Another sound, perhaps someone sitting down hard in a chair. "They've probably had a lot to drink," I say. "At least they're not driving around." I hear something fall with a dull thump.
Glen stands and pulls on a pair of pants. "I hate it when they make me go down there," he says.
"I'll go," I say, remembering that night I found Rachel soiled and sad on the den couch, but Glen is already starting down the stairs. I lose the sounds of his bare feet in the other noises of the house--the groan and whine of the old radiator below our window, the scratching at the siding from the tree that needs pruning, the window rattling at the end of the hall. There's more noise from below, louder, and I wonder if it is the sound of adolescent exodus, if Glen has thrown everyone out, and in the morning our daughter will be resentful, her lips set in the line that indicates we have disappointed her again. She was beautiful that evening in her black lace, her pale skin a half-moon in the boat neck. I am thinking about how she looked as sleep pulls me back under.
When I wake again, I'm not sure why. For a moment I thought someone was cooking in the kitchen, just as I had that other time, except that it was not cookies but something else. I roll onto my back and feel a piercing pain in the hollow between my neck and my skull and try to remember how much I had to drink. The bare trees outside are making shadows in the window-shaped light on the ceiling, twig fingers in black and gray, and I wonder if there's a storm coming up, and if Ruby's friends have made it home. I hear Glen coming back up the stairs but slowly, with a heavy tread, and I look toward the door. There is only a faint light in the hall, the one from Ruby's room, and he stands in the doorway, and I see that it's not him at all. Too gangly, too slender, too unkempt.
"Maxie?" I whisper softly, afraid that he will be frightened by the sound, that he will assume that I am asleep. And in one motion he moves to the bed and strikes me, hard, in the shoulder, and I cry out and roll onto the floor between the bed and the wall. I whimper, and hear breathing, and a long time seems to pass. Then I hear feet on the stairs again, this time going down, fast.
"Maxie," I repeat.
I'm facing the wall, and I don't know if I can move. There's a burning in my chest and a taste in my mouth like when I used to hide pennies under my tongue when I was little. I think I hear more noise downstairs, but I'm not sure because my heart is so loud in my ears.
I know I've lost time, because when next I hear sound, more faintly this time, it's light outside. I don't open my eyes, I'm afraid to, but there is the faint gray, the vibrating test signal, that daylight makes inside your lids when they are closed. I imagine I have had a terrible dream, but the pain is still there, and now my lips seemed to be gummed with something thick and viscous. I open my eyes slightly and see red-brown shadows all around me on the molding and the outlet and the old Oriental rug, and I close my eyes again.
The last time I wake I can hear people in the house, and I wonder if I have imagined the whole night, if Glen was right and a sleeping pill and some glasses of champagne have given me a brief vision of hell, if everyone is downstairs making breakfast and wondering when I will finally get up. "I will never do that again," I'll tell Glen when I finally go downstairs. Or maybe I won't give him the satisfaction. But then I hear footfalls on the stairs, and I lie very still, my face pressed into the edge of the rug.
"Jesus Christ," someone says, quite close by, "they're all dead?"
"Every last one," says a different voice.
I am staring into the sun. I can see its round edges faintly behind a quivering nimbus of light. It drills down into my head, and I remember that when I was young, at the lake in Michigan, one of my friends said that if you looked directly into the sun you would go blind. My mother said that wasn't true, but then she asked why in the world I would want to look into the sun in the first place.
"Mary Beth!" says a very loud voice I don't recognize. "Mary Beth, can you hear me?"
I don't want to take any chances going blind. I close my eyes and go back to sleep.
Once, when Ruby was six or seven, we were driving in the car with all three of the children in the back, sleeping. The boys were slumped in their car seats, and she was in a booster between them, her head down so that her chin was tucked into the hollow of her throat. "They're all out like a light," I had said to Glen with a smile.
Afterward, I realized that we were having a humdrum discussion, about whether we should visit some old friends who had invited us to the beach, whether we should put an addition on the house, whether it was too soon for me to go back to work. I searched my memory for whether we had mentioned that the old friends had come close to divorce because of his affair, whether we had discussed how little money we had for the addition, whether we had begun bickering because Glen didn't want me to go back to work and I wanted to get out of the house so badly. There was none of that. Our voices must have been background music, murmurs in two octaves, one bass, one alto.
But it still came as a surprise when Ruby suddenly leaned forward between our two seats and yelled, "I'm awake!," jolting the boys upright momentarily.
"Shhhhhh!" I had hissed.
"I'm awake," Ruby whispered gleefully. "I was just pretending to be asleep so I could listen to what you were talking about."
That is what I am doing right now. At first I kept still, kept my eyes closed, because through a muzzy haze of strange sleep I couldn't tell where I was. Then I realized by the smells and sounds that I was in a hospital. Occasionally, someone would call my name and I would lie still, listening to the beep of a monitor.
I can't seem to pierce the shroud of thick insensibility, to move past it, but once I tried very hard to concentrate and heard voices in muted conversation. My mother and Alice, then, a little later, Alice and Nancy. When Alice began to cry, a hiccupping noise not that far removed from how she laughs, a thought crossed my mind, but I put it aside and went under again.
"She's agitated," someone had said as the monitor began to quicken its high-pitched backbeat. For a moment I was reminded of something, and for a moment I had it: the time in the other hospital, with the monitor on my belly, when the nurse had said, looking at the machine printout, "You're having a contraction." And I wanted to scream "I know I'm having a contraction! I can feel it tearing me apart." The memory made my heart beat faster, and the beeps got faster, and someone took my wrist, and I went under again.
Now I am awake, trying to keep my mind as still as my body. My eyes are slightly slitted, so that I can see who is in the room but they can't see me. There was a time when Max believed that if he closed his eyes he was invisible. "I can still see you," Alex would say looking at him. "No, you can't," Max would reply, squeezing his lids tight.
My shoulder hurts, and an IV line is pulling at the soft skin inside my elbow. There is a chair in the corner, and in it is my mother. She has magazines on her lap, but she's looking out a small window. The green paint on the wall is somehow reflected on her face, as though she's sitting on the edge of a lit swimming pool in the evening hours. It makes her look ill. She looks tired and grim, too, but she looks that way most of the time, has looked that way for most of my life. My mother never smiles in photographs. She says she doesn't like her teeth, which look ordinary to me. At our graduations, our weddings--she is the solemn woman next to the bride, the groom. I used to wonder whether there were smiling pictures taken before her husband died, or before she was married, but I've never seen any of those pictures. She begins when we do, except for her wedding portrait. There is a hint of happiness in her eyes there, but no smile.
She looks at me, then narrows her own eyes as though she's imitating me. She comes to the side of the bed and takes my hand. "It's time to wake up now, Mary Beth," she says. For a moment my lids flutter, and then I look up.
"Good," she says.
I put my other hand to my throat and cough. My shoulder throbs, and I wince. "They had you on a respirator the first day, when they thought it was worse," she says. "That's why your throat hurts. It
will go away soon."
"Is she talking?" says a nurse from the doorway, and my mother holds up her hand without turning. "I'll let you know when to come back," she says in the voice she once used for failing students. The nurse withdraws.
"Where is Alex?" my mother asks. Her voice is loud, and I wonder if they all think I've lost my hearing. My vision is blurred. Maybe I have lost all my senses and just don't know it.
"Alex?" It is a sandpaper whisper, and my throat burns.
"Mary Beth, you have to focus now. This is very important. Do you have any idea where Alex is, where he might have gone? Any idea at all? Can you give me any clue?"
I close my eyes and try to think. I have it. I have it. Thinking with this brain is like breathing through a head cold, like looking at things underwater. My thoughts shimmer. My mind squints.
"Colorado," I whisper.
"Colorado?" She sounds as though I am speaking another language.
"Skiing. Colin from camp. On the fridge."
And then something extraordinary happens. My mother begins to cry. Her mouth is held so tight that the skin around her lips turns ghost-white, and the muscles of her face move spasmodically. But tears are running down her face and into the lines around her mouth. The last time I had seen her cry was at my wedding, and then I had assumed they were happy tears. These have something of joy about them, too, which I can't understand.
"Alex is skiing? In Colorado? With someone named Colin from camp?"
I blink my eyes. I think it will hurt to nod. "Yes," I hiss.
"When is he coming home?"
I close my eyes again. I hear my mother on the phone. She is telling someone to go to the ice box. "The ice box!" she barks. "The refrigerator!" You're not allowed to use a cell phone in the hospital. There were big signs when I was waiting for Max's arm to be repaired. I had had to go outside into the parking lot to call Glen. It was so hot on the asphalt that day. My hands were slick and I dropped the phone. When I drove Max home, he said the air-conditioning in the car was too cold. Glen said it was the anesthetic. I made Max a sandwich, but he fell asleep before he could eat it. Glen said it was the anesthetic. I wonder if I had anesthetic. I go under again.
I wake up. A nurse puts a thermometer under my tongue. "My name is Brittany, Mrs. Latham," she says softly. I think I have seen her trying on a dress at Molly's Closet. When she leaves, I see Alice sitting in the chair. She's asleep, her mouth ajar. She'll be upset to realize that she drooled on her chin. She has a manuscript in her lap. I think my mother has gone to look for an ice box, but I can't remember exactly why.
I watch Alice for what feels like a long time. Nancy comes in and puts a hand on Alice's shoulder and shakes her, roughly, it seems to me. Alice starts up. "I'll take over now," Nancy says. Neither of them looks at me. When they finally do Alice cries out, then starts to cry again.
I think I remember something. "Where is Alex?" I say. My voice is a little louder.
"What?" Nancy says, almost shouts.
"Where is Alex?"
"Colorado," Alice says. "He's coming home tomorrow. He'll be here tomorrow." She's sobbing. I can scarcely understand her. Nancy leaves and comes back with my mother.
"I think you should both wait outside for a few minutes," my mother says.
Alice starts to say something, and so do I, and everyone is quiet, and I can hear the monitor, and my thoughts are not quite so fuzzy anymore, and I wish that I could go back to sleep for just a little while. I think I remember something else.
"They're all dead," I say, and I sound just like my mother--flat, cold. And then I repeat it and it doesn't sound like words at all but like a terrible song, like something from an opera. I say it one more time, and then there is a loud sound in the room, but I hear it as though my ears are plugged up. It sounds like the sound I made in the hospital when they were all yelling at me, all yelling, "Push! Now! Harder." That sound was bad, but then it was over. This time it won't stop. People are running in the halls.
Alice wails, and Nancy puts her arms around her. A nurse comes in. I feel something dripping off my chin. "A moment, please," my mother says to the nurse, pressing a tissue to my face, and I understand that she is the perfect person for this moment, that she is the perfect person to tell someone news so bad that no one else can even form the words. I wonder if she was always this way, or if she learned to be this way when someone told her terrible things. The noise gets smaller and smaller, as though it is moving away from me.
"Shh, shh, Mary Beth," my mother says, sitting on the edge of the bed, putting her face so near to mine that I can smell the shampoo she uses. "Alex is coming home tomorrow. Alex is coming home tomorrow. Do you understand?" She looks fuzzy, and when I nod her face seems to shimmer in the fluorescent light. I realize my mouth is open, and I close it. She puts her face next to mine. I feel her cheek, wet. I want everything to be still.
"Max and Ruby and Glen," she whispers.
"Someone," I finally say, and she nods.
"They don't know who." And suddenly I remember. I remember that I thought it was Max, Max who came into my room, who hit me, who hurt me. And I hear that sound again, louder this time, and my throat burns and my shoulder aches and the lights in the room are all like suns and I am so, so ashamed that I thought my poor sad boy could have hurt any of us. My mother holds me tightly.
"Alex," I say when I can speak again.
"The police thought it was him. Because he was gone. Because they couldn't find him. No one knew he was away."
"Alex?" I say again.
"I didn't believe it. I couldn't believe it. I told them they were wrong."
"Does she need a sedative?" says the young nurse from the doorway. What is her name again? I can't remember. The monitor is making so much noise. I can't breathe. It's like a head cold.
The difference between the doctor and the nurse is that the doctor has a white coat. It's just like Glen's. It must have come from the same place. The doctor is a woman. She tells the nurses what to do, but I can't really hear her. That sound is in my ears. The sun dims. My mother's mouth moves, but there are no words. I think that when Alex comes home I will make him chocolate pudding. Chocolate pudding is his favorite. The sound stops, and I am gone again.
Ginger is wandering around the kitchen of the guesthouse at Olivia and Ted's, looking for a corner in which to settle. Three, four times she makes the small circle and finally decides that the best place to lie is directly in front of the stove. I don't have it in me to try to move her, although this makes it difficult to reach the burners. My left arm is a damaged wing, floppy and unreliable. A physical therapist comes three times a week and makes me squeeze a tennis ball. "Much better, Mrs. Latham," she says, looking at my arm, avoiding my eyes. My mind tells my body to do things, and it stubbornly refuses, as though it is still half-asleep. Since I left the hospital three weeks ago, my mind has slowly become accustomed to demands that are ignored by my body.
Ginger whimpers and I give her a piece of carrot. She chews noisily and whimpers again.
I am making vegetable soup. It's a good recipe, and it freezes well. I will put it in ice-cube trays. Then when I want lunch, or Alex wants lunch, or both of us want dinner, I can take out a few cubes and heat it back up. It's very good soup. Glen always loved it this time of year. "Soup!" he would say, as though a bowl of wet-hot was the greatest gift a person could give. Alex says he likes it, too, but I can't remember if this is true. He mainly eats at Olivia's house now, with Ben and Ben's brothers. When he is here he stands with his plate in his hand, leaning against the kitchen counter. I think it's because the table is tiny, only big enough for two. When we sit at it together, across from each other, it tells a story neither of us wants to believe.
I take out the ice-cube trays. There are only two of them. I have made a lot of soup. There's no more room in the freezer. There is the lasagna I made last week, and the lamb stew, and the four loaves of bread, one with cheese. This is what I've always done. I've always had
food in the freezer so there would be a good, hot meal for dinner, even when I am out of the house.
I don't go out of the guesthouse much. I mainly stay here, inside. It's a nice place, small and cozy, decorated the way Olivia does things. Warm. Homey. Pretty. It's the kind of place that makes you feel safe. Sometimes I walk around the edge of the woods with Ginger, but she always wants to go back inside, and so do I. There's old snow on the ground, and dark pits in the snow, grimy pits of cinders and mud and sad tattered grass. The pits are my footprints. The snow has a glossy veneer of ice, and Ginger leaves no prints because she is too light to break through. For the first two weeks she ate nothing at all, not even her favorites--slices of apple, pork-chop bones. "Come on, you know you want this," Alex would say, sitting cross-legged on the floor with some scrap of meat or cheese on his palm. She would put her head on her front paws and look up at him, her brow twitching.
She will be ten years old in May. We used to work out how old the kids would be when Ginger was five, when Ginger was ten. We never went any higher than that. We didn't want to think about how old they would be when Ginger was put to sleep.
I was the one who went to sleep, sleep so deep that the police officers thought I was dead while they walked around my house. One of them took Ginger out to his car and put her in the back, behind the metal grille. Then they let her out because she threw herself so hard against the grille that she broke two of her incisors and ripped out a dewclaw. Olivia took her to the vet while I was in the hospital, and the vet pulled the two teeth and bandaged her paw. She still limps a bit, and I wonder if it's more memory than injury.
Ginger saved my life. Our next-door neighbor woke on New Year's Day and saw the back door open, waving wildly in a cold sleety wind, and when he went over to shut it--"Hello?" I imagine him calling, although I never heard him. "Glen? Mary Beth? Everything okay?"--he heard Ginger keening inside her kennel. He called the police. That's what I'm told. Everything about that night is what I'm told. All I heard were the sounds of my kids' friends hanging out in the den and making too much noise. All I heard was my husband going downstairs to reprimand them and send them home. Or that's what I thought I heard. Nancy says the newspapers wrote that I slept through it all, which is more or less true. I can imagine myself reading that about someone else and disbelieving it. That's what people do: They imagine themselves in your place, and they know that they would be different, better. They scare themselves a little with borrowed tragedy, and then they retreat to the safety of their own safe place, or what they think is their own safe place.