The Story of Arthur Truluv

by Elizabeth Berg

  “I’ll get it,” Maddy says. “You all sit down. You, too, Lucille.”

  “I have to bring out the appetizers,” Lucille says.

  “I’ll bring them, too.”

  “Take the foil off!” Lucille says, and Maddy says, “Got it.”

  Arthur and Lucille sit on the sofa and Maddy’s father sits in Arthur’s recliner. Maddy goes into the kitchen, and from there, she hears Lucille say, “Maddy tells me you’re quite the fisherman!”

  —

  That night, Maddy sits alone in her room to look at the gift her father brought her. It’s a small leather photo album, cracked with age, filled with images of her mother she has never seen before, including one of her pregnant with Maddy. Maddy puts her finger to her mother’s belly and holds it there for a while when she comes to that one.

  There are photos of her parents’ wedding, her mother wearing a simple white dress and baby’s breath in her hair, and she and Maddy’s father are luminous in their joy. There are photos of the just-marrieds in their Salvation Army apartment, and Maddy looks greedily at everything: not just her mother and her father, but at all the things they had around them. She sees her mother had the same proclivity for funkiness that Maddy does: here is a beautiful shawl over a trunk holding a telephone and an elaborate candelabra. Their bed is a mattress on the floor, and there is a kind of mobile made from hangers over it, crystals and feathers and butterflies made from newspaper all over it. Brick-and-board bookcases full of paperbacks. Coffee-can planters.

  There are some photos of Maddy after her mother died, not many and not very good. There’s Maddy as a maybe three-month-old (she’s guessing, judging from what she’s learned), lying on her stomach and looking up like she’s confused, a thin line of drool falling from her mouth. There’s one of her holding on to the edge of a coffee table—cruising, they call this, the way babies hold on to things before they start walking alone. There’s one of her standing beside a body of water, a lake, maybe, and the photo is so blurry she can’t really tell how old she was. Three? Four? There’s one of her in a little white gown as she graduates kindergarten. One of her in a Brownie uniform, brand-new, and it never got used again, as Maddy didn’t feel comfortable in the Brownies, all those little girls so chatty and getting all excited about making God’s eyes. She asked to drop out after one meeting, and her father—she still remembers this—said, “Fine, drop out then, don’t even try, as usual.” There’s one of her on her thirteenth birthday shielding her face from the camera. And that’s all. There are no more. And there are none of her father and her together. Her father must have had friends at one time, but Maddy cannot remember any. No one came to the house, and Maddy was rarely left with a sitter. Siting with those photos in her lap, Maddy feels for the first time an aching sense of compassion for her father. But also a rush of excitement for what might now finally develop between them.

  —

  The mid-December morning sun is pushing so hard through the window it’s as though it is knocking. Arthur lies in bed in his blue (ironed!) pajamas, thinking. Life is such a funny thing. It’s so funny. So arbitrary-seeming, but sometimes he just can’t help but think that there really is a grand plan. In a way, it reminds him of square dancing, how you can see the pattern fully only by looking at it from above, by not being a part of it.

  Long time ago, he and Nola used to like to go square dancing. Every Wednesday night, they would put on their outfits and walk over to the high school gymnasium. Arthur wore dress slacks and a kind of Westernized shirt with pearl snap buttons and a bolo tie; Nola wore a white off-shoulder blouse and lots of crinolines beneath a pretty beribboned skirt that would twirl way out and show off her legs. They’d drink punch, eat cookies, and dance the night away.

  There was the caller, and he would be standing up on the stage telling everyone what to do. He was like God. Promenade all, he might say. Start walking through life. Honor, he’d call, and the ladies would curtsy and the men would bow, boy, you sure don’t see that much anymore. Maybe in England. But yes, honor: get married.

  When you did the do-si-do, why, then your partner would seem to disappear, but she was right behind you. Right there. Like Nola, now. An angel was someone who demonstrated the proper movements, well now isn’t that true?

  Star to the right. Arthur likes to think about that term. Couples walk to each other and join right hands in a star formation and then walk in the direction they are facing. And what he hopes is that he’ll see Nola again, and that’s how it will be. They’ll join hands and walk off together in this new direction they’re facing.

  But for now he is here, and the birds are singing and Lucille is snoring in the room across the hall and the girl he calls his daughter is frying bacon in the kitchen downstairs and the child he calls his grandchild is stirring in the womb.

  Today he’ll finish the book he’s making for the baby, a proper book of trees. Arthur thinks more people should pay more attention to trees. The names alone! Autumn Splendor buckeye. Regal Prince oak. Shawnee Brave bald cypress. Black tupelo. Skyline honey locust. Happidaze sweet gum. He can’t explain it and he wouldn’t want anyone to know, but lately when he reads the names of trees, he cries.

  When he finishes the book on trees, he’ll start one on flowers. Then birds. A lot to do!

  He sits up and experiences the kind of dizziness that has plagued him lately. But then it goes away. Another day! Promenade all.

  —

  On Chrismas Eve day, Lucille comes in from the front porch, scowling. Maddy, who has just finished cleaning up the needles that were under the Christmas tree, turns off the vacuum and looks over at her.

  “What’s wrong?”

  “Nothing!” Lucille shouts.

  Maddy waits.

  “It’s just that I don’t see why he has to go to the cemetery every day, especially when the weather is like this. Look at it out there!”

  Maddy looks. It is snowing a little, but nothing to get alarmed about. And it’s going up to the forties.

  “I worry more about how frail he’s become,” Maddy says.

  “That’s what I mean!”

  “Well, you said the weather.”

  “It’s all combined!”

  Maddy supposes that’s true.

  “It takes too much out of him to go!” Lucille says, and Maddy sits down. There’s a rant coming on and she needs to sit down for that. It’s a little hard now, standing for long. She feels a certain pressure bearing down all the time. It’s from the baby having dropped, her doctor told her. Twice now, she thought she was going into labor, but it was only Braxton-Hicks contractions.

  Lucille is going on, in a voice loud enough that Gordon has fled the room. “It would be one thing if he were in shape, but have you listened to his breathing lately? He needs to go to the doctor. I keep telling him he needs to go to the doctor! But he won’t go! Oh, isn’t it just like a man! He figures he’s got two women taking care of him and that’s enough. But it’s not!

  “If we could just get him to stop going to that damn cemetery every day, I’ll bet he’d get his strength up. He’d get better. He’s going to kill himself, going out there. Why does he have to go out there?”

  “He needs to be with Nola,” Maddy says, quietly.

  “He’s not with Nola! She’s dead! She was a nice woman, I know he loved her very much, but she is D-E-A-D!”

  “I guess not to him,” Maddy says.

  Lucille looks at her. “Well, fine, I understand that. Frank is not dead to me. But you don’t see me traipsing over to his grave to sit over him like some…some…vulture!”

  “That’s not fair, Lucille.”

  She stares at the floor. “I know it’s not. I’m sorry I said it. But just because you still love someone is no reason to risk your health the way he’s doing. You don’t see me running out to Frank’s grave in the freezing cold!”

  “I thought you said he was cremated.”

  “Never mind. You know what I mean.”

 
Maddy adjusts the pillow behind her back. Here it comes again, those contractions. Just a big tease.

  “I have an idea!” Lucille says. “Why don’t we make Arthur a shrine to Nola, right in his room? You know, like those people who make altars and put oranges and beads and candles and whatnot on them? Then he would be with her all the time. If he woke up at night, he could turn on the light, and there she would be. So much easier!”

  “He wouldn’t go for that,” Maddy says.

  “Why not?”

  Maddy shrugs. “Because she wouldn’t be there.”

  “She’s not anywhere!”

  Maddy stands and begins pacing. “Well, see, I think that she is there, in the cemetery, for Arthur. Her spirit is strong there. He feels her, and he talks to her. I understand that. I feel things in cemeteries, too, don’t you?”

  “No. No, I don’t and I don’t want to. Here is life, and there is death, and that’s that. And I’ll tell you another thing.” Lucille stops talking suddenly and looks at Maddy. “Is that…Are you peeing?”

  Maddy shakes her head. “It’s not pee. I think my water just broke.”

  “Oh, Lord,” Lucille says.

  “Call a cab,” Maddy says.

  “I’ll drive, I’ll drive, get in the car!”

  “Call a cab,” Maddy says again, firmly. “And leave a note for Arthur.”

  —

  Rosalind Mathers. Born August 1, 1933. Died August 1, 2011. A scientist of some reputation. Worked in a hospital lab. Married a doctor who worked there. Two blond children who had two blond children.

  Timothy “Doc” Stanley. Born June 22, 1950. Died September 4, 2005. An athlete. A sailor, biker, runner, tennis player. And yet. Handsome fellow, yellow hair and green eyes and a Kirk Douglas dimple in his chin. Life of the party, because of his great ability to impersonate anyone. Loved his dogs, always had at least two springer spaniels. Thought it was funny to answer his phone by saying, “You DID?”

  Ted Ungeman. Musician. And deaf in one ear!

  Arthur coughs. No time for this. He’d better get to Nola.

  He hasn’t brought his chair today, too hard to carry. He does have half a meatloaf sandwich in one of the pockets of his overcoat, one of Lucille’s turtle brownies in the other.

  He makes it over to Nola’s grave and stands there for a moment, shivering. He supposes he needs a new coat, this one isn’t doing the trick anymore. He doesn’t have enough fat to keep himself warm, despite Lucille’s best efforts. The butter that woman puts on his bread! He ought to buy stock in Land O Lakes!

  He takes his sandwich out, unwraps it slowly. “Hello, Nola,” he says. “Cold out today. You always did hate the cold. No, don’t say any different, I know you did, you just didn’t complain about it the way most folks do. As if that would help! Sometimes I wonder what the world would sound like if everybody stopped their complaining. It sure would be a quiet place.”

  He looks around. A few rows over is a woman standing at the foot of a grave. He gives her a little wave, but he doesn’t think she sees him. Her car is parked nearby, the engine still running, and as Arthur watches, she runs over and gets back in and drives away.

  He misses driving at times like this. The walk to the stop isn’t that long, but the wait for the bus can be.

  “Lucille made beef stew last night with a lot of wine in it, and it was really good,” Arthur tells Nola. “Remember how we never could understand why people wasted wine by dumping it in food? But it was good! I didn’t eat much and she read me the riot act. But I’m just not much hungry anymore.” He looks at his half sandwich. “Even this is too much for me. Wish I could share it with you.

  “Nola, I wanted to talk to you about something. Remember how we used to worry about who we would leave things to in our will after we were both gone? And we put it off and put it off and we never did make a will. We figured, what difference did it make? That was irresponsible of us. We could have left it to a hospital, or a school, or a cat shelter. Anyway, I had a will made yesterday. You remember Tony Sanders? It’s his son, little Jeffrey, who’s running the office now, real nice kid, and I had him do it. And I’m leaving everything to that girl. Maddy. I think you’d approve. I know you would. Well, I think I know. Can you give a sign, sweetheart? Anything. Can you just send me a sign?”

  Nothing. Not a sound, not a breeze, not a movement of clouds, no birds, no cars, no people. Nothing.

  He puts the sandwich back in his pocket and, holding on to Nola’s headstone, kneels down and takes off his hat. The earth is so cold. “Nola. I need to tell you something. I can’t come out here anymore. It’s gotten too hard. I’d like to say I just need some time and then I’ll be back again, but I don’t think so, sweetheart. I hope you’re not disappointed. I’m disappointed, but I hope you aren’t. I hope you’re past all that now, Nola. I hope you’re past disappointment and pain and all that. I hope you’re just happy, and waiting for me. That’s what I hope more than anything in the world.” He kisses the headstone, right on the N for Nola Corrine, the Beauty Queen. “I’ll love you forever in darkness and sun, I’ll love you past when my whole sweet life is done,” he says. Something he once wrote to her in a birthday card when they were still in their twenties. Oh, my. In their twenties. And there it is, slow to come today, but there it is, the feeling of her inside him. She blooms in his heart, and he is suddenly warm.

  He rises with difficulty, puts his hat back on his head, and walks toward the bus. Once, and only once, he turns back.

  —

  Maddy’s hospital room looks like a greenhouse. Roses from her father. A wildly colorful mixed bouquet from Mr. Lyons and his wife. A little carnation bouquet with a teddy bear from her new school. And many, many bouquets from Arthur and Lucille.

  The cart is loaded up with all her flowers, with all the things the hospital has given her for the baby. Her breasts are leaking, she has dark circles under her eyes, she’s wearing a Kotex the size of a barge and a winter coat that has seen its better days, and she has never felt so beautiful in all her life.

  The nurse brings her baby in and with exquisite care Maddy turns back a corner of the blanket to look into the sleeping face. She has never felt so beautiful in her life.

  Lucille comes into the room and tells her the car is pulled up, they’re ready to go. “I have to wait for a wheelchair,” Maddy says, and Lucille, alarmed, says, “What happened?”

  “Nothing,” Maddy says. “That’s just the way they do it. You can’t walk to the car.”

  “Oh,” Lucille says. She sits on the edge of Maddy’s bed. “Well, where are they?”

  Maddy thinks Lucille, having brought the staff enough cookies to stock a grocery store, expects the royal treatment. And maybe she’s getting it, because here comes transportation services already, after she’d been told it would take twenty minutes or so. Maddy sits in the chair and holds the baby close to her, adds another blanket that Lucille crocheted, then another.

  It doesn’t take long to get home, and when Maddy comes into the house, she climbs the stairs to Arthur’s room before she even takes her coat off. He can’t get out of bed anymore. He’s so beautiful now, he looks like he’s made of marble, and his eyes seem always full of light. Lucille can’t get him to eat, but she concocted a sort of milkshake that he likes, and Maddy is glad to see his glass is empty.

  He’s lying still, his eyes closed, and Maddy’s heart sinks. But then, “Arthur?” she says, and his eyes pop open.

  “Well, look who’s here,” he says, his voice breaking. And then, “Where’s your nose thing?”

  Maddy smiles. “I took it out. The baby likes to grab things.”

  “Oh. Huh. I’d kind of gotten used to it. But you look great without it, too.”

  He sits up straighter in the bed. “Can I see?”

  She lays the baby in his arms, and Arthur looks up at Maddy, who gently holds the baby’s waving fist still, lest Arthur get punched in the nose. “This is Truluv,” she tells the baby. And then, after G
ordon leaves the foot of the bed to come and investigate, she says, “And this is Gordon the cat.”

  Arthur says something so low Maddy can’t quite hear it.

  “Pardon?”

  He is staring wonderstruck into the face of the baby. “I said that now I’ve had just about everything, haven’t I? I’ve really had just about everything you could ask for in this life.”

  “And much more to come!”

  Arthur nods, unconvincingly. Then he says, “Sit down. Sit down by me, Maddy. I want to tell you something.”

  Maddy sits on the bed and smiles into his old face with its map of wrinkles and his noble, high cheekbones. She looks at his stick-out ears and his heart beating in his throat.

  He says, “Nola once told me she wished people could be stars in the sky and look down on those that they loved. I always wished that could be so. Let’s you and I pretend it’s true, even if it isn’t, would that be okay with you?”

  Maddy nods, her throat tight.

  “And after I die, why, you look up in the sky for two stars, real close together. That will be Nola and me. Those stars will be so close together, it’ll look like they are one, but they’ll be two. Me, and then just to my right, Nola. Look up at us sometimes.”

  “I will,” Maddy says, “I promise. But you’re not going anywhere yet.”

  “No, I’m not,” Arthur says, looking down at the baby. “We have a lot to discuss. And anyway, I’m feeling a lot better, suddenly.”

  —

  A beautiful June 1. Beautiful day! Birds twitter in the branches nearby and the graves have been newly tended. Let the visitations begin.

  Trudy Billings. Born May 7, 1924. Died October 1, 2016. Predicted when she was sixteen years old that she would die at thirty-five. Made a practice of hysteria but had the good sense to know she was a pain in the ass and in fact requested that “Pain in the ass” be put on her headstone. (Good sense of humor despite her preoccupation with doom and gloom!) Family would not comply with this particular request. So instead what is on her marker is her second choice: FINALLY. Ha ha. She sold clothes at Dacy’s until they went out of business. Women’s Everyday. Lunch in a sack eaten every day at twelve o’clock in a dressing room. Perfume sprayed onto a cotton ball and stuffed into her brassiere. Liked horror films; she liked to have the bejesus scared out of her. Oh, the dahlias in her garden. Kept her dial phone, which her grandchildren loved.