Nigh

by Zachary Leeman

  Ann joins me after a few moments and stands in the doorway. She looks relieved in a way, like a weight from the trip is now gone. I look at her and don’t take my eyes away. The kids argue about something in the kitchen. The sounds of them mixed with the sight of my wife gives me the first feeling of lightness since everything happened.

  I love you, I say.

  I love you too, she says before disappearing back into the kitchen to help the kids. I’m alone again with my father’s walls. My stomach becomes knotted and I rush into the bathroom and relieve myself of dinner, trying to be as quiet as I can.

  I leave the bathroom and walk with Tom and Lucy down to the lake. Ann says she’d like to stay back and rest.

  We collect rocks and I throw a few to show them what it looks like when the rock dances across the surface of the water. It takes a few tries for me to get it right.

  Their first few attempts sink on first impact, but they have fun and eventually get the hang of it. When they start getting the rocks to dance, they begin to excitedly look back at me each time after a throw to tell me how many times their rock jumped. They start a competition, but I don’t know who ends up winning.

  When it starts to get dark enough that the water starts turning black, I walk them to the house. When we can see the lit lamps from the windows through the trees, I tell them to head on inside and maybe we can play a game and have some dessert.

  When they disappear from my sight, my feet stop moving.

  The world is complete darkness. The light of the house is nothing more than a distant ship.

  A coldness painfully trembles through me again and again. My father’s voice rolls through my mind briefly, but I can’t make out what he says.

  When the gun below the mattress barrels its way into my head, I force my concrete feet forward and begin making my way back to the house.

  We all eat ice cream and play a board game, but I’m distracted and thinking about the woods and the trees and the gun.

  The kids go to bed and I don’t say goodnight to them. I walk into mine and Ann’s room and let the darkness blanket me again.

  Ann eventually walks in and turns the light on before the same thoughts from before can fully worm their way back in. She’s wearing a nightgown that shouldn’t be sexy, but it is. I want to make love to her, but I don’t know if I can slow the busy highways in my mind enough to give her anything she’ll need. She sits next to me on the bed.

  Silence passes between us.

  I’m glad we are here, she says. There’s a pile-up, the freeways stop for a moment just long enough to register what Ann says.

  How long will we be here? I ask.

  That’s a strange question.

  I know.

  You’re the one who —

  I know.

  How long do you want to be here?

  Forever, I say.

  We sit in silence again.

  I wish I could say or do more, but I’m a coward. She turns my face toward hers and kisses me. The kiss is long and wet and warm and it feels like the first time I’m feeling my wife’s lips in years. When it ends, she lies down on the bed, patting a spot next to her. I lie down too.

  Everything will be better tomorrow, she says. I want to say okay, but talking clearly is hard. I get up and turn the light off. When I’m in darkness again, I think about the gun.

  I listen to Ann sleep. The night and I remain awake together.

  The sun comes up. Tomorrow is here.

  Strangely, when light finally pastes itself across the room, I doze off for a couple minutes.

  When I come to, Ann is gone. I throw myself to my feet, not ready for the day. I walk to the kids’ room to see they are still sleeping.

  Satisfied by their closed eyes and moving chests, I head to the kitchen and then outside and I can instantly feel my heart scratching against the back of my ribs. The car is gone.

  I race back to the kids’ room and open the door. Sound asleep. I close the door and walk into the kitchen and sit down. She could have gone to get groceries. She could have gone to do a million things.

  I shake the thoughts from my mind and begin making breakfast so I’ll have something to focus on.

  The kids wake up and we eat together. Tom asks where mom is and I say she went for a walk and she’ll be back. Tom and Lucy are restless after we eat, so I tell them to follow me outside. I dig out some old nets and we walk to the swamp where I tell them my brother and I used to catch frogs.

  When we make it to the swamp, I watch Tom and Lucy enthusiastically point out hopping frogs and I start to feel a little better.

  I watch my son’s foot suddenly get gobbled by the mud. He pulls it out and his sister starts laughing. He laughs too and it feels good to see them happy together.

  I’m on my hands and knees looking into the murky water with both of my kids when a loud gurgle grabs our attention. We turn to see a frog the size of a city rat sitting comfortably on a log. My son goes to jump after it, but I stop him with my hand. I hold his net with him and slowly and steadily we reach out until the net is inches over the frog.

  He gurgles loudly again and then, in one swift drop, the net is over him. We pull him near and Tom and Lucy admire the catch, still comfortable, as he lay at the bottom of the net. I help my son to gently set him back in his home.

  I then stand back and watch as Tom points out slight distortions and splashes in the water that may be frogs, while my daughter confidently dismisses each of them.

  Look, look! Lucy yells. She points to a small frog sitting by the edge of the swamp. She shoots back to me with a look of confusion.

  Go, I whisper. I watch as she slowly cups the frog into her hands. The frog is as Zen as only a frog can be. He doesn’t move even when he’s residing in her palms.

  She brings the animal over to me and her look of excitement matches her brother’s. The animal is small and peaceful. He just sits there and breathes with no place to go or be.

  My daughter pulls the frog in close and whispers something I can’t hear and then places him back at the edge of the swamp.

  Later, we walk a little through the woods on various paths I remember. I watch Tom and Lucy’s attention get caught up in the awe of the nature around us. Ann pops into my head a few times, but I mostly just watch the kids.

  I tell them after a couple hours that we should head back and maybe grab a few poles and catch some fish. Their eyes light up and we walk back through the woods to the house. Before we hit the clearing in the trees, I can make out the outline of the car. Tom and Lucy sprint into the house, racing each other. I hold back and take a deep breath and wonder if I should just stay in the trees again.

  I walk to the steps of the house to see Ann holding the kids listening to them tell her about their day. She smiles and listens intently like the good mother she has always been. She gives a quick look to me that I can’t decipher and then her attention is back on Tom and Lucy.

  I stand there at the bottom of the steps watching my family as an outsider. I look at them and feel like their death, their impending doom, slowly swallowing their world.

  I hear Ann tell the kids to go into the house and make sandwiches for lunch. They obediently disappear inside.

  I sit next to my wife on the steps of the porch. I don’t know what to say. I listen to the buzzing of Tom and Lucy moving in the kitchen. I wonder if anything will be said before they run back outside.

  Ann and I sit in silence for a few minutes, the freeway now clear, my mind blank and dark and scary.

  They said they caught frogs today, she says.

  We were at the swamp. I was going to take them fishing later. I’ve never shown them how to do it.

  Save the fishing for tomorrow, she says. I’ll make dinner tonight. We can make s'mores and build a fire.

  Before I can respond, the screen door swings open.

  It’s ready, Lucy says.

  Let’s go eat, my wife says, leaving me.

  When lunch is finished, w
e play another board game together and then the kids say they want to show mom how to skip rocks. My son asks if we are going fishing, but I tell him we should wait until tomorrow.

  When the sun starts receding, I make a fire. The kids grab chairs and smile when the embers begin roaring to life.

  I watch the growing flames crackle and burn and beg for life as the sky darkens and enhances it. I feed it and fan it and feel odd watching it. I want to talk to Ann. I want her to say everything I need to hear, even though I don’t know exactly what that is.

  Ann brings out the s'mores supplies and begins showing the kids how to roast marshmallows.

  I watch as my wife helps them pick out the perfect sticks at the edge of the woods and then shows them how to brown the marshmallow sugar just right.

  When Ann is smiling and Tom and Lucy are smiling too, I think about leaving. I think about getting in the car and driving until it runs out of gas. The thought makes my stomach knot like the night before and I try to forget having it, but it sits somewhere in the back of my skull and makes itself at home like a tumor.

  Ann walks over to me and hands me a stick with a browned marshmallow on it. She pulls her chair close to mine and leans into me, which makes me feel warmer than the fire does.

  We eat and watch our kids and I promise myself that I will stay with them until it ends.

  My wife’s head drops on my shoulder and her long hair tickles my neck and I promise myself I will not leave her either.

  Just then, the end of the stick my son is holding becomes a fireball. He blows it out energetically like he’s fighting a house-fire. He drops it to the ground and jumps all over it until he is sure the flame has died. Once the flames are gone and we are left with only the smell of ash and sugar, he takes a deep breath and looks at me and Ann and says, it’s okay, I put it out.

  My wife and I exchange a look only parents can and laugh and the kids join us.

  I’m happy in that moment and there’s a good chance my family is too.

  As Tom and Lucy put the final touches on their desserts, I look over to my wife and she glances back and she’s as young and sexy and beautiful as when we first met. Just then we kiss and it’s warm and soft and full of a deep love no other person could ever give me. She moves her lips back and I immediately miss them. I’m lost in the captivating ocean of her when she says, we need to stay here for as long as we can.

  That night we make love like we haven’t in years.

  8 days left

  I wake to a world on fire. Burning and tearing at my skin, I’m pushed to the edge of the bed, hyperventilating through waking moments.

  The sun catches my face as my chest begins to calm and slow, the room cooling. My eyes close to darkness and I wait for the boiling in my head settle.

  Chest burns for a cigarette. I reach for the pack from my jacket pocket on the floor and roll it around in my hand, tapping it, feeling the weight of it. When the want begins to peel at the back of my throat, I toss the fresh pack into the pocket again and lie down, my hand moving itself to the rings. I hold them tightly and try to forget about the smokes.

  I want to think about her, but Sarah forces her way into my thoughts instead. It’s the same as it always is. She comes like a tidal wave and I’m suddenly drowning in feelings that shouldn’t matter anymore. I claw for the surface, even though I know it’s no use. She only lets go of me when she’s damn well ready. Returning here was a mistake.

  I throw myself off the bed when I can finally breathe again and she begins worming her way back to some dark alleyway in my brain. I push my way out of the bedroom.

  There’s no running water, so I rummage through the apartment until I find a few full bottles. I do my best over the sink with a bar of soap, a towel and some splashes of water to rinse the last few days off.

  I change into a clean shirt, pants, and underwear that are still dangling in the closet. Her clothes are there too. When I leave the bedroom this time, I close the door behind me.

  I throw my jacket on and down what little water remains in the couple of bottles left. The rings stay in my pocket, but I can feel them clawing at my leg.

  After another wave of Sarah consumes me, I decide it’s time to leave. I grab her ring and run it around in my hand. I know every millimeter, every groove and scratch but still I look, afraid I might forget the smallest detail. I then tell myself forgetting would be a gift and drop it on the kitchen counter, leaving it with the rest of the memories of a life from the time before. I walk through the front door and re-enter the world.

  Elevator’s broken and it takes five or so minutes to reach the top floor of the parking garage. When I get there, the thick air clings to my skin and weighs me down.

  Across the empty lot, I recognize an old friend.

  Covered. Untouched. Waiting. The air nips and picks at my skin, so I pull my jacket tight as I walk to the car. My right-hand fiddles with the now lonely ring. For the moment, I am focused and ready and good.

  The tarp is ripped off and she glints as if she hasn’t been denied attention for the past months. Her black is deep and her curves are sharp and enticing. Warm memories shower over me for a moment and I feel not so cold.

  I step inside, my hands running across the wheel and my feet tempting the pedals.

  I pull the key from my pocket and listen to her turn over as if she had been used only yesterday. The rumbling of the engine quickly rips into my leg and moves its way through my body like a storm. I feel alive. I feel hungry.

  222 days left

  “We are doing the right thing.” His voice was far-off and small, like he was talking to someone else in another room and she was only getting bits of echoed conversation. “Did you hear me? What are you even looking at?”

  Six, maybe seven hours, she thought. She tried to remember the exact time she’d first sat in the chair and looked out the window only to be transfixed by the stagnant animal, but time was a blur when she tried thinking back.

  The small, brown creature sat there in that tree and on that branch nearly all night, seen only by the dim glow from the back-porch light. It must have been morning now, she thought, judging from the fog rising off the grass and the greyness of the sky. Six, maybe seven hours and he still wasn’t fucking moving.

  “Do you think they know?” she asked, her eyes remaining on the glass, catching only a faint reflection of her husband’s outline.

  “Who?”

  “The animals. Do you think they know? Like we do?”

  “I don’t know. Probably not … did you hear me?”

  “Yes, I heard you. We are doing the right thing.”

  “Did you hear when the appointment was?” The animal ticked its small, hairy head to the side as if reacting to a noise from somewhere in the distance, but his body didn’t budge and it took only a moment for his head to cock back to its original position.

  “Yes. Nine o’clock. Wednesday.”

  “They’re pretty booked, but it’s good to get in as early as we can,” Genna says. “No one knows when they’re going to close, and then God only knows what people will —” She chuckled a little then, her first noticeable reaction to something her husband had said in days.

  “What’s so funny?” he asked.

  “It’s strange hearing that now.”

  “Hearing what?”

  “God.”

  “I guess.” His reflection disappeared from the glass and then she was alone again, alone with the animal that wouldn’t move.

  She felt sorry for her husband, listening to him rummaging around the house, leaving and coming home at all hours. A man who once couldn’t be bothered with any simple task after a day’s work was now frantically trying to exploit time’s every second.

  They didn’t say a word to each other. Out first, he would try telling her where he was going or what he was doing, but she never showed much interest and he eventually stopped. They were living two separate lives within the same sphere of existence, though she supposed that wasn�
��t much different from the time before.

  Her existence was in the study, the place where she had once painted and read and taught. She now sat in the solitude of the books and her piano and desk letting seconds roll into minutes, minutes roll into hours, and so on.

  She’d moved the chair from behind her desk to the middle of the room and that was where she stayed with only a blanket, a pillow and the large window in front of her to keep her company. She would sit and watch the backyard that gave way to deep woods she’d never explored in the nine years she’d lived in that house. The possibilities of the trees and the thick fog seeping through them did not inspire any thoughts or emotions within her. They instead cleared her mind and made her think nothing at all, and she appreciated that.

  She couldn’t be sure how many days had really passed, how many days she’d now watched the unflinching animal. All she knew was that one day she got up to get some water and when she came back, it was gone. She thought about going outside, looking for it even, but that seemed like a silly and wasteful idea.

  “Are you ready for tomorrow?” he asked standing in the same doorway as before. She wondered for a moment how long it had been since she’d heard his voice last. Three, four days, maybe more.

  “Sure,” she replied, her husband’s presence making her skin itch.

  “Alright, we will —” he kept talking, but she focused her attention elsewhere, letting his noises drift off into a far-off annoyance she could handle and not give too much thought. When she stopped hearing the humming of his talk, she simply said, “ok,” and he left.

  She leaned forward and touched her hand to the biting glass of the window. She pushed her palm against the coldness as hard and for as long as she could.

  The morning air is thick and grimy as it scrapes its way across her face. The grass is so wet and overgrown, she can hardly see her feet.

  Straight ahead lies the tree, the same tree she watched for so long. It sits empty now, letting out oxygen, playing its part in the big joke.

  She moves forward, the air harsher and thicker the farther she goes. She walks and walks until there are only shadows and forest around her, the house and her small world a memory.