The Book of Michael

by Lesley Choyce

  “Hexagram 38 K’uei: Whatever is lost will return when the time is right. Remaining open to that possibility is the key. Hexagram 49 Ko: Hold steadfast to the middle way. Don’t attempt too much change too soon.”

  And then she got better. Or so it seemed. Phyllis returned home and I went there every day after school. One day she seemed almost as energetic as before. She could take off the mask for a twenty–minute conversation.

  “I wish my father were here,” she said out of the blue. She pointed to the shelves of books that ran floor to ceiling. “He was a professor of literature. He gave me the love of books—much like yours—the desire to read anything, far and wide. He slept in chairs, a book in his lap. I didn’t know that was an odd thing. I thought all fathers did it. I don’t think he slept with my mother very often. In the morning, I’d find him asleep in his reading chair and I’d wake him up. And he would thank me.”

  Then Phyllis talked about her husband who had died, a subject she had been strangely silent on over the years.

  “Your grandfather loved me but he never understood me. I don’t think I married him out of love. I married him out of need. I wanted to move away from home. I wanted the life I saw others had. He was kind and dependable. I broke his heart many times. He didn’t understand why I did the things I did. Neither did I.”

  She showed me a photo of him. In it, he was young—twenty–something—and he looked nervous and uncertain. Possibly even scared. “I look a little like him, don’t I?” I asked.

  “Yes.” She nodded.

  “How did you two meet?”

  “It was a blind date.”

  “Really?”

  “Yes. Friends set us up. I didn’t expect it to work.”

  “But you were open to the possibilities.”

  She looked at his photo and then back at me. “I wasn’t sure I really loved him until he died. And then I realized how deeply I felt. Isn’t that a great pity?”

  I handed her back the photo and she placed it on the table beside her.

  “Life is all about change. We cling to what we know and what we have, and then we lose it, and then we regret not having it and try to replace it by finding and clinging to something else.”

  “Which hexagram is that?”

  “Hexagram Phyllis. The hard part is learning how to lose what you love gracefully and move on. To avoid letting the loss stop you in your tracks.”

  “I haven’t really been able to let go of Lisa. Why is that?”

  “Because of the way you lost her. Because you cared deeply.”

  “Why did I not want to read her journals?”

  “I think because you knew that it would bring her memory more alive in you. It would put her back in the middle of your life and some part of you knows you have to move on. Remember that poem of hers you read?”

  “Sure.”

  “That was her saying goodbye to you. But you never had the opportunity to say goodbye to her.”

  “Did you get to say goodbye to my grandfather?”

  “Yes. He was sick for a while and then I realized he wanted me to give him permission to let go.”

  “And you did that?”

  “I did it for him. I told him I would be okay. I told him he could go. Sometimes people hang on for others.”

  I saw the tiredness in her now. I understood what she was saying and knew that it took quite a bit of her strength to say this to me. I was supposed to say something. I was supposed to give her permission to die. But I couldn’t do it.

  “But you’re getting better, right? Today you seem much healthier. Is it the new medication?”

  She shrugged and pulled me to her. “The doctors seem to think I’m one for the record books. Should have been dead long ago. But look at me. Still kicking.”

  Phyllis died that night in her sleep. She had held on as long as she could, I suppose. I regretted not giving her the comfort she wanted, the permission. And I hoped she would forgive me, wherever she went to. I viewed her casket but did not go the funeral. Instead, I stayed home and read from a pile of books she had given me.

  And in the morning, I went back to my classes at summer school. That was the best I could do to let her know that I was going to be okay without her, that I’d find others to help me sort out the painful threads of my life. And that I understood that life is about change, it is a book of changes, a book detailing what we find, what we cling to, and what we lose. And then, for those who learn how, we move on.

  Chapter 23

  I remember that the thing I liked most about that summer was mowing the lawn. I don’t know why and I know it doesn’t sound that thrilling. But I liked it. I liked the noise of the mower engine; I liked the neat, straight lines of mowed grass. I liked the repetitive nature of the job. I didn’t even mind the scowls from Sudsy next door. I mowed our lawn more often than anyone in the neighborhood. And in the evenings, if I wasn’t visiting with Louis or Nicole, I read from the collection of books left by my grandmother.

  I read The Last Temptation of Christ by Nikos Kazantzakis.

  I read John Irving, George Orwell, and Anton Chekhov. There was one of Chekhov’s short stories called “Gooseberries,” which concerned a kind of longing for something you can never have. I didn’t understand the story the first time or the second, but I read it again and I got it. It was the way I felt. I longed for something that I could never have. And I believed I would be like this for the rest of my life. I read F. Scott Fitzgerald. I cried in the middle and at the end of Tender is the Night. I was blown away by the poetry of Dylan Thomas. I didn’t like Ernest Hemingway but I read him anyway.

  And I found myself in awe at how often writers wrote about loneliness and despair. But reading also made me feel connected to my grandmother and to her father, who had once owned many of these books, a man I had never met. And it made me feel close again to Lisa, too.

  I completed summer school in July. I had been a good student. The teachers had made it easy for me. My graduation was fully legitimate. I could now “get on with my life,” as Mr. Tyson put it. On my last day of school, he hugged me—right in front of the other teachers. Some of them appeared shocked. Then he asked me to step into his office.

  I sat in a seat where I had once been before, long ago in another life, when I had been called before the principal because I had gone to class after toking up outside. I had been high even as I sat there.Tyson was stern and direct. Now he was different.

  “You did well. Some people around here thought you couldn’t do it,” he said.

  “This part was easy. It’s the rest I’m not so sure about.”

  “It might get easier.”

  “Here’s hoping.”

  Then ensued an awkward silence. Tyson was waiting for me to say something else. So I did. “Why did you go out of your way to help?”

  “Because I thought it was my job.”

  I shook my head. “The other teachers, they were mostly just doing their job. You were watching out for me. Why?”

  “I’m not sure whether to tell you the truth. Someone gave me a break once when I’d made a big mistake. And it made all the difference. I thought that if you could finish school, if I could convince you to hang in there, you’d make it after that on your own.”

  “You still think that?”

  “Yes. I think you’ll find your way.”

  “Then how come it doesn’t feel like that?”

  “Because you’re still hurting. Still confused.”

  “When does that go away?”

  “Maybe never. I lost my son when he was four years old. This was over ten years ago but I think about him every day. And it’s still painful.”

  Something lined up in my head just then. Fitzgerald, Thomas Wolfe, Kazantzakis, something Phyllis had read to me from her I Ching book and more. Some coming together of ideas, emotions that had to do with that longing, that loneliness, that hurt that never really goes away. Let’s call it human suffering. But it was attached to something else. The n
eed to connect, sometimes even the need to reach out and help someone else in need. A chill went down my spine and I could not speak.

  Mr. Tyson cleared his throat. “So… um… what are you going to do next?”

  “I never think of the future,” I quoted. “It comes soon enough.”

  “I think I’ve heard that before.”

  “Albert Einstein,” I said.

  “Good one. A writer named Edmund Burke said, ‘You can never plan the future by the past.’ And I think that is true in your case.”

  “My past does not go away. I live it every day.” I said this without realizing how similar it was to what Tyson had revealed about himself.

  “I know,” he said. “But we learn to go on.”

  With that he stood up and so did I. He shook my hand and looked directly into my eyes like we were old friends, like we’d been through some important ordeal together. “My door’s always open,” he said.

  I doubted I’d ever, ever set foot back in the school but I appreciated it. “Thanks,” I said.

  As I walked back out into the warm, humid summer afternoon, I recognized something had changed. I couldn’t name it or even say if it was good or bad. It was just different and I didn’t know why.The color of the sky, the way the leaves were on the trees. The sound of car tires on asphalt. The memory of my grandmother, who I would never see again.

  And then I stopped dead in my tracks. I realized one thing for certain. I had no idea what would happen next. I had no real plans as to what I would do with the rest of my life. But I had made up my mind about one thing. I dialed Nicole’s number on my cell phone and asked her to meet me by the swings in Veterans’ Park. I breathed a sigh of relief when she answered and agreed to meet me.

  The park was strangely devoid of mothers and children and no kids were on the swings, so we sat on them but did not swing back and forth.

  “Are you all right?” she asked. I guess I was acting a bit weird. Even for me.

  “Yeah, I’m just feeling a little shaky.”

  “It was even implied when she said something like, Anything I can do to help?”

  Nicole was kind and forgiving. About everything. We kissed sometimes and sometimes I felt passionate about her. Sometimes I felt like I wanted to make love with her. She’d said it was okay if we did. It was even implied when she said something like, Anything I can do to help? Sometimes I even thought that’s all I needed to feel better, to get on with my life. Maybe all I needed was to get laid and everything would be all right. The old me, still thinking that.

  But we had not made love. I had always been the one to call the limits.

  “Nicole, I really care for you,” I began. A poor start, I suppose. She read me like a book.

  “I know what you’re going to say. I’ve been expecting this but I’m not sure I’m ready for it.”

  “Nicole, I do care for you. And I lean on you. I use you to help me get through the day. I think you are wonderful. But don’t stay here and go to the community college. Go to university like you had planned.”

  “But it’s so far away.”

  “I know. But don’t stay here for me. Don’t let me hold you back.”

  “It’s funny the way you say it because sometimes I think I’m the one leaning on you. You are my connection to Lisa and that connects me to so much about my childhood. And leaving you behind would be like losing all that. And you too.”

  “We have a powerful bond, I know that. Part of me wants to always have you there. To go to. To talk to. To keep me from going insane.”

  “The whole world is insane. You and I have something that makes sense.”

  “I know what you mean. But now it’s time for you to move on. And it’s time for me to—I don’t know—figure out something.”

  Nicole pushed off from the ground and began to swing back and forth. She looked like a little girl, the way she did it. I didn’t know what to do but just sit there and wait for her to slow down and stop. When she did she had a look on her face that I cannot describe. “Michael, make love to me. My parents aren’t home.We can go there.”

  “Are you sure this is the right thing?”

  “I think it’s the right thing for me.”

  “Why?”

  “I don’t know. I’ll try to explain to you. After.”

  ***

  It was her first time. For me, it was the first time since Lisa. And it wasn’t easy. I couldn’t do it at first. I tried but there were problems. But Nicole was insistent and patient and sexy. She was determined to make this happen. And as we became more passionate and I found myself losing control—losing myself in the act—I felt like it was the right thing. I realized it was the right thing for both of us.

  Afterwards, we lay there on her bed, naked and sweating. She traced a line in the wetness across my chest and I kissed her. At that moment I felt at peace. I knew it would not last and I wondered about myself. Was this it? All I needed was sex and I’d feel human again? Could it be that simple?

  But I knew it wasn’t that simple. I felt like I wanted to tell Nicole that I did love her, that I didn’t want her to go away to university. I wanted this afternoon to last forever. We were outside of time and without guilt and without shame, and it felt wonderful.

  “The loneliness is gone,” I said.

  “I’m glad. And I’m glad we did this.”

  “All those books I’ve been reading. So much loneliness and longing. And it all seems like it’s so easy to make it go away.”

  “Yes. You can make it go away for a short time. And that’s what we did.”

  “I think I do love you,” I said. These were not the right words, but these were the ones I could say.

  “And I think I love you. But you’re right: we both need to move on.”

  When she said it, I started to cry. It shocked me and I suddenly felt so vulnerable and strange, lying there naked on the bed. But I also felt a monumental release of something in my chest. I turned over and pushed my face into the pillow as I tried to sort out what I was feeling. She ran her hand down my back.

  When I sat back up to look at her, I saw one small tear running down her face. “You’re beautiful,” she said.

  “So are you.”

  Chapter 24

  Chapter 24

  I wonder sometimes what would have happened if I had never seen the letters—the ones from Miranda that had arrived over the summer.The ones my parents kept hidden from me. I wonder if my life would have been easier or more difficult, simpler or more complicated. Three had arrived and my parents had decided to shield me from whatever they contained.They did not open them but they did not throw them away. Instead, they were locked away in a security box my father had in their bedroom closet.

  The fourth letter found its way to me because I happened to get the mail that day. I arrived home and my parents had decided to go out to dinner, just the two of them. I was on my own for a while.There was no return address on the envelope but I thought I recognized the handwriting and I noticed the postal cancellation: Woodvale. I opened it on the spot.

  Dear Michael,

  It does not surprise me that you didn’t answer my other three letters.And I’m not sure why I am writing to you again but you know what it feels like to be locked away and isolated from everything you once knew.There is so much I want to say to you but I’m afraid I’ll never have that chance. I’ve tried to explain in those other letters but I don’t blame you if you threw them away without reading them. Everyone tells me I should not try to communicate with you, that this is a bad idea. But here I am again, reaching out to you. I think you might be the only one who can save me. I just don’t know what else to do. Miranda

  Miranda. Miranda. The images that flooded my brain were of the times she and I had spent together.The getting– to–know–each–other times. The good times. Taking chances. Pushing each other’s limits as we explored the great list of forbidden things we were both so attracted to.When you are sixteen, you expect to live forever, y
ou expect that nothing bad will happen to you, no matter how far you push it.You think the adult world is a dull conspiracy of lies, propaganda, rules, and limitations all created to ruin your good times and your oh–so–important explorations of the body, the mind, and the soul.

  Miranda and I had been smug in our self–righteous explorations. Both of us were smart and we’d used our intelligence to justify all the things we did. And then I started to see that we needed to be careful, that there were limits we needed to impose on ourselves. After that, things changed.

  My neighbor, Sudsy, pulled into his driveway just then and saw me sitting down on the front steps, my head in my hands. I caught the look on his face briefly before he turned away. From the first day home, Sudsy’s look stayed with me. It said it all. What some people would think about me forever. It burned into my psyche and would not go away. And there he was again, the accuser, pulling into his driveway at this critical moment. He got out of his car and went into his house.

  My parents’ dinner had gone badly. Something my father had eaten at the Italian restaurant had not settled well. It would be a tough evening for them both.

  I was sitting at the kitchen table when they came in. I hadn’t eaten. I had been alone with my thoughts and they were a jumble of memories. Miranda’s letter sat on the table before me. My parents understood immediately.

  “She shouldn’t be writing to you,” my mother blurted out.

  “Can I see the other letters?”

  “What other letters?” my father said, holding his stomach and looking more than a little sick.

  “I think there are three,” I said. “From Miranda.”

  “We threw them away,” my mother responded.

  “They were to me.You had no right to do that.” I understood precisely what they had done. And why. But I still harbored a bitter–tasting anger that rose within me and often I had no one to direct my anger at. Parents are good targets. Close and easy to aim for. Right then, I think I hated them for having robbed me of something important. They studied my face. I folded and unfolded the letter in my hand.