“Not until I could show you something.”
A word can bring the heart back to life sputtering and spitting like an almost-drowned man, gasping at life. JJ had thought about her. He had wanted her when he felt proud. Sylvia had not become a known person in her town though she had lived there all her life. She was not connected in the ways so many people she knew found anchors to a town and a community. She had very few family members living. She was not a churchgoer or activist, or interested in local government. She would never receive a key to the town or a commendation for service. When she left her job, the few people who had been there more than a couple of years would get her a cake and gift certificate and never again call or see her on purpose. At times she felt unknown in the world, like she sleepwalked unconnected and alone. To know that she had been important to someone moved her in ways she could not have predicted. Wasn’t she easy? Sylvia thought. “I guess we’ll see it now.”
“I’ve been a lot of places. More places than I ever thought I’d go. I’ve lived all over the country for one reason or another, some job or just needing a change.”
“I used to want to travel,” Sylvia said.
“You did? I wouldn’t have thought that Mrs. Sylvia.”
“Just because I’m old now doesn’t mean I always was,” Sylvia said.
“Where did you want to go? Paris? Everybody wants to go to Paris.”
Sylvia thought of Marcus with an easel set up at the Seine, a painter’s pallete in one hand, his silly beret covering one side of his forehead. “What would I do in France? I really wanted to go to Las Vegas.”
“You’re kidding?”
“I’m not kidding even a little bit. I don’t know why.” Sylvia counted her reasons, “Number one, I’m too cheap to gamble. Two, I hate crowds. Three I don’t like nasty buffets or sick, crying drunks. I just wanted to see all those lights and those hotels right there in the middle of the desert. Wouldn’t that be something? But I let it go.”
“You can get there for pretty cheap. They’ve got all kinds of deals you can get online.”
Sylvia smiled. She would never look up any deal online or anywhere else. Her dream to go out there was just a fantasy, and fantasies should stay tucked away in your heart, easy to access for a cheap mental thrill or some put-up-your-feet thoughts, but forever out of reach. JJ was still young.
“I don’t blame you if you don’t go. It’s all the same, Sylvia.”
“What’s all the same?”
“Everywhere. Some flat, some hills. Big towns, small ones. All the same. But being here matters to me. It’s hard to explain. It’s about time. I’m just starting out. Most people my age are thinking about how to wind down.”
“You might be surprised at what people are doing, JJ. Any kind of pain or crazy I guarantee you there’s somebody in this town that is going through the same thing. We figure out a lot of ways to be unhappy. Trust me on that.”
“I’m going to stay here and settle down,” JJ said.
“This is your home, honey. That means something,” Sylvia said.
“Like it or not.” JJ laughed.
“Take it by day,” Sylvia said softly. “I don’t want you to suffer.” JJ was feeling more and more deeply about the town than the town deserved in her estimation. “The place is different from the way you left it,” Sylvia said.
“You can’t go home again, right?” JJ said. “I know, I know.”
“Have you seen your sister yet?”
“She’s in Columbus, Ohio.”
“Have you seen her?”
“Nah,” JJ said, and shifted his eyes away from Sylvia. Even without the obvious evasion, Sylvia knew he was lying.
“You going to see her now?”
“I’ll talk to her eventually. I remind her of too many bad things.”
“That doesn’t even make any sense. What do you mean too many bad things? That’s ridiculous. You’re her brother, her only one.”
JJ shrugged. Sylvia knew as sure as she was sitting in her cluttered little kitchen that JJ had seen his sister and had been hurt by her. It would take some doing to get him back there.
Sylvia wanted to ask him what he knew about his sister’s life, her children, any of the small group of family that had looked the other way when he lived with an unkind stranger over twenty years ago. She knew as well as anybody not to open that manhole cover. Drop in that hole and you might not find your way out.
“You don’t worry. You hear me? You don’t let it get to you. We used to say keep on keeping on. That’s what you’ve got to do. She’ll come around. She will. One day she’ll realize.” Sylvia hoped she sounded convincing, but she was not convinced. Some people figured out life much too late to do anyone including themselves any good.
“Now I need a drink,” JJ said.
“Listen to me. I have to say this. I know you’re here because you think this is home. But you can’t go home because there is none. It’s just you trying to make it in a place that holds some memory for you. That’s not the same as home. People can be like home sometimes and that’s if you are very, very lucky. Are you hearing me?”
JJ’s face looked like he was concentrating, like he listened to what she said.
JJ smiled, sadly Sylvia thought, like every cold fact of wisdom she’d told him he’d already considered, calculated as true, but decided to ignore, put the whole bet on the ridiculous long shot.
“Don’t tell Ava I came by here? Would you do that for me?”
“I’ll let you tell her. Tell her yourself.”
“I didn’t mean for you to know, but you caught me.” JJ pointed his finger at her.
“Listen, JJ, all that mess you went through when you were coming up, and, me too, I’m not leaving myself out.” Sylvia shook her head, trying to coax out the right words. “You try to forget, but you don’t. You never do. This place might be paradise for some people, but it never was for me and it never was for you. Maybe it can be. I hope so. But, honey”—Sylvia leaned in closer to JJ, she wanted him to see her, to really see whatever it was that registered as serious and meaningful on a face—“I don’t want you to count on it. Make sure you aren’t counting on it.”
“I’ve seen a lot out there. I’m not a kid anymore,” JJ said.
“I know. I know you’re a grown man. But you have to know that every child in the world is trying to get away from a dead-end town. Just like this one. Where are they all going to, baby? When they’ve had enough they go back to the town they left. That’s not the same as coming home.”
“I know.” JJ smiled though there was no happiness on his face. “But I’ve got nowhere else. This is it, Mrs. Sylvia.” JJ shrugged his shoulders, opened his hands.
Sylvia understood all about the last stop on the line, the inevitability that only appeared to be a choice. She nodded. “When do we see the house, honey?”
11
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