Margaret's Ark (19 page)

“No. In a way, I guess I understand. It's like we're all on the Titanic, and it's only just sinking in, no pun intended, that the ship's going down. I guess they feel keeping their family happy is more important than staying around a few more years. At least that's how they phrased it.”

The woman had explained to Margaret that her children and grandchildren had begged and pleaded with them to “stop this nonsense” and stay home. They pointed out that Margaret’s “gang” was taking advantage of them, vying for their meager social security checks. The woman assured Margaret they did not believe their family’s fears, even if her daughter had seen it once on
Sixty Minutes
. Happened all the time.

Happened all the time
, Margaret mused. Sure. Every year, thousands of people get a message from God and start building arks on their lawns. The couple had to choose between living out their final years alone, knowing their children were dead, or living a lie for a few more weeks in the graces of home. They chose the latter.

“God knows what's in our hearts, Mrs. Carboneau,” the woman said. “Certainly you don't think He would forsake his children simply because they weren't on the boat at the appointed hour? Besides,” she took Margaret's hand in hers, “what we'd be doing is giving up two spaces for someone with more to look forward to when the waters recede. I like to think God will take that into consideration when the time comes for us to be judged.”

At his wife's words, the man looked up and nodded. This apparent sacrifice should have filled Margaret with wonder, but she'd felt a strong trepidation. Why, she couldn't say. But their sacrifice made her uneasy. She relayed this all to Carl, hoping the unspoken message would sink in. If his parents chose not to join them, maybe it didn't mean they were lost forever. Everyone had a chance for redemption, up until the final moment.

Margaret's coffee was gone. The fire was still going strong, though it was only a Sterno log and would burn itself out in another hour. “We should probably get some sleep.” She rose and gestured to the couch with her empty coffee mug. “There's a bed that unfolds in there. I'll bring out some blankets and a pillow, and there should already be some sheets around the mattress - if you don't mind them being wrinkled.”

He smiled, but made no motion to get up. “Thanks, Mrs. Carboneau.”

She almost asked him to call her Margaret, but caught herself. Best to keep things formal between them. Bad enough his parents would be on her case soon enough for stealing away their son. Calling her by her first name would be enough to start all sorts of rumors flying.

As she wandered over to the closet for the pillow and extra blanket, she thought about Marty Santos. He had feelings for her, or at least she suspected he did. These past few days, he'd been distant. Likely for his own sake - Selectman Edgecomb was never too far away. She wondered why any of it mattered. After Vince had died, she decided she'd never remarry. It might have been an impulsive decision then, but why was she pondering any of it now?
Especially
now?

As she returned to the living room, she watched Carl, who in turn was staring blankly at the fire. The teenager looked older in the dying light, pushed further towards maturity than he would have liked.

After she said good night, Margaret brushed her teeth, closed her bedroom door and changed into a nightgown. She crawled under the sheets. Not since the months following her husband's passing had the bed felt so empty. The thought was a dangerous one, so she ran the schematics of the work yet to be done over in her mind, and eventually fell asleep.

Carl continued sitting on the couch after Mrs. Carboneau closed her bedroom door. His arms, legs, head felt as if they’d been emptied, wrung out like rags then filled with Play dough. It was exhaustion. The eye still hurt, but not as constantly as last night. His right hand, bruised and bloodied on three knuckles, shot pain every time he flexed it.

He was tired. The remnants of the anger he’d felt when leaving his house –  perhaps for the last time – kept him too much on edge to
want
to sleep. He was getting a headache from staring at the fire, so he looked around the living room. From the side table, Carl picked up the two magazines lying there, having to move aside a black book that lay atop them. The first magazine was
Woman’s Day
. Not one he’d ever considered before, but nevertheless, he leafed through pages that sported cheesy baked potatoes and chocolate cakes, headlines like
The Diet You’ve Been Dying To Avoid
. He tossed it back onto the table and considered the second,
Christian Parenting
. He wasn’t a parent, so back onto the first it went.

He should try to sleep. He found himself staring at a bulge under the magazines. He lifted
Christian Parenting
and pulled out the black book he’d moved aside earlier. He read the spine for the title.

Oh.

Carl tried to remember if he’d ever held one of these in his hands before. On the few occasions his family had gone to church – usually Easter and Christmas – the church used some kind of mini-version called a Missal. But this... this was an original. He flipped the pages. The print was small. Still, somewhere in here, maybe, was the secret of Mrs. Carboneau’s faith. Some kind of explanation for how she could so willingly do what she was doing. Maybe this book could even answer why he, himself, could so willingly do what
he
was doing.

Carl was tired. He was edgy. Until these two opposing forces could work some compromise, he opened the Bible to a random page and began to read.

43

Suresh Ramprakash had not been visited by the
deva
since last week. Whether the spirit, who never offered his name, was truly one of the countless denizens of heaven called angels, or Krishna himself, did not matter. The visit had felt final then, that within the dream that was not a dream, he had to make a decision. Choose forever: action or inaction.

He had to decide while in the
deva's
company. This was no fancy. These events were shaping the future, forming history for perhaps the next twenty-five thousand years, as when Krishna first stood with Arjuna on the battlefield. Suresh was chosen, standing in a place much like the grove of his childhood though cleaner, more open than true memory. Suresh felt this mystic world calling him, and knew he could not turn from it. The angel forced him to turn and face the curved and naked shape of Neha sleeping on the starlit path before him, one arm cast beside her and partially hidden by a tree. Her body was perfect. Suresh swelled with admiration and love.

“Is it truly love, or lust?” said the
deva
. “The
rajo-guna
of your faith has two faces, rage and lust. Is true love having this woman's adoration and respect, or merely the occasional touch, the feel of her skin on your lips, the joining of your bodies?”

The spirit spoke frankly, not with judgment but simple curiosity. Suresh had thought about the question, walking forward in the grove and kneeling beside Neha's body. He touched her arm, warm, dark, glistening in the dewy starlight. He
did
want her, physically, yes, but that was not all.

“I do love her,” he whispered, finding his gaze drifting over her body but returning always to her face, the curve of her jaw, the soft blanket of lids over eyes that were full of fire when awakened. The visitor from heaven said nothing, but Suresh felt him watching.

Suresh stood then, and looked away from his wife. The mango trees swayed in a slight wind, rustling their leaves in whispered song. It was beautiful here, as beautiful as the sleeping form behind him. More so, perhaps, but he loved Neha and that was enough. “I do love her,” he repeated softly. Then, with more conviction, “Action rightly denounced brings freedom, does it not?”

The
deva
said nothing at first, his face soft and radiant but without emotion. He looked past Suresh, apparently at the woman, then simply nodded. Before the dream ended, he said with the same, indifferent tone, “Truth, rightly denounced, also brings untruth, does it not?”

Suresh awoke, rolled over to look at his wife in this real, tangible world. She was not there. Of course not, he realized. She was on duty until eleven that morning.

That had been last Thursday, and when Neha had later inquired about his dreams as they watched the evening news, watched the story of those who had
not
turned away from God, he lied and said the visions had stopped.

It felt as though her question was in fact the
deva
speaking through her, asking one more time if he would repent his decision. He did not, breathed easier knowing he was trading one responsibility for another. One
truth
for another. Whether or not this other was a lie, as the angel implied, did not matter. He’d made his decision. It was enough.

Now, he turned right off of Massachusetts Avenue. The lunchtime traffic, even in such a residential community as Arlington, was heavy. The old historic city was a major pass-through between the congested Route 128 traffic and the back roads into Cambridge. Still, as he pulled from the main thoroughfare, skirting the center, he thought there were still too many cars. At a red traffic light, he checked the map he'd printed from the Internet, outlining the neighborhood. He'd have to cut over to Route 3A which eventually led back north to the highway, but break off before the town line onto a small road named Macomb Street. From there, he had only one more turn and he would find what he was looking for.

They would be back in this area on Friday, he and Neha, further up Mass Ave in the wealthy suburb of Lexington. They'd been invited to attend a dinner by Neha's employer. An older man from the way Neha described him. She had clearly stressed the importance of the upcoming event, and had been gracious in not asking him more than a couple of times to refrain from participating in any discussions about the “Flood People,” unless he was asked pointedly. He agreed. She seemed content with his promise. Neha acted as if her husband’s earlier visions never truly happened, that perhaps it was
she
who dreamed the whole thing.

The light turned green. Suresh followed the traffic until it stopped at the next light. On his right spread a massive cemetery, so many headstones he wondered how they found room. He stared at the markers, at the grass only beginning to shimmer that brilliant new green which he and Neha so loved about this country. Spring meant joy for people and plants alike.

There would be no more. Perhaps not all of this would be destroyed; perhaps the forces behind the pending deluge would only prune, snip away the overgrowth like a woman tending her garden.

The horn of a car jolted him from this reverie. Suresh jerked his car forward. Already the gap between his and the next leading car was enough to make the Dodge Ram behind him try pulling around.
Heaven forbid us to have open space on the road
, Suresh thought, and pressed the accelerator to close the gap. The Ram was forced to move back into its place, but not without a flannel arm stuck from the window with the official Boston salute.

Macomb Street was on the left. All but two of the cars ahead of him turned that way, waiting for those coming south to also turn in. The Ram blared its horn again, but Suresh assumed it was directed at the entire crowd of cars this time. After a few minutes, and an appropriate gap in traffic, Suresh pulled his Chevrolet onto Macomb. Two things became obvious. He was not the only one with this particular trip in mind today, and if he was going to get back to work this afternoon without using up a vacation day, he would need a new tactic.

He checked his map, glancing quickly at the cars ahead to be sure he wasn't driving into someone's bumper. His destination wasn't far. Suresh pulled the sedan into the first open spot by the sidewalk and turned off the engine.

It was a nice day. He could walk.

As it turned out, he'd chosen well. The closer he came to his destination, the fewer parking possibilities remained. The sidewalk ran along the tree-lined road, heavy roots occasionally pushing through asphalt. The leaves neared full bloom, casting him and the other walkers in a soft, luminous green. The constant smell of car exhaust, though not eradicated, was greatly reduced here among the old neighborhood homes. The smell of cut grass was life, cool, always moving. He walked by a rose bush. Two yellow bees emerged to fly about his head, offered their obligatory warning, then buzzed away to continue feeding.

The houses were mostly shingled in yellows and browns, perhaps due to some unwritten town rule, or perhaps to cover the slow deterioration of the homes they adorned. The house with the rose bush was vinyl-sided in a powder blue. It stood out from the others in an embarrassing social
faux pas
.

He walked at his own pace, yet moved faster than the cars traveling the narrow road. The houses were bigger on this street than where he’d parked, by a small, but noticeable, margin.

It was a calm neighborhood, peaceful.

The crowd on the sidewalk grew more congested. Suresh had to bend and twist to pass some of the slower walkers. He was still five houses away, curving around a thick-trunked tree which was inexorably tearing itself free from the sidewalk, when he saw it.

The ark's frame was massive. The walls were curved planks and, from what Suresh could tell, perfectly aligned. Round holes had been roughed out in the sides, near the upper deck. Portholes, perhaps?

The bow was raised, by
what
he could not yet see, so that its prow pointed at the sky, waiting for the rain to come.

Suresh slowed his pace, waiting for those in front to move, following them, feeling part of a herd, or a log floating downstream, bumping into obstacles but continuing forward. How many people were here today? A hundred? Two? Not that many, but it did not take much to fill the sidewalk.