Ajar (10 page)

“Hmmm...”

We were quiet for a little while longer.
Then Lindy got out and went into the house. I pulled out of the
driveway. I felt I had let Lindy down. I was suddenly afraid of
losing her.

Chapter
Seventeen

My uncle dropped his bombshell at the dinner
table.

“I’ve been up to the house, Helen. It’ll be
all done by Friday. Then you and Gus can move in.”

“Thank you for your help,” my mother said. I
don’t know if she was happy about moving back or not. I don’t think
my mother cared much about anything anymore. I was hoping having a
new house to fix up might help her.

“Well, now that you and Gus are settled, I
have some good news to share.”

Everyone at the table stopped eating and
looked at him. Uncle Elliot was not a good news kind of guy.

“I got a transfer to the Holyoke plant in
Massachusetts. Me and May will be moving at the end of
December.”

My mother’s fork froze midair.

“What?” I gasped.

“I got a transfer, Helen.” Elliot spoke to
my mother, as if she had asked the question, ignoring me. “Me and
May are moving to Massachusetts.” He paused. “You and Gus are all
set now. The house is done. Gus can drive. May and I will rent a
place up there, and put this house up for sale. We’ll buy a house
when this one sells. The agent says prices are up; it’s a good time
to sell.”

My aunt’s face was full of pity as she
looked at my mother but she said nothing.

“When did they tell you that you were going
to be transferred?” my mother’s voice was so soft and flat it was
barely above a whisper.

“I put in for it myself. About a week
after...”

The only sound in the room was the ticking
clock. My uncle took a bite of his food. I could hear him
chewing.

“Would anyone like some cake?” Aunt May
stood up.

“No, thank you.” My mother looked down at
her lap.

“So, you’re just going to leave us here?” I
blurted out incredulously. I knew I shouldn’t be speaking. We were
an old-fashioned family: children were supposed to be seen and not
heard. “You’re just going to abandon us like everyone else in this
town?”

My uncle dropped his fork angrily and threw
his napkin on the table. My mother tensed, startled by this move.
My aunt stood frozen behind her chair.

“This ain’t no place for us. I can’t stay
here no more. I can’t even buy a cup of coffee anymore. May and I
can’t go to church. If your ma did what was best for you, she would
have gotten out of this town a long time ago. It was bad back then
and now it’s impossible.”

“Elliot, don’t...,” May said softly.

“The boy should know. He should know.”

“Know what?” I asked looking around from
face to face.

“This ain’t no place for you. It ain’t been
no place for you for years. We already had enough burden then your
damn brother had to go and do this. We can’t show our faces.”

“What burden? What are you talking about?” I
asked.

“Your father, that’s what I’m talking about.
You were already gossip. Now this. It’s even worse.”

“What about my father?”

The room went dead silent. The clock ticked.
My mother stifled a sob.

“What about my father?” I repeated.

“He took a dive off the Mill Street Bridge,”
Elliot said finally. “It was in all the papers. A disgrace. An
absolute disgrace.”

Uncle Elliot looked directly at my mother
with accusatory eyes. Then he looked at May. Her eyes were filled
with tears but she didn’t dare cry. My mother’s hand flew to her
chest.

I looked at my uncle a long time then said
flatly, “What do you mean my father took a dive off the Mill Street
Bridge?”

No one spoke. I looked from my uncle to my
aunt to my mother. No one would look at me.

“Did my father jump off the Mill Street
Bridge?” I asked loudly and angrily.

Everyone kept their gaze from me. “Did my
father commit suicide?”

Again no one spoke and no one would look at
me.

“Did he?” I shouted.

Finally, my mother breathed, “Yes.”

“He didn’t die from complications of
pneumonia like you told me?”

“No.”

“My father killed himself?”

I rose and looked at them. My mother was
looking down at her lap. My aunt was fidgeting at her chair; my
uncle’s face was stone, staring at the wall.

“The whole fucking town knows that my father
killed himself except me? Is that what you’re telling me?”

“Watch your language!” my uncle barked.

I was standing at the back of my chair.

“Did Dan know?” I asked ignoring his anger.
I had to repeat myself louder and more forcefully, “Did Dan know
about Dad?

“Yes,” my mother exhaled the word.

“When did he find out?”

“A week before—,” she sputtered, her hands
fluttering around, like wounded birds, not knowing where to land,
“he found some clippings in my dresser.”

I turned and left the room. I could hear my
uncle yelling, “You are not excused from this table, young man,”
and my mother shouting through tears, “Gus? Gus, where are you
going?”

I grabbed the keys from the sideboard by the
door. I drove over to Lindy’s. I did not park in her driveway but
across the street. I crept through the yard peeking in windows
until I found her room. I tapped lightly on the window.

“Lindy,” I whispered against the glass,
“Lindy, it’s me, Gus.”

I waited. I tapped again. She opened the
window and pulled up the storm window. Warm air from her room
rushed my face.

“Gus, what are you doing? Are you
crazy?”

“Let’s do it, Lindy. Let’s run away.”

She smiled. “Are you sure?”

“Yes. I’m sure.”

Chapter
Eighteen

As usual, Mrs. O’Reilly was not at the
library. Lindy and I sat at the table and I told her what my uncle
had told me.

“I think they have old papers and things
here. We could look it up and see if it was in the paper. We can
see if it’s true,” Lindy suggested.

It was a good idea. Lindy, like me, didn’t
even know if what my family was telling me was true. I was tired of
being in the dark about everything.

We approached the circulation desk with
trepidation. Of course, the librarian knew us. She had been
relaying Mrs. O’Brien’s messages to us for quite a while. She
always smiled at us but we’d never spoken to her before except for
a few words here and there. She looked up and smiled as we came
close.

“Good morning,” she chirped.

“Good morning,” I responded.

I could hear Lindy behind me mumble, “Good
morning.”

“I was wondering,” I started. I wish I had
thought this out a little more. I wasn’t sure how to frame my
request. “I was wondering if you keep copies of newspapers here.
Old newspapers.”

“Really old newspapers,” Lindy added.

“We do. How far back did you need to go?”
she asked.

“Nineteen sixty-one,” I responded.

She didn’t even ask us why we wanted a
newspaper from 1961. Maybe she knew about my father. Everyone else
seemed to know all about me, except me. Maybe she didn’t care.
Maybe she thought it was a school project. All I know is that she
was very helpful.

She explained to us that the old newspapers
were kept on microfilm. She showed us the cabinet where the
microfilm was kept. The microfilm looked like small reel-to-reel
movie film. She pulled out a drawer and handed us a reel. It was
labeled 1961. She showed us how to feed the film into an
odd-looking machine with a big screen and how to move the knobs
that made the film move forward and backwards. Then she left us to
search on our own.

“If you need any help, just ask,” she said
as she returned to check out books at the circulation desk.

Lindy pulled her chair close to mine. We
stifled our laughing as we practiced forwarding and reversing the
film. We stopped at some old advertisements. We looked at pictures
and Lindy giggled at the hairstyles and clothes.

And then it was there, on the screen.

It was just a small article on page seven.
We almost missed it in the fun we were having with the microfilm.
“Man Dies after Jumping from Mill Street Bridge.”

I felt all my breath leave me. My chest was
heavy. My hand was frozen on the microfilm reader knob. Lindy
placed her hand on top of mine. She focused the article so she
could read it. Her voice was soft and compassionate as she
read.

“Sawyer Police say a man likely jumped to
his death from the Mill Street Bridge shortly after 9:30 p.m.
Witnesses say they spotted the man climbing over the railing and
jumping into the stream below. Several cars stopped but witnesses
say the man jumped before they could get out to help him. Rescue
teams worked through the night to recover the body from the bottom
of the mill dam. Identification is being withheld pending positive
identification. Several witnesses claim he was a local man who
lived near the bridge.”

When Lindy was done, she sat back and looked
at me. I could not even turn my head to look at her.

“I’m so sorry, Gus,” she consoled.

I tried to nod because I knew I couldn’t
move my mouth to speak but I was sure my head wasn’t moving either.
She took my hand gently away from the knob and forwarded it
stopping each day on the page titled “Obituaries” until she found
my dad’s. I could move my eyes but not my head. Lindy read
again.

“Clayton D. Woodard, 36, of Sawyer died
unexpectedly on June 3rd, 1961. He was born on May 5, 1925 in
Sawyer to Ethel and Daniel Woodard. He is survived by his wife,
Helen, and two sons, Daniel and Agustin at home. He is also
survived by his brother, Elliot, and his wife, May. He belonged to
St. Mary’s Catholic Church. There will be no visitation. Funeral
Mass will be 10:30 on Saturday, June 7th. Burial will be at the
Heavenly Rest Cemetery.”

Lindy let me sit for a long time staring out
at nothing. She rewound the film, returned it to the cabinet and
then flipped the reader switch off. The screen went from white to
black.

“C’mon,” she whispered into my ear while
placing both her hands on my shoulders. I got up and robotically
followed her. It was cold when we left the library but I felt
nothing. We drove to the cemetery and I parked near my father’s
grave. I did not get out. The late autumn sun sliced into our car
falling warmly on our laps.

“Gus, I’m really sorry,” Lindy said,
breaking the long silence.

I was finally able to suck in a full breath.
I slumped down in the seat.

“I just didn’t know,” I said, still feeling
dazed.

Lindy slid across the bench seat and curled
into my side. Without warning, I began to cry big uncontrollable
sobs. My tears rolled down my cheeks. Lindy put her arms around me,
resting her head against my shoulder. She held my shaking body
against her as I cried. When I was finally spent and could cry no
more, Lindy lifted her hands and wiped my tears with the cuff of
her sweatshirt.

“It’s like everything I thought I knew is
gone,” I said to her. “Everything I thought was true, isn’t. It’s
like I lived my whole life as one big lie. I thought I was living
one life and I really wasn’t living that life at all. My dad killed
himself, God knows why. Nobody is going to tell me. It’s some big
secret. Not to everyone else, mind you, only to me. The whole town
knows my dad took a dive off the bridge but no one thought to tell
me. My brother Danny has lost his mind. He isn’t even my brother
anymore. He sits up in that hospital like some sort of zombie. He
can’t talk to me. He went and did things I didn’t even believe he
was capable of doing. Where the hell did he get that gun? Why
couldn’t anyone help him? My mom is wacked out all the time. She
just stares all the time at anything: the wall, the TV, out the
window. She doesn’t even know I’m even alive anymore. She doesn’t
talk to me and when she does, it’s like she’s a robot. All my
friends have abandoned me. It’s like I never existed. It’s like
I’ve been wiped off the face of the earth.”

I snuffled and then lifted my own hands to
my face to wipe away the rest of my tears.

“But I love you, Gus,” Lindy said.

I turned to look at her because I couldn’t
believe the words I was hearing. When I turned to her, she leaned
toward me and kissed me softly on my cheek. I looked into her blue
eyes, rimmed in red.

“I love you, too,” I said feeling the
heaviness begin to lift.

“It’s going to be OK,” she said, leaning
against my shoulder, “I feel the same way, too, like I never
existed. When I was a freshman, I made the cheerleading squad.
That’s all I ever wanted to do when I got to high school. But I
passed out at the first game. They had to call the ambulance and
all. The nurse just told my mother I couldn’t come back to school
until I was better. She didn’t even ask what was wrong. No one, not
one person, called me and asked how I was. Not one.”

We were both quiet for a long time holding
on to each other.

Lindy went on, “But we have each other now.
We exist for each other. That’s enough for me.”

I put my arm around her and pulled her into
me. I kissed the top of her head resting against me. She was right.
This was enough. The truth was it had to be enough. It was all
either of us had.

After I dropped Lindy off, I stopped just a
block from our house at the Mill Street Bridge. In my father’s day,
it had only been one lane. The new bridge was wide, with two lanes
and a sidewalk on each side. Red steel girders rose above me. There
was a pull off at the end of the bridge for cars to park. I parked
my car and walked to the center of the bridge. It was dark but
house lights and street lights danced in the water. I could just
make out the mill dam and I could hear the water rushing over
it.