Matt Lennox - The Carpenter

— I don’t understand.

— We’re just moving a little too fast.

— I thought we were having fun. I thought you miss me when we’re apart.

— I really have to go.

— So what now?

— I’ll call you.

And she was gone. She went up the driveway and into her house. He saw the silhouette in the living room window and then put his car into gear. Nothing seemed quite real. There was a weight on his chest. As he drove away from her house, he could still taste her on his lips.

Two days passed and Emily didn’t call. Late Thursday, Pete was in the booth between the pumps, watching vehicles on the bypass. Duane had the day off and Caroline was in the store. Pete hunched down in his winter coat. The cold in the booth was a qualitative thing. The cold could be addressed.

From time to time he would touch his eyebrow to bring the pain, which had subdued to an ache. He ate half a sandwich. Then he heard the bell and saw a police cruiser pulling up to the pumps. Pete went out, knowing who it was before the window rolled down.

— Hey, Mr. Casey, said Pete.

— A top-up is all I need.

As far as Pete knew, the local detachment had a service contract with one of the other petroleum companies, so if Mr. Casey was at the Texaco station, it was because he’d gone out of his way. The tank was topped up in a minute.

Mr. Casey paid cash. He was casually watching the sunset through his windshield. Pete struggled for something to say: Thanks again for supper the other night.

— I guess you know where we stand. Most times I don’t get involved in her business. But I know about you. I know what you are.

— Mr. Casey, if you mean my uncle …

Mr. Casey looked at him directly: I know exactly what you are. She’s got too many good things going in her life for you to make a jackpot of it. You’ll just want to look for another kind of girl, one who’s more your sort. I won’t have you hanging around my property or my daughter. It’s no goddamn good for anybody.

Pete studied the scoured pavement: I don’t think that’s going to be a problem.

— That’s right. That’s exactly right.

The patrol car pulled out of the station and back onto the bypass.

Pete found himself pacing the apron. He stopped once and touched his eyebrow. It did not hurt enough. He pressed it with his thumb. He could leave. He could leave right now. There wasn’t enough money but when was there ever enough money. Instead, he sat back in the corporeal cold of the booth as the dusk gathered.

The question remained. It had always been there.

Later, Pete took his supper break at the hospital. By that hour his family had come and gone and his grandmother was watching television. Pete watched with her for awhile, nursing a hot chocolate he’d bought in the cafeteria. Mrs. Petrelli was gone. Departed from the world, about a week earlier. The bed was remade and vacant, ready to take on a new occupant. There was nothing to suggest Mrs. Petrelli had ever been there.

Irene asked in halting words how was work and when would he be going back to school. He told her what he always told her. Then he asked her the question.

— You know that, Peter.

— I just thought maybe you remembered something. Or maybe I forgot something you or Mom told me once.

— He wasn’t nobody at all. Come and gone. Left a young girl pregnant …

She lifted her hand and gripped his wrist with surprising strength. She whispered: Don’t you go treating girls that way.

— I won’t, said Pete.

— I know.

Irene’s eyes gaped at him. He smiled for her and wondered was she afraid of this, the long business of dying.

It was after midnight by the time he got home from work. The only sound was Luke grinding his teeth. Pete got into bed. He read a paperback until his eyes burned. He shut off the light but did not sleep. He saw Emily in the bowling alley, in her formal dress, laughing. It was four o’clock before he fell asleep.

— We’ve been through this before. You carry that number over, you add it, and that’s how you get the answer.

— I don’t understand.

— Yes, you do.

Pete watched them from the kitchen doorway. Late-morning sunlight banked in through the window over the sink. The boys had their notebooks open before them. Luke had his pencil in his fist and was glaring at an arithmetic lesson. John saw Pete and fixed him with a stare. A bubble of snot pushed out of the boy’s nostril each time he breathed.

Donna noticed him at last. She paused with the dog-eared curricula notebook in her hands. Then she told the boys to keep at their sums and asked Pete if he wanted breakfast. Pete sat down at the table with his brothers, asked them how the lesson was going.

— Hard, said Luke.

— Hard, said John.

The boy still had the mucus in his nostril. Pete told him to blow his nose. His mother brought him oatmeal with brown sugar and a cup of tea. Pete knew he should be hungry but he wasn’t. It was as if his belly was obstructed by a thing just starting to take shape.

Donna picked up the curricula book.

— Okay. We were at times tables.

Pete put his spoon down. He said: Hey, boys. Can you go into the living room for awhile?

The boys looked at him.

— We’re doing lessons, said Donna.

— Just for a few minutes.

The boys looked at their mother. Her thin shoulders drooped. She made a shooing gesture and they hopped off their chairs.

— No, take your notebooks. This isn’t playtime. They bounded into the living room.

— Peter, do you know how easy it is to get behind in the lessons?

— I want you to tell me what we never talk about.

— What?

— I want to know about my dad.

— You know about that.

— No. I don’t know. We never talk about it.

John’s voice rose in outrage from the living room. Donna stepped to the doorway and looked out at them. She raised her voice: Let go of your brother’s head. Now.

— We never talk about it, said Pete. I want to know.

— There’s nothing worth talking about. He was nobody.

— Goddammit, listen, Mom. What’s it got to do with the cops? Is Uncle Lee involved?

She stepped forward and slapped him, but drew back immediately, with all her fingers splayed and her lips quivering. She hadn’t struck him hard but his face felt branded all the same.

Pete rose from the table. He carried his dishes to the sink and washed them. He was slow in his motions. Everything, every feeling he’d felt over the last few days, over the last month, over the last year, seemed to be coming together into a single, slow-burning flame. It was a sensation he didn’t even have a name for, but he felt the heat of it in the bottom of his gut.

Donna moved backwards to give him a wide berth. She spoke quietly: He was just a loser. How do you think it felt to be me? Why do you think you didn’t live here for so many years? I couldn’t be here, Peter. I couldn’t.

Pete nodded. Hot water flowed over the bowl and the cup. Steam lifted through the sunlight.

— Peter?

— Never mind.

He turned from the sink and went out of the kitchen. He didn’t know if the boys had seen anything but they were sitting on opposite sides of the couch, conspicuously silent.

By half past noon, Pete was in town. He drove past Heron Heights, where a number of students were moving between the parking lot and the school doors. Emily was nowhere to be seen. What Pete did see was the wood-panelled station wagon. It drove past him into the lot and parked. Roger and one of his friends got out and walked into the school. Pete watched them.

Pete drove back downtown. He parked at the A amp;P and walked over to the variety store and went around back and rang the buzzer to the apartment. No one came. He went into the store. Mr. Yoon was stocking the refrigerator.