Inukshuk

by Gregory Spatz

  Who? she’d responded. Who is she?

  He’d cocked his head, and after a moment wrote, My secret. Can’t tell.

  As soon as the semester ended, she was gone. No good-bye. Just gone. Back to Ottawa, he figured—back to her four older siblings and solitary widowed father. Back to her favorite Lebanese bakery and art galleries that beat the Earlham and surrounding area galleries to hell and back. Back to real winters and a multiparty form of government that made sense to her, and real health care. He tried to put her out of his mind. Couldn’t. Wrote her dozens of letters, which he didn’t send. Started calling her at least as many times. Didn’t. Couldn’t name what stopped him any better than he could articulate what it was about her, exactly, that compelled his interest. But he was increasingly sure, too, that he’d been gulled, at least a little. Tricked into always telling her more than he’d ever learned and giving away more of himself than he’d gotten back in return, all of which put him at a disadvantage and allowed her all control of what would or would not come next. Start of the final morning’s exam period, he’d thought for sure he’d see her there at Runyan, picking up her Baroque music history final; if not then, on the way back out. Pictured them having a send-off lunch, maybe inviting her back to his room, at least a lingering good-bye embrace. Hung around at the exit doors afterward, waiting, watching as the exam period wound down and the few remaining weary students straggled out, exam notebooks full of writing to hand in to proctors, honor-code pledges signed. No Jane. Often, in the weeks that followed, he would remember those final moments of waiting for her: sunlight harsh on the snow outside, eaves dripping, exam proctors eyeing him suspiciously but saying nothing. OK to wait here a few minutes for a friend? he’d asked, turning in his own exam notebooks. Supposed to meet her here.... The embarrassment and dawning certainty that he’d been wronged, stood up somehow. He’d given away too much.

  I had to figure out what I thought, and why this was your fantasy. I had to decide a few things, she said the night, just over a month later, he found her in his room under the van Gogh posters and corkboard of images from his summer European sojourn, windows darkened, apparently naked under his sheets. And I admit, at first I wasn’t too keen on it. Kind of risky. What if you changed your mind? What if I couldn’t sweet-talk one of your suite mates into letting me in? What if I read you wrong and it wasn’t me in the first place? That was your challenge to me, wasn’t it—see if I’d take the bait? But why would you do that—or, conversely, why tell me at all, if it wasn’t me? It’s not your usual macho fantasy, to be sure, and it’s not your lost-little-boy-in-the-woods fantasy, either. In fact, I couldn’t really tell you what kind of fantasy it is, so I decided finally the only way to find out . . . was just to do it. Take the risk. And I’ve always liked you a little . . . so, you know, why not? Right? So here I am.

  At first, he hadn’t known how to respond. There were his unsent rambling letters to her in a pile at the edge of his desk, facedown and folded in half; he only hoped she hadn’t read them. There was his bad breath from having sat too many hours after dinner in the library, studying, hoping to catch a glimpse of her or to cross paths again as easily as they’d done all the previous semester. Also his growing need to urinate, and the distracting noise of funkadelic music from his suite mate’s room across the hall.

  Only a little, huh?

  She nodded, shrugged. Expelled a breath and rolled her eyes. Yes, John. What do you think I’m doing here? Naked in your bed? Jerk.

  He puffed a breath. True. Sorry. He indicated the music with his chin, smiling ruefully. Sorry about that, too.

  Are you mocking me?

  What?

  Sorry, sorry, sorry—don’t you know that’s the Canadian national anthem?

  I didn’t.

  It’s me that should be making the apology. End of last semester . . . I should’ve at least said good-bye.

  True. But you didn’t owe me anything.

  Didn’t I, though?

  He struggled to recollect any of the tortured logic from his letters and unplaced phone calls to her, one righteous, vindictive sentence from those hours of endlessly looping interior monologue. Could not. If you say so.

  Come, she said, and held an arm out to him. This is how it is now. This is right now.

  And through it all, shucking off clothes and slipping in beside her under the sheets, waiting, talking—her yielding heat; the smells and textures he’d anticipated so many weeks now—lay this splinter of worry or grief he couldn’t quite name or lay aside: She hadn’t said why. She hadn’t said, I’ll never disappear like that again. She’d smiled and sympathized and said she was sorry. So he had to know, from the first moment he lay beside her, that separation was and would always be one of the founding principles of some pact between them. She was with him now; she would not always be. He had to decide this was a given, was all right even, and that he would always let her go, but he’d also always wait for her return, however long.

  Heat blasting his face and instantly causing his hairline to prickle with sweat, he stood in the living room doorway now, unopened letter from Jane in hand, and remembered; let this piece of recollection go through him, aspects of it engaging him as vividly as if the bygone versions of himself and Jane were specters visiting from another dimension. The better to understand and anticipate his future a little, he told himself—protect himself, if possible, from whatever it was Jane had to say. Also, he needed to be careful not to base any decision or action with her too entirely on whatever did or did not transpire with Moira tonight, or any other night. These things were all separate and connected only in him—past, present, future—and were not manifestations of some inscrutable design or pattern. Not fated. The past was gone: no specters visiting from other dimensions, however persuasively the picture-making part of his brain might struggle to convince him otherwise. He knew this. Knew, too, the danger of using feelings for one woman to offset feelings for another—one to counteract the other. He loved Jane still. Of course. He always would. Yet, it was quite possibly, as Devon had said on the phone the night before, time to get off the pot—and if Moira’s presence was the thing to help him do that, was that so bad? Regardless, whatever Jane’s letter to him now related, he needed to do his best to read it as if there were no Moira. As best as he could, he needed to try to understand Jane as if Moira did not exist.

  He tore aside the top of the envelope. Glanced a moment at her words to Thomas, beginning with his name, Thomas! Dearest!—the weight in those letters, the ink, and in all the words that followed—before setting that aside and unfolding the slimmer, single sheet of paper addressed to him: a new address and phone number where she could be reached. Balance of money owed her from the house sale still, minus amounts set aside for Devon’s and Thomas’s school funds, and the amount she was requesting now for her organization. A promise to be in touch more fully soon. That was all. At the bottom, one word from a poem they’d quoted to each other often in their early years, and which had eventually become their ritual sign off: Without— And her name: Jane.

  The full line from the poem went, Without you, there is no world to speak of, but he was pretty sure she would no longer be inviting him to think of that. Not inviting him to consider her as having no world without him, or to revisit the old world that had been theirs exclusively. She’d be sticking to custom specifically to avoid hurt feelings.

  More heat flooded his temples and prickled his hairline. He had to call her and end things completely. Now. Soon. No point hanging on. Time to close the door and put an end to this miserable, prolonged hanging-on chapter of his life. If he could do it on the spot, if it were as simple as deciding and transferring the decision instantly into action, settlement and lawful agreement, he would do it. He was pretty sure. Without. Indeed. “Divorce,” he said out loud, just to hear it. “I am getting a divorce.” He nodded his head, folded the sheet back into its creases, and whipped it against his fingertips. Too mad. Don’t do anything in anger; you’ll only
live to regret it. Wisdom from his own father, of all people, and though he supposed it was true, sometimes . . . maybe sometimes you wanted to stay mad long enough to get something done. He forced back the recollection of Jeremy Malloy—light, springy, pinned to the wall under his forearm and the desire to just bear down harder, harder, until his own rage expired or the boy broke in two. Not that kind of mad. Mad in order to make a little distance between yourself and whatever was wrong. The real problem for him would come with preserving his convictions, remembering tomorrow and the day after and the day after that, and sticking by them. No more Jane. For real. Could he?

  He folded the letter in half again. Tucked it into his shirt pocket. Went to the thermostat and hesitated a moment before thumbing the digital dial downward—twenty-eight! That was like . . . eighty degrees real temperature. What was Thomas thinking!—past 25 to 21, until he heard the furnace blower disengage and in another few moments all the vents in the house go silent. His fingers smelled of breaded fries and steak grease with chipotle mayonnaise, and in the back of his throat was a lingering beer tang. A smoky smell of charred meat wafted up from inside his shirt collar, and for a moment all his hopefulness and exhilaration from meeting with Moira seemed cheap and foolish. He was exhausted. Nothing would work out right. He went back over their last few moments—the sodium lights on the snow, her face next to his, the longing, his mouth open on her neck. No, it could be good for them. Meanwhile, best plan was to get on with the remainder of the evening. He would need to fix something for Thomas, poor wayfaring Thomas, or at least oversee food preparations and cleanup. Stand with him awhile and try to find things to talk about. Draw him out.

  But maybe the thing with Thomas was to take a more hands-off approach, à la Moira. Resist always meddling and involving himself, fussing over heat bills and wasted water and toilet paper, lights left on, drawers hanging out, dishes unwashed, dirty socks, bad diet. Just let him be. Let him drift to wherever it was he seemed so intent on going—have his troubles all on his own. Be as compassionate only as the occasion warranted, no more. Sure. He could take a cue from Moira on this tonight and stand back. Fix himself a nice iceberg and spinach salad with fresh raspberry vinaigrette to counteract the steak and fries; Swiss cheese and cubed ham for Thomas on the side—good, quick and easy. Call up to him when it was ready, Dinner! Letter from your ma for you! and if he got no reply, bag it back into Ziplocs for him for later. Done.

  Reflexively, he traced Thomas’s footsteps all the same—best to see where he was, what he was up to anyway. Light left on in the hallway, washroom light, light on in the stairwell; no light shining from his own study doorway down the hall. “Thomas,” he called, to be sure. “T?” No answer. Went to the washroom to turn off the light, glimpsing himself in the lavatory mirror as he did—blue button-collar shirt, face flushed from cold or heat or possibly the beer, the haggard planar angularity of his cheeks more and more like his father’s every day, though maybe not unhandsomely, he told himself. He bent to pick up a T-shirt of Thomas’s left on the bath mat. Hit the lights. Continued upstairs. Knocked once on Thomas’s door and entered.

  As always, the smell: sweaty, fungal, like the inside of a dirty lunch pail or school locker; like an old sneaker full of orange rinds. Really, there was nothing to compare it with, though all too likely the smell would have an actual single physical source somewhere in the room—pile of ancient unwashed clothes, or plate of molding meat loaf hidden somewhere, cup of sour milk forgotten for months on a shelf. No lights on. In the light thrown from the hallway, he saw him there, naked from the waist up, asleep. “Thomas,” he said. Then louder: “Hey, T! Wake up!”

  “What’s going on?”

  He drew nearer. Set the T-shirt on the bed beside Thomas. “Dinner. Put some clothes on. Come on down.”

  No reply.

  “Thomas!”

  “What?”

  “Dinnertime.” He breathed once in and out. Crossed arms over his chest and stood with his feet spread. “You feeling all right there, kiddo?”

  “Arrraa . . . no.”

  “Flu or something?”

  Again, no response.

  “Thomas! What are the symptoms? You say you aren’t feeling well?”

  “Sí, sí . . .”

  “Spanish?” No response. “Hey! Come on.” He felt oddly alone and self-conscious—an arm’s length from the boy, not much more, and given almost direct sight lines into his psyche and dream life, yet completely unable to access any part of it that might actually help him understand. Amusing, the absurdity (absurdism?) of it and their estrangement from each other. “Hey,” he said again. “Thomas!”

  “Yes? What is it? ”

  “You fell back to sleep.” And after another silence: “Thomas!”

  “OK. I’m up now.” He rolled upright, blinking, nodding.

  “I’m throwing together some dinner. OK? Nothing much. Just, like, a salad. Ten minutes. You want to eat, come downstairs. Otherwise . . . galley’s closing.”

  “Fair enough.” He fell back again and rolled solidly onto his side, tucking back into his pillow. “Galley’s closing.”

  “Also . . . Thomas? There’s a letter for you. From your mom.”

  “Sure.” His voice went higher and singsongy. “Be right down.”

  He was not waking up. Had probably never woken up at any point in the exchange. This was familiar—typical more of Devon than Thomas, though Franklin felt pretty sure he’d seen it once or twice with Thomas, as well—not sleepwalking, just plain refusing to waken. In all likelihood, Thomas was, in fact, on the verge of a flu or other sickness and he would do just as well letting him sleep it off as long as possible. He remembered the heat turned up, the shirt stripped off and left in the washroom—so maybe T had had a fever and broken it . . . possibly taken Advil to cause that. He drew nearer, breathing Thomas’s scent, surprisingly not as rank up close—sweet, like dried grass with a tinge of sweat and something else earthy he couldn’t place—so evidently there was no direct correlation between the aggregate smells of the room and Thomas’s body. Another mystery. He touched two fingers, then a wrist to Thomas’s forehead: no heat, cool and dry. Smoothed aside hair and tucked it behind his ear. Delicate ear, outward-leaning like Jane’s, tissues thin enough through the middle to glow pinkly translucent in most light—the ear’s pearly flowering, he’d written her once in a poem, early on, maybe the first he’d ever written for her. An ear fetishist? she’d asked then, and he’d assumed this would not be a good thing to admit to, so he’d assured her no. A beautiful ear was a good thing to behold—chalicelike; maybe reflective of an innate intelligence or sensitivity. He wanted to believe so anyway. Sludgy, doughy ears, pancake ears, ears with overgrown flaps, these were unfortunate, sure, but nothing to put you off an attraction. But is it the first thing you notice? she’d asked. And he’d told her it was. Of course. And asses. Bosoms. His own ears, he supposed, seizing a lobe now, were too furred and square-topped, but otherwise of no interest.

  Forget her, he told himself. Never.

  He stooped and lifted a blanket from the floor. Shook and tossed it over Thomas, causing whatever had been caught in the folds—pens, pencils, a notebook, eraser—to ping and scatter around the room. It was hopeless, really, the boy’s room—such chaos. Where would you even begin? He backed out, closing the door softly behind him, and went downstairs.

  Moira’s hat still rested on the coffee table beside the unopened mail like some alien creature, too plush and white. Why would anyone buy a hat like that anyway, let alone wear it? What was she thinking? Who was she? Yet, on her it had seemed right and of a piece. Glamorous even. He scooped it up and watched his fingers stroke and flatten the fur—Mink? Fox? He couldn’t tell—almost disappearing through it, before drawing its brim to his nose and burying his face there to breathe her smell. Withdrew his face and looked around the room, knowing there was much to do here before she showed up. If she showed up. Cleaning, straightening, organizing. A lot to get ready. “Ye
s,” he said, and went upstairs to put the hat somewhere out of sight and change from his work clothes into sweats. Figured he’d clean awhile and then do a half hour on that clunker rowing machine to release. Crank up some music in the headphones and lose himself in a good aerobic purge. Calm the nerves, sweat it out, and ease his passage into whatever was next.

  But an hour later, fed up with sorting through the piles of papers and magazines, junk mail, flyers, books left open and facedown, DVD and CD cases missing their discs, he crouched on the sliding padded seat of the rowing machine, arms pumping out and back, legs pushing against an imaginary current, and couldn’t focus. Couldn’t find a groove. For one thing, the right arm piston seemed to have lost its seal somewhat, so it pulled unevenly and out of sync with the left; also, the rubberized grip material on both sides, from age or disuse, kept shredding in his palms, so the more he rowed, the more he had to stop and regrip, dust his hands together. Resume. It had been much too long, and there was no music he felt inspired by—all of it too old, too familiar to get lost in: Police, Herbie Hancock, Neil Young, Grand Funk. He flung off the headphones and tried to find his own rhythm, out-back, one-two, push-glide, and for a while it was better that way, though boring, and he couldn’t shake the persistent feeling that something or someone had entered the house. Kept checking over his shoulder and getting back into it. Someone was watching him. Again he checked over a shoulder. Nothing. Paranoia. Anxiousness about Moira, maybe.