She hugs me and gets in beside Chucko. Then the engine turns over and the yellow car moves away from me. They sputter along Lily Lake Road and go up the little hill at the end of my property. She is turned around in the passenger seat to wave to me through the rear window and then the taillights disappear from sight between the two banks of trees.
39
New York City
Rachel stood in front of her bedroom mirror, a red lipstick in her hand, colouring her lips. She buttoned her green silk blouse.
“He’s going to jump your bones as soon as you walk through the door,” Benny said.
“The way you cock-tease him I wouldn’t doubt it.”
Benny laughed and got off the bed from where she was watching Rachel dress in front of the mirror for her date with Leroy. Benny reached around her waist and hugged her from behind. Rachel turned her head and kissed Benny.
“Do you mind me going to see him?” Rachel said.
“He’s a good guy.”
“Please come with me.”
“It’s you he wants to see.”
Rachel took her wallet out of the top drawer of her dresser and put it in her back pocket.
“I’ll see you later.” They kissed again. Rachel was at the door.
“Rachel?”
She turned around.
“You’re a good friend,” Benny said. “I’ll miss you.”
“I won’t be late coming home.”
After Rachel left the apartment, Benny found a pair of scissors in the kitchen and chopped her hair ragged. Then she dyed it black like Rachel’s. She phoned United and used her credit card to buy a one-way ticket to Seattle out of Newark for the next day, to throw people off her trail. She sat down at Rachel’s desk and wrote a letter to Leroy:
My dear friend,
This is the way the world ends. At least for us. It’s not the end I had in mind. You’ve been a good friend and you deserve better than what you got from me. I’m sorry I lied to you. Rachel knows about my genetic disorder. Ask her. Maybe then you’ll understand why I never loved you like you deserve. Maybe not. I think you two would be good together.
I’m leaving. I’ve done what I needed to do. It’s been heartening to have such a cheerleader as you this past year. Kick ass in Gabe’s lab.
love,
Ben
She would mail it on the way to Penn Station. On another scrap of paper she wrote, I can’t keep running. I have to stop. She folded it and wrote Rachel on it. She ruffled through Rachel’s drawers and found her passport beneath her underwear. She left the note for Rachel where the passport had been and went to the bathroom mirror to compare her new look with the photo in the passport. She thought it would do. She opened the medicine cabinet and found a travel sewing kit. She put it, along with the passport, in her backpack.
She hesitated at the door, wanting more of a goodbye than she had time for. Better to stop thought and, she hoped, feeling and get on with her journey.
At Penn Station she caught a bus to Newark airport, then had a cab take her to the Port Newark terminal on the waterfront. She waited until the driver was out of sight and walked to the offices of Maersk. They had a container ship leaving that night, bound for Göteborg via Halifax, to deliver empty containers that were to be refilled with lumber and returned to the States. Maersk took on the occasional passenger willing to pay for the luxury of a cabin smelling of bleach and paint, both of which were meant to cover up the scent of vomit, urine, and diesel that pervaded the ship. She bought passage with them to Göteborg and was told to come back at six to board.
She went down to the waterfront, an industrial wasteland that looked over Newark Bay into Bayonne, hoping to catch a glimpse of the city she was leaving. She couldn’t see it. Clouds had covered the sun at her back, but the sky was a deep blue near the horizon to the east, where she was headed. A light wind brought the smell of sea water, diesel exhaust, and a complex mixture of industrial chemicals to her.
At six she boarded the ship and went to her cabin to stow her backpack before returning to the deck to watch their progress out of the harbour. The clouds had made their way over Newark and it was drizzling. A tug piloted them through the Kill Van Kull and into Upper Bay. Off the port side in the distance was the Statue of Liberty and the Manhattan skyline. The tug pulled the ship slowly through the Narrows and under the Verrazano-Narrows Bridge. In place of the huffing and pounding feet she and Rachel had heard the previous November was the whirr of cars and trucks crossing into Brooklyn. Then came the myriad streets of Staten Island on the ship’s starboard and Coney Island and lower Brooklyn on her port side and they were beyond the New York she knew. The tug left them at Ambrose Seabuoy and the ship continued east, then north, on its way to Halifax.
The foaming water of the ship’s wake was creamy like the head on a pint of stout, leaving a trail in the black that could have stretched all the way back, under the Verrazano-Narrows Bridge, to the island that had been her home. It wasn’t too late for her to follow it back to her neighbourhood pub and sit with a beer in front of her. Benny tried to focus on one spot and to allow the foam to pass through it, but her eyes kept drifting toward the stern as if they could find what had been lost.
The water seemed to be inviting her home, to let go and sink into its embrace. What was preventing her from dropping into its arms, allowing it to swallow her? If someone wanted to drown, if she chose to jump over the rail into the cold, cold water, it wouldn’t be hard at all. It would be easy to climb over the low railing. She imagined the water’s pressure, like hands cradling her on all sides. She wouldn’t have to fight. She could rest in the water, like one lost in a winter storm lying in the snow and giving in to the desire for delicious sleep.
The breeze bit into her and she knew she was wrong. Jumping would be easy, being in the water would not be. The sea was cold, and that cold would hammer spikes into her hands and feet. Her extremities would be the first to feel it as blood was diverted to her trunk to keep her core temperature from falling. Her lips would become two blue lines within minutes and she would fight it all the way. Then her legs and arms would grow listless. She would struggle right to the end, Isaac wrestling with the angel in the desert. She would want her heart to stop before she slipped under. She gripped the railing for protection — from what? From herself?
Benny shuddered and left the deck of the ship with its stacks of rusty containers standing rigid like sentries in the drizzle and wind. At the commissary she bought a sandwich. A slice of cheese and a limp leaf of lettuce glued with mayonnaise and margarine to two slices of white bread. She wanted a cup of tea but turned away when she saw the pile of Styrofoam cups. The feel of the squeaky plastic against her fingertips and lips would take any enjoyment out of it. She took her sandwich and found a seat. One of the Filipino crew, shorter than she was and looking not much more than a teenager, smiled at her as he smoked a cigarette.
40
Forest Garden
Lina’s been gone five days. I have a doctor’s appointment for a test I need done. So I bike down the hill to the hospital to see Art.
“Can’t you explain this genetic mumbo-jumbo so an ignoramus can understand it?” Art says from his hospital bed.
“You’re a far shot from ignorant, Art.”
“Pish.”
I’m getting to the part of the story that worries me. I don’t know how Art is going to respond when I tell him. It makes me nervous to dive in, so I’m procrastinating by overwhelming him with technical details. However, my concern is premature. Before I find out how he’ll react, Art detonates a bomb of his own.
“That’s enough about Benny for today,” he says. “I’m tired. How have you been while I’ve been eating all these delicious hospital meals?”
“I’m blue about Lina leaving me.”
He says something under his breath I can’t make out.
“What’d you say?”
“I said,” he continues, raising his voice, “that you don’t deser
ve her.”
He’s never been overly polite, but it seems that his ankle wound has made him surly.
“What are you talking about? I was nothing but good to her.”
“Son, you don’t know beans from bananas,” he says. “It’s not about who leaves who. It’s about having faith in your woman.”
He and I have become close over the past two years, but this time my mood is dark enough that I am not going to placate him. We’re like two bull moose in the fall. I ask what he knows about it.
“I’ve been married to the same woman for fifty-nine years. I know Lina too. She’s honest about who she is. She never tried to mask who she is or how she loves. Like I say, she deserves to be trusted.”
“She lived with you for a couple of months and grew flowers. You didn’t love her and have her break your heart.”
He looks at me as if he has something to say and is weighing whether to say it.
“What?”
“Louise would understand. She knew I was always faithful to her even with my roving eye. She knew I wouldn’t leave her. But we’re dealt a hand and we have to play it or go home. I’ve always chosen to play it.”
“I have no idea what you’re talking about.”
“No, I don’t suppose you’d care to.” It is so quiet I can hear him breathing. “Ah, well, it’s river under the bridge. She’s gone off with another man, hasn’t she, leaving both of us behind.”
“Thanks for reminding me.”
He lies there thinking, deciding whether to continue. Then he says it. He says it and he might as well have got out of the bed and whacked me upside the head with his crutch.
“You don’t know what you had. I missed her touch after she found you. She’s so gentle for someone as strong as she is.”
I can barely hear my own voice. “What?”
He doesn’t say another word. He turns to the window and looks out at the bare branches of the maple. I could hurt him, say something that he’ll feel. Yet all I see is a hobbled stranger in a bed. I get up and leave the room, not looking back, and bike home up the mountain.
Maybe I’ve been a fool telling him Benny’s story. In any case, there are parts of it he doesn’t need to know.
41
At Sea
Benny spent the next two days in her cabin. The smell of oil paint and diesel were stuck in her nose. She could taste the fumes. The last night, as the ship approached land, Benny sewed a pocket on the inside of Leroy’s sweater and put Rachel’s passport in it. Then she sewed the pocket shut and pulled on the sweater. Her clothes were on the chair at the foot of her bunk. Her journal lay closed on the pillow where she’d tossed it. The door clicked shut behind her as she made her way to the deck. There was a twenty-foot walkway with a railing on the port side of the ship. The stars glittered above a dark mass of land in the distance.
This is what he must have felt right before he died.
She shivered and wrapped her arms around herself. The door opened at the other end of the deck. It was the crewman she had met. He was the only person she’d talked to since boarding the ship. She walked toward him, landing one foot ahead of the other, the soles of her shoes slapping against the bumpy metal of the deck. As they passed he touched his hat brim and looked into Benny’s eyes. She kept walking, turned to look at him, put one hand on the rail, and vaulted into the sea.
When she hit the water, the cold gave her a headache, sharp and throbbing. Her hands went to her face, but soon she couldn’t feel them. When she surfaced the crewman was shouting for help, then there were more people shouting. An alarm bell sounded, six short rings followed by a long one. Then, broadcast in a rich baritone for all the ship to hear, a disembodied voice called, “Emergency stations, emergency stations. Man overboard.”
A beacon above the bridge flashed on and off. A searchlight scanned the choppy darkness of the sea.
The waves lapped against her, threatening to take what breath she had left. As she was raised on a wave, a Zodiac was being lowered over the ship’s side. It sped away from the ship followed by a searchlight. She descended into the trough, and by the time she had been lifted once again, she was turned around and the ship was not in sight. She caught the searchlight combing the surface out of her peripheral vision. She saw the ship once more and then all that was left was the lapping of water against itself.
42
Forest Garden
I have avoided Art since he told me about him and Lina. He has left the hospital and gone home. Jen says his ankle wound is not healing well and he has aged quickly. My anger remains — at him? At Lina? — I hardly know. I decide to go to him nevertheless. We have unfinished business.
When I arrive, he tells me that he’s been up all night with incredible pain. He hasn’t been eating much. I catch him grimacing as he gets up from his chair on the way to the bathroom.
“You better take me back to the hospital.”
“What is it?”
“My ankle.”
He lifts his pant leg. His ankle is the colour of boiled lobster guts.
I’ve never seen it, but the word gangrene is written in bold letters in front of me. I retch. Obviously the antibiotics are no longer working. I help him up and put my arm under his to hold him. We hobble to his pickup and I drive him back to Soldier’s Memorial. The emergency room resident is the doctor who did my test the last time I was here. She winks at me as if to acknowledge that we’re complicit in a secret, then complains to us that she’s exhausted from being in her thirty-seventh straight hour of work. We ease him into a wheelchair. She squats to examine his ankle and foot.
“This does not look good, Mr. Mosher,” she says, aiming for nonchalant but hitting way wide of the mark. “What happened to his shunt?” She throws me a wide-eyed look.
“What shunt?” I say.
“It’s almost gone.”
“It broke,” Art says.
“When did this happen?”
“After my last visit here.”
The polystyrene shunt delivering the antibiotic cocktail to his leg is almost disintegrated. The doctor pulls on it and it snaps easily. She orders more blood work and waits for the results. Then she tells me to go home and come back tomorrow.
The morning is cold as I head down the mountain to see him. When I enter the room he’s propped up in his bed, another IV tube taped to the back of his hand. He smiles when he sees me and waves me in with his other hand.
“They tell me I’ve got an infection. Ha. The antibiotics aren’t working.”
“What are they doing about it?”
“Take a look if you want.” He points to the chart at the foot of his bed.
I look at the chart. He has an MRSA infection. “Possibly vancomycin-res.” He has vancomycin, linezolid, tetracycline, and trimethoprim dripping into his arm. They might as well nuke him at this point.
“And these tubes keep breaking.”
The dizziness comes over me quickly. The blood drains from my face and arms as if it’s leaking out my shoes onto the floor. I need to sit down. Art has a feeble smile.
“Aw, don’t start crying.” He laughs. “I ain’t dead yet.”
“Sorry. Give me a sec.” I leave the room. As soon as I’m in the hall I break down, cupping a palm over my mouth to stifle the sobs. Art has an infection with a Pseudomonas strain that’s eating the PETE tubing. I breathe deeply and return, forcing a wan smile as I go through the door.
“I need you to visit Louise,” he says.
“I will.”
“I like to think that she remembers,” he tells me. “That the words and memories are still in there even if she can’t get them out. There’s a nurse at the home that told me she can still see a spark in Louise’s eyes. Visit her.”
“I will.”
There is nobody left who really knew Art as a young man. I used to assume that death was easier for old people to accept. I believed that the pain for an eighty-year-old whose wife has all but died would be muted by all those years,
one more piece of evidence that he, too, would soon be gone. But maybe it’s more devastating for him to be alone, to have the only person who knew what he was like sixty years before as a boy disappear.
We sit quietly. Then he says, “Cut to the blasted chase, will ya? We don’t have much more time.”
—
His eyes are closed.
“Are you awake?”
They open. “Keep talking. Please.”
I’ve been dreading this, but I can’t hold out any longer. One, two, three, and then I’m running along the dock. I jump.
“When Benny was nineteen she discovered something about herself.”
Art grimly nods.
The familiar abdominal pains returned when she was a junior at Lowell. This time though they didn’t subside. She lay in the fetal position on her bed for days, moaning. She went to the clinic on campus. The doctor on duty was an older man. He palpated her abdomen. He told her there was a lot of mono going around campus and asked if she’d been more tired than usual. He then palpated under her ribcage, trying to determine if her liver was enlarged. It tickled at first, but then she winced and gasped.
“Your liver seems fine. I doubt it’s mono. Do you have painful periods?”
She told him she had never menstruated. The doctor took his hand off Benny’s abdomen and stood back from the table. He referred her to the campus gynecologist, who in turn referred her to a reproductive endocrinologist. A week later, Dr. Wilson guided Benny into his office, closed the door, and motioned for her to sit down. He asked her to disrobe. She jumped when he put his cold hand on one of her breasts and massaged it. That was only the start. By the time he was finished, he was able to write in her file:
Small breasts with little palpable breast tissue. External genitalia appear normal. Vulva of normal appearance. Clitoris slightly enlarged. Vagina of normal length. Cervix present as determined by rectal palpation.
The Rest is Silence Page 22