“Smartie put his arm around me and he said, his voice all soft and sweet, ‘Patsy. Patsy. What’s a nice girl like you doing in a war like this?’
“I looked at him, Magnum, and I spoke my truth as I knew it, ‘Just trying to get along.’”
PART III
A Relative Paradise
SIX YEARS LATER
2012
Helen before Dawn
IN A SENSE, she had picked the house for the trees. Most of the properties the Realtor had shown her, mainly new construction back in the latter-day boom time of 2003, had had little or no landscaping: just dirt or sod so fresh the lawn looked no better than a tiled bath; maybe a pile of anorexic saplings, unplanted and lacking promise, their roots bundled into cheap burlap sacks. “All this will be finished by the time you move in,” the Realtor had sworn. “You have to use your imagination, Helen”—the Realtor had stopped addressing Elliot weeks earlier; it was clear who would be the decider—“Just close your eyes and imagine how it will look when it’s done.”
Helen would certainly not close her eyes, and though she did not say, she considered the suggestion ridiculous: telling a person to BUY something, anything, with her eyes closed! Helen had always made all necessary judgments with her eyes wide open, thank you very much, and it would be so with this and any other damn lawn she was asked to view. To her, such landscaping (or the lack of it) screamed nouveau riche. She had wanted mature trees, the kind that said generations had lived there (even if they hadn’t been generations of her relations, generations of somebody at least), the kind whose branches gently tapped the second-floor windows, the kind that provided shade in the summer and color in the spring and fall, the kind with tenacious roots that the occasional Texas hurricane couldn’t easily fell, the kind with strong branches from which you could suspend a tire swing or a hammock, the kind that her children (they had still been hypothetical then) could climb.
“Trees like that require sacrifices in other areas,” the Realtor had said. “Old trees mean old kitchens and old baths.”
But Helen knew better. All it took was money to redo a kitchen, but you couldn’t fake the trees.
So she had gotten her trees.
The children had taken longer, but Helen had managed to will them into existence, too. Twins. Alice and Eli. Sturdy little elves of average height, inclinations, maladies, and temperaments. Except that they were hers—and this was a rather limitless clause—she supposed that they were unexceptional in every way. And wasn’t this a blessing really? Leave the exceptional children, with their prodigious piano playing on the one hand or their horrific birth defects on the other, to the exceptional parents! Helen was a lover of the ordinary, the everyday, the world that existed on the sweet, broad plain in the middle of the bell curve.
“Mommy,” Eli said, “Mommy, wake up.”
Eli tugged at her pajama sleeve. Helen glanced at the alarm clock. It was 6 AM. “Mommy needs to sleep a little longer,” Helen said. In the afternoon, they would all be flying to Tennessee to visit her parents. An airplane trip with two six-year-olds entitled her to a half hour more rest. And by her calculations, the airplane trip plus the weekend at her parents’ impossibly tiny and stale house entitled her to at least an extra hour.
“Mommy, Alice wanted me to tell you something,” Eli continued.
“Mmmm, go tell Daddy.”
Helen rolled onto her other side, away from Eli. She heard Eli sigh and shuffle over to Elliot. She didn’t feel at all bad about passing the buck—Elliot turned retarded at the airport and was no help at all at her parents. He actually had the gall to act like a trip to visit her family was vacation.
“Daddy.”
Elliot yawned. “What, kiddo?”
“Alice is stuck in the tree, and she won’t come down.”
“What tree?”
“The big one.”
And just like that, they were all awake and in slippers and out the door, and there would be no extra sleep for anyone that morning.
The kids had been having a climbing contest. The rules were simple. The winner was the person who climbed to the highest point. Helen felt a passing swell of pride to hear that her brave Alice had won. Alice had won and, in a sense, she had also lost. She had climbed so high that she was scared to come down. On the way to the front yard, Elliot admitted that these predawn contests had been going on for some time. The kids had been told that they couldn’t watch television before noon, so they had found other ways of amusing themselves.
It was the Friday before Labor Day weekend, and the dawn air was cool but damp. Helen scanned the yard but could not immediately spot Alice. She asked Eli which tree his sister was in. “That one,” he said, pointing to a Southern magnolia, a particular favorite of Helen’s for its fragrant white blooms in spring. For all Helen’s mature tree reverence, this one was not a particularly tall Southern magnolia. Truthfully, it was a bit of a runt at twenty-two feet. As she tried to spot Alice, it passed through Helen’s mind that large ones could run from sixty to ninety feet.
Helen peered up—she wasn’t wearing her glasses and hadn’t had time to put in her contact lenses. At the top was a small, reddish blob. She squinted a bit and could see (or thought she could see) a reluctant Christmas angel clad in pink footed-pajamas. The girl was sobbing softly. “Don’t worry, cupcake. Mommy will come and get you,” Helen called.
“OK,” Alice replied. Her voice sounded as if she needed to blow her nose.
As Helen began walking toward the base of the tree, Elliot grabbed her arm.
“I think we should stop and think about this a moment,” Elliot said.
Helen pulled away. “I’ll be fine.”
“I don’t know, Hel. The branches on that thing are pretty weak. I don’t want both of you getting hurt. I think it’ll be better if I get my ladder.”
“Mommy,” Alice called. “I have to go to the bathroom!”
“I’ll be there in a minute, baby!” Helen was annoyed. She turned back to Elliot. “Will your ladder even go that high?”
Elliot looked up at the tree. “Fully extended, yeah, it’s just about twenty-five feet. We’ll just lean it up against the top of the tree. One of us will stand at the bottom. Me, I guess. And you’ll climb up and help Al down.”
Helen sighed. “Fine. OK. Just hurry the fuck up, would you? I don’t want to stand here all day discussing this.”
“Mommy, I really have to go!” Alice called.
“Daddy’s just going to get the ladder,” Helen called. “Don’t be scared, angel!”
Alice had begun to sob. “I’m going to pee my pants! I’m going to pee my pants!”
“Just try to hold it, baby,” Helen said. “Mommy’ll be up there in a second.” Helen could hear Elliot banging around their three-car garage. “HURRY UP!” she yelled. A small hand gently tugged Helen’s sleeve. Eli. “Mommy, can I help?”
“Just be quiet.” This was said sharply, which Helen immediately regretted. She smiled at the boy in a way she knew was fake and likely terrifying. It was the best she could do. “Why don’t you go inside and watch television?”
“But it’s before noon,” her boy replied.
“It’s fine. Just for today,” Helen said.
Eli went in the house just as Elliot returned with the ladder. “Everyone still okay?” Elliot asked.
“Yes.”
“I need you to help me prop this up against the tree, OK?”
Helen nodded, and they went to work extending and arranging the ladder.
“Mommy, I don’t wanna pee my pants!”
“You won’t have to, Al!”
“Maybe I try to come down now!” Alice called.
Just as she and Elliot had gotten the ladder stabilized, Helen heard a thump. She thought the sound seemed too soft and light to hold any consequence for her. A laundry bag flung from a window, a fertilizer sack thrown into the back of a pickup truck, a sack of flour slipping off a modestly high grocery shelf. Something minor. Something d
istant even. Something happening to the neighbors and not to her.
George in the Morning
THE PHONE RANG while she was still in bed. She rolled across Roger’s empty side to answer. A pretty, bruised voice wanted to speak to her husband.
“Roger’s out of town,” George said and then she remembered that you weren’t supposed to tell strangers that you were alone in a house. Even if it was a woman. The woman might be a front for male criminals who’d come to rob or rape you, or worse. She had seen a television program where such things happened. “Actually, he’s not out of town.”
“So can I speak to him then?”
“What I mean to say is he won’t be back until this evening. He’s guest preaching in Chapel Hill.” Why was she giving so much information? “I can take a message though.”
“Could I have a cell phone number?”
Roger didn’t keep a cell phone any longer. He said cell phones (and other devices of that ilk) bred secrecy in relationships. He had delivered a whole, very popular (as such things go) sermon on the subject. George did have a cell phone—a prepaid one for emergencies that was a secret from Roger. “He’ll be back tonight,” George repeated. “Why don’t you just call back then?”
The woman sighed. And then without warning, the sigh became a sob.
“Oh, I’m sorry,” George said. “Please don’t cry.”
“My mother is dead,” said the woman. “She’s dead.”
“I really am sorry,” George repeated.
“Are you close to your mother?” the woman asked.
“She’s been gone a long time,” George said, “but no, not really. I wish we had been closer.”
“Do you have children then? Are you close to them?”
“I think I am,” George said. “I don’t know what they would say.” George laughed a little so that this last part would seem like a joke. “I’ve definitely made mistakes, but I’ve always tried to be close to them.”
“My mother was my best friend,” the woman said. “I feel so horribly alone. I didn’t know I would feel this way. It’s almost silly how awful I feel.”
Despite herself, George yawned. “Oh, excuse me!”
“No,” said the woman, “it’s my fault. I shouldn’t be calling this early. I’m just making my way through my mother’s address book. I tried sending an e-mail to your husband, but it must have been an old address. There’s going to be a memorial service for her next month at Texas University. I’m trying to invite as many of her graduate students and assistants as I can round up. Mom was always so close to her assistants. Plus she had a pretty healthy ego, you know, and she’d want the biggest service possible.”
“I’ll let Roger know. What was your mother’s name, by the way?”
The woman told her and then gave George the details for the service. George dutifully wrote them down, though she felt quite certain Roger wouldn’t attend. It was a lot of money to fly to Texas for some random professor’s funeral, and Roger rarely spoke of that period in their life.
After hanging up the phone, George got out of bed. She was awake now, and she had many errands to run that morning anyway. Roger was coming home as she had recklessly mentioned, and both Vinnie and Helen were visiting for the weekend. Though Helen came home with dutiful frequency, Vinnie’s last appearance had been more than ten years ago, for Patsy’s wedding.
George took a shower and by the time she got out, the phone was ringing again. Roger, just checking in.
“What’s on tap for you today?” he asked. He had been so gentle and sweet with her since her illness.
“Doctor’s appointment. And I have to buy flowers and grocery shop. And then I have to pick out new eyeglass frames. You?”
“Mainly just the plane ride and then I’ll go straight to the church, assuming I’m not caught in the usual delays. Either way, I’m going to work on that sermon they want me to give at that conference in Memphis. The one about Adam and Eve. It’s such a cliché, right? Everyone knows it. You think it would be simple to hammer out a decent sermon. But George, the more I think about Adam and Eve, the more problematic that text becomes for me. If there had been no original sin, there would be no Earth, because Adam and Eve would still be in paradise. And there would be no us, because there would be no sex. So how can you tell people not to sin. Or ...” Roger laughed ... “Still with me?”
“I am,” she said. It wasn’t as if he’d said anything particularly complex. He always thought her a bit stupider than she actually was and himself a bit smarter than he actually was. It had taken her nearly thirty years of marriage to puzzle this out and another ten for it not to bother her. “I like hearing you talk.”
“I sound like an eight-year-old in Bible class. Shoot,” Roger said, “I’m late! I love you, Georgie. See you tonight!”
“I love you, too,” she said. They both hung up, and George realized that she had forgotten to tell him that Carolyn Murray had died.
SHE HAD WHAT would probably be termed a schoolgirl crush on Dr. Charles. He was British and, unlike most of the doctors at the hospital, not Adventist. He was about her son’s age—maybe a little older—and good-looking in a toothy, squinty kind of way, like the stuttering actor from the romantic comedies. He seemed shipwrecked, as if he belonged to a different (better) place and had a manner of entering his appointments with George as if he were surprised (though delighted, perfectly delighted!) to find himself among the savages of this particular island.
Incidentally, George’s crush, like most of the schoolgirl variety, did not mean she wished to sleep with him. She certainly did not fantasize about him throwing her down on the examining table and pulling off her pants. No. She merely wanted him to find her pretty and pleasant and as nonburdensome as possible. Above all, she hoped he thought her a good patient, a good person, good, good.
“Mrs. Pomeroy,” he greeted her holding out his hand for her to shake. “How are you, Georgia? Come in!”
She liked how he used her full name, and yet something in his voice did not sound delighted to her, and she suspected that the file he clutched in his lovely, cool, pale hands likely contained bad news.
There had been tests, you see. And the tests had turned up something. And now there would have to be decisions. And oh, how silly really to have the news of one’s imminent passing delivered to you by a doctor who looked like a movie doctor! And at that moment, she thought, It doesn’t matter what or why or how or even when. The point was, that this body, no matter what abuses had been heaped upon it, had always unsentimentally gone about the business of healing itself, and soon it would not.
“I’m sorry,” she said.
“I think I ought to be saying that to you,” Dr. Charles replied.
At age seven, she had felt old. On Halloween, she had walked down the street in a cowgirl costume and thought, I am too old for this. At nineteen, she had felt old. She had a baby on her hip and thought, Now there are people living on this Earth who are nineteen years younger than me: I am old. At twenty-seven, thirty-two, forty-five, and fifty, she had felt old. At fifty-seven, when they cut off her breasts, she had certainly felt old. She realized she had felt old all her life. Until that moment. At sixty, upon hearing the news that she was likely dying, she felt young. Uselessly, stupidly young.
“It’s not over yet, Georgia. I’d like to make another appointment to talk about options.”
“Yes, of course.”
“Your husband should be there,” said the doctor.
“He’s busy with work.”
“I imagine he’d want to be there,” the doctor insisted.
George shrugged. She loved her husband and acknowledged his limitations.
“One of your children, then?”
“Maybe.” Helen doesn’t hate me, if she’s willing to fly from Texas, George supposed. “Dr. Charles? Could I ask you a question?”
“Of course.”
“What will it feel like to die? I mean, how will it happen?”
“We?
??re not there yet, Georgia.”
George said nothing. And so he told her. An infection. Or one of the tumors would grow so large it would stop something vital—a heart, say, or a lung—from functioning. But—silver lining—with enough drugs, most people didn’t feel this part very much. One was just there, and then one was not.
After this, Dr. Charles walked her back to reception, and George, despite the news of the hour, could not help enjoying the spectacle of being on the arm of the elegant physician. “Anything planned for the weekend, Georgia?”
“My daughter and her family, and my oldest, my son, are all coming to town. He’s bringing his girlfriend.”
“How lovely for you.”
“Well, we haven’t met the girlfriend yet,” George joked.
Dr. Charles laughed a bit too loudly, a bit too long, a bit too horsily, and just like that George didn’t love him anymore.
* * *
SHE HAD PLANNED the day so that all her city errands could be accomplished at one time.
On her way to the optometrist, George thought to herself, I am dying.
The driver in front of George, an old woman so small it looked as if her Cadillac were driving itself, had decided to go thirty miles per hour in a forty-five zone. George signaled and thought, Oh, stop being dramatic. Everyone’s dying. That lady in the Cadillac’s dying. And besides, the doctor didn’t say you were dying. As she changed lanes, she cut someone off. It wasn’t entirely her fault—that driver was doing about sixty and had come out of nowhere. The person honked and passed George on the other side. “FUCK YOU, LADY!”
George’s heart was beating like mad—something vital will cease to function—and she thought, I could have died just then. Wouldn’t that have been preferable, really? Quick and to the point. Avoid the business and the expense of it all. A commercial about death, not a miniseries.
George’s errand at the optometrist was to pick out new frames. “Just point me to the cheap ones,” George told the clerk.