Justin Cronin - Mary and O’Neil

In the parked car they changed into sneakers and then set out on foot. The land was level and moist-Arthur could hear running water somewhere-and they moved slowly through the shrubs and shabby trees, all of it tangled by brawny grapevine. It took him a moment to realize that the overgrown path they were following was the driveway, but once he saw this, other details emerged: rusted farm implements poking from the ground, gullies lining the pathway that had once been drainage ditches, a shape in the trees that he recognized as the cab of an old Willys Jeep, melting into the leaves and mossy earth. The scene disturbed and interested him. How long, he wondered, had it taken for nature to reclaim this place? Twenty years? Thirty? How much time was required? Then they emerged into a clearing-the trees opened above them like a hatchway, revealing a sky of radiant, shimmering blue-and found themselves standing at the edge of an immense pit. Of course: the house’s foundation. The hole was some forty feet across, roughly square, and some ten feet deep. Its floor was irregular, long buried beneath a sea of leaves and debris. Again, Arthur’s eyes adjusted. An old-fashioned nail-keg lay on its side, beside a rusted saw blade and a monkey wrench and the head of a hammer, half peeking from the dirt. The scene leapt into view. More saws, hammers, wrenches, an iron sledge, a workbench with a vise, all of it bathed in the brilliant sunlight. The basement was full of tools.

It was then, standing at the edge of the farmhouse’s foundation, that Arthur felt it: a terrible fear, like falling, and then, in its wake, a deep and melancholy calm.

He looked up. Dora was standing beside him, gazing into the hole. He said, “This is something the two of you wanted.”

She answered without raising her head. “What do you mean?”

“To build a house. Out here, somewhere.” He took her gloved hand. “You and Sam.”

Dora said nothing, but her face, paling, gave the answer. She had looked at this very place before, when Sam was still alive. They had stood right where the two of them were standing now. He imagined what that had been like, the hopeful feeling of it, and the sounds of their two boys tearing around the woods, somewhere nearby. It would have been when Leo and Josh were small.

“I really am sorry,” Arthur said.

“Well, you’re right. We did come out here.” She shrugged, and gave him a distant and painful smile. “It was a long time ago, Art.”

“No, I mean I’m sorry that I can’t”-he stopped. He had approached the edge of something, and then he crossed it-“do this.”

For a moment neither of them spoke. Wind moved in the trees, and the branches swayed.

“Oh, it’s all right.” Gently, Dora freed her hand from his-as gently as the first time she had taken it, across the table in the restaurant, months before. She folded her arms over her chest.

“I truly am,” Arthur said.

She laughed, almost bitterly, though Arthur knew that, like him, what she felt was more like sadness. “What you are is relieved, Art. Still, it would have been nice, at least for me.” She sighed then, deeply, and Arthur saw that her eyes were glazed with tears. With a long finger she brushed one away. “Forgive me, but I really liked being a wife. I was good at it, and I miss it. Maybe all I’m doing is remembering.”

And that was the end of it. They drove back to town, and by the time they returned they were friends again, with things to do: Dora to fetch the boys at Scouts, and Arthur to phone Miriam (not here, they told him; she’d only just stepped out) and then drive out to the Price Chopper in Vermillion to do the shopping he’d promised her he’d do. He pushed his cart through the bright, busy aisles, the air smelling of the cold from the open freezer cases, and knew that he was saved. The thought filled him with an almost manic energy-for he also knew, now, that he would never be caught, nor would have to confess-and standing in the checkout line, jammed into the final gauntlet of movie magazines and candy displays, he found himself talking, almost babbling, to a woman one aisle over, a neighbor who had once baby-sat his children. Was his mother well? And the kids? Yes, fine, though of course the nursing home did things, certain things he didn’t care for; they wouldn’t for instance let her out for walks when it was raining, which she had always loved, and his children, well, Kay was settling into married life, the usual bumps in the road but nothing serious, her husband, Jack, was still finishing his dissertation, Arthur couldn’t even understand what the hell it was about, trying to teach, she knew how that went, and O’Neil was still enjoying school, running cross-country and thinking about maybe medicine, though he’d have to decide soon, however he and Miriam managed to pay for it, well, that was another subject entirely; they were driving up to see him in a couple of weeks, to meet his new girlfriend, from Boston… It poured forth from him. It disgorged, like the contents of his cart-flank steak, spaghetti sauce with pork and mushrooms, ice-slickened canisters of frozen juice, and all the rest, a hundred bucks’ worth (for he had overshopped)-onto the cheerfully humming rubber conveyor belt. He wanted to talk, to tell his story; to sing it if necessary, like a hymn, or the tale of a traveler come home at last.

Now, two weeks later, Arthur sits in his office (ten fifty-two and counting; he really has to go), composing his farewell to Dora Auclaire. Since that day in the woods they have not spoken, though they have seen each other once, in passing. Tuesday last, three days ago: Arthur, hustling back from Lawson’s Stationery with a package of pencils he didn’t really need, his head down against a gritty wind, heard the toot of a horn, and knew it was for him. He raised his head in time to see the sticker-covered tailgate of Dora’s old VW squareback as she passed (ERA NOW, No Nukes, Carter-Mondale ’76), and over the seat, a wave. A greeting? A good-bye? He froze, thinking she might stop; when he saw she wouldn’t, he raised his hand to return the wave, but she was already gone.

What he wants now, at his desk, the blank paper before him, is to acknowledge her, to finish the wave; he wants to put into words the happiness he feels, that he loves her but will never be with her, and that this love will therefore harm no one. His office is empty; the answering machine is on, the sound turned low. Behind him, beyond the windows of his office, cars pass in an almost continuous flow, washed pale by gray November; the last leaves tremble on their stalks; above his head hovers the yellow stain of his father’s cigarettes, a ghostly halo that no coat of paint seems to cover for long. For some time Arthur simply sits there, his mind a perfect blank. Without realizing it he has nudged his consciousness to the edge of deepest memory, and his dream of 5:00 A.M. with its sounds of distant water and feeling of final flight. At last he takes a clean sheet of white paper-the legal pad was a mistake, of course-from the tray on his desk, selects a fresh pen, fat-tipped and forgiving, and begins again. Dear Dora, he writes.

The letter is one sentence long; he signs it, love, Art. His eyes rise to the old schoolroom clock above the waiting room door: 11:38. So, after all that, there is no time to mail it. He puts the folded letter in an envelope, writes Dora’s name on it, places the envelope in his pencil drawer, and pushes it shut. Late, he thinks, late. Miriam will be waiting for him in the library foyer, clutching her books and papers and all her nervousness to her chest. The car needs gas, he will have to cash a check on the way out of town; they will arrive at the college in darkness, and there will be confusion about whether to eat dinner first, or check into the hotel, and then the question about restaurants, and if the girl will come with them, and her parents, if they are visiting too-a chain of uncertainties and potential disappointments all shouldered into motion because he, Arthur, is running late. (Not Suzie or Sarah: Sandra. He says the name aloud, to etch it in memory: “Sandra.”) He wraps his neck with a woolen scarf, douses the lamps in his office and waiting room, slides into his trench coat-a gift from Kay at Christmas-and steps outside.