“Will you let me know? Will you call me and let me know when you do? Not because you owe me anything. That’s not what I’m saying.”
Maud wiped her greasy fingers on her pants. He still had hope. This man who had loved her daughter, who had wanted to hold her in his arms.
“Okay,” she said.
“Thank you,” he said.
“Thank you for calling,” she said automatically and hung up.
The phone rang again, and Maud didn’t answer. She turned the ringer off and pulled the blanket over her. She clicked through the TV channels, drooling onto the pillow. Her arm grew numb beneath her, and she shook it out. She picked up most of the ruined muffin from the carpet and threw it in the kitchen trash. She ate another one, letting the crumbs drop straight onto the tile. Lifting the tinfoil off a dish, she fished out a bite of noodles with her fingers.
The doorbell rang. She turned and blinked. Okay. Okay. This was it. She brushed crumbs from her shirt, smeared the noodle sauce on her pants. The wait was over.
She opened the door, and there stood Esther, Iris, and Rachel. They all held bags and boxes and bottles.
“The gang’s all here,” Esther said. “A gang of what, I don’t know, but we’ve got booze.”
Maud smiled in spite of herself. She started to say, Oh, I’m fine, no need. Really. I’m not feeling up to company, thank you for calling, but by the time she found the words, the three of them had pushed their way inside. In the kitchen, they unloaded sacks, uncorked bottles, turned the oven to 350. They washed the dishes and wiped down countertops and bagged up the trash. Iris got out the broom, swept up crumbs, and then ping-ponged through the house. Rachel, who had subbed for a sick student at play rehearsal and was still in costume as Big Mama, pearls at her throat and her face thick with pancake makeup and eyeliner, handed Maud a glass of Chablis. Esther unwrapped a deli tray piled high with shaved meats and fresh wheat rolls. “Real food. Not all this bakery crap,” she said. She smiled. “Who’s plying you with all this shite, anyway?”
Eat, they said. Drink, they said.
Tell us, they said, if you need to. Or don’t. We’re all yours tonight, Maud. And tomorrow. And the next day. You’re not getting rid of us that easy.
Maud nodded. She didn’t have to thank them, these women she had known as long now as she had known her own daughter. She looked at the deepening wrinkles on their cheeks and necks and hands, the soft stomachs, the fragile skin under the eyes. She had watched them age. They’d watched her age, too, watched her fuzzy curls turn salt and pepper and now almost fully gray. They’d watched her every step of these last years, even when she hadn’t known they were watching. They were waiting, too.
“Thanks,” she said, anyway, even though she didn’t have to.
No problem, they said. We’re here for the haul, you hear?
You’re not alone, they said.
Of course she was, but she knew what they meant. They meant well. Good eggs, every last one of them.
A couple hours later, after Maud had forgotten she was waiting, when she had forgotten to keep watch, a door thumped shut in the driveway. They all swiveled to see who was coming up the walk. Except Maud. Maud turned away suddenly, her back to the window.
Without looking, she knew it was Gil Alvarez. She knew his silver hair was glinting in the fading sunlight. She knew the slump of his shoulders, the deep-set weariness in his face from seeing what he’d seen all those years. She knew how he would comb his hair with his fingers. She knew he’d look her in the eye and say, Maud, can I speak to you?
She knew it, just as she’d known the truth when she returned to the wash and walked through it, slipping on the hot stones, until she reached her own street, Roadrunner Lane. The place where the road dipped, where that fateful night she’d paused upon seeing a slash of water and mud and thought of flash floods. She’d known her whole life how desert washes turned to wild rushing rivers that could knock trucks sideways. She knew the rules: Do Not Cross When Flooded. Turn Around, Don’t Drown. She knew about drivers who didn’t listen, who stalled out in six inches of water and climbed onto their roofs as the cars washed downstream. She knew about hikers swept miles from their tents, crushed under mud and stone.
She knew all of it.
The sun was on its way west again. It would set, and tomorrow it would rise. The world spun on its axis. It spun, and spun, and spun, and here she stood.
Her friends murmured. They touched her back, her arm. They said, Shit.
Maud felt the warmth of their skin. When her knees buckled and she started to go down, they took her weight and pulled her up. They held her steady. We’ve got you, they said.
Still she couldn’t turn around. She stood facing the wall, and she thought, No. Wait. Not yet. I’m not ready yet.
Mass and Gravity
December 22, 1991
Jess walked uphill toward home—her familiar route up College Drive, past the Syc on the right, past Piñon Drive and sleepy neighborhood houses on the left, onto Quail Run, past the orchard. Her teeth had stopped chattering, and her head had begun to throb, a knot the size of a tangerine. Her father’s sweater was so wet it hung almost to her knees. She was so hot. As she hit Roadrunner Lane—the road to home, she was almost home—she peeled off the sweater and tied it around her waist, remembering now she had taken off her coat and left it on Stevie Prentiss’s car seat when she’d decided she needed to walk home. Why had she done that? Stevie had gone inside her room to grab her keys, and Jess had thought, I need to go home now. She’d shrugged off her coat, climbed out of the car, and started to run. She made it halfway up College Drive before her throbbing head stopped her.
What time was it? The events of the evening had become muddled. She remembered Dani holding an umbrella over her head. Jess’s umbrella. Her father’s umbrella. She remembered bright taillights, lying in a puddle, the yellow sign of the Woodchute above her. She kicked at the pavement. Her toes were numb, but the rest of her was feverish, sweating. All she wanted was to lie down, to pull the covers up, to sink into oblivion. All she wanted was for her mom to sit next to her and put a cool hand on her burning forehead.
When she reached the dip in the road, the one she’d jumped over on the way into town, she could hear the water before she could see it. A staticky gush, like a bath faucet on full blast. The sky dark now, she squinted, trying to gauge how far across it was. Six feet? About as wide as a car. No telling how deep.
Shit. She paced across the road, alongside the water, trying to find the narrowest part. If she had to turn around and take the long route to her house, that would be at least another half hour. She began to cry a little. Why hadn’t her mother come to find her? What time was it?
It’s time, she heard a voice say, a voice inside.
She tasted salt in her throat. Okay. She could do this. She composed her breath and pushed at her eyes. She stretched to her tallest self, brushing her wet hair out of her face. Okay.
She assessed the distance again. If she got a running start, she could make it.
She walked back several yards, turned, and took a deep breath. An easy jump across. A leap she’d done a million times—over puddles and streams, over crevices, off steps. Out of necessity but out of joy, too. To leap, to defy gravity for one tiny moment.
“Don’t blink,” she said.
She ran toward the rushing water. When she hit the edge, she sprang off her left foot and leaped, kicking her right foot out, throwing her body forward.
She didn’t count on the mud, the silty slick layer lurking beneath the surface. When her left foot hit and she pushed upward, she slipped. Her foot went out from under her, and she landed hard on her side, splashing into the center of the stream. As she hit the water, she cried out, “No!” because she knew. She’d seen it on the news—how cars, let alone bodies, could be swept away by a current. She scrambled for purchase, lunging for the pavement above her, but the water was too strong. Swept was the wrong word. It shoved, pushed, thrust
, heaved her off the road and into the narrow chasm of the wash.
She thrashed and blindly snatched at rocks and dirt, trying to stop herself as she spun and tumbled in the violent current. Get on your back, the voice inside said. Her father’s advice about riptides. And then it was his voice, the one she’d always known, the one she’d heard again on the payphone: Don’t fight it. Let it take you. Ride it out. Keep your eye on the shore.
But there was no shore, only darkness and sharp rocks, a roar of rushing water, choking mouthfuls, the grit of sand in her eyes and teeth.
Her mother’s voice now, the voice she knew by heart: Buck up, J-bird. You have so much to live for.
I’m trying, she thought as she thrust her mouth toward what she thought was air. But the sky had disappeared, and the earth, too, the elemental world upended. The water did not heed her will. It did not care about her lungs and their need to breathe. It did not know of her desires or dreams or fears. But it also did not act upon her; this was not about punishment, or judgment, or morality. It simply followed the laws of nature. The larger the mass, the stronger the force of gravity. Her young, slim body in all its desperate exertions could not compete. She breathed in water instead of air—eighteen years later, forensic scientists would find that water in her bones as diatoms and know she drowned, would know it was her bones from DNA tests. They would know her body was pushed into a crevice in the side of the wash, trapped and buried by tons of mud, unseen until the dirt began to erode with wind and more water. They would find a piece of her tennis shoe and a silver earring buried with her in the dirt.
In the end, she did not think in language. Words, her beloved words, could not save her. Not love, nor home, nor friendship, nor beauty, nor truth, though these surely would have been among the last on her tongue if she could have brought them forth. She did not think in images, either. Her young life did not, as they say, flash before her. No glimpses of Mom with a bowl of popcorn on her knees, her laugh as loud as a freight train. No Dad raising his glass to toast her on her sixteenth birthday: Here’s to my beautiful girl. Go get ’em. No Dani giggling in a tent on a beach. No Adam, begging her to love him.
Instead, what Jess saw was light: millions of sparks behind her eyes. Before she lost all consciousness, she understood these sparks as galactic light, dust from the universe. Ancient light that had traveled for millions of years and only found its way to her now. The light of dreams. The light of both the past and future. Nameless light, unknowable light, but for a moment, hers.
Sundown at the Orchard
On the day of the memorial service for Jess Winters, the morning dawned bright and clear, the air warm but drier now on the cusp of fall. Out at the orchard, Iris and Paul finished setting up chairs and tables on the redwood deck. Esther, along with Rachel, Hugh, and, surprisingly, Dani, had dropped off trays of food and set up the kitchen and living room. Maud hadn’t wanted anything big. Simple, she’d said. Thank you. Thank you, she kept saying, her hands fluttering until she grabbed onto her elbows and held tight. Iris turned and scanned the view from the deck. They’d get to watch the sunset, maybe even glimpse the nearly full moon. At least they didn’t have to worry about the weather. They could give Maud a nice night. Pay their respects. Say good-bye to Jess. Finally.
Paul looked at his watch. “We have to get to T-ball, Mom,” he said. “Are you coming with us?”
“Can’t this time. I need to keep an eye on the irrigation,” she said. This time of year, with less rain, watering was crucial to make sure the kernels filled out the shells. Soon enough, it’d be harvest again. Soon enough, she’d be going twelve hours a day for three months straight. All those shells. She’d be a shaking shell of herself by the time it was finished. But this would be the last time.
Paul leaned to pick up his coffee cup, and he let out a small grunt. His left wrist was healed, but his shoulder would be in a sling for a few more weeks. Iris started to ask him if he was all right but stopped herself. He was all right. He was putting his house in Phoenix on the market. He’d given notice at the newspaper and enrolled Sean in preschool and T-ball here. He was coming home. For now, he said. Who knew for how long. The Sycamore Sun had an opening for an editor. Half my current salary, he said with a laugh.
“Will you take over the orchard?” she’d asked.
“I don’t know, Mom,” he said. “I don’t know yet. For now I’ll help out. I’ll help as much as I can.”
She’d nodded. It didn’t matter. If he didn’t want it, she’d sell it, then, though she hadn’t told him yet about her plans.
Now Paul said to Sean, “Go get your glove, buddy.”
His son ran to the house at full speed, his short legs chugging.
Paul laughed. “It’s like he’s set on one speed: Go!”
“He’s growing,” she said. “Already I can tell he’s taller.”
“Yeah. I guess they do that.”
She patted his unslinged arm. “He’ll be tall like you. Like Beau.”
They leaned on the railing together, staring into the trees.
She said, “It was good to see Dani.”
“Yeah,” he said. “I thought it’d be, I don’t know.” He shrugged. “Different. But it was good to see her. She looks good. She looks the same.”
But she wasn’t the same, Iris thought. None of them were after all this time. After everything. Ruled an accidental drowning. No foul play. But it was still foul. Iris couldn’t get the detail of Jess’s earring out of her mind. That little piece of silver sunk into the earth as her flesh rotted away.
He said, “I need to go down to Phoenix next weekend. To deal with the house. Can you watch him?”
“Of course,” she said, and her heart lifted. “Of course.”
“I’m not ready,” he said. “I don’t want to pack up yet. I don’t know what I’m doing.”
She thought about those weeks and months right after Beau died. She’d shaved her head as if going into battle, and in some ways she had been. She fought through the days, taking care of Paul, of the orchard, of everything, because if she stopped to look around, she might blow into bits.
“Do it anyway,” she said.
“Thanks.” He reached over with his good arm and put his hand over hers. “I couldn’t do it without you.”
“Don’t worry about it. I’m happy to help with Sean.”
“I don’t know how you did it then.” He shook his head.
She smiled. “I had you.”
He smiled and rubbed her head. He walked toward the house, pressing at his shoulder. The rest of him was healthy. Tall, with those long, muscular legs, like Beau’s. His head shone in the morning sun, his big ears jutting out. She touched her own head, tugged at the short tufts. Maybe she wouldn’t cut it today. Leave the clippers in the drawer. Maybe she’d let it go for a while, see what happened.
She straightened a chair, reattached a wire to a nail, and reached down to yank out a tuft of rattlesnake weed that had snuck up through the planks. She turned and looked at the orchard, at the cool shaded rows. She’d looked at this her entire adult life. Come next fall, it wouldn’t be hers anymore. She’d have to find a new view.
She hadn’t told Paul, or Esther, or anyone. Except Beau. She told him, out on the deck, late at night in one of her talks. Buster, it’s happening. She told him this winter would be her final Sundown nights. Told him she was going to buy a little cottage near the Syc, with a guest room for Sean. After so much land, so much space, the thought of smallness appealed to her. Told him she was going to college. Her. Ha. Told him she had no idea what she was going to study. She’d take whatever struck her. She’d be undecided for a while.
Oh, of course she was going to miss it. Like hell. Like she missed him. But she was doing it anyway, because goddamn, buster. This life. She didn’t know how much of it she had left.
The trees were ripe, she told him. They were almost there.
* * *
On the way to the ball fields, Paul glanced in the re
arview at Sean buckled in the back, a small leather baseball glove on his right hand. The glove was too stiff. They needed to break it in. Paul wondered where his old glove had ended up; he’d have to remember to ask his mother. Probably somewhere in a closet, and he thought of his own closet down south full of Caryn’s clothes, and he thought he smelled vanilla. His son’s knees and elbows had healed, the skin pink but scab-free. Sean stared out the window, growing glassy-eyed as he often did in the car. The drive was short, but Sean would zonk out within minutes, so Paul asked him questions to keep him awake. Asked about his new preschool, about baseball, about the lizard he’d seen that morning. In the rearview, Paul caught a glimpse of his own collar. It was smudged with black. He rubbed at the mark.
She’d looked exactly the same. That had been his first thought. Like time had stood still. Sleeker, more modern than he expected. Her dark hair was shorter now, curved in a bob around her pointy chin, contacts instead of glasses. She’d lined her eyes with kohl with an elaborate swoop at the corner. When she smiled, he could see the crow’s feet, the vertical creases in her cheek. Otherwise, the same.
“Dani, you look great,” he’d told her. “Exactly the same.”
“You too,” she said, smiling. They chatted about how long it had been, about the weather. She pointed at Sean and said, “Oh, wow. He looks just like you.”
“Yeah,” he said. “Check out those ears. Poor guy.”
Her smile faded. Without warning, she’d started to cry. She took three steps, closed the space between them, and hugged him. Closed the gap, the literal one, and the festering one. She wrapped both arms around his ribs, squeezing. His shoulder protested, but he didn’t move. He stood still, silent, and everyone else fell silent, too, watching them. She stood on her tiptoes, pulling at his good shoulder, and he bent down.
“I’m sorry about your wife, Paul,” she said into his ear. “I really am.”
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