Bruce Wagner - I'll Let You Go

“My grandfather built this place for my parents.”

“When?”

“Before I was born. As a wedding present.”

She thought the Trotters to be truly wondrous; there seemed no end to the magical world they inhabited. All grass and sky, yet Toulouse said it had been “built”—this family worked in God-like scale! Then she saw it: on a rise at the edge of a glen stood a bewitching castle, as if dropped down from another world, another time.

“It’s cracked!” she said, regarding the crown.

“It’s supposed to be like that. There’s another one just like it, in France.”

“Another one?”

He nodded.

“But what is it?”

“A house.”

“But why don’t they live there?”

“It’s a long story.”

“Does anyone live there?”

“No — maybe one day. Maybe one day I will.”

“You’re crazy . Can we go inside?”

Mr. Greenjeans watched from afar as the children ran through corridors of myrtle, the fragrant shrub used during Sukkoth. On the orphan’s birthday, Edward had shoved a fistful under her nose.

Amaryllis shivered as they entered the tower. She went to the staircase; Toulouse led the way. When they reached the top floor she was winded, more by unsettled feelings than exertion. As she parsed the landscape below, fear fell upon her. Then she took in the room itself — a bed was there, neatly made.

“Who stays here?”

“My mom, sometimes.”

“But why?”

“I guess she misses my father.”

“Is he dead?”

“No.”

He wanted to tell her everything, but was blank.

She led him to the bed and took off her blouse; she thought that’s why he had taken her there. Toulouse wasn’t sure at first what was happening. She was full of scars and discolorations, and he thought she was going to show him something like where she got stabbed or shot with a bullet. She grabbed his hand and put it on a tit. His mouth was arid and his stomach rumbled, embarrassing him. She put her fingers down his pants. He liked the way it felt, even though everything seemed numb. She stripped off her pants and underwear.

“What are you doing?” he asked.

“Fuck me,” said Amaryllis, summoning the old Airstream words like a depraved incantation. “Fuck my juicy pussy with your big fat cock.”

She helped pull off his pants, and now Toulouse felt funny lying there with this girl whom he loved, starting to do sexy things he had never done, in the room of his very conception. It was too much, and he pulled away. She became more aggressive and put her mouth on him and sucked, but that felt weirdly wrong and he pushed himself back, but she wouldn’t stop until he fell off the bed and shouted, “No!”

Amaryllis burst into tears and wailed, “I’m sorry! I’m sorry!” and ran down the spiral stairs without her shirt. He grabbed it, hiking his pants up as he chased after. He tackled her on the ground floor and she struggled in his arms until she couldn’t anymore, and broke down again, begging his forgiveness.

Amaryllis was worried he’d tell the others; Toulouse was worried she might leave because he had pushed her away. To be truthful, he wasn’t sure how he felt about what had happened — or what exactly had happened at all. It wasn’t like the way he fooled around with Lucy; it excited him more, but was more … disturbing . She seemed to know a lot of things he didn’t, and he hoped she didn’t think he was some kind of fag. But he did feel kind of faggoty around her — the stuff she said about fucking, and the way she said it, put a scare in him. Maybe it was just cultural , he thought. As Edward might say.

As they emerged onto Carcassone, he furtively reached in his pants and touched the tip of his penis. Her mouth-wetness was still there, and some wetness, it seemed, of his own. Walking aimlessly uphill, the girl looked miserable, as if this were the end of the line. She thought of saints again to quiet herself and for the first time in weeks really thought of the babies, thought hard, heart-hard, almost gagging with the heartache of it, the sorrow and the guilt. Her chin twitched uncontrollably, and she soldiered forward like someone on a death march. To cheer her up — and to make sure things would be all right with them again — Toulouse suggested they visit Saint-Cloud. She’d not yet been there, and he wanted to show Amaryllis the maze: so it was, from tower to labyrinth did they go, for in childhood there is mostly myth and no middle ground.

By the time they reached the gate, they were holding hands again, sweaty and tentative, like a couple come from therapy. Toulouse had concocted a biography (she would be the daughter of a Moroccan consul whom they had met on the summer trip) should they run into anyone, which was unlikely, since Bluey rarely left her room and Grandpa Lou was in Azusa, working. His mother had gone to Palos Verdes to freshen up one of her garden creations.

As they walked through the house, Amaryllis felt herself shrinking in size. So many riches upon riches … and all she had to give were her shame and her nothingness. There were family pictures all around — happy, beautiful people — what did she have? Not even snapshots of the babies!.. Nor a photo of her mother, dead in bed with bulging eyes, the corners of her crazy mouth stained chocolate by stomach fluids … Amaryllis struggled not to break and run. Watching her, feeling all her feelings, Toulouse knew right then that they should leave, but he continued on. The honeymoon was over, and he cringed; for he, Tull Trotter, né Toulouse, had been the one to end it.

Once they got outside, things improved slightly. Pullman crept from his teahouse and nuzzled her, lightening the mood. They went straight to the maze. After a month with the Trotters, the presence of a leafy backyard labyrinth was not bizarre in itself; just another ride in an amusement park that the orphan felt was soon closing, at least for her. Pullman plunged in, and the couple lazily followed.

“My mother built this — or grew it. It took about four years … but she wasn’t here the whole time. There used to be a curtain between the maze and the house, two stories high. She didn’t want anyone to see it till it was all grown. I don’t know why, but none of us ever snuck in.”

They walked in silence, going deeper. The tinkle from Pullman’s collar could be heard through faraway intersecting hedges.

“Amaryllis, wait.” She stopped without turning around. Toulouse caught up and took a long, slow breath. “Can we sit down?” He pointed to one of the stone benches lining the hedge. She sat contritely, believing the moment of excommunication had arrived. “My parents got married in that house — the place we were at. That room — that bed — is where they slept on their wedding night. And the next morning, when she woke up, he — my father — was gone. He disappeared. They hired a detective, but no one ever found him. They never told me about it. They always said he was dead, that he had a snowmobile accident in New Mexico. But it wasn’t true.”

“He left her?”

“They said maybe he had mental problems.”

“My mom had mental problems. My dad left her, too. They never got married.”

“She went kind of nuts after that. She took drugs — a lot . She was in and out of hospitals.”

“They never found him?”

“No.”

“My father’s in jail. In the Valley.”

“What for?”

“I don’t know. They noticed him, but he declined to be present.”

He kicked a stone with his foot.

“My mom was in the hospital for drugs, too,” said Amaryllis.