Permanence Read online

  When I come here this Friday afternoon, I go to doctor without saying a single word. I try to hold him, tell him that I love him. I do this behind closed doors. But doctor tries to push me away. He will not be held. He will not be loved. He accepts my embrace for the moment, then conjures the strength to push me away, gently. He looks me in the eyes. His eyes seem grossly oversized behind horn-rimmed glasses. They seem too large for his face, too deeply set.

  I feel my stomach—this is a hollow, empty feeling.

  I move slowly to the patient’s couch. I settle down to the business of healing my wounds. I do this because doctor’s job is to heal me, whether I like it or not.

  Doctor leans over his open notepad and sticks the dark gray tip of his tongue between his thin, smiling lips. He begins to write frantically. He tears away the paper from his pad.

  Then he lifts himself out of the chair and holds the paper out across the desk.

  I take the note in my hand.

  Doctor sits back into the leather chair. He places his mouth around the straw and takes a small sip of water. But he does not choke. He sits back slowly. I read the simple words written on the paper in doctor’s nearly indiscernible handwriting. He forms the words with his mouth, making the subtle shape without sound. His tight lips and mouth resemble a kiss when he says, “Go home.”

  Time’s up

  But I do not go home, as doctor suggests.

  Instead I make my way to the window that overlooks the empty parking lot. After a few moments I turn away from the window and face doctor. His intercom sounds. This is late Friday afternoon. Since his surgery, doctor’s receptionist, Wendy, no longer leaves him alone in case something unspeakable happens. Doctor explains all this to me with a series of notes. Wendy’s concern for him, he says, is unwarranted and routine.

  “There’s nothing to worry about,” he writes. I look at his gaunt body, his sunken chest, his pale waxy skin.

  Doctor is a terrible liar.

  “Time’s up, doctor,” speaks the insistent female voice.

  Doctor looks up to me, as if to verify the message. He is smiling, but how can I be sure he means it? His eyes are sunken and wet. He looks about to cry. His hands shake. He takes a small sip of water and coughs, gently.

  Again, the voice: “Now, doctor. Time.”

  Through an effort of strength, doctor lifts himself from his chair. He calls me over to him with a wave of his hand. I go to him. He takes me into his arms, again, and squeezes me as hard as his frail arms can squeeze.

  “Time,” repeats the receptionist. “Time.”

  I feel the slow, warm wetness of a tear that is not mine. I taste the salt from the tear as it touches my lips. I am not crying. I will not cry. Never. I feel the snap of a delicate silver chain and hear the sound of the pillbox falling to the floor. I make a small, fake laugh as I bend my knees and crouch down in an effort to retrieve it. I stand and hold the length of chain in my hand and the silver box.

  Like a dream, it comes to me. I will never see doctor again.

  “Next week,” I lie. “I’ll see you next week.”

  “Next week,” doctor repeats in silence, his lips mimicking.

  We are such terrible liars. I place the pillbox into my purse, out of site. For a brief moment, I stand inside doctor’s office and listen to the voices inside my head. After a time, I go to the couch, pick up one of the small throw pillows that rests on a seat cushion. The pillow in hand, I approach doctor, positioning myself behind his leather swivel chair. My heart throbbing in my temples, I gently press the pillow against his face and hold it there with both hands, pressing his fragile head against the seat back.

  He barely struggles to stay alive.

  When I am certain he is gone, I return the pillow to the couch.

  Then I leave.

  For my family

  The salesman at the Service Star hardware seems to believe me when I tell him winter is coming. Naturally. He seems to believe me when I explain this: that I do not want to be caught without heat if the power goes down; that I do not want to be caught without electricity or light; that I do not want to be caught without hot water.

  “Those are my only concerns,” I tell this tall, thin hardware salesman. “My family depends upon it,” I say. “So if you could point me in the direction of the kerosene.”

  “Naturally,” says the man. This tall, lanky, short-haired man in a red plastic vest, with the words “Service Star” printed across it, seems only too happy to be of service, as his vest indicates.

  SERVICE, reads a round button pinned to his vest, IS MY JOB. HOW AM I DOING?

  So far, so good.

  The man grins and says, “Right this way.” He asks for me to follow him up the length of several aisles with deep metal bins on both sides filled with screws, nuts, nails, washers, and so on. We come to the aisle with the kerosene.

  “I want a big can for the heaters,” I tell this man. “A can that will last me all winter.”

  The man looks down at me. He nods his head in approval. He seems to understand. Outside this store the clouds have moved in. Occasional flakes of snow fall in the wind and against the pavement. It is nearly winter.

  “For my family,” I add. “My baby and my husband.”

  I watch the man struggle to bring a large can from the top of the shelf to the floor. There is a message on the can that says this: “Dangerous, combustible if placed near open flame.”

  “How old?” asks the man with a warm smile.

  “Pardon me?”

  “How old is your baby?”

  “Baby is two, going on three.”

  “Terrible twos,” says the tall man, with a cynical smile and a small laugh.

  “Actually, baby acts much older than that,” I brag. “Baby is really no trouble at all.”

  “I see,” says the man.

  “Baby knows his ABCs. He counts to twenty. Of course, he knows his colors. Baby never acts up. It’s almost like baby isn’t even there. So there is nothing terrible about baby.”

  “Smart,” says the man, pointing to his head with extended index finger, as if shooting himself in jest. “But by two years old, your child isn’t really a baby anymore.”

  “Baby will always be baby.”

  “What’s your baby’s name?” asks the man.

  I say nothing at first. And then: “Would you remember it if I told you?”

  The man steps back and gives me a squinty-eyed look that says, I don’t get it. But he does not press me for something I seem so unwilling to give.

  “I suppose names aren’t really important,” he offers.

  “When it comes right down to it.”

  The man loses his smile. Then he turns from me and pulls down another can of kerosene from the shelf. He lifts one can into one hand and the second can into another. He begins walking down the aisle to the front of the store.

  “Stop,” I say.

  The man stops.

  He turns to me and smiles. Service is his job. He is doing so well for me, for baby. “Two may not be enough,” I say.

  The man nods, then comes back to me with the two large cans of kerosene in both his hands. He places them on the floor. He reaches up to the shelf for a third can.

  “Good thinking,” he says as we head back to the front of the store, me carrying one can of kerosene, he carrying two. The weight of the liquid shifts inside the metal can. I stare at the back of this man’s long neck, the muscles in his neck protruding from the strain of the two cans he carries for me.

  “It’s a shame more people aren’t prepared for disaster,” he comments, while we make our way up to the front of the checkout line. “You can’t put a price on safety.”

  “For my family,” I say.

  The man places the two cans onto the counter, takes the third one from me, and places it next to the others. He then rings me up.

  My items paid for, I wheel everything out in a grocery cart. But before I leave the store, I turn and see that the service
man is talking on the phone. He’s staring at me, and talking. I know then he doesn’t trust me. Me or my story about baby. Turning back to the door, I wheel the kerosene out of the store and pray I make it home without being stopped by the police.

  What the voices really say

  In the evening I play the voice messages left for me on the answering machine.

  (BEEP)

  “This is me…I mean, Jamie. Talk to me, Mary. I mean, why won’t you answer my calls? I want to come home. How many times do I have to say this? I’ll say it again: I want to come home. I mean, I don’t blame you anymore for the way Sammy died. I did once, I mean, but that was a long time ago. What happened to Sammy did not have to happen—it was an accident, pure and simple. I know that now. I mean, it took some time, but I’ve worked it all out. I am coming home, Mary. You’ve had too much time now to think it over. I want answers. I mean, goddamnit, I’m finished stating my goddamned case to this goddamned machine. Wait. I’m sorry. I’m really sorry. I mean, I still love…”

  (BEEP)

  “Mary. This is Phil Broader, from the agency. We’re still waiting for your call regarding the offer of last month. We have a position if you want it. We can’t keep it vacant for long. Hey, we need that old ‘Mary Kismet touch’ back. We need the tiger lady of travel and adventure. Hey! You can do it, Mary. Please call now!”

  (BEEP)

  “Yes…ah. ..this is for Mrs. Kismet. We have…wait a minute… yes, we have twelve…wait, let me confirm that…yeah, twelve packages of processed prints ready for pick-up. I’m told the prints have been here for almost a month now. We can’t be responsible, Mrs. Kismet, for film not picked up in two weeks time. So if we don’t hear anything from you soon, we won’t guarantee their safe keeping. Please call at 465-7788, and ask for Don. That’s me.”

  (BEEP)

  “Mary, it’s me again. I got cut off. I’m coming home this Friday. Christmas Eve. We’ll have Christmas together. I’m coming home to stay. I mean, we can start all over again, or whatever. We can still have a family. Look. I want another child. I mean, I know we can’t replace Sammy, but I still want another. I’m coming. Soon. Christmas, I mean.”

  Erase

  I erase the voice messages.

  I erase the messages left for me in the order I have received them. I erase the human beings, as though they never existed.

  Life without doctor (if you want to call it that)

  Alone in my room at midnight, I change my clothing. I replace a short skirt and Oxford button-down with Jamie’s blue and yellow horizontally striped pajamas. The bleeding from the operation that destroyed doctor’s child has stopped. For now.

  So have the pains in my stomach. Soon there will be no evidence of doctor’s baby. Soon there will be no evidence of doctor.

  I sit at the edge of this bed that I shared, once upon a time, with Jamie. Above it hangs the happy, smiling photo of Jamie and me taken at the country club on our wedding day, so many lifetimes ago.

  I look away from the photo as though the people inside it have never existed, or no longer exist. I look at my hands, the way I place them inside my lap. I hold my hands together, to stop the shaking. I press them inside my lap. But my whole body shakes.

  My God, what is happening to me, to my life?

  I think: Where is doctor?

  I shout: “Where is doctor?”

  But there is no one with me to answer me. Not even God.

  Doctor has left me, like so many others.

  What is going to happen to me now?

  A good place to travel to

  This is early morning.

  3:00 A.M.

  I stand on Jamie’s box and look at my photographs. I do this in the dark of night, with the only the orange lamp light coming in through the windows outside this apartment building. The mantle above the fireplace is like This Is Your Life! The fireplace mantle is a good place to travel to when I want to think about living a life.

  Winter

  Time check: Three-fifteen in the early morning.

  Not a sound to keep me company.

  Yesterday was the first day of winter.

  Poor, poor doctor. I miss him already.

  Drowning

  My heart, I thought it would break when I first heard the water pouring into the bathtub.

  Water is the loudest sound I hear tonight. The sound of water competes with the voices of the demons inside my head.

  It is Christmas Eve, five o’clock in the afternoon, but there is no tree with bright lights wrapped around it, no Christmas music, no food cooking in the oven for Jamie and baby.

  Today is just another dark, winter day.

  I sit at the edge of this bathtub and close my eyes. I listen to the water running. Pouring water. I give myself a test. I dip my hand into the warm water, up to my wrist, and swish it around. I guess 110-115 degrees. I am a mother. I am an expert on acquiring just the right temperature, just the right depth. I should be an expert on making things safe for baby.

  I open my eyes.

  In my lap, I hold the photographs, wrapped in nice, neat, pure white envelopes marked “Italy.” I open the envelope and find doctor and me inside.

  I examine the photos one by one. Moments from doctor’s life appear for me. There is doctor at the open floor-to-ceiling window of our hotel in romantic Venice. There is doctor on a pedestrian bridge overlooking a small, narrow canal. There is doctor smoking a cigarette while sitting at a table at the cafe inside San Marco, the Cinzano umbrella sheltering him from the mist that has become invisible in the photograph.

  Then there is my life: I am seated inside a gondola, facing away from the camera so that I look natural, not posed for the shot. There is a gray sky in the background, the type of overcast sky that illuminates the cobblestone alleyways and rivers of Venice. The beauty of Venice, doctor told me once, was that everything around you looks like the end of daylight and the start of darkness.

  There we are together tossing coins into the Trevi Fountain in Rome. Another one shows doctor alone, seated on the Spanish steps, and yet another shows me before the great “David” in Florence.

  These are the photographs that now seem to have been taken a lifetime ago. And they are. I press the photos against my chest, against my heart, and listen to the sound of water filling the tub. I take the photos away from my chest and toss them into the bath. The water consumes them, drowns them, destroys them the way it did for baby and me.

  The warning

  The warning appears on the side of the fire-engine red tin can: DANGER: COMBUSTIBLE IF PLACED NEAR OPEN FLAME.

  Naturally.

  The can of kerosene liquid weighs heavily in my arms but pours easily onto the dining room table, over the stacks of unopened, unanswered mail—some of it bills, some of it from the agency, most of it from Jamie. All of it junk.

  The liquid has a pungent, sour odor. Like syrup, it pours thickly and evenly over the newspapers and boxes marked “Jamie” in big, bold Magic Marker letters and over baby’ s highchair with Woodstock and Snoopy on the backrest.

  My eyes water from the fumes.

  I stand on one of the boxes. I empty out the first can on the mantle above the fireplace. Some of the photos fall flat when the weight of the kerosene liquid hits them. The tin can makes a popping noise as the liquid pours from the nozzle and as the liquid empties, the can becomes hollow, expanding and contracting.

  The liquid drowns my favorite photo of Jamie, the picture taken on a stretch of deserted Cape Cod beach sometime in the late fall of the year, with the waves white-capped and angry and only the back of Jamie visible, his footsteps in the sand disappearing with the wind, like drifting snow.

  The liquid drowns the first photograph ever taken of me holding onto baby—baby cradled in my arms, tightly, so that I do not drop baby. The liquid drowns all the photographs.

  There is the one with me carrying a load of firewood into the cabin we rented in the mountains above Lake Placid, the one with Jamie coming down
hard with an ax into a birch log. There are the photos from baby’s life—baby eating spaghetti, baby covered with spaghetti, baby in the bath.

  I cherish the photographs.

  I cover them with kerosene.

  I will take them with me when the time comes.

  The time for me

  The time is five fifty-one in the afternoon.

  The time for me has come and gone.

  This is Christmas Eve

  The second tin can is heavy when I cradle it inside my arms, and this time the liquid seems to pour out fast. The liquid spreads onto the living room floor, onto the vestibule where Jamie, newly arrived from work, would drop his briefcase to the floor, forget his keys inside the door, and go searching for baby.

  I empty the second can in the bedroom.

  The liquid pours over the bed, over the wedding day photo of Jamie and me at the country club—the photo I have pulled off the wall and tossed into the middle of the bed that Jamie and I shared, once upon a time. I toss in the remaining packages of photographs of doctor and me together in Italy. I watch our images fade and distort when they become immersed by the thick, golden-colored liquid. The liquid forms a pool inside the sheets and covers of the bed, until it soaks into the fabric.

  I do not pour a single drop of kerosene in baby’s room.

  The time is six-ten.

  In the bathroom, the water that fills the tub is beginning to run over the sides and onto the floor, through the floor, and (I can only imagine) streaking its way down the freshly painted walls of the stairwell.

  I hold the book of match’s in my hand.

  I walk carefully along the wooden floor, soaked with the slippery, oily kerosene. I take doctor’s cigarettes from my pocketbook—the stale pack I took from his desk inside his office. This is the pack he could no longer smoke after his operation. I stand inside the kitchen and pat one out from the paper package. I place the cigarette between my lips. I strike a match. I bring the flame to the cigarette and light it. I feel the smoke enter my lungs, feel the familiar rush up inside my brain.