Fellow Mortals: A Novel

by Mahoney, Dennis

  He brings the ATV right beside the cabin and they lift Billy up, as smoothly as they can, onto the flatbed. Wing stops barking, neither wary nor aggressive, comforted that Ava’s near, and sniffs Billy’s arm. Once they’re all secure, Sam drives them out, more careful on the trail than when he’d driven with the Finns. Along the way, he calls an ambulance to meet them on the street.

  Ava sits with Billy, holding his head in her lap and saying his name, gently but distinctly, like a mother with a child waking from a nap. Billy looks at her. He moves his lips but doesn’t really speak. Wing keeps watch, instinctively subdued, knowing something serious and intimate is happening.

  28

  Billy lapsed into a coma after surgery for a depressed fracture of the skull. He woke the following week, and though he tried to understand when people asked him questions, he neither spoke nor followed instructions and spent the bulk of his time gazing at the television or the blank wall of his hospital room, incapable of feeding himself or possibly unwilling. Much of his life came to light—his unemployment and his debts, his self-inflicted cuts, Sheri’s testimony of abuse throughout their marriage—but despite being charged with trespassing, unlawful restraint, and aggravated assault, to name a few, no one expected a full enough recovery for Billy to stand trial. No one visited. His long-term care was undecided, assuming he’d survive the hospital at all. He was still losing weight and fighting off infection. He’d begun to stare obsessively at trees out the window.

  Ava was treated kindly throughout the investigation, and the police who examined the woods were careful at the cabin and respectful, almost reverent, when they searched around the sculptures. They questioned Ava, Sam, the Finns, and even the Carmichaels, who had witnessed Billy entering the woods that day, and although the injury at the tree was ruled accidental, some suspected that the act had been intentional—a suicide blow resulting from panic, drunkenness, or the deeper instability that brought Billy to the cabin in the first place.

  Sam blamed himself, both for leaving her alone and for neglecting her concern after Billy had approached her in the drugstore. Ava spent a week with the Finns after the attack. She found herself scrutinizing people at the lab, growing leery when her patients seemed a little too friendly. She went shopping only if the Finns went along. She yelled at Sam for not having a fire extinguisher, scolded him for climbing on his one-story roof, and even tried leashing up Wing so he couldn’t run wild in the woods.

  One night the telephone rang and Ava picked up, thinking it was Sam. It was Sheri Kane, who introduced herself twice before the name made sense. She’d gotten Ava’s number from the phone book; she’d had it for a while, since the week of the attack. She hoped that even now she wasn’t calling too soon.

  Sheri spoke about herself, how she’d felt both shock and horror at the news, and she apologized repeatedly, convinced that she was partially to blame.

  “It’s not your fault,” Ava said.

  “I’m sorry about your husband,” Sheri told her. “I watched him build that tree house for the Carmichael kids. He was a good guy.”

  Ava thanked her, crying into the phone and trying to hide it. Sheri let her go, saying “Anything you need” and giving her a number, not that either woman honestly believed she’d ever use it.

  Ava sat awhile after, petting Wing and thinking how little the phone call had clarified, and yet it calmed her more and more, seeming to atone, in some small way, for the darker types of randomness that had, of late, seemed the only kind left.

  * * *

  There’s a blizzard coming: gale-force winds, two feet of blown snow, the storm’s outer bands several hours off. Sam’s spent the morning stacking wood, filling kerosene lanterns, getting batteries in order, and reading the owner’s manual of his new snowmobile. He’s come to the street to wait for Ava and has his cell phone charging in the truck when she eventually pulls up, unannounced and yet expected, so much so he’s brought her hot chocolate in a thermos.

  She called him yesterday and earlier today, giving him the latest forecasts and telling him he shouldn’t ride it out. He can stay with her and Wing—they’ll order food and rent some movies—yet he’s flustered her by saying no, gratefully but firmly. She clapped the phone down this morning when he wouldn’t tell her why, and when he tried calling back and Ava wasn’t there, he knew that she was coming to confront him here in person.

  She stands before him now, buttoned up snugly in a pea-coat, little brown boots, thick brown mittens. She’s cut her hair shorter and it suits her, rounding out her cheeks and giving her a softer, more adorable effect. Sam studies her expression, and her mood, and her mittens, and the way she moves her chocolate so it swirls around the thermos cup.

  “Where’s Wing?” he asks.

  “I don’t understand why you’re staying.”

  “I wish you wouldn’t worry.”

  “I wish you wouldn’t stay.”

  He’s sold the trailer and the lot looks emptier without it, but he’s placed a pair of sculptures at the left and right of the trailhead. Ava saw them at the cabin but they’re new to her again, standing in position where he placed them, only yesterday, so everyone could view them from the street. They’re simpler than the others, more impressionistic. Each of them is life-size, the woman slightly taller than the man, dignified and graceful with their arms at their sides, unposed and unadorned, standing in memoriam.

  “I just think I ought to stay and keep an eye on things,” he says. “I’ll be all right. The snowmo—”

  “What if something happens overnight?”

  “I have a phone.”

  “Disposable,” she says, “with nonexistent coverage. You barely get a bar without a blizzard.”

  “It isn’t that bad,” Sam insists.

  She makes him get the phone and, sure enough, one bar. He holds it higher to the east and says, “Look,” certain that a second bar flickered for a moment.

  “Sam…”

  “I have firewood and food. I’ve got a flashlight, lanterns, a crank radio … I’m better prepared than people in town.”

  The Carmichaels’ realty sign rattles in the breeze. They moved across town early in the month, but the house is overpriced by twenty thousand dollars and no one’s showing interest. Now, with Billy in foreclosure, the entire section of the block is formally abandoned, all except the cabin and the sculptures in the trees.

  “It just seems crazy running off,” Sam says. “I spent the whole summer scared of being alone. I can’t do it anymore. This is where I live now. This is home.”

  She pours her chocolate on the ground, wearied by his answer, and he wonders if it’s selfish to refuse her invitation. She’ll be safe, strictly speaking, from the menace of the storm, but blizzards have a way of building in the night, of fostering a special kind of panic in the dark.

  “I miss him,” Ava says, staring up the trail.

  He hugs her and her hands lock tight around his back.

  The clouds are heavy and depressed with the incoming storm, and there’s an air of something great and unstoppable in motion. He thinks of being trapped inside the cabin when it starts, whiteout squalls darkening the woods, snow blowing up and mounding at the door. He’ll listen to the branches cracking in the wind. He’ll think of Ava miles off and wish that he were there, reconsidering his choice and lonely in his fear.

  He smells her hair and feels her coat, how familiar she’s become. How they argue into hugs, how comfortably they fit. He knows when she arrives before he even hears her coming, simply by the way his nerves unwind. For now he’s satisfied to hold her for as long as it’ll help, following her breath until she needs to pull away. In the morning he’ll be up, discovering the snow, awed by the drifts and the newness of it all, and she’ll be glad he isn’t with her when she wakes and thinks of Henry. They’ll have made it on their own. After that, who can say.

  * * *

  Back at home, Ava calls the Finns to see if there’s anything they need before the storm.
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  “Everything’s in hand,” Nan says. “I’m making a roast. I have candles and a basketful of unread magazines.”

  “How’s Joan?”

  “Her puzzle came an hour ago,” Nan says, referring to a two-thousand-piecer of The Last Supper. “She won’t even notice there’s a blizzard outside.”

  They talk about Sam. Ava works herself up again, looking out the window and thinking this is it: the final hour he can leave before the snow packs him in.

  “He’ll be fine.” Nan sighs.

  “He’s stubborner than Henry.”

  “But a little less impulsive. He’ll be ready. He’ll be smart.”

  They talk awhile longer, going over plans for Christmas next week. The Finns are having dinner at their house after Mass, and the vision of the holiday, all of them together opening gifts and eating sugar cookies, feels like proof that Sam’ll make it through.

  After the call, Ava finishes her own preparations for the storm. She gets a shovel from the basement, walking past the pegboard of Henry’s old tools: screwdrivers, hammers, the power drill she bought him on his thirty-fifth birthday. She takes the shovel upstairs and props it on the porch. The sky’s darker in the west, ironclad, dense, and a cloud bank spreads out wider than the town.

  She scatters salt down the steps and up the sidewalk, then twists the top of the bag and rubber-bands it shut. The mail’s here. She glances up the street but the postal truck’s gone. They have a new carrier, a redheaded woman named Dawn. She laughs a lot and talks too loud and lets Wingnut kiss her on the mouth, and while she’s built very similarly to Ava, she’s firmer all around and quite a bit younger. Henry would have liked her, and it’s possible that Ava would have secretly resented her, especially her breasts and the color of her hair. It’s precisely this reason Ava’s warmed to her now. She’d have liked being jealous. She’d have liked being wrong.

  She walks through the house and calls Wing toward the yard.

  “Come on,” she says, getting him to pee one more time.

  He lifts a leg near the elderberry shrub and trots off, sniffing at the crust of last week’s snow. Ava looks around from the center of the yard. She sees flurries near the roof and suddenly the air’s full of flakes. She catches one; it’s bigger than a quarter in her palm. The yellow of the kitchen has a quietness about it, like another lit room from another afternoon, but it’s not quite a memory and not quite a wish. It’s something either side of what she has now, a sense of having just seen Henry moments earlier, a feeling that he’ll pass by the window any second.

  Wing laps the yard, snow clinging to his back. He thought of Henry, too, when Ava got the shovel and the salt from the basement, reminding him of going out in last year’s storms. But he’s past that now, standing in the cold, dazzled by the flakes and the sparkle of the wind. It’s almost time to eat. He can tell by his stomach, but he’s panting and disoriented, blinded by the squall. He shivers there alone, narrowing his eyes until he sees Ava’s blouse, bright and reassuring, and greets her with a bark, wholeheartedly alive.

  ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

  I thank my parents, first and foremost, for nourishing every creative impulse I ever had, and for giving me all the love and support I needed along the way. My writing abilities fail me here. I love them too much, and have benefited too deeply from being their son, to properly evoke how great they are.

  Stephen King once attributed his success to good health and a good marriage. I’ve had both. My wife, Nicole, is the woman I hoped to marry long before I met her. Even if I could have written this book without her encouragement, I would have been sadder, and lonelier, and yes, probably unhealthier. The best and brightest colors of marriage in this story are inspired by her.

  I thought that becoming a parent might hinder my writing. The opposite is true. Our son, Jack, changed everything for the better. He’s enriched my appreciation of stories; they matter more now. And although I believed I knew about love, optimism, fear of loss, and adulthood before he was born, the kid reeducates me daily. I love him like crazy, and although he’s currently too young for this particular book, his future self is my ideal reader.

  Our cat, Max, and our dog, Bones, have been my daily company, keeping the solitude at bay.

  My aunt Catherine is more than anyone can reasonably ask for in an aunt. She’s bolstered me nonstop since I was born. I love her dearly.

  My original agent, the amazing Zoe Fishman Shacham, was the first to believe in this book and introduced me to my editor. When Zoe retired midsubmission, I was lucky enough to find my current agent, the capital Jim Rutman, whom I will not allow to retire. Additional thanks to Dwight Curtis at Sterling Lord Literistic, Inc.

  When you’re an unpublished writer fantasizing about the passionate, whip-smart, delightful editor you’ll eventually work with, you’re imagining someone like Emily Bell. I can’t thank her enough, though I’ll continue to try. This book is immensely stronger thanks to her brilliance and commitment. She’s not allowed to retire, either.

  I want to thank Sean McDonald, Charlotte Strick, Annie Gottlieb, Wah-Ming Chang, Jonathan Lippincott, and everyone at FSG for their talent and care. Big thanks to Ellen Pyle at Macmillan.

  Matthew Pendergast was there at the very beginning, when we were Serious Teenagers. Tony Corina and Maureen Marion of the USPS offered invaluable postal information. Paul Burke, John Faragon, and Scott Boardway also provided helpful expertise. Stanley Hadsell, Susan Novotny, and the entire staff of Market Block Books in Troy, New York, and The Book House of Stuyvesant Plaza in Albany, New York, have been my extended family for years. Tony and Dolores Abbott have given me much more than I deserved. Kevin Guilfoile kindly answered my many, many questions with great generosity. I played a lot of the National while writing this book.

  Thanks also to Henrietta and Richard Larcade, Christopher and Saundra Larcade, Larry and Marie Ellen Smith, Kurtis and Melissa Albright, Rosecrans Baldwin, Andrew Womack, Joshua Allen, Kevin Fanning, and Fr. Daniel C. Nelson, O.F.M.

  And thanks to my readers. I blog at Giganticide.com. Feel free to e-mail me using that site’s contact page. I’ll do my best to answer quickly.

  Farrar, Straus and Giroux

  18 West 18th Street, New York 10011

  Copyright © 2013 by Dennis Mahoney

  All rights reserved

  First edition, 2013

  Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

  Mahoney, Dennis.

  Fellow mortals / Dennis Mahoney. — 1st ed.

  p. cm.

  ISBN 978-0-374-15406-6 (alk. paper)

  1. Dwellings—Fires and fire prevention—Fiction. 2. Fires—Psychological aspects—Fiction. 3. Guilt—Fiction. 4. Interpersonal relations—Fiction. I. Title.

  PS3613.A3493355 F46 2013

  813'.6—dc23

  2012028948

  www.fsgbooks.com

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  eISBN 9780374709136