Vines

Beginning

All over in different parts of the house vines dripped down from shelves, cabinets, windowsills. Like ideas, growing slowly, splitting into tributaries of digression and faux novelty. Separate strands of connected life reaching toward the ground, clipped and placed into water in attempts at propagation. What does it matter how long it takes? These thoughts have time.

“Sure are a lot of plants in here,” Dan, scanning the living room. “Must take you a whole day to water all this.” He reaches to touch the large leaf of a small tree. “Tough little bugger, this one, huh?”

“I spread the watering out over a few days. I like the meditative quality, and I pay more attention,” Ben said.

“Smart kid.”

“Not sure how young I feel anymore, Dan. But I appreciate the sentiment.”

“We’re all young right now.” Ben wasn’t sure what Uncle Dan meant by this. He’d always had a knack for dropping lines like hints at something bigger than the present. Even when most of the family started to ignore, or shy away from wondering, again, what he could mean, Dan persisted. He was a contractor without a crew and spent most of his time alone.

“You could do a lot in here,” he tells Ben.

“I’m trying.”

“Good. OK, what’s going on with the sink?”

After his uncle fixed the leak under the kitchen sink, they sat down at the small table, drinking beer, drifting in and out of conversations. Most of it revolving around the state of things, being more or less locked up for the last however long, the loss of Grandma. It was as if these realities existed apart from daily life, somehow. Ben wasn’t ever able to forget these objectivities, but they belonged in a space different from his physical present. Walking around tending the plants, again he’d remember there’d be something he’d have to do. But that was vague beyond any hope of recognition. It existed out there, he’d think, envisioning an endless highway. Maybe it’ll be like those fake tunnel entrances in a cartoon. He wouldn’t know he’d be running into a brick wall until the black shadow of the supposed passageway was but a distant memory. But then, where would he be for such a memory to materialize?

“All this,” Dan gestured around, though Ben knew he didn’t mean the kitchen, or even the house, “feels like the way it always has. And it’s not, you know? It’s not. It makes you feel like you’re moving in slow motion. Instead of living big: getting older, finding love, buying a house. All these things, we can still do. But it doesn’t feel like they fit together in any way.”

“I don’t know,” Ben said. Everything his uncle was saying appeared shapeless in his mind, a line of ink bleeding out.

“We can still do these things, and we do. But they are just minute experiences, completed and forgotten in the same moment. Instead of a ladder, moving rung after rung, it’s as if we look up for the next one and find nothing.” Dan took a sip from his beer, and said, “Even the death of my mom, grandma, now exists as a tragedy that belongs to someone else.”

“Isn’t that good? Like a better version of yourself?”

“But it doesn’t seem to me that I am a new version. When I look back at the moment she died, we’re all standing in the hospital room, I’m seeing it from above, or through a screen. I’m affected by the death more through the perceived pain of those in the room, of which I’m not included.”

“So you don’t feel sad to have lost your mom?”

“She doesn’t feel like my mom anymore. She’s someone else’s, and I feel bad for them.”

Standing out on the front porch as Dan was getting ready to leave. It smelled like freshly cut grass, though there was no one to be seen anywhere on the block. “It’s like what an idyllic neighborhood would look like in a movie,” he said, looking around the block. “Except there’s no kids.” He shifted his grip on his tool bag, “Oh yeah before I go. I don’t know if you remember Maryann from your grandma’s funeral? She was there with Bill Priest, you know him? Looks like a television actress? Maryann, that is, not Bill. Anyway, she’s Bill’s daughter. She’s been living abroad somewhere the last few years but with everything going on, she came back.” Ben couldn’t see why coming back was the right answer, but then again he wasn’t sure staying would be either.

“I think I might remember her,” Ben said. “Bill mention what she was doing back here?”

“He did but I’ve forgotten. He said she’s just about going insane being trapped inside, doesn’t have much in the line of friends around here. I figured maybe you could give her a call, hang her a life line?”

“Ah well, I’m not sure I’ve got much to offer.”

“I’m sure you got some, kid,” as he reached into his pocket and came out with a scrap of paper. “Give her a call.”

The Cafe and the Party

Eventually he wakes up feeling as though all agency has been lost. Not entirely, but he knows enough to know that even one snaked-through invasion of the heart can cripple a person.

Sitting at a cafe and the one who’s snaked their way in is across the table reading their book, a shard of sunlight splitting them in half. He watches without trying to hide it how she is absorbed, devoid of distraction, fleeting thoughts of self-doubt, and knows the time, as constructed, is ticking away. Is it enough to have this moment, before or after all that happens or happened becomes conscious reality, to depart from what has been an immaterial condition for however long he’s had it? To accept that he may be exchanging one for another, even if he doesn’t want another, better or worse than what he’s grown accustomed?

He’s noticed her gaze diminish. She hadn’t quite searched his face for something new in what felt like weeks, maybe months. Not the way he looks for mysteries in hers. He’s afraid she’s noticed as well, afraid she’s come to understand the new imbalance.

At a party sometime in the near past, he watched her with a group of mutual friends, standing in front of a large picture window. While all of their reflections shone as distorted versions of themselves in the dark of the glass, hers was defined and clear. She turned to look out the window and for a moment seemed to notice him watching her from across the room. With ambivalence, she held him in her eyes for several seconds before returning to conversation. As the party continued he found it harder to reconnect with her, both of them being pulled into separate interactions, diverting attentions. And then there is the moment. Surrounded by another group of people, without fully turning her face toward him, she makes sure he’s watching, watching her bring an intangibility to those around her that he no longer receives, and then turned away. He understood, finally. For the rest of the party, she went on without him; him watching her, her possessing him, drifting away.

First Date

When he opens the front door, Maryann is under the roof of the porch shaking out her umbrella. “Some summer rain, huh,” she said. Behind her the rain fell detached. It was late afternoon, the green of the grass and trees somehow rubbing off, dripping out into the atmosphere. The smell reminded Ben of running around as a kid after a rain shower, sticking his feet into mud and getting stuck.

“Bit rainy,” Ben said.

“That’s likely what the weather report says,” Maryann said, standing at the threshold, waiting.

“Who says they never get it right?” He gestured for her to come in and closed the door behind her. “I’m Ben.”

“Hi Ben, I’m Maryann. Is this a date?”

“A date?”

“Just playing,” she said. “Obviously it is.”

“Yeah typically all my first dates take place at my house, even before the world changed.”

“If the formula works.”

“Wouldn’t go that far.” They stood there, the jests played out, thinking of what next. For the first time Ben noticed she was holding a rain spattered brown bag.

“Is that, ah, is there a gun in there?” Maryann looked down at the bag in her hand, took a step back and shot Ben with her finger gun.

“This is the last time I’ll be letting someone from my grandma’s funeral into my house. What a mistake.”

“Surprise, it’s wine,” she said, pulling the bottle from the bag. “Date or not, I thought it would be rude to show up empty handed. Plus I’d like to drink some.”

“Why not.” Ben led her back to the kitchen, took out two wine glasses and corkscrew. Maryann looked around the kitchen, wandered into the living room, glanced out the windows.

“Do you have a favorite plant in here?” she asked.

“Sure do but out of respect for the others, I’d rather not say.” He holds his hand to hide his face from the rest of the room and whispers, “The ficus in the corner.”

“Oh the ficus,” loudly, projecting into the room.

“Thanks for your discretion.”

At the kitchen table they played with the stems of their wine glasses, taking sips while glancing at each other and away. Unable to focus on whether he should ask about her time abroad or what she was up to now or what her childhood was like. He itched a little. She had an energy which seemed to suggest she was just fine with the momentary silence. He faked friendly nonchalance, acting as though he were looking at something behind her. Her eyes a chimera, almost cycling through colors like secrets.

“Something back there?” she asked, not turning around.

“Just the rain,” truthfully.

It got easier. The wine began to work and they settled into personal stories and tragedies, the way conversations had seemed to morph in recent months. She was in Greece for a few years and when everything fell apart there, she traveled to Italy, headed south into Sicily, settling in Palermo.

“Figured no one goes to Palermo. Wasn’t exactly the case.” She’d lost her job at a museum in Greece. Palermo had drawn her in she wasn’t sure how, but she’d found a job shortly after arriving and spent the rest of her time there. “Like all of Sicily, Palermo is old, so much history and mythology.”

“Tell me a myth.”

“Ok. There is one of Persephone, being pulled down into the Underworld by Hades through a lake in the countryside. They married and she became Goddess of the Underworld. Pretty cool, huh?”

“Pretty cool,” Ben said

“What do you think their first date was like? Wine and ice breakers and inflated stories to make themselves look better?”

“Could’ve been, sure. I’m leaning toward scary and frightening and nerve-racking.”

“Same thing.”

“How is it being back? How long now?”

“I’ve been back two months, though it’s felt like two days or two years. Some days it’s the former, some the latter.”

“Almost like a dream.”

“You could say that. I found a little apartment across town. It shrinks and grows and maybe I do too. I have side work, writing a little for small publications. Besides that, you’re the first person I’ve spoken to for more than a couple minutes since your…” she broke off.

“Oh the funeral? That’s ok. She was a good woman. It was just her time,” he reassured.

“You don’t remember me? From the funeral?”

“I have to admit, I don’t. I’m sorry, is that rude?”

“Why would that be rude?”

“Well, you’re very striking and…”

“And?”

“Just not sure how I’ve forgotten.”

“Sort of narcissistic on my part to suggest you remember me of all people from your grandmother’s funeral.” She winks and swirls her wine, disappearing into it for a moment. “Don’t worry about it. Maybe it’s better you came into this blind. I like that you took a risk. We’re all so afraid.”

He started to feel it in the back of his eyes, the release. A simultaneous weightlessness and comforting pressure. He imagined he was looking at her with subtle compassion and kindness.

“Looks like this is going to your head,” she smiled. He flushed, went to fill two glasses with water for them and sat back down. “Not a criticism. It’s fine. I’ve got something happening too.”

And for awhile they told each other some of their best drunk stories, the ones that didn’t make them look too bad.

“So what are you up to now,” she asked.

“I was teaching for awhile. Lately I’ve been working at the library in town. Not often, considering it’s only open a day or two a week. There’s not a lot to do but I like that it’s quiet there.”

“It’s quiet everywhere.” She’s searching him for something, some sanguine flip-side. He refills their glasses, the last drop of the bottle falling slowly into her glass, suspended for just a second before the ripples come. He thinks this is what she means by shrinking and growing.

The Funeral

“They say it’s taking off on the east coast. Just relentless over there.”

“What’re you so worried about? They’ll get it under control before you even know it. All this fear and panic will be for nothing, at least for us over here.”

“You got your head so far up your own…”

“Gentlemen, knock it off with this talk. Ok? This is my mother’s funeral.”

A chorus of “Sorry, Rose. We should’ve never started. Didn’t mean to be disrespectful.”

“Ben,” Rose, his mother, “can you go grab those flowers from Mrs. Glover? She’s nearly falling over.” Ben greeted Mrs. Glover, a little blue skinned wrinkle with white curly hair like a frayed cotton ball. The bouquet of flowers in her hands seemed to be conspiring against her, forcing her to weave a little this way and that to hold her balance. She handed them over and grabbed his hand. So sorry was she to hear of his grandmother. They’ve known each other for longer than see could remember.

“I’ve a stack of books borrowed from her, all with guys like Fabio on the cover,” Mrs. Glover raising her eyebrows and nodding. “I’ve read them all, of course. Some more than once.”

At the reception, Ben stood off to the side with his brother Joe. Joe had brought a flask and kept pouring some into Ben’s coffee whenever he wasn’t paying attention. “Come on, Joe,” after a sip that was surly more whiskey than coffee.

“Everybody here is drinking,” Joe said, looking out over the room. Ben followed his gaze but saw no indication. “Plus, why not?”

“How long do you think all this is going to go on?” asked Ben.

“Oh I think these usually go two, three hours. Something like that.”

“Not the reception. But.” He looked at his brother, wondering if he’d been feeling the same strange impulses to run, though unsure where to.

“Don’t worry about it. It’ll be a drop in the bucket in the grand scheme. We’ll be out of it before you know and it’ll all fade away.” It was nice to think about it in terms like that. Sort of a phenomenon, Ben thought, the way a person forgets the small details of the ‘bad times,’ the ones that they’d stressed about then and later can no longer remember. Even more the way they can look back and be almost nostalgic for it, all because some new blunder has taken shape in the present. “It’s all a cycle,” Joe said, reading Ben’s mind.

Joe’s wife Louise walks up and sniffs his coffee, offers her own cup. “I don’t think we’re too old to drink at funerals, right?” she said.

“Agreed.” Joe takes a nip from the flask before putting it back.

“That a Mary Poppins flask or something? It’s never ending,” Ben said, a residual taste on his tongue.”

“It’ll end. Sooner than we’d like.”

“When are you coming over again?” Louise asked Ben. “I’m bored. I want to hang out with friends. Joe offers me next to nothing anymore.”

“Right back at you, babe.”

“Anytime you ask me, Lou. I haven’t been doing too much either. Each day there’s less and less and it doesn’t look like that’ll be changing just yet.”

“I try to ignore it, but how can I? It’s not like there are distractions.”

“Like I said,” Joe said, “it’s going to be over before you know it. Back to normal. Back to the repetition. And anyway, look at this turnout? All these people? We’re social animals. Can’t be held down.”

The room, or hall, was more alive than Ben imagined it would be. He recognized in people’s faces and in interactions a sort of skeptical acceptance of what was possibly coming. Like anticipating a phone call for a job interview, at once on guard, ready to overcome, and also apprehensive at what might turn out to be a disaster. And there, in the hall, most of the people were older, as these kinds of funerals often are. Morbidly, he thinks they’re more accustomed to the idea that it could end at any time. But then, they wouldn’t think of it as morbidity, not if they’ve come to terms with it. It’s like that. Kids fear nothing, pushing the boundaries of physical life. As they get older, into their 30’s, 40’s, they realize how fragile they are and how at any moment they could twist an ankle or get hit by some falling object or disappear into financial ruin. The brain in a constant state of alertness. He thinks about how exhausted he’s become because of this. Someone honks their horn while he’s walking on the sidewalk and he starts for a brief moment, the signals in his head warning him. What next? You get older, like his grandmother, and you hold all this in your hands and there is clarity? Not ignoring your fragility, but not dwelling on it. Maybe thats living?

“Come on, let’s go party. Just the three of us.” Joe drapes his arm over Louise and grabs Ben’s tie, pulling him along.

Good Times

A month or two after Maryann moved in, life went back to normal, at least a new version of it.

Before the new normal arrived, Ben and Maryann had continued to live in a way, even though together, that suggested they were still on their own. Ben’s routine of walking around in the morning with watering can in one hand, coffee in the other, looking at his plants, diagnosing. Maryann checked emails, hoping for new projects, positively returned query responses. Then breakfast. Always the same. Ben would sit on the small deck in the backyard listening to the trees. Maryann standing at the kitchen counter, getting it over with before going back to her laptop. They’d pass each other in the house and embrace and separate. And so the days would go.

He enjoyed the new presence, not feeling invaded or overwhelmed by it. How could he? Everything felt like water. The stresses of each day more like faint specters, there was nothing to chafe at his repose. And he felt like Maryann helped to keep him grounded. He realized that over the time he spent alone before her, he would question his own experience. Maybe he’d see something from the corner of his eye, or think he did. A picture frame would be crooked. It was always like that, right? With Maryann, he had someone to pin it on. It wasn’t something he knew he needed.

The latter parts of most days Maryann spent in the living room, with the plants. Sometimes Ben would walk in and she would appear from within some tangle of verdancy with an expression suggesting she was always there and always would be.

In the evenings they’d finally come together to make dinner. It was silently agreed that wine or cocktails would be part of the ceremony, sometimes too loose to care about whatever it was they’d just spent the last hour or so making. The music would be turned up and then the dancing.

It was Maryann, in the beginning, who initiated. Ben had always been too self-conscious to dance. But with her, that apprehension melted away and he was able to fall into it. She’d start moving her hips, her feet moving lightly along the ground, her mind somewhere outside of the kitchen, outside of the house and the neighborhood and the reality of what life was in that moment and all foreseeable moments. Remembering Ben was easy. He was part of that separation and they were connected within it. Watching her, waiting for his invitation. And then the hand reaching out or the eyes fixed on him, a wink lifting him off his chair. Losing and finding each other on the dance floor. Songs coming on and reminding them of specific moments in some past. He appreciated the secrets attached to each, knowing that she might be drifting toward them in front of his eyes. The suspension of everything outside the kitchen beckoning them ever onward, releasing them to themselves. They finally had it. Each night, they’d finally have it.