by Peter Rock
“Good evening,” he said. “Hello.”
“I’m sorry. We don’t—”
“I’m a friend.” The man put his hand on the door, lightly, as if to keep it from being closed. “A friend of Francine?” He stepped past Wells, gently forcing his way inside. “Hello, I’m dreaming.”
Francine stood in the doorway to the kitchen. It seemed she could come no closer; she looked at the man as he gazed back in silence. He smiled, let his expression settle to neutral, then smiled again. There was a gap, where he was missing a tooth. The whiskers on his throat grew much more thickly than those on his face.
“Francine?” Wells said.
“We’re friends,” the man said.
“We knew each other a long time ago,” Francine said. “When we were children. This is Colville. Colville Young. And this is my husband, Wells.”
Colville didn’t seem to see the hand Wells held out. Instead, he set his parcel on the floor, reached down to scratch Kilo’s back.
“Some kind of Labrador?”
“Some kind,” Francine said. “Mixed with something smaller.”
Wells wondered if he should close the door, how long the man planned to stay. The living room felt crowded. From the kitchen, a commercial for Caldwell Subaru and Mazda blared; he was about to go turn the radio off just as Colville spoke again.
“You’re taller than I am, Francine.”
“I was always taller,” she said.
“You’re expecting a child.”
“Yes,” she said. “Soon. I guess you can see that.”
“Here.” He picked up the parcel, stepped closer, handed it to her, then stepped back again. “I brought this for you. Books, is all. They might be helpful.” Watching her, he took off his hat with a twisting motion, jammed it in his jacket pocket. “Sometimes,” he said. “Sometimes, Francine, I think of that day when you fell out of the tree. You remember that?”
“When was this?” Wells said.
“You fell from the top.” Colville looked to the ceiling, slowly brought his gaze to the floor. “Forty, fifty feet, and you weren’t hurt at all. You were being looked after, that day—”
“I remember,” Francine said. “I was lucky.”
“I’ve been thinking of you.” Colville glanced through the doorway, into the kitchen. “I forgot it was dinnertime. I just wanted to come when you might be home—I know I could’ve called, but phones, phones aren’t the same. It’s just that I’ve been thinking of you, Francine. But now it’s dinnertime.”
“We’ve eaten,” she said. “Here, would you like to sit down? Something to drink?”
“Orange juice,” he said. “Or water would be fine.”
Wells watched Francine go into the kitchen, still carrying the wrapped parcel, Kilo following. “So,” he said, “what brings you to Boise?”
“I was up in Spokane, so it wasn’t really too far.” Colville took off his jacket, set it on the back of the chair. Sitting down, he faced Wells without really looking at him. He wore a purple T-shirt and beige dress pants, pointed black boots that zipped up the inside. The instep of the left one was patched with duct tape.
The sound of the radio in the kitchen was suddenly gone, switched off.
“I noticed the trucks outside,” he said. “In front of your house.”
“A girl disappeared,” Wells said. “She lived down the street. She was sleeping in her back yard.”
“Did you see all the blue ribbons in the trees?” Francine said, returning from the kitchen. She handed Colville a glass of orange juice, set her tea on the coffee table. “Blue was her favorite color. We’ve been searching.”
Turning in his chair, Colville reached into the pocket of his jacket and took out a folded piece of newspaper. When he’d unfolded it, he held it out to them. It was a picture of the lost girl’s face, an article about her disappearance.
“I’m searching, too,” he said. “I have a feeling that I’m going to find her, that I’m the one.” His voice was soft; his statements sounded more like questions. His head and upper body seemed calm, relaxed, but his feet kept twitching. He crossed his legs, uncrossed them, crossed them the other way.
“No luck yet, I guess,” Wells said, but Colville didn’t seem to hear him. He was staring at Francine, speaking to her.
“Has it been fifteen years?” he said. “Almost twenty, since we’ve been together? I’ve been thinking of that, how strange it is. It never seemed possible we’d be apart so long.”
“You look older,” she said. “That’s good, I think. It makes sense, I mean. Are you growing a beard?”
“Or gotten lazy.” Colville rubbed his cheeks. “Comes in better on this one side than the other.”
“Fifteen years,” Wells said; he felt as if he were interrupting. “That’s a long time.”
“And how long have the two of you been married?”
“Just over a year.”
“I imagine Francine’s probably mentioned me, then.” Colville smiled, his tongue pressing against the gap in his teeth. “People in the Activity joked about how we were going to get married, the way we were always together.”
“Were you going out?” Wells said.
“Pardon me?”
“Were you boyfriend and girlfriend?”
“We were too young,” Francine said. “It was much different than that.”
“People used to think we were brother and sister,” Colville said. “On account of our hair and everything, how we lived together.”
“Our families shared a trailer,” Francine said, “for a little while.”
“Until the Messenger called my family down to Corwin Springs.” Colville now turned toward Wells. “My father was an electrician, so they needed him to work on the big shelter there. And then the Messenger wanted my mom near the Heart, while she was pregnant with my brother, closer to the energy, there.”
“The Heart?” Wells said.
“It was a place,” Francine said.
“It is a place,” Colville said.
“Are you hungry?” she said. “Did I ask you that?”
“No,” Colville said. “Yes, I mean. I’ve eaten, but you didn’t ask me. Thank you for asking.”
Francine began talking about college in Utah, how she’d met Wells there—she didn’t mention that she’d graduated and he had not—and how they’d come here to Boise a year ago. She told about her job as a physician’s assistant, how Wells worked at Home Depot. All the while, Colville stared at Francine with his eyes unfocused, gently shaking his head as if amazed to be in the same room with her. He looked away only when Kilo appeared from the hallway, claws tapping the wood floor, tail slapping the air. The dog turned two circles, leaned against Colville’s legs, and looked up, whining to have his ears scratched.
“Likes you,” Wells said. “That’s unusual, with strangers.”
“I got this real thing with animals lately. Almost like my brother, the way he did.”
“Moses?” Francine said.
“All the dogs and cats used to gather outside our trailer when he was sleeping,” Colville said. “And then he’d go outside and he’d be this little boy with all these pets behind him, following everywhere. Even birds would be flying tree to tree, trying to keep up. Squirrels, too.”
“Who’s this?” Wells said.
“Colville’s little brother,” Francine said. “Their mom was pregnant when my folks passed away, when Maya and I went to live with our grandparents.”
“I forget sometimes that you never met him,” Colville said.
“Where is he now?”
“You haven’t heard, then.” Colville scratched Kilo’s head, looking at the dog as he spoke. “There’s no way you would’ve heard, I guess. He was over in Iraq, with the Marines, then back to Afghanistan, just this past spring. It was a roadside bomb, they said.”
“I’m sorry.”
“Animals sure liked him,” Colville said. “Everyone remembers that.”
In the silence, W
ells wondered if he should stand up, turn on another lamp. The room was dim, which made it difficult to read expressions; sitting next to Francine, he could only see the side of her face. He could not catch her eye, guess what she was thinking. He shifted a little, but she was looking down at her feet, her mouth set in a smile he couldn’t understand.
“Would you mind if I told you the story of how I came to be here?” Colville closed his eyes for a moment, bowed his head, then looked up, smiling first at Francine, then at Wells. “This has been over the last few weeks. I mean, not that I didn’t think of you before, Francine. But I was living in Spokane, in a little garage, kind of converted into a house. I had a yard, and I’d get animals coming right through sometimes.”
Turning his head, he gestured at the window, where dusk had turned to darkness, the glass reflecting back. “Anyway, one night I was awakened by a scratching. On the ceiling, the rooftop. A scrabbling, and then it was gone. In the morning I saw the prints, outside in the mud. There were scratches along the windowsill, too, like something had tried to peek inside, had watched me while I was sleeping.”
Colville was almost whispering now. Francine listened intently, leaning forward with her eyes closed.
“The tracks were all wrecked by the rain, and I couldn’t decide if it had four toes on its front feet, five on its back—and then I couldn’t remember if rodents had five and five or even which animals were rodents.” He laughed. “My father taught me all that, and I couldn’t remember. But each night after that, when I got home from work I’d move my little card table close to the window, and I’d wait there, doing my crosswords and Sudokus, until I could feel something watching me. The first time I looked up, nothing was there. Only the window.”
Colville suddenly stopped talking. He cocked his head, listening.
“What is it?” Francine said.
“Is there anyone else in the house?”
“No,” she said. “Just us.”
“Do you have a washroom I could use?”
“Down the hall there, between the two bedrooms.” She pointed to the doorway, and Colville nodded. He rose, and Kilo followed close behind him.
Francine picked up her teacup, set it down. She looked tired, her hair pulled back in a loose ponytail, her lips moving slightly; Wells knew that this meant she was thinking, not that she was about to speak.
“Do you need something?” he said. “I’ll get up.”
“No,” she said.
“Are we going to let him stay here?” He kept his voice low.
“What?”
“That’s what this is about, has to be.”
“I don’t think that’s what this is about.”
“Is he all right?”
“I think so,” she said.
Wells wanted to say more, but he kept expecting Colville to return. He strained to hear, wondering how long it had been. Had the man gone into their bedroom? Or downstairs?
“Francine,” Colville said, coming in behind them, through the kitchen door. “It’s so nice to see that picture of your folks there. At work on their shelter. Lifesavers.”
“That was the name of the shelter,” Francine said before Wells asked. “Because it was round.”
“How’s Maya?” Colville said. “I saw her there in the picture, too.”
“Good. She moved back to Montana, lives in Bozeman.”
“Family?”
“No,” Francine said. “She lives alone.”
Colville had not sat down in the chair again. Instead, he put on his jacket, zipped it up, gathered his cap in his hands.
“Are you going?” Francine said.
“Going?” He looked around the room, at the front door, behind him, then sat down. “It’s nice to be here with you,” he said.
“It’s a surprise.”
“You thought I forgot,” he said. “Didn’t you?”
“What?” she said.
“You thought I forgot where I was.” He wiped at his lips, smiled.
“No,” she said. “I didn’t think that.”
“In my story, I mean. I didn’t forget.”
“Okay.”
Colville tilted his head toward the ceiling, then lowered his gaze slowly, his eyes half closed as he began to speak. “I’d sit there at night by the window, doing my puzzles, waiting for her. What I learned was to watch out of the corner of my eye, my peripheral vision, not to turn my head.” He touched the edge of his eye with his fingertip. “And then the night came when I saw her—her sharp ears, and those thick hairs all around her bandit face. She’d sit on the sill and look in the window, like she wanted to help me somehow. If I stood up, she’d leap down, slip away. It looked more like she was climbing the ground, not running across it.”
“A raccoon,” Wells said.
“She was and she wasn’t. Or she was more than that, too. What it was was the way she kept coming back—”
“You fed her?”
“I tried—marshmallows, tuna fish—but that wasn’t what she was after.” Colville checked Francine’s face, to be certain she was following. “All that sitting there together, so close like that without talking—she came to remind me of you, Francine. And then I started to think of the raccoon as you. I came to believe, to see how it might be you, calling on me.”
Francine lifted her hands, then set them down on her thighs again.
“It was you, wasn’t it?”
“The raccoon?” she said.
“It wasn’t just the raccoon,” he said. “I should tell you that. The raccoon showed me that you were trying to reach me, but it was the girl who told me where you were.”
“The girl?”
“The lost girl,” he said. “Your neighbor girl.”
“She told you?”
“I was reading the newspaper,” Colville said, holding up his hands, trying to slow down. “When I was in Spokane, and I read about this girl. All at once, when I saw her picture, I knew I had to come find her. I had a feeling. And then, then on the first day I was out searching, who should I see but you—right after those weeks of the raccoon. So that’s how I know that none of this is some sort of coincidence.” He glanced at Francine. “And of course we were taught never to believe in coincidences.”
“Let’s just slow down for a minute,” Wells said. “Hold on—”
“I did it,” Colville said, suddenly standing. He spoke as if scolding himself. “I kept talking and now I went too far. I can feel it, I can see that now.” He began patting his pockets, glancing around as if he might have dropped something.
“Wait,” Francine said.
“I really have to go. I do. Thank you so much. I apologize.” Turning, Colville pulled the door open, glanced back once. “Good night.”
The door closed, and Wells and Francine sat for a moment; the sound of footsteps faded away outside.
“There he goes,” Wells said.
“Colville.”
“Was he always like that?”
“I guess. I don’t know. He was a boy when I knew him. A long time ago.”
Wells reached out, took Francine’s hand.
“He seemed so nervous,” she said, “or something.”
“Or something,” he said. “I could tell it bothered you.”
“It was just such a surprise,” she said. “After so long.”
“And then all that about the raccoon,” he said. “What was that about?”
“I don’t know,” she said, taking her hand back. “Nothing.”
“And the newspaper article? What was up with that?”
“I have to work early,” she said, standing. “I should take a bath.”
Wells sat by himself for a moment, then went into the kitchen and wiped the crumbs from the table. He began loading the dishwasher. The air felt tight, as if the atmosphere were still settling. It had been only an hour since he opened the door and Colville stepped inside, started talking, tightening everything up.
Kilo scratched at the door. When had he gone o
ut? Turning off the faucet, Wells let the dog in, then walked past the sink, down the hallway. The water was running in the bathtub, the sound echoing. He pushed the door open.
Francine sat on the edge of the tub in her underwear and her shirt, pulling off one of her socks. Her belly made it hard for her to reach, to bend over. Standing, she began to pull off her shirt, then paused and looked at him, as if surprised to see that he was still there.
“Did he really think you turned into a raccoon?” he said.
“No,” she said. “I don’t think that’s what he meant.”
“That’s how it sounded.”
“If you grew up like we did, it might make more sense.”
“I didn’t,” he said. “And I doubt it would make more sense.”
Wells stepped closer; he reached out and traced the dark line that ran from her navel to the wide elastic of her underwear. It surprised him how hard her stomach was, how taut. He expected a ripple, a kick, but nothing came.
“Linea negra,” she said.
“What?”
“Black line,” she said. “That’s what they call it.”
He wiped condensation from the mirror. “You don’t have to stop undressing.”
“We’re talking,” she said.
“Do you think we’ll see him again?”
“I have no idea,” she said, turning away. “Would you close the door when you go out, so the cold air doesn’t come in?”
3
TWO DAYS PASSED, three. Francine had been working for most of them—leaving early, coming home late. Tonight Wells lay in bed, listening until he heard her car in the driveway, her key in the door.
Kilo leapt from the bed and rushed down the hall; he returned in a moment, leading Francine into the bedroom.
“You didn’t have to wait up,” she said.
“I wanted to.”
She shrugged her shoulders and let her white coat fall to the wooden floor with a heavy, dull clatter. A notebook came free and the rubber tube of a stethoscope slapped out, its metal bell bouncing.
“It’s just the weight of it all,” she said. “The coat, the baby, everything.” She took out her earrings, set them on her dresser, then picked up something else.
“What’s that?” he said.
“A heart,” she said, holding it out to show him. “A wooden heart.” It fit in the palm of her hand.