Raveling (51 page)

Yes, Eric loved his father, I believe, very much.

“Mom,” Eric said.

She reached out her hand, unable to see him.

He moved forward, saying, “I’m so sorry.”

She pulled his hand to her puffy face. “I look terrible,” she said. “I must look frightening.”

“No.” Eric smoothed her hair. So much of it was gray now, and her face had become so old.

“Pilot’s still there,” she said. “He’s got to stay a few more days, set things up.”

“I know. I have to go down there, actually. Do you want to—”

“I don’t want to go.” She shook her head. “I can’t see anything anyway. It wouldn’t make any difference. And Patricia. There’s
Patricia.”

She and our mother had never met.

“He mustn’t remember too much.”

Eric moved his hands away from her. “I’ll take care of it.”

“How is the garden?” Hannah asked, letting go of his hand.

“The garden?” he said, somewhat confused. Then, “Mom, it’s cold out there. What difference does it make?” The weeds of autumn
had overgrown anyway, and the vegetables Hannah had planted had died and lay frozen in the earth which filled the old swimming
pool. It was just a tangle of decay. “It’s fine,” he said after a while. “It needs a bit of work, but I’ll take care of it.
When it gets warmer, I’ll—”

“What will you do?” She kept her eyes closed now, he noticed, not even bothering to try to see. The light in the room was
harsh. Every lamp was on.

“I’ll talk to Katherine,” he said, shaking his head. “This is crazy.”

“Has she been—”

“—talking to Pilot?” my brother said. “Yes, I think so. She’s helping him.”

“She doesn’t know, though,” Hannah said.

“Not really.” Eric sighed. “She thinks she knows something, but really, really she…” He trailed off. He lacked the strength,
at the moment, to finish his sentence. “Because Pilot doesn’t really know anything either, I guess.”

“Pilot knows,” Hannah said. “It’s all mixed up, but it’s in there.” Our mother opened her eyes, which appeared clear to Eric,
completely normal.

“Mom, don’t worry,” he said, sighing. “I said not to worry, didn’t I say—”

“I’m worried.”

“I know—”

“—and I think I’m—”

“—Mom, I’m sorry—”

“—going crazy, too, like Pilot,” she said. “I think something’s wrong with me, something’s—”

“—but everything’s going to be—”

“—really wrong, you know,” she finally told him. “I’ve been seeing, seeing her, your sister. She comes to me. Fiona… she comes
to see me.” Hannah was out of breath now, hyperventilating.

“Fiona comes to see you?”

“Yes.”

He was sitting on the canopy bed, rubbing his eyes. “Fiona’s gone, Mom, gone a long, long time ago.”

“I know, but, I know I’m crazy, it’s crazy, but I keep seeing her, keep hearing her little voice. Do you remember her voice?”

She had a little girl’s voice, nothing out of the ordinary—sweet, high-pitched, sometimes shrill. He moved, getting up, and
Hannah’s eyes, opening, sought him in the room. It meant she could only see shadows.

“You can’t see anything at all,” Eric said. “How can you see a ghost? How can you see—”

“There’s no such thing, I know, but what if, what if a memory becomes too strong? Isn’t there a neurological—”

“There’s nothing,” he said frustratedly. “There’s nothing. It’s not neurological. You’re imagining things, that’s all, just
imagining.”

“But I see her.” She reached her hands out. My mother could see Fiona standing at the end of the bed now actually, twisting
one of the tassels that hung from the canopy, her little feet standing one on top of the other, fidgety. “I see her right
now.” Her voice was pleading.

My brother shook his head. “You see her right now.”

Hannah had a large tear moving down her face, breaking into a thousand little rivulets. “I’m so sorry,” she was saying. “I
was such a terrible person, such a stupid—”

Eric walked to her and put his hand on her hair again.

She looked up, her face a mess. “Your father’s dead.”

Eric sat down and brought her head to his chest.

“Just like I always knew he would die, in that stupid airplane, just exactly the way he always—” And there emitted from her
a sound unlike any Eric had ever heard her make, a squeal, like an animal sound. “I hate you,” she said. “I hate you like
I hated him.”

“Mom.”

“You’re just the same.”

She had the radio on full blast, was lying facedown on the mattress on the floor of the
enclosure
, having kicked off her shoes. She still had all of her clothes on, except her overcoat, which she had allowed to fall from
her shoulders the minute she entered. The pizza, thankfully, was on its way—extra olives, light sauce.

Katherine thought of the Tunnel Man. What was he eating tonight? Was he drunk? What had happened in his life to make him end
up living in a tunnel under a highway? The knock at the door, she knew this time, was not the pizza guy. It was my brother.
It was time, she thought, to tell Eric to stop coming over. Katherine let him knock twice before getting up.

“I’m coming,” she told the door.

When she opened it, Eric walked into the room without saying anything. He had a bruised look, his face troubled.

“What happened?” she asked. “Is it Pilot?”

“It’s my father.”

She closed the door behind him. She went to the radio and turned it off.

Eric sank to the edge of her mattress, overcoat still on, hands rubbing together like a fly. “I never imagined—” he began,
and then he stopped.

There was something different about him. “Just tell me,” Katherine said. “Just say it.”

“He flew away.” It was more of a laugh than anything else, although his tone was unidentifiable.

Katherine pushed her hair out of the way, and knelt beside him.

“He was with Pilot and, and Patricia. And apparently, he simply flew off somewhere. They haven’t found his airplane.”

“Flew off—”

“Over the ocean. Into the fucking wild blue yonder.”

“On purpose?” Katherine said, checking.

“He knew.” Eric looked at her, eyes wide. “He knew what Pilot was doing, that he was looking into all this, all this
shit
.”

“Eric, come on.”

Katherine wanted to ask him, wanted to know if he’d ever suspected his father, but she couldn’t. Not now. “Do you think it
upset him?”

“That is the understatement of the fucking century.” Eric’s head was shaking. “He killed himself, didn’t he?”

“How is Pilot?”

“I’m not so sure,” Eric said. “I have to fly down there. We’re having the memorial service in Florida. That’s what he wanted.”

“He left a note?”

“Nothing that anyone has found yet.”

Katherine sat down on the mattress next to him and placed an arm around his shoulders. “I’m sorry,” she said,
knowing she sounded sincere but also knowing she didn’t feel it. “I really am.”

He leaned into her, dropping his head onto her neck. “I’m like him,” Eric said. “He and I, we’re just alike.”

“I know,” Katherine said. “I know.”

“What am I going to do? How am I—” His voice broke.

“I don’t know.” Katherine forced understanding into her voice. Whenever this happened, she realized, the world hardened a
bit more around her. Whenever something like this happened, she felt herself become that much more cynical, out of touch.
Why couldn’t she feel as much sympathy as she wanted to? Was something wrong with her? “I should tell you,” she said, “about
what I’ve discovered.”

“Discovered?”

“When Pilot was, when he was lost in the woods—”

“Yes.”

“—he met someone.”

“What are you talking about?”

“There’s a man, a homeless man, just an alcoholic, really, who lives in the drainage tunnel under the highway.”

“You’re kidding me.”

“He knows Pilot.”

Eric shook his head, an expression of bewilderment. “So?”

“So he knows, at least I think he knows, where Pilot put the evidence, or whatever it is Pilot put out there that he, that
he thinks is evidence.”

Eric was looking at Katherine now, his eyes red, his face drained. “Do you think I had anything to do with—”

Katherine said nothing.

“—with Fiona?”

Katherine stared back at him for a long moment, until finally she said, “No, no, Eric, I don’t.”

Eric sighed. “I was starting to think the entire world was against me.”

“I’m going out there to talk to him again,” she said flatly. “He told me to—”

“Who?”

“The man in the tunnel. He told me to come back in three days.”

“You’re crazy. You’re not going out to—”

“I can’t help it. I think whatever Pilot may have hidden out there will help him clear everything up.”

“Katherine,” Eric said, “look what this has already done to my family. My father has—”

Katherine couldn’t respond. She just said, “We have to find it. Whatever it is, we have to find it.”

“Why? What psychological reason do you—”

“We just do,” she said.

“That’s enough, Katherine.” My brother rose from the mattress. “This is coming to an end.”

The next day Katherine pulled into the Better-Than-New Auto World and asked the first salesman who approached her—a young
man wearing a cheap suit and carefully combed red hair—where she could find Jerry Cleveland. “He’s with another customer right
now, ma’am,” the young salesman said formally, touching his bangs. “But perhaps I can be of service?”

Katherine smiled coolly. “I’m not buying anything today.” She got out of her car, slammed the door behind her, and walked
into the sales office.

Cleveland had his foot up on a chair and was smoking a cigarette, waving it around like a wand, in the middle of a pitch.
“—lime-green Mercury Monarch,” he was saying, “a
truly attractive automobile, beautifully maintained. We do all the detailing ourselves, you know, making sure everything’s
absolutely perfect before it even hits the lot.” He nodded in Katherine’s direction, indicating that she should wait. The
middle-aged couple looked hard at the agreement on the gray metal desk in front of them, then they looked at each other with
expressions of grave concern. Everyone waited this way.

Come on, Katherine thought. Just buy the fucking lime-green Mercury Monarch and let’s get on with our lives.

“We’ll have to think about it,” the man said sadly.

The woman looked up, eyes drowning in her face. “Can we get back to you?”

Katherine pushed the hair out of hers. She bit her fingertip, chewing away a piece of flesh.

“There’s been a certain amount of interest in this particular model,” Cleveland said. “I don’t know if—”

“But we can’t just—”

“Ah hell, go ahead and take your time.” Jerry Cleveland smiled a broad, generous smile. “You spend some time thinking about
it, and if it’s still here when you’re done, we’ll work something out, something that’ll make you happy.” Then he pointed
to Katherine. “Would you two mind if I took a moment to speak with my daughter?”

“Oh,” the woman said, her eyes brightening, “not at all.”

“Go right ahead,” her husband agreed.

Cleveland came toward Katherine then, his expression grim, his features as gray as his cigarette’s ash.