Girl in the Arena

by Lise Haines

  Putting the letter in my pocket, I step out of my shoes and go through her bedroom and lock the bathroom door and I’m standing in her bedroom barefoot. I look in that wastebasket and there are two more letters she started and I take those and fold them and put them in my pocket as well. That’s how I find the first three suicide notes. And I still haven’t called the police because I need to take care of Thad and I need to think. That’s one thing she’d want me to do for sure, to think about how I’m going to handle this with the media and Caesar’s Inc. and Child Protective Services if they show up.

  I find one letter in her lingerie drawer facedown. I find two in the highboy. Back downstairs. Three in the office, one in the kitchen trash. I find fourteen in all. None of them complete. Just starts, just intentions of letters, none of which had apparently hit the mark.

  I wash up at the sink. I wash my feet. Then I call Julie.

  *

  Julie tells me to turn on the kitchen monitor to Thad’s room, so I can hear him if he wakes up. Lloyd and Julie will be here in a few minutes. She directs me to the hall closet where I should get a warm sweater or jacket.

  —Anything. Take anything, she says. —And put it on.

  She tells me to put my arms in the sleeves of anything. I am to go back to the kitchen and open one set of French doors onto the patio, it doesn’t matter which set. I turn the lights out in the kitchen.

  —You need to sit outside and get some oxygen.

  She wants me to stop hyperventilating. Julie instructs me to sit in a chair on the patio with the French doors wide open so I can hear the monitor.

  —Whatever you do, she says, don’t turn on the outside lights. That would only draw the paparazzi. Just sit out in the night air and whisper with me. Just listen to my voice if you can’t talk. You’re going to get through this, Lyn. Lloyd and I are here for you, baby.

  So I sit in the dark and look at the phone I’m holding.

  —Who’s calling? I ask.

  I notice it’s a mild night and I wonder if it’s going to rain tomorrow. No one has been able to figure out how to turn the timer off on the sprinkler system since Tommy’s death.

  —You’re still talking to Aunt Julie, dear. Now really listen. It’s important that you don’t go back upstairs unless Thad wakes up. Don’t talk to anyone if the other phone should ring and don’t answer a knock at the door. We’ll come the back way. I’m on my phone and I won’t put it down for a second until we get there. We’ll just stay on the line and keep talking together.

  —Julie? Did you say you’re coming over?

  —We’ll be there before you know it. We’re on our way. You let Lloyd and me handle everything, sweetheart. We’ll take care of every last thing. You’re going to be all right, I promise. Thad and you are both going to be all right.

  There’s enough of a moon out so I can see the dark outlines of Allison’s plants. Maybe she planted too much narcissus this year, the smell is very intense.

  —Julie? I didn’t know you were on the phone.

  —Yes, Lyn, this is Julie.

  —You’re crying, I say.

  —I’m just feeling sad, Lyn. But we’re on our way over right now. We’re in the van. I’m going to stay on the phone with you the whole way. I don’t want you to think about anything except taking deep breaths.

  I look at the phone in my hand.

  Maybe I had been trying to call out.

  CHAPTER 27

  Thad holds my hand during the entire memorial. If Allison could come back from the dead long enough for the service, he would hold her hand the whole way. She was, after all, the one who got him through everything.

  Although I still don’t think he understands that Tommy is gone, I believe he knew even before he woke up that morning that Allison had taken her own life. Julie made certain he came nowhere near Allison’s bathroom, and she helped to specify a closed casket, not that anyone wanted it to be open. But the image of Allison’s face, the blood, I think those things streamed through his brain though he didn’t see her in that bathroom even once. I think he saw what I saw in the way that he captures the unseen. I hope I’m wrong. I feel completely wrong now about everything. About my inability to tell her how much I loved her in those last days.

  No mention of Uxor Totus is made at the service. Nothing about it in the memorial booklet, and I’m relieved about that. Instead they remember the young Allison. At the entry to the funeral parlor her full-color photo on a large poster board. She was around thirty then and wore a cool gray Oleg Cassini knockoff, her hair swept up and off her neck, and she looked remarkably happy.

  Caesar’s arranged everything, with Julie’s help. Lloyd told me he heard they were going to bury Tommy next to Allison eventually—but so far I have no idea where Tommy is.

  Periodically, Thad leans into my side and cries against my dress, which isn’t like Thad. Often he has a detachment that worries me, but today he leans into me. Thad’s the one who keeps bringing me back from that place I went to when I found Allison, because I had to come back for him. It wasn’t a choice. It isn’t. At least it isn’t for me.

  The flowers are almost as remarkable as the ones she grew in our backyard. They are as abundant as her efforts to make life full and pleasant despite all. So now I’m crying with Thad, and that’s just the way it has to be, I guess.

  I look around the room at all the mourners. I see that Sam and Callie are here. They sit side by side, drowning a little, Sam’s eyes bulging with remorse, using up a box of shared Kleenex—no doubt thinking about their own parents. They’re wearing black like everyone else. This is still a ritual that Glads cling to—the intense identification with the color of mourning, because in many ways, we never stop mourning. Callie reaches her hand partway into the air, as if to wave, but stops short. Maybe she realizes that waving is not the thing to do at a memorial. Sam looks at me apologetically. Perhaps she wants to apologize for everything. I honestly don’t care to invite her in or push her away. These are not my enemies.

  *

  We take a limo out to the gravesite in Lexington. It’s hard for Thad that we move so slowly. He rocks forward and back, as if his movements could propel the vehicle to pick up the pace.

  Allison is buried with full GSA honors. One hundred and eight horns and drums sound. And every gladiator present stands in a circle surrounding the gravesite and the mourners. They have their formal shields today. There are six sleek tour buses that brought most of them here from other cities and will drive them away, the way firefighters or policemen come when one of their own dies.

  At first looking around at all the arrangements, I wonder what has softened Caesar’s heart—why this sudden extravagance—until I see the casket as it’s pulled from the hearse.

  I realize that the black shiny top is actually inlaid with a forty-inch flat-screen set right into the lid. We watch as the casket is lowered into a metal liner in the ground. Once it’s in place, there are two feet between the casket and ground level. Instead of filling this in with soil—everyone looks about, waiting for the soil, at least I do—a crew of technicians comes in and they mount a Plexiglas lid on top, sealing it in place with cordless screwdrivers, so it’s flush with the ground. I ask Julie to take Thad’s hand and then I stand directly over the grave.

  A young woman, a representative from Caesar’s, approaches me. She is strictly Roman culture, the long fluid tunic and stola, the braided hair up on her head, the sandals. She carries a small leather pouch over one shoulder. From this she removes a remote control and aims it at the casket. In a flood of panic, I wonder if she’s setting off a bomb. But I can’t move to save myself.

  I quickly realize that the casket monitor has started to show in sequence a million pictures of Allison. Each shot fades into the next, carefully separating her life into seven periods—each period represented by a neo-Glad husband. As if she didn’t exist before she became a wife.

  The Glads thrust their swords above their heads and hold them in the air for a
good long while, until the horns sound again.

  The woman gently pulls me aside. She hands me a brochure. She explains that visitors and mourners will be able to sit by the side of Allison’s grave—benches will be installed next month—and they can view Allison in perpetuity. Technicians are working on the sound system. She apologies for the equipment delays.

  I can think of a hundred things to say, none of them about equipment delays.

  Then she touches my arm and looks me in the eyes, while I look at Thad, who’s trying to break free from Julie, and she says, —No one will forget Allison.

  I make a signal to Julie so she’ll go ahead and let Thad sit down on the ground to watch Allison. It’s an overcast day that opens up to a slight drizzle. The light from the screen beams onto his face, rising and falling as the pictures change, and he gets his handkerchief out that I folded and tucked into his suit pocket and he cleans the screen off. Neither Julie nor I have the heart to pull him away, poised as he is for the next set of images no matter how many times he views them.

  —Look at all the fathers, he says.

  I finally crouch down and tell him we’ll come back in a few days. —We’ll come and have a picnic and watch Allison and all her wonderful outfits, and all the fathers.

  —I love Mom’s clothes, he says, wiping the glass again.

  —I know. I love them too.

  I show him in the brochure that the images will play forever. —So it’s okay to leave and just fine to come back, I say as I try not to choke up. I have to be strong for him now.

  I tell him he may have five more minutes. I shake people’s hands, I accept Sam and Callie’s condolences, and I slowly watch all the people in black, umbrellas up, drifting back to their cars.

  Before I can gather oxygen, the Roman culture woman pulls me aside yet again and I let Julie talk Thad into going back to the car.

  —As a representative of Caesar’s Inc., I want to express my condolences.

  I look at her, wondering what’s up now.

  —And I want to make sure you understand that Caesar’s has invested heavily in this technology to honor your family, she says, nodding to the casket. —And you might be interested to know that we’ve purchased several graveyard properties around the country.

  —Is that right, I say.

  —Your mother should expect a lot of visitors.

  —Is my mother actually… in there?

  —Well, yes, I assume so, she says, looking a little doubtful.

  —Just so I understand, is my mother like the demo house people mill around when a new real estate development goes in?

  In a world of people suddenly not knowing what to say, I’ve caught one.

  —You should be receiving a formal letter with all the details.

  She looks over at Julie, who is trying, trying to get Thad to come to the car.

  —It would be best for a few months if the family didn’t come out to the gravesite. Visitors will want an uninterrupted experience.

  —I am determined, I say, —that my brother, Thad, and I will have a beautiful life.

  Then I turn away from her and together Julie and I coax Thad back to the car.

  *

  Survival can sharpen the mind if it doesn’t obliterate it. During the daylight hours I insist that Julie and family go off to their jobs and activities and that Thad and I will be all right, though nothing is all right and I know this. I remind Julie that Caesar’s has posted a bodyguard near the two main doors, so no one is about to storm us. Though I get plenty of calls from them, asking me to grant interviews to various media outlets, I do my best to put them off. Right now I feel like one of those people who can pull a car off a child—I just have to lift. I have to lift for Thad.

  I get boxes from the local stores and start packing up the bits of the house considered to be personal items, though I’m not sure where we’re going yet, and I will admit that I put Thad in front of the television until his eyes saucer. That way I can cry for a while and he doesn’t have to watch.

  I look into government. There are some social security funds for Thad, so I put in a claim there, and I take a phone shot of the administrator’s eyes when she notes father’s former occupation. They hate neo-Glads over at the SSA, but she indicates the modest sum he’s entitled to, and how many weeks this might take. Then Julie warns me to curb my enthusiasm for assistance—she knew, apparently, about Allison’s inquiries into a place for Thad and was, like me, vehemently opposed to the idea—so both of us worry about officials coming out to the house. There has to be another way.

  When Lloyd and Julie come over, she tells me I am wasting away, that I need to eat. It’s possible the paparazzi eat every pound I lose as if I’m shedding fruit. She begins to cook extra meals, which she brings over for us as soon as she realizes I won’t go anywhere near the freezer.

  *

  After a hard, soaking rain one night, the kind that used to seep into the basement until the French drains were put in, I stand in the upstairs hallway near the photo gallery just outside my mother’s door. I’ve thrown open windows now that the rain has stopped, and I feel this breeze pick up and circulate through the house. I say, to no one at all, something about the way the air came up so suddenly. Thad has gone to sleep and I go into Allison’s room. She liked to entice me to come into her room to talk with her a little by saying: It’s such a beautiful night, isn’t it? Recently, I said something disparaging in answer. I regretted that the minute it came out of my mouth.

  I lie down now, on top of the covers where she liked to nestle, and allow my head to sink into her pillow. I can hear the way her thoughts turned to beauty and the way mine were unyielding. I said something about it having no future, that a steady diet of violence cuts it out at the root. But she just touched my face and talked about the garden a little, as if that was the subject.

  Too often lately, we seemed a long way from repair. I can’t help think if I had been nicer to her in the last three or four years, in the last three or four days, she might still be here.

  There’s a light on in her closet now, the door wide open, all of her clothes there—to view, to try on if I want, to bag up and give away. I can do anything I want with her clothes. I can have everything taken in to make them fit. I can shove everything aside and move my clothes into this giant closet. I’m at complete liberty. Maybe that’s what death does, puts everyone at liberty.

  Thad and I, we’re absolutely free, I tell her.

  I know the shears she used to make alterations are up on the highboy, along with the tin of buttons and the box of threads. I get those shears down and I rip into her clothes with the blades. Her creamy white silk blouses, her rayon dresses, the carefully tailored jackets and tunics. All the tunics. I cut into her favorite clothes the way she cut us out so deftly.

  *

  When I wake up it’s two in the morning, and I pull myself from the bottom of the closet. I realize what I’ve done and how upset Thad’s going to be about Mom’s clothes.

  So I set to work, removing the outfits I’ve torn apart. I haul them over to her sewing machine. From an early age, she wanted me to learn how to sew, but I never advanced beyond making small quilts for doll beds. So that’s what I do now. I cut neat squares from her clothes, and I sit up all night and make a small quilt for Thad. When I’m done I bag up all the remnants and take them down to the garage, where I stash them so Thad will never have to realize just what I’ve done.

  CHAPTER 28

  Representatives from Caesar’s wearing monogrammed blue jumpsuits have already come out to tag furniture and items that will be in their possession soon. I’m trying to keep Thad shored up by the hour. He’s spending too much time beneath his train table, though sometimes he gets a burst of energy and goes around removing tags with a pair of kiddie scissors.

  —Good man, I say with each snip.

  I check the mail chronically but I have noticed a general lack of cash flow. I have now forged three postdated checks in my mother
’s name, taking them over to that store in Cambridge that sells War Tickets, where the guy is a little sloppy on his check-cashing policies. I think he thinks I come in to spend time with him, but now I don’t have to worry about this because, as of yesterday, her accounts have run dry.

  I have, therefore, formulated a plan.

  I’ll need Mark’s geek skills, but if I pull this off, Thad and I are going to come out of this in one piece. I tell myself this when I’m not stretched out on my bed quietly falling apart.

  The first thing I have to do is sell the emerald necklace. And here’s the punch line: when I take it in for an appraisal at her jewelers, I discover that Allison has popped out and replaced one stone after another over the years with fakes, I guess in order to make her own ends meet. Most of the necklace is paste and I take a thousand for the rest, no questions asked.

  The Chinatown bus that runs from Boston to New York is fifteen dollars. It’s had only three reported shootings and a couple of flameouts—one bus burned to the undercarriage—which makes it a fairly good statistical value for the money in my worldview. But I need help with Thad in order to break away to New York. So here’s the lie I cook for Julie one evening, when we’re sitting around our kitchen, taking a breather from packing.

  —Caesar’s called and asked me to come down to New York to discuss this wedding idea. They’re up for a giant televised event. I heard the word global in there somewhere. I haven’t even accepted Uber’s offer. Crazy, huh? But I think it’s better to do this in person.

  —Absolutely, Julie says. —It’s a wonderful idea to connect personally with them. I know they’ve put us through a lot of changes this year, baby, but they’re still family, you know?

  Lloyd, who’s guessing at my real reason for going, says, —Mano a mano. That’s the only way.