Julia did so. She felt Fay’s fingertips stroke the back of her hands, and resisted the impulse to shake her loose as she would a mouse or a spider. Fay said, “He means you no harm.”
“He’s here now?”
“I’m quite sure of it.”
She searched behind her closed eyes. Nothing came to her. How were you meant to sense such a thing, how were you meant to know it? “Why is he here? Still here?”
“His spirit can’t find its way to God.”
What if God was just the biggest ghost of all? The thought popped into her head, unbidden.
“There’s something he doesn’t want to let go. Maybe there was unfinished business between the two of you. Things left undone and unsaid. Can you think what they might be?”
“Everything.”
“Speak up, dear.”
“Everything between us was unfinished.”
Again, the stroking pressure of her hands. It was unbearable. She would scream.
Fay said, “If there’s anything you would like to say to him.”
“Tell him I’m sorry. I should have known how sick he was. I should have been nicer.” Should have should have. The list of her omissions and regrets. She waited, but the silence remained dumb and black. She opened her eyes, pulled her hands away. “Why can’t I feel him?”
“Because you’re still keeping up all the defenses of your rational mind.”
“I’m not trying to. I don’t mean to.”
“You must get past the idea of trying. Even trying not to try.”
Julia shook her head. She despaired of doing anything right.
“Now don’t be sulky. Why would you expect this to be easy? And for heaven’s sake, don’t make such faces.”
Julia’s head hurt. There was a hot lump in her stomach, as if she had eaten something unwholesome. She would not try to not try. Not think about not thinking. How much of yourself did you have to give over? What would be left of you once you were hollowed out, a perfect vessel?
But she wanted this. She wanted to find him again. So much had been taken away, so much was unfair and would always be her fault.
Fay took her hand, as before, and this time Julia didn’t flinch. “Eyes closed,” Fay instructed. “Don’t do anything but listen.”
Julia imagined herself as an ear, as a seashell on an empty beach with the waves echoing through her. The sound of Fay’s voice reached her from a great distance. She didn’t attend to the meaning at first. There were only words floating on the surface of the water. Fay said you had to become nothing, like the dead themselves. Who were you anyway, what was so important about your little collection of opinions, likes and dislikes, this or that feeling, memory, sensation? Your soul was only part of the one great soul. Give up your questioning, your stubbornness. Believe in miracles. The dead were not dead. Dissolve into water. You were already halfway there. More than halfway. Just a little further.
But her stomach hurt. Don’t, Julia told it. As if it was a matter of will. Her stomach was having none of it. The lump of sickness pushed through her, inexorably down, the pain of it making her body shift this way and that. And this was what brought her round, so that her ordinary, commonsense self began to rouse itself, fight back. Why would you not want to be you, why would you want to be nothing? There was something soft, sly, dangerous at work here . . .
That was when she came to and looked around her at this peculiar room, this stage set of a grandmother’s house. Fay was still talking, murmuring just under her breath, and when Julia made a convulsive movement to shake off Fay’s arm, Fay looked up, and pure terror made Julia scream.
Why Grandmother, what big eyes you have.
Then she was out of her chair, bumping into furniture, dizzy and sick, desperate to find the door. Fay was following her, saying something, a blur of noise. Her purse strap snagged on the doorknob; Julia tugged at it and it broke. The latch stuck, then gave, and she was outside the shut and silent door.
Where was her car? The street was black and strange, and she was lost, shaking, cold, what happened? She had another panic, thinking that her car had been stolen, but she had walked past it without recognizing it. She drove in the wrong direction and had to turn around, renegotiate the nightmare thoroughfare with its blaring traffic and hard-edged shadows, and almost by accident found her way back to her own neighborhood.
The phone was ringing when Julia opened her apartment door. She didn’t answer and whoever it was hung up without leaving a message. In the bathroom she sat on the toilet, her insides cramping. The phone rang again, then the answering machine, the hang-up. The third time it rang, she unplugged it.
Before Julia had her number disconnected and changed, Fay did leave messages. She asked how Julia was, she was worried about her. It was unfortunate that Julia was given to overreacting.
And: “Julia! I had the most wonderful dream! There as a ladder between heaven and earth, and angels were going up and down it. Just like Jacob in the Bible. I feel sure it means some special message from your departed friend.”
And finally: “I know you’ve been thinking about me. I can feel it. We have such a strong connection. It goes in both directions, like the angels on the ladder. I can see you right now, as you’re listening to—”
Julia hit the delete button. She kept the phone off from then on.
One day when she left work, Fay was waiting at the bus stop where they’d first met. It was winter now, with snow in the air, and Fay wore her same shaggy tweed coat and knit hat. An ordinary middle-aged lady. She could have been anybody. A retired piano teacher, perhaps.
“Don’t touch me,” Julia said, as Fay approached.
“All right, mercy sakes.” Fay held up her hands. She was smiling, but her eyes blinked in rapid semaphore. “No need to get upset.”
“I don’t want to hear any more of your readings, or messages from the spirit world, or talk about angels. I’m through with that. I want you to leave me alone.”
“‘They flee from me that sometimes did me seek.’”
“What?”
“It’s another poem. These things just show up in my head and stick there. It’s embarrassing that I don’t know the authors. Someday I’m going to look them all up. What I mean is, you were the one who came to me, wanting my help, wanting to learn. And more than once.”
Julia stayed silent. The light of the winter afternoon clicked down a notch. Their breath came out in frost clouds, rising into the white air. It had been almost a year since that death. The time that had passed felt like a dream. She said, in a quieter voice, “I can’t do it anymore. It does me harm.”
“Because you fight it.”
Julia shook her head. She could have told Fay that she had tried to believe, to bend herself into a new shape, and it had nearly broken her. She was who she was, and always had been. Instead she said, “I’m sorry if it’s lonely for you.” And that was true. She had some notion of what it must be like for Fay, who also was who she was: the freak, the witch, the seer, her head full of other people’s voices. “But I can’t be any part of this.”
“You have a gift.”
“I give it back.”
“Your friend is still sad,” Fay called out, because Julia had already walked away.
She turned back again. “No. I’m still sad. I think it was me all along, that’s who you were reading. He was always gone. Good-bye, Fay. Be well.”
Not long after that, Julia’s office transferred her to a new division in the suburbs, and there was no reason for her to commute downtown. It was a busy time, full of new people and new tasks. It crowded out the past so gradually that she didn’t notice, except on those occasions when she looked back and marveled at its disappearance. Once, hurrying to beat a rainstorm, she thought she saw Fay across the street unfurling a sturdy plaid umbrella, testing it against the wind, then setting off with her purposeful walk. At the sight of her something kindled in Julia, the old glad recognition. She opened her mouth to call out, greet her.
Then she stopped herself and let the moment pass.
Escape
Hurley eased the window up and tried the screen. The screen was inclined to stick. He was pleased to have remembered this. It was a gift from his brain, like a coupon for half-price dry cleaning. Even with the screen all the way up, it would be a tight squeeze. One side balked and he had to risk a quick blow with the bottom of his fist. It made the dull noise of a hammer landing on meat. Hurley held his breath and listened but heard only his own body’s ticking. He tried the screen again and it slid open.
A beautiful square of black night and moving air and cricket noise.
Hurley bent down and grasped the bulky metal complications of that thing that thing that was used to get out of high windows. It had two big hooks you fastened over the windowsill, then you let the rest of it drop down, piece by piece by piece. It made a racket, a jangly noise. He hoped it couldn’t be heard from inside. He peered out the window at it. That thing that thing ladder! The streetlight gilded each step, a path for him to follow.
He swung one leg over the windowsill, wiggled around until his foot found the first step. Then, supporting his weight with his good hand, he reached out with the other foot. Nothing to it. Practically his old self. Face to the wall, he lowered himself to the next step. The ladder swayed and knocked him against the wall. One side of him didn’t work right, like the screen. No matter; he took it slow and steady, he wasn’t about to make some foolish mistake. And anyway, there was this amazing night to pay attention to. He hadn’t been out at night since since since . . .
Crickets and black perfume and here was a bird of some sort making its solitary, liquid noise. What kind of bird? He didn’t know. He didn’t think he’d ever known.
Then he slipped and scraped his good side and dangled there like a giant crippled spider. He remembered every swear word in creation and silently turned them all loose. He was still too high up to let himself go, unless he wanted to smash up what was left of his pudding head. Not that he hadn’t thought about it. Go ahead and finish the job.
Just as the effort of hanging on was making his chest squeeze and the sweat slide under his clothes, he managed a new toehold. Inch by inch by inch, he brought himself around, got his legs underneath him again.
In this way he reached the end of the ladder. Just the smallest hop to the ground. He let go, fought for his balance, lost it and toppled over. When he managed to right himself, Claudine had come out of the back door and was watching him.
“Cute,” she said. “One of your better stunts. What do you think you’re doing?”
“Fire drill.”
“What? Say it again.”
“Fire drill.” Hurley’s head drooped. His eyes got teary. He couldn’t do anything right.
“Real cute.” Claudine led him back inside. She didn’t even scold him. He was that pathetic.
But later, after she had deposited him in bed, the sheets tucked tight and hard around him, she scooped the ladder up in both arms. It made a bundle of metal sticks. “I guess if the house burns down some night with us in it, it’ll be because I had to keep this under lock and key.” She headed off down the hallway to the guest bedroom, where she slept these days.
Before all this, he had not known just how much she hated him. But then, he had not realized how much he hated her.
All day long he sat in his chair and listened to Claudine talking on the phone to different members of her fan club. Her voice was low, in keeping with the atmosphere of hushed crisis. But he could hear perfectly well, thank you! Sometimes the phone rang, sometimes it was Claudine who started up talking, meaning she’d called someone. “About the same,” she said, or, “Well, I just do the best I can,” or, his favorite, “In sickness and in health. That’s what I signed on to.”
Hurley had taken to laughing his horrible laugh whenever he heard that one. He could still unsettle her that way, get to her by making his noises.
Claudine had shut and locked the windows—did she think that would stop him, if he wanted to jump?—but she hadn’t closed the blinds. Hurley stared at the black square as if it was a television screen. He could stay up and watch it all night if he wanted. She couldn’t stop him.
But here was the window full of bright day, and Claudine shaking him, and his head was all joggly, and always that muddy, waking-up panic, something gone horribly wrong. . . . “Come on, you can sleep anytime. I got other things to do besides haul you up and down.”
Today was a Doctor Day, and so he had to be clean and presentable. He was finally allowed to manage in the bathroom by himself, thank God, though Claudine still shaved him. She didn’t know crap about shaving and dragged the razor across his face like an old plow. Even now when he was alone in the bathroom she set a baby monitor on the sink to keep track of him.
With jerky effort, Hurley lifted the clothes hamper to the edge of the tub. He stood back and gave it a push. It landed with a solid thump. Then there was the sound of Claudine stampeding up the stairs. Hurley stood back and she banged the door open, wild-eyed.
Hurley laughed: “Haaorghhaghha.”
Claudine put her hand on her heart and set her jaw. “One of these fine days you’ll want me to do for you, feed you or tie your tie, and then we’ll see what kinds of tricks I play on you.”
“Hoorhgh,” said Hurley, sulky now. He didn’t doubt that she’d start right away, inventing some special meanness.
Hurley was made ready. The complications of his socks and shoes were mastered, his teeth scrubbed until his gums bled. Claudine had done something to his hair. It felt painted on. His body was made of wood, like a what what what puppet not puppet the other kind. With somebody else jerking the strings so he flopped and flapped. Claudine made him lean on her on the stairs outside. She was too short and he kept rolling into her. Claudine’s neck was fat. Her hair had been hairsprayed. He got some of it in his mouth and spat furiously. Why couldn’t she let him take the GODDAMN stairs by himself? He knew it was because somebody, neighbors, might be watching. They needed to see how devoted she was.
Then he had to watch Claudine drive, from the miserable passenger seat. He had become one of those men whose wives drove them around.
At the hospital they put him in a wheelchair, all the better for Claudine to ram him into walls and corners. They got on an elevator and everyone cleared a respectful space around him. Except for Claudine, who planted herself square behind him so that his head was trapped between her two enormous breasts in their pansy floral bunting. He could smell her. Baby powder and perfume stink.
She rolled him up to the doctor’s window-thing. The woman behind the desk peered over at him. “Well, who do we have here? How’s my favorite fella?”
“Sit on my face, you old trout,” Hurley told her. Of course they couldn’t understand a thing he said. Claudine and the woman got busy talking about him, his progress or lack of progress, his good and bad days. He had to hand it to Claudine. If anybody else was around, she did a great job of putting on that halo. Her voice fluttered. She practically cooed at him.
When it was his turn to see the doctor, Claudine came in with him so she could do some more showing off. The doctor was too young. Hurley didn’t trust a doctor who didn’t wear glasses.
In they went. “Mr. Hurley, how are you?” The kid doctor made a point of looking him in the eye and shaking his hand, and even though that was just something they told them to
do, something they learned in med school, Hurley was so grateful, he felt himself weeping. He cried all the time now. It was mortifying, it was another mysterious broken part of him. He tried to say he was fine, fine, found that his mouth had gone unaccountably loose, and settled for nodding his head.
“He won’t do his exercises,” Claudine said. “I’m after him all the time, but he won’t mind.”
The doctor looked grave. “Now Mr. H., you know if you want to get better, you have to work on it. Balance, strength, and flexibility. We’ve talked about all that, remember?”
Hurley squeezed every muscle in his throat, opened his mouth and got his tongue in position, put enough air in his lungs to force out a single intelligible word: “Lie-ey.”
“Mrs. Hurley, why don’t you give us a minute here?”
It took Claudine an extra beat to realize she was being asked to leave. She grabbed her handbag, gave Hurley a curdled look, and stomped out. Hurley showed her his teeth.
Now it was just the two of them. The doctor probed his bad hand bad arm bad leg. All his broken puppet parts were extended, examined, then returned to him. The doctor said, “I’d like to see a little more improvement. Are the exercises just too frustrating? Is that why you aren’t keeping up with them?”
Hurley would have liked to tell him. In his head it came out perfect. How Claudine put his weights and ropes away in different places so he couldn’t find them. How he did the best he could on his own, grasping and stretching and pushing his weak side against the wall to strengthen it, how he’d managed on the ladder, in spite of everything, but how he got tired from nothing these days, nothing at all, him, Hurley, who used to work like a lumberjack!
The doctor bent his head attentively to catch any sounds that Hurley made. But no sooner had Hurley shaped the words he needed then other words crowded in behind them, so much it was important for the doctor to understand, how he’d been his mother’s youngest, her late-born child, how his father had always looked cross-eyed at him, accused the mother of spoiling him, how he’d gone out for baseball, played shortstop, his nickname Killer from the way he dove to make plays, ate his share of dirt, always hustling, never a slacker, never asked for a handout, served his country in wartime, in Korea, was honorable discharged, came home to build up his own trucking company and marry the pretty, button-eyed girl who had become the old hellcat in the waiting room and they’d never had children but maybe that was just as well since they might have turned out like Claudine. And how one perfectly normal night, reading the newspaper after a dinner of fried chicken and coleslaw, his brain had misfired, had flooded with white, paralyzing light that struck him down, robbed him of his peace of mind and body and left him in this miserable state, an overgrown baby making googly noises.
Do Not Deny Me Page 16