He had wanted more than the one child, but it hadn't worked out that way. They just had the one. Rose was thirty-three when Todd was born and had almost lost hope. If you have more than one kid, at least there are others if something happens to one. Not that he's blaming Rose.
Sometimes, when he allows himself to think about Todd, he is hit with an actual pain, a physical ache he can feel in his muscles and sinew and organs.
He notices the bathroom door is closed. “Rose,” he says. “Rosie, you in there?”
“Go away.”
He tries the knob, finds it locked. He sighs, caught between anger and resignation. “Rosie,” he says to the door. “Open up. I need a couple of aspirin. I've got a hell of a headache.”
After a moment or two the door opens enough for her to extend an arm, hand him a bottle of Excedrin. He should push it open, take her by surprise, grab her and shake her and put an end to this nonsense. He takes the bottle and waitsâhelplesslyâwhile she withdraws her hand. He listens to the thick chink of the lock being turned.
Downstairs, he stands at the kitchen sink, turns on the faucet, runs the cold tap until it's icy, then cups his hands and ducks his face. Again and again he bathes his face, but this does not relieve the tightness across his temples, the pounding behind his eyes. He takes the Excedrin, then walks down the hall and opens the front door, stares across his driveway to the lot next door. The boy has gone inside.
The lawn over there needs mowing, and the old growth on the foundation shrubs hasn't been trimmed. A street like this, once you let one place get run down, the whole neighborhood goes to hell. He wonders which realtor handled the rental, who he should complain to. Looking over at the house where he now has for a neighbor a perfect nutcase, Ned again feels a heavy, familiar helplessness.
He would like to ask someone what do to about Rose. Doc Blessing hasn't been able to help. Oh, he gave her pills, but after a week, she refused to take them. Reverend Wills has talked to them both, but that hasn't changed a thing. It's as if Ned married one womanâa woman who was a kind and good wife, a good mother, too, who took an interest in thingsâand then one day, an accident, a stupid goddamned accident, and nothing was the same.
Rose closed. Just plain shut up. The first thing was she refused to drive. Just downright refused to drive. Initially, he supposed it was because she was afraid of something like getting in an accident herself. Patiently he pointed out how foolish this was, how lightning didn't strike twice, how after the Covington kid drowned in the lake, the rest of the family hadn't stopped swimming, for Christ's sake. “Sell the car,” she told him. Sell the car? The Pontiac he bought her just the month before? The first new car they ever had? The car she was so crazy about she washed it nearly every day, like a teenager? He put it off, offering excuses, sure that she'd come around, until the day she told him if he didn't sell it, she would. He knew by the expression on her face that she meant it.
He keeps waiting for her to get over her grief. He tries to recall what it was like before. Nights, he sits in his recliner, staring at reruns of “M*A*S*H” and tries to remember Rose. His Rose. Before. He goes back to the beginning, when he and Rose were young, long before Todd. One night his brain slipped right back to a time before they were married, the picture so clear it could have been playing on the screen in front of him. A hot summer night. He and Rose in the car. A Chevy, the blue-and-cream '63. They were heading over to the lake, to the old pavilion where they used to hold Saturday night dances, the one the town still rents out to the Polish for their polka parties. Lying there next to Rosie on the army blanket he took from the Chevy trunk, lying so still he scarcely dared to breathe, resting his hand on the fullness of her breast, feeling her heart rise and fall under his palm, feeling the life there, feeling all the promise Rose held in that sweet and perfect breast . . . Lying there he felt his hand begin to tremble, shake beyond his control. Then she put her hand over his, steadying them both. He was so in love with her then, he would have given her anything, given her the sun had she asked, so in love with her it scared him.
Remembering never helps. It only makes the ache worse. In addition to losing a son, he's lost his wife, too.
Why can't she come back to him? Doesn't she think he misses Todd? Doesn't she know something breaks inside a man when he buries his son? Doesn't she know that when he put Todd in the ground, a lot of his dreams were buried there, too?
God knows, he loved his son. And he loves Rose; he really does. He loves Rose, but she is trying that love. Things happen to people: Accidents. Illness. But people get on with their lives. Christ, it isn't right, not normal to act like the funeral was yesterday, instead of five years ago.
Rose's grief, Ned thinks. Rose's grief will kill me, too.
CHAPTER 6
ROSE
“ROSE? ” She hears Ned calling her from the hall. “Rosie? You in there?” The bathroom is the only room in the house with a lock, but even this can't prevent his questions from sliding through wood panels. “Rosie?” His voice holds a mixture of concern and aggrievement. It seeps through the door like smoke.
She can't make herself answer. She sits on the toilet and rocks back and forth, her arms wrapped around her midsection. She hasn't had a spell like this for a while. Weeks. Months.
After a while, the sound of laughter pulls her to the window, and she looks down on the neighbor's yard. That boy is still outside. Now he is kicking a ball around the grass. She yanks the shade to the sill, as if it were possible to shut out the unfairness of it. How is it possible that Opal Gates be given a child,
blessed
with a child when she is little more than a child herself, when she doesn't know enoughâor care enoughâto put shoes on her boy's feet?
She moans, and the sound curls inside her chest like smoke, too deep to escape.
Ned knocks again.
“Rose, let me in. I need some aspirin. I've got a hell of a headache.”
There's aspirin in the kitchen, on the shelf by the sink, but she goes to the medicine cabinet, takes out the Excedrin, unlocks the bathroom door.
She catches a quick glimpse of him, his face pale, slack with pain, and feels a spasm of guilt. Recently he's been getting these headaches. She is truly sorry that she can't help him, can't come out of the bathroom. She can almost picture what she should do, what in fact she has done in the distant past, what he wants now. She should lead him to the living room, to his green recliner. You just relax, she should say. Just sit here and rest while I go heat some milk. He'd close his eyes, and she'd run a hand over the furrow between his brows, her fingers cool on his skin. When she came back with the cup of warm milk, she'd bring a washcloth, one she'd wrung in ice water. Rosie, he'd say, you're an angel. What would I do without you? He'd reach an arm out, his eyes still closed, and his hand would rest on the curve of her hip, the touch comforting to them both, more soothing than words. She allows herself to hold this picture for a moment, but the woman offering the cup of warm milk, the woman who would welcome the weight of a heavy hand on her hip, this woman is someone elseânot her. She lets this scene slip from her grasp, from possibility. She hands the bottle to him, relocks the door, shuts out the sight of his tired face. There is room in her heart for only so much pain.
She listens to his footsteps on the stairs; then the house falls quiet. Has he gone to the living room? Is he in the recliner? She hears the muted sound of voices from the television.
The medicine cabinet is still open. She straightens out the contents, the minutiae of their lives. Q-Tips, toothpaste, dental floss, an old half-used tube of hemorrhoid ointment, Ben-Gay, tweezers, a hand mirror, a box of Band-Aids. A vial of oil of cloves, nearly empty. Ned's Tums and his bottle of Pepto-Bismol. Jergens lotion.
Downstairs, the phone rings, a shrill sound that cuts into the air. For a moment, she fears it is Anderson Jeffrey, although in the past he has called only in the morning.
THE FIRST NIGHT OF THE WRITING CLASS â THE ROOM smelled of chalk and dry books, of anxious hope and dusty disappointment, like every childhood classroom she'd ever been in. That first night, he came in looking all neat and newly shaved with the cleanest fingernails she'd ever seen on a man outside of Doc Blessing and Reverend Willsâcause enough for suspicion right thereâand before they had time to catch their breaths or decide whether or not they liked him, Mr. Anderson Jeffrey had them writing.
“Make a list of things that are important to you,” he said. “Things you care about.” All around her, Rose heard the scratchings of pens and pencils on paper, as if forty years had vanished in one instant. She felt sweaty. Sick. It had been a mistake to come, but leaving would be worse.
She risked a glance at the other students. Middle-aged women mostly, although there were two older menâboth beardedâand one young woman with a layer of makeup you wouldn't wear at night let alone in broad daylight. Rose couldn't imagine what any of them were writing down. What was so important to them, and how did they know it so fast, without even taking the time you'd think you'd need to consider something like that? She dropped her hands to her lap, smudged her palms across her skirt. Here she was past fifty, and she might as well be twelve with the scratchy, busy sound of the other students writing still holding the power to paralyze her. She wondered if it was too late to transfer to the quilt-making class.
At least she could be doing something productive.
Milk,
she printed carefully.
Eggs. Coffee. Bisquick. Tums.
For Ned. The bottle by the kitchen sink was nearly empty.
Tuna fish.
Starkist was on sale this week.
Margarine. Ajax cleanser.
She was almost finished when she heard Anderson Jeffrey say, “Okay. That was the warm-up. Now we're going to write.” Hot writing, he called it.
“Just choose a word from your list,” he said. “Pick a word that speaks to you and write whatever comes to mind.” As if it were that simple.
“What if nothing comes?” the painted woman asked. He smiled and said, “Put down anything; just keep your pencil moving. Or write, âNothing is coming; I can't write. Nothing is coming; I can't write.' And keep doing it over and over until something comes.”
Rose couldn't imagine. What kind of teacher was he anyway?
There was a giggle from the back of the room.
Anderson Jeffrey smiled. “Trust the process,” he said.
“How long?” one of the bearded men asked.
“Until you stop,” he said.
Rose stared at her paper.
Milk. Eggs. Bisquick. Tuna fish.
If she'd dared, she would have left right then. She supposed she could write
Nothing is coming
for a while and that was easier than the commotion of leaving. She took up her pen and put down the words
I can't write;
Nothing is coming,
filling nearly half the page.
She was beginning another line when her eyes flashed up to the grocery list and landed on
Tuna fish
. She copied the words and then, without even planning it, she was writing about the sandwiches her mother used to make for picnics when she was a child, how she'd empty the contents of a can, mash it with a fork, then fold in celery she'd chopped fine, and then salad dressingâalways salad dressing instead of mayonnaise so there would be just the right touch of sweetnessâall the time humming gaily so that for years after Rose associated tuna fish with happiness and the promise of an outing at the lake.
And then the class was over.
She imagined Ned would be furious when he learned how he poured good money down the drain so she could write a grocery list, a half page filled with
I can't write,
and a paragraph about fifty-year-old tuna fish. Of course, as it turned out, he had a lot more to worry about than the money he had wasted on the class.
ROSE PUSHES ALL THOUGHTS OF ANDERSON JEFFREY AND THE writing class from her mind. Perhaps she will go downstairs, act as if this were an ordinary night, as if she has not spent hours locked in the bathroom. Before she can gather herself together, Ned returns.
“Are you going to be making dinner?” The aggrieved tone in his voice has gained ascendancy. He has traveled from concern to exhaustion to anger. She can't face any of this. He wants too much from her.
When she doesn't answer, he gives up, goes back downstairs. Kitchen sounds float up, reach her through the locked door. A cupboard door closing. A pan slapped down on the range with more force than required. Sharp noises, each a messenger of Ned's anger, telegrams of his resentment, his frustration. The sound of the television is louder now. The excited tones of a sports announcer rise up the stairs.
She can't stay here forever. Eventually, she'll have to unlock the door, return to life. She raises the window shade and watches the sky turn pink.
Red sky at night, sailor's delight.
It doesn't matter to her. Good day or bad. Rain or sun. In the house below, the ball game ends abruptly. She hears the distant sound of water running through the pipes as the toilet flushes in the downstairs bath. He is done trying to reach her. Through the door she hears the sounds of familiar ritual as he readies himself for bed. His footsteps on the stairs. The chink of coins as he takes them from his pockets and sets them on the dresser, the rustling of clothes as he undresses. The sound of a drawer opening as he takes out his pajamas. The click of the switch on the bedside lamp. The long sigh he always gives as he climbs into bed, as if letting out an extra breath he's held all day. She pictures him slipping between sheets he won't notice are fresh, being careful to stay on his side of the bed, even though she is not yet there. She can imagine the scent he brings to the bed, a smell that recently has altered. Body chemistry betrays us, she thinks. It reveals every change. Doctors should pay more attention to this.
She remembers smells: the clean milky smell of Todd as an infant, his firm little body perfumed with the intoxicating scent of baby sweat, the occasional acidity of spit-up; then later, when he turned from toddler to boy, the scent had sharpened to a childish sweat, a smell that held the fresh richness of wind and sun, like laundry just taken in from the line. And later still, the teenage years when he'd come home from the practice field wrapped in a serious, manly smell. Vibrant and salty and strong.
And Ned. How she once loved the scent of him. Coccooned in his arms, she would inhale the odor seeping from his pores, drinking it in as if she could never get enough. Lately there has been an acrid smell that reminds her of her father, a sourness that hangs in the air around his skin. Again it brings home to her that Ned is getting older.
She lifts a forearm to her nose, inhales. Her skin smells dry, like something stored in tissue.
SHE OPENS THE DOOR, GOES OUT TO THE HALL, TO TODD ' S room. She stands for a moment at the threshold.
After the accident, she would come here every night. She believed the strength of her love, her connection to her son, couldn't be sheared, not even by death. She believed that somehow he would come to her. If you believe enough, it can happen. So she sat in his room waiting, holding on to something of hisâa piece of his clothing, a favorite toy, once his toothbrush, another time a sweat-stiffened sock she could not bring herself to throw away or launder.
Now she continues down the hall, past their room. The sound of Ned's snoring drifts out to her. He has left a night-light on at the top of the stairs, and she uses its faint glow to navigate her way down the steps. In the kitchen, she flips on the overhead light. It takes a moment for her eyes to adjust to the harsh brightness. Her empty laundry basket sits by the back door, a reminder that the wash is still on the line. Ned has left his dishes in the sink, and she reconstructs his meal from the traces. Toast, a can of Campbell's Hearty Man Vegetable Beef Soup, a wedge of leftover tart cherry pie.
There is one slice left, and she warms it in the microwaveâanother appliance she distrusts, all those invisible, powerful waves doing who knows what. She eats standing at the counter, letting the cherry filling sit in her mouth with agreeable sourness. When she is finished, she fills the sink with water, squirts in detergent, submerges her hands to their chore.
After she has rinsed the last plate, she checks the back door. Ned has already locked it. Thirty-five years ago, when they first moved into this house, neither of them locked a door, but Normal has changed a lot in three decades. Now, in addition to the Yale, they have a dead bolt on both their front and back doors.
She listens to the familiar creaking of the house as it settles into sleep. The droning of the refrigerator, the deeper hum of the furnace, the scratching of a rose briar against the kitchen window. They should be cut back, before the deep frost. Another chore for Ned.
“Foolish of us to keep this place,” he told her over dinner last night. “It's too big for the two of us. Too much upkeep.” They were eating roast pork, and when he said that about the house being too big for them, the piece of meat she was swallowing stuck in her chest. For the rest of the night it stayed there, lodged and burning beneath her breastbone. Finally, sometime after midnight, she had to get out of bed and take two of his Tums.
More and more he has been talking about a time in the near futureâthree to five years is his planâwhen they will sell the house and the station, take the profits, and head south. Buy a place in Florida. He painted the picture for her. No more winter blizzards, or state taxes, or days spent repairing busted transmissions. When he talks this way, Rose's heart congeals with something close to hatred. Like the time three years ago when they repainted the kitchen and he wanted to brush right over the pencil marks on the framework of the doorway going into the hall, lines demarcating Todd's growth from toddler to teen. Rose wouldn't hear of it. These are the visual marks that their son existed, that he stood precisely two feet eight inches at two years and five feet three at twelve. Why would Ned want to forget?
“Let's make a move while we're still young enough to enjoy life,” he said through a mouthful of pork, as if Rose could ever again enjoy life. “It makes a lot of sense,” he said.
Not to Rose. Nothing on earth could make her move from this house. Just the thought of someone else moving in makes her physically ill. The first thing the new owners would do is paint over those lines on the kitchen doorjamb, erasing the yardstick of their son's growth. Doesn't Ned understand? This house is Todd's house. If Ned wants to get rid of the station, that is his business, but she isn't selling the house.
Lord knows, since Todd's death she has no illusion that she can control one single thing in this universe, but she can't help but cling to the nearly superstitious belief that if she can just freeze things, keep them the same, she and Ned will escape further harm and she will get a sign from Todd. In spite of all contrary evidence she clings to this last belief.