Men and Dogs (20 page)

Jon stays for a few more days. They kill the time as best they can. They decide not to break the news to Daisy while Jon’s here; too much drama. Even though they are divorcing and penniless aside from the paid-off apartment (they put it in Hannah’s name to avoid losing it in the bankruptcy process), the mood turns oddly light. They make bad jokes and drink beer in the morning. They wander around town, looking at strange antiques and buying things with the company credit card since the bill will soon be expunged. Hannah buys dresses for parties people can’t afford to have; Jon buys a Civil War–era gun, and they go out to DeWitt’s plantation and shoot it. It all feels overly giddy and sentimental, much like the last week of camp.

And then there’s the sex. Three or four times a day, he approaches her or she climbs on him and they remind themselves of the old spots they’ll soon miss. They do new things, too, trying SweetJane products they never bothered with in the past.
It’s amusing for a while, but the last time they do this, Hannah cries at the end, so she rolls away and doesn’t touch him anymore.

*    *    *

The night before Jon’s plane leaves, they crawl out onto the roof and split a bottle of $150 wine. (A last SweetJane company-credit-card gift.) The moon is out, a perfectly round, gently scarred orb, illuminating the entire harbor, Sullivan’s Island, Folly Beach,
the jetties.

“See those rocks?” Hannah points to the mouth of the harbor. “That’s where they found my dad’s boat.”

“That’s way out there.”

“They think it went out even farther, but the tide pushed it back in.”

“Huh.” Jon is pretending this is news, but he has heard this story many, many times before.

“I’m beginning to think that maybe everyone is right,” she says. “That maybe he’s not alive.”

“Interesting.” He pours her more wine.

“What do you mean, interesting?”

Jon has always been on Hannah’s side about her father. Sure, he said to her when she first told him her story. It was on their first date, when they were drinking in their kickball uniforms. He could have swum to shore, Jon theorized, or masterminded some big hoax. Hell, he could be a modern-day pirate. Or maybe he’s being held hostage as a slave worker on a pot farm.

“What I’m saying is,” he says now, “interesting that after spending more than a forty-eight-hour expanse of time at home,
you change your mind.”

“Do you think I’m being brainwashed?”

“I don’t know what I think.” He sounds tired.

“Hey,” Hannah says, “will you come look at something with me?”

“Sure.”

They climb back inside, bringing the empty bottle with them. Hannah has never shown Jon her closet before. It never seemed appropriate, somehow. The only other person who’s been in here is Warren, and the closet was their place. It’s stupid, though.
It’s not as if he hasn’t taken Jenny White-Meyers to their places, like to the end of Folly Beach or to the Bowen’s Island oyster bar.

Still, she’s a little excited. “Get ready,” she says, taking his arm. They duck through the dresses and the sweaters, and she crawls in ahead of him and turns on the light.

“Hey,” he says. “A fort.”

“Isn’t it cool?”

“Sure.” He sneezes. “A little dusty.”

“I used to hang out in here all the time.”

“You must have been a very pale kid.”

“But don’t you like how the fabric makes it look like a tent? And the pillows?”

“Sure. Very accomplished, for a seventh grader.” He leans over to turn up the lamp. “Why are we here? Oh, we haven’t had sex in here yet, have we? You want one last go-round in an even weirder part of your house?”

“No.” She picks up the shoe box of pictures. “I need your help.”

“Can we go back in your room? I’m dying in here.”

“Fine.”

I hate you, she thinks. I hate everything.

They go back into her room, and she dumps the collection, spreading the photos out so they can both see them. Jon begins sifting through the pictures and holding them up.

“Who’s this woman?” he asks, pointing at Virginia.

“My old boyfriend’s mom, Virginia.”

“So? What’s with her?”

“Oh, she had a crush on my dad. They were friends when they were little.”

“Friends?”

“She was always around. It’s sad, really.”

“Hannah.” He picks up another one of Virginia. Then another.

“What?”

“Don’t be an idiot.”

“Excuse me?”

“Do you see how many photos there are of her?”

“Yeah, there was a whole box of them. I told you. She was around a lot.”

“Sweetheart . . . ,” Jon says.

Hannah feels the cold prickle coming on. That, paired with a wave of extreme frustration at not being able to figure something out. She finds it much like trying to solve the bill at a group dinner, when one has gone over it fourteen times and gotten money from everyone, but still is $78 short.

“What?”

“Who do you think took these pictures?” he asks. He is forming his words very slowly.

“Don’t talk to me like I’m an ESL student. I’m right here.”

“Why are there so many of . . . what’s her name again? Virginia? Why aren’t they of Daisy? Or Palmer? Or you?”

“What do you mean?” Hannah says. “What are you talking about?”

“You said your dad took these, right?”

“Yeah. I mean, he must have. I found them back in high school with all the old photos. They were in DeWitt’s basement with our stuff.”

Jon looks her over. He puts his palm out and runs it over her hair, her face, her knees, her feet.

“Let’s go to bed,” he says, standing. “My flight’s at seven in the morning.”

“Tell me what you’re talking about.”

“Hannah, I have to get ready to leave.”

“Are you all right?”

“You’re not sleeping in here.” She shoves his suitcase toward the door with her foot. “Fantasy Fun Camp is over.”

“OK. If that’s how you want it.”

“It is.”

“OK.”

“We’ve got seven guest rooms. Go find one.”

“Sure.”

Still, he hovers.

“Out.”

“Hannah . . .”

“I’ll have my lawyer contact you.”

“I was thinking we’d use a mediator. It’ll be a lot cheaper for both of us.”

“Whatever. We can use a meter maid, if that’ll make you happy.”

“Is that a joke?”

“I don’t know.”

“That makes no sense.”

“Get out, Jon. I don’t want to talk to you anymore.”

“Stop yelling.”

“I. AM. NOT. YELLING.”

“All right. OK. I’m sorry, OK?”

“I said good night. The cab number’s on the fridge.”

“OK. OK, so.” He shuffles out and she shuts the door. He’s still standing out there, though. She can tell.

“She’s not the one who was wandering, Hannah,” he says through the wood. “I’m doing you a favor here, OK? That’s what it means.
The pictures. The ones of the other woman. Your dad took them.”

“Screw the pictures.”

“It’s just that you’re missing the point.”

“There is no point.”

“You’re obsessed with your mother and your stepfather, when it really seems like your dad was—”

“I’ll be in contact.”

She listens as he shifts on his feet a couple of times. After a minute, he leaves, dragging his suitcase to the next floor.
She throws the pictures into the trash. She needs to get rid of the wine bottle so her mother won’t find it; brush her teeth;
wash her face; change her Band-Aids, but she can’t leave the room. Not until he’s gone.

The sheets smell of Jon. He’s not a cologne wearer, but there is a shaving cream he likes with rosemary in it, and it’s still there somewhere, haunting the threads. Hannah rips the sheets off and throws them in the corner, then curls up on the musty stitched upholstery of the bare mattress.

20
Hannah’s Last Whispers to the Ceiling

S
ATURDAY. JON HAS just gone. Hannah has nothing left to remember. And if she does, she doesn’t want to anymore.

She stays where she is for an entire day. No one comes to get her. No one calls. She doesn’t look out the window or to the side. Just up.

She’s never looked up this hard before.

The ceiling is full of cracks. There’s an old rosette molding in the middle. It looks like the sort of thing a chandelier would hang from, but there is no trace of a light fixture. The plaster bulbs and flowers are shaded in with dust. Somebody should really clean up there.

There was a time when Hannah would talk to the flowers on the ceiling at night. She made up a story that her father had installed a camera in the middle. Even when she was about to go to college, she believed it.

Whispered, secret messages. She liked to think he could hear her.

But things are almost always better anyway when there are fewer words, aren’t they? No words, and you can make what you want from it. Like when you tell someone you love them. If they say nothing, it might mean, I don’t love you. Or, I like you all right. But it could also mean something else. For example, I love you more than I can explain.

That’s what Hannah’s always squeezed from it. That’s the nothing she’s listened for.

Yet it seems that she is the only fool here. She’s the only one who’s waited and believed, and nothing’s exactly what she’s gotten. No call or letter. No good-bye note. And now what? Her father, it turns out, was an adulterer. No better than herself in her very worst moments. I looked up to you, Dad, and you lied and cheated and then left nothing for me but a professor’s nose. And you didn’t even mean to leave that. So if you want to know how I’m feeling, just listen to the answer I’m not giving you. Or else put your ear here, on the ceiling. Get a ladder if you want to. The answer is in the cracks.