Empathy

Empathy

          A man sits behind the counter of a convenience store, and looks up from the Sunday classifieds with red rimmed eyes as a customer enters; the Amtrak rushed past with a girl sleeping on a Teddy Bear in the window, and the bear looked to everyone it passed for help; mothers say they would jump before a car for their children, but they don't always get the chance - and Margaret stood on the corner waiting to cross, with her hood off despite the rain.

          She waited for the light to change, even though there weren't any cars around. Her hands were in the pockets of her navy blue wool coat and she kept them there as she crossed the street toward the church where her husband was waiting. She should have been there at 12:05, leaving him ample time to make usual Sunday small talk then step right into her warm car. But she'd lost her keys, and it was now 12:15. She saw him standing in the thin crowd before the church with his hands crossed behind his back. He walked back and forth along the curb and constantly looked down the street.

          "Dave!" She ran across the street, and a red Mustang screeched to a halt to avoid hitting her. It was exactly like the car Robert had gotten for his 16th birthday. They'd taken that thing everywhere; Robert and Anne Marie rode in the front, Margaret in the back. She stood in the middle of the street, staring at that car from her past.

          Dave's eyes were wide with surprise and he tugged her onto the curb.

          "What are you doing? Where's the car?"

          "I couldn't find my keys ... I'm sorry I was late ... "

          She put her arms around his neck and buried her face in his shoulder, wetting it just a little with four, maybe five tears. He put a hand beneath her chin and kissed her forehead.

          "I was fine, you were only a few minutes late, you didn't need to ... Shall we go?" And he held out his hand for hers.

          Three children ran up the street laughing while a little girl picked up a broken orange frisbee and turned the other way; a forty-something man raked leaves in his front yard and stared at his hands on the rake wondering if next year they would look old; some people find themselves alone and dying with no one to remember them - and Margaret stared at herself in the mirror with her toothbrush forgotten somewhere on the way to her mouth.

          Dave pushed the door open and put his hand on her shoulder. Margaret jumped and dropped her toothbrush.

          "Sorry, hunny, didn't mean to scare you." He reached across her for his watch on the side of the sink. "Don’t you have a doctor’s appointment today? Do you want me to go with you?”

          “Don’t you dare. You have that meeting with Mr. Ambleton, you don’t need to worry about taking me to some silly checkup.”

          “Alright, well let me know how it goes when you get home.”

          Margaret nodded and finished brushing her teeth. Dave moved back out into their bedroom, put on his tie and jacket. She moved to stand in front of him, putting her hands on her hips and striking a funny little pose.

          “Would you claim me in public?” She flashed a smile, tilted her head just to the right, and somewhere a picture of Jackie O was terribly jealous.

          “Even in a bathrobe, my dear.” He kissed her cheek, murmured that he loved her, and left for work.

          Two minutes later the phone rang and Margaret ran to answer it. It was her friend Susan. They had worked together until Margaret got married and decided to try domesticity for awhile in case she liked it. Susan needed to vent - one of the partners had pawned off her ideas as his own again. Margaret already had her keys in her hand and told Susan to meet at the Billy Jane Diner two blocks from the office building. They’d always gone there on for lunch.

          She hung up the phone and dialed the Doctor’s Office to reschedule her appointment. A tiny point of pain struck at the right side of her abdomen and she pressed her hand against it as she grabbed her coat.

          They had a brilliant conversation of whispered curses and loud laughs. Other people in the diner turned to look at them, some annoyed, some amused. They walked out still laughing at words they’d spoken mere minutes ago, but which they knew would be memorialized for as long as they could remember - and beyond that, until they would laugh spontaneously at something without remembering why.

          “Ah, thanks Margaret, I needed that” Susan spoke as they stood outside the diner.

          “You’re always welcome, you know that. Any time.”

          Susan turned toward the office building with a wave. Margaret got into her car and the oldies station began purring The Beach Boys', “In My Room.” Her hands gripped the wheel so tight that her knuckles turned white. She took one slow breath and quickly flipped the radio off. Impatient horns and grumbling construction filled the void as she took one more slow breath and pulled out into the mindless traffic. She went to the library and picked up a few novels with gripping couples on the cover, stopped by the grocery store and got chicken, penne pasta, alfredo sauce, mushrooms and artichokes. If Dave’s presentation went well they would need a good meal to celebrate and if it had gone poorly they would need something to make themselves feel better.

          A middle aged woman stood in her bathrobe on the back porch, watching her breath in the night until her husband yelled from inside and she slowly turned around; a man who had recently been young walked slowly past his dark high school and wondered how he might convince God to let him go back; a mind can consume itself with such desperate hatred that people see no other alternative...

          Margaret stood shivering with the phone pressed close against her ear. She whispered.

          “Robert, it’s Margaret. Twenty minutes?” And she hung up the phone.

          She tiptoed back to the bed and picked up her shoes, pausing to look over her husband and notice how graceful his back looked, turned to her. She stood for one more instant, just staring at him, then turned and tiptoed out of the room. She put on her coat, her gloves, her hat, and last of all her shoes, and walked out the door. She didn’t get in her car because he would only wake up at the sound. She walked down the block toward a curious bar stuck in between an antique shop and a custom linens store.

          Residential areas always looked dead - no, not dead, merely asleep - late at night. Most houses were dark save for exterior lights, and the streets were stamped by circle after circle from the lamps above. Just beyond the last row of houses was the whiter glow of the strip mall she headed to. She felt conspicuous, something pointed hurt in her stomach and she was afraid that at any moment Dave would wake up and find her gone (but her car still there) and call the police. Yet she walked through the night, amidst the lonely cars, the undesirables and the unspeakable sorrows pouring from every bedroom window where someone lay awake, unable to just stop thinking and go to sleep for God’s sake... and though she felt conspicuous she knew she belonged. Deserved. Had rendered upon herself the company of this darkness.

          She slid into the booth across from him - in his sweatshirt and jeans with his hair mussed from sleep. His hand reached for hers and she gave it.

          “Anne Marie told you she would do it, didn’t she?” She said.

          They were past the point of salutations and affectations. They'd known each other for twenty-five years.

          He sat back but did not release her hand, his eyes dropping to the glossy varnish on the table top, etched with names and numbers that no one would ever bother to call.

          “Yes, she did. She promised she would tell her mother and I believed her,” he said.

          Margaret sat very still with her hand in his and the other in her lap. She sighed tremulously, and shook her head. She squeezed his hand and put the other to her eyes.

          “Christ, I can’t believe you never told me.” She inhaled sharply and her shoulders shook.

          And suddenly she was on the floor of the bar, her hair mingling with discarded peanut shells and sloshed beer, her hands clutching her stomach.

***
          Anne Marie was there, 16 and unchanged. She wore a blue wool coat and a long red scarf that paraded behind her in the wind. Margaret walked with her, across the busy parking lot of a grocery store. They passed an old man who watched while an employee lifted his groceries into his car. He'd been a middleweight boxer of regional fame, and strong enough to carry his wife to their bed like a child. She lay where he could not reach and he was left to face that we must be slow when our time is shortest. Margaret felt it all in one glance.

          She turned back to Anne Marie whose scarf had blown open, revealing a band of purple and black bruises the width of a belt around her neck.

          "I should have come by that night like you asked." Margaret spoke, but her voice did not carry to Anne Marie because Anne Marie had melted into the exhaust from the old man's car. It consumed Margaret and did not dissipate. She opened her mouth and tasted the metallic anguish of tears, incense, host, blood, and waxen-powdered skin against her lips.

***

          Margaret awoke to worn down claws pulling her rib cage in two different directions. She sighed then felt like someone was stabbing her in the side.

          “Margaret, hunny, calm down.. “

          Dave's hand landed on her shoulder and the other smoothed her hair back from her face.

          “What happened?”

          “Your appendix burst, you’re lucky you didn’t die... why didn’t you go to the doctor the other day like you were supposed to..” He paused and took a deep breath, his hand opening and closing. “Nevermind, you’re ok, they got you here in time.”

          He pulled the chair over and folded his elbows on the edge of the bed, leaning toward her.

          “Hunny, Robert told me about Anne-Marie, I just don't understand why - ”

          “Don’t. Is there ever a good reason?” She closed her eyes, then opened them just as quickly.
          “Ok, ok. I’m here.” He sat back in his chair and put his hands on his knees.

          Somewhere there is a house with one door that is never unlocked; a family gathers for dinner and during lulls fights mightily to make it to that next sentence; sometimes things cannot be forgiven because they must first be forgotten and that would be far too dangerous - and Margaret stared up at the clean white ceiling as machines repeated that her heart was good.