“Fielding—”
“Dad … I just want to see for myself.”
He understood those words and stopped the car, looking straight ahead as I jumped out, slamming the door maybe too hard.
As I followed Sal, I could’ve been as loud as I wanted. I could’ve screamed his name and threw sticks at his back. He wouldn’t have noticed. He was the boy running toward the something he had to do, and everything else was lost to that cause.
When we got to the pasture, the horses seemed to be in the same spot they were in that night we first saw them. They looked at Sal and remembered him. They even seemed to ask where the girl was.
Did they see me?
One did. The black one with the white on its forehead. It kept eyes on me as I fell back behind a tree at the edge of the pasture and watched Sal walk out to the fence. He gathered the candles still on the posts and with them fell down onto the ground, where he held all thirteen candles close to his chest.
I couldn’t hear him from where I was and yet didn’t I know what he was saying? Something like: You were my favorite thing, and in imagination your death will not exist. It’s all as if from now on. As if you are not gone. You will be the girl beside me. Never more than a heartbeat length away. The woman who will be the hill of my bed. A climb to the top and such views to make little things of. Little us that will be part you and part me and whole in those two things. As if you are not gone and will be with me to get the wrinkles, the white hair, the spine shaped like a rocking chair. As if you are not gone and so will have the love of going in my arms, warm and with me. Yes, you are my favorite thing. You always will be.
He slowly laid the candles down while he dug a hole with his hands. It was a frantic tearing of the ground. Sometimes I close my eyes and see his body rocking toward that hole, scooping dirt, shoving it up underneath his fingernails. Over and over again, that grave digging has never passed for me.
In this hole, he placed the candles. The burying of them was a shove away, a short task for a life cut short. As he sat there, patting the dirt, I reached into my suit jacket and took the handkerchief out of the pocket. I rolled it like a long white snake I pulled through my fingers as I sat there, staring out at the grave between him and me.
I was the first to leave. I knew he wouldn’t for longer still. I left the handkerchief rolled on the ground. I thought maybe it might slither its way out to him.
Hours passed by the time I got home. Dad was already returned from the funeral. He was still in his suit, the jacket pinned back by his hands on his hips.
“Fielding, where were you?” He was sweating even more. God, why hadn’t he taken that black suit off yet?
“Fielding, answer me.”
His voice fell behind me as I went up the steps.
“I thought you were coming to the funeral, young man.”
“I did,” I whispered down to him.
“What?”
“I was at her funeral,” I said somewhere.
“Fielding—”
“Leave ’im alone, Dad.” Grand was standing in the doorway of his bedroom. As I passed him, he reached out to me. “Do you know how to take it off?”
I loosened the tie the rest of the way and pulled my head out.
“Hmm.” His eyes had slippery contact with mine. “You don’t need me anymore.”
He stepped back and I should’ve reached, but I let him close his door. I dropped the tie somewhere in the hall. Didn’t mean to. It just fell out of my hand on my way to my room. I closed the door and leaned against it. What was that noise? That tapping?
“You okay, Fielding?” Mom at the other side of the door.
“Fine, Mom.”
“You dropped your tie.”
“It just fell.”
“Where’s Sal?”
“He’ll be home later.”
“You sure you’re okay, sweetie?”
“I’m fine.”
I pressed my ear flat against the door, listening to her walk away. I threw my jacket down on the floor and went to my desk, where I grabbed construction paper and scissors. I sat on the floor and took some red, yellow, and orange paper and began to cut. Oak leaves. Maple leaves. Elm leaves. Ohio leaves. A whole big pile I dumped across the window bed. Then I got a flashlight and sat in the pile and waited.
It got dark and Mom came up, asking through the closed door if I was hungry. No, I said. Darker still. Feet outside the door on their way to bed. Dad. Asking if I’m all right. Fine, I say. More dark. A 3 A.M. dark when my bedroom door slowly opened.
“Don’t turn on the light.”
Sal’s hand dropped from the switch. “Where are you, Fielding?”
“Over here, at the winda bed. Come and sit down.” I scooted some of the leaves over to make a seat for him.
“What is all this?” His hands moved through the pile.
I turned on the flashlight and shined it on the red leaf between his fingers. “It’s Dresden.”
He looked at me and I looked at him, but we didn’t say anything for that long while. He slowly looked back at the leaf in his hand, twirling it gently by its stem.
“Thank you, Fielding.”
And so we were, on into the night, two boys sharing a light and building a way, one leaf at a time.
22
… for ever sunk
Under your boiling ocean, wrapt in chains,
There to converse with everlasting groans
WE WOULDN’T HAVE known about the stones that summer had Grand not fallen for Ted Bundy. Of course, his name wasn’t really Ted Bundy. The journalist. His name was Ryker Tommons.
He left the morning after fucking Grand in the woods. Grand didn’t notice how quickly that was. He had felt the connection of another man, and in the clay of loneliness, he shaped it into something he called love. Before Ryker left, Grand asked for his number.
“I have your number, kid. I’ll call you,” Ryker promised as they stood in front of Ryker’s car.
“I thought you liked me.” Grand was doing his routine, the same one I’d seen him use on girl after girl.
“I do, kid.”
“So, give me your number.”
Was that Grand reaching into the man’s pocket? Pulling out the notepad and pen?
“C’mon, Ted Bundy, write it down for me.”
Ryker had no choice but to take the pad and pen. Grand had forced them into his hands, even wrapping Ryker’s fingers around the pen. It was as if Grand thought Ryker’s hesitation was just a continuation of flirtation.
“I sure will be happy to get away from this heat,” Ryker sighed, and wrote with such reluctance, the number looked written by a child just learning.
“Call me whenever.” He passed the number to Grand. “Well, so long, kid.”
Grand stood watching the car drive away. Stood there long after it went, gripping the paper in his hand and the phone number that would dial through to a pizza shop in Brooklyn.
Grand was convinced Ryker had meant to give him the right number. By Grand’s thinking, there was only one number not right, so he’d dial over and over again, sometimes changing the very last, or the very first, or one of the numbers in the middle. He called the entire state of New York, but never Ryker.
Finally it occurred to him he could just ask the operator for the number to the New York Times office building.
“New York Times, how may I help you?” a woman’s overworked voice answered.
Grand gave her his name. Said he would like to speak to Ryker Tommons. Said he was a very close friend. Grand waited, curling the phone cord around his finger.
“I’m sorry, but Mr. Tommons is unavailable at the moment, Mr. Bliss. Would you like to leave him a message?”