I peeked in our bedroom where Janet slept in a negligee I'd never seen before. It hugged her still shapely body quite well. I smiled as I thought about how she must have worn it for me. Then a pang of guilt ran through me as I thought about how lovely my secretary Erin would look in the same negligee. What was it Jimmy Carter said? We've all lusted in our hearts. I've done more than that in my office.
I tapped on Hannah's room and peeked inside. It was empty; she'd stayed at Cindy's as she said she would. I returned to the main floor and made some coffee. As it brewed, I went outside to get the paper. The joggerless street rang with birds and I thought I saw a deer on old man Sofie's lawn, though he may have simply had a lawn ornament installed. Who knows what happens after a lonely man hits seventy?
I stood on the front step reading the headlines when footsteps approached behind me.
"You're probably going to be the last person who reads a newspaper," Hannah said.
I smiled. "Call me nostalgic."
"I just think you're living in the past."
"Coffee's brewing."
"Good. I'm knackered."
I hoped she didn't know what that phrase meant. I chose not to ask.
With our coffee cups in hand, my daughter and I sat in the breakfast nook, the paper spread between us. She paid it no mind.
"How'd it go?"
"Mr. Anderson got drunk and fell asleep."
"And Mrs. Anderson?"
"She and your mother eventually took him home while I cleaned up around here."
"That explains the musty smell."
"I haven't showered yet."
"Or cleaned."
"Anyway, I fell asleep on the couch."
She nodded, though there were questions she wasn't asking tucked behind her eyes.
"What?" I asked.
"What time did Mom come home?"
"I fell asleep."
Her eyes widened. "Where's Mom?"
"She's in bed."
"You sure?"
"Yes."
Without taking her coffee, she slid off the chair and padded up the stairs. I refilled my mug and enjoyed the tinkling sound of my spoon as I stirred in my sugar.
"When did Mom get a nightie?"
"I don't know. She looks good in it, though, don't you think?" I took a sip. Perfectly sweetened.
"I'm going to say something really inappropriate. I don't want to say it, but I need to: You need to go upstairs and have sex with Mom."
I almost spit. Before I could say anything, I coughed. "Honey—"
"You need to tell her how beautiful she is—"
"But—"
"—and make her feel like you guys are young—"
"Wh—"
"I'll leave, because it makes me sick even thinking about this."
"What are you talking about?"
"Please tell me step zero is you still love Mom."
"Of course I love her. You've used that phrase 'step zero' a lot the past few days. What does it mean?"
"Like I said the other day, it's the step at the very, very beginning. The assumptions that we all make in order to take the first step. You've never heard of it?"
"So, you're saying step zero is the obvious."
"Not exactly. Sometimes, but more often we take the obvious for granted and don't see that it's not always true. Let me give you an example." She looked at me closely. "What is beauty?"
"That's not a simple question. Do you mean art and paintings and stuff?"
She mocked me. "Like paintings and stuff? You sound like some of the kids in my art class."
"So you want me to define art."
"No. I want you to understand that things change yet can still be both timeless and infinite."
I looked up at the ceiling. "I suppose beauty is something that evokes an emotional response." The ceiling still needed a paint job. "Art is something that—"
"You know, this could take all day. You're missing the point."
"The point being?"
"Do I have to say it again? Go upstairs."
It occurred to me that she and I still hadn't fully discussed her grades.
I stared at her, not saying a word.
She shooed at me with her hands. "Go. Off with you and your nasty old-age clothes. Go, go, go. In the meantime, I'm going to vomit."
"You're saying that I need to go seduce your mother because you're afraid I don't know she's beautiful?"
"Whatever," she said. "I'm done here. I'm going out for breakfast with Cindy and some friends."
I left the room. And walked upstairs.
Janet awoke almost immediately.
"You look even more beautiful than the day we met," I said. And I meant it.
* * *
"You still know how to reach me," Janet said.
We lay beside each other, spent and content, much as we had for the past couple of weeks since the card game.
"I'm amazed at how much I still have to learn."
"About me?"
"And me."
"And Erin?"
"No. No more Erin. She's moved on."
Janet smiled. It wasn't a cruel smile, but there was a certain look of "I won" on her lips. "You know I knew all along, don't you?"
"All along?"
She turned to me, and I knew she told me no lies.
"But I was so careful."
She laughed. "A woman knows."
"What gave me away?"
"You don't need to worry yourself about that, dear." She curled up closer beside me and placed her hand on my chest.
It felt nice, but I still had this feeling there was more I needed to know. "How close did I come to losing you?" As soon as the words were out, I regretted them.
For several seconds, there was silence in the bedroom.
"Have you learned nothing?"
I sat in renewed silence.
"Don't assume too much. You'll be much happier." She repositioned her hand under the covers and reminded me of how happy I could be. "I'm here because I want to be."
I closed my eyes and was pleased.
Although it was uncomfortable to discover that I had miscalculated the value of so much in my life, Janet—and Hannah, for that matter—had a knack for showing me that learning is an ongoing process, not simply something to be assessed and graded. How had I survived this long without understanding?
I was happy. But what was happiness? Again, nothing could be simpler if I knew where to start.
I loved my wife. I loved my family. I stood at step zero.
The Tree of Life by A.M. Supinger
Life as a phantom, trapped between the spirit world and the mortals roaming the earth, was never-ending misery. He'd seen people come and go, some so troubled by their existence that they ended their short time as mortals prematurely; he envied that choice, burned with hot jealousy that made continuing his existence difficult.
Sometimes he tried to die, but such was not possible. Falling a hundred feet onto a jagged rock was not enough. Neither was drifting under waves for countless days. Always he would give up and go back to her, the tree. Her branches would sway when he returned, and her leaves unroll from slumber. Only his presence allowed life to flourish, for she needed someone to care for her children.
As usual, a heartstring sprouted upon his return and tethered him to the tree's newest offspring. Their newest offspring. Normally, this tree's fruit reached maturity within a few days.
But not this time.
As he lingered near the tree's massive roots, which dwarfed his humanesque form and grew in graceful arcs around the shadowed grove, he noticed the current blossoms looked different. The tree was unique among trees—indeed, humans had long ago named it the Tree of Life—but these buds were especially peculiar. They looked like eggs.
He'd never really cared about the tree's sense of humor before, although fire-birds birthed from a wooden mother were proof of her wit, but now he was curious. Ivory shells curved from small blooms, and thin, silver veins
lined each of the dozen eggs.
Endless hours had gone into pruning creatures from their birthplace, and he'd seen wizards born of lightning-struck twigs, gryphons hanging from umbilical tails, and sprites sprouting from acorns. All had been commonplace. He'd named thousands of new entities and sent them away. But never before had she given him these. The splendor of these budding lives gave him hope; not many things spawned from the tree lived past legend or lore, and he'd survived the deaths of every new child. Perhaps this would be truly different.
His imagination created dozens of possibilities, all more fantastical than the creatures he'd seen before, but nothing was worthy of the ivory eggs. Not even humans and their blessed mortality.
Anguish gnawed at him as days went by and no life awakened within the beautiful shells. What if these creations were too magical for this world? What if the tree was now barren and doomed to bear lifeless fruit? Though lifeless himself, his form withered as worry dogged his every thought; he'd never witnessed a child's death before.
He was irrevocably tied to the eggs. Pain lanced his soul at the thought of these unborn creatures entering the spirit world without ever living. The eggs belonged to him as much as to the tree; they were, like all her children, his offspring, too. Part of him would die with the creatures if he felt them fade into the afterlife. The bond tying him to the tree's fruit had always severed upon first awakening before, but he knew such would not be the case this time. Even death could not free him of these unknown beings.
His shadowed limbs grew listless and misty, more insubstantial than ever before. Death rattled his not-so-immortal lungs when finally the eggs cracked. He watched in helplessness as moon-bright sparks and lily petals dripped from the fractures. Hope kept him immobile as each ivory casing fell away, although his eyes were weak and the light hard to penetrate. When at last the shimmery luminescence faded, spindly white shapes gathered near the aged trunk of his tree.
Knobby knees and long faces butted and nosed the ancient wood, and he saw twelve pairs of silver lashes outlining moonbeam eyes. When each had said farewell to their mother, they trotted to him and let their precious horns press against his wasted body. He touched every one with tenderness unknown to him, love filling his heart and tethering him more surely than the tree's heartstrings. His children lived! Tears leaked into the cracks of his craggy face, and death withdrew.
Sparks of moonlight cast an eerie glow on the grove as they turned away, their coats blurring as they moved. Never again would he wish to die whilst unicorns roamed the world.
Anything for Will by Yvonne Osborne
Katie threw the letter from her mother in the trashcan and paced the dorm room. From door to desk it was only twenty feet, so pacing only put her on edge. Pacing was what she did when thinking about Will—if more than a few days went by without a letter, or if one came stained with gun oil or the red dirt of the Highlands or wrinkled by humidity before he could even fold it into an envelope.
She looked at the wastebasket. It was a mistake to ask them for money. It was a mistake to throw the letter away. She dug it back out, wishing she hadn't crumpled it, wishing she hadn't asked. From the looks of your grades, money isn't what you need. But she did. She needed money. She needed sweaters (Molly's were too short in the arm), cigarettes, and new panties. Mailing her old ones to Will had become an erotic, habit-forming ritual.
She needed a job, a part-time one like her roommate, Molly, had. Molly, too, was on scholarship; they had that in common. You could tell who was and who wasn't, but it wasn't something anyone ever talked about.
She opened her journal and looked at the penciled draft of a poem she'd been working on through a hundred changes. Writing poetry back and forth was another one of their rituals, but now she was stuck. They were both stuck.
She propped her feet on her desk and considered the problem. Maybe she was trying too hard. What she wanted to tell him couldn't be expressed in a structured verse. She dashed off a new one. A simpler one.
Dear Will,
I think they put something in the cafeteria food to strip our vocabulary of style and wit. I tried to write you a Sapphic verse but the words won't come. Maybe I'm trying too hard. Keep it simple. Ok, three simple words that can't be cheapened by human endeavor. Maybe they are enough. Words to be felt in the mouth, rolled off the tongue. I love you.
I want to watch you sleep
wake you slow and take you in.
Trace the cleft of your chin
and draw a bead round your mouth.
Can you feel it?
My lips steal your scars
and make them mine.
I will take you in-
wrap you like a bed sheet in the wind.
She stood and stretched, then clasped her hands behind her ankles. She held the position, thinking of how much she'd like to wrap him up and tuck him into bed, know he was safe. But first there would be other things between them. There would be his erection pressed against her thigh . . . his ass firm and damp in her palms . . . the merging of their separate selves.
"Where's my Rimbaud?" Molly interrupted her reverie. "I didn't say you could keep it, you know, or sell it." Her voice rose with suspicion. "Did you sell my Rimbaud?"
"Don't be silly." Katie knelt on her bed and pulled the book of translated poetry off the overhead shelf. They both identified with the boy genius who had summed up the entire Romantic agony of the nineteenth century in amateur poetry by the time he was nineteen. "Do you think the Tender Trap is hiring?" she asked, handing Molly the dog-eared book.
"That place is a little rough." Molly frowned. "What'd you do, memorize this?"
"Amazing, isn't it? Here's this guy writing in the 1870s about linden trees, love, madness and alcohol. I swear he could be in my poetry class." Katie laughed and fell back on her pillow. "I wonder," she hugged her knees, "how do we know translations are accurate?"
"You don't," Harley said, walking in unannounced. She was taking them up on their offer of a night out but had refused to attend the demonstration set for morning. "There's an entire area of study devoted to the untranslatable. Like déjà vu, perfect it its native language and unexplainable outside of it, except in rambling clumsy paragraphs. Or take the French word voyant. There's no English word for it."
"Don't you mean voyeur?" Katie scooted over to make room for her on the bed. "Are you up on Rimbaud? You know French . . ."
"I know a little more than couvre-feu." Harley sat down with a secret smile.
Katie sighed at yet another reminder of all she had divulged during one of their late nights. She looked at Harley's scuffed leather boots. "Did you get those at Goodwill?"
"What's wrong with that? Consignment is practical and responsible." She crossed her legs gracefully. It was an accepted fact that Harley came from old money, and while she never seemed to spend any with her new avocation for secondhand, she had a level of refinement that transcended the clothing, like royalty fallen on hard times. She and Billy had always been a puzzle of opposites. But then, so had Billy and Will. One a prankster and one conflicted, but best friends, taking their one-two punch on the football field to a double-point formation in the jungle.
"Voyeurs are what you have in your theatre class, n´est-ce pas?" She struck a match and lit her cigarette, gazing at Katie over the top of it. "I don't know how up I am on Rimbaud, but I think he's interesting, and his work is to poetry what Latin is to language. Why hasn't anyone ever written a screenplay about him? Do you ever think about how haunted words are by their origins? You know . . . the company they kept in the past?"
"Haunted? You mean like Auden's use of Old English? Will likes Auden, you know." Katie latched onto any opportunity to say his name out loud, to bring him into the conversation, as though he were beside her, their sides pressed together. "'Doom is dark and deep,'" she closed her eyes and breathed. "Now that's haunted. Words you can feel."
"I don't think Auden's good for Will," Molly said.
> Katie frowned. "What do you mean?"
"Auden's depressing. Will's moody enough without reading Auden."
"It's called empathy, Molly. I would think you'd know the difference, given your major. And Will isn't moody. He's introspective. Maybe you should change your major."
"You're just in love with tumult, like Rimbaud. Wanting to work in the Tender Trap . . . Christ, what a dive. "
"At least I don't work in a head shop."
"Pipe shop."
"There's speculation about Rimbaud," Harley said. "His mum sent him to military school, and it's said he was molested in the barracks."
"The military will fuck you up," Molly said. "I think we're all finding that out."
They were quiet for a minute.
Katie unfolded her legs. "Shit. Families fuck you up."
Harley raised an eyebrow at that, coming from Katie. She leaned over to rest her cigarette in the ashtray and shrugged. "Get it straight, Katie, when you write that screenplay. It's a wonder he was at all prolific, considering his addictions—hash, experiments with absinthe, various intoxicants—I mean drugs enhance creativity, but only to a point."
"A genius always has addictions," Molly said. "Harley, I wish you'd come tomorrow. Billy would be proud. Don't you want to take a stand? You can sing . . . can't you?"
* * *
They were taking it to the streets. It was in their music, in the classroom, and on the radio. The frustration flowed like beer from a tap. They had lost faith in a government that was pursuing a war they couldn't understand for a cause they didn't believe in.
Whatever else could be said, they couldn't be accused of indifference.
There was a large turnout, and the media was there, cameras and reporters linked to credible outlets. Katie locked arms with Molly. Molly had instructed her to pull her hair back and to take her earrings off, and she had gamely done what she was told. She was frightened, yet exhilarated. All these people she didn't know were like partners, and it felt noble to take a stand against such notions as clean bombs and the morality of napalm. And the sit-in was supposed to be peaceful, but music blared and a rising chant inflamed the crowd. Then a chill raced across the park as a wall of riot police armed with billy clubs advanced on the gathering. The alarm went out, and as shoulders jostled and moved as one, they were no longer individuals but a mob, which made it easier for the cops to start swinging.
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