by Amy McNamara
“But that’s the point, Dad,” I say. “I don’t want to. Talk.”
“I think, if she’d made it up here for a visit”—he sighs—“but you know, Wren—your mother—she’s far away, and she worries. She’s planning to come up to convince you to leave with her, go somewhere else.”
I groan and press my fingers against my swollen eyes a second.
“I don’t want that for you, or for me. I’m glad you came. I wanted to buy you more time to do whatever it is you’re doing up here.”
He leans back in his seat, and for a second he looks old. Even his hands, which normally seem large and capable, are two sad dogs on his lap.
“I want this to be a place where you can be yourself. I’ve made mistakes. I know. I should have been around more. Don’t leave now. Not like this.”
There are points in time when you grow older than your parents. Or come up on them at least. I look at my father, who’s shrinking before my eyes, and realize no one will save me. No one can save me.
“I’m sorry I interfered,” he says, running his hand over his face. “You don’t have to work for Cal if you don’t want to. I’ll lie to your mother. Put her off awhile longer. She—we really wanted you to make a friend.” He looks at me. “Just don’t go rushing off somewhere, okay?”
There’s nowhere else for me to go. And being here isn’t it either. I’m a stupid girl who screwed up a perfectly decent life, wished it away, who had a boyfriend and wished him away. And then I got my wishes.
Dad pours himself another shot. We sit in silence awhile. Snow falls lightly on the skylight.
I shake my head. Then, thank God, even though my heart’s been battering my chest, I harden. I’m still. Cool. A grave angel. Gazing skyward.
The deep quiet I found after the accident slips up around me. My dad looks far away on his chair, the distance great between us. I wipe my face, the tears stop. I stand and leave the room.
“Wren?” he calls after me. “You’re okay? You’re going into the house now?”
I say nothing. There’s nothing to say.
one
side
has
to
go
THE NEXT AFTERNOON, when I head out to run, Cal’s Jeep is there, parked in front of our house, keys in it.
It takes my dad a few hours to notice I’ve quit talking again. I avoid him as long as I can but he keeps an eye, pokes around the house more than usual. Finally we’re shoulder to shoulder in the small kitchen. His questions to me fall on the floor between us like crumbs. I feel him sag a little when I don’t respond. Watch him shrink some more. I make dinner, and we eat together, quiet in the dark. I am empty, calm. The waves are loud.
A week later there’s a note on my pillow when I wake up. “It’s fine,” it says in my dad’s scrawl, “I understand. I’ll deal with your mother. You still have to work in the library.”
I stretch, then lie there awhile. My cell phone is gone. Where it had been, in place of the charger, is a little twist of metal, a small bird, like the ones he made for me when I was little.
Mary comes into the house around lunch. She’s wearing a wild, flowered garden party kind of dress probably made by some housewife in the sixties. She has it belted over a pair of purple skinny jeans. Giant plastic daisy clip-on earrings complete the look. I can almost smell lilacs on her. She’s a dream from another season. Another world. In her hand, a note for me. And the Jeep keys.
“Cal called,” she says, poking her bright face into the air before mine. “He needs to know if you’re free to help him or not.” She jingles the keys in her fingers. “He needs a ride somewhere, or something? I guess I really don’t know what he wants—I was doing forty other things when he called. Anyhow, I wrote down the security code to his house.”
I look away from her. The thing about being quiet is that you get really far out, in your head. Forgetful, hazy, like you’re not all the way here.
I’m reading Larkin. “Aubade” again. I put my finger there, on his lines, like I can record them somehow, let his words fill me until I can bear to be back inside myself again. Words, kisses, chances taken, or missed, none of it matters. Noise beneath an empty sky.
Larkin knew this nowhere place. Lived in it, too, managed to make a life anyway, for a while, at least.
“Wren?” Mary’s voice cuts through the blank. I look up at her again, a little disoriented.
“Do you want me to call him, tell him to find someone else?” She jingles the keys again. Tilts her head at me sideways, like she thinks I might not be in there. No one home.
I look at the note in her hand. Stand and stretch. Walk over to her, give her an empty look, and take the keys. I’m flat. Far away. Insulated. I’ll do this. What the hell.
When I pull up at Cal’s, the sun’s high and bright. It blinded me most of the way here, snow melt flashing off the road like a strobe. Maybe it’s being at his house, but I start to feel weird. Like I’m waking up or something. What am I doing? I don’t want to see him again. He can hire someone else to help him out.
The new snow’s high around the door. Undisturbed. No one’s come or gone in a few days. I spot the garage remote on the dash. I push it and the door pulls up and back, a modern guard. I gun it through piles of white and slide the Jeep in alongside the silver car.
My heart starts to flop around inside me like a dying fish, the calm of the last several days evaporated. I could go in, leave the keys on the table, and walk home. Run, even. My quiet is slipping away from me, too fast, my mind starts to race. What am I doing here? Am I going to go in, see what he wants? Face him? Mary’s been talking to him? Are they friends? She’s been chattering at me nonstop all week. Bright noise like a gabby squirrel. Totally in cahoots with my dad. She probably called Cal, set this up, not the other way around.
I put my head on the steering wheel. My heart might explode if it doesn’t slow down. That would be a fitting end to everything. Just kick it here in this Jeep, my weak heart flown apart inside me. Breathe. In. Out. In again. I’m not sure I can get out of the car.
My mute week. So easy. Peaceful. Once the words go away, they go away inside, too. No unceasing mental clamor. I’m nowhere.
Makes me wonder why more people don’t just shut the hell up. My dad’s been running interference with my mother, I think, taking her calls. Has to be, or she’d be up here by now. Even at the library, Lucy seems to know not to ask me anything. She shows me my tasks, and I do them. Every few days Zara comes by for coffee and they talk and laugh together, ignore me. It’s good again. So what am I doing sitting here in Cal’s garage?
I catch sight of myself in the rearview. I look insane. Well, maybe I am, so at least I’m consistent. I shower, but I’ve kind of let the mirror go the way of words. I pull my fingers through my hair. Not that it helps much. My clothes are pretty sorry, too. I’ve been lounging around in an old, holey moss-green cashmere V-neck of my dad’s and some torn jeans. I forgot to grab a coat. That was a bit of a jolt. It’s below freezing. Maybe I do need to see someone. Go away awhile. To The Home.
I bang my forehead against the steering wheel. The Home. Meredith. Normal Meredith Away at College. If she were here with me, she’d be lifting a golden eyebrow, part criticism, part concern.
I’m lost again, inside myself. Somewhere that’s not nowhere. Disoriented. I’ve let everything go. I think I have to go in. To Cal’s house. See what he wants.
I get out of the car and try the door. It’s locked. Relief for a second, until I remember the security code on the note shoved in my pocket. I beep-beep the numbers into the pad and the green light comes on. Go. I push open the heavy door and let it shut behind me with a loud clunk.
“Wren?” Cal’s voice.
I look around the perfect house. No Cal.
“Back here,” he calls.
One of the bedrooms. His. I cross the bright living room and walk back to the narrow hall. His door’s open. The afternoon light is bright on his bed, a lit quilt of color.
“Sorry about the mess,” he says, looking around. “I’m . . . I’ve been a little . . .”
Our eyes meet and for a weird second I think maybe I love him. Could. The feeling zips through my middle. Cuts through me. Opens me right up. Then that choking feeling in my throat. I swallow it away. Hard.
“I know you’re not talking,” he says. “Mary told me.”
I just look at him. I don’t think I could say anything even if I wanted to.
“That’s fine. I just need a ride out of here. Into town. See Dr. Williams.” He glances at the wall. “The closet’s over there. Will you grab me a pair of jeans and some socks?”
I go over to his closet. Touch an edge of the panel and the door pops open, soundlessly. His shirts hang in a row, neatly organized. Everything else on shelves. It smells like him. Fresh. I grab a pair of socks, jeans, a clean tee, and a sweater. Set them next to him on the couch. For a second my arm reaches out on its own, like I’m going to touch his face or something. Without thinking. Like he’s mine to touch. I back away.
“Thanks,” he says. Avoids my eyes. “I’m good. I’ll be out in a minute.”
I leave the room. My heart’s racing like a bird heart. Fluttering, skipping beats, smaller than normal. My reckless heart. It’s probably shot. Will always be small and far away.
He comes into the living room a few minutes later, one hand on the wall like it’s some kind of anchor, using a crutch. I’m not sure what I’m supposed to do. I go over to him. Wrap my arm around his waist. He leans against me a little and we go out to the car.
The last I see of him is in the waiting room at Dr. Williams’ clinic. A little while later, a woman in floral scrubs comes out to tell me I can leave. Gives me a professional smile. They must teach that one in nursing school. I sit there a minute in the ugly teal waiting room, not sure what to do.
“It’s okay,” she says, turning to me again, just before she goes back into the office. “He said to tell you to go. He’ll find a ride. We’re keeping him awhile.”
So I drive away alone. The house is empty when I get there. Same for the studio. For once I’m disappointed. I wonder if I should have called someone. Call someone now. His family. I toss Cal’s keys into the basket on the counter and grab my running clothes. If I stay inside I’ll never figure anything out.
The sky’s lower now, reddish. Frigid air smacks me in the face, burns my lungs. I set out slow, try to let my body carry me, quiet, simple, but I can’t even get the run right. My mind’s awake, words flying around in me like a vortex of bright snow spiraling up from the road in cold wind. Should I go back to town, to Cal? Do I tell my dad? Call someone? My muscles are tight. Nothing feels right. Or maybe I should go home, read Larkin, fall asleep.
I force myself to keep going. Silently count my steps. Circle the house until I hit my stride. Even though I haven’t said a word, the quiet feeling’s gone, and I can’t pull it back over me. For the first time in months I wish I could call Meredith. Tell her everything. She’d know what to say, do. She’d take charge, or laugh at me, make everything seem not so big, not so bad. But I can’t. Won’t. I don’t think you can go back again after something’s torn open that wide.
I run the trails to Cal’s road. Jog in my tire ruts until I get to the house. It’s snow silent. Empty. I wish I’d said something to him. One kind word. Sucked it up, or least called Dad’s plow service to deal with the mountainous drifts in the driveway. Hadn’t he left the house all week? Meredith’s right. I’m selfish. Small-hearted.
I turn back, take the road. Pass my bent bike leaning against a tree.
Stop. Back up.
How could I have left it there so long? He must feel horrible every time he passes it. I trek over to it. The glassy snow crust crackles and gives way with a hollow burp each step. Scrapes skin off my ankles. But I have to do something with it. Get that bike out of here. Now.
I grab the handlebars and pull it away from the tree’s frozen hug. Drag it down the road behind me. I know what I’m going to do. I can see it before me, bright, clear. The bike’s crusted with ice and weighs a ton, keeps catching my heel, my calf, smashing itself against the back of my legs. My arms burn. None of it matters. A small price for what I’ve done, who I am. Once I get to Cal’s, I head around to the cliff side, that stupid bike clanking down each step behind me.
The ocean stretches before me, sequined in the sun. I’m spent, panting, a dog before it. I lie down in the snow near the edge for a second to catch my breath. Without thinking, I make a snow angel. The things the body remembers. I haven’t thought of snow angels in . . . forever. I make it with the concentration of an eight-year-old, until my heart slows and I stop panting from dragging the bike.
Something has to be beautiful.
Cold sets in through my wet clothes. I stand as carefully as I can to protect my angel, step away from her, grab my bike, and drag it to the edge.
I recite Larkin’s “Aubade.” I need to hear the ending out loud. One of us has to go.
I take a deep breath, and with all my strength, I run toward the edge, yelling as loudly as I can, and hurl that wrecked bike over. My voice is weird. A banshee. The bike falls and crashes and falls. Yellow against the grey. For a minute the waves lift it and smash it against the rocks, and then I can’t see it anymore.
thank
you,
mary
I OPEN THE LIBRARY AT NINE. It’s early and I feel grim. I think they invented this job just to get me out of bed. Lucy comes in an hour later. Sometimes brings coffee. We’re easy together. If she has opinions about me, she doesn’t show it. There’s no pressure to talk. I reshelve books and check things out for the rare patron. We fill special-delivery orders. Not part of the library’s regular service, something Lucy does for the people who can’t get in. Mostly old people. An occasional mother overrun with kids. Lucy’s her own bookmobile. Says she hired me so she doesn’t have to close the library while she’s gone. Not that anyone would notice, but I guess, on principle, staying open is the goal.
When Lucy’s out I read. One morning I find a book about Carthusian nuns on the table where I usually sit. It’s not lost on me that they’re an order that takes a vow of silence. Before I put it away, I lift the cover, spot their motto. My Latin was never strong, but it’s something like Steady while the world orbits.
I’m still not talking, but it doesn’t give me the calm, faraway feeling I had before. And I don’t call Cal. I’m a coward. I want to know how he is but I can’t make myself pick up the phone.
Dad’s off to Berlin again to have an opening at his new gallery. He asks Mary to move in with me while he’s gone. A babysitter. Nice. He says I have to ride with them to the airport. Keep Mary company on the drive home. I almost laugh at that one, I make such good company. He’s so obvious.
Mary’s banged-up car takes forever to heat. The air is so cold and sharp it makes me cough. I pull my parka up around my face and fall asleep in the backseat almost immediately. The drive goes fast. When I wake up, we’re passing the squat little buildings that skulk around the airport like poor cousins. Depressing. I let my dad hug me good-bye extra long. He’s afraid to leave, I can tell. Makes me feel guilty. He even hugs Mary.
On the way home, she’s quiet. Puts music on. I’m relieved. Even my nap didn’t feel like enough of a boost to handle a working-over by Mary. By the time we pull in to the shed I’m feeling almost cheerful. It’s a foreign feeling. It was good to have a change of scene, even if it meant hours in the car. She grabs my hand before I get out.
“I went to see Cal this week,” she says, avoiding my eyes. “He missed Secret Cinema, which he’s never done before—so I thought I’d check on him. I just wanted you to
know.”
I pull my hand away and my heart skips a few beats. Jealous.
“He’s okay,” she says, surprised.
I’m shocked at my sudden jealousy. I look out the window. Some windstorm at some point bent the weather vane my dad made off its axis and it looks like the winds are prevailing skyward.
“You know, in case you were wondering. His dad was there a few days. Cal’s home. Sleeping a ton, but he’s supposed to. Anyhow”—she takes a breath, lets the words out in a rush, like she’s not sure if she should say it—“I’m telling you because I’m sure he’d love to see you—if you felt like going over there.”
She looks at me now. Part hopeful and part like she’s trying to figure me out.
“Not to pressure you,” she tries again, “but I don’t think he’s going to keep calling. You kind of seem like you don’t want him to—I mean, if you want to keep him as a friend, or whatever, you could . . .”
It’s dark out. The sky is crazy, more stars than dark. So many more than I can ever remember seeing. Far more than we ever see in the city. I look back at Mary. Those moon eyes, her wide-open face.
“I guess I’m trying to say it’s up to you,” she finishes.
I get out of her car and head into the house.
When I finally wake up the next morning, Mary’s been busy. She’s unearthed Dad’s juicer, and next to a hearty glass of fuchsia brilliant beet-and-ginger juice, five orange tulips lean out of a jelly jar. I grab the bread knife, free a hunk of sourdough, butter it, and lean against the sink, chewing the bread and sipping juice. It’s nice having her here, even if it means my phone’s on the counter, charged, a scrap of paper tucked under it. Cal’s number.
I step out the door a second. Music’s blasting in the studio. Mary’s working. The sun’s high and huge in the sky. Its own triumph. Good for the sun. I test the mood waters. Feel strangely normal. No pink pill last night. I just slept. Blessed be the blank.
It’s definitely easier to wake up when I don’t take them. Instead of the ever-looping mental reel of disaster, Cal was there, filling my mind until I drifted off. I didn’t try to push him away. Maybe I should call him today. Talk. Maybe I can act like a normal person.