Anteaters Don't Dream and Other Stories

Our Lady of Sorrows

Our Lady of Sorrows PETER ALWAYS TOLD PEOPLE that Adelle was his best friend. He flattered himself that he had mastered her seasons, knew when to press forward, when to hold back.For nearlytenyears, the rhythms between them had been easy, almost automatic. Friends said they'd evencometo look alike,both tall and blond, both prone to tight, quizzical knots between their brows when they stared into the sun or posed for pictures. They liked the same movies,laughed at the samejokes,and with the exception of turnips (which she loved, but which he thought tasted like shredded construction paper), enjoyed the same foods. For the first time, though, there was a difference, a divide Peter couldn't cross. Suffering is supposed to bring couples close, he'd heard, yet he had never felt so alone. He knewit was uncharitable, selfish even, to complain. Not that it would have done any good if he had. Everything he did or said was overwhelmed , rendered irrelevant by his wife's anguish. He mourned their daughter too, yet his was a manageable, private grief, not like Adelle's brimming misery. Sometimes, 175 when she looked at him, Peter thought of the Virgin Mary,the statues where her woman's heart has forced itself through her clothes, her unmatched love swollen into an external organ pinned to her breast like a medal. "Let's take a trip," he'd suggested a month after Tammy's funeral. His wife's silence and the ridges under her eyes frightened him. Her large, intelligent features had acquired a pinched, mannish quality, a chiseled agelessnesshe hardly recognized . "Youneed time," he offered, "time away." From her alien face, Adelle's suffering eyes rebuked him. You want business as usual they seemed to say.But shewas only six. She was eaten alive. Nothing will ever be usual again. Hebought tickets to Sanibel,off the Florida coast. He rented a small villa with akitchenette and its own shell-strewn beach. The days there were soft and buttery, but the nights were the same as they had been in NewYork: no matter how many pills Adelle took or how long she soaked in the tub before bed, no matter which comforting books she read before falling asleep, the dream still came. Each night, Adelle was back at the zoo. Each night, she woke screaming, told him about the peacocks' raucous, ugly calls. About hearing Tammy's sugary invitation, "Kitty, kitty." But her dream was worse than real life, Adelle explained, sobbing . Becausein real life they had both had their backs to the leopard's cage, neither had noticed their daughter stretching her arms toward the big cat. But in the dream, Adelle said, she saw everything unfold as if Tammy's death were a movie and shewerethe camera."Here, kitty."Bodiless,voiceless,she could OUR LADY OF SORROWS 176 only stare into their little girl's eyes,watchasTammysmiled her most seductive smile, then stuck one hand through the bars. "Here,kitty,kitty!" Peter, whose nights were dreamless and too short, remembered only that it was over by the time he'd turned around. Tammy's yellowtights were upended, her arm pulled through the cage. She had never even cried out.All he'd heard was Adelle's wail,high and hard asa siren, not like ahuman voiceat all. Taaaaammmmmy.She had howled their daughter's name as if she'd been screaming it all her life, as if someone had just released a valve and now the sound had finally escaped. Taaaaammmmmy. He had tried to pry Tammyaway from the cat. Bythe time the guards arrived, he'dthrown his chest against the bars and was pulling her by the ankles. But he stopped when he saw the dark rush of blood. It jetted from her small body, staining the yellowtights, covering his hands. He recalled looking helplessly at the two men,then being swamped with a brainless guilt, wondering if he had pulled Tammy too hard, if he had torn something insideher. When they returned from Sanibel, Peter gave Adelle codeine-laced sleeping pills prescribed by a doctor. Round and thin-skinned as beans, inscribed with tiny numbers he couldn't read, the pills worked too well.TheymadeAdellesleep so soundly, so unrelentingly,that she had the dream over and over. Instead of waking up crying, the sweat pouring off her neck and shoulders, she was trapped in the replay of...