Lovers Fall Back to the Earth

by Cecelia Frey

  Helena sat a minute. Through a wire mesh fence was an expanse of brown grass and bare ground. In the field were soccer goal posts and, nearer the building, playground equipment. An eeriness leant itself to the scene, as if the children had suddenly vanished taking all their noise and life with them. This was the right place, lonely and abandoned. Had it been ordained since her birth, or had life randomly dumped her here?

  Staring through the window, she let herself puzzle for the last time as to how it had happened? What had directed her to the place where, because of her own wilfulness, she had catapulted the car over the edge? Had she been born with a certain personality that destroyed other people? Had Amanda been her victim? She had always insisted on having her way, she admitted that. Throughout their childhood and later, Amanda gave in because Helena would not. Amanda wanted to go to Art College but she took Nursing because Helena before her had refused to take it, choosing Philosophy instead, a decision that had greatly upset their parents. If she, Helena, had not insisted on always having her own way, maybe Amanda’s life would have been entirely different. Maybe she would not have gone to the Coast where she ended up a passenger in a rented car on a stormy night.

  Oh, why couldn’t she have been less critical, less arrogant, less bossy, less tyrannical, less domineering, less cruel? Why couldn’t she have married some nice fellow and trotted off to the suburbs and become a preschool volunteer? Why did her life have to be so damned complicated?

  She poured the pills into her hand. She looked at them. This is what her life had been working toward. The last years of drink, drugs, and men, she had been on a self-destructive course that had to end somewhere, some time. Many prostitutes ended up this way. She had been a prostitute; she had prostituted herself. She had lived off the avails of men, but it was more than that. She had not only sold her flesh, but her intelligence, her talent, her human dignity, her soul.

  She was glad she hadn’t told Esther or Ben the sordid details of the last few years. All they knew was that she had travelled for a while. In their minds, at least, she would retain a certain amount of dignity. And now, in a few minutes, there was no danger that she would, in a weak moment, reveal the facts.

  Loss, loss, loss. Loss of grace, loss of Amanda, loss of the good space of her sister’s mind, loss of the good vibrations she had received from that space, keeping her from real harm, giving her some direction.

  Some people’s lives worked toward a good end. Those were the saints, the people who contributed to the human race, scholars, researchers, teachers, doctors. Prizes and accolades went to such people. They were blessed with children and grandchildren, a good life, good work.

  Her life had been working toward a bad end. It wasn’t just Amanda’s death. Amanda’s death had been some sort of culmination of the wrong turns of her life. Amanda had been goodness personified, a light of reassurance and consolation. She, Helena, had never been a good person. Hadn’t Ben just said that? Ben spoke the truth. She was a despicable person.

  Her life had arrived at this handful of pills. And what had it all been worth? Nothing. Life was a straight ruler you walked, step after weary step, to the edge of the cliff, before you stepped off into oblivion. Any happiness you might find along the way was always taken away. You were not allowed to keep any of it. Paradise was dangled before you like a carrot, but it was another illusion to keep the human race going. We make up myths to get us through but none of it is true.

  She picked up the can of soda from the seat beside her. Staring straight ahead, she pulled the tab. She talked her way through it — keep your mind on the project, don’t let yourself think of anything else. Don’t let yourself think of Esther or Ben. Don’t let yourself think of anything except what you are doing. Success demands full attention.

  She swallowed as many pills as she could manage with each gulp from the can. She realized immediately that she had chosen the wrong soda. This one was pink and very sweet. But it would have to do. She swallowed and drank until the pills were gone. It was actually quite easy. She should have done this long ago. The last few men she certainly could have done without. She was starting to feel quite good. She had solved a problem. Now that it was too late, she knew the answer. She had discovered the solution. Why doesn’t everyone do this, she thought.

  She put the bottle back in her purse. She finished the last swallow from the can and set it in the drink slot beneath the dashboard. She didn’t want to mess up Esther’s car. Then it struck her. Esther’s car. Poor Esther. They would find her in Esther’s car. She should have gotten out of the car, found a park bench. Damn. But it was too late now. She was starting to feel drowsy. How long would it be? A couple of tablets took some minutes, maybe fifteen, to take effect. She lay her head back against the head rest to wait.

  The night of the accident entered her mind. She could not remember clearly the events or the sequence of events. It seemed that she had drunk quite a bit in the bar; it also seemed that she had been perfectly sober. And had she really been arguing with Amanda? Had she really accused Amanda of being their parents’ favourite? But that was such a childish remark. It had been raining, that was certain; that had been in the police report. She had been picked up wandering on the edge of the highway, in a zombie state of hypothermia and shock. That was also in the police report. The policeman had made her read the report for accuracy before signing it. But had the police report really happened, or was that only part of her nightmare? Had anything really happened?

  Helena felt terribly horribly ill. Something was wrong with her stomach. She could feel it bubbling like a cauldron. She could hear it, rumbling and popping and spluttering. She broke out in a cold sweat. She got the door open just in time.

  She vomited as though she would never stop. And after the mess of whiskey, pills, and sweet pinkish pop, the bile kept coming and coming. Her stomach heaved in spasm after spasm. Her stomach was in control of her body. It heaved until there was nothing left to reject and then it dry heaved for another five minutes. She surfaced into grey light. Sober and empty, she found herself staring down at the unbelievable spewing of evil that had come out of her body, all of it in a pool between car and kerb. Tears streamed from her eyes, spittle from her mouth. A long string of saliva mixed with vomit swung down from her lips.

  She became aware of a presence. She raised her eyes. Standing on the sidewalk watching her was a boy of about eight. He had a thin face and big eyes and a snotty nose. His eyes appraised her condition in a detached yet curious manner, as though he was quite accustomed to seeing such displays. He took a step toward her, his hand out. He seemed to be offering her something. What was it? A tissue, a tissue that he had pulled from his pocket. She looked at the balled-up wad. She looked at the child’s face, at his thin bare legs. What was his mother thinking of, dressing him like that on such a cold day? Then she realized that possibly he had dressed himself, and maybe younger brothers and sisters. He looked like one of the misbegotten of the earth, malnourished and overlooked, the people Ben had chosen to live with. He took another step toward her. His approach, his expressionless face, said, here is my offering, accept it or not, it’s up to you.

  She reached out her trembling hand and took the tissue. He turned and ran back into the schoolyard. With the tissue, she caught the string of saliva that was dangling from her mouth. It was then she heard the children’s voices, laughing, shouting, trilling like birds in the cold spring air. The playground and soccer field were inhabited with young bodies kicking balls, sliding down slides, swinging on swings. She should have chosen a different place.

  She shifted her body back into the car. She looked at the tissue in her hand. She put it in a plastic bag that was hanging from the dash and found a box of tissues in the glove compartment. She cleaned around her mouth. She wiped up the tears and slobber on her face.

  She put her head down on the steering wheel. Great heaving uncontrolled sobs came from her belly. “Please please
please,” she wailed, “forgive me, my darling, how I love you, how I didn’t tell you that night, how you’re part of me. My sister.”

  She collapsed onto the front seat of the car and sobbed until she had no more tears. Still she lay, exhausted in mind and spirit. She lay until she saw Amanda’s face. But it was sad, so sad. And she was the one causing the sadness. You can’t do this thing, the face seemed to say. If you succeed in doing this thing you will be killing me all over again. You have to stay on this earth and live for me. You have to try and be happy for my sake.

  Helena answered, I don’t want to be happy. I want to suffer.

  She had a sudden insight into what Ben had been talking about, the difference between good and bad suffering. She was immersed in bad self-centred suffering. She wallowed in it. She felt power in it. She guarded it jealously, holding it close to her heart. The pain of her suffering was all she had left of Amanda. She could not give it up. It was all quite perverse, but she couldn’t do anything about it.

  Amanda’s face was still with her. Words came out of Amanda’s mouth. “There are people who love you in spite of yourself. There is such a thing as unconditional love.”

  “I’d kill such a person. Just as I killed you. The more the other person gives, the more miserable I am to that person. I keep twisting the knife until the other person is dead.” Helena realized that she was speaking out loud.

  And Amanda answered out loud. “Maybe you can change. People do change.”

  “They may change for a while but sooner or later they revert to themselves.”

  “Ben changed. Ben, too, was in love with his suffering. He managed to give it up.”

  It was true. Ben had evolved, but he was a person who looked for goodness, who believed there was some sort of moral framework to the universe. He just got derailed for a while. She was a person who had never believed in anything except her own ego.

  The remnants of her vomit, splattered down the front of her coat, was dank and stiffening in the cold. She had a crick in her neck. She sat up, slowly.

  She turned the key in the ignition. I’ll stay for you, she thought, but don’t ask me to be happy.

  She would have to repeat the whole ill-conceived venture in reverse, go back the way she had come, through the grey day, through weeks and months of grey days. For, although she had made the decision to stay, she had no illusion that things would suddenly be just fine. She would get along as best she could, she would do that for Amanda, but that’s all she could do.

  She had no idea where she should go. Home, wasn’t that where people went in time of trouble? But the home she longed for was in Amanda’s mind and Amanda’s mind was no longer in this world. If she was going to stay in this world, and stay she must, it seemed that she had just made a pact with Amanda, she needed a home to get her through to the time when she could be with her sister.

  Ben’s voice came through the muddle in her brain. “For some people home is a person.”

  She would go home to Esther. Esther. The name had always been synonymous with home — Esther as the little mother, Esther as the best pal, Esther as her port in the storm. But Esther’s idea of a problem was not being able to find the right fabric for her new drapes. Nothing bad has ever happened to her, thought Helena. Time is a good thing for her. She looks forward to grandchildren, to George’s retirement, to travel, to good times. She wouldn’t be able to understand time as a bad thing. She tries to understand my predicament, but how can she?

  And it was then she realized that Amanda had left her a message. But not through Ben. Directly. That last fateful night as the car had hurtled through the storm on its way to destruction, Amanda had said, “He still loves you.” Ben loved her and that was the truth. Otherwise, Amanda would not have said it.

  She had been looking for the wrong message, something profound, some magic formula that would make everything better. Like a child, she thought, who wants someone to kiss a scraped elbow and then like magic pain and discomfort will disappear.

  She saw Ben standing in his doorway, hands out, palms raised, arms open. She stepped on the gas. She turned the steering wheel away from the curb.

  3. A Series of Events in Late Spring

  VIII: ESTHER

  IT WAS A DAY LIKE any other. Later, and forever after, that was what struck Esther, that on a day like any other your life can change forever, that on a day like any other your life can end. With no warning, you can be hit by a random sniper’s bullet, you can be struck by a car while waiting at a bus stop, you can be carried away by flood waters. You can be driving along a country road in Arkansas and be lifted by a tornado. Just like that.

  It had started as a good day. She lingered in bed, perhaps malingered — she knew that at times she was self-indulgent. Snuggled into her rosy satiny quilts and cushions, she dozed and slept long after the sun was up. Earlier, she had heard the robins that returned every year to build a nest and raise a family in the elm that bounced its branches against the window. And the squirrels, year-long inhabitants of their huge nest in the blue spruce at the end of the yard, how they chattered as they scampered down and up the trunk and branches gathering twigs and pine cones and anything else they could find. The spruce was more than twenty years old. George had dug it as a sapling out of a ditch near Jasper. One Sunday, all those years ago, they had packed a picnic lunch and headed for the mountains. Delores was a year old, barely toddling. They often went on Sunday excursions in those days. It was something to do when you had a small child, distraction for the child, who would soon fall asleep in the swaying vehicle, entertainment for the parents. It was something to do on a summer Sunday. Happily, merrily, tunefully, she would fry up some chicken, boil potatoes and eggs, peel carrots for salad. She would have made a cake the day before. They would put the big wicker picnic basket into the trunk of their TR5, and away the three of them would go. That car had seen them through many an adventure. It was the one George had owned when she had first met him, the dashing flamboyant young professor. He was so handsome, so mature compared to her other boyfriends, of which there had been a constant stream since her early teens. He was a man of the world. She had never been out of the province, let alone as far as Montreal, George’s home, which was foreign and French. She fell immediately, hopelessly, exhilaratingly in love with him.

  Oh, that TR5! Esther gave herself over to a few moments of fond reflection. Before they were married, before Delores was born — flying through summer nights, to and from parties and dances, the top down, windblown hair, another couple, sometimes Helena and Ben, or Amanda and Reuben, crammed into the back seat, one time even sitting up on top of the seat which, when Esther thought of it now, had been very irresponsible. But they had been so young! Surely, God would forgive them!

  When Delores was in kindergarten, George traded in the TR5 for a white Buick. It was a difficult decision for him, but Delores was no longer comfortable in the cramped back seat and they couldn’t afford two cars. They had bought this house soon after they were married. George had been put on the tenure track and she had become pregnant sooner than expected. Not for George the bricks and boards of Helena and Ben. He said that he wanted to live like a professional man, not like an undergraduate. He had been brought up in a grand old house in Montreal and anything that did not attain to this standard he viewed as a backward humiliating step. And although the house was more than they could afford at the time, with the way prices escalated soon after, it turned out to be an excellent and prudent buy. Anyway, perhaps because of an indulged childhood, George never worried about money. As it was, his father gave them the down payment. The house was near the university, allowing George to walk to work, near a lovely large park and swimming pool and schools for Delores, near the river and biking and jogging trails, and it was surrounded by other nice houses that were populated by people like themselves. It was larger than they needed, but they had thought they would have more than one child. When
Esther considered her life — a piece of whole cloth, rich, colourful, textured — that was the one flaw. She consoled herself that when, after complications with Delores’ delivery, the doctor called them in to his office and explained that more children would not likely be forthcoming, George had not seemed disappointed.

  Lying in her king-size bed in her sunny attractive bedroom, Esther watched the leaves of the elm float against the window and felt the rightness of her life. The robins flying back and forth, in and out of the cozy depths of the spruce to the graceful branches of the elm, where they sat a minute seemingly to also enjoy the glorious morning, confirmed her feeling of satisfaction. Yes, she was as right in her world as those robins were in their’s — busy, busy, between garden and tree, happily engaged in living as all God’s creatures were meant to live, nesting, nurturing and rearing young, teaching them to fly, journeying on when the cycle was completed.

  As usual, George had crawled out of his side of the bed earlier, trying not to wake her but, again as usual, he did. Not that she minded. For then, she could think, I don’t have to get up yet, and then nestle contentedly down inside the warm covers. Dreamily dozing, she would hear him in the kitchen making his coffee. And although he tried to be quiet, she would hear him opening and closing the back door. Then she would fall into a sound sleep for another two hours.

  Esther had always been a night person. When Delores was very young, after tucking her in for the night, she and George would spend what was left of the evening together, usually reading or watching television. At about ten, they would look at each other, mutually rise, go into the bathroom together, brush their teeth, and ready themselves for the night. By the time Delores was a teenager, taking forever to get herself into bed, Esther, who could not bed down until her chick was in the nest, had to stay up correspondingly late. As she grew to enjoy this solitary alone time when the house was quiet, the time advanced further. Into the wee hours, she read books, caught up on the news in her pile of old newspapers, did the crossword, put her photos into albums, manicured her nails, fingers, and toes, sometimes watched the late movie. Conversely, George went the other way. For a while, he went to bed shortly after Delores, then, as her schedule advanced, he went at the same time, then earlier. Such are habits born, unshakeable habits, even dangerous habits.