Angel Landing (25 page)

How she had gotten her name Finn never knew. Certainly it was not because she was tall and fair like her mother; Sunny was small for six, and her hair was cut in rough bangs which nearly hid her eyes. And it was not because of the girl's disposition; she was often glum, she read books in the corner of the trailer, and went outside in the summer heat only when bribed with ice cream or the promise of a swim. Marlene had admitted that she was not certain who Sunny's father was—she had been seeing two men around that time—a local boy who had later been killed in Vietnam, and a marijuana dealer who drove a Corvette and left town several months before Sunny was born. At first Sunny did not like Finn and refused to talk to him, but by the time he moved his suitcase out of the boarding house and into the trailer, she no longer cried each time he came through the door. Three months had passed since the day of Finn's arrival in Buckley, and although dinner was waiting for him every night when he came home to the trailer, Michael Finn still felt like an outsider; he was still driving down that white-lined highway.

What really changed things, what let Finn know that he was no longer a stranger in Buckley, but a man who might actually get stuck in a small West Virginia town, happened one morning when he drove Sunny to school. Now and then Finn would drop her off—the elementary school was on the way to the coal plant, and Marlene was convinced that the early morning drives would bring the two closer together. And, after a few trips together, Sunny and Finn were able to hold polite conversations; they discussed what was eaten for breakfast, and how hot it was for mid-September. It was Finn who did most of the talking; even though he was a man most comfortable without words, he could not bear to see Sunny sit so quietly in the front seat of the Falcon. Sometimes, when the two of them were riding together, Finn had the impulse to stop the car and drop Sunny off on a deserted stretch of road. But he was never quite certain how he would feel if the girl disappeared; he might be thankful for one less interference in his life, or he might just as possibly grieve.

One morning, when the heat blew through the open window in waves, Finn felt he simply couldn't go on. Life was too hot, too lonely, and much too long.

“Jesus Christ,” Finn muttered. He lit a cigarette and inhaled. He could barely tell the difference between the heat of the cigarette smoke and the heavy morning air. “I'd give anything not to go to work today,” Finn said to himself.

“Anything?” Sunny said, wrinkling her face and biting her lower lip. “I'll give you a quarter.”

Finn looked at her, surprised. “Where would you get a quarter?” he asked.

“From you,” Sunny shrugged. “I don't have any money of my own,” she said with none of the sweetness Finn despised in children.

They made a deal that day: they would take off and go swimming, and not tell Marlene a thing about it. Finn parked in front of the Buckley Five-and-Ten and handed Sunny a five-dollar bill, which she used to buy a cheap yellow bathing suit. After they had driven out of town, Finn parked and then rolled up his jeans while Sunny changed into her new suit behind a grove of pines which stood beside the nearly deserted pond. There were no swimmers, only a troupe of old-timers, fishermen who dipped their bait into the pond without any real hope of a bite.

They didn't talk much that day, they barely looked at each other. Despite Sunny's love of the water, she was not a great swimmer; she stayed close to the shore and spent most of the afternoon collecting stones. But Finn swam as though he would never grow tired; he raced across the width of the pond dozens of times, he swam so fast that the old-timers took time away from their fishing to cheer him on. Finn smiled, and shook the water out of his ears; he waved to the group of old men. It was almost as if he was free, as if that coal plant in Buckley didn't exist; it was almost as if there wasn't a woman waiting for him, counting the hours until he came home, ready to throw her arms around him, as if he weren't a man who still felt alone.

They waited for Finn's jeans to dry; then Sunny disappeared and changed back into her school clothes.

“Are you going to marry my mother?” Sunny asked casually when they walked back to the parked car.

“I don't know,” Finn admitted. He had never thought about marriage.

“I was just curious,” she said. She was more than that; she felt differently about Finn now, she had decided that he was not so horrible after all, she had begun to want him to stay.

“Do you think I should marry your mother?” Finn smiled.

Because he had to ask that question, Sunny knew Finn had no plans to marry Marlene, he had no real plans at all.

“Yes,” Sunny said quietly.

“Well, we'll see about that,” Finn said, suddenly nervous. He realized for the first time that he was actually touching people's lives in a way an outsider never could have. They threw the yellow bathing suit in the trunk of the Ford, and Finn hid it beneath the spare tire he knew Marlene would never touch. “For next time,” he told Sunny. But the girl didn't answer, she looked at Finn gravely, knowing full well that there would not be a next time. The day had been a freak; the weather would not be this good until next spring, and even if Finn didn't know it yet, Sunny at least was fairly certain that Finn wouldn't be around when the pond grew warm again and dragonflies flew over the surface of the water like tiny blue dancers.

Though Sunny trusted her instincts and tried to prepare herself for the day when Finn would leave, she still wanted to keep Michael Finn in Buckley; she may have even wanted it more than Marlene. When Finn and Marlene argued about money, and Finn disappeared for a few days—sleeping in the back seat of the Falcon and drinking six-packs of beer, even though he couldn't stand the taste of the stuff—Sunny stopped talking. After Finn returned, and Marlene explained that Finn was now back for good, Sunny still refused to look up. She wouldn't say a word, she refused to be bathed or to comb her own hair. Marlene, who had very little patience, and even less patience with things psychological, took Sunny to the local hospital when spankings and threats did no good. There, Sunny was diagnosed as having autistic tendencies. Marlene was now more satisfied—at least Sunny's behavior had a name, and all her troubles would go away as quickly and mysteriously as they had come. But Michael Finn knew better. He knew it each time he caught Sunny staring up at him from beneath her dark hair. Sunny was letting Finn know just how much responsibility he had. Still, Finn felt like a transient after eight months in Buckley and the West Virginia accent still grated on his nerves, but the postman and the milkman both knew his name. Michael Finn was suddenly a man with a family.

When Finn phoned his parents in New York at Christmas, Danny Finn lowered his voice at the end of the conversation and said, “I hope you're getting it down there in West Virginia. Those hill girls open their legs for anyone, but believe me, they want a ring like any other woman.” Finn began to imagine that he was living someone else's life. He felt as though everything he did—every word he spoke, every kiss, had all been done before. There were terrifying times when Finn imagined that he was living his father's life, repeating it with slight variations. Yet, when Marlene suggested that they get married, Finn found himself agreeing. He sat Sunny down and told her of their plans, but Sunny watched him suspiciously.

“When are you going to get married?” Sunny asked.

“I don't know,” Finn said. He saw the girl's eyes drop to study the floor. “February fifteenth,” Finn said, picking the date arbitrarily and wanting to make Sunny believe that the marriage would truly happen. Finn was rewarded for naming a date; Sunny threw her arms around him and touched her face against his. But as quickly as she had embraced him, she moved away, waiting, perhaps until February 15th, to allow her emotions to surface. Finn began to save his paycheck; banking all that he could in the hope of buying property out in the hills, far from the trailer park, far from the coal plant. But when he told Marlene his plan, she wrinkled her nose.

“The hills?” she said. “Too far away.”

“Far away from what?” Finn asked. They were sitting on the metal porch of the trailer, bundled up in sweaters, watching the bare trees.

“From everything,” Marlene said firmly. “From town.”

For Marlene, going back to the hills would be a terrible fate. Her own mother had worked on a farm before moving to Buckley; the sorrows of that life had been told to Marlene every day throughout her childhood, so that even talk of moving back to the hills made her shudder. Soon, Finn gave up the idea of owning land, but he continued to bank his paycheck, although he no longer knew what he was saving for. Marlene seemed perfectly happy to stay on in the trailer park forever, and her satisfaction annoyed Finn, and more; it made him keenly aware of how much more he wanted from life. Michael Finn began to go to the Iron Horse again; he imagined that what made him spend hours over a single beer was what had made his own father spend more and more time away from home. An emptiness followed Finn wherever he went, an emptiness Marlene seemed not to notice; she had her younger brother to talk to, and girlfriends she had known all her life. Marlene did not believe in moods; she could get herself out of a rut with one drink or a new blouse or a bouquet of wild flowers that wouldn't have sold for more than a dollar in the florist's shop.

The snow began in late January, and there were times when Finn would be sent home from work, without pay, because the weather wouldn't allow for outside welding at the plant. Most often Finn went straight to the Iron Horse, but some days he drove home and lay down on the bed in the small bedroom. There he would turn his face to the window and watch snow-flakes hit against the panes. On these days he was surprised to discover that Sunny was almost always home too; she rarely went to school and spent most of her time following Marlene around, learning how to set the table and do the wash in the trailer park laundromat, or simply reading in her corner while Marlene watched TV or cooked the hamburgers or macaroni they would eat for dinner.

“Is she sick or something?” Finn finally asked when he returned home in midmorning and found Sunny sorting socks on the living room floor and listening to a portable radio which belted out rock-and-roll hits.

“Not one bit,” Marlene said, kissing Finn on the neck. “She's a very healthy kid. Never gets sick.”

Finn moved away from Marlene and watched Sunny, her head bobbing in time to the song on the radio. “Why is she home from school? She's always home.”

“School,” Marlene frowned. “She can learn a lot from me. Right here. She can learn everything she needs to know.”

“She's six years old,” Finn said. “She's supposed to be in school.”

“I went to school even less than Sunny does,” Marlene said. “I had more important things to do. I had to help my mother. And I don't think it hurt me one bit.”

Finn sat down at the kitchen table and closed his eyes. He tried to picture Sunny all grown up; he saw the same image, over and over again: an older Sunny, a woman, sitting in another trailer, sorting a man's socks and listening to the radio.

“Don't you want her life to be different?” Finn said softly to Marlene.

“Why?” Marlene said, confused and a little angry. “What's wrong with the way things are?”

“Come on,” Finn said, “do you want her to end up in a trailer camp without an education, even a high-school diploma?”

“What's wrong with that? Are you saying there's something the matter with my life?” Marlene said, wishing that Finn would keep quiet the way he usually did.

“Well, I want things to be different,” Finn said. He tried as hard as he could to picture another grown-up Sunny, one who wouldn't bother with radios and laundry, one who would go off to college, but all he could see was the little girl sorting socks. “I don't want any more of this,” Finn said to Sunny. “I want you to go to school every day. I want to see you doing some homework.” He had wanted to say I love you, he had wanted to tell her to move far away from Buckley, to major in physics or engineering, but instead he had merely talked about homework. And he had shouted so loud that the little girl on the floor jumped.

“You can't tell me what to do,” Sunny said to him from her seat on the floor. “You can't because you're not really my father.”

“Stop that,” Marlene warned.

“He's not,” Sunny insisted. “My father died in the war.”

“That's what I told her,” Marlene said to Finn. “And that might have been him. The boy who died in Vietnam had the same kind of hair as Sunny.”

“You can't tell me what to do,” Sunny said. She had raised her chin and her bangs fell into her angry eyes.

Something was happening to Finn, something inside. His head felt like a firecracker, and when he stood up, his pulse was so loud it deafened him. If he didn't do something he would explode, he would break in two. Michael Finn threw the kitchen table on the floor; a toaster and a crystal vase which had been a present to Marlene from her brother, Ben, fell with a crash, and an open package of Sugar Crisps scattered all over the floor like bits of shrapnel. The crash of the table was so loud that it echoed through the metal trailer like gunfire; it echoed in Finn's own head. Finn then looked down at Sunny, who sat very quietly on the floor, her eyes wide and her mouth open in surprise. He knew that if she had been a boy, his son, Finn would have ignored the table he had sent crashing down. Instead, he would have walked across the room and slapped the boy so hard that the child would have risen up like a puppet, like old trash paper, like Michael Finn himself used to do when his own father had hit him in a rage that Finn had never understood before.

It was then that Michael Finn began to cry. He put his hands over his eyes, and sobs began to escape in a low-pitched wail. Marlene backed up against the stove, her shoulders were stiff. She had been waiting for the punch she was certain she'd receive before Finn started crying. But now she was more shocked than she would have been had Finn blackened both her eyes. The man she was to marry in less than a month was weeping, like a baby; and for the first time Marlene studied Finn as if he truly was a stranger. She did not dare to go near him. Instead, Sunny stood up, left her pile of sorted socks, and walked toward Finn, stepping carefully over the spilled Sugar Crisps. She did not touch him, but she stood so close that Finn could feel her breath, and smell her odor, a soft combination of laundry detergent and spearmint gum.