Theater Macabre (7 page)

Alma chuckled softly. “I don’t believe that for a second, David. I love to hear from you, you know that. It’s not often I do, these days.” She hadn’t meant to sound as if she were chiding him for his lack of communication but he had obviously taken it up that way.

“Yeah. I’m sorry about that. Things have been crazy with the baby and my promotion. You know how it is.”

“I didn’t mean to sound like the wicked grandmother, David. Now are you going to tell me about this nightmare or not?”

He rattled a sigh down the phone that made Alma wince. “We were out back, in the old coal shed behind your house.”

Alma grinned wryly. “Where you two used to go for cigarettes?”

There was a pause and then: “You
knew
about that?”

She could tell by his voice that he was smiling, impressed. “I am all-seeing, all-knowing. Don’t ever forget that.”

“How could I have doubted you?”

She clucked her tongue. “Foolish young man.”

He laughed softly and then fell back into his somber speech.

“We were smoking and he wouldn’t meet my eyes. I remember how he used always stare at me with those probing milky blue eyes of his. I used to think that he could see into my soul, that he was reading every secret I had. It made me uncomfortable, to tell the truth.”

His words conjured the image of her husband’s eyes, only she saw them in a different way. Not probing, but soft and full of a love she had always known to be unwavering even after the near-eternity they had been together. Now, she would only see them in dreams, or like her grandson, in her nightmares.

“But in the dream, he wouldn’t look at me. It scared me and I think that’s what disturbed me the most. I could feel the cold, see my breath and I was willing him to look at me.” He sighed deeply and Alma could hear the sound of him puffing on a cigarette. She had always admonished him about smoking and forbade it in her presence, just as she had forbidden Frank. The two of them had promised to quit and taken their habit where they thought they were safe to indulge in their cancerous delight. “Finally he did.”

Alma shuddered. In the hallway where a solitary spear of moonlight sliced through the crack in the curtains behind her, the darkness held court over the room. All she could see was the phone and the cord beneath it, snaking its way into the wall. “He fixed those eyes of his on me and said—I don’t know if I should be telling you this, Grandma, it’s a bit disturbing.”

“I’m a big girl, David. I’m sure I can handle it.”

“Okay,” David replied, his voice devoid of conviction.

“He told me that he died in agony.”

Alma’s breathing slowed. This was not a revelation to her. The brain aneurysm that had burst in her husband’s head the day before Christmas Eve had granted him a final hour of unimaginable pain, in which he had thrashed and screamed on the hospital bed before finally giving in to his fate. She had stood behind the doctors as they struggled to restrain him, tears running down her face at the sight of the blood running from his ears, eyes and nose. At that moment she had known he was lost to her, that soon she would be a widow and the realization had almost been enough to send her with him. To hear that he had told her grandson this, even if it was all at the behest of David’s own imagination, chilled her.

“Do you want me to go on?”

Alma nodded, forgetting that he couldn’t see her. “Yes.”

“He said that he died in agony because he never got to say goodbye to the ones he loved most, the one who had ‘put up’ with him all those years. He said that had been the worst torture of all.”

Tears ran silently down the old woman’s cheek, her smile contradicting the sorrow that was written in the lines of shadow on her face. “Oh David,” she gasped, “I wouldn’t call that a nightmare, honey. I think that’s beautiful.”

“That wasn’t all. He told me that I had secrets that needed to be exposed. Terrible things that I needed to tell before I could ever be truly at peace with myself. To cleanse myself and say my farewells before death crept up on me and made my own passing a terrible one.”

Alma’s smile faded. The tone of her grandson’s voice already answered the question she was about to ask. “And do you have dark secrets, David?” She was left listening to the crackling of static for a long time before he replied.

“Doesn’t everybody?”

“Yes, I suppose they do. Do you feel like unburdening yourself of them?” She found herself twirling the cord of the phone between her fingers as she awaited his response. Her eyes occasionally drifted toward the bedroom door as if expecting to see Frank emerge in his underwear grumbling about the time and scratching his ass.

“I’ve already told Grace. I don’t know if it was the right thing to do or not. I expect she’ll be leaving soon.”

Alma squeezed her eyes shut and grimaced. “Oh, David. That bad?”

“I…. had an affair. About two years ago. You remember that woman who came with me to Uncle Joe’s wedding when Grace couldn’t make it?”

“Yes. Harriet or Hazel? Something like that.”

“Heather Brolin.”

“Yes. Grace’s cousin.”

“We were only together once. The night of the wedding. It was a mistake and it never happened again. Unfortunately, Grace doesn’t see it as something easily dismissed.”

“I’m sorry, David. At least you told the truth. Even if it took two years. Perhaps she’ll see the merit in that after mulling over it for a while.”

He sighed. “Maybe, but Grace meets Heather a lot and I know she’ll never forget it.”

“So what are you going to do?”

More silence, more static. Then: “I’ve done what needed to be done.”

The phone beeped and Alma looked at it, expecting to see the number of whoever was trying to get through, but without her glasses even the luminous display was a blur. “David, can you hold the line for a second. Someone else is trying to get through although I can’t imagine who might be calling at this hour.”

David stopped her. “It’s okay, I’ll let you go. I’ve kept you long enough. The dream just gave me a scare that’s all and I wanted to talk, to be sure you were okay.”

“No, David, wait just one moment, okay?” She pressed the flash button to transfer the line. “Hello?” No one answered, but she thought she heard a faint sniffling, as of someone crying. “Is someone there?”

For a few moments, she heard a faint breathing, hitching sobs and whispers.

Then: “Alma?”

“Yes, who is this?”

“Alma, it-it’s Grace.”

Alma bit her lower lip. It was late and she didn’t relish the idea of playing counselor to both sides of an argument with David on one line and his wife on the other. “Hi Grace, are you okay?”

The sounds of anguish saddened her and for one selfish moment, she wished she’d never answered the phone.

“It’s David,” Grace breathed finally with a voice choked with sobs.

Alma sighed and wondered how best to approach this. She decided on ignorance. “What about David?”

This time, the floodgates opened and Grace sobbed loudly into the phone, prompting Alma to hold it away from her ear.

“Grace, calm down, I’m sure whatever it is can be sorted out.”

She knew this was probably hinting that she already knew what had Grace so upset, but the anguish evident in the woman’s voice was bringing tears to her own eyes.

“It c-can’t be sorted out, Alma. Oh my God!”

The high pitch of Grace’s voice sent ripples of gooseflesh down the old lady’s back and she swallowed, an uncertain feeling of slow, latent terror rising like gorge in her throat. Surely David’s wife was overreacting a little. It wasn’t as if—.

“He’s dead, Alma. Oh God help me, he’s dead. My David is gone!”

Alma’s arthritis had rendered her knees weak for the past ten years. Now, it conspired with shock to make her fall to the floor. By some miracle of restraint, she gripped the small mahogany stand on which the telephone sat and inhaled deeply. Grace was crying loudly into the phone, her voice wracked with hitching sobs that sounded almost physically painful.

Alma felt as if she’d been struck a blow to the head and the room swayed accordingly. “Grace I—how? When? I was just—.”

“He…shot himself. Last night. We had an argument. Oh God help me, I told him to get-”

Alma had stopped listening. With violently trembling hands she punched the flash button.

There was a loud hiss of static, like surf crashing on rocks and then silence.

Gingerly, she placed the phone to her ear.

“David,” she whispered, almost reverently.

“Goodbye, Grandma,” David whispered back.

His voice sounded very far away.

Alma stood in the darkness, a shard of moonlight at her back with the phone in her hand for a very long time, listening to the distant whine of the dial tone.

The Wrong Side of the Bed

Nick remembered the storm, but only as much as one will remember a conversation that disturbs sleep. He had been awake only long enough to hear the rumbling of the heavens, his hooded eyes drawn briefly to the witchfinger shadows of the walnut trees as curiously colored lightning made them cavort across his bedroom ceiling. Red lightning, it had seemed, though whether or not the hue had been culled from the pallet of dreaming, he couldn’t tell. The wind had battered the house like a hungry thing, slipping its tongue through the cracks and forcing groans from the walls.

A vague memory, at best, and not one worth pondering, as Nick squinted into the golden sunlight pouring in through the bedroom window. The light struck him as odd somehow, but then most things seemed odd first thing in the morning. He yawned and fingered the sand of sleep from his eyes, dimly aware that the digital display on the clock beside him was blinking a quartet of zeros.

Doves sang a song of mourning in the trees. Nick straightened and slipped his legs over the side of the bed. A chill draught caressed his toes and he flinched, stepping his way blindly to the spot where his slippers usually sat awaiting his sleep-addled feet. After a moment, he gave up and, frowning, peered down at the floor.

After a moment, he realized his mistake and smiled grimly. He’d rolled over in his sleep and awoken on Carla’s side of the bed. A rare violation of her anal-retentive rule. Thankfully, she was not here to see it. Had she discovered his little transgression, it would have meant a solid twenty-four hours of animosity. She would sulk, pout, ignore him and put as much distance between them as interdependent cohabitation would allow.

Nick shook his head. He loved her, of that there could be no doubt, but it bothered him that she could still be so stubborn, particularly when it came to things like this. Using her towels, her favorite cup, leaving one of her books opened face down so the spine warped, using her computer…all things guaranteed to elicit a coldness from her that verged on outright hostility, and after years of dating her, and another year married to the woman, he had quit trying to understand it. His friend Bill preferred the theory of neurosis, but Nick resisted the urge to start thinking in that direction. She was his wife, and ninety percent of the time, their relationship was a healthy happy one. The other ten percent really didn’t bear brooding over. Besides, he thought of it as just Carla’s way of maintaining a little bit of independence. Even Nick thought she had latched onto the idea of marriage a little too easily, too quickly, and he doubted she’d given much thought to what their union would cost her. In fact, he was positive she hadn’t. And neither had he.

He rose from the bed, staring down at his bare feet and feeling a guilty little pulse of pleasure. It occurred to him that he might be developing some neuroses of his own because standing there in his boxer shorts, gooseflesh stippling his exposed skin, he felt like a child who had stolen into a forbidden room. He didn’t know quite what to do with himself. Feeling superior in a way he couldn’t quite justify, he laughed out loud and chastised his foolishness.

Still smiling, he rounded the bed and reached for his robe, where it hung from its hook by his side of the bed. Only this morning it wasn’t there. And neither was the hook. Puzzled, he turned, wondering if perhaps he’d already plucked it down and left it on the bed. But the bed was bare but for the chaos of rumpled sheets. Then, his gaze drifted upward and there it was, hanging just like always, awaiting him, except of course, that it was on the wrong wall. This in turn made him realize what had bothered him about the sunlight that had greeted him on waking.

Until this morning, the window had been on
his
side of the bed.

*

After standing there gaping at the misplaced window and robe, Nick hurried from the bedroom and almost fell to death or severe injury when his outstretched hand missed the banister on the stairs and he lurched forward. He slipped and fell heavily on his ass, both hands latching onto the steps lest it conspire to finish his flight.

“Jesus,” he breathed and looked up. Where the banister had been, there was now smooth wall. With a mounting sense of dread, Nick slowly looked to his left and surveyed the opposite wall. The banister, dark mahogany, was affixed to the plaster as if it always had been. He laughed an uneasy laugh and put his hands over his face.

“It’s all right,” he told himself. “Don’t freak out just yet. You were drinking last night. Some of that weird Irish shit Bill said they made from potatoes. So what we have here ladies and gentlemen is the mother of all hangovers, complete with rearranging fixtures.”

It made good sense, despite the fact that in no other way did he feel hungover. No headache, though his mouth was a little dry. No shakes, sweats or anything else to indicate he’d overindulged on ethanol the night before. Nothing. Except of course, for the old architectural switcheroo.

“This too…” he said, grabbing the rail despite the peculiarity of it actually being within reach of the wrong hand and hoisting himself up, “…shall pass.”

Swallowing, he carefully navigated the steps and emerged into the kitchen.