by Mitch Cullin
Debra paused, hoping Hollis might now offer her something, but instead he shook his head with confusion, saying nothing. “Anyway,” she went on, “it's about over for me, except I don't want to waste away any more than I already have—and I don't plan on going through the worst of it—and if you won't help me go then, please, at least give me your blessing so I can do it alone with peace of mind. I want to be aware of myself and where I am at the conclusion of my life—I deserve that, after all, and so do you.”
Hollis felt a jolt deep inside himself when bringing his eyes to her. He felt a tightening in his chest. “Deb, I can't give you my blessing,” he said, his voice breaking, “but I can't say I'd blame you either—because I wouldn't.”
“I know you wouldn't,” she said, resting a hand against his neck. “So that's good enough for me. Thank you.”
His eyes began welling, and when he then tried to speak, the words he most wanted to say confounded him, becoming uttered in part through a stifling, gasping shortness of breath.
“Love you, too,” she responded, pressing dry lips against his chin as he leaned forward to kiss her forehead.
Hugging each other, they both wept for a little while—and afterward, they sat back without talking, the tears dripping off their faces, shaken by the irrevocability of the moment. Then Hollis rose from the couch and went to stand at the window. When Debra finally left the living room for bed, he was still there at the window, staring into the night—as if reluctantly awaiting the snow which would soon fall, somehow already sensing that frigid morning where everything around him would become transformed.
19
And so it was to be that snow, at dawn this morning, which beckoned Hollis and Lon forward while the Suburban's hazard lights blinked near the golf course—while the whole of Nine Springs conveyed a listless existence and fireplaces had begun to tinge the air with a woodsy autumnal flavor. The pair trudged straight across the deeply buried greens as a vision of red and cobalt—Hollis in his metallic-colored duvet jacket, Lon in his scarlet parka—going away from the place where Lon had slipped, both leaving a trail of footprints through a glaring, unbroken white expanse: neither speaking now as the sun reflected off the snow and washed out their sight, neither questioning their slow progression which fractured the pure white earth below a pure blue sky, neither asking why it was that they had felt the need to venture forward on the golf course instead of returning to the temperate comfort of their respective homes. Thick, visible exhalations of breath curled up in front of their rosy-cheeked faces like hot industrial steam, preceding them beside hidden sand traps and icy man-made ponds. Holding hands for support, walking side by side, the two men swallowed the cold and the wind, remaining mindful of each step crushing the snow, aware all the while that if one should suddenly fall the other was likely to get dragged down, too. Yet Hollis couldn't maneuver quite as deftly as Lon, for his left thigh ached somewhere below the scar while his feet had grown numb inside the leather boots. But pressing onward with an increasingly painful limp, Hollis was bolstered by a recollection he had been fortunate enough to have never experienced firsthand—those bitter winters during the Korean civil war, that subzero march southward from the Chosin, exposed skin bonding to metal and bloody palms stripped off by frozen mortar shells, frostbite blackening heels or toes. Then Hollis sensed his winter footwear was absorbing moisture; it seemed his socks were growing damp and squishing around within the boots, although the loss of feeling in his feet prevented him from knowing for sure.
It was Lon, however, who paused to catch a breath, shaking loose the snow caked on his galoshes before removing one of his black mitts. While Hollis blew into his bare hands and rubbed his palms together to generate heat, Lon held the mitt out for him, nodding once but saying nothing. Hollis accepted what was offered, working the wet mitt onto his left hand. Just then a crow's scream broke the morning calm, its harsh call echoing from where the bird circled far overhead and appeared to be monitoring them from up high. As if prompted by the ominous cawing, Lon resumed walking, seizing Hollis's bare hand in his own bare hand, tugging him along. The crow screamed a second time, its uneven circle moving and traveling with the pair.
Farther they went, past the eighteenth hole, farther still—the streets and homes now well behind them, the eastern section of the golf course having been designed to jut into undeveloped desert like an oasis—until reaching the edge of their known world, dead-ending at a chain-link fence where, ahead of them in that no-man's-land beyond Nine Springs, was a grove of orange trees, then sloping terrain, then the distant ranges of the Catalina Mountains. But what summoned them lacked reason; what drew them to the fringes was only revealed when at last beheld, and in its august presence they stood dumbstruck at the fence: a lone Hereford cow was waiting on the other side, standing several yards away beside an orange tree, as if sanctuary from the snowstorm had been sought below the branches—a solitary brown-and-white cow which had seemingly anticipated their approach, facing them with eyes agape, glistening while long pendants of ice dripped from its huge nostrils and underside, staying erect but releasing no breath—lifeless there yet frozen upright in tableau.
How strange, Hollis thought, for death to leave the beast standing. But he also understood that death—that trespasser of safe places—was often curious in method: whether it came beneath a bridge, or by a river, or on a golf course, or in a hospital, or beside a tree. Death, he thought, was like the downfalling of snow last night, so quiet and so pacifying, inevitably blanketing all which might hope to remain untouched. So the pain of dying was one thing, he told himself, whereas death itself was something entirely different, something which was benign by nature and not unkind.
“No,” Lon uttered, “no, no, don't understand it, don't get it—how'd we find ourselves here?” His hand flexed and squeezed against Hollis's hand.
“I don't know,” were the words which floated within steam from Hollis, his body shivering. “I don't know,” he repeated, glad for the small bit of warmth Lon's bare hand afforded him. At that moment the crow screamed a warning at close range, making the pair start and glance up to where it sat nearby. Neither had noticed the large bird's arrival, how it had glided noiselessly right above them as a shadow—wings fully expanded, rigid talons slicing the air—to land atop the fence, turning itself around toward them, and perching there now like a sentry, watching with coal-black sockets and darting, questioning movements of its feathered head.
“We need to go,” Lon said, sounding agitated. “I'm suddenly not feeling all that great. Something isn't right.”
“Okay,” Hollis said, meeting the crow's stare, peering into a blackened socket but perceiving a hollowness where an eye should reflect.
“I think I overexerted myself, I think that's it. And I think Jane is probably worrying, so we really better go.”
Cocking its head, the crow thrust its beak forward, bellowing furiously as if ordering them to leave.
“Okay,” Hollis repeated, hesitating long enough to cast his gaze one last time at the poor creature beneath the orange tree: while Lon—refusing to look anymore, pounding the snow with his galoshes—about-faced and tugged on his hand.
“I'm going.”
Hastily they returned upon their own beaten trail, and as Lon led the way among the field of white which was quickly melting under the sun, Hollis soon discerned the figure of someone else in the distance, an inert shape pausing where Lon had fallen earlier on the ninth hole green. The trodden, slushy trail wound back from the desert and brought them closer to the residential lots of the community, the snow ebbing to a grayish muddy surface as sidewalks and asphalt thawed. But the ultraviolet rays thrown off the ice had become excruciating, and with photophobia now hampering their progress instead of the snow, he couldn't quite yet make out who it was they were fast approaching. Perhaps, he thought, it was another person entranced by the aftermath of the snowfall, or possibly an officer from the sheriff ‘s department who had been alerted by the blinki
ng hazard lights of the parked Suburban, or maybe even one of the many groundskeepers investigating the post-storm condition of the golf course; and if the person hadn't been so tall, he would have assumed it was Lon's wife searching for her husband when he had failed to come home.
Since Lon was leading and held a better vantage point, Hollis asked, “Who is it? Can you tell?”
“How's that?” Lon huffed, short of breath, still pulling Hollis by the hand.
“Do you see who it is?”
The figure was a few yards in front of them, marking the spot where their journey had started and, presently, would conclude.
“Who are you talking about?” Lon answered, his labored voice imparting an entire day's worth of exhaustion. “I don't understand who who is.”
Just then Hollis realized what must be loitering on the ninth hole green. “Never mind,” he said, finally recognizing that familiar likeness he had encountered throughout the years—stock-still with arms hanging at its side, expressionless yet vigilant—that time-ravaged twin who wasn't ever meant for this life: a long, unkempt gray beard flowing from its haggard, wrinkled, and stooped body, dressed as always in jeans which had grown ragged and frayed, worn-down leisure shoes, a moth-eaten T-shirt, and a soiled, once bright blue Windbreaker. “I guess I was seeing things, it's nothing.” For a second Hollis wondered if he should not simply head in a different direction, but upon reaching the ninth hole green he let go of Lon's hand and continued forward. Unaware of Max's lingering proximity, Lon accelerated his pace and brushed past the spectral figure, tiredly waving a hand in the air as he proceeded downhill, almost slipping again while hurrying for the sidewalk.
With long, limping strides Hollis walked directly toward his weathered counterpart, fixing on those vacuous eyes which were, somehow, his own eyes. You'll go, he thought. You'll disappear. However, Max didn't fade from sight or vanish in a blink, and Hollis was now closer to it than he had imagined possible; one stayed put while the other charged headlong without hesitation, both on the verge of collision and unwilling to relent. You'll go, you'll disappear: Hollis winced when passing right through himself, but just beforehand he saw the movement of Max's blistered lips, emitting a parched whisper which entered his own lips and exited at the base of his skull. And then it had communicated to him; it had, in their brief merging, addressed him for the first and only time, simply uttering, “Bye.”
Hollis immediately stopped, peering back over his shoulder. Max wasn't there. For a moment he thought he glimpsed a wavering of light where it had stood—then all he could see was snow and land and the crisscrossed trail. Impossible, it can't be, he said to himself and shuddered. No, he was not mistaken, it had spoken. He had heard its parting message and, too, he had felt the word reverberate inside his head. Turning around, he searched for Lon but saw instead the remaining few yards of golf course, the sidewalk beyond, his Suburban parked in the golf lane—and nothing or no one else. The city seemed abandoned, the streets were deserted, and it would have been natural for him to enjoy the solitude, but now he suddenly harbored an immense sadness for himself and everything which lived or had yet to grow beneath the sun; and with that a feeling of complete isolation came upon him, a deep-reaching sensation of also having been abandoned which constricted a knot of desperation in his gut. Here is the sum total of my existence, he thought and resumed limping. This is it for me.
Then somewhere high above the grid patterns of Nine Springs the wind raced like the currents of a river; and the invisible sheets of ether fused within the sky were in perpetual tumult, bending westward then southward while clouds swelled and moved accordingly. The great breaths of the planet blew farther still along the hemisphere and the wind shifted and shifted. Effortlessly buoyed by the rushing waves of air, itself a dark shape gliding horizontally among the flux, a crow circled what lay far below—that insubstantial island with square plots and tiled rooftops and one inhabitant climbing into a sport-utility vehicle—before changing its direction and flying out across a limitless ocean of open desert.
After Hollis eased the Suburban into his driveway, turning the vehicle off, he sat there for a while with the radio on, listening to the local news and then the statewide weather report. A freak winter storm had shut down various stretches of Interstate 10, the generic-sounding broadcaster stated, but tomorrow things would warm up, the skies would be clear from Tucson to Flagstaff. Upon hearing that, he pulled the keys out of the ignition—and if anybody inside the neighboring homes had been looking through windows, they might have spied his bulky form exiting the Suburban, half limping in muddy leather boots and made even bigger by the padded jacket, perhaps wondering where it was he had traveled to on such an unreceptive morning. Yet no one would catch a glimpse of the dread he was harboring within him-self—as he shuffled, carefully, over icy patches on the concrete and moved toward the house.
Once beyond the front door, Hollis entered what seemed to be a timeless but vacuous domain, a place in which past or future concerns were no longer permitted, and where the present was now forever sustained like the drone of an unending chord. He didn't, though, remove the boots, or the jacket, or the mitt on his hand; instead, he went forward, pausing for a time at the gap between the dining and living rooms—like someone contemplating directions when stepping into a maze—with his head pivoting from left to right, right to left, his gaze alternately framing those two dimly cast, static rooms: each fractured by refined beams of angled sunlight, where the rays only brightened either the middle of the dining table or the three canvas-printed orchid photographs hung above the couch, as they would a bowl of fruit in a still life. Among the shadows of the living room were the brown-oak bookcases, the television cabinet, a black steel-coated wall clock, the tempered glass-top coffee table covered with library books—and in the dining room, also shaded, were the glass chandelier-like pendant lamp, the antique clear-lacquered pine chairs, the buffet with top cabinets which held white plates and bowls and cups and pitchers. But in the slow aquatic tumbling of radiant dust motes, everything felt submerged to him, peacefully settled somewhere beneath water; and he was there, too, among wreckage which had, surely, sunk so calmly as to leave so much intact.
Don't forget to breathe.
Before proceeding farther, Hollis exacted his stare, holding it on the living-room clock. He waited until the second hand had cycled the full duration of a minute; at which point he walked directly through the house—tracking dirt across the carpet, the kitchen's vinyl flooring—and headed out the back door to tend his snowbound gardens: calculating and recalculating the hours, the approximate minutes, since he had comforted Debra in his arms, kissing the side of her face as she breathed heavily against him, kissing her when her breathing had grown shallower and, like a subtle, gradual transition into the stillest of sleeps, eventually became unapparent. Ten hours, he estimated. Ten hours and twenty-two minutes, give or take a minute.
At the end, by the time Debra was ready to go—to take the mystery ride, as she had begun saying—there had been almost nothing asked or required of Hollis; she had, using what little remained of her failing health, done all the preparations on her own, researching the best methods available, going about it with the same fixity of purpose which had driven her while making interior-design choices for their home. In businesslike fashion, she determined a mixture of two barbiturate drugs—Seconal (4.5 grams) and Nembutal (3.0 grams)—would not only do the trick but would double the lethal dose; as such, Hollis would be spared the last task of placing a plastic bag over her head once she had fallen asleep—something she felt certain he couldn't actually bring himself to do, something she didn't much like the idea of anyway. Then in accordance with Debra's wishes, a sympathetic Dr. Langford agreed to prescribe the drugs; and, too, the doctor would, when everything was finished, handle the postmortem details—signing the death certificate herself, stating that Debra had died due to complications resulting from ovarian cancer.
The grocery shopping and errands, howeve
r, became Hollis's main responsibility, his mission. Without voicing protest, he picked up the prescriptions for her at Walgreens; he also bought what she had listed on a Post-it note—chocolate pudding mix, a bottle of Glenfiddich, Dramamine—items which seemed better suited for a holiday than, as Debra had called it, a self-deliverance. There were other instructions for him as well, another list she had written on a legal pad, several after-life issues they would discuss beforehand: the letter she had recently composed to her younger sister was folded inside the P. D. James hardback on the living-room coffee table—it should be addressed in an envelope and sent via Priority Mail within a week of her passing—while the P. D. James novel should be returned to the library by month's end; her credit cards should be canceled; her clothing and shoes should be donated to Goodwill, her wigs given to Gilda's Club; she didn't want a funeral, or a memorial service, or an obit of any sort placed in a newspaper; most important, her body must be cremated. “That way I can once and for all rid myself of these cancer cells,” she explained. “I want my body purified,” and then Debra wanted the circle of her life completed, asking that her ashes and bits of bone be scattered on the property of the old What Rocks house where she had been born—the closing of a larger circle in which a smaller circle would have already been sealed; for, they both knew without saying it, a death had brought them together and, in turn, it was somehow fitting that a death would draw them apart. The pursuit of happiness, he had begun to understand, didn't come without a heavy price.
