Good Karma

by Christina Kelly

  Ralph followed Audrey through the living room, and she unlocked and opened the sliding glass doors.

  “I’ll be right there,” Catherine said, “I’m just going to the bathroom.”

  Catherine moved back and inhaled sharply. It felt like she hadn’t breathed in months. She watched Ralph and Audrey talking on the deck. He was animated, stupidly bobbing his head, agreeing with whatever the younger woman was saying.

  At one time I loved him crazily, Catherine thought.

  When they first got married, Catherine was out of her mind with the thought of him. While he spent long days at the bank, she worked mornings as a librarian. In the afternoons, she’d spruce up their one-bedroom rental, her heart swollen with happiness, and spend hours preparing moules marinières or moussaka, complicated recipes her mother had sent her. She folded napkins in the shape of cranes. When he walked through the door at the end of the day she would wrap her arms around his neck and breathe him in, taking in the gingery smells of the city, and know that she was complete. But in the last few years they’d taken to eating grilled cheese sandwiches with trays in their laps while watching the news.

  Maybe I can change that, she thought.

  To her left, on a built-in bookshelf, Catherine spotted a row of small glass jars. Perhaps they’d once held exotic spices like fiery curry powder or savory saffron. Taking a closer look, she realized that each contained sand of a different color and texture, from fine pink alabaster powder to peppery flakes. Each was labeled: Barbuda; Virgin Gorda; Cozumel; Mykonos. Catherine inhaled again. She and Ralph had always talked about retirement as a time they’d learn new skills or travel. She could take up beekeeping or the bagpipes and wander beaches she’d never seen.

  She walked into the master bedroom, just off the living room, and was entranced by its view of the marsh. Through the wide windows she could see Ralph and Audrey wandering across the lawn toward the reeds. They weren’t close to each other, but Ralph was standing straighter than he had in years. Posing, Catherine thought. Then they started talking excitedly, like old friends, tilting their heads this way and that, moving their hands recklessly.

  She stood and studied the furniture, the elegant window treatments, the recessed lighting. She liked the feel of the house, though knew it had been tidied for potential customers. Staged, Catherine thought, like a crime scene in a murder mystery. A king-size bed took up most of the far wall. Across the room was a wide shelf that held just a few books and a pencil drawing of a Labrador holding a sign: TO ERR IS HUMAN, TO FORGIVE CANINE.

  Catherine felt a sudden romantic giddiness about the idea of living on an island, like Robinson Crusoe or Mrs. Thurston Howell III. Especially with a strong steel bridge connecting the security of Seven Oaks to the excitement of downtown Savannah. She liked the idea of being both isolated and insulated.

  In the distance, Ralph and Audrey reached the edge of the property. Bands of long yellow-green grass rustled behind them. They turned toward each other briefly and Ralph raised his hand to point to something in the reedy distance. Audrey moved in to follow his arm. When they both leaned back again, Ralph placed his hand on their agent’s shoulder.

  You a-toll a-hole, Catherine thought suddenly, still thinking of islands but hating that Ralph was acting so chummy. It was the type of pun she might have liked to share with him at one time, but no longer. So her thoughts moved from living on an island to living with someone who took her for granted. Someone who’d gone from being her lover to someone who reminded her to take her statins.

  Walking toward the center of the bedroom, she spied the hallway that led, no doubt, to the master bathroom. On the right was the laundry room, the washer and dryer stacked by the doorway and a large utility sink in which she could wash Karma; to the left, a closet door. She opened it to a wide walk-in closet with colorful summer dresses and organized shoes and—

  Catherine yelped, a noise so feral for a moment she didn’t know it was her own.

  Before her crouched a young woman in a tan sweat suit, legs drawn up beneath her like a puppy, index finger drawn to her mouth to indicate quiet.

  “Please,” the woman whispered. “I need your help.”

  chapter 3

  Catherine stood at the closet doorway and tried to settle her breath as she stared at the female figure before her.

  “I’m sorry,” the woman whispered, “but I do need your help.” She sat on the ground, her legs curled under her. Her brown hair was pulled back in a long ponytail and she held a dog leash and a baseball cap in her hand.

  “No, no. I’m sorry. We are sorry. Our agent should have called for an appointment.” The woman blinked at Catherine again and again, but didn’t move. She reminded Catherine of a trapped animal. “Wait. Pardon me, but is this your house?”

  The woman breathed heavily, leaned forward to push herself up, then whispered, “I’d like to say yes, but it is not.”

  “Then what are you doing?”

  Raising a toned arm, the woman pulled out her ponytail’s rubber band and nervously shook her head, her thick hair cascading forward. Catherine remembered having hair like that when she was in her thirties—hair that meant something—before everything on her body wilted.

  “I’m lost.”

  “Lost?”

  “I think I’m . . .” the woman hesitated, searching for the right word. “Will you help me?” She started to stand but stopped as her head caught on golf culottes above her. She forced an uneasy laugh. “You know, will you help me get out without them seeing?”

  Catherine had several questions. What was the woman doing here, and why was she in the closet? Was she a neighbor? A house sitter? A burglar? She didn’t look like a burglar. Burglars wore masks and gloves. They carried sacks or had tattooed dragons on their forearms. This woman looked like she could have been a professional cheerleader. “I’m confused,” Catherine said, not sure why she was whispering, too. “What are you doing here?”

  The woman nervously curled the rim of the baseball cap, something a pitcher would do before a big out. “I just sort of wander through houses. It’s not bad.”

  “You break in?”

  “I don’t break anything.”

  “But—”

  “I like to live other people’s lives. I don’t know how else to explain it.”

  Catherine had friends back in New Jersey whose grandchildren played video games in which they wandered through virtual houses seeking virtual treasures. She’d even played such a game once, wearing a broad headset similar to the wraparound sunglasses she’d had after cataract surgery. But this was real.

  “What’s your name?”

  “Amity. My name is Amity.”

  Catherine felt a tingling in her hands, as if a part of her body that had long been dormant was just awakening. She knew all about fantasizing. She’d been doing it for years. And she knew what it was to be trapped. Suddenly she understood.

  Sensing this, the woman smiled. “So will you help me? Please?”

  “Wait here.”

  Catherine stepped back, away from the closet, and strode across the bedroom to the sliding door. Audrey was heading up the deck stairs with Ralph close behind her, a puppy at her heels. She could hear them speaking indistinctly. When she turned around, the woman was standing right beside her, even taller and thinner than Catherine had first thought, and Catherine noticed the fanny pack hooked around her waist.

  Catherine now had a plan and a motive. She strode out to the living room, to the pocket door of the kitchen. She could block the view to the entryway or perhaps even create a dramatic diversion to distract her husband and Audrey. She had the vision of letting a fawn free after it had been entangled in a net.

  But it didn’t matter. Ralph and Audrey remained on the deck, focused on each other, and by the time she turned, Amity had slipped out the front door and was halfway down the walk, her dog leash coiled tightly in her hand.

  chapter 4

  Bowser’s got stage five cancer. That’s why
they haven’t been around.”

  “Stage five?” Fred asked.

  “Yeah. Of the intestines or rib cage or something. It’s eaten through his gut.”

  Fred turned from watching their dogs and looked over at Ernie. He was a nice guy all right, but he wasn’t going to be elected to the local chapter of Mensa.

  “Five is the kind they don’t even talk about. Nobody mentions it because once you get it, even a bruiser like Bowser”—Ernie drew his finger across his butterball neck in a slicing motion—“you can just say sayonara.”

  The two men occupied the metal benches at the eastern edge of the dog park. These seats were best midafternoon, since they remained shaded from direct light as the sun hung above the leafy canopy of trees. The morning crowd took the western benches, closer to the front gate, parking lot, and puppy park. Across the newly mown field they could see Seven Oaks Way, the route that led in from the main gate, and the landscaped central circle where the road split into branches to the community’s three subdivisions.

  Fred’s dog, a giant harlequin Great Dane, ambled toward them. Sequoia was drooling, as usual, the saliva sliding in rivulets from her lower lip. She carried a half-chewed rope toy coated with slobber, and deposited it on the bench between the men before wandering off again.

  “Good girl,” Fred said quietly. He picked up the frayed rope, wrapped it in a plastic bag, and placed it in his jacket pocket. Another dog could easily choke on the toy remnants that got chewed up by the tractor during the park’s weekly mowings. Fred had never taught Sequoia this retrieval habit; it was, remarkably, just part of her thoughtful nature.

  Fred didn’t want to talk to Ernie about Bowser, their friend’s basset hound, or anything really. He was at the dog park to exercise his dog. He was there to get out of his house. He was there because his grief counselor had suggested it. After six months of being a widower, he still needed a schedule to adhere to, to simulate an ordinary world.

  Not one to embrace silence, Ernie started again, “First Bowser couldn’t eat, then he couldn’t sleep. I heard he had a tumor the size of a grapefruit. And do you notice that anytime they find cancer, whether it’s in a dog or a person, it’s always the size of fruit?” He grabbed his Chucker, a long plastic ball launcher, and brought it up to his mouth as if it were a microphone and spoke with a newscaster’s serious tone. “Which reminds me, why did the eggplant grow so large? Because it had good aubergenes!”

  Ernie’s dog, Lulu, a terrier mutt with a shock of white hair framing her face, just like her bearded master, stormed over to the bench when she saw the Chucker. She sat in the dirt in front of the men, waiting expectantly.

  “I don’t know,” Fred added. “Maybe we should avoid all fruit, just to be safe.”

  He’d said it as a joke, but Ernie nodded in agreement.

  Fred preferred to come to the dog park in the quiet afternoon, when a breeze often blew in from the marsh and there weren’t packs of marauding mutts. Sequoia could do without the yippy smaller dogs at her feet. She’d squat in play position, then simply swat them away, gently annoyed. He also wanted to avoid the stay-at-home moms, who often arrived at the park midmorning. Seeing his large animal, they would remark on her size. “Why, she’s big enough to ride,” he’d been told time and time again.

  Lulu whined and pursed her mouth expectantly. Her short body shuddered with anticipation as she tilted her head to one side.

  “Okay. Okay.” Ernie took a dull pink rubber ball out of his jacket pocket and, while firmly holding the long handle of the Chucker, placed it in its teeth. Fred remembered that the ball had been fluorescent red when new and Ernie could throw it clear across the park. If the light hit it just right, it became a neon meteor swooping across the sky. At one time it had been bright enough to spot in the grass from a distance, but after years of use it had faded, its shiny material now soft with gray age spots.

  Ernie used the metal armrest for leverage and pushed his large frame to a standing position. Lulu bent down, chest to the ground, ready to follow the ball to the end of the earth. Her tongue fell out in suspense. Ernie took the Chucker back, elbow bent, wrist flexed, and released it into the air. It lurched hardly twenty feet. Lulu, unimpressed, caught it after one bounce. She looked at Ernie with what seemed to be disdain, dropped the ball, and continued on to find Sequoia.

  “Ungrateful bitch,” Ernie muttered as he slowly lowered himself back to the metal seat.

  Across the field, Fred saw one of Seven Oaks’ security cars pull into the lot. The three energy-efficient hybrids that patrolled the island could barely catch a greyhound or whippet but could certainly overtake a golf cart if they had to. Three was hardly a fleet, but really, how many did Seven Oaks actually need? The last crime Fred remembered had occurred two years earlier, when someone reported a stolen golf cart. Chatham County Police had even been called in to investigate before they discovered that the man had gotten a late-night ride home from the nineteenth hole and had forgotten he’d left the cart behind. And the closest thing the development had to a gang was the three standard poodles who always seemed to arrive at the dog park with the ten o’clock crowd.

  The bright yellow security car stopped and a tall redheaded officer in a dark-green uniform emerged. He paused to wave to the men.

  “He’s new,” Fred said, nodding to the guard. “Someone told me they call him Rusty.”

  “Well, these guys do a damn good job keeping us safe before we get to the pearly entrance of our next gated community.” Ernie laughed as he pulled out an extralong strand of white hair, either from his ear or beard.

  Fred continued to watch the security officer, who punched a code into the electric tower by the front gate then moved off to review regulations that lined the bulletin board. NO FOOD OR TREATS. NO GLASS CONTAINERS. NO STROLLERS. “Nothing is safe,” Fred declared. “No matter what you think. No matter how hard you try to protect someone . . .” His voice trailed off.

  “You know, counselor, what you need is a girlfriend,” Ernie said as Lulu scampered over and jumped up to sit between them on the bench. “I bet the casserole brigade is beating a path to your door.”

  “Oh yes. The endless ravenous women.” Fred knew Ernie wanted to live vicariously through the fantasy of widowhood, but he was tired of explaining it was just the stuff of legend. Of course, several women had invited him to play bridge and a few had suggested a movie, but lonely women did not bring pallets of casseroles to grieving widowers. It was sort of like the myth that falling cats always landed on their feet.

  “Somehow all those aging kittens skirt right past an eligible divorcé like me,” Ernie said. “You’d think they’d be on me like ducks on june bugs.”

  Fred remained quiet, focused on the security officer, who was now checking the trash container. He tried to imagine a life, even a day, with anyone else. Lissa’s sickness had been heartbreaking. She’d lost part of her hair during treatment, but it didn’t fall out in great clumps the way they were told it would. Rather, they’d be out walking Sequoia and fine strands of her hair would gently float away in front of them, as if they were dried white seeds from a dandelion.

  Fred focused on the words his therapist had suggested when he felt waves of incoming grief: Breathe. Deeply. Breathe. Deeply.

  Fred checked his watch, then stood and whistled. Sequoia looked up from sniffing a rough dirt patch by the side picket fence and started for the gate. “Don’t you worry about me,” Fred said. He leaned down to scratch Lulu behind her ears. Suddenly, Fred was tempted to pet Ernie’s head, too. To gently stroke him and tell him that he was a good boy. That he knew Ernie meant well in encouraging him to get out and find a new friend, but there were some things that were out of their control. “Until tomorrow,” was all he said.

  At the front gate Fred hooked the leash to Sequoia’s collar. It was embroidered with trees, a green-gray yarny copse of majestic oaks. A final gift from his wife, as if he needed more reminders of her. She’d sat in chemotherapy for days on end,
carefully stitching the pattern with a hypodermic needle hooked into the port by her collarbone. When she moved to the bathroom, she’d wheel the pole that held her IV bag and infusion pump, as if she were taking her cancer for a stroll.

  Sequoia walked ahead of Fred, down the rough gravel path to the parking lot. The dog herself had lost a step since his wife had gotten sick. When the X-rays with the mass came back, Sequoia didn’t eat for three days. Sometimes even now, in the middle of the night, Fred would hear his dog rise from her oversize bed in the corner. She would stand, stretch her legs, and shake her enormous head. Then she’d ramble over to the sliding glass doors, where she’d remain transfixed for hours. A dark, hulking shadow looking out to the moonlit trees, as if eager to welcome Lissa home from a long trip abroad.

  chapter 5

  Fred hadn’t been prepared for Lissa’s death even though, of course, he’d known it was coming. She’d been sick with cancer for five years, the bad cells in her body slowly overtaking the good. A truck barreling down on them while they waited like old dogs in a crosswalk. But still her death had felt instantaneous. Once it hit and she was gone, he was dumbfounded. Where had that come from? he’d thought.

  Some days he became overwhelmed with the sadness, the devastation, the finality. That was the word that kept popping into his head: finality. His exuberant wife hadn’t been afraid of anything and was known to take risks, and she’d always emerged unscathed. She never hesitated to dive into a conga line or a cold lake. She liked to close her eyes on roller coasters and keep them open during Alfred Hitchcock movies. She even went skydiving once on a dare. It wasn’t a dare, he could hear her say, laughing. It was a scare! And toward the end, when she was being transferred from the ICU to hospice, when they rode in the back of the goddamned ambulette as if it were a limousine, he thought there’d be more. That she’d somehow saved part of her enthusiasm for an encore—an escape hatch in the van that would transport them back home.