by Sung J. Woo
They’d been walking for a good half an hour, probably a mile away from the parking lot. Alice was not a small woman, but Kevin was afraid she was overestimating her endurance. He tried to put weight on his ankle, but the pain made his head woozy.
“Don’t be one of those men,” she said, wrapping his arm around her shoulder. “We’ll get through this, but only if you let me.”
They passed the time by taking in the beauty around them. There were large clusters of hydrangeas along the path, a sudden burst of white, a subdued flare of lavender, a benevolent bouquet of yellow. It took twice as long, and they stopped several times for Kevin to rest his good leg and Alice to catch her breath. On the way, they met a father and his teenage son, and the man asked if they could help in any way. Before Kevin had a chance, Alice spoke up.
“Thank you, but no, we’re okay. Have a great day.”
She hadn’t sounded confrontational, but almost. After they’d gone, she told him, “I can take care of you. Of us.”
“I know.”
“If I needed the man’s help,” she added, “I would’ve asked for it.”
It was a lie, but back then, Kevin hadn’t known that. He hadn’t known how Alice would always be ready to extend herself but never receive in return. He argued with her that couples operated best on a balance, that give-and-take was an implicit contract to marriage, but she never budged. Eventually he relented and learned to live in her debt, which was what she wanted, what must’ve made her feel safe.
That Sunday morning at Stokes Forest, as he sat in bed and watched while she packed them back up for their return, he couldn’t stop himself from making yet another ask.
“It’s Mother’s Day today,” he said. “I think the best gift I can give my mom is for you to meet her.”
Alice, done with her suitcase, moved onto Kevin’s duffel. “And why do you think that?”
“You’d get along,” he said. “She would like you.”
“If she didn’t?”
“Tough.”
Her back was to him, but he could tell she’d liked that answer. He didn’t exactly know how, but he felt it, like a puzzle piece snapping into place. He’d dated plenty of girls before, many he’d been fairly crazy about, but this was not the same. Being with a woman he liked had been like the quenching of a thirst, but with Alice, there was no release. His desire for her was a constant, pervasive hum, chugging along in the background of his mind.
Holy shit, he thought to himself. This is love.
He rode in the passenger seat of his sedan, a seldom-experienced perspective that let him feel like an outside observer to his own life. Riding down Route 206, past the canary-yellow clusters of forsythia in bloom along the road, they drove through the towns of his youth. He told her about Old Man Rafferty’s in Hillsborough, where Kevin and his friends always ordered dessert first as the menu instructed (“Life is short!”). On the night of their senior prom, they walked around Harlingen Cemetery and toasted their beers to the dearly departed. And at Montgomery Cinemas, he’d seen his first foreign-language film, Il Postino, a movie he’d found so moving that his date asked him if he was all right when she saw him sobbing like a little girl.
“That was our first and only date,” Kevin said.
“That last part, where the guy is playing the sounds he’d recorded for Neruda . . .”
“Stop, you’re gonna get me all verklempt!”
As they neared Princeton, Alice pulled over at an Exxon station and grabbed her purse.
“Not Mother’s Day without flowers,” she said. Kevin reached for his wallet, but Alice put a hand on his arm. “My treat.”
With a bundle of red carnations in his lap, he gave Alice turn-by-turn directions to his parents’ house.
“Is there anything I should know?” Alice asked.
“Not really. My father doesn’t speak much. He doesn’t exactly have command of the English language, though even if he did, he wouldn’t say much. My mother does translation work for the university, both oral and written, so she talks like a native.”
“You have a sister.”
“Still in college. Supposed to have graduated a couple years ago, but it didn’t happen.”
They made the final turn, but instead of parking in front of the white mailbox of his parents, they stopped behind a police cruiser.
Kevin sighed.
“You’re not concerned,” Alice said.
“Not yet, no,” he said.
The commotion was where it always was, between his mother and her nemesis, Mrs. Fugate, by the Tolkien-esque sycamore tree that sat between the two backyards.
“So I take it this is not an anomaly,” Alice said as they made their way over. Kevin’s ankle was better, but he still leaned on her for support.
“No. The cop and I are on a first-name basis. If it wasn’t my mother arguing with her neighbor, it was my sister, Judy, getting into some sort of fight, disorderliness, whatever.”
“I like your family already.”
“You can have them,” Kevin said. “This has been an ongoing feud, by the way—the old neighbors moved, and the tree sits on the property line.”
The cop on duty was indeed the one he almost considered a friend, Mitch. Kevin’s mother was holding a tall tree trimmer, the kind with the blade at the tip and a rope on a pulley to snap the cut. She was in her gardening outfit of green gloves and Mets baseball cap, and she held the pole with both hands, looking as if she had no intention of letting it go.
“Kevin,” Mitch said, grateful for his arrival. “Can you please talk some sense into your mother here? Your dad has given up—he went back in the house to make me deal with this mess.”
“Mom,” Kevin said with an open hand, motioning for the trimmer. “Please.”
“It’s my tree.”
Mrs. Fugate, arms crossed, snorted her displeasure. “The hell it is.”
“If she doesn’t stop,” Mitch told Kevin, “I’m gonna have to bring her in. I’m serious. I know it’s Mother’s Day, but Dr. Fugate plays golf with the chief, you know? I have to do something”—and now he was talking to Kevin’s mother—“unless Mrs. Lee promises once and for all to modify this tree only if she and the Fugates come to a written agreement beforehand.”
“They don’t take care of it,” Mrs. Lee said. “I’ve been doing this for a long time. It’s my right.”
“Kevin,” Mitch said. “Please don’t make me do this.”
“Hi,” Alice said to Mrs. Lee. “I’m Alice, a friend of Kevin’s. I see the pile of branches you have here already. Do you have much more to cut?”
“Just one more.”
Everyone looked up when she pointed her trimmer to the branch that clearly needed cutting, a dry brown bone of a thing, looking like a desiccated claw grabbing at the sky.
“Which is clearly on my side,” Mrs. Fugate said. “I’ve had enough of this. I’m going to have my husband call Chief Maddox right now.”
While Mitch attempted to placate Mrs. Fugate, Kevin watched his mother and Alice talk without talking. Alice smiled, then his mother smiled, and then she passed the trimmer to Alice and stood as a human shield against Mitch the cop while Alice excised the dead wood. It bounced from branch to branch, end over end, heading for Mrs. Fugate, who ran away screaming.
As it turned out, everyone got what they wanted that day. Mitch got to handcuff Alice, Mrs. Fugate got her arrest, his mother got the branch, and Alice got to give. And Kevin got what he wanted, too, bringing his mother and his future wife together. Now his mother was dead and his wife was no longer his wife, but back then, he’d been happy with the knowledge that these two women were very much alike and that he was their interconnection.
Kevin sat on his living room floor and gave Snaps a good brushing, thinking of that day. His dog whipped her head around and growled. Kevin, in his reverie, ran the metal brush through her tail, a no-no.
“Sorry, girl. I should be paying attention, I know.”
Kevin’s doorb
ell ding-donged, and Snaps bolted from relaxation to alert mode. It was too early for it to be Judy.
At the door, Bill thrust a six-pack of beer to his chest.
“Can’t have you leave without a proper good-bye,” he said.
Snaps, even with her bum hips, found the energy to jump up around Bill.
“Missy Snaps!” he said, and he gave her a good scratch on her nose.
Kevin sat on the end of the sofa while Bill took the armchair. Tomorrow Ernie would assign half of Kevin’s clients to Bill, including Robert the Third and Alexa. It depressed Kevin to think that the club would go on without him. And not seeing Bill every workday—it was a different kind of divorce, another odd space in his life left open.
“You sure about all this?” Bill asked.
“I haven’t liked the job for a while now. And this thing I told you about my parents . . .”
“That’s no reason to just quit your job. I mean what the hell are you going to do, you know, to live?”
Ernie, being the sweetheart that he was, had told Kevin that if he changed his mind in a week, he’d be welcomed back, but Kevin told him not to bother. Ernie asked him the same question that Bill was asking now, and Kevin’s response remained the same.
“I’m not sure what I want, but I know what I don’t want.”
Bill nodded. “You’re okay financially? The airline ticket to San Francisco must’ve cost some Benjamins.”
“Trent, you know, the pilot with the Connors two-handed backhand? He got me on a reasonable flight at the last minute. Seemed like the right thing to do to go out there and see what I can find out.”
“And your dad hasn’t told you anything more.”
“He says my mother took care of it all, whatever the hell that means.”
Bill cracked open his can of beer, and Kevin did likewise.
“Love?” Bill asked, raising his can.
“Love,” Kevin said, raising his own. “How long have we been doing that?”
“So long I don’t remember.”
They toasted. Aluminum never emitted the satisfying ring of glass, but it was better than nothing. As the carbonation effervesced in his throat, Kevin felt as if they should say something meaningful to each other, but all they did was slurp and burp. This is where it was better to be women, who’d hug and cry and promise they’d do lunch every week. Even though the sensitive man was in, it was for girlfriends and wives. Guys were still guys with each other, keeping their emotions in check, preferring to talk about last night’s ball game than to dwell on their feelings. He and Bill had been together for more than half of their lives, and this was it. The morning after Alice had left, Kevin walked into the club and saw Bill at his court, waiting for him. His friend tossed him a new can of tennis balls, and together they pried open the lids, the whooshing sound of the vacuum seal breaking and the smell of untouched rubber familiar and cleansing. They hit the crap out of those balls, and as his anger and melancholy bounced away with each stroke, Kevin wished there were words to express what he felt toward Bill. It was gratitude, but it was also love. They could attach the word to a can of beer, but not to each other. It was understood, and maybe that made it more special, or possibly just tragic.
They exchanged a handshake that led to a half hug.
“You’ll be missed,” Bill said.
“Same here,” Kevin said.
And then he was gone. Snaps laid down to snooze on the rug by the door. Above her hung a small oval painting, one that Judy had done of her as a puppy, standing on a pair of open hands that pointed out toward the viewer, offering the tiny dog to the world. Judy had used thick brushstrokes, the dog’s fur like a relief map, the lines on the palms etched in. His dog used to be so small, so young. His sister was supposed to become a successful artist, and he a professional tennis player. He thought his parents would stay healthy and grow old together. He and Alice, too.
Kevin walked over to the window that faced the backyard and pushed it open. The air was damp and cool, evening turning into night, another autumn day coming to a close. Crickets chirped faintly, far away in the approaching darkness. He wished for something to occupy him until his sister came to pick him up, but there was nothing left.
13
On the kitchen counter, Judy found a small stack of pages.
“Oh, that,” Kevin said, and from his guarded tone, she knew she’d stumbled on something he hadn’t meant for her to see. Kevin had made seven copies, one for each day that he would be in San Francisco. It read:
QUICK WALK—MORNING
•get plastic bag (in case she poops)
FEEDING—MORNING
•1 1/2 cups of dry food
•1/2 cup of wet food (cover with plastic wrap and place can in fridge)
•Fresh water in bowl, filled 3/4
LONG WALK—AFTERNOON
•get plastic bag (in case she poops)
FEEDING—EVENING
•1 1/2 cups of dry food
•1/2 cup of wet food (cover with plastic wrap and place can in fridge)
QUICK WALK—NIGHT
•take her out so she can pee
Her control-freak brother, doing what he did best. At the beginning of each line item was an empty checkbox. Did he actually expect her to take a pen and make a mark as she completed each task? If so, he could just shove it.
Granted, the last time Judy house-sat for him, there was an incident. Snaps ended up peeing in the downstairs bathroom because Judy had forgotten to walk her that afternoon, which was totally bullshit because she hadn’t forgotten, she’d simply chose to delay it a little because it was the season finale of Lost and she had to watch the clips episode before it because there were a gazillion characters and more side plots than all the daytime soaps put together, and as for the finale itself, she couldn’t miss even a minute because if she did, the show’s title would become even more apt.
“What, you think I’m gonna screw up again?” Judy asked.
“No,” Kevin answered, “of course not,” and now his voice shifted again, this time to that of a placating big brother. These sheets of paper weren’t just a collection of stupid checklists but also a time machine. Throughout her adolescence, those empty squares were always ready to report some future failure of hers. Kevin and her dad were the ones crafting these checklists and sticking them on the fridge, a happy fruit-shaped magnet clip (winking apple, grinning banana, laughing pineapple) holding up a clean white page with bold black letters, announcing chores that had to be done, family trips that necessitated preparation, groceries needed for the coming week.
She tossed the stack back on the counter, the sheets fanning out.
“You don’t have to use them if you don’t want to,” Kevin said. He picked them up and piled them straight again.
“It’s like you expect me to fail.”
“You’re reading way too much into this. I just want to make sure you take care of Snaps.”
“If people expected more of me, I would give more of myself. It’s a two-way street.”
“Well, there was that accident last time . . .”
“See? That’s all you remember. How about the fact that for the other six days, I was a spectacular success? Isn’t that worth remembering?”
Snaps sauntered in, a stuffed duck in her mouth, because Judy had raised her voice. She remembered Kevin telling her how Snaps always appeared whenever he and Alice argued, almost as if she wanted to referee the verbal bout, though to Judy, the dog hardly looked like an official, circling twice and plopping on the rug underneath the breakfast table, peeking up at Judy and Kevin with doleful eyes. She let out a long, heavy sigh. If anything, Snaps looked sad and tired, like an old lady sitting at a bus stop. Kevin probably hadn’t noticed since he lived with the animal, but Judy could see how much his dog had aged since the last time she’d seen her, her muzzle almost entirely white now, a shaky stutter in her hind legs.
“How long do German shepherds usually live?” Judy asked.
“What the hell kind of a question is that?”
“Jesus. Never mind.” With her luck, Snaps would probably keel over dead while her brother was roaming the streets of San Francisco.
He squatted down and gave the back of Snaps’s head a good scratch, and the dog lifted her chin in bliss. She might not have that much longer to go, but she sure knew how to enjoy life. Maybe in the week Judy was going to stay here, she could pick up some tips from the old dog.
“So you’re all packed up?”
“Just about,” Kevin said. “It’s been a while since I went anywhere.”
“You used to go away all the time,” Judy said. “When you were playing those satellite tournaments.”
Kevin rose and walked over to the garbage can. His fingers were laced with dog hair. “Can you brush her? Just a couple of times will do.”
“I don’t know,” Judy said. “It’s not on the list.”
Kevin gave her a look that took her back, an impatient, exasperated raising of one eyebrow he used to level on her when they were kids. It made her happy to see it.
“You remember those trips I took?” he asked. “I only signed up for three of them. To give you an idea how long ago that was, satellite tournaments don’t exist anymore. They’re called Futures now.”
“Futures,” Judy said. “I like it. Sounds more hopeful.”
“If you win.”
She watched him add last-minute toiletries into his suitcase: an electric shaver with its cord wrapped around itself, a bottle of Pert Plus shampoo, a half-squeezed tube of Aquafresh toothpaste. She had to laugh.
“What’s so funny?” Kevin asked.
“That’s what you used when we were kids, the same exact brands.”
He shrugged. “If I like something, I stick with it.”
Her brother did have a knack for sticking with things. It was how he became such a good tennis player, staying out on the courts for six, seven hours a day to practice, hitting the balls until their fuzz wore off, downing gallons of water to stay hydrated during those scorching summer days. After high school, she’d seen him play twice, the first time at Penn State, where he handily beat his opponent on a muggy morning for the state title, a guy tall enough to play professional basketball. But the second time, at an indoor satellite tournament in Pittsburgh, it was a completely different story. Kevin lost in less than an hour to a bald man, a wily veteran who’d stuck around just to screw with the kids’ chances, at least that’s what it seemed like to Judy. The guy didn’t hit half as hard as Kevin but he knew the angles, and the number of times he lobbed a ball just out of Kevin’s reach—it was as if she were seeing two completely different games being played. She wished there was something she could do beyond clapping and hoping.