Recognizing that he could kill her. That James could throw her in the root cellar, strap a collar around her neck, beat her with the belt until her flesh was streaked with the red of blood and the purple of bruise. Clip on the tether and leave her there, climb the steps into the light, and then slam the doors shut, draw the bolt, and go lay in the sun himself for a day, a week, a lifetime. The recognition, and then the turning away, leaving her on the grass.
James shook in the car, the steering wheel trembled under his hand and he had to pull over. The knowledge that he could have had revenge, that he could have killed his mother, and that it would have felt so good to do, fell over his shoulders like a shawl, but without the warmth. Just a cold that felt like fear.
James thought of Cooley, of shoving her aside the night before, his mother’s rage boiling up inside from a place he never could find, he never could pinpoint, to dig out, to excise, to throw along the side of the road. Or bury forever. He could never let that happen to Cooley. Not by his hand. She’d already been there, and James had to learn to uncurl his fingers, release the fist, and leave his arm quietly at his side.
The rage was in Cooley too. It was in her mother. The smoldering cigarettes that burned the outside of Cooley’s skin were under the surface now and if James was ever to put them out, he had to douse his own rage first.
James took his hand off the anniversary clock and turned back onto the highway. The first bump he hit sent the clock over on its side. James winced, but didn’t reach out to stop it, to pick it back up. He left it there, let it be jarred the rest of the way.
James pulled into the wooded road that led to his mother’s house, then parked the car some distance away. He wanted to walk through the woods, approach the house from the back, look to see if anyone was home. If the way was clear, he was going to take the anniversary clock down the root cellar and bury it. He was going to bury his mother. He was going to bury her voice, her heartbeat, forever.
James tucked the clock under his arm and grabbed the snow shovel from his trunk. Setting off, he followed the path he knew well from his few afternoons and evenings of freedom. James glanced at familiar trees, remembered climbing them, feeling a joy when he found a branch where he could stretch out and survey the woods, his kingdom, almost like a normal boy. He tripped once and the clock sang a note in protest, but James tried not to hear. It had to be done. It was like a dog that had to be put to sleep; his mother had to be put down. She had to be put out of his misery.
Coming out in the backyard, James stood by a tree and looked around. There were no cars in the driveway, the windows and doors were shut. The house looked well cared for, cheerful in the sunlight. James moved slowly around it, glancing quickly in windows, but he saw no one. The new owners must be away at their jobs.
James approached the root cellar. He had to put the clock and the shovel on the ground to slide back the bolt, lift the doors. They creaked, then fell away, landing on the grass with a soft thump. The sunlight rolled in and James walked down the gray cement stairs, stippled here and there with the green of moss.
At the bottom, the smell of damp surrounded him and he stopped dead. It was all still there.
The dog cage. The collars, hung on nails on the wall. The tether, screwed into the ground, the chain knotted and red with rust. The brush, filled with dust and cobwebs, rested on a shelf. And the belt, on a special nail all its own, glinting from the sun, shone silver and thin. It was all the same, except for a neat row of garden tools leaning against the wall opposite the cage.
James stood there and felt the world grow dark. It shrank and he slipped away with it, growing smaller, turning into a small boy inside a cage. His fingers curled and he felt the bars cold against his knuckles. He felt the choke of the collar, the sting of the belt. His arms fell loose and the clock and shovel tumbled away.
Then he grew. James felt his life here roaring up from the soles of his feet, up his knees through his hips and torso, bursting out of his head like a white-hot flame. His body stretched and his limbs trembled and he grabbed for the closest tool. A hoe. A sharp-pointed hoe with a wooden handle. His own roar burst through his ears as he ran at the cage and swung, battled the walls, chopped at the collars and the belt, broke the brush, slaughtered the tether. It all flew around James, falling in pieces, collapsing, until he felt his lungs collapsing too and he fell to the ground and sobbed.
When the sun warmed his shoulders, James looked around. Everything was shattered now, bits of leather thrown in with plastic and metal. It was a jumble. Nothing was left. With the sun falling down the steps, he could see all the pieces, big and small, torn and shredded and broken. The air seemed clearer.
James got up and replaced the hoe where he found it. Then he took up a shovel and began to dig. The floor of the cellar was soft from the damp and it didn’t take long to excavate a grave. Carefully, he pushed all the bits and pieces toward it. They clanked and clicked and James thought of his mother, of her soul, scattered in the dirt and the dust, and he knew she would soon be gone.
With the last bit of metal and leather and plastic in place, James straightened up and turned toward the anniversary clock. It lay on its side at the bottom of the steps. The replaced glass dome was off, rolled to the side, and the dancers were still, their faces in the dirt. The clock still glowed gold in the sun and though its movement was stilled, he could hear the chime, the soft music of a waltz. James could see the dancers picking themselves up, moving again to the music, but more slowly now, less frantic, their grace smooth as they swirled their way around their familiar path. They shook off the dirt and their feet were light.
Carefully, James set the clock upright. He gave the dancers a gentle spin, willed them to keep going, kicking dirt aside, but after a few rotations, they were still. The clock’s heart was stopped.
He looked at the grave, filled with all that remained of his mother. The grave was filled with James too, with the leather that dug into his neck, the belt that sliced his skin.
But the clock was different. Reflected in the gold was the thick quilt of his mother’s hair, the softness of her eyes, a smile that made her face gentle as she watched the dancers sway. And in the gold too was a young boy, head resting on his arms, hair blond like hers falling into his blue eyes. There was no anger in the clock, no hatred, just the steady soft beat of the dancers’ feet, the passing of time sung out in a waltz.
The clock was innocent. And so was James. So was his mother, before she crossed some undrawn line that took her away from the simplest of loves. Before she moved away from the clock that kept her moving steadily forward and instead just followed the warm patches of sun and the heat of her own dreams.
James filled the grave, smoothing the dirt until nothing remained but a root ellar floor. Picking up the clock and his shovel, he climbed the steps into the afternoon light. His body ached with fatigue as he pulled the doors closed, drew the bolt.
The house was still silent. James felt the need to acknowledge it, to say goodbye, and so he nodded, gave a stiff bow. Then he cradled the clock against his chest and started the walk back through the woods to his car.
There was one stop left, before home. James had to go to the graveyard.
W
hen James got home, Cooley was just walking down the stairs. She pointed at the clock. “What happened?” she said. “It’s a long story,” James said. “I’ll tell you later.” She followed him down the basement to the workroom.
“Ione left supper,” she said. “Meatloaf and baked potatoes. It’s in the oven on warm.” She watched as James set the clock on a fresh piece of lamb’s wool and removed its dome. “You’re all dirty,” she said.
James looked down. His clothes were sweaty and caked with the dirt from the root cellar. His fingernails were black. He had to be clean before he started work on the clock. “You’re right. I’d better shower. Then we can eat.” As James turned away, Cooley settled at her stool in front of the shop class clock. She picked up a piece, set it down, picked up another. Then she reached for the cleaning solution, filled a small bowl.
“Cooley,” James said. She looked up and he hesitated. Then he moved forward. “Cooley, what color is your hair really?”
She blinked, then reached up and touched the short purple strands. “It’s blonde,” she said. “Sorta like yours. But curly.”
James nodded. She was there, he knew it, beneath that purple hair, the baggy clothes. Beneath the sad face. “Cooley, what would it take for you to be Amy Sue again?”
“Amy Sue?” She turned away, began setting the various clock pieces in the bowl. “No one ever calls me that anymore. Not even my mother.”
“Ione does.”
Cooley smiled. “I know. When she says it, it sounds real. Like that’s who I am.”
He nodded. “Okay. Then we’ll start calling you that. All the time. Amy Sue, come to dinner. Amy Sue, do your homework. Amy Sue, you’re doing a good job on that clock.” The name sounded odd, felt odd, but every time James said it, Cooley, Amy Sue, seemed to settle deeper into her seat. Her shoulders relaxed. Her fingers plinked at the bowl, swirling around the clock pieces in their bath. Her face softened.
“Amy Sue, you’re the most beautiful young girl I’ve ever seen,” James said and watched her cheeks go pink. She ducked her head, but with pleasure, not fear. “I think you should be blonde again. I think it’ll help.”
She ran her fingers through her hair, bringing up the purple in spikes. “We could dye it, I guess. It’ll take a while to grow out.”
James agreed. It would take a while. But this house was full of time and they could take all they wanted.
After supper, Amy Sue and James went downtown to the drugstore. They looked at the boxes of dyes and played with the little swatches of colored hair hanging in neat rows until Amy Sue found what she thought was her natural color. It was like James’, but shot through with just a hint of red, burnished, a strawberry blonde. The purple toned down, diluted, made pure again in the gold and red fall of curls.
At home, she hung her head over the kitchen sink and James watched while she applied the dye, restored Amy Sue, and when she was done, she combed it out, smoothed it, instead of sticking it up in spikes all over her head. Spikes like the sharp teeth of a fighting dog’s collar.
Blonde, her hair fluffed, she suddenly looked years younger. James looked at the long sleeves covering her arms and he thought about the scars hidden there. He knew she was using the ointment Doc gave her, the tubes in the bathroom were steadily growing smaller and flatter. But he wondered what would happen if she exposed her arms to the fresh air. To the light. If the sun could tan her arms and smooth the evidence, make it just another extension of her skin, of her body. Of Amy Sue herself.
Tomorrow, then, James would take her shopping. See if he could coax her into short sleeves. At least around the house.
“It’s time for you to go to bed, Amy Sue,” he said as she sat at the table, the towel still draped over her shoulders. She was finishing off a snack of Ione’s cookies.
“Oh,” she said and drained her milk. “I was going to work on the clock a bit first.”
“No,” James said. He cleared his throat, mixed some firmness into his voice. “It’s a school night. You need rest. To bed now.”
Her face clouded a bit, but James didn’t see storms there. He saw just the normal rankling of a teenage girl being told what to do, especially being told against her own wishes. The rage was at bay. Maybe slipping away.
She finally settled for rolling her eyes at James before going upstairs. Later, when he checked on her, her light was off and he could hear her breathing softly in the darkness. The glow from the hallway nightlight set off her blonde hair on her pillow, blonde shot through with red, reflected again on the sleep-warmed pink of her cheeks.
James wondered how anyone could ever hurt such a girl. Yet even as he wondered, he knew. James flexed his fingers, relieved to find them loose, not jammed into a fist.
Downstairs again, James moved through the house, locking the front door, turning off the lights. Around him, the clocks softly sang the hour of midnight and he listened to the chimes and the songs and all the individual voices as if they sang only to him. At that hour, they truly did sing just to James. But in the morning, they would sing to Amy Sue too. Eventually, they would sing only to Amy Sue and to whomever else she brought into this house. They would go on singing, long after James’ own movement slowed and stopped.
But for now, the swinging pendulums and the sweeping second hands moved James forward. Each tick brought him further and further away from the past. Each chime pushed him more firmly into the present and on to the future.
James turned out the last light. The air was filled with the soft steady heartbeat of the clocks. A sound he could hear and always feel. Even in the dark, there was the constant passing of time. James closed his eyes, held his breath, then stepped into the flow.
THE END