The Confession Club Read online

  Don’t rely on your child to save you.

  “You know what, honey? It’s just a weird sort of mood. Like a cloud in the sky. Do you ever have that happen?”

  Nola plays with the doorknob and considers this. “I guess so. But when it happens, I just go do something else.”

  “That’s very smart. I’ll be down in just a minute. I’m dying to taste those cookies!”

  “I’ll put them on your favorite plate.”

  “Good.”

  Nola starts to skip out, then turns around. “Wait. Is it the one with the little violets?”

  “Nope. The one with the little roses.”

  “Oh, yeah. Okay, see you down there!”

  Nola clatters down the stairs and Maddy sighs, clasps her hands together, and hangs her head. When she was pregnant with Nola and living here with Arthur and Lucille, Arthur once came upon her curled up in a corner of her room, lost in misery the way she is now. “Mind if I sit here?” he asked, indicating the bed where she had cocooned herself in a quilt. She shrugged, which was as much of a yes as she could offer in those days. She was friendless, abandoned by both her father and her horrible boyfriend, and she was pregnant with a child she was determined to keep, even though she was scared to death about the idea.

  “Lucille’s making fish for supper,” Arthur told her. He wrinkled his nose, which seemed to make his ears stick out more. He was wearing a white shirt that day, blue old-man pants, cinched high at the waist and shiny from over-ironing, and red suspenders. His thin hair stood up in the back from having taken his beloved hat off; Arthur was a man who believed a gentleman didn’t wear a hat in the house. “She made me go and buy fish.”

  Maddy said nothing.

  “You like fish?” he asked.

  “Not really,” she answered.

  “Me, neither,” said Arthur. “Fishing I like, ’long as I don’t catch anything. Oh, it’s wonderful to fish. All the sounds the water makes, why, it’s like a language. That long green and yellow grass swaying underwater like a hula dance, the way the boat rocks just a little bit, like it’s saying, ‘There now, there now.’ I guess we all of us like to be soothed, no matter how old we are—isn’t that so?”

  Again, Maddy said nothing.

  “I go out in the boat with my fishing rod, but I don’t put any bait on it.”

  “Why do you even go fishing if you don’t want to catch fish?” Maddy asked. Her tone was crueler than she meant it to be.

  “Well, that’s a fair question and here’s the answer. I like the peace that comes with fishing. If I went out and just lay on the riverbank, I’d feel guilty, thinking of what else I should be doing. All the things that needed doing. But with my fishing pole, everybody thinks I am doing something!”

  “Why does everybody care so much about what other people think?” Maddy asked, and the bitterness in her voice was plain.

  “Another good question that I’ve thought about myself. To tell you the truth, I think it’s a design flaw. There are quite a few design flaws in us humans, you know. More than in animals and plants. And I guess we have to cope with them. Don’t have to like them, just have to cope with them.”

  From downstairs came the voice of Lucille yelling up at them. “Do I have to spell it out? It’s D-I-N-N-E-R-T-I-M-E!” Maddy knew just how she’d look: flush-faced, her hand gripping the knob on the stair rail, a dishtowel tucked into her waist, one sneakered foot on the tread to help her lean in and holler better.

  Arthur leaned forward. “Coming!” he shouted, and his voice cracked like a teenager’s. And then to Maddy: “We gotta go. She says your baby needs fish because it’s brain food and by God she’s going to feed you fish. So here’s what you do. She’s making catfish in cornmeal batter and the batter is real good. So when you take a bite of fish, you tell your brain, ‘My, this batter is good,’ and then you quick eat some mashed potatoes, and you know nobody makes better mashed potatoes than Lucille. And then quick eat another bite of fish and then some green beans—they’re good, too. Like that. Alternate. Am I right? You’re going to have the bad but you sure enough are going to have the good, too. You just concentrate on that cornmeal batter.”

  He pulled a small gift wrapped in yellow paper from his pocket. “I got this for the baby today, at a garage sale. Ten cents.”

  “What is it?” Maddy asked.

  “Do I have to come up there and drag you two down?” they heard.

  “Open it quick,” Arthur said, “and then come down before she has a stroke.” He looked at her and smiled. “Listen to me. You know what? You’re the top.”

  “The top of what?”

  “Oh, my. Cole Porter?”

  She looked blankly at him.

  “We’ll have some fun later,” Arthur said. “I’ll play you a record you’ll love!” With one finger wagging in the air, he sang, “You’re the top! / You’re Mahatma Gandhi!”

  He went out into the hall. “Sure smells good!” he called down to Lucille.

  Maddy opened the package. A tiny book about fish. And weren’t they beautiful. Their round, clear eyes, their fan-dance tails, the rainbow colors of their shiny scales. They were beautiful.

  Now Maddy closes her eyes for the briefest second. A sealing-in of memory, a benediction, a wish that she could once again be under Arthur’s care. “Truluv,” she called him. He was that. True love. She is so happy to be staying in his room. It’s almost as though he’s still taking care of her.

  But now she is a mother and responsible for someone else’s care. And here before her is Miss Cornmeal Batter herself; Nola has come up to get her.

  “Didn’t you hear me calling you?”

  Maddy pats her lap. “Come here.”

  Nola climbs onto her lap and Maddy pushes the girl’s hair behind her ears and says, “I was just up here thinking about you.”

  “You were?”

  “Yup.”

  The girl’s voice grows small. “And it made you sad?”

  “Oh, no!” Maddy says, laughing. “You make me happy! I was just thinking of how you are growing and changing, and you know what? I wish I could be just like you.”

  “You do?”

  “Yes. I just love you so much.”

  “I love you, too.”

  “Nola, who is that man down there wearing Iris’s robe?”

  “Oh, that’s John. He’s the man who didn’t come to dinner. He’s fun! He helped us build a raft to sail in the gutter. And he’s taking Iris out for dinner tonight. She told me. After his clothes get all dry, they’re going to buy some seed and then they’re going to plant stuff and then they’re going out to dinner. They invited me to help plant, but I’m going to help Link. I’m his assistant. Like a magician’s assistant, only I am a science assistant.”

  “Where are they planting the seeds?” She hopes it’s not in Arthur’s garden. She wants Arthur’s garden to stay the same.

  Nola offers an elaborate shrug and hops off her mother’s lap. “I don’t know. I think in his garden. But you should come down, because your cookies are ready and also, guess what Link is going to show us? How to make invisible ink. And how to make a cloud in a jar.”

  “You’re kidding!”

  “See?” Nola says. “Better come and be with us, now.”

  Maddy rises gratefully up to follow her daughter downstairs. You can’t ask your children to save you. But they do it anyway.

  Closer

  John leans over Iris to touch the tiny pearls scattered over her T-shirt. “Are these from Tahiti? Is this cotton from Egypt? Because that’s what you deserve, Iris.”

  She laughs.

  He doesn’t. He flops down onto his back and puts an arm over his eyes. “I can feel my hands and I can feel my feet. I can feel that I am here. I mean, all of me, inside and out. This is unusual.” He looks over at her,
one eye closed. “Maybe that makes no sense.”

  “No, it’s…It makes sense. I know what you mean.”

  “Do you?”

  “Yes. I think so.”

  “Well, then.”

  He looks away again, closes his eyes.

  They are lying out in a field near the barn, where they planted seeds for what will be an impressive vegetable garden, should things take. There will be four kinds of lettuce, zucchini, tomatoes, onions, peas, beets, corn, basil, carrots, potatoes, watermelon, rhubarb. Iris has never planted a vegetable garden before, didn’t know anything about preparing or amending the soil, didn’t know how far down to dig for the seeds, didn’t know about making the little hills to plant the zucchini in, didn’t know how good it was to plant after a rain, didn’t know anything, really. But she was eager to learn. She helped in every way, and her body is feeling it now. But it’s good pain, the virtuous kind she used to feel after she went to the gym in Boston. This work is better than being in a gym. The sun on your back, the smell of earth on your hands, the birds lining up on tree branches to supervise, the clouds making for a bit of shade, then moving on, the little sounds of industry created by digging and patting, by watering from cleaned-out tin cans. She wonders how John will sustain this garden without water on the land, but if the season stays as rainy as it has been, he has a good chance of getting things going.

  “I want to tell you something, Iris.”

  “Tell me.”

  “It’s not a pleasant thing.”

  “That’s okay.” Now she’s a little nervous. Still, “You can tell me anything,” she says, and it has happened again, words falling from her mouth without any forethought.

  “I want to tell you why I’m homeless. If I can. I want to try.”

  She gets up on one elbow to look down at him, his eyes still closed. The shape of his lips makes her feel as though she’s gone liquid. He has such a noble profile: such a fine forehead, such a straight nose, such beautiful cheekbones. She looks at the beat of his heart in his neck, at the rise of muscles on his chest, down his arms, in his long legs. Dirt is caked in the lines of his hands. She spies a little cut on his palm, untended, and a sense of tenderness all out of proportion to the wound yanks at her stomach. She wants to put her head on his shoulder and feel their arms wrapped around each other, offering that timeless and intimate shelter. She wants to lie very still beside him for hours, while the sounds of the natural world go on about them. Also, she wants to take off her clothes and admit him. Instead, she lies back down and closes her own eyes, to listen.

  He speaks in a curious monotone, as though to add inflection would make the telling too hard. “A few days after my wife left me, I was lying in my bed one night and I had to take a piss. And I didn’t care that I had to take a piss. I didn’t care about anything. I just lay there and eventually it was like my bladder burst, and I wet the bed. Then I got up. I got up, and I got my rifle and I crawled out the window and onto the roof and began to shoot. I shot at the stars. I shot at the trees. Someone called the cops and they came and arrested me and took me down to the station and locked me up. They put me in a cell with some other guys who were all a mess like me. And nobody asked any questions of me. Not one person cared that I’d pissed myself, and was reeking. Not one person cared anything about me. And it was the first time since I’d come back from ’Nam that I felt I could relax. It was the first time I didn’t feel the world closing in on me, that…pressure. I thought, ‘I don’t care about anything anymore and I don’t want to. I don’t care about anyone and I don’t want anyone to care about me. I can’t carry it. I can’t carry it.’ After they let me out, I never went home. I hit the streets. Every now and then, I’d try living inside, with other people. Be a roommate. Be a lover. But it never worked for long. I needed to be out. Free. These days, I only…Well, I wake up each morning and wait for the sun to break the sky. And when it doesn’t, I get up.”

  He looks over at her. “I know I’m not right. I won’t ever be right again. There are days when I feel held together by cobwebs. But then there are other days. Like this one.”

  Iris thinks of Maddy at the last Confession Club. She thinks of the admission that Karen Lundgren made about her own difficulties. All around are broken people, doing the best they can. And getting better. She has faith that John can, too. But she has a question she wants to ask. It is not her business, really. Yet it is, because of the gentle entanglement they have begun. Seeds in the ground. She clears her throat, then speaks quietly. “Why did your wife leave you?”

  For a long time, he says nothing. Then, “That’s another story.” He stands and looks up at the sky. “It’ll be dark soon. Let’s go into the house now and not talk anymore. Will you come into the house with me, Iris? And after, we’ll go to dinner?”

  She knows what he’s asking. And she rises to her feet and takes his hand.

  A lot of people would have something to say about this, Iris and her homeless man. Here’s what she has to say about this: Good.

  * * *

  —

  Iris is about halfway home from being with John when her confidence fades. She turns off the radio and begins a self-administered interrogation: What are you doing? This man is clearly unstable! What are you doing? Yes, a million people have doubts and insecurities, questions of self-worth, but a man who shoots a rifle from the roof?

  When she pulls into the driveway, she sees the dim figure of Maddy sitting on the porch steps, holding a glass of wine. She sits down beside her. “Hey,” she says, wearily.

  “Well, hey,” Maddy says, and if her voice were a dog it would have its ears perked up. “Want a glass of wine?”

  Iris nods. While Maddy goes into the house to fetch it, Iris thinks about whether to tell Maddy what has happened. No. Not yet.

  Maddy comes out onto the porch again, and the screen door bangs behind her. “Shhhh!” she tells it. She sits beside Iris, gives her a glass, and holds up her own to clink. The women take a sip and then Maddy says, “You slept with him, didn’t you?”

  “Oh, God,” Iris says, and drops her head.

  “No judgment here,” Maddy says. “He looks like the Marlboro man.”

  Iris looks at her and frowns. “How do you know about the Marlboro man?”

  “I lived with old folks, remember?”

  Iris guesses that to Maddy, she’s old folks, too.

  “What did you do tonight?” Iris asks.

  “Well. It was a very exciting evening around here. First I watched a candle lift water, courtesy of Link. He explained very clearly to Nola and me why it happened, and you know what? I still don’t get it. He put some water on a saucer. Then he put a soda bottle over a lit candle that had been anchored there. When the flame went out, the water rose. Can you think why?”

  “Don’t look at me,” Iris says.

  “He also used the static electricity of a comb to bend a stream of water.”

  “Okay…”

  “You know what?” Maddy says. “I’m a little worried about him. It’s too much, these experiments all the time. It’s as though he’s looking for something not for fun, but for…I don’t know. It makes me uneasy.”

  “What does Nola think about the experiments?”

  Maddy laughs. “Oh, well, she’s thrilled! She can’t get enough of these experiments. I suppose next she’ll be asking me for a lab coat with her name stitched over the pocket.”

  “We should make her one,” Iris says.

  “You want to?”

  “Sure.”

  “Can you sew?”

  “No. Can you?”

  “Nope.”

  Iris shrugs. “How hard can it be? We’ve got Lucille’s old sewing machine and I’ll bet she kept the instruction manual. She loved her instruction manuals.”

  “That’s true.”

  The women fa
ll silent, and then Maddy says, “So I talked to Matthew today.”

  “And?”

  “I think he’s just about had enough.”

  “Did you ask him about moving back here?”

  “It has to be the right time. It’ll be a long conversation. Believe me, he wasn’t in the right frame of mind. He was angry.”

  “He misses you,” Iris says.

  “He misses Nola.”

  “And you.”

  Maddy turns to her. “I don’t know what to do. This is where I want to be. We don’t even lock the door here.”

  “We should, though,” says Iris.

  “We should.”

  “We have Nola to think about.”

  “Yes. I think about her all the time. In the beginning, when she was so little, it was easy. It’s getting harder now, to try to do a good job with her. I so want to do a good job with her.

  “I’m not happy in New York, Iris. You come out your door there and you’re in a sea of people you don’t know. I guess I never realized until I left how much I depend on familiarity. A lot of people talk about how oppressive small towns are, but for me, they’re freeing. And I don’t know if New York is the right place for Nola, either. Here, she can go outside in the backyard to play, she has a friend….Oh, I know he’s too old for her, but when she starts at the School House, she’ll make—”

  “So she definitely is going?”

  Maddy nods. “I paid the registration fee for both summer sessions today. You know what Nola said when I told her she’d be going to school soon? She said, ‘But I have to help Link. How can I do both things? I’ll be at my whiz end!’ ”

  Iris laughs, then grows serious. “Maddy, I wonder if you just told Matthew—”

  “Right now,” Maddy says, “I want to talk about you. I want to know if John was as good as he looks.”