Stranger Will

by Caleb J. Ross

  “You wanted her,” William yells, biting back a smile. He interprets Julie’s failure to calm Shelia as a greater failure. Unwilling to forgo this opportunity he follows her into the front room, sits in the chair nearest Julie’s head, its arm lined with her thin cross- stitching needles, each threaded a different color.

  “Just answer me,” William says. Julie pulls the blanket over her head. “Shelia was your idea, correct?”

  “Take her somewhere.”

  William pulls a needle from the chair. He spins it between his fingers, whipping the long green thread against his face and arm. He could dispose of Shelia. He could call Philip and explain Julie’s sudden disinterest in caring for his fake sister. It was Philip who jumped into the ambulance. It was Philip who agreed to be her brother. It was Philip who found the doorway to the basement. But it is William who needs her most, who needs Shelia the Burden, Shelia the Child, Shelia the Way-it-Will-Be.

  “I think we should keep her,” William says.

  “She’s not a dog,” Julie replies from under the blanket.

  “True. A dog we could shoot.” William settles deeper into the chair. The two of them exist in this home stretched and worn by their own heat. Julie believes in the possibilities of form, of structure. She hangs Ann Geddes photographs of babies sleeping in mounds of roses, and William is quick to remind her that roses have thorns. Julie collects tiny porcelain dolls, while William collects canned food in boxes in the basement. “Are you saying I should shoot Shelia?”

  Julie grunts. “I think I feel contractions.”

  “No you don’t.” He drops the cross-stitching needle. A quick move to retrieve it drives the needle under his fingernail. He pulls his hand from the chair, the needle fixed into his skin, an extension of his own thin bone. When he removes the needle, blood bulbs at his fingertip. “I’ll get rid of her,” and he lifts himself from the chair, bathing his finger in spit. A morning means fresh air and a night without nicotine. He needs to refill anyway, so he takes the telephone to the back porch, dialing Philip’s number as he searches his pocket for a lighter. Twice he tries and twice he gets no answer.

  Shelia’s age is a problem. She is too young. Julie sees her as a child, someone filled with potential, someone in need of protection. William regards Julie’s hospitality as instinct, a natural urge to fight the world. Mrs. Rose has taught William many things, one of which is that the world is not worth fighting against. The world knows what it is doing.

  Pigeons fly overhead. William dials Harold Straton Elementary. The receptionist answers as the cigarette touches his lips.

  “Hey Stacey,” William says and “one moment,” the nasal voice responds before William can manage a third word. Within moments Mrs. Rose arrives, a static breeze somewhere behind her.

  “Good news?” she asks. She breathes heavy. William blames age.

  “Just news.” His cigarette bounces to the rhythm of syllables.

  “I need a favor.”

  “Julie is not having the baby, is she?”

  “That wouldn’t be just news,” William says. “I need a place for the night—for this woman I know.”

  “What’s wrong?” she asks.

  “Julie,” he says. “She’s been kept awake all night by crying.” “Crying?”

  “Not what you think. We had a guest for the night, a constant crier, and Julie can’t take it.”

  “We can claim that as good news,” Mrs. Rose says. Her breathing drops for a moment. “She can’t handle those all- nighters.”

  “I thought of that,” he lights the cigarette, and lets a needle of smoke from his mouth, “but this woman is like us, really. She could use your help.”

  “It seems we are all born afraid of a child’s passing,” Mrs. Rose says. She breathes her own static into the phone. “These delinquents in my office go to lunch in twenty minutes. Be at my house,” and the phone goes dead.

  William wanders back inside with the cigarette pinched between his fingers. Julie has migrated to the chair. Shelia stretches on the couch. Julie waves away smoke that has not yet reached her.

  “I’m getting rid of her,” he says. “Be happy and help.”

  Julie forfeits a shirt and a pair of pants from a pile pushed against the wall. The articles smother the girl. She dresses Shelia in shoes that flip hard to her feet when she walks. She brushes the woman’s hair, ripping locks from her head. Shelia endures. She flexes her cheeks and balls her fists but says nothing. “Sorry,” Julie says. “I’m so sorry.”

  William retreats to the bedroom, his cigarette still burning, and dresses quickly. He finds shoes and a baseball cap and grabs the van keys from his bedside table. The pink note from last night, the “thank you” fallen from his wall, sits flat by the lamp.

  He stuffs it into his pocket, planning to ask Mrs. Rose about this one. It fell from the wall for a reason, he tells himself.

  “Goodbye,” Julie says. “Good luck with everything.”

  “She’ll be fine.” William flicks his filter into the weeds along the house as he steps to his van, pulling Shelia behind him.

  He stops at a small convenience store along the way, neither of them offering one word to the other. He walks in, comes out seconds later with a newspaper under his arm. Once inside the van he takes a few silent moments to search the paper ’s small text, then, happy with his discovery, throws the open paper to Shelia’s lap. “You’re famous.” He points to a short paragraph describing the basement scene from that traumatic night past.

  Shelia studies the text for miles before letting the vibrations of the van bounce the paper from her hands to the floorboard.

  “This woman I know, Mrs. Rose, she’s pretty excited to meet you,” William says picking up the paper. “She wants to help.”

  Shelia stays quiet. Even as William tries igniting conversation with keywords like “boyfriend upstairs,” trying even with small talk promises like “weather ” and “the game,” Shelia bites her bottom lip. She looks ready to sneeze.

  “Sorry about the smell,” William says and nods toward the back of the van. “I don’t feel the chemicals much anymore, but your nose isn’t primed.” He puts down a window and waves the air out. “I clean up dead bodies,” he says. Shelia stays fixed to the road. “Not the bodies, really. Just the stains.”

  He lets miles pass without further interaction, taking interest in passing telephone poles and houses moated by yards decorated with lawn gnome armies and craft fair windmills. He chews his fingernails and adjusts the rearview mirror to Shelia’s eyes. They float in tears. He sneaks glances, pretending to check the glove box for papers and pens. He cleans dust from the dashboard and twists his neck enough to glimpse Shelia staring at her stomach. She swallows tears, and William hands her a napkin from a greasy bag behind his seat. “If it means anything,” William says, “I think you did a good thing, getting rid of the baby.”

  Shelia doesn’t move.

  “It wasn’t easy, I’m sure, but it’s done and you have to believe that the world will adapt around it. There is a lot wrong with the world, but fighting it won’t help anyone. Mrs. Rose, she helps people in your situation all the time. Adoptions, actually, but a lost child is a lost child, right? She says that every time someone gets rid of a child they go through a pretty heavy bout of remorse. They wonder if it was the right decision, and even sometimes they go crazy convincing themselves that they’ve done something wrong. Just remember, Shelia, you’ve done nothing wrong. It’s hard to give your entire life to something that you were never sure of to begin with. You—heck, we—aren’t ready for that responsibility. Mrs. Rose says that nobody is really ready for that. They just think they are and end up screwing everything up.”

  Shelia continues drying the rim of her eye socket. She coughs and sneezes into the napkin.

  “Sorry again about the air. All that stuff back there actually has a lot to do with these things I believe. I’ve seen a lot of what’s left when people die. I’ve seen recliners with human-shaped
stains, TV’s still on, dogs waiting by where the feet should be. After that smell these chemicals back there don’t bother me much.” William returns the mirror to himself. “I’ve cleaned blood from cars and trees and the road. I’ve seen animals just chowing down. They get hungry if they’ve lived on the streets long enough. I saw a wall covered in sixty-seven bullet holes once—in the shape of a person, I swear to God. I’ve seen blood in churches, and supermarkets, in basements—” then a shout. A man appears at the corner of the windshield, thumps the hood of the car and yells muffled words filtered by his full beard. William slams on the brakes, instinctively reaching out in front of Shelia. He catches his excitement for a moment. “Sorry,” he says. “Goddamn homeless run this town.”

  Shelia balls the napkin in her palm and passes the sweaty, hot mess to William who tosses it out the window. Shelia’s chest grows with a deep breath and shrinks slowly. “Mrs. Rose sounds nice,” she says. Her voice comes young and smooth.

  “She is, very nice. She’s the principal at Harold Straton Elementary. Been doing it awhile. She knows a lot about children. She helps out with adoptions part-time.”

  “It’ll be nice to see her,” she says and turns away to the passenger window. The glass fogs under hot breath, something so hidden about her. Beyond the breath, fields stretch out against the still gray sky. Everything passes, but slowly.

  Mrs. Rose is feeding pigeons when they arrive at her house. Her gravel driveway seems to stretch for miles, and for its entire duration, William keeps one eye cornered to Shelia, waiting for a sudden attack, a grand finale jump from the van window. Bashing her face into gravel. A final attempt, Mrs. Rose calls it— doing whatever it takes to clear regret.

  But she just bobs to the dips in the road until stopped at Mrs. Rose’s door. When coaxed she stays stiff, defiant. He assures her that Mrs. Rose can’t wait to meet her, but Shelia doesn’t move. “Wait here, then,” he says, leaving the door open.

  “I want you to meet someone,” he yells to Mrs. Rose. Her pigeons’ screams outweigh William’s voice. “Been doing a little gardening?”

  She places a bird into its cage and dusts off her hands. She carries more dirt than usual, hands a deep brown and black under her fingernails. “I love to see things grow,” she says and wipes her hands on faded jeans. “I told the school I was sick. Truth is this problem of yours seemed a bit more important than my administrative duties.”

  William turns to the van. “She’s nervous,” he says. “Couldn’t get her out.”

  “She has every reason to be, doesn’t she?”

  They walk together to the van, feet sinking gently into the damp dirt below them. Each footprint seems a grave plot for small a creature.

  “You are going to like this girl,” he says. “She’s been a bit loopy since the hospital, but it’s wearing off.”

  “Hospital?” Mrs. Rose says.

  William reaches into the van, over Shelia’s lap, and pulls the newspaper from the center of the seat. He slams the door and tosses the paper to Mrs. Rose. She glances through a few pages, asks what it is she is looking for.

  “Page D2,” he says. “A small brief in bold. The one about the abandoned house and the body.”

  With Shelia trapped in the van and Mrs. Rose occupied by the newspaper, William takes a detour to one of Mrs. Rose’s many pigeon cages. These birds exist without a clue as to their role. He smiles and puts a finger between the thin rungs. A pigeon snaps, misses. William smacks the top of the cage hard enough to force the entire flock into a struggle for balance atop their perches. “Fucking birds,” he says to himself.

  Mrs. Rose offers a stern stare, a warning it would seem to those unaware of her and William’s unusual history, but between them, animosity is always superficial. “Bring her inside,” she says and tucks the newspaper under her arm.

  She waits at the door for Shelia, helps her inside the house, and for that small moment when Mrs. Rose and William stand alone she leans into him and says, grinning, “You’ve been shooting my birds again.” He struggles to deny the fact, but she interrupts: “Messenger pigeons aren’t free, you know. I keep a pretty strict inventory.”

  She was a tall woman when they first met in the clearing, though crooked with age, and over the months gravity seems to have strengthened. The burdens of both her growing years and her intimate care for the pigeons have pulled her closer to the ground. Lifting cages. Lifting feedbags. She’s constantly massaging her wrist, but never complaining of all the writing she does, those messages she sends out into the world.

  “I wouldn’t kill…” William begins, but he stops. He looks down to his wrapped hand and hopes that Mrs. Rose will overlook it fearing a story made up on the spot might fall flat under her scrutiny. He understands that their developed friendship is reason not to kill the birds anymore, but he justifies this pleasure by telling himself, she’s never told me to stop. She’s never threatened him. She has only pressed with knowing smiles. He takes her lack of confrontation as simple compassion, a mutual understanding of the pleasure that comes with domination. A hunter and a school principal sharing more than genomes. He could take a higher road and dismiss the thrill of the kill, but he doesn’t. He continues because nothing else feels like a perfect shot.

  “And you’ve got blood on you.” She points to a small stain at his hip.

  He glances down, careful not to concern himself too much. “Not your birds’,” he says with pride and nods toward the kitchen where Shelia stands admiring the photos along the wall. “It’s her boyfriend’s blood.”

  After Mrs. Rose, the connections on William’s wall came easier, though still never completely. Her being the leader of the pigeon ring allowed a tangible reference from which to assign strings. Subject matter, similar handwriting, and paper type can only stretch so far. And his color coding system—blue thread connecting messages about diseases, red thread for a sender who calls himself The Mourner, green for the growing group of funeral notes—it helps to keep things organized, but organization is only part of the wall. He must read motivation behind the words. Since meeting Mrs. Rose, he thinks about the people she might know and the conversations she might have.

  Why would a message be sent discussing, in detail, the sender’s concern of physical discipline as a viable means of development? As an elementary school principal, Mrs. Rose believes that children require a certain degree of motivation and guidance. With this understanding, the message shifts on William’s wall from his “Battered Children” group to the more poignant yet more esoteric “Growth” group.

  William steps into her home and closes the door behind him. Mrs. Rose already has her hand to Shelia’s shoulder. Her house is quaint. Candles with wicks still coated in wax sit atop a layered doily tier on the kitchen table; the chairs lacquered thick; the floor looks rough enough to splinter; and family portraits are stuck firm to every wall like the world was built around them. And the notion feels entirely possible. Mrs. Rose has a way of making the world seem pliable.

  Why would a man who signs his name with only a curly “C” want people to know about his emotional trauma? Mrs. Rose volunteers part time as a counselor at a small office in Alexandria, guiding parents through the emotionally dense process of adoption. She believes that context develops a child, that a parent must truly want the responsibility if the child is to reach its full potential. So, the once ambiguous message becomes clear.

  The early afternoon has aged into a later, darker day. William steps into Mrs. Rose’s kitchen and pours himself a cup of coffee. He suffered sporadic sleep the night before, it teased at best, and this coffee, though weak, is enough to keep his eyes open. He wouldn’t miss a moment of Mrs. Rose. She provides motivation that he has trouble developing and maintaining on his own. She sympathizes with his unwanted child predicament and has promised to help in any way she can.

  “I’m so sorry,” Mrs. Rose whispers into Shelia’s ear. Their eyes drip. “What happened to you should never have happened.”

 
; Outside, metal interrupts loud through an open kitchen window. The pigeons explode inside the cage, coughing stirred dust, growing vocal enough to drown the shared sobs. Mrs. Rose acknowledges the arrival with a small grin. “Maybe it’s time for some good news,” she says and releases Shelia from their embrace.

  William sips his coffee. Mrs. Rose’s walls, covered in portraits, her ceiling painted the same blue as accents: toaster, microwave, refrigerator, even William’s own clothes blend at every sip to a single muddy hue as steam clouds his eyes. He wants to ask Mrs. Rose if she has any ideas, any final suggestions to convert Julie, to show her the odds against a healthy child caught between two conflicting parents, but anything she might suggest has likely already been said.

  The pigeons throw themselves against the cage bars. Mrs. Rose suddenly curses, which usually means a cut deep enough to be wrapped. She jumps back into the house, shuffles to the sink with a firm grip on her thumb. Blood has pooled her palms and dots a trail from the door. “Bastards,” she says and smiles because somewhere, William knows, she is proud of their strength.

  “Everything alright?” William asks.

  She has her thumb in her mouth for a moment, bathing the cut with spit, then pulls it out, examines the wound, pride still floating in her grin. She glances to Shelia, who walks the walls slowly, taking in the portraits, then turns back to William and whispers: “has Julie come around yet?”

  “No,” William returns and begins to elaborate, but Mrs. Rose is already sliding back toward Shelia. She gives her hand a final shake over the sink, and William watches pooled water cloud from clear to pink and the dirty dishes marbleize with the old woman’s blood.

  “Keep at it,” she says.

  William joins the two women at the wall of photos. He says to Mrs. Rose, all of their eyes to the portraits, “So can you help her? Shelia?”

  Without an ounce of ceremony Mrs. Rose nods, says, “You go home. We will be fine. You have a fiancée to get to and a child to take care of.”