The Garden of Last Days

by Andre Dubus III

  “No.”

  “Was I a good husband?”

  A magazine cover flapped lightly in the breeze. He knew he’d pushed it too far with that one and wished he’d kept his mouth shut. She looked at him directly and it was like seeing her for the first time all over again, her eyes—for just a second—all round and blue and respectful. Mr. Carey. It was funny she’d called him that. But now an older, wiser light came into them and she looked away again.

  “When you weren’t mad all the time.”

  The magazine kept rippling. There was the whir of the fan blades, the far-off dampened hum of Cole’s air conditioner. AJ’s mouth was dry for a cold beer but he was thinking hard about what she said. Tried to remember being like that. Couldn’t really.

  “I wasn’t mad all the time.”

  “Enough, though.”

  ’Cause you went off to Fantasyland and never talked to me much anymore and looked at me like I was a nothing and spent my money on your stupid hair and never wanted to fuck—there was so much to say and more, but her arm was warm and she hadn’t moved it and all he wanted to do was go lie in their bed together and talk later; talk, talk, talk it all away later.

  From down the hall came a moan, Cole’s small voice. Deena jerked her arm away and leaned forward. Cole said Mama and truck, a few more words AJ couldn’t make out. But the sound of his son’s voice cut through him and it seemed impossible that he’d been able to bear those endless days and nights he’d not heard it.

  Deena sat back. “Talking in his sleep.”

  “How long’s he been doing that?”

  “Not long.”

  It was the kind of answer that pissed him off; how long was not long? Five days? Five weeks? Since he’d been gone, at least—he knew that.

  This close he could smell her, Deena’s smell, no one else’s. It did something to him, had ever since they’d parked under a live oak tree off Myakka City Road and tore at each other in the cab of his truck. His wrist was throbbing again, resting there limp and thick on the cushion between them. He should put some more ice on it, he knew, but not now. Now there was his wife, unafraid and not bitching at him, not watching the TV or getting up to do something else. Just sitting there, stuck between two worlds. He reached up and touched her cheek. Warm and plenty of it. “I miss you, hon.”

  She blinked. Was she about to cry? He kissed her on the cheekbone, the same one he’d blackened and blued. How could he have done that? How did he ever get to that? He breathed in her woman-smell, felt himself getting hard. His wrist pinched a bit but so what, and with his good hand he put his fingers to her chin, turned her face toward his. She closed her eyes. He leaned in, his lips parted.

  “No, AJ. No.” She pulled away. Opened her eyes. Shook her head. She thrust her hands to her sides to push herself off the couch but one of them hit his wrist, then her weight was on it, flames raging up his arm bones into his shoulder and neck. His eyes began to water, and she was up, looking down at him, her hands on her hips, an angry female blur. “You think you can just drive up here drunk and everything’s okay? You never hit me?” Her voice broke. She started crying, moving backward, one hand on her mouth, the other pointing at the door. “Get out. Please get out or I’ll call the cops on you, AJ. I will, I’ll call them right now.”

  It had to be broken. He could barely put his fingers around it. That big Chinese had started it and his beautiful wife had finished it and that’s just how tonight was going to go, wasn’t it? No sweet home-coming. No lying in your own bed with your own wife.

  No Cole.

  And it felt like a rabid dog was gnawing at his wrist. “You hurt my arm, Deen.” She was still a blur he blinked at. He fumbled for the ice pack but couldn’t even think of pressing it to his wrist, dropped it, got himself to stand.

  “I didn’t mean to, AJ, but maybe you should think about that. How’s it feel when someone does that to you?” She kept crying, a low, mournful sound that made him feel sad and wrong and useless. He held his wrist up and walked around the coffee table past the blowing fan into the still air of the linoleum where she cried.

  “You act like I’m a bad man, Deena. But I’m not. I’m not a bad man.”

  She shook her head, then sniffled and ran her finger under her nose, looked him in the face, hers puffy and plain but beautiful if you didn’t think about it; hurt wrist or not, he still wanted her. He put his good fingers on her hip. She stepped back like she’d been burned.

  “Just go to those classes, AJ.”

  Her face was tilted up at him, her chin exposed, her blue eyes rimmed with tears; he could see she loved him. She did. It confused him to see that and he could no longer look straight at her, lowered his eyes, saw her pudgy feet and toes, the nails newly painted a dark womanly red.

  “You’re supposed to go to thirty of them. Go to the first one is all I ask. Please.”

  “I’ll go if you’re asking me to, Deena, but not if you’re telling me.”

  “I am asking, AJ. I am.”

  He looked back into her face. Saw a woman there. A woman who was probably stronger than he was. How did that happen? The thought left him feeling lonely. His arm buzzed and throbbed. “I need you, Deena. I really do.”

  She nodded at his wrist, red and swollen, fractured for sure. “You should go to the hospital for that.”

  “You hear what I said?”

  “Yeah.” She pushed open the screen door, held it for him. Her cheeks were damp, but she was done crying for now; he could see that. He stepped out onto his stoop and she let the screen door close behind him. Over her shoulder and down the hall, Cole’s doorway was lit dimly from the night-light. He saw just the corner of his bed and wanted to go back there one more time. “It’s not right I don’t get to see my son.”

  She spoke quietly, steadily, carefully: “They said you could have those supervised visits when you start the classes.”

  Having to meet somewhere public while her folks watched everything he did with his own boy, sat there just to make sure he didn’t touch Deena. He’d seen it in his head for weeks and that picture alone was enough to keep him from going to any damn classes. There was a sharp pounding in his wrist. He had to hold it up again.

  “Call me after your first one.” She wiped her nose on the back of her finger. “I’ll let you talk to Cole. We’ll set up a visit.”

  “Without your folks?”

  “We’ll see.” She closed the door slowly, politely, the lock on the knob clicking into place. He stood there a moment. Felt like a man pushed out of his own boat into the black sea. The TV sound came back on but not loud enough for her to really hear it. Just a smokescreen so he wouldn’t think she was waiting for him to leave. He touched his wrist to his chest and walked directly to his truck, not looking back, squeezing between the bumpers of his F-150 and her Corolla. He couldn’t get her face out of his head, all that hurt that could only come from loving somebody. All this time he was sure she’d kicked him out not because he’d hit her but because she didn’t want him anymore—that was the real reason, and she even got the court to make it official. But climbing carefully into his truck, pulling the door shut with his right hand, the light from the TV room casting itself out toward him, it was as if he’d just gone to the big bad bank and gotten the promise of a whole new line of credit. And Deena was good for her word: one class; that’s all he had to do. Just one.

  He started her up and backed out of the driveway he’d lined with pavers. Out on the road, he shifted into drive and took one last look at his home, Deena standing in the window watching him, the blowing fan at her back, Cole sleeping safely and coolly in his concrete room. AJ flicked the lights in farewell, then the road was rolling out ahead of him and he knew he should go to the hospital, but first he needed cold beer and a handful of aspirin. And he thought of Marianne. It was wrong to think of her, but he did anyway.

  THE LOVE SEAT was crowded, Retro sitting between them, her bare leg pressing against April’s.

  The little fo
reigner had tossed the seven hundred dollars on the table so Retro could sit and now he seemed to forget about it. He sat against the arm, smoking, talking so low to Retro April heard only his murmur and the club music out on the floor. Except for her garters and high heels, she was naked. He had offered Retro a cigarette and she smoked it beside him, nodding her head at whatever he was saying, her hoops swinging slightly under her ears. April finished her champagne, reached into the ice bucket, and poured herself some more. She checked her customer’s and Retro’s, but they were still full, so she sat back and sipped, Retro’s back to her, her warm brown thigh against hers.

  At first she didn’t like that he’d bought her for an hour too, but this one was odd and getting drunker and now it was nice just to sit back and let somebody else work him for a while. Retro was wearing her floor costume, a candy red miniskirt, red tube top, red garters, and red spikes. Four or five days a week at the beach with Franny had made April tanner than she’d ever been, but next to Retro’s skin, hers looked pale. There was something deeply attractive about such dark skin. She’d always thought so.

  Franny.

  April wished she were back home with Jean and not sleeping in Tina’s office, though the Moët had made her feel better, had slowed and blended all the sharp stops and starts of the night. She and Glenn used to drink together, before Franny. She never liked getting completely drunk, but this feeling, this gentle drift away from the shore of all the shit that always had to get done, felt sweet and she was even mildly disappointed her strange little customer hadn’t asked her again why she did this. Because she had an answer for him. An honest answer, if he still wanted to know.

  Did he want to know? She leaned forward and looked past Retro’s smoothly muscled shoulder, the foreigner’s eyes darting to hers. He nodded his head at something Retro said, then waved his hand and stood just long enough to clear off half the cocktail table, pushing aside the ashtray and cash, the empty snifters still sticky with Rémy. He sat there, then crossed his legs, the smoking cigarette between his lips and his eyes squinting out at them. He was drunker than she’d thought he was. Retro lay her hand on April’s leg and squeezed.

  “What do you want us to do, honey? Huh? What do you want to see?”

  “Nothing. I want to see nothing.”

  “Really?” Retro sounded skeptical, her hand still on April, a warm weight she could feel all the way to her belly. The foreigner was studying her now, his eyes on her face, her nipples. He looked at them for what seemed a long time. The hundred-dollar bills were spread out beside him, one of them on its side against the ice bucket. It was hard not to look at them. She hoped he wasn’t so drunk he’d forgotten their deal.

  “Nothing, huh, baby?” Retro lifted her left thigh and rested her spiked heel on the table next to his leg. She let her right fall open, but he didn’t look down at her brown belly or her crotch. He blew out smoke, stubbed the butt on the table, burning the corner off one of the bills.

  “What is your real name?”

  “We can’t tell, honey, it’s against the rules.” Retro forced a laugh. Her hand lifted away from April and moved to him. She began to run her fingers in a circle over his knee.

  “Do not touch me, please.”

  “C’mon, baby.”

  With his thumb and forefinger he gripped her wrist, picked her hand off him as if it were something poisonous, and dropped it over her spread legs.

  “Tell him your name, Retro. He’ll pay you for it.”

  “Only if she does not lie.”

  “How’re you going to know, honey?”

  “He’ll know.”

  “No, I do not need this one’s name.”

  “But you just asked me.” There was a smile in Retro’s voice, but the sassiness that’d been there a second ago was gone. Her hand lay on the cushion where he’d dropped it.

  He shook out another Marlboro. “Remove this clothing, please.”

  Retro stood and began swaying her hips in time to the club music out on the floor.

  “No, do not dance.”

  Retro stopped, her massive hoops catching the light in the smoke above April.

  “Look, honey, I dance. If you don’t want the dance, then you gotta pay.”

  He looked at April, his eyes dropping to her crotch. They lingered on the scar from Franny. He picked up a single bill and held it up to Retro. “Answer my question and you receive this.”

  She reached out for it, her fingers on it, his fingers still on it.

  “Ask away, little man.”

  “What will happen for you after you die?”

  “That’s a little creepy, honey, but, you know—worm food, baby. I’ll just be worm food.” She pulled on the bill. He didn’t let go.

  “What does this mean?”

  “It means we’re just food for the worms, honey. You know, those little snakes with no eyes? Worms.”

  He held on to the hundred and he began to laugh. It was a tired, drunk, cruel laugh, and he shook his head and let go of the bill and Retro folded it lengthwise and snapped it under her garter.

  He stopped and nodded, his eyes on her chest. “Clothing, please.”

  “Sure thing.” Retro glanced down at April sitting there with her champagne, watching her, and April felt like an accomplice to some hostile action against her. Retro stepped over their legs and undressed quickly against the wall, leaving on her G-string, garters, and spikes, her hoops swinging back and forth. April had seen her breasts dozens of times, but here, in this tiny room under the smoky light on this cheap black love seat, drinking Moët, it was as if she’d never seen them before, small and beautiful, her nipples the color of tree bark. April looked away from them.

  “Everything, please.” He picked up another hundred-dollar bill, pointed it like a pistol at Retro’s G-string.

  “That’s my sweet spot, honey. You want the sweet spot, you got to give me more than that.”

  “I have already paid for that, yes? I do not have to give anything more to see that.”

  “Only if we dance, honey, but you don’t want the dance.”

  He sat straight at the edge of the table. He looked directly at April’s face, and in his eyes was a hard, accusatory light. He picked up his lighter, flicked open a flame, and held it to the hundred-dollar bill.

  “Mike,” April said. “Don’t do that.”

  “You see, I do not care for money as you do. I do not.”

  The bill flamed up immediately. Retro jerked it from his fingers and blew it out, smacking and rubbing it against her hip, holding it up to the light, a quarter of it gone. He picked another hundred off the table and held it over the flame.

  “Shit.” Retro dropped the burned bill, hooked her thumbs under the straps of her G-string, pushing it down her long legs, stepping out of it, kicking it behind her onto her mound of red clothes. Her crotch was only inches from April’s face and she could smell it, the scent of swamps, of fertile, wet, dark places where life comes from, and like most of the girls, Retro was shaved, just a narrow strip of hair riding up from her clit over her pubic bone. April didn’t turn her head and knew she was a little drunk: she let herself look at it as long as she wanted.

  Mike the foreigner handed Retro the bill, then gave her a second one, too. “Thank you.” She folded and wedged them under her right garter and sat back down between them. One of the bills lightly poked April’s thigh.

  She sipped her Moët. Retro’s hip was warm against her. He held the bottle by the neck and poured more champagne into both their glasses, his eyes flitting from April’s crotch to Retro’s and back.

  “They cut a baby from you, yes?”

  The question made her feel more naked than being naked, and she couldn’t answer. Tried to nightsmile at him. Nodded.

  “And you,” he said to Retro. “You are mother?”

  “Why do you want to know, little man?”

  He put another cigarette between his lips. “Open your legs.”

  “Ask nice, honey.”
>
  He looked over at April, his eyes softer now, as if she were an old friend he expected to help him. He gathered up the remaining bills and wadded them into a tight crinkled ball and pushed them into Retro’s palm. She said nothing, just opened her legs and flashed him some pink, her thigh across both of April’s, her other hooked over the opposite arm of the love seat. The club’s music was country again, Sadie already back on. One man whooped and there was a lot of rolling drums and fast-picking guitar, and Retro was trying to look like she was excited, tilting her head back, rubbing herself lightly with two fingers, Mike staring hard at what she’d parted for him.

  He didn’t look quite as drunk now. His eyes were softer and he looked years younger. Like a kid, really. And Retro’s skin against hers had felt nice, but now her leg was heavy and made April feel hemmed in. She just kept looking at the table, empty of the one-hundred-dollar bills she’d hoped would be hers.

  ATINY LIGHT UNDER the stairs. She gets on her hands and her knees like Jean’s cat and there’s a place there. Far away a door opens and closes and a grown-up’s legs walk from the dark into the light. She can crawl under there. She just has to make herself small and she’s not scared. She’s not. She crawls into the wide low place and the floor is hard and dusty and the music isn’t loud anymore but above her the wood squeaks under somebody walking or running. Her hand touches something, a long piece of wood that doesn’t move. But it’s not big and she crawls over it. Dusty dusty. Makes her want to cough. The music stops and she can hear only voices, feet squeaking over her head. How will Mama find her here? Loud music comes again and more feet squeaking over her head. So close. She sits on the piece of wood and reaches her hand up into the darkness and her fingers touch more wood.