The man said he didn’t know. “People change, Edgar.”
* * *
Sometimes the man watched the boy as he slept. The color disturbed him more than he let on. Plus, the boy seemed taller, stronger. Surely the color was a sign of health—a disturbing thought in its own right. Edgar looked more real than ever before. Conrad’s fear took a new turn. The boy had been at the cabin long enough for Conrad to witness, once again, the miraculous horror of a child growing up.
Edgar’s face, emboldened, seemed that much more corruptible. There was more responsibility, more danger. It had almost been better when the boy had looked dead.
When spring came, Conrad felt as if he were coming out of a long dream. So much had changed. The most frightening thing was that he, too, was alive—and he was actually happy.
It was a happiness, of course, like glass. Sometimes he wondered if he should break it, be done with it. It would break eventually, anyway.
Time flashed, shimmered. It was almost summer. Conrad didn’t want to squander the days. There’d been enough of that. The gun, the refusal to eat—ridiculous, juvenile. Wasted opportunities. A wasted life.
“What are you doing out there?” he called to Edgar, who was in the yard, chasing Jack—the two of them more than ever like siblings. The boy spoke the animal’s language and even had the audacity to answer the man’s question with a bark.
“Is that so?” said Conrad.
Edgar turned away and ran in a circle.
Sometimes the boy ignored him, which was only natural. A child that age, they started to go away. Still, the boy’s odd habit of barking, the frantic hoopla, his whisperings to empty air—all of it seemed to have increased recently, and Conrad was unsure what was play, and what was acting out.
“Are you okay? You mad at me?”
Edgar shook his head and barked again.
“I thought we could go to a café,” said Conrad. “Get some pie.”
The man had made no plans for such a thing and surprised himself by suggesting it.
The boy stopped and turned. The dog was quiet, too.
“What do you mean?” asked Edgar.
“Pie. It’s when they take fruit and put it inside a—”
The boy tilted his head adorably. “I know what pie is.”
“Well, do you want some?”
The boy’s face went blank, then seemed perturbed. His eyes grew glassy.
“I thought you’d want to.”
Edgar sat on the ground.
“What?” said Conrad.
Edgar grabbed up some pine needles and spread them across his thigh. “But where are we really going?”
“I told you, a café. We’ll drive to Shamong.”
“Is that a place?”
“Yes, it’s a town.”
“But you never took me there.”
“That’s true,” said Conrad, not really understanding what the boy meant.
In the silence that followed, the man further considered his plan. Shamong, not Hammonton, is where they’d go. Hammonton was closer, but people knew Conrad there. It’s where he went for supplies, made calls, put gas in the truck. He’d picked blueberries there with Sara and Kevin. He’d eaten at Daisy’s with them. He’d eaten there with his father. There was too much history in Hammonton.
Shamong seemed the right place to take the boy. There was a decent restaurant—nothing like Daisy’s, but Edgar would enjoy the statue.
“There’s a sculpture there I think you’ll like.”
“What is it?”
“You’ll have to see.”
Conrad stepped into the yard and held out his hand.
Edgar hesitated. Which made Conrad wonder if he were lying to the boy.
Shamong. A café. Was that really where he planned to take the kid? He checked the corners of his mind to see if anything might be hiding there.
“A couple of hours, and then straight back.”
“I should do my homework,” said Edgar.
Conrad smiled. The boy was slowly making his way through every book in the cabin. “It’s practically summer, kiddo, if you didn’t notice.”
“I noticed,” Edgar said sharply.
Conrad waited. He understood. With love came anger.
The boy looked at the dog. “Why don’t we go next week?”
“I thought you’d be excited. We can hop in the truck right now.”
Edgar said it wasn’t a good idea; it would be dark soon.
Conrad took in the yard, the blossoms of swamp azalea phosphorescent in the late light—tiny bells hot and silent.
“They look like whipped cream,” said Edgar.
“What’s that?”
“The flowers.”
Conrad nodded, squinted—the clustered blossoms like soft round dollops. “I’m thinking you’re hungry.”
“A little,” said Edgar.
“Come on.” Conrad offered his hand again.
But the boy stood on his own, made a shrill whooping and ran toward the trees. He pulled a handful of flowers from the azalea and stuffed them toward his mouth—after which he thrashed viciously at the bush, knocking more blossoms to the ground.
“Edgar. Edgar, stop. What are you doing?”
Jack was beside him now, sniffing the fallen flowers.
The boy calmed. Conrad watched, saying nothing.
Watched the child who’d spent hours curled up behind the ladder bookshelf, withdrawn, silent—but who, lately, was more likely to be found roughhousing with the dog, throwing things, digging holes as if he owned the place.
“You’re right,” Conrad said. “It’s too late. We’ll go tomorrow. Or next week. Whenever you want.” He was suddenly grateful for the boy’s resistance. It would be better, anyway, to drive there in daylight, innocently. “We’ll go for breakfast one day.”
“But I’ll still have pie,” Edgar said solemnly.
“Me, too,” said Conrad.
* * *
After the boy had fallen asleep—in his own bed now—Conrad sat in a corner of the living room and looked through Edgar’s books and DVDs: a makeshift schoolroom the boy kept obsessively neat. Conrad had originally assembled the materials to distract the child, but was surprised by how studious he’d turned out to be. Edgar read voraciously, and was religious about watching at least one DVD every day—educational programs that seemed to pacify the boy’s anxiety about missing school. Just a week ago, though, he’d suggested that, come September, it might be a good idea for him to go back to a real school. Conrad had smiled without a twitch and said, “Absolutely.”
Quite a collection of books the boy had. Conrad surveyed them. Kevin’s old school texts and science fiction, mixed with things Sara had left at the cabin—Jane Austen, Margaret Atwood. There was a small black Bible, probably Conrad’s father’s, which Edgar must have found somewhere in the cabin. The cover was filthy. Read me, a small finger had written in the dust.
Conrad flattened his hand and wiped the slate clean.
* * *
The damage was done, though. Irreversible.
When Conrad had driven to Ferryfield, it hadn’t been planned. Unable to sleep one night, he’d got in the truck, ended up on the Parkway. It had seemed important to see her. To know that she existed.
He’d parked in front of the house. When she’d come outside wearing a tight black negligee, ridiculously short, Conrad had felt contempt. The woman looked exhausted, blowsy—and though he’d been surprised by her beauty, she looked in every other way as he’d imagined. Like a slut. The most shocking thing was that she was pregnant.
It seemed unforgivable—and obscene—the huge bulge in the black nightie.
Of course, the woman did look genuinely sad. He’d flashed his lights. It was then that she’d started to shout. Conrad had wondered if she might be drunk. Screaming, fuck, asshole, waving her arms like a madwoman. The whole encounter illogical, like a dream.
But by the time she was following him on the road it seemed natura
l that it had come to this—though of course he had no idea what he’d do when she arrived at the cabin. At one point, overcome by nausea, he’d vomited in the truck. He’d felt like he’d been on this road before with this woman. Maybe because he’d imagined it for so long. Imagined giving everything up. Crashing, burning. End of story.
And then, suddenly, his mind had flipped. Because there she was, drunk and pregnant, following him in that trashy little car. Conrad had felt a distinct sense of superiority. How could he give the boy back to someone like that? She was driving recklessly, an unfit parent. The red hair, a sign of her cruelty. She’d not answered a single of the boy’s letters. She was a stranger to him now.
He’d sped up, and at some point it seemed he’d lost her—though it was hard to tell for sure in the glare of dawn. It wasn’t until he’d entered the Pinelands again and saw no one behind him that he’d managed to take a deep breath—the air rushing in like poison, burning his lungs.
A green truck: they’d know that now.
But only that. He’d been smart enough to cover the license plates with tar paper. Still, he’d given these people so many chances. Why hadn’t they come for the boy already? Idiots. He’d pulled to the side of the sugar sand road to compose himself. It was only then that he’d remembered. He’d never sent the boy’s letters; he’d thrown them into a swallet. Sunk them in mud.
So what? Was he any worse than the woman in black spandex? He didn’t know her, yet he judged her. Half naked, screaming obscenities.
It was all so confusing. Conrad felt like a child, trapped by the unknowable hearts of everyone around him. The boy, especially. By the time Conrad had returned from Ferryfield, it was light, full morning. Edgar had come outside to greet him—sleepy-eyed, shielding his face from the sun.
“Where were you?”
“I wanted to get some bread,” replied an empty-handed Conrad.
Inside, in the bathroom, he’d vomited again—the little voice outside the door. “Are you okay?” The boy’s kindness seemed a curse now.
After the woman’s face.
“All better,” Conrad had said, coming out of the bathroom.
“I was worried,” said Edgar.
* * *
Weeks had passed, with no sudden knocks on the cabin door. No red-haired madwoman had shown up. No police. Conrad’s agitation, though, remained constant. His impatience was overwhelming, but, being connected to no clear desire, was a kind of torture.
Don’t just sit there, do something, his father had always insisted.
Conrad had given the same advice to the boy—and he’d taken it to heart, made Conrad proud. Now it was Conrad’s turn to do something brave. Not to frighten the child, but to earn his respect. Show him that freedom was still possible—the two of them driving in the truck, buddies, as before.
Just like how it had been with his own father. The windows open, sizzling static of the AM radio, the old man yodeling along with Hank Williams. A warm pizza box on Conrad’s lap.
The memory fell clear as rain, as the man stepped into the yard. A promising light-spattered morning. Edgar was playing again—this time carving something on a tree, using the pocketknife Conrad had given him. It was a gorgeous little knife with a wood veneer that when opened halfway looked like a sailboat. It had belonged to Kevin.
Edgar was past the cleared edge of the yard, about twenty feet into the larger pines. Between the trees, strands of spider silk flickered like glitches in reality. The dog was there, too, watching the boy as he picked at the bark.
Conrad didn’t approach them.
Edgar worked for a while on whatever he was carving, and then stopped. He stared at the tree, almost seemed to be speaking to it. Conrad’s heart lurched; he touched his face where the skin was still tender. After the fire, when he’d told Edgar, “You saved my life,” the boy had only replied, “We were very stupid”—and Conrad, chastened, had nodded.
He watched now as the boy and the dog ran back toward the yard. When Edgar was past the woodpile, he threw himself onto the ground and rolled. Jack pounced, licking the boy’s face, making him laugh—a high-pitched giggle, triumphant, like an eagle. The dog seemed to be laughing, too.
Abruptly, though, the laughing stopped—and the boy turned toward the trees as if he’d heard something. Conrad looked, but saw nothing.
* * *
What Edgar heard was his mother. It was the thing about her he loved best, the way she laughed. After a moment, he jumped to his feet and dashed toward the cabin, where the man was standing.
Jack barked, and when Edgar crashed into Conrad it was with a punching embrace that knocked a little air from both of them. Another savage burst of laughter erupted from the boy’s throat. He gripped Conrad so tightly that the man had no choice but to return the hug.
When Edgar looked up and saw Conrad’s frightened face, he immediately pulled away.
“Why don’t you laugh?”
Conrad tried to smile, but failed. And when Edgar asked again, the question shot out like an accusation.
“Why don’t you laugh?”
Conrad opened his mouth, but said nothing. And then: “I’m just feeling a little … Maybe I’m coming down with something.”
“Don’t lie,” said Edgar. He wasn’t going to let Conrad worm his way out of this one. “You can’t laugh, can you?”
For several seconds Conrad’s face twitched—and when finally he apologized to the boy, he didn’t recognize his own voice. He sounded like a robot; even his movements were mechanical as he turned away and walked into the house. He felt heavy and light at the same time, a metal shell with lots of hollow space. Where there’d once been blood, there was only air.
“Conrad!” shouted Edgar—but the name fell on nothing.
Entry #5
She was glad for the sound. Even if mined from chaos, the child’s laugh was a step forward. It was conceivable that she might be finished soon. Not only with this story, but with all stories.
For now, though, she’s still caught in the in-between, snagged like a leaf in an eddy, doing the same work she’d done all her life. Trying to straighten things, make them clean. How long had she spent, some mornings, positioning the photographs, just so, on top of the piano? They’d never seemed quite right—the angles of the faces or the space between the frames.
Perfection; how she’d wanted that. Ha.
Yes, the laugh was progress. The wheel was turning. When the boy laughed, he thought of his mother. He was thinking less and less about the old woman—who, in the boy’s mind, had blended into other things: into the trees and the deer, the stream and the fox, the yellow birds and the hairy orchids. She was part of everything now, and he tended to forget her. She no longer had to appear to him in her old form, in a purple paisley robe, with her cracked feet and her red hands; no longer needed to prove herself, as she’d done before, in a clearing among the pines. The boy had turned the wheel of grief and was headed in the right direction, toward the living.
Which is not to say he was out of danger. Only to say: he no longer called out to her or asked her to intervene. As he’d done from the shed. A prayer she’d answered using the man’s body. Since the fire, though, she’s been of less use to him.
In some ways, it was a relief to be forgotten. In fact, when she’d watched the boy carve Edgar on the tree, followed by the word loves, she had no desire that her own name be the summation of that equation.
* * *
Still, she watches him. He’s in the house now, reading a book.
If I loved you less, I might be able to talk about it more.
And, of course, he thinks of many people when he reads this. More people than before. It’s good.
A good book, too. Emma. Jane Austen. Florence (funny to say the old name now) didn’t read much when she was alive; could hardly read at all. But dying is an education. She’s read them all now.
The boy, though, moves slowly through the words, hoping for wisdom or guidance.
He looks up from the page and sees the man who can’t laugh. The boy goes to him and takes his hand. Seeing that, she almost wishes she could be human again.
They don’t speak, the two beings in the cabin, but they’re afraid, knowing everything must change. The child, in particular, senses, as never before, the sadness of the two deer heads mounted in the living room. His thoughts and feelings are huge shifting patterns of light and shadow, for the most part wordless—but she wants you to understand them, and so, as she’s been doing all along, she translates. The child’s feelings into words.
To some extent, she’s been translating for all of them. Even the man, who’s thinking about a boat on the Mullica, about taking the boy there.
It’s unlikely either will survive.
Of course, the dead don’t know everything. The living, too, invent the future.
She alights at the edge of the couch, where she catches drifts of the old scents: milk, dirt, dust.
Live, she says to them. Live!
(If it’s even her voice.)
June
64
Madwoman
Though they didn’t tie her to the bed, they rarely left her alone. Someone was always in the house, exuding good cheer, pretending not to be concerned.
How little they understood.
She was done. She was gone. Which meant, she was here. She was staying put. Giving up. I mean, what did they think: that she’d meant to jump off the bridge?
To be honest (and why not be, when you were talking to your own lying heart?), she had, for a moment, considered jumping. For more than a moment, maybe.
What a joke it would have been, too. Following Frank, eight years later, hauling ass toward oblivion in a slutty black maternity getup. How pathetic.
Surviving, though, was pathetic, too. It seemed that if you lived long enough your reward was humiliation. Survival was embarrassing—though probably a riot for the folks in the good seats, watching from above.
The dead, it turned out, were useless.
Still, she prayed to them.
At this point, it was simple: let the kid survive. The one inside her—a fat little kicker who’d recently become unnervingly still. Plus, it was pulling a Howard Hughes, refusing to come out. Even after Lucy’s water had broken at Shepherd’s Junction, labor hadn’t started.
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