One Heart (27 page)

“I think there's a place,” James said. “I don't know what it is, but I think it's there. Seems I've known it all along. Or so it seems. At least I've known we're spirits in bodies all along.”

“I could see that too, but seeing it never helped me much. My spirit and body were too tied together, I guess.”

“I don't think so.”

We lay there in perfect silence. I had an urge to put my head on his chest. I didn't do it, though. It didn't seem right, somehow. It was just an urge.

“I think of Ann a lot,” he said.

“And Wendell?”

“Of course. And you?”

“Of course.”

“What I try not to do is imagine what life would be if they'd lived,” he said.

“That's a good thing to try not to do, James. It's a good thing to try to live your life as it is.”

“It is a good thing.”

“I'm not saying it's not the hardest thing to do.”

“I know you're not saying that.”

“I'm not saying that some days you get hit with a feeling like it was just yesterday when you could hold your child.”

“I know.”

“And other days when you're in a park and you see some family together with grown kids and babies and kids in between.”

We just lay there and listened to a siren outside, and a few people having a conversation on the sidewalk. My heart felt pierced. It was a sudden thing. I didn't quite know why I felt it. Sometimes you all the sudden feel your heart pierced and you can't say exactly why.

Then James said, “How's Ivy?”

“Ivy's fine. She lost her husband. It was hard on her. But she's fine.”

“Is she working, still?”

“Still working. She has a lot of back pain, James, but you wouldn't know it. This summer she burned her hand in the kitchen. It was after Brent died. She went and touched the dishes after they got out of the dishwasher. You know we got a hundred-and-ninety-degree dishwasher in there. Well, Ivy knows that as well as she knows her name. But she went ahead and grabbed a dish soon as it got out. It was a bad burn. Otherwise, she's herself.”

He waited and thought about that for a bit.

“So they had some good years together, she and her husband?” he said.

“They were happy.”

“Did she love him?”

“Oh, I think so.”

I didn't see the point of saying no, she didn't really, she loved you, James. You were her real love. I wasn't even sure that was true.

“Well, someday I'll visit up there again. Maybe some Thanksgiving.”

“We'd love to have you. I can say that for sure.”

We were quiet.

“So I take it you're not moving down here.”

“I can't, James.”

He squeezed my hand and said he probably understood that even before he asked the question.

Soon enough, we fell asleep like that, and when I woke up in the middle of the night, he was turned away from me, far on the other side of the bed.

Flying home was different from flying there. I was filled up with the visit. With all I'd seen, yes, but mostly, with James. So my palms weren't wet, not a bit. I sat in that plane looking down at Earth like I was born that way. It was a clear sky we flew through, so I had quite a view. I saw the tiny little houses, cars, and roads, the way it's all divided. How there's all these little lines drawn between yards and farms. So everyone down there with some luck and circumstance gets to stake out a little life on a little piece of rented ground.

Pretty soon I feel like I died and went to heaven. Heaven's in the sky, right? So I'm up there in heaven looking down and seeing James sitting in his shotgun house. Sitting in the wake of our visit. Sitting and wondering if he'd ever see me again.

He could die tomorrow. I remembered his face in the airport, smiling. The strength of his hug. How he didn't say the word
good-bye
, but just nodded. How he didn't say the normal things like, “Have a good flight,” or “Talk to you soon.”

And then I thought about the middle of the night. How when I woke up and looked at him over on the other side of the bed, I considered getting up and taking his shoes off. But I didn't do it. I turned away and went back to sleep. And let him sleep in his shoes.

It seems like a small thing, not taking off his shoes. Maybe it was being up in the plane that made it feel so big, so important. I had a feeling of regret that I could hardly stand. Why hadn't I done it? Why hadn't I gotten up and taken off his shoes when I had the chance? James from his deep sleep would've said, “Thank you, Gladys.”

I knew up there in the plane that's how it would've gone. He would've thanked me from his sleep.

I pressed my hands over my eyes so I could stop the regret, stop the confusing tears.

And I stopped them. I took a breath. I took another breath, and looked out at the clouds. Couldn't see a scrap of Earth anymore. Bit my lip.

Doreen and Ivy picked me up from the airport. I'd only been gone four days. But it felt like longer, and when I looked at Ivy's face, it was like I saw her for the first time in years. She looked old to me in that airport. Maybe it was those lights. They make a person look green and tired. Or maybe it's just the truth. She's old. Ivy stood there at the gate, smiling. But something different was in that smile. She was trying too hard to hold that smile on her face. She hugged me hello, patting me on the back. She was wearing perfume she wore for special occasions.

That surprised me. Touched me.

Doreen was there with new red color in her hair and a bright silk scarf around her neck. She talked a blue streak as we walked out of the airport. I like Doreen. I will always like her. But she's too often on a blue streak. And this time I couldn't hear her. I heard the words coming out of her mouth, I can even remember some of them, but I couldn't understand the meaning. “Larry bought a motorcycle even though I told him a hundred times I'd disown him if he did and now he's taking those Keeley gals for rides down at that bridge where Tickle Abrams ran off the road last year. . . . ”

I walked, I heard her, but it was like the English language was foreign. Maybe because what I was really listening to is Ivy. Which is a strange thing to say, because Ivy was quiet. Not saying a word. Just walking on one side of me in a blue sweater and green pants. I kept stealing a look at the side of her face.

She stared straight ahead. I hadn't really looked at her in a long time. Especially not from the side. Especially not walking in an airport.

We stepped out into the sunshine of day. Doreen's onto another tale. This time Ivy's laughing at it. It's a tale about a date Doreen had with an old man who plays tennis. He took her out to the courts. Doreen slammed back every serve. Only she slammed them over the fence. She didn't know she was so strong.

I was still mainly listening to Ivy.

Listening to her laugh.

Listening to her old cook's hands, the way they pushed back her hair that didn't have a trace of blonde in it anymore. Pure silver. Listening to her sigh when she sat down in the car.

Doreen drove us home, still talking. She never asked me how the trip went. She's not the most curious friend. She cares that I'm okay. She tries to entertain. The people she likes, she wants them to be happy. She doesn't care how they get there.

I thought I could feel Ivy's curiosity. Before I left to go down to see James, I'd considered how Ivy would feel. She didn't let on that she felt much of anything. She wished me a good trip. She didn't want to talk about it, really. But now, in the car, driving back home, I thought I could feel her curiosity.

The ride was a long one. Because I wanted to be alone with my sister. I wanted us to be in our own house. So she could say, “So Gladys, tell me, is James doing all right?” And I could tell her. I could tell her in a generous sort of way. The way I'd want to be told. I rode in the car, looking forward to it. To being generous as possible.

Doreen dropped us off. That was a relief. We walked inside, I set my bags down in the bedroom. Ivy was in the kitchen.

“You want some coffee?” she called in. I said I would. So she made some coffee while I took a shower.

I came out, dressed for November. We sat at the table and drank coffee. And I didn't wait for her to say, “How was your visit?” I just started talking, telling her everything. The color of his house, the way his face had thinned, his neighbors, the food we ate, even the way it felt.

Ivy didn't look at me when I talked. She wasn't smiling. Her eyes were lowered, her eyebrows were raised up. She listened to every word.

I talked on a bit more. And then I was quiet. Ivy said, “Well, it sounds like he's doing pretty well down there, and it sounds like you had yourself a nice visit, Gladys.” She sighed, then smiled.

She smiled at me for a long second and I thought it was like she was suddenly on a plane, looking down.

“So how were your four days, Ivy?”

“My four days were just fine. A friend of Brent's was in town for one night, remember Bernard? He came over and we played cards. It was a nice evening. Other than that, I worked.”

“How's your back?”

“Still there last time I checked.”

“Why don't we go out for a walk?”

She looked at me funny. It wasn't something we'd done in a long time. In fact, last time we went for a walk together we were girls. Little girls in Delaware who laughed a lot. It's true. That's the last time we went for a walk.

But she went and got her old red coat. And we walked out the door, single file. It was four in the afternoon, November, not many leaves on the trees. But they were all over the ground. Mostly bright yellow, from the birches. It was beautiful the way the sun lit the leaves. We walked a long while, toward the road. Maybe we were headed into town. Don't think either of us knew.

Some skinny teenaged kid ran up to us down near the road. All out of breath.

“You ladies seen a black lab?” he panted. He was a painful-looking kid, with his acne and Adam's apple.

“No we haven't, but we'll be sure to keep our eye open for one,” Ivy said.

“I'd appreciate it,” he said. “If you find him, my numbers on the tag.” He ran off.

We walked around in the woods after that, looking for the dog. Neither me or Ivy said much. But I was still listening to her.

I was listening and thinking how you're given a life, and certain people walk into it. Some make a small, but deep impression, like a kid from your second-grade class who shows up in your dream every three years. Others walk in and break your heart. Change you into who you are. You remember them every day.

Very few people, maybe one, maybe none, stay with you for the long run. It's a kind of miracle if someone's with you for the long run. A kind of miracle, I'd say.

Ivy hummed to herself, and tapped a tree trunk. She picked up a leaf and put it to her face. Smiled. She looked over at me and said, “I could never decide what my favorite season was, spring or autumn. Yours used to be summer. What about now?”

“Autumn,” I said.

“I knew it,” she said.

We kept on walking, half looking for that dog until it was almost dark.

We found the lab when we were out of the woods, headed home. He followed us right inside. We called that poor kid. He said he'd be right over. The dog went and curled up on the couch. The house was quiet, so we put on some music. Then the two of us started making some soup, and when the kid came for his dog, we invited him to stay and eat with us. He said it was the best soup he ever ate, and we were the best ladies around for miles.

W
HEN EVERYONE YOU LOVED IN YOUR LIFE IS GONE, YOU
have days when the wind comes into your house like a person. You get so alone the wind sits down at your table and tries to have itself a cup of coffee, but it can't, there's no time, it has to move on, it's the wind.

Don't think Oh, Ivy's off her rocker now and believes in ghosts. I'm not saying the wind is a ghost, only that the feeling of the wind, the whole notion of the wind, is different when all the people you ever loved are gone. It's not fresh air blowing through your hair and airing out your sheets and kitchen. No, sir. It's company. The wind is company that has to go.

*  *  *

Not very good company even when it's there, and neither are the trees, though I always thought I loved trees, and maybe I did. After Brent died I remember they consoled me. I'd walk in the woods and hear Brent's voice naming the trees and wildflowers.

Now the trees seem too filled up with meaning I don't have any words for, and the sky's the same way. All this meaning pressing in on my heart, making it pound like a drum. Maybe I don't want so much meaning all at once, but it turns out there's a lot I don't get to choose.

I go for walks with a cane now, and not because I need the cane for balance. The cane's just something I like to put before me, to reach into the spot I'm about to enter, like doing that could protect me from surprises.

So Gladys. Since you've been dead for only sixth months, I sometimes step into our old house feeling hopeful, as if your death was a bad dream and now we can go back to normal. Twice I even called your name aloud, then had to sit my bones down at the table.

I clean the house, I take walks, I shop for food, I say hello to a number of people, I sometimes put some music on. But mostly what I do is wait.

*  *  *

I called James right after you died, of course, and he wept without the slightest hesitation. And he couldn't speak to me, so he cleared his throat and said he'd call back later, which he did, and then we spoke kindly in hushed voices about the weather down there and the weather up here. “I miss the snow,” James said, in his old man voice, husky and tired out. After that was a long pause. He said, “Well, I best be getting some sleep now.” And I said, “And I should do the same.”