A Sudden Light

by Garth Stein

  When she finished, silence rushed in to fill the void of her words.

  “Are you a writer?” I asked after a time.

  “Undiscovered!” she chirped. She stood up quickly. “That’s enough of our break, I think!”

  A new album had to be found, new music. Serena put on a smoky jazz record, slower paced, not nearly as crazy as the polka music, or whatever it was she was using to kill the rest of us. A woman was singing, and she had a mesmerizing voice, low and throaty.

  I noticed my father shift slightly when he heard the music, growing more tense than he’d been.

  Serena turned to him and held out her hand, but he didn’t take it. He stared at her and shook his head slowly.

  “I can’t do this,” he said. “I can’t do it. It’s not right.”

  But Serena didn’t yield. Ten paces apart, they were in a standoff I didn’t understand.

  “I’m ready for another go,” Richard piped in, but Serena held up her hand to stop him.

  “It’s okay to have feelings, Brother Jones,” she said. “It’s okay to remember.”

  She went to him and took his hands and began to dance with him. He danced, but it wasn’t the same as before.

  “I don’t get it,” I whispered to Grandpa Samuel. “Who’s singing?”

  “Billie Holiday,” he replied. “Isobel’s favorite.”

  Oh, I realized. They were delving into highly charged territory.

  They danced, just the two of them, as the song ended and another began. And then another. Grandpa Samuel was fixated on them with a look of adulation, as if he couldn’t imagine a more wonderful scene. Richard kept checking his watch. Finally, after the third dance, Richard stood up and cleared his throat. Serena and my father stopped dancing, though the music kept playing. My father looked over at Richard, but Serena kept her eyes on her dance partner.

  “I have an early meeting,” Richard announced.

  “When will I see you again, my love?” Serena asked, still not looking at him.

  “I’d like to come by tomorrow to have that meeting with Brother Jones.”

  “I’m sure that will be fine,” Serena replied, her eyes still fixed on my father, which I found kind of weird. “Drive safely,” she said.

  Richard winced, perhaps wondering if he should continue the conversation; however, he thought better of it and simply said, “Good night, my love,” and left.

  Still, Serena and my father didn’t move. It was like they were made of wax. We heard Richard descend the stairs, and the front door open and close. He was gone.

  The music stopped. The record was over and the platter spun without making any music.

  “Put on another,” Serena said to my father.

  He walked toward the record player, but stopped before he reached it.

  “I can’t do it anymore,” he said. “You’re not Mom. She’s not here.”

  She said nothing for a moment. Then she spoke: “Clever Trevor.”

  “Yes, Simply Serena?”

  “Be a darling and put Grandpa Samuel to bed for me, will you? He knows what to do, but he’ll try to get away without doing it. Make him brush his teeth and use the toilet. Get him a glass of water from the kitchenette. And make him put on his pajamas; if you don’t tell him to do it, he’ll climb into bed with his clothes on and then he’ll wake up in the middle of the night, crying and confused. Can you do that for me, Trevor?”

  “Yes, I can.”

  “Be firm, Trevor,” she said. “But be gentle also. People will respond to you if they understand the strength of your resolve but they believe you will be gentle with them.”

  “Yes, Aunt Serena.”

  I led Grandpa Samuel out of the ballroom; as we left, I looked back. Serena had gone to my father. She had pulled his head onto her shoulder. He appeared to be sobbing.

  * * *

  Grandpa Samuel’s room was small and smelled like an old person. The lone window had no curtain to open or close, but a thick blanket had been nailed over it. I wondered why, in a house with so many bedrooms, some of them quite opulent, Grandpa Samuel lived in a teeny room in the back. It was almost like a cell. There was a sink in the corner and a medicine chest. Nothing was put away; clean clothes were folded and stacked on the dresser and the easy chair. The closet door was open, and the closet was crammed with old tweed sport coats.

  “Brush your teeth,” I said, and he did.

  “Put on your pajamas,” I said, and he did.

  “Go pee,” I said, and he nodded. He walked over to the small sink in the corner and turned on the faucet; he pulled out his old-man dick and started peeing in the sink. I didn’t want to startle him so I didn’t say anything until he had finished.

  “Couldn’t you have done that in the toilet?” I asked.

  “It wakes up Serena,” he said. “I use the sink. That doesn’t wake her up.”

  I didn’t explain to him that Serena wasn’t there to wake up. She was upstairs, slow-dancing with her brother.

  Grandpa Samuel climbed into his bed, which was almost a kid bed. A single bed that made him look big. He pulled the covers up to his chin and looked at me. With his hair all splayed out on his pillow like that, he almost looked cute.

  “I love you,” he said out of the blue, and it surprised me that he would say it. I wondered if he knew who I was.

  “I’m Trevor,” I said. “Your grandson.”

  “Clever!” he beamed.

  So he did know.

  I turned off the light and left him to sleep. The servants’ quarters, where Grandpa Samuel and, presumably, Serena lived, had six bedroom doors adjoining a common living area, which wasn’t big but included a kitchenette and a large table, two sofas and a bunch of chairs. I guessed the servants made themselves dinner there in the old days. The kitchenette was messy and obviously well used, and, when I glanced at it, I realized I had forgotten Grandpa Samuel’s water. I opened the cupboards looking for a glass, which I found, but only after finding a cabinet stocked with about fifty cans of tomato soup and dozens of boxes of saltine crackers. I opened the small undercounter refrigerator to look for a bottle of water, but it held only cans of Folgers coffee and cartons of half-and-half. I remember thinking Riddell House was endlessly weird. I filled the glass from the sink and took it in to Grandpa Samuel, who was already asleep; I set the glass on the table behind his head.

  * * *

  As I reached the ballroom on the third floor I heard music, but I didn’t hear footsteps. I rounded the corner and reached the doorway, and I saw them. They were dancing, but barely. They were holding each other close, leaning from side to side in time to the music, so slowly. My father’s head was tipped down, and they swayed this way and that while Billie Holiday sang to them a sad, dark song.

  Serena looked over at me as they danced. She shook her head slightly, and I backed out of the room.

  Strange fruit, Billie Holiday sang. Strange fruit.

  – 27 –

  THE FALLEN

  I tried to sleep after our evening of dancing in the ballroom, but I had a rough time. It was strange to see my father weepy and vulnerable like that, holding on to Serena so tightly. Looking back on it now, I think the simplest explanation for what went on in the ballroom that night was a brother and a sister consoling each other over the death of their mother—something they hadn’t been able to do previously, because my father had been sent away. But while my father’s slow dancing with Serena seemed to be about a re-creation of his times with his mother, Serena’s motives were questionable.

  As I lay in bed, I considered the possibility I was imagining what was going on at Riddell House. Serena and my father slow dancing, the ghost of Benjamin, Isobel’s footsteps at night, my demented grandfather. Maybe they were all figments of my imagination—the Great Deceiver showing off his pyrotechnical skills. Maybe I was a figment of my imagination. Was it possible? If so—if I’d been swallowed by my own insanity—some rare form of adolescence-triggered schizophrenia—I remember
hoping with some desperation that someone would come looking for me. I hoped someone would rescue me from my despair as I wandered the hollow corridors of my mind.

  And if no one could save me—if I was too far gone—I hoped someone would at least validate my existence. I hoped someone would tell people that I’d put up a good fight. I’d tried really hard to make sense of the world. But I had only myself and what I could glean from my experiences to rely on, and that wasn’t nearly enough.

  I wasn’t ready for what was to come. But then, I guess if my mother had been there—if she had been able to call me at that moment to talk for a few minutes—she probably would have said, in her matter-of-fact way: “Who is ready?”

  Still, someone had to explain my father’s wedding ring. That was not a figment of my imagination. It was real. I slid open the drawer of my night table to look at the ring one more time before I fell into a fitful sleep.

  * * *

  He runs through the woods at full speed, branches whipping against his arms, his feet finding their own way along the uneven path as if they have eyes, as if they have a sense of where it is they are to take him. He is swollen with a euphoria the likes of which he has never known. A sense of freedom and happiness and forgiveness and acceptance and love.

  He needs to tell Harry what Alice said, how she responded to his request. She understood. (Finally, someone in this world understood!) And she wouldn’t stand in his way. She was as enlightened as he thought she was, but he hadn’t had faith. Not until Harry convinced him to trust her. “If she truly loves you,” Harry said, “she won’t want to see you unhappy.” And Harry was right!

  He sprints faster and feels the effort in his muscles, his lungs breathing hard, gulping air, but with confidence and power, not for lack, not for fear. He is a living machine that digests its fuel and outputs its energy as a part of nature. He is a natural, honest man living a natural, honest life.

  Harry isn’t in the cottage—but where? Ben must find him.

  He sees the note on the table: A nice day for a climb.

  He smiles. Indeed, it is a nice day for a climb. And since Harry’s shoulder has healed enough for him to climb again, he has been climbing nearly every day!

  He runs out of the cottage, down another path and deeper into the thicket until he comes to the tree—the tallest for miles and miles. The entire area from Mukilteo to Seattle had been clear-cut years ago; only The North Estate was saved. And this tree is the grandest of them all. At the base of the tree he looks up into the branches. Harry is there. Climbing up or down, Ben doesn’t know.

  “Harry!” Ben shouts at the figure so far above him, a hundred fifty feet or more, tangled in the branches. “Harry!”

  The figure stops and looks down between his legs.

  “Join me!” comes the return call.

  “Come down!” Ben yells. “I have news!”

  “News?”

  “Come down!”

  And so the figure descends. Ben can feel his blood as it courses through his veins, that’s how attuned he is to his own body. Because he is free.

  “Hurry!”

  Harry descends quickly. He is barefoot and bare-handed, a rope coiled over his shoulder and neck to use as a flip line.

  “What is it?” Harry asks, still on his descent.

  “She’s set us free, Harry! She’s set us free! I don’t have to marry her!”

  Harry stops to look down at Ben.

  “What of your father’s impending deal?”

  “She said not to worry. She would take care of it. She would talk to her father. Don’t you see, Harry? You told me to be true to myself. I was honest with her, and she understood, Harry. She understood!”

  “Ha, ha!” Harry laughs boldly. “So you see!”

  “I see!”

  Harry hurries down the tree. Faster. Like a spider, he zips down from limb to limb, lithe and nimble.

  “Be careful!” Ben warns, but Harry laughs and moves even faster; he is almost to the lowest branch.

  And then it happens, as if they both knew it would. Harry misses a grip on a branch and he slips.

  “Harry!” Ben cries.

  Harry lunges out and grabs hold of the lowest branch as his legs flail dangerously below him. He dangles from the branch by his hands.

  “Phew!” he calls out with a laugh. “That was close!”

  “Are you all right?” Ben calls to him.

  “Yes.”

  “Climb up, then. You’re giving me a fright.”

  Harry pulls himself up and throws his left arm over the branch. He prepares to swing his leg up and over when they both hear a loud pop. Harry cries out, loses his grip again, and drops down so he is hanging by his hands.

  “What is it?” Ben calls.

  “My shoulder. It’s out again.”

  And with that, Harry’s left arm comes free from the branch and falls to his side. He holds on with only one hand.

  Ben is filled with dread. Harry’s shoulder. The one Ben dislocated.

  “Can you hold on?” he calls to Harry, but he already knows the answer. “Hold on. I’ll get my gear from the barn. I’ll come up to get you.”

  “Don’t go, Ben.”

  “Why not? Hold on for two minutes and I’ll be back. You can do it.”

  “I can’t—”

  “Harry, just try.”

  “No,” Harry says. “Ben. I don’t want to be alone when I die.”

  “Harry, don’t be absurd, just hang on for one minute—”

  Harry’s grip slackens. He can’t hold on any longer. He falls.

  Almost in slow motion, he drops toward the ground, not flailing, not crying out. Drifting, almost. Floating down so gently, as if angels are supporting him, cradling him.

  He hits with a sickening thud and Ben cries out. Harry, his love, lies broken on the ground at Ben’s feet, legs twisted beneath him, arms splayed, one of them a distortion, too far from his body. Ben falls to his knees.

  Harry’s eyes are open and are bright red with burst blood vessels. Blood trickles from his mouth and ears, and from his nose, bubbles of blood form as he tries to suck air into his lungs.

  Harry!

  Ben touches his face gently. Harry, what have you done? He leans over and kisses Harry and comes away with blood on his lips. Harry’s blood.

  Harry sucks in a final breath, and then his body is racked with a spasm. The air escapes with a wheeze, his body relaxes, and his eyes become vacant because his soul has left. Harry is dead.

  Ben screws his face tight in agony. Tears spring from his eyes and fly from his cheeks as if they are afraid of him. He lifts his face to the sky and howls, unleashing a sound that frightens the birds and deer and freezes all who can hear the echoes, which go on for miles. He lifts Harry to his chest and clings to him, crying, unable to bear the anguish until he finds the energy to raise his face and howls again, and again.

  In flashes, I see the rest. Ben carries Harry’s corpse to the barn and lays him out on the workbench. The barn is full of woodworking tools used by the artisans who built Riddell House, and Ben sets to work building a coffin. All night he builds, and in the morning he is finished. He places Harry in the coffin and uses a two-wheeled cart to haul the coffin up Observatory Hill, where he digs a grave. Before he is finished, the rain comes. The hole begins to fill with water and mud, but Ben perseveres, because nothing will stop him. I wish I could help him, as he fights against the crumbling walls of the earth, frustrated, distraught. And somehow, I know that I can. I believe that I can. And so I take up a shovel, climb into the hole, and join him.

  Ben stops digging momentarily, looks up at me, nods in acknowledgment.

  Together, we dig Harry’s grave.

  – 28 –

  THAT MAN’S FATHER IS MY FATHER’S SON

  I stopped in the foyer at the bottom of the stairs. I touched Harry’s carved wooden hand. I looked over my shoulder; the morning sun hadn’t moved around to the front of the house yet. But the hand was
warm, as if warmed by the sun. I knew that the hand truly held the energy of the house and created its own warmth.

  I thought about it again, but things were foggy: When did I start having Ben’s dreams? How long had we been there? I started having the dreams after I found the hand in the barn. But when did I first see Isobel dance? When did I find the shaft and meet Ben in the basement? After the hand had been returned to the newel. When Grandpa Samuel took away the hand years ago, Ben struggled to be heard, and the family fractured. Isobel was right: the hand was the source of power of the Riddell House. Benjamin could now be heard, even if only by me.

  We’d been there more than a week. Of that I was sure.

  The haunting image of digging Harry’s grave with Ben overwhelmed me with sadness. I felt the need to do something physical to clear my mind, so I joined Grandpa Samuel in the barn. He’d taught me to use the lathe so that’s what I would do. I would tool a chair leg. I tightened a piece of squared-off two-by-four between the headstock and the tail-stock. I set the tool rest, took up my chisel, and started the spindle spinning. Making slow, careful passes, I cut into the wood as I moved the chisel along the tool rest, pass after pass, until it was close to cylindrical. I stopped the lathe and eyed up my creation. It was a dowel, though a little lopsided. I realized after trying it a few times how much practice Grandpa Samuel must have needed to turn out the elaborately tooled spindles he did; I was clearly not good at it.

  Still, even though it didn’t serve any purpose, there was something satisfying about it. The smell of the wood. The touch of it. The sound. And then taking my dowel and using the gouge, which peeled away curly ribbons of wood, widening the groove as it deepened. It was a sensory experience, which supported Isobel’s theory that we are here in this world only to use our senses. To eat and drink and sweat and feel afraid and feel contented, and, ultimately, to love.

  As Grandpa Samuel and I worked on the lathe that morning, I felt my sadness lifting. The focus and concentration demanded by the work gave me great relief, and I felt satisfied. I wanted to practice until my chair legs were as perfect as those turned by Grandpa Samuel, who had been tooling chair legs for years as part of an assembly line that had no other stations. I wondered if one day a man would show up with a truck to take away the spindles. “I’m ready for those ten thousand chair legs I ordered,” he would say. And we would all be amazed that Grandpa Samuel had been working on his lathe for a reason.