The Marriage of Sticks Part 21

He looked up. "You finished?"

"Yes. Do you mind if I sit next to you?"

"Not at all. Hop in." He reached across the pa.s.senger's seat and threw open the door. The overhead light came on a weak yellow. I walked around the front of the car and got in but didn't close the door. I needed a moment just sitting before my life could continue.

"How'd it go in there, Miranda? How's your friend?"

"Sick. Is this your family?" On the dashboard was a small metal frame with three oval photographs inside. A boy, a girl, a wife. The girl wore a cheerleader's sweater and flirted with the camera. The pretty woman looked straight at it, expressionless. The boy- "Yes. That's my wife Nina, our daughter Nelly, and Isaac."

"He looks like you."

"Isaac died of meningitis two years ago. One night he didn't feel well and went to bed. The next morning he was gone." He gestured for me to close the door. I hesitated so as to have another, closer look at Isaac in the dim light. Erik started the car. The strong smell of exhaust fumes filled the air.

"I'm so sorry. What was he like?"

"Interesting you ask. Most people when they hear about it just say they're sorry. They're embarra.s.sed to ask questions. Or they feel uncomfortable.

"What was he like? He was a pistol. You couldn't keep the kid down. He woke up at five every morning and went full tilt till you threw him into bed at night and shut his eyes for him. I guess he was hyperactive, but my wife said he was just too interested to sit down. We miss him."

I pulled the door closed and we drove away from Fieberglas. The gravel crunching beneath the car tires sounded very loud. As we drove onto the street I looked down at my hands in my lap and saw they were both clenched into fists. I was fearful something might stop or hold us back, but that was egotism or paranoia. Nothing stopped us; nothing met us but the night in front of the headlights.

"Once when Isaac was a little boy, I mean really little, I walked into the bathroom and saw him standing next to the toilet barefoot. The seat was up and he was dangling a foot over the bowl. I asked what he was doing, because with that kid, it coulda been anything. He said he'd bet himself he couldn't put his foot in the toilet. For some crazy reason he was frightened of doing that. So there he was standing, daring himself to do the thing that scared him most."

"Why was he afraid to do that? Had it been flushed?"

"Oh, sure." Peterson took a hand off the steering wheel and gave an airy wave. "But you know how it is when you're a kid: you got different monsters than the ones you got as an adult."

I slid forward to get as close as possible to the photograph. The boy did look like his father, but even in the picture there was a wildness in his eyes that said he was a pistol.

We returned to Crane's View the way we had come. Pa.s.sing the drive-in theater, I worried that something would again be playing on the giant screen, but it was blank. Erik continued talking about his son. I asked questions to keep the conversation going. I didn't want to think about what to do because I knew my whole life would depend on that decision once we got home.

"Do you mind if I smoke?" he asked.

"No. G.o.d, cigarettes! I'd love one too."

He pulled a pack of Marlboros from beneath his sun visor and handed them to me. "I think I got two left in there. Have a look."

I slid them out.

He pushed in the cigarette lighter on the dashboard. "All the things we're not supposed to do anymore, huh? You know what I say? Cigarettes are gooood!"

The lighter popped out and he handed it to me. I lit up for the first time in years and took a deep drag. The smoke was harsh and raw in my throat but delicious. We sat in a nice silence, smoking and watching things pa.s.s by.

"There's a 7-eleven up here a-ways. Would you mind if I made a quick stop and bought more smokes and some other things? I told the wife I'd bring them home and she'll be real mad if I don't."

"Please, of course stop."

He sighed. "That's one of the bad things that's happened since Isaac died. Nina gets real upset about small things. Before, she was as calm as summer, but now if even the slightest thing goes wrong, she has trouble with it. I can't blame her. I guess we miss people in our own ways.

"Me, I think about all the things I'll never be able to do with the boy. Take him to see the Knicks, watch him graduate from school. Sometimes when I'm alone in the house, I go up to his room and sit on the bed. I talk to him too, you know? Tell him what's been going on in the family, and how much I miss him. I know it's stupid, but I keep thinking he's near me in that room. Nina cleaned it out completely after he died, so it's only a small empty place now, but I can't help thinking he's around there sometimes and maybe can hear me."

"What do you miss most, Erik? What do you miss most about him?" A question I had asked myself again and again since Hugh's death.

"The hugs. That kid was a hugger. He'd grab hold of you tight as a vise and squeeze. Not many people really hug you." He smiled sadly. It looked like his whole life these days was in that smile. "There aren't that many people in life who really love you either."

I felt my throat swell and I had to look away.

"I'm sorry, Miranda. I'm just talking. There's the place. I'll be out in a minute."

We slowed and pulled into a large parking lot. The store was brilliantly lit. It glowed, and the vivid colors of the products on the shelves radiated out into the night. I watched Erik walk in. He stopped to speak with the man behind the counter and in a moment both were laughing. I looked around the lot. There was only one other vehicle parked there, an old pickup truck that looked like it had traveled to World War Three and back. I twisted the rearview mirror to have a look at myself and was surprised to see my head was still on my shoulders and I didn't have big Xs over my eyes like some cartoon character that's just been knocked out.

I saw something out of the corner of my eye. Far across the parking lot, a kid on a bicycle came weaving slowly into view. My first thought was, What's he doing out so late, but as he got closer my mind froze. It was Erik Peterson's son Isaac.

He was dressed in an orange-and-blue windbreaker and faded jeans. Riding in loopy circles around the lot, he got closer and closer to the car. I knew who he was, but since I could not believe it, I looked again at the picture on the dashboard. It was him. Inside the store, Erik had disappeared back among the shelves. Outside, twenty feet away, his dead son rode a bicycle.

I opened the door and swiveled to get out. The boy stopped abruptly and put his feet down to keep from tipping. Looking at me, he shook his head. Don't move. I stayed where I was and he slowly rolled over.

"That's my Dad in there." His voice was high and sweet. He lisped.

"Yes."

"He's nice, huh?"

"He's... He loves you very much."

"I know. He talks to me all the time. But I can't talk back. It's not allowed."

"Can I tell him you're here?"

"No. He couldn't see me anyway. Only you. Remember you saw me before? When you were driving the other way, I was racing you. I kept up with you pretty long. I mean, I'm pretty fast for my age."

He was so sure of himself, this ten-year-old big talker out for a spin on his bike at night, checking to see if anyone was watching. It wrung my heart.

"You know Declan?" he asked.

"Yes."

A green Porsche growled in off the street and stopped a few feet away. A woman wearing a man's fedora got out. Looking straight ahead, she walked into the store.

"Women are the stones you use to build a house, men are the sticks you use to start the fire and keep the house warm."

Distracted by the jarring noise of the car, I wasn't sure I'd heard what he said. "Excuse me?"

"That's what Declan's father said."

I stiffened. "You've seen him?"

"Sure. He and Declan are together all the time. He said that today when Declan asked the difference between men and women. They were talking about why Declan never got to be born.

"See you!"

Erik came out of the store carrying a brown bag and glancing over his shoulder. Pushing the bike backward, the boy came within two feet of his father. He looked at the man as he walked past. He reached out a hand and pretended to slap his arm.

Erik stopped. For a moment I was sure he knew who was there. Isaac watched him with calm eyes. Erik moved to the left, stopped, moved to the right. He was dancing! He turned in a circle. "Do you hear it, Miranda? From inside the store? Martha and the Vandellas. 'Dancing in the Streets.'" He continued swaying back and forth as he approached the car. "One of my favorite songs. Isaac loved it too. I hear it all the time now. Funny. More than ever before, I think." He opened the back door and laid the grocery bag on the seat. "You ready to go?"

The boy nodded at me, so I said yes. His father got in and started the motor. "I got everything. Some more cigarettes too if you want one."

"Erik, if you could, what would you say to Isaac if he was here right now?"

Without hesitation he said, "I'd say I'm living, but I'm not alive without you."

One of Hugh's favorite quotes was from St. Augustine: "Whisper in my heart, tell me you are there." I suppose it has to do with G.o.d and his unwillingness to show his face to man. But in light of what had happened, I took it to mean something entirely different. I was sure "Women are the stones you use to build a house, men are the sticks..." was meant for me, not Declan. I was sure Hugh was whispering in my heart, suggesting what to do. I had already come to the same conclusion by then but his words only strengthened my resolve.

When we arrived in Crane's View and Erik dropped me off, I entered the house no longer frightened or upset. There is a calmness that comes with surrender. A peace that actually revitalizes when you know there is no other way. I knew what to do now, and no matter what happened to me afterwards, the child would be safe. That was all that mattered-the child would be safe. I would give it what I had, willingly!

The house was spotless, no sign of anything that happened there earlier. I walked into the kitchen and remembered it had all begun after I'd made myself dinner-how many hours, days, lifetimes ago? When I turned on the television and saw Charlotte, Declan, and Hugh by the swimming pool.

So what? It had to begin somewhere and that's where it did. Move on. Other things to think about now. Hunger shook a scolding finger at me and I knew I would have to eat before doing it. Opening the refrigerator door, I was greeted by an incredible array of the most extraordinary and exotic food-Iranian caviar, a box of pastries from a place called Demel in Vienna, plover eggs, Tunisian capers, olives from Mt. Athos, fresh Scottish salmon, Bombay lemon pickle, more. I had bought none of it, much less tasted most of the food on those shelves, but it didn't surprise me. The time for surprises was over. I sniffed and sampled a great deal before choosing a fresh baguette, prosciutto cut thin as tissue paper, and the most delicate mozzarella I had ever tasted. The sandwich was delicious and I ate it quickly.

There was a bottle of Lambrusco too, one of Hugh's favorite wines. I opened it and poured some into a small gla.s.s that had once held creamed chipped beef. Odd as it may sound, I wanted to toast something. That's what you're supposed to do at the end of the banquet, aren't you? Toast the host, the lucky couple, the birthday girl or the glorious country. But what could I toast on this, the last night of some preposterous part of my existence? My past lives? Here's to all the good and bad times I had but forgot and learned nothing from. Here's to all the people I knew and hurt-sorry folks, I can't remember any of you. Or how about, Here's to me-however many of us there have been.

Hugh taught me an Irish toast: May those who love us love us.

And those that don't love us, May G.o.d turn their hearts.

And if he doesn't turn their hearts May he turn their ankles So we'll know them by their limping.

One toast came to me that was appropriate. I lifted my gla.s.s and said to the empty room, "Here's to you and the lives you lead. I hope you find your way home faster than I did." I drank slowly and emptied the gla.s.s.

On the floor in Hugh's workroom was a cardboard box filled with tools and chemicals he used to restore things. I went through it, pulling out the many different bottles, reading the labels, choosing the ones that contained alcohol or any kind of flammable substance. Our house was made of wood. It would go up quickly. I went around the ground floor pouring the strong-smelling chemicals over everything. Hugh's new chair, a couch, boxes of books, the wooden floors.

I kept spilling and watching the liquids stain new fabric, pool on the wooden floor, eat into a turquoise plastic Sky King ashtray I had given Hugh as a present. When all of the bottles and cans were empty, I stood in the front hall smelling the incredible stink of all those deadly chemicals splashed over everything in the world that had mattered to me.

I went to a window and looked out onto the porch. A car drove by outside. A white car. It reminded me of a white horse. Heroes rode white horses, heroic knights. That reminded me of Hugh's unfinished story about the plain-looking knight who fell so in love with the princess that he was willing to sacrifice everything for her. How he went to the devils and traded them his courage for her happiness. I remembered the last line of his incomplete story. "Life is full of surprises, but if you're convinced all of them will be bad, what's the point of going on?" I wanted no more surprises. I didn't trust them, any more than I believed I would be able to change anything for the better if I continued living. I would give up my immortality to the child and then I would finish it.

Still staring out the window, I felt ebullient and relieved. The world was mine because I no longer wanted to be in it. I could do this tonight or tomorrow or next week. It didn't matter when because the decision had been made and was final. No, it had to be tonight. I did not want tomorrow. I went looking for matches.

What was the name of that famous children's book? Goodnight Moon. Good night Hugh. Good night Frances Hatch, good night Crane's View, good night life. My thoughts chanted these lines as I searched for matches. Good night Erik Peterson and Isaac. Good night beautiful books and long dinners with someone you love. Good night this and this and this and this as I wandered through the house. The list got longer and longer as I slid open drawers and cupboards looking for something to burn up the world in which these things existed.

Just as I began to grow frustrated, I remembered seeing a pack of matches in Hugh's box of chemicals. A half-empty pack with green writing announcing Charlie's Pizza. The place where we'd had lunch with Frances the first day we visited Crane's View. The first time I saw Declan. The first time we met Frannie McCabe. First time. First time and now the last time. I would never see Declan or Frannie again. Never see this this that. A spotted dog or a marmalade cat. Goodnight life.

I found the matches and stood up, wondering only where to do it. The living room. Sit on the couch, start the fire there and finish. The walk from Hugh's room to the living room seemed five miles long. It felt like I was walking underwater. Not bad or disturbing, only slow-motion and incredibly detailed. I saw everything around me with extreme clarity. Was it because this was the last time I would see these things? Good night hall with the beautiful wood floors. Hugh got down on his knees right there and, sliding his hand back and forth over that floor, looked up at me with the happiest smile. "This is all ours now," he said, his voice full of wonder. Good night staircase. Stopping, I looked up and remembered the day we had made love at the top. I wished I could smell Hugh in that final air. Would I see him where I was going? How wonderful to smell him one last time. I looked up the stairs and remembered him on top of me, his weight, the softness of his lips on my throat, his thumbs holding down my hands. He'd had keys in his jeans pocket that day. When he moved on me they cut into my hip. I asked him to take them out. He tossed them across the floor. They rang out as they hit and slid. Good night keys.

In the living room I stared into the empty fireplace a moment and then put my hand in my pocket. It was there. It was time, so I took it out. Because of all the mad things happening when I picked it up in the bas.e.m.e.nt at Hugh's silent urging, I hadn't looked carefully at the piece of wood I now held in my hand. I had more or less forgotten about it until I was standing in the lobby of Fieberglas talking to the nurse about Frances. Then the only way I can describe what happened is that the wood came to me the way a good idea or real fear comes. All at once, as if through every pore in your body. Yes, it had been in my pocket the whole time, but suddenly I became aware of its presence again. Or maybe I just remembered it and, in doing so, grasped its real importance and what to do with it. A small piece of wood about seven inches long. Dark on three sides, light on the other. The side where it had broken off the baby's crib when McCabe/Shumda threw it against the wall.

There was a fragment of a figure carved on it, but the way the wood had snapped off made it impossible to decipher what it was. The back half of a running animal. A deer perhaps, or a mythological creature that fit the rest of the extravagant, fantastical world that had been carved on that wonderful old cradle. Our child's cradle, our baby girl. I thought of her, the only sight of her I would ever have. Then I thought of Declan and what his father had said. And I knew what I had to do, and it was right, but if I were to somehow survive what was about to happen, I would regret doing it forever. I looked at the wood in my hand and because I felt I had no other choice I said, "I'm sorry." I had two pieces of wood to burn. Two pieces for my marriage of sticks: The one in my hand from the cradle, and the one from Central Park I had picked up the day we knew it was going to happen. Two sticks were enough for a marriage. More would have been better. I would have loved to have a huge bundle of them for a world-sized bonfire when I was eighty years old and at the satisfied end of a marvelous life. But I had only these two and they would have to be enough. They were important though-as important as anything. One symbolized Hugh, this one our child. Where in the house was the Hugh stick? I thought but then realized it didn't matter because soon it would be gone too.

Without knowing why, I knew when I lit it, this wood would ignite as if it were made of pure gasoline. Breaking off a match from the pack, I put it to the striking pad and flicked my hand. A flame snapped open, flaring and hissing a second before taming down to the size of a fingernail. Lit match in one hand, the wood in the other. Good night life.

I looked up one last time. At the window were faces. Many many many of them. Some were pressed to the gla.s.s, distorting their features-bent noses, comical lips. Others hovered in the background, waiting their turn to get close as they could to the window, to this room, to me. And I knew all of the faces were me, all the me's from past lives who had come to watch this happen. To watch the end of their line, last stop, everybody out.

"Good-bye." Calmly I put the match to the wood and the world exploded.

I heard the blast and saw a blinding flash of light. Then utter silence. I don't know how long it lasted. I was somewhere else until I was back in the living room, sitting by myself on the couch, holding both empty hands in the air in total surprise. It took time to realize where I was and of course I did not believe it. Everything was so still. My eyes readjusted to the normal light in the room and the colors, the things around me, everything was exactly as it had been.

I dropped my hands to the couch and felt its rough wool beneath my palms. Turning my head slowly from side to side, I took in the view. Nothing had changed. Frances's house, our possessions, home again. Even the smell was the same.

No, there was something else. Hugh. Hugh's cologne was in the air. Then I felt hands on my shoulders and knew instantly that they were his. Hugh was here.

The hands lifted. He came around the back of the couch and stood in front of me. "It's all right, Miranda. You're all right."

I stared at him and could only repeat what he had said, because it was true. "I'm all right." We looked at each other and I had nothing to say. I understood nothing but I was all right.

"You're not allowed to kill yourself. When you burned the wood, you could only give them back what was theirs. Now you have the rest of your life. That belongs to you."

I looked at him. I nodded. All right. Anything was all right.

"Thank you, Miranda. You did an incredible thing."

I looked at him and I was empty as death, empty as an old heart that's just biding its time.

Somehow, from some place I didn't know I had, I was able to whisper, "What now?"

"Now you live, my sweetheart." He smiled and it was the saddest smile I had ever seen.

"All right."

He reached into his jacket pocket and took out something. He offered it to me. Another piece of wood. A small long silvery piece that looked like driftwood. Wood that had been floating in some unimaginable sea for a thousand years. I turned it over in my hand, examining it carefully. Shapeless, silvery, soft, old. Yes, it must have been driftwood.

When I looked up again Hugh was gone.

There was a nice song on the radio years ago. They played it too much but I didn't mind because it kept me company and I'm always grateful for that, I often found myself humming it without realizing. The t.i.tle was "How Do I Live Without You?"

I have come to realize this is an essential lesson: In order to survive, you must learn to live without everything. Optimism dies first, then love, and finally hope. But still you must continue. If you were to ask me why, I would say that even without those fundamental things, the great things, the hot-blood-in-the-veins things, there is still enough in a day, in a life, to be precious, important, sometimes even fulfilling. How do I live without you? I put you in the museum of my heart where I often go, absorbing as much as I can bear before closing time.

What more can I tell you that you need to know beyond what I already have? I had a life. I never married, had no children, met two good men I might have loved, but after what I had experienced, it was impossible. I was proud of myself though, because I honestly tried with real hope and an open heart to fall in love again. No good.

I went back to selling books and I did well. Sometimes I was even able to lose myself in what I was doing, and that was when I was happiest. All the time I thought of Frances Hatch and how she had done it-lived a full and interesting life after she had cut the thread. So many times I wished I could have spoken with her, but she died three days after we last met.

Zoe married Doug Auerbach and they were happy for a long time. When he died ten years ago, I moved out to California to live with her. We became quintessential L.A. old ladies. We ate only free-range chicken and took too many vitamins. We spent too much time in malls, went to aerobics cla.s.ses for seniors, wore thicker and thicker eyegla.s.ses as the visual world became foggier and surrounded by increasingly soft edges. We made a life and watched the sun set over it.

I always woke earlier than she and made the coffee. But she was punctual, and by nine every morning she joined me in the backyard to read the newspaper and talk about what needed doing that day. We had a garden, there were a few friends, and we reminisced unendingly. Of course I never told her any of my real story.

For my birthday one year she bought me a pocket telephone. On the package was a note she had written that said, "Now you'll really be a California gal!" When I opened the box and saw what it was, I asked who on earth would ever call me? Zoe said s.e.xily, "You never know!" And I loved her for her optimism and I loved her for the lie. I knew she had given it to me because she was worried. I had been having fainting spells, swoons she liked to call them, and they were getting worse. My doctor, an Irishman named Keane, joked that I had the blood pressure of an iguana. Sometimes I pretended I wasn't feeling well just so I could visit him.

But death winds the clock and one morning Zoe didn't show up for coffee. She was a robust woman and I don't think she was ever sick the whole time we lived together. When I went into her room at ten-thirty that morning and saw her lying peacefully on her side in bed, I knew. Her children, neither of whom had even the slightest trace of her goodwill and energy, came to the funeral but left on the first plane out.