—
SHE CAN’T ESCAPE HIM; wherever she goes, he finds her, chases her back to that terrible day, the worst of her life. She throws the dining tablecloth over Houdini but it’s too late. He slams into the oven and collapses, dead at her feet, that poor dog, so black and red, still on fire. She goes up the stairs for Robert, shouting, where the smoke is so strong she can’t even think straight. Robert’s done this. She’s sure of it. He’s responsible for it. He’s set the house on fire. He’s killed Houdini. He’s done this terrible thing.
—
ROBERT—SO YOUNG, thick-haired—here he comes hustling across the road, dodging traffic. He’s out of breath when he reaches her. Never has a smile seemed so out of place on a man’s face. He’s wearing a new shirt. His pants have been pressed. His shoes are flecked with mud.
“I’ve been looking all over for you,” he says. “Your parents said you were out but didn’t know where.”
“You’ve been to see my parents?”
He blushes. “Well, Clara, the thing is . . .”
She has nowhere to go. Already he’s pulling out the ring.
—
WENDELL UNBUTTONS the back of her dress and slides his hot hand across her skin. They’re in the furniture store, after hours, all the lights off. She scoots away from him. She can’t think straight. The store is very hot and stuffy, and he kisses her too hard, his stubble chafing her lips, and his cologne, it’s so strong. He smells as if he bathed in a tub of hot bubbling cologne. It’s giving her a terrible headache. In fact, she feels ill. She needs some space but isn’t sure how to say so without offending him. He’s wearing this scent for her, surely. Probably he paid money to smell like that.
“I want you so much,” he says.
“I know that,” she says, sounding more coy than she intended.
—
ROBERT’S GOT THE UMBRELLA over her head but it’s not raining yet. He’s walking her home after a show at the Grand. He keeps looking up at the sky, checking the clouds. It really did seem like it was going to rain only a moment ago, but now the moon is visible again, the clouds scattering. He can’t seem to decide whether to quit with the umbrella.
There are certain things about Robert that are easy to miss if you’re not watching out for them.
He can be very gallant, can’t he? The way he persists with the umbrella, for instance.
Also he’s very steady. Sensible.
Dependable!
He’s not always chasing the next best thing.
He doesn’t check his hair in the mirror five times an hour.
Films—he doesn’t care for them, generally. And yet he took her to one anyway because he knows it’s what she enjoys.
At length, the rain begins, and he seems relieved by it.
“Rain,” he says to her, as if she hadn’t noticed.
Overhead, little drops pat against the umbrella.
—
WENDELL’S VERY FIRST FILM is playing at the Grand. He’s been gone from Shula for over five years. Robert doesn’t want to see it, and so Clara goes alone, telling him she’s off to visit her parents for a few hours.
Sitting alone in the darkness of the theater, she remembers being here with Wendell, his mouth wet at her neck. She can’t believe he’s actually done it; he’s actually written a movie. It’s about an up-and-coming businessman who, shortly after getting engaged to a wealthy heiress, falls in love with a club dancer. Clara can find nothing of Wendell in this story. The plot feels contrived. The characters are humorous, sort of, but also self-serving and vapid.
—
HERE COMES HOUDINI AGAIN—on fire! It’s Robert’s fault. He hasn’t been out of bed in three days.
—
ROBERT COMES DOWN THE STAIRS, looking for his coat, and he waves the electric bill in her face. Someone has to pay the goddamn electric, he screams. But it’s not the electric he needs to pay.
—
“I HATE TO BOTHER YOU WITH THIS,” her father says. “You know I wouldn’t ask unless it was absolutely necessary.”
“I’ll see what I can do. I make no promises.”
He asks for more coffee. She tells him there is no more coffee. He’s had it all. She wants him gone because Robert will be home soon.
—
SHE’S SITTING IN HER CHAIR, a band of hot, bright sunlight across her lap, and she’s feeling so tired. Robert goes to the fireplace and tosses due notices behind the grate. He says he desperately needs to get away to Atlanta, just for a few days this time, not for a month, and surely she can manage without him for that long?
She can manage, obviously, but she doesn’t want him to leave again. She can’t stand the thought of being in this house alone another night. She’ll miss his shape in the bed. His weight. His breath. She’ll miss the way he mutters in his sleep.
—
THE VOICE ON THE STAIRS follows her to the bottom. It travels as if carried on a dead breeze. She fears she’s going crazy. A ghost. It’s the only explanation.
“The house is too new to have ghosts,” Robert says. “It was only four years old when we bought it. Only one other person lived here, and he didn’t die—he moved.”
—
SHE CAN’T BELIEVE Robert’s actually bought them a house. An entire house, just for the two of them. Touring the rooms for the first time, she can already imagine it: the curtains, the color schemes, the placement of the furniture.
“Ta-da,” Robert says, unveiling a green Dutch sofa in the sitting room.
The sofa is identical to the one at her parents’ house. In truth she’s always hated that sofa for its particular shade of green, but of course she doesn’t say so now. She understands why he’s given it to her, even if he’s too shy and reserved to ever say so explicitly. It was on that pea-green sofa in her parents’ living room that they first made love.
She tells him he’s made her incredibly happy.
He wants to show her something else, upstairs—
—
THE DOG IS ON FIRE! She runs halfway up the stairs and shouts for Robert to come quick and then goes chasing after the dog, screaming for help, but no one comes. No one is there to help the poor dog. All her life she’s felt so alone, so separate from everything.
—
ROBERT UNDRESSES BY THE BED and slides in alongside her. His legs are so much longer than hers. His feet nearly hang off the end of the bed. They’ve been together in the darkness for almost ten minutes when he mutters something.
“What did you say?” she asks, pulled away from the edge of sleep, rolling toward him.
“Nothing,” he says. “I love you, that’s all.”
—
SHE’S FEEDING HOUDINI bits of her morning toast under the table.
“We can’t afford him,” Robert says, his voice rising.
“He won’t cost you anything.” She brings Houdini into her lap. “He’ll eat the scraps.”
“Soon enough it might be scraps for us too.”
“Don’t talk like that. You know I hate it when you talk like that.”
He chews his food mournfully for a moment, then looks up again. “I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have said that.”
His eyes reveal all: He really is sorry. He hates himself right now. She wishes he wouldn’t hate himself so much.
—
SHE’S ON HER WAY to the grocery store for her mother when she spots Wendell across the street with another girl. Sarah Whitney is her name. Clara knows her from school. Wendell has his arm around Sarah’s waist. Clara follows at a distance for a few blocks, thinking she might confront him, but when the couple goes into the movie theater, she keeps walking and circles back to the grocery store.
Later that afternoon, when she returns home with the groceries, she realizes she’s forgotten the apples. Her mother is
upset. Apples were the first item on the list. How on earth could Clara have forgotten to buy the apples?
—
BUT WENDELL WANTS TO MARRY HER. He says that’s what he intends to do. For now he thinks they should keep it a secret, but he wants to be with her forever.
“You don’t know what you want,” she says.
“I know exactly what I want. I want you, Clara.”
They’re in the theater, in a back row. Probably this is where he sat with Sarah Whitney, too. Clara can’t bring herself to utter the girl’s name aloud. To do so would make it real, whatever is going on between Sarah and Wendell.
After the movie they go for a walk down the street. Wendell keeps his arm around her. He reeks of cologne. Always with that terrible cologne. Her head is pounding. They’re almost to her house when she swivels loose from his grip and is sick in the street. When he tries to come near, she shoos him away.
—
ROBERT ISN’T AN UGLY MAN. Far from it.
Brooding, yes—but not ugly. Lean and long. Bony.
Distinct—but not ugly.
So why did May say he was ugly?
But Robert dotes on Clara. He really loves her. He’s not going to change his mind. Of that she’s certain.
—
HE WANTS TO SHOW HER something upstairs. He’s already bought them a bed for the new house. They’re halfway up when—
—
THE DOG COMES running down the stairs, on fire, and so she grabs the tablecloth, toppling the candles, and chases after him. She doesn’t know what else to do. She’s too late anyway. The dog is dead. She goes up the stairs for Robert. He’s responsible for this. Oh, Robert, why?
—
THOSE STAIRS. THE LIGHT is so peculiar there, isn’t it? Not to mention the voice. Someone calling out to her. What does Robert have to say about that?
He goes up a few steps and stomps his feet loudly.
“Anyone here?” he shouts. “Hello? Hello?” He pauses, dramatically, with his hand cupped around his ear. After a few moments, he shrugs and stomps the step hard. “If anyone’s here we kindly ask you to exit our lovely home. We bought it fair and square. This is the home in which my wife and I intend to raise our children and grow old together. We’re not going anywhere. We’re here to stay.”
Pleased with himself, he descends and takes Clara’s hand. Does she feel better now?
—
HE COMES DOWN THE STAIRS, looking for his coat, and he waves the electric bill in her face. Someone has to pay the goddamn electric, he screams. He’s not himself right now, she tells herself. This isn’t Robert.
—
HERE COMES HOUDINI, ON FIRE!
—
SHE’S SITTING IN HER CHAIR, a band of hot, bright sunlight across her lap, and she’s feeling so tired. Robert goes to the fireplace and tosses due notices behind the grate. He says he desperately needs to get away to Atlanta, just for a few days this time, not for a month, and surely she can manage without him for that long? He goes up the stairs to continue packing.
—
HOUDINI, THE DOG, comes running down the stairs, and he’s on fire, and no one can save him. She goes halfway up and shouts for Robert to get down here fast. She goes chasing after Houdini with the tablecloth, a gift from her mother two Christmases ago.
—
ROBERT STRIDES INTO THE HOUSE saying he forgot his coat. He kisses her on the cheek and says he loves her, despite it all. Despite all of what? she wants to know.
—
ROBERT COMES DOWN THE STAIRS, angry, and when she tries to stop him from going, he glares at her, his face so gaunt, and he tells her she’s nothing, that she’s as empty as a glass. He says she is incapable of understanding him. He’s going back upstairs again, to bed. In bed for three days! It’s not natural. She goes to her chair, crying, because she’s not empty as a glass. She’s only exhausted, and she hates him for saying such horrible things. He wasn’t always like this.
—
JUST AS SHE’S about to drift off into sleep, he mutters something.
“What was that?” she asks, rolling toward him, throwing her arm over him.
“Nothing,” he says. “I’m sorry. I love you, that’s all.”
—
THE DOG IS ON FIRE! Her Houdini! That cocker spaniel could escape any room, any cage, any leash, but he’s on fire, he’s burning to death, the poor thing, and there is no one who can save him—no one but her.
•V•
SUBJECT 42
Exit parents and in-laws.
Exit friends.
Childhood heroes.
Hollywood icons.
Lovers and spouses.
Strangers, familiars.
Wes was among the first in our immediate orbit. He was on a long-distance bike ride when he stopped pedaling abruptly, dropped his bike, and hunched down on the shoulder of the road to massage his chest. He thought it was heartburn but an hour later he was on a stretcher in the back of an ambulance.
Annie and I drove over to the hospital that evening to see him. This was only three years after our trip to Little Rock, in the early fall. The weather had already turned cool, the leaves slipping back and forth in the wind, ready to snap loose, a pale half-moon in the sky above the car as we drove. We had the heat going, and Annie pressed her hand to the glass to feel the chill.
“He’ll be fine,” she said. “You aren’t worried, are you?”
“Not terribly,” I confessed.
Harriet, his ex, met us in the hallway outside the room when we reached the hospital. She and Wes had never completely reconciled though they were on decidedly better terms. He and Sudeepa had only lasted a few months together, and Harriet was single again, too, working as a filing clerk at a law office in town. She offered us a donut from a nearly empty box. Greasy rings of stalagmite icing were all that was left of the eaten ones. Annie and I politely declined.
“I know what you’re thinking,” she said. “He’s just had a heart attack, and we’re handing out donuts. But trust me, he doesn’t even know they’re out here. I’m not so cruel as that. Someone brought these over earlier. I didn’t buy them. I never buy donuts.”
It seemed important to her for us to know she hadn’t bought the donuts. Harriet was a total hummingbird, never at rest, a very grabby person. Asking you a question she’d latch onto your wrist, squeezing it. She’d kiss both your cheeks when she greeted you. Annie thought her flirty, but to me these gestures seemed more compulsive than overtly sexual. She’d always struck me as somewhat manic.
“How’s he doing?” Annie asked.
“Better. Much better. Thank you. He’s going to be fine, just fine. Surgery tomorrow. He’s clogged, is what it is.”
“Jim had heart surgery a couple of years ago,” Annie said. “He’s got a HeartNet actually.”
It wasn’t something we typically told people, but I understood she was simply trying to help Harriet feel less worried.
“Is that right?” she asked. “I had no idea. Wes didn’t mention it. Are you doing okay now?”
“No complaints,” I said.
She tossed the donuts in the trash.
Eventually I was able to slip into the room and see Wes. He was awake, watching a show about giant fish that lurked at the bottom of rivers. Noticing me, he reached for a remote. The bed motor screeched as it delivered him up to an almost sitting position.
“Hey, buddy,” I said. “You look good.”
“I’m still here,” he said, nodding. “My dad died from a heart attack when he was a few years older than me. I ever tell you that? So did his dad.”
“You’ll be fine. Medicine’s come a long way. This is manageable. Look at me! It’s been four years since mine, and I’m still here. The bright side is, you made it, you survived.”
“In s
ome ways this is a good thing,” he said. “A warning. To get my affairs in order. I was just on the phone with a cryo-brain company, making all the arrangements. They’re sending me the paperwork to sign day after tomorrow, so if this ever happens again, I’ll be taken care of. My brain will immediately be removed and placed in a deepfreeze. I should have already done it. I’ve been meaning to for years, but I guess I never really thought this day would come.”
I patted him on the feet and told him to get some rest. That was the last time I saw him. He died in surgery the next morning, presumably before he had a chance to make the arrangements for the preservation of his brain.
A complication during surgery, was the doctor’s line to Harriet after the surgery, which, it occurs to me now, is true of just about any death—and any life, too. A grand complication.
After that it was my uncle, in Connecticut, in a boating accident.
Lung cancer took Annie’s mother about a decade ago.
Her father died two years later when he fell off a ladder in the driveway and concussed his head.
We lost a good friend to a virus she supposedly contracted while traveling through the Amazon.
One of Fisher’s ex-girlfriends was killed by a stray bullet one night outside a bar.
Wilson Bizby’s car went off a mountain road early one morning, rolled almost a hundred feet, and exploded. The town talked of nothing else for weeks.
Diana, the Fortune Teller, had a seizure and suffocated against a couch cushion.
For Susan, it was a long fight with stomach cancer.
Darryl, as far as I know, is still alive, wherever he is.
My mother’s alive, too. She’s eighty-one now—and a little dotty. I was over at the house a few days ago. When I got there she was sitting outside in the sunshine talking to Delphine, her live-in Grammer, a larger woman with one of the kindest faces I’ve ever seen, soft and round. A truly angelic being. When I came through the back gate, Delphine, dressed in a white linen frock, was sitting in the chair opposite my mother, and they were discussing a television show they’d been watching together over the last few weeks. Seeing me, Delphine looked up and informed me that the bird feeders needed seed. My mother has always enjoyed watching the birds from her breakfast table, the wrens and blue jays and cardinals, and so I make it a habit to keep the feeders full.
The Afterlives Page 30