The Center of Winter: A Novel

by Marya Hornbacher

  “No you won’t,” Kate argued. “You don’t get to decide.”

  Davey muttered something.

  “What?” Kate said.

  “I said your dad did,” Davey replied.

  Kate stopped dead in her tracks, staring straight ahead. In a minute she started walking.

  “Kate,” Davey said.

  “Shut up.”

  “I was just saying.”

  “Well, don’t. Don’t say your stupid saying things, then.”

  “Fine, I won’t say anything. Ever. You’re so bossy.”

  “I am not.”

  Davey stuffed his hands in his pockets and dragged his feet in protest, slowing our progress. Kate got a ways ahead of us. She stopped and turned around, her hands on her hips.

  “Are you coming or not?”

  Davey shrugged.

  “Say something.”

  “Can’t,” he said. “Not supposed to say my stupid saying things.”

  Kate shrieked and the graveyard echoed, the sound of her voice bouncing back to us again and again. Then she sat down with a thud and put her forehead on the grass.

  Davey and I neared with caution, watching her.

  “My dad,” came her voice, “did not just decide to die.”

  We stood there. It was not a good time to argue. We waited while she figured out how to explain that one.

  “He had,” she said carefully, “a sad-sickness.”

  Arnold ribbited.

  “Are you crying?” Davey asked.

  “It wasn’t his fault,” she yelled at the ground. I pictured all the skeletons’ eyes snapping open, waking up from their naps. Turning their heads in their coffins, thinking, What’s that noise? “He wouldn’t have just gone and done it for no good reason,” Kate yelled.

  Davey looked worried and finally tiptoed over to where she sat. He crouched next to her. She hit him in the leg. He sat down, put his hand on her head, and patted it.

  “Don’t touch me,” she said, but she didn’t stop him.

  “Didn’t say he didn’t have a reason,” Davey said in his most practical grown-up voice.

  “Okay,” she finally said, her voice full of reproach.

  They sat there. Soon enough she lifted her head, grabbed the front of Davey’s shirt, and wiped her nose. “Let’s go see him,” she said, and scrambled to her feet.

  I raced to keep up with them as they rounded the corner and headed down a row of graves. They came to a halt in front of one and Kate, alarming me, dove headfirst onto the ground.

  “Daddy!” she cried.

  “Hi, Mr. Schiller,” Davey said, sitting down.

  I stared at the gravestone. I walked toward it slowly. Kate rolled onto her back. The moon was just right so that her face caught shadows where her eyes and mouth should have been, a big, grinning empty mouth on her white face as she lay there with her arms flung out across the grave.

  The moon caught the gravestone’s hollows too, so I could see my father’s name. “Arnold Ivan Schiller,” it said, black against the blue-white moonlit stone. “1933–1969.”

  Kate sat up. “Want an orange?” she asked. She set one against the stone, where it gleamed amid a dusky jumble of stuff. I could make out a toy truck. She handed Davey an orange and looked around for me.

  “Here,” she said, holding one out. “Come sit.”

  “It’s 1970,” I said.

  She waved the orange at me. “Yeah, so?” she said.

  “He died in 1969.”

  “Yeah.”

  “He was thirty-six.”

  She dropped her arm and took the peeled orange Davey passed her. She gave him another to peel.

  “Thirty-six,” I repeated. I’d meant to say, Six is twice three, but now that I thought of it, that wasn’t relevant. Kate sucked on a segment of orange.

  “You’re slurping,” Davey said.

  “Sorry.” She wiped her chin with her hand.

  My left leg started to feel like it was escaping. I sat down next to Davey and twisted myself into a knot so I could hold on to it.

  “Coming off?” Kate asked, pointing to my leg.

  “Do you—should you be sitting on him?” I put my left wrist in my mouth and took a big bite out of it, startling myself. Davey grabbed my wrist, peered at it in the moonlight, and fished a Band-Aid out of the book bag. “For Kate’s fingers,” he said. Stretching it over my skin, he said, “I wish you two would stop chewing on yourselfs.”

  “He doesn’t mind,” Kate said. “He’s in a box.”

  “Coffin,” Davey said, patting my wrist. Now I would be crazy for two days trying not to pick at it.

  “Coffin’s still a box,” Kate said. “So I’m not sitting on him, but he knows I’m up here.” She patted the grave and put a huge section of orange in her mouth all at once. Her cheeks full, she said, “Should we give him the frog?”

  “I have to say I’m a little anxious,” I said. “I think I’ll just rock a little, if no one minds.”

  They looked at each other and shrugged.

  “Do you want your medicines?” Davey asked.

  “No. Thank you. Not right now. Do you think he can hear us?”

  “Course he can.”

  “Oh.” I rocked, which helped with the idea that my father was decomposing in a box under where Kate sat cheerfully muttering to the ground and Davey and whoever else might happen to be listening. My father—1969, last year, not 1970, this year. This year, right now, there was a mound of earth with grass starting to send up new shoots on it, the length of a box in which you could put a tall, dead man.

  “Maggots,” I said.

  “What’s that?” Davey asked.

  “They eat dead stuff.”

  “Not Dad,” Kate said.

  “Yeah, Dad,” I said.

  She shook her head and lay down on her back on the grave, her face lit up by the moon. Davey wiped his hands on his jeans and scooted over. The two of them lay side by side gazing up at the stars, their hands folded on their bellies. The headstone towered over them.

  I reached in the bag and grabbed my meds. I choked them down with spit and crawled over to Kate’s side. I tried lying on my back but decided fetal position was a better plan.

  The grave was soft. We lay there like we were curled up on my dad’s wide chest, breathing along with his giant-lunged breath.

  “Big Dipper,” I said, pointing up. “Little Dipper. Ursa Major. The Clown.”

  CLAIRE

  When we got home that night and found them gone, I thought: I am in hell.

  The empty house, all space: That was hell. I wouldn’t stop screaming. Donna had to shake me. She called Oma, who said they’d probably run off to the graveyard again. Oma and Opa brought them home.

  They sat in a muddy, sullen row on the couch while Oma made them hot milk.

  “What in the hell were you thinking, scaring your mother like that?” Donna demanded.

  They pretended they hadn’t heard. Oma gave me a Valium, and Opa put them all to bed. Oma settled down on the couch.

  “I can’t lose them,” I said stupidly, still crying.

  “Of course not,” Oma said, reassuringly. “Just being children. They have their reasons.”

  I did not know children had reasons.

  Until that night it was my grief. But then their reasons broke in on my secret and my grief like a wave. When I walked into the house and found them gone, it was no longer merely grief. It was hell, and I could not stay in hell, and it was time to live again.

  After that we went to the graveyard on Sundays, like a normal family. We had breakfast with Oma and Opa after. On Sunday and Wednesday nights, Donna and I went to Frank’s for Ladies’ Nite specials. I paid the bills and fed the kids and bought their shoes and kissed their mangled, scraped, cut, or otherwise damaged bodies as need be. Weekdays, I went to work at the store. And ate my lunch and smoked in the smoky break room with the other smoking women who did not yet have, had, had never had, or had for some reason lost pos
session of husbands, and were getting on, and were frightened of getting on, and had children or did not have children, but in either case were tormented by their presence or absence, the husbands being primarily occupied with labor, if living. If there was no husband present, having for example been recently killed in Vietnam or having shot himself or having simply walked off, their vicious, voracious bitterness was given wide berth.

  It was a life.

  I have two children. I am a widow. Sometimes I’d find myself thinking things like that. Talking, as if explaining it to someone. Answering a question. Yes, I’d think to myself. I have two children. My husband passed away. Thank you.

  In this conversation with an imaginary person, I was very polite. They’d say, Oh, I’m sorry to hear that. Thank you. And how are your children? They’re well.

  They were a mysterious, serious, big-eyed thing. They were my life. They were absurd. I had no idea what they wanted. We set out each day as if we knew where we were going. They knew we didn’t. They handled me with the polite care with which you treat the fragile or the very old. They humored me. They were in charge now, though they let me pretend.

  So here we were. Here I was, with my two children plus Davey, with my Sunday and Wednesday and laundry and meals. Arnold didn’t come and talk to me at night. I slept in the bed. It was my bed now, though I still slept on my side of it. I lay there talking to the imaginary person.

  The conversation went like this: Forgetting? No. He is always there. He is everywhere. The children, yes, I suppose they’re well enough. They stare up at me, wearing his face. They know what I did.

  It was the hottest summer anyone could remember. The garden was a riot of color, vines tangled around the fence, plants clambering over each other for space. In June it rained and rained, the steaming world outside the window a crazy tropical green splattered with too bright color and blooms. The rosebush we bought for Kate’s birthday grew at the center of the map taped to the refrigerator, each plant with its Latin name carefully penciled underneath its roots.

  By July the sun had moved directly overhead, and beat down without pause from morning until late at night. Kate, Esau, and Davey dangled off the furniture like melted candy. Periodically, they’d whine. Then the room went still again, the only motion, the only sound, a tiny rattling wind created by a dusty box fan.

  “Mom, take us to the lake,” Kate commanded limply.

  “Later.”

  “When.”

  “This afternoon. Too hot right now, baby. Heatstroke.”

  She didn’t even have the energy to argue. She sighed, slid off the couch, and lay down in front of the fan. She took a deep breath and said into the chopping blades, “Ah-ah-ah-ah-ah-ah-ah-ah-ah.”

  Davey was always there, a pleasant, strange little presence. Without him, I would not have had Donna. Without Donna I obviously would have died.

  “Darlin’!” she called from the front door.

  “In here,” I said, too hot to throw my voice very far. I sat on the floor folding a pile of laundry. I’d only gotten through socks and underwear. We’d been sitting there all morning.

  Donna walked into the room, carrying Sarah, and saw us. “Well, for pity’s sake. What’re you three doing lying around like a bunch of good-for-nothings? Go outside.”

  “Can’t,” Davey said to his mother. “Too hot.”

  Donna lay Sarah belly-down on the floor and threw herself into a chair, limbs splayed. “That’s the damn truth. They fed?” she asked me. I hadn’t gotten around to it yet.

  “We had hot dogs,” Esau whispered, one eye open. His skinny legs stuck out of his cut-off pants, and his giant feet looked like white flippers.

  “For breakfast?”

  He shrugged.

  Donna heaved herself off the chair and sat down next to me to fold. The summer morning heated up. I pushed the damp hair back from my face.

  “All right,” Donna said suddenly, throwing down a tiny undershirt of Kate’s. “That’s it. We’re going to the lake.”

  “Heatstroke!” Davey yelped, but his mother waved a hand at him and called him a worrywart, so that settled everything. Kate and Esau were already off the couch and into their rooms to get ready. Davey wandered down the hall.

  “What’s with you?” I asked.

  She looked at me. “Gonna kill that man.”

  “Dale?”

  “Who do you think? Yes, Dale.”

  “What’d he do?”

  “Borrow me a swimsuit,” she said. In the bedroom, while we changed, she said, “Didn’t do anything. Wish he would do something. But I swear, he ain’t said a word in two weeks. I tell you, Claire, I’m going crazy in that house.”

  “Honey, the problem isn’t the house.”

  She laughed. “Sure it is. He’s in it. I’m in it. That’s a problem.”

  Kate torpedoed into the room, buried under a pile of beach towels. “Esau’s getting a picnic,” she shrieked.

  “Where’s my swim shorts?” came Davey’s voice from down the hall.

  It took an insanely long time to get everyone in the car all together. Someone kept forgetting something and remembering that they desperately needed it. Kate needed her rocks. Esau needed a book. Kate needed two apples, not one, because she only liked the red parts. Esau needed another book, plus his little beanbag. Kate burned her butt on the metal seat-belt buckle. Donna said she would drive, then decided I should. Davey sat in the middle of the backseat, stoic.

  Then we drove the four blocks to the lake.

  It was cooler by the water, and Donna and I spread a blanket out under a tree. The kids raced directly from the car into the lake, shedding everything they’d brought in a trail on the sand. We settled in with a thermos of iced tea, put on our hats, and squinted at the water, trying to keep an eye on the bobbing shapes of our kids, which looked exactly the same as the bobbing shapes of all the other kids in the crowded swimming hole.

  “You think I oughtta divorce him?” she asked mildly. We waved to Tabatha Hendricks, who was new in town and had four kids. Poor thing wasn’t twenty-five and went around looking as harried as hell.

  “Jesus,” I said. “That bad?” Pete and Edith Anderson, my neighbors, stopped by to say hello, and the four of us shaded our eyes to see each other in the blinding sun. Their kids were around here somewhere, they said, waving vaguely. I liked the Andersons. They said we should come by for a drink this evening.

  “Yeah, I guess,” Donna said when they’d left. “How’m I supposed to know? What’s bad enough? When do you cut your losses? There’s that what’s-his-name,” she said, pointing. I turned to look. “And what do you know, there’s Frank!” She sat up and waved wildly.

  “Oh, quit,” I said.

  “What?” she asked innocently. “Frank!” she called. I pulled my floppy hat down lower on my head and wished I’d worn the bathing suit with the skirt.

  Frank approached with what’s-his-name, Jamie Kittridge, who I had to admit was a handsome devil, with a foolish grin and a farm-boy manner and a crush on Donna.

  “Afternoon,” Frank said, looking pleased with the world. “Claire,” he said, nodding, squinting in the sunshine. “Donna.”

  “Afternoon, ladies,” Jamie said, grinning.

  “Hello,” I mumbled.

  “You fellas want something to drink? Have a sit,” Donna said cheerfully.

  “That’d hit the spot,” Frank said, smiling down at me. “Provided it’s not any trouble. You sure it’s no trouble, Claire?”

  I shook my head. He seemed disproportionately concerned with me. He eased himself down by my side and took the bottle of Coke Donna gave him.

  “You see Kate?” I asked Donna. She dug in the cooler. Frank peered out at the lake.

  “Pink bathing suit?” he asked. “Ruffle on the fanny?”

  “That’s her.”

  “She’s trying to drown her brother,” he said.

  “All right, then.”

  “It’s hotter than hell,” Frank remark
ed after a long moment.

  “Lord knows.” I fanned myself with a magazine.

  “Wait all year for summer to roll around, then we complain it’s hot.”

  I laughed. “Too true.”

  “How’s life treating you, Claire?” he asked, taking a sip. From the corner of my eye, I caught the wince on his face when he realized he oughtn’t have asked that, quite. It occurred to me that Frank might know more about my life than I did myself. Arnold had sat there on a bar stool telling him God knows what for how many years. I was embarrassed for Arnold. He was a sloppy drunk, and he let his mouth run.

  I laughed to lighten things up. “Oh, I suppose it’s all right,” I said. “You know how it is.”

  Frank smiled out at the water, immensely relieved. “Sure do.” He slowly stretched his legs out and crossed them at the ankles. He had odd, delicate ankles, pearly bones at the end of solid brown legs. His father was Sioux, I remembered, looking up at his dark hair, shot with silver threads. Arnold had told me that.

  “My wife, when she left,” he said, shaking his head. “Swear, I slept on the couch for six months.”

  “Oh.” I didn’t know what to say. I didn’t know he’d had a wife.

  “Then I knocked out all the walls and rebuilt the house.”

  “Oh?” I peered at him from under my hat.

  He nodded, gazing out at the lake. “That did the trick.” He paused. “Esau’s getting big.”

  “I know it. That child is eating me out of house and home.”

  “’Spect he is,” Frank said. He had a funny upside-down smile, the corners of his mouth curling down and his crow’s-feet showing. “How’s he been?”

  The question caught me off guard. “He’s—he’s doing much better,” I said. That was the correct answer. That was the one you gave. Esau was better, and fragile, or maybe a little worse this month, it was hard to say, and in any case he was fragile, would always be terribly fragile. I was afraid I was not, in some way, enough, would fail him, and so I held his wellness close to my chest where no one could see it, breathe on it, discuss it, make it go away.

  “Glad to hear it. Great kid. Absolutely great kid.”

  “How long did you know Arnold?” I asked, feeling suddenly defensive. What did he tell you, anyway? I wanted to yell. How much do you know about my family? What do you know about me? Do you know how hard I tried? My son is fine, thanks. We are all fine.