by John Searles
Before she can go off on the topic of his father—one of her favorite and most easily triggered rants—Philip says, “So you’re pregnant.”
Melissa looks at her belly, then turns her moss green eyes toward his. The tremble in her voice returns when she tells him, “Nine months.”
“I guess you’re due any day then?”
“I guess so,” she says.
The moment feels tense, awkward suddenly, and Philip lets out a nervous laugh, trying to lighten the mood. “Well, don’t go into labor on us or anything.”
Melissa doesn’t so much as smile. “Don’t worry,” she tells him. “I know when the baby will come.”
And that’s when his eyes trail down to her hand. He notices that she is not wearing a ring. In his mind, Philip hears his mother’s voice saying, The last thing I need to hear right now is how happy she is married to someone else when my son is rotting six feet beneath the ground. Apparently, she doesn’t have to worry about that. “Why don’t we go into the kitchen so you can sit down?” he suggests, already leading the way.
Once they’re inside, Melissa eases herself into one of the ladder-back chairs that Ronnie and his father used to complain were uncomfortable. His mother, who is keeping suspiciously quiet, resumes her position at the chopping block.
“M,” Philip says, “why don’t you join us over here?”
“I’m perfectly content where I am.”
If Melissa notices his mother’s peculiar behavior, she doesn’t let on. Her face remains as still and vacant as a mannequin’s, or a damaged mannequin anyway. Her mouth is sealed tight like that coin purse he’d imagined. Only those moss green eyes of hers move as she stares around the room—from the streaky pea-soup mess in the sink and on the counter, to the clutter of prescription slips held to the hulking refrigerator by a Liberty Bell magnet, to the wooden key rack hanging by the telephone, to the empty metal pot rack above his mother’s head.
“Would you like something to drink?” Philip asks. “I just made a fresh pot of coffee.”
“Thanks. But I can’t have caffeine because of the baby.”
This response relieves him, because he’d been wondering if someone so far along in a pregnancy should be driving, let alone walking around without a coat on such a frigid winter night. But Philip decides that maybe she knows what she’s doing after all. Melissa tells him that she’d like water instead, so he pours her a glass from the Brita pitcher, then takes a mug from the cabinet for his coffee. It is one of his mother’s from her days as the head librarian at Radnor Memorial Library, and the question Can You Do the Dewey? wraps around the side. Philip sits at the table and stirs while his mind busily churns up random details about Melissa that he’d all but forgotten: her father is a minister at the Lutheran church, and Ronnie used to complain about how strict he was; she has a twin sister named Tracy or Stacy; she had been accepted to Penn, just like Ronnie. “So I guess you’re done with college by now,” Philip says in an effort to get the conversation moving.
Melissa shakes her head. “I never went.”
“But I thought you got into Penn?” He remembers specifically because he hadn’t bothered to apply to any decent schools like that one, since he was too busy getting the crap beaten out of him in high school to earn the kind of grades he needed.
“I did get in,” Melissa says. “I decided not to go.”
“So where are you living these days?”
“Right here in Radnor.”
“With your parents?”
She is about to answer when his mother leaves her stool and comes to the table. “Listen, you two can chat all night after I go to bed. But it’s late. So if you don’t mind, I’d like to skip the small talk. Why don’t you tell us whatever it is you want to tell us?”
“M!” Philip shouts. “Don’t be so rude!”
“It’s okay,” Melissa tells him, rubbing her hand on the exact center of her stomach where the Indian print comes together in a tangled cross. In her faint, shaky voice, she says to his mother, “Of course you want to know why I’m here.”
“You’re right. I do. So let’s get on with it.”
Philip doesn’t bother to reprimand her again—not that it ever does any good anyway.
Melissa clears her throat and slowly picks up the glass from the table. When she takes a sip, her fingers are shaking so much that water sloshes over the rim and dribbles down her chin. She wipes it with her sleeve, then opens her mouth to speak, showcasing those unsightly black gaps front and center in her mouth. This is how she begins, this is how all the madness of the coming days begins: “I understand that it must seem strange for me to appear back in your life after all these years. But … well, I’ve thought about your family a lot as time has gone by. Especially you, Mrs. Chase. Because there can’t be anything worse than a mother losing her child.”
Philip glances at his mother and sees that her face has softened. For her, grieving has been a competition these past five years—the slightest acknowledgment that she is the winner makes her happy. With that last comment, Melissa may as well have draped a gold medal over her head.
Melissa goes on: “And I’ve never once stopped thinking about Ronnie either. That’s why … well… I’m sorry I’m so nervous. It’s just that I’ve thought about this moment for a long time. I wanted to come and tell you, months ago. But I was afraid.”
“Afraid of what?” Philip asks.
“That you wouldn’t believe me.”
“Believe what?”
“Believe that—” She stops and swallows, making a lump in her throat that puts Philip in mind of the pet snake he took care of for Donnelly Fiume back in New York, the way it looked when it was digesting a mouse. “I’m sorry it’s taking me a bit to get it out. But you know how you plan something in your mind, and then when the moment finally arrives, you forget exactly how you wanted to say things? That’s how I feel sitting here right now. I guess… I guess I don’t know where to begin. So maybe I’ll just ask you first if you’ve ever watched that guy on TV, the one who talks to the dead?”
The question does something to his mother’s face. Philip sees her blink three times in rapid succession; her upper lip twitches. But his face goes blank. His heart, which had been steadily picking up speed, feels as though it has just slammed into a wall. He has seen the guy Melissa is talking about plenty of times on late-night TV. Maybe you have too. A cherub-faced balding man with a thick Long Island accent who calls out random initials to people in the crowd as though he is summoning their beloved. When he hits the right initial and guesses a name, the guy spews details that the dearly departed is supposedly sending:
You once lost your engagement ring…
You took a trip to an island…
The two of you had a favorite song that you used to dance to…
These bland bits of information cause people in the audience to weep, but Philip always finds himself wondering why they don’t ask for more concrete details that might actually prove something, like a Social Security number or the name of a first-grade teacher. Instead of saying any of this, he stays quiet and listens to his mother and Melissa.
“Did you see this guy?” his mother asks, her lip still twitching as hope bubbles up in her voice.
“Not him. But there is a woman in Philadelphia named Chantrel who does the same thing. I went to see her.”
“When?”
“Tonight.”
“But I thought you said you’ve wanted to tell us this for months.”
“This is all leading up to what I want to tell you.”
“Well, what did this Chandra woman say?”
“Chantrel.”
“Okay, Chantrel. What did she say?”
“Well…”
“Well, what?”
Melissa’s eyes move to Philip, then to his mother again. “Ronnie communicated with me from the dead.”
Philip’s body language does nothing to hide his reaction. He leans back from the table and crosses his arms
. At one time, he might have believed in this sort of thing, but there is a lot he used to believe that he doesn’t anymore: God, love, fate, luck, and psychics who channel the dead, to name a few.
Meanwhile, his mother sits at the table and leans so close to Melissa that it looks as though she’s going to take a bite out of her. “What did she say?”
“She told me that Ronnie is happy in heaven. He plays football all the time. He remembers the rose corsage he gave me on prom night.”
As she talks, Philip has to fight the urge to limp back to the sofa bed and pick up his Anne Sexton biography or turn on Letterman, which is starting right about now. He hasn’t done much this past month but read biographies of famous poets and watch TV. This moment reminds him why: his real life sucks. Melissa goes on to tell them that Ronnie misses his parents and that he visits the house a few times a year, especially on Christmas Eve. Philip is tempted to ask if he haunts them before or after Ebeneezer’s house, but he refrains. When he can’t stand keeping his mouth shut a second longer, he stands to get more coffee. That’s when Melissa puts her hand on his. Her fingers feel as brittle as an old woman’s, the pads chapped and warm.
“Philip,” she says, looking at him with that eerily motionless face. “Ronnie had a message for you too.”
Even though he knows better, even though it makes him cringe inside, even though he tells himself not to, Philip asks, “What did he say?”
Melissa reaches into her shirt pocket and pulls out a cassette. The blue writing on the label has the woman’s name and today’s date: CHANTREL: 2/3/04. “I think you should hear it for yourself.”
“There’s a tape?” his mother says. “Why didn’t you tell us that sooner?”
“Like I said, I wasn’t sure where to begin.”
The only working stereo in the house is behind Ronnie’s locked bedroom door, along with his maroon and white football uniform, the Canon AE-1 that he got for his last birthday to take pictures for the yearbook, his collection of beer T-shirts that say things like BEER: HELPING UGLY PEOPLE HAVE SEX FOR 2,000 YEARS, and a hundred other remnants of a teenage boy’s life. The only difference, of course, is that this teenage boy is dead.
“We don’t have a cassette player,” Philip says.
“Yes, we do,” his mother tells him. “In the family room.”
“It doesn’t work.”
“Yes, it does.”
“No, it doesn’t.”
“Yes, it does.”
“No, M. It doesn’t. No one but me listens to music in this house. So I should know. I’ve tried it.”
“We could listen in my car,” Melissa offers, realizing what must be obvious to anyone in their company: these two require a referee to reach even the smallest of decisions.
Philip’s mother pushes away from the table, the legs of the ladder-back chair scraping against the tile floor. “Fine. That’s what we’ll do then.”
“You two have fun,” Philip tells them. “I’m not going.”
As his mother stands, she makes that volcano mouth and shoots him another one of her disgusted looks. “What, your brother sends you a message after all this time and you’re too good to hear it?”
“It’s not that I’m too good to hear it. It’s just that—” He stops. In both of their eyes, he sees how desperately they want—make that need—to believe this. As ridiculous as it is to Philip, he doesn’t have the heart to take their foolish hope away. “It’s just that it’ll be too hard to fit in the car with my cast and all.”
“No, it won’t,” Melissa says, rising slowly from the table. “You can squeeze in the back.”
Outside, the walkway is slippery. Philip manages to steady himself with the help of his crutch. His mother, who is bundled in a black wool cloak that gives her the silhouette of a wide-winged navy jet, like the kind Philip once saw sweep over the city sky during Fleet Week, walks ahead with Melissa. Her attitude toward the girl has done a complete one-eighty. She has asked Melissa to drop the formal “Mrs. Chase” in favor of her first name, Charlene. She is even holding Melissa’s hand in a way that looks like she is clinging to her, desperate for this unexpected connection to Ronnie. His mother’s new tack makes Philip just as uncomfortable as he’d been with her rudeness earlier, because he knows how quickly she can change her mood and lash out—especially if she doesn’t like what she hears on the tape.
The roof, hood, and trunk of Melissa’s old Toyota Corolla are buried beneath a cake-layer of snow. A veneer of ice covers all the windows, except for a small patch cleared from the front windshield, as though she could only be bothered to do the bare minimum necessary to operate the car. When Melissa opens the back door for Philip, the smell of stale cigarette smoke and a faint undercurrent of rotting fruit or maybe old shoes instantly assaults him. Again, he has to wonder about a pregnant girl whose car smells like smoke. He wipes the seat clean of tapes, paperbacks, and a pair of gray sweatpants, then makes himself as comfortable as possible, considering the arctic feel of the air inside. It is not just cold—it is that certain kind of biting cold, particular to a car before it’s been started on a bitter winter night. The seats feel hard and unyielding. The air stings the inside of his throat when he breathes it in. As he rubs his hands and waits for his mother and Missy to settle in up front, Philip looks at the dirty sweat socks, wrinkled jeans, T-shirts, and what he at first thinks are small black pebbles but then realizes are dead flies against the back window. His mother had cut Melissa off before she’d told him exactly where she lived in Radnor. Judging from the looks of things, he is beginning to suspect that it might very well be in this car. Philip turns to examine the seat pockets, stuffed with plastic grocery bags from Genuardi’s and a math textbook with thick block letters on the spine that read: ALGEBRA FOR YOUR FUTURE. Finally, he glances at the floor and notices the labels on the cassettes that he pushed down there a moment before. He recognizes a few—Jewel: Pieces of You, Natalie Imbruglia: Left of the Middle, Hole: Live Through This—but the others look homemade and have the same handwriting as the one Melissa is about to put into the tape player, only with different names and dates:
Helene, 6/18/01
Davida, 12/23/99
Rasha, 3/17/02
Lyman, 6/18/03
To quell the uneasiness growing inside of him, Philip leans forward between the seats as Melissa starts the car then turns on the heat. That’s when he sees a row of pictures taped to the cracked vinyl dashboard. From behind the yellowed, peeling tape, Ronnie smiles back at him with that infamous underbite. His sandy blond hair tousled, his eyes a dazzling Windex blue. In one shot, he is wearing his maroon and white football uniform and kneeling on an empty row of bleachers. In another, he is stretched back on a plaid blanket wearing a T-shirt from his collection: BEER: THE ONLY PROOF I NEED THAT GOD EXISTS. In another, he is dressed in a tuxedo and standing beside Melissa in front of a white brick fireplace. Her lacy dress is spotless, since the photo was taken before they piled into the limo to come home that night.
Philip wonders if his mother is beginning to realize how truly bizarre this visit has become. But then she taps her nail-bitten finger against Ronnie’s senior class picture and says, “I have this one too. Only it’s the eight by ten. I keep it on my dresser.”
“I love that picture so much,” Melissa says, pressing her hands flat against the vents to check on the hot air. “You can really see how blue his eyes are.”
Were, Philip thinks and leans back in his seat.
The ice on the windows gives the car an igloo feeling that leaves him all the more cold and claustrophobic. Through a small opening, like a fishing hole in the ice, he stares out at their mammoth Pennsylvania flagstone house with its wide sloping roof and tomato red shutters. One of his earliest memories is of the day they first came here when he was only four, just before Ronnie was born. They’d lived in an apartment on Spruce Street in Philly while his father finished his residency at Penn. Compared to those cramped quarters, this house felt palatial. Philip could s
till remember how happy he’d been when his mother—as pregnant as Melissa at the time—let him run up and down the empty hallways, his squeals of delight echoing around them as she trailed after him, teasing, I’m gonna getcha… I’m gonna getcha… Mommy’s gonna getcha, getcha, getcha…
“It might take me a minute to find the spot on the tape,” Melissa says. “Because there were other people there tonight who she called on before me.”
Philip looks away from the house and toward the front seat again. In the firefly glow of the dashboard, the scars on Melissa’s face have faded. It is the slightest bit possible to glimpse the girl she used to be. He glances at his mother and tries to see her former self as well—the one who came to this house all those years ago and let her son run up and down the hallways, laughing as she followed him through the dining room and up the stairs.
“I think I found it,” Melissa says.
When Chantrel begins speaking, her voice is not the heavily accented or cigarette-rattled sort Philip expects. It is smooth and calm. Articulate. The sound makes him think of the ER nurse at St. Vincent’s who held his hand and spoke in soothing tones in his ear: You’ve been through quite an ordeal. But you are going to be okay.
“There is a young person speaking to me with the initial R,” Chantrel says.
“Is his name Ronnie?” Melissa asks on the tape.
“Yes. It’s Ronnie. He is telling me how much he misses you. He is showing me flowers. They look like they might be roses. Does that sound correct?”
“He gave me a rose corsage the night of our prom … the night he died.”
That’s all it takes for Chantrel to begin filling in the blanks. Each time Melissa provides another detail—the rented white limousine, Ronnie’s love of sports and photography, her overwhelming grief—Chantrel runs with it. She tells her that Ronnie comes to visit his family a few times a year. She tells her that he likes to play football with other teenage boys who have died. The whole time, Philip wants to scream: What about his Social Security number? Or what about the name of his first-grade teacher? Or his beer T-shirt collection? Or the first time our father took us to play golf and I got in trouble for accidentally hitting Ronnie in the stomach when I swung? Or what about anything a little more fucking specific?
