by Joel Arnold
I take her hand and lead her out to the screened-in porch beneath the deck out back. Wicker furniture stands covered and stacked against the walls. Cold wind blows through the screens and stirs up the smell of freshly stained wood. I feel light-headed and hollow. “How often does he hit you?” I ask.
Her trembling stops for a moment. Her eyes fix on the lake, on the dark pools of water forming on top of the ice. “He’s slapped me a few times,” she says. “When I’ve done something dumb.”
I stare at her. Crumble inside as her head starts shaking again. “God, Kelly. You’re not dumb.”
She wipes at her eyes with the heel of her hand. “Gotta be dumb to still be with him, don’t I?”
“You can’t live like this.” The words come out in ragged syllables, and I almost choke on them. “You’ve got to leave him.”
The snow and wind stops as if someone’s flipped a switch and the moon appears as a dirty talc haze behind emaciated clouds.
Kelly’s cheeks are streaked with the trails of hot tears.
“Kelly? Look at me.”
She looks, her lips pressed tightly together, breath forced slowly in and out through her nose. Then she looks out at the lake. I follow her eyes. The ice is covered with dirty slush and deepening pools of black water.
I put my hand on her shoulder. “Come stay with us.”
She smiles, her eyes still on the ice, head trembling. Then the smile disappears, and she says quietly, “I don’t think Bruce would handle that very well.” She turns away. “I better go check on him. Make sure he hasn’t passed out in the snow.”
Inside, Mom is sitting with her elbows propped on the dining room table, the backs of her hands supporting her chin. She looks her sixty-four years and then some. Why is it in times of distress that a person’s age really shows? I gently rub her back.
“It’s hard to watch that,” she says.
“I know.”
“I don’t know what to do.” She rubs her forehead with the palm of her hand.
“We’ll think of something,” I say. An empty promise, I know.
Dad’s never been one to hold back tears, whether from a movie or a beautiful song or news of a dying child. Tonight is no different. He dabs at his eyes with the handkerchief he keeps in his pocket. I lean over the back of the couch and hug him. “Love you, Dad.”
“Love you, too, Mike.”
“We’ll think of something,” I say again. He’s worn Old Spice for as long as I can remember, and the familiar smell fills my nostrils as I kiss the top of his head.
“I’ll kill the bastard,” he says.
“We’ll think of something,” I whisper.
I decide to check on Kelly. It’s been fifteen minutes, and she still hasn’t come in. I find her out front, sitting on the bed of her pick-up truck, legs swinging over the edge like a little girl. For a moment, I think she’s shivering from the cold, but the thought, the wish, quickly leaves, and I realize it’s just the shaking. Bruce lies on his side next to Kelly, a thick green blanket covering him. For just a moment, I wonder if she’s killed him, but then I hear a loud, muffled snore.
“Remember that pearl?” Kelly asks without looking up.
The question catches me off guard. “The pearl?”
She watches Bruce, listens to his drunken snoring. “I lied about losing it,” she says. “I never dropped it. It never fell down a sewer drain.”
It’s strange how snow can look like stars drifting down from the heavens, stars you’ve been told your whole life are massive balls of gas and fire. Then they land on your skin, merely pinpricks of cold.
“But Mom said — “
“I know what she said.”
“You came home crying. You were all scraped up.”
Her eyes shine. She rubs her hand over Bruce’s thigh, an act of affection I can’t reconcile. “You remember Carl Johanson?”
At first I don’t, but then I do. He used to carry packs of Juicy Fruit on him, and when he’d come over, he’d always toss me a pack. “Sure.”
“We were making out in the woods behind Jenson’s orchard. You know? But — I didn’t — I didn’t want him to…”
She stops swinging her legs and becomes still.
“Want him to what?” I ask. Then I get it. “Oh.” Then I get it some more. “Oh. Jesus.”
She leans forward and puts her face in her hands. Her body heaves with sobs. It still hurts to hear someone cry. I put my arm around her. “I’m so sorry. Kelly. Jesus.”
“I swallowed it,” she says, her voice cracking.
“Swallowed it?”
“The pearl.” She looks up. Her eyes are wet polished agates. “I’d never had something so beautiful, and after he left -- I needed something beautiful inside of me.”
The entire sky falls in growing white flakes. It melts as soon as it touches us and turns our hair to cold wet straw.
“It went down easily,” she says. “I was down on the ground, you know? Rotten apples all around, and sticks poking my arms and knees. I’d never felt so dirty.”
She puts her head on my shoulder. “It went down so easily,” she says again. “I wanted it to stay inside of me, so every few days I swallowed it again.” She looks down at her husband. “He’s never seen it.”
Maybe it’s the darkness, the cold, the hypnotic swirl of snow. Maybe all we need is some light. Some warmth. “Come inside,” I say. “It’s too cold out here.”
“You go ahead. I won’t be long.”
The way she says it…
Bruce is dead to the world, his tender white throat bare to the elements. I watch Kelly, look in her eyes. Try to see past them into the workings of her mind.
She chuckles. “I’m too damn tired to take an axe to the son of a bitch,” she says.
I lean over and hug her tightly. “Okay,” I say.
As I go inside, the snow grows heavy and wet, hesitating toward rain. Dad dozes on the couch with the basketball game droning on. I see a strip of light beneath the bathroom door, and hear the slosh of water; Mom’s only vice — her nightly bath.
I don’t look forward to the drive home. With this weather and the way the roads are, it will take at least an hour. I consider spending the night, but with Corinne and Amanda sick, I should get home and be there for them in the morning. Pretty lousy of me to have left them. I envision Amanda crawling into bed with Corinne, their feverish bodies dampening the sheets, communicating their misery to each other through fits of coughing. But damn it, it’s so rare that I see Kelly anymore.
Of course, I wish Bruce had never laid a hand on Kelly. I wish he’d never insulted her or berated her or ignored all of her birthdays. I wish he’d never met my sister. I wish he’d never been born. But I also wish that Mom and Dad hadn’t seen him hit her. I wish they could remain ignorant of Kelly’s situation and go to sleep believing their children live happy lives. They shouldn’t have to spend their golden years worrying about us. I kiss Dad lightly on the forehead, careful not to wake him, then don my coat and gloves. I decide not to disturb Mom, either. I jot a note saying I’ll call them in the morning. Maybe we can figure out what to do then. I head out into the cold, damp night, looking for Kelly to say goodbye.
As I walk out to the driveway, I notice two things simultaneously.
One, Kelly’s pick-up truck is gone, and two, there’s an envelope tucked beneath one of the windshield wipers of my SUV. When I pull it from beneath the wiper and feel the hard lump between my fingers, my heart lodges in my throat. I take off a glove and pull out a smooth, round bead, something I’ve held only once before.
The largest Mississippi pearl ever found.
Kelly’s pearl.
I see her jagged handwriting on the back of a gas receipt that flutters from the envelope like a dead leaf to the ground. I pick it up.
For you, it says. I don’t need it anymore. Love you, little bro.
Kelly.
I try to swallow my heart back into place. Tire tracks veer off the driv
eway and cross the lawn to the back of the house. I don’t think to go inside and wake up Mom and Dad. I don’t think to call 911. I only think to run.
My leather shoes soak through as they splash through the slush of tire tracks. The snow has turned to rain, and the rain feels like cold bullets on the back of my neck. The tracks continue across the back lawn to the lake.
I hear ice pop and groan. Catch a whiff of exhaust. Two bright red eyes in the distance grow slowly smaller. Tail lights. Their glow briefly illuminates the half-sunk shanty less than a hundred yards out. Even at that distance, the crunch of tires on dirty ice is audible over the crackle of icy rain.
I try to scream Kelly’s name, but there’s nothing in me, no air. I struggle to fill my lungs, to suck oxygen from the rain-drenched atmosphere. My throat burns.
If the ice can hold a pick-up truck, it can hold me.
I step out onto the ice. Slip and fall. But I find my voice.
“Kelly!”
I rise, soaked and freezing, and force myself to run again.
“Kelly!”
Brake lights glow fiercely as the truck stops. A figure sits up slowly in the truck bed. In the hellish reflection of red light, I recognize Bruce’s sodden shape.
My foot breaks through the ice and the freezing black water feels like sharp fingernails digging into my shin.
I’ve never felt so desperate, so helpless. This can’t be happening. This isn’t real, is it? I have to save her.
I pull my leg from the hole and limp forward.
Bruce falls off the pick-up bed and lays immobile, face up on the ice. I see the back of Kelly’s head silhouetted against the glow of the dashboard. She sits in the driver’s seat completely still. Even her shaking has stopped.
I stumble, slide, lurch and run. The truck is thirty yards away. “Get out,” I yell. The pearl is hard and cold against my thigh, pressing through the wet pocket of my jeans.
Kelly’s head turns slightly.
“Please,” I whimper.
I hear a click. A truck door opening. But it opens only an inch. I hear a loud groan, pitiful, awful, and at first I think it’s Bruce regaining consciousness. Kelly must hear it, too, because the truck door clicks again, and I realize Kelly’s shut herself back in. The groan grows louder, inhuman, and I stop as I realize it’s not coming from Bruce. It’s the ice.
With a sharp crack, the walls of the half-sunk shanty split and collapse. Its mass rises, shifts, then disappears from the surface. Kelly’s eyes shine briefly in the rearview mirror, two glistening pearls infinitely more perfect and pure than the thing in my pocket. She lifts her hand and waves to me, slowly. Then with a dull splintering noise I’ll never forget, a noise I still hear when everything else is silent, the truck jerks forward and down. Bruce rolls in after it and disappears.
I stop running, and when I scream, it doesn’t even sound like me. The blood in my veins feels like slivers of hot glass. I’m frozen in place. I have to help her. I can’t help her. That’s Kelly, that’s my sister. Oh God Kelly what did you do, what were you thinking, why did you drive out onto the ice?
Swim. Kelly, swim. Get out of the truck and swim.
Maybe she’s swimming to the surface. Maybe right now she’s swimming to the surface and she’s going to get out and she’s going to be okay. I can still see the faint glow of tail and brake lights beneath the surface. Maybe she’s—
I hear something, like birch-wood popping in a hot fire. I realize it’s the ice cracking beneath me. The entire surface swells as if the lake is breathing.
I don’t know what to do. What can I do?
Oh God, Kelly.
I find myself slowly backing up.
The taillights fade beneath the heaving ice.
I want to lie down. Curl up in a ball and suck my thumb. I fear my body will never stop trembling. My fingers are raw and stiff. What can I do?
I keep backing up. Why can’t I stop? Why can’t I force myself forward? Why can’t I save my sister? I keep backing up until the ice stops moving, until the black and gray horizon becomes still.
What can I do?
I slide the pearl out from the cold wet folds of my pocket. I kiss it. Hold it up against the hazy glow of an emerging moon. It’s almost a perfect match.
The rain stops. What can I do?
Sometimes we all need something pure and perfect within us.
So this is what I do.
I tilt back my head, open my mouth and let the pearl drop.
I try to hold onto the memory of Kelly’s rare smile and perfect jewel eyes as it slides easily down my throat.
When the Heart Dies
The walls of the dimly lit garage swelled together, and the smell of oil and gas and the hanging buck’s inner smells were too much for Pearce. He opened the garage door to let the cool autumn breeze sweep out the old smells and replace them with the smell of fallen leaves and cold rain. He frowned.
Well, what—
He stood beneath the raised garage door, his thick hands dripping blood, and squinted at the red house across the street. Limp, white snakes of toilet paper hung from two massive oak trees and lay cluttered on the lawn in wet lumps. It dripped from the juniper bushes on either side of the front door. A bloated wad of it bulged from the mailbox.
Damn kids, why pick on an old lady?
Ms. Bolt.
Pearce had only seen her the few times she’d dragged her trash bin out to the street. She wore baggy clothes, a brown wig, painted on eyebrows. A little creepy, sure, but still no reason to harass her.
He went inside, stripped down, cleaned himself up. Took a paint-splattered aluminum ladder down from a pair of wooden pegs in the garage and grabbed a handful of trash bags. He crossed the street blinking away the rain and started picking up the soggy bits of tissue. He felt her darting eyes on him, but she never opened her door, never called out a thank you.
That was okay. It just felt good to be out in the rain.
Bob Davidson let Pearce hunt on his property ten miles out of town in exchange for a cooler full of venison. A fair exchange. Davidson was retired. Mrs. Davidson was buried out front under a large oak tree heavy with acorns and excited squirrels. The land was full of trees and creeks and whitetail deer. Good hunting land.
Today, the snow fell in flakes as large as moths, knee deep, and each step a struggle. Pearce trudged through it, only fifty feet from the road, when a semi roared by, flushing out an eight-point buck from a stand of old white pine. He lifted his rifle, aimed and fired, but the buck zigzagged through the snow. Pearce fired again. A piece of hide burst from the buck’s shoulder, but the animal didn’t go down. It leapt and sprinted, leaving a bright red trail of blood in the snow.
Pearce stumbled after it, lifting his knees high in the air. Jesus. Sweat ran down his face and soaked the collar of his coat. The blood trail turned the snow into a pink slush.
Pearce’s temples pounded. His vision blurred. He sucked in lungful of icy air. He wasn’t the man he used to be. Not since Mary died. But he wiped his eyes clear. Sharply breathed the cold air in through his nose.
There. A tan and white mass trembling over the snow.
The buck stood with its head low to the ground, looking at him. White mist poured from its nostrils and rose from the blood that trickled from its wound. Must’ve done a little more than nicked him, Pearce thought. The buck’s front legs buckled, but it remained standing. Pearce raised his rifle. Took a deep breath.
A wrecking ball slammed into his chest.
Pearce dropped to his knees in the deep, wet snow. His gun fell uselessly beside him. Heart attack. I’m having a -
The deer staggered into an island of tamarack and collapsed onto its side.
Pearce clutched at his collar. The pain stretched down his arms and up through his jaw. Rays of November sun bit at his eyes. I’m going to die. He heard the wheezing of the deer, even over the sound of blood pounding in his ears. He heard flakes of snow touch the earth, felt them melt on his skin.
He waited for the harsh yellow of the sun to fill him and carry him away. It would be okay. If he could be with Mary again…
He waited. The deer’s wheezing stopped.
He waited. The silence was magical. His breathing slowed. The pain melted away. He blinked. Wiped away the sweat that dripped into his eyes.
Why aren’t I dead?
He struggled to stand. Used his rifle as a crutch and got to his feet. The world teetered, started to turn bright white, but he bit down hard on the tip of his tongue, and the forest became a crystal clear contrast of black tree trunks stitched into a background of thick, white snow.
“You could have died.” Dr. Leroy sat next to Pearce and pushed his glasses up off his nose. “Is bagging a deer worth your life?”
Pearce didn’t answer. How could he explain his reasons for staying with the dead deer, gutting and cleaning it there in the tamarack despite the trip-hammer of his own heart, the flutters of muscle up and down his arm? How could he explain dragging the buck’s remains through the deep snow a half-mile to his truck?
“If you would’ve come in right away, you’d have been right as rain in a few months. But since you waited a week before coming in, your heart is infarcted.” The doctor pronounced the last word with disgust. “You’ve got a dead spot on it the size of a quarter.”
Bigger than that, Pearce thought. Six months pregnant. Mary had been six months pregnant.
The doctor wrote a handful of prescriptions; beta-blockers, ace-inhibitors, cholesterol reducers, Nitroglycerin. Pearce winced at the list.
Dr. Leroy sighed. “You have to take it easy for a while. No hunting, no shoveling. I don’t want you to change a goddamn light bulb unless you have to. You need rest. Okay? Take the meds I’m prescribing. Come back in a week.”
The days passed slowly. Pearce missed the guys at his construction job. They sent him a get-well card, called now and then to shoot the shit. But it wasn’t the same. To be here. Shut in here, an invalid, surrounded by all these memories of her, of Mary. Her essence seeped from the walls, the furniture. It was comforting, but sometimes it was too much.
