Voices of Ash

by Jill Zeller

  “Where have you been, young man. Why couldn’t you be here to welcome your mother home?” Dad placed the Dictaphone on a table beside the bed that had been brought up from downstairs, its surface already stacked with pads, a dozen sharpened pencils in a glass, pot of coffee, water pitcher, spare reading glasses, and a stuffed Teddy bear.

  Mom looked small, thinner than she had even in the hospital, dwarfed by mountains of linens in the bed and stack of writing pads on the table beside her. She had wrapped a spotted green turban around her head and wore a matching robe. Indicating Hank should come to give her a hug, she wore a sloppy, rather pathetic grin.

  The sight of this hardened Hank’s heart even more. When Mom saw him approach with his cigarette, her eyes narrowed slightly.

  Good. Let her ask for a smoke. She won’t get one from me.

  He dutifully let her hug him. Dad brought over a saucer. “No cigarettes in the sick room,” he said. Hank took a long draw and stubbed it out.

  “Where’s the nurse you’re supposed to have?” Hank sat on Mom’s dressing table chair, a brass confection with a fuzzy pink seat.

  “There won’t be one.” Carl leaned against the window frame. From here at least, he looked sober.

  “I will take care of your mother until she is able to get around on her own.” Dad fussed with the items on the table, moving things around. A big chair had also been brought up and stood on the other side of the table from the bed, books and magazines piled next to it, a standing lamp behind.

  So much for my Luz scheme, Hank thought, leaning back, one elbow on the dressing table, knocking over a bottle of perfume.

  Mom watched Hank. He thought he saw doubt in her eyes, but more likely it was scrutiny, calculation, a method of discovery.

  Sitting in the big chair, Dad loosened his tie. “So where were you last night? Your mother was distressed that you weren’t here when she got home. Carl tells me you were out all night.”

  Shrugging, Hank said nothing. He watched Mom and she watched him back.

  “Hey Hank, get this.” Carl took off his jacket. The room grew hotter and hotter, Hank noticed, and it wasn’t from the heat of all the lies sealed up with them.

  “That girl, the one who accused me, changed her story. What a kick, huh? Mom says she’ll talk to Cedric about Connie and me being rehired.”

  “That’s interesting.” Hank kept his gaze on mom. “She’ll talk to him, huh?”

  Dad shifted in his chair. “Of course, as soon as she gets her voice back.”

  “I don’t give a shit, actually.” Carl ran a hand through his hair. “I don’t think I want to work with Connie anymore.”

  They all turned to look at him. Carl smiled crookedly, pleased to be, Hank thought, the center of attention once again.

  “I’ve been talking to people on my own. If Connie can suck up, so can I, so to speak. I have an audition for a TV show.”

  Dad snorted. Mother glared at Carl, as one might stare down a tiger. Hank wondered at this change in Carl. What had made him suddenly grow balls of his own? It had to be more than the adoration of a bevy of star-struck nurses.

  “Congratulations, Carl,” Hank said, just as Connie came through the door.

  “The prodigal daughter returns. Hank and Connie both missing in action.” Carl sat on the window seat, crossed his legs, turned to look outside again.

  Connie breathed heavily, as if she had just run up the stairs. Hank was curious about the look of her; sundress clean, ironed, sandals in her hand, hair a curly soufflé. But there was something paler about her, as if she were a ghost of herself. Her smile strained, movements jerky as she scraped up all the available energy in the room.

  “So glad you’re home, Mommy.” She fluttered to Mom, sat next to her, swept her arms around her. “I was so worried.”

  Worried enough, Hank thought, to stay out of sight of everyone for as long as possible. No one asked where she had been, however. Hank noticed that.

  While Connie rubbed Mom’s hands, an action, Hank could see, that Mom didn’t like, he said, “So Carl was telling us he has an audition. Television show, he says.”

  Connie whirled around, too quickly, Hank thought. Snakelike.

  “Oh really? Television?” She said the word as if Carl said he landed a gig in Hell. “What will you use for your audition? A soap jingle?”

  Standing up, Carl stretched. He walked around Mom’s bed to stand a few feet from Hank.

  “No. A love ballad. I’m learning to croon.”

  Now it was Connie’s turn to snort. Her eyes were too bright, too wide. She had smeared makeup across her face carelessly. “You, a crooner? What, you going to be the next Mel Torme?”

  “A prettier version, certainly.” Carl smoothed back his hair.

  “Well, good luck. Better hope the sponsors don’t find out you’re a rapist.”

  “Constance, that’s enough.” Dad stood up. Hank could see Mom’s fingers digging into Connie’s skin.

  Carl looked at her, one eyebrow raised. “Oh, maybe you didn’t hear. Your little friend recanted. She said there was no rape. The papers reported she made a mistake.”

  A slow recognition slid over Hank. He watched Connie’s face, to see if his intuition was right.

  Pulling away from Mom, Connie got up, walked across the room, opened Mom’s cigarette holder, found it empty, slammed it back onto the dresser.

  “She’s an idiot. Someone got to her, that’s all.”

  Carl said, “Oh, and who would that be? Mom maybe? She walked into that girl’s apartment and threatened her?”

  Connie paced around the room, ended up beside Hank. “Who knows? Who cares?”

  “I do.” Carl approached her, his face full of a level of contempt Hank had never seen before. “I do because you and your starlet friend, yeah, she’s Cedric’s niece or something, and yeah, I met her in the hotel bar and she was very friendly. But you cooked all that up with her to get the rotten publicity you needed to break up the act.”

  It all made perfect sense to Hank. In fact, he started to laugh, and Connie glared at him. “Mary. Mary the starlet—‘is this your other brother?’ Of course. You didn’t take me to her place to drown your sorrows, it was to celebrate. It’s perfect, Con. You are a master.”

  Mom stood up. She stared at her three children as if she had never seen them before. Walking toward them, she came up to Connie and lifted her hand.

  Getting to his feet, Hank seized Mom’s wrist before she could strike Connie. Carl stood frozen. Connie stepped back, chin raised.

  “Mother, you know it was time. I need to be on my own. You would keep us handcuffed together like slaves in a chain gang the rest of our lives. I can’t do that. Carl can’t do that.” Her voice was raw, grating.

  Face red, eyes murderous, Mom stood trembling. She rested a hand on the dressing table after Hank let her go.

  Dad appeared, took Mom’s arm. “Come along, sweetheart. You need to lie down.”

  Taking her back to the bed, Dad folded Mom under the covers as if she were a doll he was saying goodnight to. She lay, staring at the ceiling. The utter silence in the room was eerie and strange.

  Then Connie began to hum. She did a twirl, executed a quick tap-step.

  Scowling at her, Carl moved, grabbed her arm. “Cut that shit out!”

  She scratched his cheek. He lifted an arm and Hank recapitulated his intervention, grabbing Carl’s wrist.

  “You fucking ruined my life, you bitch.”

  “I did you a favor, Carly. You will have to cut the apron strings, just like I did. And it’s tough out there, flying on your own.” Connie smiled. All this time she had been here, she had not looked at Hank at all.

  Dad came over, pushed Carl away from Connie, pointed at the door. “You all get out of here if you can’t behave like human beings. Your mother is sick!”

  Connie ruffled her hair, picked up her sandals from where she had dropped them. “I’ll be back later, Mommy, to tuck you in.”

 
; Dad did not look amused. Standing a few feet away, Hank wondered if Connie was high on something. Carl fingered the scratches on his jaw. One of them looked pretty deep.

  Hank felt himself retreat, seeing them as if Mom and Dad and Connie and Carl, all characters in a play and he was observing, trying to figure out what was going on.

  And finally, the closed closet of Hank’s memory. What had Mom done to Luz and why he couldn’t remember?

  He remembered dropping Joseph off at home, helped him into the house with his genie-lamp of father-ashes. He thought of Susan, brown eyes and lines of freckles.

  Grabbing Carl’s arm, Hank pulled him along, out of the room, past Dad and Connie’s astonished faces.

  “C’mon,” he said. “I’m getting us both out of here.”

  Twenty-Eight

  After stashing the Peugeot in the Caddy trunk, Hank backed out of the Cleveland driveway, Carl in the seat beside him, offering him a drink from his flask. Hank declined, but he did accept a cigarette, knowing that once at Susan’s he wouldn’t be able to smoke.

  He told Carl he had met the infamous ‘Mary’, which was her real name. She was a distant relative of Cedric Sigfried and had been Connie’s comrade-in-arms for years. Hank was relieved to know that Carl was not the notorious womanizer he led people to believe.

  “I’ve maybe gotten all the way only five or six times.” Carl opened the window; air flowed through his hair. Hank drove in his usual sedate manner and Carl made no remark about it. Hank realized the only people who liberally complained about his driving were the women of the family.

  Carl glanced at the urn between them. “Why, exactly, did you want to bring Grandpa Joel’s ashes for the ride?”

  Hank stared straight ahead. Carl had not asked why Hank propelled him down the stairs and into the living room, swiped both the urn and the marquess off the mantle and led him to the car. Carl got in the passenger seat, cooperating, probably, because his brother’s behavior was so unlike him, and waited while Hank rolled the Peugeot out of the garage.

  “Hank said, “You’ll find out soon enough.”

  “What a carnival freak our sister is.” Carl waved his hand out the window as the car moved along Wilshire. Late Saturday afternoon, glorious and sunny, made traffic to the beach cities heavy.

  Nodding, Hank couldn’t agree more. But he didn’t give a rip about it. He had a way to remember now. Susan could help him. If he could remember, he could go back to Luz to ask her to forgive him. The thought of living without Luz made him feel as if he had a hole in his body so big everyone could see through him to the other side.

  When they reached the street of Venice bungalows, Carl glanced at Hank curiously as he drove up Susan’s driveway. Hank had hoped, stupidly, foolishly, to see Luz’s battered jalopy that was always breaking down parked on the street near the house, but it was not there and he knew it wouldn’t be.

  Getting out of the car, Carl stood, nodding, looking around.

  “Look familiar? You and Connie sussed out this place a long time ago, didn’t you?” Hank spoke to Carl over the Caddy’s roof, Grandfather Joel and the marquess in his arms.

  Shrugging, Carl gave him a half-sheepish smile. “We had to know where our little brother was getting some. It was written all over you that you were seeing a girl.”

  Carl prudently said nothing judgmental about any of it, because at that moment Susan appeared, coming from her studio. Her cheeks were flushed. Hank could smell the heat of the kiln and his skin prickled. Was she already firing pottery painted with her father’s ash?

  Walking up to Hank, ignoring Carl, Susan kissed Hank fully, several seconds, on the lips. In spite of all that had gone on before, Hank felt himself stir at the touch of her mouth.

  Resting his chin on his hands, Carl looked at them over the Caddy roof. Susan glanced at him. “You’re the brother? Carlisle?”

  Carl nodded jerkily, all the while smiling.

  “Pleased to meet you.” Taking Hank’s arm, Susan led him up the driveway and into the back yard.

  The kiln was indeed going. Joseph lay in the chaise lounge, asleep under a plaid blanket, the same place Hank and Luz had left him this morning. Setting sunlight filled the space, touching everything with brilliance, as if the entire scene was a ceramic tableau flaked with gold. Joseph’s hair, the ring of figures under the laundry pole, the kiln, all appointed with precious metal.

  Hank had worried Susan would be angry he had helped Joseph run off in the middle of the night to rob the cemetery of their father, but she seemed the happiest he had seen her, ever.

  She led Hank into the studio. The genie lamp stood on the workbench; brushes and knives cluttered it as if Susan had just finished and put a figure in the fire. A coffee can held more ashes, Susan showed him. She could make numerous items from them.

  But for this, she said, she did a bowl. A very special bowl.

  “Wow,” Carl said from the doorway. “These are really nice.” He was looking at the array of figurines on the shelves. Hank could see that some of them were different in style, heavier, sturdier, beings of the earth. These would be Luz’s, he thought, while Susan’s were fluttery and light, of the air.

  Hank set Grandfather Joel and the marquess on the workbench.

  Picking up the marquess, Susan said, “Ah, the Messien.” She turned it over, saw the mark. “I was right. What a pity the pair is broken.”

  Another broken pair. One partner wishing the other were gone, and when it was gone, wishing for it back.

  Putting down the marquess, Susan looked at Hank, then at the urn. “You want a favor?”

  He nodded. She gave him a half-smile, then pried the lid off the urn. Carl made an uncertain noise behind them, but didn’t move from his place at the doorway.

  With a spoon, she dug into the ashes. The stuff was whiter than Hank expected, not like charcoal or cigarette ash at all, but the ash the color of bone.

  “Your grandfather that died?”

  Staring at the little cone of ash on the spoon, Hank nodded again.

  “And what would you like, something practical, like a vase, or a platter?” Susan took an empty coffee can and spooned the ash into it. “Or a figure. A farmer, a sage, a dwarf from ‘Snow White’?”

  Hank thought, still struck dumb by the sight of incinerated bone moving from the urn to Susan’s can. Then it hit him.

  “A bicycle racer.”

  Giving him a sideways glance, Susan nodded. “A bicycle racer, bike and all? Complicated. Will take me a while.”

  She got busy, taking a box of talc and jars of crushed colors and began mixing. Each color would have a modicum of Grandfather Joel mixed in. She arranged these, then with wire cut a slab of clay from the big block, wrapped in damp cloth, on the work bench.

  Turning, Hank grabbed Carl’s arm and took him onto the patio.

  “Sit,” he said, went inside and found two beers in the refrigerator.

  “What is she doing, Hank? With the ashes?” Carl took a low swallow of beer. They sat in two splintery wooden chairs beside of the still sleeping Joseph.

  “She’s going to help me remember.” Hank leaned back, knowing he would have no results until the next morning. And he wasn’t going anywhere until the figure was complete. That was why he brought the bike, in case Carl wanted to take off somewhere. But Carl showed no sign of leaving.

  “Beautiful,” Carl whispered, taking another drink. Hank wondered if he meant the beer, lovely spring evening, or Susan. Probably all three.

  “Carl, what do you remember about that girl I was friends with in high school? Her name was Luz Del Mar.”

  Carl tapped the lip of his beer bottle on his nose. “That Latina girl? Very cute. I could hear you guys talking for hours in your room.”

  Hank’s heart skipped up a notch. “Do you remember Mom’s reaction? I mean, what did she think of the whole thing?”

  Sitting up, Carl rested his hands on his knees. “What do you mean? Why are you asking me?”

 
“I just wanted a new perspective. I sort of got in touch with her again.”

  Carl nodded. “You got Connie to help you. I wondered what she was up to.”

  “She took me to Luz’s house. But, she had one of her moods, and we had to leave.” Hank didn’t want to talk about Connie. “It’s just that, I don’t remember that much about Luz. But now, that I’ve seen her again, I wonder how I could have forgotten.”

  “You are in love, young Hank. I can see that.” Carl leaned back again. “Memory is a tricky thing. We only remember what we want to, really.”

  Hank didn’t agree with that. He wanted to remember everything about his time with Luz when they were sixteen.

  The sun left the scene, the scent of the nearby ocean intensified, along with a breeze cycling through the top of the palm in Susan’s front yard. Carl left to get groceries to shuffle something together for dinner, Joseph continued to sleep, unmoving. Hank sat in the chair, drank another beer, and stared through the open studio door at Susan as she worked.

  Carl was just returning with hamburgers and buns when Susan emerged from the studio at the sound of a ringing alarm.

  Sitting up, Joseph threw off his blanket, swung his legs over the side of the chaise lounge. He looked wide awake, not groggy at all, nodded at Hank, gazed curiously at Carl as he set two bags of groceries on the patio table between the ceramic piggy jar and the donkey.

  Susan was opening the door to the kiln.

  Getting to his feet, Joseph hobbled toward the kiln, Hank following. Wearing gauntleted oven gloves, Susan pulled the rack free.

  In the center was a medium-sized bowl, the interior the bluest dark-sky blue Hank had ever seen. A pale pink rim framed a spray of stars, two moons, a ringed planet, all reflected in a black sea.

  They all stood around it, staring. Susan pushed it toward Joseph, whose face was rapt. Then she took it inside the studio, where it would continue to cool slowly.

  Hank looked at Joseph, trying to see any recognition there. As if reading his look, Joseph shrugged.

  “There’s just one thing missing.”

  “What is that?”