Above The Thunder Part 27

Anna heard them all downstairs, Jack and Stuart, Marvin and Greta, the neighbors who streamed in with covered dishes and ca.s.seroles. She never understood the gathering in that went with grief, the circling of the wagons around the injured and the wounded. She hadn't left her room much in the two weeks since that night, hadn't really eaten or slept except in s.n.a.t.c.hes. She took her tea and a blanket to the balcony off her bedroom. In the distance, she saw a black dog running along the water's edge, but even from here she knew it was too small and frenetic to be Flynn's dog, which had been missing since the night of the accident. A man came up behind it and threw a tennis ball into the water. She looked toward Violet's house, saw the smoke from her chimney. Anna visited Violet frequently, felt secure and protected in Violet's presence. She went over the first time a few days after Flynn's service to ask if Violet had seen Flynn's dog. She hadn't, but the two of them searched the entire length of beach, and in the following days, the woods and acreage around their properties. Violet had put posters around town, slightly unnerving in their size and captions: BABY JESUS IS MISSING followed by Anna's phone number. Anna didn't have any photographs of the dog, so the posters had to rely on descriptions-but Violet often forgot to include them, or they were so vague that it wasn't always clear that a dog was the subject.

Anna had had calls from every Bible-thumping nut in two counties, most of whom offered to help her find her personal savior and not the eponymous Newfoundland. The day Anna had stopped answering the phone was after a call came early one morning from a very pleasant-sounding man. "h.e.l.lo, Anna?" a rich baritone had asked. "Are you the woman looking for Baby Jesus?" She said that she was. The man proceeded to quote the Gospel of St. John to her, and when Anna interrupted, as she had with the last six callers, to explain that it was a dog, not salvation, she was looking for, the man started to berate her.

"You're a wh.o.r.e who is going to burn in h.e.l.l," he said. "You live in sin, and allow those who live with you to commit unnatural acts. G.o.d took the precious and the innocent from you." Anna hung up and unplugged the phone, laughing for the first time in what felt like years. It could have been worse. Flynn could have named the dog Elvis, and the sightings would have rung in from here to Graceland.

She turned to go back inside. It was stretching into late afternoon now, which made her relax a little. Only in the cover of darkness did she feel anything akin to peace-not peace so much as stillness, which, compared to what she felt most of the day-fiercely angry or the kind of sadness that felt to her like she was drowning from the inside out-was enough for now.

Most of the time she was up all night. While the house and town and world slept, she played her cello, read movie magazines for another, and took a bath until midnight with a gla.s.s of Scotch until midnight. If she could bend her concentration around two celebrity magazines and play another hour of Brahms, then she could often get through the rest of the night. As it was, her attention didn't usually hold out and she ended up just sitting up in bed and staring into s.p.a.ce, not watching the television droning on in front of her.

Lighting a cigarette, she sat by the window to watch the dark draw the last of the light in. Well, it was too late to go to Violet's now, too late to drag her out again to look for a lost pet. Violet, anyway, kept her eyes and ears open when she walked her own dogs. If Baby Jesus were around, she and her dogs would know. Now was Anna's hardest time of day, the twilit hour of loneliness and panic. Everything in recent imagination centered on her granddaughter's milestones: high school graduation, college, and the friends Flynn would make. Boyfriends, Flynn's wedding, Flynn's own children. This, more than the sight of the dead girl, was what made her faint at Flynn's memorial service. Anna's whole future seemed erased, as if she was already dead. As terrible as it was to lose Flynn, it was very nearly as terrible to have to suddenly redefine, for the second time in her life, who she was.

There was a knock at her door, and then Greta walked in with a tray of food.

"Howdy," Anna said.

Greta sat on the edge of Anna's bed, picked up one of the movie-star magazines. Greta came in to Anna's bedroom every night, after Lily was in bed. Sometimes an hour or more would pa.s.s before either one of them spoke. Greta usually read or sewed if Anna didn't feel like talking. What Anna appreciated most was that Greta didn't try to draw her out, insist that she eat, or, G.o.d forbid, try to cheer her up. Only once did Greta give her a piece of advice: "You should try to cry, Anna. It'll help." Anna agreed, but she was afraid once the tears started coming, they'd never stop.

Anna peeked under the foil around the plate. "Lasagna?"

"Of course," Greta said, and laughed a little. "The fifth one this week."

"The food of the grieving everywhere," Anna said, and covered it back up. "People mean well. I do appreciate that. What's everybody doing downstairs?"

Greta looked up. "Jack is organizing the kitchen, cleaning up. Marvin and Stuart are still on the phone. They're calling Bologna, I think."

"Any luck?" Anna unwrapped the plate, took a bite of the lasagna, then put the fork down. Marvin had been on a phone mission to find Poppy. It was good for him, she knew; good to have a task that kept grief at bay for at least a few hours every day. Stuart spoke a little Italian, so he was serving as the translator. "Anyway, I thought she was living in London. Why are they calling Italy?"

"I'm not sure. Somebody gave them a lead that she was in Italy."

"What a complete mess. How did I have a daughter like this? She's a complete disaster. G.o.d forbid she checks in once in a while or calls her own daughter on her birthday and Christmas. G.o.d forbid she gives the child even a little reason to hang on and to stay alive. The b.i.t.c.h. I'd kill her if I could. I'd shoot her dead through the heart for what she did."

"Anna," Greta said, setting the magazine down.

"Flynn never stopped asking if Poppy was coming home. If she had called just once, just twice a year. If she had sent any kind of message, my girl might be alive right now."

Greta let her rant, then said quietly, "Poppy had nothing to do with what Flynn did. She's not responsible. But of course you know that." She poured a gla.s.s of Scotch, handed it over. Anna took a big gulp, then a deep breath. "You don't have to stay with me, Greta. I'm miserable. I'm terrible to be around right now."

"I know," she said. "But it's all right. I don't mind. Anger is a good thing."

Anna sipped her drink, and picked up the phone on her night table. She heard Stuart's halting Italian and Marvin's murmuring encouragement, the hiss and crackle of static. She hung up. "I wanted to call Violet," Anna said.

Greta looked up from the quilt pattern she was studying. "What do you need? Is there anything I can do?"

"I want the dog back. I want that stupid, drooling pet. It's not fair. It's just a dog I'm asking for." She sat beside Greta, picked up a pieced square of the quilt Greta had begun. Pastels with bunny appliques. "Is this for Lily?"

"Well, no," Greta said, and looked down and blushed.

Anna stared at her friend, incredulous. "No way. You told me you weren't seeing anyone."

Greta shook her head. "I'm not. And I'm not," she said, arcing her hand over her belly. "But I'm hoping to be. I want another child." She looked up at Anna. "I mean, you knew that. This is what I've always wanted. Nothing has changed."

Anna nodded. "Nothing has changed. You're lucky. Consider yourself lucky."

Greta put the work in her sewing bag. "I'm sorry, Anna. I didn't even think you would notice what I was doing. I didn't mean to be insensitive."

Anna opened a bottle of mineral water. "No. You're not. Don't apologize." She glanced at the clock. Nine. Which meant she couldn't start reading magazines now, since she'd have nothing to get her to the midnight hour. Already she'd read all the latest issues of movie magazines, knew more about Jennifer Aniston and Brad Pitt than most teenagers. She'd have to move on to home and garden magazines next, though that was risky; only the news of Hollywood felt safe, remote from ordinary life.

The day they buried Flynn, it had rained and warmed up enough to melt the snow. The little chapel at the edge of town was beautiful, lovely and forgotten in the way of small-town churches. She and Marvin went back to it later, just the two of them, and sat in the darkened room, the morning light streaming through the stained gla.s.s. "I wish I believed in G.o.d," was all he said. "Do you?"

Anna had shrugged, said not really. "Not a benevolent one anyway." She stared up at the stained-gla.s.s angels, the cerulean blues and lemon yellows. "Is this my fault? Is it my doing?" she said, and when he asked what she meant, she said she didn't know; she was barely aware that she'd spoken. Marvin slid over on the bench and draped his arm around her, sat so close that it felt to Anna like they were one body.

By two in the morning, Anna had long since run through her late-night rituals. Wide awake, she went downstairs to look for something to read, prowled through the scant offerings on the shelves in what had been her husband's library, but was now just storage s.p.a.ce. She rifled through boxes. Medical journals. Patient charts and long-expired drug samples. She slipped one of Hugh's old lab coats over her nightgown. The cloth felt warm, as though he'd just taken it off, still redolent with his scent, though Anna knew she was imagining all this.

She flipped through a textbook devoted to kidneys, fascinated by the gory overlays of the pictures, the grisliness of disease and the defects of birth. She'd always appreciated the kidneys, their work ethic, found them aesthetically pleasing: like two halves of a heart separated, or two autonomous islands filtering the fleet of toxins that washed up. This, along with Gray's Anatomy would have to do for bedtime reading until the next issue of People came out. And this one: a slim volume on diseases and malformations of the metatarsal arch-truly fascinating. She didn't remember Hugh being especially interested in feet, but here were whole stacks of clippings about the specialization of the seventy-two bones that made up the foot's architecture.

Anna dug out Hugh's microscope and found the blood and histology slides she'd prepared or collected over the years. There were a dozen or so devoted entirely to Poppy, her viruses and pathologies over the years. There was no medical reason she'd saved Poppy's-or anyone's-samples, just as there was no good reason why people h.o.a.rded photographs-it was a matter of preference, whether you wanted the external image or the body's internal narrative. What sagas in a heart histology, what poetry in the bones. She pulled out one marked, "Poppy, May 1st, 1971," a slide prepared for blood-typing. Her daughter was two weeks old, and Anna, in a postpartum haze, had convinced herself the hospital had given her the wrong baby; how else to explain her lack of maternal feelings? And here was Poppy in 1990 with anemia, her red cells as misshapen as rotten tomatoes. And this, Anna's favorite, a highly involved staph infection, circa 1978, after Poppy's return from summer camp in the Berks.h.i.+res. Anna slid it under the lens, lost herself in the overgrowth of cells as dense as a Serrault painting. She stared at the slide until she imagined she was part of it, a tiny creature camping in the white field, nestled on the icy, jagged edge of a basophil, the dark coc.o.o.n of its nucleus as inviting as sleep.

In Anna's desk drawer were a half dozen slides she'd prepared when Flynn was sick, or when Anna wanted to check her white count when mono had spread among the children in Flynn's dance cla.s.s. But Anna couldn't face those reminders of Flynn just yet. She picked up the textbooks and carried them back upstairs.

At six o'clock Anna woke up and knew where the dog was. She'd dreamed of the quarry, of the place she and Flynn went swimming the day Anna took her out of school. The dream was a reenactment of the afternoon exactly, except that when she turned to look at Flynn floating in the water beside her, it was the dog instead. She went downstairs, grabbed her car keys and, on second thought, walked over to Violet's to see if she was awake. Violet opened the door before Anna knocked, as though she were expecting her.

"Good morning," Violet said. "I have lemon and blueberry m.u.f.fins, the last of the berries I picked in August."

Anna walked in and took her coat off. "I think the dog is still alive. I think I would know if he were dead, and I don't feel it. He's out there somewhere."

"I'm sure he's alive," Violet said, and handed her a mug of coffee. "He's grieving. He doesn't want to return without the la.s.s. He'll be back."

Anna watched the early sun glint off the copper pots on the wall. Violet's kitchen was cozy. Anna settled into a chintz easy chair next to the enormous table thinking she had no appet.i.te, then ate four of the m.u.f.fins and drank three cups of coffee. Violet settled beside her in one of the straight-back chairs. She had two summer skirts layered over a pair of thick corduroy pants. "I'm going to drive out to the quarry. I had a dream the dog might be there. Do you want to come with me?"

"Certainly," Violet said. "But it's early yet. Why don't you tarry here for an hour, rest, while I take my dogs out for their morning prayers?"

"Oh, I can't rest, especially after all this coffee. I'll walk the dogs with you," Anna said, but then she closed her eyes and the next thing she knew Violet was returning with the dogs. Violet had covered her with an afghan and a fire was going in the fireplace. Anna had taken such naps at Violet's a few times; something about the house or the comforting presence of Violet always made an hour of sleep here worth five in her own home.

"It's a fine bright day. Cold, but sparkling," Violet said. "I took the liberty of going next door to tell your people what we were up to."

"Thank you," Anna said, and rose to find her coat. Her limbs felt leaden, fatigue settling like fine pollen.

Greta was packing up her and Lilly's things when Anna got back. She knew Greta couldn't stay beyond the weekend-Greta had a new job as a consultant with the school district, Lily had school-but the sight of anybody leaving these days pained her.

"Any luck?' Greta asked, holding Lily's red tennis shoe and searching under the couch, the chairs, for its mate. Greta signed something to Lily, who shrugged.

"No. We searched the quarry for two hours. Nothing. I didn't even see any animal tracks. Anyway, it's silly. I'm being silly. It's just a dog."

Greta looked over, squeezed Anna's shoulder. "I wish I could stay."

"When can you come back? You know, you can leave some of your clothes here. I'll clean out a closet for you and Lily. It would mean you wouldn't have to bother with packing every weekend." She paused to listen to the music coming from the kitchen. David Gray, "Babylon." Anna was indifferent to most things she heard on the radio, but during one of her drives with Jack, who had taken to flipping on Top 40 music stations the second they got in the car, this song had caught her attention. Friday night I'm going nowhere/and all the lights are changing from green to red... She bought this CD, along with Dido and one by Mary J. Blige.

"Jack's baking," Greta said, when she saw Anna look toward the kitchen. Greta's tone made it sound like Jack was doing something dangerous or illicit.

"Okay. Fine," Anna said. "Good." She carried Greta's suitcase to the door. "Truly, why not leave this here? I'll wash your clothes. When Friday rolls around, all you have to do is get in the car."

"I'll be back at the weekend. Maybe as early as Thursday night."

"Okay. I can only count the days. Stuart comes up Thursdays through Monday. He doesn't have to teach until Tuesday. We're hoping he can find a position here."

"So, they are back together?" Greta was still on her shoe safari, checking under a pile of newspapers, around the logs at the fireplace. "Oh, well. She would have outgrown them soon anyway."

"I don't know if they're officially together. They seem like it. I hope so."

Greta helped Lily into her coat, then put her own on. "Okay, we need to be off."

Anna felt as though she might be ill. "Come back as soon as you can. I mean, as soon as it's convenient. And drive very slowly. The roads are slick." She wrapped her arms around Greta. "You're a good friend."

"Everything is going to be all right. You're going to find your way through this."

"I keep thinking...," Anna started. "I mean, I can't figure out what to do now. What am I supposed to do? I can't remember how I filled my days before. Before my girl came along."

Greta started to cry, and Anna pulled her closer. "I'm going to help you get through this," Greta said.

"I don't want the life I had before Flynn. It was empty."

"It'll get easier in time," Greta said.

"And I don't want the life I have now."

"I know," Greta said. "But one day you will. Something will come into it to make it the life you want." Greta looked down at Lily.

Anna kissed Greta, then Lily, goodbye.

She found Jack in the kitchen rolling out pie dough, music blaring. Every surface in the kitchen was covered with baked goods and baking paraphernalia. Anna counted four different kinds of chocolate cakes. She turned the music off, and Jack looked up.

"I have never in my life been interested in cooking. But baking is something different entirely. I'm surprised you don't bake, Anna, as scientific as you are. There is pure scientific precision in the marriage of ingredients. And, here's something you didn't know, I bet." He tipped a bowl toward her, a winter wonderland of beaten egg whites.

"Nice," Anna said.

"The secret is the copper. Copper interacts with the protein in the egg whites, and acts as a stabilizing agent. You don't get this volume in stainless steel."

"What's all this for?" Anna asked, sitting. The light was getting dusky. She poured herself a brandy, though it was a little early for c.o.c.ktails.

"Is that Grand Marnier?" Jack asked.

He cut one of the cakes, and handed her a slice. "Almond cherry galette. A northern Italian recipe originally, but stolen and adapted by the French."

Anna took a bit. "It's very good," Anna said. "Are we having company?"

"Company has been dropping in and out continuously. You have to have something to serve. You should see what people call desserts. Lime green Jell-O with tiny marshmallows. I had to intervene." He measured out two cups of heavy cream and poured it into a bowl of batter.

"Isn't this a bit excessive?" Anna said. "And, you know in this town...." She read from the recipe he was working from: "Pear and chocolate polenta-crusted tarts with creme Anglais. Well. Pearls before swine and all that."

"This is therapeutic. It helps."

Anna supposed that it would. You measured the ingredients, followed the recipe exactly, and the outcome was guaranteed. "I have my eye on that chocolate raspberry number there," Anna said.

Jack sliced her a generous piece. "My masterpiece so far, my Sistine Chapel." He waited as she took a bite. "Yes?"

"Magnificent," Anna said.

He beamed at her, switched the radio back on. Anna watched Jack work. Years ago, a daughter of a friend of hers and Hugh's came back from Rwanda with film footage of the war. One part showed a young American volunteer sweeping up a hut, shaking out and hanging up clothes while the bodies of the home's six inhabitants were piled in the middle of the floor. Jack's abstracted expression, as he measured and sifted and stirred, as though there was nothing in the world that mattered as much as this, reminded Anna of the woman's face in the video.

"Where is Marvin?" Anna asked, then repeated over the loud music. She reached for the volume k.n.o.b on the radio. "Jack, where is Marvin?"

"He went to find the dog for you. He left this morning after you did. Somebody gave him a lead on a sighting."

"Oh, well. He can try. I appreciate that he's trying."

Jack turned on the mixer-the old KitchenAid that had been her mother-in-law's. She watched the paddle blades working, remembered the last time she herself used it: the trip she and Hugh made up here on his weekend off, the weekend they conceived their daughter. Anna made a piecrust for the raspberries they'd picked earlier. Everything about that day was still vivid. The hot July sun, the rocky path leading to the raspberry patch, the fronds of fiddlehead ferns brus.h.i.+ng her legs as she walked past. Later, she and Hugh went for a swim, then made love on the sand. The whole weekend was sun-ripened and charged, full of promise and clear light. The girl had started in her then, was already splitting the husks of cells and dividing as she mixed the dough for the crust, the size of a raspberry seed by the time, days later, the last slice of pie had been eaten. That afternoon connected to this one, all part of a chain. Her daughter, her granddaughter, Jack, Marvin, Stuart and Greta-all of them linked to her and to each other.

"I'm going upstairs," Anna said.

Jack turned to her, raised an eyebrow. "What, dear?"

"I said, I'll be upstairs." She took her gla.s.s and the bottle of Grand Marnier.

It was too early to start reading magazines, too early to get tipsy. She stripped the beds in the guestroom, held Lily's sheets up to her face and inhaled.

Anna gathered the bedding and tidied up the room. Greta was thorough; there wasn't so much as a stray sock lying about. She felt a flash of anger. Why wouldn't Greta leave some of Lily's things here? What harm would it do anybody to leave a few clothes? Anna threw the sheets into the washer, then opened the door to Flynn's room. The blinds were closed. The scent of her granddaughter was everywhere, as if she had just stepped out. Anna turned the light on, looked around. Flynn was messy, just like Poppy had been. Her bed was unmade as usual, clothes spilled out of opened rawers, CDs scattered over the floor. Flynn's overalls were on the bed. Anna fastened the buckles and snaps. Such a slight and delicately made girl, more fine-boned than both Anna and Poppy. Anna sat, held Flynn's pillow to her face. On the night table was the Tinkerbell lamp that had been Poppy's. Flynn's junky treasures cluttered the surface. Two miniature starfish, sea gla.s.s, pebbles, the figures from the old nativity set that Flynn remade into Gladys Knight and the Pips. Anna checked the drawers. The Diary of Beatrix Potter and a book about Celtic dancing. But she didn't want to do this now, didn't want to rummage around the girl's things for what she both hoped and dreaded she'd find.

It was when she stood to go that she noticed Lily's little shoe, the one Greta had been searching for, on the other pillow. Jack must have been in here. Jack must have come across it downstairs and thought it was one of Flynn's. She put it back on the pillow. Greta could afford to buy Lily new shoes.

Anna went in to run a bath. Only six-thirty, which was a problem, since she was nearly at the bottom of the stack of magazines, down to the trashy weekly tabloids. Marvin or Jack would have to run out later for a fresh stash.

She was just about to step in the tub when she heard a commotion coming from the living room beneath her, the crash and shatter of gla.s.s. Was that Violet's voice? Anna walked to the head of the stairs. Violet smiled up at her. "Good evening," she said.

"Hi, Violet."

"Anna?" Marvin called from the living room.

"Over here," she said.

"I have someone who's anxious to see you." Marvin turned the corner, and there was the dog, who bounded up the steps, clumsy and stumbling in his haste. He threw his weight against her, ears back and tongue lolling, smiling in the way only a dog can. Anna wrapped her arms around him, buried her face in his filthy fur. "Hi, Baby. Hi, Baby," she repeated over and over, until she could believe he was really back. "Where did you find him?"

Marvin sat on the step beside her. "Violet and I found him."

Anna looked over at Marvin, saw how pale he was. "Are you okay?"