The Best American Short Stories 2014 (12 page)

There was a muffled kind of sound from inside and what sounded like a grunt and I jumped back, shocked. Had I disturbed them in a private, intimate moment? Oh, how horrible, I thought: this is why you should never knock on closed doors. God only knows what's going on inside. They were a young couple after all.

But then after a moment, Mr. Djukanovic opened the door and he had all his clothes on and looked perfectly normal, and I could see Mrs. Djukanovic sitting on the bed near the window, and I realized I was just being silly.

“Oh, Mr. Djukanovic,” I said. “I'm off to the hospital but I just wanted to say goodbye and good luck with your move.”

“The hospital?” he asked. “What is wrong?”

“Oh, no, no. Everything is fine. I volunteer there, in the hospitality shop, on Wednesdays. I probably just get in everyone's way, but it makes me feel like I'm contributing something.”

I wasn't sure how well Mr. Djukanovic understood any of this—I doubted he knew about hospitality shops; they seemed so quaint and old-fashioned—but he appeared as though he did.

“Thank you for everything you have done for us,” he said. “There is no way for us to thank you.”

The inherent contradiction in these two statements baffled me for a moment; it seemed so odd that one person would say them both in the same breath. But I suppose life is full of contradictions like this, and I admired Mr. Djukanovic for embracing them (so to speak).

“There is no need to thank us,” I said. “Both Mr. Evarts and I were very happy to have you stay with us.”

“You are both too kind,” said Mr. Djukanovic.

I didn't think Robert had been very kind at all, but I let that pass. I suppose in some large abstract way his willingness to let them stay with us was kind, even if he wasn't a very good sport about it. “Well, goodbye,” I said, “and good luck. If there's anything you need, or anything we can do, please let us know.”

“You have done too much already,” said Mr. Djukanovic.

I felt we could go on and on in this ping-pongy way, so in an effort to put an end to it all, I said, “Goodbye Mrs. Djukanovic.”

She had been gazing fixedly out the window, ignoring the two of us, but when I spoke to her, she looked over at me. And then she did something very upsetting, very odd. She stood up and walked over to us and took my hand in both of hers and then knelt on the floor and pressed her forehead against my hand. She kissed my hand and then she stood up.

Of course I was terribly, terribly flustered. I don't know what I said, but I remember shaking Mr. Djukanovic's hand and then shaking Mrs. Djukanovic's hand and then rushing down and into the garage and driving to the hospital in a sort of a daze.

River rats
, I thought, the words coming back to me from when I was a little girl, and I felt ashamed.

 

A few days after the Djukanovics left, Reverend Judy paid us a visit. She rang the doorbell one morning at about eleven. Unfortunately it was a warm day and I had the front door open, and we saw each other through the storm door, so I couldn't pretend I wasn't home, and then I thought,
What's wrong with you? You have no reason to hide from Reverend Judy
.

She brought me a pound cake, and even though it was wrapped in tinfoil and had what looked like a recycled Christmas bow on it, I could tell it was store-bought, and I thought it was a little duplicitous of Reverend Judy to try to pass off an Entenmann's pound cake for homemade, but then I realized she made a dozen of these calls a day and she'd be up all night baking pound cakes, and besides it's the thought that counts. So I made a pot of coffee and we sat in the living room and drank coffee and ate pound cake and Reverend Judy chatted about various irrelevant things, like she was considering adopting another little Chinese baby and should dogs be allowed off their leashes in Jaycee Park even if a child had been bitten, and I forget what all else because I was thinking about the Djukanovics, and I knew we would talk about them sooner or later.

I'd heard nothing from them since they'd moved into their trailer. Of course I hadn't. Why would I think that I would? It wasn't as if we were friends or anything, or there was any reason for them to stay in touch with me. I was just a stranger who'd helped them a little bit. But for some reason I couldn't stop thinking about them. I suppose that just goes to show how little I have to think about. So I wasn't really paying attention to Reverend Judy, and then I heard her say Alice. Alice!

“What?” I said.

“I know you've had your share of sadness. Of tragedy,” Reverend Judy said.

I looked at her. Another thing I didn't like about Reverend Judy was the way she dressed. She looked fine in church on Sundays, she wore traditional vestments, different colors at different times of the ecclesiastical calendar (which seemed a bit pagan to me, like dressing up for Halloween), but when she wasn't in church she dressed very casually, very sporty, and you'd never know she was a minister, you might think she was an aerobics instructor or a golf pro. She was wearing a T-shirt that said
JESUS IS MY MVP
and some black stretchy pants that didn't come all the way down to her ankles and expensive-looking sneakers. For some reason nothing bothers me more than these sneakers people wear as if they're all going to run the Olympic marathon instead of cross the street. I know this is all very superficial and it doesn't matter what people wear, what matters is who they are inside, but I think a minister should look a certain way. Otherwise it's just all too confusing.

“Alice?” I said.

“It is a terrible thing to lose one's child,” said Reverend Judy. “And one's grandchild as well.”

This didn't seem to be the kind of statement one should either agree or disagree with, so I said nothing. I thought it was interesting she didn't mention Charlie, but I suppose that under the circumstances, even a minister wouldn't think it was terrible to lose Charlie.

“I'm sure you are still grieving,” said Reverend Judy.

I realized that I felt very far away from Reverend Judy, far away from my living room, and it was a lovely feeling, like being at the movies, where everything that matters doesn't really exist.

“Does your faith sustain you?” asked Reverend Judy.

I wanted to say no, but that felt like I was blaming my faith, as if faith
should
sustain you. And of course that assumed I had some faith to blame. It's not that I don't have faith, I do, I think I do, I mean I think it's a little pointless to be alive without faith, but I knew it was not a faith like Reverend Judy's. It wasn't a faith that did anything, really. But I think that's the point of faith, for if you felt that your faith did something, of course you would believe, it would be obvious, it would not be faith.

“I read about what happened in the newspapers while I was still in Lansing,” said Reverend Judy. I didn't know she had worked in Lansing before she came here. “But I forgot about it.”

“I'm sure you have too many tragedies to keep track of them all,” I said.

“When I met with Pastor Abbott, he told me about what had happened to your family, and then I remembered, I remembered reading about the terrible tragedy here in Hurlock. It was remiss of me not to visit you sooner.”

“Well, I know how busy you are,” I said. “Always racing here and there.” I looked down at her sneakers.

“He had lost his job, your son-in-law, wasn't that it? And couldn't find another?”

“He was pretending he had a new job,” I said. “Going I don't know where every day.” No one ever found out what Charlie did all of those days, where he went when he drove away in the morning. He was very clever though, he never drove more than thirty miles, which was the distance to and from Manatus, where he was supposedly working.

“And so they lost their house?” Reverend Judy asked.

“It was about to be foreclosed. We didn't know. About losing the house, I mean. We could have helped them, if we had known.”

“Of course,” said Reverend Judy. “And that's when he did it?”

I didn't say anything. I was listening, of course, but in the way that you listen to a conversation from the booth behind you at a restaurant. I was thinking that the Djukanovics were a mother, a father, and daughter just like Alice and Charlie and Laila had been, or just like me and Robert and Alice, although I didn't equate Alice with Mrs. Djukanovic, even though they were both the mothers, but with Wanda. I suppose that's because Alice was my daughter. I remembered Mrs. Djukanovic smacking Wanda when she broke the Dreamhouse, and I must have made a strange face or perhaps even some sort of noise, because Reverend Judy leaned forward across the coffee table and touched my knee and said, “Would you like to pray?”

For a second I thought she meant did I want to go up to my bedroom and pray but then I realized she was asking me to pray with her, right there in the living room. I wondered if she would make us get down on our knees, but then I realized of course she wouldn't, we didn't even do that in church.

“Shall we pray?” Reverend Judy asked.

I realized I had let things go too far. “No,” I said. I stood up. I picked up the plate with the pound cake on it and went into the kitchen and took it off the plate and wrapped it up as neatly as I could in the tinfoil. It still had the bow taped to it, and because we had eaten some of it the bow wasn't in the center anymore, but I couldn't help that. Back in the living room, Reverend Judy was standing up, looking at the photograph of Alice and Laila that is on the mantelpiece. She turned to me but before she could say anything I held out the rewrapped pound cake and said, “Thank you so much for visiting and for the pound cake, but since Robert is diabetic I'm afraid we can't have it in the house.”

“Oh,” she said. “I didn't know.”

“Of course you didn't know,” I said. “How could you?”

She looked a little confused, and for a moment I felt sorry for her. It was a hard job, butting into people's lives day after day, trying to fix all the things that were broken. I gave her the pound cake and put my hand on her shoulder. “It's all right, Judy. Robert and I are fine. You don't have to worry about us.”

She looked down at the pound cake as if she had never seen it before and wasn't sure what it was or what she should do with it.

“Why don't you take that to the Djukanovics?” I said. “I think they'd really appreciate a nice homemade pound cake like that.”

When Reverend Judy was gone, I sat for a while in the living room, which I never do, but every once in a while it's nice to sit in there and look out at the street, although nothing much ever goes by. (We live on a cul-de-sac.) The dog from next door, I think his name is Rolly, a sort of beagle-basset mix, waddled over and calmly did his business on our front lawn, and then returned home, and I hoped that Robert, who was of course up in his hobby room, wasn't looking out the window because that dog infuriates him. It was very quiet in the house, and I listened to see if I could hear Robert doing anything up in his hobby room, but I couldn't. He was probably napping. I think he naps a lot up there, and that may be why he was so cranky while the Djukanovics were here, because he couldn't nap down in the basement. I should have brought the rollaway cot down there for him.

I went upstairs and knocked at his closed door, and I felt as wary and daring as I had the last time I had knocked on it, the morning the Djukanovics left.

“What?” Robert said.

“She's gone,” I said.

“I know,” he said. “I heard her go. What did she want?”

“To talk,” I said. “And pray.”

“Pray?” Robert said.

“Yes,” I said.

“Did you?” Robert asked.

“No,” I said. “I told her you were diabetic.”

“What?” asked Robert. “Why?”

“Oh,” I said. “It's a long story. But I lied to a minister. Were you asleep?”

“No,” said Robert.

“I thought you might be napping,” I said.

After a moment, Robert said, “Why did you lie to Reverend Judy?”

“I don't know,” I said. I put my hand up against the door, my palm flat against it. “I miss Pastor Abbott,” I said.

“He knew when to leave well enough alone,” said Robert.

“Yes,” I said.

“Maybe it's time to stop.”

“Stop what?”

“Going to church,” said Robert.

“Oh,” I said. It had never occurred to me to stop going to church. Robert and I had always gone to church. If we stopped, people would think it was strange, but that didn't really seem a good reason to keep going.

“What do you think?” Robert asked.

“I think you're right,” I said. “It's a good idea.”

“Because you can still go if you want,” said Robert. “But I want to stop.”

“No,” I said. “Me too. I want to stop.” It felt a little silly talking through the closed door like that, and I thought about opening it, but then I realized there was no reason to. I knew what Robert looked like. I didn't need to see him. “Are you ready for lunch?” I asked.

“I suppose,” said Robert.

“What would you like? I could heat up that lasagna. Or would you like a sandwich? I have turkey and ham.”

“You have the lasagna,” Robert said. “I'll have a sandwich. Turkey. With cheese, if you have it.”

FROM
Idaho Review

 

L
AUREN DRIVES
until she can't drive anymore. She pulls to the side of the road and a dust cloud rolls over the windshield and into the dark. It's five o'clock in the morning. The headlights flood an irrigation canal black with water, a jack fence, and the beginnings of a field. The boy sleeps in the passenger seat. He's five years old and too small to ride in the front, but Lauren is too tired to fight. He wears a bicycle helmet and her husband's old high school letterman jacket, the letter decorated with four gold winged-foot pins. Lauren places her hand on the boy's back to know he's breathing, and she thinks what she's been thinking since they left Texas—that she has no intention of being his mother.