The Last First Day

by Carrie Brown

  It’s the medicine, he said. Sometimes that happens. The taste of things will come back. It will do you good to eat, if you can.

  Ruth ate obediently—fork to mouth, fork to mouth. Flares of panic kept igniting in her belly, and she was afraid she might vomit, but she got to the end of it.

  He lifted away the tray when she set down her fork.

  A moment later she slipped back again into the flat and dreamless and colorless sleep that felt as if a blindfold had been wrapped over her eyes.

  She had fainted on the porch of the van Dusens’ house on the morning she had found the boy there, sitting on the steps rolling the newspapers. When she woke in the days ahead, she remembered that, remembered the sensation of her head separating from her body, her body tumbling forward.

  Someone—it must have been the boy—had caught her, carried her back upstairs to the bed, but she had no memory of that. She could not make her mind reconcile the fact that the events surrounding what had happened to her father had culminated in this way, with Ruth deposited into the home of the boy on the bicycle. She could not bear to think about her father, but she could not stop thinking about him, either.

  She did not know what would happen to her.

  She slept. Waking, she would turn her face into the pillow and struggle to fall back down into the blackness. Once, after using the toilet, she dared glance at herself in the mirror. A stranger looked back at her, lips and cheeks drained of color, her hair wild.

  One morning—was it the second day? The third? How long had she been sleeping?—Ruth woke to the sight of Mrs. van Dusen lowering a tray to the table beside her bed and the unmistakable smell of scrambled eggs and tea. Morning light poured into the room.

  She struggled to sit up.

  Mrs. van Dusen spooned sugar into a teacup, poured tea from a china pot decorated with pink flowers. She waited while Ruth pulled herself up against the pillows and then handed her the cup. Ruth noticed that her hand trembled slightly, and that there were dark circles below Mrs. van Dusen’s eyes, as if the fragile skin above her cheekbones had been bruised.

  Dr. van Dusen thought you might feel well enough to eat again, Mrs. van Dusen said.

  The eggs smelled wonderful. Ruth ate; the taste of food seemed to have been restored, as well.

  When Mrs. van Dusen returned a short time later, she carried a stack of fresh towels.

  Maybe you would like to have a bath now, Ruth, she said, though Ruth understood that it wasn’t a question.

  Ruth watched from the bed, listening to the sound of the water running. She could see Mrs. van Dusen kneeling by the side of the tub, extending her wrist under the tap to check the temperature of the water. Sunlight from the curtained window fell on her head, her hair the same gold color as the boy’s.

  Finally, Mrs. van Dusen got to her feet and came back into the bedroom. She lifted the tray from Ruth’s knees.

  Will you be all right? she said. Her eyes sought Ruth’s briefly—Ruth nodded—and then moved away again.

  When Mrs. van Dusen withdrew, shutting the door behind her, Ruth made an effort to sit up straighter in bed. Her eyelids still felt so heavy. She walked unsteadily into the bathroom, where she closed the door and shed her wrinkled clothes—clothes that seemed to belong to another lifetime—on the floor.

  Once she was lying in the bath, she felt better. The water was warm, and when she allowed herself to sink into it, her ears below the surface, the liquid silence was comforting. The water had been scented with something; there were colored rainbows in it, and it smelled sweetly floral. Or perhaps the smell was just from the room’s astonishing cleanliness, Ruth thought, lying with her face floating just above the water’s surface. Her eyes traveled over the bathroom’s shining faucets, the white tiles of the wall, and the gleaming pink-tiled floor. She’d never been anywhere as clean as the van Dusens’ house, she thought.

  She realized she had no clothes other than those she had been wearing … for how many days now?

  She had a memory of speaking to Dr. van Dusen at some point, of protesting, of struggling to get out of bed. She had been afraid that he would take her back to the house where she and her father had been living. She did not want ever to see that house again.

  What had happened to her father? He must be dead, she thought. Would they tell her?

  The memory of him on that day, trying to run, the blood in the air … the thought of the blood filled her with pity. Yet she understood that somehow what had happened was not a complete surprise to her. For her whole life her father had been like a man standing alone at night under a lamppost on a street, waiting, and she did not know for what. She thought that what had been between them might have looked like love—they even might have wanted it to be love—but it was as if a river had run between them, separating them.

  They had been in some way no relation to each other, his blood his own, nothing to do with her,

  She began to cry; she had to sink her head under the water to make herself stop.

  Out of the bath, she wrapped herself in one of the big white towels, as soft and clean as everything in the van Dusens’ house.

  In the bedroom, she found that the sheets had been changed, the bed made up again with fresh linens, one corner turned down invitingly. On the chair beside the bed were two new blouses, one with narrow pink stripes, the other pale blue, both still pinned to the shirt paper. Beside the shirts were two skirts, as well as several pairs of cotton underwear and two brassieres, their cups—excruciating, she thought, that someone had noticed the size of her breasts, already big—folded neatly inside one another and slipped discreetly between the blouses. On the bed lay a pale yellow nightgown and a matching robe. Ruth put on the nightgown and climbed back into bed. She sensed that the medicine Dr. van Dusen had been giving her was wearing off—the taste of the eggs had revived her appetite—but all she wanted was to be asleep.

  When she woke again later that day, the room was filled with late-afternoon light. She got out of bed and went to use the bathroom, where she saw that her old clothes had been removed. She looked out the bathroom window. Mrs. van Dusen, wearing a wide-brimmed hat, knelt in the garden below among the flowers.

  No sound came from anywhere else in the house.

  Where was the boy?

  Ruth went to the door of the bedroom and looked out onto the landing. From the top of the stairs, she could see down into the front hall. Light came in from the two etched-glass panels beside the front door, and a chandelier distributed colored chinks around the hall, where they moved lazily across the floor and walls. Ruth watched the little squares of light travel silently over the carpet and walls and the slender legs of the hall table. A clock ticked.

  This was somebody’s life, she thought. People lived like this, in a calm and clean quiet. Yet, like a pinch on her arm, she felt it: was it too quiet?

  But it didn’t matter; such a life would never be her life, anyway.

  She fled back to bed. She wanted only to sleep.

  Later that evening, when Mrs. van Dusen brought her supper on a tray, the plate held two lamb chops and a baked potato and cooked carrots cut up into tiny cubes.

  Ruth’s appetite had vanished, replaced by a stomachache, but she ate methodically; she needed to store supplies, she thought. It felt as if a long voyage lay ahead of her.

  Dr. van Dusen appeared at the bedroom door, as she finished the last mouthful.

  She might like to come downstairs and sit in the living room for a while, he suggested. It’s a lovely, cool evening, Ruth, he said. Put on the robe Mrs. van Dusen bought for you.

  Downstairs he helped her to a chair, as if she were an invalid.

  A polished silver dish shaped like a seashell rested on the table beside her chair. Books with gilt lettering on their spines filled the shelves on either side of a fireplace, which was neatly swept, two polished brass andirons side by side. The upholstered sofa was lined with tasseled pillows. The window by her chair was open, and outside in the gard
en, the lacy white globes of flowers glowed in the dusk. Ruth felt that she was in a painting of a world, not a real world. She had never been in such a place.

  Mrs. van Dusen brought her a mug of Ovaltine on a saucer, a plate with two sugar cookies, an ironed linen napkin with embroidered letters on it.

  Then Dr. van Dusen, his shirtsleeves rolled to his elbows, reappeared in the doorway.

  Behind him, carrying a folded-up checkerboard, was the boy, the boy on the bicycle.

  This is our son, Peter, Dr. van Dusen said. He smiled. But I think you’ve met.

  That night, Peter sat on a footstool across from her, the checkerboard on a folding tray table between them.

  Ruth stole glances at him. The part in his shining hair was clean and straight. His eyebrows were straight, too, smooth, delicate lines, his eyelashes dark against his skin as he looked down at the checkerboard.

  She could not believe he was sitting across from her.

  Every time he took one of her men, he glanced up apologetically.

  Sorry, he said, shaking his head

  He won three games in a row.

  After each one, Ruth was afraid he would pack up the board and leave, but he just set up the pieces again.

  Then in the fourth game, as if the arrangement of pieces on the board suddenly leaped into focus for her, she saw a move that would allow her to jump two of his pieces.

  She took his men off the board.

  Then she looked up.

  You let me do that, she said.

  I didn’t see it, he said. That’s how it is sometimes. But he was smiling.

  She looked down at the checkerboard.

  You carried me upstairs after I fainted, she said. I’m sorry.

  It’s all right, he said. I’ve carried much heavier things. Then he blushed. It was fine, he said. Don’t worry.

  She saw in his face that he knew about what had happened to her father and to her, about the perverse and terrible thing from which she would never now be free.

  You know why I’m here, she said. In your house, I mean.

  He nodded.

  I guess you feel sorry for me, she said. But I don’t want you to. Pity would follow his understanding, she realized.

  I’ll try, he said.

  Peter had his father’s tall gracefulness, the same large blue eyes and high forehead and straight nose. His hair looked so soft that Ruth longed to touch it, to brush it away from his forehead, where it liked to fall. Like everything in the van Dusens’ house—Ruth walked through it marveling at the china, the carpets, the furniture she recognized as antiques, every doorknob and mirror and window polished and sparkling—Peter himself was clean and finely made. His hair was full of silver and gold light. His skin glowed.

  She found herself looking at the white half-moons on his fingernails, at his wrists, his forearms, the shape of his shoulders under his shirt, the declivity at the base of his throat, his jaw, the curve of his ear.

  She was aware for the first time of wanting to touch another person, a boy, of wanting to bring her body close to his.

  Sitting at the van Dusens’ dining room table across from him in the evenings, which she began to do after the first night of being brought downstairs, was excruciating. She tried not to lift her eyes from her plate, but it was as if her gaze was dragged magnetically toward Peter, and when she looked up he seemed always to be looking back at her. Throughout the meal, while his parents made small talk with each other and with Peter—How was your day, dear? Was this really how people spoke to each other?—Ruth felt a racing sensation in her chest. She was aware of her breasts under her shirt, the smell of the perfumed soap with which she’d washed her hair. She felt herself blushing, her cheeks flaming throughout every meal.

  She saw, too, that Mrs. van Dusen noticed her feelings, color rising in her own face.

  After dinner at night, Dr. van Dusen encouraged Ruth to retreat to the living room, where she was left alone to read. Ruth stood before the shelves choosing books at random, putting her nose to them, and pressing their cool, smooth covers to her cheek.

  She could not believe her life with her father was over, gone, that her father himself was gone, probably dead. Because no one spoke to her of what had happened, despite the enormity of the events, it seemed logical to her that people would tell her nothing, that she was owed nothing, neither explanations nor news.

  And their life had not been a real life, she saw now. It had been a false life, an experiment to which she had been subjected.

  Yet she could not let go of its details.

  Her father must have carried her when she was a baby. He must have held her, rocked her to sleep sometimes. She remembered holding his hand while crossing streets, remembered the pressure of his hand on her shoulder, briefly, pushing her forward into classrooms, into unfamiliar apartments where a succession of women looked after her when her father was away somewhere. She remembered, oddly, the feel of his hand over her own as she had practiced writing her first letters.

  Every night she waited for Peter to appear again in the living room with the checkerboard, but he did not. Sometimes Dr. van Dusen sat with her, reading the newspaper. Mrs. van Dusen brought him a cup of coffee, and he looked up at her then, touched her arm or put his hand on the small of her back as she leaned over to set the cup carefully on the table beside him. Ruth watched these exchanges; this, too, was a revelation to her, how people were with each other. Polite. Intimate.

  She sat dutifully with a book, but often she did not really read. She hoped Peter would come join them in the living room, but one evening she watched from the living room window as he headed off on his bicycle after dinner. The next evening he left with a basketball under his arm. Other pursuits had been found for him, she realized.

  Sometimes the telephone rang, and Dr. van Dusen rose to answer it, speaking in quiet tones to someone, one of his patients, she assumed. Occasionally he left the house at night with his doctor’s bag. One night while he was out, Ruth passed the kitchen on her way upstairs and saw Mrs. van Dusen sitting at the kitchen table, her hands clasped before her. There was no book or magazine or sewing on the table. The kitchen was immaculately tidy, a light on over the stove but the room otherwise in darkness. Mrs. van Dusen did not seem to see her.

  In some way, Mrs. van Dusen reminded Ruth of her father. There was something hidden inside her that could not be spoken, she thought.

  Every night, Dr. van Dusen left a sleeping pill for Ruth, a tiny tablet in a little dish beside a glass of water on the bedside table. Every night, Ruth took it.

  A week went by. Two. Other than the visit from the FBI men one afternoon, the hours passed with excruciating slowness. Mrs. van Dusen continued to bring Ruth breakfast on a tray in bed, as if she were an invalid, and Ruth spent much of the day there, reading or sleeping. Every night she dressed in the clothes that had been purchased for her and went downstairs for dinner. She assumed that Peter did not return to play checkers with her because of her father, because of what had happened to her. His parents—Mrs. van Dusen, in particular—wanted no friendship between their son and Ruth.

  She did not know what would happen to her. She assumed that, as the policeman had said, someone would arrive one day to take her away somewhere. A feeling of alert waiting had replaced her impulse to run away, the instinct that had driven her downstairs and outside to the porch on the first night at the van Dusens’. She did not know how to be ready, nor what to be ready for, but her skin prickled frequently with fear. It seemed that no one was to talk to her, to tell her anything. She had the sense that she was on a dangerous kind of probation, that any move was likely to result in catastrophe. She tried to be as quiet as possible, to ask nothing. From the windows she watched Peter coming and going from the house, heard the sounds of passersby or cars on the street, the telephone ringing. But the apparently ordinary life around her seemed both mysterious and out of reach. Such a life would never be her own, she thought. The invisible connections that tied people
to places, to each other … she did not possess these. Had never possessed them, it seemed.

  Then, one evening as she sat in the living room, she looked up to see Peter standing in the hallway. He smiled and lifted his hand.

  A moment later, Mrs. van Dusen appeared. Her gaze took in Peter, and then it took in Ruth.

  Peter? she said. I need your help with something.

  A few minutes later, Ruth heard the sound of the basketball outside, Peter shooting again and again in the twilight at the goal mounted over the door to the small barn behind the house where Dr. van Dusen parked his car at night. The basketball thudded against the backboard, and also, somehow, inside her own body, again and again.

  The next evening after dinner, Dr. and Mrs. van Dusen told Ruth that they had found a permanent place for her. She was not to be taken away, after all. A widow who lived in Wells, a patient of Dr. van Dusen’s named Mary Healy, was in need of a girl who could help her. She was alone and her health was poor. Ruth understood that the arrangements were being described in particular terms: They were asking her to help Mary. They were not saying, you have nowhere else to go, and we do not want you here. Yet she understood that the tension in the van Dusens’ house had to do with her.

  She was not part of their family.

  She was not part of any family.

  The bad things her father had done, the bad thing that had happened to him … people would not want to be reminded of that.

  Dr. van Dusen did all the talking during this conversation. Ruth could see that he was concerned that she might cry, though she had not cried once in front of either him or Mrs. van Dusen. She sensed that the decision to find a place for her had come because no authority had yet been found to come get her, and that Mrs. van Dusen—more than her husband—was eager for Ruth to leave. Peter was not present for this discussion, which was not a discussion. Nor had he been there for dinner that night. She would never see him again, she thought, and it was this realization, as Dr. van Dusen explained to her what would happen, that made her eyes fill with tears.