Primal (21 page)

“No, you don’t. You’re the hero in this.”

“Is that what you think?”

“You killed the bad guys.”

“So this is about your ego.”

“No!” He slams his fists on the steering wheel. “It’s not.
It’s not that.”

And it really isn’t that. Hank looks out the driver’s
window. They are both in so much pain. When he speaks again his voice is
breathy and lost.

He says, barely audibly, “It should have been me. I just
wish it had been me.”

Choking back tears, “So do I.”

His expression is twisted with hurt when he turns his whole
body toward her in the front seat of their car. The plea comes from the deepest
part of his heart and she can feel it all the way through to her bones.
“Alison, you have to let it go. He’s dead. We have our lives, our little
family. We value them more than we ever could have now. Please, pull yourself
back from the edge before we’re destroyed. Please.” He has reached her because
beyond all of the paranoia she loves him, still loves him, wishes she could
feel that love again, but she has been unable to feel anything. She gets
outside of it all and considers what he is saying. He is right. Even if she
doesn’t think he is right, maybe he is, and maybe she needs to try harder and
it will all become all right if she pretends, maybe that is her way home.

“I love you, Hank.”

He takes her hands in his, reaches with all of his strength
into her soul and pleads, “Come back to us, Alison.”

“I will.” And she did not know if she could.

They were dainty with each other for the remainder of the
day: she turned on his music when they got home and he noticed. He checked the
locks on the windows and on the basement door and she noticed. An air of practiced
civility smoothed out their conversation at dinner and Jimmy thought they were
acting weird. It felt a bit like their first married fight long ago, after
which they stepped politely around each other for a solid day exchanging an
excessive number of “please’s” and “thank you’s.” That first fight is
disturbing because it shatters the new love spell and requires newlyweds to
look plainly at one another, realize that bliss is work, and that love is not
what they deserve but what they achieve. Hank learned then that love required
constant maintenance and sometimes that comes in the regularity of cozy
gestures. As the evening ends, Alison wrestles with her anxiety, and standing
in front of the vanity in her bathroom she gulps down two sleeping pills while
she thinks, really, if I let this destroy my marriage what am I saving? I’m
over the edge. It would be dishonest to pretend I didn’t know that. She walks
out of the bathroom and over to Hank who is hanging up his pants in the closet.

She says, “I know that my daydreams are vivid in a strange
way.” He can see she has a mind full of things to say and he waits. She
continues, “It’s like when I was a little girl and I had night terrors. It was
right after mom died and went on for a year and I acted on them. I was reacting
to things only real inside my mind. I would get out of bed while living inside
the nightmare. One time I even left the house. My dad heard the front door open
in the middle of the night and he ran after me. I was asleep and crying and
walking around in the front yard barefoot. Maybe this is like that - the
daytime equivalent of that - day-mares. Maybe I’m having day-terrors. Maybe
that explains why it seems so real to me. He… (she finds she cannot say his
name) he wasn’t in the school stairwell.”

“No.”

“It’s impossible.”

“Impossible.”

“He is dead in Canada.”

“Yes. He is dead in Canada.”

“Right.” She leans in and kisses him. “I’m going to sleep
now.”

“That would be good.”

She spins around and walks with determination to the feather
arms of her bed. She slips in under the sheets. She sinks into the mattress,
which feels spongy and cool and glorious, and as the clenched fist that is
every muscle in her entire body releases, she makes a tiny sound: half-sigh,
half-cry, barely audible, and the most satisfying sound Hank has ever heard.

When Hank wakes, he is lying on his side and she is cuddled
into the curve of his body fast asleep, skin to skin, a rush of joy and relief
literally shakes him. He lies there feeling her hair soft under his chin and the
subtle rise and fall of her breathing against his chest. He waits until the
very last possible second before rolling over and switching off the alarm. He
sneaks out of bed without disturbing her.

After he made breakfast for Jimmy, they grabbed their coats
just as she came down the stairs in her bathrobe and fluffy slippers. She slept
so hard that when she wakes the entire side of her face is imprinted with lines
from the sheets. It was hard to get out of bed. The sleeping pills made her
feel groggy.

“Hey!” She stopped them at the front door. “How are my men?”

Her smile is radiant. Hank walks over and kisses her on the
mouth.

“Okay that’s gross,” Jimmy said, “really, I just ate.”

She smiles with light sarcasm, “Really, darling, he just
ate.”

Hank takes her chin in his hand, her hair is clumpy and her
eyes are raccoon-like with her smudged mascara, but she has never looked more
beautiful to him. It all feels good. She will manhandle her thoughts. She will
take back control. She will cut off all malevolent meandering, dig out a
specific trail for her imagination and she will not deviate.

“Remember,” Hank tells her lovingly, “today is only about
relaxing: take a bath, read a book, nap. All good stuff, yeah?”

“Definitely my plan.”

“Tomorrow back to work.”

“Deal.”

“See you later,”

“Bye Mom.”

She kisses Jimmy on the head. As they close the front door,
she feels blissfully normal. Part of it she can attribute to a full night’s
sleep and honestly she could go right back to bed and probably sleep for a
month but, she is hungry, actually really hungry. She spins around light in her
fluffy slippers and goes to the kitchen. I can do this. I can let go and do
this.

Alison opens the refrigerator to get the milk for her coffee
and sees two leftover casseroles. It gives her a pang the way casseroles always
do. Enough, she tells herself, no more of these. She removes them from the
refrigerator and puts them in the sink. She opens the cabinet and takes out her
favorite cereal bowl. Isn’t it funny, she thinks, that people have favorite
bowls and cups. Her dad had a cup she had made for him at a ceramic workshop.
She went there for a birthday party when she was eight years old and made this
ridiculous coffee cup. He used it every morning, insisted on it. I know I saved
that cup, she thinks.… Why is the basement door unlocked? She stops and stares.
I saw Hank lock it last night. He never goes into the basement, neither does
Jimmy. No. Stop. Do not go there. Think about dinner! She will cook dinner
tonight. Yes. She will make Jimmy’s favorite meal of spaghetti with butter and —
a noise from the basement — with spaghetti with butter and cheese and a
noise from the basement...la la la la la la…cooking really is the perfect
synergy of creativity and utilitarianism. I have always liked to… another
noise…always cooking liked…footsteps coming up. Damn it! She is not imagining
it. Her expression darkens. Her heart pounds. The air in the room turns sour.
He is in her house. She slides open the drawer in the butcher’s block and
removes the carving knife. She darts to the side of the basement door. He’s so
much bigger than I am. She breathes in rapid short gulps. Oh, god, oh, god; can
I do this? The basement door opens slowly. This is it. End it. End it now. Her
hand closes tightly around the knife in her fist. She raises the thick meat
cleaver above her head. Don’t hold back - every ounce. The door gently pushes
open. She leaps out! Now! Polly screams in terror! She throws the laundry
basket she is holding at Alison. Polly runs out of the room. Disoriented,
Alison freezes. She lowers the cleaver. Wait. What? Polly. It was Polly. Alison
hears the front door slam as Polly runs for her life. Alison shuffles over to
the kitchen chair and sits confused. She reworks what just happened in her
mind. “Oh, shit.” But wait. I’m not imagining things. Someone really was down
there. What I heard was real. “It was real…it was…Polly, but real.” Alison runs
her left hand through her hair. I’m not hearing and seeing things. It is real.
It is all real! I knew it was real and it is. She rubs her eyes and rests her
elbows on her knees. Laundered underpants and socks are spewed all over the
kitchen floor. Her eyes drop to the carving knife in her right hand. She
considers it. She picks it up and turns it around in her hand. “But
this
is bullshit. This won’t do.” She
tosses the knife on the tabletop, proceeds out of the kitchen and up the stairs
to get dressed.

* * *

The room rocks at Pump Up The Volume. Hank sits in the front
of the store and enjoys the harmony of Nickelback as he constructs a playlist
on his computer for the weekend events. He was so excited when he got to work
this morning because he could tell the guys that Alison was on the road to
health, that he felt the shift last night, that he woke up with her in his arms
again. The glass in the storefront window vibrates discernibly and Hank bops
his body in rhythm with the music. This vibration that comes from the beat is
what contentment feels like to him. It is what he feels in every cell of his
body when the music is raging. The walls of the store are covered with framed
posters from every era and genre of music: Joni Mitchell is next to Jethro Tull
is next to Jay Z is next to Garth Brooks. Hank is pounding away at the computer
keys, immersed in the music, and reveling in his thoughts. I haven’t felt this
good since before. Maybe I’ve never felt this good. What if everything in life
is felt only in proportion to its opposite? What if I’ve only been living on
the surface and skimming emotions? What if since I’d never known fear and blood
and anguish, I couldn’t access this kind of relief or joy? What if this is
actually the best I’ve ever felt in my life because I never appreciated things
the way I do now. Maybe that’s the positive that I can take away from all of
this shit he tells himself. Maybe you can learn something from a trip to hell
if you survive with your world intact. I didn’t feel how great my life was
every day like I should have. I complained about piddlely little shit. He hits
a few quick strokes on his iPod and Louis Armstrong’s voice crackles into the
room singing “
What a Wonderful World.”
He
smiles at the craggily voice, the sound of a life well lived. Hank sits back on
the chair and lets his eyes survey the room. I will never take my life for
granted again. I promise that to myself. I will never take a normal day for
granted again. In fact, I vow to remember that every single ordinary day is a
gift. He remembers the softness on Alison’s face when he left that morning, and
he sees Jimmy’s wave as he slammed the car door and raced off to school. He
feels so deeply grateful that he looks around quickly, embarrassed that the
emotion is so obvious on his face, but the store is empty and Newt and Scottie
are in the back stacking equipment.

Scott yells to Hank from the back storage room, “Are you
working on the Silverstein bar mitzvah?”

“Haroldson wedding.”

“Okay, so, the Silversteins have requests, forty of them.”

“Why didn’t they just make their own playlist?’

“Don’t know how to work an iPod.”

“Oh,” Hank smiles and glances up to see Polly at the front
door to the store. She stands ashen and wobbly looking in through the glass.
Hank leaps out of his chair and rushes over opening the door and taking her by
the arm. His jaw drops as he feels her trembling. He guides her in and flips
off the music. The look on her face scares him.

“Polly? What?”

“She tried to stab me!”

Hank grabs her hands. “What do you mean?”

Scott and Newt come in from the back.

“Tell me what happened.”

“She almost killed me.”

“She couldn’t!”

“If I hadn’t had the laundry basket in front of me I’d be
bleeding on your kitchen floor.”

Trying to convince her, not wanting to believe what she is
telling him Hank insists, “She was better this morning. Good. She was good!”

“I wanted to tell you in person. I’m not going back.”

“This week?”

She pulls away her hand. “At all. I’m not going back at all,
Hank.”

“Polly, please, we need you. I need you. Just a little
longer. She’s so much better. When we left this morning she was so normal,
really completely -”

“Look, Hank. I’m very fond of you, well, of all of you, but
she needs serious help and I’m not going back. I’m sorry.” She steps toward the
door. She turns, “And Hank, I’d keep her away from Jimmy if I were you.” The
seriousness in her tone is like ice on his neck. “Please keep her away from
Jimmy.” She leaves and closes the door. Hank whirls around as the accumulation
of frustrated fury explodes. He grabs the printer from the desk and hurls it
across the room and into the wall where it shatters.

“Holy shit!” Newt says.

“Hank?” Scottie grabs his shoulders before he picks up
something else. “Buddy, chill.”

Hank stands shaking with rage. “I want my life back.” Scott
indicates for Newt to lock the front door and he does.

“Buddy, buddy, calm down.” Scott encourages him, “You know
she’s better. You said so.”

Newt adds, “That’s right. Today when you came in.”

“She pulled a knife on our housekeeper.”

Newt says, “Maybe it was like a butter knife.”

“Really, Newt?” Scott glares at him.

“But it matters, like maybe it wasn’t a real knife, but just
a kind of knife that couldn’t really do any harm, that would matter, right?
Like maybe she was actually buttering something, and she got startled and spun
around, and it was a butter knife and Polly overreacted.”