Four Octobers

by Hautala, Rick

  “Have a seat.”

  Miss Henry gestured with a frail hand to the chair opposite her. Andy pulled out the chair and sat down, being careful to wipe the moisture from the bottom of the empty glass on his pants leg before placing it on the table.

  “So,” Miss Henry said after staring at him for a moment. “I know you’re a Draper. I can see that in your face. You have your—” She faltered for a moment, then continued. “Your father’s eyes, for sure, but tell me a little about yourself.”

  Andy swallowed dryly. The tartness of the lemonade constricted his throat, making it feel much too small for him to form words. The fleeting thought crossed his mind that maybe she had put something into the lemonade after all. After taking a shallow breath, he said with a shrug, “What’s there to tell? I’m just a kid.”

  Miss Henry laughed out loud at that, but the laugh changed into a deep rasping cough. Her face flushed as she leaned forward, covering her mouth with both hands, and coughed even harder. Andy shifted uneasily in his chair, not sure where to look or what to do until the coughing fit passed. Once it did, Miss Henry grabbed a napkin from the holder on the table and wiped her lips before speaking.

  “How do you like school? Do you play any sports, or do you like to read? What do you do with your friends? I see you and your friend, the Nikanen boy, go by my house—run by my house nearly every day. What do you and your friends like to do?”

  Before he spoke, Andy tipped the glass up and swallowed the last few drops of lemonade simply to have something to do while his mind raced. Although Miss Henry didn’t seem at all mean or angry or threatening, she still made him extremely uncomfortable. He didn’t like sitting here and talking to her like they were old friends, and he didn’t like the way she kept staring at him as though she were looking for something in his face. She wasn’t just looking at him; she was studying him as if… well, he didn’t know why. Even if, after today, she was no longer the monster he and his friends imagined her to be, he didn’t want anything more to do with her. All he wanted was to finish whatever jobs she wanted done and go back to doing whatever he wanted to do with his friends.

  “I… we’re just kids, you know?” He gave a feeble shrug. “We just… hang out and… and do stuff.”

  “Ahh,” Miss Henry said, nodding and smiling thinly. “Doing stuff. Yes. Now I understand completely.”

  Andy wasn’t sure if she was making fun of him or not, but he decided not to think too much about it. Feeling really awkward and still not liking the way she stared at him, he pushed the lemonade glass away from him. After wiping his mouth with a napkin from the holder, he got up, remembering to bring the empty glass over to the sink. He dumped the few remaining ice cubes down the drain, rinsed the glass out, and placed it on the sideboard.

  “Thank you, Miss Henry. That was really good,” he said. “I should probably get back to work.”

  Miss Henry’s smile twitched and then collapsed.

  Was that a look of disappointment in her eyes?

  She nodded and stood up. Andy noticed that her arms trembled slightly as she braced herself, her hands spread wide on the table. Tendons and thin strings of muscle stood out sharply beneath the parchment-white skin of her arms.

  “Maybe you can skip doing the backyard,” she said. “For now, anyway. Maybe you’ll come back later and clean it up for me.” She looked at him expectantly, and Andy couldn’t miss the wistful, far-away look that flashed through her eyes. “But before you go, I’d appreciate it if you’d do one more job for me.”

  “Sure.”

  “The gutters.” She tipped her head up toward the ceiling as if they both could see the outside roof from where they were. “There’s a ladder in the shed where I keep the mower. If you’d just go around and make sure there aren’t any leaves or twigs in the gutters, I guess you can be done for now.”

  “Sure. Thank you, Miss Henry,” Andy said.

  He started for the door but hesitated before going back outside. Turning, he looked at Miss Henry, who had sat back down at the table. She looked so thin and frail it unnerved him. He had a brief impression that she wasn’t even alive, that she was just the shell of a person—a dried, hollow husk of what might once have been a full person, but was now all but empty of life. A deep sadness filled him, making him doubly anxious to get back outside to work just so he wouldn’t have to think about it.

  ****

  The ladder was an old wooden rig. Beneath the white and yellow paint splatters, the wood had turned steel-gray with age. The tops of the rungs were worn and splintered, and the thing was almost too heavy for Andy to muscle out of the shed. A couple of times he bumped the roof or walls of the shed, and dust and cobwebs rained down on him, irritating his eyes and making him sneeze. As he carried the ladder over to the house, he glanced up at the back door and the kitchen window, but he caught no sign of Miss Henry watching him.

  Sweating and grunting loudly, he maneuvered the heavy ladder into place against the eaves closest to the back door landing. The top end of the ladder came dangerously close to punching out one of the upstairs windows, but with effort, he got it into place. After making sure the heels of the ladder were securely dug into the ground, he started to climb.

  Miss Henry hadn’t given him any work gloves, and as he made his way up the rickety ladder, he wondered what he might find up there. If the gutters were backed up too badly, there might be several years’ worth of accumulated rotting vegetation. Before he got all the way up to roof level, a wasp buzzed past his ear as it swooped into the small paper cone affixed to the underside of the eaves. He froze, stopping so fast the ladder started bouncing dangerously.

  Not daring even to take a breath, he stared at the small hive. A cool, light, prickling sensation ran across his arms and neck. Turning to his left, he scanned the underside of the roof and saw several more gray, funnel-shaped hives clustered in the shade under the eaves.

  “Oh, great,” he muttered, not sure what to do next.

  He tried not to imagine getting swarmed by wasps and falling off the ladder. Casting a wary glance downward, he thought about retreating, but the view down made him dizzy. The ground looked too far away, and he knew if he fell from this height, he’d break his back if not out and out die.

  So why not leave?

  He could spend a few more minutes up here banging around, then tell Miss Henry he’d done the job without risking getting stung. She wouldn’t know the difference. It wasn’t like she was going to climb up here herself and check.

  “No, Goddamnit!” he whispered under his breath. He had a job to finish, and wasps or no wasps, he was going to finish it. Holding his breath, he crept up a few more steps on the ladder until he was eye-level with the gutter.

  Most of the paint on this side of the house had long since peeled and flaked away, exposing the dark wood underneath. A velvety coating of green moss was growing along the edge of the roof. Most of the gritty surface of the shingles had long since weathered away, and Andy could see that Miss Henry was going to have a roof leak soon… if she didn’t already.

  But that wasn’t any of his concern.

  All he had to do was scoop out a few handfuls of junk and be done with it. What did he care if Old Lady Henry’s roof leaked? It was no skin off his nose.

  His hand was trembling, and he kept a wary eye on the nearest wasp nest, waiting for any sign that he had disturbed the occupants. Curling up the fingers like a small baseball mitt, he reached into the gutter and scooped along the bottom of the metal tray. The top layer was composed of this year’s dry, brown leaves, but beneath that, things were a lot messier. It was as slimy as the bottom of Hildonen’s Swamp, where he and Jimmy sometime went to catch frogs. The stench of rotting vegetation and mold that arose made his stomach churn.

  “Just get the job done… get it done,” he whispered as he took the first handful of black, rotting vegetation and flung it over his shoulder without looking. He heard it land with a squishy plop somewhere down below. Leaning first
to the right, then to the left, he cleaned the gutter as far as he could reach in either direction. Then he climbed down to the ground and re-positioned the ladder so he could get at the next section. When he was on the ground, he glanced at the windows and door again but still caught no sign of Miss Henry, watching him. He guessed she was staying inside to keep cool.

  “While I do all the crap work,” he muttered under his breath as he started up the ladder again.

  Even as he said it, a twinge of guilt cut through him because he knew there was no way Miss Henry would have been able to do this job. He even decided that, once he was finished, he would tell her about his concern that the roof might start leaking this winter or next if she didn’t have someone re-shingle it soon. He was even ready to suggest Jimmy Nikanen’s father, John, to do the job.

  Once the ladder was in place, Andy started up again, keeping a wary eye on the wasp nests to the left and right. He knew he’d be all right as long as he didn’t disturb them. This late in the season, they would no doubt be sluggish from the cold nights. In a way, he pitied them, knowing that many of them would freeze to dead before the first snow fell.

  When his eyes were level with the eaves again, Andy looked up and across the steep roof. The pale red bricks of the chimney were crumbling, and cinnamon-colored piles of brick dust were sprinkled across the flashing. Pieces of cement had fallen out from between the bricks, giving the chimney a funny, gap-toothed look. The rusted antenna was bent over at a crazy angle and looked like a stiff wind would blow it away.

  “Stop daydreaming and get the job done,” he whispered to himself, echoing something his father said to him often enough. He dug out several more handfuls of rotting gunk and threw them to the ground. Looking down the line of the gutter, he realized how little of the distance he had covered so far. This was going to take a lot longer than he thought if he had to reposition the ladder every few feet, but he clenched his jaw and set to work.

  Andy repositioned the ladder again, climbed up, and was just about to dig into the gutter with his bare hand when he heard a strange noise. He thought it came from inside the house. It wasn’t much more than a faint thump, but it was loud enough to startle him. Maybe Miss Henry had dropped something heavy inside the house, he thought, pausing and cocking his ear as he waited for the sound to come again.

  It didn’t.

  He wanted to dismiss it. Most likely, Miss Henry was moving something around downstairs, or maybe she was shaking out a rug or something. It could have been anything, but it was none of his concern. He was here to clean the gutters and then get out of here. She could do whatever she wanted.

  For some reason, though, Andy couldn’t ignore the feeling that something was wrong. Biting his lower lip, he looked down at the ground, unsure of what to do next. He hadn’t seen Miss Henry since he had started on the gutters.

  What if something had happened to her?

  “Miss Henry…?” he called out.

  His voice was whisked away by the breeze as if he hadn’t spoken at all. Goose bumps rose on his arms. The air seemed unnaturally hushed, and Andy shivered as he stared down at the thin wash of shadow along the side of the house. Then he started down, sliding his hands smoothly along the worn rails of the ladder. He was trembling inside, and the bouncing of the ladder only made the queasiness in his stomach worse. Once he was on the ground, he moved slowly toward the steps leading up to the back door.

  “Miss Henry?” he called again.

  His voice was loud, but to his ears it sounded far off in the distance.

  Hesitantly, he started up the back stairs but stopped at the screen door and peered into the shadowed darkness of the entryway. The mixture of aromas no longer struck him as strange. They were already familiar and, in a strange way, almost comforting. He grasped the brass handle of the screen door and eased it open. The creaking sound made him wince as he called out again.

  “Miss Henry?”

  He fought back panic as he stepped into the kitchen. The half-filled pitcher of lemonade was still out on the counter. Moisture beaded its side and ran in puddles onto the countertop. His empty glass was in the drainer beside the sink where he’d left it.

  “I’m just about done on this side of the house, Miss Henry, but I—”

  He froze when a strangled, choking sound came from the living room. Another weak thump that—he didn’t want to admit—sounded like someone was either kicking or banging the floor followed. With his pulse racing in his throat, he entered the living room. Jerking to a stop, he stared at the small, rounded shape sprawled on the threadbare rug in the middle of the floor.

  “Miss Henry,” he gasped.

  The old woman was lying on her right side with her left shoulder slouched forward so it practically touched the floor in front of her. Her gray hair had spilled down and was draped across her shoulders and the carpet. In the rich, amber lighting, it looked like a splash of soapy water framing the ghastly white of her face.

  “My… pills …”

  Her voice was a feathery, unearthly whisper in the dense air of the room. She twisted her head around until she was looking at Andy. The whites of her eyes showed around the pupils, glistening like mercury laced with red threads. Flecks of mucous dotted her lips, and her hand trembled as she reached up to him.

  “In the… kitchen… on… the table…”

  Andy was frozen. He had no idea what to do. His brain was vapor-locked. If she was dying—and he was sure that’s what was happening—he didn’t want to be here to witness it. He looked around but didn’t see a telephone in the living room.

  Was there one in the kitchen… or the hallway?

  “Hurry, please… my pills… the little brown… bottle on the… table… Glycerin …”

  Paralyzed with fear, Andy watched as Miss Henry twitched and grimaced. Her body snapped forward as she clutched her chest and a strange wheezing sound issued from her throat. Her left foot started drumming rapidly on the floor. The hollow sound thumped in Andy’s ears like distant fireworks. Fighting tears, he wheeled around and dashed into the kitchen, feeling the old lady’s gaze burning into his back.

  And there they were.

  The bottles!

  He remembered seeing them earlier on the kitchen table. In his panic, they all looked the same. Holding his breath until it hurt, he grabbed bottle after bottle, looking for the word glycerin. Finally, he found it, but he was afraid it wasn’t the right bottle as he dashed back to the living room.

  Miss Henry was lying still on the floor, now. Her eyes remained open and fixed with a glazed, glassy stare that reminded him of the dull light in his dog, Daisy’s, eyes the night she’d been hit by a truck, three years ago.

  “Is this it?” he asked, trembling as he knelt beside her and screwed the bottle top off with his thumb.

  Miss Henry grunted loudly. Her head twitched to one side, but Andy had no idea if she meant yes or no. He shook one of the pills into his hand and held it up so she could see it. She appeared to have trouble focusing on it. Again, she made a funny clicking sound in the back of her throat and stuck her tongue out. Andy knew she wanted him to place the pill on her tongue, but the thought of doing that—and maybe touching her tongue in the process—made him feel queasy. His stomach had shrunken to the size of a pea.

  Resisting the urge to get up and run screaming from the house, he leaned forward and gingerly placed the pill on the tip of her tongue. Miss Henry sucked it in like a cat licking milk, then closed her eyes and settled back on the floor.

  Sitting back on his heels, Andy stared down at her, trying hard to deny that any of this was happening. She might be dying right here in front of him. His vision blurred as his eyes filled with tears. The small amount of light that entered the living room through the curtained windows shattered into bright spikes and shimmering needles that hurt his eyes.

  “Are you—” he started to say, then fell silent.

  Taking a deep breath, he shifted into an Indian-style sitting position next to her.
Miss Henry’s eyes remained closed as she took a deep, tremulous breath that made a papery rattle deep in her chest.

  Andy was positive that it was her last breath as she exhaled slowly through her mouth, her breath whistling between her teeth. After a moment, she began to take shallow, even breaths that sounded like she was asleep.

  Looking around the room, Andy tried to locate a telephone that, in his panic, he might have missed before, but there wasn’t one in sight. He was tempted to go into the kitchen and check for one, but he didn’t dare leave her alone. He knew he had to get help but wasn’t sure how to go about doing that.

  If she died on the floor while he just sat there watching or went looking for a telephone, would it be his fault?

  Could he be arrested for murdering her?

  As his mind churned with these and other horrifying possibilities, Andy sat there, marking the intolerably slow passage of time by the gradual progress of the bar of sunlight as it slid silently across the floor. The only sound in the room was the thin, high breathing of the old woman. Andy couldn’t help but watch her and wonder if she was asleep, unconscious, or dying very slowly. Life seemed to be leaking out of her like air escaping from a punctured bicycle tire.

  He wanted to go into the kitchen and look for a phone. He could see by the clock on the mantel that it was almost noon. His mother had told him to be home by then so they could have Sunday lunch together. Worse than that, his father wanted to talk to him about… something. He dreaded to think what that might be, but it would only be worse if he was late.

  As much as he wanted to flee the house, there was no way he could leave Miss Henry like this. He could never live with his conscience if she died and he hadn’t stayed here with her.

  No one should die alone.

  So he sat there, staring down at her pale face, studying the wrinkles on her parchment-like skin. Every now and then, he almost chuckled out loud when he considered how frightened he and his friends had been of her. She was just a sick, old woman, nothing like the ogre or witch they imagined.