“Thank you. And you know you are always welcome to chime in when I’m at a loss for words!” he teased. “Sometimes my thoughts work faster than my tongue.”
Her warm smile helped, but he saw that flash in her expression once more. Things were worse than he had thought.
“READY?” CADMUS ASKED, SWINGING ON his sports coat as he headed from the closet.
“Yes. I just need a minute,” Robert replied, sitting on the ottoman at the foot of the bed with shoehorn in hand and staring at the floor.
“Are you okay?” Cadmus asked, taking a seat next to him.
“Yes. Just a little tired … slept like hell last night,” Robert replied, wiggling his foot into his loafer.
“Yes, like me,” Cadmus replied, a small feeling of vindication based on their conversation last week. “Perhaps you should consider cutting back at the office.”
“Like hell I will! Three half-days a week? Lord help me if I can’t manage that. Jane manages most of it. She’s a smart one.”
“Let’s stay home today. You can paint, and I have reading to do.”
“No. I know how much you want to see the Turrell exhibit. Closes tomorrow.”
Robert handed Cadmus the keys to his car as he rose, and Cadmus later cursed himself for not demanding they stay home. Robert loved driving his convertible, knowing full well that at age seventy-nine his days were numbered.
They made their way down Montrose toward the art museum, Robert lovingly reaching his hand to rest on Cadmus’ leg as they passed the block where Patrick died when he crashed the car the night of the Shadyside party. The tree stood firm as the victor, time healing the gash that had been left in the bark so long ago. Cadmus often wondered how the confluence of events may have shifted had his father not been able to get hold of a car to chase after his mother, screaming her name to come back. Cadmus looked over at Robert to offer a smile of appreciation for his remembrance, but Robert kept his gaze looking out to his right, as if he were searching for evidence of Patrick.
The line to the main exhibit measured at least fifty people deep. Robert pointed to a bench several yards behind the end of the line, and Cadmus nodded as he watched him walk over and take a seat.
A mother with twin toddler daughters stood in line in front of him, the mother trying her best to pass the time and distract them, but the little ones had grown weary of the rounds of I Spy. One daughter raised her index finger in the air, claiming that she needed a new princess Band-Aid. As the mother released the hand of the other daughter to rummage through her bag, the little one meandered away from the line, causing a moment’s panic.
“Not to worry. I see her,” Cadmus replied, walking over to the little girl, amazed that she had gotten so far. Bending down, he asked, “So, what’s your name?”
“Sophia.”
“My, what a beautiful name. Did you know it means wisdom?” he asked, pointing to her temple. “Let me take you back to your mother.”
The little girl reached up to place her hand in his, beaming up at her new friend.
“What the hell is this?” Robert asked when they entered another room before the exhibit, Sophie still captivated by Cadmus as she moved forward in line.
“You can’t wear shoes in the exhibit. We need to wear paper booties,” Cadmus explained.
“Good God Almighty,” Robert mumbled. “What ever happened to simply painting?”
“Trust me.”
Robert and Cadmus slowly made their way up the stairs to the exhibit, taking sure-footed steps with a docent in tow. The dim light failed to conceal the uncertainty in Robert’s eyes, the strong constitution Cadmus once knew fracturing. An audible sigh of relief marked their arrival to the top, where Ends Around came into full view, a haze of colors morphing from warms to colds, creating a heavenly ether that drew them into the space.
A docent raised her hand as they approached, “Be careful. There is no wall, only an eight-foot drop.”
“Are you sure?” Robert questioned as he came to a standstill, staring forward in disbelief. “I see a wall.”
“No, it’s an illusion,” the docent stated, accustomed to the questions from the spectators. “There is no end.”
They stood there for several minutes, the light acting as a magnet holding them captive. Cadmus stood in one place, making a 360-degree turn to absorb the entirety while Robert remained fixated at the illusory wall.
“You would have made a good father,” he said to Cadmus.
“What?”
“A good father,” Robert repeated, turning his head to face his husband. “I saw you with the little girl. You would have made a good father.”
Few words passed between them as they meandered through the remaining exhibits, the main exposition leaving them at a loss for words. The Light Inside, Turrell’s illuminated tunnel that connected the two museum buildings, had less of an allure after traversing the special exhibits, but they still enjoyed the final sojourn as they returned to the exit nearer their car. Cadmus stopped at the men’s room while Robert continued on his way up the stairs, sharing that he would be waiting when Cadmus was ready.
Only a handful of minutes passed before Cadmus headed back upstairs. He noted Robert seated in one of the lobby chairs with his eyes closed. As he neared, his smile faded with the observation that Robert was slightly slumped to the side. He placed his palm on Robert’s cheek, and even though his flesh was still warm, he knew his husband was gone.
“I DON’T GIVE A RAT’S ass about the rainbow flags flyin’ around town. A man can’t marry a man,” JD barked through the phone. “And Robert knows it, too, now that he’s looked into the Good Lord’s eyes.”
“I have nothing to say to you,” Cadmus retorted as he slammed down the receiver, an attempt to hide just how much the call rattled him.
Robert was right about the contact, but Cadmus was thankful no one had appeared at the door. He quickly placed a call to Jane, asking her to ward off the McClellands. The Doyles were not accepting, but at least they maintained decorum. He promised Robert he would keep his wishes and not give “the bastards” one dime, but he feared this might take more strength than he had.
Robert and Cadmus both wanted the same arrangements, a private service at the funeral home on Heights Boulevard with only a handful in attendance. Robert did not want his entire office there, only a few veteran partners, his assistant, and Jane, of course.
Cadmus understood. The last thing he wanted was a large number of faculty present. While his work was a part of him, it remained a private connection. He rarely graced faculty gatherings, only committing to the bare-bones obligations. Genevieve was the only Doyle family member invited, as well as Clementine, who Cadmus thought of fondly, beginning from when she had connected him to Robert’s colleagues. With Robert gone, either of these ladies would take the helm for Cadmus’ service. He had no one else.
He looked out to the rose garden and made his way outside for a walk, still haunted by the shocking images of the paramedics running into the museum, sirens and lights flashing from the vehicles stationed on the street outside. Cadmus stared at his husband’s lifeless body as they lifted the gurney into the ambulance, and when they helped him into the back of the vehicle, he saw little Sophia studying him intently from the door to the museum, her mother’s arm wrapped around her as she tried to absorb what was happening to her friend.
Genevieve meant well with her letters following Robert’s death, and although they had created a beautiful relationship through the art of old-fashioned correspondence over the years, her most recent missives filled him with rage.
“How can she possibly understand?” He shouted at the library walls. She had some nerve in drawing a comparison from how she felt when Grandmother Callista died, a relationship so very different from his own. He resorted to tearing the letter into shreds, refusing to return that round.
Clementine dropped off meals twice per week and attempted to engage him in updates on the classes he relegated to her. On her
most recent visit, he managed to hold his temper until her car pulled away from the curb. Then he threw the aluminum tins in the trash and screamed, “I am not a goddamn invalid!”
As he stormed through the garden, he cursed God for making him suffer another loss. “I didn’t ask for much, damn you!” he shouted to the clouds. “I just wanted to go first! I needed to go first!”
Taking a seat on the bench, he counted three black birds on the roof of his home, their beaks revealing that their heads pointed in different directions, as if they were looking for someone. For the first time since Robert’s death, Cadmus broke down into tears.
DELPHINA
Autumn 2013
DELPHINA DID NOT NEED TO look at the clock to know it was 2:19 a.m. or thereabouts. She did not need to hear the clock chime at a quarter past the hour to know it was time for what had, unfortunately, become an unintended ritual. She rose from bed, her care exercised from an intention to send warm thoughts of peace and relaxation to Victor as he lay next to her, serene and deeply nestled in sleep.
“Lucky soul,” she whispered as she eyed him with jealousy. She began her count.
Eleven steps. One … two … three. Delphina counted the steps as she made her way to the alarm pad, a walking meditation, each foot placed solidly, deliberately, on the cool oak floor. She could easily extend her step to make it an even ten, but she liked the odd number, and eleven was the number first counted when the routine began.
Seventeen steps to the French door leading to the garden. She noticed the moonlight striking the bookcase, illuminating the shelves of books, each tome housing stories of lives led and interests pursued. The day following a night of fitful sleep, she fancied the idea of reading to nurse her insomnia, or if the time was right in the semester, there was grading to do. These sleepless moments, however, were always fraught with challenges, her fragmented mind struggling to comprehend text in the hours before dawn.
Delphina opened the door and made her way downstairs to the garden, the humidity enveloping her as she took a deep breath to acclimate to the nighttime air. As a train cried three long wails, she thought of the train lines that ran below UHD. She wished she could meander the UHD halls at that moment rather than her yard. Taking a full, deep breath, she began her walking meditation, intentionally grounding her feet on the cool, travertine stones lining the perimeter of the backyard.
After two revolutions, her meditation wandered to a reflection on her dreams of the mansion that had resumed with force, occurring almost nightly, a haunting in her mind. She attempted to reconstruct as many pieces of the dream as she could, pulling from previous dreams over the years. The house, a stately mansion resting on a simple lawn, faced a street lined with new oaks that ran perpendicular into a busier street. The street in front of the house ran east-west, but she could not explain why she knew this to be so. A brick wall bordered the busy street, and on the other side of the wall was a body of water with gentle currents. Perhaps it was a bay. A frequent image of black ripples, moonlight winking on the lapping water, made her more prone to connect the setting with night rather than with day. The dreams set at night often featured intense light radiating out of every window, offering a stark contrast to the blackness. Golden white poured from each frame, the intensity of it blocking the sight of anything on the inside.
Delphina had yet to make it inside the house, something she desperately wanted. In some dreams, she was a passenger in a car driving through the neighborhood; one particularly vivid dream had her on a thruway making a sharp curve. Yet on other sojourns, she hovered with a prime view, the home emanating a sterile feeling, as if it were frozen in time and deserted by the inhabitants.
Minutes before, Delphina had walked the perimeter of the grounds on an overcast day, captivated by scores of dead black birds covering the yard. The gruesome sight did not frighten her, but the birds strewn about the grounds gave her pause as she studied their contortions—a frail leg, twig like and bent in the opposite direction; a neck twisted in such a way that the black feathers parted to reveal gray, flaky flesh; a wing bent upward with a feather splayed like a Native American headdress. The images hollowed her stomach and brought a fantasy-like quality, much like dreams of flying or trying to run despite motionless feet. She remembered when a cousin had frightened her as a child, telling her that dreaming of snakes meant someone hated you. She feared snakes because of the anxiety that was triggered about who hated her, not so much because of their fangs and venom. This offered a good topic of study: birds as symbols. Perhaps she could find a pattern.
Delphina returned to her steps with greater mindfulness. Reflecting on the dream was a lapse in her focus, but now she was determined to stay in the present moment—the smooth texture of the stone, the water trickling down the obelisk fountain.
She still did not refer to herself as a Buddhist. It would be too much for her momma to accept. Any time she was critical of Catholicism, her momma raised her hands in the air to beg St. Delphina to forgive her daughter and not withhold blessings. Delphina often wondered why her momma, a woman hungry for glamour and elegance, chose as her namesake a saint regarded for piety and humility.
After circling the garden seven times, Delphina sat on the marble bench next to the fountain, continuing her attempt to settle her heart. A pecan from her neighbor’s tree fell next to her foot, reminding her of the treasure she had found so long ago on the way home from Heights High. She picked up the gift, noting the irregular black markings on the shell, thumbing its length. She thought of the nut inside and its symmetrical composition before turning to her own life, to look for patterns she could see. She found it frustrating that the patterns in nature were simpler to discern. Animals instinctually know their purpose and function. A tree knows that it needs to grow, extend its roots, and in doing so contributes to the world, all without the interference of free will.
Delphina offered a slight bow to the pecan tree before returning to the house. After a gentle tug on the French door, she let out a shriek at the darkened figure standing in the hallway.
“Mommy?”
Adjusting to the nighttime shadows of the room, she offered a lopsided smile to the figure reaching toward her.
“You scared me, love!”
“It happened again, Mommy.”
“Tell me about it, Lady Bug,” Delphina scooped up her daughter and carried her back to bed.
“He was at my window, but I told him I did not want to go,” Ainsley whimpered into her ear.
“And did he leave?”
“No. He giggled and said the Indian Princess wants to play with me.”
“All is well, Ainsley. All is well. You are safe,” Delphina murmured, trying to stifle a giggle at her daughter’s fear of Peter Pan. She conceded that once you remove the knowledge of the well-loved fairy tale that has become an accepted part of children’s culture, it was understandable to fear a boy in tights who flies to your room at night. Nuzzling her face into her daughter’s neck, she breathed in her scent that was mingled with the faintest traces of cotton candy from the day’s outing to the zoo.
One present moment topic she had mastered was showing her daughter affection, and Delphina acknowledged the irony that it had taken her position at UHD to help the cause. Victor was correct that she needed a professional outlet to channel her restless heart, which she knew was his euphemism for anxiety. Ainsley’s enchantments intensified with every passing year, and with reverence she watched her daughter learn new words and connect life’s dots, witnessing her journey in consummate adoration. If it was, indeed, true that you chose your parents, Delphina was over the moon to be chosen by this exquisite soul.
She could not help but give a rueful chuckle at what this round of choices beget. She remembered first noting the elaborate billboard with Peter Pan emblazoned in the familiar script but with gold shimmering reflectors filling each letter, mirroring the late afternoon sun. Driving home from UHD later than normal, guilt nipped her for leaving her daughter with Rosa
for so long, although Ainsley would not mind or notice.
The child loved Rosa to the point of anointing her with the endearment Abuelita, their time together often spent in the garden describing the treasures Ainsley found while combing through the yard: a hallowed snail shell, leaves from the boxwoods, a fragment from a bird’s egg. Each object joined a narrative, woven in a blend of English and Spanish, as they thoughtfully constructed a village under the stairs leading to the porch, a hamlet that welcomed fairies at night to lull Ainsley to sleep as she dreamed of the enchanted world she created only steps from her bedroom bay window.
Leaving late from work led to taking an alternate route home to avoid traffic, which led to passing the infamous billboard that inspired Delphina’s idea for a family theatre date to see Peter Pan, hence Ainsley’s recurring nightmare of a boy in tights. Delphina was responsible for her daughter’s nightmares.
Settling into bed with Ainsley, Delphina was full of hope at the thought of dreaming again. Wanting to make it inside the home this round, she tightly closed her eyes to force a return. It was doubtful she would make progress; she knew matters of the soul fail to surface on demand but often result from a peaceful mind. After several minutes, Delphina conceded it was a futile effort. She opened her eyes, and with that movement came the release of her facial and neck muscles, the physical intensity of her efforts having distanced herself from the dreamlike state to an even greater degree than she had realized.
Fully awake, she studied the distorted pattern of angles projected on the wall from her neighbor’s porch light as it shone through the shutters. Resting her chin on Ainsley’s head and feeling the tickles from her delicate strands of hair, she began counting the angles, one … two … three … four … as the clock struck a quarter to three.
CADMUS
Spring 2014
“DR. DOYLE, YOU NEED TO eat,” Clementine pleaded after she returned to the library from the kitchen, noticing that the last meal she delivered had not been touched.
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