The Way Here [2:1]
Part 2: Chapter 1
Streator, Illinois
It was late when he walked in. He put his bags on the stone tiles in the foyer and turned on a lamp. A stale, heavy air met him. Silence. The bulb cast a soft yellow glow over painted walls, hung artwork. On a table were the piles of mail collected in his absence, magazines and invitations and letters. His housekeeper and assistant would have culled what he did not need, paid his bills. Something Helen once did.
He ignored the mail and stood with his arms at his side, his hands empty of things and his eyes moving about the entryway and staring into the home’s inner darkness. He picked up a phone and listened to the steady tone, the sound of grounding. You are here. He put the phone down and listened, still standing over the square stones in the warm light of a lamp, still standing in the entryway with the heavy door closed behind him. He listened to the quiet sounds in the home’s darkness, a creak in the floor above and the sound of his own feet over the tile.
He left his bags and walked from room to room in a slow way. He turned on overhead lights or lamps and let their amber and yellow glows fill the rooms he entered. 40 watts. 60. Soft-white and halogen. The soft carpeting in the living room. The formal looking sofa and chairs. High-backed. A gas fireplace and its ceramic logs. He stood at thresholds and looked, listened. The hardwood through hallways, polished. The hardwood with its rugs in the kitchen and the kitchen’s marble countertops. Stainless steel.
Jonathan opened the refrigerator, its shelves were empty save condiments and cans of cola, beer. A bottle of champagne. Baking soda. He closed it and the motor kicked on, filling the room with a low hum.
He opened cupboards of dishware and glasses, long-stemmed or squat. He opened a pantry stocked with canned fruits, canned vegetables. Pastas and rice and bagged flour, sugars of different kinds. He straightened a rug on the floor and ran the cold water and then the hot, holding fingers beneath the pour. He dried his hand on a hung towel. A table with chairs carefully siding it sat beneath windows covered with wooden blinds. Copper-looking pots and pans hung over the kitchen’s center island. A second sink was there.
He climbed a wide staircase, his hand along the rail, his feet over the carpet. In a room up the stairs he looked over his desk. His chair was there and the larger leather chair with its sat-in look. His papers had been untouched, his books shelved. The floor was littered with Soviet histories, cultural studies of the Middle East, works by Eastern Europeans. A camera he decided against taking was there. His photographs were on the wall. A photo of his father and mother. Photos of his girls. Helen. The window’s shades were drawn.
In the bedroom the closet doors were shut, bureau drawers closed, the bed made. The room looked drawn in its disuse. Portrait of a room, he thought. The connecting bathroom was sterile and cool despite the muggy air that met him where he went. He flushed the toilet and watched it drain. Its rushing sounds exploded in the room with its white tile, tub and shower. Behind the mirror were plastic bottles and paper packaging—aspirin and ibuprofen, laxatives, prescriptions.
He opened a cabinet and turned on the television there. The snapping sound and the light filled the room and were replaced by the bursting sounds of speech. The flickering met him full on and he stood watching a man in coat and tie explain pros and cons. Paid off in four easy installments.
He turned the television off and was met again with silence, near darkness. The light from the hallway threw its glow at him. A sharp line of shadow bled to ambient color.
He walked through the house again, turning off lights as he went. He drank a bottle of water, sitting in the dark of the kitchen. He raised the blinds and opened the windows there and could see the shapes of trees in the yard. Beyond the trees and the cut lawn were the lights of a neighbor’s house.
An inventory. Everything a reminder. Everything telling him, this is where you are.
He opened a cabinet and turned on the television there. The snapping sound and the light filled the room and were replaced by the bursting sounds of speech. The flickering met him full on and he stood watching a man in coat and tie explain pros and cons. Paid off in four easy installments.
He turned the television off and was met again with silence, near darkness. The light from the hallway threw its glow at him. A sharp line of shadow bled to ambient color.
He walked through the house again, turning off lights as he went. He drank a bottle of water, sitting in the dark of the kitchen. He raised the blinds and opened the windows there and could see the shapes of trees in the yard. Beyond the trees and the cut lawn were the lights of a neighbor’s house.
An inventory. Everything a reminder. Everything telling him, this is where you are.
Helen called the next day. She was still in Ohio with her sister and would come home—she said home—on the weekend. Was he well? she asked. Had he slept? How long had he been in New York? Get some rest, she said before hanging up.
His bags were still in the foyer. The clothes he’d worn home were on the bedroom floor. He hadn’t eaten. He left the television off and the stereo.
Before sleeping he’d shed his clothes and stood in the shower for a time. He dried himself after and stood looking into the mirror with its image of a gray bearded man, a silver-haired man with chest hair of gray-black. His waist slightly heavy—the body of a man in his fifties. His shoulders were sloped and his stomach hung over the towel’s wrapped edge. There were wrinkles beneath the man’s eyes. Creases on his forehead. The neck beneath the beard was lined too and he stretched his jaw to tighten the look there. When he relaxed the marks were remade.
After he spoke with Helen he went into his office with its books and things. He gathered up those on the floor and stacked them on shelves where there was space. He put the camera and lenses and rolls of film in a closet. He leafed through the papers and things on his desk, research, and he put most in a file drawer so that his desk was uncluttered. There was little in the room to suggest he’d not always been there, that he’d been in some other place the past months.
He sat in the chair with his legs up and smoked a cigarette before nodding off.
She kissed him on his bearded cheek and hugged him with one arm around his neck, the other holding a bag.
“Let me get this.”
“I got it.”
“Sure?”
“You lost weight.”
“I always do.”
“More this time,” she said. She held his face with her free hand and looked at each cheek, turning his head from side to side.
His bags were still there though one was unzipped and its things were spilled onto the floor. The door was opened behind them and Jonathan could see the hazy warmth rising out of the lawn and the driveway that circled to the front porch. The grass was green, lush, practiced looking in its manicure.
“Your routine hasn’t changed,” Helen said.
“How’s that?” he asked, closing the door on the grass and the heat and the sky that was there with its level haze.
“Your bags.”
“Oh.”
“Have you eaten anything since you’ve been here?”
“Pasta.”
“Pasta,” she repeated. “I’ll go to the store after I get settled.”
“How long have you been gone?”
“I was with Dianne.”
“How long.”
“A while.”
“Where’s the dog?”
“At Sarah’s. Have you called her? Leslie?”
“Not yet.”
“You should.”
“I will.”
She walked with her bag into the hallway, saying they’re your daughters. She walked over the wood flooring and up the stairs, over its carpet and past the photographs on the one wall. She walked with her bag and kept talking as she went and Jonathan watched her go.
I should call my sister, she said. I should tell her I’m home.
