Amity Gaige - Schroder

“All righty,” she said, and walked out.

I followed her into the kitchen area. She opened some cabinets.

“Yum,” she said, “baked beans.”

“This is kind of you,” I said. “Very, very kind.”

She shrugged. She pulled a can opener from the coffee can in which it stood, and ground away at the tin top. The can opened. She sniffed inside.

“If you don’t mind, I’d love it if you watched your language around the girl.”

“You watch your language,” said April. “ You’re the fucking outlaw.”

“You have a right to be mad at me,” I said.

“I’m not mad, OK? Just hungry and tired.”

“She is my daughter, you know. I didn’t steal her. And I’d never hurt her.”

“I don’t want to hear about it.”

“The problem is between me and my ex. She tried to keep me from seeing her. And now, if I go back, I bet I’ll never see her again.”

Sighing, April plugged in the hot plate and sloshed two cans of beans into a frying pan. I reached into the coffee can and gave her a spoon.

“Thanks,” she said.

“I’ll tell you what I’m guilty of. I am guilty of — I am guilty of exceeding my legally allotted visitation period. That’s it. And stealing a car. And falsifying my entire identity.” Here, I laughed. A long, wrung-out laugh, a laugh long delayed. I laughed so long and with such rue that April passed me a dishrag to wipe my eyes. I had to lean with both hands against the countertop until I could pull myself together.

“Thanks,” I said, slowing to a chuckle. “Thanks. Thank you.”

“Here,” she said, getting another spoon from the coffee can and dipping it into the beans. “Take. Eat. This is my body.”

She put the spoon in my mouth. The beans were sweet and warm.

“Thank you,” I said, leaning against her. “Thank you so much.”

The spoon and the pot in her hands, she couldn’t hug me back. I stood there against her anyway, my nose in her hair.

“Hi,” I said.

“Focus, John. Set the table.”

She handed me another spoon. I went to the table and took another look around the room. In a flash, I thought, it’s not so bad. We could stay here for a little if we had to. It wouldn’t take much to make it nicer. A couple of gallons of paint, a sheepskin rug, lamplight maybe.

“So are you sure your cousin won’t be back tonight?”

“Yes, I’m sure.”

“When will he be back?”

“Unless he gets parole, not for four more years.”

I turned and stared at her. “He’s in jail?”

“Oh, John. Don’t look so shocked. Look, you’re breaking my heart.”

April turned off the hot plate, walked over to me, and took my face in her hands.

“Poor John,” she said, kissing me on both cheeks. “You are the worst criminal I’ve ever known.”

I fell against her. We leaned on each other, equal weights. I felt my throat tighten. I covered my eyes with my hands.

“I’m a mess,” I said, into her hair. “A disaster. Everything I touch turns to shit.”

“No. I’m sure that’s not true.”

“I just wanted some time with my daughter. I just wanted to have a vacation with my daughter. I wanted to decide that. I’m her father . I taught her to read . I stayed up with her when she was sick. There’s been a mistake here, you know — a very grave mistake — a miscarriage—”

“You should have gone to court or something. You should have gotten a better lawyer or something. You shouldn’t have nabbed your own daughter.”

“Please.” I pushed her away gently. “Please don’t take the other side. The whole world is going to take the other side.”

“Don’t flatter yourself. The whole world won’t be paying attention. Miss Butterfly?”

Meadow’s voice sounded small from the farther room. “Yes?”

“Would you like some dinner?”

“No, thank you.”

“You should eat.”

“I’m not hungry, thank you.”

April rolled her eyes. “I’m not even going to say anything. All she eats is donuts. When is the last time she had a vegetable?”

Grinning, I took up my spoon. “You know what? My wife would like you, if she knew you. Even though you’re pretty much polar opposites. I think she would like you. At least, she’d be grateful to you for looking after Meadow.”

April lifted a heap of baked beans on her spoon and blew on it. “Quit looking so grateful. It’s not like I’m in love with you.”

I grinned. “I should have married you. I should have married someone like you. I should have married a woman with a sense of humor.”

“I don’t need to get married. I’ve already got a rock song named after me.”

I watched her across the table, one hand pinning back her hair, her lips blowing little rapid puffs toward her spoon.

“Hey. Do you want to—” I gestured toward the canoe. “After—”

Now April laughed. “Ho-di-ho- ho . I’m not having any more sex with you, Toronto. Especially not in a canoe. The only thing I’m going to do with my ass tonight is save it.”

“Oh. OK. That’s too bad.”

“It is too bad, you know.”

“I like you very much.”

This seemed to make April a little sad. “Hey. How about you go put your kid to bed? We’ll catch up after that. Here. Bring her these.” She pushed a bowl of beans across the table. “She’s probably starving, but too mad to say so. If I were you, I might try to make things right, while I had a chance. Say what you need to. After a lot of trial and error I found the ‘truth will out,’ as they say.”

I sat there for a moment.

“Sorry,” she said. “Did I overstep?”

“No. No, you didn’t. In fact, I was — I was thinking the same thing.”

I stood up. I walked to the door of Meadow’s room. Then I stopped and came back and put my hand on the back of April’s neck. I looked down at her big face, and I smiled. There was a pause — and I mention it here because, well, it was distinctly un-Pinteresque — light, merciful, safe.

“Everything about you is big,” I told her.

“Thanks, I guess.”

“Yes, it’s a compliment. You’re just a little bit more than most people.”

And that was the last time I ever saw April A.

Who’s gonna wanna be your lover next time?

April had been right about the White Mountains. There was something about them, something mysterious, legend making. We had driven through their southern boundary all that afternoon into the evening, along the Kancamagus. To our left rose the promontories of the Franconia Range. The wind was high, and you could feel it hit the car. The silence was broken only when April would say, gesturing with her chin, “There’s Moosilauke. And that one’s Osceola.” Moosilauke. Osceola. Words Meadow and I would have laughed about, had we been on speaking terms. I knew that Mount Washington towered to the north of us. But we couldn’t go there, not anymore. Not in the spirit we had intended.

Now I came to the door of Meadow’s erstwhile bedroom. She had abandoned an impressive metropolis of Lincoln Logs on the floor and was lying on the bottom bunk of the bed, one arm thrown over her face.

“You awake?” I whispered.

A lamp sat on a bureau in the corner of the room. I stepped forward and pulled the chain. She drew her arm from her face.

“You want some dinner?” I said, raising the bowl.

She glanced at me but said nothing.

“You’re still not speaking to me?”

She shrugged and rolled to her side, poking the pillow on which her head rested.

At sunset, nearly out of the mountains, April had announced that she needed to pee and without further comment turned off the highway onto a gravel road bordered by wild rhododendron. We drove into a parking area and got out. April ran into the woods in her fluttering kaftan. Meadow and I walked uphill in silence. When we crested the hill, we were looking at the surface of a crater lake, which sat as smooth as glass inside the mountaintop, as if just the tip of the mountain had been sliced off and filled with rainwater. Large clouds raced overhead in galvanic wind, sweeping purple shadows across the lake. The lake closed and opened with the moving clouds; it almost felt like we were racing through years. Meadow reached out for my hand. This surprised me — that’s why I remember it — that she still had some need for me, however inscrutable, however ambivalent. And I remember her reaching out for me as the reason that I did everything thereafter, which led me to the place in which I now find myself, writing this document. Because I see that moment as the beginning of my disappearance. I mean the disappearance of who I’d been. Of course, I’m still here —everyone knows perfectly well where I am — but when she touched my hand, I felt a falling away of my exterior, of my deception.