Fitting Ends (4 page)

He drives through St. Bonaventure for hours. His car moves slowly down the street where he and his mother used to live, and he pauses for a minute in front of the old house. There is a FOR SALE sign in the front yard. In the corner is the tree he used to stand by when he was waiting for his father to come pick him up. His father would never come to the door, so Scott would lean there against the tree trunk, sometimes for hours because his father was always late. He would gaze expectantly at the street, as eager as if he were going out to a party.

Beyond the tree is the place that to Scott seems most like his mother: a small fenced-in garden, where he can see a bright flash—a rag, perhaps—tied to a post. He continues on, past his old grade school, past a row of unchanged storefronts, and he almost expects to see his mother come out of one of them, holding a package, rummaging through her purse, which would be stuffed with bills and letters and lists of things she had to do, the little errands and plans that held their life together scribbled out on scraps of paper that she was always losing. She would be looking for her keys, which were always buried somewhere in that purse, and her large, light-sensitive glasses would be darkening as she would step out into the bright sunlight. All this comes to him like a vision, and his hands feel brittle on the steering wheel. He turns the car around and around familiar blocks.

Scott is almost surprised, in the afternoon, to find himself pulling over in front of a liquor store. He steps out of the car, wobbly on his feet, and when he walks through the door, the electronic chime that announces his presence sends a slow trickle of ice through his stomach. He sets a cheap bottle of vodka on the counter. The saleswoman looks up, and her long turquoise earrings swing sleepily.

“Party tonight?” She smiles. She has three gold teeth.

“Yes,” Scott says, and pushes a crumpled bill toward her.

“Four ninety-three,” she says firmly, merrily. “And seven cents is your change. You have a nice day now.”

He is not going to drink it: That is what he tells himself as he crumples the bag and pushes it under the front seat. It was just a mistake that he bought it. He looks at the clock and realizes he would just be getting off work about now, had he gone. And then suddenly he wonders if maybe they called his father when he didn't show up. Suddenly he can picture his father pacing, thinking Scott has been in an accident, calling the police. Or maybe rushing out of the house to search on foot, since Scott has the car, tracing the path Scott might have taken, expecting to find him encased in the bloody wreckage. And then, not finding him, perhaps he begins to realize what Scott has done. He may even guess that Scott would end up at the liquor store. Scott can hear the vodka bottle clink as he turns onto the road. He imagines his father at home, punching the air with his fists—or worse, crushed and disappointed. Waiting. What excuse can be given? Scott wonders. All he can think of are childish explanations like amnesia or kidnapping.

As he drives up to his father's trailer, Scott tells himself that he's going to tell the truth. He pictures the two of them, pouring out the entire bottle. He thinks of his father raising his fist, then changing his mind.

When Scott opens the door, his father calls out: “Congratulations!” He's standing in the kitchen, his arms spread out expansively, but when he sees Scott his arms slip to his sides. Scott knows it must be his expression. “I figured,” he says as Scott steps in. “I figured there was reason to celebrate today. You started your new job. You've been almost two months without a drink. And”—he pushes a piece of paper toward Scott, who takes it dumbly—“you got some mail from college.” It's a form letter, Scott sees, concerning preregistration. There are smudge marks where his father has smoothed out the folds, and Scott can see him, reading it, relishing the idea that his son's life is coming together, nodding the way he does when he finishes welding one of his creations.

Scott starts to fold the letter, and it is then that he notices the table is set for a party. His father has spread it with a balloon-patterned paper tablecloth, and there is a pitcher of lemonade with real lemon slices floating in it, various kinds of cookies, cheeses and salami, all in wheels and geometric designs, arranged on paper plates. The father puts his hand on Scott's shoulder and then takes it away, as if it's a gesture he's not quite sure of, as if he has found something unsavory there. “How was work?” he says.

Scott thinks the words “I didn't go to work.” The refrigerator begins to hum in the quiet. “Dad . . . ,” he says. His father's jawbone moves vaguely beneath the skin, and the eye drifts blindly. “Things went okay,” Scott says at last.

“Mmm,” his father says. He's going to find out sooner or later, Scott knows. The longer it goes on, the worse it will be. But he shuffles his feet and says nothing. “Well, anyway.” Scott's father looks at the table and frowns. “I don't know. I just thought it might cheer you up, some stupid little thing like this.”

“It looks great. Thanks.” Scott can see the moment for telling his father passing by, growing distant. He tries to keep from looking miserable.

“It's nothing fancy,” his father says. “I don't know what people do.” He puts his finger on a square of cheese, then takes it guiltily away, as if he's been scolded. He puts his hand briefly on Scott's. “Be happy,” he says. “Just be happy.” Scott nods and tries to smile.

Late at night Scott wakes, and he is hot and shivering at the same time. He has thrown off the covers in his sleep. They are curled like a body beside him. Scott touches his own skin, and it's cool and damp as clay. He hasn't felt this way since the first few nights in detox. His heart pumps in waves, and he lies there, limbs flung out, eyes open. The night sounds melt together: the rattling of tree branches against the trailer's metal sides, the scratching chirp of a cricket. A cow calls out from the field across the road.

His father begins to talk in his sleep. At first, Scott can't quite place the sound; it weaves and curls at the edge of his hearing, barely audible. Then his father lets out a cry, and Scott sits straight up in bed. His father's words are slurred when Scott presses his face to the wall to listen. His father makes a low sound in his throat, something that is halfway between a bark and a moan of pain; there are several of them one right after another and then more indecipherable words and then a bark so full of misery that it makes the hair on the back of Scott's neck prickle. He needs to get out of the trailer. He's got to, and he puts his hands on the glass of the window above his bed, thinking of the bottle hidden under the front seat of the car. He can picture himself, going out to a bar, a party. He drinks tall aquamarine margaritas, dances with sleek women in rhinestone-stitched dresses, stays up all night, the music fast and glittery. His father murmurs again, and Scott gets out of bed. The floor seems to unwind beneath him, like in dreams, as he steps carefully down the hall, past his father's room, where he can hear him breathing heavily, through the kitchen, and out the screen door. He's not sure what he'll do. He stands in the moonlit yard, which is quiet except for the sound of the sprinkler, the water hitting the cement, spraying into the grass, then back, in a sleepy rhythm. He looks at the car and steps dizzily out through the gate to the gravel road where it's parked. He fingers the handle of the door, lightly, then inches it open. When he looks over his shoulder, he half expects to see his father, framed in the lighted bedroom window, watching. But he doesn't. Scott lifts the bag out, nervous even at the crinkling of the paper, as if this might wake him. Then he gazes out to where the circle of porch light ends, to where the dark line of road vanishes into shadows. He can hear the cattle call out mournfully as he begins walking, the gravel sharp beneath his bare feet. The crickets purr, whispering from the ditches. He's gone several hundred yards before he stops to think, Where am I going? He's in his boxer shorts, no shoes, miles from town. He slows, and then at last sits down in the high sunflowers that line the ditch. The shadows pull up over him like a sheet.

He would like to be closed up, that's what he thinks: surrounded by brick and mortar; the mouth, the ears, the eyes stuffed with sawdust. He lies back, and it's then, through the stems of weeds and sunflowers, that he sees a bone-white face, bobbing in the dark, floating there, gazing with hollow eyes. His throat forms a gagging, voiceless cry, that superstitious sound familiar to him from horror movies, and for a moment he scrambles in the dirt in terror.

And then he realizes that it's a cow. The cattle, having noticed him, have come to the edge of the fence. Scott hears one low curiously, then snuffle. They're hungry. They believe I'm bringing them food, Scott thinks. Their spectral faces nod in the darkness, staring expectantly. Kneeling in the wet grass, he clutches the paper bag in his hand, and they press closer to the fence. The cattle raise their voices again, in a deep chorus, and he can feel his hands shaking. He sinks down. Everything seems to press toward him, and he would like to believe that he's like a drowning person, that he's submerging, drifting down and down until the dim porch light and the trailer and the sunflowers above him and the moon and then finally even the pale masks of the cattle recede, grow distant and blurry, and then go out, one by one.

SPIRIT VOICES

I
turned twenty-seven on a quiet Saturday in April, shortly after the birth of our second child. The day was dull and ominous: it had been raining off and on since I woke up, and I spent most of the morning working on our taxes. My birthday gifts had been practical—socks, underwear, shirts in a style that made me feel that I wasn't really young anymore. When I went out for a drive in the late afternoon, the light drizzle began to turn to sleet, and the houses, the telephone poles, the street signs, became sharp-edged and spectral against the gray sky. Dark birds lifted out of the bare trees as I passed.

I had only meant to go to the drugstore, but as I turned onto the quiet main street, I thought I saw my brother-in-law's wife, Rhonda, the one my wife's family hated, driving alone in a long white car. Though I knew it was foolish, I couldn't help but follow.

We'd known for a week or so that she was back, but I hadn't seen her. In that dark weather, I couldn't even be certain it was her—I'd caught only a glimpse of the face, the pale skin and short black hair. I drifted behind the car as it headed out toward the edge of town.

The town we live in is small by most standards, little more than a cluster of trees and buildings in the middle of the Nebraska prairie—a main street the teenagers drive up and down at night, with a few storefronts in the center, the town wisping away at both ends into gas stations, motels, and then open road. The car was going under the viaduct, to the west side, where I knew Rhonda was staying.

Rhonda lived in a low-income tract called Sioux Villa, and most of the residents there were pretty bad off—destitute elderly, single mothers, alcoholics. If there was a murder in St. Bonaventure, it usually happened in Sioux Villa. The apartments were in rows of six, so that the place looked like the old one-story stucco motel my family had owned until I was seven, when my father bought the more elegant Bonaventure Motor Lodge.

I didn't know which apartment was Rhonda's, so I cruised in and out of the rows until I saw that white car parked in front of one of the unnumbered doorways.

I stopped the car. That was all—I didn't have any plan in mind. I idled the car outside, listening to the rain, to the rhythmic wing-beat of the windshield wipers. The defroster was on high, and the car smelled heavy with it.

Then I pulled up the hood on my jacket and opened the car door, but I left the engine running. I thought, Why not be a good person? I thought, Why not go ring her bell and tell her welcome back? I imagined myself saying, “If there's anything you need, give us a call,” though I knew Susan, my wife, wouldn't want anything to do with her. Susan would probably hang up on her if she called.

I hesitated there on her stoop, thinking of this. I remembered Susan telling me, “If I see her, I have half a mind to kick her ass. Seriously.” The rain trickled from my hood, and I wiped the droplets from my glasses, leaving a blurry film before my eyes. Maybe this wasn't even her place.

I opened the screen door and pressed my face close to the little diamond-shaped window in the inside door. I cupped my hand over my eyes and peered in. The window was fogged over; droplets of condensation ran down the steamy glass, leaving thin bars through which I could spot an old Naugahyde couch, a crumpled bag of potato chips lying on it. Then, just at the edge of my vision, I spotted an arm. I leaned closer, and the rest of her tilted into view: she was standing at the mouth of a dark hallway, with her back to me. I saw that she was shirtless, and as I watched, she pushed her jeans down to her ankles and stepped out of them. She was a small woman, yet her body was hard-looking, almost muscular; different from the shapes of women I was used to seeing around St. B. She stood there in her underwear and stockinged feet for a moment, looking down at something I couldn't see. Then her shoulders tightened, and her arms contorted behind her back as she unhooked her bra. My own breath was fogging up the outside glass, and I passed my hand over it as she turned, startled. She crossed her arms over her bare breasts: she'd seen my face at the window, I thought, and my heart leapt. What was I doing? Peeping in—a person could get arrested for that. I let the screen door slam and backed away quickly, hurrying toward my idling car. How could I explain myself to Rhonda now, or worse, what would Susan say if she found out? My body felt luminous, visible.

I put the car in reverse, and my wheels spun in the wet gravel. I sped out of the row of houses, and as I turned the corner, I caught a glimpse of her as she stumbled to the door. I stepped on the gas, and as I roared away, I could see her standing on the doorstep in only a towel, her hands tented over her head to shield herself from the rain. I imagined I heard her shouting something after me.

Afterwards, when I thought of what I'd done, I felt trembly with embarrassment and confusion. What if she'd recognized the car? What if she'd seen me? I'd never really known Rhonda that well, not enough to think of her as a friend, anyway. I'd talked to her at family gatherings, and we'd seemed to hit it off. There was a kind of cynical edge in what she said, and I secretly relished her dry comments about our in-laws, the loose, almost bored posture as she sat, listening to them talk. I remembered the Thanksgiving afternoon when she sipped casually from a pint bottle of peach schnapps after dinner, reclining in the living room, watching sports while the rest of the women washed dishes. I was the one who sat next to her. But the vague camaraderie between us was not enough to justify my behavior. It might even give Rhonda the idea that I was after her, a married man eager to prey on a woman rumored to be “loose.”

It had been six months since Rhonda left my wife's brother, Kent, and their two-year-old daughter. She'd run off with a drug dealer, so people said. Rhonda and Kent had been living in Virginia at the time. Kent had just been discharged from the navy, where he'd learned a trade—some kind of mechanics, I gathered—and he was looking for a job when she went off. My mother-in-law claimed the man she'd run off with was both a pimp and a cocaine addict, and had gotten Rhonda hooked on something. In any case, Kent came home to Nebraska with his little girl, and I gave him a job at the motel I run—the motel I inherited from my father. My mother-in-law cared for the child while he was at work.

Kent got a few letters from Rhonda, but he didn't let anyone know what they said. And then, after several months, Rhonda appeared in St. Bonaventure. My mother-in-law imagined that the man had beaten her up and dumped her somewhere along their travels, a journey she'd followed through the postmarks on the letters—Atlantic City, Philadelphia, Baltimore. She talked of these cities as if they were distant constellations.

Ever since Rhonda returned, my mother-in-law had been imagining that Rhonda wanted Kent back. “He'd have to be out of his mind,” she murmured when Kent was out of the room.

It wasn't that I approved of what Rhonda had done, of course. But I wasn't sure that I blamed her, either. I wanted to know her side of the story.

When I got home, my sister, Joan, was there. She had come to cook us dinner. We had planned to go out dancing for my birthday that night, but by the afternoon we decided to postpone until some other time. The baby was colicky, and our two-year-old, Joshua, hadn't taken well to his change in status. Recently, he'd begun to wake up in the middle of the night, too, calling for us jealously. So Joan said she was going to come over and fix us a steak.

My sister is six years older than I. My mother had two miscarriages in between us, and perhaps that had hardened Joan to the idea of siblings. In any case, we'd never been close as children; not, in fact, until after our parents had passed away and Joan had divorced. There wasn't any real reason for her to stay in St. Bonaventure besides me, I guess.

Joan looked at me shrewdly when I came in. She often seemed to loom over people, though she wasn't exactly tall—just, as she put it, big-boned. “Where were you?” she said. “I've been here for nearly an hour.”

“I was driving,” I told her, and she nodded. She was big on the notion of “private time.” Everyone in our family had been, in individual ways, a bit of a loner. Still, I couldn't picture her following someone for no reason, or peeping into their home.

“Where's Susan?” I said, and she looked back to the green pepper she was dissecting.

“She's in the bedroom with the baby. The J-monster is in there, too.” She had recently started to be a little antagonistic toward Joshua, our oldest. I could tell she thought he was spoiled, but it still surprised me. She'd always seemed so delighted by him before. Not too long ago, she'd told me that she was glad she never had any children of her own. I hoped she wouldn't keep calling Joshua the J-monster.

“Any major disasters while I was out?” I asked.

“Just the usual,” she said. “Tell Susan dinner will be ready soon.”

Susan was sitting on our bed, nursing Molly and reading a book to Joshua. He huddled into the crook of her arm, listening grimly. I sat down beside her, with Joshua between us, and I slipped my arm around her waist, encompassing all of them.

“ ‘They passed the restless ocean,' ” Susan read, “ ‘combing out her hair.' ” She winked at me. “What took you so long?” she said.

“Oh, I got lost,” I said. “It's the perfect day for the end of my youth.” I put my hand to my brow melodramatically.

“Come on,” she said. “You're not allowed to brood until you turn thirty.”

“I'm advanced,” I said, and Joshua pushed against us impatiently.

“Read,” he said. “Read.”

And so Susan continued, and I looked down at Molly. She was nursing intensely, her eyes closed, her brow furrowed. Susan hadn't breast-fed Joshua, and it was still strange to see her breasts, with their new roundness, almost opaque so I could just barely see her veins beneath her skin. She had always been hearty and athletic looking, and the leftover softness of pregnancy made her seem almost exotic. We hadn't made love since the baby was born, and I hadn't pressed her, yet. But sometimes, when her nipple slipped out of the baby's mouth, erect and red, I would feel a twinge of urgency. And then, almost involuntarily, I thought of Rhonda, the flash of the brown aureoles of her breasts before her pale arms covered them. I cleared my throat.

“Joan says supper's almost ready,” I said, and Susan nodded.

At supper, Joan insisted on a chorus of “Happy Birthday” and I sat there, listening to their low, female voices intertwining, echoing hollowly. Joshua watched with amazed horror. Afterwards, Joan went right into one of her heavy conversations. There were several recurring themes when Joan visited: her ex-husband and what happened to her marriage, her dislike for St. Bonaventure, lack of suitable male companionship, et cetera. Tonight, she told us that her boss, a married man, wanted to have an affair with her.

“The worst part of it,” she said, “is that we're friends, sort of. At least, I have to work closely with him every day. It's not like I can just say ‘screw you' and forget about it. I can see what it is. His wife is this matronly, country-club type, and he's got—what?—three or four kids. And I think it's something that all married people go through at some point. Especially men.”

“Plus you're pretty,” my wife said. “And vulnerable.”

“What do you mean, ‘especially men'?” I said.

“Oh, shut up,” Joan told me. “Not you.” Joshua got up from the table, and I warned him that the baby was sleeping. He turned his back to me, bitterly, and sat down among his toys. “Anyway,” Joan said. “The truth is, in a lot of ways, I'm really attracted to him, and I would do it, I would. But look at me. I've been divorced now for almost as long as I was married, and I've passed the point in my life when I could allow that sort of thing to happen to me. I mean, here I am in this tiny town, with his wife and children living not so far away, and him involved in all these domestic things. I wouldn't be able to call him if I wanted. We'd have to sneak around, quickies on abandoned roads, that sort of thing. I'm sure that's just the kind of adventure he'd love. But me? I'd end up like what's-her-name. Your brother's wife. Rhonda. Wandering around St. Bonaventure like a spook.”

“Don't do it,” my wife said. “You deserve better. You really do.”

“Yeah,” Joan said. “I know I do.” She cut her steak carefully, glancing down to where Joshua was driving a toy truck against her foot. She made a face. “So what's with the whole Rhonda thing, anyway? Anything new?”

“Not that I know of,” Susan said. She looked over at me, and it sent a sudden prickle across the back of my neck. “It's still in progress, as far as I know,” she said. She shot me another quick look, one that was meant to convey sympathy for Joan.

“Poor Joan,” Susan would say later, when we were up with the baby in the middle of the night. “I wish there was something we could do for her.” She went on to remark how sweet and smart and good-looking Joan was. “Why doesn't someone wonderful come along for her?” she asked.

And I murmured, “I don't know.” But the truth was, I thought, even if a wonderful man came along, he wouldn't be good enough. At least Rhonda had made a choice. Joan acted like she could go through life, making excuses but never doing anything, as if there were an infinity of possibilities to choose from. Sooner or later she was going to find those possibilities were disappearing, one by one. But I wouldn't tell Susan this, because generalities annoyed her. “What possibilities?” she'd ask. “Disappeared how?” And I wouldn't be able to explain.

Saturdays are my only day off, and in the morning I was back to work at the motel. I tried to put all the thoughts of the previous day—of Rhonda, and my sister, and disappearing possibilities—out of my mind. To a certain extent, I guess I was feeling a little guilty. I kept imagining that she had recognized me, and I pictured her eventually getting back together with Kent, telling him. I tried to think of what I would say to Susan. I knew how she would interpret it: I secretly had the hots for Rhonda, she'd say. I was getting restless. That's what she would think, no matter how carefully I explained myself.