The Book of Why Read online

  The teakettle whistles. I pour hot water over two tea bags. I place her cup of tea on the table beside her.

  An icicle breaks from the tree near the window and shatters on the walkway. “So,” she says, “am I anywhere near Old Farm Road?”

  “I don’t know.”

  “Well, if you live here and you don’t know.”

  “Some streets don’t even have signs.”

  The sun has set, so I turn on a few lamps. “I didn’t realize how late it was,” she says. “Do you know a place where I can stay?”

  “Plenty of places down-island, but I’m not sure how you’d get there.”

  “Anything walking distance?”

  “You’d have to crawl.”

  “Not quite what I planned,” she says.

  I try to think of a solution, but there isn’t one, or rather, there’s only one. “You could stay here.”

  “That’s nice of you,” she says, “but I don’t know.”

  A loud crack outside frightens the dog, who runs in circles, tail between her legs. I look out the window. A tree limb has fallen onto the front porch and now blocks the door.

  “Maybe that’s a sign,” she says. She thinks about it for a moment. “Let me make a call first, okay.”

  “Phone’s down.”

  She takes a cell phone out of her pocket. “I’m still getting service.” She presses a few buttons on her phone.

  “Would you mind telling me your full name and address?” she says.

  “Harry Weiss, 122 Woods Road.”

  Her call goes through on the third try. She says, “This is Sam Leslie. March 14, 2008. I’m in Martha’s Vineyard. There’s an ice storm, and I had a mishap with the car. Bloody nose, sprained wrist, could be worse. Staying at 122 Woods Road with a man named Harry Weiss. He’s six-something, thin build, brown hair, beard, fortyish, has a German shepherd.”

  She closes her phone, puts it back in her pocket. “No offense,” she says. “It’s not that I don’t trust you.”

  “Neither Ralph nor I take offense.”

  She sips her tea. “I was just thinking,” she says. “The man I’m looking for—maybe you know him.”

  “I doubt it.”

  “He disappeared five years ago.”

  “So he’s missing.”

  “No,” she says.

  She leaves the washcloth on the table, walks across the room. She squats in front of my bookcase. “Hey, look at this!” She holds up the book so I can see. “This is him. I’m telling you—this is a sign.”

  “What does he look like?”

  “Not sure,” she says. “None of his books has an author photo.”

  “I haven’t opened that book in years,” I say.

  She starts flipping through the book, but I walk over and take it from her. “I’m sorry, but I probably wrote some personal things in the margins.”

  “I do the same,” she says. “But hey, don’t you think this is a sign? That I’m looking for him and I end up here and I find his book on your shelf?”

  “It was a bestseller,” I say. “You could probably find it in many homes.”

  “True,” she says. “But that’s not what he would say.”

  “How do you know?”

  “Because I’ve read all his books.”

  “I mean, how do you know what he would say now?”

  “I don’t,” she says. “That’s another reason to find him.”

  “So, you don’t believe in coincidence.”

  “Do you know who Paul Winchell is?”

  “No.”

  “He was the voice of Tigger in Winnie the Pooh,” she says. “He was also the first person to patent an artificial heart, assisted by Dr. Henry Heimlich—yes, that Heimlich. I have too much information inside my head, I’m telling you. The point is, Paul Winchell died one day before John Fiedler, who was the voice of Piglet.”

  “And this means…”

  “Lawrence Welk’s trumpeter and accordion player died on the same day.”

  “Tragic,” I say.

  “Jim Henson and Sammy Davis, Jr.,” she says. “Orville Wright and Gandhi. Antonioni and Bergman.”

  “If enough people die on any given day…”

  “Adams and Jefferson,” she says. “On the Fourth of July.”

  “Coincidence,” I tell her.

  “I don’t think so,” she says.

  “You don’t sound sure.”

  She touches her nose, checks her finger for blood. “Something too easy to believe isn’t worth believing.”

  “I’m not sure you’d make it as a preacher.”

  “The best preachers express the most doubt,” she says. She unties her boots with her uninjured hand, kicks them off. “I’ve made a mess of your floor.”

  “Ralph has done worse.”

  The dog is sleeping by the door; her ears stand up at the sound of her name, but she doesn’t open her eyes.

  “Hey, what do you do?”

  “Same things every day. I walk Ralph. If it’s not too cold, I take her to the beach. I listen to music. I try to remember to call my mother. I read poetry. I don’t like novels, certainly not long novels, because I don’t like to become attached to things. I just started reading a book of six-word memoirs.”

  “I know that book,” she says. “An entire life reduced to six words.”

  “Never done doing my do-overs. That’s one of my favorites.”

  “That could be mine,” she says.

  “Tried and tried. Wasn’t quite enough.”

  “Amen,” she says.

  “Now I know I know nothing.”

  “Sad, but true,” she says. “So, what would yours be?”

  “Hello, goodbye. Every story. Why pretend?”

  “Too sad.”

  I dry the floor where Sam had been sitting. Ralph stretches as I wipe around her. “I could stomp my foot right next to her face and she wouldn’t flinch. I love that about her. She doesn’t know cruelty.”

  “What would her story be?”

  “Do I seem the kind of man who writes his dog’s life story?”

  “Yes.”

  “I’m so happy you’re here. Really.”

  “I’m happy to be here, too. Not happy why I’m here, but.”

  I laugh, despite my intention not to. “Sorry, but that was Ralph’s life story.”

  “Well,” she says, “I am happy to be here.”

  “I don’t get to laugh much.”

  “I bet I can guess what you do for a living.”

  “I don’t do anything for a living anymore.”

  “You’re too young to be retired.”

  “Apparently not.”

  “Okay, let’s see. Baseball hat, bushy beard, cords. You’re a rich, eccentric entrepreneur. Some kind of Google person who showed up to work every day in sneakers and jeans and made a killing.”

  “Sorry.”

  “All right, then you worked in the music industry. You said that you listen to music, right. You were a record producer, something like that.”

  “Nope.”

  “Dog trainer.”

  “No.”

  “A horror writer, like Stephen King. You write spooky novels set on Martha’s Vineyard, but under a pseudonym. Harry Weiss is your pen name. What’s your real name?”

  “Come on.”

  “It’s possible.”

  “I was an artist,” I tell her. “But not a very good one.”

  “Must have been good if you’re retired.”

  “Just because people buy what you’re selling doesn’t mean it’s any good.”

  “Did you paint?”

  “I can’t paint or draw to save my life. I used to make sculptures out of found objects—junk people throw away or sell in garage sales. Old letters, baby shoes, bowling trophies.”

  “Can an artist retire?”

  “Sure.”

  “Isn’t that just who you are? ”

  “I don’t believe in it anymore.”

 
“Don’t believe in what?”

  “I used to believe I could save things.”

  “Do you have any of your work here?”

  “I gave it all away. The older I get, the more I give away. Speaking of which, can I give you some food? You must be hungry.”

  “I don’t think I could chew,” she says. “My jaw, my entire head, is sore.”

  “I could make soup.”

  “Thanks, but I’m more tired than hungry. I left New York early this morning.”

  Freezing rain is falling harder now against the windows. I look outside: telephone wires hang lower, the hammock touches the ground.

  “Any idea when this is supposed to let up?” she says.

  “Not until tomorrow,” I say.

  She winces as she moves her injured wrist in circles. “I know it’s early, but do you mind if I try to get some sleep?”

  “I can sleep on the couch,” I tell her, “and you can have my bed.”

  “I’ll be fine on the couch,” she says.

  I bring out a blanket and pillow and tell her that if she needs anything I’ll be in my bedroom.

  I open the door to my room and ask Ralph if she wants to come in with me. She opens her eyes but stays beside the couch. Sam is already under the blanket, the only light a lamp above her.

  A few minutes after I close my bedroom door, I hear Ralph crying, so I open the door to let her in. But she only wants the door open. Her herding instinct is strong; she’s anxious unless she’s able to see everyone in her pack. Sam, at least for tonight, is our pack’s new member.

  Before settling down in the hallway, Ralph comes into my room, walks over to the box, smells the socks and sweaters inside.

  She does this every night.

  I’VE FORGOTTEN SOMETHING, lost something, made a terrible mistake I can never amend.

  Then she’s in my doorway, asking if I’m all right.

  I’m sitting up in bed, trying to catch my breath; it sounds as if I’ve been running away from something. I’m sweating through my shirt. Slowly I remember where I am, who the woman standing beside my bed is, and that I’ve had a bad dream.

  Then I remember that my dream wasn’t a dream.

  I lie down, turn away from her. She sits on the edge of the bed, touches my back. “Sounded pretty bad,” she says.

  “Sorry I woke you.”

  “I was awake,” she says. “I don’t sleep very well.”

  A sudden urge to tell her the truth; much easier in the dark. But I say nothing; in the morning she’ll be gone. If she comes back, as she very well might when she realizes where she’s been, I won’t answer the door.

  “I can leave you alone now,” she says. “I just wanted to make sure you were all right.”

  I don’t want her to leave; it feels nice to have another body on the bed. “Tell me your six-word life story.”

  She swings her legs up onto the bed and leans against the headboard beside me. I sit up, and we face each other in the dark.

  “Daddy issues. Brother died. Got help.”

  Rain against the window; the drip of ice melting from rain gutters and trees. “Six words aren’t enough. You should get seven.”

  “Daddy issues. Brother died. Still getting help.”

  “Much better,” I say. “The story continues.”

  “A sad story that never ends is happier than a happy story that ends.”

  “Every story has the same ending.”

  “Depends what you mean by ending.”

  “It is finished. The end.”

  “I hate when stories end with those two words,” she says. “When I was a kid, I used to cry at happily-ever-after. Because, you know, they lived happily ever after, they weren’t living happily ever after.”

  “You were greatly upset by grammatical contradictions.”

  “They lived happily—fine. I can accept that. But as soon as you use the past tense lived, you can’t say ever after.”

  “You have a nice voice.”

  “I can’t sing.”

  “Everyone can sing.”

  “I can’t sing well.”

  “Try a few notes.”

  “Trust me,” she says.

  “Then tell me a story.”

  “Happy or sad?”

  “Tell me about your father.”

  “That wouldn’t be a good bedtime story.”

  “Okay, then your brother.”

  “Unhappy ending.”

  “Then tell me about getting help.”

  She’s lying on her side now, her head propped on one of my pillows. “My marriage was not good,” she says. “To be honest, it was much worse than not good. It wasn’t safe where I was, you know. I wanted to leave, but. And then one day this book came in the mail, and I was like where did this come from. It was called Everyday Miracles, and there was a note inside from the author—not just to anyone, but to me. Dear Samantha, it’s not an accident that I’ve sent you this book. And when I read the book, everything just clicked. It was as if he’d told me my real name. I’d been walking around for thirty years thinking I was this person named Samantha when really I was someone else. I wrote him a letter a few years later, told him his book changed my life.”

  “Did he write back?”

  “He told me it was me, not him. It was my intention to be free of my husband, so I attracted the book to me.”

  “Is that what you believe?”

  “Yes.”

  “That would mean you intended to fall on your face.”

  “Do you believe what’s in his book?”

  “That book was a gift. I got it a long time ago.”

  “Have you ever tried it out?”

  “I don’t remember much of it.”

  “I’m not trying to convert you or anything.”

  I hear Ralph get up and shake herself out, then walk across the kitchen to her bowl. “I’ve always loved the sound of her drinking.”

  “It’s relaxing,” she says. “It’s making me sleepy.”

  “Me, too,” I say, and I lie beside her, close my eyes.

  HER CAR IS against a tree, its back wheels sunk in slush. The tree bends over the road, the tips of its branches touching down on the other side, creating an icy arch we stand beneath. It’s sunny and warmer, and the ice is melting into a messy soup. I step gingerly across the ice, but my boots break through to the mud beneath. Ralph has come along for the ride; she sits in the back of the station wagon, hesitant to jump out.

  “Before she was old,” I say, “nothing could have stopped her from slopping around in mud.” I whistle for her to come, but she cries. She doesn’t want to come, but she also doesn’t want to disappoint me. “There was also a time when I never wanted her to get dirty.”

  “She’s a dog—she’s supposed to get dirty.”

  “My wife used to say that.”

  “Well, she was right.”

  “She was right about a lot of things.” I wipe mud from my boots, then tiptoe into more slush. “I used to be a lot more anal.”

  “I can see that.”

  “I don’t like when things get ruined.”

  “They’re work boots,” she says. “They want to get beat to shit. That’s their reason for being. You don’t want to deny them that, do you?”

  I stomp in the slush, splattering my pants and the sides of her car.

  “Better,” she says.

  I whistle to Ralph, tell her to come. She cries. I bend down and slap my knees. “Come on,” I say, and now I’ll be sad if she doesn’t come. “Where’s your boy? Where’s your boy, Ralph?” She moves closer to the edge, looks down at the bog beneath her.

  And then I say it.

  “Where’s your girl? Come on, Ralph. Where’s your girl?”

  Her look changes; she jumps from the wagon and runs in circles, then back and forth from one side of the road to the other.

  “It’s okay,” I tell her. “I’m sorry. It’s okay. Come here.”

  She comes to me and I pet her; she ge
ts down on her belly and slaps her paws in the slush. I toss some ice and mud on her back; she runs away, runs back.

  “I shouldn’t have said that,” I say. “That was cruel.”

  “She’s forgotten already.”

  “Maybe girl is just a word now. Every once in a while I’ll say that just to make sure she still reacts.”

  “She looks pretty happy right now.”

  “Mud,” I say, “is the secret to happiness.”

  Sam picks up some mud and spreads it on her nose, then spreads some on mine. My instinct is to wipe it off, but I don’t.

  I want to say, She would have done exactly that. In fact, you did exactly that on our honeymoon, and I wiped it off, so you put more on my face, and I wiped it off again, and you kept putting mud on my face, on my hair, on my clothes, until I gave in and let you cover me.

  “You get in, I’ll push,” I tell her.

  The wheels spin mud onto my clothes, my face. Ralph barks at the sound, chases flying mud the way she chases snowflakes and breaking waves—things that disappear as soon as she catches them. The car doesn’t move; it looks as if it will never move.

  “Well,” I tell her, “you might be on the Vineyard for a while.”

  “No problem,” she says. “As long as I find Old Farm Road.”

  Ralph is on her back, covered in mud; she’s so content she doesn’t get into the car when I tell her to.

  “Maybe she wants to walk back up the hill,” Sam says.

  “She might want to, but she’s too old.” I snap my fingers at the dog. “Come on—get in. Let’s go,” I say, and she comes.

  “Maybe I should walk up,” Sam says. “I don’t want to get your car dirty.”

  “I’m the one who’s filthy,” I say. “Besides, making a mess isn’t the worst thing in the world.”

  Only after she’s in the shower do I remember that they’re in the bathroom. I can’t let her see them.

  I knock on the door, and she tells me to come in. I open the door slightly. “I’m really sorry,” I tell her, “but I need to grab something in here.”

  “No need to be sorry,” she says. “It’s your bathroom.”

  I don’t remember which magazine I put them in, so I take the entire rack.

  I spread the magazines on my bed and flip through them until I find the checks—five or six royalty checks with my name and address on them. I haven’t needed to cash or deposit them. The house and car were paid for years ago, and I have no major expenses. I’ll probably end up signing them over to my mother, whom I’ve been trying to convince to move into a retirement community. She’ll never be convinced; she’ll die in that house, just as my father did. I suppose I’m trying to convince myself as well, as I would hate to know strangers are living in the house where I grew up, the place where all of this—this story I’m trying to tell and thereby understand—began.