Light of Day

by Jamie M. Saul

  “Then why does he want to ask me questions?”

  “I don’t know.”

  “Don’t know or won’t say?”

  “You’re looking for reassurances I can’t give you.”

  “Was my son murdered?”

  “It’s not my case, Jack. I don’t have all the facts, so I can’t give you a definite answer. If you want my opinion, no, Danny wasn’t murdered. I told you when I first came to see you, Danny’s suicide has very little in common with Lamar’s.”

  They walked the stretch of sidewalk. Jack wanted to know, “How will he go about it?” meaning Hopewell.

  “He’ll do a more intense search over by Otter Creek, if he hasn’t already. He’ll go back and talk to people who saw Lamar the day he died, at school, afterward. He’ll look for anyone who saw anyone out there the day it happened, try to find anyone who might have been out that way. It’s possible that someone—homeless, crazy, who knows—might have done it. And he’ll see if he can match Lamar’s death with the death of other boys his age around the state.”

  “Like a serial killing?”

  “It’s remote. I keep up with that sort of thing all the time. It’s more than remote.”

  “There’s no terra firma,” Jack said. “That’s what it’s like to be mad, isn’t it? When there’s no terra firma.”

  They walked silently to the end of the sidewalk and crossed the street.

  The silence held, reminding Jack of that evening when he and Marty sat in the car when they were still strangers. But they were strangers no more. When Jack said, “All I can think is: What next?” Marty knew what he was talking about.

  Then they were walking over by the new dormitories with the deep patios and art plaza. Where the pavement was smooth and new and hadn’t been laid down by the WPA. Where the postmodern sculpture sprang enormous and bold, like prehistory.

  Jack said, “The first summer Anne and I went to France, she was working on her first show, and she used to talk about the blank spaces Cézanne left on his canvas. She said the blank parts suggest what’s there as well as what’s not there. That the absence of anything, some element, creates the presence of something else, and you have to be able to see what’s missing to have any idea of what remains. Maybe it was the blank spaces that made Hopewell decide Lamar had been murdered.”

  “I guess you could say it was. Or maybe blank spaces don’t necessarily mean that nothing’s there, just that it isn’t visible.”

  They walked along the empty sidewalk. The reflection of the moon was framed in the dormitory windows. Their footsteps echoed cold and hollow against the concrete and cement.

  Jack said, “I feel like I’m sliding down an endless, bottomless sluice.”

  “It gets that way sometimes. But it’s something you just have to cope with. Along with everything else you’re coping with. I hate making it sound so cold, but that’s just a fact.”

  “A cold fact.”

  “A cold fact,” Marty repeated solemnly.

  “I wouldn’t mind a few warm ones once in a while.”

  “Well, for what it’s worth, you seem to be handling both kinds pretty well. Under the circumstances.”

  “Seem to.”

  They walked a little further.

  “You know what my problem is, Marty?”

  “That’s not the kind of question I ever try and answer,” Marty said, not at all humorously.

  “I was always so damn busy, seeming to handle every damn thing, I never let anyone see how much help I really needed. And when it was offered, I didn’t accept it. Not from my friends, not from my family. I allowed them to give me pep talks, encourage me, and then I pushed them to the sidelines”—he made a sweeping gesture with his left hand—“so they could watch me seize the day. Help must have been available, but I never showed that I needed it. I came close to asking you that night in the Palomino, and it made me feel so small inside I had to back down. Call it a martyr complex, or a hero complex. When Anne left Danny and me, I was like a boxer on the ropes shaking off the punches. I packed up my son and started life all over again. Without missing a beat. We had our softball games, our vacations. I could do it all and go it alone. And if I’d showed the slightest sign of indecision, incompetence—”

  “Go easy on yourself.”

  “I’d look like a failure, and I couldn’t let that happen. If I know anything about myself it’s this: I’m afraid to show pain or let myself look needy or, God forbid, incompetent.” He loosened his tie and undid the top button of his shirt. “Maybe there are things a person shouldn’t know about himself. Although you’d tell me a person can’t know enough.”

  “I’d also tell you—”

  Jack put up his hand to silence him. “The point, Marty, is this: I’m scared to death right now. I’ve been scared to death since Danny died. I don’t know what to think, or what to feel, or what to imagine. I’ve been asking for your help since the day we met, or just about. As crap-headed as it sounds, I’ve let you—”

  “I’d also tell you,” Marty told him, not at all unkindly, “to cut yourself some slack.”

  “There’s some slack I can’t cut myself. I’ve got a dead son who Hopewell refuses to let rest in peace and I can’t stand by and let that happen. Danny’s dead and I have to protect him. I guess I also have to protect myself.”

  “You’ve been doing a good job of both since he was born.”

  “I’m afraid.” Jack’s voice sounded as though the wind had been sucked out of it. “And I need your help.”

  Marty nodded his head slowly.

  They were past the dormitories now, and off campus, walking along Elm Street, where the stores were all closed and the sidewalk empty.

  Jack said, “Since I pulled you out of Marlowe’s before you had your supper, how about letting me buy you a late dinner somewhere.”

  Marty started to protest. Jack told him not to make a big deal about it.

  “I’m treating you to supper. That’s all there is to it.”

  “In that case,” Marty said, “Let’s go here.” He was standing in front of Ambrosini’s…Home of Fine Italian Food.

  “You’re letting me off cheaply.”

  It had been years since Jack was in Ambrosini’s, but the place hadn’t changed very much. The air inside was still thick with garlic and Parmesan cheese, the bar still stocked blended whiskies only and the wine list was still the best in the state. Jack could only hope for Marty’s sake, however, that the former chef had retired.

  Marty gave the menu a quick look and before the waiter came over said to Jack, “A few days ago Lamar’s parents discovered a personal item missing from his things, maybe it was a piece of clothing or something. All Hopewell would tell me is it was something Lamar would have taken with him when he left the house that day. Hopewell went back out to Otter Creek to look for it, maybe he missed it the first time. You know what a mess it is out there, plus all that rain didn’t help, but he couldn’t find anything. But whatever he’s up to, I’m positive it has nothing to do with Danny.”

  Jack was lying in the dark, there wasn’t any breeze tonight and the air was heavy and it seemed like it was about to rain. It seemed as though all the summer’s fragrances were in hiding, secreted on the other side of the field, and there was only the sweet smell of whiskey on his breath and the faint aroma of Ambrosini’s dining room on his clothes and in his hair. They were not at all unfamiliar, the way a certain perfume rises in a theater, or at a party, and you remember the last time you breathed it and where you were and the person who’d worn it. Jack remembered the last time he lay in the dark and could smell the restaurant on his clothes and on his body, but that night they were mixed with the pleasant scent of a woman’s perfume.

  It was somebody’s birthday, and they’d had a party at Ambrosini’s. There were about twenty-five of them in all, Jack remembered, sitting around the large table in the big room. Lois was there with Tim. Lee and Cindy Hatfield. Jerry and Joy Parcell. And Maggie. There was
a carnival set up in the parking lot across the street, the red and yellow sounds of the calliope, the smoky smell of hot dogs and greasy French fries came rolling through the open window. It was Jack who wanted to smuggle in carnival food at the risk of offending Mr. Ambrosini. But that wasn’t why everyone was laughing. He couldn’t remember why. Maybe it was the wine, a good Brunello from Ambrosini’s private stock, or the end-of-semester release that happened to coincide with the party. Or the toast Maggie had made.

  Someone brought music. A few people started dancing, a few people sang along. The tables were pushed out of the way. More people danced.

  Maggie drew up next to Jack. She was moving in time to the song, her skirt pulled tight against her hips, showing them off. “Dr. Jack Owens,” she said in a husky whisper.

  “Dr. Maggie Brighton.”

  She leaned in close, rubbing her thigh against him and resting her head against his lapel. “Are you the kind of man who leads women on and then victimizes them?” she asked in the same husky whisper.

  “I’m the kind of man who saves women from themselves.”

  “Very noble, Dr. Owens.”

  “Let’s not jump to hasty conclusions.”

  “Do you read much poetry, noble Dr. Owens?”

  “Some.”

  “I suggest you read more.” She may have had too much to drink. She may have just been acting like it.

  “And why is that?”

  “You have poetry within you.”

  She looked as though she were about to kiss him. She didn’t, which Jack regretted.

  “I taught poetry this year,” she said in the deliberate way of the inebriate. “I taught poetry to non-English majors. Have you ever taught film for non-film majors?”

  “I have.”

  “I don’t mind teaching them. Do you?”

  “No.”

  “Neither do I.” She hummed softly, her cheek pressed against his chin. “Do you know what excites them in Bloomington, Indiana?”

  “You?”

  “Basketball. Basketball on Friday night.”

  “And you don’t like basketball on Friday night?”

  “I like you on Friday night.” She brushed her hips against him. “Dance with me,” she said.

  “I thought we were,” and he took her in his arms.

  He liked dancing with Maggie. It wasn’t just the feel of her body, firm and confident against him, or the way her fingertips rested against his neck. It was the smell of her hair, the way she followed his lead, the way she knew when to play and when to take the music seriously, but never too seriously.

  “I like you, Jack. Especially tonight.”

  “Why especially tonight?”

  “You don’t hold me accountable for my behavior.”

  “You’re behaving perfectly fine.”

  “That’s what I mean.” She held him tighter.

  Sometime after eleven, they all went to the carnival. Jack won a stuffed bear for Maggie at the shooting gallery, and a gold-plated rhinestone bracelet, which she put on immediately and promised to wear until her arm turned green. They rode the Tilt-A-Whirl and threw cream pies at a clown and ate salty French fries out of paper cones. Then everyone drove down Third Street, past the trucker bars and the gas stations and the motels’ neon signs, to the Little Slipper, where they listened to the jazz trio do better-than-passable work on standards. Maggie and Jack sat close to each other in the booth near the back. Lois sang “You Go to My Head,” deep and hot and throaty. Jerry and Joy harmonized softly on “My Heart Stood Still.”

  Jack remembered that Maggie talk-sang “The Very Thought of You.”

  He remembered when Maggie showed up for her first softball game and he shouted across the diamond to Danny, “I want you to meet someone,” and Danny came hustling over, glove tucked under his arm, cap on backwards.

  “This is Maggie Brighton,” Jack said. “The scouting report says she plays a decent first base. If Gary doesn’t take her, I suggest you make her one of your picks.”

  Danny gave her a stern looking over.

  “I’m not all field and no hit, either,” Maggie said, “I’ve even got some power to the opposite field,” which made Danny smile.

  It was blue skies all day and the ball field over by the fairgrounds looked like candy. Maggie knew how to play softball; in the first inning, she dug out a low throw and Danny gave her a high-five coming off the field, and she knew how to dress for a ballgame as well, wearing old baseball pants that she’d fixed to fit like pedal pushers, a cast-off baseball shirt she’d found at a flea market, black Chuck Taylor high-tops and a black cap with her red hair tucked inside.

  Leading off the bottom of the ninth, her team down by a run, Maggie legged out a slow roller to short. She wound up on third with two outs, danced off the bag, juking and swishing her hips, waving to Jack and shouting, “I’m running on contact. I’m comin’ home.” Unfortunately, she was stranded at third and never scored the tying run.

  After the game, as he helped set up the picnic along the foul lines, Jack watched Maggie run over to him, propelled, it appeared, on the strength of her laughter. “Danny told me I could ‘really pick it’ at first base,” she said. “He’s wonderful, Jack. I made sure to tell him that, and that he’s an excellent second baseman, too.”

  “He can’t hear enough of it.”

  “And neither can you.” She hugged his arm and laughed some more.

  They circled the old beach chairs in the shade of the trees and the picnic was on. Sandwiches and salads, beers and sodas, smoke from the barbecue grill swirled with the aroma of burgers and hot dogs and sausages. While the adults ate and talked about their summer plans, the kids hurried through the food and chose up teams for another softball game.

  That was the summer he rented the house in Maine with Nick and the boys. Danny was what, ten? No, he must have been nine. Maggie came to his tenth birthday…

  Maggie supplied the magician and a “gypsy” fortune-teller for Danny’s tenth birthday, Jack remembered. But in that softball game she was stranded at third with the tying run.

  Jack thought about Maggie and felt the regret he’d felt before, it seemed to belong with all the other regrets he was feeling, and she belonged with all the other people he missed and who were gone. “Noble Dr. Owens,” she’d called him, but that was just a joke, that was before what happened happened.

  It started to rain. Jack got up to close the bedroom window.

  He remembered that Maggie had laughed about it later, about dancing off third base. “Doing my baseball bossa nova.”

  There was always lots of laughter when she was around. Maggie Brighton. She made things bright.

  On the Saturday nights that Danny spent at Rick’s house, or Brian’s, Jack would stay with Maggie in Bloomington, where she lived in one of the smart neighborhoods near campus. The first time he stayed over, it was raining, like tonight, only it was late September and cool. They sat on the floor, a tray of hors d’oeuvres in front of them, and listened to Chet Baker and Mose Allison.

  “Did you always want to be a teacher?” she asked.

  “Except in the eighth grade, when I wanted my own talk show.”

  “That’s not too far removed from teaching.”

  “And you?”

  “When I was seven, I used to force my little sisters to play school with me. I’d make them sit in and recite Dr. Seuss and A. A. Milne.” She smiled. “It’s goofy, I know, but I always loved the sound of reading poetry out loud. My family has a little cottage on Lake Wawasee and when I was in high school I used to sit on the dock by myself and read Emily Dickinson. We should go up there, Jack, in a couple of weeks, Danny, you and I. It’s beautiful in the fall. I can take you both to the Olympia Candy Kitchen in Goshen, for hamburgers and malts. We’ll go on foliage hikes around the lake and build a fire at night and make s’mores and tell ghost stories.”

  Jack still remembered how nervous—anxious, really—he felt when Maggie invited them. “I think we�
��ll run into a few logistical problems,” he said.

  “Logistics?”

  “Sleeping arrangements.”

  “I think we can manage to keep our hands off each other for a weekend,” she said, and then, “Is that all?”

  “No. I’m also very careful about Danny not getting too attached to women I go out with. Not that there’ve been that many, but—”

  “He has to get to know me, I understand, and get comfortable with everything. Right?”

  “That’s right.”

  “Does he know that you stay here?”

  Jack shook his head. “I think it would be very confusing for him.”

  “Where does he think you are?”

  “Oh, he knows I’m with you,” Jack said, not defensively, “he knows all about you. He just doesn’t know that I sleep over.”

  In October, they drove up to the cabin by Lake Wawasee and did all the things Maggie said they would. Jack and Danny slept in bunk beds. Danny got the top bunk.

  When they drove back to Gilbert on Sunday night, Danny said he’d had a good time. He said he liked Maggie. He told Jack, “We should invite her over to our house for supper.”

  Maggie came for supper. Sometimes she came for lunch on Saturday afternoons, stayed for supper and slept over, in the guest room. If she was bothered by that arrangement, she never said so. Sometimes Jack and Danny would drive to IU and meet Maggie at her office. She would listen to Danny’s stories and his jokes. She’d tell him a few jokes of her own. Some nights, they all ate supper at a restaurant, some nights they ate supper at her house, where she would coax Danny into playing the piano, or she would play, and when Danny got to feeling more comfortable around her they would play duets. She used to make Danny laugh with silly rhymes and verses. “One of the perks of teaching kiddie-lit. Plenty of doggerel.”

  Jack thought about the afternoon just after summer vacation, when Maggie and he sat on the porch swing, Maggie barefoot, wearing shorts, her skin brown from the sun, her sleek, angular face relaxed and rested. It wasn’t raining but the air felt thick and damp. The crickets and cicadas and frogs were going crazy in the deep dark of the crops and in the woods by the creek.