Catching Heaven

by Sands Hall

  “Doesn’t it ever get easier?”

  “I don’t think it gets any easier. I’m beginning—just beginning—to think we can make it easier on ourselves.”

  Jeep’s eyelids drooped. “Will you stay right here? Just till I fall asleep?”

  “Yes.”

  Jeep mumbled, “Lizzie will be so mad.”

  “She won’t be mad. Or she won’t be mad at you. Go to sleep. ‘That knits up the raveled sleeve of care.’ We’ll figure it out. One way or another.”

  Smoothing the hair away from Jeep’s face, Maud thought how in some other organization of things she might be holding a daughter. And that maybe one of the great benefits of being a parent was that no matter how frightened you yourself might be, you needed to present a world to your child that was good, and safe, and secure. It’ll all work out, she’d told Jeep. As if she knew how. Yet just saying things would be all right somehow made things seem like they might be.

  Keeping an arm around Jeep, she picked up her book. Maybe one of the biggest myths of all was that it would all be easier if you had a mate. Jeep’s mother hadn’t had a man who loved her. She also hadn’t figured out how to go it alone. As Lizzie had. Maud herself hadn’t managed to create a successful marriage, mating, partnership. But it seemed to her that it should be, ought to be more fun, more satisfying, to move through life with someone, a mate.

  Mate. Another verb to add to the collection she and Jake were making. Cor blimey, mate, want to mate?

  Although—watching Jeep, who had fallen asleep almost immediately—she also understood, wholly, that her own void would not be filled with a child. Nor would it be filled by a man. The void existed. In between the pendulum swings of desire for this, and fear of that, was a place that was simply empty. It was also full. For a moment she understood how both could simultaneously be true. Jeep could or could not have this baby. Maud would or would not find the love of her life, or get discovered as an actor, or be hired by the college and become the best teacher the world had ever known. None of these filled the void. The void was always there. The thing to do—so easy to ponder, so hard to manifest—was to live with it, live within it, and to be aware. The awkward weight of Jeep’s head against her shoulder, the sound of breath, in and out, the coconut scent of shampoo. This feeling of empty fullness, full emptiness, in the area of her own womb, her belly, her heart.

  And somewhere in there, she thought, her arm tightening around a shiver that shook Jeep’s body, somewhere at that balanced, still point—before the magnetizing poles of desire and fear drew her, quivering, towards one, then the other—was where serenity lived.

  CHAPTER 27

  JAKE

  lights down the boulevard, shattered suns

  our nights held passion, like a hidden gun

  but thunder and sunlight fade

  On the sidewalk outside Mountain Music Jake ran into Maud. Muffled up against the cold. Wearing that tweed cap that made her look like an urchin. “Hey,” he said. “What’re you up to?”

  “Exercising my franchise.” She pointed to the I VOTED sticker on her coat lapel. “This is exciting! Fixing the roads versus keeping the library open on weekdays. Randolf for mayor! Many times in L.A. I didn’t turn out to vote. I’m ashamed to say.”

  “I didn’t do much for Nashville politics myself.” He wasn’t registered in Marengo either.

  She pulled a mitten off with her teeth, handed him a piece of neon blue paper out of the Print Rite bag she was carrying.

  PIANO LESSONS

  —CHILDREN WELCOME—

  MAUD MAXWELL

  232-3565

  “I can mail these. They’ll look a little more official than those three-by-five cards I have thumbtacked around. I have six pupils now. Mostly thanks to Elmer.”

  Maud looked happier. Not so gaunt, haggard. Perhaps she’d even gained some weight. He would not ask. The only wisdom he thought he’d garnered over the years was never to ask that particular question of a woman. It was never taken as a compliment.

  “I’ve never thought of myself as a teacher,” Maud was saying. “But it turns out I’m sort of good at it.”

  He folded the flyer into fours, put it in his pocket. “Listen. Why don’t you come by later? We’ll have a beer.”

  Oh, buddy, Minerva yodeled, what are you up to?

  Looking wary, Maud pulled her mitten back on. “Well, I have rehearsal. Until ten.”

  The snowy top of Fable Mountain leered, a squashed scoop of vanilla ice cream.

  “That’s fine.”

  She perused him with those odd, worried eyes. Face pixie-like beneath the cap. “But let’s not talk about Lizzie the whole time. Is that awful? That’s awful, isn’t it.”

  “Is that what we did? You should’ve told me to shut up.”

  “I can’t say I’m not interested. I’m just not sure it’s a good thing to do, is all.”

  “Cozy, cozy, cozy.” Lizzie’s voice lilted behind them.

  Maud’s eyes widened, deep brown. Jake turned. Lizzie stood in jeans and parka. “Don’t let me interrupt.”

  “I was just leaving.” Maud opened the store’s heavy wooden door. Jake heard, “Hello, Elmer. I’ve got those flyers you suggested,” and Elmer’s answering welcome.

  Lizzie’s red ski hat emphasized her small chin. Jake told her he was glad to see her. She nodded. “That was quite a scene there at the hospital.” Her eyes mocked, glittered.

  Of course. She had always muffled anything that strummed her emotions. “I think about that.” He’d thought about it a lot. Aching, sorry. He’d called her. Wasn’t surprised that she didn’t call back.

  Lizzie tucked an escaping curl firmly beneath her hat. “And what are you doing downtown?”

  Jake held up his package. “New strings, picks. You?”

  “Seeing a lawyer. He’s a friend. Trying to find out if what that Driver guy did is legal. If I can do anything.” She shoved hands in her pockets, pulled her chin into her muffler. “We went to see Sam the other day. Maud tell you?”

  “You did! How is he?”

  “We took the girls. I figure Summer, especially, better know what’s going on. He’s not improving. I can’t think what good it is keeping him down there. But not being family—‘clan,’ as the asshole says—I don’t know what recourse I’ve got. It’s way too little, way too late. But—” She shrugged, grimacing, the feral look of her eyeteeth more pronounced than usual. “You keep leaving messages.”

  “You keep not answering them.”

  Maud came back out of the store. “I’m running late.”

  “See you later,” Jake said, but she didn’t meet his eye. The wind flapped the hem of her coat as she walked.

  “Jeep’s pregnant,” Lizzie said.

  “Jeep is what?”

  “I thought Maud might have told you.”

  This was meant to be a jab. “Is it Rich?”

  “Of course. She’ll lose her scholarship. The biddies on the board will see to that.” Lizzie squinted over his shoulder, as if the biddies were behind him. The lines around her eyes, not as pronounced as Maud’s, were a fine crosshatch, reminding him of the set of Haviland china Minerva had inherited from her grandmother. A million tiny cracks lacing the porcelain. Lizzie, he thought, a fine china cup. How she would hate that idea.

  “It’s not much of a smiling matter,” she said.

  “No, of course not.”

  “And her godawful mother will have a fit.” The tip of her nose was red with cold.

  “Want to get some coffee?” It came out, surprising him.

  “Not really.” But she walked beside him to a small German bakery with wrought-iron tables and chairs, empty. “We’ve never been in here,” he said as they sat. “Together, I mean.” She stared, sardonic. A large blonde waitress left her newspaper to take their order. Coffee, yes. Strudel, no.

  “What will Jeep do?”

  “Abortion, probably.”

  He shook his head, thinking about Theo. The enormi
ty of his own failings hit him.

  “I don’t know what you’re tut-tutting about. You of all people. Every time a man and a woman make love, seventeen zillion spermies are loosed on the world. A baby is easy to make. They’re very hard to raise. I wanted mine, I planned for each of them.” Pouring a stream of cream into her coffee, Lizzie waved away his protest. “Let’s not talk about Theo.”

  Jake’s throat was tight. He started to speak. Lizzie shook her spoon at him. “A wanted child is a loved child. Like a lot of clichés, that one is true. So is the opposite. I made a choice. Jeep’s had an accident. So she thinks about not having it. She’s also thinking about having it and giving it to Maud.”

  “To Maud!”

  “It’s pretty late for Maud to have one of her own. She cries about that. I’ve told her to get a cat.”

  “Hardly the same thing, Liz.”

  Lizzie licked her spoon with a curled pink tongue. “No midnight feedings, diapers. You can go out when you please. No backtalk. No acne, tattoos, midnight frets about who they’re with, where they are, all the things I have to look forward to. But even if Jeep doesn’t end up falling in love and wanting to keep the kid, what adoption agency would let Maud have it? Single female, works in a bar. Actress! Teaches piano. Sporadic income, no equity.”

  “Would she have to go through an adoption agency? She’d make a great mother.” At Lizzie’s look he amended this. “Not that I know her that well.” He pictured Maud, sitting on the couch in his living room later that night, pulled his mind away from the idea of kissing her. Not the first time he’d thought of it. But he hadn’t thought he’d think about it while he was with Lizzie. He groaned.

  Lizzie looked at him, curious. “What’s that about? A drug addict, a derelict, a child abuser can become a mother. But someone who wants a child, who could offer a loving home, has an impossible time convincing the powers that are in charge of these things that they—she—could be a parent.” She flagged the waitress for a refill. “I looked into adopting. Thought I’d offer my home to a Guatemalan kid, but am I an undesirable parent! An artist. No husband. Wildly fluctuating income, splotchy financial track record. And so”—she shrugged—“we have Theo.”

  Again she shook her spoon. “Nope. Don’t. Sorry I brought it up. I told Jeep that if she decided to keep it we could add it to the menagerie.” Her sharp teeth showed.

  “Lizzie.”

  “Jake,” she mocked. Her hair, that unruly extension of her mental processes, messed by the hat she’d pulled off as they sat down, glinted red-gold.

  “Let me— Could we—” He stopped.

  “What?”

  “Could we have dinner?”

  “Oh, Jake.” She stood, dropped a dollar bill on the table. Her cheeks were red. “Go figure it out with Maud. She’s who you want, anyway.”

  He grinned at her. “Not yet.”

  Lizzie breathed sharply out, her face pinched. “What does that mean? What does that mean?”

  The waitress looked up from her newspaper. This did not stop Jake from reaching a hand. “You make jokes about it, Liz. Why can’t I?”

  She pulled her hat on. It sat too high up on her head, looking absurd. “Because you’re not joking.”

  “But neither are you. Liz!”

  But she was gone, snatching up her parka, scraping against a chair as she went by. It toppled, fell. Jake beat the waitress to lift it back into place. Watched Lizzie out the window. She paused at the sidewalk’s edge, put a hand up in thanks to a van that stopped to let her cross.

  The waitress went back to studying the newspaper. He sat back down. The coffee in the bottom of his cup trembled, little creamy waves, as he lifted it to his mouth.

  At home, he called her house, twice. She was letting the machine pick up. He left no message.

  His phone rang a little after ten, as he was putting the new strings on his acoustic guitar.

  “I’m calling to find out if this is still something you want to do. In spite of my better judgment.”

  “Hey, Maud.”

  “You’ve changed your mind.”

  “No.”

  “I have too. That’s fine. Really. I’ll see you around.”

  “Do you have a pen?” he said. “Here’s how you get here.”

  When she arrived, they hung her coat, discussed the rain that had just turned to wet snow, the lashing wind, how the lamb that the lion of March was supposed to have become hadn’t showed. Or was it a lamb that was supposed to become a lion? Either way, April wasn’t any better. Her face was a mask designed to represent a smile. She pulled off wet boots, wiggled her toes inside thin socks.

  “Those are not suitable,” Jake said, pointing. “No wonder you say you’re cold all the time. Tea? A beer?”

  “Tea.” Maud followed him into the kitchen, sat at the table while he filled the kettle. “I keep meaning to buy warm things.” She pulled a foot onto the opposite knee. They both watched her rub her toes. “Oh! Did you hear? Fixing the roads will probably win, but sustaining regular library hours won’t.”

  “Welcome to Marengo.” They talked about this, waiting for the kettle to whistle. Conversation dribbled. “I thought you might not want me to come,” she said. Not looking at him. “That I shouldn’t come. I keep wondering if I’m entering territory that’s still hers.”

  “We’re not going to talk about Lizzie.”

  Maud changed feet. After a few moments of kneading toes she laughed. “Well, that initiated what they call a strained silence. Maybe I could have both tea and a beer.”

  She clinked his bottle with hers, got up to pour a dollop in the sink. “To the gods.” Carrying the steaming cup and a bottle of beer, she followed him to the living room. Curtains drawn. The apartment banal, bland, depressingly so: brown and dirty beige. No personality. No interesting books. No prints on the wall. No rugs to break up the anemic wall-to-wall carpet. The place felt cheap, temporary. Chilly, though the heat was on.

  She sat on the couch. “Not that I’m saying there’s territory to enter, really.” Another silence, wet and clammy. She laughed. The sound was high, strained.

  “You could tell me about rehearsal.” He sounded grumpy. Tried again. “Tell me how rehearsal went.”

  “That’s not what you want to talk about.”

  “Why not?”

  Maud considered this, leaned back against the couch. “Okay. It’s fine, it’s going well. I think we’re in good shape for how close we are to opening.”

  “I’ll have to come see it.”

  “People always say that. But I hope you do.” She took a breath, leaned forward, paused, leapt in: “You know what I keep thinking about? This long river of history.” She stretched her arms wide, dancer-like. “And I’m part of it. When did people first put on a mask, a costume, pretend to be someone else? It’s so old. I don’t know why this occurs to me now, after all this time. I never understood the phrase ‘it’s in my blood’ quite this way. But it is a kind of family. A clan. I love the actors in this cast because they’re good, fun people. But I also love them because here we are in Marengo, as we were in L.A., and in medieval England and ancient Greece and feudal China, doing what we’ve always done—holding the mirror up to nature.”

  Animation flickered around her, sparking like some wild electrical current.

  “For centuries, acting’s been a sinful way to make a living. Maybe because it was in competition with the church, which can also be a kind of “show.” Or maybe because there’s ego involved—I can see that’s sinful. But there are other motives, other reasons. It’s so great to discover this again! It’s not about finding love and acceptance. Or trying to escape yourself. It’s about finding yourself. New things about yourself, and about life. And if it really works, then the audience sees something too—about themselves, about the world. You know—what art’s supposed to do.”

  She collapsed sideways, onto the couch, put her head into the pillows and groaned. “What a pile of clichés.” She sat up. Folded
her hands in her lap, parody of a schoolgirl. “Any more questions?”

  Jake laughed. Her face glowed. Lizzie had told him how Maud could move from crone to enchantress and back again with tremendous speed. He wondered what it would be like to make love to her. Wondered what Lizzie was doing. What he was doing. Maud had asked about territory. He had no answer. He picked at the label on his bottle. “Tell me more.”

  “I’m boring you.”

  “You’re not, actually.”

  “You’ll be interested in this, maybe. Willy—Sue’s husband?—is donating lumber and hardware. He gets a big mention in the program.”

  “Willy?” Jake would not have expected this. Willy was a notorious tightwad. “How’d you get that to happen?”

  “Sue told me to go ask. He was hard to convince. I did a big pitch about the ‘Importance of Supporting Art in the Community.’ I think the mention in the program did it.”

  “Good for you.”

  “He actually got into it. He’s even showed up to help build the set a couple of times.” Silence moved in around them again. Maud cleared her throat. “Did you tell Lizzie we were getting together?”

  He wished he had. He stood. “I’m getting another beer. Want one?”

  “Not yet.”

  “What’s your character?” he called from the kitchen.

  “You have to come and see,” Maud called back. When he returned she said, “I play a woman who’s sworn off men. She’s in mourning. Then she falls in love. Everyone gets to fall in love, except poor Malvolio.”

  “To fall in love,” Jake mused.

  In the long pause that followed, Maud took a pull at her beer. “Did Lizzie tell you about Jeep?”

  Jake nodded.

  “I looked up the word abortion,” Maud said. “Comes from the Greek words meaning ‘appear’ and ‘away.’ Disappear.”

  Another long pause, during which they both nodded. Like the plastic animals with loose necks that used to sit in the backs of cars when Jake was growing up.

  Maud stood. “This is too hard, Jake. You’re being really sweet, and maybe you really are interested in my babble—”