The Shape of Desire (6 page)

B
oth of us are in better moods Sunday as we drive out to Rolla, though what seems to keep us in charity with each other is saying as little as possible. So we don’t talk much during the drive. We spend most of the time on Highway 44, but close to our destination we exit onto a two-lane county road where the median speed seems to be seventy miles an hour. Dante is focused on getting ahead of every slow-moving family car and farm vehicle we encounter, which can be challenging as the road winds and dips around blind hills and corners and once clatters over a narrow, ancient bridge scarcely wide enough to accommodate a sedan.

I don’t watch. I turn my head and gaze out at the gently rolling Missouri landscape, its densely bunched covering of trees making a slow-motion transformation from emerald to garnet and topaz. It is as if someone has caught a freeze-frame image of the instant a hillside has caught fire. Flames have been halted in their leap from branch to branch; gold has crystallized halfway on its journey to orange. In a
couple of months, every tree will be bare, stripped to a mute, stubborn brown. It will be hard to even remember the color green.

We pass farmland, some of it still high with crops waiting to be harvested, some mowed clean and tilled down to the soil. We pass grazing cattle and a few lazy horses. I am tempted to speak.
Were you ever a cow? Have you ever been a horse? How about a pig?
But I would rather keep the peace than find answers to my questions.

I think about what might lie ahead of us at Christina’s house. Rolla is a small town with a population of somewhere around twenty thousand, probably best known for being home to the University of Missouri campus that specializes in engineering. Christina lives a good ten miles outside of the city limits, in the house that used to belong to their mother. She works as a secretary for the local school district, a job that seems to pay well, to be recession-proof, and to afford her enough flexibility that she can take a day off whenever she needs. I know she comes to St. Louis on a fairly regular basis, because she talks about events she’s attended and restaurants she’s gone to with college friends who live in the city. Not once since I’ve known her has she gotten in touch with me on those visits.

I wonder if I would think she was odd even if I didn’t know her secret; I suspect I would. She’s got Dante’s same dramatic coloring, but she’s more delicate. You think you could probably snap the bones in her arm just by applying a minimum amount of pressure. She’s almost always smiling in a way that strikes me as artificial, which makes me wonder what she’s really thinking, and her laugh is high and tinkling. She flutters like an indecisive butterfly. I think the people in the school district must find her exhausting to be around all week. Then again, maybe she is more relaxed and natural around them. Perhaps I only see her at her worst, around her brothers. Perhaps she tries too hard to charm them—or to charm Dante, at any rate.

She seems to have a closer relationship with William, despite the
fact that he is human so rarely. From what I understand, her house is the place he returns whenever he wants to reenter the world of men; it’s where he keeps his clothes and his few possessions.
She
is his storage locker, his emergency cell phone, his key. If William has made any other long-term connections over the years, I have never heard about them.

I remember the first time Dante told me about his siblings, granting details like much-begrudged diamonds. “William and Christina and Dante Romano,” I had said, because I still liked to roll the Italian surname off my tongue. “Why do
you
have the weird first name?”

That had actually made him laugh. “My mother had a thing for the Rossettis.”

I had laughed, too, though the name had meant nothing to me at the time. But I committed it to memory and tracked down a reference room staff member the next time I was at the library. This was in the days before easy Internet search engines, and finding arcane information often required determination and assistance.

“I need to know about the Rossettis,” I’d said, not sure if that was a place, a family name, or some other category. “Specifically, any of them who might be related to Dante, Christina, and William.”

As it happened, the reference room staff member was a specialist in twentieth-century literature, so she had to do a little research. But the first world biographical resource she pulled out listed “Dante Gabriel Rossetti” and described him as a painter and a poet. From there it was pretty easy to amass a history of the flamboyant, charismatic, and deeply flawed artist who was my lover’s namesake, and learn stories about his brother and sister as well. I found myself drawn to the painter’s vividly hewed, richly detailed canvases, at least from the early part of his career; I found the endless late-stage portraits of his mistress much less appealing. And none of his poetry ever spoke to me, though I struggled through as many volumes as I could.

Christina Rossetti was harder to like. She had led a bleak and
restricted spinster’s life after experiencing a couple of severe disappointments in love. Most of her poems were morbid and resigned meditations on death. She seemed to spend her whole life preparing herself for the grave.

Except…

One poem is full of anticipation and delight; one poem is nothing but metaphors of elation. I’ve read it over and over again, memorizing it without even intending to. Today her heart is a singing bird, she says in convoluted Victorian language. Today she wants to dress up in peacock feathers and fur. And why?

Because the birthday of my life

Is come, my love is come to me.

Somehow she had known, this woman who had renounced love for religion, who had died a virgin, who had lived long enough to see almost everyone she cared for pass away. Somehow she had gotten it right…

I still feel that way, every time Dante walks in my door.
The birthday of my life / Is come, my love is come to me.
It took a depressed British lady poet to put my emotions into words.

William Rossetti survived his brother and his sister, and led the most ordinary life of the three. Given what I know about my own Dante and his siblings, it seems to me this is the ultimate joke. Or it would be, if any of this was funny.

C
hristina lives in a well-maintained one-story white clapboard house heavily decorated with gingerbread accents. The wraparound porch makes me think of lemonade and iced tea and warm summer nights with children chasing fireflies on the lawn. She owns about five acres of land, much of it given over to old-growth trees, and this property
serves as a fairly effective buffer between her house and the encroachments of urban development. That level of privacy is essential for a family of shape-shifters. My own bungalow is on a plot of land that backs up to a semi-wooded area; I hunted a long time for a house where my neighbors would have to put some effort into keeping track of my comings and goings. But Christina’s house is even more isolated.

Dante pulls into the driveway and cuts the motor. I’m out of the car before I realize someone is on the porch. I didn’t notice him a second before; he seems to have materialized from nowhere. It’s William, of course. He’s wearing a white sleeveless T-shirt and slouchy jeans, and he looks even thinner and stringier than Dante. His hair—a twilight brown instead of Dante’s midnight black—is tied back in a ponytail, so I can’t tell how long it is, but last time I saw him, it was past his shoulders. He’s smoking a cigarette. He doesn’t say anything as we come up the walk and climb the stairs.

“You know those things will kill you,” I feel compelled to observe as we halt beside him on the porch.

His grin is ferocious. “Doubt I’ll live long enough to find out.”

He’s not kidding. Although he’s five years younger than Dante, today he looks five years older. Up close, I can see the heavy streaks of gray in his hair, the slight sagging of the muscles on his bare arms.

“So have you recovered?” Dante asks him.

“Seem to.”

I glance at William; he is so thin and so pale that he could have been brought down by anything, from malaria to AIDS. “What was wrong with you?” I ask.

“Got hurt,” he replies tersely.

“Badly enough to see a doctor and get a blood transfusion,” Dante says.

That must mean William had been at death’s door, because I have never seen Dante seek out medical attention for any wound or illness. “How dreadful!” I exclaim with easy sympathy. “But you’re better now?”

“Good as ever,” he
says and gives me a grin. I can’t help but think of the word
wolfish
.

Dante gives him a hard look. “And you haven’t had any relapses?” He says it in a meaningful voice, as if he’s asking something he doesn’t want to put into words.

“Nope. I think I’ll be just fine.”

“Good,” Dante says. “When did you get here?”

“Friday. Would have been gone already, but she asked me to stay.”

Dante’s frown returns. “What’s this about?”

William sucks on his cigarette again. His face has lightened to genuine amusement. “You mean you don’t know? Oh, you’ve gotta go inside.”

Dante’s eyes narrow, but he doesn’t pose any more questions, just pulls open the screen door and steps into the house. I’m right behind him. I see William pitch away his cigarette before he follows.

We’ve stepped into a big, gracious room with windows on two walls letting in copious amounts of cheerful autumn sunshine. To the left an archway leads to a hallway that would take us to bedrooms and bathrooms; directly in front of us, the living room opens into a dining room that is equally sunny and inviting. Some of the furniture is well-worn and old, some is newer and brighter, but every piece works together to create a welcoming ambiance. Lace curtains drift over the windows; a brick-red rug warms the floor. An ebony baby grand piano takes up one corner of the room, even though none of the three of them can play. Their mother was a very good musician, Dante has said, but no one has touched the keys in twelve years or more.

Christina stands in the middle of the living room, holding a sleeping infant against her shoulder.

Dante comes to a hard stop and I have to skip to the side to avoid running into him. “Jesus Christ,” he says.

“I have something to tell you,” Christina says in a lilting voice.

“Yes, I suppose you do,” Dante replies grimly.

William slinks in behind us and slips past Christina on his way to the kitchen or the basement or some other part of the house. If he’s been here since Friday, he’s undoubtedly heard the whole story, and it’s clear he isn’t particularly interested in refereeing an argument between his brother and sister. I stand motionless beside Dante, not sure if I should excuse myself so they can fight it out or stay to make sure they don’t kill each other.

“I had a baby,” she says. She’s smiling in a sort of soft, unfocused way. She pats the child’s back, clothed in some fleecy item covered with a pattern of ducks and dogs. I can’t tell from the design or the color if the outfit is meant for a boy or a girl.

“It’s yours, then? You gave birth to it? You didn’t adopt it or—or
find
it somewhere and decide to keep it?”

“
Her.
I had
her
,” Christina emphasizes. “Yes, she’s mine. She’ll be three weeks old tomorrow.”

Dante is shaking his head. “How could you do this? How could you be so careless?”

“I wasn’t careless. I
wanted
a baby,” she says.

Dante glares at her. “I thought you realized—”

She interrupts. “I realized that
you
think it’s a bad idea for any of us to have children, but I don’t ever remember telling you I agreed.”

Dante throws his hands in the air and starts pacing. I take the opportunity to edge toward the piano, out of the way. I can’t stop staring at the lumpy little bundle pressed to Christina’s chest. I’m dying to hold her, but it seems too soon to start cooing and fussing over the baby. Not while Dante is so angry.

“Only an idiot wouldn’t agree!” He is ranting now. He’s stalking and gesturing and tossing his head, but he never gets too close to Christina. I don’t know if he’s afraid he’ll smack her or if he’s afraid he’ll take one look at that tiny, new face and fall in love. “You’re a goddamn
shape-shifter
, Christina! You turn into an
animal
! How can you take care of a baby? Who do you think you’re going to leave her with when you’re in some other form? Do you suppose the neighbors will understand when you want to drop her off for a day? ‘Oh, I can feel myself turning into a bat or an owl—I need to have someone watch the baby for a while.’”

“Well, I’m on maternity leave until January, but I’ve already looked into babysitting services that provide overnight care,” she says. Her voice is level, her stance dignified. She seems much calmer than the Christina I’m familiar with. Maybe the pregnancy has changed some internal blood chemistry or recalibrated her brain waves. I’ve read about that happening to women sometimes after they’ve had babies. They develop allergies or reverse decades-long psychological problems. Maybe having a child has turned Christina into a serene and focused person.

“Oh, and that’ll come in handy once you’ve shifted and you can’t pick up the phone to call them.”

Christina shakes her head. “That’s not how it works for me. You know that. I can feel the change coming on—I’ll have plenty of warning. I’ll be able to take her someplace safe before anything happens.”

Dante churns to a stop and slams his fist into his open palm. “
Goddamn
it,” he says. “Even if you could take care of her—even if you managed to keep her safe from
you
, from her own
mother
—how could you do this? She’ll be another one. She’ll be just like us. We shouldn’t
have
kids, Christina! People like us aren’t meant to breed.”

“I don’t know why you think that,” she replies in a reasonable voice. “Our parents had children.
Their
parents had children. We have aunts and uncles and cousins who are just like us, and I’m sure some of
them
have given birth by now. You’re the only one who seems determined to stamp out our kind.”