by David Hicks
Delia released Etta from her high chair as Butch got up to collect the dirty dishes. As he began to wash them, Casey and Daniel started a conversation about dogs—Casey on the attributes of Labradors, Daniel on the Dobermans his friend was breeding—and as Daniel started telling a story about the death of his boyhood pooch, Butch dropped a dish into the sink with a clatter. As Daniel spoke more quickly—“As you can imagine,” he said, lowering his voice and nodding towards Butch, “my little brother was devastated”—Butch pressed his hands to his temples, and Casey shot an alarmed glance at Flynn.
“That was one well-trained dog,” Daniel said, shaking his head. “Our old man sure knew what he was doing. Like I was telling your husband here, you can turn even the meanest dog into a docile one if you know how to handle ’em.” He glanced up at Butch, who had turned to face the table, still pressing into his temples. “I’ve almost broken Zeus,” Daniel said, pointing to the black dog at his feet, “just like I did Apollo.”
Delia jumped up to close a cabinet door Etta had opened, and on her way back, she squeezed Daniel’s shoulder, and when Daniel patted her bottom Butch seemed to press even harder, a vein in his forehead bulging. He wheezed with his teeth closed as if clamped in a self-made, ever-tightening vice. “Always with the touching!” he hissed.
Daniel scratched Zeus’s head and continued as if Butch hadn’t spoken. “Yep, he was ornery, that one,” he said, nodding toward the white dog in the middle room. “Then one day we had it out.” He started to pound his fist on the table, but it landed softly, like a regret. “D’ja ever see The Quiet Man?” he asked Flynn, and Flynn nodded; it had been a favorite of his father’s. “It was like that,” Daniel said. “Me and Apollo, rasslin’ on the floor. A regular barroom brawl.” He mimed the fight, pretending to wrestle the powerful beast. He rolled up his sleeve to show Casey the scar on his arm where Apollo had bitten him, and Casey stared at him. “After that, as you can see, no more problems.”
They all looked through the doorway to the middle room where Apollo hulked in the corner, wheezing like a lion that had gone too long between kills.
*
After dessert—ice cream sandwiches and instant coffee—Daniel told Casey and Flynn how they had come to be caretakers of the place. Delia’s uncle, the owner, had grown too old for the upkeep and was moving to Grand Junction, and they had just gotten married and needed a place to live; so they agreed to take up residency in exchange for managing the property. They had asked Butch to move in too, at least for the first few months, because he knew so much about horses and was handy with home repairs; had Flynn and Casey noticed the new roof?
“We’ve got big plans,” Daniel said, and Delia smiled, taking his hand.
Butch was back in his seat, having calmed down during dessert. “Know what we’re gonna do here, cowboy?” he said to Flynn. “We’re gonna tap that spring out there, bottle the water, and sell it.” He put a hand in the air, mimicking the label: “Desert Spring Water,” he said.
Flynn frowned. “Don’t you need, like, a bottling plant, permits and loans, that kind of thing? That seems like a big undertaking.”
“Permits and loans,” Butch said, folding his arms. “You’re from New York, right?” he said, pronouncing “New York” as he would “Hades.” “You have no idea how things are done out here.” He took in Flynn’s maroon shirt and long hair. “Look at you,” he said. “You’d never make it out here.”
“Easy, brother,” Daniel said.
Flynn started to tuck his hair behind his ears, then stopped. “I don’t know,” he said, with a quick glance at Casey. “Maybe. I like it here. Well not here, exactly,” he said. “But, you know.” He pointed vaguely outside. “Here.”
Butch’s eyes darted around the room. “What’s wrong with here exactly, cowboy?”
Daniel cleared his throat, got up, and gently took Etta from his wife’s arms. “Movie time!” he said.
And that’s when Flynn saw what was off about Delia, just as she handed her daughter to her husband. Her shoulders were turned perpetually inward. As if, when she was born, doctors had squeezed them into her chest and left them that way. As if they had forced everything in her that yearned outward back where it belonged.
*
In their guest room, Flynn started a fire while Casey scurried under the covers, fully clothed. “You OK?” he asked her, after the flames flared up and caught the wood. He went over to the bed and leaned down for a kiss, but Casey kept her mouth closed. Her shirt smelled of old sweat.
“Do you get what’s going on here?” she said, sitting up. “Did you see that guy having a seizure at the sink? How Daniel treats that poor dog? How scared that woman is?”
Flynn sat on the bed. I’m not the one who picked this fucked-up place and took the honeymoon discount, he almost said. “They’re young,” he said with a sigh, sounding to himself as if he were in his late fifties instead of his late thirties. “They’re finding their way.”
Casey craned her neck and shook out her hair with both hands. “This place is cursed,” she said. “Bad things have happened here. I can feel it.”
“Oh come on,” Flynn said, with a bit of a laugh. He sensed the truth of what she was saying, but surely she could see she was being a little hysterical. What had happened to that calm, kindhearted woman he had slept with in the desert?
She pointed toward the door, her hair disheveled, like a witch. “He’s evil,” she said, and Flynn sat quietly, unsure if she was referring to Butch, Daniel, or Apollo. He rubbed his thigh muscles, hardened and cramped. Casey kept untangling the ends of her hair.
“Case, I’m worried about the kids.”
Her eyes softened. She had probably heard him sobbing in the middle of the night. She blew out a breath and put her head back on the pillow. “I think you have to get used to it,” she said. “Rachel’s going to marry her new boyfriend, and your kids, they’re going to grow up with a different father. There’s nothing you can do about that; it’s just the way it is.” She took Flynn’s hand. “Especially Janey,” she said. “Janey won’t even remember you as her dad.” She took his other hand and shook his arms a bit until he met her eyes.
“Hey sweetie,” she said. “You need to do right by us now.”
*
The floor of the wood-fired hot tub was scalding, too hot for Flynn to put his feet down, and the air was too cold to expose his wet torso—so he squatted on the bench, half-in, half-out, as Casey sat calmly, submerged to her shoulders, looking up at the night sky. Flynn cracked his neck and straightened his back, trying to relax, and when he did, he realized that his shoulders, too, were curled inwards.
Casey gave him a soft smile. “Maybe none of this is actually happening,” she said. “Maybe we’re characters in a Sam Shepard play.”
Flynn pulled an icicle from the rim of the tub and pretended to stab her in the neck with it. She hunched her shoulders, gave him a quizzical look, then gently took the icicle from him and made it disappear in the hot water. Flynn looked out into the vast darkness, knowing the desert was out there, forty miles from here to the mountains, with nothing in between—not a house, not a road, not even . . .
He looked at Casey. “What’s a line camp?”
Casey shifted her position and told Flynn it was a place, like a lean-to or shack, where cowboys stayed while herding cattle. Flynn imagined a scene from one of the Westerns his father used to watch: a bunch of cowboys sitting around a campfire, eating beans from a can.
“On their way to where?” he asked.
She shrugged. “To wherever they’re going,” she said.
She gathered her hair in a bun, her long neck illuminated by the starlight, and rested the back of her head on the rim of the tub, looking up. Flynn looked up with her. The sky was again spectacularly clear. They could see all seven stars of the Pleiades, and Casey pointed out Cassiopeia, the Gemini twins, four planets—Merc
ury, Mars, Venus, and Jupiter—and Cygnus swooping down the wide and milky Milky Way.
Casey pointed. “See that space there, between the first and second stars of the Dipper handle? They used to think there was nothing there. Then, you know the Hubble, the one in space? They pointed it there, right there, and they found galaxies, entire galaxies where there weren’t any. Where they thought there weren’t any.”
Flynn took a deep breath. He was still thinking of what she had said inside, before announcing she needed to warm up and marching out to the hot tub, expecting him to follow. She could be right. Nathan, he was sure, would never call another man father for as long as he lived. But as for Janey, he had no idea. All their moments together at home—rocking her to sleep while singing “Janey Don’t You Lose Heart”; putting her feet on his, holding her hands, and stepping around like a giant; waking up at two, four, and six a.m. to feed her and sing to her; asking “Janey, Janey, where are you?” when she played peek-a-boo—would be lost to her memory. She would grow up with her mother, brother, and stepfather, while receiving occasional visits from her biological dad, a tall man who carved pumpkins with keys and who lived far away with a strange woman and another child he probably preferred to her.
The baby. Flynn jolted upright and put his hand on the curve of Casey’s belly, round and smooth under the water. “Whoa!” he said.
But Casey removed his hand and slid slightly away. “I’m not going to be like that,” she said, and gave him a reassuring smile.
But Flynn was imagining the fetus boiling in her womb. “Come on,” he said, grabbing her arm. “My god, this is stupid, it’s wrong.”
Casey’s look turned cold. “I’ll live the way I want,” she said. “No baby is going to change that.”
Are you kidding? Flynn thought. He lifted himself from the water and pulled her arm, about to insist on getting her out of the tub (This baby’s half-mine, god damn it!) but that’s when they heard a scream, loud and fierce, from inside the house. They both tensed, and when the second scream came, followed by the sound of the men shouting, they heaved themselves out of the tub and dashed barefooted through the snow to the back door, steam billowing from their skin.
Inside, Flynn, who had wrapped a towel around his waist, stumbled into the middle room behind Casey, who was stark naked, and saw that Apollo had Etta’s shoulder in his jaw and was bearing down with a guttural snarl. Delia was the one screaming, clutching at her daughter’s free arm as Butch, now in sweatpants and an untucked shirt, held an iron poker over his head and was about to slam it down on the dog when Casey yelled out “No!” Then Daniel grabbed the dog’s snout and pried open his jaw, freeing Etta.
Casey pulled Delia, with Etta now in her arms, into the kitchen, and just then Butch stepped forward and slammed the poker down onto the dog’s head with a sickening sound, triggering a child-like whimper and collapse from the beast. That’s when the Doberman, Zeus, dashed in and leaped onto Butch, biting him in the hand until Butch threw him off, striking out with the poker until the dog yelped and whined with his head bent as he scurried back into the kitchen.
Butch dropped the poker and gripped the spot where Zeus had bitten him, which was crimson but not bleeding. “Delia darlin’! My hand!”
But Flynn could see Delia in the kitchen, her eyes wide and frightened as she set Etta on the counter and took off her daughter’s pajama top as the child gulped in an endless, shocked breath, her skin chalky, blood bubbling up and now streaming down her arm. Casey, who was at the sink, told Daniel to hold Etta’s shoulder under the water as she scrubbed the wound with soap, the child screaming now. Casey ordered Delia to get her a towel, and when Delia couldn’t stop convulsively crying, Casey frantically looked through drawers, then ran to the bathroom to find one herself.
Flynn, still dripping wet, had picked up the poker, feeling its weight in his hand. Apollo was motionless on the floor, looking more like a giant stuffed animal than the beast who had attacked a child.
Butch was still gripping his hand where Zeus had bitten it. “My hand, Delia! It’s broke!” He turned to Flynn, his face reddening, as Casey came running out of the bathroom with a clean towel, her breasts swaying. “Tell your wife to put on some damn clothes!”
Flynn lifted the poker, his muscles clenched. “She’s not my wife,” he said as he raised the poker higher, and Butch flinched, holding out his hands. Then Daniel screamed out that he couldn’t find his keys and Casey rushed back into the middle room.
“Butch! Take them to the hospital, now!”
Butch straightened, sneered at Flynn, and hustled off to his bedroom.
Casey stared at Flynn, at the poker in his hand, at the dog lying listlessly in the corner. Butch came out of the bedroom with his keys in his hand, wild-eyed and red-faced. “Where . . .”
“Moab!” Casey yelled.
“I know where it is!” Daniel said.
“Go!” Casey yelled, and everyone trampled out. They heard the kitchen door open, then a yelp from Zeus, then the sound of the truck pulling away, kicking up gravel.
Flynn stood in the middle room, still holding the poker, still staring at the dog. For some strange reason, it reminded him of his mother—her mop of hair, the look of futility in her face. Why hadn’t anyone seen this coming?
In their room, Casey had put her long underwear on and was stuffing clothes into her bag. She didn’t look up when Flynn came in.
“We are so out of here,” she said. She jabbed her finger toward the middle room, her body trembling, her hair tangled and wet. “What was that about?” she said, looking at the poker in his hand. “Who are you?”
Flynn stood over her, the poker cold and hard in his grip. He realized that she thought he was the one who had killed Apollo.
Casey pulled on her jeans and flannel shirt, zipped her bag, and stood, clutching its strap. “Are you going to pack,” Casey snapped at him, “or do I have to do that for you too?” She hefted the bag onto her shoulder and stomped through the middle room and through the kitchen door.
Flynn followed, still in his towel, still carrying the poker. Everyone was right: this had been a huge mistake.
As he passed through the middle room he thought he saw a slight panting movement in the dog’s ribs.
Outside, the cold air knifed into his skin, the gravel stabbed the bottoms of his feet, and he felt dizzy, short of breath, from the altitude. The stars were still a celestial spectacle. From the dark stables came a snort from one of the horses, and a frenzy of yips and yowls pierced the air, as if the coyotes were within striking distance now. From some dark corner Zeus emitted a low, menacing growl.
When Casey got to the Forerunner she turned to face him and he paused by the welcome sign. As if he had a choice. As if, were Casey to drive off without him, he wouldn’t be lost in the desert. As if he would know exactly where to go, and what to do when he got there.
A GIRL’S GOTTA DO WHAT A GIRL’S GOTTA DO
Well, now he’s gone insane. Off. His. Rocker. So I had to petition for full custody, and to keep receiving the same child support, I don’t care if he’s unemployed, because what they don’t know is that woman he’s with is a bestselling author who makes a ton of money.
Soooo much has changed. Who knew my life would turn into this?
So this is what I want to say. Here it is. Before I go on and on, I’m just going to say this. This man, he’s the love of my life. If you haven’t had this feeling then you can’t understand, and you shouldn’t stand in judgment of me just because I’m about to file these petitions. If you don’t know what it’s like to have the love of your life look you in the eyes and say “I don’t love you anymore and I’m not sure I ever did” then you cannot understand me. You. Can. Not.
Okay, now I’m going to cry.
We never had a chance. Not even when we were first married, living in that shithole. We didn’t even have time for a honeymo
on, we had to work. I mean, we did have a long weekend on Nantucket, that was nice, and we called it a honeymoon, but in retrospect it wasn’t much of one. We rode bikes, we got completely roasted (I have fair skin, lots of freckles), we ate ice cream. Then three days of lying in bed sunburned and trying to kiss without hurting our faces. I still have this cute little ceramic lighthouse he bought me there. I love lighthouses!
Then Nathan was born, and everything changed. Not that it was Nathan’s fault. God, no. We all know whose fault it was. Is.
It’s been a year and a half since he up and left, but I don’t think this feeling is ever going to go away.
I’ll tell you this much: that man has some anger issues. He thinks I’m angry. He thinks I’m hysterical. Ha! I’d rather be the way I am than the way he is. The way I am, at least you know what you’re getting. The way he is, watch out. You never see it coming.
Now you tell me which is more dangerous.
And now what’s he done? Moving way the heck out to Colorado! My goodness.
What kind of father leaves his kids?
He’s off in the mountains right now. God help me, I don’t know where exactly but I don’t want to know. It might as well be Siberia for all I care.
Just before he moved out, very sudden, he called to tell me what he was planning to do, and I slammed down the phone. I couldn’t believe it. First the separation, then I was served with divorce papers (worst feeling in the world, by the way, I don’t wish that on anybody), and now this. I didn’t let him tell the kids; it would have been too painful for them. He tried for days, but I was like, no dice, mister. They would have been completely confused. You might as well say Daddy’s going to Mars! This was in mid-December and he was supposed to see them on Christmas Eve, but I drove them up to Binghamton. I’ll be damned if I was going to let him ruin their Christmas! Then he wrote them this pathetic letter and tried to get our neighbor to give it to them but she knew what to do. After that, after he left for Colorado, I took over operations. Sold the house in White Plains and bought a house in Binghamton, where they’d be safer, where I’d have my family to help me out. They’re never going to see him again, no sir. Nobody’s going to steal my kids from me, like that guy on TV. Did you hear about that? This guy, he took his kids to Florida, then he kept going and nobody knows where they are! That’s why I had to petition for full custody. Somebody has to think of the children, am I right?