The Sky Beneath My Feet

Chapter 7


Man Gave Names to All the Animals





Adjusting to an absent husband? Not so hard, it turns out. After the second day, I stop keeping watch at the kitchen window. After the second night, I start sleeping in the middle of the bed, forcing myself to spread out even though come morning I’ll be curled in my usual tight ball on the edge of the mattress. Hermits don’t need their laundry done either, and their meals don’t have to be cooked. Their opinions don’t need polling whenever there’s a decision to make.

I could get used to this.

With Rick gone, the nature of time itself starts changing. I used to be so busy, running from one errand to another, anticipating his wants and requirements, trying to allow for last-minute surprises. And all the relationships I had to maintain! The chats over coffee, the ladies’ lunches, finding myself thrust into the role of counselor by virtue of being a pastor’s wife. The beginning of Rick’s vacation brings an end to all that. He’s gone, so people assume we all are. My phone stops ringing. Pure bliss.

Problem is, with the boys at school and no one’s needs to fulfill, I sit all alone in the house, listening to the radio, reorganizing shelves that are already tidied up (though nowhere near as razor-sharp as Chas Worthing’s bookcases), taking apart the hot water knob in the shower to see if I can fix it once and for all. I’ve never been a clean freak—when a house reaches a certain age, it’s earned the right to be a little dusty—but now I find myself digging under the sink for cleaning products, spraying and squirting and shining every surface I can get my hands on.

From the upstairs bathroom, working on the grout with Rick’s toothbrush, I notice movement down in the backyard. When I push the sheer to one side, I have a clear view of the hermit. Hunched over, looking around every other step, he makes an approach on the back door. I tap the window and the noise startles him. He scoots his way back, disappearing into the shed.

I know from the empty toilet paper rolls and the damp towels that he sneaks into the house at odd intervals. He waits until we’re all gone.

At first this discovery irritated me. He’s already living in the shed, so why does he have to avoid us entirely? That’s taking things too far.

No, they were already too far. What do you call it when you go too far, then go even further?

I’m not irritated anymore. Now it cracks me up.

“You’ll just have to hold it,” I say, and resume my scrubbing.

Confession: I’ve also been talking to myself out loud a lot the past couple of days. Out loud, having whole conversations. A house full of cats can’t be far behind.





I decide to surprise Eli after school. He rides past me on his bike, oblivious. So I blow the horn. He circles, dismounts, and starts the walk of shame. All of his classmates are watching. He makes a point of approaching the driver’s window, keeping the bike between us.

“What’s up? Is something wrong?”

I slide the sunglasses off my nose. “Hop in, sport.”

“I don’t need a ride.”

“Just throw your bike in back. The longer you wait, the more people are gonna see.”

With a defeated slump of the shoulders, Eli complies. All I have to do to embarrass the kid is show up. Why is that? I’m not even blaring eighties music today.

“It’s your birthday tomorrow and you still haven’t told me what you want to do.”

“I don’t want to do anything.”

“Are you too old for a party now? We could invite some of your friends over—”

He gives a violent shake of the head. “No, that’s okay.”

“You don’t want them coming over? Because of Dad?”

“It’s not that. Not just that. I don’t want a party, that’s all. I’m turning sixteen, not six. I don’t need the cake and candles.”

“What about a present? You want a present, don’t you?”

He shrugs.

“Well, you’re getting one,” I say. “You’re getting a cake too.”

“Whatever.”

“I love you, you know that?”

He nods.

“Your dad loves you too.”

“I know.”

“Your brother practically plans his birthday for me,” I say.

“He cares about that stuff. I don’t.”

“Well, what do you care about these days?”

Again, he shrugs.

Until you’ve had a teenage son, you can’t understand. Every conversation is like a jailhouse interrogation. An invisible lawyer leans toward him, saying, “Plead the fifth.” Pulling teeth doesn’t begin to describe it. Something could be terribly wrong in there, or he could be as placid as a summer lake, and you’d never know from anything he says.

“Peanut butter cup.”

“What?”

“If I have to have a cake, I want an ice-cream one with peanut butter cups. And here—” He brings his foot up, scraping his shoe against the dashboard. “If you want to get me something, how about new shoes?” He pulls a flap of delaminated sole away from the toe of his sneaker, then lets it slap back into place. “Or I could just glue these.”

“Shoes. Good. You might have to be more specific, though. Are Reeboks still cool? And I’m not getting you anything the kids at school will shoot you for and steal.”

“For Reeboks, they just shoot you and leave your shoes on.”

“That’s more like it.”

When we get to our neighborhood, he asks me to let him off on the curb. “We’re gonna ride the trails, a whole group of us.” He pulls his bike out and comes alongside the van.

“Be home by dark.”

He nods. “Hey, Mom . . .”

“Yes?”

“You didn’t make him move out, did you?”

“What? Of course not. Eli, where did you get that idea? I already told you what happened. It was the Shaws. They want us to move to Virginia so Daddy can work at a different church. It’s a big decision, and he’s trying to think it through.”

“All right,” he says. “I was just wondering.”

“I don’t want him out there, Eli. I’m as shocked as everyone else. And anyway, he’s not on the other side of the world. He’s just in the shed. You can go talk to him anytime you want. Maybe we should all go, the three of us.”

He shakes his head. “It’s not a big deal.”

Eli rides away, leaving me to wonder if we’re not as big a mystery to our children as they are to us.

Instead of going home, I wheel the car around so I can order the cake. The bakery refers me to an ice-cream place, where they seem incredulous that I need a cake for tomorrow. In the end, though, the manager promises it by two in the afternoon. Then I stop at the Foot Locker and puzzle over a dozen pairs of indistinguishable, neon-colored sneakers. Some of them seem to glow in the dark. Some would double the size of your feet. It wouldn’t surprise me if they did double duty as flotation devices either. And at these prices it’s hard to imagine any of them being made for a penny apiece in sweatshops. They’d be much cheaper in that case, right?

Right?

I should have taken advantage of Holly’s expertise when I had her. On the verge of giving up, I call Jed on his mobile number. “You’ve gotta help me out. Your brother wants new shoes for his birthday.”

“Cool. Get him some Rockports.”

“Is that what he likes?” I ask, glancing around at the names on the boxes.

“No, get him some Crocs. He loves those.”

“You’re not helping. I’m serious, Jed. I finally know what he wants and I’m getting it. I just don’t know which ones to choose.”

“How should I know? Who bought him the last ones?”

Duh, me. But I’m not thrifting sneakers for my son’s sixteenth birthday. “Jed, help me out.”

“Ask the dude who works there.”

Lowering my voice: “I already tried that. I think they work on commission.”

“If you can’t make up your mind, do a gift certificate. Or give him cash. That’s what I’d want.”

“I never have any trouble knowing what you want,” I say. “I’m not giving him cash. That’s cheesy.”

“Fine, then get him some black Nike Airs.”

“Black?”

“Yeah, black. He’ll like those.”

He’d better. As I check out, I can’t help reflecting that at this price, the Nike Airs better be made by seasoned Italian craftsmen who get long lunch breaks in a workshop somewhere in Tuscany.

“Would you like to look at some socks?” the salesman asks.

“What, the socks are extra?”

A long pause. He clearly doesn’t get the joke.





I make it home with plenty of sunlight left. No need to worry about sneaking the shoes past Eli. There’s a strange car on the curb, maybe one of Jed’s friends. Then again, he only has three or four and they hardly ever come over. What’s the point? They do all their fraternizing via Skype. “They don’t need bodies at all,” Rick says. “They just need broadband.” One of his hobbyhorses, though it didn’t keep him from tinkering with the wireless network until he could get a strong signal out in the shed.

As I park and get out of the van, someone emerges from the strange car.

“Gregory,” I say.

My older brother stops at the curb, giving me a scarecrow shrug. “Did I get mixed up? Where’s the birthday boy?”

“Come here.” I put the Foot Locker bag on the ground and give him a hug. As always, he squeezes tight and lifts me off my toes.

“Hey, sis. How you keeping?”

“Don’t tell me you drove down for Eli’s party. We weren’t even planning to be in town.”

“Let me look at you,” he says, holding me at arm’s length. He wears an old corduroy blazer he’s had for years, a lumpy sweater, baggy pants, orthopedic-looking leather shoes, all of it far too big and an inch or two too short for his frame. In school they nicknamed him Lurch. He started using the name himself, though I never did.

“Where are you staying?”

“Over at Dad’s.” He jerks a thumb over his shoulder, as if our father’s house were across the street and not out in the sticks. “I’ve been down here a couple of days.”

“Is everything all right? If he had another doctor’s appointment and didn’t call me—”

“Eliza, chill. Nothing’s wrong with Dad.”

“And the two of you are getting along now?”

He seesaws his hand. “To be honest, I don’t think he’s got a firm grip on recent history. Have you noticed he’s kind of in a muddle? He seems fine if he’s talking about boats, the sea, that kind of thing, or grousing about politics. When you get him on the subject of people, though . . .”

“I know,” I say. “He’s getting old, that’s all.”

“That’s not all. But anyway, I didn’t drop by to talk about Dad. I have a favor to ask.”

“So Eli’s birthday has nothing to do with it.”

He smiles. “I brought him a card.”

“His birthday’s not until tomorrow.”

“Tomorrow? Perfect.”

I bring him inside, depositing him in the kitchen while I take the Foot Locker bag upstairs. Then I brew coffee while he peruses the bookshelf in the living room, sighing at what he finds, thinking I can’t hear him. One of the first things I did was rearrange the books, minimizing the gaps Rick left behind.

Jed comes down the stairs, curious about the voices.

“Your Uncle Greg dropped by. Go entertain him.”

Ordinarily he would retreat back to his room, but at the mention of Greg’s name, he lights up. The two of them start talking computers, picking up where they left off—what was it?—two years ago at Christmas.

We both managed to disappoint our father, Gregory through alcoholism and a lackluster academic career, me by eloping with a “fundamentalist nut job” (Dad’s words), settling for the barefoot-and-pregnant life when I was intended for better things. In my dad’s eyes, you could deny the Virgin Birth and the Incarnation, pretty much anything in the Bible, and you’d still be a fundamentalist nut job just for going to church. He was down on Quakers too, though—an equal opportunity skeptic. What really set him off, of course, was the hypocrisy of it all: the fundamentalist nut job knocking up his daughter.

“What, he doesn’t believe in rubbers?”

My dad has a way with words.

Rick’s family, for the record, was much more supportive. They sensed I wasn’t quite one of them and were just relieved I was going to have the baby. Like they assumed you had to be one of them not to solve the problem by having an abortion.

My elopement and Greg’s drinking both came out around the same time, within a year of our parents finally splitting. Mom went back to Pennsylvania, remarried, and owns a real estate agency in Altoona. Dad bought a crappy little shack overlooking Tar Cove and became a weekend sailor until his heart problems were diagnosed. I visit him out of a sense of duty, doing what I can to make him comfortable. He whiles away his retirement drinking black coffee in greasy-spoon diners, wearing a stethoscope around his neck.

The first time I saw it dangling there, I was perplexed. “What’s that for?”

“So I can hear I’m still breathing,” he snapped, clamping the chest piece against his skin to demonstrate. “See? Still going strong.”

Maybe this was his way of reassuring me. It didn’t work.

Despite our issues, I don’t want to lose my father any more than I want my marriage to fail. I have a funny way of showing it, I guess.

For half an hour, Gregory and Jed keep talking while I look on, contributing occasionally. It amazes me how easy Gregory is with young people—I always remember him as being socially awkward. Of course, he’s used to classroom interaction. That must explain it. On Jed’s side the fascination makes sense: an intellectually stimulating grown-up who doesn’t talk down to him, and his mirror image to boot. Here’s an alternative vision for him to latch onto of what it means to be a man.

“Anyway,” Gregory says. “Your mom and I need to have a talk. Don’t you have some homework to do? Or better yet, isn’t there some young lady out there sitting at home, pining away for a phone call from you?”

Once Jed disappears upstairs, Eli turns up and hits the reset button. The whole process repeats, but this time it’s my youngest who pleads a prior engagement and slips away to his room.

“They’re growing up,” Gregory says.

“Yes, they are. So what’s this favor?”

“When does Rick get off work? Maybe I should get that over with before we dive into things.”

“Don’t worry about him,” I say. “Just spill it.”

“Hmm. Maybe we should go for a walk.”





It’s dark outside, a pleasant autumn night. The smell of woodsmoke on the air. Gregory turns up the collar of his jacket, though it’s crisp at best, not cold.

Most likely scenario: Gregory is back on the bottle, ran someone over under the influence, and is here looking for an alibi.

Second most likely: Gregory has met the woman of his dreams, and she happens to be an underage college student, and now needs me to cosign on a loan so he can buy the girl her dream house. I’m hoping it’s the alibi. He’s not getting me to sign anything.

“There’s this girl,” he begins. “One of my students.”

Oh no.

“Are you sure you want to tell me about this?”

He laughs. “It’s not what you’re thinking. This is a bright girl, a really promising girl. Her mom teaches at the college with me. We’re good friends.”

“Good friends?”

“The mother and me. More than good friends. I like her, Eliza. They’re from back home. Here. Baltimore. Moved down to take the job at the school. We haven’t gone out or anything—I haven’t known her that long—but I really like her. The thing is, her daughter’s done a runner. She’s got a problem.”

“What kind of problem?”

“No, a Problem.” He presses his finger down on one nostril, sniffing loudly through the other. “Not just blow. She’s done it all—and the girl still hasn’t hit her bottom.”

“And what does this have to do with me?”

“I know where she is. She called home, and she’s at this halfway house in West Baltimore. Called Mission Up. You ever heard of it? No, I guess it’s not your beat. Anyway, something happened, a scared-sober moment, and she called her mom. She revealed where she was, but she wouldn’t come home. I figure I’ve got some experience in this line and the girl trusts me, so I offered to come down and reason with her. I want to talk to her, and I want you to come with me.”

“Why me? Can’t you talk to her yourself?”

Sheepish grin: “I already tried, Eliza. It didn’t go very well. So I thought, maybe you can get through to her.”

I turn to look in his face. The moon is up, sitting like a halo behind his head. “You thought I could get through to her? Why?”

My record on getting through to people isn’t great. Just look at Peggy Ensign. Or for that matter, my husband.

“I don’t know—you’re a woman. You’re a mom. Look, I’m kind of desperate here. Help me, Obi-Wan.”

“I am not your only hope. What you need is some kind of professional. A drug counselor or maybe a social worker. There are people who do this, Gregory. It’s their job.”

“Leave it to the professionals? I know you don’t believe that. Listen, I’m sorry if this is outside your comfort zone, and ordinarily I wouldn’t even be asking. But there’s a life at stake. Don’t shake your head, Liz, I’m not being melodramatic. You should see this place, the halfway house. It’s one rung higher than hell. If we don’t get her out of there, I can tell you exactly what’s going to happen.”

“And all you want me to do is talk to her? Convince her to go home?”

“That’s it. One conversation. We could go first thing in the morning.”

“Not tomorrow,” I say. “Eli’s birthday is tomorrow.”

“It won’t take long.”

“It will if it works.”

“Come on, Eliza. You know you’re going to say yes.”

He puts one of his large hands on my shoulder, pulling me awkwardly against him in a semi-hug. For a second, I’m fifteen again, looking up to my big brother, called by the nickname my family gave me, Eliza. It was Rick who started calling me Beth.

No, I’m not blaming him.

I liked it.

Eliza was a calico-and-lace kind of name out of My Fair Lady, Audrey Hepburn singing in cockney, her high cheekbones rouged in faux filth. Becoming Beth freed me from that.

And just imagine: it takes audacity to rename someone, to play Adam to the animals. Rick did it almost without thinking, like it was his right. Staking his claim the very first time we met. Before he had any designs on me at all.

Months would pass before he changed my last name along with the first.

“I don’t think it will make a difference,” I say, “but if you want me to, I’ll go.”

“Thank you, sis. Seriously.”

He leans down and kisses my forehead, the most affection he’s shown in as long as I can remember. His lips leave a damp impression, cooling in the night air. I lean my head against his chest, content.

“I hope the neighbors don’t see me, cuddling with a strange man.”

“I’m sure they’re a broad-minded lot,” he says. “People with money usually are,” then laughs at the hilariousness of his own joke.

“Spoken like somebody without any.”

We walk back, the heels of his leather shoes clicking on the sidewalk. A breeze stirs through the trees. It’s really beautiful here, especially now. A garden of tranquility on the edge of the big city, and here I am smack-dab in the middle, as riddled with useless anxiety as the corseted ladies who used to recline on Dr. Freud’s couch. Oh, the ingratitude.

“I’m glad you came,” I say.

“Really?”

“I’ve been thinking about old times. You remember Miss Hannah?”

“How could I forget? She had a glare that would take the paint off a barn.”

“Well, she never used it on me. I was remembering the other day about that place she took me, the meetinghouse with the opening in the roof.”

“Ah, right. Did you ever figure out where it was?”

I shake my head. “If it weren’t for that vivid memory of her stretching out on the bench, I’d tell myself it was all in my imagination.”

“Have you been reliving more episodes from your past?”

“What do you mean?”

“It’s about that time. Your midlife crisis. I’d say you’re pretty much overdue.”

“Ha.” A midlife crisis. If only he knew. There’s a crisis in the family, no question about that, but it isn’t mine. “Gregory, you’re going to find out soon enough, so I might as well tell you. You asked when Rick was coming home and I told you not to worry about it. That’s because Rick is home. He’s living in the shed in the backyard.”

“He’s what?”

“I didn’t put him there, if that’s what you’re thinking. He made the choice himself. He’s unfulfilled at work and conflicted about a new job offer he just received, so naturally he decided to wait for an answer from God. Meanwhile, he’s sequestered himself in the shed. As people do.”

“Right. Of course. This is the same Rick we’re talking about—my brother-in-law, the ultimate sportsman, deep as a ditch?”

“Not anymore. My neighbor thinks he’s becoming a mystic. I think she left an offering of flowers at his door.”

“Wow.” He stops in his tracks, takes his arm from my shoulder. “I mean, wow. Eliza, that’s weird. It’s, like . . . messed up. I’ve never even heard of something like that before. He’s really gone off the deep end?”

“I’d say that’s a fair assessment.”

“You seem pretty calm about it. I’d be freaking out.”

“Trust me, I’ve been freaking out. My son’s birthday is tomorrow, and as far as I know his father isn’t planning to be there. I have the keys to a beach house in Florida on my nightstand, I have permission slips to get the boys out of school, and I don’t have a husband anymore to go with me. I’m like a single mother all the sudden, except there’s a crazy man living in the backyard, sneaking into the house when I’m not around so he can go to the bathroom.”

“Liz,” he says. “Oh, Liz.”

“I know. And the really insane part is, I’m used to it now. It’s only been a couple of days and I really don’t miss him. The boys don’t either. They barely talk about him. But they’re afraid to bring anyone home, afraid their friends will find out.”

“Oh, Liz.” He puts his long arms around me and pulls my face into his chest. My shoulders heave, my cheeks burn wetly. I’m pumping tears into the fabric of his jacket. Letting go, drifting free. “Oh, Liz,” he’s saying, “oh, Liz, Liz, Liz,” over and over, a voice across the water calling me toward the distant shore. He holds me tight but I’m floating, my eyes prismed, floating off to the dissolving dark.

“Maybe,” he says, much later. “Maybe,” as we walk very slowly, side by side, pacing ourselves so we never make it home. “Maybe this isn’t about him.”

I wipe my hand over my face. I sniff. “What does that mean?”

“Maybe this isn’t his time, Liz. Maybe it’s yours.”

“My time to hear from God, you mean?” I give him a lopsided smile. “My time to find myself?”

“Is that so hard to believe?”

“I’m not into all that psychobabble. ‘Finding yourself.’ I never lost myself.”

“You didn’t? You could’ve fooled me.”

“Don’t talk,” I say. “You’re ruining the moment.”

“Sorry.” He gazes up at the whirling, faceted anarchy of the Smythes’ Victorian mansion, the moonlight shining dimly in the grimy leaded-glass windows. “Since I’ve already ruined it, I might as well say something else.”

“If you must.”

“You know that Eli’s smoking weed, right?”

“What?”

“I could smell it on him when he came in the house.”