I slid forward to get as close as possible to the photograph. The boy did look like his father, but even in the picture there was a wildness in his eyes that said he
wasa pistol.
We returned to Crane’s View the way we had come. Passing the drive-in theater, I worried that something would again be playing on the giant screen, but it was blank. Erik continued talking about his son. I asked questions to keep the conversation going. I didn’t want to think about what to do because I knew my whole life would depend on that decision once we got home.
“Do you mind if I smoke?” he asked.
“No. God, cigarettes! I’d love one too.”
He pulled a pack of Marlboros from beneath his sun visor and handed them to me. “I think I got two left in there. Have a look.”
I slid them out.
He pushed in the cigarette lighter on the dashboard. “All the things we’re not supposed to do anymore, huh? You know what I say? Cigarettes are gooood!”
The lighter popped out and he handed it to me. I lit up for the first time in years and took a deep drag. The smoke was harsh and raw in my throat but delicious. We sat in a nice silence, smoking and watching things pass by.
“There’s a 7-eleven up here a-ways. Would you mind if I made a quick stop and bought more smokes and some other things? I told the wife I’d bring them home and she’ll be real mad if I don’t.”
“Please, of course stop.”
He sighed. “That’s one of the bad things that’s happened since Isaac died. Nina gets real upset about small things. Before, she was as calm as summer, but now if even the slightest thing goes wrong, she has trouble with it. I can’t blame her. I guess we miss people in our own ways.
“Me, I think about all the things I’ll never be able to do with the boy. Take him to see the Knicks, watch him graduate from school. Sometimes when I’m alone in the house, I go up to his room and sit on the bed. I talk to him too, you know? Tell him what’s been going on in the family, and how much I miss him. I know it’s stupid, but I keep thinking he’s near me in that room. Nina cleaned it out completely after he died, so it’s only a small empty place now, but I can’t help thinking he’s around there sometimes and maybe can hear me.”
“What do you miss most, Erik? What do you miss most about him?” A question I had asked myself again and again since Hugh’s death.
“The hugs. That kid was a hugger. He’d grab hold of you tight as a vise and squeeze. Not many people really hug you.” He smiled sadly. It looked like his whole life these days was in that smile. “There aren’t that many people in life who really love you either.”
I felt my throat swell and I had to look away.
“I’m sorry, Miranda. I’m just talking. There’s the place. I’ll be out in a minute.”
We slowed and pulled into a large parking lot. The store was brilliantly lit. It glowed, and the vivid colors of the products on the shelves radiated out into the night. I watched Erik walk in. He stopped to speak with the man behind the counter and in a moment both were laughing. I looked around the lot. There was only one other vehicle parked there, an old pickup truck that looked like it had traveled to World War Three and back. I twisted the rearview mirror to have a look at myself and was surprised to see my head was still on my shoulders and I didn’t have big Xs over my eyes like some cartoon character that’s just been knocked out.
I saw something out of the corner of my eye. Far across the parking lot, a kid on a bicycle came weaving slowly into view. My first thought was, What’s he doing out so late, but as he got closer my mind froze. It was Erik Peterson’s son Isaac.
He was dressed in an orange-and-blue windbreaker and faded jeans. Riding in loopy circles around the lot, he got closer and closer to the car. I knew who he was, but since I could not believe it, I looked again at the picture on the dashboard. It was him. Inside the store, Erik had disappeared back among the shelves. Outside, twenty feet away, his dead son rode a bicycle.
I opened the door and swiveled to get out. The boy stopped abruptly and put his feet down to keep from tipping. Looking at me, he shook his head. Don’t move. I stayed where I was and he slowly rolled over.
“That’s my Dad in there.” His voice was high and sweet. He lisped.
“Yes.”
“He’s nice, huh?”
“He’s… He loves you very much.”
“I know. He talks to me all the time. But I can’t talk back. It’s not allowed.”
“Can I tell him you’re here?”
“No. He couldn’t see me anyway. Only you. Remember you saw me before? When you were driving the other way, I was racing you. I kept up with you pretty long. I mean, I’m pretty fast for my age.”
He was so sure of himself, this ten-year-old big talker out for a spin on his bike at night, checking to see if anyone was watching. It wrung my heart.
“You know Declan?” he asked.
“Yes.”
A green Porsche growled in off the street and stopped a few feet away. A woman wearing a man’s fedora got out. Looking straight ahead, she walked into the store.
“Women are the stones you use to build a house, men are the sticks you use to start the fire and keep the house warm.”
Distracted by the jarring noise of the car, I wasn’t sure I’d heard what he said. “Excuse me?”
“That’s what Declan’s father said.”
I stiffened. “You’ve seen him?”
“Sure. He and Declan are together all the time. He said that today when Declan asked the difference between men and women. They were talking about why Declan never got to be born.
“See you!”
Erik came out of the store carrying a brown bag and glancing over his shoulder. Pushing the bike backward, the boy came within two feet of his father. He looked at the man as he walked past. He reached out a hand and pretended to slap his arm.
Erik stopped. For a moment I was sure he knew who was there. Isaac watched him with calm eyes. Erik moved to the left, stopped, moved to the right. He was dancing! He turned in a circle. “Do you hear it, Miranda? From inside the store? Martha and the Vandellas. ‘Dancing in the Streets.’” He continued swaying back and forth as he approached the car. “One of my favorite songs. Isaac loved it too. I hear it all the time now. Funny. More than ever before, I think.” He opened the back door and laid the grocery bag on the seat. “You ready to go?”
The boy nodded at me, so I said yes. His father got in and started the motor. “I got everything. Some more cigarettes too if you want one.”
“Erik, if you could, what would you say to Isaac if he was here right now?”
Without hesitation he said, “I’d say I’m living, but I’m not alive without you.”
ONE OF HUGH’S favorite quotes was from St. Augustine: “Whisper in my heart, tell me you are there.” I suppose it has to do with God and his unwillingness to show his face to man. But in light of what had happened, I took it to mean something entirely different. I was sure “Women are the stones you use to build a house, men are the sticks…” was meant for me, not Declan. I was sure Hugh was whispering in myheart, suggesting what to do. I had already come to the same conclusion by then but his words only strengthened my resolve.
When we arrived in Crane’s View and Erik dropped me off, I entered the house no longer frightened or upset. There is a calmness that comes with surrender. A peace that actually revitalizes when you know there is no other way. I knew what to do now, and no matter what happened to me afterwards, the child would be safe. That was all that mattered—the child would be safe. I would give it what I had, willingly!
The house was spotless, no sign of anything that happened there earlier. I walked into the kitchen and remembered it had all begun after I’d made myself dinner—how many hours, days, lifetimes ago? When I turned on the television and saw Charlotte, Declan, and Hugh by the swimming pool.
So what? It had to begin somewhere and that’s where it did. Move on. Other things to think about now. Hunger shook a scolding finger at me and I knew I would have to eat before doing it. Opening the refrigerator door, I was greeted by an incredible array of the most extraordinary and exotic food—Iranian caviar, a box of pastries from a place called Demel in Vienna, plover eggs, Tunisian capers, olives from Mt. Athos, fresh Scottish salmon, Bombay lemon pickle, more. I had bought none of it, much less tasted most of the food on those shelves, but it didn’t surprise me. The time for surprises was over. I sniffed and sampled a great deal before choosing a fresh baguette, prosciutto cut thin as tissue paper, and the most delicate mozzarella I had ever tasted. The sandwich was delicious and I ate it quickly.
There was a bottle of Lambrusco too, one of Hugh’s favorite wines. I opened it and poured some into a small glass that had once held creamed chipped beef. Odd as it may sound, I wanted to toast something. That’s what you’re supposed to do at the end of the banquet, aren’t you? Toast the host, the lucky couple, the birthday girl or the glorious country. But what could I toast on this, the last night of some preposterous part of my existence? My past lives? Here’s to all the good and bad times I had but forgot and learned nothing from. Here’s to all the people I knew and hurt—sorry folks, I can’t remember any of you. Or how about, Here’s to me—however many of us there have been.
Hugh taught me an Irish toast:
May those who love us love us.
And those that don’t love us,
May God turn their hearts.
And if he doesn’t turn their hearts
May he turn their ankles
So we’ll know them by their limping.
One toast came to me that was appropriate. I lifted my glass and said to the empty room, “Here’s to you and the lives you lead. I hope you find your way home faster than I did.” I drank slowly and emptied the glass.
On the floor in Hugh’s workroom was a cardboard box filled with tools and chemicals he used to restore things. I went through it, pulling out the many different bottles, reading the labels, choosing the ones that contained alcohol or any kind of flammable substance. Our house was made of wood. It would go up quickly. I went around the ground floor pouring the strong-smelling chemicals over everything. Hugh’s new chair, a couch, boxes of books, the wooden floors.
I kept spilling and watching the liquids stain new fabric, pool on the wooden floor, eat into a turquoise plastic Sky King ashtray I had given Hugh as a present. When all of the bottles and cans were empty, I stood in the front hall smelling the incredible stink of all those deadly chemicals splashed over everything in the world that had mattered to me.
I went to a window and looked out onto the porch. A car drove by outside. A white car. It reminded me of a white horse. Heroes rode white horses, heroic knights. That reminded me of Hugh’s unfinished story about the plain-looking knight who fell so in love with the princess that he was willing to sacrifice everything for her. How he went to the devils and traded them his courage for her happiness. I remembered the last line of his incomplete story. “Life is full of surprises, but if you’re convinced all of them will be bad, what’s the point of going on?” I wanted no more surprises. I didn’t trust them, any more than I believed I would be able to change anything for the better if I continued living. I would give up my immortality to the child and then I would finish it.
Still staring out the window, I felt ebullient and relieved. The world was mine because I no longer wanted to be in it. I could do this tonight or tomorrow or next week. It didn’t matter when because the decision had been made and was final. No, it had to be tonight. I did not want tomorrow. I went looking for matches.
What was the name of that famous children’s book? Goodnight Moon. Good night Hugh. Good night Frances Hatch, good night Crane’s View, good night life. My thoughts chanted these lines as I searched for matches. Good night Erik Peterson and Isaac. Good night beautiful books and long dinners with someone you love. Good night this and this and this and this as I wandered through the house. The list got longer and longer as I slid open drawers and cupboards looking for something to burn up the world in which these things existed.
Just as I began to grow frustrated, I remembered seeing a pack of matches in Hugh’s box of chemicals. A half-empty pack with green writing announcing Charlie’s Pizza. The place where we’d had lunch with Frances the first day we visited Crane’s View. The first time I saw Declan. The first time we met Frannie McCabe. First time. First time and now the last time. I would never see Declan or Frannie again. Never see this this that. A spotted dog or a marmalade cat. Goodnight life.
I found the matches and stood up, wondering only where to do it. The living room. Sit on the couch, start the fire there and finish. The walk from Hugh’s room to the living room seemed five miles long. It felt like I was walking underwater. Not bad or disturbing, only slow-motion and incredibly detailed. I saw everything around me with extreme clarity. Was it because this was the last time I would see these things? Good night hall with the beautiful wood floors. Hugh got down on his knees right there and, sliding his hand back and forth over that floor, looked up at me with the happiest smile. “This is all ours now,” he said, his voice full of wonder. Good night staircase. Stopping, I looked up and remembered the day we had made love at the top. I wished I could smell Hugh in that final air. Would I see him where I was going? How wonderful to smell him one last time. I looked up the stairs and remembered him on top of me, his weight, the softness of his lips on my throat, his thumbs holding down my hands. He’d had keys in his jeans pocket that day. When he moved on me they cut into my hip. I asked him to take them out. He tossed them across the floor. They rang out as they hit and slid. Good night keys.
In the living room I stared into the empty fireplace a moment and then put my hand in my pocket. It was there. It was time, so I took it out. Because of all the mad things happening when I picked it up in the basement at Hugh’s silent urging, I hadn’t looked carefully at the piece of wood I now held in my hand. I had more or less forgotten about it until I was standing in the lobby of Fieberglas talking to the nurse about Frances. Then the only way I can describe what happened is that the wood came to methe way a good idea or real fear comes. All at once, as if through every pore in your body. Yes, it had been in my pocket the whole time, but suddenly I became aware of its presence again. Or maybe I just remembered it and, in doing so, grasped its real importance and what to do with it. A small piece of wood about seven inches long. Dark on three sides, light on the other. The side where it had broken off the baby’s crib when McCabe/Shumda threw it against the wall.
There was a fragment of a figure carved on it, but the way the wood had snapped off made it impossible to decipher what it was. The back half of a running animal. A deer perhaps, or a mythological creature that fit the rest of the extravagant, fantastical world that had been carved on that wonderful old cradle. Our child’s cradle, our baby girl. I thought of her, the only sight of her I would ever have. Then I thought of Declan and what his father had said. And I knew what I had to do, and it was right, but if I were to somehow survive what was about to happen, I would regret doing it forever. I looked at the wood in my hand and because I felt I had no other choice I said, “I’m sorry.” I had two pieces of wood to burn. Two pieces for my marriage of sticks: The one in my hand from the cradle, and the one from Central Park I had picked up the day we knew it was going to happen. Two sticks were enough for a marriage. More would have been better. I would have loved to have a huge bundle of them for a world-sized bonfire when I was eighty years old and at the satisfied end of a marvelous life. But I had only these two and they would have to be enough. They were important though—as important as anything. One symbolized Hugh, this one our child. Where in the house was the Hugh stick? I thought but then realized it didn’t matter because soon it would be gone too.
Without knowing why, I knew when I lit it, this wood would ignite as if it were made of pure gasoline. Breaking off a match from the pack, I put it to the striking pad and flicked my hand. A flame snapped open, flaring and hissing a second before taming down to the size of a fingernail. Lit match in one hand, the wood in the other. Good night life.
I looked up one last time. At the window were faces. Many many many of them. Some were pressed to the glass, distorting their features—bent noses, comical lips. Others hovered in the background, waiting their turn to get close as they could to the window, to this room, to me. And I knew all of the faces wereme, all the me’s from past lives who had come to watch this happen. To watch the end of their line, last stop, everybody out.
“Good-bye.” Calmly I put the match to the wood and the world exploded.
I heard the blast and saw a blinding flash of light. Then utter silence. I don’t know how long it lasted. I was somewhere else until I was back in the living room, sitting by myself on the couch, holding both empty hands in the air in total surprise. It took time to realize where I was and of course I did not believe it. Everything was so still. My eyes readjusted to the normal light in the room and the colors, the things around me, everything was exactly as it had been.
I dropped my hands to the couch and felt its rough wool beneath my palms. Turning my head slowly from side to side, I took in the view. Nothing had changed. Frances’s house, our possessions, home again. Even the smell was the same.
No, there was something else. Hugh. Hugh’s cologne was in the air. Then I felt hands on my shoulders and knew instantly that they were his. Hugh was here.
The hands lifted. He came around the back of the couch and stood in front of me. “It’s all right, Miranda. You’re all right.”
I stared at him and could only repeat what he had said, because it was true. “I’m all right.” We looked at each other and I had nothing to say. I understood nothing but I was all right.
“You’re not allowed to kill yourself. When you burned the wood, you could only give them back what was theirs. Now you have the rest of your life. That belongs to you.”
I looked at him. I nodded. All right. Anything was all right.
“Thank you, Miranda. You did an incredible thing.”
I looked at him and I was empty as death, empty as an old heart that’s just biding its time.
Somehow, from some place I didn’t know I had, I was able to whisper, “What now?”
“Now you live, my sweetheart.” He smiled and it was the saddest smile I had ever seen.
“All right.”
He reached into his jacket pocket and took out something. He offered it to me. Another piece of wood. A small long silvery piece that looked like driftwood. Wood that had been floating in some unimaginable sea for a thousand years. I turned it over in my hand, examining it carefully. Shapeless, silvery, soft, old. Yes, it must have been driftwood.
When I looked up again Hugh was gone.
THERE WAS A nice song on the radio years ago. They played it too much but I didn’t mind because it kept me company and I’m always grateful for that, I often found myself humming it without realizing. The title was “How Do I Live Without You?”
I have come to realize this is an essential lesson: In order to survive, you must learn to live without everything. Optimism dies first, then love, and finally hope. But still you must continue. If you were to ask me why, I would say that even without those fundamental things, the great things, the hot-blood-in-the-veins things, there is still enough in a day, in a life, to be precious, important, sometimes even fulfilling. How do I live without you? I put you in the museum of my heart where I often go, absorbing as much as I can bear before closing time.
What more can I tell you that you need to know beyond what I already have? I had a life. I never married, had no children, met two good men I might have loved, but after what I had experienced, it was impossible. I was proud of myself though, because I honestly tried with real hope and an open heart to fall in love again. No good.
I went back to selling books and I did well. Sometimes I was even able to lose myself in what I was doing, and that was when I was happiest. All the time I thought of Frances Hatch and how she had done it—lived a full and interesting life after she had cut the thread. So many times I wished I could have spoken with her, but she died three days after we last met.
Zoe married Doug Auerbach and they were happy for a long time. When he died ten years ago, I moved out to California to live with her. We became quintessential L.A. old ladies. We ate only free-range chicken and took too many vitamins. We spent too much time in malls, went to aerobics classes for seniors, wore thicker and thicker eyeglasses as the visual world became foggier and surrounded by increasingly soft edges. We made a life and watched the sun set over it.
I always woke earlier than she and made the coffee. But she was punctual, and by nine every morning she joined me in the backyard to read the newspaper and talk about what needed doing that day. We had a garden, there were a few friends, and we reminisced unendingly. Of course I never told her any of my real story.
For my birthday one year she bought me a pocket telephone. On the package was a note she had written that said, “Now you’ll really be a California gal!” When I opened the box and saw what it was, I asked who on earth would ever call me? Zoe said sexily, “You never know!” And I loved her for her optimism and I loved her for the lie. I knew she had given it to me because she was worried. I had been having fainting spells, swoonsshe liked to call them, and they were getting worse. My doctor, an Irishman named Keane, joked that I had the blood pressure of an iguana. Sometimes I pretended I wasn’t feeling well just so I could visit him.
But death winds the clock and one morning Zoe didn’t show up for coffee. She was a robust woman and I don’t think she was ever sick the whole time we lived together. When I went into her room at ten-thirty that morning and saw her lying peacefully on her side in bed, I knew. Her children, neither of whom had even the slightest trace of her goodwill and energy, came to the funeral but left on the first plane out.
12. STORIES WRITTEN IN THE SNOW
We returned to Crane’s View the way we had come. Passing the drive-in theater, I worried that something would again be playing on the giant screen, but it was blank. Erik continued talking about his son. I asked questions to keep the conversation going. I didn’t want to think about what to do because I knew my whole life would depend on that decision once we got home.
“Do you mind if I smoke?” he asked.
“No. God, cigarettes! I’d love one too.”
He pulled a pack of Marlboros from beneath his sun visor and handed them to me. “I think I got two left in there. Have a look.”
I slid them out.
He pushed in the cigarette lighter on the dashboard. “All the things we’re not supposed to do anymore, huh? You know what I say? Cigarettes are gooood!”
The lighter popped out and he handed it to me. I lit up for the first time in years and took a deep drag. The smoke was harsh and raw in my throat but delicious. We sat in a nice silence, smoking and watching things pass by.
“There’s a 7-eleven up here a-ways. Would you mind if I made a quick stop and bought more smokes and some other things? I told the wife I’d bring them home and she’ll be real mad if I don’t.”
“Please, of course stop.”
He sighed. “That’s one of the bad things that’s happened since Isaac died. Nina gets real upset about small things. Before, she was as calm as summer, but now if even the slightest thing goes wrong, she has trouble with it. I can’t blame her. I guess we miss people in our own ways.
“Me, I think about all the things I’ll never be able to do with the boy. Take him to see the Knicks, watch him graduate from school. Sometimes when I’m alone in the house, I go up to his room and sit on the bed. I talk to him too, you know? Tell him what’s been going on in the family, and how much I miss him. I know it’s stupid, but I keep thinking he’s near me in that room. Nina cleaned it out completely after he died, so it’s only a small empty place now, but I can’t help thinking he’s around there sometimes and maybe can hear me.”
“What do you miss most, Erik? What do you miss most about him?” A question I had asked myself again and again since Hugh’s death.
“The hugs. That kid was a hugger. He’d grab hold of you tight as a vise and squeeze. Not many people really hug you.” He smiled sadly. It looked like his whole life these days was in that smile. “There aren’t that many people in life who really love you either.”
I felt my throat swell and I had to look away.
“I’m sorry, Miranda. I’m just talking. There’s the place. I’ll be out in a minute.”
We slowed and pulled into a large parking lot. The store was brilliantly lit. It glowed, and the vivid colors of the products on the shelves radiated out into the night. I watched Erik walk in. He stopped to speak with the man behind the counter and in a moment both were laughing. I looked around the lot. There was only one other vehicle parked there, an old pickup truck that looked like it had traveled to World War Three and back. I twisted the rearview mirror to have a look at myself and was surprised to see my head was still on my shoulders and I didn’t have big Xs over my eyes like some cartoon character that’s just been knocked out.
I saw something out of the corner of my eye. Far across the parking lot, a kid on a bicycle came weaving slowly into view. My first thought was, What’s he doing out so late, but as he got closer my mind froze. It was Erik Peterson’s son Isaac.
He was dressed in an orange-and-blue windbreaker and faded jeans. Riding in loopy circles around the lot, he got closer and closer to the car. I knew who he was, but since I could not believe it, I looked again at the picture on the dashboard. It was him. Inside the store, Erik had disappeared back among the shelves. Outside, twenty feet away, his dead son rode a bicycle.
I opened the door and swiveled to get out. The boy stopped abruptly and put his feet down to keep from tipping. Looking at me, he shook his head. Don’t move. I stayed where I was and he slowly rolled over.
“That’s my Dad in there.” His voice was high and sweet. He lisped.
“Yes.”
“He’s nice, huh?”
“He’s… He loves you very much.”
“I know. He talks to me all the time. But I can’t talk back. It’s not allowed.”
“Can I tell him you’re here?”
“No. He couldn’t see me anyway. Only you. Remember you saw me before? When you were driving the other way, I was racing you. I kept up with you pretty long. I mean, I’m pretty fast for my age.”
He was so sure of himself, this ten-year-old big talker out for a spin on his bike at night, checking to see if anyone was watching. It wrung my heart.
“You know Declan?” he asked.
“Yes.”
A green Porsche growled in off the street and stopped a few feet away. A woman wearing a man’s fedora got out. Looking straight ahead, she walked into the store.
“Women are the stones you use to build a house, men are the sticks you use to start the fire and keep the house warm.”
Distracted by the jarring noise of the car, I wasn’t sure I’d heard what he said. “Excuse me?”
“That’s what Declan’s father said.”
I stiffened. “You’ve seen him?”
“Sure. He and Declan are together all the time. He said that today when Declan asked the difference between men and women. They were talking about why Declan never got to be born.
“See you!”
Erik came out of the store carrying a brown bag and glancing over his shoulder. Pushing the bike backward, the boy came within two feet of his father. He looked at the man as he walked past. He reached out a hand and pretended to slap his arm.
Erik stopped. For a moment I was sure he knew who was there. Isaac watched him with calm eyes. Erik moved to the left, stopped, moved to the right. He was dancing! He turned in a circle. “Do you hear it, Miranda? From inside the store? Martha and the Vandellas. ‘Dancing in the Streets.’” He continued swaying back and forth as he approached the car. “One of my favorite songs. Isaac loved it too. I hear it all the time now. Funny. More than ever before, I think.” He opened the back door and laid the grocery bag on the seat. “You ready to go?”
The boy nodded at me, so I said yes. His father got in and started the motor. “I got everything. Some more cigarettes too if you want one.”
“Erik, if you could, what would you say to Isaac if he was here right now?”
Without hesitation he said, “I’d say I’m living, but I’m not alive without you.”
ONE OF HUGH’S favorite quotes was from St. Augustine: “Whisper in my heart, tell me you are there.” I suppose it has to do with God and his unwillingness to show his face to man. But in light of what had happened, I took it to mean something entirely different. I was sure “Women are the stones you use to build a house, men are the sticks…” was meant for me, not Declan. I was sure Hugh was whispering in myheart, suggesting what to do. I had already come to the same conclusion by then but his words only strengthened my resolve.
When we arrived in Crane’s View and Erik dropped me off, I entered the house no longer frightened or upset. There is a calmness that comes with surrender. A peace that actually revitalizes when you know there is no other way. I knew what to do now, and no matter what happened to me afterwards, the child would be safe. That was all that mattered—the child would be safe. I would give it what I had, willingly!
The house was spotless, no sign of anything that happened there earlier. I walked into the kitchen and remembered it had all begun after I’d made myself dinner—how many hours, days, lifetimes ago? When I turned on the television and saw Charlotte, Declan, and Hugh by the swimming pool.
So what? It had to begin somewhere and that’s where it did. Move on. Other things to think about now. Hunger shook a scolding finger at me and I knew I would have to eat before doing it. Opening the refrigerator door, I was greeted by an incredible array of the most extraordinary and exotic food—Iranian caviar, a box of pastries from a place called Demel in Vienna, plover eggs, Tunisian capers, olives from Mt. Athos, fresh Scottish salmon, Bombay lemon pickle, more. I had bought none of it, much less tasted most of the food on those shelves, but it didn’t surprise me. The time for surprises was over. I sniffed and sampled a great deal before choosing a fresh baguette, prosciutto cut thin as tissue paper, and the most delicate mozzarella I had ever tasted. The sandwich was delicious and I ate it quickly.
There was a bottle of Lambrusco too, one of Hugh’s favorite wines. I opened it and poured some into a small glass that had once held creamed chipped beef. Odd as it may sound, I wanted to toast something. That’s what you’re supposed to do at the end of the banquet, aren’t you? Toast the host, the lucky couple, the birthday girl or the glorious country. But what could I toast on this, the last night of some preposterous part of my existence? My past lives? Here’s to all the good and bad times I had but forgot and learned nothing from. Here’s to all the people I knew and hurt—sorry folks, I can’t remember any of you. Or how about, Here’s to me—however many of us there have been.
Hugh taught me an Irish toast:
May those who love us love us.
And those that don’t love us,
May God turn their hearts.
And if he doesn’t turn their hearts
May he turn their ankles
So we’ll know them by their limping.
One toast came to me that was appropriate. I lifted my glass and said to the empty room, “Here’s to you and the lives you lead. I hope you find your way home faster than I did.” I drank slowly and emptied the glass.
On the floor in Hugh’s workroom was a cardboard box filled with tools and chemicals he used to restore things. I went through it, pulling out the many different bottles, reading the labels, choosing the ones that contained alcohol or any kind of flammable substance. Our house was made of wood. It would go up quickly. I went around the ground floor pouring the strong-smelling chemicals over everything. Hugh’s new chair, a couch, boxes of books, the wooden floors.
I kept spilling and watching the liquids stain new fabric, pool on the wooden floor, eat into a turquoise plastic Sky King ashtray I had given Hugh as a present. When all of the bottles and cans were empty, I stood in the front hall smelling the incredible stink of all those deadly chemicals splashed over everything in the world that had mattered to me.
I went to a window and looked out onto the porch. A car drove by outside. A white car. It reminded me of a white horse. Heroes rode white horses, heroic knights. That reminded me of Hugh’s unfinished story about the plain-looking knight who fell so in love with the princess that he was willing to sacrifice everything for her. How he went to the devils and traded them his courage for her happiness. I remembered the last line of his incomplete story. “Life is full of surprises, but if you’re convinced all of them will be bad, what’s the point of going on?” I wanted no more surprises. I didn’t trust them, any more than I believed I would be able to change anything for the better if I continued living. I would give up my immortality to the child and then I would finish it.
Still staring out the window, I felt ebullient and relieved. The world was mine because I no longer wanted to be in it. I could do this tonight or tomorrow or next week. It didn’t matter when because the decision had been made and was final. No, it had to be tonight. I did not want tomorrow. I went looking for matches.
What was the name of that famous children’s book? Goodnight Moon. Good night Hugh. Good night Frances Hatch, good night Crane’s View, good night life. My thoughts chanted these lines as I searched for matches. Good night Erik Peterson and Isaac. Good night beautiful books and long dinners with someone you love. Good night this and this and this and this as I wandered through the house. The list got longer and longer as I slid open drawers and cupboards looking for something to burn up the world in which these things existed.
Just as I began to grow frustrated, I remembered seeing a pack of matches in Hugh’s box of chemicals. A half-empty pack with green writing announcing Charlie’s Pizza. The place where we’d had lunch with Frances the first day we visited Crane’s View. The first time I saw Declan. The first time we met Frannie McCabe. First time. First time and now the last time. I would never see Declan or Frannie again. Never see this this that. A spotted dog or a marmalade cat. Goodnight life.
I found the matches and stood up, wondering only where to do it. The living room. Sit on the couch, start the fire there and finish. The walk from Hugh’s room to the living room seemed five miles long. It felt like I was walking underwater. Not bad or disturbing, only slow-motion and incredibly detailed. I saw everything around me with extreme clarity. Was it because this was the last time I would see these things? Good night hall with the beautiful wood floors. Hugh got down on his knees right there and, sliding his hand back and forth over that floor, looked up at me with the happiest smile. “This is all ours now,” he said, his voice full of wonder. Good night staircase. Stopping, I looked up and remembered the day we had made love at the top. I wished I could smell Hugh in that final air. Would I see him where I was going? How wonderful to smell him one last time. I looked up the stairs and remembered him on top of me, his weight, the softness of his lips on my throat, his thumbs holding down my hands. He’d had keys in his jeans pocket that day. When he moved on me they cut into my hip. I asked him to take them out. He tossed them across the floor. They rang out as they hit and slid. Good night keys.
In the living room I stared into the empty fireplace a moment and then put my hand in my pocket. It was there. It was time, so I took it out. Because of all the mad things happening when I picked it up in the basement at Hugh’s silent urging, I hadn’t looked carefully at the piece of wood I now held in my hand. I had more or less forgotten about it until I was standing in the lobby of Fieberglas talking to the nurse about Frances. Then the only way I can describe what happened is that the wood came to methe way a good idea or real fear comes. All at once, as if through every pore in your body. Yes, it had been in my pocket the whole time, but suddenly I became aware of its presence again. Or maybe I just remembered it and, in doing so, grasped its real importance and what to do with it. A small piece of wood about seven inches long. Dark on three sides, light on the other. The side where it had broken off the baby’s crib when McCabe/Shumda threw it against the wall.
There was a fragment of a figure carved on it, but the way the wood had snapped off made it impossible to decipher what it was. The back half of a running animal. A deer perhaps, or a mythological creature that fit the rest of the extravagant, fantastical world that had been carved on that wonderful old cradle. Our child’s cradle, our baby girl. I thought of her, the only sight of her I would ever have. Then I thought of Declan and what his father had said. And I knew what I had to do, and it was right, but if I were to somehow survive what was about to happen, I would regret doing it forever. I looked at the wood in my hand and because I felt I had no other choice I said, “I’m sorry.” I had two pieces of wood to burn. Two pieces for my marriage of sticks: The one in my hand from the cradle, and the one from Central Park I had picked up the day we knew it was going to happen. Two sticks were enough for a marriage. More would have been better. I would have loved to have a huge bundle of them for a world-sized bonfire when I was eighty years old and at the satisfied end of a marvelous life. But I had only these two and they would have to be enough. They were important though—as important as anything. One symbolized Hugh, this one our child. Where in the house was the Hugh stick? I thought but then realized it didn’t matter because soon it would be gone too.
Without knowing why, I knew when I lit it, this wood would ignite as if it were made of pure gasoline. Breaking off a match from the pack, I put it to the striking pad and flicked my hand. A flame snapped open, flaring and hissing a second before taming down to the size of a fingernail. Lit match in one hand, the wood in the other. Good night life.
I looked up one last time. At the window were faces. Many many many of them. Some were pressed to the glass, distorting their features—bent noses, comical lips. Others hovered in the background, waiting their turn to get close as they could to the window, to this room, to me. And I knew all of the faces wereme, all the me’s from past lives who had come to watch this happen. To watch the end of their line, last stop, everybody out.
“Good-bye.” Calmly I put the match to the wood and the world exploded.
I heard the blast and saw a blinding flash of light. Then utter silence. I don’t know how long it lasted. I was somewhere else until I was back in the living room, sitting by myself on the couch, holding both empty hands in the air in total surprise. It took time to realize where I was and of course I did not believe it. Everything was so still. My eyes readjusted to the normal light in the room and the colors, the things around me, everything was exactly as it had been.
I dropped my hands to the couch and felt its rough wool beneath my palms. Turning my head slowly from side to side, I took in the view. Nothing had changed. Frances’s house, our possessions, home again. Even the smell was the same.
No, there was something else. Hugh. Hugh’s cologne was in the air. Then I felt hands on my shoulders and knew instantly that they were his. Hugh was here.
The hands lifted. He came around the back of the couch and stood in front of me. “It’s all right, Miranda. You’re all right.”
I stared at him and could only repeat what he had said, because it was true. “I’m all right.” We looked at each other and I had nothing to say. I understood nothing but I was all right.
“You’re not allowed to kill yourself. When you burned the wood, you could only give them back what was theirs. Now you have the rest of your life. That belongs to you.”
I looked at him. I nodded. All right. Anything was all right.
“Thank you, Miranda. You did an incredible thing.”
I looked at him and I was empty as death, empty as an old heart that’s just biding its time.
Somehow, from some place I didn’t know I had, I was able to whisper, “What now?”
“Now you live, my sweetheart.” He smiled and it was the saddest smile I had ever seen.
“All right.”
He reached into his jacket pocket and took out something. He offered it to me. Another piece of wood. A small long silvery piece that looked like driftwood. Wood that had been floating in some unimaginable sea for a thousand years. I turned it over in my hand, examining it carefully. Shapeless, silvery, soft, old. Yes, it must have been driftwood.
When I looked up again Hugh was gone.
THERE WAS A nice song on the radio years ago. They played it too much but I didn’t mind because it kept me company and I’m always grateful for that, I often found myself humming it without realizing. The title was “How Do I Live Without You?”
I have come to realize this is an essential lesson: In order to survive, you must learn to live without everything. Optimism dies first, then love, and finally hope. But still you must continue. If you were to ask me why, I would say that even without those fundamental things, the great things, the hot-blood-in-the-veins things, there is still enough in a day, in a life, to be precious, important, sometimes even fulfilling. How do I live without you? I put you in the museum of my heart where I often go, absorbing as much as I can bear before closing time.
What more can I tell you that you need to know beyond what I already have? I had a life. I never married, had no children, met two good men I might have loved, but after what I had experienced, it was impossible. I was proud of myself though, because I honestly tried with real hope and an open heart to fall in love again. No good.
I went back to selling books and I did well. Sometimes I was even able to lose myself in what I was doing, and that was when I was happiest. All the time I thought of Frances Hatch and how she had done it—lived a full and interesting life after she had cut the thread. So many times I wished I could have spoken with her, but she died three days after we last met.
Zoe married Doug Auerbach and they were happy for a long time. When he died ten years ago, I moved out to California to live with her. We became quintessential L.A. old ladies. We ate only free-range chicken and took too many vitamins. We spent too much time in malls, went to aerobics classes for seniors, wore thicker and thicker eyeglasses as the visual world became foggier and surrounded by increasingly soft edges. We made a life and watched the sun set over it.
I always woke earlier than she and made the coffee. But she was punctual, and by nine every morning she joined me in the backyard to read the newspaper and talk about what needed doing that day. We had a garden, there were a few friends, and we reminisced unendingly. Of course I never told her any of my real story.
For my birthday one year she bought me a pocket telephone. On the package was a note she had written that said, “Now you’ll really be a California gal!” When I opened the box and saw what it was, I asked who on earth would ever call me? Zoe said sexily, “You never know!” And I loved her for her optimism and I loved her for the lie. I knew she had given it to me because she was worried. I had been having fainting spells, swoonsshe liked to call them, and they were getting worse. My doctor, an Irishman named Keane, joked that I had the blood pressure of an iguana. Sometimes I pretended I wasn’t feeling well just so I could visit him.
But death winds the clock and one morning Zoe didn’t show up for coffee. She was a robust woman and I don’t think she was ever sick the whole time we lived together. When I went into her room at ten-thirty that morning and saw her lying peacefully on her side in bed, I knew. Her children, neither of whom had even the slightest trace of her goodwill and energy, came to the funeral but left on the first plane out.
12. STORIES WRITTEN IN THE SNOW
THE DOORBELL rang. The old woman looked up quickly from the notebook and frowned. She did not want to be interrupted, especially not now when she was so very close to finishing. What an amazing notion—soon she would be done.
No one ever rang her doorbell anyway, that was a given. Once in a great while someone wearing a brown United Parcel Service uniform brought her a package from Lands’ End or another of the mail-order companies that supplied her with sturdy practical clothes made out of warm materials like Polartec or goose down. She needed all the warmth she could get because her body felt cold almost constantly now, despite the fact that she was living in the desert heat of Los Angeles. Sometimes at night she even wore a pair of electric blue Polartec gloves while watching television. If someone had seen her they would have thought she was crazy, but she was only cold. More than wisdom, irony, grace, or peace, old age had brought cold, and she was never really able to escape it.
Pausing a moment, she remembered she had ordered nothing, so whoever was at her door now could only be mistaken or a nuisance. Would you like to subscribe to this magazine? Would you like to believe in my God? Would you happen to have a dollar for a guy down on his luck?
The bell rang again—so loud and annoying – ding-dong ding-dong! There was no way to avoid it. Grimacing, she put down Hugh’s fountain pen and reached for the cane leaning against her desk.
She was fat now. Recently she had even begun calling herself that, although she’d known it for a long time. She was an old woman who had grown much too fat. She liked to sit. After Zoe died she had stopped going to exercise class. She liked cookies. Hugh once said, “Eating is sex for old people.” Now it was true for her.
Her knees were weak. And her hips and God knows what else. It was an effort getting up or sitting down. When you were as old as she was, everything was an effort, and when you weighed twenty-five pounds too much you did a lot more with a groan than ever before. The year she died, Zoe had given Miranda the cane for Christmas. It was a very nice one too—made of oak and slightly crooked, so that it had a kind of jaunty character. It reminded her of something an Irishman would use. Ireland. Hugh always said he was going to take her to Ireland—
The doorbell rang again. Damn! She was sure she was almost finished writing her story, but now this interruption would disturb her train of thought. She didn’t know if she’d be able to get back into it later. Writing demanded her full attention. More and more, her memory played hide-and-seek with her. She felt compelled to get everything down on paper as soon as she could before something inevitable and dreadful like a stroke or Alzheimer’s disease roared into her brain and like a vacuum cleaner sucked it empty.
Leaning hard on the cane with one hand and pushing down on the desk with the other, she raised herself out of the chair. After a few small, unsteady, dangerous steps, she moved slowly across the shadowy room.
The room never got full sunlight. She liked it that way. She kept two lamps burning in there almost all the time. At night when she was exhausted and going to bed she would walk out and leave them on on purpose. She liked thinking her workroom was always lit. As if some kind of bright spirit was in there guarding the important things like the diary and her thoughts. Yes, she felt she left her most important thoughts in that room because it was where she did all of her diary writing. How silly. The silly thoughts of a silly old woman.
That’s what she was thinking as she gradually made her way across the house to the front door. Who could it be? Why did they have to come calling now? What time was it anyway? She stopped walking and looked at her watch. It was an enormous thing, the watch with the largest face in the store—bought so that she could read the time without having to put on her glasses.
“Wow!” It was five in the afternoon. She had been writing for hours. That was good news because it meant she was inspired, anxious to know how she would end her account. That end was so near now. She felt she could reach out and touch it. When she was done, Alzheimer’s or heart attack or whatever horror could take over and she wouldn’t care. Really, she wouldn’t care.
She peeked through the window in the front door but saw no one. If this was a prank by a neighborhood kid—ring the bell and run—she would be annoyed. But better that, because then she could go right back to work. Or maybe she would make one quick detour into the kitchen to see—the bell rang again. How could it? She had just looked and no one was there. A short circuit? Whoever heard of a doorbell short-circuiting?
Maybe someone was trying to trick her into opening the door. These were dangerous times. Terrible things happened to old women living alone. They were such easy prey. Watch the news any night and it was easy to be frightened. She had many locks on her door, but so what? Life had certainly taught herharm comes in any door it wants and doesn’t need a key. Yes, she grew quickly worried, but again it was only because she hadn’t finished her diary. Her prayer, if she had been a religious woman, would have been, “Please let me finish. Give me the strength and the time to finish. The rest is yours.”
Uneasily, she peeked again through the window in the door and saw something odd. The first time she had looked only straight ahead. Now she moved from side to side and saw that the steps leading to her front door were covered with cookies.
“Waa—” bewildered she pressed up closer for a better view. Cookies. That’s right. From the sidewalk across the small but perfectly kept front yard to the door were sixteen octagonal paving stones. She had liked those stones the moment she first saw them. They reminded her of an English country cottage or a magical path in a fairy tale. Zoe had liked them too, and when it was necessary to dig up the entire yard years ago to repair the septic tank, both women insisted the workers replace the stones exactly where they’d been.
Now cookies covered each one. Well, not exactly covered. With her bad eyes, she could clearly see five of the stones leading to the house. On each stone were four? Yes, four cookies, big ones, like the kind Mrs. Fields and Dave’s sold in their stores. Miranda loved them. Chocolate chips. With dark or light chocolate chunks, macadamia nuts… it didn’t matter. She loved big chocolate chip cookies and here they were on her front walk!
An unfamiliar dalmatian loped onto her lawn in a hurry to get somewhere. But he must have caught their scent because, slamming on his brakes, he started gobbling. Dogs don’t eat when they’re excited, they inhale, and this guy was no exception. He ate so fast, jumping from stone to stone, that Miranda began to giggle. She didn’t know who’d put them there but she doubted they meant the cookies for this fellow.
“Follow the yellow brick cookie. They’re your favorites, right?”
She froze. The voice came from directly behind her. She didn’t know this voice, but it was a man’s and it was definitely right behind her, nearher.
“Don’t you recognize him? It’s Bob the dalmatian. Hugh and Charlotte’s dog. Say hi to Bob.”
He spoke calmly, his voice quiet but amused. She had to turn around because there was nothing else she could do.
Shumda stood five feet away wearing a gray sweatshirt with “Skidmore” printed across the front, jeans, and elaborate blue running shoes. He had not aged at all from the last time she had seen him, decades ago.
“I had a whole little scene planned out with a follow-the-yellow-brick motif but it didn’t include old Bob. Cause I know you loves dem cookies.”
What could she say? It was all over. The time had come for her to die. Why else would Shumda have come? How many years had it been? How many thousands of days had passed since she last saw this handsome bad man on the porch of the house in Crane’s View, New York?
“What do you want?”
He touched both hands to his chest and put on a wounded expression. “Me? I don’t want anything. I’m here on assignment. I’ve been given orders.”
“You’ve come for me?”
“Voilа. Es muss sein.”
“Where… What are you going to do?”
“I’ve come to take you for a ride in my new car. It’s a Dodge! I asked for a Mercedes but they gave me a Dodge.”
She hated his voice. It was a nice one, deep and low, but the tone was mocking and arrogant. He spoke to her as if she were a stupid child who knew nothing.
“You don’t have to address me like that. I’ll do what you say.” It came out hard, steely.
He didn’t like that. His eyes widened and lips tightened. Something between them had shifted and he hadn’t been prepared for that. He’d probably expected her to whine or beg, but that wasn’t her way. His unsure expression changed to a leer and suddenly he was back in charge. “I told you I was coming, Miranda. A long time ago. Don’t you remember that dog you liked that was set on fire?”
“That was you?”
“Yes. I thought for sure you’d know that it was I with thatone. What bigger hint did you need? Don’t you remember that Frances saved me by burning a dog?”
“You killed a dog just to tell me you were coming?”
“It was dramatic but obviously not very effective. Anyway, we have to go now. You won’t need to take anything. We’re not going far.”
The fear came. It rushed up through her like water and she immediately began to tremble. She hated herself for it. Despite the staggering fear, she hated herself for letting this appalling man see her shake. She started a deep breath that stopped halfway down her throat because she was so afraid. Still she managed to say “May I take something with me?”
“You want to pack?”
“No, I want to take one thing with me. It’s in the other room.”
He looked at her a long tormenting moment, then smirked. “Do I get three guesses? Is it bigger than a breadbox? Go on, but hurry up.”
Somehow she mustered her meager energy and shuffled toward the back of the house. Thank God she had the cane, because her body now felt like stone. It did not want to move; it did not know how to walk anymore. But she moved. She walked slowly and unsteadily down the hall to her workroom.
She went in and for several seconds stared at the desk and on it the open diary. She would never finish. She would never be able to complete it and put it away in a safe place where one day they would find it and know the whole story. Never. All over. Finished.
“All right. It’s okay. Just walk away.” She said it out loud as she walked over to a dresser pushed up against a wall. She slid the top drawer out and reached in for the piece of wood. The silver piece of wood Hugh had given her the last time she saw him. She had since collected other pieces over her long life, but they would have to stay here. She didn’t know what she would do with it wherever she was going but she needed to have it with her. Closing her fingers over it, she left the room.
Shumda was waiting by the front door. When he saw her he opened it. Bending forward at the waist, he gestured with an exaggerated sweep of his arm for her to go first. She shuffled forward, leaning hard on her cane. She was so scared. Her knees ached. Where were they going? She heard him close the door. Gently taking her arm, he helped her down the one step to the front yard. The dog was gone and so were the cookies. A few minutes ago it was all strange and funny—chocolate chip cookies on her footpath—but now funny was gone. Soon everything would be gone.
They walked to the street, where he told her to wait. He strode away and around the corner. She looked at the sky. An airplane had left a thin white contrail across the blue. A car peeled out somewhere, its long screech filling her ears. Then it was silent, and soon some birds began singing.
A shiny green van drove up and stopped in front of her. Shumda was at the wheel wearing a San Diego Padres baseball cap. He got out, opened the passenger’s door, and helped her in. She had trouble getting into cars but rode in them so rarely now that it made no difference.
“Where are we going?”
“It’s a surprise.”
“I don’t want a surprise. Just tell me. At least give me that.”
“Be quiet, Miranda. Sit back and enjoy the ride. You haven’t been outside in a long time.”
Folding her hands in her lap she looked out the window. When Shumda spoke again she ignored him, wouldn’t even turn to look. As soon as he realized she wouldn’t respond, he chattered on nonstop. Told her what he had been doing all these years, told her what shehad been doing all these years (“They said to keep tabs on you”), told her everything she didn’t want to hear. She looked out the window and tried with all her might to ignore him. If this was to be her last ride, she didn’t want his voice nattering in her ear. A hamburger stand, a gas station. Why had it come so abruptly? Couldn’t they have given her some warning? A day. If they had given her one more day she could have finished everything and been waiting at the door when he arrived. A yellow convertible driven by a beautiful brunette passed them. Then a Volkswagen that looked as though it had been driven around the world six times. The driver was a man with a shaved head. His hands danced back and forth across the top of the steering wheel. A used book store. One day would have been enough. Today while she was working, her stomach had knotted up several times because she knew in her secret self that she would be finished soon, and then what would she do with her days? Why had Shumda been watching her for years? She was no threat. She had never been a threat. Besides, all thathad been so long ago. Soon after it was over she’d started forgetting things and despite having written this diary, so many memories of that time were like Greek ruins to her by now.
She had never planned to reread her account, but riding along now she grew furious that she would never even have the choice. All that work, but now she could not go back to relive for a while certain experiences that she might already have forgotten. How much can an old brain hold before it begins to spring leaks from the weight of so many years?
Honey-cooked hams, discount sunglasses, Mansfield Avenue, street signs all flew by the car window. He was driving faster now. Where were they going? She remembered Frances Hatch in her hospital room surrounded by flowers.
Maybe Shumda would drive her someplace but then drive her home again. A flutter, a hummingbird’s heartbeat of hope raced through her but was gone just as quickly. It was over. Whatever he had waiting for her would be appropriate and terrible, she was sure. She remembered walking back into Frances’s room and seeing her crying.
He turned left on La Brea and accelerated. Evening was beginning. The sky was still bright but when they walked to the car from her house the air had been cool and still, already starting to settle for the night. Down La Brea past the cheap furniture stores, cheap drugstores, cheap fast-food places. More people stood out on the sidewalks here waiting for buses, waiting for friends, waiting for some kind of luck or change that would never come.
Miranda had been lucky and she knew it. She had traveled, she’d had an interesting job and been her own boss. She’d made money. For a short time she knew and was loved by a remarkable man. Hugh. If this was the end, she wanted to spend it thinking about Hugh Oakley. As if he knew what she was trying to do, Shumda interrupted her.
“Why did you do it?”
“Why did I do what?” Her voice came out cranky—she wasn’t interested in answering his questions, especially not now when there was so little time left.
He lifted a hand off the wheel and let it fall back again.
“You’re not alone, you know. There were others who did what you did. But I’m just interested, you know? What would possess anyone to voluntarily give up the life you had for this one?” His hand rose again off the wheel and batted the air as if flicking away a fly. “And you didn’t even know who you were giving it to! That’s incredible. You handed over your immortality to a stranger. Someone you never even met!”
Coming to a red traffic light they slowed to a stop. He glanced at her and made a face. She ignored him and looked straight ahead. The light changed but instead of accelerating, Shumda continued watching her.
Eventually she said, more to herself than to him, “I never really thought about it. The moment came and it had to be. That’s all. Isn’t that interesting? I was always fighting with myself—my head, my heart. Sometimes one won, sometimes the other. But with that there was no fight. There wasn’t even a question.” The old woman beamed. Her whole demeanor changed, as if whatever inner storms had been raging had now passed and she was at peace. Shumda had never seen anyone in her position at peace, and he had seen his share. Oh yes, he had seen quite a few.
“Life is about to spit in your face, Miranda. I wouldn’t be too smiley about that.”
They were silent the rest of the ride. To her great satisfaction, out of the corner of her eye she observed that he kept looking at her to see if her expression would change—if the enormity of whatever terrible thing was about to happen to her had finally sunk in. Why hadn’tthe great final fear wrapped her in its arms as it always did with the people he had escorted to their destruction?
It took another ten minutes. He kept looking over but her pleased expression never changed. All right, so it didn’t change. Wait till she got there. Wait till she saw what waited!
The road suddenly became hilly and there were oil wells all up and down those hills doing their slow work. The land was khaki-colored, sun-parched. It was a strange part of Los Angeles, neither here nor there, a kind of oddly empty no-man’s land between downtown and the airport.
Signaling with his blinker, Shumda slowly merged into the right lane and then pulled off the road onto the shoulder. He cut the engine and sat there, savoring what came next. He grinned at her. “Remember this spot?”
Miranda looked around. “No.”
“You will.” He opened his door and got out of the van. It was all she could do not to watch him. He walked around to the back and opened the two rear doors. She heard him push and slide something metallic.
“Be with you in just a sec. Sit tight.”
Slowly reaching up, she twisted the rearview mirror so she could look out the back. He was fooling around with something and it took her a moment to realize what it was. He did something and the thing went pop and suddenly unfolded into a wheelchair.
Cars zoomed by, some close, others far away, all of them loud and smooth, rushing and dangerous. And then of course it dawned on her.
So many years ago she was in one of these speeding cars on her way to Los Angeles airport. She had been in bed with Doug Auerbach that day and afterwards they went to a big drugstore together. Afterwards she rode to the airport in a taxicab and the driver, like Shumda now, wore a San Diego Padres baseball cap. She was so young then, so young and busy, and she hadn’t met Hugh Oakley yet. She hadn’t met Hugh Oakley and she hadn’t seen dead James Stillman alive again. She was flying back to New York that night and only days later her entire life changed forever. So long ago. All of it so long ago, but now all of that day and what followed was crushing her and she couldn’t stop the memories and the results, all of them crystal clear.
Shumda pushed the wheelchair around to her side of the car and stood there waiting.
When they drove to the airport that night so long ago, it was just about this time. She remembered the woman sitting in a wheelchair by the side of the road.
“Let’s go, Miranda. Time to watch the traffic.”
But there was no traffic. Unbelievably, all of the cars had disappeared from the road, every last one of them. A strange silence surrounded them, as if the sounds of the world had simply vanished.
“I can open the door and pull you out, or you can get out and make things easier for both of us.”
“What are you going to do?”
“Nothing. I’m going to put you in this chair and I’m going to leave. And you’ll be alone. To tell you the truth, I have absolutely no idea what’ll happen next. But I’m sure it won’t be pleasant. It never is.”
“Shumda, was it me? Was it me that night, here, in the wheelchair?”
“I don’t know. I just do what I’m told. Let’s go, get out.”
To her great surprise, the only thought she had was, Do whatever is in front of you and do it fully. Commit yourself to the moment and if you are lucky—
Her door was flung open. He took her roughly by the arm. “Don’t touch me!” She pulled away from him and slowly heaved herself out of the van.
The road was empty. Up on a hill an oil well pumped, and now she could hear the roll and heave of the machine. A flock of sparrows fled across the sky cheeping loudly. Those were the only sounds—the machine and the sparrows. She made it over to the wheelchair and, taking hold of the two arms, lowered herself into it. The seat was much too narrow for her wide bottom. She tried to move into a more comfortable position but there wasn’t one. She gave up trying and looked up into the evening sky again. What if that night years ago they hadstopped to help the woman? Would it have changed anything? Had it been she that night? If they had stopped and she had seen the other woman, would she have recognized her?
Shumda pushed the chair closer to the road. “I’d love to stay and see what happens next to you, but I’ve got things to do.” He looked at his wristwatch. “Enjoy the silence. The cars will be back in a couple of minutes.”
He looked at her and his face showed nothing. He turned to leave.
“Shumda!”
“What?”
“Did you love her? Did you ever love Frances?”
For a moment it appeared he was about to respond. Instead he turned around and went back the van. The door was open and he reached in for something. He pulled out a red book, her red book, the diary. When had he gotten it? When had he taken it? He pretended to skim through the pages. His face grew serious and he rubbed his chin. In a perfect imitation of the silly lisp of Daffy Duck he said, “Fath-sin-atin’!” and then in a pitying voice he asked, “Did you really think thiswould change anything?” He flung the book back into the car. He got in, the engine came to life, and he was gone. She watched the van climb a hill and disappear.
Everything seemed to be holding its breath. She looked up, but the birds were gone. When she looked toward the oil pump it had stopped moving. Silence. Gripping the arms of the chair, she shut her eyes. She remembered that Hugh’s piece of wood was in her pocket, so she took it out. Everything that had ever mattered to her lived in that wood. She gripped it tightly in both hands. How smooth it was. Smooth and warm and the last thing she would ever hold. How would they do it? Would they come from behind, or from over the hill, or the other side of the road? What would it be?
She could have tried to get up and move away from there—but what was the use? If they wanted it to be tonight then it would happen tonight no matter where she was. And how far could she get on her old legs?
She thought of her diary and what she might have said to finish it. An intriguing question that might have comforted her, or taken her mind away from what was imminent. But then she heard it: the deep rumble of many cars coming her way that grew louder every second. It would be the cars. Something to do with these cars would be her end.
She wanted to close her eyes but knew she mustn’t. A moment more and it would all be over. The rushing sound grew and then she saw them. She saw them coming and had never heard anything like it. An eruption of noise so impossibly loud that it filled the world. Wham thump wham wham thump! They slashed by her at astonishing speeds: trucks, cars, motorcycles. All of them beating her down into her chair with their power and threat until she felt there was no more air to breathe.
Close. They came closer by the second. Was this it? Was this the second? Or the next? The next? Whump! Wham! Whump! Whump! The draft off their speed slammed her face, pushed her body back into the chair. She started to hyperventilate. She wanted to stick her fingers in her ears and make the sounds go away. But how could she? How could anyone block out the end of the world? She tried to swallow but there was no liquid in her mouth.
Because there were so many, she didn’t notice the blue car until it veered from its path and came right at her. Headlights straight on her face, it still didn’t really register until it flew up to within feet of her—and stopped. There was a wild shush and scrabble of sand, gravel, and dirt flying into the air all around it. Cars on the road hammered by. But now there was this one, so close. Was thisit? Time passed—seconds? And then the door opened and first she heard a shrill ting-ting-ting of a bell inside telling the passenger something was wrong.
The overhead light came on and she saw the driver inside. A man. He was staring straight at her and did not move. But then he was getting out of the car, careful to look behind so he would not be hit by the slam of oncoming traffic. He pushed the door closed but not enough to stop the ‘ting’ inside.
He walked slowly toward her. A middle-aged man. There was something in his face, something familiar but so distant and remote that her pounding heart couldn’t figure it out. Something…
“I didn’t know if I’d get here in time.”
She said nothing, only stared at him and the noise was brutal and all over but something she knew, something on the tip of her mind said, Look harder, find it. And she did. She recognized him. “ Declan?”
Only when he smiled did she know for sure it was Hugh’s son, because he wore his father’s smile. She would have recognized it if she had lived to be a million years old.
“We have to hurry, Miranda. They’re coming and I don’t know how much time we have. I’ve broken every rule in the book—”
“How did you know I was here?”
“You know everythingwhen you’re one of us. Being immortal has its advantages.” He looked worriedly behind him.
“How can you know already that you’re immortal? You’ve only lived one life! That’s why I was writing the diary! So you’d find it and know and then you could avoid—”
“ We have to go, Miranda! There’s no time. Tell me in the car. We have to get out of here right now. They’re coming.”
“Why, Declan? Why are you doing this?”
He spat out the words. “Because you gave me my life! Because you sacrificed your own daughter so that Icould live. How could I not at least try to help you?”
A pause. Recognition. Amazement.
All she could do and it was done without thinking was hold out the stick his father had given her. Declan would understand what it was.
No one ever rang her doorbell anyway, that was a given. Once in a great while someone wearing a brown United Parcel Service uniform brought her a package from Lands’ End or another of the mail-order companies that supplied her with sturdy practical clothes made out of warm materials like Polartec or goose down. She needed all the warmth she could get because her body felt cold almost constantly now, despite the fact that she was living in the desert heat of Los Angeles. Sometimes at night she even wore a pair of electric blue Polartec gloves while watching television. If someone had seen her they would have thought she was crazy, but she was only cold. More than wisdom, irony, grace, or peace, old age had brought cold, and she was never really able to escape it.
Pausing a moment, she remembered she had ordered nothing, so whoever was at her door now could only be mistaken or a nuisance. Would you like to subscribe to this magazine? Would you like to believe in my God? Would you happen to have a dollar for a guy down on his luck?
The bell rang again—so loud and annoying – ding-dong ding-dong! There was no way to avoid it. Grimacing, she put down Hugh’s fountain pen and reached for the cane leaning against her desk.
She was fat now. Recently she had even begun calling herself that, although she’d known it for a long time. She was an old woman who had grown much too fat. She liked to sit. After Zoe died she had stopped going to exercise class. She liked cookies. Hugh once said, “Eating is sex for old people.” Now it was true for her.
Her knees were weak. And her hips and God knows what else. It was an effort getting up or sitting down. When you were as old as she was, everything was an effort, and when you weighed twenty-five pounds too much you did a lot more with a groan than ever before. The year she died, Zoe had given Miranda the cane for Christmas. It was a very nice one too—made of oak and slightly crooked, so that it had a kind of jaunty character. It reminded her of something an Irishman would use. Ireland. Hugh always said he was going to take her to Ireland—
The doorbell rang again. Damn! She was sure she was almost finished writing her story, but now this interruption would disturb her train of thought. She didn’t know if she’d be able to get back into it later. Writing demanded her full attention. More and more, her memory played hide-and-seek with her. She felt compelled to get everything down on paper as soon as she could before something inevitable and dreadful like a stroke or Alzheimer’s disease roared into her brain and like a vacuum cleaner sucked it empty.
Leaning hard on the cane with one hand and pushing down on the desk with the other, she raised herself out of the chair. After a few small, unsteady, dangerous steps, she moved slowly across the shadowy room.
The room never got full sunlight. She liked it that way. She kept two lamps burning in there almost all the time. At night when she was exhausted and going to bed she would walk out and leave them on on purpose. She liked thinking her workroom was always lit. As if some kind of bright spirit was in there guarding the important things like the diary and her thoughts. Yes, she felt she left her most important thoughts in that room because it was where she did all of her diary writing. How silly. The silly thoughts of a silly old woman.
That’s what she was thinking as she gradually made her way across the house to the front door. Who could it be? Why did they have to come calling now? What time was it anyway? She stopped walking and looked at her watch. It was an enormous thing, the watch with the largest face in the store—bought so that she could read the time without having to put on her glasses.
“Wow!” It was five in the afternoon. She had been writing for hours. That was good news because it meant she was inspired, anxious to know how she would end her account. That end was so near now. She felt she could reach out and touch it. When she was done, Alzheimer’s or heart attack or whatever horror could take over and she wouldn’t care. Really, she wouldn’t care.
She peeked through the window in the front door but saw no one. If this was a prank by a neighborhood kid—ring the bell and run—she would be annoyed. But better that, because then she could go right back to work. Or maybe she would make one quick detour into the kitchen to see—the bell rang again. How could it? She had just looked and no one was there. A short circuit? Whoever heard of a doorbell short-circuiting?
Maybe someone was trying to trick her into opening the door. These were dangerous times. Terrible things happened to old women living alone. They were such easy prey. Watch the news any night and it was easy to be frightened. She had many locks on her door, but so what? Life had certainly taught herharm comes in any door it wants and doesn’t need a key. Yes, she grew quickly worried, but again it was only because she hadn’t finished her diary. Her prayer, if she had been a religious woman, would have been, “Please let me finish. Give me the strength and the time to finish. The rest is yours.”
Uneasily, she peeked again through the window in the door and saw something odd. The first time she had looked only straight ahead. Now she moved from side to side and saw that the steps leading to her front door were covered with cookies.
“Waa—” bewildered she pressed up closer for a better view. Cookies. That’s right. From the sidewalk across the small but perfectly kept front yard to the door were sixteen octagonal paving stones. She had liked those stones the moment she first saw them. They reminded her of an English country cottage or a magical path in a fairy tale. Zoe had liked them too, and when it was necessary to dig up the entire yard years ago to repair the septic tank, both women insisted the workers replace the stones exactly where they’d been.
Now cookies covered each one. Well, not exactly covered. With her bad eyes, she could clearly see five of the stones leading to the house. On each stone were four? Yes, four cookies, big ones, like the kind Mrs. Fields and Dave’s sold in their stores. Miranda loved them. Chocolate chips. With dark or light chocolate chunks, macadamia nuts… it didn’t matter. She loved big chocolate chip cookies and here they were on her front walk!
An unfamiliar dalmatian loped onto her lawn in a hurry to get somewhere. But he must have caught their scent because, slamming on his brakes, he started gobbling. Dogs don’t eat when they’re excited, they inhale, and this guy was no exception. He ate so fast, jumping from stone to stone, that Miranda began to giggle. She didn’t know who’d put them there but she doubted they meant the cookies for this fellow.
“Follow the yellow brick cookie. They’re your favorites, right?”
She froze. The voice came from directly behind her. She didn’t know this voice, but it was a man’s and it was definitely right behind her, nearher.
“Don’t you recognize him? It’s Bob the dalmatian. Hugh and Charlotte’s dog. Say hi to Bob.”
He spoke calmly, his voice quiet but amused. She had to turn around because there was nothing else she could do.
Shumda stood five feet away wearing a gray sweatshirt with “Skidmore” printed across the front, jeans, and elaborate blue running shoes. He had not aged at all from the last time she had seen him, decades ago.
“I had a whole little scene planned out with a follow-the-yellow-brick motif but it didn’t include old Bob. Cause I know you loves dem cookies.”
What could she say? It was all over. The time had come for her to die. Why else would Shumda have come? How many years had it been? How many thousands of days had passed since she last saw this handsome bad man on the porch of the house in Crane’s View, New York?
“What do you want?”
He touched both hands to his chest and put on a wounded expression. “Me? I don’t want anything. I’m here on assignment. I’ve been given orders.”
“You’ve come for me?”
“Voilа. Es muss sein.”
“Where… What are you going to do?”
“I’ve come to take you for a ride in my new car. It’s a Dodge! I asked for a Mercedes but they gave me a Dodge.”
She hated his voice. It was a nice one, deep and low, but the tone was mocking and arrogant. He spoke to her as if she were a stupid child who knew nothing.
“You don’t have to address me like that. I’ll do what you say.” It came out hard, steely.
He didn’t like that. His eyes widened and lips tightened. Something between them had shifted and he hadn’t been prepared for that. He’d probably expected her to whine or beg, but that wasn’t her way. His unsure expression changed to a leer and suddenly he was back in charge. “I told you I was coming, Miranda. A long time ago. Don’t you remember that dog you liked that was set on fire?”
“That was you?”
“Yes. I thought for sure you’d know that it was I with thatone. What bigger hint did you need? Don’t you remember that Frances saved me by burning a dog?”
“You killed a dog just to tell me you were coming?”
“It was dramatic but obviously not very effective. Anyway, we have to go now. You won’t need to take anything. We’re not going far.”
The fear came. It rushed up through her like water and she immediately began to tremble. She hated herself for it. Despite the staggering fear, she hated herself for letting this appalling man see her shake. She started a deep breath that stopped halfway down her throat because she was so afraid. Still she managed to say “May I take something with me?”
“You want to pack?”
“No, I want to take one thing with me. It’s in the other room.”
He looked at her a long tormenting moment, then smirked. “Do I get three guesses? Is it bigger than a breadbox? Go on, but hurry up.”
Somehow she mustered her meager energy and shuffled toward the back of the house. Thank God she had the cane, because her body now felt like stone. It did not want to move; it did not know how to walk anymore. But she moved. She walked slowly and unsteadily down the hall to her workroom.
She went in and for several seconds stared at the desk and on it the open diary. She would never finish. She would never be able to complete it and put it away in a safe place where one day they would find it and know the whole story. Never. All over. Finished.
“All right. It’s okay. Just walk away.” She said it out loud as she walked over to a dresser pushed up against a wall. She slid the top drawer out and reached in for the piece of wood. The silver piece of wood Hugh had given her the last time she saw him. She had since collected other pieces over her long life, but they would have to stay here. She didn’t know what she would do with it wherever she was going but she needed to have it with her. Closing her fingers over it, she left the room.
Shumda was waiting by the front door. When he saw her he opened it. Bending forward at the waist, he gestured with an exaggerated sweep of his arm for her to go first. She shuffled forward, leaning hard on her cane. She was so scared. Her knees ached. Where were they going? She heard him close the door. Gently taking her arm, he helped her down the one step to the front yard. The dog was gone and so were the cookies. A few minutes ago it was all strange and funny—chocolate chip cookies on her footpath—but now funny was gone. Soon everything would be gone.
They walked to the street, where he told her to wait. He strode away and around the corner. She looked at the sky. An airplane had left a thin white contrail across the blue. A car peeled out somewhere, its long screech filling her ears. Then it was silent, and soon some birds began singing.
A shiny green van drove up and stopped in front of her. Shumda was at the wheel wearing a San Diego Padres baseball cap. He got out, opened the passenger’s door, and helped her in. She had trouble getting into cars but rode in them so rarely now that it made no difference.
“Where are we going?”
“It’s a surprise.”
“I don’t want a surprise. Just tell me. At least give me that.”
“Be quiet, Miranda. Sit back and enjoy the ride. You haven’t been outside in a long time.”
Folding her hands in her lap she looked out the window. When Shumda spoke again she ignored him, wouldn’t even turn to look. As soon as he realized she wouldn’t respond, he chattered on nonstop. Told her what he had been doing all these years, told her what shehad been doing all these years (“They said to keep tabs on you”), told her everything she didn’t want to hear. She looked out the window and tried with all her might to ignore him. If this was to be her last ride, she didn’t want his voice nattering in her ear. A hamburger stand, a gas station. Why had it come so abruptly? Couldn’t they have given her some warning? A day. If they had given her one more day she could have finished everything and been waiting at the door when he arrived. A yellow convertible driven by a beautiful brunette passed them. Then a Volkswagen that looked as though it had been driven around the world six times. The driver was a man with a shaved head. His hands danced back and forth across the top of the steering wheel. A used book store. One day would have been enough. Today while she was working, her stomach had knotted up several times because she knew in her secret self that she would be finished soon, and then what would she do with her days? Why had Shumda been watching her for years? She was no threat. She had never been a threat. Besides, all thathad been so long ago. Soon after it was over she’d started forgetting things and despite having written this diary, so many memories of that time were like Greek ruins to her by now.
She had never planned to reread her account, but riding along now she grew furious that she would never even have the choice. All that work, but now she could not go back to relive for a while certain experiences that she might already have forgotten. How much can an old brain hold before it begins to spring leaks from the weight of so many years?
Honey-cooked hams, discount sunglasses, Mansfield Avenue, street signs all flew by the car window. He was driving faster now. Where were they going? She remembered Frances Hatch in her hospital room surrounded by flowers.
Maybe Shumda would drive her someplace but then drive her home again. A flutter, a hummingbird’s heartbeat of hope raced through her but was gone just as quickly. It was over. Whatever he had waiting for her would be appropriate and terrible, she was sure. She remembered walking back into Frances’s room and seeing her crying.
He turned left on La Brea and accelerated. Evening was beginning. The sky was still bright but when they walked to the car from her house the air had been cool and still, already starting to settle for the night. Down La Brea past the cheap furniture stores, cheap drugstores, cheap fast-food places. More people stood out on the sidewalks here waiting for buses, waiting for friends, waiting for some kind of luck or change that would never come.
Miranda had been lucky and she knew it. She had traveled, she’d had an interesting job and been her own boss. She’d made money. For a short time she knew and was loved by a remarkable man. Hugh. If this was the end, she wanted to spend it thinking about Hugh Oakley. As if he knew what she was trying to do, Shumda interrupted her.
“Why did you do it?”
“Why did I do what?” Her voice came out cranky—she wasn’t interested in answering his questions, especially not now when there was so little time left.
He lifted a hand off the wheel and let it fall back again.
“You’re not alone, you know. There were others who did what you did. But I’m just interested, you know? What would possess anyone to voluntarily give up the life you had for this one?” His hand rose again off the wheel and batted the air as if flicking away a fly. “And you didn’t even know who you were giving it to! That’s incredible. You handed over your immortality to a stranger. Someone you never even met!”
Coming to a red traffic light they slowed to a stop. He glanced at her and made a face. She ignored him and looked straight ahead. The light changed but instead of accelerating, Shumda continued watching her.
Eventually she said, more to herself than to him, “I never really thought about it. The moment came and it had to be. That’s all. Isn’t that interesting? I was always fighting with myself—my head, my heart. Sometimes one won, sometimes the other. But with that there was no fight. There wasn’t even a question.” The old woman beamed. Her whole demeanor changed, as if whatever inner storms had been raging had now passed and she was at peace. Shumda had never seen anyone in her position at peace, and he had seen his share. Oh yes, he had seen quite a few.
“Life is about to spit in your face, Miranda. I wouldn’t be too smiley about that.”
They were silent the rest of the ride. To her great satisfaction, out of the corner of her eye she observed that he kept looking at her to see if her expression would change—if the enormity of whatever terrible thing was about to happen to her had finally sunk in. Why hadn’tthe great final fear wrapped her in its arms as it always did with the people he had escorted to their destruction?
It took another ten minutes. He kept looking over but her pleased expression never changed. All right, so it didn’t change. Wait till she got there. Wait till she saw what waited!
The road suddenly became hilly and there were oil wells all up and down those hills doing their slow work. The land was khaki-colored, sun-parched. It was a strange part of Los Angeles, neither here nor there, a kind of oddly empty no-man’s land between downtown and the airport.
Signaling with his blinker, Shumda slowly merged into the right lane and then pulled off the road onto the shoulder. He cut the engine and sat there, savoring what came next. He grinned at her. “Remember this spot?”
Miranda looked around. “No.”
“You will.” He opened his door and got out of the van. It was all she could do not to watch him. He walked around to the back and opened the two rear doors. She heard him push and slide something metallic.
“Be with you in just a sec. Sit tight.”
Slowly reaching up, she twisted the rearview mirror so she could look out the back. He was fooling around with something and it took her a moment to realize what it was. He did something and the thing went pop and suddenly unfolded into a wheelchair.
Cars zoomed by, some close, others far away, all of them loud and smooth, rushing and dangerous. And then of course it dawned on her.
So many years ago she was in one of these speeding cars on her way to Los Angeles airport. She had been in bed with Doug Auerbach that day and afterwards they went to a big drugstore together. Afterwards she rode to the airport in a taxicab and the driver, like Shumda now, wore a San Diego Padres baseball cap. She was so young then, so young and busy, and she hadn’t met Hugh Oakley yet. She hadn’t met Hugh Oakley and she hadn’t seen dead James Stillman alive again. She was flying back to New York that night and only days later her entire life changed forever. So long ago. All of it so long ago, but now all of that day and what followed was crushing her and she couldn’t stop the memories and the results, all of them crystal clear.
Shumda pushed the wheelchair around to her side of the car and stood there waiting.
When they drove to the airport that night so long ago, it was just about this time. She remembered the woman sitting in a wheelchair by the side of the road.
“Let’s go, Miranda. Time to watch the traffic.”
But there was no traffic. Unbelievably, all of the cars had disappeared from the road, every last one of them. A strange silence surrounded them, as if the sounds of the world had simply vanished.
“I can open the door and pull you out, or you can get out and make things easier for both of us.”
“What are you going to do?”
“Nothing. I’m going to put you in this chair and I’m going to leave. And you’ll be alone. To tell you the truth, I have absolutely no idea what’ll happen next. But I’m sure it won’t be pleasant. It never is.”
“Shumda, was it me? Was it me that night, here, in the wheelchair?”
“I don’t know. I just do what I’m told. Let’s go, get out.”
To her great surprise, the only thought she had was, Do whatever is in front of you and do it fully. Commit yourself to the moment and if you are lucky—
Her door was flung open. He took her roughly by the arm. “Don’t touch me!” She pulled away from him and slowly heaved herself out of the van.
The road was empty. Up on a hill an oil well pumped, and now she could hear the roll and heave of the machine. A flock of sparrows fled across the sky cheeping loudly. Those were the only sounds—the machine and the sparrows. She made it over to the wheelchair and, taking hold of the two arms, lowered herself into it. The seat was much too narrow for her wide bottom. She tried to move into a more comfortable position but there wasn’t one. She gave up trying and looked up into the evening sky again. What if that night years ago they hadstopped to help the woman? Would it have changed anything? Had it been she that night? If they had stopped and she had seen the other woman, would she have recognized her?
Shumda pushed the chair closer to the road. “I’d love to stay and see what happens next to you, but I’ve got things to do.” He looked at his wristwatch. “Enjoy the silence. The cars will be back in a couple of minutes.”
He looked at her and his face showed nothing. He turned to leave.
“Shumda!”
“What?”
“Did you love her? Did you ever love Frances?”
For a moment it appeared he was about to respond. Instead he turned around and went back the van. The door was open and he reached in for something. He pulled out a red book, her red book, the diary. When had he gotten it? When had he taken it? He pretended to skim through the pages. His face grew serious and he rubbed his chin. In a perfect imitation of the silly lisp of Daffy Duck he said, “Fath-sin-atin’!” and then in a pitying voice he asked, “Did you really think thiswould change anything?” He flung the book back into the car. He got in, the engine came to life, and he was gone. She watched the van climb a hill and disappear.
Everything seemed to be holding its breath. She looked up, but the birds were gone. When she looked toward the oil pump it had stopped moving. Silence. Gripping the arms of the chair, she shut her eyes. She remembered that Hugh’s piece of wood was in her pocket, so she took it out. Everything that had ever mattered to her lived in that wood. She gripped it tightly in both hands. How smooth it was. Smooth and warm and the last thing she would ever hold. How would they do it? Would they come from behind, or from over the hill, or the other side of the road? What would it be?
She could have tried to get up and move away from there—but what was the use? If they wanted it to be tonight then it would happen tonight no matter where she was. And how far could she get on her old legs?
She thought of her diary and what she might have said to finish it. An intriguing question that might have comforted her, or taken her mind away from what was imminent. But then she heard it: the deep rumble of many cars coming her way that grew louder every second. It would be the cars. Something to do with these cars would be her end.
She wanted to close her eyes but knew she mustn’t. A moment more and it would all be over. The rushing sound grew and then she saw them. She saw them coming and had never heard anything like it. An eruption of noise so impossibly loud that it filled the world. Wham thump wham wham thump! They slashed by her at astonishing speeds: trucks, cars, motorcycles. All of them beating her down into her chair with their power and threat until she felt there was no more air to breathe.
Close. They came closer by the second. Was this it? Was this the second? Or the next? The next? Whump! Wham! Whump! Whump! The draft off their speed slammed her face, pushed her body back into the chair. She started to hyperventilate. She wanted to stick her fingers in her ears and make the sounds go away. But how could she? How could anyone block out the end of the world? She tried to swallow but there was no liquid in her mouth.
Because there were so many, she didn’t notice the blue car until it veered from its path and came right at her. Headlights straight on her face, it still didn’t really register until it flew up to within feet of her—and stopped. There was a wild shush and scrabble of sand, gravel, and dirt flying into the air all around it. Cars on the road hammered by. But now there was this one, so close. Was thisit? Time passed—seconds? And then the door opened and first she heard a shrill ting-ting-ting of a bell inside telling the passenger something was wrong.
The overhead light came on and she saw the driver inside. A man. He was staring straight at her and did not move. But then he was getting out of the car, careful to look behind so he would not be hit by the slam of oncoming traffic. He pushed the door closed but not enough to stop the ‘ting’ inside.
He walked slowly toward her. A middle-aged man. There was something in his face, something familiar but so distant and remote that her pounding heart couldn’t figure it out. Something…
“I didn’t know if I’d get here in time.”
She said nothing, only stared at him and the noise was brutal and all over but something she knew, something on the tip of her mind said, Look harder, find it. And she did. She recognized him. “ Declan?”
Only when he smiled did she know for sure it was Hugh’s son, because he wore his father’s smile. She would have recognized it if she had lived to be a million years old.
“We have to hurry, Miranda. They’re coming and I don’t know how much time we have. I’ve broken every rule in the book—”
“How did you know I was here?”
“You know everythingwhen you’re one of us. Being immortal has its advantages.” He looked worriedly behind him.
“How can you know already that you’re immortal? You’ve only lived one life! That’s why I was writing the diary! So you’d find it and know and then you could avoid—”
“ We have to go, Miranda! There’s no time. Tell me in the car. We have to get out of here right now. They’re coming.”
“Why, Declan? Why are you doing this?”
He spat out the words. “Because you gave me my life! Because you sacrificed your own daughter so that Icould live. How could I not at least try to help you?”
A pause. Recognition. Amazement.
All she could do and it was done without thinking was hold out the stick his father had given her. Declan would understand what it was.