by Cullin Mitch
Now fully permeating the consuming shadows of the Nine Springs kitchen, their past swirled about in the darkness around them, the blades of the ceiling fan stirring it like windblown leaves. “It's tough faulting old Florence,” Hollis told Debra, “because she needed someone tangible to blame, otherwise she'd have been sunk. Her grief was just too great for her to recognize your own level of grief, that you were too heartsick and distraught to see them bury the boy you loved, or that facing her and Bill Sr. and Edgar simply underscored Bill being gone. She couldn't understand it. How could she? Plus, I think anger is a lot easier to live with than sadness — I'm sure of it. I mean, she couldn't attach any meaning to the loss of her son, so you became a bit of a scapegoat for that pain, I suppose. I'm not saying it's right, but sometimes that's what people do. We do it more than we probably realize.”
Sitting at the table, with Hollis by her side, the rest of the story was as clear to Debra as it was to him. But the perspective she had always wanted was his perspective, his version of how they met — that timely encounter when, as dusk concluded, she had wandered from What Rocks to the McCreedy farm and sought him out because she had learned he was staying there: the soldier who had been shot with Creed, the one who had survived and could, hopefully, make her understand why her boyfriend had died. And so he obliged her now as he had done back then; he spoke of that other night long ago, after the chores were done and supper was finished and the McCreedys were all shut inside their bedrooms, and he sat by himself on the porch steps, in the cool winter night, gazing upward at a sky which glimmered brilliantly with more stars — blue, red, white, yellow — than he had recalled seeing before or since.
As Debra had approached the farmhouse — trudging up the dirt drive, unclasping the gate of the front yard — Hollis didn't notice her until sensing something below his line of vision, something or someone emerging toward him in the night. Lowering his head, bringing his stare from the heavens to the earth, he saw a fluttering of white up ahead, a slight billowing of fabric, and then on the concrete walkway he recognized her — for she was the same as in Creed's photograph, indistinct and impossible to define, a girlish representation made alluring by lingering just beyond his perception. But with every step she took, the aperture of his mind brought her into clearer focus, honing her shape and features and outward manner. She wore a heavy beige-colored wool coat, blue jeans, and sneakers, with a white chiffon scarf which was knotted at her neck but rippled out across a shoulder like a wind sock. As she drew closer, he spotted a cheap paperback clutched in one of her hands, the kind found on the revolving racks of dime stores, and he imagined she had cradled the book in her palms, thumbs holding the pages open while she navigated around scrub brush and prickly pears, reading during those last fading minutes of the day.
He raised an arm off his knee, casually waving to her once. “Hi,” was what he then heard himself say, when she had stopped in front of him, standing some three feet from where he sat on the steps. With her face as colorless as the scarf she had on and the dark glossy locks of her hair bathed in the glow of the yellow porch light, she seemed to be frowning at him, her brown eyes assessing him suspiciously. Behind her, in the pitch surrounding the yard, the night loomed as her ally and gave bearing to her diminutive figure.
“You Hollis?” she said in a flat, direct way, asked with a gruff tone which sounded older than her years — one her body would, gradually, see fit to match over time.
“That's right,” he replied.
“You was in that mess over there with Billy?”
“I was. Yes.”
His answers seemed to lessen the frown, although her expression remained determined and willful, unflinching while she loitered on the walkway, staring down at him with the frays of her black hair made iridescent by the casting of soft yellow light. Her stare narrowed as the breeze howled swiftly through the yard for a moment — lifting the scarf, and, like unseen fingers, sweeping her hair from her forehead. Once the breeze had passed, that curious frown was there again, that reserve and somberness, staying put when she introduced herself. “I'm Billy's girl,” she continued, as if Creed were still among the living and waiting for her inside the house. But she didn't intend to bother him long. She merely wanted a few minutes of his evening, just whatever it would take for him to accurately make plain the circumstances of her boyfriend's death; the specifics of which had been mostly hearsay, elaborated about town in hushed, piecemeal fashion and exaggerated like gossip — forming an incomplete picture in her head and heart, puzzling her more than any of the mystery novels she read every week.
“Of course,” Hollis said, a solemn note creeping into his voice. “I understand.” And there and then, he was struck by the girl, captivated for reasons he couldn't quite sort out. It wasn't as though she was a perfect beauty — her cheekbones were too high and broad for the small, round shape of her head, her eyes were too far apart — not nearly as beautiful as what the photograph had repeatedly allowed him to conjure. Yet the force of something inevitable seemed to pound at his gut, prodding him with a need for her while, too, filling him with apprehension as she stood above him. He hadn't, until that evening, bought into the idea of a definitive love which could blossom between two people in an instant. However, if such a love were real, he regarded it as an awful thing, a destructive thing, because with it also came the possibility of real loss, of complete and utter desolation in its absence — a bitter outcome he had no wish to experience.
As his voice initially wavered with his thoughts, Hollis began imparting the only full account of Creed's final minutes Debra would ever hear, a version of the event which, from that point on, she accepted as being true. But during the telling, his voice grew steadily more confident, more vivid; and what was then described about that morning at the Naktong wasn't so different from the tale he had given Bill Sr., save for one dramatic shift: it became Hollis, not Creed, who had seen something reflected by sunlight as they shielded themselves behind the dying pine tree, something glinting among the reeds and hidden several yards away; in a split second, Hollis had jumped toward Creed, attempting to push him down at the very instant a loud crack erupted within the reeds — except, of course, he couldn't have moved fast enough. The resulting moments, he went on to explain, brought no appeasing resolution; no degree of satisfaction was had by single-handedly avenging Creed's murder — pursuing and killing the sniper, also getting badly wounded before it was finished — because he would be forever haunted by the knowledge of having failed to protect his friend.
“Everyone called me a hero,” Hollis said miserably, “though it isn't anything I'm proud of. I mean, a real hero would've reacted a second earlier, he ‘d have caught that first bullet and kept his pal from being shot — that's why I'm hardly a hero. And now I can't stand that I'm here and he isn't, doesn't seem right somehow. So I remind myself I've got a duty to keep my head above water and let my life from here on out serve as an honor to his memory — and that's what I'm intending to do, and that's pretty much it.”
Once Hollis was done talking, Debra appeared poised to speak, but then seemed to prevent herself. Instead, she looked at him, withholding a single trace of emotion, and for a while neither of them spoke. Yet he was completely drawn to the impassiveness of her expression, warmed thoroughly in her strong presence — as though she was absorbing the chilly air between them, heating it inside her delicate body, releasing some of it for him to feel.
“See, you aren't alone,” Hollis finally said. “I'm like you. I lost him, too. We both did.”
“Ain't nearly the same thing,” she said, reversing herself, stepping back. “Anyway, all of us are alone.”
Hollis then felt as if he had not said anything right, not expressed himself well enough to comfort her. After she turned without another word and headed across the yard, he sprang off the steps, unwilling to let her recede from view. “Scrunchy,” he blurted. “You'll always be his Scrunchy.” When she pivoted around to him, suddenly, her pale fa
ce — peering forward, hair tousled by the breeze — was like one which had encountered a phantom; and yet she stared at him, there in the night, with acceptance, with vague recognition, and while he extended a hand to her, she smiled discreetly and cautiously, as if benignly accepting an unexpected but desired gift. Then, too, he sensed there was a kind of strange magic in himself, an unrealized ability to heal without speech or considerable effort; he had but to touch her, to press his palm against her palm, and her troubles would subside; in this he would find his meaning, his real salvation.
“I'm Hollis Adams.”
“I know who you are.”
“I know. I know that.”
Again and again, Hollis was destined to reach for her — in the yard, during the nights and days, on long walks among the mesquites — and with every movement of his arms, his hands, his fingers, time began accelerating, whirling effortlessly about them. Soon enough their clothing was cast aside at least once within each of the forgotten, empty bedrooms of the old What Rocks house, their entwined bodies exposed by the dusty rays of light which angled downward through the murky windowpanes and illumed the barren floorboards. But prior to any of those furtive couplings — as their self-imposed states of isolation gave way to a greater want for togetherness — the pieces of the picture had begun taking shape, falling smoothly into place: the Saturdays in Claude, the two of them strolling leisurely on downtown sidewalks or sitting side by side at a Dairy Mart booth — paying little mind to the glancing, disapproving onlookers likely whispering, “The very gall of them two,” and “Poor McCreedy boy ain't even cold in the earth and see how she's going on that a way.”
For a while, the covert animosity was hard for Debra to tolerate, although she didn't harbor regrets about being seen with Hollis — nor did she believe Creed would have resented them. Better, she figured, that Billy's best girl and best army friend were joined at the hip than either one relying on a complete stranger for comfort; in some regard, she told herself, they were adhering to Creed's memory by consoling each other's grief, by also resuming and furthering the kind of relationship he had enjoyed with her but could no longer take part in. Then the passing of judgment she felt around town — the whispers, the snide remarks insinuated within earshot — seemed petty, unwarranted, as if the people of Claude just craved something, anything, to stir their indignant and self-righteous natures. When she went to buy some fabric patterns at Christian Dry Goods, the fat girl behind the counter, a former classmate of Creed's, told her in a hushed, well-intending voice, “You and that fella ought shouldn't be flaunting yourselfs like you do, it don't favor you, dear.” Debra smiled politely, thinking all the while: Trudy, I ain't the one who's six feet under — and I'm nobody's widow yet.
By then the rumors concerning them had spread beyond quiet gossip, and already Hollis had been asked to leave the McCreedy farm. At the supper table one evening, Florence fumed in silence, behaving like he wasn't even there — serving everyone except him, never letting her gaze travel to where he sat — frowning with dismay while Bill Sr. forthrightly said it was probably time for Hollis to head home to Minnesota. Edgar, like his mother, was also frowning, but only because the boy had grown fond of Hollis and would miss having him at the house. “I understand,” Hollis told the McCreedys, rising from his chair, “and I want to thank you all for your kindness. It feels like I've gained a family here.”
“You got yourself a family of your own,” Florence scoffed, talking at her plate. “You belong with them, not us.”
“Mother,” Bill Sr. responded to his wife in a reproving tone.
“That's okay,” Hollis said. “Maybe it's best if I get my things gathered.”
But Hollis wouldn't ready for a trip back to Critchfield, and — after packing his suitcase, stealing the photograph of Debra off the bureau and concealing it in a jacket pocket — he wouldn't return to where the McCreedys ate supper. Instead, he immediately left their house without as much as a goodbye, relying on that stealthy departure he had, of late, repeatedly used while fleeing elsewhere; he then walked a mile or so — slipping between the gaps of barbed-wire fences, wandering through grazing pastures — until arriving at the imposing residence standing out on the plains: the crumbling, half-deserted hilltop house known as What Rocks, a place which — as Debra had previously made known — afforded more than enough space for him should he find himself wanting a bedroom of his own. Still, in order to earn his keep, he would be required to work on the property, taking over the chores her alcoholic father was incapable of getting done, loading a pile of cedar posts in the bed of a pickup, mowing the lawn and tending the backyard gardens, yanking weeds and burrs, any sort of odd job; a small price to pay, he had no doubt, for sleeping under the same roof as that girl, a tiny penance, indeed, for what was given in return at What Rocks during the nights, or afternoons, when the door of an abandoned room would lock behind him and Debra, ushering forth a private world which, in the heat and collision of their bodies, was about as far removed from the McCreedys’ sorrowful existence as anything he could hope to conceive.
So regardless of what Florence might have finally thought of him, Hollis wasn't bothered in the slightest. He didn't care if she was angry and disapproved, or felt betrayed by him and Debra. He didn't care if she would eventually shun their wedding, or, for the rest of her days, speak ill of them to anyone who would listen. He didn't care, and whatever she thought truly didn't matter in the big picture; for he had redeemed himself through love, doing so without any help from her or the Lord. As such, he and Debra, by simply finding each other, had freed themselves to create a new reality together, divining their own singular path which just they were meant to embark upon; that alone, with hindsight, provided an answer as to why it was necessary for Creed to have died before him — why Hollis, too, had found himself thrown amidst the early chaos of a divided Korea, getting wounded beside the Naktong — and, later on, it became his sole reason for ever having made the tedious journey to Claude to begin with.
“And that,” Hollis said at the kitchen table, stroking Debra's liver-spotted hand, “is probably all you need to know about us.”
Except now his magic was failing him, his ability to heal her and, ultimately, himself. Then it wasn't him reaching out for her in the night, but, rather, it was she who moved toward him, pressing fingers to his arm, gripping at his shoulder. She gently spoke his name, saying it as a question, and, seconds later, he was helping her to stand, assisting her; yet it was she who led, guiding him from the kitchen table — from the darkness which had facilitated the past — bringing them squarely into the light of the present. Soon they sat together again, their knees touching, their fingers interlaced, facing each other on the living-room couch.
Debra took a deep breath, appearing quite forlorn as she then said, “There isn't much time left, at least for me. So it's important I have some say on when and how my life ends.”
“What do you mean?” he asked, with an uncomprehending expression.
“I'm saying cancer shouldn't get the last word, even though it's killing me.”
The living-room curtains were open, and suddenly Hollis's eyes shifted to the window where he saw the black of night softened by the bright transparent reflection of the living room.
“It isn't easy for you, I know,” she said. “It isn't fair either.”
“No,” he said, sounding irritated, “it isn't fair.” Our story wasn't supposed to go like this, he thought. This isn't how I wanted it to finish. He shook his head, biting his bottom lip, and continued staring at the window.
Debra sighed tiredly, squeezing his fingers, and said, “Hollis, you need to hear me. It's important what I'm about to say, so please listen.”
And now it was her turn to talk, although she wouldn't be revisiting their past; instead, she addressed the near future like an unapologetic fortune-teller prophesying the details of her own demise, revealing what she — and Hollis — could expect in the weeks ahead. Just that afternoon, while retur
ning from the outpatient clinic in Tucson, she had decided not to pursue any more treatment, because it was obvious the disease hadn't stopped spreading even with the preventative use of chemotherapy agents or, for that matter, other experimental drugs. As such, the cancer cells would keep wrecking havoc, creating a bowel obstruction; there would be nausea and vomiting, an inability to pass gas, and her abdomen would swell in girth, surpassing the discomfort of the current ascites. At the end, whatever remained inside her would be expelled by traveling up the esophagus, moving through her throat and out between her lips as a dark greenish bilelike substance carrying the odor of feces — and her withered body, malnourished in appearance, would begin shutting down. Of course, drops of morphine would ease her through those final hours; she would exit this world within an incoherent fever dream, whispering unintelligibly and incessantly as if speaking in tongues, laboring for air while drifting to and from consciousness — until, with the transitory span of a second, she ceased breathing altogether.
Debra fell silent for a moment; her sunken face, lacking any makeup, seemed much older than it should have looked. Outside, Hollis couldn't see a thing — not the houses across the street, nor the stars above them. Then she said, without urgency, that they had to accept her death was fast approaching, but the last painful act wasn't yet a given; for a brief period remained in which she could trump the concluding onslaught of the disease. She could, with his support and permission, depart a bit prematurely, doing so on her own terms — by her own hand, in the tranquillity of their beautiful home — circumventing the indignity of what otherwise would be, for both of them, an excruciating, almost unbearable endgame.