The barrowfields, p.28
The Barrowfields, page 28
“That was Story’s real mom?”
“Yes, Lelia was Story’s birth mother.” He looked around to make sure we were alone. “And let me tell you, she was like a God damn painting, I swear to Jesus. She was really something. I don’t think I’ve ever seen a prettier girl to this day. She had big, soft tits out to here and an ass like a ten-year-old boy. Your dick got hard just looking at her. So everybody was outside walking around drinking and it was dark and I’d had too much ’cause that’s what I do and Ben did, too, and he was off somewhere and I took Leely on a walk down to the lake.”
Mr. Glauchnor sat for some time thinking while his cigarette burned itself out in the ashtray. I think he was going back through it in his mind; making sure his memory of it matched the reality he knew to exist.
“And you know what happened next,” he said.
“I don’t.”
“She claimed—she claimed—I took advantage of her.” He didn’t look at me when he said this. It was hardly the protestation of an innocent man. He knew the lie all too well but no longer believed it.
“Did she go to the police?”
“I guess she might have, but my mother intervened and money changed hands just to keep the whole thing quiet. Ben left town—he was pissed as shit at me. I mean, he was furious. He should have just come to me and kicked my ass. Instead, he went by our house and told Piper.”
“Holy hell.”
“I hated him for that. I still hate him for it.”
“So Lelia—what were you calling her? Leely?”
Mr. Glauchnor nodded.
“Leely was pregnant and you were—holy shit, you were married. Then what? You and Piper agreed to adopt the baby? Was Leely not going to keep the baby?”
“Nobody wanted the baby. The thing in my life I’m the least proud of—and there’s been plenty not to be proud of—but the one thing I’ve done in my life I’m the least proud of is that one night real late I went to see Leely. This is probably two months after she got pregnant, and she snuck outside and we talked about what she was going to do and what I was going to do and—dear god—she wanted me to hit her in the stomach so she’d lose the baby.”
“And you did it.”
“Yes, I did it. Over and over again until she cried. But she wanted me to.”
“But obviously she had the baby.”
“Obviously.”
“What happened to Ben?”
“As I said, he left town. Some people were saying that the baby might’ve been his and who knows, maybe it could’ve been, but he didn’t want anything to do with it. So he joined the army and two months into training he was in the barracks and shot himself in the face with a rifle. Accidentally, I’m sure.”
“Jesus Christ.”
“So to make a long story short, the baby was coming and we had the choice of having my whole family living in the same God damn town—in our town, the town we basically owned at one time—we could all live in the same town as my bastard child and watch it be raised by that poor white-trash girl, or we could adopt it, so to speak, and put a lid on the whole damn thing, which is exactly what we did.”
After Buller and I returned to Old Buckram, Story called me to say she was staying with BethAnn in Chapel Hill for a few days and that everything was fine. I tried talking to her about what had happened, but she changed the subject. She was distant and cut our conversation short and hung up without saying goodbye. The last thing she said to me was, “I’ll call you soon, I promise.” I took this to mean that she needed space, and I tried to give it to her. On Wednesday afternoon she called and said, “I have something I have to tell you,” which, depending on the context, are words almost no one wants to hear. After leaving Lot’s Folly, she had gone to Charlotte to see her ex-boyfriend. He had lived through so much of the turmoil with her parents and she felt like he was the one person in the world who would truly understand. She had stayed there with him on Friday night and then gone on to Chapel Hill the next morning. I felt the floor give way under my feet. She told me it meant nothing at all, but that she wanted to be honest with me.
“I need to think about this,” I said. “Maybe I’ll call you sometime this weekend.”
“Listen to me—Nothing happened, I swear to you. I slept on the couch. Being there felt all wrong and I thought about you the whole time.”
The point, of course, was not whether she slept on the couch—although that made me feel a little bit better—but that she had gone there at all. She wasn’t over him and it was way too early for her to be getting serious with me.
“I need to think about it,” I said, still reeling from her revelation.
“What’s your address?”
“You’re not coming here,” I said.
“I know. In case I need to send you a letter.”
“Please don’t send me anything.”
“Just give me your address.”
“I’ll call you later,” I said, and hung up the phone. I’d been sweeping the kitchen floor and I took the broom handle and smashed it into pieces over a wooden column, destroying the column in the process. I yelled and cursed and slammed around until I felt like I might kick a hole in the piano and then I knew it was time to stop. As a lesser violence, I took the few pictures I had of Story and pitched them in the trash, only to retrieve them a few minutes later. I became wretched with grief to find that one of them had been ruined by my childish tantrum.
I wanted to talk to Threnody. When I called her, Mother answered the phone, so I hung up like a damn adolescent. I called back a few minutes later and they both answered, so I didn’t say anything. Threnody said, “I’ve got it,” and Mother hung up, and I said, “Hey, Bird.”
She said, “I thought it might be you.”
“Bird,” I said, “I’m having kind of a hard time here.”
“What’s wrong?” This was said without detectable sympathy.
I told her an abridged version of the Story saga, but she didn’t seem to care. We got off the phone in awkward silence and I proceeded to get wasted on wine and vodka and passed out on the floor next to Buller. I woke up with a nosebleed, a pounding headache, an out-of-whack TMJ, and a rug mark on my face that wouldn’t go away. I’d forgotten to let Buller outside, and he had peed in the corner of the room and was so afraid I was going to be mad at him about it, which obviously I wasn’t. I hadn’t been to work all week because I was afraid to show Charlie my two black eyes, but he had given me a research project on equitable subrogation the previous week and needed it for court, so on Thursday morning I dragged myself off the floor and drove to the office. I made it through one entire court of appeals opinion before throwing up. I avoided Charlie all day so he wouldn’t see me in my deplorable state, but he got word through Sylvia and caught up with me after lunch. The sight of me made him laugh out loud.
“What in the world happened to you? Did you step on a rake?”
I told him it was a silly accident. He said, “What’s her name?”
When I got home from work that evening and opened the door, the phone was ringing, but I didn’t answer it. A few minutes later it rang again. The third time it rang, I answered. It was Story.
“Are you there?”
I said nothing in response. It took restraint not to slam the phone down or smash it repeatedly against the wall. I held the receiver in my lap and considered the implications of just hanging up, then put it back up to my ear.
“Look,” she said, “please talk to me. It doesn’t matter what you say.”
“I don’t think you’d want to hear it.”
I heard her sigh. She let a long silence pass before saying, “Are you going to be there for a few hours?”
“Why?”
“Because I’m on my way up.”
“On your way up to where?” I said.
“To Old Buckram.”
“Listen—seriously. I don’t want you to come.”
“Well, I’m coming. I’m on the way. I’m at some sketchy convenience store on 421 and there’s a man with T.-rex arms and no teeth who tried to pump my gas, but he doesn’t work here. Now can I have your address? If not, I’ll just drive around until I see your car.”
—
She arrived late and couldn’t conceal her mortification at the vulture house. I had turned on every working interior and exterior light to make it look as inviting as possible, but Story nevertheless experienced a certain psychic trauma from the ghastly decay of the old mansion. I’d warned her all I could, but it did nothing to blunt the effect. She came in through the medieval front door and marveled at the vast spaces and tiled hallways disappearing into the meandering depths of the house. I gave her a tour to bring light to the shadows and show her that no monsters were hiding inside. We climbed the spiral staircase to the library and then went up again to the third floor, where we looked out over the courtyard to the town beyond. There was no moon and the stars were visible over the Morning Mountain in the gloom. A silver cobweb decorated the old bronze telescope—an heirloom tiller on a long-abandoned ship.
“What do you think?” I said. “Faintly macabre, yes?”
She said, “It’s haunted.”
I showed her to the alcove with the oddly canted ceiling, formerly the neighborhood destination for animal sacrifices. The goat’s head and pentagram had since received a single coat of paint, but the images were still visible, as if they had been burned into the wall with a torch. I said, “Here’s where you’ll be sleeping.”
She said, “Like hell I am.”
“Well, then I don’t know what to tell you.”
“How about I just sleep on the floor in your room? No offense, but this house scares me to death. I can’t believe you’re staying here all by yourself.”
“I grew up here, so most of the demons have vanished for me.”
“Still.” An involuntary spasm passed through her body.
That night I held her and she cried, and when she finished crying, we talked until morning about her family, and how her father’s treatment of her all those years seemed wantonly cruel in light of her newfound knowledge. She was still putting the pieces together, one by one, year by year.
“Your brother and sisters don’t know,” I said.
“They have to know. Why do you think they don’t?”
“Your father told me.”
—
Somehow I got to work the next day and Story studied for the bar exam at the library in town. I’d been home for thirty minutes when she arrived back at the house. I’d had a knot in my stomach all day thinking about her staying with the old boyfriend after the disaster in Lot’s Folly. Despite the time we’d spent together, she and I had not yet been fully intimate in the physical sense (a deficiency I’d longingly hoped to cure in Lot’s Folly), and in my boiling mind I imagined her on that exhausted night falling helplessly into his familiar arms, being greedily caressed and soothed and comforted, and allowing him that divine closeness I’d thus far only imagined.
We went outside to throw the ball for Buller. We walked down to the decaying courtyard on the side of the hill and took turns throwing as we went through the motions: “How was your day?” “Fine, how was yours?” “Did you get a lot of studying in?” “I did. Did you finish your research project?” And so on.
Story was beautiful as always. She was wearing a simple white dress that was perfect; it flowed just behind her as she moved. The dress and all the green around us on the mountain caused the baleful house to fade momentarily from view and brought to my mind a happy, nostalgic vision of Scott and Zelda playing on the terrace of the Grove Park Inn, Scott in his plus fours and Zelda resplendent in her clothes picked out special for the summer hotel. A belt of linen ran high around Story’s waist, and I watched mesmerized as she untied it and refastened it just below her breasts. I longed deeply for her and thinking again that she had just been with her old boyfriend caused my anger and jealousy to return and flash hot across my face. I looked away and tried to make myself not care.
Sensing my irritation, she asked me what I was thinking about.
“You don’t want to know what I’m thinking about,” I said.
“It was a nice day today, wasn’t it?”
“It was,” I said, “and it still is.” And it was, certainly, but this was bitter comfort. Buller charged back up the hill with his ball and engaged in a game of keep-away with Story as she tried to pry it from his mouth. She bent at the waist and I made myself look away again lest I transform on that very spot from human flesh into flame.
Trying to be as self-protectively distant as possible, I said, “You know how Buller seems to enjoy nothing more than to chase a tennis ball no matter how many times you throw it for him?”
Story pulled her blond hair out of her face. “Yes?”
“And have you noticed that no matter how tired he gets, he will always keep going, on and on, ad nauseam, ad infinitum, and keep chasing tennis balls, as long as someone is willing to throw for him?”
“Yes, I suppose so.”
“So my question is this: Does Buller want to retrieve tennis balls, or does he have to? Does he have a choice? We’re talking basic determinism here.”
Having extracted the tennis ball, Story whipped it back across the courtyard into a hedge. Buller bolted fiercely after it like he’d never have a chance to chase another one.
“You know,” said Story, wiping her hands on the grass, “as shitty as this is right now, I honestly feel like this is where I belong. I don’t want to be anywhere else. You’re half acting like you hate me, and I don’t even know where in the hell I am, geographically speaking, and I’m probably crazy, but something inside me tells me it’s where I’m supposed to be.”
“You think this is shitty?”
“It is shitty. We’re acting like we don’t know each other. We’re behaving like strangers who just met—you’re talking nonsensically about canine determinism, for example—and I’m at your house in the hinterlands, away from everything I find comforting and comfortable, and you’re barely speaking to me and I feel terrible about what’s happened, but somehow in some inexplicable way I can’t think of anywhere else in the world I’d rather be. I feel like I’m supposed to be here.”
Softening now, I said, “I think I know what you mean.”
“Do you, or are you just saying that?”
“No, I really do. I felt just that way when your dad was pummeling me on the floor of your parents’ living room.”
She came around in front of me and took my hands. “Listen to me. Are you listening? Yes, I went to see him, but I don’t love him anymore. I know that’s what’s bothering you. I know that’s why you’re not talking to me like you used to. I don’t love him. I’m not with him now for a reason. I’m here. That should tell you something. I’m here with you.”
“It sounds to me like you’re not sure what you want.”
“I promise you. If I wanted to be with him, I would be, but I’m not. I’ve seen him once in I don’t know how long.”
“You left me at your parents’ house with a bone fracture and spent the night with him.”
“It wasn’t like that,” she said. “I was just driving. I didn’t know where I was going. I was in the car for hours. I was on autopilot. It just happened.”
“I’m encouraged to know that your autopilot takes you to the couch in his living room,” I said.
“Stop. I was in shock. You have to understand that. My whole world had been turned on its head. I just needed a reality check. I needed to talk to someone who I knew would understand and who’d been through some of that with me and who might tell me I wasn’t crazy—”
“I get that,” I said. “And I’m sure there’ll be other things like that. Which is okay with me. It’s totally acceptable with me if you want to still see him and talk to him or do whatever. I just can’t be falling madly in love with you when some part of your heart is still tied up with him. I couldn’t take it.”
Story almost smiled.
“What?”
“I think you just told me you’re falling in love with me.”
“No, I didn’t.”
She was holding me now around the waist, her face just below my chin, looking up at me with her eyes adorably crossed by the minutest fraction.
“I’m pretty sure you did.”
What I wanted to say to her was that I was indeed entirely and unequivocally in love with her and that I had been for so, so long. I hadn’t told her this, but I had felt it so many times. Part of me had hoped my foolish storybook love (and the accompanying crushing desire) would fade to something more grounded in realism once we truly came to know each other and I discovered all her repellent flaws, but my feelings had only grown with time and familiarity and I had come to desire her to the point of delirium.
“Damn it, Story,” I said. “Why are you doing this to me?”
“I promise you nothing happened,” she said. “I promise. If nothing else, it reminded me why he and I aren’t together anymore.”
All I could do was shake my head. I believed her—I wanted to believe her more than anything—but it still hurt like hell and the fact that I wanted her so much made the sting, still pricked deep into my heart, so much worse.
“Story,” I said desperately, foolishly, “do you love me?”
She searched her mind for an answer but didn’t find one.
“Don’t,” I said, pulling away. “I don’t want to know.”
She caught me again and folded herself into me. “Babe,” she said, “I do love you. I do. I promise I do. I love you, but it’s just that I’m…I’m afraid.”
“Why are you afraid?” I said. “What are you afraid of?”
“I’m afraid to love anyone.”
—
At length Buller wore himself out chasing the tennis ball and we went inside so I could change out of my work clothes. We were both feeling better now that we had talked, and I was awash in a complex overlay of aching desire and childlike excitement about the coming evening. We had planned to get dinner out somewhere and then head back up into the mountains to explore and look at the stars. On our way into the house Story went to the bar in the Great Room and said, “I’ll make us a drink!” She was getting a little more used to the house, or making a good show of it.
