Little Comfort

by Edwin Hill

  “Dance with me,” Sam said, and Gabe shook his head but danced anyway. Like he always did. It was too hard to say no. Too easy to let Sam take the lead.

  Sam put a hand on his waist and spun him around the room and then ripped open another box. “Hermès!” he said, holding up the tag on a pair of black pants.

  When Cricket showed up, Gabe paid for the pot even though Sam chastised him for ordering it via text. “It leaves a trail,” Sam said, but that didn’t keep him from lying on Gabe’s bed and taking a long hit from the bong. “I think we can make Boston work,” he said. “This can be home.”

  All of Sam’s hopes, all of his wants and needs, were on full display. Always. The desperate need to belong, to be a part of some place. But you had to look. It surprised Gabe that more people didn’t see that. Gabe lit the buds and inhaled. He heard the water gurgle, and felt the smoke tickle his lungs, and held it there as long as he could.

  “Things are good,” Sam said. “Really good.”

  Things had been good before, but Gabe pushed that thought away. When Sam was here, it was all that mattered.

  *

  The doorbell rang. Sam had fallen asleep, but Gabe crept into the hall and put the chain on, a habit he’d gotten into when they’d lived in a crack den in San Francisco. He drew the deadbolt and opened the door an inch. A miniature woman with square glasses, ruddy cheeks, and long black hair poking from a jaunty beret stood on the stoop in the weak afternoon light. A little girl dressed in pink from head to toe clutched her hand. And a basset hound sat at her feet.

  “Hester Thursby,” the woman said. “I’m here to see the apartment.”

  Gabe slammed the door and took off the chain. He opened the door wide as a blast of cold air swept into the hallway. The snow had stopped. He saw the woman sniff. The whole house must stink of pot. She adjusted an expensive looking orange bag over her shoulder. “Is it still available?” she asked as she stepped inside. “Nice,” she said, though the crease in her forehead said anything but.

  “This apartment isn’t for rent.”

  “Really?” Hester said. “I swore this was the address.”

  The girl pulled on Hester’s sleeve. “Pee,” she said.

  “Here,” Hester said, handing Gabe the dog’s leash. “Do you mind? And take this too. There are dog treats in there.” She gave him the orange bag. “Where’s the bathroom?”

  Gabe paused, and then nodded down the hallway. “Through the kitchen.”

  “Thanks. You can’t imagine how quickly these emergencies escalate.”

  Then she hurried away and left Gabe standing in the hallway. The dog whined while nosing the bag. Gabe ran his hands over the orange leather. He searched the pockets, caressing a wad of receipts. He found a plastic bag filled with dog biscuits, but kept searching anyway. He snapped open a wallet. He trailed his finger through her change. He took out her license and memorized her address. She lived right here in Somerville. If Sam had been the one pawing through the bag, he’d have taken something small to add to his collection, something like a pen or a lipstick. Gabe had more discretion. He gave half a biscuit to the dog as Hester and the girl returned from the bathroom. He blushed suddenly at the thought of her seeing the kitchen, with its dirt-crusted counters and cabinets the color of an old toenail. He shouldn’t live like this anymore.

  “He was whining,” Gabe said, handing her the open bag. Even though she’d told him about the dog biscuits, he knew he still looked guilty. He dropped the second half of the biscuit to the floor as if to make the point.

  “She,” Hester said. “Her name’s Waffles.” She took the leash and the bag. “And sorry to bother you …”

  Gabe waited for her to finish her sentence, and then realized she was waiting for him to fill the silence. But with what? “Are you a vegetarian?” he asked.

  “Not at all,” she said. “Why?”

  “Because I’m tired of vegetarians.”

  “Okay,” Hester said, and then laughed in a way that made her seem complicit and kind. “I hadn’t thought about it that way. So am I.”

  Gabe smiled. She smiled back and glanced toward the front door, and for a moment he saw himself through her eyes: a tall guy who’d forgotten to shave, who spent most waking hours alone, staring at code on a computer, who had bloodshot eyes. She, on the other hand, could have been a doll, with that porcelain skin and silken hair. She wore a fringed suede vest, gray wool leggings, and a miniature miniskirt. Her legs, in their own tiny way, went on for miles and ended in a pair of go-go boots that didn’t look like they’d stand up to the snow. An American Girl for the boho chic. A part of Gabe wanted to touch her, to run his fingers through her hair, to see if she was real. He clasped his hands behind his back to be safe. “Do you like tacos?” he asked.

  “Doesn’t everyone like tacos? Except vegans, I guess.”

  “I had one for lunch. With steak.”

  “A vegan?” Hester asked.

  “No, a taco,” Gabe said.

  Hester smiled. “I know,” she said, and after a pause, added, “Have you lived here long?”

  “A while,” Gabe said.

  “Me too. In Somerville, at least. I was thinking of moving to Davis Square, but rents are expensive around here.”

  “Even for dumps like this one,” Gabe said.

  “Let the woman get on with her day.”

  Gabe hadn’t noticed Sam come out of the room to stand next to him, but with his presence Gabe instantly felt himself fade into the background. Sam’s hair stood up from lying down, but Gabe could see Hester take him in. Women—even most men—paused when they saw Sam for the first time.

  “This is …” Gabe began. What was he supposed to call Sam again?

  “Aaron,” Sam said. “I bet Barry didn’t introduce himself either. He gets tongue-tied around women.”

  “Not around me,” Hester said, lifting the orange bag onto her shoulder. “Aaron and Barry?”

  “That’s right,” Sam said.

  “Well, thanks for the bathroom.”

  “Any time,” Sam said.

  “And sorry for the mix-up. I’ll have to get the right address from my real estate agent.”

  Fresh air swept into the house as Sam pulled open the door. Gabe watched as Hester headed down the front steps with the little girl and the dog pulling on its leash. The scent of evergreen wafted over him from a wreath on the front door. He smelled pine and composting leaves. He tasted sweet lake water on his lips and remembered stroking forward, deeper, into the cold dark until his lungs felt like they would burst. Above him, he saw the moon, a blur of white against black. He remembered Lila, whom he’d called Ms. Blaine for way too long. She’d called him Sport or Curly or, his favorite, Big Guy.

  Now, Gabe watched as Hester walked down the path to the chain-link gate and out to an enormous blue truck. She stepped onto the running board to put the girl into her car seat. Gabe wondered if she’d be tall enough to get into the truck, let alone drive it. Maybe she’d need his help.

  “Don’t be a fucktard,” Sam said, following his stare, an edge of warning in his tone. “Come back to earth. Let’s smoke some dope.” When Gabe ignored him, Sam added, “Have I mentioned Felicia Nakazawa? I’m going to the Burren with her later. Come. I’ll introduce the two of you. Don’t you like Asian chicks? She’s kind of needy, a bit chunky, is hung up on another guy, and sort of thinks the whole world is out to get her, but you can deal with that better than I can. I’ll set you guys up.” Sam put a hand on Gabe’s arm. “And let’s be honest. You could use a good screw!”

  Gabe shook him off.

  “Come on, Gabe. She has a kid. Women with kids usually have husbands at home.”

  Even if Sam was right, all Gabe wanted was for Hester to turn and wave to him, even though a part of him knew it would be better for her if she didn’t, and even though girls with bags that expensive rarely looked back.

  Then she did.

  CHAPTER 7

  Hester felt Gabe watching he
r from his front stoop as she drove around the corner and pulled to the side of the road. She’d felt Gabe’s eyes on her the entire time she’d been in that house, from the moment he’d peeked through the crack in the door to when she’d grabbed what looked like a piece of junk mail on the kitchen counter and stuffed it in her pocket, to when she’d found him going through her bag. From what she’d been able to tell, Gabe wore his awkwardness like a sweater for anyone to see. It almost made him likable, while Sam was nothing but veneer and caution. He’d held her off from the moment he’d seen her, snapping into an upper-class politeness that seemed more home-schooled than innate. Gabe would be the easier one to get to know.

  She jotted down the name Aaron Gewirtzman, which poked out from beneath the cellophane window on the envelope. “All’s well that ends well, right?” she said to Kate as she rooted through the bag to see if anything was missing.

  “All’s wheel ends wheel,” Kate said to Monkey.

  Hester had followed Sam from Beacon Hill and then sat outside the apartment for nearly an hour before knocking on the front door. Now, she typed a text to Lila that simply said, Found them! but looked at the screen, her thumb hovering over the send button, and then hit delete. Not yet, she told herself. She was curious to see what else she could find out.

  At home, she put Kate down for a nap and took the baby monitor with her to her own apartment, where she sorted through the postcards again and spent some time searching online for “Aaron Gewirtzman,” without much luck. She tried it with Sam’s date of birth and Social Security number. Still nothing. When she narrowed the search to New York, she did get a number of Aaron Gewirtzmans, including the obituary for a twenty-five-year-old who’d died in a car crash last winter. Sam must have stolen the man’s identity, but without a Social Security number it would be hard to prove. She slid Prom Night into the VCR and nestled into the love seat. Waffles shimmied through the dog door and jumped up beside her, and soon Hester’s eyes had closed, and she’d fallen into a deep, dreamless sleep.

  When she woke a while later, the movie had ended and the smells and laughs from an evening at home wafted up the stairwell. The baby monitor was silent, so Morgan must have turned it off on the other end to let her relax. It was dark out, and Hester wondered how long she’d been asleep. She stretched, making these few precious moments alone last. Waffles woke and lapped her face. Hester listened to Kate shriek with laughter and Morgan’s deep voice, and felt like she actually might be missing something. “Come,” she said to the dog, and the two of them pattered down the stairs.

  When Hester opened Morgan’s door, she let the sights and sounds envelope her: Kate’s stuffed animals lined up for a party, Morgan’s red hair poking out from a top hat, a pot of chili bubbling on the stove. Behind them, the Christmas tree, the first one Hester had ever put up, was alight with colorful bulbs. Waffles joined in the festivities as she howled in delight.

  They made macaroni and cheese from a box to have with the chili, and then sat in Kate’s bed and read four stories in a row, ending with The Cat in the Hat.

  “Do you need the truck tomorrow?” Hester asked, as Kate drifted off to sleep.

  Morgan slipped out from under Kate’s comforter and tucked it in around her. “All yours,” he said. “I’ll take the bus in the morning, but can you take the dog with you?”

  “That I can do,” Hester said. “Kate has preschool tomorrow. Can you drop her off?”

  “Not a problem.”

  “Pick up too?”

  “Yep, I can do that.”

  This, these negotiations, was Hester’s life now. She kissed Kate on the forehead and turned out the bedside light. Something about the darkness made it easier to talk. “Have you heard from Daphne?” she asked.

  Morgan took a moment to answer. “Nothing. Have you looked for her?”

  Hester could feel the sadness in Morgan’s voice seeping into the air around them, and she wanted him to be more than sad. She wanted him to be angry or hurt or betrayed. She wanted him to react. To engage. To be part of what was going on, like she had had to be every day. When Daphne had first left, Morgan had insisted that they’d take on the challenges of raising Kate together, but since then Hester had been the one to take a leave of absence from work. She was the one who woke at night and spent her days worrying. Morgan was close to his sister in a way that Hester would never understand. He’d tried to shield Daphne from her own demons for years, and this, all of this, Hester suspected, made him feel as though he’d failed.

  “You know she doesn’t want us to find her,” Hester said. “I’d have looked if I thought she did. But aren’t you worried? What if something happened? What if she’s hurt?”

  Morgan wrapped his arms around her, and they stood together quietly. “We’d know if she was hurt,” he said. “And I can’t think about it too much.”

  But we need to, Hester nearly said. Eventually, at least. If we don’t, this will eat away at us till there’s nothing left. She thought about where Daphne might be, living in a hovel like Sam and Gabe’s apartment, one that smelled of cheap weed and masturbation. She thought about the hours of pickup and drop off and play dates and soccer practices, all the things she’d never signed up for and didn’t know if she wanted. But Morgan kissed her neck and ran a hand under her sweater, and she went with it. It was easier that way. She pulled his face to hers, kissing him hard, feeling the day-old scruff of his beard against her skin. She let him lift her to the bedroom, where their clothes fell to the floor. He laid her on the bed, his hands and tongue finding the right places, and then she thrust him onto his back to find the right places on his long, lithe body. Waffles jumped up beside them, her cold, wet nose jabbing at Hester’s naked buttock. They laughed, the spell broken for a moment while Hester shooed the dog out of the room and closed the door.

  “I’ll spend the rest of my days with you, Mrs.,” Morgan whispered when she returned to the warmth of the bed. He rolled on top of her and slid gently inside her.

  “Me too,” she said, closing her eyes and staying in the moment. They’d be fine. She believed that she and Morgan were strong enough to survive anything. For now, at least.

  *

  “You’ll make her laugh,” Sam said.

  Gabe wondered if he’d ever made anyone laugh.

  “Felicia will like you, and if it’s lame, you can be home in five minutes.”

  Sam hadn’t said one nice thing about this Felicia Nakazawa since he’d mentioned her—needy, chubby, paranoid—but he stood in Gabe’s bedroom door and had that look he got when he wouldn’t take no for an answer, so Gabe got ready to go. At the bar, Sam breezed past the bouncers and through the heavy red door while Gabe stopped to pay the ten-dollar cover charge for both of them. The Burren was a cavernous pub in the heart of Davis Square that served salty Irish food, and where bands played and hipsters drank and the walls were painted black. Gabe supposed that if he belonged anywhere, it could have been here. There was enough flannel, and almost all the men seemed to have beards. Tonight, a folk rock group tried their best to sound mournful over the rhythms of banjos and accordions.

  Felicia showed up an hour late, wearing a slash of red lipstick and teetering on heels like they were a pair of stilts. She paused in the doorway and brushed imaginary lint from the sleeves of her cashmere coat. Gabe was pretty certain she didn’t frequent bars like this one. Sam waved her over, and she kissed him on both cheeks. “Classy place,” she said.

  “This is Barry,” Sam said.

  Gabe noticed her smile falter. After they shook hands, he saw her shoot Sam a glare in between checking her phone and asking Gabe to repeat himself whenever he said anything. “The music’s loud,” she shouted.

  Gabe asked her how old she was.

  “What?” she asked.

  He excused himself and went to the bathroom, and when he got back the band had taken a break and the bar was blessedly quiet, something Felicia apparently hadn’t noticed. “Jesus Christ, he looks like the Goddamned Unabom
ber,” she shouted. “Was this supposed to be a fucking setup? Are you serious? Thanks for nothing.”

  Gabe slid into his chair, and she had the decency to blush. “What do you do, Barry?” she said after a silence.

  “Clean up other people’s messes,” Gabe said.

  “Sounds like what I do too,” Felicia said.

  “You hardly clean up messes, either of you,” Sam said. “Barry’s a programmer. And he makes a fortune.”

  “Maybe you can help me with Wendy’s website,” Felicia said.

  “Sure,” Gabe said, but he couldn’t have cared less about Felicia Nakazawa or what she thought of him. He already had a girl. At least he hoped he did.

  *

  Hester jolted awake. Morgan snored softly beside her. Kate yammered away on the other end of the monitor. Hester groaned and then changed into her pajamas and crossed the hallway to Kate’s room, where the kid sat chatting away with Monkey. “Kate want water,” she said.

  “And then what?” Hester asked.

  “Play game?”

  “How about sleep?”

  “No sleep!”

  “We at least have to play quietly. Let’s not wake Uncle Morgan.”

  “Kate want water.” Kate stood and jumped on the bed. Waffles wagged her tail and joined her.

  “Well, Aunt Hester wants scotch.” They were at the beginning of a long, sleepless night. “Come. We’ll watch The Little Mermaid.”

  Waffles pattered after them as Hester carried Kate down the stairs, through Morgan’s living room, and into her apartment, where she put a videotape of the movie into the VCR and snuggled in with Kate. By the time they sang “Under the Sea” together, Kate’s eyes had begun to close. She didn’t make it to the end of the song. Hester, unfortunately, was wide awake.

  She took out her tablet and reviewed her notes. What she hadn’t told Morgan was that she planned to drive to New Hampshire in the morning. Maybe she’d talk to Lila, but there were two other people she wanted to talk to first: Cheryl Jenkins, the woman Gabe had lived with before he moved in with Lila and Sam, and Bobby Englewood, his social worker. Maybe they’d have a different take on this story. She found their addresses and mapped out her route. Then she put the tablet aside and wondered if she’d manage to sleep before the end of the movie.