THE MONUMENT: 16
Neil listens to Sally Mae in the dark hallway; she keeps her voice low and her eyes on Stephanie. He allows her to recount Stephanie’s story, as though he hadn’t overheard, and feigns concern in all the right places. “Well, whattya think we should do?”
“I keep goin’ back and forth on it, but it seems we have to let her go.” She looks at him with dozy eyes. “Right?”
“We might could.”
“But…,” she trails off and looks at the floor.
“Look, we can’t do anything tonight. Let’s just get some sleep, and deal with this in the morning.”
“But her little girls… You didn’t see the picture.”
“Sally Mae”—he puts his arms around her—“just enjoy her tonight.” He kisses her on the forehead.
Within his embrace, she feels cold, her flesh puckering around her bones. Though it breaks her heart, she knows it’s wrong to keep this woman from her children and ailing father. Is Neil really that selfish? Really? She hangs limply like a scarecrow.
“Cheer up, buttercup.” He smiles warmly at her. “It’s getting late. Why don’t you go brush her hair some more, then it’ll be time for bed.”
“Yeah, okay.” She lets him hug her again. “You’re right.” Then she wanders back to the living room and sits next to Stephanie again. She has stopped crying, but continues to sniffle.
Sally Mae smoothes a hand down her soft hair, a gentle motherly gesture. Stephanie makes doe eyes at her, and gives her a few quick blinks. Neil’s heavy footfalls clod down the hallway, and he heaves the bedroom door closed behind him.
“You must be so worried,” Sally Mae says.
Stephanie nods meekly.
“Is there anyone you can call? You can use the phone.” She motions toward a prewar-style phone hidden on the end table between looming piles of junk mail.
Stephanie wracks her brain, but she doesn’t know who she could call. If I could get near a computer…, she thinks.
“Go on,” Sally Mae says. “Call your girls.”
Stephanie reaches for the phone, picks up, and dials a random number. It starts to ring. She readies herself for another award-winning performance. But it just rings, five more times, before an automatic answering machine picks up. “This is the Millers. Leave us a message. Beep.”
“Girls, it’s Mommy… Jillian? Robin? Are you there? Girls, pick up. Please.” She lets her voice crack and waits, looking pleadingly at Sally Mae. “Mommy will be home soon. Robin, please take your sister next door to Mrs. Murphy’s. I—I love you,” she stops with a sob and lets the phone clunk to the floor. Sally Mae hurries to place the receiver back in the cradle and resumes her circular backrub to console Stephanie, the waterworks flowing at full stream again.
“Oh dear, dear,” Sally Mae says.
“I—I don’t know where… I don’t know where they are.” She conjures some tears and lets them loose.
“Stephanie, sweetie,” Sally Mae says tenderly, “you need to go to them.”
It’s all Stephanie can do to move her head up and down in a jerky, uncertain manner without smiling. She’s so close.
“I just…,” she wails. “I just need to get back to my car.”
Sally Mae draws her hands together, wrings them anxiously. “I’m gonna help you get to your car.” She rocks herself on the couch, making waves in the cushions that push Stephanie to and fro with each motion. “But we have to wait till Neil’s asleep.”
“Neil?”
“My husband.”
“From the bakery?” Stephanie puts a big piece of the puzzle into place. “He was waiting on me, getting my coffee, when… uh, when I fell.”
“That’s right.”
“Are we very far from the bakery?”
“Oh, it’s about thirty-five miles down the road.”
Stephanie sighs with relief, realizing just how fortunate she is that she didn’t decide to make a run for it earlier. Though she’s not certain what Sally Mae’s intentions are, she is reasonably sure that it can’t be as bad as wandering aimlessly with no car and no map and no sense of location or direction. She has to restrain herself from sighing again, and instead looks to Sally Mae with red and swollen eyes, one eyebrow crooked.
“You just sit tight,” Sally Mae says, patting a hand lightly on Stephanie’s knee. “I’ll be right back.” She stands up and shuffles out the room and down the hall.
Alone, Stephanie tries to collect her thoughts. Why did Neil bring me here? She looks around the overcrowded room some more, but doesn’t see any sign of a computer. Instead, she notices a large photograph in a simple wooden frame hanging on the wall behind her. It’s a classic image, a black-and-white photo of the Monument prominently displaying the Six Tenets carved in English in the front and center of the shot. She reads them silently, thinking how it’s only a matter of time before she’ll be able to see it with her very own eyes. Closing her eyes, she envisions the moment that it first comes in to view, what she’ll do, how she’ll react. She will walk right up to it, and recite each word, solemnly, out loud. But then she’ll have to get to work.
As an afterthought, Stephanie reopens her wallet to the picture of her nieces, staring at it intently. Robin was an infant when she left home, and she’d never been back to meet little Jillian; her brother always mailed her the newest pictures, and she never appreciated it more than she did now. Again, she thinks she’ll have to give her folks a call when this is all over. Impatiently, Stephanie looks at her watch. For appearance’ sake, she keeps the photo out, and fingers her eyes to look like she’s still crying. Her eyes ache, feeling raw with each scraping blink, and she hopes she won’t have to cry anymore. She’s not sure she’ll be able to.
With a creak, the bedroom door opens and Sally Mae comes tiptoeing down the hall. She has changed her clothes, out of the loose T-shirt and stirrup pants which draped off her skinny legs, and into a stale-smelling blue dress belted at the waist. Her narrow middle emphasizes her petite frame, and her exposed calves, like blades of dry grass, look like they might snap under her body weight. Then Stephanie, glancing at her new attire, realizes that her sharp cheekbones, rosy with rouge, don’t stick out so much as the rest of her face is sunken. She looks like a corpse at her own fineral, Stephanie thinks, and averts her eyes, returning to the photograph.
“Let’s go,” Sally Mae whispers, and flashes a set of car keys.
Eagerly, Stephanie finds her feet and secures her purse over her shoulder, and follows Sally Mae to the door.
Weaving through the piles, Sally Mae reaches the door, as she’s done hundreds of times before. Reaches for the knob, turns it, and the door springs open. Suddenly she is facing the outside world, a virtual explosion of the senses. Her heart hammers her from the inside, and fear paralyzes her; she tells herself it’s all in her mind and places one foot through the door and onto the front step. Gaping at her sandaled toes like they’re going to instantaneously combust or turn to stone and fall off, she reels at the sight of her own foot on the other side of the threshold, and when a faint breeze touches her flesh, she nearly falls backward, retreating into the safety of her home. Stephanie is right behind her, and she knows there is no going back. Taking a deep breath, she forces her other foot out the door and plants it on the crumbling doorstep next to the other one.
I am outside! Her brain expands and contracts against her skull, which tightens like a vise around her temples and above her ears, connecting somewhere in a throbbing lump at the base of her spine. Grunting at the pain, Sally Mae stretches one arm back, grasping Stephanie’s arm to steady herself. Stephanie steps up to take her arm, delicately swings the door closed behind her, and walks forward until Sally Mae, anchored by her motionless feet, yanks her back.
“I—I-I can’t,” Sally Mae stutters, lurching like a tree in a strong wind.
“Can’t what?” Stephanie fights to stanch the tidal wave of panic about to crash into her.
Sally Mae’s slight shoulders tremble, though the night air is comfortable and sweet with deciduous leaves. Trying to remember the self-help books Neil had bought her years ago, Sally Mae internally chants “This is what phobia feels like” and “Facing your fear is the first step toward conquering your fear.” Her eyes seem to be very far away, frozen in an unknown time and place, and her breaths are short and choppy. She’s about to hyperventilate.
“Sally Mae,” Stephanie says sternly, but quietly. “We’ll wake Neil if we don’t get out of here soon.”
Neil. Sally Mae had nearly forgotten about Neil. Neil, and his long absences away from home. Neil, and his patronizing little comments. Neil, who treats her like a fragile egg, about to crack at any second. And with every ounce of courage and determination she can muster, Sally Mae takes two bold steps away from the door. Away from Neil.
Two more steps, then stops. Two more steps, then stops. Stephanie patiently guides her toward the car, all the while wondering if she shouldn’t just snatch the keys out of Sally Mae’s hand and take off without her. But until they are well away from the house, she can’t afford to do anything so risky.
As they approach the car, Stephanie whispers, “Do you need me to drive?”
Sally Mae bobs her skull, but doesn’t hand over the keys. The collapsed skin of her cheeks raises into a sad, listless smile as Stephanie lunges to open the passenger door. Sally Mae moves stiffly, arthritically, into the seat, and Stephanie helps her bring her legs in the car. Then she carefully closes the door and goes around to the driver’s side and jumps in behind the wheel.
After adjusting the seat, which is stationed far back from the dashboard to accommodate Neil’s ample stomach, she holds out her hand for the keys.
Sally Mae is fading, the pressure of the outside world crushing her under its weight. “Southeast,” she coughs, “to Highway 9.”
Stephanie starts the engine of the banged-up machine and rolls out of the driveway, the crunch of gravel beneath the tires deafening in her ears. As she turns onto the road, she catches a glimpse of a sudden bright light appearing in the bedroom window. Sally Mae’s eyes are closed and her head rolls to the side.
Together they set out into the night, heading due south. And in her mind, Stephanie gaily sings the words to her song: “But if you try sometimes, you might find you get what you need.”
“I keep goin’ back and forth on it, but it seems we have to let her go.” She looks at him with dozy eyes. “Right?”
“We might could.”
“But…,” she trails off and looks at the floor.
“Look, we can’t do anything tonight. Let’s just get some sleep, and deal with this in the morning.”
“But her little girls… You didn’t see the picture.”
“Sally Mae”—he puts his arms around her—“just enjoy her tonight.” He kisses her on the forehead.
Within his embrace, she feels cold, her flesh puckering around her bones. Though it breaks her heart, she knows it’s wrong to keep this woman from her children and ailing father. Is Neil really that selfish? Really? She hangs limply like a scarecrow.
“Cheer up, buttercup.” He smiles warmly at her. “It’s getting late. Why don’t you go brush her hair some more, then it’ll be time for bed.”
“Yeah, okay.” She lets him hug her again. “You’re right.” Then she wanders back to the living room and sits next to Stephanie again. She has stopped crying, but continues to sniffle.
Sally Mae smoothes a hand down her soft hair, a gentle motherly gesture. Stephanie makes doe eyes at her, and gives her a few quick blinks. Neil’s heavy footfalls clod down the hallway, and he heaves the bedroom door closed behind him.
“You must be so worried,” Sally Mae says.
Stephanie nods meekly.
“Is there anyone you can call? You can use the phone.” She motions toward a prewar-style phone hidden on the end table between looming piles of junk mail.
Stephanie wracks her brain, but she doesn’t know who she could call. If I could get near a computer…, she thinks.
“Go on,” Sally Mae says. “Call your girls.”
Stephanie reaches for the phone, picks up, and dials a random number. It starts to ring. She readies herself for another award-winning performance. But it just rings, five more times, before an automatic answering machine picks up. “This is the Millers. Leave us a message. Beep.”
“Girls, it’s Mommy… Jillian? Robin? Are you there? Girls, pick up. Please.” She lets her voice crack and waits, looking pleadingly at Sally Mae. “Mommy will be home soon. Robin, please take your sister next door to Mrs. Murphy’s. I—I love you,” she stops with a sob and lets the phone clunk to the floor. Sally Mae hurries to place the receiver back in the cradle and resumes her circular backrub to console Stephanie, the waterworks flowing at full stream again.
“Oh dear, dear,” Sally Mae says.
“I—I don’t know where… I don’t know where they are.” She conjures some tears and lets them loose.
“Stephanie, sweetie,” Sally Mae says tenderly, “you need to go to them.”
It’s all Stephanie can do to move her head up and down in a jerky, uncertain manner without smiling. She’s so close.
“I just…,” she wails. “I just need to get back to my car.”
Sally Mae draws her hands together, wrings them anxiously. “I’m gonna help you get to your car.” She rocks herself on the couch, making waves in the cushions that push Stephanie to and fro with each motion. “But we have to wait till Neil’s asleep.”
“Neil?”
“My husband.”
“From the bakery?” Stephanie puts a big piece of the puzzle into place. “He was waiting on me, getting my coffee, when… uh, when I fell.”
“That’s right.”
“Are we very far from the bakery?”
“Oh, it’s about thirty-five miles down the road.”
Stephanie sighs with relief, realizing just how fortunate she is that she didn’t decide to make a run for it earlier. Though she’s not certain what Sally Mae’s intentions are, she is reasonably sure that it can’t be as bad as wandering aimlessly with no car and no map and no sense of location or direction. She has to restrain herself from sighing again, and instead looks to Sally Mae with red and swollen eyes, one eyebrow crooked.
“You just sit tight,” Sally Mae says, patting a hand lightly on Stephanie’s knee. “I’ll be right back.” She stands up and shuffles out the room and down the hall.
Alone, Stephanie tries to collect her thoughts. Why did Neil bring me here? She looks around the overcrowded room some more, but doesn’t see any sign of a computer. Instead, she notices a large photograph in a simple wooden frame hanging on the wall behind her. It’s a classic image, a black-and-white photo of the Monument prominently displaying the Six Tenets carved in English in the front and center of the shot. She reads them silently, thinking how it’s only a matter of time before she’ll be able to see it with her very own eyes. Closing her eyes, she envisions the moment that it first comes in to view, what she’ll do, how she’ll react. She will walk right up to it, and recite each word, solemnly, out loud. But then she’ll have to get to work.
As an afterthought, Stephanie reopens her wallet to the picture of her nieces, staring at it intently. Robin was an infant when she left home, and she’d never been back to meet little Jillian; her brother always mailed her the newest pictures, and she never appreciated it more than she did now. Again, she thinks she’ll have to give her folks a call when this is all over. Impatiently, Stephanie looks at her watch. For appearance’ sake, she keeps the photo out, and fingers her eyes to look like she’s still crying. Her eyes ache, feeling raw with each scraping blink, and she hopes she won’t have to cry anymore. She’s not sure she’ll be able to.
With a creak, the bedroom door opens and Sally Mae comes tiptoeing down the hall. She has changed her clothes, out of the loose T-shirt and stirrup pants which draped off her skinny legs, and into a stale-smelling blue dress belted at the waist. Her narrow middle emphasizes her petite frame, and her exposed calves, like blades of dry grass, look like they might snap under her body weight. Then Stephanie, glancing at her new attire, realizes that her sharp cheekbones, rosy with rouge, don’t stick out so much as the rest of her face is sunken. She looks like a corpse at her own fineral, Stephanie thinks, and averts her eyes, returning to the photograph.
“Let’s go,” Sally Mae whispers, and flashes a set of car keys.
Eagerly, Stephanie finds her feet and secures her purse over her shoulder, and follows Sally Mae to the door.
Weaving through the piles, Sally Mae reaches the door, as she’s done hundreds of times before. Reaches for the knob, turns it, and the door springs open. Suddenly she is facing the outside world, a virtual explosion of the senses. Her heart hammers her from the inside, and fear paralyzes her; she tells herself it’s all in her mind and places one foot through the door and onto the front step. Gaping at her sandaled toes like they’re going to instantaneously combust or turn to stone and fall off, she reels at the sight of her own foot on the other side of the threshold, and when a faint breeze touches her flesh, she nearly falls backward, retreating into the safety of her home. Stephanie is right behind her, and she knows there is no going back. Taking a deep breath, she forces her other foot out the door and plants it on the crumbling doorstep next to the other one.
I am outside! Her brain expands and contracts against her skull, which tightens like a vise around her temples and above her ears, connecting somewhere in a throbbing lump at the base of her spine. Grunting at the pain, Sally Mae stretches one arm back, grasping Stephanie’s arm to steady herself. Stephanie steps up to take her arm, delicately swings the door closed behind her, and walks forward until Sally Mae, anchored by her motionless feet, yanks her back.
“I—I-I can’t,” Sally Mae stutters, lurching like a tree in a strong wind.
“Can’t what?” Stephanie fights to stanch the tidal wave of panic about to crash into her.
Sally Mae’s slight shoulders tremble, though the night air is comfortable and sweet with deciduous leaves. Trying to remember the self-help books Neil had bought her years ago, Sally Mae internally chants “This is what phobia feels like” and “Facing your fear is the first step toward conquering your fear.” Her eyes seem to be very far away, frozen in an unknown time and place, and her breaths are short and choppy. She’s about to hyperventilate.
“Sally Mae,” Stephanie says sternly, but quietly. “We’ll wake Neil if we don’t get out of here soon.”
Neil. Sally Mae had nearly forgotten about Neil. Neil, and his long absences away from home. Neil, and his patronizing little comments. Neil, who treats her like a fragile egg, about to crack at any second. And with every ounce of courage and determination she can muster, Sally Mae takes two bold steps away from the door. Away from Neil.
Two more steps, then stops. Two more steps, then stops. Stephanie patiently guides her toward the car, all the while wondering if she shouldn’t just snatch the keys out of Sally Mae’s hand and take off without her. But until they are well away from the house, she can’t afford to do anything so risky.
As they approach the car, Stephanie whispers, “Do you need me to drive?”
Sally Mae bobs her skull, but doesn’t hand over the keys. The collapsed skin of her cheeks raises into a sad, listless smile as Stephanie lunges to open the passenger door. Sally Mae moves stiffly, arthritically, into the seat, and Stephanie helps her bring her legs in the car. Then she carefully closes the door and goes around to the driver’s side and jumps in behind the wheel.
After adjusting the seat, which is stationed far back from the dashboard to accommodate Neil’s ample stomach, she holds out her hand for the keys.
Sally Mae is fading, the pressure of the outside world crushing her under its weight. “Southeast,” she coughs, “to Highway 9.”
Stephanie starts the engine of the banged-up machine and rolls out of the driveway, the crunch of gravel beneath the tires deafening in her ears. As she turns onto the road, she catches a glimpse of a sudden bright light appearing in the bedroom window. Sally Mae’s eyes are closed and her head rolls to the side.
Together they set out into the night, heading due south. And in her mind, Stephanie gaily sings the words to her song: “But if you try sometimes, you might find you get what you need.”
...continues tomorrow...
posted by jay x at 11:59 PM
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