April & Oliver (25 page)

“We won’t let you go,” Bernadette says. “If you could see yourself, you’d understand why.”

April looks in the mirror over the piano. “Don’t I always look like this?”

“Sit down,” Oliver says.

“My cab’s here already. See?”

“Where do you think you’re going?”

“Where else?”

Oliver drops his spoon into his coffee, shaking his head.

Bernadette puts her hands on April’s shoulders tightly. “If I felt crummy, I’d want to be in the comfort of my own place,
too. But didn’t the police tell you not to stay there until he’s caught?”

April wraps her sweatshirt around her middle and folds her arms. “He’s dead,” she says. “They told me as much.”

“That is not what they said,” Oliver says firmly.

“Look,” Bernadette says. “It’s hard to think straight when you feel lousy. Just stay with me tonight. Tomorrow we’ll leave
you alone. Promise.”

April’s head is throbbing again. She wants to get out of here before she starts shaking.

Bernadette puts her arm around April’s shoulder and gives an insistent squeeze. “One night,” she says.

“Okay, fine,” April says, if only so she’ll let go. “But I still have to go back to my place for a few hours. I’ve got bills
to pay, and laundry. Who knows where they put the mail once the box was full.”

“Good,” says Bernadette. “I’ll write down my address.”

As Bernadette goes back to the kitchen for a pen, Oliver meets April’s eye. She wants to be angry at him, but he looks so
worried.

“Oliver,” she says. “I appreciate everything you’ve done.”

“You are the most stubborn person I’ve ever—”

“Me?”
she says in a shrill whisper.

Bernadette reappears. April and Oliver turn away from each other in unison. Bernadette looks at Oliver questioningly before
handing April the address.

“Thank you,” April says. “I’ll be there after dinner, nine or so, if that’s okay.”

“Fine,” Bernadette says. “But you’re welcome sooner.”

April kisses Bernadette’s cheek but only waves at Oliver. How could she be so stupid? The last thing she wants is to stay
at yet another person’s place. She wants her own bed. She wants her life back the way it was before, before what? Before the
mugging? Before Buddy died? Before she met T.J.? Her mind keeps reaching back. What is it? Before what? Then it hits her.
Quincy. She wants her life back the way it was before Quincy.

How absurd. Half her life ago. And why is this taxi so damn quiet? “Hey.” She taps impatiently on the bulletproof partition
separating her from the driver. “Don’t you have a radio?”

After paying, April walks to the parking lot to see where she left her car. Wedged between the steep embankment of the train
tracks and Sunrise Highway, the lot is narrow and endless. She has no idea where she parked; it seems so long ago. Then it
occurs to her that she left the car at Nana’s house. “Shit,” she says aloud. Alternate-side-of-the-street parking; she’s probably
got three tickets by now. As she turns back toward her apartment, she notices police tape stuck beneath the wheel of a car.
Was it here, so close to the station office? A large stain darkens the asphalt. The shape reminds her of a map. She sees Florida,
Maine, even Texas; only the West Coast is wrong, with an extra rivulet suggesting the earthquake had already happened.

She doesn’t know any more about the dead man than what she read in the newspaper: He worked the meat counter at a local grocery
store, but had lost his job six months ago; drug paraphernalia was found in his apartment, which was above the Irish pub just
across Sunrise. If not for the trestle between them, April could see his window from hers.

Once inside she wanders through the apartment and sits on the bed. On her night table sits a collection of Mirabai poems,
four days overdue. A pigeon struts at the open window, its ebony eyes watchful and pert. It pecks the sill. Beneath the window
lie T.J.’s boots, dirty and enormous. When did he leave them here? Why hadn’t she moved them? She slips into them, takes a
few awkward steps, and feels once more the weight of his existence, the burden he carried every day of his life. She is tired
of patterns and probabilities, cycles that won’t quit. She steps out of the boots, takes them downstairs, and leaves them
at the curb. When the next train pulls in, one of the commuters will take them home, wash away their past with saddle soap,
and make them like new again.

April awakes with a start and sits upright in the strange bed. The sudden movement sends shrill pain from her right temple
up to the crown of her head. She hears herself cry out, holds her head in her hands, and slowly opens her eyes. Pink floral
sheets, a pull-out bed. The room smells powerfully of roses. Dim light seeps into the apartment from behind the shades; it
must be just before dawn. Then, focusing, she sees that someone is sitting in an armchair on the other side of the coffee
table, her legs tucked up under her bathrobe, a mug of tea cupped in her hands.

“Do you need some aspirin?” Bernadette asks with concern.

April blinks. “Uh, no, it’s okay now. It’s just when I first sit up. What time is it?”

“I’m not sure,” Bernadette says. “Early.”

April sits cross-legged on the bed, gathering the sheets around her. On the coffee table between them stands a vase of scarlet
roses, just past their peak. Some are spread wide; others droop, their heads bent toward the chessboard beneath them. Petals
litter the black and white squares. “Have you been up long?” April asks.

“A little while,” she says. “Couldn’t sleep.”

“Oh, I hope it wasn’t because of me.”

“Not at all.”

Colorful children’s art fills the walls, handprints, stick figures, and lollipop trees. Faces beam out of photographs of Halloween
parties and wheelchair races. It’s a happy apartment, April thinks. Beneath the lamp stands a photograph of Bernadette as
a child, cheek-to-cheek with an enormous, round-faced young woman with a gleeful smile. “Your sister?” April asks.

“Yes,” Bernadette says affectionately. “She was my best teacher. She made unconditional love look easy.”

“You’re like that, too,” April says.

“Not always,” says Bernadette. “I have conditions.” She sips her tea, then picks up a bishop from the chessboard and rolls
it between her palms. “Do you play?”

April wants to go back to sleep. It’s so early. She doesn’t understand why they’re talking at this hour. “Uh, no. Not really.
Buddy liked to, though.”

“It’s a shame Oliver won’t play with me more. He says it’s too embarrassing.” She smiles. “For an intelligent man, he’s terribly
gullible. What he thinks I’m going to do is never what I have in mind. He protects the pieces I have no intention of taking
and leaves the ones I’m after.”

“You must be a good player.”

“My mother taught me.” She takes another sip, then places her teacup gently on the board. “She’s a great lady. She’s lived
through a lot, raising my sister and then losing her. She’s very strong.”

April glances around for a clock. She would do almost anything to go back to sleep.

“She told me this amazing story just the other day about my dad when they were first engaged. Would you like to hear it?”

“Uh, sure.” April takes her pillow and bunches it up in her lap. She wants to lie down but knows it would be rude.

“He was a good catch, my father: attentive, faithful, hardworking. He was an immigrant and had that do-or-die attitude. He
and my mother were happy together. Then one day they went on a double date with a friend of his. The girl his friend brought,
it turns out, was from my dad’s village in Wales. They didn’t remember each other—he was a few years older than she was—but
they knew each other’s family names and where their farms were. They talked for hours. My dad was all lit up. It wasn’t until
that night that my mother realized how much he missed home, and how nothing in Brooklyn would ever compare.”

April pulls her knees up to her chest, listening.

“Something in him changed after that. He was distracted. Whenever he saw this girl, he got tongue-tied and clumsy. Then strange
things started happening. Her car broke down when her fiancé was out of town, so my dad went to help. Then she fell on some
ice. A series of little calamities. My mom thought it was to get my father’s attention, even if the girl was only doing it
subconsciously. It wasn’t that she was a real threat. She was plain looking with dowdy clothes, and hadn’t been to college.
My dad, by that age, was already quite cultured, and not bad looking. Still, there was something different about the way he
laughed with her, a kind of abandon that made my mother nervous. On the other hand, anyone could see they didn’t belong together.
My mother knew full well it wasn’t this woman he loved, but the place she represented, his homeland and his youth.”

April studies Bernadette, saying nothing.

“My father’s distraction got worse. My mother knew he would never break off the engagement; he wasn’t that kind of man. The
worst thing that could happen, my mother thought, would be for him to marry her while believing he was in love with this other
girl. My mother couldn’t talk to him about it because she knew he would genuinely deny everything; he hadn’t admitted it to
himself yet. So she decided to confront the girl. She said,
‘Lucy, if you’re going to have a go at it with George, I want you to do it now, before the wedding. I give you my permission.
In fact, I want you to get it over and done with. But if it happens after we’re married, God help you both.’
” Bernadette laughs. “She was gutsy, my mother. I wish I had her nerve.”

April puts her fingertips together lightly in the form of a steeple and touches them to her lips. They gaze at each other
awkwardly for a moment. Bernadette looks back to her teacup. “So, how do you think the story ends?”

April laces her fingers together in her lap. “Obviously your parents got married. As for the other part, I’m sure permission
alone was enough to prevent it from happening.”

“No.” Bernadette smiles painfully. “It had to happen. My mother understood that even before my father did. You see, for men
it’s all about the conquest. He had to have her in order to forget her.” She puts down the bishop and picks up the queen.
“It’s just the way men are.”

April doesn’t answer, but pulls the blanket more tightly around her. “Bernadette,” she says finally. “You don’t strike me
as someone prone to generalities. No offense, but I wonder if what you said is what you really think.”

“I don’t know what I think anymore,” she says, her voice thickening. “Anyway, it wasn’t going to happen on its own. My dad
wasn’t the philandering type. So my mother planned a trip to visit her sister in Ohio, and while she was gone she asked him
to look in on Lucy’s furnace.” She sets her teacup down. “It was like clockwork.”

April looks at her gravely.

“She could tell as soon as she got home that it had worked. He was guilty and attentive. Remorse fosters devotion,” she says.
“It’s the foundation of most religions.”

“And the girl?” April asks.

“He realized on his own that she was part of his past, not his destiny, just like my mom knew he would.”

April considers this, lightly pulsing her fingertips together. “Your mother must be very sure of herself.”

“She had confidence in him, in their love.”

April nods slowly.

Bernadette is perfectly still. Early morning light filters slowly into the room. As Bernadette lifts her teacup to her mouth,
her hand trembles. Tears stream down her cheeks, hanging from her chin, spotting her silken bathrobe. “The problem is I don’t
think I’m as strong as my mother.”

April slides down to the end of the bed. “Bernadette,” she says softly. “Wouldn’t it have been enough for this other girl
to lay low for a while?”

“Apparently not.”

April sits back. “Well, if it wasn’t in your father’s nature to do something like that, he must have felt awful afterward.
I mean, it must have done some damage to how he saw himself. I’m sure neither your mother nor this other girl wanted that
for him.”

“Of course no one wanted to hurt him.” Bernadette looks at her hopelessly. “But my mother didn’t know any other way.”

“Don’t you think your father may simply have felt sorry for that girl? Responsible, somehow, to help her out? Maybe there
was some nostalgia, too. Her accent must have felt so familiar to him, so tied to his past. Naturally it stirred him up. But
those are passing feelings, Bernadette, not the same as love.”

“How do you know?”

April stands and touches her shoulder. “I just do,” she says quietly. She heads to the bathroom to change and be on her way.
The tiles are icy beneath her feet. She glances back to see Bernadette reaching for her sister’s photograph. She wipes the
glass with the silken sleeve of her robe.

O
VER THE YEARS,
the fence withstood three hurricanes before finally being taken down by an ordinary summer storm.

“I should have replaced it last year,” Oliver’s father says, hammering plywood to a post. “I saw it going.” The dog sniffs
at the box of nails, and he shoos her away.

Oliver takes a broken picket and places it on the cutting block. He raises the ax over his head and brings it down, splitting
the wood. He likes the clear, clean sound of the crack, likes seeing what he can do with one blow. He has his shirt off, sweat
running down his back. It is one of the hottest Julys on record.

“I appreciate your coming over,” his father says. “They’re installing the new fence next week, but in the meantime I don’t
want to lose the dog.”

Oliver nods, brings the ax down again, and sees the picket fall in two.

His father sits back, resting. After a moment, he lowers his hammer. “You seem preoccupied, son.”

Oliver shrugs. “Any more to be cut?”

His father looks around. “Looks like you got it all.”

Oliver wipes his brow with the T-shirt he tossed on the grass.