The Lottery

by D. K. Wall

  However, theirs didn’t, and housing prices crashed. They owed more money than the house was worth and couldn’t afford to sell it. Rather than dreaming of a bigger house and a bigger yard, they were figuring out how to live together as two adults, a teenager—a near-teenager—and only one bathroom.

  Fog shrouded the mirror over the sink except for the streaks from the fingers of a small hand. A dripping washcloth hung over the edge of the shower-tub combination. Soap bubbles streaked the shower curtain shoved against the wall. A pair of pajama pants lay crumpled on the floor.

  To avoid arguing with either Donna or his son, Nathan cleaned the small room. To allow the steam to escape and the spring air to circulate, he opened the bathroom window. He wiped the mirror and sink clean with an old hand towel and returned a hairbrush to a drawer. Turning his attention to the toilet, he cleaned dribble from the seat—How can a boy throw a baseball across home plate but not have better aim in the bathroom?—and closed the lid. In the shower, he scrubbed the curtain and pulled it open to air out. He closed the shampoo bottle and placed it on the shelf, along with a bar of soap found on the tub floor.

  His cleaning efforts would avoid a fight, but Donna still wouldn’t be satisfied. As soon as he and Jacob were out the door to work and school respectively, she would scrub the bathroom and take her morning soak in the tub—her time away from the mess and chaos of the boys, the big one she married and the little one who was growing up too fast.

  Nathan picked up the wadded pajama bottoms and folded them as he noted the towel missing from the rack. As he neared his teenage years, Jacob had developed modesty around the house, one of the few welcomed changes of puberty, so he wrapped himself in a towel to take the few steps to his bedroom. Somewhere behind the closed door, a crumpled towel would mildew if not rescued.

  Nathan rapped his knuckles on his son’s door. “I have your PJs.”

  “Just leave them out there, Dad. I’ll get them.”

  He draped the pajama bottoms over Jacob’s bedroom doorknob. “Don’t forget to hang up that towel. Don’t let your mom find it on your bed again.”

  “Okay.” Jacob made that exasperated sound of a teenager again.

  Thinking of how exhausting the next few years would be, Nathan placed his hand on the door and listened to Jacob harrumphing around the room. He wanted to say more, but that could set off the teenage temper—better to pick another moment.

  Nathan returned to the master bedroom and opened the closet door. Work pants and shirts hung neatly in one corner beside the jeans and flannel shirts he wore on weekends. The rest of the closet held Donna’s clothes.

  As with the small section of closet, he used only two drawers in the dresser, one for underwear and socks and another for his T-shirts and a couple pairs of shorts. The rest of the dresser was for Donna. He didn’t resent it—well, not much—because women needed more space. At least, that is what he told himself.

  He pulled the dark shirt over his black tee, buttoned it up, and tucked it into his pants. He brushed the lint off the white circle with his embroidered name. Though he could never tell the guys at work, he took pride in the way he looked. They ribbed him for how neat his uniform was, all the creases sharp and ironed. He would roll his eyes and blame Donna’s meticulousness.

  The uniform—neatly ironed by him and not her—fit his body well. Maybe he was not as cut as he’d been in his high school football days, but the physical labor at work and the effort of keeping up with a near-teen boy kept him in shape. Despite having passed the big three-oh birthday the past year, a milestone he kept trying to forget, he was mostly still trim and fit. Mostly.

  Turning sideways to examine himself in the mirror, he patted the small bulge growing around his waist. To avoid the spread, he would cut down on the beers, pizzas, and burgers—a promise he made often and never achieved. Those uniform pants were getting a little tight around the waist.

  Nathan closed the closet door and inspected the bedroom, a habit ingrained by years of marriage. His dirty clothes were in the hamper hidden in the closet. Both drawers that were his were closed. The wrinkles he had just created by sitting on the bed to get dressed were smoothed out.

  Unlike Jacob’s front bedroom, which was all preteen boy, the master bedroom reflected Donna’s influence. Knickknacks highlighted the dresser. The two bedside tables were clear except for a lamp on each side, an alarm clock on Nathan’s, and whatever trashy romance novel Donna was reading on hers. Not a speck of dust could be found. The queen-size bed had been made and covered with a brilliant flower-print bedspread, a purchase that made Donna quite proud—and made Nathan grimace, though never in front of her. The floral curtains flapped around the open windows, welcoming the warm spring air and scent of gentle morning rain. Despite the cloud-covered skies, the bedroom was bright and airy.

  Sock-footed, Nathan walked through the den, a room as orderly as the master bedroom. His recliner, which Donna hated but allowed him to keep, sat in one corner. Her chair sat on the other side of a single table with a lamp. Both faced an old TV against the opposite wall. The room was too small for a couch, so Jacob would sprawl on the floor when he joined them.

  The carpeted den yielded to the linoleum floor of the last room of the house. At one end sat the usual kitchen trappings—refrigerator, free-standing stove/oven, a sink, and cabinets. A small microwave took up part of the precious counter space. The kitchen lacked a dishwasher, something Donna reminded him of regularly, but they hadn’t saved the money to buy one yet.

  At the open end of the kitchen, a round table and three chairs, a yard-sale find discounted because of the missing chair, sat tucked into the small space. They ate breakfast and dinner there, but it also doubled as Jacob’s desk. Evenings found his books spread across the table, his face scrunched while studying homework problems.

  A door led from the kitchen to the driveway outside. A small closet held winter coats and Nathan’s work boots. Each night, he took off his boots before entering the house, not daring to track dirt or grease inside. In the mornings, he would sit on the stoop outside and pull them on as he left.

  Donna stood beside the stove with a cigarette pinched between two fingers, carefully blowing smoke out the open kitchen window. She had stopped smoking in high school as soon as she found herself pregnant. Over the years since, she had restarted several times, trying to hide it from Nathan, a lifelong nonsmoker. He could always smell it and chastised her to stop, reminding her that Jacob might emulate her—and besides, they didn’t have the money to buy cigarettes.

  She had last restarted several months earlier, just before Halloween, and his nagging efforts had failed to curtail the habit so far. As he entered the kitchen, she looked at the wall clock hung over the side door and emitted an impatient sigh. “Why does he take so long in the bathroom?”

  Amusement crossed Nathan’s face. “He’s a twelve-year-old boy. Don’t ask. Don’t tell.”

  Donna waved the cigarette-free hand in protest. “You men are all alike.”

  “Don’t blame me. Takes me two minutes to get dressed.”

  “You aren’t trying to impress twelve-year-old girls.”

  Nathan groaned. “Oh, yeah. Them.” He knew his son was beginning to fall for the siren song.

  “Come on, Proud Papa Bear, don’t kid me. I saw you grinning ear to ear while he talked to Missy and Cora at the baseball game last Saturday.”

  Nathan chuckled at the memory of the two girls leaning over the dugout and chatting with his son. The coach had yelled at him three times before getting his attention, proof of how distracting they were. “Can you believe those girls are only twelve? They looked so grown-up.”

  “Bad news. Cora is eleven.”

  “Holy cow. Eleven?”

  Donna motioned toward the closed bedroom door. “You weren’t the only one who noticed how grown-up she looked.”

  Nathan shook his head but smiled. “Remember when he caught that line drive and then turned to see if they were watching? I
had to laugh at his swagger. He could not have been more obvious if he had winked at them. The boy was showing off.”

  Donna took another drag on the cigarette. “Hmm, I’ve seen that swagger somewhere before. Guess he inherited his subtleness from good old dad. Besides, you’re just shocked he thinks about something other than baseball.”

  “Things were easier when all he cared about was baseball, baseball, baseball. That’s just swinging and taking bases.”

  “Uh-huh. If I remember your buddies in high school, you talked about girls like baseball too. First base. Second base. Third base. Home run.” Though Nathan’s face reddened, Donna didn’t relent. “Have you had a talk with your son about girls? And being careful and all of that.”

  “For Pete’s sake, he’s twelve.”

  “Uh-huh. How old were you when you first kissed a girl?”

  “Twelve. But it’s not like I slept with her.”

  Donna shot Nathan a withering look. “All I’m saying is girls fall for baseball players as much as they do football players, so that is a conversation you need to have with your little man-child. And soon. Following in his dad’s footsteps does not have to include getting his girlfriend pregnant before high school graduation.”

  “At least we got him.”

  She crossed her arms. “And neither one of us got to do all the things we planned to do.”

  He collapsed into one of the kitchen chairs. “Not like my friends did what they planned either. Charlie and Danny sure didn’t.” Memories of lying in that cold mud beside the river, waiting for help to arrive, drifted through his mind.

  “Well, Hank did. Joined the Marines just like he always said he would. Did his tours and now works for a big security company down in Atlanta.” She smothered her cigarette into a ceramic ashtray—a hurried school project from their not-artistically-inclined son—and clanked the frying pan on the stove.

  Nathan knew well how successful his friend was because Donna constantly reminded him. Hank had walked away from the accident with only a few bruises and scratches and didn’t spend weeks recovering in a hospital. He glided across the graduation stage without even a limp and left two days later for the Marines. Nathan had only progressed from crutches to a cane and hobbled across the stage for his diploma. Danny was sitting in a wheelchair in a jail cell, convicted of drunk driving and manslaughter, not to return to Millerton until his early twenties.

  Donna flipped pancakes with a vengeance, the spatula clanking against the pan. “Don’t you want Jacob to go to college? To have opportunities?”

  “You know I do. I think about it all the time.”

  She scooped pancakes onto a plate and slammed it in front of her husband. “So make sure he doesn’t make the same mistakes we did.”

  “I’ll talk to him. I promise.” Nathan picked up a fork and poked at the food on his plate. “Hal called. He has an opening at the truck stop for someone to run emergency repairs on the weekends. Pays good. We could put all of that money into a college savings fund.”

  “You mean going out on the interstate and fixing trucks?”

  “Yeah.”

  “It’s dangerous. And you don’t want to miss Jacob’s Saturday games.”

  “No, I don’t, but I could catch some games until I get dispatched out on calls. Besides…” Nathan attempted to stop himself from going too far, but Donna had heard him.

  “Besides what?”

  He set his fork down on the plate and sighed. “Just in case, you know, they ever shut down the plant, maybe Hal could take me on full-time. At least I would already be there and proving myself.”

  “Proving yourself? Hal already knows you can fix anything. That’s why he called you rather than just hire one of the hundred guys hanging around the unemployment office. He ought to make you the manager, and then you can just quit that factory.”

  “He can’t put me in charge because he ain’t going to fire Paul. He managed the place for Hal’s dad for years. Loyalty matters, but Paul is going to retire on Hal someday or drop dead of a heart attack, and that’s my chance. If I’m there on the weekends, he gets to know me, and maybe I’m in line to be the manager when Paul quits. I can prove to him I can run the place, not just fix engines.”

  Donna shook her head. “Of course you can run it. You should own it.”

  “If I ever win the lottery, I’ll just open my own place.”

  “If we win the lottery, it won’t matter.”

  “A small lottery, then. Just a little seed money.”

  “If you get a little seed money, you’re building me a master bathroom with its own hot-water heater. Tired of having only cold water after that boy’s marathon showers.” She turned back to the bowl of batter and whipped it again, waiting for their son to appear. “Besides, you better not be wasting money on lottery tickets.”

  The words slipped out of his mouth before he could stop them. “And how much money do you waste on those cancer sticks?”

  She spun and glared at him. She defiantly picked up her pack of cigarettes, tapped one out, and lit it. She glanced at the clock over the door and yelled through the house, “Jacob, get a move on, boy!” No reply came from the closed bedroom, so she leaned against the counter and sipped her coffee. In a quieter voice, she asked, “Do you really think the plant will close soon?”

  Nathan shrugged. “I’m the only one left in the maintenance department since they laid off Carl a few weeks ago. What kind of company can survive without fixing the equipment? Not like we have bought any new machines in years.”

  She stared into her coffee cup. “Poor Carl. Does he have kids?”

  “Two. Both still in diapers.”

  “Jesus.” She took a sip and settled the mug back onto the counter. “What’s he going to do?”

  “Last I talked to him, he had a lead with one of the fracking companies.”

  “I didn’t know anyone was fracking around here.”

  “Out west somewhere. Texas? Oklahoma? Arkansas? I can’t remember.”

  “Will they move?”

  “No. He is going to leave the kids with Heather and go. Come back when he can. Or if anything opens up here.”

  “Fat chance of that.”

  “Yeah, well, fracking jobs come and go, so he can’t move them around that much.”

  “Poor Heather, stuck in that trailer with those two kids all day.” She turned and looked out toward the backyard. “Those fracking jobs pay well, right?”

  Nathan looked up and studied her back as she stared out the window. “Why? You trying to get rid of me?”

  “No.” She paused and took another drag on her cigarette. “I was just thinking, you know, if you took one of those jobs, we could scrape together enough money, sell this house, and pay off the mortgage.”

  “And do what? We wouldn’t have the money to make a down payment on another house. We would have to rent.”

  “Renting wouldn’t be so bad. At least we wouldn’t get upside down on another house. Besides, we could move somewhere else, somewhere there are more jobs.” Since high school, Donna had always talked about moving to a big city, like Atlanta or Charlotte or Nashville, but neither one of them had ever lived anywhere but Millerton.

  “We’ll consider it if the plant closes. But for now, I have a job.”

  “Some job. You haven’t had a raise in years, and they cut out all the overtime. You keep making less every year.”

  “Ronnie can’t help it. Corporate told him not one penny of overtime.”

  “Ronnie.” She sucked deep on a cigarette and exhaled it harshly. “He’s the only reason you still work there.”

  He took his time to chew his food before answering, angling to avoid an argument so early in the day. Yes, he felt obligated to Charlie’s father. The man had taken him in when Nathan’s own dad had died and he had nowhere to go. Gave him a place to sleep. Put food on the table. Bought clothes as he grew. And after the accident, they grieved together, mourning the loss of a son and a best friend.

>   Donna sighed and extinguished her cigarette. She sat down in the kitchen chair opposite her husband and folded her hands on the table. “I get it, Nathan. I do. You’re as loyal as an old dog. But we’ve got to be loyal to ourselves first.”

  Nathan leaned forward and cupped his hands over hers. “That’s why I’m talking to Hal about getting extra hours out of the truck stop. Save that money for Jacob’s college, and maybe we can get out from underneath this house too.”

  She nodded and hung her head before speaking quietly. “Well, I need to help with that.” She pulled her hands free from his and waved at the pack on the counter. “And to pay for my own damn cigarettes. I’ll get back on at McDonald’s. I can get an assistant-manager job.”

  He collapsed his empty hands together. “You hated that job.”

  “I know. But it’s more steady than temp work. The damn service promised me at least twenty hours a week, but they barely scrape together eight. Some weeks, nothing. McDonald’s will be steady work, and we need the money. And we might need their insurance if you get laid off.”

  “It just doesn’t seem right, you doing work you don’t like. At least I’m doing something fun. And we’re better off than most folks. Both cars are paid off. We have a house. Small and only one bathroom, but we have it.”

  “Both cars are paid off because I’ve had mine for ten years and yours is your dad’s old truck. It’s older than you, and it will break down beyond your repair skills one day, Superman. The bank owns the house. They just let us live in it as long as we make the payment every month.” Donna crossed her arms and issued her edict. “I’m calling McDonald’s today. Tell them I want to come back.”

  “They will want you to work weekends and nights. What about Jacob?”

  “The plant ain’t giving overtime, right? So you’ll be here for Jacob while I’m working nights and weekends.”

  “But, Donna, we will never see each other.”