Above The Thunder Part 28

He nodded. "I got a call just after you left this morning from the groundskeeper at the cemetery. That's where he's been. Sleeping right there beside her. The groundskeeper brought him food and water. He lives in a little cottage half a mile from the cemetery, and he said he heard Baby J. howling for hours every night." She led the dog into the bath she'd prepared for herself, scrubbed him down and checked him over. He was eerily calm for a dog in a tub, even a water-loving Newfie. Anna poured water over his head and he never moved, stared at her in a way she found unsettling. Baby J. had always been an enthusiastic wagger, clearing the coffee table with one sweep, but his tail was lifeless now, even when she cooed at him. He looked at Anna as though she was something worthy of close study and memorization. As if, in the grief-eroded geography of her face, he was trying to figure out where he would go next.

PART THREE.

THE MIGRATION OF GEESE: THE HEAVENS.

FIFTEEN.

THE KNIGHTS WHO SLAY THE DRAGONS.

Stuart knocked on Anna's door. She was playing her cello, the same piece she'd been playing every day for nearly eight months. It was nearly noon, and she hadn't been out of her room yet. "Anna, it's almost twelve," he said.

Her cello stopped. "Thank you, Big Ben." There was a pause, then the music started again.

"You know the rules," Stuart said. He and Jack and Marvin insisted that Anna leave her room by noon at the latest, for a minimum of five hours every day. After that, she was free to do as she wished. One of them, usually Jack or Marvin, but occasionally Stuart, would sit on her bed with her and the dog-who had attached himself to Anna so completely that Jack renamed him Velcro Jesus-and watch DVDs, often The G.o.dfather. In the nine months since Flynn died, Anna's taste in films ran to war movies and thug flicks.

"Anna," Stuart said again. "It's 11:59. You have one minute, Cinderella."

In the beginning, Anna had been infuriated of course, railed against them, told the three of them to get the h.e.l.l out of her house, who did they think they were, and how dare they tell her what to do in her own home. Marvin simply picked her up, carried her downstairs, and threatened to put a padlock on her bedroom door to keep her out during the day.

"We love you, Anna," Marvin had said. "This is what we've come up with to help you. And you need to stop being selfish. You're not the only one who's grieving."

"Noon on the nose," Stuart said.

"I'm on my way. As soon as I wash my face."

Downstairs, Stuart found Jack in the kitchen. He was finally easing off his baking frenzy, had cut back to just one dessert a day.

Stuart watched as Jack unmolded the cheesecake from the springform pan, then drizzled the mocha raspberry sauce in the loopy figure eight of the infinity sign. Or maybe it was supposed to be a Mobius strip; Stuart would have to puzzle it out before he commented. Jack got irritated when they didn't recognize his designs.

"Are we speaking?" Jack said.

"We are now." Stuart cleared a stack of newspapers off a chair and sat.

"Are we speaking civilly?"

"You tell me," Stuart said. They'd been up half the night arguing. Stuart wanted the two of them to move back to Boston. His commute from the city to Maine every few days was tiring, though it wasn't just that. The time had come, Stuart thought, for him and Jack to set up a household together, preferably in Boston. It was true that he could continue his adjunct teaching while living at Anna's, but going to conventions, networking, interviewing for full-time jobs, was difficult from way up here. "Way up here," Jack had said. "You make it sound like we're living on the moon."

"You're right. It's not like living on the moon. The moon has more nightlife."

Jack said something now that Stuart didn't hear. "Pardon?"

"I said, do I have to let you win? Is that what it will take?" He filled the sink, gathered up the bowls and utensils.

"What it will take for what?" Stuart picked up the newspaper.

"For us to finally make our commitment official. Acknowledged in front of our loved ones."

"You don't have to do anything you don't want to do," Stuart said.

"I just don't think it's a good idea to leave Anna. She's done so much for me. She was with me when no one else wanted to be."

"Excuse me? Are we forgetting how that exile happened?"

Jack turned off the water. "Okay, okay." He dried his hands. "New subject."

Stuart paused. "A guy in the psychology department, Harold James, is renting out his brownstone. Lease with the option to buy. And the best part, the rent is eight hundred. He's leaving the country, and needs someone to live there until it sells. I'm sure, if we wanted it, we could buy it for a song. He's more or less desperate. But there's a catch."

"Oh?" Jack said.

"We would need to move in no later than Tuesday."

"It's the first I've heard of this. Why are you telling me now?"

"Because it's happening now. Harold called this morning asking if I knew of anyone."

"And you thought we might be anyone. Anyway, I didn't hear the phone ring. When did he call?"

"Early. You were still sleeping. Will you at least agree to go into Boston to look at it?"

Jack nodded. "Let's go into town and look at wedding bands. We can take Anna with us so she can shop for a dress. Her clothes just hang on her. A-line needs buffet line."

Stuart sighed. He and Jack had been discussing a commitment ceremony for some time, but Jack had begun making plans at a frantic pace. Stuart wanted a ceremony, but he preferred logical steps: a house, then the wedding, with the rest of it to follow later-the rest being the crazy idea Jack and Greta had cooked up one night not long ago: a baby. How this became a decision, how Jack had gone from someday-wouldn't-it-be-nice to discussing the fertile days in Greta's menstrual cycle, Stuart found utterly baffling. He and Jack had been in bed one night when the phone rang. It was Greta, calling for Anna, but Jack had developed the habit, perhaps as a result of taking Anna's calls for so many months, of picking up the phone regardless of whether or not somebody else had already answered. "I'm on," he'd say, making every call his province. "It's Jack."

The night Greta called, Jack picked up the phone five minutes after it rang. "Jack speaking," he'd said. "Who's this?" Jack waited, presumably for Anna to finish her conversation.

Stuart had gone downstairs to the sunroom to read; Jack's conversations might go on for an hour or more. When he'd finished two chapters of The Red and the Black-a novel Jack had recently enthused about-he picked up the phone to see if they were still talking. Stuart heard Jack say: "the transfer of DNA" as casually as if he were talking about moving money to a different bank account. Stuart felt only a transitory guilt about eavesdropping; n.o.body would have expected him to hang up in the face of this intrigue. He made himself comfortable in the rocking chair, heard Greta say, "Lily is so wonderful, I can't imagine not having another child. I had a miscarriage with my ex-husband. The only thing I regret about ending my marriage is not trying again for a baby. He had great genes. We would have had a beautiful baby."

"Sweetheart, if it's genes you want," Jack had said, "I'm a virtual Calvin Klein. I'm six-two, Ivy-league-educated, a good athlete, cute as homemade shoes, funny as h.e.l.l, verbally bright, good at math, and have above-average reasoning skills."

"Which you are not exercising at the moment," Stuart broke in.

"Hi, Stuart," Greta said, as though she'd known he was on the line. Jack was unfazed.

"Stuart and I have been together for over twelve years. It's the greatest sorrow of our life that we don't have a child together."

"Jack, what are you doing?" Stuart said, but both Jack and Greta ignored him.

Forty-five minutes later, Jack and Greta were talking about the possible baby as though it existed, discussing the merits of private school versus public, the rising price of college tuition, and at what age to explain to the child why he or she had two daddies and one mommy. Stuart unabashedly listened, breaking in every now and then to call one of them a horse's a.s.s or a raving lunatic.

"But getting back to nuts and bolts. So to speak." Greta laughed. "How do we get your DNA without your virus?"

"Good question," Jack said. "Maybe Anna can filter it out. Maybe there's a way to get the virus out of the cells."

"Maybe there's a way to get the jacka.s.s out of Jack," Stuart said.

"I haven't really thought about that," Jack said. "I have been extraordinarily healthy lately, and it seems the disease is completely remissed, but nonetheless, it will have to be Stuart's seed."

For the first time in over an hour, there was silence on the phone. Stuart hung up. In the following weeks, Jack's enthusiasm grew, instead of fading, as Stuart thought-or hoped?-it might. But the more Jack's intent seemed in earnest, the more Stuart began to think about fatherhood. Objectively, he considered bringing a baby into their lives misguided, but there was a tug, an emotional pull; fatherhood was something he'd wanted his whole life. Stuart's answer to Jack, finally, was a cautious yes.

Jack sidled up to Stuart now. "What do you think? Wanna head into town?"

"Not really," Stuart said. "Were you listening to anything I said to you last night? About taking things in stages? What's your hurry?"

"What's my hurry?" Jack's voice started to shake. "What's my hurry? Do you really need to ask that?"

For a horrible moment he was afraid Jack was about to cry. Stuart sometimes forgot how much Jack loved Flynn, and how he, like Anna, was still grieving for her. "I'm sorry," Stuart said quietly. "I want all the things you want. But I guess I just want to focus on each thing as it comes, even if it all happens quickly. Okay?"

Jack nodded, but didn't look up.

They both fell silent. Stuart counted the ticks from the grandfather clock in the living room, the pendulum tracking the seconds. One hundred and twenty-two. Jack spoke finally. "It's like I've spent my whole life riding backwards on a train. Not seeing things until they pa.s.sed. I don't want to lose you."

Anna made sure no one was lurking in the hallway before she made her call. She hadn't told any of them yet, but she'd had preliminary talks with a realtor about selling the house here in Maine, about what would be a reasonable price, and told the realtor, Lori, that she'd call back with a decision, which she now had. Two days ago, shopping for a b.u.t.ter dish to replace the one Jack broke, she studied this one and that, debated about Irish crystal or English bone, but then thought: what did it matter? Until now, Anna hadn't realized how much of what she did was pointed toward the future; buying a new watch, a Stueben vase, was in part choosing for her granddaughter, the things that would last beyond Anna and become Flynn's. By the time Anna had left the department store and picked up a cheap Rubbermaid version at the grocery, she had her answer about the house.

She dialed the real estate office, left a voice mail for Lori: "It's Anna Brinkman. I'm ready to sell." There. A decision that would become the right one, even if she didn't completely feel that it was so now. Uncertainty was normal, she told herself, picking up her cello and starting back in on Bach's Suite no. 1 in G major. After Flynn, Bach was all she wanted to play. When grief surged acutely, Suite no. 2 in D minor matched what was inside her exactly. After thirty years with these pieces, mastery had come at last.

There was a knock at the door, then Marvin walked in. "Good afternoon, Anna," he said, elongating the vowels into something menacing.

"Yep. Just a bit slow today. On my way downstairs."

Marvin nodded. "I'll fix your coffee."

Anna sat in the back seat of her Volvo with Baby Jesus, while Jack drove, and Stuart fussed at the dog who was pawing Stuart's jacket. Every few minutes Baby J. stuck his snout in the front seat.

"VJ, no!" Jack said, and reached back to push the dog's head away. "See? He responds to a voice of authority. Good boy, good Velcro Jesus!"

"I wish you wouldn't call him that," Anna said.

Within seconds, the dog was again nosing at Stuart's pocket. "Ha," Anna said. "Baby Jesus! No stealing." The dog gave her a look of reproach, as though he considered himself blameless. "Do you have something in there he would be interested in?"

"I have leftovers from my breakfast, which I was going to finish later."

Anna reached in Stuart's pocket and took out the foil-wrapped food. "Bacon. You have bacon, and you blame my poor dog for his persistence. Sorry," she said, feeding the strips to the dog. "Teasing an animal means automatic forfeiture."

"So, where's the best jewelry store?" Jack looked at Anna in the rearview mirror.

"Boston," she said.

Stuart snorted. Jack gave him a look.

"Though Seavey's on Main and Third has nice bridal sets. Wedding bands, I mean." She leaned forward. "At the next light, left. The college will be on the right."

The three of them rode the rest of the way in silence. Anna felt the anxiety and fear coming from the front seat. Jack had asked her to check his viral load, and to test Stuart.

Earlier Jack said, "I feel so amazing that I'm nearly convinced of a spontaneous healing."

"You know that's not possible," Anna had said.

"Also, we've been extremely careful, but we want to reconfirm Stuart's status." Anna reminded Jack that sero-conversion could take months, and that a false negative was possible. "I know. But we're taking precautions and extra-precautions."

The three of them walked into the lab, the dog trailing behind. Jack, accustomed to needle sticks, barely flinched. But by the time she rewashed and regloved, Stuart was shaking so badly Anna couldn't get a steady draw from the vein. "Take a deep breath," Anna said softly. "Try to relax." Jack, on the other side of Stuart, squeezed Stuart's hand, whispered something Anna couldn't hear. Stuart nodded, and clenched his fist tighter. The blood started to flow. "Done," Anna said. Stuart let out a deep breath, and collapsed into Jack's embrace.

Anna walked out into the hallway to give them a private moment. She read the bulletin board twice. Free kittens, furtniture for sale, typing services, and a bake sale benefiting the Bible Baptist Church Youth Group.

Jack and Stuart walked out, hand in hand. "We'll be back in an hour or so," Jack said.

"That's not necessary. I can have results in fifteen minutes."

Jack shook his head. "We want a little time."

"Okay. Not a problem. Go pick out some beautiful wedding rings." She took her wallet out of her purse. "In fact, I was hoping that you would let me get them for you as a wedding present." She handed Jack a credit card.

"That's very generous of you, Anna," Stuart said. "But truly, it's not necessary. You've done so much for us already."

"Please." The idea hadn't occurred to her until the moment the words came out of her mouth; she'd only wanted to rea.s.sure Stuart, to steer him toward positive thoughts. But now she found that she truly wanted to buy their rings. "I really want to do this. I mean, please. I have no other family to buy for. Let me."

Jack took her card, kissed her. Stuart smiled wanly and thanked her.

"Back soon," he said.

Anna prepared Jack's slide first. Something amazing had happened. His viral load was nearly nonexistent. She checked his white count. In the high range of normal, what a healthy person might show with a mild infection. The recombination of the protease inhibitors was working beautifully. Jack's physicians in Boston had recently started him on a new drug c.o.c.ktail after the ones he'd been on began to lose their effectiveness, and the results were textbook perfect. "Holy Jesus! He's going to outlive me." The dog, at her feet, thumped his tail. Who knew how long the effectiveness of shuffling and recombining drugs could last?

She shook as she prepared Stuart's slide, then went out to have a cigarette while waiting for his results. She imagined calling Stuart's cell phone the second she saw good news. But Jack said they wanted time. Even good news could be a shock when it came before you'd weighed both possibilities. And how much sweeter to be called back from the precipice after you'd toed the edge.

From the end of the driveway, Jack and Stuart saw Anna on a bench just outside the lab. Jack drove slowly, held his breath until Anna spotted him. She rose when she saw the car, gathered up her things. "Thank G.o.d!" Jack said.

Stuart looked at him, alarmed. "What?"

"You're negative," Jack said, and gripped Stuart's hand.