Nearer Than The Sky

by T. Greenwood

  “Have you been by the hospital yet?” he asked.

  I shook my head. I watched Lily stiffen.

  “Rich, can you get the candleholders out?” she asked. The steak crackled under the broiler. Lily emptied a pint of sour cream into the bowl of potatoes.

  Rich smiled at me and squeezed my shoulder. He handed me the candleholders, which I arranged in the center of the table, and he set down three plates from Lily’s china cabinet. They were white with the faintest raised flowers at the center. I couldn’t imagine her letting red meat touch these plates.

  “You’re driving her up to Mountainview?” Rich asked.

  “Yeh,” I smiled. “I am not looking forward to it, either.”

  Rich has been in our family long enough to know about Ma’s tendencies toward drama. I’ve always been able to count on Rich as an ally when Ma did this kind of thing. While Lily cried into her hands or took Ma into another room to calm her down, Rich and I would smoke cigarettes in Ma’s backyard. We’d been through this before.

  “Better not leave her alone when you stop for gas.” Rich chuckled softly. “She might get thirsty.”

  I stifled a laugh. It felt good to make fun. It made this less absurd. Less insane.

  Lily turned around. Her face was red, the platter of steaks was trembling in her hands. I concentrated on the meat so that I wouldn’t laugh.

  “Just kidding.” Rich shrugged. “Sorry.”

  “How’s the company doing?” I asked quickly.

  “Great. Summer’s over, so the guys are happy.You’d never believe what a difference there is between a hundred-fifteen degrees and ninety degrees.”

  “I can imagine,” I said.

  Rich lit the candles with a lighter from his pocket. When Lily reached into the fridge for the butter, he pretended to suck out the lighter fluid.

  Lily turned around and saw him. She slammed the mashed potatoes on the table. “Enough!”

  She sat down and put her napkin in her lap. I watched her eyes brim with tears and then spill. She didn’t move her hands to her face to stop them.

  “This looks great,” Rich said and reached for her hand.

  Lily stared at her plate.

  He cut into his steak. Red juice spilled out from the middle. He speared a thick pink piece and put the whole thing in his mouth. “It is great.”

  Lily wiped quickly at the tears and smiled at him weakly.

  Then, in the other room Violet’s chest rumbled and I watched Lily’s glance dart quickly toward the living room. She lay her fork across the plate and strained her neck to listen. She stayed like this until the danger of another explosion seemed to have passed.

  I feigned jet lag so that I wouldn’t have to stay inside that cold living room after Lily had started the dishwasher and blown out the candles.

  “You sure you don’t want some bread pudding?” she asked, scooping a warm spoonful of our mother’s bread pudding into a glass bowl. “It’ll help you sleep.”

  “Nah,” I said. “I’m pooped.”

  “I just made up the bed,” Lily said. “Ma was the last one to stay here.”

  I followed her up the stairs, noting how she walked on the balls of her feet as she passed by the living room.

  “Night, Rich,” I said, peeking in at him. He was sitting on the couch next to Violet’s bassinet, flipping through the channels. He was still wearing his work clothes. His tie was loosened, though, and he had slipped off his loafers. He had a new beer on the coffee table, resting carefully on one of Lily’s marble coasters.

  “Night, Indie,” he said softly. “Sleep tight.”

  “Shh . . .” Lily said, pointing at Violet and shaking her finger.

  Lily showed me to the guest room and waved her hands around, gesturing to everything I might need. “There are clean towels in the closet, extra blankets and pillows. If you get hot you can adjust the air here. I usually keep it at 65 degrees. I’ve been sleeping downstairs with Violet, so if you need anything, come get me.You might wake up in the middle of the night if you’re jet lagged. Help yourself to some of the bread pudding. I don’t sleep much, so you won’t wake me up.”

  “Jeez, Lily, stop. I’ll be fine. Thank you.”

  She looked flustered, and then she peered toward the open door.

  “What’s the matter?”

  “Nothing,” she said.

  “Is this about dinner?”

  “I’m fine.” She pulled back the blanket and fluffed the pillow.

  “Thanks,” I said, yawning.

  “There are more blankets in there,” she said, suddenly irritated. “Sleep tight.”

  After she left, I lay down on the hard bed. The walls, even in the darkness, were bright, reflecting the street lamp outside. The sheets were crisp to the point of being uncomfortable. I imagined Lily spraying them with starch and ironing them stiff and flat. I closed my eyes and concentrated on the noises of this house. I missed the sound of the woods. The sound of Peter breathing and the smell of a fire burning in the next room. Above me, the ceiling fan spun the stagnant air. And beyond that, I could hear the whirring of the dishwasher, the whirring of the air conditioner, the whirring of their hushed voices indistinguishable from the voices on the TV. I fell asleep listening to the sound of oxygen being forced into Violet’s lungs.

  I woke up in the middle of the night to a familiar sound. It sounded like branches tapping against the windows of the cabin during a storm. I reached first for Peter and then, remembering where I wasn’t, sat up disoriented and blinked my eyes until they focused in the dark room. The sound was coming from outside, but there were no trees in Lily’s yard. There was only a cactus, and gravel scattered to fill the spaces where grass should be.

  I got out of bed, covered my shoulders with a blanket, and walked down the hallway. The thick carpeting on the stairs was soft on my feet, different from the cold wooden floors of the cabin. But at least the floors at home were solid. I felt as if I might sink into the carpet here, that I might easily be swallowed in the creamy pile.

  There was a soft light coming from the living room. I thought Lily might be feeding Violet, that I might be intruding. I was afraid I might have stumbled into that hour of night when Lily and her baby were the only ones awake in the house. It was difficult to imagine Lily cradling Violet in her arms, though. Even in pregnancy Lily had lacked that certain indescribable quality I have always equated with motherhood (the slight blush of a cheek, the certain swell and softness of the body). Leigh Moony’s face was already beginning to turn that particular shade of blush, even just a couple of months into her pregnancy. Her bones were not so angular anymore. But Lily had retained her pale cold skin and sharp angles throughout. I saw her once in the early months when I came out for one of Ma’s false alarms. Then later, after Violet was born and Lily brought her to Maine. By then the small swell of her breasts had already disappeared; she’d let her milk dry up, opting for the cans of formula and clean glass bottles instead. I had noticed after dinner that her dish rack was full of sterilized glass bottles and rubber nipples.

  Lily wasn’t in the living room, and Violet was silent in the crib. I peeked at her and watched her for several moments, looking for some indication that she was still breathing, for the faint rise and fall of her chest.

  There was a light on outside, illuminating the back patio. Beyond the reflections the light in the living room made on the sliding glass door, I could see the faint outline of Lily’s patio furniture. White wicker chairs and a glass-topped table.

  I glanced at Violet and then slid the door open slowly. A rush of warm air hit my face. It had to have been thirty degrees warmer outside than it was in the house. It felt like going inside the cabin after sledding or skiing on a winter afternoon in Maine. At first I didn’t see Lily, and thought that maybe she had just left the light on to ward off burglars. Maybe she was in the kitchen fixing a bottle or some warm milk for herself. Then I heard that scraping, brushing sound again and saw a flash of Lily’s hair. What
I hadn’t noticed until now were the tumbleweeds, a virtual forest of mangled branches. The entire backyard was littered with them, some as tall as Lily. I could hear her grunting as she pulled them apart, cutting them with a pair of hedge clippers. From the patio I watched her fighting the tumbleweeds as if she were in the jungle instead of her own backyard. My heart started to beat loudly when I heard her cussing.

  “Goddamnit,” she whispered. “Fucking weeds. Shit.”

  I thought about turning around and going back inside the house, but she was so close now she would have been able to hear me sliding the door open again.

  I coughed softly.

  “Jesus,” she said, startled, as she appeared from behind one particularly large tumbleweed. She held her hand to her chest as if to keep her heart from escaping.

  “Sorry,” I said. “What are you doing?”

  She shoved the tumbleweed aside and came to the patio. Despite the heat, she was dressed from head to toe in black. Black turtleneck, black jeans, and thick black gloves.

  “Trying to get rid of these damn things,” she said pulling off the gloves.

  I raised my eyebrows at her and motioned to her clothes. “Why are dressed like that? You look like a criminal.”

  “You wouldn’t believe how prickly they are. The first time, I came inside all scratched up. My legs and hands were a mess for a whole week.”

  “It’s one-thirty in the morning,” I said.

  “Did I wake you up?”

  “No. But can’t this wait until morning? Have you slept at all?”

  “I have to wait until nighttime because it’s too hot to dress like this during the day.” She sat down in one of the wicker chairs and cocked her head to the side, to get a crick out of her neck.

  “Lily,” I said. “I’m worried about you.”

  “Don’t be.”

  “I’m serious.You’re all wound up.”

  “I am not wound up.”

  “What about dinner?” I persisted. “Rich and I were just kidding around.”

  “You and Rich are cruel,” she said.

  “It was all in fun.”

  “You think this is fun? You think any of this is fun?” Lily waved her arms toward the house, toward the tumbleweeds, toward me.

  “I’m just saying that sometimes you need to let go for a second.You need to be able to step back. Rich is only—”

  “Rich . . .” she started. “Rich isn’t dealing with this very well.”

  “The stuff with Ma? Come on. He’s been down this road before. This is classic Ma. Making fun is his way of dealing,” I said.

  “Not with Ma,” Lily said, her voice cracking. “With Violet.”

  “What are you talking about?”

  “Nothing,” she said and pulled off her gloves. Her hands were small and white on the glass tabletop. She looked at me intently. “He thinks I’m overreacting. He thinks it’s not as bad as it is.”

  “I don’t understand,” I said. “He seems very concerned.”

  “He doesn’t come with me to her appointments, he won’t help with her medicine at home. . . .”

  “I’m sure he’s just scared,” I said. I remembered Rich holding Violet right after she was born. At the beach in Maine, he shielded her from the cold wind with his whole body. I remembered the way her small fingers curled desperately around his thumb.

  “And then that crap at dinner. It’s like he thinks everything is a joke.”

  “That was about Ma, Lily. That had nothing to do with Violet.”

  Lily stared into the dark backyard.

  “Besides, they’ll figure out what’s wrong soon enough and then she’ll be fine,” I tried.

  “She really is sick,” Lily said then, loudly. She turned to look at me and something like fear flashed across her eyes. Her hand flew to her lips and fluttered there, a strange, longwinged butterfly hovering in front of her face.

  “I didn’t say she wasn’t, Lily. Jesus.”

  I left her in the backyard and returned to the cold room, cold sheets, cold air spinning over my head. Leaning over and picking up the phone, I knew that Peter would have already left for the cafe. I imagined he was probably deciding which films to show for the day. He might have had Joe mull some cider to ward off the autumn chill. As the phone rang, I closed my eyes and thought about cinnamon and cloves and sharp blue autumn skies. I imagined Jessica, woken from sleep, covering her ears with her paws. But when the machine picked up, I couldn’t think of a thing to say and hung up the phone. I lay back down on the unforgiving sheets. Outside the tumbleweeds crackled and I perched at the edge of sleep all night, peering down at the dreams that would not come.

  1972. I don’t know now if this is true or only a vaguely recollected nightmare that has lingered too long. But I do know this: cold linoleum on my bare feet, the glare of the bathroom bulb in the middle of the night, and the way my mother’s hair spilled like lemonade over her shoulder as she knelt next to Lily on the bathroom floor.

  The maze of the Mountainview house is more complicated in my dreams. The hallways are wider and the doors lead to rooms that were never there. Shades drawn reveal landscapes inconsistent with the aspen, pine, oak of my childhood. Sometimes I see night through the glass, sometimes I see California ocean, desert red and long stretches of impossible green (and I don’t know if it is grass or water or the velvet expanse of an old green dress of Ma’s I found in the closet one day). I could get lost in this dream house, while in reality there were few places to hide. Awake, getting lost was a futile task. I knew what could be found behind each door. I knew which ones to open and which must be left closed.

  Tonight, I am barefoot and wandering through this jigsaw house. This puzzle of orange daisy wallpaper, blue shag carpeting, and the fake marble countertops that peel back like stickers when I pick at the edges. I am barefoot and I will not wet the bed tonight. I will not make that dream trip down the dizzying, eagle-after-eagle-after-eagle wallpaper hallway to the bathroom only to wake up drenched in my own sour pee. It was the sound of the plastic mattress pad that woke me, reminded me that I must not do that ever again.

  The sound of my feet across the kitchen floor makes me think of rain against glass. I concentrate on the way my heels, toes, heels, toes make rain in the midnight kitchen.

  The door to Ma and Daddy’s room is wide open, not locked shut, not locked tight with yelling voices behind. It is open like the inviting lid of a toy box, like the lid on my crayon box, and it is impossible not to look inside. Daddy looks like a big bear on the bed. He is spread out across the mattress and his back is so wide I could spread my whole body across it if I wanted to. The white bedspread with the pills I can’t help but pluck off when I get sent here to nap or to cry is crumpled up at the foot of the bed. Daddy doesn’t like any covers on his feet. Not even in wintertime.

  I can feel the need to pee like a heart thudding softly in my stomach. I put my hands between my legs and push the nightie up tight, concentrating on the soft flannel on my naked skin. Eagle after eagle after eagle, and there is yellow light coming out from under the bathroom door.

  “Ma,” I whisper. “I gotta go. . . .” I hadn’t worried that I might need to wait.

  She doesn’t answer me and I put my hands on the door, lean into the door and whisper, “Ma. I don’t wanna pee my bed again. I got up so I wouldn’t pee my bed.”

  Again, I can’t hear anything inside. I push gently, knowing that if she’s sitting on the toilet like last time, I’ll get spanked. I’m certain that if I find her sitting at the edge of the toilet, leaning toward the roll of toilet paper that’s teetering on the edge of the sink instead of on the roll where it is supposed to be, then there is bound to be trouble. But not more than if I wet my bed. Not more than if I wake up with my nightie soggy around my hips.

  The door opens real slow, orange daisies orange daisies orange daisies and the yellow yellow glow of a bare bulb hanging still and bright in the center of the room. I think at first that Lily is only sleep
ing, sprawled across the floor like Daddy sprawled across the bed. Her nightie is yanked up under her arms, her face buried in the fuzzy orange bath mat. But I can hear her crying and Ma has got something in her hands, a tube that is connected to Lily’s bottom, a bag of water at the end like the kinds you see on All My Children when someone’s in the hospital. And Ma is kneeling next to her, her hair spilling like lemonade across one shoulder. She is pushing the tube into Lily, holding her butt to keep her still. But Lily doesn’t scream, she only grabs handfuls of orange carpeting from the bath mat. I can see it between her fingers. Hold still, baby. Hold still.

  I stand in the orange-daisy yellow, bare-bulb light of the midnight bathroom and stare at Ma’s hands working quickly, making that tube disappear. And I know that whatever Ma is doing to Lily is worse than anything she might do to me if I wet the bed.

  I must have made a sound, because Ma turns her head and sees me there, stands up so quick she bangs her head on the light bulb. “Shit,” and it is swinging and the light is flashing off and on like when Daddy plays Monster in the living room at night (until Ma reminds him about the lightning). Then it goes completely dark and Ma is cussing softly. And then all I smell is the dark, awful smell of excrement. The terrible, earthy smell of when the dog next door gets loose and messes in the yard, the stink of the bathroom after Daddy on Sunday mornings. I feel my stomach turning and then I can’t hold it anymore. The pee is hot on my leg. It runs all the way down one side and then pools underneath my foot.

  I feel Ma’s hands on my back pushing me out the door. I’m giving Lily her medicine, Indie. Go back to bed. And she is pushing me so hard that she must not even notice that I wet myself.

  When I am back out in the hallway, the light goes on again under the crack in the door, and Ma is whispering to Lily. It’s okay, honey. You’ll be better soon. Everything will be okay.