Guys like Dooley and Gerd Allen Cole, aka Blondie, aka Monsieur Ding-Dong for the Freesias, thought everything had to do with what they wanted, didn't they? Their nightmares, their phobias, their midnight inspirations. What had Dooley thought was in the cedar box? A secret list of Scott's manuscripts (perhaps in code)? God knew. In any case he'd dumped it out, seen nothing but a jumble of uninteresting rickrack (uninteresting to him, at least), and then dragged the widow Landon deeper into the study, looking for a place where he could cuff her up before she regained consciousness. The pipes under the bar sink had done quite nicely.
Lisey crawled steadily toward the scattered contents of the box, her eyes fixed on the yellow knitted square. She wondered if she would have discovered it on her own. She had an idea the answer was no; she had gotten her fill of memories. Now, however—
The arguments against insanity fall through with a soft shirring sound.
So it seemed. And if her precious purple curtain finally came down, would it make that same soft, sad sound? She wouldn't be at all surprised. It had never been much more than spun cobwebs to begin with; look at all she'd already remembered.
No more, Lisey, you don't dare, hush.
'Hush yourself,' she croaked. Her outraged breast throbbed and burned. Scott had gotten his chest-wound; now she had hers. She thought of him coming back up her lawn that night, coming out of the shadows while Pluto barked and barked and barked next door. Scott holding up what had been a hand and was now nothing but a clot of blood with things that looked vaguely like fingers sticking out of it. Scott telling her it was a blood-bool, and it was for her. Scott later soaking that sliced-up meat in a basin filled with weak tea, telling her how it was something
(Paul thought this up)
his brother had shown him how to do. Telling her all the Landons were fast healers, they had to be. This memory fell through to the one beneath, the one where she and Scott were sitting under the yum-yum tree four months later. The blood fell down in a sheet, Scott told her, and Lisey asked if Paul soaked his cuts in tea afterward and Scott had said no—
Hush, Lisey—he never said that. You never asked and he never said.
But she had asked. She had asked him all sorts of things, and Scott had answered. Not then, not under the yum- yum tree, but later on. That night, in bed. Their second night in The Antlers, after making love. How could she have forgotten?
Lisey lay for a moment on the oyster-white carpet, resting. 'Never forgot,' she said. 'It was in the purple. Behind the curtain. Big difference.' She fixed her eyes on the yellow square and began crawling again.
I'm pretty sure the tea-cure came later, Lisey. Yeah, I know it did.
Scott lying next to her, smoking, watching the smoke from his cigarette go up and up, to that place where it disappeared. The way the stripes on a barber-pole disappear. The way Scott himself sometimes disappeared.
I know, because by then I was doing fractions.
In school?
No, Lisey. He said this in a tone that said more, that said she should know better. Sparky Landon had never been that kind of Daddy. Me n Paul, we 'us home-schooled. Daddy called public school the Donkey Corral.
But Paul's cuts that day—the day you jumped from the bench— they were bad? Not just nicks?
A long pause while he watched the smoke rise and stack and disappear, leaving only its trail of sweetish-bitter fragrance behind. At last, flat: Daddy cut deep.
To that dry certainty there seemed no possible reply, so she had kept silent.
And then he'd said: Anyway, that's not what you want to ask. Ask what you want, Lisey. Go ahead, I'll tell you. But you have to ask.
She either couldn't remember what had come next or wasn't ready to, but now she remembered how they had left their refuge under the yum-yum tree. He had taken her in his arms beneath that white umbrella and they had been outside in the snow an instant later. And now, crawling on her hands and knees toward the overturned cedar box, memory
(insanity)
fell through
(with a soft shirring sound)
and Lisey finally allowed her mind to believe what her second heart, her secret hidden heart, had known all along. For a moment they had been neither under the yum-yum tree nor out in the snow but in another place. It had been warm and filled with hazy red light. It had been filled with the sound of distant calling birds and tropical smells. Some of these she knew—frangipani, jasmine, bougainvillea, mimosa, the moist breathing earth upon which they knelt like the lovers they most surely were—but the sweetest ones were unknown to her and she ached for their names. She remembered opening her mouth to speak, and Scott putting the side of his hand
(hush)
to her mouth. She remembered thinking how strange it was that they should be dressed for winter in such a tropical place, and she saw he was afraid. Then they had been outside in the snow. That crazy downpouring October snow.
How long had they been in the between-place? Three seconds? Maybe even less. But now, crawling because she was too weak and shocked to stand, Lisey was at last willing to own up to the truth of it. By the time they made it back to The Antlers that day, she'd gotten a fair distance toward convincing herself it hadn't happened, but it had.
'Happened again, too,' she said. 'Happened that night.'
She was so smucking thirsty. Wanted another drink of water in the worst way, but of course the bar alcove was behind her, she was going the wrong way for water and she could remember Scott singing one of Ole Hank's songs as they drove back that Sunday, singing All day I've faced the barren waste, Without a single taste of water, cool water.
You'll get your drink, babyluv.
'Will I?' Still nothing but a crow-croak. 'A drink of water would surely help. This hurts so bad.'
To this there was no reply, and perhaps she didn't need one. She had finally reached the scatter of objects around the overturned cedar box. She reached out for the yellow square, plucked it off the purple menu, and closed it tight in her hand. She lay on her side—the one that didn't hurt—and looked at it closely: the little lines of knits and purls, those tiny locks. There was blood on her fingers and it smeared on the wool, but she hardly noticed. Good Ma had knitted dozens of afghans out of squares like this, afghans of rose and gray, afghans of blue and gold, afghans of green and burnt orange. They were Good Ma's specialty and spilled from her needles, one after the other, as she sat in front of the chattering TV at night. Lisey remembered how, as a child, she had thought such knitted blankets were called 'africans.' Their female cousins (Angletons, Darbys, Wiggenses, and Washburns as well as Debushers almost beyond counting) had all been gifted with africans when they married; each of the Debusher girls had gotten at least three. And with each african came one extra square in the same shade or pattern. Good Ma called these extra squares 'delights.' They were meant as table
decorations, or to be framed and hung on the wall. Because the yellow african had been Good Ma's wedding present to Lisey and Scott, and because Scott had always loved it, Lisey had saved the accompanying delight in the cedar box. Now she lay bleeding on his carpet, holding the square, and gave up trying to forget. She thought, Bool! The End!, and began to cry. She understood she was incapable of coherence, but maybe that was all right; order would come later, if it was needed.
And, of course, if there was a later.
The gomers and the bad-gunky. For the Landons and the Landreaus before them, it's always been one or the
