The Blue Hour

by Richard Teleky

  At seventy-five, Mrs. Carney still made an effort to look after herself. Like her daughter, she wore jeans and a T-shirt, but her hair, which had turned white, was cut with care. She had on small pearl earrings, as if she’d started to get ready for church and changed her mind. She’d once owned a small greenhouse that supplied local florists with pots of violets, though the competition did her in long before I met her daughter. Business ran in the family, Sheila claimed, but not good luck.

  “I suppose you’ve been following the Anton case,” she began, watching her daughter kneel down to tie back some floppy daffodil leaves. “These cops are amateurs. Just hopeless. Once they decided Guy was gay, they probably lost interest.”

  The Anton case. Already named. “We don’t know that for sure,” I said.

  “Well, he had male company overnight. That’s what my friend Helen told me.”

  “We’ll have to see what happens, Mrs. Carney.”

  “Now you’ve got to call me Doris. I’m sure I’ve asked you before. Just Doris, okay?”

  “Are you talking about Guy?” Sheila called.

  “Of course, dear,” her mother answered. “What else?” Then Doris turned to me. “There’s no public interest, that’s the problem. If he’d been abducted…”

  “Anything break yet?” Sheila called.

  “Guy died of a concussion,” I said. “My friends called it a cranial bleed, that’s what the coroner reported. He fell and had a fatal concussion.”

  “Has there been an inquest yet?” Doris asked. “I didn’t read about one in the papers. If there’s no inquest, the case is still open.”

  “Mother watches all the TV crime shows, don’t you, Mom? You live for them.”

  “Never mind, smartie. You don’t expect me to watch those silly news programs – all those people yelling at each other.” Doris paused before whispering, “She’s in a bad mood.”

  “What’s that, Ma?”

  “We’re just visiting, dear. You go on with your work.” She lowered her voice. “The police ought to have an angle by now, I know that much.”

  And there had to be an inquest, she was right. To look at evidence and close a case. My thoughts stopped short: a case. I’d used the term, too.

  The clear, bright morning sky augured well for the day. A good day to drive over to Nick and Hedy’s. I wondered if they knew that the police had questioned Neil, or if they’d heard about Neil at all. A shock, it would have been. Occasionally they’d mentioned that Guy said it was difficult to meet decent companions, decent was their word, though he might have used it. Party girls or troubled divorcees, they made up the field.

  “That overnight fellow, I wonder if they found him yet?” Doris mused.

  No reply from me. Though I had little reason to protect Neil, his name would be all over town if I mentioned it. And maybe Guy had another nighttime buddy.

  “He was there the day your friends’ son died. Her tenants saw him, in the afternoon.”

  Sheila came up to the porch stairs. “I need a glass of water.” She stepped around us, towards the back door. “Don’t move, I’ll get it myself.”

  “On Sunday, Doris?” She’d caught my attention.

  “No. Saturday afternoon. That’s what they told the police. They were out on their porch, just back from grocery shopping.”

  At dinner, Neil said that the last time he’d seen Guy was the rainy night when I ran into them on Tappan Square. If I closed my eyes, the two men leaning toward each other were as clear as anything in my garden.

  The kitchen door slammed shut and Sheila joined us. “I want a breather.”

  “You work too hard,” Doris observed. “You’re like me.”

  Sheila sat on the bottom step and took a gulp of water. My backyard faced east, and the sun was already hot on our faces. Neil hadn’t mentioned visiting Guy in the afternoon. What had he told the police?

  “The cops were at the mall yesterday,” Sheila said between sips. “Asking about Guy.”

  “What would his death have to do with the mall?”

  “He hung out there a lot, looking after his parents’ booth. And everyone knew about his Civil War collection.” She took another gulp and frowned.

  “Sheila’s had a break-in,” Doris said. “Somebody smashed her backdoor lock.”

  “Let me tell it, Mother,” Sheila cut her off. “On Friday afternoon, while I was working. But they didn’t get much. I always keep a few cheap gold chains in my jewelry box, as a decoy. I’m sure it was Loretta, but how to convince the police? Now if I was a rich professor, you can imagine how high they’d jump. I don’t own rubies and emeralds…”

  “Neither do most people at the college.”

  “They’re rich enough. And it had to be Loretta.” She glared at me as if I’d been Loretta’s sidekick. “She keeps calling in the middle of the night.”

  “You’re still getting those calls?”

  “Almost every night, I told you she’s crazy. She’s probably jealous of me, because of Brad.”

  “He must be enjoying this,” Doris observed.

  “I don’t know,” Sheila said, ready to defend him.

  “What are you going to do?” I asked.

  “Will you come by and change the message on my answering machine? If a man’s voice says ‘Leave us a message’ it might put her off. Last night I told Brad to make her stop. I love him but he’s practically brain dead.”

  “Now dear,” Doris interjected.

  “Mother, you know I can’t talk about Brad with you.”

  “And the police?” I asked.

  “They took some fingerprints and offered to give me the name of a locksmith. Can you believe it? Like I couldn’t put in a new lock myself.”

  10

  Wednesday, May 2

  “You should know…” Hedy began, and then stopped to take a deep breath. “We wanted you to know…” she stopped again.

  I gripped my phone, the effort in her voice alarming me. I’d just gotten home from work and surveyed the fridge. It was one of those times when a sandwich would have to do.

  “Nick spent the night in the hospital.”

  “What happened? Where is he now?”

  “At home. Back at home. Last night he had terrible chest pains, like a heart attack. He didn’t want to go to the hospital – it was after ten and he just wanted to go to bed. It’s hard to know what’s best, but I’ve got to take care of him. So I called 911 for an ambulance.”

  She took another long breath.

  “And then?”

  “They kept him overnight. For observation. They did an EKG and all the blood work. His father died young, at forty, from a heart attack. It’s in his family.”

  “Was it a heart attack, Hedy?”

  “No, they said it was stress.”

  “That’s good.”

  “Stress can be a killer, too,” she contradicted.

  “I only meant it’s good he didn’t have a heart attack. You made the right decision.”

  “I don’t know what I’d do without Nick. It was terrible, he was in such pain. He thought his chest was going to split in half.”

  Too often I find myself left with only empty words. “You’ll help him,” I offered. “You always do.”

  “I’ve got to. Since Guy died nothing’s been the same. I can’t sleep, but I have to force myself to get out of bed in the morning.”

  “Is it alright if I drive over tonight? After supper, for a short visit. I’d like to see Nick.”

  “That would be good.”

  I finished in the kitchen and headed out. The pleasant May evening, along with some Brahms on the radio, almost distracted me during the drive. I tried not to imagine what I’d find at my friends’. I could see Hedy’s face tight with fear, and hear it in her voice. She’d made no effort to conceal her distress.

  As soon as I reached their front door, it opened with Hedy standing behind it. “We’ve been waiting,” she said.

  “The traffic was heavy. How’s
Nick doing?”

  “It’s been a bad day.”

  “What an understatement,” said Nick, joining us in the hallway. He rested a hand on Hedy’s shoulder. It had been more than a week since our last meeting and he’d obviously lost weight, his face haggard with grief.

  “But you didn’t have a heart attack,” I said, alarmed by his appearance.

  “No, I was spared that.”

  I followed them into their living room, where Nick settled in his leather recliner, Hedy chose a corner of the sofa closest to him, and I sat in the opposite chair. A glass vase of purple tulips drooped their heads toward the top of the coffee table between us. Funny, the things we remember. Somewhere I’d read that Georgia O’Keeffe claimed to love tulips because they died so beautifully.

  “What did the doctors tell you?” I asked.

  “Not much. But you won’t guess that from their bills.”

  Hedy concurred with a nod. She’d put on bright lipstick and the blue eye shadow Nick liked, as if to reassure him that all was well, but her face appeared sunken underneath the mask.

  “I wasn’t an interesting case. They gave me some sleeping pills,” he added.

  “You’ve lost weight,” I said.

  “We don’t feel like eating,” Hedy said. “This morning I forced down a banana. It was all I could face.”

  “His ashes are over there,” Nick said, gesturing at an ornately carved console table, one of Hedy’s estate-sale finds, beside my chair. “We brought him home Monday.”

  I turned to see an unopened cardboard box, perhaps a foot square, almost at eye level with me. It was sealed with several wide strips of clear tape.

  “We can’t open the box.” Hedy pursed her lips. “It was hard enough bringing him home.”

  Nick stared at me without any expression.

  I glanced back at the box. No one would have guessed its contents – it might have been any of the parcels Nick made for Hedy’s eBay sales. Somewhere across the country an anxious customer might have been waiting for it. The notion made me flinch.

  “What’ve you heard from the police?” I asked tentatively.

  “Nothing since the inquest.”

  “I didn’t know there was one already. I would have gone with you.”

  “It’s not a formal hearing, only the coroner’s verdict,” she said. “We read it on Friday. It was horrible, all the details. Ohio coroners have to be physicians – that’s not true everywhere – and he was so thorough, I can’t bear thinking about it.”

  Without a word between them, Hedy had taken over the conversation. Nick cleared his throat and then reached out to turn on the reading lamp at his side. A pool of silvery light enveloped him.

  “It hasn’t been in the papers.”

  Hedy sighed. “No? I didn’t look. They said ‘manner of death undetermined’ – that’s it. No one knows what happened.”

  My question about the police was thoughtless. What suffering person likes hearing another’s curiosity? Hedy didn’t mention Neil Breuler, although the police may not have brought him up. Again, I saw Guy on the common, grasping his bicycle while Neil leaned toward him. Guy had always seemed lost in the daydreams of adolescence. I must have recognized that he dreaded being different, yet I never said a word of assurance. When did I first attach “poor” to “Guy” as if the words belonged together? Before he joined the army? After he returned home? I couldn’t remember.

  “We’ve got to empty his house by the end of the month,” Hedy said. She bent over suddenly, picked up a tulip petal that had fallen to the table and cupped it in her hand. “It’s what his landlady wants.”

  “I can’t do it.” Nick shook his head. He pulled a lever on his chair and, with a sharp snap, a footrest pushed his feet upward.

  “His rent’s only paid until the end of the month, dear. We still have…”

  “Let me help you,” I said.

  They looked to each other, startled at first, or so it seemed.

  “I can put his things in boxes, I can even bring boxes from the library. There’s no reason for you to torture yourselves.”

  “It’s very kind of you,” Hedy said finally, looking down at the petal, studying it as if to fix its color in her memory.

  “That is kind,” Nick said. “We might take you up on the offer.”

  “I really mean it. I can’t imagine what you’re going through but there’s no reason for you to spend a minute in that house.”

  “We know you mean it. I’m glad you came by.”

  Of course I didn’t tell them that I’d had a phone call from Claire Warren asking if I knew anything more about Guy’s Beecher Stowe letters. “Life has to go on,” she’d opined. I should have said, “But not yet. Not so fast.”

  “Would you like some tea?” Hedy asked. With a nervous movement of her fingers she crushed the petal.

  “I don’t want anything,” Nick said somberly.

  Earlier that evening, when I’d talked with Hedy on the phone, Nick must have been out of the room. She’d spoken more easily and reminded me that after Nick inherited his uncle’s auto dealership, he’d hated the business and become withdrawn, despondent. “He’s already had one nervous breakdown,” she’d confided. “I can’t let him have another. He was very sick then. I have to be careful, that’s how it is. I know how to take care of him.”

  Such an old-fashioned term, nervous breakdown. Almost genteel, Victorian.

  “I think we should have some tea,” she insisted.

  “Whatever you say.” Nick looked at her intently. Shadows from the lamp light fell over his face, darkening it. He sat immobile, his hands folded together. Was he recalling his own father’s death, back when Nick was ten? Still a boy, who had to grow up without a father. And now he’d lost his son, his only child.

  Instead of moving, Hedy kept her focus on her husband. “I want us to have some tea.”

  “I just want to sleep,” he replied testily.

  “I know that, dear, I know that,” she repeated.

  Their trip to the hospital had scared them both and wouldn’t be easily forgotten. Not at our age, not now. Looking at the oil painting above the sofa, an impressionistic cluster of peonies – another of Hedy’s finds – I wished they would tell me about their visit from the police. Guy had been dead for twelve days, his body had been cremated, his ashes brought home, to the console table beside me, yet the nature of his death remained unclear.

  “I can pack up Guy’s things any time you like,” I offered once more, thinking I should leave soon.

  “I can’t believe this was Guy’s karma,” Hedy said. “He never harmed anyone.”

  Nick listened without appearing to take in her words. He must have been remembering the hospital, the doctors, their tests.

  “I don’t believe in destiny,” I said.

  Hedy put her hand to her forehead, as if to stop herself from falling. Before I knew what was happening she leaned forward and began to sob. Her shoulders heaved as she shook back and forth while she gasped for air. Sweat suddenly beaded her face.

  I moved to join her but Nick said, “Let me.”

  In an instant he sat beside Hedy and she dropped her head against his chest, where she continued to weep.

  Nick rocked her in his arms, his head bowed over hers. “I’m here,” he said softly, stroking her head. They held on to each other as I watched. Helpless, I stayed in my chair.

  In time Hedy pulled away and wiped her cheeks with one hand. “I’m sorry, I can’t take it. I want to be stronger, but he was my son.”

  “There’s nothing to be sorry for,” I said.

  Nick drew her back again and she laid her face on his chest. “I’m here, hon,” he said, at the same time closing his eyes. “I’m here for you.”

  By ten o’clock I drove into my garage and locked the car. Of course the thought of Nick and Hedy had shadowed me home. It’s horrible to admit but Guy’s death had put a stop to their rants, and it was a relief. They’d been subdued by loss, and th
e need to mollify them was no longer uppermost in my mind. While watching them tonight I remembered how Hedy’s voice had dropped to a whisper when she’d mentioned Nick’s earlier breakdown. That auto dealership must have ended Nick’s dream of a poet’s life, as if his talent hadn’t panned out and he’d failed himself. How much disappointment can anyone live with?

  Since I rarely saw Nick apart from Hedy, there was little opportunity for confidences. Once or twice he’d mentioned their first meeting, at a crafts fair on the common. Their court-ship was a short one, that much I knew. Occasionally Nick referred to his “difficult” mother, who blamed Hedy for his unfinished doctorate. Apparently her idea of a professor son didn’t include his beautiful young wife. Hedy’s parents had died in a car crash when she was in her twenties, so my friends had to contend with only one living in-law, yet Hedy claimed she’d always felt like an intruder at family dinners. This made no sense; Hedy should have been a splendid daughter-in-law, interesting and thoughtful. But people can hurt each other without meaning to.

  And now they were locked in a grief that nothing would alter. Neither Hedy nor Nick had mentioned what the police still wanted. Sheila said that two cops had been at the mall asking about Guy. I’d like to have heard their chatter, listened in to their suspicions.

  Without stopping to check my answering machine, I climbed into bed. Some days the best thing to do is turn out the lights and hope for sleep. But restless, I picked up Aristotle. At least he might slow my thoughts down.

  I flipped through his first essay on friendship, refreshing my memory before turning to the second. The section headings caught my attention, especially the one marked, “Occasions of breaking off friendships.” Though it seemed like a betrayal, I began reading: “Another question that arises is whether6 friendships should or should not be broken off when the other party does not remain the same.” I read that sentence twice, stopping each time at “when the other party does not remain the same.”

  According to Ari, friendships based on utility or pleasure are easily set aside, and this is normal in the course of life. “But if one accepts another man as good, and he turns out badly and is seen to do so, must one still love him?” Now this question was more than I was ready to face. Not tonight, after leaving Nick and Hedy in their pain. So I set the book down, back in its place on the bedside table.