Unsaid: A Novel (15 page)

“Did he behave?”

“My Cliffy? He was the perfect gentleman. He even helped me fold laundry.”

Sally’s shoulders drop in relief. “Thank you so much, Annie. Cliff feels comfortable with you.”

“It was no problem, really. How’d the interview go?”

“Good. I can have the job.” At this news, Annie lets out a squeak of excitement and gives Sally a hug.

“That’s a relief.”

“You’re not kidding.”

“What’s the husband like?”

“He seems nice enough. Tired, struggling to put one foot in front of the other.”

“So, you’re going to take the job, right? I mean, what’ve you got to lose?”

“Yeah, I’m going to take it,” Sally says with some weariness. “But I’m not fooling myself. There’s always something more to lose.”

After Annie leaves, Sally sits quietly at her dimly lit kitchen table and sips a cup of tea. Notwithstanding her brave words to David, I can tell that she, too, has her doubts about choices she’s made and whether some consequences were avoidable or at least foreseeable. Lost in those thoughts, Sally rises from the table and walks into what I assume qualifies in her house as “the living room.” Several framed photographs line the wall, and she moves toward them.

In one picture, a younger, joyous Sally dressed in a wedding gown holds hands with her new handsome husband in military uniform. Sally kisses the tips of her fingers and then touches the man in the picture.

Sally next moves to a photograph of her husband holding two-year-old Clifford in front of a brightly lit Christmas tree. Sally grins at the memory of a happy holiday long past.

Sally’s gaze then lands on an older black-and-white photograph of a young girl sitting in the lap of a stern-looking man while a pretty young woman looks out from behind the chair. No one in
that picture is smiling. The young girl looks just like Sally. I’m assuming from the resemblance that the man and the woman are her mother and father.

Sally touches the image of her father, but quickly pulls her hand back as if the picture burns her fingers.

B
y your actions, so shall you be judged.

In the three days that Sally has worked for my husband, her actions have been true to her words. She’s taken care of everything for David so that when he finally arrives home at night, he doesn’t need to acknowledge that he lives with my animals. Even the dogs no longer try to get his attention. They sense what I already know: The wall surrounding David now is just too high.

Sally, on the other hand, is well along in gaining the trust and affection of my dogs, at least Bernie and Chip. This largely has been a function of three things. First, Sally is extremely kind to them in word and demeanor. She has not raised her voice—even when Bernie, in a fit of enthusiasm, knocked over the dry-cleaning delivery man, or Chip stole (and then ate) a new loaf of bread off the kitchen counter. Both times Sally laughed. Dogs love laughter; I think to their ears it is the sound of safety and acceptance.

Second, Sally is confident. Her movements with the dogs are smooth and deliberate, as if she has a plan and they’re a part of
it. Frightened people do frightening things. Dogs do not like to be with frightened people.

Third, Sally makes it a point of cooking for the dogs. She’ll add rice or scrambled eggs to their dog food. One dinner, she cooked a pound of ground turkey and dished it out to them in chicken broth. My dogs generally are not finicky eaters, but they love flavors. They like people who give them flavors.

The cats are still a little wary of Sally, Arthur barely acknowledges her (but neither has he tried to hurt her), Alice does as she is told, and Collette is, well, Collette.

Skippy, however, seems to me to be most like my husband at the moment—he still grieves. Skippy, more so than the other two dogs, knew the nuances of my day, my words, and my touch. We shared lunches together frequently off the same plate. When I cried over losing a difficult case, I believe Skippy tried to comfort me. When I was angry or frustrated, his antics amused me. When I spoke to him, I often used the same terms of endearment as I did with my husband—
honey, sweetie, handsome.

Grief doesn’t leave a great deal of room for new people or new experiences. I don’t believe for a moment that Skippy dislikes Sally. I just think he’s too weary to start all over again with another human who may disappear forever for reasons he can’t control and doesn’t understand.

If that description of my relationship with Skippy strikes you as too anthropomorphic, then you have both my apologies and my pity.

Clifford arrives at my house late in the afternoon of Sally’s fourth day of work.

Standing on the front porch, he holds tightly to his mother’s arm with one hand and his sketch pad and pencil with the other.

I can hear the dogs barking from the backyard. “There’s nothing to be scared of, Cliff,” Sally assures him.

“Are you sure?” Clifford asks in his cold monotone.

“I am.” Sally kisses his forehead. Clifford relaxes his grip just a bit, enough for Sally to open the front door, and they step into the house.

Chip, Bernie, and Skippy scratch and bark behind the sliding glass door at the back of the house, desperate to come in and see the new boy. If Clifford feels something about the dogs, it doesn’t show on his face; he just stares at them with his head slightly lowered and tilted to one side. The barking suddenly stops.

Sally ignores the dogs for the moment. “I’ll make you a snack and then you can say hi to them,” she says and leads Clifford to the dining room table. Clifford sits in one of the chairs and opens his pad to a clean page while Sally heads off to the kitchen.

Clifford’s eyes seem to take in every detail of the dining room. He picks up his pencil and is poised to draw when the telephone in the kitchen rings. The effect on him is immediate and painful to watch—he squeezes his eyes shut and the pencil in his hand quivers. Sally answers David’s call before the second ring. “Yes, he’s here now… So far…” The words fade as I return to watch the boy.

Clifford drops down from his chair and walks to the large sliding glass door that separates him from the dogs. The dogs are instantly alert in anticipation as Clifford reaches for the door handle.

I know what will happen next because it is the same exact thing every time. Once the door is opened, the dogs will charge into the house like lunatics and run around for a few minutes before beginning to settle down. Bernie, Chip, or both will almost certainly jump on Clifford in a playful greeting. Skippy may nip at the cuffs of his
jeans to show this new person that he is still alive. No harm will be done, but the boy may be frightened by the paws and the noise.

None of this, however, actually occurs this time.

Instead, Clifford slides the door open perhaps eight inches and squeezes his small frame through. Once outside, Clifford holds his arms stiffly down at his sides with his hands open and palms turned outward. He’s completely still, but smiling at something off into the distance.

The dogs at first seem stunned that this strange boy has chosen to come out to see them. Then they sniff his offered hands. Chip licks Clifford’s fingers and then, tail wagging, lies down on his stomach and whines.

Sally finds Clifford moments later. I thought she might be angry at the boy, but she isn’t. She slides the door open a crack to speak with her son. Clifford is turned away from her so she cannot see his face. The dogs no longer are interested in coming inside or doing anything other than being with the boy. “You’ve made friends,” she says gently.

“Why are they so sad?” Clifford asks.

“Someone they liked very much has died.”

“Oh. Like Papa?”

“Yes, Clifford. Like your papa. Now please come inside. It’s too cold for you without your coat.”

“Can the dogs come in, too?”

“Of course.”

“I like them.”

“I know you do. Come inside now, please.”

“Okay, Mama,” Clifford says as he turns toward Sally and the door. “Mama?”

“Yes, honey?”

“There are still no telephones in heaven?”

“No. I’m sorry.”

“Do you think he knows I think of him?”

“I’m sure he does.”

I don’t know what to make of this remarkable child who cannot understand human vocal inflection but somehow senses the loss felt by my animals who have no human voice. There’s no meaning without context, and for Clifford I have no context.

I do know what I see, however, and in Clifford it is a gentle soul, old beyond his years and free of judgment. My animals take to him immediately, none more so than Skippy, who follows Clifford around the house as if they are old friends reunited following a long absence. Candidly, while I might have been jealous if the human partner to this love affair had been Sally, I feel only gratitude for Clifford and the grace he has brought to my house.

Max’s sudden decision that it is “absolutely imperative” that David meet a new “whale” (firm slang for someone controlling more than seven figures in potential legal fees) results in David pulling into the driveway at nine forty-five
PM
.

David enters the dark, silent house and I can begin to feel some of his loneliness. What is it he was rushing to get home to anyway?

Bernie and Chip—who both look like they’ve just been awakened—give a few halfhearted barks in David’s general direction. David tries to generate some canine enthusiasm for his arrival, but soon gives up. The two dogs return from whence they came, probably the bedroom floor. Skippy is nowhere to be seen, which by itself is not unusual as he has taken to guarding my side of the bed.

David heads to the kitchen eager for a note from Sally or some
other evidence of another human presence in the house, but finds nothing. The sink is empty of dishes. Cleaned dog and cat food bowls lie on the counter. It looks like everyone has eaten and gone to bed. This is precisely what David believed he wanted when he hired Sally—someone to deal with all the life in his house.

David pours himself a glass of wine from an open bottle in the fridge and then moves his attention to a stack of mail on the kitchen table. He quickly flips through the letters and stops at a large, thick brown mailer envelope addressed to him from Grumberg Architects, Inc. I can see from David’s face that he knows exactly what’s inside, although I’ve never heard of the group.

David rips open the package and pulls out a letter and several large folded sheets of paper. He reads the letter first.

David drops the letter onto the table and moves to the folded pages. He opens them slowly, almost as if he’s frightened of their contents. I assume this is all some mistake. David cares about gardens as much as I care about attorney billing rates. But I see David’s hand tremble as he opens the last corner of the final page.

There, spread out on the kitchen table, is the blueprint for a large garden set within a circular stone wall.

I know this garden. This is my garden.

David passes his hand over the blueprint, imagining the texture of the stones. Beyond that, I cannot see because my eyes are filled with tears.

Sally steps quietly into the kitchen and watches David in respectful silence for a few seconds. She does not want to interrupt him, but also does not wish to spy. Finally, she clears her throat.

Startled out of his thoughts, David spins around. “I didn’t think you were still here. Did something happen?”

Sally shakes her head. “Sorry. We were in the back room watching some TV and we all fell asleep.”

“I got delayed. I should’ve called.”

Sally waves him off. “There was no need.”

“How was your son’s visit?”

“Great. Clifford would move in if he could.” Sally looks at the blueprints over David’s shoulder. “Are you planning to have some work done around here?”

“No. Not anymore. I was going to surprise Helena for her birthday. She always wanted a garden like this.”

I can’t believe he remembered. We were in my Ithaca apartment late one night a month after we’d met, curled up in bed together, warm against each other while the wind howled outside.
The Secret Garden
—the original 1949 version with Margaret O’Brien—was
on the local television station. The movie was in black and white, except for the scenes where the garden came back to life. The transition in the movie to color—to life—took my breath away. I leaned my head against David’s shoulder then and said, “I’d love a garden like that someday and we can sit together among the trees and the flowers and forget the rest of the world.” My words came out before I’d thought to stop them. It was too much too early, too into the future for a boy burned so thoroughly by the past.

But to my relief David didn’t withdraw. “Then I will make one for you,” he whispered back. “And on cool summer evenings we will sit among the trees and flowers and look for fairies in the moonlight.”

It was one of those moments when I was able to see into that well-guarded part of him—the part that really longed to be carefree and fun and part of something and, I guess, loved.

I knew I loved him then.

I know I still do.

Now, in the cold kitchen of the home I used to share with him, David stands in mute, solitary anguish, examining the garden that will never be.

Sally puts on her reading glasses and looks through the blueprints more carefully. “Wow. That’s some present.”