Angel Landing (20 page)

The next morning Michael went into the kitchen warily; he was afraid that he might no longer be able to tell reality from dreams, he was uncertain about the night, he now doubted that he had ever seen his father weep in the parking lot. And from Danny Finn's behavior that morning at breakfast, where he gulped a cup of black coffee and complained of a hangover, no one would have guessed that anything had happened between the two just hours before. In fact, the tears cried in the parking lot and the explanation Danny Finn had offered for all the years of pain were never mentioned again. Danny Finn's plea for forgiveness was wiped away with years of anger and abuse, until Michael Finn himself nearly forgot the confidences in the hallway with his father late one winter's night.

Even though Danny Finn had despised his father for forcing him to join the union, he did the same with his son as soon as the boy turned eighteen; perhaps because he did not know what else to do, perhaps because Danny Finn had been so terrified of his own father that he still trembled when he saw men over six-foot-three, that he was afraid to direct his son in a path that might displease his long-dead father. Everything Danny did he did for his father's approval, and in his father's image. And so he beat his son as he had been beaten, and when the boy broke the law, Danny Finn saw to it that the boy was sent away to the Stockley School, for the boy's own good or because he had no idea what else to do, or because he was afraid of his own father's ghost. Sometimes when he watched his son cringe as he beat him, or when he watched Michael driven away by a probation officer to the Stockley School, Danny Finn was also a little afraid of the man he had become.

“I will never be like him,” Danny Finn used to say to himself when he was young and his father was reaching for his leather strap. “Never. Never.”

And now he had become so much like him, he walked so closely in John Finn's footsteps that Danny Finn could no longer remember saying these words to himself. And though there were times when Danny still wanted his life to be different, times when he wanted to throw a suitcase into the back of his car and take off to California, those times passed. And when there were moments when he wanted to hold his wife close instead of pushing her away, those moments, too, passed. And it was easier than anyone would have thought to look across the dining-room table and not notice how much Michael looked the way Danny had looked as a child. Danny Finn had become so much like his father that he did not even notice the hatred in his own son's eyes.

Danny Finn conveniently forgot the night he showed himself to his son, he refused to think about his own terror. And as his father forgot, so, too, did Michael Finn. Forgetting was easy. In time, Michael's memory of the two men kneeling in the parking lot, side by side but still too far away to touch, had totally faded; just as Danny Finn's memory of the young girl became hazier and hazier with every bottle of bourbon, until the girl was less than a dream. As far as both men were concerned, that long-ago night had never happened; and after a while, Michael Finn could even drive past that empty parking lot in winter without wanting to weep out loud.

FIVE

I
F HE HAD MORE FAITH IN
himself, Michael Finn would have known that his father or grandfather would never have switched the valve at Angel Landing III. He alone had watched his past and the future he was always supposed to have rise up like a storm set loose. On the day of the explosion Finn had been fighting against the history which turned men into ghosts; he had been fighting it all his life.

“Listen to me,” I said, “you won't turn out the way they did.”

“I know what's waiting for me,” Finn said. “I know my life will be the same.”

I was now afraid that I might take the place of the girl who had drifted from the patients' lounge into Danny Finn's heart.

“Decisions can be made, lives can be altered,” I said.

“You don't know anything about me,” Finn went on. “You're only involved with my case.”

“It's not your case I'm involved with, it's you,” I blurted out.

“You'll get over it,” Finn shrugged.

“I don't want to get over it.”

Finn gripped the arms of the rocking chair. I was hit with the slow embarrassment of a confession which brings no response.

“Have you had dinner?” I asked when I couldn't stand the tension between us any longer. “Is there something here I can fix?”

Finn leaned forward in his chair. “You don't expect me to take you seriously, do you?” he asked.

“I could make scrambled eggs or spaghetti,” I said.

“Do you know what it would mean to be mixed up with someone like me?” Finn asked.

“We could try.”

“No.”

I wondered if Danny Finn had been lucky to forget all that he wanted and never could have, instead of looking right into the center of heartbreak and despair as Michael Finn did now.

“All right,” I said. “I'm not going to try and talk you into anything.” I put on my coat then, even though I didn't want to go.

“I never asked you to care, did I?” Finn said.

“No,” I agreed. “And if you want me to go, I will.”

“And don't care about me,” Finn called as I walked across the room.

“It's too late,” I said. “I already do.” But at the door I stopped. “Are you sure you don't want to talk about this?”

“I just told you,” Finn said. “I never wanted this to happen, and you'd better stop wanting it, too.”

“Then I'll leave,” I said, but I didn't open the door. “I'm going,” I said, though that was the last thing I wanted to do.

Finn got up; but instead of running to me and holding me tight, he came to me slowly, a disinterested sleepwalker. “Thanks for stopping by,” he said formally, as if I had been a guest invited for drinks.

“Will you think about what I've said?” I asked as Finn opened the door for me.

“Natalie,” Finn said, “I've already told you. No.”

By the time I ran down the stairs, Finn had probably returned to his rocking chair, and all the way home I could hear the slow, unfeeling creak of that chair. It mattered very little whether Finn asked me to leave because he didn't care or because caring was simply too dangerous—he had turned me down, and in the next few days I tried as best I could to deny everything I felt for him as well. Because of that I slept dreamlessly, I felt more separated from everyone else than ever before. But I wasn't angry with Finn for having begun it by asking me to meet him in the deserted high-school field, nor was I furious with the purple smoke which had so suddenly touched my life. In time I managed to feel nothing more than numb; I walked through each day, I met with clients, had dinner with Minnie; even Lark no longer annoyed me, and one day I found myself agreeing to meet her for lunch at Ruby's Café.

After we had ordered hamburgers, I gazed at the tabletop and tried to think of nothing but clean, empty space.

“What's wrong with you lately?” Lark asked.

“Not a thing,” I said quickly.

“I'll bet. Well, whatever it is, I'm glad you met me for lunch. I've been wanting to talk to you for days.”

“Talk,” I said.

Lark waited until the platters of food were brought to us and then she leaned forward and said, “It's about him. The bomber. Michael Finn.”

That man who exposed every sorrow, each wound with a shiver, a brief rush of blood; Michael Finn who could look right through you? That bomber, that man? “The bomber?” I said casually as I reached for the salt.

“I want to know about him,” Lark said.

“You know I can't discuss his case.”

“I've already looked through his file,” Lark announced.

“That was pretty unethical.”

“I have to know about him,” Lark said.

I sighed and listed some basic details: where he was born, where he now lived. Finally, Lark threw up her hands.

“I want to know what the core of his problem is.”

“The core?” I said. “You're looking too deeply. He made a mistake, now he may go to jail, that's all there is to it.”

“Is that the story you intend to give out during the trial when every reporter in the state finds out you were the bomber's therapist?”

“I wish you wouldn't call him the bomber,” I said. “And yes, there's only one story.”

“How boring,” Lark said.

“I really can't believe you read through his file,” I said, but Lark wasn't listening to me, she was thinking hard. She licked her lips. “I know. Send the reporters to me.”

“You?” I said. “What do you know about Michael Finn?”

“Nothing,” Lark said. “But I know other case histories that are ten times more interesting than his. EMOTE could really use the publicity. All I need is one or two interviews with the right people.”

Weeks ago, days before, I would have laughed and walked out the door of the café. I was to be the one who stood on the courthouse steps with Finn's exclusive story, I was the one to write the articles, and then be patted and promoted at Outreach. But now I wanted nothing more than to quickly recite my testimony and then slink from the courtroom in secrecy. The more publicity, the more I had to think about Finn, the longer I would see his face, remember his history.

“All right,” I agreed. “I'll send them all to you.”

Lark reached for my hand. “You won't regret it,” she said.

I counted the flecks of salt that had spilled near my plate; they looked like peculiar insects edging toward me.

“Natalie,” Lark said now, “what's wrong?”

If I counted the brown spots on every french fry on my plate I might be able to forget the way Finn's voice dropped whenever he talked about the past.

Lark waved her hand in front of my face. “Are you still here?”

“If you really want to know,” I said. “I'm miserable.”

Lark slapped the tabletop. “This really makes me happy,” she said. “You're finally opening up to me. You're beginning to trust me.”

“I'll he all right,” I said quickly.

“All right? You won't be all right unless you do something to help yourself. And what you can do to help yourself is to come to EMOTE.”

“I don't think so,” I said.

“Just give it a chance,” Lark said. “What do you have to lose?”

“If I did come to an EMOTE meeting I wouldn't discuss my personal life. I would just be an observer.”

“Fine,” Lark said, as she reached for the check. “Just keep an open mind.”

But an open mind was something I did not have on the evening when I followed Lark's instructions and arrived at her cottage on the grounds of a Shore Road estate. I was fairly certain that if there was anything that could chase away my doubts, it wasn't EMOTE. Still, I had promised to appear at the meeting, and so I borrowed Minnie's Mustang and parked at the end of a long line of cars. I walked up the driveway and knocked on Lark's front door.

As soon as Lark spotted me, she strode across the living room and took my hand.

“I'm so happy you're here,” she said. “The trust that is growing between us is amazing.”

I edged to the rear of the room.

“Friends,” Lark said, and all eyes turned toward her. “It's time to begin our work,” she said solemnly.

The participants obediently carried their coffee mugs, and then, grunting softly like a flock of sheep, they ranged themselves in a semicircle on the floor, sitting on pillows or on a pumpkin-colored oriental rug. In the center of the circle was a tall object hidden from view by a draped Indian bedspread. As Lark went to stand in front of the bedspread I crept farther into the background, hoping that the shadows in the corner would hide my skepticism. But a young man, dressed all in white, glared at me.

“I'd like to speak now,” the young man called out. “Lark, I have something I'd like to say.”

“You are talking to Lark,” Lark intoned.

“You are talking to Sandy,” the young man in white said as he stood.

“What would you like to say?” Lark asked pleasantly.

“I would like to know why we're being observed as if we were animals in a zoo.”

“Now, Sandy,” Lark smiled. “What are you really saying?”

“I'm talking about her.” He pointed a finger at me. “Why is she creeping around in the corners of the room, why does she refuse to join the group? Does she think that she's better than we are?”

“Oh, not at all,” I cried out apologetically.

“I'm sorry,” Sandy shrugged. “I just can't get into somebody watching us. Either she's with us or she's not. She's in or she's out.”

“Why don't you take a seat,” Lark said to me.

I didn't have a seat because I wanted the option of bolting through the front door if I cared to. I didn't have a coffee mug in my hands because I wanted my fingers free to fight off any angry member of this cult who might suddenly decide to attack an outsider. Still, I didn't have the courage to stick out my tongue and slam the door behind me, and somewhere I had some hope, however tiny, that EMOTE might help me understand how my emotions had gone out of control. So I joined the circle, I sat on a blue and green striped pillow and smiled at the group around me.

“How do you feel now, Sandy?” Lark asked.

“I feel accepted,” Sandy grinned as he sank back to his pillow. “I really do.” He nodded at me.

“Well, now,” Lark called out briskly. “Is everyone ready?”

“Readier than we've ever been,” the members of EMOTE called.

I reached into my purse and took out the pack of cigarettes I had specially brought along.

“No smoking,” the woman on the pillow next to me said. “We don't hate our bodies here.”

I put away my cigarettes and looked up just as Lark reached to pull the Indian bedspread down. There, beneath the drape, was a six-foot mirror framed in oak. We, who sat on the floor, were now confronted by our reflections in the glass.