What Remains True

by Thomas, Janis

  Sometimes, when there was a storm, Jonah would sneak into my room, and I thought that was funny, you know, that he didn’t sneak into Mom and Dad’s room like I used to do. I asked him why he came in my room, and I probably sounded annoyed or something, but he just kind of shrugged and said my room was closer and when he went into Mom and Dad’s room they were making a tent and there wasn’t any room for him. I didn’t know what he meant by “making a tent”—not then, anyway. I do now ’cause Janey Markowski told us about sex and what happens and then she showed us a scene from some grown-up TV show called The Affair on her iPhone.

  But anyways, Jonah’s eyes were always kind of scared from the storm, and I let him come into my bed and lie beside me in the dark, and we’d watch for lightning and then count the seconds until the thunder. And his breathing would get all loud and deep and he’d fall asleep, and I’d say, “Oh, great!” But deep down inside, I didn’t mind him being there. I liked it. I liked making him feel safe, and that made me feel safe, too. I remember he always smelled like Johnson’s baby shampoo.

  Shadow lifts his head suddenly and turns it toward my bed.

  Maybe it’s ’cause I was just thinking about it, but I swear I can smell Johnson’s baby shampoo in my room.

  TWENTY-ONE

  SAMUEL

  I don’t know what to do. I’ve always been completely in control, the kind of man who knew what to do in any given situation, but in this moment, with my wife lashing out at me in a way that is completely foreign to me, swinging her arms, kicking me, throwing accusations at me, I’m at a loss, stranded on a stormy sea in a rowboat with no oars.

  When I raise my voice, she gets louder. When I try to pin her arms to her sides, she shoves me off her with the strength and agility of an Olympic wrestler. For the first time in weeks, I wish my sister-in-law were here. Ruth would know what to do.

  She sits on the end of the bed, that fucking monkey around her neck like a noose, staring daggers at me, breathing deeply and offering a moment of quiet. I reach into my pocket and feel the outline of the bottle of her pills.

  “Why did you do it?” she asks.

  I don’t have an answer that will satisfy her, or me, for that matter. I know what I’ve done and what I haven’t done, and I’ve tried to focus on the latter, congratulating myself for the things I chose not to do. But my truth is different from my wife’s. “We shouldn’t talk about this right now, Rachel. You’re out of your mind with grief over Jonah.”

  “Don’t you say his name to me! Don’t you dare bring him into this. He’s gone because of this, Sam. You know it and I know it.”

  I shake my head no. I’ve thought the same thing over the past month, castigated myself for my role in the death of my son. The death of my son. How is it possible that those words are a reality in my life? I bear my guilt with stoic solemnity and Maker’s Mark, while Rachel bears hers with escapism and pills. I blame her as much as she blames me, but in this game, her hand trumps mine.

  “Bad things happen, Rachel. It’s no one’s fault. We can’t blame ourselves.” Even though we do, I think.

  She throws her head back so far I have the crazy idea that it will topple off her shoulders and roll across the bed. She lets out a strangled cry.

  “He’s gone because of this,” she says again. Suddenly, she stands up and walks over to me, and I force myself not to flinch.

  “I need a pill,” she tells me with icy calm. “You’re right. We shouldn’t talk about this right now. I need to rest. The doctor said so. I need to sleep. Give me my pills.”

  I stare down at her, trying not to look too hard at her sunken cheeks and hollowed-out eyes and the translucence of her skin.

  “I’ll give you one, Rachel,” I say.

  She starts to seethe with anger but has the decency to keep her voice down. “Give me my prescription, Sam. It’s my name on the bottle, not yours, not Ruth’s. I’m an adult, and I have complete control of my faculties, even if you don’t think I do.” She jerks her hand out, palm up, a demand. “Give me my fucking pills.”

  Rachel never says fuck. She’s said it twice in the last five minutes. I hold her gaze, and her expression softens, and suddenly she looks like the woman I’ve loved for more than fourteen years. “I won’t do anything stupid,” she says quietly. “I just want to sleep.”

  “Just one?”

  “Yes, damn it. Just one. Just one, I promise, okay? Give them to me. I’m not a child.”

  I withdraw the bottle from my pocket and show it to her. She reaches for it, and I pull it away. “Give me the fucking monkey, Rachel.”

  Her whole body spasms, and she glares at me. Slowly, and with what looks like great effort, she pulls the monkey’s paws apart. The squawk of Velcro echoes through the bedroom. She holds the stuffed animal out to me. It hangs limply from her grasp. Tears stream down her face. I almost change my mind, but I don’t let myself. I take the monkey and hand her the bottle of pills.

  I glance at the bed, at the side where I used to sleep. I wonder if I will ever make my way back to this bed, if I will ever be invited back to this bed.

  “Rachel, I . . .”

  But she is already backing away from me, retreating into her grief. Her head drops to her chest, and I hear the sob. I want to go to her, to wrap my arms around her and press myself against her and push away the torment she feels. But I know she will resist. Her body will stiffen, and she’ll lash out again and say something that will break us more than we are already broken. So I stay where I am, arms at my sides, wishing we were the kind of couple who endured tragedy together, soldiered on united, held each other up, held each other close. We are not.

  “You need to check on Eden,” she says, her voice a hoarse whisper. “Make sure she’s okay.”

  “Come with me, Rachel. Let’s check on her together.”

  Her head jerks from side to side. “I can’t. I can’t. I know it’s terrible, I’m terrible, but I can’t right now.”

  “You’re not terrible, Rachel,” I tell her. It’s a lie. She is terrible. Our son is gone, but our daughter is here, alive, suffering, and Rachel cannot even pretend to be a mother to her. I’m no better, except that I am able to pretend.

  “I love you, Rachel.” The words tumble out of my mouth without my permission, without thought. They are true, but unwelcome. Rachel says nothing. Her shoulders rise and fall with silent sobs. She doesn’t look at me.

  Defeated, I turn and walk out of the room, closing the door behind me. I wander down the hall toward Eden’s room, wondering what I can say to my daughter to explain what just happened. The Maker’s Mark sloshes around in my stomach, not pleasantly, and I know I should eat something to absorb the alcohol, but all I want is another two fingers of bourbon. What a fucking pair my wife and I make. Rachel has her pills, and I have my bourbon. What does Eden have? I ask myself. How does she cope?

  I stop at Jonah’s room, turn the knob, and push open the door. I can’t bring myself to step inside. I toss the monkey to the bed. It lands on the pillow, upright. Staring at me. I quickly shut the door and continue to Eden’s room. I knock softly on her door, wait a moment, then open it and peer in. Eden sits on the far side of the room on her beanbag chair. Shadow lies with his front legs across her lap. Eden’s arms encircle his chest, and her head rests against his head, her eyes closed. Shadow, alerted to my presence, eyes me dubiously but doesn’t move.

  My instant reaction is anger. Shadow isn’t allowed upstairs. The carpeted floors cling to his discarded fur and dander. But then I remember what Eden just witnessed, and I realize I have no right to the anger I feel. Her mother doesn’t make her feel safe, nor do I. At least Shadow can give her some reassurance.

  “Eden?”

  She raises her head slightly but doesn’t open her eyes. Her voice is muffled by Shadow’s thick coat. “Is Mom okay?”

  How like my daughter, to ask after her mother before anything else. Her question fills me with shame that I haven’t put her well-being ahead of everythi
ng, as I should. I take a tentative step into the room. It smells of dog, and I feel my nasal passages react.

  “Your mom’s really sad. Just like you are. Just like I am and Aunt Ruth is.”

  “She didn’t seem sad,” Eden says. “She seemed really angry and, like . . . like, crazy.”

  “I know she did.” Two more steps and I’m at the edge of the bed. I sit and gaze down at the top of my daughter’s head, at the crown of strawberry-blonde hair, the same shade as her mother’s. “I know it’s hard for you to understand.” I take a breath and sigh. “It’s hard for me to understand, too,” I admit, and Eden looks up at me as though I’ve just made an important revelation. Her eyes are puffy and swollen and red, and it hurts to look at her, to see my ten-year-old’s pain, but I force myself to not look away. “Everybody is different, right? Everyone is different and unique, isn’t that so?”

  She nods, almost imperceptibly. “And everyone is sad in different ways, too,” I tell her, but my explanation sounds feeble.

  “Why is Mom so mad at you?” she asks, and the question is so innocent, so unknowing, bereft of an agenda and made from simple curiosity. I don’t know how to answer, what I can say that will make sense to her.

  “Mom’s mad at everything right now. That’s the way she’s being sad.”

  “Is she mad at me?”

  “Oh, no, honey. Not at you.” Another lie. Because I know, on some horrible level, Rachel is mad at Eden for being alive and needing her when she can’t bear to be needed. “Never at you.”

  “Are you mad at me?” she asks, her eyes glistening in the near dark. “For Shadow being in my room?”

  I let out a chuckle and see Eden visibly relax. “No, piece of pumpkin pie. I’m not mad.” I reach out to her, stroke her hair, then put my hand on hers. She looks surprised, and I can’t pretend I don’t know why. I haven’t reached out to her, haven’t held her hand or stroked her hair or even really looked at her since Jonah died. I feel the urge for another shot of bourbon and quickly tamp it down.

  “Come on. Aunt Ruth left some sandwiches in the fridge. I think we both could use a sandwich, don’t you?”

  She lets me pull her to her feet. Shadow groans, then stands and shakes himself, as though he’s soaking wet. Eden squares her shoulders and looks at me.

  “Dad. There’s something I want to talk to you about.” She sounds like she’s thirty-five years old. “About the day . . . ” She swallows. “You know, the day Jonah . . . the accident.”

  My stomach clenches with the memory of that day. What did Eden hear? How much does she know about what happened between her mother and me?

  “But I don’t want to make you upset.”

  “That was a very bad day,” I say, and she nods solemnly. “And I definitely think we should talk about it at some point.” She nods again. “But maybe we should wait until we can talk with Mommy, too.” I am a coward. A bastard and a coward.

  Eden nods. “When do you think we can all talk about it?”

  I wish I knew. “Soon, honey. Really soon. I promise. Now, how about that sandwich?”

  She nods and lets me lead her out of the room. Shadow follows at our heels. When we reach the top of the stairs, she glances at the closed door of the master bedroom.

  “Mom said the f-word,” she whispers, her mouth turned up in a ten-year-old grin. “Twice.”

  I allow myself to grin back at her. “I know, right?”

  “She owes the curse jar, like, ten dollars.” I nod in agreement, then watch as her grin morphs into a frown. “I’m not gonna make her pay, Dad.”

  I nod. “I think that’s probably for the best, at least right now.”

  Eden starts down the stairs, her mood suddenly lifted, her hand still in mine. “Can we have a show dinner?” she asks. I can think of twenty reasons why we shouldn’t. But I don’t give voice to a single one.

  An hour later, after enduring an episode of Dancing with the Stars, which Eden claims is Aunt Ruth’s favorite show, my daughter gets up from the couch and kisses me on the forehead.

  “The crease is better,” she says. “Not much, but a little. I’m gonna go up and read for a while, okay, Dad?”

  “Okay, my girl. I’ll come up and check on you soon.”

  She nods and goes to the stairs. Once she’s out of sight, I reach up and touch the skin between my eyebrows. I feel the deep furrow Eden referred to and massage it for a moment. Then I get up and carry our paper plates into the kitchen and dump them in the trash bin. I move to the cupboard above the fridge and pull out the Maker’s Mark and pour myself a shot. I drink it in one swallow, then return to the couch. It’s after nine o’clock and I’m surprised that Ruth hasn’t come back yet, but a part of me is glad. I channel surf for a few minutes and land on an old Humphrey Bogart movie. My finger stills on the remote as I remember the night Rachel and I saw this film at a theater in downtown New York.

  I don’t want to think about Rachel then. So vibrant and impulsive and spontaneous and alive. That Rachel has gone away. And I don’t know if I will ever see her again. I think about the way she used to skip, skip, down the streets of Manhattan and sing Beatles songs at the top of her lungs and make alphabet pancakes and spell out words of adoration to her kids with them and carve the most elaborate Halloween pumpkins on the block—hell, in the whole neighborhood. I wonder if I will ever see that Rachel again, the one I fell in love with, the one who never failed to surprise me, who made me laugh at myself, who danced with me in the living room, who gave me head in the bathroom of my office and straddled me in the driver’s seat of my Highlander while the kids were napping in the backseat, who picketed the school district when they threatened to raise the class size, and charmed the socks off my potential clients and championed me when I lost an account.

  The woman upstairs is a woman I don’t know, and despite the fact that I had something to do with her transformation, I can’t help but grieve the loss of the amazing person she was before. God, I hope she comes back. Not just for me, but for her.

  I lower the volume on the TV and stare at the screen. Shadow turns around and around on his bed and finally settles.

  God, I miss my wife. Almost as much as I miss my son.

  TWENTY-TWO

  RACHEL

  It’s no one’s fault. What a load of crap.

  I sit perched on the edge of the bed, my side of the bed. I could be on the other side, if I wanted. Sam’s not here. He sleeps downstairs on the couch. Because Ruth told him it was for the best. Because I told her I couldn’t sleep with him beside me. And Sam being Sam, he didn’t fight or argue or insist that he sleep in his own bed, beside his wife.

  I don’t want him here, don’t want to have to look at him or endure his duplicitous touch or feel his studied, long-suffering gaze. But I wonder, just for a moment, how I would feel about him if he claimed his place in this bed, in this room, if he’d argued against leaving both. Would I feel differently about him? Or would I resent him more?

  It doesn’t matter.

  Where is the monkey? I miss him. I shouldn’t have given him to Sam.

  Again, it doesn’t matter. Jonah is gone.

  And yet I can smell him, my son, suddenly, as though he just walked by. The baby powder, macaroni and cheese, and dirt-from-playing-in-the-garden scent. I draw in a long breath through my nose and I can definitely smell him, and I wonder, not for the first time in this last month, if I have gone completely, certifiably insane.

  I can’t smell Jonah because Jonah is not here because Jonah is dead.

  But you saw him, Rachel.

  No. I saw what the pills made me see.

  No. He was here.

  How many pills have I taken today?

  Who cares?

  I can’t get that smell out of my nose.

  I hear the whispered voices of Sam and Eden at the top of the stairs just outside my room. I can’t make out the words. I feel a brief, intense flash of guilt over my behavior in front of Eden. She must think her mother is
a monster. But the scent of Jonah overpowers my remorse. I can’t even recall how I acted, what I said, Eden’s reaction. I know I could access the memory if I tried, but the smell of Jonah is too strong, blocking out everything else.

  I turn my head, just slightly, because I am afraid, and there he is, sitting at the head of my bed, resting against the headboard, smiling a close-lipped smile.

  “Jonah,” I say. But in a whisper, because I don’t know if Sam and Eden are still outside at the top of the stairs, and I don’t want them to hear me, because if they do, if Sam does, he’ll come in here and make me think I’m crazy, which I know I am, and he’ll tell me I’m not really seeing Jonah, which I know I’m not, but if no one stops me from thinking he’s here, I can pretend that he is.

  His mouth is working, but I can’t hear what he says, can’t make out the words. I don’t know if they mean anything, truly, or if they are just the musings of a five-year-old boy. I stretch my hand out to him, and he reaches for me, too, with his right hand, and at the point where our fingers should meet, should touch, I feel only air. And that makes me want to scream, but I don’t want to frighten him, my baby boy, my angel. Because this afternoon, when I saw him at the foot of my bed and started screaming, he vanished. So I hold the scream in.

  I ease myself closer to him, but the closer I get, the less I see him. As though he is an optical illusion, smoke and mirrors, only the smoke is my pills and the mirrors are my desperation.

  “Don’t go,” I tell him. His expression shifts from the happy smile to a look of concern, a look that is not typical for a five-year-old, a look that Jonah never made when he was alive.