“That’s right. I guess it’s time they got serious. I knew she’d need to sell eventually, but I’ve never seen anyone over there to look at it.”
“Not surprising.” Daniel looked from Ellie’s to Greg’s and back again. “Maybe she should have some Christmas lights.”
Greg laughed. “Doubt that would help any. More trouble than they’re worth, damn things. Here, I’m gonna go check the connection around back; holler at me if they come on.”
Daniel waited. The chilly evening embraced him and he stared at the twilit fence. A few minutes later Greg reappeared, holding his hands up in a shrug.
“Nothing?”
“Nothing.”
Chapter 20
Christmas Eve, business was slow. Daniel leaned on the bar, watching the television. His eyes felt hot, like he’d been chopping garlic. He squinted. Maybe eyestrain from the television. More likely it was the shot of bourbon he’d snuck into his coffee just after noon, a little present to calm his nerves and pass the time. Slow days were hell.
It being Christmas didn’t help either, all the forced jollity. He hadn’t had a good Christmas in years. The whole thing left him feeling a bit hollow, like there was something missing. His mother always said it was because he didn’t have kids. Maybe so.
Clive eased himself onto his usual seat. “Afternoon, Dan.”
“Hey there Clive,” Daniel said, already reaching for the whiskey. “Usual?”
Clive nodded and pulled the pretzel bowl over. He watched Daniel pour the drink and nodded when it was set in front of him.
“Thankee, sir. Merry Christmas and all that. Looks kinda dead in here today.” Clive sipped at his drink. “You look pretty much like crap, if you don’t mind my saying so.”
Daniel put on a small, sideways smile. “Not the first time you’ve said it.”
With a laugh, Clive slugged the rest of his drink down. “True. So, what’s eating you?”
“Just not sleeping well.”
“That dog keeping you awake again? I thought you said he quit barking.”
Daniel wiped at the bar. “Oh, yeah. He quit barking alright. But she’s got a new dog.”
“So her old dog stopped barking, and the new dog started?”
“No. Not quite.” He looked up at Clive and wrinkled his nose. “That first dog…well, someone shot it.”
Clive grinned. “Good for you. Grew a pair, did you?”
“I didn’t… mean to. I just lost my head.” Daniel looked down at his feet. His shoes were splotched with paint from Ellie’s. He’d promised to go back again after Christmas and help with the kitchen. “It was quick, at least. He didn’t suffer.”
“She find out who did it? Anybody see you?”
Daniel shook his head. “I’m doing some little stuff around her house now. Sort of feel I owe her. But she didn’t even seem to really care about the dog. She went right out and got this new guy, looks just like the old one. Gave him the same name. And she’s even using the old collar.”
Clive pointed to his empty shot glass. “Gimme another of those, if you would. So, this new dog’s keeping you up now? Can’t you talk to the lady about it? Maybe she could get one of those bark collars.”
“No… new dog doesn’t bark at all. He’s quiet. Seems like a good dog.”
“So… what’s the problem, then?”
Daniel chewed on his lip. “Well. He just… he’s watching me. He follows me around, you know? I get the feeling he knows. He knows what happened to the other dog. That’s why I can’t sleep, I think.”
Clive snorted. “You’re paranoid.”
“He stays on my porch all day. And at night… he sits under my bedroom window.”
“Sounds like he likes you.”
“No,” Daniel said. “No, it’s not like that. He’s not sitting by the door to be closer to me. He’s not trying to come in.”
“Then what is it like? Dan, Dan, paranoid man...” Clive grinned his grin and drummed his index fingers on the bar. His eyes drilled into Daniel and the two men stared at each other for a few moments. Daniel looked away first. His face felt hot enough to match his eyes.
“It’s… it’s more like he’s trying to make sure I won’t get away.”
Chapter 21
It snowed a little overnight, but it wasn’t exactly a White Christmas. Daniel pulled back the curtains and looked out. The lights on Greg’s fence were lit, as were the lights on either side of Ellie’s. Ellie’s house looked dark and dim, grey to match the skies.
A Grey Christmas. Daniel dropped the curtain and went to the kitchen. He cooked some breakfast and wished he’d thought to make some plans for the day. It wasn’t fun to be alone on Christmas. On other days, the world let you get by with it. No sweat. Watch TV, do whatever. But Christmas, everyone had plans. Everyone had something. Someone. Didn’t they?
Well, maybe not, he decided. He refilled his coffee, went to the living room and skimmed through channels on the television. He figured he’d probably watch television all day, or maybe take a nap in the afternoon, and then have some dinner. He’d brought home an order of ribs from the bar last night; probably he’d just reheat those. The thought of leftover ribs outlined his aloneness all over again.
While he was musing on that, he heard a noise at his door. It was Gringo, his tail waving back and forth, back and forth. The tail thumped on each backstroke into a box of old newspapers that had been meant for the recycle bin but hadn’t gotten that far.
Daniel looked at the dog, wondering. Why was he always here? What the hell did he want? On impulse, he went in and got one of the ribs and tossed it to him. “Merry Christmas, Gringo.” Gringo snatched it from the air with ease and trotted a little distance away, where he lay down and set his teeth into it. Daniel watched him for a minute or two. Back and forth went the tail. Well, it had gotten him off the porch anyway.
“Hey! Strawberry!”
Ellie was on her porch, waving. Gringo picked up his bone and trotted over to her. Daniel had little choice but to follow. Ellie waved the entire time.
“Merry Christmas. Come in here a second. I need a hand.”
Of course she did. But he smiled and nodded and asked what she needed. The house smelled a lot better now, with all the fresh paint. And it looked as though she’d gotten some of the trash picked up. The stacks of books had gotten smaller.
“Grab this end.” She was at the other end of the dresser that blocked the hall. “Now that we got that room ready, I’m moving some stuff in there. Make more space here, you see. You’ll like what I did so far, I think. But I can’t shift this dresser myself.”
He looked down at the dresser. She must’ve tried to move it, because there were grooves in the dust. She’d gotten it about two inches without help. He lifted his end and pulled, and she pushed, and they got the dresser into the room.
“You should’ve called me. You’ll sprain yourself trying to move something like that alone.”
Ellie nodded and then shook her head. “I know. But I didn’t want to bother you on Christmas. Are you having family?” She left the room before he answered as though the answer made no difference, which was true enough. She returned with a foil-wrapped something and a birdcage. She handed the something to Daniel and set the birdcage on the dresser.
“Banana bread. Do you like banana bread? I make it with chocolate chips. And walnuts. Are you allergic to walnuts?” She didn’t listen for an answer, but kept talking, moving to the dresser and setting the cage there. “This is a birdcage I’ve been saving for years. I’ve been waiting for a place to put it, to show it off. See this lovely, intricate scrollwork?”
He slipped the bread into his jacket pocket. “Are you going to keep a bird?”
“No. Oh, no, no. It’s not for a bird.” She stepped back and considered the cage. “Well, I guess it is for a bird, or could be, but I just want to use it for décor, you see. I might put a stuffed bird in there. Or leave it empty.
Don’t you think it’s pretty, all by itself?”
“It is.”
“I had birds, once. The cage wasn’t this nice, though. My husband got them for me one year, for Valentine’s Day. Peach-faced Lovebirds, they were.”
“That seems romantic.”
“Oh, they were so noisy. And messy. I hated them.” She adjusted the cage on the dresser, first to one side, then to the other. “Squeak, squawk, all the time. I tried to make him take them back but he wouldn’t. I wanted a canary. Canaries are pretty, and they sing like birds. Not like toy trains going squeak, squeak all day.”
“Well, canaries don’t sound like Valentine’s Day gifts, though.”
She moved the cage back to the center of the dresser and shrugged. “I guess. Oh! I forgot. You haven’t cashed that check.”
“No… don’t worry about it, Ellie.”
“I can’t take advantage of you that way.”
He grinned. “Sure you can. No big deal.”
“No, no… that’s not right. I have to give you something. If you won’t take money… I know!” Her eyebrows went up and a big smile appeared on her face. “I have just the thing to give you. Stay right here.” She left and returned with the painting of roses.
“Ellie… you can’t give me that. Your grandmother’s painting? No.”
“But I don’t have a place for it. Really. The wall I had in mind didn’t work – looked too cluttery. And you need art. You said so yourself: you don’t have any. Take the painting. My grandmother would want you to have it. I’ve had it long enough.”
“Long enough? Don’t you want to keep it until…I mean… well, what about your family? Don’t you have kids who want it?”
She forced the painting into his hands and then turned away and lit a cigarette. “He used to kiss my palms, do you know that? My husband.” She sat down on the windowsill and stared into the hand that wasn’t holding the cigarette. “Most guys kiss the back of your hand, like you’re a goddamn princess or something, you see. But Herb… he’d turn my hand over and kiss the inside. Made my skin crawl.”
“I… I see. That’s a new one on me.” Daniel looked at his own hands. He had never kissed a girl on the hand, palm or otherwise. Now he wondered if he was meant to. Maybe that was why he’d had so much trouble holding onto them, not enough romantic gestures. Lovebirds and skin-crawly palm kisses.
“Take the painting, Strawberry. It will mean so much to me that you have it. Now, if I kept it, I’d feel guilty every time I looked at it.” She ground her half-smoked cigarette out in the ashtray and moved to the door. “It’s a gift, if you want to see it that way.”
Daniel stepped onto her porch, where Gringo lay sleeping. She closed the door behind him before he could thank her. He looked down at Gringo. Apparently he’d finished his bone. Across the street, Greg was out front, fiddling with his Christmas lights again.
He crossed the street. “Hey, Greg. Merry Christmas.”
The lights flickered on. “Danny! Same to you.” Greg squinted up at him. “Looks like rain.”
“I guess.” Daniel shifted back and forth on his feet. “Little late to fix the lights, isn’t it?”
Greg chuckled. “Well. Got company coming for dinner. I’d like to have them on. Mary, you know. The lady up the street I’ve been seeing.” The lights went back off. Greg snatched the nearest strand and shook them as though he was trying to knock sense into them. They went on again.
“Must be a loose bulb or something.”
“Or a short. Next year, I’m going to buy new ones. Those new LED ones they got now? They don’t use hardly any electric.” He wiped his nose. “Yep, got Mary coming for dinner. She’s bringing a pie. If you don’t have anything going on, you could come have dinner with us. I’m making a chicken.”
Daniel lied about having plans and shuffled his feet again.
“Well, it’s good to have some company, you know. I usually go to my sister’s, but she’s got other plans this year, flew up to see her daughter.” Greg stood and dusted off his knees. “Say, what you got there? A painting is it? My, that’s a nice one.”
Daniel held the painting up. “Ellie gave it to me. For helping her around the house. Says she doesn’t want it anymore.”
“Well, isn’t that something! I never knew she painted.”
“She doesn’t. Or, I don’t think she does. This was her grandmother’s.”
“Ah.” Greg leaned over and looked closely into the painting. “Very nice. My mother liked to paint, too. She did churches mostly. She said flowers were too hard.”
“Ellie told me she picked these flowers herself. I was surprised she gave it to me, really.”
“Well. She needs the help pretty badly, I imagine. It’ll be good for her if she can get that house sold and off her mind. She’s had such a hard time after everything. You know.” Greg made a face and looked across the street at the old grey house, then raised an eyebrow at Daniel. “You do know what happened? Her family?”
“She didn’t say anything. What do you mean?”
“Oh…” Greg shook his head. “I guess I shouldn’t say. If she didn’t tell you anything… I don’t like to gossip. But she’s had a… well, a very hard time.”
“Since her husband died?”
“Is that what she told you? That he died?”
“Well, no… she never said anything. I just assumed he was gone.”
Greg chewed his lip. “Yeah, well. He’s gone alright. He died, if you want to put it that way. He killed himself.”
“Oh. God. No, she didn’t tell me about that.”
“It’s really much worse. I don’t know how the poor woman could bear it all.”
“Worse?”
“I hate to gossip, but I put my foot in it, didn’t I? Well… her husband’s name was Herb.”
“That much I knew.”
“They had a son; his name was Jonah. About six, seven years ago now, their son and his wife came for Thanksgiving dinner. Brought their little girl – just the cutest thing, she was.” Greg looked over at Ellie’s house and pointed. “She was playing in the driveway there. Right there. She was throwing a ball for the dog. Ellie was inside cooking dinner, and she ran out of something. Cream, I think it was. Whipping cream. She sent Herb to get some. But he backed out of the garage too fast – didn’t see the little girl in the driveway – and he ran her over. Killed her, you know. Poor thing, she was just four or five years old. Alicia, her name was.”
“My God. That’s horrible.” Daniel shook his head and rested the painting against his leg.
“Well, yes. Horrible.” Greg took a deep breath. “Even if that was all there was to it, it would be one of the worst things I can imagine. But it just got worse and worse. Jonah’s wife left him, and he took to heavy drinking…and about a year later he killed himself. And Herb… well. After that, Herb killed himself, too. Right there in the driveway where he ran over the little girl. Shot himself in the head.”
“You’re not serious?”
“It’s true. Poor Ellie lost pretty much her entire family one right after the other. I don’t know how she bears it. Praise the Lord, she must be made of tough stuff.” Greg looked down at his feet and ran the backs of his hands across his eyes again. “I mean… she got a little strange, after all that. A little wonky. I guess you know that much. I haven’t talked to her in a long time, but I doubt she’s much different. Time heals all wounds, they say, but … I don’t know. Something like that…”
“Yeah. Something like that…” Daniel fidgeted uneasily, lost for words. The painting felt heavy against his leg. “Wow. I had no idea. How could a man… how could he do that to her?”
“Who knows. He was out of his mind with his own grief, not really thinking straight, I guess. Shame.”
“Unreal. Jesus,” Daniel muttered. “What a thing to go through.”
“You don’t tell her I said anything, now. If she didn’t tell you, she didn’t want y
ou to know. Don’t you go looking at her different when you visit. She wouldn’t want that.”
“Of course.” He lifted the painting and looked at it again, then looked over his shoulder at Ellie’s house. Her grey, grey, grey house. No damn wonder it was such a wreck.
“Well,” Greg said abruptly. “Enough of that. Hell of a story, Danny. Sorry, I wish I’d thought not to tell you about it on Christmas Day. I hope it won’t ruin your holiday. I need to go get that chicken on. Mary’ll be here in a couple of hours.” He turned and moved towards his door, then turned back again. “If you change your mind, come on over. We’ll have plenty.”
Daniel bobbed his head and raised his hand in a wave, and Greg’s door swung shut. There was a holiday wreath hanging on Greg’s door with plastic fruit set into it.
Oranges and lemons, say the bells.
Greg’s Christmas lights flickered and went out.
Chapter 22
The telephone rang and Margie answered it. “Bud’s Tavern… hey, Bud! How’s your— oh. Oh, that sucks…” She looked up at Daniel and shook her head. “That’s no good. You want to talk to Danny? Oh…uh-huh… uh-huh…alright, I’ll let him know. You hang in there, now. Talk to you soon…bye.”
Daniel squeezed his eyes shut. “Lemme guess.”
“She’s back in the hospital. More surgery early next week. He said to tell you he knows you can handle it and that he’ll be back as soon as he can.”
Daniel slapped the bar with his bar towel and grumbled. “Notice how he didn’t ask me if I minded.”
“Oh, you don’t, really. Do you? Aren’t you getting sort of used to this day job by now?”
He shrugged. “It’s alright.” But why hadn’t Bud even asked him? Why hadn’t he asked to speak with him instead of leaving a message? “I was standing right here,” he said, but Margie had already gone and he was alone.
When Bud asked Daniel to cover this shift for him as a “favor” back in November, he’d said it would be only a few weeks, and he’d promised to keep doing almost all of the paperwork from home while he was gone. Well, the weeks were about to edge into months, and the paperwork hadn’t been getting done. Daniel had taken over placing the orders, but there were other things piling up. Government forms, insurance paperwork. Bills. Just stuff, stuff that always had to be done. Bud was supposed to “swing by” and pick up that stuff every week, but he hadn’t been. And now some bills were past due, and Daniel had left a message for Bud about that a few days ago.
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