Telephone

by Percival Everett

  I thought I heard Sarah say, “Daddy.” When I turned, however, she was still focused on the dog and didn’t show any sign of having even noticed me. That word from her lips had been the most beautiful music of my life, and now I knew that I would probably never hear it again.

  Meg returned after only a couple of hours. We spent a quiet day with our daughter. I told her about the microwave, and we now knew we could not leave Sarah alone even for a minute. We ate. We went to bed. We, Meg and I, lay side by side, with nothing to say. There was nothing to say. Until Meg said the right thing.

  “I love you,” she said.

  “Thank you,” I said. “I love you too.”

  In my dream, Hilary Gill was smoking a cigarette and clearly not enjoying it. She grimaced with every drag and coughed when she exhaled blue clouds that sank to her skirted knees. Perhaps the most significant thing was that she was alive, a fact that was not lost on dream Hilary Gill.

  “Why a doornail?” she asked. She was fiddling with a laptop computer on her lap, trying to adjust the screen so that she could see.

  “What?” I asked.

  “A doornail? What’s a nail have to do with death? ‘Dead as a doornail,’ they say. What is a doornail, anyway?”

  “It’s a long nail that was once used to fasten the parts of a door together,” I said. I was seated at a table not far from her. I was surprised to find myself talking.

  “What’s it got to do with dead?” she asked. “Or death?”

  “It was driven all the way through, and the point was pounded over and back into the wood, so that it could not be pulled out, and so it was called ‘dead.’”

  “That’s stupid,” she said.

  “Well, there you have it.”

  “Fieldwork is the best part, don’t you think?” Hilary Gill asked.

  “The best part of what?” I asked.

  “Of what we do. Oh, the teaching is okay, a little tiring, boring.

  The administrative shit is easy enough but mind-numbing. The committee work is something Stalin dreamed up, I’m sure. And the publishing just to publish, that’s sick. Who the fuck cares about any of this shit? Who does it make a difference to?”

  “I suppose. It’s all part of a conversation, isn’t it?” I asked. I felt like a wide-eyed kid, and perhaps I was.

  Hilary Gill laughed. “I never pegged you for being so naive.” She pulled long and hard on the cigarette and made that face. “Sorry about your daughter.”

  I shrugged.

  “You should have fucked me while you had the chance.”

  “What?”

  “You should have fucked me. Then right now you could really feel like shit, even more than you do. You’d be losing your child and you’d feel guilty for driving me to suicide by fucking me and then by not fucking me again. A perfect guilt storm.”

  “I never wanted to fuck you,” I said.

  “It’s okay to admit it.”

  “I never wanted to fuck you,” I repeated.

  “That hurts,” she said, a blue cloud falling from her lips. “No wonder I killed myself. Do you know what I mean?”

  “I suppose.”

  She pushed her cigarette out on her palm and did not grimace. “And why was Lisbon worthy of such treatment and misery?” she said. “Like Voltaire, I hold contempt for such a god. To hell with Leibniz, that suck-up. And can you then impute a sinful deed? This, the best of all possible worlds. All for the best. God knows. It’s a mystery. His will. Ha! An absentee landlord at best. To babes who on their mothers’ bosoms bleed?”

  I listened to dream-dead Hilary Gill and was willing to accept her as a ghost in my world, even if I didn’t know what she was talking about. However, it being my dream, my construction, I, logically, necessarily, must have understood her message.

  “Was there more vice in fallen Lisbon found?” she asked.

  amor tenebrescit

  The nurse’s name was Kendall. I cannot say that I liked her very much upon meeting her. She was a young white woman with a sleeve of tattoos that interested me little beyond their mere color. There might have been a panda bear. She seemed competent enough. After all, she wasn’t there to stimulate my daughter, to teach her anything, to enrich her experience of the world. She was there to wipe her ass, feed her, and now, apparently, to keep her from burning down the house. I was disappointed in myself that her lack of education caused me to dismiss her. Perhaps it was that I could too easily imagine her as a girlfriend to one of the white militia members from the compound in New Mexico.

  Had Sarah responded to her in any way, I might have felt differently. I looked to see any kind of variation in my child’s expression. Sadly, Kendall’s face was as blank as Sarah’s without the excuse of dementia. Then it occurred to me that I was looking to simply blame some body for some thing, which was slightly different from blaming somebody for something. Kendall followed Sarah around while I sat in various rooms of the house pretending to read or make notes, pretending as much for myself as anyone else. I was free to leave the house but found I could not.

  On the desk in my study I had laid out the notes from New Mexico, and on a sheet of white paper I had mindlessly written again and again “Rosalita Gonzalez.” I could see the woman’s face as clearly as her name written in front of me. She had dark, defined eyebrows set above narrow, light brown eyes. Her face was round, like the faces of many pictures of Inuit women I had seen in books. Her skin was the light brown of my daughter’s skin. She had a scar on her forehead, left middle. Her teeth were straight, I knew, though I had not seen her smile.

  I heard raised voices from the kitchen and stood, as if that made my hearing more acute. It was Sarah. “Keep her away from me!” she shouted. I walked to the kitchen.

  “It’s okay, sweetie,” Meg said. She was standing by the open back door.

  Kendall was standing near the counter between Meg and Sarah, who was at the table, supporting herself with her hand on the edge of it. I was surprised to discover that she was screaming at her mother.

  “Who is she? What do you want?” Sarah said.

  “That’s your mother,” Kendall said. Her voice was such a strange monotone that even I wouldn’t have believed her.

  Sarah looked at me. “Help me, Daniel!”

  I looked at Meg’s terrified face.

  Sarah ran to me, hugged me around my waist. As she did, I realized who Daniel was. When she was a child, I had made up a string of stories that included my made-up friend Daniel. Daniel was constantly saving me from peril.

  Meg was crying now. She turned and walked out of the house, leaving the back door open.

  That night I sat alone with Sarah at the kitchen window. Even now that construction haunts me, that I sat alone while being with my daughter. The moon was full and bright and within easy view. I at least imagined a fleeting flash of joy on her face as she stared at it. I attended to my own breathing, trying to calm myself. The thought that my daughter was so very far away from herself rattled me profoundly. If I hadn’t focused on breathing, I might simply have stopped.

  simula me cognoscere

  The campus had that quiet summer personality that faculty seemed to love. Perhaps it was time to focus on research, starting or completing. More likely it was mere reprieve, the welcome lull following exhaustion and preceding exertion. Regardless, whether it made sense or not, the campus minus the students offered a certain kind of peace. I went there, ostensibly to work on a couple of articles that had hopelessly stalled. I managed somehow to convince myself that I was actually interested in my own research, but I was in no way oblivious to the fact that work was just another escape from my woes at home.

  I wandered across campus to my favorite coffee shop for a blueberry muffin at lunchtime. On my way back, I walked past Hilary Gill’s office. Her … the door was open. The room had been cleared of all of her belongings, her books, her tchotchkes, and had been expertly cleaned. The surfaces were spotless and wet looking under the lights that had been left
on. It looked as if the place had been cleansed of her blood and breath. I supposed that it had been just that. It occurred to me that I didn’t know how young Gill had killed herself. I never asked anyone, never read about it, and, frankly, didn’t care to know. It was tragic that her life had become so difficult, but no life is required to continue; no life will continue forever. I hoped that she had found what she wanted, what she needed. I lost my desire to work and packed up my notes.

  I ran into Finley Huckster as I exited the building.

  “Hot enough for you?” he asked. “Don’t you hate it when people say that?”

  “Yeah, it’s hot enough.”

  “How is the summer treating you? How’s your daughter?”

  “She’s having a rough time.” I was very close to telling him that she had died, but somehow, true as it may have seemed, it felt like a betrayal. “We’re dealing with it.”

  “I’m sorry.”

  “Thanks, Huck.”

  “What are you up to? Feel like a game of squash?”

  “Not today.” I looked past him across the sparely populated campus. “I have an appointment downtown.”

  “Some other time.”

  “You bet.”

  “You know, anytime you want to talk.”

  “Thanks, Huck. How’s your family?”

  “All fine.”

  “Well, squash next week,” I said.

  “Definitely.”

  Little was as depressing as a downtown bar at three in the afternoon. One couldn’t have the excuse of seeking out mixed nuts and popcorn as a lunchtime snack. One was too early for so-called happy hour. So, the visit was either the product of depression or of a planned meeting that needn’t be talked about. My tavern of choice, a loose term—choice, not tavern—was on Fourth Street just east of Spring, just a couple of blocks from skid row. I had always admired the keyhole-shaped entry and the door that didn’t quite close tightly. The last time I was there, I ended up in a fight. That was perhaps my ambition that afternoon. The bartender gave me a long look like he might have remembered me. If he did, he didn’t say anything and apparently gave me no further thought. I was the only pathetic patron in the pathetic place, but still he gave me my space, either fixing or pretending to fix the soda machine.

  I nursed the same cheap scotch and ice for twenty minutes. Finally, the bartender came back to me. “Are you waiting for somebody?”

  “That’s actually none of your business,” I said. I was an asshole. I wanted to get my ass kicked, wanted the same guys from that evening months earlier to come in and beat me up.

  Another twenty minutes passed. A woman came in. I was fairly certain she was a prostitute, but I really didn’t know. I had no street smarts to speak of. Whatever she was, she showed absolutely no interest in me. Perhaps I looked like a cop. Not likely. It was more likely that I appeared to her as a khaki-and-Oxford-shirt-wearing serial killer. She parked herself in a corner booth without ordering anything.

  I slapped a sizable tip on the bar and waved to the bartender. “I’m sorry I was such an asshole.”

  “It’s okay, buddy. That’s why we’re open.” He was smarter than I had given him credit for.

  Walking the hot and dirty three blocks back to the outdoor lot where I had parked my car, I felt a sense of dread about going home, a dread different from the standard, run-of-the-mill dread. I found I was fidgeting. I seldom if ever fidgeted. I tapped my car keys inside my pants pocket, played with my watchband, pulled the flesh of my thumbs away from my nails with the sides of my index fingers. I sat behind the wheel in the sauna that was my Jeep until the elderly attendant apparently took note and, afraid that I would die and stink up the place, called the police.

  scio nomen meum

  Basil was barking. Basil never barked. I hurried across the drive to the back door. There was no sound but Basil’s barking, a high-pitched complaint that made him sound younger. Inside, I very nearly collided with Meg’s back. Beyond her, facing her, was Sarah, wild eyed and shaking, holding a carving knife by the blade. Blood was pouring from her palm.

  “Daniel,” she said to me, “who is she?”

  “It’s your mother, baby,” I said.

  “Daniel?”

  I walked toward her. I could feel Meg trembling as I brushed past her. “Yes, Sarah. It’s me, Daniel.”

  “Why?” she asked. There were so many levels to her question. I was asking why as well. Was she asking why she was fading? Why she was dying? Why her parents were strange to her and so afraid?

  “I don’t know why, baby.” I stepped closer. I needed to get the knife out of her hand.

  Meg was audibly crying now.

  “Let me have the knife, Sarah. That belongs to me.”

  She spaced out. She was having a seizure. I moved quickly to her, pried open her fingers, and removed the blade. “Get a towel,” I said to Meg.

  Meg moved quickly.

  The blade had gone nearly halfway through her index, middle, and ring fingers. The blood was flowing freely. Meg handed me a towel and wrapped the hand up. “I’ll hold her hand. You drive.”

  Meg was in her robe, but she ran in front of me while I carried Sarah. I sat in the backseat of Meg’s car, holding our daughter firmly, fearing her coming to from the seizure. That return started with a small start, a kick of her leg. She closed then opened her eyes, tried to figure out where she was. She looked at my face, and I thought I detected a flash of recognition, but then she caught sight of the blood-soaked towel wrapped around her hand. Whether it was the sight or the sensation of pain that found its way to her I didn’t know, but she issued the first breath of a scream before passing out. Perhaps she passed out because of a loss of blood. I didn’t know, and it was all so terrifying. Meg ran red lights, leaned forward toward the steering wheel, but said nothing. We arrived at the Huntington Hospital emergency room and I carried Sarah in. The sight of the unconscious child and the copious amount of blood prompted swift attention. If we attracted reproving glances, I was unaware of them. The doctors set to work on Sarah’s hand. We answered all health questions and described the incident. Only then did a nurse raise an eyebrow, but another nurse heard the word Batten and erased the concern of child abuse from the room.

  While we waited, Meg in her robe, I in blood, we somehow managed a call to Gurewich, and, to our surprise, she was there in short order. She made clear that there was nothing she could do, but she wanted to be there for us. I amused myself with the thought that people often make a point of declaring their uselessness in order to be helpful. I can’t change anything, but I’m here for you. Still, her presence provided some kind of comfort.

  Meg described everything to Gurewich.

  “It will not get better,” the doctor said. “It is possible that there will be moments of lucidity. Dementia is a mystery, and it manifests very differently in people, especially in children. I know that this was terrifying for you.”

  “That’s an understatement,” I said. I reached over and put my hand on Meg’s. “What do we do? The paranoia is too much.”

  It was clear that what Gurewich was going to say next was difficult for her. “You need to consider placing Sarah in a care facility.” That had of course crossed my mind, but I couldn’t maintain the thought, and I certainly hadn’t shared it with Meg. I appreciated that Gurewich had used my daughter’s name, that she had not reduced Sarah to a mere pronoun.

  transit lux, umbra permanet

  Sarah had suffered severe nerve and tendon damage, and even after surgery it was unclear how much of the impairment would be permanent, but all of that was so tragically moot. Sarah herself would never be permanent. That was the real sadness of seeing her hand so encased and held in that restraint against her flat little chest, that any incapacitation was really meaningless, hardly an inconvenience. She had said nothing, made no sound, lucid or otherwise, since the frantic drive to the emergency room. In fact, there was no evidence that she was even aware of any difference in her being, except
that she was clearly confused by being constrained from free movement.

  The idea of making arrangements for care, the task of locating and contacting a facility that was acceptable, seemed, in the abstract, nearly impossible, but when confronted with stark truth, real life, it had to happen, and so it did. We found a place that was not so far from us near the town of Sierra Madre, set up against the foothills just as we were. I imagined that the similar and familiar setting might provide some level of comfort for my daughter.

  The staff was kind enough, if understandably numb to our situation, or any, for that matter. Sarah’s room looked like any boarding school dorm room, except that it was conspicuously missing any hard edges. The head- and footboards of the bed were curved and upholstered. The one small table was, of course, round, made of wood with a vinyl bumper along its circumference. The name of the place was at once innocuous and portentous, perhaps even ill omened.

  A middle-aged Korean woman named May managed the place. She was perhaps the most positive human being I had ever met. If she had possessed a tail, it would have wagged nonstop. Instead she possessed a wide smile that was so bright it seemed creepy. For a moment I wondered if her electricity might even cure my daughter, but only for a moment. She did lean close and talk to Sarah like she was the person she was. She did that every time.

  “Are we not hungry today?” May asked when the food would fall from her slack lips. “That’s okay, dear. Sometimes I’m not hungry too.”