Unburying Hope (17 page)

He’d lie out on the sofa and pull her close,
then shut his eyes and fall asleep, to wake up an hour later broken out of a
malaise back into his half-smiles and rolling eyes at her questions about what
she could make him to eat.
 
Not
everything could be soothed with food, he said, but he let her pull out the
cookbooks and he’d smile and dip a wooden spoon into the bowl of melted chocolate
like an excited teenage boy, reaching around her but not letting her movements
interrupt his dig and lick, dig and lick.
 
“Gross,” she’d said the first time, and he’d protested, “You talking
about my mouth germs?
 
Because I don’t
hear you complaining in bed.”

She’d smile wryly and hand him the bowl.
 
“I need most of it for the recipe,” and
he’d laughed, releasing any leftover nerves from his leave-taking and like a
little boy he’d dip and lick from the bowl until he was satisfied.
 
Then he’d hand the bowl back, looking
into it sheepishly, hoping that there was enough for her recipe.

There was another type of leave-taking that
wrenched her heart, confused her because it was dark and cloudy and
sudden.
 
And no matter how much she
needed it, it never gave her a moment of connection before he broke away.
 

Those were the worst times.
 

She would find herself suddenly, utterly
alone, with a cold chill around her, as though a phantasm had been nearby and
had disappeared, leaving behind only the hint of a negative electrical charge.

There were echoes in their past together,
images seen again through the reflections of the immediate terror and
loneliness she felt after those leave-takings.
 
The changes Frank had mentioned, the gaunt cheeks, the gray
cast on his face, the ragged look of his unkempt hair.

Some days, the gaunt look came from his
sleeplessness, which she knew came from his memories, the unspoken trauma of
bleeding bodies.
 
He used words to
paint those images for her, in halting sentences when he was half asleep.
 

But those weren’t what propelled him out the
door.

It was something else.

Liquor?
 
Alcoholism?
 
No, because he
rarely joined her in ordering cocktails in restaurants, or a half glass of wine
at home, which she had changed to since he moved in, in her own silent
metamorphosis into a more present, thoughtful partner.

It might have been drugs, like Frank
suspected.
 
But he never carried
anything in his pockets, he never pulled out pills or lit up weed around her in
the apartment.

Yet he left, sucking all the dreams for her
life out with him.

And it became a waiting game, holding herself
in fear, staying on her own shaky course, matured but without the force she’d
used as a centrifugal energy around which she had recalibrated her life.
 
Waking herself up alone, getting
herself into her new clothes, feeling an inner centering as she pulled the body
conscious skirt on, buttoning up the silky blouse, zipping up the brown boots
with heels.
 

By the time she had a work outfit on, she’d find
herself settled.
 
Able to think,
able to then shut off the thinking, her defense mechanism.
 
And the day or two would pass until she
heard the knock on the door, she’d open the door and he’d walk in, worn out,
shadowy like the drained colors of his threadbare fatigues.
 

He would sidle into the bedroom and sprawl on
the covers, face first, to sleep for more hours than her workday, for a few
days sometimes, until he would emerge whole again, wired and pained, agitated
but pulling her close.
 
And she
would smile and melt into him, so happy that there was life in the body that
had been comatose and sluggish for as long as he’d been back.

There was a third way he left, when he was still
with her.
 
And even though having
him lay like a cadaver for a day or two was unsettling, the dead eyes he had
when his memories eclipsed him, when he heard sounds and saw things, and, to
survive, he enshrouded himself on the sofa or on a kitchen chair or in the
shower or standing at the closet door half dressed, those eyes were
haunting.
 

He was there, with her, but he was broken,
paralyzed, a far away stare focused on some bombed out place, barraged by
mayhem and exploded bodily fluids that he had to wipe off.
 
For a few hours, he’d stand or sit,
haunted, wiping off his face, his chest, washing his hands until the sleeping
pills she gave him kicked in and he’d somehow settle back into his skin, his
body, his life.

Of those three ways that he left her, each had
its own moment where she realized again that she was a separate person.
 
She remembered to find her own
thoughts, her own plans.
 
Because
he couldn’t be, and wasn’t, in her face all the time, but was there when his
eyes were on her, she had the time and the space to think of her own life, her
own dreams.
 

On an ordinary day, it felt like having him in
her life was worth the moments of physical and emotional separation.
 
Except for the addled walkouts, when
she felt something in him was dying, which threatened to kill off something in
her if she didn’t pull herself together.
 

Those were the only moments that ripped her
back into the sorrows of her childhood, but they were also the ones she pulled
herself through by her own boot straps, with images and ideas of how she wanted
her own future to unfold.

Knowing that he wouldn’t be at the bus stop
each day, she prepared herself for aloneness, going a few extra stops and
shopping at a larger market than the one in her neighborhood, buying
ingredients she didn’t have so that she could cook herself foods that
interested her, scones with fresh peaches inside, or brown rice with avocado,
shredded cheese, red onion slivers, almond slivers and a zesty chipotle sauce.
 

She decided to start collecting information on
elder centers, typing organization names, addresses, emails and phone numbers into
a spreadsheet.
 
Maybe she could put
together a map to show what neighborhoods needed help.
 
She plotted spots on a local map,
saddened to see how few and far between they were for usually immobile old
people.
 
There were plenty of
single-floor cinderblock old folks homes, but no activity centers, no art or
music programs and she remembered the joy on the old lady across the hall’s
face whenever she turned on her small plug in radio and listened to classical
music.
 
Looking for specs about
places she walked by grounded her when she was alone.
 
It was the propellant that let her grow herself more towards
the light of her future and helped her feel like her roots were stretching
outwards instead of stifling in on a small, outgrown pot like the plants that
Eddie always talked about.

Chapter
Twenty-One

Celeste was worried, but also curious about
the inevitable formal meeting between Frank and Eddie.
 
She figured that since they both loved
her, they’d find something in common but it occurred to her too late that they
might love opposing sides of her.
 
Frank might be warm to the party girl in her and Eddie to the
homebody.
 
She realized as she
showed her ID to the club bouncer that this meet-and-greet could blow up in her
face.

It was what Frank called a ‘straight bar’, a
honky-tonk that she’d never been in, with pool tables and beer signs for local
brands that had died along with the region decades ago.

Frank had picked the place, as a gesture of
openness to what he called Eddie’s ‘alternative lifestyle’ of hanging out 24/7
with straights.
 
He was already
sitting at a tall table, on a stool that rocked with his nervousness.

He was ‘passing’, looking as heterosexual as
he could muster, she saw, and she knew it wasn’t to pick up the straight guys
on the down low who hid their sexuality from their buddies.
 
He sometimes did this, until they were
sure new bars weren’t filled with drunken homophobes.
 
They’d had run-ins before.

His hair lay flat.
 
She was surprised at how handsome he was in this different
way as he sat like a chameleon, blending in to the crowd of plaid flannel-shirted,
jeans-wearing regulars.

Frank smiled at her wanly.
 
“Don’t try to pick me up, Missy,
without buying me a few cocktails.
 
I’m not easy.”
 
He held his
beer bottle dangerously close to his licking lips and winked at her.

“Who knew that there were good old boys in
Detroit?
 
Better watch your intake,
honey,” Celeste winked back, “or else you’ll start tapping your red sparkly
shoes together to get yourself back home.”
 

“That’s what’s missing here,” he laughed,
“Check out the shoes!
 
Everyone is
wearing horrid brown clodhoppers.”

Celeste looked down and saw several men in tan
work boots.
 
It was clear from the
vacant stares in their eyes, the broken slouch of their shoulders that drinking
at this bar didn’t let them forget that they weren’t working.
 
There were no jobs.
 
That’s why Frank and Celeste had created
their original pact, to work together, to keep their jobs and the roofs over
their heads and to postpone any life dreams until the economy resurrected
itself from the third level down crypt within which it was now buried.

“When’s that boy of yours going to get here?”
Frank asked.
 
“I’m afraid that
years of hair spiking gel aren’t going to let my hair lay down like this much
longer.”

“”You’re pretty hot, Frank,” Celeste said, “as
a straight guy.”

“Bite your tongue.”

“Seriously, a few gin and tonics and I’d
probably hit that.”

“And you’d never pick up a man again.”

“Why?”
 
She teased him, “You are a hunk.”

“Because I’d throw a hissy fit when we got
home and I figured out that you aren’t a guy in drag.”

She burst out laughing.
 
“Can’t get you on my team, eh?”

“Your team has no style,” Frank said,
adjusting the buttoned down collar of his shirt.

“Plaids are supposed to be flannel fabric,
Frank,” Celeste said.

“If you’re a lumberjack, maybe,” he responded,
“but I’m the indoor type.
 
I wear
my plaid with a sateen finish.”

“I wonder where Eddie is,” Celeste said,
looking around the bar.

“Probably outside casing the perimeter.”

“Frank,” she admonished.

“He’s some kind of spy, I’m sure of it,” Frank
teased.

“No he’s not, his training just dies hard.”

“I know.
 
I’m here,” Frank’s voice turned serious, “because he’s so good to you.”

Celeste brightened.

“You said he holds you like he really wants
you in his arms, like it makes him feel good.”

“I know!” she crowed with delight.
 
“He does!”

“That’s so adorable!
 
So opposite of those man sluts you’ve been cavorting with
for years.”

“Always looking for someone like Eddie.”

“Eddie might not be the one, Missy,” Frank
said cautiously.

“But you said he wants to be with me.”

“Because you said he puts his arms around you
and his eyes light up with how happy he is.”

“You’re just jealous.”

“Let’s try it, let me hug you like that.”
 
Frank jumped off his wobbly stool.

Celeste stood up, a huge smile erupted on her
face, she felt the warmth of it in her chest.
 
She put her arms out, waiting.

“Slow down, Missy,” Frank joked.
 
“I’m not sure I can back this urge
up.
 
I love you, but I’m strictly dickly.”
 
Frank hugged her just enough to put his
arms around her but not enough for their chests to touch.

Celeste yanked him into a body tight hug.

“Oh, my god, your breasts, they’re real, Missy,
get them away” he said, laughing into her ear.

Celeste heard Eddie clear his throat standing
directly behind her.

“Hey, that’s my girl,” he growled.

Frank jumped back and Eddie came in close,
hugging Celeste from behind.
 
He
kissed her neck, “You must be Frank.”

“How can you tell?” Frank asked warily.
 
“I might be some stranger she’s trying
to get directions from.”

“I’ve been watching you,” Eddie said.