Evenfall

by Liz Michalski

  She opens a can of tuna fish, dumps it onto a plate reserved for Buddy, and painfully lowers it to the floor. The cat sits before it and licks his paw, as if to show that he really doesn’t need her handouts to survive.

  “Oh, go on,” she says, nudging him with her foot. The cat yawns, stretches, and daintily takes a bite.

  While he’s eating, she makes herself a cup of tea before settling in a chair to watch him. Gert doesn’t consider herself lonely—at least, no more so than she’s ever been. But sometimes there’s an aching that won’t stop, particularly on fine spring evenings when the mockingbird sings outside her window. Most of the time she attributes the pain to old age, but a few nights a year she knows better. That’s usually when Buddy shows up, taking a break from his nocturnal wanderings. She’s learned to leave the screen in her window open so she doesn’t have to bother getting out of bed to let him in. Instead, she waits for his plaintive meows with an eagerness she hasn’t felt since she was a girl. Only when Buddy is curled up against her back, his small body radiating warmth, can she sleep.

  The cat finishes his meal and leaps into her lap, rubbing his head against her hand until she gives in and pets him. She strokes his ears, the broad furrow between his eyes, until the cat is purring in pleasure, gently kneading her nightgown between his paws. They stay this way for perhaps five minutes, until Gert glances at the clock over the stove.

  She stands, unceremoniously dumping Buddy from her lap. No matter how fast she hurries, she’s going to be late, and that fact makes her irritable.

  “Come on, come on,” she urges the cat, guiding him to the door with her foot. Buddy mewls loudly in protest.

  “Well, some of us have better things to do than sit around all day,” she retorts, letting the screen swing shut with a snap. Through the wire she sees the cat shake himself before leaping onto the porch railing. He digs his claws once, twice, three times into the post, his golden eyes unblinking.

  “Scat,” Gert hisses, and he does, jumping off the porch and streaking into the woods.

  Once the cat is gone, Gert washes his dish, using hot, soapy water and paper towels, and makes her bed. She takes a shower, throws on her summer uniform of khaki shorts and white shirt, and is heading down the path to the big house by ten a.m. She expects Andie to be inside, poking through closets and excavating rooms, so she is taken aback when she finds her niece sitting on the ancient porch swing, looking thoughtful.

  “Morning,” Andie calls, standing up at the sight of her. “Want some coffee?”

  Gert’s about to shake her head—she’s never been a coffee drinker, prefers the subtlety of tea—but something about Andie is different. To buy time to figure it out, she agrees to a cup.

  “You’ll have to take it black.”

  “That’s fine.” As her niece disappears inside, Gert sits down on the swing. The wooden seat is hard on her bones, and she shifts, trying to get comfortable. Frank and Clara used to have cushions, she remembers. Blue and yellow floral cushions that Clara must have sewn. If Andie is going to stay for a while, perhaps they should look for them.

  Her niece returns and hands her a mug of coffee. Gert takes it, bends her head to take a sip. It tastes every bit as bad as she expected.

  She puts the cup on the floor next to her. The bitter coffee fumes have thrown another scent into sharp relief—the sweet smell of freshly mowed grass. Gert looks at the yard, then at Andie, cool and serene in her denim and cotton T-shirt. Her niece did not cut this lawn.

  Andie catches her aunt’s eye and blushes just the faintest bit. “Cort McCallister stopped by this morning to cut the grass. I thought you might have sent him.”

  Gert snorts. She remembers Cort as a wriggling, loud eleven-year-old, one of a cadre of boys who toilet-papered her cottage every year at Halloween.

  “Well, it was nice of him,” Andie says. “He wouldn’t take any money, either.”

  Another image of Cort comes to mind unbidden. Gert once found him standing in the woods, watching as Andie drove off with a Saturday night date. The boy’s hands were shoved deep in his pockets, and he looked so downcast Gert didn’t have the heart to come upon him unawares. Instead she crept backward, careful not to make a sound, until she was out of sight. Then she marched forward, whistling and breaking branches underfoot to give plenty of warning. When she reached the spot where he had stood, the boy was gone.

  “Hmmm,” is all Gert says.

  The two women sit quietly, the swing gently rocking, until Andie swallows the last of her coffee and stands up.

  “I guess we should get going,” she says, stretching. Her fingers can almost touch the porch ceiling. “What should we tackle first?”

  Gert has been planning on cleaning out the attic or the basement, but when she tries to suggest those places she finds she can’t. The thought of spending the day filling boxes and bags with the remnants of someone else’s life weighs down upon her so she can scarcely breathe.

  “How about a quick trip to town to get you set up?” she says instead, and is relieved beyond words when Andie doesn’t argue, only nods.

  Frank’s car is parked behind the house, in a broken-down shed that once housed horses, and later, cows. A tan Chevy Nova, the car is at least twenty years old and hasn’t been driven in ages. Gert’s afraid it won’t start, but Andie insisted on grabbing the keys when she went inside for her grocery list. To the surprise of both women, the engine turns over on the second try. The car sputters a bit at first, as if waking from a long nap, then runs smoothly.

  Andie pats the wheel. “Good car,” she says, as if it were a horse. Now they won’t have to share Gert’s ancient station wagon.

  Gert insists they stop at the gas station first. She doesn’t want Andie driving the car if it is unsafe, and lord knows the last time Frank took it in for a tune-up. The attendant, an older man who looks vaguely familiar, checks the oil, adds air to the tires, and fills the gas tank while her niece fidgets behind the wheel.

  “I can do all this, you know,” Andie says, but Gert ignores her. When the man is finished, he knows enough to come to Gert’s side of the car. She adds five dollars to the total, and he tips his baseball cap respectfully.

  “Thanks, Miss Murphy.”

  “You’re welcome,” Gert calls as Andie pulls out.

  They stop at the hardware store next. The house has been unoccupied for months, and the mice must be having a field day.

  “I haven’t seen any,” Andie says.

  “They’re there. Trust me.” Gert picks out six traps—the spring-loaded kind that break the mice’s necks—and Andie winces.

  “How about these?”

  She holds up a box that bills itself as a humane trap—a catch-and-release program for mice. “Plus, you can reuse it,” she says, reading the box’s cover.

  “And you do, catching the same mice over and over.”

  “Well, I’m going to try it.”

  “Be my guest.” Gert shrugs as her niece tosses the trap into their cart.

  They bicker even more at the grocery store. Andie wants to run in and just get the items on her list, while Gert maintains the only way to shop is to go aisle by aisle.

  “Now, what about furniture polish? Is that on your list?” she asks, as Andie sighs impatiently behind her. Gert, reaching for the yellow can of Pledge, doesn’t turn around. She knows she’s being perverse, but can’t seem to help herself. The only thing she’s done today that she’s proud of is turn a blind eye to the sack of dog food her niece snuck into the cart. If Andie wants to take on all the strays in the world, she’s welcome to them.

  By the time Andie has finished loading the brown paper sacks into the trunk of the Nova, it’s past one p.m. and Gert’s stomach is growling.

  “I know what we need,” Andie says, slamming the trunk shut. “Lunch.”

  She drives to the center of town and parks under one of the wrought-iron lamps. In front of the car is Lena’s, a pizza place that has been around since Andie’s parents
were young. The smell of yeast and onions wafts out through the building’s vents.

  “I don’t know…” Gert says. She rarely eats pizza, afraid the acid from the tomatoes will give her indigestion. Andie pays no attention. She marches inside, swinging a plastic bag filled with the milk and other perishables they bought. Gert can feel the coolness from the air-conditioning as she follows.

  It’s past the main lunch hour rush, and the restaurant is almost empty. A pair of teenage girls sit near the front, chewing on their straws and giggling. Andie picks a booth at the back and slides in, laying her purse on the table. When the waitress bustles over, she orders two Cokes and a small cheese pizza.

  “So,” she says, shutting her menu. Gert knows that tone, but whatever Andie has to say, she’s ready. “Have you called the real estate agent?”

  “No. There are things I need to set right first,” Gert says. She knows her niece believes that she’s stalling, that it’s merely a matter of calling up a Realtor and handing over the key. She wishes it were that simple. The truth is, owning Evenfall makes her uneasy. She’d have preferred Frank to will the house directly to Andie and let her step out from the tangle the property has woven around her all her life. She understands, of course. He’d wanted to spare Andie the grief of dismantling the closest thing to a home the girl’s ever known. All the same, it’s a burden she’ll be glad to set down.

  Andie doesn’t say anything, just waits, so Gert continues. “We really do need to clean out the house. I swear Clara kept the ketchup packets from every take-out meal she ever had, and I don’t think Frank threw a thing out after she died.”

  “Uh-huh,” Andie says.

  “And I thought we might get the outside painted, too. We may as well show the house off to its best advantage before we get an appraisal.” She owes Frank that, at least.

  “I still think it’s a waste of money. Whoever buys the property is just going to tear it down. It’s sad, but it’s all about the land these days.”

  “Perhaps, but it’s my money, Andrea, and that’s how I intend to spend it.” She makes her tone final, and Andie sighs. But she’s quiet for only a moment before she plows ahead.

  “Well, have you at least thought about what you’ll do when the house sells?”

  “I’ll do what I’ve always done—stay on in the cottage.” Gert unfolds her paper napkin and places it across her lap. Strictly speaking, that’s not quite accurate, of course. For some thirty years, ever since Andie’s birth, the cottage has been the place Gert returned to for summers and holidays, like some migratory bird, with Andie herself as the homing point. It’s only since Frank got sick that Gert’s given up her apartment in upstate New York. There are still mornings when she wakes in the cottage and doubts her decision. Truthfully, she can’t picture herself living on the edges of suburbia, watching mothers in tight jeans and designer T-shirts herd their children into the car for soccer practice and piano lessons. Maybe she’ll be dead by then, she thinks, and oddly enough, feels comforted.

  “It’s just…you’re so isolated here. You know, there are some nice retirement communities out there. We could just check them out and see what you think.” Andie’s opening up her own napkin as she says this, a task that seems to require so much concentration she can’t look up to meet Gert’s gaze.

  Gert knows the type of place Andie means. One of those cookie-cutter developments, where there are five women to every man, and everyone is so busy there’s no time to dwell on the fact that each day is a borrowed one. The type of place Clara would have gone, if she’d outlived Frank. An image of her sister happily playing bingo comes to mind, and Gert feels a momentary pang.

  She takes a sip of the soda the waitress has just brought, and clears her throat. “No,” she says finally. “The cottage is my home.”

  The waitress comes with their pizza. For a while they concentrate on the food, which drips with oil. Andie blots her slice with a napkin, and Gert follows suit, although she refuses to pick up the pizza the way her niece does. Instead, she uses the plastic fork and knife to cut it into bite-sized pieces.

  It is better than she expected, and she eats two slices before pushing her grease-stained paper plate away. She’ll pay for this tonight, she thinks, and hopes she still has a roll of Tums at home.

  By the time Andie’s finished eating, the restaurant is starting to fill up with the dinner crowd. The two teenage girls have been replaced by a young family. Andie stares at them, and Gert glances over to see what’s caught her attention. A harried mother dangles an auburn-haired baby, maybe nine months old, on her arm. Two children, a boy and a girl, keep dropping their toys on the floor. The man they’re with—Gert presumes the father—mostly looks out the window. “Knock it off!” he snaps once, and the children glance at each other, then at their mother, and keep still.

  “Ready?” Andie asks, and Gert’s drawn back into her own life. While she’s been woolgathering, Andie’s paid the check. Gert tries to make up for her lapse by pressing money into Andie’s hand, but her niece won’t hear of it.

  They slide out of the booth and walk outside. The heat feels good after the artificial coolness of the restaurant, and Gert stands on the sidewalk, soaking it up. It’s too late in the day to tackle the big house, and relief, followed by guilt, floods through her. Tomorrow, she decides. First thing.

  The cottage has its own driveway, although it is seldom used, and this is where Andie drops her off. She offered to drive right to the door, but Gert insisted on walking this short way. After the pizza, it will do her good.

  “Got everything?” Andie asks. Gert nods. She’d asked the checkout girl to pack her groceries separately, and now she picks up the small plastic bag that holds a loaf of bread, a box of macaroni, and oatmeal.

  “I’ll be over first thing in the morning, and we’ll get started,” Gert says.

  “All right. See you then.”

  They’re not the type that touch much, but as her niece drives off, Gert has an urge to run after her, stop the car, and enfold Andie in her arms. She shakes her head to clear it and starts up the driveway, then stops, listening. In the distance, she can hear her phone ringing. Well, it can’t be Andie, and anyone else will just have to wait. She shifts the bag to her other hand and takes a step, then another, concentrating on putting one foot in front of the other, the way she’s always done.

  Frank

  THERE are rules to being dead. Unwritten and hard to discover, but there all the same. Figuring them out is like waking in an unfamiliar room and stumbling toward the light switch: You bang your shins repeatedly until you find your way.

  The first one I found out by accident, the very same day I died. A lucky thing I did, too, or that might have been the end of it. Of me. Although whether I was lucky that day or not remains to be seen.

  Death is different from how you picture it, although I confess I never spent much thought after the War thinking about how I’d go, much less what would come after. Even at the end. I suppose I had other things to think about. But then suddenly it was the end, all panic and gasping for breath and knowing, knowing this was it, even though from the outside no one could tell I knew anything. Then silence. Like flailing on top of the waves before diving below, quiet and calm and still. At first there was nothing. A long stretch of nothingness, passing by. Then, gradually, light, green and watery, and at the end of the light, Gert. Gert with someone, being helped out the door of the big house. She paused on the top step, looked back inside, and I saw her face as plain as if I were standing in front of her. I’ve a lifetime of memories, but somehow the ones that have stuck with me all have Gert walking away.

  “Don’t go,” I said, loud as I could. “Don’t leave me here. Stay.” I said other things, too, but it all meant the same. For a second, she looked as if she heard, but then the visiting nurse came up and touched her on the elbow, and Gert pulled the door shut. She hadn’t heard me after all.

  But the dog did. The dog did, and that’s what saved me. I’d
seen her the first time about six months earlier, a shivering, cringing bundle of fur, no bigger than a basketball. She was crouched outside the front steps, looking as if she’d been waiting there a long time for someone to come out. I used to sit out on the front step just to feel the warmth of the sun, to get out of the shadows of the house, and I remember that day was unseasonably warm for June. I sat there and the dog came over to me. I was pretty weak by then, not given much to moving around, but I went back inside and fished through the trash until I found the meat loaf Gert had brought over the night before for my dinner. The dog ate it as if she’d never had a meal before, and when she was done she just curled up at my feet and went to sleep.

  We stayed that way a long time, the dog and me, until it seemed like there was nothing left to do but to bring her inside when she woke up. I was in no shape to care for anything by then, and I knew it was going to get worse, but somehow turning her over to the dog warden seemed like ratting out a friend. I bribed the home aide to pick up a few boxes of dog biscuits for me, and fixed her up a nice little bed in the shed. On cold nights, I brought her in the house with me. I’d have had her in every night, except that I was afraid I’d sleep right through the morning. Gert or the nurse was usually there by nine, and if either of them had seen her there’d have been hell to pay. Especially Gert. Those last few months she was awful to watch, so cool and efficient; it was as if we’d never met before I started dying on her. She’d gotten rid of all the houseplants Clara had collected over the years, just because they needed to be watered once a week. There was no way she’d take care of a dog.

  So we muddled along, the dog and me, me sneaking her food whenever I could and her pretty much staying out of the way, until the last couple of weeks when I was too weak to get out of bed. Every now and then I’d see a flash outside the window, and I’d turn my head and it would be her. I’d named her Nina, after a pretty little French girl I’d met up in Boston. They shared the same long black lashes and a way of tilting their heads when you talked. I’d scratched the name on an old dog collar I’d found in the barn. I was going to tell the aide about her, see if we could figure something out, but then it all got really bad and I forgot about Nina altogether.