savagely and grieved for him as well, knowing full well how idiotic it is to find a coherence in two random events, to impose meaning where there is none. We name things so we can know them, and, knowing them, wonât be afraid of them. Maybe we should be afraid.
The afternoon wore on. I went upstairs to take a nap, to mute the noisy emptiness of hours that scrabbled like little claws on a dusty floorboard. I lay down on the bed, eyes open, very still, studying a small hole in the window screen that needed patching. And then, something happened. The quality of the air shifted slightly. I was in the same place, in the same moment, listening to the same soft susurrus of the trees in the same warm wind, watching the sunlight slant through the leaves and strike the white paint of the new bed at precisely the same angle it had a moment ago, but something was different.
I heard the heavy thud of a cat jumping down from the dining room table onto a bare wooden floor, the reassuring sound that means you are alone but not alone, that outside the room youâre in, the quiet hum of the hive continues. Ah, I thought, Eliotâs here, our old fat foundling cat, no doubt walking past the appraising, not altogether approving glance of his leaner littermate, Ezra. And I was happy and relieved because the house was no longer heavy with silence. Then there were other sounds, distant, muted: the screen door from the long-ago beach house banging, the fluting tones of Zoëâs Guyanese babysitter, a quick zephyr of giggles wafting up from Zoëâs bedroom, which could only mean adolescent coconspirators hatching complicated plots. The contradictory mix of time and place didnât seem strange at all, merely a prelude to what came next, an anachronistic jumble of scenes and visitations, as if the chapters of my life had been tossed into the air and fallen to the floor and been hastily reassembled in no apparent order.
Zoë came into the room as a seven-year-old, all scabs and bones and frayed ankle bracelets, her hair the despair of every comb it ever met. You know, she said, standing by the bed, I had a really happy childhood. But your dad died, I said, and she nodded her head, a little absentmindedly, as if she had told me what she had come to say and was already thinking of what to do next. And then the smell of hot concrete and suntan oil, the tinny strains of a transistor radio, the officersâ club swimming pool at the army base where my father had been stationed when I was thirteen. I saw myself walking self-consciously toward the diving board in a ruffled two-piece swimsuit, the one my mother made for me because back then you couldnât buy a two-piece swimsuit small enough for a skinny thirteen-year-old with a flat chest. And the girl I had been rolled her eyes at me, as if to say, I know, I know, itâs silly to feel so pleased with myself, but she was pleased and a little proud of how she looked at that moment, at the very beginning of a brand-new world. And then the scene changed again, to a large cocktail party in Washington, D.C., and it took me a moment to find myself, but there I was, in a large group of friends and rivals and colleagues, laughing, flirting, reaching for the glass of Jack Danielâs I would regret the next morning. You see, said Zoë, who had wandered back, you were liked, and I said yes, a little surprised. And then she said: You were loved. I looked closer and saw the faces of old friends who were dear to me still and then looked even closer and there was my husband and I said yes, humbled now to realize I had been so lucky so far beyond my merits. And then I was in a car in the darkness, driving to a town I had never seen and would never see again, to write a story, deeply thrilled with the adventure of it, a young reporter on her own. And then in a room I didnât recognize, blanketed by the night, making love with someone I wanted very much, and I felt the desire of it
The afternoon wore on. I went upstairs to take a nap, to mute the noisy emptiness of hours that scrabbled like little claws on a dusty floorboard. I lay down on the bed, eyes open, very still, studying a small hole in the window screen that needed patching. And then, something happened. The quality of the air shifted slightly. I was in the same place, in the same moment, listening to the same soft susurrus of the trees in the same warm wind, watching the sunlight slant through the leaves and strike the white paint of the new bed at precisely the same angle it had a moment ago, but something was different.
I heard the heavy thud of a cat jumping down from the dining room table onto a bare wooden floor, the reassuring sound that means you are alone but not alone, that outside the room youâre in, the quiet hum of the hive continues. Ah, I thought, Eliotâs here, our old fat foundling cat, no doubt walking past the appraising, not altogether approving glance of his leaner littermate, Ezra. And I was happy and relieved because the house was no longer heavy with silence. Then there were other sounds, distant, muted: the screen door from the long-ago beach house banging, the fluting tones of Zoëâs Guyanese babysitter, a quick zephyr of giggles wafting up from Zoëâs bedroom, which could only mean adolescent coconspirators hatching complicated plots. The contradictory mix of time and place didnât seem strange at all, merely a prelude to what came next, an anachronistic jumble of scenes and visitations, as if the chapters of my life had been tossed into the air and fallen to the floor and been hastily reassembled in no apparent order.
Zoë came into the room as a seven-year-old, all scabs and bones and frayed ankle bracelets, her hair the despair of every comb it ever met. You know, she said, standing by the bed, I had a really happy childhood. But your dad died, I said, and she nodded her head, a little absentmindedly, as if she had told me what she had come to say and was already thinking of what to do next. And then the smell of hot concrete and suntan oil, the tinny strains of a transistor radio, the officersâ club swimming pool at the army base where my father had been stationed when I was thirteen. I saw myself walking self-consciously toward the diving board in a ruffled two-piece swimsuit, the one my mother made for me because back then you couldnât buy a two-piece swimsuit small enough for a skinny thirteen-year-old with a flat chest. And the girl I had been rolled her eyes at me, as if to say, I know, I know, itâs silly to feel so pleased with myself, but she was pleased and a little proud of how she looked at that moment, at the very beginning of a brand-new world. And then the scene changed again, to a large cocktail party in Washington, D.C., and it took me a moment to find myself, but there I was, in a large group of friends and rivals and colleagues, laughing, flirting, reaching for the glass of Jack Danielâs I would regret the next morning. You see, said Zoë, who had wandered back, you were liked, and I said yes, a little surprised. And then she said: You were loved. I looked closer and saw the faces of old friends who were dear to me still and then looked even closer and there was my husband and I said yes, humbled now to realize I had been so lucky so far beyond my merits. And then I was in a car in the darkness, driving to a town I had never seen and would never see again, to write a story, deeply thrilled with the adventure of it, a young reporter on her own. And then in a room I didnât recognize, blanketed by the night, making love with someone I wanted very much, and I felt the desire of it
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