Copyright © 2004 Phillips & Nelson Media, Inc.

Twenty years of this puffing. Iíd heard it when he wasnít even asleep, when he sat in his leather wing chair after dinner, reading through the column of psychiatric journals rising from the floor, and it would seem like the cadence against which my entire life was set.

The phone rang again, and I lay there, waiting for Hugh to pick up, certain it was one of his patients, probably the paranoid schizophrenic whoíd phoned last night convinced the CIA had him cornered in a federal building in downtown Atlanta.

A third ring, and Hugh fumbled for the receiver. ìYes, hello,î he said, and his voice came out coarse, a hangover from sleep.

I rolled away from him then and stared across the room at the faint, watery light on the window, remembering that today was Ash Wednesday, feeling the inevitable rush of guilt.

My father had died on Ash Wednesday when I was nine years old, and in a convoluted way, a way that made no sense to anyone but me, it had been at least partially my fault.

There had been a fire on his boat, a fuel-tank explosion, theyíd said. Pieces of the boat had washed up weeks later, including a portion of the stern with Jes-Sea printed on it. Heíd named the boat for me, not for my brother, Mike, or even for my mother, whom heíd adored, but for me, Jessie.

I closed my eyes and saw oily flames and roaring orange light. An article in the Charleston newspaper had referred to the explosion as suspicious, and there had been some kind of investigation, though nothing had ever come of itóthings Mike and Iíd discovered only because weíd sneaked the clipping from Motherís dresser drawer, a strange, secret place filled with fractured rosaries, discarded saint medals, holy cards, and a small statue of Jesus missing his left arm. She had not imagined we would venture into all that broken-down holiness.

I went into that terrible sanctum almost every day for over a year and read the article obsessively, that one particular line: ìPolice speculate that a spark from his pipe may have ignited a leak in the fuel line.î

Iíd given him the pipe for Fatherís Day. Up until then he had never even smoked.

I still could not think of him apart from the word ìsuspicious,î apart from this day, how heíd become ash the very day people everywhereóme, Mike, and my motherógot our foreheads smudged with it at church. Yet another irony in a whole black ensemble of them.

ìYes, of course I remember you,î I heard Hugh say into the phone, yanking me back to the call, the bleary morning. He said, ìYes, weíre all fine here. And how are things there?î

This didnít sound like a patient. And it wasnít our daughter, Dee, I was sure of that. I could tell by the formality in his voice. I wondered if it was one of Hughís colleagues. Or a resident at the hospital. They called sometimes to consult about a case, though generally not at five in the morning.

I slipped out from the covers and moved with bare feet to the window across the room, wanting to see how likely it was that rain would flood the basement again and wash out the pilot light on the hot-water heater. I stared out at the cold, granular deluge, the bluish fog, the street already swollen with water, and I shivered, wishing the house were easier to warm.

Iíd nearly driven Hugh crazy to buy this big, impractical house, and even though weíd been in it seven years now, I still refused to criticize it. I loved the sixteen-foot ceilings and stained-glass transoms. And the turretóGod, I loved the turret. How many houses had one of those? You had to climb the spiral stairs inside it to get to my art studio, a transformed third-floor attic space with a sharply slanted ceiling and a skylightóso remote and enchanting that Dee had dubbed it the ìRapunzel tower.î She was always teasing me about it. ìHey, Mom, when are you gonna let your hair down?î

That was Dee being playful, being Dee, but we both knew what she meantóthat Iíd become too stuffy and self-protected. Too conventional. This past Christmas, while she was home, Iíd posted a Gary Larson cartoon on the refrigerator with a magnet that proclaimed me worldís greatest mom. In it, two cows stood in their idyllic pasture. One announced to the other, ìI donít care what they say, Iím not content.î Iíd meant it as a little joke, for Dee.

I remembered now how Hugh had laughed at it. Hugh, who read people as if they were human Rorschachs, yet heíd seen nothing suggestive in it. It was Dee whoíd stood before it an inordinate amount of time, then given me a funny look. She hadnít laughed at all.

To be honest, I had been restless. It had started back in the fallóthis feeling of time passing, of being postponed, pent up, not wanting to go up to my studio. The sensation would rise suddenly like freight from the ocean flooróthe unexpected discontent of cows in their pasture. The constant chewing of all that cud.

With winter the feeling had deepened. I would see a neighbor running along the sidewalk in front of the house, training, I imagined, for a climb up Kilimanjaro. Or a friend at my book club giving a blow-by-blow of her bungee jump from a bridge in Australia. Oróand this was the worst of allóa TV show about some intrepid woman traveling alone in the blueness of Greece, and Iíd be overcome by the little river of sparks that seemed to run beneath all that, the blood/sap/wine, aliveness, whatever it was. It had made me feel bereft over the immensity of the world, the extraordinary things people did with their livesóthough, really, I didnít want to do any of those particular things. I didnít know then what I wanted, but the ache for it was palpable.

I felt it that morning standing beside the window, the quick, furtive way it insinuated itself, and I had no idea what to say to myself about it. Hugh seemed to think my little collapse of spirit, or whatever it was I was having, was about Deeís being away at college, the clichÈd empty nest and all that.

Last fall, after weíd gotten her settled at Vanderbilt, Hugh and Iíd rushed home so he could play in the Waverly Harris Cancer Classic, a tennis tournament heíd been worked up about all summer. Heíd gone out in the Georgia heat for three months and practiced twice a week with a fancy Prince graphite racket. Then Iíd ended up crying all the way home from Nashville. I kept picturing Dee standing in front of her dorm waving good-bye as we pulled away. She touched her eye, her chest, then pointed at usóa thing sheíd done since she was a little girl. Eye. Heart. You. It did me in. When we got home, despite my protests, Hugh called his doubles partner, Scott, to take his place in the tournament, and stayed home and watched a movie with me. An Officer and a Gentleman. He pretended very hard to like it.

The deep sadness I felt in the car that day had lingered for a couple of weeks, but it had finally lifted. I did miss Deeóof course I didóbut I couldnít believe that was the real heart of the matter.

Lately Hugh had pushed me to see Dr. Ilg, one of the psychiatrists in his practice. Iíd refused on the grounds that she had a parrot in her office.

I knew that would drive him crazy. This wasnít the real reason, of courseóI have nothing against peopleís having parrots, except that they keep them in little cages. But I used it as a way of letting him know I wasnít taking the suggestion seriously. It was one of the rare times I didnít acquiesce to him.

ìSo sheís got a parrot, so what?î heíd said. ìYouíd like her.î Probably I would, but I couldnít quite bring myself to go that faróall that paddling around in the alphabet soup of oneís childhood, scooping up letters, hoping to arrange them into enlightening sentences that would explain why things had turned out the way they had. It evoked a certain mutiny in me.

I did occasionally, though, play out imaginary sessions with Dr. Ilg in my head. I would tell her about my father, and, grunting, she would write it down on a little padówhich is all she ever seemed to do. I pictured her bird as a dazzling white cockatoo perched on the back of her chair, belting out all sorts of flagrant opinions, repeating itself like a Greek chorus: ìYou blame yourself, you blame yourself, you blame yourself.î

Not long agoóI donít know what possessed me to do itóIíd told Hugh about these make- believe sessions with Dr. Ilg, even about the bird, and heíd smiled. ìMaybe you should just see the bird,î he said. ìYour Dr. Ilg sounds like an idiot.î

Now, across the room, Hugh was listening to the person on the phone, muttering, ìUh-huh, uh-huh.î His face had clamped down into what Dee called ìthe Big Frown,î that pinched expression of grave and intense listening in which you could almost see the various pistons in his brainóFreud, Jung, Adler, Horney, Winnicottóbobbing up and down.

Wind lapped over the roof, and I heard the house begin to singóas it routinely didówith an operatic voice that was very Beverly ìShrill,î as we liked to say. There were also doors that refused to close, ancient toilets that would suddenly decline to flush (ìThe toilets have gone anal- retentive again!î Dee would shout), and I had to keep constant vigilance to prevent Hugh from exterminating the flying squirrels that lived in the fireplace in his study. If we ever got a divorce, he loved to joke, it would be about squirrels.

But I loved all of this; I truly did. It was only the basement floods and the winter drafts that I hated. And now, with Dee in her first year at Vanderbilt, the emptinessóI hated that.

Hugh was hunched on his side of the bed, his elbows balanced on his knees and the top two knobs of his spine visible through his pajam...