Box Nine

Chapter Thirty-Three

It’s Thanksgiving morning in Ike’s kitchen. The radio is delivering a blow-by-blow of the Main Street parade, an endless march by an infinite number of helium-filled cartoon characters. Super heroes. Comical sidekicks.

RAY: … And now, passing City Hall in a special seat high atop the lead float, waving to the cheering throng as he goes, this year’s grand marshal of Quinsigamond’s annual Thanksgiving Day parade, the leader of our fair community, the voice of the people, the city’s own Mayor Victor Welby …

Lenore sits in the rocking chair, wrapped in an oversized terry-cloth bathrobe that Ike had intended as a Christmas gift. Her legs are pulled up underneath her. Her head is resting on a throw pillow at her shoulder. She holds a mug of steaming tea between her hands, in her lap.

Ike wears an almost matching robe over flannel pajama bottoms. He has white tube socks over his feet. His hair sticks out in the back in birdlike tufts. He has a full loaf of bread spread out on the kitchen table and the toaster’s going nonstop. So far he hasn’t burned a piece. He’s in the process of making bread stuffing for the small turkey that’s now roasting in his oven, filling the kitchen with the familiar smell of every Thanksgiving in their mutual past.

They’re both a little dopey from Valium and the brandy Ike has added to the tea.

“What a waste,” Lenore says, the words obscured, softened in places by her swollen lips and dozens of stitches.

Ike understands her and shakes his head. “You do it for the smell. You need that smell.”

“Dr. Z said to stay on soft food and liquids for a week.”

“So what is stuffing?” Ike asks. “Soft food. Like the epitome of soft food. And I can still eat the turkey.”

“What a sport.”

“Tomorrow I’ll make you some turkey soup. Broth. Good for you.”

Dr. Z is a friend from the city clinic who owes Lenore more than a few favors. He sedated Wilson and let her sleep in an empty room, then phoned Zarelli at 4 A.M. What happens from here, tomorrow and the weeks ahead, Ike neither knows nor wants to know. He hasn’t slept yet. Right now, he wants only to be in this kitchen, these familiar walls. He wants to move through well-known motions. Movements that involve cooking, eating, feeding.

After they got home from the clinic, Lenore tried to sleep on top of Ike’s bed, but got up after half an hour and showered. She knows the Valium is putting off a real meltdown. That there are still very bad times ahead. Shakes, an inability to get warm, days, maybe weeks, of nausea. Maybe visions. All Ike will say about what’s to come, he said, as she stepped from the bathroom, the new robe warm on her shoulders, a towel wrapped around her head.

He said, “We’ll get through it, sis. You got all the strength in the family.”

Now, watching her brother cut toast up into small squares, she’s not at all sure of the truth of his statement. And she wishes she’d countered with, “And you got all the wisdom.”

Wisdom. It’s a funny word. She doesn’t think she could say it, even without the stitches. Certainly not without laughing.

She lets her head roll across the back of the rocker. She thinks about Cortez, months from now. She imagines him sitting crosslegged, Indian style, in the mouth of some cave, ridiculously high in the face of the Andes, a rare book, a novel, open in his lap. He’s reading it for the third or fourth time. His face is tanned to a leathery cover. In a notch in the rocks below him, the sound of Mingo telling ancient jokes to a silent Jimmy Wyatt, Henny Youngman one-liners, floats up toward him. Echoes. His aides tend the sheep, bring water. He just sits and reads, moves his hands over the covers of the whole ghost library. Halfway through the day, he begins to read aloud. To Max. He tries to discover the boy’s preferences. His likes and dislikes.

She can’t help ask. “What’s going to happen when the shock wears off?”

Ike can’t answer. He’d like to imagine a moment months from now, he and Lenore at the table working out the intricate plot of a mystery. But instead, the image of Eva’s face starts to form. He knocks it away, burns it down, fills himself up with the size of the toast squares, the amount of sage to add, the sound of the parade commentator’s voice.

Though it’s bodiless, detached, it’s filled with such emotion, clearly impressed by this spectacular march down the center of Quinsigamond. It’s a celebration. A tradition. Main Street flooded with row after row of marching bands, fire trucks, elephants, lighter-than-air floats of nylon tethers. It sounds like a marvel of color, music, syncopation. The announcer can barely contain himself.

RAY: How can I tell you all out there, how can I tell you? You’ve got to see it for yourself. Come on down. It’s beyond words.