A thin layer of snow has covered Arcadia in a blanket of white overnight. When I look out the window in the morning, it seems as if the world is covered in icing sugar, just enough to encase the green of the grass and the tarmac of the streets. Every now and then, the white is interrupted by dark streaks on the road, made by car tires, or footprints on the sidewalks and lawns, left by man or animal.
Dad is not there when I get downstairs, so I have my cereal in solitary silence, which is eerily underlined by the paleness outside. Why is it that when snow has fallen, the world seems to suddenly become mute, the volume of every noise tuned down a notch?
After I have rinsed my dirty cereal bowl, I go upstairs and pick something to wear from my traveling bag. Not that I have a lot of choices. I put on the pair of darker blue jeans that I took—not the baggy, loose-fitting style I used to wear in High School—and a black, knitted cotton turtleneck sweater with a t shirt underneath. I catch a fleeting glimpse at myself in the mirror and wonder where the dark shadows under my eyes have come from. Guess everyone ages over the years, no matter how much you try to deny it.
On my desk, the small statue I picked for Mrs. Girardi mocks me, nudges me to complete that last task I have to take care of while I'm in Arcadia. I sigh and pick it up to carry it downstairs. Putting on my brown boots and my coat, I leave the house and drive to the cemetery.
The wet snow sticks to my soles as I walk to Mrs. Girardi's grave, making it feel like I've got huge blobs of chewing gum stuck under them. The footprints I leave mark the way that I've picked. I know this cemetery too well, my own mother lying buried not fifty yards away.
I stand in front of Mrs. Girardi's grave; the earth shimmers through the white snow coating in places, still fresh from filling up the hole for the casket. No headstone has been set up yet, but flowers and wreaths have been laid down on the grave, the ribbons of them reading compassionate yet somehow trite-seeming inscriptions like 'Rest in peace' or 'In silent remembrance'. I crouch down and put down my sculpture in among them. Faintly, I hear footsteps approaching in the distance, but I pay them no heed. No doubt more mourners, saying goodbye to their loved ones.
Removing the glove from my right hand, I touch the cold earth with my bare hand and bid Helen Girardi a soundless farewell. Tears are in my eyes and when I blink, they roll down my numb-feeling cheeks. Life sincerely sucks.
"Adam."
I shoot up from my crouching position, the voice quietly saying my name so damn familiar to me, but not having been heard by my ears for years. I turn around to look directly at her and the sight makes goose bumps form all over my body. Her brown hair is still as long and wavy as I remember it, her eyes, though red and puffy, still as intense as ever. Maturity has not diminished any of her silent beauty. "Joan," I whisper, half in shock, half in surprise.
"What are you doing here?" she asks with a bitter and forbidding undertone.
I shrug my shoulders slightly. "Saying goodbye." It sounds more like a question than a statement.
"After all these years, you turn up here, sneaking up like a weasel, without even showing your face? Boy, you are a coward, aren't you?" Now her resentment and anger shows fully, incredulity mixed in. "What do you think gives you the right to show up here now?"
"Joan, I..." I want to explain why I'm here, but the angry glint in her eyes makes me stop. Underneath it, I can see the pain and sorrow, even though she gives her best to hide it. What indeed gives me the right to be here? Haven't I asked myself that?
There are so many things I wanted to say to her if we ever were to meet again, so many things that I have gone over in my head a million times to make them sound right and honest. But now, her standing opposite me, looking at me with that cold and angry stare, I lose my nerve and swallow them down. Is there anything left to say at all? I bow my head and quietly say, "I better go."
"Yeah, leave," she snorts. "Go and hide, that's what you do best."
I turn around to face her, something bubbling up inside of me that makes me confront her. "What is it you want from me?" I ask her forcefully, now getting angry myself.
"Oh, I don't know," she shoots back sarcastically. "An apology, to start with? Some acknowledgement? I mean, Grace tells me you're here, and you never even call? If you liked my mother as much as I think you did, wouldn't you at least have the decency to show it?"
I wrinkle my forehead in confusion, but she goes on, her voice becoming louder. "And, and what do you think you're accomplishing here now? You haven't spoken to her ever since you left Arcadia. You haven't even seen her in years! What makes you think she would appreciate you coming here? Making up for your screw-ups, is that it?" She lifts her arms as if she is speaking to some deity.
I look at her ranting on, taking her accusations like blows to my face, because I deserve every single one of them. "Don't you see?" her voice pierces the quiet. "It's too late now. Don't you see there's nothing you can do? Because she's dead," she spits out, her breaths coming out in uneven gasps. It takes me a moment to realize she's sobbing. "She's fucking dead!" she shouts. "Don't you see that!"
She stops, her arms now hanging limply at her sides, her shoulders sagged, sobs racking her body. I can't help but cast aside any of the ugliness that ever was between us and I take a step closer to her, my hands reaching out ever so slightly. Repulsed, she moves a step backwards and I stop dead in my tracks.
"Joan, I... I'm sorry," is all I can say meekly.
"You don't simply come here and apologize to me," she tells me between sobs, making it sound like a threat. She steps closer, her finger now pointing at me. "You don't get to stand at my mother's grave, saying how fucking sorry you are for everything you ever did to me, to my family.
"Do you even know what it was like for me?" she accuses me, her anger coming rushing back. She is now standing in front of me, her palm pushing into my chest, so that I stumble a step backwards. "Are you even aware of what you did to me?" She gives me another push. "How could you do that?" she yells, tears streaming down her face. "How could you do that when you loved me?"
I swallow, standing there rooted to the spot, my whole body having gone limp. Yeah, how could I do that? I have no easy answers, no explanations. She stares at me, waiting for an answer, but I have none.
"Adam, say something, for God's sake!" she demands in another shout. Her hand, curled into a fist hammers my shoulder now. "Tell me why you did that!" Her hammering becomes slower and then subsides. I feel her collapsing against me, her forehead leaning against my other shoulder. I am completely frozen, unable to move and I feel her suddenly clinging to me. It's completely irrational how she can ever want to be physically close to me again.
I can feel her shoulders shaking now and for a minute I can only stand there with my arms hanging by my sides. I finally, cautiously lift them and place my hands on her back, gently holding her like a fragile piece of china that I am afraid to break. I hadn't expected this.
I carefully put my hands on her upper arms, push her softly away from me and quietly say, "Jane." The sound of that name has somehow inexplicably found its way into my mouth before I am even aware that I have said it.
"I can't do this," I tell her. I carefully pry her from her grip on me. "I... I gotta go," I stammer. Without another word, I turn around and walk away, leaving her standing there, looking forlorn in front of her mother's grave.
When I stop to look back after I have walked a fair distance, I can see her kneeling in the snow, holding the sculpture I left, her head bowed. I feel a piece of my heart breaking that I didn't even know was still whole.
--...----...----...--
"Hi, this is Tom and Grace. We can't talk to you right now, but please leave a message after the beep," greets me a simple recording of Tom's voice on the other end of the line after the phone has rung three or four times.
"Hey, Grace, it's me, Adam. Well, you don't seem to be there, so I guess I'll leave a message." God, I hate answering machines! I never know what to say and after I have hung up, I want to call again to erase and redo the whole thing. Trying to put into a few words what I would have preferred to discuss in person, I continue, "It's not important, I just wanted to ask a favor, but since you're not there... Maybe you can call me on my—"
"Hello?" Grace's voice suddenly comes on the line.
"Um. It's Adam."
"Sorry, I was doing the laundry," Grace says, panting a little. "What can I do for you?"
"I was wondering if you could do me a favor."
"Sure." Her reply is short and simple, the way I'm used to.
"You have DSL, right? I just finished some layouts on my laptop and, well, they're pretty big files, so I don't wanna clog up my dad's phone line to send them to the agency. You think I could come over and quickly use your line?" I ask her, feeling slightly uncomfortable for imposing.
"Yeah, if you know how to set up the whole thing. My computer knowledge doesn't extend beyond switching it on and off and going online."
I have to smile at that because I remember the times when we unsuccessfully tried to set up online chat meetings with me being in Chicago and her here in Arcadia. We often ended up just talking on the phone because she wouldn't manage to get it to work if Tom wasn't there to help. "Sure, cool. When can I be there?"
"Well, I have to do some chores and stuff, but I don't think you'll mind me bustling around, will you?" she says cheerily.
"No, no. That'll be fine." I look at my watch. "Say, twenty minutes?"
"Yeah, I'll be here, just come over whenever you want."
"Okay. See ya." I hang up the phone and gather the laptop and the cables I need.
Three quarters of an hour later, I am sitting on Grace's couch with my laptop on my thighs, admiring modern wireless technology. From the stereo speakers blazes rock music by some band I recognize from having heard on the radio. As I watch the e-mail transfer progress bar move from left to right, Grace comes in, carrying two steaming mugs.
"Milk and sugar, right?" she asks, handing me a mug that is filled with a murky light brown liquid from which emanates a fragrant coffee scent. She takes the remote control and points it at the modern-looking silver set of electronic devices on the shelf behind her to tune down the volume to about elevator background music level.
Almost embarrassed, I tell her, "I usually have it black now, but this'll be fine. It'll be like old times." I smile at her from over the rim of my mug.
She lifts her own mug slightly. "To old times, then."
We sip our coffee in silence for a while as my mind starts to wander. Very out of the blue, I ask her, "Grace, do you remember that night in the shed? The two of us, after mock trial in High School?"
"Yeah, how could I forget?" She shoots me a knowing look.
"The week before mock trial, that's when things started to go sour. What happened?" I wonder aloud. "What the hell happened, when did we lose our way?"
"That was High School, dude. We all did pretty stupid things back then. It's a part of growing up, gaining experiences that help you get through life. You know, learn from your mistakes, isn't that what they say?"
"Yeah, except for me, it didn't teach me anything. I just went ahead and did it all over again. God, how could I have been so stupid?"
"Is this about Joan?" she asks.
"No. I don't know. Maybe." I sigh.
I watch her as she stirs her coffee with a tablespoon. "Why, what happened?"
"We... we ran into each other. I..." I start, the whole scene flashing in front of my mind's eye again. "I went to Mrs. Girardi's grave and Joan—she was suddenly there. She... she said all these things, shouted them at me and, my God, she was so angry."
My mouth curls into a faint, bitter, lopsided smile. "It's not like I didn't deserve them, but it was also like she expected me to... Gheez, I don't know." I rub my forehead so hard that I think it must be leaving red marks on my skin. "This is all really confusing."
"So what did you say?"
I look up at Grace questioningly, then down to study the fabric of the rug between my feet. "Nothing. I left."
Grace lifts her hands, exasperated. "You left? Man, if I didn't think you deserved a good whack over the head before, you do now!" More quietly, she adds, "I think you should talk to her."
"I'm leaving tomorrow. You know that," I say matter-of-factly.
"Yes, I know. But it's not like you don't have time before you go to the airport, right?"
"And what good would that possibly do? We would probably end up in another shouting match, Grace." My voice is resigned, yet determined. If I once believed in second chances, I don't believe in third. Or fourth, as it were.
"Rove, I think you underestimate the human potential for forgiveness." Who is this Grace sitting opposite me? This is someone I hardly recognize, yet can't help developing a certain fondness for.
"She already forgave me once. You know how that worked out. Why would she possibly do it again?"
Grace suddenly goes very quiet. "Maybe there's something inside of her that still loves you?" she suggests carefully. "She might be too proud to admit it, but that doesn't make it go away."
I shake my head, not wanting to believe that. "No one can be that forgiving. Not even Joan."
"You don't give her enough credit. Time's a great healer, Rove. Why do you think she's still solo? I haven't seen her with a boyfriend for over three years, and believe me, it's not for lack of candidates." She gives me a poignant look. "Look, I don't mean you should fling your arms around her neck right away—"
I am suddenly reminded of a sobbing Joan, clinging to me at her mother's grave, and I wonder.
"—but... you know, it would be nice if we all were at least back on speaking terms. We could go to Bridge Club or Bingo Night together. I mean, consider the possibilities!" she says in mock excitement.
I have to laugh despite myself. "Unchallenged, yo" I say, the words feeling unfamiliar and fake on my tongue because I haven't used them in such a long time.
Grace now has to smile too. She recognizes the reference and I know she appreciates the attempt at reminiscing about old times, back when things were good—or as close to good as they had ever been.
I pick up an apple from the fruit bowl on the coffee table and twirl it around, holding it by its stem. "Okay, Grace. I'll talk to her before I leave tomorrow."
"Good," Grace says. I know that she will hold me to my unspoken promise.
--...----...----...--
