This Vacant Paradise

by Victoria Patterson

  Dread coiled inside her, but she tried to remain calm.

  “Oh,” he said, “and Grandma Eileen found her Christmas gift to you”—he stared at her accusingly—“in the trash.”

  “How?” Esther asked. She’d put the broken pieces in the trash can by the side of the house.

  “‘Go get the car,’” he said, adopting Grandma Eileen’s voice again. “‘Esther needs to pay that fine.’” He paused, staring at her dramatically. “She must’ve been looking for Ahab at about three or four this morning,” he said, and his lips tightened. “By the way,” he said, “Nora’s the one who finally told me where you were. That Brenda wasn’t helpful at all.” His eyes gleamed mischievously.

  “Tell me what happened,” she said.

  “What an awful cat,” he said. “A monster, so big and ugly. He’s like a dog—so big. And that first night you were gone, he kept banging his head into the front door, even though I put food by your door, like he knew you weren’t there. Bang! Bang! Bang! And his meow, what a noise—and I couldn’t get him to shut up. I threw golf balls at him and he looked at me with those yellow eyes, telling me to fuck off.”

  “God,” she said, imagining Ahab’s gruesome stare.

  “I know,” he said, and then the story came rolling out of him, breathlessly: “I thought I’d taken care of Ahab, but he must’ve come back at about three or four this morning, I’m guessing, and that’s when Grandma Eileen went after him, with that old pellet gun of Gurney’s; she said he used to shoot the seagulls with it. And I’m guessing here—this is purely conjecture—but she must have fallen over the speed bump, the one close to her house, what with all the Heinekens she’d been drinking, and the way she was carrying the gun and her cane, and the rain.

  “I came over at seven in the morning, like I always do, and I found her asleep in her bed, wearing her flannel nightgown, with blood everywhere. I found the pellet gun outside, propped against the garbage cans.”

  He leaned over and found a pack of Grandma Eileen’s Pall Malls in the glove compartment. He tapped the pack against his palm. One cigarette surfaced, and he pulled it out and lit it with the car lighter.

  “Bless her little heart,” he said, waving smoke with his hand. “That must’ve been when she found the sculpture in the trash, when she was out there in the rain.”

  “Is she okay?”

  “Oh, yes.” Smoke coursed from his nostrils and drifted, disappearing out the cracked window. “A broken nose,” he said. “You’ll see. Ahab got away, but she said she got a good clean shot, right at his head; she was loaded, so who knows.”

  “Shit,” she said.

  “But that’s not the worst part,” he said. He paused, stared out his window. “That’s not why I finally came and got you.” He stared back at her with a terrible anticipation.

  “What?”

  “Richard—Uncle Richard—I don’t know how to tell you.” He offered her the cigarette, and she shook her head. “Pills,” he said, stubbing the cigarette in the car ashtray. “Peaceful, really.” He wiped his hands against his pants. “He’d been storing sleeping pills in a sock, where the attendants didn’t look. No note, but his roommate said that he was just waiting to know that Ahab was taken care of, that once he’d found Ahab a home, there was no reason not to.”

  She didn’t know what to say, and for a long moment they watched each other silently. She wasn’t that surprised by the news, and her lack of an emotional response worried her. Was she becoming as insensitive and uncaring as Grandma Eileen?

  She went over her last encounter with Uncle Richard, trying to remember if there had been signs of his impending plan: Uncle Richard sitting at the side of his bed, lonely and ghostly, his cashmere socks matching his V-neck sweater, poking his finger inside Ahab’s cage (“Goodbye, Ahab. It’s been eleven good years we’ve had, but it’s time for you to leave.”).

  He’d tricked her into taking the cat. And then she remembered how he’d watched her put Ahab in his cage in the backseat of Grandma Eileen’s BMW, fumbling until she fit it in. The memory took on a profound weight, as if she’d seen a glimpse of the future but hadn’t known it at the time.

  After shutting the back door, she’d turned to see Uncle Richard standing by the window of his room; he was holding back the curtain with a hand, staring out at the parking lot, forlorn and bewildered. When he saw that she’d seen him, his face drained of expression—it went blank and empty—and he let go of the curtain and disappeared behind it. But even with the curtain closed, his expression lingered, as if he were still staring at her.

  Rick was watching her closely. Something crossed his face, as if ignited by whatever he saw in hers, and he wiped his nose with the back of his hand. His features seemed to hold all the grief and shock and disappointment that she should be feeling. He was trying to contain it, but his face crumpled, and, in the horror of his expression, she realized that his emotions were uncontrollable. He choked on a sob and his hands covered his mouth. He hunched forward and made a groaning sound.

  “I’m sorry,” he said, speaking into his hands. “I don’t know what’s wrong with me. I didn’t even know the guy. It’s just so sad.”

  A heaviness came to her own throat. For some reason, she remembered walking to the parking lot of Coco’s restaurant with Uncle Richard when she was a kid. It was drizzling and Uncle Richard said, “Hurry, run to the car,” and she said, “It feels good,” and he said, “Not on my bald spot, it doesn’t,” and he leaned over so that she could touch the soft skin of his bald patch with her fingertips.

  BLACK LIGHTS SHAPED like coach lanterns were on either side of the door to Esther’s living quarters, and perched above the door—to scare the seagulls—was an owl made of aluminum but painted to mimic hand-carved wood. The owl seemed like an omen, and as Esther opened the door, she wondered how she could get rid of it without Grandma Eileen’s noticing.

  “He was the scariest cat I ever saw,” Rick said, picking up Ahab’s food dish—hardened with cat food—and following Esther inside.

  He set the dish by her kitchen sink. “I’ll bet he goes away into the hills to die, the way the Indians used to do.”

  She longed to take a shower and be alone, but vacillated about whether to ask Rick to leave. Once she was alone, the reality of her situation might tackle her, leaving her breathless.

  She knew she wouldn’t be able to sleep without medicinal help—the conversation with Rick had stirred up all her problems again, forcing her to survey her predicament from the far less romantic vantage of Grandma Eileen’s house and influence. And she didn’t even want to finger the implications of Uncle Richard’s suicide, as she knew that all tributaries of sorrow led to one large, unending grief.

  Her answering machine blinked with messages. She hesitated, but there wasn’t much she could hide from Rick anymore, so she pressed play.

  “Esther,” came a man’s voice, and there was a labored sigh. “This is Sean. Sean Caldwell.” Pause, strenuous breathing. “Of course you know this is me. I don’t know why I said my last name. What an idiot. How many Seans do you know? God”—a shuffling noise. “What’s wrong with me? I’m sorry. Jesus. Sorry, Esther. Listen. I got your phone number from Brenda’s address book. I just want to hear your voice. It’ll make me feel better.”

  Esther looked at Rick, and he swiped one forefinger over another, indicating that she’d been a naughty girl.

  “Anyway,” Sean continued, “I’ve been thinking about you—thinking a lot about you, really. I need you to call me. Please call, Esther. On my private line; my number is . . .” Esther pressed the button to stop the machine.

  “Now I know why Brenda hates you,” Rick said.

  “You’re wrong,” she said. “If I had an affair with her husband, it’d give her more freedom.”

  Rick set his mouth in an embellished, disapproving grimace.

  “Oh, God,” he said, after a silence, rolling his eyes, “you know who really hates you? Aunt Lottie and Mary, they hate y
ou!”

  “They were waiting for a good reason.” After a long, serious pause, she said, “I wanted to know what it was like.”

  “What what was like?”

  She wanted to explain, to say something, maybe: I wanted to know what it was like to be with Charlie. To be with a man because I want to be with him, not for any other reason. And she was trying to decide how to word it and, beyond that, how much to disclose, but Rick must have seen it in her eyes, because he said, “Oh, honey. Was it worth it?”

  THE NEXT MORNING, at Rick’s suggestion, Esther tried to confront Grandma Eileen, finding her promisingly alone at the terrace deck, staring out at the metallic shimmer of sunlight on the ocean—glittering xxxxx’s across the surface.

  Half-inch-thick glass set into the terrace wall protected the space from the cutting wind. Beside Grandma Eileen was a mesquite door table with an oxen-yoke base, and on the table were her Heineken bottle and a large plastic ashtray with CARPE DIEM and its translation—SEIZE THE DAY—written across the base, a flowering of cigarette butts surrounding the words.

  Esther stood near the Jacuzzi paved with green slate. She wouldn’t grovel, she decided—she wasn’t ready for that—but she would be patient, reasonable, practical, appropriately repentant, and tactful. Potted geraniums dotted the terrace, and there was an oily, metallic sea smell.

  The violent look of Grandma Eileen’s broken nose shocked Esther, made her remorseful. And it further lent a disturbing fortitude to Grandma Eileen’s features, as if she were a boxer finished with one fight and ready to take on another. “Goddamn cat,” she said, her face becoming defiant and disgusted and evasive all at once. The gout had returned in the big toe of her right foot, and she sat in a recliner, her stout leg cushioned and elevated between pillows.

  “Rick says no funeral,” Esther said. “He says that you’ve already had Uncle Richard cremated.”

  “I killed that cat,” Grandma Eileen said. Bruised wedges were beneath her eyes, and her nose was taped, nostrils flared.

  “I’m sorry about the BMW getting towed,” Esther said. “I’m going to pay you back.” The apology was a formality. She wanted to defuse the incident. And she hoped Grandma Eileen would still let her use the car.

  “I killed that cat,” Grandma Eileen said, seemingly obsessed with the topic. A strand of pearls roped around her neck held back her throat, and underneath the pearls was a large diamond hanging from a gold chain. Mottled, sun-damaged skin was exposed at the V of her sweater, and her breasts were flattened at her sides.

  “Shot him, right in the head.”

  “Maybe he’s alive,” Esther said.

  “Dead,” Grandma Eileen said. She gave a massive head shake. “Making all that noise.”

  “Did Uncle Richard want to be cremated?” Esther asked.

  A silence hung between them. The air seemed moist and stagnant, so much so that Esther wished the thick glass barrier wasn’t there to hold back the wind.

  Grandma Eileen took a sip of her Heineken, closing her eyes, as if in deep concentration. The diamond at her throat winked as she swallowed, and calm spread across her face. When she finished swallowing, her eyes opened. She set the bottle on the table; it thumped against the wood. Her eyes were bloodshot and leaky, and she swatted at an escaping blob with the back of her hand. “I don’t like Communists and I don’t like losers,” she said, and Esther knew that she was speaking of Charlie. “He’s a loser. He screws married women.” She paused, heaving with emotion. “You’re like the rest,” she said. “You let me down.”

  Esther felt her stomach go cold. She wanted to defend Charlie because she wanted to defend herself—all condemnations of him were directly connected to her. She opened her mouth to speak, but nothing happened. Her hands became clammy and she just stood there, stupid with shame.

  A seagull passed. Her sense of desolation increased. She looked out to the coastline, to where it flattened at the horizon, and she had to squint. The ocean and sky glared back at her, bright and clear after all that rain. Who let you down? she wanted to ask. Who am I like? My dad? Eric? What are you talking about? I’ve always loved you. I’ve always been here for you. She concentrated her attention fully on Grandma Eileen, willing her to speak, but Grandma Eileen closed her eyes, as if taking a nap.

  But Esther knew she was awake. Her bosom rose and fell with her long breaths and her lips quivered every now and then, as if she were mumbling secrets to herself. The elastic of her peach-colored polyester slacks had come down a little at her stomach, where her sweater didn’t cover; the ridged pink indentation of the elastic’s former grip marked her skin. Despite everything, Esther experienced a surge of miserable affection for her grandmother. For a long time, she stood before her, purposely ignored, but finally Grandma Eileen turned and opened her eyes.

  “Leave me alone,” she said, and Esther granted the request.

  4

  THAT NIGHT GRANDMA Eileen was in bed, woozy after all the Heinekens and pain pills, her vodka martini, half an Ambien. The only light came from the television, vaporous and flickering, the eleven o’clock news: a housewife lynched and killed in Ghana by an angry mob, the body dragged. Savages. Plans being made for the Million Man March in Washington. No one would show up anyway. Always, the O. J. Simpson trial. Fucking stupid incompetent Judge Ito. Japanese. A segment on Jay Leno’s “Dancing Itos.” How could they call that news? Weather and sports next.

  Not really wanting to, during the commercials Grandma Eileen went over everything that had happened when she’d stalked Captain Ahab. She kept reliving it. Stumbling on the crack in the road, falling and smacking her nose, the palms of her hands on the grainy street. Blood dripping on her flannel nightgown, seeing Ahab’s shadow. Drizzly rain. She remembered the grip of Gurney’s pellet gun in her fingers, and the thrill as she pulled the trigger. A sense of having hit Ahab, and then he’d disappeared behind a bush. Had she really shot him in the head? She couldn’t be sure. But she wanted to believe that he was dead. She’d felt, when she shot him, a relief, like she’d destroyed and vanquished everything that was against her. She could blot them out forever. If only she could be sure.

  She smiled a little in the darkness, thinking about what Mary and the others were saying about her, shooting a cat. She tried to wiggle her toes, but her body was a fat blank of deadness, including the gout-ridden big toe—the drugs doing their work, moving sluggishly through her veins.

  Mary and Lottie would think she was crazy, that she was a crazy, mean old woman. And of course they’d be right. She loathed them all, but she loved them, sometimes. Her smile flourished for a second, then disintegrated back into a frown as she watched the laxative commercial, knowing that she hadn’t had a decent bowel movement in three days, despite all the Metamucil Rick forced her to drink. She imagined him waiting for her to drink the grainy water in its glass, little flickers of what looked like dust, tasting like wood and grass. If she didn’t have a crap by tomorrow, he’d bring her two pink pills.

  Rick would come in soon to turn off her television and say his final goodnight. For the last month, she’d been trying to talk him into sleeping with her overnight. She hated when he left. She’d have to wait until 7:00 in the morning to see him again.

  She felt close to Rick and had shared with him some of her tragedies: the supposed death of her mother and father when she was four. Her aunt had told her that her parents had died in a car accident, but she knew that wasn’t true, because it didn’t make sense. She’d grown up believing that her parents were still alive, that they’d taken a long trip, and wondering when they might return; finally, after waiting years and years, she’d let herself think of them as dead.

  “What did happen?” Rick had asked, his hand at his cheek. When she hadn’t answered, he had said, “How did they die?”

  “I don’t know,” she had answered, a mass of ugliness twisting her heart. Dad had left first, and then Mom had abandoned her. Sent her to preschool with a note in her knapsack, directing the
school officials to call her aunt.

  Grandma Eileen had even alluded to Gurney’s many affairs. The whore he said he loved. How once he’d come home with his woman’s scent all over him, and when she’d asked him to shower, he’d refused and gripped the back of her neck, pulling her head into him, into his smell. (“Men,” Rick had said, letting his lips press together.) And the time when Gurney had come home drunk, insisting that she wasn’t his wife, and that he didn’t really live here, and that these weren’t really his kids.

  When she’d shot Ahab, it had felt like she was killing Gurney’s betrayal of her, destroying him—even if Jesus Christ had already sent a brain aneurism years ago to punish him. But she loved Gurney, always had; she’d worn his clothes for months and months after his death. And she’d been as cruel to him as he was to her, refusing a divorce and celebrating his anguish.

  Her bedroom door opened slowly, and Rick began walking to her bedside, smiling, pausing only to turn off the television on his way. He turned on her bedside lamp and she squinted, adjusting to the light.

  “Why were you so grumpy with Esther?” he said, and his mouth did his usual downward pout.

  “I was not,” she said, cheeks burning, nostril stretched across her face from the tape.

  “I think so,” he said admonishingly, tucking the blanket and comforter under her chin. “Do you need a final potty visit?”

  She didn’t know how to respond, because he talked to her like she was a child, and because she wanted to say yes, just to have him be closer to her—to have him touching her. Her reliance on him confused her.

  “Esther lied,” she said, to change the subject.

  His head was above her, and he shook it, continuing to pout. He was her moon and stars. She wanted him to stay. Once, he’d climbed into bed with her, snuggled his body against her back.

  “Sleep with me,” she said.