Autumn Imago

by Bryan Wiggins

  The soft drum of Mara’s fingers on the arm of her chair was the only sound in the room for the next few seconds.

  “You want to go visit Paul in the park?” Kim asked.

  “Not just him. Everybody. I want to spend ten days there with the entire family, just like we used to.”

  “You mean next summer,” I said.

  “Only if you want to wait that long to check out homes,” Mara replied. “Kidney Pond first, nursing homes second.”

  “Mom,” Kim said, “the kids just started school.”

  “So what?” Mara replied. “When I was their age, family came first, even before school.” She turned to me.

  “You said it yourself, Paul. You’d make the most of the time you had if you were in my shoes. We all know that my best days aren’t next summer. They’re now.”

  “Even if I agreed,” I said slowly, “I’m not sure I could get us in. Cabins at Kidney are pretty popular. There’s a good chance they’ll be booked.”

  “I bet there are openings this late in the season,” Mara said quickly. “We can split up, shuffle between cabins if we have to. Besides, you work there. Pull some strings if you have to.”

  “It doesn’t work like that, Mara.”

  “However it works, that’s what I want. Seven bunks for ten nights at Kidney Pond. You can book visits to nurs— . . . to memory care homes . . . for the day we get back.”

  “Seven bunks?” I asked. “You mean six: Robert, Kim, Aida, Aaron, me, and you.”

  “Seven,” my mother said with a smile. “You forgot Tommy, but I didn’t.”

  8

  Fresh Cuts

  The last direction I’d expected to drive after reaching my sister’s house was south, but that’s exactly the course I took early the next morning. My mother and I had gone round and round for an hour as I tried to convince her there was no way to find Tommy. Even if I did, there was little chance of convincing him to come to the park. Kim helped argue my case. The last contact she had had with him was more than a year before. I had sent her checks to kick in for rehab twice before that, but it took a third time for her to realize that our brother was a lost cause. Finally, Mara asked me to at least try to find him. If I made the trip to Pennsylvania and looked, we had a deal.

  I found the familiar names of exits on the PA turnpike comforting somehow, but when I pulled off west of Philly, nothing looked familiar. Actually, everything looked familiar: the streets I drove through had the same sterile, homogenized look of so many American small towns. I passed so many Starbucks, Subways, and Shell stations that I began to feel like I was driving in circles. By the time I arrived at my motel in Exton, I couldn’t wait to leave.

  But a promise is a promise. I had a day to put in searching for Tommy and a report of my efforts to deliver to Mara before I could head back to Maine. I put my duffel on the bed and stepped into the bathroom. The truck’s ancient AC had lost the battle with the hot day. I stripped to my waist, washing my chest, underarms, and face in the tiny sink before slipping into a fresh T-shirt. I took one look around the sad little room and headed back to my truck. When I pulled out into a stream of traffic and finally recognized a few buildings that had survived since my childhood, my thoughts drifted away from Tommy to settle on someone else. I made a pit stop at the little flower shop my mother used to love—now tucked between a McDonald’s and a Supercuts—and drove on.

  ***

  The drive down into the valley got better and better as storefronts gave way to houses that thinned to open expanses of rich, green land. I crossed a bridge over a brook and followed a skinny road through the trees, climbing a small hill that overlooked a lawn studded with spreading oaks and maples. In a gap between the foliage, I could just see the steeple at the far end of the neatly trimmed grounds.

  I parked the truck and walked out into the full heat of the day, removing my sunglasses to wipe the sweat from my eyes. I kept them shut against the light, rubbing my eyelids to quiet the buzz in my head. After a moment I realized the sound wasn’t coming from inside.

  In the instant I recognized the shimmering song of the cicadas, I traveled to the last time I had stood on that ground. They’d sung on that day, too, pulsing to the beat of a headache that blinded me to the small crowd circled round. The high trill of those insect wings worked their way straight through me that day, each beat settling into the small space between my eyes before they crescendoed to drown out everything—driving me to my knees, where I rocked and retched across the bright, green grass.

  I kept my eyes closed until the memory passed, putting my dark glasses on before risking another look around.

  It took me a while to find the faded white marble marker, one edge frosted with a delicate filigree of light green lichens. I knelt and slowly unrolled the paper from the stems of tiger lilies. They’d already begun to wilt. I stood up and stared at them for a long time. Then I walked away from the fan of flowers spread over my sister’s grave.

  9

  Gibson Girl

  The next day I chased my tail looking for Tommy all around town, then checked out of my motel room the first thing the next morning. I wanted nothing more than to pull the truck onto 95 and gun it north. But the closer I got to the on-ramp, the more difficult it became to drive away from the one place I’d been avoiding in my search for my brother.

  “One stop,” I promised myself as I pulled the truck onto Route 30. I’d driven to at least a dozen places the day before. As far as I was concerned, I’d already kept my end of my deal with Mara. Today’s trip was a bonus.

  For a place I’d spent my life avoiding, Central Avenue was remarkably easy to find. Though it was only a few blocks from the strip malls, subdivisions, and parks I’d toured the day before, the street bore no resemblance to the yuppy burg my hometown had become. I drove past rows of duplexes with drawn shades and boarded windows, piles of trash and junked cars, fenced lots topped with razor wire, and a single cinderblock store. The pawn shop’s electric sign flashed two messages: “Checks Cashed” and “Payday Loans.”

  The Heavenly Arms apartments loomed right next to it. Talk of closing down the huge four-story wooden building had been going on ever since I was a child, but there it stood, even bigger and uglier than I remembered. Every one of its dark windows was screened by a heavy steel grate, and its battered gray roof was capped by a blue tarp at one end.

  I parked the truck and walked past the sign at the entrance. The apartments’ logo was reassuring—an angel with long, flowing wings and raised arms held up the arced name of the complex. But as I passed it, I could see the ghosted stain of graffitied genitalia that hadn’t been completely erased from the holy figure’s crotch.

  I opened the cracked glass lobby door and was almost driven back by the sour smell of urine. A dry, scuttling sound raced overhead that made me duck instinctively. Looking up, I saw only cobwebs and peeled plaster. Whatever it was, it was moving between the floors—not over them.

  I tried the door at the other end of the lobby, but it was locked. The wall was lined with a long row of metal mailboxes. A few were missing their doors. Some had names over them, but none of them was Tommy’s.

  I began pressing the buzzers over the boxes. I got static from the first one and a hearty “Fuck off!” from the second. But the third yielded a buzz from the door at the far end of the entry. I sprinted to it in time to push through before the fuzzy blare ended.

  The smell in the lobby hadn’t prepared me for the one on the other side of the door. I pulled my T-shirt up to cover my nose as I hurried to the staircase, careful not to look underneath; whatever the source of the stink, I certainly didn’t want to see it.

  I jogged up the first set of stairs and the air got a bit better, the stench masked by a thick perfume of weed and cooking oil. I eyed the rows of doors along the hall and walked to its far end. Through the bars on the window I looked down to see a skinny teen on an old-fashioned bike with a banana seat and drop handlebars riding in slow circles around my
truck.

  A door opened, and a fat man with a shaved head and tattoos circling his neck gave me a hard stare. “You ain’t Manny,” he said softly before he closed the door.

  “I’m looking for Tommy Strand.” I said. The door stayed shut.

  “I’m looking for Tommy Strand!” I said again, yelling this time as I made my way back toward the staircase. “Anybody here know Tommy Strand?” I waited a minute and started again. “I’m looking for—” Another door cracked, and I heard a loud stream of angry Spanish before it slammed shut again. I waited a minute, hit the stairs, and repeated my speech as I walked down the second floor hallway. None of the doors opened.

  On the third floor, I found the first door near the stairs slightly ajar. I went over and knocked. When no one answered, I gave it a push. It opened on a wide-eyed woman as pale as milk, looking at me through a scrim of smoke. Her hand froze in the act of passing a small glass pipe to the black man at her side. From the look she gave me, I wasn’t sure she believed I was real. “Do you know Tommy Strand?” I asked. The two just stared at me, but there must have been a third person there. The door swung at me so quickly I had to jump back before it slammed my face.

  I made my speech once more and was just about to take the stairs to the top floor when I heard a door squeak across the hall. The head and shoulders of a young woman in a blue dress that looked like it might have been a uniform peeked out from behind it. “You know Tommy?” she asked.

  When I began walking toward her, she disappeared behind the door again. I heard a lock turn when I stepped up to it.

  “I’m his brother,” I said. I waited. In the distance, the thin wail of a siren trailed away. Finally, the lock clicked again. The door opened.

  The woman’s dark eyes studied my face for a long moment before she stepped aside to let me in. She was small, maybe just over five feet. Her face was pretty but marred, stained by a strawberry-colored birthmark that ran from the edge of her jaw to her cheek. Her dyed red hair was pulled back in a ponytail. I could see the dark roots of her natural color on the top of her head as I moved past her to step into the small apartment. This time, I heard three locks turn behind me before she followed me inside.

  “Have a seat,” she said, directing me to her tiny living room. I took the milk crate and left the folding metal chair for her.

  The place was sparse but remarkably orderly. The smell of Pine-Sol masked the other scents in the building. The wooden floor was clean, and there were coasters on a door raised on boxes that stood for a table. I studied a sheet of watercolor paper thumbtacked to one wall. The painting on it was wild. A yellow river ran through a pair of blue mountains. From the top of one peak grew a thin stream of purple clouds, spiraling into an abstract chaos of color that filled the sky above. I don’t know a lot about art, but I was drawn to the picture.

  “Nice painting—”

  “It’s been three months,” she said.

  “Sorry?”

  “It’s been three months since I’ve seen him.” She started to get up from the chair, then sat back down and laughed. “I keep going for my smokes. I quit, or am trying to, but my body keeps forgetting.”

  I couldn’t think of a single thing to say. An ocean of time and ignorance stood between my brother and me. I had no idea how to wade across it to find my way back to him, especially when my only guide was a complete stranger.

  “What’s your name?” the girl finally asked.

  “Sorry, I’m Paul.”

  “Well, Paul, I’m Kelly. I used to be your brother’s girlfriend.” Her eyes began to fill. She shut them and scrubbed at them with the heels of her hands. When she took her hands away, she turned one to look at her watch. “Shit, I’m going to be late for work.” She got up, so I did too. As she fussed with her hair to tighten her ponytail, she turned in profile in front of the window. I could see what I had missed before: the thin fabric of her dress curving into a small arc, low on her belly.

  “Can I send something to him here?” I asked. “Just in case he comes back?”

  “I wouldn’t hold my breath, but okay.”

  I thanked her, started toward the door, and stopped. I took out my wallet and slid out all the cash I had. “Will you take this, Kelly?”

  She bit her lip while her eyes stayed on my hand. It was a long moment before she took the money. “Wait here a sec,” she said.

  She came back with something I thought I’d never see again. “I got it out of hock,” she said. “It was the first thing I bought with my shitty waitress pay.” In her hands she held the last Christmas gift my father had given to my brother. It had been his most cherished possession—a 1967 Gibson J-45 acoustic guitar. She held it out to me, but I didn’t take it.

  “Kelly,” I told her, “I think there’s more chance of you seeing Tommy again before I do.”

  She shook her head and laughed. “Then you don’t know your brother,” she said.

  I realized she was right.

  I took the guitar and left.

  10

  In My Father’s House

  After two nights in a cheap motel, my sister’s guest bedroom felt like the Ritz. I had the same urge to bolt and run that I’d woken up with the morning before, but tamped it down one more time. I wanted to get back to my pristine park with a clean conscience. I decided that attending Sunday morning worship at Kim’s church would prove I’d gone above and beyond the call of family duty one more time.

  ***

  I followed Mara, Aida, and Aaron into a red-cushioned pew after accepting a carnation from one of the ushers. Evidently, new faces like mine earned flowers. I certainly didn’t want the damn thing, but I thought I’d be more conspicuous if I balked at their routine. I palmed the pin the usher gave me to fasten the flower to my shirt, carrying it to my seat instead.

  I may have felt uncomfortable sitting in the big, bright sanctuary, but my sister certainly wasn’t. Kim seemed to float in the chancel, traveling across the raised platform above us with the graceful moves of a dancer who’d worked out all her missteps in the hours she practiced alone. She deferred to the bubbly matron serving as worship leader as the service moved from “Prelude” to “Welcome” to “Morning Announcements.” Then the woman sat down and Kim climbed into the pulpit for the morning’s main event.

  She took a moment to smile down upon the large congregation from her perch, her blond hair glowing almost white above the velvety black folds of her flowing robe. I looked down the aisle. I still hadn’t seen Robert. He had come and gone while I was away, jetting off on a business trip somewhere in the Midwest. Mara and Aaron’s eyes were focused on the pulpit, and when Kim began to speak, I saw even Aida put her cell away to take in her mother’s words.

  “I’m going to invoke pastoral prerogative today and break from our prescribed reading from the lectionary,” Kim began. “Hear now, Jesus’s words from John 14, verses 1 through 6:

  “DO NOT let your hearts be troubled. Believe in God, believe also in me. In my Father’s house there are many dwelling places. If it were not so, would I have told you that I go to prepare a place for you? And if I go and prepare a place for you, I will come again and will take you to myself, so that where I am, there you may be also. And you know the way to the place where I am going.” Thomas said to him, “Lord, we do not know where you are going. How can we know the way?” Jesus said to him, “I am the way, and the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me.”

  “The way, the truth, and the life,” said Kim, putting down her bible and stepping down from the pulpit to walk back and forth across the chancel as she preached the rest of her sermon. “That’s exactly what I needed when I was lost, in the days after my sister disappeared into the cold waters of a Maine lake, and a year later, when my father was killed in a car crash. I grew up in the church. I knew today’s scripture and the rest of the gospels well. But when I left for college a year after those tragedies, I wasn’t thinking much about scripture. My family had been my anchor
. Without it, I was simply adrift. I tried to throw myself into my schoolwork, but I ached from the emptiness in my heart.

  “One night I went to a party off campus. I felt completely out of place, like an actor who’d forgotten to memorize her lines. I told the boy who brought me I wanted to go home. He wanted to stay. We argued, and finally, I decided to walk back to my dorm alone. I was so angry I didn’t realize how far from school we were.

  “Pretty soon I found myself walking on a country road under a moonless sky. It was October. I’d only worn a light sweater. I was cold, but even worse, I soon discovered I was lost as well.

  “The next hour was one of the darkest of my life. I walked faster and faster, looking for anything familiar, a highway sign or the shape of some building I might recognize to point me home. There was nothing. Not a single car traveled that road. It was just woods and fields under a black and empty sky. Then I did something I hadn’t done in a very long time. I began to pray.

  “I don’t remember what I asked God for in that conversation, but I do remember the answer I received. At the top of a hill I saw a distant light. I started running toward it. When I finally reached the top, I saw that it lit the face of a small stone building. A church. I tried the door and found it unlocked. It opened onto a tiny, one room sanctuary. It was empty, but it was warm, so I shut the door and slipped into a pew.

  “A funny thing happened in that tiny church. As I sat there, I became aware that I wasn’t alone. Someone was with me; I passed the quiet hours of the night in the loving and everlasting presence of the God I thought had abandoned me. My sister was dead. My father was dead. But the despair I’d felt over their absence lifted that night. They were gone, I came to see, but they were not lost. That night I knew—as sure as you and I are here in this church—that there is another place just as real as this world. My sister and father wait for me there, along with the loving God who waits to put an end to all our fears when he finally calls us to our true home.”