The zoo was one of my favorite places. Here, just a few blocks from the type of demoralizing poverty most of us will never know, children and those adults with open hearts can stand eye-to-intelligent-eye with a chimpanzee, see the true majesty of a lion who does not sing and dance to Elton John songs, and hear the plaintive howl of the North American timber wolf.
The crowds today are thin because of the cold and the holiday. David makes his way to the Congo exhibit and his final destination—the gorilla pavilion. That is the place within the zoo
where I spent the most time by far. I’d often dragged David to this one spot, pointing out the different gorillas by name while he looked on with mild interest. David could never keep the names of the gorillas straight and each time quickly lost interest in doing so.
There are less than a dozen people in the entire pavilion at this time of day, and David easily finds a seat in front of the large glass window with the most expansive view of the gorilla community.
David doesn’t take notice of the nine-year-old Hispanic girl silently weeping several feet behind him. The girl wipes her eyes with her sleeve and takes a few steps toward him.
“Excuse me, mister,” she says in an impossibly small voice.
When David turns to face her, he cannot avoid the red eyes, the runny nose, the sniffling, or the look of sadness that is much deeper than her tears. What he sees is enough to lift him from himself if only for a moment. “Can I help you? Are you okay?”
“Can I use your cell phone? It’s just a local call.”
David unsnaps the phone from his belt and hands it to her. “Can I call someone for you?”
“No thanks. She’ll freak if you call.”
“Who’s that?”
“My mother. I need her to pick me up.”
My knowledge of Spanish is minimal. My ability to comprehend the conversation is further hampered by the girl’s machine-gun speed and the fact that she shouts most of her words. I can make out something about a cat, a man called “Alberto” and
“la herida,”
a word she uses over and over again, which if faint memory serves means “a wound.”
The girl suddenly snaps the phone shut and hands it back to David. “Thanks. Sorry if I was too long,” she says with embarrassment as she wipes her eyes again.
“No problem. Is your mother at the zoo? Can I help get her?”
“No thanks. She’ll pick me up in a little while.” The girl laughs at herself. “No point in running away if there’s no one home to notice.”
“Running away? Sounds serious,” David says. The girl just shrugs and then takes a seat next to him. They both watch the gorillas for a while.
Other patrons walk through the pavilion, probably assuming that David and the girl are father and daughter.
“You ever run away?” the girl finally asks.
“Once. I was nine.”
“Why?”
“My parents told me we were going to move. I didn’t want to go.”
The girl nods in understanding. “What happened?”
“I didn’t get far, and then we moved, so I didn’t really change much. What happened to you?”
“My mom’s new boyfriend is allergic to cats, so she gave my cat away without telling me.”
“Wow. That’s bad.”
The girl looks at David to make sure he’s not making fun of her and sees that he isn’t. “She says that it’s just a cat.”
“Boy or a girl?”
“Girl. Cielo. It means ‘sky’ in Spanish. She gave the cat to my cousins. She says I can visit it whenever I want. But…” The girl shrugs again and her eyes water.
“But it’s not the same, is it?” David asks sympathetically.
“No. And I keep thinking how scared Cielo must be. She sleeps all day on my bed until I come home from school. Then I go to school on Wednesday and the next thing she knows she’s someplace
else with people she doesn’t know and I’m not there. What happens when she starts to look for me in the middle of the night and I’m just not there?”
“Well, for what it’s worth, I can tell you that I have six cats and they deal with changes pretty well. I’m sure she’ll miss you a lot, but when you see her and explain it to her, I bet she’ll understand and she won’t be too scared anymore.”
I can see the girl thinking about what David has said. “You have six cats? Really?”
“Yup. And horses, dogs, and a pig, too.”
“How’d you end up with all those animals?”
“That is a very long story.”
“You’re very lucky.”
David thinks for a moment. “I guess that’s right.”
“But if you have all those guys to play with at home, what’re you doing here?”
David looks at the girl for a few long moments and then smiles kindly at her. “That’s a good question.”
David and the girl sit there talking for the next twenty minutes. They talk about cats, dogs, and gorillas (David points at each gorilla, telling the girl their names from memory until the girl knows them all). The girl laughs at David when he tells her about Collette and nods respectfully when he honestly answers her questions about the bandage on his face and the troubled horse that caused the deep gash underneath.
Minutes before her mother arrives, David makes her promise that she won’t try to run away again, whatever the reason. The girl makes David promise that he’ll tell all his animals about her—even the horse that “broke” his face.
The girl’s mother—a wisp of a woman carrying a handbag
almost as big as she is—runs into the pavilion, sees her daughter, lets out a screech of relief, and throws her arms around the girl. David quietly moves to the other side of the room where a few other patrons stand watching. He gives the girl an assuring nod and the thumbs-up sign. After a moment’s hesitation, the girl returns her mother’s embrace.
“I want to show you something,
mi loco corazón,
” the mother says through a heavy accent. She takes the large bag off her shoulder and opens the zipper.
A pretty calico cat pops its head out of the bag.
“Cielo!” the girl screams. The girl takes the cat out and nearly crushes it in her arms. The cat doesn’t seem to mind at all. “But Mama, what about Alberto’s allergies?”
The mother hugs the girl again, this time with the cat between them. “Alberto?” the mother says softly. “He can take pills or he can sneeze.”
He can take pills or he can sneeze.
I really do love the zoo.
I
t is near dark by the time David returns home from the zoo. He finds Sally sitting at the kitchen table with Skippy in her lap and Chip and Bernie at her feet. Her eyes are closed and she hums an unfamiliar tune.
“Just saying my good-byes, David,” Sally says without opening her eyes. “I’ll be out of your way in a moment.” Sally kisses Skippy on the side of the face and gently places him on the floor.
“You didn’t get me to keep that damn horse just to leave me, did you?”
Sally finally looks at David. “I wasn’t going to quit the best job I’ve ever had. I just thought, you know, the job was going to be the price.”
“Price for what?”
“Doing what I thought was the right thing this time. I’m still living with echoes from the last time I screwed things up. I just can’t carry any more of that weight.”
“Echoes. Yeah, I know that word, too.” David slumps into the
kitchen chair next to Sally. “You asked me what I saw in the barn? Well, I saw her. I see Helena in every bale of hay. In the saddles and the curry combs. I hear her voice in every bark, in every purr, and every whine. These animals that I’m now surrounded by? This life? They were her life. I thought I could adopt it as mine, you know, to give me something to continue with. But no matter what I do, I find that they’re just the echoes of her life and I fight every day not to resent the hell out of them. And her, too.”
“I understand,” Sally says, but David gives her a doubtful look. “You don’t think so? Ah yes, I almost forgot. The arrogance of pain.”
She rubs David’s arm affectionately then rises from the table. Sally prepares two mugs of tea and then returns with them to the table.
“If my son were wired a little bit differently, he’d be able to tell you quite a lot about being treated like an echo. And the consequences.” Sally takes a sip from her mug. “Better yet, ask my father—he was an eyewitness to that piece of history and would be more than happy to tell you about my failure. That’s what I was trying to warn you about.”
“Your father? I don’t understand. You just spent Thanksgiving together. How bad could the relationship be?”
“I haven’t spoken to my father in over five years.”
“But—”
“I know, I know. I lied. But in my defense, I think it was more to myself than to you, believe me. Every year I think maybe this time I’ll get invited or he’ll call. Or maybe I’ll get up the nerve to ask for an invite. But we carry our rejections with us. They become a part of us so that they shape everything we do, like some disease of the blood that can be managed, but never quite eliminated.”
“What happened?”
“The details don’t matter. They rarely do. I grieved the death of Clifford’s father too hard and for too long. Self-pity, self-involvement, self-destruction—the screw-cap kind—and a whole lot of navel gazing about the ‘why’ of it all. That didn’t leave much for a two-year-old boy who even then was very different. My father took him and I let him. He and my mother gave Clifford the stability and attention that I just couldn’t find at the time.”
David searches for something comforting to say, but all he can manage is a nod of encouragement.
“It took about a year, but one day I finally realized what I’d lost. I missed my son and wanted him back. I cleaned myself up, dried myself off—literally—and knocked on my dad’s door.”
“Your dad refused?”
“That’s an understatement. My mother was on my side, but my father is a highly educated and hugely stubborn man who prides himself on his many academic accomplishments. I, on the other hand, had fallen in love and didn’t even finish college. Then we had Clifford before we got married. It didn’t take a lot to confirm my father’s presumption that I was a failure; I gave him more than enough ammunition for that judgment when Clifford’s dad passed. Honestly, I’m not certain my father was even wrong at the time.
“But I finally did get Cliff back and found the best program in the state for his condition. It happened to be here in this school district. And he’s thriving. I’d do anything for him now. But it all did come at a huge price.”
“Your father.”
“He can’t abide being wrong. And that a judge told him publicly that he was wrong is more than he can bear. Then my mother died and my father turned his grief against me. He’s shut Clifford and me out ever since.”
“That’s so unfair.”
“Maybe. Maybe it’s too hard for him. I like to think he’s doing it for Clifford, that he thinks in the end I won’t make it and I’ll give Clifford back with a termination of parental rights and he and his new wife can then undo any damage I’ve done to the boy.”
“But if he just saw you and Clifford…”
“That’s the point, David. It’ll never happen. Even if he was in this kitchen and looked right at us, he’d never see us. That’s the blinding nature of his own sense of loss.”
David is silent for a long moment. “I hear what you’re saying, but if there’s a message in that for me, I don’t follow you.”
“Really? There’s a very bright line between an echo and a legacy. These animals that you’re surrounded by had a life before the funeral and they sure as hell have one now. One thing they’re not is just an illusion of your grief. It would be a great sin if you treated them that way just because you loved your wife.”
Sally takes out a folded sheet of sketch paper and slides it over to David. “Clifford drew this. He wanted you to have it. To be honest, it’s the only time I can remember that he wanted to give away something he’s sketched.”
David opens the folded paper and reveals a minutely detailed and uncannily accurate picture of me leading Arthur through a canopy of ancient trees. I have to look hard at the drawing to make sure that it’s not a black-and-white photograph. The picture takes my breath away and I can see that it has the same effect on David.
“How… how does he know what Helena looks like?” David stammers.
“I guess from pictures that you’ve got around the house. He’s like a sponge with visual images.”
“I had no idea. He’s really brilliant.”
“Very gifted, yes. Still, I’d trade it all for him just to understand intuitively what a smile means without having to process it through whatever codes he uses to understand human beings.”
David can’t take his eyes off the drawing. “Where is he now?”
“Up at the barn.”
David jumps out of his chair. “He’s up there with that horse by himself?”
Sally grabs David’s arm. “Relax. Clifford’s fine with the animals. They treat him like one of their own. That’s his other gift.”
“Still, I—”
“Would you feel better if we took a look?”
David nods and is already halfway out the door before Sally follows him.
David stops just short of the entrance to the barn, allowing Sally to catch up. She motions for him to stay quiet with a finger to her lips.
Whatever Sally once was or did, she now clearly knows her son. Clifford stands before Arthur’s stall door with a flake of hay in his hand. The huge horse leans over the door and gently takes mouthful after mouthful from Clifford’s offering. I could do this with Arthur, but I was the only one.
Sally softly calls her son’s name. “Are you all right?”
“Yes, Mama,” Clifford says without turning around. “Do we need to leave this place now?”
“No, Cliff. Everything’s fine.”
“Okay,” Clifford says, but his voice contains no hint of relief or happiness at the news. Clifford finally turns around and sees my husband. “Thank you, Mr. Colden. I like it here.”
David, now embarrassed and drained by his earlier outburst and the events of the day, can only manage a smile.
“I was thinking about something, Mr. Colden,” Clifford says. “When the car would take me to school, every day I would pass a farm and there would always be a horse standing by the fence looking at the car pass. I would see this horse every day. One day when I passed, there was no horse, just a mound of dirt.” Clifford is speaking very fast now, with almost no pause between his sentences, like he has the whole script written out in his head and he’s just trying to get it out. “My mother told me that the horse must have died and that mound of dirt was where the horse had been buried underground. The horse was dead, I guess. They had buried the horse in the spot where I had always seen it when the car used to pass.”