I returned to her door and opened it. The music was playing. Frances sat with her face in her hands weeping so hard her whole body shook violently.
“Oh Jesus, Frances!”
She looked up. Her face was crimson. Her cheeks were shiny from tears. She waved a hand at me to leave. I did not know how to help, how to save my friend from a fate so hopeless and decided. But I could fetch the doctor. Maybe the doctor had something that could calm her down and at least let her rest.
Dr. Zabalino was downstairs in the lobby talking to the receptionist. The sight of me racing toward her must have said everything. I started explaining what happened but she was hurrying for the elevator before I was three sentences in. I started after her but she stopped and slammed a hand against my chest.
“No! If you want to stay here and be protected, don’t move till I get back. But you cannot come with me! Think of Frances. Something you said obviously upset her. She’s very weak and this is bad for her. I don’t want her seeing you again now.” She took her hand away but kept both hands wide open at her sides, as if ready to shove me again if I tried accompanying her. She walked to the elevator, entered, turned around and faced me. As the doors slid closed, she said, “Don’t go anywhere. Stay here and you’ll be safe.”
The light above the door illuminated the floor numbers. When it stopped at Frances’s, I turned and walked to the receptionist. She wasn’t ignoring me or reading poetry this time. Her eyes were bright and alert, like those of a small animal that’s just realized a much bigger one is very close.
“What happens now?”
“What do you mean?”
I slapped my hands down on the desk loud enough to make her cringe. “Don’t give me shit! What happens now?”
“Usually the doctors can fix things. Dr. Zabalino is very good. She’ll know how to help your friend. But it’ll be harder to help you because you haven’t chosen yet. That’s the worst. Making up your mind, because there are so many reasons for and against it. That’s why you should stay here until you’ve decided. Fieberglas is the safest place for you. Outside it’s very, very dangerous. There are things out there—”
“Tell the doctor I left.”
“You can’t!”
“I don’t want to be here. I’ve got to—Just tell her I left.”
“But—”
The clatter of my heels against the stone floor rang out again in that quiet place as I walked to the door. Through a window, I saw Erik Peterson in his taxicab, the light from the portable TV flickering on his face. I pushed open the heavy front door. The air outside was cold and smelled of pine and stone. I felt no desire to return to the “safety” of the building.
“Erik? Let’s go home.”
He looked up. “You finished?”
“Yes. Do you mind if I sit next to you?”
“Not at all. Hop in.” He reached across the passenger’s seat and threw open the door. The overhead light came on a weak yellow. I walked around the front of the car and got in but didn’t close the door. I needed a moment just sitting before my life could continue.
“How’d it go in there, Miranda? How’s your friend?”
“Sick. Is this your family?” On the dashboard was a small metal frame with three oval photographs inside. A boy, a girl, a wife. The girl wore a cheerleader’s sweater and flirted with the camera. The pretty woman looked straight at it, expressionless. The boy—
“Yes. That’s my wife Nina, our daughter Nelly, and Isaac.”
“He looks like you.”
“Isaac died of meningitis two years ago. One night he didn’t feel well and went to bed. The next morning he was gone.” He gestured for me to close the door. I hesitated so as to have another, closer look at Isaac in the dim light. Erik started the car. The strong smell of exhaust fumes filled the air.
“I’m so sorry. What was he like?”
“Interesting you ask. Most people when they hear about it just say they’re sorry. They’re embarrassed to ask questions. Or they feel uncomfortable.
“What was he like? He was a pistol. You couldn’t keep the kid down. He woke up at five every morning and went full tilt till you threw him into bed at night and shut his eyes for him. I guess he was hyperactive, but my wife said he was just too interested to sit down. We miss him.”
I pulled the door closed and we drove away from Fieberglas. The gravel crunching beneath the car tires sounded very loud. As we drove onto the street I looked down at my hands in my lap and saw they were both clenched into fists. I was fearful something might stop or hold us back, but that was egotism or paranoia. Nothing stopped us; nothing met us but the night in front of the headlights.
“Once when Isaac was a little boy, I mean really little, I walked into the bathroom and saw him standing next to the toilet barefoot. The seat was up and he was dangling a foot over the bowl. I asked what he was doing, because with that kid, it coulda been anything. He said he’d bet himself he couldn’t put his foot in the toilet. For some crazy reason he was frightened of doing that. So there he was standing, daring himself to do the thing that scared him most.”
“Why was he afraid to do that? Had it been flushed?”
“Oh, sure.” Peterson took a hand off the steering wheel and gave an airy wave. “But you know how it is when you’re a kid: you got different monsters than the ones you got as an adult.”
I slid forward to get as close as possible to the photograph. The boy did look like his father, but even in the picture there was a wildness in his eyes that said he was a pistol.
We returned to Crane’s View the way we had come. Passing the drive-in theater, I worried that something would again be playing on the giant screen, but it was blank. Erik continued talking about his son. I asked questions to keep the conversation going. I didn’t want to think about what to do because I knew my whole life would depend on that decision once we got home.
“Do you mind if I smoke?” he asked.
“No. God, cigarettes! I’d love one too.”
He pulled a pack of Marlboros from beneath his sun visor and handed them to me. “I think I got two left in there. Have a look.”
I slid them out.
He pushed in the cigarette lighter on the dashboard. “All the things we’re not supposed to do anymore, huh? You know what I say? Cigarettes are gooood!”
The lighter popped out and he handed it to me. I lit up for the first time in years and took a deep drag. The smoke was harsh and raw in my throat but delicious. We sat in a nice silence, smoking and watching things pass by.
“There’s a 7-eleven up here a-ways. Would you mind if I made a quick stop and bought more smokes and some other things? I told the wife I’d bring them home and she’ll be real mad if I don’t.”
“Please, of course stop.”
He sighed. “That’s one of the bad things that’s happened since Isaac died. Nina gets real upset about small things. Before, she was as calm as summer, but now if even the slightest thing goes wrong, she has trouble with it. I can’t blame her. I guess we miss people in our own ways.
“Me, I think about all the things I’ll never be able to do with the boy. Take him to see the Knicks, watch him graduate from school. Sometimes when I’m alone in the house, I go up to his room and sit on the bed. I talk to him too, you know? Tell him what’s been going on in the family, and how much I miss him. I know it’s stupid, but I keep thinking he’s near me in that room. Nina cleaned it out completely after he died, so it’s only a small empty place now, but I can’t help thinking he’s around there sometimes and maybe can hear me.”
“What do you miss most, Erik? What do you miss most about him?” A question I had asked myself again and again since Hugh’s death.
“The hugs. That kid was a hugger. He’d grab hold of you tight as a vise and squeeze. Not many people really hug you.” He smiled sadly. It looked like his whole life these days was in that smile. “There aren’t that many people in life who really love you either.”
I felt my t
hroat swell and I had to look away.
“I’m sorry, Miranda. I’m just talking. There’s the place. I’ll be out in a minute.”
We slowed and pulled into a large parking lot. The store was brilliantly lit. It glowed, and the vivid colors of the products on the shelves radiated out into the night. I watched Erik walk in. He stopped to speak with the man behind the counter and in a moment both were laughing. I looked around the lot. There was only one other vehicle parked there, an old pickup truck that looked like it had traveled to World War Three and back. I twisted the rearview mirror to have a look at myself and was surprised to see my head was still on my shoulders and I didn’t have big Xs over my eyes like some cartoon character that’s just been knocked out.
I saw something out of the corner of my eye. Far across the parking lot, a kid on a bicycle came weaving slowly into view. My first thought was, What’s he doing out so late, but as he got closer my mind froze. It was Erik Peterson’s son Isaac.
He was dressed in an orange-and-blue windbreaker and faded jeans. Riding in loopy circles around the lot, he got closer and closer to the car. I knew who he was, but since I could not believe it, I looked again at the picture on the dashboard. It was him. Inside the store, Erik had disappeared back among the shelves. Outside, twenty feet away, his dead son rode a bicycle.
I opened the door and swiveled to get out. The boy stopped abruptly and put his feet down to keep from tipping. Looking at me, he shook his head. Don’t move. I stayed where I was and he slowly rolled over.
“That’s my Dad in there.” His voice was high and sweet. He lisped.
“Yes.”
“He’s nice, huh?”
“He’s… He loves you very much.”
“I know. He talks to me all the time. But I can’t talk back. It’s not allowed.”
“Can I tell him you’re here?”
“No. He couldn’t see me anyway. Only you. Remember you saw me before? When you were driving the other way, I was racing you. I kept up with you pretty long. I mean, I’m pretty fast for my age.”
He was so sure of himself, this ten-year-old big talker out for a spin on his bike at night, checking to see if anyone was watching. It wrung my heart.
“You know Declan?” he asked.
“Yes.”
A green Porsche growled in off the street and stopped a few feet away. A woman wearing a man’s fedora got out. Looking straight ahead, she walked into the store.
“Women are the stones you use to build a house, men are the sticks you use to start the fire and keep the house warm.”
Distracted by the jarring noise of the car, I wasn’t sure I’d heard what he said. “Excuse me?”
“That’s what Declan’s father said.”
I stiffened. “You’ve seen him?”
“Sure. He and Declan are together all the time. He said that today when Declan asked the difference between men and women. They were talking about why Declan never got to be born.
“See you!”
Erik came out of the store carrying a brown bag and glancing over his shoulder. Pushing the bike backward, the boy came within two feet of his father. He looked at the man as he walked past. He reached out a hand and pretended to slap his arm.
Erik stopped. For a moment I was sure he knew who was there. Isaac watched him with calm eyes. Erik moved to the left, stopped, moved to the right. He was dancing! He turned in a circle. “Do you hear it, Miranda? From inside the store? Martha and the Vandellas. ‘Dancing in the Streets.’” He continued swaying back and forth as he approached the car. “One of my favorite songs. Isaac loved it too. I hear it all the time now. Funny. More than ever before, I think.” He opened the back door and laid the grocery bag on the seat. “You ready to go?”
The boy nodded at me, so I said yes. His father got in and started the motor. “I got everything. Some more cigarettes too if you want one.”
“Erik, if you could, what would you say to Isaac if he was here right now?”
Without hesitation he said, “I’d say I’m living, but I’m not alive without you.”
One of Hugh’s favorite quotes was from St. Augustine: “Whisper in my heart, tell me you are there.” I suppose it has to do with God and his unwillingness to show his face to man. But in light of what had happened, I took it to mean something entirely different. I was sure “Women are the stones you use to build a house, men are the sticks…” was meant for me, not Declan. I was sure Hugh was whispering in my heart, suggesting what to do. I had already come to the same conclusion by then but his words only strengthened my resolve.
When we arrived in Crane’s View and Erik dropped me off, I entered the house no longer frightened or upset. There is a calmness that comes with surrender. A peace that actually revitalizes when you know there is no other way. I knew what to do now, and no matter what happened to me afterwards, the child would be safe. That was all that mattered—the child would be safe. I would give it what I had, willingly!
The house was spotless, no sign of anything that happened there earlier. I walked into the kitchen and remembered it had all begun after I’d made myself dinner—how many hours, days, lifetimes ago? When I turned on the television and saw Charlotte, Declan, and Hugh by the swimming pool.
So what? It had to begin somewhere and that’s where it did. Move on. Other things to think about now. Hunger shook a scolding finger at me and I knew I would have to eat before doing it. Opening the refrigerator door, I was greeted by an incredible array of the most extraordinary and exotic food—Iranian caviar, a box of pastries from a place called Demel in Vienna, plover eggs, Tunisian capers, olives from Mt. Athos, fresh Scottish salmon, Bombay lemon pickle, more. I had bought none of it, much less tasted most of the food on those shelves, but it didn’t surprise me. The time for surprises was over. I sniffed and sampled a great deal before choosing a fresh baguette, prosciutto cut thin as tissue paper, and the most delicate mozzarella I had ever tasted. The sandwich was delicious and I ate it quickly.
There was a bottle of Lambrusco too, one of Hugh’s favorite wines. I opened it and poured some into a small glass that had once held creamed chipped beef. Odd as it may sound, I wanted to toast something. That’s what you’re supposed to do at the end of the banquet, aren’t you? Toast the host, the lucky couple, the birthday girl or the glorious country. But what could I toast on this, the last night of some preposterous part of my existence? My past lives? Here’s to all the good and bad times I had but forgot and learned nothing from. Here’s to all the people I knew and hurt—sorry folks, I can’t remember any of you. Or how about, Here’s to me—however many of us there have been.
Hugh taught me an Irish toast:
May those who love us love us.
And those that don’t love us,
May God turn their hearts.
And if he doesn’t turn their hearts
May he turn their ankles
So we’ll know them by their limping.
One toast came to me that was appropriate. I lifted my glass and said to the empty room, “Here’s to you and the lives you lead. I hope you find your way home faster than I did.” I drank slowly and emptied the glass.
On the floor in Hugh’s workroom was a cardboard box filled with tools and chemicals he used to restore things. I went through it, pulling out the many different bottles, reading the labels, choosing the ones that contained alcohol or any kind of flammable substance. Our house was made of wood. It would go up quickly. I went around the ground floor pouring the strong-smelling chemicals over everything. Hugh’s new chair, a couch, boxes of books, the wooden floors.
I kept spilling and watching the liquids stain new fabric, pool on the wooden floor, eat into a turquoise plastic Sky King ashtray I had given Hugh as a present. When all of the bottles and cans were empty, I stood in the front hall smelling the incredible stink of all those deadly chemicals splashed over everything in the world that had mattered to me.
I went to a window and looked out onto the porch. A car dro
ve by outside. A white car. It reminded me of a white horse. Heroes rode white horses, heroic knights. That reminded me of Hugh’s unfinished story about the plain-looking knight who fell so in love with the princess that he was willing to sacrifice everything for her. How he went to the devils and traded them his courage for her happiness. I remembered the last line of his incomplete story. “Life is full of surprises, but if you’re convinced all of them will be bad, what’s the point of going on?” I wanted no more surprises. I didn’t trust them, any more than I believed I would be able to change anything for the better if I continued living. I would give up my immortality to the child and then I would finish it.
Still staring out the window, I felt ebullient and relieved. The world was mine because I no longer wanted to be in it. I could do this tonight or tomorrow or next week. It didn’t matter when because the decision had been made and was final. No, it had to be tonight. I did not want tomorrow. I went looking for matches.
What was the name of that famous children’s book? Goodnight Moon. Good night Hugh. Good night Frances Hatch, good night Crane’s View, good night life. My thoughts chanted these lines as I searched for matches. Good night Erik Peterson and Isaac. Good night beautiful books and long dinners with someone you love. Good night this and this and this and this as I wandered through the house. The list got longer and longer as I slid open drawers and cupboards looking for something to burn up the world in which these things existed.
Just as I began to grow frustrated, I remembered seeing a pack of matches in Hugh’s box of chemicals. A half-empty pack with green writing announcing Charlie’s Pizza. The place where we’d had lunch with Frances the first day we visited Crane’s View. The first time I saw Declan. The first time we met Frannie McCabe. First time. First time and now the last time. I would never see Declan or Frannie again. Never see this this that. A spotted dog or a marmalade cat. Goodnight life.
The Marriage of Sticks Page 22