The Gift
Lisa Youngblood
Maggie wagged her finger at the couch as if it were a mischievous child. “I want to go outside,” she said. “Fresh air never hurt anyone.” Inch by inch, she shuffled toward the door, her emaciated legs moving like a turtle’s.
“But the forecast,” Ben said. “It’s calling for rain.” He rushed behind her, his hands fidgeting and groping and shifting, his heart pumping so hard he could hear it.
Maggie twisted to look him in the eye. “You worry too much,” she said and smiled. “You always have.” With that, she righted herself and resumed her shuffling. Ben followed.
When she reached the door, she stopped and bowed her head in concession. The door was too much for her, beautiful but formidable, a gift from Ben’s hands to hers. Ben considered his natural gifts few, but architecture was one of them. The man could build anything, and build it well, an offering that now struck him as particularly trivial. If only he were like Maggie, who was gifted in every way. Whatever and whomever she touched was better for it, but all Ben could do was build. He took a deep breath and placed his hand around the steel knob and twisted. As he pushed the door open, he remembered how, in the cold months, Maggie would wrap her sweater over her palm before handling the knob. Ben had wanted to replace it, but Maggie had said, “No. It was a gift. I like it just the way it is.” And Ben had let it be.
Ben pushed the screen out of the way, and Maggie nodded and leaned against him to take the single step down to the porch. Once planted firmly on the floor, she let him loose and shuffled, shoulders straight and dignified, to her rocking chair. She settled without fuss although Ben could see a slight grimace tugging the corners of her mouth, which caused his shoulders to tighten. He took a deep breath, something one of the many nurses had encouraged him to do, and sat in the rocker next to hers.
Only inches apart, they rocked in time and in silence, Ben eyeing the growing nimbus clouds with mounting concern but saying nothing.
Suddenly, Maggie took in an excited gulp of air. “Wolf!” she cried. “You came!”
Ben looked into the yard. Wolf’s head poked through the center of a dormant azalea bush, the leaves of which framed the dog’s long neck like a medieval collar and left the impression of a grinning court jester (despite an abundant and razor sharp cluster of teeth).
“That dog is a marvel,” Maggie sighed. “An absolute marvel.”
Ben frowned. He found the dog rather odious and wild. Wolf was, however, something of a celebrity in the neighborhood. The creature could avoid the clutches of the humane society for months at a time, and, once apprehended, turn himself into the most beguiling creature, one that made children laugh and caused at least four families to adopt him, only to find him disappeared within days. Confinement, no matter how amiable, was simply not in the dog’s nature.
Maggie reached into her shirt pocket and pulled out a piece of cheese she had saved just for Wolf. The dog’s ears perked. “I can’t come to you anymore,” she sighed. “If you want it, you’ll have to come to me.”
Wolf seemed to ponder the proposition, his eyes looking toward the heavens and his jaw closing and grinding.
“Maggie,” Ben said. “You know good and well that creature is wild. He doesn’t come to anyone.”
Maggie smiled and reached her hand toward the dog. Wolf’s snout crinkled. “Come on now,” she purred. “Don’t be a coward.”
Wolf stiffened and undid himself from the azalea bush, presenting his whole body at the base of the stairs. From this vantage point, he looked less comical and more ferocious. The muscles of his legs and chest twitched beneath his coat, and his jaw opened in what appeared to be a scowl.
“Maybe you should just throw him the cheese,” Ben said.
“Nonsense,” Maggie said and looked straight at Wolf. “The terms are non-negotiable.”
Wolf seemed to sigh, his head dipping in defeat, and he crouched to half his height and inched up the stairs. Ben leaned closer to his wife, his heart pounding against his ribs. When the creature reached the porch, he positioned himself as far from Maggie as possible but close enough so his neck, fully craned, could reach her outstretched hand. Maggie laughed. Wolf’s jaw opened another half inch and his teeth slowly lowered to secure the cheese. One millimeter at a time, he pulled it from Maggie’s fingertips and slunk back down the stairs and disappeared into the woods on the other side of the street.
Maggie set to rocking again. “And off he goes,” she sighed. “Free as a bird. That creature is really something.”
Ben scratched his chin. He could not understand his wife’s fascination with that dog. What sort of creature would chose to be rootless, to scavenge for food, when families had opened their homes to him?
“I have no regrets,” Maggie said as her rocker came to an abrupt halt. “It was my decision, and that is that.”
Ben’s lips puckered. “Are we talking about the dog?” he asked, assuming his wife had read his thoughts, as she so often did.
Maggie shook her head. “We are talking about me,” she said. “I don’t think you remember, but I was like Wolf once. I most certainly was.” She took a deep breath and resumed her rocking. “And then I wasn’t. But it was my choice.” She grabbed Ben’s hand and squeezed. The veins below her knuckles lay flat, and Ben prayed her heart would get the blood it needed.
“I’ll be gone soon,” she said.
Ben shook his head, but Maggie persisted.
“I’ll be gone soon,” she said again. “And I don’t want you thinking any of it was your fault. It was my choice. I do not regret it. I loved being loved by you.” She squeezed his hand again and let it go, closing her eyes and rocking away in the dimming afternoon light, seemingly certain that all that needed to be said had been said. Ben closed his eyes, too, baffled by his wife’s words. It must be the pain medicine, he thought. That noxious concoction made her say all manner of nonsensical things.
~ ~ ~
The sunlight bullied its way through the bedroom windows, searing the thin skin of Maggie’s cheek and casting shadows under her eyes that made Ben’s hands shake. Wanting to protect her, he tried to close the curtains but they were only decorative, opening three inches at best, which was no help at all. Like a mime, he positioned his body here and there to block the rays, but each time the sun snuck around Ben like water pulsing through a cracked dam. Nothing, absolutely nothing, seemed to help. Of course, it was Ben’s fault. Maggie had wanted walls full of windows, and he had given them to her. But he knew better. He was an architect for God’s sake. He just never quite figured out how to say no to her.
Maggie twisted in the bed, and the sun’s light moved from her cheeks to her eyes, which caused her to open them. Slowly, her hand lifted as a shield. “Ben?” she asked. “Ben, is that you?”
He rushed to her bedside. “Yes, of course.”
She smiled and closed her eyes again. Her hand lay back on the pillow.
“I’m so sorry about the sun,” he said. “It’s a nuisance.”
She laughed and drifted back to sleep. He sat at the foot of the bed and studied her. He had always likened her to a cat, the type of creature who appropriated space rather than conformed to it. Her cotton blanket, usually open and wrinkled, a testament to her last moment of respite. Her handmade coffee mug, stained from decades of use, her bible, which she read so often more pages were earmarked than not. All of it just so and proclaiming her dominion of their home, her comfort in her own skin.
Ben sighed and rubbed his cheeks. How he wished he could heal her or take her place, but he could not. He felt rooted to the bed and he wondered if he might be there forever, maybe even after she passed, just sitting there like a dead, rotting log. He was her shadow. Nothing more. And she was his source of light. He owed her so much, a lifetime of purpose and assurance, and he felt the urgent need to let her know, to give her a gift that would say all the things he could not. He thought and thought and thought and listened to the rattled humming of her lungs, and finally the solution presented itself: he would make curtains – never mind that he had no idea how to sew.
He rushed to her workroom, a place where she did all manner of things, only a handful of which he understood, and began to rummage around. Maggie never threw anything away, and this room was evidence of that. The history of their lives could easily be strewn together by anyone so inclined, and it felt to Ben like a roadmap to a treasure he did not want to share. His chest tightened at the sight of their daughter’s first prom dress, which lay neatly folded on her childhood play table, their son’s skateboard, untouched for decades, hanging on two perfectly placed nails on the far wall. A box labeled “Report Cards and Camp Letters” lay just beneath a slightly smaller box labeled, “Family Vacations.” Ben wanted to linger, to relive the moments of their lives, but there was work to be done.
He navigated through the maze of artifacts until he found her box of sewing scraps. He grabbed it and left in search of duct tape, which he finally found in the garage. Once back in the bedroom, he lifted the lid and inspected the contents. They, too, were a roadmap to history. Pieces of the Christmas stockings she had made for their children and grandchildren, a piece of their daughter’s christening gown, a scrap from her wedding dress, and a green felt panel from their son’s second grade play. He had been a frog in the production of The Three Little Pigs and had had only one line: Ribbit. “Spectacular croaking,” Maggie had gushed. Work, he reminded himself. There is work to be done.
He pulled the curtains as far as they would go and began. One-by-one, he taped the scraps of fabric over the window until the light could no longer reach his wife. It took hours and in the increasing darkness he had to turn on the bedside lamps, but Maggie slept all the while. When he was finally done, he stood back to admire his work. A tapestry of their lives together and protection from the searing sun. His chest tingled with pride.
Maggie woke at six o’clock that evening. Her face crinkled in confusion. “What happened?” she asked. “What happened to the windows?”
Ben smiled and caressed her cheek. “A gift, he said. “From me to you.”
Maggie remained quiet for a few long seconds. “How kind,” she finally said and smiled, although the smile seemed a bit crooked.
“Don’t you like it?” he asked.
“Of course,” she said, letting her eyes close again. “Very much.”
~ ~ ~
Ben unfolded her blanket and placed it over their bare mattress. For reasons he did not understand, when they had taken her, they took the linens, too, and he was left staring at a strange blue mattress. He had not known the mattress was blue and it felt like a failure on his part. He was supposed to have noticed everything – all the things she made and fixed and washed and touched. But he had not.
He heard Wolf barking and checked his watch. Three-thirty in the afternoon. Right on time. He walked over to the windows to get a look at the dog but his tapestry, now faded and sad-looking, still covered the glass. He glanced at the small fichus tree in the corner. In a stalwart attempt to survive, it leaned hard toward the glass but to no avail. Its leaves, many of which had fallen, were brown and curled inward at the edges, and its bark hung in exhausted layers from its trunk. Ben cringed as the reality of his creation settled upon him: a ramshackle cover for a wall with too many windows. Not the gift he had intended.
“Daddy,” Anelle said from the threshold. “Are you all right?”
Ben turned toward his daughter. She looked so much like her mother, tall and slender with long fingers and absurdly small feet, but she was nothing like her. Where Maggie was feisty, always in the midst of a ruckus or protest, Anelle was meek. Where Maggie was outgoing and quick to commandeer a room, Anelle was shy, often situated on the outskirts, smiling or nodding with one hand covering her lips. Like Ben, Anelle liked quiet and books and board games and lazy afternoons tucked in close to a fire. This had pleased Ben – but not Maggie, who would chew on her nails and whisper, She will outgrow her cocoon, right? And Ben would reply, Of course, even though he saw no reason why she would or should.
“Daddy?” Anelle said again.
“Yes, yes,” he said, “I’m fine.”
Anelle eyed the tapestry, her eyes asking the question she could not.
“The sun,” Ben said quickly. “It was too much.”
“Of course it was,” she reassured him and walked over and patted him on the shoulder as if he were a kindergartner who had painted a six-fingered hand.
That night, Ben dismantled his tapestry. He pulled the fabric pieces from the glass, the sound of the ripping tape like the revving of tiny racecar engines. He scrubbed away the patches of left-behind adhesive, scraping the glass with a small, sharp razor where needed, and soon the job was done. The windows were windows again, just as Maggie had ordered.
~ ~ ~
Ben sat in his reclining chair and studied Wolf. For six months, the dog had come every day at three-thirty and stationed himself inside the azalea bush and waited. By four in the afternoon, he would grow bored and wander back off into the woods.
Until today.
Today he plucked himself free of the bush and slunk up the stairs and sat square in front of the screen door and inspected the innards of the house. Trying hard to ignore the creature, Ben turned on the television and flipped through the stations until he found a documentary on the Vietnam War. The camera panned in on a small village. Quiet lives blanketed in the hushed voices of those who knew they were being watched, and then, a steady stream of automatic gunfire. Women and children screamed. Bullets pierced the skin of babies, who tumbled from their mother’s arms. Dogs barked madly. Men ran. Ben shuddered and turned off the television. He glanced toward the door. Wolf continued to stare at the screen, his head tilted in irritation. Finally, the creature made a strange yelp and pawed at the door.
“It was gruesome,” Ben argued. “I didn’t want to watch it.”
Wolf barked.
Ben bristled. “Now listen here. What I do in my own home is none of your concern. Anyway, Maggie is gone. You are no longer welcome here. Just get!”
Wolf whined and righted his neck. His lips seemed to pucker.
Ben exploded. He leapt from his chair and stormed the door. “Leave me alone!” he screamed. “Go away!” He was not a screamer and his body reacted in gushes of blood that pulsed through his temples and drummed in his ears. His legs wobbled, and he had to lean against the door.
Wolf’s head tilted again and he let out a strange howl that ended in the high pitch of a question. Ben’s heart tightened. A rush of adrenaline steadied his legs. He thrust the screen door open. Wolf scrambled and skidded on the porch. Ben lifted an arm to strike the creature but before his hand could land a blow, it seemed to catch fire. Ben found himself staring at it in wonder.
Ben forced himself to look again at the dog, who also seemed to be in a state of wonder, which made Ben feel confused. He looked back to his hand, his eyes transforming into pendulums. His hand, the dog, his hand, the dog. Both entirely separate from him. He had never hit anyone in his life – and never would - nor had he ever pretended any affection for this dog. And yet, there they were, beckoning. His hand, the dog, his hand, the dog. In the monotony of concentration, the fire inside Ben subsided, and he lowered his arm and bowed his head in shame. “Please leave,” he mumbled. “Please leave me alone.”
Something in Ben’s tone resonated with the dog, and Wolf turned and marched down the stairs and disappeared into the woods without once looking back.
~ ~ ~
Outside of the loneliness and quiet, Ben’s life had not changed all that much. He was a creature of habits and those habits got him through day after day although he had begun to feel robotic and could not help but wonder if his humanity had been borne solely of his wife. She was often just returning from this adventure or that, and she would fill the evenings with stories and laughter, and Ben felt he had somehow been there with her - that he, too, had straightened out a teacher or picketed the felling of an ancient Oak or raised money for a family that had lost their home in a fire. But he had not, and now there were no stories. There was no laughter. There was only routine and his boring-ass self.
Enough, he decided. I am going to have myself an adventure.
He packed his lunch (always a turkey sandwich on rye with spicy mustard and cucumber) and left the house. It was a beautiful day, the sky cloudless, the air warm but not wet or oppressive, a good day to be outdoors, which sounded like something Maggie would say. “You would be proud of me,” he said as he drove down the highway. “I’m going to Catawba Falls.” Ben did not like the waterfall, but Maggie had loved it, something that niggled at him now.
He parked in the lot and jammed his folded dollar bills into the correct slot and steadied himself at the foot of the trail. The climb ahead was not inconsequential and his increasingly sedentary lifestyle would make the trek difficult, but he felt a wave of - if not excitement - purpose, and he began the ascent with optimism.
Every hundred yards or so, he would stop, wait for his breathing to return to normal, and forge ahead. But with each break, his mind would fixate on what he so disliked about this place. First was the climb. It was more mountain than hill with unrelenting steps and switchbacks that gave false hope. Second was the air. It changed in the course of the ascent, growing both thinner and wetter to the point where Ben could not fill his lungs and yet his shirt lay wet and heavy against his skin. The wetness chilled him and the exertion made him sweat, which felt like a simultaneous punch to the head and the gut. Still, he forged on.
When he finally reached the top, he looked toward the heavens. He hoped Maggie was watching and she was proud of his effort. But then again, she could be angry. Why, she might wonder, would he not do this with me? Indeed, Ben thought. Why had he not?
Ben sighed and peered into the water, which crashed into itself in a thunderous roar. In that turmoil, Ben could see all the world’s agonies, skulls crushed, boats destroyed, dreams shattered, all evidence of God’s wrath, and he felt himself lean away in revulsion. But then, his body found its way back to the railing, drawn inexplicably to the very chaos that repulsed him. His hipbones dug into the wrought iron. The water sprayed his cheeks and stuck to his eyelashes. He leaned further, his stomach now atop the railing. He poised on the tips of his toes. He remembered how Maggie had described the thunder as exquisite and joyful. But it seemed far grander and more sinister to him. He leaned further still. His brain twisted and raced and wandered until it settled on a particular memory.
Maggie had been leaning over the railing, just as he was now. She lifted her arms as if about to take flight, and he had reached a hand to her and pulled her back.
“Be careful,” he had said. “People have fallen off this thing, you know. Plunged to their deaths!”
Maggie had stepped away from the railing and placed her hands on her hips. “No they haven’t,” she said. “They jumped. And that is entirely different.” She had huffed and even snarled a bit, and, to calm her, he had smiled to suggest he understood, but he had not. He still did not. Not really. After all, death was death, whether purposeful or accidental.
A bluebird flew within inches of his nose, which made Ben teeter and brought him back to the reality of where – and how – he stood. He gazed again into the water, not knowing whether he would jump or step back, but he saw suddenly he had a choice in the matter, and it would take some effort to propel his body over the railing. He let himself linger and chewed on the possibility of choosing death. To his disappointment, he found it was too grand a decision for him. He was mediocrity at its finest, a man complacent on the sidelines.
He shook his head in defeat, stepped back from the ledge and returned to his car.
~ ~ ~
It had been a long day. Anelle had stopped by and insisted they clean out Maggie’s things. “It’s time,” she had said. “You cannot live in a mausoleum.”
Ben had thought of his home as a shrine, not a mausoleum, but he also knew she was right. With very little discussion, they spent the entire day boxing old woolen sweaters and books with torn jackets (Maggie was always twisting the spines of her books) and shoes and gowns and jeans and dresses and cotton shirts. “We will donate it all,” Anelle said. “She will like that.”
“Indeed,” Ben said as he took stock of what was left. Her vanity with its cachet of perfume bottles and silver-plated make-up brushes. Her bible. Her blanket. Her coffee mug, which he never used for fear he might break it, and her workroom. Anelle’s eyes had widened at the sight of that room. “Good lord,” she had said. “That will just have to wait.”
“Indeed,” Ben said again, grateful for the exuberance of Maggie’s hoarding, grateful that she would remain with him in their home through that room – at least for now.
That night, as he ate his dinner in front of the television, he found his heart particularly pierced. Pieces of her had been plucked away and that splendor replaced with nothingness. Worse, the nothingness had a permanent, settling-in-for-the-winter feeling that left Ben frantic to focus on something – anything – else, which left him staring blankly at the television. The man on the screen was talking about how he had lost a hundred pounds and how easy it had been. “One Hydroxycut a day and a couple of walks around the block and it just fell off,” the man said as he stretched out his waistband to suggest a solid fifteen inches of missing body. “One pill,” he added. “And my whole life changed.” Ben wished such a thing were possible. One pill and he could be someone else. He rolled his eyes at his own folly, at which point he inadvertently caught a glimpse of Wolf, who, not taking Ben’s many hints, sat perched at the screen door transfixed by the television.
Ben rolled his eyes again, which made him feel a little woozy. He had not yelled at Wolf since the night he had almost struck him, but he had engaged in a mental battle with the creature – and himself. He had decided he would be above the experience of the dog. He did not acknowledge Wolf’s existence in any way, nor did he let the creature penetrate his daily thoughts. Assigning himself architect of his own brain, Ben created a space where the dog simply did not exist.
Wolf, however, was not buying it.
Ben refocused himself on the television. The commercial had ended and now a police drama unfolded on the screen. He had never understood the fascination with murder but was willing to give it a try. All the while, Wolf scratched and whined and, at least once, barked. Ben refused to acknowledge him.
An hour passed. Maybe two. A new, nondescript show came on. An African American family in a white suburb. Ben chuckled once but soon found himself focusing more on the forms than the story. The steel edge of the toaster. The copper knob of the door. The glitter on the bottom of the tall woman’s dress. And soon he was asleep. He dreamed of a witch who had fallen into her own cauldron. She screeched and howled and cursed the world, the din so horrific it woke him, which was when he realized the sound was not a dream.
With some effort, he foisted his body from the chair and walked to the door and looked out into the yard. Wolf, poised at the dead center, craned his neck toward the sky, his coat gleaming and his mouth open wide, the muscles of his jaw shimmering in the moonlight. A sad song filled the night sky in octaves that pierced the heart and, on occasion, the ears. Ben stood perfectly still and listened until Wolf was done and the creature had limped, exhausted, back into the woods. Ben’s body tingled. Like it or not, he was now tethered to that dog. It’s song was Ben’s song, even if Ben could not sing it.
Ben closed and locked the door and made his way to the bedroom. Settling into bed, he felt a need to be comforted and grabbed Maggie’s bible from the bedside table and opened it. At once, his breath quickened. The book was not a bible. Inside was a collection of de-spined and reconstructed novels. What pains she must have taken to unfasten all those spines and refashion them into the spine of her bible. At least two of the novels had pages that were too small and she had superimposed them onto larger pages so they would seamlessly fit inside. With heaving breasts and undulating thighs, stiffening manhoods and platitudinal, ubiquitous proclamations of love, all the books appeared to be romances. It must have taken her years to create this, or perhaps she recreated it regularly, switching out this book for that, wanting a new character or setting or coupling. But why? And why hide it from him? Why pretend to be devouring the Holy Spirit when she was simply indulging a guilty pleasure? Ben would not have judged her, which she must have known, and yet she had so precisely hidden it from him.
Not knowing what else to do, he closed the book, placed it just-so on Maggie’s bedside table and turned out the light, enduring a long wakeful night without so much as the droop of an eyelid.
~ ~ ~
A week later, at six o’clock in the evening, Anelle showed up at Ben’s front door. The door was wide open so as to allow Wolf full access to the television, but Anelle could not resist the formality of knocking. “Daddy,” she said. “Can I come in?”
“Of course,” Ben answered. “You don’t need to knock. You know that.” He readied himself to stand and greet her, but she motioned for him to stay seated, and he dipped his chin in gratitude. She took a seat across from him on the sofa and tucked her legs underneath her like a small child. Her eyes were swollen and streaked, and her hair gathered in tangles, odd for such a kempt person. Ben’s heart quickened. “Is everything all right?” he asked.
Anelle pursed her lips.
Ben closed his eyes, summoning Maggie. Please, he prayed. Please help me help her. “Go on,” he said. “Tell me what happened.”
Anelle took a deep breath. She would not look at her father.
Ben leaned closer to her although she was still too far to touch. His heart pounded. His hand trembled. Wolf whined at the door. “Anelle,” he begged. “Please. Tell me.”
She cleared her throat. “Peter is having an affair.” Peter, Anelle’s husband of ten years, had never been Maggie’s favorite. It wasn’t that Maggie fervently disliked Peter, but she called him “a wanderer who would rather break than bend,” which, to Maggie, had seemed a great risk to their daughter.
“Why do you think so?” Ben asked, knowing the answer was beside the point, but he needed time to think.
Anelle’s neck flushed. “I caught them.” She paused and wiped her eyes. “He didn’t even flinch.” She unthreaded her legs and placed her feet on the floor. She wore tennis shoes with bright pink laces, something her mother would have worn but not typically something she would wear.
Ben scratched his chin and eyed Wolf, who had lain down with what appeared a sad expression on his face. “Why would he do that?” Ben asked, unable to comprehend such disloyalty.
Anelle let her tears loose. “I tried so hard,” she sobbed. “I really did. But I couldn’t keep it up.”
Ben frowned, stood and walked over to the couch. He sat next to his daughter and placed a hand on her arm. “He doesn’t deserve you,” he said honestly.
She sighed and took several deep breaths. Her tears dried. “It’s not his fault,” she said. “Not entirely. We just aren’t right for each other.”
Ben leaned into the cushion but did not let go of his daughter. Touch was all he knew to offer.
Anelle exhaled loudly and leaned forward, her elbows now digging into the flesh of her thighs. “It’s more like mourning than heartbreak,” she said. “I have lost so much time. So much time trying to be someone I am not - all to satisfy a man who could never love me for who I am.”
“But who you are is perfect,” Ben said – and he meant it. With her meekness and introversion came a kindness that was unmatched, empathy overflowing and far-reaching. Anyone who could not love her was mad.
Anelle laughed. “I’m going to be fine,” she said, and, for that one moment, she sounded a lot like her mother, which fortified Ben.
“Of course you will,” he said. “You have your mother in you.”
She blushed, “A bit,” she said. “But I’m mainly you.”
Wolf barked and scratched at the screen. Anelle stood and walked to the door and let him in. Wolf smirked, pranced to the couch, circled his own body twice, and curled into a ball and promptly fell asleep. It had never occurred to Ben to let the dog inside, nor had it occurred to him the creature would want to come inside.
“Mom really liked this dog, didn’t she?” Anelle asked.
Ben nodded. “I don’t rightly know why, but yes.”
Anelle smiled. “You know why.”
Ben frowned. He thought to reach down and pat Wolf but worried it might startle the creature and cost Ben his hand. Anelle did not suffer the same concern and plopped back on the sofa and fondled the dog’s ears. Wolf seemed to purr.
“I guess I thought Peter was more like mom,” Anelle said. “Like he was okay with it.”
Ben’s shoulders tightened. “Okay with what?”
Anelle shrugged. “You know. The quiet.”
Ben leaned hard against the couch cushions, pressing his shoulders outward to stretch them. He was supposed to say something wise and encouraging, or, at the very least, acknowledge something, but he found himself unable to speak.
Anelle’s hand landed on his elbow. “It’s okay, Dad. Mom was happy.”
Was she? he wondered. Was she really happy? He thought of the bible that was not a bible at all and how that silly book might be connected to the question of her happiness. He found he needed Anelle’s opinion on the matter. “Did you know the book on your mother’s bedside table was not really a bible?”
“Of course,” she said. “At least one of those books was mine.” Anelle laughed. “Fifty Shades. That always cracked me up.”
“Fifty Shades?”
“It’s nothing,” Anelle said, shaking her head. “Just a book. Mom found all manner of ways to entertain herself.”
“Apparently,” he said and did his best to smile.
~ ~ ~
Wolf began to show up with gifts: first, a bird with its head dangling at an ungodly angle, then a squirrel and a mouse and, finally, a chicken. Ben knew exactly where the chicken had come from and he knew James Black was going to be furious. That man coveted his chickens.
“Have you adopted the dog?” Anelle asked, staring uneasily at the chicken carcass by the foot of Ben’s rocker. She came by quite often now, and each day was different. She would vacillate between youthful exuberance and gloom, ponytails to unkempt bangs clouding her hazel eyes. But she kept showing up, and that meant something. Whether or not it was the shedding of a cocoon he could not say, but it did seem they were both on inexorable personal journeys, even if he was not the master of his own.
“He’s adopted me more like it,” Ben said. “Can’t quite shake him.”
“You feed him?”
“Just a few bowls now and then. In the yard. Never at the house.”
Anelle nodded. Wolf grinned and nuzzled the chicken closer to Ben’s foot.
“What does one do with a dead chicken?” she asked, a hint of amusement in her voice.
Ben shrugged. “I don’t rightly know.” He had thrown the bird and the squirrel and the mouse into the garbage, but a chicken seemed a being of a higher order and thus entitled to a grander send-off.
Anelle studied the chicken. Wolf placed a possessive paw over it and dropped his lower lip in a pout. “You could bury it, I guess,” she offered.
Ben nodded but that didn’t seem quite right either. He looked at Wolf and the dog let out a low, quiet yawp. “Wolf would just dig it up,” he finally said.
Anelle nodded. “All I know is you better get ready for Mr. Black. He sure likes his chickens.”
When Anelle left, Ben remained outside with Wolf and the dead chicken and thought about the lunacy of life, which made him think of the duality of standing at the precipice of that waterfall, the reality that a single second could change – or end – a human life. But, more than that, how a person could be ignorant of his own power, his ability to choose, which made him wonder if there were any accidents at all. And that’s when he knew what he needed to do.
He placed the chicken in a plastic grocery bag, one of its rubbery, gray feet refusing to stay put, loaded up Wolf, who whined and coughed in confusion, and drove to Catawba Falls. Wolf sat in the passenger seat like a human, which made Ben smile.
When they reached the waterfall, Ben grabbed his grocery bag, and, with Wolf by his side, began the long trek to the top. Wolf didn’t seem any more fond of the hike than Ben, his ears on alert from the thunder of the water, his nose crinkling at the dusting of mist on his snout, and he seemed more than a little put out his prey was trapped inside a plastic bag. The dog kept sniffing and pawing at the bag, but Ben kept pulling it away. “You’ll see,” Ben explained. “Just be patient.”
Wolf sneezed but followed.
Once they summited, Ben went straight for the railing and let his torso fall forward. He leaned over and pressed upward on the tips of his toes. He looked down at Wolf and said, “It’s okay. It’s for Maggie.” With that, he opened the mouth of the bag, turned it upside down and freed the chicken, watching as it tumbled into and under the water and disappeared. He expected the clouds to part and the earth to shake, the hand of God to reach down and say, Damn it, man! You’ve done it! The perfect gift! But nothing happened other than the chicken was gone.
Ben frowned and looked at Wolf, who let out a long, low moan. “I know,” Ben sighed. “But we are getting close. I can feel it.”
~ ~ ~
Two more chickens followed, the last one mangled not only at the neck but also down its entire right flank, suggesting Wolf’s innate wildness was taking over, which also suggested he might leave Ben soon, and Ben wasn’t sure how he felt about that so he chose not to dwell on it.
Upon receipt of each gift, Ben would load up the chicken and Wolf and return to the waterfall and set the poor creature free. Wolf was not happy about the chicken releases, and he barked each time and refused to look at Ben but always settled by the time they reached the car. Ben, too, settled as he situated himself in the driver’s seat and fastened his seatbelt and fiddled with the radio, but his settling was more resignation than acceptance. The plan, if it could be called that, seemed to be in a rut.
On the fourth release, just as Ben had prepared to return home, a man in khaki pants and a shirt that read Department of Health and Environmental Conservation stopped Ben. “What in the hell are you doing?” the man asked.
“Releasing the chickens,” Ben said as if the man were an imbecile.
The man frowned and pulled a cigarette from his shirt pocket and lit it. “You crazy or something?” he asked as he exhaled.
Ben scratched his chin. “I don’t know.” He reached down and gave Wolf a pat. It was the first time he had touched the dog, and he was surprised by the softness of Wolf’s coat. Wolf did not seem to register Ben’s touch, bristled as he was, glaring and growling at the stranger. The man stepped back.
“It’s for my wife,” Ben said. “Wolf here has been stealing James Black’s chickens, and I have been setting them free.” Wolf barked and the man inched back further.
“I know James Black,” the man said. He was so far away now his voice was barely audible over the roar of the water.
“Well then,” Ben said. “I suspect you better let him know what’s been happening to his chickens.” Wolf barked again and the two of them returned to the car and drove home in silence.
~ ~ ~
James Black showed up the next morning just after sunrise. He knocked on the front door as if trying to save Ben from the flames of a ferocious fire. Ben took his time answering. “Good morning, James,” Ben said. “What brings you out so early?”
The muscles of James’s jaw twitched in the sunlight. The skin of his neck and cheeks turned the color of apples. “Now listen here,” he snapped. “We have a problem, and, to hear it told, it’s yours to fix. And that’s why I’m here.”
Ben felt a flicker in his chest, a subtle pulse of adrenaline that was not unpleasant. “Oh my,” he said. “Sounds interesting.” He motioned toward the den. “Won’t you come in?”
James let out an angry grunt.
“A cup of coffee?” Ben asked. “I was just on my first.”
“Coffee?” James stammered. “I’m not here for coffee.”
Ben smiled. “I’m old,” he said. “I’d like to sit and drink my coffee. If you would like to talk, I suggest you follow.”
James shrugged theatrically but followed Ben to the den. Ben sat in his recliner and James on the couch. James was a large man, at least six-seven, and his knees jutted absurdly upward like the wings of a heron. He had ink-black hair and dark eyes and hands weathered from years of working outdoors. The man was not comfortable in his own skin and his body mocked the confines of the small couch by keeping itself in constant motion.
“Now,” Ben began. “Why don’t you tell me what this is all about?” Ben took a sip of his coffee and returned the cup to the table next to his chair. He clasped his hands in a gesture of rabid attention.
James straightened. His body stilled. “I am a simple man,” he said. “I am not married. I do not have children. I work a job that requires as little of me as I can muster. But my chickens. They are different. I have named them. And I take good care of them. And they give me eggs.” James stopped and looked down at his feet.
“I can see you care deeply for your chickens,” Ben admitted, somewhat taken aback by the fact the man seemed to actually love his chickens. Ben had assumed they were merely coveted possessions. “But where do I come in?”
James’s head shot up. The irises of his eyes seemed to liquefy, leaching outward toward his ears. “It’s your dog been killing them! And not just one – but four. Four of my chickens are dead!”
“I’m sure you know Wolf,” Ben said as he leaned into his recliner. “He’s famous in these parts, and no man – or woman – could ever own him. He’s wild at heart, and just because he has taken a liking to me does not mean I own him or can control anything he has an inkling to do.” Ben felt empowered by his words, by his recognition of something that would have seemed silly not long ago. Maggie would be delighted. But still, there was the matter of James and his beloved chickens.
James stood. “If you care about that dog, you’ll make him yours. You will build him a fence and keep him in and away from my chickens!” James’s words, punctuated with desperation, struck Ben as a threat.
“Or else?” Ben asked.
“Or else I’ll shoot him dead.” James did not flinch. His fingers threaded in and out of his pant loops like calm brown snakes.
Ben scratched his chin. He did not own the dog. That much was true. And there would likely be a day when the dog would decide not to return to Ben’s quiet home. But there was one thing he could do: he could honor the creature and Maggie’s love of it. “Here is what I can offer,” he said and stood so the two men were on equal ground, even though James was a solid six inches taller. “I will pay you for the four chickens. That seems only right. And I will build you a coop the likes of which no man has ever seen. It will have walls of windows and secure netting to keep out even the most industrious of creatures. I will do all of this at my own expense.”
James frowned as if he were being tricked. He began to rock, toe to heel.
“As for you,” Ben continued. “You will leave that dog alone. On that, I must have your word.”
James scratched his chin and inhaled slowly. “And what if that dog outsmarts you? What if he gets another chicken?”
Ben nodded as if he had not considered this possibility. “Well then, back to the drawing board for me. I’ll just start over and make it better. I’ll even pay you for any lost chicken.” Ben reached a hand toward James. “My terms are non-negotiable,” he said, remembering Maggie’s words to Wolf on her last afternoon with him. “Do you accept or not?”
James sighed and clasped Ben’s hand. “I accept,” he said and left Ben alone with his plan, the simple building of a coop meant to be unraveled, the beginning of an adventure, and an accidental gift that had finally hit the mark.
Lisa Youngblood
Maggie wagged her finger at the couch as if it were a mischievous child. “I want to go outside,” she said. “Fresh air never hurt anyone.” Inch by inch, she shuffled toward the door, her emaciated legs moving like a turtle’s.
“But the forecast,” Ben said. “It’s calling for rain.” He rushed behind her, his hands fidgeting and groping and shifting, his heart pumping so hard he could hear it.
Maggie twisted to look him in the eye. “You worry too much,” she said and smiled. “You always have.” With that, she righted herself and resumed her shuffling. Ben followed.
When she reached the door, she stopped and bowed her head in concession. The door was too much for her, beautiful but formidable, a gift from Ben’s hands to hers. Ben considered his natural gifts few, but architecture was one of them. The man could build anything, and build it well, an offering that now struck him as particularly trivial. If only he were like Maggie, who was gifted in every way. Whatever and whomever she touched was better for it, but all Ben could do was build. He took a deep breath and placed his hand around the steel knob and twisted. As he pushed the door open, he remembered how, in the cold months, Maggie would wrap her sweater over her palm before handling the knob. Ben had wanted to replace it, but Maggie had said, “No. It was a gift. I like it just the way it is.” And Ben had let it be.
Ben pushed the screen out of the way, and Maggie nodded and leaned against him to take the single step down to the porch. Once planted firmly on the floor, she let him loose and shuffled, shoulders straight and dignified, to her rocking chair. She settled without fuss although Ben could see a slight grimace tugging the corners of her mouth, which caused his shoulders to tighten. He took a deep breath, something one of the many nurses had encouraged him to do, and sat in the rocker next to hers.
Only inches apart, they rocked in time and in silence, Ben eyeing the growing nimbus clouds with mounting concern but saying nothing.
Suddenly, Maggie took in an excited gulp of air. “Wolf!” she cried. “You came!”
Ben looked into the yard. Wolf’s head poked through the center of a dormant azalea bush, the leaves of which framed the dog’s long neck like a medieval collar and left the impression of a grinning court jester (despite an abundant and razor sharp cluster of teeth).
“That dog is a marvel,” Maggie sighed. “An absolute marvel.”
Ben frowned. He found the dog rather odious and wild. Wolf was, however, something of a celebrity in the neighborhood. The creature could avoid the clutches of the humane society for months at a time, and, once apprehended, turn himself into the most beguiling creature, one that made children laugh and caused at least four families to adopt him, only to find him disappeared within days. Confinement, no matter how amiable, was simply not in the dog’s nature.
Maggie reached into her shirt pocket and pulled out a piece of cheese she had saved just for Wolf. The dog’s ears perked. “I can’t come to you anymore,” she sighed. “If you want it, you’ll have to come to me.”
Wolf seemed to ponder the proposition, his eyes looking toward the heavens and his jaw closing and grinding.
“Maggie,” Ben said. “You know good and well that creature is wild. He doesn’t come to anyone.”
Maggie smiled and reached her hand toward the dog. Wolf’s snout crinkled. “Come on now,” she purred. “Don’t be a coward.”
Wolf stiffened and undid himself from the azalea bush, presenting his whole body at the base of the stairs. From this vantage point, he looked less comical and more ferocious. The muscles of his legs and chest twitched beneath his coat, and his jaw opened in what appeared to be a scowl.
“Maybe you should just throw him the cheese,” Ben said.
“Nonsense,” Maggie said and looked straight at Wolf. “The terms are non-negotiable.”
Wolf seemed to sigh, his head dipping in defeat, and he crouched to half his height and inched up the stairs. Ben leaned closer to his wife, his heart pounding against his ribs. When the creature reached the porch, he positioned himself as far from Maggie as possible but close enough so his neck, fully craned, could reach her outstretched hand. Maggie laughed. Wolf’s jaw opened another half inch and his teeth slowly lowered to secure the cheese. One millimeter at a time, he pulled it from Maggie’s fingertips and slunk back down the stairs and disappeared into the woods on the other side of the street.
Maggie set to rocking again. “And off he goes,” she sighed. “Free as a bird. That creature is really something.”
Ben scratched his chin. He could not understand his wife’s fascination with that dog. What sort of creature would chose to be rootless, to scavenge for food, when families had opened their homes to him?
“I have no regrets,” Maggie said as her rocker came to an abrupt halt. “It was my decision, and that is that.”
Ben’s lips puckered. “Are we talking about the dog?” he asked, assuming his wife had read his thoughts, as she so often did.
Maggie shook her head. “We are talking about me,” she said. “I don’t think you remember, but I was like Wolf once. I most certainly was.” She took a deep breath and resumed her rocking. “And then I wasn’t. But it was my choice.” She grabbed Ben’s hand and squeezed. The veins below her knuckles lay flat, and Ben prayed her heart would get the blood it needed.
“I’ll be gone soon,” she said.
Ben shook his head, but Maggie persisted.
“I’ll be gone soon,” she said again. “And I don’t want you thinking any of it was your fault. It was my choice. I do not regret it. I loved being loved by you.” She squeezed his hand again and let it go, closing her eyes and rocking away in the dimming afternoon light, seemingly certain that all that needed to be said had been said. Ben closed his eyes, too, baffled by his wife’s words. It must be the pain medicine, he thought. That noxious concoction made her say all manner of nonsensical things.
~ ~ ~
The sunlight bullied its way through the bedroom windows, searing the thin skin of Maggie’s cheek and casting shadows under her eyes that made Ben’s hands shake. Wanting to protect her, he tried to close the curtains but they were only decorative, opening three inches at best, which was no help at all. Like a mime, he positioned his body here and there to block the rays, but each time the sun snuck around Ben like water pulsing through a cracked dam. Nothing, absolutely nothing, seemed to help. Of course, it was Ben’s fault. Maggie had wanted walls full of windows, and he had given them to her. But he knew better. He was an architect for God’s sake. He just never quite figured out how to say no to her.
Maggie twisted in the bed, and the sun’s light moved from her cheeks to her eyes, which caused her to open them. Slowly, her hand lifted as a shield. “Ben?” she asked. “Ben, is that you?”
He rushed to her bedside. “Yes, of course.”
She smiled and closed her eyes again. Her hand lay back on the pillow.
“I’m so sorry about the sun,” he said. “It’s a nuisance.”
She laughed and drifted back to sleep. He sat at the foot of the bed and studied her. He had always likened her to a cat, the type of creature who appropriated space rather than conformed to it. Her cotton blanket, usually open and wrinkled, a testament to her last moment of respite. Her handmade coffee mug, stained from decades of use, her bible, which she read so often more pages were earmarked than not. All of it just so and proclaiming her dominion of their home, her comfort in her own skin.
Ben sighed and rubbed his cheeks. How he wished he could heal her or take her place, but he could not. He felt rooted to the bed and he wondered if he might be there forever, maybe even after she passed, just sitting there like a dead, rotting log. He was her shadow. Nothing more. And she was his source of light. He owed her so much, a lifetime of purpose and assurance, and he felt the urgent need to let her know, to give her a gift that would say all the things he could not. He thought and thought and thought and listened to the rattled humming of her lungs, and finally the solution presented itself: he would make curtains – never mind that he had no idea how to sew.
He rushed to her workroom, a place where she did all manner of things, only a handful of which he understood, and began to rummage around. Maggie never threw anything away, and this room was evidence of that. The history of their lives could easily be strewn together by anyone so inclined, and it felt to Ben like a roadmap to a treasure he did not want to share. His chest tightened at the sight of their daughter’s first prom dress, which lay neatly folded on her childhood play table, their son’s skateboard, untouched for decades, hanging on two perfectly placed nails on the far wall. A box labeled “Report Cards and Camp Letters” lay just beneath a slightly smaller box labeled, “Family Vacations.” Ben wanted to linger, to relive the moments of their lives, but there was work to be done.
He navigated through the maze of artifacts until he found her box of sewing scraps. He grabbed it and left in search of duct tape, which he finally found in the garage. Once back in the bedroom, he lifted the lid and inspected the contents. They, too, were a roadmap to history. Pieces of the Christmas stockings she had made for their children and grandchildren, a piece of their daughter’s christening gown, a scrap from her wedding dress, and a green felt panel from their son’s second grade play. He had been a frog in the production of The Three Little Pigs and had had only one line: Ribbit. “Spectacular croaking,” Maggie had gushed. Work, he reminded himself. There is work to be done.
He pulled the curtains as far as they would go and began. One-by-one, he taped the scraps of fabric over the window until the light could no longer reach his wife. It took hours and in the increasing darkness he had to turn on the bedside lamps, but Maggie slept all the while. When he was finally done, he stood back to admire his work. A tapestry of their lives together and protection from the searing sun. His chest tingled with pride.
Maggie woke at six o’clock that evening. Her face crinkled in confusion. “What happened?” she asked. “What happened to the windows?”
Ben smiled and caressed her cheek. “A gift, he said. “From me to you.”
Maggie remained quiet for a few long seconds. “How kind,” she finally said and smiled, although the smile seemed a bit crooked.
“Don’t you like it?” he asked.
“Of course,” she said, letting her eyes close again. “Very much.”
~ ~ ~
Ben unfolded her blanket and placed it over their bare mattress. For reasons he did not understand, when they had taken her, they took the linens, too, and he was left staring at a strange blue mattress. He had not known the mattress was blue and it felt like a failure on his part. He was supposed to have noticed everything – all the things she made and fixed and washed and touched. But he had not.
He heard Wolf barking and checked his watch. Three-thirty in the afternoon. Right on time. He walked over to the windows to get a look at the dog but his tapestry, now faded and sad-looking, still covered the glass. He glanced at the small fichus tree in the corner. In a stalwart attempt to survive, it leaned hard toward the glass but to no avail. Its leaves, many of which had fallen, were brown and curled inward at the edges, and its bark hung in exhausted layers from its trunk. Ben cringed as the reality of his creation settled upon him: a ramshackle cover for a wall with too many windows. Not the gift he had intended.
“Daddy,” Anelle said from the threshold. “Are you all right?”
Ben turned toward his daughter. She looked so much like her mother, tall and slender with long fingers and absurdly small feet, but she was nothing like her. Where Maggie was feisty, always in the midst of a ruckus or protest, Anelle was meek. Where Maggie was outgoing and quick to commandeer a room, Anelle was shy, often situated on the outskirts, smiling or nodding with one hand covering her lips. Like Ben, Anelle liked quiet and books and board games and lazy afternoons tucked in close to a fire. This had pleased Ben – but not Maggie, who would chew on her nails and whisper, She will outgrow her cocoon, right? And Ben would reply, Of course, even though he saw no reason why she would or should.
“Daddy?” Anelle said again.
“Yes, yes,” he said, “I’m fine.”
Anelle eyed the tapestry, her eyes asking the question she could not.
“The sun,” Ben said quickly. “It was too much.”
“Of course it was,” she reassured him and walked over and patted him on the shoulder as if he were a kindergartner who had painted a six-fingered hand.
That night, Ben dismantled his tapestry. He pulled the fabric pieces from the glass, the sound of the ripping tape like the revving of tiny racecar engines. He scrubbed away the patches of left-behind adhesive, scraping the glass with a small, sharp razor where needed, and soon the job was done. The windows were windows again, just as Maggie had ordered.
~ ~ ~
Ben sat in his reclining chair and studied Wolf. For six months, the dog had come every day at three-thirty and stationed himself inside the azalea bush and waited. By four in the afternoon, he would grow bored and wander back off into the woods.
Until today.
Today he plucked himself free of the bush and slunk up the stairs and sat square in front of the screen door and inspected the innards of the house. Trying hard to ignore the creature, Ben turned on the television and flipped through the stations until he found a documentary on the Vietnam War. The camera panned in on a small village. Quiet lives blanketed in the hushed voices of those who knew they were being watched, and then, a steady stream of automatic gunfire. Women and children screamed. Bullets pierced the skin of babies, who tumbled from their mother’s arms. Dogs barked madly. Men ran. Ben shuddered and turned off the television. He glanced toward the door. Wolf continued to stare at the screen, his head tilted in irritation. Finally, the creature made a strange yelp and pawed at the door.
“It was gruesome,” Ben argued. “I didn’t want to watch it.”
Wolf barked.
Ben bristled. “Now listen here. What I do in my own home is none of your concern. Anyway, Maggie is gone. You are no longer welcome here. Just get!”
Wolf whined and righted his neck. His lips seemed to pucker.
Ben exploded. He leapt from his chair and stormed the door. “Leave me alone!” he screamed. “Go away!” He was not a screamer and his body reacted in gushes of blood that pulsed through his temples and drummed in his ears. His legs wobbled, and he had to lean against the door.
Wolf’s head tilted again and he let out a strange howl that ended in the high pitch of a question. Ben’s heart tightened. A rush of adrenaline steadied his legs. He thrust the screen door open. Wolf scrambled and skidded on the porch. Ben lifted an arm to strike the creature but before his hand could land a blow, it seemed to catch fire. Ben found himself staring at it in wonder.
Ben forced himself to look again at the dog, who also seemed to be in a state of wonder, which made Ben feel confused. He looked back to his hand, his eyes transforming into pendulums. His hand, the dog, his hand, the dog. Both entirely separate from him. He had never hit anyone in his life – and never would - nor had he ever pretended any affection for this dog. And yet, there they were, beckoning. His hand, the dog, his hand, the dog. In the monotony of concentration, the fire inside Ben subsided, and he lowered his arm and bowed his head in shame. “Please leave,” he mumbled. “Please leave me alone.”
Something in Ben’s tone resonated with the dog, and Wolf turned and marched down the stairs and disappeared into the woods without once looking back.
~ ~ ~
Outside of the loneliness and quiet, Ben’s life had not changed all that much. He was a creature of habits and those habits got him through day after day although he had begun to feel robotic and could not help but wonder if his humanity had been borne solely of his wife. She was often just returning from this adventure or that, and she would fill the evenings with stories and laughter, and Ben felt he had somehow been there with her - that he, too, had straightened out a teacher or picketed the felling of an ancient Oak or raised money for a family that had lost their home in a fire. But he had not, and now there were no stories. There was no laughter. There was only routine and his boring-ass self.
Enough, he decided. I am going to have myself an adventure.
He packed his lunch (always a turkey sandwich on rye with spicy mustard and cucumber) and left the house. It was a beautiful day, the sky cloudless, the air warm but not wet or oppressive, a good day to be outdoors, which sounded like something Maggie would say. “You would be proud of me,” he said as he drove down the highway. “I’m going to Catawba Falls.” Ben did not like the waterfall, but Maggie had loved it, something that niggled at him now.
He parked in the lot and jammed his folded dollar bills into the correct slot and steadied himself at the foot of the trail. The climb ahead was not inconsequential and his increasingly sedentary lifestyle would make the trek difficult, but he felt a wave of - if not excitement - purpose, and he began the ascent with optimism.
Every hundred yards or so, he would stop, wait for his breathing to return to normal, and forge ahead. But with each break, his mind would fixate on what he so disliked about this place. First was the climb. It was more mountain than hill with unrelenting steps and switchbacks that gave false hope. Second was the air. It changed in the course of the ascent, growing both thinner and wetter to the point where Ben could not fill his lungs and yet his shirt lay wet and heavy against his skin. The wetness chilled him and the exertion made him sweat, which felt like a simultaneous punch to the head and the gut. Still, he forged on.
When he finally reached the top, he looked toward the heavens. He hoped Maggie was watching and she was proud of his effort. But then again, she could be angry. Why, she might wonder, would he not do this with me? Indeed, Ben thought. Why had he not?
Ben sighed and peered into the water, which crashed into itself in a thunderous roar. In that turmoil, Ben could see all the world’s agonies, skulls crushed, boats destroyed, dreams shattered, all evidence of God’s wrath, and he felt himself lean away in revulsion. But then, his body found its way back to the railing, drawn inexplicably to the very chaos that repulsed him. His hipbones dug into the wrought iron. The water sprayed his cheeks and stuck to his eyelashes. He leaned further, his stomach now atop the railing. He poised on the tips of his toes. He remembered how Maggie had described the thunder as exquisite and joyful. But it seemed far grander and more sinister to him. He leaned further still. His brain twisted and raced and wandered until it settled on a particular memory.
Maggie had been leaning over the railing, just as he was now. She lifted her arms as if about to take flight, and he had reached a hand to her and pulled her back.
“Be careful,” he had said. “People have fallen off this thing, you know. Plunged to their deaths!”
Maggie had stepped away from the railing and placed her hands on her hips. “No they haven’t,” she said. “They jumped. And that is entirely different.” She had huffed and even snarled a bit, and, to calm her, he had smiled to suggest he understood, but he had not. He still did not. Not really. After all, death was death, whether purposeful or accidental.
A bluebird flew within inches of his nose, which made Ben teeter and brought him back to the reality of where – and how – he stood. He gazed again into the water, not knowing whether he would jump or step back, but he saw suddenly he had a choice in the matter, and it would take some effort to propel his body over the railing. He let himself linger and chewed on the possibility of choosing death. To his disappointment, he found it was too grand a decision for him. He was mediocrity at its finest, a man complacent on the sidelines.
He shook his head in defeat, stepped back from the ledge and returned to his car.
~ ~ ~
It had been a long day. Anelle had stopped by and insisted they clean out Maggie’s things. “It’s time,” she had said. “You cannot live in a mausoleum.”
Ben had thought of his home as a shrine, not a mausoleum, but he also knew she was right. With very little discussion, they spent the entire day boxing old woolen sweaters and books with torn jackets (Maggie was always twisting the spines of her books) and shoes and gowns and jeans and dresses and cotton shirts. “We will donate it all,” Anelle said. “She will like that.”
“Indeed,” Ben said as he took stock of what was left. Her vanity with its cachet of perfume bottles and silver-plated make-up brushes. Her bible. Her blanket. Her coffee mug, which he never used for fear he might break it, and her workroom. Anelle’s eyes had widened at the sight of that room. “Good lord,” she had said. “That will just have to wait.”
“Indeed,” Ben said again, grateful for the exuberance of Maggie’s hoarding, grateful that she would remain with him in their home through that room – at least for now.
That night, as he ate his dinner in front of the television, he found his heart particularly pierced. Pieces of her had been plucked away and that splendor replaced with nothingness. Worse, the nothingness had a permanent, settling-in-for-the-winter feeling that left Ben frantic to focus on something – anything – else, which left him staring blankly at the television. The man on the screen was talking about how he had lost a hundred pounds and how easy it had been. “One Hydroxycut a day and a couple of walks around the block and it just fell off,” the man said as he stretched out his waistband to suggest a solid fifteen inches of missing body. “One pill,” he added. “And my whole life changed.” Ben wished such a thing were possible. One pill and he could be someone else. He rolled his eyes at his own folly, at which point he inadvertently caught a glimpse of Wolf, who, not taking Ben’s many hints, sat perched at the screen door transfixed by the television.
Ben rolled his eyes again, which made him feel a little woozy. He had not yelled at Wolf since the night he had almost struck him, but he had engaged in a mental battle with the creature – and himself. He had decided he would be above the experience of the dog. He did not acknowledge Wolf’s existence in any way, nor did he let the creature penetrate his daily thoughts. Assigning himself architect of his own brain, Ben created a space where the dog simply did not exist.
Wolf, however, was not buying it.
Ben refocused himself on the television. The commercial had ended and now a police drama unfolded on the screen. He had never understood the fascination with murder but was willing to give it a try. All the while, Wolf scratched and whined and, at least once, barked. Ben refused to acknowledge him.
An hour passed. Maybe two. A new, nondescript show came on. An African American family in a white suburb. Ben chuckled once but soon found himself focusing more on the forms than the story. The steel edge of the toaster. The copper knob of the door. The glitter on the bottom of the tall woman’s dress. And soon he was asleep. He dreamed of a witch who had fallen into her own cauldron. She screeched and howled and cursed the world, the din so horrific it woke him, which was when he realized the sound was not a dream.
With some effort, he foisted his body from the chair and walked to the door and looked out into the yard. Wolf, poised at the dead center, craned his neck toward the sky, his coat gleaming and his mouth open wide, the muscles of his jaw shimmering in the moonlight. A sad song filled the night sky in octaves that pierced the heart and, on occasion, the ears. Ben stood perfectly still and listened until Wolf was done and the creature had limped, exhausted, back into the woods. Ben’s body tingled. Like it or not, he was now tethered to that dog. It’s song was Ben’s song, even if Ben could not sing it.
Ben closed and locked the door and made his way to the bedroom. Settling into bed, he felt a need to be comforted and grabbed Maggie’s bible from the bedside table and opened it. At once, his breath quickened. The book was not a bible. Inside was a collection of de-spined and reconstructed novels. What pains she must have taken to unfasten all those spines and refashion them into the spine of her bible. At least two of the novels had pages that were too small and she had superimposed them onto larger pages so they would seamlessly fit inside. With heaving breasts and undulating thighs, stiffening manhoods and platitudinal, ubiquitous proclamations of love, all the books appeared to be romances. It must have taken her years to create this, or perhaps she recreated it regularly, switching out this book for that, wanting a new character or setting or coupling. But why? And why hide it from him? Why pretend to be devouring the Holy Spirit when she was simply indulging a guilty pleasure? Ben would not have judged her, which she must have known, and yet she had so precisely hidden it from him.
Not knowing what else to do, he closed the book, placed it just-so on Maggie’s bedside table and turned out the light, enduring a long wakeful night without so much as the droop of an eyelid.
~ ~ ~
A week later, at six o’clock in the evening, Anelle showed up at Ben’s front door. The door was wide open so as to allow Wolf full access to the television, but Anelle could not resist the formality of knocking. “Daddy,” she said. “Can I come in?”
“Of course,” Ben answered. “You don’t need to knock. You know that.” He readied himself to stand and greet her, but she motioned for him to stay seated, and he dipped his chin in gratitude. She took a seat across from him on the sofa and tucked her legs underneath her like a small child. Her eyes were swollen and streaked, and her hair gathered in tangles, odd for such a kempt person. Ben’s heart quickened. “Is everything all right?” he asked.
Anelle pursed her lips.
Ben closed his eyes, summoning Maggie. Please, he prayed. Please help me help her. “Go on,” he said. “Tell me what happened.”
Anelle took a deep breath. She would not look at her father.
Ben leaned closer to her although she was still too far to touch. His heart pounded. His hand trembled. Wolf whined at the door. “Anelle,” he begged. “Please. Tell me.”
She cleared her throat. “Peter is having an affair.” Peter, Anelle’s husband of ten years, had never been Maggie’s favorite. It wasn’t that Maggie fervently disliked Peter, but she called him “a wanderer who would rather break than bend,” which, to Maggie, had seemed a great risk to their daughter.
“Why do you think so?” Ben asked, knowing the answer was beside the point, but he needed time to think.
Anelle’s neck flushed. “I caught them.” She paused and wiped her eyes. “He didn’t even flinch.” She unthreaded her legs and placed her feet on the floor. She wore tennis shoes with bright pink laces, something her mother would have worn but not typically something she would wear.
Ben scratched his chin and eyed Wolf, who had lain down with what appeared a sad expression on his face. “Why would he do that?” Ben asked, unable to comprehend such disloyalty.
Anelle let her tears loose. “I tried so hard,” she sobbed. “I really did. But I couldn’t keep it up.”
Ben frowned, stood and walked over to the couch. He sat next to his daughter and placed a hand on her arm. “He doesn’t deserve you,” he said honestly.
She sighed and took several deep breaths. Her tears dried. “It’s not his fault,” she said. “Not entirely. We just aren’t right for each other.”
Ben leaned into the cushion but did not let go of his daughter. Touch was all he knew to offer.
Anelle exhaled loudly and leaned forward, her elbows now digging into the flesh of her thighs. “It’s more like mourning than heartbreak,” she said. “I have lost so much time. So much time trying to be someone I am not - all to satisfy a man who could never love me for who I am.”
“But who you are is perfect,” Ben said – and he meant it. With her meekness and introversion came a kindness that was unmatched, empathy overflowing and far-reaching. Anyone who could not love her was mad.
Anelle laughed. “I’m going to be fine,” she said, and, for that one moment, she sounded a lot like her mother, which fortified Ben.
“Of course you will,” he said. “You have your mother in you.”
She blushed, “A bit,” she said. “But I’m mainly you.”
Wolf barked and scratched at the screen. Anelle stood and walked to the door and let him in. Wolf smirked, pranced to the couch, circled his own body twice, and curled into a ball and promptly fell asleep. It had never occurred to Ben to let the dog inside, nor had it occurred to him the creature would want to come inside.
“Mom really liked this dog, didn’t she?” Anelle asked.
Ben nodded. “I don’t rightly know why, but yes.”
Anelle smiled. “You know why.”
Ben frowned. He thought to reach down and pat Wolf but worried it might startle the creature and cost Ben his hand. Anelle did not suffer the same concern and plopped back on the sofa and fondled the dog’s ears. Wolf seemed to purr.
“I guess I thought Peter was more like mom,” Anelle said. “Like he was okay with it.”
Ben’s shoulders tightened. “Okay with what?”
Anelle shrugged. “You know. The quiet.”
Ben leaned hard against the couch cushions, pressing his shoulders outward to stretch them. He was supposed to say something wise and encouraging, or, at the very least, acknowledge something, but he found himself unable to speak.
Anelle’s hand landed on his elbow. “It’s okay, Dad. Mom was happy.”
Was she? he wondered. Was she really happy? He thought of the bible that was not a bible at all and how that silly book might be connected to the question of her happiness. He found he needed Anelle’s opinion on the matter. “Did you know the book on your mother’s bedside table was not really a bible?”
“Of course,” she said. “At least one of those books was mine.” Anelle laughed. “Fifty Shades. That always cracked me up.”
“Fifty Shades?”
“It’s nothing,” Anelle said, shaking her head. “Just a book. Mom found all manner of ways to entertain herself.”
“Apparently,” he said and did his best to smile.
~ ~ ~
Wolf began to show up with gifts: first, a bird with its head dangling at an ungodly angle, then a squirrel and a mouse and, finally, a chicken. Ben knew exactly where the chicken had come from and he knew James Black was going to be furious. That man coveted his chickens.
“Have you adopted the dog?” Anelle asked, staring uneasily at the chicken carcass by the foot of Ben’s rocker. She came by quite often now, and each day was different. She would vacillate between youthful exuberance and gloom, ponytails to unkempt bangs clouding her hazel eyes. But she kept showing up, and that meant something. Whether or not it was the shedding of a cocoon he could not say, but it did seem they were both on inexorable personal journeys, even if he was not the master of his own.
“He’s adopted me more like it,” Ben said. “Can’t quite shake him.”
“You feed him?”
“Just a few bowls now and then. In the yard. Never at the house.”
Anelle nodded. Wolf grinned and nuzzled the chicken closer to Ben’s foot.
“What does one do with a dead chicken?” she asked, a hint of amusement in her voice.
Ben shrugged. “I don’t rightly know.” He had thrown the bird and the squirrel and the mouse into the garbage, but a chicken seemed a being of a higher order and thus entitled to a grander send-off.
Anelle studied the chicken. Wolf placed a possessive paw over it and dropped his lower lip in a pout. “You could bury it, I guess,” she offered.
Ben nodded but that didn’t seem quite right either. He looked at Wolf and the dog let out a low, quiet yawp. “Wolf would just dig it up,” he finally said.
Anelle nodded. “All I know is you better get ready for Mr. Black. He sure likes his chickens.”
When Anelle left, Ben remained outside with Wolf and the dead chicken and thought about the lunacy of life, which made him think of the duality of standing at the precipice of that waterfall, the reality that a single second could change – or end – a human life. But, more than that, how a person could be ignorant of his own power, his ability to choose, which made him wonder if there were any accidents at all. And that’s when he knew what he needed to do.
He placed the chicken in a plastic grocery bag, one of its rubbery, gray feet refusing to stay put, loaded up Wolf, who whined and coughed in confusion, and drove to Catawba Falls. Wolf sat in the passenger seat like a human, which made Ben smile.
When they reached the waterfall, Ben grabbed his grocery bag, and, with Wolf by his side, began the long trek to the top. Wolf didn’t seem any more fond of the hike than Ben, his ears on alert from the thunder of the water, his nose crinkling at the dusting of mist on his snout, and he seemed more than a little put out his prey was trapped inside a plastic bag. The dog kept sniffing and pawing at the bag, but Ben kept pulling it away. “You’ll see,” Ben explained. “Just be patient.”
Wolf sneezed but followed.
Once they summited, Ben went straight for the railing and let his torso fall forward. He leaned over and pressed upward on the tips of his toes. He looked down at Wolf and said, “It’s okay. It’s for Maggie.” With that, he opened the mouth of the bag, turned it upside down and freed the chicken, watching as it tumbled into and under the water and disappeared. He expected the clouds to part and the earth to shake, the hand of God to reach down and say, Damn it, man! You’ve done it! The perfect gift! But nothing happened other than the chicken was gone.
Ben frowned and looked at Wolf, who let out a long, low moan. “I know,” Ben sighed. “But we are getting close. I can feel it.”
~ ~ ~
Two more chickens followed, the last one mangled not only at the neck but also down its entire right flank, suggesting Wolf’s innate wildness was taking over, which also suggested he might leave Ben soon, and Ben wasn’t sure how he felt about that so he chose not to dwell on it.
Upon receipt of each gift, Ben would load up the chicken and Wolf and return to the waterfall and set the poor creature free. Wolf was not happy about the chicken releases, and he barked each time and refused to look at Ben but always settled by the time they reached the car. Ben, too, settled as he situated himself in the driver’s seat and fastened his seatbelt and fiddled with the radio, but his settling was more resignation than acceptance. The plan, if it could be called that, seemed to be in a rut.
On the fourth release, just as Ben had prepared to return home, a man in khaki pants and a shirt that read Department of Health and Environmental Conservation stopped Ben. “What in the hell are you doing?” the man asked.
“Releasing the chickens,” Ben said as if the man were an imbecile.
The man frowned and pulled a cigarette from his shirt pocket and lit it. “You crazy or something?” he asked as he exhaled.
Ben scratched his chin. “I don’t know.” He reached down and gave Wolf a pat. It was the first time he had touched the dog, and he was surprised by the softness of Wolf’s coat. Wolf did not seem to register Ben’s touch, bristled as he was, glaring and growling at the stranger. The man stepped back.
“It’s for my wife,” Ben said. “Wolf here has been stealing James Black’s chickens, and I have been setting them free.” Wolf barked and the man inched back further.
“I know James Black,” the man said. He was so far away now his voice was barely audible over the roar of the water.
“Well then,” Ben said. “I suspect you better let him know what’s been happening to his chickens.” Wolf barked again and the two of them returned to the car and drove home in silence.
~ ~ ~
James Black showed up the next morning just after sunrise. He knocked on the front door as if trying to save Ben from the flames of a ferocious fire. Ben took his time answering. “Good morning, James,” Ben said. “What brings you out so early?”
The muscles of James’s jaw twitched in the sunlight. The skin of his neck and cheeks turned the color of apples. “Now listen here,” he snapped. “We have a problem, and, to hear it told, it’s yours to fix. And that’s why I’m here.”
Ben felt a flicker in his chest, a subtle pulse of adrenaline that was not unpleasant. “Oh my,” he said. “Sounds interesting.” He motioned toward the den. “Won’t you come in?”
James let out an angry grunt.
“A cup of coffee?” Ben asked. “I was just on my first.”
“Coffee?” James stammered. “I’m not here for coffee.”
Ben smiled. “I’m old,” he said. “I’d like to sit and drink my coffee. If you would like to talk, I suggest you follow.”
James shrugged theatrically but followed Ben to the den. Ben sat in his recliner and James on the couch. James was a large man, at least six-seven, and his knees jutted absurdly upward like the wings of a heron. He had ink-black hair and dark eyes and hands weathered from years of working outdoors. The man was not comfortable in his own skin and his body mocked the confines of the small couch by keeping itself in constant motion.
“Now,” Ben began. “Why don’t you tell me what this is all about?” Ben took a sip of his coffee and returned the cup to the table next to his chair. He clasped his hands in a gesture of rabid attention.
James straightened. His body stilled. “I am a simple man,” he said. “I am not married. I do not have children. I work a job that requires as little of me as I can muster. But my chickens. They are different. I have named them. And I take good care of them. And they give me eggs.” James stopped and looked down at his feet.
“I can see you care deeply for your chickens,” Ben admitted, somewhat taken aback by the fact the man seemed to actually love his chickens. Ben had assumed they were merely coveted possessions. “But where do I come in?”
James’s head shot up. The irises of his eyes seemed to liquefy, leaching outward toward his ears. “It’s your dog been killing them! And not just one – but four. Four of my chickens are dead!”
“I’m sure you know Wolf,” Ben said as he leaned into his recliner. “He’s famous in these parts, and no man – or woman – could ever own him. He’s wild at heart, and just because he has taken a liking to me does not mean I own him or can control anything he has an inkling to do.” Ben felt empowered by his words, by his recognition of something that would have seemed silly not long ago. Maggie would be delighted. But still, there was the matter of James and his beloved chickens.
James stood. “If you care about that dog, you’ll make him yours. You will build him a fence and keep him in and away from my chickens!” James’s words, punctuated with desperation, struck Ben as a threat.
“Or else?” Ben asked.
“Or else I’ll shoot him dead.” James did not flinch. His fingers threaded in and out of his pant loops like calm brown snakes.
Ben scratched his chin. He did not own the dog. That much was true. And there would likely be a day when the dog would decide not to return to Ben’s quiet home. But there was one thing he could do: he could honor the creature and Maggie’s love of it. “Here is what I can offer,” he said and stood so the two men were on equal ground, even though James was a solid six inches taller. “I will pay you for the four chickens. That seems only right. And I will build you a coop the likes of which no man has ever seen. It will have walls of windows and secure netting to keep out even the most industrious of creatures. I will do all of this at my own expense.”
James frowned as if he were being tricked. He began to rock, toe to heel.
“As for you,” Ben continued. “You will leave that dog alone. On that, I must have your word.”
James scratched his chin and inhaled slowly. “And what if that dog outsmarts you? What if he gets another chicken?”
Ben nodded as if he had not considered this possibility. “Well then, back to the drawing board for me. I’ll just start over and make it better. I’ll even pay you for any lost chicken.” Ben reached a hand toward James. “My terms are non-negotiable,” he said, remembering Maggie’s words to Wolf on her last afternoon with him. “Do you accept or not?”
James sighed and clasped Ben’s hand. “I accept,” he said and left Ben alone with his plan, the simple building of a coop meant to be unraveled, the beginning of an adventure, and an accidental gift that had finally hit the mark.
