The Suit

Robert regretted that first step out on the ice the most. Just like his first drink and his first marriage, it had led inexorably to disaster, but unlike these, in which more drink and marriage assuaged his error for a while, step after step had only stoked his foolhardiness and led to the current situation. Fortunately the boys nearby were old enough to know to go for help.

The water was cold and empty as space. He knew to hang on to the edge, to stretch his arms out over the frigid lip of ice. So he waited there, half floating and half perched, posed as if sleepwalking through a wintry desert. Only his head and arms poked up through the jagged hole he had made falling through the surface of the lake. The kids were standing at the edge staring, some laughing, some scared he would slip through and die in front of them.

Theoretically, he knew, if you kept your wits about you and didn’t flail you could survive easily, albeit unhappily, until help came. This was the story of his life. Margaret, his second wife, had just turned forty and as some sort of way of marking passage into a new stage in her life insisted he listen to how he had nearly ruined her life. He didn’t given a crap, and wished she would stop talking. But if he tried to shut the door on her, she would scream and cry until the neighbors called the police.

“Alright, come on in. But I need to go pick up my dry cleaning before they close.”
Margaret sniffed and looked around at the safe beigeness of his apartment. She sat down on the new sectional. “I bumped into Ms. Fuckbunny the other day. She said you called it quits after three months. That’s a record for you.”

“Yes, well, it just wasn’t working out,” he said, holding his tongue. Margaret didn’t need to know about the fights over money, about how Anna had really only wanted him if he had enough money to buy a brownstone and take her to Europe.

But now Margaret wouldn’t give up, no matter how much she did when they were married. “My therapist said you’re a psychic vampire, the kind of person that sucks the energy out of everything. It’s a wonder you even expect things to work out.” She fiddled with the buckle on her bag and looked down. “I was just so tired, you know?” Now she was looking over at the boys, her kitten heels digging into the slush. She was radiant in the sunlight, kind of like the Virgin Mary in a winter coat.

Robert tried to say something, found he had a hard time moving his lips. They were sealed shut against the chattering of his teeth; his jaws were starting to hurt despite the numbness everywhere else. “So am I,” he managed. So tired that sometimes he would play with closing his eyes when he was driving; always when it was safe, but practicing for the moment when it would be up to God or fate or some sorry trucker barreling back toward the highway. So tired that when he saw the ball out on the ice the danger became irresistible. Shining in the sun, it had beckoned to him like a pearl. It was like Anna, Anna when she claimed to love him, and turned toward him with her low-cut dress.

Six birds flew overhead. Robert felt giddy as he tilted his head back and watched them fly across the sky and over the trees. Margaret had left him, again. The slim evergreens rocked gently in the wind, whispering of things dark and alive. Robert’s mother had lived near the forest, in a small house that smelled of bread. She had thought Margaret was too plain but approved of Anna. And his first wife, she had refused to even talk to.

“You don’t listen,” she said. “Never did, no sense in that head of yours.” His mother always had a sour look on her face, as if she’d tasted something bad. She looked at the situation he had gotten into, and crossed her arms. Robert could hardly hear her, but knew she wasn’t saying anything nice.

His fingers slipped a little, and he began to cry. His legs were numb now, but the icy water could do nothing for the feelings that burned in his chest. There was no point arguing. He was a fool, or he wouldn’t be shoulder-deep in the water on a cold winter day. The tears froze on his eyelashes, or seemed to; they simply would not go away. The boys were hazy, colored streaks, the sky a dirty, dishwater-gray nothingness that made him dizzy.

His vision slowly cleared, and as he blinked he saw a police car and a rescue truck pull up by the side of the lake. People got out and milled around, pointing at him and talking to the boys, who had gathered to look at the rescue equipment. Their voices were tinny and distant. He could hear one of the boys laughing.

Robert saw something spidery and bizarre gesturing from the edge of the lake, a man in an orange suit, kneeling down to shimmy over the ice. The suit was the color of moving vans and oriental poppies, and it stood out like flame against the surrounding whiteness. Robert thought of visiting his mother for the last time before the nursing home, the seed pods shaking like maracas in the autumn winds. The flowers were memories, bright points in pictures packed in the little boxes along with remnants of his childhood. Things used to be so perfect.

The figure stretched out and slithered toward him, shining and glorious. For the first time in his life, Robert let go. He felt a pair of strong arms encircle his chest and closed his eyes against the water, knowing that for once, quite possibly, everything would be okay.