Dirty Love

by Andre Dubus III

  His insurance from the school paid for visiting help, but she wouldn’t hear of it. She switched her shifts to overnights so she could be home with him, and how efficient she was. She brought him meals just before he became hungry, his water glass always full, his urinal clean and empty, and when Francis had to use the bedpan she helped to turn him on his side just an inch shy of the pain that could fire up from his new knee and fractured calf bone and pinned ankle till she could wedge the pan under him. She knew to leave without a word, and that first time she cleaned him, his stench in the air, Francis’s face had burned. But when she was done she held the bedpan as if it did not hold what it did, and she’d leaned down and kissed his forehead and said, “I’ve done this more times than you’ve taught classes, honey.”

  It was a side of her he’d never quite seen before, skilled warmth tied to total competence in all she did for him. It left him feeling both grateful and unworthy, which increased over the weeks of his convalescence when she just did not do what he feared she ultimately would: shame him for having gotten drunk, for crashing his car, for endangering the lives of whoever could have been on that boulevard or in that house on Thanksgiving Eve. Instead she treated him as if he’d already shamed himself and she didn’t have to; she treated him as an injured and afflicted man she did not want to lose.

  “I’m too young to be a widow, Francis.” Those were her only words of admonishment, and they came that first day in the hospital when he opened his eyes to see his right leg in a sling suspended from a metal frame over his bed, an IV tube taped to his left arm. Beth’s eyes were dry, but her face looked soft with a pain she would not show him.

  George was there too, his tie loosened above the vest of his three-piece suit. He’d been gaining weight over the years, and his cheeks looked pink and shaved too closely. He held up a thick blue hardcover.

  “It’s The Big Book, knucklehead. Read it.”

  And Francis did. One horrible story of drunken loss after another. But the only power he needed to surrender himself to was his unabated fear and remorse. There were his eyes opening to that jarring bump over the curb, the looming corner of that house, the splintering pain of his convalescence—no more.

  Never.

  Ever again.

  The week after February vacation, his crutch snug under his arm, he relieved his sub at the school. She was a dutiful and officious young woman less than a year out of college, and she looked disappointed to give him back the reins. He patted her shoulder and told her he’d be more than happy to write her a letter of recommendation. He was more than happy in many ways.

  There was the light-shouldered feeling he’d come close to his own execution but had somehow been given a reprieve he did not deserve but would take anyway. He would also take the daily rides to and from school, his driver’s license revoked until the following Thanksgiving. Usually it was Beth and occasionally George. For a week or two it was Rita Flaherty or the new young science teacher who drove a Mustang and called him Mr. B. Toward the end of that school year, though, it was his sister-in-law Evelyn who drove him in her own matching Seville.

  Those first few mornings and afternoons, sitting beside her in the leather comfort of the passenger seat as Evelyn drove, Francis would chat about whatever came up for he was surprised to find he felt shy around George’s wife. For thirty-two years, he would only see her at restaurant dinners or perhaps a wedding or funeral, usually through the smeared prism of his weekend drunks. As Evelyn accelerated up the highway, Francis’s crutch on the backseat where she’d laid it, he was twenty-one again, home from the war, living in George’s house while Evelyn served him meatloaf and scrutinized him more than once as he played a game with little Charlie or held the baby, and in Evelyn’s quiet presence behind the wheel Francis felt caught, though why should he? He was caught. Everything was known and he was paying for it dearly. But in the midafternoon light, as she drove and he prattled on about one thing or another, mainly his various students and their varying troubles, he would glance over at his sister-in-law and take her in.

  She was five years older than he but looked younger. She’d never been a smoker or a drinker, and except for some looseness around her eyes and under her chin, there’d been few changes in her face over the past three decades. Her hair had just begun to thin, and it was freshly styled and still auburn, the gray either colored or removed, Francis did not know. She wore a skirt and blouse, a silk scarf pinned across one shoulder, one of George’s gold gifts around her wrists and hanging from her ears, for rarely did she leave her house looking any different. But what he’d failed to ever notice is that Evelyn listened to people. On those rides that spring and a few times that fall, she certainly listened to him.

  He would just begin to feel he was filling her car with useless noise and she’d say, “Did that girl who wrote the abortion essay ever tell you it was her?” His sister-in-law would have both hands on the wheel, her eyes on the road, her chin raised slightly in a pose of easy alertness, and Francis would nod and say, “No, Evelyn, she never did.”

  Uttering her name like that had felt more intimate than he’d intended. Francis would quickly fill in the silence after it because he did feel closer to Evelyn than he had before.

  Only a few years later he stood beside her in Comeau’s funeral parlor, his arm around her shoulders as they stared down into the open casket. They were just minutes from the start of calling hours, the place too quiet, George too still, his cheeks too pink, his hands crossed over themselves in a gesture of humility he had never once made in life. Charlie had rested a Red Sox cap near his father’s shoulder, and Francis could hear his nephew out in the front room talking loudly to the funeral director, something to do with the board of selectmen, and in Charlie’s voice Francis could hear the mild panic of the boy thrust fully from the shadows into the sun, both his hands on the helm of a ship he still was not certain he knew how to sail.

  Evelyn was crying so softly her shoulders barely moved. Francis pulled her closer. He handed her a tissue and kissed the top of her head. He loved her. In that moment, he did. His brother’s widow, his nephew and niece’s mother, his steadfast friend and driver through the year of his redemption; it was his turn to help her.

  But had he?

  No, not really. By then the Sunday dinners at Charlie and Marie’s were already fading and becoming more sporadic, and it was Beth who spent some time with Evelyn. Beth who would meet her for coffee or lunch and once invited her over to their house on a Sunday. Such a stark afternoon. Just the three of them quietly eating pork roast and sweet potatoes at the small table, a yard full of dead leaves on the other side of the French doors. Small talk. Beth pouring Evelyn more wine. Without George, it was as if the thick barnacled chain that joined them had sunk to the bottom of the sea and all Francis and Beth could do was watch Evelyn drift away from them over the whitecaps.

  She’s eighty-six now, living in Brookwood on Whittier Lake. He should call her. No, he should visit. Perhaps this weekend.

  Devon’s bedroom door opens and then she’s standing in the kitchen smiling at him. Her red headphones lie hooked around her neck, but her hair is brushed back, and she’s wearing makeup and small silver hoop earrings, her nose stud gone. She looks happier than he’s seen her in months.

  “You look very pretty, Devy.”

  “You look sad.”

  “No, no, it’s just my knee.”

  “You still okay to drive me to work?”

  The rain. He offered through her door, and she’d yelled Thank you! Then that boy’s voice in her machine, like an echo in an empty room. Is that him?

  Yeah. He was in a war, too.

  Francis wanted to hear more. He had never spoken to Devon about any of that. But family talked about family, didn’t they? Maybe Charlie had told her about her grandfather and grand-uncle. Yes, that was probably it.

  Devon darlin’, do you really wanna leave me and go to work?

  You know I don’t. I’ll text you on my break, o
kay?

  Devon darling. No more Sarah. Francis had turned and walked back down the hallway, his right knee buckling slightly at the kitchen’s threshold. The entire week of rain, when she wasn’t at work she was in her room talking to that young man on her machine, leaving it and him only for the bathroom or to eat quickly at the table with Francis, forking her macaroni and cheese into her mouth, smiling over at him while she chewed, or gazing out the French doors at some sweet story unfolding in her head. Francis had seen it over and over again, the girl in the corner whose new radiance shines not from the boy who has found her but from the chance to direct all the love that’s been pooling inside her and now it’s a warm flowing stream and everything her eyes fall upon is beautiful to her, even her great-uncle standing there ashamed of himself; part of him feels she has not earned any of this, just stumbled upon it, and did she just stumble upon filming herself sexually as well? This new judgment of her, he’s had it all week. Every time she enters a room or leaves it, he tries not to see but does see the blond prostitute kneeling between the young executive’s knees, Charlie drunk and laughing it up behind him, his daughter still nascent dust somewhere.

  “You okay?”

  “Take the car, Devy. I should have put you on my insurance by now anyway.”

  “Really?”

  “Really.” He pulls the keys from its hook beside the telephone. Beth’s keys hang an inch away, her five-year-old Corolla still sitting in the garage.

  Then Devon’s arms are around his neck and she kisses him twice on the cheek just beneath his eye. There are the heartbreaking scents of her shampoo and makeup and ironed cotton blouse, and he stands at the living room window and watches her run under the rain to his car, the lights and wipers coming on, his Buick backing slowly and carefully out into the street. He should just give it to her. No, that’s an old man’s car. What he should do is give her Beth’s Corolla. Perhaps Monday morning he’ll look into the paperwork of doing just that. He could have done it sooner, of course. He could have put Devon on his insurance policy so she could drive herself to and from work on weekend nights, but then she wouldn’t need him, would she?

  Last night, at their dinner of fish sticks, French fries, and peas, all frozen dishes he’d heated up in the oven and on the stove, Devy had squirted ketchup onto her plate and said, “Want me to write that essay tomorrow?” She asked this lightly, no dread anywhere.

  “No, honey, let’s take a break for a bit.”

  “Why?” She was looking at him, chewing. Her hair was getting longer. She had one strand of it tucked behind her ear, and in her eyes was that same hungry curiosity she’d had as a child.

  “I don’t want to force you to do something you don’t want to do, Devy.”

  “Who says I don’t want to do it?”

  “You.” He smiled. “Last Friday.”

  “Yeah, I guess.”

  He reached over and patted her shoulder. “You’re a smart young woman. Go back to school when you want to.”

  She nodded and chewed and looked out the French doors into the rain. “I’m just kind of surprised. You seemed so into it.”

  “You need to be into it, not me.”

  Devon shrugged and sipped her water and stood to scrape and wash her plate. She seemed disappointed and she seemed relieved. Is that what she’s gonna do her whole life? Be somebody’s fucking chambermaid? Charlie’s fingers pulling at his napkin, his hunched shoulders. Francis hadn’t told Devon he’d met with him. Above the running of the faucet, he turned his head and said, “Have you heard anything from your dad?”

  “No. Why should I?”

  Francis nodded and said nothing, for what was there to say?

  Out the living room window rain splatters onto his concrete driveway and the street beyond, its culvert a rushing stream. Another quiet night ahead. The newspaper. The tap and slide of stacking the cards of solitaire on Beth’s computer. Maybe tea and some Brahms on the record player. Murderers of time until he climbs behind the wheel of his car and drives the few blocks to The Whaler to pick up his Devy and bring her home. But now he’s had a hand in squashing his own joy in that, hasn’t he?

  As he should. She’s eighteen. Old enough to vote for the president. Old enough to be shipped overseas with an M2 carbine she’d only learned how to shoot weeks earlier. That first boy, how the blood sprayed from his startled throat, how his body fell as if it had never held life at all.

  This won’t do. Francis lowers himself into his chair, his knee aching all the way down. He picks up the phone and holds his glasses to his eyes and punches in 411. There is a taped voice in Spanish. All the countries of the world slipping one into the other. Then, of all things, a woman is speaking directly to him in English. He tells her the city and he tells her the state and then he tells her what he wants, which is the number for Brookwood Retirement Home, please. The one on Whittier Lane.

  DEVON SITS IN the booth near the kitchen door folding a stack of linen napkins. The rain is whipping against the windows, and there are only two tables taken on the floor, and Devon hopes Danny will let her leave early. He’s already sent Rayna and two waitresses home. Any bussing Dotty can do. She’s been waiting tables here since Reagan was president, whenever that was. Danny wouldn’t like it, but her iEverything is on the seat beside her and she keeps glancing down at it in case Hollis texts her.

  Hollis. His name is like a cool damp cloth over hot skin. It’s the title of her favorite book and her favorite movie and her favorite CD. It’s what she would call anything good for her.

  Last night, the way he jumped when his mother slammed a door. He had on a white T-shirt that made him look smaller, and there were dark whiskers across his chin and throat. He tried to shrug it off, but he looked scared. She said: “Is that what you mean?”

  He nodded, his eyes on hers through the screen.

  “Were you like that before?”

  He shook his head.

  “Shouldn’t you talk to somebody about it?”

  “I’m talking to you, Devon.”

  The way he said her name. Devahn. Like there was so much more to her than there was. That’s how he made her feel all day and all night long, that she had a purpose, one that went deeper than hair and skin and spit. This started on Sunday, just as soon as she got home from The Whaler and Skyped him. They began talking deep right away. It was hard not to feel she’d known him in another place and time, maybe another country, like the one he kept talking about, how hot it’d been, how bad it had smelled.

  “I can’t describe it, Devon. Shit in the rivers. Trash fires. Rotting donkey carcasses. Sheep and dogs. And—you know—”

  “What?”

  “The dead.”

  “People?”

  “You okay with this?”

  “Yeah.”

  “You sure you okay with this?”

  “Yes, Hollis.” His name a key to a rusty lock sitting at the bottom of some well inside her. And he kept asking her about her.

  “Why’d you quit school? Couldn’t take all the bullshit no more?”

  “No, I couldn’t.”

  “You’re so pretty. I’m sorry, but them boys must’ve been all over you.”

  “Just one.” Her face hot with the lie though she kept seeing Sick, the side of his face as he slept beside her, his short nose and parted lips, the blond down on his cheeks that looked so young and boyish compared to what Hollis had. She said: “Nobody sees you for real there. I got tired of it.”

  “Say that again.” He held his face in his hands. It was like he either really needed to hear something or was praying he wouldn’t.

  “What?”

  “About people seeing you. Say that again.”

  “Nobody sees you for real?”

  He nodded, dropped his hands. She could hear the slap of bare skin on bare skin, and she pictured him in shorts or his underwear. Something opened up behind her abdomen and she felt shy.

  “It gets hard to be called a hero when you know you ain’t.”


  She wanted to ask what he meant by that, but it seemed like the wrong question or that asking a question at all seemed wrong, so she just nodded and he changed the subject and started talking about how he couldn’t keep a job, that he’d be fine for a while and then he wouldn’t. One was pouring concrete for foundations, but the man he worked with, a Mexican, looked too much like a hajji.

  “I knew he wasn’t, but I just couldn’t be around that black hair of his and that brown skin of his under that hot sun. Does that sound bad?”

  “No.” She wanted to say it sounded honest.

  His eyes were narrowed on her like she was some bright light visited upon him.

  “I done some bad things over there.”

  “Everybody’s done bad things.”

  “Not you.”

  Devon didn’t say anything, but she felt a little pissed off and didn’t know why till she said, “Don’t make me somebody I’m not, okay?”

  He nodded. He lit a cigarette and blew out the smoke. She wanted to take the cigarette from his lips with two fingers and put it to hers. She’d almost felt like that with Sick, but this was different. This was like meeting herself in the skin of a boy.

  “You’re strong, Devon. You’re so damn strong.”

  It’s not a word she would have ever used on herself, but hearing it from him she believed it. Or started to anyway.

  Danny Sullivan stands at her booth. His hair is wet. So are the shoulders of his black button-down shirt he keeps untucked over his gut like he’s twenty years younger than he is. He pushes his glasses up his nose, and she can see he needs to wipe off the lenses.

  “You can punch out when you’re done with those. You need a ride?”

  “No, I have my uncle’s car.”

  “You do?”

  “Yeah.” She keeps her eyes on the linen she’s folding because she just knows he’s checking out her breasts.

  You’re so damn strong.