The Castle Cross the Magnet Carter (53 page)

Eliot walks up the stairs and eases open the door of the guestroom. Andi had always had the habit of disappearing under the blankets, her head eventually popping out while she dreamed. Turtle. He waits for this to happen but before it does, he hears a faint restless cry from his parents' bedroom. His
father's
bedroom. Eliot gently taps on the door, and when there's no answer he discreetly peeks in. Lon lying fully clothed on the made bed, eyes closed and breathing evenly. He wears a suit to receive visitors over these three days. Eliot starts to gingerly close the door and leave.

“I'm awake.”

His father's eyes are now open. Eliot steps inside, shutting the door and leaning against it.

“You okay, Dad?”

“Mm hm.” Lon stares at the ceiling. A rumble of thunder. Usually such an incident would be answered by his commentary on the weather, but this evening he doesn't seem to notice. Gradually he lowers his eyes to Eliot. “That Andi seems nice.”

“She is.” Did he introduce her to his father? Eliot can't remember.

Lon looks at the ceiling again. “Dwight's tryin to figure out the music. ‘Nearer My God to Thee.' Guess that's pretty standard. And ‘Just a Closer Walk with Thee.' That sound good?”

“Yeah, that's great, Dad.”

“Oh. While you boys were lookin over the caskets, the grave marker people called. I jus told em ‘Claris Louise Campbell, 1906–1960, Loving Wife and Mother.' That okay?”

“That's fine.”

Lon's chest rises high and falls, a soundless sigh.

“Think I might go ahead an take my vacation this week. Ernie down there can inventory the jars an bottles for a few days.”

“You want me to call them?”

“No, I know what to say to em.” Eliot follows his father's gaze at the ceiling. He wonders if they are staring at the same crack, or if Lon is seeing any cracks at all.

“‘Sweet Bye and Bye.' She liked that one.”

“Oh yes! Thank you, son.”

He watches his father, who continues to look at the ceiling. A sudden downpour, the sound filling the room. Eliot slides his back down the door so that he is stooping, staring at nothing for twenty minutes, thirty minutes. When he stands again Lon's eyes are closed. Eliot steps out, quietly shutting the door behind him.

The guestroom door is open, the bed remade. Eliot walks downstairs. He finds her sitting out on the porch in the sliding chair, gazing at the pouring rain.

“Hey,” he says.

“Hey.” She smiles, nap-refreshed. She wears her coat, unbuttoned.

He sits beside her and stares at the evening cloudburst. Eventually he cautiously reaches for her hand, holding it, and she squeezes back, neither of them ever taking their eyes off the shower.

“Look, Eliot,” she says. “All the people dancing in the street.”

When the rain stops, they walk back inside. It's nearly eight and Andi is famished after their interrupted lunch, but when she sees Eliot has lost his appetite again she keeps her meal lean. They sit at the kitchen table, and a new worry nags him as he watches her chew her boiled egg and dry toast. When he invited her, he never considered sleeping arrangements. What he would really like is for Andi to sleep with him in the guestroom, but he has no idea if by asking her to share his bed he would offend her, or if by
not
asking he would hurt her. Another complication: though all he really wants is for them to hold each other this night, he believes the implication of more with a woman who is not his wife would be disrespectful to his father. He supposes the logical solution would be to give her the guestroom and go back to his old twin, sharing the room with Dwight.

“What's the matter?”

He is startled to see her looking at him.

“Oh! Nothing.”

She takes a drink of water.

“So am I sleeping on the guest bed? Or the couch? Or I can check into a hotel if you're full up with family.”

He remembers she didn't know he had slept in the guestroom last night, that she obviously expects to sleep without him, and he is relieved that the decision has been made with no injured feelings.

“The guestroom. Aunt Beck's the only one staying here, and she sleeps on the couch.”

“I can trade with her if she'd rather.”

“Thanks. We always ask her and she always says no. She likes the couch. Pulls out to a bed.”

“Can I see your old room?” She means his and Dwight's, and he realizes he has shown her every space in the house save that one. They climb the stairs. He points out that his was the twin next to the inside wall, Dwight's against the outside wall and back window. Andi asks, Is this your pogo stick? Who carved that face with the tongue into the dresser? This photo of the toddler boy smiling with your mother, you or Dwight? Eliot answers all her questions, even as sleep is overtaking him and he lies on his bed. Then Andi is gone and Claris walks in wearing her burgundy suit. She seems distracted, going through drawers, looking for something.

“Mom!” Eliot sits up. “I thought you died!” He's so happy to see her!

“Oh that was a mistake,” she says absently, never turning to him, finding a small box on top of the bureau and scrutinizing its every corner.

He is abruptly awake. Looks at the clock: quarter to midnight. The lights in the room still bright on. Dwight sits on his bed, going through notes. His face is strained, calculating logistics, probably figuring out the funeral procession car assignments.

“Andi's in the guestroom.” Eliot's voice startles Dwight. The older brother frowns, as if trying to understand some deeper meaning in the information just conveyed to him, then nods and returns to his task. Eliot sits up and takes off his shoes, letting them drop to the floor. He is too exhausted to do anything else in the way of undressing, so he lies back down and finishes his thought. “So I'm sleeping here tonight. And tomorrow night. If it's alright with you.”

“It's alright with me if it's alright with you.”

“It's alright with me,” says Eliot, and turns to face the wall.

“I might be gone in the mornin,” Dwight says. “I'll leave a number. Where I can be reached.”

No answer.

“You hear?”

“I hear.”

Dwight writes a few more notes, then looks up at his brother's back. “It's Keith's number.” He allows a few moments for this to sink in. “I'm going to see Keith. Remember Keith? From the pickup truck? He lives out at the trailer park, I'll be with
him
.”

Eliot is so still Dwight wonders if he is already back asleep. Dwight continues regardless, his eyes stinging and determined, the pen in his hand trembling. “I'll be with
Keith,
at the
trailer park
. I'll leave a number, if you need me, I'll be at
Keith's
.” Silence. “O
kay?
”

“Gotcha,” replies Eliot, and no more words pass between the brothers that night.

**

It's close to nine when Andi wakes Sunday morning, ravenous. She knocks on the door of the brothers' room.

“Come in.”

Both beds are made. Eliot sits on his, editing the tribute. He glances up just long enough to identify Andi, then, his mind far away, looks back down at his page. Dwight is gone.

“Shall we have some breakfast?”

“You go ahead.” He doesn't look up. “I'll be down in a little while.”

Andi's impulse is to insist that he eat, to tell him he needs his strength, but she's conflicted, not certain if her own growling stomach is her real priority. She could go on downstairs and grab a bite as he suggests but she hears voices, extended family and friends already and of course Aunt Beck, and all she needs is for those biddies to see Eliot's
mature
girlfriend, or whatever they think her relationship to him is, stuffing her face while poor Eliot is left alone to struggle with the memories of his mother.

“Alrighty then, maybe I'll go for a walk.”

“Okay.” Eliot rises, and Andi is hopeful that he will come along, that they will go downstairs together and she can convince him to eat even a little food with her, but he retrieves a thesaurus off a nearby shelf and sits back down to his work.

“Okay. I'll be back.” She descends the steps, hearing the crowd talking around the smorgasbord in the kitchen, and walks out the front door. She remembers passing a corner market in her stroll with Eliot yesterday. (“That wasn't here when I was coming up.”) She finds the place, buys three six-packs of orange-colored cheese crackers with peanut butter, takes them out to the small parking lot, and greedily gobbles them all.

There are two viewings, 2 to 4 and 7 to 9. Stan the funeral director had suggested the immediate family be there by one to “have time alone with her.” Andi comes with them, Dwight driving his father's car (rather than his own two-seater truck), but without being asked by them for privacy, she stays in the lobby while the three men, all wearing black suits, walk into the large parlor. She looks around at the red furniture, too comfortable, too formal, at the guest book ready for signatures. She glances out the window, the sky heavy gray. It had been drizzling on and off all day. At one point she walks over to glance in at the family. Lon stands next to the casket looking down at his wife, Dwight sits far to the right in the front pew looking down at the floor, Eliot stands far to the left, hands in pockets, staring at his mother. All three seeming lost, and utterly alone.

A few people come right at two, and the place is crowded from 2:30 on. Both brothers are gracious and stoic. After a while Eliot wanders around, gazing at the plentiful flower arrangements, reading the cards, most with a printed note, “In Sympathy,” followed by a handwritten name. A generous autumn bouquet is signed

Winston Douglas and Associates

Winston, Andi, Will, Beau

Eliot smiles, knowing that Andi would have been the one to put in the order and thus the sequence of names her decision. A smaller arrangement is signed “Affectionately, Andi.” And another, a dozen long-stem roses, simply “Didi (Wilcox).”

Andi tries to be with Eliot when he wishes, to leave him alone when he would desire that. His cues are not so clear, and finally she whispers: “Would you rather I sit down? Or do you prefer I stand with you?”

“Uh-huh,” he replies, smiling at his mother's cousin Delores, just in from Ohio.

Eliot goes to the bathroom, and when he returns he stops short. He is looking at their backs: Dwight standing at the casket with Keith beside him. Keith wears a respectful black suit. Dwight is talking quietly, evidently telling Keith about their mother. Eliot looks around to see if others are also stunned, but either no one else seems to take note or they are all pretending well. After a few minutes, Dwight walks Keith to the door. Keith pats Dwight's arm, the same way their cousin Monroe had done to Eliot when they first saw each other yesterday, and Keith leaves.

Lon sits quietly in the front middle pew, as close as possible to Claris, letting people come to him. At five minutes to four, almost all visitors now gone, he breaks into uncontrollable sobs. Dwight runs to kneel before his father and talk to him softly. Eliot stares at them, the nearest he has come to weeping himself since arriving home.

Outside the building, a handful of family members waits. Dwight emerges through the door, now using a clipboard for his notes, making him appear like a children's football coach. He announces that the prayer service will commence at “the house” at five, immediately followed by a meeting of the pallbearers. Monroe is driving Aunt Beck and Lon home, and just before the new widower gets into the passenger side he turns to Eliot, Dwight, and Andi, the only ones remaining on the sidewalk. “Would you like to ride with us, Andi?”

It is a gesture of kindness, revealing that Lon has noted the petty gossip regarding Eliot's guest and he isn't having it. Andi looks at Eliot, unsure. Eliot smiles. “Go ahead.”

After they pull off, Eliot turns to Dwight, the latter's eyes still on the clipboard. “Prayer service?”

“We told you about it last night when you got in, guess you were too tired. Reverend Fairbanks.” Dwight sighs. “It'll be in the living room, he said it shouldn't take longer n twenty minutes.”

Eliot has had experience with what Reverend Fairbanks calls a “short” service. He nods. “Bunch of baloney, I'm not going.”

Dwight snaps. “Can't you do it for
Dad?
”

Eliot stares at his brother, then swerves away to walk the two miles home alone. He cannot believe Dwight
of all people
still buys into that conservative hypocritical bunk. He hears his brother starting the car behind him and doesn't turn around.

People are already gathered in the living room when Eliot gets home. Andi stands next to Lon. She exchanges glances with Eliot as he enters, and it is clear in her face that it is clear in
his
face that he had just had another confrontation with Dwight. He goes up the stairs, shutting himself inside his room until Andi taps on the brothers' door. “Eliot. The pastor's here.”

There are seventeen in the living room, standing in a circle. “Let us hold hands,” the reverend begins, the last thing Eliot wants to do. Luckily Andi is to his right, and one of Liddie's little girls to his left. The minister has bowed his head in prayer, and everyone but Eliot follows suit. He is at first surprised that Andi goes along with it, then remembers:
Oh
yes, Mother's Day—the annual holy supplicant. The preacher reads from Isaiah and Ecclesiastes, the assembly chorusing intermittent “Amen”s, and the session concludes with a quiet 23rd Psalm, surprisingly over as promised just twenty minutes after it had begun. The pastor shakes Lon's hand firmly and embraces him, gives Dwight the same treatment, and finally Eliot. “Okay, can the pallbearers please come into the kitchen?” calls Coach Dwight.