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What Time Can't Heal

Peter Pike

She gets up earlier every morning. Sometimes it’s a few seconds, sometimes it’s closer to a minute. Once it was more than five minutes. The only constant is every morning it’s another bit of time.

I’m not quite sure how long it’s been going on. But since we’ve been buying extra sausage for three months, it’s probably been that long. Three months of a little here and a little there. And Molly already woke before the crack of dawn.

Now she stands in the kitchen cooking those sausages. There in the darkness of the pre-dawn, she doesn’t even know I exist. I could stand next to her and she wouldn’t see me. Even if she did see someone there, it wouldn’t be me. No, I’m not really there. Not until the sun rises. Then she’ll get to normal.

But oh these mornings are so long. A little longer each day that she’s trapped in that place.

“You hush there, Benji.” Her voice is soft, but it’s loud as I lay awake atop the bed and listen to her bustle about the kitchen. “I’ll change you in a minute. But first I gots to get Pa his breakfast else we’re all in trouble.”

And she goes back to cooking.

I close my eyes, a desperate prayer. But a voice intrudes against my will: Es gibt nur ein Berlin.

There will be no rest for me tonight either.

I was born a year before Hitler invaded Poland and set the world on the course that resulted in Molly’s father becoming an alcoholic. I’m just old enough to remember with shame how a group of us taunted Josef Schmidt one summer afternoon in 1943, called him a dirty Kraut. He was the son of immigrants from Europe, and his father insisted they were not Germans but Prussians. It didn’t matter much to any of the other kids. Back then, all those with German names were Jerrys or Krauts.

Molly’s Pa didn’t go about fighting any Nazis though. He went into the Pacific Theater, fought the Japanese. He was an anti-aircraft gunner on one of the carriers, saw more than his share of kamikazes raining blood, smoke and death. When he returned after the war, he was...

Well, there’s no gentle way to say it: Molly’s father was a brute. Every so often, someone is born with a portion of their soul missing or suppressed—the portion that contains kindness and empathy toward others. Such a man can fool others for a while, and perhaps even himself for a bit longer, but when you strip away everything he uses as camouflage his true nature remains. For Molly’s father, the war stripped him bare. Seeing the bodies mangled beyond recognition, the blood on the decks, the smoke that rose out of burning oil, the pilots that disappeared into the cerulean unknown. It all added up.

He came home in ’45 just after the nuclear age began. I didn’t know Molly well then. She was a year older than I was, and it wasn’t until high school that I started to pay any attention to her. But she’s told me the stories. How her Pa would get home late nearly every day, his mouth reeking of stale cigarettes and bad brew, and how Ma had better have dinner ready or she’d get a lashing with Pa’s belt.

He never bothered to tell Molly’s mother in advance just when he’d be coming home. It was part of his ruse, you see. If dinner wasn’t ready for him the moment he got there she’d get the belt across the backside, and she knew it. So the bastard would go about his day, boozing and playing fast and loose over town, never a thought about his wife and kid at home. He could afford not to think of them because he knew that they could do nothing but think about him. Molly’s Pa reckoned it made him important if someone fretted over him.

When Molly turned thirteen, her Ma got pregnant. By now, her Pa figured Molly was old enough to tend the house, and since his wife was in the family way, well, Molly got to bear the brunt of her father’s wrath instead. Her Ma took the opportunity to discover the drink her husband craved, and by the time Benjamin was born, Molly knew fear inside and out.

Es gibt nur ein Berlin. I don’t speak German, yet I know the translation. More importantly, I know the meaning.

A coughing fit seizes me, brings me back to reality. I’ve had emphysema for years, an unruly guest who has overstayed his welcome.

Molly can hear me cough. “Hush-a-bye Benji! He’s waking up!”

I swallow the phlegm, feel my chest ease a bit. I fake a few snores and the hectic activity in the kitchen simmers down a bit. Lord, how I wish I could get her to stop. But it’s still dark out.

I met Benji the same day I first walked Molly home after school. He was a short boy covered head to toe in mud since he’d been chasing a rooster through the yard. For as much as his parents cared, that could have been three days ago. But Molly made sure he bathed when he got too dirty so the mess had happened that very afternoon.

“Frank, I’d like you to meet my brother Benjamin,” she had said. “I call him Benji.”

“Bennie!” the little voice rang out. He threw his arms wide in front of me. “Up! Up!”

“No, Benji. You’re filthy. Frank can’t pick you up.”

I smiled, grateful. I would have done it for her if she asked, but I preferred to keep my school clothes clean.

“So here we are.”

“Here we are,” I agreed.

“I know it doesn’t look like much.”

I shrugged. Truth be told, my parent’s farm didn’t look like much either—not compared to the wealthy farmers out east. Even so, we were poor in a dignified manner. Molly’s family…wasn’t. I didn’t have the heart to tell her how bad the place looked. Even among the hierarchy of the dispossessed, they were hurting.

“Thanks for walking me home.”

“It’s no trouble.” And it wasn’t. I could have walked to the moon with her.

“Will I see you again soon?”

“Every day in school.”

“I’d like that, Frank.”

I smiled, squeezed her hand. Her hair fell forward across her face, and I reached to brush it back. She flinched, a flicker of panic in her eye. Then it was gone.

But I could still see it even as she brushed her hair away with her own hand. She let out a nervous giggle, tried to pretend it was no big deal as she waltzed into her house. For her sake, I pretended with her.

It was only three miles for me to get home, but that was a long journey after what I had just witnessed. She had reminded me of Dandy.

Dad had brought the mangy mutt home one evening. Almost had to drag him out of the truck when he got there. Dandy slinked around, his belly in the dirt, tail between his legs. Dad pulled him into the house and set him before a plate of scraps Mom had been going to give to the pigs.

The dog wolfed it down so fast it was as if he’d inhaled the plate. Then he slid off into the deep shadows of the corner.

Dad didn’t say much about where he got Dandy. But later my brother Jed told me that Dad had seen a guy in town beating the dog, had walked right up to him and punched him in the gut. Then he threw five dollars at the man and said, “That’s for your dog.” I don’t know how true that is. Jed usually has a grain of truth with a pound of lies, and since Dad wasn’t a violent man I reckon he simply bought the dog.

We’d had Dandy for three or four years by the time I walked home from Molly’s. None of us had ever raised a hand to him, not counting when he got into the chicken coop and Dad threw a chunk of wood against the fence to scare him. But every time we reached to pet him he’d flinch and crouch to the ground.

I asked Dad about it once. He said, “Frank, he knows you never hit him, but when you reach for him he don’t see your hand. That’s what you got to understand. It ain’t your hand he sees.”

As I neared our house, I thought about that. And the closer I got to my house, the more I realized that a man could never truly be miserable until he has fallen in love.

The sky to the east is starting to burn. I kick off the blankets and stand in the cold morning air. Molly has got a fire going in the living room, and as I leave the bedroom she glances up at me from her rocking chair next to the blaze.

“Good morning, Frank.”

“Good morning, beautiful.” I walk over to her, my joints creaking. She’s rubbing her hands—as stiff as my knees are they pale in comparison to the rage in her knuckles. She’s had arthritis for a decade and the morning cooking isn’t helping that at all.

“I made you breakfast,” she says. “Eggs and sausage. I was going to make pancakes but my hand hurt too much to hold the beater.”

I glance to the kitchen, see the half-made batter in the bowl. She never used to leave it out like that. She always swore she’d never let her own house degenerate into the pigsty that her parent’s place had been.

“Why don’t you use the electric mixer?” I ask.

“Didn’t think about it.” She answers honestly, but that’s not the real reason. She didn’t use it now because she wouldn’t have used it then.

I reach for Molly, watch her flinch again. Then she smiles and I tell myself it wasn’t my hand she saw. I kiss her on the lips and run a hand through her auburn hair.

“How is it you’ve managed to not have any gray hairs?” I ask. I wish I could say the same for me. My own hair is snow upon my crown, but at least I’m not bald.

“I’m just a lucky girl,” Molly responds with the smile that captured my heart fifty-three years ago.

I sit before the fire and watch the sun sink in the western windows. As you get older, Alzheimer’s comes ever so further into the persistent portion of your mind. And with Molly the way she is right now, I have to confess I’ve been thinking of it even more of late.

Es gibt nur ein Berlin.

There is only one Berlin.

Ronald Reagan was the most deserving candidate I ever voted for. He had a will of steel when he faced down the Soviets. You could feel the hardened resolve when he said, “Mr. Gorbachev, tear down this wall!”

Two years later, the wall was gone. And soon after, the mind of steel followed.

Alzheimer’s.

When Reagan gave his challenge to Gorbachev, he was in Berlin. The city Hitler had ruled before launching World War II. Perhaps that’s what causes me to fear. Could Molly be destined to suffer the same fate as Reagan just as Hitler had caused her pain through her father?

I shouldn’t entertain such a notion, yet I cannot drive it out. I try to hide it by feigning interest in the photo album on my lap.

I suppose it’s because Molly’s been talking to Benji in the mornings that I pulled the album off the shelf in the first place. We don’t have many pictures of Molly’s only sibling. After Molly and I got married, we pretty much cut ourselves off from her family. But we do have the picture Benji sent us when he was stationed at Fort Hood.

The little mud-covered boy had grown in to a mud-covered adult.

I smile at that photo, examine the handsome young man who took after his father in so many ways. Benji went to fight in the Pacific just like his Pa had; only he went into the jungles of Vietnam instead of a ship off Midway Island.

Benji had his father’s bravery in combat. And I suppose that’s why the photo opposite his Fort Hood picture is of Panel 16 West of the Vietnam War Memorial. Benji had died pushing a friend into a foxhole as a mortar round came in.

He looked so much like his father, I wonder if Benji would have become an alcoholic if that shrapnel hadn’t gone through his heart.

This new thought isn’t any better than the old, so I shut the album and watch the flames dance in the fireplace. But I can’t stop my mind. Dandy. He shouldn’t be connected, but maybe it’s like Hitler’s invasion of Poland and Reagan’s speech in Berlin—just one more strand of an infinite web.

Dandy lived quite a long time for a dog. Although none of us were quite certain when he was born, he must have been around fourteen or fifteen when he passed.

Sometimes, when Dandy was older, he would wander over to the fire place next to Dad’s rocking chair. He’d stand there, his head held high, and wait. Tail thumping on the hard floor. Ears perked.

Then Dad would reach for him, and the dog would slouch down to the floor, trembling. Dad would raise his hand again. This could continue for hours if Dad was reading a good book. I’m not sure Dad was even conscious of it.

As I watched I could tell that Dandy wanted to be loved. He needed to be around people, to be cared for. To share in the family.

But he was terrified. It was too risky. He’d been hurt too much.

“How long do you think it’ll take before he trusts us?” I once asked Dad.

“Probably never,” he responded. “There are some things time can’t heal.”

Then another voice enters my mind:

“Aw, what a cute Labrador!”

“What, Dandy? He’s a mutt, not a lab.”

Molly looked at me with a gleam in her eye. “You may think he’s a mutt, but I’m telling you he knows in his soul he’s a proud Labrador.”

All Dandy cared about was that a new lady had arrived to shower him with praise and attention. He sat there by Molly’s side as I introduced her to my family. I don’t think Molly’s hand stopped moving through Dandy’s mane the whole time she was over.

For his part, Dandy couldn’t have been happier. It was amazing how he didn’t flinch at all with Molly. I don’t know if it’s because she was a woman and he had never been abused by a woman, or if it was because he could sense something in Molly’s heart. I tend to believe the latter, but I’m no dog expert.

I remember what she did before I took Molly home. She bent down, kissed Dandy between the eyes, and put both hands on either side of his neck. She scratched behind his ears and as Dandy’s mouth opened and he panted in contentment, she began a sort of baby-talk to him: “Is you a good lellow labberdore? Oh, yes you is! You’s my good labberdore, isn’t you! You is a pwoud lellow labberdore, isn’t you!”

And for that moment, he was.

It’s the earliest she’s gotten up, a full half hour earlier than last night. I wheeze in bed as I hear pots bang in the kitchen. “Hush there, Benji! You’ll wake Pa!”

I listen to the bustle, the commotion, wishing I knew what to do. Then I hear a crash followed by a scream.

I jump out of bed and rush into the hall. The floor creaks under my weight.

“I’m so sorry, Pa! It’ll be ready in a minute.”

She’s lies on the kitchen floor. Blood drips down her temple.

“I di’n’t see we was out of sausages. I forgot to check! I’ll get some more. I know it’s your favorite, Pa.”

“Molly!” My voice is firm, but I don’t shout. Not at Molly. I step into the light. “It’s just me. Frank. What happened?”

Molly stretches for the stove but can’t get enough recess to stand. “We still have plenty of eggs though. I can whip up some pancakes too. I di’n’t mean for it to be so late, Pa!”

I kneel beside her. “Molly, oh Molly.” My voice cracks as she looks at me. Her old, wrinkled face is still beautiful and I reach out to caress it.

She leaps in fear and I draw back. Then: “Frank?” Her voice is uncertain.

“Yes my love?”

“What are you doing out of bed?”

Tears trickle down my cheek.

Her voice is hesitant, confused: “I was makin’ breakfast for…for...”

“It’s okay.”

She closes her eyes, a long blink. “My head. I feel woozy.”

I help her to her feet and drive her to the emergency room. The attending nurse is young, maybe thirty years old, and she wears no wedding ring. Molly grips my hand tight, refuses to let the younger woman shoo me away, even though I’m in the way. Still, when the nurse leaves for the hall I overhear her tell an orderly, “Isn’t it wonderful to see two people still in love after all that time?”

I squeeze Molly’s hand and we smile at each other. Then she lays back and closes her eyes. My smile fades and my heart trembles.

I don’t know what to do anymore.

Molly opens her eyes. “What’s the matter, Frank?”

“Just wool gathering.”

“You always think too much.”

“I was thinkin’ about the farm. My Dad. Your Pa.”

Molly doesn’t say anything, but her grip tightens ever so much. She swallows, looks me in the eye again. “I don’t ever want to think about Pa again.”

“I know. I’m sorry for bringing it up.”

For a moment she is silent. Then: “Don’t apologize. You saved me from him. If you hadn’t come along, maybe I’d still be trapped there with him.”

I kiss her hand, but it’s to hide my tears from her. She is still trapped there. I haven’t saved her at all.

I sit in front of the fireplace and watch the dark red embers die away. I can hear the old clock ticking in the kitchen but it’s too dark to read the face. Even so, it must be time.

And then I hear the creak of the floor board. Seconds later the light in the kitchen comes on.

“Oh, Benji! What a mess you’ve left of this place.”

“Molly?”

She jumps. “Pa! I didn’t fig’er you was awake already! I didn’t—please, Pa!”

I stand and my knee pops like a gunshot. Molly gives a start and I quickly call out: “It’s me, Molly. It’s Frank.”

Her hands are raised in front of her face to ward off the blows she knows must fall upon her now. I step toward her, my voice low. “Molly, please. Look at me.”

A sob racks her body.

“Molly.”

Her voice is almost a whisper: “I’m worthless.”

“No, Molly. Don’t say that.”

“I can’t fix breakfast. I can’t clean the house. I can’t take care of Benji. I can’t do anything right.”

“Molly!”

She hides her face in her hands, her old arthritic joints hooked and throbbing. “Please don’t hit me, Pa. I’ll try harder.”

I reach for her. She doesn’t see me with her face still in her hands. Then my arms are around her. She jumps, but I hold her close.

“I love you, Molly,” I whisper.

She shudders.

“You’re my beautiful Molly. My beautiful perfect Molly.”

Her eyes are clenched shut. “I c-can’t—”

“You don’t have to, my love. You’ve done all you need to already. He can’t hurt you anymore. He died twenty-seven years ago.”

And as I say it, something clicks in my mind. Even though we haven’t gotten the test results yet, I know—I can’t prove it, but I know—that Molly doesn’t have Alzheimer’s. She doesn’t have what we used to call senile dementia. She doesn’t have anything related to age. Because if she did, she could have gone to any one of a number of wonderful memories.

But she only goes back to her Pa. She only relives what time can’t heal; the festering wounds that won’t close; those memories that rub like steel wool on your soul, that never go away. Only a coherent mind can torture the soul in such a manner.

“Molly, what he did to you wasn’t right. It wasn’t your fault.”

“Yes it is. It’s always my fault.”

“Molly.” My voice hesitates. She’s prepared to argue for that premise. She believes it to her core. And even thought it’s not her fault, I realize it will be impossible to convince her of that truth right now.

I hear Ronald Reagan’s voice. C’mon Frank, tear down this wall.

“I love you anyway.”

“It is too my fault,” she responds, unhearing.

“I love you anyway.”

She hears me this time. Her mouth flutters. Before she can say anymore, I repeat it a third time.

“I…love…you…any…way.”

Molly’s hands slowly drop from her face and she looks at me. We’re silent for a full minute. Then, almost inaudible: “Thanks for walking me home.”

My voice manages not to crack. “It’s no trouble.”

“Will I see you again soon?”

“Every day.”

“I’d like that, Frank.” She puts her arms around me and murmurs, “I’m tired, so tired.”

“You’re going to be fine,” I say. Her eyes are already closing and I bend to lift her like I did on our wedding night to carry her across the threshold. Before I get her back in bed, she’s snoring.

I lay beside her, hold her hand, rest her head against my chest. “You’re going to be just fine,” I whisper.

And for the moment, she is.