Light of Day (16 page)

Marty said he'd like that very much.

Only after Jack made sure there were no messages on the machine, made sure nothing had gone wrong while he was away, could he attempt to play host, although all he had to offer was a pitcher of ice water and a plate of cookies that Mandy Ainsley had brought over back in June and which he had sealed and stored in the pantry.

Marty was sitting on the porch swing, his head tilted back. He said one of the things he missed since he moved out of his house on Maple Street was sitting on the porch on warm summer nights. “It's funny the things you can miss.” He gave the swing a soft push. The chain creaked and groaned gently.

Jack sat on one of the chairs and propped his feet on the railing. He asked, “Did your wife get the house?” But that wasn't the question.

“I sold it. It reminded me of too many things.”

“Where do you live now?” That was not the question, either.

“I bought a place over on Franklin. It's all right. But no porch.”

It might have been a look of anticipation that Jack saw on Marty's face, a look of expectation, as though he knew what was coming. Or it might have been Jack wanting to see that look where none existed. Whichever it was, he paused long enough to lift the glass to his mouth and take a long swallow, then he asked, “What happened that made her want to divorce you?” That was the question.

“I left her no choice,” was all Marty said, and turned his head to look down the road, at the deep rows of corn, the relentless engines of procreation. When he turned back, his face, Jack realized, did not look like the face of a cop, not a city cop, not a small-town cop. Not just tonight, not only now in the yellow glow of the porch light. It was there the first time Marty showed up, that remarkable expression. It was always there, behind all other expressions he wore, and it was also the face of a policeman with closed nerves and sealed emotions, and at the same time it was, simply, Marty's face, the way he looked, like the intonations of a voice, an accent, not the look of optimism necessarily, but of confi
dence: “Things may not be wonderful right now, but I got through my tough time, you'll get through yours.” That was even more remarkable.

“What about you?” Marty said. “When I asked if there was a woman in your life, you said it wasn't relevant to Danny's suicide, but since we're asking questions.”

“There was one, but I thought it would be too confusing for Danny. He had enough conflict.” That was only part of the reason. But Jack didn't tell Marty about Maggie, who played in the softball games and liked to dance close and slow, and who, if Jack had given the chance—

“Just
one
in ten years?” Marty asked.

“The only one that I was serious about.” Jack shifted uneasily in his chair. “Moving to Gilbert was not about me finding a wife, or a mother for my son. It wasn't about me at all.” He stood up and walked away from Marty's assumptions. He went inside the house and refilled the pitcher. He thought about what he might tell Marty, or if he should tell him anything at all. When he came back out to the porch, he said, “I was married to the woman I wanted to be married to. We had the life that we wanted to have with each other. And then we didn't.” He was silent for a moment, listening to himself breathe, listening to himself think. “I've never stopped missing that life.” It wasn't a confession, merely a statement of fact. “What happened wasn't fair to Danny. What it did to him wasn't fair. I spent the rest of his life trying to make up for it.”

Then Jack told Marty about the deal he'd made. It disturbed him to talk about it, not because he was embarrassed or ashamed, not because it was a secret, not for the lack of catharsis that talking about it might bring—he didn't expect a catharsis, he didn't want one; there is nothing cleansing about stating the facts you've accepted about your life—and not because any trust had been betrayed, or assumed. It disturbed him to admit the hurt Anne's abandonment left behind. It disturbed him to confess the irrevocable damage of Danny's suicide. It disturbed him, he realized, to admit that another piece of his life, his time, had been chipped away forever and dropped into the irretrievable past.

Jack didn't say this, he didn't say anything else because there was nothing more to say unless they wanted to talk about what the ques
tions, what the answers, revealed when told to someone who was no longer a stranger. Unless they wanted to talk about what dangerous territory this was; so they sat in silence, unlike the silence in the car, which had been safe and private. There was nothing private about this silence, nothing safe. It never is after the questions, after the answers. After nightfall on the front porch when you've gone beyond the point of saying more than necessary.

There was nothing Jack could do except feel the world, and the life that had once been attached to it, lurch farther away from him. He should have expected it. After all, you can't spend an entire day with someone, drive into the deep country, sit with your thoughts inside a car for an hour and a half and not ask a few questions.

H
e sat under an oak tree by the creek with his notebook and a cooler with a couple of bottles of soda and two sandwiches. He was able to do that now, sit outside, write his lecture notes. He was able to run errands, to meet Marty for lunch in town, dinner, even if it was little more than a formality, really, Jack pushing salad around a bowl. He was able to go out and come back to the house that was still standing, to the benign answering machine. He was able to call his father without the cold sweat, without the dread.

Jack had never thought he'd get this far, taking short drives through town, afternoon walks along the edge of the field, alone sometimes, sometimes with Marty, who managed to find the time whenever Jack called. They'd sit out back and have a beer or drink lemonade, and it always ended up with the two of them driving somewhere or sitting in the house, talking about Danny: “Let me show this one picture…” “Let me…” Jack wasn't ashamed to tell Marty about sitting alone in Danny's room, resting on Danny's bed, putting his face in Danny's pillow, closing his eyes and talking to Danny as though he were there. He wasn't ashamed to admit that he still worried about
What next?
—but not all the time. That he didn't always listen for the ring of the telephone, or anticipate the next disaster, but it was still in his mind. He wasn't ashamed to tell Marty about the old wooden box with the cutout
animals and Anne's orange button. “I can't help wondering if there were more secrets.”

Marty said, “I think it was Danny's way of staying attached to Anne, to his time with her.”

On this first day of August Jack was trying to think like a man with a future, however precarious that future was; built not on the solid bedrock of his own personality but balanced on Marty's shoulders, a place Jack found very uncomfortable, a place Jack preferred not to be—he had never been carried by anyone—but he'd asked Marty to help bring him back to being Dr. Owens, nevertheless, to what was left of Dr. Owens, who was going through the motions of thinking and reacting from memory; as though he'd seen another man, the other man being himself, do these same things a long time ago, on a home video, in the dark of a movie theater.

Tomorrow he would drive to the college and start screening films for the fall semester, he didn't have a choice if he wanted to keep his job, but right now it was enough to sit out by the creek with his books and prepare for the new term while Mutt lay next to him on the green, ripe ground.

From where he sat, Jack could see the field, where the crops had been harvested and come fall the earth would lie bare. The heat rippled in the sunlight. He could hear blue jays screaming in trees, the sudden scatter of wings, the plunk of a frog in the creek, and the creek rushing across the rocks and smooth stones.

“It's not so bad sitting out here today.” He still talked to himself, sometimes, and to Danny when he started thinking about the past.

Later, when the sun was above the trees, he might walk over to where the water was deep and cool and wade in the creek. Right now, he would do some of the work Dr. Owens used to do.

It was noon when Jack put down his papers and books and saw the small dark shape rising in the field like a tiny ship riding the crest toward shore. After a while, the shape became Mary-Sue Richards stepping through the fence and walking toward the house.

Jack watched her knock on the screen door, shade her eyes and peek inside. She knocked on the door a second time, pushed it open and
called “Dr. Owens?” a couple of times in her high, sweet voice. Jack was undecided whether to let her know he was out here until Mutt raised his ears, lifted his muzzle and barked, and Mary-Sue turned and looked in his direction and Jack called to her.

She waved to him and ran over, all in the same motion, sat on the large square rock next to Jack and said, “I came by the other day, but you were out. Mom wanted to come by today, but I told her I'd do it for her. She and Dad wanted to know how you're doing. They said to say hi.”

“You can tell your folks that I'm hanging in there.”

Mary-Sue had grown since Jack last saw her—he remembered how Danny ripened every summer, as though he were plugged directly into the sun, and how far removed twelve was from eleven, fifteen from fourteen. Four weeks ago, Mary-Sue had stood in the kitchen shifting ungracefully, all shoulders and knees, not yet grown into her body. Now she had come to terms with her arms and legs, no longer held in awkward disregard but carried comfortably at her side. Her hair was cut to the middle of her ears and great care had been given to styling it. She wore her shorts and T-shirt with more consideration of their shape and hers. She was conspicuously aware of herself. Jack looked at her and saw Danny grown taller, broader at the shoulders and chest, his voice a little deeper, closer to a man than a boy.

Mary-Sue looked at Jack's notebook, groaned, “
School
. Please don't
remind
me,” and asked, “What are you teaching this semester?”

“Films of the sixties.”

“Anything good?”

“That's the question we'll try to answer in class.”

“I guess there's nothing with Brad Pitt.”

“Would you settle for Dennis Hopper and Peter Fonda?”

“You really should have Brad Pitt.”

“Sorry. But there'll be a cartoon between features.”

She didn't seem to know that he was joking. “You really should show Brad Pitt,” she said with a certainty that was enviable. She crossed her legs, rested her chin in the palm of her hand. “Did you hear what happened to C.J.? He was in a car accident, at the Ainsleys' place in Kentucky. He broke both arms, busted his right shoulder, his face was
cut to shreds. He'll need an awesome amount of plastic surgery. They weren't even sure that he'd live.”

“Live?”

She nodded her head. “He's doing better now, but he's really hurt.”

“What about his parents?”

“That's just it. They weren't with him.” Mary-Sue dug her toe into the soil, making a deep, narrow burrow. “If he'd gone along with them it wouldn't have happened. I'm beginning to think the kids around here are jinxed.” Her tone of voice was earnest and heartbreaking.

“Gone along?”

“They were going to a cookout and C.J. didn't want to go. My dad says, that is, Dr. Ainsley
told
my dad, that C.J. was moping around the
entire
summer. Of course his parents couldn't understand why. I mean,
duh,
considering how he felt about Danny, if they'd bothered to notice, which they didn't. I mean, well,
all
of us have been bummed by what happened, but C.J.—he called me a few times just to talk to someone who knew—it isn't like we're that close, but his sisters were like telling him to get a life and Brian's doing Out ward Bound in Maine and Rick's up at his uncle's farm in Wisconsin somewhere. Poor C.J. had no one who under
stood
. He said he couldn't stop thinking about Danny. It was
haunting
him. He was so intense it was scary. I was like, ‘C.J., maybe you should get some help,' but he said he just wished he could disappear somewhere. And then the dummy gets the bright idea that he could drive his dad's old Dodge. And he
totaled
it. My dad says he lost control going around a curve. He must've been doing at least a hundred. He's in some hospital down there. Intensive care. They don't know when they can bring him home. If he'd taken the new car he might not have been banged up so bad be cause of the air bags, or even if he'd worn his seat belt.”

“When did this happen?”

“About two weeks ago. I wanted to come over then, but my mom and dad didn't want me to bother you, but I thought—I just wanted to—I mean I know I'm interrupting your work, but I thought if I could sit here awhile with you—I don't know.” She began flicking the soil with the tip of her big toe; there was still a lot of little girl left in her. “You don't like Dr. Ainsley, do you?”

“I feel sorry for Carl.” Which wasn't completely untrue.

“Do you like C.J.?”

“I feel sorry for him, too.” Which was the truth.

“Everyone treats him like he's such a screwup. It's all wrong.”

“Yes. It makes C.J. very unsure of himself.”

“Mrs. Ainsley and the twins aren't much better.”

“No, they're not. You treat someone like that long enough and he begins to believe it.”

“
I
don't like Dr. Ainsley. Not the way he puts C.J. down in front of his friends.”

“Carl can be very thoughtless at times.”

“We all did it. Even Danny. I shouldn't call him a chucklehead all the time, but—it wasn't like C.J. didn't
do
stupid things, but what Dr. Ainsley does to him is really
cruel
. Anyway, I just hope everyone'll be nicer to him now.”

“They will be.”

“That's why we all wished you were our dad.” She said this cautiously. Her face was flushed.

“What?”

“The way you took care of Danny. Watched out for him.”

“Your parents aren't exactly neglecting you.”

“It's other things. The way you talked to him, to all of us. Like we're, I don't know. Like we're not
kids
. And it was
way
cool that Danny got to see all those movies with you. I mean, well, when your dad teaches linguistics and your mom teaches English lit, there's a definite lack of entertainment value.”

“He didn't always like my choices.” Jack smiled. “He hated subtitles.”

“I wish my parents were more like you,” she answered adamantly. “We all did. I mean, it's like I can tell you about C.J. and—I don't know.” She hunched her shoulders and looked up at the treetops.

“Everyone wishes their parents were like someone else's parents.”

“Well, if you ever get lonely for Danny, I mean I
know
you
are,
but, like watching those movies by yourself, I'll go with you. I mean, if it'll make it less lonely.”

It was unsolicited honesty, like Danny's honesty, and it was more than Jack could bear. It made him want to hold his son the way he used to until
their chests were pressed so close together and tight they could feel each other's heartbeat. Jack wanted to hold Mary-Sue like that, just so he could hold what he was feeling, just so he could hold a child, the way he held his child. But he couldn't go around hugging fifteen-year-old girls anytime they made him think of Danny. He couldn't tell her what he was thinking, as he watched her stare at the ground, work her toe into the soil, unaware of what she'd been able to do with what she'd said—she was still more child than not, he thought. She didn't know not to speak what she felt. Jack slipped a little further inside himself, inside the self that had been Dr. Owens, who never got ruffled by the things teenagers told him. Who always knew what to say. Who thought he might still know: “I can't offer you a movie right now, but I can give you a cold soda.”

Mary-Sue looked up and smiled.

Jack didn't feel less lonely drinking a soda with Danny's friend, but he liked that she sat with him while he did his work, lying quietly in the sun, as Danny would have done. He could hear some of Danny when she talked about C.J., about Brian, and Rick. She'd shared time with Danny, and Jack could hear that in her voice, too; and he could feel her needing to sit here. Maybe she thought Jack was the only one she could be with who would understand what it was like to have one friend dead and another near death. She didn't have to explain her sadness, or anything else for that matter, and Jack wouldn't ask her any questions or try to cheer her up or do any of the obtuse things parents and adults do when children are sad and silent. Or maybe it wasn't any of those things at all. Maybe she had come here thinking that Danny's suicide had revealed to Jack the incomprehensible workings of, if not the universe, at least the slice of it located on the banks of the Wabash and he could explain to Mary-Sue what was happening inside her because she certainly didn't know and her parents were no help. Maybe Jack could explain what it was that had wrenched her and Danny, C.J., Brian and Rick away from the rest of the crowd and into a sadness children were not supposed to know. Or maybe it was the sadness itself that brought her here and all she wanted was to rest where she wouldn't be an anomaly. Maybe she needed to feel all of this and Jack needed her to feel this, needed her to be there inside the absence Danny had left behind.

Jack could not help feeling disloyal to Danny—the same disloyalty he felt making plans with Marty—for wanting Mary-Sue to stay with him, for wanting her to fill the absence, if only for an afternoon, if only for being barely more than the nothing he already had. Jack could not help feeling disloyal to Danny. Because grieving is never enough.

Mary-Sue stayed while Jack worked on his lecture notes. She took Mutt for a walk along the edge of the creek, sat in the shade of a tree as the light of the afternoon deepened and warmed. Later, after she thanked Jack for the cold soda and went home, her small body absorbed into the harvested field, Jack walked back to the house. He wondered what Marty would have to say about C.J.'s accident. Would it trouble him as Danny's suicide had? He thought this without cynicism, which is what he told Marty that night, when they met for dinner at Marlowe's.

They were sitting at a round table near the center of the room working slowly on their whiskeys. Marlowe's was a jacket-and-tie place, and Marty was dressed smartly in summer beige, blue and coral. He didn't say he was troubled by C.J.'s accident. He did say it was upsetting, and that he felt sorry that Mary-Sue thought that her friends were jinxed. “That's a terrible way for a kid to feel.” He asked, “What sort of kid is C.J.?”