A Sudden Light

by Garth Stein

  He looks out to the black, star-riddled sky, and sees the face of Harry before him, hanging in the air.

  Such a simple thing, to feel a loved one is with you, even after death. And yet, so painful.

  Ben reaches out. He is holding on to the tree with only his legs, which are wrapped around a trunk no thicker than his arm. He reaches out for something. But for what?

  The sky. He reaches out and takes hold of the sky. He grabs on. And in that moment, a breeze comes that is strong enough to sweep him off the tree and take him away. He is still holding on to the sky; his fingers grasp the charcoal fabric of the atmosphere, and so he drifts in the air, weightless, buffeted by the wind.

  And then he soars. He ascends into the stratosphere and beyond. He flies, and Harry is before him. They look at each other and laugh at their indifference to the laws of physics. Ben reaches for Harry, but Harry remains just beyond Ben’s reach. Still, Ben is happy: they will leave this world forever.

  But the breeze stops, and Ben sees the truth of it: he won’t be able to follow Harry. Harry disappears into the ether, but the weight of Ben’s guilt will not allow him to follow. His suffering is too heavy to let him escape. He reaches desperately, frantically for his soul mate, but he can’t catch hold.

  He falls. Slowly at first, he gains speed until he is plummeting to earth at a terrifying rate, his stomach in his throat, he cannot breathe, cannot suck a breath of air; he falls, but he is not afraid. He knows there is no more reason for him, and he is satisfied with that. Because he hears the earth call. The soil, the rocks, the clay. He hears it call to him, and he knows that the earth ultimately wins. It always does. We will, all of us, end our lives here. Even the birds.

  It is not long, and it is not painful. At least, he doesn’t remember the pain. And then, without a sense of time passing or of place changing, he can feel his toes and fingers grasp the moist earth, his belly pressing to the ground; he can smell the dirt, alive, ever shifting, changing, growing, dying, and he knows he is still a part of the earth.

  All is darkness until he learns to see. All is silence until he learns to hear. All is still until he learns to move. And when finally he stands and looks around at the dark woods and hears the night trains sounding their horns as they rumble by—when he sees that he is alone—he knows one thing with terrible clarity: this is where he is destined to be, and this is where he will stay.

  This is where he will stay.

  * * *

  I woke up from my dream feeling queasy and edgy and dark.

  Ben had given me a dream, as I asked. But he hadn’t given me the dream I wanted: the dream about my father. He had given me a dream about himself.

  I understood that Ben felt guilty about Harry’s death, and that’s why he was stuck and waiting to fulfill his promise to Harry that their special place would be returned to nature. But what I wanted to know right then was why my father was so messed up. There was some connection that I couldn’t quite fathom. I believed without a doubt that Ben had the answer and could give it to me. But he wouldn’t do it, and I found that very frustrating. Why wouldn’t he give me what I had asked for?

  I tried to fall asleep, but I couldn’t. Or maybe I didn’t try very hard. Because the dream he gave me felt too real. The sting of the rain. The pain of the climb. The dread of the fall. I felt cold under my bedsheet though it was at least seventy-five degrees in my room. I felt the cold and the rain, and I felt the dirt under my fingernails from Harry’s grave, and I felt the joy at seeing Harry’s face. I felt the sense of resignation at the moment of Ben’s realization: he wasn’t going anywhere.

  – 31 –

  BAD AUNT

  It was late afternoon the next day when I stepped out into the breezeless courtyard behind the house. The sun felt good on my skin, and I lifted my face to the sky with my eyes closed to indulge in the warmth for a moment. When I broke my meditation and returned to the world, I caught sight of my father, very far away, on the other side of the orchard, pushing a wheelbarrow of refuse away from the fire pit and off into the woods. And then I noticed Serena near me, sitting on one of the marble benches in the formal garden, reading a book. She looked up as if on cue, and beckoned. How bizarre; she came from nowhere; perhaps she was a ghost.

  She had an ashtray with her, and a pack of cigarettes, as well as the ever-present bottle of Jim Beam, which seemed to constantly refill itself. Maybe there was a secret pantry in the house with fifty bottles of Jim Beam, like the cupboard with fifty cans of tomato soup in the servants’ kitchen. While I wanted to continue on my way, I knew I’d been caught, so I approached her. She set down her book spine up and adjusted herself on the bench.

  “I want to have a look at you,” she said. “How is your head?”

  “Fine.”

  “Let me see it.”

  I went to her and knelt down before her patiently while she examined the yellowing bruise on my forehead. Her arms were elevated and my head was tipped down so I was face-to-face with her cleavage. I could smell her citrus scent.

  “Are you looking at my breasts?” she asked.

  I was shocked. They were in my field of vision, but I wasn’t looking at them.

  “Are you having dizzy spells?” she asked before I could answer.

  “No.”

  “Hmm. Okay.”

  She released me and patted the bench next to her. “Won’t you join me?”

  Could I refuse? I took a seat.

  “I would offer you a cigarette or a drink, but you’re too young for those things,” she said. “You’re still a boy; I wouldn’t want to stunt your growth.”

  She took a deep drag from her cigarette and followed it with a sip of whiskey. The sun was glaring and bright, and I shielded my eyes to better see Serena. She looked older than usual.

  “Welcome to our Grey Gardens,” she said with a sweep of her arm.

  “Why do you call it that?”

  “I’m referring to a documentary from the seventies. It was about Jackie Kennedy’s crazy relatives who used to be rich and then became poor. They lived in a mansion that was falling down around them, but they refused to leave.”

  “They should have sold it to a developer. Then they could have gotten rich again.”

  “You said it, Nephew.”

  She crushed out her cigarette, stood up, and gathered her things.

  “Come with me,” she said. “I have something to show you.”

  I followed her into the house and to Elijah’s study, which was a dark room with a gigantic desk surrounded by hides of dead animals—heads intact—decorating the floor and walls. She set the bottle, glass, and cigarette paraphernalia on a side table near a club chair. A desk stood opposite a gaping fireplace with black irons and a mantel of petrified wood. The windows were small and the glass was tinted amber, so it was dim in the room even when the sun was out. Serena sat behind the desk in a massive leather chair and indicated that I should sit opposite her on one of the hard-back chairs.

  “This is where all the business of Riddell Timber was conducted,” she said, “after Elijah moved to The North Estate full-time. Before that, he worked out of his house downtown or at Riddell headquarters in Columbia City, just south of downtown.”

  “History,” I said.

  “Exactly. History. You’ve discovered some of it already, I know. But here’s some more. When Elijah’s wife, Sara, refused to move west with his second son, Abraham, Elijah disavowed them both. For many years they did not speak at all, and, in fact, Benjamin’s funeral was the first time Elijah laid eyes on Abraham, his only living son. Abraham was eighteen at the time. He went on to graduate from college and work at a New York banking institution to learn the trade. When his mother died he returned to Elijah an orphan. Elijah took him in, but he never grew to trust Abraham. Ben’s death had greatly changed Elijah, and, in Abraham, Elijah saw the things he disliked most about himself: a rapaciousness that bordered on reckless or even cruel. Elijah wondered if he had been so callous when h
e was a younger man. He had been.”

  “How do you know all this?” I asked.

  “I listen, I pay attention, I piece things together. Elijah knew of Abraham’s desire to develop The North Estate after Elijah’s death, which is why he put the house into a trust.”

  “So Abraham couldn’t develop the land, but his family, if he had one, could still live here.”

  “And be cared for, at least until the trust ran out of money. Abraham had little of his own money. Elijah left him with bits, but not enough to thrive. What little Abraham had, he squandered.”

  “That’s why Abraham pushed you and Dad to develop the land,” I said.

  “Exactly. Grandpa Abe knew he would never have the land to develop; he wanted us to do it. It was on those summer afternoons, as I sat on Grandpa Abe’s lap, playing with his beard or drawing him pictures, that he told me all of what I’m telling you now. About the trust Elijah created. How if Abraham left The North Estate, the land would immediately be turned over to the city. He could stay, but he would never gain control of the land.”

  “Ah,” I said, understanding the mechanics. “Elijah trapped Abraham here.”

  “Indeed,” Serena replied, satisfied that I had followed her logic. “Abraham grew to hate The North Estate; it became the symbol of his imprisonment. Due to his avaricious nature, Abraham stayed here to enjoy the benefits of the trust and the lifestyle it afforded, even as he frittered away his own holdings. You can imagine how terrible it would be to live a life in such conflict! Before he died, Grandpa Abe took me aside. He told me that most grandparents leave something to their grandchildren, but he wouldn’t be able to do that. He said he couldn’t leave me anything at all, except this house. He made me promise that, when he was dead, I would make Grandpa Samuel sell Riddell House so we could have the riches he wished he could give to us—to your father and me, both.”

  “Did he tell anyone else?” I asked. “Dad or Grandpa Samuel?”

  “He said I was the only one strong enough to follow through. He said that Grandpa Samuel was weak and would be against it, and Brother Jones, he said, would side with Grandpa Samuel. He said it was up to me.”

  A red flag went up in my mind, but Serena’s story was quite compelling.

  “So Grandpa Abe mortgaged himself to the hilt. He borrowed. He stole. God knows what he did. Because he knew that, when he died, the trust would be dissolved, Grandpa Samuel would get the land and could develop it for a lot of money. And Abe knew that the assets in the trust couldn’t be violated by his personal debt. So, it was a plan.”

  “But Grandpa Samuel didn’t follow his part of the plan.”

  “When Grandpa Abe died, he was deeply in debt,” Serena said. “The creditors and lawyers couldn’t take the house because it wasn’t his, you see, but they could take everything else. Grandpa Samuel was left with the house, the few assets that were still in the trust, and nothing else. On top of that, he was ousted from the lowly post he held at Riddell Industries, so he had no job either. You know, when a man can’t provide for his family . . . Well, it’s difficult on the male ego, that moment of admission.”

  Which was what my father had to do. I saw it. I knew it was hard on him.

  “Do you know what ‘emasculation’ means?” Serena asked.

  “It’s when you’re no longer a man.”

  “Hmm,” she agreed, nodding. “Euphemistically. If you can imagine a man emasculated in front of his family. So everyone could see. So his children could watch, and his wife could watch as his manhood was taken from him. You can imagine, the level of . . .”

  “Humiliation,” I said.

  “Your word, not mine. But it’s a good word.”

  “Devastation.”

  “Another good word.”

  I remember that my father didn’t cry when he told us we were losing our house, but he was close. My mother shook her head quickly and stood up to make some tea. That’s what she did when she was upset. She made tea. They never really fought that much, even when things weren’t going well between them. But they fought that night. The night my father told us there was no more hope that we could stay in the farmhouse, my parents fought loudly. They were fighting about me. The next morning, at breakfast, my mom made me bacon and eggs over easy and toast, even though she almost never made breakfast.

  “Your grandfather in Seattle is ill,” she said, setting down the plate. “You’ll need to visit him with Dad.”

  “What about you?” I asked.

  She shook her head slightly and looked away.

  “I’m not part of that equation,” she said.

  So typically my mother. So clinical.

  Serena cleared her throat to get my attention.

  “Mother and Daddy could have sold The North Estate for a lot of money the day the trust was dissolved, but they didn’t. I don’t know why; considering Daddy’s condition, we may never know. Still, there were enough assets left from the trust to keep us in shoes and rain jackets for a time. Maybe that’s why they didn’t sell the house immediately; they thought there was time. But the limousines were gone, as were the staff, the groundskeepers, the pool, the tennis court, and the dream that the funicular on the cliff would one day be repaired.”

  “You had a house, and money for food,” I said. “I mean, you didn’t have nothing.”

  “But we could have had so much more!” she blurted out, seeming to lose control for a moment, though she quickly regained it.

  “It wasn’t as horrible as it could have been,” she said after a moment. “But the stress of the ordeal broke Daddy. He began drinking heavily, as I’ve already told you. He was frustrated and depressed. He would sit in the barn by himself drinking. We hardly ever saw him. Mother grew ill. Her illness worsened so quickly, and then she died. Daddy sent Brother Jones away. And Daddy has continued to refuse to sell the property. And now we are here.”

  Serena got up from her leather chair and walked to the back wall of the study. Over an oaken credenza hung a dark oil painting in a gilded frame; she removed it from the wall. Behind it was a safe.

  “Why do they always hide safes behind paintings?” I asked.

  “This was put here before it became clichéd to do so,” she said. “A cliché is a cliché because it’s true. You know that, Trevor.”

  She spun the safe dial this way and that, entering the combination, and then she turned the lever and opened the vault door. She reached in and removed an expandable file folder and a small booklet. She returned to the desk and set them down before me.

  “These are the papers that explain in detail everything I just told you,” she said, placing her hand on the file packet. “It includes the original will and the trust documents. All of it.”

  “Why are you showing them to me?”

  “Because I trust you. If something were to happen to me, you must follow through and redeem your legacy. You must sell this land for as much as you can get, because it is your inheritance, and you deserve it.”

  “What about Ben and Elijah and what they wanted for the land?” I asked.

  “They’re dead,” she said. “What good is a promise between dead men?”

  I perked up at her apparent contradiction.

  “But you believe in spirits,” I said. “You talked about the ghost in the secret stairway. So if you believe in spirits, then promises between the dead people, and between the dead and the living, would be just as binding as promises between the living. Isn’t that right?”

  She stiffened.

  “Dead people are removed from time,” she said after a moment, “and therefore forget the urgency of temporal life. Unlike me. Who knows what might happen next?”

  “What are you afraid will happen next?” I asked.

  She fell silent and blinked at me several times—I like to think, appreciative of my rhetorical acumen. She sighed and tapped the file before her.

  “Mother died of ALS,” she said. “There is a genetic component to it. It’s not common, but one can
be tested for the gene, so one might know.”

  She stopped abruptly and raised her eyebrows.

  “You have the gene?” I asked. “You’ve been tested?”

  “Mother died when she was forty years old. That will likely be my fate as well.”

  “I didn’t know.”

  “How could you? But you see the motivation for my actions and intentions. You understand why there is some urgency.”

  “Isn’t there some kind of therapy?”

  “There’s no treatment. There’s no cure. There is only death. But let’s not dwell on such talk. I have instructed my attorney to draw up my will. It will name you as my sole heir. Everything I have, everything I own, will pass directly to you when I die. Not to your father or anyone else. To you.”

  “Thanks,” I said, not quite fathoming the implications of her declaration.

  “I want you to have the life I never had,” she said, leaning back in her chair. “I want to give it to you. But I need something in return. We call that quid pro quo. Do you know what that means?”

  I shook my head.

  “It’s Latin for ‘if you scratch my back, I’ll scratch yours.’ Do you like getting your back scratched, Trevor?”

  “Sure,” I said hesitantly.

  “So do I. What do you say to me scratching your back if you scratch mine?”

  “It sounds kind of creepy, honestly,” I said, picturing her and my father dancing to Billie Holiday.