part two

 

chapter eight

 

 

 

Eunice Fitch lived in a drafty clapboard house her parents tried miserably to make a home in. The roof, which sagged under time’s weight and ravage, leaked—in Eunice’s room, as luck would have it. The plaster softened, yielded, and dripped its steady measure of every passing cloud. Eunice’s solution was to get a large pot from the kitchen and push her bed as far back as possible. During a particularly rainy season, when sleep failed to come and the new day began in a ragged state, Eunice moved to a small room at the far end of the hall where the roof, for the time being, held fast.

Her parents often left her alone at night so they could play cards with another couple down the road. Her companion was usually the black and white television set in the living room, two floors below the unsound roof. One evening, she was treated to a festival of silent movies. Background music played, piano and strings, cheerful or dire, by turns. Eunice tried to read the lips of the silent movie stars but found herself relying on the subtitles instead. She loved the subtitles. They summed up the action and gave the gist, just enough to go on. She loved the queer lighting, the fabulous twenties gowns, and most of all Lillian Gish. Eunice was enthralled by her courage and beauty.

She sought to perfect the burning gaze, the taut skin around her eyes, the firm jaw. All these conveyed anguish from the firmest part of her soul, and made for an elegant display of suffering when she got teased at school after she spilled her milk down the front of her ill-fitting plaid dress. Her reward for this brilliant performance on a spring day full of birdsong was to be called a retard by the tallest boy in class.

Next, she cut her hair in a bob. Her red curls and waves lay gorgeously on the filthy bathroom floor. Her mother was outraged. Several slaps ensued.

“What the hell’s wrong with you? You look like an idiot.”

Eunice’s mother, Louise, was a small woman whose rage made her huge. Eunice ran to her father. He was planted in his easy chair, beer can in hand, watching a baseball game. He hit the mute button and looked at her with a blend of love and worry.

“You did that all by yourself?” he asked.

Eunice nodded, sending more strands of cut hair into her father’s lap. He picked them up.

“You came into this world with a full head of hair. Did you know that?” he asked.

Eunice shook her head.

“Your mother snipped a lock of it, wrapped it with a little green silk ribbon, and put it in an envelope.”

“Can I see it?”

“Oh, I don’t know where it got to. She may have pitched it during one of her tidy up fits.”

These occurred on an irregular basis. In fact, their house was pretty dirty most of the time because Eunice’s mother was a cleaning lady for rich people and said she couldn’t stand to bring her work home. Her father was a deliveryman for a liquor store. His job, like Eunice’s mother’s, also brought him in contact with the town’s elite. He didn’t resent them the way his wife did, but he, too, was jealous.

“Those folks drink first-rate hooch,” he told Eunice more than once. “Just think of that!”

Eunice couldn’t understand alcohol’s wide appeal. She had learned over the years from watching her parents that drinking was entering a state of voluntary madness that seemed pleasant enough at first, until beer number three or four when her mother accused her father of something dire, usually of ruining her life, and threw something at the wall while he looked at the floor as if he wished it would open beneath him.

Eunice’s father reached up and stroked her damaged hair.

“Such a shame,” he said. His words made her feel much worse than her mother’s well-aimed blows.

Her classmates, however, recovered then from the milk disaster, admired her new do. Sadly, she’d done a poor job. The back, in particular, was uneven. And since her hair was so thick and full of body, it stuck up in a way Eunice didn’t care for. Her Grandma Grace gave Eunice an Oreo cookie and told her not to worry, her hair would grow back. They were at her house, seated at her kitchen table in matching yellow chairs. The room was clad in faded floral wallpaper, the windowsill over the sink was crowded with flowering plants, and the ancient electric clock above the stove hummed happily to itself. Grandma Grace was in one of her many solid color dresses—this one pale green—an apron, and a pair of worn slippers. The only piece of jewelry she wore, a little chain with charms collected long ago, slid along her arm as she pressed a tissue to Eunice’s nose and told her to blow.

Grandma Grace was Louise’s mother. She was generally a cheerful person. Eunice’s mother wasn’t. Eunice didn’t see how the two could be so different.

“Time, that’s all. I had my trials in the world, like anyone else. I was pretty feisty, back in the day. You ask your mom. She’ll tell you,” Grandma Grace said.

Eunice never asked. She went on as she always did, and steered clear of her mother as much as possible.

Every so often, her mother would remember that she was there, living in the same house and eating at the same table. Her focused interest was terrifying.

“What happened to your report card? I didn’t get a chance to see it,” her mother said.

The report card in question contained the usual number of C’s and D’s. Eunice knew her mother didn’t care about her grades. She did, however, care about making an effort to care, and this effort, more often than not, involved presenting herself at school and demanding to speak to one or more of Eunice’s teachers, and once, to the principal himself. Eunice’s mother accused them of treating Eunice unfairly.

“She’s much more talented than she lets on,” her mother told her math teacher, Mrs. Adams.

“Then she must apply herself,” Mrs. Adams said. That same evening Eunice’s mother called Mrs. Adams a “moron.”

Her lecture to the principal, Mr. Delmon, was delivered on a plume of beer. Eunice had seen her mother come into the building and knew from her exacting gait that she was three sheets to the wind. Eunice managed to position herself discreetly in the main office, out of sight, but within earshot of the open door Mr. Delmon had been too surprised to close.

“Sheeza good girl. Mark my words. Iffa you wan my avice, lay the hell OFF,” her mother said.

Eunice shared this with Grandma Grace. She shook her head woefully.

“No good loving liquor if you can’t hold it. Don’t even know where she got the habit. She never touched a drop living here with me. Your dad must have wanted her to try it,” she said.

Eunice doubted that. Her father couldn’t persuade her mother of anything.

Eunice’s despair deepened. She stood before her mirror and peered into her own eyes until they filled with woe. She made it a point to stare at her mother until she saw it, too.

“What’s the matter with you? Are you sick? Keep your distance, if you are,” her mother said.

 

chapter nine

 

 

 

By the time Eunice was stumbling unwillingly through high school, it was Grandma Grace who had perfected the look of longing and pain. She’d broken her hip the year before, and been laid up a good six months, during which time a string of sullen and inept homecare workers came and went through her kitchen door. On her feet again, Grandma Grace was a changed woman. Gone were the brassy tone and sharp tongue Eunice had known all her life. What replaced it were long stretches of silence, accompanied by a furious gaze that bore through whatever it fell upon, even Eunice, who felt clumsy and inadequate. Once, she asked Grandma Grace what she’d done wrong.

“Who says you did anything wrong?”

“The way you look at me.”

“I’m not aware of looking at you in any particular way.”

Eunice knew Grandma Grace had meant no harm.

When the supply of care workers dried up, Eunice took over. Though she got around reasonably well, Grandma Grace was clearly terrified of another fall. So Eunice cleaned her house, changed the sheets on her bed, did the laundry, and even bought groceries when her father had time to drive her to the store, which had to be scheduled during the narrow window between the end of his workday and the start of his evening revelry. He now roosted in their living room, watching the same television where Eunice had discovered Lillian Gish years before. Her mother had claimed the kitchen table for her daily binge. Eunice passed by them, receiving scant acknowledgment, sometimes a request for another bottle of beer, a clean ashtray, or to take out the trash.

“What are you going to do with your life?” Grandma Grace asked Eunice one afternoon.

“I don’t know.”

“Nonsense. You’re almost eighteen years old. You have to have some idea.”

Eunice shrugged. She unpacked the two grocery bags she’d brought in. She now had a driver’s license and used Grandma Grace’s old Buick to go back and forth.

“How can I, when I’m not good at anything?” Eunice asked.

“You’re good at taking care of people.”

Eunice supposed that was true. She’d taken care of her parents for years. To fulfill her quota of mandated community service hours (this was a new requirement to graduate from high school) she volunteered at the Clearview nursing home where she read stories to dull-eyed old men and women, then wheeled them around the grounds to look at the flowers. And she’d been at Grandma Grace’s side almost constantly, so much so that they’d talked about her moving in and leaving her parents behind.

“But it might not be the best work for a young woman. Not right off, anyhow. Go out and tool around for a while first.”

It was 1976. The bicentennial had people on the road in record numbers. Everyone wanted to see America.

“I bet the world is pretty much the same everywhere as it is here,” Eunice said.

“Maybe.” Grandma Grace paused to shuffle the worn deck of cards she always had in the pocket of her sweater. She could play solitaire for hours.

“Besides, who would take care of you?” Eunice asked. She put a can of tuna fish on the counter as a reminder to herself to use it later to make sandwiches for lunch.

“I’ll find someone.”

They had this conversation about once a month, and it always ended with them dropping it until the next time.

“What about boys?” Grandma Grace asked. This was a new tack, and it caught Eunice off guard.

“What about them?”

“Don’t you like any?”

“No.”

Eunice had had a terrible crush on Brad Chalmers in her math class the year before. He was spectacularly handsome, and incredibly stupid. Whenever he spoke, people laughed, and the poor thing turned red. Eunice felt his pain. She, too, was sometimes laughed at. She decided that they were peas in a pod, two survivors stranded on the cruel island of Dunston High School, alone against the world.

“We can face it together, you know,” Eunice once summoned the courage to tell him when she cornered him by his locker.

“Face what?” he asked. Up close she noticed that one nostril was smaller than the other, there was a pimple on his chin, and his breath smelled like an old shoe. She loved him all the more for his flaws.

“Our common affliction,” she whispered and put her hand on his cheek.

He backed up. “Take it easy,” he said.

She watched him trot down the hall. Her heart went with him.

But soon another boy caught her eye. Larry Lester, a bad sort Grandma Grace would say, only wanting a girl for one thing, which Eunice gave him willingly under the bleachers after school one day. The act was stunningly brutal. He pressed into her so hard, it was difficult to breathe. Then afterward, he merely rolled off, pulled up his pants, and said he’d see her later. She felt as though she’d been mauled by an animal, and left to die.

When her period was late, she panicked, looked up the laws about getting an abortion, and cried with relief when her period showed up in the middle of the following week. The use of birth control didn’t occur to her until later, when Larry had moved on to another girl, and yet another one after that.

“Well, men have their uses, you know,” Grandma Grace said. “Just you keep an open mind.”

Grandma Grace told a tale she’d told many times before, about being courted by her late husband. He came to her house with flowers, then sang beneath her window with a guitar he played so badly that her father chased him off with a shotgun. Only then did Grandma Grace’s expression lighten, before quickly becoming dark and brooding once again.

Not long after, Grandma Grace died in her sleep. It wasn’t Eunice who found her but a neighbor Grandma Grace had invited over for coffee, in a rare mood of hospitality. Eunice took it as a sign—not the death, which was inevitable—but Grandma Grace’s change of heart about having people in her home. That Grandma Grace had left her house and bank accounts to Eunice rather than to Eunice’s mother, proved that life contained a number of unexpected possibilities that one should be ready to embrace. Of the roughly three hundred thousand dollars Eunice received, including proceeds from the sale of the house, she gave ten thousand to her father alone, in recognition of the fact that he did truly care for her. To her mother, she gave nothing, despite being treated to a daily rant about her disgusting ingratitude and monstrous selfishness.

 

chapter ten

 

 

 

Eunice moved into a new apartment complex, where many younger professors lived. She had a spare bedroom. The living room looked out over the gorge. It came furnished. The couch and loveseat were white leather, which she found alarming. It took her over a week to sit on either, then she decided that they were deliciously comfortable.

She invited her father to come and see for himself how she was living now. He seemed impressed, though not envious. Her mother, who was not invited, continued her daily wheedling. Eunice had to admit she was getting worn down. She wondered how much her mother would accept to get off her back.

Without Grandma Grace to take care of, Eunice became bored. Her father said she should go to college and study film. Didn’t she used to like old movies? The choices of higher education in Dunston were the university, which was Ivy League, and Dunston College, which offered good arts programs, but mostly in music and theater.

“What about UCLA?” he asked.

“What’s that?”

“University of California at Los Angeles.” He spoke proudly. He’d done his research.

“That’s pretty far away.”

“Wouldn’t hurt to put a little distance between you and you-know-you.”

Her mother would only turn up the volume long distance.

You can swing a fancy-shmancy education, but for your mother, not one red cent!

And in any case, she knew she wasn’t college material.

She bought herself a car, a used Carmen Ghia. She loved it, even though it was yellow, her least favorite color. The salesman showed her how to drive a stick shift. She hoped she’d learn before she burned out the clutch. His same was Beau, short for Beauregard.

“That’s ‘beautiful view’ in French,” he said.

He was beautiful, with a very Douglas Fairbanks flair. He looked like he could handle a sword just fine. Eunice said she could see him with one. He blushed, then took her out for another quick lesson on the stick. She beamed. She was learning how to flirt! Heady stuff, she thought. She wanted to flirt some more, so she took him on a long drive around the back of the golf course. They parked on a grassy verge. He put his hand on her knee. There wasn’t enough room in the car, so out they went, pawing and kissing and dropping to the ground.

It was better than with Larry Lester. At least Beau asked her, panting, how she was doing. He didn’t roll off right away, but remained inert and warm, crushing her ribs. Something dug painfully into the tender flesh of her thigh. It was his belt buckle, she discovered as he pulled his pants back on.

Afterward, they sat in the car to compose themselves. Beau told Eunice he was married and couldn’t get involved with her.

“What do you call what we just did?” she asked.

“Just one of those things.”

“Don’t you think I’m pretty?”

“Sure.”

“Look at me.”

He looked at her. She held his gaze. She saw him admire her hazel eyes and the paleness of her skin. The green blouse she wore went perfectly with her red hair, which she wore long and full. He took in the curve of her breasts and her flat stomach. He patted her smooth knee.

“Like I said, sure,” he said.

She asked him to get out of the car.

“What? Why?”

“Because you’re a cad.”

“I don’t think that’s a word people use anymore.”

“I just did. Now get out.”

“Wait a second! How am I supposed to get back to town?”

“You can hitch a ride.”

“That could take hours!”

“Too bad about that.”

He crossed his arms.

“If you don’t get out this minute, I’ll say you raped me,” she said.

His face went slack. His eyes filled with muted rage.

“Fine. Do your worst. Your word against mine,” he said.

Eunice started the engine. She released the brake. As her hand went to the gear shift, he grabbed it with a sweaty palm.

“I don’t scare easily,” he said.

“How about your wife?”

He opened the door and got out. “Jesus, if it means that much to you, fine, I’ll find my own way.”

A school bus came slowly up the road. The children inside waved joyously at them as they went by. Eunice waved, too.

She turned back to Beau. He looked like a scared little boy wearing a suit that was too big for him. She hadn’t noticed before how poorly it fit. The sleeves fell to the middle of his hands. She heard Grandma Grace.

Don’t waste another minute on that poor son-of-a-bitch.

“Get in. And keep quiet,” she said.

“Okay.”

She stopped a block from the dealership and turned off the engine. Her eyes burned with held-back tears. She sniffed.

“Try not to take it so hard,” he said.

“I’m not crying about you.”

That was true. She was crying for herself, and how ridiculous she was.

 

chapter eleven

 

 

 

The man at the bank suggested an investment. Something to make her money grow.

Eunice didn’t know anything about investing. She could barely balance a checkbook. When she confessed to both, the banker smiled. It was charmingly clichéd that he had a gold tooth. The charm vanished when he leaned forward and whispered, “Real estate.” The banker was fond of garlic.

There were plans to build a shopping center on a wide patch of land overlooking the lake. If she were to commit her entire savings, she was certain to double her return in five years.

“What if it doesn’t work?” Eunice asked. The banker smiled at her kindly, as if she’d just asked if the moon were really made of cheese.

“It’s a very well-studied proposal. Baxter Bain will tell you all about it.”

“Who’s that?”

Again, the kind smile, the gentle acknowledgment of her shocking ignorance.

“Baxter oversaw the entire redevelopment of the Downtown Commons,” the banker said. The Commons closed off the major streets in the small downtown core. The stores had hoped that with increased foot traffic, they’d prosper. They didn’t. At the same time, the town’s first shopping mall was built, and everyone took their business there. Eunice didn’t see how the town could support a second shopping center. She raised this with the banker.

“Serving a different market entirely,” he said.

How many markets were there in Dunston? she wanted to ask but didn’t. He’d made her feel stupid enough.

She hadn’t been home two minutes when the telephone rang. Baxter Bain had been given her number. Could they arrange a meeting?

“I don’t think so,” Eunice said.

“I’ll keep it brief, I promise.” Baxter Bain’s voice was deep and boomed in her ear. He sounded like he knew what he was talking about. That confidence and ring could only belong to a handsome man, she decided. She agreed to meet him the following day.

Eunice’s father was skeptical. He wanted to go with her, just to make sure Bain was on the “up and up.” Eunice didn’t think that was such a good idea. While her father drank much less these days, he still loved his beer and could consume it unpredictably. She promised him she’d be wary.

“Just don’t sign anything,” he said.

Baxter Bain was tall, blond, square-jawed, a little round in the stomach, probably in his early thirties. He was also married, given the band on his finger. Eunice didn’t care. She was prepared to conquer.

He regarded her closely over the table where they were having lunch. She willed him to see inside her, to glimpse her hungry heart.

“I can tell you’re an intelligent young woman, and that you know an opportunity when you see one,” he said. His pink tie made her want to lunge across the table and shove her tongue in his mouth. She poked the cheese topping of her French onion soup with her spoon. She couldn’t believe how dumb she’d been to order something that would make her breath stink.

They got together a number of times. She loved the way he held her chair for her, opened doors, took her arm as they crossed the street. His touch was electric.

Hers must have been, too, because he fell in love with her. At least, he said he’d fallen. Something about the flowers he sent and the late night phone calls, when he’d clearly had too much to drink, rang false. Yet she found herself believing him. She wanted to. She had to.

You’re a fool, Eunice Fitch!

Baxter Bain wanted her money. That was the long and short of it. He wooed her to get it. She held out as long as she could. Sometimes Grandma Grace would whisper, Watch out, girl. Hang on tight to what I gave you! That’s when Eunice wished that what she’d inherited had been common sense instead of cash.

Her obsession with Baxter Bain caused her to split in two. Her brain still worked. She knew she was being played. Her heart wanted her to be played. Her wise self put him off, told him she had to think the investment over very carefully. She asked smart questions about how long the project would take to construct, which national stores would lease space, and what builder would be hired. Her foolish self let him drive her out to the site every day, even in the wind and snow. He talked about their fortune, their future.

One day Eunice asked, “What about your wife?”

He waved his hand to indicate that the wife was a small matter. Eunice hoped one day to be the current wife’s replacement, and even as her wise self told her to run like hell, her foolish self let him kiss her right there in the freezing wind.

Three months after Eunice gave Baxter Bain her money, spring came. The site was marked with orange spray paint and wooden stakes. A large sign with the name Dunston Heights Mall was clearly visible from the adjacent highway. She went there often, sometimes at night with a flashlight so she could find her way in the dark, or at sunset to take in the changing color of the lake, and seldom with Baxter Bain. He’d broken things off with her soon after taking her check. His wife was coming around, he said. Coming around to what, Eunice didn’t know. He promised to keep her up to date on the progress of the development. By the end of the summer there had been no progress at all. One night he called, waking her from an uneasy sleep full of Grandma Grace, to say that the money had been lost. The contractor had swindled them both and skipped town. The authorities had been contacted. Once he was in custody, there’d be a lawsuit. The bum would pay up. She wasn’t to worry about that.

Eunice digested this news and found she didn’t care all that much. She was too excited by the sound of his voice.

Then she ruined things by asking, “How are things with your wife?”

Baxter hung up, and she didn’t hear from him again for a long time. When he did get back in touch, it was from jail. He wanted to come clean, he said. Eunice, apparently, hadn’t been the only investor in the shopping center. A number of other people—all women, though considerably older than she—had put in their life savings. There had never been a contractor, just overseas accounts in the name of Baxter Bain’s wife. She, apparently, was the one who took off with all of it, and Baxter was now agreeing to testify against her in the hope that she could be found and the money recovered. Neither ever happened, and Baxter stayed behind bars.

The land was eventually sold by Baxter’s real estate company to another developer who built a retirement community there a few years later. When Eunice saw that the Lindell Home was hiring, she applied. The place oozed comfort and luxury. The carpets were thick, the furniture solid and plush. The woman who interviewed her, Alice somebody, met with her in the activity room. They sat together on a sofa that faced a wall of windows.

“What makes you want to work with the elderly?” Alice asked. She didn’t look much older than Eunice, then just twenty-five.

“I took care of my Grandma Grace for a long time after she broke her hip.”

“I see.”

“Then she died.”

“I’m sorry to hear that.”

Eunice focused on a little pin Alice wore at the neck of her white blouse. It was made from a slim gold bar and a blue stone at either end. The stones reminded her of Baxter’s eyes.

“You seem like a very capable person,” Alice said.

“I like to think so.”

“Why don’t we take a look around and see how you like it here.”

They toured the whole building. Long, wide halls led into common areas with aquariums or bird cages. Beautiful art hung on the walls; wide windowsills were choked with healthy green plants the residents could tend themselves if they wished to, Alice explained. The dining room had arched doorways and windows. The fitness center had a swimming pool and sauna. Alice explained that there were three levels of accommodation. Independent residents lived in the outlying cottages. As an aide, Eunice wouldn’t cross paths with them, unless she wanted to apply for a housekeeping position? That would entail mopping and vacuuming. Eunice didn’t think so. She liked the sound of actually being in the company of someone, not working by herself. Then there was the assisted living wing. Most of the people there had suffered a recent illness or injury, and needed a little extra help before they went back to their cottages. If their recovery wasn’t promising, they moved into the skilled nursing wing. Eunice would probably be assigned there.

“Now, how does all that sound?” Alice asked when they’d returned to the reception area.

“Fine.”

“Good. Come in on Monday.”

Eunice left the building feeling like she’d just been handed a prison sentence. She refused to be glum, however, and spoke of her new opportunity in glowing terms to her parents.

“Seems like an odd job for a young person like you,” her father said.

“A job’s a job,” her mother said.

Eunice suspected that her mother was secretly thrilled at the loss of her fortune. She and Eunice’s father still lived in the Eunice’s childhood home, while Eunice had had to move out of the fancy apartment and was renting a trailer along the inlet from Lake Dunston. She still had the Carmen Ghia but couldn’t afford to replace the bad muffler, so she bought a 1965 Dodge Dart Station Wagon. A car that was almost twenty years old wasn’t anything exactly special. But then again, neither was she.

 

chapter twelve

 

 

 

For the next few years, the love in Eunice’s heart found expression in the care she lavished on the residents at Lindell. Most weren’t interested in her efforts, but a few were. Molly Moore had quite a yen for Eunice’s hair, and often asked if she could braid it. Eunice let her when her shift was over because her supervisor didn’t like her being on the clock for such a frivol. Eunice tried to make her see that it was good for Molly to use her hands, to have Eunice sit before her like a beloved grandchild, and to have someone to tell her stories to.

Molly was eighty-nine, which meant she was born at the turn of the century. Her mind was sharp. So was her tongue. She declared President Bush a horse’s ass. So was anyone who’d voted for him.

“My mother did,” Eunice said.

“Goodness! That’s all I need to know about that poor woman!”

Her voice was high, yet firm. She’d had a career in business, first as a secretary after the First World War, then as a bookkeeper for a bakery, a drugstore, and a high-end store that specialized in ladies’ lingerie.

“They gave me a great discount, though I wasn’t married yet at the time, so all those pretty underthings went to waste,” she said.

“Can’t a woman wear frillies just for herself?”

“Sure. But it’s more fun when a man admires you, don’t you think?”

Eunice did. Her love life had been nil for some time. She’d gone on a couple of dates with one of the maintenance men from Lindell. He was about her age, attractive in a brooding sort of way, and looked at her as if she were his favorite meal. She decided that on the third date she’d make her move. She stopped him as they were walking across a parking lot and kissed him. He did nothing, just stood there. She asked him what was wrong.

“Our Lord frowns on such behavior,” he said.

Six months later, she had dinner with the great-grandson of a resident. He treated her to lobster at the lake, said she was beautiful, asked if she liked Italian films, then said they should go to his place and just get it over with. Eunice was fine with that, only “it” managed to last about forty-five seconds.

She took to going to bars on Tuesdays for Ladies’ Night, and on Fridays for Happy Hour. Her results fell between awful and inane. One night, she crossed another frontier and brought someone home.

The man, Carson, had been charming early in the evening but got nastier with each drink. Once in the door, he looked around and said, “What a dump!”

Eunice wasn’t put off by his mounting mean spirit. She decided she’d reform him, and kill him with kindness. She agreed that her orange rag rug was a little old school, as was the curved back on the sofa and the print of a little girl offering a daisy to a cow. These had all been Grandma Grace’s things, which meant that putting them down upset her, but she knew that wherever Grandma Grace was, she understood. Carson dropped meatily onto the sofa, sending up a plume of dust from the ancient cushions, and told her he liked a woman who could admit that she was wrong.

Then he patted the empty space next to him, releasing even more dust. Eunice sat. He said he might be able to help her get some new furniture. He had a friend who was looking to sell a few things cheap. The friend was downsizing, moving out of state, and pretty much everything had to go. Carson leaned his head back and snored for a while. Eunice considered his offer. Carson might be the man she’d been looking for. He seemed capable, a good problem-solver. Eunice knew she was good at this, too, and that if she took up with Carson, she’d have to pretend to be inept so he could feel useful. She reflected on the stormy marriage of her own parents. Her father had been more on the ball than her mother had ever given him credit for. If she’d been gentler, more supportive, the whole family would have been calmer, with a real chance for happiness. Her mother believed in punishing people for things they couldn’t help. That, Eunice decided, was the essence of cruelty.

Carson’s friend, it turned out, was selling someone else’s furniture. The friend had another friend who worked for a moving company. The clients were out of town, already installed in their next home, not on hand to supervise the loading of the truck and the selective culling of their possessions. A lamp, side table, and a leather easy-chair found their way into Carson’s pick-up and then Eunice’s trailer. She knew nothing about their true origins. She was just glad Carson had come through. She was also thrilled that the cost to her was less than two hundred dollars. Eunice invited Carson to move in with her, since the lease on his one bedroom apartment was up soon. He said it was a serious step. He didn’t want her to get the wrong idea. A long-term relationship probably wasn’t in the cards for him. He was open about his past with women. He’d decided some time before that he had a commitment problem, but if Eunice was willing to go with the flow, not ask too much, then he’d be happy to join her in her trailer.

Got you now!

One evening, not long after, while Carson was at his place packing, a man knocked on Eunice’s door and told her that Carson needed to get rid of the hot stuff. The moving company had called the police. The friend said he was going to lie low for a while, but if things went wrong and he got picked up, he’d have to tell the cops what he knew.

“Are you saying this furniture is stolen?” Eunice asked. The man looked down at her with beady, rodent eyes.

“More like on permanent loan.”

The man told Eunice to make sure Carson knew he’d been by, and to watch himself in the next few days.

“Tell him we’ll go for a beer when it’s all over,” he said.

“What’s your name?”

“I’d rather not say, you know, if the cops show up here looking for me.”

If that happened, a physical description alone would have him tracked down. The guy was six foot five at least and had had to stoop to get through the trailer’s doorway. He had blond dreadlocks, a few of which had been died black, and a tattoo of a dragon on the right side of his neck.

“I’ll just call you Mr. X,” Eunice said.

“Just play dumb if they ask you anything. Carson should too. He knows how.”

Then Mr. X went on his way.

Eunice said nothing to Carson. The police stayed away. So did Mr. X. Eunice could tell Carson was mad about his disappearance and thought it was some selfish whim, not motivated by self-preservation. She liked knowing something he didn’t. It seemed like a fair trade, given what she’d already ceded.

Their life together was a clumsy dance. Sometimes she forgot herself and tried to lead. He stepped all over her. He lost his job at the liquor store for having beer on his breath, and didn’t see the humor in that at all. Then he decided he’d been granted a favor, since he never had liked his boss all that much. He came to enjoy staying home, in front of the television, and Eunice’s cable package, which set her back a fair amount every month. So did Carson. He didn’t contribute money. He didn’t contribute time. She was expected to cook, clean, and wash his clothes when she wasn’t working at Lindell.

Her days off were Tuesday and Thursday. Carson suggested that she ask to rearrange her schedule so that her days off were consecutive. That way she could get more done around the place.

“You just like having me around,” she said.

“That too.”

He gave her a big bear hug. He needed a shower. She didn’t mention it. He’d been down lately, bored and restless.

“I got the fidgets,” he said more than once.

She made his favorite dinner of macaroni and cheese with cut up hot dogs, splashed generously with hot sauce and paired with an ice cold beer. He ate slowly, enjoying it. He was her work of art, she realized. Her creation. She suggested he might look for a job, a place to put his nervous energy.

“That’s just like you to throw it in my face,” he said, chewing.

“Throw what?”

“That I got fired.”

“I didn’t mean that at all. I just thought you’d feel better.”

“Don’t treat me like a little boy.”

“Then don’t act like one.”

It took her a good twenty minutes to clean up the food he’d tossed on the floor, along with the broken plate, not to mention the overturned kitchen table. Carson had taken himself out to a bar after helping himself to Eunice’s wallet. She fumed. She scrubbed. She vowed not to provoke him on payday ever again; it could get expensive.

At work, Eunice had made friends with one of the residents, Elvie Sundhurst. Eunice liked talking to her. She was a widow. She’d been married sixty-two years. That sounded like an eternity to Eunice. At the time, Eunice was coming up on her thirty-fifth birthday. When she did the math, if she and Carson got married right away, she’d be ninety-seven when she’d been married as long as Elvie. She and Carson weren’t getting married. He showed no signs of asking her. Sometimes she wasn’t even sure she’d accept, especially after the food-throwing, table-tipping incident. Carson had come home apologetic and anxious. He said he expected to find that she’d dumped his things out into the street and changed the locks. She asked him why she shouldn’t. He honestly didn’t know. He knew he wasn’t easy to live with, but hoped she’d give him a second chance.

Eunice filled Elvie in. Elvie listened while she played another game of solitaire. She had a small folding table in her room and wheeled herself there first thing in the morning. Eunice finished making the bed. Elvie shuffled her cards.

“I’d-a cracked his head open with a skillet, he ever tried a thing like that,” Elvie said.

Carson looked for work but found nothing. Eunice suggested that he apply to the maintenance staff at Lindell, then regretted opening her mouth. If he got a job there and did badly, she’d look like a fool. Maybe she already looked like one. Her relationship with Carson was something she shared freely with the residents, most of whom didn’t answer, unlike Elvie, who always had something to contribute.

“Put your foot in his backside. Take charge,” Elvie said, and slapped down a Queen of Hearts.

Finally, Carson got hired on at the gun factory, not on the line, but as a custodian. He swept up after hours. He seemed to like it. He said it gave him time to think. Eunice hoped that with all that time thinking, things might improve.

One morning Eunice went to work and learned that Elvie had died in her sleep the night before. Eunice felt both sad and ripped off. Elvie hadn’t seemed unwell when Eunice had seen her last. There had been no chance to thank her for her harsh but fair words. Eunice had come to feel that thanks were in order because Carson had suggested that one day they might actually consider tying the knot. He’d been so vague about it that it took Eunice a moment to realize she was receiving a proposal of marriage.

Eunice took her grief over Elvie to her father, whose health hadn’t been too good of late. He suffered from a chronic cough and tired easily, yet wouldn’t go to the doctor. Eunice’s mother had discovered the joy of playing bingo and was usually out in the evenings, though Eunice knew for a fact, as did her own father, that bingo was offered locally only on Wednesdays at the community center. Eunice’s father said he didn’t mind his wife getting out and having a little fun. The question, Eunice thought and kept to herself, was with whom.

He expressed his sadness over the loss of Elvie. Eunice then spoke of Carson and the recent turn of events.

“You want to get married?” her father asked. The fabric on the arms of the chair he sat in was worn and black. Eunice thought that one of these days she might take it outside and set it on fire.

“Maybe,” she said.

“That sounds like no.”

“It’s not that simple.”

“Either you want that ring, or you don’t.”

Eunice realized that Carson hadn’t presented her with an engagement ring. She’d seen a nice one at a jewelers in the mall. It was small but elegant. She hadn’t mentioned it to Carson.

“I don’t know what the big deal about marriage is, anyhow,” she said. She was on the couch opposite her father’s ruined chair, the same couch from her own childhood that creaked loudly when someone sat down.

“Commitment,” her father said. He was sipping from a can of beer. Two empty cans lay crumpled at his feet. “Marriage is a promise, a vow.”

“I know all that.” Eunice’s head hurt. The summer air was thick and humid. Thunder sounded dully in the distance.

“No, you don’t. No one knows, until they’re in it up to their eyeballs.”

Eunice didn’t have to ask her father what it had been like being married to her mother. Yet she remembered a sprinkling of happy moments or at least times when they were neither screaming nor avoiding one another in cold, stony silence. One winter night they had sat in front of the fire laughing. A summer afternoon had been spent working together in the garden. They both had taken her into town the Halloween she was in second grade because the houses where they lived weren’t close enough together to make a good haul trick-or-treating. Eunice didn’t believe in fairy tale romances and happily ever after, but she did expect that the good times would slightly outnumber the bad. Maybe that was more likely to happen if you didn’t get married and just lived together instead. She didn’t want to feel trapped by a wedding ceremony. It wouldn’t do either her or Carson any good. She told her father exactly this.

When he stopped coughing, he said, “You’re just trying to talk yourself out of the whole idea, which means you’re not ready to jump in.”

Eunice got him another beer, though he hadn’t asked for it, then offered to stay until her mother returned. He waved his hand dismissively in a way that meant there was no point in waiting, not because he wasn’t lonely, but because it might be quite late when her mother got back.

The night was thrown with stars. Their beauty helped Eunice reflect. She and Carson were a good match. He wasn’t much, and neither was she. Time to face facts. She wasn’t important, and she never would be.

If Grandma Grace were still alive, she’d probably say that sort of attitude was a bunch of baloney. She’d tell Eunice to get off her duff and figure out what she wanted from life, and then to go out and get it.

Grandma Grace had done a number of things with her seventy-nine years on earth. Before she was married, she lived for a while in New York City and worked as a waitress. That had been back during the First World War. It would have been hard to be a woman on her own. She also learned how to type, and got a job working for a law office until the man who ran the place set his sights on her in a way that strongly suggested the altar was not in mind. She came back to Dunston with some savings and sold baked goods from her own kitchen, which living in the middle of downtown made easy. Grandma Grace was known for her bread and rolls.

The business went under in the Depression, which she always said was just as well because she was a mother at that point, and working and taking care of a little girl was pretty hard. Eunice’s grandfather wasn’t drawn to the usual occupations, and fenced stolen goods. He got arrested from time to time, which always made a heavy load for Grandma Grace.

“He helped around the house, which was rare for a man in those days,” she often told Eunice.

Grandma Grace got friendly with certain cops. She never specified the terms of these friendships, but Eunice was pretty sure money changed hands so that her grandfather could go on selling hot cars and radios and stay out of jail. He accumulated a little cash, but not very much, because times were still pretty hard all around, so Grandma Grace went back to work when Eunice’s mother was old enough to go to school. She always felt bad about that.

“Maybe that’s how come your mom turned out to be such a sourpuss, because I wasn’t around enough.”

Grandma Grace learned how to keep books. She got a job in a dental office. The dentist had family money, and also did well in his practice. He taught Grace about investing in solid stocks. She bought Boeing and other industrial companies that ramped up during the Second World War. Her returns were phenomenal, though she kept that to herself. She didn’t want her husband knowing what she had. The stocks were all in her name. Even after he died, she lived modestly so she could keep her fortune, which came to Eunice decades later, and which Eunice lost.

But there was no point in thinking about that. Eunice had made up her mind. Carson it would be.

Music was playing inside the trailer. A woman laughed. Then Carson said, “Hey, be careful.” Eunice opened the door. The woman was someone she recognized from the trailer park. Eunice didn’t know very much about her except that she was divorced. She was older than Eunice by about ten years, which put her around Carson’s age. She was sitting in his lap, drinking from a bottle of beer. The trailer smelled of marijuana. Eunice didn’t know Carson smoked marijuana. He’d never mentioned it before. Carson stared at Eunice and stopped smiling.

“Oops,” he said.

The woman looked at Eunice. She got off Carson’s lap. She put the bottle of beer she’d been holding on the coffee table. She didn’t use a coaster. Eunice kept a small stack on the table and always encouraged Carson to use one.

“It’s not what you think,” the woman said.

“What do I think?” Eunice asked.

“You remember Mandy, don’t you, honey?” Carson asked.

“No.”

“I should go,” Mandy said. Her T-shirt had a picture of a unicorn on it. The unicorn was silver, shiny, and grinning. Mandy was grinning too. Her eyes were red and squinty. Where was the pipe? Eunice wondered. Didn’t you smoke marijuana in a pipe?

“Don’t rush off on my account,” Eunice said. Mandy hesitated. She coughed without covering her mouth.

“Nah, hate to be a party pooper, but I got work in the morning,” she said. Mandy glanced at Carson as if she hoped he’d ask her to stay. He didn’t. She left.

“I didn’t know she got a job,” Carson said.

“Sounds like you two have gotten pretty chummy.”

“We talk now and then.”

“Especially when I’m not here. With her in your lap.”

“Come on. She was just fooling around.”

“That’s my point.”

“I can’t talk to you when you get like this.”

Eunice sat down in the stolen chair. She was glad she hadn’t found Mandy sitting in it. It was a nice chair.

“Elvie died,” she said.

“The cat?”

“What cat?”

“You know, that lady across the road. The one with the cat.”

Was there no female neighbor Carson didn’t know?

“The lady at Lindell. The one I was friends with.”

“Oh. What she die of?”

“Living too long.”

Carson sighed. He went and got himself another bottle of beer. He returned to the couch.

“You should get some sleep,” he told her.

“You should move out.”

“Why? Because I had someone over when you weren’t home? I had to. You don’t like my friends.”

“So, you were just being considerate.”

“Yeah.”

Eunice leaned back in the chair. She closed her eyes. In homes all over America this same scene was being played. Whatever the circumstances, however the different actors got where they were, it always ended the same.

“This is my house, and I’m not leaving it,” she said.

“You’re really kicking me out?” His surprise sounded genuine. For a moment, Eunice felt herself caving in.

“Look, if it’s about Mandy, don’t worry. She’s leaving soon,” Carson said. He was leaning forward now, trying to lessen the distance between them.

“Where’s she going?”

“Moving out, that’s all I know. She has family in Binghamton.”

Binghamton was all of thirty-five miles away. Carson’s car got terrible gas mileage. He’d be asking for money, or to borrow her car, in no time.

Eunice went to bed. Carson slept on the couch. He’d stayed up late. She’d heard him moving around well past midnight. She left for work in the morning without waking him. She didn’t go home right away when her shift was over. She swung by the cemetery to talk to Grandma Grace. Her advice was the same as it always was, and Eunice would take it, if she knew how. Before she left, she asked Grandma Grace to say hi to Elvie, if she happened to run into her.

Carson and his things were gone when she returned. The stolen furniture remained, only because he hadn’t figured out a way to take it along, Eunice was certain. She sat a moment, then called a locksmith to come change the lock. She thought it best that he not decide to pay a visit at some highly inconvenient moment.

Over the next several days, he was on her mind all the time, though he didn’t call or come by. She had no idea where he was living. She wanted to hunt him down and force an apology out of him but knew that was absurd.

 

chapter thirteen

 

 

 

George Nash was on the way out. He had no active disease. At ninety-six, he’d simply had enough. For the past two months, he’d not risen from bed. Everything was done for him right there. Eunice came in after the nurses had checked his vitals and helped him swallow his many daily pills. Meals were always soft—pudding, a boiled egg, soup. Eunice brought the spoon to his lips and was thrilled when he took the smallest bite. When his eyes opened and he took her in, they filled with joyous light.

Sometimes they spoke a little. He asked what it was doing outside, what month it was, if the president was still a bum. One day he asked if she was married. She shook her head.

“Don’t believe it,” he said. His voice was deep and quiet. Speaking was the one thing that seemed not to tire him.

“Believe it.”

“What’s wrong with the young men these days?”

He’d been married fifty-four years. His wife had died over ten years before. Her picture sat on his dresser. She had a small oval face and a pert nose. Eunice liked to think she looked a little bit like her.

Often they just sat, hand in hand, while the television played. Eunice loved the perfect smoothness of his skin. He still had a full head of hair, and she stroked it whenever she could.

His family wanted him to spend his last days at home. Eunice didn’t want him to go. She knew she had no say in the matter.

One afternoon, her supervisor, Karen, called her into her office. Alice, who had been promoted to manager of the entire home, was there, too. George’s son had visited just the day before. Eunice had been off then.

“He told his father that they’re relocating him at the end of the month,” Karen said.

“I’ll be sorry to see him go.”

Karen and Alice both looked uneasy. Karen in particular. She tended to rub her nose when someone was late for work or a resident had fouled the sheets. She was rubbing it now.

“Let me get to the point. His son, Marlin, says his dad doesn’t want to leave,” Alice said.

“Really?”

“It seems he’s formed a strong attachment to you.”

“I’m glad.”

“He told his son that he’s fallen in love with you.”

Eunice shifted in her chair. She was deliriously happy, and knew better than to show it. She adopted a puzzled, concerned expression.

“Now, sometimes residents take a special liking to someone. It’s not unusual,” Karen said.

“But this is unusual, particularly because his mental state is uncompromised, as far as we can tell. Would you agree that he’s rational?” Alice asked.

“Yes. Totally.”

“So, at the very least, he believes he’s in love with you. Whether or not he actually is.”

“How do you tell the difference?”

“I’m sorry?”

“Well, I mean, if you think you love someone, how could it ever be proved that you don’t?”

Alice conceded the point.

“You see, Eunice, the thing is, well the son wonders if something inappropriate may have taken place between you and his father,” she said.

“As in … sleeping together?”

“Exactly.”

“Holy cow!”

Eunice asked if it were even possible for a man George’s age. Karen assured her that it was. She hoped her sudden color would be taken as indignation or shock at such a suggestion, and not the truth, which was she’d thought about it, herself.

Because she loved George, too. She knew it was crazy. Obviously there was something wrong with her. She couldn’t help it. Her heart always melted so easily.

“Nothing happened,” she said.

“We know. But the son is skeptical. He’ll get over that, I suspect, once his dad’s been moved,” Alice said.

“You’re concerned about Lindell’s reputation,” Eunice said.

“Naturally.”

“Well, I’m concerned, too. And I resent that son of his, let me tell you.”

“Of course.”

“So, just try to bring George around to the idea of leaving. Can you do that?” Karen asked.

“I’ll try.”

Eunice didn’t try. She never brought the subject up. She hoped he might die before the son had his way, because that would fix everything, then felt terrible for thinking so.

George didn’t die. If anything, he became more alert, as if gathering strength.

“They’ll never keep us apart,” he told her, his grip on her hand so firm it was almost painful.

“No, they won’t.”

Eunice touched her lips to his.

The day for George’s departure approached relentlessly. Eunice thought briefly of kidnapping him, or in her words, rescuing him. It would be the end of her career at Lindell, or worse, if there were criminal charges. Maybe she could talk to the son, lay it on the line, beg him to let her care for his father for as long as he had left in the world. But approaching him would get her in trouble. Aides weren’t supposed to reach out to family members. That was the job of the social workers. She could bring it up with one of the four on staff. In the end, her courage failed there, too.

Marlin Nash asked to meet with her on her next day off. Karen thought it was a good idea.

“When he hears how much you want to cooperate, he’ll feel better,” Karen said.

Eunice didn’t care how Marlin felt.

But she put on her best outfit, a navy blue pantsuit with a blue and white striped scarf. She wanted to appear serious, in charge, someone to be respected.

He picked her up at Lindell. They went to lunch in College Town. Marlin looked around the wood-paneled, smoky room with distaste. He was in his mid-sixties, she guessed, and wore a three-piece suit, no doubt to intimidate her. He asked if she would care for a cocktail.

“Martini, very dry,” she said. His mouth curled up on one side in an unmistakable smirk. He ordered one for each of them. Eunice had never tasted one before. She found it revolting, yet sipped it in a way she hoped would appear genteel and sophisticated.

Marlin looked like George—the same long face, blue eyes, and broad forehead. His manner wasn’t at all the same, however. He was both domineering and furtive, as if he weren’t entirely sure he was in control.

“I want to thank you for taking such good care of my father,” he said.

“I’m not his only aide. Emily and Lulu are the others. I imagine you’ve met them?”

“You’re the only one he talks about.”

Emily and Lulu were both in their fifties—big, strong women with large, rough-skinned hands.

“He’s a wonderful old gentleman,” Eunice said. The gin had softened her voice too much, she thought. She was in danger of giving herself away.

Marlin didn’t seem to have noticed. He was studying the plastic laminated menu. He put it face down on the table.

“You know he’s dying,” Marlin said.

“Yes. For a while now.”

“We’re bringing him home.”

“I know that, too.”

“He’s putting up a hell of a fight. Didn’t think the old guy had it in him.”

Was that pride in his voice? Admiration? The light in his eyes said it was perhaps both.

“Then why not leave him alone?” Eunice asked.

“My sister won’t have it. She needs him to die in her house.”

Needs?

There was trouble between them years before, Marlin explained. His sister, Nadine, ran off with her college sweetheart. The guy was no good. Left her flat after only a month. The ink on the marriage license was barely dry. Of course, she was pregnant. Their father offered to help. She refused every bit of advice, guidance, and support. She even refused money.

“Sounds like a fiercely independent woman.”

“She was a fool. She suffered. The child suffered.”

In some way, Nadine blamed her father for everything, the way young women so often do.

Eunice didn’t know what he was talking about. In her own life, it was her mother she blamed, never her father.

She married again. A good man, a solid man. He adopted the boy as his own. Yet Nadine always felt their father had driven her off, not been accepting enough of her. Really, it was the normal teenage stuff he’d objected to. He was never cruel about any of it. Even so, she punished him. She didn’t visit often, didn’t let him see the grandson. After their mother died, this absence was particularly painful. By then the boy, Benjamin, was in his twenties.

“It’s hard to bring a young person that age into your life when you’re an old man.”

“So, she feels guilty,” Eunice said. The drink had gone to her head. She felt loose and wobbly.

“Clearly.”

She nodded solemnly. She wondered where the waiter had gone.

“Let me come to the point,” Marlin said.

“Oh, please do.”

“I—that is, we—want you to tell our dad to come home with us.”

Eunice shook her head. Marlin reached into the pocket of his jacket, removed an envelope, and put it on the table in front of her.

“There’s two thousand dollars in there,” he said.

“You want to bribe me?”

“I want to bring my father home and have him be happy about it. As happy as he can be, at this stage of the game. If this will help you do the right thing, then it’s yours for the taking.”

Eunice stared at the envelope and thought about what it could mean. She cared deeply for George, but he didn’t have that much more time.

Wait, what kind of person was she to even consider abandoning someone she loved?

Someone who’s sick of being broke.

“Take a little time off. I’ll speak to your supervisor. They can tell George you’re sick,” Marlin said.

“He’ll worry if he hears that.”

“No doubt you’re correct. Then how about this? You have a family emergency. He’d accept that.”

And love me even more for seeing how responsible and caring I am.

“I’m sorry, did I say something to upset you?” Marlin asked.

Eunice wiped her eyes.

“No, I’m fine, thanks.”

They decided not to order any food, now that the matter had been cleared up.

Marlin drove Eunice back to Lindell. She sat in the passenger seat of his BMW, clutching her purse like the greedy cheater she was. She’d almost refused the money, then took it, just like that.

She said good-bye and walked around back where she’d left her car. Her head pounded from gin on an empty stomach. Someone had shoved a piece of paper under one of her wiper blades, asking her to stop by the reception desk before going home. She pulled herself together and walked back the way she’d come.

There was a note from Alice saying George had passed away only an hour before.

It was sudden, despite his condition, she wrote.

When had he gone? At the moment her hand touched the envelope? But that was nonsense. He didn’t know anything about it.

George’s room didn’t stay vacant long. A tiny Italian woman moved into it. She had no use for Eunice, and never made small talk. Eunice was just as glad. She didn’t want to spend a lot of time there.

Marlin never asked for the money back. Twice Eunice wrote out his address, obtained from Lindell, on a slightly larger envelope and slipped hers inside. She didn’t seal it. She didn’t even buy a stamp. Eventually she bought the Carmen Ghia its muffler, then sold the car to a collector for six thousand dollars with one condition—that he name the car George.

 

chapter fourteen

 

 

 

For her fortieth birthday, Eunice treated herself by signing up for a square dancing class at the Y. She was particularly blue. Her father had died the winter before from complications of emphysema, and her mother sang a very different tune. Suddenly, the old house she swore she’d never leave became oppressive. She begged Eunice to move back home. Eunice told her she was off her rocker. Soon after, her mother’s home was foreclosed on. Apparently, they’d been behind on everything for years. She described the court proceeding with cheer, even a touch of gusto. What she admired most was how they dressed, the lawyers. Put together, you know? So calm and dignified. It gave some little proof that the world wasn’t a complete mess. Eunice had some trouble with this disconnect. Rather than being furious over their role in removing her from her home, her mother was enchanted by their suits and ties.

When the sale went through, her mother took her savings, which consisted of three thousand dollars she’d gotten away from Eunice’s father after his windfall, and rented an apartment downtown in a former high school that had been renovated. It happened to be the one where Eunice had suffered through four miserable years of social anxiety, in fact, and the one time she visited, she swore the tiny sitting room where her mother poured her a beer without asking if she wanted one was once the back half of her tenth grade geometry class. The view was the same: a stately Episcopal church on one side of the street, a small nicely-shaded park on the other. And the enormous elm was still there, though taller, and fuller in the trunk. Two of the branches formed a saddle that Eunice had often longed to sit in, above the world, unobserved.

The grief her mother expressed at the passing of Eunice’s father seemed to be genuine.

“You’re all I have left now,” she said, quietly, then invited Eunice to join her weekly bingo game. For a moment, Eunice was tempted to accept, then realized that if she did, she might as well have one foot in the damn grave. Hence, the square dancing class.

The instructor was a tall, young man with stooped shoulders. His shoulder-length hair was thin on top. The frames of his glasses were heavy and black, held together across the bridge of his nose with adhesive tape. Despite all that, she found him madly attractive. His eyes got to her. They were so blue they bordered on lavender. Up to that moment, though she hadn’t seen him since, Carson had still tugged at her heart. Now Carson was really and truly gone.

His name was Hamilton, Ham for short. He was twenty-six. It was clear that he didn’t give her a second thought. When it was her turn to do-si-do, she kept trying to hold his hand, which the maneuver didn’t call for.

One evening after class, she invited him to join her for a drink. As they sat in a booth in the back of the bar, Eunice with a schooner of amber ale, Ham nursed a cup of black coffee and explained why he’d given up alcohol. The year before, there’d been a terrible tragedy. Eleanor, his dog, had been killed. She was a cocker spaniel, young and eager, always straining forward. One night he took her for her usual walk after he’d had a few too many, and his grip on the leash wasn’t tight enough. He let go. She raced into the road and got hit by a car. They’d been walking on a quiet road in the part of town where his mother still lived. It was late. That a car would come down it at that exact moment was uncanny. The driver wasn’t a neighbor but someone leaving a Bible study session at a nearby home. He was a quiet little man, heartbroken over the dead animal. He gave Ham a blanket from the trunk of his car to put over Eleanor. Then he asked Ham if he’d like to pray. Ham took Eleanor and went home. Later all he could think about was how heavy she’d felt in his arms.

He had been punished by a higher authority, not God necessarily, but a spirit guide of some sort. Eunice had no idea what the hell he was talking about. It didn’t matter really. With that keen light in his gorgeous eyes, and the pain in his voice, he could have been talking about the finer points of playing croquet, for all she cared.

“What got you into square dancing?” he asked.

“Oh, I don’t know. Wanted to learn something different, I guess.”

“Where do you work?”

“The Lindell Home.”

“Cool.”

He spooned more sugar into his coffee.

“How about you?” Eunice asked.

“Home Depot. I’m a cashier.”

“Can you get me a discount?”

“On what?”

“Just kidding.”

Then Ham said he had to be up early in the morning but that he’d love to get together again soon, outside of class. Maybe she’d like to come to his place next week for dinner?

Words failed her for a moment. Her heart glowed.

“You eat dinner, right?” he asked.

“What? Of course. I was just surprised.”

“That I invited you?”

“Well, frankly, yes.”

“Don’t be. I’m supposed to.”

“Supposed to what?”

“Meet new friends.”

“Oh.”

Ham smiled, and sipped his coffee. He returned the cup to the saucer.

“My therapist thinks it’s a good idea,” he said.

“Sure.”

“You know, recovering from the thing with Eleanor.”

“Right.”

Ham asked if a week from Friday would work for her. She said it would. He gave her his address.

“Won’t I see you in class before then?” she asked.

“Of course. But I didn’t want to give you my address then. I mean, it might look weird with other people around.”

At work, Eunice buttoned the front of Mrs. Moller’s pink sweater and asked her why Ham didn’t want the other students to know they were dating. Was he ashamed of her? Mrs. Moller pushed her hands away in annoyance. She didn’t care for her sweater to be buttoned up, thank you.

Then she said, “Why did he invite you then, if he’s ashamed?”

Eunice thought for a moment as she folded several nightgowns that had been returned from the Lindell laundry that morning.

“Maybe he thinks he’ll get lucky, you know, and that’s all he’s after,” she said.

Mrs. Moller looked up at Eunice with her brown eyes. Her wide, pink face gave her a commanding air.

“Forgive me for saying this, dear, but I don’t think that’s it at all. I mean, you’re not unattractive by any means. You just need to fix yourself up a little.”

Wasn’t that the truth! For the last few years her closet had looked like the inside of a thrift store. She favored sweatshirts and turtlenecks in the fall and winter—brown, gray, or black, with black jeans. In summer, she wore tee-shirts in navy blue or forest green. The pants stayed black in hot weather but were a lighter weight. When she’d gone out with Ham, she wore her favorite sweatshirt. It was tan with pink flowers embroidered on the cuffs.

“How?” she asked.

“Makeup. Good makeup is the key.”

“I see.”

“I used to sell it, you know, down at Rothschild’s.”

Rothschild’s department store was the anchor of the downtown commercial core. It wasn’t as grand as it once had been, though. It was old-fashioned and fussy.

“That’s how I met my husband. He was there looking for something for his sister, which I found both charming and odd because men don’t know anything about makeup. I instructed him, naturally. His sister was blonde and fair, so I told him what sort of lipstick shades were best.”

“Would you like me to—?”

“The one he picked was Cherry Blossom. ‘Well, what do you know about that?’ he said, holding it in his hand. And that silly hat of his. All rumpled in the back, as if he’d sat on it! His sister, Marjorie—she was my bridesmaid, you know, because I didn’t really have any good girlfriends of my own at the time—wore that lipstick on our wedding day. Pretty as a picture, though of course, Martin—my husband—said she didn’t hold a candle to me. Martin was a flatterer, all right, but he was always sincere at the same time. More of a sweet-talker, I’d say. Which was a real help when it came to business. He sold cars, you know. That was a lucky thing because I always got to drive the latest model. I remember this one time I banged up the fender of a brand new Buick, can’t quite recall just how, maybe backed up too far trying to park; anyway, Martin said, ‘Oh, honey, what’s a fender compared to you? Doesn’t make a bit of difference.’ He was like that the whole fifty-three years we were married. Even at the end, when he was, you know, on the way out. Said he didn’t need any angels where he was going, on account of having had one at his side all along.”

Mrs. Moller fell silent. That long sweep of time passed over her face. Her eyes were misty. Eunice had long known that old people kept all sorts of things alive inside themselves, and sometimes, those things just had to come out.

Eunice put Mrs. Moller’s nightgowns away and left.

For the dinner with Ham, she bought a pale green sweater. Though she hadn’t worn it for a long time, the color still suited her. The sales clerk asked what color eye shadow Eunice normally wore. Eunice never wore eye shadow, even back in the days of tearing around in her Carmen Ghia. The sales clerk complimented Eunice’s fair skin and red hair and suggested that she could go pretty bold. Eunice went to the drugstore in the mall several doors down from the clothing store and stood a long time in the makeup section. She chose a hue quite close to the sweater’s shade.

Ham’s neighborhood was just as he’d described, quiet and stately. It was in the part of town where the better set lived. Professors, lawyers, doctors. He must have gotten a good deal on a rental or else was housesitting, probably for someone connected with the university. Some of them retired at Lindell. Eunice had learned that they often took time off to go abroad and study and needed someone in the place for a few months.

Eunice parked her car on the street, although the curved driveway was vacant. As she got out of the car, she realized that the eye shadow made her lids itch. She tended to react aggressively to any sort of irritation and assumed that before long, her eyes would swell. Even so, she took a risk and didn’t wipe the shadow off. She loved the way it looked on her, and she was going to go for broke.

The walk was made of flagstone. The whole yard was tastefully landscaped and well maintained. Eunice thought briefly of her lost fortune. She had trained herself to move on quickly every time the memory occurred. She rang the bell. The door was opened by an elegant gray-haired woman in a long, lavender silk dress. At least, Eunice assumed that it was silk. The woman didn’t look like the kind to wear polyester.

“You must be Eunice. Won’t you please come in?”

The sound of classical music flowed from an interior room.

The woman, who stood a good head taller than Eunice, took the bottle of wine Eunice had brought and said, “I’m Hamilton’s mother. Such a pleasure to finally meet you.”

“His mother?”

“Yes. From your expression, it’s clear he didn’t mention that he still lived at home.”

“No.”

“I’m Eleanor, by the way.”

“Like the dog.”

Eleanor looked confused.

“The one that died,” Eunice said.

“Hamilton never owned a dog. He’s allergic to animals.”

Eleanor led Eunice into a large living room. A grand piano stood in one corner, next to a pair of tall, wide windows that looked out into the yard. The dim outlines of trees could still be seen. Full night was over an hour away. On one wall were floor to ceiling bookshelves. The sight of so many titles made Eunice feel like she was back in school. More books were stacked on the coffee table, the closed lid of the piano, and a glass-topped side table. Ham hadn’t struck her as much of a reader. Then she realized these were the mother’s books.

“You must be a teacher,” Eunice said.

“A professor.”

“Oh.”

“Economics.”

“Money and stuff?”

“Yes.”

Eleanor invited Eunice to sit down. Eunice sat. Eleanor offered her something to drink.

“Sure. What do you have?” Eunice asked.

“Everything, really. Except maybe mango juice. Hamilton can’t stand mango juice.”

“Beer?”

Eleanor stood still. Clearly, she hadn’t expected to be asked for beer.

“Or, wine is fine,” Eunice said.

“I’ll just open what you brought, if you don’t mind.”

“What it’s here for, right?”

Eleanor left the room, bottle in hand. Eunice heard her go down a hall, then into another room, no doubt the kitchen. A drawer opened. Eunice considering bolting out into the night, like the imaginary dog. Ham’s miserable face came back to her as he told the story, trying so hard to be brave.

Eleanor returned with two wine glasses in one hand and the uncorked bottle in the other. She put everything on the coffee table in front of Eunice, on which glossy magazines had been neatly arrayed. The Atlantic Monthly, The Economist, Harper’s, the same stuff that was in the reception area at Lindell.

As they sipped their wine, Eleanor seemed to relax. Her face softened. She leaned back comfortably in her wing-backed chair. Different music played then, still classical, but newer, more modern.

“Is Ham running late?” Eunice asked.

“It’s just you and me this evening. This is our chance to spend a little time together and get to know each other.”

“I see.”

Eleanor’s soft gaze grew tight, focused.

“He’s quite smitten with you, you know. I can’t tell you how long I’ve been hoping that someone older, wiser, would come along and take him under her wing.”

Eunice put her glass of wine on the coffee table.

“Look, Eleanor, I think maybe you got the wrong idea about me and Ham. We’re really just friends, see? Nothing more.”

“You’re taken with him, too, I can tell.”

What would Grandma Grace say about this poor woman, playing matchmaker for her son?

Pathetic feeb.

“Let me be clear. Hamilton hasn’t been well for a while. He had a breakdown a few years ago. He was in love with a woman, and she spurned him, plain and simple. It happens to young men all the time. But Hamilton is quite sensitive. He just couldn’t stand the rejection, poor thing,” Eleanor said.

Her eyes teared up. She didn’t look like she was acting.

“Go on,” Eunice said.

“He tried to kill himself.”

“Wow.”

“Yeah, wow.”

Eleanor drank some wine. Eunice did, too.

“It was my fault, for not holding on to his father,” Eleanor said.

Her ex-husband was a research scientist there at the university, she said. He fell in love with one of his lab assistants. He didn’t ask Eleanor for a divorce, hoping that she’d be “modern” in her thinking.

“It’s what people used to call an ‘open marriage.’ Very popular back in the Seventies.”

Eunice helped herself to another glass of wine.

“I told him to get out. Hamilton was only five at the time. He kept asking when Daddy was coming home.”

Eleanor put her glass down. She’d only had a little of it. Her eyes were troubled.

“You know, sometimes I believe he hates me. That sounds dire, I know. But, consider that he named an imaginary dog after me. An imaginary dog who died an imaginary death, apparently,” she said.

She picked up her glass and held it without drinking.

“But he knows the truth about his father, that he was the one who broke things up, right?” Eunice asked.

“Truth doesn’t matter much to a young person in pain.”

“No, maybe not.”

Eunice wiped her sweaty palms on her blue jeans. Her eyelids itched. The skin under the sweater itched. She wished she’d worn something else. She wished Ham had shown up. She wished she’d eaten more today. She was starving.

“I’ll come to the point. I want you to take care of Ham. I don’t mean have him move in with you. I mean take an interest in him, spend time with him, build up his confidence. He likes to square dance, obviously. He also loves going to the movies. And the theater. Bring him down to the City; take in a few shows. I’ll pay for it. I’ll pay for everything,” Eleanor said.

Eleanor excused herself for a moment, and returned with a silver tray loaded with cheese and crackers. She began munching, then noticed that Eunice wasn’t.

“Won’t you have anything, dear?” she asked.

“Oh, no thanks. I’m fine until dinner.”

Eleanor looked confused again.

“Aren’t we having dinner?” Eunice asked.

“Well, no, actually. Ham invited you for drinks, didn’t he?”

“He said dinner. Doesn’t matter.”

Eleanor shook her head. “That child never could distinguish between the cocktail hour and the dinner hour. Probably because he doesn’t drink.”

“He did drink, though.”

“What? No, never, not to my knowledge.”

Eunice pressed a piece of gooey cheese onto a tiny square cracker and popped the whole thing in her mouth. It was delicious. She had several more. Her appetite faded. She was suffused with a growing sense of well-being. Then she recalled the situation at hand.

“Look, I’m all for hanging out with Ham, but let’s just see how things go, okay? I mean, he might change his mind; I might change my mind. You know,” she said.

Eleanor wiped her lips with her napkin.

“Now you have cold feet,” she said.

“Well, a little, yes. See, I’m sorta used to making my own arrangements, as it were.”

“Ham told me you had an independent spirit.”

“I wouldn’t say that. It’s just I like to decide for myself when it’s time to make a move.”

As Eunice reflected on the moves she’d made, she had the rotten idea that maybe the best part of her life was already behind her. If that were true, that meant there wasn’t a whole hell of a lot to look forward to.

“What’s the matter, dear?” Eleanor asked.

“Nothing.”

The silence went on. Both women felt uncomfortable.

“I should get going. It’s been great, really,” Eunice said.

She was out the door by the time Eleanor had put down her glass of wine and gotten to her feet.

 

chapter fifteen

 

 

 

After Eunice quit the square-dancing class, she enrolled in a fiber arts workshop.

She sat at a loom and ran the shuttle back and forth. At first, she could do no more than handle two colors—one for the warp, one for the weft. Her warp threads were never taut enough, and the entire blanket or throw tended to sag. Her back also ached. Weaving didn’t seem like a good idea.

But she made a friend. Moonshine. That wasn’t her given name, she explained. She’d been born Debra and came to hate it early on.

“My mother was one of the ultra-traditional conservative types. You know. Church on Sunday. No swearing allowed. Liquor was Devil’s work,” she said over a large mug of herbal tea.

“Polar opposite of my mother.”

“You’re lucky.”

“Hell, you say. My mother drank till she stank.”

“Great phrase! Though maybe not so much the truth behind it.”

Moonshine’s long black hair was kinky, out of control—a wild, extravagant mess. She wore ankle-length cotton skirts and peasant blouses. Their puffed sleeves gave her an extra touch of whimsy.

She lived in a small wooden house at the edge of campus, overlooking a ravine at the bottom of which ran a clear creek that had yielded a number of treasures. She displayed these on a wooden shelf in her kitchen: the head of a china doll, the crystal stem of a broken wine glass, and a ballet slipper that a child must have worn, given how small it was. Eunice was curious about that creek and decided to take a look one of these days.

Aside from weaving, Moonshine did all sorts of other handcrafts. She quilted, knit, and embroidered. Once, she’d learned how to blow glass at an arts school in North Carolina. The fine arts didn’t particularly appeal to her, she said, which surprised Eunice. A stunning little watercolor of one of Dunston’s gorges hung shyly on the wall with Moonshine’s signature in the lower right corner. Standing before it, Eunice could hear the water rush, feel its delicate spray. She couldn’t believe Moonshine didn’t value what a gift she had.

“It’s a matter of what makes me happiest,” she said. Tea had been cleared away. Two glasses now held Chardonnay. The summer afternoon filled the room with a light as golden and sweet as the wine itself.

“And it’s not watercolors,” Eunice said.

“My hands need to move more.”

“Makes sense.”

“I mean, you can’t paint well with busy hands.”

“Suppose not.”

“I guess I like building things, in a way.”

Moonshine looked thoughtful, as if this idea had never occurred to her before. Eunice drank. She enjoyed the wine.

“I’m too clumsy to make anything,” she said.

“Just takes practice.”

Moonshine worked in an arts cooperative on the downtown Commons that sold her stuff and other artists’ too. She had big plans for that store. For one thing, she wanted to buy it and enlarge the space. The problem was being broke.

“Really? What about this house?”

“My ex’s.”

“I didn’t know you’d been married.”

“Married, kids, the whole thing.”

The boys had chosen to stay with their father, Moonshine said, which was just as well, because her ex thought she was an unfit mother.

“Why?” Eunice asked.

“Pot.”

“Oh.”

“As in, smoking.”

The mention of pot reminded Eunice of Carson. She’d seen him just the other day, driving by with a woman next to him. He’d had one hand on the wheel and his free arm around her.

Moonshine looked out over the ravine. They were on the deck, with trees everywhere. It was like being suspended in a green tapestry, safe and secure.

“What’s your ex do?” Eunice asked.

“Lawyer. Chief Counsel for the university.”

“Good money.”

“It is. That’s why I have this house.”

“You lived here, with your family?”

“Oh, no. We had a place over in the Heights. He still lives there. This was just an investment—a rental property. We had some weird tenants over the years. One of them left an upside down cross on the bedroom wall. Another one broke a bunch of windows. A real pain to get those all replaced. Anyway, when things went south with us, I moved in.”

“So, what happened, if you don’t mind my asking?”

It was the usual story, Moonshine said. They were married too young; she didn’t take to being wifey, keeping the house and cooking the meals. She was restless, sometimes desperate. Her husband didn’t understand why she wasn’t satisfied when he’d given her everything she’d asked for. She explained that her wants had changed. She loved her boys; that was never the problem. She just felt like they were sucking the life out of her, like she couldn’t breathe. She had turned into a cornered animal, fighting for survival.

“Like a lioness about to eat her own cubs,” she said.

She never thought she’d do them any actual harm, but she knew something had to give. So, she smoked a lot of pot and calmed down. Then hubby found her stash and freaked. They were heading toward a breakup anyway, pot or no pot. Seems there was also this young law student, and well, Eunice could guess the rest.

“And when did all this happen?” Eunice asked.

“Eight years ago. Boys are grown up, at this point. They like me a little more than they used to, no thanks to their father. I suppose I shouldn’t be too hard on him, though. He’s got problems of his own. The law student’s a little loose with her credit cards. He had to take them away from her, apparently.”

“You still smoke?”

“Not for a long time.”

The irony, Moonshine said, was that she lost her boys because she smoked pot, and once they weren’t her responsibility anymore, she didn’t need it. She spoke calmly, warmly, as if praising the splendor of someone’s garden. Only the pause before speaking the last few words showed that it still hurt.

“When did you change your name?” Eunice asked.

“Years ago. Before I was married.”

“Huh.”

“You’re thinking that if a stuffed shirt like my husband was willing to take on someone named Moonshine, he shouldn’t have been surprised at anything.”

“Something like that.”

The breeze came up. It held the scent of water and fresh earth. Eunice enjoyed a rare sense of hope, which quickly passed.

Moonshine continued talking about buying the arts store. She needed investors. No one would have to put in more than they could afford. What did Eunice think?

“You asking me to contribute?”

“No! I was asking if the idea made sense to you.”

Eunice explained about losing her inheritance to Baxter Bain years before and why money was always a sore subject.

“I should marry a rich guy,” she said. Until that moment, the thought had never actually occurred to her.

“That’s what I did. Look how it all turned out.”

“We wouldn’t have kids.”

“You might regret that.”

“I’m too old, anyway.”

“How old are you?”

“Forty-one.”

“Me, too!”

For a moment, Eunice considered what Moonshine had experienced that she hadn’t, in the same span of time.

Moonshine suggested they move inside for a while. She felt like crafting. Eunice wasn’t sure she should stay, not that she had to be anywhere. It was Saturday. She usually cleaned house on Saturday.

To hell with cleaning house.

Moonshine was making a quilt. She had the pieces all cut into small octagons and spread out on the floor of the small room she used as her studio. She asked Eunice to sort the pieces by color. The fabric was sometimes patterned with leaves, sometimes one solid color, primarily blues and purples with just a few that were tones of ruby red. Moonshine sat in a shabby chair upholstered in a soft green fabric and worked her needle swiftly. Her moving hands seemed to loosen something within, and she spoke much more easily than when they’d been sitting side by side, gazing into the trees.

Everyone knew that women got a raw deal, she said. Just being born female put you many rungs down on the ladder. She’d tried to instill in her two sons the idea of parity so they’d grow up to be fair minded, seeking an equality of spirit with the female sex. She was pretty sure she’d failed. How could she make them see that women were just as important when in their very own household that clearly wasn’t the case? The ditzy law student—second wife—didn’t help. Moonshine’s ex treated her like a little girl, which psychologically she probably was. Reflecting on her own marriage, it was only when she’d gotten her feet under her emotionally that her husband wanted out, pot or no pot. He had to call the shots, and wasn’t that a typically male thing?

Moonshine was absolutely certain that her own mother’s insane piety was really just another form of female subservience. Had Eunice ever noticed how all major religions treated women like dogs? Well, okay, maybe not that bad, but women were always behind the men. And what was this nonsense with Muslim women having to cover their bodies for fear that some random male would suddenly be aflame with uncontrollable lust?

The trouble was good old Mother Nature. Women got pregnant. Men didn’t. That explained it all, really. Women were vulnerable in the sex act, men weren’t. Until birth control, women were slaves to biology. And ever since the pill became widely available, men had tried to keep women firmly in their place. Oh, she knew it sounded like radical feminism, and maybe it was. But honestly, why couldn’t men just chill out and let women decide when—and if—they wanted children.

Thank God her husband had left that decision squarely up to her. And what that decision came down to, because she was a pretty dumb bitch at the time, was not getting an abortion after learning she was pregnant. She knew all about birth control and hadn’t bothered. She supposed she was setting herself up, backing herself into a corner. Not that she didn’t want children, mind you, she just hadn’t thought it through.

Eunice handed Moonshine the pieces she pointed to.

“Babies are cute,” she said.

Moonshine stopped sewing for a moment. She looked at Eunice, trying to see inside her.

“It’s just that someone brought a baby into Lindell the other day. Someone’s great-granddaughter. All the residents—the ones who can still get around, that is—wanted a look.”

Moonshine nodded, once more bent over the fabric.

The baby had these huge brown eyes, Eunice said. She’d gotten so used to the eyes of old people. So many had thin white bands around the iris—cataracts, maybe? But this baby, the whites of her eyes were flawless, like a pearl or something. Eunice guessed that what she found so weird was figuring that transit—from flawless to old and messed up. Once, when she was young, she looked at the backs of her own small hands, and how smooth they were; compared them to her grandmother’s hands, which were bumpy and veined, with brown spots, too; and thought there was no way that her hands would ever look like that. But now, she could see the veins distending beneath the surface of her skin just a little, and in time, that would only get worse.

“Getting old has to suck,” Moonshine said.

“Beats the alternative.”

Again, Moonshine studied her. Then she laughed.

 

chapter sixteen

 

 

 

Eunice’s mother wondered if she should look into Lindell. Living there would be very convenient in times of need. She’d twisted her ankle. Eunice had had to buy groceries for her, tote her laundry down to the basement of the apartment building, wait for all the various cycles to complete, fold everything—even the sheets, although they were just going back on the same bed—then bring the heavy basket upstairs, and put everything away. It was a pain in the ass. She told her mother so.

“Well, it’s not like I twisted the damned thing on purpose,” she said.

By then her hair was completely gray. She’d had it cut short, which made her look either fierce or weary, depending on her mood.

“In a place like Lindell, there are always people around to help. And don’t worry, I’d suggest they assign me someone else, to spare you any embarrassment,” she said.

Eunice sat down at the little kitchen table, which for some reason her mother had covered with a piece of lace cloth. Coffee stains were numerous, also dried egg yolk. Her mother had developed a fondness for eggs, and cooked them in the middle of the night when she couldn’t sleep.

“It’s expensive. You can’t afford it,” Eunice said. She knew this from overhearing the residents and their family members talk about financial matters in front of her, as if she were invisible or deaf.

“You’re just saying that.”

“Check for yourself then.”

Her mother’s exhausted expression said she’d already looked into the matter and was just hoping for some magical solution. Eunice considered this change in her character. She used to be a fairly practical person, when she wasn’t drinking, that is. But the drinking, too, had gone by the wayside, which Eunice found more perplexing that anything else.

“You’re on the wagon again, aren’t you?” Eunice asked.

“Says who?”

“I haven’t had to hit the liquor store since you got laid up.”

Her mother fixed her with an appraising stare.

“How long has it been this time?” Eunice asked.

“Four months.”

Eunice whistled. That broke all previous records.

“Why did you?” she asked.

“Got bored with it.”

Eunice learned the truth later, on another visit, when her mother introduced her to a neighbor, Jean. Jean was about her mother’s age, mid-seventies or so, even more slightly built than Eunice. Her right hand was missing the thumb and forefinger, yet she was quite deft when it came to both pouring out coffee and drinking it from a cup. She wore her hair in a bun. Sometimes she would remove the pins and rearrange it a little more tightly on the top of her head. She managed this task as easily as if she had all ten fingers.

Jean was a Jehovah’s Witness. She told Eunice so the moment they met, as if it were the most important thing that could be known about her. Eunice didn’t care what she was, as long as she kept her zeal to herself, which of course she couldn’t. In less than an hour, Jean had suggested to Eunice at least four times that she read the literature that her own dear mother had grown so fond of. Eunice knew right then that she wouldn’t be visiting her mother too often in the future, for fear of being lobbied. Jean moved on from her beloved pamphlets to praise Eunice’s mother for having found a positive and healthy lifestyle. When she said this, Eunice’s mother didn’t look proud or at peace, just vexed.

Eunice now understood the equation. Her mother wanted company, and Jean was the best she could get. Jean wouldn’t tolerate drinking, so her mother gave in and quit.

She must be really lonely.

For a moment, she felt guilty. Then she remembered growing up. The guilt vanished.

Her mother called the following week and asked when Eunice could swing by. The carpet needed vacuuming. Eunice suggested that her mother ask Jean to do it. Eunice’s mother hung up without saying good-bye.

The first snow of the season was early that year, and it took Eunice a long time to get home from Lindell. The pilot light in her trailer’s wall unit had gone out again. Lighting it was hard because she’d run through the extra-long matches she kept for just that purpose. She took a piece of newspaper, twisted it into a long thing taper, and held it to the flame on her stove. Then she cupped her palm around the barely burning end, pushed it into the far back of the heater where the idiots who had designed the thing had thought to put the most essential part, and pressed the button that let the gas flow.

Better not go boom!

After four tries, the gas ignited, and warm air began to blow. She knew the heater wouldn’t last the winter, so she opened the phone book and looked up places that sold used furnaces. She found the only one.

When she picked up the phone to dial the number, she saw that the message light on her answering machine was blinking. The first message was from Moonshine, wanting to know if she wanted to go sledding. Eunice hadn’t pulled a sled since she was about ten, well over thirty years before. She hadn’t enjoyed it much. She’d gone with a schoolmate, Mary something. Mary was bossy and had the whole system laid out. Eunice was to give the final shove downhill, and then jump on at the last moment. Only Eunice didn’t make it onto the sled, which was unfortunate because Mary couldn’t steer the thing to save her life and ended up in the narrow creek at the bottom of the hill, freezing, soaked, and furious. It might be fun, though, to go again and see what it felt like now.

The second message was from her mother. She was giving up the apartment and moving to a house in the country with Jean and Jean’s daughter.

“They’ve agreed to take me in. Isn’t that just beautiful?”

Good luck with that.

Winter deepened. Snow fell hard. Sometimes Eunice stayed over at Lindell in one of the guest rooms. Normally these were for family members from out of town, though staff on late shifts were welcome to them too. Eunice liked being away from home, even though the comfort level in the trailer had come up a notch. She’d had the wall unit replaced by a guy she’d known in elementary school, Billy Simms. He asked her out. She said she didn’t know he’d gotten divorced.

“Who says I’m divorced?”

She gave him his check and told him to get lost. The landlord took three weeks to reimburse her. He said she should have called him first. Eunice didn’t see what the difference was. The damn thing was broken, and now it wasn’t.

The day after Thanksgiving, three feet of snow fell. Eunice tossed her things in a backpack, persuaded her car to start after a few slow cranks, and crawled up the hill to Lindell. The staff was taxed. The residents were restless. The deepening drifts seemed to make them uneasy. Eunice thought they might get the sense of being buried, which naturally would be unsettling, given how close to death they all were. Most lay open-eyed in bed. Those who were still mobile turned their wheelchairs to the window to watch the snow until it was too dark to see.

Eunice finished her rounds, heated up the casserole she’d brought in the microwave, and read a magazine alone in the kitchen. She was soon joined by Dean, one of the maintenance crew. He came in wearing a heavy jacket and insulated boots. He stamped his feet, leaving two small piles of snow on the floor. He took off his gloves, draped the coat on the back of the chair next to Eunice’s, and poured himself a cup of coffee. He had a sip.

“Tastes like crap,” he said.

“That’s because it’s been sitting there since dinner.”

Dean took the filter out of the pot and threw it away. He obviously didn’t know what to do next, so Eunice told him to sit down while she took care of it. When the coffee was ready, she poured him a cup.

She resumed eating. The food was lukewarm, but she kept on. Cold weather always made her hungry. She finished her meal, washed her bowl, dried it, and set it down on the table. Dean was staring into space.

“Something wrong?” Eunice asked.

“Woman trouble.”

“Huh.”

Eunice once again took her seat.

“You don’t want to hear this,” Dean said.

“Sure I do. Besides, it’s not like I got somewhere to go.”

“You holing up?”

“Yup.”

“How’s that?”

“Way better than driving through a blizzard.”

“It would creep me out, staying here all night.”

“Why? You spend most of it sleeping.”

Dean considered the logic of this statement. His eyes were sad.

“Aren’t you going to get stuck if you wait much longer?” Eunice asked.

“Nah. Got a four-wheel drive with chains.”

He looked at his watch. He removed a comb from the pocket of his flannel shirt and pulled it through his sandy hair. His gesture was slow, meticulous, and not at all fussy. He put the comb back in his pocket. The walk-in refrigerator cycled on. Sometimes at night, the whole building felt like a warm, sleeping animal making regular, comfortable sounds.

“She says it’s all my fault,” Dean said.

“Your wife?”

“Yes.”

Dean wore a wedding ring. It hadn’t been much of a stretch.

“She says I’m smothering her,” he said.

“Not literally, I assume.”

Dean looked at her. He didn’t smile.

“Holding her back, she says. Not letting her fulfill her dream.”

“Which is?”

“Hell if I know. I don’t think she knows either.”

Eunice wondered what her own dreams had ever been. To get away. To find her own voice. To be loved. It all sounded so simple. Why did it feel so hard then?

“She must have some idea,” Eunice said.

“She was an artist when I met her. Sculptor. Made these little faces that weren’t quite human. She rented space from this guy way the hell out in the country, used his kiln. He let her live there. Some weird stuff happened between them, I don’t know. She ended up pretty freaked out. Wanted me to take care of her, protect her. So, I did. I would have anyway, even if she hadn’t asked me to. That’s a man’s job, a husband’s job.”

“And now?”

“I guess she doesn’t need to be protected anymore.”

“What about love?”

“Exactly.”

Something clanged behind them. Maybe the range cooling off after being on for hours all day.

“She still sculpt?” Eunice asked.

“No. She works at K-Mart. Hates it.”

“But needs the money.”

He nodded.

“She can still do her own thing, in her free time.”

“Not to hear her tell it.”

“Hm.”

Lillian Gish would have found a way. She was no quitter, no complainer. Eunice hadn’t thought of her in a long time. All her life she’d wanted to possess her fire and determination. Sometimes she had.

“You like silent movies?” Eunice asked.

The sudden lift of his eyebrows said she might as well have asked if he liked star anise or pickled pigs feet.

“The university sometimes has a festival where they show two or three in a row. It’s sort of fun. Take your wife one night. She might like seeing people fight without words. Well, not heard words, anyway.”

Dean lifted his head. He looked over Eunice’s right shoulder, as if the stackable stainless steel cart behind her held a bag of gold.

“You’re smart,” he said.

“How so?”

“You got my wife’s number. She’s a brooder, not a screamer.”

“Clams up?”

“Says, ‘If you don’t know what you did, I’m sure as shit not going to tell you.’”

“Sounds like my mother.”

“I feel for your dad.”

“He’s dead.”

“Then I feel for you.”

Dean watched her closely. Eunice let a certain thought cross her mind. Lillian would have looked away shyly, then back again, full force.

Those eyes of hers! If only I had those eyes!

But, she didn’t. At the moment, her eyes felt empty. Dean must have seen that, too.

He pushed up his sleeve to check his watch, then stood up and said good-night. He left his coffee cup on the table.

 

chapter seventeen

 

 

 

Moonshine was desperate. The damn cat had given birth to six kittens. She had to get rid of them. The cat wasn’t even hers in the first place.

“Just wandered in and stayed. I suppose I shouldn’t have let her. I didn’t know she was pregnant, but that’s probably why she was looking for a home, right?”

Eunice didn’t know anything about cats. She’d never owned a pet. She’d begged her parents for a pet rabbit once when she was about ten. Her mother made quick work of that desire when she said Eunice would wake up one morning and find it dead. Whether her mother was suggesting that she would kill it herself or that rabbits just didn’t live very long, Eunice never knew.

Of course she agreed to take one, a tiny orange female she named Lillian. The routine vet bills were expensive, but she got a discount by going to the clinic run by the university. She didn’t like leaving Lillian alone during the day but had no choice. She bought her a scratching post she studiously ignored, preferring to sharpen her claws on the upholstery. The site of her frayed fabric was depressing. She got good at finding cheap slip covers to put over her sofa and easy chair, and changed them routinely.

Then there was the matter of the litter box. She cleaned it every day, sometimes twice a day, but Lillian was prolific. She was a sweet, healthy cat who seemed to adore Eunice. She slept in her bed, on her very pillow, and would knead Eunice’s long hair and purr into the early morning hours. Eunice loved it. She felt connected to Lillian in a way she’d never really felt toward another human being. She supposed it was a survival skill on the part of cats to make people love them, a skill Eunice had to admit she herself sadly lacked.

The vet advised her to keep Lillian inside all the time.

“Cats live longer that way. Mother nature is full of peril.”

He was young, probably just out of school, and his poetic turn of phrase made Eunice anxious. She imagined the crushed carcass of Lillian under the car wheels of a careless driver or gripped in the jaw of huge, savaging dog.

Lillian had other ideas. She dashed out the door when Eunice was bringing in groceries. Eunice saw her furry hind end vanish through the low hedge separating her trailer from the one next door. The escape didn’t last long, because it was still winter and bitterly cold. Within minutes Lillian was meowing pitifully below the kitchen window where Eunice was frying chicken for their dinner, though the vet had cautioned against feeding her “people food.”

As the weather warmed, Lillian’s illicit forays grew more frequent and lasted longer. Sometimes Eunice just left out an open can of cat food to lure her home. She’d reappear faithfully after a couple of days.

“You need to get that cat spayed, or you’ll end up in the same fix I was,” Moonshine said. She’d given away all but one of the kittens, whom she’d just had neutered. The vet clinic was so committed to controlling the pet population in Dunston that it offered to do the surgery for free.

Eunice took three days off from work to stay with Lillian afterward. She didn’t need to. Lillian’s spirits were as fine as ever. The worst part seemed to be wearing the plastic cone around her neck to prevent her from disturbing the few stiches in her stomach. Eunice sat with her and ran the tip of her finger along the smooth skin where the fur had been shaved. Lillian purred madly, and when Eunice lay down, wrapped herself up in her hair.

The day the cone came off, Lillian disappeared. Eunice didn’t even know when she’d had the door open long enough for her to slip out. The usual cat food can didn’t bring her back. Nor did standing by the door calling her name until one of her neighbors drove by and gave her the finger. She canvassed the park. No one had seen her. Many of the residents had dogs, which meant Lillian would steer clear of those particular trailers. The last one, closest to the water and surrounded by elegant weeping willows, was where Lillian had decided to hole up. The occupant was a twenty-something graduate student in photography. Her arms and legs, even her neck, were heavily tattooed.

She introduced herself as Betty Boop, then explained that she’d had a fascination for old cartoons when she was little. Her real name was Melanie, after the character in Gone with the Wind.

“I always thought if my mother wanted a name from the book, she could have named me Rhett,” she said.

“Not Scarlett?”

“No way. I always hated that bitch. Nothing but a cock tease.”

Betty had taken Lillian in more than once, she confessed. She seemed so happy to be there. And Eunice could see how much pleasure Lillian took in stretching out on Betty’s spotless kitchen floor, in a band of afternoon sun.

“I didn’t know who her owner was. She doesn’t wear a collar. Did you get her microchipped?” Betty asked.

Eunice didn’t know what that was.

“They do it the vet’s office. Slide a little computer chip with your name and number under the skin. You find a stray animal, you take them in and they can scan it right there.”

“Huh.”

Betty offered her some coffee. Eunice didn’t care for any just then.

“How about a beer?” Betty asked.

“Sure.”

Betty’s trailer was as exotic as she was. One wall held a number of open Japanese fans; a pink scarf was draped over a table lamp; a small wooden desk with carved feet sat under the window, its surface crowded with notebooks and photographs all in black and white; three large, complicated cameras occupied the shelves of a bookcase in the kitchen next to the refrigerator. The kitchen table was decorated with woven placemats. In the center was a ceramic bowl full of apples. Betty and Eunice drank their beers in the living room, on opposite ends of a blue velvet couch. Lillian occupied the middle and carefully cleaned her paws.

“I was never really a cat person before,” Betty said.

“Me either. She’s my first.”

“Why ‘Lillian?’”

“Lillian Gish.”

“No way! You like silent movies?”

“I used to.”

“I like anything that’s old. Especially clothes.”

Eunice laughed. She was feeling the beer. She explained that she worked at Lindell, a place Betty should check out if she liked old things. Well, old people. Betty wanted to take her cameras up there and take some pictures.

“You know, portraits,” she said.

“Huh.”

“Would they go for it, do you think?”

Eunice said she could ask.

“Tell them it’s part of my thesis,” Betty said.

“Lots of retired professors there. Might work.”

Eunice collected Lillian and went home.

Alice said introducing a stranger to the residents was always difficult. The residents who still had their wits had trouble with new faces. And those that didn’t obviously wouldn’t care, but it didn’t seem right to put them on display like that. It felt exploitative. Did Eunice see her point?

Not really, but Betty did. She was disappointed, though. She needed interesting human subjects. She’d photographed her fellow students, their friends, her friends—she even had a shot of Lillian looking out the window. She said the intent look on her face made her almost human.

Betty was dressed that day in a floral chiffon dress from the 1930’s. She found it at a vintage shop downtown. Eunice suggested that she wear her hair in a matching style, with soft waves around the face. Betty’s hair was dyed jet black and as straight as if she’d ironed it. Eunice thought mournfully of her thick, wavy mess, now streaked with gray. She ran her hand fretfully through it.

“Why don’t you cut it?” Betty asked.

“Nah.”

“I can do it for you.”

“You know how?”

“I quit beauty school to go to college.”

The idea, Betty said, was to cut the hair in a bob, then put Eunice in a twenties flapper dress and set her up before the camera. She’d wash the plates with sepia, to recreate the era better.

“You’ve got a good figure for your age,” Betty said. Eunice hadn’t said how old she was. Side by side, gawking in the small bathroom mirror above the tiny rose-colored sink, it must have been clear that there were at least twenty years between them. Betty was smooth under the eyes. Eunice was puffy. The flesh on Betty’s jaw was firm. Eunice’s wasn’t.

The bob didn’t turn out all that well, but Eunice pretended she thought it was spectacular. For one thing, it was longer on one side than on the other. Her felt head felt uncomfortably light. She told herself she’d get used to it. She looked at the mass at her feet and remembered the brighter curls on that black and white bathroom floor years before.

The dress Betty had chosen for Eunice was one she liked to wear herself when she was feeling particularly “jazz age.” It fell to the floor when Eunice put it on. Betty was a lot taller. She said it didn’t matter, because the portrait would be just her head and torso. She draped a long string of fake pearls over Eunice’s neck and clipped one side of her hair with a rhinestone barrette. She put dark red lipstick on her lips, even though the picture would be in black and white.

“You’ll look washed out without it,” she said.

Betty moved a stool from the kitchen into the living room. She set up a lightbox she’d had in the closet, and tilted it this way and that until the amount of light that fell on Eunice’s face satisfied her.

After only a few minutes, Eunice tired of sitting still and turning her head a little this way and a little back that way. Betty shot frame after frame and talked the whole time.

“Beautiful. That’s right. Let all that inner light shine! Now, be mysterious. You’re hiding a secret, and you want very badly to tell it. You promised not to, and it’s absolutely killing you! Okay, now let’s change it up. Look sad, stricken. The love of your life has gone away, never to return. You simply can’t go on. Your heart has crumbled to a million little pieces.”

Try as she might, Eunice suspected that her expression remained just the same. She’d gotten too good at hiding what she felt. Was it working with the elderly that had caused that? Or did it happened before, when she was a child and wanted to avoid sparking her mother’s wrath?

“Perfect! A look of utter despair! I love it!” Betty said.

Lillian scratched madly at the door. Betty lowered her camera.

“Coming, my little love,” she cooed and let her in. Lillian rubbed herself along Betty’s legs, and arched her back when Betty leaned down to stroke her.

“She really likes you,” Eunice said.

“We’re the dearest of friends.”

Lillian looked up at Eunice. Her tail brushed.

“She’s not used to seeing you like that. I think you startled her a little,” Betty said.

“Maybe so.”

“Anyway, you look like you could use a break.”

Eunice stretched. She moved to get down off the stool. Betty bent down, and put her lips firmly on Eunice’s. She pushed her tongue in. While Eunice was processing the situation, and not really believing any of it, Betty picked up Eunice’s hand and pressed it to her breast. Eunice had never felt another woman’s breast. It was deliciously soft. So were Betty’s lips. Eunice bolted off the stool and stepped back.

“We could make a good team, you know. We even have our mascot,” Betty said.

“I think you’ve got the wrong idea.”

“Oh, no I don’t. I can always tell.”

“I’m too old for you.”

“Bull.”

“Then you’re too young for me.”

Eunice went into Betty’s room to change, hoping to hell she wouldn’t follow and push the point. She didn’t. Eunice left the clip, dress, and pearls on the bed. She rubbed off the lipstick with the back of her hand.

“I’m sorry,” she said when she came into the living room.

“It’s okay. It happens.” Betty didn’t sound all that crushed.

She’s used to it.

Eunice looked at Lillian, stretched out on the couch.

“She’s happier with you,” she said.

Then she went home and packed up the balance of the uneaten cat food and Lillian’s bowl, and left them on Betty’s stairs.

 

chapter eighteen

 

 

 

Turning fifty didn’t rattle Eunice as much as she thought it would. She figured she was pretty good at handling milestones by now.

Her mother, then in her eighties, had developed crippling arthritis and a severe loss of mobility. She still lived in the country with zealous Jean and her daughter. She said she was well cared for. Eunice knew for a fact that her mother turned over her social security checks to Jean, and that the money wasn’t always put entirely to her keep.

She had her own room on the first floor. The heat was good. Jean’s daughter had some disability that made her speech hard to understand, but her wits seemed keen enough. She did the cooking and most of the cleaning. Jean was often away, using the only car available, visiting Dunston and smaller nearby towns, pedaling her pamphlets. Sundays were spent at Kingdom Hall in Elmira rather than at the one in Dunston. There’d been some dispute between Jean and the Dunston group that she preferred not to discuss. Eunice’s mother was packed up in the car, her wheelchair in the trunk, for the twenty-two mile drive along curving country roads that could be dangerous in bad weather. Eunice knew her mother didn’t like these drives, that in fact they made her nervous, but she never said anything to Jean.

That summer a new resident came to Lindell, Constance Maynard. She had her own cottage, so Eunice didn’t have any occasion to deal with her directly, but she saw her come and go in a new Mercedes. The clientele at Lindell was generally pretty well off, and many had high-end cars, but they drove them sedately, almost nervously, down the wide, flat road that connected Lindell to the highway beyond. Constance drove quickly, sometimes causing the tires of her car to screech. She walked quickly, too, with her head down and her purse clamped firmly below her left arm. She always seemed to be deep in thought, dwelling on some unpleasant, troubling item. She came once in a while to the dining room, though she could have cooked for herself, had she cared to. Eunice was on hand to ferry the nursing wing patients there and back and was able to observe Constance discreetly. She sat at different tables, as if trying to decide which person or group of people was most to her liking. She talked a lot, laughed a lot, and ate little. Eunice noticed right off that Constance focused much more on the men than on the women. Given that Constance was probably her mother’s age, Eunice was surprised to witness such a long-lived sex drive. The men, for the most part, weren’t all that interested. Constance’s energy went unmatched, which she took with visible disappointment. She was known to rise abruptly from table, drop her napkin roughly beside her plate, and march off with her characteristically rapid step. Eunice didn’t know why she was so fascinated by her. Then she realized it was because Constance reminded her suddenly, sharply, of Lillian Gish, at least in terms of her expressed determination and small stature.

Eunice didn’t see Constance for a while, and assumed she was keeping herself busy in wonderful and entertaining ways. The thought made her unhappy because her own life was neither. She wanted to give up the trailer on the inlet and move to an apartment closer to campus where she could be surrounded by young people. Moonshine was skeptical of this decision. She still lived in the house over the creek and told Eunice she should just rent her spare room. She took her out to a seedy bar one night so they could talk about it some more. Moonshine’s new boyfriend owned the place. He was their age, divorced, with a couple of citations for serving liquor to minors. Eunice expected him to be a rough sort, but he wasn’t. He reminded her a little of Ham, minus the long hair and glasses. He spoke softly, moved slowly, and gave off an air of solid reliability. Maybe that’s what drew Moonshine to him, Eunice thought. Though in his company she ignored him and talked only to Eunice, even when he took time to join them at their table and bring them another round of free drinks.

His name was Barry. He spoke with disappointment about his life, saying there were places he’d always wanted to see. He hadn’t been able to, because his parents always needed him close. He accepted that duty, though there were two other siblings who could have been called upon—an older brother and a sister who left home and never looked back.

“Did you stay out of guilt?” Eunice asked. He removed his bifocals and polished them on the end of his sweat-stained T-shirt.

“I wouldn’t say guilt, exactly. I just realized they would fall apart if I wasn’t there.”

Moonshine snorted. She’d told Eunice before that Barry had an over-developed sense of responsibility, which at the time Eunice had trouble reconciling with getting in trouble with the liquor board. He brought up that issue himself, as if he wanted to get it out of the way. He hadn’t even been onsite either time. First one manager, later fired, then another, also let go, hadn’t bothered to check IDs. Barry felt rotten as hell about it, really he did, because you had to protect young people and steer them in the right direction. And a bar was definitely the wrong direction. His own kids, three of them, had trouble sticking to the straight and narrow. That was probably because their mother didn’t believe in taking a firm hand. She was too tolerant, too quick to forgive their mistakes, especially the bad ones—like getting arrested for shoplifting or being suspended for cussing out a teacher. As he talked, Eunice sat with one elbow on the table and her cheek resting in her open palm. Moonshine, meanwhile, had taken herself to play a game of darts with a guy who looked like he was all of twenty-five.

Barry asked her about herself. She told him about her parents, working at Lindell, losing Lillian to her neighbor. She couldn’t tell how much he was taking in, because he was watching Moonshine across the room. When he finally turned his attention back to Eunice, he said, “The path of life is long and lonely.”

Eunice was just about to laugh when she saw that he being completely serious. She nodded gravely. His words depressed her, the more she considered them, and she had one free beer after another until she stopped thinking about it.

In the morning, Eunice didn’t remember how she’d gotten home. Her car was in the driveway. That she’d gotten behind the wheel, blind drunk, struck her as very poor judgment. She had to admit that over the previous few months she’d been drinking more, and the thought that she was following all too easily in her mother’s footsteps made her hangover even worse. Moonshine called to say she was having second thoughts about Barry. Eunice asked why. She said she’d met someone at the bar, one of the guys she’d been playing darts with, who seemed pretty interesting.

“Yeah? What’s he do?” Eunice asked.

“Do?”

“For a living.”

“Hell if I know.”

“Oh. Well, what makes him so interesting then?”

“He races motorcycles.”

“Sounds dangerous.”

“Sounds exciting.”

“Yeah, if you’re into cheating death for a hobby.”

“Oh, for Christ’s sake. Stop being such a stick in the mud.”

Just the other day, Constance had used that same expression. Eunice had come across her in one of the lounges, sitting with a magazine, looking cross. She asked if there were anything she could do for her, and Constance said she’d just had a phone call from her daughter, the details of which she didn’t share but which had left her in a state. Eunice had been glad to finally talk to Constance, and Constance seemed glad for the brief company. Just as Eunice was leaving, Constance had said of the daughter, “That girl’s trouble is that she’s always been a stick in the mud.”

When Eunice got off the phone with Moonshine, she drank a cup of very strong coffee, which helped her headache but did little to improve her morale. She took the small pad of lined paper she kept by her toaster, on which she made her weekly shopping list, and sat down with a leaky pen—the only one she could find. Her intention was to write out all the things she’d ever wanted to do or become, aside from Lillian Gish. Below each item she made a few comments.

 

Travel

Too expensive, unless going somewhere near, which is boring and basically stupid.

 

Going to college

How the hell am I going to 1) pay for it and 2) get admitted in the first place?

 

Starting a business and making a shitload of money

Here she paused. She didn’t know how to do anything except take care of old people. What money was there in that? There were agencies that sent aides around to help those still living at home, but that couldn’t pay very much. Unless you were the boss. Eunice could supervise people. She’d trained dozens at Lindell over the years. She wondered how much it would take to form her own home-care agency. Moonshine might have some idea. She was pretty sharp, though she never did follow through on her idea of buying the studio space downtown. One day she was eager, and then she stopped talking about it, which suggested to Eunice that she’d hit her ex-husband up for the money and gotten a quick, firm rejection. He was still paying her alimony, which on the one hand was good because she didn’t have to work, and on the other sucked for the same reason.

Eunice had never before considered that there was something to be said for economic adversity. When you were broke, you had to get a job. Having a job gave you at least some degree of independence. But Moonshine was pretty damned independent without having to work, so that line of reasoning was an instant fail.

Eunice put down the pen and massaged her forehead. When she saw the ink all over her fingers, she realized she’d gotten it on her face, too.

She turned on the shower, got undressed, and waited for the hot water to come up. The landlord had promised to replace the water heater the winter before and hadn’t. As she stood there, wrapped in a towel, with her hand in the freezing shower stream, waiting, waiting, waiting, her phone rang just as the water turned lukewarm. She turned off the shower.

It was Barry, inviting her for lunch. He and Moonshine had just broken up, he said. He realized they had different goals, and that kind of situation never worked out in the end.

“So, you’re on the rebound,” Eunice said.

“In a manner of speaking.”

“I’m not sure how I feel about seeing a man who just got out of a relationship.”

“I’m making roast beef sandwiches. The cook had a lot left over from yesterday. No one ordered the French Dip. Can’t remember the last time that happened.”

“That’s a non-sequitur.”

“Agreed. It’s also what’s for lunch.”

“Give me half an hour.”

Eunice showered and dressed in gray stretch pants and a pink turtleneck. She was still thin, “wiry,” Moonshine said. In the years they’d known each other, Moonshine had put on a fair amount of weight. She complained about it, then ate another cookie. Eunice wondered if she was doing the right thing by accepting Barry’s invitation, and wanted to ask Moonshine’s advice. Under the circumstances, though, that would be a really bad idea.

They ate in a separate room at the back of the bar. Sometimes people wanted to have private parties, and the noise of the front room was unpleasant, Barry said. The wooden chairs were very comfortable, and Eunice liked the soft light from the red lampshades on the wall sconces. The tablecloth was a cheerful red and white checkerboard. Barry asked if she wanted a beer, and she said an iced tea would be great. He look distracted for a moment, trying to remember if they had any tea. The guy who served them, a college kid with the name “Nick” on his shirt, assured Barry that they did.

“Of course. For Long Island Iced Tea. I must be getting old, not remembering a thing like that,” he said.

Eunice picked the beef off of her sandwich, which left mustard, horseradish, and mayonnaise smeared over the sourdough roll. Barry watched her closely.

“I’m a vegetarian,” Eunice told him. That had been a recent development. Coming back from visiting her mother in the country on a beautiful spring day, Eunice had stopped on the road to watch a bunch of pigs wandering a nearby sty. The piglets were charming, and her heart filled with love. She’d always admired cows, but they didn’t stir her quite as much as those little pigs. She’d grown fond of chickens, too. Jean kept a number at her place, and they boldly approached Eunice, and chirped in high, pretty voices when she extended her hand.

“You want a salad, maybe?” Barry asked.

“I’m fine, thanks.”

He finished his sandwich and dabbed his lips daintily on the heavy linen napkin. He wore a pinkie ring with a red stone. On the other hand was a class ring on the fourth finger, and a thick gold bracelet. His hair was thick and neatly combed. His face, though, was where age had taken hold. He had bags under his eyes, and his neck sagged into the collar of his shirt. Eunice knew she didn’t look as old. She was blessed with good genes, maybe, and the fact that she stayed pretty thin no doubt helped.

“I need to pick your brain about something,” she said.

His hands were around his coffee cup, which he hadn’t touched.

“I’m thinking of going into business, starting a home-care agency. I could run it from my place, I think, so I wouldn’t need a physical space. I just don’t know what’s involved—how much money, I mean. And all the hoops to jump through. I figure, you’re a business owner, yourself, though home care and running a bar aren’t the same at all, really.”

“I take care of plenty of people right out there, every day,” Barry said, nodding to the main room. “But, your point is well taken.”

He looked thoughtful for a moment.

“You need a license. That would be a state thing, not federal. You have to hire people—they have to be credentialed. You need to pay salaries, insurance, and stay on top of your bookkeeping. Payroll taxes are a bitch. Then you have to file estimated income tax with the IRS every quarter, including Social Security and Medicare. And, this is probably the hardest thing about being in business for yourself, you need to fire people when it’s called for, and that’s not always easy. You get all kinds of sob stories, but in my experience, when someone screws up, you know in your gut if they’re likely to do it again. Learn to trust that gut. I’ve had to fire a lot of people here over the years, and in a small town like Dunston, you run into those same folks from time to time, no getting around it. So, always keep it amicable.”

“Like a divorce.”

He looked at her sharply. She had no idea why she’d said that. The server took their plates away.

“You need to put up some money in the beginning, for the license and advertising. Have you thought about advertising at all?” he asked.

“No.”

“Lindell might help.”

“Don’t see how. I’d be sort of a competitor.”

“Completely different market. You take care of people in their homes before they’re ready for a place like Lindell. You could become a referral source. Lindell might like that, even though they probably have a waiting list. Do you know if there’s a waiting list?”

“No.”

“Well, find out. If there’s not, say what you’re thinking of doing and ask if they’d be interested in having you spread the word, for a modest monthly fee, of course.”

“Why would they help me? I’d be quitting them to do this.”

“They wouldn’t take it personally. At least, they shouldn’t. Never take anything personally in business.”

Eunice considered everything he’d said. It was overwhelming. Maybe she should forget all about it and resign herself to being a Lindell employee until the day she retired.

He said he had to go see a distributor over in Corning. Did she want to come along for the ride? Unless she had plans for the rest of her day, of course. Eunice had none.

Barry’s car was huge and quiet, so quiet that the passing country took on a strange, eerie quality. The trees swayed in the brisk wind, as though filled with the spirits of an ancient race. At first, Eunice was uncomfortable and thought she should start some cheerful banter to fill the gap, but after a while, with neither of them talking, she became easier in her mind, if not exactly peaceful. Gliding through the world was always calming, and sometimes she took herself out for a drive just for that very reason, but her car wasn’t in the best shape with almost one hundred and fifty thousand miles on it.

“You ever been married?” Barry asked.

“Nope.”

“Ever come close?”

“Once.” Only in her own mind, she told herself, since it had never crossed Carson’s once.

“Any kids?”

“What is this, an interview?”

“Just trying to get to know you a little better.”

“Sorry. I’m just not used to anyone…”

“Giving a shit?”

Eunice took in his profile. His snub nose was the only problem. It lent his face a childish quality she found troublesome. She supposed she could get used to it, in time.

“More or less,” she said.

The road followed a creek. On one side, the land rose in a long, gradual slope. The fields were dotted with cattle and sheep. She thought about her mother, living at Jean’s. For the first time, she wondered if she were happy there.

“Your parents living?” Barry asked.

“My mother. Dad died a while ago.”

“What did he do?”

“Delivered liquor.”

“Man after my own heart.”

“Siblings?”

“Just me.”

Eunice flipped down her sun visor. It had a light that went on when you slid the panel over the mirror open. She looked at herself. Her reflection was uninspiring.

“I should dye my hair,” she said.

“Why would you do that?”

“Not crazy about all this gray.”

“Women worry too much about how they look.”

“You say these things to Moonshine?”

Barry laughed.

“Truth be told, I don’t think Moonshine had much use for me,” he said.

“I’m not sure how much she likes men. I don’t mean that she’s gay or anything, but the opposite sex seems to make her mad, more than anything else. That can’t have been easy, given she’s got two sons.”

“She has kids?”

“She didn’t tell you that?”

Barry shook his head.

“Weird.”

The wind picked up, and dirt from a newly plowed field rose madly in swirling plumes. She imagine a barren plain where there was nothing to stop the wind, nothing to stop the endless dust it carried.

“You like silent movies?” Eunice asked.

“Can’t say I ever saw one.”

“Really?”

“How old do you think I am?”

“That’s not what I meant.”

Barry’s smile said he was just pulling her leg.

She told him about The Wind, where Lillian Gish plays Lety, sought after by three different men, one of whom she agrees to marry although she doesn’t love him. He lives in the middle of nowhere, where the wind howls day and night without end. He takes a job herding cattle to earn the money to send her home, where’d she be more comfortable and away from the dirt that coats everything, even the pillow where she lays her head. In the end Lety survives the madness brought on by nature’s cruelty, and discovers that she loves her husband after all.

“Sounds like a tough lady,” Barry said.

“I always wanted to be like her.”

“Like who? The actress, or the character she played?”

This distinction had never occurred to Eunice. Though she went by many different names, in all sorts of places, Lillian was always just Lillian in her mind.

“Everyone needs a passion. That’s what my mother used to say,” Barry said.

“And you? What’s your passion?”

She could see him thinking about it.

“I thought once I wanted to help people,” he said.

“That’s a worthwhile ambition.”

“Police officer, firefighter. Something like that.”

“And?”

“I got married, had kids, my wife wanted me to earn a living, so I bought the bar from my dad. And here I am.”

Was there bitterness in his voice? Or just resignation that things hadn’t quite gone the way he wanted them to? They were essentially in the same boat, he and Eunice, weren’t they? Though her goals had never been quite as clear as his, life had still gotten in the way—in the form of Baxter Bain ripping her off. It didn’t matter that she knew she’d been foolish and would never repeat the same mistake again. That money would have made one life possible. Without it, she’d been stuck with another.

“You ever wanted to kill someone?” she asked.

“Sometimes.”

“I guess that’s normal.”

“Until you actually do it.”

Eunice laughed. He got her, she could tell.

The road bent sharply, and he took it a little too fast. She didn’t mind. He seemed to, from the set of his jaw and how he shifted in his deep leather seat. Maybe he was one of those men who didn’t like making even small mistakes in front of a woman, though somehow she didn’t think so.

The land was opening up now, with the steep slopes falling back and away. She told him about Baxter Bain. She left out the romance part, framing it in terms of a straightforward swindle made possible by her trusting nature. The way Barry smirked for a moment said he understood exactly what had taken place. Then his face became serious again.

“I just read something in the paper about that guy. He served his sentence, been out for a while now, and works with a developer in Binghamton.”

“You’re kidding! Who the hell would hire that crook?”

“Guess he rustled up some money to sweeten the pot.”

“Someone else’s money.”

“Good PR, having a human interest story. ‘You’re never too old to change your ways.’”

Eunice snorted. Barry looked at her quickly before turning back to the road ahead.

“Give him a call. You’re clearly interested,” he said.

“I give him anything, it won’t be a call.”

“My kind of girl.”

Eunice considered his remark.

They were on the outskirts of Corning now, passing through a run-down light industrial area. Barry pulled into the parking lot next to a one story concrete building and turned off the car.

“You’re welcome to come in and meet Joe,” he said.

“Sure, if you like.”

Barry reached across her, opened the glove compartment, and removed a gun that he slipped into his waistband. He didn’t look at Eunice. He asked her to close the compartment for him. She did.

“Maybe I should stay here,” she said.

“Come with me.”

She followed him. They entered the building through a back door, went down a short hallway, and into a small office where a man sat at a desk sorting a stack of papers. He looked up at Barry, nodded, and gestured to one of two empty chairs on the other side of the desk. He glanced at Eunice and made no further acknowledgment of her. Barry and Eunice sat.

Barry and the man—Joe—exchanged a few pleasantries about the good weather, the easy drive, how well Barry’s business was doing.

“College towns are always good business,” Joe said, ruefully. Eunice sensed some opportunities missed out on, some chance he wished he could get back.

“Rich kids like to party,” Barry said. He reached into the pocket of his sport coat, removed a thick envelope, and put it on the desk.

“Same as last time. Tell Kelly I need it tomorrow,” he said.

Joe took the envelope and put it in the drawer on his side of the desk. He locked the drawer and put the key in his pants pocket.

“His mother’s sick. Might not get there until the day after,” Joe said.

“Tomorrow,” Barry said.

Joe nodded.

Barry stood up, Eunice did, too. They left the office, returned the way they came, and got back into Barry’s car. He put the gun in the glove compartment. He didn’t start the engine.

“There’s a reason I wanted you to see that,” he said.

“To show me the real you?”

“Yes.”

“I thought you ran a bar.”

“I do. I sell liquor. I also sell other things in demand by a college crowd.”

“What makes you think I won’t tell the police?”

Barry looked tired all of a sudden.

“What would you tell them?” he asked.

“Everything.”

“Did you hear us mention drugs?”

“No.”

“Did you see what was in the envelope I passed Joe?”

“No.”

“So you heard nothing incriminating; you saw nothing incriminating.”

“Your gun.”

“Purchased legally.”

Eunice stewed. She was being manipulated, that much was clear.

“Why are you trusting me with such a big thing?” she asked.

“Because I like you.”

“Why?”

Barry stared at her for a long moment.

“You don’t think much of yourself, do you?” he asked.

“Never saw a reason to. But I don’t think I’m shit either. Which is why I’m not going to get jerked around.”

Barry started the car.

“You’re straightforward and unpretentious. I like that. I like that a lot,” he said.

“Then you must have spent time with a bunch of stuck-up flakes.”

“Indeed I have.”

Eunice wondered if Barry included Moonshine in that group.

They drove in silence for a long time. Eunice decided Barry was on the level, but probably not the sort of person she wanted to get close to. She’d be the first person to admit that her life was boring as hell and that she despaired often over her lousy prospects, but getting involved with a guy who could end up in jail wasn’t a good solution.

“Give it up,” she said.

“What?”

“The drugs. Stop selling them.”

“Money’s too good.”

“What do you need money for? The bar does okay, right?”

“Yes.”

“You got out-of-control debts or something?”

“No.”

“You’re just greedy, then.”

Barry shrugged.

“You get used to things,” he said.

“Like breaking the law.”

“Like living out of the mainstream.”

“Oh, so that’s it. You sell drugs so you can feel like you’re interesting and different and better than anyone else.”

Barry shrugged again, but the twitch in his jaw said she’d hit home.

“All that guff about steering kids in the right direction,” she said.

“Not guff.”

“You only sell drugs to bad kids, right?”

“I’m a pretty good judge of character.”

“Lives out of the mainstream and plays God, too.”

It took Eunice a second or two to realize that the chirping from inside her purse was her new cell phone. She’d never had a cell phone. Lindell suggested she carry one in case they needed to reach her. She was especially good with some of the residents, talking them through irrational stubborn moments, usually about refusing to take a prescribed medication or meeting with a family member who had been long estranged.

It was Karen. She’d just gotten a call from the police up in Geneva. Seemed that Constance Maynard had taken herself on a little drive and didn’t know where she was or what she was doing there. Could Eunice come in and go along with the social worker to fetch her?

“How long till we get back to Dunston?” she asked Barry.

“Hour.”

Eunice told Karen she was going to be a while. Karen sighed.

Jesus, it’s my day off!

Eunice was worried, however, about Constance. Karen said she’d find someone else, and thanked her.

“I’ll be in tomorrow, but if something weird is up with her, I’ll come in tonight,” Eunice said.

“You probably won’t have to. We’ll get her back, fed, and give her a sleeping pill.”

The magic cure. Keep them quiet.

“Everything okay?” Barry asked when she had put her phone back in her purse.

“One of our residents took off.”

“Good for him.”

“Her.”

Eunice was aware that her tone was fierce. The events of the day had made her restless. So did Constance’s flight. She watched the land, thinking all the familiar hills and fields would soothe. They didn’t.

“If you could go anyplace at all, where would it be?” she asked.

Barry thought.

“Greece. You?”

“West.”

“How far?”

“All the way.”

Barry had nothing to say to that and kept quiet until they reached Dunston.

 

chapter nineteen

 

 

 

Eunice and Barry became fast friends. When he stopped selling drugs in his bar, he said it was because demand had fallen off. Eunice didn’t believe that for a minute, nor did she believe that her pressuring him, which she did now and then, had had any real effect. She had learned that Barry did what he wanted, when he wanted.

She moved in with him, and had her own room. When he invited her, he said he was past that age, if she knew what he meant. She did, although she wasn’t sure she was as past as he was, and decided that if a man caught her eye, or vice versa, she’d worry about the logistics later. So far, it hadn’t come up.

His house was on the lake, about four miles outside of town. He’d renovated it from top to bottom. The bedrooms and common living spaces all had open views of water. Eunice loved it, though she knew better than to say so. Another thing she’d learned about Barry was that he didn’t care for praise or compliments, or to know that someone was enjoying themselves. It wasn’t that he had a negative outlook or was an old crab; he just didn’t like overt displays of emotion, so Eunice kept her commentary on an even keel, and so did he, usually.

The one time he went off the rails, Eunice had been living with him for almost two years. One of his children had called on the telephone. He’d taken the call in his den, where he could sit in private. The den was in another wing of the house and met the main section at a ninety degree angle. When Eunice stood in the living room, she had a clear view of Barry at his desk, the phone to his ear, his face growing increasingly grim.

She turned away. He said nothing of the call over dinner, a meal they made it a point to share on the nights when she wasn’t working. He’d cut back his hours at the bar, leaving it in the hands of a new manager who turned out to be surprisingly competent at keeping an eye on both the customers and staff. Their evenings were quiet and pleasant. That one, though, was strained. Eunice was determined not to pry. Instead, she talked.

She said her mother was leaving the farm where she’d lived with Jean to move into the Medicaid facility downtown. Eunice was keen to help Jean get her mother settled, but Jean’s daughter always seemed to intrude. Eunice wasn’t allowed to be useful. Jean’s daughter was claiming some sort of ownership, though of what exactly, Eunice wasn’t sure. All she could think was that the daughter was one of those naturally bossy women who always had to run the show. She supposed it was a useful trait, but people always ended up getting offended or downright angry.

Barry had met her mother once, when they drove out together to visit, and said bluntly that he could see why Eunice had never wanted children. She didn’t know how to interpret that. For one, she’d never spoken of wanting or not wanting children. Next, in her limited experience, it was the people who’d had rotten parents who did a good job of parenting.

Some of the people she worked with at Lindell supported her theory. Dee, one of the other aides, had been beaten by both of her parents, taken away by the State, returned, and left on her own at fifteen. She had three children, all of whom were good students with easy, pleasant dispositions. Velma, the cook, had had a drunk for a father who disappeared for weeks at a time. Her son and daughter were both in veterinary school. Of course, a good partner was key. The husbands of both women were solid and stable.

She decided that Barry was imputing to her what he felt himself—the mistakes he regretted making as a father. Eunice wanted to know more about this but could only circle with vague questions. Then Fate did one if its funny/cruel things. Eunice and Barry ran into his children at a restaurant. It seemed they were there to celebrate a job offer one of them had recently received. They were polite to Barry, cold to Eunice, and dismissive when Barry asked about the job and what it entailed. That had only been three weeks before.

Barry poked at the potatoes Eunice had prepared. He’d eaten little. As a rule, he enjoyed lamb. The chops were thick cut and well-seasoned, but he’d barely touched them.

Eunice cleared, washed up, and went to her room. She worried that whatever had been said on the telephone would upset everything and she’d have to find another place to live, though that didn’t seem likely. She was mad at herself for being selfish.

She went to bed. She woke to the sound of something breaking in the kitchen, a glass probably. She put on her bathrobe and slippers, and went to see.

Barry was drunk. He apologized for waking her. He said he was getting himself some water and that the glass must have slipped from his hand. She turned on the light. His face was wet with tears. His sport shirt was stained, and Eunice wondered how it had gotten that way. Then she saw a dirty dish in the sink and realized he’d been snacking on leftovers. She told him to sit down. She swept up the broken glass, found another, and filled it with water. She went down the hall to his bathroom and took the bottle of aspirin from the medicine cabinet. He hadn’t told her it was there. She’d discovered it one day when she came home from work with a rotten headache.

He swallowed the aspirin and drank the water. She told him to go to bed. He stood up and went to his room. Eunice waited until she saw the light go off. She went back to bed and didn’t sleep for a long time, which was too bad, because she had to work in the morning.

She arrived to find Constance in a small fury. Her daughter had requested a competency hearing. Eunice shared her ire. Constance was old, to be sure, but she wasn’t stupid or fuzzy-headed, even with the nightly sleeping pill on board. She told Eunice she wanted to stop taking them. Eunice said she needed to make her request to the nursing staff and that she’d make mention of it, if she’d like her to.

Constance waved her hand to say she didn’t want to think about it anymore. Eunice made her bed. Sam, the new girl, came in with a small stack of clean towels. In the front pocket of her smock was a paperback book, probably another volume of poetry. Sam had a passion for poetry, which Eunice found completely at odds with her tall, wide stature. Then she thought it was silly to assume that only petite, delicate women loved poems.

Sam went on to the next resident.

“How are things with your friend?” Constance asked Eunice when they were alone. Constance heard often about Barry. Eunice mentioned the phone call and how badly he’d taken it.

“Did you ask what was said?” Constance asked. It was mid-morning, the point during the day when she tended to be the most keen-witted.

“I couldn’t do that.”

“I bet you could.”

Constance said being a parent was hard, and being a partner in a relationship was hard, even a platonic relationship like the one Eunice and Barry had. It all came down to instinct. Knowing when to speak, when to hold back.

“Make it a parable,” Constance said. When Eunice lifted her eyebrows, Constance said, “What I mean is, tell him a story about how you were upset about something once and someone close to you drew you out. Or how you drew someone else out and knew you’d done the right thing because the person in question was glad to share, and found it…uplifting.”

Eunice didn’t think that was a good idea. He wouldn’t like that he’d been so vulnerable with her. It might embarrass him to the point where he’d want her to move out.

“That’s the trouble with men, isn’t it? Can’t talk about their feelings,” Constance said.

“I know lots of women who can’t do that either.”

Constance nodded. She fell silent in a way that suggested the onset of a bad mood. That happened whenever her daughter was due, Eunice had noticed. Families were such troublesome things. They hurt you more often than not and didn’t come through when you needed them. Except for Grandma Grace. Grandma Grace would have liked Constance. Or rather, she would have understood her, perhaps even sympathized with another example of bad mother-daughter relations. Eunice was certain that if she’d had a daughter, she’d have raised her fairly and lovingly. Of course, she’d never know for sure.