David Gates - A Hand Reached Down to Guide Me

“You’ll scandalize your friend,” she said. “Look how he’s blushing.”

Paul reached down, lifted the hem of my apron and peeked under. “What’s fer breakfast, Ma?”

They took plates onto the porch, and when I came out after a preliminary cleanup, I found Janna sitting next to him while Simone was on the lawn trying to get up into a headstand, her black hair splashed out on the grass. He hadn’t touched his eggs. “Hey, the Iron Chef,” he said. “Listen, did I tell you I’m playing bass in a rock band? Like one of those daddy bands? I fuckin’ love it—we missed so much shit being hillbillies.” He speared a forkful of egg but set it down. “I might have to quit, though.”

“What’s going on with the book?”

“Yeah, well, that too. Story for another time.” Simone had gotten both feet in the air, muscled legs straight, toes pointed. Paul clapped his hands and called “Brava!” He turned back to me. “I can’t believe I finally got it right,” he said. “In the bottom of the ninth. Check her the fuck out.”

“She seems great,” I said. The legs of Simone’s shorts had fallen just enough to expose black lacy underwear.

“Listen, I might call you pretty soon to ask you a favor,” he said. “I might . It would be a big favor.” He looked at Janna. “From both of you.”

“ You’re being mysterious,” she said.

“Sure,” I said. “Whatever whenever.”

“I appreciate it.” He stood up and called to Simone. “You going to stay like that all day, babe? Come on, I want to show you the gals.”

He took her hand and led her along the path to the henhouse. He was limping worse than usual—that broken leg had never healed properly—and I noticed he was wearing Nikes instead of boots.

Janna touched my arm. “I don’t think he’s okay.”

“He’s just in love,” I said.

“I could see that little display wasn’t lost on you.” I was thinking of how to deny it, but she put a finger to my lips. “I mean, you know him better than I do,” she said, “but I think she’s got a situation on her hands.”

—

That summer was the first time Janna and I had traveled together. The Brontë Trail turned out to be a five-hour trudge through British badlands—“No wonder the brother was an alcoholic,” Janna said—and back in Haworth we found our rental car had a yellow metal clamp on the front wheel. At Whitby it was too cold to swim, and neither of us had any interest in joining the fossil hunters at low tide or taking the Dracula tour. When we got home, I found a package Janna had sent me from Amazon—she’d found an Internet café in Whitby—with a book of Doré’s illustrations of The Divine Comedy and a note reading It’s time we got you interested in writers from Tuscany .

A week later, I got the email.

This is Simone, Paul’s friend. I hope you remember me from your party. He doesn’t know I’m writing this (truly), but I was afraid he never would ask you. I’m sure you must have seen that he wasn’t well, and the truth is that he’s been diagnosed with liver cancer, stage 4, though he still seems like his old self most days. Anyway, I know that his wish is, and I apologize if this is just too much to ask, that you could let him be in your home for the very last part of this—he says he will know when. He has always told me your home was his favorite place ever to be. I can take care of all the arrangements, home hospice and etc. (truth is, I’ve already made some calls to places in your area). Not really knowing you, I hope I’ve explained all this in the right way. Do you think you could possibly do this for him?

“What?” Janna said. We were propped up together on the bed. One thing I’d learned from being married to Diane was not to be furtive about email.

“Here.” I turned the screen toward her. “I guess you called it.”

I watched her face as she read, but Janna didn’t give much away. “He put her up to it,” she said.

“She says not.”

“Well of course,” she said. “That’s the tell.”

“I just have no idea what to say to something like this.”

“He’s your friend,” she said. “What time is it?”

“So you’re saying I should call?”

“I don’t even know the man,” she said. “But I’d do this with you.”

—

They came late on a Sunday afternoon in October. Simone helped him out of the Jeep, then reached behind the seat and handed Janna a gallon of cider, just as she might have done if they’d been normal lovers up for a country weekend. The label showed it was the catchpenny orchard on the state highway, where kids could feed donkeys with pellets from dispensing machines at a quarter a handful. Paul had let his beard grow in, entirely white; he looked like the last pictures of Ezra Pound. “And here he is,” he said. “Appearing for a limited time only.”

“He rehearses his lines,” Simone said.

Janna put him on the sofa with the afghan over him while Simone and I went back out to get his stuff. “It’s just a few clothes,” she said, “and a couple of pictures he wanted to be able to look at. He didn’t want to take up your space. I think he’s planning to give you this.” She held up the mandolin case.

“That’s crazy,” I said. “It’s got to be worth a fortune.” Paul’s F-5 wasn’t a Lloyd Loar, but I remembered that it was from the thirties.

“He tried to leave me his apartment,” she said. “He’s turned into the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation. I have to get with his brother tomorrow in the city and figure out what to do. Paul won’t talk to him.”

“You’re not driving down again tonight?”

“Breakfast, eight a.m. The brother’s a freak too.”

“But you’re coming back.”

“And you’ve known Paul for how long? I mean, I wanted to. He’s got it all plotted out, like each of us with our own little jobs—I mean, not that yours is little. He’s just putting everybody away, away, away. Fuck him , you know? I was a good girlfriend.”

“Would you like us to disappear for a while? We do need to go to the store at some point.”

“No, it’s fine. He already got the last sweet blow job. Under this fucking apple tree—sorry. I just feel like somebody should know. And all the way up here, he keeps finding these sports-talk stations. Did you know that the World Series begins next week? It’s going to be quite a matchup.”

We found him sitting up on the sofa, propped up by pillows under his back, looking at The New York Review of Books . “So,” he said, “did she tell you what a dick I’m being to her?”

“I can imagine how hard this must be for both of you,” I said.

“Ah, still the slick-fielding shortstop,” he said. “But we’re into serious October baseball here.”

“Can you just stop ?” Simone said.

“Isn’t that the whole idea?” he said.

Janna came downstairs with her arms full of sheets and blankets. “We’re going to put you guys in the den tonight,” she said. “I thought it would be easier than having to do stairs.”

“She has to go back,” I said.

“You know,” Paul said. “Stuff to do with the, ah, e, s, t, a, t, e.” Simone turned to me. “They said they’d be coming with the bed tomorrow morning. And the nurse should be here. You have my information, right?”

Paul shook his finger at her. “Now that should have been said sotto voce.”

“Let me make you some coffee,” Janna said. “I don’t know if anything’s open between here and the interstate.”

“She’ll be cool,” Paul said. “My guy brought over some Adderall before we left. He gets the real stuff. Made from adders.”