Gabe paused in surprise.
“How do you know that?” he asked.
I had put it together that morning, lying in bed as the perimeter of our eclipse curtains glowed with apricot light. The letter tucked in Jung’s Memories, Dreams, Reflections—the three delicate pieces of paper, falling to the floor as if in invitation. Who were you writing to? I’d asked. My thesis adviser, he’d said. Meredith.
“He told me.”
“Why?” asked Gabe. “In what context?”
He was standing across from me in the bedroom, his chest lifted in a proud sort of hurt.
“I found a letter he wrote her. I stumbled upon it in the library at Snake Hollow, and I asked him who it was for.”
“That’s a little invasive, don’t you think?”
“Maybe he wanted me to see it.”
“What do you mean by that?” He looked genuinely bewildered.
“Nothing,” I said.
I felt ashamed; I had scribbled too far outside of the lines. What did I know of Keller’s life, his marriage? I had never lost someone I loved. But the realization that I’d learned something of Keller that Gabe didn’t know made me uneasy. I still had the nagging feeling that I had not discovered the letter to Meredith and the details of her death entirely of my own accord. I even realized that the photograph above her obituary was the same one I had found in Keller’s bedroom, which could have been a coincidence but still gave me the eerie sense that I had unintentionally connected two dots. And although I found this impossible to prove—how could Keller have known I would search for a second copy of Jung’s book or that I would care to find out more about his wife?—I still felt like I was following a path that someone else had set out before me.
Perhaps that’s why I stepped off of the path entirely—or maybe I turned around and started walking the other way. Whether it was in fear or revolt, I didn’t want to know more than I already did. I wanted to believe that I could choose not to learn more about Meredith. I would accept the ground I was standing on; I didn’t always have to search for cracks. If knowledge was an offering, from Keller or somebody else, all I had to do was decline it.
15
MADISON, WISCONSIN, 2005
There were times, of course, when it was impossible to avoid Janna and Thom. We bumped into them at the movie rental place, Janna clutching a silent film, or we saw Thom on campus—Gabe and I grabbing lunch during a daytime shift at the sleep lab, Thom running across the street with his gazelle’s legs just as the light turned red. Each time, my reaction to Thom was visceral, equal parts magnetism and repulsion. Gabe watched me; how couldn’t he? I tried to seem unconcerned. But that shift was seismic, governed by laws outside my control, with a lure as powerful and bewildering as déjà vu.
One sleepy, sunny morning at the beginning of February, the phone rang while Gabe and I ate breakfast—hard-boiled eggs with a piece of fruit on the side. Gabe nodded at me with half an egg in his mouth.
“You gonna get it?”
“Let’s not,” I said.
There was a cut-open blood orange on each of our plates. Several days ago, we returned from the market with a bag of the swollen, thick-skinned fruit. Each was so juicy it dyed our napkins purple.
How was it possible that the phone was still ringing? Gabe paused with his fork in the air.
“It could be Keller,” he said.
“He’ll leave a message.”
Gabe pushed his chair back and wiped his hands on his pants, which stained.
“There’s no need,” he muttered, crossing the room, “to play games. Might as well find out what he wants.”
But before he could pick up the receiver, the ringing stopped, and there was a sharp rapping noise at the door.
“Jesus,” I said. “Can’t leave us alone for one morning, can he?”
I salted my last egg as Gabe strode to the door. I was already sick of the fleshy whites, their Jell-O texture.
“Thom,” said Gabe.
The sound of his name made me want to run. I was ashamed of myself; I had done harder things than this. But I waited at the kitchen table while Gabe and Thom conferred outside, hoping that Thom had only come with a quick question about road closures.
There was a jagged peak of a laugh—Janna’s.
“Sounds like fun,” said Gabe.
He let the door swing open. Thom and Janna stood in their winter regalia: Thom in a long houndstooth overcoat, Janna in a satiny turquoise jacket. Its exaggerated, stand-up collar rose as high as her nose.
“Bocce,” said Gabe. “Want to play?”
His voice was bright, seemingly transparent, but sharp-edged—a tone that reminded me of Janna. It seemed like a dare.
“I’m not dressed,” I said. This was not exactly true; I was wearing a drab combination of sweats, but the sight of Janna made me feel as though I might as well have been in my pajamas.
“It’s such a lovely day,” Janna said. “Warm in the sun.”
“Warmish,” said Thom.
“Warmish,” Janna repeated.
“Come as you are,” Thom said.
He was looking at me in a peculiar way—questioning, hesitant, as though I’d hurt him. His nose was pink with cold, his eyes searching my face. It would be a victory of my dream life over my real one if I said no, I thought—so I stepped into my boots and met them on the porch, where Janna was swinging a blue and red bag, the lumpy shapes inside shifting like an irritable cat.
We walked down a strip of land beside the Yahara River and set up camp near a clump of picnic tables. It was the first day in the forties we’d had all year. Small, slushy puddles pooled in the grass.
“I don’t know anything about bocce,” I said, holding a hand over my eyes as Janna opened the large bag. I was keeping close to Gabe, my fingers wound with his; I felt desperate as a schoolgirl with a first boyfriend.
“It belongs to the boules sports family,” she said. “Closely related to pétanque and bowls, with a common ancestry that dates back to ancient games played during the Roman Empire.”
She turned the bag upside down and a group of heavy-looking, brightly colored balls fell out in a heap. I stared at her dumbly.
“All you really need to know,” said Thom, picking one of them up, “is how to throw a ball.”
Thom suggested ladies and gents teams, not couples, so I found myself standing with Janna as Gabe threw the jack across the field. I was relieved I hadn’t been paired with Thom, but I was nervous around Janna, the way some people are with big dogs; if she were in a toothy mood, it seemed, she could drag me around by the hair. The boys were blue and we red. We took turns heaving our bocce balls toward the jack. I thought I’d struggle to throw mine more than a few feet, but as it turned out, Janna and I were evenly matched. By noon, each team had bowled five times, and we were one point ahead of the boys. If they’d been more focused, they might have played better, but Thom and Gabe were horsing around in a way that reminded me of the boys at Mills. It was part play, part viciousness: Gabe cutting Thom off with a swift kick to the shins or racing him to the farthest tree, their pants splattering with sludge.
Janna leaned against one hip as we waited for them to return. Her thin legs were encased in thick brown tights and dwarfed by a pair of quilted snow boots.
“Sometimes,” she said, “I think Thomas has homosexual tendencies.”
Thom and Gabe careened toward us. They seemed to be racing, but then Gabe dropped behind Thom. In a swift, subtle movement that only I saw, he hooked his ankle beneath Thom’s right leg. Thom skidded forward, his legs splayed, before tumbling to the ground like a calf.
“Fucking hell,” said Thom, unharmed but irritated. He clambered up to a standing position, a clump of mud on his chin, as Gabe ran ahead. “What was that for?”
“Well,” said Janna. “Not so much anymore.”
Why was it impossible for me to see her as she was? Whenever I came close to Janna, she seemed to change form with the ease of an optical illusion. Even now, I see her in the girls who attend the private school near my apartment—in the Cheshire flash of their smiles or the legs that begin at their waists. Janna had once been a girl, and what kind of girl had she been? I assumed she’d been the kind I’d always feared: slippery, shrewd, one who would tie your shoelaces together if you weren’t looking or poke you with tweezers and hairpins. But what if she had been a girl who sat pressed up against the whir of the laundry machine in her parents’ basement reading books about plants? If I’d known her as that girl, perhaps I wouldn’t have been able to do what I did. The more I made Janna a hologram, the more she seemed to haunt me, and the less it seemed possible that things could be the other way around.
As we walked home, Janna asked Gabe about the state of the dogwood trees they’d planted. The trunks had become withered and stunted, and neither of us knew whether they would survive the winter. Thom slowed, falling in step with me. There were ten feet or so between us and the others.
“Good game,” he said, looking ahead.
I nodded. Something fluttered in my chest with the crazed helplessness of a brochure caught under a windshield wiper. He swayed closer to me, and our arms brushed. I wondered if he had been drinking: his breath had the metallic tang of alcohol.
“I finished the next section of my dissertation,” said Thom. “The second chapter. I’ll tell you, it feels good to be getting some traction. Like I’m wearing cleats now, and not slippers. The big questions start to quiet down, and the difficulties are more procedural. Where to insert this piece of evidence, that citation. What will convince you. Though perhaps I shouldn’t be so confident. I’m only halfway there.”
He chuckled, a tinny sound. His little monologue had taken up most of the block, and I was both grateful and flabbergasted. The abrupt lead-in, his assumption of my interest, seemed to suggest we had talked about this before.
“So we aren’t speaking?” he asked.
I froze. What he said had jogged my memory of our phone conversation on Christmas. How he had rung late in the night, and I had told him not to call again.
Janna and Gabe had reached the driveway between our houses. They turned and waited—Janna leaning on the skinny pole of one leg, Gabe watching us with feigned disinterest.
“Fine,” said Thom. He edged ahead of me, limping slightly from his fall. I was panicked, lockjawed. Thom’s face was injured, but his back was bent with a weary, almost feminine nobility, like that of an old horse.
That night, I startled awake after another dream of him. This time, though, I hadn’t been able to catch it; I remembered only Thom’s face, golden and disembodied, his forehead drawn with the same wounded uncertainty I’d seen that morning. I swung my legs around the side of the bed and walked to the bathroom. The light above the sink wavered as I splashed cold water on my chest and dried off with a towel. When I went back to bed, Gabe was propped up on one side, waiting for me.
“What was that?” he asked.
“What do you think?” I was overheated and irritable. “Bad dream. Why? Did I wake you?”
Gabe didn’t answer. He was staring at me with a queer expression, his head cocked to one side.
“Did you see your hand?” he asked.
“What?”
“You know. Did you see your hand?” He adopted Keller’s throaty baritone. “When I see my hand in my dream, I will know—”
“Stop, Gabe. I’m not a patient.”
“Might make ’em feel less real, is all.”
He was smiling, but his eyes were cool and evaluative. It was a look I’d seen many times in Keller. I rolled over, away from him. For minutes, there was no movement from his side of the bed. Finally, he sighed and shifted, the old bedsprings squealing beneath him, and I was able to close my eyes.
• • •
The next morning, I woke to the sound of low voices downstairs, dulled by the bedroom door. When I walked into the kitchen, I saw Keller and Gabe at our round breakfast table, their heads bent toward each other.
“Sylve,” said Gabe. He sat up.
I crossed to the coffeemaker. There was a fresh cup waiting for me.
“Run out of cereal?” I asked Keller.
He laughed, a surprise. Usually he would have tried to tell me off. He wore a ragged sweater, tattered around the wrists, and a pair of jeans. I had never seen him in jeans before.
“I made you coffee,” said Gabe.
“Thank you. I saw.”
“How’d you sleep?” Keller asked.
“Fine. Why?”
“Gabriel mentioned you’ve been having nightmares.”
Keller’s face was pleasant, but his body was still: his back stiff, his coffee cup in a firm grip.
“I’m fine.” I poured my coffee and put the pot back on the burner, where it hissed. “Thanks for your concern.”
As I reached for the sugar bowl, the phone began to ring.
“That goddamn phone,” I said. “It rings and rings and there’s never anyone there.”
“Is that so?” asked Keller, frowning.
I strode to the phone and picked up the receiver. No noise. I hung it up again. It had happened three times in the past week.
“Do you think we should be concerned?” I sat down between them, crossed my arms. “I mean, if it’s somebody calling about the case, why would they hang up? Wouldn’t they ask for whatever they wanted when we pick up?”
“Maybe that’s what they wanted,” said Gabe.
“Just to know we’re home? Why?”
I looked to Keller, but he was impassive.
“Listen,” I said. “I’m sick of the conspiracy theories. Living with this kind of anxiety—it can’t be worth it. Why don’t we come out and say Anne was working with us? What’s the worst that could happen? We could help the prosecution, maybe even gain a little publicity. That’s what you believe, isn’t it? That there’s no such thing as bad publicity?”
“I didn’t say that. Not exactly.” Keller rubbed the back of his neck. His eyes were heavily lidded, and the skin of his cheeks seemed to hang. “We would have to think it through.”
“You can’t be serious,” said Gabe. “That would be tantamount to turning ourselves in. The university wants a success story. Our money is tight as it is, and after the mess that happened with Jamie, we can’t afford to tell them that one of our participants went off and killed someone.”
“Well, maybe we need to face up to the fact that we don’t have a success story,” I said.
Gabe glared at me. Not in front of Keller—I knew that was what he was trying to tell me.
“We still might,” Gabe said.
“We’d better hope so,” said Keller, “for your sakes as well as mine. I can’t pay you out of pocket.”
“I can’t imagine that things are already that dire,” I said. “It’s not like you have a team of twenty researchers. You’ve only got the two of us.”
I didn’t realize what I’d said until I saw Keller’s reaction. To an outside observer, he would have looked just the same. But I saw the way his nose twitched—a sharp little rabbit’s motion, as if he’d smelled something sour. He looked out of the window, where the sidewalk had been scraped of snow and doused in salt.
“You’re right about that,” he said. Then he stood, pulled on his coat, and walked outside to his car.
Gabe’s fingertips were white against the table.
“What the hell do you think you’re doing, bringing that up?” he asked. “The man lost his wife.”
I was too surprised to be indignant. “I didn’t mean it like that.”
“Well, maybe you should think a little more before you open your mouth. Think about the implications of what you’
re saying. You can’t talk to him that way.”
“I talk to him like an equal.”
“That’s my point. He’s our boss.”
“Oh, he’s a lot more than that, and you know it.”
“So talk to him like he’s more than that,” said Gabe. “Not like he’s some kind of failure.”
“He’s not your parent, Gabe. He’s not your therapist. You can say whatever you want about yourself, but you had no right to tell him about my dreams.”
I got up from the table and washed my coffee cup. I was already on edge, my anger fueling.
“I’m worried about you,” said Gabe. “I confide in him because I trust him. Is that such a crime?”
“Christ, Gabe.” I dropped the mug into the dish rack, where it clanged against a bowl. “How much is he paying you?”
“Same amount as you.”
“Then you’re working overtime.”
Gabe was still sitting down, but his shoulders were clenched around his neck like a boxer ready for attack.
“Don’t you have any faith?” he asked.
“Not blind faith. Not blind.”
I turned toward the sink and wiped my hands, but I could feel Gabe staring at my back. When I turned, his jaw was tight, but his eyes were wide with misery.
“What’s happened to you, Sylvie?”
I wanted to claw him. The sight of him in such pain—and worse, to be blamed for it—was more than I could stand.
“What happened to me?” I asked. “What happened to you? You used to be an insurgent, Gabe. A renegade.”
“And now?” he asked. “What am I now?”
His fists rested on the table. Below, his legs were crossed at the ankles, feet clad in the wool socks Keller had given him one Christmas.
“A lapdog,” I said.
I walked to the screen door that led to the back porch; it wheezed open, coughed shut, and there was cold air in my face. My breath was rickety, my cheeks hot. When I blinked, I saw firecrackers. I went to the fence, where I knew Gabe couldn’t see me, and ran my palms over the rough, papery surface. There was a loud snuffle behind me, and I jolted away from the wall, expecting to see one of the sly, fanged raccoons that ferreted through our trash bins at night. But nothing was there; the noise had to be coming from Thom and Janna’s garden. I came close to the fence again and peered through the sliver between two planks.
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