Lisey’s Story (33 page)

“I offered to pay for this,” she murmured, holding the menu up to her sunny, empty kitchen, “and the guy said I could just take it. Because we were their only guests. And because of the snowstorm.”

That weird October snowstorm. They had stayed two nights instead of just the one that had been in the plan, and on the second she had remained awake long after Scott had gone to sleep. Already the cold front that had brought the unusual snow was moving out and she could hear it melting, dripping from the eaves. She had lain there in that strange bed (the first of so many strange beds she'd shared with Scott), thinking about Andrew “Sparky” Landon, and Paul Landon, and Scott Landon—Scott the survivor. Thinking about bools. Good bools and blood-bools.

Thinking about the purple. Thinking about that, too.

At some point the clouds had broken open and the room had been flooded with windy moonlight. In that light she had at last fallen asleep. The next day, a Sunday, they had driven through countryside that was reverting back from winter to fall, and less than a month later they had been dancing to The Swinging Johnsons: “Too Late to Turn Back Now.”

She opened the gold-stamped menu to see what the Chef's Special had been that long-ago night, and a photograph fell out. Lisey remembered it at once. The owner of the place had taken it with Scott's little Nikon. The guy had scrounged up two pairs of snowshoes (his cross-country skis were still in storage up in North Conway, he said, along with his four snowmobiles), and insisted that Scott and Lisey take a hike along the trail behind the inn.
The woods are magical in the snow
, Lisey remembered him telling them,
and you'll have them all to yourselves—not a single skier or snow machine. It's the chance of a lifetime.

He had even packed them a picnic lunch with a bottle of red wine on
the house. And here they were, togged out in snowpants and parkas and the earmuffs which the guy's amiable wife had found for them (Lisey's parka comically too big, the hem drooping all the way to her knees), standing for their portrait outside a country bed-and-breakfast in what looked like a Hollywood special-effects blizzard, wearing snowshoes and grinning like a couple of cheerful nitwits. The pack Scott wore to hold their lunch and the bottle of
vino
was another loaner. Scott and Lisey, bound for the yum-yum tree, although neither had known it then. Bound for a trip down Memory Lane. Only for Scott Landon, Memory Lane was Freak Alley, and it was no wonder he didn't choose to go there often.

Still
, she thought, skating the tips of her fingers over this photograph as she had over the one of their wedding-dance,
you must have known you'd have to go there at least once before I married you, like it or not. You had something to tell me, didn't you? The story that would back up your one non-negotiable condition. You must have been looking for the right spot for weeks. And when you saw that tree, that willow so drooped over with snow it made a grotto inside, you knew you'd found it and you couldn't put it off any longer. How nervous were you, I wonder? How afraid that I'd hear you out and then tell you I didn't want to marry you after all?

Lisey thought he'd been nervous, all right. She could remember his silence in the car. Hadn't she thought even then that something was on his mind? Yes, because Scott was usually so talkative.

“But you must have known me well enough by then . . .” she began, then trailed off. The nice thing about talking to yourself was that mostly you didn't have to finish what you were saying. By October of 1979 he must have known her well enough to believe she'd stick. Hell, when she didn't tell him to take a hike after he cut his hand to ribbons on a pane of Parks Greenhouse glass, he must have believed she was in for the long haul. But had he been nervous about exposing those old memories, touching those ancient live wires? She guessed about that he'd been
more
than nervous. She guessed about that he'd been scared to smucking death.

All the same he had taken her gloved hand in one of his, pointed, and said, “Let's eat there, Lisey—let's go under that

“Let's eat under that willow,” he says, and Lisey is more than willing to fall in with this plan. For one thing, she's hugely hungry. For another, her legs—especially her calves—are aching from the unaccustomed exercise involved in using the snowshoes: lift, twist, and
shake
 . . . lift, twist, and
shake.
Mostly, though, she wants a rest from looking at the ceaselessly falling snow. The walk has been every bit as gorgeous as the innkeeper promised, and the quiet is something she thinks she'll remember for the rest of her life, the only sounds the crunch of their snowshoes, the sound of their breathing, and the restless tackhammer of a far-off woodpecker. Yet the steady downpour (there is really no other word) of huge flakes has started to freak her out. It's coming so thick and fast that it's messed up her ability to focus, and that's making her feel disoriented and a little dizzy. The willow sits on the edge of a clearing, its still-green fronds weighted down with thick white frosting.

Do you call them fronds?
Lisey wonders, and thinks she will ask Scott over lunch. Scott will know. She never asks. Other matters intervene.

Scott approaches the willow and Lisey follows, lifting her feet and twisting them to shake off the snowshoes, walking in her fiancé's tracks. When he reaches the tree, Scott parts the snow-covered—fronds, branches, whatever they are—like a curtain, and peers inside. His blue-jeaned butt is sticking out invitingly in her direction.

“Lisey!” he says. “This is pretty neat! Wait 'til you s—”

She raises Snowshoe A and applies it to Blue-Jeaned Butt B. Fiancé C promptly disappears into Snow-Covered Willow D (with a surprised curse). It's amusing, quite amusing indeed, and Lisey begins to giggle as she stands in the pouring snow. She is coated with it; even her eyelashes are heavy.

“Lisey?” From inside the drooping white umbrella.

“Yes, Scott?”

“Can you see me?”

“Nope,” she says.

“Come a little closer, then.”

She does, stepping in his tracks, knowing what to expect, but when his arm shoots out through the snow-covered curtain and his hand seizes her wrist, it's still a surprise and she shrieks with laughter because she's a bit more than startled; she's actually a little frightened. He pulls her forward and cold whiteness dashes across her face, blinding her for a moment. The hood of her parka is back and snow slides down her neck, freezing on her warm skin. Her earmuffs are pulled askew. She hears a muffled
flump
as heavy clots of snow fall off the tree behind her.

“Scott!” she gasps. “Scott, you scared m—” But here she stops.

He's on his knees before her, the hood of his own parka pushed back to reveal a spill of dark hair that's almost as long as hers. He's wearing his earmuffs around his neck like headphones. The pack is beside him, leaning against the tree-trunk. He's looking at her, smiling, waiting for her to dig it. And Lisey does. She digs it bigtime.
Anybody would
, she thinks.

It's a little like being allowed in the clubhouse where her big sister Manda and her friends played at being girl pirates—

But no. It's better than that, because it doesn't smell of ancient wood and damp magazines and moldy old mouseshit. It's as if he's taken her into an entirely different world, pulled her into a secret circle, a white-roofed dome that belongs to nobody but them. It's about twenty feet across. In the center is the trunk of the willow. The grass growing out from it is still the perfect green of summer.

“Oh, Scott,” she says, and no vapor comes out of her mouth. It's
warm
in here, she realizes. The snow caught on the drooping branches has insulated the space beneath. She unzips her jacket.

“Neat, isn't it? Now listen to the quiet.”

He falls silent. So does she. At first she thinks there's no sound at all, but that's not quite right. There's one. She can hear a slow drum muffled in velvet. It's her heart. He reaches out, strips off her gloves, takes her hands. He kisses each palm, deep in the center of the cup. For a moment neither of them says anything. It's Lisey who breaks the silence; her stomach rumbles. Scott bursts into laughter, falling back against the trunk of the tree and pointing at her.

“Me too,” he says. “I wanted to skin you out of those snowpants and
screw in here, Lisey—it's warm enough—but after all that exercise, I'm too hungry.”

“Maybe later,” she says. Knowing that later she'll almost certainly be too full for screwing, but that's okay; if the snow keeps up, they'll almost certainly be spending another night here at The Antlers, and that's fine with her.

She opens the pack and lays out lunch. There are two thick chicken sandwiches (lots of mayo), salad, and two hefty slices of what proves to be raisin pie. “Yum,” he says as she hands him one of the paper plates.

“Of course yum,” she says. “We're under the yum-yum tree.”

He laughs. “Under the yum-yum tree. I like it.” Then his smile fades and he looks at her solemnly. “It's nice here, isn't it?”

“Yes, Scott. Very nice.”

He leans over the food; she leans to meet him; they kiss above the salad. “I love you, little Lisey.”

“I love you, too.” And at that moment, hidden away from the world in this green and secret circle of silence, she has never loved him more. This is now.

Despite his profession of hunger, Scott eats only half his sandwich and a few bites of salad. The raisin pie he doesn't touch at all, but he drinks more than his share of the wine. Lisey eats with better appetite, but not quite as heartily as she thought she would. There's a worm of unease gnawing at her. Whatever has been on Scott's mind, the telling will be hard for him and maybe even harder for her. What makes her most uneasy is that she can't think what it might be. Some kind of trouble with the law back in the rural western Pennsylvania town where he grew up? Did he perhaps father a child? Was there maybe even some kind of teenage marriage, a quickie job that ended in a divorce or an annulment two months later? Is it Paul, the brother who died? Whatever it is, it's coming now.
Sure as rain follows thunder
, Good Ma would
have said. He looks at his slice of pie, seems to think about taking a bite, then pulls out his cigarettes instead.

She remembers his saying
Families suck
and thinks,
It's the bools. He brought me here to tell me about the bools.
She isn't surprised to find the thought scares her badly.

“Lisey,” he says. “There's something I have to explain. And if it changes your mind about marrying m—”

“Scott, I'm not sure I want to hear—”

His grin is both weary and frightened. “I bet you're not. And I know I don't want to tell. But it's like getting a shot at the doctor's office . . . no, worse, like getting a cyst opened up or a carbuncle lanced. But some things just have to be done.” His brilliant hazel eyes are fixed on hers. “Lisey, if we get married, we can't have kids. That's flat. I don't know how badly you want them right now, but you come from a big family and I guess it'd be natural for you to want to fill up a big house with a big family of your own someday. You need to know that if you're with me, that can't happen. And I don't want you to be facing me across a room somewhere five or ten years down the line and screaming ‘You never told me this was part of the deal.'”

He draws on his cigarette and jets smoke from his nostrils. It rises in a blue-gray fume. He turns back to her. His face is very pale, his eyes enormous.
Like jewels
, she thinks, fascinated. For the first and only time she sees him not as handsome (which he is not, although in the right light he can be striking) but as beautiful, the way some women are beautiful. This fascinates her, and for some reason horrifies her.

“I love you too much to lie to you, Lisey. I love you with all that passes for my heart. I suspect that kind of all-out love becomes a burden to a woman in time, but it's the only kind I have to give. I think we're going to be quite a wealthy couple in terms of money, but I'll almost certainly be an emotional pauper all my life. I've got the money coming, but as for the rest I've got just enough for you, and I won't ever dirty it or dilute it with lies. Not with the words I say, not with the ones I hold back.” He sighs—a long, shuddering sound—and places the heel of the hand holding the cigarette against the center of his brow, as if his head hurts. Then
he takes it away and looks at her again. “No kids, Lisey. We can't.
I
can't.”

“Scott, are you . . . did a doctor . . .”

He's shaking his head. “It's not physical. Listen, babyluv. It's here.” He taps his forehead, between the eyes. “Lunacy and the Landons go together like peaches and cream, and I'm not talking about an Edgar Allan Poe story or any genteel Victorian we-keep-auntie-in-the-attic ladies' novel; I'm talking about the real-world dangerous kind that runs in the blood.”

“Scott, you're not crazy—” But she's thinking about his walking out of the dark and holding the bleeding ruins of his hand out to her, his voice full of jubilation and relief.
Crazy
relief. She's remembering her own thought as she wrapped that ruin in her blouse: that he might be in love with her, but he was also half in love with death.

“I
am
,” he says softly. “I
am
crazy. I have delusions and visions. I write them down, that's all. I write them down and people pay me to read them.”

For a moment she's too stunned by this (or maybe it's the memory of his mangled hand, which she has deliberately put away from her, that has stunned her) to reply. He is speaking of his craft—that is always how he refers to it in his lectures, never as his
art
but as his
craft
—as delusion. And that
is
madness.