Don Harwood, seated at his workbench, had just tightened the vise on a lawn-mower blade that he wanted to sharpen. His basement workshop—as opposed to the other one he had in the garage—was more crowded that it once was, ever since he’d set up a Lionel train layout on a four-by-eight sheet of plywood for Ethan to play with before he and his father had moved away to Boston. Ethan had lost interest in it in, but Don had not, and could not bring himself to tear it down. He’d put a lot of work into it. The O scale station, the miniature people waiting on the platform, the crossing signal that flashed when the train raced by, even a replica of the town’s water tower, with the words “Promise Falls” printed on the side.
“I don’t know,” he said, not looking in Arlene’s direction, but staring at the blade, wondering where he’d put his grinder. That’d be just the ticket to make this blade sharp enough to shave with. “She’s trouble, that girl. Always has been, always will be. Your sister should have committed her to a mental ward for a while after she tried to run off with that baby in the hospital.”
Arlene descended halfway down the stairs, far enough that Don would be able to see her from the waist down, if he chose to take his eyes off the blade. “That’s a horrible thing to say.”
“Is it? Maybe if she had, she wouldn’t be having more trouble with her today. Damn it, where’s my grinder?”
Don suddenly raised his head, sniffed the air. “Arlene, you got somethin’ on the burner?”
“What?”
“Something sure smells like it’s burning.”
“Oh, Lord!” she said, turned and started running up the stairs. But two from the top, she stumbled, pitched forward, and yelped.
“Shit,” Don said, then hopped off his stool and bolted up the stairs to help her.
“I’m so stupid!” she said, trying to get upright.
Don knelt next to her. “What hurts? What did you hit?”
“Just my leg. Below my knee. Damn it. Go turn off the stove!”
Don edged around her and entered the kitchen. Smoke was billowing up from a frying pan. There were half a dozen breakfast sausages burning to a crisp. Don grabbed the handle, slid the pan over to another burner, then opened a lower cupboard door to look for the biggest lid he could find. He grabbed one and slammed it on top of the pan, smothering the smoke and the flame that was just beginning to erupt.
He could feel his heart pounding, stood leaning against the counter to catch his breath. He hadn’t run up a flight of stairs in a long time, certainly not since his cardiac incident.
He heard some shuffling, looked to see Arlene framed in the doorway to the basement. She’d managed to climb the rest of the stairs, but there was blood on her beige slacks, below her right knee.
“Oh, honey, you’ve really hurt yourself,” he said.
“I’m okay, I’m okay. I was cooking up some sausages so I could slice them and put them in toast for our lunch. I can’t believe I did that.”
“It’s okay,” he said. “I’ll make us something else. Some soup. I’ll open a can of soup.”
Arlene limped over to the kitchen table, dropped herself into a chair. “Look what I’ve done to these pants. I just bought these. I don’t know if I can get that out. They’ll never be the same.”
“Don’t worry about that,” Don said. “Let me have a look.”
He pushed himself away from the counter and went carefully down to one knee, rolled up the pant leg to just over Arlene’s knee, and examined the wound. “Those things always hurt like hell, right on the bone there. You’ve scraped the skin, and it’s gonna swell up good. Does it feel like it’s broken?”
“I don’t think so.”
“Stay here.” With effort, he stood, using the table for leverage, feeling his bones creak as he did so, and rummaged around in the drawer where they kept a first-aid kit. He cleaned the wound, put a bandage on it, then got a pliable ice pack from the freezer.
“Hold this on it,” Don said. “Here, let’s prop your leg up on another chair. Then the pack won’t slide off.”
He rolled her pant leg back down so the ice pack wouldn’t be right on her skin, then set it into position.
“Damn, that’s cold,” she said.
“Yeah, well, you’ll get used to it. Gotta leave it on there for a bit.”
Arlene reached out and touched his arm. “I’m losing my marbles.”
“No, you’re not.”
“I’m forgetting things,” she said. “More and more.”
“We all do,” he said. “I forget stuff all the time. Remember the other night I was trying to remember the name of that actor, the one from that movie?”
“Which movie?”
“You know, the one where they were fighting that thing, and that actress was in it? The one you like? You know.”
She smiled sadly. “You are as bad as me.”
“I’m just saying, we’re forgetting things that aren’t that important, like movie stars’ names, but we still remember the stuff that matters.”
“Remembering I have something on the stove matters,” she said. “I can’t find my keys half the time; the other day I thought I’d lost my Visa card and I found it in the drawer. Why would I put my Visa card in a drawer and not in my wallet?”
Don pulled up a third chair so that he could set himself down right next to her. He put an arm around her shoulder. “You’re fine. We get older; we forget things. But you’re fine. Don’t worry about the sausages. If you’re okay walking, we’ll go out for lunch today.”
“You can’t,” Arlene said suddenly.
“And why not?”