Little Lovely Things, page 17
An urge to test this man, to needle him, surged through Claire. “In my professional opinion, they’re all idiots.” She added, “I hope I didn’t offend you.”
“Not at all. Between you and me, I think all radiologists are moronic. But I’d still go to one if I broke my arm.”
Claire allowed a weak smile. “Touché.”
Howard met her eyes. His broad, bright face was filled with wrinkles. A Santa Claus face.
“Tell me.” Claire met his eyes. “Do you have any tragedy in your past?”
“Not in the way you’ve had. Only normal loss of loved ones. Aging, cancer…this.” He pointed to his leg. “A childhood accident. Barely even remember it. Nothing like what you’ve been through.”
“Then how can you presume…” Her voice rose with agitation.
“To understand people with problems, real tragedies, is that what you mean?”
Claire narrowed her eyes at him. This was an unending challenge she’d had with well-wishers, colleagues. People who tried to help by saying they knew what she was going through. Her swallowed response was “No, you damn well don’t.” The only person who seemed to have any type of a clue, ironically, was Jay White. They’d kept in touch as he’d promised. The shared light they’d seen maintained a bond between them. She actually sent Jay money at times, and he sent her postcards of the tourist area he’d settled near. Simple pictures. She kept them lined up against a mirror. Bright, sunny images of impossibly clear days, dunes, and shots of lakes touched up so the water sparkled like turquoise jewelry. It made the familiar seem far away, exotic. It made her, in an unexplainable way, feel closer to her girls.
“I don’t know.”
“What kind of answer is that?”
“An honest one. I just always wanted to do this. Be a child psychiatrist.” He lifted the cup to his lips, realized it was empty, and then set it down again. “I see you’re disappointed. I wish I had a better answer. Sorry.”
“Do you have children?” Claire only half believed she was being this bold. This response was important if there were to be any trust between them.
“So this is an interview then?” His expression hinted at bemusement. “I suppose I should tell you that my wife and I tried and weren’t successful. That we always wanted kids and it was a real heartbreak when we couldn’t. But the truth is I never wanted them.”
Claire tossed him a searing look.
He didn’t flinch. “You see the stuff I deal with every day can be, is, difficult. My patients, kids, need so much. Other specialties, they see ugly things. Horrendous skin rashes, broken bones. But me, I get broken little souls. Abuse. Kids that cut themselves from a sense of worthlessness. I have an eleven-year-old anorexic in the ICU. I take the cases labeled hopeless or without financial means. I have a decent home, love my work. That’s my reward.”
As he spoke, a small knot of tension released in Claire’s neck. She got this man. In so many ways, it paralleled Claire’s own story. Overly driven. Not easily understood. His kindness settled in around her like a soft blanket. They sat quietly for several long minutes and then several minutes more. It was strange to Claire that she didn’t feel awkward or hurried. That it was okay to just sit.
“Do you know”—Claire looked toward the single window moving with shadows from overhanging tree branches outside—“that fetal cells remain within the mother’s body for up to a quarter century?” She closed her eyes while picturing the phantom passengers, microscopic reminders of the most intimate connection.
“Dr. Claire Rawlings.” Howard spoke softly, stretching forward to place his hand over hers. It was dry and warm and comforting. “It’s time for us to get you some help. Someone terrific to talk to.”
Claire cut him off. “I know you are a child psychiatrist…but…do you mind…” She spoke softly. This was hard, so very hard. “Would it be possible if I schedule with you?”
Howard sat back. “It’s a little unusual, and, in fact”—he crinkled his forehead—“I’m not sure if I’m the right person in this situation.”
Claire’s heart sank.
“But,” he continued, “considering the circumstances, I would be honored. And you know what? I’ve got time. Now.”
“What about your seminar?”
“As I said earlier. You are more important. And,” he added, his eyes twinkling, “far more interesting than a bunch of stuffy academics.”
Claire nodded slowly and caught her hands together, feeling the bony angles of her fingers where fat padding should be.
“I want to hear things from you,” Howard continued. “The things that circle through your head and”—he placed his hand on his chest—“around your heart.”
A clutch of starlings soared past in a small triangle of sky through the branches. Could she do this? Any of this? She’d held so much inside for so long. She dropped her head. “I just…I can’t talk about what happened…the situation…my two daughters…”
“Then let’s not. For now.”
She told Howard Fisher instead about her sister, Vicki. How she relied on her love and support, and the comforting friendship with Jay White. About Gretchie. About how her ears perked up when Claire spoke to her, even when it was nonsense. She looked at her dog, softly shaped into a brown crescent. Claire’s very heart. She touched G’s back lightly, her fur warming in a band of sun.
“Your husband?” Howard asked when she finished.
“And my husband… Well, he’s contacted a divorce attorney.”
Howard kept his gaze focused on Claire’s, urging her to continue.
“This whole thing with Glen has just filled my head with more—” She stopped abruptly.
“More what? Please tell me.”
She sighed. “I cling to these memories—the texture of Lily’s hair, the sparkle in Andrea’s eyes, they are still so present to me…and then…”
“Go on.”
“I saw something once. A light. I know it was from Lily. But there has been nothing from Andrea, and…” She spoke through a growing lump in her throat. “It reminds me that…that this terrible situation…is all my fault.” She placed her hand over her mouth.
“Claire.” Howard smiled. “Earlier, you told me you couldn’t talk about your girls. But you just were.”
She gulped and stared into his face. His eyes were strong and sincere.
“All this pain,” he said, “gives me hope.”
“What?”
“That you haven’t shut down.”
She shook her head. “I have, though. Don’t you see? I locked myself away in my work, abandoned my husband.”
“And he responded pretty harshly.” Howard let that sink in. “Claire, I’m going to allow you to do something. Go ahead and be mad at the world. Be really pissed. For a moment or two.”
“I…I can’t.”
“Not everything is your fault. Anger can be very cathartic. I think you need some directed away from yourself.”
He left a silence. This moment of reprieve brought Claire comfort and allowed her to regroup a little. When she once again spoke, Howard’s face remained animated, absorbed in every detail, yet calm. He did not push her or lead her in any direction. It was a relief that she could say anything without him responding in surprise. She was all over the place, bouncing from all the unresolved issues between her and Glen to hoping to make a difference in the lives of cancer patients. Everything but her daughters. She wasn’t sure if it was the free flow of thoughts or a catharsis caused by her sobbing when she first met Howard in the car, but she felt like a load of cargo was sliding off her back.
It was Gretchie who ended the session when, after three and a half hours, she stretched and yawned with great drama, strode to the door, and whined.
“Thank goodness he’s here,” Howard said. “He can come anytime to remind us when to stop.”
“He’s a she.” Claire smiled.
Howard wrote a number on a slip of paper. “I’m available for you. Day or night.” He handed it to Claire and then escorted them to the door where Gretchie was scratching. “You did a great job. Go home. Rest.”
“Okay.”
“And then I will call you later. To begin scheduling and also”—he raised his eyebrows like a worried parent—“just to check in.”
“Okay.”
“And you will promise me that you will call me too. In the middle of the night. Or whenever. If you need me.”
Claire nodded and leashed up Gretchie. She left shaky for certain, but also amazed. An accidental appointment with an accredited therapist was behind her, and she was still intact. That was something at least. A block away, she heard waves rise and fall, and the wind carried the distinctive scent of Lake Michigan; she’d know the fragrance of blue sky and glacial meltwater anywhere.
Claire pulled G closer and kept walking, one step at a time. When she returned to her place, she settled in on the couch, exhausted, and drifted to sleep with her dog warm and solid against her leg.
Within minutes, Claire was floating under deep, hyacinth-colored water, acutely aware that it was her turn to drown. Overhead, she heard the roar of a voice, far off but approaching. Charcoal Man. His tone was different from how she first imagined—not high-pitched, but a low, angry rumble. She flailed her limbs, to propel herself away from the voice. Beneath the black undersides of lily pads, she hovered just above the muck and remained still until he was gone. Suddenly she heard a faint calling, and though it was warped through the water, it was familiar.
“Mommy! Mommy!”
Andrea. Even muted, Claire knew it was her daughter. She knew it in an indecipherable way, the way millions of animal mothers through the canyons of time have recognized their babies by smell, sound, mere presence. The voice became louder, clearer; Claire thrashed around, looking for her child in the murk; the cries grew closer still and then suddenly stopped. Claire desperately tried to swim to her but was not able to move, mired in muck, useless in the deep.
Chapter 16
Jay
Jay had just secured his hands on the pruning shears when something struck against his glove. Searching the fan-shaped tips of the arborvitae, he found himself in a stare-down with a praying mantis. Forelegs extended, it was itching to fight.
“Hello, little warrior.”
Jay offered his hand for it to climb and laughed as the creature tickled his arm. He’d recently had a strong feeling he’d be meeting someone new soon. The insect stared at Jay with garnet-colored eyes and then scampered into the deeper branches, blending perfectly with the yellow-green foliage.
“You just reminded me.” Jay chuckled. “I gotta move it.”
He skimmed through the hedge quickly, keeping one eye out for a stick-thin insect appendage, and the other on his watch. Today was one of the most important in his life. Today he’d sign the papers to close on his very own place. He’d finally found a home. After leaving Illinois, he’d headed straight for Michigan as planned, but he’d never made it as far north as his Petoskey stone had urged because the El Camino gave out one last time. The alternator. The accidental location turned out to be fortuitous. Right next to the Great Lake, Michiana was a tourist town that swelled with seasonal visitors, some of whom were interested in dream catchers. Jay soon realized that being close to this amazing body of water was just the thing to lift his spirits. Most importantly, the locals and businesses here were in need of landscaping services, and after a few years of searching for clients, his business was coming along nicely.
Within the hour, Jay was seated across from the real estate agent and the mobile home park manager, putting his signature on a rent-to-own agreement with the rent part crossed out. After saving up for almost five years, he could now call the trailer where he’d been living his own. Outside the window, his new truck gleamed. Okay, not quite new, but a damn good used one. The best part was the sign on the side, J. W. Landscaping and Snow Removal. It had started simply enough, small jobs here and there, that grew into longer-term contracts. Eventually, with luck, perseverance, and sobriety, he’d made it. He was now both a business and property owner.
There were two checks to hand over today. One from his own account and one from Claire Rawlings. True to her word, she’d stayed in contact. They’d grown to be some kind of long-distance friends, bonded by their shared understanding of unimaginable loss. He’d send her a postcard, a quick note once in a while, checking in, updating her on the status of his business. Claire, in turn, sent him packages, things like sweatshirts and baseball caps, fudge around the holidays. As soon as he informed her about his big purchase, she stepped up; Jay hadn’t even asked.
He felt a nudge of longing looking at her handwriting, receiving her generosity. Thoughts of her older daughter still got to him. He’d even made a dream catcher for Andrea. A small, unadorned one. Just like he’d made for Lily. But he didn’t have the heart to send it to Claire. Not after instilling hope by telling her Andrea was alive when she had probably already been reduced to ashes. How could he have been so wrong? He no longer trusted himself, his feelings. Even as they persisted to dog him that there were pieces of that story missing. Something about the tragedy and its devastating outcome left him with a lingering uneasiness, a sense that things didn’t quite line up. Whenever he recalled that freezing night in the campground, just after he’d met with Claire, he could swear over a thousand Bibles that it was a woman who had stolen Claire’s girls and that Andrea was alive. Now he was consumed with guilt. And the fact that Claire was so nice to him made it worse in some ways. But he’d keep the bond going. As long as she wanted.
The manager, a blond guy with pockmarks, smacked his gum. “Getting a bargain for certain with that adjoining land. Keep you really isolated back there.”
“Yeah, except for that rental across the street.”
With his trailer set apart from so many others, the old broken-down mint-and-chrome unit, directly in his line of view, was a sore spot for Jay, a blight on his seclusion. Management offered monthly leasing on that place and so drew short-termers, transients—people with problems.
“No worries, man.” The manager again smacked his gum. “A woman and kid moved in last week. They seem harmless enough.”
Jay had seen an old Buick coming and going at odd hours. Whoever they were, they were quiet, elusive.
“A kid?”
That made Jay nervous. He’d lived in enough mobile home parks to see his share of punks, adolescent males with a full-on rage button. Usually started with BB guns, shooting out windows, and then escalated to smoking pot, drug dealing.
“A little girl. Eight, nine maybe. Like I said. They seem fine.”
The real estate agent shifted in his chair. He was overweight, with a buzz cut that looked like a five o’clock shadow on his head. “Sign, please, Mr. White. I gotta hit another showing.”
Jay’s tranquility was restored as he took the pen in hand. This was partial fulfillment of his dream. A nice double-wide with a garage. He could keep his mowers and other equipment stored comfortably through the winter. The open-air shed offered plenty of space to work on his dream catchers. In fact, the best part was that the property abutted scrubby open land, which led to woods, then to dunes, and finally to the lake, where he scavenged all kinds of cool materials to use in his craft—freshwater shells and local plants. The trees here were mostly familiar from his childhood, quaking aspens, hardwoods, even ghost pines. But no cottonwoods. For that, he was grateful. Didn’t need that reminder of his home in North Dakota.
Jay completed the paperwork without flourish and left. He had one more client scheduled and now a mortgage to pay. He arrived at the site and worked with enhanced stamina, clearing brush and spreading mulch, and by the time he finished, he was spent. Eschewing the highway, Jay rattled along the rural route that hugged the lake. The late-afternoon sun almost blinded him with the pulsing richness of a chemical fire flowing onto the waves, phosphorescent orange and sulfur yellows. His clothes smelled of gasoline from the equipment, a strong, sweet odor that reminded him of whiskey. He cracked his window.
Passing through the entrance, he laughed when he saw the sign: Flamingo Nest Mobile Home Park. Flamingoes. Here in Michigan. And sure enough, each trailer came with at least one iconic plastic bird. The people up front took it seriously, kept theirs out near the mailboxes or next to their doors. Even in the winter, he’d see pink heads peeking through the snow. Most of the people seemed friendly, waved as he passed. Jay would have to talk to them more once he was less busy. This was his community now, and he intended to be part of it, quit his loner status.
Darkness settled in as Jay traveled the U-shaped path toward the back of the park. Jay’s place was at the apex of the curve where the units were farthest apart. Swinging through the bend, his headlights skittered along brush, mailbox posts, and tree trunks. One large oak surprised him with a pair of bare feet hanging from the skirt of the canopy. Small ones, a kid’s, dangling like someone had suspended a body there. As soon as the light hit, they disappeared into the leaves.
Pulling into his drive, Jay noted with mild disgust the unit across the road. A bloated, submarine-looking thing, it was propped up on cinder blocks. Might’ve been funny if it didn’t look so sad. There were no lights on, except a faint glow in what must be a bedroom. Otherwise, it looked unoccupied. Something about this place was causing an uneasiness he had come to recognize as a pre-feeling. Stop it, Jay. Keep the focus on your own life. No reason to look for trouble.
He let the truck idle and touched the deed left faceup on the seat next to him, the ink of his signature still fresh. He’d need to store it in a safe spot, at the very least waterproof. He took a moment to survey his property as if for the first time. Among the lawn equipment, about a dozen dream catchers twisted in the open air shed. In the dwindling light, Jay could just make out shapes of piles on his workbench—one for lichens and mosses, another for shells and dried lake grasses. The shutters on the trailer could use a touch of paint. And the bare rough circle of dirt, several yards in diameter, he’d need to decide about that. An attempt to re-create a ceremonial dance ring that his mother had made outside his own childhood home. Now it would remain an on-again, off-again work in progress. He stepped from his truck. It was chilly for June, with a cold evening to come, and he shivered slightly. Among the pines, spindly oaks darkened in a ring around his yard. They wouldn’t mature here; the soil was too sandy. But he gave the acorns credit for trying.
