Lying with the Dead (18 page)

“Sorry,” I tell Maury. “Mom’s never talked to me about this, and I’ve always wondered.”

“Well, why not? He was your father too.”

This brings my Scotch-fueled interrogation to a stop. “It’s late,” I say, then glance at my watch and notice it’s not even ten o’clock. Still, I’m wasted from the whiskey and the long day. “What time do you normally go to bed?”

“Anytime.” He bounces to his feet and pockets the turtle and the toy bus. In the bathroom, he refills the Evian bottle at the sink, then brushes his teeth and scrubs his face. Finally he pries off his jogging shoes and stretches out fully clothed on the bed that hasn’t been turned down.

“Wouldn’t you be more comfortable if you undressed and got under the covers?”

“I’m good.” He’s on his back, gazing at the perforated soundproof ceiling as though at a sky adazzle with stars.

By the time I’ve finished showering, Maury still has his eyes fixed on the ceiling. I slide under the sheets of the second bed, and like him, I trance in on the constellation of pinpricks. I don’t bother switching off the light and he doesn’t ask me to. We lie there, I lost in thought, Maury’s mind God knows where.

The moment is reminiscent of the final phase of my yoga class in Belsize Park, when we recline on our mats, in theory scoured of all earthly cares. I’m usually fizzing with impatience and planning what I’ll do next—call my agent, my accountant, Tamzin. Now rather than pleasant cessation I experience the urgency of unfinished business. Something more begs to be said. An explanation. An apology. A summary account. I feel I should do something for Maury. But what? Invite him to London? Buy him his own trailer in California?

He breaks the silence. “I’m glad we did this.”

“I am too. It’s good to spend time together.”

“I’m tired just thinking about the day. Mass, then Mom, then Patuxent with Candy, then Cole, then pancakes, then talking with you.”

I wait for him to go on. When he doesn’t, I ask whether I should turn out the light and he says yes.

In the dark, I’m aware of the dense timbre of his breathing, the space he occupies, the unexpected weight he exerts. It’s been decades since we slept in the same room. But it all rushes over me in this anonymous Hilton—the almost audible vibration that Maury exudes, like an electrical appliance endlessly cycling through its functions. As a boy it kept me awake nights wondering what constancy of effort, what act of the will, was required to stitch him together. I still marvel that he’s managed to achieve a unitary self.

Me, I’ve splintered, dispersed. Becoming nobody. Anybody. Everybody. Depending on the part I’m hired to play. I used to believe that if I landed the right role, or even the wrong one under the right circumstances, these fractures would heal. But the longer I live, the less convinced I am that I’ll ever cohere.

“Quinn,” Maury speaks up, “are you saying your prayers?”

“Why do you ask?”

“You’re so quiet.”

“I was half asleep.”

“Do you ever pray?”

Again I ask why he wants to know.

“Because in church you didn’t go to Communion,” he says.

There’s nothing I’d like less at the moment than to discuss the state of my soul. Not after Mom’s inquisition on the same subject. Could this be the reason I’ve been summoned home? To coax me back into the Catholic fold? “I pray in my own way,” I tell him.

“What’s that?”

“I think things over. I regret what I’ve done wrong. I plan to do better. Look, it’s late. Why don’t we talk about this tomorrow?”

“That’s okay. I understand.”

Maybe he does. Maybe in his fashion he has me pegged far better than I have him. But it’s too late and I’m too tired to keep going over it. I try to lull myself to sleep, as I sometimes do, by musing about women. Ones I loved, ones that didn’t love me or that should have loved me more. From a certain point of view my life seems a calvary of females who’ve fallen short.

To counteract that melancholy thought, my mind jumps to Tom Trythall and struggles to bring him into focus. Over the years, with effort, I’ve started to imagine Dad as a character from a Sam Shepard play, a monster out of the American West. Now I have another father to define and instinctively I turn to literature, not life. Is there a character that might resemble him, that might resemble me?

• • •

“Quinn! Quinn! Wake up,” Maury says. “You’re dreaming.”

Switching on the table lamp between us, he kneels at the edge of my bed. His hand hovers above my head, as if he were a priest about to confer his blessing. I don’t expect him to touch me, so it’s a shock when he tightens his fingers on my scalp. “Is that better?” he asks.

“I’m fine.”

“You had a bad nightmare.”

“No, I wasn’t asleep. I was thinking.”

“You were groaning and grinding your teeth.”

I don’t argue. I lie there and let him hold on, reminded of the night in the gazebo when I laid my head in Deirdre Healy’s lap and spilled my guts about the brother who now consoles me.

“You’re okay,” Maury says, and returns to his bed and kills the light.

“Sorry I woke you.”

“I haven’t been asleep yet.”

“The coffee?” I suggest.

“I never sleep much. I don’t like to dream. But you go right ahead.”

As if following his instructions, I subside into sleep and uncapturable dreams, and don’t wake until morning, roused by what sounds like an alarm clock. It’s the telephone. Maury’s bed is empty. In the bathroom the shower is drumming. “Hello,” I croak.

“Are you all right?” Tamzin asks. “You sound sick.”

“I don’t know yet.”

“I waited until nine your time. Did you have a hard night?”

“Is there another kind? My brother and I ate dinner at the International House of Pancakes. Then I drank all the Scotch in the hotel minibar.”

“That bad, eh?” She’s laughing. “Well, here’s some good news. I found the quote you asked for.”

I swing my legs over the side of the bed. A filament of sunlight outlines the closed curtains.

“You wanted something from an abusive mother’s POV,” she reminds me. “There’s not much. Mothers in books are generally portrayed as nurturers, caregivers.”

“The assignment was more or less a joke. Hope you didn’t waste a lot of time.”

“I’ll invoice you for my hours.” She’s having me on—taking the piss, as the British put it. “I think a passage from Faulkner might suit your purposes.”

“What are my purposes?”

“Your memoirs, darling,” Tamzin teases me. “Listen to this and tell me whether it fits. It’s from
As I Lay Dying
. The mother’s dead and in a monologue from her coffin, she remembers beating her children: ‘I would look forward to the times they faulted, so I could whip them. When the switch fell I could feel it upon my flesh; when it welted and ridged it was my blood that ran, and I would think with each blow of the switch: Now you are aware of me! Now I am something in your secret and selfish life, who have marked your blood with my own for ever and ever.’”

I don’t know what to say.

“You think it’s OTT?” Tamzin asks.

“No, it’s not over the top. Reminds me of home.”

“I hope you’re kidding.”

“I’ll tell you about it sometime—how I became the man you see before you today.”

“But I don’t see you. When will I?”

“Things have gotten complicated. My mother decided yesterday was the perfect time to inform me that I have a different father from my brother and sister.”

“You’re not serious.
She’s
not. Her mind must be going.”

“She’s as sharp as ever.”

“Oh God, Quinn, are you all right?”

“I’m tempted to have you find a quote that’ll tell me whether I am. But I’m finished with that.”

“Finished.” Her voice gets very small.

“Not with you. With other people’s words. I have to see this through without a script.”

Maury steps from the bathroom, fully clothed, right down to his Windbreaker. Maybe he showered in it.

“My brother’s hungry. I have to go to breakfast. We’ll speak later.”

“Please,” she says, “call me.” Then she adds, “I love you.”

Maury throws open the drapes, and sunlight sparkles on his wet-slicked hair. Although he seems to stare at the interstate with the same stolid fixity as he stared last night at the ceiling, he notices what I haven’t. The light on the phone is blinking. Candy has left a message to call her at Lawrence’s office.

“I’ve spoken with Mom,” she says. “Today’s Maury’s turn. If you’ll drop him off, I’ll pick him up.”

“Don’t bother. I’ll stay with him.”

“No, she wants to talk to him alone.”

“Do you suppose each of us has a different father?”

“That’s not funny, Quinn. Listen, tell Maury that Mom has my number at work. Or if it’s after five, he should phone me at home.”

“Does he have the key to your place?”

“Yes, I gave him a spare.”

“If you don’t mind, I’ll borrow it. I don’t plan on hanging around the Hilton, waiting for them to refill the minibar. Better to go cold turkey at your townhouse.”

“Has it been awful with Maury?”

“Not at all. I had a nightmare and he comforted me. I need more of that in my life.”

Maury

“Let’s go back to the pancake place for breakfast,” I say.

“Wouldn’t you rather eat somewhere else?” Quinn asks. “Just for a change.”

“I don’t like change. I like things the same. I like what I ate last night and I’d like it again today.”

“Okay, let’s do it.”

But when we get there, it’s crowded and clanging with too many noises for me to imitate and we can’t sit at the same table. The waitress tells me they don’t have berries today, and I don’t like it here anymore.

Quinn orders French toast, which is fried bread dunked in eggs and served with strips of burnt bacon. He takes two bites and shoves his plate away. He’s quiet and drinks more coffee than I do. I bet he’s remembering his nightmare. The way he screamed, it had to be the bad kind that lasts into the next day. I know the type and sometimes have them when I’m wide awake.

Without hair and with that morning puffiness around his eyes, Quinn looks old. Older than me. And that’s how I think of him—as a big brother, the guy we go to for help. When I got paroled, he was just a little kid, twelve or thirteen. But he knew how to live in the world, like Cole knew how to live in prison, and I watched him and learned.

Back then, he was always talking. He joked and jabbered and made the rest of us laugh. Now he doesn’t talk so much, except for his questions last night. They spun in my brain, like when you flip a bicycle upside down and spin the tire till the spokes blur into a circle that makes your eyes ache. You want to turn away, but you can’t. Quinn asked so many questions I couldn’t keep them straight and after he fell asleep, the blurry wheel went on spinning in the dark.

“Candy asked me to drop you at Mom’s,” Quinn says. “When you’re finished there, call her and she’ll pick you up.”

“Finished what?”

“Whatever Mom has in mind.”

Without the berries on top, I don’t care for the color of my pancakes. They have the brown look of clay and taste like dirt until I pour on the syrup. Then they taste like sugar. “What’s Mom have in her mind?” I ask.

“Oh, you know Mom. She’s always thinking.” He smiles, handing the waitress his card. “Didn’t you say she had something to tell you and something to give you?”

“That’s what she said on the phone.”

“Well, you’ll soon find out. Mom has Candy’s numbers. If she’s not at work, call her at home.”

“Where will you be?”

“Candy’s house. Which reminds me. Lemme have the key.”

“Aren’t you coming with me to Mom’s?” The key is in my jeans, in the pocket with the toy bus and the rubber turtle. I stand up and squeeze my hand in there.

“She’d rather talk to you alone, like she did with me yesterday.”

“What did she tell you? Maybe it’s the same thing she’ll tell me.”

“We’ll compare notes later.”

After the waitress brings back his card and Quinn signs, we step outside and my shadow on the parking lot is blacker than the blacktop. I’m relieved when Quinn lets me into the car until he switches the radio on. No music, only talk about terror and war and weapons. Listening to that, I can’t keep straight what Mom might have to say.

The sunlight on her house is silver gray, the same color as the unshaved whiskers on my chin. The place needs painting and reshingling. There’s rust dripping down the boards from the roof. My guess is the rain spouts are plugged with leaves. I could unplug them and paint and fix the wood. And Mom’s wreck of a car in the driveway, I could fix that too. It’d be no trouble to change the tires and oil and start the engine running again. But in this family nobody asks me to do the jobs I know how to do.

“I’ll walk you to the door,” Quinn says.

“I see it from here.”

“You know, Mom won’t answer unless you use the code.”

“Three knocks, then one.”

“You’re set.”

My feet are in my shadow until it floods under the shade of the front porch. I feel Quinn’s eyes on me. I bang on the door, and his eyes bang on the back of my head. Then Mom opens up a crack, and I hear the car drive away. She tilts her head like an owl in a tree, leading with her big eye, the left one. She holds shut the collar of her housecoat and the sweater she wears on top of it. There’s a broom in her other hand, and without unchaining the door, she sticks it through the crack, straw end first.

“That spiderweb in the corner of the porch,” she says. “Up there between the post and the roof. I’ve been after Candy for months to sweep it down. I’m afraid the spider’ll bite somebody.”

“The cold kills them in winter.”

“Don’t count on it. Anyway, the sight of it makes me nauseous. Knock it down.”

It’s a tent caterpillar nest, not a spiderweb. I stab the broom at it. The gray sack splits open and out spill bits and pieces, dark as the overcooked bacon on Quinn’s plate. It’s baby caterpillars, all dead. I sweep them off the porch under the rosebushes, and Mom lets me in and leans the broom in a corner of the hallway.

She sits on the couch and folds her feet in her slippers up under her housecoat. I sit where Quinn sat yesterday, in the rocking chair. The smell is everyplace, and my hair is sticky like it has strings of caterpillar nest stuck in it.

“Are you enjoying your visit?” she says.

I tell her I am.

“I guess it’s different in California.”

I tell her it is.

“Me, I’d miss the change of seasons.”

I tell her I do, too, even though I don’t, except for snow.

“Do you have friends out there?”

“Nicky’s my friend.”

“Man or woman?”

“Woman.”

“You oughta get married, a handsome fellow like you. Find a gal to look after you. Have a family. It’s never too late for a man.”

“I’m friendly with the Mexicans, too. They take me to church.”

“Careful who you chum around with.” She lights a cigarette. That helps the smell. “Speaking of church, it wouldn’t surprise me if Candy married Lawrence soon. What do you think?”

“About what?” Her questions spin the bicycle tire, blurring the spokes in a bright circle.

“Think he’ll make a good husband?”

“I don’t know what makes a good husband.”

“Me neither.” Mom laughs and coughs into a Kleenex. “We sure as hell never saw one around this house, did we?”

“I need to check on my boat.”

“Your what?” She squinches her face, and the glasses slide down her nose.

“The boat I built in the attic. Is it still up there?”

“Damned if I know. It’s been years since I risked that ladder.”

“Be right back.”

“Can’t it wait? We’ve got things to talk about.”

I head for the staircase, and she says, “I never did understand how you intended to haul it from the attic. It’d be like pulling a model boat out of a bottle. Something’s bound to break.”

On the second floor, I yank the cord that lowers the ladder. The spring groans loud like Quinn did last night, and the steps creak as I climb. I push open the hatch and switch on the bulb. It’s hard to see through the dust. I want to hide here from Mom, like I did in the old days, staring up at the slanted roof and the shiny nail points. But the nails are rusty now and the boat is rotten down to its keel and ribs, like a cow skeleton in the desert. One touch and the last of the wood’ll collapse in a puff. If I wanted to haul it from the attic, all I’d need is a broom. It’d sweep away as easy as the dead caterpillars. I close the hatch and go downstairs to listen to what Mom has to say.

She’s flat on the sofa, a pillow under her head and another one on top of her chest with her arms crossed over it. She did that at Patuxent when Quinn was in her belly—crossed her arms over the big bump that Candy said moved from the baby’s kicking.

“Sit beside me, sweetheart.”

“I like the rocking chair,” I say.

“No, I want you near me.”

I do what she tells me, crouching at the edge of the sofa like I did on Quinn’s bed last night. But I don’t cup my hand to her head.

“It’s been so nice having you home,” she says. “Normally I don’t have company.”

“You have Candy.”

“She’s busy with Lawrence. Once they marry, they’ll move away and play golf. You know what that means?”

I shake my head that I don’t. I’ve seen golf on TV. I like the sound of the club hitting the ball. Nicky tried, but couldn’t teach me how to keep score.

“They won’t take me with them,” Mom says.

“They told you that?”

“Not in so many words. But I wouldn’t go even if they asked me to. I’m too old for North Carolina. I don’t know a soul down there. I intend to die in my own house. Candy’s been babysitting me long enough. She deserves to have her own life.”

Half my butt has fallen asleep. The other half hanging over the edge starts to ache.

“That leaves me all alone,” Mom says.

I begin to think this is the thing she called me to Maryland to tell me. I see what I have to do. “I’ll talk to Nicky,” I say. “She has space. You could live in her house. Or we could rent a trailer.”

She jabs her glasses back up her nose. “I don’t feature spending my last days in Slab City.”

“It’s nice in winter.”

“Thanks anyway, sweetie. That’s not for me.”

“Then what’ll you do?’

“Candy and Quinn plan to dump me in assisted living. If it’s not bad enough dying in a roach nest, it costs money. I’ll have to sell the house and waste my savings. There’ll be nothing left for you. I told you I have something to give you. But if I go to assisted living, it’ll eat up your money.”

The bicycle tire is spinning faster. “You oughta live with Quinn in London.”

“Fat chance! All his fancy friends around, he doesn’t want to be stuck with an old woman that looks like death warmed over. Doesn’t it burn your ass to lose the money I saved for you?”

“That’s all right.”

“I wanted to leave some for Candy too. Now she’ll miss out.”

“Lawrence is a dentist. He makes money.”

“It’s good for a married woman to have her own.”

“Give her mine.”

“What a love you are. But there won’t be a penny left.” One of her hands slips off the pillow and onto my arm. I pull back, but she holds tight. “You’ve always been so generous. Even as a little boy you shared everything with Candy. And you loved and helped me. I didn’t have to ask. When I was in trouble, you protected me. You knew what to do then. You know now.”

“No, I don’t.”

“Sure, you do. I need to die so Quinn can fly back to London and Candy can marry Lawrence and you can have the money that belongs to you.”

“I don’t want the money.”

“Don’t just think of yourself, dammit.” Her different-colored eyes flash at me, and her fingernails dig into my arm. “Have some sympathy for Candy. Have some mercy on me.”

“I don’t understand.”

“Yes, you do.”

“I’ll fix your car and paint your house, and we’ll live here together.”

“No, you’re better off in California with Nicky. And I’ll be better off once you take this pillow and press it over my face.”

“I can’t do that.” My head starts to float with what she says.

“Why not?”

“You’re my mother.”

“You killed Dad.”

“This is different.” I feel like I need to get down on the floor.

“You killed your father but you won’t kill me?” she shouts.

“I can’t. I love you.”

“Then do it for love.”

I stand up and almost tip over.

“Sit down,” she says real loud so that her big voice and her skinny body don’t match.

“My head is messing with my brain.”

“Trust me.” She pats the sofa. “Sit down and let’s talk this over. There’s nothing to be scared of. I’m dying already. Let’s just get it done with. I’d do it myself, but then they won’t pay my insurance and I’ll go to hell.”

“I’ll go to hell if I kill you.”

“You can confess.”

“They’ll throw me in prison. This time I won’t get out.”

“I mean confess to a priest.”

“They’ll blame me.” She keeps patting the couch beside her, and I keep backing away.

“Nobody’ll blame you. I’m old and sick and they’ll think I died in my sleep.”

“No, they’ll accuse me of killing you for your money.”

“Who’ll accuse you?”

“The cops.”

“You don’t have to tell them a damn thing.”

“They’re smart and they’ve got tricks. This time they’ll gas me.”

“No, no, no. Listen to me, goddammit. You’re making me cuss. You’re making me lose my soul. Is that what you want? You want to condemn me to hell?” she hollers. “Okay! I’ll do it myself and you’ll have that on your conscience because you’re too selfish.”

She mashes the pillow over her nose and mouth. Her arms shake, and she moans like I do.

“Stop!” I grab the pillow, but she won’t let go. I lift her clean off the couch. She weighs nothing and has no strength so she loses her grip and falls to the floor. I bend down to help her up, but she comes at me like a sidewinder, hissing, “You son of a bitch. Gimme back my pillow!”

I run to the front door. She’s on her feet now, following me. Her glasses hang cockeyed off her nose, and her fists clench to wallop me. I keep on going outside, through the rosebushes and onto the dead grass in the yard. The pillow is still in my hand. Mom hobbles onto the porch in her slippers and housecoat. The door slams behind her and she hollers, “You goddamn killer retard. Now look what you made me do.”

Up and down the block, her yelling brings people to their windows and doors. Their worried faces turn our way. Next thing they’ll be dialing 911 because Mom’s screaming bloody murder. Then she runs at me, stepping right out of her slippers. I let go of the pillow and hurry into the trees left over from the woods where I caught frogs and lizards. Those that aren’t dead are underground for winter. The creek is underground forever. But I know a path and a place to hide at the tree where I had a house, a little box that Dad nailed to the branches. It’s gone now, and the hammer marks on the oak have healed over into scars, so the tree looks wounded. I catch my breath and as soon as I’m sure Mom isn’t after me, I run on out the other side of the woods.