The Enemy at Home

Nora rang the doorbell by the garage apartment’s entrance. Then she adjusted the wax paper barely covering the dinner plate in her other hand. She missed tin foil, which was rationed because of the war—along with just about every other metal product.

She could hear Joe coming down the stairs, and then the door opened. He wore a T-shirt and pleated pants. He smiled at her. “Well, hi again . . .”

Nora lifted up the wax paper for a moment to show him the plate of food. “I hope you haven’t had your dinner yet,” she said. “It’s ham, scalloped potatoes and green beans. I feel bad I didn’t follow through on Jane’s invitation. But the timing is off. I have a son who isn’t talking to me right now, and it’s been kind of a rough day.” She re-covered the plate and handed it to him.

“Well, thank you. And actually, I think your timing is perfect.” He folded back the wax paper to peek at the food again. “I haven’t eaten yet, and this looks delicious.”

“I promise, we won’t make a habit of dropping by like this,” Nora said. “I spoke to Jane about respecting your privacy from now on.”

“You know, I felt kind of funny about coming into your house without you inviting me. But Jane insisted I look at some photos of your brother. And she wouldn’t take no for an answer.”

Nora was relieved to hear him say that. She laughed. “Yes, Jane can be very persuasive.”

He turned his head to one side. “I’m sorry, I didn’t get that . . .”

“I said, Jane can be very persuasive,” she repeated—a bit louder.

He nodded. “Well, I hope you didn’t feel obligated to feed me just because she invited me to Sunday dinner.”

Nora shook her head. “No, not at all. In fact, it just occurred to me that you’re probably better off eating alone tonight. The last time I had Sunday dinner guests, it was a party of eight—and now, three of them are dead.”

Joe looked slightly taken aback. With his bad ear, maybe he thought he hadn’t heard her right.

Nora felt stupid for telling him that. She came off as flippant. “I don’t mean that the way it sounded.” She shrugged. “It’s just that—well, this was three weeks ago, when my brother was visiting. He was one of the guests—along with a friend of mine from work, Connie Wiedrich, and her friend, Roger Tallant. She was killed a couple of weeks ago. You might have heard about it. She lived in Queen Anne. She was strangled . . .”

“Oh, yeah,” Joe said, wincing. “I read about that. Roger Tallant, he’s the guy the police say killed her. They shot him. They said he had a gun, but then, apparently, he didn’t—something like that. It was kind of muddled. They were friends of yours?”

Nora nodded. She wasn’t sure why she’d brought it up—except that she couldn’t very well talk to the kids about how much she missed Ray and how shaken up she was about Connie’s murder. The only other adult she could talk to about it was Fran, and that was during their lunch break. Forty-five minutes in a crowded, noisy cafeteria didn’t allow her much time to bare her soul. Joe’s very presence made Nora realize how starved she was for adult companionship—and how much she missed being near a man.

He was staring into her eyes. “Oh, Nora, I’m so sorry about your friends—and your brother. You’ve certainly had a rough couple of weeks. And having to shoulder that by yourself while your husband’s away . . .” His voice trailed off. “Listen, if there’s anything I can ever do to help out around here, just let me know.”

Nora smiled at him and let out a nervous laugh. “You wouldn’t care to talk to my son for me, would you?”

“You mean, like a peace negotiator?”

Nodding, she crossed her arms to fight off the chill. “Tell me, when you were seventeen years old, did you sneak out at night and then lie to your parents about where you were?”

He chuckled. “Yeah, often enough.”

“Well, I feel better hearing that. Maybe the situation isn’t as bad as I thought.” Nora smiled at him. “I mean, you turned out pretty nice . . .”

Joe smiled back, and Nora felt a sort of connection between them. She sensed he felt it, too. Or was she reading something in the way he gazed at her? Was it just wishful thinking? For a moment, Nora couldn’t say anything.

She finally took a step back and then cleared her throat. “Well, listen, your wife—if you ever want to call her or she needs to call you, please, feel free to use our phone.”

He nodded. “Thanks, I might take you up on that sometime. And thank you for dinner.”

“You have knives, forks, napkins and all that?” she asked.

He nodded again. “I bought some today. Thanks again, Nora.”

“Good night, Joe,” she called. Then she headed for the back door.

* * *

Nora knocked on Chris’s bedroom door. “I fixed you a plate of food!” she called. “I left it down on the kitchen table. I decided you shouldn’t go to bed hungry—or mad.”

The bedroom door swung open. Chris stood there with his hair mussed from his nap. Once again, he wouldn’t quite look at her.

Nora could see into the room behind him. He’d made his bed.

“I’ve also decided that you can’t be upset at me for thinking the worst,” she continued. “You’re the one who’s been so secretive, Chris, not to mention dishonest with me. You created this atmosphere of distrust . . .”

Chris had his hand on the doorknob. He stared down at the threshold between them.

“We’ve both had a rough couple of weeks,” Nora went on, thinking of how Joe had put it earlier. “We need to give each other a break—and be nice to each other.”

He nodded. When he finally lifted his head and looked at her, Nora saw the tears in his eyes. “I’m really sorry, Mom,” he whispered. “I don’t know why I burned up that stuff. I really wish I hadn’t now. I’ve done so many stupid things lately. I don’t know what’s wrong with me. But I could never kill anybody, I swear . . .”

He hugged her and started crying on her shoulder.

Nora patted him on the back. “I know, honey. I know. I’m sorry, too . . .”

* * *

Nora wasn’t sure what woke her.

She glanced at the clock on her nightstand: ten fifty. She’d been asleep for only an hour or so. Chris had eaten his dinner, and both kids had still been up when she’d gone to bed.

Nora lay there in the dark, listening.

If a noise had woken her, she didn’t hear anything now. Still, Nora knew she had to get up and make sure everything was all right; otherwise, she’d never fall asleep again.

Throwing back the covers, she crawled out of bed. She didn’t bother to put a robe over her blue gingham pajamas. Poking her head out into the hallway, she noticed Chris’s door was closed. She padded down the hall and paused outside his door. She didn’t see a strip of light at the threshold. She didn’t want to knock and wake him up. But she didn’t want to barge in on him either.

Yet she wouldn’t sleep a wink if she didn’t make certain he was in bed.

Nora tapped lightly on the door. No response. She waited a few moments and opened the door a crack. “Chris?” she whispered.

In the darkness, she noticed the same body-shaped lump under the covers she’d seen in his bed the night before she’d started her job.

“Chris?” she said, a little louder.

The “lump” in his bed moved. Chris pushed back the sheets and sat up. He squinted at her. “Hey, Mom, what’s going on?”

“Nothing, honey. I’m sorry. Go back to sleep.”

He nodded and then pulled the bedding back over him. “G’night,” he mumbled.

Nora quietly closed the door.

The house was still. She didn’t hear anything outside.

Nevertheless, she moved the blackout curtain and peeked out the window at the end of the hallway. No one was in the backyard.

The curtains weren’t drawn in the windows of the garage apartment, and the light was on in the living room. It wasn’t quite eleven o’clock yet, so Joe wasn’t breaking the blackout regulations. Nora didn’t spot him anywhere in the apartment, but she noticed, in the living room, he’d set up an easel with a canvas on it and a small table nearby, cluttered with a palette, paint tubes, rags and a jarful of brushes. The front of the canvas was facing the other way, so she couldn’t see what he was working on. She had a limited view of the floor but could see that he’d put down a drop cloth.

It was comforting to know that, while she slept, he was quietly at work next door, watching over the place.

Joe stepped into view—apparently from the kitchen, because he had a bottle of beer. He was shirtless and wore a pair of paint-stained khakis that rode low around his hips. After taking a swig of beer, he put down the bottle and picked up his palette and a paintbrush. Then he started to work on his painting.

Nora stood on her tiptoes and noticed he was barefoot. She felt like she could almost reach out and touch him. She could see a yellow paint smear on his trim stomach and another splotch of pale blue on his hairy chest. Different paint colors were smeared on his muscular arms and those beautiful hands. His thick brown hair was a mess.

Mesmerized, Nora stood by the window, watching him.

Every movement he made seemed so unselfconsciously erotic—even something as simple as wiping his hand on his pants before reaching for a different brush. She could have stared at him all night.

Joe picked up something from the little table. It took Nora a moment to realize it was his wristwatch. He glanced at it and put the watch back down on the table. Then, wiping his hands again, he moved over to the window and pulled the blackout curtain closed.

Nora’s heart sank.

She watched him methodically close all the other curtains.