by Leah Hampton
You do not remember any of this.
* * *
He’ll be dead soon. You are in Portugal, on that trip abroad you were so frightened of taking. You always seem to be leaving, trying to go somewhere. Your friends, or maybe your professors, have brought you to Fátima. After all this time, all the talk of miracles, Fátima is a huge disappointment. They are restoring the cathedral, so you can’t go in. No tourists at this time of year, no restaurants, no stores open. The long, vast space in front of the cathedral is paved, pristine white concrete. There is no one here. You don’t remember where your friends went or why you are alone in the huge, open space before the cathedral. You think you see a nun in the distance out of the corner of your eye, a black figure crossing the white pavement, but you’re not sure.
The sky is low and thick with clouds. Your brother will be dead very, very soon.
You roam around the empty expanse of pavement, looking at fountains, statues, hedges, more statues. Our lady. Whatever. Everything is stone; everything has outstretched hands. The concrete around you is flat, white, empty of believers. The sky is grayish white and overcast. The pavement is an outstretched hand.
You sit under a hedge, on the very edge of the pavement, and write a postcard to your brother. All around you, total silence. You have no idea where everyone went.
* * *
Your brother is dead. It is hard to know anything else but this. Someone told you. An accident while hiking the old forest road. He was crushed, rent apart by some drunk trucker, some axle or unseen wheel. A lathe of evil twirling briefly the world, destroying its edges, for no reason. And now you are tired. Constantly. You drive your car for miles, for no reason, in the dark, screaming. For no reason. You cry for a whole year. You sleep for a whole year. You curl up under your favorite quilt, the one with the triangles, and you sleep for an entire year. You remember almost nothing about this year, except that you watched a lot of television. Your television was black and white. A white box, with silver and gray and white images playing constantly, incessantly. You sleep for a whole year.
* * *
Your brother is going to die in ten years. You know now, ten years after he is dead, that ten years before he died, you knew.
* * *
It is ten years until your brother will die. It is summer, and the two of you go for a walk. The cicadas trill loudly; it is early evening. The field behind your house is high with corn. Everything seems dry and hot. You walk and laugh; the two of you are funny. All kinds of things—books, stories, river birches—make you laugh. You are both so bright, such strong children under the hot sun. You run and fight and yell.
The country road is not paved, but you notice someone has covered the dirt track, put down a layer of long, thin slivers of tar. They are like black popsicle sticks, with big white flecks in them. You marvel at these; neither of you has ever seen them before. You pick up handfuls of them and throw them in the air, laughing.
When you get home from your walk, you look down and realize that bugs—chiggers, mosquitoes, something, you don’t remember—have bitten you. Your legs. Your legs are covered in huge, red welts. They itch and hurt. They burn.
You look at your brother, but neither of you understands. Was it the popsicle sticks? The heat? Why didn’t they bite him, too, whatever they were? You are in pain.
Your brother is thirteen, and he goes and gets cold water, rubbing alcohol, a towel, a soda. You don’t remember where your parents were. Probably working. Your brother is thirteen—a young man.
“Hold still,” he says. He kneels down and washes your legs and feet with cold water. You lean back on the old sofa. He puts alcohol on the welts. He sucks in air through his teeth in sympathy when you whimper from the sting of the alcohol. He gives you the soda.
You love him so much, and he takes care of you. You realize now, years and years after he has died, that he was dead long ago. He was dead when he did this, when he dressed your bug bites, because all the saints, at least the ones you can name, have always all been dead.
He is the only thing you notice or remember. You lean back on the sofa and look at the white and gold wallpaper while your drink fizzes next to you, and you realize you will still wonder someday, much later, what it was that bit you.
You realize, ten years before he is going to die, that you do not know if the frozen waves were real. You realize, ten years before, that you are going to want to curl up with him in the bungalow house on Christmas Eve. You realize, ten years, now, then, that he is a saint.
You realize this is a terrible thing.
You realize this is a terrible, terrible thing. To have a saint for a brother.
You realize that ten, fifteen, all the years after he dies it will be just as bad, just as hard.
You realize, somewhere, at some time, that none of this could ever have happened. There is no proof. There is no one who remembers these events but you. They become, then or now, like lost things. Like icicles, or faith.
You do not know where any of this starts or ends. You do not know, ten years before, or five months after, or in bed, or in the snow, or at the screen door, who your brother is or was. You look for him then, now, before, after, constantly.
You do not know when this started, and you do not know when or how it will ever end. Everything else feels sad and far away, all your life. Even now, years after. Even then.
You knew this would happen. You knew it all along.
SPARKLE
Inside the cotton candy–pink ticket booth, Mavis—that’s what her name tag said—shifted her ample, cardiganed breasts off the counter and looked out the customer window to see if there was anybody behind us.
“Now, it’s not her usual thing,” said Mavis when she’d decided we were alone. “But.”
Behind me, James tensed. I figured it was going to be some kind of sales pitch for Splash Country, the water park next to Dollywood. James and I did not want to go to Splash Country. It was November, and it was raining. Mavis looked me square in the face.
“Bu-ut”—Mavis dropped her twang to an emphysemal whisper—“Dolly … is in the park today.” She twitched her mouth and pursed it to the side, satisfied with herself, then placed her hands primly on the cotton candy windowsill.
“No shit,” I said.
“Oh, yes, ma’am,” said Mavis. Her hands went pat, pat, softly.
“James, did you hear that?” I looked at him and those eyebrows of his. James has these eyebrows that tell you everything. They raised up—a good sign.
“Oh, interesting,” he said.
Heat tingled up the outside of my neck and into my cheeks. I stared into the little booth. Mavis winked. “I think I just peed a little,” I said. Mavis thought that was funny.
“You go down there to the right,” Mavis said, “and they’s a little theater. Along about two thirty, she’ll be in there.”
My breath hitched. James closed in behind me until I could feel the warmth of him. Or maybe not the warmth. The ions of him? Electrons, crackling back and forth. That’s how it is with certain people, now and then in life. You feel them even when they’re not touching you.
“Is she…”—my turn to whisper—“Oh, Miss Mavis, will she sing?”
Mavis’s face looked like a sack of dough, but I wanted to kiss it. Since I was thirteen, I have wanted to meet Dolly Parton, to exist for a minute in that cloud of glittery badassness. I don’t even like country music. Just Dolly. All that light; she brings light into the world, or did into mine when I was a kid. In junior high, I’d sneak-watch VHS tapes of her. I’d plug my daddy’s big stereo earphones into the back of the TV set so he wouldn’t hear me. I spent most of my time making sure Daddy didn’t wake up from his naps on the sofa; he’d punch the shit out of anybody who didn’t let him sleep all afternoon. I’d patch into those earphones and whisper-sing Nine-to-five, Nine-to-five for hours, squatted on the living room rug. I never told my friends or watched those tapes with anybody.
Dolly’s just ab
out the only cheesy thing I can stand. I am not a cheesy person. Mavis was promising me something big here.
“No, honey,” Mavis soothed. “It’s an industry thing. A theme park conference? Bigwigs and such, park owners. Folks here from as far away as Knott’s Berry Farm.” She shifted back and rolled herself onto her little stool. I was glad the Dollywood people let Mavis have a stool in her ticket booth. She probably got tired standing all day. Mavis looked out the front window of her booth, the one facing into the park. “I don’t reckon Dolly’ll sing for those suited-up types. She’s just gonna put in an appearance, do the welcome.”
“Oh, I see,” I said. My feet settled back into my shoes.
“But you never know. She knows people like for her to. And now”—Mavis leaned forward—“there’ll still be music. Some good musicians in the park today, on all the corners.”
James started to shimmy past me. We already had our tickets. He put his hand right below my bra strap as he made his way past. The warmth spread out from where his hand was, all over my back. After he eased by, he turned and gave me a come-on-already-let’s-go look. So I went.
“All right, well, thank you so much for telling us,” I said to Mavis.
“Sure thing. Two thirty, now. The orange doors.” Mavis hopped off her stool and put her happy theme park face on for the next customer, even though there wasn’t one. Most of the parking lots had been empty when we arrived. She called after us, “We’re so glad to have you visiting with us here in Dollywood!”
I’m not obsessed with Dolly Parton or anything. I’ve only been to Dollywood four times in my whole life. I just wanted an excuse to be alone with James. He was only here for a few more days, and half of them were taken up with beer tours in Asheville and meetings in his old department. I couldn’t get him alone at the house, either, because Pete kept muscling in. Also, Pete had been super touchy with me all week, all honey this and baby that, like all of a sudden we haven’t been married for nine years. It made me itch.
We walked forward into the entrance gazebo. An elderly man with suspenders and an old-timey mustache took our tickets.
“Nice ’stash,” James mumbled, one eyebrow raised.
Then we swooped out of the gazebo and into the park. All the colors and music stopped James in his tracks. James had never been to Dollywood. I paused and let him get accustomed. It’s a lot to take in if it’s your first time.
“Come on, Dorothy,” I said. “Get your slippers on!”
It was early November, so there were no Christmas decorations up yet. The wind grayed everything over, and the mountains slumped brown and spindly above us, with no leaves left anywhere. We probably picked just about the dullest, drabbest day to go to such a place. But it’s like Dolly made the park so it would be nice even in weather like that, because all the color she brings came right at us in a friendly way. The soft blue of the kiddie play area sat low at the edge of the view, and the pastels from the gospel music house windows eased us onto the main path toward the roller coasters. Nothing garish or harsh about it.
James got moving soon after the initial shock of the place. We walked to the right until we got to the candy stores. A wide, bright path led toward the county fair rides. Beyond that were the steam train, the bird sanctuary, roller coasters, old-timey shops, and on and on. From where we stood, the layers of the park loomed in blurry, then blurrier layers of neon and noise, one behind the other, getting indistinct and higher, just like the Blue Ridge does on a fine day.
“Whoa,” James said, swaying toward a lavender storefront. “Do you smell that?”
I nodded. Be breezy, I thought. Don’t spoil anything. This is the man you love.
Nobody knows I love James. Nobody. I can’t breathe it out to anyone because all our friends work at the college and know Pete. Besides, it’s just about the most embarrassing thing in the world, to need a man you can’t have, aren’t married to. But I still thought, This is the man you love, to myself down deep.
That’s why we came to Dollywood. That’s why I picked a day Pete had to teach, a day James wasn’t giving any presentations, to suggest this trip. I pretended it was a whim that morning, something I’d just thought of. After Pete left for the lab, I sat at the breakfast table and laced this careful pattern of chatter with James to get him to come here with me. I know I just work in the bursar’s office at the college, but I’m pretty smart when I want to be.
One other thing I know is, even though he doesn’t love me, James thinks I’m the funniest person in the world. He always says that, and he always talked to me when I came to department parties, and sometimes took me out to lunch, just the two of us.
When he first started teaching at the college, James picked Pete as his research partner for an NSF grant he got. All about efficient light refraction on metallic particles, which Pete knew about. Pete did his master’s at the college, and then he got hired on at the lab right before we met. On our first dates, Pete would talk about his work in a slow, plodful way that made me feel safe. Here was a man with purpose, someone you didn’t have to be scared of waking. Pete let me be clumsy without picking on me, took me to Georgia to his parents’ house, which always smelled like potpourri and clean money. I married him mostly because he asked.
James showed up a few years after, and he took to Pete right away. James says Pete missed his chance at a bona fide scientific career, and Pete knows more than anybody about what they do. But Pete isn’t much for moving outward. He stayed plodful, stuck to the lab and his regularities. When I started to complain about the sameness in our life a few years back, Pete quit touching me. Or maybe I quit touching him. It doesn’t matter now, after how long it’s been.
Anyhow, James came, and a switch got thrown inside me. It didn’t take any time at all before James decided he liked me as much as he did Pete. Like I said, I can be smart, and I’m pretty enough to get a man to buy me lunch now and then. There were even times when I thought James might love me back, just a little, because of how he’d look at me when he thought I wasn’t noticing. Then he took a job down in the Piedmont at a fancier school, and now every time I see him it’s like starting over from scratch.
But for the four years he was here, we saw each other a lot—twice a week sometimes. We smoothed together so easy. James isn’t from here, so he liked that I knew about the mountains. He’d ask me where to hike, which trees were blooming in the spring. He liked the stories I told about my family especially. His favorite was about the time my cousin Bigun climbed in the washer at our papaw’s house when we were kids and got himself stuck.
We called him Bigun because he was a foot taller than anyone else we ever saw. I used to love playing with him because he treated me so gentle. Bigun used to tell me I was dainty. We’d play rock-paper-scissors, and Bigun always let me win, even though he was older than me and knew better. He’d wait for me to count three and flatten my fingers; then he’d make a meaty fist at the last second and smile out of every part of his face. It took both my hands spread out wide to paper over Bigun’s rock.
James was eating a muffin at the hippie coffee shop by the campus library when I told him the yarn about Bigun getting stuck in the washer. He laughed so hard he choked on a muffin chunk. There were little muffin bits on my clothes when I walked out and headed back to my desk, but I didn’t mind. I got to pat James on the back and hold his shoulder and ask close if he was all right, even though I knew he was fine.
Three weeks before James came back for this visit, I found an old Dollywood souvenir mug at the Methodist thrift store. I bought it for a quarter. This morning after Pete left, I gave James that mug when he said he wanted more coffee. I asked him about his plans, even though I knew them. I’d looked up his schedule in the department secretary’s office. I brought him his coffee and spun chatter for a few minutes. I kept him laughing, dazzled, then finally struck, Oh, hey,… you know what we should do? and pointed at the mug, with Dolly’s face on it and a big chip on her boob. Breezy.
I’d
been wanting to bring him here ever since I found out he was coming for a whole week this time and staying at our house. Finding that mug was proof, a sign. I wanted to go to the brightest place I could think of and stare at James for as long as I could before he was gone again.
James is normal handsome, nothing special. He’s kind of bald, and he has this goofy left eye that doesn’t sit on his face the same way as his other one. But I love him; have since the first day I saw him. For all my sins, I love a hairless, lop-eyed chemist so bad it makes my whole body hurt when I so much as sit next to him. It hurts way inside, like cramps or sickness.
It hasn’t been a problem lately, because James hasn’t been here. He visits for this one silver project he still works on, but that’s twice a year at most. I think about him though, just as much as I did for the four years he was here. I keep waiting for that storm of feeling to go away or settle in me somewhere far down, but it hasn’t. I figure it won’t ever. Once I get an idea I tend to hang on to it pretty tight.
Maybe I am a cheesy person after all. I don’t know. But James said yes when I offered to bring him to Dollywood, and he laughed when he said it, and he couldn’t think of a better way to spend his free day, and he’d be ready by ten, and we could go. So it worked, my spinning and scheming. That’s all I cared about.
“Caramel,” James said. His eyes were closed, his body facing the candy storefront. “We could get caramel apples. Do they have those?”
“We haven’t even seen anything yet,” I said. I pulled him down the path. I tried to sound chummy, so I had an excuse to lean into him. I couldn’t smell any caramel. I could only smell the cedarwood tang of the soap he uses. I made sure I bought some before he came and put it in the spare bathroom. “Don’t go soft on me so soon. There’s hoot owls and roller coasters and all kinds up there. And we’re going to Dolly’s house—you have to see it. Candy’s for later.”