The clouds came back. A gray wall sat on the horizon, and pieces of it broke loose and were carried onshore by the wind. The wind had backed at last. The Santa Ana had held the clouds out to sea for over a week, and now they were coming back to claim their territory. At first there were just a few of them, loose-knit and transparent except at their centers. Clouds beget clouds, though, and through the afternoon they came in darker and lower, until the whole wall picked up and advanced from the horizon, turning dark blue and covering the sky like a blanket. The air got cold, the gulls disappeared, the onshore wind picked up. The clouds grew top heavy, spat lightning onto the sea and then the land, sizzling waves and shattering trees on the ridges. I sat on a worn grey log and watched the first raindrops pock the sand. The iron surface of the ocean lost its sheen as the rain hit it. I pulled my coat around me and stubbornly sat there. The rain turned to hail. Hail fell until there was a layer of clear grains on top of the tawny ones: a beach of sand overlaid by a beach of glass.
I walked down the beach, climbed the cliff path. The hail turned back to rain. Hands in pockets I strode the river path, and let the rain strike me in the face. It ran down inside my coat, and I didn’t care. I stayed out and walked through clearings and treeless patches on purpose, and it gave me pleasure because it was such a stupid thing to do.
I kept on up the valley until I stood at the edge of the little clearing occupied by the graveyard. Rain poured on it from low clouds just overhead, and in the dim light trees dripped and the ground splashed. I crossed the little section near the river where all the Japanese who had washed ashore had been buried. Their wooden crosses said Unknown Chinese, Died 2045, or whatever the date happened to be. Nat did a nice job carving letters and numbers.
Out in the clearing proper were our people. I squished from grave to grave, contemplating the names. Vincent Mariani, 1992–2038. A cancer got him. I remembered him playing hide and seek with Kathryn and Steve and me, when Kristen was a baby. Arnold Kalinski, 1970–2026. He had come to the valley with a disease, Tom said; Doc had been afraid we all would catch it, but we didn’t. Jane Howard Fletcher, 2002–2030. My mother, right there. Pneumonia. I pulled out some weeds from around the base of the cross, moved on. John Manley Morris, 1975–2029; Eveline Morris, 1989–2033. Cancer for him; she died of an infected cut in the palm of her hand. John Nicolin, Junior, 2016–2022. Fell in the river. Matthew Hamish, 2034. Malformed. Mark Hamish, 2036. Luke Hamish, 2039. Both malformed. Francesca Hamish, 2044. Same. And Jo pregnant again. Geoffrey Jones, 1995–2040; Ann Jones, died 2040. They both died when their house burned. Endeavor Simpson, 2039. Malformed. Defiance Simpson, 2043. Malformed. Elizabeth Costa, 2000–2035. Some disease, Doc never figured out what. Armando Thomas Costa, 2033–2047.
There were more, but I stopped my progress and stood at the foot of Mando’s grave, looking at the fresh carving on the cross. Even the Bible says something about men living their three score and ten, and that was ever so long ago. And here we were, cut short like frogs in a frost.
The dirt filling Mando’s grave had settled, and it was sinking more in the rain. I went to the broken-up pit at the back of the clearing and took the shovel that Nat always leaves there, and started carrying dirt over to the grave, shovelful by shovelful. Mud stuck to the shovel, it spread out badly, it wouldn’t tamp down right. Bad idea. I threw the shovel back at the pit and sat on the grass at the side of the grave, where I could hold the crossbar of the marker. Frogs in a frost. Rain thinned the mud, puddled on it. I looked around at our crop of crosses, all of them dripping in the gray afternoon light, and I thought, This isn’t right. It isn’t supposed to be like this. Mando was under me and yet he wasn’t; he was plain gone, vanished, no more. He wouldn’t come back. I took a handful of mud and squished it between my fingers.
22
But the old man lived.
The old man lived. I hardly believed it. I think everybody was surprised, even Tom. I know Doc was: “I couldn’t believe it,” he told me happily when I went up to see them on a cloudy morning. “I had to rub my eyes and pinch myself. I got up yesterday and there he was sitting at the kitchen table whining where’s my breakfast, where’s my breakfast. Of course his lungs had been clearing all week, but I wasn’t sure that was going to be enough, to tell you the truth. But there he was bitching at me.”
“In fact,” Tom called from the bedroom, “where’s the tea? Don’t you respect a poor patient’s requests anymore?”
“If you want it hot you’ll shut up and be patient,” Doc shouted back, grinning at me. “How about some bread with it?”
“Of course.”
I went into the hospital and there he was sitting up in his bed, blinking like a bird. Shyly I said, “How are you?”
“Hungry.”
“That’s a good sign,” Doc said from behind me. “Return of appetite, very good sign.”
“Unless you got a cook like I do,” said Tom.
Doc snorted. “Don’t let him fool you, he’s been bolting it in his usual style. Obviously he loves it. Pretty soon he’ll want to stay here just for the food.”
“When the eagle grins I will.”
“Oooh, so ungrateful!” Doc exclaimed. “And here I had to shove the food right down his face for the longest time. It got so I felt like a mama bird, I should have digested it all first for him I guess—”
“Oh that would have helped,” Tom crowed, “eating vomit, yuck! Take this away, I’ve lost my appetite for good.” He slurped the tea, cursed its heat.
“Well, it was hard to get him to eat, I’ll tell you. But now look at him go.” Doc watched with satisfaction as Tom tossed down chunks of bread in his old starvation manner. When he was done he smiled his gap-toothed smile. His poor gums had taken a beating in his illness, but his eyes watched me with their old clear brown gaze. I felt my face stretched into a grin.
“Ah yes,” Tom said. “There’s nothing like a mutated freak immune system, I’ll testify. I’m tough as a tiger. So tough! However, you’ll excuse me if I take a little nap.” He coughed once or twice, slid down under the covers and was out like one of his lighters snapping off.
So that was good. Tom stayed at Doc’s for another couple of weeks, mostly to keep Doc company, I believe, as he was getting stronger by the day, and he surely wasn’t fond of the hospital. And one day Rebel knocked on the door and asked me if I wanted to help move Tom and his stuff back to his house. I said sure, and we walked across the bridge talking and joking. The sun was playing hide and seek among tall clouds, and coming down the path from Doc’s were Kathryn and Gabby, Kristen and Del and Doc, laughing as Tom cavorted at the head of the parade. “Join the crowd,” Tom called to us. “The young and the old, a natural alliance for a party, you bet.” Kathryn gave me Tom’s books, heavy in a burlap sack, and I threatened to throw them off the bridge as we crossed. Tom swung at me with his walking stick. We made a fine promenade up the other slope of the valley. I had never allowed myself to imagine this day; but there it was, right in my hands where I could grab it.
Once up to his house the old man got positively boisterous. With a dramatic flourish he kicked the door, but it stayed shut. “Great latch, see that?” He puffed at the dust on the table and chairs until the air was thick with it. There was a puddle on the floor, marking a new leak in the roof. Tom pulled his mouth down into a pouting frown. “This place has been poorly tended, very poorly tended. You maintenance crews are fired.”