Sympathy Between Humans

33

Marlinchen, already no stranger to adult responsibilities, learned a new set that day, the kind many people don’t have to deal with until their thirties or forties. I guided her through the process of releasing a body to a funeral home, making the necessary choices. I advised her to have all the kids, even Donal, look at Jacob’s body.

“It makes it real,” I told her. “It’ll help them through the denial, and later they can feel like they said goodbye.”

All the kids seemed numb. None of them cried.

Outside, in the hospital parking lot, Marlinchen sat in the passenger seat of the Nova, stared straight ahead, and asked dully, Can you stay over tonight?

You have to be American, I think, to understand how middle-class Americans grieve in modern times. Elsewhere, when people die unexpectedly, there is wailing, there are tears, there is recrimination; you can see it almost every day on CNN. In other places, liquor flows and the telephone doesn’t stop ringing; neighbors come by with food and consolation.

In the Hennessy household, the wide-screen TV held court all evening. Even Liam surrendered to it, his knees drawn up against his chest, seeking comfort in the electronic opiate of modern times.

I cooked for them, keeping it simple: spaghetti with tomato sauce, green salad. Marlinchen made up a tray for Hugh, and just before bed, she gave him a pill. “It helps him sleep,” she said, “and I don’t think I can stay awake tonight, to help him to the bathroom, or read to him if he can’t sleep.”

“That’s probably a good idea,” I said. She seemed to want my guidance on little things like that.

Just before going upstairs, Liam went to stand at the window. He couldn’t see the place where Jacob had died, but in the black glass, he was looking in that direction.

“I don’t get it,” he said. “I just don’t fucking get it.” His sharp-boned face was pinched with something that would blossom into pain, when he stopped trying to fight it so hard and let himself feel it.

I laid a hand on his shoulder and said nothing. Marlinchen and I hadn’t discussed what I’d told her that afternoon, about Jacob Candeleur and the real Aidan. I couldn’t begin to guess when she’d be ready to talk about it again, or to tell the other kids.

Restless, I didn’t fall asleep right away. I was only drifting off, on the family-room couch, when the click of the French doors woke me.

Marlinchen, outside in the moonlight, was dressed in a practical long-sleeved white T-shirt and faded jeans. In her hand was the spade Liam had used to bury Snowball. She was heading toward the magnolia tree.

I’d had no solid evidence for that part of my theory- that Aidan was buried there- but it just seemed so clear to me. What else on the property had that look, of a monument? Why had Hugh walked down there, years ago with Marlinchen, to tell her something he’d said was important? Why were the Hennessy kids drawn to the tree, going there to talk and reflect and be still, as if called there by the whisper of the dead?

I got up and dressed.

Marlinchen didn’t hear me approaching, so intent was she on her work. Slight as she was, she put her body weight into every thrust of the spade, like a tiny backhoe. She was crying as she dug.

“Marlinchen,” I said.

She looked up, tear tracks silver in the moonlight, her face beautiful even in grief.

“Let it go for now,” I said. “We can do this later.”

“No,” she said, her voice wet. “You’ve been right about everything, from the very beginning. I didn’t listen.” She looked up at Hugh’s high window. “Do you think he could see me down here, if he were awake?” Without waiting for an answer, she said, “I hope he can. I hope he sees me digging out here and has a heart attack on top of his stroke. I won’t lift a finger to help him, this time.”

“It’s not your fault,” I said.

“No, it’s his fault,” Marlinchen said, vehement. “I’ve been protecting him for years. I didn’t tell anyone how he treated Aidan. If I’d told someone, anyone…” She trailed off and wept, but didn’t stop digging. Out on the lake, a barred owl screamed, sounding disturbingly human.

“It’s not your fault,” I said again. “You’re hurting, and you want to be doing something right now to make things right. But it’s better, legally, if you let a technician do the digging. You could break bone hitting it with the spade, and then the evidence is damaged.”

“Evidence!” Marlinchen laughed, a high sound not unlike the owl’s. “There’s no need for evidence. He’ll never see the inside of a courtroom. He’ll be too sick. That’s how he’ll beat this.” She laughed, bitter. “It’s his fault Aidan’s dead, it’s even his fault Mother died. But he’ll never pay.”

She thrust again with the blade. “Nothing sticks to him. Nothing ever hurts him. Aidan’s teachers, who were supposed to be looking for abuse? They wouldn’t have recognized it if Dad had beaten Aidan right in front of the school! They brought his books to parent conferences for him to sign.” She sniffled. “I protected and defended him. I didn’t give you the information you needed, because it made him look bad.” She wiped her nose with the back of her hand, a child’s gesture. “Even before that, for years, I took care of him. After Mother died, I cooked and took care of the house and the finances, all so he’d have time to write and teach and think, and do everything but be a father.”

The wind kicked up unexpectedly, bringing a lingering scent of the afternoon’s barbecue.

“And just when I was nearly clear of all the responsibilities, he has a stroke. It’s perfect. He’s trapped me again. He’ll get better, but never completely well. I’ll be here until I’m forty, making his meals and keeping track of his medication.”

“It doesn’t have to be that way,” I said.

“Yes, it will. You don’t understand,” she said.

The smell of smoke was stronger, and the problem was, Marlinchen hadn’t actually lit up the barbecue pit earlier.

“Do you smell smoke?” I asked her.

“I’ll take the bones up and show him that I know. I’ll make him look at what he’s done.” Not listening to me, she spiked the blade viciously into the earth. I turned to look up at the house. An uneven reddish light flickered in the darkness behind several windows.

“Son of a bitch,” I said.

As I ran up to the house, Liam emerged onto the back deck, Donal beside him.

“Where’s Colm?” I demanded.

“Inside,” Liam said, his voice slightly hoarse. “Getting Dad out.”

Hugh, I realized with a sinking heart. A goddamned invalid on the goddamned second floor of a house with a goddamned staircase.

“We have to get Dad out,” Donal echoed, his voice cracking.

Behind me I heard footsteps and barely reached out in time to catch Marlinchen on her way into the house. “No way!” I told her. “You stay out here. I mean it,” I said, seeing refusal in her anxious face. “I’ll handle things.”

The air inside the house was hot but bearable, as though someone had simply cranked up the thermostat recklessly high. But there was also a scent of smoke in it, and I felt a thrill of nerves run through my body.

The smoke was thicker in the hallway of the second floor, where Colm was in his father’s doorway. “Come on!” he said. “Help me with Dad!”

For a moment it was tempting; Colm was strong. But I felt the heat on my skin, growing uncomfortable, and I knew that fires get out of hand so fast, become unsurvivable without warning. I couldn’t take the chance that Colm might die because I’d decided to let him help me and we were both trying to get Hugh out when the whole room flashed over.

“No!” I said, half yelling, even though we were standing fairly close together. “This is no time to be a hero.”

Colm shook his head. “It’s Donal,” he said miserably. “He was smoking in the basement. He started the fire. If Dad-”

“The firefighters will get your father down,” I said. “They have the equipment and the training.”

I spoke with more confidence than I felt. By the time the fire crew arrived, it would probably be too late for a 170-pound invalid to be borne out of the house. Colm saw that truth in my eyes. He opened his mouth to speak again, but then succumbed to a fit of coughing.

“This is how rescuers get killed,” I said.

With one last, agonized glance into his father’s darkened bedroom, he nodded agreement. I put a hand between his shoulder blades and urged him toward the stairs.

Out on the deck, much of my skin felt as though I’d been lying down on a giant skillet. It was likely that Colm felt the same way. I pushed him down in front of the spigot and turned it on, and he splashed water on his face, chest, and arms. When he moved back, I was about to do the same, when I noticed something that troubled me.

“Where is Marlinchen?” I asked.

Colm, hair dripping, straightened up to look around. Liam had his hands on Donal’s shoulders, and he too looked mystified.

“No! Fuck!” I was so angry, Colm flinched at the sound of my voice, even under the circumstances. Marlinchen had gone in for Hugh. Her words by the graveside-I won’t lift a finger to help him- were just words. When push came to shove, she’d fallen back into the old patterns. Sacrificing her welfare for his.

I faced the three boys. “Okay, you guys get back,” I ordered them. “Way, way back, down the driveway, where it’s safe. And stay there. If Marlinchen or I don’t come out, do not come in after us. Understood?”

They nodded.

Moving as quickly as I could, I dropped to my knees and turned the spigot back on. I put my head under, soaking my hair, the water like ice as it scrawled along my scalp. I pulled off my shirt, soaked that, put it back on. Then I went back in.

As soon as I looked into the house again, I knew I couldn’t get up to the second floor. The stairs were aflame; to try to run up them would be suicide. The only way up to the second floor was blocked off.

I went back out the front door, circled the house to stand under the high window, Hugh’s window facing the lake. The grape blossoms on the trellis were tightly closed, puckered and grayish. The trellis. It had held Jacob’s weight. It would hold mine.

The wooden framework groaned and pulled forward as I put my whole weight on it, but it stayed standing, and I started to climb. The leaves brushed against my face as I did, and even through the smoke I could smell a faint, sweet odor from the closed blooms.

Hugh’s sliding window was open as wide as possible behind the screen. Marlinchen’s work, I thought, getting fresh air in the room. Hugh was on the bed, chest quivering irregularly with what might be little coughs, from the smoke. I remembered the sleeping pill Marlinchen had given him, and wondered how aware he really was.

Light spilled from the master bathroom, and then Marlinchen’s silhouette appeared in the doorway. She held a bunched sheet in her hands. She’d filled the bathtub with water, I realized, and was soaking sheets and towels to fight the flames that had already spread into Hugh’s room.

“Marlinchen!” I yelled, again.

“Sarah!” she called back, and there was relief in her voice. Authority was here. “Help me!”

She didn’t want me to get her out; that wasn’t what she meant by help. She wanted me to come in and fight the fire with her.

“Come to me!” I yelled back. “You’re going to-” I’d been about to say die if you stay here, but cut myself off, afraid Hugh was awake and lucid enough to hear me. If he was, there was little more terrible to imagine than his situation: aware but not mobile, at the mercy of circumstances, wholly dependent on someone else to save him.

I changed tactics. “The firefighters are almost here!” I called to Marlinchen. “They’ll get him down safe! But you have to come out now!”

“I can’t!” she told me, shaking her head again, then swinging a wet sheet at the flames closest to the bed. “Come in and help me!”

Then something happened that nearly made my heart stop: she dropped to her knees, coughing, blinded by smoke. I thought this was it; she was overcome.

“Marlinchen, come to me!” I yelled. But even in her coughing fit, she shook her head.

I glanced up at the bed again. Water was streaming from Hugh’s nearly closed eyes. I knew it was the smoke that was causing it, but it looked to me like tears. A mental image of my own father, dead now, flashed across my mind like a spark of static electricity, and a grief as strong as nausea made my stomach roll over.

I made a decision. I wasn’t going to look at Hugh again. I couldn’t look at him and tell the truth, and if I didn’t tell the truth, Marlinchen might not live.

“Listen to me!” I yelled to her. “Three things can happen here! Three people can die in here tonight. That’s what’ll happen if I go in and try to help you. Or two people can die. That’s what’ll happen if I leave you here. Or just one person can die, and two will be saved.”

Marlinchen probably couldn’t see me through the smoke and her streaming eyes, but her face turned in my direction. She got to her feet. Blinded, she stumbled forward.

As she did, I pried a thumbnail under the bottom edge of the window screen, trying to keep a one-handed balance on the trellis. I forced the screen upward and loose from its track along the windowsill. It gave way, and the bottom corner of its metal frame sliced sideways across my forehead, a quick scratch like that of a fingernail, and then it was bouncing down the bowed-out trellis frame, the leaves shivering wherever it hit.

“Okay, we’re cool,” I assured Marlinchen, who was wedged in the now-open window. “I’m going to ease down a little to make room for you, but I’ll keep my hand here”- I had one hand on her lower leg-“so you’ll always know where I am.”

I hoped I sounded confident. The truth was, I had the beginnings of a Chihuahua shake in my legs from holding my place on the trellis.

“Just put one leg down and find a foothold,” I said, “and we’ll just climb down easy, one step at a time.”

A fine plan, totally worthless. When Marlinchen put her weight on the trellis, the whole thing gave way. I saw a flying white moon, smoke, the lake, and then the whole planet hit my back, then the back of my head. Marlinchen was more fortunate. I broke her fall.