The Measures Between Us (21 page)

Maybe she would give the baby to them. They were young enough to raise a child, only in their early sixties, and God knows,
if the number of questions they asked about their impending grandchild was any indication, the baby wouldn't want for love.

Texas: not the state but the geometry. The idea came to her at work one day when she was researching a potential donor from a suburb of Houston. She had pulled out an atlas, found the donor's hometown, then simply stared at the massive, unwieldy shape of the state. The vast tracts of lands, the wide rivers, the unpeopled mountain ranges, shelter for criminals and innocents alike. She had an old friend there, a roommate from college, Janet, though they were no longer close. The two of them exchanged Christmas cards, which was how Lucinda knew she lived in west Texas, in a town with a single traffic light, not far from the Mexican border. Omenlike, the name surfaced quickly, and she found it on the map.

Janet was an artist and had originally traveled there for love, following a boyfriend from New York to El Paso. Their relationship soured, but she replaced her love for him by falling in love with the light. “You can't believe how brilliant and golden it is,” she wrote in one of her yearly cards, soon after settling there. “Everything is brown—I never knew there were so many different shades. Sometimes I just go out to the porch in the late afternoon and stare.”

She could camouflage the trip as a work commitment so Henry wouldn't be suspicious. He might say her boss was being insensitive, sending Lucinda while she was pregnant, and Lucinda would nod and lie, envisioning touching down two thousand miles away. Already she was emerging in the harsh, honest light, wanting, needing, to grapple with herself.

Interviewer: Henry Wheeling, PhD

Transcriber: Jack C.

Subject: M. Brown, 279 River Road

Damage to property on Davidson/Ortiz Scale: 4.5

DR. WHEELING:     Can you tell me about what happened right before the flood?

M. BROWN:     While it was raining? The lead-up to the flood?

DR. WHEELING:     Right. The days and hours just before. We're interested in your mind-set during that time.

M. BROWN:     Why?

DR. WHEELING:     I guess one of the reasons is to try and make it easier next time—if there is a next time.

M. BROWN:     There will be, I guarantee that … The sheriff had been by, the FEMA trucks too. They barreled along and blared warnings about how they couldn't ensure our safety if we chose to stay. They said: At some point it will become too dangerous for the ambulances and fire trucks. They kept repeating it, insisting it like they thought we weren't listening, which probably only makes you listen less.

DR. WHEELING:     What do you mean?

M. BROWN:     You get numb to it, the more they repeat it. Becomes just noise.

DR. WHEELING:     But you stayed.

M. BROWN:     I thought maybe they were exaggerating. I'd ridden out these storms before, even though this one, they promised, would be worse—they even gave it a name, that's when you know something's going to last, when it gets named. Maybe I should've believed them, believed all those twisting shapes on the weather maps on TV. If you turn it on mute, it looks sort of beautiful, almost.

But where would I have gone? Hell if I was going to head to one of those desperate shelters in the school or church, filled with people intent on whining over a shitty cup of coffee.

DR. WHEELING:     That doesn't appeal to you?

M. BROWN:     Not in the least. Sound appealing to you, holding court with strangers? Hard cots, everyone displaced?

DR. WHEELING:     If you had family nearby, would you have gone there?

M. BROWN:     Don't have family nearby, so no. Better to remain in my own house, mutter at the dog, and watch the river rise, the water get loud and angry. I chose this place … I chose it actually because of the water—why should I leave? It was predictions anyway, and predictions can be wrong even though they didn't turn out to be.

DR. WHEELING:     What would have convinced you?

M. BROWN:     Well, for one, if it didn't feel like we go through this every few years. I mean, it rains, right? I guess it rains a lot more now than it ever did. Weather's a little crazy.

At some point I took Freda out even though she didn't want to go, even though it wasn't even raining heavily yet. What is wrong with you, dog? You're supposed to be unbothered by all this mess. She looked like I just slapped her, all pitiable, those eyes that can cry even when they're not. What is it in an animal's bones that knows the weather?

DR. WHEELING:     Did your neighbors stay, too?

M. BROWN:     Not sure, exactly. It was hard to figure out who'd stayed and who'd cut and run. The houses where I am are spaced pretty far apart, and anyone who had ended up in this godforsaken corner of the county likely had more use for animals and nature than people anyway, so it's not like we're in each other's business all the time. Mr. Phillips and his wife stayed, I'm sure of that, they always stayed like they were rooted there like ancient trees.

DR. WHEELING:     If everyone had left, would that have made a difference?

M. BROWN:     I doubt it.

DR. WHEELING:     Why?

M. BROWN:     Secretly I never agreed with everyone who cowered when the river's roar built up. I thought it sounded majestic during those times, it was the sound of its spirit. To tell the truth, that wash of noise always sent me into dreamland. It made me happy to be there—the opposite of wanting to be somewhere else.

DR. WHEELING:     So it was just you and your dog?

M. BROWN:     Right. I finally went out without her, once I was sure the sheriff wasn't around because I didn't feel like having him try to reason with me. That's always a little painful, I wasn't relishing having to explain myself. North
on River Road is a quarry. The trucks rumbled in twice a day, morning and afternoon, to chip the bluestone out of the ground.

DR. WHEELING:     So that's where you went? To higher ground?

M. BROWN:     It's higher by a little, I guess, but that wasn't why. It was just one of my walks. Farther north the road gets narrower and juts through a tree farm until it becomes a skinny footpath. This is where I took Freda when she was willing, when there was no storm heralding itself in her bones and tissue and turning her obstinate. There's a waterfall on that walk, and fields of wildflowers—Indian paintbrush, baby's breath, butterfly weed—and never any people save for a teenager or two throttling their ATVs louder than need be. I don't blame 'em, I probably liked to announce myself too much when I was their age. We all did, cost of being young.

DR. WHEELING:     Were you worried about your belongings?

M. BROWN:     Belongings?

DR. WHEELING:     Furniture? Valuables? Your stuff getting damaged or looted if you decided to leave?

M. BROWN:     [
laughs
] No. Hardly. Wasn't much in the way of valuables. And like I said, not too much in the way of people, either, who would do the looting. That's more of a city worry, I think. Things are just things in the end, anyway. Even a house can go up where one disappeared. That didn't have an ounce to do with why I stayed.

DR. WHEELING:     But was it a hard choice, to remain?

M. BROWN:     Hard … Well, I guess it depends on your definition, but no, not really. There are lookout spots on that walk, the one through the tree farm, and if you keep going
you end up in Lordville where there's an old wreck of a hotel that someone keeps threatening to buy and fix up but then never does. It's mostly spiderwebs and squirrels' and bats' lairs now. From the elevated places on the footpath you can look down at the river and the canoers and the tubers and kayakers floating south. Freda somehow always knew to be quiet too and not blow my cover. She was a beast but not, the best kind of animal.

DR. WHEELING:     Did you hear from friends or family?

M. BROWN:     There was maybe a call or two, but I let them go to the machine. Hard to know how far news about the weather travels. Seems huge where you are but maybe not even a blip in the further states. That's the nature of storms, I guess, some sporting events, too.

DR. WHEELING:     So, not much contact from people?

M. BROWN:     To be honest, I was hoping to hear from my ex-girlfriend—we'd stayed through one of these storms before, when the power was out and we lit candles and ate cereal for dinner and listened to the radio until the batteries drained. It was nice, I hardly even noticed all the inconvenience.

DR. WHEELING:     Would you have left if she had urged you to?

M. BROWN:     Ex. She was my ex-girlfriend, so no. Besides, she didn't call.

DR. WHEELING:     Did you think about calling her?

M. BROWN:     Ex, doc. Do you understand the concept of ex? [
laughs
] I didn't think she'd look too kindly on that. Anyway, opposite way of the quarry is town, and that was where I took Freda when she finally decided she could abide a walk. Two miles or so—I figured we still had
hours before the real rain started. No one was out and everything was closed, even the Trackside which was a shame since I was counting on a beer, maybe even a conversation with Darlene, the bartender, who's irritable and lovely at the same time—now that's a skill.

DR. WHEELING:     [
laughs
] Did all the boarded-up stores make you reconsider?

M. BROWN:     Not really. In fact I rode out one of the previous storms in that very bar, with that very Darlene. She'd made me leave a lot of times before, when I was oversold on all those bottles lined up. We were the only two there that day, and I think I proposed and she said: “I tried it with a drunk—not very rewarding. He couldn't keep it up.” I said: “I don't have that problem.” She said: “Honey, we all have that problem, even the sober saints. None of us can keep love up.”

DR. WHEELING:     [
laughs
]

M. BROWN:     You know what, though? She ended up taking me home, her home.

DR. WHEELING:     Because she was worried about you?

M. BROWN:     Who knows? She locked up the bar and we were standing out on the curb and she said she couldn't let me go home alone during a fifty-year flood. When we got to her apartment, she pointed to her couch and tossed a blanket and said, I'd take some aspirin if I were you. At the first light of dawn I scrawled thank you on a scrap of paper and left and went back to my house and it was still standing and maybe that's when I decided it was useless to leave.

The week after Cynthia had been admitted to Rangely, Vincent found a note in his school mailbox from the principal.

Vincent,

Would you mind stopping by my office briefly, say Thursday, 2:00 p.m.? Nothing major, just a few things to discuss.

Yours,

Ed Howard

Vincent rarely had formal meetings with Dr. Howard. He couldn't remember precisely the last one. It had probably been during the previous year, when a spate of vandalism had left the windows of several classrooms shattered, the walls defaced with profane graffiti. Fortunately the woodworking classroom had been spared, which made Vincent feel slightly superior to the math and history teachers stunned and disturbed by the hostility. His students had enough respect for him not to destroy the things he treasured. He had thought, in fact, that the reactions of the other teachers were overblown. What had happened wasn't an
expression of hate, it was just kids trying to quell their hormonal confusion.

His contact with the principal was usually limited to good-natured hellos and good-byes when they passed each other in the hallways or the faculty lounge, maybe a holiday card personalized with a sentence or two. Not that Dr. Howard was unfriendly or unsupportive. He just didn't tend to meddle with Vincent and the woodworking program, or, for that matter, with many departments outside of the academic ones. The parents and superintendent, Vincent thought, were more likely to complain about and pay close attention to English, social studies, science. These were the areas that demanded the most concentration and fiddling.

He didn't tell his wife about the note. There was no reason to give her something additional to worry about. Since Cynthia's admission, Mary had buried her attention in her cookbooks, and often Vincent found her at the kitchen table with a glass of wine and a pad of paper and an open cookbook, its spine cracked and its pages yellowed from years of use. Handwritten notes crawled up the margins. More volumes were piled next to her, and he sometimes straightened the listing tower, afraid it would topple. “New recipes?” he would ask, and she would nod, turn a page, run her forefinger across measurements and directions. As far as he could tell, she hadn't actually attempted anything new. Dinners were the familiar staples, and the house was filled with scents he had smelled for years. They greeted him when he opened the door, before she even called out hello.

There was a chance that she would welcome hearing about the principal's note and upcoming meeting as an additional diversion. Whatever she was seeking in the cookbooks might just
as well be contained in Dr. Howard's brief missive and the speculation it would spur. Yet Vincent never truly believed in this idea of distraction. It is cloud cover, a momentary, teasing fix, he thought, for a deep and persistent problem. In fact, if anything, Cynthia was providing
him
with a distraction: Before, when she wasn't hospitalized, he would have been anxious about the meeting. He would have spent hours, the better part of several days even, analyzing the past few months, searching for signs of a lapse in his teaching ability.

Nights he couldn't fall asleep, he would have zeroed in on individual students, remembering their bookshelves and bowls and bird feeders, wondering whether he had guided their hands too forcefully or not forcefully enough. He would have lain there and shut his eyes and gone bench to bench, cubby to cubby, calling up a memory of each student project, hunting for flaws and imperfections. A nail that wasn't true, misaligned joints. He would have imagined the conversations they'd had with their parents, the complaints, and how these complaints had filtered up to the principal. Maybe he hadn't kept pace with the latest teaching techniques. Maybe he had snapped at someone. Maybe he had ignored a student in need.