Life Drawing (18 page)

I stared over at Alison’s, remembering all those long black nights of childhood as one infinite time of unspeakable terror and loneliness. I had felt most motherless then, most lost, each darkening day an echo of the death that haunted me. Until Owen. Owen taught me to love the darkness, to view it as a necessary respite from a world of visibility, a world in which as a painter I was eternally vigilant. And that was how I first knew I loved him. That I no longer felt bereft at the nightly departure of the sun.

The calls didn’t stop. Two or three a night. Sometimes she answered but no one was ever there. No one who spoke, anyway. Sometimes she just let it ring. After nearly a week, she agreed to stay in our house, if only once, so she could get a single decent night’s sleep, but she left all the lights on at her own place anyway. “If he’s watching,” she said, “I don’t want him to think anything has changed. I don’t want him knowing I’m afraid.” I didn’t point out that if he—whoever—was watching, he would know from the lights themselves that she was afraid. There was no point trying to reason with her. By then, having barely slept for days, she wasn’t thinking logically.

She was to sleep in the spare room down the hall, a space never occupied enough to be called a guest room. I spent a good amount of time trying to make it a welcoming space for her. Flowers. A pretty set of sheets. I dusted the old wardrobe. Took the braided rug outside to shake it clean—or if not clean, then fresher, anyway. I knocked some cobwebs off the ceiling with a broom, out of the corners, off the upper ledge of the door.

And of course she’d be using the spare bath—the one that had been renovated early that summer. I stepped into it for the first time in many weeks, a clean towel, a bar of fresh soap, in hand.
We had kept the original fixtures, the claw-foot tub, the sink with its separate hot and cold taps. The milky blue subway tile I had chosen and the pristinely painted pale gray walls gave those porcelain pieces from nearly a century before an aura of something like dignity.

I stood there for some time, not unlike the way I had sat in the cemetery, though this time it wasn’t the reality of the dead in which I was trying to believe, it was the spirit of all the life that had been lived in this home. There must have been generations of children bathed in that tub, and couples who stood side by side at the sink. I had spent so much time attuned to the dead of the house. I was grateful to let the living into my consciousness as well.

A
lison came by after dinner. “I’m already imposing enough,” she said. “You don’t have to feed me too.” I took her upstairs and she said all the right things about the room. It would be like staying at an inn for the night. She was certain she would sleep well. Just as I was going to leave her alone, Owen peered around the door and said, “Why don’t you give me your phone, Alison? I’ll answer it. Let him hear a male voice.”

I saw her hesitate, but then she handed it to him, like a child turning in a confiscated toy.

“S
omething tells me it isn’t going to ring,” Owen said quietly, as we settled into bed.

“Why do you say that?”

“A hunch. That’s all.”

“Well, that’s a complete cop-out. Calling it a hunch. You really think she’s lying? She’d have to be a pretty great actress. She looks like hell. And I’m not sure what the motive would be.”

“You’re assuming there’s something rational going on.”

I gave his arm a slap. “Yes, Owen. I am. I am assuming she’s not a lunatic. Because she’s not.”

“Well, maybe I’ll scare him away with my manliness.”

“I’m certain you will. With your he-man voice.” I switched off my bedside lamp. “Seriously though, I do give you points. You may not like her as much as I do or even believe her, but you’re certainly helping her.”

He began to rub my back. “It isn’t in my nature to let the people around me feel scared.”

“No. It’s not,” I said, savoring the darkness he had taught me not to fear. Soft, thick darkness. Velvet, loving darkness. “You know, I think you would have been an incredible father, Owen. Probably a much better parent than I.”

From the long silence that followed, I knew he was adjusting to my having raised this topic, so long unmentioned—as if I had now turned on a too-bright light and his pupils needed to contract. “You have a more nurturing nature,” I said. “I can be pretty self-involved, I know. But I’m just self-aware enough to understand how much is missing in me. How very much. Who knows. Maybe it’s all just as well.”

“I don’t think it’s just as well, Gus. It’s not just as well.”

“I don’t mean … I’m just paying you a compliment. I shouldn’t … I put it badly. You’re just very good at taking care of people. That’s all I mean. Better than I am. Even people you don’t much like. I just wanted to say it. You would have been the better parent. And I’m sorry you never got that chance.”

“I’m sorry neither of us did. I’m sorry I couldn’t give you that.”

“No apologies allowed. You know that.”

We lay in silence for a time.

“It’s not always easy, is it?” he said. “Having her here? All that devoted motherhood of hers. She’s like … like some kind of monument to parenting. Like an advertisement for it.”

“I’ve had my moments, I admit.”

“Me too. I’ve had my moments.”

There was another silence.

“But you would have left her in the dust, Gussie,” he said, after some time passed. “As a mother, I mean. You would have been the best mother the world has ever known. Thorns and all. You think you’re all prickles and brambles, but you would have aced it.”

I felt him curve up against me. “Thanks.” I shut my eyes and I raised my knees as he pressed his legs to form with mine. “I’m glad you think so,” I said, forcing myself not to explain all the reasons his assessment couldn’t possibly be true. He kissed the back of my head.

“I love you, Owen,” I said instead.

“And I love you, Augusta Edelman. Gussie. Gus. I always have, you know. And I always will.”

I couldn’t remember the last time we had fallen asleep in an embrace. I couldn’t imagine why we’d ever stopped.

T
he phone didn’t ring that night.

It rang early in the morning, waking us. “It’s Nora,” Owen said, peering at the display. “Do I answer? How do I explain answering her mother’s phone at seven a.m.?”

“Let it go. She can call her back. It’s too weird.” I sat up. “But that was it, right? There weren’t any other calls?”

He shook his head. Alison’s phone stopped chirping. “Nope.”

“Any theories?” I asked.

“Nope.”

“Maybe he knew she was here?”

“Whoever he is,” Owen said. “If there is a he.”

“Maybe it was just, you know, one of those weird things. And it’s over.”

“Maybe.”

“You don’t really think she was lying?” I asked. “Do you really?”

“Let’s just hope that’s the end of the whole thing.”

I
n the kitchen, Alison, already dressed, looked confused to hear there had been no calls.

“Except Nora,” I said, handing her the phone. “About fifteen minutes ago. I think she left a message. It made the message noise.”

I started the coffee, my back to her, as she listened. I took three mugs down from the cabinet.

“Paul was jailed last night,” she said. I turned around. “Drunk driving. Nora had to bail him out.”

Owen walked in just then. I repeated what Alison had said.

“Well, that makes things pretty clear,” he said. “Mystery solved. Now you just have to decide what to do.”

“I have to call Nora back. Before anything.” She left the room.

Owen and I looked at each other. “What the fuck?” I said. “Who the fuck does that?”

“There’s a lot going on there,” Owen said. “I don’t think we know the half.”

I poured him a cup of coffee. “What a mess. And for the record I never believed she was lying.”

“Oh, come on, Gus. Half an hour ago, we both thought she might be. I still don’t know. We only have her word on what Nora said.”

Alison came back before I had to respond. “Nora wants to stay with him for a while. He’s home. I tried to talk her out of it, but she feels like she can help him and there’s only so much I can do about that. The calls will stop, though. He won’t do it with her in the house.”

“Did you tell her what’s been going on?”

She nodded. “I tried to stop her. But I can’t. She’s an adult. Or anyway, that’s her view. And it’s … oh, it’s all mixed up for her with that bloody religious crap. I’m sorry. I don’t mean to be so contemptuous, I try not to be. But this is when all that starts really angering me. And the boy, the big Christian influence, was such a nothing. The whole thing is just unimaginable.”

“I’m sorry.” I threw Owen a meaningful look:
See? She couldn’t possibly sound more sincere
.

“Well, maybe God can explain why Paul decided to start harassing me now,” she said.

“Went off his meds?” I put a cup of coffee in front of her. “I’m really sorry.”

“Oh, I’m sorry too. My guess is that my moving away made him feel like he had to up the ante to pull me back in.” She laughed. “Now you know what a decade or two of self-help books does to your brain. Bloody hell. I’m so sorry to you both for dragging all of this … all of this mess into your lives. I know the whole point of you being here is that the worries of the big bad world are far away and now I’ve introduced all this family melodrama.”

It was Owen’s turn to look meaningfully at me.

“Don’t even think about it,” I said. “This isn’t going to go on for long.”

“Okay,” Owen said. “I’m out to the barn. He’s spent one night in jail. I don’t know the man, but my guess is he won’t want another.”

Alison looked up at him. “You’re right. I hadn’t thought of that. Let’s not waste more time on him. I vote we all get back to work.”

“Meeting adjourned,” Owen said.

“Meeting adjourned,” I said.

“Meeting adjourned,” Alison said.

A
lison and Owen left together, so I didn’t have a chance to speak to Owen alone right away. I could have followed him to the barn but could too easily imagine Alison seeing me and concluding that we were hurrying to talk about her behind her back—which was exactly what we would be doing. So I waited until noon, when he turned up in my studio.

“Okay, my doubter, what do you think now?” I asked.

“I think fences make good neighbors.”

“No. Really.”

He sighed. “Really? I think she has an abusive former husband and a freight train’s worth of baggage. And I don’t hate her, whatever you believe. I even feel bad for her. But I often wish she’d never moved in next door. And I don’t think that makes me unfair or unreasonably suspicious.”

“No,” I said. “I don’t think that it does.”

He walked over to the picture of Jackie playing chess. He spent maybe a minute looking at it, then moved to look at the drawing of the boys in the kitchen eating eggs. “So this is the big project,” he said. “It’s interesting stuff, Gus.”

It was the first time he’d seemed to think so. The first time he’d looked long enough to express an opinion. “Thanks,” I said.

He nodded toward the sketch of Oliver Farley sitting on our front steps. “I particularly like this one. Or anyway, I like that there’s one outside the house. Makes them all breathe a bit.”

“I think there’ll be more. I have in mind a few boys swimming in the pond.”

“The detail, as always, is stunning, Gus. Not the people yet, obviously. But I assume …”

“No, not yet.”

“That’s new for you. Figures. Such distinct ones, anyway.”

“I think they’ll come last,” I said. “I’m creating context.” It was a line I had used to myself more than once.

He touched my back, just for a moment, a
bye for now
caress. He said he thought he was going to wash up for lunch if I was ready for a break. I told him that I was.

W
e ate deviled eggs he’d made, and a salad I threw together. I asked him if he wanted a beer and he said he thought he’d better not.

We sat for a few minutes, eating, before I asked, “When were you going to tell me?”

He made a questioning face.

“You’re writing again. Aren’t you? When were you planning to tell me?”

He smiled—a grin, really, those craggy lines that bracketed his lips, deepening, curving. “When have I ever had to tell you anything like that? Don’t you think I know you can tell? When have we ever had to tell each other those things? Anyway, you know how it is, you’re afraid of jinxing it …”

“What happened?”

“Jesus, if I knew that … I don’t even want to ask. I don’t really want to talk about it all. Not out loud. Let’s just see if it can hold on for a bit. You know how it is. The universe decides to take pity …”

I nodded. I understood. After a bit he asked me if I had been in touch with the owner of the gallery in Philadelphia where I’d last been included in a group show. “She’s going to be awfully interested,” he said. “Knowing Clarice, she’ll probably need smelling salts when she sees how good this stuff is.”

“Really? You really think so?” I was surprised he seemed so sure.

“Oh, come on, Gussie. You know how good it is. You don’t need me to critique your work for you.”