Dividing Earth, a novel.
by Troy Stoops.
Prologue.
A Dream, a Memory: 1972.
The boy didn"t have to be locked in the car long to notice the heat.
Sweat beaded on his brow, ran down his cheeks, gathered in his hair. "Don"t move," his mother had told him. "I"ll be right back." Then she"d rolled up the windows, shoved down the locks, and slammed her door. How long had it been? He felt dull. Thoughts moved over him like slow waves.
He climbed over the gearshift and sat on his knees in his mother"s seat, reaching for the steering wheel. His heart raced. She"d never told him not to, but he knew. He glanced around cautiously, but seeing only the sun he turned away, remembering his mother"s admonition about staring into it.
He looked out the window at what she"d called a church. It looked like no church he"d ever seen. There wasn"t a cross in sight; neither was there a message board. The structure"s lone distinctness, aside from its scale, was the garland of colorful banners that hung from the roof, banners that reminded him of the cards his mother sometimes dealt to herself when she sat at the kitchen table. Tarot cards, his father had called them.
The church stood white against a sky that had been blue when they"d first arrived, but was now stained by the red-orange wake of the sun. Stick pines loomed over the earth. The ground was soft clay, here and there mounded by fire ants.
His mother had disappeared inside some time ago.
The boy unlocked the door, then started to pull down the handle. He looked around at the street, saw nothing. After a moment he yanked down the handle and pushed on the door with everything he had. It popped open and he spilled onto the ground. Unfazed, he ground his fists into the earth and took to his feet.
Standing outside the church, a man faced him, his silvery beard whipping in the wind. The man stared his way. His face was a shadow.
Then the church"s tall doors sc.r.a.ped the slab of cement beneath them. The boy chanced a look while keeping an eye on the man. A group of old, nearly infirm folk shuffled down the steps. Once on the sidewalk, they all wound around the strange man-though not one of them looked up at him-trudging away in single file. They were silent. Only the wind spoke through the trees. The boy watched, hoping to see his mother"s burgundy skirt, her old green sweater, but only made out silver and gray hair, freckled pates, and uneasy, stiff legs. In moments even the sounds of their pa.s.sage, so quiet he"d imagined them silent, ceased.
The man stared at the boy a moment longer, then abruptly turned, glancing back before shambling off. The boy sighed, realizing he"d been holding his breath.
Then his mother appeared.
She was nude. Sores blotched what had been beautiful skin. Though she looked his way, her eyes appeared unfocused. After descending the steps, she stumbled toward him. The boy backed up. The fine hair on his arms bristled, and he felt as though he should hide his eyes. But she didn"t seem to be looking at him; rather, she was looking his way, but not seeing him. Her eyes were gla.s.sy.
But there was something else, something that made him stumble back. He c.o.c.ked his head like a puppy, seeing it but not comprehending it. A glow surrounded her, an undefined light that looked like heat waves roiling off a summer road. It seemed to bend the air around her. She shimmered, distorted. He could no longer make out any part of her clearly-her faced looked as if it was trapped in a convex mirror, and her body wavered in and out of distinction.
She shuffled forward, staring into the distance behind him.
He turned, but saw nothing.
She reached out, but seized only air. "Oh my G.o.d," she whispered, her eyes enraptured. A weak smile came over her as she focused on whatever it was she saw. "It"s beautiful," she said, clawing through the air.
"Mama?" A tear rolled down his face, resting on his jaw like a pearl before dropping to the ground. "Mama!"
Until now the haziness around her had had the formlessness of a cloud, but as the mist began to evaporate, the light surrounding her grew more concentrated. The soft pastels that had been weaving around her began to coalesce, merging until there was only one shade, a sharp magenta. This color pulsed, slithering over her now translucent form. She was brighter now, white as light, and he called her again but she only stared into the nothingness, grinning stupidly, raising her hands and whispering, "Oh son, follow me, you won"t believe it . . ."
And then the brightness exploded, rays of it piercing her through, engulfing her. It was blinding. His mother began to fade.
"Mama!" he shrieked, reaching out.
Light. It shot through the day. For a moment creation was aflame. The boy fell to a ground he could no longer see, threw his arms up to protect his eyes from a light that would leave no ghostly after-burn, a light that would surely blind. The world was deafening silence and blinding light. Then nothing. The boy heard himself breathing, felt his heart thudding away. He lowered his arms, opened his eyes. The world existed as it had before-the church stood, its banners flapped in the wind, and the heavens encircled the earth. Only one thing had changed. The boy rolled over, stood, then turned to where he"d last seen her, halfway expecting her to have reappeared. She hadn"t.
The boy felt blank, hollow just standing there, his hands rigid by his hips as the world faded around him, the sun a wound on the flesh of the sky. When he tired of standing, he sat in the dirt, leaned against a rear tire, and watched an army of ants marching toward an ant hill, crumbs on their back like treasure.
The sun set, and six hours pa.s.sed before his father and the police found him. By midnight he was at home and in bed, and his father sat on the edge of his bed with him. For a long time they stared into each other"s eyes, the boy"s wide, the father"s filled with tears. The boy had told his father what had happened, then told him again when he"d caught his father nodding but not listening. Before this silence, he"d told him five times. When his father opened his mouth to speak, the boy knew the truth had been there between them, pulsing in the silence.
Then his father, his eyes still br.i.m.m.i.n.g with tears, his mouth trembling, told him that his mother had been very sick and that she must have crawled somewhere to die, and that they would find her soon. He told the boy that what he"d seen had not been real, that he"d dreamt the whole thing. He looked away after saying it, and the boy shook his head, laid back, and shut his eyes. Only a dream, he thought, wanting very much to believe it.
Part One: Cancer.
"Its funny how, when you look back on disasters and love affairs, things seem to line up, like planets on an astrologer"s chart."
-From a Buick 8, Stephen King.
Chapter One: Robert.
1.
It took weeks for Robert Lieber to recall the nightmare fully, and drag it back up into the daytime world. But this morning, when the phone rang and woke him, he remembered only an image-a nude emaciated woman, her flesh like wax paper in the setting sun, stumbling toward him, her hands outstretched. There was more, there was always more, but it seemed he could only bring back single image. Sometimes it was the woman; sometimes the strange beach, the sky above it a whirl of pastels.
Robert bolted upright in bed, at first unsure if he was being awakened by the phone or his dream. This startled his wife, Veronica, out of her sleep as well. "s.h.i.t," he mumbled. Another minute and he might have had it. He found the phone under the bed, brought it to his ear and clicked the b.u.t.ton. "What."
"Mister Lieber?"
Solicitors at nine on a Sat.u.r.day morning? "Far as you know. Why?"
"This is Anthony Hicks from Auto South. We haven"t received the car payment yet, and you promised us last month you"d be getting back on track-"
"Hang on, sport. We didn"t speak last month."
"Uh, well," Hicks said, pecking away on his keyboard. "We spoke with your wife."
Veronica tapped him on the shoulder, asking him who it was. Robert lifted a finger, but not the one he wanted to. "So it was late last month as well?"
She winced.
"Yes. When are you going to bring this account current?"
"Tell you what-was it Anthony?"
"Yes, Hicks."
"Tell you what Anthony Hicks, I"ll speak with my wife and she"ll call you right back."
"Fine," said Anthony, his glaze of courtesy waning. The line went dead.
A tense silence followed, the she asked, "Who was that?"
"That, my dear, was Anthony Hicks, your friendly neighborhood Auto South phone jockey. Just a minor detail, he"d like the payment that"s about twelve days late. Do you know anything about that, Love m.u.f.fin?"
"I wish you wouldn"t speak to me that way."
"I wish you wouldn"t charge up the cards and forget to pay the bills, but I suppose we can"t have everything we want."
Veronica stared at him a moment, then snapped into action. She tore off her covers, insinuated herself into the nightgown she kept handy over a lampshade, and then stomped from the room like a tantrumy toddler, but not before muttering, "a.s.shole," twice for good measure.
"I hope your next stop is at the desk of one Anthony Hicks, my little love box!" he called after her, electing not to chase her down. He slumped back into his pillows. Only moments into this new day, he felt spent. After gazing around at nothing much, he crept out from under the covers and shuffled into the bathroom. A s.h.i.t, shower, and shave later, he climbed into yesterday"s clothes, which were draped over his bedside chair. Then, while combing his thinning hair before the vanity, he realized what today was. "Perfect," he said to his reflection. "f.u.c.king perfect."
On Sat.u.r.day morning, Simola Straight"s historic Main Street was at a predictable low tide. A knot of shoppers ambled from Brady"s Antiques, bags extensions of their hands. They made their way toward the homemade ice cream stand that sat at the edge of the town square, next to carts whose owners peddled plastic jewels and aluminum watches with high-pitched barks. Four old men, their bodies in various stages of disarray, stood in a semicircle at the mouth of the alley between their shops, their eyes on the meandering traffic as they b.i.t.c.hed about what they b.i.t.c.hed about every Sat.u.r.day morning-not enough bodies, and those that had come had seemingly left their wallets at home.
Robert, his eyes first on the shop owners, then on the iron clock in the center of the commons, easily navigated the spa.r.s.e groupings of shoppers. He loved this city, had lived here all his life, but hated that city planners were trying so hard to make it trendy instead of nostalgic. In a world of sprawl and prepackaged suburban villages, Simola Straight had a little flavor, which was, in his mind, all it took to lure tourists away from the traps and to the waterfront.
Veering left, he pa.s.sed the library and crossed the street toward The House of Socrates, downtown"s coffeehouse-bookstore. The robust scent of Vermont Maplenut coffee drifted out of the front doors as he pulled them open. The air conditioning rustled his hair, and sweat he"d been unaware of began to dry on his face.
Dan, the owner, inhabited the couch. All of it. End to end, unapologetically. A copy of Man"s Search for Meaning rested on his gut. Robert saluted, cracking a grin. Sometimes it seemed to Robert that the world was designed by a corporate lawyer with a cookie cutter, but not when he was around Dan, who showed up most mornings later than his sign said he would, didn"t spend his free time glazing his biceps and pectorals with sweat, and believed that people could be divided into two distinct groups-those who wore socks and those who didn"t. Dan belonged to the latter, smoked three packs a day, drank merlot on the job, and said whatever needed saying. If Robert had been gay, he would have looked no further.
"You carry cards, don"t you?" asked Robert.
Dan"s blue eyes edged over the book. "I might. As soon as I find meaning, I"ll find you an anniversary card."
Robert grinned, crossed his arms over his chest. "I"ll wait," he said, evading all the books stacked on the floor as he made his way down the first aisle. This was what he loved about this place-the bookshelves were homemade, they weren"t sanded down and weren"t placed in neat and perfunctory rows. And Dan hadn"t allowed mere genres to order his books-ATTACK OF THE GIANT B-BOOKS marked anything written by Strieber, Straub or Rowling; BOOKS THAT CHANGED THE WORLD labeled certain literature (editions sure to bring an antiquarian bookseller to tears held prominent places here); and for other, stranger literature-BOOKS WRITTEN WHILE THEIR AUTHORS WERE DRUGGED, HIGH, OR HIGHLY DEPRESSED. These he arranged according to industry gossip concerning the authors.
The sweet and cinnamony coffee aroma floated by and Robert"s stomach knotted. He wasn"t sure if he was coming down with something, but he"d been feeling generally s.h.i.tty. He only hoped it was a general malaise. Specificity frightened him.
Dan wheezed and clambered to his feet. "How many years?"
"Eight," he answered, still guessing at his possible malfunction. Robert, a raging hypochondriac, forever had his inner dipstick stuck.
"Congratulations, you"ve pa.s.sed the itch," said Dan, reaching behind his register. His hand reappeared with an envelope. "This should do," he said, his eyes phosph.o.r.escent now. Whenever excited, Dan"s eyes turned as stunningly clear as Caribbean water.
The card, bordered by frills and lace, showcased an uncanny portrait of his wife, and at the bottom was this inscription: "To my wife, my lover, and my best friend-Veronica."
"Like it?"
"Perfect," said Robert. "Engrave it on a marble slab."
Dan paused, eyeing him. "What"s wrong?"
Robert chuckled, looked away. "Nothing high-priced behavior modification or a double-edged knife couldn"t fix." He waved, turning to leave, then hesitated, catching the owner"s eye. "Thanks, Dan. I mean it."
"Don"t get gushy," said Dan, tipping an imaginary hat.
After stopping at a florist, Robert phoned a restaurant for reservations, then came home. He parked beside his wife"s car, thinking, And she"s late on the payments again. Not once, not twice, just again.
He gathered up his briefcase, a vase overflowing with tulips, and kneed the door open. Before climbing out, he stopped to stare at his house. It wasn"t fancy; it needed a new roof and plumbing, and stood as further proof of his inadequacy.
Four years ago, the place Veronica had fallen for (twenty-four hundred square feet and a pool, all inside the Straight"s gated golfing community) had proven beyond their means on account of a promotion he"d failed to land. They"d been forced to settle on a house she"d dismissed as a "G.o.dd.a.m.n starter-pile of bricks," a meager fourteen-hundred square feet and pool-less. So embarra.s.sed, she hadn"t held an open house for nearly a year.
Robert had found himself at a loss. During their renting years, she"d argued that they were throwing their money away, but once they became home owners, all she spoke and dreamed of was a better place. She"d wanted a house, had gotten a house, but not the house.
With full hands, Robert made it to the front stoop. The door cracked but he couldn"t see anyone over the stalk of flowers.
"Daddy!" a voice cried out. His little girl, Jenn, tackled his leg.
"Watch out, sweetie, Daddy might fall."
Jenn giggled and squeezed harder.
"Where"s Mommy?"
"Makeup. She said that if you didn"t remember, she"s taking me to Miami!"
"Does it look like I remembered?"
"Yup!" she said, giggling her giggle again: two short bursts, like brays, followed by a big one.
She helped him inside. Once his arms were empty, she tackled his leg again. "Daddy! Wanna see what I did?" Starting for the stairs, Jenn noticed that he hadn"t budged, and ran back. She grabbed his hand with both of hers and tugged him, hard as she could, toward the staircase.
At the top of the stairs, she let go and he slid his hands into his pockets, strolling into her room. He and Vern had been bugging her for a year now to pick up, to keep it tidy, and here it was. She"d tucked her comforter under her pillows, and it lay symmetrically over the bedside; her Barbies, normally strewn about her room, were closely arranged on the toy chest, and in the closet she"d paired up all her shoes.
Jenn nodded, gazing up at him, beaming. He bent down, placed a hand on her shoulder. "This is fantastic," he told her, running two fingers through her bangs.
She smiled, rushing into his arms. "Happy "versary, Daddy!" She slapped her hands on his cheeks, planted a kiss, then jumped on her bed, her pigtails bouncing.
"You"ll be good for Lauren tonight?"
"I"m always good," she said.
Veronica"s fingers curled over his shoulders. He stiffened. "Happy anniversary," she said.