The Woods

I parked in the lot and walked the path. Her grave had fresh flowers on it. We of the Hebrew faith do not do that. We put stones on the marker. I liked that, though I am not sure why. Flowers, something so alive and bright, seemed obscene against the gray of her tomb. My wife, my beautiful Jane, was rotting six feet below those freshly cut lilies. That seemed like an outrage to me.

I sat on a concrete bench. I didn’t talk to her. It was so bad in the end. Jane suffered. I watched. For a while anyway. We got hospice—Jane wanted to die at home—but then there was her weight loss and the smell and the decay and the groans. The sound that I remembered most, the one that still invaded my sleep, was the awful coughing noise, more a choke really, when Jane couldn’t get the phlegm up and it would hurt so much and she would be so uncomfortable and it went on for months and months and I tried to be strong but I wasn’t as strong as Jane and she knew that.

There was a time early in our relationship when she knew that I was having doubts. I had lost a sister. My mother had run off on me. And now, for the first time in a long time, I was letting a woman into my life. I remember late one night when I couldn’t sleep and I was staring at the ceiling and Jane was sleeping next to me. I remember that I heard her deep breath, then so sweet and perfect and so different from what it would be in the end. Her breathing shortened as she slowly came awake. She put her arms around me and moved close.

“I’m not her,” she said softly, as if she could read my thoughts. “I will never abandon you.”

But in the end, she did.

I had dated since her death. I have even had some fairly intense emotional commitments. One day I hope to find someone and remarry. But right now, as I thought about that night in our bed, I realized that it would probably not happen.

I’m not her, my wife had said.

And of course, she meant my mother.

I looked at the tombstone. I read my wife’s name. Loving Mother, Daughter and Wife. There were some kind of angel wings on the sides. I pictured my in-laws picking those out, just the right size angel wings, just the right design, all that. They had bought the plot next to Jane’s without telling me. If I didn’t remarry, I guess, it would be mine. If I did, well, I don’t know what my in-laws would do with it.

I wanted to ask my Jane for help. I wanted to ask her to search around up wherever she was and see if she could find my sister and let me know if Camille was alive or dead. I smiled like a dope. Then I stopped.

I’m sure cell phones in graveyards are no-nos. But I didn’t think Jane would mind. I took the phone out of my pocket and pressed down on that six button again.

Sosh answered on the first ring.

“I have a favor to ask,” I said.

“I told you before. Not on the phone.”

“Find my mother, Sosh.”

Silence.

“You can do it. I’m asking. In the memory of my father and sister. Find my mother for me.”

“And if I can’t?”

“You can.”

“Your mother has been gone a long time.”

“I know.”

“Have you considered the fact that maybe she doesn’t want to be found?”

“I have,” I said.

“And?”

“And tough,” I said. “We don’t always get what we want. So find her for me, Sosh. Please.”

I hung up the phone. I looked at my wife’s stone again.

“We miss you,” I said out loud to my dead wife. “Cara and I. We miss you very, very much.”

Then I stood up and walked back to my car.

CHAPTER 16

RAYA SINGH WAS WAITING FOR ME IN THE RESTAURANT parking lot. She had turned in the aqua waitress uniform for jeans and a dark blue blouse. Her hair was pulled back in a ponytail. The effect was no less dazzling. I shook my head. I had just visited my wife’s grave. Now I was inappropriately admiring the beauty of a young woman.

It was an interesting world.

She slipped into the passenger seat. She smelled great.

“Where to?” I asked.

“Do you know where Route 17 is?”

“Yes.”

“Take it north.”

I pulled out of the lot. “Do you want to start telling me the truth?” I asked.

“I have never lied to you,” she said. “I decided not to tell you certain things.”

“Are you still claiming you just met Santiago on the street?”

“I am.”

I didn’t believe her.

“Have you ever heard him mention the name Perez?”

She did not reply.

I pressed. “Gil Perez?”

“The exit for 17 is on the right.”

“I know where the exit is, Raya.”

I glanced at her in perfect profile. She stared out the window, looking achingly beautiful.

“Tell me about hearing him say my name,” I said.

“I told you already.”

“Tell me again.”

She took a deep, silent breath. Her eyes closed for a moment.

“Manolo said you lied.”

“Lied about what?”

“Lied about something involving”—she hesitated—“involving woods or a forest or something like that.”

I felt my heart lurch across my chest. “He said that? About woods or a forest?”

“Yes.”

“What were his exact words?”

“I don’t remember.”

“Try.”

“‘Paul Copeland lied about what happened in those woods.’” Then she tilted her head. “Oh, wait.”

I did.

Then she said something that almost made me turn off the road. She said, “Lucy.”

“What?”

“That was the other name. He said, ‘Paul Copeland lied about what happened in those woods. So did Lucy.’”

Now it was my turn to be struck silent.

“Paul,” Raya said, “who is this Lucy?”

We took the rest of the ride in silence.

I was lost in thoughts of Lucy. I tried to remember the feel of her flaxen hair, the wondrous smell of it. But I couldn’t. That was the thing. The memories seemed so clouded. I couldn’t remember what was real and what my imagination had conjured up. I just remembered the wonder. I remembered the lust. We were both new, both clumsy, both inexperienced, but it was like something in a Bob Seger song or maybe Meat Loaf’s “Bat Out of Hell.” God, that lust. How had it started? And when did that lust seemingly segue into something approaching love?

Summer romances come to an end. That was part of the deal. They are built like certain plants or insects, not able to survive more than one season. I thought Luce and I would be different. We were, I guess, but not in the way that I thought. I truly believed that we would never let each other go.