After the Eclipse

by Sarah Perry

  But as I turned the tap to hot, I heard the heart-sinking, burring noise of the garage door sliding up. As I stepped into the shower and heard the boys tearing through the house, yelling at each other and banging on their toys, as I heard the murmur of Tootsie and Jimmy’s typically passionless exchanges, my legs started to buckle under me. I sank to the hard plastic floor and drew my knees up to my chest, putting my hands over my face and biting the heel of my right hand to silence the sobs rising up through me. My hair hung heavily along my sides, swollen with water, the ends lying on the bathtub floor. I thought about how my mother would run hot, soapy baths for me when I came home from school crying, upset about some slight from a friend or a bad grade on a test. I thought about the quiet stillness of those baths, how I could linger there reading a book until the deep water cooled around me and the bubbles deflated and disappeared, while she cooked dinner. I would call out to her then and she’d come wrap me in a big fluffy towel, playfully scrubbing my head, then sit me down on the toilet seat cover and gently work the tangles out of my long hair.

  My tears ran with the scalding water, my sadness a live thing within me, physically painful and clawing to get out. Almost worse than the sorrow of missing her was the fact that Mom’s death had revealed everything to be meaningless. So much of what I’d thought was true had turned out to be an illusion. I saw the people around me living by these illusions—that love and safety could be counted on, that life had meaning and the future could be controlled—and I did not feel that I could ever again share their suspended disbelief. I was swimming against a strong, cold current: I could see them there, playing on a sunny beach, but I couldn’t rejoin them. Continuing the struggle seemed not only incredibly painful but, even worse, pointless.

  I picked up my shaving razor and cracked open the plastic head with a practiced movement, freeing the blade. I held the strip of sharp metal between my fingers, which were suddenly steady, and I stared at the beautiful, sexual gleam of the thing. A deep calm came over me as I thought once again about lying back and letting it all flow out—pain, loneliness, strength, everything. I was so very tired.

  But then I thought of those little boys somehow finding me there, in the bathroom I shared with them.

  And I thought of my mother, how disappointed she had always been when I gave up on something hard.

  And then I heard a sharp knock on the door.

  * * *

  The thought of suicide stayed with me, in the shower, in my darkened bedroom, in the backseat of the minivan on the way to the grocery store. It hid behind the smile I forced at school, it cast a pale shadow over each happy moment. Sometimes suicide was like a door in my peripheral vision, a potential exit that I could step through at any time. I felt better and calmer just knowing it was there, that I wasn’t trapped. But most of the time, it was an object of desire, a thing with its own weight and texture, a deeply magnetic object whose pull varied in strength but rarely ceased.

  Sometimes, the scary thing about suicide was that it seemed inevitable, the only logical end to everything that had happened. My mother’s death had shown me what the world really is: a constructed thing, made of elaborate social rituals and ties of love. To live in the world, I realized then and still believe, you have to participate, you have to make relationships and meaning for yourself, because there is no ultimate design. You have to pretend that it is impossible for a killer to come in the night and destroy everything. I will never forget that improbability is not the same as impossibility.

  In those first few years, I participated—I hit all my marks, I shuffled through all the steps—but it was more a march than a dance. The charade was exhausting. But although much of what I’d known had proven to be false, there was still one thing I knew with absolute certainty: my mother would not have wanted me to die. So each day I found a new reason to keep living.

  23

  * * *

  before

  Denny finally prevailed over Tim, and during the first few months of their relationship, he proposed to Mom countless times. But Mom wouldn’t even think about saying yes until Denny had a ring. He couldn’t just talk about getting married; she needed concrete proof he was committed, that this wasn’t just an infatuation. But this condition was also a stalling tactic. She had serious doubts about getting engaged to such a young man, one she had been dating for only a handful of months, who was recently divorced. And she was starting to worry about his temper, about the fights they were already having, fights that were increasing in regularity and volume.

  Naturally, Denny focused on solving the easiest problem first. So when the three of us went out shopping, he would drag her into jewelry stores. Mom would look at colorful gemstone rings and earrings while Denny tried to steer her to the engagement rings. I tried to keep my smudgy fingers in my pockets, hovering over the glass counters, all filled with rows of bright promises. I grabbed brochures by the handful, learned all about diamond grades, trying to use knowledge to bring the fantasy closer. I thought that if we could only get a diamond onto Mom’s finger, the engagement would fix everything. She wouldn’t have to worry so much about money. Tim would never return. Denny would love her and stay with her. There would be no more periods of disheveled sadness, when she didn’t even bother with her customary blue eyeliner, her bare eyes naked, exposed in a way I wasn’t supposed to see.

  After his divorce, Denny had moved into a friend’s basement, but he was constantly looking for a place of his own, and often took us with him on the search. We would climb into his truck and he would play us country music—Travis Tritt, Garth Brooks, Patty Loveless. Tales of strength in the face of sadness, of devoted love that withstood time, of faith that flouted reason. To me, those songs were lovely daydreams. These trips could last all afternoon, the three of us wedged onto the truck’s bench seat, winding along dirt roads to drive slowly past Denny’s prospects. He would talk about moving us into the beautiful houses we peered at, while Mom deflected his stories and I swooned, oblivious to what she would have had to give up to move in with him. On the way home, we’d stop to pick blueberries in fields loud with grasshoppers, or buy ice cream from tiny roadside stands.

  * * *

  Denny finally bought a respectable B-grade, quarter-carat, marquise diamond, shining but not stunning, set on a tapered yellow gold band. He showed it to me secretly and told me how much it cost: $161, steeply on sale. They had been together for about six months. In my diary on August 14, 1993, I wrote, “Denny is going to give Mom the ring on the twenty-third, Mom’s birthday! That’s so romantic!”

  When Mom left our house that birthday morning, she turned out of our driveway and onto Route 93 to see black balloons tied to a telephone pole. She drove another quarter mile, and there were more dark spheres floating in the morning air, dull with dew. On High Street, there was a big, hand-lettered sign—happy 30th, crystal!—next to more balloons, which appeared at shorter and shorter intervals the rest of the way to the Shoe Shop. When she arrived, there were still more black balloons and crepe paper tied to her workstation, plus a card signed by her coworkers, who spent the rest of the day joking about how she was becoming an “old lady.” No one could know that this would be her last birthday, that she would never be old.

  Mom drove home from work that day happy, her balloons making gentle bumping noises in the backseat. So many friends had gone out of their way to show her how much they loved her, had gotten up extra early to make a fuss. When she got home, she tied the balloons to a leg of our kitchen table, started dinner, and waited for Denny to come over. I had a card for her, and a present, a pewter figurine I’d seen her admire in a store downtown. It was a warrior woman, a tiny, curvy lady with a drawn sword and a dagger in her boot, a jewel set into her prizefighter belt.

  When Denny came, we all sat down to dinner and cake. He seemed to be in a ruffled, edgy mood, and I started to wish he hadn’t shown up. Sometimes he was so fun and sweet, and other times he was like this: moody and fuming, just on the edge o
f an explosion. It was clear the proposal would not be happening that day, and I was smart enough not to bring it up. I went to bed early, for once putting up no resistance, and quickly drifted off to sleep. I awoke soon after, as their voices rose into an escalating argument. A high voice, a low one. Soon they were screaming at each other. Mom sounded frustrated, mostly, but Denny’s anger had a commanding quality about it, scarier than in their previous arguments. They were in the kitchen, and their voices rang out against the hard surfaces of the linoleum floor, the steel refrigerator, the Formica counters. Finally I heard a loud bang, a hollow sound punctuated by a crack that resounded in the thin walls. I sat up tensely in bed, listening to the thick silence that followed. Then I heard our side door swing open and slam, echoed by the sound of Dennis climbing into his truck. I heard Mom stride down the hallway, shut her door, and start crying. I snuck out to the kitchen for a glass of water, and stood next to the sink drinking it down, looking sadly at those black balloons floating in the dark.

  * * *

  It would take Denny three more months to overcome Mom’s reservations, months during which we both saw many of his good qualities. He took us on long walks through the woods, and he made me a bow and arrow from a sapling and then taught me how to shoot it, explaining that you had to aim higher than your target, because time and distance would pull your arrow down. He told funny jokes, and he never seemed bored by my long descriptions of the books I was reading. We drew up plans for a tree house he would build me, once he had extra money for the lumber.

  One Friday night, Denny stayed home with me while Mom went out dancing with Linda. We watched movies, and at some point we went outside, then turned off the porch light and gazed at the stars while he smoked and I pointed out the constellations. I told him about the Big Bang theory. He listened, then thought aloud, “But what came before that?” He was sure that beyond any observable phenomena, there must be some guiding force, an idea I found beautiful and reassuring, even if we couldn’t identify exactly what that force was. I felt so safe that night, standing in the darkness with my friend and thinking about the universe.

  When Mom and I watched romantic movies, I imagined her and Denny in the lead roles. They were more thrilling to me than any movie romance, and like a movie romance, they seemed inevitable. I knew that their age difference was one reason Mom kept saying no to Denny’s proposals, but I think we both saw that his youth was also an asset. He was still a work in progress, and among other things, he wanted to be defined as the man who loved Crystal Perry the most, who took care of her. I could see he had flaws, but he showed up. He wasn’t some flaky college boy who messed with her emotions, like Tim, who I knew was still sending letters to our house. Dennis was composed mainly of potential and passion. If that passion occasionally translated into bouts of temper, well, his impetuousness went hand in hand with his spontaneity, his energy, and the urgent rustlings, the caught breath, the buoyant laughter I heard from her bedroom when he stayed overnight. I forgave him his tantrums, just as she did. I kept thinking they would disappear. Maybe if she just said yes, I thought, he would calm down.

  Then one afternoon not long before my birthday, during a happy week, Denny took Mom’s hand and led her to her bedroom. He shut the door behind them, then casually handed her a paper bag, twisted shut at the top. “Look what I got Sarah!” he said, with a ta-da! smile. When she uncoiled the bag and reached in, she found that simple ring Dennis had bought her months earlier. She finally said yes. I know I was excited that day, but I can’t remember if she was. As she later told a friend, she was reluctant even to show her ring to anyone.

  * * *

  The engagement didn’t bring the sudden change I’d hoped for. Dennis kept exploding, then making amends. She kept taking him back, and I didn’t want to hold grudges. I wanted to believe in them. She wanted him to be the person with whom she would finally make the family she’d been dreaming of; she wanted him to make her feel safe.

  But Dennis’s presence did little to protect us from threat. Teresa—who still lived with Tom—started calling us. The phone would ring, and Mom would hesitate before getting up from the couch, giving the receiver a suspicious glare. She’d pick up, and I’d hear a few moments of Teresa’s grating voice spill out before Mom slammed the receiver back onto its wall-mounted cradle. Sometimes she would miss, and the receiver would bungee to the floor. She’d replace it more gently, then turn back toward me, run a nervous hand through one side of her hair, and come sit back down on the couch. The restraining order must have timed out—I don’t know if Mom ever did call the cops again, but they took no further action against Teresa. A known loose cannon getting wasted and calling her boyfriend’s ex, threatening to kill her, wasn’t much of an event in Bridgton. Through all those months when I’d forgotten about Teresa, Mom must have been waiting for the day she’d resurface.

  I knew Mom was afraid, but she wouldn’t say so, and although she encouraged me to hate Teresa, she also told me to laugh her off. “Don’t take her too seriously,” she said. She thought it was beneath us to be intimidated, no matter what Teresa was capable of.

  Teresa’s rage worked in combination with cold, precise instinct: she told Mom over and over that she was going to burn our house down. She’d catch us sleeping and we’d die in the fire and she’d have destroyed something that must have made her terribly jealous. Teresa, living on state disability checks and making death-threat calls from a pay phone, could never hope to buy a house.

  The kitchen’s ringing phone became a fraught thing: impossible to tell if it was a cheery bell announcing a friend’s hello or a shrill siren that could cast fear over the rest of our night. For a few months, I wasn’t allowed to answer it at all, but one time I forgot. The phone rang and I skipped over to it, thinking it was Marie, and stuck the receiver to my ear.

  “Hello!” I said.

  “You fucking cunt! I’m going to come over there and—”

  I jumped and hung up the phone. Mom made me tell her what Teresa had said to me. I stammered and blushed and felt like I was the one who was making her mad, saying that word.

  Sometimes Tom called, too. I don’t think he made any threats—mostly he was just drunk and maudlin. “I’d like to see my kid,” he’d slur. “C’mon, Crystal, just let her see me.” As though she were stifling some desire of mine.

  Mom would say something like, “If you care so much, why don’t you pay some child support?” And then she’d hang up. She knew that once he sobered up, he’d know better. And it’s true that he never asked for anything when he was sober, knew he didn’t have the right. But he didn’t make any efforts to straighten out, either. He often started his first six-pack in the morning, job or no, and he didn’t leave Teresa, didn’t even stop her from calling us.

  * * *

  I don’t remember ever seeing Teresa face-to-face, but apparently I did. After Mom’s death, several of her friends would tell the cops that one day, the week before the murder, Teresa had come up to us on the street. She must have seen Mom suddenly, or sought her out, then rushed up to her, confronting her before she had time to take me away.

  “You can’t have him now,” Teresa said. “I’m pregnant! I’m having his baby—whaddya think now?!”

  Mom took a second, then hissed back, “Well, I’m pregnant, too. I don’t give a shit about you two.” It was a sad lie: she very badly wanted a larger family, but she wasn’t pregnant.

  Teresa wasn’t lying, but her pregnancy didn’t stop her from toasting Mom’s death three days after the murder, sitting in the cab of her friend Mary’s pickup, drinking down a bottle of cheap champagne and laughing.

  24

  * * *

  after

  The school months in Texas stretched on, and I was grateful for the routine of classes and band practice. Angela had convinced me to join marching band with her, where she played flute and I played clarinet, and for the first time I felt at home again in a pack of kids. The classes were more challenging in Texas
than they would have been back in Maine, which turned out to be a relief. When I first arrived, I’d gone to a school counselor and told her that I was supposed to skip seventh grade. “Just call the office in Bridgton,” I said. “They’ll tell you.” But skipping was against my new school’s policy, which seemed terribly unfair. I complained loudly, arguing that I was being forced, essentially, to attend an extra year of school. But I think I was actually upset because skipping had felt like my mother’s final wish for me, the last one I could identify, and I could no longer fulfill it.

  Despite the comfort of routine, school could still be a minefield of inadvertent cruelties. My French teacher was a jolly Québécois who liked to play us the pop music of his homeland—he had that embarrassing “buddy” style of teaching. One day we were having a class discussion about families, and he posed a question to me about my mother. “Umm,” I said as the rest of the class waited expectantly. He sighed and prompted me with something, thinking I didn’t have the words to answer him in French. “Non,” I said. “Non, je . . . Elle . . .”

  “Comment?” he said, growing impatient.

  I could have lied to this teacher. I was pretty good at French at the time. I could have said that my mother sewed shoes or that she lived in Maine, that she had red hair. I could have told him her age or said she was thin, or even said she was divorced. But I didn’t want to say any of these things; none of them were true anymore, and I wasn’t willing to lie, in any language, just to make people more comfortable. We hadn’t yet studied past tense, and if I had referred to her in the present, it would only have underscored her absence. I thought for a moment, and could only come up with a blunt answer. “Ma maman est morte.”