THE SUNLIGHT FLICKERED THROUGH THE birches. Moses’s Pinto was gone—though it had left a large oil stain on the bare ground. Moses had taken it, Moses was home safely. No CPB, no fleet of cops. Just the chickadees, the song sparrows. Ben stood for a moment, enjoying their songs. He felt a sense of tidiness—what Frank tried to achieve, as if life was at last in the correct order.
He entered Shevaunne’s room, the bed unmade, adorned with pink clothing. A bra. He beheld this, the foam cups where she’d inserted her breasts. The bra was pink, with lace, a choice that was sexual, and this surprised him. She’d wanted to feel pretty, feminine, the bra meant for a man who might reach back with desire and tenderness and unhook the clasp.
He shoveled her things into garbage bags, clothes, the bra, towels, sheets. So much of it was pink and soft, even her shoes were the fake sheepskin slipper boots. Perhaps it was an attempt to buffer the hardness of the world. He thought about her slobbed out on the sofa in her pink fleece bottoms, and he decided, no, she just wanted to be as comfortable as possible, nothing to bind or chafe or constrain or provoke. She was so soft she’d actually begun to blur around the edges. If she hadn’t died, she’d have eventually dissolved into lint.
But she had died, he’d killed her. He was a murderer. The word conjured up a perpetrator and a victim, like dealer, dealer and addict, clearly defined; only, he didn’t feel that definition at all, just the gentle but firm closing of his forefinger and thumb and the fade out of someone who’d abdicated years ago. And wasn’t she the murderer, relentlessly extinguishing hope and joy in her son? She might as well break his bones and twist them into crab-like deformity and set him on the corner to beg.
From under the bed, he pulled a stash of celebrity magazines, Jennifer Aniston was pregnant, Prince Harry and Meghan Markle. More pink socks, shed like skins, plus three empty Dunkin’ Donuts cups. There were panties, dozens, that he quickly realized were dirty. He put a sock over his hand to handle them and closed his eyes; he felt both embarrassed and disgusted. She’d simply taken off her panties and stuffed them under the bed. She wasn’t even able to wash her dirty underwear, how could she care for a child?
At the faint sound of car brakes locking, he sat up, cocked his ear.
A banging on the screen door. “Hello? Hey, Shevaunne? You there, Shev?”
Shev? Ben removed the sock from his hand.
“Hello?” the visitor said. Then chiming the syllables, “Hel-lo!?”
Ben did not hurry.
A small man with a scraggly beard threaded with grey peered at him through the screen door. “Oh, hey, man, sorry to bother you.”
Ben, keeping the mesh between them: “No bother.”
“Eh, I’m looking for Shevaunne.” He held in his hand an extra-large Dunkin’ Donuts pumpkin spice latte.
“You’d better come in.” Ben opened the door.
“Dinko,” the man said, awkwardly offering a dry hand.
“Dinko?”
“Duncan, but no one calls me that.”
What sort of a man went around with a name like Dinko? This sort of man, Ben assessed, food-stamp thin with dirty fingernails and thrift-store shoes. He gestured to the sofa, now empty of Shevaunne. “How can I help you, Dinko.”
Dinko looked around at the seating options, eschewing the sofa and stepping behind Ben to choose the grubby lounger. He sat with Victorian politeness. “Shevaunne, huh? She around?”
“What is it you want her for?” Ben kept his voice neutral.
“We go way back.” Dinko smiled, revealing teeth like rusty nails. “A long time, but not, you know, romantically. Now.” This added for Ben’s benefit, in case Ben might be the jealous type.
Ben smiled back.
“I saw her a few weeks ago,” Dinko continued. “In town. She said she was in a program. Said, to, ah, stop by.”
“And you’ve stopped by a couple of times.”
Dinko giggled coyly. “And, ah, she mentioned the boy. Jack.”
Now Ben felt an electric spark at the base of his spine. But he kept his face closed, let Dinko talk on.
“She got him back from DCF. She said they gave him back.”
Ben doled out the words. “Jake. His name is Jake.”
Dinko rubbed his hands on his thighs. His hands were covered in tattoos, poorly done, even by prison standards. “Well, the thing is, I really need to talk to Shevaunne.”
“She’s not here.”
“Ah. When might she be back?” Dinko shifted forward. “I can wait in the car.”
Ben mirrored him, so that he was only inches from Dinko’s face, and Dinko could not fail to realize that Ben was a healthy and strong man with a whiff of violence about him. “Why do you want to talk to Shevaunne about Jake”—and he tossed out the ridiculous name—“Dinko?”
Dinko stood up, quick as a rabbit. Prison had taught him to always keep one eye on the exit. Ben realized this was why he’d chosen the lounger. Nothing was between him and the door. In response, Ben stayed put; he let his eyes pin Dinko. And he understood, quick and hard as a gut punch. “Is Jake your son?”
Hovering a few feet from the door, Dinko’s eyes slid left to right; he nodded.
“Does Jake know that?”
Dinko shrugged. “I haven’t exactly been around.”
“And you want to be around now?”
“Shevaunne, it’s really Shev—” he bleated. “She wanted me to, ah, get back with the boy.”
“Shevaunne,” Ben said slowly. “Shevaunne is dead.”
“What?” Dinko leaned in as if he hadn’t heard.
“Two nights ago, an overdose.”
“But she was clean. She was staying clean for Jack—”
“Jake.”
“For Jake, she was trying for Jake.” Dinko’s features collapsed together, and he let out a sob. “No, no, Shev, no.”
“Sit down, Dinko,” Ben murmured and Dinko shuffled back.
“She was going clean. She was doing it. She told me how really determined she was, and maybe she could get the baby back as well. She said it was tough but things were looking up. She said she was coming into money.”
Ben nearly laughed, it was nearly funny.
Tears welled in Dinko’s red-rimmed eyes. “I’ve known Shev for ages, years. The thing with Jake? We were friends, we got high one night, didn’t even think about it, it was just a one-night thing. We were partying out at Willoughby, summer night, felt good, seemed an easy thing to do, and then three months later I see her and she’s like, ‘Remember that night?’ And, I’m like, ‘Oh yeah!’ And she tapped her belly, ‘Got us a little memento.’ Then she went and got herself arrested so she could be off the streets and off the smack for the pregnancy. Bless her heart.”
Down the road, Ed had the chainsaw out, preparing for the upcoming Caledonia County Fair. Ben focused on the bee-whine of the saw, rather than Dinko’s shameless weeping. He felt he should soften, he should show respect: someone was grieving for Shevaunne, someone who believed she hadn’t been so bad, she’d been trying, for her son. Dinko believed in another version of her, and, thus, another version of himself, a clean Dinko, a respected member of the community. And Ben might also have another version, someone with kind, compassionate thoughts, a twin who wore the same shirt in a slightly different way. However, Dinko was a junkie loser and Ben was not compassionate, and Shevaunne had been a treacherous junkie bitch and he’d killed her.
“Why are you asking about Jake?”
Dinko sniffed. “Sorry, man, I was just expecting to see her and she’s dead, you know.”
Ben quietly repeated himself.
“I dunno, man. I just thought I could meet him. We could start to know each other, hang out.”
“And then what?”
Dinko shrugged. “I’m his dad. Dad stuff.”
“Go fishing, do his homework with him?”
“Sure, why not.”
Ben smiled pleasantly.