Fellow Mortals

by Dennis Mahoney

  The light keeps fainting and reviving all around them. Ava shuts her eyes, thinking, Crocuses and Ice.

  “It frightened me for years before I came to live with Nan.”

  “Even then,” Nan says.

  “Even now,” Joan agrees. “I hated all the dark. It seemed to last forever. After Christmas came and went, it would start to wear me out. But I remembered that the first day of winter was the shortest, that it started getting better right then, right away. I began to log the times of every sunrise and sunset. I keep them in a journal right beside the bed.”

  “It’s true,” Nan says. “She starts it on the solstice.”

  “Now whenever I get scared, I pick it up and read the numbers. Just the few extra minutes every day mean the world.”

  Ava watches them and wonders how it feels being old. She hasn’t really listened since she heard the word Christmas, but the voices are a comfort. She’s afraid of going home.

  24

  Billy’s browsing ointment in the drugstore when he sees Ava passing at the far end of the aisle. He wipes the oil off his forehead and breathes through his nose, trying to calm himself but frazzled by the various scenarios he’s memorized—conversations, introductions, everything a scramble now.

  Be sensitive, he thinks. Don’t fuck it up.

  He reassesses what he’s piled in his basket: acne wash, tanning cream, Max Muscle bars. He leaves them on the floor and grabs a heavy-duty cord, like a man who has power tools littering his workshop. She probably remembers that he worked at True Value and he needs to reinforce it, now that he’s been fired.

  They caught him taking money from the drawer, less than two hundred bucks over six or seven weeks, and then his manager accused him of stealing a pack of lightbulbs. Out of work ever since, insurance money spent, unemployment not enough to pay the credit cards down. He’s being hassled on the phone about his mortgage and his debts. No one else calls. No one comes around. Mid–last week, troubled by a dream, he took a paring knife and cut a straight line along his forearm. Now it looks infected and he needs a tube of ointment, which is better than a doctor that he can’t afford to pay.

  The night he crept around the Cooper house, he’d seen her in the bathroom, almost like the glass had been a television screen. Then snick: Henry’s death had unlocked the window. He’s seen her at her lab, in the bank, in the market. All he has to do is saunter up and say hello. He finds her in the dental aisle, takes another breath, and goes to meet her with an inadvertent bounce in his step.

  “Ava?” Billy says, louder than he wants.

  She spins around, spooked by the nearness of his voice.

  “Hey, it’s Billy. Billy Kane,” he says, offering his hand.

  She shakes it automatically with faraway eyes. Her expression goes bright, then dark and then illegible.

  “Hi,” Ava says with a mini-step back. “I didn’t recognize your name at first.”

  “Yeah, no, it’s fine,” he says. “Listen, Ava. Hey. I’m sorry for your loss.”

  Ava nods, smiling tightly as if to clench back tears.

  “I was there,” Billy tells her, not sure if she’s aware of that. “I’m the one who dialed 911.” He waits for her to thank him but she doesn’t say a thing. Maybe she’s assuming Billy didn’t like him. “I met him at the store one day. We had a good talk. Even after the fire, I wouldn’t have wished it on him in a million years.” He lets her take it in and says, “How you holding up?”

  Ava blinks twice, very far apart.

  “Not too well.”

  “I hear that. It’s been a hell of a year. Between the damage to the house and, well…” He trails away, pausing with a frown. “My wife left me. I guess I wasn’t a perfect husband, but I don’t know. It knocked my wind out. We had some arguments—every couple does, right? Then poof. All a sudden she decides that’s the end. I keep trying to figure out exactly what happened. She must have bottled things up, let a lot of little problems seem bigger than they were.”

  “I’m sorry,” Ava mumbles after waiting several moments.

  “I’ll be all right,” Billy says. “Still, it’s tough going home to an empty house, eating meals alone. Some nights I barely want to cook.”

  She puts a toothbrush into her basket, starting up the aisle like she’s comfortable enough to shop while they talk.

  “I make a pretty mean steak,” Billy says. “If you ever want a home-cooked meal, someone to listen—”

  “Oh,” she says, gasping it and sounding like Ugh. Billy rears back to measure her reaction and she looks at him and says, “I’m not the best company lately.”

  “Nah,” he says. “I wouldn’t let you be a downer. Pick a night.”

  “I prefer to be alone at this point,” Ava says. She faces him and stares, crisp and diplomatic. “I have to go. Good luck with everything, okay?”

  “Sure, yeah. You too,” he says, watching her leave and wishing he could catch her by the hair. He starts to say I’ll see you soon, changes it to See you around, jumbles up the two, and hollers out, “I’ll see you surround.”

  He retreats to the back of the store, still holding the extension cord and passing every aisle till he sees her up front by the registers. As soon as Ava leaves, he drops the cord and follows her out. She sees him from her car and briefly meets his eye, and what can Billy do, having trailed her into the lot without so much as a grocery bag?

  He leans against the wall until she’s fully out of sight, and then he hits his own arm, directly on the cut, and hurries to his car without the ointment that he came for.

  * * *

  Thank God for Wingnut right inside the door, greeting her with barks, snuffling in her hand. She leads him onto the porch and looks for unfamiliar cars and then she kisses him, relaxing at the odor of his breath. A crawliness has lingered in her body since the store, one of unwashed hair and germs beneath her nails. She thinks of how the Finns used to harden at the name, how the wire he’d been carrying reminded her of cellars.

  “Don’t be stupid,” Ava says, and yet she can’t forget his face, how he greeted her and spoke as if he knew her awfully well.

  “Want Sam to come and eat?”

  Wing wags, hearing eat.

  Ava makes the call—she’s memorized the number—and he answers straightaway. He’ll be there in thirty minutes.

  She clips up her hair and dresses for convenience, just a sweater and a soft pair of jeans, like pajamas. When Sam arrives, they hug at the door and eat in the kitchen: salad and spaghetti and a ten-dollar wine. He’s very much at home with a Henry-size meal, lean despite his appetite and groomed as if they’re eating in a restaurant. Ava’s still adjusting after setting back the clocks, glancing up mid-meal to find the yard’s disappeared. It makes the house feel small, not cozy but confining, like a two-person capsule at the bottom of the sea.

  They take their coffees into the living room and Wing lies between them on the couch. Sam knows about Peg—Nan and Joan filled him in—but he lets her tell it anyway and doesn’t interrupt. They talk about the news and books they ought to read, the possibility of flurries in the hills around town. He talks about the snowmobile he’s buying for the trail, smaller sculptures he can do when it’s too cold to chisel outside, and while he’s telling her his plans, Ava thinks about hers: emptying the drawers, filling boxes up for charity.

  She often tries remembering the graces of the marriage: steamed creases when she ironed Henry’s uniform at night. His whiskers when he kissed her on the cheek and on the neck. The time he hummed the o.b. tampon jingle and Ava, surprising herself, had known it well enough to sing along. How they’d laughed at that.

  When Henry used to snore, she’d get a breathing strip and sneak it onto his nose. She liked the wrappers, how they opened with a little glow of static, and she always took her time and never woke him up. She smoothed the edges with her fingertips and listened to him breathe, and he’d be totally surprised when he found it in the morning. When the box ran out, she didn’t both
er getting more. It was easier at night to jab him in the ribs.

  “I hate myself sometimes,” she says without passion.

  Wing’s hind leg twitches in a dream. Sam pets him and eventually the leg settles down. Ava cries without covering her face—just a little—and the tears run smooth and tickle to her throat.

  “I feel so scared all the time.”

  “I know,” he says.

  “Does that go away?”

  “At first I wouldn’t get up in the morning. I’d see the daylight and shiver,” Sam says. “Early summer and it looked like March. Later on it felt required. Out of bed, eat some breakfast. Keep myself preoccupied and battle through the day. Now I’m up before dawn without a clock, like it’s normal. I have mornings where my first thought isn’t missing Laura.”

  They sit awhile, listening to Wingnut sleep. When Sam gets off the couch it feels both quick and overdue, and after he’s taken his coffee into the kitchen, rinsed the cup, and returned to the living room, the night feels deeper than before and she can tell, even with her eyes shut, that he’s considering the hour and the dark drive home.

  “I hate that you’re alone out there.”

  “I’ll be fine,” he says. “I have owl vision now.”

  “Why don’t you stay in the guest room? The bed’s already made. You’ll have your own bathroom.”

  He pauses, seeming casual but reasonably wary.

  “I ran into Billy Kane this afternoon,” she says. “He introduced himself at the drugstore and offered his condolences.”

  “He was always really friendly,” Sam says, sitting down. “Waving from his yard, staring just a little too long. Laura didn’t like him. She compared him to the calls we used to get from the police benevolent association. They’d politely ask for money, we’d politely say no, and then they’d almost seem hostile, like we didn’t like cops. That’s the way it is with Billy—like you have to wave back. We always felt sorry for his wife.”

  “She left him,” Ava says.

  “I haven’t seen her car around. We used to hear them arguing. I’ll bet the Finns have quite a few stories.”

  “He said he felt lonely, like we had that in common. He invited me to dinner.”

  “What?”

  “It sounded like he’d worked himself up to finally asking. I’ve never even seen him before. And then he followed me out of the store and watched me drive away. I know it’s stupid,” Ava says, “but I kept checking the street before you came, making sure he wasn’t parked outside.”

  She hugs herself and stares, seeing patterns in the rug. Sam’s quiet for a minute, really thinking by the feel of it, looking back and forth at nothing in particular. He flexes at the jaw and squeezes on his knees.

  “You want me to say something to him?”

  “I don’t want to make things worse.”

  “I’ll stay if it makes you feel safer.”

  “It’d help knowing someone else is home,” Ava says. “No offense to the guard dog.”

  He waits with Wing on the couch while Ava finds an unused toothbrush, a clean towel, and a pair of Henry’s sweats. When she goes into the kitchen to prep the coffee for tomorrow morning, Sam changes in the downstairs bathroom. Wing follows him in, bleary-eyed and yawning, exactly as he did when Henry was around, the sight of the old sweatpants comforting the dog like a blanket he remembers from his youth.

  Quiet falls around the house, a special mildness of movement Sam associates with life before the fire—cups and plates clinking in the dish rack, footsteps going upstairs, the hiss of faucets and the hum of the refrigerator. He hears a clock tick but doesn’t see the clock. It’s been so long since he cleaned up for bed in a regular bathroom, he pauses with the towel, unsure of where to put it when he’s done. There’s a light above the mirror, hot water on demand, and the tiles feel warm, almost silky, underfoot.

  Ava comes down to say good night. She’s washed her face; her cheeks are rosy and her hairline’s damp. He adores how sweet and unsexy she’s become, a grown woman in pajama bottoms and an oversize shirt. She smells like peppermint and hand lotion, reminding him of Laura on the rare nights their schedules aligned and they were able to fall asleep together, and he hugs her like Henry would have hugged her, full of health, and it’s something neither one of them is liable to regret.

  25

  Sheri finally made contact two days ago, and however much Billy had steeled himself, however many conversations and scenarios he’d dreamed, he hadn’t been prepared for the sleep-soft nearness of her voice, or his buzz, or the calm, almost tender way she told him she had filed for divorce. This was it, a simple heads-up, and she was maddeningly patient start to finish. She wouldn’t tell him where she was—“You don’t need to know”—and so he naturally assumed that she was staying with a man.

  He apologized and listed all the trials he’d been suffering—his joblessness and bills, the imminent foreclosure on the house, how he never spoke to anyone and slept on the couch and used her old shampoo, remembering her smell. How he’d cut his arm and now it wouldn’t heal and he was sorry, every day, and Sheri listened like she knew it to the last little detail.

  “Henry Cooper died,” he said.

  “You’re exhausting, Billy.”

  “Tell me you don’t love me. I need to hear you say—”

  “I don’t love you,” Sheri said. “I don’t like a single thing about you. My favorite memory of us is when you choked me on the floor because it finally, finally kicked my ass into gear.”

  She made it sound as if they’d separated seasons, even years ago.

  “I love you,” Billy whispered. “More than anything. You have to know that.”

  “Go to hell,” Sheri said, cutting off the line.

  He cried a few minutes following the call—the very tears he’d tried to summon when he had her on the line—and then he threw the phone and hit the television, fracturing the screen, and flipped the coffee table over. He stumbled in his rage and landed on the upturned legs, shouting at the floor and then collapsing into bottomless sobs.

  Two days later, Thanksgiving morning, Billy wakes up paralyzed. It’s happened often in the last few weeks and yet he panics every time, conscious of the room and certain that he’s suffocating. If only he could roll or twitch a finger he’d be fine, but he can’t, no matter what, and he can’t draw a breath. He tries surrendering to sleep but his fear won’t let him and he lies there, frantic, wishing it would end. He finally kicks a leg and spasms in the blanket. Then his fear seems foolish and he’s horribly exhausted.

  He looks out the window, guessing at the time. Late morning, by the sun, maybe early afternoon. A fine light snow has fallen overnight, and the room feels colorless and typical and cold.

  He lifts the sheet and finds the bandage dangling off his arm. There’s a damp gray stain where he placed it on the wound. The cut’s crusty at the edges, jellied in the slit, and his forearm throbs without his touching it at all. He slathers it in ointment and applies another bandage, then remembers it’s a holiday and pops a can of a beer. He drinks it with his coffee and a bowl of Rice Krispies, watching a smaller, cheaper TV until he finally has the energy to carry out his plan.

  He hangs his khakis and shirt in the bathroom during his shower so the steam will get the wrinkles out. The bandage gets wet and needs another change, but he shaves without a nick and likes the style of his hair, newly cut, when he parts it with a soft-hold gel. His clothes are good to go and he knots his tie correctly first try, and after spitting out his mouthwash and cleaning up his shoes, he grabs a twelve-pack of beer and takes it to the car.

  Straight to Ava’s. She’ll be lonely—major holiday alone. He can walk right up, ring the bell, and say Hey. She’ll be thrown at first, hanging back and patting at her gown, embarrassed by her looks in front of Billy and his tie. Come on, he’ll say. Get yourself dressed. You shouldn’t be alone today, not for Thanksgiving. He’ll take her out to eat and ask about her life and then she’ll start to under
stand, maybe with dessert, that it doesn’t have to be so hard for either one of them.

  Her car is there, exactly like he figured it would be. He parks across the street and loses his nerve. He planned to save the beer in case she asked him inside after dinner, but he breaks open the box and chugs half a bottle, thinking it’ll seem more natural anyway, less a plan to get her drunk than just an extra box he happened to have in the car.

  He scans the radio. A station’s playing “Jingle Bell Rock” and the chime of the guitar is like a warm winter balm. He finishes the beer and opens another, imagining the mall decked for Christmas in the morning with the shoppers and the smell of baked cookies in the food court. He thinks of going out with Sheri last season, splitting up to buy presents, meeting at Applebee’s for lunch. Hot chocolates on the road, fresh-cut tree. They strung the lights after dark and cuddled on the couch, drinking rum out of mugs and listening to music. He plays it all again, putting Ava into Sheri’s role—lying on the guest-room bed, sipping rum, watching her undress very slowly at the mirror.

  He drums the wheel and kills the car and says, “Come on come on come on,” and then he walks across the street, dizzy from the beer and from the bright rush of air. His heart’s beating strongly when he creeps up the porch. He rings the bell and backs away—he doesn’t want to crowd her—but the bell just hangs. She doesn’t come. He rings again.

  He cups his hand against the door and tries to see inside. The lights are out. He doesn’t hear a television on, and then he thinks about the dog and wonders where it is. It would bark if they were home—she must be at the Finns’. Of course she is, of course she is. They wouldn’t have abandoned her.

  But neither of them drives and Ava’s car is right behind him. He leaves the porch and drives around the neighborhood, taking his time and checking every side street and alleyway, hoping to see her walking the dog and finding nothing but a lot of sleepy lights in all the homes. It’s the time of afternoon when people settle in. Roads empty out, meals are under way. You can stare in every house and no one notices or cares.