RICK WASN’T A PILL GUY. He was a beer guy. But by the time he’d reached Merna, twenty-five miles east of Arnold, he’d thought about the long drive ahead and felt beneath the seat. He’d grabbed one of the cellophane mounds and fished out another chalky pill like the two that helped him finish the plumbing and ductwork. That shit worked.
It’d be late when he got to town, drove down to Mom’s, but he could at least make sure the house still stood. See if she’d come back on her own. See if Paul’s pickup was there. If it wasn’t, he’d hope Paul was out looking, not still nailing some blonde or locked up in jail for going after the cop. Either way, then Rick could turn around and head home, crawl in bed beside Pam for a couple hours before driving back to Arnold. That’d be good. To get some rest in his own bed. Keep her from frying circuits for a bit.
When he pulled into Madson, his mouth was parched, his pits were wet, and he could feel his hair growing. He scratched at his scalp and felt the cramp in each root that comes from taking off a hat that’s been worn too long. When he made the turn on Walnut, the headlights lit up the locust trees around the house. For the first time it struck him the name of the street didn’t fit.
The pavement gave way to gravel and curved left to avoid the house. As if the road were too good for it. As if it liked the green yards lining the other direction better.
Mom’s place was on the right, as far on the bottom edge of town as a house could get and still be in town. The tamped-down, dried-up yard was separated from a field by a snowy-looking row of elderberries.
Rick tried to remember the elderberries but tasted only the acidic tinge the pills left on his tongue. Not that Mom used the berries anymore anyway. She ate bread Paul picked up from the store and whatever came in a can, when she remembered to eat. She used to make jam, though, when they were kids. She made it back when they went on those picnics. They’d gone on picnics a few times, after Dell Junior was gone. They’d wade through the tall grass of some old, empty house with a big barn and eat bologna sandwiches at the base of the front porch steps. She’d tried for a while. To make things halfway normal.
The buckling shingles of Mom’s roof had a long, rusty streak from the chimney down toward the gutter, which was loose. Paul should’ve fixed it. Rick would come by and do it when he got a chance. Beneath the loose gutter, red glowed through the curtains of the living room window. She left the lamp on when she fell asleep in the recliner. The red was from the curtains. It was a comfort, the red. It made things look like they always did.
Rick jogged the short distance to the window. In the thin gap between the drapes, he made out the recliner’s back. No sign of her yellow curls jutting out past the side. No sign of her short glass of scotch on the arm. No sign of her smoke trailing up toward the ceiling in threads. She was still gone.
In the yard, there was no sign of Paul’s pickup, either. Hopefully he was out looking.
Rick was gritting his teeth. Grinding them. He made a point to loosen his jaw as he jumped back in the van and followed the gravel away from the house. He made a left on Main and sped by all the quiet two- and three-stories. They looked like gingerbread houses. Busy-looking. With hand-turned wood posts, scrollwork wood cutouts filling up every spare blank space. Like everybody who built in town back then was trying to show up the place next door. All that thin-carved wood. Just more shit to rot and break. In daytime, the houses looked fancy as ever, but in the haze of the streetlamps they were dingy, and Rick felt that same coat of grime itching on his skin. He scratched his growing hair as he pulled up to the intersection of the highway.
He made a left to head west out of town. He wanted to get back to the trailer and Anna’s soft little purr of a snore. He wanted to get home to Pam, warm in their bed.
THE NOVA WAS GONE.
Rick pulled in next to where it should’ve been and killed the engine. It chugged and rattled like it was trying to restart, vibrating sheet metal and his skin. He scratched. He hopped down and slammed the door harder than he meant to. He crossed the dirt yard and took the porch steps two at a time without feeling his feet below him. He touched the doorknob. He turned it. Unlocked.
Three strides inside the living room, he listened, but all he heard was the buzzing sound of no sound at all. Then a tick. Or a thud. From the kitchen. His hand gripped the buck-knife case on his belt, and his head whipped toward the noise. A tick. Or a plop. The drip of the faucet.
He headed for the hallway wishing his boots made softer steps till he heard the thud wasn’t his boots but his heart. It thumped loud and fast as he neared the light from Anna’s room. The door was wide open, not cracked like it was supposed to be, like it always was, and he took the last few steps running, not caring about the noise he made, just wanting to see her where she was supposed to be, sleeping. Safe.
She lay behind the bars of the crib she’d outgrown. She lay there still. He watched her for movement. He listened for the purr of her snore but couldn’t catch it over the sound of his head. He stepped closer, and she smacked a wrist against the bars and murmured. He gave a breath that stuttered with his heart settling.
He went to the next room, their room. At the edge of the bed, something slipped beneath his boot. Fabric, some clothes. He blinked and tried to make out the soft roll of Pam’s hip against the dark. He felt the space where she should’ve been. Just wrinkled sheets. The flat mattress.
He didn’t want to wake Anna. He didn’t want her to know her mother had left her alone. He shut the door to their room before flipping on the light. Her clothes still hung in the closet. Her bras and underwear still sat tucked in the drawer.
He turned off the light. He walked softly back down the hall and out the front door he’d left open. He sat on the grate of the porch, planted his feet on the second step down, and put his elbows on his knees. He held his head, his cramped-up hair, and cursed the speed. Speed made time move slower, not faster. Speed should’ve made time move faster.
She’d come back. She left her underwear. Could she afford to get new underwear? He didn’t know. She kept track of the money. She’d been pissed last week she’d had to put back hamburger for meat loaf. Later that night, she’d been pissed about cleaning his dead foot skin off the heat register. He felt the spongy wetness in his socks and the itch from his tingling skin. His head filled with the relief he got from rubbing his feet on the ridges of the register. So much relief, he wanted to whip off his boots and peel off his socks and do it right this minute. But he wouldn’t. And when she came back he wouldn’t. If she came back, he wouldn’t ever rub his feet on that register again.
The money. He knew she kept it somewhere in the kitchen. If the money was still there, he’d know she hadn’t left for good.
Before he could stand and run inside to search the drawers and cupboards, gravel popped and an engine neared. The front quarter-panel of the Nova nosed past the Silvercrest at the end of the block. She made the turn up their road. She slowed to a creep and stopped short of the van, short of her parking space. He tried to see her face, to see what she might be thinking. All he could make out was the pale of it. She made the turn and put the car in park. It was idling high. He needed to adjust the timing. He kept forgetting. He’d do it tomorrow. She shut off the engine, and he rubbed the thighs of his jeans, ready to stand but not standing. Not yet. He felt like he was watching a deer. Like if he made a sudden movement, she might dart off into the darkness past the trailer court. He waited. She sat in the car. She wasn’t moving, just sitting.
He waved with a jerk he didn’t mean to make. Then he sat. Waited.
The car door opened. She dropped her sandals on the dirt and slipped into them. He stayed put, still scared she might dart. She walked up to the railing and held it. There was a white indent where her gold ring should have been. She was looking at his boots.
“Needed to get some air,” she said.
“Couldn’t sleep?”
She shook her head.
“Anna’s still asleep,” he said, feeling her out. She couldn’t go and leave Anna like that. She had to know. That’s when things happened you couldn’t take back. Couldn’t undo. When you weren’t looking. When you weren’t there to hear and see. But he still had the feeling Pam could disappear with the wind of a breath. Vaporize at a moment’s notice. And he was still too relieved to have her standing here to take a chance on pissing her off.
“I figured,” she said.
“Went driving around, then? Because you couldn’t sleep?”
She nodded, and a long strand of her hair came spindling down in front of her face. She pushed it away and stared at the toes of his boots. It looked like she felt bad enough, leaving Anna like she had. There was no reason to make it worse.
And it wasn’t her fault she couldn’t sleep without him. She had trouble sleeping as it was. She’d wind up on the couch under a spare sheet half the time. He always told her, just lock the door and listen to the fan. Focus on the fan and let it drown things out. But she wouldn’t run it at all when he wasn’t there.
So she couldn’t sleep tonight and didn’t want to wake Anna with the sound of the TV in the front room. So she went driving around. That was all. Of course it was. He was just edgy because of this deal with Mom. He tried to let that settle and wash through him, but he was jumpy. Twitchy. Probably the speed.
He eyed the pale indent in her finger again. She must’ve taken off her ring before bed. Put it back on in the morning. He’d never noticed.
“Finish the Arnold job tomorrow. Early enough I’ll be home by dinner,” he said. “You can get some better rest, for once.”
Her face had gone blank. No expression. It was good. It meant her brain wasn’t overheating. She kept her eyes down and minded the steps as she passed him. He reached out and grazed her shin with his fingers. The touch made her jump, made her jerk a little as she pulled open the door. He rose and followed her in.