Reason to Believe

Grant didn’t remember sleeping. He was awake listening to the rain when it occurred to him that now it was morning, but the rain hadn’t stopped. He forced himself to lie down, thinking of how this was the third night in a row where he hadn’t slept.
More than tired, he felt agitated. He felt trapped. His gaze fell on Claire, still asleep. Sometime during the night she had rolled off of their mattress, and onto the hardwood floor. Her breathing was calm and measured. He hated that she was asleep. That she was missing out on his agony. That she had wanted to stay, but he had suffered. He blamed her even though none of this was her fault. It wasn’t but it was anyway. The hurricane. The failing marriage. The warping walls. The mildewed window casings. The flooded basement. The neighbor’s dog – abandoned in their house – that barked at every thunderclap.
He watched her and felt a primal urge to touch her. To disrupt her sleep so that they could at least be miserable together. But, out of what he wanted to think was love, but was more likely fear, he didn’t. He sat up again, feeling more restless than groggy. Her slow breathing kept on and on.
The power had gone out at some point during the night. The only light was what forced its way through the cardboard taped to the window. Not enough to read by. He wanted a shower. He wanted coffee. Neither of these were options right now. He looked at her, simmering quietly with directionless anger. He needed to be angry at Claire and shouldn’t be.
It was her who had wanted to stay. No, it was him too. They had decided to stay, both of them together. He didn’t know why they stayed, except that there was just nowhere else to go. There was their house. A family treasure, right there by Forsythe Park. Already paid for. It was all they had left.
When the news came on the TV that Savannah was going to get hit, everyone started going outside with their plywood hurricane kits. The fact that people owned custom-cut plywood to fit over their windows struck Grant as an extravagance deserving only of contempt. Claire remarked at how clever everyone was to be so prepared.
Then they upped Gertrude to a Category 4. Charlie came by to see about carpooling to Atlanta. Grant told him they weren’t leaving.
“You’re crazy.”
“Man, I’ve lived here all my life. I know what to do okay?”
“But don’t you remember Katrina? The floods? The looters?”
“I saw the CNN stuff yea.”
“Bad shit, man. You know what’s good for you, you’ll come with me to Atlanta.”
“I hate Atlanta,” said Claire, from the other room. Charlie rolled his eyes. Grant knew that he meant “Your wife is crazy.” But he stared at Charlie blankly, pretending not to comprehend what was going on. He could have nodded to show that he understood – he wanted to nod. But to nod would have meant some deep part of him – his love or his dignity or one of those things – would be irreparably damaged.
“Look, if you guys don’t want to pay for gas or whatever, I can understand. I’ll pay for it. Just get out of here.”
“It’s got nothing to do with money. We just hadn’t thought of leaving.”
Charlie only shook his head and left without a goodbye.
It was true that there had been no talk of leaving. This was less because of a desire to stay than out of a desire not to speak. Communication was limited to what would be served for dinner.
“You want some soup?” Claire would ask.
“Do we have any crackers.”
“No.”
“Okay. Whatever then.”
And she would walk away. Grant would feel relieved without a fight. That a simply interaction had gone off without a hitch. He wanted to thank her when these things happened, but he never dared to breach the agreement. Relationship talk was taboo.
At night, Claire asleep and him unable to, he would run over every word they had exchanged that day. Pouring over them, worrying them smooth, until he was certain there was no glimmer of anger behind any of them. Until there was nothing to the words at all.

An hour later he’d had it. He walked downstairs to pee. At least the toilet worked. The towels they’d stuck under the loose doorframe had absorbed most of the water, but the bucket where the ceiling leaked was overfilled. he dumped it off the stone porch and looked at the rain. At least it had let up now. There was no thunder. Just rain. And the mud. The whole front lawn was mud now. So was the park across the street. He stood on the porch a moment longer, noticing that the Spanish moss had been washed off all the Live Oaks in their yard. The garden was probably ruined, and he felt a brief pang of vindictive joy, because the garden was Claire’s favorite thing about the house.
A memory filled him of Claire when they were first married. She was wearing a summer dress. They had just moved into the house, and the paint was new. A bee had just stung her after touching a flower, but instead of howling in pain, she stood over its dying body, fighting back tears and saying that she was sorry.
Grant looked at a drowned tulip, broken at the base and wondered what he had felt then. He did not remember. Had he hated her for having a capacity for compassion that he could never hope to muster? Had he loved her then for having such love for all things of the world? Had he loved her ever?
He went back into their house. The floors welcomed him with a symphony of creaks and groans, reminding him, maybe, of how he was living in history itself. The house was history. The city was history. There had been other marriages inside this house – good ones probably, and probably ones like his too.
Trying the radio, all the stations had been knocked out as well. He flipped the switch to shortwave, not knowing exactly why. Static and then a voice – a folksy voice he wasn’t cultured enough to recognize. It was an organic and grey-haired voice. With what he hoped was some kind of reverence, he listened to each lyric as it came, saving it in his mind, turning it over and over, almost as if the radio station was speaking straight to him.

If I listen long enough to you.
I'd find a way to believe that it's all true.
Knowing that you lied straight faced while I cried.
Still I'd look to find a reason to believe.

Someone like you makes it hard to live without somebody else.
Someone like you makes it easy to give never thinking of myself.

If I gave you time to change my mind.
I'd find a way to leave the past behind.
Knowing that you lied straight faced while I cried.
Still I'd look to find a reason to believe.

The rain picked up again and the radio station devolved into a bloodthirsty static. He flipped it off.
“Don’t,” said Claire from behind him. He turned to see her sitting on the stairs, clutching a water pipe. “Leave it on.”
Wordlessly he turned the static back on, picked up a damp book of matches off the counter, and sat down beside her.
“Hey,” she whispered, smiling, “They rain stopped.”
“The car has gas. If you want to leave.”
“No. Let’s stay. It’ll be like camping.”

The mud was up to their knees in the back yard. The squash was still salvageable if they ate it soon. The tomato cages had been uprooted, but didn’t get washed away. No sign of the peppers. Potatoes were too early anyway. Basil and lettuce were lost causes. Sweet peas were limited to what was left on the vines, which wasn’t much to speak of. The banana tree, which had no business existing in Georgia anyhow, was nowhere to be found. Somehow, a single sunflower had made it through the whole thing. She called it a miracle. he wanted to agree. Wanted to and didn’t.
On a propane stove they grilled what meager vegetables they had, boiled water, made spaghetti. For desert was melting Ice Cream. It did not remind Grant of camping as much as poverty.
There was bread. There were a few eggs. Milk that would go sour soon if nobody drank it. No cereal. Two bananas. Pickles. Cans of Chef Boyardee. Ramen. Pop tarts. Whiskey, gin, and tequila without mixers.
A cop came on a bike and said that the power might be on in a few days. Damage was mainly limited to where a tornado had hit. Their house, their piece of history, had no damage. No broken windows. It’s ruin would not come so suddenly, thought Grant. This house was destined for people like them – a slow death, not out of disaster, just out of neglect.

That night, lying on a cold mattress, Claire took his hand in hers. Her fingers were freezing. She never made physical contact. Grant craved it continually. This was not something she wanted, he thought, just a gesture. An empty gesture maybe, but it was the first he’d gotten in a long time. He closed his fingers around hers, took her hand up to his mouth, and kissed her cold knuckles.
“We rode it out,” she said.
“Yea we did.”
“I want you to hold me.”
“No, you don’t. But thanks.”
“I do. Not for me, just for you. I want to give this another go.”
“This?”
“Us.”
She rolled into him, close and he wrapped her up. Took every bit of her in. Her body was so cold he almost drew away.
“I’m sorry about your garden.”
“I’m not.”
“But you loved it out there.”
“Because when I was out there we weren’t fighting. We weren’t playing the not-talking game. We were just okay.”
“So what are we going to do now?”
“Ride it out.”
Grant tried not to shiver. He said a silent one-worded prayer to a distant God he wasn’t sure he even believed in. The word was “please.”

Something Political

I was thinking of writing some kind of letter to the editor about this, but the NYT website is hard to figure out and I get the feeling nobody would read it anyway.

Can you spot the stupid? "Not Guilty Verdicts in Florida Terror Trial Are Setback for U.S."

I mean, finding out a Muslim professor is not a terrorist? Sure sounds like a setback to me. Not sure we'll recover from that one.

I bet that devious liberal media is just trying to trick us somehow - this must be a curveball so we read the rest of the paper all confused and stuff and unable to figure out how they're being liberal. Lucky we know what they're up to right?