On the Way to Someplace Else, Prologue
Saturday, January 15, 2011 at 4:05PM September 2006
Atlanta, Georgia
They are waiting when she arrives home. Sitting on the deck that covers the car park at the end of the common driveway behind their bungalow in Ansley Park. Because they are on the deck, she does not notice them until she nears the top step. She stumbles when they come into view, scraping the toe of her shoe on the edge of the step in front of her. The mark like a knife wound on the new leather. She reaches for the railing and misses. A man and woman in dress greens. A manila envelope resting on the wrought iron patio table. A label affixed to the center. Months later, it will occur to her to wonder what they had said. The words they had used. How those words had sounded passing through their lips. What they looked like, the two of them. But at the time it makes no impression on her; she knows why they are at her home. The words do nothing, mean nothing.
She feels herself walking away from these two strangers who pretend they know her. Drifting through the sun porch, past the small bedroom that would have been a nursery. The kitchen. Living room. Crossing hart pine floors artfully littered with furniture gathered from Cashiers and Highland. Leaving just a little bit more of herself behind with each room she traverses. Straight out the front door and into the lawn where they had played croquet and bocce ball. Here she stops and stands facing the road, hearing but not seeing the cars drive by.
At some point, her parents appear. Then her sister. Her brother. At last Zach’s parents pass through the gate that splits the white picket fence in two equal halves. She senses rather than sees all these advents. Knows somehow who has arrived without even looking. Zach’s father clears his throat and makes a comment about the gutter and how he will have his gardener come take a look. She is ushered back into the house. Tea steeps on the butcher block. Darjeeling. She hears the word sedative, followed by last thing she needs look at her and then her brain replaces the language with a sound that is no more than the droning of bees. Feet shuffle, a cup is thrust into her hands.
Sudden quiet. She turns her head toward the sound of the front door swinging open. And at last, when it is not Zach who crosses the threshold, when it is Reverend Jennings, at last she understands and it becomes real. She places her cup delicately on the floor in front of her. Feeling their eyes, she rises from her chair and climbs the stairs to her room.
She hears them in her home, moving and talking under her feet. They speak quietly but the old house carries sound like dandelion spores on a breeze. Support group and anti-depressants and How are we going to get her on a plane? She watches the clock for hours without seeing the numbers change. The soft heirloom blanket in her hands; lullaby lamb long forgotten on the floor. Empty symbols of a role she was never allowed to play.
Somewhere a noise finds its way through the layers of her skull, hardened by what life has left upon her table. It is the television, the goddamned 24-hour news channel. Images dance in her mind’s eye. A man in a uniform, expressing the sorrow of a grateful nation.
They deliver trays of food, which she never touches except to push around the pieces of cheese or fruit like a child trying to fool her parents. She does not emerge until they leave for Bethesda and Arlington three days later, her silent and disappointed family like extensions of her shadow.
Reader Comments (2)
That got me interested. Is there a book out?
Thanks! Not yet, but it's coming. This is how I'm forcing my own hand. I'll let you know how it goes. :)