Ink and Bone

by Lisa Unger

  “Your marriage is over,” she said. “It has been for a long time. You said so yourself. I know it’s been hard.”

  She bowed her head here. Why did it seem like she was trying to look sad, understanding—like she was acting? “But we need to move forward.”

  That she could be sitting here, saying this to him, made him think of Blake.

  “Man, that girl is—”

  Wolf thought Blake was going to say “hot” or “sweet.” Wolf had kind of sprung Kristi on Blake. Blake was his best friend, and Kristi at the time, in the beginning, was making him so happy; he needed to share it. So he had her pop in just quickly at the Upper East Side bar where Wolf was meeting Blake for a drink.

  “Empty,” Blake finished. “She’s completely vacant. No offense, man—you know I love you. But when you have a woman like Merri, and two great kids, why would you do something like this to your family?”

  That moment, after which Blake paid the bill and left, had put a real strain on their friendship.

  (Blakey and Claire canceled for the cabin, Merri told him the next day, disappointed, mystified. They’d been vacationing together most summers for a decade. Any idea why? She’s been acting so weird. They’d tell us if they were having problems, wouldn’t they?) Wolf had been pissed, knowing that Blake had told Claire that Wolf was fucking around, breaking the sacred man code.

  Now, Wolf inched toward the door. He didn’t move fast anymore, which is one of the reasons he needed to leave soon. The city that he used to navigate with the arrogant ease of the young and healthy was now a painful obstacle course of stairs and uneven sidewalks, crushing crowds, and uncomfortable subway rides where suddenly younger people offered up their seats—seeing at first his crutch, then his obvious limp. Even the kindest touch could hurt when you were a raw and bleeding open wound, which he was.

  He was healing, but not quickly. But he was glad for the almost constant pain. He deserved it. He deserved a lot worse. The bullet had just missed the major artery but broken the bone, lodging itself into his femur. (In dark moments, he’d wished it had killed him.) The doctor had opted to leave it in, rather than risk nerve injury. The bone would heal around it, apparently. Wolf imagined that he could feel the cold bit of metal inside the knitting flesh and bone, a hard, icy reminder to carry with him forever, to remind him how he had failed his beautiful Abbey. How he had failed them all. Ever since they’d been kids, Wolf had always wished he were more like Blake. Nothing like this could ever happen to his friend; Blake wouldn’t allow it.

  “You know, Wolf,” Kristi said now. “I’ve been suffering, too.”

  He almost laughed. A young, pretty, childless woman of privilege did not know suffering.

  “Did you just say that?” he asked. “Do you have no idea what we have been going through?”

  Of course, she didn’t. She was a spectator, had no skin in the game. He didn’t want to blame her. Everything rested cleanly on his shoulders. But deep down inside where he might hold a little bit of love or affection for her, there was only a cold, angry feeling. If it hadn’t been for you—

  But that was the old Wolf. The Wolf who had not yet been harshly punished by the universe. The new chastened Wolf was trying to be there for his sundered, shattered family. He was trying to wade through the deepest, most unimaginable mire of horror, grief, and regret possible for a human to endure. And he only kept moving because of his beautiful, damaged boy who needed him to get whole again somehow. But Wolf was still fucking Kristi. How could he excuse this? He couldn’t.

  “I’m sorry,” she said. This time she looked sincere. “I know how hard it is. I can see that.”

  He waited for it.

  “But we had a plan. You made promises to me. Do you remember? I can’t put my life on hold forever.”

  Here was what he should have said:

  Kris, you’re right. I can’t string you along anymore. For a moment, a brief blistering moment, I thought that what we had was love. But I don’t love you. I never did. It’s only now, sifting through the debris of my life, the one I didn’t appreciate, that I realize what I’ve lost. You should just find a nice guy your age (yeah, she was only twenty-five). Find a nice guy with a blog and a Facebook page, maybe even a fat publishing contract. Someone who is young enough to confuse lust with love, someone who is shallow enough to never notice that you have the emotional depth of a kiddie pool. I have been sleeping with you because you are simply the only easy pleasure I have had in my life for ages. Now that you are no longer easy? You are just not worth the effort.

  Instead:

  “Look, Kris, my mom and dad are coming to spend time with Jackson tonight. I’ll come over, okay? We’ll talk more.”

  She wiped her tears, that bright smile coming back a little.

  “And we’ll figure it out?” she said. “We’ll make another plan?”

  “Yeah,” he lied. He lifted her bright red wool coat from the hook on the wall and handed it to her. “We will.”

  “You promise?” She stretched up to kiss him softly on the lips. He let her because honestly she was the only person who kissed him anymore—other than pecks on the cheek from his mom. Jackson endured Wolf’s kisses to the forehead. Merri wouldn’t come near him; she actually recoiled from physical contact with him. Who could blame her?

  “I promise,” he said.

  As they exited the building, she had that little bounce in her step again. She had no idea that they were never going to see each other again. He had always been an excellent liar.

  *

  Uptown, Wolf got off the train a stop early to force himself to walk the extra distance even though his leg screamed in protest, and his physical therapist told him that he might be overdoing it.

  “For injuries,” the physical therapist said, “rest is as important as the right exercises.”

  Their family therapist had said something similar. That they should be finding ways to relax and even have fun together again, just the three of them. That it wasn’t disloyal to Abbey to find joy again. Which was complete and utter bullshit.

  He ignored all the Abbeys he saw. The Abbey in the purple jacket and pink cheetah print helmet riding a Razor scooter beside her mom. The Abbey as she might look twenty years from now—wheat-colored hair pulled back, wearing jeans and a stylish black poncho, holding hands with her hipster boyfriend, whom Wolf was sure to despise. The Abbey as she had been, a little pink peanut in a stupid-expensive stroller (It’s a pram! A car seat! A high chair! A booster!) with Mom jogging behind trying desperately to lose weight she didn’t need to lose.

  All the Abbeys that were and would never be because of his careless, shitty brand of fatherhood. The smart phone dad—always taking pictures and posting beautiful filtered shots on Facebook and Instagram for others to admire, forgetting almost entirely to look with his own eyes.

  He saw Jackson standing outside the school, resting against the gray brick wall and staring at his iPhone. It was the perfect fall ­afternoon—cool but not cold, leaves shedding, street full of kids and parents heading home from school, not yet crushed with commuters rushing to and fro.

  His kid looked like a scarecrow, balancing on one thin leg, blond hair spiky all over, so fragile as if he could blow away or burst into flames. All of this was hardest on the kid. Wolf thought for a moment that Jackson had ditched the crutch he was still using. As Wolf drew closer, he saw it leaning against the wall next to Jackson.

  “Hey, buddy,” he called. “What are you doing out here?”

  Maybe it was progress. Usually Jackson wouldn’t step outside without one of them. Though what help the kid thought his useless father would be, Wolf couldn’t imagine.

  “I don’t know,” said Jackson as his dad approached.

  Wolf bent down with effort and took Jackson’s book bag. In doing so, he caught a glimpse of Jackson’s phone. The New York Times app was open to a breaking story about a school shooting in Texas.

  “Jacko,” said Wolf. “Come on. You’r
e not supposed—”

  “I know.”

  “The doctor said—”

  “I know.” He almost yelled—the sweetest, most gentle kid that ever was. An angel baby, Merri had called him. Sleeping through the night by two weeks old, rarely a peep out of him. Softer: “I can’t help it, Dad. I just can’t.”

  Wolf ran a hand along the back of Jackson’s silky, beautifully shaped head, fighting back a powerful rush of sadness and pain. Was there no end to it?

  “I get it,” he said. “I get it. Let’s go get a smoothie at Papaya King.”

  A longish walk that would do them both good. He hoped.

  EIGHT

  Something was different. Something had shifted. The air had a peculiar scent; the gray of the sky was darker punching against the bright white of the high clouds. Something. What was it? Eloise watched Finley go—the girl’s thin form crouched over the roaring machine, speeding away. That girl thought she owned the world; maybe she did. She didn’t believe that she could make a mistake, get hurt. Eloise envied her arrogance a little, even as she cautioned against it. As Finley turned the corner out of sight, Eloise smiled, in spite of herself.

  It had been on the tip of her tongue, the thing Eloise wanted to say. “Finley,” she almost said. “Can you be late today? We should have a talk.” But she’d never found the courage to push the words out. What point was there, really? What good would it do?

  Back inside the house, the old clock ticked, the floorboards creaked, the pictures of her family stared at her from the wall. All these things seemed real and solid, permanent. Of course, it wasn’t so. Everything tended toward breaking down, entropy. Time and gravity were immutable forces that pulled the world apart. If not for constant vigilance, the fabric on the sofas would mold and rot, the roof would start to sink, shingles and shutters would fall. The house would be a ruin one day. And that was right, as it should be. Nothing is forever.

  Eloise took her bag from the hall table and headed out the door.

  In the car, she drove down the road. So many years later, she never failed to remember the day Emily and Alfie died whenever she passed the place where the tractor-trailer drifted into their lane, forcing them all into a head-on collision. After which: Alfie and Emily were gone; Eloise and Amanda were left to go on; and Eloise began to hear the dead—their voices, their stories. It had been a day like any other day, not the shade of any warning, not a tingle, not a sense of anything to come. Lives lost, lives altered from one moment to the next. Other people would have moved, left this place, at least not forced themselves to drive the same road every day. But Eloise was not other people. She didn’t want to forget, to move on. You didn’t have to do those things to let go.

  She drove through town, past the Java Stop and Miss Lovely’s Bed & Breakfast. At the light, Jake, proprietor of Jake’s Pub, waved to her as he crossed in front of her car. She lowered her window to hear what he was saying.

  “I can feel winter coming,” he said again.

  “Me, too,” she said, smiling. “Have a good one.”

  He smiled in that way they sometimes do afterwards, after they’d laid their problems at your feet, and she’d helped the best she could. Sometimes it was enough and they were grateful; sometimes not, and they were disappointed. But it was always awkward when there was nothing left to do but accept. Jake had asked her for answers about a woman he’d lost long ago. He’d given her a necklace, and Eloise had a dream. It was never easy to watch a big, strong man break down and cry, even though she should be used to it by now. Every time they saw each other now, Eloise and Jake, they each remembered that moment, when he cried and she held him.

  She passed the yoga studio where some lithe women lingered chatting outside the door after class. Then past the hardware store and the community garden that a group of mothers had started in an empty lot owned by the city. Finally, she took the road out of town, toward Agatha’s.

  It was a short drive. Agatha was outside what was now formally called The Hollows, but she was still part of the place. The old-timers knew that The Hollows was bigger than the modern town boundaries dictated. The Hollows went on and on, up into the hills. Just because some civil engineers decided to demarcate a proper line between towns didn’t make it so.

  She drove along the quiet road, between the towering pines until she came to Agatha’s drive, and then she turned. She moved through the gate that stood open, took the long driveway up. When she arrived, she sat and watched the house for a minute. She had a feeling that her old friend would be out back. Why had she come? She couldn’t even say.

  She didn’t bother walking up to the door but made her way around the side of the house. She had been right; Agatha was sitting out in the gazebo past the pool that used to gleam with bright blue water but was covered now. The house had gotten too big for her, a rambling old thing. But she stayed on. I can’t leave here any more than you can, she’d said once. And Eloise had bristled at this. I can leave here whenever I want, she’d thought then. But Agatha had been right about that, as she had been about so much.

  “You’re here about Finley,” said Agatha as Eloise approached. “Among other things.”

  “You must be psychic,” said Eloise. Agatha gave a little chortle at that.

  She was smaller than she used to be, frailer. When Eloise had first known her, nearly thirty years ago now, Agatha’s power used to radiate off of her in waves. She was a big woman, always clad in tunics and scarves and flowy pants. Just her presence brought comfort; it energized. That was at the height of it, when the waiting list for her speak-to-the-dead business was three years long, when she traveled on her private jet to help law enforcement agencies, make talk show appearances, help families find their lost. The years had slowed her down. Toward the end, she saw fewer people, was able to do less, see less.

  Eloise sat opposite Agatha, whose long white hair was tied back in a bun. She was dressed in white, a flowing tunic and linen pants. She fingered a strand of big black beads around her neck. From where Eloise sat, the beads looked like skulls, faces pulled taut in anger and sadness, fear, misery.

  “We’re getting old,” said Agatha.

  “Yes,” said Eloise.

  The Whispers were usually quiet here, but today they were loud. Most people would hear the sound as just the wind in the leaves. But it was so much more, a million voices telling their stories, the full rainbow of human experience—birth and death, joy and grief, fear and love. Eloise had been listening for a long time now. Too long.

  “It’s her time,” said Agatha. “She’ll take the seat of her power. Whether she wants to or not.”

  Eloise felt a pang of grief. She didn’t want this for Finley, any more than she had wanted it for herself. Under that, there was a selfish current of relief.

  “And me?”

  Agatha looked at Eloise with eyes that were blue and knowing, her gaze expansive and forgiving.

  “Ray wants me to come to San Francisco,” Eloise said. Even as the words were out of her mouth, she finally knew that she wouldn’t be going to him. She’d been putting him off since Finley came, thinking that it was Finley who needed her. But it wasn’t as simple as that. Finley thought she needed Eloise, but she didn’t, not really. She was just leaning on her, finding a balance she ­already had.

  Poor Ray, he’d been waiting so long. There hadn’t been enough of her for him in the end. She’d never stopped loving Alfie, and there were so many people who had needed her help. There wasn’t anything but a sliver of her left over for Ray.

  “But I won’t be going, will I?”

  Agatha lifted a hand to Eloise, who took it.

  Once long ago, Agatha had turned up on Eloise’s doorstep. She’d seen Eloise on the evening news, shortly after Alfie’s and Emily’s passings, and knew immediately that Eloise needed a visit. Eloise had been in the throes of despair, grieving, trying to understand what was happening to her. And Agatha, a seasoned medium with years of experience under her belt, had guided her wi
th a firm and loving hand into the next phase of her life. If it hadn’t been for her friend, Eloise might have been consumed by misery. Still, Eloise always thought of herself as a bad student. So many things Agatha had tried to teach, Eloise never learned. Finley was already better at those things—setting boundaries, saying when. Agatha was a vastly superior teacher for Finley than Eloise because she had, like Finley, grown into her abilities at a young age. They hadn’t been thrust upon her in midlife, in the wake of tragedy.

  “You are a part of this place, Eloise,” said Agatha. “Like the tree in your yard, rooted deep into the earth, your branches reaching up to the stars.”

  The Whispers reached a crescendo, then fell off, growing softer. They demanded that she listen. And Eloise had been listening. She’d done little else, her life devoted to answering the call. She didn’t have any regrets. Sorrows, but not regrets. She closed her eyes and let the cool wind caress her. When she opened them again, Agatha was gone. Eloise was alone in the gazebo.

  She sat there for she didn’t know how long, listening. And then finally, perhaps for the first time, she took the advice she’d just given to Finley that morning. She heard.

  As Finley climbed off her bike, her cell phone chimed.

  howz it goin freakshow?

  Her brother Alfie.

  id try to explain, but ur such a muggle u wont get it, she typed back.

  hangin with dead people cuz u can’t make frenz who breathe

  at least my friends dont drag their knuckles on the ground and beat their chests

  oo oo ah ah—seriously

  its ok the hollows is a little lame. hows mom?

  misses u. seems sad. seeing dad again.

  Ugh. wus up w/u?

  Ssdd

  come on

  all good—school, soccer, board—livin the dream

  nothing weird?

  i wish.

  no you don’t

  tell rainer I said hey

  Finley’s brother Alfie was three years younger than she was and her opposite in every way. His hair was as sunshiny blond as hers was midnight black. He was big—tall with broad shoulders—where she was tiny. And he was totally normal, not a hint of any ability. He wasn’t even especially intuitive. He was the good boy—never in trouble, never causing their parents any grief—did well in school, total jock, competitive skateboarder. Alfie Max Montgomery was their mother’s favorite child. But Finley didn’t blame her for this. Alfie was Finley’s favorite, too. He was a soft place in a family full of hard angles. He was even nice enough to go by Alfie when he really wanted to be called Max—a way better name for a skater punk.