The Ascent(11)

“Ain’t dreaming,” he said, “but you’re pretty darn well sloshed. I’ll call you a cab.”

Back at my building, I opened the door to my apartment and hobbled into the stale-smelling little box without bothering to turn on any lights. If Hannah was here, crouching in the dark, then I’d just let her be. Anyway, I was drunk.

I stumbled into my bedroom where I peeled off my clothes and crawled beneath the blankets on my bed. The bedroom window was open, and a cool breeze stirred the curtains.

As sleep drew nearer, my thoughts clashed into one another. At one point, I was crawling through a tight space, the walls hugging my shoulders and forcing my head lower and lower until my chin pressed against my breastbone. There was shallow water on the ground, freezing my hands and soaking through the knees of my pants, causing my teeth to chatter in my skull. I crawled, not knowing where I was going or even where I was.

Then I struck a wall—the end of the tunnel—and fear began to suffocate me. I tried to back up but couldn’t. I attempted to turn around, but the chamber was too narrow. Claustrophobia settled around me like a warm, wet blanket.

I’m going to die down here. I’m going to die down here. I’m going to die down here—

I awoke with a scream caught in my throat, the sound of a distant boat horn bleating in the night. The curtains still undulated in the night’s breeze.

I ran one hand over the mattress and realized I’d wet the bed.





Chapter 3


1



Three months after our chance meeting at

the Filibuster, I received a package from Andrew. It arrived in a wooden crate the size of a footlocker, delivered by two burly men wearing harnesses and fatigues. It was early November, but the men glistened with sweat, both of them panting in synchrony while I signed their clipboard. I felt obligated to offer them each a glass of water. They accepted without hesitation, and I listened to the click sounds their throats made as they drained their glasses in about three seconds flat.

“She’s a heavy mother,” said one of the men. He had a deep scar along one side of his black face, the skin itself looking like the coagulated film atop pudding that’s been sitting out too long. “What is it?”

“I don’t know,” I said. There didn’t appear to be a return address on the little slip that came with the crate nor anywhere on the crate itself.

“Thanks for the water,” the man with the scar said, and they both plodded out of the apartment, leaving the door open.

I shut the door and scrounged around the hallway closet for my largely unused toolbox. I located it buried beneath a mound of winter coats but frowned upon opening it. Unless I was able to coax the wooden crate open with a few thumbtacks and a bunch of old washers,

I was out of luck.

Like a lion stalking prey, I circled the crate, wondering what could be inside. My leg was fully healed, and I’d ditched both the wheelchair and the crutches long ago, but I swore I felt a twinge of pain in my left leg. It was a dull ache—nothing serious but enough to remind me of what had happened in the past year.

It occurred to me that I had my old sculpting equipment in my bedroom closet. I hadn’t messed around with that stuff since I’d given up sculpting—since Hannah’s death—and I’d all but forgotten about it. But sure enough, as I climbed a footstool and pawed through the cluttered mass of old books, blank VHS tapes, a pair of Adidas running shoes, and threadbare sweaters, I located the hammer and chisel.

A moment later, I stood like some mythological god before the crate with my hammer and chisel—God of Lame Legs, perhaps—and located a seam in the wood. I drove the chisel into it and heard the wood stress. Then I brought the hammer down on the chisel’s hilt, driving it deeper. The wood split. I felt a stupid, childish enthusiasm overtake me.

After a few more strikes of the hammer, the front panel fell away from the crate. Styrofoam popcorn spilled out and pooled around my feet in a cascade. What stood inside the crate caused me to blink, as if to realign my vision.

It was a massive chunk of granite, a perfect rectangle, perhaps three feet high and two feet wide and at least eighteen inches deep. The granite was dark brown, speckled with glittering mica and textured, multicolored stone.

There was a piece of pale blue stationery folded once over and taped to the hunk of stone. I plucked it off and unfolded it. A single sentence, inked in a child’s undisciplined handwriting, read:

Never take your talent for granite.

It took me a few seconds to realize the initials stood for Andrew Trumbauer—a connection I would have never made had I not seen him only three months earlier and because something about him and our chance meeting still resonated with me.

Two days later, when Marta stopped by for our ritualistic evening of board games and movies, the hunk of stone was still in the middle of my apartment, three-fourths of the wooden crate surrounding it. Though I’d attempted to clean up the spilled Styrofoam popcorn, there were many pieces on the floor, some having been flattened by the treads of my sneakers.

“What in the world is this?” she marveled, peeking into the crate with her hands on her knees.

“It grew there,” I said, “straight up through the floor.” “Tim …”

“Okay. Then would you believe a bunch of elves delivered it in the night?” I didn’t know why I was being difficult. Perhaps I just didn’t want to talk about Andrew Trumbauer. Because to talk of him was to talk about Hannah George, and Marta Cortez knew nothing about my wife except for the fact that she’d once existed.