Unfurled

by Michelle Bailat-Jones

  27

  MY FIRST SURPRISE OF THE EVENING—we are at a restaurant, we are “celebrating” my dad’s life—is George and how he shape-shifts and changes size. Usually such a small contained person, I watch his shoulders straighten with each “John would have …” and his body grow taller with each “John loved …” It doesn’t matter who says these things, they are all somehow coming from or directed at George. They surround him while we eat at two long tables covered in a fisherman’s feast. His arms move and his hands dance, and he parcels out his entire friendship up and down the table to the nods and smiles and tears of everyone listening.

  It’s like he’s breaking off pieces of memory and tossing them out—a weekend of fishing here, a hike to Anderson Lake here, a joke at a ball game, a near emergency at the Vashon pier, a car accident when they were teenagers. He gives it all, and the more he talks, the more impossible it seems for him to stop. He’s going over their entire relationship, he’s reliving it.

  He continues to expand across the evening—and for the first time since I’ve known George and Lisa as a couple, George is taking up all the space. His newly broadened shoulders radiate a kind of demented joy. There’s an edge to him, but he’s so glorious it doesn’t matter. Everyone wants to be near him. Everyone wants to hear him. I do, too. His stories feel like hot water on my skin but I can’t seem to pull myself from his orbit, even laughing at all the right moments, nodding in corroboration if he asks me to.

  “Remember?” he says.

  “I remember,” I say.

  “Remember?” he says to Lisa, or to Neil.

  “I remember,” they say.

  Everyone is smiling. I’m smiling, too. But my smiling feels like a muscle movement, like something my face is doing on its own, with no connection to how I’m really feeling. So I watch everyone else, too. Are their smiles genuine? I think they are. I pick up my napkin and I wipe it carefully across my lips. Then I use it to sweep bread crumbs from the table to the floor. This is a really nice restaurant. The freshest fish. The most flavorful herbs.

  When we leave the restaurant and move to a nearby brewery, a place my dad used to stop by on his way home from work, I watch George grow even taller until he seems to tower over the other ferry captains and mechanics and able-bodied seamen. He tells the loudest stories, laughs with his entire body, accepts hugs from strangers, and dances with Lisa when she brings him a beer. This is when I know his grief is no longer lodged firmly in his spine. Tonight isn’t some fluke of emotional exhaustion. His body has lightened. He’s figured out how to make these two parts of his life—the one with my dad, and this new one without—touch at some point that he can actually see now. It will take all his storytelling, and all his good cheer, but they will fit. Someday they will feel seamless. This is when I can’t stand to be near him anymore. I’m not angry with him, but my own spine is still housing an unwanted guest.

  As I’m moving away, Lisa reaches for me. “It’s going to be okay, Ella.” So I know she’s noticed it, too. Her relief is palpable. She won’t have to worry so much about him anymore.

  I nod at her. I think, sure, it’s going to be okay.

  But my second surprise of the evening comes when Neil hands me the car keys, sees the beer in my hand, and says, “You probably shouldn’t finish that.” My glass is completely full.

  His face is smooth in the dim light and a shadow on his cheek makes it seem like he’s actually smiling. His blonde hair is ruffled, a bit too long because he was due for a haircut already last week. For a moment we are students again, we’ve just met in a Cell Biology course and I’m thrilled to run into him outside of the classroom. For a moment, we hardly know each other and we’re about to sit down together and begin a conversation that doesn’t stop until three in the morning, until we’re leaning in so close our margins have blurred. For a moment, I want only to stand so close that I can feel the heat from his arm radiating across to mine. But he doesn’t stay to talk to me, he just hands me a glass of water and walks out into the crowd. Our margins are completely distinct.

  I watch him with a group of crew members—their white uniforms still bright, unwrinkled, despite the hours they’ve been wearing them. And Neil seems to fit in so well here. Everyone knows him. All these people. There are so many people here to celebrate my dad’s life: men and women and even some children. Face after face after face. And I think how I should know these people. Some of them talk to me, and maybe I answer them in the right way. Nod when they say, “I’m so sorry,” and put on a good face when they ask how I’m doing.

  I say, “I’m hanging in there.”

  I say, “Thank you so much for coming.”

  I say, “Gathering like this is exactly what he would want.”

  At some point, I lose track of Neil completely. But when I think enough time has passed and I could excuse myself and go home, he is nowhere to be found. I walk around the bar several times, back and forth, until George sees me, stops me.

  “I can’t find, Neil,” I say.

  George furrows his brow. “He left already. He said you knew.”

  So I nod and say, of course I knew, I’m just tired. Then, “It’s been a long day.”

  I watch George and he’s still so tall. So filled up with his movement forward. He can look me in the eye, his eyes brimming with the good memories he’s relived this evening. A light from the bar paints his cheek red, and all I can think about is Mrs. Baumann’s white hair as we walked out of the church, how it changed color in the stained glass.

  George calls over to Lisa and I know they’re lying, but they say they’re ready to go and offer to drive me home. But I’ve got the car keys anyway. I jiggle them, smile and say, “No need. I’ve got the car.”

  “But Neil,” says Lisa, her mouth open, trying to sort it out.

  “It’s okay,” I say. “It will all work out.”

  “What will work out?” she says.

  When I don’t answer, she follows me, her skirt swishing, her scarf trailing behind her. I turn back to her, take her scarf and knot it once around her neck.

  “There,” I say, “Don’t lose this.”

  “Ella …?” she seems to shout, but I am already turned around and headed out the door.

  Out into the night then, and for the first time in days it isn’t raining, and there’s no wind. The sky is perfectly black. I breathe deep. It is always there—the smell of the ocean, the seaweed and the salt. I stand next to my car for some time, breathing. I see two more people I should know—is that Leonid? I don’t think I could ever forget those arms and his great beak of a nose—walking out of the door but they don’t see me. No one sees me where I’m standing in the darkness. I’m there, but I’m not there at all.

  The Champoeg. How clever this was, Captain. Hiding her information where anyone could see it.

  When I get back to my dad’s house—which is empty, as I’ve expected it to be—the first thing I do is Google the phone number listed after The Champoeg. It’s so easy. In only a few seconds I’ve got the listing for Friends’ Farm, an intentional community twenty minutes southeast of Eugene. Its website is sparse but it’s clearly a farming and living collective, like so many that still dot the Pacific Northwest. There are no member names listed, no pictures of the people. Only a series of bright photographs of artfully arranged piles of produce arranged by season. Fall: dozens of squash varieties, a U-pick pumpkin patch, heirloom zucchinis. Winter: loose leaf Christmas tea spread across white linens, cinnamon candles. Spring: wildflower bouquets, woven baskets filled with honey pots, bunches of tulips and daffodils. Summer: U-pick berries by the bucketful held up by hands stained pink and purple. The website offers two things in writing besides the directions: a guarantee—All our produce is 100% organic and both planted and picked with care—and a warning—All transactions must be made in cash.

  I don’t call the number. I put my phone down and sit in the living room, my dad’s ashes in their box beside me on the couch, and I wait for Nei
l. I wait for Neil with the palms of my hands cupped over my aching breasts. My body is doing so well, I think, doing what needs to be done. I feel nearly sorry for it; its work will be interrupted and it will have to adjust. Around 2:00 AM, I wake with a start, still on the couch, my neck and right shoulder stiff. The house is silent. The dogs are curled up on the floor at my feet. I listen with my whole body, but I can tell this house is perfectly silent. Neil isn’t here. I stand for twenty minutes trying to compose a text to him but eventually I turn off my phone and crawl into bed.

  But I’ve missed my window. Whatever sleep my body needed, it accomplished while I was on the couch. I lie still and I catalog my body—my legs under the sheets, my hip bone pressed against the mattress, my arms tucked up under my face. My limbs are heavy, my skin feels dry. I am contained beneath this sheet, the shape of me a solid and heavy object. I try and I hope and I breathe, but I cannot pretend I don’t feel it. This heat in my lower abdomen, the constant pull of nausea.

  A cell cluster. A mass of tissue.

  I told a client once: “Any embryo is hell-bent on life. It will grow faster than you imagine.”

  If the owner isn’t breeding their animal, I always recommend sterilization before any chance of insemination. It’s so much easier on the mother dog or cat or cow or horse. How many times have I said this to clients waiting out that first year? Dozens. Hundreds. And every week I perform this surgery. It is one of my favorites because it involves such perfect efficiency. In vet school we learn about this. What is the most efficient way to close a body after surgery? If we are careful we can control the functioning of a scar. How it will manifest itself both within and on the outside of an injury. Despite its potential length, depending on the animal, one of the easiest scars to manage is the one following sterilization. This makes it my favorite. Because the scar I craft will vanish completely. It isn’t a complicated procedure, and only involves a double closure, inner stitches and outer staples. These two layers knit together so that when the staples are finally removed the skin unrolls, pink and delicate but perfectly smooth, leaving nothing but a hairless line down the delicate belly, softened by the surrounding rustle and tide of fur. As if the injury never happened.

  My appointment is in five hours. I wonder when Neil is coming back.

  I get up, shower, eat a bowl of cereal, walk around my dad’s house, throw up the bowl of cereal. Drink a glass of water. Put on a sports bra instead of my normal bra. Eat a cracker.

  My appointment is in four hours. I walk through the house, up the stairs and down the stairs and out into the backyard with the dogs, out onto the front lawn to look at the car, at the neighbor’s houses. I eat another cracker. The sky is threatening rain again. Winter is so long here, I think. So wet and so dark. The animals have it right—migration, hibernation, adaptation. I could achieve torpor, I think. I could reduce and slow and hold it all in.

  The sound of a car pulling up along the curb. My appointment is in three and a half hours. The sound of a car door. A voice. Neil’s voice. “Thank you,” he says. The sound of a car pulling away. The dogs are barking now, they’ve heard him.

  The sound of footsteps in the driveway. The sound of a hand at our car parked in the driveway, but I’ve locked the door, so there is nothing but the click of the handle being pulled, dropped back in place. Then the gate opening.

  There he is.

  He looks at me. I look at him. He knows one thing about me today. This thing is on his face. What do I know about him? He raises a hand to his face, fingertips to his temple, elbow hard bent, like he’s about to salute me. But the gesture falls apart and he says, “Give me the car keys.”

  I can hear in his voice that he’s drunk. All six feet of him. Messy and sloppy and hard-alcohol drunk.

  “You can’t drive, Neil.”

  He laughs and his whole body slumps. Then rights itself with a small sway. “I don’t want to drive,” he says. “Just give me the keys.”

  “No.”

  “No, yourself. I want them all back. They’re in the car.”

  “What are?”

  But he shakes his head. “They’re mine.” His voice is loud, too loud. It doesn’t sound like Neil. The dogs have shied away from him, are watching him from a distance.

  “I’ll get them myself,” and he pushes past me up the steps and into the kitchen, returns with the keys. I don’t stop him. As he walks past me, his arm brushes mine and the place where we touch retains the sensation of our touching. My arm moves without my permission, follows him but he’s already at the gate. Out the gate. Opening the car.

  I hear rustling. I cannot seem to get my feet moving. I’ve never seen Neil so drunk and there is something spectacular about it. So noisy and chaotic. Despite his tall frame, Neil is the kind of person who can enter a room without anyone noticing. But now every movement is signaled, outsized. I walk toward the gate, into the driveway and see him half in the passenger side door, his legs sprawled out the open door. He’s throwing things over the door—a bright red maple leaf, a clutch of green ferns, a small white shell, rocks. These are my things. Objects he’s given me that have collected in the car. His extraordinary gifts.

  He yells, still throwing, “You’re not going to ask me, so I’m just going to tell you.” Another leaf floats down beside the car door. “I don’t care, Ella. I’m telling you. Because everyone agrees. You’re being unreasonable.”

  “Who is everyone?”

  He waves this away. He’s getting up now from the car. It’s so loud, the shuffling of his feet on the gravel, the rustling of his coat as he removes it. His face is red, and he’s carrying a small box. I recognize it but can’t remember from where. I shake my head. His coat falls off his arm, he reaches for it but sways. “Every fucking person I spoke to.”

  I watch him.

  “I’ve counted them up. Seventeen people. Men and women. Old and young. I even spoke to an old Chinese lady and she said I should leave you. She was clear about this.”

  “You told strangers about us?”

  He holds a hand up. “Just shut up.” He winces though, at the sound of these words. Looks up at the sky, bites his lip. “Do you want to know the best part?”

  I say nothing.

  “Wait. This is the best part. You can’t have the other things, but you need this.”

  He holds the box toward me. Small. Plain.

  He says, “Got the mail yesterday. Before the service. Didn’t want to upset you.” Here he laughs but it’s an awful grating sound. “Isn’t that amazing of me? I didn’t want to upset you.”

  The box has a number on it. Written in pencil. Number 42.

  “See,” he says, opening the box. “It’s all here.” He pulls out a small map of the Puget Sound. A sailor’s map. “This one,” he says, handing me the map, “this one is for your dad. His name is written on it.”

  I take the map and unfold it. Re-fold it.

  “And this one,” he says, sitting down on the stoop, pushing the dogs back, rubbing his eyes. “You’ll never fucking believe this, but this one is for me.” He pulls out what appears to be two knitted socks. “It took me all night to figure out what the hell these are. You’ll never guess.”

  He hands them to me. I have no idea what they are.

  “No, no,” he says. “Keep looking. It’s amazing actually. They’re so well knitted. They might actually work.”

  “What are they?”

  “They came folded up, tied with twine and they had my name on them, Ella. My fucking name.”

  How dare she, I think, and I begin to shiver. Why can she know about my life?

  “They’re hiking gaiters. She made them for me. She signed the note.”

  He’s nodding now, his face twisted and puffy. “Exactly. Creepy, isn’t it? I thought so. So it throws everything upside down for you, doesn’t it? Good. But they’re beautiful. I’m actually going to use them when I go out to research. They’ll be perfect. They’ll keep my feet dry.”

  “This was i
n the mailbox?”

  He nods, no longer smiling. “Should I have given these to you yesterday?”

  I’m shaking with cold now, my teeth have begun to chatter.

  “Here’s the box. See for yourself. I need a shower before George and Lisa get here.”

  I check my watch. Yes, George and Lisa. We have one more task to accomplish today before I go to my appointment. Alone.

  “Neil?” I say, but he’s already getting up, shaking his head. He doesn’t seem drunk anymore now. Not even a little.

  He walks up into the house, but before he turns around he looks at me. I know what he’s asking. Instead, I look into the box.

  There’s another item in the box. A small package of sterile surgical masks, and a leaflet from the CDC. My fingers reach for this stack of masks—once, twice, three times, but they fumble with the soft paper, drop them. I sit down on the stoop, put the box on my lap. There are little folded papers and bits of string; Neil has cut the strings, but the papers are clearly little tags: John, Ella, Neil. And then a larger folded paper. I open it: Next box will be late, in six weeks. Number 43 will be late. Okay? And Hal says the 16th for the island, okay? Sincerely, Maggie Tomlinson.

  I turn the box over to check the date stamp while that wave crashes over me once again. The impossibility of her. The cold and the wet. The package was stamped in Eugene, OR, two days after my dad’s accident.

  28

  WHEN GEORGE AND LISA ARRIVE, Neil and I are standing together on the front stoop. The dogs have each been given a rawhide bone to chew while we’re away. George is driving, Lisa is putting chapstick on as their car pulls up to the curb. Neil and I don’t move, waiting for their car to stop completely. From a distance we must look so well matched. His shoulders a few inches above mine, my head reaching so easily the space between his shoulders and his cheek. Our feet could be touching, my hand could quickly slip into his open hand.