“You’re hurting her!” Simon cries.
Andre ignores Simon. He runs up the steps and tosses Dora inside. Simon charges his father; he has never hated anyone more. As he slams himself against Andre’s legs he can feel the thunder inside him moving toward his fists as he punches his father, he can feel it come out of his mouth as he makes a terrible noise. Vonny comes running, her arms streaked with clay the color of blood. Andre has reached down and he has one arm around Simon. He turns when Vonny opens the door.
“Stop it right now!” Vonny says. It’s not clear who it is she’s talking to.
“Don’t come between us,” Andre warns her. “Don’t do that to us.”
Simon is crying and his face is streaked with grease. If Vonny takes one more step he’ll run to her, he’ll wrap both arms around her legs until she bends down and lifts him up. Vonny steps back, takes the handle of the screen door with both hands and pulls it tight. She turns her back to the door so she doesn’t have to watch.
Andre kneels down and lets Simon hit him.
“Talk to me,” he says. “Simon.”
Without the thunder inside him, there is an unbelievable emptiness. Simon leans all his weight against Andre. This time when he opens his mouth no thunder comes out.
“I don’t want anyone we know to die,” Simon says.
Andre cannot imagine what he would have thought if he had ever seen his father cry, but he doesn’t try to stop himself. He puts his hands on Simon’s shoulders more gently now, and holds on even after he’s pushed his son away.
“We can’t hope for that,” he tells Simon. “Let’s just hope we remember. Then she’ll always be with you. Will you remember?”
“Yes,” Simon says.
“Yeah,” Andre says, “I think you will.”
ELIZABETH Renny eats only oatmeal, thinned with milk, flavored with brown sugar. She eats it for lunch and again for dinner. Every spoonful makes her shudder. The oatmeal is too delicious for words. Every now and then she has the urge to drop down on her hands and knees and crawl. She discovered this when she lost a needle while hemming a dress and had to get down to search the floor. It was such a comfortable position she could barely force herself to get up again. She is smaller than she used to be. She knows this from sitting in the overstuffed chair; her feet no longer touch the ground, she sinks into the pillows. She sleeps more than she used to. She falls asleep sitting upright in the chair. Until she was six she shared a room with her sister, and sometimes now at night she thinks she can hear her sister breathing. When one of the cats gets into bed with her, she imagines the creature is a stuffed animal and holds it a little too tight. One morning she loses a tooth, which she wraps in tissue paper and places under her pillow. Vonny comes over with her groceries, but now Elizabeth Renny doesn’t remember who she is, although she doesn’t let on.
“You’re sure you’re all right?” Vonny says to her. She has her little boy with her, he’s bending down petting the white cat. Elizabeth Renny smiles. She reaches into her pocket and offers the boy a sourball.
“You’re not supposed to chew these,” Elizabeth Renny says conspiratorially. “That way they last longer.”
While Simon is unwrapping the sourball, Vonny goes into the kitchen and looks through Mrs. Renny’s phonebook. Mrs. Renny has not been able to go on walks with her for some time, and although Vonny is often concerned, she’s respected her neighbor’s independence. She does not know where to draw the line. How can she know when it’s right to interfere? The garbage hasn’t been taken out and the dishes haven’t been done. While they’re visiting, Simon has to pee, but he comes out of the bathroom after only a moment and insists they go home. Vonny drags him back to the bathroom, but he’s right, it smells terrible, and when Vonny switches on the light she sees there’s feces on the floor. After they’ve come home, Vonny gets herself a beer and stares at the phone. Then she calls Mrs. Renny’s daughter. She starts out saying, “It’s none of my business,” but that’s not exactly the truth.
“I’m worried about your mother,” she tells Laura. “I’m worried enough to suggest you come as soon as you can.”
Laura arrives the next day, suddenly, without bothering to phone ahead. As soon as she walks in the door she breaks into tears and Elizabeth Renny does not know why. The house is a disaster. Bowls of crusted oatmeal sit in the sink, dishes of uneaten cat food litter the floor. Laura immediately begins to do the dishes, crying as she washes.
“Mom,” she says, after she makes some tea and sits Elizabeth Renny down at the table, “You can’t go on living alone.”
Elizabeth Renny takes her daughter’s hand and looks at her diamond ring. It shines in the light, colors are caught and reflected in the stone. That night Laura tucks her mother into bed. Elizabeth Renny smiles and reaches up her arms to hug her daughter. It is a beautiful summer night, blue and clear and filled with stars. There is a low tide and the air smells like seaweed and salt. Elizabeth Renny recognizes her daughter as Laura is opening windows to let in some air.
“Where are your nice boys?” Elizabeth Renny asks.
“With their disgusting father,” Laura jokes. She does not know why tears continue to well up or why her throat feels so tight. She should have seen her mother more. She should not have moved so far away. And yet, the house feels exactly as it did when she lived here. The same furniture, the same heat. It is as though she has never been away. If she had lived closer would she be any more ready for this?
Elizabeth Renny signals to her and Laura leans closer.
“Do they cry when you leave them?” Elizabeth Renny asks.
“No,” Laura says. She touches her mother’s forehead and then her cheeks. “They don’t cry.”
“You’ve got nice boys,” Elizabeth Renny says. “You’ve got a beautiful daughter.”
Elizabeth Renny feels happy. She holds Laura’s hand. Her hand is so small it is nearly lost inside her daughter’s. Elizabeth Renny thinks of a baby sitting on its mother’s lap, looking at the sun. She smells crackers and milk, she feels the warmth of someone’s body against her own. There is a hand-sewn quilt decorated with bluebirds and letters of the alphabet. Elizabeth Renny curls up and brings her knees to her chest. She loves the way her pillow smells, like fresh soap, like powder.
Laura gets into bed beside her and puts her arms around her.
“Shh,” Elizabeth Renny hears her say. “Go to sleep.”
Elizabeth Renny smiles in her sleep. All of her dreams are white. She dreams she sees sunlight. She sees the walls of her room at home, she hears her mother in the kitchen, cooking cereal, her father running water in the sink as he shaves. She hears her sister opening the curtains, and the traffic on the street. Laura is still asleep when Elizabeth Renny wakes up. On this morning Elizabeth Renny is so small she could fit inside a high chair. She knows words inside her head, but she can’t remember how to talk. She lifts herself up and looks out the window. The sun has just begun to rise. On the lawn she sees a flash of color. She no longer remembers the name for what she sees, but she smiles when the piece of color lands on the porch railing. “Pretty,” she thinks to herself. “Pretty red bird.”
Your mother always calls you at the wrong time. When you are making love with your husband or sitting down to the sort of dinner that will be dreadful if not eaten hot. This time she calls you on the one morning your son is sleeping past eight and you have the chance to sleep late. You run into the kitchen. You let her talk and pour yourself a cup of coffee. The day is already hot and you think you see two green herons outside flying above the shed. Your mother is complaining about the heat in Florida, not that it bothers her, but next summer perhaps she and her husband will rent a place on the Vineyard. You are reminded of the empty house next door. You remember that as a child when you went to the beach with your mother she always made you wear plastic beach shoes so you wouldn’t be bitten by crabs. You cannot recall any death in your childhood, but when you tell your mother this she begins a litany: a cocker
spaniel, turtles, your second-grade teacher, your grandfather. You have survived all of these, and you wonder if your son will be so lucky. You see a new sort of caution in him. He knows something he did not know a year or even a few months ago.
“My God, you can’t protect him from everything,” your mother will say, but that is exactly what you want to do. Your mother will remind you we don’t know the half of what goes on in this world. She will tell you that just last week she and her neighbor sighted a UFO.
“Mom,” you will say, “you are wrecking your credibility.”
The UFO was silver and round, like a ball suspended in the sky. She and her neighbor were having iced tea and Stella D’oro cookies on the neighbor’s screened-in porch. They heard a hum they thought was from those huge Florida mosquitoes, but then they looked into the sky. What this has to do with keeping death away from your son you do not know. What this has to do with the look on his face when you sat him down and tried to explain that your next-door neighbor was old and had had a good life you have no idea. You want to ask your mother why people have to die, but instead you get yourself more coffee, which you drink black and scalding hot.
Your mother will try to describe the green light that formed a halo above the UFO. When she and her neighbor called NASA to report the sighting they got a recording and had to leave a message. You wonder why your mother is more real to you over the phone than she is in person. Every time you see her face to face you argue, you snap at each other the way you did when you lived in the same house and were dreaded adversaries. You think of her out on the porch drinking iced tea, watching the sky. For years she could not leave her house, even to drive around the block, and now she tells you she would go up in a UFO if asked. All of this makes you miss her.
When you get off the phone everyone will still be asleep. You will go out to the sun porch. A hundred years ago the porch was used for sleeping on hot July nights. A whole family dragged their mattresses down here and listened to cicadas. They whispered and looked at the stars. Red clay sits in a barrel of water, softening. The surface of the water looks thick and brownish red. When you reach into the barrel the clay moves between your fingers like a living thing. You take what you want and wedge it, kneading the clay until the air bubbles pop. It is silent outside and the sky is flat with heat. You sit at the wheel and begin to kick it with your right foot, you slap down the clay and watch it revolve like a misshapen planet.
Across the yard, birds gather on the porch railings, on the steps, on the roof. Every day they grow bolder. They are taking over the house, and some of their songs begin to sound familiar. While you are centering the clay, you realize that the force field has begun to shrink. It is now small enough to fit in a matchbox that you keep in your pocket. Sometimes you can feel it pulsing, just to let you know it is still there. You have been to two funerals, and yet summer has never smelled so good or seemed as hot. Now you know what your son meant when he insisted that shadows remain after people die. You see long patches of shadow in unexpected places. You feel as though your neighbor still lived right next door, even though you have been inside the empty house, and your husband is the one to mow the overgrown lawn. A hundred years ago the family on this porch waited for a breeze from the sea to bring some relief from the heat. The lilacs had already been planted, but weren’t much more than twigs. On the hottest nights the family kept jugs of water by the door, the mother and daughters wore white nightgowns and braided their hair in the dark before pinning it away from their flushed necks. How clear the planets must have been in the sky, how dark the roads at night. Millions of fireflies must have appeared in the bushes, pale yellow lights blinking on and off all through July. You wish you knew the hour when they all fell asleep, lulled by fireflies and heat. There was a time when people believed the sap of a locust tree was as thick as blood. They believed the soul of a dying child could be caught and kept in a bottle. Who can believe that nothing remains? Who does not strain to see the tiny fragments of a life that refuses to be extinguished?
When you press down with your thumbs you can feel the clay’s energy pushing back at you, but it is no match for your fingers. You open the center of the clay, then begin to raise the sides with your thumb and forefinger. You keep a steady pressure on the clay. With your left hand inside, and the fingertips of your right hand following, you begin to pull upward. You think about the dishes in your house when you were growing up that were never used, white china edged with a rim of gold and pink. Much too breakable. That is not at all what you’re after.
By now you know you will always be afraid. Even when the sky is flat and clear. Even when your husband and son are safely asleep in their beds. You know that every time you drive alone to the store to buy a quart of milk a part of you will expect the earth to swallow you.
You will go to the store anyway.
After she leaves, the silence is unbearable. He paces his house, but there’s not enough room to contain him, and one night he tears out at dark and runs more than five miles, to the hardware store. He goes around the back, jimmies open a window, and climbs inside. After his eyes adjust to the dark, he makes his way past the bags of fertilizer and seed to the appliance section. He grabs a cassette player from a shelf and stuffs his pocket with tapes. His hands are shaking, but he manages to light a match so he can make out the price tags and leave enough cash to cover what he’s taken. He runs all the way home. The sky is black and filled with stars. A few tapes fall out of his pockets and scatter on the road, and when he reaches his house his clothes are drenched with sweat. He sits at his table and examines the cassette player. There are no instructions. He chooses a tape at random, slides it in, and presses Play. He cries when he hears the music.
He is heartsick and each day he grows paler. He is willing himself out of existence. His paintbrushes are untouched, his garden so ignored that weeds have taken over. Customers no longer expect to find anything at the farmstand. No one bothers to stop anymore. Except for the woman who comes to torment him.
The first time the pickup made a U-turn without pausing. He noticed it only because the tires squealed and the sound sent a shiver down his spine. Then the truck began to pull over and idle. It is there every day and the Giant can now distinguish the sound of its motor above all others. One morning the woman gets out of her truck. The Giant, who has stepped out his door to get a better look, recognizes her as the mother of the little boy he kept from seeing the accident. He runs back inside his house and doesn’t come out until she drives away. The next morning she is back. The Giant watches from the window. He times her. She stands by the side of the road for exactly five minutes. She comes back each morning. She becomes the only thing in his day. When he hears her truck on the road he stops whatever he’s doing and turns off his cassette player. The Giant knows she wants something, she wants it badly. He knows what that’s like. He wanted something too.
He cannot know how Vonny’s hands sweat whenever she grabs the steering wheel. He cannot know that sometimes, when she gets home, she is sweating so much she goes to the shed, turns on the hose, and runs water over her head. He cannot know that she comes here because it is the spot on earth she is most afraid of. Or that at night her fear turns to desire and she wants her husband so much she scares herself. She has to put her fist in her mouth so she won’t make noise when they make love.
It is long past lilac season. All Vonny has to be able to do is stand by the side of the road for fifteen minutes, then buy something and go home.
She gets out of the truck for longer times each day. Seven minutes, then ten. She smokes a cigarette sometimes and always checks her watch. There is a lot of traffic on the road at this time of year and the annoying hum of rented motor scooters and bikes. The Giant’s throat hurts when he watches Vonny. He has all but stopped eating. Occasionally he remembers food, then he opens a can, heats it, and wolfs it down, whatever it is, beef stew or vegetable soup.
The Giant does not want to change the sheets on his bed, but at
last he does. When he pulls them off he finds one of Jody’s hair clips, a thin silver band, forgotten between the mattress and the sheet. He puts the old sheets back on the bed, then he holds the hair clip and studies it. He jumps when he hears a knock on the door. He cannot imagine who would even know he’s alive other than the woman, and she’s already been and gone. Through the window he can see the police officer, Hammond West. For two days straight the Giant has been listening alternately to Brahms and Johnny Cash and he wonders if his fingerprints have been detected on the dusty shelves of the hardware store. He doesn’t bother to hide the cassette player. He opens the door and stands there without inviting Hammond inside.
“Thought I’d see how you were doing,” Hammond says.
Hammond is out of uniform. He wears worn khaki slacks and a plaid shirt. The Giant stares at him rudely.
“What does a guy have to do to get a drink around here?” Hammond says.
“Help yourself,” the Giant tells him. His voice is hollow, not as deep as anyone would guess.
Hammond walks past him and goes to the refrigerator.
“No beer, huh?” Hammond says. He takes a bottle of apple juice out and looks on the counter for a glass.
“There aren’t any,” the Giant tells him, so Hammond drinks from the bottle.
“I guess the girl’s gone,” Hammond says. When the Giant doesn’t answer, he adds, “Her parents are still looking for her. They’ll find her when she lets herself be found. I didn’t think you’d go with her.”
“Sure,” the Giant says. “You figure I’m a freak.”
“No,” Hammond says. “I figure this is your home.”
“Are you here to arrest me for something?” the Giant says.
“Not unless you’ve done something I should know about.”
“Arrest me or get off my back,” the Giant says.
“Seems like I’m bothering you,” Hammond says.
“I don’t have to talk to you,” the Giant tells him. “I don’t have to explain anything.”