Fellow Mortals

by Dennis Mahoney

  “Whoops, what I hit?” he says, stricken by the sound. He sees the wreckage underfoot and says, “My mistake, I’ll get it. Give me the paper towels.”

  Sam tosses him a roll and Henry squats, bumping Ava with his head and smearing extract with no apparent notice of the glass.

  “At least it smells good!” he says, tossing a dark wad of towels into the pure-white sink. “Hey, I’m bleeding.”

  Henry rinses at the faucet, sure he’s cleaned it up. Ava grips the towel roll and kneels to do it right.

  “Watch your fingers,” Sam says, right beside her ear.

  He’s holding out a dustpan, breathing at her cheek. She sees him indistinctly through the curtain of her hair. Before she has a chance to say thanks, Sam spots Wing coming from the yard and heads him off before he runs through the spill, catching his collar and standing there backlit and tall inside the door.

  “I’m okay,” Henry says, almost trampling on her hand and squeezing a towel—an actual towel they bought for the house—onto his cut.

  “I’ll go around front and check on Joan,” Sam says.

  Ava sweeps glass into the pan, the odor of vanilla cloying in her nose, and when she turns to look at Sam he’s already gone, the door is full of sky, and Henry scrapes the table right against the wall.

  * * *

  Joan lingers on the sidewalk, persuaded by a whisper. She’s heard it before, often at night and right before sleep: a still small voice, more a cipher than a word—a reminder that a person or a thing needs attention. The neighborhood’s quiet, an avenue of bungalows and tall silver maples, and it’s not until Sam and Wingnut come around front that she remembers when the Baileys, just last year, moved into their own new house and stood outside admiring the leaves.

  “You missed the christening,” Sam says. “Henry broke a bottle of vanilla.”

  “I’ve been thinking it’s a miracle how much is still intact.”

  “So here you are, home at last. How do you feel?”

  “Ready,” Joan says, the firmness of her voice drawing his attention. “What about you?”

  “I’m beat,” Sam says, stretching out his arms. “You have a lot of heavy stuff for people who lost everything.”

  “Will you teach again?” she asks.

  He holds his wrist behind his back and stretches out his shoulders. His vertebrae crackle when he pulls himself taut and then he seems to loosen up and looks around the block.

  “I’m taking the school year off. All I need are groceries. I don’t even have a water bill. But listen,” he says, giving her a Peg Carmichael smile. “This is your big day.”

  Joan stands in admiration of her new front porch. Three doors down, a family named the Mitchells files into their car. They introduced themselves today, a portly couple in their thirties with a pair of skinny daughters that remind her of them—Nan and Joan—when they were girls. They wave to her again and Joan waves back, having missed the sight of children in the last few months.

  “There was one afternoon,” she says to Sam, turning back. “Nan sat down and said we had to go. We were comfortable. We could have kept looking all year. But we had to get a house, and it wasn’t just for us. We were burdening the Coopers and they wouldn’t dream of telling us.”

  “You shouldn’t think that,” he says. “They were happy to help.”

  Wing stands beside her and she bends to pet his ear, grinding at her hip and causing it to pop.

  “The worst of it,” she says, “is that I hadn’t even noticed.”

  Joan looks at him and pauses, drawing out the thought.

  “Eventually,” she says, “you have to give them back their lives.”

  Sam’s scalp ripples up, broadening his forehead. He squints as if the sun were glaring in his eyes.

  “You think I’m burdening Henry and Ava?” he asks. “That’s the opposite of what I’m doing out there. I even helped him when he had to build the tree house. I’m helping them today, lifting all the heavy boxes.”

  Joan frowns, standing up. Wing presses on her leg.

  “I haven’t asked for help since he offered,” Sam insists. “I never ask for anything.”

  “Neither did we,” Joan says, “once we all got used to the routine.”

  Now that no one’s petting Wing, he moves to Sam for more attention, where he wags unregarded and eventually sits, content to occupy the dead space between them. The earlier constriction has returned to Sam’s shoulders and he stands with a hunch, refusing to respond. Joan’s tired on her feet and eager, truth be told, to see them all away and share the kitchen with her sister.

  “Thank you for today,” she says. “It’s always good to see you, Sam. We’ll have you here for dinner once we’re settled in.”

  “Mm,” Sam says, staring down the street.

  “I’d love to see your sculptures sometime.”

  She rubs him on the arm and leaves him on the grass. Wingnut’s torn between staying outside and following Joan up the stairs, but he’s spared the choice when Henry trots out and gives both Sam and Wing a hearty thump on the back. He’s wearing sweatpants with the legs tucked into his socks and makes it work, by God. He really makes it work.

  Henry breathes deep and exhales large, turning sober as the day Sam met him with the ax.

  “We gotta talk about something.”

  “Please don’t tell me that I ought to buy a house.”

  “No, it isn’t that,” Henry says. “Though you gotta admit, this is one sweet place they have here.”

  Sam pictures it enwreathed, swirling up flame.

  “I got my route back,” Henry says. “I start a week from Monday.”

  Sam expected something worse, at the very least surprising, but his stomach goes fluid and the curbside moves.

  “That’s great,” he says. “Congratulations. Henry, that’s … I’m glad, I really am. You deserve it.”

  “Yeah.” Henry frowns. “I can still come out certain nights after work, but it’s gonna be more of a weekend deal from now on.” He shakes his head, sighing at the trees. “I’m going to miss being out there every day. You and me,” Henry mumbles. “Sam, listen…”

  “So this is why everyone’s inviting me to dinner.”

  “It isn’t pity. That’s the last thing it is. I know it’s crazy but the last few months, working in the woods…” Henry stands up firm, trembling at the eyes. “You’re a good friend. One of the best I ever had,” he says. “I know it isn’t mutual, but really, that’s the truth of it.”

  Sam takes it in, scared to move a muscle, any possible reply rushing from his head. They wait until the words have a temporary glow. Finally Henry moves to circulate his arms, looking like he physically intends to clear the air.

  “But like I said, I’ll be seeing you a lot,” Henry says. “We’ve got to prep the cabin if you want to spend the winter. Plus Wingnut’ll miss you. He still hasn’t forgiven us for building that tree house without him. And I’ll tell you something else. Ava cares about you, too, so that’s another shoulder you can call on. The important thing is staying positive. You’re not alone, even when you are.”

  Sam can tell he wants to hug him, that’s he actively resisting it. He wanders off the sidewalk and totters on the curb. The moving truck is cavernous and dark, and Sam realizes that the Finns have gone inside for good, where all that’s left to do is cleaning and arranging.

  There were boxes in the basement Laura never unpacked—things that they forgot about. He wonders what was in them. She’s been with him all day, ghostly and alive. He recognized her writing on a box marked PLATES. From the bathroom he had sworn he heard her speaking outside, and when he walked out front to shake it from his mind, Ava smiled like he only just missed her by a second. They’ve behaved that way on and off throughout the day, as if an ongoing secret were unfolding all around him. This is it, Sam thinks. Pretty soon they’ll say goodbye and even Laura’s fleeting presence won’t accompany him home.

  18

  The last Bill
y heard from Sheri, she was staying with Mary-Kate. She called once to see if he was home and hung up as soon as Billy answered; Mary-Kate’s name was on the caller ID and when he tried calling back, the phone just rang. He figured she’d eventually settle down and listen to reason, and he wasn’t prepared to return from work one afternoon and find the place emptied out.

  She’d taken too many things to fit in her backseat and must have had help, someone with a truck or at least a second car. She didn’t call after that, and when he went to Mary-Kate’s apartment and the diner—painfully polite, only asking where she was—the owner of the diner told Billy to leave and Mary-Kate’s brother met him at the door and threatened to kick his ass. He wondered if Sheri might be staying with the brother—countless men had crossed his mind over the weeks—but in the end, all he learned was that she’d quit her job and disappeared. He missed so many days of work looking around town he almost got fired from his own job, and when he comes home tonight, it’s no surprise that the answering machine’s 00 and the phone ID shows that nobody called.

  Everything’s exactly as he left it: takeout bags, empty cans, Showtime on the television. There’s a heap of Sheri’s clothes on the living room floor, all of which he searched, some of which he tried on, drunk the night before, during a movie called Penitentiary II. He keeps discovering things she made off with. They had a single hairbrush: gone. She took the hangers that her clothes were on, a pillow off the bed, the silverware, the coffeemaker, every picture on the walls except the ones that feature Billy. She took a table lamp and now the bedroom has a dim, eerie corner after dark.

  He’s taken to sleeping on the couch, where the television flickers with a reassuring light. It crinkles when he sits on it now; there must be a can underneath the cushion. He opens a beer, flips around the channels, and finds Charlton Heston, dirty and enslaved, but he’s disappointed when it’s Ben-Hur and not Planet of the Apes. He leaves it on and has another beer, telling himself he’ll clean the house after one more scene, but he ends up watching it for hours, and by the time they reach the Valley of the Lepers, he’s drunk enough to take the story personally.

  He falls asleep and wakes up foggy in the dark. He doesn’t remembering turning the television off. When he clicks it back on, the empty doorways are sinister and black. He ties his shoes, grabs his keys, and drives around town. He thinks of going to the mall, but eventually and only partly on purpose, he finds himself at the Coopers’ house and parks across the street.

  The light inside is warmer than it ought to be, almost like they’re using better lightbulbs. Much of the effect is one of neatness and simplicity, every window perfect as a picture frame, the creamy colors in the rooms accentuated by the houseplants, hardwood furniture, and drapes. Especially the drapes, how they soften up the angles, cozier than blinds or ordinary shades. There’s movement upstairs, a shadow in the glow, too quick for him to tell if it is Henry or his wife. He remembers Ava standing in her dress that day, satiny and clean, beautifully at ease. He opens the car and walks across the road. There’s no one on the street, not a sound aside from crickets in the yards. He creeps around a hedge to an unlit window on the side and has a look.

  It’s a guest room with a double bed and a dresser. It must be where the Finns stayed—he heard they bought a house. He likes the dresser. Likes the wallpaper, too. He wonders how the carpet and the bedspread feel. The hallway’s lit and Billy has a view of the downstairs bathroom with a mirror less than twenty feet away. When he stands up straight, he sees the window in the mirror and the glass looks black as if he isn’t really there.

  * * *

  Henry tells himself it’s okay to wear boxers in the kitchen, okay to move the table out of the living room. It’s fine that the Finns are way across town and fine—of course it is—that Sam’s entirely alone out there. Same as last night, really, and the night before that, but when Henry’s in the yard watching Wingnut pee, he can smell a hint of autumn and he really does wish Sam would get himself a house.

  He’s up for doing chores but Ava’s always drifting into some new room, one minute upstairs, another in the basement, whipping up dust, brisk and unapproachable. He used to make her laugh without trying, mispronouncing words and giving his opinions, but tonight, when he rubber-bands a pair of her underwear, she snaps them off the floor and says he’s killing the elastic.

  He used to give her spanks—little pats, just for fun—but he hasn’t had the gumption in a very long time.

  I’m out of practice, Henry thinks, warming up his palms, and when she lumbers from the basement with the laundry in her arms, he stands aside, lets her pass, and spanks her in the doorway. It’s more of a hip shot than he intends—his aim’s rusty, too—and Ava jerks around.

  “What was that for?”

  He smiles and recoils. “Just kidding around.”

  She rolls her eyes right out of the kitchen, and she’s already halfway up to the bedroom when he offers to carry the basket.

  “I’ve got it,” Ava says, militantly crisp, her derrière wondrous from the bottom of the stairs.

  He follows her up, Wingnut shadowing his heels.

  For one exhilarating day, Wing had had them all together. Then they just left and now the Finns aren’t here. He doesn’t remember eating but he’s far too tired to complain, weary of foot and limp of tail and yawning with a whine. He’d like to sleep but can’t relax, kept alert by Ava’s busyness and Henry’s aimless circuits through the house, and he’s already forgotten that he heard an unfamiliar car outside, an engine and a door that electrified his fur.

  Henry watches Ava pick through the laundry. She pats it back down, shakes her head, and steps away as if deciding what to fold is more than she can handle. Henry creeps up and starts to rub her neck. Ava jumps away, startling them both.

  “Geez,” he says, and laughs. “I’m not the Strangler.”

  Ava looks at him and frowns.

  “What am I doing wrong?” he asks.

  “Nothing.” Ava sighs. “I’m just trying to get this done. We haven’t changed the sheets in two weeks, I haven’t showered. Just give me room,” she says. “Down!”

  Wing, so distracted by the long day’s events, has violated protocol and jumped onto the bed. He leaps back down, belly to the floor, more startled by his gaffe than by the sharpness of the reprimand.

  “Take your shower,” Henry says. “I’ll get out of your hair.”

  He and Wingnut retreat without looking back.

  Down in the kitchen, they share a meatball hero and mull the atmosphere—a fall-fresh night in late summer, someone’s chiminea up the block giving off a scent of wood smoke that makes them want to go outside, makes them want to snuggle up in bed.

  “She needs a vacation,” Henry says to Wing, who answers with a wag and earns another meatball.

  Except she’ll never agree to take one, Henry thinks, and even if she does, she’ll spend the whole time cleaning. The next bite of food reminds him of the woods and all the days he and Sam had their lunches in the open.

  “I’m a genius,” he declares, drumming on the table.

  Wing licks his chops and thoroughly agrees.

  * * *

  Ava’s haggard and sore and nearly falls asleep standing in the shower. After the spic-and-span newness of the Finns’ empty house, her own little realm feels woefully neglected. Gritty carpets, scuff marks, cobwebs swaying in the corners of the ceilings. But now that she’s gotten the emergency vacuuming and laundry out of the way, she resigns herself to finishing tomorrow and surrenders to the water.

  The summer’s been a blood vessel swelling in her head. She takes her first rejuvenating sigh of the night and segues into a yawn. With the inrush of air, she can finally think clearly. Bed tonight, quiet morning, breakfast at the diner … then nothing. The weather’s supposed to be sunny and warm. No one in the house, nowhere else to go. Sam, unprompted, asked Henry not to visit.

  She towels off and rubs lotion on her knees, between her toes, and up he
r arms, smoothing out her skin. She has color in her face and the air has that miraculous warmth that feels soft, giving her body a lightness and a gracefulness she feels only once or twice a year, usually in spring when the cold slips off.

  Henry’s humming through the door, back from having eaten. They haven’t made love in over a month, and even though the Finns hadn’t strictly been a damper, she feels like they’re alone without a parent in the house. He made an overture before—right there on the proverbial kitchen floor—and yet it’s now, only now, she feels the tingle of the spank. She puts her nightgown on; it’s billowy and long, enough to hide her shape and give her confidence to face him.

  He’s lying on the mattress, staring at the ceiling. Ava stands with her hip cocked against the doorway, one hand high along the frame, and when he sees her there in such an accidentally fetching pose, she’s instantly aflutter from his absolute attention.

  He rolls onto his elbow and says, “I have an idea.”

  She meets him on the bed and studies his expression.

  “Why don’t you take a vacation?” he asks. “God knows you deserve it, looking after the Finns and putting up with me. Grab a week and unwind before the summer’s really over.”

  Ava smooths her gown, showing off her legs.

  “I can’t just call in tomorrow,” she says. “And then you’re back to work the following Monday.”

  “Take it then.”

  “Without you?”

  “It isn’t like I haven’t been around all season. Get out of the house and clear your head.”

  “Where would I go?” Ava laughs.

  “I’ve been thinking about that,” he says, sitting up. “Why don’t you spend the week at Sam’s? He’ll need the company without me, and the two of you always find something to talk about. Fill a cooler, sit in the sun. There’s even a pond out there.”

  She feels her feet against the carpet, heavy and immobile. Henry watches her and lets her mull it over for a while. By now she’s gotten used to this and should have seen it coming, but all his talk about enjoying herself, deserving a week in the sun …