Primal (15 page)

Down at the breakfast table Hank is sitting alone with his
coffee and the newspaper. He acts nonchalant when Jimmy enters dressed for
school, walks over to the pantry and takes out a box of Cheerios. Yes, Hank
thinks, this is good - this is normal. He holds back the grateful tears in his
eyes. Jimmy is turning the corner.

He asks casually, “Hey, buddy, you’re up for school today?’

“Yeah.”

“Cool.” And that was all they said. It was perfect.

After breakfast, upstairs in Hank’s bedroom, where Alison is
lying awake in bed, there are no grateful emotions.

“Absolutely not,” Alison says.

“He’s going back today. It’s his decision and it is what the
therapist recommended.”

“No, Hank, no, please.”

Hank sees the fear on her face, walks over, and sits on the
side of the bed. He takes her hand. “Alison, this is the right thing for him.
He looks good this morning. It’s what he needs. It’s what’s best for him. You
have to support it.”

“No, I don’t.”

Jimmy bounds into the room. He has his coat on, his favorite
scarf and beanie, which he believes makes him look really “swa-eet”, and his
school books balanced on his hip. He practically skips over to the bed, kisses
her on the cheek.

“Bye, Mom. See you right away when I get home.”

Hank kisses her, too. “I’ll call you when I get to work. I
love you, Alison. Try to get out of bed.”

* * *

Harbor Hills Elementary School ripples with excitement and
then opens its arms to Jimmy. Denise, Gary, and a few of the other teachers
surround and hug him, which embarrasses him in front of the other boys.

“Jimmy,” Denise says, “you look really good.”

“Uh, thanks.”

She continues, “Honey, how’s your mom doing?”

Jimmy shifts from foot to foot and then says, “Okay, you
know, kinda.”

“Did she say when she might come back to school?” Gary asks.

“Nope. She’s awful tired.”

“Of course,” Denise adds, “I stopped by yesterday. But there
wasn’t any answer at the door.”

“Oh, she doesn’t answer the door.”

“Okay, tell her we miss her, okay?”

“Sure.”

Jimmy’s classmates are mesmerized by his commando experience
and while it certainly seems peculiar, Jimmy suddenly finds himself very
popular and the center of attention. The boys pepper him with questions. So he
tells the story again and again, the sting of it lessens, and it begins to feel
only like a story. The school counselor observes him and she is encouraged by
his ability to concentrate on his schoolwork and to play during recess. When
she pulls him aside he tells her it feels like he was just inside a video game
and that it really didn’t happen. She sees this as a positive distancing
mechanism and the report she sends home is even more encouraging than Hank had
hoped.

Hank was sorely needed at Pump Up The Volume. He is the one
who examines the demographics of the audience and creates the music playlist
for the DJ events. He has an encyclopedic knowledge of music history and his
playlists are a sought after commodity. Pump Up The Volume has started
providing them over the Internet for a fee. They were almost making more money
on that than on rental equipment. Sometimes when Hank is deep in the flood of
chords and melodies he remembers his father, standing in the doorway of his
bedroom yelling, “Damn it, Henry, turn off that music and study or you’ll never
get a job.”

That morning, several clients called Hank, panicked with
what they thought were emergencies. His definition of emergency has changed
forever. All of this provided some distance for him, since it helped to place
the island and its events, in time past.

* * *

Alison refuses to leave the house. Doctor Cartwell who has
come to the house two more times told Hank she is still in shock. He prescribed
medications, which she pretends to take. She tried them one time but it made
her feel murky. She needed to be clear-headed. Of that, she is certain.

When Jimmy leaves for school each morning she gets up
infused with anxiety. She paces back and forth in the bedroom. How can they not
feel it? How can they not sense the danger? It is so loud - it is practically
screaming at them! Her head begins to shake back and forth with aggressive
energy. What to do? What should she do? Damn it.

Doctor Cartwell asked her if she was having hallucinations
and she decided not to tell him about seeing Theo’s eyes like two black bullet
slugs glaring at her in the chrome of the toaster. Cartwell would not
understand. How could she tell him that when she was cutting through the orange
peel yesterday she felt the knife close in around Gravel’s skin? How would that
help anything? These are not hallucinations. These are warnings. And she has
them all the time: in the glass door of the microwave, on the stainless steel
hood over the stovetop, hollow-eyed faces take shape in the fog of her shower.
It startles her, but none of those visions with their hellish dead eyes are as
fearsome as the living eyes of Ben at the bottom of the mudslide - at the
bottom of the mudslide where she heard him make a promise. He’s coming. I know
he’s coming. She waits.

In the evening, Jimmy jabbers on about his school day. He is
giddy with school news. It feels good to have things to say again. Hank listens
happily to his son’s tales from life on the outside. They have been imprisoned
with each other, emotionally trapped on that island. Hank notices a genuine
lifting-up in his chest.

Jimmy’s face comes alive as he talks, “But that wasn’t just
it because…” he pauses for effect, “Alan likes Cindy.”

“You mean likes?”

“He like, likes her. So that’s why he let her have his spot
in line at tetherball and I don’t think it was any of Sarah’s business.”

Alison tries to focus. Exhaustion makes demands. Her mind
hovers. She blinks her eyes forcefully and squints hoping to see Jimmy clearly
but there is a film over her eyes she can’t clear. She puts on a fake smile and
her eyes begin to close involuntarily.

Hank asks “I thought Alan like liked Jennifer and you like
liked Cindy.”

“Gross, Dad, really.”

“Sorry.”

“I was telling Mrs. Davidson that English is definitely
missing some words.”

“Like what?” Hank asks.

“”Cause if you like someone then you can like them, but if
you like
like
someone you have to say
like like because there’s no word between like and love. How’s a kid supposed
to say they more than like but less than love a girl? ‘Cause love is for
grown-ups, and is scary, you know? And it’s not like you just like her, and
then you love her, there’s a lot of space in between and there aren’t any words
for…” Jimmy stops. Both Hank and Jimmy notice as Alison’s head drops forward
and slowly she crumbles over with her forehead landing in her dinner plate. She’s
asleep. She sleeps only when she literally passes out and it never lasts, an
hour here or there. Hank signals for Jimmy not to touch her. Two sets of
compassionate eyes stare at her. And then they whisper.

“Dad, why won’t she get better?”

“She will. She had a different experience than we did.”

“It was bad for us.”

“Yes. Bad, very bad, but different. We need to be patient.
Just think how patient she would be if it were you or me.”

“Yeah, but, I kinda need my mom.” Tears roll down his
cheeks. “I want her back.”

“Me, too, buddy, me too.”

They finished their over-cooked hamburgers and limp
asparagus in a sad silence. Alison didn’t move for forty minutes and then her
head shot up! She looked around in bleary-eyed confusion. Hank had cleaned up
dinner except for the plate she was lying in. Jimmy had gone off to do his
homework. The anxiety of her husband’s face touched her in the place where she
loved him. And for a brief second they exchanged an affectionate smile and Hank
felt a palpable rise of hope thinking it might be the beginning of her road
home. He dared not speak, but he could see it was her. It was definitely her.
He sat down next to the wife he knew and loved and missed and with a clean
napkin, he gently wiped the ketchup from her forehead. She rested inside his
warm eyes and it felt so good. It felt like a sip of cold fresh water, like a
soft down pillow. Then, her eyes clouded, and he knew he’d lost her again.

* * *

Jimmy finished his homework and Alison tucked him into bed.
She said nothing except good night. Jimmy rolled over and slept soundly. The
content of Jimmy’s dreams, which has been toxic with island memories, has been
slowly changing. Instead of feeling vulnerable, thanks to the astonished
reactions of his classmates he feels tough, cool, more like a survivor than a
victim. Sharon Singler said he must be some kind of superhero. Relief and
healing creep over him as he sleeps.

Alison stands stoically by the window. Dread stands with
her. Sometimes it sits on her chest. Sometimes it stands right behind her. It
always has a cold boney hand on her shoulder. The dread is a companion that
presses down on her. Each day it accelerates with its full weight in a free
fall toward her, and like the pull of gravity, it is inevitable and cannot be
persuaded. She knows what she knows. Nothing can change that. She realizes that
now she must keep her raw thoughts in a box, well wrapped, to ward off the
scorn of those who do not understand, including Hank. So she stands lonely in
the coal blackness and she waits for Ben.

At two a.m., the neighborhood goes dark. In an attempt to be
conservation-smart the town elected to turn off all of the streetlights at two
a.m. every night. The street outside the Kraft home sinks into black. All of
the houses look like indistinct hulks.

The lamps on the nightstands in the master bedroom are off.
Alison has plugged nightlights into every single electrical socket in the room
throwing a lattice of beams, which eerily resembles the floodlights at the
fishing camp. Hank is asleep. He is sleeping for longer chunks of time, but he
knows that she is not sleeping at all. He knows every beat of Alison’s
personality and he is aware that she is not really home with them. She is not
making progress every day in the same way he and Jimmy are. He wakes and looks
at the clock. Then, he rolls over to see her. She is where she always is, every
night, standing at the front bedroom window staring out into nothing.

Hank slides from the warm comforter and joins her at the
window. He drapes his arm around her.

“Allie?’

She is stiff and nonresponsive.

“Alison, you have to sleep. We have all these sleeping meds.
Take something. Please.”

“I need to stay alert.”

“No you don’t. I’ll stay up. Okay? I’ll stay up tonight.”

“No.”

His frustration grows, “You need to eat, to sleep; you need
to take care of yourself.”

“I am taking care, right now.”

“You’ve lost weight. You’ve lost hair. There are circles
under your eyes.”

“I’ve postponed my Cover Girl shoot.”

“You know that is not what I mean. You are physically
deteriorating. Surely you can see that.”

“He’s coming, Hank.”

“They have witnesses that he entered Canada. He is gone,
long gone.”

“No. He’s not.”

“Alison, try and be rational.” Doctor Cartwell warned him
not to argue with her, but he can’t help it. Someone has to bring her back to
reality. Who will it be, if not him?

“I am being rational.”

“You are staring out a window into complete darkness in the
middle of the night looking for someone who is long gone. You’re exhausted. You
are probably hungry. How is any of this rational?”

No response. Frustrated, Hank pulls the little desk stool
over to where she is standing. He gently pushes her down onto the stool so she
is sitting. He thinks at least this way she won’t literally fall over and hit
her head. He stands for a few minutes feeling awkward in his own skin. By his
sides, his arms hang long and heavy with uselessness. And that’s it, he thinks,
it’s the uselessness! It has been the uselessness all along. He is utterly
ineffectual. He was useless on the island. He is useless now as his wife comes
apart piece-by-piece. Despondent, he climbs back into bed alone. He tells
himself he must be the quiet strength she needs. He must stay in complete
control. It is for him to provide a solid foundation. It is for him to rebuild
a sturdy platform so she can find her balance. Time will be the key to
releasing her back into his arms. She belongs in his arms. How can he make this
world, this house, her reality again? He studies her over at the window. The
crisscrossing nightlights in the room create an uneven design on her back. The
beams swipe across her white nightshirt leaving a pattern of light with dark
edges that resemble the pieces of a puzzle. He thinks that is what she is now -
a series of broken pieces fitted together, appearing whole, but not whole. He
takes his finger and holds it up at arm’s length. He runs it over all of the
edges of those pieces and as he does, he miraculously fuses her back together,
it melts into one piece again, and then, he wakes and realizes he only dreamed
that he’d fixed it. His heart aches and his chest feels heavy. He watches the
back of his wife’s nightshirt for an hour until his eyes close again. She
senses when he drifts off and she stands back up from the stool to get a better
look at the street.

* * *

A week later, the morning light is tilted and the air stays
cool longer as winter’s hand dangles over Minnesota. At first, the slinking
cold creeps its way into the neighborhood during the night when everyone’s
sleeping, and then it hangs around through morning, and after a few weeks, it
grips down hard as a fist until March. People are thinking about turkey, and
butternut squash soup, and airline tickets for annual family gatherings. On
Oakline Street, everything looks perfect on the outside. Inside the foyer of
the Kraft house, Alison is explaining the brand new state-of-the-art alarm
system to Polly.