David Dun - At The Edge

And before he knew what was happening, Dan began talking, the words pouring like water through a burst dam. "I loved to listen to your heartbeat. I remember how it felt when you put your hand on my face, what your eyes did when they looked into mine." On and on, he recounted his memories.

If she were here, what would she say? She had a practical side to her. "Can you find something new, something different?" she'd ask.

In his mind he searched the face of his dead wife, for some sorrow, some torment, some anguish of soul, but found none. "How do I accept this loss?"

She was someplace far away, or no place. If she were here, what could she say?

"I don't want to hope," he said aloud. He smacked his palm with his fist and rocked. "I don't want to hope for another you. I'm angry, and I don't want to hope."

The car was parked near a streetlamp, and away from the deep shadows. Maria looked out at a large white Victorian structure that served as the funeral home. Down its sides ivy had been strung on trellises, and grown vigorously, forming luxuriant green carpets, making it seem more a place for the living than the dead. But for the frogs and the crickets, it was silent.

She reasoned that having just been attacked, she would not be assaulted again-for the moment. The logic was only slightly reassuring. Under ordinary circumstances Maria would have preferred not sitting alone on a dark street after just being assaulted. Additionally, there was her throbbing jaw and accompanying headache, not to mention the anguish from her bruised ribs. She would tell none of this to Dan Young.

It was midnight when she saw him coming down the path. He had been gone a long time. She unlocked the car, grateful for the company but nervous, not knowing what to expect.

He got in the car, looking completely composed.

"Well, I did it." He turned to her, looking so relaxed it seemed odd.

"There is something I always wanted to tell her. But never did."

"Do you want to tell me?"

"I don't know." He sat silent for a time. "After we'd been married maybe three years, there were still other women I would think about. Of course everybody thinks about other people. But I just… you know… would think about the possibilities."

"I understand."

"And I knew there was this certain closeness that Tess and I never had. So one night in bed, I held her close and I formed this mental image. It was like a mental game and I had to concentrate very hard. I imagined a big beautiful casket with a clear glass top. It sat over a hole in the ground. Tess and I were in the casket together. They closed it. Standing around was everyone we knew, especially the women I thought about. It was hard to focus on those women, to see their faces, to look into their eyes as we were being lowered. But I concentrated and in my imagination I made their faces clear. And the crowd waved and the other women threw flowers. And then they all slowly disappeared. You with me so far?"

"I'm with you."

"This hole in the ground was like the Alice-in-Wonderland hole because it had no bottom. In my mind it came out in this Garden of Eden. And we were going there for the night. Just the two of us. So once I had watched everybody disappear, I began concentrating on Tess. My fingers were on her back, lightly, her body tight against mine. I'd say in my mind over and over, 'Just the two of us, just the two of us.' Every millimeter of my body was taken up with sensing her.

"Now when this was going on in my head I never said a word; I only held her and let my fingers run over her back. The first time I did it, she cried, happy tears, and asked me what I was doing. I said: 'Does it feel different?' She said, 'It's the most wonderful thing I've ever felt. What were you thinking about?'

"And I said, 'Just the two of us.' She said, "That's all?' I told her I was concentrating on a particular mental image. 'What's the image?' she asked.

''And I waited a minute. Then I said, 'If I tell you, maybe it won't work.' I didn't want to get into explaining about the other women. And the looking in their eyes and watching them disappear. Or maybe I thought it would sound too crazy. I think I thought if we talked about it, then it might not work. Anyway, I promised that I would tell her sometime. And it was our anniversary coming up. We had agreed that I would tell her. I'd done this little meditation quite a bit by then and it was as close to magic as I'll ever come. I know it sounds dumb.''

"No, no. God no. It doesn't sound dumb at all. But you didn't tell her?"

"I never had a chance. Our anniversary was the day she died. And on that day I knew I should go and pick up Nate. I knew it. It was my turn. And if I had…"

"And you've been thinking about that."

''I lie in bed at night and try to get back that picture of me and her together in the glass-topped casket. Just me and her. But ever since the day she died, I can't. I can only think I should have gone to get Nate. And she would be alive."

"I'm sure she knew even if she didn't understand. She knew that you were pushing the others out of your heart and leaving room only for her."

"I can't get her back even in my head." His voice didn't crack until the last word. Then he wept the most profound sobs she had ever witnessed. "I can't get her back."

Overwhelmed by his sorrow, she forgot who he was, who she was, the many expectations that imprisoned them both. She wrapped her arms around his head and held him.

Back at the house they each took a sofa in the family room. After Maria had changed into her now-official nightwear for these sleep-overs, she returned to find him trying to put sheets on the couch.

"A sleeping bag worked fine," she said.

"Well, that was when we had a tent," he joked, looking at the lumpy sheets.

"Here, I'll help you fold them back up and we can get the sleeping bags."

As they were folding, she looked at him and smiled.

"My face must look horrible."

''Just a little bruised. Probably doesn't look nearly as bad as it feels."

"Forget calling the scientists. I want to go to L.A. tomorrow. We can take Nate. He can stay at my parents' with my mother while we're at the university. We should get out of here and take stock."

"Your mother?" He looked shocked.

"You have gotten the idea that my parents are dead. I called her from here the other night. My mother and I are best friends."

"What about the log cabin, and the dishwater that froze before it hit the ground, and the cross-country skiing, and all of that?"

"It's true. I lived in a cabin in the far north."

"Where were your parents?"

"Where they've always been. I went to Alaska after college. I got out of high school two years early and got my undergraduate degree in three years."

''Well, what are your parents like? What's your dad do?''

"You're trying to place my family on the old socioeconomic ladder, huh?"

"You a little touchy about it?"

''Actually, I am. What I tell you about myself stays strictly between you and me. Got it?'' She stepped toward him with the sheet and found her finger pointing at his nose.

"I got it," he said.

"My dad's a wealthy businessman. So now you know."

Dan started chuckling. "Well, I'll be damned. And you had a falling-out?"

''It all started one day when we were watching a football game. We did that a lot, my daddy and me. I was just about to graduate from Stanford. He was taking an unusually long time pouring his drink. I remember he was wearing a golf shirt with a little polo emblem on it that I got him when I was shopping near school. Funny what you remember. Anyway, he turns around, looks at me, and says, 'I have the law school picked out.'

"I said, 'I hope it's Yale because I think I'll get accepted.'

" 'It's Boalt Hall. I don't want you all the way on the East Coast. If we're spending my money,' he said. Well, you know about my temper. And he had been a little overbearing in recent times and there was this edge between us. It felt like a situation that could explode. I looked at him and said, 'Did you say, "spending my money"?' And there were a few more words about money and control and I got up and walked out and packed my backpack. Skipped the graduation ceremony. And flew to Alaska. On my way out the door, I heard my mother talking to my father. It was the only time in my life I have ever heard her use a four-letter word."