I rambled through the main floor of my small house that night. Earlier the sunset had thrown prisms onto my walls, but now it was dark. The only light came from the streetlamp shining through the front window, turning my walls the color of muddy floors. Normal people were sleeping. But I wasn’t normal, not anymore. Several times that night I stood at the bottom of the stairs that led to my bedroom. I gazed up into the darkness of the second-floor hallway, but I couldn’t climb the stairs. Couldn’t lift a foot to the first step. It was as if my desolation had multiplied the power of gravity. I was stuck.
My body was somnolent, but my restive mind barked out orders to keep moving, stay awake, stay watchful. I paced on rubbery legs, longing for unconsciousness. My mind, luminously awake, sewed blindfolds of anger and forged a strong rope of despair. Bound and helpless, I spoke: “Kevin?” Only the ticking of a clock responded. I picked up a cushion from the sofa and hugged it like a lost love. “Kevin, are you there?” I waited for an eternity. I closed my eyes and concentrated on trying to hear his voice. I listened until my head hurt. The silence whistled to me.
As the night advanced, my thoughts began to wander. I thought of Kevin, took inventory of him, touched him with my mind. His eyes, brown and sharp, taking in every detail around him. His hands, holding a pencil, flipping on a light switch, caressing my skin. His legs, thin but strong. My annual joke, spoken at the first sign of summer, when Kevin would tromp down the stairs wearing shorts for the first time in months: “Are those your legs, or are you riding a chicken?” His laugh, short bursts likes a gun firing. His scent: clean, earthy, masculine.
I thought of sleep—so close, yet so unattainable. I thought of turning on the TV. It would be a good distraction. The news maybe. I could find out what had happened in the world since Kevin died. See who else was persisting in the face of loss, pain, grief, and confusion. But the idea crushed me. I couldn’t bear to share the planet’s burden today. I thought of food—I hadn’t eaten since breakfast. I thought of cereal bowls and Kevin talking to me about cereal bowls. I closed my eyes, reliving the moment. I knew his voice. I’d spent years mapping its cadence. It was the voice that said “I do,” told me the Visa bill was overdue, and groaned my name in the middle of the night. I shivered in my warm living room. An ache, like a fist, sat in my belly. “Kevin?” Nothing.
Tears of frustration rolled fat and useless down my cheeks. What was I expecting? I hadn’t anticipated hearing his voice in the first place. I hadn’t asked God, or the universe, or my sainted aunt for this gift. Maybe he wouldn’t speak again. Maybe it hadn’t happened at all. A small voice whispered, “It did.” I lowered myself to the floor and put the pillow behind my head. My eyes closed. Sleep came, not on a gentle breeze, but like a clout from the end of a club. I fell into its darkness thinking: I understand nothing.
“You’ve gone and done it now,” Kevin whispers in my ear. “You’re stuck with me.” He whirls me around the edges of the dance floor, doing his best imitation of a waltz. My white gown fans out behind me as we spin. I giggle, actually giggle, so unlike me, so removed from serious Kate, this giddy woman spinning in the arms of Kevin Davis. “Kate Davis,” I say, rolling the name around my tongue. His hand is on the small of my back, pressing me close and all I want to do is run away with this man and make love to him until we are both exhausted and stupid. The thought sends volts of electricity flying through my body. Then I spot my mother, gesturing wildly at me, waving me in. She mouths words I can’t make out. Then she holds up her hands in front of her face, pretending she’s holding a camera, her index finger clicking wildly on the imaginary button. We’re wanted for photographs.
I flick my wrist at her, but that only gets her more worked up. She begins to alternate between taking pretend pictures and waving me over in giant movements, as if she were a dockworker and I the Queen Mary.
“Mom wants us for a picture,” I tell Kevin. Without missing a beat, he turns us toward where my parents are standing and cha-chas us over to them.
Mom grabs my wrist, nearly yanking my shoulder out of its socket. “Great-Uncle Jonah is leaving.” She says this loudly, as if making a general announcement to the room, then she leans in and whispers, “Can’t stay up one minute past nine for anything. Not since the hernia operation. Grumpy old coot.” She throws her arms up, “Uncle Jonah, I’ve found them. Stand there and I’ll take your picture. No, there, against the wall. Just back up a few feet. Against the wall. Just move—oh never mind, that’s fine.”
Kevin and I stand on either side of my great-uncle Jonah and smile. Dad holds up the camera, ready to click. Great-Uncle Jonah looks down at his feet.
Mom waves her hands over her head. “Woo hoo! Look up here, Jonah. Woo hoo.”
Uncle Jonah stares down at the floor.
Dad says, “Close enough.” As he pushes on the button, Great-Uncle Jonah bends down and picks up a penny off the floor. He holds it up and smiles as if it were a Spanish doubloon. “Looky what I got here.” He turns to me. “My lucky day. Where’s my coat?” He toddles off down the hall and my mother holds her hands up on either side of her head and pretends to tear her hair out. Events make her nuts. She wants everything to be perfect.
Dad shakes his head at the camera. He looks up. “Hey, I need a dance with my girl.” He holds his elbow out and I take his arm. “Sorry, sport,” he says to Kevin. “She was mine first.”
Kevin grins. “Yep. And she’s mine now, but I’ll let you borrow her.”
Dad’s face sort of freezes, a grin on his face that doesn’t reach his eyes. He presses his arm close to his side, squeezing my hand between. He half leads, half drags me to the dance floor. The music is a fast rock song, but Dad pulls me into a waltz and we start making a box with our feet. “Happy?” he asks. He has to yell into my ear, the music is so loud.
I stand on my tiptoes so my mouth can reach his ear. “Yes,” I holler. “This is what I want.”
Dad looks past me, over my shoulder, and I turn to follow his gaze. Kevin is standing beside his best man, Blair Winters. They’re laughing; Blair holds a beer bottle and takes occasional small sips from it. This is strange because I know Blair doesn’t much care for the taste of beer. I couldn’t recall the last time I’d seen him drink one.
There are five women surrounding Blair and Kevin, and they are laughing. One of them snakes a hand across Blair’s shoulder and whispers into his ear. He nods and takes another fast sip of beer, his eyes darting all over the room. Another girl stands close to Kevin; she laughs at something he says. They look like a beer commercial, two handsome men surrounded by a bevy of chicks.
Blair’s darting eyes rest on Dad and me on the dance floor. I lift a hand off Dad’s shoulder and wave. Blair holds up his beer bottle and points a finger at me, his left hand tucked low into the pocket of his tuxedo pants. The corners of his mouth go up in a nearly-there smile, then he turns away. The woman standing by Kevin puts her hand on his arm as she laughs and laughs. In all the years I’ve known Kevin, I’ve never known him to say anything that singularly hilarious. I try to drag my dad closer to them, but he spins me around, so my back is to the scene, his lips pressed together until they are white slits.
A moment later Kevin taps my father on the shoulder. “I need my wife back.” Dad hands me over to Kevin, his face unreadable.
I write “Kate Davis” with a flourish, but it doesn’t match the name on my credit card and the hotel desk clerk, frumpy in her brown uniform and matching bellboy hat, frowns and tears up the paper. She shakes her head at me as if I were a naughty child caught picking my nose.
Kevin takes out his credit card and hands it to the clerk. She smiles, thrilled to do business with a reliable man who doesn’t go around changing his name and creating unnecessary paperwork for underpaid hotel clerks forced to wear cutesy uniforms. Kevin smiles and winks at me as he signs the slip. He has a sort of “I’ll take care of ya, baby” swagger in his manner as if at any moment he will doff a fedora and say, “This way, toots!”
I should be insulted. I should put my hands on my hips and remind him which century we live in and doesn’t he know I can take care of myself and who does he think he is? But his slow smile and hooded eyes tell me he knows exactly who he is, and, in spite of myself, I feel something very close to swooning. I may hate myself in the morning, but for now, I’m all Jell-O legs and heart palpitations.
The desk clerk, seemingly as charmed as I am, falls all over herself, “Yes, Mr. Davis, thank you, Mr. Davis, ring if you need anything, Mr. Davis.” Kevin puts his arm around me and says, “Got all I need right here.” And I beam like a seventeenth-century Cinderella.
Kevin is handsome in a smooth-faced way. His wide-set brown eyes and clipped brown hair give him the look of a trustworthy son, but his tall, muscular frame and broad shoulders give him a movie star feeling. Everywhere we go, people smile at him.
Our porter is also wearing a bellboy hat that, in combination with his huge ears and mildly bucktoothed smile, makes him look like a performing monkey. He wheels our luggage to the elevator and pushes the Up button. I snuggle Kevin’s arm and sigh. I’m with Kevin in paradise. Okay, it’s not paradise; it’s Niagara Falls, the tackiest place on earth—home of heart-shaped beds, Ripley’s Believe It or Not! Museum, and more neon signs than should ever be assembled in one place—but for me, it’s perfect.
In our room Monkey Boy stands by the door and clears his throat. Kevin hands him money, but I can’t see how much because Kevin’s back blocks my view. I throw myself on the bed, which is disappointingly firm, and I hear the door close. Kevin stands at the bottom of the bed and smiles down at me. He jumps onto the bed and scoops me up into his arms and kisses me until I forget my name, Davis or no Davis.
He pulls away, coming up for breath, but instead of loosening clothing or, at the very least, kicking off his shoes, he gazes out the patio doors at a cloudless sky. “This place is fantastic.” He pulls me up so I can look out too. It really is something, but watching through the all-weather windows is much like seeing it on TV with the volume off. Kevin lets out a sigh. “Let’s travel the world together, Kate. You and me.”
I fiddle with the buttons on his shirt. I don’t answer because I know he’s just dreaming, just excited to be here, miles from home, cozying up to waterfalls. He’s talking the talk of a romantic, but he doesn’t mean it. We both know our plans. The ones we made together huddled in the backseat of his not-so-classic, two-door Monte Carlo, motor running, and risking asphyxiation for the chance to be alone for just an hour or so. We both want the same things from life: to live in Greenfield, to have four children, and own a house large enough for all of us to be comfortable. He rolls me onto my back and makes a low growling sound in the back of his throat and now none of it matters anyway. Not the dreams, not the house, not the children, not the cloudless sky.