Beneath the Weight of Sadness

by Gerald L. Dodge

Seventeen years before Truman’s death

  Our Truman was conceived in the Berkshires in Massachusetts, mid-December of 1992. Amy had completed her first semester teaching at a community college in central New Jersey and we wanted to celebrate her success, our happiness, our deep love. Amy wanted to go to the mountains where Melville, Hawthorne and Wharton had spent their time hiking and writing. Our decision to go north was impromptu and so we made no reservations, which, as it turned out, was a mistake. We hadn’t thought of the skiing season, and every available bed was taken—it had been one of those winters where snow seemed to fall every fourth or fifth day in the north.

  In New Jersey we’d had a relatively mild season so it hadn’t occurred to us to check. We were only four hours from New Jersey and we decided after driving to Pittsfield and touring Melville’s Arrowhead and then going into Lenox to see Wharton’s “summer home”—which was larger than most of the homes in Persia—we’d find a place to have an early dinner and then head south and find a place where we could be comfortable, and that afforded some hiking and stay there.

  I remembered the restaurant was on the right and as we came over a rise I spotted it. It sat back from the road a bit and could easily be missed. It was early evening and just getting dark. The parking lot was almost empty. We parked in the front and, before we got out of the SUV, I kissed Amy on the mouth and felt her warm, moist breath on my face.

  “We might have to drive a few hours south on the thruway before we find something,” I said as we got out of the car, our breath billowing in the clean, cold air.

  The restaurant was dimly lit with glasses that twinkled with the candles on each table, and there was a lovely smell of garlic and tomatoes and herbs. We were greeted by a friendly woman, perhaps in her thirties. She was heavy but walked with a nimble deliberateness. Her face was handsome and dark with an olive tinge that denoted her Mediterranean background. She had shining black eyes. When we sat she put menus before us and I ordered a bottle of Chianti.

  “What a great place, Ethe!” Amy whispered.

  She opened her menu and glanced at the entrees. I watched her, and as always I was struck by how beautiful she was. It never had changed since I’d first known her. Each time I looked at her I was once more surprised by that fact. I thought of the cousin I once was in love with when I was still a young boy. She had deep red hair and freckles sprinkled across her bright flaming cheeks, and looking at Amy now I saw the same fresh beauty. At times it seemed as if I had to fight to get air in my lungs, I was so madly in love with this woman.

  She was right, of course. It didn’t matter where we ended up as long as we were together. I still felt responsible for not reserving something so that we could’ve been close to Pittsfield and Mount Greylock. If I had, I would have been that much closer to taking off her clothes and making love with her instead of driving hours to find a place. We’d seen the mountain from Melville’s piazza and, just as Amy had said, it looked like a white sperm whale breaking the surface. I determined we’d return in the early spring.

  The waitress returned with our wine and two glasses and began to open the bottle.

  “Are you up here for the skiing?” she asked, assuming we were not locals.

  Amy laughed. “No, actually. We came up to see Herman Melville’s Arrowhead in Pittsfield. We wanted to hike Mount Greylock.”

  “Too much snow to do that, I guess.”

  She had a girlish laugh that didn’t match her heaviness.

  “Maybe,” Amy conceded. “But we would’ve liked to have tried.”

  “Why can’t you?” she asked as she poured the dark red wine into my glass for me to taste. I swirled it around and then smelled its rich fragrance. The taste was clean with a bit of oak at the end. I nodded and she filled our glasses.

  “My lovely husband didn’t make reservations,” Amy teased. “In his defense, I wouldn’t have, either. Neither of us really thought of this area as a ski area.”

  The waitress laughed. “Not like Vermont or New Hampshire, but we’ve had good snow and the slopes are full every day. Or at least that’s what they tell me.”

  “You don’t ski?” Amy asked.

  “No,” she smiled. “I have all I can do to raise my three kids while my husband works two jobs.”

  She said this with pride rather than complaint and Amy and I instantly liked her.

  “Where do you live?” she asked.

  She seemed in no hurry to take our order, her arms resting comfortably on her large stomach. She had very large breasts and I couldn’t help but think her husband thought of them as a treat to come home to. She seemed instantly domestic, something Amy would bear out later.

  “New Jersey,” I said.

  “And you intend to drive back down there tonight?”

  “No,” Amy laughed. The wine had made her cheeks even more inflamed with red and I wanted to lean across the table and kiss them. “We’ll hopefully find something in Albany.”

  She turned toward the kitchen and then looked back at us.

  “My parents own this restaurant…or they’re married to it, more like it. They spend most of their time here.” She shook her head as she smiled. “There’s an apartment upstairs that’s never used, mostly. We only use it for family gatherings. My sister lives out in California and when her husband and kids come out for holidays we use the place upstairs for all the festivities…that way we have the restaurant kitchen to cook in. It has everything up there, including a kitchen, fully equipped—it’s just with the size of our families it’s easier to cook down here.”

  She took in a deep breath and exhaled. She eyed us critically.

  “You two seem like nice people and it’s getting late…by the time you eat and all.” She nodded toward the bottle of wine. “It doesn’t seem quite right that you should have to drive tonight. I think my parents would be happy for you to rent the place for a couple of days is why I’m telling you this.”

  “That would be lovely,” Amy said, not even looking toward me. “Could you find out if your parents would be okay with that?”

  “I’ll ask them now,” she said and turned to go.

  “What’s your name?” I asked.

  She wheeled around again with an agility that defied her weight. “Victoria,” she said.

  I stood and put out my hand, which she took. Her handshake was warm and firm.

  “I’m Ethan and this is Amy.”

  “Amy and Ethan,” she repeated as if committing it to memory. “Nice to make your acquaintance.”

  She leaned over and shook Amy’s hand.

  Amy smiled brightly. “Nice to meet you.”

  The mother had a thick Italian accent. She breathed heavily as she lumbered up the stairs, Amy and me walking slowly behind her. She stopped halfway up, her one hand on the banister, and turned to us with a smile.

  “Everything very clean up here. Sheets, blankets, towels, kitchen stuff all clean. Always!” she said with emphasis. “We don’t do nothing but cook and clean.”

  She gave a deep, guttural laugh and both Amy and I nodded emphatically. She turned and continued until she reached the top landing. We waited a few steps below her until she caught her breath and surveyed what was visible from where she stood. She seemed satisfied and moved forward and we both came to the top.

  It was wonderful. A large living room was separated from a roomy dining area, which in turn was separated by a snack-bar area and then a fairly sizeable kitchen. We’d been told there were three bedrooms and a large bath. One of the bedrooms was off the kitchen and the windows looked out at the back of the restaurant, where we were told there was a wooded area.

  “Very clean,” she said again, sweeping her arm to illustrate that this included everything. “No one comes up here but family and now you.”

  She looked at us suspiciously as if we were interlopers rather than guests invited by her and her daughter—and paying guests no less. She pointed to a fireplace we hadn’t at first noticed.

  “Wood
downstairs under shed.” She smiled brightly, her eyes taking on a mischievous glint. “It make everything romance for you.”

  With that she turned and made her descent down the stairs. On the way down we heard her yell, “Customers don’t wait. Enjoy.”

  We’d settled on the price earlier with her daughter, but we were certain she was only the mediator. Neither Amy nor I had any doubt the price was established by Mrs. Valentini. We didn’t care, because the place was enchanted and enchanting.

  Victoria Valentini, our lovely enchantress.

  Every morning we woke to silence. The restaurant downstairs didn’t open until 4pm, and so none of the people began to show up for the kitchen work until noon or sometimes an hour earlier. We’d chosen the bedroom off the kitchen and I’d climb out of the bed, naked and cold—we turned off the heat when we turned in each night—and would draw the blinds, rushing back under the covers to Amy and her lovely and warm body. Sometimes we would watch the snow fall lightly outside and other days we could see the snow on the branches of trees transformed from white snow to the rich colors of gold and orange and yellow from the sun’s rise in the east. We would make tender love accompanied by the soft sounds of Amy’s murmuring and afterward we would lie quietly under the down comforter.

  After a while I would get up and throw on some pajama bottoms and a sweatshirt and go into the kitchen and make coffee. While the coffee was brewing I would toast some bread and slather on butter and raspberry jam, and then on a tray I would bring the coffee and toast to Amy. Her face was flushed with the lovemaking and the cold room and I would go into the living room then and light the fire, stacking enough wood for us to feel the warmth within a half hour. We would drink coffee and eat the toast and look out the window at either the snow falling or the sun making its magic with color, and wait for the rooms to get warm. I had never felt happiness like that before in my life.

  “I love Mrs. Valentini,” Amy said one morning while we felt the lovely closeness of each other.

  “I love her, too,” I said. “But I love Victoria even more.”

  “Only because of her tits.”

  “No! Not at all. I love her because we are here.”

  “Yes,” Amy said. “It is serendipitous we are here. But you do love Victoria’s tits.”

  She poked me in the ribs with her elbow.

  “It’s funny because the night we had dinner I thought her husband must think of them as his toys.”

  “You would like to think of them that way, too.”

  “Not true,” I said. “I only think of you, always.”

  “Even with these?” she said, throwing back the covers and pushing out her small and beautiful breasts.

  “More so,” I said and leaned down and kissed each nipple. “Even more so.”

  We hiked Mount Greylock despite the heavy amount of snow. There was a main road leading to the summit of the mountain and we walked that, taking detours into the deep woods where there were trails made by cross-country skiers. At times we would come to an opening looking out into deep valleys where there were farms and open fields covered in snow. The nearly two weeks we were there was very cold, and the warmth of our clothes and the heavy walking we did made both of us sweat. When we reached the summit, which was closed, we opened a bottle of cold red wine and settled in a spot that looked out toward the south. The wine hurt out teeth as we drank it. It was dry and the taste was very clean.

  “I like it better now than if we came when there were a lot of people,” Amy said. “I wish there was a place where we could make love.”

  I put my arm around her shoulders and pulled her into me. I kissed her on the cheek and nose and eyes and lips. She laughed and her voice sounded like a young girl’s. She pulled away from me and looked at me closely.

  “I’m madly in love with you, Ethan.”

  Those words made me know I would never love like this again, never feel the way I felt right at this moment.

  “We can try for a child again, Amy. I want a little you running around our house and getting under our feet.”

  “If we have another child it will be a boy,” she said, a determination in her voice. The little girl had disappeared.

  I poured more wine for us and handed her the glass. She sipped it and laughed again. “I already know his name.”

  “Really?” I asked.

  “Yes, and don’t ask me to tell you because I won’t.”

  We both looked down at the valley below and I knew she was thinking of her miscarriage. I didn’t want anything to ruin this time we had together so I didn’t say anything. I’d learned with Amy that when she became interior it was best to let her alone. I thought of all the times we’d been together since I’d first met her at Columbia. We used to go to my room and make love in the late afternoon and then lie in bed and listen to our breathing, the sun slanting in on us as if it were part of the glow of our love, the way music can become part of a deep emotion. Our life together had been magical until she miscarried, and then part of Amy began to be distant. I couldn’t quite understand what it was that had such a deep effect on her, perhaps some interrupted rhythm that became unbalanced, cacophonous with some discord lending to periods of grief.

  After a while we both realized we would run out of light if we didn’t head back down the mountain and to our car. We reluctantly stood and looked once more at the cold, late afternoon vista. Without our noticing it, a full moon had ascended in the east, sitting in the afternoon blue as if it had been placed there by lordly fingers just for us. Without saying anything, Amy wrapped her arms around my waist and snuggled her head into my coat. Through my sweater and shirt, I could feel her soft breath on my chest and for a moment I had a vision of what it would be to lay supine with my own baby son on my chest. The thought made me long to make love to this beautiful and sexy wife of mine.

  “We’ll order dinner from the restaurant,” I said as we began to move toward the path where we’d come.

  “I thought we were going to cook tonight?” Amy said, elbowing me in my side.

  “And I thought you were going to make a boy for us.”

  The moon watched our descent, its lovely yellow light like a lit lantern guiding us as the sun went down over the Berkshires. Its large yellow face looked down on us, a divine instrument nudging us into each other’s arms so we could begin the cadenced cycle of life.

  Amy

  Ten days after Truman’s death

  Ten days have disappeared from my life since I last saw Truman, last felt his lips on the crown of my head, last heard his voice. The person who did this to my son has not been found. I know it was a man. Only men could do such a thing to a boy as lovely as Truman. Women can’t do things such as this. Oh, yes, I’ve begun to watch Cold Case Files and the rest of those shows on TV, and yes, there are women who murder people, but not young men like Truman. Never young men like Truman. Only men are capable of such a heartless act.

  While Ethan was at work or home drinking or in the guest room or anywhere I wasn’t, I was going through a mental list of men I knew who might’ve done this to Truman. I admit I wanted to go inside his room, see if I could find a clue that would lead me to his murderer. I couldn’t, though. I simply could not. I knew if I went in there he would disappear from my world forever. I’d trained myself hour by hour not to turn the knob leading to his room, so as not enter it and smell him, see his shoes in the closet, his clothes hanging there waiting for his return. I woke one night with the sliver of an epiphany: If I went into his closet and stood next to his clothes, I could wait there as they do and he would eventually find me and want to take me out of there, wear me as if I were one of his shirts, jackets or pants. That idea was silly of course, but dreams make many things seem plausible.

  And when the daylight came, I knew I’d almost been tricked into going in there, his calendar there, his books, his couch, his bed, all of it there tempting me to enter, all of it waiting for me to forever destroy the possibility of his return. I knew if I
entered and he wasn’t there it would finalize his vanishing. So I waited.

  But I was making a list and there were many suspects on it. What was Ethan doing meanwhile? Nothing. He was being Ethan, going to work, coming home, drinking martinis before dinner, wine at dinner, whiskey in the middle of the night as he roamed the house. Was he in search of Truman also, the boy who he’d held in his arms even before I did? Thank God he’s going to be like you, Amy!

  I didn’t ask. I didn’t care. This was a task I was much more equipped to take on. In this case, Ethan didn’t have the mettle. And I knew he would scoff at me, making my lists, as he and Truman often did with my grocery lists, my lists of things to remember, my lists of resolutions for the future, my lists of past slights by Ethan (that one I kept tucked away in my bureau). The list lady, Truman would say teasingly. But this list was dead serious.

  DEAD SERIOUS. I won’t mention all of them here now, but at the top of the list was that Richard Beck (was if Richard?) or, possibly, Tommy Beck. I had this dread one day when I was drinking wine and looking out at a nest being built by a robin near our patio. I thought of the diligence of the robin hen, how she worked and slaved so her children could live secure before they went out on their own, and I thought of how it was brave women who turned children out into the world equipped to take on the task of living. Men can help, of course. They can make children understand in a visceral way how brutal the world can be, but it’s the women of the world who teach their children how to fly into adulthood. I had just turned from the robin, still slightly weak from its trek from the equator. The sun was slanting in on the chair where I was sitting, and I had just picked up my wine glass and I thought, Not all women. NOT ALL WOMEN!

  Some women are totally subservient when it comes to child rearing. Who in this town is like that? I supposed there were a few, especially in a town where the man was still, for the most part, the head of the household. But the one name that kept bumping up in my brain was Tim Beck—I think it was Tim or Rich or something generic like that. He was the loud, arrogant man who Ethan and I had laughed about at that silly party we’d gone to. He was the man who’d treated his wife as if she were his concubine. I’d witnessed how weak she was in the face of her husband’s controlling, haughty behavior that night. Rich Beck was really the epitome of the town and its imperious attitude toward the world and anyone who was not white, wealthy and Republican.