The Animal Girl

by John Fulton

  One afternoon, Evelyn answered her front door and was surprised to see Margaret, dressed in shorts, a white shirt, and large white summer hat. When she took her hat off, she was sweating, and her expression was severe and businesslike. “I came to visit with you,” she said, not sounding particularly friendly.

  Evelyn poured two glasses of iced tea, and they sat on the screened-in porch where Margaret spoke of the summer day camp Tessa attended and the little girl’s love for gardening with her father. After she’d finished her tea, Margaret sat up stiffly and said, “I came here to ask you something.” Her fine, pointed features—her chin, her narrow nose, her deep-set eyes—gathered intensity.

  “OK,” Evelyn said.

  “Russell has been different recently, different in a good way. He’s a fearful person. I’m sure you know all about that by now.”

  Margaret looked at her then, pausing, so that Evelyn felt obliged to nod, to confirm that she did in fact know about this side of Russell.

  “He has always been fearful, but what happened to Jenny made him even more so. Lately, he’s been both happy and miserable. He’s been”—she pursed her lips, searching for the word—“tumultuous. You know that your accident almost finished him. And he’s stood up to me on several occasions. I’ve not been entirely approving of his frequent afternoon visits to your house. But he hasn’t let me dissuade him. That’s rare for Russell. I didn’t like it at first. And it’s still hard for me. I’ll admit that. But I was wrong. It’s been good for him. Evidently, you’ve been good for him.”

  Evelyn smiled. “I’m glad you think so.”

  But this concession seemed difficult for Margaret, who gave Evelyn only the slightest smile before continuing. “I have one more thing to add. I only want to say that I hope very much that you won’t play with him. I understand that people do that these days. They’re with someone for a while and then they’re not. I have nothing against that, per se. But Russell needs more than that. And Tessa needs more than that.”

  Evelyn should have been angry at this old woman’s nosiness, her extreme presumption, but she wasn’t. It was clear to her that, if she were to become in some way a part of this family, she would not be the only “force,” as Russell had called her, to contend with. “I don’t intend to play with him. I want more than that, too.”

  “Well, then,” Margaret said, and nodded approvingly.

  On a Saturday morning at one of Tessa’s soccer games, Russell told Evelyn that Jenny might be dying. They’d been walking beneath the giant maples that bordered the park, waiting for the second half to begin.

  “Oh,” Evelyn said, experiencing a physical sensation of relief, a lightening in her chest, at hearing him say so, and wishing she had felt something more appropriate.

  “It’s not the first time we’ve thought so,” he explained. “Her kidneys seem to be failing. They’re not sure why. Margaret and I made the decision not to interfere. The decision had nothing to do with you. We made it months ago.”

  Evelyn nodded. She was relieved to hear this, too.

  “Of course, she might not die. She might keep living for years. And if she did, I wouldn’t quite know what to do, should we … you and I … want more, want …” He stopped walking and faced her now. “To marry.” Neither of them had brought up this possibility before, and Evelyn was so surprised, so blatantly happy, that she had to hold back a smile. “It might be that in a few years I would feel OK about filing for divorce. After all, that would just be a technicality. But I’m not sure I could do it.”

  In the distance, the girls were huddled on their separate sidelines and listening to their coaches. Evelyn took Russell’s hand and said, even as she imagined him standing before a justice of the peace, nervous and very handsome in a tuxedo, “You don’t need to do that. I’d understand. Besides, I’ve been married. I don’t have to do that again anytime soon.”

  Russell shook his head, then looked up into the leafy canopy. “Oh, God,” he said. “Sometimes I wish she’d just go. She’d just finally go. But I’m not sure what I could or couldn’t do if she didn’t.” He looked down at Evelyn now. “Is that OK?”

  She kissed him on the cheek. “It’s going to have to be,” she said, though in truth she felt the familiar anxiety rush through her that somehow, improbable though it might be, his sleeping wife might wake up, might step out of bed one day and take everything from Evelyn.

  In the weeks since her accident, she’d left her wrecked bike in the garage and felt a shiver of dread whenever she saw it. Nonetheless, she hadn’t expected her hesitation on the morning of her forty-fourth birthday when Russell knocked on her door with a new mountain bike, fire-truck red, beside him. “Happy birthday,” he said. He handed her a jet-black helmet. “I’ve been missing our bike rides. I thought you might like to take a birthday jaunt. So long as you promise to look both ways before you cross the street.”

  Evelyn laughed, hoping he wouldn’t notice her nervousness. “I promise.”

  Some minutes later, after Russell had pedaled out of the driveway and down the sidewalk, Evelyn froze on her bike. She gripped the hand brakes tightly, leaning forward and testing the feel of the seat beneath her, then closed her eyes, opened them again, and pushed off. The concrete rushed too suddenly beneath her, and the bike seemed unfamiliar and wobbly, a strange, dangerous thing, with nothing but air and pedals at her feet. She steadied herself and followed Russell through the neighborhoods, stopping when he stopped, crossing the streets just behind him. When they pulled onto Main Street, teeming with afternoon traffic, Evelyn felt her body tense, her arms and shoulders flex, each time a car whipped past her, each time the rush of air and furious sound threatened to topple her. She kept her eyes on the narrow shoulder of the road and tried not to imagine what would become of her should she swerve out too far. The worst could happen. Anything could happen. But it wouldn’t, she told herself. And once they’d reached Huron River Way, quieter and less traveled, she took in deep, steadying breaths and began to enjoy the cool shade of trees, taking in the blue sky and feeling the warm air part for her as she sped forward. When she pulled alongside Russell, he lifted a hand with surprising calm from the handlebars and pointed at something out on the river that he wanted her to see.

  Acknowledgments

  I would like to express my gratitude to the Michigan Council for the Arts and Cultural Affairs for their generous financial support of this project. I am also grateful for the support of the English Department and the College of Liberal Arts at the University of Massachusetts-Boston. Many thanks to Sheilah Coleman, Joshua Henkin, Christopher Shainin, and Ian Reed Twiss, who read drafts of these stories and helped make this a better book; to Dr. Paul Sorum, who advised me on medical details; to Carol Stein, for the cover; to Alicka Pistik, my agent; to John Sarnecki and Mary-Catherine Harrison, for their enduring friendship; and to all the people at LSU Press who brought this book into being, especially Michael Giffith, a thorough, smart, and incredibly generous editor. Finally, I owe my greatest debt of gratitude to Eve, for her advice, her willingness to be my first and last reader, and her love.