Presumption Of Death

by Perri O'shaughnessy

  “She’s right. What do you teach?”

  “Phys ed. Eighth grade.”

  “I thought you were a firefighter.”

  “Oh. I am, but it’s volunteer work.”

  “Right. Do you like it?”

  Darryl laughed. “It’s a duty. I dread being called out to a fire. But we have to work together or the whole forest would burn down some summer. I got called up to your neighborhood on the ridge fire. It came within a quarter mile of you. You were lucky.”

  “You fought the fire? I owe you for that, Darryl. All that smoke, the sirens-”

  “We almost had to evacuate you.”

  “I didn’t know it came so close.”

  “Ted and Megan’s new place almost burned down. Don’t know how we saved it, really. I was worried about you. I watched out for you.”

  “Well, thank you, Darryl. Thanks for doing that.” They were keeping up the convention that he had dropped by after dark just because he was in the neighborhood. Elizabeth wondered what form the pass would take-would he sweep her into his arms? Get down on his knees? She felt curious and a little cruel. He had no right to be here. He had children, a wife. He was acting outside the mores, hers as well as his.

  Then she thought sadly, I’m too lonely, tonight, to turn even this away.

  What would she do when he made the pass?

  His eyes ate her up.

  Darryl was saying, “Actually, I came over to apologize. For my behavior at the block party last night. I made a fool out of myself.”

  “Do you remember what you said, when you grabbed my arm and pulled me over toward the deck?”

  His face went red. “To be honest, I don’t know exactly what I blurted out.”

  “I’ll forget about it too, then.”

  “Thanks. I’m not so good at talking even when I haven’t had a couple of beers.”

  “Uh huh.”

  “So,” Darryl said. He had run out of conversational gambits, so he just sat there.

  “So.” Elizabeth nodded. She felt like slapping his big slow face, giving him the back of her hand a few times, to see if he could wake up. If only he would cut to the chase, because she was losing even her curiosity now.

  Finally he resumed, “Britta got pretty wild there at the end.”

  “It’s not the first time.”

  “What was that all about? The recordings you were making? What were they?” He sounded abrupt.

  “I’m… curious about people.”

  “You sure had us freaked.”

  “I gather information,” she said. “For my work. Just general things. I’m sorry it made everyone so self-conscious. That was never my intention.”

  “You expected something to happen there? Have you always taped the parties?”

  “No.” A lie. He really wanted to know, she could see that in his face, and she wasn’t about to tell him.

  “I always hoped you were having fun. I always thought you seemed lonely. What kind of work do you mean?”

  “Forget about it, Darryl. It was stupid of me.”

  “It doesn’t have anything to do with Danny or the fires, does it?”

  “Of course not.”

  “What are you going to do with the tape?”

  “Oh, give it a rest, will you? Do you want some more tea? Otherwise, let’s call it a night.”

  “Because we’re good people on Siesta Court. Family people. Maybe you should give me the tape.” A warning, as if he felt she must be inimical to them? She wasn’t inimical, she was merely objective. Darryl was a local. He would never understand her work.

  “Of course I won’t give you the tape,” she said. He shook his head in disappointment and stared at her body under the robe. He was young, strong, and not bad-looking, and she thought about him again.

  “You’re widowed, aren’t you,” Darryl said. She almost breathed a sigh of relief as he finally got into it.

  “Yes.” She noted clinically that she had been able to answer without a stab of pain for the first time.

  “Tory and I met when we were thirteen.”

  “Very young.”

  “Right. And we were together for five years before either of us mentioned marriage. I left college and came back here to finish up.”

  “Do you think you married too young?”

  “Now I do. We weren’t really ready. Tory didn’t want to leave her family here in the Valley. I…”

  “You?”

  “I could live anywhere. I could live in Tanzania, teach school. I’m different from Tory.” He put his hands on his knees and his body tensed slightly.

  You think you’re better than Tory? Elizabeth thought. You’re so wrong. I’ve got you all figured out, right down to clumsy adultery, if you can manage it. She felt contempt, and realized she had made her decision.

  “To be honest, Tory and I have grown apart. She’s content leaving things as they are. We talk about the kids, visit family-I keep thinking I’ve missed out on some important things in life.”

  “Must be hard, having a wife who doesn’t understand you.”

  “Yeah.”

  Moisture formed on his upper lip. She couldn’t stand it any longer. “Darryl?” she said. “Why did you come here tonight?”

  “I always wanted to. You’re all alone,” he said, “and so nice-looking. I love your black hair. I love those blue eyes of yours. I don’t think I’ve seen such a shade before, ever. I love the way you live, so free.”

  Elizabeth finished her tea. She poured herself another, then topped off Darryl’s cup. “You thought I seemed lonely?”

  “Aren’t you?”

  “Because I’m not married and live alone in this big house?”

  “Because of… aw, shit. I’m not so good at this.”

  “True.”

  “I’m tryin’ to say… you and I could…”

  “Could what?”

  He pushed his foot out until it touched hers. Raising his eyes, he looked for a response in hers. “You’re so beautiful.” He leaned close enough to touch her cheek. “All my life I’ve done the things that were expected of me. Just once I want-I want-”

  “You don’t know me.”

  “I know a lot. I know you lost your family…” He seemed to realize that he had said something wrong. He stopped.

  Elizabeth stood up. “I suppose you all talk about me behind my back.”

  “Of course I know about you. I’ve had my bad times. Everybody has.”

  “You with your four beautiful children. You say you envy my freedom. Maybe you also envy my money. Well, I envy you your babies. Go back to Tory,” Elizabeth said.

  “Doesn’t a man have a right to pursue love in his life? I could help you. You’re so sad. We could be good for each other. I could surprise you.”

  “Go home, Darryl.”

  He stood up to full height. “You need a man, Elizabeth. You’re young and beautiful. You couldn’t save them, but you could still save yourself.”

  “Get out!” she cried, thinking, You pompous asshole! You predatory married man! He was tall and close and burning to grab her. She stepped backward behind the study door and held it, ready to slam it in his face.

  “Don’t come back!” she said.

  “I’m sorry,” Darryl said. “I’ll go. I don’t know how to talk to you. But I’m pretty sure I’m in love with you, and I can’t fight it. I can’t.”

  15

  J OLENE’S SUNDAY MORNING HAD STARTED OUT peacefully. While George slept in and sun filtered through the windows, she had whisked up blueberry pancakes for the girls. April loved the ones with a face in them, Callie preferred fewer bits of fruit.

  Jolene mixed them in a big green glass bowl, waiting for the griddle to get hot enough. Scooping huge spoonfuls on the iron skillet, she watched the bubbles form and pop before flipping them, spreading them lightly with butter, then calling the girls, who, like their mother before them, didn’t get up until forced.

  She called. Nobody came. She climbed up
the long flight of stairs, her ankles complaining. Knocking on the door to the tiny attic room with her spatula, she called again. Finally, she heard stirring. “Wha… Grandma?” said Callie.

  They needed to get up for church anyway. She didn’t cater to this idea that Tory had once told her, that kids were worked so hard during the week they needed to relax on the weekend. They should get up early for chores. Children needed responsibility and a sense of purpose in this nutty world. Maybe if she had been stricter with the girls’ mother…

  She stuck her head through the door. Two sleepy, curly heads emerged from the flowered sheets.

  “Rise and shine,” she said. Her mother used to say that, and she said it too, hoping for good moods.

  “I’m awake,” April announced. “We’ll be right there.”

  “Where’s Grandpa?” Callie asked a few minutes later, sliding onto a stool at the counter, at eight years old, the older and more aware of Jolene’s two granddaughters.

  “He works all week. He’s catching up on his sleep.”

  “I thought you said he retired,” Callie said.

  “Nobody retires from worrying. He needs a break.”

  “Doesn’t he have to go to church with us?” asked April, only four years old, but already looking for angles. April’s red hair made you want to worry about her temperament, but she was nothing like Cathy, her mother, at the same age. She tended to think more in advance of any misbehavior.

  “He usually does,” Jolene answered, a lie, but a forgivable one. George used to attend church in the days when he felt better, when the world helped him be his best self.

  “I never saw him go. Not once,” Callie said, pouring syrup on her final, gigantic pancake. “You make the best pancakes in the world, Grandma.”

  “Callie, your Grandpa’s been sick for a long time.”

  “Where’s Mama?” April asked. Her face, shiny with hope, glowed, poreless, young, innocent. “Can she come with us? Why doesn’t she come see us?”

  “She’ll come when she can,” said Jolene, reverting to her standard answer.

  “Sometimes I have dreams about her not coming,” Callie said.

  “Don’t you concern yourself like that, child,” Jolene said firmly. “Why, she’s coming in a couple of weeks.” She decided to call her daughter and insist on a visit. Cathy didn’t mean to be so mean. She didn’t intend to abandon her two darling children. But her life was so hard, she couldn’t always do the right thing.

  Wouldn’t it be nice if the girls’ father were involved. Where was he, anyway? Sailing ships around the world? In prison? Whenever she asked, Cathy got canny. “He’s in the merchant marines, Mama, out at sea. Unreachable.” Or, “He’s trying to provide for us, for God’s sake. He’s just had a lot of bad luck.” Like he was really just a traditional husband, slaving away for a living wage.

  George had always provided. He might be stingy, but he hadn’t ever asked her to work outside the home. His legs were really bothering him these days, and he had to stay in bed a lot. Thank goodness he could play his guitar even in bed. He got more pleasure out of that old hollow-body than most men get from their wives. He was playing it in the bedroom right now, working on a new song.

  “Grandpa’s up!”

  “You stay right here, Callie.”

  George sang from the bedroom,

  I’m at the Humble Pie Motel in Room two-thirty-three

  And if you ever loved me, honey, ask the manager for the

  key…

  Her heart filled up with love for him. But I’m going to have to do something, she thought to herself, not for the first time. Yessirree.

  Then they heard something else, a yowling Jolene knew well. George’s muffled voice trailed off. He was listening too, but he wouldn’t do anything about it. “Hey!” April said, now having fun arranging the mangled food on her plate with the contentment of a well-fed child. “I hear the kitties.”

  “That woman’s a nuisance,” said Jolene. “Poor Ruthie. Spending all her money on those animals. We don’t need a bunch of wild cats roaming around this neighborhood. I wish she would just smell the roses and quit.”

  “Such pretty kitties,” said Callie. “She’s my hero.”

  “You know,” Jolene said, “people who feed abandoned animals aren’t doing anyone any favors. In a place like this, those animals can’t get by without being fed. They’re domesticated but they don’t have homes anymore. Cruel people have abandoned them. In nature, they would… move on.”

  “But if they’re hungry?” Callie asked. “Why can’t they get food if they need it? I think the Cat Lady is right. Otherwise, they just wander around crying, they’re so sad and hungry.”

  Well, naturally, she would feel that way. Maybe she remembered those days with Cathy, when none of them had enough to eat. She and George had not known about the deprivation until the court stepped in that day Cathy left the babies strapped into car seats in the car for four hours while she played house with a new boyfriend in Seaside.

  Luckily, shade had come to protect the car and preserve the girls’ lives after an hour or two. A few days in the hospital and the girls were fit as red ants in August again. “Why don’t you two get yourselves upstairs now and find something cute to wear today?” Jolene suggested, not wanting to think anymore about that ordeal, which she hoped the girls didn’t remember.

  Her grandchildren cleared the table quickly, well-trained by Jolene, rinsing the dishes and stacking them neatly in the dishwasher.

  Jolene couldn’t ignore it anymore. Cats, making that ear-shredding yowling right outside the kitchen door. After church she planned a game of Monopoly with George and the girls. But first she needed to do something to shut up those dang cats.

  “You wear the blue,” she called up the stairs to Callie. “April, how about that white dress trimmed in pink?”

  “It’s too small,” April said.

  “Just for today.”

  “Well, okay. But something new next week, Grandma, if we can afford it. This one’s above my knees.”

  The two girls trooped around upstairs quietly, whispering so that they wouldn’t disturb Grandpa’s songwriting. While they ran floods of water in the bathroom, Jolene wiped the table, still trying to ignore the keening whimpers of the cats outside.

  George had said only yesterday when she remarked on the daily bedlam outside, leave Ruthie alone. Ruthie had the title of town character and what you do with town characters is you don’t molest them or stare at them, you let them sing to themselves and mutter or in Ruthie’s case feed cats and hand out leaflets.

  Her Twelve Points were all over town. Jolene saw those leaflets spreading all up and down the valley, moving down to Big Sur in the pack of some Danish tourist, riding up to San Fran in some migrant worker’s beat-up truck, moving east into the forest like a flea on a squirrel… if only Ruthie had something to say. The problem was, she didn’t think very well, like most human beings.

  But the cats… Jolene knew George didn’t like them any more than she did. She had heard about what contamination they might cause in a sandbox, and they had one out back, mostly for April, because at four, she still liked to dig around and dream her baby dreams.

  Jolene rubbed a spot into the window with the edge of her apron so that she could see across the street, past the bridge. Ruthie’s heap of junk dominated. Obviously, Ruthie had slept in the lot over there. Someone ought to get her into an assisted-living situation. Maybe Ruthie wasn’t so old, but she was incompetent. The money she spent on those wild cats must absorb any income she had coming in.

  Slamming the dishwasher door shut, Jolene pulled at her apron, locating a peg to hang it on. She would have to go out there, speak to her. Make Ruthie see sense.

  She had her hair up in rollers, big ones, because she liked a softer look, but it was still early, nobody else would be out. Full of resolve, she marched across the street to the dilapidated white car.

  “Hello in there,” she said. Ruthie sometimes
slept in this car under a quilt made of old wool suit fabric. She checked the back, but couldn’t see inside.

  “Ruthie?”

  The front seat remained invisible. The car seemed covered with a fine, oily wet layer of skin, as thick as a seal’s. A gust of warm wind lifted her housecoat.

  Why did she bother, she groused inwardly. Still, a horde of caterwauling cats of all shapes and sizes clustered around the car. Some moved toward her, sidling up to her ankles, purred, and began to nudge her.

  Enough! she thought. She pounded on the driver’s-side door. When there was no response, she tried the handle.

  The door, unlocked, fell open, and Ruthie, who never did anyone any harm, fell down out of her seat onto the hot asphalt.

  Oh, Jolene thought. Oh, you poor thing. Ruthie looked so little and helpless. Her skin was bright red and her mouth hung open and she wasn’t moving at all.

  Was this what death looked like?

  Because Ruthie, eyes closed, otherwise looked peaceful. As if she had just fallen asleep.

  Nina and Paul had been home from Cachagua and the Bucket for half an hour, and Nina was still in the shower, when Ben Cervantes called with the news. “I thought you’d want to know,” he said. “I heard it from Tory, who just got the call from Jolene. She found Ruthie’s body this morning.”

  By the time Paul and Nina arrived, the police had photographed, dusted, and examined for hours. Ruthie still lay on the asphalt after all this time, cordoned off and harshly lit, while the ambulance stood by, waiting for the body to be released.

  Gawkers continued to come and stare, to act as witnesses to the ritual of death. Nina recognized Darryl and Tory Eubanks. Tory was carrying her youngest. Some of the neighborhood kids ran back and forth across the street, yelling with excitement as though they were at the circus.

  “Find anything?” Paul asked the detective in charge. With a weary look, the detective told Paul to back off, and in the interests of good relations, Paul did that. They waited in the Mustang while the ambulance drove off and the detectives called it a day.

  Then they went back over to the parking lot. Ruth Frost’s battered Cutlass was surrounded by yellow caution tape. A deputy had been posted, but, distracted by a pile of questions from Nina, he was rendered innocuous long enough for Paul to take one good look at the car.