In Short Measures

by Michael Ruhlman

  *

  Karen knocked on Nick’s door that afternoon and said she was going to try to make cookies. Did he still want to help?

  Nick removed his headset and turned from his computer.

  “Do you want me to help?” he asked.

  “Not if you don’t want to, sweetheart.”

  “I’d kind of like to just keep playing.”

  “Then you do that. Do whatever you need to. We’re still leaving for Grandma’s at six, though, all right?”

  “Okay.”

  She did not make cookies, but she did wrap one last gift, a book of short stories Frank had asked for.

  Frank had driven to his mom’s at midday to fill her in on the situation and tell her not to worry. His Uncle Ed and Aunt Barb had flown in from Santa Barbara before the storm, but fortunately they were still at their hotel when Frank arrived at his mother’s house. His mother appeared at first very disturbed, like an animal caught, but quieted when Frank held her hand and stroked her arm and told her not to worry, he was taking care of everything, which always calmed her. Ed and Barb would be a welcome distraction, Karen thought, from what would otherwise be a subdued Christmas for all.

  Indeed, on Christmas morning, when Frank, Karen, and Nick opened gifts, the mood was mournful. Especially when, in the silence, the line from “Have Yourself a Merry Little Christmas” sounded and made Karen’s stomach turn over: “From now on, our troubles will be far away….” But they bore it, went through the motions of all the years past.

  Karen was grateful they’d agreed to host Christmas night’s dinner for the six of them because it gave her chores to focus on—picking beans, making the Yorkshire pudding batter, studding the roast with slivers of garlic. After Frank removed his mother’s coat to hang in the hall closet, Karen came to greet her aging mother-in-law and received an uncommonly long hug, long enough for Karen to understand and whisper that they had a good lawyer and she mustn’t worry. Throughout the evening, no one spoke of the event. Karen only wanted the holiday over.

  And when it was, and they woke to a sunny Monday morning, and the situation remained utterly unchanged, all the unknowns hovering over them, and yet there were chores to be done. Domestic business didn’t go away because you’d committed multiple felonies. The upcoming hurdle Tuesday morning was the most dreaded—the funeral service. Officer Williams had called, as promised, to provide the details and to say that the victim’s sister wanted them to know that they were welcome to mourn with them at the First Baptist Church. He also revealed the victim’s name—Sarah Childress—which hit Karen hard, the name making her a real person, not just “the victim.” Karen realized they would have to perpetuate the lie to the face of the one most grievously affected by the accident, the sister, and so the routine of laundry scarcely registered as she got the first load of wash on since before the accident. Until she lifted Frank’s cotton Dockers. The cuffs were chalky white from the salt, water-stained two inches up the cuff. These were the pants he’d been wearing that night. But as routine and necessity dictated, she checked the pockets because 10 percent of the time she rescued something like a pen, a utility knife, a handkerchief—and yes, a handkerchief remained in the back left pocket. It appeared to be unused and she considered not washing it. She turned it over in her hand to find that the other side was smudged. A vague impression of lips? She shook her head and squinted at the otherwise pristine, bleached cotton handkerchief.

  She held it to her nose—scented, barely, but unmistakably.

  Karen found Frank in front of their shared bureau and chest of drawers, tying his tie in the mirror.

  She held the handkerchief out to him.

  “Lipstick, Frank? Lipstick? Jesus.”

  He stared at it, seeming not to comprehend. She pushed it forward so that he would take it. He continued to stare at it as if he didn’t know that it was even a handkerchief.

  “What a fucking cliché,” Karen said. “Where were you that night?”

  “With Grant and the rest at dinner, as you know.”

  “Then whose fucking lipstick is it?”

  He was so frozen with surprise that he said nothing, and she left the bedroom, pounding down the stairs and into the kitchen. Frank followed her. She stood with her hands on the sink, staring out into the barren snow-covered backyard. She didn’t know where else to go. When he arrived, she retched dryly into the sink, only a thin trail of saliva issuing.

  He had jammed the smeared handkerchief into his pocket and followed her downstairs. He gripped her shoulder farthest from him and pulled her to face him. She wiped her mouth with the back of her hand. “Please look at me.” She did. “Here’s what happened.”

  He took a breath and said, “I was kissed before I left the office party.”

  Karen did not respond.

  “Passive, yes.”

  No response from Karen.

  “I was leaving the Christmas party and a relatively new account person, who was clearly tipsy, found me in my office and kissed me. That’s it, end of story.”

  “So what’s this person’s name?”

  Frank sighed heavily. She could see the pulse in his neck. Hers was equally quick.

  “Dezaray,” he said.

  She lifted her eyebrows almost as if to laugh. “Seriously, Frank?”

  “Seriously. Dezaray Brouley, thirty-two, native of St. Croix. I helped hire her. She had one too many glasses of punch and got a little too forward as I was leaving.”

  “And try as you did, she overpowered you, this Amazonian.”

  “No, Karen. I’m going to be completely honest here. I let her. And I liked it. And I’m sorry.”

  Karen felt her head jolt, her mouth hung open. She turned away and he turned her back to face him.

  “Of course I liked it, goddammit, I’m not going to lie to you. I’m asking you to understand. You would have liked it, too. A beautiful thirty-two-year-old wants to kiss you? So, yes, I gave into it. I let her and I liked it. And that was the extent of it. I’m sorry. You think I’m not human?”

  Karen looked away.

  “Karen, it meant no more than I’ve just explained. I swear. The only time. Ever. With anyone. All these years. I swear to you.”

  “It could happen again.”

  “No, my love. Because afterward I felt like a fool, an old man and a fool. It won’t happen again.”

  He sat her down at the breakfast table and walked her through the event completely, crumbs from his English muffin and a drop of congealed butter still on the placemat at his elbow.

  “And by the time I got to the car and saw the lipstick, saw my face, I didn’t feel good or excited anymore.” He repeated what he’d said: “I felt foolish.”

  She stared coldly at him.

  “Karen, I love you.”

  “Well, one thing’s for sure, you can’t leave me now. If we make it through this. And you can’t be unfaithful, can you?”

  “I never wanted to be. Or would be.”

  “I swear to God, Frank, if you leave me, I will take us both down. I did this for us. We are in this together. Forever.”

  “I’ve never wanted it any other way,” he said, growing angry himself. “But not because of a threat of mutually assured destruction. I don’t want us to rot in a prison we build around ourselves.”

  “Can we go now?” Nick said. He stood in the kitchen doorway, dressed, his shaggy brown hair wet from the shower.

  “Go dry your hair,” Karen said. “I don’t want you catching cold.” When he was gone, Karen looked at Frank and said softly, “God damn you.” She didn’t not believe him, but this kiss from another woman had given the anger a place to land, a hook to catch on. Now, two days after their somber Christmas, her anger seemed to hover just behind her, like a wave pushing her forward everywhere she went. For really, what was she angry at? Again she said, staring him dead in the eye, “God damn you.” She stood abruptly and went to the hall closet for her coat.

  The plan was to take Nick to Noah’s
house before the service. Nick would be spending the night. By now Noah’s parents, indeed the whole community, was aware of the accident, had read the three-paragraph item in the Metro pages of the Plain Dealer, and within their social circle the news had spread like a flu. Friends and neighbors had left voicemails and emails, and two people had actually mailed letters expressing sympathy and support. Karen herself had spoken only to Anne Sutton, one of a few close girlfriends, wife of one Frank’s high school pals, with whom Frank had had dinner that night.

  The call was more complex since Anne and Walter had, just before Thanksgiving, announced their separation. Anne and Walter were considerably more social than she and Frank were, so the separation came with the not uncommon embarrassment and shame. And Karen wanted to confide in a friend who was hurting as well, though for different reasons. Karen, genuinely upset for her friend, had an additional motive for making a confessor of Anne. That she was so social guaranteed Anne would spread the story. Karen would say nothing of the details, letting Anne presume what she would. Because it was possible that Anne knew of Frank’s dinner with Walter, and their friends. Karen simply conferred the awfulness of the situation and made it clear that she didn’t want to talk about it. She wanted to know how Anne was holding up.

  But it was only when Karen bumped into Stephanie Strum at the grocery store that she sensed a disturbing, morbid excitement. Stephanie was a young mom of four whom Karen spoke with once a year at the summer block party on their street and waved cordially to at such grocery store encounters as these, which invariably ended in promises to get together that vanished the moment each was out of the other’s sight.

  It was only when Stephanie, with a look of concern, said, “You must feel terrible,” did Karen understand how thoroughly she disliked Stephanie. Was she digging for details? Of course this was exciting. This was news. Something had actually happened on their street. Karen glared at her and then left, simply abandoned her cart in the middle of the aisle and left the store. Later in the day, an email appeared in Karen’s inbox from Stephanie, apologizing excessively for her thoughtlessness.

  Karen immediately typed, “It’s a hard time for all of us,” and hit SEND.

  When Nick had dried his hair and returned downstairs, Frank was waiting at the foot of the stairs. Karen sat in the driver’s seat of the running car.

  *

  At the service, Frank and Karen heard about whose life had been taken. Sarah Childress was a single woman, aged fifty-two, who was enormously kind, who worked for the Cuyahoga County dog shelter and was devoted to her own pets, who was an avid hiker who yearly explored the canyons of Utah, Nevada, and Arizona, who loved the outdoors, and whose hobbies included photography and volunteering for the Cleveland Metroparks.

  Karen and Frank had arrived for the service twenty minutes early. Karen noticed one woman engaged in conversation with the pastor—definitely the sister. Karen felt certain that the sister had already identified her, too. But to make it doubtless and to get it over with, there to the left of the closed casket, Karen said to the stranger, “It was me. I’m the one.”

  The woman she addressed had frosted hair, thick mascara, and unassuming lipstick. They were of equal height, but the sister was on the heavy side and about ten years older than Karen. She wore a navy polyester dress. A tall, gaunt man in a brown suit stood behind her.

  “My name is Karen Markstrom, and I’m here to beg your forgiveness and to say how terribly, terribly sorry I am, a sorrow I will live with for the rest of my life.”

  The woman let a long silence pass between them, long enough for a well-wisher to approach from the side and then leave.

  When the woman said, “It’s kind of you,” a thousand pounds lifted off Karen’s shoulders. “My name is Shirley Klum. This is my husband, Bob.”

  “Oh,” Karen exhaled with relief. “This is my husband, Frank.” Frank nodded to each and each nodded back. “I can’t tell you how grateful I am that you’ve let me come here today. Truly, it was a terrible accident, and I’ve prayed every hour that I could take back that moment in the snow.”

  “You pray,” Mrs. Klum said.

  “Yes, I pray very hard.”

  “Pray for my sister’s good soul.”

  “I have and will.”

  “Thank you.” Mrs. Klum looked at Karen hard.

  “You have to believe me, I didn’t even see her,” Karen said.

  “I know—the police told us about the weather you were having that night. My sister…” She trailed off.

  “Do you know what she was doing out that late in a storm?”

  “No, I can’t rightly say, only that it doesn’t surprise me. Even when we were girls, she’d be out in thunderstorms playing in mud. She didn’t like to be indoors if she didn’t have to.”

  “We were told that she didn’t have children.”

  “That’s correct. She was, well, children were never an issue, if you know what I mean.”

  “I see. Did she have a partner to whom I can … can ask forgiveness?”

  “No, not presently. She’d stopped living in sin, praise the Lord. And I know the Lord will forgive her. And He is the only One who can forgive you.” She looked away and sighed. “I don’t mean to say I didn’t love her. God has a plan for all of us. There wasn’t a better aunt to our two boys.”

  “We have a son, fourteen,” Karen offered.

  For the first time, Mrs. Klum smiled, and her husband nodded.

  “Ours are both grown,” the sister said. “One’s in California, the other’s in the service. We haven’t seen Sarah much since our youngest left five years back. Once for Momma’s funeral.”

  “And your father?”

  “Daddy? Lost him when he was not even my age. Lung cancer.”

  “My dad, too,” Frank said.

  Karen looked down.

  “I’m glad Momma didn’t have to be here today.”

  Karen sighed brusquely. “Yes.”

  When the organ music stopped, the pastor approached from behind the Klums.

  Karen said, “I want to thank you, Mrs. Klum, for allowing us here to mourn and ask forgiveness and to have a glimpse of your sister’s life.”

  Mrs. Klum nodded.

  Karen said, “As far as practical matters go, we have full insurance, and I don’t want to be crass, but insurance will cover everything—today, your hotel, and certainly beyond. However long you’re staying.”

  “Thank you, and we do appreciate that. Bob was able to get away from the plant for a couple weeks, and I’m part-time anyway. We’ll stay only long enough to take care of things here and then head back to Little Rock. We appreciate expenses being taken care of. But I want you to know we’re not vindictive people. We don’t want to profit from my sister’s death. It’s not right. Our reward is not on the surface of Earth.”

  Karen found herself brushing tears out of her eyes. The pastor put his fingertips to Mrs. Klum’s shoulder.

  Karen said, “Thank you again for allowing us to pray and to mourn with you.”

  Mrs. Klum nodded. “But just here, please. We’ve asked only her closest friends to join us at the interment.”

  “Yes, of course.”

  *

  Karen slammed the driver-side door shut and wrenched the key in the ignition to start the car as though she wanted to hurt it. Frank glanced at her warily and buckled his seat belt.

  As she exited the church parking lot, he said, “I’m so glad that’s over. I thought that went okay, don’t you? Or as okay as it could. You were perfect.”

  “You certainly aren’t making it fucking easy,” Karen said, accelerating beyond the speed limit. “It’s bad enough I have to lie like a sociopath to that poor woman.”

  Frank pressed both feet forward as if to reach a brake pedal. He looked out the window, then turned back to her. “I’ve told you everything. I swear to you, it meant nothing. How can you even think …?”

  She pursed her lips and gripped the steering wheel with her right ha
nd at twelve o’clock, locking her arm like a fence between them.

  *

  Now the house was dark and quiet. Frank walked through rooms turning on lights so that the place didn’t feel so empty. Karen stared into the refrigerator looking for something to eat but, seeing nothing desirable, closed it.

  Frank paused before her and said, “Well, at least that’s over.”

  Karen nodded. The cold had made his nose run, and he removed his handkerchief but saw that it was the one with the lipstick from this morning. Karen saw, too. He turned to the sink to his left, opened the cupboard below it, and tossed the cloth into the garbage. Then he faced her again.

  Without warning, she hit him in the chest with her right fist. She wasn’t particularly strong, but her punch was powerful enough to drive him back a step. Then she did it again, harder this time, and he shouted, “Hey!”

  With her eyes squeezed shut, she pounded his chest with both her fists as hard as she could. And he took it for a few seconds but then he moved into her and enfolded her in his arms, trapping her wild fists between them, big enough to bear hug her and still her completely.

  She cried a little then, the final small throes of the outburst, as she gave up resistance.

  “I don’t know what I’m feeling,” she said.

  “Shh.” He paused. “You must believe me, the kiss meant nothing.”

  Her face was pressed against his chest and she nodded into it.

  “Do you forgive me?”

  “I think so.”

  He hugged her. “I love you so much.”

  She looked up into his blue eyes and asked, “Were we becoming boring to each other? Were we doomed? Are we?”

  “No, sweetheart. You were and are and always will be my love and my best friend.” Both felt the unsatisfying nature of the response, and so they hugged for nearly a minute more, rocking almost as though slow dancing.

  Frank said he was going to heat up the leftover Chinese food and asked if she wanted any. They sat at the breakfast table eating it, not speaking until Karen said, “I am so relieved she had no kids.”