Holding on to Glass
He tipped the box over, allowing the contents to spill onto the chenille spread. The light from the bedside lamp, and from the window beside her, caught and reflected in the pea-size, roughly square-shaped nuggets.
Janine just looked at them, then looked at him. “I don’t understand. What are they?”
“They’re pieces of glass from a windshield. It was designed to break into pieces like this instead of jagged shards.” He looked back down at the glass. The bedspread was the color of champagne, and the glass took on some of that shade. To Evan, they now looked something like a cross between diamonds and topaz.
“But why do you have them? That’s what I don’t understand.”
He turned his gaze back to his wife, catching her eye and looking for a sparkle there. “I told you, remember? I was six years old when I found them. I was with my two best friends--Timmy Roberts and Bebop Anderson.”
“Bebop?”
“His name was Billy Bob but everyone called him Bebop. I don’t know why, it’s just what everyone called him.”
“I don’t remember you telling me anything about this.”
“We had ridden our bikes to Eden’s Mill Road. We weren’t supposed to go that far from home. We were only six, like I said. It was just a dirt road on the edge of town. If you went far enough down Eden’s Mill Road, you came to the river and an old, abandoned sugar mill. We didn’t go that far, though, just far enough to feel like we were having an adventure. We found these next to the road. We split them up evenly between the three of us.”
“Okay, again I have to ask you. Why?”
He tried to hide his exasperation. “We thought they were diamonds, don’t you see? We split them up evenly. Then we rode home as fast as we could. I couldn’t wait to get home and show Mama. I hopped off my bike and let it keep rolling on its own. By the time it hit the porch and stopped, I was halfway through the screen door. Mama was in the kitchen with Beth and Eve. They were shelling peas for dinner. I walked right up to the table and started emptying my pockets.”
“What have you got there, Evan?” Mama asked me.
“Diamonds, Mama. We found ‘em down by the mill road,” I said. I just knew she was going to be proud of me.
“And what were you doing down there?” she asked me. “You know better than to ride off that far. Anything could happen to you that far from home. I’ve told you plenty not to go there by yourself.”
“It don’t matter, Mama,” I said. “We’re rich. We can buy whatever we want with these.”
He looked at Janine and realized she had no interest in the story. She had taken a seat on the bed next to his faux treasure, and was staring out the window. The wind blew the chimes that hung from their neighbor’s Chinese tallow tree. It was a sweet metallic tinkle that almost sounded like glass. There was a time when Evan had enjoyed the sound.
He moved to the window, which looked directly into Walter and Mary’s bedroom window. “They keep their shades pulled,” Evan observed.
“Maybe we should, too,” she said.
“Too late, huh?”
She got up and walked out of the room. Evan watched her go, then collected his glass and replaced it in the tin. He stuck the tin in his pocket and followed her, reluctantly, into the kitchen.
“So you really thought they were diamonds?” she asked. Then, “but you couldn’t have believed that for all these years. So why did you keep them?”
“Well, Mama told me they were just glass, and weren’t worth anything. But then Beth and Eve made fun of me, and I think Mama could see just how serious I was about it.” He placed his hand over the pocket that held the box. “She got this old snuff box down from the cabinet, and told me I could put them in there and keep them if I wanted to. I thought that meant they really were valuable, and we just had to be careful. I guess that’s what I wanted to think.”
“You still haven’t answered my question. Why did you keep them for all these years? That’s what I don’t get.”
“You have to understand. We were really poor. These represented hope. As long as I had them, I had dreams. When times got really tough, I’d pull them out and look at them and think of all the things we could do with them. I always thought we were just saving these diamonds for the right time.”
“But there must have been a time when you realized they were just junk. Why do you still have them?”
“I don’t know how else to explain it to you. I just kept them because I had to.”
“That’s your problem, Evan. You hold on to things for too long.”
She rose and walked into the living room, and Evan followed again.
“I slept with them that night. Then, the next day, I buried them under the porch. Two hours later, I dug them up again.”
Janine had taken a seat in the armchair. She sat on the very front of the chair, rather than relaxing into it. Her back was straight, and she pulled absent-mindedly at her hair. It was long and blonde, and pulling on it was a nervous habit. Whichever side she pulled on, she would reach up occasionally and smooth down the eyebrow on that same side. Just now, it was her left side.
“So, what do you think about that?” he asked her.
“Sounds like obsessive-compulsive behavior to me.”
“You mean like tugging on your hair?”
She stopped.
“It wasn’t obsessive-compulsive. It’s not like I kept burying them and digging them up. I just wasn’t sure what to do with them.” He had been standing in front of her, but now he moved away, this time to the living room window. The tin of glass rattled softly as he walked.
“Do you still think I’m pretty, Evan?”
“Of course I do. You’re just as beautiful as you always were, Janine.”
“Maybe you should have told me so more often.”
“Right, it’s my fault.”
She turned away from him, and her right hand reached for a lock of hair.
Evan continued to look at her, wondering how much of it was his fault. She was beautiful. That was true enough. Had he failed to tell her as often as he should have? She was slim, with fine features and smooth white skin. Janine had always reminded him of one of those antique china dolls. Now, he wondered if that was the reason he had married her, because she was so attractive. He walked back to the window.
“There’s a storm coming.”
“I know,” she said.
He turned back towards her.
“I saw it on the weather channel.” She continued to pull at her hair.
No, he told himself. That wasn’t the reason he had married her. There must have been something besides her looks. What was it? Her fragility, maybe. He had always been attracted to women who needed him. And with Janine, it sometimes seemed that her entire being was like that china doll, the glossy porcelain veneer covering the brittle ego beneath. Still, there must have been something more.
“Don’t you think you’re still pretty?”
“I don’t feel very pretty anymore.” She managed to look at him again. “So those things have been there in the hall closet all along?”
“I put them there when we moved in.”
“So why have I never seen them before?”
“I told you earlier, I tried to talk to you about them before. It was not long after we were married. You weren’t interested.”
“I’m interested now.”
“No, you’re not. You’re trying to be interested. It’s not the same thing.”
“Show them to me again.”
He took four steps to cover the distance between them, pulling the tin from his pocket as he did so. He held it in his right hand as he used his left hand to open it, passing it to her with a reverence she was struggling to understand.
“You look almost like you’re holding a holy relic,” she said as she took it from him.
He shrugged. “There are twenty-three of them.”
She mimicked him without realizing it, holding the box cupped in her right hand, holding the lid open with her left, trying to feel the power that he drew from them.
They both looked up at the sound of the car. They could see the blue Taurus through the window. It pulled past their house, into the driveway next door.
“Walt’s home,” he said.
She looked at the glass. “I don’t want you to leave.”
“I know. You told me so earlier.”
“But you’re going anyway?”
The rain was starting now, a soft patter against the windows and on the roof.
“The rain has started. It’s really not a good time to leave,” she said.
“There is no good time for it.”
“It’s been three months. Can’t we get past this?”
The sun was almost down now, and the room was darkening. Evan switched on the lamp next to her chair, and the light caught in the beads of glass.
This time Janine could see it. “Oh, they’re beautiful like that.”
“It’s too late, Janine.” He took the box from her, closing it before he slipped it into his left pants pocket again. Walking into the bedroom, he reappeared with the two bags he had packed earlier.
“Where will you go?”
“I don’t know.”
“Will you come back?”
“I don’t think so.”
“Do you love me, Evan?”
“It’s hard to say.”
He raised the hatchback on his gray Corolla to put the bags in. Mary had just come out of her house, apparently leaving a little early to start her shift at the hospital. He looked away when he saw her, and she did the same. He could imagine Janine at the window looking out at him, and could picture Walt doing the same from his window. He would not look back. Removing the tin from his pocket, he lowered himself into the car.
The autumn rain fell with its seasonal softness as he drove towards the river. His long term plans were vague, but he knew what he wanted to do just now. There was little traffic here on the edge of town, and he could hear the swoosh, swoosh of the tires running through puddles of rainwater as he drove slowly along. The tin lay open on the seat next to him. Now he came to the turn off, a dirt road that would be muddy and slick as he made his way to the river. He had lived here for five years, and only visited this spot once. There had been a time when he would have spent many hours here, lying on the bank, or swimming.
When he reached the river, he parked the car. Closing the lid on the snuff tin, he opened his door and walked toward the river bank. His shoes would be muddy, he knew, and he would be wet. What did it matter? The river was up a bit, and the water muddy. He walked along the bank until he saw what he was looking for. It was an old log in high grass. He opened the tin and looked at the glass. There was not enough light for the pieces to sparkle, but he could see the raindrops coating them. Closing the tin, he shoved it under the log and walked away.
