The Nix(199)

“Good, good.”

Faye thinks about Samuel, and seeing him in the airport a few days ago, saying goodbye to him. She had found herself, at that moment, overcome with a peculiar need: to press herself into him, to feel him physically there. It turned out, the thing she missed the most was his heat. Those long years after she left the family, what she longed for more than anything was that human warmth, how Samuel would climb into bed on those mornings when another of his nightmares terrified him, or how he’d press into her when he was running a fever. Whenever his need was great, he’d come to her, this little cauldron, this hot humid ball. She’d press her face into him and smell his little-boy smell, like sweat and syrup and grass. He ran so hot her skin would dampen where it touched him, and she imagined his core burning with all the energy his body would need for its growth to manhood. It was that warmth she craved suddenly in the airport. She has not felt such a thing in a very long time. Mostly she’s chilled—maybe because of the pills, her anxiety drugs, her blood thinners and beta-blockers. She’s always so cold these days.

The sun is down now and they’re staring at a purple sky. Lillian is in the house lighting a fire. Freya sits listening to the rushing water. To their right, up the coast, is an island where in the gathering darkness Faye can see a bright tongue of light.

“What is that?” she says, pointing.

“Melk?ya,” Freya says. “It’s a factory. It’s where they take the gas.”

“And that light?”

“Fire. It burns all the time. I don’t know why.”

And Faye stares at the smokestack venting its orange flame into the night and all at once she’s transported back to Iowa, she’s sitting with Henry on the shore of the Mississippi River and she’s looking at the fire coming out of the nitrogen plant. She could see that fire from anywhere in town. She used to call it the lighthouse. That was so long ago it feels like a different life. And at the sudden recall of this long-dormant memory, Faye begins to cry. Not a hard cry, but a light and delicate one. She thinks about what Samuel would have called it, this crying—a Category 1—and she smiles. Freya either does not notice the crying or pretends not to notice it.

“I’m sorry I got him and you didn’t,” Faye says. “Our father, I mean. I’m sorry he left you. It’s not fair.”

Freya waves at her, dismissing it. “We managed.”

“I know he missed you a great deal.”

“Thank you.”

“I think he always wanted to come back. I think he regretted leaving.”

Freya stands and looks out at the water. “It’s good he stayed away.”

“Why?”

“Look around you,” she says, opening her arms to the house, the land, the animals, to Lillian and the fire she’s building and the Bible with its exhausting family tree. “We didn’t need him.”

She extends her hand to Faye and they shake, a formal gesture declaring the end of this conversation and the end of Faye’s visit.

“It was very nice to meet you,” Freya says.

“And you.”

“I hope you have a nice stay.”

“I will. Thank you for your hospitality.”

“Lillian will drive you to your hotel.”

“It’s not far. I can walk.”

Freya nods and begins making her way toward the house. But then a few steps up the path, she stops and turns to Faye and looks at her with these knowing eyes that seem to pass straight through her and access every secret she has inside.

“These old stories aren’t important anymore, Faye. Go back to your son.”

And all Faye can do is nod her head in agreement and watch as Freya ascends the rest of the way and disappears into the house. Faye lingers a moment on the dock before leaving as well. She follows a path up the ridge, and when she reaches the top, at precisely the place she met the horse, she looks back down into the valley at the house, now lit warm and golden, a thin tendril of blue smoke drifting from the chimney. Maybe this is where her father stood. Maybe this is what he remembered. Maybe this is the vision that passed before his eyes those nights in Iowa when he stared into nothingness. It would be a memory that sustained him his whole life, but it would also be the thing that haunted him. And that old story about the ghost that looks like a rock comes to her now: The farther from shore you take it, the heavier it becomes, until one day it gets too heavy to bear.

Faye imagines her father taking a small piece of earth with him, a memento: this farm, this family, his memory of it. This was the drowning stone from his stories. He took it to sea and took it to Iceland and took it all the way to America. And as long as he held on to it, he just kept sinking.





2


WHY HAVE HOSPITAL ROOMS begun to look like hotel rooms, is something Samuel wonders as he looks around at this hospital room’s beige walls and beige ceiling and beige curtains and industrially sturdy carpet whose color could be described as tan or wheat or beige. Paintings on the walls designed to be inoffensive and forgettable and un-upsetting and so abstract they do not remind anyone of anything. Television with a billion channels including FREE HBO, according to the little cardboard sign on the dresser. A fake-oak dresser with a Bible inside. The desk in the corner with the many ports and outlets is the “wireless workstation” with a Wi-Fi password printed on laminated paper crinkled and splitting at the edges. A room service menu where you can order things like chicken-fried steaks and french fries and milk shakes and have them delivered anywhere in the building, even the cardiac wing. The remote control Velcroed to the television. The television bolted to the wall and angled toward the bed so that it’s like the television is watching the patient and not the other way around. A book of nearby Chicago attractions. The couch along the far wall is actually a hide-a-bed, which is something anyone will realize if they sit on it too quickly and bang into its hard metal architecture. A digital clock radio with green numbers currently blinking midnight.