Clara at the Edge

by Maryl Jo Fox

  Dawson is speechless. He hardly recognizes her. Her hazel eyes are nearly obscured by pouches of fat hanging from her cheeks. Only the strawberry birthmark by her right ear proves this is his mother. Her stringy hair is snarled dishwater blonde streaked with gray. Her hands are swollen, her breasts half-deflated dirigibles. Empty cartons of chocolate milk litter the nightstand.

  His impulse is to run. But now that she sees him, her eyes take on a greedy light. “Dowser! After all these years. I see you’ve found yourself a woman. I knew you’d be better off without me.” She leers at Edie, devouring her scant outfit and pale skin. “Well, hello there, young lady. Is he treating you well? I bet he is.” She lets out a braying, sensual laugh. Shocked and embarrassed, Dawson and Edie tightly hold hands. Then Edie’s hand goes limp.

  Aunt Syl steps toward the bed. “Nancy, you’ve not seen Dawson for twenty-one years. Show some manners toward your son.” Sylvia’s look is grim, as if she knew very well the turn this conversation would take.

  His mother takes on a pleading tone. Her swollen hands restlessly travel the blanket. “Dowser, my boy. Put some meat on those bones. Way too skinny. The girl too.” She wrinkles her nose. Awkward silence fills the room. As if remembering something, her eyes light up. “Did you bring your mother a present, Dowser? After all these years? Some chocolate maybe?”

  He looks into his mother’s nearly obscured eyes, his voice faltering. “I didn’t bring a gift, no, sorry.” He turns toward the door, then turns back to face his mother once more. He blurts, “You ate the last row of my almond Hershey’s that time.”

  She laughs loudly. “They were mine, Dowser. You stole them from me. You stole my whole house from me. Gary left because of you.” Her smile shows big teeth. “Your girlfriend has nice little titties, Dowser.”

  Bewildered and shocked by her words, Dawson can only mumble, “Uh, Edie and I have to get going now—long way to go before dark. Um, take care.”

  “Too bad you can’t stay. We’re having dinner soon, aren’t we, Sylvia?”

  He doesn’t hear his aunt’s reply. He’s had enough. The ripe hallway has a suction power, as if it could vacuum them back into his mother’s room if he’d let it. In fact, he and Edie briskly approach the front door. Aunt Syl trails behind.

  At the door, she says, “Sorry, Dawson. At least you know now. She doesn’t talk sensibly any more. All she does is eat and laugh to herself. It’s been like this about four years. It’s hard for me to control her in any way.”

  “I’m glad you’re with her, Aunt Syl.” He extends a trembling hand. She clasps it in both of hers.

  Edie just wants to get out of there. She nods at Aunt Syl.

  Somehow they make their way to the car and wordlessly drive off. Before they reach Highway 395 that will take them to California and points south, Dawson pulls off at a rest stop. “Just for a minute,” he says, not looking at her.

  “Sure thing.”

  She goes to the restroom, spruces up her spiky hair again, buys an Orange Crush from the vending machine. Sitting at an empty picnic table, she shuts her eyes, trying to calm herself, open her mind to the hum of empty sky. In the grassy area, parents sit exhausted at picnic tables. Dogs frolic; kids chase each other.

  At the far edge of the grass, Dawson sits on his haunches, flicking ashes from a cigarette, not taking it to his mouth. He’s looking out toward the highway. He stubs out the cigarette in the grass. Edie sits at the picnic table watching Dawson and the cloudless sky. She takes out a nail file and carves their initials as best as she can into the dried wood: EP ♥ DB

  The sun is hot overhead. The sky is an empty bowl.

  chapter 17

  Clara wakes early. A silvery hush floats over the desert. She huddles into a blanket and sits outside on Scotty’s steps, sipping steaming black coffee from her old Greenpeace mug. Silence and coffee and the comforting blanket fortify her for what she must do: take a good look at her house. She can avoid it no longer. Her time with Frank yesterday has given her strength. She sets the empty mug down on the porch and slowly walks up Black Jack Drive toward the highway and crosses it, hugging the light blanket around her. She keeps her eyes down until the house is at hand. Then she can’t help gasping.

  Blackened two-by-fours that framed the rooms are exposed willy-nilly to the air. Most of the siding is gone, all of it charred. Flames shot up to the eaves in several places and burned clear through the insulation and rafters. The ceiling is gone and over half the siding. It looks as though someone has set the house over a gas flame and let the flame blacken much of the pot. The smell of ash and charcoal fills the air. She sneezes. Her eyes water and sting. Numb to her presence, two lone wasps circle the wreckage.

  But the kitchen! Only it has survived. In part. It’s covered with ash as if there’s been a volcanic explosion nearby. She jumps onto the flatbed and wipes the muck off the counter with a dishtowel. And there are her canisters, cupboards, and drawers, the green linoleum floor—all undamaged—and the oddest sight of all, her green Formica table and chairs, the same as they were, one chair still toppled from when she finally broke free of Dawson’s flimsy knots and ran outside to confront him. The kitchen is a bizarre monument of a ruined place. She can’t bear to look.

  She jumps to the ground and makes herself touch what’s left of the siding. She rubs the gritty charcoal ash between her fingers. The ghostly lilac smears, the shriveled brown petals sealed for years in lumpy paint, are burned to bubbled muck.

  She has to face it. Her house is gone.

  The only thing to do is jog. Anger and grief war in her as she dashes back to Scotty’s, throws on jogging clothes, does hasty stretches. Bolting out the door, she sets up a stubborn pace after a walking start. Thock crunch, thock crunch—she pounds the desert floor. Soon sagebrush does its medicinal work on her burning lungs. As she works up a running high, she circles back around—past Royal, where Frank’s weathered trailer cab sits in front of Stella’s place. Down to a walk again, she circles the streets in a daze, pauses at Jackpot Video, where the same cluttered window display holds Elvis pictures, plastic dolls, and empty VHS jackets.

  No terminators, androids, or days of the jackal for her, thank you very much. Only the Little Tramp could cheer her now, but she suspects he’s still nowhere to be found here. It’s nine o’clock in the morning. The store is still closed. She’s vaguely disappointed. She would love to see the friendly proprietor and engage in banter about what’s a good movie to see.

  Immersed in gloomy thoughts, she begins to cross the highway, heading back unthinkingly to her old house. Realizing her error, she throws up her arms in despair, stopping dead on the highway as a truck barrels straight toward her. At the last minute, she registers the onrushing vehicle and sprints to the side of the road. The driver takes his hands off the wheel in a gesture of hopeless anger as he passes her.

  Something comes untethered in her. She wants to follow right after that trucker, give him a run for his money. She strides back to Scotty’s. The open road lures her like the waters at Lourdes. She’s got to get out of Jackpot. Silence, stillness, smallness can’t contain her right now. “Burning Down the House,” the Talking Heads song, roils her brain. Her high school juniors always gave her tapes. They liked her and wanted to educate her. Frank always laughed when she gyrated around the house to songs like that. He never understood how she identified with rebellious teenagers, but her students knew her as a kindred spirit. Fists clenched, singing at the top of her lungs, she stares irresistibly back at the tarnished spectacle of her house.

  A feeling of hysteria overtakes her. Everything is gone. Even the wasps. The family pictures she spread out on the dresser the night before are burned to ashes. And they must have taken the pearl necklace that Darrell gave her, plus the opal ring he gave her for their first wedding anniversary. Frank’s old coin collection was worth quite a lot, and she had some money lying around. She thinks she’s so tough, but maybe it’s all killing her—the lost possessions, the burnt lil
ac traces, the gutted house, her lost husband and daughter, her son virtually abandoned all these years, wholly beyond her intentions. She sits on Scotty’s steps and covers her face with her hands, trying to calm herself. A single wasp circles above her.

  Her extreme response frightens her. The only thing that could comfort her now, she realizes, are the actual lilacs that surrounded her house, the great bushes pregnant with flowers, the laden branches bobbing in a light wind, their scent invading her dreams, her thought always that the lilacs were alive with spiritual presence. Those fat, unpruned bushes were a sanctuary. She always wandered among them to forget whatever trouble made her seek them. Now these lilacs exist nowhere in the world except in her soon-to-be-crumbling memory. Developers have made sure of that.

  Suddenly it occurs to her: Arianna Paul! That busybody photographer is the only person in the world who has photos of everything important—family pictures and close-ups of wilted lilac petals entombed in the siding, the backyard lilac jungle where her family spent long summer afternoons picnicking and listening to crickets as daylight darkened and fell, the wasps always circling above them.

  She’s got to get those pictures! It’s been almost two weeks. Maybe Arianna ran off with them or threw them away. She’s that nervy all right—sneaking a wasp shot while Clara was peeing.

  Rushing inside, she rifles through her purse and digs out Arianna’s card. Two wasps land on the card, as if encouraging her. Her mood lightens. She’ll find that woman. She’ll drive to Elko this very day. She must have an intact record of her life—her most private delights and healing spaces. How else can she know she even existed in the world?

  Pacing in Scotty’s kitchen, she suddenly doubts Arianna’s whole premise. Why would anyone in Manhattan want to see her little homemade house? “Just imagine,” Arianna would chuckle to her friends, “this strange woman made her son drag that ramshackle house to this backwater, and there it sits, rotting in the sun.” The thin ladies in summer linen would shake their heads and smile.

  Enough nonsense, Clara thinks. She doesn’t need fantasies like this. All that’s important are Arianna’s pictures and the peaceful time she had with Frank yesterday at the creek. Something like a blessing has occurred between them, something necessary and long sought. Fresh trouble made them finally reach out to each other. Among other emotions, joy creeps into the mix.

  Many would say that of course a son would be kind to his mother if she’d just been assaulted and robbed and her house burned down. But Clara is not like other mothers. She takes nothing for granted just because she gave birth. Any kindness toward her she meets with amazement and denial. His kindness must have been an accident, a momentary lapse. It probably wouldn’t happen again. This is how she’s survived, given the secrets of her upbringing, secrets locked in her innermost Brain Room. A little like a cactus, she protects her vital center.

  Nervously, she calls the number on the back of Arianna’s business card. To her surprise, Arianna answers, hears her out, and readily proposes lunch at the Rancher’s Hotel at twelve thirty in Elko, adding that her uncle, visiting from New York, might join them.

  A giddy feeling overtakes her, a feeling of release. She’s itching to get on the road, cast herself into the unknown, escape her demons for a day. The nine wasps in Scotty’s kitchen are flying around in erratic circles. “Now don’t make a production of this,” she says crisply, laying out honey water as a special treat. “I won’t be gone long. Someone will take care of you.” She throws a change of clothes into an overnight bag of Scotty’s (she’s sure he won’t mind), a couple of New Yorkers, and her crossword puzzle book in case she wants to stay overnight in Elko before coming back. It’s 130 miles each way. She might be tired.

  17 days left.

  She rushes outside only to find the usual car space empty. She forgot. She has no car! The car Frank bought her is at the garage for the second time in less than two weeks. That buggy’s a lemon.

  This is no time to stand on ceremony. Walking quickly, she waves at the owner of Jackpot Video, who saunters on Double Down, having a smoke. His genial face lights up. “Hey now, you’re the one who likes Charlie Chaplin and Rosalind Russell. Drop in sometime. I got some new classics.”

  “I’ll do that. Right now, I’m in a hurry.”

  “I can see that.” He smiles. “Don’t wear yourself out now.”

  “No chance of that,” she shouts over her shoulder.

  At Stella’s, Clara sticks a hasty note under Frank’s windshield wiper. Back at Scotty’s, she sticks a similar note under the wipers of his blue Ford pickup. Gamely she smiles at his white Mustang. She had chided Scotty for leaving keys in both ignitions. “I’m forgetful,” he said with his easy grin. “This way I never have to look for my keys. Besides, nothing ever happens in Jackpot.”

  Hunched behind the wheel, she turns Scotty’s white Mustang smoothly away from the curb and quickly adjusts to its ways. With a rush of wildness, she takes it up to eighty on the empty highway south of Jackpot. The car runs like an oiled panther.

  “Son of a gun,” she whoops, “what’ve I been missing all my life?” But she’s no fool and isn’t about to get in a wreck. Reluctantly, she takes it back to sixty-five and keeps it there. She misses her old Honda Civic. It was as reliable as the legs she walks on. But the Honda never made her feel like an exhaust-chuffing cowgirl. Smiling, she checks her teeth in the rearview mirror.

  She’s not alone in the car. The purple wasp made her surprise appearance from behind Scotty’s coffee maker this morning, holding fast to Clara’s hair as she sat down to her banana and Bran Flakes. After Clara phoned Arianna, the wasp danced around on the counter, as if she too liked the idea of Clara taking off like this. But now the creature is staggering around on the dashboard, toppling over from time to time.

  “What’s the matter with you?” Clara cries. “You’re acting drunk.” She looks more closely. “What on earth did you do to your head?” She slows down, trying to get a better look. The wasp’s head is freakishly swollen, worse than she’s ever seen it.

  The creature waves her antennae around. “I’m going to be a taxidermy specimen before long, my friend, at the rate you’re going. You say you want peace with your kids and a taste of life before you die? Got to step it up a notch then. You’ve got a start with Frank, but zilch with Samantha and the life bit.”

  “My stars, you’re trying my patience,” Clara says heatedly. “All you do is lecture. If you’re here to help, why did you let that arsonist burn down my house? I couldn’t believe my eyes. You flew above his head as if you just loved to see him dump gas all over me and my siding—as if you didn’t want me to keep my house! Whose side are you on, anyway?”

  The creature smirks. “That’s for you to figure out, my dear.”

  Driving Scotty’s Mustang puts her in a strange state. Her heart feels transparent, warms her chest with white light. Something’s opening in her that has long been closed. Attacked by messed-up young people, she’s on her feet and moving. Rigid brain battlements have lowered a tad: The wide unknown seems less threatening. Adventure! Conquest! That’s what she wants. She’ll get her pictures and her past back. She’ll find out if Arianna Paul is a crook.

  The purple wasp staggers around to some inner beat on the dashboard. Her wings are wrapped around her swollen head like transparent earmuffs—as if she’s planning something and wants no distractions.

  Clara leans back and turns on the radio, finds only Christian or country music—not the classical station out of Salt Lake City she’s looking for. Maybe Scotty’s radio’s on the blink. She misses NPR. Closer to Elko she might get it. Well, she likes Johnny Cash anyway, and what do you know, here he is, singing “I Walk the Line”.

  She sings along, tapping the steering wheel. Come to think of it, she also likes Tammy Wynette, Waylon Jennings, Dolly Parton. But Dolly looks like a cartoon woman. Maybe that’s the point. Dolly’s no fool.

  At heart though, she’s a Johnny Cash kind of girl—a o
ne-man woman. Darrell was her soul mate, their passion as pure as bed sheets dried by the sun. He rode an old bike to work at the Register-Guard, made his lunch every morning—sandwich, apple, cookies, thermos of coffee packed in a metal lunch box he hung from the handlebars. Weekends, he read Colliers and Time while eating slow lunches at the kitchen table—sardines with mustard on toast or creamed tuna on toast, along with a glass of Ovaltine. His life was a kind of poetry to her. No false moves, no showy gestures, just the thing itself.

  She purses her lips. OK, give it up, Clara. You know he wasn’t a saint.

  All right, all right: She knew he had an affair with Jessica Wagner down the street, a pretty divorcée who brought them blueberry pie until she stopped bringing blueberry pie. That was after Clara saw Darrell leaving Jessica’s house one afternoon as she was coming back from Safeway. Saw him and her heart dropped to the floor. That night in bed, his musky smell was layered with something like sweet peas, the barest hint, even though he had uncharacteristically showered before dinner. She hugged her side of the bed for weeks. One day, she needed her pruning shears and went out to the shed where Darrell and Frank did their woodworking projects. Darrell was standing at the tool table, hastily wiping tears off his face. They never talked about it, and life went on.

  Their sex life suffered for months. If he had kept seeing her, she would have left him. Even with the kids, she would have left him.

  She sewed shirts for Frank, dresses for Samantha. She made a navy-blue terrycloth bathrobe for Darrell in their first year of marriage. He never wanted a new one, even when the blue-and-white sailcloth lining frayed and separated from the terrycloth. She still wears that bathrobe when she’s sick. Darrell was six foot one, so it trails on the floor, but she would never think to shorten it.