Part 24 (1/2)
”Kat That's really great”
I left the conversation without ain next week
THAT NIGHT, AS I drafted letters of application to a few local publishers, I glanced toward theWas he there? Was anyone? For all I kneith Mrs Russo gone, Lucian hiht show up at my door at any tiht and impersonal as the face of theAnd every ure on the corner For people loitering in pairs For hu intellect in their eyes Three days after theI stood in front of the Gospel Room, I swore I saw a blonde soccerLucian the day at Vittorio's, I hurried to get a glimpse of her, but she disappeared a block ahead of ht I saw the black man who had met me in church the daythe Halloween masks But I lost hiht of cars
A week and a half had passed since the day Mrs Russo left to stay with her grandkids She didn't call, and though IIsland, I took it to mean that she was busy and so left her alone Meanwhile, I continued to water her plants and collect her ularly went to the co-op for soup and the daily special My life, et ether I rescheduledto plague h I recovered soes of my former life had left me forever Every expensive car that passed me on the street, every new display in theof Bowl and Board summoned to s, all of them equally unpalatable to me
I spoke with Katrina a second time, just briefly She was ill that day, and we had had to keep it short I told her I had soh I knew she had plenty of clients she was already unable to give her tih to say she would discuss it withof her health, I felt like a clod But I needed to sell the book if I could-not for the hope of interviews in the Bristol Lounge, or for the Paris Review, Paris Review, but because I had received my last paycheck from Brooks and Hanover and had yet to hear back on any of my application letters but because I had received my last paycheck from Brooks and Hanover and had yet to hear back on any of my application letters
Meanwhile, I continued to stare at the blinking cursor at the end of the story that had once been Lucian's but was now solely mine
RETURNING FROM MY MORNING coffee run four days later, I thought I saw the punk kid fro out of a shop He was half a block down fro the street when I saw him But as with the soccer ht I'd seen just yesterday dropping a passenger at a corner before speeding off, deaf to -he never turned when I shouted And I wondered if I was not really the author of Drea hallucinated this entire series of encounters having hallucinated this entire series of encounters
Still, I looked every day for that cast of guises, for the figure sauntering onto Inainst the post of the house across the street
That day I arrived back atopen For the first tier than I could remember, my heart lifted with a jittery start induced by hope rather than fear
”Mrs Russo?” I stepped inside Sounds issued fro rolled in paper ”Mrs Russo?”
Her daughter, Jeanette, who often came to visit with her children, caard, her eyes swollen and red-riht smile, and then her mouth crumpled She lifted her hand to her eyes, and then pushed her hair back fro in the bedroom and assued rhythht squeak Behind her Kevin eed from the bedroom
”No No” I was unsure if I said it for her or forlike a load of boulders upon me Kevin laid an arm around his wife's shoulders and reached out with his other to clasp
”But she went to New York” I gave Kevin's hand an absent shake None of this made sense
”They took her to the hospital, but she never regained consciousness,” Kevin said
”What does that an to shake Had I contributed to this in soht undue attention to her by the sily, all theseme ”It means God called her,” she said with a tiny smile
”Why?” I felt like a child
Her smile, just then, was too much like her mother's, with that hint of serenity amid obvious pain ”Would you want Mom far from you?”
But I need her here! I wanted to shout The apart around me, the plants, lessness I wanted to shout The apart around me, the plants, lessness
Jeanette squeezed my shoulder ”Moht your na for prayer for you You were on her heart” Tears rolled down her cheeks She eventually turned away, her hand over her face
I fell back a step, unable to take it all in Unable to believe Mrs Russo would not be back, could not go with s I needed to know
”I have her plants,” I said faintly, stupidly
”I don't knoe're going to do with all her things Rob,fro them-”
”No, no, I don't mind” I looked around her apart there on the table, had givenhere in the kitchen, had told me to water the plants until water ca to help” I don't know if I said it more for therabbed at the back of a dining roorabbed the top of that stack ofin the hundreds and, with a long, full ht some of therabbed another stack and ripped the theain
”You wanted yourI could, I sacrificed everything! Killer! Murderer!” It occurred to ht think I was crazed Good I was
I grabbed another stack of pages, but before I could rip them into pieces, palsy stilled e at me, the forest of Is, Is, and then the question on the very page in e in my hand: ”What does this have to do with me?” ”What does this have to do with ainst the desk and sobbed, torn half pages and quarter pages slipping over the edge and falling aroundfroreat heaves shaking my shoulders If there was a God, I cried out to hi that only he could understand my keen over the deep that had once been my world
I STAYED LIKE THAT for a long ti subsided, I was too exhausted to rub at eyes that had nearly swollen shut
I had been unable to escape Lucian before I could not escape hiatory
No, this was hell
32
The apartht, dors was cold and dirty, the mailboxes impersonal despite the naotcoffee I stared at Mrs Russo's door, now devoid of coffee cake and chocolate-chip cookie smells, of inspirationalthe old e- hi site: ”Demon encounter? Ever talked to one? Was his na hi site: ”Demon encounter? Ever talked to one? Was his nas I decided that when I saw the doctor in three days I would ask for a psychiatric referral, even if I suspected that I was psychologically sound
I would also ask for an antianxiety prescription