Joyce Oates - Sourland

In his burrow-space, the son was safe. In the cunning of animal panic the son lay very still. Like a dazed creature that has been injured but knows not to move, scarcely to breathe, to preserve its life. As if far distant on the surface of the earth the daddy lay pressed against the boulder, the daddy’s arm extended beneath the boulder to the shoulder-socket. In tight, constricted circles the daddy’s hand moved clumsily. If there was futility in the daddy’s gesture yet there was determination, zeal. There was the wish not to give up — not ever. For as long as his strength remained the daddy would persevere uttering the son’s name until the name lost all meaning. Like words in a foreign language or nonsense-words the syllables Tod, son, li’l dude became shorn of meaning as rock is shorn of meaning, implacable, unnameable. Beneath the great boulder the child lay very still. The child’s small heart still beat, the child’s lungs still pumped, the child would never return to the daddy again, not ever.

Hardly aware of them she began to see them. Or maybe she sensed them without exactly seeing them. At first singular, isolated spiders, solitary in their shimmering webs — in a high corner of the bedroom in which she now spent so much time, in the musty space beneath the kitchen sink, in the glassed-in porch at the rear of the house where tiny desiccated husks of insects were scattered underfoot. It was the onset of winter, this had to be the explanation. Though she didn’t recall an infestation of spiders from other winters, this had to be the explanation.

In a fury of housekeeping she destroyed the webs, killed the spiders and wiped away all evidence. Her hands moved jerkily, there was much emotion in her fingers. Sometimes her fingers clenched like claws, transfixed with rage.

Surviving spouse, she’d become. The one of whom it’s said by observers How well she’s taking it! She’s stronger than she thinks.

Or She’s braver than we expected.

Or Now she knows.

That first week after he’d died. First days after death, cremation, burial. Frequently she was but part-dressed, part-awake and staggering somewhere — desperate to answer a ringing phone for instance — or a doorbell rung by yet another delivery man bearing floral displays, hefty potted plants, “gift” boxes of fruits, gourmet foods as for a lavish if macabre celebration — unless it was a woman friend concerned not to have been able to reach her on the phone — and of course there was the trash to be hauled to the curb if only she knew the dates for trash pickup and mornings she found herself outdoors — one morning in particular the day following probate court and here was cold pelting rain and wind whipping her hair — where was she, and why? — telling herself she had no choice, this was her duty as the sole survivor of the wreckage at 299 Valley Drive — the task was to retrieve mail from the mailbox — days of accumulated — unwanted — mail and thus dazed and staggering in November rain on the cusp of sleet, a trench coat thrown over her sweated-through flannel nightgown and raw-skinned bare feet thrust into inappropriate shoes she was making her unsteady way up the long driveway careening with manic rivulets of rainwater soaking the soles of these shoes. And thinking I will not slip and fall here, alone. I will not fall to one knee. I will not shatter any bones in a sudden faint. For almost at probate court she’d fainted. And twice in the house alone and the horror of her new, posthumous life washed over her like dirty water in her mouth and almost she’d fainted — maybe in fact she had fainted striking her head against the hard unyielding surface of the dining room table. And now blindly she was reaching into the mailbox — not a box precisely but a tubular aluminum vessel impracticably narrow for the quantity of mail she was now receiving as the surviving spouse of a man who’d had numerous friends, business acquaintances, and associates — into which for the past several days the increasingly impatient mailman had thrust, pushed, stuffed mail so that brute strength was required to remove it — and trying to extract a mangled envelope at the rear she thrust her hand into something strangely feathery — gauzy — a spiders’ nest — a cluster of alert, antic brown-speckled spiders — of which one — not-large, the size of a housefly — scurried swiftly up her groping hand, up her arm, and nearly reached her shoulder with seeming demonic intent before it was flung away with a breathless cry — even as the mail Sophie clutched in the crook of her arm slipped and fell to the wet grasses at her feet.

O God help me. This is the rest of my life.

Approximately three weeks after her husband’s death the first of the odd-shaped envelopes arrived.

Amid a welter of belated sympathy cards, ordinary mail, and trash-mail an oblong manila envelope postmarked Sourland, MINN — return address K.

Just that single initial — K.

This was mysterious, ominous. Sophie knew no one who lived in Sourland, Minnesota. She could not imagine who K.was.

She knew that her husband had had friends — professional associates — in Minneapolis. For sometimes he’d flown to Minneapolis, for meetings. But never had he mentioned Sourland.

They’d been married so long — in December, they would have been married twenty-six years — it was reasonable to assume that neither knew anyone of whom the other wasn’t aware, to some degree. If the surviving spouse was unsure of many things she was sure of this.

The clutch of fear, the surviving spouse feels at such moments. The prospect — the impossibility of the prospect — that the deceased had secrets of which the surviving spouse had not a clue.

Though stacks of mail had been left unopened on the dining room table — sympathy cards from friends, heartfelt handwritten letters she couldn’t bring herself to read — quickly Sophie opened the envelope from the mysterious K.postmarked Sourland, MINN. There appeared to be no letter inside, just photographs — wilderness scenes — a steep grassless hill strewn with large boulders, mountains covered in dense pine woods, a broad river bordered by tall deciduous trees and splotches of color like a Matisse painting. There was a steeply-plunging mountain stream, there was a ravine strewn with fallen trees, fallen rocks — an obscure shape in the near distance that might have been a crouching animal, or a person — or oddly shaped exposed tree roots. Was Sophie supposed to recognize these scenes? Was something here familiar? There was no identification on the backs of the photos which seemed to her to have been taken without regard to form, composition, “beauty” — as if for a utilitarian purpose — but what was the purpose? She was annoyed, uneasy. Her heart beat rapidly as if she were in the presence of danger. Why have these been sent to me? Why now? Who would do such a thing?

She saw that the envelope from the mysterious K.had been addressed to Sophie Quinn. Not Mrs. Sophie Quinn, or Mrs. Matthew Quinn. The address was hand-printed, in a black felt-tip pen. She thought He wants to disguise his handwriting. He doesn’t want to be identified.

Badly she wanted to tear up the photographs. This was some sort of prank, a trick, something cruel, sent to her at a vulnerable time in her life.

The husband might have advised Give them to me Sophie. Don’t give this another thought.

The husband might have advised Be very careful now Sophie. You will make mistakes in your posthumous life, I won’t be at hand to correct.