Lizzie and Maria Elena stood in front of the old woman, breathless and paralyzed by the terror they saw in the woman who stood in front of them. Instinctively, Lizzie reached to help her mother remain standing. The old woman flinched. “It’s OK, Mama, It’s me, it’s Lizzie.”
“Thank God,” she sobbed. She fell into Lizzie’s arms, no longer able to hold her own weight. She winced and sobbed and was utterly confused. Maria Elena helped lay her on the floor carefully.
“Who did this to you? Where is he? I’ll find him, Mama. God help him when I do. I swear I’ll kill that—”
The old woman did not speak. She was too hurt and far away and confused to hear her daughter’s voice. Maria Elena took Lizzie’s shoulder and shook her gently. She looked at Lizzie’s mother. “Where does it hurt. Rose? Are you hurt?”
The old woman slowly pointed to her chest.
“I’m going to call an ambulance. You’re going to be just fine. It’s me, Rose, Helen Marsh. Do you remember me?”
The old woman nodded and groaned quietly.
“It’s all right. Rose, we’re here now.” She placed her hand firmly on Lizzie’s trembling back, then went to find the telephone. When she returned from calling an ambulance, she placed a blanket over the old woman’s shaking body. She watched Lizzie weeping as she knelt beside her. She clenched her fist and slammed it against the wall. “I’ll kill whoever did this,” she said, “I swear I’ll kill him.”
Maria Elena shook Lizzie gently. “She’s just frightened, I think. She’ll be fine. She’ll be just fine.”
Lizzie could not hear Maria Elena’s voice. “I’ll kill them all,” she said.
“I’m old and tired,” she said. Rose spoke to the yellow roses in the vase. She couldn’t smell them. Why couldn’t she smell? Was she half-dead already? She reached for a rose, ripped off a petal, squeezed it between her fingers, and breathed in the fragrance. She didn’t know if the smell was really present or if she was merely bringing her memory into the room. But the smell was there, and that was all that mattered. She laughed to herself. She remembered the smell of her father’s sweat, the way he used to tease her, hold her, make her feel as if she were the only person in the world. He used to care for roses in his garden and place them in a vase for her mother. He could make things grow. His life had seemed so easy and simple, his love so uncomplicated. She closed her eyes and willed him into the room. She opened them and half-expected him to be standing there, thin and strong, his kind brown eyes taking her back to that Iowa cornfield she’d left for that ambitious man she’d married. “Papa, I married badly,” she said, “just like you.” She tried not to think of her mother, how badly she had treated him, how she seemed to enjoy humiliating him in public. She tried to remember something happy, something that would remind her she was once alive, something that would redeem the life she had led. She tried to picture Lizzie’s face, her dangling earrings reflecting all light. At least she’d had Elizabeth. For all of her rebellion, for all of her stubbornness, for all of her verbal rages, Rose’s daughter had been the only presence in her house that had made her feel as if she were more than an inanimate object. She was tired. She closed her eyes and slept:
“You what?”
“I told her.”
“You told her!” She felt the coldness of his stare.
She stared right back. “She knew anyway. Sam. She knew.”
“I should have never let that girl into this house. I should have let her go with her brother. How did she know? How?”
She shook her head. “I won’t tell you.”
“I want to know!”
“You’re drunk, Sam.”
“You promised me. You said you’d never tell.”
“You had no right to ask, damn you! Damn you!”
He banged his fist on the table. “Who told her?”
“Her brother, Sam, her brother.” She tried to calm him. She wondered why she still needed to make things right with him when they had been so wrong for so many years.
“I hate you,” he said.
“I want to leave.”
“You’ll leave with nothing.”
“I don’t care.”
He stormed out of the house slamming the door. Rose sat alone in the late morning light. She woke to the sound of a broken window. A big man with a blond mustache stood over her. She came down the stairs. “Who are you? What do you—” She felt his hand against her cheek. Run, I have to run. She managed to free herself from him for an instant. She took a step. He pulled out a knife and it sparkled like a diamond in his big hands. She dropped down on her knees. “Take anything you want.”
’ ‘Please,” he said. ‘ ‘Say please.’
“Please.”
He smiled. She felt she would die there, no one would come to save her, Sam would not come to help. Sam was gone. They would find her there, they would find her dead. She closed her eyes, her heart pounding against her chest as if it were a hammer knocking out her ribs. She could not move. The door! Someone was at the door. Go away. Go away and let me die. I want to die. The door, I have to—
Rose made herself wake. She expected to find the man—he was gone. She looked up and saw her daughter standing over her. The younger woman smiled at her mother and wiped the sweat from her face. “It’s OK, Mama, it was only a dream. He can’t hurt you, now. You’re safe, Mama.” Her voice was as soft as the rose petals in her father’s garden.
“You won’t let him come here, will you?”
“He won’t come here. Mama.” She bit her lip to keep from crying as she stared at her mother’s face, “He won’t hurt you again, Mama. Everything will be fine—everything will be beautiful.”
“And Sam?—why didn’t he come, Lizzie? Why didn’t he come when I called his name?”
“He wasn’t home. Mama.”
“I’m his wife—”
“Shhhh, Mama. He was gone.”
“I would’ve heard,” she said, “I would have done something,” Her throat was as dry as the yellow hills of the California summer. “He doesn’t care. He doesn’t care. And that man. I heard a window break, and he had a knife—” Her voice cracked. Lizzie didn’t know who to hate more, the man who broke into the house, or her father who was gone, always gone. Lizzie handed her mother a cup of water and held her head as she sipped from a straw. Her lips trembled as she drank. “I told him you knew about your mother—Sam, I told him. And I told him I wanted to leave. He was angry. And he left the house. He doesn’t care, Lizzie. He doesn’t care. It’s my fault, It’s all my—”
“Don’t you ever take the blame, do you hear? Never! It was them, damnit, it was them.” She placed her head on the bed and cried. “It was my fault Mama, it was all my fault.” Her mother combed Lizzie’s hair with her fingers. When she had had enough of her own tears, she lifted her head and laughed. “We’re all so arrogant,” she said, “we always think everything is our fault.” She smiled at her mother. “You’re so beautiful.”
The old woman smiled. “I’m not. I’m not beautiful.”
“Don’t argue, Mama.” She kissed her on the cheek—softly—so as not to hurt her. “I’m taking you with me,” she said.
“I don’t know anything about the desert,” the old woman said, “and I’d only be in the way. I’m getting old.”
“Should I throw you away, then—because you’re old? I can’t leave you, Mama. Don’t make me leave you.”
“Don’t cry, child. It always hurt me so much to see you cry.” Rose nodded at the young woman, “I’ll go then. EL Paso is as good a place as any for an old woman to rest.” She laughed, “Do they have roses there?”
“We’ll grow them, Mama.”
16
“YOU HAVE A LOT of nerve walking into my house.” he said. “You swore you’d never come back. What do you want?”
“Nice to see you, too, Pop.” She maintained perfect control. I promised her.
“You could have knocked.”
“I have a key.”
“What do you want?”
“I came to ask you to leave while she comes and gets her things.”
“You can both go to hell together.”
She gave him a hard stare. “What happened to you? When I was a child you were kind.”
“I don’t owe you any explanations,” he said quietly, his voice almost soft.
“No, I guess you don’t. And I don’t owe you my life—and neither does my mother.”
“She’s not your mother.”
“More than you’ll ever know.”
“If you knew—”
“I don’t need to see my mother through your eyes. She’s invisible to you—she always has been. Why can’t you see her?”
“I can see just fine. What would you have done—either of you—what would you have done without me?”
“What would you have done without us?” Lizzie felt strangely alive, almost drunk. She was stronger than him, now. She wondered why she had feared this man for all of her adult life, but wondered, too, where he had placed his kindness. She could see how much he hated her. Those hard eyes were a wall, and she did not know how to make that wall crumble. “My mother’s coming for her things,” she said casually, “and I’d like it very much if you let her pack her things in peace.”
“She can leave with the clothes on her back.”
“If you don’t do me the courtesy of making yourself scarce for one miserable afternoon of your more than miserable life, I swear I’ll beat you like a drum—and if you don’t think I’m willing or able, try me, old man.” I’m breaking my promise. Be careful. Lizzie. She took a deep breath, then smiled.
“This is my house, damn you—my house.”
“Who cares? No one wants it but you. I just want you to make yourself disappear for a few hours. If my mother wanted to, she could take you for the financial ride of your life. You’re getting off cheap, so don’t push me. All you have to do is step out of this place for one crummy afternoon. It’s not so much to ask, is it?”
He sat down on the chair that had conformed perfectly to his shape over the years—it was as deformed as his old body. He stared into the room seeing nothing in it—nothing but emptiness. He nodded and kept nodding.
“I’m sorry,” she said, her voice raw and careful, “I’m really sorry it had to—”
He held up his hand to quiet her. “Not another word. Please.” His voice sounded hollow and numb. He walked slowly toward the front door, his body bent with the years. He opened the door, took one last look at Lizzie, then walked out the front door. “I’ll be back by five,” he said softly.
She nodded, unable to speak.
He shut the door behind him.
She had come here expecting some kind of victory. This was not a war anyone had won. She understood perfectly why Jake and Eddie had thought of burning down their childhood home—and knew why they had been powerless to do it. Nothing could bring down the houses of the past.
There wasn’t much in the house Rose wanted. She wandered from room to room occasionally picking up an object, then setting it back down. Such a large house, she thought, all this space, all this nothingness, all this time in this nothingness. She opened her hand, and grabbed at the air, nothing in her tight fist. Nothing. But she had chosen this house, and chosen to live with the man who bought it. Over twenty-five years in this damn house, and she couldn’t think of anything she wanted to take with her. Rose walked into her bedroom—she and Sam had slept apart for years. She had hated sleeping with him—and yet she had waited for him to suggest they have their own rooms. She did not remember ever having enjoyed sleeping with him. She had long forgotten his touch. The last time they had made love, she had risen from the bed and vomited, not caring whether or not he heard her spilling her guts out over the toilet. The very thought of him inside of her made her fee! like vomiting again. How had she allowed herself to live in this house for so long? She began taking her clothes out of the closet. She examined each dress, wondered where she had bought it, why she had bought it, where she had worn it. So many clothes. She must have thought they were important. Why else did she have so many? In the back of the closet she found a box. She knew what was in it. She placed the box on her bed and stared at the dress. She tried to picture herself on her wedding day. Had she been pretty? How had she looked in this dress? She felt it, stared at it, felt it again, then shredded it with her bare hands. It tore like paper. “My arms are still strong,” she thought.
Jake took a final stroll through the city. He had taken the train in from Palo Alto, walked up Fourth Street, then slowly made his way up Market Street into the Castro. Last summer, my J was dying. Why am I still living? He’d lived in this town since he was twenty, and every inch of it was familiar to him. He could daydream and walk to an appointed destination without even being conscious of where he was going. This town is what he knew, and it was his as much as any town could ever be. It was all he had known for twenty years, and he’d never imagined he’d ever leave. He felt numb and empty, a hollow man. If he cut himself open at that very moment, he was convinced nothing would come out but stale air. No blood. He had never thought of this place as home, not really. There was no home. There was only Joaquin. There was only his brother. He had lost Joaquin, and found his brother on the same night. Jake entered a store and bought a pack of cigarettes. He lit one, sucked the smoke into his lungs, then blew the smoke out of his nose. As he stood on the sidewalk, he noticed a young man staring at him. Jake thought of another life he had lived, a life where he would have smiled at the youth, taken him home, then forgotten he’d ever met or touched or wanted him. He remembered when he had first arrived in this city, how it had made him forget that he’d had a previous life. He had loved that amnesia. And now there was just this dull feeling of a sidewalk under his feet. Why, then, had he come? Why did he need to walk its streets a final time? Why the need to be alone in this town one more time as if he were meeting a lover one last time, looking into the familiar eyes as if seeing them a final time would make the memory easier when the time came to remember? And he would remember. San Francisco had given him Joaquin—and so he was paying it his final respects. I’m leaving, J.
He found himself standing outside of Tom’s office without even realizing he’d walked there. And becoming conscious of where he was, he entered the reception area. He nodded at the receptionist. “I’d like to see Dr. Michaelsen.”
“Do you have an appointment, Mr. Marsh?” She remembered his name. He thought it was nice to be remembered.
“No, but can you please tell him I’m here?” He sat down and waited. Maybe I should leave. He looked at the door, at the patients waiting to see the good doctor. What the hell am I doing here?
Tom opened the door. “Jake, come on in.” He seemed genuinely happy to see him. He followed Tom into his office.
“How are you feeling?”
“Fine, Tom,” he said. “Well, sad sometimes.” He cleared his throat. “Well, I’m not here about my health.”
“Social visit? I only have two more patients—you want to have coffee?”
He cleared his throat again. “Well, actually, I have to get back to Palo Alto. We’re leaving in the morning.”
“Leaving?”
“Yeah, I’m moving to El Paso with Eddie and—” He couldn’t finish the sentence. His eyes welled up with water, though he made no noise, would not allow himself to sob.
Tom nodded. “I’m sorry to see you go,” he said. “It won’t be the same without you.”
“This town won’t miss me.”
“Not this town, Jake. I meant my life—it won’t be the same without you—or Joaquin.”
Jake smiled crookedly. “You’re a real charmer, Doc.”
“So I’ve been told.”
They sat in an awkward silence for what seemed an eternity to both of them.
Jake rose from his seat. “I just wanted to say good-bye.” He smiled crookedly again, “If you’re ever in El Paso—” He laughed. “Yo
u won’t—” He stopped, swallowed hard, then nodded. “Listen, take good care.”
Tom placed his hand on Jake’s shoulder but could not bring himself to speak. In that instant, he hated being a man, hated that he could not bring himself to sob because he fell like sobbing, embrace because he needed to embrace, to speak and to tell this hard and unforgettable man that he had come to respect him—forgive him—and even to love him. “Good-bye, then,” he said slowly and sadly and carefully, the meaning of those words as sad as anything he’d ever spoken.
Jake waved awkwardly, then left the office silently as if he wanted to make no noise as he left, perhaps because then no one, not even himself would notice that he was leaving a whole life behind and the man who most symbolized that life, the man who had taken care of his lover, the man who had told him he was HIV positive. He turned around as he opened the door. He saw that Tom was crying, and he knew he would remember him this way. “You’re a good doctor,” he said, then shut the door behind him. He smiled to himself. There was someone to say good-bye to after all, he thought as he walked toward the train station. Jake yelled into the street. He listened to what his shout sounded like—then shouted again. It was not always a bad thing to feel pain.
“Are you awake, Eddie?”
He broke out laughing. “I wish to hell I wasn’t.” He placed his head on Maria Elena’s stomach and kissed it. “Are we going to have sex?”