Dan Fesperman - Unmanned

“Atta girl, Karen!”

His voice felt tender, barely used, the tone of command gone now that he was out in the open, standing in his own bright afternoon beneath a watchful sky. Then his glance snagged on a kid standing in profile on the opposite sideline. She wore the colors of the opposing team, but then he saw that she had only one arm, and he knew.

“Why bother?” Carol said.

“What?” Cole looked away from the girl.

“If you can’t even watch, why not just stay home and get the burgers going?”

He glanced back across the field, but the girl was now dressed in jeans and a white T-shirt, heading for the concession stand. On the field, Karen’s team was back in action, the speckled ball pinging as someone kicked it toward the opposite end. He clapped again.

“Let’s go, Karen!”

“Darwin, she’s out of the game. Score and you sub out, remember?”

“Right. League rule.”

Danny, his youngest, banged into his right thigh and tugged at his trousers.

“Can I get a Coke, Dad?”

“Sure, Dan-O.” Cole fumbled for his wallet.

“No, Danny,” Carol said. “You know better, not before dinner.”

“Sorry, sport. Your mom’s right.”

He caught the last of Carol’s frown—an expression of worry, not disapproval. He knew the look well. She’d be on the phone tonight for at least an hour with Deirdre in Michigan, the key words leaking from the bedroom as he watched a ballgame down the hall. Distant. Remote. Preoccupied.

The dream stuttered forward in time to later that night, three in the morning. He was sitting up in bed, suddenly awake in the dark. Carol was also up, sitting with her knees pulled up to her chin.

“What’s wrong?” he said.

“It’s Deirdre. They’re broke. The bank’s after them and Mark lost his job.”

Pretty much the life of half their neighbors. The signs of economic calamity were everywhere: lawns going brown for lack of watering, empty windows without curtains, auction placards on signposts.

“What about you?” she asked. “What’s keeping you up?”

“We killed some children today. With a missile.”

She looked up abruptly, rustling the sheets.

“Oh, Darwin. That’s horrible.” She eased closer and stroked his face with her hand. Over her shoulder, Cole saw the one-armed girl in pajamas, standing in the deep shadows by the window. “And here I am talking about money.”

“We didn’t see them until it was too late. The girl was not much older than Karen. She lost an arm.” He looked over at the girl, but she didn’t move a muscle.

“You can see all that? Oh my God.”

Cole had said too much. Carol’s eyes glittered in the dark. Maybe she’d already been crying.

“You can’t tell anyone. Not even Deirdre.”

“Okay,” in a small voice. “I won’t.”

They held their positions on the bed, as if each was waiting for the other to speak, and after a few seconds he sensed she was making an effort not to sigh. She slid her knees down and rolled onto her side, and soon afterward he knew from her breathing that she was asleep. The girl sat between them now, her back turned to Cole as she appeared to make some sort of comforting gesture toward Carol. He looked away, staring toward the window.

Then he jolted awake, sitting up in bed in the pool house after hearing what had sounded like the cry of a child. Now, only silence. He blinked, sweating heavily. The darkness was so overwhelming that he sought refuge in the bathroom beneath the buzzing fluorescent tube above the sink, his feet icy on the linoleum. He heard the cry again. Not a child, though. A cat.

Returning to the bedroom he heard the brush of a branch against the window, followed by another cry, weaker this time. He pulled back the blinds and saw Cheryl, slumped against the panes, balanced precariously on the sill, her fur matted and bleeding.

Cole opened the door and called her name. Nothing. He walked barefoot around the corner on the frosted grass and found her still huddled on the sill, too broken and weary even to drop to the ground. He gently picked her up, worried she’d lash out, but she was docile and quivering, a mess.

“Easy, girl. Easy. What’ve you been tangling with, a fox? A possum? Did an owl come after you?”

There were plenty of critters who would overmatch her out here, and as he carried her inside he thought of the tale of the city mouse and the country mouse. Poor Cheryl, not ready for all the challenges out here. An owl hooted twice as he shut the door.

In the light he saw that her blood was already smeared on his T-shirt. He cleaned her off in the bathroom as best he could, but it was soon clear he needed more supplies than the pool house offered, so he slipped on his pants, shoes, and a jacket and carried her toward the main house by the light of the moon and stars, hearing the wind hiss in the pines.

Halfway there he stopped, something chilly touching his spine. It wasn’t a noise, exactly. More of a presence, a sense of movement off in the deeper shadows of the trees to his left. The cat stiffened in his arms, sensing it as well, or maybe just reacting to him. Cole turned slowly and scanned the line of trees, half expecting to see a pair of luminous eyes, some animal preparing to pounce. Cheryl fidgeted and nearly squirmed free, so he held on tight and set out for the front door. The house was dark and locked, but he had his key. He locked the door behind him, still holding the cat, unable to shake the strong sense that something was still out there, observing in silence, lying in wait.

Cheryl gave an aggrieved yowl. He stroked her neck and whispered back.

“You and me both, girl. Let’s get you fixed up and get me a drink.”

There was a medicine chest in the powder room off the kitchen hallway. He put a folded towel on the lid of the toilet and laid the cat on top. Then he got a tube of antiseptic cream and a roll of gauze. He had never been a cat lover, but the animal’s vulnerability reminded him of long ago nights when he’d tended to his children after they awoke with a fever or a cough. He sighed. He was homesick, lonely.

“Easy now.” He squeezed out some ointment. “This might sting.”

The cat took it in stride, eyeing him with what looked like trust.

There was a footfall on the stairs. Barb, probably, their resident prowler. But the voice from the hallway was Keira’s.

“Oh, no,” she whispered. “What happened?”

“Got in a fight, by the look of it.”

She wore a flannel robe, emanating warmth and slumber.

“Can I do something?”

“Maybe hold her? I was going to wrap this gauze on her leg. Otherwise she’ll probably just lick all the goop off.”

Cheryl purred at Keira’s touch. No doubt about who she belonged to, no matter who’d taken her in.

“There’s a vet on the Oxford Road,” Keira said. “I could take her there tomorrow.”

“This’ll do for now.”

“You’re sweet to take care of her.”

He let the remark hang in the air, liking its judgment, and he felt himself relax. He realized that he’d been on edge all week, still in a mode of audition, of proving his worth, as exhausting as his first days back at the Air Force Academy, or in flight school.

“I’ll make some tea. Herbal, so it won’t keep you up.”

So much for that drink he wanted, but tea was probably a smarter idea.

He laid the cat on the counter while Keira put the water on to boil. She lifted the kettle just as it began to whistle, then poured steaming water into a pair of mugs.

“Let’s take these to the pool house, so we can talk without waking everybody up. I’ll bring the cat.”

Cole picked up the mugs and followed, wondering if he should say anything about the eerie sense of an intruder he’d picked up a few minutes ago. But now the idea seemed alarmist, especially with steam rising from the mugs with a hint of cinnamon. He watched the shadows all the same, and listened closely. No movement. No noise out of the ordinary. Yet he was palpably relieved when they shut the pool house door behind them.