Joy Williams - Taking Care

“Liberty is a highly depressed individual,” Willie said.

“Whatever,” Charlie said cheerfully. “Building, building.”

Willie stood up and leaned slightly toward Liberty, his hands on the table. His hands were tanned and strong and clean. His wedding band was slender. Liberty remembered the wedding clearly. It had taken place in a lush green tropical forest in the time of the dinosaurs. “I’ve got to shake myself a little loose,” he said, “do you want the truck?”

“No,” Liberty said.

“Just a few days,” Willie said. “Later,” he said to Charlie. He left.

“A butterfly vanishes from the world of caterpillars,” Charlie said.

Liberty saw Clem get up and look after the truck as it drove away. He trotted over to the restaurant and peered in, resting his muzzle on a window box of geraniums. Liberty waved to him.

“He can’t see that,” Charlie said. “Animals live in a two-dimensional world. For example, like with roads? To a dog, each road is a separate phenomenon which has nothing in common with another road.”

“That sounds about right,” Liberty said. She watched Clem nibble on a pink geranium. His bad eye was like a smooth stone.

“There are lots of roads,” Charlie said. He picked up her hand and kissed her palm. “I love you,” he said.

Liberty smiled. “Janiella’s your married woman.”

He shook his head and blew softly on her palm. “There’s only you,” he said.

“You’re a bottle man,” Liberty said.

“Liberty!” a child’s voice called. It was Teddy, standing by the bakery counter. He hurried over, shoelaces flapping, holding a waxed bag. “Mommy sent me here for rolls because Daddy’s home and they’re fighting.” He sat on Liberty’s lap while she tied the laces.

Charlie closed his eyes.

“Who is that?” Teddy demanded.

“My man,” Charlie said, “we were just discussing running away together.”

“I want to go too,” Teddy said. “You won’t make me memorize poetry, will you?”

“What kind of monsters do you think we are?” Charlie said.

“My mother makes me do a lot of memorizing. I’m going to go to boarding school next year. ‘Marriage needs room,’ she says.” Teddy pointed to a shelf on the far wall of items for sale — palm canes, dolls, cream pitchers in the shape of cows. “I bought my mother one of those for her birthday,” Teddy said, pointing at a cow.

Charlie’s long face looked sad. “That touches me,” he said. “I have been touched. I have been reached now for sure and I suddenly see things clearly. This is us,” he said, touching their arms. “We should do something about us.”

“Did this ever happen before?” Teddy asked, his arms lightly encircling Liberty’s neck. “It all seems a little familiar.”

“A very common feeling in childhood,” Charlie said. “Stuff that should have happened but didn’t has to keep trying to happen until it does.”

Liberty shook her head and smiled.

“Look at this pretty lady smile,” Charlie said to Teddy. “I love this lady. I’ve loved her for a long time. It’s been a secret just between us but now you know too.”

“I want to run away with you and Liberty and Clem,” Teddy said.

“A beautiful woman, a smart dog, a little kid and yours truly,” Charlie said. “We can do it! We will become myths in the minds of others. They will say about us,” he leaned forward and lowered his voice, “that we all went out for breakfast and never returned.”

“Good,” Teddy said.

“So where shall we go?” Charlie said. He kissed Liberty’s face. The line of people waiting to be seated, old women in bonnets, holding one another’s hands, looked at them in alarm.

“There’s no place to go,” Liberty said.

“There are many places to go,” Charlie said. “Hundreds.”

“Let’s make a list, I love lists!” Teddy said.

“We’re the nuclear unit scrambling out, the improbable family whose salvation is at hand,” Charlie said. “We’ll go to Idaho, British Columbia, New Zealand, the Costa del Sol. We’ll go to Nepal. No, forget Nepal, all those tinkly little bells would drive us crazy. What do you say, we’ll go to Paraguay. That’s where Jesse James went.”

“That’s where the Germans went,” Liberty said. “Jesse James just died.”

“You’re right,” Charlie said. “It wasn’t Paraguay. It was Patagonia where Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid went.” He was fidgeting now. His dark eyes glittered.

“They were outlaws,” Teddy said.

“They were outlaws,” Charlie said. “Successful outlaws.”

“Why are you crying?” Teddy asked Liberty. “Are you crying?”

“We’ve got to move along, it’s later than we think,” Charlie said. “How about some lunch?”

J ONES, the preacher, has been in love all his life. He is baffled by this because as far as he can see, it has never helped anyone, even when they have acknowledged it, which is not often. Jones’s love is much too apparent and arouses neglect. He is like an animal in a traveling show who, through some aberration, wears a vital organ outside the skin, awkward and unfortunate, something that shouldn’t be seen, certainly something that shouldn’t be watched working. Now he sits on a bed beside his wife in the self-care unit of a hospital fifteen miles from their home. She has been committed here for tests. She is so weak, so tired. There is something wrong with her blood. Her arms are covered with bruises where they have gone into the veins. Her hip, too, is blue and swollen where they have drawn out samples of bone marrow. All of this is frightening. The doctors are severe and wise, answering Jones’s questions in a way that makes him feel hopelessly deaf. They have told him that there really is no such thing as a disease of the blood, for the blood is not a living tissue but a passive vehicle for the transportation of food, oxygen and waste. They have told him that abnormalities in the blood corpuscles, which his wife seems to have, must be regarded as symptoms of disease elsewhere in the body. They have shown him, upon request, slides and charts of normal and pathological blood cells which look to Jones like canapés. They speak (for he insists) of leukocytosis, myelocytes and megaloblasts. None of this takes into account the love he has for his wife! Jones sits beside her in this dim pleasant room, wearing a grey suit and his clerical collar, for when he leaves her he must visit other parishioners who are patients here. This part of the hospital is like a motel. One may wear one’s regular clothes. The rooms have ice-buckets, rugs and colorful bedspreads. How he wishes that they were traveling and staying overnight, this night, in a motel. A nurse comes in with a tiny paper cup full of pills. There are three pills, or rather, capsules, and they are not for his wife but for her blood. The cup is the smallest of its type that Jones has ever seen. All perspective, all sense of time and scale seem abandoned in this hospital. For example, when Jones turns to kiss his wife’s hair, he nicks the air instead.

Jones and his wife have one child, a daughter, who, in turn, has a single child, a girl, born one-half year ago. Jones’s daughter has fallen in with the stars and is using the heavens, as Jones would be the first to admit, more than he ever has. It has, however, brought her only grief and confusion. She has left her husband and brought the baby to Jones. She has also given him her dog. She is going to Mexico where soon, in the mountains, she will have a nervous breakdown. Jones does not know this, but his daughter has seen it in the stars and is going out to meet it. Jones quickly agrees to care for both the baby and the dog, as this seems to be the only thing his daughter needs from him. The day of the baby’s birth is secondary to the position of the planets and the terms of houses, quadrants and gradients. Her symbol is a bareback rider. To Jones, this is a graceful thought. It signifies audacity. It also means luck. Jones slips a twenty dollar bill in the pocket of his daughter’s suitcase and drives her to the airport. The plane taxis down the runway and Jones waves, holding all their luck in his arms.