The Mercy of Thin Air

by Ronlyn Domingue

  THE MORNING AFTER Amy’s family met to sort pictures, Amy made a wonderful breakfast of French toast, fresh blueberry and peach salad, and strong coffee for her great-aunt.

  Twolly left the table, quite full, and went straight to her bedroom, where she began to paw through the drawers in her lingerie chest. She tossed at least four decades’ worth of old dainties to the floor. Even when we were young, she was notorious for hiding things from herself. She muttered tame curses under her breath as she searched for items she was convinced were there.

  Amy stared into a wide closet packed with boxes. The clothes bar dipped under the weight of Twolly’s wardrobe. Every shoe was lined up on the floor, but not a single pair matched. Amy sighed as if exhausted. Just start, she muttered to herself. She began to remove boxes, unlabeled, and stack them on the floor.

  “Oh, honey,” Twolly said, “please make sure you remember how they were put in there. I’ll never find anything out of order.”

  “Yes, ma’am.” Amy almost smiled. “Any luck, Aunt Twolly?”

  “I’m not finished yet. I know those photos were in here a few years ago.”

  Amy stretched deep into the closet and wrestled a large wooden jewelry chest from the space. I had seen it before, when Twolly was still young, in the bedroom of her parents’ home. Amy placed it on a pile of boxes and began to pick through the drawers. It was full of quality costume jewelry, pristine Bakelite bracelets, tiny empty cardboard boxes, receipts, coins, hairpins—

  “Aunt Twolly, this is a gold mine.”

  Twolly turned to her great-niece as a lacy panty twirled off her finger. She squinted through her cheaters. She was still looking when Amy lifted a delicate silver chain interrupted by clear peridot rectangles.

  “You did this. I recognize your style.” The drawer was full of similar pieces.

  Twolly returned to her exploration. “I did enjoy that period of my jewelry making.” She slipped a drawer from its place and put it on her bed. “You can take that.”

  “I couldn’t,” Amy said.

  “Please, honey, take it. The whole box, in fact. You’re the only person I know who’d wear anything in there these days.”

  “But wouldn’t your children—”

  “Wouldn’t appreciate it. I went through that not too long ago anyway, after Sunny died. We had shared jewelry from time to time. Your mother and aunt got what they wanted.” Twolly turned back to her sorting.

  Amy returned the necklace to its place. “Thank you so much. I’ll give back what I don’t think I’ll wear.”

  “Keep it.”

  Before she closed the drawer, Amy gently raked behind the thick row of necklaces and found two small boxes. The first was empty. The second I recognized.

  The hinge of the box groaned as Amy lifted the lid. A faint pansy scent escaped the darkness, and Andrew’s scent escaped me. There was his ring, circled by the color of his eyes. I refused the desire to touch it, trace the inscription, return to the questions—

  Twolly exhaled and watched the air turn gray and thick under her nose. Amy shivered from top to bottom, quick as a seizure. Condensation on the old, drafty windows turned to ice. The two women looked at each other as they slowly lowered the items in their hands.

  “Loretta!” Twolly clutched her bare arms. “Where is she? The sitters always play with that thermostat. Loretta!”

  “I’ll take care of it.” Amy shut the narrow drawer, the ring box hidden.

  I warmed my old friend again as I wondered how she had come to possess and keep the ring I left behind. Twolly of all people would have figured out that the wide, masculine band was meant for him.

  By the time Amy returned, Twolly had found what she searched for. “Look. Here are some pictures of your great-aunts and grandmother.” They sat on the bed, their hips almost touching.

  The first several photos were of Twolly and her sisters, their skirts long and hair growing out. Fashion after the Crash. The following ones, stacked underneath, were from a time before. A photo of Newcomb’s campus, the tiny oak trees bushlike on the perimeter of the grounds. A group shot from one of her classes, vague but familiar faces staring back. I saw Anna Whitcomb before she became Mrs. Warren Tripp.

  Twolly lingered a moment as she touched a photo of her and me. In the snapshot, she kept her end of the seesaw anchored down while I reached for the clouds.

  Then, the second to last one, facedown, was turned upright. “What a terrific picture.” Amy studied the image.

  I was asleep on the divan, but not alone. My body nested into his side. Our heads touched. My blond locks framed his excellent profile. His arms circled me loosely, as if I’d been held tight earlier and his slumber compromised the hold. I remembered: a shutter click had awakened me. Before my eyes focused, the culprit was gone. Drowsy, I patted his chest. He awoke slowly, yawned, hugged me close. Time to go home, Cinderaziela, he said.

  “Aunt Twolly,” Amy said. “Who’s this?” She held out the photograph.

  Twolly’s reach was hesitant, but she accepted it. She skimmed the back, then looked at the picture. “That’s Razi. She was one of my most cherished friends. She’s been gone so long.” Twolly paused. “What a strange coincidence. I dreamed about her last night. We were playing marbles outside, Razi and me. In the dream, it was Good Friday, 1927, the day it rained so bad and everyone was afraid the levees were going to break for sure and drown New Orleans. That was the year of the big flood, you know. Anyway, in the dream, we were in her backyard. She had a circle, and I had one. We kept shooting into each other’s space until all of the marbles were mixed up. Then a big gust of wind and rain came, and they all blew away. A clap of thunder made us jump. She looked at me and said, ‘Hey, Twolls, what are we doing out here in this weather? I think we’ve lost our marbles.’ And she laughed at her joke. That’s so odd. I haven’t dreamed of her in a long time.” Twolly stroked my sepia chin.

  “Who’s the young man she’s with?”

  “She had so many beaux. Boys noticed the adventure in her eyes, and they liked what they saw. And she liked their variety. Goodness, she was bold with them. She’d disappear at a dance and come back with her lipstick rubbed off from kissing.” Twolly gave the photo to Amy.

  “Look at them, how they’re holding each other, how they fit.” Amy touched the points where our bodies met. “He must have been special. Don’t you remember his name?”

  “So many years ago.” Twolly paused, then flinched. “It was Andrew.” His unmistakable essence escaped her, its rush intense.

  “Andrew what?”

  “It’s been ages. I can’t remember everything.”

  “Do you remember what he was like?”

  “He was a decent, well-mannered boy. Respectful. Smart, very smart. He was supposed to be a lawyer.” She smiled, but it was guarded and sad. His scent mellowed. Twolly suddenly stood up. “Ooh, that cane syrup I had with breakfast coated my bowels too fast. This old plumbing.”

  I KISSED forty-seven boys. Twenty-seven—including my first, Jimmy Reynolds—received nothing more than a quick peck. The rest, I’ll admit, I necked with in varying degrees. Of those remaining, fourteen were seriously kissed and nothing more (although ten tried to go further), eight explored north, and three reached south. Of the last five, each touched me bare, although only three saw me that way. With two, I almost had to heed Mrs. Sanger’s advice. The funny boy who was good with his hands was too eager, and I never got to call him Champagne in person. And the shell-shocked doughboy with the furry chest was easily distracted by noise, especially those indistinguishable between pain and pleasure. That leaves only Andrew, who knew the color of my other cheeks in daylight.

  Truth be told, my hands were far more curious than theirs. I sought texture in odd places. A loose cuff invited me to the smooth underside of a wrist. From a tilted neck, the silken cord that begins behind the ear and disappears in the shoulder. Spread wide, my hands traveled the spine—slate flat blades, tumulous ribs, sinew levees, square waist. Har
d cube knees under my grip. The collapse as the surface of my hand moved horizontal between hips. A moor on the chest, sometimes full, sometimes sparse, nourished above the thick red knot of vessels underneath.

  When one delighted in those soft and secret places, I knew. I felt his breath and blood rise, and I echoed him, embraced his solid urgent rush. I was alive, aware, ignited, unafraid, my flesh a surge of pleasure, and when the crest gave way to the fall, I flowed. With them, my body reveled in its demanding corporal want. The sensations were their own rewards. I expected nothing else.

  On occasion, one would remind me of others before. Suddenly a boy’s hand I held was that of one who preceded him—the turn of his knuckles, the brush of his shoulders—and for that instant, the memory of a distant beau was as strong as the grip of the new one. At times, the recollection put the old name on my tongue, and I would have to excuse away the mistake. I could not admit that my senses were sometimes tricked, that a present moment could summon so convincingly, seamlessly, the past.

  Then there was Andrew. He let me touch him with a patience, an anticipation, that no other would. I was free to run my fingertips, the flats of my hands, my lips, across his skin with maddening slowness. Through instinct as much as his requests, I learned to change pressure, direction, speed, when his breathing altered, his muscles rolled. I could not feel separate from him when his heat blended with my own.

  Much to my delight, he turned to me for the same exploration. Every nerve danced to meet his touch until my entire body positively hummed along with the harmony he created. The pleasure would culminate in bursts or in waves, and he discovered my reaction was rarely predictable but always savored.

  I craved a closeness with him that I never had with anyone. The rise under my skin wasn’t only blood and oxygen. An ascent, weightless as dawn, seized my body when he looked at me, when I thought of him, when we touched, and I called it love. My Andrew, who kissed my life wide open, insisted that our union reached far beyond our bodies, if only I could see.

  SCOTT WAS ASLEEP and Amy was going through her family pictures when the phone rang. She dashed into the kitchen to grab it, cursing that she’d forgotten to turn off the ringer. The answering machine picked up. She let it play through Scott’s outgoing message.

  “Hey, it’s me, Chloe. Anyone still up? I know—”

  “I’m awake,” Amy said once the phone was at her ear. “Is something wrong?”

  “Just calling to say hello.”

  Amy twisted her lips and squinted her eyes. “How’s the new job?”

  “Great. I’m working a ton of overtime on this database project, but for some reason, I don’t mind. I think I finally love what I do. Oh, guess what? They’re sending me to a conference in New Orleans in late October. The muckety-mucks get big hard-ons around here about professional development.”

  “That’s more than three months away.” Amy sounded disappointed. “Will you have time to visit?”

  “Aims—please. Do you think I can sit through three days of burned hotel coffee, salty cookies, and active listening?”

  “Then that’s a yes.”

  “They’d have to get all Clockwork Orange on me. Strap me down and put drops in my eyes. What are you up to?”

  “Work mainly. I went to my Aunt Twolly’s last weekend to collect some family pictures.”

  “How’d it go?”

  “Fine.”

  “You did okay? I know it must have been hard, what with losing your grandparents so recently. And considering what he did with your grandma’s things.”

  “Well, we just have to get over it, don’t we?”

  “I think I’d want to hang on to what was left as long as I could, you know?”

  “He was a peculiar man. You know that,” Amy said.

  “He was an eccentric. Guess it goes with the territory.”

  “Maybe if he’d taught aerospace engineering or psychology, but he didn’t. Composition and rhetoric, how ordinary. Anyway, there’s no use dwelling on things I can’t figure out. It’s done. Time to move on.”

  “Do you still miss your grandma a lot?”

  “Yes, Chloe, I do.”

  “So what’s the deal with the family project?” Chloe took the hint from Amy’s curt tone. “You’re collecting pictures and making copies?”

  “Of what’s left. Why?”

  “Are you doing that scrapbook thing? News articles and stickers and locks of hair and whatnot? They must do it for the rubber cement fumes.”

  Amy grinned. “Digital photos. I’m using the marvels of modern technology so the whole family can have copies.”

  “Hell, one day, some moron will figure out how to put chips in everyone’s heads so they don’t forget a damn thing. Imagine—family history like you’ve never known it before. We won’t need pictures then.”

  “Collective memory without the mystery,” Amy said.

  “That’s so Carl Jung meets Silicon Valley or something.”

  “You can write the program to make it happen.”

  “No, thanks. Sometimes forgetting is a good thing.”

  Amy stared at her reflection in the microwave door. “Absolutely.”

  SEVERAL DAYS had passed since Amy’s weekend with Twolly and her family. One evening, Scott found her in the dining room with their computer and a scanner on the table. She flipped through one of many envelopes of pictures that she’d taken home with her. Scott had a small envelope in his hand as well.

  “The people we bought this house from—was their last name Burrat?”

  “No.” She didn’t look up.

  I had not checked the mail that day. Responses to my letters about Andrew had been so sparse. Scott ran his finger along the flap’s edge. When I glanced, I saw Benjamin Beeker’s name on the return address, handwritten. I still awaited replies from Twolly and Warren Tripp Jr., and hoped that the batch I’d sent to O’Connells in Philadelphia might prove fruitful.

  “I don’t think we have any neighbors with that name either,” Scott said.

  “No.”

  “It’s a personal letter, I think. Someone must have the wrong address.”

  Amy quickly reordered the photos in her hand.

  “How’s the project coming along?” he asked.

  “Kind of slow. I haven’t figured out exactly how to organize everything yet.” She slipped the photos back into their place. “Are you going to bed?”

  “Soon. It’s almost eleven. What about you?”

  “I might stay up for a while.”

  “Okay.”

  She ducked her face near the computer screen and clicked away at an even pace.

  “Aims, I’d like to know about your visit. You didn’t tell me anything.”

  “What do you want to know?”

  “Well, how are your parents, for starters.”

  “Dad sprained his knee during a closet cleaning mishap, and Mom is agonizing over color choices for the master bathroom.”

  “No where-are-the-grandnestlings-for-my-empty-nest jabs?”

  “One.”

  “How’s the greatest Great-Aunt Twolly?”

  “Moving more slowly in body but not in mind.”

  “And how was it, going through all those old pictures?”

  “Fine. We had a few laughs, and Aunt Twolly got to tell old stories.”

  “It wasn’t upsetting?”

  “Why should it have been upsetting?”

  “Well, you were there because of what you promised your grandmother. It must have been a little sad.”

  “Is that what you want to know about the weekend? If I sat around the table wringing my hands and bawling my eyes out?”

  “That’s not what I meant.”

  “Then what did you mean?”

  “Honey, I know there’s something going on in your head. I know what it means when you start keeping the house so neat. Something is bothering you, and it doesn’t seem to be getting any better. I want to help.”

  “There’s nothing you can
do. But I appreciate your concern.”

  Scott flushed at the condescension. “How am I supposed to respond to that?”

  “By leaving me alone.”

  “I’ve given you nothing but space.” He leaned over the table closer to her. “I haven’t pried into the reason why there isn’t a speck of dust or a germ on any surface in the entire house. But I’m tired of it now. I’m tired of worrying about you. I’m tired of forced conversations and attempts to get your attention. I’ve tried to be understanding, but that hasn’t done a bit of good.”

  “You don’t know what I’m dealing with.”

  “No. I don’t. So why won’t you tell me? I’m your husband. Who are you going to talk to, if not me?”

  “I want to work this out on my own.”

  “Work what out? What?”

  “I don’t expect you to understand. A lot of complicated—memories—came up after they died. Things I hadn’t thought about in a long time.”

  “Like what? Were you molested or something?”

  “Don’t be ridiculous.”

  “Then what are you talking about?”

  “You know how you can hear a song that you haven’t heard in a long time, and you suddenly remember being somewhere or with someone when that song played? It’s something you haven’t thought about in years. But you remember it very, very clearly. You can feel it. For me, it wasn’t a song. It was pictures. Pictures I hadn’t seen in so long that I nearly forgot their meanings.”

  “You haven’t told me the problem. You’ve only told me what started it.”

  “I don’t want to talk about this anymore. Why don’t you go to bed?”

  “Stop shutting me out,” he said.

  “Don’t shout at me.”

  “Put yourself in my place for ten seconds.” He gripped the top edge of a chair. “How would you feel if I did this to you? It’s like our lives stopped after your grandparents died. I’m sorry you lost your grandparents in such a short time. I know how much you loved your Grandma Sunny. And I know you loved your grandfather, too, in some way, and that it must be really hard to forgive him for what he did to your grandma’s things or for being so overprotective or for whatever grudge you hold against him. But that’s not the problem. I know it. You’re trying to create order in a life that wasn’t chaos to begin with. Why? Whatever it is, it’s shut you off from me.”