AT NIGHT WE PAINT THE STARS

Conclusion

Photo by Stephen Radford on Unsplash

Winter comes suddenly. The wind blusters in, bringing snow down from the distant mountains. The white-tail deer come down from the mountains as well. Agnes sees the deer standing in the naked fields, munching on whatever grass there is — thin, fallow animals, that look docile as they forage. The snow has come early, promising to stay for a long time.

Standing naked in front of the bedroom window, and staring at Dan’s reflection in the bed, Agnes knows she’s losing him. He isn’t the sort of man a woman can hold onto, she realizes — something the Voice tried to warn her about earlier. She should’ve let him leave months ago, she tells herself, when Gerald came back from the hospital. But she told herself she needed him, and believed it.

— and now it’s too late, isn't it? the Voice taunts her. What’re you going to do about the bank? Where’re you going to get the money?

“I don’t want to think about that now,” she answers in a harsh whisper. “I don’t ever want to think about it.”

— and that’s going to make it go away?

“Leave me alone,” she says, and looks at Dan stirring in the bed. He looks like he’s having one of his dreams, she tells herself.

She looks at the clock on the dresser, and the hands are barely visible in the pre-dawn light. Seven a.m. Gerald should be awake, she tells herself. Then she tells herself she has to milk the cows and pick up the eggs for the morning’s breakfast. It’s one of the chores Dan usually does, but today, she’s decided he needs to rest. It’s difficult for her to milk the cows, but she knows she’ll manage if she puts her mind to it — just like she’s managed with everything else she’s put her mind to lately.

— everything except Gerald, the Voice says.

Still looking at Dan’s reflection, she remembers how last night she cried out in her passion. She wonders if Gerald heard them making love, and hopes he did, hoping it bothered him. She gathers up her clothes and dresses warmly, closing the door softly, and looking in on Gerald.

He’s sitting in his bed, a shadow in the darkness. She can see his bulk propped up against the headboard. He’s using the bedpan.

— draining the hose again, is he? the Voice comments.

“Goddamn you!” he says, looking up at her.

“And good morning to you, too,” she says.

“You could at least ‘ave the decency to knock.”

“Does it bother you?” she teases.

“Bother me? Does it bother me that my wife’s an ‘ore — a common slut?” He throws the bedpan against the wall. “Clean it up, slut.”

“Yes dear,” she says, laughing, and closes the door gently.

Later, she brings Dan his breakfast. Dan has two boiled eggs on toast, with a cup of hot, sweet tea. Gerald has six eggs and eight slices of toast. Agnes goes downstairs to clean up the kitchen.

Dan comes downstairs with his plate after, and puts it on the counter beside the sink, kissing her neck softly. He picks up the tea towel and begins wiping the dishes.

“It’s starting to snow again,” he says, looking out of the kitchen window as gentle flakes filter down in the morning grey.

“It’s beautiful, isn’t it?”

“It’s snow,” he says. “I hate snow.”

“Why?”

“I grew up in Colorado. It always snows there. Denver in winter,” he says, shaking his head as if he’s trying to shake the memory out of it. “What’s to like about it?”

“The way it shines in the moonlight; the way it crunches under your feet when it freezes in the night; the way it hangs on the branches of the trees — do you want me to go on?”

“Have you ever had to work in it? It’s nothing but a pain in the ass. Everything freezes and clogs up with it.”

“You have to learn to look at the beauty of things — in everything.”

“Vinnie!” Gerald calls from upstairs — and even with the bedroom door closed, they can hear him.

“He must be finished his breakfast,” Agnes says, wiping her hands dry.

“Speaking of the beauty of things,” Dan laughs. He watches her hobble up the stairs, dragging her foot along behind her with that familiar drag-clump, drag-clump hitting the risers. He hears her opening the bedroom door.

“Goddamn it, these eggs’re ‘ard as a rock!” Gerald screams at her. “Can't you do anythin' right?”

“Then don’t eat them,” he hears her say. “It’s not like it’s going to do you any harm not to eat.”

“I din’t eat all of ‘em!” he yells, and Dan hears Agnes scream as the unmistakable sound of a hard boiled egg hits the wall. “They might as well be golf balls!”

“Then you’ll just have to do without,” she says, and closes the door again, slamming it, like she’s closing him off from her, he thinks, instead of him closing her off, like she says he has for as long as she can remember.

“He seems upset with you. Again,” Dan says, when she limps back into the kitchen without his plate.

“Doesn’t he though?” she smiles up at him. “He didn’t like his eggs.”

“I get the feeling that you enjoy tormenting him,” Dan says slowly.

“Yes. I think I do,” she smiles again. “Don’t you think he deserves it for all he’s done to me over the years?”

"And you’re going to do this for the rest of his life?”

“I have an advantage over him; I can say what I want, and walk away. I will always have the last word. I can just close the door on him. When I get really upset, I open his window,” she says with a laugh.

Dan leans against the counter, folding the tea towel carefully, deliberately, trying not to look at her.

“I can’t go on like this Vinnie,” he says at last, putting the towel on the counter.

“I know,” she says simply.

“You do?”

“I've known it for a while. I fell in love with you, but you didn’t fall in love with me, did you? It took me a while to realize that, and longer to understand it,” she says gently.

“And if I left today?” he asks.

“Just like that, you mean?”

“I said if,” he smiles.

“I’d be sad for a while, but I’d get over it.”

“I’m glad to hear that,” he says slowly.

“How do you plan to get out of here?”

“Maybe I can hitch a ride into town with Ferguson?" he says. “You know: ‘Neither rain, nor sleet, nor snow can keep them from their appointed rounds’,” he adds, forcing himself to smile.

“Then maybe you’d better get your stuff together?” she suggests. “I don’t want to make this any harder than it all ready is. If you hurry, you’ll be able to catch Ferguson before he drives by. He usually gets here around noon. It’s probably for the best.”

The phone rings, and he breathes a sigh of relief as she turns to answer it. He goes to the studio to collect his things. When he comes back through the hall, he tries not to listen. Agnes is silent, nodding her head as if the person on the other end can see her, saying she understands, giving one word answers that are trite, pedestrian comments, and do nothing to express how she feels, or what she’s thinking.

— it looks like the jig is up, the Voice says as she hangs the phone up.

“I don’t need to hear you say that,” she says angrily.

“Hear what?” Dan asks.

“What?” she says, turning to look at up him with a startled expression as he comes into the kitchen.

“What did you just say?” he asks, putting his knapsack and sleeping bag down. He bends to on one knee, tying the telescope into place carefully, watching her.

“I didn’t say anything,” she says slowly, distracted, her eyes vacant and empty.

“Oh...Who was on the phone?" he asks, looking up at her.

— don’t tell him. It doesn't concern him, the Voice says quickly, spitting the words out.

“No one,” she says, turning away from him.

“What's happening, Vinnie? Who was on the phone?” he asks again, standing up and catching her by the shoulders. He turns her gently, looking down at her, but she avoids his stare.

  “What’re you hiding?”

“Stop it!” she says suddenly, pulling away from him. “What’s it matter to you? You’re leaving anyway, remember?”

“I’m sorry,” he says, and lets go of her, sitting in a chair. He looks up at her, shaking his head slowly.

  “I’m sorry,” he says again. “You’re right.”

— like he can pretend he cares? the Voice says.

“Why do you have to be like that?” she asks, pulling at her hair and hitting herself on the head.

I’ve lost her, he thinks to himself; she’s going mad right in front of me.

“Who was on the phone?” he asks again, reaching out and grabbing her hand.

“It was the bank — ” she begins to say.

— I told you not to tell him! It doesn’t concern him, the Voice says to her.

“Leave me alone!” she screams out suddenly, and the anger, fear, and frustration echoing in her plaintive wail. She pulls away from him.

“Stop it, goddamn you! Just stop it!” Dan says, standing up again and turning her around to face him, shaking her roughly. “Can’t you see what you’re you doing to me?” he asks, looking at her. “How much do you think a man can take? I never know if you’re talking to me, or those goddamn voices in your head!”

“It was the bank,” she says harshly, spitting the words out with a venom that makes him release her and take a step back. “They want the farm. They want everything. Is that what you want to hear? There wasn’t three month’s worth of money in the bank — and what was left, the hospital bills ate up. We’re more than three months behind. They’re foreclosing.”

“Foreclosing? But what about the insurance?” Dan asks, too stunned to think of anything else.

“I don’t know," she says weakly, sinking into a chair. She looks up at him and tries to smile.

He sees tears in her eyes and tells himself it doesn’t matter now. There’s nothing more he can do; this isn’t his problem.

“How long before they take over?” he asks at last.

“They’re putting it up for auction in three months. I have to be out in two,” she says softly.

“And Gerald?”

“What about him?”

“What’re you going to do with him?”

“What do you care? You’re leaving. You just said you were leaving — ”

— and good riddance to him too, I say, the Voice tells her.

“I can’t leave like this,” he says slowly, feeling the guilt gnaw at his soul. He reaches a hand out across the table to her.

—oh yeah, now he gives you his pity, the Voice says. You don’t need his pity, do you?

She shakes her head, drawing her hand away from him.

“You better just leave, Dan,” she says with a petty tone. “Everything’ll work out for the best. We'll be fine.”

— yes, we'll be real fine...the Voice echoes softly.

*

Dan tries to tell himself there’s nothing more he can do. He can take Agnes with him, he supposes, and they might stay together for a while too, but like every other woman he’s ever known in the past, he’ll tire of her eventually. But that doesn’t answer the question of what to do about Gerald.

He shifts the knapsack to his shoulders, feeling the chill of the wind bite into him as he moves it, and pulls his collar up as best he can. His hands are numb from the cold, and he crams them into his pockets. His feet ache because his boots are covered in snow, and the cuffs of his pants are frozen solid. His thighs are cold because of the holes in his pants, and he wonders if he can get any colder. I should’ve dressed warmer, he tells himself. What was I thinking?

He’s afraid that he’s all ready missed Ferguson the mail man, when he sees the blue and white Jeep in the distance. Dan’s almost at the road when he runs and waves the man down.

“You’re staying out at the dePaul place, ain’t you?” Ferguson asks, after he throws the door open and waits for Dan to settle in. The C.B. crackles loudly, and Ferguson turns it down.

“I was,” Dan smiles. “I was just supposed to be there for the summer. Got a little side-tracked I guess,” he laughs, blowing on his hands and holding them on the Jeep’s heater vent.

“It’s terrible about what happened to Gerald, ain’t it?”

“Tragic.”

“And Agnes? How’s she coping?" he asks carefully.

Dan sits silently, looking at the old man curiously.

“I don't mean nothing by it,” he says. “It’s just that it must be hard for her — crippled up like she is — to take care of a man like that. My wife buys her cider, but there weren’t none this year.”

Ferguson has the face of a man who has spent most of his life outside; the heavy tracks and lines that would be wrinkles on anyone else, look like they’re carved into the light granite of his rough face. He has a friendly smile though, warm and inviting, and Dan wonders what the man is implying — or if he’s implying anything at all.

“He can be something of a burden, if that’s what you mean,” Dan says, sitting back and letting the warmth of the cab surround him. He can hear the C.B. crackling softly, the voice distant and too familiar.

“An ornery son of a bitch, you mean,” Ferguson laughs. "Just like his ole man was — drove his wife off with his surly nature, the ole man did. I s’pose that’s why Gerald took hisself a wife what couldn’t walk right. You a vet?” he asks.

“What?"

“A vet? You look like a vet.”

“Yeah. I did two tours in Nam.”

“Me too. South Pacific. Three years in a little piss-pot boat in the middle of the ocean. Supply ship. Never saw any action though, but lots of it on shore, if ya know what I mean?” he grins.

“Yeah,” Dan smiles. “That’s a nice way to spend a war. You were lucky.”

“Yeah, I guess I was,” Ferguson nods. “I just got me two more deliveries on this road, and then it’s back to town if that’s all right with you?”

“Fine. How’s the bus schedule?"

“There’s a depot on the far side of town. You want me to drop you there?”

“That’ll be great. Thanks.”

*

Agnes stands at the bedroom window, watching Dan walk across the field. She can almost imagine hearing the crunch of snow under his feet as he high-steps his way across the open fields. But the sound is muffled by the fresh snow, and it seems dull and empty. He takes his steps carefully, each one well thought out; it wouldn’t do to trip and fall now, she thinks to herself. His breath hangs about his face like a wreath.

The distant hills are covered with snow, like everything else for as far as she can see, and the thick grey clouds of the morning’s snowfall still hang low in the sky. Dan’s stark, solitary figure drifts into the brilliant haze of white, and she imagines him as a painting.

— the last one of a series, the Voice says.

“An unfinished series,” she tells it.

— and what do we do now? Where do we go?

“I’m not going anywhere. I’m here to stay. They can’t make me leave. What do they expect me to do, drag Gerald all across the country looking for a place to store him?”

“Vinnie! Vinnie!”

She hears Gerald calling from the next room, banging a tin cup he has on the side of the night stand — like a prisoner in one of those movies, she tells the Voice.

— why does he do that! the Voice said.

“Because he’s alone — we’re alone.”

“Yes Gerald?” she asks, limping into the room slowly, standing close to the door.

“I ‘eard the door slammin’ downstairs. Did ya sen’ Dan out to get more firewood? It’s gettin’ cold in ‘ere. When’s the last time you stoked the fire?”

“Do you want another blanket?”

— maybe a tarp? she hears the Voice ask her.

She smiles: “Even a tarp’s not big enough."

“Will ya stop that goddamned talkin’ to yerself!” he screams, throwing the tin cup and hitting her with it.

“I’m sorry. I didn’t realize I was talking out loud,” she says softly, suddenly afraid of him now that Dan’s gone.

“What d’ya mean, ya don’t realize it? ‘ave ya finally gone over the edge?" Gerald asks.

“Over the edge?” she smiles strangely. “Yes. I like that Gerald.” She bends down and picks up the cup, looking at it for a moment too long. “You’d better hope for your sake that I haven’t.”

"Just what the ‘ell’s that s’posed to mean?" he asks cautiously. “Anyway, I want somethin’ to eat. Are ya gonna make me lunch, or not?"

“I’ll get right on it,” she says, tossing the cup back to him. “A last meal of sorts, so to say. But you might want to keep that so you can call me for your dinner later,” she says, and begins to close the door.

“What the ‘ell are ya talkin’ ‘bout?” he screams at her, and she pauses. “What d’ya mean, ye’ll get right on it? Send Dan up ‘ere when ‘e gets back.”

“He’s not coming back,” she says, a trace of sadness in her voice.

“He’s not? Why not?”

“He’s gone. He left. I sent him away,” she adds, leaning against the door frame.

“Ya what?"

“I sent him away.”

“Why’d ya do a damn fool thing like that for? Jesus H. Christ, Vinnie! ‘ow can ya be so goddamned stupid? We needed ‘im!”

“Did we?”

“Unless there’s been a goddamned miracle I don’t know about, an’ ya can suddenly chop wood? Can ya milk the cows without it takin’ a hour? Can ya do anythin’? Jesus! Ya stupid bitch!” He slaps his hand down on the mattress and it makes a dull thud as dust motes float in the soft light.

“We won’t need him anymore — not after today, anyway. Besides, all he wanted me for was sex. I guess he got tired of that too,” she adds, pulling the door closed.

“Goddamn ya! Couldn’t ya even do that right?” she hears Gerald scream at her through the door. “All ya ‘ad to do was lay down an’ pretend ya liked it.”

She walks down the stairs carefully, going into her studio. She looks at the wall paper near the top of the wall — dancing cherubs and heavenly clouds with a faded blue sky — and suddenly it looks old and withered. It’s falling down at one of the seams near the ceiling. She remembers putting it up fifteen years ago —

— sixteen years ago, the Voice tells her.

— i can't believe you missed his birthday last week.

“His birthday?” she cries weakly, tears coming to her eyes as she thinks about it. “How could I forget? The only chance at happiness in my life, and I forgot it?”

She tries to remember what he looked like in her mind’s eye, but the portrait she painted of him there as a child is gone, like a misplaced ring.

“Didn’t I paint him?” she asks herself.

— no. You said you wanted to keep him in your head. You said you didn’t want to share him with anyone.

“Don’t tell me that!”

She’s frantic, and begins pulling paintings out, looking for the portrait she’s certain she painted years ago. Her breath comes in gasps as she calls his name, as if it’s a game they play and he’s hiding in the room somewhere. She begins searching the obscure faces of apple pickers in paintings she hasn’t looked at in years, hoping maybe she’ll recognize his soft blue eyes staring out at her from somewhere. She desperately throws each painting aside, stepping on them and dragging them behind her as she tosses them about the room. She knocks the easel down, and her latest painting falls to the floor. She kicks it viciously.

“I can’t remember what he looked like,” she says, looking at the torn canvas.

— he’s gone, Agnes.

“How could I have let it happen?” she asks herself, her voice weak and distant.

— you didn't. He was taken from you.

“But why?” she asks painfully, sinking to the floor.

— dan.

“Don’t you tell me that!”

She says it with a venomous hiss, putting her hands to her ears like she’s trying to stop up the noise inside her head. She starts hitting herself, as if maybe she can chase the Voice out of her head, and maybe her life too.

— dan took him when he left. Just like he took you away from me, the Voice says, and there’s a biting malevolence to it.

—every night — a little piece at a time. Why do you think I couldn’t talk to you? He wouldn’t let me.

“You’re lying! I loved him!” she cries out.

— you can’t love anyone! the Voice shoots back.

“Why are you tormenting me?” she wails, trying to bury her head deeper in her hands.

— because you didn’t love him. You don’t even know what love is! Who told you you can love someone else?

“Why are you saying this to me?” she whines softly.

— gerald’s right. You’re not even a good slut; you couldn’t even hold on to him.

“No,” she says, and the word comes out in a long, staccato sob. “Leave me alone!” she screams.

— why? Do you want to get rid of me too, Agnes? Like Dan? Who else will want you? Gerald? Face it. I'll be with you until you’re in your grave.

“Maybe that’s not such a bad idea?” she says with a smile.

— what’s that supposed to mean?

“I guess you win,” she says with another smile and makes her way down to the basement.

*

The smoke in the distance looks like a dirty smear on the white horizon. Ferguson sees it first — a thin tendril of black smoke that darkens the sky as they watch it, like a pencil line drawn on clean, white paper.

“A fire at this time of the year’s a death sentence,” he tells Dan. “There’s no guarantee the fire trucks’ll make it out here. It looks like it's comin' from the dePaul place.” He reaches for the C.B. and calls the fire department. “I hope we can get there before it’s too late.”

When they arrive, the house is engulfed in flames; the top floor is ready to fall in on itself. Dan hears the sound of Gerald’s tin cup banging against the onrush of flames. The snow is melting around the house, turning the dirt into mud, and the boards are crackling and popping loudly as the sound of the cup fades.

Ferguson looks at Dan and sees tears in his eyes.

“Do you think she was planning this all along?” Dan asks the old man. “I mean, maybe she told me to leave because she’d all ready given up trying?”

“Don’t try second guessin’ yerself son,” the old man says, putting a hand on Dan’s shoulder. “What kind of life d’ya think ya coulda had with those two, anyway? That’s no life for a man to live,” he says, shaking his head. “Sometimes, walkin’ away’s the best ya can do.”

“I wish it was as easy as that,” Dan says softly.