by Lisa Unger
“The signal is pretty good.” He takes a seat on the hearth, nods toward the phone. “Better than it used to be. I was happier when I was cut off against my will. Now I have to apply the same discipline here as I do in the city.”
He stokes the fire and the dying embers come back to life. I stare at the phone. I should call. But.
“Driving conditions are pretty bad,” he says. “But we can brave it if you need to get back.”
I find that I don’t want to leave and return to the life I’ve left in the distance.
“Jack and I fought the night before he died.” I don’t know why I say it.
He closes the screen in front of the fire and sits in the chair beside it. I don’t remember telling him about Jack, but I know I did.
“We were fighting a lot. Daily.”
He rubs the stubble on his chin, watching. There’s something about him that reminds me of Jack. The artist’s eye, the one that sees and absorbs, doesn’t judge.
“Conflict,” he says. “It’s normal, right? I mean, they don’t sell it that way. It’s all flowers and moonlit walks. But the real thing—it’s not that.”
I think of my parents, Layla and Mac, all the fights, the slicing words honed sharp to hurt, the bleak silences where there’s just nothing left to say. I always wanted to do better. Maybe you can’t. Maybe when two people occupy the same space, the same life, there is necessary struggle. My parents, they never seemed to fit, but they stayed together.
“He loved you,” he says. “You loved him. If he’d lived you’d have made up, gone on.”
I flash on something. New Year’s Eve. Merlinda’s veined, ringed hands, The Seven of Swords. The card of deception.
“Maybe,” I say.
He waits, draws a breath and releases it. Outside the wind sighs, scatters icy bits, branch fingers scratch the glass.
“I miscarried. Twice.”
“I’m sorry.”
“That grief—the grief you’re not really supposed to feel—maybe it changed me. Changed us.”
He blows out a breath.
“Life is brutal. Naturally, it changes us. Why does that always come as a surprise? The galaxy is in a constant state of change, an explosion, ever moving outward. The planet—shifting, erupting, continents drifting, tsunamis, fires raging. Why do we try to stay the same? We can’t.”
There’s a small black sculpture on the hearth, the stick figure of a man, fallen to his knees, arms outstretched, thin fingers splayed, reaching toward heaven, head bent back. The agony of loss.
“You lost someone.”
“I did.”
He tells me about Bella, his college girlfriend, how she died in a car accident, how a week earlier she miscarried the baby they hadn’t planned. The world; it’s unimaginably cruel.
“We were fighting,” he says. “The pregnancy—it was an accident. We probably would have already split months earlier if not for that. We were young and so, so dumb. We thought we could stay together for the baby, make a go of it. And suddenly that reason was gone.”
“But you loved her.”
“I did. I still do. The idea of who we might have been. Who our child might have been. But it’s just a dream. A fantasy. Who knows how things would have been, really? We might have grown to hate each other.”
The wind picks up and starts to howl; the house perceptibly groans.
He watches me, legs crossed, the fire behind him. He’s a shadow against the flames, a stranger. And yet, I am relaxed, feel that I’ve known him a long, long time.
“Should I give you some privacy to make those calls,” he asks.
I pick up the phone he’s laid beside me. The signal is strong. I should call Layla, my mother. How frightened they’ll be. Something stops me, a tangle of voices, something I can’t remember, a deep, bright core of anger, something as hard as a stone inside me.
“The loss of hope—a miscarriage, a death,” I say. “You lose the person and everything you thought your life would be. You lose yourself, too.”
He dips his head into his hand a moment, then he rises to come stand in front of me.
“Poppy,” he says.
I rise and he stands before me a moment, then I slip into his embrace. I let him hold me in powerful, muscular arms, pulling me into the tight, flat warmth of his body. I allow my head to drop to his shoulder. And we stand there, swaying slightly, for I don’t know how long—the fire sighing, the snow tapping.
Finally, he pulls back the covers, and I climb inside. He tucks me in like a child, kisses me on the forehead and leaves. The phone still lies beside me, but I don’t touch it.
* * *
The next day when the snow has stopped falling, the world outside is a brilliant diamond white, pressed crisply against a gunmetal sky. The dead winter trees an ink drawing. I bundle into ill-fitting clothes, his jeans, a thermal undershirt, parka, and he straps boots and snowshoes onto my feet. We crunch through the winter hush, the world starkly silent except for us. Heat comes up from my core, and I sweat even though the air is frigid. Above us a lone hawk circles, gliding wide and effortless, dipping, climbing.
In the quiet, in the effort, I am clean. Something releases. This is what Jack wanted, a place away from the city, away from the crush, the hustle, the constant hum and nag of it. Noah walks ahead, slim and dark, black against white.
In the emptiness of snow and sky, all the horror—the police, the lawyers, the funeral, the well-meaning friends and family—it slips away. I can hear myself, feel myself. I allow the raw grief to tear through me, the loss of Jack, the children we never had, the life we won’t live. No one rushes at me with words, using their bodies and their voices to comfort me. There is no comfort for this. It must rage through me, this pain like a typhoon. It must be allowed to destroy, take me down to the ground. I let the beast ravage me. No tears. This is beyond tears.
Suddenly, it rushes through—a wrenching wail of grief and pain and sorrow. The sound carries—a flock of winter birds call in alarmed answer, flap away into the sky. Then it is silent again. I am silent again.
He stops and waits. As I approach, his eyes search my face. Something like a sad recognition pulls down the lines of his mouth. He keeps walking. I follow. How long? How far? I don’t know. It’s dusk when we return, the sky black-and-blue like a bruise.
Inside, I strip off my cold clothes; he stokes the fire to raging in the great room, where there are high, vaulted ceilings, windows and windows and more windows staring out into winter.
I don’t remember the last time we exchanged words.
“Do you do this a lot?” I ask. “Rescue women who have lost their minds?”
“Almost never.”
His smile is easy, doesn’t ask for anything, as he hands me a cup of tea. I sit holding it, letting it warm me.
“I can hear myself. I can feel what I want to feel here.”
He dips his head in understanding. “That’s why I come. I don’t work as well in the city.”
Out in the space between the house and the barn, there’s an enormous structure—a great swirl of hammered black metal. Two figures locked in a dance, or a battle, arms thrown, legs in wide stance, the impression of hair flying. Gaping Os for mouths, black eyes. Anger, fear, love, joy—I can see all the raw elements of existence.
“Agony,” he says.
He’s watching me look at the sculpture; it’s nearly glowing in the setting winter sun.
“That’s where I was when I forged that.”
“I see it. The one upstairs, too.”
I can’t stop staring at it, the way the lines seem fluid, in motion, almost like liquid. How the shape of it communicates pain.
“I have regrets,” I say, though I didn’t even know I was thinking that.
“So do I,” he says. “Maybe everyone does.”
“
What do you regret?”
He draws in a deep breath, releases it, looking off into the middle distance.
“I’ve held on too tightly to things that weren’t mine. I’ve let anger get the better of me, let it isolate me, alienate me. Coming from that place of anger, I’ve mistreated people.”
His aura is calming; he seems so grounded and real. I can’t imagine him acting out in anger. There are so many facets to us, so many different shades of truth. For some reason, his words make me think of that last New Year’s Eve with Jack. Merlinda, the cards on the table, the countdown—Layla, Jack, Alvaro and Mac. There was something there, a moment from which I was excluded. Seven of Swords—the card of deception.
“There are so many layers to everything, everyone,” I say. “How do you ever know what’s real?”
“Maybe you don’t need to know,” he says. “Maybe it’s all real in the moment, even if the next moment it’s something else.”
The wind outside howls.
“Do you think the world is a beautiful place or an ugly one?” he asks.
The question hurts, somehow makes me think of my father and his robotics obsession, how he wanted to make the world better, less lonely, from the shed in his suburban backyard. How he died there instead, alone. I think about the bloodstained sheets. My husband murdered. Of Izzy and Slade, of the elusive ghost orchid, how it shimmered, hovering, a white specter in a dark place.
“Both,” I say. “You can’t have one side without the other. That’s the joke of it.”
25
And then I’m running, wearing that red dress, those heels, wobbling up an icy drive. The air is frigid and the cold hurts—my face, my legs. But still I run, the windows of the house glowing behind me like eyes staring.
He calls after me.
“Poppy, wait!” His voice bounces off the trees. “Don’t do this.”
But I keep moving, making it finally to the street, which is deserted, lined with black, impenetrable trees. I am shivering to my core. I’ve never been so cold.
“Poppy!”
I hear his footfalls behind me, and I pick up my pace, heart hammering. I turn to see his shadow behind me, moving fast. I take off those shoes and clutch them in my hand. The ground feels like shards of glass on my bare feet, slicing, the cold burning. But I dig deep, find my strength and start to run on the muddy shoulder of this deserted road.
Twin headlights appear ahead of me, golden suns of hope. I veer into the road, put myself in the path of the car and start to wave my arms. I turn to see him drop back into the shadows. The vehicle slows and comes to a stop, a big man in a barn jacket and a thinning head of sandy hair climbs out.
“Hey,” he says. “Are you okay?”
“Please,” I say. “I need to get out of here.”
He looks behind me. I turn, too, but the shadow is gone. He nods toward the passenger seat.
“Get inside,” he says. “I’ll just get you a blanket from the trunk.”
Wrapping myself up in my arms, I climb into the leather interior. The SUV is older, but well maintained, surfaces clean and polished. In a strap on the driver’s visor, a picture of a pretty woman with copper curls, and a boy who is a younger, slimmer version of the driver.
I shiver, an uncontrollable quake from deep within. I thought it was a myth, that your teeth chatter in extreme cold. It isn’t; they knock against each other comically. He comes to the passenger door with the blanket and hands it to me. I wrap it around myself. When he climbs in the driver’s seat, he cranks the heat.
“Do we need the police?” he asks.
He looks like a cop himself, something in the trim way he keeps himself, the directness of his stare. I wonder what he must see when he looks at me.
“No,” I say. I’m confused, scattered. “I just need to get back to the city. I lost my wallet, my phone.”
“New York City. How’d you get all the way out here?”
“I’m not sure.” I shake my head, sink into the blanket, keeping my eyes on the road outside.
“Where did you come from?” He gazes back toward the direction from which I ran. “Is there someone I can call?”
“No,” I say. “There’s no one.”
“I can take you to the train,” he said. “Give you some money for a ticket.”
I smile at him gratefully. “If you give me your information, when I get back, I’ll get you your money. I promise.”
“That’s all right,” he says easily. “Just let me know you got back safely?”
How rare. The solid, upright person who does a kind thing for a stranger. Who puts his life on hold, goes out of his way.
He calls his wife. “I’ll be a little late,” he says. “Yeah. I’ll explain when I get home.”
He waits with me in the car at the train station.
“So, what happened?”
It’s late; the last train into the city arrives in twenty minutes. He’s bought a ticket, given me some money, grabbed a candy bar and a cup of coffee from the concession machines. I can’t stop thanking him. The blood has started to circulate through my body again, my limbs, fingers, toes tingling unpleasantly. How long would I have lasted out there? How long until he caught up with me?
“Fight with my boyfriend,” I say. It’s a lie. I don’t want to say that I’m not sure where I was, or why I ran out into the street, no coat. I grasp for it, but it slips away, reality a wraith.
He regards me, then shakes his head. “No.”
“Why not?”
“It just doesn’t seem like that,” he says. “Something else. Something more.”
When I don’t answer, he gives me his card. Jones Cooper Private Investigations.
“You’ll get everything back,” I say. “I promise.”
He looks toward the lights of the oncoming train. They’re far in the distance, two yellow eyes in the night. “I believe you,” he says.
I shake his hand and climb out of his car, reluctantly leaving the blanket behind. He tries to give me his jacket, but I refuse. “You’ve done enough,” I say. “Thank you.”
Embarrassment and gratitude mingle as I make my awkward departure. The train is nearly empty, just a smattering of people, a couple nestled in the back talking in urgent soft voices. A man in a suit, already dozing off. I find a place as far away from the others as I can, sit near the window. Jones Cooper sits in his car, watching as the train pulls away. I lift my hand in a wave and he does the same.
Then I see him, sitting in a sleek, new BMW. Noah. Or just the shadow of him. Or maybe it isn’t him, just a hooded man sitting behind the wheel of a car, watching as I head away.
* * *
Back in the city, I make my way through the streets to Layla’s building. In the lobby, the doormen all get up to greet me, faces stern as if I’m a homeless person who’s wandered into their plush universe, a stain on the white cleanliness of their environment. I manage to croak out Layla’s name. One of them recognizes me, rushes for the phone. A minute later, I see her, her face tense with fear, no recognition, then bright, washed soft with relief. She runs to me, and I collapse into her arms.
Oh, Poppy. Oh, sweetie. Where have you been? What happened?
I want to tell her about Noah. About the snow. About Jack. About everything. But the words just jam up in my throat and I start to sob.
It’s okay. You’re home now. We’ll take care of everything. We’ll take care of you.
* * *
Dr. Nash thinks I’m ready to go home. Though my days here—and what came before—are a blank space in my memory, I have returned to the present. I am aware that I had a nervous breakdown after my husband’s funeral, that I disappeared, returned to Layla and was brought here to this psychiatric rehabilitation center somewhere in Manhattan. Everyone’s thrilled that I have grasped this completely, even though there’s a gaping black
hole in my memory that may never be recovered.
We sit in the office Dr. Nash uses when she comes here to see me, and for the first time in a couple of days I am wearing my own clothes. My mom has brought my soft gray sweatpants, and a cashmere sweater that Layla gave to me ages ago and has become my favorite. The fabric drapes on my body the way only fine things do, soft and warm like an embrace.
Layla casts things off, impossibly expensive things, to me—gorgeous bags, clothes I wouldn’t even bother to glance at in stores, shoes she’s worn once, if ever. I joyfully accept, knowing at some point Izzy is going to get in my way. Layla and I have always traded clothes, possessions, even boys without resentment or possessiveness. Like sisters, without any of the sibling baggage, without that undercurrent of competition, that primal struggle for resources.
“How are you feeling today, Poppy?”
“Other than the fact that I can’t remember the last week of my life?”
“Yes,” Dr. Nash says evenly. “Other than that.”
“Pretty good, then, I suppose. A little numb. A little foggy.”
“Are you ready to go back to your life?”
“My life without Jack.” It’s a black tunnel. No light at the other end.
“It will get better. I promise,” she says. The doctor manages to strike a tone of empathy that contains no trace of pity. “You will get through this pain and find a new normal.”
I offer an assenting shrug because it’s an acknowledged fact that time heals and grief fades. I have emerged from dark days before. In the year after my father died I just went through the motions—getting up, going to class, collapsing at the end of the day, exhausted just from being alive with him gone. I don’t tell the doctor that I saw my father everywhere then, had long talks with him in dreams that seemed to stretch on and on, seemed real when I woke up. There was comfort there when there was comfort nowhere else. Likewise, Jack is everywhere, alive inside my dreams, lingering in corners, beside me in my bed.
