Blessed Are the Wholly Broken
Page 2
I struggled to answer him, to bridge the disconnect between brain and body, willing my lips to open and my tongue to move. “I had to, Brian.” The words were thick, slurred. Across from me, I heard his sharp intake of breath.
“My God,” he said. “It’s true?” He pulled away from me so quickly he nearly overturned his chair. “You had to? What does that even mean, Phillip?” He stood again, hands pressed to either side of his head as if to block out the words, and resumed his pacing, unable to be still.
My mouth seemed full of paste, refusing to cooperate. It was impossible to believe just a few short hours ago I’d been singing lullabies to my son.
My son. “Where—?” I swallowed against the dryness in my throat and tried again. “Where’s Peter?”
Brian turned, staring at me. “You don’t know?” Underneath the anger, I could hear a catch in his voice. “Le Bonheur, Phil. Airlifted.” He blew out a breath. “It’s touch and go. They’re saying you did that, too.” His voice cracked. “Please tell me you didn’t hurt Peter.”
Fear and anger sliced through the fog surrounding me and I sat up straight. “How could you even ask that?” As crazy as it may seem, regardless of the reason for my incarceration, I couldn’t believe Brian would ask me such a question. “Brian, I would never….Oh, my God, my little boy.” Once acknowledged, the pain was overwhelming. I felt as if my insides were curling in on themselves, shrinking into a white-hot ball of pain.
“They’re trying to reach Anna’s family as the next of kin,” he said, then sat down again, seemingly hit by a new realization. “Anna’s family,” he repeated, and shook his head as if to clear it. “Their world just blew up and they don’t even know it yet. What happened, Phil?” The anger in his voice had faded to an ambiguous grief. “Tell me what happened.”
Brian had been my friend for a quarter of a century and Anna’s for nearly as long. It wasn’t that I didn’t want to tell Brian what had happened, but that words literally failed me; I didn’t know where to begin. Where is the beginning of any story? How does one point to any specific event and say, “There! That’s where it all began.”
Brian wanted to know what had happened that day. How had Anna and I gone from a loving couple on the eve of our twenty-third anniversary, to this? But it didn’t begin on that day. I supposed it all began on that rainy day in 1989 when Anna came sliding into the cafeteria of Richardson Towers, bowling over not only a table and chairs, but me—and Brian—as well. So that’s where I began.
Chapter 3: February, 1989
She was a senior, Anna was, on the day that was later determined to be Memphis’ rainiest day in 1989. She was also skipping class, after having had her umbrella blown inside-out by the cold winter wind. Once we’d picked her up and helped her gather her books and papers, we’d managed to talk her into joining us for breakfast despite her embarrassment.
“What I really wanted to do was run to my room and cry,” she told me later, “but you guys wouldn’t let me escape.”
She was right; both of us had urged her to join us. I was immediately smitten, in my awkward way, nearly too shy to speak, while Brian was as smooth as ever, bringing her coffee and wiping crumbs from her chair before she sat. Though he would later argue with this, I suspect he initially viewed Anna as he viewed all women: as a potential conquest.
Anna accused him of this many years later, on one of our frequent camping trips into the Smokies. “Not true,” Brian said, as we sat around a bonfire in the mountains outside of Gatlinburg, drinking beer and tossing logs onto the fire. “I love all women, but Anna, I especially loved you. Still do.” He tipped the neck of his beer bottle towards her in a silent toast.
From across the fire Anna had smiled at him, I remember, as she always smiled when he made those pronouncements, but her eyes had shone with a hint of sadness in the flickering light of the flames. In the rare cases in which Brian was unable to coax a woman to fall in love with him, he was still able to trigger some sort of maternal response. Anna loved Brian, too, but Anna was in love with me. This, I never doubted, at least not back then. Nonetheless, he called forth within her some sort of protective instinct. Anna saw a measure of loneliness in Brian that tugged at her heartstrings, more so as the years passed by.
“All the women,” she had once told me shortly after our wedding, “are just a cover.” She unclipped her hair and shook it over her shoulders before climbing in and settling herself against the pillows of our first bed, rubbing lotion between her palms to warm it before smoothing it vigorously along her legs. I watched her, as captivated as always, and leaned over to plant a kiss on her bare shoulder. The softness of her skin never failed to amaze me.
“Think about it, Phillip,” she continued, oblivious to my advances. “He came from a troubled family with a drug-addicted mother. He’s still searching for her. Emotionally, I mean.” I watched as she smoothed the lotion into her calf in quick, circular motions, loving the sound of her voice while simultaneously wanting her to hush.
“It’s why he goes from woman to woman but never stays with any of them. He loves women,” she said, screwing the cap back on the lotion and massaging the last traces into her hands. “I really believe he means it when he says that. But he never trusts that they love him back. It’s sad, isn’t it?”
“Who cares?” I had answered, tugging her against me, impatient with her analysis. “Enough about Brian. What about me? I’m searching for love, too.” She had laughed then, and I feel confident in saying neither of us spared a thought for Brian the rest of the night.
It’s possible, even likely, Anna was right, but as a young man who’d spent more time as a third wheel than as a partner, it was difficult for me to muster sympathy for Brian’s self-inflicted game of musical women. Anna was different, though. She had a knack for seeing inside a situation and understanding each of the separate composite parts that made up the whole. I suppose this was why she chose philosophy as her major, a fact that led to no end of teasing from Brian.
“What good is a philosophy degree?” he asked her several weeks after our first meeting. We were sitting on the side of a planter in the courtyard of MSU (even now, I refuse to say UofM), enjoying the warm spring sun between classes, and I recall being transfixed by the play of light on the auburn of Anna’s hair. I wanted to fall into that hair, I remember, wrapping myself in the wildness of it. Brian must have felt the same, because he reached over to tug at a curl as he asked the question.
“How about it, Socrates? What does one do with a degree in philosophy?” he asked again, with a grin. “Find someone who’ll pay you to sit on a mountain and think?”
She took the teasing in stride, as she took most everything in her own quiet way. Anna always exuded a Zen-like peacefulness that, during our marriage, was one of the things I loved most about her. Since her death, however, it has become one of the things I hate.
But I’m getting ahead of myself again.
I suppose it may seem odd to outsiders that the three of us spoke so openly about our affection for one another, particularly the affection Brian had for Anna, but that was the foundation of our friendship. We were unabashedly honest with one another, but I’ve come to wonder what good it does to be honest if the other person doesn’t understand the honesty for what it is. This is the question that haunts me.
Anna and I were a solid couple by that spring, a situation I still can’t quite believe. I think we’d both felt it from that very first meeting; I know I certainly had. To say we clicked fails to describe the depth of the connection we felt. It was more as if we recognized each other, had even been expecting each other. Oh, there you are, I remember thinking as I grasped her hand to pull her from the puddle on the floor. I wondered when you’d come.
For once Brian was the odd man out, and I suspect our sudden role reversal felt as strange to him as it did to me. To his credit, he handled Anna’s gentle rebuffs with grace, and I do believe he was happy for me. Brian was, first and foremost, my friend.
Chapter 4: February, 1989
“You’re so serious,” Anna had told me on our first date, “an old soul.”
“Not always,” I found myself feeling defensive. “I know how to have fun, too.” A jolt of alarm went through me. Was she saying I was boring? Was this the dreaded friendship speech I’d heard all my life? In the few short days I’d known Anna, I’d become hopelessly infatuated, amazed that she seemed drawn to me, too. As I mulled over her words, my heart began to sink.
We were walking along the cobblestones, watching the barges stretched out along the Mississippi River. The sun was setting, framing Anna’s silhouette against a fiery backdrop, and as her curls blew about in the breeze off the river, I remember thinking of Aphrodite, both beautiful and terrifying, and wholly mesmerizing. I was lost.
In the distance stylish couples boarded a riverboat for an evening cruise; laughter floated back to us on the breeze. Farther down, a group of teenagers listened to a boom box, the bass a steady vibration in my chest. The rain had finally moved on, the air carrying a hint of the spring to come, but the evening was still chilly. I put my hand on Anna’s back, gently steering her back toward the car, which I’d parked just off of Riverside Drive.
We’d spent the afternoon strolling around downtown Memphis, listening to blues bands busking in the park. Some of them were quite good, young people close to our age clearly on their way up, while others were older, the years etched into their faces, crashing back to earth after whatever small measure of fame they’d managed to claim had begun to seep away. The juxtaposition of the two ends of the spectrum was sobering, to say the least.
I was keenly aware in those days that wandering too far into the night could be dangerous. Memphis is a beautiful city in many ways, rich with history and music, but a devastating poverty seethes just beneath the surface, and the accompanying resentments are never far away. Although the evening appeared peaceful, I was eager to get Anna safely back to campus before the last rays of sun disappeared. Given her most recent statement, I was also searching for a way to complete my mission without drawing attention to my motives. To be labeled serious at the age of twenty-one was bad enough; I didn’t want to also be labeled a worrywart. She might be rejecting me, but I’d protect her until the end.
Luckily, she followed my lead without question, apparently too intent on our conversation to notice I’d quickened my pace. “Of course you’re fun; that’s not what I meant,” she was saying. “Maybe serious is the wrong word. How about earnest? What I’m trying to say is that you’re real, Phillip. I like it.”
In the beginning, Anna always called me Phillip. I’m not sure when she stopped, resorting to the natural shortening of my name. I know I didn’t notice it until after Jeffrey died, when the act of speaking that extra syllable—when saying anything at all—seemed to require more energy than she could muster. As silly as it may sound, particularly given all we’d suffered at that point, it saddened me, as if I’d slipped a notch in her esteem, no longer worthy of those extra letters.
But that balmy night in 1989 we were as yet untouched by tragedy; we had no way of knowing what fates awaited us, and I was beginning to feel the stirrings of hope. The night was young, the air was crisp, we had the world before us, and maybe—just maybe—she wasn’t rejecting me, after all.
I opened the door for her, ever the gentleman, torn between asking her to explain what she meant, and enjoying what she’d said without testing my luck. As I settled myself beside her and adjusted the mirrors, she made the decision for me.
“You’re different, Phillip,” she said, turning sideways in her seat to look at me, and my heart stuttered from the closeness of her. I could smell her shampoo, and I remember vividly how I’d longed to push her hair back from her face, anything just to touch it.
She continued, oblivious to my angst. “You’re not like other guys. Like Brian.” That caught my attention, since I’d harbored a secret fear he’d steal her away from me. “I mean, I like Brian,” she said, “but he doesn’t let people get close enough to see who he really is. With you, I feel like I know you. Like I’ve always known you.” She smiled, tentatively at first, and I leaned over to kiss her, one quick little peck before I lost my nerve.
For a moment we just sat and grinned at each other, until I finally came to my senses and engaged the ignition. I was beside myself with happiness, thrilled to drive down Poplar Avenue holding her soft hand within my damp one. This was a gesture that would become as comfortable to us as the old MSU t-shirt Anna wore to bed long after our graduation. Always, as we drove—crossing nearly all of the 48 continental states at some point during our marriage—I held her hand across the seat.
This was true even on the day I killed her.
Chapter 5: Summer, 1989
Aside from his rough start at MSU, Brian was overall a good student; he was set to graduate on time with us, with a respectable grade point average and a bachelor’s degree in criminal justice. The three of us celebrated together with a spirited weekend on Beale Street before settling down to take a more serious look at our futures. I no longer remember whose idea it was to rent an apartment together, but shortly after graduation the three of us found ourselves sharing a two bedroom in a seedy area of Midtown.
Things were different in those days, at least as far as our families were concerned. I’d have no more shared a room with Anna than I’d have gone streaking through Midtown in broad daylight. That isn’t to say we were completely innocent of one another. By that time, we’d moved past quick kisses and begun a barely restrained exploration of each other among the cracked vinyl seats of my old car. But to have openly shared a room would have displayed a tawdriness out of place in our relationship. What we had was special, and we agreed, without even speaking of it, to keep our relationship pure—with the occasional exception of those stolen moments of passion in my backseat. Instead, for the short time Brian lived with us he and I shared a room, something we were used to doing, after all, while Anna bedded alone. Even so, our parents had been none too pleased with the arrangement.
“It’s not right,” Anna’s father told us when we met with her parents over dinner to tell them of our plans.
It was the week before graduation, and Brian was with us; Anna’s father had insisted on meeting him, too. “He wants to make sure I’m not moving in with any bad elements,” Anna had explained, causing Brian to laugh.
We had arranged to meet downtown at the Rendezvous, and I was quickly coming to second-guess the wisdom of that decision. It’s hard to make a good impression when one is covered in barbecue rub. Across from me, Mr. Tyler continued to voice his concerns, presumably unaware of the spices that clung to his chin and threatened at each breath to break free and take refuge in my glass of tea. It was difficult not to stare.
“It’s not that I don’t trust you boys; it really isn’t. You seem like nice kids, and Anna has nothing but good things to say about you.” He gestured wildly towards Anna as he spoke, and I quietly moved my tea glass to the other side. “She’s a smart girl; I have to trust her judgment, right? But what will it look like to people, my daughter moving in with two young men? What’ll I tell people who ask?” The chunk of spices finally broke free, landing—to my great relief—somewhere on his lap.
“How will we explain it to Cathy?” Anna’s mother interjected, plucking anxiously at the buttons of her blouse. She was a small woman, quiet and unassuming, and nearly invisible next to the mountain that was Anna’s father. “Anna, she looks up to you, you know.”
Cathy was Anna’s younger sister and from the stories Anna had told me, worrying about the impact our shared apartment would have on Cathy should have been the least of Mr. and Mrs. Tyler’s concerns. According to Anna, who gave me a warning pinch under the table, nineteen-year-old Cathy had already discovered that anything you could do in a shared apartmen
t you could also do in a dorm room, a parked car, or on a park bench, for that matter. But it certainly wasn’t my place to share that with Anna’s parents.
In the end it was Brian who charmed his way past their concerns. “We’ll take good care of Anna,” he assured Mr. Tyler. “A young woman shouldn’t be alone in a big city like Memphis. She’ll be safe with the two of us; we’ll make sure of it.”
Mr. Tyler gave a receptive nod. “You make a good point,” he said. “I reckon if she’s dead set on living in the city, and it looks like she is, she could do worse than to have a couple of young men for protection.”
Brian’s presence wasn’t required at the meeting with my parents, but he tagged along anyway. I was glad for his company; he had a way of smoothing the rough edges of my family. “What are you worried about, Phillip?” he asked, noticing my hesitation when we pulled into the drive of their Bartlett home the following night. “What’s the worst they can do? You’re a grown man.”
“It’s not what they might do,” I told him, opening Anna’s door and helping her out. “It’s what they might say. I never know what’s going to come out of my dad’s mouth.”
My mother, while not as verbal with her concerns, made her feelings known through a series of sighs and worried glances as we gathered around the table. That evening, instead of ribs my mother served up lasagna, a dish with just as much potential for mishap, causing me to wonder briefly why the biggest events of our lives tend to be discussed over food and the embarrassing complications it can present. I handed Anna an extra napkin as she struggled with a stubborn string of melted cheese, then turned towards my father as he spoke.
“Don’t you go getting this girl pregnant, Phil,” he said, and I felt Anna startle beside me, while across from me Brian snorted, unable to hide his laughter. My father continued, oblivious. “I know you say you two aren’t sharing a room, but I was a young man once, too, and I know how these things go. Keep it wrapped up. You hear what I’m saying?” He tore off a bite of garlic bread for punctuation, regarding me from under bushy brows as he chewed.