Year After Henry

by Cathie Pelletier

  Jeanie put the phone back down on its cradle and stood there by the bed, looking at it. It was the same phone she had picked up the morning Henry died, a year earlier, the one she held to her ear to say the awful words. My husband’s had a heart attack. It was the same phone that some stranger had used to comfort her long distance, a woman she would never meet. They’ll be there soon, Mrs. Munroe. Stay on the phone with me. Try to be calm now. A full year, come one more night.

  Jeanie lay down on the bed, stretched out full, the way she was that morning twelve months earlier when she had put her head on Henry’s chest and waited for the ambulance to come wailing up the street. He doesn’t have a heartbeat, but he’s got a sense of humor that won’t quit. His favorite food is spaghetti and meatballs. He stills listens to the Beatles, and he loves the Red Sox almost as much as he used to love me. What had she whispered into his ear before they could rush into the house with their stretcher and carry him away? Why did you do it, Henry?

  Jeanie said the words again, aloud, hoping that if Henry were hovering somewhere, if there were such a thing as the dead coming back to spy on the living, he might hear her. Maybe he’d send her an answer. Maybe their wedding photo still on her dresser would topple over, the glass shattering into a dozen pieces. Or maybe a bird might fly into the windowpane and drop to the ground outside, its neck broken. She knew these things were called omens, and so Jeanie lay there waiting for her omen from Henry to arrive. She heard wind shake the house. A spring rainstorm was on its way, a heavy one, according to that morning’s weather report. It would be a day of thunder and lightning, storm clouds and gray skies. But Sunday would be that sunny and mild day that Frances had been praying for.

  Jeanie’s question to her husband that morning he died had not been about Evie Cooper. Or any of the other women. It was just the first part of a two-part question that Jeanie didn’t finish since it was obvious Henry Munroe was dead. But if she had asked the full question, it would have gone like this: “Why did you do it, Henry? Why did you fall out of love with me?”

  What bothered her most about Evie Cooper was the hold she seemed to have over Henry, even when she no longer wanted it. After Evie had ended the affair, Henry was still obsessed with her. Jeanie reached over to the nightstand and pulled open its top drawer. She found the letter and took it out. Dear Evie, How much longer are you going to keep this up? If I come to the tavern you avoid me. If I wait by your car in the parking lot, you get Gail to drive you home. If I call, you hang up. Come on, girl. You know you can’t stay away from me forever. I’ll be here, arms open, when you change your mind. Love, Henry.

  Jeanie had found the letter in Henry’s Jeep, hidden beneath the coils of the seat. It was lacking a stamp was all, or it would have been ready to mail. It was addressed to Evie Cooper, at 25 Avalon Court. It had the proper zip code, sitting like a small afterthought below the words Bixley, Maine. It was everything a letter needed in order to be official. Surely, Henry being a mailman, finding a stamp was not the problem. Maybe it was his pride that had kept him from sending it. Or maybe he planned to mail it on the very day he died. Jeanie’s grief counseling class had suggested she write a letter to Henry, a way to tell him how she felt about losing him, a way to come to terms with the anger she was feeling. But Jeanie hadn’t been able to do it. It seemed silly, considering Henry had been a mailman and Jeanie didn’t know the zip code for heaven. Or whatever the place is where people who die end up going.

  Jeanie heard the first pelts of strong rain hitting the bedroom window, and then Chad rising from his bed upstairs, his footfalls heading down the hallway to the bathroom. Lisa’s feet used to tread that same hall. It seemed to Jeanie now that you could measure out a family’s time together in footfalls, and gallons of water rushing through pipes, tubes of toothpaste, or the moments a refrigerator door opened and closed. The door on a house, too, opening and closing as the kids got older and graduated and then disappeared into the world. Those tiny signs that most people ignore as they live out their days together—maybe they were omens—were nothing but markers. They were ways of keeping time, if you had a mind to do so. But Jeanie knew most people didn’t.

  Thunder boomed now in the distance. In no time, there would be lightning. Jeanie smiled. If this were an omen from Henry, he meant it as a joke, for he was terrified of thunderstorms. How many years had it been since she loved Henry back? Quite a few years. It’s a shame when love turns on itself, destroys itself at the roots. But that’s what had happened. Jeanie now wondered if she could save Lisa and Patrick from this same fate. Was there advice she might give them so that they could sidestep the omens? But she knew that was impossible. Besides, Jeanie McPherson herself had done nothing wrong but fall in love with Henry Munroe. If she had fallen out of love with him over the years, it was because so many other women he met were standing in her way.

  Now that she couldn’t vent the anger she felt at Henry, maybe it was time to let him go. Besides, in a few days, she would be a grandmother.

  ...

  Evie put a glass of orange juice, two buttered slices of toast, and the bottle of Tylenol onto her painted wooden tray and then carried it upstairs. She figured a light breakfast was better on the stomach, considering the stressful circumstances. Gail was already awake and sitting up in bed. She was staring at the pictures that hung in walnut frames on the bedroom walls. Evie put the tray down on the end of the bed.

  “How’d you sleep?” she asked, and Gail shrugged her shoulders.

  “How I always sleep,” she said. “As if the wolf is not just at my door, but in bed beside me.”

  “I hope he’s good in bed,” Evie said, and smiled. Now Gail had to smile, too. Funny how mornings could change a lot of bad things, give them a new spin. For folks like Margie Jenkins, mornings probably didn’t change anything at all. But for other people, just a bit of time passing means the wound is starting to heal. Evie had read once that the last stage of healing for an actual wound is called remodeling, when the initial scar tissue reconstructs itself. She always thought that sounded like what people do with their lives, too.

  Thunder clapped ominously and the rain came fast, striking the tin roof of the house with metallic fists. Evie went over and shut the window. Then she locked it.

  “Who are they?” Gail asked. She was staring again at the portraits. They were the proper and dignified kind of photographs, taken in those days when people sat once or twice for a photographer. It was their own statement to the world, proof that they’d once existed, that they had been there on the planet for a time. People did this for the day when they would be gone, so that someone who cared might remember them. But now, with cameras hanging out all over houses, with digital images being rushed through cyberspace, people were getting sick of looking at each other’s faces.

  “That woman was my mother,” said Evie, nodding at the portrait. Helen Cooper was wearing a black tulle cocktail dress. She looked quite regal, and Evie liked to think that her mother was regal, once, back in those days when she and her husband went dancing. Back when there was reason to wear a cocktail dress. And what’s more, Helen was smiling such a lovely smile. It was a better version of her than the real one Evie had known, the woman who hid from the light, who dissolved in a dark room of grief and sorrow until she disappeared altogether.

  “She was very pretty,” said Gail. “You look just like her.” Evie was told this often, that she looked like her mother, the woman in the lovely black dress, a classic string of white pearls around her neck, posing for some photographer whose name was still printed on the back of the picture. The Richard Penwick Studio, Philadelphia, PA. In truth, Evie’s mother now looked more like a younger sister. She had died in 1968, the year she turned forty-two and Evie turned sixteen. This was the same year her mother brought Rosemary Ann’s portrait down from the attic, dusted it off with a wet cloth, and presented it to Evie as a special gift. Evie was now eight years older than her mother wou
ld ever be.

  “And that’s my father,” said Evie, now pointing at the sweet-faced man in the proper, dark gray suit, his hands folded on his lap, the sadness of his life still to happen. “And that’s my sister, who died before I was born.” Rosemary Ann had the same bow-shaped mouth, the eyebrows that curved like thin rainbows over the dark eyes, the little gold cross hanging down the front of her dress. The dress was pink with a white lace collar. Her two hands, hidden away in white gloves with pink velvet buttons, were clasped together and resting on her lap. “These pictures were all taken the same day, not long before my sister died. A photographer came to the house for a formal sitting.”

  Gail got out of bed and went over to the portrait of Rosemary Ann. She put a finger up and touched the bow-shaped mouth.

  “Can there be anything worse than losing your child?” she asked. Evie knew that Gail was thinking of her sister, Margie, and of her little niece, Annie. “Life sucks,” Gail said.

  “Yes it does,” said Evie. “But it’s still the only game in town.”

  When Gail went back to the bed, Evie noticed that she was limping. She sat down on the edge and reached for her jeans. She pulled them on slowly, as if each movement of her arms and legs caused pain.

  “Take a couple Tylenol,” said Evie, and Gail did as she was told, washing them down with the juice. She sat in silence, knowing Evie was waiting.

  “The weather report said rain, so we had to cancel Quebec City,” said Gail. “When we got back to Marshall’s place, he found a letter from Paula in his mailbox. He was mad as hell, so I should have let things be. All I did is ask him if it was true, you know, if he beat her like she said.”

  “I guess he answered your question,” said Evie.

  “I guess,” said Gail. She flopped backward on the bed and began to cry.

  “Stop that,” said Evie. “For one thing, your two kids aren’t hanging in a portrait, never getting any older than six years. And they aren’t lying in the Bixley Cemetery, the way Annie is. So sit up and stop whining. For a second thing, you brought every bit of this on yourself. A lot of people warned you.”

  Gail reached for a Kleenex and blew her nose. Outside the rain was coming down so hard it sounded like nails hitting upon the roof of the house.

  “Fuck you, Evie,” Gail said.

  “Fuck you right back,” said Evie. “Now, as far as Ronnie and the kids are concerned, you’re away for the weekend. As far as your sister is concerned, same thing. So you can stay here as long as you want.”

  “If I file charges, he’ll probably kill me,” Gail said softly.

  “Now you know how Paula must feel,” said Evie. “So get up and get yourself downstairs. We’ve got company coming.”

  “Who?” asked Gail.

  “Billy Randall,” said Evie. “You know. The Vietnam vet who comes in the bar now and then.”

  “Crazy Billy?” asked Gail, her eyes growing large with surprise.

  “Oh, I don’t think he’s crazy at all,” said Evie. “On the contrary, if Billy Randall ran for president, I’d vote for him.”

  Outside, above the wind and rain, Evie heard a car pull into her drive. A door slammed. She peered down to see a woman running for the front steps, a plastic shopping bag held above her head to fight off the rain.

  “And Paula Thompson is here now.”

  ...

  Larry was having lunch—pickles, a can of pink salmon, two slices of wheat bread—when he sensed his mother standing outside his door. He stopped chewing the crunchy pickle so he could hear. There was a soft sound, like a grunt, as if she were bending. Larry saw a letter shoot in under his door. He had just watched Santo Jimenez come up the walk a few minutes earlier, carrying his mailbag beneath the sleek raincoat issued to postal carriers. And then he had seen Santo leave again, leaning into the sheets of rain as he made his way to the next mailbox. Larry pushed the can of salmon back on his desk and waited. He must be careful, for there were traps everywhere, he was certain. Was the letter tied to some invisible string, thin and ghostly as a cobweb? If he reached down and picked it up, would she jerk it back under the door, taking him with it, pulling him right through the narrow crack? He had no intentions of going to Henry’s memorial service the next day. Larry heard the top step squeak.

  He picked up the letter and carried it over to his desk. It was addressed to him, all right. Since he was now living with his parents, it had c/o Lawrence and Frances Munroe written beneath his name. It was a sad statement for a grown man’s life, but if you’re living with your mom and dad, it’s a true statement. Santos Jimenez, who was new at the post office, had obviously dropped the letter into the black box at the front door. It had a bluebird painted on its front and hung next to the wooden shingle that said MUNROES. The address in the sender’s corner was his former place of employment, Bixley High School. Two weeks earlier, Larry had heard from Maurice Finney that his old position teaching history was open again. Maurice had stopped by the post office and the two had gone out for a social lunch, at the diner where Paula Thompson waited on them. Apparently, or so Maurice revealed between bites of his cheeseburger, Larry’s replacement had been a young single woman from Portland who had already grown tired of small-school politics, as well as small-town social life. She had asked for the noose around her neck to be cut, and, according to Maurice, it had been cut with great relish. “She was high maintenance,” said Maurice. “The school board members despised her. But they liked you, Larry. I know they hated to see you go. They had no choice, you know, considering the fistfight and all.” While Larry sat in the diner’s booth, pondering this new event, wondering if he even dared act upon it, Maurice had gone on, between bites of his lemon pie, to reveal that he was hanging on to his own job by the skin of his teeth, considering that the progressive school board didn’t applaud his aging hippie look, the longish hair, the corduroy jackets with elbow patches, the matching corduroy slacks. “They’re on my ass every chance they get,” said Maurice. “But you, Larry, you’re the kind of guy that place needs. I think you should come in and talk to Bob. See what he thinks.” Bob was Robert Wilcox, the principal and a damn good guy. He had graduated two years ahead of Larry and they had played a lot of football in high school. So Larry had stopped by later that same day and talked to Bob. He had left his résumé. He had even left more copies of his old letter of apology. Let the chips fall where they may. In truth, even with a nice guy like Bob Wilcox on his side, Larry didn’t expect much to come of it.

  The stamp was a commemorative of Harry Houdini, one that had been issued earlier that year. Larry smiled. It wasn’t the kind of stamp to go on a business letter, but he knew Kay Fornsby well. She was secretary to the principal at Bixley High. This would be Kay’s idea of a little joke, her own way of telling Larry hello. Kay collected stamps, one of those obsessed people who turn up at the post office on the day of issue, buying up blocks of a new stamp in order to store it in sheets of plastic. For her to use a Houdini commemorative was her way of saying she missed Larry’s face in the office. Or maybe she was alluding to his disappearing act. Larry turned the letter over and grabbed a butter knife from the glass jar on his desk. With a quick thrust, he sliced the top of the envelope open in a clean, invisible cut. He had read in one of the magazines that his father kept lovingly stacked in the back room at the post office that the first letter with a date on it was mailed in 1661. This was in England, and the stamp was actually called a Bishop mark, after Henry Bishop, the Postmaster General. The idea behind it, according to Bishop, was so that “no letter Carryer may dare to detayne a letter from post to post.” What would Henry Bishop think of Larry Munroe, who had not only detayned the letters, but had even redd them?

  Dear Lawrence Munroe IV,

  On behalf of the school board of Bixley High, I am pleased to inform you that your application for your former position as history teacher for grades eleven and twelve has been accepted. T
his reinstatement is accompanied by a period of probation, which will be twelve months and terminate at the end of that time if there have been no unsatisfactory complaints or infractions.

  At the bottom of the letter, in bright blue ink, Bob Wilcox had written, Welcome back, Kotter!

  Below this, Kay Fornsby had written, And no tricks this time around, Houdini!

  Larry didn’t know what to say. He folded the letter carefully and put it back inside the envelope. He now wished that one of those many schools had accepted Andy Southby. He felt a certain measure of sorrow that he had taken such pleasure in the young man’s rejections. Surely the Diesel Mechanic School of Nashville would become a better place for allowing the boy to walk among their torn-down engines and carburetors? Rejection hurts, no matter how old you are. From downstairs came the sound of the back door closing. He knew his mother had taken her coffee cup and gone out to the screened-in porch. Saturdays were the days she did the most weeding in her garden, sometimes spending two hours out there, going up and down the rows, talking to herself in hushed tones. But now that the rain was keeping her from it, she would most likely do a crossword puzzle on the porch as she sipped her coffee and watched the storm pass.

  Larry sneaked down the stairs and over to the narrow table in the living room where sat a square, old-fashioned phone. Considering it was a Saturday, why would Katherine care if he called out of the blue, for no other reason than to share some good news with his son? She answered on the third ring, sounding sleepy, as if maybe she was still in bed, still curled up close to Ricky Santino, her smooth, white legs entangled in his hairy ones, as if they were two crabs.

  “Hello, Katherine,” he said. The last thing Larry wanted was to upset her. “Is it possible I might talk to Jonathan? I’ve had some good news and, well, could I talk to him?” He waited, listened to her even breathing at the other end of the line, knew she was deciding, like she was some kind of fucking god, some divine judge, whether to toss her son’s father a bone.