He hung up on that second phone call and within a minute the phone began to ring anew. He let the machine answer but Rick left no message and after another minute the phone resumed its ringing until the tape recorder clicked on once again—Hello and thank you for calling North Idaho Wildlife Rescue—then the long buzz of the dial tone and the click and whirr of the machine rewinding to its starting point and the long silence as Bill waited, shoulders tight around his neck, for the phone to burst into sound once more.
Then a day passed where there were no calls and he wondered once again if the ordeal was over, imagining Rick returning to Nevada, resigned to the empty safe, to the years he had served in Carson City, to all of it. But the reprieve was short-lived, not because the calls resumed but rather because a few days later, on his way back home from Sandpoint, Bill happened upon the dented and rusted yellow Honda parked in front of the Northwoods Tavern.
It was early evening when he passed the bar, the sun dipping into the shadows of the tree line and the whole town darkening quickly into the forested night. He had driven up to Bonners to pick up an antibiotic for Perry, one of the three raccoons, who had a small wound that was proving very slow to heal, stopping in at Grace’s veterinary clinic while he was in town just to visit for a moment, to see her, to touch her face, and then had turned around and gone all the way back through Naples and on to Sandpoint, where he had made the final payment on the engagement ring. Four months to pay off the three hundred dollars but he had it at last and he opened and snapped closed the black velvet box with one hand as he drove. It was Friday. Jude’s event at the school was scheduled for Monday night, and because Bill had told him about his plans, he knew there would be no backing out of them. Perhaps that was, in fact, why he had told the child about it at all: to hold his own feet to the fire.
He thought she would say yes. Was sure of it. Then almost sure. Then had no idea. He flipped the box open again, glancing down at the gold ring with its small diamond, turning the truck left into Naples, instead of right and up the mountain to the trailer, thinking of stopping in at the general store to pick up a chicken potpie and a pack of cigarettes, although he had also promised Grace that he would try to quit.
That was when he saw the little yellow Honda, the ring box still held open on the palm of his hand, his eyes casting over the car just for a moment as he followed the curve of the road toward the store. Then he looked again and his foot came off the gas pedal, the truck slowing in the road.
He slid into a gap in the line of Subaru station wagons and pickup trucks and that one yellow Honda, but he knew he would not go inside the bar. Even if he did, what would he say? Why are you still here? What are you doing? Get the fuck out of my town? Get the fuck out of my life? He had already said such things and he knew that repeating them would serve no purpose. He did not know why Rick had remained but the possibilities flashed through his mind in quick succession and left him shivering and shaking behind the wheel.
After a few minutes he drove on to the store for his chicken potpie, and when he passed the Northwoods Tavern again, the yellow Honda was gone.
THE FALL Festival at the elementary school was comprised of a parade of children dressed as pilgrims and Indians, all of them singing off-key songs that seemed to have neither melody nor lyrics. It was difficult to focus on what was happening onstage. Bill’s ass was numb from the metal folding chair and he was nervous about the approach of his planned marriage proposal, a plan made yet more urgent by Jude’s barely contained excitement. And yet seeing Rick’s yellow Honda had shaken him inside, so hard and heavy that he wondered what he was doing here at all. Then he saw himself in the forest somewhere, just briefly, out of breath and struggling through thick wet snow, all the trees black and featureless, and then he was falling through that surface and into some dark twilight, the sense of which made him jerk awake in panic. But he was not in the snow. The children were still singing their monotonous, nearly tuneless songs, all lined up on the stage on a set of bleachers, and the room was still hot and overpacked with parents and grandparents.
He looked over at Grace briefly and was relieved that she had not seen him nod off, or did not acknowledge it if she had. She glanced back at him and then leaned in close and whispered in his ear: I’m dying.
Me too. My ass is dead.
I don’t even have an ass anymore.
They smiled at each other and tried to suppress their laughter.
Jude’s class came onstage at last, their construction-paper pilgrim hats lopsided and falling over their eyes as they tried to find their places on the bleachers.
There he is, Grace said. She waved. Jude’s eyes were clearly looking for them in the audience but the boy did not see his mother and so Bill stood and briefly waved both hands above his head as if signaling an airplane and Jude found them at last and waved and smiled.
I think he sees you now, Bill, a parent behind him said, and a few people laughed.