Authors: Mary Rickert
“I told the boy to stay the night.” Mavis turns to Nan, blowing smoke in Ruthie’s face. “He’s a bit drunk.”
Nan wouldn’t want anything bad to happen to Howard, who seemed to enjoy the evening thoroughly and did appear especially fond of the wine, but where will he sleep?
“I told him we’d set a pillow and blanket on the couch. You have a couch, don’t you?”
Nan nods even as she muses over Mavis’s use of “we.” Mavis isn’t going to set up a bed for Howard any more than she helped with dishes or dinner. She certainly won’t wake up in the morning to tidy the kitchen. That’s just the way Mavis is and has always been. Nan is too tired to think about this now. Her plans are in complete disarray. How can she possibly make sure Bay will have the life she deserves, with Ruthie lurking about, threatening an exorcism, and Mavis too lazy to help?
When Mavis struggles to stand, Ruthie and Nan move to assist her, but she ignores them, walking over to the kitchen counter, where she takes one final, languishing puff on her cigarette before tamping it out into the saucer. “I don’t know about you two,” she says, “but I’m ready for bed.”
“Aren’t we going to pray?”
“You go ahead, why don’t you?”
“Nan?”
“I have to get Howard’s bed set up. Mavis is right, Ruthie, this can wait until morning.”
Nan walks down the hall, past the dining room to the narrow window beside the front door, where she parts the lace curtain, looking for Bay and Howard.
It’s not prayer that bothers Nan, but the fact that Ruthie’s sense of what is good and evil puts Bay on the side of corruption.
What
have
I
done?
Nan thinks.
“What are you looking for, Ruthie’s torchbearers?”
Nan takes half a step sideways to accommodate Mavis at the window. “I don’t know what I was thinking. How silly of me to believe she stayed the same all these years.”
“Oh?” Mavis says. “Do you think she’s changed?”
Of the three of them, it had been Ruthie who had to have it explained. No, Eve had not just gained a little weight. No, she wasn’t crying tears of joy.
“What are you staring at?”
“It is like old times, after all,” Nan says. “Isn’t it?”
Mavis laughs, a broad cackle that reminds Nan of Grace Winter laughing in the garden all those years ago when Nan asked what herbs repel a man.
They stand at the window, like ghosts themselves,
Nan thinks,
sentenced to watch life on the other side of darkness
. For a moment, she smells the scent of honeysuckle, a pleasant odor in spite of its implications, quickly followed by the taste of ash. What is she doing? What has she done? She steals a look at Mavis, hoping to discover an unmined tenderness in her countenance, but Mavis stares straight ahead, a strange expression on her face as if, she too, has the flavor of death in her mouth.
On certain August nights there is a promise of rain that carries with it the scent of summer: the ripe odor of dirt, the lingering effusion of dew on grass, the rich fragrance of chocolate mint, the stony scent of water, and the sweet aroma of moonflower intoxicating anyone who breathes.
This is such a night, and Bay, who sipped only a little wine, feels deliciously drunk (or what she imagines of drunkenness) lying in the backyard, her arms opened wide, embracing the dark, while Howard lies beside her, reciting one of his poems.
“What tree within its limbs knows sin?
What flower within its stamen?
I am not a wild thing,
A rooted weed or demon.
What night would cast its stars to sea?
What morning rejects its sun?
This is a natural course
Though I often wonder
What it means to live
Without being denied my water?”
What is he talking about? Bay has no idea, but what does it matter? She is hugging the night, though truthfully, she would rather be hugging Howard. Who cares about Wade Enders pulling her from the duckweed’s grasp? Who cares about the beating of her heart as she stood there, adjusting her twisted swimsuit while Mrs. Desarti made a big production out of Bay almost drowning? Who cares about the slimy bits she found hanging in her hair later, remembering then the way she smiled at Wade, not knowing how she looked? Who cares that he turned out to be as mean as the others? Who cares (she is almost positive) that he, just before, hollered out the car window? Who cares about stupid Wade Enders when there’s a boy lying on the grass beside her, reciting poetry?
“I guess that one’s a piece of shit too,” Howard says.
“No, oh no, it’s good. It really is. Mavis doesn’t know what she’s talking about.”
Howard looks at Bay with the kind of expression she imagines an older brother might give his sister, which is not the expression she was hoping for.
“You know, you’re lucky to have all these old ladies around.”
“I am?”
“They know stuff. At least Mavis does. You should take advantage. Learn something while you can.”
Bay feels vaguely insulted. Is he implying that Mavis is the only one who knows anything?
“My Nana teaches me a lot. Once we made dandelion wine, though that didn’t turn out too good. We make lavender soap every summer. Well, I help with the beginning, and she does the rest. I know she’s kind of different, I mean that’s obvious, but she’s also kind of wise, actually.” Bay is surprised to hear herself say this. She would never say it to anyone at school, where such a confession would almost certainly be cruelly used against her.
Howard rolls on his side, playing with the blades of grass. (Bay can’t help but think that her hair would make a much better place for his fingers.) “What happened to your parents?”
The circumstances are so well known that no one asks Bay anymore. “Nana found me on her porch.” She hardly ever has to think how strange her birth story is, weird enough even before she learned about the caul. Strange, strange, “strange.” She hadn’t meant to say it out loud. She shoots a look at Howard. “What are your parents like?” she asks, hoping to deflect more questions.
Howard squints at Bay as though she is disappearing, then rolls onto his back. Bay stretches her bare foot, accidentally scraping his pant leg, sending a delightful tingle through her body.
“Do you ever feel like the sky might crush you?” he asks.
Sometimes, Bay feels like her ribs squeeze into her, that she is not being held together by that structure of bone, but imprisoned by it. Trina Heckworth, walking down the school hallway, even when ignoring Bay, gives her that feeling, because when Trina isn’t absorbed in conversation with her own group of friends or smiling up at Dale, she locks her bright eyes on Bay, leans her head back, and pretends to howl, like a wolf. Bay acts like she doesn’t even notice, though of course she does. Bay sometimes feels like she is being crushed, not from the sky, but from within, as though she can’t survive herself. But Bay doesn’t want Howard to know what a freak she is. He hasn’t seemed to realize it yet, and she doesn’t want to give him any hints to look for it in her. “No,” she says, “I never felt like that.”
“Right. You’re all set, aren’t you? Living here in your enchanted kingdom, huh?”
Bay doesn’t know why Howard sounds mean all of a sudden. It makes her heart skip a beat. Is he one of them? Is he a tormentor too? “There’s a boy living in our garden.”
“What? Where?” He sits up (which Bay is sorry to have induced, because it was nice to have his face so near) frowning at the shoe planters as though he expects to see a fairy-sized child among the wild strawberries or hanging from the foxglove.
“Back there. In the forest.”
“Does Nan know about him?”
“He’s a runaway,” she says. Then it occurs to her to try something she never thought she’d attempt. “He’s pretty cute.”
“Oh yeah?”
Bay nods, pleased that Howard’s face, which she only recently assumed could bear no unpleasant expression, does. “He’s good-looking, for a boy.” She emphasizes the word “boy,” meaning to say that he is not in the same league as Howard, who is, after all, in college.
“I can’t believe she told you,” Howard says.
From her position lying on the ground, Bay thinks Howard looks particularly handsome, the bruise on his cheek swallowed by shadows.
“It’s not like I’m ashamed, ’cause I’m not. It’s just I told her in confidence.”
Bay mentally goes over their conversation, trying to understand what he is talking about. Howard is acting unreasonable, and Bay believes that unreasonable behavior is one of the signs of jealousy. She’s sorry she mentioned Karl now. What was she thinking? Who did she think she was? Just to make everything worse (and okay, a little better, because she does feel some relief from the interruption) Nan is standing in the yard, calling. “I’m out here,” Bay shouts, and, “Coming, Nana.” She presses against the ground to stand, glancing at Howard, who sits with his shoulders hunched as though the night has turned suddenly cold. “I’ll be right back,” she says, though she’s not sure she will be. He’s acting so strange.
Nan takes a good look at Bay when she comes walking out of the darkness, blades of grass tangled in her red hair, an odd expression on her face. “Are you all right?”
“Sure, Nana. Great.”
“What were you doing?”
“Talking.”
Nan sniffs. She smells the vague hint of rain and the flowers’ perfume, particularly heavy with their last gasp of life, and that sour smell from way in the back where something has died, but there is no trace of salt.
“I think I made him jealous,” Bay says.
“Jealous of who?”
“I told him about a boy I think is cute.”
Nan notes that Bay wears an expression much like the one Nicholas assumes after he has had his saucer of milk. Nan squints into the moonlit night until she locates Howard, sitting all the way at the back of the yard, gesticulating as though talking to someone.
“It’s late, Bay, we have a big day ahead of us, and Howard is drunk. I think he might be quite drunk, actually. He can’t drive home. He’ll have to stay the night.”
“Really?” In spite of his very recent behavior, Bay feels a tingle of excitement at the thought of having Howard as an overnight guest. “I’ll tell him,” she says.
“No. You go to bed.” Nan is still not sure how much time she wants Bay spending with the boy. After all, he is an odd boy and while Nan normally considers oddity an attribute, she won’t risk Bay’s safety.
Bay watches her Nana walk carefully across the yard toward Howard, who is either talking to himself, the lilacs, or Karl. Bay is kind of relieved she doesn’t have to find out which. Howard was right, in a way, when he said that living here must be like living in an enchanted kingdom.
When
I
was
a
little
kid, I really believed it was
, she thinks as she walks up the back steps and opens the screen door. She used to pretend the house and yard were a land called “Forever.” How could she have forgotten that for so long?
In the kitchen, which is shockingly lemon-fresh clean, Ruthie sits at the table, haloed by the bluish glow of stove-top light, eating chocolate cake.
“I didn’t know we had dessert.”
“I brought it from home. Would you like some?”
“No, thanks,” Bay says, surprised at herself. After all, chocolate cake is her favorite. Did Ruthie actually pack an entire cake? She shovels a large piece into her mouth, smiling around the tines of the fork at Bay, who, with a quick wave, heads up the stairs to her bedroom where she stands at her window, watching the fireflies below.
What’s happening? Why are they here?
Fireflies
aren’t usually out at this time of night or this late in the season, or before it’s going to rain, and it’s going to rain tonight.
“Forever,” Bay says, brushing her fingers against the screen, forgetting for a moment that it is there, as though she could reach through the open window to touch the night, catch a firefly, touch forever, the way she believed she did when she was young and her happiness was certain, her life always wonderful, and her home forever safe from harm.
Nan considers not disturbing Howard, but she hasn’t gotten to be her age without developing a fairly large imagination for all the possible ways the most innocent solution can go wrong. Howard is her responsibility, after all. Though she can think of another troubling reason for him to appear to be talking to himself, Nan suspects he is only drunk, which sets her mind at ease somewhat; but what if the night ceases to entertain, and he decides to walk home? That could be dangerous.
This
is
the
culmination
of
my
life
, Nan thinks,
to
be
prepared
for
the
worst
possible
outcome
of
any
situation
. Hasn’t she tried hard to keep everyone safe? Hasn’t everyone who traveled in and out of her life done so unscathed ever since she failed so completely with Eve?
Well
no, actually
, Nan thinks,
isn’t that the point?
How could she forget for even a moment? It’s almost enough to make her go back to the house. How nice it would be to crawl into bed and pull the covers up to her neck until everyone is gone. But can Nan really leave Howard in her garden so near the dangerous foxgloves? She shakes her head at the thought of another dead boy.
Calm
down
, Nan tells herself as she walks carefully in her clogs across the uneven ground, peering into the dark; Nan has surprisingly good night vision for someone her age. Howard is alone, not commiserating with the dead.
“It’s time to come in,” she says, hoping this simple statement will be enough to induce him to stand. Nan is tired. It’s been a long day, and tomorrow will be even longer.
Howard shakes his head.
“It’s quite late. I think you should get some sleep.”
“Sleep?” he says. “I’ll sleep here. No more rooms. I need space. Look at those stars, will you? No more walls. I’m finished with walls.”
Resisting the unkind temptation to roll her eyes, Nan thinks how drunk people are the most stubborn weeds of all. What is she supposed to do, drag him across the lawn? She carefully lowers herself, making so much noise groaning and mumbling at the effort that Howard comes to his knees to help ease her to sit, though he does waver slightly to do so. Close like this, Nan realizes the smudge on his cheek she had thought was dirt is actually a bruise. When he catches Nan staring, he turns away.
How fitting that the lilacs, long devoid of their May flowers, smell so strongly of them tonight. This is wrong, but then again, her garden hasn’t been right forever; it’s not a topic she can examine at the moment. Instead she concentrates on the foxglove. Trying to forget its disturbing implications, she remembers instead the lines from Christina Rossetti’s poem:
And
the
stately
foxglove/Hangs silent its exquisite bells.
It is with great reluctance that Nan pulls herself away from this pleasant rumination to fix her eyes on the bruised Howard, who sits staring glumly into the space he says he desires.
“All my life. Walls,” Howard says. “Walls in rooms and walls in minds. Walls in bodies. Walls.”
Nan nods. Just because he is drunk doesn’t mean the boy makes no sense.
“I am so sick of walls. I just realized.”
“Yes, well,” Nan says. “Being a poet, you will notice such things.”
“Not everyone thinks I’m a poet. My parents think I should be a doctor. My father—never mind. It doesn’t matter.”
Did Howard’s father give him that bruise?
Of course
, Nan thinks with despair. Why else would he be hiding out here with a bunch of old women and a girl he doesn’t know?
“I’m going to tell you something I’ve hardly told anyone,” Howard says.
Nan prepares to act surprised at the secret Mavis has already revealed. She closes her eyes, trying to send him courage. After all, Nan is well aware of how dangerous secrets can be, how they have a way of taking over an entire life.
“You know what I think about mortality?”
“What about mortality?” Nan asks, confused by the unexpected turn.
“Okay, I know those movies about vampires have been really popular and shit. Excuse me.”
“That’s quite all right, dear.”
“But mortality is—I think it’s awesome!”
“Oh, you do, do you?”
“Doesn’t it make everything matter?” Howard asks.
Nan leans back, blinking against the dark.
“I probably shouldn’t try to explain right now. I think I might be a little drunk. Am I shouting?”
“Yes, dear, you are.”
Howard leans so close Nan can taste the wine on his breath, which she considers a pleasant sensation.
“I dream words, you know,” he whispers. “Pages and pages of poetry.”
Nan doesn’t know what to say. How strange is it to discover this boy who dreams poetry sitting in her yard, to have Mavis and Ruthie in her house after all this time, when her life has been so dull! Nan’s bottom feels damp, and, in spite of the heat, her bones are cold, but how nice it is to have the taste of wine on her tongue rather than the bitter flavor of ash.
“I wish I knew what to do,” Howard says. “Some people are just so certain, you know? Sometimes I think I’d like to be a doctor, and sometimes I think no, I want to write.”
“Well, why do you have to choose? Why can’t you be a doctor and a poet?”
“Mavis? You know Mavis? She says I have to choose one career, or I’ll be mediocre at both.”
“Listen to me, Howard. Mavis doesn’t know everything. None of us do. We muddle through the best we can, but in the end, all the people with ideas of how you should live your life are going to be gone, and you’ll be staring into the mirror, looking at an old man’s face, wondering how he got there. The question you have to ask yourself is: Did that old guy have a happy life?”
Howard nods as Nan speaks; he continues to nod even when she is through. He nods far longer than necessary, then stops abruptly. “But how do I know? What will make me happy? In the end?”
“It’s starting to rain. Come inside. I’ll make a bed for you on the couch.”
As Howard helps Nan stand, she realizes, with a sudden ache, how long it’s been since she’s been touched by a man, especially a young one with a strong grip. “You know, Howard, you’re lucky to be living in this time when people are so accepting of differences.”
“I can’t believe she told everyone. And they aren’t all so accepting.”
The rain falls swiftly now, though the drops are soft. Howard tries to speed Nan along, but she is taking her time of it. Her clothes dampen against her skin; her hair flattens against her head, a few wisps wet against her face.
Why, this night! This night!
Nan thinks. She stops so suddenly Howard almost stumbles over her, though he rights himself.
Nan looks up at the night sky, closing her eyes against the rain. Howard hangs on her elbow like a burr she picked up in the garden, until she shakes him off.
“You’re getting wet,” he says. “We should go in.”
What is the power of rain to make Nan feel young again? She doesn’t know. Is there something in the water, in the wine, in the dark, or is it all in her head? She doesn’t care what the explanation is. “Make memories.”
“What?”
“How do you know what will make you happy? In the end? Ask yourself what kind of memory you’re making.”
He is squinting through the rain at her, his hair plastered against his face. “What are you talking about?”
“Remember when you were young, and that old lady hired you to chauffeur her friends from the airport, and you drank too much wine, and stayed out late, and then you danced in the rain?”
“But we’re not…”
Nan waves her arms, barely moving her feet at all. There is the sound of falling rain, and then there is the sound of laughter. She opens her eyes. Howard is dancing, exuberant as the young will be, flailing his arms and legs, fairly wild. It isn’t long at all before the back door slams open and Bay runs down the stairs, spinning in her flowered nightgown, her red hair quickly dampened dark, her skin glistening. The door opens again, and Mavis stands there, saying, “What are you doing? What are you doing?” until she joins them, spinning slow circles and waving her fleshy arms. Ruthie comes to the porch in her robe, buttoned all the way to the lace collar, her face pinched as she scolds them. She begs them to come in, but they continue their dance, until she is at the foot of the stairs, saying, “Are you all crazy?” though she does not go back to the porch or into the house. She doesn’t dance, but she does stop scolding, and before they all go inside, soaked to the skin, trailing puddles into the kitchen, Ruthie smiles.
Nan tells everyone to leave their wet clothes in the downstairs bathroom; they can be dealt with in the morning. She lends nightgowns to Mavis and Howard. They laugh when he comes out of the bathroom wearing his. She offers hot chocolate to everyone, but thank goodness there are no takers, and they all go, yawning, to their separate beds.
It’s one of those steady rains that last for hours. The windows of the old house are open, because it’s also one of those reasonable rains that does not slant sideways into the room or onto the wooden sills. The sheers billow throughout the night, diaphanous as angels.
The sleepers turn to the accompaniment of squeaky springs; there is soft snoring, the occasional sleep-spoken word; it rains, making fairy ponds in the hosta leaves, dropping blossoms from the foxglove; the little bells fall without a sound. The rain pelts the grass until the grass resists no more and gives up its green perfume to the night; the scent wafts through the house, causing the dreamers to wake and, invigorated by the delicious aroma, make plans for escape of one kind or another before once more sinking into the dark.