The Measures Between Us (23 page)

With that, Dr. Howard ushered Vincent out of the office and shut the door. He was eager to end their meeting. Maybe he hadn't been expecting the question about sports, didn't like the insinuation attached there, or he simply hated, like most people did, delivering bad news.

Instead of returning to the woodworking classroom, Vincent detoured to Walter's shop, in the basement. Earlier in the week he and the janitor had wheeled the table saw through the dank, low-ceilinged hallways and parked it in the corner. Recently it had been jamming. Usually Vincent could fix the machinery himself, yet occasionally the drills and planers were plagued by stubborn problems he couldn't solve.

The table saw was an older model, but in Vincent's estimation it still had several years left. He tried as hard as possible to repair the tools, with Walter's help, rather than replace them. Part of it was simple economics—there wasn't a lot of money in the annual budget for new tools, no matter how inviting they looked in the catalogs he liked to flip through—and part of it was the idea that people throw away too much, get easily frustrated and overwhelmed when something doesn't work. His insistence on fixing sometimes drove his wife mad. “I know you
can
make the toaster work, but what if I want a new one?” she asked. “If
everyone was like you, there would be no stores and tons of people out of work.” Vincent never saw trashing appliances as a good idea, though judging from the piles outside people's houses every garbage day, most people agreed with Mary. She usually relented, sensing that it was important for him to be able to take an appliance apart and reassemble it. When he finished, he merely returned the clock or radio or lamp to its rightful place without fanfare.

In Walter's shop the table saw had been reduced to its parts. Gears and blades and nuts and bolts were laid out on a work table, many drenched in black grease so thick it was sculpted into little peaks. Others gleamed with new incisions, polished threads. Vincent stood over the labyrinth of metal and fingered several of the screws and chains. He touched the saw teeth and immediately recoiled, realizing the janitor had sharpened them. He checked his fingers for a cut. There were a thousand there, an entire history of wounds and healings, enough so that he was surprised whenever he located any virgin flesh left to puncture. His wife had long since grown immune, no longer asking after every bandage or scab. When a new cut was serious or especially deep, she took his hand in hers and gently approached the fresh wound with her forefinger. She got up right next to it, didn't turn away at the dried blood. Even when it oozed pus she didn't flinch. He was a determinedly rational man, but he believed her loving touch helped the injuries heal faster.

Next to the workbench, nailed to the wall, hung a calendar several years outdated. It advertised a local auto-body shop, and each month was announced with a woman in a swimsuit, often draped over the hood of a car. Vincent thought for a moment how amusing it would be to transfer the calendar to the principal's office.

“Meet my wife,” said a voice from behind him. “I like to call her Kylie.”

Vincent turned around to see Walter standing in the doorway, grinning widely. “Nice girl,” said Vincent. “Didn't realize you were married.” It was impossible to know how tall Miss March was, but Walter was a good six to eight inches shorter, no matter what her height.

“No, she's not a nice girl,” said Walter. “That's the whole point.”

The two men met in the middle of the room and shook hands. Walter pointed at Vincent's shirt and said, “On your way to church?”

Vincent laughed. “Something like that. Just came from a meeting with Dr. Howard.”

He had always felt at ease here, amid Walter's mess and tools, far more comfortable than he felt in most of the school. In those other offices and classrooms, everything seemed oriented toward the mind. There was little to touch. Everything was flat—the blackboards, the pages of books, the hanging maps—and depended on the brain to animate it. Here, though, and in the woodworking classroom, there were things to turn and hold, to take apart, build back up. Objects, not just descriptions of objects, and tools, not just dictionaries and charts and encyclopedias. There was something reassuring about being able to finger and grip things. It meant you alone were in charge of letting them go.

“Saw's all laid out,” Walter said, jerking his stubbled chin at the greasy parts.

“You know what's wrong with it?”

Walter shook his head. “Not yet. I'd planned to work on it
today, only there was a problem with the boys' john on the third floor.”

“Oh yeah?”

“No hot water,” Walter explained. “I say let the fuckers shiver. Course, me and the rest of the faculty aren't always in agreement.”

Vincent laughed. Walter wasn't known as the friendliest staff member at the school. In fact, he was often singled out by students and teachers alike as ornery and unpleasant. They probably viewed him as uneducated and angry, and he likely saw them as snobby and condescending.

“Got distracted, too, because Scottie Reedus came by to say hello,” said Walter.

Every few years, one student gravitated to the janitor. They were always boys, often misfits who excelled neither academically nor athletically. They would shadow him after school, or at lunch, and Vincent occasionally overheard Walter teaching them how to clear drains, prime a wall in advance of new paint, straighten a door hinge. There was a tenderness in these exchanges, and if the teachers who complained about Walter's surly nature could witness them, they would revise their opinions.

Scott Reedus had lost his father. He had been a police officer who died in a wreck while chasing a car thief. It prompted a burst of publicity, during which people questioned the necessity of high-speed chases. The local newspaper ran an article, along with a picture of Scott and his mother leaving the wake. The two of them looked hollow. “How's he doing?” asked Vincent.

“Good,” Walter said. “He just started community college, studying to be a cop.” Walter shook his head. “Can you imagine? Wanting to go into what killed your old man?”

“Maybe it's about honoring his memory,” said Vincent.

Walter shrugged, slipped a toothpick into the side of his mouth. “The mother must be scared shitless of losing them both.”

Vincent changed the month on the calendar.

“You want my wife to introduce you to one of her friends?”

“Don't think Mary would look too kindly on that.”

“She doesn't have to know.”

Remnants of Walter's lunch, a McDonald's wrapper and a Coke can, sat next to the inside-out table saw. Hanging from another stud was a spare tool belt, its leather dry and flaking.

“What did Doc Howard want?”

“Oh, you know,” said Vincent, “some administrative nonsense. Routine stuff you should be happy you don't have to deal with.”

“Roberta there too?”

Vincent nodded.

“You know what the kids say about her, right?”

“Yeah, I've heard.”

“You think she is?”

Vincent thumbed a washer. He etched a tiny line in its blanket of grease with his fingernail and shrugged. “Who knows. I don't know her from Adam.”

“I could definitely see it,” said Walter. “She's not the warmest person in the world.”

Vincent almost pointed out that if that was the chief criterion, Walter might be a lesbian too. He wasn't in the mood, however, to goad the janitor. “Well,” he said, “whenever you find out what's wrong with this thing, let me know.” He flipped the washer back onto the table.

“I will,” said Walter. “I should have some time this afternoon,
provided none of the brats try to stuff up a commode or anything.”

“Thanks,” said Vincent, leaving the shop.

“No problem,” Walter called. “Don't be a stranger.”

Vincent retraced the route he had taken a few days ago, under the ducts and damp brickwork. This time he was alone. No Walter, no table saw. The beleaguered wheels of the cargo dolly weren't complaining, the janitor wasn't chattering. As he walked he listened to the sounds of the building, the sigh of radiators, the wash of drainage rushed through plumbing, the clicks of circuitry. A vent two floors up was blowing air; somewhere else a fluorescent bulb was blinking, soon to burn out. Near the end of their life span they flicker wildly. Drops of water dotted the pipes overhead. He wished he was home.

A few days later, Vincent phoned Henry Wheeling and left a message: “It's Mr.—it's Vincent Pareto. I just wanted to thank you for suggesting such a nice place for our daughter. I think … I think it's going well. I mean … it's hard to tell, but it looks like she's making some progress.”

Henry called back that night, and Vincent asked if they could speak again face to face.

“Of course,” said Henry. “Why don't you come by my office tomorrow.” Henry gave him directions and Vincent told him he would be there at three o'clock.

When Vincent arrived at the office, the door was closed, which struck him as strange since he had specifically said it would be open. The nameplate on the door had Henry's name, and Vincent had followed the directions precisely, through all the similar-looking campus buildings. Had Henry forgotten? Maybe he was just running late. College professors were bound to have a lot of commitments, students to meet with, papers to grade. They probably didn't stick to schedules as closely as other people did.

Vincent sat down and leafed through a copy of the
Globe
someone had left behind. He was a few pages into the metro section, reading about a battle between a developer and a neighborhood
on the North Shore, when the door opened and a girl walked out. She looked at Vincent and then stared at the floor and headed swiftly down the hall toward the building's exit.

Vincent expected Henry to emerge a few seconds later, since the conference with the student seemed to be over, but he didn't. Maybe there was another student inside? After a minute or two of fumbling with his hands and struggling to refold the paper neatly, Vincent stood and nudged open the door and stepped into the office. Henry was sitting at his desk with his back to Vincent, poking away on a laptop computer. Vincent knocked softly to announce his presence. He didn't want to startle him.

Henry turned, his face slightly flushed. “Oh … Mr … . Vincent, come in,” he said. “I guess I'd forgotten you were coming. I … I must have forgotten to look at my date book.”

“This a bad time?” Vincent asked, glancing at a coffee cup that had toppled to the floor.

Henry saw where his eyes were going and said, “I just finished up a student conference. Trouble with a paper, but she'll get it.”

“Pretty girl,” Vincent said. “Forgot how cute the college girls are.”

Henry nodded. “What was it you wanted to talk to me about?” he said.

Vincent smiled slightly, almost imperceptibly, and for a moment Henry thought he knew everything, that he hadn't come to the office to talk about his daughter but to hear Henry confess that he was sorry and that if he could do it all again he never would have kissed Samantha Webster, never would have touched her and betrayed Lucinda and their unborn child. He would take each day and each minute back, each thing he did and said that was supposed to be for Lucy. That's why Vincent had come into
his life—not because of a daughter who might attempt suicide, but to remind Henry of what was wrong and what was right. He was a woodworker, something in which there was correct and incorrect, no moral ambiguity. Do something wrong and you'll lose a finger. Measure an angle incorrectly and your table will collapse. Miscalculate a distance and the saw will ruin a decoy.

“That place you found for Cynthia is real nice,” said Vincent.

Henry rubbed his palms on his pants, relieved. “Rangely is a very fine hospital. One of the best in the Northeast.”

“Sure looks that way. Didn't imagine a place like that would be so pretty. We were happy to see they kept it so presentable. We were picturing somewhere … darker.”

“I'm glad to have helped,” said Henry.

“And if the doctors are half as nice as the grounds, I bet she'll get some good counseling,” Vincent said.

“She's probably getting very good care,” Henry said. “I've known people who've done rotations there, and they've all been excellent.” He still didn't know why Vincent had wanted to see him. He doubted it was just to say thank you in person.

“We've been out there a few times to see her, Cynthia's mother and myself. Visiting and so forth. My wife always brings some cookies or something.”

“How has that been?”

“Okay, I guess.” Vincent locked his hands together in his lap and stared down at them. “Hard, I suppose, is more accurate. It's hard to see your child in a hospital, no matter how much they gussy up the place and pretend it's a retreat. There's still no denying where she is, and that she isn't in the car with us when we leave, or coming into the house with us once I park. I keep expecting three of us when I know it's two.”

Henry felt another wave of guilt. He looked at the four legs of Vincent's chair, where they met the carpet, and thought, We were just there, Samantha and me, and now it seems even more wrong because a man is talking about his daughter confined in a psychiatric hospital. He wished they were back in the woodworking classroom, amid the band saws and compasses and goggles, the bowls and birdhouses and napkin holders. There was no residue of sex there, no record of infidelity. There were no indictments.

“She's not very talkative when we see her,” Vincent said. “She's … distant.”

“That's not so surprising,” Henry said. “Imagine what she's going through: She's just moved from the freedom of the outside world into a place where there are a number of rules, along with a great deal of intense self-examination.”