He watched the rest of the show with her, not really paying attention, just being with her. When the credits rolled, she turned it off, and he told her about his day—about the table and the woman he went to see about her renovation. Fact was, he hadn’t stopped thinking about Claudia Bishop since he’d been out to her place.
“That would be a good thing,” she said. “To have the regular big job and fit the other small jobs in.”
“Instead of just the small jobs,” he said. There was always a need for a handyman; he always had work. But the bigger jobs usually went to a crew. Sometimes he worked for a contractor in town and that was good; he might get a regular thing that went on for a couple of months—doing floors or painting in a larger renovation. But when the market was slow and people had stopped building, there was less work to go around. He’d had a couple of lean years, though things were picking up again.
“Someone’s been calling,” she said, after he thought she’d drifted off.
“The home phone?” he said. “Just telemarketers probably.”
He lifted his cell phone from his pocket, noticing that he had varnish underneath his nails. No messages—no texts or voicemails—except one from his buddy earlier today asking if he was going up to Lucky’s where they usually played pool on Thursday nights. If he brought his bass, he might get to play with the band for a few songs.
“More than usual,” she said. She reached out a small, papery soft hand to him, and he took it in his. He touched his thumb to her wedding ring, which he’d had adjusted earlier that year to fit better.
“I’ll check the voicemail,” he said.
He tried to press it back, a tickle of unease that had been hovering. It was always there, a kind of odd buzz, a tune you couldn’t get out of your head. As long as he was working, busy, he could ignore it, a joker shuffled among the other cards of his thoughts. But once the day was done and there was nothing left to do but watch television and go to bed, it found its way to the top of the deck. So many years had passed. And still.
“You look tired,” she said.
“I’m okay.”
“Sleeping?”
“Well enough.”
“Your father was a bad sleeper, always wandering around in the night.”
“I remember.”
That’s because he was drowning in debt, Ma. We almost lost everything when he died. But she didn’t know. They had an old-school marriage. Dad worked, paid the bills, handled the finances. Mom cooked and cleaned and raised the kids. She had no idea the mess he was in. Not before he died and not after. Take care of her, Josh. Your brother is useless. You’re the one who has to stay on.
Josh turned out the light and kissed his mom on the head, pulling the covers up around her shoulders, a mirror of how she used to tuck him and Rhett in at night. It wasn’t cold in the house, but she got cold. Sometimes he got up in the night to make sure she was still covered.
He walked down the creaking staircase and back to the kitchen where he picked up the cordless phone and dialed the voicemail. Auditory junk mail—a campaign ad, a survey call, the bank offering another credit card. And then, there it was, the voice he wished to never hear again.
“Hey, buddy.” Josh listened to the whispering sound in the background—wind through the trees, tires on asphalt? The long, slow sound of a distant horn. A deep drag and a sharp release of air. Smoking still. “Long time, no see, right? So, look. We have a problem. Let’s—uh—get together. You still in the same place?”
Josh listened to five more messages, all of them hang ups. He put the phone down and rested his head against the cabinet, one that his father had made. It was solid, the smell of wood and stain a comfort. His heart thumped and his throat had gone dry.
We never outrun our sins, his dad had warned him. Someday they come back on you, one way or another.
Josh still thought he knew a few things back then—was it ten years ago now? Did time really pass that fast? Did you blink your eyes and find yourself on the cusp of middle age having accomplished next to nothing? Living in the house where you grew up? Taking care of your mother? Josh had loved his dad, but he’d thought the old man was terribly na?ve. The old man was hardworking but not worldly, had never been anywhere, done anything. Not like Josh, who knew and had seen it all back then, or so he thought, who had the whole world before him and a catalog of grand plans.
Dad’s simple ideas: Measure twice, cut once. Don’t use the table saw when you’re tired. Slow and steady wins the race. But philosophies like that were for another time, Josh had thought back then, another universe where things moved more slowly and people still played by the rules.
Things don’t change as much as you think they do.
Josh turned off the lights in the kitchen and made sure the doors were locked. In the cupboard beneath the stairs, he checked the revolver he’d stowed on the high shelf toward the back. It was clean and oiled, fully loaded just as his father had always kept it, and now Josh did the same.
Josh pushed the gun back far and locked the cupboard door. He was the only one with the key. He was about to climb the stairs when the light in the dark hallway changed. He walked to the window where in the black outside he saw the twin yellow eyes of an approaching car. He went back for the gun.
four
Claudia often dreamed of Ayers. And these dreams—they were so real, so pleasant. They were just lying on the white couch they’d had in that East Village apartment. She had her feet in his lap, and he was massaging them the way he used to, while she drank a cup of tea. Outside, it was windy and the room was filled with that Indian flute music he loved. She felt light, free, the way she used to on Saturday afternoons when they were first married—before.
“Will it always be just like this?” she asked.
“I hope so, darling,” he said, with that peaceful smile he wore so often. “Or even better.”
A crash and the world went dark. Ayers was gone, and the pleasant day outside had turned black, wind howling. And then Claudia was awake, the echo of that bang still hovering on the edge of her consciousness. What was it? Was it real?
“Mom! Mom?” Distant, down the hall. Was she still dreaming?
It was pouring, rain sheeting against her window.
“MOM!”
Claudia was running then, her heart a hammer against the cage of her chest. She and Raven met in the hallway reaching for each other.
“Mom!” said Raven, looking so, so much like the little girl she recently was. “What was that?”
“I don’t know,” said Claudia, her throat constricted with fear, hands shaking.
She went back to her room and grabbed the baseball bat she kept by her door, all of Ayers’s warnings about living alone on an isolated property in a strange town ringing in her head.
“Go into my bedroom and lock the door,” she told Raven, who’d looked at her wide-eyed.
“Really?”
“Call the police if—”
“If what?” Raven’s voice went up a worried octave.