On rare occasions, usually weekends and late nights, no vehicles disturb Whispering Valley Drive. The children, the couples, the parents, the widows, and the retirees are contented inside their shelters. 11:31 AM one March morning is such an occasion.
Some are drying their hair, coiling locks around brushes. Some are loading the dishwasher, rearranging plates and bowls to maximize the load. Some are splayed on couches or slouched in chairs, gazing at screens. Some are endeavoring to slip back into unconsciousness, tugging the bedding still higher over their heads. Some are on their way to department stores, driving down arterial roads. Some are on their way from a pharmacy, waiting to turn left at busy intersections.
For a brief span, the street belongs uncontested to two boys bicycling. They stand to thrust their weight onto the pedals. Their legs straighten and bend to channel their energy onto four square inches at a time. They race.
Along this familiar stretch, they race each other and their personal bests. They hear each others’ exclamations, playful and rebellious, over the air rushing past their ears. They feel a singular determination to win, dismissive of the prize, that compels them onward.
They are two beacons of vibrancy on an otherwise dull stretch of patched concrete, dormant turf, asphalt shingles, and vinyl siding. The pair disperse the late Sunday morning malaise with their revelry. A dog barks. A squirrel scampers. A finch flits.
They twist their handlebars and lean onto Shady Brook Lane. One of the two boys makes his move. He leans farther and senses himself reaching the frictional limits of rubber on pavement.
Hurtling down this unofficial raceway, they discover the finish line has been shifted 24 feet closer. No longer would the winner break the plane of one of their driveways. The checkered flag would go to the boy who first crossed the imaginary threshold extending from an idling ambulance.
***
She asked them not to leave, please. Then she told them not to leave. Then she begged them not to leave.
Instead of staying, Eddie said they’d be back in like two hours tops. Two hours was too much for her. She knew that as soon as Eddie said it. As soon as Eddie’s started saying No, she started crying.
Eddie told her it would be okay, but she knew otherwise.
Bill wasn’t party to this exchange. He was in the basement, preparing for the day. He was filling his pockets with the loose change he had been filling and emptying his pockets with every day of his adult life.
Bill liked paying with exact change more than he liked negotiating with his moody wife about when and for how long he could leave the house. He would say I’ll be back when I arrive, whereas his son would say It’ll only be two hours tops. These were some of the reasons why Suzanne Lynne Doyle told her husband to Go to hell and told her son Please don’t go.
To Eddie, his mother’s words sounded an awful lot like the boy’s words in the story about the boy who cried wolf. When she wasn’t crying tears or crying to Bill to go to hell, she was crying what sounded like a big long “Wolf!” to her son. Like the townspeople in the story, when Eddie was littler and heard his mother’s cry, he freaked out. He ran to see what was the matter. But everytime he’d get there, there was nothing to see besides his mom in bed.
The mom would say you can’t see where she hurts, but Eddie was too young to understand about invisible wolves. He thought like the townspeople did that there was no threat because who’d heard of an invisible wolf? What damage could it do? So he took her less seriously as he grew up. After all, a day always came when she was better and maybe that day would be tomorrow.
After telling the mom it would be okay and giving her a hug, Eddie would close the door on her curtained room and return to his own. If it wasn’t time for school, he’d play by himself and make believe he was an explorer or that he was a movie star or that he was popular. If it was time for school, he would drink his instant breakfast and dash to the bus stop. For as long as he was gone, he’d be interrupted by worries about wolves back home or his parents fighting. So he never got good at making what he wanted real—explorations, or movies, or friends.
***
The Hearn’s boy stands with his arms crossed, looking. The Dickerson’s boy is by his side, also looking. Both straddle their bikes, perpendicular to the sidewalk. There hasn’t been anything to see yet.
Bryan Hardecker depresses the brakes on his SUV in between the kids and the object of their attention. He looks where they are looking. There is nothing unusual to see besides the ambulance in the driveway, its lights soundlessly rotating.
He clicks the button on the driver’s side console to roll down the passenger side window.
“What happened?”
“We don’t know.”
“It was here first,” the other adds.
Bryan keeps his foot firmly depressed on the brake. He refocuses on the house.
Anna McPherson wants Bryan Hardecker to move. His tinted windows are blocking the view from her house. She can see inside a portion of the Doyle’s garage and one of the two double doors, but that is all.
From his second story bedroom, Scott Englesby would have the best line of sight. Krista Englesby opens their front door one story beneath him to check on the commotion. A human form moves within the Doyle’s house.
Eddie Doyle looks out the storm door and sees some of these people looking in his direction. He wishes they’d mind their own business.
***
As the garage door raised, the sun shone on the smooth concrete floor. It shone on the bottom of the tires, and it shone on the muffler. It shone on something white in the center of the muffler, and it shone on the bumper.
Bill was easing his sedan up the slight incline when he spotted the oddity. What had Lynne been up to? He stopped the car and processed this new bit of information. There was no tuft of hair over the driver’s side headrest.
Eddie was sucking his fountain soda from a styrofoam cup when he spotted the bright spot on the car’s dark form. Was it a prank? Who would do that? How could someone do it when the garage door was down? Eddie had no idea. He exited the vehicle to investigate before Bill could decide to tell him to stay put.
Eddie gripped the door knob to the house while Bill gripped the shifter and slid it back into drive.
***
Knockout roses, bugleweed, wysteria, peonies, boxwoods, dianthus, marigolds, Alberta spruce, and mums: 723 Shady Brook Lane featured all of these. The grass was well-mown and meticulously weeded. The borders were edged. The hedges were trimmed.
The paint was chipless. The siding was moldless. The driveway was motor-oil-stainless. A seasonal wreath hung smartly on the door. A hummingbird feeder rocked gracefully on its shepherd’s hook. A diminutive scarlet flag with a cursive M stitched in gold was planted near the mailbox. It announced to all passersby: an M lives here, an M has it together within the nearby walls, an M who loves the smell of fertilizer and the sensation of an invasive root’s snap beneath her tugging forefinger and thumb keeps these grounds.
***
When she heard the noise, Anna was staring at an itemized summary. She was thinking no one should have to live this way, especially not at 57. Yet Anna did. Paycheck to paycheck. Bill to bill. Ashes to ashes. Fifty-seven long-suffering years old, mother of two who couldn’t be bothered to call on most national holidays, ex-wife of one who had a place prepared for him in hell, and daughter of zero since 2007 when her mom died of pneumonia a half a block and eleven years removed from where her dad died of lung cancer.
Paycheck to paycheck.
Every dollar counted. This house, the trophy she won in her divorce proceedings and paid dearly for through attorney fees and property taxes, was a millstone around her neck. She had no need for a second bedroom, let alone the third, but she’d be damned if Donnie was going to yank it out from under her after he had robbed her of the best years of her life. A second mortgage was the price you paid for self-respect.
A hard-working woman like herself was reduced to penny-pinching, but that was the cost of independence. And she kept current. Anna combed over every single account statement as though it were a treasure map. To Anna, they were. Buried in every fee and surcharge, there was a dollar to dispute. Dispute she did, too. You’ve gotta watch them, these companies, because they’re out to get you. They make their millions nickel-and-diming the little guy.
First thing Monday morning, she’d keep them honest as she did most weeks. She’d lift up the phone from its receiver on her desk at work and call their 1-800 numbers. Her fury would intensify with every menu option to select and every note of hold music until she’d explode on the poor rep who picked up her line halfway around the world.
4-0-8-7… None of these… Representative… Finally. Yes, my name is Anna McPherson and I’m calling about my most recent bill… The one dated February 5th, uh huh… About the last item. I don’t understand what I’m being charged two dollars and 73 cents for… No, that’s impossible… That’s not right. I didn’t ask for that... You’re not listening to me… I understand that, but I’m telling you I never signed up for it… Let me speak to your supervisor… I’ve been a loyal customer for twelve years… What’s your name?… I want to speak with your manager… How many times do I have to tell you? I did not sign up for overdraft protection… You can’t auto-enroll someone in a service that costs money. That’s not fair. I don’t want it… I demand to speak to your supervisor… No I will not hold. I’ve been holding for twenty minutes thank you very much… No I will not… Hello? Hello?... Son of a… Yes, hi. My name is Anna McPherson. I’ve been a customer for twelve years and I don’t appreciate how… As I explained to… I understand that but I didn’t give you permission… I didn’t sign up… Look I don’t care about the benefits… Are you listening to me?… Yes I would… That would help… Well yes, that would help… Thank you… Thank you for your assistance… You, too… No, that’s it… You’ve been very helpful today Mr. Whatwasit?... Najira… Goodbye.
She’d put the phone back in its cradle and congratulate herself on slaying Goliath. She’d think of how to spend her winnings. That credit would pay for a bag of mulch. Spring was right around the corner. She’d try geraniums this year, pink ones to go with the rose bush she planned on cutting back later today.
When she heard the diesel engine, she laid the mail down and went towards the sound. It was no delivery truck. It was an ambulance at the Doyles. Had Bill finally snapped? Did he let Lynne have it? He had seemed off to her since day one. It may not have been her place, but Anna told Lynne repeatedly to get the hell out of there and take Bill for all he was worth. He sounded like a terrible man. He had no class for one thing, mowing the grass shirtless for all the world to see. Hairy and sweating. With that gut. No one wants to see that.
***
Eddie opened the kitchen door. Duchess did not bound across the tile to greet him. Nor did the television’s usual chattering fill the great room. All was silent but for his sneakers patting on the linoleum.
Turning to his right, he found Duchess under his mother’s limp arm. The dog stayed put as Eddie traced his mother’s arm and took in the rest of her body. Her cheeks were slack. Her eyes were closed. Her head was tipped back, supported by the cushion. She had never looked less like a mother. Eddie stepped onto the carpet as the faint rumble of his father’s Taurus ceased.
“Mom?” Eddie asked in a normal voice and volume, walking towards her. Duchess turned her snout to view him. The way Lynne’s arm slipped down with Duchess’ movement while her torso remained fixed, while her eyelids didn’t even twitch, warranted a more emphatic “Mom?”
A car door slammed shut in the garage as Eddie reached his hand out to place it on his mother’s shoulder. “Mom!” he said still louder as he pressed into her soft joint and felt the shoulder press into the padding behind it. “Mom, wake up!” he yelled as he pulled back from her joint and the foam behind slowly returned his volley.
At the same time as the door knob turned and Duchess twitched an ear, Lynne groaned. She groaned as floorboards creaked and old mattresses crackled. Bill turned to his left to check the answer machine’s display while Eddie and Duchess turned to the right to address the newcomer. Eddie told the back of his dad’s head “I think there’s something wrong with mom,” and Bill told the answer machine “Yeah” while reaching out to pick up the cordless phone.
Bill dialed three numbers; Eddie spoke three words. “Mom;” 9; “what’s;” 1; “wrong;” 1. What the operator heard, before Bill Doyle could identify himself, was another undead groan escaping from the woman who had warned them about the consequences of leaving.
***
In 1994, thanks to the pooling of families’ resources, Mike Englesby eased the Huffy box from the back of his truck. He and Dan Mossoti bolted the struts together and attached the backboard on a Saturday afternoon. The Hardeckers connected all their garden hoses to fill the base with water. The parents basked in the glory of the monument to sport they erected over Budweisers and hard lemonades in the Lehman’s front lawn.
The kids grew into the hoop. At first, the bar was set too high. They hurled balls into the air with all their might but the net wasn’t grazed. The littlest ones were content stumbling around with their arms wrapped around the relatively outsized spheres. The biggest ones impressed with their ability to dribble with either hand. None could sink a free throw.
Timmy Smizer was the boy who figured out how to lower the hoop to six feet using a broom handle in 1996. For two summers, the older siblings lorded over their younger siblings and shorter friends. When the girls weren’t hogging the court with games of HORSE, the boys dunked and alley-ooped. They palmed mini Chuck E. Cheese basketballs and attempted outrageous half-court shots. Buzzer beaters rained down like clockwork.
Steve Harbaugh, the strongest youth by far, was recruited by the others to push the basket back up to ten feet in 2000 when the kids disdained their handicap. They would play for real. They would use NBA licensed balls like real. They would trash-talk like real. They would bicker over fouls and boundaries like real. They would storm off the court like real.
The former kids grew out of the hoop. They drove rather than ran around it. The equipment aged as the players did. The plastic bulged and shrunk every season. The water froze and thawed every winter. The base sprung a leak. The hoop would topple over in a 2004 thunderstorm. The rim would remain oblong because the families no longer pooled resources.
The next wave ignored the basket altogether. The backboard bleached. The net tattered. The paint puckered. For its final season, it would lie face down in the cul-de-sac’s grass, too rusty to be disassembled and too mangled to be used.
Eventually, a truck from many neighborhoods away will haul the hoop away in the cover of night. The scavengers will exchange the 58 pounds of steel for the $7.21 it fetches at a facility across the river that doesn’t ask questions. Weeks will go by before Mr. Mossoti notices. Like the rest, he won’t really care.
***
Tommy Hearn’s fine blond hair rustles with the breeze. Zack Dickerson’s coarser brown hair is unaffected.
“I bet Eddie choked on a Twinkie.”
“I bet he broke his wrist jacking off.”
Both boys laugh.
“What if he did?”
“I’d draw a dick on his cast.”
Both boys laugh.
Both boys were athletic and both boys were cool, but Tommy was the athletic one and Zack was the cool one. If either crossed too far into the other’s domain, they would spar. They settled the score like men who were like boys. Contention, be it delivered through insults or blows, was frequently resolved by comparing their stockpiles. Creatine powder, dog-eared Hustlers, Under Armor, or a brass one-hitter could settle disputes.
Tommy, whose house was a two-story in the new phase of the subdivision, had all the accoutrements of athleticism. He had the name-brand cleats, the lightweight pads, and the shock-absorbing helmet of a real jock. Zack, whose house was a ranch in the old half of the subdivision, had all the trappings of coolness. He had the lackadaisical parents, the fake gold jewelry, and the access to pot of a real bad ass.
Where Eddie came in was as a Leftover. The amalgamated group’s only defining characteristic was its members’ lack of magnetism. Eddie’s public usefulness was bringing Tommy and Zack’s attractiveness into starker relief. They were the ones the girls wanted to kiss in closets. He was the one the girls recoiled from in uneasy giggles when the spun bottle chose him.
Eddie did have one thing on Tommy and Zack, though: his age. Fourteen years was way cooler than thirteen. So much cooler than thirteen that, at least within the school’s confines, it made up for Eddie’s decidedly uncool second chin. When they needed him as an excuse to walk through the 10th grade lockers, they referred to him as Eddie instead of Cake Boy as they did when among their 8th grade friends.
What kept Eddie associating with Tommy and Zack was more than physical proximity. The three could play nicely in isolation. They’d sleep over at each others’ houses. Twice they have snuck out in the middle of the night, walked to the grocery store, and bought junk food. Two of the three took turns taking hits while the third stuck with Funions.
Every so often, Eddie even found himself of the top of the heap. Whenever the Athletic and the Cool were at odds, the Leftover benefitted. The Leftover could deploy their cachet of intelligence, humor, and acuity, and land precise offensives not possible with the Athletic and Cool’s indiscriminate arsenal. The Leftover, by spotting a vulnerability and exploiting it, played temporary kingmaker. Thus Eddie has laced into Tommy for his privilege and his prettiness. He has insulted Zack for his poverty and stupidity. In the aftermath, Eddie enjoyed the spoils of what passed for companionship with adolescents.
For years, the three tumbled through boyhood like this.
***
Anna McPherson leaves her house and walks towards the boys.
“What’s going on boys?”
“We don’t know.”
She stands behind them, her late morning shadow barely extending onto Zack’s shoulder.
“What’re you doing here?”
“Waiting to see who comes out.”
“Oh.”
Anna walks over to the Hardecker’s SUV. He doesn’t notice her approach. She speaks over the motor’s whir through the open passenger window.
“Morning, Ron.”
“Oh hi.”
“Do you know what happened?”
“Haven’t a clue.”
“Me neither.” She pauses. “Hope it’s nothing to do with Eddie.”
“Me too.”
Eye contact broken, Anna backs away.
***
Bryan tapped ‘ambulance at the doyles’ and sent it to his wife. He swiped the app closed and consulted his rearview mirror. Nothing. He looked into the house as best he could. It looked empty. His phone chirped. ‘what happened?’ ‘dunno’ he replied.
Given Suzanne’s and Bill’s size, Bryan assumed one of them had had a coronary. That’s where the road of weight gain heads. Bryan’s dad Ron fattened in retirement. Heart attacks followed. The last one brought his miserable life to a swift end. Bryan thought about the funeral and all of the handshakes and pats on the back.
His dad’s friends, those that were still among the living, were effusive in their praise at the podium. A patriot. A war hero. A helluva engineer. A loyal friend. Gruff, sure, but loyal. It didn’t sound like the man Bryan knew, but that’s what death provokes us to do. Revise.
When people die, we file them away. Sometimes we file them away sooner, but in the end the bereaved never fail to come together and catalog. We put labels on the box of memories and ship it to the archives. Few who attend a man’s funeral tag the box with Asshole after seeing so many people weep over him.
If Suzanne or Bill had died, more than just their vital state had switched. Yesterday’s gluttony was today’s love of life’s simple pleasures. Bill used to be a long-winded bore, but now he’d be a gifted conversationalist. Suzanne wasn’t out and about as much, so Bryan could only speculate about her. From the times he’d heard her muffled rage as he jogged by the Doyle’s house, he could guess yesterday’s short-fuse was today’s indomitable spirit.
Since Ron’s funeral, Bryan has wondered about his own service. How would his shortcomings be spun? Bryan mused about how his character would be burnished by his death. His awkwardness would become his eccentricity. His aloofness would become even-temperedness.
He wondered about the mourners, too. Who in the audience would inwardly dispute this communal act of reclassification? Would someone feel ashamed for denigrating the dead in her heart but also find it irresistible? Would there be someone in the audience who knew Bryan better than the rest? Had she told anyone else? Would the others be at her side, handing her tissues for a different type of tear?
Even when a eulogist revealed a little something dark, a little something unseemly, it was in the service of a larger narrative. The admission was for the sake of rounding out the picture of an exceptional human being who will be missed, flaws and all.
And wasn’t it a little something from long ago, spontaneous, even confused or accidental, that morning when the two of them were supposed to stay back and clean the campsite before joining the adults at the lake? What of that isolated mistake?
Did the fractured memories not pop up with the smell of pine needles, for instance, it’d be forgettable. It was a different Bryan, a much younger, more vulnerable Bryan that could have asked her to do... Could have lead her to do... And did ask and lead in his shaded Boy Scout’s tent. If only but no. The same Bryan who did that thing is responding to his wife of four year’s ‘anything yet?’ with a ‘not yet’ .
And what does she think, accepting the bowl of mashed potatoes passed to her at the Thanksgiving table with the hands that had touched her? And what does her husband think of Bryan, as he hugs her and sincerely rubs her back and earnestly says it’s great to see them as always. Does he know what a very lost younger version of Bryan did? The sights he saw with his eyes that see her now, grown up and happy with a child of her own? The thrill he sensed in his fingertips, standing before him 16 years after the fact, handing her a poorly written card or explaining to the husband how to solder? The nausea he felt in his stomach in the years before suppression took over and how he couldn’t maintain a stable romance until his mid-20s because bedrooms reminded him of forest floors?
Bryan could read it on his sister’s face. He could detect it in the brief dead stares his brother-in-law flashed him in the lulls they shared digesting pie. The judgment. The everlasting condemnation. He could make out the label on his own box in the mirror of her look.
Child molester.
Not a convicted child molester, but a child molester all the same. Not written on one of those records, but on a record all the same. And also: male, son, brother, artist, assistant manager, uncle, husband, and maybe someday father if his wife has her way. The labels were never enough, yet they pegged him. How he hated being pegged. He was a man defined by secret knowledge. But the definition was in the truth, not in the knowing. Thought, written, or spoken. Frequently or never. It didn’t matter. The facts—under the covers or spotlit—muddied everything.
Which is part of why Bryan never said sorry. Especially not to her. To his little sister, Emily. He was probably sorry. He registered a dull and blunt something every time that family trip was recalled. Gummy worms. Scrunchies. Umbro shorts. The emotion could have been remorse.
But as to saying sorry, no. Because what would it do? That was the thing. It would do, not undo. You can apologize, but apologies add. They don’t subtract. They add how you feel after the fact, how much you wish and have even let yourself believe that after the fact, it wasn’t actually a fact but a fictional event, and how at this great distance the memories, those brief clips that represent a small fraction of what actually took place, are made-up.
Which is why, on the other hand, Bryan wouldn’t allow himself to be forgiven. Although she tried. In the way she fearlessly presented her little girl to him to be held, she had absolved Bryan as best she could. But when holding this squirming creature on his lap, a tiny reproduction of the girl he betrayed, he felt his guilt. The baby was right for wanting to wriggle away. His sister’s forgiveness overlooks, but the facts remain underneath the line of sight. The past doesn’t forgive. It can’t. It’s impersonal.
The facts were what kept, keeps, and will always keep him from ever acknowledging, let alone apologizing for, what he did to Emi. 31 miles away from where he was sitting. There is no sorry to atone with. No unspoken undoing. It is an unrectifiable wrong that he carries with him in the back of his head all the time but that, more importantly, is true of him, whether or not he carries it, or she carries it, or any of their family, friends, or significant others carry it, or whether everyone lets it go when he goes into the ground in another 30 or 40 years. It never, ever goes away. At best it gets forgotten, or maybe suppressed or denied. But that’s just like eulogies. Wishful thinking.
***
What the paramedics saw was a caucasian female, approximately 55 years of age, moderately obese, with stunted affect, dilated pupils, and slurred speech. She was responsive but not coherent when questioned as to her whereabouts. Her GAF score was 30. Her BP was 80/55.
It made Eddie mad how the tall one spoke at her loudly and slowly like she were an idiot, but Bill didn’t think anything of it. It made Eddie mad how the tall one called her Lynne because only the people that knew her called her Lynne whereas she was Suzanne to everyone else. Bill had told them his wife’s name was Lynne as soon as they arrived and began assessing the situation.
Bill watched the tall one practically scream at his wife while Eddie got mad at the heavier one who rifled through their kitchen drawers and cabinets.
“Where exactly does Lynne keep her medication?” he asked Bill over his shoulder.
“Uh.” Bill rubbed the side of his face. “Everywhere.”
***
Anna adds herself to the line of bystanders on the sidewalk. She crosses her arms and speaks to the street.
“Have either of you talked to Eddie lately?”
“I guess,” Tommy says without turning his head.
“When?”
“Friday. On the bus.”
“He say anything was the matter?”
“No.”
“No trouble at home?”
“He didn’t say.”
“Hm.” She looks at Bryan looking at the Doyles. “Hope Eddie didn’t get hurt.”
The two boys snicker.
“What’s funny?”
“Nothing,” Zack answers.
***
Everything was gauzy. The shape in her face was yelling PILLS but she felt too light. She was lighter than ever but heavy too. And slow. So slow.
She was feeling. Her hand was warmth. Or what her hand was on was warmth. She tried to find the warmth but missed it in the sweep of the world. It felt good to let the head roll around where it wanted. The head wasn’t hers anymore. She was above all that. And beyond.
The world went black and sweet but for the PILLS in her ears. Her skin moved and ice was on her chest. Everything was gauzy and the shape in her face was yelling BREATHE BREATHE. How can I breathe she thought? I am sleep. Heavy dreamy sleep. So the world went black but not quiet enough.
This noise. This noise must stop. STOP she said but the ears didn’t hear it.
There was no pushing this shape in her face. The hand was not hers either. No nothing with this shape. She looked at it as the whole world and strained the head back up. She forced the eyes wider and begged.
“zzzzzzzzt”
And off the head went the other way and the silence was dreamish.
***
Bill wasn’t all that concerned with Lynne’s well-being. The paramedics would see to that. He was more concerned about the co-pays and what he and the boy would eat for lunch this week if Lynne were out of commission. The seemingly endless supply of lasagna was finally running low. The noodles were getting hard in a pan in the fridge in the garage.
Pizza would get them through. Bill had a buy one get one coupon for Farrato’s Pizza on his desk downstairs. Two larges would tide him and Eddie over for most of the work week ahead. Lynne’d be home by next weekend, he figured. She’d be admitted for a day minimum. Probably more.
So it would be a pizza week.
Thanks to this unbudgeted expense, the Doyles would have to make do with that old microwave for another month of two. Fixing the dent in the drywall Eddie left with his foot would be put on hold indefinitely. Bill could make the boy pay for what he did, but if Bill made the boy pay for what he did, he’d have to allow the boy to work for it, and if he allowed the boy to work for it, he’d disallow the boy from being home and dealing with Lynne. That would leave no one to deal with Lynne, and God knows that wouldn’t fly.
Bill himself had ceased being able to deal with Lynne around 10 years ago when Eddie was about three. As Bill remembers it, Lynne woke up one morning and stopped being reasonable. She was unhappy with everything in the world but Eddie, which apparently meant she was unhappy with Bill too. He groped for ways to fix the situation. He threw what money he could at her and, when his money ran out, he threw what credit he could at her. He gave in to all of her demands, but their relations didn’t improve.
Out of habit, he placated her still and, out of habit, she was unhappy. You know a person is no longer reasonable when you give her what she asked for and she refused to perk up. That’s how it was with Lynne, but it was worse when he didn’t give in. So he gave in and listened to his vinyls in the basement. That way, he let his son deal with it.
***
What Krista Englesby saw was a brick facade, obscured by the trunk and lowest branches of a maple tree and a shaded front porch. Up the way, on her side of the street, a small crowd had gathered. What Scott Englesby saw was an alleyway, strewn with rubble, and an opportunity to take cover. He and xXxSikScoperxXx were racking up a great deal of kills.
Scott was under no illusions about the value of these kills. He didn’t want to fall into taking them too seriously. The cocky assholes who bragged into their mics and teabagged corpses were all the more pathetic for showing off. He did not think these kills made him special IRL. Most everyone could care less about button mashing. But they counted for something. As surely as a chess ranking or an ACT score, they counted for something.
Judging from his hours logged, no one would guess Scott’s head was on straight. He wasn’t a talker. He was an open question. Everybody else had to fill in the blanks. They did, and they were often wrong. Contrary to his parents’ concerns, it’s not like he didn’t like the outside world. It was okay. Contrary to his parents’ concerns, it’s not like he didn’t like people. They were okay, too. Some of them.
He turned on the console so often because he could master the world inside those interconnected processors. Courses of action were reduced to manipulating two directional pads, two triggers, and six buttons. Where you could go was limited to eight maps that could be traversed in ten minutes or less. Who you had to account for was limited to at most 31 other players in multiplayer mode. CoD was life, condensed. It was simpler without being simplistic. If the game was simplistic, you could hand the controller to any non-gamer and they’d be clutch in five minutes. But that was not how it would go. They’d get owned so bad they’d quit in disgust and put down gamers to make themselves feel better.
Contrary to his parents’ concerns, Scott understood that CoD was not a long-term solution. Better than his parents, Scott understood that short- and middle-term problems needed to be answered, too. Like what’re you going to do after you finish Calc I and before dinner? What’re you going to do when it rains for a week in April? What’re you going to do with your last summer before you enroll in an engineering program and drown in equations?
Not everything needed to take you a step closer to getting a house, a job, or a marriage. Some things you could do for right now and that was okay because eventually you get tired of them and moved on to something else, which wasn’t a big deal when you’re talking about short- and middle-term stuff but was a huge deal when you’re talking about long-term stuff like houses, jobs, and marriages. Getting tired of long-term stuff and moving on is messy to say the least. In fact, fretting about them too much is setting yourself up. When you’re not prepared for what to do in those little unstructured windows, you can get yourself in big trouble. Trouble like what his dad would get in had Scott not disabled the desktop’s browser history.
Scott wasn’t into hanging out in basements or prowling for hot chicks or whatever it was his classmates did with theirs pockets of freedom. He was more solitary. The only radars he was on were in Halo, and he was fine with that because he wasn’t limited by the 3D world. When he walked the halls of South High, when he chewed his cold sandwich at a deserted cafeteria table, when he spied on Meredith and Sarah walking home after school, he was also ProfessorExavier.
For what it’s worth, he excelled in a particular way. He practiced his particular set of skills with an olympian’s devotion. He was respected and feared by a tiny subset of the world’s population to an extent that few soldiers were respected and feared. He knew how to cooperate and how to value a teammate. Besides the fact that a lot of people were clueless about what it took to be a gamer, what made Scott’s excellence so inferior? ‘Nothing’ he concluded as he tossed a grenade and ducked behind sandbags.
A family portrait rattling on the first floor wall indicated a simulated explosion on the second. Bass was one of the indirect modes of communication between the mother and son. The message left something to be desired. Krista missed her baby boy. Not like she didn’t see the distance coming. You know they’re going to pull away from you someday. That’s the circle of life. But that doesn’t prepare you for it happening. Your heart doesn’t care about Big Pictures. It wants your son back.
Her son knows she misses him but isn’t moved by it. She’s told him to get some fresh air with her. She’s tried tempting him with dinners at Farrato’s—her treat—but no luck. He just wants to play his game and—damn it all—he’s paying for the Xbox Live subscription and his grades aren’t slipping, so what can she do? She could forbid him or set a cap or have Mike say something, but any of those would only drive Scott further away.
No, you can’t bring your baby boy back. What’re your options? You can familiarize yourself with the dust on the back of his six panel door. You can ease your way back into living for yourself. You’ve spent so long living for your kids and longing to reclaim your life. You got it. Your daughter is a freshman at MSU and your son is placing in Call of Duty tournaments, so you’re free to take your life back.
But what is your life, now, without kids front and center? It’s a garden bed gone to seed. It’s an empty email box. It’s a spick and span kitchen floor. It’s an instant message session with one of Scott’s friends from school.
The stories don’t need reading. The clothes don’t need laundering. The math doesn’t need double-checking. So Krista was searching for new needs with a mouse and keyboard or researching old needs. Ben was a good boy in need of a friend, and Krista was a 40-something in need of attention. And affection. She was engaging in the slightest, most innocent little IM session that blurred the line between the two while Mike watched NFL Europe in the living room. It was a private thrill for Ben and her, the benign brand of thrill that a person can fill the bare spots of his or her day with, playing and rewinding. Their exchange raised a question, a broad question she can answer exhaustively to herself, over and over, throughout the day: What are you doing?
***
There was a couch, a loveseat, a wadded throw blanket covered with dog hair, a drink-ringed coffee table, an end table, a lamp, four remotes, a VCR flashing 12:00, a DVD player, a cable box, a disconnected record player, a receiver with 3.1 of the possible 5.1 speakers attached, a wicker basket full of junk too nostalgic to be trash but too useless to be anywhere else but buried in a wicker basket, bookshelves lined with books that have not been moved save for the dictionary since being unpacked and shelved six years ago when the Doyle’s had thought they’d finally arrived, and a gurney.
There was a gurney in the Doyle’s great room blocking the hallway to the bathroom Bill would like to visit.
“Lynne, we’re taking you to the emergency room. You’ve made yourself very sick. Your blood pressure is dangerously low, okay? We’re going to lift you up now, okay?”
Eddie watched his mom open her mouth a little and make a sound that could have meant anything. The tall one asked Eddie to hold onto their dog, which he did to be of some assistance while intruders hoisted his mother’s dead weight onto a gurney that had left marks on their hardwood foyer that his dad would bend down and try to rub off with a thumb, saliva-moistened, before telling his son to let Duchess outside before they left again because it would probably be a while before they got back. His father didn’t say from where.
Nor did Bill offer an explanation as to what was wrong with Lynne or relay the grave prognosis that one of the paramedics had conveyed to him in a hushed voice. These sorts of statements were outside of Bill’s areas of expertise, so he kept his mouth shut about them. But Eddie had started figuring what was the matter on his own. He started to roughly assemble what had happened with pieces like the one paramedic’s preoccupation with pills and the other’s “made yourself very sick” declaration.
This time it had been real. The wolf had actually shown up. Even if it couldn’t be seen, what it had done was visible. It had attacked his mom after he and his dad left. And the only way she could free herself from it was to give it what it wanted. She gave it herself. She had countered the attack by attacking herself and the wolf along with it.
The puzzle of what had happened over the past couple hours was like all things that involved his mother. They were incomplete. Tiles of her story weren’t included in the box. Others seemed to have come from a separate set. Eddie would keep on trying to get them all to align, but the jigsaw stayed jumbled. He had located the corners of her disappointments. He could snap together the borders of her logic. As to the central expanse of her motivations, he was overwhelmed. The color of her wounds clashed with their surroundings. The tabs of who she could be wouldn’t fit the notches of who she was. Her helplessness dwarfed the remaining vacancies. Despite the frustration, Eddie kept the pieces spread out on the surface of his mind for years. He did love her.
In the ER they’ll need to talk, but the time for talking comes later. First comes the reunions, Lynne with life and Lynne with her son. By the increasing clarity of her sensations, it will occur to Lynne that she is still alive. Her mission is not accomplished. She will follow the nurse’s directions like a good patient should. She will give herself over to life as she had two hours and ten minutes ago given herself over to death. She caved then. She will cave again.
It will be the time for holding one of her son’s hands while the other tips back the third styrofoam cup of activated charcoal. It will also be the time for a commercial break in the oldies station that Bill stays tuned to in the parking lot because his boy is much better with emotions than he is personally. Lynne and Eddie will look at each other while Bill will look at the volume knob.
In the psych ward, when the time for talking comes, she will have no rationale to offer him as to the big Why. As to the littler why, why she had taken one of Eddie’s socks out his drawer and stuffed it in the tailpipe but then retreated back inside, she will say because she got scared that what she was doing in the garage would somehow harm the dog in the attached house. Classic mom. With one piece added, one was taken away. She was in her right mind enough to spare Duchess but not enough to spare herself.
Such were the empty spots Eddie stared at alone as he matured, until he joined his parents in their shared pastime of ignoring the obvious.
***
Bill exits first. He holds the storm door open with one hand and reaches up to lock the piston in place with the other. The pale underside of his paunch appears as it does when he lifts his arms. He steps aside.
A paramedic backpedals down the porch. He moves with the cautious steps of a delivery man. He backpedals down the walkway. His width obscures the street’s view of the infirm.
A second paramedic steps into the light. He squints as he turns to steer. The gurney rattles worse than a shopping cart.
Suzanne Doyle is momentarily visible before the EMTs turn the gurney parallel to the ambulance’s length. She does not look to be in pain. There are no bruises, no eyes red from crying, no lips blue with suffocation. There is no blood, no breathing tubes, no IVs. The sheet is not pulled over a corpse’s head. She looks to be taking a nap.
None of the procession move with a sense of urgency. The EMTs load her into the patient compartment with the nonchalance of trashmen. One proposes where to grab a bite to eat.
Bryan Hardecker receives a message. ‘did u remember the yogurt?’ ‘yes’ he taps, before letting off the brakes and applying the gas. Anna retreats to her house. Krista steps away from the blinds.
The ambulance reverses with the same piercing alarm of repair vans and school buses. The Taurus reverses with the same slow pace of a workday morning. The garage door falls as fluidly as a curtain.
Bill pulls back even with Tommy and Zack. He offers the boys a bashful smile one would offer after stepping on a freshly mopped floor. Eddie leans forward in the passenger seat and glares at them. He tries to convey a loathing so dense and pointed they would be pained by it. He wants to force the duo to avert their eyes. But the boys can’t see his face. They see the tops of Bradford pear trees and cirrus clouds in the car window’s distorted reflections.
Two of the three Doyles follow the third. The only evidence of an emergency is the puddle of condensate that had dripped from the ambulance’s exhaust as it idled. Shady Brook Lane returns to stasis as soon as the dark spot evaporates.
