Puddles

A reminder of the rain.

1544240 

 

 

“He loved puddles, you know?” Kurt Scheyer said, looking out the window, focusing on the rain drops tapping against it. “Whenever it rained, he’d be glued to that front window, staring at that spot in the driveway where the big puddle formed. When the rain stopped, he’d come running to me to take him out there. He would laugh so much once he hit that puddle, and jump up and down trying to make as big a splash as possible.”

Kurt adjusted himself on the couch, straightening his pants, which had started to climb up his shirt. He looked around the therapist’s office, at the three degrees framed above the bookshelf that held all sorts of psychology on it, at the ceramic lamp next to him, turned off to let the daylight slant in through the slat blinds, at the mahogany desk in front of him, spotless, polished, almost unreal. The man sitting behind it, Dr. Luven, his therapist, was leaning back in his leather office chair, writing PUDDLES down in his notebook with the sparkling silver pen that had been a gift from a former patient.

Dr. Luven specialized in couples therapy, and Kurt had originally been part of a couple, but they had decided, on Dr. Luven’s recommendation, to do split sessions, because Marie had trouble keeping her voice down in the joint sessions.

“What else did Jeremy like, Kurt?” Dr. Luven asked in his peculiar monotone.

“I never noticed those before,” Kurt said, pointing to three framed copies of Time Magazine all next to each other, all level and exactly three inches apart. In one, from 1994 and the Bosnian War, a man had a desperate look as he clung to an injured child. Another was from 2000, with a picture of George Bush and Al Gore’s heads merged into one. The final one, from 2003, had Bush raising his arms in triumph below the headline “Mission Accomplished!” written in huge, black, bold typeface.

“Well, I like to be reminded of historic moments in American history,” Dr. Luven explained.

            “I voted for Gore,” Kurt said.

            “What did Jeremy like, Kurt?” Dr. Luven asked again.

            Kurt tilted his head slightly up, like he was looking just below the crack where the wall and ceiling meet. He had been tilting his head like that since he was a child and saw his father do it. On his first date with Marie, back in freshman year at FAU, he had done it when she asked him what he wanted to do with his life. She had thought it cute, then, but when he did it a few nights ago, she snapped at him. “Look at me when I’m talking to you Kurt,” she said, going on to accuse him of not listening to her anymore.

            “He liked the airplane,” Kurt said.

            “And what is the airplane?”

            “I’d pick him up and wave him around, and he’d put his arms out like an airplane,” Kurt said, smiling. “And he liked being thrown around in the pool. We’d call it launching—he’d put his feet on my knees and I’d throw him and he would just scream as he was flying through the air.”

            “And what was going through your head when he was in the air?”

            “He liked lying in the grass, too, in the front yard,” Kurt continued. “The sun would be shining straight down on him and he would close his eyes and zone out while I mowed the lawn or trimmed the bushes.”

            Dr. Luven began scribbling again, occasionally looking up at Kurt, who was staring at the rain. “He was always laughing, that kid,” Kurt said. “Always laughing. Laughed just like his mother. Sometimes I didn’t know who it was that was laughing. You know I heard Marie laugh for the first time since it happened, a couple days ago?”

            “How did you feel when she laughed?”

            “Just a chuckle, really. Something stupid on TV. It tells me she’s getting past it, though. You must be getting through to her, Doctor.”

            Dr. Luven smiled. “Maybe,” he said.

            “What’s she saying to you anyway?” Kurt asked.

            “You know I can’t tell you that, Kurt.”

            “Right, right. Doctor-patient confidentiality. I think she’s getting over it, though.”

            “It has been a year,” Dr. Luven observed.

            Kurt stared at Dr. Luven for a moment. “You know,” he said, looking away, “I’m pretty sure she’s having an affair.”

Dr. Luven coughed as if he was clearing his throat and stopped writing. “What makes you think that?”

            Kurt laughed, a short, scoffing type of laugh that caused Dr. Luven to twitch slightly. “She laughed didn’t she? And I’m sure as hell not the reason. To tell you the truth, I’ve been completely ignoring her. Just hasn’t been the same.”

            “Maybe she is just trying to break the tension,” Dr. Luven said.

            Kurt considered this, tilting his head. “Maybe,” he said. “But she’s been avoiding eye contact, too. And leaving at times that she didn’t used to and making excuses that she’s never made.”

            “She might be trying to hide her grief from you, Kurt.”

            “Like before right? When she was screaming in my face all day? No, this is different,” Kurt said. “Doesn’t even matter, though. I don’t even care. As long as this guy, whoever he is, is making her feel better, then so be it.”

            Dr. Luven sat up straight in his chair, placing the notebook on the desk and looking at Kurt’s chin. The office was quiet except for a secondhand that was clicking away on an old-style clock by the door and the rain that was pounding the shingled roof. It was just 2:25, but the room was getting darker, the storm outside placing its grip on Ft. Lauderdale and squeezing tight. The rain was coming down in sheets, reminding Kurt of a bedspread or towel waving with the wind.

            “I do wonder what she is saying about me, though,” Kurt said.

            Dr. Luven shook his head. “I know you won’t tell me,” Kurt said, “but I just think it’s strange that the one person who she is supposed to confide in is actually the one person she’s trying to hide from.”

            “We tried the joint therapy, remember?”

            Kurt couldn’t forget. A mess of words was what it had been. Marie, mascara rolling down her cheeks from when she cried in the car, had accused Kurt of killing Jeremy. “You left the door open,” she said in between sobs. “You killed my son.”  He had tried to defend himself, denying leaving the door open, but she just raised her voice and said it again. Dr. Luven let the argument happen, probably thinking they were making progress, unaware that they had just had the same fight in the car, and at home, and the night before. He remembered her face more than anything, remembered the hate glowing in her eyes, remembered the little bits of spit hitting his neck, remembered the gold hoop earrings swinging with her words. “I can’t be here with him,” she had finally said.

            Before Jeremy, Kurt had loved Marie more than anyone else. He loved everything about her: the brown creeping up in her blonde hair, the way she snapped her fingers when she was in a good mood, the half smile working hard not to give way to a laugh when he flirted with her, the way she wrapped her legs around him when they watched TV, the warm breath flooding into his ear when they were together. He even enjoyed their fights, because he had told himself that he didn’t want the marriage to be too easy. They would scream at each other for hours—she would often storm away, trying to hit the ground hard with her feet so that it vibrated, but she would always come back to yell again, to make another point, to push him.

            That had been what he considered healthy. After Jeremy’s death, the intensity blew up—she’d scream at him for hours with no provocation, until her voice grew hoarse, and then she’d cry, and with red eyes and cheeks still wet from tears, ask for him to hold her, never apologizing. The last few months, though, she had begun to snap at everything he did—if he changed the channel, if he scraped his fork against the plate, if he rolled over in bed—she would criticize him. “Are you trying to annoy me?” she would ask, and whatever the answer, would launch into a list of faults. “It’s like you want me to hate you,” she would say in conclusion.

            “So you two haven’t been getting along at all?” Dr. Luven asked, pen poised.

            “You know you really don’t have a lot to look at in this office,” Kurt said.

            “That’s the point, Kurt. You’re supposed to focus on what you’re saying, and what you’re thinking.”

            “I can’t.”

            “You can’t what?”

            “I can’t focus. On anything,” Kurt said, shrugging his shoulders. “I see him everywhere. Especially when I look at her. Everything triggers a memory.”

            “That’s why you’re here, Kurt, to talk those memories out. Why don’t you tell me about the day Jeremy was born.”

            Kurt looked out the window again, at the cars struggling against the rain, and at the waves they caused as they drove through puddles.

            “Okay, let me think,” Kurt said, tilting his head. “I was at work at the time, crunching numbers at some small-town insurance firm. Marie goes into labor, and I get a call from her mother, who was staying with us. When I got to the hospital, Marie was in the middle of labor and her mom was with her. I tried to go in, but she doesn’t want me there.”     

            “Why not?” Dr. Luven asked.

            “I don’t really know. Maybe she was upset that I wasn’t there from the start. I’m thinking that might have been the beginning of the end, you know? Like that was the moment when our connection broke.”

            “Everything is fixable, Kurt,” Dr. Luven said, smiling.

            “Yeah, maybe. Maybe. Anyway, Jeremy comes out after about three hours. They finally let me in and there he is, shining in his mom’s arms, asleep. I guess all that pushing tired the little guy out.”           

            “What was going through your head at the time?”

            “I don’t think anything was. I think my brain was just overwhelmed with his face. It was a moment that is just wholly separate from any other moment. I felt really…alive, if that makes sense.”

            “So it was a good moment, then.”

            “Yeah. Yes. But it was the moment, I think, when me and Marie became just about Jeremy. We weren’t living for each other anymore, and I think that’s why we have what we have now.”

            “That’s good. Maybe now, you can take time to get to know each other again.”

            “No, Doctor. You don’t understand. I cannot concentrate on anything now. It’s weird, but there are even times when everything just seems way too bright. Like quick flashes of lightning where I can’t see anything.”

            “That sounds serious, Kurt. You should get that checked out.”

            “I should, shouldn’t I? But they’re just so damn interesting, those moments.”

            “The stress is probably getting to you,” Dr. Luven said.

            “I don’t think that’s what it is.”

            Kurt looked at Dr. Luven and knew he was writing all of it down. The rain was steady now, establishing a rhythm against the shingles. The storm dug in, blocking the sun. The sky was painted with gray; the buildings, the cars, the trees, the umbrellas—everything outside took on a gray hue. Even the office was descending into it.

            “Could you turn on that lamp, Kurt?” Dr. Luven asked.

            Kurt did what he asked, and his corner of the office lit up, but in the rest of the office, there was black now instead of gray.

            “Talk to me about Jeremy. Did he look like you?”

            Kurt smiled. “Actually, he had his mom’s face. Little button nose, smooth cheeks, blue eyes. Had my hair, though. Curly black—we let it grow out.”

            “What else?”

            “Kid had the greatest smile. No matter what, he had to show all his teeth. When he looked up at me after being tucked in, he’d smile, and I’ll never forget how he looked. Mischievous little runt, too. Always getting dirty or sandy, always knocking the plants over, always tugging on the tablecloth. He knew what he was doing. Like he was just messing with us.

            “Marie dressed him up in this little sailor’s suit one time, because she wanted to get a picture. I think all moms do that, it’s like they inherit those little sailor suits from somewhere, like it just magically appears in the closet. Anyway, she puts it on him and we’re walking to the car, and he just breaks away towards the front lawn. I had just re-sodded, so the dirt was still up there. He jumps into the grass and rolls around, laughing the whole time, occasionally looking at her. My god, she was pissed.”

            “Sounds like a nice memory,” Dr. Luven said.

            “Yeah, it was. But no more of that now, I guess.”

            Dr. Luven finished writing, and put the notebook down. He took off his glasses, wiped them against his shirt, just smudging them more, and looked at Kurt.

“We are going to try something a little different for the last part of this session,” he said.

            Kurt shrugged.

            “I want you to tell me, with as much detail as possible, what happened that day that Jeremy died. Set the scene for me.”

            Kurt turned his head and looked out the window. The rain had stopped, and cars were driving slowly through the flooded streets, trying not to get their brakes wet.

            “It was kind of like today,” Kurt began, looking down and noticing some discoloration on the gray carpet. “it was raining off and on, sometimes hard, sometimes steady, sometimes drizzling. Marie had asked me to hang a few pictures up in the living room, so I was making my way between the garage and living room with nails, a hammer, a level, and the pictures. I can’t even remember what those pictures were, probably some flowers or sailboats or some blurred impression of something. It was just the type of s**t that Marie loved to fill our house with. ‘Makes it look like home,’ she’d say, showing me all this crap on the computer before she spent all my money on it.

            “Jeremy was at the front window, pointing at the puddle, sometimes following the raindrops sliding down the window with his finger, laughing every once in a while. I’d tussle his hair every time I came in from the garage, and he’d say ‘Daddy, look,’ pointing at the puddle. I’d say, ‘I know son, as soon as it stops raining,’ before going back to the garage or the pictures.

            “Marie stayed in the living room, trying to level the pictures after I’d already done it. She’d say, ‘It still doesn’t look even,’ and proceed to tilt the picture to prove her point. It started to bother me a little bit, like she didn’t trust me. We’re married five years and you can’t trust me with a damn painting?”

            Kurt stopped, waiting for Dr. Luven’s response.

            “Some people really like to be in control, Kurt,” he said.

            Kurt shook his head, then tilted it, like he was trying to remember where he was.

            “Marie is leveling the pictures while Jeremy is looking out the window,” Dr. Luven said, reminding him.

            “I know, I’m just thinking about what’s coming next,” Kurt said. “I went in the garage I think to put all the stuff away and came back out. I saw Marie trying to level the picture and went into the living room, telling her she was just making things worse. I don’t think I left the door open, but I might have. He was tall enough to reach the handle, anyway. I don’t think I left it open.

            “While we’re arguing, Jeremy goes into the garage and somehow unscrews the top of the bottle of weed poison. He drank the poison, and I found him when I brought the level back into the garage.”         

            Kurt looked up at Dr. Luven. “Go on, Kurt,” Dr. Luven urged. “You’re almost there.”

            Kurt sighed, then continued. “He was lying face up and the bottle of poison was on its side next to him, spilling out, forming a puddle around him that was soaking the side of his shirt. I screamed something, probably like ‘S**t!’ or ‘Call 911!’ maybe, I don’t really remember.

            “I kneeled down and picked him up, holding him in my arms. I was squeezing him like that when Marie came in, saw and freaked out, screaming something, probably cursing. I heard her call 911, heard the pain and fear in her voice—it was hoarse, almost breaking with tears. It was a strange thing. I think it was the most sincere I’ve ever seen her in my life.

            “She came back into the garage and tried to grab Jeremy from me, but I wouldn’t let go. I don’t think she forgave me for that.

            “I’m rocking him back and forth, whispering something about if he’d just wake up we could go play because the rain had stopped, at least I couldn’t hear it anymore. All I can think about is the day he was born, how he looked, how Marie wouldn’t let me in at first. I knew it was over, though. The whole time I knew it was over, I knew he was gone, that we had lost him, but I just kept squeezing tight and—” Kurt stopped, looking down at the gray, at nothing.

            “And?”

            “I, uh, I remember, I whispered ‘Take me with you.’ I think that’s why I was squeezing so hard. Then something weird happened,” Kurt said.

            “What happened?”

            Kurt stroked his chin. “Do you believe in anything, Doctor?” he asked.

            “Why?”

            “Just wondering,” Kurt said.

            “I believe in relationships,” Dr. Luven said. “I believe in communicating.”

            “But nothing religious?”

            “I guess you could call me an agnostic. I’m pretty skeptical of any claim of ultimate knowledge.”

            “After I whispered ‘Take me with you’ to my dead son, I didn’t feel anything anymore.”

            “What do you mean?”

            “No pain. No grief. It was surreal.”

            “You must have gone in shock, Kurt,” Dr. Luven said.

            “I don’t think that’s what it was. I think I left with my son.”

            “What you said doesn’t make sense, Kurt. You’re sitting right here, with me.”

            “What I mean is, my soul, I know that’s a difficult word for you, but my soul was carried away by my son’s soul.”

            “So you think your life right now is with your son, wherever that may be?”

            “In that moment when he was born, that moment that I told you about, I think my soul wrapped itself around his. As he got older, it hugged tighter and tighter until the two just merged in that final moment. I was him, he was me, and all that’s left is a body and some memories.”

            “That’s quite serious, Kurt. You’re claiming some sort of disconnect between your mind and your body.”

            Kurt nodded, leaned back on the couch, folded his arms, and watched the little pellets of rain fall past the window.

            Dr. Luven looked at Kurt. There was no agitation or twitching, no fumbling nervously with his hands or a pen, no adjusting his shorts or his shirt, no frantic eye movement, no pleading voice—he saw a man firmly convinced of what he had just said. PERFECT INSANITY DRAWN FROM GRIEF was what he wrote down.

“Well, Kurt, we’re going to try to bring you back to life,” he said.

            “That’s like creating rain from a puddle,” Kurt said. “You can’t draw the cause from the effect.”

            “Are you saying you don’t want to get through this?”

            “I’m saying you can’t raise a dead man.”

            “Kurt, not…suicide?” Dr. Luven asked, leaning forward.

            “No. I’ll tell you something, though, Doctor,” Kurt said. “That moment, his death, was a perfect moment, just like his birth.”

            “Mr. Scheyer,” Dr. Luven said, unable to think of anything to add.

            “Listen, Doctor, thanks for trying, but you can’t help me,” Kurt said. He stood up and extended his hand to Dr. Luven.

“So you’re just going to carry that for the rest of your life?” Dr. Luven asked, taking his hand.

“I’m going to be patient, and wait for the time when that bright flash doesn’t fade.”

“But we can fix this. You can fix this.”

“What is there to fix?” Kurt said, nodding to Dr. Luven and walking out.

Dr. Luven walked around his desk and looked out the window. The rain had stopped, and Kurt was ambling down the street, hands in pockets, making a show of stepping over puddles.

            “We still had ten minutes,” Dr. Luven said, looking at the clock.

Author's Note

Dialogue and overall impression please

Reviews

[Gabriela]

She had thought it cute[, not so sure about this comma here]then, but when he did it a few nights ago, she snapped at him. "Look at me when I'm talking to you Kurt," she said, going on to accuse him of not listening to her anymore.

The last few months[, not sure about comma] though, she had begun to snap at everything he did-if he changed the channel, if he scraped his fork against the plate, if he rolled over in bed-she would criticize him.

I have to say that the dialogue is very concrete, sharp, and believable. I really liked it. Your descriptions, as usual, were perfect. I like how I can relate with Kurt's feelings because of the way that you wrote the story. Plus, the ending was unbelievably amazing. There was just something in it that screamed, I want more!
You know how I said that 'Little Bits of Soul' was my favorite? This one's my favorite now. You have progressed so much, congratulations! Good luck in your writing, I look forward for more.

[Eric]

I thought it was really good even though I don't usually like melancholy stories. The dialogue is really good too. I can pick up all of Kurt's feelings and his state of mind just through what he's saying. It's a very believable conversation.