The Snow Garden

by Christopher Rice

  “I have the same view from my room,” she whispered, nibbling gently on his earlobe-

  “And I’ve never been in your room,” he said, turning and circling her waist with both arms.

  “And you know why,” she said softly, resting her head on the solid rock of his chest, savoring the sensation of being in the arms of someone older and wiser, someone who had grown intimate with the woman inside her whom everyone else kept missing or ignoring. But her parents knew next to nothing about Jono and she wanted to keep it that way. "Hey!” she said, catching sight out of a tiny light making a determined path into the black Pacific. “Check it out!”

  Jono followed her extended arm, and saw the light hovering just above the black surface. “A boat?” he asked.

  “No. A submarine. Watch.”

  And just like that the light began to descend, dissolving into a smear of diffuse light and water before it was gone completely, and they were both awed for a second by the immensity of the Pacific stretching out for miles before it became indistinguishable from the cloudless night sky. “I’m freezing,” she said, breaking the moment. In response, Jono brought his hot breath to her neck and—as expected— she went weak in his embrace, digging her hands under his leather jacket and clasping them against the small of his back.

  “Don’t leave me,” he whispered into her ear.

  “As if.”

  “You mean it?” He lifted his head so that he was eye to eye with Kathryn, the tips of their noses touching. She peered through shadow into his wide eyes, saw that blend of rugged handsomeness on his face lost to the gradual, but still cruel, punishment of hard drinking mixed with constant brooding. Here it is again, she thought, one of those desperate moments of neediness that suddenly pops up amid his mischief and daring.

  “Say it again,” he said, pulling his clasped hands into her back in two jerking motions.

  “Never.”

  “Never what?”

  “You’ll leave me first. How’s that?”

  If it hadn’t been so dark, maybe she would have seen the shadow of something pass over his face. But she felt that shadow in the sudden rigidity of his embrace. Then the moment was gone and his mouth was at her neck again. "This is what they call romance,” he said.

  “Romance isn’t this cold. Let’s go. They’re waiting.”

  “Bullshit. Kerry’s got enough dick to last her the whole weekend.”

  “Jono!” But his only response was to slide his arms out of his jacket and bring it up over her shoulders. She tightened her embrace on him and realized that she couldn’t tell him how afraid of the ocean she was because that fear belonged to the little girl, and Jono knew, slept with, and maybe loved the woman she’d become in the hot glare of his gaze.

  “Jono. Come on.”

  But one hand was crawling under her shirt, fingers playing over her bare stomach and toward the underwire of her bra. She jerked her arm free. The jacket fell off them.

  She heard the wet smack of the jacket hitting the rock at their feet, and the next thing she knew Jono had bent down, the pivoting of his butt almost forcing her off the rock. “What?” she shouted.

  “Fuck! My jacket!”

  He fell into a full crouch, leaving no space for her, and her only choice was to hobble down to the rock one level below, or else be forced into the tide-pool-swollen cracks between them. She barely made it to the slick surface when a wave broke, the wash frothing all around her for a brief terrifying instant. She landed knees first, hands slipping against the stone, and when she looked up he was gone.

  “Jono!”

  “I need it, Kathryn!” he called back from somewhere between the rocks.

  He had scared the shit out of her over a goddamn thrift-store leather jacket.

  Another wave hit, this one weaker, but she heard Jono curse from somewhere between the rocks as the afterwash lashed him.

  Without a good-bye, Kathryn set her sights on the distant bonfire and carefully made her way off the rocks and back to the sand.

  “Hey.”

  Kathryn cocked her head. She’d expected April, coming to retrieve the phone from the fire stairway, but there was Randall, his cheeks flushed with cold and his blue eyes slightly bloodshot from the frigid wind. He looked fatigued, and his leather jacket slid farther off one shoulder as he slumped down onto the step next to her. She extended the pack of cigarettes. “Where have you been?”

  “Library. What’s wrong?”

  “Nothing. I. . .” She shook her head. “My mother.”

  Randall grunted and lit the cigarette.

  “So, honey, how was your day?” Kathryn asked brightly.

  Randall’s smile flickered at her. “Uneventful,” he muttered.

  Her guilt rolled forward to fill the silence between them. After three months of friendship she had not told Randall a single thing about Jono Morton, the guy she had dated for six months. The guy to whom she had given her virginity and almost her life. How could she have gone for so long?

  The answer was simple. Because Randall hadn’t asked. She had never viewed this as a slight. One of the unspoken tenets of their friendship was that they never discussed home. They could both drop tidbits of information, but their conversation in the men’s room Friday night was evidence of what happened if one of them tried to pry for more. Who they had been now took a backseat to the people they thought they were both becoming. She never could have developed this deep a friendship with anyone who poked and prodded at her silences, so maybe it was only fair that Randall greeted her with a deep chill, whenever she tried to talk about his parents.

  “Remember Lauren Raines?”

  Randall was rubbing the back of his head with one hand, too slowly to be scratching an itch, as he stared at the floor. After several seconds of silence, his eyes rose from the steps. “Sorry?”

  “Lauren Raines. Third floor. Engineering major.”

  “What about her?”

  “She’s a lesbian now.”

  “You’re kidding,” Randall said, not interested.

  “I ran into her this morning. You wouldn’t recognize her.”

  “What did she say?” Randall asked with a sigh, pushing his butt back on the step and resting the small of his back against the next one.

  April had reacted with anger, and Randall was responding with disinterest, so Kathryn guessed this was the last time she’d bother recounting her conversation with Lauren to anyone. “She was kind of cryptic about it, but she’s dating some girl who lives off campus, so she’s been spending most of her time over there.” Kathryn paused.

  “Who’s the girl?”

  “Martha or something. I can’t remember.”

  “Weird,” Randall said, more to himself than her. He rose suddenly, stubbed out his half-smoked cigarette under the toe of his boot, and bent down to give her a kiss on the cheek. “I’ve got class in the morning.”

  “’Night.” He was almost through the exit door when she said, “Give Jesse a big kiss for me.”

  Startled, his eyes met hers and she watched a flash of anger tighten his features. At least he was paying attention to what I said, she thought. “I don’t kiss Jesse. Ever,” he said with too much force.

  “I was joking.”

  “You on the other hand—”

  “Good night, Randall,” she said with a dismissive wave.

  Back in her room, she saw April was down for the count. Kathryn undressed and slid under the comforter. Her thoughts were distorting at the edges. Faces in places were they shouldn’t be indicated the onset of dreams; her mother outside the student union trying to get her to take a flyer, Randall staring at the gaping hole in the chain-link fence that Jono had cut so they could sneak down to China Beach that night.

  A door brushing across the carpet in the hall.

  But this was real, bringing the succession of images to an abrupt halt. She lifted her head from the pillow, trying to determine if she had imagined it, and then she heard the door shut with a soft thud
. A glance at the clock told her it was almost one thirty. Minutes later, she was still trying to determine if it had been Randall’s door, remembering Jesse’s words to her at Madeline’s on Friday night. Sometimes he leaves after the two of you get back.

  CHAPTER FOUR

  GRIPPING THE STEM OF HIS WINEGLASS WHERE HE HELD IT ON THE arm of his reading chair, Eric watched Randall sit straight-backed on the sofa, staring down at the banana-shaped paper that bore his wife’s parting words in block letters. Eric wasn’t quite sure just what he wanted to see on the young man’s face. Some shame equal to his own, maybe?

  “She wrote this?” Randall asked in a surprisingly steady tone. He lifted his gaze from the note to Eric; his eyes were steel, his posture still rigid, as if he were prepared for Eric to deliver a second blow.

  Eric nodded and slugged the last of his wine.

  “What?”

  “Excuse me?” Eric asked.

  “What did she see? Randall asked.

  Eric slammed the glass back to the chair’s arm. Randall didn’t flinch. Angered by Randall’s defiance, Eric rose from the chair and crossed to the fireplace, taking care to set the empty wineglass down gently on the mantel. On the one hand, the note was general enough to allow for dozens of interpretations, most of which weren’t nearly as damning as the one he had accepted. She saw where their marriage was going, she knew that he was incapable of loving her fully. Maybe she had been referring to how close he had become with a certain group of graduate students, the time and attention he had devoted to them.

  Eric thought of Mitchell, and found himself speaking in words Mitchell would use as he held his back to Randall, “I left out something. When you asked me about Catharism, and the belief that our body is a trap we have to escape.” Behind him, he heard Randall let out a fatigued breath. It was impossible to tell whether he was annoyed or whether or not the awful weight of the note was beginning to press down on him. Eric continued, unfazed. “There is something about the dualistic view of the universe that’s always stuck with me. It’s the belief that certain desires should be ignored, not simply because they've been labeled sins and we fear God’s punishment if we indulge them; they should be ignored because by their nature they disguise themselves as a calling, when really they can provide nothing permanent beyond destruction.”

  How was that, Mitchell? he thought. Good enough for your newfound housemates who hang on your every word?

  He turned. Randall sat lax against the sofa. The note rested on his lap, but he had crossed his arms over his stomach. “Why did you show me this?” Randall asked again, the first quaver of anger evident in his voice.

  “I don’t know.”

  “I do.”

  “Really?” Eric asked with bitter sarcasm.

  “Would you like to hear it?”

  “Since when do you need my permission to share?”

  Randall’s mouth closed in a thin angry line. The only sound in the living room was the steady hiss of the gas fireplace. Eric finally lifted one arm, gesturing for Randall to continue, but Randall didn’t move or speak. Half a bottle of wine had given Eric a strange, wry energy. “I’m very tired, Randall. Please forgive me if I’m not showing you the respfect you think you deserve.”

  Randall got up from the sofa. “I’m not getting down on my knees and praying for forgiveness with you, Eric.”

  “Who asked you to?”

  “You did!” Randall held the note up. “Showing me this! What.. .” Randall looked to the note again as if his next line were written on it. “Who do I owe an apology to? She’s dead. And you? I gave you all you deserved every weekend for the past month.”

  Did he want Randall to repent? No. That day, playing the role of grieving husband, but with his guilt beating like a second and stronger heartbeat inside his chest, his hell had been a private one, yet he hadn’t committed his crimes alone. Of course, Randall, all of eighteen and without a wife to hurt, didn’t share the same burden as Eric, but the fact remained that Lisa had probably seen two people in bed together in the minutes before driving to her death, and by sharing that disturbing truth with Randall, Eric had made his hell seem less private. It eased the sense of total isolation he had felt that morning in Philadelphia as his wife’s body had been rolled down the aisle of her girlhood church. And God forbid, if Mitchell, once his shining pupil and now his neglected stepson, ever found out—he couldn’t think of facing that level of disdain alone.

  “Blame yourself all you want, Eric. Not me. You were waiting for me.”

  “How did I ever get along without you?”

  “You’re drunk,” Randall muttered. He dropped the note on the coffee table. Eric saw evidence of the pain the note had caused. Randall, usually so infuriatingly poised, had no idea what to do with his arms and they hung limply at his sides, one hand bunching the pocket of his jeans. He brought one hand to his mouth and his breath made a whistling sound against his palm. Watching, Eric felt a small tinge of remorse that was instantly subsumed by memories of the day.

  “Men like you, men who try all their lives to kill a desire that won’t die. You are the ones who destroy. Trust me. I know.”

  More startled than offended, Eric turned from the fireplace. “If you and I went upstairs right now and did the same thing we’ve done every time she left Atherton, can you tell me honestly that you won’t see her, Randall? Because I don’t know. Maybe because I don’t know how she ever saw us. Maybe she was hiding in the bathroom or—”

  Randall whipped his jacket off the back of the chair.

  “It’s not a difficult question, Randall.”

  “I don’t even know what she looks like.”

  Eric knew he was lying, but he played along anyway. “Oh. Well, we can fix that.”

  “Eric!”

  But he was already in the dining room. The last time he’d checked, there had a been a wedding portrait of Lisa and him on top of the liquor cabinet, but in its place he found a framed shot of Lisa that had been taken oh vacation in Florida. How had one replaced the other? He picked it up and returned to the living room to find Randall uneasy in the doorway, his coat still draped over one arm.

  “This is her,” he said, holding up the picture in front of him as he approached.

  Randall’s eyes held Eric’s stare and Eric shook the picture slightly. “Look!”

  Randall shut his eyes.

  “It’s just a question, Randall. I’m not judging you. I’m not judging either one of us. Just tell me if we went upstairs and had sex, would you — ”

  Randall grabbed the photograph and hurled it against the wall. It shattered and slid to the baseboard.

  Eric crossed to the picture frame, bent down, and picked it up. Lisa’s face was still held inside the frame, slivers of glass radiating from her wan smile. He shook the frame and they fell to the floor. Then he saw Randall had crumpled the note in one fist and crouched down in front of the fireplace.

  Some instinct, something not entirely blotted out by the wine and the exhaustion that follows grief, leaped inside of him, and Eric crossed the room in no time, seizing Randall’s wrist in one hand.

  “No!” Randall yelled. As he tried to twist his arm free, he lost his balance and pitched forward into the gas flame. Eric heard Randall’s cry, a wail blocked by clenched teeth before he thudded to the floor.

  He looked down to see Randall sitting at his feet, clutching one hand to his chest. “Fucker!” Randall growled, clamping one hand over the one held tight to his chest. Tears sprouted from his eyes “Fucker!” he groaned. His choice of curses was childish, and the way his lower lip quivered completed the image of a young man instantly reduced to a little boy. Eric felt a shard of Randall’s history stab him in the gut. Eric crouched next to him, half expecting Randall to crawl away from him, but Randall didn’t move as Eric gently pried his hand away from his chest.

  The blistered strips of skin looked like the imprints of fingers on Randall’s palm.

  “This needs ice.”


  “Say it’s over and I’ll leave.”

  Eric met Randall’s gaze, wary behind his tear-stained eyes. For an instant, he sought to dig deep and come up with an answer he knew he should give. But he couldn’t find it.

  “This needs ice,” he said again, releasing Randall’s burned hand and getting to his feet.

  Randall blinked as he tried to focus on Eric rooting through kitchen drawers in search of some first-aid kit that Randall suspected he didn’t even own. The black spots that had crowded his vision the minute his hand hit the fireplace were finally dissipating, but Randall kept his lips sealed so Eric wouldn’t hear him struggle to regulate his breaths. He kept his burned hand resting on the kitchen table. It trembled slightly at the wrist. Only one thing would blunt the tensing of the fiery pinpricks across his palm, drown out the searing flash of memory the burn had sparked. Randall brought the flask to his mouth. He almost emptied it.

  Eric shot him a glance. He still looked chastised, convinced that he knew full well exactly what memory this accident had sparked. Rather than tell him otherwise, Randall drained the flask and shot a glance into the dining room.

  In the beginning, Randall had been skeptical of Eric’s stories of his wife’s alcoholism, and presumed that Eric embellished them in a warped attempt to justify his urge for Randall, which is what Randall had hoped for from the start. Then Randall had discovered the virtual warehouse of Chivas Regal in the liquor cabinet. That, and the fact that he had never seen Eric drink anything stronger than wine, convinced Randall that Lisa Eberman belonged to a special category of high-end drunk. Now, his palm still burning, he prayed that Eric hadn’t emptied out the liquor cabinet in some attempt to purge Lisa’s ghost from the house.

  “Here.” Eric took a seat across from him, setting a role of Ace bandages on the table. Eric cradled his hand. “I don’t have anything to treat it with.”

  “It’s not bad. Trust me. I know.”

  Eric met his eyes. “But this time you didn’t have the luxury of blacking out.”