A Job You Mostly Won't Know How to Do

by Pete Fromm

All the presents, though, are for Midge. Every one. Clothes mostly, and diapers even, baby food, another swing, a jogger, all stuff Rudy’s hauled in, as if he’d been running a warehouse, a Toys for Tots, gifts from their friends, all off with their own families. Marko gives her a tiny tool belt, the baby hard hat. His wife, Jeannie, plush-feet pajamas, a teacup pattern, not hammers. Taz helps her unwrap each one. Lets her play with the paper.

  Rudy, dying for his turn, unveils a gigantic stuffed Elmo. Nearly kills himself laughing. All wild red hair, cue ball eyes. Midge grabs at it, and Rudy leans forward on his knees, in her face, pointing at the stuffed doll, saying, “Elmo, El-mo, Ell—mmoo.”

  Taz says, “I think she’s got it, Rude,” and picks out the last present, the flat one, the best wrapped. Lauren says, “You better open that one yourself. There’s glass.”

  Even before the paper is off, he feels himself twisting, swaying. He stops. His hands drop limp on the paper, the hardness underneath. Nothing you’d give a baby.

  Lauren says, “She should at least know what she looked like.”

  He sets the frame, shrouded in half-torn paper, down beside the couch. “Later,” he says.

  “There isn’t a single picture of her in this house.”

  The group goes quiet. Even Rudy.

  “She hated pictures of herself,” Taz says.

  “Well, this is for Midge.”

  “She hated them. Hated me taking them. Hated seeing them.”

  “Midge needs—”

  “They creeped her out,” he says, his voice as flat as the glass in the frame. “‘Only good for when you’re already dead,’ she said, ‘for people to remember how cool you used to be.’”

  Rudy starts crumpling wrapping paper, pitching it toward the TV, making a pile.

  Her mother clears her throat. “Well, she needs to remember her.”

  “Remember her?” Taz says. “How exactly is that supposed to work? She never knew her. Not for one second. You want her to remember a picture?”

  Rudy tears off a little curl of paper, hands it to Midge. Lauren blocks it with a single finger when Midge lifts it to her mouth. Tears track her cheeks.

  Marnie puts a hand on Taz’s arm, whispers, It’s okay, but it sounds as if she’s about to break down herself. “Tomorrow,” he says. “I’ll hang it tomorrow. Above the crib.” He’ll come in at a different angle, face some other wall.

  “It’s from our trip to Hawaii,” Lauren says, the words barely rising above the hush that’s fallen over the room like a blanket of snow.

  “From just before you were married,” she continues.

  “I remember. She always wanted to go back.”

  “Well, I don’t have anything more recent.”

  “I’ll find you some,” Taz manages. “I’ve got loads.” He can see each one; Marnie blurred, spinning her back to him and his camera. Marnie flipping him off, hiding behind her hand. Or, all the ones with her ball cap pulled low, Marn hiding behind the bill.

  He looks up, realizes the air in the room has reached perfect vacuum. Marnie whispers, Taz.

  “I’m sorry,” he says. He’d gut himself with a broke-bladed utility knife before he’d scroll through their pictures, all of them, no matter how hard she tried to hide, with that smile, Marn’s smile. Huge.

  Marko stands up, holding out his hand for his wife. “Well,” he says. “We better not keep Santa waiting.”

  Rudy, though he has nothing but his empty place, says the same thing. “Can I give you a lift, Lauren?” he asks.

  She picks the almost-unwrapped picture up off the floor, holds it in her lap. She pulls off the last of the paper, sits staring at it in her lap, tears dotting the glass.

  Taz sees everyone to the door, then turns back to Lauren still sitting on the couch, the picture in her lap, the paper pulled away, her and Marn, beneath the tears, both smiling that way. He takes Midge and her Elmo puppet, which she hasn’t let go of yet, and, sliding the picture out of Lauren’s fingers, he puts Midge into her lap instead.

  “I’m sorry,” he says again. “You’re right. She should know what she looked like. It’s only me who’ll never forget.”

  He reaches the nursery door before she says, “Not only you.”

  He closes the door behind him, wonders about twisting shut the privacy bolt, never once used, though when they’d redone the doors, Marnie had dismantled every one, scraped away the paint, oiled them, tested them. Wanting everything perfect. Even the locks they’d never use. He leaves it unlocked, waiting for Lauren to bring Midge, to say good night, to drive off in the dark.

  DAY 159

  Three weeks without a day off. Except that Christmas Day. The bench seats benched. The built-ins built in. He even found old window sashes, cracked out the ancient glazing, pried out the old pins, lifted the wavy glass, the built-ins looking more original than the rest of the house. Just like he and Marnie had gone at theirs. Or planned to.

  And once he ran out of real work, panicky, he measured out his own bathroom, pulled wood from his hoarded stash, and started in on cabinets, a floor-to-ceiling job for the corner—a place for towels, TP, bathroom stuff—something that would be in his way in the shop forever, waiting on him to do the demo, the tiling, the plumbing, fixing the old claw-foot, replacing the toilet. He and Marnie had sketched out all the plans, and he wasn’t sure he’d ever really be able to face it, bringing back all her ideas. But, it kept him out of the house.

  Three weeks in the shop, more out of shame than anything else. He’d apologized to Lauren again, the morning after Christmas, said he’d hang the picture wherever she wanted, but Lauren had only said she hadn’t realized what she’d been asking, that she was sorry. He never saw the picture again. Two weeks in, middle of the night, Lauren safely in her motel, he forced himself into their bedroom, into the closet, up high on the shelf, pulled down the shoebox with all their pictures, Marnie’s retro 35-mm days. Without daring to open it, he set in on the table, where she sat with her coffee, would find it in the morning. She never said a word about it, but the box never stayed in quite the same place, shifted an inch this way, half an inch that way, the top not quite closed right.

  He hardly knew Midge anymore, only caught glimpses, saw her take to Lauren almost like she had to Elmo, like they say with ducks, latching on to the first thing they see out of the shell, duck or dog or disaster. He tried not to think which one he’d been.

  He wrestled the woodstove into his shop. The one that’d been rusting under the tarp for the last two years, next to the double oven cookie-making machine, the rest of the junk/treasure he’d saved for someday. And, with the heat, he worked out there every day until Lauren had to come get him, tell him she couldn’t stay on her feet another minute, had to go back to her room.

  Practically a month in a motel. It had to cost a fortune. That and her rental car. He told her their room was empty, she was welcome to it, that he’d never moved out of the nursery. But she said she liked the clean bed every night. Liked to be free to surf the channels, no matter that nothing was on.

  He wondered how different it was from her life back home.

  Only once did Lauren venture back to his shop. “His lair,” she called it. And then only to tell him that the babysitter was at the door.

  Taz hadn’t been doing anything more than feeding scraps into the woodstove, and all he could come up with was, “Really?”

  Lauren nodded, smiled at herself. “I’ve already forgotten what she calls herself. One of the Muppets.” Taz followed her back to the house, their steps squeaking against the snow. Lauren stayed in the kitchen as Taz walked through, hoping she’d invited her in, but knowing he never should have doubted even before he saw Elmo sitting at the table, like she had the first day she came looking for work.

  “Hi,” she said, standing up as soon as she saw him. “Did I pull you away from something fabulous?”

  “Fabulous?” Taz said. “No. Just burning scraps.”

  “Not making any great smells?”<
br />
  He blinked, then remembered, smiled. “No, none of those.”

  She looked around, said, “Fir!” like she’d won a contest.

  “That’s right. That’s the good one.”

  She smiled, too, said, “I got my car back.”

  “Your car?”

  “From the pass? I got so stuck. Going too fast. Trying to get back.”

  “No damage?”

  “None you’d recognize over anything else. Just lucky my brother was there to bail me out.”

  Taz nods.

  “So, I was wondering, you know, if I might still have a job here? But, I met Grandma again, so I’m not guessing . . .”

  “I don’t know—” Taz started, but she cut him off, stepping closer.

  “I know I said I’d only be gone a week, and I’m way sorry, but it hit the fan back home, big time, and—”

  “No, I just meant I don’t know how long Grandma’s staying.”

  “And?”

  Taz almost laughs. “If you want back in on this. If she hadn’t come, I probably would have called you in Idaho. Begged.”

  She smiles so wide she turns away.

  Like every morning, he wakes first, before even Midge. He fixes the coffee, waits, looks at his watch. Pours hers. Stirs in the two sugars, the cream. Sets her English muffin in the toaster. But she’s started bringing her own Starbucks. Makes a point of it maybe. More money flushed down a hole. He guesses she pours his out as soon as he leaves.

  She’s late.

  He looks again at his watch. No work, he won’t have to make any calls.

  He brings Midge out at her first “Baa baa baa,” feeds her, she turning the highchair into the usual Superfund site, rice mash everywhere. She paints more than eats.

  He is halfway to plugging in the tree, sitting in the swivel with her, when he realizes it’s gone. Not a twig. Not a needle. He’d wondered what she did all day.

  Marnie’s picture is on the wall. Next to the bookcase. Where the tree would have hidden it. The two of them on the beach, the water coiled around their calves a color water in Montana never was. Their arms over one another’s shoulders, Taz wonders how she ever got Marnie to look straight at the camera, smile with her. They look more sisters than mother and daughter, and it’s only then that he realizes how close to identical their smiles are. He stares and stares. Holds himself up against the wall.

  He pictures Lauren sneaking out to his shop, looking through all the hardware drawers for a hanger, lifting a hammer from its hook. Maybe she’d just stopped at Ace, bought her own.

  He looks around the room, almost surprised to find himself alone, not to see Marnie there smiling at him, saying how she was about to get married to him, how could she not smile?

  But the room is as vacant as his and Marnie’s. Lauren has not once been late.

  Only a minute later she texts. From the airport. Didn’t want to bother him. His phone pings once more, when she adds, “You can come in from your lair now.”

  He wonders again about keeping this going for life, Lauren’s long visits, taking so much of the load, but not staying in the house. He texts back, “Thanks. For everything,” and Marn gives him a shove, says, Suck-up.

  He turns the phone off, and says, “She wasn’t that bad,” and Marnie says, You didn’t have to grow up with her. Taz thinks the same, Marnie never meeting his father, but with Midge in one arm, he walks across the room, lifts the picture from the hanger, trying not to get lost in her face again. “Grandma,” he says, to Midge. “And Mom.” He bends, leans it against the wall, face-in. He pulls the hanger out with just his fingers, the metal edge creasing the ball of his thumb. He pushes the hanger into his pocket, nail and all.

  Yeah, uh-huh, I see that, Marnie says. She was just fab.

  He gives Marn the blah, blah, blah, and lies down with Midge, something he hasn’t done in a long while, the fan a pale replacement for all those blinking lights. But, left on his own, he probably would have forgotten to ever take the tree down. Would be lying under it when, parchment-dry, it finally spontaneously combusted. “She saved our lives,” he tells Midge.

  He looks over at Midge, the two of them exactly where they started, the emptied room echoey around them. As if they’d never left the floor.

  But Midge rolls over, grabs his shirt, half drags, half crawls herself up against him, legs quaking, almost standing. A smile, half awe, half disbelief.

  “There’s your mother,” he says, touching the corner of her mouth. “Right there.” He reaches, lifts her the rest of the way, sits her on his chest, meets those eyes head on. “You’ll never need anything more than a mirror to see her.”

  Without an ounce of thought, he says, “She sent you that walker, you know. Your mom. Said to be careful. She knows what a daredevil you are. She is so bummed she couldn’t be here.”

  A picture is supposed to replace her?

  “It’s not an easy thing, being an explorer,” he says. “Some of the expeditions she goes on? It’s like they never end.”

  He runs his fingers down her sides, back again. Over her wispy hair, the same color as Marn’s, across her cheeks. She shivers, smiles.

  “We used to go together. Down rivers, through jungles. Over mountains. But this time she had to go by herself. The longest one ever.”

  Midge pushes against his chest, his collarbone, trying to stand, to reach unattainable heights. “I got to stay behind with you,” he says.

  “But she can’t wait to get home to you.” He shakes his head, rolling it against the hardwood. “And, holy moly, when she does? You are just not going to believe your own eyes,” he says. “As beautiful as you.”

  She blows a spit bubble, which bursts, slides down her chin. She laughs. Taz wipes with his thumb. “And exactly the same sense of humor. You guys are just going to crack each other up.”

  He takes her wrists, lifts as she struggles to her feet. “When she gets back? The two of you? The world won’t stand a chance.”

  She wobbles, the grin all awe. She looks down, drools on him, squawks in delight.

  He tries to remember where he’s seen her like this before. Someone holding her up. Midge so proud of herself. Red hair aglow behind her.

  DAY 161

  On his way to Marko’s next job, a single day installing doors he made last month, Midge sits beside him, gumming the paper he’d written Elmo’s address on. He cruises past, peering through the half-frosted side window, and cannot believe it. It’s a place he and Marnie had looked at. Too small, even if they weren’t already thinking about Midge. Not a disaster, but close. The owner must have given up, kept on renting it out. He can still picture the layout, the living room running into the kitchen, a half wall, the single bedroom and bath off to the side. The floor sloped, the porch roof sagged. The bathroom, Marnie says. Remember? Those pink fixtures.

  He drives on, taking it easy up the mountain, the doors stacked in back, cardboard separating each from the next, each made with wood they found who knows where. They’d told him. A river bottom? The Blackfoot? Salvage logs? Nicer wood than that, though. Old growth. Perfectly clear. Grain so straight it looks drawn with a ruler. Faded though, from a century beneath the waves. He’d messed with stains for days, not quite able to bring it all the way back.

  He unloads Midge first. The walker. Does a go-through just to make sure. He puts the screen gate in over the basement stairs. Not a thing to fall into, to trip over. Empty houses; the childproofer’s dream. As soon as he fits her feet through the holes, settles her into the walker’s saddle, she’s off, her legs cartoon-windmilling until he lets go. It’s like she’s shot out of a cannon. The edges are cushioned. She can’t even scrape paint. Even the soft, raw stuff.

  He goes out for a door, checks the top, the Roman numeral he’d punched there, knows the countdown through the house by heart. Clockwise, starting with the coat closet in the front hall. The three hash marks here? First-floor bedroom. Office. Den. Whatever it’s going to be when these people fill it up
.

  He checks Midge. Goes out for a second door, slides the cardboard separator out onto the snow.

  He feeds her before lunch, then spreads out the porta-crib. Puts her down. Enough doors in this place to keep him going all day.

  She wakes in the middle of his lunch, rolls around a little, finds her feet, her legs. Stands holding to the side of the crib. “Da,” she says. “Dada.” He’s not quite claiming it’s not just the next Ba ba, but, really, he is.

  “Wait until she hears you said that before Mama,” he says to her, pumping his fist, almost crowing. “Man, heads will roll. Mine, anyway.”

  She said Mama last month, Marn says, heaving a sigh, all dramatic.

  He laughs, says, “She so did not.” Then he looks around the empty house, just a glance, says, “Once she starts talking, Marn. I don’t know, we may have to knock off these little chats.”

  Taz goes out for the next door, head hunched down between his shoulders, as if expecting a blow.

  In a near miracle, every door fits without planing. Not even a shim hidden behind a hinge. No stain touch-up. No polyurethane. Just mortising the hinges, lifting the doors, fitting the hinges together, dropping in the pins. “Whoever put in these jambs is a genius,” he tells Midge, who rolls down the hallway. “Oh, that’s right. Your old man. Pure fricking genius.”

  Get over yourself, Marn says.

  He gets through the day without a single cry.

  On the drive home, he again swings by Elmo’s house. No lights. Just his headlights, sparkling against the new snow. He wonders if school is back in session. He’ll have to check for cars, the parking situation in front of his place.

  He makes his dinner for one. Lets Midge play with a piece of spaghetti. She maybe eats some of it.

  He sits down with her, rocking a little, listening to her quiet chatter.

  He pulls his phone from the tool pocket of his Carhartts, brings up her number, just one touch to call her in, have her start the next day. Only the kitchen light on, his house dark around him, the phone seems almost blinding. He shuts it. “We should get used to this,” he whispers to Midge. “Making it on our own.” But she’s out, curled into his lap.