Illumination Night: A Novel

  THEY never talk about the future. Sometimes, when they’re together, they get up to lock the doors or pull down the window shades at the exact same time, as though they could somehow protect themselves. There is no protection. Jody knows the reason why she is always the one to come to his house, she knows why they will never go to a movie together, and why they will never have friends. She has seen the way people who stop at the farmstand peer down into the hollow. She has done it herself.

  Falling in love with the Giant is like falling into a pool of water. The world turns inside out and dissolves. When they are in his house, Jody truly forgets what he is. The rooms are small enough to make anyone seem clumsy, and the two of them spend a great deal of time in bed, where it is possible to forget anything. She remembers how impossible their future is at unexpected times: when her metal gym locker at school slams shut; when she takes blue sheets out of his closet; when she kisses her grandmother good-bye and runs down the road to the place where he is waiting for her, hidden in the dark.

  She cannot have friends anymore. She cannot tell Garland who it is she loves and she cannot lie to her, so Jody avoids her completely. It is even harder not to talk to Vonny, although now when Vonny comes to visit it’s to see Jody’s grandmother. Vonny and Elizabeth Renny go for walks several times a week. Once while Vonny waited for Mrs. Renny she studied Jody carefully, then announced, “You’re in love.”

  “Uh uh,” Jody said.

  “Yes, you are,” Vonny said. “You look like you’re all lit up.”

  “I’m on a diet,” Jody said. “Maybe that’s it.”

  Vonny lowered her voice. “You’re not pregnant, are you?”

  “God, you sound like my mother,” Jody said.

  “Oh,” Vonny said, wounded.

  “I’m on the Pill, all right?”

  “That’s your business,” Vonny said. “Forget I asked.”

  “Look,” Jody had said, “you don’t have anything to worry about anymore.”

  “What was I supposed to be worrying about before?” Vonny asked.

  They could hear Elizabeth Renny in the parlor as she closed a bureau drawer.

  “Nothing,” Jody said, meaning Andre.

  “I see,” Vonny said.

  Could it be that they never had anything in common other than loving the same person? Vonny is no longer reminded of the girl she used to be when she looks at Jody. She sees another woman. One she hardly knows.

  Before she left, Vonny gave Jody a quick hug. “Don’t be a stranger,” she said.

  “Sure,” Jody agreed, but they both knew that was what she had become.

  The one person Jody can discuss the Giant with is Simon. At first she avoided him, but every time Simon saw her he ran across the lawn. He wants to know everything. It amazes Jody that someone as small as Simon can be so precise. What size shoe does the Giant wear? Is he tall enough to reach the sky? Exactly how tall was he when he was five years old? Jody is not certain if Simon really believes there is a giant or if he thinks they share the same dream. She tells him the Giant was already as tall as full-grown man by the time he was ten. She tells him the Giant can reach through the clouds. It gives Jody an odd sort of comfort to talk about the Giant, even when she’s turning him into a story. Every now and then she tells Simon a bit of the truth. Chickens in the Giant’s yard are red; rows of lettuce and peas have already begun to sprout in his garden; his house, which he always paints gray, is on South Road, but hidden from view by the tilt of the land, by locust trees whose leaves are shaped like feathers.

  All that spring Jody sleeps in the Giant’s bed whenever she can. She leaves her grandmother’s house on Friday night and doesn’t return until Monday morning. They do not try to guess what will happen to them. They do not ask each other how long this can last. During the last week of school, Jody cannot talk above a whisper. Her hair becomes threaded with knots. She hides her cap and gown up in the storage attic. Graduation day is marked on her calendar as the last day of her life. She will be propelled into some kind of future. What she feels for him becoming a fevered recollection. She keeps the end of the term secret, hoping he won’t notice her anguish. Finally, she tells the Giant she won’t be able to see him on the weekend.

  He doesn’t ask why.

  “Aren’t you afraid I’ll be seeing someone else?” Jody says. “Maybe I’ll never come back.”

  “I can’t force you to,” the Giant says.

  “Yes, you can,” Jody says, “if you really cared.”

  The Giant sits up in bed, facing away from her. Jody looks at his back and knows she has hurt him. She is horrible. She is a beast. She has never seen anything beautiful before seeing him.

  “It’s graduation,” she says. “My family’s coming.”

  “I wish I could be there,” the Giant says.

  “You won’t be missing a thing,” Jody says.

  LAURA and Jody’s brothers arrive at the house late Friday night. Jody’s father and his girlfriend, Robin, are staying at the Kelly House in Edgartown. Laura knows this and the more she tries to hide how upset she is, the more it shows. She has brought two large suitcases with her, with eight changes of clothes. She has had her hair frosted, and Jody doesn’t risk telling her that if anything the blond streaks make her look older. Just Jody’s luck, graduation will be the first time her mother meets her father’s girlfriend, who is twenty-eight years old.

  As soon as Laura walks into the house Jody sees that her mother’s eyes dart around too quickly. Laura hands her a box wrapped with rose-colored paper. Inside is a graduation present, a dress bought in Boston. Jody thanks her mother, and when Laura shrugs Jody can tell her mother is on the edge of something. Mark and Keith have picked up on her tension and are making things worse. They bicker nonstop and manage to do the exact opposite of everything they’re told. Jody has made pot roast for dinner, but nobody eats.

  “I refuse to say one bad thing about your father,” Laura says to her children.

  “A fine idea,” Elizabeth Renny says.

  “That bastard,” Laura says as soon as the boys have gone upstairs.

  Laura bends her head and tears roll onto her plate.

  “Don’t cry, Mom,” Jody says.

  “I’m not,” Laura snaps.

  Jody looks across the table at her grandmother.

  “Let’s hope she has an affair with a man twenty years younger than Glenn,” Elizabeth Renny says.

  Laura laughs, and her voice breaks. “You know he’ll blame me for the fact that Jody’s not going to college.”

  The closest Jody can get to disappearing is to carry the plates to the counter. She scrapes them clean and piles them up on top of each other.

  “You can’t stay here forever,” Laura tells her.

  “Not everyone is meant to go to college,” Elizabeth Renny says.

  “Oh, sure,” Laura says. “You’d just as soon she stay here. Just like you wanted me to stay without ever caring what it was I wanted.”

  They both know this isn’t true, but Elizabeth Renny wonders if it’s her fault that Glenn is sleeping with a twenty-eight-year-old girl.

  “I’m sorry,” Laura says.

  For the rest of the evening they act as though nothing is wrong. But when Jody goes upstairs, it is all she can do not to climb out her window and run to the Giant’s house. She forces herself to get undressed and put on her nightgown, then goes to brush her teeth. When she pushes open the bathroom door she sees her younger brother Keith crouched over the toilet, vomiting. Jody goes over and puts a hand on his back. She can feel him shudder through his thin pajamas as he strains, then vomits again. She keeps one hand on his back as he stands and flushes the toilet.

  “I must have eaten something weird,” Keith says, but Jody knows he has eaten nothing at all.

  “Mom’s driving you crazy,” Jody says. It seems odd to her that they should have the same parents.

  “Yeah,” Keith says. Then he adds, defensively, “She’s okay.”

&nbs
p; Because he’s forgotten his own, Jody lends him her toothpaste and toothbrush.

  “Do you want to sleep in my room?” Jody asks. She knows from babysitting for Simon, it is sometimes easier for kids to fall asleep when you pretend to sleep with them. But Keith is eleven and already past those sorts of tricks. His arms are too long for his body. One day he will be taller than his father. He shakes his head no, but Jody can tell that the dark hallway that leads to the attic spooks him.

  “I left my gown in there,” Jody tells him.

  She knows he’s relieved that she leads the way down the hall. Their footsteps echo on the wood. The door has been painted so often, Jody has to push hard to get it to open. Inside, their brother Mark sleeps heavily, his face pressed against the dust surrounding his sleeping bag. Jody gets her graduation gown. It sways on the wooden hanger. She fiddles with the plastic protecting the gown until Keith has slipped into his sleeping bag. He closes his eyes so tightly lines fan out from his eyelids.

  “Good night,” Jody whispers, but Keith pretends to be asleep.

  In her own room, Jody hangs the gown in her closet, then closes the door. She sits down in front of her mirror without turning on the light. She will never dye her hair blond or try to look younger than she is. She will never be fast asleep while someone she loves is frightened and sick or live with a man she doesn’t love anymore just because she’s afraid of living alone. Jody gets into her bed wishing she could tell Laura everything and knowing she won’t, though she’s not certain whether she’s protecting her mother or herself.

  At a little before nine, Jody puts on the pink-and-white sleeveless dress her mother has bought for her. Along the hem there is a line of white lace, meant to show. Laura makes her two boys comb their hair with water. She rushes them through breakfast, but then they all have to wait for Elizabeth Renny to finish getting dressed, and while they’re waiting skirts and slacks wrinkle and collect cat hairs.

  “Shit,” Laura says as she studies herself in a mirror.

  “Mother,” Jody says.

  “What?” Laura says. “I’m allowed to curse. I’m a grownup.”

  She tells Jody to turn around and fixes her hair, pinning up strands that have fallen from the tortoiseshell combs. Jody’s brothers have been sent out to wait in the car. It’s a perfect June day, not one cloud in the sky. Elizabeth Renny struggles with her zipper, then holds on to the overstuffed arm of the couch as she slides her feet into her shoes. She feels light-headed and proud of Jody but she’s worried about whether she’ll last through graduation and manage to get to the restaurant where they’re all to have lunch.

  “All ready?” Jody says to her grandmother, surprising her by coming up on her right side.

  Elizabeth Renny takes Jody’s arm and walks outside with her. Jody helps her into the car, then gets into the back with her brothers. The box with her cap and gown rests on the floor beside her feet. Laura drives a little too fast to the high school. Cars are parked all along the Edgartown-Vineyard Haven Road. The air buzzes with the hum of the P.A. system, now being tested. Jody’s brothers are wearing suits and white shirts and, worst of all, ties. They shift uncomfortably as Laura pulls up and parks.

  “Help, I’m being strangled!” Jody’s brother Mark says, holding his tie straight up in the air and letting his tongue dangle out of his mouth.

  Keith laughs nervously.

  Once they’re all out of the car, Jody wants to get away from them as quickly as she can.

  “I’ll meet you afterward,” she says.

  Laura comes around and straightens her collar. “Whatever happens,” she whispers, “don’t make me sit next to your father at lunch.”

  Jody nods and walks across the parking lot. The graduates have all flocked together outside the gym. Boys let their black capes swirl around them as they shake hands and sneak cigarettes. Garland waves Jody over and helps pin on her cap.

  “Can you believe we made it?” Garland says. “Free at last.”

  Jody feels awful about avoiding Garland for so long. She hugs her and pins Garland’s cap over her blond braids. She wants to tell Garland she’s in love, but in broad daylight, here behind the gym, the word giant itself seems ridiculous. Hers is a secret that belongs to the night, to empty roads, to a bed pushed up against the wall.

  The graduates are told to form two straight lines.

  “Oh, my God,” Garland whispers. “This is it.”

  When the band begins to play, Jody feels a lump in her throat. She follows right behind Garland. They cross the small street, file past the tennis courts and across the field. When it’s Jody’s turn to go up onto the wooden platform the sun beats down on her black gown. As she gets her diploma and shakes the principal’s hand there’s some scattered applause in the audience. Jody walks along the aisle and sits between Garland and a boy she knows from biology. Her brothers whistle and call out her name and Jody turns, scans the audience till she finds them, then waves. She sees her grandmother looking straight ahead, directly into the sun, and her mother, sitting on the edge of her chair, shielding her eyes with the graduation program. Jody looks toward the back row and finally spots her father, wearing a beige suit and sunglasses. Jody supposes that the woman next to him is Robin. They both look tan, as though, for them, summer had begun a long time ago.

  Beyond the rows of chairs something is moving out of the trees, beyond the baseball field. The day is getting hotter and Jody squints. A man walks through the waves of heat. He wears black slacks, a white shirt, and a black tie. His blond hair is combed back neatly. Jody feels her stomach tighten with desire. From this distance he doesn’t even seem tall. He stops halfway across the field, in the middle of the diamond. Jody knows that if you added together all the people he’s seen in the past ten years it would not add up to the crowd he now faces. She is not good enough for him, she doesn’t deserve his love, and what’s more she knows that if he takes one more step toward the crowd, it will kill her to have to give him up.

  After the ceremony, her father is the first to find her. He pulls Robin behind him, and when he reaches Jody he puts his hands on her shoulders and kisses her on each cheek.

  “My beautiful daughter,” he says to Robin. “Now all we have to do is convince her to go to college.”

  Robin laughs and congratulates Jody. Jody smiles, but she looks past Robin.

  The Giant is walking slowly through the field. Jody can’t tell if he’s about to search for her or make his escape.

  “I’ve been looking forward to meeting you for ages,” Robin says.

  When Jody looks up and meets her eyes, Robin takes a step backward. Then, feeling silly for having been stung by the cool glance she’s received, Robin laughs and says, “I love graduations.”

  Jody’s brothers run toward them, then stop short. Behind them is Laura, annoyed because Elizabeth Renny is so slow in getting through the crowd. She wanted to be the one to get to Jody first.

  “Jody,” Laura calls weakly, then waves.

  Jody waves back. He is closer now. In the sunlight he seems like a stranger. He looks blindly into the crowd. Jody wants to call out his name. Instead, she bites her tongue.

  “You actually made it here,” Laura says to Jody’s father. “What a surprise.”

  “Not today,” Glenn says to her. “All right?” He lightly kisses Elizabeth Renny. “You look great, Mom.”

  Laura snorts when he calls her mother Mom.

  “We’d better go,” Glenn says. “We have reservations.”

  “I love seafood,” Robin says.

  Everyone turns to her, as though surprised to see her.

  “Well, I do,” Robin says.

  Jody’s brothers gladly accept their father’s offer to ride with him and Robin into Edgartown. They make certain to avoid looking at their mother so they don’t have to see the murderous glances she shoots them.

  “How about you?” Glenn says to Jody. “Drive over with us.”

  The Giant is walking toward her. Several peopl
e have turned to stare at him, but the Giant doesn’t seem to notice. Jody does not begin to know how to introduce him to her family. She has never imagined them existing in the same universe.

  “Holy shit,” Jody’s brother Mark says. “Get a look at that!”

  “Mark!” Laura says, ready to lecture him until he grabs her sleeve and tugs. Then she turns to see what he’s pointing at.

  Jody has hoped that one day the Giant would agree to meet her grandmother. She has imagined her grandmother sitting on the porch, feeding the birds, late in the afternoon. He would not have seemed so unusual to her since, Jody knows, her grandmother can barely see. Elizabeth Renny would have tilted her head when his shadow fell across her, blocking the sun. She would have lifted her face toward him when he spoke.

  He is only a few feet away. He waits to see if he should come any closer. She cannot ignore him. She blinks, but there is still a glare of light that comes between them. She cannot see his face, but he still takes her breath away.

  Jody waves, and the Giant walks over. Elizabeth Renny sees his white shirt.

  “This is Eddie,” Jody says to her family.

  “Oh,” Elizabeth Renny says. “I knew an Eddie when I was in high school.”

  “Congratulations,” the Giant says to Jody formally.

  Jody wants him to bend down and kiss her.

  “Everybody ready?” Jody’s father says loudly. “Let’s go.”

  The Giant is holding a small box that he puts in Jody’s hands.

  “Good to see you,” Jody’s father tells the Giant. “But we’ve got to get a move on. We’ve got reservations.” Jody is so stunned by her father’s insincerity that she shifts and puts her foot in a rut. Her high heels buckle and she loses her balance. The Giant reaches out to steady her, but thinks better of it and backs away.