The Possible World

by Liese O'Halloran Schwarz

  “The point isn’t to see them.” Freddy has his head tilted far back. “The point is to know they’re there.”

  * * *

  I HEARD THE best thing tonight I type into my phone when the shift is done and I’ve been restored somewhat by a large light coffee.

  from a philosophical hobo and wait.

  Then I think, maybe he’s asleep; but the dot-dot-dot pulsing ellipsis appears on his side of the conversation. I type it in exactly as Freddy said it, all ready to send. Then Joe’s message comes through.

  I can’t do this i’m sorry

  I’m trying to interpret that when the next message comes, the whoop of the alert sound bringing the words to me.

  I know I may be making the worst mistake of my life

  I backspace back through Freddy’s words, erasing them forever, while the inevitable next message is being created.

  I’m sorry

  I type in what happened and erase it, then why, then erase that. Then Can we talk about this and press Send, just as his next message comes through.

  I’m done

  The two discordant bubbles hang there on opposite sides of the phone screen until the screen blinks to black.

  * * *

  I HAVE BEEN in the habit of framing my life into stories, pouring them out to Joe after work, letting myself interpret on the second pass what I cannot take time to appreciate as it happens. My life has been made real by its retelling. While Joe and I have been separated, that valve has been closed and the stories have drained off as if into an internal vault, to meld together, never quite processed or true. Now I realize that somewhere inside I have been waiting, expecting the valve to open again, and that it isn’t going to happen. And the biggest, most intricate story of all will go unreported. He will never know the details of my heartbreak; that story will stay within me, forever untold.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE

  * * *

  Clare

  I HAD HAD SOME CONCERNS THAT with the waning of summer Leo would be reassigned to the laundry, but each afternoon the figure jogged into view beyond the wall and went to the shed to change. I had taken scissors to an aged soft pair of my own overalls, suspecting that Leo was allotted only one set of clothing and might be punished if it wore out too quickly. The side gap of the overalls hung to his thighs and the legs were so wide they met in the middle and looked like a skirt. I bit back my smile at the sight, for I had nothing better to offer.

  On a windy day in early October I made a trip to Waite with a load of cakes packed into the wheeled wagon behind me, getting to town when the shadow-dappled main street was just waking up. The door of Massey’s Dry Goods pushed inward with a sound of tinkling bells. Mrs. Massey’s smile curled above her triple chin as I approached; she stood on her tiptoes to look over the counter at the load in the wagon.

  “How many do you have today?”

  “Twelve.”

  “Well, we’ll sell them all by this evening. I can’t keep up with the demand. Honestly, I could eat them all myself.”

  I piled the cakes onto the counter. Six cherry and six plum.

  “You sure you won’t share the recipe?” she wheedled.

  “Sorry.” They were my mother’s cakes, down to the fruit pressed into the top in the shape of a heart. Each one felt like a song to her, love passing from my hands into the batter.

  “Do you want it all in cash? Or in goods? Maybe some fabric for a dress?” Did her smile broaden as she glanced down at my overalls?

  “Do you have boys’ clothes?”

  “Of course. Any particular size of boy?”

  “Eleven years old. On the small side. A pair of overalls.”

  I followed her to the back of the store, where a supply of clothing lay folded on shelves.

  “This here’s a nice pair, strong seams. Riveted.” She shook them out. “They can get passed down from brother to brother.”

  I skimmed a hand over the front bib with its wide, flat pocket, thought about Leo’s pale scratched legs. These would do fine.

  “Perhaps a few shirts too, for the same boy?” She turned to another shelf. “We have navy blue and white, three for a dollar.”

  “Two white, one blue.”

  She laid out a sheet of brown paper to make a package for me, folding the overalls into a stiff rectangle of dark blue cloth, tucking the buckles inside. “You know,” she said, shaking out the shirts and snapping them into folds. “I’m thinking about your boy.” My boy. A warm spot started in my chest. “In his nice new shirts and overalls. He might be wanting some socks?”

  “Socks, shoes, of course.” Why hadn’t I thought of that?

  “Now, you’d have to bring him in for shoes. Feet are the most unpredictable parts of a person.” She produced three pairs of cotton socks, hesitated a moment, then went back to the shelves. “He’ll also be needing these, I think.” She put a small white bundle on top of the rest.

  Cotton briefs, boy sized. Judging from St. Will’s stingy clothing rations otherwise, no doubt he could do with some of those. I nodded.

  “That’s a lot of white. You’ve got bleach?” she asked.

  “You’re a good saleswoman,” I said as she fetched a bottle and a cube of bluing.

  “Just a mother.” She laughed.

  How nice she was. All this time I had been coming into Massey’s I had never gone out of my way, never said an extra word. Maybe her smile all along had been friendliness and not mockery.

  “I’ve never shopped for a boy before,” I confessed as she tied up the parcel with some string.

  “I have three. Of course, they’re men now.”

  I was grateful that she wasn’t overly curious about the sudden addition to my household. I had been buying from her for years, and never a word about a boy. Perhaps she assumed he was a nephew or cousin, come to visit. That was a good idea, I thought. In case anyone asked.

  But no one did. Not Mrs. Massey, nor the grocer who bought my preserves, giving me a thin wad of bills in exchange. I pushed through the grocery door onto the sidewalk, and after a moment’s hesitation, turned left and went down the street to the bookshop.

  “I’m looking for a science book,” I told the middle-aged man who was reading behind the counter. In my mind I browsed the shelves of my childhood, the cards bearing their curlicued legends in my father’s hand. “Something general, with both earth science and basic botany.”

  He nodded, headed into the stacks of shelving, and returned a minute later. “Will this do?” he asked, holding out a book.

  I felt its solid weight in my hand, admired the title embossed on the front cover and the pages of text illustrated with line drawings, each new section headed with a half-page photograph and a title. Meteors, I read, Volcanoes. Gravity and Inertia. A body at rest will stay at rest until acted upon by an outside force.

  “It’s up-to-date,” he said. “Very current.”

  I looked down at a picture of a glacier. “Has the earth changed that much?”

  “The earth hasn’t,” said the man, smiling. “But our understanding of it has.”

  I went back through town with my parcels behind me in the wagon. The journey uphill was slow going. The wind smelled of rain; I didn’t need the twitch in my chest to warn me. I wanted to make it home before the downpour, but I stopped to tie a cloth around the gatepost of the farm, the signal to the farmer that I’d put a note into his mailbox. He came out of an outbuilding while I was tying it, so I waited while he walked over, and handed him the note.

  “Meat again. So soon?” He blushed after saying that, as though it had been unbearably intimate.

  “Apple or cherry pie?”

  “You choose.”

  I took up the wagon handle again and resumed my trudge up the hill. The science book would make a nice Christmas present. Not too soon to think of Christmas. I had gotten sugar and raisins and ginger from Mrs. Massey, and had a spree of holiday baking planned. There’d be plenty of time for it, now that the summer was past; the
harvest would soon be dwindling to squash and second-crop broccoli and lettuces. The roses still needed to be protectively mulched and there would be mowing until the end of the month, for the cemetery grass continued to grow after the other plantings were exhausted. Leaf raking to add to the mulch pile would be necessary for a month to come, and after each windstorm dead branches would need to be cleared and chopped for kindling. There would be enough work to occupy Leo and me through November. And then what? Well, I wouldn’t think about that right now.

  That evening, the farmer brought four paper-wrapped packages and four bottles of milk.

  “This is far too much in exchange for one pie,” I said.

  “Growing boy needs meat,” he said. So he’d noticed Leo at Roscommon.

  “But surely your family—”

  “It’s just me now.”

  “Oh,” I said. Hadn’t there been a wife? I hadn’t ever seen her, just heard a feminine voice across the fields sometimes. I realized now that I hadn’t heard it in a long time. “I’m sorry.”

  “Chops and ribs and a hock and some sausages,” he said. I noticed what I hadn’t before: his shirt collar was frayed, and a button was missing.

  “One pie isn’t a fair trade for all this.” I wished I’d made both pies. But how much pie could one man eat on his own? And I’d be needing ever more meat and milk, as long as Leo came here. “I could help you with your mending,” I suggested. “Put a new collar on that shirt, replace the button. It could be as good as new. Look there, you’re going to lose another one.” I put a hand out to the loose button. His eyes followed my hand, and I pulled it back.

  “Well, thank you,” I said, taking the packages and the milk inside to load into the icebox, as he turned and went back down the front path.

  The next morning, when I opened the door, there was a basket just outside. I lifted the covering cloth and saw the frayed shirts within. Evidently, we had struck a deal.

  * * *

  I MEANT IT as a sort of early Christmas present, I suppose. Just after Thanksgiving, after we had come in from raking leaves and were drinking cocoa by the fire, I told him.

  “I’ve been to see the prior,” I said. It was still strange to refer to Brother Charles that way.

  Leo looked at me over the rim of his mug. There was a touch of chocolate on his nose.

  “I was telling him, since you’re here every day anyway—” I was having trouble getting the words out for some reason. “He’s agreed to let you live here, with me.” Leo brought the mug down; his face was unreadable. “You can sleep here, on the settee. It’ll be comfortable. I’ve slept on it myself.”

  “Live here?” he said.

  “You’ll still go to school over there. But yes, this will be your home, with me and Kitty.” Leo still hadn’t given him a name.

  He turned to face toward the window. Was he crying?

  “You really have to come up with a name for him,” I said, looking down at the cat on my lap. “We can’t keep calling him Kitty.” Trying to josh him out of his joyful tears. A bit tearful myself, thinking, You’ll never be caned again, I’ll see to that.

  But when he turned from the window, his eyes were dry.

  “You can’t make me.”

  I was wounded, and surprised. I had been so filled with munificence. I hadn’t imagined that he felt such an affection for St. Will’s; I’d stupidly presumed that he’d prefer my little house, and me.

  “Of course I won’t make you,” I said.

  He put his mug down on the table, took his coat from the peg, and thrust his arms into the sleeves. He opened the door; the chill wind filled the room and blew the flames sideways in the fireplace.

  “Leo,” I said.

  He slammed the door behind him and it bounced against the latch, opening again; Kitty sleeping on my lap jolted awake. I went to the doorway, the cat in my arms. It had gotten dark while we’d been drinking our cocoa, and the moon had risen. It lit the world in silvers and grays and I could see Leo through the leafless trees, already into and through the cemetery, standing on the far wall. He yelled something, his words carried away by the wind.

  “I can’t hear you,” I called.

  He turned his face to the sky and yelled it again, to the trees and the wind and all of those lying under the earth listening, and this time I understood. He stood for just another moment, before dropping down on the other side of the wall and disappearing from view.

  I shut the door, put my forehead against it. The cat scrabbled his way over my shoulder and jumped down. The painful points where his claws had gotten purchase made an appropriate accompaniment to the echo of Leo’s words in my head.

  You’re not my mother, he’d cried, to the sky, to the field of listening families. To me. You’re not my mother and this is not my home.

  * * *

  HE MUST HAVE come back in the wee hours. Must have crept out of his dormitory, careful not to wake the other boys slumbering in their cots, and back to Roscommon in the dark. Where did he get the matches? I never found out.

  I smelled it right away when I awoke early that morning, and I leapt out of bed. The wind had blown all night, rattling the bedroom window in its frame; perhaps it had come down the chimney and scattered embers across the hearth rug? I dressed quickly and went out to the main room, which was blessedly not afire. The screen was in place, and the ashes in the fireplace were cold and dead. Yet something had been burning.

  When I opened the front door, the smell was intense, assaultive. I clutched my coat around me and ran down the path, turned to look back at the house to see if the source was there. Maybe a spark from the chimney had caught some leaves on the roof—I circled the cottage, saw no evidence of fire.

  I followed the scent down the path toward the cemetery. There was nothing to burn in there; still, I went through the gate, sniffing like a bloodhound.

  I was nearly to the middle of the cemetery before I lowered my eyes enough to see it. I had been looking for plumes of gray in the sky, but the smoke was low, curling out from the far wall.

  I walked the path between the silent graves toward the smoldering bushes. As I got closer, I could see that he hadn’t started with fire; he’d started with his hands. One small boy’s anger had been no match for a hundred-year root system, the hard winter ground, all those thorns; only two of the rosebushes were partly pulled up. Of the others there was nothing left but a long row of char, and thin black stubs reaching up through the ash like cremated fingers. An ember blew along the ground toward me.

  They were just flowers. I knew that. They weren’t people, or even animals. They didn’t have souls and they couldn’t love. I didn’t know why their destruction mattered to me so much, but it did. He had known it would.

  Heat was still coming from them: I could feel on my cheeks the memory of the blaze they must have made. They’d survived an uprooting in a faraway country, a long ship’s passage, replanting in alien soil, many hard frosts. I had believed that all they’d needed was loving care. I’d been a fool: they had been more fragile than that. One dose of cruelty had killed them.

  I sank to my knees on the cold ground and looked directly at the pinpricks of orange nestled into the long row of destruction, letting the tiny angry messages burn into my vision. Keeping my eyes open until they began to smart. That’ll teach me, I thought, staring as the breeze whipped up and scuttled a leaf along the path behind me with a rasping sound like something tearing in half. The sun was climbing the sky now, sending a thin warmth over Roscommon. Still I stayed staring, not turning, not looking away. That’ll teach me.

  Finally the last speck of fire guttered and went out. I got up from the ground, my knees numb, my feet bloodless and tingling, and stumbled up the path toward the house without looking back.

  That’ll teach me to cherish signs of life.

  * * *

  WHAT DOES THAT noise mean? I’m calling the nurse.

  It’s nothing. Happens all the time. Keep going.

  Mrs. Per
eira, are you having chest pain? Open up, lift your tongue. Okay, close.

  It’s just the afternoon conga. Nothing to worry—Oh!

  I’ll come back tomorrow.

  Just need to maybe close my eyes awhile.

  CHAPTER THIRTY

  * * *

  Leo

  IT’S A GOOD HIDING PLACE behind the bakery. The vents push out warm air from the basement ovens and the alley is a dead end, so no one comes through here. There’s a nook behind the garbage cans just big enough for me to lie if I bend my knees a little. I sleep there all day, and wake when one of the cans jolts. Someone’s loading up the day-olds that didn’t sell. I don’t breathe until the lid goes back on with a clang and I hear the back door slam. I stand, cautiously peek out—no one there. I lift the lid and pick out two pastries, crouch and wolf them down. When the bakery lights finally go off, leaving the alley in the dark, I stand up and stretch.

  The people I pass on the sidewalks have their heads down, going toward their suppers, coat collars turned up against the chill breeze that’s started. No one looks at me.

  When I get to the house I march right up the path. Same cracked stone on the front walk, same screen door with the scuff mark where Tad kicked it. But the rip in the screen has been fixed and there’s a new set of iron numbers screwed into the wood beside the front door. I can hear music as I creep across the front porch: the plinking of scales, then the beginning of a song. “O Come All Ye Faithful.” Then a discordant noise in the middle of a stanza, someone pounding the low keys.

  I look through the window and see Sally slapping Tad’s hands away from the piano. She is seated, but I can tell she has gotten taller; slimmer too, not such a baby anymore. Her hair is in barrettes; she’s wearing a dress I’ve never seen. She scowls at Tad with the crease between her eyebrows that I know means she’s about to cry. But instead of crying, she gets up dignified from the bench and leaves the room. Tad sits and crashes a few more sounds into the air, then without his sister there to annoy, he leaves the room too.