by Nicky Singer
And I realize there’s no space around my heart anymore. It’s all gone very tight. Just like my hands. My hands are clenching so tight there is no nest anymore.
I’ve crushed it, crushed it to nothing.
So what’s happened to the breath?
47
It’s back in the flask. It looks weak, feeble. My mind was so full of hate I didn’t notice how I’d squeezed it out, and now it lies shivering and defeated at the bottom of the glass. It reminds me of the candle in the church, how the flame guttered just before it died.
So I know something bad’s happened even before Gran’s car arrives. Before I see her face—gray and panicked.
“It’s Clem,” I say, as I climb into the front seat beside her. “It’s Clem, isn’t it?”
“How do you know?” she says. “How can you know that?”
“Your face,” I lie.
“He’s taken another—dip,” Gran says.
She makes no attempt to stall, to hide things. So it must be worse than I thought. It must be terrible.
“What does it mean?” I can hear my voice, all high and tight.
“They have to bring the surgery forward.”
“To when?”
“Tomorrow.”
“Tomorrow!”
“Yes.”
“But what about the rehearsal, the practice operation, where . . . ?” Where they learn how not to pick the wrong socket wrench.
“There won’t be time for that,” says Gran.
48
Of course, I blame myself, for all that absence of metta. What if I’d loved everyone, loved Zoe, kept myself warm and open? It wouldn’t have happened, would it? It’s all my fault.
“I’m sorry,” I say to the flask. The gray sky outside my room makes it feel darker than ever. “I’m really sorry.”
No reply.
“Why don’t you scream at me? Yell?”
Silence.
“Why don’t you howl? What happened to your big black howls?”
I’d prefer the black howls, horrible as they were. Anything would be better than this shivering, dying, guttering, nearly ended flame.
I remember how I held the howling black flask close to my body and how I rocked and gave it warmth and it seemed to make a difference. I hold the flask close again, glass to skin. It makes no difference at all.
It just feels cold.
I feel cold.
Really cold.
How can you have a cold flame?
Because the flame is dying.
“Do you think Rob would want you to behave like this?” I shout at the flask.
No reply.
“And who is Rob, anyway?”
No reply.
Everything is colder. I don’t know if it’s my head, my heart, or the weather.
I find myself at the piano. What happened to my new song with the lion thread? I haven’t heard a single note of it for days. Maybe I haven’t been listening right, or maybe everything that’s been going on with the babies and Zoe and the hate has blocked my ears.
I put my hands on the keys, but my fingers are frozen. There is no more music in them than there is in my head. You cannot force a song; it comes when it’s ready. Surely I, of all people, know that?
I shut the lid of the piano.
One long night before the twins’ operation.
How will I be able to sleep?
“Here,” says Gran. “I’ve made you some warm milk.”
I watch the hot drink going cold, just like everything else.
“Get into bed,” says Gran.
I get into bed holding the flask. I think maybe I shouldn’t take my eyes off it for a second. But then there’s never anything new to see, only the cold, hopeless, guttering thing.
“Why don’t you make the seed fish swim?” I cry. “Just one. For me. So I know you’re still there. So I know Clem’s still there. Please. Please!”
No reply.
No reply!
“I hate you, hate you, hate you.”
But actually it’s me I hate. Because no matter how many times I go over it in my head, try to convince myself that it could just be a coincidence, that this new dip has nothing to do with me the way the first howling dip had nothing to do with me, I can’t let myself off the hook. I’d never heard of the word metta before this afternoon, but now it seems the only thing that matters. Loving-kindness. I mean, if you have a fight with a friend, you think it’s just to do with the two of you, don’t you? But what if (I’m thinking this looking at the guttering flame), when any one of us is angry or hurt, then the whole sum of human happiness goes down? What then? If we’re all connected, all in this together (which is, I think, what Lalitavajri was saying), then how we behave every minute of every day—that must matter, too.
This is a late-night conversation I’m having with myself, and I know I’m tired and I might not be thinking too straight, but the bottom line is this: To help Clem, I feel I have to do something about the way things are with me and Zoe.
Right Now.
Then I remember that I did try—I went to her house, right? And she brushed me off. No, no, she just said she was busy and . . .
Think metta. Think loving-kindness. Try again. Never give up.
An idea comes to me. I get out of bed, pull my robe around me, and because I’m still shivering, add my duvet and go to sit at the desk.
The bureau.
The place where Aunt Edie sat to write her private letters, letters from her secret heart. I fold down the desk lid and find some paper and a black ballpoint pen. Letters, I think, are not like texts—sry. SRY cll me—which can be brushed aside like flies. They’re more than that, deeper. You can say things in a letter that sometimes you can’t say face-to-face.
But what should I say?
Dear Zoe, I write.
Dear, dear, dearest Zoe.
Please feel free to go to a movie with anyone you like. Not that you need my permission. You don’t, of course. You’re a free agent, you just do whatever you want, with whoever you want, whenever you want. . . .
I break off. I’m laying it on too thick, making it sound as if she’s doing all the taking and I’m doing all the giving. I crumple the paper up, start again.
Dear Zoe,
You’re wonderful. You’re amazing. I love everything about you. I even loved when you were four and wore that stupid shirt with the pink rose on it. Wore it over your sweater! I thought that was so funny. Did I ever tell you that I asked my mom for a shirt with a rose on it? And she bought me one. Though I only ever wore mine under my sweater. . . .
I stop again. I don’t care whether you come or not. Just don’t get serious with me. This is serious, isn’t it? This is pressure, too. This says: You have to love me as much as I love you; you have to remember how frail I am compared to you; you need to protect me. Pressure, pressure, pressure. Heavy, heavy, heavy. Sad, sad, sad. Did Aunt Edie have this trouble with her letters? I crumple up the second piece of paper.
Dear Zoe, I begin for the third time. Beside me on the desk, the flame in the flask is still guttering.
I’m sorry. Sometimes my heart’s all messy. Sometimes I say the wrong things. Want the wrong things.
Forgive me?
Love you.
Jess.
Then I add some kisses.
xxxxxxxxxx
I notice how the kisses look like a daisy chain and think that maybe this is the right letter to send, or at least a good-enough letter, so I fold it in three and tape it down (as I don’t have any envelopes) and write her name bold on the front.
ZOE.
Life.
I look at the flask again. Still guttering. I wrote the letter to change things with the flask and it hasn’t. But it has changed something in me.
I feel lighter, more positive.
I rearrange the duvet from clothing to bedcover and climb into bed.
In the morning I will put this letter in Zoe’s mailbox. I won’t ring the doorbell,
I won’t make a big deal about it, she’ll just find it when she finds it. I am calmer now, the way you are when you stop shouting and begin to do something about a problem. I hold the flask close for a moment.
“You’ll be all right,” I whisper. “You’ll see. I’ll find a way. You’ll be all right.”
Then I sleep.
49
I wake with a start, a muscle in my leg spasming. I kick out, knock the flask (which is somehow still in my hands), grab it back, look. No change. The flame fluttering—weak and low.
Then I wonder how, in the dark of night, I can see the flask so clearly. Which is when I realize it’s not dark at all. My room is full of a strange white light. It’s also very quiet, like someone threw a blanket over the whole world.
I get up. As I peel back the duvet, I feel goose bumps flash up my arm. By the time I get to the window, I’m hugging myself, arms clasped tight, for warmth, for security. Then through the crack in the curtains I see it.
It’s snowing.
The huge hush is four or five inches of snow. I unclasp my arms and open the curtains wide. The sight is astonishing. Snow—on Easter! The world I see from my window is not the one I went to bed with. The snow covers everything, cars and houses and trees, so that the view is just one landscape of white—everything joined—yes, everything joined up together, because of the snow.
“Is this it? The next part of the journey?”
No reply.
I’m going to go out in the snow, though it’s deep in the middle of the night. I can’t not be part of this world where white earth meets white sky. I dress as quickly and as quietly as I can, tuck the flask and the letter into my pocket, and tiptoe downstairs.
I’m glad that I’m so practiced with cracks and creaks and floorboards; waking Gran is not part of my plan. I take gloves and a scarf from the chest in the hall and my coat and boots from the closet. What to do about a house key? There are keys in the kitchen, but the kitchen is directly under Gran’s bedroom. I decide just to leave the door unlocked.
Then I step out into the joined-up world.
The sky is white-blue, in some places completely white, as white as the earth, which is why it’s so bright, why there seems to be hardly any darkness at all. The snow itself has eased. It is very light now, just a few flurries, though it must have been snowing really heavily for hours.
The hush is extraordinary. Nothing seems to be moving except for me, so I hear every sound I make as though it is amplified a thousand times. The crunch of my own footsteps in the deep new snow and the in-out of my breath that crystallizes in a small cloud of warmth in front of my cold mouth.
I see how deep my feet go, maybe it’s not four or five inches, maybe it’s only three or four, but seeing my footprints where there are no others makes them seem significant. The map of my journey.
All along the cul-de-sac are streetlights that look very orange against the white, white snow. It’s only a matter of moments before I arrive at Zoe’s house, me the midnight mailman. I think of her tucked in bed knowing nothing about what’s going on in this bright new world—but she will know. I watch my prints come up to her door. Her mailbox is low, so I have to kneel to push the letter in.
As I stand up again, I imagine her coming (bounding) downstairs in the morning, all excited about the snow, picking up the envelope, reading what I’ve written, and just smiling, smiling at the world, at the words, at me. She has such a wonderful smile.
I trot happily back down her path, thinking how even my footprints have joined me to her, my house to hers.
I don’t go home. I have a second mission. I’m so wrapped up in my head that I almost fail to notice there’s someone else out in this night. Several doors down from Zoe’s there’s a young guy I don’t recognize heaping snow outside his garage, shaping it into something, molding it. I don’t want him to see me, I don’t want him to stop me, or chat, or ask me where I’m going, because I realize I don’t really want anyone in this world but me. I want it all for myself for a little while longer.
But he’s too absorbed to notice anything. His head (like mine) is right inside whatever he is doing outside the garage in our joined-up cul-de-sac. So he lets me be and I let him be as I walk on, on toward the park.
The streetlights stop here, so it is a little darker, but not much. I pass some kind of large electrical junction box, which I must have passed a million times before and never noticed. I notice it now because, in the huge hush, it hums.
The park is a winter wonderland, better than any Christmas card I’ve ever seen, the trees dark shapes beneath their glittering coats of white, the odd winter pansy, yellow and purple, pushing its velvety head through the blanket of snow. I feel full of joy, as though I could run and laugh, but I don’t. I keep very quiet and still, at one with the landscape.
I pass the playground, looking at the ledges of snow on the swings and slide, and on the half-moon swing where Zoe and I have talked so many times, and on again to the bowling green, where the old men and the old women come out in the summer and play together with whispers and the soft clack of balls. The path to the bowling green is lit, though I’ve never noticed these lamps before. They are not oval-shaped, like the streetlights, but round like little yellow globes, like little worlds all their own.
Why have I chosen the bowling green?
Because it’s gated off. Because the bench I have in mind is screened from the rest of the park. It is not a place you just pass; you have to choose to go there, go deliberately.
I open the gate. No Dogs, it says. No Games.
I go straight to the bench and sweep all the snow from the left end of the bench toward the middle. I hear a rustling, which surprises me, so I look up at the plant that screens the bowling green from the road, which turns out to be a palm tree. Or maybe not a palm tree (because how can there be a palm tree here?), but certainly a tree with long, spiky fronds that looks as if it belongs in a warmer climate. The wind is rustling through the spikes, shivering them.
Next I sweep all the snow from the right-hand side of the bench toward the middle. Now I have two mounds of snow, very little mounds, but the babies are very little, too, so it doesn’t matter. The piles seem to be leaning toward each other. I start sculpting little arms and little hands, and bring the mounds closer together so the space between the two gets smaller and smaller and then, all at once, there is no space between the mounds. The babies are joined.
Then I start on the heads, only there really isn’t quite enough snow, so I have to pick up some from the green itself, and I forget that there is a ditch all around the bowling area, and I nearly fall, but I don’t, and that feels good. I take only as much snow as fits into my cupped hands.
I begin with Richie’s head, because Richie always seems to come first, and I take time to make his head strong and stable. Then I cup my hands once again and I take snow for Clem. I don’t intend to use less snow for him, but when I join the ball of snow to his chest it seems as if his head is smaller than Richie’s. It is also not as stable. I press it in around the neck, but still the head wobbles, leans, seems to want to rest against his brother. I try to separate the heads.
Joined chest, separate heads.
But Clem resists me. He wants to lean against his brother. He’s only happy, only stable when their heads are touching, kissing. I think, fleetingly, how it would be if my head were leaning on Zoe’s shoulder, if she were supporting me.
So I let Clem be, let Richie support him.
Clem’s choice.
How many other choices does my little brother have right now?
Then I stand back, look at the snow babies clinging there together, and finally pull the flask from my pocket. What am I expecting? A sign, I guess. I’m hoping that the little flame will be just slightly stronger, slightly brighter. What I’m not expecting is what I find: a globe of shining white. The surface of the glass is dense but sparkling, like a frosted windowpane and inside . . . oh, inside. How can I describe it? It’s li
t and fluttering and it looks like there are strips of paper floating there, thin pale strips, the color paper would be if you cut it from moonlight. It’s ghostly and beautiful and it makes me happier than I can say, because I know where it belongs. It belongs at the heart of the snow babies.
So I put it there, lean it just where the babies join, so that they can share. As the flask shimmers between them, I half-expect it to act like a real heart, and for the babies to get up off the bench and walk and dance and fly like they did in The Snowman, a movie Zoe and I used to watch when we were five.
They don’t, of course. It’s just my heart lifting, because I’ve finally made a difference. Writing the letter, building the snow babies, one or the other, both, I don’t know. But instead of destroying something, crushing something up, as I did in the Shrine Room, I’ve begun to build, to create, to add to the sum of human happiness.
“Is that it?”
No reply.
Then, as I gaze, the flask tips slightly, responding to some unevenness in my packing of the snow, probably, but it comes to rest more on Clem’s side, just under his arms, as though he were reaching for the flask, wanting it nearer. In this night of messages, what can this be but a message?
“You want Clem? Clem wants you?”
No reply.
“Then I’ll take you. I’ll take you to the hospital. After the operation—yes?”
After the operation. What if there is no after the operation?
What if, because there’s no time for the rehearsal operation, they choose the wrong socket wrench and Clem doesn’t make it—he dies on the operating table?
This is a night for bravery, but suddenly I don’t feel at all brave. I feel the monsters begin to crowd around again.
So I hedge my bets. I can’t stop myself, I play the Sidewalk Crack Game one final time.
To date, the monsters and I are running even. Si and I won (just) with the timing chain. The monsters won in the church. This will be the decider.
“Winner takes all,” I say. “Yes?”
No reply.
Not from the flask.