by Terri Kraus
He sat and stared at that bottle for a long, long time, until he no longer heard the buzzers on the Main Street stoplights. He kicked off his shoes and laid on his bed, still fully clothed, on his back, with his hands folded across his chest, his head on the pillow, and waited, once again, for sleep to free him.
God, where are You?
Amelia Westland
Lyndora
Butler County, Pennsylvania
October 6, 1884
Mr. Middelstadt has called on me now five times, in one of his stylish conveyances, apparently with the blessings of the good doctor and the superintendent of schools, for both have sent correspondence asking how our society is progressing, and telling me what a fine gentleman is to be found in Mr. Middelstadt, what a pillar of the community he is becoming, how much his children are in need of a mother, and various and sundry other encouragements—some subtle, some less so.
I think him indeed a fine gentleman, most courteous and polite, with impeccable table manners. I bless my Aunt Willa, and Mrs. Barry, too, for instructing me in the proper ways a lady must behave. Mrs. Barry provided me with a few lovely dresses and accessories which she no longer had need of, that I might be presentably attired on my engagements with Mr. Middelstadt. (I have no idea how dear dinner was at the Willard Hotel, for my menu was without prices printed on the selections.) He indeed is a fine gentleman and treats me like a lady. I have met his children, on two occasions now, two very pretty little girls of six and eight years who behaved quite well and were most respectful to me. I have seen his house—rather like a mansion, truth be told. Three stories, more rooms than I could count, gaslights, several servants, fine wood and upholstered furniture with embroidered fabric, elaborate silk drapery, lavish wallpapers and sparkling chandeliers, delicate China, silver service, crystal glassware.
I fail to imagine how I would act in such a place—and as lady of the house. The very idea has caused the spells of anxiety to return a time or two, but I managed, through prayer, to settle my nervousness and stave off a lengthy episode.
Hear my cry, O God; attend unto my prayer.
From the end of the earth will I cry unto thee,
when my heart is overwhelmed: lead me to the rock that is higher than I.
—Psalm 61:1–2
I sought the LORD, and he heard me,
and delivered me from all my fears.
—Psalm 34:4
CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR
SATURDAY MORNING WAS ONE OF those perfect, pellucid mornings, when you could see all the way into space through the cloudless blue sky, when your breath had just a puff of frozen vapor as you exhaled. Not truly cold, but bracing. A day perfect for football and wearing a sweater under a houndstooth sport coat, with thin leather driving gloves, a scarf around your neck, and your best girl, wearing a fur-collared jacket, hanging on your arm and smiling up at you.
Jack had none of those things.
He zipped up his black sweatshirt, the one with only a small tear on the elbow. He put on his regular jeans and his regular work boots. He found a black knitted wool hat and pulled it down over his head.
He stopped before he reached his door. He looked over at the small bottle of vodka, sitting there in its little home.
Small, but enough.
He walked slowly to the alcove and picked up the bottle. Surprised at the coldness of the glass, he slipped it into the pocket of his sweatshirt and snugged it down, deep inside, so it wouldn’t tip out, fall, and break.
He made his way down the steps and walked down the alley, down to where he had parked his truck.
He had nothing to do this day. Nothing at all.
He didn’t walk slowly because he was hesitating for any specific reason. He walked slowly because any action this morning felt like he was walking with weights attached to his feet through some invisible, thick, viscous liquid, like heavy water, each step more agonizing than the one before.
Jack knew the symptoms. He had done all the reading. He had seen the magazine articles.
A doctor once told him that alcoholism and depression often went hand in hand. Some people drank to self-medicate, to mask the pain, to hide from some crushing reality. That doctor had wanted to prescribe anti-depressants for Jack. He had not wanted the prescription.
It wouldn’t cure it. It would just be another crutch, another mask. That’s not what I need.
Jack knew the symptoms well.
He got into his truck and turned the key. Nearly a full tank of gas remained. Jack considered that a good sign. He backed up, drove down the short alley, turned left, then made a right and was on Route 8. The weather was clear, the traffic was light, and Jack knew exactly where he must go.
Leslie awoke that morning to the buzzer for their front door. She blinked to clear her eyes, fumbling for her robe.
It’s before eight o’clock. Who would come this early?
She tied the robe around her waist and cinched the collar closed. She wished she had enough money to install a closed-circuit video-camera system.
Maybe after a few months more rent from the Adamses.
She opened the door, with some caution, and peered down the steps. The light was so bright that all she could see was a silhouette—a man’s silhouette. It was not Mike—much too small. Not Frank—much too short. And not Jack—not athletic enough. The shadow turned, and Randy almost pressed his face against the glass, offering a thin, insincere-looking smile.
“Buzz me in. It’s freezing out here,” he called.
Leslie reached around the door for the buzzer, then hesitated.
What does he want? Why so early? Should I tell him to come back later?
She quickly decided that if she sent him away, he would simply threaten to use that as her refusal to allow him access to his daughter. And maybe the courts might believe him.
She hit the buzzer and the downstairs door clacked open.
Randy blew on his hands as he entered her apartment, eyes looking about, looking for something—something incriminating, perhaps.
“Listen, I know it’s early, but I want to take my kid out to breakfast. Lisa had some stupid scrapbooking thing to go to today up in Saxonburg. I dropped her off and have nothing to do for the morning. So I thought I could see my kid for a change. She up?”
Leslie felt pummeled. This was not on the court-approved schedule, but since he had missed so many, she doubted whether he even considered that schedule when making plans.
“I’ll take her to breakfast. Then I got to get the oil changed in the car, and then a carwash. Maybe she’ll enjoy that. Can you get her up … or are you hungover or something? You’re not moving too fast, you know that?”
He sat on the sofa and waited, as if he were accustomed to her jumping when he told her to—which he was.
Leslie could not think clearly enough to argue. Instead she padded down the hall, into Ava’s room, and tried to wake her daughter as gently as she could.
She put her hand on Ava’s small shoulder and shook it just a little. Ava was not always gracious upon waking, and she liked to sleep later on the days when school wasn’t in session.
“It’s Saturday, Mommy. I sleep in on Saturday,” Ava said with a groggy voice.
“I know, sweetie,” she said softly into her ear. “But your father is here. He wants to take you to breakfast.”
Ava rolled onto her back. She squinted at her mother. “Why?”
“I’m not sure. But he’s here, and he wants to have breakfast with you.”
Ava tried to roll onto her side. “Can’t he just eat here?”
“I don’t think he wants to do that, Ava. You have to get up.”
Ava grumbled and, with her mother’s prodding, sat up. Leslie went to the dresser and got out a pair of jeans and a pink sweatshirt. “Put this on, okay?”
Ava stumbled into her jeans and pulled on the sweatshirt without complaint, even though she had recently started to have an opinion about her clothes.
It’s early. If she were fully awake, she wouldn’t have wanted to wear either.
Randy stood by the door, waiting. “Hey, Ava. How are you?”
Ava hardly acknowledged him as she made her way to the steps.
“She just woke up, Randy.”
“Yeah, sure. Like you aren’t telling her things about me. We’ll be back by noon. You better be here ’cause I have to pick up Lisa at 12:30. Got it?”
He didn’t wait for a reply—simply pulled the door shut after him.
Jack rolled his window down a few inches. It was too cold for an open window, but nice enough, with enough sun, that a small breeze felt good, refreshing. He was headed down Route 8, toward Pittsburgh.
His parents no longer lived in Pennsylvania. A number of years ago, when Jack was mired in his problems, they had moved, his father recently retired, to Arizona. He received Christmas and birthday cards from them, and that alone was their connection.
He did not blame them.
Addiction can be expensive and emotionally devastating, Jack knew. He realized that his parents could not be blamed for turning away from him. He might have done the exact same thing.
He drove farther into the city, crossed the Allegheny River at the 62nd Street Bridge, and headed south, along Butler Street.
He knew where he was going. This was familiar ground to him. He had grown up here.
He turned south, into Schenley Heights, situated between the ultrafashionable Shadyside and the sprawling campus of the University of Pittsburgh. Not every house was huge, but many were. Not every house was architecturally significant or interesting, but many were.
Jack slowed down and turned onto Webster Avenue. The block had not changed much since he had been gone. Some houses had been repainted—some with historic colors Jack liked, some he didn’t. A few older and smaller houses were gone, replaced by large new houses, built in a not-quite-historically-correct style, that hulked on the small lots—expensive, impressive, and attempting to fit into the neighborhood when everyone knew that they couldn’t, wouldn’t, and shouldn’t. Jack paused at a stop sign, and then proceeded more slowly. He pulled over to the curb halfway down the block. He looked to his right, through the passenger side window at a house.
He had once owned that house, a sort of Spanish/Moorish-style home, with a tile roof and twisted terra cotta columns flanking the front door. It was authentically and significantly historic, one of the first houses built on that block, filled with all sorts of quirky delights.
Jack stared without expression, memorizing the lines and the colors and the details once again. After perhaps ten minutes, he put the truck back into gear and headed east on Baum Boulevard, then north on South Negley Avenue, then west on Penn Avenue.
He slowed and entered through the tall brick columns. The wrought-iron gates were folded back, unlocked during the day, during visiting hours.
He grabbed at the wheel tighter with his right hand to stop the tremor that seemed to have possessed his entire arm.
Several years had passed since he had last been here, yet the route was indelibly etched into his memory.
Only a small number of people were out today. Sunday would draw more crowds. The Pittsburgh Panthers would not be playing tomorrow; people would leave themselves time to remember.
At the crest of a small rise, he turned, pulled to the side of the road, and switched the engine off. The ticking of the motor, as it cooled, grew loud in the silence of the day.
Jack didn’t want to leave the truck. He would rather have stayed inside. He would rather have started the engine again and driven off, never to return.
But he knew he had to be there … and he had to do what he was about to do.
He pulled his cap on, zipped up his sweatshirt, and stepped out into the brilliant sunshine and the biting, chilly air.
He stepped onto the grass and began to walk. He counted as he went. They were twenty-five steps from the road. He had that number memorized. It may have taken a minute to get to them; it may have taken an hour. Jack was not aware of time.
He turned, closed his eyes, and waited.
Then, after his heart slowed, after the trembling in his hands abated a little, he opened his eyes once again.
He faced two tombstones—plain granite, simple, unpolished, rough-hewn edges, as if they had just been carved from a quarry—the grass neatly trimmed, the world around them stretching away forever.
Jack felt his left hand shake, even though he had put it in his pocket.
He wanted to run.
Instead he sat down.
He sat down on the grass and stared and tried not to remember.
The buzzer sounded angry, impatient. Leslie ran to the door, hit the buzzer in return, and quickly opened the door to the apartment.
“Hi, Mommy!” Ava shouted from the bottom of the steps, then ran up as fast her legs could carry her, her hair bouncing with each step.
“You have a good time?”
“Yeah, but Dora’s on,” she said as she hurried to the sofa and scrabbled for the remote.
Randy kept the downstairs door half open. “Come here,” he commanded. “We need to talk.”
Leslie closed the upstairs door and slowly walked down to meet her ex-husband.
“Listen, we need to talk.”
“You said that, Randy. But here? It’s cold outside.”
“I don’t want the kid to hear us,” Randy replied.
“So … go ahead.”
“Listen, I want Ava. I’m going to go back to court. I want custody of Ava. I thought I’d do the right thing and let you know.”
Of all the things she had imagined Randy asking for today, custody would not have been first on that list.
“What?” Leslie could think of no other word that would express her incredulity.
“You heard me. I’m going to go back to court to get custody. Lisa wants kids, but she found out that she can’t have any. Something about her tubes being too narrow. I don’t know. Woman’s stuff. But then I thought—hey!—I already have a kid.”
“What? You have to be joking. Say that you’re joking.”
There was a slow burn evident in Randy’s eyes. “I am not joking, Leslie. And don’t think I don’t mean it. I can make your silly little panic attacks look like a Sunday school picnic, once I’m done with you.”
“You have to be joking,” Leslie said, her voice starting to waver, ever so slightly.
Randy pushed his face closer to hers. “I said, I am not joking. So you get ready, Miss Crazy Lady. I’ll have Ava sooner than you can say, ‘I’m nuts.’”
Leslie, back on her heels, the fingers in her hands clenching into fists, waited, and wondered what to say in reply.
Jack stared at the two tombstones.
ELIZABETH WILLIAMS KENYON
1969–1999
EMMA ELIZABETH KENYON
1994–1999
A familiar pain formed in his heart and a lump in his throat. Guilt elevated his pulse, making his eyes water.
He waited. He knew it would come. He knew what to expect. The past would soon roar out at him like an avenging lion and devour another piece of him. He knew it was coming and he wouldn’t move.
It wasn’t my fault.
That day in 1999 had begun like any other day, with one major exception. Often, on a Saturday—well, more than often … nearly always—to relieve the tension from a hellish workweek, Jack would mix a pitcher of Bloody Marys, heavy on the Tabasco sauce, and would have most of the pitcher gone by the time the college ball games started on TV. Elizabeth was on him again—about his drinking, about all the late
nights, at work, at play, and his other habits he thought he’d kept secret from her.
But this Saturday, Jack had made her a promise. “No drinks until dinner, if that will make you happy.”
“It will,” she had replied coolly.
So he had knocked back a few Cokes—only Cokes, no hidden rum spikes, just ice—and had puttered about the house. Early that day, he’d taken Emma for her ballet lesson. Jack had loved watching her dance, her wispy blond hair bouncing to her steps in her little pink tutu and tights, even though she didn’t appear to have a natural knack for it. She’d loved it, Jack had loved it, and it gave his wife an hour to herself.
By early afternoon, Elizabeth had claimed there was no food in the house worth eating and that she wanted to go out for a nice meal.
“We could go to the club, or eat at the Schenley Marriott. They have such a nice spread.”
Jack had said he didn’t care, that she could pick, and the three of them had all climbed into his Jaguar. Elizabeth didn’t like his car but tolerated his affectation.
They headed down Butler Street. Jack remembered it well, a day much like this day—chilly, clear, bright sun, no reason for worry on the roads, a sober driver, and dry pavement. What could go wrong?
It was not my fault.
Jack had brought his car, under the speed limit, under control, to the crest of the small hill by Arsenal Park. The red light had turned to green.…
The light was green! It had turned green!
From the north, from narrow 39th Street, most of the oncoming traffic was hidden by the diner on the corner. It had come in a blur, a dark blue blur like a shot, like the driver hadn’t seen the light at all, like the sun was in his eyes and blinded him, or like Jack should have stopped instead. In that second, in that split fraction of a second, he’d heard Elizabeth scream and saw her hand fly up …
She was wearing her favorite red coat.
… as if her arm might provide protection from what was to come. Then the splintering of glass, the rumbling, twisting, wrenching, tossing, screeching, and rending of metal and glass … the sliding and turning in the air, falling and being slapped one way and then another … a long hiss, silence, and more silence … wet and being on the pavement, not being able to move … then a scream, a long time, a siren … and nothing at all.
