The Engagements

by J. Courtney Sullivan

  “Or it could have been the weather,” he said. “Have a nice holiday.”

  Even Sheila agreed that there were angelically good nurses, and there were lousy nurses, and there wasn’t much in between. He hated to leave this kid in this one’s hands, but he had no choice.

  James was almost certain that Liam Stone wouldn’t make it. He felt grateful that at least he didn’t have to be there when the parents were called. He imagined what it would be like—one minute you’re sitting at home toasting the holiday, waiting for your son to get back from the mall, and the next, your life as you know it is over. He wished he could go straight home and hug his kids.

  He figured that now dispatch might give them a few hours’ peace anyway. They went to the break room at Cambridge Hospital, where Maurice’s orphaned burgers sat on the table, along with a few sandwiches, a two-liter of Coke, and a plate of homemade brownies from Cathy at the deli. She was a good kid, that one.

  James took a brownie and went out to the pay phone in the hall to call home.

  “Hi,” he said, when Sheila answered.

  “Oh. Hi.” She sounded like she had been hoping for someone else. “Parker, I said don’t!”

  “How’s it going?”

  “They’re bouncing off the walls. We went to your mom’s earlier to drop off her groceries and she gave me a pound of fudge that one of her neighbors made. I think we’ve already eaten half of it. My sister came over with the kids to decorate some slice-and-bakes, but the snow got so bad that they had to go home before we could even get the cookies out of the oven. Which, by the way, only seems to heat up half the time you try it now. We’re gonna need a new one.”

  What did an oven cost? He tried to conjure up a number, but he had never bought one—the oven they had had come with the house.

  “Cookies!” Parker shouted in the background.

  Sheila groaned. “Yes, because clearly they needed more sugar.”

  James could hear the tension in her voice. Not just the usual frustration with the boys, but something worse. A fight coming on. She hadn’t wanted him to work the holiday, and now she was stuck with the kids at their most demonic.

  “I promise I’ll take care of them all day tomorrow,” he said.

  “Yeah right. You’re like a zombie as it is,” she said. “You need to sleep. How’s your day going?”

  He thought of telling her about Liam Stone, but there was no reason to burden her with it now. “Busy,” he said. “Earlier, there was this woman who said she—”

  “Danny, sit your butt in the chair, or I swear to God,” she yelled. “Sorry. Go on.”

  He wondered how old your kids had to be before you got to have an uninterrupted conversation in their presence. When was the last time he and Sheila had talked for longer than a few minutes without the boys around?

  She sniffled now.

  “Are you crying?” he asked.

  “No.”

  “Getting sick?”

  “With my luck, probably,” she said.

  “What’s wrong?” he asked.

  “You’ll find out when you get here.”

  It sounded like a threat. He pictured her belongings by the door, the kids buckled up in the backseat, ready to go.

  “Jesus, Sheila, you’re scaring me.”

  She sighed. “I promised myself I wouldn’t tell you while you were working, but fine. A few minutes after my sister left, I was sitting in the living room with the boys, and we heard this crashing sound from the kitchen. So I go in there, and part of the ceiling has totally collapsed. You know where it was peeling? I mean the size of the hole, Jimmy, it’s massive. You can see clear into the upstairs bathroom. Parker had been in there like thirty seconds earlier. He could have been killed.”

  James couldn’t think straight. The boys were safe, and that was a relief, but still he felt panicked.

  “But everyone’s okay? The dog’s okay?”

  “Are you kidding me? Yes, your precious dog is fine.”

  “We’ll get it taken care of,” he said, trying to sound calm for her.

  That ceiling had been about to come down for a year, and he had done nothing. He couldn’t afford to. Now one of his kids might’ve been crushed to death because of it. He wanted to hit someone hard, or for someone to just come up from behind and beat the shit out of him until he couldn’t breathe. I felt like an elephant was sitting on my chest. Wasn’t that how the woman had put it?

  “We should have moved out of this shithole a year ago,” she whispered angrily. “It’s dangerous, Jimmy. I’ve tried to tell you that. Why don’t you ever listen?”

  “I’ll come home,” he said, even though he knew he couldn’t.

  “You can’t leave until morning,” she said. “It’s okay. I swept it up as best I could and the boys know the kitchen is off-limits for now. We’re fine without you.”

  “Thanks.”

  She sighed. “You know what I mean.”

  “Maybe you should go spend the night at your parents’,” he said. He imagined the whole house falling down on them, coming home to find his family destroyed.

  “My dad said it’s not anything dangerous. I just don’t know how we’re going to pay for it.”

  He knew now that she’d be mad about the ring anyway, even though he hadn’t borrowed the money. If he was going to sell the car, she’d say, he should have used the cash for something they actually needed. That was probably true. But Sheila never got anything, and who was to say that the ring wasn’t as necessary as the ceiling over their heads?

  In the background, he could hear Parker talking about Santa Claus and the Rolly Robot. He wished he could be there with them, huddled under a blanket on the couch with his wife and children, parked in front of the TV, all of them laughing, making memories, hanging stockings before drifting off to sleep.

  “It doesn’t feel like Christmas Eve without you,” she said, her voice softening.

  “I’m sorry you have to deal with putting them to bed on your own tonight. Seems like a two-man job.”

  She laughed. “At least.”

  “Honey?” he said.

  “Yeah?”

  “I love you. I’m so sorry I wasn’t there.”

  James started to cry. He was never home when it mattered. He was no better than his own useless father had been.

  “I love you too,” she said. “Don’t cry. It’s under control.”

  “Okay. Put Parker on for a sec.”

  He heard an excessive amount of jostling and static at the other end of the line, and then came his son’s urgent voice.

  “Hi Dad! Did you hear about the hole in the ceiling? I can go up in the bathroom and spy on Mom downstairs. It’s so cool.”

  “So I heard,” he said. “Now listen, bud. I know you’re excited about tomorrow, but promise me you’ll be good for your mom tonight, okay?”

  “I will.”

  “Thatta boy. I’m sorry I’m not there to tuck you in. Did you already put your letter out for Santa?”

  “Yup. And I wrote him a note from Danny too, because he doesn’t know how to write yet.”

  “That was very thoughtful. You know Santa can’t come until you’re asleep, right?”

  “Yup.”

  “And he totally knows if you’re faking it.”

  “Really, Dad?”

  “For sure.”

  Their shift was set to end at seven a.m.

  At six, they hadn’t had a call in over five hours, and decided that another wasn’t likely. The snow had continued to fall through the night. The stores were all closed. Around town, kids rich and poor were begging their parents to get out of bed and let them open their presents. Parker and Danny had strict orders not to unwrap anything until James got home. They could empty their stockings, but that was it.

  He hadn’t slept, although they had been back in the break room since one. While Maurice snored on the cot across the way and a few other guys watched an old western on TV, James just lay there, thinking about th
e day to come. He would stop by his mother’s on the way home, and then drink coffee with Sheila while the boys ripped open their gifts. At noon, they’d go to Mass, and after that to Sheila’s mother’s place for an early supper.

  He wanted to feel happy at the thought of all this, he ought to feel happy. But instead, he only felt weighted down and exhausted. He saw now that nothing he would do today would change anything. Parker would love his robot, but in a week’s time he’d be onto something else. The bigger gifts would be impossible—they would never be able to afford to send him to college, or help him buy a house. The kid was only in second grade, and for now he worshipped James. But how long would it be before Parker realized that his old man was a failure?

  And Sheila. James had sold his old Ford to buy her the ring, but now he was back to zero. He was broke. They would need cash to fix the hole in the ceiling, and the oven that was on the fritz, and the car’s transmission, and who the hell knew what else.

  James thought of the kid who had mugged her. What had he done with the ring? Did he pawn it, or did he give it to some girl he thought he loved? James pictured the scene, as he had so many times before: his wife, trying to manage the stroller and the groceries, not even hearing the footsteps from behind. He’d like to find that kid and shoot him in the head, point-blank, right in front of his whole family on Christmas morning.

  When Maurice suggested that they start cleaning the truck early to get a jump on leaving, James thought it was the best idea he’d heard in weeks. They left the hospital, drove back to base and started refreshing the stock. One by one, James checked things off the list, as he did at the end of every shift. Fifteen clean towels, a box of tissues, restraints. Suction cups, burn kit, EKG, defibrillator, Phisoderm. He was almost finished when he heard their tone come over the intercom. Forty-five minutes left in their shift, and they’d have to go out again.

  When he answered, the dispatcher said Belmont.

  “What the hell?”

  “Mutual aid call,” she said.

  From time to time, if a neighboring community was overtaxed, they might be called upon to fill in. But it was unusual to go as far as Belmont. It was a ten- or fifteen-minute drive on a good day, without snow on the ground.

  “You gotta be kidding me,” James said.

  “They’ve only got one ambulance on duty and it’s at the scene of a fire. Sorry. Bad luck.”

  “We’re not gonna get there fast enough,” he said.

  “It’s a well-being check,” the dispatcher replied. “No need to rush.”

  “If there’s no need to rush, then wait until their own people can get there,” Maurice said.

  “The call came in, we’ve got to send someone.”

  She told them the patient was eighty years old. Her daughter-in-law in Florida had been the one to call 911. She had been trying to reach the old woman for two days and gotten no answer.

  “She lives alone at home,” the dispatcher said. “Apparently she’s in good health, or has been until now. I guess her husband died a couple of years ago, and she’s refused assisted living. Her name is Evelyn Pearsall.”

  James wrote it down quickly on his hand, not wanting to forget this time.

  “Sounds like you got an earful,” he said.

  “Yeah, well, it seemed like the woman felt guilty about not being with her on Christmas.”

  James thought of his own mother.

  “As she should,” he said.

  “She went out of her way to tell me that they were planning to visit her next week.”

  “Sounds like they’ll be here sooner than that, now,” he said.

  Maurice jumped into the passenger seat, and twisted the siren to hi-lo. The sound seemed even more mournful than usual.

  James reached across him and took the Advil from the glove compartment. He screwed off the top, and shook a couple pills into his mouth.

  Maurice gave him a look. “You know that shit ain’t candy, right?”

  “My back’s killing me.”

  The roads were slick, but Route 2 had been plowed now, and was empty at this hour. James went eighty, not caring about the speed. If Maurice noticed, he didn’t say anything. He wanted to get home to his family, too.

  “Sheila’s gonna kill me,” James said. “The kids will be up by now, and they’ll be wanting to open their presents.”

  “Tell me about it. Cindy already gave me shit about working Christmas Eve in the first place.”

  “Same here.”

  “Massive fight,” Maurice continued, shaking his head as if the memory of it might be enough to do him in. James was tempted to ask for specifics. It would be so nice to peer into someone else’s marriage, to figure out whether his own was normal.

  “What’s up with your hands?” Maurice asked.

  “Huh?”

  “Your hands are shaking.”

  James looked down. He hadn’t even noticed.

  “I’m worried about you, man,” Maurice said. “You need a break.”

  “I’ll get a break when I’m dead,” James said.

  “That’s cheery.”

  They grew silent as they turned off at the exit, and then took a sharp left onto Pleasant Street without waiting for the light to change from red to green. The car dealerships and strip malls gave way to Victorian houses, covered in white, with tiny white Christmas lights peeping out here and there.

  They had to use a map to find the address. They turned up a steep hill with tall trees lining both sides. The snow hadn’t been touched, and the road was icy. James pictured them getting stuck, having to push the truck all the way there. He slowed down, inched along. There were beautiful old homes all around.

  When they reached a mailbox that read number 63, Maurice said, “Holy shit.”

  A brick mansion stood in the distance, separated from the road by a massive front lawn. You could play a regulation game of football on that lawn. The driveway was half a mile long.

  Thinking about his own dinky house, just thrown there on a busy corner, James had sometimes wondered if people ever drove by and thought, Who the hell lives there? They would wonder the same thing here, but for the opposite reason.

  They parked in front. When they got out, it was silent.

  “It even smells better out here,” Maurice said.

  James wished they could stay in the yard, and not go in to find whatever sad situation resided on the other side of that door. A well-being check usually meant the person had died, but there were exceptions. He could almost hear his son’s sweet voice. All is calm, all is bright.

  They rang the bell once, twice. No answer. James mentally prepared himself to break down the door, even though his back was killing him and he wasn’t sure he’d have the strength. But when Maurice tried the handle, the door opened on its own.

  The place seemed even bigger once you stepped inside. It felt more like a museum than someone’s house. They stood in a large entryway, with high ceilings like he had only ever seen in a church, a wide mirror on the wall, and a grandfather clock in the corner stuck on eleven-thirty.

  “Hello!” they called out. “Evelyn? Evelyn, we’re here to help you!”

  Their words echoed back at them, but there was no response. They walked quickly through the rooms, still calling out to her. James switched on a lamp in a dining room the size of the entire first floor of his house. It was pristine and decorated like something out of Dynasty, with a huge table, and a crystal chandelier. On one wall, there was a painting of two dogs in a sailboat. On another, a more formal painting of a ship in a gold frame. A layer of dust covered every surface, as if no one had entered the room for years. He ran his finger along the tabletop, leaving behind a clean, straight line. He walked through to the kitchen, where a bunch of brown bananas were rotting on the counter, giving off a sickly sweet odor that made him cover his nose.

  “Evelyn?” he said, though he could tell she wasn’t there.

  He went into an office with a framed Harvard diploma hanging by
the door. Figured.

  Still, James hoped for some great, improbable explanation, the sort of happy ending he’d tack onto a bedtime story for his boys. Left alone at Christmas, Evelyn Pearsall decided to take off for Hawaii and try snorkeling for the first time in her life! … Sometimes Evelyn Pearsall liked to go up in the attic with a Walkman and a Stones tape, and just shut out the world for days.… What Evelyn Pearsall’s daughter-in-law never knew was that she had a twenty-four-year-old boy toy living on Newbury Street, and she had decided to spend the holiday with him.

  But then Maurice called out, “I found her.”

  James went to the living room, where the old woman lay on the floor, unconscious. She wore a cotton nightgown printed with pink flowers, the same kind of thing his own mother wore. She had probably been living in just this one room. There were clothes folded neatly on a sofa, and the large coffee table was strewn with newspapers and Christmas cards, tons of them. There was a chest covered in framed family photographs. On an end table there sat a jewelry box, open to reveal all sorts of sparkling gems, thrown in haphazardly. Beside it stood a plastic cup for her dentures, a toothbrush with fraying bristles, a bottle of lotion, and a stack of hardcover books.

  He had seen this plenty of times, an old lady in a big old house living in one or two rooms. Sometimes they were afraid to climb the stairs, but more often it was because they couldn’t take the reminder of their dead husbands. They didn’t want to sleep in bed without them, or open a closet and see their pressed suits hanging there. James thought of the way they had found the front door unlocked. She had been so vulnerable here, all alone.

  “I think she’s gone, man,” Maurice said. “Look at the color of her skin. Hell of a way to kick off Christmas.”

  James crouched beside her and felt her wrist. Her skin was cold. But he thought he could detect a slow pulse.

  He knew she had nothing in common with his mom. This woman was probably the stuck-up rich type who wouldn’t give Mary McKeen the time of day. But even so, it was Christmas, and she was someone’s mother, and she was alone. James wanted to save her. He wished he could gather up all the lost souls of the day and bring them home with him. He pictured himself arriving at his in-laws’ for Christmas dinner: Hey Tom and Linda, meet the gang—there’s the crazy, racist homeless guy, the stroke victim’s wife who can’t understand a word you’re saying, the Harvard student from India who will probably own all of us in ten years. Here are the parents of the late, great Liam Stone. And last but not least, Evelyn.