Authors: T. Greenwood

Tags: #Fiction, #Contemporary Women, #Family Life, #Psychological, #General

Nearer Than the Sky (24 page)

BOOK: Nearer Than the Sky

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Chuck took my hand and looked at it as if it weren’t a hand at all but something fascinating. A miniature teacup, or a strange bird.

He spoke softly, his breath warm in the cold air between us. “I
was
mad. At my pop. I was mad at her too, I think. For dying. For making him so sad that he’d do what he did.”

My heart beat hard in my chest; it felt like I’d accidentally swallowed a cough drop whole. He understood. He knew what it felt like to be broken.

I reached for him. Drunk. And pulled him close to me. I reached with everything I had to offer, searching for something he couldn’t possibly give. But the moment that I felt the new stubble of his cheeks touch my lips I started to cry. He pulled away from me sharply, leaving me leaning toward him.

“We best get back to the house,” he said, standing up abruptly.

“I’m sorry,” I mumbled. I pressed my palm into the sharp pine needles carpeting the forest floor.

“S’okay,” he said, offering his hand to help me up. The sun had set behind us. It was dark, but Chuck knew the way back. He led and I followed his silhouette in front of me, leading the way. And in the cold darkness, the ache in my ears spread down my spine, into my knees and my ankles. My wrists and my empty hands.

Peter had finished washing and drying the dishes already. The discarded shells were on top of the nearly frozen compost pile. Everything was bright in the kitchen. Everything was clean.

“Give Leigh a smooch,” Peter said, seeing Chuck out the door.

I watched them through the window.

Peter didn’t come back inside until after Chuck had pulled out of the driveway. He was shivering when he came back in.

“Hi.” He smiled.

He reached out for my hand tentatively, and I accepted it. And then I followed him, up the stairs to the bedroom where we curled around each other in our familiar bed. I tried not to think about Chuck, about the sharp sting of pine needles in my hands. I tried to concentrate on the way Peter’s chest rose and fell in a rhythm that was perfect and predictable.

The trip and the bourbon had made me exhausted, and I was grateful for the need for sleep that descended on me like the weight of too many blankets. I don’t remember my head touching the feather pillow. I don’t remember closing my eyes. I only remember the phone ringing, pulling me out of sleep like a reluctant anchor out of a watery dream. I only remember my head pounding with too much bourbon and Peter’s words.

Peter was sitting at the edge of the bed, with the phone to his ear. He was pulling on a pair of long johns and wool socks.

“What’s the matter?” I asked, pushing against the heaviness of sleep and quilts, trying to make sense of the shadows in the room.

“I’ll be there in twenty minutes. Just hang on,” Peter said and hung up the phone.

“What’s going on?” I asked. My heart was thudding hard in my chest, as if I’d been running instead of sleeping.

“It’s Leigh,” he said. “She just lost the baby.”

We were the only car on the road. It was three o’clock in the morning, and for a moment it felt like we were only driving to the café to start baking bread and muffins. But by the time we got to the hospital, I wasn’t able to trick myself anymore. The hospital lights glowed green on Peter’s skin as he walked purposefully across the parking lot to the emergency room entrance.

Chuck was standing outside, smoking a cigarette. His boots were untied, his wool hat sitting crooked on his head. When he saw us coming, he snubbed the cigarette out with his boot and reached for Peter. Peter held on to him, patting his back with both gloved hands. I stood quietly watching.

Peter stepped back, still holding on to Chuck’s arms. “How’s Leigh?”

“Okay, I guess. They had to do a D and C; she’s pretty groggy.” Chuck shoved his hands in his pockets and stared at his feet. “It happened on the way home from her ma’s house. She could have been in an accident. I shouldn’t have let her go by herself.”

I shook my head and reached for Chuck’s arm. “It’s not your fault. . . .”

At the same time Peter put his arm around Chuck’s shoulder and steered him toward the door. I stood there with my arm outstretched toward nothing. I walked behind them. Followed them. Matched my footsteps to theirs, identical on the white tiled floor.

M
a and Lily pulled into the driveway just after I’d gone to bed. I could hear the tires crushing gravel, the trailer carrying Lily’s stairs dragging wearily behind. It was too early to turn in, only eight o’clock, but I had hoped to be sleeping when they got home. I had hoped I wouldn’t have to see either of them until the next morning. But there was no way to feign sleep when Ma threw open the kitchen door. There was no way to keep my eyes pressed closed when she started screaming.

“Get your father on the phone now!” she said in the empty kitchen. Her voice had not been forgotten but had been missing for so long now it sounded like a phantom voice in the other room.

I lay on my back staring at the ceiling, knowing that as soon as I relented my whole world would be turned upside down again. I tugged at my nightgown, which had ridden up my legs. I’d used one of Ma’s rusty pink razors I found in a drawer and my legs were covered with little red itchy bumps.

“Indie!” she insisted, somehow knowing that I was lying awake in my bedroom just after twilight.

The trophy from the pool tournament was sitting on my bureau. I could make out its outline among the shadows of old perfume bottles, music boxes, and rolled-up socks. I’d left it there to put away later. I squeezed my eyes shut and listened as Benny’s heavy feet fell across the kitchen floor, as he leaned into Ma, whose arms remained heavy at her sides, as he started to whimper in the way that sounded like the train coming. I thought he was only crying because she wouldn’t hug him, but when the rumble of his sobs became the metal on metal sound of the tracks and the warning whistle of his cries became the scream of steam, I knew something much worse was happening in our kitchen.

As I ran down the hall, my legs brushed against the nylon of my nightgown, the damaged skin of my legs burning. I leaned down and pressed my cold palms against them to squash the fire. The only light on was the one over the stove; its fluorescent green glow made this an underwater scene, as if the linoleum were the floor of the ocean, and Benny, cowering in the corner by the refrigerator, was a creature instead of a boy. Ma stood by the kitchen table with her hands hiding her face. When she moved them away, there were dark, bloody hand prints on the pale green of her skin.

“What’s the matter, Ma?” I asked softly. Afraid.

She didn’t answer me, but picked up the phone and dialed the number for the bar. “Sheila, this is Judy Brown. I need to speak to my husband.”

I imagined Sheila in her halter top. I thought of the way she had stroked Daddy’s hair when he hurt his knee in the backyard dancing like John Travolta. I thought of the way her words tasted like stale peppermints. She would roll her eyes and hand Daddy the phone. She would maybe touch him by accident when he took the receiver from her.

In the deep-sea kitchen, Ma’s words swam softly. “Lily’s hemorrhaging. She was feeling sick yesterday during the awards ceremony, but she didn’t have a fever so I thought we could wait until we got home so she could see her regular doctor. But then she started bleeding just past Camp Verde.” Ma pressed her free hand onto the table and stared at the red mark it made. “I’ve got the rental car with the trailer. I need you to come get us.”

I saw Sheila go back behind the bar while Daddy curled the long cord into the kitchen. I smelled Rosey’s enchiladas and heard the basket of onion rings descending into the crackling fat. I felt Sheila’s sigh on Daddy’s neck.

Ma closed her eyes and raised her voice. “Your daughter is bleeding to death in the backseat of a car. If you don’t get here in five minutes she will die. Do you understand?”

Benny had sunk to the floor and was crawling toward the table. He looked like a man instead of a boy. He looked like a giant slithering across the sea floor. When he got to where Ma was standing, he bumped into her accidentally. His eyes rose up to meet hers, knowing probably that he’d made a terrible mistake trying to hide. Because no sooner did his soft eyes meet hers, trying to explain in a glance that he hadn’t meant to bump her, that he only needed to be safe, that she kicked. Like she was kicking a dog, and I covered my ears when she hung up the phone and started to yell at Benny.

Benny held one large hand to his side, wounded but not dead, and kept crawling through her liquid words toward the table. The cave under the sea. I thought for a moment of joining him. Of living inside that cave forever. But then her attention shifted to me, standing in the doorway with my hands over my ears and razor burn on my legs. She came at me as if she might be gentle, as if she might pull me into her arms and hold me there softly. That she might be sorry.

And she did. Inside my chest my heart bumped and thumped, awkward and scared. But her arms made a circle of softness around my bare shoulders. Benny was silent, hidden now and safe under the table and Ma was holding me. Tears grew hot and wet in the corners of my eyes. And she didn’t let go. This was the closest I had been to Ma in so long that I’d forgotten the way she smelled of lavender. I’d forgotten that her ribs made a cage around her heart. I’d forgotten that her hands were smaller than mine on my back. And in this lavender moment I could forgive her for kicking Benny. I could understand. The night at Rusty’s was still vivid in my mind. The metallic taste of hate in my mouth. But there was only tenderness here. Ma was holding on to me for dear life.

But when Daddy came into the kitchen, Ma let go.

“Where is she?” he said.

“I told you she’s in the car,” Ma said, turning to face him. All that softness turned to the hardness of bone and the sharpness of breath.

“Indie, stay here with your brother,” Daddy said.

I nodded and Ma followed Daddy out the door.

I left Benny under the table. I walked past him, pleading with me to stay, and into my room, where I picked up the trophy and stared at the brass plate with tiny screws holding it onto the marble base. I hadn’t even asked if Lily had won the Little Miss Desert Flower contest. I hadn’t asked because I already knew. I knew this like I knew when there was electricity in the air. I knew that if there were a banner and a crown and a trophy fifty times the size of mine that there would have been no blood. It was as simple as that. If Lily had won the contest, Ma wouldn’t have made this happen again.

T
he day before Thanksgiving, I got up to go to the café with Peter. I got up while he was in the bathroom, startled him when he came back into the dim light of our bedroom.

“Go back to bed.You don’t need to come with me today,” he said, running his long fingers through his hair.

“I want to,” I said, and went to the bureau for something to wear. The floor was cold underneath my feet. When I breathed, cold clouds escaped from my lips.

“Really, Indie. It’s okay,” he said, reaching for my hand.

I ignored him and pulled a pair of jeans out of the drawer.

“I said I
want
to.” My eyes were stinging.

“Okay,” he said, backing away from me, his hands raised defensively.

“What’s
that?”

“What?”

“That,”
I said, imitating his gesture.

“Nothing. Sorry.”

I pulled the jeans on and turned away from him to pull my nightgown off. I was shivering, but I lingered like this, my naked back turned to him, for several moments before I slipped my favorite bra on and then a worn T-shirt over that. When I turned around again, he had already gone into the living room to rekindle the fire.

We rode silently through the woods to the Swan. The streets were empty. White Christmas lights in the trees were like fallen stars trapped in cold branches. It was beautiful. Strange. But today Peter didn’t linger inside the truck. He opened the door and slammed it shut again, walking briskly to the door, his keys ready in his hands as I followed quietly behind him.

He went straight to the kitchen, leaving me to navigate the dark stairs to the bakery alone. I flicked on the light, pulled an apron from the starched and newly laundered pack, looped it over my head, and pulled my hair away from my face with a rubber band. I found three buckets marked
Wet
in the refrigerator (milk and sugar and eggs floating on top like miniature suns), and three marked
Dry
on the counter. I found a note written by Peter with instructions for triple berry, maple walnut, and chocolate cheesecake muffins. Anyone could do this job. This message could have been left for anyone.

I pulled three mixing bowls from the shelf and lined them up along the smooth wooden counter. I turned the oven to 325 degrees and blew flour off the radio. But when I turned the radio on, the knob came off in my hands. I tried several times to reattach it, but it no longer seemed to fit. Frustrated, I hurled the knob into the sink and it reverberated against the stainless steel sides.

I measured blueberries, raspberries, and strawberries into one bowl. Chocolate and sour cream, maple syrup and walnuts into the others. I dumped the
Wet
and
Dry
buckets’ contents into their respective bowls and stirred purposefully until my arm ached and the batters were smooth. I lined three tins with paper muffin cups, pretty, blue miniature accordions. The nonstick spray saturated them, beaded up on the exposed tin. The batter was thick, streaked with berries and chocolate and pure Vermont maple syrup.

Above me, I could hear Peter’s feet walking across the kitchen floor. I could hear the sink. The doorbells as Joe came in, his bicycle rolling across the floor and then out the back door to the alley where he would lock it to an old set of pipes.

After I put the muffins in the oven, I went to the office and turned on the lights, looked at Peter’s desk. I pulled open the drawers and stared at the carefully organized tray filled with tacks and erasers and rubber bands. The employee schedule hanging on the bulletin board was organized into shifts, names penciled perfectly into their time slots. Pencils sharpened like daggers, erasers free from ink or dirt, were lined up like soldiers on the lefthand side of the desk. A blotter without doodles. An empty wastebasket and a file cabinet without a single file out of place.

When I picked up the phone to call Lily, I also picked up a black magic marker. As the phone rang, midnight Phoenix time, I took the cap off and let the strong scent of poison, of toxins, linger under my nose. As Lily answered the phone, her voice frightened, I started to make black Xs all over Peter’s things. Instead of speaking, instead of demanding answers, instead of stopping her with my words, I marked the blotter, the employee schedule, the walls with black ink. I made Xs on the backs of my hands. I hung up the phone and made marks on the clean white apron, on my jeans, and on my T-shirt. I didn’t stop until the marker ran dry in my hands and my tears ran wet down my cheeks. Upstairs I could hear Peter dragging the Daily Special easel outside, and I stared at the mess I’d made and cried. It wasn’t until I smelled the muffins burning that I realized what I’d done.

Peter came down as I was pulling the blackened muffins from the oven. Smoke poured out of the door making us both cough.

“Let me get it, Indie. Please,” he said, and tossed the burning muffins into the sink.

I sat down on the floor next to the giant bread dough mixer, leaned my cheek against the cold metal base and closed my eyes.

Peter turned on the giant fan near the doorway and sat down next to me on the floor. He pulled me into him, fought me.

“What’s going
on
?”

I looked at his face, his eyes wide and filled with sorrow.

“Please help me,” he said.

I felt the cool metal against my skin, allowed my chest to rumble as it expelled the last few breaths of smokey air. “I’m like one of those cans you won’t buy at the grocery store,” I said.

“What?” he asked.

“One of those cans they always pile into a grocery cart and charge half price for. They’re the ones that someone dropped, the dented ones. Remember? Remember that time I put one in our cart? Tomatoes or something.You made me put it back. You said that a dented can is not just a dented can.You said that it makes the insides go bad. Remember?”

“No,” Peter said into my hair.

“It’s true, Peter. God, just give me that much.”

BOOK: Nearer Than the Sky

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