The Weight of an Infinite Sky

by Carrie La Seur

  Brittany was on tiptoe, riveted and energized by the risk she’d taken, holding her breath for his answer. Anthony had a sense of vertigo, the tilting of solid earth. Shakespeare filled his head from a college production of Hamlet:

  My lord, I think I saw him yesternight.

  Saw? who?

  My lord, the king your father.

  He sidestepped in a little feigned dance to hide what had hit him. This grieving child needed only calming words, and Anthony’s brain was ablaze with fiery language. So art thou to revenge, when thou shalt hear. His father’s apparition on the ridgeline, while Neal lorded over the family table. Anthony asked himself if he still believed in ghosts and if he thought Neal was capable of murder, and found that the answers weren’t the firm negatives he wished for but something more malleable. The serpent that did sting thy father’s life / Now wears his crown. Could it be true?

  Brittany stood staring at him, plainly seeing something Anthony hadn’t intended to show. She’d told the truth so earnestly, so boldly—but he couldn’t give truth back to her. He couldn’t let her know what her words had roused. Brittany deserved only protection, not a window into his anguish. With a wrench he drew the smile back across his face and said in casual tones, “I’m glad you told me. Maybe Dad was saying good-bye. I’ll keep an eye out for him.”

  The moment of connection evaporated at his obvious dissembling. Brittany’s face closed against him and she turned to shuffle up the street, scratched bare legs gangly beneath the pretty scenery of her dress. She caught up and tagged along the rear fringe of the bright, loud assembly without speaking to anyone or looking back. He’d lost her trust.

  Anthony twisted his neck so that a few vertebrae cracked. He’d heard that Brittany had seen her mother’s body, before the paramedics could pick it up off the ice. No wonder she was seeing ghosts. He understood too late that she saw him as someone else who’d just lost a parent and wanted more from him than a gentle dismissal. He was about to hurry after her when his phone interrupted with the theme from Cabaret—a theater joke, because his life was anything but. Surely another board member checking in.

  “Fry here.” Silence on the other end. “Hello?”

  “Anthony? Is that you?” A woman’s voice, distant in that way cell phones have of imitating strings and a cup, but not Jayne this time. No, this was a voice he would never mistake for anyone else’s.

  He stopped walking. “Hilary?”

  “Yes! I’m flying in next week and I heard you were back. I’d love to see you.”

  “Uh, yeah. Same here.” A new wave of kids was streaming by and counselors were waving at him to ride drag and herd stragglers. Brittany was most of a block away, casting an occasional regretful glance back at him. It was odd having Hilary on the line, that moment he’d had too rarely and wished for too often, and feeling the call of more important obligations. “I’m working at Town Hall Theater. Come by any time.”

  “I absolutely will! So nice to hear your voice, Anthony. Is everything going okay?”

  What could he say? Camp had started and the kids were here and so far he’d done what he said he’d do, if he didn’t count the promise to himself to do it sober. “Yeah, it’s all right.”

  Hilary hesitated and her voice came back worried. “We’ll talk when I get there. I can’t wait to see what you’re working on. Hang in there, okay?”

  “Sure thing.”

  She hung up and Anthony walked ahead without seeing until he caught up to the pack again. Brittany was half a block ahead, walking more slowly than the others, stubbing toes on the sidewalk as a counselor urged her to hurry up. Anthony gave himself a little internal shove to come even with her, fighting a strange reluctance. Coming back to Montana should have put the dreams to rest. He was where Dean had wanted him. There had to be a rational explanation for what Brittany saw.

  “Hey.” Anthony fell in beside her with a few long strides. “Sorry about that. I had to take a call. I want to hear more about what you saw.”

  “It doesn’t matter if you believe me. I’m sorry if I made you feel bad,” Brittany said. She walked with arms tight around her bag, hiding the grocery store logo.

  “It’s okay,” Anthony said. He nodded to the beckoning counselor, who shepherded the other kids forward at a quicker pace and left him to stroll with Brittany. “What time of day did you see him?”

  She didn’t look at him but she answered. “First thing in the morning. I like to go out before breakfast and see what’s down by the creek, me and my horse, Romeo.”

  “You have a horse? That’s terrific.” A doctor couldn’t prescribe better medicine.

  “Yeah, he’s an old guy but he walks me around wherever I want to go.”

  “And where were you when you saw Ponch?”

  “Right by that spring east of the house where there are always tiger salamanders. Ambystoma mavortium. I looked up the name . . .” Brittany trailed off in the middle of her digression, as if she would like just as much to tell about tiger salamanders but was now sensing how out of place her enthusiasm was.

  “What was he doing?”

  Brittany reflected for several seconds. “He was just there, you know, looking around. Not doing anything. Then when I stopped to watch him, he rode away. What do you think it means?”

  If it were real—it couldn’t be real—what could it mean? Growing up at the edge of Indian country had taught Anthony that spirits wandered, when they wandered, for a reason—the threat to the ranch, or some crime committed against Dean, or even some guilt of Dean’s that wouldn’t allow him to rest. Anthony dismissed the thought that someone else would have gotten up on Pontchartrain. Who would be so foolish? Could Brittany be mistaken about a horse she’d seen up close?

  His pulse thumped in his neck even as he sought the right words, not dismissing what she believed she’d seen but not giving too much weight to it, either. “Maybe he’s just keeping an eye on the old place, and Ponch. They meant a lot to him.”

  Brittany retreated into that tween reserve that was nearly impenetrable, head bent away from him. She clearly hoped for more than he was giving her and he wished he knew what that might be. It was brave, talking to him about this. Had she seen other ghosts? The question seemed too suggestive. Better to jolly her out of visions of the dead.

  “I’ll go for a ride out there myself. Maybe I’ll get to wave good-bye.” He wanted to shore her up and let her know it was okay to talk to him, no matter how bizarre the story. Cabaret began to play again. Without thinking he picked up.

  “Tony, I finally got you! This is Rick Burlington. I wanted to check on how that bus is working out for you.”

  It was on his lips to say Don’t call me Tony, asshole, before he remembered that he was talking to his benefactor. Anthony had written a letter on behalf of the theater to the corporate officer in Denver who’d signed the check for the bus and driver, but Rick was the one calling on the burden of gratitude.

  “Rick, I can’t talk now. I’m in charge of kids.”

  “How about lunch tomorrow?”

  “I—let me see how things are going. I’ll call you.” He clicked the call off and shoved the cracked old phone in his pocket.

  The crowd of campers streamed ahead as Anthony and Brittany passed storefronts in no hurry. Anthony was grateful for the cover of a camper beside him. He felt suddenly watched, as if Rick might leap out of a doorway.

  “Do you know any of the other kids?” Anthony asked.

  “Just one. Julie—up there. She’s from Billings. We used to go to school together.” Brittany pointed to a dark head bounding along the sidewalk in the wake of the most popular counselor, Xela Warmer, an early-childhood education major at the college who was leading a dozen kids in a silly marching song.

  “I’m sure you’ll make lots of new friends.”

  Brittany gave him a look full of skepticism beyond her years. “These kids are different from me.”

  “Different how?” Anthony asked, but the question w
as disingenuous. Most of the campers came from families that remembered to register well in advance and paid for all the summer enrichment their kids could handle—a few weeks of camp here, time at the family cabin there, amusement parks or international trips if they were lucky. Their parents came to their concerts and games wearing shirts from places Anthony—and certainly Brittany—had never been. Big Sky. Yosemite. Disney World. He imagined those places full of catalog families in the right outfits, knowing what to do, how to behave, glowing with straight teeth and those fancy sandals even the kids wore. The effortless superiority. Anthony remembered how they’d looked at him in childhood, the ranch kid with the wrong backpack and manure on his boots no matter how hard he tried to keep them clean, parents in grubby work clothes. Those kids had a shininess on them he’d never been able to penetrate. It only reflected him in unflattering angles.

  “Oh, you know,” Brittany said. For a minute, Anthony thought that would be her entire answer. Then, as a slightly larger gap opened between them and the other kids, she added, “They talk about stuff like playing catch with their dads or going camping. I’ve never been camping. I don’t want them feeling sorry for me.”

  Anthony made a nudging gesture with his elbow without actually making contact. “They’re like a different species,” he joked. “Genus Rich Kid. I was never one of them. There was about as much chance of my dad taking us to Disney World as all of us getting abducted by aliens.” He was pleased to earn a smile.

  “My dad’s taking me to a baseball game this week,” Brittany said. “He just has to get his work schedule changed.”

  “Nice!” Anthony said. Gretchen had posted the Mustangs’ schedule on the freezer door and circled all the home games. She and her new friends from work attended them religiously when the team was in town—but they weren’t this week. They were on the road, eight hours away playing Coeur d’Alene. “How was the bus ride this morning?”

  Brittany let down her lunch bag shield and swung it front to back in a wide arc. “Alma dropped me off. First day, she said. She made a big fuss.” Her face went perplexed.

  “Oh, that’s right.” He’d forgotten, but now he was glad for the mistake. He was curious to hear her talk about Alma. Brittany had been the one taking care of Vicky, he’d bet money on it. She seemed both older and younger than her age, able to size him up like a card shark even as her eyes followed the lighthearted kids in front of them as if waiting for a turn on the swings that would never come. “Do you like it, living out there with her and your grandma?” he asked, careful to keep his tone light.

  “I like Romeo. And the creek. But we only get to go to the library once a week.”

  “Sounds okay.”

  “Maybe,” she said. He waited but there was nothing more.

  “I think I know what you mean about some of the other kids,” he said. “In New York I felt like there was this spotlight shining on all the messy parts of me I’d never had to explain to anyone. Onstage I was totally exposed to people who’d never see me in real life. It was like they had these perfect, sunlit lives on one side of a clean sheet of glass, and I was pressed up on the other side. I thought, I’m gonna leave a smudge. They’re gonna notice how different I am, how I don’t fit in. And I will never fit in.” Anthony caught himself up short and stuffed his hands angrily into his pockets. “I’m sorry. That’s nothing you need to know about.” It was a fine line, what he could say to a kid and what he shouldn’t. He hoped it was enough that she saw him trying to be honest.

  After a few minutes’ reflection, Brittany said, “No. No, I like that. It’s not just me.”

  She looked him over now, from the fine red hair perpetually blowing into his face to the relatively clean les mis shirt he’d saved for the first day of camp, to the jeans and flattened-out flip-flops. She looked and looked. She watched everyone with such penetrating attention, this kid. It made Anthony uncomfortable to be so closely observed—a strange reaction from someone in the theater, he admitted to himself, but this wasn’t audience-level curiosity. She was reading him, judging whether he might be dangerous or need looking after, like a kid who until recently had never been able to trust most adults in her life. These were survival skills. They could make her a great actor one day.

  “Not just you,” he said. Brittany’s acceptance buoyed him. Kids could make things so simple. Anthony heard in his mind a few bars from “Consider Yourself,” the song he’d listened to half the morning as he taught the younger kids’ choreography class. He felt a mild inclination to hum that surprised him, although the notes stuck in his throat and did not emerge. He hadn’t sung a note in many months and he’d even stopped humming, that irritating soundtrack of optimism—but here was a scrap of music clinging like lint. Brittany had restored to him some magnetism he used to have.

  She walked more quickly now, gaining on the others. He kept pace automatically. “You’re right,” she said. “It’s like being in the spotlight. But I’d rather sit in the back and write poems. That’s okay, too, don’t you think?”

  “Oh, yeah. Poems in the back of the room sound just right to me.”

  They stopped at the traffic light next to the women’s and family shelter as they wound their way to the courthouse. Two brown-eyed boys, smaller than the campers, played with a single skateboard on the sidewalk out front, falling and trying and falling again without taking their eyes off the older kids in matching shirts. More waifs smudging the glass, Anthony observed, and too young to be playing unsupervised next to heavy traffic. Also too young for the camp, though he wanted to gather them in anyway, pull them into the magic circle and let them know it was for them, too, this common tribe of misfits.

  They crossed the street. Brittany went on, but Anthony looked back, struck again by the image Brittany had shared of Dean and Ponch watching from the ridge. He wanted to let it flow by, light and easy as he’d been with her, but it clutched hard at him and shuddered in his chest as if Brittany had been only the conduit for it to reach him.

  Across the moat of traffic, the boys had stopped playing. They stood together at the corner and watched in silence as the chattering crowd departed. At the far end of the block, just before the boys were lost to view, Anthony looked again. They were still watching.

  Act 1, Scene 4

  Anthony’s own cry woke him in the gray predawn two days later. He was falling, and the smell of sage and sweaty horseflesh was a mist he breathed, the first time he’d ever dreamed a scent. When he opened his eyes, he was sitting up in the sleeping bag on his futon, bracing a hand against the wall to soothe his inner ear. It might be the vodka, some of it, but this was unlike any other drunk dream he’d known. He’d been on Ponch, walking up a trail to the top of Croucher Coulee, nowhere else it could be with that long view down the cut of the creek. Along the cliff face was a thick, gleaming vein of coal newly exposed, stretched out like a snake in the rock. Ponch startled and reared, and Anthony’s strangled shout brought him back to consciousness, sweaty and panicked, even as he tumbled down, endlessly down, the abyss in his gut.

  It was Dean’s death he’d dreamed, he was sure of it, the second night of it after that peculiar conversation with Brittany. The ephemeral dreams he’d had about Dean before were quick-scrawled outlines compared to the Technicolor upon him now. For the nightmare to visit two nights in a row was disturbing and unacceptable. He had to make it stop—and to silence the questions circulating like an infection under his skin, crawling fast, looking for a way out. Hadn’t anyone thought to ask how a rider like Dean could die this way, alone with a brother he’d feuded with most of his life? Had there been a real investigation? If there had, Anthony hadn’t heard. He’d been too wrapped up in his own drama to ask.

  When he’d regained enough equilibrium to stand, he padded to the kitchen, filled a plastic Big Gulp cup with freezer vodka and a splash of Gretchen’s orange juice, then shifted the futon into a sitting position so he could watch headlights strobe the street below. With a spiral notebook balanced on
one knee Anthony tried to write down the details of the dream, more this time than the night before. He’d noticed a pile of brush up ahead just before he fell and saw the empty trail rise above, no sign of Neal. The images passed to the paper in disconnected words: sweaty horse, brush pile, mud. He tried a sketch, but he’d never been any good at that. The impressions were slipping away fast, leaving only an aftertaste of panic. Finally Anthony heard Gretchen stir and the smell of coffee drifted in, nudging him to his feet. He found Gretchen leaning on the counter in her robe, mug in hand, staring out the window at the last stubborn apple blossoms on the neighbors’ tree.

  “Are you okay?” she asked. “I thought I heard you shout.”

  “More bad dreams about Dad. Do you mind?” He pointed at the coffeepot.

  “Go ahead. You should talk to someone, Anthony. See a therapist.”

  Anthony shook his head. Exactly what he’d begged Hilary to do, back when he was the functioning one—and she hadn’t listened to him any more than he was prepared to listen to Gretchen. “With what money?”

  “My friend Alison says if you call the hospital and tell them you’re suicidal, they’ll get you in right away and you don’t have to pay.”

  “I’m not suicidal.” He wasn’t going to step in line in front of someone more desperate. He had a decent cup of coffee and a job. Besides, what was wrong with him no therapist could fix. “I’m doing better than lots of people.”