Along the rim of the hole, the Christmas lights are soft and mysterious, and Sarah takes her place in my arms. I don’t know what to tell her, except it wasn’t our universe.
She seems to stiffen.
“Such bullshit,” she snarls. “I’m in the other universe. Nothing here! Washout—colossal fucking drag. You should’ve loved me. You know that, don’t you? We could’ve been happy. All those places we could’ve seen, Paris and East Berlin. That honeymoon I never had. Oh Christ, we could’ve had it. Diapers and rattles and all those nights together. Is that too sentimental? I don’t mean to sound morbid, but I’m dead, and there’s only one universe that counts. You should’ve loved me. That’s all I mean, we should’ve made promises to each other and kept them, like vows, and we should’ve unzipped each other and crawled inside and been honest and true and loving, just loving, all the time, and we should’ve done everything we didn’t do. We should’ve taught each other things. We should’ve had Christmas together—is that silly? Eat lobster and open the presents and make love and go to church and believe in God and make love again and light candles on the tree and listen to records and have oyster stew at midnight and go to bed and smell the pine needles and sleep and wake up and still be together. It’s a little sad, isn’t it? It’s sad that we could’ve been so happy.”
Later, in the dark, she says, “Why did I die?”
I don’t have the answer.
Sarah nods and says, “I thought so.”
And later she reads my thoughts: “Doesn’t seem real, does it? I don’t feel dead. Maybe I’m not. Maybe it’s something we dream up to make our stories better. Maybe so?”
Then comes a long silence.
“Sarah?” I say, but she doesn’t speak.
She’s dead.
Like my father, like all of them, she died and dies and keeps on dying, again and again, as if repetition might disclose a new combination of possibilities.
“Oh, Lord,” I say, but I don’t know what to ask for.
I smell daylight coming.
The hole says, Now and never.
I lift the firing device. It’s light in my hands, or seems light, box-shaped, an aluminum casing with a small plastic safety catch and a yellow button. The copper wires wind off toward the north wall. All it takes is a touch. Not even courage, bare volition. It occurs to me that I’m not immune to curiosity—so easy. I think about Ned and Ollie and Tina, my father, my mother, and it’s the simple desire to discover if the dead are ever truly dead.
In the absence of hope, what can we hope for?
Does love last forever?
Are there any absolutes?
I want to know what the hole knows. The hole is where faith should be. The hole is what we have when imagination fails.
“Hey,” Melinda says.
Something moves inside me.
“Hey—”
She makes a languid, woozy motion with her arm. After a moment she sits up in the hammock, rubs her nose, turns her head slightly to one side, and looks at me without recognition.
I feel unsteady.
There’s a sudden compression when she says, “Daddy?” Enormous pressure, it’s too much for me. I place the firing device at my feet and get down on my hands and knees and practice deep breathing. The hole, it seems, is in my heart.
“Daddy?” Melinda says.
“Here, angel.”
“Where? How’d I get down in this… God, it’s dark. Where’s Mommy?”
“Mommy’s fine.”
“Yeah, but—” She stops and touches her flannel nightgown. Her eyes wander. She looks at the granite walls, then up at the Christmas lights, then down at me, then at the firing device. There isn’t enough light to make out her expression, but I can easily imagine it. “Man oh man,” she says, “what’s going on?”
It isn’t a question, though. She knows.
Her eyes, if I could see them, would be blue and full of wisdom. Drawing conclusions, perhaps. Maybe a little frightened.
I’m still on my hands and knees. The squeeze is on.
No dignity in it, but I don’t trust myself to stand.
Melinda stares at me.
“Daddy,” she says, “what’s happening?”
I keep smiling. I want to go to her but I can’t manage it; I make a queer crabbing motion, knees and knuckles. It’s a balance problem. I’m embarrassed when I feel myself slipping—I can’t get traction.
The hole cackles.
Dynamite!
Melinda seems startled. I’m smiling at her—it’s all love—but she recoils and hugs herself and says, “What?”
“Nothing, baby.”
“I heard you.”
“Nothing.”
“That word,” she says, “I heard it. You said it, I heard you! I can’t believe this.”
She’s wide awake now.
Quickly, she gets out of the hammock and takes a step toward me and stops and glances at Bobbi and then steps backward. All I can do is smile. She takes another step backward.
There’s silence while she makes the connections.
“Get up,” she says sternly.
“In a second.”
“Daddy.”
“One second, princess.”
She puts a thumb against the edge of her mouth.
“No,” she says, “I don’t want a second. I want out. This hole, God, it smells like… Let me out!”
“Melinda—”
“Out!” she shouts.
I can see her eyes now. She glares at me, then spins around and moves to a wall and hits it with her fist. “Now,” she screams, “I want out!” The Christmas lights give her face a splotchy blue and red tint. She kicks the wall. “Now!” she screams. Her eyes keep roving—quick, jerky movements of the head, up and down.
When she spots the dynamite, I pretend it’s not what it is. It’s not evil, I think. Not murder, not sorrow.
“Oh, wow,” she grunts.
With her left hand, gingerly, she reaches out and nudges one of the copper blasting caps.
Reality impinges.
“Baby, don’t,” I say.
It’s a discovery for both of us. Melinda wipes her hand and turns and looks at me. I can’t explain it. Just the sadness of discovery, the dynamite and the wiring and the blasting caps, and when she looks at me—not accusing, only knowing—there is nothing that can be said or done. She bites down on her lip. She wants to cry, I know. Her tongue makes a light clicking noise against her teeth.
I’m helpless. I’m aware of the night’s pure harmonics, but I can’t make myself move.
I watch her trace the wires back to the firing device. Stooping, she inspects the plastic safety catch; she clutches her nightgown at the throat. Not murder, I remind myself. There is no evil in it, no rancor or shame, and we are all innocent and unsullied and sane. Even so, I suck in my breath when she finds the yellow button.
“God,” she says.
And she knows.
Now, at this instant, we share the knowledge that there is no mercy between fathers and daughters. We will kill for our children. Our children will kill for us. We will kill for families. And above all we will kill for love, as men have always killed. Crimes of passion. As terrorists kill. As soldiers kill for love of honor and love of country. Just love. And when there is no love, there is nothing worth dying for, only nothing, and Melinda knows this.
She picks up the firing device.
“I don’t care what,” she says, “I’m not afraid of you. I’m just not.”
“I know that.”
“I’m not.”