It was nearly noon on the Oregon coast, the air damp and fifteen degrees cooler than the days leading up to this one, when June returned from Wheeler with two bottles of Irish whiskey. While out she’d seen a blue heron near the bay, brown rabbits flittering across the meadow, and a red-tailed hawk being chased by crows. Like watching someone else’s life on a screen. She couldn’t quite penetrate it, couldn’t quite accept that it was real.
She arrived home and did not succumb to second-guessing or guilt. A flock of gulls squalled above the yard as she filled her favorite mug and stepped out onto the porch, set the bottle down, and screwed back the lid. The breeze was gentle, clear of tidal rot, the storm having washed everything out to sea. The sun was shining again, and June drank without ceremony. Like turning on the lights in the dead of night. Like opening windows after a season of cold rain. It was like that down the back of her throat, so sudden and clear.
She refilled her mug three times in the hour, listening to the blast of classic rock from the radio on the roof next door. Sometimes the men sang along, sometimes they switched stations. No one liked Steely Dan. One of them didn’t like the Eagles and was told he could leave, to which he laughed and said they better be careful what they wished for.
Two hours passed in this way, mug after mug, the pummel of nail guns, the music, the laughter, those hard-working men accomplishing all they’d set out to do, the gulls busy above the house and shore in search of their next meal. June marveled at how smooth a day could be, how the roofers were likely to finish in two days as they’d promised, not four as Jameson had predicted, leaving two days of silence before he returned.
June drank.
She gazed into her beautiful mug from Ireland, held in both of her hands. She looked over at the grass, soaked like in Ireland, its parched color already turning a shade of green overnight. She was wearing her father’s old cardigan over a T-shirt and jeans. When the roofers arrived at seven a.m. she’d been awake and dressed for hours, pacing, chewing her cuticles until they bled, thinking about Jameson.
The storm had scattered the empty cardboard boxes across the yard, catching several between the railings on the porch. June leaned over and tried pulling one loose, but it was heavy as a wet blanket and she lost her balance, slipping sideways down the steps. She landed in the grass below, looked down and saw the front of her T-shirt, soaked in whiskey. Her mug had rolled into the grass.
“You OK?” someone yelled.
June looked up. A man stood on the roof with what appeared to be a nail gun. She guessed he was the one who’d spoken.
She waved an arm and nodded. She was fine. She said she was fine.
A quick flash of memory that she’d started the washing machine at some point, though she could no longer remember what she’d put in there. Eyes closed, she listened now to the churning through the open front door. She got to her knees and felt the seat of her jeans, cold and damp from the grass.
“You sure?” the man called out.
June nodded, leaned forward, braced her hands in the grass, and rose onto all fours.
The men next door were laughing. At her? She didn’t care. She put her weight on her left foot, and a pain, sharp and hot, struck her ankle. She fell back onto her rear and lifted her foot. More laughter from next door. Her ankle appeared to be swelling.
The euphorbia next to her head was in bloom, its tiny red dials of color reminding her of the ornamental yews. She closed her eyes and leaned her cheek against the bulbous shoots. She could hear bees floating near her throat and eyes and hands, and somewhere across the yard a squirrel was chirping, and she realized after a time that the men were singing again with the radio and blasting the roof with nails.
Then a car pulled into the bungalow’s driveway. June tried once more to stand, mindful of her foot, bracing herself on the side of the steps. She glanced up to see Jameson getting out of the car; and it confused her. The driver’s side door hung open as he went around for something in the trunk.
They had left only yesterday. Was that right?
“What on earth?” she said, feeling the full measure of her drunkenness, as if suddenly seeing it through Jameson’s eyes. She knew enough to know that she could not stand on that ankle without damaging it further. She knew enough to know she was having trouble standing at all.
When she looked again, Sarah Anne was now behind the wheel, the car door still open.
June rubbed her forehead. Had she somehow missed a day?
Sarah Anne tried pulling the car door shut, but Jameson stepped up and put his hand out to stop it. Sarah Anne didn’t look at him. She stared straight ahead.
June wanted to disappear.
She couldn’t avert her eyes as Jameson leaned his arm on the top of the car’s doorframe, dropped his head, and said something to Sarah Anne that June couldn’t hear. Sarah Anne reached in front of him for the door, and this time Jameson stepped back and the door slammed shut while he stood there looking through the window at her. Then he glanced back at Ernest, and again at Sarah Anne.
June tried again to get up and into the house, sliding her rear onto the first step and placing her good foot on the ground. She heaved up and back to the next step, though it had taken more effort than she’d expected.
Now Jameson was headed across the lawn toward her.
“I was just going inside,” June said.
“June,” he said, his voice nearly cracking, his face puffy, as if he had not slept.
“You look like hell,” she said. His hair had not been combed and his eyes were red and she wondered if he’d been crying. “Sorry.”
“You don’t look so great yourself,” he said.
“Well.”
Sarah Anne was driving away, and June raised her hand but could no longer see inside the car against the glare.
Jameson appeared to be examining the mug on the lawn. He picked it up and brought it to his nose.
“Listen,” June said. “There’s something I’ve been wanting to say to you.”
Jameson set the mug on the porch. “How about you get inside?”
“It wasn’t as if I haven’t thought to offer you the spare room. It’s occurred to me since you got here, and I just, you know. And now you’re back and the roofers are still here, and my goodness, what is going on? ”
“Let me help you get inside.”
“Just this morning I was thinking: how many more times am I going to wonder if it’s appropriate before I finally offer? How many times before the work is done and I no longer hear the racket, or, I mean, the very, very quiet of you next door? Or I no longer see you from the kitchen with your arms covered in sweat reaching for one thing or another?”
“June . . .”
“How soon before summer ends and you’re gone from this place and the question is never asked?” She stood and put her foot down on the step. “Oh, that one smarts.”
“Did you fall off the stairs?”
She glanced around the porch and lawn. “Your friend is supposed to get these boxes. Not your friend. I know he’s not your friend.”
“You’re not sober, June.”
“Oh, Jameson. Do you think I’m . . .” Laughter bubbled inside her. “Drunk? This is nothing,” she said, trying to contain herself, suddenly recalling the stark, fierce sound of her scream last night, the feel of her skin. “This is nothing. You haven’t seen anything yet.”