Undeliverable

by Rebecca Demarest

  “If you don’t want to talk, fine, but sit down before you hurt yourself any more.”

  “It’s your damn fault, anyway.” But she sat down at one of the sorting tables, reaching down to rub the offending extremity.

  Ben followed her over and perched on the edge of the table, far enough away that he felt less like he was hulking over her, hoping she would be less likely to try running. “How does it feel?”

  “I killed my parents, happy?” she snapped.

  He hesitated. “Not exactly what I meant.”

  “At least, I thought I did.” She stopped rubbing but stayed hunched over, not looking at him. “When I was twelve. We were out late, and I wanted to stop at McDonald’s and get a happy meal because I really wanted the toy.” She snorted. “They were running a My Little Pony promotion, Hot Wheels cars for the boys, of course. But I really wanted that pony.”

  She paused but Ben said nothing, not wanting to interrupt the flow of words now that they had started.

  “I was throwing a fit in the back of the car. Dad was driving, and he turned to say something to me, something about not stopping since it was so late, and a drunk driver swerved over the middle lane. The police said there was nothing he could have done. Even if he’d been looking at the road, nothing he could have done. It was too quick. But I thought it was me. I had caused it.” She finally looked up at him. “I went a little crazy. Tried everything I could think of to kill myself because I thought I didn’t deserve to live after that. My grandmother didn’t know what to do, she was already fairly old by that point. So she gave in to the social worker’s suggestion and had me committed. Two weeks of lockdown. And when I got back to school, word got out that I was crazy. Crazy enough I had to be locked up. I hate being called crazy.” She ran out of breath. “It feels okay.”

  “Being called crazy?” He was trying to absorb everything she’d just thrown at him so his brain wasn’t quite up to speed.

  “No, dumbass, my ankle. It feels okay.” She stood unsteadily and then took two giant steps forward. “Yup, fine.” She started back to the warehouse and Ben scrambled to catch up.

  He had known there was something in her past she wasn’t happy about, but this was so far beyond what he had been expecting. “So you’ve lived with your grandmother ever since then?”

  “Except for the couple of summers at an internment camp to keep kids from killing themselves, yeah.” She glanced up at his incredulous face. “Jeez, joke much?”

  He threw his hands up in exasperation. “Well, you drop a bomb like that, it takes a person a moment or two to catch up. Don’t make a joke for the next five minutes or so; I’m still processing.”

  “Stop processing, start inventorying while we eat.” They had reached the warehouse and she shoved the list into his hands. “My turn to climb the shelves in search of buried treasures.”

  “But, you’re okay now?”

  “You mean, am I going to off myself when you turn around?”

  “No, I only meant—”

  “It’s okay, I know what you meant. But no, no medication, no suicidal thoughts, the occasionally normal and totally healthy homicidal thoughts, which my therapist told me were perfectly natural. Next, 1965, September.” She waited for him to indicate he’d found the relevant page, but when she heard nothing, she turned to face him again. He was staring at her, trying to determine whether she was joking again or not.

  “Christ, my five minutes not up? No, I’m not homicidal, no I’m not in therapy, no I don’t think I murdered my parents anymore, and yes, I still carry some scars—small scars—because of it, but that’s it. Stop looking at me.”

  “Sorry, I just—” He had spent so long wrapped up in his own problems, he’d forgotten the kind of pain other people had to deal with on a daily basis. This forceful reminder was proving quite enlightening.

  “And no sorry. None of it’s your fault. And 1965, September.” She made shooing motions when he still didn’t turn the page. “Go!”

  “Right, 1965...found it.” And that was that, he thought. At least she had finally shared.

  They worked until eight that night, stopping for Chinese around five, and made plans to carpool into the “theater district” early the next afternoon. Atlanta didn’t have a theater district per se, but a lot of the theaters were around the same neighborhoods. During dinner they figured out where the shows were playing and the approximate end times to better lay out a map of where they wanted to be at what times.

  Sylvia printed out another theater’s playbill. “Nice, Wicked is playing this weekend. Lots of good people there. They like a sob story.”

  Ben took offense to her implication. “This is not a sob story!”

  “Boy goes missing, father keeps hunting after everyone else gives up, but can’t find him. Of course it’s a sob story. Same as a witch who can’t seem to get along with anyone, and is shunned for being better than they are. Good sob stories, all.”

  “Can you please stop calling it that?”

  “Can I call it a heart-wrenching story?”

  He thought for a moment before responding. “Yes. That’s better at least. Doesn’t make it sound like it belongs on the Lifetime channel.” Ben took the playbill from her and noted the times on a map of the neighborhood that he had printed from a website. “Is that all of them?”

  “Looks like it. The last theater is undergoing renovations, so they’re not playing anything.”

  “Good, looks like the earliest one gets out at two. Shall I pick you up at noon so we can find parking and a good place to stand?”

  “Sounds good to me. Now let’s get back to those shelves. We’re almost there!”

  Ben arrived outside of Sylvia’s house at ten minutes to noon and stood on her sidewalk a moment to admire the landscaping around the 120-year-old house. It was impeccably painted with neatly weeded and mulched butterfly gardens that surrounded the cozy two-story, plantation-style home. As he went to ring the bell, he noticed a sign declaring the house a historical monument. Made sense for the outside to be so well taken care of, then. They would receive a yearly stipend for keeping it up.

  The door flew open and Sylvia stood in the doorway, hair yet uncombed and a smudge of red paint on her cheek.

  “Crap, is it noon already?” She glanced at her watch as she rubbed ineffectually at the red stain. “You’re early. Serves me right I guess. I’ll meet you in the garden out back. There should still be a plate of muffins back there.” The door slammed in his face again. Ben’s mouth had remained open through the brief tirade and he now closed it, contemplating the lion’s head knocker staring at his nose. He shrugged and turned to the back of the house.

  Passing through a side gate, Ben entered what he could only describe as a recreation of the Secret Garden. A low stone wall encircled the small backyard, entirely engulfed in ivy, with a tall weeping willow over a small pond and rioting flower beds. The small section of grass that was allowed to remain featured a metal bistro set with a teakettle and a plate of muffins. On one of the chairs was a terrier mix, fast asleep on his back, feet twitching in the air.

  As the gate clicked shut behind Ben, the terrier dismounted the chair in one swift roll, coming instantly to attention. It fixated on the strange man in its territory and trotted up to him, tongue lolling, to sit at attention at his feet.

  “Well, hello.” He squatted down to offer his hand to the mutt, who ignored it and continued to study Ben. The dog stared until Ben became uncomfortable and finally broke eye contact with it. With a single whuff, it sat up on its hind legs and offered Ben its paw. Laughing, he shook it, and the dog trotted to the screen door and let out one sharp bark.

  Sylvia’s voice echoed from inside the house, “I know, Owney. Entertain him, will you?”

  Owney snorted and trotted back to the bistro set, jumped into the chair he had pre
viously vacated, curled up in the sun, and promptly went back to sleep. Ben took the opposite chair and picked up a muffin. He took a bite while studying the dog and was surprised to find the pastry was stuffed with bacon and cheese.

  Sylvia came out the back door, wiping the last of the paint off of her hands. “I see you have met my Owney.”

  Ben nodded, trying to swallow. “I did. Interesting name.”

  “I’ve had him since I was thirteen. Right after I got out of the center, Grandma bought me a puppy. I guess she felt I needed company, so we went to the pound and came home with this ruffian.” Owney’s feet twitched, but he ignored his owner. “His name comes from the mascot of the USPS rail system at the turn of the century—a stray that wandered in off the streets and adopted the whole of the U.S. postal system. Traveled the world. Little terrier mutt like mine.” She tickled Owney’s stomach while he dreamed, causing him to twitch off of his chair. The dog shook himself and glared balefully up at his owner until she broke a piece off the muffin Ben was holding and tossed it to him. He wolfed it down and wandered off to inspect the perimeter.

  “I couldn’t help but notice how stunning the house is. A bit unexpected from a girl who professed her family to be dedicated civil servants forever.”

  “That’s my mom’s side. This is my dad’s family house. Old Atlanta. We have boxes of photos upstairs that date back to the early days of the city and the building of this house.” She slouched into the chair her pup had recently vacated. “I keep the gardens as Grandma liked. Riotously overgrown, but well kept.” She leaned over to the nearest bed and ran a hand through the foliage. “It’s easier than it looks with this postage-stamp yard. Plus all the hard work to landscape it was done long before my time. Doesn’t take much to keep mature plants happy.”

  “Well, it’s lovely.” Ben dusted the crumbs off of his hands and stood, both eager to get started, but also somewhat reluctant to leave the beautiful retreat. “Shall we?”

  “But of course!” She whistled and Owney trotted to her side. “In you go. I have to lock up. Oh don’t look at me like that, I’ll be back.” She herded the dog inside and locked the back door. “Off we go!”

  They circled back to the front of the house and loaded into Ben’s car. As she buckled her seatbelt, Sylvia noticed the mounds of flyers on the back seat. “Yeesh, save a tree for oxygen?”

  He colored slightly, but defended himself. “I’ve gone through more than that on some weekends. That’ll probably just last us the day since it’s so nice out. Lots of people should be walking around.”

  They chatted amiably about old houses as they worked their way further into the center of the city. It felt odd to be heading out to canvas with another person, but Ben found he rather enjoyed having someone else along, someone whose conversation didn’t have to be entirely about what was lost. At least not his loss.

  They managed to find a parking garage with a tolerable daily rate close to the theaters and parked. From there, they made their way to the corner that hosted a movie theater and two playhouses, one of which was playing Wicked.

  “This should do us for a while. We’ll move to one of the other corners once the Wicked crowd dies down.” They split the large stack of flyers into three piles, the largest stack stored next to a lamp post under a loose brick for later.

  The first movie emptied out around one o’clock, and they were kept busy until the Wicked audience started streaming out of the theater.

  “Have you seen this boy?”

  “Can you just look at this poster a moment?”

  “Do you have a moment of time?”

  “Please, have you seen Benny?”

  For the most part they were met with polite negatives; about one in ten people actually took a flyer. A few people actually stopped to ask about it: when had it happened, was this your son? Your brother? Then their rhythm was interrupted by a Louisiana drawl:

  “Lord, darlin’, ain’t that just the saddest?”

  Ben turned to glance at Sylvia and see who it was that had shown an interest in the flyer. His glance skidded over the man and settled on the redhead at his side. “Jeannie?”

  “Jesus. Ben.” She quickly released her escort’s arm and took a step to the side. “What are you doing here?”

  Ben’s eyes flicked back and forth between his estranged wife and the man she was with, trying to figure out what their relationship was. Wondering what she was doing in Atlanta when on a Sunday like this the store should be open. There would be lots of tourists on the streets shopping. “Flyering.” The man didn’t seem like anyone Ben knew, definitely not one of their mutual friends, and she seemed overly friendly with him.

  “Yeah, I can see that. Who’s she?” Jeannie seemed to fold in on herself, her arms wrapped around each other though the day was warm.

  “A coworker. She offered to help.” He didn’t feel like talking with her. She hadn’t wanted any part in this before, so she had no right asking questions now. Especially not with someone who took such pity on them as the Louisiana man had.

  “Uh huh.” They both paused.

  Ben thought he should at least try to be civil for the sake of the third parties in all of this, if for nothing else. Sylvia was starting to look downright antsy. “So, what are you in town for?”

  “Oh, I was taking Pierre to see Wicked. He’d never seen it before. Uh, right. Pierre, Ben. Ben, Pierre.” The lanky man at his estranged wife’s side held out a hand and slapped a lopsided grin on his face.

  “Heard a lot about you, Ben.”

  Ben stuck his hands in his pockets. He could already tell there was something about this overly friendly man that he didn’t like. “Really? Considering I don’t know you and my wife and I have only been apart for a little over a month, that’s a lot of talking.”

  Jeannie took a step to put herself between the two men. “Ben, don’t.”

  Ben was nearly as angry as the night she had thrown him out. He felt it boiling up, and he decided he didn’t want to control it this time. He was done being the one who had to watch everything he said and did, not when she made it so clear that even when he did, he wasn’t good for her. “What? Don’t I have a right to know when my wife’s found a new interest?”

  Pierre leaned around Jeannie. “Hey, man, we’re just friends.”

  Ben snorted. “Right. Friends. Walking arm-in-arm out of a theater. Gotcha.”

  “Don’t you dare.” Jeannie stepped up into Ben’s face, tears standing out in her eyes. “It’s been seriously lonely since you left. Pierre was friendly when he came into the shop looking for a few pieces for his new house, and we’ve been spending some time together, that’s it.”

  He couldn’t stop himself. “Oh? And whose fault is it that you are lonely? I seem to remember you telling me to get out.”

  Ben had expected her to get mad, like she always did, to rise to the occasion and fight, but she just sighed and he could see that there wasn’t any anger there, only sadness. “I was lonely even before that. You had completely retreated from me, fallen into your obsession and drinking. God, Ben, you were drinking so much. There wasn’t room for me and your wall. Yes, I told you to leave, but that’s only because you’d forgotten about me a long while before.”

  He felt as though his heart was missing beats, and he wanted to scream, shake her, but he had at least a modicum of self-respect left. “You threw me out! I was only trying to find our son!”

  She was starting to cry now, and Pierre was looking even more uncertain about what he should do. Ben hated that she was crying, and he started to feel his anger ebb. He’d never been able to handle it when a woman cried. That was, until she added, “You weren’t doing any good, for anybody. Me, you, or our son. Probably aren’t doing any good now either.”

  Ben’s anger resurged, coalescing into a cold hard knot in his chest. He shivered despit
e the warm day, for the first time actually hating his wife. “At least I love him enough to try.”

  Jeannie’s breath left her in a gasp, and her face was drawn and colorless. “You bastard,” she murmured. “At least I know enough to know when I’m beat. And to move on.”

  Ben didn’t care how much he hurt her now; everything was fair game. “Apparently. Into the arms of Pierre.” He gave the man’s name a French accent.

  Sylvia tried to work her way between the couple. “Ah, Ben?”

  Jeannie grabbed Ben’s arm and pulled him away from Sylvia. “You have the gall to insult me when your teenage slut over there has her hands on my son’s face?”

  “No. You. Didn’t.” Sylvia grabbed the hand clutching Ben’s arm and in one swift twist dislodged it. She shoved the stack of flyers into Jeannie’s hand. “I am not a slut. I am not sleeping with your husband—though god knows that if he asked I would probably oblige—but he’s too wrapped up in the search for his son to even think twice about any woman. Except you. Still has a picture of you at work. With Benny.” She stepped away from the woman and threaded her arm through Ben’s. “And I am twenty-four, thank you very much.”

  Sylvia started to force-march Ben from the corner while Jeannie stood with the stack of flyers in her hand. When they glanced back at the next corner she had dropped them in the middle of the sidewalk and was walking quickly in the other direction, Pierre trying vainly to keep up.

  Seeing his son’s face start to drift this way and that in the wake of passersby, Ben wrenched free of Sylvia’s arm and hurried back to their original corner. He carefully picked up each one, squaring it to the stack, trying to brush off whatever city detritus clung to the pages. His face pointed firmly to the pavement, and he didn’t say anything when Sylvia came up behind him and laid a hand on his back. At least he had stopped shaking, even if he did feel like breaking something. She had no right, no right, to be criticizing his efforts to find their son. Not when she had given up so completely. Not when she was doing everything in her power to replace everything in her life that reminded her of the son she had loved and held just a year ago.