Art Begins Beneath the Surface...

       Last Thursday, my wife killed herself by jumping in front of a commuter train during rush hour. She caused a six-hour delay and mental trauma to the passengers on the platform who saw her body: all jutting bone-ends and inside-out skin by the time the train finally stopped. They wouldn’t let me see her. At the hospital, before they knew who I was, I heard a man in scrubs say: never mind a casket, they should pour that one into a Tupperware.

There were enough teeth left to be sure it was Cyn, as if the transit security camera wasn’t enough. The video showed her doing the swan dive all on her own – not a bit of assistance from anyone on the platform.

       A week later, Madison wanted to know where Cyn was. “Daddy,” she said, dreadfully serious. “I do gymnastics today. You said mommy would be back by my next class. You promised.”  Madison was wearing jeans over her leotard. Her ponytail was lopsided. I don’t remember promising anything. On Sunday, I’d told her about heaven. On Tuesday, I clarified that no one comes back from heaven.

       I pulled her onto my lap, straightened her ponytail and explained she would skip gymnastics again. I was too drunk to drive her, but I didn’t tell her that. She crawled off my lap and faced me, tiny hands fisted where her hips would someday be. “You don’t know where gymnastics is,” she said. “You’re waiting for her to come back.”

       Madison is four. Everyone says she looks just like me, but in her face all I see is Cyn.

*      *     *

It’s another week before I get the bill. The letter tells me that when Cynthia Reynolds placed herself before the city’s light rail train, the driver attempted to stop. Massive pressure on the brakes caused the pads to burn away. By the time Cyn was dead, the brakes were severely damaged. They had enclosed a bill for the damages and a typed sentence about their sorrow regarding my loss.

       “What is it, daddy?”  Madison was mincing across the living room in a pair of Cyn’s heels. “What’s the matter?  You look like a lemon.” 

        “Just a bill. You know how mommy got grumpy when bills came.”

       “I know. Why isn’t she here?”

       “I told you, sweetie.”

        “I know. You said she wasn’t coming back.” She sighed. “Haven’t you changed your mind?”

        *     *      *

When I called, the public transport official sounded uneasy as if suicide was contagious. “Sorry Mr. Reynolds, but the regulations are really clear on this. These situations are considered intentional harm to transit property. She caused damage by jumping…” he coughed, and I could hear a thumping in the background like a fist on a sternum, as if he was trying to clear his throat from the outside. “According to regulations, she is liable…well, youare liable for costs.”

        “She jumped in front of a train,” I said. Madison was at morning preschool. I was in the kitchen with a vodka tonic. “I don’t think she was trying to hurt your train. I think she was trying to hurt herself.”

       “With the same result. Think of graffiti. Maybe your wife intended to make…an artistic statement. But she actually defaced transit property. She is therefore liable.”

       “Graffiti?  My wife killed herself and…”  I didn’t know how to finish the sentence. I was distracted by an image of Cyn reaching up from her wrecked body to sign her name.

       “Sorry, sir.”  Then he hung up.

       Instead of tapping into my retirement account or Madison’s college funds, I liquidated assets Cyn held separate from mine. The property her parents left her. Her car. Her jewelry, except for a couple pieces I saved for Madison.

I saved her wedding ring for myself. The side stones were missing or scratched and the band twisted into an oval. They’d handed it to me at the mortuary, sealed into a baggie. It was the only thing they’d given me.

       *      *      *

I stopped drinking when Madison told me my breath smelled like the bottom of the fridge. I cleaned out the refrigerator, too.

       I’d made a lousy drunk, anyway.

So I was sober when I took Madison to the County Clerk’s office to make the first payment on the train. I carried her on my hip, something Cyn could do gracefully. I couldn’t.

“What’s your name?”  Madison leaned toward the skeletally slender man behind the counter.

“Patrick,” he said. We shook, and his hand was like warm taffy, damp and seemingly boneless. He cleared his throat. “Sir, I’d like to apologize for the conversation you had with a staff member last week. I understand graffiti was mentioned. That was inappropriate, considering the circumstances.”  He glanced at Madison.

“Hey,” I said. “It’s okay. Don’t worry about it. I’ve got the first payment here, if we could…”

He nodded, blushing and relieved.

 “Daddy,” said Madison, tugging my sleeve. She was heavier than I remembered. I boosted her higher against my torso. “What’s a grat-ee-fee?”

“Things people draw without permission,” Patrick said. Then he looked at me, unsure.

Madison scowled and hit my arm. “Did you do a grat-ee-fee, daddy?  Is that why we’re here?”

“No.” 

“Your father’s here to buy part of a train.”

Madison gazed at Patrick, fascinated. “Which part?”

Yeah, Patrick, I thought. What part will this buy me?

Patrick examined my check. “Well. The front part. The part with the engine.”

“You’re buying a train engine, daddy? A real one?”

“Sort of.”

Madison looked at me like I was God. “Oh daddy. When can we take it home?”

*     *      *

       I took Madison with me to clean out Cyn’s desk. It made me nervous: she still thought Cyn was coming back. And watching me clean out her things might trip a wire I didn’t want tripped in public.

       I shouldn’t have worried. She crawled under Cyn’s desk and called: “Daddy? Remember when mommy used to sit with her legs here?”

       One of Cyn’s coworkers, a blotchy brunette, hung over the side of the cubicle and watched me fold in the arms on Cyn’s framed photos and un-tack Madison’s drawings from the cube walls.

       “Such a tragedy.”

        I nodded.

       “But -” she mouthed Madison “- seems to be coping well. And how about you Adam?  How are you coping?”

       “Oh,” I said, “All right. You know. It’s rough.”

       She murmured something I couldn’t hear and blew her nose into a disintegrating Kleenex. “It doesn’t make any sense,” she said, tossing the tissue into Cyn’s trash and taking a new one from Cyn’s tissue box. “That’s the way though, isn’t it?  You never see it coming.”

       Madison was tucking a Barbie under a tangle of power cords.

       “Well,” said the coworker, “In any case, it couldn’t have come at a worse time.”

        “Oh? When would have been better?”

       She blinked. “What?”

        “Nothing,” I said. I began going through the drawers. Hand lotion. Nutrition bars. A miniature tube of toothpaste and a toothbrush. The bristles were dry when I thumbed them and I realized I’d been hoping for a dampness that came from her mouth.

       “The timing just didn’t make sense. She’d just been told about the promotion and she was thrilled. Thrilled. You should have seen her face.”

        There was a bottle of aspirin and a box of chamomile tea in the bottom drawer, along with a pair of running shoes. I chucked them all into the box and said: “Madison, we’re about to go. Get your stuff.”

       “Adam, didn’t you know about the promotion?  Executive VP. What an opportunity.”  She looked for more tissues. I moved Cyn’s Kleenex away.

        Madison crawled out. “Aren’t we going to wait for mommy?”

       The coworker gasped, then choked on her own mucus. “Well.” I spoke loudly enough to turn heads. “Thanks for your help. We’ll be leaving now.”

         *    *      *

       All night, I thought about the promotion. She hadn’t told me. Hadn’t even hinted.

        I got up and poured a vodka. Then I dumped it out and poured a grapefruit juice.

       I hadn’t known her. What people on the platform saw, that inside of her, was different than what I assumed. Maybe those people were given a hint about who she really was deep down, something I never saw.

       *      *      *

I had the last payment in my wallet ready to deliver to Patrick whenMadison found the suicide note.

       “Daddy,” she called.

        “Yeah?” I spoke around my toothbrush. It was past her bedtime, something I’d never been any good at enforcing.

Madison swayed into the doorway wearing a cashmere sweater and a pair of stilettos. One of Cyn’s cheap glittery chains was wrapped around her head.

       “Mommy left you a note. In her underwear drawer. Does it say when she’s coming back?”

        I spat toothpaste and took the envelope. Just unfolding the paper and seeing her handwriting made me dizzy. I closed my eyes.       

“What does it say, daddy?”

       I pretended to read. “It says, ‘Madison, honey, how many times have I told you not to go into my underwear drawer?  And it’s way past your bedtime.’”  I set aside the letter, scooped her out of the stilettos and carried her, giggling, to bed. As I rolled up her cashmere sleeves, I said, “The letter said something else.”

       “What?”

        “’Baby, I’m sorry, but I’m not coming back. I’ll always be with you, though, and I love you very much.’”

        Madison’s eyebrows pulled together. “She called you ‘baby’ sometimes, daddy.”

       Yes, she had. Baby. I heard the word spoken near my ear, felt Cyn’s fingers slide under my belt. I swallowed. “Yeah, she did.”

       “So which one of us she was talking to? When she said she wasn’t coming back?”

        I smiled and untangled the necklace from her hair.

       She’d written to me. Dear Adam, it began.

And it was signed C, as if writing her whole name would have made her late for the train.

*     *      *

       Madison, perched on the high counter where I’d boosted her, said: “What part of the train do we buy today?”

       I handed the check to Patrick, who tapped his keyboard. Madison leaned to see the monitor and I held the back of her jumper, ready to pull back in case she leaned too far.

       “Well, this last amount will go toward body work. Removing dents and…” he glanced at me. “Cleaning the undercarriage. And painting.”

       “What color? I love to paint.”

       Patrick opened his hand in the printer tray so the receipt emerged into his palm. “Blue. The noses of our trains are all blue.”

       “Blue? Did you know blue was mommy’s favorite color?”

       Patrick fidgeted again, then blushed as he handed over my last receipt. “Here you go. Sorry about all this. Red tape, you know?  No way around it.”

        “Sure.”

       “Bye, Patrick,” said Madison. I was holding one of her hands, and she waved with the other. “Thank you for the train parts.”

       *      *      *

“So, Madison,” I said, after she buckled her car seat. “What do you want to do today?  We can go get ice cream? See a movie? What do you think?”

        “Daddy.” Her voice was quiet. “Be serious. Is mommy coming back?”

       “No.”

        “Are you sure?”

       I thought of the security video. “Yes, I’m sure.”

       “Oh.” Then her voice lifted. “We bought her the front half of a train painted her favorite color, so now she can go anywhere she wants. Anywhere the train stops, I mean. Can we go to the park?  I want to feed the ducks. And the gooses.”

       “Sure,” I said.

        So we went to the park. Madison threw bread into the water and talked to the ducks, but most of the time she didn’t even watch to see where the bread landed, or which bird snapped it up. Instead, she gazed past the swings where, across the street, there was a train stop.

 

Author’s Bio: Andrea Eaker works as a research consultant. Her stories have appeared in Mota and The Paper Journey Press anthology Blink. She lives in Portland, Oregon and is currently writing a novel. 

 

by Andrea Eaker