Year After Henry (13 page)

In the kitchen Evie ground some coffee beans and then found a filter. While the coffee was perking, she rolled a joint, taking a few strong tokes before she snuffed it out again. She left it in the cigarette notch of the ashtray, a treat for later in the day. With a cup of coffee in her hand, she stepped out onto her front porch and opened the lid to the small wrought iron mailbox that hung near her door. Two bills and a flyer ad for some new shop out at the mall. Gil Taylor was the one who delivered mail in Evie's part of town. Evie had planned to be wide awake by the time Gil came whistling up her walk. She would pretend to be taking a morning swing, there in the shade of the porch, just a coincidence. And she would ask Gil, in the most offhand way she could muster, if he'd seen Larry Munroe around work lately.

It was the ringing telephone that brought Evie away from snapping more dead leaves from her porch plants. She put her coffee cup down on the table, near the glass lamp with the lead crystal diamonds hanging from its shade. The crystals chimed their sweet chime as she reached under the shade and grabbed the phone.

“Evie speaking,” she said. It was how she liked to answer the phone. Cut to the chase, that was Evie's motto about most things in life. There it was again, the sound that comes when a telephone line is alive, not dead, that sense of a person hovering at the other end but saying nothing. “Hello? This is Evie Cooper. May I help you?”

There was no reply, but Evie knew the sensation that came over her. She was aware of space, and time, and the gut feeling that you are connected to someone, someone you can't see or touch, but someone you
know
is there, hanging on to you for dear life. Evie waited. Nothing.

“I see your car,” Evie said then. “I know it's you. And I know it's you calling me like this and hanging up.”

Now, she heard breathing at the other end of the line, as if speaking those words had caught the caller unawares. There was a static noise as the phone on the other end moved about, maybe from one ear to the other. Then, that soft sense again of being joined, person to person, connected by an electrical wire. The telephone had always struck Evie as a kind of channeler itself, bringing together two people who cannot see or touch each other. It had taken scientists a long time to discover how sound works, how signals change in volume and pitch over great distances. One day, she was sure, the skeptics would understand that the dead work like telephones, from their own great distance, to contact the living.

And then, Evie said something that made her feel proud for the first time in a long time when it came to Henry's wife. She didn't say what she really wanted to; she didn't shout, “How dare you telephone me and just hang up? Talk to me, damn it, or leave me alone!” Instead, she closed her eyes and breathed deeply.

“If I live to be a hundred,” she said, “I'll never be able to apologize enough. I didn't know, didn't know the color of your hair, your face, the way you dress, the children you have, the way you push your cart at the IGA. I'm sorry. I wish I could take it all back. I'm here if you ever want to talk, even if it's to shout at me. So please remember that.”

And then the line went dead and the connection was broken.

...

At six o'clock, Jeanie did what Larry had asked. She parked down the street and waited until she saw Frances and Lawrence putter off in the Toyota truck. Only then did she start her car and pull up closer to the house. Still, she parked on the opposite side of the street, under a large elm with branches that cascaded down as a kind of cover. The key to the front door was under the huge, cast-iron pot filled with red geraniums, the same place it had been when Jeanie first started dating Henry. As she pushed it into the lock and opened the front door, she wondered how many geraniums had come and gone over the years in that same cement pot. Lots of them. Enough blossoms to bury Bixley, Maine. You could keep track of time by counting those falling red petals.

Once inside, Jeanie climbed the stairs cautiously, as if afraid Frances might pop up from behind a lamp or a vase of flowers. She knew her mother-in-law would feel betrayed if she found out about this secret dinner. Frances had now developed a new strategy about Larry: leave him to sit in his room alone and he'll eventually miss the world enough to come back out. But Jeanie doubted this. She envied Larry his solitude behind that bedroom door, a quiet place where he could shape and mold the outer world to his liking. The dinner idea seemed wonderful to her, an invitation to step into that superficial world of the bedroom, the Planet Larry. But what she was remembering now, as she made her way up the stairs, were those times Henry had sneaked her into his and Larry's room, trying to get her past that talking step before Frances rushed out of her downstairs bedroom like a guard dog. Those were the nights that Larry stayed behind, practicing his basketball shots on the court down by the park, only the streetlights to aid him. Some nights he'd be alone, unless a couple of the other guys who had no place special to be were around to shoot baskets with him. When Henry and Jeanie would appear again, an hour or so later as Henry walked Jeanie home, Henry would wave to his brother, a signal that the coast was now clear. Jeanie would pretend she didn't see Larry there, still too embarrassed at what she and Henry had been doing back in the bedroom. But Larry would smile politely as he twirled the basketball on the tip of one finger. Then he'd tuck the ball under his arm and head for home.

At the top of the stairs, the squeaking step alerted Larry, who threw open his door and gestured to her, as if he were some kind of maître d' at a fancy French restaurant.

“Table number one, Madam,” Larry said. “Shall I seat you now?” He was dressed in a gray pin-striped suit, necktie and all. Jeanie giggled to see him.

“You look great,” she said. And he did. Larry was attractive in a quiet way, unlike Henry's loud and flashy good looks.

“You don't look so bad yourself,” said Larry.

“You like it?” Jeanie asked. She twirled around, showing Larry the blue dress she was wearing, a cotton linen, sleeveless and pretty. “I wore this to my wedding reception.” She felt a wash of sadness come over her. Maybe this was a mistake, to come here wearing that special blue dress while Frances and Lawrence were planning her husband's memorial service. That's where a good, loyal widow would be, deciding on who speaks first, then second, then third. Deciding who pushes the plaque into the ground, if there will be a flag or not, if the minister should say a prayer before or after the plaque is inserted. All those things that seemed useless to Jeanie since Henry the man, the person it was all about, was gone. Memorial services should be done for the living, let them know while they still can how appreciated they are by friends and family.

But then Jeanie stepped into the old bedroom and, once again, Larry had saved a moment in time. Before her sat a small card table, a white linen tablecloth spread neatly over its top. Two of Frances's crystal candleholders adorned the center, one on each side of a vase filled with what must be flowers from Frances's backyard, a lovely rose among a mixture of mums and tiger lilies. The best china the house had to offer was in place, silverware and plates that Jeanie knew had come from the beloved downstairs china cabinet, the stuff Frances might use if Jesus came to dinner. Two of her preciously guarded crystal wineglasses sat catching reflections from the flickering candles. In the background, a radio was softly playing, an oldies station. At least, the Bee Gees were singing “Too Much Heaven.” Jeanie knew that song well. It was all the rage the year before she married Henry, 1979, the year their lives were still heavenly.

“Larry, it's beautiful,” Jeanie said, and she meant it.

“Sit, Cinderella.” He pulled a chair back from the table. Jeanie watched as he poured them each a glass of wine.

“Did you break the padlock on the liquor cabinet?” she asked. “Or did you actually leave the room and go shopping?” Larry put the wine bottle on the table and then sat in the other chair. He fluffed out his linen napkin.

“Somewhere in between,” he said. “I picked the lock and
then
went shopping.” He raised his glass. Jeanie did the same with hers, and they clinked them together, gently. Henry had given the toast at Larry's wedding, hitting his champagne glass so hard against the groom's that both glasses had shattered. Everyone had laughed at the time, even Katherine, although champagne had splattered her wedding dress. But thinking back on that day, Jeanie realized that marriages are like that, too. So are lives. They are so fragile they can break if you aren't careful.

“You're thinking of my wedding toast, aren't you?” Larry asked, and Jeanie nodded. Knowing they shared so many memories brought with it a sense of safety, the kind she always felt when Larry was around.

“Tell me again why I married your brother instead of you,” Jeanie said.

“Because he was the life of the party,” said Larry, “and I was the guy who cleaned up afterward.” He lifted the lid of a plate on the table. Jeanie saw almond-stuffed olives, squares of cheese, crackers, a few of the marinated mushrooms Frances loved to buy at the Bixley Deli. The Bee Gees sang on quietly from their corner, as if they were the house band, serenading the diners.

“How could Katherine let you go?” Jeanie asked. “You make what's rotten seem bearable in such a short time.” Larry had always had this gift. Maybe it was following in Henry's footsteps that had taught him to put the pieces back together as he went.

“Well, my ex-wife saw it as a nuisance rather than a talent,” Larry said. He took another lid off another plate and held it up for her to see. Sliced garden tomatoes, baby cukes, shelled garden peas, fresh garden carrots, all scrubbed clean and presented neatly. Jeanie bit into a carrot.

“I see Frances has a good garden this year,” she said, teasing him.

“I'm disappointed in the lettuce,” said Larry. “Too much rust on the leaves or we'd be having a Waldorf salad. I saw walnuts down in the fridge. Maybe next time.”

A cool breeze pushed through the window Larry had already opened, a book propped beneath it. Wind rippled across the high school banners still pinned like butterflies to the wall, their streamers waving gently as wings. The breeze brought with it the smell of creek, and trees, and grass, and even the aroma of bread baking in some nearby house. Larry sniffed the air.

“Wish I knew who's baking,” he said. “Bread would go well with this. Don't gorge on veggies and cheese. I've prepared a culinary delight as our main course.” He pointed to a bookshelf over by the window. Books had been piled on the floor so that the top shelf was cleared for a hotplate plugged into a nearby outlet. A covered pan sat on the single burner. Jeanie pushed her chair back so that she could stretch her legs, enjoy her wine, let the evening unroll as if it were some kind of old banner itself, one that's been stored too long in the attic. It had been years, maybe since high school, that she'd felt this free, as if the future were still something far-off and shiny. Leave it to Larry to know just what to do.

Memories came, too, on the wind. For the first time in years Jeanie looked,
really
looked
, at the old football picture of the Munroe brothers, still ripe with victory. There was Henry's crooked smile, Larry's polite tilt of head. What a day that had been in all their lives. Larry the captain and Henry the best quarterback in school history. It was that same night, after the big game with Montgomery High, the game where Henry had thrown those seven historic touchdown passes to Larry, that he and Jeanie McPherson first made love. Henry had saved enough money for a motel room. And Jeanie had worn a scarf over her hair, afraid that old Mr. Tyson, who worked the night shift and knew her father, might see her. It was her first time ever with any boy. But there was so much magic that day, talk floating in the air of college scouts in the bleachers with their eyes on Henry, the photographer from the local paper snapping away at the Fabulous Munroe Brothers. Frances and Lawrence beaming from their seats. It was enough to make a girl like Jeanie set her sights on an engagement ring, and that usually meant going all the way, going the distance, just as the team itself had done that year. But that was a long time ago now. Larry had gone on to college and Henry had busted his ankle senior year, a break so bad that he'd never play football again except for a friendly game in the park. That old day of victory was now rolled up like a mat and put aside. A day ambushed by the future.

“Coming into this room is like lifting the cover on our class yearbook and stepping inside for a visit,” Jeanie said.

“Not for me,” said Larry. He was helping himself to more baby cukes. “For me, it's like
living
in the fucking yearbook.”

Jeanie laughed, that out-loud laugh that loosens the stomach muscles and releases the tension. A television show she had once seen claimed that laughing can cure cancer.

The song on the radio was by Rupert Holmes. Jeanie remembered it well, a song about drinking piña coladas and walking in the rain
.
She wished she were on an island somewhere far away, sun and sand, drinking rum for an entire week. That way, she would have an excuse not to attend the upcoming service.

“Are you going to Henry's memorial service?” she asked. Larry poured more red wine into his glass and beckoned to Jeanie, who nodded. He filled her glass as well.

“You must be referring to the Frances and Lawrence Munroe memorial service,” said Larry. “Funny how they've given Henry the credit again. Henry couldn't organize an ant fight.”

“Are you going?”

“Nope. Are you?”

“I don't want to,” said Jeanie.

“Then don't,” said Larry.

Jeanie stood and twirled the dress again. She felt like a girl in school, just as she had been when she'd bought the damn dress, she and Mona gliding about the streets of Boston, loaded with shopping bags and having the time of their lives. It was to be their big splurge on life before they both got married later that year and became wives and mothers, which had to come before
friends.
The dress had fitted perfectly then, and while it was snug now, it still fit. Somehow, that's all that mattered. It was another one of those symbolic signs, and Jeanie saw symbols everywhere she looked since the day Henry died. The dress seemed to be telling her that life could be unpacked and put back on, if you wanted it bad enough.