Chapter Two

When tom evans finally pulled into his driveway, the clouds had cleared and high noon did the yard no favours. There hadn’t been much snow this year, and what came went again in odd thaws. The patchy grass looked as though it had mange and the big maple had lost two limbs in thunderstorms the previous summer, leaving jagged, angry-looking amputations. He’d probably have to cut it down next year. Shame. It had been there since he was seven. He remembered planting the sapling with his father, the way the earth had smelled that day, rich and loamy and entirely unlike the slightly rotting mixture of leaves and dog shit the yard gave off this morning. He remembered the way his father’s biceps had bulged as he wrestled the root ball into the ground. If the old maple finally gave up the ghost, maybe Tom could plant something with Bobby, make it a new memory. The house looked a bit the worse for wear as well; could use a new coat of paint. His father would have been horrified. Robert Evans had built this house for his bride, with no help from anyone, neither plumber nor electrician nor roofer, which was the way he was. It was a sturdy, no-nonsense house, with a small attic and a wide porch, which was also the way Robert Evans was. No storm could damage a house like that, or so it had seemed to Tom growing up. The screen on the living room window was torn. Well, he thought as he jogged up the steps, this weekend for sure.

He entered the house and stepped over a mound of shoes and boots inside the front door. In the living room, unfolded laundry overflowed a tattered wicker basket on the couch. Rascal, the black and white mongrel, rose up from his bed atop a scatter of loose CDs and their plastic cases. The dog stretched, extending his claws into the discs. The resultant scrape set Tom’s teeth on edge. A cartoon of the roadrunner and the coyote flickered on the television, but the sound was turned down. He walked toward the sound of running water and clattering plates coming from the kitchen.

Patty stood at the sink rinsing off dishes. She had her jacket on, the blue and white striped smock Wilton’s Groceries made all their cashiers wear hanging below it. Tom picked up a piece of toast that had fallen to the floor in the morning’s mayhem. He bent down to kiss the back of his wife’s neck. She smelled of patchouli and lemony soap. A reddish-gold curl escaped from where she had gathered it, messily, enticingly, atop her head. He aimed for a tiny brown mole.

She shrieked and jumped back, a wooden spoon in her hand, ready to clout him. “Shit, Tom. You scared me!”

His lips were frozen in mid-pucker. Her face was a mix of rage and shock that seemed excessive. “Sorry. I thought you heard me,” he said. Tom Evans had a voice so deep Patty said it was a well in need of an echo. It fit his size, for he was all shoulders and arms, kept strong from the flats of bread he slung around as if they were no heavier than paper and meringue. Patty was forever telling him to be careful of things he might break without realizing it. When Ivy and Bobby were small and he’d held their wrists and swung them round in circles, she said, “You’ll dislocate their shoulders. You’ll bash their brains out against a wall.” But the children just laughed and laughed and asked for more. When Ivy was nothing more than a diaper with a big pair of brown eyes he’d bounced her on his palm, like a quarter he was flipping, and even though Patty had said nothing, he caught her looking at him now and then, her pale brows drawn in disapprovingly. Whether from a fear he’d drop the baby or from a dislike of roughhousing in general, he never could decide. Of course, at ten and fifteen respectively, Ivy and Bobby were too big for that now. But even when they were babies, Tom had never understood why Patty didn’t know how careful he was with them. He would never do anything to put his children in harm’s way. They were everything to him. They were the miracles of his life, as was Patty. The miracles that changed everything, forever.

Now, she stared at him with that look of irritation he was, sadly, becoming accustomed to. She wiped her bangs off her forehead with the hand still holding the wooden spoon. A dribble of water fell from the cuff of the pink rubber gloves she wore, staining the front of her suede jacket. She looked down at it and then up at him. “You’re late.”

“Yeah, The Indian Head said I got the order wrong and Dave wanted to have an argument.”

“I thought the motel cancelled delivery.”

“They started up again.” He leaned in to kiss her, but it was a clumsy move and he mostly kissed her nose. “Maybe things are going better over there.”

“Who eats at a motel?”

“I don’t know. People who stay there.”

She turned back to the sink. “Who stays at a cheap motel in a pissy little town like this in March?”

“I don’t know. It’s on the highway. Truckers. Salesmen, I guess.” Tom was unsure why they were having this conversation. He put his arms around her, kissed that place on her neck. “Kids all right this morning?”

“As all right as they ever are. Sniping at each other. Bickering. Bobby hardly speaks. I don’t know any of his friends. There’s something wrong with that boy.”

“He’s fifteen, that’s what’s wrong with him.” Tom chuckled. Bobby was a little surly, but what teenage boy wasn’t?

“I don’t see what’s funny about it. And Ivy’s so prissy.” Patty frowned. “They’re so different.”

“Why don’t you leave that? I’ll do it.”

Patty peeled off the gloves and draped them over the faucet. She turned in his arms and kissed him. She tasted pleasantly of coffee and toast. “I hate you working these hours. We’re all out of kilter. We never do anything together.”

“What can I do? Work’s work.”

“You leave in the middle of the night. It always feels like you’re sneaking out. And I hate waking up to an empty bed. You know that. I get lonely.”

“It’s work, Patty.”

“So you said. Isn’t there anything else?”

“We’ve been through this. When the warm weather comes I can try and get logging work, or maybe landscaping, but if I do we lose the benefits I get with Pollack’s.”

“Logging’s no good. You’d be off in a camp. Why do you say logging?”

“I’m just laying out the options. There’s Kroeler’s, they might be hiring, I heard.”

“A paint factory? All those chemicals? Oh, that’s a fine idea. I don’t want you logging, Tom. It’s too dangerous. Look at Greg Keane.” Greg Keane’s right arm was crushed and had to be amputated after a steel bind-wire snapped on one of the trucks and he got caught when the load shifted.

“Accidents happen everywhere, Patty. You grew up on a farm. You know that.” Forklifts, highway accidents, machinery—an endless possibility of industrial accidents. He often wondered how the world looked to white-collar workers, who had board room barracudas to fear, rather than tractors and folding cultivators and chainsaws.

Patty pulled away and shuffled through a pile of unopened bills on the counter. “That fucking commune could hardly be called a farm. Where are my keys?”

“On the hook by the door.”

“I’m going to be late.”

He walked her to the door and grabbed her elbow as she stepped out, pulling her back to him. “Don’t worry so much, babe. We’re doing fine.”

“Are we?” Her face searched his. “At least you like your job. I hate mine.”

“Since when? I thought you wanted to work.”

“I wanted to get out of this house. But Wilton’s? Jesus, what a bore.”

“Well, I don’t know . . . quit then.” He ran his hands through his hair. “We got by before you worked. We’ll get by again.”

“Getting by. What a life.”

“I’m doing the best I can.”

She put her small hand up to the side of his face. “You need a shave,” she said, and kissed him good-bye.

He stood on the porch, with his hands deep in his pants pockets, watching her drive off. The old Chevy, bought second-hand six years ago, rattled and shook, then settled. Patty waved and he waved back. He kept his eyes on the car as it moved down the street. In all the years since he’d first seen her, there was this one constant thing: he loved her so much it scared him, for the world was harsh and jagged. Rascal came out onto the porch and stood there wagging his long tail. The dog whined and cocked his head. Barked sharply, inquiringly. Tom bent down and scratched his ear. The dog leaned into his leg and whined again.

“They forgot to feed you, huh? Well, I can fix that, I guess.” He went back into the house and closed the door behind him. On the silent television, the roadrunner had just tricked the coyote into stepping off a high mesa and his legs spun frantically for a few seconds before he looked balefully at the viewer and then plunged to his death, which was never quite a death after all.