The Art of Crash Landing (28 page)

“Ah . . .” Luke reaches up and tucks a few strands of my hair behind my ear. “I played the clarinet when I was a kid.”

I trace the shape of his smile with a fingertip. “Close enough,” I tell him, and then lean over and press my smiling mouth against his.

Luke has one hand steady on my back as the other moves down my neck to my swollen, pregnancy-tender breasts. I try not to flinch, but I must have, because without missing a beat he lightens the pressure until his touch is pleasure, not pain. When he nuzzles my neck and oh so gently rolls my nipple between his fingertips, I begin to suspect that this Boy Scout is going to have no trouble earning a merit badge this evening.

As he pulls me closer for another kiss, letting his right hand engage in an extremely skillful investigation of my lady parts, I slide my hand down Luke's muscled chest. He catches my wrist when I reach his happy-trail.

“Just so you know,” he says, “the accident caused a spinal crush injury that damaged nerves, but left some reflexes in place. The nerves that control leg movement are in the same area as the nerves that control psychogenic erections.”

“In other words . . .”

“If nothing is going on down there yet, don't think I'm not interested.” He pauses to run his hand up my arm, across my ribs. “I am interested,” he adds, his fingers tracing a slow path down my belly. “And capable. But usually only direct stimulation will—”

“Like this?” I ask.

He smiles.

It doesn't take long for me to discover that in addition to the agonizingly accurate knowledge of female anatomy he is demonstrating, Luke is abundantly blessed in other areas.

“Good Lord,” I say. “Is this weapon registered?”

He grins, pinking up nicely.

I laugh. “Hung like a pony, but blushes like a little girl.”

He laughs, too, but keeps his fingers moving.

“You know . . .” My breathing is embarrassingly ragged. “I'm very ready for you to give me that condom.”

With a grin, Luke tears open the package and hands it to me. While I'm doing the honors, he reaches back up under his pillow and pulls out a plastic strap, which he then fastens over the base of the condom.

I laugh. “What is that, an adult toy?”

He shakes his head and pulls me on top of him, saying, “Shhhhh.”

Belly to belly we lie, his chest hair tickling my ribs. I'm moving slowly, tentatively. He grabs my hips but I resist his efforts to help. “Easy there, Howdy,” I whisper. “Don't hurt me.”

I feel his chest rise and fall in a chuckle, but to my relief he moves his hands up to my back. I know he thinks I'm joking, but
honestly, this man is a Nick and a half. Besides which, I'm discovering that pregnancy has made more than just my breasts overly sensitive.

I've heard it said that even if you're used to driving a compact car, once you size up to an SUV it doesn't take long to start enjoying yourself, and I can tell you that's true. Only a couple of minutes pass before I feel the need to engage in some very unladylike panting and shouting. Luke is smiling, but is awfully quiet the whole time, although he looks extremely pleased with himself when I collapse on his chest.

I feel stupid having to ask, but I do. “So . . . uh . . . are you . . . done?”

His chest moves again in quiet laughter. “I'm finished if you are.”

“I mean did you . . . do you want me to . . .” I prop myself up on my hands so I can see his face. He's still smiling, but now he's shaking his head.

He lifts a curl of my hair and uses it to tickle my nose. “Sex is still great, don't get me wrong, but things don't really work like they did before the accident.”

“That sucks.”

He shrugs. “Not being able to walk sucks, too. But I'm lucky. I'm alive. I'm having a good time when the woman I'm with is enjoying herself.”

“Then you must have just had an extremely good time,” I reply.

He grins. “I really didn't expect you to be a screamer.”

“Shut up,” I say, laughing.

“Oooh, now who's blushing?” he teases, and he's right.

I duck my head against his chest, embarrassed. He laughs, and then he wraps his arms around me and squeezes me tight.

I
t was still raining when I left my mother at the McLeod funeral, and though I hustled, I barely got home with enough time to take a shower and shave my legs before I headed out to Eddy's place. Just as I'd hoped, the lunch date went into overtime. We rolled around on his filthy sheets for a while, drank some beer, ate a frozen pizza, and then finally showed up at the Rusty Nail to work the dinner shift.

My mother called me three times that night—at around eight o'clock, at eight thirty, and then at ten. I didn't answer any of the calls. I had plans with Eddy for later, and I was worried my mother was calling with some random errand that would interfere with that. I'd just seen her that morning, I remember thinking. She couldn't have anything all that important to say.

I followed Eddy back to his place after work and had every intention of staying the night, but I couldn't fall asleep. The faucet in his bathroom dripped, his downstairs neighbors had their television on, and I discovered that sleeping on oily gray sheets was much more difficult than screwing on them. So I dressed quietly
in the dark and slipped out of his apartment without waking him. It was late, or early depending on how you look at it. The streets were empty and the temperature had dropped enough that I regretted not bringing a jacket. The sky was finally clear and the moon near full. Steam rose from the gutters on either side of the street, shifting in the breeze, making me drive through misty ghost after ghost.

A
s soon as I pulled into my apartment complex, I noticed the police cruiser, but I gave it little mind as I parked in my allotted covered spot and walked to my building. The cop car was running, but its lights were off; I could see two officers sitting inside. One turned toward me, watching while I walked past. I was almost to my apartment door when I heard car doors open and shut. I glanced back and saw both officers heading in my direction.

“Shit,” I whispered under my breath. I looked back again. They were still coming right toward me. I turned slowly to face them. All I could think of was how sorry I was to have given that cop false information when he'd pulled me over that morning. Lying to a cop is not smart; why hadn't I just told him the truth and taken the damn ticket? As the officers approached, I tried to get a grip. Maybe it's something else, I thought. Maybe they're finally here to investigate the wienie-waggler in the next building.

The younger one wore his police hat and carried an aluminum clipboard case; the other held his hat in his hands. They stopped in front of me and nodded.

“May I help you, Officers?” My voice sounded a little squeaky.

The shorter one wearing his hat spoke. “Are you Matilda Wallace?”

I debated how to answer that question. If this had anything to do with this morning's ticket, it might be better to say
no
and continue
to impersonate my mother. But if they already knew I'd lied, or if this wasn't about that at all, and I lied now for no reason . . .

“I'm Ms. Wallace,” I finally reply. Safe enough.

“Are you related to Eugenia Louise Wallace?”

Shit shit shit!
I couldn't believe it. This
was
about that stupid traffic stop. Who knew cops investigated stuff like this at three fucking a.m.?

“Well . . .” I paused, struggling to think of how to answer this in such a way as to not dig my hole any deeper, while also not acknowledging that there was a hole. To their credit, the officers just waited for my answer. They seemed as interested to see what I would come up with as I was.

Finally I just gave up and said, “She's my mother.”

“May we come in for a moment?” the tall one asked, giving his hat a little half spin in his hand.

“Okay . . .” After a few shaky attempts I managed to unlock the door, trying to remember just how filthy the apartment was. When we stepped inside and turned on the light that question was quickly answered. Pretty filthy.

I pushed the newspapers off the couch and waved my arm at the now empty cushions, and then sat across from them in our tatty club chair. I wasn't sure why they wanted to have a chat before arresting me, but if it put those handcuffs off for a few minutes, I was game.

“Ms. Wallace . . .” the shorter one said. “Matilda . . .”

“Mattie,” I corrected him. Looking around the apartment I noticed that my roommate Paula had, once again, gathered all the empty beer cans and stacked them into a pyramid on top of the television. Obviously this took much more time and effort than just throwing them away. I suspected she was trying to tell me something.

The cop nodded and then opened his mouth to begin again.

“I'm sorry,” I said, preparing to beg for leniency. But I stopped as soon as the words were out of my mouth, because the police officer had also started speaking, and his words had been identical to mine. “I'm sorry,” he had just said. For some reason we were both sorry.

He looked at me, puzzled.

I felt my original worry shift to a new one. What the hell was going on? “You first,” I said.

The dark-haired cop glanced at the other one and then took a deep breath. “We regret to inform you that your mother was involved in a motor vehicle accident.”

He paused, waiting perhaps for me to ask a question, but I stayed silent and shifted my gaze back to Paula's can tower. I was pretty sure I knew what was coming next.

“She died as a result of her injuries,” he continued. “I'm very sorry for your loss.”

I counted fourteen cans—eleven Miller Lites and three Keystones, which was hardly fair for Paula to have included since it was her boyfriend, Greg, who drank Keystone.

“What happened?” I asked, my voice only a whisper.

“Her car struck a telephone pole. It was a single car accident,” the policeman said. “Luckily, no one else was injured.”

“Yeah, lucky,” I replied.

He flushed slightly and exchanged a look with the policeman sitting next to him. In retrospect, I think the younger man was seeking reassurance; it's possible that this was his first time to do this sort of thing and he was checking with the other officer to see if it was going okay. But at the time I read that glance as some kind of judgment of my reaction, or lack thereof.

I tried to think of something to say, but all I could come up with was, “It wasn't her car.”

The young officer said, “Excuse me?”

“She was driving my jeep. She thought it would be easier to drive.”

He nodded. “I'm afraid the vehicle is badly damaged.”

“She was weak from chemo. She has cancer.” I paused and then corrected myself. “
Had
cancer.”

“I'm very sorry,” the younger policeman said again. And he looked sorry; this was hard for him, I could see that. I wondered if his mother was still alive, if he were imagining having to be on my side of our conversation.

“I shouldn't have let her drive,” I said. “It was too soon. She probably got tired, and she couldn't—”

“Ms. Wallace,” the older cop interrupted me, clearing his throat. “The coroner will let us know for sure, but I believe that alcohol was involved in the accident.”

“Alcohol?” I was confused.

“We believe your mother was driving while intoxicated.”

“But she hadn't had a drink in months,” I said.

“Until today,” he replied.

I looked at the newspapers piled next to the policeman, the napkin with a half-eaten sandwich sitting on the end table. I glanced back over at the television. I remember thinking that I really wished Paula had just this once thrown the damn cans away.

The policemen stood in unison and walked to the door. I followed.

The officer who had done most of the talking turned back and handed me a business card and told me the Community Services office opened at seven. He went on to say that if I wanted to see my mother's body it would be available for viewing with an appointment.

“Do I need to see her?” I asked.

The tall one replied, somewhat cryptically I thought, “That's up to you.”

“No, I mean, to identify her.”

“An ID was made from her driver's license,” said the dark-haired one. He opened his aluminum report case and pulled out a pink slip of paper. “You'll need this receipt to present to property management.”

It all felt very businesslike. I glanced down at the paper covered with faded print about office hours and victim's rights. At the bottom a five-digit number had been handwritten in blue pen. “So, how do I—”

“Call the office at seven. They'll answer any questions you have.”

And with that they slipped out the door and walked through the dark parking lot to their car. I checked my phone for the time—three fifteen.

My mother's death, which had been visible on the horizon for so long, had now suddenly arrived. I'd be lying if I didn't say that along with the shock, there was perhaps the smallest sense of relief, like an exhale of a breath held just a little too long. With the business card in one hand and the pink paper in the other, I first sat on the couch and then lay down. The cushions still held the warmth of the cops' bodies.

The worst has happened
, I told myself.
This is it. This is as bad as it's going to get
.

W
hile Luke and I were tangling his bedsheets, the storm that'd been brewing all day finally broke. We're dressed now and in his darkened living room, standing—well, I'm standing next to Luke's chair—in front of the window. The street glistens with water and the trees whip back and forth in the wind. He reaches up and takes my hand, and for a second I think he's going to ask me to stay over.

“When Charlie called this afternoon,” Luke says, “I started to explain your situation, but he already knew all about it. The first thing he told me was to advance you some money.”

I'm glad Luke is looking out the window rather than at me. I'm not sure what he'd see on my face right now. “Great,” I reply.

Luke nods, but there's something in his silence that tells me he's not finished.

“What was the second thing Charlie told you?” I ask.

“That I'd overstepped my authority when I gave you access to Ms. Thayer's house and the belongings therein.”

I'm not sure what to say to that. “Oh” is all I come up with.

“I'm afraid I'll need that key back.”

“But all my stuff is still there—”

“Patty will help you pack.”

“You mean monitor me to make sure I don't steal anything.”

Luke glances up at me but only for a second. “Honestly, I have no idea why Charlie is doing this.”

Considering the timing, I'd be willing to bet that Fritter had something to do with it, but I could be wrong. Maybe, unlike Luke, Charlie Franklin
does
do criminal background checks.

“So is this all happening right now?” I ask. “Tonight?”

Luke gives me a small smile. “Well, it was supposed to, and as far as Charlie is ever going to know it did happen tonight. But I talked to Patty and she agreed with me; you can stay until tomorrow morning. We trust you.”

“Well, thank you for that.”

He shrugs off my thanks. “The paperwork is on the coffee table.”

I turn on a lamp and then read and sign the agreement, which says I will use their firm to sell the property, and I must vacate the premises immediately. Lying next to the document is an envelope with a stack of hundred-dollar bills.

“It's five thousand,” Luke tells me.

I start to reach for it, but he stops me, saying, “Patty will bring it when she comes tomorrow morning.”

“What time?”

“Nine o'clock.”

I nod.
This is what you came for
, I tell myself, but it doesn't feel that way to me now. Instead of feeling relief that I can finally leave, a weight settles on my chest. It's a familiar weight, the kind that comes with an opportunity missed, a last chance blown.

“I thought I'd have more time,” I say.

“We could make it nine thirty—”

“No, I mean, I was so close.”

He wheels his chair over to the couch, joining me in the lamp's pool of light. “Close to what?”

I shrug. “It's pretty clear that for my mother there was a
before
and an
after
, and in between something happened to her. I really wanted to know what that was.”

“It's too late to make things better for your mother, Mattie.”

“I know.” I almost add,
but it's not too late for me
. But then I look again at the money sitting on the table and realize that now it probably is.

“You'll still be in town until your car is fixed, right?” he asks.

“The car is ready. All I have to do is pay.”

“I see,” he says, nodding. “Well, you still wouldn't have to leave right away if you didn't want to.”

“What reason do I have to hang around?”

This would be the perfect time for him to tell me he wants me to stay.

He doesn't.

I
n the car, I turn on the radio to take the edge off an awkward silence that feels darker than the usual postcoital loss for words. The DJ of the classic rock channel we're listening to must be a mind reader, because he's got some Beatles-music-for-suicidal-types marathon going on. We go from “Yesterday” to “While My Guitar Gently Weeps” right into “Eleanor Rigby.” The rain further deepens the mood. Luke's wipers thump steadily, always close but never quite on the beat.

He breaks the silence. “So, about the dogs . . .”

I have a flash of dismay, remembering that they're gone and then worrying that he knows I've lost them, before I realize that he must be asking if I'm going to take them with me when I leave.

“My neighbor wants them,” I say.

“Really?”

“Oh yeah. He's a dog person.” Who knows? It could be true.

The silence swells again to fill the space, and I'm relieved when we finally pull into my grandmother's driveway. He idles the car up as close as he can get it to the house, then pulls a neatly collapsed umbrella from behind his seat and offers it to me.

I shake my head. “I won't melt,” I tell him. “I'm not made of sugar.”

He smiles. “You could have fooled me.”

His cheesy remark just lies there, wedged between us while we both try to figure out how to end this evening. It feels as if there's something unsaid with us in the car, taking up all the air. My grandmother's house is dark, but JJ's porch lights are on, their yellow glow on my bare legs almost makes it look like I have a September tan. On the radio “Eleanor Rigby” fades into the bouncing guitar of “Blackbird.” I can't stop myself from hoping Luke is trying to think of a way to ask me to stay in town for a while.

“I love this song,” he says. His face is mostly in shadow, but I can tell he's not smiling anymore.

“Me too,” I reply and it's true. Of course we love it. My mother loved it, too. It's the theme song of broken things.

He looks down at his steering wheel and sighs. “The night of my accident . . . I was the one driving the car. It was my fault.”

He pauses, but I stay quiet and let him talk. We're in familiar territory now; guilt is an old friend of mine.

“I got probation. I guess they figured being in a chair for the rest of my life was punishment enough.”

“I'm sorry,” I say.

He looks over at me with a tight smile. “I'm fine. I mean, I'm working at being fine. I've talked to a therapist, to Wayne's parents. I lost my best friend, but they lost a son. They say they forgive
me, if you can believe it. It's been ten years.” He shrugs, adding, “Things are as settled as something like that can ever be. Someone is dead, and it's my fault. I just have to live with that. There's nothing I can do to change the past.”

He sighs and takes my hand in his. I look away, my heart pounding in my chest. When he sees me blinking back tears, he gives my hand a squeeze. He thinks the tears are for him.

“What I'm trying to say is . . . no matter what happened to your mom, it's too late to go back and make it right. You can't save her, you can't save Father Barnes, or me, or anybody else. The only person you can ever save is yourself, and it's never too late for that.”

He's waiting for me to tell him that I understand, but all I can manage is a nod. I do understand. I just don't believe it.

I open the car door and turn back, opening my mouth to say
Good night, Howdy
, but then I think of that puppet propped up, his useless legs dangling off Cowboy Bob's lap, and I wonder if that's what Luke pictured every time I called him Howdy
.
I hope not.

“Good night, Luke Lambert.”

“Good-bye, Mattie Wallace,” he replies.

I lean over and give him a peck on the cheek and a little smile. And then I reach up and ruffle his hair one last time.

I
hurry through the rain to the garage to retrieve the camera bag and strap from their hiding place in the washer, and my finally dry laundry from the dryer. The gate still stands open, the backyard still empty. The bowl of dog food on the front porch also looks undisturbed, and inside the house is even quieter than it was this morning, the air more stale, the stairs steeper.

Up in my mother's room I leave the lights off while I change
out of my grandmother's tweed and into my clean jeans and a T-shirt. I walk to the window and look outside. In JJ's house I can see a blue flicker through his blinds that tell me his television is on, but the other houses that I can see are dark. The streetlights look like starbursts through the watery blur. While I stand there, the rain picks up, the wind pushing the drops against the glass until it almost sounds like hail. The fresh smell of the storm seeps in through the cracks in the casement.

A
miss is as good as a mile
, Queeg likes to say, and he's right. Almost changing my life feels exactly like not changing it at all.

I pull out my phone.

Nick answers on the first ring. It's noisy again on his end, and I remember that it's Friday and he's almost certainly at a gig. He shouts “hang on,” so I do. A few seconds later the noise stops abruptly.

“I'm in the alley,” he says.

I smile. Nick and I met in an alley behind a bar.

“Remember the night we first met?” I say. “We shared a cigarette, and we swapped stories about our shitty parents. You told me about your dad and how he never came to hear you play. And I told you my story about the time I almost drowned while my mom was busy flirting with her boyfriend. Remember?”

It was cold that night in the alley and I wasn't wearing a coat because I didn't want to cover up my new dress. My friends had stayed inside the bar, but when the band took a break I'd followed the handsome guitar player, Nick, out into the alley. My teeth chattered the whole time I talked about trying to swim to the second sandbar and how I could remember everything except for how I got from the water back to the beach. While I told the story, Nick
carefully lifted the cigarette from my shaking fingers and put it to his lips, squinting at me through the smoke. He wasn't shivering. He was wearing a jacket.

“Yeah,” Nick replies. “You had on that short red dress.”

“Do you remember what you said when I finished my story?” I pause to give him a chance to answer. When he doesn't, I continue. “You said it could have been my mom. That maybe I couldn't see her on the beach because she was already in the water, swimming out to save me.”

The phone is quiet. I can't even hear him breathing.

“Nick?”

“I'm here.”

“And then you asked me, ‘Was her hair wet?' You meant after, when it was all over. You said that if my mom's hair was wet, then I would know she'd been in the water.”

“Mattie . . .” His voice is quiet. “What the hell is going on with you?”

“Rico didn't take your guitar strap,” I say.

He doesn't respond.

“I'll bring it back. I'm coming home tomorrow.”

More silence.

“I shouldn't have taken it. I'm sorry.”

I hear him sigh. He's eight hundred miles away, but I don't have to be able to see him to know that he just tilted his head to the left and shrugged his shoulders the way he always does when he acknowledges an apology without really accepting it.

“I've got to go,” he tells me.

“Wait,” I say. “What would you say if I told you I wanted to have a baby?”

He doesn't reply, but from his end I hear a faint voice and a muffled response from Nick. I wonder who's with him in the alley. I wonder if it's a woman. Maybe they're sharing a cigarette.

“Nick?”

“Listen, Mattie, I need to get back inside.”

“You didn't answer my question.”

“You want me to answer your question? Okay. I'd say you're fucking crazy, that's what I'd say.” He's angry now. I can picture him, his face flushed, his lips pressed together. “I gotta go. We have another set.”

“Wait, one more thing.”

“What?” He's practically shouting.

“That first night . . . what did I say when you asked me about her hair?”

“Whose hair? What the hell are you talking about?”

“My mother's.” My throat is pinched; I'm struggling to get the words out. “Did I say her hair was wet, or dry? I can't remember what I told you.”

“Jesus Christ, Mattie, what is
wrong
with you?”

I consider his question. He hangs up long before I come up with the answer.

I
read an article once about our instinct for survival, about how even a person determined to kill himself is often betrayed by his body in the end. Feet struggle to find the knocked-over chair, a gag reflex fights the swallowed pills, exhausted arms pull to one side, turning the disconsolate swimmer back, and back again, toward shore.

Giving up is easier for the mind than the body.

Maybe that explains why I open my purse and take out the negatives.

I know it's over. There's not a doubt in my mind. It's been over from the moment I told Nick I was coming home. No, from the moment I saw the envelope full of cash on Luke's coffee table. Or
maybe from the moment I got into my car and pointed it west. No. Earlier still. It was over the night my mother died.

For five years I've been fighting the tide, barely keeping my head above water, memories of the past always there, grabbing at my ankles, trying to pull me under. Surely it's time to just accept the fact that sinking is not only inevitable but a welcome relief.

And yet . . .

Here I am, standing once more in the darkroom's amber glow.