Man V. Nature: Stories (4 page)

Why did he leave?

Who said he could leave?

 

The water in the moat has an eerie heft, like it is about to become slush. I find firm ground near the corner of my neighbor's house, and soon I emerge. Water sloshes out from under my clothes and from my pockets; salt and sand grit my mouth.

I hear the noise of much life inside, hundreds and hundreds of people, but as I pass in front of a window, the commotion stops. When I knock on the front door, it's like the whole world holds its breath. I press my ear to it. Nothing.

“I know you're in there,” I yell. “I can see you all from my house.”

I hear a cough from inside, and a quick rush to stifle it.

“You stole my food.”

Silence.

I pull a note card from my pocket, kept dry in a plastic baggie. It's an eloquent reminder for Gary of our comfortable life at home, of how I saved him, of our friendship, and of the contract he signed. I find a crack at the top of the door and try to push the note through. Something stops it midslide and pushes it back out.

Gary.

I know it's him on the other side. I palm the door and press my cheek against it. It is slimy with algae. I feel painted onto it.

“Gary!” I yell. “Let me in! I'm cold and wet.”

The moon is full. The tide will be high. The water is waiting for orders. I think it wants this house as much as I do.

I could still make it home. I might still touch the bottom of the moat if I head there now. But for what? People begin moving around again inside my neighbor's house. I hear the march of many feet up and down the staircase. A piano is tuned. They are carrying on. I notice for the first time that my neighbor's house sits slightly lower on the hill than mine. We truly were at the height of land. It was not my imagination, or merely a boast. I'm awash with sadness.

“Gary. We had it all.”

I sit down on the stoop, and the water rises to my knees. Small fish circle my legs like they are playing a game.

Hawks soar high in the pinking sky. I don't know much about birds, but I imagine they need land somewhere nearby. If they are gulls, they can float on the water. I don't think hawks can do that. Or buzzards circling a kill. If they were albatross, they could fly the length of one giant ocean and never get tired. I've heard they keep ships company on an entire journey and then keep going. There is something in the name that makes me believe this. Albatross. It feels never-ending.

I hadn't considered that somewhere beyond my sight the world might be continuing as normal. If those are hawks, they'll have to return to their treetops, high above houses full of sleeping families, husbands and wives, children lucky enough to be born. Just beyond the curve of the earth, out of my view, skyscrapers could be creaking slightly in the newly blistering wind. Newscasts could be reporting about us, the ones who perished. But I'm still here.

I'm surprised how easy it was for me to believe I was one of the lucky few left. If people are watching this sunset all over the world, then I'm not so lucky after all, sitting up to my chest in cold ocean water that's cluttered with debris and oily with human waste. What makes me so special? I had a house. I had Gary. It felt like enough for the end of days.

Soon someone will need to open the door. They have flush buckets to fill. Cans, bottles, batteries, to toss. Don't they? I could wait.

I try to imagine it:
me
in
there
. Pressing palms, talking about the lives we'd lived. Being nostalgic, but for what? Eating crumbs together? Of course, if they let me in, I'd be expected to give over my house and supplies. They'd paw my antiques. They'd mess up all the beds' bedding. I'd never again enjoy that morning echo of solitary me padding across the floors of my house.

If I go home, I'll live longer. It is indisputable. I don't know what more I could ask for.

“Okay, Gary. Last chance. I'm leaving,” I call out. I wait a beat, listening for the door to creak, for curiosity or need to win out.

Instead, I hear laughter behind my neighbor's door.

 

I know that soon they will come. Gary will lead them. It could be any minute now. They'll wade, swim, or selectively drown their way across the moat and savagely break through my great window and splinter open the locked front door. It's a quality door. It won't be easy.

Then the water and weather will get in and eat the house from the inside. They'll be left with nothing yet again. I could warn them, but do I have to think of everything?

I wait in the widow's walk, surrounded by soft down pillows, a tower of blankets. I have with me water, crackers, tinned meat, and my two biggest knives, but I hope it won't come to that. I don't think Gary will let it. True, I feel betrayed. He knows all my secrets, what I'm most afraid of, all the combinations, and where anything of worth is hidden. But I will still be his friend. If he'll have me.

The moon rises, dips, rises, dips. The tide rolls in and out. I wait for the end. Frigid air pries itself inside. Even shrouded in blankets, I'm folded over from shivering. I wait for them. Pieces of my neighbor's house are letting go, dropping into the sea. Some break windows as they fall. Is that a piano I hear tinkling, or glass shattering? Is that the sound of singing or of wood creaking to its breaking point? The whole house leans. The wind keens something awful. The sea is knocking, but his door remains shut.

SOMEBODY'S BABY

Linda swaddled her newborn Beatrice in the butter-yellow blanket the neighborhood women had knitted, and joined her husband in the car. They drove from the hospital, smiling at the baby and each other. They turned onto their street and smiled at their house, which they'd had restored and painted a color they believed would make all the difference in raising their family. Then their smiles vanished.

The man was already in the yard.

They pulled into the driveway, and the man skulked behind the maple. When he saw that they'd seen him, he stepped out from behind it. He loped across the yard, then back.

Linda hugged Beatrice close, let her husband do the job of slamming the car doors, shouting, staring the man down. She felt helpless, and so she scurried quickly to the house, knowing that her husband's attempts to be menacing would fail.

Inside, she watched the man in the yard watch the house. She knew it wouldn't be long before he got inside. He always did.

And so Linda never left the house unless she had to. She locked up after her husband went to work. She installed bars over the windows. In the nursery she stood behind the curtains while Beatrice slept, and she watched the man. When she took out the garbage, she clutched her baby to her chest and locked eyes with the man as she stumbled past with the leaking bag. But all it would take was a brief moment; she knew that. If she spent too long looking for something in the fridge. If she sliced her finger cutting carrots and grimaced in pain. If she fell asleep while Beatrice napped. It would be some small thing.

Linda had asked her neighbors to call if they ever saw the man approach. She could hear them hold their breath cautiously over the phone.

We'll try, but Linda, you know, they'd start to say, and Linda would hang up. She knew what they wanted to tell her, and she didn't want to hear it. At least if she could see him, if someone could see him, it meant he wasn't already inside.

But then one day a package was delivered. She signed for it carelessly, looking instead at the man in the yard. Inside the house, she drew out a knife to slice the box tape, and noticed the package wasn't addressed to her. It wasn't even for someone on the block. The deliveryman had given her a stranger's package. He was already down the driveway in his truck.

Wait, she called, running to stop him before he pulled away.

He jumped from the truck to meet her, and something about his quickness made her suddenly remember the man in her yard. How easily her mind had let go of that burden. Some dumb box was all it took. She dropped it, ran into her house screaming. But it was too late. The man had come and gone, and he had taken Beatrice with him.

 

There's nothing you can do, her neighbors reminded her as she grieved. A few had stopped by bearing casseroles, homemade jams.

You'll get past this, and then you'll have another, they said.

But he'll just take that one, she cried.

Maybe not, they exclaimed hopefully. Sometimes he only takes one!

I couldn't bear it if he took another, she sobbed.

There, there. They smoothed her hair, squeezed the tension from her hands. We know what you're going through.

Then why are you smiling?

Because we know you'll try again and have the family you want. They beamed at one another. We did.

Linda sniffed. Well, maybe I'm not like you.

What a shame, her neighbors thought. Imagine giving up a family—a
family
—because it was hard. Of course it was hard—the man, the fear, the pummelling grief. But giving up only brought emptiness. She could have such a nice family with just a little more effort.

 

But a few years later Linda did have another child, a boy she named Lewis, and she cried with relief as the doctor laid him on her chest to nurse. Linda looked at his face, and it was as if she'd never seen another baby before, he was so perfect. She felt whole. She was glad she'd tried again.

Are you sure you don't want me to drive you home? her husband asked, bending into her car to touch Lewis's warm belly again for no reason. His car idled beside him.

Go to work. Linda smiled. I'm fine. She really felt fine. She believed everything was going to be fine this time.

But when she pulled into her driveway with Lewis, the man was in the yard, waiting.

Linda shook. Tears wet her cheeks, but she didn't even realize she was crying. Lewis fussed against the new bad feeling he sensed.

Please leave, she choked. The man picked at his teeth.

She cradled her son's head and stooped, picked up a rock from the worn area between the asphalt and the grass. She threw it at the man. It landed to his left. She threw another and it hit his shoulder but he didn't move, just rubbed the spot with his other hand.

Don't you have enough children already? she cried, then ran to the house and slammed the door behind her.

She drew all curtains, triple-locked all doors, yanked on the window bars to test their strength. What did it matter, though? He's not going to break in. He's going to walk right in when I make a mistake. It'll be my fault, she thought as she settled Lewis into his crib. He looked up at her with moist eyes and shook his limbs in a baby fit. His mouth opened and closed whether he wanted it to or not; his tongue seemed at times too big for his wet mouth. She'd forgotten about all the things babies do, and how pleasing it is to watch them. She watched Lewis for days and nights. She didn't sleep. She didn't want to take any chances.

During one of his late-afternoon naps, she rocked in the rocking chair and watched Lewis moving in his sleep. It looked as if he was wrapping imaginary yarn around an imaginary spindle, making an imaginary bundle he would then stick into his mouth. She got lost in the involuntary turning of his arms. She imagined the two of them flying a kite, her tiny baby in a crib in the middle of a hay-yellow meadow, unraveling a spindle of string into the air as she helped it along, the kite lifting higher with each rotation. But a knot formed and she had to crawl up the string to untangle it. Just as the knot came free, she heard an iron gate creak and saw the man coming across the meadow for Lewis. She shimmied down the string and every inch she slid the man got an inch closer so that in an agonizing way they would each reach Lewis at the same time, and then what? She slid faster and the man walked faster. Then Lewis, with a laugh, let out more string on the spindle, and Linda rose higher, yelling for him to stop, but by then she was too high. The man kept inching forward, and she knew, because of her own foolishness, she was going to lose this baby too. Then she was above the clouds and could no longer see. But she felt the slack as Lewis was taken, imagined him dropping the string in fright as she was set adrift into the sky.

She woke slumped in the rocking chair, disoriented by the dimness of early evening. A reverberation, some disturbance, hung in the air. The alarm clock glowed a witchy green through the darkening room. Panicked, she turned on the light. A baby lay there. He looked like Lewis, but perhaps it was some trick and the man had swapped her child with another, a placeholder she could never love. She slipped Lewis out of his clothing and checked his body to be sure. A birthmark behind his left knee. And then, knowing that, when she looked into his cranky eyes she could see it was Lewis.

Throughout the house, she felt the man's absence. He had been there. The front doorknob held on to just the briefest warmth from his grasp. Next time she would not wake up. She knew that. And the man would not leave the yard until he had Lewis.

 

Linda turned to the women in the neighborhood. They'd been so encouraging when she'd gotten pregnant again. But now her neighbors were not helpful.

If there were enough of us on the lookout, I'm sure he would leave us alone, Linda pleaded.

What are we supposed to do, patrol in front of your house all day and night?

All of us?

We have our own families to take care of!

They gathered in Helen's living room for their monthly block association meeting; Helen was the president. But none had come expecting a new idea to be discussed. Now they looked rumpled, when a moment before they had been very put together.

But if we shared the burden, took turns, we could protect our children.

You mean, protect
your
child, Helen clarified in a presidential way, looking around for agreement. The women nodded at this highlighted unfairness.

He's
your
responsibility, complained a woman whose name Linda always forgot. She lived in a red house. Linda had heard a rumor: The woman had
given
her first child to the man. She'd been too overwhelmed. Linda found it hard to believe.

But we've all had to go through this. Imagine if we worked together—we might never lose another.

Jill from the cul-de-sac touched Linda's arm pityingly. You're upset. It's understandable. And you're right: we have all been through this. So trust me when I say eventually he'll stop taking them, and then you will have some to keep. This is how it works. I lost one. She pulled a picture from her wallet of her own smiling family: a husband, two boys, a girl. They were all school-age but wore clothes shapelessly. See?

Helen picked up a school portrait of a boy with a scared smile. For what it's worth, he's my oldest. But really he was number three, she said. It's all in how you look at a thing. She stroked the picture with her manicured finger. Her voice faltered. I remember when he was so little.

Linda's closest neighbor, Gail, picked a hair from Linda's blouse tenderly. Everyone who wants a family manages to have that family, she said. It just takes some of us longer.

Linda felt numb. How can you just let them go and be done? She hadn't meant for it to sound accusatory, but it must have, because she saw the women had stiffened.

Helen's smile was tight. Let me demonstrate something. She pointed to the baby in Linda's arms. What's his name?

Linda squeezed, and he squirmed. Lewis.

And your first? The name? Helen demanded.

Linda hesitated. All she could think of was Lewis, his warmth, his breath. The name Lewis hung lonely in her brain, a place where a minute ago many thoughts had raced.

Helen looked around the circle. I believe I've made my point, she said, and the women nodded. They weren't the ones who needed convincing.

She knelt in front of Linda. When they're gone, they're gone. Have another—start trying now—and hope for the best. She pinched Lewis's cheek roughly and sighed. Meeting adjourned.

Everyone looked drained. They'd never dealt with someone like Linda before.

Linda walked down the road. It was only half a block to her home with the family-friendly paint, so many locks, the man in the yard. She kept thinking, Lewis, Lewis, Lewis. Then a small yellow bird swooped by her on its way from one streetlamp perch to another, and she remembered: Beatrice.

 

Why don't you ever stay up to watch over Lewis? she asked her husband. She no longer slept. Their relationship was strained.

I support our family by going to work. If I don't sleep, then I don't work, and we don't eat, he replied.

She wiped the counter again. If we don't have a child, we don't have a family.

He laughed. That's not true at all. You'd be here. My job is to support you. If
you
go away, I have no one to support. But if Lewis goes away, well, then I have you to support, and then we make another one, and then I support the both of you. That's what a family is. He said it as if he thought she was dumb.

And what if that one gets taken? Her voice cracked.

He realized she wasn't just being contrary but was actually upset. He pulled her close. Shh, shh, he consoled. Don't worry, he rarely takes a third. I can count the number of threes on one hand.

She stiffened. A third? You're not even pretending there's hope for Lewis.

He frowned. Be nice. I'm not the enemy here. He wiped a tear from her cheek.

But she too believed the man would take Lewis. And that he'd take their third child. And their fourth. It would happen to her. Something in the way he was there as she pulled in from the hospital. As if he had a nose for her, for her joy. Maybe it was conceited to think she was different somehow, whether because she felt the need to protect Lewis, or because she felt targeted. She didn't know if it was bad to suspect that the world had its sights trained on her in particular, and that the world could go either way—it could spare her or take a shot. She felt shot at every day of her life since she'd begun having children.

 

Linda placed an ad for guards. Must be able to walk and be on feet all day, it read, must be able to work nights. She hired two men recently laid off from a manufacturing plant. They were machinists, wore their machinist jumpsuits and so looked official, uniformed in dark blue with patchy grease stains. They worked the night shift. She hired two more men from the neighborhood, downsized from their city office jobs. Their wives disapproved, but the men insisted it was good work. They worked the day shift. Their wives looked away when they had to drive by. They found it vulgar, their husbands pacing Linda's lawn, guarding just one baby, and not even their own.

But Linda had more time to look at Lewis now that she wasn't always looking at the man in the yard. She memorized Lewis's face. She saw tiny red bumps on his cheeks that she hadn't noticed before. They were like the friendliest sandpaper. She watched him preen as he slept, his small hands fluttering over his face like a shy person's would. On mornings, he smelled of decaying leaves. She bonded with him as she'd read she would in parenting books.

 

One night, while Linda bathed Lewis in the kitchen sink, his pale skin masked by the bubbles of baby soap, someone tapped on the window. The figure glowed white under a floodlight, and Linda was startled until she saw it was Gail. The woman stood in a juniper bush under the window, black soil crumbling into her clogs.