The Center of Winter: A Novel

by Marya Hornbacher

  “Thrush.”

  “Hmph. Sounds like a disease.”

  “Is one.”

  “Thought you said it was a songbird.”

  “That too.”

  Jonathan flung himself into the doorway. “She’s here!” he crowed. “She’s here!”

  We all stood up and straightened ourselves and tried not to stare when Jonathan’s wife, who was just a little tiny tidbit of a lady, came running down the hall toward him and threw herself at his chest and started to laugh and cry. She’d brought presents for everybody. I got a desk encyclopedia, leather bound. I folded the wrapping paper superneatly, not wanting to look up at her. “Thankyouthankyouthankyou,” I whispered. Jonathan hopped around behind her like a bird. She kissed my head and I just about died. People have no idea.

  She took a box over to Ellen and said, “Ellen, here, I brought you something!” and Ellen batted it out of her hand and the box fell on the floor with a thunk and Ellen picked up a dropped stitch and went on knitting.

  “Don’t need your pity,” Ellen sniffed, talking to herself. “Don’t need your charity.”

  Jonathan’s wife looked stunned. Jonathan came up behind her and steered her over to the couch. “I didn’t mean to insult—”

  “No no no no of course not,” Captain Joe said, interrupting her, collecting all the pillows in the room and piling them around and on top of her. “Just a hard day. Didn’t know.”

  “I feel terrible—”

  “Now, now, now, none of that,” Geronimo said, patting her knee with his crossword. “So. Seven-letter word for a perennial flower, starts with b.”

  “Begonia,” she and I said at once, both watching Ellen. “Should I apologize?” she asked Jonathan.

  He shook his head, petting her hair with both hands. Gently, she moved his hands. He sat with them in his lap, gazing at her.

  “What’s the matter with her today, anyway?” I asked.

  “Doesn’t like the holidays.”

  “Why?”

  The adults looked at me. “Depressing.”

  “So are her sons coming or not?”

  No one answered.

  Doris smoothed her hand over the drawing. “Doesn’t have any sons,” she whispered.

  “Course she does,” Geronimo said curtly.

  “No she doesn’t.”

  “Still her sons.”

  “They’re dead.”

  I looked over at Ellen, whose hands had stopped moving. She was listening to us.

  “Just because they’re dead doesn’t mean they aren’t her sons,” Geronimo said.

  Ellen stood up, her knitting tumbling out of her lap. She walked out of the room.

  “I didn’t know they were dead,” I said.

  “She doesn’t know they’re dead,” Doris said. “She just thinks they don’t visit.”

  “Why doesn’t someone tell her?”

  Doris shook her head. “Doesn’t believe it.”

  Geronimo slapped the table. “And who’s to say,” he bellowed. “Which would you rather think? You got three good-for-nothing sons who don’t bother to visit you in your old age, or you got three dead sons? Ah? Which you think it’s easier to sleep with at night?”

  Doris shook her head to silence him. She whispered to her drawing, “Shhhh.”

  That night I couldn’t sleep.

  I was too excited. They were coming in the morning and I wanted to be good, I wanted to be clear and alert and in full possession of my faculties, so when the medication cart came around at the nine P.M. snack time, I took my little cup of pills and tossed them back into my mouth and made a big show of swallowing but didn’t really swallow. A few minutes later, I spat them out in the toilet and flushed. It took two flushes for them to go down.

  I watched them swirl and wondered if that was really a good idea, but it was too late now.

  By ten we had to be in our rooms unless we had permission to be elsewhere. By midnight we were supposed to be in bed with lights out, but they weren’t too strict about that one because some people just like to sleep with the lights on better, and besides which at midnight it was Christmas and we all had to come out of our rooms and tell each other. Then Staff herded us back to bed. By two A.M. I decided I could not possibly physically lie in bed one more dang-blasted minute.

  “Staff,” I called when the shadow darkened my doorway on the two A.M. rounds.

  She held still like she was caught. “What?” the nurse said.

  “I gotta get up.”

  “You still awake?”

  “Yes. Obviously.”

  “You want something to sleep?”

  “No. Definitely not.”

  “How come?”

  “Gotta be clear for tomorrow. Alert.”

  “Well, how you gonna be alert if you lie here awake all night?”

  I sat up in bed. “Please can I get up.”

  She sighed. I liked her. She was my favorite one, and if she got her charts done and I was still up, she’d play cards with me. She was a mean card player and was teaching me bridge, but we never had a fourth.

  “All right, Mr. Up At All Hours,” she said. “But if you’re still up at five, I’m gonna make you take something. Can’t have you all revved up with your family here tomorrow.”

  “Okay.”

  I wrapped my blanket around my shoulders and trailed out to the dayroom. She leaned in and said, as I settled into my chair by the window, “You just gonna sit there?”

  “Yep.”

  “Thinking thoughts?”

  “My thoughts.”

  “Okay. Ring the bell, you want anything.”

  “Turn out the light.”

  She laughed. “Little bat,” she said, and flipped the switch.

  Darkness filled the room. I sat there with my feet and hands tucked under the blanket, looking out at the glowing snow.

  I felt someone come into the room. I felt the someone pause when they saw me, then cross the room and pull up a chair. Ellen and I stared at the stars.

  “I know,” she said, defensively. “I do know.”

  I didn’t know what to say so I wiggled a hand out of my bundle and chewed on my nails.

  “You remind me of them,” she said. “Don’t know why. Don’t look a thing like them, they’re big boys. Big, strapping boys, athletes, all of them. Tommy, he was a smart one, and Dean was pretty. Poor Scott, he was just different. Played ball well enough, but he didn’t really want to, I knew that. Shouldn’t have pushed him. Told him he would meet a girl that way, but he didn’t want any part of that. Too shy. Funny looking, never knew how to talk to anyone. Such a momma’s boy, that’s what his father said, but then. What did his father know. Never knew anything.” She sniffed her dismissal. “Never mind him anyway, where was he when push came to shove? Ha. Covered for him all those years, we took the boys to the lake, we had a lovely little gathering. Who, we? Me and the mouse in my pocket? I don’t fancy so, no indeed.” She pulled her robe closer around her. “Do you know what I did?”

  She waited a long time, so finally I shook my head.

  “I divorced him.”

  I didn’t say anything.

  “I did. Knowing full well. My family, that was the end of them, oh, where did they go? When he was gone? And me, a Catholic girl getting a divorce, well, my mother just couldn’t take that, no, because that just wasn’t done, no matter what.” She sniffed again. “No matter what kind of, what kind of, oh, awfulness was afoot, didn’t matter to her. And you know what, I didn’t even bother to tell her what all. She didn’t deserve to know. Wasn’t her place to know. To hell with her, that’s what I said. I said, ‘Well then you go straight to hell, is where you go.’”

  I started chewing on my knuckles. She noticed. “Oh, honey, stop that. You know you can’t do that.” She turned her face back to the window and I stopped.

  “So of course the boys are growing up, without even the Church to raise them, let alone a father, so I did what any sensible woman would do, which wa
s to marry the richest man I could find and I tell you, I took that poor son of a bitch for a ride.”

  I nodded. It did seem sensible.

  “And I don’t know.” She sighed. “Maybe that wasn’t right. But I was damned if I was going to let those boys out into the world without a pot to piss in or a college education. They needed those things. They deserved those things.”

  “Yeah.”

  “And what am I talking about, anyway? Poor son of a bitch, indeed. He was mean. He was mean like a snake. Ha. There, he was.”

  She fell silent. We watched the dark.

  “So what happened?” I asked.

  “Started beating on my boys and got himself killed.”

  I just sat there. Slowly I turned to look at her.

  “Started beating on me too, but that bothered me less. I could use makeup, I could hide it, but my boys, no. I wasn’t having them go to school like that. Humiliating. They’d been through enough. Yes they had.”

  “Did they kill him?”

  She laughed her shattered-glass laugh. “Oh, no, darling. I killed him. They’d never have hurt a fly. Don’t know what I was thinking, sending them to war.”

  I looked back out the window. “How’d you do it?” I asked.

  “Shot him.” She smoothed her hair and tucked her hand into her tightly folded arms again. It was chilly in the room. “There’d been some drinking, I will admit that. He and I were getting ready to go out, you know, for the evening. And Scott, my youngest, the baby, came in the room. Don’t know what it was about Scott that made him so mad, but it always did, there was always something. Couldn’t stand him. And Scott, well, let’s just say there was no love lost on either side. Well, they got into it. When suddenly, I don’t even know what happened, but that old man had my baby by the throat and he was throttling him and my baby boy was turning blue and so I tell you, I did. I took a pistol and shot him dead.”

  She sighed.

  “Nice clean shot to the back of his head. Point-blank range. Never saw what hit him, poor old fool. He never did pay attention.”

  She looked at me. “Sweetheart, your mother must just love you to pieces.”

  I nodded.

  “I bet she does. She should. I’ll tell her tomorrow how good you’ve been since you got here. I’ve been here for ages, and I’ve seen just about all there is to see.”

  “Thanks.”

  She looked out the window again.

  “How did the boys die?” I asked.

  She winced. “Killed them too. Not quite so direct, you wouldn’t say, but I killed ’em. After that man died, I packed them off to Korea. Toughen them up, they were all so shook from what happened. I worried, I’ll tell you. Thought they’d never get anywhere, crazy like they were. I just wanted them to grow up,” she said, sounding helpless.

  “They used to come visit,” she said. “That’s why I hate Christmas. They’d take me down the road for supper, then we’d have presents back here.”

  “You been here that long?” I asked.

  “Oh, darling, I’ve been here since 1950.” She laughed. “And I’m not going anywhere. Insanity plea. Fact of the matter is, I’ll tell you a secret.” She smoothed her hands over her knees and examined her rings. “I never been crazy a day in my life. Except one.” She held up one finger. “One day. Day I got the news all three had been killed.” She looked at me and patted my leg. “Three boys, three units, three battles, and they all went down. When I figured out God had it in for me, then I was crazy. For that one day.”

  She eased herself off the chair and sighed. “Time for me to go to bed.” She leaned down and kissed my head, then turned on her high-heeled mules and left the room.

  Around five o’clock, the nurse came in and made me take something to sleep.

  The next thing I remember, I was watching my parents’ backs go down the hall toward the door. I was feeling kind of foggy but I was happy and I was wearing a soft new blue thing. As they waited for the nurse to unlock the door so they could leave, my father turned to me and smiled.

  When I left, it was winter and now it was spring.

  It was my first morning home.

  My clock with the Mickey Mouse face said it was 5:54. That’s five-five-four. Six minutes before six. Neat.

  In the place right then I bet they were all getting ready for breakfast.

  I looked around my room and wrapped my arms around myself. My room with my Vikings pennant and my Motley-Staples champions pennant and my baseball bat my dad had mounted on the wall.

  My dad was dead. My mom told me last night, when she brought me home. I already knew, in a way, but now it was definitely true.

  She took me into my room by myself and shut the door, and when she did that I knew what she was going to say, so I sat down on the floor and curled up in a ball. I squinched my eyes closed and decided no I would not go into my closet because who knew how long I’d be in there? As Staff would say. In the dark. And I had the choice to stay where I was on the floor if that was where I was most comfortable. I stayed there all night.

  The next morning, I listened to Kate talking to herself. “I’m gonna wear a red dress, red dress, red dress, I’m gonna wear a red dress and Momma can’t stop me.” I untucked my face from the crook of my elbow and opened an eye. The carpet smelled like dust. From where I lay on the floor I looked up at the tree branches. They had some buds. Kate knocked on the wall.

  “Esau,” she whispered.

  I got up and crawled across my bed. “What.”

  “Are you up?”

  “I’m talking to you, aren’t I?”

  She giggled. “Can I come over?”

  “Okay.” I heard her run out of her room and down the hall and to my door. She knocked again. “Come in,” I said.

  She stood there swinging on the doorknob for a minute and then closed the door behind her. Her face looked like it was about to pop and she stood there pulling at her dress, grinning.

  “Do you have something in your mouth?” I asked.

  “No.” She swallowed something.

  “Do you have to pee?”

  She looked worried.

  “Go pee.”

  “Okay.” She ran off. I got up and made my bed superwell. My left hand got clenchy, so I pounded the mattress for a second but that messed up the comforter with spaceships so I had to remake it. I was too old for a spaceship comforter, I decided. I would tell my mom. Plus which, the plaids on my sheets were worn, so they just looked blue, not green and blue. I sat down carefully on the bed with my back to the wall and my feet sticking out, smoothing the comforter on either side of me. Kate knocked.

  “Come in again!” I said. She bounded in and leaped onto the bed. “Wait wait wait wait,” I said. “Get off for a second.” She did. I tugged the comforter straight and lifted her onto it. “Are you comfortable?” I asked. She nodded. “Okay.” I sat down next to her. “Okay.” I looked at her and she grinned at me.

  “You’re back,” she said.

  “About finally,” I agreed.

  “No kidding.”

  We looked at our feet. She had her shoes on already. Red Keds with a white zig on the side. “Cool shoes,” I said.

  “Thanks,” she said, sounding all casual. “They’re new.”

  “Yeah?”

  “Yeah.” She grinned at her feet. “I bet mom would get you new shoes too, if you wanted,” she offered.

  “Huh,” I nodded. “My feet have gotten superbig.”

  “I’LL say,” she shouted, laughing and pointing.

  My right foot started to shake and twist toward me. Dumb foot. I reached down and grabbed it. I pulled it into my lap without touching the covers. Kate looked impressed.

  Outside it was sunny. A sunny day is okay, I thought. It doesn’t mean anything different. I have the choice to stay inside if I want. I felt better.

  “Is Mom going to make breakfast?”

  “I’m not telling.”

  I looked at her. “Fine.” That made h
er mad. Crossing her arms, she said, “No, she’s not gonna. She’s not a housemaid. We make our own breakfast around here. Mister.”

  “Oh yeah?”

  “Yeah.”

  “Fine. Do we have any cereal?”

  “Yeah,” she said, reluctantly.

  “Do you want some?”

  After a minute, she said, “Okay.”

  We sat there. She looked at me. “Do you know how to make cereal?” “Yes. Duh.” I was embarrassed.

  “What’s the matter then?”

  I sat staring at my feet.

  “Do you want your shoes?” she offered.

  I nodded, hugely relieved. She hopped off the bed, then remembered and straightened the covers elaborately, smoothing them, the bedposts, my knees. She got my shoes from where they pointed at the window and handed them to me. Looking at the window, she said, “How did you get from there to the bed? Last night?”

  “Slept on the floor,” I said, holding one shoe under my chin so it wouldn’t touch the bed while I tied the other. She nodded.

  My shoes were on. I looked at her. “Okay,” I said.

  “Okay.”

  We opened the door and charged into the day.

  My mother was asleep on the couch with the brown-and-orange knit blanket over her head. Kate walked right past her as if that was perfectly normal. Sometimes I am not the best judge of situations so I followed her into the kitchen.

  “We have shredded wheat and Cheerios,” she said. “What are we having?”

  “Cheerios. Shredded wheat tastes like hay.” I looked in the fridge. “You want half an orange?”

  “Yes please.”

  “Quarters or peeled?”

  “Quarters.”

  I got an orange and put it on the cutting board. Now I was stuck.

  “Um,” I said. She looked at me.

  “Where’s the knives?”

  “In the drawer, stupid. Where they always are.” She yanked open a drawer for me. I stared into it.

  “What’s the matter?” she asked. She’d poured two bowls so full of Cheerios there’d be no room for milk.

  “They’re moving,” I said.

  She came over and peered into the drawer. “No they’re not,” she said.

  “Yeah, they are.”

  She stood there looking at me as if she were putting together a jigsaw puzzle. “Try again,” she said. “Maybe they’ll stop.”