Fade to Black
Ralph Scherder
Alice never expected her patience to run out all at once. Emotions, she thought, were strange. And yet, the emotions, especially the rage, felt so good. Only in the instant after it subsided did she realize she was standing in the living room holding a broken flower vase, and her husband lay unconscious on the floor.
Her mother gave her the vase as a wedding gift; in the glass had been engraved their wedding date. Now its pieces were scattered on the gold-shaded rug and a few pieces Ð one of which still had the “Ju” of “June”
written on it Ð were stuck in Howard's head.
Kneeling down, she studied him. Where had all his hair gone? Thirty years ago, when they first met, he had thick black hair combed Beatles-style over his forehead. She could hardly remember when or where he lost all that hair, but he was completely bald and the glass shards sparkled like pillars of light on a desert landscape.
She touched his shoulder. Poor Howard. How could she have known it would end like this? Not with a whimper, she thought, remembering an old Frost poem. With a bang.
Upstairs, Alice packed her suitcase with clothes, makeup, and a couple books she’d been meaning to read. Now she’d have time to read them. Time to herself. She packed just enough for a week, maybe two. By then she’d have things figured out and she’d call him and she could talk and he could listen.
Alice looked in on him before she left. Still unconscious. She could see his enormous gut (which had occurred as gradually, she assumed, as the hair
loss) rising and falling. She picked up her suitcase, stopped by the door and glanced over at him again.
“Goodbye, Howard,” she said, and then left.
She didn’t see the pool of blood that had begun soaking the old gold carpet.
*
Maggie lived in a pre-fab home on the other side of town. The vinyl-sided home sparkled as new as the other twenty homes in the plan. A perfect, uncracked driveway ramped up into a two-stall garage. The American Dream had worked out for Maggie, at least.
Alice clipped her sunglasses to the sun visor and got out of the car.
The lawn smelled of deep forest and underground rivers. Islands of cedar chips and full-bloom flowers added life to the green sea of grass. The effect almost made Alice cry, as if the lawn itself were an oasis. Maggie opened the front door and Alice did cry.
“Mom?” Maggie said. “Are you okay?”
Alice cupped her hand to her quivering lips and shook her head.
Everything
about this house and lawn was impossibly beautiful.
“I thought I was,” she said.
*
Many years ago, when Maggie had something bothering her, Alice would brew tea and bake fresh cookies, and they’d sit at the kitchen table and talk.
Now it was Maggie brewing the tea and baking cookies; Maggie putting the cookies on a plate and then sitting across from her mother.
“You can’t just leave,” Maggie said. “You know that, don’t you?”
Alice shrugged, nibbling on a cookie.
“Seriously, Mom. Who told me to never walk away mad?”
“I didn’t walk away mad,” she said. By the time she’d left, she’d been perfectly calm, almost a melancholy happiness. And Howard certainly hadn’t tried to stop her.
None of this she told Maggie. The edited version ended with her and Howard screaming at each other in the living room. Fade to black, cut to next scene Ð the beautiful lawn.
“You should call him.”
“He’s probably asleep. You know how your father likes his naps.” She sipped her tea. Then she suddenly reached across the table and put her hand over her daughter’s Ð oh, to have skin that smooth again, she thought Ð and she spoke as she just had the idea of the decade. “We could go away together. For a week or two. Just you and me. We’ve talked about it before, a mother-daughter trip. Whaddya say?”
“I can’t.”
“Why not?”
“Work, for one. I’ll get fired if I leave for a week without notice.”
“Phooey.” Alice took her hand back and smoothed the crisp edges of the lace-fringed tablecloth. She snapped her fingers. “I got it!” she said.
“Monday’s a holiday. We could go for a long weekend. Jim’s away on business this weekend anyway, you said.”
The look was something she thought she’d never see on her daughter’s face.
The flex of mouth corners and a deep sigh. Like a cornered soldier helpless to escape.
“Okay,” she said. “Where do you want to go?”
*
“This is ridiculous.”
“What’s so ridiculous about it?”
“We just drive and see where we end up? No plan?”
“Why not?”
Maggie sighed. “Fine.” She gazed out the passenger’s window. A soft shade of twilight swept over the cornfields to their right. Behind them, the sun set bland and uni-color, no dazzling pink or blue, no brilliance, just a cream of clouds and darkness pulling the sun below the horizon.
Alice wasn’t used to her daughter’s silence. Usually when they got together, they talked non-stop, laughed.
“Is everything okay?”
“Sure,” Maggie said.
Alice took a long look at Maggie Ð as long as she dared to keep her eyes off the road Ð and noticed her eyes were glassy and a tear had already escaped down her cheek. She reached over and grabbed her hand.
“This’ll be fun,” she said. “A grand adventure.”
Maggie wiped her face. “It’s not that.”
“Oh, Maggie. Don’t worry. I’ll probably forgive him. I always do.”
“What did he do anyway?”
“What do you mean?”
“Daddy. What happened this time that caused you to leave?”
Alice licked her lips and tried to remember. Everything around her seemed to narrow. Shadows formed in her peripheral vision and slowly expanded, canceling out everything except the road ahead of her and a small patch of shrinking light.
“Christ, Mom!” Maggie shouted. “Slow down!”
The speedometer fluttered. 95 mph. Alice eased her foot off the pedal and the light grew bigger again. “I’ve never done 95 in this car before,” she said. “I’ve never done a lot of things. That’s the point of this trip.”
She smiled at Maggie. “But I’m glad you’re with me.”
“Well,” Maggie frowned, and continued staring out the window.
A short while later they came to an exit with three or four restaurants.
“Hungry?” Alice asked.
“Sure.”
They found a diner, ordered two chicken salads, low-fat dressing, and ended up just picking at the lettuce.
“I’m going to call Mike’s cell phone,” Maggie said.
By the door was a payphone, the old rotary type, with a yellow phone book dangling on a tarnished chain. Alice had thought about using the phone, too, but she hoped eating would quench the urge. It hadn’t.
Alice stared out the window and waited for Maggie. The waitress took their plates and left the check. Outside, it was completely dark now and no stars in the cloudy sky. The moon was a smudge of dim light low on the horizon, behind the clouds.
Alice tried to eavesdrop, but Maggie shielded her conversation with her hand. She couldn’t shield the tears, though.
A minute later, she hung up and ducked into the restroom. More people came into the diner and ordered while others paid their bills and left. The amazing thing about people is that they were always going to or coming from somewhere, and the destination always surprised you. They all had their lives, their secrets. They were all running away from something.
The waitress, a heavy-set brunette in a pink-striped outfit, came over to Alice’s table holding a pot of black coffee. “Are you the mother? Excuse me. Hey.”
Alice snapped into awareness. “What?”
“Are you the mother? Your girl’s cryin’ in the ladies room. That woman over there said you’d better check in on her.”
From a booth across the diner, an elderly woman gazed intently at Alice.
Alice nodded and the waitress moved to the table behind her and filled a cup with coffee.
Alice knocked on the bathroom door and went in. The bathroom was surprisingly clean, only one large crack in the wall tiles. The floor was footprinted with dirt dragged in from the parking lot, but the sinks were pearl white.
In the corner, Maggie slumped to the floor, her head hidden behind her hands.
“Oh, Maggie, Maggie,” Alice said. “I wish you wouldn’t let this bother you so much. Everything will work out fine. Your father and IÉ”
“Damn you!” Maggie screamed. She shrugged away her mother’s arms. Her body trembled even more and there was a hitch in her voice when she took a breath. “Why is it always about you? You and Daddy. You always show up at my house when you and Daddy fight. You don’t care what it’s doing to me and Mike. You don’t care that it’s pushing us apart. You get between us and drive us apart and you just don’t care.”
“But you’re all I got. Who else can I turn to?” Alice said.
“Find someone!”
“MaggieÉ”
“No!” she said. “No more.” She frantically wiped her eyes and got to her feet. She straightened her slacks. “I’ll be in the car.”
Alice watched her leave, the door closing coldly behind her, the chill of the linoleum and dripping skin, the cracked tiles. The bathroom, she noticed suddenly, smelled heavily of the fresh beige paint on the bathroom stalls. She remembered hearing from someone long ago that rest stops repainted on a regular bases to cover the profanity left by strangers.
If only it were that simple, she thought.
*
Maggie had sunglasses on when Alice returned to the car. The dark lenses covered her eyes but not the red streaks on her cheeks. She wasn’t smiling.
Alice got in and buckled the seat belt. She sat there holding the keys.
The windows were down and cars whirred by on the Interstate. They’d driven three hours and were now in the center part of the state where the mountains began and the air felt considerably cooler.
“We don’t have to go any farther,” Alice said. “We’ve gone far enough.
We
can turn around, if you want.” She looked down at the red key fob in the shape of the number 1 and Hanson Auto Sales printed on it in white lettering.
“He’s not out of town on business,” Maggie said. “He went to Chicago to see if he’s in love with some woman he says he met at a conference.” She put her elbow on the door and combed her fingers through her hair. Her voice was low and steady. “I asked if he loved her and he said he didn’t know. I asked how he could not know and he gave me this look. I’ll never forget it, that look. And that’s when I knew. He wasn’t leaving to see if he loved her. He was leaving to see if he still loved me.”
They sat there and Alice knew what she wanted to say. She wanted to tell Maggie that bad love was better than no love at all Ð at least, that’s how it had always been for Alice. But she didn’t say it because she also knew that, somehow, it would only make matters worse.
Finally Alice put the key in the ignition and fired the engine. She reversed out of the parking space and circled the parking lot to the stop sign. Left would take them home. Right would take them farther east.
Maggie sighed heavily when Alice turned left.
Around midnight they finally got back to Maggie’s house. The red light on the answering machine blinked manically. Alice saw the light and got a sick feeling in her gut. Before Maggie could play the messages, Alice seized her arm and pulled her to the kitchen table.
“There’s something I should tell you,” she said.
*
At the hospital, a male nurse pointed them in the right direction. Room 304. And there he was, hooked up to multiple machines, looking small and pale. She recalled the message on the answering machine Ð “lost a lot of bloodÉnearly diedÉ”
Maggie waited in the hall while Alice went in to check on him. She leaned over his bed, gently grabbing his hand. Had he really dragged himself all the way to the kitchen to call for help?
His eyes opened slowly at first, and then jerked wide. He smiled vaguely.
His voice was a weak gasp around plastic tubes. “Come to finish the job?”
“Can you forgive me?” she asked.
“Can you forgive me?” he said.
“Of course I do,” she said, but couldn’t remember what for.
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