Unburying Hope (27 page)

Something stirred behind his eyes.
 
“I don’t know.
 
I didn’t plan on meeting you.”
 
His voice was passionless.

She stared at him, the too-tanned cheeks from
wandering the streets all day, the man she’d slept with who hadn’t kept his
phone on but had cash, who sometimes emotionally checked out on her and
sometimes seemed altered or exhausted, she could never put her finger on the
distinction.
 
He was one person in
his stable physical presence and another person in his mental distraction.
 
Maybe he was living in his dreams, she
thought.
 
Maybe he’d already
checked out of the Midwest and was on Hawaii time in his head.

“So, I’m saving money for a house.”
 
There it was.
 
She felt the words float out in front of her, a trial
balloon she hadn’t expected to raise.

His eyebrows rose, “Here?”

“What do you mean?”

“Here in D-town?”

She looked around at her bland apartment,
perplexed.
 
“I don’t know.”

He laughed and she felt an unexpected sting,
probably the same one he’d felt when she laughed at him.

“I’m so tired of defending myself.
 
Detroit isn’t a bad place.”

“It’s a terrible city.
 
I didn’t go to war so I could wait for
my building to be demolished.”

She shook her head.
 
“I’ve been here my whole life.”

“I know.
 
How’s that been going for you?” he said.
 
“You should move.”
 
He sat back, resisting her now half-hearted attempts at connection.

“Why?”

“There’s nothing here.
 
The stores are closed and boarded
up.
 
There are no jobs and no one
is buying property.”

“Which means I could get a bigger house.”

“Only if you want a house in a dying town.
 
It’ll be worthless before you pay off
your mortgage, if the city doesn’t try to demolish it in the neighborhood clear-outs.”

“I have friends here.”
 
Shame filled her cheeks with heat.
 
She’d just blasted her one friend to
oblivion and lost the job that had kept her in contact with him.

“Frank and that church lady from work?
 
You never get together with them.”

“Not when you’re around.
 
Because I have you.”

“What?”

“I used to go out with them, but I don’t since
you started coming over.
 
I see
them when you’re gone.”

“That’s sad.”

“Why?”

“You put friendships aside when you met me?

“Didn’t you?”

“No.”
 
His head dropped, “I put friendships aside when I went to war.”

 
“I
don’t have someone taking care of me.
 
I have to take care of myself.”
 
She was torn between an unexpected rage, how dare he sleep here and then
rip her for working to save money to live here for the rest of her life, and a
hapless sorrow that, yes, she lived small.

“I could take care of you.”

Her face skewed up, still frozen despite her
shame.
 
Words choked in her mouth,
she fought to keep them unexploded behind her teeth.

She stared at him, until a small smile came to
her lips.

His eyes lit up and he leaned towards
her.
 
“Let’s go.
 
Let’s move.
 
There’s nothing here for us.
 
We could be in Hawaii for dinner tomorrow night.
 
We could eat pineapples and sit on the
beach watching the sunset.
 
We
could be there tomorrow.”

“I can’t move,” she whispered.
 
She waved at the apartment.
 
“I have this place.”
 
Her words fought her to be heard over
the pounding in her ears.
 
“I can
find a new job.”

“Come on, you said you don’t spend time with
your friends.
 
And this place is a
dump.”

“It’s not a dump,” she said defensively.
 
“I’m saving for a nice place.”

“Let’s get a nice place in Hawaii.”
 
He leaned in and took her hands.
 
“Come on, this place is dead to you.
 
You’re sleep walking your life.
 
Come with me and wake up.”

She wouldn’t be able to inhabit a job here or
this apartment in the same way if she said no, knowing that the possibility had
existed of solidifying the dreamy hologram that sat on the inner reaches of her
brain.
 

A sunset, like the one on her computer
screen.
 
A beach like the one on
her coffee mug.
 
She pushed her
feet onto the brittle shag carpet below the sofa and could feel the hardened saltiness
of past melted snows that would soon return to envelop her world here.

Instead of turning herself off in order to
make it through the snowstorms and eventual graying piles of polluted, crusty
snow that lined every road in town, she could walk out the door in less than 24
hours and be on a warm beach watching a sunset with Eddie.
 

She smiled at him and nodded, pulled out a pad
of paper and wrote a quick practice note to the landlord giving notice.
 
She thought about turning the pages in
the pad and writing a note to Frank, breezily giving him the news but she knew
that he wouldn’t understand.
 
How
could she tell him how gray her world was and that she had to leap at the chance
to spill in some color?
 
She didn’t
need to write, she’d be gone by the time he would get a note anyway and maybe
at some point after the immediacy of the memory of their argument had passed
and their hurt feelings found a way to be salved, they could chat online and
she’d make him understand then, when he could see the joy she felt, rising in
her chest at the hope, finally, of using her savings to create the perfect life
with hardwood floors and just enough granite countertop to make pie
crusts.
  

Chapter
Twenty-Nine

Panic gripped her chest, but she avoided
thinking about the vial of travel sickness pills she’d bought and tucked into
her purse.
 
She didn’t want to be
drowsy while travelling.
 
Instead,
she gripped Eddie’s hand, searching his face for any comfort he could give.

But he distractedly pulled away, writing out
an address on a ripped sheet of paper given to him by the cab driver.

The cab driver took the paper and read it
quickly, turned the key in the ignition and drove the car forward out of her
apartment driveway, jerking to a stop to curse at another resident whose car
cut them off in a tart turn into the lot.
 
Celeste looked forward, willing herself to breathe through the
fear.
 
It felt as though even the
other driver was trying to keep her here.

It’s not that she didn’t know the way to the
airport.
 
Actually, she thought,
she’d never flown anywhere.
 
She knew
where the airport was, thirty minutes away, but she’d only passed it over the
years on her way to the outlet mall.
 
Wondering how she’d handle getting on an airplane for the first time,
she decided to simply mimic Eddie.
 
She would put her suitcase wherever he put his duffel bag, she would
walk on board the way he walked on.

In her purse, she blindly palmed her wallet,
her makeup, until she touched the cylindrical bottle that held the pills.
  
Maybe she would just need a few
to travel, to change her life, and she’d wake up in the new world ready to face
the day.
 

She surreptitiously undid the lid, got one
tiny pill between her fingers and closed the top, moving the pill to her mouth
in a tight swath, reaching beyond her lips to pat down her hair after depositing
the pill on her tongue, which was numb with panic.
 
Just one pill, to dull the fear, to hold it off a few feet
outside of her body.

Eddie didn’t notice.
 
He held her hand warmly but avoided her gaze and she settled
back onto the car seat, closing her eyes, drowsy from the fear of change,
collapsing against the seat like a gazelle that knows a cheetah’s jaw is just
about to grip its neck, turning its brain off so it doesn’t experience the next
act.

Stirring half an hour later or more, she felt
the cab turn, ride over a speed bump at a driveway and she opened her eyes,
surprised by the brightness of the day.
 
She looked to Eddie’s face, his lips were pursed and his jaw
hardened.

She looked out and did not see big buildings,
or the airport, or airplanes, or billboards naming airlines and gates.

Instead, she saw squat trailers, windows,
front doors, plastic flowers in planters.
 
Confused, she blurted out, “What are we doing here?”

“I have to pick up something.”

“Do we have time?”
 
She glanced at the clock on her cell phone and an alert went
off, the one she set for two hours before their flight departure time.
 
“Don’t we have to be at the airport now
for the security lines?”

“We’re checking our luggage curbside, so we’ll
run in when we get there.”
 
As the
cab slowed, he abruptly pushed her over, closer to the car door, creating space
between them.

“Hey!” she objected, and she settled herself
in close to him again until he unceremoniously shoved her away to her car door
and then leapt out his own.
 
She
rubbed her hip after it hit the door and cursed, aware that the cab driver was
watching her being shoved away.
 
“What the hell?”
 
Her
suitcase was jammed now under her feet, she’d sat next to him to have leg room,
letting her bag take up a spot that less connected people would take, she
thought.

The front passenger door opened and she looked
out her window, wondering what was happening.
 
She saw Eddie, his nervousness visible in his tight
shoulders, he held himself tall and was motioning frantically to the front seat
of the cab.

She followed where his face was looking and
took in a sharp breath.
 
An old
lady in blue pants and a beige sweatshirt had her arms crossed, glaring at the
taxi, her mouth grit into a stony rejection.

Next to her, on a plastic bench, sat a small
figure, hidden behind a full black trash bag.

She watched as Eddie lurched towards the old
woman.
 
His fierceness showed in
his stride across the gravel path to her steps, to her front door, which she
guarded, stocky and sure.

Celeste winced as he stopped abruptly in front
of the old lady.
 
She watched him
soften, his arms falling to his side.
 
He shook his head, as the old lady railed at him, her words stripping
him of his bluster and anger.
 
He
nodded his head and his hands went up, gesturing a story that Celeste couldn’t
follow.

But Celeste could see the old lady’s eyes, and
whatever he was selling, she wasn’t buying.
 
Finally, she put her hands on her hips and spoke, so quietly
that Celeste couldn’t hear any tones, but she watched as he doubled over in
shock, and unexpectedly he grabbed her into a huge embrace, enveloping her in
his arms, gently lifting her a few inches off the ground, then lowering her
softly, still holding her in his arms until both of them released each other
and he stepped back.

He reached into a pocket of his faded Army
jacket and pulled out a brown paper bag, putting it gently into her hands,
cupping her fingers around it.
 

She spoke again, this time gesturing to the
little girl sitting on the bench outside the front door, half hidden by the
trash bag.
 
His eyes followed her
movements and Celeste watched as he and the small child made eye contact.
 
He nodded, reached for the black trash
bag, took the girl’s hand and pulled her off the bench to standing.
 
The small face turned to the old lady
and Celeste watched a benediction and then acquiescence as the girl walked
quietly towards the cab.
 

Eddie put the knotted black trash bag in the
front seat and slammed the car door, walked around and silently shepherded the
girl into the back seat, right next to Celeste’s shocked face and body and, as
the cab pulled away, she watched as he feebly raised his hand to the old lady
in salute and was troubled to see the old lady crumple onto the bench, her
fiery face suddenly empty and gray, staring at her with waves of illness and
fear overtaking her until she quickly stood again and walked into her house and
the cab drove out of the residential lot.