Man in The Woods (28 page)

“Like me!” Kate says, smiling brightly. She switches off the TV and tosses the remote control to the other end of the sofa.

The phone rings, and Paul, who generally seems deaf to its beseechments, moves quickly toward it and answers. After he says hello he is plunged into a frozen yet clearly agitated state of listening to someone’s bad news. At last he says, “We’re just hanging out. Come whenever.”

“Who was that?” Kate asks.

“Annabelle. Bernard got a bad letter from the IMS.”

“You mean the INS?”

“I guess. She wants to come over, they don’t have anyone else to talk to.”

“Should she be moving around?”

“I don’t know. I guess she knows best.” In a delayed reaction, Paul feels the affront of Kate’s correcting his error about the INS, and suddenly it seems as if she is continually tidying up after his little verbal spills and he doesn’t want her to do that anymore, not even one more time.

Kate takes a deep breath, but before she can speak the phone rings again. “My turn,” she says, and takes the handset, presses the green button. “Sunday morning,” she says.

“Hello, Kate, it’s Sonny.” There’s a pause. The sound of traffic fills the silence. “Sonny B.,” he adds. And then, lest there be any lingering doubt, “Sonny Briggs.”

Kate feels a little jump of nerves: is there some place she is meant to be today? Is Sonny on his way to pick her up?

“Hello, Sonny. Where are you?”

“I don’t know,” he says. His breath catches in his throat and by the sound of it he is crying now. “I slipped, Kate. I slipped and fell.”

For a moment she thinks he has actually fallen and hurt himself, and then she realizes this is someone trying to live sober, and even as pity goes through her like the slash of a knife, she is wondering:
Why is he calling me?

“Have you called your sponsor?” she asks him, walking into the dining room.

“I don’t want to,” Sonny says. “You, I want to talk to you.” Now, suddenly, he sounds so impaired, it reminds her of a bad actor playing a drunk, the kind that makes you think: that’s not how it is, that’s totally over the top. He seems to be talking while virtually unable to move his lips, and there is barely a rise or fall in the pitch of his voice, it’s just a sliding, unhappy slur. If this voice had a hat it would be cockeyed, if it had a chin it would be dark with stubble. Yet it reminds her of something it’s good for her to remember: being drunk makes you sound like an idiot. Why do they call it lit, or high, or flying, or even buzzed? Stoned, maybe, blasted, stumbling drunk, hammered. That’s it. Hammered.

“Can you tell me where you are, Sonny?” she says. She continues walking through the dining room and into the kitchen. She sits at the table. Ruby has left the box of Cheerios open and left the milk out, too. There’s a kidney-shaped puddle of milk on the floor. Where’s the brown dog when you need him?

“I’m just driving around,” Sonny says.

“You’re going to hurt someone, Sonny. I want you to pull over right now.”

“I can’t go home.”

“I don’t want you to go home, Sonny. You’re not in a condition to go anywhere. I want you to pull over and tell me where you are and I’ll come and get you.”

“You’d do that?”

“Of course I would. It’s what we do.”

“Fuck,” Sonny says through tears.

“Have you done it?” Kate asks.

“What?”

“Have you pulled your car over someplace safe?”

“No.”

“I’m hanging up. I don’t want to be on the phone with you when you run somebody over, or kill yourself.”

“Wait,” he says.

“Why? What am I waiting for?”

“I’m at the top of your driveway. I’m sorry, I’m sorry. Oh, shit, somebody’s following me.” The connection goes dead.

Kate goes to the sink. The window there gives her a view of the courtyard in the back of the house as well as the driveway. All is serene for a moment or two until she hears the familiar sound of Sonny’s blue Ford Taurus, with its suddenly well-deserved bumper sticker. Close behind is an unfamiliar car, a white sedan. At the wheel of the second car is Bernard, with his bare left arm hanging out the window, and his rising and falling fingertips tapping out a complicated rhythm on the door.

Kate goes back to the living room to tell Paul his sister and Bernard have arrived and that Sonny has come over, as well. He is sitting with Shep on the sofa—on the sofa!—with his arm around the dog’s shoulders, while the dog pants. Paul presses his forehead against the side of the dog’s head.

“Are you okay?” Kate asks.

“Not really,” Paul answers.

“Your sister and Bernard just pulled in. And Sonny Briggs is here, too.”

“Why is he here? Are you going somewhere?”

“He just wants to talk for a few minutes.”

As Kate turns to leave, Evangeline comes into the room, carrying Ruby on her back.

“Is it okay with you guys if Ruby comes out to the shop with me?” Evangeline asks.

“Perfect,” Kate says with a wave, brushing past them on her way to Sonny, joined by Paul who is on his way to greet Annabelle and Bernard.

For a few moments they are all gathered at the base of the circular drive. The confluence of chrome bumpers reflects the hot summer sun, sending out bursts of blinding light. Sonny, perhaps wondering if his appearance and manner are going to be sufficient to convince Kate of the gravity of his situation, is holding a nearly empty vodka bottle in one hand and in the other hand a bottle on which the seal has not been broken yet. Choosing at the last moment to try to act charming, Sonny addresses his initial remarks to Ruby, who is peering at him over Evangeline’s shoulder. “Well look at you up there,” he says. “You’ve got a chauffeur just like your mom!”

“Come on in, Sonny,” Kate says. “You can help me make some coffee.” She cups her hand on his elbow to guide him in and with her free hand she relieves him of one of the vodka bottles.

Paul catches Kate’s glance and relieves Sonny of bottle number two, giving him a pat of greeting and acceptance with his other hand and saying hello to his sister and brother-in-law.

Annabelle, dressed in pale orange pajamas and a white cotton robe, moves with difficulty over the pea stone driveway and watches her slippered feet, as if they might suddenly do something rash. Bernard keeps his hands just beyond the outlines of her body, hovering and practically vibrating, as if creating a force field of support for her.

“Oh, Annabelle,” Evangeline says, “it’s so great you’re already out.”

“Yeah, thanks. I’m not so sure this was the best idea in the world.”

As she leads Sonny into the kitchen, Kate hears Evangeline saying, “No, no, it’s always better to move around if you can,” and Kate wonders on what medical authority a carpenter’s apprentice makes this statement.

Paul turns to watch Kate bringing Sonny into the house, and seeing her helping someone is compelling, almost erotic. This is the woman who loves him. This is the woman who has opened her home to him, given her body to him, shared her child, her money, her mind. She is the person whom Sonny seeks in his desperation, the woman whom people wait in line to see, buying her books and listening to her show on the radio—how could this creature, through whom people find their way to goodness and God, look at him and say: let’s eat, let’s talk, let’s make love, let’s make a life together?

That this would happen to
him
is not a miracle like the parting of the waters or the raising of Lazarus, it is a sort of slow-motion miracle, an incremental, daily wonder, full of sleeping and silence and not even realizing your own good fortune. From November on Paul experienced Kate’s love with amazement and gratitude—had he ever given anyone a better reason to turn away from him? Yet just as there are moments when he forgets he has taken a life, there are moments when he is no more grateful for Kate than he is for his own breathing. But she has seen the darkness and she not only decided not to turn away but she has followed him into it, and now the darkness belongs to both of them, and they belong to it.

Kate opens the door to the kitchen, dislodging the sun’s reflection, and then she is gone, the door is shut, the sun returns in its bluish pool of old glass, and with a lurch Paul realizes they were not able to really talk about
First Thing Sunday Morning
. What had happened? What had he said? The day and all that needed to be said is being hijacked by all these people.

“I don’t want any coffee,” Sonny is saying to Kate.

“You have to have coffee,” she says. “It’ll make you feel better.”

“I don’t want to feel better.”

Kate is at the sink. She lets the water pound into the teakettle, in whose silvery curvature her face swells. She puts the kettle on the burner grate, turns on the gas, and the flame blooms yellow and blue.

“Listen, Sonny. I didn’t invite you here for a pity party. I got you off the road because you blew it and you were a danger to others out there.”

“I was being careful.”

“Not really. You’re lucky nothing happened. You could have killed someone.”

“I want to kill myself.”

“Really? Maybe that’s what you should do. Not putting other people’s lives in jeopardy. Do you have any idea what it would be like to take a life, to actually kill another human being? You guys…” Her voice trails off as she takes a seat at the table, directly across from Sonny.

“I’m not like other guys,” he says.

“Really? Are you sure?” She hears Paul’s voice in the other room, but she can’t make out what he’s saying.
We can’t always protect you? We can always connect you? Detect you? Inspect you?
And then there comes Annabelle’s voice, nearly as slurred as Sonny’s—Vicodin, surely, but who knows what else is going on? the brain is such a hothouse flower and hers has been bounced around—making grateful-sounding murmurs.

“All it takes is one second, Sonny,” Kate says. “Someone’s injured, killed. Lives are ruined.”

“I drove
here
,” he says, jabbing his finger against the table. “This is where I wanted to be.”

“Do you know why?”

“Yeah, I sure do.” His voice trembles and to compensate for this he draws himself up, looks at her defiantly, almost glaring. “Because this is where you are. And I just fucking love you, Kate.”

She reaches across the table and gently touches his wrist with her fingertip and then withdraws her hand. “Sonny, you are so in love with Chantal, there’s not really room in your heart for somebody else. Remember? How she massages your back when you come home from work? How she doesn’t let you drive when you go out together? Chantal! Anyhow that’s not why you came here. That may be what you’re telling yourself, but it’s really not the reason. You came here because you knew I was going to be really mad at you for drinking.”

“You’re the most special person I’ve ever known,” Sonny says miserably. He forces himself to keep his eyes on her.

“Oh please, will you stop this bullshit. You’re going to make up this entire saga about the things we do for love, but it’s really about the things we do for alcohol. It’s like a demon, Sonny, and it’s furious with you for turning your back on it. It will do anything and say anything to get you to put it inside of you. How many days do you have?”

“I don’t know.”

“Let’s figure it out. I remember it was winter when you came to your first meeting. Right?”

“You had a cold,” Sonny says. “You were holding your coffee cup with both hands and the tip of your nose was red.”

“Shut the fuck up. Okay? And help me figure this out. What month was it?”

“February.”

“That’s right. I remember. February what?”

“February 15.”

“So you remember. That’s interesting.” Kate pauses, thinks. “That’s the day after Valentine’s Day.”

“Yeah.”

“So let me ask you something. This is just a shot in the dark—but was deciding to get sober your Valentine’s present to Chantal?” She doesn’t wait for Sonny’s reply; there’s little doubt in her mind that she’s right. “And now you’ve decided to take it back? Is that what’s happening?”

“I’m not taking anything back. I just had a drink.”

“You’ve got about six months in, Sonny. That’s a tough time for all of us. I really struggled around this time, too. It’s like the first few months it’s such a novelty being sober and everything seems so bright and hopeful, and it’s just life, day after day, ups and downs, and then a little voice starts to tell you
Well, we’ve accomplished that, we’ve proven we’re not alcoholic, because you can’t be alcoholic and not drink for six months, so now that that’s been put to rest let’s celebrate with a drink.
Right?”

Sonny shrugs.

“I know I’m right. Look, Sonny, we all struggle, day by day.” The teakettle begins to whistle, first a low note and as the water’s turmoil increases the whistle winds toward a shriek. “See?” Kate says, getting up. “Even the teakettle agrees with me.”

“I drank because I wanted to see you,” Sonny says, rather loudly, even though Kate has only walked to the stove. She extinguishes the flame and the kettle swallows its cry.

“No, Sonny. It’s just not true. You wanted to see me because you drank.” She pulls a couple of cups out of the cupboard and puts a plastic cone over the coffeepot, and, advancing on all fronts, she puts enough coffee in the paper filter to make the coffee very, very strong: what reason cannot do, caffeine may well accomplish.

“I feel sick,” he says.

“Good, the less pleasure the better.”

“Yeah, I guess. It’s my higher power making me nauseous.”

“Maybe. Or it could be the vodka.”

He looks at her quizzically.

“Look, Sonny, what the fuck do I know? I’m out there beating the drum for Jesus but I don’t know anything you don’t know. Higher power.” She says the words as if they were
pixie dust
. “Maybe we’re really just here on our own, like all the other animals, and maybe there’s no one looking down and no one ordering events in any way, and the universe isn’t keeping score, and there’s no karma and no balance and good deeds aren’t rewarded and the wicked aren’t punished—it doesn’t matter. We still can’t drink.”

The coffee is made. Kate remembers that Sonny likes his with no sugar but a lot of milk and as she goes to the refrigerator this knowledge of what this man likes and doesn’t like gives her a strange, peaceful feeling of happiness.