by Anne Simpson
Down, Max, said Raymond sternly. Down.
It’s all right. She held out her hand and he took it. I’m Ingrid.
You made it.
Yes. Can I see him? Is he here?
He’s just inside, sleeping.
I want to see him. I won’t wake him – I just need to know that it’s him.
They went up the stairs to the deck, where they could see Damian through the sliding door. She stood still, gazing at her son, fast asleep on the couch. The room was illuminated by the light from the reading lamp.
It is him, she whispered. He’s so much thinner. It’s been weeks, you know – it was early August when he disappeared.
Max made a low moan and scratched at the door; Raymond opened it and let him inside.
I can’t go in, she said. I’m so angry. I can’t.
You’ll be all right. He closed the door softly, with Max inside and the two of them outside. Max sat down, looking at Raymond with his head cocked inquiringly.
No, I can’t. I’m afraid of what I’ll say to him – it was awful not knowing. You’ve no idea. You can’t imagine.
No.
I’ll – do you have any cigarettes? Not that I smoke. I don’t smoke.
I just smoke a pipe. But come inside; you’re shaking.
Yes, you’re right. Look at that.
Here, come inside. We don’t have to wake him.
He put his hand out to her and she took it, stepping into the room. She was tentative, as if any movement she made might break the spell, but then she went forward and sat in the armchair. Her whole body was alert and tense, and her hands gripped the armrests of the chair, though she sat with apparent calm.
Raymond filled the kettle and plugged it in, but none of these slight movements, with their accompanying noises, wakened Damian. Max’s claws clicked on the kitchen floor as he followed his master out of the house.
When Raymond came back from the car with Ingrid’s big canvas bag, she was sitting in exactly the same posture. He unplugged the kettle and made some tea, putting sugar and milk in a cup without asking what she took in it. He set it on the table near her, where she could reach it. She looked up at him, hardly noticing, and turned back to Damian, stretching out her hand as if to touch him, but her hand stopped in mid-air before she drew it back, and Raymond studied her. There were wrinkles around the corners of her eyes, which, like her son’s, were fringed with long lashes. Her nose was finely moulded, and her lips were full, though there were lines around her mouth. Her hair was silky and white; she had drawn it back into a ponytail. He could see how she must have been when she was young.
I don’t want to wake him, she murmured.
She wasn’t drinking her tea.
Have you eaten? he asked.
She shook her head.
He motioned for her to come to the kitchen, and she got up quietly. Raymond heated up some carrot soup that he’d made the day before. It was still all right, he thought, and he put it in a blue pottery bowl and took it to the kitchen table. Ingrid sat down, put her hands around it, and inhaled the steam.
Oh, he said, I forgot to get you a spoon.
He was a little flustered. When had a woman last set foot inside his house? He got the spoon and gave it to her.
Thank you.
I have some twelve-grain bread if you’d like.
No, thank you.
She said thank you the way a girl might say it.
This is very good. It’s good by itself. She glanced at Damian. I can’t stop looking at him. I can’t believe it. I’m still shaking.
Raymond didn’t know whether to sit or to stand. He felt clumsy.
Does he have any idea what he put us through?
I don’t think so, said Raymond.
I have to call Roger. And I’ll have to call Greg. The expression on her face changed swiftly. I’m furious, you know. I’m furious and I’m relieved. Imagine having no idea what happened to your son, and thinking – thinking day and night – that he might have committed suicide. And then he’s in front of you, right as rain.
He wasn’t exactly right as rain when I found him, said Raymond. He wasn’t doing so well.
What do you mean?
He seemed sick. He was weak, physically. And distant – I couldn’t reach him.
He hasn’t been himself since his sister died.
But he was troubled in a way that –
In what way?
She looked so childlike and trusting that he hesitated.
Troubled in spirit and mind, thought Raymond, recalling Peter. I’d go easy on him, he said gently.
But to think he was alive and I didn’t know – we didn’t know.
Raymond saw that she’d eaten only half the bowl of soup. Her hand, holding the spoon, was trembling.
She smiled at him. I’m elated, you know, and a bit giddy. You’ll have to excuse me.
It’s all right – you have reason.
When he was born, he was so small, she said. Well, I suppose he was the right size and everything. He was even long for a newborn; I think he was twenty-one inches long. But to me he was so small, and so perfect. He still had some white, cheesy stuff on his skin – vernix, I think it is – though the nurses had cleaned him. They’d swaddled him in white flannel, striped with blue at the edge. I remember that clearly. He was the size of a loaf of a bread.
I remember that. With Peter.
You have a son?
Yes.
Then you know what it’s like. That moment, at the beginning of things. It’s as if you can see further.
Yes, he said. Yes.
It’s not like anything else. She put the spoon up to her lips. Oh, I’m so tired – I’m not making sense. I can’t explain it.
It makes sense.
I thought there would never be another moment like that again.
She stopped speaking for a long time; she ate her soup. It was no longer hot, but he didn’t offer to reheat it for her.
Those sorts of moments, really, you think you’ve lost the capacity for them, she added.
He extended his hand to take her empty bowl.
Thank you very much, she said.
Well, soup like that is easy to make.
No. She put her hand on his arm without seeming to be aware she was doing it. I can’t tell you. To be given something back, something like this, well, I can’t begin to tell you.
He didn’t know what to do with her gratitude. Just a minute, he said. He went down the hall to his bedroom and returned with a roll of papers under his arm.
I want to show you these.
He moved the soup bowl to the counter and spread out Damian’s drawings in front of her.
Damian did them?
Yes. I, well – I got them out of the garbage. He’d thrown them away.
That’s her, exactly. It’s Jasmine.
You don’t have enough room there, said Raymond. Try putting them on the floor.
Ingrid got down on her knees to examine them.
It’s hard to say what it is about them, said Raymond. It’s not just that the drawings are good – they’re very good.
She came to the last drawing and then went through them again.
It’s rare, said Raymond. That kind of gift.
He is very good. I know.
She looked across at Damian. He’d always go to my husband, Greg, she said. He’d go to him when Greg was angry, and hold him around the knees, because, you know, Greg and I quarrelled a lot. Once Damian gave him a picture, with a yellow house and popcorn trees and a purple sky, and on the back he’d written, I love you, Daddy, in purple crayon. I remember looking at Greg then, and his eyes were so soft. I know he nearly stayed with me because of the kids. It wouldn’t have worked, but he nearly stayed.
Raymond helped her gather up the drawings.
I’ve lost a husband, a daughter, she said. I nearly lost Damian. That’s almost my entire family. She sat back on her heels. You have family; you know what I mean.
Oh, I’m sorry.
Would you like these drawings?
Yes. I would, thank you. She smoothed out the drawings. I used to draw, way back when, she told him. I used to draw and paint. Nothing like this, of course, but it would take me into another world.
I used to play the saxophone.
Did you?
It was a long time ago. I used to think I could be really good at it. But whenever I listened to Charlie Parker or John Coltrane – early Coltrane, especially – I knew I would always be trying to be a musician. They were great. They made it seem as though they weren’t trying.
You could go back to it, she said.
He looked wistful.
You could go back to making something, she said. That’s the thing, isn’t it? You have a choice about it. Oh, goodness, I’m talking too much tonight.
It’s all right. I don’t often talk like this.
She rose, letting go of the drawings. Look, she whispered. He’s waking up.
Raymond busied himself with the drawings, rolling them up. He put the elastic around them, left them on the table, and went out, because the two of them needed to be alone. Once he was outside he realized he’d forgotten to take his warm jacket, and that he didn’t really want to go to the beach with Max. He’d been out already, but he couldn’t stay in the house. He walked down the beach to the rocks, pulled up the hood of his fleece sweatshirt, and lay down, even though it was cold, and colder still when he lay on the rocks. Max nosed around him, licked the side of his face once, and then slipped into the darkness. There was only the sound of the water lashing stone.
The aurora borealis had completely vanished from the sky. He could see the Big Dipper clearly; all the stars seemed to have grown sharper in the darkness. Just hours before, there had been mysteries hidden by the coloured, shifting veil of lights, but now it had all changed.
INGRID SET DOWN THE COOLER and blanket at the top of the bluff. Down on the beach, Damian was standing where the water laced his feet with white. The ocean gradually deepened to dark blue beyond a string of large, mottled rocks, and it was here that a straggling line of four cormorants nearly touched the surface with their wings as they flew along.
Damian waded into the water up to his thighs.
God – it’s freezing!
He flung himself forward into the water, swimming parallel to the shore, and Ingrid lost sight of him behind a cluster of rocks.
Don’t be silly, she told herself.
He was nowhere to be seen, even when she went quickly down the rough, sloping track to the beach. She was gripped by panic.
Damian. Damian.
There was no answer. Then she saw him swimming back, his arms moving powerfully through the water.
This was what it was like, she thought. Always the fear. But here he was, trying not to lose his balance on the slippery stones as he worked his way back through the shallows. He teetered, caught himself.
What?
Ingrid shook her head. He retrieved his towel and they walked along the stony beach and up to the bluff. She unfolded the blanket and spread it out.
I spoke to Roger this morning on the phone, and I also called your father. They both want you to call them – they have some things to say to you. She smoothed out a corner of the blanket. Have you talked to Jasmine?
No.
He towelled himself dry. He bundled up his jeans and sweatshirt, and went to change farther up the bluff.
You can’t leave it like that, Ingrid persisted, when he returned. Jasmine has to know you’re all right. She was so torn up –
I can’t talk about it.
But, Damian, you have to tell her. She thinks you may be dead – we all did. It’s terrible not to know.
Let me do things my own way.
He twisted the wet towel.
She waited for him to speak, but he didn’t, and she opened the cooler. She closed it, shaking her head. Then she opened it again and busied herself with its contents.
There, grapes. And cheese. What else did I put in here?
What happened with Elvis – Damian began. All I can say is that when I finally found him, I could have strangled him. And then Jasmine and Roger. I went a little crazy. But seeing them like that –
Like what?
I saw Jasmine with Uncle Roger. They were in the kitchen and he was holding her. She kissed him. I guess I thought – I don’t know. I still don’t know.
Damian, Roger would never – she’s just a girl.
Ingrid looked at him and then at the package of blue cheese in her hand. She stared at it as if it were a rock from Mars.
Maybe she was upset about something, she said. Maybe he was comforting her. You’re his nephew, Damian. He wouldn’t do anything to hurt you. Anyway, he’s always been a one-woman man, and that woman went out of his life long ago.
Damian chewed thoughtfully on a piece of nut bread in his left hand. He had a slice of cheese in his right. He took a bite of bread and then a bite of cheese, and Ingrid watched, amused, as he shifted from one hand to the other.
I was mad at all of them, he said. And I thought Elvis had broken the urn on purpose. Those ashes all over the sidewalk – I don’t know what happened to me.
Elvis wasn’t doing it to be malicious. He’s not capable of that. For days after you disappeared, he wouldn’t talk to us. He wouldn’t even play his guitar and he loves that guitar. I can see why you’d be angry with him, but Damian, you shouldn’t blame him.
He lay back on the grass.
There’s some cranberry juice, she said. And glasses – let me find the glasses.
I guess I was a shit with him.
Ingrid drew the glasses out of the cooler, taking two of them out of a plastic sleeve. Everyone’s a shit at some point or other, she said pragmatically.
He laughed.
What? She stopped pouring juice.
You never say the word shit. It’s like fuck. You never say the word fuck.
Fuck, she said experimentally.
You have to just say it, the way you say apple. Say apple.
Apple.
Now say fuck.
Fuck. She burst out laughing.
No, you just can’t do it.
Ingrid gave him a glass of juice and poured another for herself.
But Jasmine’s another story, he said. I can’t see that she’d want anything to do with me.
She came back to see me after they said you’d gone missing, said Ingrid. It was a comfort to have her there.
You must have talked about me.
We did, but we talked about a lot of things. You’d like to know what we said about you, though, wouldn’t you?
He ran a hand through his damp hair. No.
I’d say Jasmine is angry and confused, she said. And she has a right to be.
The light seemed to catch on everything around them. It was tangled in the dead petals still on the wild rose bushes, in the lacy leaves of the chervil, in the asters, in the flat pinwheel tops of the Queen Anne’s lace, in the plumes of goldenrod, and in the grass, which was dry and golden. And there, again, was the cool onshore breeze, riffling the surface of the water below and touching the grass on top of the bluff so it swayed.
She needs to hear from you, said Ingrid.
Ducks, raggedly forming a V-shape, flew southward. The swallows had already gone. There was a kind of urgency in the air, but the sun, warm on Ingrid’s skin, lulled her. She looked down at Damian, lying beside her on the blanket with one arm shielding his eyes, and the other arm extended, fingers holding the glass of cranberry juice, ruby bright, on the uneven ground. His hair, not yet dry, was exactly the same colour as the grass.
Raymond lowered the screen out of its frame carefully and propped it against the side of the house. There was work to be done and he hadn’t been attending to it. Ingrid and Damian had gone off for a picnic that morning, and a
s soon as they’d driven away, he wished he’d gone with them. They’d asked him, but he thought he’d be in the way. They would be back in the afternoon, and the following day they’d leave for good; Raymond knew it was bound to take something out of him, even though Damian had only been with him a few days.
The only solution was to work. When he worked, he got into a quiet rhythm that made him content. He’d done it a lot when he was younger. Manual work meant that he could turn things over in his mind, but not too rigorously. He’d done a fair bit of cabinetry work back then, and it had given him satisfaction to see the gleaming walnut surface of a captain’s table after he’d varnished it, lovingly.
He’d get the screens down and then do the storm windows. As he went around the house, he saw places that needed caulking, but he hadn’t done it. Next season, early, he’d get new windows. But one of the screens didn’t want to budge. He’d undone the hooks and wing nuts, and now he gave it a bang with the palm of his hand, hard, on the right side, until it loosened so he could pull the screen out and set it down. He should have finished this business of the storm windows, but he’d put it off.
It was helplessness, he thought. He took out the next screen. He hadn’t been able to do anything. It had happened with Peter first, and then with Cecily. He hadn’t been able to protect them, and that was his job, wasn’t it? It was his job. He took the screens over to the shed where he stacked them, tidily, against the wall, beside the old lawn mower. Whether he could look after Peter by himself, he didn’t know. The very idea made him feel uneasy, because he was not a valiant man. He thought of how difficult it had been after Cecily died; Peter had been in the group home a long time by then, but Raymond had been so lonely he almost brought him back home.
He retrieved the screens on the opposite side of the house, and when he returned to the shed, he stopped. The shed door had swung open to show its dim interior, its hoes and rakes. He was afraid of dying in a way that Cecily had never been. She’d gone into it gracefully, but he didn’t expect he’d do the same. He wished that they could tell him, that Cecily could tell him what to do. How should he prepare himself?
