Fellow Mortals (19 page)

“Thank you for today,” she says. “It’s always good to see you, Sam. We’ll have you here for dinner once we’re settled in.”

“Mm,” Sam says, staring down the street.

“I’d love to see your sculptures sometime.”

She rubs him on the arm and leaves him on the grass. Wingnut’s torn between staying outside and following Joan up the stairs, but he’s spared the choice when Henry trots out and gives both Sam and Wing a hearty thump on the back. He’s wearing sweatpants with the legs tucked into his socks and makes it work, by God. He really makes it work.

Henry breathes deep and exhales large, turning sober as the day Sam met him with the ax.

“We gotta talk about something.”

“Please don’t tell me that I ought to buy a house.”

“No, it isn’t that,” Henry says. “Though you gotta admit, this is one sweet place they have here.”

Sam pictures it enwreathed, swirling up flame.

“I got my route back,” Henry says. “I start a week from Monday.”

Sam expected something worse, at the very least surprising, but his stomach goes fluid and the curbside moves.

“That’s great,” he says. “Congratulations. Henry, that’s … I’m glad, I really am. You deserve it.”

“Yeah.” Henry frowns. “I can still come out certain nights after work, but it’s gonna be more of a weekend deal from now on.” He shakes his head, sighing at the trees. “I’m going to miss being out there every day. You and me,” Henry mumbles. “Sam, listen…”

“So this is why everyone’s inviting me to dinner.”

“It isn’t pity. That’s the last thing it is. I know it’s crazy but the last few months, working in the woods…” Henry stands up firm, trembling at the eyes. “You’re a good friend. One of the best I ever had,” he says. “I know it isn’t mutual, but really, that’s the truth of it.”

Sam takes it in, scared to move a muscle, any possible reply rushing from his head. They wait until the words have a temporary glow. Finally Henry moves to circulate his arms, looking like he physically intends to clear the air.

“But like I said, I’ll be seeing you a lot,” Henry says. “We’ve got to prep the cabin if you want to spend the winter. Plus Wingnut’ll miss you. He still hasn’t forgiven us for building that tree house without him. And I’ll tell you something else. Ava cares about you, too, so that’s another shoulder you can call on. The important thing is staying positive. You’re not alone, even when you are.”

Sam can tell he wants to hug him, that’s he actively resisting it. He wanders off the sidewalk and totters on the curb. The moving truck is cavernous and dark, and Sam realizes that the Finns have gone inside for good, where all that’s left to do is cleaning and arranging.

There were boxes in the basement Laura never unpacked—things that they forgot about. He wonders what was in them. She’s been with him all day, ghostly and alive. He recognized her writing on a box marked
PLATES
. From the bathroom he had sworn he heard her speaking outside, and when he walked out front to shake it from his mind, Ava smiled like he only just missed her by a second. They’ve behaved that way on and off throughout the day, as if an ongoing secret were unfolding all around him.
This is it
, Sam thinks. Pretty soon they’ll say goodbye and even Laura’s fleeting presence won’t accompany him home.

18

The last Billy heard from Sheri, she was staying with Mary-Kate. She called once to see if he was home and hung up as soon as Billy answered; Mary-Kate’s name was on the caller ID and when he tried calling back, the phone just rang. He figured she’d eventually settle down and listen to reason, and he wasn’t prepared to return from work one afternoon and find the place emptied out.

She’d taken too many things to fit in her backseat and must have had help, someone with a truck or at least a second car. She didn’t call after that, and when he went to Mary-Kate’s apartment and the diner—painfully polite, only asking where she was—the owner of the diner told Billy to leave and Mary-Kate’s brother met him at the door and threatened to kick his ass. He wondered if Sheri might be staying with the
brother
—countless men had crossed his mind over the weeks—but in the end, all he learned was that she’d quit her job and disappeared. He missed so many days of work looking around town he almost got fired from his own job, and when he comes home tonight, it’s no surprise that the answering machine’s 00 and the phone ID shows that nobody called.

Everything’s exactly as he left it: takeout bags, empty cans, Showtime on the television. There’s a heap of Sheri’s clothes on the living room floor, all of which he searched, some of which he tried on, drunk the night before, during a movie called
Penitentiary II
. He keeps discovering things she made off with. They had a single hairbrush: gone. She took the hangers that her clothes were on, a pillow off the bed, the silverware, the coffeemaker, every picture on the walls except the ones that feature Billy. She took a table lamp and now the bedroom has a dim, eerie corner after dark.

He’s taken to sleeping on the couch, where the television flickers with a reassuring light. It crinkles when he sits on it now; there must be a can underneath the cushion. He opens a beer, flips around the channels, and finds Charlton Heston, dirty and enslaved, but he’s disappointed when it’s
Ben-Hur
and not
Planet of the Apes.
He leaves it on and has another beer, telling himself he’ll clean the house after one more scene, but he ends up watching it for hours, and by the time they reach the Valley of the Lepers, he’s drunk enough to take the story personally.

He falls asleep and wakes up foggy in the dark. He doesn’t remembering turning the television off. When he clicks it back on, the empty doorways are sinister and black. He ties his shoes, grabs his keys, and drives around town. He thinks of going to the mall, but eventually and only partly on purpose, he finds himself at the Coopers’ house and parks across the street.

The light inside is warmer than it ought to be, almost like they’re using better lightbulbs. Much of the effect is one of neatness and simplicity, every window perfect as a picture frame, the creamy colors in the rooms accentuated by the houseplants, hardwood furniture, and drapes. Especially the drapes, how they soften up the angles, cozier than blinds or ordinary shades. There’s movement upstairs, a shadow in the glow, too quick for him to tell if it is Henry or his wife. He remembers Ava standing in her dress that day, satiny and clean, beautifully at ease. He opens the car and walks across the road. There’s no one on the street, not a sound aside from crickets in the yards. He creeps around a hedge to an unlit window on the side and has a look.

It’s a guest room with a double bed and a dresser. It must be where the Finns stayed—he heard they bought a house. He likes the dresser. Likes the wallpaper, too. He wonders how the carpet and the bedspread feel. The hallway’s lit and Billy has a view of the downstairs bathroom with a mirror less than twenty feet away. When he stands up straight, he sees the window in the mirror and the glass looks black as if he isn’t really there.

*   *   *

Henry tells himself it’s okay to wear boxers in the kitchen, okay to move the table out of the living room. It’s fine that the Finns are way across town and fine—of course it is—that Sam’s entirely alone out there. Same as last night, really, and the night before that, but when Henry’s in the yard watching Wingnut pee, he can smell a hint of autumn and he really does wish Sam would get himself a house.

He’s up for doing chores but Ava’s always drifting into some new room, one minute upstairs, another in the basement, whipping up dust, brisk and unapproachable. He used to make her laugh without trying, mispronouncing words and giving his opinions, but tonight, when he rubber-bands a pair of her underwear, she snaps them off the floor and says he’s killing the elastic.

He used to give her spanks—little pats, just for fun—but he hasn’t had the gumption in a very long time.

I’m out of practice
, Henry thinks, warming up his palms, and when she lumbers from the basement with the laundry in her arms, he stands aside, lets her pass, and spanks her in the doorway. It’s more of a hip shot than he intends—his aim’s rusty, too—and Ava jerks around.

“What was
that
for?”

He smiles and recoils. “Just kidding around.”

She rolls her eyes right out of the kitchen, and she’s already halfway up to the bedroom when he offers to carry the basket.

“I’ve got it,” Ava says, militantly crisp, her derrière wondrous from the bottom of the stairs.

He follows her up, Wingnut shadowing his heels.

For one exhilarating day, Wing had had them all together. Then they just left and now the Finns aren’t here. He doesn’t remember eating but he’s far too tired to complain, weary of foot and limp of tail and yawning with a whine. He’d like to sleep but can’t relax, kept alert by Ava’s busyness and Henry’s aimless circuits through the house, and he’s already forgotten that he heard an unfamiliar car outside, an engine and a door that electrified his fur.

Henry watches Ava pick through the laundry. She pats it back down, shakes her head, and steps away as if deciding what to fold is more than she can handle. Henry creeps up and starts to rub her neck. Ava jumps away, startling them both.

“Geez,” he says, and laughs. “I’m not the Strangler.”

Ava looks at him and frowns.

“What am I doing wrong?” he asks.

“Nothing.” Ava sighs. “I’m just trying to get this done. We haven’t changed the sheets in two weeks, I haven’t showered. Just give me room,” she says. “Down!”

Wing, so distracted by the long day’s events, has violated protocol and jumped onto the bed. He leaps back down, belly to the floor, more startled by his gaffe than by the sharpness of the reprimand.

“Take your shower,” Henry says. “I’ll get out of your hair.”

He and Wingnut retreat without looking back.

Down in the kitchen, they share a meatball hero and mull the atmosphere—a fall-fresh night in late summer, someone’s chiminea up the block giving off a scent of wood smoke that makes them want to go outside, makes them want to snuggle up in bed.

“She needs a vacation,” Henry says to Wing, who answers with a wag and earns another meatball.

Except she’ll never agree to take one, Henry thinks, and even if she does, she’ll spend the whole time cleaning. The next bite of food reminds him of the woods and all the days he and Sam had their lunches in the open.

“I’m a genius,” he declares, drumming on the table.

Wing licks his chops and thoroughly agrees.

*   *   *

Ava’s haggard and sore and nearly falls asleep standing in the shower. After the spic-and-span newness of the Finns’ empty house, her own little realm feels woefully neglected. Gritty carpets, scuff marks, cobwebs swaying in the corners of the ceilings. But now that she’s gotten the emergency vacuuming and laundry out of the way, she resigns herself to finishing tomorrow and surrenders to the water.

The summer’s been a blood vessel swelling in her head. She takes her first rejuvenating sigh of the night and segues into a yawn. With the inrush of air, she can finally think clearly. Bed tonight, quiet morning, breakfast at the diner … then
nothing
. The weather’s supposed to be sunny and warm. No one in the house, nowhere else to go. Sam, unprompted, asked Henry not to visit.

She towels off and rubs lotion on her knees, between her toes, and up her arms, smoothing out her skin. She has color in her face and the air has that miraculous warmth that feels soft, giving her body a lightness and a gracefulness she feels only once or twice a year, usually in spring when the cold slips off.

Henry’s humming through the door, back from having eaten. They haven’t made love in over a month, and even though the Finns hadn’t strictly been a damper, she feels like they’re alone without a parent in the house. He made an overture before—right there on the proverbial kitchen floor—and yet it’s now, only now, she feels the tingle of the spank. She puts her nightgown on; it’s billowy and long, enough to hide her shape and give her confidence to face him.

He’s lying on the mattress, staring at the ceiling. Ava stands with her hip cocked against the doorway, one hand high along the frame, and when he sees her there in such an accidentally fetching pose, she’s instantly aflutter from his absolute attention.

He rolls onto his elbow and says, “I have an idea.”

She meets him on the bed and studies his expression.

“Why don’t you take a vacation?” he asks. “God knows you deserve it, looking after the Finns and putting up with me. Grab a week and unwind before the summer’s really over.”

Ava smooths her gown, showing off her legs.

“I can’t just call in tomorrow,” she says. “And then you’re back to work the following Monday.”

“Take it then.”

“Without you?”

“It isn’t like I haven’t been around all season. Get out of the house and clear your head.”

“Where would I go?” Ava laughs.

“I’ve been thinking about that,” he says, sitting up. “Why don’t you spend the week at Sam’s? He’ll need the company without me, and the two of you always find something to talk about. Fill a cooler, sit in the sun. There’s even a pond out there.”

She feels her feet against the carpet, heavy and immobile. Henry watches her and lets her mull it over for a while. By now she’s gotten used to this and should have seen it coming, but all his talk about enjoying herself, deserving a week in the sun …

“Fine,” she says.

“I just thought…”

“But not with Sam. He’s not a little child. You can see him all you want, but I’m about finished doing penance for the fire.”

Henry shies away, wary of her tone.

“You can shower,” Ava says, standing up and walking to the door. “I’ll dry my hair downstairs.”

“I don’t mind waiting.”

“We have two bathrooms again. We may as well use them.”

She leaves him there and finds the house sadly uninhabited, amazed at how much life a pair of old women took away. She wonders how they’re doing, together in the clean little house across town, Joan with a puzzle, Nan watching television with a mug of mint tea. Then her thoughts turn to Sam and the cabin and the trees. She imagines how it looks with the lanterns all aglow—maybe, if he’s brave, with a fire in the clearing. Would he sit there alone, surrounded by the dark, and think of Laura and the Finns? Does he ever think of her?