Gryphon_ New and Selected Stories - Charles Baxter [168]
“It can’t be found,” Nicholas said. “It’s not lost. It’s gone.”
“They kiss the air, Nicholas,” she repeated. “My darling friend, you are such a dilettante with us. You have just watched us, all your life. You have watched us as we fell in your direction.”
“Us?” It was a habit, this repetition. Of course she was right.
“You should go over there right now, where Daphne is.” Outside the apartment something was stirring, perhaps just down the block.
At the foot of Daphne’s bed, Nicholas stood gazing at the pale green wall behind where she lay. He stared at the wall because it was so hard to keep his eyes on her. Inside and within the room were tubes and pipes and expensive stainless-steel machines, some of which were breathing softly, while outside the room, many floors down, Manhattan traffic beeped on like the errant sounds of children playing with toy cars and plastic noisemakers. Daphne, for the moment, was unwatchable: on her face had been placed an expression he had never seen before. Her skin had taken on a terrible pallor. He couldn’t stand to see it there. It hurt him every time his eyes swept across her. Every time he took her in, he felt as if he aged another year.
He approached her and tried to do as the Adult had advised: he kissed Daphne on the forehead and tried to bend over the sides of the bed so he could kiss her. When he bent over, he thought he would pass out.
Daphne did not open her eyes. “The next time you go to Alaska,” she whispered, “you can tell Granny Westerby about us.”
“I wouldn’t do that.”
“Yes, but we have a story now.” She opened her eyes to look at him. She did it slowly, as if it were a great effort—a terrible amount of work—to do so. “Oh, Nicholas,” she said tenderly, almost with pride, “you look awful.”
“Do I?” he asked.
“You look all broken and sideways,” she said disconnectedly. The medications had started to affect her speech. Still, no one had ever used those adjectives about him before. Rather desperately, he turned toward the window, but there was no refuge there, either, not for him. He felt himself fading toward Daphne in an effort to comfort her. He lowered himself again and touched his lips to her cheek.
The Old Murderer
AN OLD MAN, a murderer, had moved in next door to Ellickson. The murderer appeared to be a gardener and student of history. Prison had seemingly turned him into a reader. Putting out spring-loaded traps for the moles, Ellickson would sometimes glance over and see his neighbor, the murderer, sprawled out on a patio recliner as he made his way through a lengthy biography of General Robert E. Lee. At other times he saw the murderer spreading bone ash at the base of his backyard lilacs. The murderer’s uncombed gray hair stood up in sprouts at the back and the sides of his head, and he would wave from time to time at Ellickson, who had delayed introducing himself. Ellickson would wave back halfheartedly. The murderer did not seem to care that he was being snubbed. He kept busy. Bags of topsoil weighed down the back of his rusting yellow truck. He unloaded them and carried them over to the garden beds. Ellickson liked the idea of having a murderer on the same street where he himself lived. A paroled murderer’s problems put his own into perspective.
Ellickson had been sober for forty-three and a half days, but he still had the shakes. Just filling the coffeepot required maximum concentration. If his concentration lapsed, the coffee grounds sprayed themselves all over the kitchen floor and had to be cleaned up with a whisk broom and a dustpan. Everything, even the drinking of tap water, called for discipline and tenacity.
All day Ellickson endured. The sun rattled violently in the sky. After the passing hours had presented their trials by fire and