Part 32 (2/2)

”You missed all the fun,” Henry told Mary Jane as he accepted a long, tight embrace from her.

If she was still angry about Alexa, she had decided not to show it.

”Did Betty come?” Mary Jane asked.

”No.”

”Did she call?”

”No.”

”Telegram?”

”No.”

”Unbelievable.”

”Believable.”

”Do you have to deal with all this c.r.a.p?” She gestured vaguely around Martha's bedroom, the repository of a life in which the limits of age, or perhaps of proportion, had meant an inability to discard anything. It was a mess, but an entirely organized mess, befitting the practice house standards.

”Of course I have to deal with it,” Henry said.

”Starting when?” Mary Jane asked, picking up Martha's inlaid enamel hairbrush and immediately putting it back down.

”Starting now, I guess,” Henry said.

THEY WALKED TOGETHER to the hardware store, renamed and repainted since Arthur Hamilton's death. They bought tape, garbage bags, and cardboard boxes. Henry was startled by the stillness in the neighborhood. It was a regular Wednesday afternoon, but nothing seemed to be moving. The sky was Los Angeles blue, but that was the only similarity to home. There were virtually no people, no cars, no sounds.

”We'll do piles for things to give away, things to throw away, and things to leave for the college,” Henry said.

”And what about things to keep?” Mary Jane asked.

Henry shrugged. ”I guess,” he said.

The clothes were easiest. Henry swept all Martha's undergarments and hosiery into one trash bag. The s.h.i.+rts, sweaters, and skirts were all immaculate as ever-spotless, perfectly folded, with sheets of tissue paper around and between them, as if they had just been purchased. Henry handed these to Mary Jane, and Mary Jane packed them in boxes. In Martha's desk drawers he found neatly stacked supplies: pads, pens, stamps, envelopes. The bottom drawer seemed jammed shut, and when Henry finally forced it open, he found at least a hundred of her Green Stamps booklets, filled and never used. It was the closest he came to crying.

”We need some music,” Mary Jane said.

Henry turned on Martha's ancient radio, its signal strong and bizarrely modern, coming from the old wooden cabinet. Mary Jane sang along, off-key, with the Beatles' ”Penny Lane” and the Turtles' ”Happy Together.”

I can't see me loving n.o.body but you for all my life ...

”Are you going back to L.A. right away?” she asked him after they had decided the shoes were not worth keeping.

”I don't know,” he said. ”I'm not really sure I want to go back.”

”I thought you were doing The Jungle Book,” The Jungle Book,” she said. she said.

”I am.”

”So?”

”It's not the same.”

”Same as what?”

”The same as it was with Walt.”

She stretched out now on the part of Martha's bed that was free from clothes. ”What would you do instead?” she asked him.

She had a cigarette in her hand, and it bothered Henry suddenly that her shoes were touching Martha's pillows.

”I don't know,” he said.

”Would you come back here?”

”No. Why would I come back here?”

”I don't know. Teach art. Chase students. Hang out with your grandfather.”

”Are you high?” Henry asked her.

”Not enough,” she said.

She put out her cigarette. From Martha's bedside table, she picked up a green porcelain box in the shape of a cabbage. ”Christ, look at all this s.h.i.+t,” she said, and somehow, surprisingly, Henry found that annoying, too.

HE WAS STARTLED, though he shouldn't have been, to find Martha's gold Omicron Nu pin. She had left it in a small cedar box, along with her Timex wrist.w.a.tch and several pairs of simple gold earrings. Clearly she must have known that she wouldn't be coming back to this house-or going any place where time or affiliation or ornament would matter. Henry paused, uncertain, the box open on her dresser.

”What should I do with these?” he asked Mary Jane.

”Keep them, of course,” she said.

”I think you should take the earrings.”

”Don't be an idiot, Henry,” Mary Jane said.

”I'm not being an idiot. I bet she'd want you to have them.”

”She'd want me to be swallowed up whole by the earth, and that's what she always wanted,” Mary Jane said.

”I see your point,” he told her.

She laughed.

”But what about what I want?” he said. ”What if I want you to have them?”

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