On the Edge of Twilight: 22 Tales to Follow You Home (4 page)

The Return

Isabelle Benson lay under white sheets in the thin bed in the calm room and waited for someone to arrive. Someone always did. She never had to wait long. Everyone was very attentive. Everyone asked about her and how she was feeling. Today she thought she felt fine.

Some time later that felt like a little while but might have been longer, the door to her room opened inward. A figure entered. She had expected the door to open because someone always entered, but
this
visitor, this
man…

She gasped, and in her thin wrist her pulse fluttered like a dove.

The man was middle-aged, dark-haired, chisel-chinned, kind-faced and tall. He wore a light spring sports coat that fit his good frame like a latex glove—every contour and angle cut to match what the cloth covered.

“You,” Isabelle whispered. Then, as if reassured by her own voice, she said it again, louder.

The man said something in reply, something she didn’t hear, so she continued, “It’s been… oh, God, it’s been so
long
. You look fine. You always did. Come and sit down by the bed. It’s a comfy chair. Someone bought it for me.”

The man did as she asked. He smiled and placed his hand on her arm, squeezing gently.

“Burton,” she said firmly, and with the word out in the air, in the world, something clicked, a dam broke.

“You came back. They said you never would, but you did. Oh, sweet Jesus, you came
back!
How have you been?
Where
have you been? There’s so much I have to tell you. The children, what they’re doing and what they’ve done. And Mama and Papa. They…They…”

He said something. It was too soft, she couldn’t hear, but the expression on his face conveyed all.

“I know,” Isabelle continued. “It was hard. Very hard. I think about them all the time. Mama went first some years back. Died while talking with Martha in the kitchen. Martha asked her a question and she didn’t answer, and that was that. And Papa? He passed during a snowstorm. Crashed his truck trying to get home from the mill. And there’s been others, Burton. Lots of others. Oh, you’ve been gone so
long.
They said you were gone for good…”

She paused, breath rasping in her lungs.

“And I believed them,” she finished.

Again he said something, paused, then said something else. Still, his voice was too low, too faint.

“You murmur now,” she said. “Always was a quiet one. Either you didn’t talk or you talked soft. But don’t worry.” She scanned his face. “I can read you fine.”

Isabelle stared at the familiar features for a long moment. The face seemed frustrated, confused, so she pulled it close and touched the smooth cheek. When she removed her palm he was calm again. Resolved like always. There was steel in him. She had always loved that.

“There now,” she said. “And speak up so I can hear you.”

“I said I’ve missed you, too,” he said, voice slow and clear.

This time she heard him.

“There was so much to say that I never said,” she said. “Things ended badly. It was my fault. I know it now, and I knew it then, but I couldn’t do nothing about it because you left me.” Rare tears filled her eyes. She wiped them away without thinking. “Burton, I always thought you wasn’t ever coming back. I knew it like I know my own face. I was
certain
.”

“I’m here now,” he said. “I came back. For a little while.”

“A
little
while?”

He nodded.

“But I don’t want you to go away again.”

“It’s not up to me.”

“What?”

He repeated himself.

Isabelle paused, considering. “I guess I won’t question it. You’re here now, and that’s something. And here, now, there’s something I’ve got to tell you.”

He leaned forward, nodding his head.

She swallowed. Her mouth was dry. Her hand trembled as it touched the familiar head of dark hair. “Before you left, we fought. You remember. You couldn’t possibly forget.”

Again, he nodded.

“It wasn’t about anything in particular. Something about the garden. You wanted tulips and I wanted white lilies. That night, when you left, the last thing I said was that you weren’t good enough for me. That I should have looked ahead before we married and thought better of it. That you were a fool. And then… later that night… in the morning, you…”

He shook his head and touched a finger to his lips. Isabelle’s agitation diminished.

“I wanted to say I’m sorry, Burton,” she said. “All these years, these long years, and you were gone and I couldn’t say it. Not so it counted. But now I can. Please. Oh, God, please forgive me.”

A pause. Then, very clearly, he said, “I forgave you long ago. Remember that. Never forget it.”

Isabelle sighed, old air rushing from her lungs like stale autumn wind.

And then she slept.

* * *

“How was Grandma?”

Eric Benson poured himself a glass of lemonade and sat down across the kitchen table from his mother.

“Fine,” he said, “but her hearing aids weren’t working well. Hey, Mom?”

“Hmm?”

“How did Grandpa die? I know you were young.”

The surprise showed on his mother’s face. “Was Grandma talking about Daddy? She hardly ever mentions him. Keeps her grief buried deep.”

Eric nodded.

“I was seven,” his mother said. “They had a fight, and Daddy was upset and went to bed early. And he never woke up. Massive heart attack. He was only forty-one years old. Just five years older than you. God, that was over fifty years ago.”

She looked up. “What did Grandma say about him?”

Eric took a big swallow of lemonade. “Nothing. She just said she’d been thinking about him.”

A long silence.

“How was she?” his mother said finally. “Mentally, I mean? The staff at The Pines seem to think she’s getting worse. Was it a good day or a bad day?”

Eric opened his mouth to speak, then paused, considering.

“A good day,” he said at last. “It was a very good day.”

The Subject

Halloween. Yeah, it’s Halloween, imagine that! But if you look at it, that makes everything fit. Of course I don’t know for sure. I mean, I wasn’t around when it happened. But if it’s not true, none of it makes any sense. So it’s gotta be true, unless you can come up with something better. Yeah. Yeah, I’ll tell you what I know. Then we’ll see if you think what I think.

When I was a kid, Halloween was that perfect holiday. I mean, we got all dressed up, pretended to be what we weren’t, flexed our imaginations. Monsters and myths and television characters. Yeah, we
pretended
. And I guess when you look at it, we were facing our fears, too. Don’t you think? And the thing we fear worst of all is Death, isn’t it? Sure it is. We fear what we don’t understand, and that tops the list. And Halloween, it’s a night for facing Death head-on, right? Staring it down and saying, “You don’t scare me.” And sure it did, but somehow Halloween made it all a bit easier. But that’s not all there is to it. I know that now. After today, I know it. Halloween goes a lot deeper than that.

Where should I start? What he was like? OK. And how I knew him? And then what happened? I can do that.

Saul. He was a good guy. The best way to describe him was intelligent but easy-going, without that fake blasé attitude that usually comes to mind when you think of graduate-level arts majors. I mean, he wouldn’t distance himself from those around him, and more than that, he usually went out of his way to be friendly. But when he painted, he unplugged the phone, locked himself in his house, and laid low for a few hours, sometimes six or seven at a stretch. He loved doing what he did. He never showed me anything he was doing until it was done, but that makes sense. I’m the same way with my graphics, and—

Yeah, I’m a grad student too. Study 3-D animation, same year as Saul. Nope, no classes together. We met as undergrads four years ago and continued on here ‘cause the university has good programs in our subjects. So we’ve known each other a long time.
Knew.
We understood each other. Been good friends all along. Amazing. I mean—

What? Okay. Fine, I’ll stick to it. In August, at the beginning of the semester, Saul began painting live models in his classes—some nudes, others clothed, and that really kept him on his toes, since I guess he hadn’t worked in that area much before. He really enjoyed it, I could tell. Whenever I came over he was in his room with the door shut, sketching out hands, feet, necks, muscles. He told me once, maybe last month I guess it was, he said, “I’m capturing emotion like I never could with fruit.” That really cracked me up, but I saw what he was getting at. I think he felt he’d found a new niche.

I didn’t get to see him as much as I’d have liked, since we both had our classes and our studies and our side-jobs, and I had my girlfriend. That was a sore spot for Saul, the whole relationship thing. Why? Oh, that’s kind of a long—well, ‘cause we knew each other for over four years, and all during that whole time I was dating Suzie, but Saul, he couldn’t find anyone who suited him. He must’ve gone through a good dozen relationships, not to mention one-night stands, most with women, even some with men. He said he tried homosexuality “just to see what it was like.” That’s Saul. Always trying something new. He’d do anything twice.

Anyway, around our senior year as undergrads, Saul started turning sour about what he called “the whole
love
thing.” I mean, if I even brought
up
Suzie, that’s all it took to set him off. And remember, Saul was usually easy-going…He was obviously having trouble, I guess because so many of his friends seemed happy with their partners and he was alone. He didn’t believe in love, or claimed not to. Said not everyone was lucky enough to find a match suitable for both partners, or something like that. He always asked, “How do you know Suzie is the right girl?” or said, “Don’t move too fast into marriage. You never know.” It used to piss me off. And man, when he found out Suzie and I were
engaged
? You should have seen him. Speechless. Red-faced. I’d never seen him like that before, and never did again. Eventually he got over it, mainly because we’d been friends for so long, and I think because he realized one man’s discontent isn’t necessarily every man’s, but it took a good while to smooth things over. He’s passionate, and when he gets convinced he’s right, it takes him a while to compromise, let alone admit that maybe not everyone sees things the same. Easy-going but a bit bull-headed. Yeah, that’s Saul.

Was
Saul. God. I mean,
was.

Anyway, that’s why I was so surprised when he came into The Easy on Thursday three weeks ago (that’s when we always met for drinks, since it was almost the weekend and neither of us work on Thursdays) and, man, he
smiled
when conversation turned toward relationships and I brought up Suzie
.
What date exactly? Well… I guess it was October 12th.
Yeah, since today is Halloween. Yeah, yeah I’m sure. October 12th.

So when he came in, it was almost like he was looking for an excuse to start talking, like he’d been waiting to say something but hadn’t wanted to speak out of the blue. That’s Saul for you.
Was
.

“Hey, guess what? I met someone last week,” he said, and damn but his eyes didn’t light up when he said it. That was strange. I hadn’t seen him excited about a girl, or about
anyone
, for that matter, in over a year. Sure, he got laid sometimes, he didn’t go without that, but to talk about it, and to talk about it like he was happy about it, that was something else.

Anyway, I asked him about this new girl of his, kind of amazed and all, and taking it slow and careful in case this turned out to be the start of one of those sarcastic rants of his, but he was for real. Very earnest, very serious. He said he’d met her the previous Saturday. Said she came to his door looking for someone else, got the wrong house or something, and ‘cause it was raining outside he thought he’d at least invite her in since she looked cold and kinda wet. I mean, he was a considerate guy, and you know where his house is, all the way out in the country where the rent’s cheap. It’s pretty far off from any other place.

I guess she declined, said she’d drive on, but then the rain picked up. You remember how it was that night? Flooding all over the place, washed-out roads, and you couldn’t see five feet in front of your face to drive. It lasted almost two hours before it began to calm down. So she stayed, and she and Saul got to talking.

Yeah, of course he told me her name. I already told you he said it was Lucy. Sorry that doesn’t help much, but he never mentioned a last name. And that’s another thing that should’ve bugged me. I’m not sure if even
he
ever found out what it was. In fact, I’d bet he didn’t, considering. What did she look like? “Willowy,” Saul told me. And long blonde hair. About our age.

No, I never met her. Not once. I always figured I would, you know. I always figured there would be plenty of times when we’d all go out together, me and Suzie and Saul and her. But now… now, just the
thought
…

Gimme a minute, would you? Thanks. Just a minute.

Yeah. Yeah, I’m OK now. So they were talking, and then Saul said she started looking at some of his canvases, going from one to the next very slowly, very carefully examining each one. He kept the finished ones on the walls in the living room. They made him feel comfortable. Maybe it sounds vain, but I can understand why he did it. I’m the same way. Art’s an expression of your feelings, your desires, what’s important to you. It’s an expression of yourself. Anytime I finish a rendering I’m proud of, up it goes.

He said she was really smitten with them, really smitten. That never did much for him, being complimented, since it was easy to be polite and easier to be insincere. That was one of his favorite phrases. But he said she seemed to know something about art, or about oil painting at least, and that her compliments were worded in technical terms. She even criticized a little, which
really
impressed Saul. And so they fell into some deep conversation—the kind of talk he couldn’t get with almost anyone else. I could tell it excited him, having someone to talk to like that, someone who could keep up with his thoughts and theories and views, then insert her own and make him think. And finally, after three or four hours, he asked her to come back for lunch on Monday afternoon.

Yes, that would have been October 9th. I’d just bought pumpkins and decorated the apartment. I love Halloween.
Used
to. Not anymore. Not after today.

And so she did meet up with him again. She came back for lunch. And man, according to Saul, sparks
flew!
He said nothing physical took place, but when she left his house early that evening she’d already agreed to model for him, to be his subject for a series of paintings he was about to begin for his 538 class. Finding a good subject is tough, unless you want to use the people the class provides, and those aren’t usually best. So that was good for him.

But Saul wasn’t just happy, he was
thrilled.
She had a good mind
and
she was beautiful. I mean, it was as if after so long, after such a drawn-out period of building up a wall against a serious relationship, he was finally daring to peek over it and have a look around. He was attracted to her, and on more than one level. She meant something to him… connected with him. He was
interested
in Lucy. He
wanted
to know her better. She was good for him, that’s the best way I can put it. Or I thought she was. I don’t know, but there must’ve been something about her he’d been hoping to find for a long, long time—

Oh, God… oh, God…

Yes, thanks. Just… just… yeah, that’s better. A cigarette beats caffeine any day. Calms the nerves when coffee riles them up.

So Saul was happy that night in The Easy, and we drank for a few hours, and talked about lots of things, but mainly about relationships. Saul also mentioned he’d met with Lucy at his house the day before—yes, the 11th—and started his sketches. He said she had no qualms about posing nude for him, no modesty. It was all for the sake of art, or so he claimed she said, although I bet he was hoping it was more than that. I could tell he thought it was.

And he said she had an absolutely beautiful body. “Stunning,” he said. “Close to perfect.”

I didn’t hear from him again until the following Thursday—yeah, the 19th—when we met again, same time, same place, for our weekly thing. I’d had a rough few days, since classes were pressing with their deadlines, and my advisor was being a bear about my latest series of revisions. I didn’t feel like talking much, or if I did, I wanted to talk about how much everything sucked. You know, to get it off my chest. That’s what Saul and I usually talked about. Stuff like that. But Saul, he wanted to talk about Lucy instead.

He said he’d finished five oil paintings in four days. That he hadn’t had more than four hours’ sleep a night in the past week but felt great. Five paintings in four days? Man, that’s output, especially on top of classes and everything else. And he said they were big canvases! That they were still drying but would set soon. He also claimed to be churning out charcoal sketches, and that Lucy never seemed to get tired of posing. That she was the perfect subject. Then he went on about all the great conversations they had, and how much they had in common, although he never mentioned what her major was, or even if she was in college. It was kind of funny, because, you know, I’d ask questions about her, and he said he didn’t know the answers, as if that was completely natural. He said he didn’t care.

Man, he even said he cooked for her, which I can hardly imagine, since Saul couldn’t boil water without burning it. He went on about how close they were getting, and how he was hoping their relationship would turn into something bigger. Something even closer. He nudged me when he said that. God.

So I ended up listening to him instead of complaining about my week, and drinking more ‘cause I wasn’t doing most of the talking. I called it an early night, I guess since I was in kind of a bad mood and wasn’t finding room to vent. Saul said he’d call me the following week about getting together again on Halloween. Yeah, today. I would have been with him at The Easy right now, at the costume party they have every year.

Saul called on Monday night. He said he’d finished another oil and was coming down the home stretch on plans for a few more. It was amazing. Those paintings can take
weeks
, especially the way Saul had always worked. He was still in a fine mood, although he sounded tired. Even so, since I was a bit perkier we chatted for a long time. He actually let me do most of the talking, so I went on and on about my workload, my Master’s project, and stuff like that. We only touched on Lucy once, when he said she was coming over to see him again the next day, and he was going to try to “step up the pace with her,” as he put it. I wished him luck. I truly hoped the relationship
would
move to the next level. He deserved some happiness, some contentment. And then we hung up. End of conversation.

Could I have another cigarette? Thanks. Sorry to bum, but I’ve really got a craving. Thought I was going to quit, but I guess not. Not for a while, anyway. I’ll take the addiction for a bit longer. I think I’m going to need it.

Hmm? Last night. Do we have to talk about it right now? Can’t I get something to eat? Fine, then. Yeah, I understand. It’s just that it’s been a bit of a… yeah.

Last night Saul called again, and this time, God, there was something wrong. I’d never heard him so upset.

“I pushed her away!” he said. “She’s gone!”

“What happened?” I asked. “Why did she leave?”

Saul said, “I don’t know, I put my arm around her, kissed her, and she kissed me back, was really getting into it, but then she just went cold—
so
cold—and she pulled away. I asked what I’d done, but she wouldn’t talk about it. She just stood up, got her coat, and made for the damn door.”