Lisey's Story(118)

She catches movement in the corner of her eye and looks up the path leading from the beach to the stairs. She sees a stout gentleman wearing white pants and a billowing white shirt open all the way down the front. A great red gash runs down the left side of his face. His iron-gray hair is standing up at the back of his oddly flattened-looking head. He looks around briefly, then steps from the path to the sand.

Beside her, speaking with great effort, Scott says: "Car crash."

Lisey's heart takes a wild spring in her chest, but she's careful not to look around or to squeeze down too tightly on his hands, although she cannot forbear a slight twitch. Striving to keep her voice even, she says: "How do you know?"

No answer from Scott. The stout gentleman in the billowing shirt spares one more dismissive glance for the silent folk sitting on the stone benches, then turns his back on them and wades into the pool. Silver tendrils of moonsmoke rise around him, and Lisey once more has to drag her eyes away.

"Scott, how do you know?"

He shrugs. His shoulders also seem to weigh a thousand pounds - that, at least, is how it looks to her - but he manages. "Telepathy, I suppose."

"Will he get better now?"

There's a long pause. Just when she thinks he won't answer, he does. "He might," he says. "He's...it's deep...in here." Scott touches his own head - indicating, Lisey thinks, some sort of brain injury. "Sometimes things just...go too far."

"Then do they come and sit here? Wrap themselves in sheets?"

Nothing from Scott. What she's afraid of now is losing what little of him she's found. She doesn't need anyone to tell her how easily it could happen; she can feel it. Every nerve in her body knows this news.

"Scott, I think you want to come back. I think it's why you hung on so hard all last December. And I think it's why you brought the african. It's hard to miss, even in the gloom."

He looks down, as if seeing it for the first time, then actually smiles a little. "You're always...saving me, Lisey," he says.

"I don't know what you're - "

"Nashville. I was going down." With every word he seems to gain animation. For the first time she allows herself to really hope. "I was lost in the dark and you found me. I was hot - so hot - and you gave me ice. Do you remember?"

She remembers that other Lisa ( I spilled half the f**king Coke getting back here) and how Scott's shivering suddenly stopped when she popped a sliver of ice onto his bloody tongue. She remembers Coke-colored water dripping out of his eyebrows. She remembers it all. "Of course I do. Now let's get out of here."

He shakes his head, slowly but firmly. "It's too hard. You go on, Lisey."

"I'm supposed to go without you?" She blinks her eyes fiercely, only realizing when she feels the sting that she has begun to cry.

"It won't be hard - do it like that time in New Hampshire." He speaks patiently, but still very slowly, as if every word were a great weight, and he is purposely misunderstanding her. She's almost sure of it. "Just close your eyes...concentrate on the place you came from... see it...and that's the place you'll go back to."

"Without you? " she repeats fiercely, and below them, slowly, like a man moving underwater, a guy in a red flannel shirt turns to look at them.

Scott says, "Shhhh, Lisey - here you must be still."

"What if I don't want to be? This isn't the smucking library, Scott!"

Deep in the Fairy Forest the laughers howl as if this is the funniest thing they've ever heard, a knee-slapper worthy of the Auburn Novelty Shop. From the pool there's a single sharp splash. Lisey glances that way and sees the stout gentleman has gone to...well, to somewhere else. She decides she doesn't give a good goddam if it's underwater or Dimension X; her business now is with her husband. He's right, she's always saving him, just call her the U.S. Cavalry. And it's okay, she knew that practical shit was never exactly going to be Scott's main deal when she married him, but she has a right to expect a little help, doesn't she?

His gaze has drifted back to the water. She has an idea that when night comes and the moon begins to burn there like a drowned lamp, she'll lose him for good. This frightens and infuriates her. She stands up and snatches Good Ma's african. It came from her side of the family, after all, and if this is to be their divorce, she will have it back -  all of it - even if it hurts him. Especially if it hurts him.

Scott looks at her with an expression of sleepy surprise that makes her angrier still.

"Okay," she says, speaking with brittle lightness. It's a tone foreign to her and seemingly to this place, as well. Several people look around, clearly disturbed and - perhaps - irritated. Well, smuck them and the various horses (or hearses, or ambulances) they rode in on. "You want to stay here and eat lotuses, or whatever the saying is? Fine. I'll just go on back down the path - "

And for the first time she sees a strong emotion on Scott's face. It's fear. "Lisey, no!" he says. "Just boom back from here! You can't use the path! It's too late, almost night! "

"Shhhh!" someone says.

Fine. She'll shhhh. Bundling the yellow african higher in her arms, Lisey starts back down the risers. Two benches down from the bottom she chances a glance back. Part of her is sure that he'll follow her; this is Scott, after all. No matter how strange this place may be, he's still her husband, still her lover. The idea of divorce has crossed her mind, but surely it is absurd, a thing for other people but not for Scott and Lisey. He will not allow her to leave alone. But when she looks over her shoulder he's just sitting there in his white tee-shirt and green long underwear bottoms, with his knees together and his hands clasped tightly as if he is cold even here, where the air is so tropical. He's not coming, and for the first time Lisey lets herself acknowledge that it may be because he can't. If that is so, her choices are down to a pair: stay here with him or go home without him.