The Puzzle Master (18 page)

“It’s nothing you can’t fix, you know,” he said with a laugh. But it came out more like a choked cry, and he covered his mouth with his hands.

“I tried to research your asthma,” she said slowly. “You do have your inhaler on you, right?” Marshall nodded and got up. He couldn’t work on the stupid puzzle at a time like this.

“You want some hot chocolate?” he asked. He knew she wasn’t thirsty or hungry and was probably in pain. She would freeze up and hold her breath from time to time and looked like she was trying to push the pain away by holding it. But when she said she wanted something to drink, he was relieved. It was something to do; something with which he could keep busy.

“I have to go back to the hospital tonight,” she said in a whisper. Marshall heated up some water in the tiny microwave and stirred in the chocolate, listening to her. Then he sat down next to her with it and held it up to her lips. She took a sip and turned away. She didn’t want it, and yet, she asked for it because she knew it made him happy.

Marshall looked at the golden hills puzzle. He didn’t want to talk about death, he didn’t want to see her like this, and he didn’t want to be here with her like this.

This wasn’t how it was supposed to be. How could God do this to her? He took another sip but it tasted like chalk and he set it aside.

“You need to work on it Marsh,” she said in a raspy voice.
“The puzzle, your fishing pole.”

“I don’t care about the stupid pole, Iris.”

“But I need to see the puzzle finished.”

“You see it right now; it won’t be much different when it’s done.”

She glared at him.
“Stop being difficult.”

“I’m not. I’m just mad that you … that you lied to me about your cancer.”

She sighed and stared at the ceiling. “If I’d have told you, you never would’ve taken me to the river to eat our lunches; you never would’ve shown me how to skip rocks.” She took a deep breath. “You never would’ve let me up Devil’s Hill.”

“Yeah, so?
Someone has to watch out for you too.”

“Exactly why you didn’t need to know.
I would’ve experienced nothing with you. This whole place, the puzzle, our talks—the pretend lives we lead in the puzzles.”

Marshall kicked the table and leaned back, crossing his arms in disgust. His eyes were beginning to water and that irritated him.

“I’m not even supposed to be here, you know that don’t you,” she continued. “I did it so you wouldn’t have to go there to see me, at the hospital.”

Marshall closed his eyes. He wanted to scream, he didn’t want to be in the room with her like this. “So when you came here to Sacramento, did you really come because of your aunt or because you were sick?”

“Again, that was all in honesty. My aunt had a stroke, I was cancer-free, and things were looking good. And Marshall, for the next few weeks, things are still good.”

He didn’t want to have this conversation. He had to
lie
to himself, to his brain, his unfeeling feelings—
he had to lie
! Iris was fine. He was fine. They would finish the puzzle, and go fishing.

“I guess so,” he mumbled. “You think you can help me?”

“Sure,” she said with a grin, her brown eyes deep like wells of water, “I’ll help. Just put up this seat.” And for the rest of the day, in between Uncle Luke checking on them and the hot cocoa, they spent it like every other Saturday, working on the puzzle. Luke left with her at six to take her to the hospital in San Francisco. She promised him that she’d call him as soon as she could. And he promised to come see her in the hospital, although she frowned at that.

“It smells like old people and medicine in there. Don’t.”

“But I have to Iris.” She reached out for his hand and he took it. Her fingers were like ice. He only wanted to touch her, to feel her body healthy and alive. He hoped his touch would keep her living because he couldn’t find the right words to say. Marshall quietly said a prayer to God. It was the first prayer he had uttered in a very long time. “I’ll come see you on Monday.”

Luke told Marshall that he’d come by to pick him up that morning, and it made him smile—Iris had no say when it came to taking care of her. And it was as it should be.

***

When Marshall got home for dinner that night—way past his limit at Luke’s—the whole house knew. Sympathy came from everyone, including his brother. Normally, it would’ve made him happy, that they all cared about him. But instead, it frustrated him. All it did was remind him that he’d be stuck with them again; stuck with Leila telling on him, stuck with Mason’s irresponsibility, his dad’s absence and his mother’s denial at the chaos.

He didn’t want to talk, he didn’t want to cry. All he wanted to was to go to his room and lie down. So he did, and stayed there all night.

***

Monday came and Marshall
had every intention of seeing
Iris. He was dressed and ready to go. His mother insisted on driving him to Luke’s. Skipping school never seemed more pleasant.

 The phone rang. Leila was tugging on his mom’s pant legs begging for more cereal, and Mason was getting ready for school. That’s when Marshall heard his mother’s voice change pitch.

Marshall had just spit out the toothpaste into the sink when she came to the bathroom door.

“Marsh honey?”

Marshall opened the door even though he wanted to keep it closed. He kept his hand resting on the doorknob for a good fifteen seconds after she called his name. He knew then what she was going to say.

But he opened the door anyway, and she was standing there. She wrung her hands and then hugged and held him.

Marshall was rigid, but his mother continued to hold him, hug him tightly like a warm blanket. “Iris is in a much better place now. She’s in a much better place.” His mother speaking of heaven seemed foreign. Iris was the one who spoke to God; she was the one who talked about those things to him and now she was with her Friend up there.

Marshall didn’t say a word—he still couldn’t move.

Nothing felt real, and the walls and floor even his mother’s hair became colorless. It was black and white, empty: void of feeling and life. If his feelings had a taste to them, it would’ve tasted bland, like a piece of bread without butter.

She spoke to him again. He thought he heard words of comfort and reassurance, but he couldn’t remember. He heard nothing specific, because he was numb. The news that she was gone resonated in his brain, but he was deaf to anything and everything else.

Leila hugged him, and Mason looked like he might cry, but Marshall
felt
nothing. He only heard the static of shock and disbelief stuffed in his ears.

Marshall didn’t speak for the rest of the day. He went to his room and stared at the air conditioning window unit, remembering how noisy it was in the summer; the summer he’d met Iris. Evening and its dark blanket fell through his window and it made the curtains look like giant ringlets of hair—her hair; her bouncing dark hair, full of life.

In the middle of the night, he woke up and screamed until he cried.

His mother took him and held him and rocked him back and forth, whispering in his ear that everything was okay. But Marshall heard none of that and continued to cry. He cried that he hadn’t finished the puzzle; that the pieces were still waiting. He cried that he had to finish them for her; that he had
promised
to do it all for them, for her. He didn’t care about the fishing pole; he didn’t care if he’d ever be a part of Michael’s club. He just had to finish the puzzle.

Iris was counting on him.

***

Marshall awoke to feel the pit of his stomach aching. He hadn’t eaten for two days. He headed over to Luke’s without anyone to stop him. But the door
was closed
, the sign up, no lights on. Marshall leaned on the window. Luke’s smoke wasn’t circling the air above him, the music was off. It was empty. But that didn’t matter. He had to get it.

Marshall went around the back and picked the lock on the back door. Iris had told him that Luke would do that when he forgot the key, and it worked for Marshall. He fled to the back room and flipped on the lights. Her recliner was still there.

He threw off his jacket. It was cold; it felt like it was going to snow, but Marshall was burning up. He was sweating
like
it was the middle of summer.
He had to finish the puzzle … he had to finish the puzzle
.

Marshall sat in his chair for hours, putting the pieces together, thinking about Iris, thinking about the puzzles and the places they went to when they were in that room. Neither of them had been to a lighthouse, neither of them had cats or black stallions, and yet they’d been there, they had experienced it; they knew what it was like to ride on those horses, on golden hills, to feel the wind at their backs, and to climb the lighthouse and watch the sea.

He recalled the letters she’d written him and stopped for a minute to find both of them and stuffed them into his pockets. He couldn’t read them now, maybe never, but he had to hold onto them—they were all he had of her. And then he noticed it, one more note, sticking to the puzzle with the cats in a basket.

Marshall,

      I’ll meet you one day on our farm. Even though I think three tractors is a waste of money, you can have them.
Just as long as I can have my black stallions.
Make sure to catch a huge fish for me. Luke has never lost a bet before, so this will irk him for some time.

      -Iris

Marshall smiled and felt tired. He finished putting in the last of the pieces, and stepped back to observe. The picture was huge, he didn’t think he had enough glue for this one, but he wasn’t sure it mattered anyway.

“There you go Iris,” he said out loud. “It is finished.”

The recliner was open and he longed to get into it. He wanted to sit down;
to just take
a little rest. So, he sat in it and stared at the finished puzzle and fell asleep with his head on her note.

The events later that day were fuzzy, and he felt like he was watching himself from far away. He thought he remembered Luke picking him up; he felt waves of shaking in Luke from sobs so deep that it rattled his body like peals of thunder. He thought he saw tears all over Luke’s face and beard too.

Marshall recalled his father taking him up into his arms too … and carrying him to the car, but he wasn’t sure why. And from Luke’s store, which was crazy, because his dad had never been inside Luke’s store in his life.

He thought he remembered Luke talking to him, handing the fishing pole to his dad and saying “this is all his.” But it was a blur, and when he woke up to find himself in his pajamas in his bed again, he had no idea what day it was or if it had all been a dream.

He could hear the squeaking of Mason’s bed, and found him out of it and sitting next to him the following minute. Mason sounded weary and concerned, and strange. But the past and present blurred together, and Mason’s behavior though unusual, seemed to fit the circumstances. Marshall wanted to ask about the funeral, but he couldn’t find the words, so he brought out his feet from the sheets and sat next to Mason, his feet dangling from the bed.

The morning light had just began to seep through the curtains, and Marshall saw that the guitar—Mason’s guitar—was sitting at the foot of his bed.

“You can have it,” Mason said in a whisper.

Marshall wanted to thank him,
to really thank
him, but the emotion was gone and the words to thank him were missing. A tear fell down his cheek, and another one, and then they kept on coming and wouldn’t stop. His hands were wet and he used his arms to rub the tears away, but they just wouldn’t stop.

Then the whimpering started; the melancholic weeping that one hears from lonely dogs in the dead-of-night. Marshall couldn’t believe it was coming from his throat. He covered his mouth, but it only served to distort his crying even more, and Mason put his arms around him, and held him tightly, tucking his head into his brother’s cheek.

“It’s okay Marsh,” he said, and held him and let Marshall cry.

A few more minutes, and Marshall finally spoke. “No it’s not, it’s not okay.” He gulped away another sob. “She’s not coming back. She’s gone forever Mason—gone forever. I can’t … I can’t believe
— ”

Marshall couldn’t say anything else and Mason hugged him for a while longer, until the sun had risen to light up the sky to a pink hue. Marshall never recalled loving his brother. But today, he finally understood what that love was.

Mason got back into bed, and Marshall left the room. He went to the kitchen and looked at the clock. It was five in the morning. Then he looked at the calendar. It was Wednesday. He had school today; he’d have to get ready for that, even though he wasn’t sure how he was going to handle that.

He looked out the back yard window and saw Mrs. Kelso watering her plants, even though it was winter and even though it was way too early. He wondered what juicy gossip was brewing in her head and how much she knew about him and Iris and Mr. Luke.

He poured himself some cereal and when he sat down to eat, he found his father already at the table with a cup of coffee and a pole in his other hand. He knew he was supposed to be excited about this scene, and yet, he couldn’t remember why. It was as if a giant truck of memories had disappeared from his mind overnight.