Voices of Ash

by Jill Zeller

  Behind her, inside the room, a groan, then, “What the—”

  Pushing through the door, Hank nudged Connie aside. She didn’t resist, moved like a zombie. In her pale silk robe she looked ghostly pale, washed out, a bright spot trained on her, erasing any contrast. Except for her eyes, dark, blue, stunned.

  “Where is he?” Hank choked out the words, looking away from her. A murky light from the window, curtains open to capture ocean breeze, lit the room. He recognized the smell of the place where he was to meet Susan, a new rug or crisp sheets. Through the broad opening into the next room, he saw the bed, a rumpled range of covers and in it a man.

  Sam from the Pottery—‘I help out in the studio prop shop’—rising on one elbow.

  Standing beside the door, Connie motioned stiffly toward a settee near the window. As Hank moved toward it, Connie watched him, jerked forward, and knelt protectively over Diego.

  The little boy was asleep, nestled under a blanket. Hank could see his hair and nose and eyes, lashes against flawless baby skin. Asleep, not afraid or hungry or crying. Something tight under Hank’s ribs un-knotted itself.

  “Connie, give it up. I need to take him home to his Mom.” Lowering his voice, not wanting to wake the boy, without rancor, Hank thought, without blame, but she heard something in his tone, impatience maybe, a wish not to be here or to listen to her side of things.

  “How did you find us?”

  “It wasn’t hard putting two and six together.” Hank knelt beside her, grabbed her chin, pulled her to face him. How to tell her it was like magic, Indian magic?

  “Your friend Mary responds well to monetary bribes.” An easy lie, a quick lie. He surpassed himself in that one.

  An embarrassed smiled crossed Connie’s face, apologetic, almost. “A true mercenary, our friend Mary.”

  “She’s not my friend.” Hank sat at the settee’s edge, looking at the sleeping child, wanting to pick him up, but afraid somehow, to risk waking him.

  “Connie,” he said gently. “What was going through your mind?”

  “She’s in no state to talk about that.” Sam’s cool voice came from the bed. Getting up, he stood over Hank, big man in a sleeveless t-shirt and boxers, hands on hips. He smelled of over-ripe bananas. He could probably pick Hank up and throw him out the window without a getting out of breath.

  Taking his sister’s hand as she drew her fingers across Diego’s forehead, Hank said, “Why, Connie? Why did you do it?” His fingers brushed the warm child-skin, and a thrill went through him.

  “I couldn’t help it. He might have been mine.” A big tear traced her cheek, slid down her chin, hovered.

  “I know what’s going on. I know why you took him. I just don’t understand it.”

  She looked at him, blank, wondering stare gone as suddenly as it had come, and he saw her jaw set hard, lower lip jutting out.

  “You are such a damn idiot, Henry Cleveland. A clueless drifting balloon brain. You are around all the time but you see nothing.”

  Hank stared at her, the sound of her voice cutting him—if this was acting, it was academy material.

  “Oh don’t stare at me as if I just sprouted antennae.” She whispered harshly, still, he thought, able to keep her voice low as they sat next to the child.

  “Connie.” Sam had no such compunction. Diego gave out a small whimper. “You don’t have to tell him anything.”

  “Oh shut up, Sam.” Leaning over Diego, Connie gave out a soft shhhhh. “He could have been mine, but instead, he’s yours.”

  Hank glanced up at Sam, whose features were lost in shadow.

  Sam shrugged. “I don’t know what you’re talking about,” he managed this time to keep his voice low. “That kid was given away, you said. You said you found him with that Mexican nurse.”

  Connie stared at Diego, shook her head, pointing her chin at the child, her hair straying back and forth like the pendulum of a clock.

  “I found him, but he’s not mine, he’s yours.”

  Hank felt rather than saw Sam make an impatient gesture and retreat to sit on the foot of the bed. Hank touched Connie’s arm. Her skin was cold.

  “Connie, he’s Luz’s little brother. He doesn’t belong to any of us.”

  She threw him the same fierce look; he could see her jaw pulsing in the lamplight.

  “You are not only deaf, you are blind. Look at him Hank. I knew it the moment I first laid eyes on him, when we visited Luz and her mother.”

  Obeying his sister, confusion blowing through him, Hank looked at the sleeping boy. His eyes, large under thin lids, lashes long and cheeks like pomegranates. And lips, full, and moving in and out as if in a dream of eating.

  Somehow, the room had been cleared of all the air, and when Hank opened his mouth to take a breath and speak, he couldn’t, because he couldn’t draw any anything at all into his lungs.

  Mom’s voice, talking, talking. Loud, fast in his ears. Hank was sixteen again, Mom at the mantle at home, marquis behind her, face set and red around the edges, blotched with white. Mother gazed coldly at Luz as Hank tried like an idiot, inadequate and stumbling, to introduce her. Luz smiling, wary, ready to be polite and say Hello Mrs. Cleveland.

  Mom threw Luz out of the house. Was that when it happened? His room, photos, kisses, alone in silence?

  Connie was watching him. She saw the recognition cross his face. He couldn’t look at her. Instead found himself standing up. Why hadn’t Luz told him? Why had she disappeared and then when found again pretended Diego was her little brother?

  Why had she not let him know he had a son?

  He took everything so hard, Luz had said about her father. Did she blame herself for Julio Del Mar’s death? The disgrace his only daughter brought to the family? And where was the father, Mr. Del Mar would demand, Hank thought. And he could see Luz, proud, silent, never revealing.

  But Mom knew. Hank realized suddenly, a punch to the stomach. Mom knew.

  Thirty

  “Maybe this is what it would take, to get you to see what was right before your eyes. St. Henry, the keeper of the family secrets. You didn’t even know the biggest secret of your entire life.” Connie raised a hand as if to slap him into wakening, but Hank grabbed her wrist.

  The girl Mom threw out of the house. “What happened? When Mom threw Luz out. What happened?”

  Giving him a quizzical look, Connie tried to get her wrist free. “You’re hurting me. Don’t you remember anything?”

  “No, I don’t.” His hand turned to steel around her wrist. He tightened, wanting to break it. “I don’t, just like you forgot you had an abortion and she made you forget. Just like she made me forget.”

  Whimpering, Connie tried to twist away from him.

  A shadow moved between them. Blinding pain shot up Hank’s left arm as Sam seized it and jerked him backward. He sank to the floor, nausea flooding his throat. He could hear Sam’s voice, angry, quick.

  “What is he saying? You never had that kid? Our kid? You lied to me? You got rid of it?”

  Connie sobbed, and as Hank’s vision cleared, he saw her crouched on the floor next to him, her hands on her face. Fury got him to his feet. His arm was going numb with pain, but anger that Sam might have hit his sister cleared his pain-fogged brain.

  But he was wrong. Sam knelt down, pulled Connie up by her shoulders, and held her, big arms around her back. Hank could see her shoulder blades through the thin robe, and he too felt very, very sorry for her.

  Stumbling for the phone, Hank muddled for Luz’s number, and dialed. Mrs. Del Mar answered on the first ring, her voice quick and worried. When Hank told her he had found Diego and he was safe, she started to cry. She managed to blurt that Susan and Luz were in the car, scouring the neighborhood.

  “Gracias a Dios,” Rosa Del Mar repeated over and over. Hank got her to write down the apartment phone number, but he would be leaving here in fifteen minutes to bring Diego home.

  Hanging up, he turned to Connie and Sam, sitting tog
ether on the other side of the bed. At least, Hank thought, Sam was turning out to be a decent sort of guy. It was obvious he was in love with Connie, and had been for several years, apparently. Hank wondered if Mother had broken that relationship as well, considering that Sam was not good enough for her girl.

  A relationship of any kind, especially mother and child, would get in the way of The Cleveland Twins’ career.

  “Con,” he said as gently as he could. “We need to get Diego packed up and ready to go home.”

  Sitting next to Sam, Connie looked at Hank over Sam’s big hunched back. She wiped her nose. “What’s wrong with your arm?”

  “Nothing a good cast won’t fix. C’mon, Connie. Get cracking.”

  There wasn’t much to organize. Connie had thrown a handful of clothes and toys, including the metal truck, into a suitcase when she sneaked through Diego’s open window. As Connie dressed, not bothering to screen herself as she slipped into her dress. Hank looked out the window, but Sam watched admiringly, the story came out. The little boy didn’t even wake up as she picked him up and carried him to Sam waiting in her car.

  Hank wanted badly to carry Diego out to the car, but his elbow was swollen and bruised to the point of immobility, so he had to allow Sam to do the honors. Just as he was about to close the door behind Sam, Connie and the still sleeping Diego, the phone rang.

  Rosa Del Mar’s Spanish mixed in with English, was able to tell them that Luz and Susan had called from Susan’s house, where they had gone to pick Hank up, if he was still there. They would wait there for Diego, since it was closer.

  Hank’s heart spiraled up at this news. Luz in Venice Beach, so close, waiting for Hank and Diego. Thanking Mrs. Del Mar, he fumbled the phone onto its cradle, chased down the hallway after Connie and Sam, to tell them about the new plan.

  Sam drove, Connie in the roadster front seat holding Diego, and Hank in the jump seat, clinging to the Peugeot over his lap with his good arm. Night held on, streetlights dim, palms like sentinels stretching their necks to see over the horizon of the black sea. Hank’s heart stayed close in his throat. He swallowed several times to get it back down, afraid it would break free and float away.

  As soon as the roadster bounced into Susan’s driveway and stopped behind her car, Luz appeared, running around the corner of the house to the car. She wore her same slacks and jacket, hair flapping like bird wings. Seeing Diego asleep in Connie’s lap, her eyes bloomed with tears; she circled the car and opened the passenger door and Connie allowed Luz to scoop her boy into her arms.

  Diego woke up. His soft, “Mama?” when he saw Luz holding him sent a spear through Hank’s heart.

  She carried him toward the backyard, crushing him against her. Sam and Connie didn’t move. Straining, Hank was able to lift the Peugeot with his good arm and set it down on the driveway, where it quickly fell over with a clatter. But he didn’t care. He crawled out of the jump seat and followed Luz.

  She was sitting on a patio chair, rocking back and forth, hugging Diego. A shadow near the kiln was Susan, but Hank couldn’t talk to her. Pulling a chair over Hank sat as close to Luz as he could get.

  Looking at him over Diego’s head as he began to fuss and squirm, Luz bit her lip.

  Hank touched her hand, then Diego’s. “I know, Luz. I know.” The words escaped him in tight bursts.

  She closed her eyes, opened them, and then let Diego down. “He’s awake now,” she said, straightening his pajamas.

  Diego looked at Hank, who, heart pumping, put his hands over his face, peeked out at Diego through his fingers. My son, my son.

  Diego examined this performance for a moment, then turned away, more interested in the array of figurines on the patio table, well within his reach.

  “Oh, oh.” Luz captured his hand as he reached for the nearest one, which happened to be Donut-boy.

  Something else caught Hank’s eye. A larger figure stood in the midst of the smaller ones, the Cyclist in his blue and white uniform, on a bicycle the same color green as the Peugeot, head down, racing through the crowd. Hank’s breath stopped in his throat.

  In the dimness, Hank couldn’t read Susan’s face. He wondered what she knew, if Luz had told her, or if she had just figured everything out on her own. He had forgotten that she might care about that. He didn’t really know how she was feeling.

  He had forgotten completely, for the moment, about Connie and Sam. Getting up, he went to the driveway, but the car was gone. Only the Peugeot, lying on its side, occupied the concrete.

  His left arm felt heavy, as if it weighed three times as much as the other one. If he didn’t move it, the pain was a controllable but distracting ache. He knew he should see a doctor about it, but there was something more important he had to do first.

  Luz had risen and picked up the cyclist. She held it in her hand, looked it over, and as Hank approached everything shifted as a swift dawn approached.

  Light filled the space; a backdrop of wide-fronded shrubs, leaves bowed with moisture. The shriek of a monkey or a bird, the smell of sweet rot and ungoverned growth of green, living things. A woman stood there, wrapped in brilliant striped garments, ribbons wound through hair the color of polished black marble. She raised the knife in one hand, the golden fruit in the other. Next to her stood a small child, looking up at the fruit.

  Hank found himself looking at the woman’s feet. They were brown and lovely, bridled in leather sandals. Then he saw, on a stone table in miniature, another woman, this one in drifting yellow gauze, hair the color of Arizona sandstone. A slim and graceful statuette.

  They all watched the woman, even the white monkey in the tree, as she lowered her arm and with a swift stroke, cut the golden fruit in half.

  Glitter fell from it, along with the stench of burning. The halves fell, one at the feet of the child, who knelt to scoop it up, the other onto the table beside the gauzy figurine.

  The memory flicked into Hank’s mind, bourn by the glitter. Luz lying on her stomach on Hank’s bed, saddle shoes in the air, drape of plaid school uniform skirt pleasantly, to Hank’s admiring eye, outlining her curves. Pointing at the photo of Grandmother Annette and Grandfather Joel, made her pronouncement about them. He came across the room from his desk chair and sat beside her, skin cold as he listened to her tell the history of his family, even down to the detail of his parents’ strange relationship.

  This part he scorned, laughing, but she was perfectly serious.

  “They were deeply in love, inseparable. That was why, when they found out later that they had the same father, they stayed married anyway.” Shifted to one side, Luz lay her head on her hand. Hank couldn’t take his eyes off her breasts and the line of her hips.

  She saw him looking, and a half-smile came and went on her face. Shifting closer, getting up on one hand, she kissed him.

  Hank remembered his astonishment. He would never have pressed any advantage with Luz, as much as he craved her. He reminded himself that he loved talking to her as much as looking at her, as he leaned closer, moved a length of hair from before her face, looked at her cheeks flushing with embarrassment.

  There were three times, he remembered, in his room; three precious afternoons. She was tasty and smooth, responsive to his fumblings. The skin on her breasts was golden, nipples brown and hard, the smell of her and the taste of her hair, both above and below in the special, sacred place. He once asked her to just lay on his bed nude, so he could look at all her beauty.

  A stabbing pain shot through him. How could he have forgotten that?

  And that was the day that after, when they went downstairs, Mom was waiting for them.

  She did not reply to Luz’s “Hello, Mrs. Cleveland. It’s nice to meet you.”

  The room grew icy. Hank couldn’t move, he remembered now. It was as if Mom glued his feet to the floor, and he was turned into a statue, leaving Luz alone and vulnerable.

  “Well, isn’t this interesting,” Mom said to Hank, as if Luz was not even there. “Been stu
dying hard, have you? Getting ready for final exams? Spending a lot of time indoors hitting the books?”

  Hank could say nothing. His tongue wouldn’t move, his jaw wired shut.

  Mom moved toward him. Hank remembered Luz looking from him to his mother, as if waiting for him to say something to stop Mom’s advance.

  “Henry Cleveland scholar. Do you have a tutor? Someone to show you how it’s done? Someone who has great experience and is eager to share it with a poor little rich boy?”

  Hank tried to move. He heard Luz’s sharp intake of breath, but he could say nothing in her defense. Mother’s voice slammed into him like a cold sheet of rain.

  “Sometimes these lessons are painful,” Mother said. She was close to him now, odors of smoke and carnations, her brilliant hair sealed in place, lips bright with red, in her impeccable gray suit and orchid corsage. “You may think you know what you are doing, then reality brings you up short. The reality of class, my boy. A plain and brutal lesson. Not a class in a school, but a class of people. A class of people who don’t belong here. They have their own ways, their own places to live. Their own schools. Sometimes one or two of them try to switch classes, to become what they are not. But it never works. Especially when they use looks and allure and sex to get there.”

  Hank’s face burst with heat. How could he have let his mother say these things in Luz’s hearing?

  “No, young Hank. You are studying the wrong thing, in the wrong place. Some things it is best not to know about. Some people are best ignored, forgotten. Unseeable, invisible, in their place.” Mom touched his cheek. He tried to move back, but he couldn’t. Her voice went into a drone, low, seeking, probing everywhere in the folds of his brain.

  Then she stopped. Mother turned away from him, faced Luz. He heard Mother say names, bad names to Luz, his dear, dear Luz. He saw Luz run from the room, heard the door bang open. He should go, walk her to the street car, make sure she got home, but he couldn’t move. Already the memory leaked from him, levels lowering as it seeped away.