*
Why say anything to the cardiologist? He is a young man, his office is filled with books. Would he believe that her heart stops and starts again? That she knows when her heart is going to stop?
It’s awkward; they run into each other in town. There is a boutique, painted white and yellow, where the card shop used to be: a post office, a drugstore, beauty salon, movie house, sporting-goods store. They both hate the town — no need to say anything about that. When they walk through town they think of New York. Neither of them understands what happened in New York. When she got well she came home. They can’t think of anything to say.
*
The snow continues to fall, three nights after the funeral. Mary and Kathy are sitting in Sam’s. The boys are sitting with them. Kathy is already at the jukebox, putting money in, and Beverly has come to the table to offer condolences. A cold night. There aren’t many people in Sam’s. Beverly sits down a minute, rearranging her hair. She complains that her car acted funny earlier and decides to call her sister to pick her up after work.
“I’m staying until closing if Miriam’s coming,” the boy says.
Kathy is dancing with his friend.
“Christ, look,” Beverly says. “I couldn’t move my feet that much. They’re so painful now that I’d like to cut them off.”
“That’s what I did,” a boy tells Beverly, looking at her through the gap in his hand where his middle finger is missing.
“You get crazy when you’re drunk,” Beverly says. “I remember the night you almost hauled off and hit Mary.”
Beverly leaves the table. She makes a phone call, then waits on two women at a table on the other side of the bar. Mary is listening to the boys at the table in back of her, singing along with the jukebox. She can’t tell what they’re singing because the jukebox is turned up full blast. Mary takes a bite of the hamburger. One of the boys ordered it for her. They order food for her without telling her, then Mary has to argue with them about who pays for it. Tonight she doesn’t care, though. Her father gave her some money and told her to go have a good time. It’s depressing at Edna and Marshall’s house night after night. It’s worse than school. Edna is very upset, but she doesn’t talk about the death. She says things that make no sense — that she’s going to sell her snowmobile and never ride again. Her mother and father go to her aunt and uncle’s every night; Edna sits in the rocking chair by the window and rocks back and forth, holding her knees, asking what they’re going to do. One of the boys is smiling at Mary. He’s the one who ordered the hamburger.
“Who’s paying for it?” Mary asks automatically.
He makes a crude joke. There is loud music; it gets so loud that she blocks it out. Two people come in in raincoats. Wind blows across the floor; the wind is blowing so hard that they have to force the door shut behind them. Mary is glad when the door is closed. She is tired of looking at snow. The four stained-glass squares in the top of the door shine brightly. The street light outside illuminates them. Mary is listening to the music, looking at the colors. There aren’t many people. Sam tells Beverly to go home early. Beverly makes another phone call, comes back to the table for last orders. The people in the raincoats are telling some other people that it’s not their dog. There is a large brown-and-white dog in Sam’s; it is wet, confused, stopping to shake itself, then running forward to sniff under a table. Mary recognizes the dog — it belongs to her uncle. But the dog doesn’t recognize Mary. It runs forward to sniff under another table. Beverly goes after the dog, intending to lead it outside. One of the boys watches what’s going on through the space in his hand, then goes after Beverly with his arms out, grabs her from behind, lets her go. Then the boy grabs the dog. Sam is talking to Beverly.
“I told you,” he says. “It’s Marshall’s dog. Call Marshall.”
“The boy took it.”
“Tell Marshall.”
Beverly shrugs. Sam can be as unreasonable as a drunk. Years ago she was going to get away from all this. She looks up Marshall’s number. She stares at the last name. Then she dials him. The phone rings and rings, no answer. Later, when Marshall does answer the phone, they’ll tell him his dog is dead.
*
The boy runs out of the restaurant, into the snow. He hadn’t realized how warm it was in Sam’s. He left his jacket behind. He is shivering. The dog is shivering, trying to jump out of his arms. He sees the streetlight; the light is higher and higher above him. He has fallen. The dog is gone. There is a noise, a thump, the noise he makes falling into the snow, the noise the dog makes running into the car. There is someone else outside Sam’s with him. Miriam. Miriam is just walking in the snow. He smiles at her — he waited all night to see Miriam, and now she’s here, walking in the snow. There are more lights — car headlights as well as the streetlight. Miriam’s car is stopped in the middle of the street. Miriam is kneeling in front of it, then walking back and forth, shaking him, lying there in the snow. It’s noisy — as noisy as it was inside, but it’s all Miriam! She’s calling Beverly, but Beverly’s already there, and she doesn’t have a jacket either. The door opens and closes. More snow blows into Sam’s. There is cold snow all around him.
“He took it.”
“Tell Marshall.”
Beverly shudders. She runs into the restaurant.
“Forget it,” Sam calls after her. “I’ll call him.”
“What about the boy?” Miriam whispers to Sam.
Sam knocks some snow off the heel of his boot.
“Snow’ll sober him up.”
Downhill
Walking the dog at 7:30 A.M., I sit on the wet grass by the side of the road, directly across from the beaver pond and diagonally across from the graveyard. In back of me is a grapevine that I snitch from. The grapes are bitter. The dog lifts a leg on the gravestone, rolls in dead squirrel in the road, comes to my side finally — thank God none of the commuters ran over him — and licks my wrist. The wet wrist feels awful. I rub it along his back, passing it off as a stroke. I do it several times. “Please don’t leave me,” I say to the dog, who cocks his head and settles in the space between my legs on the grass.
*
My mother writes Jon this letter:
“Oh, John, we are so happy that September marks the beginning of your last year in law school. My husband said to me Saturday (we were at the Turkish restaurant we took you and Maria to when she was recuperating — the one you both liked so much) that now when he gets mad he can say, ‘I’ll sue!’ and mean it. It has been uphill for so long, and now it will be downhill.”
Curiously, that week an old friend of Jon’s sent us a toy — a small bent-kneed skier who, when placed at the top of a slanting board, would glide to the bottom. I tried to foul up the toy every which way. I even tried making it ski on sandpaper, and it still worked. I tacked the sandpaper to a board, and down it went. The friend had bought it in Switzerland, where he and his wife were vacationing. So said the note in the package that was addressed to Jon, which I tore open because of the unfamiliar handwriting, thinking it might be evidence.
*
Why do I think Jon is unfaithful? Because it would be logical for him to be unfaithful. Some days I don’t even comb my hair. He must leave the house and see women with their hair clean and brushed back from their faces, and he must desire them and then tell them. It is only logical that if he admires the beauty of all the women with neatly arranged hair, one of them will want him to mess it up. It is only logical that she will invite him home. That smile, that suggestion from a woman would lure him as surely as a spring rain makes the earthworms twist out of the ground. It is even hard to blame him; he has a lawyer’s logical mind. He remembers things. He would not forget to comb his hair. He would certainly not hack his hair off with manicuring scissors. If he cut his own hair, he would do it neatly, with the correct scissors.