No. That’s not going to happen, Dad said. Now I want you to get out of here.
She pulled the coat together and looked at Dad sitting in the swivel chair at the desk. Then the coat came open once more and her breasts swung and bobbled with the violent motion and she slapped him as hard as she could across the face. It left a bright red mark. Then she turned and went out of the office.
It snowed that night as Clayton had predicted the day before that it would. A wet snow more like one in March or April than one in February, and the next day Clayton and Tanya took the two children and some few quick belongings in suitcases and cardboard boxes and drove a hundred miles south and moved into a house with her parents.
In the spring a couple of months later on a slow day Dad received a call. He was in the little office again, in the middle of the morning. The voice on the other end, a female voice, was already screaming when he picked up the phone.
You son of a bitch! He killed himself! You son of a bitch.
Who is this?
You know who it is. He went to Denver and started drinking and took a gun and blew half his head off. He never even left a note. Because of you. You did this. You’re the one that made him. Oh I hope you rot in hell! Oh goddamn you! I hope you burn in hellfire forever.
5
MIDMORNING she was out on the front porch in the still fresh bright heat of the day with the old wooden-handled broom she kept for the porch and sidewalk, sweeping across the gray-painted wood boards, some of them warped and coming apart at the joints. At the front window she looked inside and Dad was sitting in his chair staring out into the side yard. She wondered what he was thinking about. If he was thinking about how his death would come for him, in what manner it would take him away. He never talked of it. She swept up the dead tree leaves and the dirt that had blown in. There was always dirt on the front porch, even in winter. She was glad of that, in a way. She was sweeping it off onto the bare ground next to the cement foundation of the old house when Lorraine came out and said she had a phone call.
I didn’t hear the phone.
It’s some woman asking for you.
Did she say who it was?
No. But I wish you’d let me do this, Mom. You don’t need to be sweeping out here.
Yes I do. I have to get outside. This gives me an excuse to be out here. She leaned the broom against the house wall and Lorraine handed her the phone and went back inside.
Yes. This is Mary. She stood facing out across the street.
This is Doris Thomas calling. I saw Frank.
What did you say?
I saw Frank.
What do you mean?
At the airport in Denver. He was in the lines at security where they make you walk back and forth between those straps and we kept passing each other and I knew right away it was him. He was wearing a cap so I couldn’t see the top of his head but it looked exactly like him. Like your husband used to look when he was that age.
What did you say to him?
I didn’t say anything to him. I didn’t want to embarrass either one of us.
He was flying someplace?
Yes. I just thought you’d want to know.
When was this?
Two weeks ago. I was on my way to Seattle to be with my daughter. She had her baby.
Did he look okay?
Frank? Yes, I think he looked okay.
I mean, did my son look happy?
Oh. I wouldn’t be able to say about that.
She stood facing out across the fence and gate and the street to the empty lot on the other side. Inside the fence the shade under the silver poplar trees was shifting and moving on the grass. There were tears in her eyes now and she stayed for a long time crying quietly and thinking. Then she wiped her face and went back into the house. Lorraine was upstairs in her bedroom. At the foot of the stairs she called up to her. Will you come down now?
Is something wrong?
I want to tell you and Dad at the same time.