He had to laugh at that, but he missed Rowan unbearably. He had never planned to be gone so long. Every phone call only made it worse, the famous butterscotch voice driving him out of his mind.
She was understanding about all the unforeseen catastrophes but he could hear the worry behind her questions. And he couldn’t sleep after the calls, smoking one cigarette after another, and drinking too much beer, and listening to the endless winter rain.
San Francisco was in the wet season now, and the rain hadn’t stopped since his arrival. No blue skies, not even over the Liberty Street hill, and the wind ripped right through his clothes when he stepped outside. He was wearing his gloves all the time just to keep warm.
But now at last the old house was almost empty. Nothing but the last two boxes in the attic, and in a strange way, these little treasures were what he had come to retrieve and take with him to New Orleans. And he was eager to finish the job.
How alien it all looked to him, the rooms smaller than he remembered, and the sidewalks in front so dirty. The tiny pepper tree he’d planted seemed about to give up the ghost. Impossible that he could have spent so many years here telling himself he was happy.
And impossible that he might have to spend another back-breaking week, taping and labeling boxes at the store, and going through tax receipts, and filling out various forms. Of course he could have the movers do it, but some of the items weren’t worth that kind of trouble. And then the sorting was the nightmare, with all the little decisions.
“It’s better now than later,” Rowan had said this afternoon when he called. “But I can hardly stand it. Tell me, have you had any second thoughts? I mean about the whole big change? Are there moments when you’d just like to pick up where you left off, as if New Orleans never happened?”
“Are you crazy? All I think about is coming back to you. I’m getting out of here before Christmas. I don’t care what’s going on.”
“I love you, Michael.” She could say it a thousand times and it always sounded spontaneous. It was an agony not to be able to hold her. But was there a darker note to her voice, something he hadn’t heard before?
“Michael, burn anything that’s left. Just make a bonfire in the backyard, for heaven’s sakes. Hurry.”
He’d promised her he’d finish in the house by tonight if it killed him.
“Nothing’s happened, has it? I mean you’re not scared there, are you, Rowan?”
“No. I’m not scared. It’s the same beautiful house you left. Ryan had a Christmas tree delivered. You ought to see it, it reaches the ceiling. It’s just waiting there in the parlor for you and me to decorate it. The smell of the pine needles is all through the house.”
“Ah, that’s wonderful. I’ve got a surprise for you … for the tree.”
“All I want is you, Michael. Come home.”
Four o’clock. The house was really truly empty now and hollow and full of echoes. He stood in his old bedroom looking out over the dark shiny rooftops, spilling downhill to the Castro district, and beyond, the clustered steel gray skyscrapers of downtown.
A great city, yes, and how could he not be grateful for all the wonderful things it had given him? A city like no other perhaps. But it wasn’t his city anymore. And in a way it never had been.
Going home.
But he’d forgotten again. The boxes in the attic, the surprise, the things he wanted most of all.
Taking the plastic wrapping material and an empty carton with him, he went up the ladder, stooping under the sloped roof, and snapped on the light. Everything clean and dry now that the leak had been patched. And the sky the color of slate beyond the front window. And the four remaining boxes, marked “Christmas” in red ink.
The tree lights he’d leave for the guys who were renting the place. Surely they could use them.
But the ornaments he would now carefully repack. He couldn’t bear the thought of losing a single one. And to think, the tree was already there.
Dragging the box over under the naked overhead bulb, he opened it and discarded the old tissue paper. Over the years he’d collected hundreds of these little porcelain beauties from the specialty shops around town. Now and then he’d sold them himself at Great Expectations. Angels, wise men, tiny houses, carousel horses, and other delicate trinkets of exquisitely painted bisque. Real true Victorian ornaments could not have been more finely fashioned or fragile. There were tiny birds made of real feathers, wooden balls skillfully painted with lavish old roses, china candy canes, and silver-plated stars.
Memories came back to him of Christmases with Judith and with Elizabeth, and even back to the time when his mother had been alive.
But mostly he remembered the last few Christmases of his life, alone. He had forced himself to go through with the old rituals. And long after Aunt Viv had gone to bed, he’d sat by the tree, a glass of wine in his hand, wondering where his life was going and why.
Well, this Christmas would be utterly and completely different. All these exquisite ornaments would now have a purpose, and for the first time there would be a tree large enough to hold the entire collection, and a grand and wonderful setting in which they truly belonged.
Slowly he began work, removing each ornament from the tissue, rewrapping it in plastic, and putting it in a tiny plastic sack. Imagine First Street on Christmas Eve with the tree in the parlor. Imagine it next year when the baby was there.
It seemed impossible suddenly that his life could have experienced such a great and wondrous change. Should have died out there in the ocean, he thought.
And he saw, not the sea in his mind suddenly, but the church at Christmas when he was a child. He saw the crib behind the altar, and Lasher standing there, Lasher looking at him when Lasher was just the man from First Street, tall and dark-haired and aristocratically pale.
A chill gripped him. What am I doing here? She’s there alone. Impossible that he hasn’t shown himself to her.
The feeling was so dark, so full of conviction, that it poisoned him. He hurried with the packing. And when at last he was finished, he cleaned up, threw the trash down the steps, took the box of ornaments with him, and closed up the attic for the last time.
The rain had slacked by the time he reached the Eighteenth Street post office. He’d forgotten what it meant to crawl through this dense traffic, to move perpetually among crowds on grim, narrow, treeless streets. Even the Castro, which he had always loved, seemed dismal to him in the late afternoon rush.
He stood in line too long to mail the box, bristled at the routine indifference of the clerk-an abruptness he had not once encountered in the South since his return-and then hurried off in the icy wind, towards his shop up on Castro.
She wouldn’t lie to him. She wouldn’t. The thing was playing its old game. Yet why that visitation on that long-ago Christmas? Why that face, beaming at him over the crib? Hell, maybe it meant nothing.
After all, he had seen the man that unforgettable night when he first heard the music of Isaac Stern. He had seen the man a hundred times when he walked on First Street.
But he couldn’t stand this panic. As soon as he reached the shop and had locked the door behind him, he picked up the phone and dialed Rowan.
No answer. It was midafternoon in New Orleans, and it was cold there, too. Maybe she’d taken a nap. He let it ring fifteen times before he gave up.
He looked around. So much work still to be done. The entire collection of brass bath fixtures had to be disposed of, and what about the various stained-glass windows stacked against the back wall? Why the hell didn’t the thief who broke in steal this stuff!