All Things Cease to Appear

  The day after they took their son to college, Travis came into the kitchen before work with a sheepish, grave smile. I have something to say to you.

  She stood at the stove, making his breakfast. Just a moment, she said. He liked his eggs runny, but something about his tone made her stay at the stove a little longer. He sat down at the table with his coffee and unfolded the newspaper. He was in no hurry. I’m showing the Hale house today, she told him.

  Travis grunted. You’re wasting your time.

  You never know. I’ve got a feeling about this one.

  He grunted again. You and your feelings.

  Spurned by the comment, her eyes went prickly. She shuffled his eggs onto a plate and brought them to the table. You had something to tell me?

  You cooked these too long. He ate them anyway, then pushed the plate away, finished his coffee and set the cup down.

  Travis?

  He looked at her dispassionately. I want a divorce.

  She was angry with him, but more out of surprise than anything else. Why leave her now? They hadn’t been unhappy. She hadn’t been discontented. She was a good wife, a good mother. She had done it all—mothered, tended, protected, washed and cooked and administered medicine and read to them and nurtured their minds, bodies and souls—because she loved him. It was the kind of love only women had, an idea that had sprouted the moment they were born, when their mothers, and occasionally their fathers, held them in their arms. When they’d met, he was there to complete her; it was his duty, his assignment. He, Travis Lawton, in his RPI jacket, represented the rest of her life. A real man. Strong, handsome, educated, an amalgamation of all the right adjectives. The rugged, courageous, even heroic sort they used in the cigarette ads. He was a cop. Her mother, Irish, poor, a round-shouldered woman in a crocheted shawl, making soups, boiled sausage and black pudding in her row house in Troy—she’d married for her. Suddenly, she finally understood that. Her whole life a blur, and now, all at once, she was old. She had suffered—oh, yes, she certainly had. And now she was suffering the consequences.

  Here was the reckoning. First at church, whispering to Jesus. Whom she adored, even though He had not been fair or faithful to her. He hadn’t. What peace had He returned?

  She had swallowed his body, whispered Hail Marys, and Forgive me, Father, for I have sinned, a million times, and what had she done? How had she sinned?

  She hadn’t sinned. She’d been good.

  In actual truth, she’d been grateful to Travis for marrying her—a gratitude her mother had instilled—and for staying with her all these years, always feeling, or perhaps being reminded, that she was the weaker end of the bargain. Well, she had her good points, built durably, unafraid of using her hands, an admirable cook, a patient, nurturing mother, but she admitted she had her issues, her weight, shaped like a goblet with pretty legs, top-heavy, the first place people’s eyes always went, even the women, and then her moods, the persistent tease of depression, not that she’d ever called it that. Disoriented by menopause—yet not defeated. Somewhere down the line she’d lost sight of her old self. Her old self had deserted her. Routine was her friend, her reliable mate. There was the early walk up the hill in the half-sunlight with Ernie and Herman, then the walk back down again with the sun on her back. The black pond. The wet field. The pudding-thick earth sucking at the boots she’d kick off and leave on the stone. The old bell knocking in the wind. The silent house. Then breakfast, two eggs, dry toast, a cup of tea. Time and again she’d started Weight Watchers. The quiet of the small kitchen, the window. The pasture in early spring.

  She had started out as one thing, a cop’s wife, and had turned into another, a cop’s ex-wife.

  People didn’t know her. Not the real her. Just the lady who sold houses. She was like some billboard they recognized and thought about in terms of what she could do for them, but nobody really knew her. She wondered if she did herself.

  You got comfortable the way you were. Good, bad or ugly. And the years went by.

  She goes to the market in her heavy coat. Like a big walrus. Or maybe a sea lion. With a few spiky hairs under her chin. She tugs on them when she’s nervous, sometimes in church, when Father Geary cajoles the good out of her.

  Lately, some festering internal confusion, like her brain’s been marinating in Vaseline. You know things are bad when a trip to the supermarket’s your day’s main outing. Meandering under the relentless yellow lights of Hack’s, wandering the aisles without really needing anything, just lured along by the music: Ventura Highway in the sunshine…

  She tries not to look at anyone. They don’t look at her, either. Sometimes one or two do. Burnouts. Crusty guys in plaid farm coats, their pockets jammed with cigarette packs. She’s let her hair go, maybe in defiance. It’s a wild silver now. Used to be she was careful. Not anymore. So what if she doesn’t brush it. Who’s looking? The weight like monkeys on her hips, her blousy fat-lady arms, all of her rocking through life like an old tugboat. She keeps her coat zipped, her hood up, burrowing inside it like a little mole.

  Late fall, she finally sells the place. A couple from the city, drunk on Wall Street. Their daughter rides horses, shows. The wife fell in love with the land. The husband only so-so, but it’s a second marriage; he wants her to be happy, though he would rather be out in the Hamptons.

  She doesn’t tell them about the murder. Something she could be sued for, she knows, if they find out, but she doesn’t care.

  Over tea one afternoon in Father Geary’s office in the rectory, she confesses to this omission. He only listens, offers no comment, and she imagines that he secretly is pleased. In any case, he doesn’t seem to judge her for it. She wonders how he manages celibacy. She would like to ask him, but of course she can’t. She would like to ask why it’s even necessary to require it of people of the cloth. She, too, is celibate, though for different, more pathetic reasons.

  You never get used to living alone. That’s a fact. It’s become who she is, that woman you’ll see every now and then, walking alone down the road or through the woods. She is known for her solitude. Maybe even admired for it.

  Now, let’s talk about something important, Father Geary says, pouring more tea. Why don’t you tell me about Alice.

  —

  TRAVIS HAD BEEN gone almost a year when she was awakened one winter night by the sound of a car, the scary thumping bass of its stereo.

  She lay there in the dark, rigid, just listening, then heard those unmistakable footsteps. The same feet that wore Mary Janes to church, to birthday parties with all the children from St. Anthony’s. And then knocking on the door. Stealing herself, she put on her robe and went downstairs, shaking. Looked out the window and saw the yellow strands of her daughter’s hair. No coat, short sleeves, Alice shivering on the doorstep, her skinny, child’s body—even at twenty-six—bouncing around like she used to when she had to use the bathroom. It wasn’t difficult to assume she was on something. It had snowed earlier, and the whole world sparkled under the moon.

  Mary opened the door. Who’s that in the car?

  Just a friend.

  What do you want?

  Can I come in? Her face broke a little, the same child’s face, a girl who’d ridden horses and taken spelling tests and indulged in daydreams.

  Mary let her in. What about him?

  He can wait.

  Who is he?

  No one special.

  She stood there trembling and it occurred to Mary how small she looked, how pale. Where’s your coat?

  Alice jutted her head toward the car.

  Do you want to eat?

  I need to go pee.

  In a hurried skip she darted into the powder room, and Mary just waited, shaking, wanting to let go, to cry. Afraid that maybe she was dreaming this. Terrified she’d wake up.

  Her bare feet were cold. She pulled on a pair of old socks and stood there in her bathrobe, conscious of the pulsating beat coming from the car. She went to the window and looked out. It
was a big car—a sedan—and she could see the glow of a cigarette and the black exhaust dirtying the snow.

  It came to Mary that Alice was not aware that Travis had left her, that she was alone in the house. She knocked on the bathroom door. Are you all right in there?

  No answer.

  A mother never loses her right to intrude on her child, she thought, even when they’re fully grown and infested with poison, and opened the door, bracing herself for whatever she might find. Hon?

  Alice heaved over the toilet. I’m sick.

  I can see that, Mary said harshly.

  Just let me be. I’ll be all right.

  What about him?

  Get rid of him. Alice looked up, on her knees on the bathroom floor, her eyes brimming with tears. Can you do that for me?

  Mary studied her daughter and could see the years on her. I’ll try.

  Get Dad.

  He’s not here.

  Alice shook her head, too sick to talk, and waved her off.

  Mary went up to the bedroom and opened the closet and found the shoebox in which she stored the gun, a small pistol. Travis had given it to her for her fortieth birthday and she hadn’t taken it out since. It was loaded.

  She went back downstairs and put on her boots, feeling a thrumming in her chest, a quiet rage coming up her throat. She pulled on her coat and hat and opened the door and walked down the brick pavers and pounded on the front window with her gloved hand. The windows were as fogged up as if the car was full of clouds.

  The window came down and the driver, a black man in his forties, leaned over to see who she was.

  You can go now, Mary said. Alice is staying home.

  That right?

  Yes. Go away.

  The man chuckled. He turned off the engine, then got out. His body stretched up tall and he moved with the same showy bravado as the bears that occasionally played with her trash cans.

  She’s sick.

  Oh, yeah, she’s sick all right.

  My husband, she blurted, he’s a cop.

  The man stood there. You know what? You can have her. She ain’t worth it.

  Mary shook her head. Is she on drugs?

  Naw, she just high on life.

  He got back into the car and turned up the radio so loud that she could feel the sound throttling her legs, her back, her fingertips. He waited a long while, maybe five or six minutes, two whole songs’ worth, then finally pulled away.

  Aware of the gun in her pocket, she watched the car creep to the end of the road. Slowly, it turned onto the paved road and disappeared into the night.

  Mary waited for a moment. She almost didn’t want to go inside, fearing she couldn’t deal with it. But she pushed herself, climbed the steps and opened the door, smelling the potato she’d baked for supper—and her life, her stupid little life. The bathroom door was ajar, the light off. Kind of afraid, she ventured into the kitchen.

  Her daughter was sitting at the table, eating a bowl of cereal.

  You might as well know, she said, I’m pregnant.

  Where’ve you been all these years?

  Around, she said. New Jersey. Newark.

  Why didn’t you ever call me?

  Alice sighed and shoved away her bowl. I don’t know. Because I thought you’d hang up.

  That’s not true and you know it.

  I know I screwed up. Alice gazed at her tenderly. I can’t erase all that.

  Mary swallowed. Look, she said. Your father’s gone. He left me. I don’t have much.

  What happened?

  I don’t want to talk about it.

  Alice nodded and looked down at her hands. Just for a little while, okay?

  I imagine you could use some sleep.

  She nodded.

  Are you on something?

  She shook her head.

  How long?

  She doesn’t answer. Please, she says.

  All right, then.

  Alice stood up, giving Mary a glimpse of her small belly, and came over to her. Thanks, Mommy, she said, and kissed her on the cheek. Then she climbed the stairs to her old room and closed the door.

  Mary stood in the kitchen, hearing the dripping faucet, the electricity running through the refrigerator. Her daughter’s bowl was on the table, empty now. At least she’d eaten a little something. Mary took the dish and washed it unhurriedly, remembering everything, then set it in the rack and went up to bed.

  Part 5

  Invasive Procedures

  Syracuse, New York, 2004

  1

  FRANNY CLARE IS in the third year of her surgical residency when it occurs to her that the work has become unbearable. She experiences this revelation during a lung resection, assisting the surgeon with the procedure, her movements fastidious, precise. It’s a city hospital, a cumbersome mecca of suffering. There are wings and corridors, countless beds, endless days and nights when she surrenders to a kind of terminal abeyance. Sometimes, moving from one bedside to another under the eerie, otherworldly fluorescence, she feels an inexplicable sense of loss. What had first attracted her to medicine—biology, physiology, healing the sick—now quite distinctly fills her with dread. Unlike the other residents, who glide through the corridors like white-coated warriors, sucking up to the attendings, Franny feels unhinged, disconnected, bereft. Like someone who has been banished, she thinks. Like some Kafkaesque nightmare. The hospital with its annexes and ramps. Strategically placed crucifixes. Billowing smokestacks. The city cold and gray under hovering clouds.

  She walks home on sidewalks, swaddled in wool, her satchel swinging, the same faces coming and going. Nurses, young doctors, orderlies. They pass one another without acknowledgment. Her life is only this: work and after work.

  She lives in a yellow brick tenement built in the 1940s, with slow elevators and narrow, odorous hallways, in an efficiency apartment with leaky faucets and mice, rusty crank windows. In the courtyard, old Russians in overcoats feed pigeons or play checkers. Young mothers on cell phones, indifferent to their children’s histrionics. As in the countless dorm rooms of her youth, the walls are bare. There is nothing distinct or revealing. She tolerates the hours, eager for disruptions—the vodka in her freezer, the reeling scandal of a passing ambulance, the drunken busboys shooting craps in the alley, her bickering neighbors, the babies always crying.

  Her lover visits occasionally, a married vascular surgeon with three kids, his wife a cellist with the local symphony. Like most surgeons, he is arrogant, temperamental, surprisingly sensitive. Aside from a shopworn sort of comfort when she lies in his arms, she resents their strange closeness. Like most of the attendings, he lives a good distance from the hospital. Once, last summer, when his wife had taken the kids to their cottage on Canandaigua Lake, they drove to his house, an English Tudor in the suburbs, in his black Saab, the back seat cluttered with picture books. They pulled into the driveway and she watched the garage door rise like the curtain at a play. They walked through the garage—the servants’ entrance, he’d joked, cluttered with sleds and bicycles and monogrammed golf bags—and had sex on his kitchen floor, near the cat bowls, while his children, pinned under magnets on the refrigerator door, grinned down at them with the glee of spectators.

  Her pager wakes her and it’s a number she doesn’t recognize, an outside area code. Disoriented, she looks at the clock: four in the afternoon. The sky a crumpled white, like an idea that can’t be rescued. She pulls a blanket around her and looks in the refrigerator. A limp carrot, a bottle of tomato juice. Again her pager vibrates. When she calls the number, a woman identifies herself as Mary Lawton, a name Franny vaguely remembers, someone from her father’s past. I knew you when you were little, she says.

  I don’t remember.

  Of course you don’t. The woman explains that she’s a realtor from Chosen, the strange little town where her parents once lived. We’ve finally sold the farm, she says. It only took me a quarter century. I believe I’ve earned my commission.

  Franny laughs
abruptly and a pair of pigeons on her window ledge drop down like torpedoes into the courtyard. That’s funny, she says. That’s a long time.

  In the beginning, after the murder, her father had hired a special cleaning service and decorators, but except for some random renters, the house has been empty for all these years, since the day he took her away from there. Fragments of that morning sometimes come back to her like the insult of a disrupted dream: the grieving house as they pulled away, the terrible darkness of her mother’s room.

  Congratulations, Franny says dully. She doesn’t really want to hear about the place. Not my problem, she thinks.

  Here’s the reason I’m calling, Mary says quickly, as if detecting her lack of interest. Somebody needs to go in there and clean it out. From what I’ve heard, I don’t imagine your father is up to it?

  No, Franny says. I don’t think he could manage that. Her father, a diabetic with severely diminished vision, no longer can drive. The last time she saw him—Christmas—he’d moved into an assisted-living facility in Hartford, and she’d gone down to help him unpack. They sat in his room, listening to opera on the radio—Tosca, she remembers now—while the snow drifted down. They’re teaching me Braille, he told her. Preparing me for total darkness. It won’t be long now.

  Then he took her hand, alarming her, and ran her fingertips over the Braille pages of his book. It felt strange, sitting there with their hands together. For an instant she closed her eyes, feeling words under her fingertips like grains of sand. Everything’s different now, he said. I’m trying to get used to it.

  I could hire somebody, but I thought you might want to go through your mother’s things. Mary Lawton pauses meaningfully. I just wanted to check with you first.