Slices (16 page)

“Not
like this.” He shook his head. “Never this bad.”

“No,
but bad enough. Bad enough to convince her that you could have led a
better life without her. And she thinks that’s enough to punish
herself for.”

“That’s
— because of
me?
— That’s crazy.”

“That’s
what you said.” She couldn’t look at him. “And
I — well, someone, someone who loves you, very, very much —
told you, there wasn’t anything you could do. That you could
try. But that no one here gets out. That if you came down here, if —
”

“If
I saw her more than three times …. ”

“That’s
right. If you started to believe all this was real — you’d
be just as trapped as she is. That there wasn’t anything you
could do.”

“If
you believe that — then why come after me?”

Her
eyes flashed briefly toward him, and she smiled. “I was kind
of hoping you wouldn’t ask me that. — I don’t
really have an answer for you.”

“Well,
whyever you did it … thank you.”

“You’re
welcome.”

He
hugged her again, and stood up. “You should go,” he told
her. “Go home. You’ve told me what I need to know.”

“I’ll
go, if you come with me.”

“I
can’t.” This time, he smiled. “I really can’t.
I’ve got to see this through. You told me I can walk out of
here whenever I want, right?”

“Yes,
you can, but you
won’t.
Not unless you come with me right now, you won’t. You’ll
forget again.”

“No
— look, I can do this. I just — I need to try harder,
that’s all. I just need to love her more. I can show her.”

“Ryan,
please.” She was starting to cry again. His breath caught in
his throat. Ryan? Was that his name? God, he’d forgotten —

“It’s
okay,” he said. “I just haven’t done enough. I can.
I’m sure I can. It’ll be okay.” He took her hand,
held it tight, then let it go. “Go on home.”

“Ryan,
I can’t ever see you again — ”

“No.
It’s okay. You will. You’ll see me again.”

And
so she did.

Months,
or maybe years later — impossible to tell, time just fell away
from you here in this place. He had gotten away for a little while.
Kathy was asleep, taking a nap, deep in fever, sick again. Or still.
It was hard to tell. He’d been reading to her all morning, her
favorite sonnets and poems, and had been up half the night before,
making up silly rhymes and fairy tales, trying to take her mind off
it. He’d barely slept, but now at least she was asleep.

Ryan
— although he’d forgotten his name again, by now, that
was still who he was — had gone out to the store, and had
bought bread, among other things, and remembered on his way home that
they already had bread. So he’d stopped at the park, and was
sitting on the cement bench, tearing off pieces of bread and tossing
them into the water.

There
were no ducks here to eat the bread, but that didn’t occur to
him; he didn’t know why he was doing this, he just dimly
remembered that it was a way to pass the time.

He
was halfway through the loaf when he saw Hope. Just like her voice
had been the first time he’d heard it, the sight of her was
like a bullet.

“Hi,”
he said, because it was all he could think of to say.

“Hi.”
She sat down next to him.

“You
said I’d never see you again.”

“And
you said I would.”

“True
enough.”

“I
— tried to go back.”

“To
Heaven?”

“To
Heaven.”

He
tossed another piece of bread into the water. It sank like the rest.
“Wouldn’t they let you in?”

“No
— I mean, yes, but … I couldn’t … just
leave you here.”

He
nodded carefully. “I see.” After a moment, he added,
“Then you understand.”

“Why
you couldn’t leave Kathy? Yeah. Yeah, I do. — It wouldn’t
be Heaven without you in it.”

“I
understand. But there’s something I’m not sure you
realize.”

“What’s
that?”

“That
this will still be Hell. Even with me in it. There are some things
even love doesn’t make better.”

“No,”
she said finally, “but at least this way I’ll be with
you. I’ll get to see you.”

“Yes.
I suppose so.”

They
didn’t say anything for a moment. She reached over and took
some bread and joined him, throwing crumbs into the water.

When
they ran out of bread, they sat and stared for a while. Not at
anything in particular.

“So,”
she said, standing up.

“So.”

“I’ll
see you around, I guess?”

“Yeah.
I guess so.”

And
so she did.

Months
and months went by, and he gradually forgot her; he would see her
from time to time, and wonder at night, when he looked out the
window, when he went to shut it against the cold, or to open it when
Kathy was too hot, just who it was standing outside looking up at
him, alone in the night. And he would wonder who kept calling him on
the phone, but never had anything to say when he would answer.

And
their paths did cross, eventually:

They
met in the supermarket, approaching each other from opposite ends of
an aisle, each of them pushing a rusting and aimless cart. There
wasn’t quite room for them to pass each other, and they each
struggled to get out of the other’s way.

Excuse
me, she said —

And
his heart stopped beating — that was so almost familiar —
and then forgot and beat on.

But
still he looked at her as he passed her, and her face was so almost
familiar as well — didn’t he know someone who looked like
that, once … ?

No;
no, he was mistaken; the person he was thinking of had gleamed like
springtime, and didn’t blend in anywhere. This wasn’t her
at all.

He
was still thinking about her, half-remembered, on the way to the car,
when he saw something quite impossible:

A
single flower, just a weed, a dandelion, but still extraordinary,
alive and growing through a crack in the sidewalk.

He
still remembered things like that.

All
these years later, and Danny still drove the same car. There were new
dents in it, and the right front fender had been replaced, bright red
part against the body’s dull green.
It’s
Christmas in September,
Tom thought, seeing it. He stepped away from the abandoned building,
crossing the street toward it without a second glance to be certain.
Danny’s car. Had to be.

Danny
was leaning over to unlock the passenger door as he walked up, and
Tom opened it. He slid in next to him.

“Hey,
Tomcat.”

“Hey,”
Tom said, and that was all, like it had only been hours since they’d
last seen each other, and not seven years.

“I
wasn’t sure you were coming,” Tom said. “And with
our meeting space gone …. ”

Danny
laughed. “Who’d go and close down a fine old diner like
that? I ask you.”

“World’s
changed,” Tom said.

“World’s
changed. Smoke?”

“Thanks,”
Tom said, taking the cigarette. Danny shoved the dash lighter in, and
they waited for it to heat up.

“Wife
doesn’t let me smoke,” Danny said, “but just this
once, I figured what the hell.”

“You
got married?”

“You
didn’t?”

“—
No.”

“Yeah,
well.” Danny grinned, that same old lopsided grin. “I
can’t recommend it.”

Tom
smiled, staring out of the window. “Do you think we’re
the only ones showing up?”

Danny
held the lighter up, lit his cigarette with it. “For a share of
five hundred grand? I very much doubt it.”

Tom
shrugged. “Unless we’re the only ones left.”

“Just
you and me? Connor and Sean dead or in jail? Yeah, I wouldn’t
mind splitting it two ways.”

Tom
looked at him oddly. “Three ways.”

Danny
shook his head. “Yeah. Three ways.” He stared across the
street at the boarded-up diner. “So what do you think he’ll
look like?”

“Isaiah?”

“Yeah,
Isaiah, who else?”

“Just
the same.” Tom took a drag on his cigarette. “That’s
the whole point.”

“Yeah
— hey, there’s Sean now.”

Tommy
felt a little sick. If there was any of them he’d hoped
wouldn’t be making it, it was Sean.

“I
don’t think he sees us,” Danny said. “Let’s
go meet him.”

“—
Okay.”

They
got out of the car and walked over. Sean was still staring up at the
boarded windows.

“Sean,
you old bastard, how are you?” Danny said.

Sean
turned and smiled. It was a friendly enough smile, Tom had to admit.
But the expression in his eyes never changed. They looked porcelain
and unreal.

“I’m
good,” he said. “Hope you won’t think I’m
breaking our promise if I don’t meet you inside.”

“Sucks,
doesn’t it? I was looking forward to one of those big
omelettes,” Danny said.

Sean
just smiled and reached a hand out for Danny’s cigarette. He
took it and breathed in smoke. Just like old times.

Too
much like old times.
The
past never really goes away,
Tom
thought, but out loud all he said was, “Okay, so, when Connor
gets here, we can — ”

Sean
shook his head, taking another long drag. “Connor’s not
coming.”

“He’s
not?” Tom said.

“No.”
He handed the cigarette back, and Tom and Danny exchanged a look.

Why
not?
Tom
wanted to ask, but Sean was hardly inviting questions. He didn’t
ask and neither did Danny. He just formed his own ideas. None of them
good.

“Okay.
So. Uhh.” Tom dropped his dead cigarette. “Do we want to
head out there now, or — ?”

“It’ll
be too early still, won’t it?” Danny said. “Breakfast
first, okay?”

“It’s
past noon,” Sean said.

“I’ve
been driving all morning. Lunch first. Whatever.
Food.”

“I
could eat,” Sean said.

Tom
didn’t say anything. He just followed the two of them, his
long-ago friends, as they walked down the sidewalk, looking for
somewhere that was open.

He
took the coin from his pocket — not the same one he used to
carry, but a silver dollar all the same — and flipped it back
and forth across the knuckles of one hand. He palmed it, made it
disappear, made it reappear in the other.

Just
sleight of hand. The first magic he’d known, years before the
real magic. He’d devoured book after book on the subject when
he was little, trying to crack their secrets. Now it was easy like
breathing, reduced to nervous habit. Across the knuckles, back and
forth, and hand to hand unseen.

They
were everywhere here. It was all he could do not to turn and stare as
he passed them in the street — but everyone here who couldn’t
see would wonder what he was looking at. And besides, he knew better
than to attract their attention, to let them know he could see them.

He’d
moved away from it all, as far as he could afford, over to the West
Coast. It wasn’t far enough — the madness was bleeding
its way across the country. But here, just a few miles from the
Atlantic, he could feel it — flooding up out of the ocean,
rushing ahead. He could hear the music and feel the steps of the
dance.

All
of it was more real to him than the two ghosts from his past he’d
fallen into step beside, the two men — and they were all men,
now, they’d only been boys before and they’d never
realized it — who were laughing and joking and happy, while Tom
just drifted along.

Well,
Danny was happy, at least. Sean was doing what passed for happy. What
was really happening behind those eyes? No way of knowing.

And
why wasn’t Connor coming?

Tom
looked at Sean — Tomcat, cat’s eyes — and saw him
standing somewhere else, miles away, a gun in his hand and
Connor’s hands reaching out imploringly, just before the shot —

Tom
stopped in the middle of the sidewalk.

Sean
looked back at him with mild interest. “You all right back
there?”

Tom
reminded himself how to smile. “I’m good,” he said.

Had
he really seen that? Or imagined it? Real or unreal; it was a
distinction that mattered less and less the closer he got to the
heart of the dance.

Real
or unreal, he didn’t have any more visions that morning. They
found somewhere to eat, and he somehow managed steak and eggs and
even conversation.

He’d
grown unused to woods like this. He’d become accustomed to the
Northwest, evergreen and shaded dark. Here he was surrounded by soft
leaves, not needles; leaves that carried their deaths secretly inside
them, that already heard the whispers of Autumn. Roots and branches
that knew things.

“We
should have drawn a goddamn map,” Danny was saying.

“I
don’t need a map,” Tom said.

He
didn’t. He’d led them straight there and now here they
were, back in the clearing he’d been seeing in his dreams more
and more these past few weeks.

From
a distance, you could see it, if you knew what you were looking for.
You didn’t even need eyes like Tom’s. You could see where
the tall grass swayed and bent, caught by a breeze that wasn’t
there. Not quite a path. A circle.

And
here, closer, in the center of it, they could see their markers.

“Hey,
you’re right, this is it,” Danny said. “Here’s
the rocks we left to find the place.”

“Not
to find it,” Tom said. “To make it stay
real.
People’ve been doing it for centuries. Like Stonehenge.”

“How
do you know so much about all this, anyway?” Danny said.

“I’ve
told you before,” Tom said distantly. “I was born under a
caul. The seventh son of a seventh son.”

“Good
Catholic family,” Sean said, smiling.

Danny
smiled back. “Not so much of the
Catholic,
I
don’t think.”