I Want to Show You More (9780802193742) (5 page)

“The guy at the marina said they're easy for kids to get up on,” James said. “I thought it'd be good for him.”

“It's great,” Neil said. “He'll love it.” The price was still on the board—$349.99.

Now they were circling Miller's Bay in the 27-foot Cobalt.
worth
the
wake
, the back of the boat said. James drove, pulling Grady along at 20 mph. In the bow, Ruth held Effie in her lap; Ben and Myra sat in the stern. Ben was clutching the orange flag he was supposed to wave if Grady fell.

Neil stood aft, watching Grady. He'd pulled himself up right away, holding the towrope in one hand so he could fasten the Velcro strap across his thighs. He was already learning to maneuver, cutting across the wake. He dragged one hand in the water beside him, creating a line of spray.

“Cool!” Ben yelled. He was smiling. They were all smiling—his children, his in-laws.

Grady gave a thumbs up. “He says faster!” Myra yelled, and James pushed the throttle forward.

In the support group, the counselor had said: When you lose a loved one, you feel as if you're inside a confined space. Everyone else will seem to be careening along outside of this space. In time, you will become aware of an opening you are going to have to step through. It might be the touch of a new lover, a new job, a move—but you'll know. You will step through.

Neil watched Grady bounce in the wake. He felt the spray coming up from the starboard side of the boat. The scream of wind in his ears. There were things none of them knew, not even the counselor. Those last days it was his job to squirt dropper after dropper of morphine down her throat. The hospice nurses would turn away when he dosed up the medication, or leave the room—avoiding the conversation he was not permitted to begin. Jocelyn's eyes pleading with him to do what he could not. It was the last way he failed her. He filled droppers, then held her hand while she fed them to herself. He stood there while she sucked and sucked, startled by the unity of her first and last acts on earth. He held her hand until the fingertips cooled against his palm.

When the sun was low, James pulled into little Miller's Bay and anchored the boat three hundred feet out from the nature preserve. A sandbar extended into the bay and separated the lake from the preserve's wetlands. The children jumped in and walked up to the sandbar, Effie squealing about the seaweed, Ben and Grady draping green swags around their necks. Myra picked her way among the rock piles. Grady took giant steps along the section of sandbar that was invisible beneath an inch of water. “Look,” he called to them. “I'm Jesus!”

“The kids are so good for us,” Ruth said to Neil. “Reasons to go on living.” She was kneeling on the cushioned bench in the bow, taking pictures. She was gorgeous, Neil thought. At sixty-four, her brown hair was graying only at the temples. She'd had a mini face-lift to get rid of her jowls, but she hadn't touched her eyes. “Why don't you get in with them,” she said.

The darkening lake, the flock of seagulls at the end of the sandbar. The knock of swells against the hull. The children running, kicking up water, scattering gulls. They were lifting seaweed-covered rocks and spiraling them into the lake. At the far end, near the shore, Neil could see a white-haired couple paddling along in kayaks. A collie, wearing its own orange life jacket, sat up in one of the prows.

“I think I'll get something to drink,” he said. He went down the steps into the small cabin. A pile of folded beach towels was on the table next to three bottles of sunscreen. He checked the galley—the wet bar was stocked. The refrigerator held Coke, Diet Pepsi, Sprite, Perrier, a six-pack of Coronas. There were juice boxes for the kids, small Lunchables snacks with ham, cheese, and crackers, a tray of sliced fruit. A plate of carrots and ranch dip.

It was dark when they got back to the cottage. Neil helped Ben and Effie pull off their wet swimsuits and told them to find their pajamas. Another yard sale purchase: the children's oak dresser, four stacked drawers with masking-tape name tags—
Myra's Madness, Grady's Getups
—in Jocelyn's faded block script. The dresser tipped if you opened more than two drawers at a time. For six summers Neil had meant to anchor it to the wall.

Now the children were fighting over who got to open which drawer first.

Neil went into the bathroom and locked the door. He sat on the closed toilet lid and tried to concentrate on his breathing, the way they'd taught Jocelyn to focus in Lamaze class.

Through the thin drywall behind the sink he could hear Effie and Ben arguing over the top bunk.

“My pillow's on it,” Ben said.

“But I put books up there,” Effie said.

“You'll fall out.”

“Mommy said take turns!”

Neil heard the sound of books hitting the floor. He heard Myra's voice, then Grady's.

“Dad?” Myra was outside the bathroom door.

“I heard,” he said. “Give me a minute.”

“Did Mom say they should switch off every night?”

Neil yanked the door open. Myra jumped back, hand to her chest; Neil walked past her into the twins' bedroom.

“Ben, top bunk. Effie, bottom,” he said.

“Not fair!” Effie was standing beside the dresser, wearing just her panties: the words s
ummertime fun
!” above a rainbow-colored beach umbrella.

Grady started picking up books. “Maybe they should rock-paper-scissors for it,” he said. “Or do bubblegum-in-a-dish.”

“Mommy does engine-engine-number-nine,” Ben said. He was on the top bunk, looking over the rail, eyes wide.

“My tummy hurts,” Effie said. She started to cry. “I want juice. I want Mommy to cut me up a banana.”

Neil picked Effie up. He thought he might shake her; and then he was visualizing it, he was imagining shaking her so hard her eyes would roll, her teeth knock together. He set Effie down on the bottom bunk and held her there, gripping her upper arms. He savored the compression, the stinging sensation of the squeezing—the movement of his anger into someone else.

“Mommy isn't here,” he said to her.

He let go and stood. “
I'm
the one who's here,” he said, to all of them.

At midnight, Neil stood alone on the dock. The night was warm with a full yellow moon over the lake.

Across the bay, someone was lighting fireworks. He saw the flares, the sprays of dwindling white sparks. Every few seconds, there was a faint
pop
. In each small burst of light he could see boats anchored along the shoreline.

There were nights when she used to strip, jump off the dock, and swim naked in the dark water. The slick feel of her skin, when she emerged; her narrow hips, the sweep of his fingers up into her wetness; the way she coaxed him out of his clothing and, still standing, drew him inside and held him fast, his fingers tangled up in her wet hair until he exploded and lost hold of her, falling to his knees. He refused to swim, after—he wanted her smell on him till morning. On her thirtieth birthday she'd painted each wall in their tiny bedroom a different color—buttercream, wild strawberry, peach, mellow mint. “We'll be sleeping inside a smoothie,” he'd said. And he remembered those unhappy evenings, after the last diagnosis, the petty arguments that came of avoiding the topic neither of them could face; the last time here, when she sat in the gazebo after the kids were in bed, thin and silent, drinking gin.

“Effie needs you.” He turned; it was Myra, coming from the cottage, wearing a long white T-shirt. She was holding Effie's hand. “I took her to the bathroom and she threw up.”

A corner of Effie's Barbie nightgown was tucked up into her underwear; her bangs were sweaty and she was crying. Neil walked up onto the grass and pulled the nightgown loose. He lifted her; through the thin fabric he felt the heat in her armpits.

He kissed her forehead. “You've got a fever, Eff.”

“I looked for Motrin,” Myra said, “but we don't have any.”

“I'm sure Grandpa's got some,” Neil said.

“Want me to walk down and ask?”

“That's okay, I'll go. Would you stay with Effie?”

Effie lifted her head off his shoulder. “But I want
you
.”

It was only a breath, the smallest puff of hot air on his cheek. But it was there. The long hallway, the door swinging out onto the whirling planet. How strange, he thought, that his daughter's words could reveal such a thing. He felt the invisible machinery inside him stir.

Effie burrowed her face into his shoulder.

He should have jumped into the lake with his children that afternoon. He should have shown them, here, that everything was going to be okay. Tomorrow, then. Tomorrow he would pull them in, give them rides on his back. Over and over he would dive deep, come up underneath them, tickle their feet. Allow himself to be thrilled by the reach of their fingertips, the brush of their soles.

What Friends Talk About

Weekday mornings, after she takes the children to school, she drives to the local grocery and sits out on the covered second-floor balcony. This is where she goes to call the other man, though some days he calls her first. Below the balcony is a parking lot, car tops pulling in and out, train whistles from the rail line a half-mile beyond the row of Bartlett pears bordering the shopping center. In the spring, when the affair has ended, the trees will flare out in a lacy white bloom. Look at the bride trees, her youngest daughter will say, gazing through the backseat window.

In tiny print, on receipts and the insides of book covers, she makes lists of things she wants to ask or tell the other man while she sits at the table above the parking lot. She writes down things her children say—
Does the Mississippi dump into the Atlantic or Specific? When I'm at school my stuffed animals stay home and do very quiet things. Got my braces tightened today so I can only eat Pure Aid food, ugh!—
her oldest daughter's Facebook status. She tells him about her husband's trip to Singapore, the hand-strung black pearls he brought home for her birthday: thirty-seven pearls, each tinged an iridescent purple-blue.

The other man tells her about his wife, how she's training for a triathlon and got a new haircut, short and spiked. How he misses it long and silky down her back.

Don't ever cut your hair, he says.

She knows the man doesn't like it when she talks about her husband and children. He knows she doesn't like it when he talks about his wife. But these are the things friends talk about.

Later, when they've finished with talk of spouses and children and the vagaries of their daily lives, he will read poetry to her. Linda Gregg, Jack Gilbert, Sharon Olds. He'll ask her to read certain passages aloud for him, and she'll record them on the computer, then send them as MP3s. He will e-mail long passages from books on quantum physics and New Age spirituality; she will e-mail passages from C. S. Lewis and the Psalms. They'll talk about these things, too. And when they've finished with poetry and science and God, and the pauses between their sentences grow longer, she will leave the table and walk down the stairs past the sushi bar and deli and greeting cards and potted orchids near the store's entrance. She will get into her car.

Today it's raining, hard. Even at top speed the wipers can't keep up. Overnight, in Chattanooga, the rain will turn to sleet; on the mountain, where the woman lives, snow.

I'm driving home now, she says.

He draws a breath.

If our lips could touch, he says. Even once. We could be
done
with this. Put a period at the end of our sentence.

For me it would be an em dash, she says. Or the start of a new sentence.

We're going to need some kind of physical closure, he says. We need to grieve together, alone.

I couldn't be alone with you and not want everything, she says.

I'd be strong for both of us, he says. I imagine kneeling in front of you, my head in your lap. You're sitting on the edge of the mattress, I'm holding on to your belt and just—
weeping
. We'd sit at opposite ends of the room, watch each other undress, then sleep in separate beds, like twins. We'd never touch.

Back up, she says. I'm still with the belt.

The man is quiet.

Sometimes, he says, when I'm home alone, I lean my forehead against the wall and say your name.

Say it now, she says, and he does, his voice cracking on the vowel.

I can't work, he says. At night all I want is for my wife to go to bed so I can sit in my office and think about you. If someone asked me what I want right now, I would say, To go on thinking of her.

What I want, she says, is for you to make me cry, then be the one to make me stop.

Where are you right now? he asks.

Halfway up the mountain.

Pull over, he says, and she does.

Where would you want me, he says. If I could.

In my mouth, she says, and then the other. So I could walk around knowing I was carrying you in two places inside.

I don't even know what to call this, he says. It's a fucking overwhelming drug.

Addiction, the woman says, her hand moving beneath the elastic on her skirt.

She leans back in her seat, turns off the wipers. The passing cars blur.

Can we go into the forest? the boy asks.

He and his mother sit on one of the benches in the old amphitheater abutting the Conservatory of Music. The benches narrow down to a cement stage, behind which is a small clearing surrounded by trees—what the boy calls the forest. Sunlight does not enter the space. The trees, a dozen or so, leaf out only above the rooflines of the surrounding buildings: amphitheater in front, parking garage behind; Conservatory on the left, dormitory on the right.

The boy's mother is talking on her cell phone. It's what she does every week, now, while his sister takes her piano lesson.
I miss you,
the boy hears her say, and he feels safe. She must be talking to his father.

Can we go down there? the son asks again, pointing.

The mother looks at her watch, nods, and takes the boy's hand, but he pulls away and hops down the benches, then runs into the clearing ahead of her.

The mother finds him standing on a protruding root at the base of a four-story-high oak, its trunk striped with tiny squares of white paper. Each square, she sees, has been driven into place with a burnished nail. The squares are aligned in spiraling rows that begin fifteen feet aboveground and twist down the trunk to its base, like a strand of DNA. The mother thinks there must be a thousand pieces of paper nailed to the trunk.

The boy thinks of a giant candy cane. He rips off one of the scraps and sees writing.

Look, he says, handing it to his mother.

She turns the scrap over. “I'm sorry” is written in blue ballpoint pen, the cursive delicate, the tail on the “y” rounding up in a scrolled flourish. She walks up to the tree, begins to lift the scraps to look at their undersides. Standing beneath her, the boy can see the same blue writing on each of them. He hears his mother say,
You won't believe what I'm looking at
. He hears
Some kind of installation art
and
I'll call you right back
. He watches as his mother backs away from the tree, holding her phone up.

The phone makes its camera sound.

The mother looks down to check the image. It's blurred. She takes another shot and texts it to the other man. Then she holds the scrap of paper close to the lens. She wants the man to see the writing. But when she previews this photo all she sees is her own hand, which is ugly—the part of it that shows, anyhow: thumb and index finger with chewed nails, cuticles torn, fingertips raw; the skin between crinkly, webbed. For a moment she has clarity: she is middle-aged and flattered. The man on the phone is a fiction, her own desperate creation.

She hands the scrap to her son.

Do you know what this says? she asks. Can you sound it out?

The boy shakes his head, mouth open.

I want you to keep this, she tells him. Like a present from me to you, okay?

The boy nods, clutching the piece of paper.

Okay, she says. Now hold it up, like this, so I can take a picture.

The classroom window is open despite the drizzle. Sitting in the outdoor amphitheater, the mother can hear her daughter playing a Bach Invention, low octaves in the left hand blending with a flute trilling in the classroom next door. On the floor above, a baritone voice sings a single phrase, over and over. German, she thinks. Wagner. She feels the light flutter in her stomach she used to feel before her own piano recitals. She is waiting for her phone to vibrate. Tuesday, 4
P
.
M
.—any second the other man will call.

She looks down to where her four-year-old son is hopping from bench to bench. He's taken the hood on his raincoat off; strands of wet hair cling to his temples.

Careful, she says, it's slippery. The boy stoops to run his hands over the slick wood.

The mother turns to look at the classroom window. Inside, her daughter will be sitting at one of two Steinways, which have been placed side by side so the student can observe the teacher's hands. The teacher, Lena Ivanov, will pace behind the girl while she plays, stopping to sit down and demonstrate how strong this sforzando should be, how light that staccato. She'll ask the girl simple questions—What does the
pp
mean? How many flats in the key of F?—but her accent is strong, the diphthongs rising and falling in the wrong places, and her daughter will remain silent, staring at the calendar above the piano. It's an old calendar, from eight years ago, but Lena Ivanov still displays the months in sequence, each page depicting an important Russian landmark: the Hermitage Museum, the Volga and Neva Rivers, a statue of Pushkin.

On the way home from the Conservatory, her daughter will scowl. I don't like piano, she'll say. I don't like Miss Ivanov. But by the time they've reached the top of Lookout Mountain, she will have stopped complaining—she'll be cheerful, full of chatter—and the mother will convince herself, again, that the discipline is good for her, that it's important for her to learn to adapt to different teaching styles.

There's also the matter of the phone calls from the man, the hour of near-privacy the lessons afford. Yes, the mother will tell herself. There's that, too.

Today she'd planned to tell the man a story, something a cardiologist said about heart ablation being a search-and-destroy mission. But when the phone vibrates in the pocket of her raincoat and she hears the man's voice saying her name, she finds she's biting her lip to keep from crying.

It's like this great darkening has taken place, she hears herself say. Like I've sucked the light out of the world and into myself, and only you can access it.

It's what happens, when it's love, the man says.

I'm a sieve, she tells the man. I need more and more contact with you just to feel normal.

She looks down to where her son is pulling at weeds growing up between cracks in the concrete.

Two more months, the man says, and we'll have our meeting.

The mother watches her son toss a handful of shiny wet weeds into the air above his head. He looks up at her.

Watch this, he says, climbing the benches.

Too high, she calls to her son.

The boy doesn't look at her. He's crouching, about to leap down to the concrete stage from seven benches up.

Hold on, she says to the man.

Jonathan, she says, making her voice slow. I need your eyes.

The boy turns and, briefly, looks. She watches his body soften, the subtle, reluctant quieting of his limbs. He will not jump.

Sorry about that, she says into the phone.

The man groans.

I need your eyes, he says.

Somehow it works better than
Look at me,
she says.

The way you parent, he says. It tells me everything.