Into Thin Air (46 page)

“Is Lee dying?” Joanna whispered.

He wiped one hand over his face. “Dying? No, of course not. Why?”

She was silent for a moment. Her eyes looked luminous. “Can I sleep in the bed with you?” she said.

He looked at her for a moment, then patted the bed. “Come on, baby,” he said, She got in, burrowed against him, against Lila, who murmured drowsily, who half roused herself to look at them both. “What's going on?” she said.

“It's nothing,” he said. He wrapped one arm about Lila, drawing her close. With the other arm he held his daughter. “It's all right, pumpkin,” he said, but long after both Lila and Joanna were asleep, his eyes remained open.

Lee didn't tell Jim how as soon as he had said he was going to tell Joanna himself, she had felt as if she were being eaten alive with terror. She didn't say how she had paced her apartment, finally taking down all her books and dusting and alphabetizing them, getting down on her hands and knees and scrubbing the same kitchen floor she had scoured the day before. She rewashed her new dishes, she showered, and then, her hair still wet, she started walking so she wouldn't hear the deafening silence of the telephone, so she could keep the fear at bay. She walked so far that she didn't recognize the neighborhoods. She didn't recognize her own reflection in the store windows. She might have been one of the ghosts who suddenly seemed to be whispering frantically in her ears, and although she strained and strained, she couldn't pick up one single word they were saying to her, only sounds that made her whole body ache with yearning.

That night, when it was too late for anyone to call, for anyone to come by, Lee couldn't sleep. She made herself herbal tea, but as soon as it was poured she couldn't bring herself to take even one small sip. She ran a bath halfway before she knew there wasn't any way she could sit in it for more than two seconds without losing her mind. She turned on the radio and then turned it off, and then she began pacing the apartment, shadowed by the same whispering she had heard when she was walking. The apartment settled in the night, as lonely as if no one in the world had ever stayed there or ever would again.

She walked past the room that was Joanna's. Joanna's bed had one stuffed animal on it, a new blue elephant she had bought the other day. Lee pulled back the brand-new pink floral spread. She had gone to three different department stores before she found the rose-sprigged coverlet, before she noticed the matching pure cotton sheets, all edged with soft pink lace that the saleslady assured her had come all the way from France. She traced a hand down the sheet and a sudden, sweet new smell of baby powder floated up, the smell of a young girl. It was a still, warm night, but a breeze ruffled the coverlet. If you listened, you could hear stars starting to break through the night sky. Very, very slowly, Lee sat down on the bed and lay across it, and as soon as she did, the space beside her on the bed seemed suddenly warmer. Heart beating, she took one of the pillows and hooped an arm around it, bringing it close, and she was so overcome by the way the pillow fit beside her, like a small, compact girl, that she would have wept if she could have allowed herself to. She shut her eyes, the pillow moved with her, and then something suddenly let go and she realized just how tired she really was. Her breathing evened out; she rolled toward dreams, and around her the air was so blue and heavy, the night so quiet, that for a moment all around her seemed to be miracles, just waiting to happen.

Lee showed up at the pharmacy every single day for two weeks, hopeful and expectant, but Joanna never came. “You must have told her wrong,” Lee said. “Maybe you frightened her. I want to talk to her.”

“Absolutely not,” Jim said. “She's upset enough.”

“Try and stop me,” Lee said.

She kept insisting. She would have gone to the house right that second if Jim hadn't stopped her. “All right,” he said, flushed. “You're so anxious to talk to her, talk to her, but in my house. With me there.”

“Not in the same room,” Lee said. “She won't hear me if you're there.”

He sighed, “All right, but if she doesn't want to see you, I'm not making her.”

“You won't have to make her,” Lee said. “I know it.”

Lila wasn't thrilled about Lee coming over. “Why does she have to come here?” she demanded.

“You want her to approach Joanna at the school?” he said. “You want her talking to Joanna without either one of us being nearby? We'll be here. We can control things.”

Lila was silent for a moment. “Sure,” she said.

The day Lee was supposed to come over, Lila had spent the morning vacuuming up dog hair, even attempting to hold the dog down so she could vacuum him a little, too. She instantly regretted never having made Jim move out of the house he had lived in with Lee. She regretted never having painted or fixed up the place more; they hadn't even bought new furniture. She put their wedding picture on the TV in the living room. She thought about cooking elaborate snacks and then decided not to cook at all, not to make Lee any more at home than necessary.

That day Lee had woken up at six in the morning, too jazzed up to sleep. She showered and washed her hair, even though she had washed it the night before. She put on two different outfits before ending up in jeans and sneakers. And then, right before she left for Jim's, she sat on Joanna's bed for a minute, her hands splayed across the French spread. Please, she thought.

She was at Jim's by noon. Jim came to the door, Joanna and her dog behind him. When she saw Lee, she stiffened. “Lila's in the kitchen,” Jim said.

“I haven't seen you in a while,” Lee said to Joanna.

Joanna turned and walked back into the house.

“Well,” Jim said. Lee could hear Lila's voice in the kitchen, low and soothing, and then Joanna reappeared holding Lila's hand.

“Lee just wants to talk to you, honey,” Jim said.

Joanna looked up at Lila. “We'll be right in the backyard,” Lila said. She nodded curtly at Lee.

Joanna stood perfectly still. After Jim and Lila left the room, for one moment Lee thought she was going to bolt, but instead Joanna sat on the farthest chair she could find. The dog settled at her feet, so friendly-faced that for a minute Lee considered talking to him.

Lee lowered herself onto the couch. “Did your father tell you?”

Joanna nodded.

“Well, what do you think?”

She seemed to be dreaming, half there. “Well?” Lee said. Joanna ruffled the dog's fur.

Joanna looked at her. “I thought you were dead,” she said.

“Do I look dead?” Lee said.

“If I had a baby, I wouldn't have left her.”

Lee twined her fingers together. She wanted to say “How do you know what you'll do, what you'll feel, how you'll be, at nineteen? How can you know that one day you might be so terrified that the only thing that seems safe might just be an open road?” Instead she composed herself. “Then you're stronger than I was.” She leaned back against the soft cushions of the couch, suddenly exhausted.

“I started thinking about you all the time. I wanted to know you,” said Lee.

“You don't know me.”

“I know, but I
want
to.” She flopped her hand in her lap. “Listen, I know it's weird. It's odd for me, too. But we can take it slow, as slow as you like. Maybe you could come out to my apartment some afternoon. Just you and me. Would you like that?”

Joanna studied her. “No,” she said.

Lee wet her lips. “We could bake cookies,” she said. “I have books you might like.”

“No,” said Joanna.

“Well, you can think about it. Maybe decide later.”

Heated, Joanna stood up. There was no air in the room. The light seemed to be dimming. “I said
no
,” she said, her voice rising, heaving into a shout. “What's wrong with you? Don't you understand English?” And then she ran from the room, the dog barking after her.

Joanna hurtled out of the house, slamming the back door behind her. She tore past Lila and Jim, who stood up from their lawn chairs. She was too fast for them. “Joanna!” Lila cried, but Joanna no longer heard her. She ran blindly, into Maureen's yard, toward Maureen's always open back door.

“I knew it,” said Lila. Jim stood up, putting one hand on Lila's shoulder. Then he turned and walked into the house, his face set with anger.

He was going to shout her from his house, tell her that enough was enough. Anyone could see that Joanna didn't want to go with her. He stormed into the living room, his head lifting in fury, and there, in a corner of sunlight, was Lee, crying helplessly, hunched over. His anger deflated and he felt suddenly weakened.

Lee was crying so hard that she was shaking. Her face was damp and flushed. Even when they were seventeen he had never been able to look at her without wanting to take care of her. Abruptly he touched her, felt the sudden heat of her skin, and then he leaned her toward him, as easily as if she were made of paper. Gratefully she dropped against him and he closed his arms about her with a sigh. “I was pregnant with her in this house,” Lee cried. “I lived here!”

Outside, waiting, Lila, too, began to cry. She swabbed helplessly at her face and then stood up, brushing off the seat of her skirt. Enough was enough. She was going to walk into her house and tell Lee to leave, and then she was going to walk into Maureen's and tell her daughter to come home where she belonged.

Lila didn't see them at first. They were in the shadows by the window, Jim rocking Lee, talking to her in a voice so low, it made her frightened. “Jim,” she said, and then, startled, Jim and Lee released. Lee looked merely surprised, but Jim's face was a map of confused yearning that made something inside of Lila start to chip and break apart.

“I'd better go,” Lee said, her voice raw. She scooped up her purse, nodding briefly at Jim. “Thanks,” she said to Lila. “I guess it didn't go so well today.”

“I guess it didn't,” Lila said coldly.

Lee leaned along the wall, deflated, swiping at her runny nose. She straightened, resigned, and pulled her coat closed about her. When she walked to the door, she kept her head down, not looking at either Jim or Lila.

Jim followed her to the door, and then he stood there, at the entrance, just watching Lee walk down the flagstone walk away from him, back out into the street, and when he finally turned back toward Lila she was stiff with anger.

She turned before he could reach her and stormed into the kitchen. She crashed dirty dishes into the sink, flooding them with water.

He fiddled with the edge of the dish towel. “I'm sorry it was rough for you,” he said finally.

“Not too rough for you, though, was it,” Lila said sharply.

“What are you talking about?”

“You like having her here,” Lila said. “It's unfinished business for the Archers all around, now, isn't it?” She stopped doing the dishes and turned to face him.

“What's wrong with you?” Jim said. “Can't I even comfort her without your thinking something's going on?”

“Something is going on,” she said acidly. “You've never forgotten her, have you, never given up hope.”

“Do you see me running after her?”

“You're running in place.”

“Don't tell me how I feel,” he shouted. “I know how I feel.”

Lila splashed soapy hands up from the water. “How?” she cried.

Joanna was feeling better. Maureen had taken one look at her and taken her right down into the family room downstairs. She didn't ask Joanna one single question about what was going on or why. Instead she simply turned up her favorite record, an old Elvis Presley album, so loud the dog scampered back upstairs. “Not a Presley fan, huh,” she said. “Okay, now
scream
,” she advised. “Go on, get it out.”

When Joanna remained paralyzed, Maureen started screaming herself, carrying on until Joanna joined her. As soon as Joanna screamed, she felt the anger dissolve, and with it she suddenly wanted to go home.

She was barely in her own yard when she heard the shouting. They must have been yelling before, sound insulated by Elvis. She felt suddenly frightened, but she made her way into the house, following the sound, right at the edge of the living room, where her parents were fighting. Frozen, she heard them.

“You didn't agree to it for Joanna, it was for you!” Lila cried.

“Fine,” Jim said, his face drawn. “This is just goddamned fine.” He slammed out the front door. Lila turned her head away, crossing her arms over her chest. As soon as she heard the noise of the car starting up, she whipped around, moving so fast that she didn't even see Joanna, crouching like a wild animal, pressed so closely against the wall she might as well have been invisible.

Joanna retreated more and more. She would take the dog and sit in the backyard and stare into space, She didn't hear the arguments in the house anymore or the silences at dinner. She didn't hear the phone when Lee called, asking to speak to her, and when Jim or Lila tried to speak to her about it she found she could shut out their sounds. She could watch them, their mouths moving silently, and she could imagine they were simply asking her what she wanted for dinner, what she wanted packed in her school lunch. She was lost in daydream. She was in the stars. She was swimming at Cape Cod, the water lapping against her legs.

The house began to feel hopeless. Every morning, before her shift started, Lila gardened. The squash was coming in now, the few carrots the rabbits hadn't gotten were full grown. She pulled them up so fiercely that she sometimes scratched her fingers, Jim began coming home for lunch, trying to catch Lila in the half hour before she left for work, but it seemed that no matter how he gauged it she was always leaving or already gone.

They were polite about each other. At night, in bed, they lay together as if they had never kissed or held each other or made love. In the living room the dog whined and dreamed. And in the other room, even though it was past midnight, they could hear Joanna rustling, clicking her light on and off, six times, a ritual every night now, before the house quieted and then quickened into sleep.