The Marriage of Sticks (29 page)

When we arrived in Crane’s View and Erik dropped me off, I entered the house no longer frightened or upset. There is a calmness that comes with surrender. A peace that actually revitalizes when you know there is no other way. I knew what to do now, and no matter what happened to me afterwards, the child would be safe. That was all that mattered—the child would be safe. I would give it what I had, willingly!

The house was spotless, no sign of anything that happened there earlier. I walked into the kitchen and remembered it had all begun after I’d made myself dinner—how many hours, days, lifetimes ago? When I turned on the television and saw Charlotte, Declan, and Hugh by the swimming pool.

So what? It had to begin somewhere and that’s where it did. Move on. Other things to think about now. Hunger shook a scolding finger at me and I knew I would have to eat before doing it. Opening the refrigerator door, I was greeted by an incredible array of the most extraordinary and exotic food—Iranian caviar, a box of pastries from a place called Demel in Vienna, plover eggs, Tunisian capers, olives from Mt. Athos, fresh Scottish salmon, Bombay lemon pickle, more. I had bought none of it, much less tasted most of the food on those shelves, but it didn’t surprise me. The time for surprises was over. I sniffed and sampled a great deal before choosing a fresh baguette, prosciutto cut thin as tissue paper, and the most delicate mozzarella I had ever tasted. The sandwich was delicious and I ate it quickly.

There was a bottle of Lambrusco too, one of Hugh’s favorite wines. I opened it and poured some into a small glass that had once held creamed chipped beef. Odd as it may sound, I wanted to toast something. That’s what you’re supposed to do at the end of the banquet, aren’t you? Toast the host, the lucky couple, the birthday girl or the glorious country. But what could I toast on this, the last night of some preposterous part of my existence? My past lives? Here’s to all the good and bad times I had but forgot and learned nothing from. Here’s to all the people I knew and hurt—sorry folks, I can’t remember any of you. Or how about, Here’s to me—however many of us there have been.

Hugh taught me an Irish toast:

May those who love us love us.

And those that don’t love us,

May God turn their hearts.

And if he doesn’t turn their hearts

May he turn their ankles

So we’ll know them by their limping.

One toast came to me that was appropriate. I lifted my glass and said to the empty room, “Here’s to you and the lives you lead. I hope you find your way home faster than I did.” I drank slowly and emptied the glass.

On the floor in Hugh’s workroom was a cardboard box filled with tools and chemicals he used to restore things. I went through it, pulling out the many different bottles, reading the labels, choosing the ones that contained alcohol or any kind of flammable substance. Our house was made of wood. It would go up quickly. I went around the ground floor pouring the strong-smelling chemicals over everything. Hugh’s new chair, a couch, boxes of books, the wooden floors.

I kept spilling and watching the liquids stain new fabric, pool on the wooden floor, eat into a turquoise plastic Sky King ashtray I had given Hugh as a present. When all of the bottles and cans were empty, I stood in the front hall smelling the incredible stink of all those deadly chemicals splashed over everything in the world that had mattered to me.

I went to a window and looked out onto the porch. A car drove by outside. A white car. It reminded me of a white horse. Heroes rode white horses, heroic knights. That reminded me of Hugh’s unfinished story about the plain-looking knight who fell so in love with the princess that he was willing to sacrifice everything for her. How he went to the devils and traded them his courage for her happiness. I remembered the last line of his incomplete story. “Life is full of surprises, but if you’re convinced all of them will be bad, what’s the point of going on?” I wanted no more surprises. I didn’t trust them, any more than I believed I would be able to change anything for the better if I continued living. I would give up my immortality to the child and then I would finish it.

Still staring out the window, I felt ebullient and relieved. The world was mine because I no longer wanted to be in it. I could do this tonight or tomorrow or next week. It didn’t matter when because the decision had been made and was final. No, it had to be tonight. I did not want tomorrow. I went looking for matches.

What was the name of that famous children’s book?
Goodnight Moon.
Good night Hugh. Good night Frances Hatch, good night Crane’s View, good night life. My thoughts chanted these lines as I searched for matches. Good night Erik Peterson and Isaac. Good night beautiful books and long dinners with someone you love. Good night this and this and this and this as I wandered through the house. The list got longer and longer as I slid open drawers and cupboards looking for something to burn up the world in which these things existed.

Just as I began to grow frustrated, I remembered seeing a pack of matches in Hugh’s box of chemicals. A half-empty pack with green writing announcing Charlie’s Pizza. The place where we’d had lunch with Frances the first day we visited Crane’s View: The first time I saw Declan. The first time
we
met Frannie McCabe. First time. First time and now the last time. I would never see Declan or Frannie again. Never see this this that. A spotted dog or a marmalade cat. Goodnight life.

I found the matches and stood up, wondering only where to do it. The living room. Sit on the couch, start the fire there and finish. The walk from Hugh’s room to the living room seemed five miles long. It felt like I was walking underwater. Not bad or disturbing, only slow-motion and incredibly detailed. I saw everything around me with extreme clarity. Was it because this was the last time I would see these things? Good night hall with the beautiful wood floors. Hugh got down on his knees right there and, sliding his hand back and forth over that floor, looked up at me with the happiest smile. “This is all ours now,” he said, his voice full of wonder. Good night staircase. Stopping, I looked up and remembered the day we had made love at the top. I wished I could smell Hugh in that final air. Would I see him where I was going? How wonderful to smell him one last time. I looked up the stairs and remembered him on top of me, his weight, the softness of his lips on my throat, his thumbs holding down my hands. He’d had keys in his jeans pocket that day. When he moved on me they cut into my hip. I asked him to take them out. He tossed them across the floor. They rang out as they hit and slid. Good night keys.

In the living room I stared into the empty fireplace a moment and then put my hand in my pocket. It was there. It was time, so I took it out. Because of all the mad things happening when I picked it up in the basement at Hugh’s silent urging, I hadn’t looked carefully at the piece of wood I now held in my hand. I had more or less forgotten about it until I was standing in the lobby of Fieberglas talking to the nurse about Frances. Then the only way I can describe what happened is that the wood
came to me
the way a good idea or real fear comes. All at once, as if through every pore in your body. Yes, it had been in my pocket the whole time, but suddenly I became aware of its presence again. Or maybe I just remembered it and, in doing so, grasped its real importance and what to do with it. A small piece of wood about seven inches long. Dark on three sides, light on the other. The side where it had broken off the baby’s crib when McCabe/Shumda threw it against the wall.

There was a fragment of a figure carved on it, but the way the wood had snapped off made it impossible to decipher what it was. The back half of a running animal. A deer perhaps, or a mythological creature that fit the rest of the extravagant, fantastical world that had been carved on that wonderful old cradle. Our child’s cradle, our baby girl. I thought of her, the only sight of her I would ever have. Then I thought of Declan and what his father had said. And I knew what I had to do, and it was right, but if I were to somehow survive what was about to happen, I would regret doing it forever. I looked at the wood in my hand and because I felt I had no other choice I said, “I’m sorry.” I had two pieces of wood to burn. Two pieces for my marriage of sticks: The one in my hand from the cradle, and the one from Central Park I had picked up the day we knew it was going to happen. Two sticks were enough for a marriage. More would have been better. I would have loved to have a huge bundle of them for a world-sized bonfire when I was eighty years old and at the satisfied end of a marvelous life. But I had only these two and they would have to be enough. They were important though—as important as anything. One symbolized Hugh, this one our child. Where in the house was the Hugh stick? I thought but then realized it didn’t matter because soon it would be gone too.

Without knowing why, I knew when I lit it, this wood would ignite as if it were made of pure gasoline. Breaking off a match from the pack, I put it to the striking pad and flicked my hand. A flame snapped open, flaring and hissing a second before taming down to the size of a fingernail. Lit match in one hand, the wood in the other. Good night life.

I looked up one last time. At the window were faces. Many many many of them. Some were pressed to the glass, distorting their features—bent noses, comical lips. Others hovered in the background, waiting their turn to get close as they could to the window, to this room, to me. And I knew all of the faces
were
me, all the me’s from past lives who had come to watch this happen. To watch the end of their line, last stop, everybody out.

“Good-bye.” Calmly I put the match to the wood and the world exploded.

I heard the blast and saw a blinding flash of light. Then utter silence. I don’t know how long it lasted. I was somewhere else until I was back in the riving room, sitting by myself on the couch, holding both empty hands in the air in total surprise. It took time to realize where I was and of course I did not believe it. Everything was so still. My eyes readjusted to the normal light in the room and the colors, the things around me, everything was exactly as it had been.

I dropped my hands to the couch and felt its rough wool beneath my palms. Turning my head slowly from side to side, I took in the view. Nothing had changed. Frances’s house, our possessions, home again. Even the smell was the same.

No, there was something else. Hugh. Hugh’s cologne was in the air. Then I felt hands on my shoulders and knew instantly that they were his. Hugh was here.

The hands lifted. He came around the back of the couch and stood in front of me. “It’s all right, Miranda. You’re all right.”

I stared at him and could only repeat what he had said, because it was true. “I’m all right.” We looked at each other and I had nothing to say. I understood nothing but I was all right.

“You’re not allowed to kill yourself. When you burned the wood, you could only give them back what was theirs. Now you have the rest of your life. That belongs to you.”

I looked at him. I nodded. All right. Anything was all right.

“Thank you, Miranda. You did an incredible thing.”

I looked at him and I was empty as death, empty as an old heart that’s just biding its time.

Somehow, from some place I didn’t know I had, I was able to whisper, “What now?”

“Now you live, my sweetheart.” He smiled and it was the saddest smile I had ever seen.

“All right.”

He reached into his jacket pocket and took out something. He offered it to me. Another piece of wood. A small long silvery piece that looked like driftwood. Wood that had been floating in some unimaginable sea for a thousand years. I turned it over in my hand, examining it carefully. Shapeless, silvery, soft, old. Yes, it must have been driftwood.

When I looked up again Hugh was gone.

There was a nice song on the radio years ago. They played it too much but I didn’t mind because it kept me company and I’m always grateful for that. I often found myself humming it without realizing. The title was “How Do I Live Without You?”

I have come to realize this is an essential lesson: In order to survive, you must learn to live without everything. Optimism dies first, then love, and finally hope. But still you must continue. If you were to ask me why, I would say that even without those fundamental things, the great things, the hot-blood-in-the-veins things, there is still enough in a day, in a life, to be precious, important, sometimes even fulfilling. How do I live without you? I put you in the museum of my heart where I often go, absorbing as much as I can bear before closing time.

What more can I tell you that you need to know beyond what I already have? I had a life. I never married, had no children, met two good men I might have loved, but after what I had experienced, it was impossible. I was proud of myself though, because I honestly tried with real hope and an open heart to fall in love again. No good.

I went back to selling books and I did well. Sometimes I was even able to lose myself in what I was doing, and that was when I was happiest. All the time I thought of Frances Hatch and how she had done it—lived a full and interesting life after she had cut the thread. So many times I wished I could have spoken with her, but she died three days after we last met.

Zoe married Doug Auerbach and they were happy for a long time. When he died ten years ago, I moved out to California to live with her. We became quintessential L.A. old ladies. We ate only free-range chicken and took too many vitamins. We spent too much time in malls, went to aerobics classes for seniors, wore thicker and thicker eyeglasses as the visual world became foggier and surrounded by increasingly soft edges. We made a life and watched the sun set over it.