Strange but True

by John Searles

  But Gail’s mouth will not move.

  Instead, she reaches down to the laundry basket at her feet and grabs the Police Athletic League sweatshirt, unfolds and refolds it. As she watches him unload still more junk onto the table, Gail is thinking of that girl from Bryn Mawr College, the one who filed the complaint about him all those years ago after he pulled her over for speeding.

  Tell him what you found, the voice says again.

  Finally, Bill reaches the bottom of the bag. He puts his hand deep inside, the way a magician might reach into a hat, and says, “I brought you a surprise. Now close your eyes.”

  Gail does as he says, though she can’t help but peek as he pulls out two long, rectangular boxes. He puts one on the coffee table, the other in her hands. When he tells her to open up, Gail sees the words GUARANTEED TO LIGHT ON ANY SURFACE on the boxes.

  “They’re matches,” Bill says. “To help you get the fire going. They’re the kind that strike on anything.”

  Gail looks past her husband’s hulking frame at the cold, dark cavity of the fireplace, then back at his weathered face. She does her best to force a jovial voice. “You sure know how to romance a girl.”

  Bill smiles again and takes the box from her hands. He lifts the top and extracts a long match. One quick swipe against the hard gray stone of the fireplace and it lights instantly. “Pretty nifty, huh?”

  “I’ll say,” Gail tells him.

  Instead of holding the match to the fire, he brings the flame in front of her face and tells her to make a wish and blow it out. She goes along with the joke, still forcing that jovial voice. “I wish… I wish that the next time you buy me a gift, it comes from Wayne Jewelers instead.”

  The moment she blows out the flame, a thin line of smoke threads in the air between them and the telephone rings. The sound startles Gail the same way the slam of the door from Melissa’s cottage did earlier. Bill walks toward the kitchen to answer it, but Gail springs up from the rocking chair and steps in front of him. “I’m expecting a call,” she says and picks up the phone. “Hello.”

  “Gail?”

  “Yes?”

  “It’s Janet. Your number is on my caller ID, but you didn’t leave a message.”

  Gail doesn’t go in for most of the newfangled extras like caller ID and *79, or whatever it is. Neither does Bill. They both believe it’s just one more way for the phone company to power-vac money out of people’s pockets. But clearly Janet Pornack goes in for them. “Oh, sorry about that. I figured you weren’t home.”

  “I wasn’t.” She is eating something crunchy, talking between bites. “I was at physical therapy for my herniated disk.” She makes a gulping sound and smacks her lips. “But that’s what I have a machine for. I just hate when people call and don’t leave a message. I find it really irritating.”

  “Sorry,” Gail says again, remembering why she doesn’t call Janet very often.

  The only extra phone function that Gail and Bill do have is call waiting, and right then she hears the disruptive beep telling her that she has another call. She asks Janet to hold on a second, then clicks over, feeling a flashback to her dispatcher days of juggling phone lines at the station. “Hello.”

  A man’s voice says, “Gail Erwin, please.”

  “Speaking.”

  “This is David Burnbaum from CVS Pharmacy.”

  Gail’s eyes go to her husband, who is watching her from the living room with a curious expression on his face. “Hold on,” she says into the phone. Then to Bill, “It’s just the pharmacist. They made a mistake with my Lipitor refill.”

  “Oh,” Bill says and takes out another match. He strikes it against the wooden floorboards at the edge of braided rug and mouths, “Tada.”

  Gail winks and gives him a thumbs-up. Much to her relief, he turns his attention to the fireplace to see about getting it started again. Quickly, she clicks over to tell Janet she’ll have to call her later, but Janet has already hung up. When Gail comes back on the line, she says, “Sorry to make you wait, David.”

  “That’s okay. Listen, I’m calling about the message you left. It must have been taken down incorrectly.”

  As he reads back the exact description of the pill, Gail steps deeper into the kitchen. She keeps her gaze on Bill, who bends in front of the fireplace and rearranges the logs so that there is air beneath them, the way he always instructs her to do. “That’s right,” she says.

  “Are you sure this pill was mixed in with your prescription? I just don’t see how that’s possible. We don’t have pills like that here at this pharmacy.”

  “I’m sure. What kind is it anyway?”

  Gail is trying hard not to be too specific, because she doesn’t want Bill to hear. But David asks, “What kind is what?”

  “What kind is that one, you know, the thing that I found? I mean, what is it for?”

  “Mrs. Erwin, it sounds to me like that thing you found, the pill, is Rohypnol.”

  “And what’s that?”

  “It’s a sedative you can’t get legally in this country because it’s most commonly used as a date rape drug. Mrs. Erwin, have you ever heard of something called Roofies?”

  As Bill lights another match and puts it to the paper, she says, “Yes. Yes, I have.”

  “Well, I checked the computer and I’m certain that’s what you found. If you’d taken that pill by mistake, you wouldn’t have known what happened to you, especially if you were drinking. But it just doesn’t make sense how it could possibly turn up in your Lipitor prescription. I’d like you to bring it down to me the first chance you get so I can see it for myself.”

  “I’ll do that,” Gail says, then rushes him off the phone the way that woman had rushed her off earlier.

  When she hangs up, Bill is still kneeling in front of the fireplace, flames rising up where that dark cavity of coals had been moments before. Gail’s feeling of dread has returned full force now. Her mind feels muddled and confused by this new information. She thinks of that girl from Bryn Mawr. Donna Fellman was her name. She agreed to drop all charges on the condition that Bill leave the force. At the time, Gail tried to convince him to fight her in court, but he insisted that he didn’t want to be part of a public spectacle, even though he was innocent. Maybe it was laziness on her part, maybe she was tired of starting over again, maybe she simply took his word as truth because that’s what love was supposed to be about, after all, trusting the person you cared for most—whatever the reason, Gail chose to believe Bill.

  And now this, she thinks.

  Still, none of what that college girl accused him of had anything to do with pills—inappropriate conduct, yes, but pills, no. Even if he did use these on someone else, Gail wonders when and on whom, since other than his trips to Home Depot, the man spends just about every second of his time puttering around the house with her.

  Without looking up from the fire, Bill asks, “Everything okay?”

  Gail feels as though she has swallowed one of those screwdrivers, maybe even the hammer too, when she speaks. “Oh, fine. It was just an insurance mix-up. We’ve been using that same pharmacy for years. You’d think they’d get it right by now.”

  “You’d think,” Bill says, his face lit by the glow of the lapping flames. He stands and hands her the box again. “Anyway, my dear, here are your matches.”

  Gail looks at the extra box on the table. “Who are those for?”

  “Melissa,” he says. “Poor thing has the same problem as you. Every time I go over there, the fire is out. One time I even found her with the windows wide open. I don’t know how she lives with the place so cold all the time.”

  Once, years ago, when Gail was between husbands, she spent the summer living with her sister in Daytona Beach. On the Fourth of July, they went to see a fireworks show near the ocean. Since her sister was dating one of the men who worked for the fireworks company, they got to lay their blanket on the ground only twenty feet or so from the cannonlike contraption that launched the fireworks. A
s Gail stared up at the bursts of color in the sky that night, her chest vibrated with each explosion until it ached. That is how she feels now, staring at this man she has been married to for seven years, this man she chose to believe despite the rumors at the station. It is not enough to say that Gail’s heart is beating quickly, or thudding, or galloping, or even pounding in her chest, because at the moment, her heart feels insignificant. It feels not much bigger than a bird’s, pumping inside of her. On the outside is where Gail feels the steady succession of crushing blasts, quaking through her body and causing her pain.

  Bill’s mention of Melissa and the discovery of the pills have come together in her mind at long last. She thinks of his constant visits to the girl’s cottage to fix this thing or that, to bring her wood in the winter, tomatoes in the summer, and now those matches guaranteed to light on any surface. She thinks of all the times he lingered over there until late in the evening, talking with Melissa, drinking wine and smoking cigarettes, before he claimed to quit and she became pregnant. Never once, not one single time, had Gail’s suspicion been raised, because—well, frankly, because of Melissa’s horribly disfigured face. And because, even though Bill was always saying that they were not her parents, she used to get the feeling that he liked being a sort of father figure to the girl.

  And now this, she thinks again.

  Gail’s mind calls up the story Melissa told them about a boy she was seeing who wanted nothing to do with her when she announced that she was pregnant. It always seemed slightly odd—a thought that lived at the edge of Gail’s mind, though she never took the time to fully develop it—because in all the years Melissa has been their tenant, not one boy had ever pulled up in front of her house or knocked on her door.

  “Are you okay?” Bill is asking. “You don’t look well.”

  “I’m fine,” she manages in a weak voice. “Just tired. That’s all.”

  “Are you sure?”

  Bill reaches out his large hand for her shoulder, and Gail takes a step back, almost falling into the rocking chair before steadying herself at the last second.

  “Gail,” he says, “are you all right?”

  She does something then, though she doesn’t know how. Gail shakes her head and clears her throat of that blocked feeling. She uses her fingers to curl a loose strand of snowy white hair over one ear. The phrase “Don’t make any sudden moves” pops into her mind. “Yes, I’m sure. I just need to get dinner started. You must be hungry.”

  Bill is staring at her, his brown eyes even wider than usual, his top teeth biting into his bottom lip. “I am hungry. But maybe I should help you in the kitchen.”

  Again Gail doesn’t know how she manages it, but she forces a smile and says, “Now that’s a first. You better be careful or they might list us in the next volume of The Darwin Awards. I can just see it: ‘Bill Erwin, a man who never once used the kitchen to so much as microwave a hot dog, gives his wife a heart attack by offering to help cook dinner.’ ”

  He laughs, producing the same warm, hardy sound as before. This time, it does nothing to soothe her. “Well, I like to keep you guessing. Are you sure you don’t want some help?”

  Gail reassures him that she’ll be fine then disappears into the comfort of her kitchen with its white appliances, white painted cabinets filled with stacks of mismatched plates and bowls, and the white Formica counter with a wide-mouthed toaster, a mug tree, and an old bread box on top. There is something oddly meditative about the next hour. While Bill heads outside to shovel the driveway, and the woods behind the three small houses grow dark, and the wind blows, and those black birds go wherever they go in the last light of the day, Gail pulls a pack of pork chops from the freezer and defrosts them in the microwave. Next, she gets out a box of Shake ’n Bake, pours the mixture into a Ziploc bag along with the meat, and shakes it over the sink. As she stares down at the bread crumbs and spices clinging to the dewy white flesh inside, her thoughts swirl around her mind, coming together and breaking apart as she tries to complete a time line of events of these last nine months, as well as come up with a plan. But her sense of dismay and confusion is still too fresh and overpowering. It gets in the way of clarity or decision. So as Bill’s new snow shovel makes a haphazard scraping sound outside, and the pork chops bake, and the beans and potatoes boil, Gail sets the table, lost in her thoughts. And once everything is ready, she does what seems like an impossible task: she goes to the front door and opens it to see Bill outside whistling a Johnny Cash tune as he shovels the spot on the side of the road where Melissa always parks her car. Gail asks him to come inside and wash up for dinner.

  The moment he joins her at the table, the strange, meditative quality of the last hour evaporates in the air between them. In its place remains a thick, unyielding tension. They begin by making their ordinary brand of supper time small talk—discussing first how good the meal is, then how much better Bill finds his new shovel as compared to the old one, then how much more snow they’ve been hit with this winter than last. The whole while they carry on with this banal, listless banter, Gail pushes her food around her plate, occasionally staring up at her husband to watch him lift the fork to his mouth and chew a piece of pork, a bite of potato, a string bean. When he is just about finished, he gives up on the fork and picks up the bone with his hands to gnaw at the most tender meat. They fall into a long silence then, and the only sound is Bill’s chewing until Gail takes a breath and speaks up. “That was nice of you to buy Missy those matches.”

  “Yeah, well, you know. The poor girl.”

  Gail has not planned what she is going to say. She simply begins talking, circling around the topic the way she imagines those black birds outside might circle their prey. “The poor girl, that’s right. Let’s just keep buying her presents and letting her live here for free while we go broke. Poor us, is more like it. Because at the rate we’re going, the bank is going to seize the property. I’ve had that happen before, and believe me, it’s no fun at all.”

  Bill lowers the bone from his mouth so that he is holding it a foot or so above his plate. A stray bit of meat is stuck to the corner of his lip. Normally, Gail would point it out, but she says nothing. “Hey, hey, hey,” he tells her. “Where is this coming from all of a sudden? So I bought her some matches. They cost me a grand total of two dollars.”

  “Yeah, well, her rent is a lot more than that, and her inability to pay it all these months is the reason we don’t have any money.”

  “Gail, we’ve talked about this before. Once she has her baby, she will be able to start working again and pay us back.”

  “And who is going to watch this baby while she goes to work? Tell me that, huh?”

  Bill shrugs. “I haven’t thought about it. She’s our tenant, not our daughter. There’s only so much we can get involved.”

  “You’ve said that hundreds of time over the years!” Gail raises her voice so that she is all but shouting, then deepens it in order to do a crude imitation of him: “She’s not our daughter and we shouldn’t get involved!” When she’s done mimicking him, Gail stops circling and swoops swiftly toward the center of the discussion. “I think you know it’s a little late for that. We are involved in her life whether we like it or not.”

  Gail studies his face to gauge a reaction. Bill says nothing, and his expression does not change. It is as though her words washed right over him. As a result, Gail feels a moment of doubt, but she presses on nonetheless. “We are renting a cottage, not running a home for wayward girls. I mean, has she even mentioned the father of this baby to you?”

  Bill drops the bone on his plate and wipes his mouth with a napkin. “Gail, you were there when she told us what happened. He was some guy she was dating. She got pregnant and he took off. It’s no different than what happens to hundreds of young girls every year.”

  This is different and you know it, Gail thinks but does not say, because she has decided to halt the conversation right there. Her head is spinning, and she needs to think. She doesn
’t want to say anything more until she can come up with a plan of action.

  Bill pushes back from the table, stands, and comes around to her side. He puts his hands on her shoulders and begins rubbing. Usually, his touch makes all her tension melt away, but her body remains stiff, resistant. In a quiet voice, he says, “I’m sorry. I know it’s been hard. But we’ve gone this far, and it’s not like we can kick her out when she’s so close to having the baby.”

  That last word conjures the hideous thought in her mind more clearly than ever before—it is his baby she is carrying. Gail feels as though she might vomit. She moves her shoulders from side to side in a way that makes him stop touching her. As she stands to clear the dishes, she says in an unconvincing voice, “You’re right. We’ll get through this. It will all be fine. I’m sorry too.”

  Bill lets the discussion go as well and even offers to help her clean up. Gail runs the faucet, scrapes the food she didn’t eat off her plate into the trash can, and tells him she’ll be fine. More than anything, she wants to be alone right now. To gather her thoughts. To figure out how this happened. To come up with a plan. But Bill sits at the table and reads out loud from the paper, the way he has every night after dinner for years.

  “Listen to this one,” he says, quoting from his favorite column, “Strange but True.” “Utility workers in Montgomery, Alabama, mistakenly hooked up the water-supply lines of ten homes to the city’s treated waste-water from toilets instead of the purified drinking system. ‘We regretfully admit that a mistake was made,’ said the red-faced mayor. But the home-owners aren’t so forgiving. ‘I’m furious,’ roared Don Randel, who’s been getting the dirty water since May.”

  “Funny” is all Gail can say as she sponges the tines of his fork and submerges it in the sudsy water. Normally these stories help pass the time while she tidies up after dinner. Tonight, though, they slow everything down to an agonizing pace. They make her want to scream. They make her want to pull the fork from the water and plunge it into his chest.