Joy Williams - The Quick & the Dead

Carter loved his daughter deeply, but the thought that she might be a little simple occurred to him frequently. Hadn’t Ginger insisted on painting the entire second floor in the first trimester? Hadn’t she persisted in those Bloody Marys at lunch?

“We’ll remember her on her birthday,” Annabel said determinedly. “We’ll devote the whole dinner to her. If it works out, we’ll extend it to other holidays. We’ll set a place for Mommy and pour wine into her glass and put food on her plate.”

Carter thought she was getting Ginger mixed up with Santa Claus. Each Christmas Eve they left some apples on the hearth for the reindeer. Plus a good strong belt of whiskey for Santa. Carter rubbed his face. “Are we really going to have lamb chops?” he asked.

Annabel nodded; it was her mother’s favorite. Alice would kill her, of course, if she found out, but Alice didn’t have to be informed of everything. She’d tell her they’d had pasta. Personally Annabel didn’t see anything wrong with a lamb chop now and then.

“I’ll take care of everything, Daddy.”

Or perhaps, Carter mused, she had in mind that thing the Mexicans did. One day a year they gave the dead food and flowers and in general made a big fuss, so they’d stay put and wouldn’t bother them all the other days of the year. Suddenly he became more interested. “What can I do to help, honey?” he asked.

“No gifts,” Annabel said.

They dressed up and set the table nicely. At first it was a little strange, but the food was good. Annabel chattered away to Ginger about her new friends, looking fixedly at the empty chair. She told her about the pimple she’d found — she couldn’t imagine where it had come from. She told her about the new Corvette Carter had bought.

“No, no,” he said, “she won’t approve of that.” Annabel looked at him oddly, and he laughed.

Midway through the meal, Annabel began to cry.

“Oh, honey,” Carter said.

“She’s not here!” Annabel cried.

“She’s probably not used to the house yet.”

“I don’t expect her to really be here, Daddy. That’s not what I’m saying. That would be silly. I just don’t feel she’s listening to us. I don’t feel her presence.”

Where was she, for godssakes? Carter wondered.

“I miss her,” Annabel said. “I wish we hadn’t scattered the ashes. I thought the empty chair was going to be the best part, but it isn’t.” She quickly cleared the dishes from the table and disappeared into the kitchen.

Carter sat there. Really, Ginger, he thought, this is mean of you. To be a termagant is one thing, but where is your compassion?

“I miss her,” Annabel called from the kitchen. “I miss her.”

Carter believed this and was horrified. He had another glass of wine and wandered outside into a beautiful night, black and still. Couldn’t make out a thing, actually, but he knew that all around him were Donald’s admirable touches. Donald, the young gardener, had presented himself at the door just last week, offering his services, his landscaping services. Donald could move a rock and effect an improvement. Restless, Carter returned to the house, poured himself a nightcap, and got ready for bed. He turned down the covers, put both pillows behind his shoulders, and cracked open the Jack London.

“Daddy,” Annabel called out, “I’m going to deep condition my hair and maybe wax my legs.”

“Okay, honey.”

“Good night, Daddy.”

London had gotten Carter through many a long night. “There were no mourners save a huge wolf-dog, to whom the taste of his master’s lash was still sweet,” he read. This was the real stuff. Blood on the snow. Sneering white silence. More blood. And no one cared. Nobody cared, and there was no law. Blazing eyes, slavered fangs, and wretchedness. Oh, it was a maggot’s life, a cosmos of death. But this was the way things were.… Carter lowered the book, and shut his eyes. His thoughts swung pleasantly to Donald. He was so tall. He had a face smooth and guileless as a baby’s and a thick mat of hair on his chest. Carter would’ve loved to press his mouth against that salty, soft amazing pelt, but of course he wouldn’t, absolutely not. He was an amusing man, a lighthearted man, he wanted to be happy, not to make a fool of himself.

He opened his eyes and flipped through the pages. “At the sound of this, the cry of Life plunging down from Life’s apex in the grip of death, the full pack at Buck’s heels raised a hell’s chorus of delight.” Carter frowned and studied the book’s cover. This shouldn’t be included in a collection of stories, it was part of The Call of the Wild . He was about to turn off the light and think about Donald for just a tiny bit more when he noticed Ginger perched at the foot of the bed. She was wearing a dress he’d always disliked — a shapeless green rayon thing that you could see right through.

“I always knew you were a faggot, Carter.”

“Why, darling!” Carter said. “I don’t understand. Why weren’t you here earlier?”

“What was that all about, anyway?”

“Annabel would have been thrilled.”

“We never celebrated my birthdays, Carter, as you are well aware. But it’s your full-blown faggotry we’re discussing here, not my age. And that Donald character. Honestly, Carter, you are so common, so ordinary. That little scar on his cheek! And the way you speak to him.… ‘This is all you have to remember,’ Ginger said mincingly. ‘Mozart’s subject is pleasure, Beethoven’s is joy, Wagner’s an insatiable yearning, dissatisfied with all consummation.’ ”

Carter blushed; it was true they’d been discussing music.

“That scar’s fake as a three-day tattoo.”

“Someone dropped a pruning saw on him. He could have lost an eye.”

“Well, I’ve lost everything, you idiot, and I’m not going to let you forget it. Why was I cremated? If I’d ever thought about it, I would have expressly instructed that there would be no cremation. And to scatter me where you did, in that sound. Some of the worst toxic polluters in New England dump everything they’ve got into that sound! I expected to be placed in a handsome vault. You know how I really pictured it? I pictured you going first, of course. And then when my turn came and I was lowered into our tomb, your skeleton arms would open to receive me.”

She got that right out of Héloïse and Abélard, Carter thought, history’s most tedious couple. He hoped Ginger wasn’t going to start writing to him. “Darling, please,” he said, “give it a rest.” Dead for months and still complaining about his driving, the way he had to clear his throat sometimes, his tipping practices (twenty percent), which she considered excessive. He studied her. She looked the same, and she was glaring at him.

“You never liked my breasts. You never paid any attention to them.”

“I disagree with you there, darling. I’m sorry to say I disagree with you categorically over that one. I love — I loved — your breasts, your silver breasts. Your pearlescent breasts.”

“No, no, no,” Ginger moaned. “You were a false alarm, and I answered it.”

Carter’s stomach hurt. Those lambchops were down there thinking, What’s happened to us now? Where … why, this is incomprehensible.… He closed his eyes, hoping Ginger might vanish, though this had not been effective in the past. She stayed and stayed, sometimes for hours, her masterly and intricate condemnation of him going on and on. Ginger was clearly, merely, a thought of his and could be replaced with another. Why couldn’t he do that? Maybe he needed a little instruction along these lines, a little training. He opened his eyes. Ginger was still there.

“I don’t understand,” he said, “why you didn’t show up when Annabel wanted you.”