Jodi Compton - Sympathy Between Humans

“It’s okay,” I said. “Look, I need to ask you another favor, if I’m going to stay out here all night. Can I run my shoes through your washing machine?”

The washer and dryer were both in the garage where Hugh kept his Suburban. I threw in both my Nikes and my socks, poured in detergent, and set the temperature control to the hot-water setting. As the first cycle started with a muted sound of rushing water, I crossed to the cabinet I’d checked out before, the one where the old wine lived.

Back in the house, the family room was unlit, the TV off. The kids had gone upstairs, and the whole downstairs was dark, except for the kitchen. I walked over and set the wine bottle down.

Footsteps told me Marlinchen was coming down the stairs. “Sarah? I was just on my way to bed. One thing I need to tell you-”

“Come down a second,” I said, interrupting her. “I need to ask you something, too.”

Marlinchen leaned out a little, over the stairway railing. I tilted the wine for her to see. “I found this in your garage. Liam said your father doesn’t drink anymore; I think it must be left over.” In fact, the year on the bottle was about eight years past. “There’s no sense in letting it go to vinegar. Do you mind?”

“I don’t see why not,” she said. “Listen-”

“Good,” I said. “Come join me.” I fished a corkscrew from a drawer.

“You mean, drink some?” Marlinchen’s voice, from the stairs, sounded both scandalized and tantalized.

I took down two oversized goblets from a high shelf. “Sure,” I said. “I wouldn’t make a habit of it, but you’re running a whole household. I think a glass of wine isn’t out of order.”

Outside the kitchen window, all was inky black, except for the lights of a pleasure boat drifting on the lake. I killed the main kitchen light, so that two overhead recessed lamps isolated the counter in a long pool of illumination, and pulled the cork from the wine. I didn’t say anything more to Marlinchen. She was intrigued. She’d come.

I can’t say I felt totally comfortable with what I was doing. But I wanted to speak freely to Marlinchen, and for her to speak as freely to me, and from what I’d seen, her armature wasn’t going to come down unaided.

When I sat down at the counter, I heard her footsteps again, descending. She slipped onto the stool next to mine, and I poured until her glass was nearly full. Her eyes widened.

“Don’t worry,” I said. “That’s not so much, for wine.” I pushed the glass over to her. “If anyone ever tries to serve you that much vodka, question their motives.”

We drank. Marlinchen winced.

“I know,” I said, “but stick with it. Its charms will become more apparent as time goes by.” I held up my own glass, watching the way the light pierced the ruby liquid. “One of the Puritans, like Cotton or Increase Mather, said this great thing about wine. He called it ‘a good creature of God.’ ”

“That’s lovely,” said Marlinchen.

Shiloh had told me that, Shiloh with his love-hate relationship with the Christian faith and his eclectic but vast knowledge of its followers and teachings.

“The thing I was trying to say earlier,” Marlinchen said, “is that you can’t close the door in Dad’s bedroom. The knob is virtually useless. People have been known to get stuck in there.”

“That’s probably not hard to fix,” I said.

“I know, but Dad’s hopeless about things like that,” Marlinchen said. “Not only is he hopeless with tools, I mean, he’s fundamentally incapable of caring about stuff like that. He’d rather just keep the door cracked all the time.” She smiled, rueful.

“To each his own.” I poured myself a splash more wine. “If memory serves,” I said, “you should be studying for final exams right about now, right?”

Marlinchen nodded.

“You never mentioned,” I said, “where you’ve applied to college and if you’ve been accepted anywhere yet.”

“Actually,” she said, “I’m putting school off for a while. I mean, I’m not Liam. It’s not like my grades are that great.”

“They’d probably be a lot better if you hadn’t been running a household of five,” I pointed out.

Marlinchen paused with the wineglass close to her lips. “These are extenuating circumstances, with Dad in the hospital-”

“Bullshit,” I said. “You’re balancing a checkbook, keeping a house clean, planning meals, cooking them, doing the grocery shopping. These are not things you learn to do in a matter of weeks. I have a feeling you’ve been doing them a lot longer than your old man’s been in the hospital, and even if your father makes a full recovery, things aren’t going to change much.”

She hesitated before speaking. “Family is important to me,” she said.

“That’s fine,” I said, pouring her more wine, “but Donal is 11 years old. By the time he’s 18 and ready to move out, you’ll be 24. Are you going to put off college until then?”

“College isn’t for everyone,” she said. “I bet you didn’t go.”

“I went for a year,” I said.

“See?”

“But it was long enough for me to find out I didn’t want what it had to offer,” I said. “You should find out too, before you’re too old for the dorms and Jell-O shots and all the things that make college more than just school,” I said. “Even right now there are things you should be doing with your high school years that you’re not. Like dating, or just going to the movies with friends.”

Marlinchen drank, mostly to stall for time. She was thinking up verbal evasive maneuvers. “You’re a friend,” she said after a second, her voice sweet. “You want to go to the movies sometime?”

“I’m not the sort of friend you should have at your age,” I said.

Marlinchen looked pleased, and I realized I’d stepped into a trap. “That raises an interesting point,” she said. “You’re out here, late at night, with a bunch of kids you hardly know. Why aren’t you out dating, Detective Pribek?”

“Because I’m-” I broke off. I really didn’t want to explain Shiloh to her.

Marlinchen saw my discomfort, and her newfound audacity drained away. “I didn’t mean to pry,” she said gently. “If you’re gay, Sarah, I’m totally all right with that.”

She was so sincere that I felt absurdly touched, but now I had to correct her misperception. “Well, gay people date, too,” I pointed out. “But what I was going to say was ‘Because I’m married.’ ”

Marlinchen’s mouth fell open slightly, in shock. “But… where’s your husband?” she finished.

“ Wisconsin,” I said.

“You’re separated?”

“Sort of,” I said.

Marlinchen wasn’t dense; she heard that I didn’t want to talk about it anymore. She played with the stem of her wineglass instead. “That’s too bad,” she said, and then nearly let the glass slip from her fingers.

“Careful,” I said, steadying it. “Let me weigh that down for you.” I poured again.

“You’re right,” she said. “The charm does become appear… apparent.”

“Stick with me, kid,” I said. “I’ll take you places.” Like Hazelden.

But I noted the high color in Marlinchen’s cheeks, and judged that she was ready for the direction I wanted to take the conversation. With a hundred-pound nondrinker, it didn’t take long.

“Since I’ve been out here, visiting you kids,” I said, “you haven’t mentioned Aidan to me. Not once.”

She spoke quickly. “I am sorry about the way I talked to you, the day that-”

I shook my head. “That’s not what I mean,” I told her. “I’m not angry about what you said, but the question I asked you that day still stands.” I paused, watching her face. She undoubtedly remembered what we’d been talking about, but I reminded her anyway. “Kids don’t get sent away from their families for no reason,” I said. “Good reasons, bad reasons… there’s always something.”