Free Dust of Eden by Thomas Sullivan

then Martin asked: "What's this?"
    "New Eden, Dad. It's a great place. We're gonna try it, okay?"
    After that it was all like a Bunco game in which Denny was a shill, infusing his old man with words, will, illusions as they migrated somehow through the greetings and the rooms to the chamber that had been cleared for his father. It was large—once a small classroom, according to the woman named Molly—and now there was a miscellany of old furniture on the tile floor and an immense open spot for the bed Denny was to bring on another trip (the bed was central) and there were paintings that looked like originals on the walls.
    "This is pretty nice, Dad, and you can go anywhere you want in the house. It's all yours. Along with the other residents, of course. It's what they call assisted living. You're on your own, except they take care of your food and medical and other necessities. And I can come see you every day."
    His father shuffled, breathless, to the captain's chair by the windows and collapsed onto the pads tied to its spindles. He seemed to be listening from a long way off.
    "I'll be bringing your other stuff, Dad. Your bed, your dresser, your nightstand. Photos and everything too. Anything you want moved, you just say so. I'm going to pick up the rental truck now. I've got a student to help me. Okay? I'll see you in a little while."
    From the window ledge his father picked up a framed photo of a woman in batwing sleeves, as if he knew her.
    "We'll take good care of him," Molly vowed with empathy, and Denny allowed himself to be drawn into the corridor.
    The little woman with the glitter glasses and the perpetual smudge of lipstick on one of her eyeteeth began to shuffle past as they came out.
    Denny made two trips in the rental truck, and on the final delivery he faced Ariel in the parlor. Paavo was there, as well as two women introduced as Helen Hoverstein and Marjorie Korpela . For the first time it struck Denny as odd that an old matron—older, it seemed, than the residents—should be in charge.
    "Your father will be fine," Ariel assured him. "In fact, I'd advise you to leave him alone as much as possible. If you come, it will just make it harder for him to adjust."
    "I'll think about it," Denny said.
    "Well, if you do come again, I'll take your photograph—a nice photo of you and your father in his room."
    For just a second, Denny Bryce thought the room inhaled. The woman named Marjorie stiffened and sat a little straighter, and the enormous eyes of the one named Helen froze on him with something like urgency. And did ramrod Paavo , his shirt still buttoned to the neck, lean back slightly as though buffeted by an invisible current? But as he stood up to leave, Denny noticed something he found reassuring. It was a painting of the Garden of Eden. Not the ubiquitous print that hung on Sunday school walls and in rectories; this one was an original. Whatever the quirks and foibles of this buttoned-grandame who ran the place, she was steeped in traditional morality, he thought. A little hard to live with but scarcely neglectful. No, he decided, there wasn't any trouble in this paradise.
    Out on the porch he found himself confronted by the woman with the lipstick-smudged eyetooth. "Forget about having your photograph taken," she said. "It's a bad idea."
    "Why?"
    She tried to peer past him through the screen door. "It just is." Then she moved aside and, in a stage whisper meant to carry into the house, added, ". . . So, bring some cigarettes when you come again."

Chapter 3
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    M artin Bryce awoke nowhere. It was as if he had been trolleying along over the axons and dendrites of his brain and gotten derailed. He left the tracks almost every time he awoke. If he wasn't in a black gulf, he was at a way station that had no rail lines coming or going. The sense of utter loneliness that came with this never lessened, because it was always the first time. He didn't remember it happening the night before, or