Shadow of Ashland, A Witness to Life, and St. Patrick's Bed

by Terence M. Green

  Sometimes we do stupid things. Sometimes stupid things just happen to us. I had had night sweats. Jeanne had had severe cramping. But we were patching ourselves up, mending what had broken over the years, giving ourselves a chance. Everyone needs another chance. It could still happen.

  At Mississauga Road, I pulled off the QEW and stopped for a coffee and donut at a Tim Hortons. I phoned home. She answered. I told her I’d be there in about half an hour. Told her I was back.

  I wanted to get home, park the 1960 Chev, put it away.

  II

  It was midnight. We sat at the round, plastic table on the back deck in the humid July night, the air still and heavy, a single candle between us, unmoved by any wind, condensation forming on chilled glasses of white wine.

  There are many ways to make love. When I had gotten home, ours had been frantic, with the freight of absence and a deep longing. Now, calmed, wearing T-shirts and shorts, we stared at the night shapes of maple trees, the lights from neighboring houses, the permanent glow of the city. We were alone. Adam was wherever twenty-one-year- olds went on Saturday nights.

  Cool fingers touched my arm. I closed my eyes, sat there, thought of the woman by the river in my dream, her flowing gown, the birds diving toward the water, heard her ask me to take her picture.

  I opened my eyes. Jeanne smiled, a smile so happy my heart ached.

  When I heard the front door open, I rolled over in bed and glanced at the bedside clock: 2:10 a.m. Adam. I wanted to talk to him, shake his hand, just touch him, see his face. Jeanne slept soundly beside me.

  I sat up, slid quietly out of bed, got my robe, and opening and closing the bedroom door behind me, went downstairs.

  I expected to see him in the hall, but he wasn’t there. I wandered through the dining room, into the living room, stood there, listened.

  “Leo.”

  I turned. He was in the kitchen. But it wasn’t Adam. It was my father, Tommy Nolan, in his early forties, about the age he was when I was born. He was sitting at the kitchen table, in the place he always sat.

  “Your mother has had a baby. You’ve got a brother.”

  I didn’t say anything.

  Steam trailed from the coffee mug in front of him, mixed with smoke from the cigarette sitting in a tin Walkerville Ale ashtray—one we always left on the bookcase in the living room. He lifted the mug to his lips, drank, set it back down. “She wants to call him Dennis. What do you think?”

  I realized that this must be another of my dreams, held my breath, felt my heart pounding.

  “I like it,” he said. “Good, strong name. Dennis Matthew. Matthew was my father’s name, and his father’s too. It’s my middle name.”

  I moved slowly into the room, suddenly dizzy, pulled out a chair, sat opposite him, folded my hands on the table in front of me. His sleeves were rolled up to the elbow, the way he liked. I could see every detail, the hair on his forearms, the threads in the buttons of his shirt, the slight slant of wire-rimmed spectacles. I was afraid to speak. He might disappear.

  “It’ll be our last. Your mother’s thirty-nine. I’m too old now too.” He smiled, lifted the cigarette, drew on the smoke.

  The red garnet ring, his electric razor, the lamp in the middle bedroom, the two round stones on the dresser upstairs. I didn’t know what I thought, didn’t know if I should speak. But when I finally managed words, what came out surprised even me. There, in the kitchen, I asked my father, suddenly: “Do you believe in miracles?” And as soon as I’d asked it, I regretted it, afraid he would vanish, afraid that whatever was holding him here would dissolve, that the moment, this perfect moment, would fade.

  But he stayed. Nothing changed. His fingers touched the coffee mug, then lifted the cigarette from the ashtray. He answered me. “Life is a miracle,” he said. “Death is a miracle.”

  The table under my hands was real, solid. I could see the lights of the city through the back windows. I surprised myself again with what I wanted him to know, what I had to say, now that he was back, for however brief a time. “Jeanne and I are trying to have a baby.” The moment froze, crystallized, melted. I felt the runoff, warm, then cold, then gone.

  He met my eyes, stared at me. “I know,” he said.

  I saw him in front of me, felt him in front of me, a presence, the air electric.

  “There’s a line drawn across your life.” Smoke trailed from the cigarette in his fingers. “When you become a parent, you cross the line forever. It’s the dividing point. You can look back, but you don’t want to go back. You go forward. You’re glad to go forward. It is the only thing that makes sense.”

  Again, afraid he would go, afraid he would leave me, I tried to seize the moment. “I don’t know what to do. I don’t know what I want. I don’t know what I’m looking for.”

  He nodded. “You give your children away. You give them to the world, then the world happens to them.”

  In my head, I heard the coffee table in the motel split in half, explode as it touched a world I could see only now.

  “Life will happen to you. You’ll try to shape it, but it will happen to you.” A pause. “What do you think you’re looking for?”

  My head swam. “You,” I said, looking at him. It seemed true. Then, feeling my chest constrict, almost breathless, words came out that I didn’t know were there, truer words. Softly: “My son.”

  The cigarette tip brightened. He took it from his lips, held it over the ashtray. The smoke curled up toward the kitchen ceiling, a slow spiral. “Maybe your son and I are the same.”

  I stared at him, knew the moment couldn’t last, knew it was almost over, knew that was why it was like a diamond, perfect. He ground the cigarette out, sipped the coffee one more time, and I wondered if it was instant coffee, his standard before he lived with us. Then he pushed the chair back and stood up, stood opposite me. “You don’t understand, Leo. You’ve crossed the line already.” He looked down into the empty chair beside him, then placed a hand on the shoulder of a young man in his twenties, strong, tall, who had not been there a second ago.

  A heartbeat. Another. I closed my eyes, opened them. I put my hand to my chest, felt faint, thought momentarily that this must be what it feels like to die, thought I must have died, as I understood, finally, what I was seeing. He was the age that he would have been if he had lived.

  Side by side, one standing, the other seated: grandfather and grandson. Tommy Nolan took a stone from his pocket, a perfect, round stone, placed it in Aidan’s hand, pressed the young man’s fingers closed on it. “Ron gave this to me,” he said to him. “One of my sons. You should have it.”

  I watched, could say nothing. A dream, I thought. A dream that had become a vision, then a prayer. A prayer that would become a dream again, cycling, forever.

  Then Aidan looked at me, smiled, the stone clutched tightly, and spoke to me, at last, after all these years, words that fell like soft rain. His eyes crinkled, blue, bright, pinned me. “I’m okay, Dad,” he said. “Don’t worry.”

  My head rang. Elbows on the table, I leaned forward, put my forehead in my hands, squeezed my eyes shut, squeezed till I saw exploding suns. I don’t know if I cried or not. I can’t remember.

  When I opened my eyes, they were gone.

  I was still sitting there at two-thirty, when Adam came in the door.

  “You’re back.” He was wearing a white T-shirt, jeans, sneakers.

  I looked up at him, smiled. “I’m back.” A shrug. “Couldn’t sleep.”

  “Mom asleep?”

  “Yes.”

  “How are Uncle George, Aunt Amanda? Everything okay?”

  Cincinnati. I’d forgotten. “They’re fine. Everything worked out.”

  “Great. Jane and I were at a party. Just got her home.” He was at the sink, filling the kettle. “You want a cup of tea? Help you relax. Might put you out.”

  I shook my head. “No. Thanks.”

  “I’m gonna have one. Gonna read till my eyes close. Sunday’s my da
y off.” He flashed a smile over his shoulder. “Ain’t it grand?”

  I had to agree. “It is.” I stood up, went over to him, squeezed his shoulder, thought about everything, realized there was nothing I could say, not yet, not now. “See you in the morning.”

  “Make it the afternoon.” He plugged the kettle in, turned to me. “Mom missed you. She didn’t say it, but I could tell.”

  I looked at his face, his strength, his youth. “I missed her. I missed you both.”

  He grinned.

  “Good night.” I chucked him on the arm, touching him one more time.

  “Night.”

  The kettle began to whistle as I headed up the stairs.

  PART FOUR

  St. Patrick’s Bed

  I can understand myself only in the light of inner happenings. It is these that make up the singularity of my life.

  —Carl Jung

  Memories, Dreams, Reflections

  EIGHTEEN

  I

  In the morning, both the ashtray and coffee mug were still there. They were empty, though. No butts, ashes, no coffee stains. Clean as a whistle.

  But I could smell it. So could Jeanne.

  “Somebody’s been smoking,” she said. She looked at the ashtray, then at me, strangely. “Not you.”

  “Not me.”

  “Can’t be Adam.”

  “I don’t think so.”

  “You’re not telling me.”

  “I don’t know what to tell you.”

  She hesitated. Then: “Tell me everything’s okay.”

  I reached out, twisted a finger in the hair, touched her neck. “Everything’s okay.”

  She came close, tilted her head against my chest, closed her eyes, breathed evenly.

  My hand went to the back of her head, her hair soft in my palm.

  “Whatcha doin’?” I asked, standing at the bedroom door.

  Adam, seated in front of his computer console, smiled. “Surfing.”

  “Surfing,” I repeated. I liked saying it. It made me feel young. “For what?”

  “That’s the beauty of it. You go in any direction. Bob and weave. Links here, there. You never know where you’ll end up. Follow a whim.”

  “For instance.”

  “For instance, I typed in ‘1990 Toyota Tercel.’ My car. The windshield wipers are seizing up. Wanted to get some information or advice, what to do.”

  “And?”

  “Found out there’s a linkage that’s probably jammed. I’ll see what I can do without taking it to a garage. The rad’s pretty shot too. Jesus, you should see it. Found some prices on a new one.”

  “How much?”

  “Two-fifty. Three hundred.”

  “You got the money?”

  “You kidding?”

  “We’ll work something out.” I shifted my weight, straightened in the doorway. “I thought you said there was a random flow to your surfing. Sounds pretty focused to me.”

  “Remember Madagascar?”

  “Mm?”

  “Fourth largest island in the world? My anthropology class?”

  I remembered discovering that he was actually taking anthropology. “It’s coming back to me.”

  “Look.” He clicked on something. A menu popped up. He highlighted a line in blue, clicked again. A photograph of strangely shaped trees against a red sky crept slowly down the screen, text overlaying it. “Baobabs. Upside-down trees.”

  Another click. The image changed. People carrying what looked like a shrouded body through a village square.

  “What am I looking at now?”

  “It’s right in the middle of death dancing season,” he said.

  I was quiet.

  “June to September—winter down there. Malagasy families unearth loved ones from their tombs, dance with them, then carefully rewrap them for reburial before the warm weather.”

  I walked over to where Adam sat, stood behind him, stared at the screen.

  “It happens every five years. They update their ancestors on family gossip too. Then they wrap them in new cloth, put them back, inside the family tombs, with something they liked in life—a favorite drink, food. They attend to their needs.”

  A coffee mug. An ashtray.

  “It’s not morbid. It’s joyous, celebratory. They call it famadihana.”

  An electric razor.

  Adam shrugged. “Just surfing. It’s interesting. Whatta ya think?”

  “What’s it mean?”

  “What?”

  “That word. Famadihana.”

  “Literal translation is ‘turning of bones.’ Everybody gathers round, toasts them with beer, Coke, sings songs, wears party hats. Wild, eh?”

  The red garnet ring. The tackle box.

  “And it’s not just in remote communities. Right outside the capital too. Organized by businessmen, professionals, academics.” He turned, looked at me. “You think it’s nonsense? Craziness?”

  I thought of the holy well and bed at Mám Eán, heard Brendan’s words. Lots of folks dismiss it as childish superstition, but I think they miss the point. “No,” I said. I had both hands on his shoulders now. “I think maybe they’re onto something.”

  I missed my father. I missed my mother. I missed everybody. I saw Aidan’s hand closing over the stone, squeezing. “I think I know what you should do,” I said.

  “About what?”

  His shoulders in my hands. “About going to see your father. Later this summer.”

  He looked up at me. I thought of Donny Swiss, his half brother, marking maps in the pocket guide to Dayton with a yellow highlighter.

  “Go,” I said. “See him.” See them both. Hear the music. “It’s the right thing to do.”

  We stared at one another. His eyes widened.

  I nodded. “I’ll help you.”

  II

  Two weeks later, Adam and I took his Toyota to Uptown Motors on Queen Street and had them drop in a new rad. With tax, it came to $299. I put it on my Visa. Next day, we drove up to Mr. Lube on Thorncliffe Drive—where Adam had worked the previous summer—to get a checkup and oil change. They replaced the air filter, PCV valve, wiper blades, told him everything else was okay. Before I could offer, Adam paid for it himself, with cash.

  “How much?” I asked on the way home.

  “They gave me a discount. As an old employee, you know.” He grinned. He never did tell me how much.

  Through the windshield, I looked at the new wiper blades. “You get that linkage problem straightened out?”

  “Last night. After dinner. Fixed it myself.”

  I stared at the five o’clock shadow, his hands on the wheel, smiled.

  On Monday, August 28, 1995, Adam left for Dayton with Bobby Swiss’s address and phone number folded into the back pocket of his jeans. Jeanne and I watched him drive down the street, the August morning lightening in the east. He hit the horn once, quickly and lightly, a wave out the window, then was gone, around the corner.

  Twenty-one, I thought. When anything is possible.

  I looked at Jeanne. “It’s early. Why don’t we treat ourselves to breakfast?”

  “Where?”

  “McDonald’s?” I got the smile from her, the one I wanted, the one that tells me how lucky we both are.

  “Big shot. You always know how to treat a woman.” Her eyes held me: a touch of Kentucky rain, soft. “You still think he’ll be okay?”

  I looked at her. “He’ll be fine.” The street was empty, the air beginning to warm. “If there’s a kid out there with his head screwed on better than his, I’d like to meet him.”

  She was quiet. Then: “Thanks.”

  “For what?”

  “Everything.”

  “The McDonald’s breakfast?”

  “Yeah. Right. The McDonald’s breakfast.”

  Then the smile reappeared, a summer’s end smile, melting me.

  III

  We didn’t hear from Adam all week. Then, after dinner, Friday, September 1, five d
ays later, he came through the front door. He was home.

  Jeanne lit the outdoor candles and we sat on the back deck. I remembered she and I alone here, a few weeks earlier. I remembered she and I sipping warm beer from long-necked bottles of Bud, on the veranda of her place in Ashland, Adam with a Coke, a summer evening, eleven years ago. The past and the present, together.

  Adam took a swig of cold Sleeman’s ale, put it down on the plastic table, let the ring of condensation form at its base. “Good,” he said, sighed. “It was a long drive.”

  I filled two glasses with what was left from the bottle of white chardonnay in the fridge, placed one in front of Jeanne, sat down with mine. “Cheers.”

  We clinked bottle and glasses.

  Waited.

  Adam looked down, thinking.

  Without tension, the moment stretched. It would happen, I knew. Words needed to be chosen. You can tell too much. Adam knew it too.

  “I took your advice, Leo. Stayed on the outskirts, at a Days Inn.” He touched the beer bottle, made a line in the droplets. “Phoned him Tuesday, told him who I was, said I was in town, asked if I could see him.”

  He paused, but not for any dramatic effect. It was an honest pause. We could see that the words were coming slow, not doing justice to memory, feelings.

  “He seemed pretty surprised at first. Then he was quiet for a minute.” He shook his head. “Jesus, we were both quiet. I was almost dizzy.”

  I was almost dizzy listening. I glanced at Jeanne, saw her jaw rigid.

  “He asked me to hold the line while he talked to his wife, then came back and said that she thought I should come to dinner the next night, what did I think of that? I asked him if he’d like that, and he said, yes, he thought he would, if I would.” Adam shrugged. “So I went. The next night.”