Everyday People (28 page)

The applause for him was polite, though no one stood. He was hot in his suit, a result of the lights, but also the surprise. Ms. Amos came on and thanked everyone for coming, and when they made their tour of the rooms, he strained to find the three faces, for the boy would be in a sense his grandson.
Would
be his grandson. They were gone, and not waiting for him outside by the limo. It was still spitting; the photographer had disappeared at some point, flown off to a
more important story. He waved anyway, smiled for Ms. Amos and the children.

Inside, as he sat with his belt cutting into his stomach, the danish seemed to have moved behind his heart, squeezing it forward against his ribs. The soup bubbled underneath it like a sea of lava, and he clutched his gut.

“Want the Maalox?” Sylvia asked, already pulling it out.

He twisted the cap, loosening a few threads of white crust, then tipped the mouth to his. Going down, it coated his organs like spilled paint, made the clog that much more solid. They were headed west on Highland, back toward the Sears.

“What's next?” he said apologetically. Forgetful. Maybe the pundits were right.

“Goines.”

“Ah, my friend.” It was hard to breathe, and he touched a button but the window refused to budge. He tried another, and a fleck of rain caught him on the cheek, the swish of the tires loud now. He thought he might vomit.

“Martin,” Sylvia said, “are you okay?”

He felt her hand on his arm and leaned toward the cool air, the bones in his shoulder burning. For a moment he couldn't see, nothing but an electric checkerboard glowing like a test pattern, a flashbulb's dazzle. A spike of lightning shot up one biceps and landed in his chest, spread like fire. And then, like fog lifting, it stopped, dissipated like rain, his skin chilly. Sylvia still had his arm.

“I'm all right,” Martin said. “Just a little heartburn.”

“Where's the nearest hospital?” Sylvia asked the intercom, and the driver told her. “Take us there.”

“I'm fine now.”

“You lost consciousness, Martin.”

There was no use arguing with her when she was right. He leaned back in the seat. He felt like jelly, spineless (hadn't Armstrong called him that after the busway debacle?). They were going by Spofford, speeding, but even at fifty he could see there was nothing left, that the only place he could retreat to was his memory. The front hall with its marbletopped table, his father's natty houndstooth hat doubled in the mirror. His father, his mother—everything he loved was gone. Now East Liberty.

He was tired and closed his eyes. The danish stayed there, butted up against his heart, throbbing like a rotten tooth. It would not be such a bad thing to die here, where he'd come from.

But he couldn't die now, he thought; he was a father, he had responsibilities, a new grandson to take care of. Violet, the girl's name was. Ruth Owens. He needed to call her, the number was in his pocket.

He tried to say this out loud, reaching for it, and Sylvia stared at him in terror.

The pressure knotted around his heart and twisted again, making him take a deep breath.

“Martin,” Sylvia called, far away. And then it was like his memories of the nights he'd forgotten, when he'd become a man even he despised, let alone the ghost of his father. It could have been Ruth Owens, it could have been anyone. Midnight, and someone trying to break through the numb
armor of his drunkenness, the Percocet sealing him in like ice. Like now, he could sense her hands on him but he couldn't feel anything. And both times—this was a new admission, after all his talk of selflessness, his indefensible principles—he really didn't care if he did die. The job was all he was, like the speeches that appeased his father.

The fist clenching his heart eased, and he could see again. Sylvia's face was inches from his, her fingers in his mouth, then gone, nothing but the ceiling. Somehow he was lying across the seat, trees flying in the windows, telephone lines. He was someone's father, someone he didn't know, someone he'd never shown love.

“Help me,” he said.

THEY WOULD HAVE
understood if she didn't want to sing at the thing. Friday night Jackie could feel the other sopranos timidly seeking her out when they practiced their three numbers, listening to see if she'd learned her parts. She'd have to be an idiot not to after so long.

No, she didn't mean this; she wasn't angry with them, only their well-meaning pity. They were her friends.

They'd practiced every night this week, and tomorrow they were doing a full dress rehearsal at the dedication site. Some of them seemed surprised she was still with them, every practice expected her to be missing, as if her presence at the ceremony would be an affront, bad manners after what had happened there.

Most of those who wondered about her were younger, girls just beginning their families. Women closer to her age understood: Tragedies would come and go, only faith stayed the same. This was the one time each week she could call her own, the time she felt closest to her true self. It was a
time for forgetting the rest of the world, even and especially her worst troubles. Sunday wasn't quite like this—only the altar and the nave lit, the rest of the church dark, pews running back into blackness, saints looking down like stony ghosts from their niches, and when Sister Turner had them stop in midnote, their voices echoed, caught in the vaulted dark. There was peace in singing, in being alone in God's house, and she needed it now.

And strength, Lord. Tomorrow she would be seeing the spot for the first time, and she knew these same people would be watching her, checking for the littlest sign of grief, waiting for her to give way. She'd glimpsed the bridge in passing, riding in the van, or from the bus on her way to work, but she hadn't walked down the freshly lined exit ramp and stood there looking up, imagining that night—the rain and then the flashing lights of the ambulance. She knew that Eugene had, and understood just as keenly that Harold didn't dare. In that, at least, they were the same. Parents. Helpless. Tomorrow she would be there without him, in her robe, as if on a lone pilgrimage.

She was. She knew she couldn't run from it forever, pretend it didn't affect her every hour. Like Harold straying, it needed to be faced before she could gather her courage and go on. She needed to know the worst before she could overcome it. And she would. Hadn't she gotten used to cleaning Chris, dressing him, lifting him into his chair?

No, not honestly. She liked to think she had, but like Harold she was afraid of his skin, his dead legs. She wondered what was secretly going on inside of him, how it was possible that only half of him was alive. Once, propping him
on the bucket-shaped stool in the shower, she'd barked his shin against the edge of the door; he didn't flinch, and then the blood welled up and overflowed, ran in a line down his calf. The water was already on, and he concentrated on the spray, eyes closed, holding a towel across his lap out of modesty. When they were done, the cut was just a lip of skin, bloodless, a nick on a piece of furniture.

But she was used to draining his bag, if not how the catheter needed to be greased to fit up into him. She was accustomed to toweling him down after his shower, the backs of his knees growing dimpled with fat. She found Cheez-It boxes tucked under his bed, orange crumbs in his sheets. He didn't laugh at the TV the way he used to, just stayed in his room all day, drawing on the walls, reading books Vanessa brought from the library. What frightened her was how fast he'd turned into this different person, as if her Chris was gone, her Smiley buried inside him like the memory of his legs.

Singing, she wondered if the others were right, if she should even be here. Lately her worries followed her everywhere, and rather than being a sanctuary, practice was just another reminder of how everything had gone wrong. She was fine as long as she was singing, but when she had to wait for Sister Turner to straighten out the tenors (like now), her mind wandered and found nothing but troubles.

Harold had to come back to her, that's what it came down to. She could see her turning into her mother—bitter, despising her mindless work, going through the days without hope.

And there was no one to talk to since Marita's little dog died. Wednesday Jackie had processed the check herself, read it like a telegram bearing bad news. Nine hundred dollars to bury him. Jackie had gone over that night, but her lights were out and it was late. She hadn't seen her since then, and when she didn't show up at practice, Jackie thought she understood that too. She'd been so tempted to give up, to hide herself away from everything (again, her mother in their falling-down house, screaming at the Meals on Wheels lady, calling Daphne three times a day). It was not possible, she'd found. Her heart kept pumping. The world did not stop.

The three songs they were going to sing were “I've Got to Praise Him,” “He Is My Rock,” and “O Happy Day.” The first two were staples; the last they were learning new for the ceremony. It didn't seem fitting, with Martin Robinson in the hospital, but they'd been practicing for weeks, and it was too late to change. Reverend Skinner said it was even more important they show their support for him now; the
Courier
expected a big turnout, all four TV stations.

“Sopranos,” Sister Turner called from the piano, “it's ‘When Je-suh-hus waa-haashed,' not ‘waa-haa-haashed my si-ins away,' all right? Two syllables, not three. And give ‘washed' a little hesitation just a scoosh behind the beat and really make it swing. Get up there and stay up there. Better than the record, all right? All right, one two three four.”

Sister Turner knocked out a few bars of intro and they all joined in. “O happy day. O happy day.” Jackie had always liked the song, fell into the groove of it with the rest
of the row, clapping, moving foot to foot. “When Je-suhhus waa-haashed, O when he waa-haashed, when Je-suhhus waa-haa-haashed—”

Sister Turner banged the keyboard, breaking them up, drowning them out. She jumped up from behind the piano. “So-
pran
-os!” she scolded. “What did I say? How many syllables?”

No one dared answer her.

“Two, I said. Two, not three. It's two all the way through.” She stalked back behind the piano. “Let's see if you remember it this time. One two three four.”

They did until the second chorus, when someone—Mildred Tolliver or Vivian Broadus, to Jackie's ear—stretched it to three again. Eventually they got it, swinging it high and hard, but still Sister Turner kept them after dismissing everyone else.

“Sopranos,” she lectured them after a long pause, “are supposed to be our strong suit, if you follow me. Tenors come and go, and altos. None of you are new. I know it's a new piece, but it's not a hard piece. You've been hearing this song thirty years, some of you. I do
not
want to go out there tomorrow and hear what I heard tonight. I don't think that would be respectful to Martin Robinson or to the rest of us. All right, tomorrow at ten. We'll meet here and walk over, and I want all of you sharp. How many syllables?”

This time they all answered.

Eugene was waiting for her in the front hall, in his suit. It was shiny around the shoulders and elbows; she'd been meaning to take it in to the cleaners. He'd been talking with Reverend Skinner about getting some city money for Chris's
mural now that Martin Robinson was ill. No one was showing up for his meetings, and she knew it hurt him. She recognized his desire for a saving faith—his need—as her own. How she wanted to tell him: For every hope in this world there was an even greater disappointment waiting (oh, wasn't that her mother's voice she heard?). But he was an adult, he had to know that by now, had come to grips with it the same way she had. She was pleased he had something solid to build his new life on, not like Chris, who seemed to be betting everything on Vanessa. Harold she could see was lost all this time. In the end it came down to faith.

“He says they only take applications once a year,” Eugene said on the van. “The deadline's the end of January.”

“That's not far,” she said, because, really, it wasn't. Still, he seemed downcast, as if he'd hoped to start tomorrow. He worried about Chris as much as she did, and she put her arm over his shoulder. “Be patient. You'll get it done.”

“I know but …”

“Everything takes time.”

They were coming up to the busway. It was like a moat circling East Liberty; at some point you had to cross it. The bridge had a chain-link fence on both sides, the top curled over the sidewalk so you couldn't throw things. It had been a bridge like this one, she supposed, the boys using the fence for a handhold, the toes of their sneakers slipping on the wet metal. What did they think they were doing?

“You want me to come with you tomorrow?” Eugene asked.

“That's all right.”

“You sure?”

“Yes,” she said, then wished he would ask her again.

When they got home, Harold wasn't there. She tried not to be surprised, but her first thought was that he'd left for good, skipped like her father. How long, she thought, did she have to live her mother's life?

Chris said he'd gone out a little while ago, during
Millennium.
She figured the time, imagined what two people could do in twenty minutes. Anything, everything.

“Remember,” Chris said, “I need my shower early tomorrow.”

“I haven't forgotten,” she said, and went into the kitchen. He wanted to be clean for Vanessa, and Jackie worried that he'd be hurt if she decided to leave him again. Because she might, a good-looking girl like that. A nice girl too. Chris couldn't ask her to stay, he had to know that.

He did. Of course he did.

She ran a glass of tap water and was standing at the sink drinking it when Harold came in, jiggling the key. Eugene stepped out of his room in his shirtsleeves like there might be trouble. Harold had a gallon of milk and a box of doughnuts.