This Is How I'd Love You (31 page)

“Do you?”

“What I mean is, I can sew well. I can repair things or make things. Anything, really.”

Arty’s thick eyebrows arch with understanding. “Ah, yes. I see. Practical girl. A job is what you’re after, not advice.”

“Of course, obviously, I could use advice. But I’ve got to have a roof over my head . . .”

“Say no more. You can sleep here.” He motions to his tightly made bed.

“I didn’t mean that I’d take yours; I was hoping . . . I don’t even know how these things work, but I was hoping . . .”

“. . . to have a wagon to yourself? You mean you didn’t wanna share a bed with a circus man? There are no extra wagons, Miss Dench. I’m afraid we are a full house. But my aging back actually prefers the floor. So you may take the bed for yourself. I will not add to your troubles.”

Hensley hangs her head in relief. Her mouth feels suddenly raw from all the carrots. “You are very kind. I tried a friend’s house, but she was not home. I know my brother will be terribly worried. Your kindness is really lovely.”

“Your brother has expectations for you. I have none. The term
family
can be a sword with which we slice away those who’ve loved us most. Because they’ve also disappointed us the most. I betcha he’d be this kind to a stranger.”

“Do you mean that if you were my brother, you’d marry me off to a cad, too? My shame does not offend you because you don’t care about me?”

“Nope. I do care about you. But I have no memory of you as my sweet little six-year-old sis, with your dolly under your arm and your face pressed up against mine. I never confused your life with my own.”

Hensley nods. She remembers playing jacks with Harold in front of the fireplace. Both of their little hands working so hard to grab more jacks than the other. Harold had a way with that red rubber ball, though. On his turn it would seem to hang in the air, as though he’d figured out a way around gravity. He won every time. But then, just as she was on the verge of tears, he’d wordlessly drop a half dozen shiny jacks into her lap. She liked the extra weight, the way they fell out of his hand and into the hollow her dress had made. But it never assuaged the sting of losing.

Arty pulls a small woven rug from another cabinet beneath the window. He unrolls it just beneath the chair where she sits. The top of his head is bald and the skin is mottled with dark freckles.

Without warning, once the rug is in place, he kicks his legs up against the wall beside her and stands on his hands. “Trade secret, Hensley. I do a handstand every night. For strength.”

She replaces the jar of pickled vegetables. Removing her hat, she sets the pins on the table beside his ashtray. As she unlaces her shoes, she says, her voice trembling, “I had a place at Wellesley. Last month. My father was so proud. I was to study English literature.”

Arty’s toes wiggle slightly. “Instead you will study fairy tales.”

She smiles and stretches out on the small bed. The baby is active, pushing against her belly with what she can only imagine are his knees, elbows, or maybe even his chin. She cradles him with her arms, loving all of his imaginary pieces already. “Only the ones with happy endings, please.”

“Is there any other kind?” Arty asks, his face reddening to a surprising shade of crimson as his biceps bulge. “We’ll see about some tailoring work for you. But if you’d be a part of my act tomorrow night, I’d be grateful.”

“Of course I will. Yes, of course.”

C
harles cannot sleep. The whiskey has left him thirsty and restless. The bed frame makes an ugly creak as he shifts. He throws the sheet off, then shivers and pulls it back on.

Finally the room begins to fill with light. He doesn’t know if he’s slept or not. His pillow is hot beneath his head and it is a relief to pull his face up and away from it. He looks around, his clothes from the night before in a distraught pile, his prosthetic fallen on top in surrender. The black ink recklessly circles it.

Charles wonders if the doctor in Chicago will send him a replacement. He cringes at the thought of having to explain his own idiocy. The dawn makes him suddenly sleepy, but he wants out of the bed.

He reaches for the leg and straps it on, trying to keep his eyes from lingering on any of the words.
Let’s agree to exist for each other forever.
He pulls his pants on quickly, covering this fresh pain.

On his desk, he notices a small pile of mail he did not see yesterday. Three letters, two from his cousin in California and another from France. Lieutenant Paul Rogerson.

Charles pulls out the chair and eagerly opens this last one.

Greetings from muddy hell,

How are you? I trust you are completely recuperated and hitting all the best nightspots in honor of your old pal from CCS #13. You know the news here doesn’t change—fight, fix, fight, fix. I think I might be here forever. Foulsom had a telegram delivering the news that he’s now a father to a chubby baby boy. It’s only made him more intolerable.

During another run to the train station, I stood there smoking, avoiding eye contact with the hordes of old women and their livestock. Instead, I watched a certain bird on a branch and here’s what I wondered: does that bird know how lucky it is? That effortless perch, those claws made just for that very purpose, the high view of everything, and escape just a few flaps away. No hands that might long for the cold reassurance of a gun or the lovely curve of a woman’s waist (surely the source of all our troubles, eh?). This bird’s head turned in small, mechanical moves from that high place and it looked just as bored as I did. Is there any joy there? I thought. And if not, if that creature is looking at our earthbound legs and long arms with envy, then we’re really fucked. Just a bunch of forlorn creatures wandering the earth, longing for the attributes of others. We will never be happy.

I guess this is another way of saying that I am stuck in my own head without you here. It’d sure be nice for you to blow a hole through my amateur bullshit philosophy. How ’bout it?

In friendship,

P. Rogerson

 • • • 

C
harles has fallen asleep in the middle of breakfast.

“Charles,” his mother scolds. “I do not tolerate snoring at the table. I never have and I never will.”

He apologizes and smiles at his mother, watching her sip from the delicate teacup painted with a scene of small lambs and blue flowers. “I couldn’t sleep last night,” he explains. He looks at his toast. “Pass the jam, please.”

“You could ask the doctor for a formula,” she suggests, reaching her hand across the table.

“I just have a lot on my mind. No need for medicine, Mother.”

“You were not home when I went to bed. Perhaps if you need more sleep, you should actually retire at a decent hour.”

“I was walking. Used to be my best medicine.”

She does not reply to this. They each chew in silence. She pours more tea, methodically adding sugar and cream, then stirring it all gently with a silver teaspoon.

Charles wonders if Hensley will ever see that goblet. He didn’t leave his name—would she ever know that he’d been there, that it was he who had followed her handwriting all the way to Hillsboro, New Mexico, only to return with just that silver goblet?

Suddenly he remembers something Teresa told him before he boarded his train. He didn’t understand it then, but now it makes perfect, broken sense.
Whatever you find there, in New York, she wished it had been you. All along. From the moment I met her.

Her bedroom wall, the stones, and Teresa’s words all corroborated the truth of her letters. She had not been lying; it was not a ruse. He groans, as though having been punched in the stomach. “Charles Reid!” His mother stands up and comes around the table. “Are you all right? What is the meaning of this?” She places a hand against his forehead. “Are you ill?”

He takes his mother’s hand in his. “No, Mother. I’m sorry. I just remembered something I forgot to do. Please excuse me.” He kisses her warm skin and carefully stands. “Finish your breakfast in peace.”

He returns to his room to write a letter.

New York

Dear Rogerson,

You really are thinking too much. Of course, I am in the same boat. For me, though, it is not the birds I wonder about, it is just one girl. I found her. Hensley Dench. I’ve found her and discovered that she is betrothed and pregnant. Can you believe it? This leaves me more bereft than did the loss of my leg. I suppose you would tell me that she was always a bit too good to be true. And, now, I would agree. Still, the pain is too real for it to have been false.

Regarding your bird and its feet: I think there is something smaller than joy, some suitability and comfort of those three small toes (?) wrapped around a lovely summer branch, that even in the middle of such a terrible war, you can admire their compatibility. There are many instances of this in our own species, but I know you may need to be reminded of them, given your current circumstances. In fact, the first you’ve already mentioned.

1. Our long, desirous arms do seem to be made to hold the swells and hollows of another’s body.

2. Our uniquely bipedal form longs to reach for all things above our heads: crisp, red apples; the blossoms of magnolias and cherry trees; perhaps a hundred years from now, a long-forgotten bundle of letters written by an unknown man to a child’s great-grandmother, stored on a high, dusty shelf; the luminous, irrepressible stars.

3. Our words, whether formed with ink or voice, are met by perfectly undulated ears and strung into a mysterious system with which we create meaning. Are you reading this, Rogerson? Can you hear my voice? Well, if so, it is as if you are soaring just beside that bird you admired because you’ve managed to travel thousands of miles simply by holding this paper between your dirty—in fact, probably bloody—fingers.

There. What else can I tell you? I’ve decided to endure. It is the only way ahead.

Your turn. Go ahead and blow a hole through my philosophy. I look forward to it more than you can imagine. Stay safe.

In friendship,

Charles Reid

W
hen Hensley wakes, she is not sure where she is. A series of loud cracks and whistles makes her think that she has traveled all the way across the ocean and found her way into Mr. Reid’s barrack. Would he hide her beneath his blankets, give her a swig of water from his canteen, warn her—even as his eyes tell her of his relief—of the dangers of following her impulses? Would he hold her tightly until he felt the swell in her belly? And then what? With her own eyes still closed, she pulls the thin blanket tighter around her shoulders and sighs.

Soon she hears a knocking on the door.

“Hensley, you awake, darlin’?”

It is Arty’s voice. Somehow this scenario is more unbelievable to Hensley than the one in which she crossed an ocean and found Mr. Reid. Has she truly run away? Is she living with the circus? In the strong man’s wagon?

He opens the door, a bundle of fabric in his arms.

Hensley sits up and rubs her eyes.

“Good morning,” he says, dumping the pile on the foot of the bed. “Here’s your keep. Mending galore.”

Hensley smiles. “No kidding. I will never see the light of day.”

“Maybe not, but you will see the lights tonight.” He presents her with a cup of milky coffee and a plate of toast and jam. “Don’t forget. You’re my grand finale.”

Hensley takes the toast and coffee and eats enthusiastically. Crumbs spill on the blanket. She curls her toes with delight. “Thank you,” she says to Arty, who is waxing his mustache in the small mirror over the sink.

“Pleasure,” he says.

When she digs the sewing kit out of her satchel, she lets her hand linger on the letters. She does not need to open one to know its contents, but she longs to see his handwriting. Its firm, black existence. A truth. An actuality. Just the sight of her own name formed by his hand gives her a solace she cannot explain.