by T. Greenwood
“There’s a surprise?” Gracy said, excitedly. “What did you get, Daddy? Is it a treat for me?”
“It’s actually a treat for all of us,” Kurt said. The electronic tickets were folded into his back pocket. He could barely stand the anticipation.
Trevor looked up from his plate.
Kurt set down his fork and smiled as he slowly pulled the tickets out of his pocket. He smoothed them out and laid them on the table. “How would you all like to go to Disney World for spring break?” he asked.
Elsbeth reached across the table and grabbed the tickets, turning them over and over in her hands, peering closely at them like she was making sure they were authentic.
“Disney World!” Gracy squealed.
Elsbeth looked at Kurt, her eyes full. “Are you sure we can do this?” she asked softly, and Kurt nodded.
She stood up and came to him, sitting down in his lap and wrapping her arms around his neck. “Thank you, baby,” she whispered in his ear. “Thank you.”
“What do you think, Trevor?” he asked, peering at Trevor over Elsbeth’s dark hair.
Trevor smiled. “It’s good,” he said.
Gracy disappeared into her room and came back out dressed in her Sleeping Beauty costume. “Let me dance on your shoes, Daddy?” she asked, pulling Kurt’s hand. Elsbeth got off his lap and he stood up. Gracy slipped off her plastic heels and climbed onto his boots, encircling him with her arms. Elsbeth clapped her hands together, and even Trevor was smiling. He hummed “Once Upon a Dream,” that sappy melody, and felt his heart swell. This, he thought, is my family. This is mine.
His phone buzzed on the table, and he hoisted Gracy up onto his hip as he went to see who was calling. Maury again. He considered sending it to voice mail, but then he had the optimistic, though unrealistic, thought that maybe Pop had finally changed his mind. Maybe he’d realized how silly it was to turn down a chance at a spot at Plum’s. Stranger things had happened, right?
“Hello,” he said, lowering Gracy carefully to the floor.
“Kurt?” Maury said. His voice was muffled, buzzing with static. There was a lot of background noise. Loud voices. Sirens. Pop’s TV turned up too loud, probably. “It’s the house,” Maury said.
“I can barely hear you,” Kurt said, walking with his phone into the mudroom.
“If it hadn’t been for Theresa ...” He was breathless. “He could have been trapped in there. She got him out just in time.”
“Slow down, Maury,” Kurt said, pulling his coat from the coat hook. “What happened?”
“There’s been a fire.”
The house was still standing, but the air smelled charred as Kurt pulled up the driveway. There was one fire truck and an ambulance. Pop was sitting on the fender of his Lincoln, his head in his hands. Maury was standing next to him, arms folded across his chest. Theresa Bouchard, surrounded by her brood of boys, was speaking to one of the firemen. The fire truck’s beams painted the dark sky in crimson sweeps of light.
“What happened?” Kurt said.
“Not sure yet, maybe a forgotten cigarette. Seems to have started in the kitchen. Miss Bouchard saw smoke coming out the front door and called 9-1-1. Then she went into the house and got him out. We were able to get the fire out pretty quickly, but there’s still quite a bit of damage.”
“How bad is it?”
“The kitchen is gutted. It doesn’t look bad from out here, but there’s some structural damage. The fire inspector’s inside. You can talk to him when he’s finished.” With that he turned and started to unspool a roll of yellow tape, circling the yard.
Kurt went to Theresa. “Thanks. I really appreciate your being here.”
She nodded. “I been telling him something like this was gonna happen,” she said. “That’s why I got the county involved, you know. No hard feelin’s, right?”
“None,” Kurt said and squeezed her shoulder.
He went over to the Lincoln then, where Pop was still sitting, peering across the lawn at his wrecked house. “I’ll let you two talk,” Maury said.
“Hold on,” Kurt said, pulling Maury over to the edge of the lawn out of Pop’s earshot. “You got room for him at your place until the room opens up at Plum’s next week?”
Maury hung his head low. “Course. Listen, I didn’t think this would happen. I really didn’t or else I never woulda helped him move back.”
Maury’s accusations had stung. The idea that he’d neglected Pop, that he’d been abusive toward Pop, had made Kurt so hot he could have screamed. But now Maury looked on the verge of tears. “S’all right,” Kurt said. “I know you didn’t want anything to happen to him.”
Kurt made his way back to Pop. It was cold out, and someone had draped a blanket over Pop’s shoulders.
“You all right?” Kurt said, sitting down next to him on the cold chrome fender. “What happened?”
“Set the house on fire,” Pop said, looking up at him. His eyes were bleary, his face smudged with soot. He coughed into his hand. “This was whatcha wanted, right? Happy now?” he asked.
He couldn’t go into the school on Monday. This was all Trevor knew when his mother dropped him and Gracy off at the front of the building, the other cars lined up like a funeral procession behind them.
“Do you want me to come in with you?” she asked. “I don’t have to go into work today. I can walk you to your new class?”
“No,” he said. The car was hot, the heater blasting at his face and feet. It made his skin itch. He almost wished for the cold air outside the car.
“You sure, baby?” she asked. “It’s no trouble to walk you in.”
He shook his head. Ever since everything that happened over the weekend (first Disney World and then the fire at Pop’s), his mom had been acting different. Nice. It was like she had gotten everything she wanted: Disney World and Pop finally agreeing to go to the nursing home. She’d been especially nice to his dad. She even went with him over to Maury’s with a turkey potpie she’d made with the rest of the Thanksgiving leftovers. There had been so much excitement at home, there had hardly been time to think about school. But now Monday morning had come, and here he was, about to go into that building. It was like somebody walking out onto the ledge of a skyscraper. Like someone pointing a gun at their own head.
He couldn’t go into the school. Not today. But he knew he needed to at least pretend he was going in if he was going to get her to leave.
“Well, have a good first day back,” she said and squeezed his hand. Her touch was so foreign, so strange. “It’s going to be better, Trevor. I promise.”
“Bye, Mommy!” Gracy said, popping out of the backseat, her backpack thunking behind her.
“I’ll be back to get you when school gets out,” she said. And then she reached through her open window and reached for Trevor’s hand.“It’ll be okay, baby. Just keep your chin up.” And for a moment, he almost believed her. Maybe it would be okay. But after she pulled away from the school and he stood staring up at its scowling face, as he heard the bell ring like some sort of death knell, he knew he couldn’t go inside.
“Go ahead, Gracy,” he said, pushing her gently toward the front doors, a lump as thick as a cork in his throat. “I forgot something. I’ll be right in.” He pictured her going to her classroom on the elementary school side of the building. She would be okay.
“But Mommy’s already gone,” she said. She was wearing last year’s pink winter coat, which had a big hot cocoa stain on the front. It was too small for her, the sleeves exposing two pale forearms. The fur around the cuffs and collar was dingy, gray. Her dark hair was poking out from underneath a sparkly pink hat with a sad pom-pom on top. He pulled his camera out of his backpack and knelt down.
“Smile,” he said and then he took her picture, the school looming behind her.
“Go on in,” he said. “I’m right behind you.”
But then as soon as she disappeared inside the school, he turned away. And ran as fast as he could, not s
topping until he couldn’t breathe, until the cold air seemed to have frozen his lungs. He knew he didn’t have long before the school called, before everything came crashing down around him. But for now, his instinct was simply to flee.
After Elsbeth left to take the kids to school, Kurt got ready for work. He showered and dressed and pulled on his boots. It was cold out, the sky white and heavy. The air smelled like snow. He stepped outside to check the temperature. The forecast said it might drop below zero by late afternoon. It would be cold at the yard. Colder outside, where he would be adding the pile of stuff he’d been able to salvage from Pop’s house to the inventory all afternoon. He had half a mind to take it all to the dump. The fire inspector had shown him where the fire had destroyed one of the main support beams. It was like a goddamn house of cards; a storm might take down what was left of the house.
Back inside, he got his heavy down jacket, his neck warmer and wool hat from the mudroom. His good gloves weren’t in the bench where he usually put them. He rifled through the cedar trunk, finding nothing but Gracy’s tiny mismatched mittens and Trevor’s hats and scarves. He went to the bedroom, thinking maybe Elsbeth had stored their winter stuff in the closet. She sometimes did that when spring came; after a brutal winter, she sometimes couldn’t stand the sight of anything to do with snow.
In the closet, he pulled the chain for the bare lightbulb that hung down over their sorry collection of clothes. He felt a pang as he touched the edges of Elsbeth’s old dresses and sweaters and shirts. He wished he could take her shopping, let her buy a whole new wardrobe. She’d had some of these clothes since they started dating. He wanted to get her a new swimsuit before they went to Florida.
He reached up to the top shelf, grabbing hold of a blue plastic storage bin. Whatever was inside was heavy, and as he tried to ease it off the shelf, he knocked over a shoe box that was sitting next to it.
“Shit,” he muttered as the box and its contents tumbled down.
He bent down to pick the stuff up and then stopped. It was like the contents of some strange piñata. Trinkets. Junk. Just a bunch of crap. A yo-yo, some bubblegum, batteries. Little plastic army men and a box of dryer sheets. Unopened packs of gum, erasers, Chapstick, and chocolate bars. Hairbrushes still tethered to their cardboard backs, playing cards, and a two-pack of lighters. It was as though a junk drawer had fallen from the sky, but none of the junk had been used before.
He reached down and started putting the items back into the box, but then his fingers skipped across something he thought at first was only candy. But it wasn’t. It was a condom. A condom. And then another and another. He felt like someone had kicked him in the chest. He sat back on his heels and took a deep breath. They hadn’t used condoms since they were kids. And even then, clearly, not that often. Elsbeth had been on the Pill since Gracy was born. He rifled through the crap, searching for something, anything that would explain. A book of crossword puzzles, a key chain, a bottle opener shaped like a flip-flop. His head was reeling, and his stomach turned. He coughed without covering his mouth and felt bile rising in the back of his throat.
He threw everything back into the box and shoved it up onto the shelf again. He didn’t even know what he was looking for, but he was suddenly desperate, looking for anything to justify or dispel this awful feeling in his gut. He opened her drawers, rifled through Elsbeth’s underwear and bras, her socks and T-shirts and jeans. He went through the laundry pile, pressed his face into her dirty clothes, like a dog tracking the scent of anything unfamiliar. He looked under her side of the bed, reached into all of her pockets. Nothing. He went back to the closet and was about to pull the box down again when he noticed something he hadn’t before. A postcard. From Florida.
His first instinct was to confront her. If it had been anything else—finding out Trevor had gotten in another fight, catching Gracy in a lie—he would have been quick to act. He believed in holding people accountable. That people, including himself, should take responsibility for their actions, but when Elsbeth came in the front door and then into the bedroom where he sat at the edge of their unmade bed, he felt paralyzed. If he confronted her, then she might just tell him exactly what he did not want to hear.
He had put the box back in the closet, pocketed the condoms.
“What are you doing here?” she asked. “I thought you’d be at work already.”
He didn’t say anything.
She cocked her head and smiled at him. Teasing. Had she done this with this Wilder guy? Had she looked at him like this? Florida. Was this why she was so fucking obsessed with Florida?
“Can you be a little late?” she asked then, pulling off her sweater and tossing it on the floor next to his feet.
He sat on the edge of the bed, silently, as she kicked off her shoes and wriggled out of her jeans. He studied the familiar ladder of bone that was her spine, the star-shaped birthmark on the back of her thigh. His dick pulsed with the remembrance of her legs wrapped tightly around his waist, with the vivid possibility that these same legs had spread wide open for someone else.
But instead of anger, he felt heavy with a new kind of sadness. It was like a sucker punch, like an unexpected blow to the gut. He’d known things weren’t going well, that everything was precarious, but he hadn’t seen this coming. He hadn’t expected this. None of his fears involved a third party. Her unhappiness, her boredom and frustration and disappointment, were the only things he feared. He had never imagined another man. That she was having sex with someone else. He felt completely deluded, deceived. He and El had had their share of problems over the last thirteen years, but betrayal had never been one of them. He’d always trusted her. He’d never once considered that she might be a liar, that their life together, that all of this, might be a lie.
His boner would not relent. Somehow, each pang of sadness, of disenchantment, made the ache of his body, the want of his body, all the stronger. And as she bent over to pull off her panties, he stood up and walked over to her, pressing his body against hers, as if mere contact might relieve this tremendous pressure. She caught her breath but did not turn to look at him. In the mirror over the dresser, he could see her squeezing her eyes shut. And something about this, her unwillingness to open her eyes, to see their reflection in the mirror, turned that sorrow into rage.
He unzipped his pants and spread her flesh open with his. She gasped, her whole body resisting his, clamping down. And every quiver of resistance, every shudder of revulsion or disgust or whatever it was she now felt for him, made him all the more determined. The ache and longing all the stronger.
He studied her hands as they clutched the top of the bureau, her manicured nails digging into the soft wooden top, and he kept going. Even as her whole body resisted, he continued, pressing his face into her clean hair, until his whole body trembled with both lust and loathing. When he was finished, he stumbled backward, feeling drunk, his legs failing him as he staggered out the bedroom door, leaving her behind, stunned and trying to catch her breath.
In her room, Crystal got out the pink and green plaid suitcase she’d had since she was a little girl and started to pack. It was cold out, so she made sure to pack long johns, turtlenecks, wool sweaters and socks. But she would need her summer clothes too. She pulled the bin from her closet and decided to just bring the whole thing. The Volvo was big enough; there would be plenty of room. She looked at her bed, at the place where she had slept every night since she was too big for her crib, and her throat swelled. She grabbed her sock monkey, the one she’d had since her very first Christmas, and put it in the suitcase. The afghan her grandmother had made. As she zipped the suitcase shut, she wondered if she should bring along any other relics of her childhood. She ran her hand across Angie’s pillow, tried not to think about breaking her heart.
She opened her desk drawer and took out the envelope she’d gotten at the bank two days before, and counted the twenties again. Then she shoved it in her backpack, along with the envelope of pictures she’d stolen from
the Walgreens and the ultrasound pictures of Grace.
It took three trips to get all of her stuff downstairs. She was breathless when she finally locked the door behind her. Outside, it felt like dusk instead of late morning. The sky was dark and thick. Looming. The sun was just a small yellow hint, reluctant behind a thick gauze curtain. Even the trees seemed cautious of the threatening sky.
She put her suitcase in the back of the Volvo, opened the door, and sat down in the driver’s seat. The upholstery was hard and cold, and her hands shook as she found the car key on the ring. While she was determined, part of her almost hoped it wouldn’t start. Because she knew that once the engine roared to life, there was no going back. She counted softly to three and turned the key. She pressed her foot on the gas, the seat shook beneath her, and the radio blared. Exhaust puffed out behind her, and cold air blew through the open vents. She turned her headlights on, illuminating the road in front of her. A few snowflakes peppered her windshield as she headed east. She passed the bend in the road where the two crosses reminded her to drive carefully, and she slowed in deference to the lost boys.
This was the easy part; she simply pulled the car up close to the mailbox at the edge of the road, undid her seat belt, and leaned over the passenger seat. She unrolled the window and reached out into the cold air, pulling open the door on the mailbox. It was empty, so she simply slipped the photos inside and then lifted up the red flag at its side.
Heat spread through her entire body as she glanced toward the house. Her heart pounded in her chest, her ears, her hands. She could do this. She had to do this.
She looked away from the house and quickly rolled up her window. Then she was pressing her foot on the gas and moving forward. In the next driveway, she turned the Volvo around and then she was on her way.