seriously for Manchester United; the latter was a rabid Liverpool fan). He kidded around with Li-Hua (having recently discovered sarcasm, she deployed it hilariously, with a novice’s enthusiasm and lack of nuance). He competed with his uncle Chris to see who could catch a cashew in his mouth thrown from the greatest distance. And when Dilly tugged on his pant leg, requesting an “’orsey ride,” he let out a whinny and sank to all fours. (“’Orsey? What are you, raising her Cockney?” Dennis asked Tariq. “Is this a ‘Go Liverpool’ thing?”)
Dilly was cutting a new tooth, drooling “like Niagara,” as Don phrased it several times, and experimenting with biting down on an array of textures as she toddled around the room or was passed from lap to lap. She bit so hard on one of Gerta Hauptmann’s clay beads that she broke it right off the string. “My word!” exclaimed the elderly lady, examining the shards in her palm, and then to Kitty, with well-mustered appreciation, “She has wonderfully strong jaws.” To which Kitty responded with a scream: Dilly, thrilling to the attention, had tried out a similar trick on her mother’s finger.
“No, Dillon,” said Kitty gravely, and holding out her hurt finger to Tariq: “Look at the toothmarks! Bad Dilly. Not funny,” she added, but the little girl only widened her bulldog grin.
“She’s your daughter,” said Don, lifting her delightedly.
“What’s that supposed to mean?” demanded Kitty. “I wasn’t a biter.”
Meg cut in peaceably. “Maybe it’s a sign that it’s time to eat.”
At the table—really three tables of slightly incompatible height and width pushed together and covered with a series of cloths—Dennis sat between Kitty and Richard and across from Ava, whose wineglass Don continued most attentively to replenish. Ava, he noticed, seemed to take each pour as a cue to drink, which she did with the air of an automaton. Somewhat guiltily, aware of how willingly he’d neglected her
during the pre-dinner hour, Dennis began trying to calculate how much she’d had. “Don’t forget your water, Ayv,” he said, leaning across the table and sliding it toward her, a cue she responded to with equally mechanical obedience, picking up her tumbler and taking a sip.
There was no turkey, Don and Meg having been vegetarians for decades, but the table groaned under untraditional bounty. There were, in addition to Dennis and Ava’s vegetables: a butternut-squash-and-zucchini galette, stuffed cabbage, two kinds of cornbread (Meg’s, which was closer to a corn pudding, and Richard’s jalapeño-and-cheddar contribution), green salad with pear and manchego, cranberry-orange chutney, potato latkes, and cold sesame noodles. For dessert there was the apple cake, chocolate-frosted pumpkin bars, and an old-fashioned icebox cake—a solo effort by Li-Hua, who, stripped from the moment of all sarcasm by her own blushing pride, recited from memory, at her dads’ urging, the recipe: squirt whipped cream on chocolate wafers, stick them together in the shape of two logs, refrigerate overnight.
“I made those back in the days when we really had iceboxes,” declared Gerta Hauptmann, and Dennis studied her wizened face across the table and did some math, trying to work out whether she was making a joke. She was so small that Meg had had to place a foam pillow on the chair for her, and now Dennis imagined her feet dangling above the floor. “I met your father, you know,” she said then, turning abruptly to Ava on her left.
Ava, who hadn’t said a word during the meal except to murmur thanks whenever Don filled her glass, frowned. The shell curve of her ear reddened. “My father is dead.”
“Oh no,” said Gerta. She gave Ava’s arm a tiny, spirited punch as if to say What a card. “Back when he first opened his school, this was, a million years ago, and everyone wanted an article about it. That’s when I was working for Life. Got sent up with a reporter. We took the train. Spent the day. I never wanted to leave.”
No Book but the World: A Novel Page 16