KINETICS

1971

She woke at midnight.

A thin plane of light slashed through the curtains, dividing the darkness within. It fell lengthwise down the center of the bed, upright, with a sound like ripped fabric. Evelyn gasped.

The room, a cube of sheetrock, floated in space. Evelyn inclined her body, propped on both elbows. Arthur slept, fitful, beside her. His broad back glowed in the moonlight. It was good to have a doctor so close tonight, even a snoring one. Should the child she now carried begin to emerge, he would know what to do.

Evelyn lifted her legs, pivoted, dropped her feet to the floor. The soft carpet brushed her bare soles. Unsteady, she rose, arched her stiff back. Her dressing table stood against the wall. Bottles and cream pots, clots of bobby pins, cluttered its smooth top. The round mirror flashed in the dark.

Her husband had pleased her when he bought her the table, hauled it in, grinning, last August. Now, nine months later, she still got a flutter at the sight of it. She stepped forward, sighed, skimmed her hand on the surface. Her palm came up dusted with talcum. She examined it closely, fingers fanned out. A white handprint hovered before her.

She turned and cast her gaze into the mirror. She saw the room reversed within the frame. Another woman, young and pale, leaned gingerly forward, her nightgown taut around her belly. Luminous blue light bathed the surrounding walls. Her chiseled face stared out, unblinking. Evelyn’s hot breath steamed the polished glass.

At the center of her eye, down a black, narrow tunnel, she saw the same scene reproduced, tiny as a grain of salt. In the middle distance, streaks of color swirled and pulsed and sparkled.

Evelyn drew back. On the bed behind her, Arthur sighed and shifted.

One summer on Sullivans Island, along the sandy, golden shore, she’d chased a green wave, hissing, from the beach. Her father, watching, stood on a nearby dune. He held his arms outstretched and roared. Evelyn faced the surf, its relentless, crashing advance. Her little feet sank into the sand. She clenched her fists, looked out at the horizon. A wall of fire erupted from the water.

She blinked, turned, stepped away from the table. A perfume bottle glinted as she passed.

In the corner, veiled by shadow, Arthur’s pine canoe paddle leaned, its yellow blade streaked along the grain. A stripe of moonlight climbed the varnished shaft. She’d asked him not to leave it so, distressing her with clutter. But tonight it drew her forward, floating slow.

The bow of the canoe glided across the lake’s glassy surface. Evelyn, perched in a nest of pillows, watched the water curl. Arthur knelt, paddling, behind her. He expounded the finer points of feathering the J-stroke. Then a purple cloud crossed the sun’s face. Arthur hoisted an umbrella over Evelyn’s head, swung the boat toward the dock. As the storm began, pelting the umbrella’s hood and bringing the lake to a stippled boil, Arthur and Evelyn, sloshing in the hull, helpless with laughter, fought without success to beat the rain.

Evelyn lingered in the corner, knuckles grazing the paddle. Smiling, she vowed that tomorrow she would find a graceful way to hide it.

She moved toward the window, smoothing her nightgown over her belly. A beam in the wall settled and popped, muffled by sheetrock. Arthur stretched his arm onto her side of the bed, groped about, then subsided.

Evelyn stopped to rest against the cool, painted window frame. Her child stirred. A spell of dizziness overcame her, as though a deep chasm suddenly yawned at her feet. A cloud of sparks swam, twinkling, before her eyes.

Hung from a hook that supported the curtain sash, a silver locket, heart-shaped, brushed against her cheek. Startled, she gazed into its intricately etched surface.

That day in the Parthenon, as Arthur stepped through the entrance, emerging from a miasma of rippling sunlight, he assumed a form as solid as a statue. Under her blouse the locket lay between her breasts. Arthur approached, shoes clacking. Echoes resounded through the chamber. Evelyn’s cheeks flushed as his face became clearer. She’d never seen him before, but his features stirred her, as though she recognized him from a time long past. When he lifted his arm in greeting, the whole temple floated on water. She heard a child laughing, smelled the scent of ripe apples. Like a woman tipping backward, she gasped and reached and gratefully took his arm.

Evelyn curled her fingers around the curtain’s edge, pulled it aside, and, trembling, looked out the window.

The grass on the side yard rippled in silver waves. Two trees, stark and black, stood at either corner. Between these, the moon floated in the oblong pond, a wobbling, liquefied reflection. A warm breeze ruffled the glossy leaves.

She scampered through a cotton field at dusk, squealing with joy. A few paces behind, so close yet never catching up, her mother pursued her. The rows of crops streaked by, their swollen bolls splitting. A purple sky arched overhead. When at last she got tackled and tumbled, breathless, across the dark soil, her mother pounced on top of her, straddled her small body, and tickled her ribs without mercy. Streams of warm tears leaked from her eyes.

She dropped the curtain, turned to her right. The plane of white light shimmered before her. She took a step forward, felt the flash on her face. As she passed through, she heard distant music.

One morning one morning one morning in May.

Emerging onto the other side, Evelyn’s eyes fell on the cedar chest set against the far wall. Metal bands braced its thin panels. Stuffed now with clean linen, the chest had once held her mother’s modest trousseau. Soon they would haul it off to an Air Force base in Ohio. She’d heard about such places from her former roommate, strange tales of security checkpoints, bland food, and drill sergeants who paved their lawns with cement then painted them green.

She approached the open door. An overpowering desire to flee took hold of her, and she imagined slipping out of the bedroom, sprinting down the hall, flinging the front door wide, and soaring up into the sky to twirl among the stars.

Arthur mumbled in his sleep. Evelyn paused at the corner of the bed.

She lay her hand on the polished globe of the bedpost and felt at once the room transformed around her. As though from a great distance, she saw the walls and floor and ceiling extend forever outward, intersecting only where she stood, creating a cozy little pocket, each detail within which arose from a place existing just beyond reach.

Then nothing could contain the flood. It poured over her like the contents of a bucket upended. Her ears roared.

On the bank of the Savannah River, dressed in her wedding gown, she stood beneath the water tower, gazing across to the Georgia shore, where a black sedan, parked in a clearing, gleamed in the sun. Though she longed to move forward, her body froze. Then June and Rose approached from behind. Each sister took a place at Evelyn’s side, one at each shoulder, and gripped her hands in theirs. The trio strode together over the surface of the river. Stately and erect, their long hair snapping in the wind, they crossed the glittering water. When they reached the far shore, marching in perfect rhythm through the clearing and beyond, the black sedan, empty and menacing, exploded into flames.

Evelyn lurched toward the door. Suddenly dizzy, she braced herself with both arms against the frame.

At Arthur’s boyhood home in Macon, she sat at the dining room table, surrounded by in-laws. In a painting above the mantelpiece, the four Swift men gazed down with benevolent gravity. Fresh bread, steamed vegetables, buttered potatoes, and baked ham, piled high on serving dishes, stood arrayed at the center of the table, along with two glass pitchers of tea dripping with moisture. Evelyn glanced around at the assembled company—her newly minted husband, his four siblings, their spouses, and, at either end, Arthur’s mother and father. Each returned her look with a gentle nod. Then Arthur’s father bowed his head and, with an ironical smile, led them in grace. Lord, we’re grateful, and the story’s all told. If I say any more, the beans’ll go cold. Amen. Mrs. Swift clucked her disapproval, but the family murmured with amusement. Then they all raised their glasses to toast the new bride.

Standing motionless in the doorway, Evelyn felt suddenly the force of an unstoppable momentum, as though she’d metamorphosed into the prow of an ancient sea vessel. Plowing the salt spray, the broad planes of her face raised to the coming dawn, she sustained a posture of improbable steadiness. The planet itself seemed to balance beneath her, even as it carried her through the gaudy mystery of infinite space. Her eyes, dazzled by the spectacle, welled with tears, and her heart lifted, borne aloft on a surging tide of miraculous music and light. The sun rose. Blinding in its purity, ablaze with white fire, it ascended the blue vault of the sky, trailing in its wake a flock of spiraling birds. The beating of their wings filled the air with raucous noise. They orbited the sun, circling and circling, and as they did so the cacophony gave way, gradually at first, then with gathering strength and power, to song, a great chorus of praise and joy and celebration.

The roaring in her ears subsided to a hiss. Like a clock weight on a chain, something plunged through her body. Black water gathered.

“Arthur?”

He stirred, lifted his head. “What is it, hon?”

“Arthur,” she said. “It’s time.”