Tom was thirty. Tall drink of water. Tried so hard to know things. But even when he thought he knew a thing (fighting kites, breeding rabbits), Tom would soon be shown for what he was: the dearest, most agreeable young fellow ever, who knew no more about fighting kites/breeding rabbits than the average person could pick up from ten minutes on the Internet. Not that Tom wasn’t smart. Tom was smart. Tom was a damn quick study. O Tom, Tommy, Tommikins! The heart in that kid! He just worked and worked. For the love of his dad. Oh, kid, you had it, you have it, Tom, Tommy, even now I am thinking of you, you are very much on my mind.
And Jodi, Jodi was out there in Santa Fe. She’d said she’d take off work and fly home. As needed. But there was no need. He didn’t like to impose. The kids had their own lives. Jodi-Jode. Little freckle-face. Pregnant now. Not married. Not even dating. Stupid Lars. What kind of man deserted a beautiful girl like that? A total dear. Just starting to make some progress in her job. You couldn’t take that kind of time off when you’d only just started—
Reconstructing the kids in this way was having the effect of making them real to him again. Which—you didn’t want to get that ball roiling. Jodi was having a baby. Rolling. He could have lasted long enough to see the baby. Hold the baby. It was sad, yes. That was a sacrifice he’d had to make. He’d explained it in the note. Hadn’t he? No. Hadn’t left a note. Couldn’t. There’d been some reason he couldn’t. Hadn’t there? He was pretty sure there’d been some—
Insurance. It couldn’t seem like he’d done it on purpose.
Little panic.
Little panic here.
He was offing himself. Offing himself, he’d involved a kid. Who was wandering the woods hypothermic. Offing himself two weeks before Christmas. Molly’s favorite holiday. Molly had a valve thing, a panic thing, this business might—
This was not—this was not him. This was not something he would have done. Not something he would ever do. Except he—he’d done it. He was doing it. It was in progress. If he didn’t get moving, it would—it would be accomplished. It would be done.
This very day you will be with me in the kingdom of—
He had to fight.
But couldn’t seem to keep his eyes open.
He tried to send some last thoughts to Molly. Sweetie, forgive me. Biggest fuckup ever. Forget this part. Forget I ended thisly. You know me. You know I didn’t mean this.
He was at his house. He wasn’t at his house. He knew that. But could see every detail. Here was the empty med bed, the studio portrait of HimMollyTommyJodi posed around that fake rodeo fence. Here was the little bedside table. His meds in the pillbox. The bell he rang to call Molly. What a thing. What a cruel thing. Suddenly he saw clearly how cruel it was. And selfish. Oh, God. Who was he? The front door swung open. Molly called his name. He’d hide in the sunroom. Jump out, surprise her. Somehow they’d remodeled. Their sunroom was now the sunroom of Mrs. Kendall, his childhood piano teacher. That would be fun for the kids, to take piano lessons in the same room where he’d—
Hello? said Mrs. Kendall.
What she meant was: Don’t die yet. There are many of us who wish to judge you harshly in the sunroom.
Hello, hello! she shouted.
Coming around the pond was a silver-haired woman.
All he had to do was call out.
He called out.
To keep him alive she started piling on him various things from life, things smelling of a home—coats, sweaters, a rain of flowers, a hat, socks, sneakers—and with amazing strength had him on his feet and was maneuvering him into a maze of trees, a wonderland of trees, trees hung with ice. He was piled high with clothes. He was like the bed at a party on which they pile the coats. She had all the answers: where to step, when to rest. She was strong as a bull. He was on her hip now like a baby; she had both arms around his waist, lifting him over a root.
They walked for hours, seemed like. She sang. Cajoled. She hissed at him, reminding him, with pokes in the forehead (right in his forehead) that her freaking kid was at home, near frozen, so they had to book it.
Good God, there was so much to do. If he made it. He’d make it. This gal wouldn’t let him not make it. He’d have to try to get Molly to see—see why he’d done it. I was scared, I was scared, Mol. Maybe Molly would agree not to tell Tommy and Jodi. He didn’t like the thought of them knowing he’d been scared. Didn’t like the thought of them knowing what a fool he’d been. Oh, to hell with that! Tell everyone! He’d done it! He’d been driven to do it and he’d done it and that was it. That was him. That was part of who he was. No more lies, no more silence, it was going to be a new and different life, if only he—
They were crossing the soccer field.
Here was the Nissan.
His first thought was: Get in, drive it home.
Oh, no, you don’t, she said with that smoky laugh and guided him into a house. A house on the park. He’d seen it a million times. And now was in it. It smelled of man sweat and spaghetti sauce and old books. Like a library where sweaty men went to cook spaghetti. She sat him in front of a woodstove, brought him a brown blanket that smelled of medicine. Didn’t talk but in directives: Drink this, let me take that, wrap up, what’s your name, what’s your number?
What a thing! To go from dying in your underwear in the snow to this! Warmth, colors, antlers on the walls, an old-time crank phone like you saw in silent movies. It was something. Every second was something. He hadn’t died in his shorts by a pond in the snow. The kid wasn’t dead. He’d killed no one. Ha! Somehow he’d got it all back. Everything was good now, everything was—
The woman reached down, touched his scar.
Oh, wow, ouch, she said. You didn’t do that out there, did you?
At this he remembered that the brown spot was as much in his head as ever.
Oh, Lord, there was still all that to go through.
Did he still want it? Did he still want to live?
Yes, yes, oh, God, yes, please.
Because, okay, the thing was—he saw it now, was starting to see it—if some guy, at the end, fell apart, and said or did bad things, or had to be helped, helped to quite a considerable extent? So what? What of it? Why should he not do or say weird things or look strange or disgusting? Why should the shit not run down his legs? Why should those he loved not lift and bend and feed and wipe him, when he would gladly do the same for them? He’d been afraid to be lessened by the lifting and bending and feeding and wiping, and was still afraid of that, and yet, at the same time, now saw that there could still be many—many drops of goodness, is how it came to him—many drops of happy—of good fellowship—ahead, and those drops of fellowship were not—had never been—his to withheld.
Withhold.
The kid came out of the kitchen, lost in Eber’s big coat, pajama pants pooling around his feet with the boots now off. He took Eber’s bloody hand gently. Said he was sorry. Sorry for being such a dope in the woods. Sorry for running off. He’d just been out of it. Kind of scared and all.
Listen, Eber said hoarsely. You did amazing. You did perfect. I’m here. Who did that?
There. That was something you could do. The kid maybe felt better now? He’d given the kid that? That was a reason. To stay around. Wasn’t it? Can’t console anyone if not around? Can’t do squat if gone?
When Allen was close to the end, Eber had done a presentation at school on the manatee. Got an A from Sister Eustace. Who could be quite tough. She was missing two fingers on her right hand from a lawn-mower incident and sometimes used that hand to scare a kid silent.
He hadn’t thought of this in years.
She’d put that hand on his shoulder not to scare him but as a form of praise. That was just terrific. Everyone should take their work as seriously as Donald here. Donald, I hope you’ll go home and share this with your parents. He’d gone home and shared it with Mom. Who’d suggested he share it with Allen. Who, on that day, had been more Allen than THAT. And Allen—
Ha, wow, Allen. T
here was a man.
Tears sprang into his eyes as he sat by the woodstove.
Allen had—Allen had said it was great. Asked a few questions. About the manatee. What did they eat again? Did he think they could effectively communicate with one another? What a trial that must have been! In his condition. Forty minutes on the manatee? Including a poem Eber had composed? A sonnet? On the manatee?
He’d felt so happy to have Allen back.
I’ll be like him, he thought. I’ll try to be like him.
The voice in his head was shaky, hollow, unconvinced.
Then: sirens.
Somehow: Molly.
He heard her in the entryway. Mol, Molly, oh boy. When they were first married they used to fight. Say the most insane things. Afterward, sometimes there would be tears. Tears in bed? And then they would—Molly pressing her hot wet face against his hot wet face. They were sorry, they were saying with their bodies, they were accepting each other back, and that feeling, that feeling of being accepted back again and again, of someone’s affection for you expanding to encompass whatever new flawed thing had just manifested in you, that was the deepest, dearest thing he’d ever—
She came in flustered and apologetic, a touch of anger in her face. He’d embarrassed her. He saw that. He’d embarrassed her by doing something that showed she hadn’t sufficiently noticed him needing her. She’d been too busy nursing him to notice how scared he was. She was angry at him for pulling this stunt and ashamed of herself for feeling angry at him in his hour of need, and was trying to put the shame and anger behind her now so she could do what might be needed.
All of this was in her face. He knew her so well.
Also concern.
Overriding everything else in that lovely face was concern.
She came to him now, stumbling a bit on a swell in the floor of this stranger’s house.
For Pat Pacino
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
I would like to thank the MacArthur Foundation, the Guggenheim Foundation, the American Academy of Arts and Letters, and Syracuse University for their generous support during the writing of this book.
I would also like to thank:
Esther Newberg, for her tireless guidance and friendship these last sixteen years, during which she has given me the great gift of making me feel that all I had to do was write as well as I could, and she would take care of the rest, which she has, with incredible discernment and energy.
Deborah Treisman, for the masterful editing she does on my work for The New Yorker, the generous and gracious way in which she does it, and the expansive effect her opinions always have on my work.
Andy Ward, for his friendship, wise counsel, and faith in me, and for the happy influence of his constantly positive outlook—in Dubai, Nepal, Africa, Mexico, Fresno, and as we worked together on this book.
Caitlin and Alena: watching you all these years has taught me that goodness is not only possible, it is our natural state.
Paula: everything worthwhile I’ve done over the past twenty-five years has been inspired, selflessly supported, and lovingly informed by your kindness, your advice, and your undying faith. Thank you one million times. Somewhere in my youth or childhood, I must have done something really freaking good.
Also by George Saunders
FICTION
CivilWarLand in Bad Decline
Pastoralia
The Very Persistent Gappers of Frip
The Brief and Frightening Reign of Phil
In Persuasion Nation
ESSAYS
The Braindead Megaphone
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
George Saunders is the author of six previous books, including the story collections CivilWarLand in Bad Decline, Pastoralia, and In Persuasion Nation. He has received fellowships from the Lannan Foundation, the American Academy of Arts and Letters, and the Guggenheim Foundation. In 2006 he was awarded a MacArthur Fellowship. He teaches in the Creative Writing Program at Syracuse University.
Tenth of December: Stories Page 18
