Tania James - Aerogrammes - and Other Stories

“You could move in with me. Till you get your sea legs.”

“My legs are fine right here, Ami. This is my home.”

Ami bit her lip without reply. She drew a hand through Gina’s hair and twisted a lock around her finger like a vine. “Is that why you did this, Gina? For the house?”

“And someone to play Scrabble with.”

Ami released a curl, rested her hand on Gina’s shoulder. “No one could beat Jeremy at Scrabble.”

“No one but me.”

After Ami left, Gina went snooping around the house. Not snooping, she told herself, just a form of spousal tourism, harmless to the delicate ecosystem of their marriage.

But Hank wasn’t making it easy. He had eradicated the house of nearly every portrait and photo frame, an absence she had never noticed before. The Primer had talked a lot about making new memories, but completely razing the old seemed extreme.

She turned to her laptop and Googled “Helen Tolliver.” There was only one Helen Tolliver (now Helen Tolliver Dade) who was originally from Louisville, Kentucky. She was featured in The Springfield Gazette for earning blue ribbons at the Third Annual Pie Festival, where her mocha pecan won the Nut category and Amateur Best in Show. Her new husband, George, remarked: “I’d eat that pie off the floor, it’s so good.” But the article showed only pictures of pies, not people.

Gina climbed the spiral staircase up to the tower, where Hank had brought her on their first date. Back then she had noticed the cardboard boxes and crates stacked up against one wall, but only now did she choose to open them one by one. She rooted through the trophies, diplomas, Boy Scout badges, a plastic rhinoceros, a framed certificate from the Rotary Club of Louisville, and a 1963 Playboy sheathed in plastic featuring “The Nudest Jayne Mansfield.” At last she came across a leather photo album with Our Wedding embossed in gold on the cover. She opened it.

Helen. Helen was beautiful. She wore a boat-neck dress with elbow-length gloves and lofty hair that lengthened her neck. In nearly every picture Hank was glancing her way and laughing, as if he had just discovered a woman whose sense of humor outdid his own. The reception looked like a Derby party — bourbon in Mason jars and mint juleps in silver cups; lavish sun hats, pale pink neckties, careless charm.

As she flipped the pages, Gina felt shame and envy sinking in her stomach like stones, as if her snooping had taken her too far, as if Helen were looking right back at her, transmitting some silent message through her innocent smile. You weren’t invited , Helen said. You want memories? Find your own .

What came to Gina was a day like any other, when she and Jeremy were in the park, lying on their backs over soft spring grass. He was reading a magazine while Gina watched the blue-brown currents of the Ohio River and its sprawling clots of driftwood, dislodged by yesterday’s rain, gliding downstream like the backs of ancient sea creatures.

She was beginning to doze off when Jeremy made a noise. “Hm,” he said, as if he were having a conversation with the magazine. With her ear on his shoulder, Gina felt his voice ripple through her, like a seismic wave. “Mm.”

She raised her head. “I can’t sleep when you do that.”

“Do what?”

“When you go, Mm, Mmmm .”

He laughed. “I didn’t even notice I was doing it. Okay, I’ll be quiet.”

She nestled herself against his chest, and he went back to reading. But now the silence felt strange. Gina raised her head again. “What are you reading?”

“Your diary,” Jeremy said, without removing his eyes from the magazine. “ ‘Dear Diary, I am the luckiest woman in the world to be married to a guy who puts up with my shushing. He’s a patient man. And he looks like a male model.’ ”

She smiled. “A male model?”

“ ‘I heart him so much.’ ”

“I have never ‘hearted’ anything.”

“ ‘I just wish I could lay around with him forever.’ ”

The grass stirred. They went back to being quiet. Gina put her ear to the cavern of Jeremy’s chest, felt the twitching of his heart beneath his secondhand soccer jersey. All those organs carrying on their precious work until one day, like that, they wouldn’t.

Out of the blue, Jeremy kissed her hair and said, “Oh, all right, I heart you, too.”

•

In the late afternoon, Gina sat in the gazebo and watched shadows lean across the grass. She swirled the melted shards of ice in her vodka tonic. Drinking alone, in the daytime, wasn’t part of her usual routine, but in an hour or so, she would confront Hank, and a glass of watered-down courage might help.

What would she say to him? That she loved him, against all the odds? Play that Patsy Cline record in the background, that tune about railroad tracks and broken hearts? Some sentiments were better left in song. She poured herself another drink.

For hours, Gina waited, glancing at the mirrors for the first breath of vapor. Hank never came. She baked a tray of fudge brownies from the box, filling the air with warmth and chocolate, while her stomach remained uneasy.

Around eight, the phone rang. She snatched it up.

It was a man whose voice was higher than Hank’s, but heavy with authority. “Yeah, hi, is this Gina Tolliver?”

“Yes,” she said, her voice suddenly clogged with fear. “Yes, I’m her.”

“Are you related to Hank Tolliver?”

“He’s my husband. What is it?”

“Can you come get him, please?” He stressed the word please , as if it were the last scrap of courtesy he had left. “He’s in my son’s tree house, and he won’t come out. He scared the crap outta my kid, I don’t know how long he’s been in there. He even pulled up the rope ladder.”

“Why?”

“Heck if I know. He keeps asking if he can stay up there for a while. He’s not hurting anybody, but he won’t come down. He said his name was Hank Tolliver, and I looked him up in the white pages. The only Tolliver is you.”

“I’m his wife,” Gina said, and then repeated herself, this time, more firmly. “I’m his wife. I’m coming.”

•

The tree house was quaint, wedged between the branches of a knobby oak. Gina stood beneath it and called up to Hank. “I just want to talk,” she said.

A dejected voice emerged from within. “Is Cro Magnon Man with you?”

“His name is Mr. Adler.” She couldn’t remember his first name though Cro Magnon seemed apt, in light of his sloping forehead and the ledgelike brow over his eyes. “This is his house.”

“It used to be Helen’s house.”

“Either way, we’re trespassing. The only reason Mr. Adler hasn’t called the cops yet is because his wife feels sorry for us.”

“I feel sorry for her, too.”

“Can you at least drop the ladder? It’s just me.”

After a few moments of silence, a rope ladder wobbled down.

Gina removed her flip-flops and clambered up the rungs. She hoisted herself belly first into the tree house, only to find Hank hunched in the corner, sitting cross-legged, his elbows on his knees. He was wearing navy socks. Exposed, they made him look like a giant, graceless boy.

Gina sat in the opposite corner and waited for Hank to speak. She noticed a stack of newspapers beside him, all comics and crosswords beneath his gray felt fedora.

“This was Helen’s house,” Hank said finally, as if they’d been arguing through the silence. “Five fifteen Burnham Heights. She moved in after we separated.” He peered through the cut-out window. Mr. Adler stood at the back door, his arms crossed in a territorial fashion.

Hank sighed, then spoke in a softer voice. “She said she didn’t want anything to do with me or my money. She wanted to start over completely. So she bought this place, got a job at the library. I used to take the long way home sometimes, just to drive past her house. To see her without her seeing me.”