by Amity Gaige
“Don’t cry!” Charlotte said, wringing her hands. “Please don’t cry!”
The doctors had told her that he shouldn’t be upset or exerted for several days. But there was nothing she could do. Putting her hands over the leaks did not stop them. The amount of tears was copious. His smooth olive face was wet with them. So she sat and watched. It occurred to her she had never seen him cry this freely, not even upon burying his mother.
For several days afterward, Clark convalesced at home, reveling in the rather morbid attentions of strangers without resenting them for never coming around beforehand. The Ribbendrops came bearing a vat of soup, friendlier and less bloodless than they had appeared through their car window. Beautiful Meg Girgis came and sat at the kitchen table, holding Charlotte’s hand, shaking her glossy head. Vice-Principal Stanberry, a yahoo nevertheless, showed up with flowers. Even the mayor of Clementine called and recited a poem about courage over the telephone.
Charlotte was half-ingested by the mailbox, fishing out all the letters and newspaper clippings, when she heard Clark calling from inside the yellow house, “Charlotte! Charlotte!”
She slogged back up to the door through the rain.
“Hold on!” she cried back, “Hold on, sweetheart! I’m coming!”
She ran into the living room, only to find him safe on the sofa under his checkered blanket, looking rapturously out the window at the hawthorn tree.
“It’s got flowers,” he said, pointing. His eyes were wide and limpid, and the top of his shirt was misbuttoned.
“Jesus,” said Charlotte, hand on her heart. She dropped her umbrella to the floor. “Sweetheart, it’s had flowers for weeks. God, I thought something was the matter.” She exhaled and sat beside him and began to fix his buttons.
Clark smiled serenely, lifting his chin. Something was the matter, he realized—he had not seen those beautiful flowers for weeks. Surely, seeing the flowers now was a sign that he was back, he was literally back to his senses. His old self. He had not been able to see the flowers before because he was not really there. Yes, he’d been under a curse—a ridiculous curse of sadness and delusion and wallowing in memory. In the past several days of bed rest alone, he had seen a hundred things that assured him he was cured: a family of goldfinches was making its nest in the eaves, a hole in the hedges announced a hedgehog in the mornings, and the important shapes of birds and airplanes slid across the yard, all seen to his eyes. This was it, he said to himself. Life—faithful, manifest, like bread. No fake things, no tricks or illusions. He craned his neck upward as Charlotte fixed his shirt. No mysterious footsteps moved overhead. No one sneezed in the pantry. The house felt normal and fine and sunny.
And his wife. His wife was his wife. He nearly laughed aloud with the pleasure of this. He could hardly believe the beautiful lunacy of such a pretty girl sticking by him simply because he asked her to! Whenever he said her name, there she appeared through a doorway. Marriage! Why does one do it? Clark decided right then that marriage wasn’t outrageous at all. It was simple and it was brilliant. It was the building of an army—love’s four-handed army.
He took Charlotte’s hand and pulled her close to him.
“What?” she said.
“Shut up,” he said. He touched her face. He took a fistful of her wet blonde hair and turned it around on his fist. It was like gathering honey on a wooden spool. He promised himself that, as long as he could reason, he would not take her for granted again. Not her, not the blossoms, not the soft light that crept under the bedroom door in the morning. A gift, he thought, his eyes moistening, she was his daily-given gift. Wife.
“Hello,” he said, sticking out his hand. “My name is Clark.”
“I know that,” she said.
“My name is Clark,” he said. “What’s your name?”
“Charlotte.”
“A pleasure to meet you, Charlotte.”
Charlotte looked at him.
“You want me to shake your hand?” she said.
“I want you to shake my hand,” he said. “Let’s pretend like we just met.”
Her eyes fluttered. She didn’t move. And then, he almost said it—I’m sorry—because he was, he was sorry. But the words caught in his throat, falling short.
“Hey listen,” he said, neatening her hair. “You were right about me. I’ve been somewhere else. Who knows where? Preoccupied. Kind of strange. But I’m back now. All right? I’m back now to my old self. I swear it. Let’s start fresh.”
As for Charlotte, she stared back at him, searching his face for a sign of derision or untrustworthiness. But she could not find one. His gaze was warm, heavy with love. She straightened where she sat. Some beautiful fluttering hopeful thing inside her chest hopped from rib to rib. And for a second, the world seemed revolutionizable, a place in which it was possible to transcend one’s fearfulness or motherlessness or one’s long-cherished bitterness toward the Fates. The roads and the desk jobs and the chores and the zippers and hospitals fell away with that look, and there she was for a single moment—Charlotte Eugenia Adair—nothing between her and her great promise. She trembled. Yes, yes, she thought. I am she.
“Shall I…” said Charlotte. “I’ll get you something to eat. The usual? A mayonnaise sandwich?”
“God no,” said Clark, laughing as perhaps a man laughs when he realizes he is dead and safe in heaven. “All that’s over. No more crazy stuff. I swear to you right now, Charlotte. I’ll never eat mayonnaise again in my entire life.”
Charlotte covered her mouth and laughed too. Outside, there was a clap of retreating thunder. Clark seized the umbrella and opened it over their heads, spraying them with water. Charlotte lay down beside him.
“Thank God it’s raining finally,” she said. “I like the rain.”
“Hey,” said Clark. “Play the harmonica for me.”
“What? I don’t own a harmonica.”
“Dance around in a circle for me.”
“What?” Charlotte squealed. “No!”
“Roll around on the ground for me. Bounce up and down for me.”
“No!”
“Then sing the song about the duck with the yellow shoes,” he murmured. “I’m convalescing. You’re supposed to do what I say.”
Charlotte swallowed, took a breath. The song was one of the happy things she remembered from being a kid. When it rained, you sang it. “Ooh, wasn’t it a bit of luck that I was born a baby duck. With yellow socks—”
“—and yellow shoes—”
“So I may go wherever I choose. Quack quack quack…”
And after they sang for a bit, they were silent. They lay together under the shared blue shade of the umbrella, watching a finch drink from the baby pool outside, which was now filled so generously with rainwater.
GRATITUDE
“I can see your epiglottis,” he said, leaning over her.
This sent Charlotte into fits of laughter all over again.
“Look look,” he said, pointing. “Now it’s boinging up and down.”
“Stop!” she cried, drying her eyes, sitting upright in her pink nightgown. “Stop. That’s enough. I should get up and do something.”
“You are doing something,” he said. “You’re my nursie.”
“No,” she said. “I mean clean or organize things or something. I can’t stay home from work forever, you know. I can’t take care of you forever. We’ll both be fired. What will we live on?”
“Love,” Clark said. “Love and air.”
“Come on,” she said, looking away. “You’re all better and I know it. We can’t play hooky forever.”
“I can play hooky a little longer,” he said. “I don’t want to go back to that gym-socky school. Besides, it’s raining. I can’t go out in the rain. Let’s build an ark.”
“What about those poor kids? What’ll they do without your guidance?”
“They’d be a hell of a lot better off going it blind,” said Clark. “Let’s go to the movies.”
&n
bsp; “The movies? It’s nine a.m. on a Thursday.”
“Hey Charlotte,” he said, pressing his nose up with his fingers to make a pig face, “It’s never too late to have a happy childhood!”
She laughed and pushed him away. “Oh yes it is.”
He leapt on top of her and grabbed her wrists. “I feel great. I feel like new. I feel like I just goddamned met you.” Then he sat back on his haunches. “Hey. I’ve got an idea.”
He stood beside the bed, naked but for his socks. Slowly, he pulled the blanket off the bed. He turned and looked back at her with that look.
“No way,” Charlotte said, looking at the blanket. “Not that.”
“Yes,” he said.
“No!” she cried, laughing. “Please not that!”
“Yes,” he repeated, almost gently. He put the blanket over his head and stood up, draped in it. His hands went out in the shape of claws. “I am Swamp Monster, and you’re my prey.”
“No I am not!” she cried. He loomed over her. She tried to reason with him. “Wait! I have to go to the bathroom first!”
“Too late!” the Swamp Monster roared, as she screamed and shot out of bed. She stood panting on the other side. “Swamp Monster hungry,” he said. One large claw swiped out at her.
“Hey!” she said. “Can you see through the holes?”
He scuttled around the bed.
“But I hate being chased and I hate being tickled,” she said. “You know that.”
The monster dropped his stiff arms. “Do you want to be It, then?” he asked.
Charlotte shifted her weight, trying to gain a preemptive advantage. Then, screaming, she clambered over the bed and began to run. Behind her, he pursued, making his low hungry sounds, trotting after her stiff-legged, stiff-armed, tapping the walls with his hands. The floors shook. She screamed with laughter. He wondered briefly, what if the neighbors saw them through the windows? He smiled under his blanket. He was cheating. He could see her through the holes. Her hair fluttered behind her like ribbons against her nightshirt. Inside the next doorway, he saw her turn and wait, biting her hand. She was trapped. He felt an actual monster hunger for her. Breathing rapaciously, he closed in.
Then his head smacked the top of the doorjamb. “Ow,” he said. He was momentarily blind with pain. She screamed and escaped around him down the hall.
“Swamp Monster angry now,” he said.
“It’s not my fault!” Charlotte sang, running to the top of the stairwell. “It’s not my fault you hit your head!”
She skated around the banister, her face bright and childlike with the chase. Perhaps he was right. Perhaps it was not too late. He was loping down the hall toward her at great speed. She looked down the staircase. Inspired, she ran down the stairs.
“Hmmm,” the Swamp Monster said. Above her, on the landing, he sniffed the air. “I smell woman!”
One socked foot sensed the air, tapped the first tread. Blanketed, grunting, he stepped heavily down the stair.
“No fair!” Charlotte screamed. “You can see through the holes!”
But still she waited for him at the bottom, wild with the gratitude that is love. The blanket snagged somewhere on the tread and began to rise up the monster’s naked front, exposing the dark, hairy groin.
“Clark,” Charlotte said.
“Who Clark?” grunted the Swamp Monster sincerely.
Stair by stair he descended, until his draped form was upon her.
“No.” she said. “No. Please don’t tickle me. Have mercy!”
“Swamp Monster in love,” he said from under his blanket. “Tickle the way he show love.”
He seized her. She began to shriek. This half-ecstatic, horrified protestation could be heard even in the street, where it was raining.
TRUE STORIES
On his first day alone in the house, the sky cleared. The trees were left rain-glossy and intensely green. Clark pressed his face against the living room window. Charlotte had returned to her duties at Ziff Negligence, and the house seemed particularly empty. He put on his mud shoes and gray sweatpants. The world outside, as green and alive as he felt himself, was calling for him.
He stepped out into the gusty air. This was the sort of wind that blew only at the far end of summertime, a hot wind, an ushering-out. He remembered that in the hospital and through a drugged haze he had watched a television program about weather. The program was one of the first things he saw after waking from his drowned sleep, and he remembered it vividly. He also remembered the self-possessed voice of the narrator in his ears. In the moments before he realized where he was, he thought the voice was God’s.
He crossed the road to the orchard, whistling. Field birds were singing, and the low, steamy clouds hurried out to sea. The grass was beaten down and sun-bleached, and he found himself peeling sticks off trees and then whipping them into the tall grasses, scaring up the funny crickets that hopped up funnily as if sprung.
He lay down, right then and there, in the wet grass. The sky was a pearly gray, and the wind carried the smell of hot soil and overripe apples and the end of summer. He smiled to himself. He was back! He was back, but better. His head was clear. He didn’t feel hot or thick or used up or dogged by strange preoccupations. The wet September wind blew through his skin as if it were mere cheesecloth.
Day by day, throughout his convalescence, he had secretly been coming up with a Plan. He had never had a Plan. But now he wanted one. He wanted to change his life around. He was going to quit his job at the school, just as soon as he could manage to get back into his collared shirt and show up. He never liked it and he wasn’t any good at saying the things he was supposed to, not to mention all those skipped night classes. What he really wanted was to work for a newspaper. He wanted to write frank, true stories about normal people out of luck. He wanted one of those Remingtons like his father’s and he wanted to hear the click tap ching of his thoughts being iterated. He wanted Charlotte leaning over his shoulder, laughing at what he wrote, holding a glass of wine. And in the distance behind her, perhaps, a small child carrying a doll for Daddy?
He rolled on his side and stared hard at the small yellow house in the distance, half-hidden by the trunks of the apple trees. He screwed his eyes. There was still something wrong about it. It was a nice house, but maybe it wasn’t their house. All those sounds and shadows, that abandoned music, perhaps he had not made it up. Maybe he hadn’t made it up at all, maybe the house was crazy. It was almost as if the house was heartbroken and thinking of somebody else. Sometimes he thought of Bob and Marion Lippet running to their car, screeching away without a word. Why? And were they happier now?
He would march right home and say it. He’d say, Let’s sell the place. I know, it’s ridiculous. But let’s sell. Let’s just drive away now, while the going’s good.
He stood, squaring his shoulders. An apple fell with a thud to the orchard floor. He picked it up and shined it on his shirt. His teeth broke the skin easily, sweet sourness filling his mouth. Later, he would do it. The house would still be there when he came back from his walk. He would say it later.
DUMBWAITER
The car ground to a stop in the driveway and Charlotte looked through the windshield at the house, rooms lighted in the early evening. Smiling, she removed the pins from her hair. She knew that when she walked in he would be engaged in one of his Pyrrhic household projects. He wanted to paint a map of the world in the bedroom. He was designing a dumbwaiter that could be hung from the banister so they wouldn’t have to go up and down for brandy. Since his swimming pool accident, he’d been overcome with a burst of creativity. In this same spirit, Charlotte had surprised even herself by hanging wind chimes from the front of the house. And there they were now, fidgeting in the wind, making surprisingly composed music.
And just like that, it all seemed magical again, all the banalities of a house and a life in America—the hot clean steam of the dishwasher, happy photos on the fridge, the ants running along behind the caulked seam
of the backsplash, the inevitable bruised banana in the fruit bowl. She felt, for maybe the first time ever, completely unskeptical. Perhaps life was all right. Life did not forsake you completely. It did not leave you completely orphaned. He had emerged from the swimming pool, he had survived, he would be right there, in that yellow house, paying out a length of string over the banister, a pencil behind his ear.
“Clarkie!” she called, opening the door. “I’m home!”
She scooped the mail up with one arm, peeled off her high-heel shoes. In the kitchen, she dumped all the mail on the counter. In a generous mood, she took the box of chocolates she had hidden from herself out of the kitchen pantry. The chocolates waited in their little black skirts to be chosen, like fat girls at a dance. She grabbed two or three and chewed them with her eyes closed. She leaned back and shouted upstairs.
“Clark! I said I’m home. Didn’t you miss me? Who are you talking to up there?” She swallowed, smacking her lips. She could hear pieces of faint conversation. “Clark? You on the phone?”
She brushed her hair out with her fingers, smiling. And then, somehow, the muffled sounds of the house made her frown. She went to the foot of the stairs.
“Hello?” she said.
There was no response. The talking upstairs had fallen silent. She marched up the stairs. The dumbwaiter string hung brokenly from the banister. Pushing open the bedroom door, she was surprised to find it empty. The bed was unmade, the sheets still holding the cold form of his body. Then who had been talking?
Laughing to herself, she went ahead and checked in the guest bedroom anyway. Then she checked the bathroom. Then she checked the cellar, the backyard, the pantry, the mudroom, all of the closets twice, and then returned upstairs to his little desk, the place where he read the box scores on Saturday mornings, and sat. He was not home. She ran her finger across the top of the desk and looked out the window, perplexed. The orchard, now in fruit, was occupied only by blackbirds. They flew extravagantly under the darkening sky.
