Lisa Unger: Darkness My Old Friend

“You could turn this into a real business,” Maggie said. She was suddenly enthusiastic one night over dinner, paid for by the Pedersens. Jones had fed their mean-spirited cat, Cheeto, for a week.

He scoffed. “Oh, yeah. Local guy hanging around with nothing to do but let the plumber in? Is that what I’d call it?”

She gave him that funny smile he’d always loved. It was more like the turning up of one corner of her mouth, something she did when she found him amusing but didn’t want him to know it.

“It’s a viable service that people would pay for and be happy to have,” she said. “Think about it.”

But he enjoyed it, didn’t really want to be paid. It was nice to be needed, to look after the neighborhood: to make sure things were okay. You didn’t stop being a cop when you stopped being a cop. And he wasn’t exactly retired, was he? He wouldn’t have left his post if he hadn’t felt that it was necessary, the right thing to do under the circumstances. But that was another matter.

The late-morning temperature was a perfect sixty-eight degrees. The light was golden, the air carrying the scent of the leaves he was raking, the aroma of burning wood from somewhere. In the driveway Ricky’s restored 1966 GTO preened, waiting for him to come home from school next weekend. Jones had it tuned up and detailed, so it would be cherry when the kid got back.

He missed his son. Their relationship through the boy’s late adolescence had been characterized, regrettably, by conflict more than anything else. Still, he couldn’t wait for Ricky to be back under his roof again, even if it was just for four days. If anyone told him how much he’d really, truly miss his kid, how he’d feel a squeeze on his heart every time he walked by that empty room, Jones wouldn’t have believed it. He would have thought it was just another one of those platitudes people mouthed about parenthood.

He leaned his rake against the trunk of the oak and removed his gloves. A pair of mourning doves cooed sadly at him. They sat on the railing of his porch, rustling their tawny feathers.

“I’m sorry,” he said, not for the first time. Earlier, he’d removed the beginning of their nest, a loose pile of sticks and paper that they managed somehow to place in the light cover of his garage door’s opening mechanism. Mourning doves made flimsy nests, were lazy enough to even settle in the abandoned nests of other birds. So the garage must have seemed like a perfect residence for them, offering protection from predators. But he didn’t want birds in the garage. They were harbingers of death. Everyone knew that. They’d been hanging around the yard, giving him attitude all morning.

“You can build your nest anywhere else,” he said, sweeping his arm over the property. “Just not there.”

They seemed to listen, both of them craning their necks as he spoke. Then they flapped off with an angry, singsong twitter.

“Stupid birds.”

He drew his arm across his forehead. In spite of the mild temperatures, he was sweating from the raking. It reminded him that he still needed to lose those twenty-five pounds his doctor had been nagging him about for years. His doctor, an annoyingly svelte, good-looking man right around Jones’s age, never failed to mention the extra weight, no matter the reason for his visit-flu, sprained wrist, whatever. You’re gonna die one of these days, too, Doc , Jones wanted to say. You’ll probably bite it during your workout. Whaddaya clocking these days-five miles every morning, more on the weekends? That’ll put you in an early grave . Instead Jones just kept reminding him that the extra weight around his middle had saved his life last year.

“I’m not sure that’s a compelling argument,” said Dr. Gauze. “What are the odds of your taking another bullet to the gut, especially now that you’re out to pasture?”

Out to pasture? He was only forty-seven. He was thinking about this idea of being out to pasture as a beige Toyota Camry pulled up in front of the house and came to a stop. He watched for a second, couldn’t see the person in the driver’s seat. When the door opened and a slight woman stepped out, he recognized her without being able to place her. She was too thin, had the look of someone robbed of her appetite by anxiety. She moved with convalescent slowness up his drive, clutching a leather purse to her side. She didn’t seem to notice him standing there in the middle of his yard. In fact, she walked right past him.

“Can I help you?” he said finally. She turned to look at him, startled.

“Jones Cooper?” she said. She ran a nervous hand through her hair, a mottle of steel gray and black, cut in an unflatteringly blunt bob.

“That’s me.”

“Do you know me?” she asked.

He moved closer to her, came to stand in front of her on the paved drive that needed painting. She was familiar, yes. But no, he didn’t know her name.

“I’m sorry,” he said. “Have we met?”

“I’m Eloise Montgomery.”

It took a moment. Then he felt the heat rise to his cheeks, a tension creep into his shoulders. Christ , he thought.

“What can I do for you, Ms. Montgomery?”

She looked nervously around, and Jones followed her eyes, to the falling leaves, the clear blue sky.

“Is there someplace we can talk?” Her drifting gaze landed on the house.

“Can’t we talk here?” He crossed his arms around his middle and squared his stance. Maggie would be appalled by his rudeness. But he didn’t care. There was no way he was inviting this woman into his home.

“This is private,” she said. “And I’m cold.”

She started walking toward the house, stopped at the bottom of the three steps that led up to the painted gray porch, and turned around to look at him. He didn’t like the look of her so near the house, any more than he did those doves. She was small-boned and skittish, but with a curious mettle. As she climbed the steps without invitation and stood at the door, he thought about how, with enough time and patience, a blade of grass could push its way through concrete. He expected her to pull open the screen and walk inside, but she waited. And he followed reluctantly, dropping his gardening gloves beside the rake.

The next thing he knew, she was sitting at the dining-room table and he was brewing coffee. He could see her from where he stood at the counter. She sat primly with her hands folded. She hadn’t taken off her pilled houndstooth coat, was still clutching her bag. Those eyes never stopped moving.

“You don’t want me here,” she said. She cast a quick glance in his direction, then looked at her hands. “You wish I would go.”

He put down the mugs he was taking from the cabinet, banging them without meaning to.

“Wow,” he said. “I’m impressed. You really are psychic.”

He didn’t bother to look at her again, let his eyes rest on the calendar tucked behind the phone. He had an appointment with his shrink in a few hours, something he dreaded. When he finally gazed back over at her, she was regarding him with a wan smile.

“A skeptic,” she said. “Your wife and mother-in-law offer more respect.”

“Respect is earned.” He poured the coffee. “How do you take it?” he asked. He thought she’d say black.

“Light and sweet, please,” she said. Then, “And what should I do to earn your respect?”

He walked over with the coffee cups and sat across from her.

“What can I do for you, Ms. Montgomery?”

It was nearly noon. Maggie’s last morning session would end in fifteen minutes, and then she’d come out for lunch. He didn’t want Eloise sitting here when she did. The woman could only bring back bad memories for Maggie, everything they’d suffered through in the last year and long before. He didn’t need it, and neither did his wife.