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Chapter 2
One year before Lucy Marsh’s death, the young couple was about to celebrate a two-year anniversary. Celebrations were a family affair, so Lucy’s parents were planning an outing including dinner and a movie with Jesse and Megan Reilly, Lucy’s sister and brother-in-law. Marge often asked if Abe’s father would like to join them for dinner and was always disappointed to hear that he could not leave his home anymore.
“Does your mom ever realize that my dad can’t leave the house?” Abe asked. “She calls about that every week, I think, and she never remembers that I told her dad is sick. Doesn’t she get that?”
“I don’t know. Maybe she just doesn’t understand it.”
“My dad’s crazy. What’s to understand? He can’t be seen in public.”
“I’ve tried to explain to her what’s going on with him, but she doesn’t really acknowledge that she gets it. Just ‘mhmm’ and ‘uh huh’ and ‘right.’ But she always changes the subject after that.”
“Well I wish she would stop asking. Or I wish we could get some caller ID so I don’t have to answer when she calls. At least until our anniversary is over.”
“She wants to go into town to that nice steakhouse they opened last summer. Is that OK?”
“I would rather we celebrate our anniversary just the two of us.”
“I would like that, too, but you know, it’s a family thing, and one day we’ll really enjoy celebrating things like this together with the whole family.”
“Why don’t we just take off and go somewhere?” Abe asked.
Lucy had her hands immersed in soapy dishwater. She paused and turned to look at him. “You really mean that?”
“Why not?” Abe raised his eyebrows in anticipation.
“Well, I don’t know, you haven’t been very spontaneous lately. And it’s in a couple of weeks, so is that enough time for you to plan and feel good about it?”
“I haven’t been spontaneous? What am I doing right now?”
“It sounds less like spontaneity and more like getting out of family dinner,” Lucy laughed.
“Don’t tell me you wouldn’t rather be in Gatlinburg or in a cabin on the lake than with your family at the steakhouse. Our anniversary is on a Sunday. We could leave Friday morning and turn off our cell phones and stop thinking about it all…”
“I suppose that Friday is fall break for me,” Lucy shrugged.
Abe approached her from behind and rested his chin on her shoulder. “Pleeeease?”
“Let me talk to Mom about it,” Lucy said.
“No talking to Mom. We can do what we want and if they still want family dinner later, then so be it. But it’s our anniversary.”
Lucy stood at the sink in yoga shorts and an oversized t-shirt that was probably Abe’s. He admired her from behind: the way her dark blonde curls fell from her ponytail, the lines of muscles in her arms and legs, the way her neck curved down to her shoulder. Some days it was harder to see her natural beauty than others. Today was an easy day, but maybe it was because Lucy was about to give in to his idea to take an unplanned vacation. He leaned back against the countertop and waited. Lucy smiled crookedly and threw a dishtowel at him, signaling him to help. He knew that the crooked smile meant yes.
Abe dried a few dishes before Lucy finished her washing and went down the hallway to the bedroom. Like a teenage carwash employee, he quickly slopped the towel over the warm, wet dishes and placed them into the cabinet half dry. Seconds later, Abe followed behind her.
—
Abe tinkered with the steak knife at the restaurant a few days after getting back from their unplanned vacation. Marge was sitting across the table from Lucy, leaning in. She had called incessantly about planning this night out, so eventually Lucy persuaded him to clear an evening. Marge reached out and patted the table in front of Abe.
“I know you’re a busy man, Abe. Thank you for taking some time to do this. I think this could be such a good tradition to keep up if we can start it, don’t you?” Marge looked at Lucy.
“Of course. Do you know where Megan and Jesse are?” Lucy asked.
“They were supposed to be here about 15 minutes ago,” she said as she glanced at her antique watch. She tapped the face of it. “Still ticking.”
The waiter returned to the table for the third time, eager to put in the order. Abe leaned back in his seat. His stomach gurgled loudly enough that Marge heard the sound. Lucy set her hand on his knee, her gentle touch intended to soothe.
“I think we’re all getting hungry,” Lucy said.
“But maybe we should wait just a few more minutes. Maybe they got caught up in traffic,” Marge directed to the waiter.
Abe sighed heavily, noticeably, and pinched the bridge of his nose between his fingers. He felt a headache coming on with his growing irritation. The waiter looked at Marge and forced his lips into something that looked a bit more like nausea than a smile.
“Of course, ma’am.” He swiveled slowly on his heel and returned to the kitchen.
The four of them stared down at the table for a couple of awkward minutes. Finally Marge perked up—making Abe feel the urge to make a trip to the restroom—and just as she took a breath to speak, Megan and Jesse turned the corner and approached them.
“Oh good! We were just about to put in our order, but we decided to wait on you,” Lucy said. Megan and Jesse pulled off their jackets and scooted in to the table without replying.
“Everything OK?” Lucy asked.
“You could have gone ahead and ordered your food. You didn’t need to wait on us,” Jesse replied.
Abe slid farther down in his seat and took a deep breath to stave off a rising groan. He glanced over at Megan and Jesse who looked cold from the late October wind. Their faces were flushed red and they had a tired look in the eyes, which was unusual. Megan was a composer and spent most of her working career on stage behind a keyboard. But her stage personality didn’t change behind the curtain. She was often bright like her mother, facing the worst situations with the biggest smiles, a trait which Abe knew in no one else. It was also a trait that made him feel sicker inside the more he was around it, so he was almost refreshed to see her quietly hiding behind Jesse.
“Where’s that waiter of ours?” Marge craned her neck and leaned out over her husband. “If you see him, flag him down, Pete.”
“I’m sorry we’re late.” Jesse’s words seemed to spill unexpectedly from his mouth and he worked quickly to qualify them. “I had a difficult patient.”
His thinning hair was windblown and rested in disheveled wisps on top of his head. He must have realized this because he reached one hand up to smooth it down as soon as his dinner party looked his direction. He quickly straightened his tie and smoothed out his dress shirt. Abe noticed a little quiver in Jesse’s hands and realized he was staring.
“I hope things are all right,” Marge said.
Pete raised his hand and waved the waiter to the table without speaking.
“I’m not sure,” Jesse said. He looked across the table at Megan who kept her eyes on the glass of water in front of her. “I hope so, but I’m not sure.”
“Everything will be just fine,” Marge said, drawing out the just. She patted his shoulder like she had patted the table in front of Abe.
Abe sensed something at the opposite end of the table. When he glanced down at Megan, he noticed her skin had lightened into a waxy white.
—
Abe waited in the car while Lucy and Megan talked in the parking lot outside the restaurant. They had decided that dinner was enough for one night, and Marge and Pete headed home. He watched Lucy from the rear view mirror as she embraced her sister. Megan spoke with her back turned to Abe, but he saw Lucy take both of Megan’s hands in front of her. He read her lips: love you. Lucy opened the car door and fell into the passenger seat.
“What’s happening now?” Abe said.
“Jesse didn’t have a good day at work.”
“When does that guy ever have a good day at work? I mean he’s a shrink. His whole life is manipulating people, giving people drugs to make them worse so they’ll keep coming back. His job is ridiculous.”
“Abe, not now.”
“I really tried with him. That guy is just messed up. He’s always trying to fix everyone.” Abe braked hard at the red light.
“Your past experiences with other doctors shouldn’t determine how you see Jesse.” She adjusted her seatbelt.
“No, Lucy. He probably thinks I’m another one of his bipolar psychotic cases just because of my dad.”
“He doesn’t think that at all. He’s a trained psychiatrist, and he knows better than to judge one person by their family or anything else. He sees you for you.” Abe felt her strong gaze on his profile in the dark.
“He knows about my dad. How can someone just leave that out? He knows the guy that treated him.”
Lucy sighed and squirmed a little in her seat. She tracked her gaze to the window.
“OK. What happened to Jesse at work today?” he asked.
“No really, Abe. Do you want to know? Because as soon as I mention his name your temper explodes and you get all defensive about your dad.”
“My dad’s really sick. Someone has to defend him.” He paused as they turned on to the back road home. “Yes. I really want to know. Please tell me.”
The car bounced along the barely paved road. Abe glanced over at Lucy whose eyes were focused on the road ahead.
“One of Jesse’s patients overdosed last night on drugs Jesse prescribed,” she finally said. “Megan was pretty upset tonight because Jesse is worried his family might retaliate.”
“Retaliate?”
“I don’t know. Tell the media? Sue? Whatever people do to doctors that don’t make their patients better.”
Abe recognized his opportunity to claim the incident as proof of his own argument. He resisted it.
“I know what you’re thinking, Abe,” she said.
“No, you don’t,” he replied sternly. His voiced deepened and softened, but his harsh insistence remained. “I think it sucks. But what can he do about it if a patient is mad?”
“What would you do about it if a customer was mad about the car you sold him?”
“I’d do what I could to fix it,” he said. “And then I’d stay away from them.”
Lucy expelled a short breath of air through her nose, the equivalent of a laugh.
“Well, apparently he’s taking some time off from work,” Lucy said as they pulled into the driveway.
Chapter 1
Abraham Marsh stood at the end of his concrete driveway, leaning on his fence. The red and blue lights signaled something darkly fascinating to his neighbors who were already pulling open the shades. One woman, still dressed in flannel pajamas, was peeking out from behind a screen door.
It was early October in Minnesota, a time when the northern trees were already shaking off their leaves for winter. The aroma of decaying foliage and heavy dew let no one mistake the season for anything but autumn. Despite the shuffle of emergency medical technicians, the morning’s presence was heavy and oppressed most of the sound. No city birds chattered from the half exposed trees, no wind roared in the ears.
For the first time, the world was silent for Abe.
He ran his fingers up over his face and through the wavy, brown hair that fell across his forehead. His hands still smelled like aftershave. His pressed shirt hung in the back window of his red sedan from where he placed it only earlier that morning.
A petite police officer approached him and began a fluid release of rehearsed questions preceded by, “I’m sorry for your loss, sir.”
Her voice sounded distant, as if he never knew that place or the time, as if he’d never known a morning and his consciousness drew upward above him. He watched himself answer her questions, the typical ones, until the EMTs appeared from under the shadows of the garage. They descended the sloped concrete leading the gurney with their heads down, all of them so young.
The police officer paused in her questions to let Abe watch the outline of his wife. It seemed as if they moved her body so slowly, and he felt his hand reach toward her involuntarily.
“Sir,” the short woman said. “Mister Marsh. I’m sorry, but we’re almost finished here.”
She was loaded into the back of the ambulance. A man closed the doors behind her.
“Can you tell me who found your wife? Lucy?” she asked quietly but sternly, probably keeping her guard in case foul play was involved.
“Her sister. Her sister came over to go with her to work today. Music day or something.”
Abe’s chest cavity felt like a hole. As soon as it felt like it couldn’t go any deeper, it seemed as if his entire ribcage might be crushed. He wished that maybe he could have had one more day.
But Lucy was no longer suffering.
Abe and his sister-in-law, Megan, had followed the ambulance to the hospital. It seemed as if there should be some emergency about the situation, with lights and sirens, but Lucy was too far gone to attempt resuscitation. Megan had choked on gulping sobs as if she’d nearly drowned and recently been pulled from a scrape with death herself. But she managed to calm herself enough to drive Abe’s car, which she felt she should do for him.
Abe could not cry. It wasn’t that his eyes formed no tears, because they often did when he injured himself. But Abe never adopted crying as a response to emotion. It was a trait his father beat into him with a yardstick broken in half from frequent use.
Mr. Marsh used to grab his son by the wrist while he marched down the hallway. He would order Abe to stand with his palms on the wall just under the hall mirror. Abe watched his father’s rage from the mirror as his face scrunched up with pain and tears dripped from his eyelashes. Damn it, stop crying, he would say until Abe’s round face would turn red and he would blink his eyes dry. He hadn’t cried since the fifth grade when his father found out he had cheated on a math test.
So Abe rode silently next to Megan who seemed either too afraid or too overwhelmed to speak. She gripped the steering wheel with her slender fingers, both hands at the 10 and 2 o’clock position. Her shoulders hunched over like a hiker carrying a heavy pack. Occasionally she quivered, and Abe feared she might break into tears again. Her only words to Abe since she called him were, “Jesse is meeting us at the hospital.”
Abe did not respond. Jesse was Megan’s husband. Of course Lucy and Megan’s family would all be there for Abe and for each other, but he had no family to speak of that would come to the hospital. He felt hollow at the thought of being alone but quickly dismissed it, thinking it better that they were all scattered and unwilling. Abe’s father had a serious illness that kept him confined to a home where others like him could support each other. But Mr. Marsh was not allowed to drive. As far as Abe’s two younger brothers, they had been absent since their father was deemed too ill to care for himself. Abe rarely visited his father, but his brothers didn’t visit even on the holidays.
Jesse Reilly was waiting at the entrance with Peter and Marge Mitchell, Lucy’s parents. They were unusually bright people. Even on this dark morning, their white faces were pale from shock, but something else mingled in their eyes when they saw Abe. A pearl of hope rested within Marge, and she managed to smile when she saw Abe. Little crow’s feet by her eyes and a small stature made her a cute woman, even in her upper years. Lucy and Marge had identical eyes, the kind that locked with someone else’s and wouldn’t let go, that made a person want to reach in and touch the deep blue almond-shaped pools. Marge looked at him with her daughter’s eyes, inducing a chill up Abe’s spine.
Abe loved her eyes, but Marge was a much brighter person than Lucy was, especially in her last months. Abe had met Marge at the hospital doors like this one other time in his marriage to Lucy. When Peter, Lucy’s father, was in a car accident last winter, she exhibited no vulnerability. Anyone who visited Peter was greeted with a smile and a hug. Marge was always offering her hospitality to visitors, perhaps as a defense mechanism to her husband’s fragile vitality or maybe just because Marge was that kind of person. Bright. It was the only way to describe her.
Even now after Lucy’s death, the brightness still clung to her eyes. She reached up to Abe’s clean-shaven cheek with a soft hand.
“Abe…” Her voice broke.
He did not speak as she took his hand in hers.
“I’m… I miss her already,” Marge said.
“Let’s get out of the lobby,” Jesse urged.
As they walked down the hospital corridor—the one they hoped they’d never see—she continued.
“What happened to my girl?” She asked the question with such pain straining her voice that Abe wondered if it was rhetorical. “What happened to her, Abraham,” she asked, drawing out every syllable as she squeezed Abe’s hand.
“She was hurting,” he replied, staring ahead.
“Why would she do this? She was my bright girl.”
“She just did,” Abe said. “She kept some things inside that we couldn’t see.”
Megan slipped into Jesse’s arms. “We should decide who is going to go in to ID the body,” he said. The following silence held thick between them. It would have been better to draw straws than stand there staring at each other, at the floor, at whatever made the situation less awkward and painful.
“Abe, you don’t have to do it, you know,” Marge said.
“I can go,” Megan offered.
“No, honey. You shouldn’t have to see her like that again. She’s—” Her voice broke again when Abe noticed her cheeks were wet.
Jesse suddenly stood a little straighter. “I’ll go. When the doctor comes out, I’ll go,” he said.
Abe burned a little inside, feeling like he was strong enough to see his wife dead but simultaneously grateful for the refuge of the corridor. He caught Jesse looking at him. Jesse easily had three inches on Abe, who was nearly six feet tall. And Jesse was always looking at someone. He had better eye contact skills than the average person because he spent almost every day of his life talking to people. Jesse was a psychiatrist, but it was a profession his wife had asked him to leave at the office. The one part of his job he carried outside of his office doors was the eye contact that made a person squirm and confess stealing cash out of Mom’s wallet in sixth grade under the pressure. Abe tried to stand taller and assert his strength against Jesse’s gaze.
A few minutes later, Jesse went through a solid door to identify the body of Lucy Marsh.
Marge began to cry with little tears that she dabbed at before they could touch her cheeks, unlike Megan who would sob until her neck and shirt were wet. But Megan wasn’t crying with her mother. She had twisted her face up in thought, leaving two furrows between her eyebrows. She reached her hands up and touched her temples with two index fingers as if to channel or clarify her thoughts.
“There was something different about Lucy when I saw her,” she finally said. “She didn’t look normal.”
“Normal? I don’t know if she would look ‘normal’ at a time like this,” Marge said with finger quotes. Peter stood next to Marge, still silent, and no one expected him to speak. But when Mr. Mitchell spoke, those who listened reverently considered his words.
“She was… I can’t quite picture it.”
Jesse emerged from the room and closed the door gently behind him as if he was trying not to disturb a patient, a living one.
“Jesse, did you notice anything different about her?”
“She looked like Lucy,” he replied. He paused while thinking. “Yes. She did look a little different. It was her face. It had more color than usual, which is strange to think she’d have more color after…”
Everyone mentally filled in the blank.
“She was wearing makeup.”
“She hardly ever wore makeup,” Marge replied. “Why?”
Everyone looked at Jesse, then Abe, and then back to Jesse as if the doctor in him could explain why a suicidal person would put makeup on before death.
“I’m not sure,” Jesse admitted. “Maybe she was really considering going to work. Maybe it was her final act of self-preservation. Maybe it was a favor to us. It could be a number of things, but that isn’t what’s most important right now.”
“We’ve got Abe, and we’ve got each other, and we’re a family,” Marge said. She reached over to Abe and squeezed his arm gently. “We love you, and you are still a part of this family no matter what we go through.”
Abe blinked and stared at the floor. Marge’s hand was cold on his arm. Despite the crisp morning, he was sweating through the back of his shirt. His dress pants were becoming uncomfortable. Standing in the family circle was uncomfortable. And when he looked up again, he noticed Jesse had been watching him. Not just because Marge was talking about him, but this was an examination of sorts. Abe became determined not to let Jesse patronize him. His wife was dead, and Jesse could do nothing but stare at the victim. What was wrong with him? He pulled his arm from Marge’s grip and started back down the hospital corridor to the exit.
It was something straight out of a Disney movie or a C.S. Lewis book. I wasn’t wearing shoes when I opened my eyes. It was the first thing I noticed because the sunlight blinded me, but the thickest, softest grass graced my toes. It was truly terrific, nothing like carpet at all, but rather like a sponge that molded to the form of my arches.
The grassy knoll overlooked a river about ten feet across but no deeper than my calves. Clearer than air itself, it streamed over algae-covered rocks in its quiet, therapeutic way. I couldn’t resist, so I danced my way down the hillside and splashed my toes in the frigid water.
He must have been missing me. I felt him before I saw him, a presence, a notion in my chest. And then so overwhelmed with emotion that I drew in a deep breath of prairie air, I caught his eye. He shaded his face and paused though he knew it was me. He always does, as if he must observe me from afar… as if he can’t take me in all at once.
He started down the hill with a stride of pride, shoulders square and grin gracing his face. Either I was radiant or he missed me terribly, for he never blinked nor did his eyes wander from me. Maybe it was just that we only had a few moments before the world closed in again.
I’ve missed you.
We spread the picnic blanket on the hillside and watched the clouds roll through the sky overhead. We didn’t need words. I ran my fingers through his hair. He hung his arm around my shoulders and stared into my eyes like he usually does when I see him. Time didn’t seem to exist which frightened me there. I didn’t know how to appreciate our time best because time wasn’t time. It came and went and paused and flowed like a bee working from flower to flower.
He leaned over to whisper in my ear and the breeze started playing with my hair. Time was back to steal me away.
“Hurry,” I said, but no sound could be heard except the wind in my ears. Soon I could hear nothing at all, only a silence like blackness, like a void. He furrowed his brow and stared back with those longing eyes that killed me inside. I had called it “The Look.” He stroked my cheek, and at once, time stole me away. I woke up back in the flood of reality. I turned over to the white glow of my phone next to me and checked for messages.
He was still asleep.
Sorry, I whispered to the night.
Chopin’s Waltz No. 6 trickled from the speakers and dripped into my ears as I pulled the pink tights over my clean-shaven legs. I wasn’t a ballerina until I put on the tights. Dressing the part gets me into the mood, gets my heart dancing, gets my mind ready. Despite the myth that dancing takes no thought, I find my mind exhausted by the end of a long practice. Toes pointed, hips square, shoulders over hips, first and fifth and pique, plie, arabesque. Remember your French, know your body.
I pulled the leotard over my body like skin. I was about to audition for a classical ballet company. Everything had to be perfect. Every piece had to be just so. I was patting my skin down with foundation for the stage lights when I remembered the purple stain he left on my skin. It still hurt to touch, but I covered it well. Nothing was going to hold me back.
The squeak of the bedroom door startled me. He leaned against the frame with his arms crossed. I waited for him to speak. After a few awkward seconds he said, “You’re still going?”
“Well, of course. Why not?”
“We talked about this.”
No, you yelled while you backed me into a corner. I started stuffing my shoes and makeup into my bag without acknowledging him. I slung it over my shoulder. He stood square in the doorway, keeping me inside.
“You don’t love me?” His voice was flat.
“You know I do.” I felt my eyes fall to the floor though I had reserved to harden my heart today. He caught my moment of vulnerability when he took my chin between his thumb and forefinger. Without another thought he tossed my head to the side just like he would have tossed a dirty tissue from his hand.
“You look like a slut. You’re probably auditioning to be some stripper whore. Put some pants on. You’re disgusting.”
He waited for me to back down, but I refused. I faced him, met his eyes, waited for him to speak. When he took a breath, I hooked him with a punch to the diaphragm. He backed out of the doorway as I shoved past him.
Things seemed to slow down as I processed what I had just done. How could I come home after this? I imagined that if he let me back in, I would never leave again. He may not even let me leave the bedroom. I pictured myself having to sneak out the window after he left for work on third shift.
Yet my mind was confused. My head was screwed up. I wasn’t sure he could or would ever really do that. He loved me. He told me those three words eventually every day. If he loves me, why do I treat him this way? Why can’t I love him in return?
I felt a grip close around my wrist. I can’t do anything right. He pulled in one swift motion, and my head bounced on the carpet when I fell. His arm swung back like a terrible baseball bat and came across my cheekbone. I thought of the audition. Of how I couldn’t cover up that bruise for it. I thought of how I would not be going now. He stood over me, nudging the toe of his boot into the corner of my neck and shoulder.
“I have never loved you,” he said.
A nocturne from Chopin cried from the bedroom, mirroring my heart but not my intentions.
I didn’t realize that the world outside of his anger did not exist. Not until he crushed my ribs under his boot heel and smashed my face into the rocky pavement. He bent down, pressing his knee into the small of my back.
“Whore.”
I would’ve fought him only I spent most of my time under his heel–verbally and physically. I gave up and learned to cover my face when appendages came dangerously close. I could roll and assume the fetal position, block with my arms when his fists swung in wide arcs at my body.
He took my shoulder in a tight fist and shook me. “Get up. You look ridiculous.” My breath was cut short by a sharp pain in my side. He pointed to the front door and ordered me to go inside.
It wasn’t that he really hated me or thought I was a whore. He had had a bad day at work. He came home and supper wasn’t quite ready yet. He couldn’t find the shirt he wanted to wear. The dog jumped on him with dirty paws. And he looked at me when he got angry. I had been home all day–the food should’ve been ready, the laundry should’ve been done, the dog should’ve been clean.
Though I was working from home, I spent my free time that day cleaning the bathroom. Two days ago, he fell because the tub was slippery. He had clasped his fingers around my neck like a vice grip and broken my skull into the bathroom mirror.
Some days are better than others. Last night after dinner he wouldn’t let me do any work but insisted that I watch a movie with him. He wrapped his arms around my shoulders and whispered into my ear until I fell asleep. He had already left for work this morning when I woke up. I found a note on the coffee table next to me.
You’re beautiful when you sleep. I almost woke you up to say goodbye but I couldn’t do it. I love you, darling.
I read and re-read, soaking it up, taking in every word. I don’t hear them often. I wanted to do something to tell him I loved him today. I would rather do love than say love. So I scrubbed every inch of the bathroom for two hours. When I looked at my watch, I put everything away and hurried to start dinner. I heard the front door swing open before I could finish. It slammed behind him and I heard his slow footsteps as he stepped into the kitchen.
The muscles in my back tightened, but I forced myself to turn around and smile. He dropped his bag on the floor and stared at me for a second before he walked away. I couldn’t tell if he was angry. But then I heard him yell at the dog who cried out when he kicked her. He stomped down the hall with his laundry basket and dumped the dirty clothes on the kitchen floor beside me. Then he tossed the basket like a frisbee before he began to yell.
I tried to explain myself. I tried to calm his anger. I touched his shoulder, stroked his face, but his anger only exploded. He grabbed my hair and pushed me out the front door where I tripped onto the sidewalk.
“I said get up.”
When he ordered, I followed him inside. He sat down at the dining room table and waited silently for his food. I finally finished dinner and placed it in front of him.
“Sit down,” he said. I lowered myself into the chair beside him. He took my hand, turning it over in his, memorizing it. “I’m sorry.”
“No, I’m sorry. I tried to get done…I was just so busy cleaning the bathroom that I forgot what time it was and–”
“Let’s just eat. Okay?”
I nodded, turning the wedding ring round and round my finger, watching the diamond disappear then reappear. Strangely like my husband’s love.
I didn’t sleep. I was too afraid to sleep. I kept thinking the dream would come back if I closed my eyes for too long. Mark woke early and opened his eyes to see me staring up at him. He asked if I had been awake all night. I told him about last night’s dream, about how I remembered a dream I had a week ago. I had dreamt that my house had burned down, only I was inside it when it caught on fire. It was in my head before it even happened. That frightened me.
My dreams seemed to set the tone for the rest of the day. I put on my new clothes so that we could pick up my car at my house. On the way there, a shiver ran down my spine. I wanted so badly to not have to face the remains of my house. It was like a dead body, the decaying skeleton of something once living. I knew it wasn’t haunted or anything, but I felt those chills I used to get as a teenager when I walked through the cemetery at midnight with my friends.
It was still very early in the morning and the sun was just rising when Mark pulled in the driveway. All of the emergency vehicles had vacated my property and left it looking rather lifeless. Some of my smaller trees had been run over by the trucks, but other than that, my property looked the same as it did when I left it yesterday. When Mark turned the truck off, I made no move to get out.
“Come on. I know you don’t want to, but we should at least circle around the house and make sure everything looks ok.”
“Looks ok? It looks horrible. It smells horrible. Let’s just get the car and–” I saw something moving on the other side of the living room window. A flash of yellow. I thought of Junebug’s yellow collar. What if Junebug had gotten out somehow? What if she jumped through a window and saved herself? What if she was there?
I got out of the truck. Mark followed behind me as I approached the house. I saw it again–just a little corner of yellow. Then it disappeared behind the frame again. I considered the fact that Junebug had come back to haunt me like a horror movie for not letting her go with me to run errands. I stopped, wondering how sane I actually was. Did I really think I was going to climb through the rubble after whatever I saw? And what if I found Junebug’s body inside? I would lose it. I couldn’t go in.
That’s when I realized that the yellow I saw was definitely not in my head. It was a man, the back of a man’s t-shirt. The only vehicles there were mine and Mark’s, so it couldn’t have been a firefighter. He obviously didn’t hear the truck pull in the driveway, but I had quite a long drive and Mark left the truck back by the mailbox.
As I walked closer, I could tell he was bending over, shuffling things around, stuffing things in a bag. The living room wasn’t damaged badly by the fire. Everything would have smoke damage, but nothing was burned. I realized what he was doing.
I ran full force in my snowboots down the driveway, determined not to let him escape the rubble before I saw his face and yelled some expletives. My blood boiled and my face burned hot with fury. I stopped at the garage and crept around the corner to catch him by surprise.
“Hey!” He turned around and froze there long enough for me to see his face. My neighbor, Tim. He picked up a trash bag and slung it over his shoulder before clambering over debris and escaping through the back door. I ran around to the back side of the house, but he was too fast (and I was too tired). I sank to my knees and pounded my fists into the snow. Mark was already on the phone with the police, but they only reassured him that looting was a regular occurrence.
I went back to my car and started it. Mark decided to go in and see what he could put in the back of his truck that Tim hadn’t already stolen. Tim hadn’t made it to my laptop or PS3, but he had taken my DVD player, my movies, and pieces of my stereo among other things. Mark went back into the rubble one more time, but he came back empty-handed. I rolled down my window.
“I’m sorry, Brooke. He touched my cheek with a gloved finger. “Junebug is really gone. I wanted to be able to put your mind at ease.”
“You saw her?”
“Her yellow collar? Yes. Underneath what was left of the roof. Sorry, hun.”
I’m not sure I wanted to know. I nodded and put the car in drive. I felt a concoction of emotions that made me doubt my driving abilities. Made me doubt my sanity. Made me doubt my identity. First it was devastation, then remorse, confusion, worry, fury. I prayed to a God I wasn’t sure I believed in while I drove. I considered letting go of the wheel and letting the car decide my fate.
What took me seven years to build was gone forever. I would be starting over.
Life does not apologize. You never have total control over the wheel. Whether you live or die, life goes on. Life keeps moving like Earth, rotating as endlessly as a windmill, as endlessly as the wheels on my car when I never stopped driving that day.
Everything has an expiration date.
I was grateful that Mark’s floor mats weren’t carpeted when I pulled the vomit-covered one out of the truck and left it in the snow. He had a quaint little house in town–a location I didn’t care for at all. I naturally assumed that if he ever proposed, he would move into my house so that I wouldn’t have to brave the cramped, yardless city scene.
Mark’s house was kept far more organized than mine. His magazines were sorted by date and title: favorites on the coffee table, the rest tucked away on a bookshelf in the hall. He had no pets which kept the dusting to a minimum. The living room was arranged symmetrically just like the pillows on his bed which he made every single morning. He was one of a kind. I felt like so much of a slob around him that I rearranged my living room and started organizing all of the printed material that I owned. I mean, the magazines and living room that I used to have.
We stepped in the front door and took off our shoes. I noticed that I was wearing snow boots; they were the only pair of shoes I had left. The weight of an overwhelming burden settled on my shoulders. I had so much to do to rebuild my life, starting with buying another pair of shoes.
Mark took my coat and hung it next to his. He stared down into my eyes and brushed my hair behind my ear. He pulled me in close for a kiss on the lips before burying his face in my hair.
“You smell like smoke. Why don’t you wash up, take a hot shower, then we’ll figure some things out.” I agreed. “I’m going down the street to pick up a few things, take your time.”
Showering proved to be a more difficult task than I expected. I had trouble getting undressed, not to mention discovering that I only had one pair of underwear now. I held my bandaged right hand outside the shower curtain to keep it from getting wet. A half hour later, I emerged from the steamy bathroom with Mark’s oversized bathrobe on feeling more like a drowned rat than a fresh, new woman. When he heard me, he came down the hallway with a bag that he handed to me.
“What’s this?”
“Stuff. I hope it helps. I got everything I could think of that you might need,” he said. The bag was full of toiletries–deodorant, shampoo, conditioner, disposable razors, mousse, a hairbrush.
“Well, it’s not quite everything,” I said, “but I think it’ll do.” I smiled for the first time since I left home to run errands. For only eight months with me, he did well. I remember thinking he was a keeper.
I did the best with what I had and so did Mark. He wasn’t much of a cook but he threw something together for dinner.
“Thank you. For taking me in for the night. For helping me.”
“Isn’t that what boyfriends do?”
“Yes. But I won’t stay long, I promise,” I reassured him.
“Don’t worry about it. Really. Please stay as long as you’d like. Stay forever if you want.”
I stared at my plate. I was already overwhelmed, and I hated that life had taken my independence and my dog from me today. And he wanted to take care of me like this…for forever? “What do you mean?” I questioned.
“I don’t know. I just like the thought of having you around. I understand you wanting your own home though. I shouldn’t have brought it up. Sorry.”
I didn’t know what to say so I kept eating. I felt him watching me. “I need underwear,” I said. What would be awkward for most people wasn’t for Mark. He played along.
“I’m sorry I forgot underwear. But I should probably put a ring on your finger before I go buying you underwear anyway. Do we need to go shopping?”
“Yes, please,” I said. We went to Kohl’s where I picked up some jeans, t-shirts, and underwear. Not my favorite place to shop, but you don’t have much of a choice when you’re replacing your entire wardrobe. I supposed that Goodwill would be a stop in the near future, so I appreciated the decent shopping atmosphere while I could and swiped my plastic at the cash register.
On the ride home, exhaustion hit me. I took some ibuprofen to numb my throbbing hand and sunk down into the couch with Mark. I rested my head on his chest and listened to his heartbeat until I fell asleep. It was only 9:00, but dreams didn’t wait.
Disturbing images haunted my mind. I saw my house as it was with dead bodies of big black dogs like Juney strewn all over the floor. The house began to flood, and soon I was wading through the water as their bloated bodies surrounded me. All the eyes were open, staring at me as if asking for help. I couldn’t escape. The water trapped me inside and kept rising.
I woke to my own muffled cries for help, a throbbing hand, and wet cheeks.
“I’m sorry,” the paramedic said as she wiped at her eyes with her sleeve. “I’m new to this job. I’ve never made a run like this–a fire this bad. Sorry.”
I couldn’t speak. The weight of it all overwhelmed me, kept me from breathing. It wasn’t that I couldn’t think. I had more thoughts than I could process. It just felt like my voice box had been disconnected. The woman wrapped my hand in gauze and gave me instructions to care for it.
“I’m sorry again…about your house.” I barely heard her over the groaning frame. The house was in agony, dying, and those were its last words. It gave one last cry before the roof on the west end collapsed sending ash and smoke and dust flying through the broken windows. Fire flared up like it had been fed gasoline. The firefighters backed away from the heat.
I stood up and took a few steps toward the house. It was the most I could do to protest. The roof’s collapse severed my last thread of hope for Junebug like a guillotine. They had assured me over and over again that Junebug was already gone–that she died from smoke inhalation, she did not burn alive.
No, she was burning dead. Was that any better? I didn’t know what would happen next. They would put out the fire, drive away, and leave me to figure out what to do with the house all by myself? How do you know what to do when this happens? No one plans to be homeless this way.
Just then, Mark, led by a firefighter, appeared from the other side of the ambulance. His eyes were red with tears. The sight of him seemed to prime my tear ducts and hot streams ran down my face as he enveloped me in his arms. I cried into his coat until my sobbing choked me, until the mucus running down my throat suffocated me and the tears froze on my face. He put his lips to my forehead, stroked my hair. He pulled an oversized mitten out of his pocket for my good hand and let me stuff the bad one inside his coat. Sometimes I forget how much I like him.
“Mark? Captain George Hanson. If you’d like to take her home, if that would help, we’ve got this under control. Now that we know no one’s in the house, we can take care of it.” Mark thanked him, but we stayed. He opened the tailgate of his truck where we sat in silence.
“I’m sorry about Junebug, hun.” He broke the barrier. “Do you want me to call your parents?”
“No. Not yet. Please… just… take me home with you. Call them tomorrow.” Mark was on the phone with my boss when the woman who lived two doors down approached me with her husband, significant other, whatever he was. I usually avoided them. Honestly it was because they had about eight rustbuckets of cars that didn’t run in their yard and plastic duct-taped over their windows. They were the kind of people that grew drugs in their window sills where most people grew herbs and cacti.
She pulled him toward me by the shirt sleeve. “Hi. Brooke? I’m Jo Ellen and this is Tim. We live just down there.” She had the slightest Southern drawl. “We just come to say we were pretty sorry about this, and if you need anythin’ let us know.” She didn’t offer me a place to stay. I wouldn’t have taken her offer anyway.
I shook her hand and nodded. Tim eyed the house like it was a hooker. He was definitely drunk or high. I wondered why his house couldn’t have burned instead of mine. He probably fell asleep with cigarettes in his mouth every day. I noticed my abrasiveness and stopped myself. Jo Ellen took Tim by the wrist and said goodbye as she led him away. She yanked on his sleeve and bit off her whispered sentences as they walked back across my lawn. The rest of my neighbors eventually got too cold and retreated.
“We’re gonna get frostbite if we sit out here much longer. What say we get you something to drink and go home?” Mark was really trying, but it was awkward. He didn’t know what to say or do. I had no energy left to protest or ask for alcohol instead of Starbucks, so I nodded and got in the truck. As he pulled out of the driveway, a sharp pain seized my stomach. I retched and lost my lunch all over the floor mat.
I don’t know if I was embarrassed or in shock or ill or all of the above, but I started crying again, this time a sob originating from a sorrow that ran deeper than my soul.
“No Starbucks then, I guess?”
I watched my house until it was hidden behind the pine trees, not knowing if I would ever see it again.
Smoke billowed from my broken bedroom window. The flames licked at the ceiling inside. The heat was intense, worse than the hottest summer day or the biggest bonfire. It felt like my face was on fire. Finally it hit me. My brain started processing again and I realized that everything I owned and worked for was burning before my eyes.
And Juney was still inside. A scream welled up inside me. I grabbed the nearest firefighter by his sleeve. “Where is my dog? Have you seen my dog?” I screamed into his mask.
He asked me if there was anyone else inside. I told him about Junebug, about how I locked her in the kennel, how it was right outside my bedroom door. “She’s a big black lab. Have you seen her?” I urged.
He walked away, back to the truck and said something to another firefighter. Shouldn’t he have run inside right away to get her? Panic rose inside me along with a mixture of stomach acid and my lunch. I have never felt more terrified, more frustrated that Juney was right by the part of my house that was burning yet the firefighters appeared to be doing nothing. She was just as much my family as any person; they couldn’t just leave her in there. If she was hurt, if she needed treatment, I’d pay anything to save her. I’d do anything.
My feet couldn’t stand there anymore. I ran toward the front door, scaling the steps of the front porch. I felt like my winter coat might burst into flames in the heat. I reached out for the door and took the handle which I immediately regretted. It was searing hot. I couldn’t stop thinking of ways to get inside to her, though I thought my hand might have had at least a first degree burn. When I turned around, a firefighter was there to escort me–drag me–away from the house. My hand started throbbing. Though I feel terrible admitting this, I considered abandoning my rescue efforts because of the pain.
I struggled against the firefighter’s grip until he took me by the shoulders and yelled in my face. I couldn’t go in, he said. It was full of smoke and no one in there–if they were still in there–would still be alive. I don’t know what happened, but the adrenaline once racing through my veins for Junebug stopped dead. My knees buckled, but he swept my feet from underneath me and carried me to the ambulance.
I couldn’t cry. My eyes were drier than desert sand, my emotions were overloaded, my heart had surely burst inside me. Why didn’t I take Junebug with me? Why didn’t I just let her come?
The firefighter put me down on the stretcher. Another one approached me. They were everywhere. I wished they would just go away if they weren’t going to help. “Ma’am? George Hanson.” He extended a hand until he realized mine was lame. “Sorry.”
“It’s fine. Brooke. Brooke Reilly.” He asked if there was anyone he could call for me, anyone I could stay with tonight. It was the first time I realized that the firefighters wouldn’t just drive away and leave me here when it was all over. This was not just a bad dream. I didn’t have a bed. I didn’t have food. I didn’t have a single article of clothing other than what I was wearing. I had built my life up for seven years and lost it in a couple of hours. I was homeless.
I told him to call my boyfriend, Mark, as I reached for my cell phone to turn it off and conserve its power. The paramedic touched the hot skin on my fingers. My eyes burned, too, wishing they could shed tears and find relief. Mr. Hanson started asking me questions about my house: had I left anything on the stove, were there firearms or fireworks in the house, did I live with anyone else, was there anything near the house that I would like for them to attempt to salvage.
My life. I wanted them to save my life. I wanted my house back. I wanted to smell my sheets. I wanted to play fetch with Junebug. I wanted to feel the cold hardwood floor under my feet when I woke up every morning. “No. Thank you.”
By then, I noticed neighbors crawling in like cockroaches to marvel at the remains of my charred–and still burning–home. They whispered to each other, avoiding eye contact with me, and kept a safe distance. I was so alone. I could only think of Juney and if she was still alive. I kept seeing it in my head: this morbid scene of her scratching at the cage until her toenails bled, wheezing in the smoke, lying down to die. I didn’t want to believe it.
“My Junebug burned alive in her kennel. And it’s all my fault,” I said. The paramedic stopped what she was doing to look up at me with wide eyes. Then she began to cry.
Dear readers,
I have worked on this piece for a couple of days now and realized that I needed to break it up in order to make it work. This is chapter one. I based this story on something that really happened to me, although the characters and places are fictitious. I hope that it opens your eyes to something you haven’t experienced and you can appreciate it as a person of compassion and as a reader. Thank you for checking it out!
It was Friday–thank God–and it was also errand day. I had to be at work in a few hours, so I put the rowdy dog in her kennel inside and locked up as I headed out to the car. It was so cold that I almost wished it was overcast so the clouds could act as a greenhouse and hold in what heat it could. Old, heavy snow rested in about two inches on the ground, absorbing sound until the air was an eerie quiet.
Junebug (or Juney), the rowdy dog, was barking at me from inside her cage, upset that I had to leave her home this time around. I didn’t really have to leave her home; I just got tired of having dog hair plastered to all the seats in my car. Hers is the worst. It’s black and invisible on my seats until you get out of the car and see it all over your clothes. Of course, then you are quite without a lint brush.
I tried to ignore her as I got into my car and waited for the windows to defrost, warming my hands under my thighs. When they did, I carefully drove into town on roads that had turned to solid ice after having snow packed down on them. January was the worst month for my road which had an obstacle course of potholes.
It was nice to work a shift that wasn’t 8 to 5. You didn’t have to rush around on your lunch hour trying to grocery shop, drop off your paycheck, pay a bill, get gas, and manage to feed yourself. The only people out and about when I am are fellow second-shifters and old people. They have frustrations of their own though.
I didn’t feel like braving Wal-Mart today for groceries, so I headed to a little mom ‘n’ pop store to get what I knew I desperately needed. I dropped off my paycheck at the bank. I topped off my tank while gas was relatively cheap. This was the routine every Friday. I did it alone, because I lived alone. I’d been alone most of my life after college because I preferred it. I was dating someone now, but he worked 8-5 with the majority of the rest of the world. We texted back and forth and saw each other on the weekends. It was kind of nice to slip back into the dating scene in which I still got as much time to myself as I wanted. Maybe I was selfish, or maybe I was just used to being independent.
I lived out in what some people might call “the boonies” where I had a field for at least one of my yards–in this case it was the front. I like trees, so I picked a house with a lot of trees. Lucky me, they were mostly pine trees, so they were green all year round. They were especially beautiful after the ice storms captured their little needles inside the crystal clear frozen water.
The location was great, but the house was lacking. I had been working on remodeling it with the help of my family–new floors, paint on the walls, shutters, siding, and we just finished putting new shingles on the roof. It looked much better than it did before, or at least a lot less like a poor, single, post-college woman lived there.
When I was almost home, sirens sounded behind me, so I pulled over as far as I could without getting stuck in the snow. It looked almost like an ambulance in my salt-crusted side-view mirror until it blew by and I saw that it was a fire truck. Juney hates fire trucks. It was at that moment that I was glad I didn’t have a 75 pound dog barking like moron in the backseat.
When I pulled back onto the road, I saw a pillar of smoke rising from my neighborhood. Strange, I didn’t notice anyone burning anything when I left. That was only a couple of hours ago. The closer I was, the more I saw how black and thick the smoke was, permeating the air like a fog. It looked like my neighbor’s house–it had to be. I couldn’t see anything through the clouded air, but I knew it wasn’t mine. A million things that could start fires began running through my mind. I turned off my straightener, the stove, all the lamps, and I knew I didn’t have any electrical outlets overloaded. Surely for this much smoke, I would’ve noticed a fire before I left.
But when I started seeing the lights from the fire trucks, I realized they were blocking the road in front of my house, sitting in my yard, dragging my other vehicle away from the car port. There they were. I pulled over…and I honestly don’t remember what happened after that. Next thing I knew, I was on my knees in the driveway watching my home burn.
I could only think of one thing. Junebug.
