CHAPTER THREE: PHONE CALL
The Town... The Country
After
I am a man. That's it. Nothing else is relevant. Not even my empty drawers and nearly empty pockets. Or the fact that I no longer have seven places. Because I am only a man with a bare left hand. Not a husband.
There is a vacant lot in the middle of downtown, on the corner of 2nd and A Street. It serves as the temporary home to pumpkins every October and Christmas trees every December.
The rest of the year, it simply sits, covered in green, green grass and weeds. I toe at the mound of dirt where the sidewalk meets the abandoned land, inadvertently snapping the stem of a dandelion.
I pluck it from the cement, and watch it struggle in the breeze.
Bella told me once that there was nothing braver than a flower growing through a crack in the sidewalk. I laughed because she was always giving feelings to things that don't feel.
If she was standing next to me, I'd tuck the dandelion behind her ear. Or she'd blow on it and make a wish. A hundred wishes. Or maybe just one.
I cling to it, crushing the stem without meaning to. I hold on to the stupid flower, or weed, or whatever it is, until I can't look at it anymore.
She's not here. Because I'm a liar. And I don't deserve any wishes of my own. I throw the dandelion to the ground and walk the rest of the way to that empty house.
With my key in the lock, I can hear the blaring ring of the house phone, antagonizing the silence. The phone that never rings.
I fumble with my keys, leaving the door wide open behind me as I run to the kitchen.
"Hello?"
The line is quiet except for the sound of my own labored breathing. My heart gallops away with the possibility that she might be calling.
"Edward?"
It's not her. Of course it's not her. She doesn't call me. I no longer exist to her.
"Dad?"
"Son." His raspy voice is hauntingly familiar even though it's been years. He sounds exactly the same. He sounds trashed.
I can picture him sitting in his kitchen with the phone in one hand and a drink in the other, agonizing over calling before hastily pressing the buttons. I can picture him staring out the back window as he speaks. Staring beyond the deck, past the old swing set and the pond. Bella's parents' house in the distance.
"How are you, Son?"
I don't know how to answer that question, that man, so I turn it back on him because he won't have an answer either. "How are you?"
He lets out a long sigh. Neither of us speaks. I wonder how long we can do this before one of us hangs up.
"I'm losing the house, Edward."
"What?"
Another long pause. "The house," he breathes into the phone.
I heard him the first time, but I don't understand. The house was paid for years ago.
"How is that possible?"
"I had bills."
I laugh. It's bitter and mocking. Bills or bottles.
"I thought you'd want to know. Take some of your things before the bank takes everything."
"How long?" I snap at him.
"A week."
"Fucking shit, Dad."
He doesn't respond. The sound of his breathing makes me sick.
"Where are you planning on going?"
More silence. I want to tell him that he can't stay here. I keep my mouth shut. I'm not that cruel. This is what I tell myself. But cruelty lies in my silence. He's my father.
"Can you drive up in the morning?" He sounds like he's about to cry.
I always told myself that if he ever asked me to visit, I would. He's asking. And this is my only chance.
"Alright."
"Be careful of the speed trap on that last stretch of highway."
"Yeah, I know." Except I don't know. It's been too long since I've driven those hills to know anything. I don't tell him that I'll be taking a bus.
"See you tomorrow, Son." The way he calls me Son. Like he's trying to prove it to himself.
I hang up the phone without saying goodbye and immediately regret it. He's not the one I hate.
Or the one I miss.
I walk up the stairs, towards the bedroom that used to belong to two instead of one.
The banister is wobbly. Still. The doors don't close properly, the floors are crooked and the wallpaper in the dining room is peeling. Still.
This is our house. Even if it isn't her home anymore.
I wake up with the sun, stuff some clothes into a duffle bag, lock the front door and walk to the bus station.
It's a straight shot. What should be a two hour drive north takes half a day with all the stops.
The line where civilization ends and old-time country life begins is fuzzy.
I get off at his exit, pausing for just a moment as I step off the bus. I'm not sure I'm ready for my feet to touch the dirt of this town.
The two miles of country road that lead to his house seems longer than it ever did when this place was my home.
I walk past Bella's parents' house, still out of place after all these years. Still sparkling and clean and bright, cars in the garage, flowers tended. And it hurts to keep my eyes open. Stucco and daffodils and everything that they represent.
The dirt driveway leading to my father's place is eerily the same as it was so many years ago. I stand on the small front porch, staring at the weathered, splintered wood under my shoes. The screen door creaks as I open it, the mesh limp on the frame, hanging like flesh on tired bones.
The blue paint of the door is blistered from the heat of too many summers. With one hand on the brass door knocker, I can't bring myself to lift it. To announce my presence in this graveyard that was once my house.
But it's no longer up to me as the heavy door swings open.
It's not my father standing there. It's not a man at all. A portly, elderly woman with a plain face stands in front of my father's blue door.
"Who are you?"
She smiles back at me, motioning for me to come in. "Edward, I presume." My feet refuse to move.
"Where's my dad?"
"He's not here."
Of course he's not.
She's old. Too old to be his girlfriend. I think. Maybe he's old now.
She leaves me there on the porch, disappearing silently into the hallway. Being here, if only on the front steps, makes me thirsty. My fingers twitch and I can feel my mind playing deceitful tricks. One drink, one pill, one anything.
I run my hands over my face and try to rub the traitorous want away. It lingers, but doesn't suffocate me.
I take a few steps into the house and pretend like I'm being brave for doing so. I stare at the stranger as she starts pulling blankets and towels from the linen closet and stuffing them into a black garbage bag.
"Who are you? Why are you here?" I'm being rude, but so is she. I want her to leave. To get out of here. What the fuck is she even doing here?
"I'm from the church." She says it like it's supposed to mean something to me. The people here and their blind faith. "Your father said you'd be arriving this morning. I was expecting you earlier. I'm to pack up anything you don't want to keep."
I'm overcome by an irrational urge to scream at her to get the fuck out. "Doesn't he want to keep anything?"
She ignores my question. I watch her pull the green and white knit blanket from the top shelf. She holds it out to me. "This looks like it might contain some memories," she smiles.
It doesn't. I don't know where it came from or who made it. All I know is that it's been here forever. I take it from her wrinkled hands.
"Don't touch anything else."
Her mouth sits in a soft line as she folds her hands in front of her.
"Where is he?" What have you done with him?
She fidgets with the cross around her neck. "He asked me to take you to him."
The fuck?
"We can go whenever you like." But I can see it in her face, hear it in her tone. She doesn't want to take me anywhere.
I'm tempted to tell her we should just go now, but I need a minute in this house.
A frame containing my high school graduation photo hangs in the hallway. Next to another frame with a wedding photo. I press my thumb over my own face and stare at Bella. I miss her smile. I miss her skin. I miss her hair. I miss her.
She's looking at me, the younger me, with adoration and blind love because she believed all of my lies back then. I'm glad she isn't looking at the photographer because I don't think I could handle those eyes in this moment.
The entire length of the hall is lined with photographs, and with the exception of a small, black and white photo of my parents when they were teenagers, every single one has me in it. It's like a shrine to a life that isn't mine and never was.
I'm having one of those moments where I think the whole world might be different than I thought it was. Where I question every perception I've ever had.
I leave the lady in the hallway with her garbage bag and make my way to the kitchen. It's filthy. Disgusting.
I pause with my hand on the refrigerator door to stare at the frame made of popsicle sticks. Happy Father's Day. It contains another photo, another one of me, minus my two front teeth.
To an outsider, I would appear to be the prodigal son. The boy he adores and is proud of. It's disheartening and strange.
I open the refrigerator only to slam it closed, the rancid smell burning my nose.
He's done more than simply lose the house. With the state of this place, he appears to have lost his will to live.
The thought lingers. It might not be an unfamiliar feeling.
I jump at the sound of the stranger's voice. "I can take you to him now, if you'd like."
Take me to him. Like he's the fucking king.
"I'll wait for him to come back. You can go."
Her eyes turn to a sympathetic grey. "I think you'll be waiting for a while."
"I don't mind." Another lie. "I mean, I'd rather just wait."
"Suit yourself. I'll be back tomorrow." And before I can tell her not to bother, she's gone.
I walk back to the other side of the house, ignoring the black garbage bag and the open linen closet.
The hallway is dark, like I remember it. I kick off my shoes and walk the rest of the way to my old room with my eyes closed. I push the door open slowly, the wood sliding over the carpet, the only noise in the quiet.
I open my eyes slowly, afraid of what I'll see. But it's still my room.
The blinds are closed, the twin bed made, the pink, pink carpet brighter than it is everywhere else.
My fingers run along the bedside table, catching the dust. This room looks like it's been closed up for years, possibly for every day that I've been gone. It's as if he hasn't once stepped foot in here. He plastered my face all over the rest of this house, like posters for a missing child, but my room stayed untouched. I don't understand him. I've never understood him.
I close the room back up and peek into his bedroom. The bed is stripped down to the mattress. Maybe he doesn't sleep here. Maybe he hasn't in a while.
I start to feel like I'm drowning, like I've been treading water for too long and it would just be easier to let the current pull me under. My hands go to my pockets out of habit. Nearly empty fucking pockets filled with trembling hands. I search for it. I press it into my palm, but I don't dare take it out. I don't dare look at it. Knowing it is there needs to be enough.
I unlock the sliding glass door in his bedroom that leads to the massive back porch. The door catches in the track, stiff from lack of use.
The air is uncharacteristically warm for this early in the spring. It's sticky and thick and it's possible that it's been just long enough that I don't remember it.
Clusters of planter boxes and pots sit along the side of the house, each one of them filled with death. The pool is drained and cracked. Tall weeds growing up towards the clear sky. This whole place is like an abandoned carcass, moments before the vultures descend.
That's when I see her. Bella. My take me home and never leave me.
She's standing on the back deck of her parents' house watering the flowers, completely oblivious to my presence.
It's the first time I have seen her since the front door was left wide open. Since we both said words that ruin. Since I closed my eyes on the floor of the dining room and prayed that I'd never wake up. I stopped doing the math a year ago.
I don't know where else I expected her to be. Until this moment, I refused to imagine her here. In the springtime.
My first instinct is to duck. To hide. But I don't want to hide from her. That's a lie. I want to, but I refuse. Not now. Not after everything.
And then she sees me and she freezes, like she sees a ghost. Or the devil.
She doesn't look away. Neither of us do.
I stand on the porch with my hands resting on the grey wood of the railing. There are so many things I want to tell her. I want to shout to her. To tell her everything. She wouldn't be able to hear me. She wouldn't want to. I don't feel like I even have the right to say her name out loud.
I don't move. I refuse. She's the one to slowly turn and walk away. Walk farther away. She locks herself up in that sore thumb of a house.
I spend the evening packing up my room and trying to focus on the task at hand. It seems wrong to leave the rest of the house to be picked over, but if he doesn't want any of his things, why should I? It's just stuff. Junk.
I leave the floral curtains up in the living room even though I want nothing more than to pull them down.
He doesn't come home.
I pull a stack of blankets from the linen closet and pile them over myself on the couch. They smell musty. They smell like growing up.
I toss and turn all night. Instead of worrying about my father, I'm preoccupied with thoughts of Bella. She is so close. And yet infinitely far.
I wonder if she lies awake at night. If she's awake now. I hope she isn't.
She has always been strong. I hope I didn't take that. Steal it from her.
I get up with the sun, change my clothes, brush my teeth, and try to remember why I came here.
I'm so angry at him for doing this. For asking me to come. For waiting so long. For not being here himself. For losing the house.
For being a drunk.
I sit on the front porch, waiting for the stranger. An hour later, an old Buick turns on to Old Ox Road, traveling at a snail's pace. She pulls into the driveway this time instead of parking around the back.
The car is quite possibly as old as she is. I climb into the passenger seat without a word.
"Ready?"
I can only nod. She doesn't tell me where we're going and I don't ask.
More than once, I question whether she should be behind the wheel. She doesn't seem to think that the laws of traffic apply to her. That may have more to do with the mentality of this place rather than her age. She takes all of the back roads, heading into town. I watch the scenery pass by and try not to think about where we could possibly be going.
When we pull into a parking lot, the dread sits like lead in my stomach. It's some type of medical center, but not a hospital.
She doesn't wait for me. I watch her walk through the double doors like she comes here regularly.
When I get the courage to walk through them myself, she's nowhere to be found. The woman at the front desk points down a long hallway. She doesn't even ask me who I am or who I'm here to see.
The place smells like spoiled food and formaldehyde.
Behind a closed door, I can hear a man shouting. It is otherwise eerily quiet.
I see the stranger standing in a doorway at the end of the white hall. My feet slow down with each step, but eventually I reach her. She ducks inside before I can ask her where we are.
I stand against the cold, metal doorframe trying to take in the scene in front of me. There lies my father. Machines beep and hum all around him. His eyes are closed, he has too much skin, and his hair lies flat against his forehead.
It is difficult to reconcile him with the man I remember.
The stranger motions towards the empty chair next to his bed. I sit.
I watch his eyes start to flutter until they open halfway. "You're here." This is what death sounds like.
He tries to reach for me but his arm is too weak, falling back down to the pale sheets.
I don't let myself think. I take his hand in both of mine and ignore how foreign it feels. "I'm here." I hold that frail hand. As he closes his eyes, there is almost a smile on his face.
"Why didn't you tell me?" I whisper.
His breathing is heavy through parted lips. It is the only answer he is capable of giving.
I turn to the stranger, accusing her. "How long has he been here, like this?"
"Oh he's been here for some time, but like this? Just a few days."
He wasn't drunk when he called me. Or maybe he was. Maybe he's drunk now. I wouldn't be surprised to find a bottle stashed somewhere in this room. Although I'm sure they have him on much better drugs. I'm sure the morphine runs through his body and his will for anything else.
"What's... wrong with him?"
She looks at me, but doesn't answer right away. "He's dying." She says it like it's the only explanation needed and maybe it is.
I watch her sit down in a chair on the other side of his bed. Her familiarity and ease make me irrationally annoyed.
"Who are you? Why are you here?"
"Nobody should die alone, Edward." It's not a pointed remark but it jabs all the same.
"How long does he have?"
"It could be anytime. Only God knows when his time will come."
Her mention of God makes me want to pick a fight. I push it down. If the existence of God brings her comfort, I have no right to try and take that away. I have no right to take anything from anyone.
"He probably wants nothing more than a hard drink right now."
"That man hasn't had a drink in years, Edward."
I try to swallow it down. That reality. The way she says it, I believe her. She has no reason to lie. But I don't know what to do with that truth.
She pulls Rosary beads out of her black leather handbag. I'm mesmerized by her whispered words that aren't loud enough to hear and her arthritic hands as they move along the chain.
I don't know what to feel.
I watch him sleeping in that bed, barely alive, barely anything.
What have I done?
I pull my hands away, laying his hand to rest on the cold sheets.
We stay the day. I watch him sleep. We leave before he wakes up.
She drives me back to the house, and I'm probably imagining it but I swear she slows down as she passes the Swan residence.
She pulls into the driveway of my father's house but doesn't cut the engine. "I'll be back tomorrow morning." She pats my hand, giving me a sympathetic smile.
"Thank you." The words fall from my lips as she pulls out of the driveway.
I walk around back, past the deck, past the swing set, until I reach the old willow stump. I can't even be mad at him for this. Not today. I stand on the rotten wood that no longer leeches the water from the ground.
My hand in my pocket, I leave my eyes closed, pressing it as hard as I can into my palm.
It's no longer enough.
My father is dying. I have my childhood boxed up in cardboard. With nowhere to go and nobody to share it with. No car. No family. No Bella.
No Bella.
I keep my feet firmly planted on the tree stump. The sun is disappearing behind the Swan house. The sunset makes everything too real.
My chest heaves up and down, stealing my calm. There's not enough air, enough noise, enough anything.
It's being back in this place. Seeing my father as he lets himself die. Seeing Bella for the first time since she left. Seeing her here in the country.
I pull my fist from my pocket. I want to press it into my palm until it is embedded in my flesh. Forever.
There are too many things I can't have.
I can feel the roaring scream in my fingertips. I feel it everywhere. By the time I try to stop it, it's too late.
Flocks of birds take flight, their wings beating together, taking them away. I wish they would take me with them.
My voice touches everything. With my eyes clenched shut, I can see all of the words I never said, pouring out of my mouth in a biting scream. All of the air from my lungs rushes out, permission or not.
My eyes shoot open the second it stops. I half expect to see a different time, a different world. As if I could scream this life away.
With one final shout, I fist my wedding ring in my palm, every muscle in my arm tensing up. I throw it, as hard as I can, into the prickly star thistle.
My lungs burning bright, chest still heaving, I stare at that perfect house.
Hear me. Hear me, without any words. Please.
Bella.
Please.
-HL-
A/N:
Susan and Kim, you both deserve medals for dealing with me and this chapter. Thank you for your honesty and for still loving me, even when I'm a bratty baby.
CC, I love your brain. Thanks for letting me poke around whenever I want.
Everyone who is reading, thanks for trusting me with this story and the way I decided to tell it! No, but really.
Happy 4th of July to those who celebrate. Be safe!