Chapter 4

~ lughnasadh ~

An outsider to Esker would never know that the Lughnasadh Festival would be the last time that local faces would be seen until September. The specialty stores in the blocks surrounding the town square were open, chilled air blowing through cracks in the doorways to entice entry. The art galleries housed new shows, sculptures and paintings displayed from local artists who live and create in Esker. Round smiles, even in the stinging afternoon heat, were abundant. People ate fresh strawberry ice cream ladled from frozen silver tureens in the sprawling, western lobby of the Copper Mountain Inn. Strolling musicians played after sunset in the town square. The white lights on every storefront glittered invitingly, illuminating dusty walkways.

This year, the majority of the town had turned out for the festival. It had been an unusually bearable summer to date with temperatures in the low nineties. Iris and Ernie, Jack’s parents, had met them for dinner at Scarlet’s Steak House before sauntering off to enjoy the evening together. Over Angus strip steaks and sizzling cherry cobbler drenched in vanilla bean ice cream, they all talked about their underlying hopes that August would pass by unnoticed, without incident. They dreamed of a “Blue August,” local words for when the temperature didn’t kill the trees and people remained stable and friendly. Although they were rare, they still happened every seven to nine years.

As she and Jack sat on the one of the benches outside of Scarlet’s, she felt distant from the earlier conversation. A torrid wave of trouble was building just below the unblemished surface waiting to pop and explode. Grace didn’t hold much hope for a peaceful month.

In the orange-brown dusk, children played tag and splashed each other in fountains that spurted streams of cool water from nickel plated nozzles in the ground. Their laughter was full and round, more prominent than the bronze moon rising over the shadowed valley. Parents and passersby watched them squeal and turn in the dancing flow. Every year, the water ceased its journey skyward sharply at midnight, ending carefree celebrations and beginning the hazy time between August and when life returned to normal.

Grace watched Jack’s face as he surveyed the town center festival. His jaw was tight, eyes darting quickly through the forms in the crowd. He was always watching, ever looking for someone or something to surprise him. She knew that he often didn’t feel like his life held promise – that everything was done to death and the hope for new adventures had slipped away. Jack looked forward to August when he had a trip scheduled. He looked for escapes, secretly planned them each winter and sprung them on Grace sometime in May. He wanted to be away, breathed a sigh of relief that Grace had to stay and tend to life in Esker.

Tomorrow, he’d wake up with the sun, kiss Grace on her exposed neck and slip away for three weeks. This time, he was heading to Monterrey to work on a sleep disorder study at California State University. He could analyze the breathing rhythms of strangers while ignoring the insomnia of his wife.

Grace resented these trips to destinations untraveled. She wanted to be the one to leave at dawn and return weeks later with renewed faith that everything was better than she once thought. Jack loved her more when he returned; she loved him less.

As much as Grace hated his trips, she felt it was better that he was miles away rather than here in Esker. August was not a busy time for him and if he stayed, he watched television. Last year he was gone the first two weeks of the month. The other two he spent splayed on the sofa, drinking beer and watching re-runs on cable. Trips were preferred to him sprawled in the living room staring wide-eyed at that stupid box.

Like clockwork, the city shut down at midnight. Grace and Jack drove home in silence, up the curving road. Cold air-conditioning blew from the car vents. It hadn’t reached 100 yet but Grace could feel it on the horizon.

It was quiet when they entered the house. Jack rattled his keys, dropped them into the small round basket by the door. Grace undressed in the hallway, trailing her clothes behind her toward the master bedroom. The sheets on the bed were cool, perfectly straight. She settled back on the pillows and waited for him. They made love quickly, barely kissing. He didn’t meet her eyes. Grace stared at the exposed beams in the ceiling, finding her favorite curved patterns by connecting the square, hammered nails. He rocked and grunted, she thought of what would happen if the support beams broke. Would the roof cave in? Would everything stand just the same? Were those beams decorative or did they really secure the foundation of her home?

He rolled off her, kissed her cheek. Within seconds, his breath fell into a deep rhythm. She hated his soft, purring snore. He sounded like he was breathing through soup.

Grace pulled on a white cotton shift and got out of bed. Her room was illuminated by the lights of the night. She would not sleep tonight unless she completely exhausted herself. She needed to do something with her hands, her active body.

Her creative projects mocked her – whispered to her that she had no ability to undertake such impressive ventures. The story she had burning inside of her fizzled out after her first three paragraphs. She couldn’t write – wouldn’t write – when she felt bruised and untalented. She wouldn’t knit either. The last time she worked on a sweater in the middle of the night she closed the neck hole and ripped a hole in the thick yarn, mid-pocket. She needed a menial task.

She could scrub the small hill of dishes in the kitchen sink. The clattering would be merciless; Jack would yell. She settled for hanging the laundry on the stretched line in the backyard. Laundry was the best option – less noise.

She pulled white sheets and shirts from the top of the gray machine. The linens smelled damp, almost uriney. When did she run this load through? Was it today or last week? She doubted that hanging these on the line would diminish the smell.

Grace wasn’t going to run the load again. She was out of detergent, out of patience for rote tasks. Cart the clothes, thick towels, and heavy rugs to the laundry room in the back of the house. Load the washer with soap and hot water. Transfer to the line. Fold. Put away. Use and wear. Throw into the wide, wicker hamper. Repeat.

He was surprised when he didn’t have pants to wear to work. He joked that his laundry slave didn’t appear that week. But why should she? He never helped her take care of the house, their life, her dreams. She dropped the basket onto the short, crisp lawn and grabbed the clothespins from the white cloth bag. She clipped the corner of a sheet. Why was she the responsible one? Did he even notice her misery, her dry laughter? Didn’t he know she had no hope?

She clipped the center of the sheet. The dank smell subsided in the fresh night breeze. The moonflowers in the corner of her garden turned up toward light beaming through the black sky.

Assimilation. She wanted to adapt to Esker – this lovely town where free spirits left behind their knotted duties and tedious tasks to explore juicy adventures and create new art. At first, she picked up the rhythms, the cadence of the community. She began to feel whole. She was stepping out of her comfortable life, living dangerously with art and sculpture. Her journal was filled with furious strokes, therapeutic rants that demanded she accept the fact that her life was beautiful and essential.

Slowly, he tore that away from her. He needed her to drop her paint brush into water immediately to attend to his needs. Her story didn’t matter, journal writing could wait. She cooked dinner, did the laundry, packed his clothes and personal belongings for trips, flew with him when he traveled for speaking engagements. Posed on his arm and pretended to care about what his psychologist peers said.

She clipped the last segment of the queen size sheet and grabbed his shirt from the basket at her feet.

Grace wasn’t free like the decadent artists in their styled communes. She was trapped, fully entangled with someone who didn’t know her. Didn’t see her as more than a warm body to do his eternal bidding. In their past, when their world was sweet and fresh, he saw more in her than she saw in herself. He coddled her, cradled her, pushed her to her limits to respond and create and be more than what she imagined. Now she was as bleached as his undershirts. No color in her future. He folded her like laundry and put her on a shelf.

She continued to clip clothes to the taut line, a bitter taste rising into her throat.

There was a time when she knew him so well. When they were in college at North Tome University, Grace practically lived in Jack and Aaron’s dorm room and then their apartment during senior year. The three of them would stay up until hours that shouldn’t be seen, talking about everything and about nothing.

She thought they knew so much. It always seemed like they could change the world. No one had analyzed the problems of the world quite like they had. They debated pregnancy and abortion and came up with solutions for world peace. They decided to teach English in Prague after graduation. Then, they changed their minds and thought she should volunteer with the Peace Corps. They could travel – backpack around Europe. Together they could change life on the planet.

Sometimes, when they weren’t making the world a better place to dream about, they exchanged intimate stories. Jack and Aaron talked about the time they ditched a day during spring semester of their junior year in high school, hopped the bus to Tucson and went to the County Fair. Aaron got caught and had to serve a Saturday suspension. Jack told Principal Elias that he went to the Future Business Leaders of America conference at a high school in Tubac, the neighboring town. Aaron then called the principal the next day pretending to be the FBLA sponsor from Tubac High School and Elias had excused him from a day of excruciating detention on a Saturday. Jack was the charismatic, quick thinker. Aaron was too honest.

Jack always wanted to explore the inner depths of human development so she and Aaron would crawl into their minds and discuss what constituted normal behavior. Aaron fed off of world headlines – hated bureaucracy. He needed to rage against the establishment, to explore the options for changing the world. They discussed solutions to national issues – came up with their own three person government. Grace and Jack had elected Aaron their President and Grace was the VP. Jack said he was content to be the head of the World Health Organization and a personal advisor to the President. The three of them would laugh for hours and conduct conversations referring to one another as if they were really elected into their roles.

Grace recalled one early conversation between her and Jack. They were lying in bed, watching the stars out Jack’s high window.

“What if I came to the White House one day and saw that you and Aaron had decided to get together? I mean, a President and Vice President have to work very close together… you could end up liking him more than you like me.” Jack had nuzzled her neck and put his hands under her shirt.

Grace had laughed. “Yeah, right. Who would want the President when she could have the leader of the WHO? Besides, you’re going to be a doctor someday. Don’t doctors know more about certain things?” She was deliberately suggestive, sliding her arms around his neck.

That night was the first time he told her that he loved her. It was natural, uncomplicated and perfect. She hadn’t yet spoken the words, but now knew her feelings were confirmed. He also asked her to spend some of the holiday break with him at his parents’ house in Arizona.

“They want to meet you. I told my mom about you.” The words swarmed in her head, a powerful memory in the early morning air.

That time was so innocent. They were new to each other. They mixed their lives, from music to movies. Her reality morphed into his. He reflected her light.

She wasn’t meant to be a tarnished version of her true self. She wondered if they would be happier without one another. She pulled him sideways, off track. He smothered her.

By the time she had composted her thoughts of him, light was visible on the horizon. She fell onto the right side of the bed. He’d be leaving soon. She would be asleep by then.