Chloe Benjamin - The Anatomy of Dreams

I put the car into park and turn off the ignition. It is four thirty in the afternoon, the sun hazy and diffuse. I’ve checked out of the motel in Edgartown. After this, I’ll turn around again and begin the long journey back west. Just as I’m about to unlock the door, a wave of heat rolls through my body, and my vision goes starry. It only lasts a second, but it’s enough to knock the air out of me. I count to ten, inhaling slowly, and then I take out my cell phone. Hannah picks up on the first ring.

“I can’t do it,” I say. “I’m terrified. I just had a fucking hot flash.”

“Jesus, Sylve, what is it with the hot flashes? You better not be going menopausal on me.” But there is warmth in her voice, and I can practically see the dimples in her cheeks, distinct as fingers pressed in dough. “You can do it. I’m positive. You wouldn’t have made it all the way to his freaking house if there was a shred of doubt in your mind. Remember why you’re there.”

“Why am I here?”

“To get closure,” she says. “To show him that you’re different now, that you’re strong. That you’re not hiding or ashamed.”

I nod, though I know she can’t see me, and look at the house. It’s smaller than many of the others in this area, beach mansions made New England — modest by their lack of distinction, but it has the same white trim and cedar shingles. They haven’t yet turned to silver, which means the house can’t be very old. I wonder how recently he moved here. Did he build the house himself? To calm myself, I picture Hannah sitting on the paisley couch we found at a church rummage sale with a bowl of cherry tomatoes in her lap, looking out at the used bookstore on Shattuck. Hannah with a leg tucked underneath her and a red bandana holding her hair back. A brush of flour on her nose, her old cut-off jean shorts.

“Sylvie?”

“I’m here.”

“Good. Was worried you might have fallen asleep on me.”

“Screw you,” I say, laughing, and something in my chest is gratefully dislodged. I think of quarters shaken out of a vending machine, their palmable brilliance. Something to keep with me. “Okay. I’m going in.”

“That’s my girl,” says Hannah. “Oh, and one more thing. If it’s appropriate? Give Keller a kick in the balls from me.”

“I can pretty much assure you that won’t be appropriate.”

I pop the lock on the door and step out, smelling the salt in the air, the sweetness of the warm grass.

“Stranger things have happened,” Hannah says.

When we hang up, I don’t let myself hesitate. With the sun hot against my arms, I walk along the wooden fence that separates the hill from the road. Though I could easily climb over it, I decide to go through a low gate, latched but unlocked. The grass on the knoll is uncut, swaying knee-high with the breeze, and there is no path to the house. Does Keller want to deter people from coming here? Or does he rarely leave the house himself? There is a small gray door with a lion’s head for a knocker. But before I can reach for it, noises of movement come from inside the house: slow and creaking at first, then faster and deeper in pitch, as if the building is waking after a long hibernation. The doorknob begins to shake, coughing rust, and then the edge of the door is pulled back into the house.

And there he is. I calculated on the ferry that he must be fifty-seven. He has changed, I see now, in ways that only someone close to him would notice: a thinning of the face, a slight droop in the skin around his eyes.

“Ah,” he says. He takes off his glasses and squints; his irises, a clear and watery blue, seem to widen as the lids contract. “Sylvia.”

He smiles. At once I feel a rush of affection for him. He wears a pair of scrub pants and a collared shirt, a canvas apron wrapped around his waist. This is, in part, what I have come for — proof that he has aged, that he is no longer almighty.

Then he puts his glasses back on, and the old feelings return: the resentment, the terror — the sense that he has visited me, and not the other way around. All feelings I’ve come here to do away with.

“You’ve found me,” he says, “how sly of you”—and now he is opening the door all the way, ushering me into a front hall filled with the fading natural light of afternoon and the dank smell of soil.

“I should have given you warning.”

“No, no, that’s all right. You’ve every right to surprise me.”

But he doesn’t look surprised. He is, I can tell, in one of his lighthearted moods. I expected him to be caught off guard, to ask me why I’ve come. Instead, he is playing host, as though I’m simply an old friend who has stopped by on the way elsewhere.

“Sylvia,” he says again, leading me into the living room. “What a pleasure. Can I get you a drink? Water? Or something else?”

“Water is fine.”

This side of the house is mostly in shadow. He walks through a low entryway into the kitchen, and from there he flicks on a light that brings the living room into view. There is a small brown couch, a reclining chair, and an old table piled with books. Everywhere else, though, are plants: trees potted in the corners, succulents hanging from the ceiling, flowers climbing the walls. Their leaves are pungent and fleshy, grotesquely ripe. All over is the close, moist smell of growth. I can’t help it; I cover my nose with my sleeve.

Keller returns to the room and hands me a glass of water.

“So you’ve found my perennials. Gorgeous, aren’t they? They get just enough sun. I’ve never had a green thumb. But the terrific thing about succulents”—he takes a seat in the reclining chair, gesturing toward the ceiling—“is that they prefer neglect. Truly: they thrive on it.”

His affect is still one of ease. But he’s talking too much, too quickly. I see now that what I thought were the contours of the chair is actually the imprint of his body. He fits perfectly inside it, like rubber in a mold.

“I can’t stay for long,” I say. “But there are a few things I want to say first.”

Am I imagining it, or does a sudden blankness come over his face — an instinctive absence, the chalkboard wiped clean? He waits for me to continue.

“First,” I say, “I don’t want to talk about Gabe.”

“Very well. He told me he tried to reach you — years ago, it must be now.”

“He wrote a note.”

“And you didn’t reply.”

It isn’t an accusation, but it’s not a question, either — just a scientist’s habit of blank-filling and estimation.

“No. I didn’t.”

He waits for me to continue. I shift on the couch, warm. Despite the weather, I’ve worn pants.

“I drove past Snake Hollow yesterday,” I say.

“I’m sorry to hear that.” He smiles. “It’s hideously changed, of course. I’d rather you be able to remember it as it was.”

“I’m sorry you sold it. It was Meredith’s, wasn’t it? Your wife’s?”

“It belonged to her family, then to her. And when she died, it belonged to me.”

“They didn’t mind when you gave it up?”

He raises an eyebrow.

“It was their suggestion, I’m afraid. Too many bad memories associated with that house — and worse, perhaps, too many good ones. They were in favor of selling it right after she died. I held on a little longer. But everything, good and bad, must come to an end.”

Keller cocks his head. His lenses flash with light.

“Does that make it less alluring to you?” he asks. “No family drama, no bitter struggle?”

Again, the clinical voice — the weighed curiosity of a professor, imbued with just the right amount of mildness. Still, I’m startled into silence. He stands and walks to the kitchen. When he returns, he holds a green watering can with a bulging belly and a thin, long spout.