“Murray, you never told me why you weren’t in the army.”
She surprises him constantly. “What brought that up?” Cars are pulling out of the station at a slow, careful pace. He waits his turn impatiently.
“Reading about Iraq, Afghanistan . . .”
“Yeah, I wanted to go . . . badly, but they found a TB spot on my lung.”
“TB?”
“I caught the bug somewhere but it never infected me. Happens, I’m told.” Actually it was flat feet that did him in.
“How strange. TB may have saved your life.”
“It was frustrating. My father thought I was some kind of misfit.” He waits for a word of sympathy.
“You must’ve been relieved. I mean, who wants to go to—”
“Sylvie, war’s a man’s sport like hunting, no more no less.” He maneuvers the car onto the road. The snowplow ahead forces him to reduce his speed to a crawl. Hell.
“So it has nothing to do with patriotism.”
What’s she nattering on about? Something challenging in her tone annoys him. “It has everything to do with it, everything to do with this great country of ours. And what’s all this about anyway? Why are you so interested in stuff that happened a million years ago?”
“Listening to the news . . .”
“Well, read a book.”
• • •
Just as he expected, the house is warm and cozy.
“Sylvie,” he calls from the bedroom, “let’s eat where we can watch the storm.” She doesn’t respond. “Sylvie,” he calls even louder.
“Please don’t shout.” She appears in the doorway, startling him.
“Let’s eat—”
“I heard, okay, we’ll do that.” She turns to leave.
“Wait.” He grabs her arm, nuzzles her ear, sniffs vanilla or maybe something else, he can’t tell. He wishes the flower guy had been at the station. “You smell delicious.”
“Must be the cooking oil.”
Watching her walk out, he pats the bed and both dogs jump on; after wrestling with them awhile, he says, “Okay, boys, down. Now!” They obey, which makes him stupidly happy.
He changes into his sweats, ready for the evening.
She’s uncorking the wine, her silvery kimono shimmering in the lamplight. He inhales the luxurious surroundings, nothing like the faded furniture and cracked plaster of his old apartment.
Two dishes of pasta with vegetables steam on the low coffee table. He was hoping for fish or meat, real food.
“Great, baby,” he fills their glasses. The wine is so tasty; she knows what to buy. He refuses to ponder how many intimate dinners she had before this one. He leans back, his fingers caressing the velour.
“So how was your day?” she asks.
“Rosalyn pisses me off by the minute, a dyke if ever I saw one.”
“Please don’t use that word.”
“Don’t be so sensitive, Sylvie. People are people. I know that. I run a damn restaurant, don’t I? All kinds.” It’s not the first time she’s called him on his language. Reminds him of his stiff-assed second grade teacher warning him to talk right or no one would respect him. He’s halfway through his first glass and refills it. Sylvie’s hardly touched hers. “So you went into town today?”
“I signed a petition against the war, first one ever. There were hundreds of names on it.”
“Jesus,” he mumbles, “bad move.”
“Murray, I’ve a right to express my beliefs.”
“Men are dying over there for your rights.”
“That’s ridiculous. I want them home alive.”
“Sylvie, you don’t understand.”
“Of course I do.”
She’s hell-bent on ruining the evening. “Let’s not argue, please baby?” For her, he’s willing to forget the whole deal. “What else did you do today?”
“Walked, cleaned, read, talked on the phone with Jenny, who’s gotten a part in an out-of-town play.”
“Oh yeah, where’s that?” Jenny is one friend he wishes she’d forget. He’d have to stand on his head to get a smile from her and even then . . .
“Kentucky. Real pretty place. We should visit.”
“Oh, you’ve been?”
“A play in Louisville eons ago.”
“No kidding? That’s impressive.”
“Murray, I’ve told you about that episode. How the agent saw me in a little commercial and invited me to audition . . .”
“. . . And you got the part, yeah I remember.” But actually he doesn’t like remembering. God knows the people she slept with . . . “On my day off we should hang those paintings. Three in the living room, two in the bedroom, one in the vestibule. You pick.”
“Okay, Tuesday?”
“Not sure. I’m still teaching Ava to do some of the ordering. The woman’s lonely, I can tell. She ought to marry again. Marriage is good, right?” He can hear himself slurring a bit, but so what, they’re home. Before long they’ll be in bed and her sweet body will be his.
• • •
As they’ve done for the past week, she and the dogs go straight to the lean-to. Armed with baggies of raw meat, she keeps the dogs content. Liam pours two cups of sweetened coffee from a thermos. The afternoon’s chill demands heat of a sort. With Liam beside her, she watches the ocean swallow the snowflakes.
“If anyone had told me I’d enjoy sitting outdoors in this weather, I’d have said they were loony . . . I mean it wouldn’t be something I could do with Murray. He likes his comforts. He’s very ritualized. The thing is, when I imagined a husband it was someone more . . . audacious.”
“My wife always knew disaster awaited her outdoors. She was terrified of slipping on ice, she wouldn’t consider getting on a plane, kept her distance from tall buildings. After our son was killed, though, her fears vanished, which scared me silly. You never know what’ll provoke change in a marriage.”
Is that what she’s waiting for? “It’s not that Murray isn’t loving. He is, and he’s giving to me, but he doesn’t spread goodness easily. The people who work for him . . .” Why does that bother her?
His voice drops falling on a dark memory. “My son’s death refocused my work life.”
“I’m sure it did,” she murmurs, staring at the horizon. Her father’s death upended everything.
“What is it?” He touches her arm.
What indeed, she wonders. Was she happier in her studio apartment, coming and going with no one to care where or when?
• • •
As she plows home through the wet sand, the dogs loping ahead, Liam’s concern warms her. She wonders how he sees her. Daughter, neighbor, intelligent woman? In the theater she would analyze each role: Who is she before she walks onstage? Who now? What’s to become of her? The dogs begin barking, then dash into the curtain of white and disappear. Murray must be there, though it’s early. An urge to run back down the beach sweeps over her. The front door swings open. “Hi baby! When it started snowing again I decided to leave work. Mila was a little too happy to see me go.”
“Want something to eat?”
“Yeah,” he says, but he’s already unwinding her scarf, removing her coat, embracing her waist, and she knows just what he wants.
Oh lord, not now, she prays. But refusing is as beyond her as an excuse that would convince.
He undresses quickly, perhaps sensing resistance. He’s spread-eagle on the bed, his cock stiff; his arms reach for her.
“Haven’t I said a hundred times I don’t want the dogs in the bedroom with us?”
“Rummy, Cheney, out, now,” he orders.
She slams the door. Wishing to sustain the anger but having no reason to, she slips off her sweater, her sweatpants.
“Hey baby,” he whispers, “come here, speak to me. But it isn’t
words he wants; she knows that. She slides in beside him, his leg capturing her thigh, his head pinning her chest. Her fingers bite into his shoulders; the need to push him away is so strong. But she can’t bear the thought that he’ll be furious, that he’ll sulk all night, or worse, demand to know how come, what’s wrong, where she’s been. And what would she say then?
“Something the matter,” his tone soft, far away.
“No,” she offers in her breathy just-walked-onstage voice, wondering who is she now? And now, as she draws him closer. And now as she strokes his back. And now as she closes her eyes on a memory: seventeen, in rehearsal, the director pulling her into an empty room, and his first kisses and her thought that rebuffing him will come at a price and—as any good actress would—that last thought: what’s a little kiss or two.
• • •
When she and the dogs arrive at the lean-to, he isn’t there. She tucks the sleeping bag around her to wait. If Murray discovered her sitting shoulder-to-shoulder with Liam he’d be a lot more than unhappy.
The purple-tinged sky promises more snow. The forces of the universe are sending a message: inclement weather as punishment. An idea Liam would appreciate. Usually he arrives before her; morning light is what he’s after. Could he have been and gone? He did say, see you tomorrow. She searches the beach for his figure but windblown sand impedes her view; seagulls glide overhead, the endless waves.
• • •
She drops the dogs at home and begins the trek over the opalescent sand toward the dunes where an exit leads to his road. The tiny A-shaped house squats on a postage-stamp lawn obliterated by snow. The blinds are drawn on the few small windows. She might regret this; it’s none of her business. They’ve only known each other two weeks; he must have other friends who look in on him, but she’s already knocking on the door with an insane urgency and shouting his name into the swirling wind. Trudging through the snow, she finds no back entrance, no porch, just two small windows, also with shades. Apprehension fills her. She flashes on her father hanging from the barn rafter. The chair beneath kicked halfway across the floor, sunlight in a cracked mirror flooding the space.
Even if she phoned the police, what would she say? Liam didn’t show up at the beach on a blustery day? Liam’s not at home? She pounds on the door once more and nearly stumbles forward when he opens it; shoeless, his open shirt revealing a mat of white hair.
She can’t tell if he’s sad or glad to see her. “Are you okay?”
“I didn’t sleep well. Not at all actually.” He ushers her into a small living room: bare walls, couch, rocking chair, easel, TV.
“Does something hurt?” she asks because his face is pale, his eyes bloodshot. Strands of hair fall untidily across his wide forehead.
“At my age, things hurt.”
“What’s wrong, then?”
“I can’t explain.” And he sighs.
“Of course you can.” Jesus, she sounds manic. She takes a breath. “I expected to see your paintings everywhere.”
“They’re in the closet. Choose a few if you want.”
“I will, thank you.” And wonders what exactly she’ll tell Murray.
“There’s coffee in the thermos on the counter.”
It’s a closet of a kitchen; hardly enough room to turn around. She’s about to offer Liam a cup, but he’s leaning against the wall as if standing were too difficult. Without a coat he looks thin, fragile. “Liam, why don’t you take a nap now?”
“Will you stay?”
“Yes.” It comes out before she can think and when she does, she knows this is where she wants to be. She wonders is he afraid to be alone the way she is? When he’s alone does he wonder: Who am I? The way she wonders about herself as if she had just wandered on stage, a seventh character in search of an author? But she knows he has no such thoughts. He doesn’t seem frightened, only weak.
She follows him to the bedroom and sits down on a folding chair while he stretches out that matchstick frame on the full-size bed. “I am exhausted,” he admits. For a few minutes, he stares at the ceiling while she gazes at a photograph of a boy in uniform that sits on the small chest of drawers, the only photo in the room. He’s the one to break the silence. “Would you lie next to me?” he asks, his gentle tone almost apologetic.
He’s fully dressed; so is she and who’s to know? She slips in beside him, inhales the scent of lavender soap. She almost holds her breath, listening for his to even out. She’ll leave once he’s asleep. He takes her hand, his fingertips icy. His breathing has a raspy edge now. Should she call 911? If she’d been home with her father that morning, what then?
“I’m being visited by the end,” he whispers as if reading her thoughts.
“It’s your imagination.”
“No, death sends a message before he arrives.”
“What message?”
“A calming one,” he says with quiet assurance. “All weariness to be erased along with pain, regret, ambition, and a thousand other burdens.”
Is that what her father felt? She slides her arm around his waist, his words strangely comforting.
• • •
The train crowded with commuters is so raucous he can barely think. He’s tried calling her all afternoon. He wondered if she was walking in this weather. He left a message: Pick him up at six. What if she’s not at the station?
The man next to him reading a newspaper closes his eyes. He closes his but it’s no use. She did seem distant this morning. He probed, but her responses were vague. If she ever left him . . . God, her soft warm body removed from his life? Can a person die of a broken heart? If this is love it’s getting difficult. Is he panicking? Worry isn’t new to him. But Sylvie gone, that would be something else.
The man, awake now, has resumed reading the paper.
“Some weather,” he says because he’d rather talk than think.
“It’s going to get worse.”
He looks at his watch, another ten minutes. What’s the matter with him? Of course she’ll be at the station. He peers out the dirt-streaked window; it’s snowing heavily.
• • •
It must be nearly six, the darkness ashy; a flashlight would help. Gusts of cold wind burn her face. A veil of snow obscures her view; the unplowed road is hard to navigate. But she’s not bothered, her body energized, a reprieve offered. Her arm around Liam went numb but she didn’t remove it until he woke. It was as if she were hanging on to him instead of holding him.
She picks her way carefully along the shoulder of the road. Snow-laden trees and bushes hide vacant summerhouses. If she shouts no one will hear but the aloneness rejuvenates. A neighbor, an elderly gentleman she met on the beach, was ill and she helped him, the paintings a thank-you for her ministrations. None of it a lie.
Glancing at the darkened house, she sees her car beneath a cape of snow. Wet flakes hit her face. She’s reluctant to call it a day. The dogs bark, and she fishes in her bag for the keys.
Switching on the living room light, she freezes. Chewed couch, torn chairs, gnawed tables, toppled lamps, ripped shades, clawed paintings, scratched walls, splintered floor, ruined, all of it ruined. “Bad, bad dogs,” she cries. They look at her dolefully.
Murray will have a fit; he’ll curse her and the universe, maybe worse. Better pack a few things; be gone before he arrives. Lord knows what he’ll do to the dogs; still, she can’t take them with her. What motel will let her in with them in tow? “Bad dogs,” she mutters, and peers out the window. It’ll be treacherous driving, no visibility at all.
Ignoring the phone’s pulsing message button, she hurries to the kitchen, pristine, untouched, appliances gleaming. She quickly fills the dogs’ bowls with food and water. They sidle past her; she doesn’t want their affection; they could be dead tomorrow.
Lights sweep the window. Christ! A headline flashes: Man in temper kills d
ogs, wife.
She takes a last look at the animals, meets him at the door. He throws his arms around her. He’s mumbling something she can’t make out.
Her words, though, are precise. “I left the dogs home alone.”
He strides into the living room. He runs his hand along the damaged couch, studies the ravaged coffee table, stares at the paintings, traces the scarred wall with his fingers. “Rummy, Cheney, you bastards . . .” his voice breaks.
“It’s my fault,” she offers.
“God,” he says, “God . . .”
“Leave,” she stage-whispers; the dogs sit.
“Miserable, stupid curs,” he grabs the back of a chair.
“Murray—” she begins.
“Everything’s wrecked, everything.”
“Murray?”
“How could you?”
Is he talking to her? “Murray . . . Look at me.”
He turns; eyes wide, astonished, wet, skin blue-white and taut, mouth slack. She’s never seen him this way, it’s scary, a whipped man resigned to the next lash. He’s no youngster, a seizure, stroke, anything is possible. Prying his hands from the chair, she walks him to the bedroom, lies down beside him.
“Murray,” she whispers, “they’re things. They can be replaced . . . we can reupholster the couches . . . and the chairs. The paintings, okay, they’re destroyed . . . Are you listening? . . .” She looks into his nearly unblinking eyes. “It’s okay, it doesn’t matter, it’s not important . . .” But he’s not responding.
“Say something, please, you’re frightening me.”
“I never lived this well . . .”
“I know.” But does she? She was expecting anger, not collapse.
“You can’t imagine what this house, the furniture, means to me,” his voice a whimper.
Her eyes slide to the mahogany dresser, the floor-to-ceiling mirror, wicker rocker, all of it inanimate. How can he be so emotional; no one’s died.
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