The Air We Breathe (12 page)

He ordered grilled salmon, she fettuccine Alfredo, which she regretted as soon as the words were out of her mouth. Yes, it was one of the least expensive items on the menu, but it was also one of the messiest. The sauce would be in her lap by the end of the evening.

They made small talk for a while, trying to find a comfortable groove, or more likely trying to wear one in. She asked about his job; he wanted to know about hers. They kept it light and impersonal, staying away from former spouses and children and anything controversial. No politics. No religion. Finally, Andrew said, “I have to know.”

“What?”

“What made you call?”

Claire twirled noodles around her fork, set it on the edge of her bowl. “I don’t know.”

“Yes you do.”

“Hanna,” she said.

“Who’s that?”

“This little girl who . . . It’s a long story.”

“I have time.” Andrew took his napkin from his lap, wiped his mouth and set it on the table, near his place. “Told the sitter midnight.”

“Do you remember last spring that bank robbery where a man got shot and killed, and his daughter was taken?”

“Yeah. Horrible.”

“Well, the girl who was there . . . ? That’s Hanna.”

“What about her?”

Claire told him the story—most of it. And when she finished, Andrew tore a roll in half, swiped it around his plate, and said, “That’s amazing.”

“I know.”

“God is good, Claire.”

Her shoulder twitched. She picked up her water goblet, stem between her middle fingers, glass cradled in her palm. Sipped. The ice bumped against her lips.

Andrew ran his hand down his tie, smoothing it. “Was it something I said?”

“What do you mean?”

“Do you not think God is good?”

“Of course He is.”

“But you got quiet.”

“Sorry. I didn’t mean to.”

“I think you did,” Andrew said.

Claire wadded the napkin from her lap and put it on the
table. It uncrumpled by itself, as if it lived. “Don’t presume to know what I mean and how I feel.”

“I know because I’ve been there.”

“And where is that?”

“Confessing with my mouth but not my heart.”

The waiter came, refilling their water glasses and taking their near-empty dinner plates. “Can I interest you in dessert?” he asked.

“No, just the check,” Claire said. “Thank you.”

“Is that my cue?” Andrew asked, as the waiter turned away. “Time to say thanks for the conversation and maybe our paths will cross at the grocery store sometime?”

“If you say so, since you seem to have it all figured out.”

“I’ve certainly been given the cold shoulder by a woman before. I pursued my wife for six months before she said two words to me, so I know what a brush-off looks like.”

“I’m not brushing you off,” she said. “I had a nice time.”

“Just not nice enough to see me again.”

The waiter slid the leatherette check folder on the table; Claire reached for it, but Andrew snatched it from under her hand. “A brush-off and a clear ‘I can take care of the check myself so he doesn’t think he wasted his time or money on me.’”

“I wouldn’t want to assume you’re paying.”

“It’s a date, Claire. Of course I’m paying. Dense I may be, but I am not a Neanderthal.” He slid several bills into the clear plastic pocket. “Come on. I’ll take you home.”

On the drive to the restaurant they’d barely spoken, but Andrew had kept the radio on, so it hadn’t felt as uncomfortable as the return to her house, in the silence, Claire listening to the rattle of the road beneath the tires, the buzzing of the
wind through the slightly unsealed door. Andrew glided into the driveway, shifted his Toyota Prius into park, and unhooked his seat belt. “I did have a really great time tonight. And I would like to see you again.”

“I don’t think so. But I appreciate the dinner. It was—”

“Nice. I know.”

“I’m sorry, Andrew. I guess I’m just not good for this yet.”

“For what? Eating food? Talking in a car? Making a poor widower feel like he’s about as interesting as a bowl of cold oatmeal?” He fiddled with the key chain hanging in the ignition. “Maybe you’ll give me a few points for making you laugh.”

“It’s not you. Really.”

“Will you at least let me walk you to the door? It will keep my gentlemanly sensibilities inflated.”

“I can do that.”

She pushed open the door, and he came around to the passenger side to close it for her. He walked behind her, and when she climbed the one step onto the patio, he didn’t, remaining on the concrete walkway. She stood a head taller than him then, standing on the stoop in the fancy shoes she hadn’t worn since the Christmas party at Daniel’s office, only days after she learned she was pregnant with Alexis and everyone was still alive and happy. “Thank you. I did have a nice time. Seriously.”

“The pleasure was all mine. Seriously.”

Claire smirked, shook her head. “Well, good night, I guess.”

“Claire?”

“What?”

“I do think I know it all. It’s one of my incredibly annoying personality traits, along with four million others that I wish
you’ll one day get to see so you can tell me over and over how incredibly annoying they are.”

“What are you talking about?”

“I want to see you again. Since that utterly disastrous day at lunch, I haven’t been able to get you off my mind.”

“I didn’t even—”

“I know. I know. I can’t explain it. But I’ve been praying you’d call. And praying I’d stop thinking of you if I wasn’t going to hear from you again. But there you were, on the other end of the line, when I picked up the other day.”

“That’s crazy.”

“I’m an architect, Claire. I’m about as dull and predictable as they get. I don’t have grand schemes, and I don’t expect to turn into some middle schooler over a woman I hardly know. But there it is. You’re right, it is crazy. And what makes it crazier . . .” He stopped, tugged the sleeves of his jacket, first the left, then the right. Shook out his arms. “What makes it crazier is that I haven’t felt this way about anyone since my wife.”

“I don’t know what to say.”

“Say you’ll go out with me again. Once more. And if you can’t stand me after that, I won’t say another word. I’ll just wave to you in Price Chopper if I see you squeezing oranges. That’s it. I promise one more dinner won’t kill you.”

She hesitated, watching this accomplished, handsome man quiver in the yellow patio light, pouring out his feelings with a rare honesty, knowing his chances for success were slim indeed. But she found him endearing, and she hadn’t been pursued in a long time. It was flattering. “You’re right. I think I can handle one more meal with you.”

“I know I’m right,” Andrew said, his smile all teeth, lips
thinning, nearly disappearing. “That’s one of my other incredibly annoying habits, that I think I’m always right.”

“So, I’ll give you a ring?”

“Oh, no. You don’t get a chance to back out. I’ll call you. ’Night, Claire.”

“Good night.”

Andrew walked back to his car, jiggling the change in his pants pockets. He didn’t look back at her as he slid into the driver’s seat, and if he waved after turning on his headlights and backing from the driveway, Claire couldn’t tell through the dark windshield. She waited until she saw his car stop at the corner of her street, turn left, and disappear behind the evergreen buffer the developers had planted to separate the neighborhood from the main road.

Inside, she undressed, squirted some baby oil on a cotton ball and wiped away her mascara—waterproof so it wouldn’t wash off—and scrubbed her face with a washcloth. She twisted her hair away from her face, put on a nightgown even though she hated them—they rode up in the night, tangling around her thighs—but all her other pajamas were either in the hamper or too warm to wear. Then she puffed her pillows and burrowed back against them, covered her legs only from the knees down, and turned to the next puzzle in her book. She set the timer, tried to fill in the words, but her eyes kept wandering to her open closet and the dress she’d worn, hanging in the center of the bar between her plain thermal shirts, her cotton sweaters, her printed tees.

Tomorrow she’d go to Macy’s for something new to wear the next time Andrew asked her out.

H
ANNA
N
OVEMBER
2002

They didn’t get the Jesus channel on her television. She searched late at night, when her mother was sleeping, waited until Susan snored and then waited some more, until the snoring smoothed and became one long, rough breath going in and coming back out. When that happened, Hanna could roll out from under her arm without waking her, and if the snoring did start up again because of too much jostling, she waited on the floor until the sleep sound came again.

She knew all the creaks in the hallway’s floorboards, the stairs, so she could walk downstairs without stepping on any of the loud places. By her bedroom door she needed to stay close to the floor molding, so close she had to walk on her toes with her back flat against the wallpaper. In the middle she jumped to the opposite side, avoided an area of dark wood outside the bathroom, and then tightroped along the center board until she reached the stairs. She had to skip
the top two, swinging herself over them by clutching the banister. Then three more safe steps and a jump onto the area rug in the entryway, closer to the front door, avoiding the very bottom stair.

Most nights she didn’t sleep. She tried staying in bed, but there were only so many sheep to count, and when she tried, the sheep morphed into Thin Man, or Fat Guy, or Short One, and then her body prickled with sweat and each hair on her arms and legs stretched up as if reaching for the sky, tugging a little bit of skin with it—and it hurt. And she remembered the smell of the kennel, of her father’s blood.

She couldn’t lie there with her thoughts. The TV helped.

The closest thing she found to the Jesus channel was an infomercial for Time Life praise music. Hanna watched people with raised arms, swaying back and forth, tears running down their faces and star-shaped shimmers on their pupils. Were they happy? She couldn’t tell, though she thought they must be or they wouldn’t be on a commercial. No one wanted to buy music that made them sad. At least she figured as much.

Sometimes she watched
Law & Order
episodes; they were on three different stations. Or she turned on QVC or a cooking show or the TV Guide channel. And then she decided to hide the book she took from the basket at Claire’s church in the living room. One morning, while Susan took a shower, she used a steak knife from the silverware drawer and cut a slit in the underside of the couch, in the lining hidden by the dust ruffle. The book fit snugly, and Hanna couldn’t imagine her mother ever finding it there.

It would have been easier for her to just tell her mother about the book. She didn’t know why she thought Susan would be mad. No,
mad
wasn’t the right word. She felt deep
down, though, her mother wouldn’t approve of the book, like she didn’t like the Catholics who took up the road when she needed to get to the store.

Like she didn’t like Claire.

Hanna reached under the couch and found the book.
New Testament—Psalms—Proverbs
. She had started reading at the beginning, but there was a whole list of names she couldn’t pronounce, so she skipped through to the part called Luke because that was her daddy’s middle name, and her grandpa’s real name, even though everyone had called him Loop and she had no idea why. But she read what she could even though there were lots of words she didn’t understand, some really pretty words she wanted to write down but didn’t, and the letters were so small. She thought she had a magnifying glass in her bug-collecting kit but couldn’t find it. So she held the book close, squinting, learning about old lady Elizabeth’s baby leaping for joy when it heard the voice of young girl Mary—Jesus’s mother—and Hanna understood something she hadn’t before.

Why she loved Claire.

That day on the playground, even before she saw the cross necklace, she had something inside her jump, too, when Claire had asked to push her. It was this, what the book called the Holy Ghost. She didn’t know anything about ghosts, but she knew she felt safe around Claire in a way she didn’t feel with her mother. Not just safe. Close.

It was too cold to sit outside now. Her mother parked her van in the spot directly in front of the store so she could see Claire and Hanna if they sat at the table in the store window. And that was where they sat, after Hanna ordered her cone
and Claire poured hot water over a tea bag—Lipton, which she said she hardly ever drank because it tasted like dingy water—and covered the paper cup with a lid.

“My mom is mad I’m here,” Hanna said.

“Why do you think that?”

“I just know.” She’d thought it would be fun to use a straw today, to stick it deep into the ice cream and pull it out, the middle plugged with mint chip, and then suck it out the end. But it didn’t work well at all, like a too-thick milk shake. She chomped down on the plastic and scraped out the cream, jabbed the straw in again. “I wanted to go with you by myself. Without her following.”

“She’s trying to do what’s best, Hanna. She doesn’t want something to happen to you . . .” Claire stopped, and Hanna knew that she had almost added
again
but stopped herself. “And, really, she doesn’t know me. Neither do you.”

“I do.”

“Not really. I could be . . . not a nice person.”

“You’re not.”

“No, I’m not. But your mother is right to be cautious.”

Ice cream dripped over Hanna’s fingers. She went to the counter, asked for a bowl, and the teen girl with the messy ponytail and eyebrow ring gave her one, smiling, and a lid, too. “Don’t forget a spoon,” she said, and Hanna took one. She turned her cone upside down into the plastic bowl and sat back down at the table.

“You’re not hungry today?” Claire asked.

She shrugged, unsnapped her coat pocket. “I took this,” she said, gently pushing the Bible toward Claire, the cover curled back, corner creased. Jagged paper triangles stuck out from the pages, like teeth. “The sign said I could.”

“That’s fine, sweetie.” Claire touched her hand. “Have you been reading it?”

“Some.”

“Is this what you have questions about?”

Outside the window, a horn blared—two short bursts—and Hanna looked out to see her mother motioning, tapping her wrist.

Claire said, “You’d better go. We can talk Saturday, or maybe next week.”

But Hanna shook her head. “You have to tell me first.”

“What, Hanna?”

“You have to tell me . . .” She felt a cold puff of air on her hair and heard her mother’s voice.

“I know you saw me, Hanna-Bee. We have to go. I have to be at Cindy’s in less than fifteen minutes.”

Hanna slipped the book from the table back into her pocket, snapped the flap closed with one hand, pushing the metal buttons against her hip until they popped into place. “Claire can take me home.”

“Hanna,” her mother said, in that
don’t start this again
voice. “We have to go now.”

She didn’t want to leave, but Claire had the same look on her face as her mother—two adults ready to back each other up, like adults do—and so scooted from the booth. Susan closed her coat for her. “Want the rest of your ice cream?”

Hanna shook her head.

“Throw it out, then.”

She did, the sides of the plastic sticky with melted green goo, and after pushing the bowl through the swinging door of the trash, she wiped her fingers on her jeans.

“I’ll see you later, Hanna,” Claire said.

“Okay,” she whispered.

Her mother jerked her head toward Claire in acknowledgment and then, holding the door open for Hanna, bumped her through and outside and into the van.

“I told you not to do that again in front of her,” Susan said.

“She’s nice.”

“I don’t care, Hanna. You don’t know everything. Remember that.”

“I know that Cindy canceled. I heard it on the machine.”

Her mother turned around, her face scrunched with anger. “Okay, little girl. I don’t want to hear another word out of you. You may think you can get away with whatever you want, and maybe I’ve let you, but not anymore. No more Wednesdays and Saturdays with Claire. I don’t care what Diane says. We don’t need her. You don’t need her.”

Little girl. She called me little girl.

She suddenly felt threatened by her own mother, and it scared her. Susan meant nothing with the words—not like
he
did—but it still brought up all the things she’d been trying to push down deep, to keep down deep—like when she had been sick with the flu in first grade, and she had to throw up but didn’t want to, because she wanted to go to school that day for the Christmas party, and she kept her hand clamped over her mouth, swallowing any tickle of vomit that inched up her throat. She managed then, even ate one of the candy-cane cupcakes Mrs. Torino had made, white with red swirls in the cake, and red icing, too, with crushed candy canes sprinkled all over the top. She didn’t know, though, how long she could keep what was inside her now from coming up. Each time Dr. Diane asked questions, it got harder not to remember.

She was so afraid of living it all again.

At home, she ran into the house and slammed her bedroom door, locking it.

“Hanna. Hanna, open up,” her mother called through the door, and when she didn’t, Susan went away, returning minutes later, and Hanna heard scraping in the doorknob as her mother tried to jimmy the lock. It opened, and Susan came in to find Hanna facedown on the bed, coat on, boots on. Hanna felt her mother touch her back, but she didn’t speak, didn’t roll over. Eventually Susan left without closing the door. And Hanna waited until she heard the murmur of her mother’s voice on the telephone before she snaked her hand into her pocket to touch the little book. Just holding it calmed her.

She had two questions for Claire. She wanted to know if Claire felt it, too—that jump in the womb, that Holy Ghost who wasn’t scary at all, the
pull
when she and the woman were together.

And she wanted to know if the friend Claire talked about—Jesus—would still love her if He knew she’d been the one who made the decision to go to the post office first, and not the bank. If she had chosen the other way, her father would be alive.

Oh, Gee. Jesus, I mean. Jesus. Help me.

Only she didn’t know what help she wanted this time.