“No. Let him remember on his own if he wants it. I don’t think he does. Ta be honest with you, I think that boy goes from one whim ta the next so quick that he doesn’t ever have time ta find out what he really wants. But you’re old enough that you should take this.”
Abraham pulled out an old book from one of the boxes and put it in Julia’s hand, and as he did she noticed how much younger and more careless her hands were than his own; they didn’t show any traces of the wrinkly trenches that care and time had worn into her grandfather’s body. She examined the old leather-bound Bible. The light that came in through the cracked door was dim, but she could still read the name, Peter J. Thompson, that was written in gold letters in the bottom right corner and stood out against the tattered black cover.
“When you’re through with it you can bring it back ta me. I’m ‘bout finished with my western, an’ I’m goin’ ta need somethin’ ta read when I get done.”
“I will,” Julia told him.
“I’ve had all the memories a soul can take fer one day. An’ we’d better get back before I catch cold an’ they blame you fer killin’ your poor old grandfather.”
Julia assisted Abraham as they walked back to the car and helped him get in before closing the door behind him. When she got in she turned up the heater as high as it would go and drove back to the nursing home.
Julia speculated that Susan would be very anxious for them to get back, and when they arrived Susan’s reaction confirmed her suspicions. She was the only person at the receptionist’s desk, and she jumped up to help Julia get Abraham to his room. By that point he was struggling tremendously from so much activity. When they finally got him back into his bed Julia tried to apologize to Susan for keeping him out so long.
“Don’t you apologize,” Abraham said as harshly as he could in his weakened state. “I don’t regret tonight so you shouldn’t either. I only regret not livin’ like him, an’ he’d a helped an old man go be with his memories.” At this Abraham pointed to the gold lettering on the worn out cover of the book that Julia had brought into the nursing home with her. “I meant ta live like him ‘cause he was a good person, a fine man. He was the finest I ever met, an’ I knew that the world needed a man like that, an’ he got stolen away too soon. This isn’t the kind a’ world that can afford ta lose those types. I should’ve been more like him.”
Julia set the book next to her grandfather on the bed and turned around. She saw that Susan was still lingering in the doorway.
“Don’t you leave that fer me,” Abraham called out. “It’s a little late fer me ta live a good life, an’ ‘sides, I said I was goin’ ta finish my western first. You take that an’ bring it by when you’re done, just like we agreed.”
“Of course Grandpa,” Julia said and tucked the book under her arm.
“Do me a favor,” Abraham called out as she was leaving.
“What?”
“When you have ta make a tough decision, an’ one way looks right, an’ the other way seems easier, think ‘bout which choice you’re more likely ta regret in the morning, or five years down the road, an’ then do the other one, the one you won’t regret when your old like me. An’ if you do what you know is right, don’t ever let yourself regret it, even if it turns out bad. You just do the same right thing the next time. That’s how I wish I’d lived my life. An’ that’s why I don’t regret goin’ out in the cold tonight, an’ I don’t want you ta regret it either, even if I catch cold an’ die from it, don’t you regret takin’ me, ‘cause it was right, an’ it’ll still be right even if bad comes a’ it. You understand what I’m saying?”
“I understand Grandpa,” Julia said and left the room, gently closing the door behind her. Susan walked with her down the hall, but neither of them had anything to say. All the same, Julia appreciated her company and gave her a quick hug as she said thank you.
“When you work here it’s not hard to convince someone to let you cover the first part of their shift,” Susan answered.
“You stayed late for us?” Julia asked.
“Don’t worry about it,” Susan insisted. “I’m not doing anything special tonight. Just going out with a friend.”
“Still, I’m sorry,” Julia said as she slid through the double doors.
Chapter 9
“Shards of Glass”
My parents kept a broken mirror in our attic.
It was tall, taller than me,
at least it was when I was young.
I can still see the neglected red frame, broken.
Most of the glass lay scattered on the floor
in front of and behind the almost empty frame.
A few jagged shards still clung to the edges
Providing enough reflection to see
Bits and pieces but never all of me at once.
I would go and look
at my broken reflection in the broken glass.
I went to the attic often,
when I got in trouble,
or when my father got drunk,
to hide from him until he stopped yelling.
As I hid I wondered:
Who broke it?
Why keep a broken mirror?
The questions nagged me but I never dared ask
for fear that I would expose
my hideaway, my secret hiding place
in the shadow of that well kept secret.
But I longed to look into the full-length mirror
and see my full-length reflection,
instead of fragments of face and feet
and a gaping hole that revealed dusty boxes
where chest and heart should be.
That afternoon, after Hannah had left so abruptly, Peter went to the office. He had every intention of working late again when Stanly called.
“I’m on my way back from visiting one of our retail locations and thought that you and I could take off work early to go play a round of golf?” he suggested.
“I don’t play golf,” Peter said.
“You can learn. I’ve got an extra set of clubs that you can use, and we can try to sneak in a few holes before this cold front comes through.”
“Why don’t we meet up at Murphy’s instead,” Peter suggested.
“I can do that, but only if you’re completely against the idea of golf and green fairways and fresh air.”
“I am,” Peter said firmly.
“Okay then. I’ll meet you there.”
When Peter walked into Murphy’s, Stanly was already sitting at the bar. Peter sat down next to him and asked the bartender for something with whisky. Stanly stuck with beer. Stanly happened to have found a seat next to an attractive blonde woman. She was young, a lot younger than Hannah. Peter sipped his drink and tried his best to ignore her. “Even if you weren’t married she’d be too young,” he told himself.
“I’ll have another,” she said, holding up her empty glass to the bartender.
“What are you drinking?” Peter asked. He hadn’t meant to talk to her but the words flew out of his mouth before he could stop them.
“Nothing special,” the blonde woman said flatly.
Her friend, who wasn’t quite as attractive, added, “It depends on who you’re drinking it with.” Peter hadn’t noticed the second woman until then, but turned his attention to her simply because she seemed more responsive.
“Do you two come here often?” he asked. He couldn’t believe those words had come out of his mouth.
The friend laughed and said, “All the time.”
The blonde woman laughed too, though Peter didn’t know why, and she shifted in her seat so that she could whisper something into her friend’s ear. In doing so she turned her back to Peter.
Peter turned his attention back to his drink, feeling ashamed at himself, mostly because of how pathetic his attempt at flirting had been, partly because the blonde was so much younger than him, and a little bit because of Hannah. The blonde woman finished her drink and both women got up fr
om the bar.
“Goodbye,” the friend said, laughing a little and leaning in close enough for him to smell her perfume.
“Do you know what’s great about alcohol?” Peter asked Stanly when the women were out of sight.
“Lots of things, but what did you have in mind?” Stanly answered in the jovial tone that he reserved for long evenings spent drinking.
“When you get enough of it in your system it makes you forget everything that’s wrong with your life. You pay for it in the morning, but it’s worth it for a few hours without any worries.”
“I’ll drink to that,” Stanly said, and they both took a drink.
When they had finished their drinks they ordered another round.
“So what sort of troubles are you drinking away this time?” Stanly asked when the bartender set the glasses down in front of them.
“Hannah’s leaving me.”
It felt so good to finally say it, to tell someone so the secret would finally stop burning inside him, and it had only taken one drink to loosen him up enough. If he’d waited until after the second or third he might have even been able to use the “D” word. The one he hadn’t said at all, not even to himself. The one that he would certainly have to face when he signed the papers, unless they were full of legal jargon and used some euphemism like “dissolution of marriage,”
“You mean you two are getting . . .”
“Yeah,” Peter said, before Stanly could finish.
“I’m sorry man; that’s awful. But if you need a place to stay for a while you can always crash with me. The couch pulls out into a bed and I’ve got plenty of food in the fridge.”
“Thanks for the offer, but Hannah and I are going to stay in the house together until Julia leaves for college. We’re not even telling the kids until after Christmas, you know, let them enjoy the holidays.”
“Is that why you’ve been hitting the bottle so hard lately? You know that people noticed the other day when you ordered whisky at lunch.”
“What are you saying?”
“I’m all for drinking away problems. You know that as well as anyone, but maybe this isn’t the sort of thing that goes away the next morning with the hangover.” Stanly’s jovial tone had disappeared.
“Forget you. I wake up in the morning depressed because my life’s in shambles, and all I want to do is come here, get drunk, and have a few hours away from this life I’m stuck living in, and you get all philosophical on me,” Peter shouted. He took another drink to spite his companion.
“I’m just saying that alcohol might not be the best answer. If you’re depressed they’ve got medication for that, but getting drunk’s only going to make things worse.”
Peter downed his second drink—he wished that it had been stronger—left enough to pay his tab, and turned to walk away. He could hear Stanly’s voice behind him saying that he was only trying to help, but he ignored it as he walked out of the bar and into the crisp autumn air.
* * *
Lewis was alone in the house when Peter got home. He raced to the front door when he heard the car pulling into the driveway. He watched as his father got out of the car and staggered through the courtyard towards the front door.
Lewis could tell that he was drunk as soon as he saw him step out of the car. He hadn’t seen his father walk like that and he didn’t fully understand what was wrong, but somehow, instinctively, he knew what those swaying steps meant. He ran into the study, which had been Thomas’s old bedroom and opened the hatch in the ceiling that led to the attic. He pulled the ladder down and climbed up the steps as fast as he could. His heart was racing and his hands were sweaty as he tried to pull up the ladder and shut the door behind him. His father might already be in the house, so he knew that he had to do everything without making any noises that might give him away, and this made the procedure all the more difficult.
Thomas had shown him the opening to the attic, which had been all but forgotten by the other members of the household, when they were moving boxes out of his room. Lewis had hidden in the attic on a few occasions, but this time Lewis felt a new sense of urgency. He managed to shut the hatch behind him and crawl into the canopy of blankets that he had arranged before he heard his father’s voice calling out from below.
“Julia? Lewis? Hannah? Is anybody here?”
Lewis could hear heavy footsteps.
“Lewis where are you? I know you’re here. I saw you at the front door when I pulled up. Don’t be afraid. You can come out. I’m not mad; I just want to tell you that I love you.”
Lewis didn’t know if he should believe his father, but it didn’t matter. Even if he did believe him, he was too afraid to move and wouldn’t want to give away his hiding place. So he sat in his tent and waited.
* * *
Thomas was lying on his bed with one arm wrapped around Jessica and running his fingers through her hair with the other.
“I know that my childhood was pretty easy,” he began, “but I’ve been through enough to be able to have an idea of what it was like for you.”
“Really?” Jessica asked. She pulled away and rolled over to face him. She propped her head up in her palm and waited for Thomas to continue.
“When I was a little kid my father used to come home drunk sometimes. He never tried to hurt me but he was really rough. For a long time I was terrified of him, even when he wasn’t drunk, just because of the memory of the way he acted when he was. There was an opening in the ceiling in my room that led to the attic and I would go up there to hide.”
“Did you ever talk about it?” Jessica asked.
“It was a long time ago. It was just a bad habit he picked up in college,” Thomas explained.
“What was a bad habit?”
“His drinking. Mom explained it to me once. She said that it started at parties and only happened every now and then. He stopped drinking when my little brother was born. But that’s why I don’t drink at parties, or at least why I didn’t when I first started going, because I don’t want to be like that if I ever have kids.”
“You’re right. It’s not as bad as what I went through, but at least you know what I mean about wanting to be able to forget it,” Jessica said. Her tone became more playful, as if she didn’t want to discuss serious matters any more.
“No. I wouldn’t ever want to forget that if it helps me to understand where you’ve come from, if it helps me not to end up like my dad,” Thomas responded. He wondered how innocently the habit had started for his father.
“Good answer mister,” Jessica said playfully, and she let Thomas pull her close to him.
* * *
From the coffee shop, Hannah went shopping. She thought about going to see a movie but couldn’t bring herself to go into the theater alone. “I’m not that pathetic, at least not yet,” she told herself. When she got home the kids were nowhere to be found, and Peter was lying in her bed—which was still technically his bed also—watching television. All she really wanted to do was lie down next to him, but she couldn’t bring herself to do anything with that man. Instead, she went into the bathroom to take a shower. She opened the glass door and turned on the water. She tried to listen to what was going on just a few feet away in her bedroom while she got undressed, but she couldn’t hear anything more than muffled coughing. She got into the shower and closed the door behind her. She ran her hand along the textured glass that allowed light to pass into the shower but distorted the images of everything outside.
“Why do we still have the same bed?” she asked herself as the hot water washed over her. “I guess it’s because we’re not really upset with each other. We’ve had a few more arguments than usual, but nothing really out of the ordinary.” She could hear the fake laughter in the background. It must have come from the cued audience that had been present when the sitcom was filmed. She thought she heard Peter’s laugh mingled with theirs but couldn’t distinguish between the two because of the water that crashed down on her from the showerhead. In t
he end she told herself that they were only sharing a bed to maintain appearances, and that after they announced their decision they would get separate ones even if they kept living in the same house.
When she got out of the shower she opened her medicine cabinet, pushed aside the Tylenol and Advil, and grabbed the bottle with her new prescription that was behind them. She took a glance at the bathroom door to make sure it was locked. She could still hear the television in the bedroom. She swallowed two of the purple pills, put the cap back on the bottle, and placed it back in the cabinet. She moved the other painkillers back in front of the bottle before opening the bathroom door and walking into the bedroom where Peter was still watching television.
She didn’t care about him anymore and let herself flop on the bed next to him like she had wanted to do when she first got home. Peter maintained his end of the unspoken agreement and didn’t say anything, or even acknowledge his wife’s presence as she lay there next to him.
“How much longer do I have to endure this? What kind of a person can just lay there next to me ignoring the fact that everything in our life is so far from right, as if not addressing the situation makes it go away.”
The thought ran through both of their minds as they lay next to each other on the comfortable king-sized mattress in an unspoken, but understood hostility. Hannah looked at her watch to see what the date was even though she knew perfectly well that today was Tuesday November 26th. Making a calendar and counting down the days would be tacky, so she contented herself with doing the math every day. This had become her coping mechanism whenever she felt like she was drowning, when she needed to remind herself that the end was in sight, that the date was fixed and would soon arrive, regardless of what happened in the remaining interval of time that crept along so slowly.
“Yes, the end is coming soon,” she told herself as she lay next to her husband in awkward silence. “Not only is it coming soon, but it’s coming because I took action, because I finally did something.” She was proud of herself for not taking the abuse anymore—not that Peter had ever hurt her.
“But the other abuse, the kind that can’t be seen in bruises or bumps in the morning, that’s far worse than what those other women go through,” Hannah told herself. “It’s too hard to see through the façade with the type of abuse he put me through, and it’s harder to justify running from what he does, and it’s too easy to avoid letting the truth of the matter sink in. But it’s still abuse.”