Skylight Confessions (23 page)

When he left the morgue, he made his way to Sam's last address on Tenth Avenue. Were there belongings John needed to pick up?

Was he supposed to have a key? Should he talk to the super? This was the building from which Sam had fallen. The hallways were dark and there were smudgy paintings and chalk drawings in the stairwell, disturbed black and red and blue inkblots of men and birds and clouds. John Moody was never supposed to be in this hallway or have Sam as a son. He was never supposed to get lost that night.

It had been nearly eleven years since Sam first disappeared. The horrible truth was that John had been happy that he was gone.

He'd never spoken it aloud, but he'd been relieved. Out of his hands; not his problem; far better this way. Now he was exhausted from walking up four flights of stairs. No one had ever cared about this building. It was lightless, ugly, a concrete box. It was everything John Moody had worked against in his life: disorder and despair. But this was the place. This was his son's last known address, so he knocked on the door. It was iron; it hurt his hand.

He had a racing thought —
I
could still get away.

A boy of ten opened the door. John Moody recognized him. The boy was Sam, but that was impossible.

Sam?
John said.

My father's gone,
the boy told him.
I'm Will.
He was a serious fellow, very much in need of a haircut.
Do you want to come in? My
mother will be back soon.

Sam as he might have been, without that look in his eyes, that boneyard, black night, uncontrolled look. Just a little boy.

No, I think I'm at the wrong place. Wrong address.

John Moody hurried off. Two steps at a time. He quickly hailed a cab. He already knew he would keep the boy a secret, even from himself. What wasn't spoken of soon disappeared, at least on the surface, enough to let him get by. What he didn't think about, he wasn't responsible for. Instead, he went for long walks. He was distracted. He attended Lisa's piano recitals. He talked to her guidance counselor about which college would be best and went over her schedule and class selections, but all the while he was lost.

He thought about that hallway in New York more than he should.

He had conversations with a grandson he didn't even know. John began to keep a tape recorder in his pocket. Cynthia recorded not only his daily appointments for him, but directions on how to get there as well. John was that confused.

But he remembered to go to the cemetery once a month. The old cemetery, Archangel, where Arlie was. No one had to tell him to do that; no one even knew that he went. He parked and looked at the big tree, a sycamore, he thought, not that he knew much about trees. It had a mottled peeling bark. John knew glass and steel. He knew what it felt to be hollow inside. He had missed Arlie all this time. He had a photograph of her in his wallet; he'd snapped her picture on the ferry one day when she insisted they go back so she could see the house where she'd grown up. Arlie was wearing a white dress that was unsuitable for the weather, but John had bought it for her as a gift. He wasn't a man who thought about gifts, but when he'd seen the dress, he'd known it was right for Arlie. The sky was dark and threatening and for an instant John worried that his wife would be carried off by the wind.

Don't be silly,
she'd called to him. She was holding on to the railing.
I'm not going anywhere.

The day before he died John had trouble breathing. He went outside to get some fresh air and there Arlie was, surrounded by mourning doves. He thought perhaps he had taken the right path all along. Maybe he was meant to get lost that evening, meant to find Arlie in the kitchen, meant to be a father to Sam, his only child with her. He knew that. He knew why George Snow had sat at Arlie's bedside, not that he loved Blanca any less for it. He didn't even blame Arlie. Not one bit. He'd gotten lost, that was the problem; he hadn't been there for her and he'd never been the sort of man who could ask for help.

"I really think you should try to get more rest," Cynthia said on the night before he died. He was logy, distracted.

"She was absolutely naked in the kitchen," John Moody said.

"Who?"

John took hold of himself. "Some movie. I saw it on TV last night. They have nudity."

"You shouldn't be up watching TV so late," Cynthia said.

On that night John Moody did as he was told. He fell asleep and began to dream that he was walking down the hall. This dream was different from the usual one. He heard something breathing; he smelled smoke. There was soot on the floor. He came at last to a room he hadn't known was there, in the very center of the house he'd grown up in. The room he'd always been looking for. The door was closed but he could hear something flying around inside.

It hit against the wall with a thud; there was the sound of wings beating. Like a heart, just as regular, but louder, so loud he could feel it inside his own head.

The key to the room was made out of glass. It cut John's hands and made him bleed. The blood itself had a steady rhythm, as it dropped onto the floor. Something was flying around in the dark, something large and dark with leathery wings. It had talons. It had been there all along. It had broken all the glass, the ceiling, the windows; glass was everywhere, like falling stars.

John lit a lantern. All at once he saw the truth. It wasn't a bird trapped inside the room; it was a dragon. Red and wounded, wings beating. A dragon in his very own house.

John Moody held the glass key in his hand even though he continued to bleed. He could hear himself breathing, his sleeping real self. But his dream self couldn't catch his breath. He didn't dare move. For here was the problem, as it always had been: he didn't know if he was supposed to kill the dragon or rescue it.

John had a headache when he woke in the morning, and decided not to go to work. A rarity, and cause for concern. Cynthia phoned the doctor to make an appointment as she was fixing his breakfast.

Best to be safe rather than sorry. They weren't young, after all.

They didn't always agree, but she was a good wife, and he a good husband. She made up a tray: fruit, eggs, decaffeinated coffee with skim milk.

When John came downstairs he was still in his bathrobe. He said he couldn't breathe; he needed a bit of fresh air.

I'll bring you some water,
Cynthia had said.
We can have breakfast
outside.

After he'd gone into the yard, Cynthia watched John sink into one of the patio chairs so he could look out over the lawn. He loved that view. He was a handsome man, even now, and Cynthia appreciated him.
He's finally resting,
she thought, but that wasn't it at all. John Moody was waiting, and in no time she was there. He could see her clear as day. Her long red hair, the thin white dress he could see through. She was perfect; he'd forgotten that. Surely, he understood why he'd stayed.

When he had woken on a strange couch in a stranger's house all those years ago, he'd quickly sat up and put on his shoes. John Moody wasn't some fool ready to be waylaid. He got his car keys and found a map on top of the desk in the parlor. There was the route he was supposed to take, a thin line of color cutting across the North Shore of Long Island. Easy enough. Easy as pie. But then he heard something that caught his interest. A sound he couldn't ignore, like wings flapping, or fabric slipping off a woman's shoulders. Twenty steps to the kitchen door. The carpet was worn, the floors wide yellow pine. How could he ever have forgotten how much he had wanted her? His hands were actually shaking when he pushed the door open. Big, white hands, clumsy, young, a man in search of what he wanted. Here was the path, the future, his destiny. Italy was nothing compared to her. Everything that might have been fell away.

He stared out at the lawn and understood himself at last. A dozen mourning doves. Pools of dark shadows on the lawn. She was gone, but he didn't need her to remind him anymore. The way she had turned to him. The way she walked to him. The way he was waiting for her.

He remembered everything now.

A RED MAP ISN'T EASY TO FOLLOW. ANY DOCUMENT MADE of blood and bones is tricky. Wrong turns are easily made, and there are often piles of stones in the road. A person has to disregard time and sorrow and all the damage done. If you follow, if you dare, the thread always leads to whomever or whatever you've forgotten: the little girl lost in the woods, the hedgehog, the strand of pearls, the ferryboat, your own father.

Every traveler needs a warm coat, walking shoes, a bottle of water, a watch that can be trusted, an honest man, and a mirror that reflects back truthfully. James Bayliss drove Blanca to the airport. He was angry, but most people wouldn't have been able to tell. Blanca, however, could. She knew James well enough to notice that his shoulders were a bit higher than usual, tensely held, and there was more silence; his work boots were especially heavy on the gas and the clutch. James was pissed because Blanca wouldn't let him go with her. It made no sense to him at all.

"Don't be mad. You're not missing anything. It's a reprieve, really." Blanca was traveling light — one small carry-on case filled with black clothes, shampoo, books. "James, please," she said when he didn't answer. James was searching out a space even though she told him not to bother with the car park, just to drop her off.

"Right there," she said, pointing out the departure section.

"They're not even technically my family," Blanca insisted. "They're all semi-relatives. My real family is dead."

"You don't want me to go inside the terminal with you and wait?"

"Well, why would you want to do that?" Blanca said. "You can't go with me to the gate. It's a waste of time." "I want to. That's the point, Blanca."

"Well, that's just stupid," Blanca said.

James nodded. There it was, a jab at the fact he hadn't gone to university. "Exactly."

"I don't mean stupid in that way."

"No, you meant it in a positive way."

They both laughed at that, even though this moment seemed as though it might be the end of them. They said good-bye on the sidewalk outside the British Airways terminal. It was noisy and crowded. James didn't make a move toward her, just stood there and handed Blanca her overnight case. It was awkward. James had played semi-professional soccer when he was younger and now someone recognized him and patted him on the back. That happened often, strangers coming out of nowhere to address him.

"I'll be back in no time. I promise." Blanca hugged him, then stepped away. He hadn't hugged her back. "This isn't about us. It's about going home."

"You can't keep dividing your worlds." James kept his hands in his pockets "It's all one big rotten mess. We're either in it together or we're not."

Blanca simply wanted this journey over and done. She could come back and fix things with James. Her life was here, after all.

She checked in and waited in the lounge; when her flight was called, she boarded, took a sleeping tablet, and closed her eyes. She was asleep in no time. She dreamed of a swan out on the lawn of her father's house. It moved with difficulty, slow, exhausted, then it lay down in the grass. It was giving birth, and it labored horribly.

The delivery was sudden, pouring out of the swan with the great force of birth — a full-grown duck encircled by a thick, mucusy casing. As she woke, Blanca thought to herself,
But swans lay eggs.

It was dark and they were halfway across the ocean; Blanca's head filled with the droning of the jet's engines. She thought of the way James had stood there on the sidewalk. She thought of the many ways love could hurt you. She was not an open person; she knew that. She'd assumed James had known that about her as well.

Blanca rented a car at Kennedy and drove to Connecticut; because she wasn't sure she remembered the way, she'd had the rent-a-car attendant go over the map several times. Still, she was nervous as she drove. She felt panicky, imagining she was on the wrong side of the road; she felt confused and out of sorts and she hadn't even bothered to comb her hair. When she got off the highway, most of it came back to her. Turn left, and there was the market. Turn right, and the road led home.

There had been a brief, uncomfortable phone conversation with her stepmother. Thank you, but no, she wouldn't be staying at the house, but would instead be at the Eagle Inn, just on the other side of town. Meredith had already made the reservation. When Blanca pulled up, she remembered the inn, a white house with a stone foundation and patio. The school bus had taken this route, but Blanca had never looked much beyond the hedges.

She parked and walked down the path. There was the sound of bees and of traffic on the road. Blanca suddenly wished she'd brought something other than black to wear; she was broiling.

How humid summer was here. The air was sticky and it was difficult to breathe. Blanca was wearing a long-sleeved blouse and a pair of corduroy slacks that should have been packed away for the summer.

The owner of the inn was a local woman, Helen Jeffries, a recent widow herself, who seemed to know the Moody family. "I'm so sorry for your loss," Helen said as she checked Blanca in and handed over a key. "Your father was a lovely man."

Blanca went up the carpeted stairs and found her room — a bed with a dust ruffle, a view of the lawn. She thought about the swan she'd dreamed about on the plane. The inn wasn't air-conditioned and she felt feverish. There were no private bathrooms, so Blanca went down the hall to wash up. The dress she'd brought to wear to the funeral was wool, totally inappropriate for the weather. She'd forgotten what June could be like here. She'd roast, she'd burn, she'd burst into flames as she stood at the gravesite.

Blanca ran the cold tap and dashed water on her face. If she opened her eyes would she be back in her flat? If she blinked would she be in her driveway, where the lilacs grew all those years ago?

There was a knock at the bathroom door.