Russell Banks - Trailerpark

Though the weeks passed, Carol’s relations with her employers remained the same — precisely distant, perfunctory, and utterly routine. They entered the kitchen in the morning immediately after she had left it and a half-hour later departed for their office in town, returning in the evening to prepare their dinner, which they ate in the recreation room in front of the television set. On some nights they went out for several hours, but most nights they remained at home retiring to their bedroom downstairs early. She became deeply familiar with the noises of their routines, as if the couple were performing them in front of her. When she heard a toilet flush, she knew which of the two had flushed it; when she heard the shower, she knew who was bathing; when late at night she heard the refrigerator door open and after a few seconds close, she knew who had wanted a midnight snack. Once a day now, usually at dinnertime, they entered the old man’s room and asked about his condition. She answered their simple questions briefly and in general terms, which she knew was how they wanted her to answer them, and then, satisfied, they disappeared again. The son, Ed Dame, was in his mid-thirties, thick-bodied and short, several inches shorter, in fact, than Carol, with thinning, reddish hair that he combed carefully sideways to cover his receding hairline. His nose was hooked and short, like his father’s, but his face was fleshy, freckled, and anxious. The daughter-in-law, Sue, also short and anxious-looking, was muscular and tight-bodied. Her dark hair she curled nightly in blue plastic rollers, Carol knew, for one night she had accidentally come upon her in the kitchen. Carol had come downstairs hungry, around one in the morning after the late movie, had walked into the darkened room and discovered Sue already at the refrigerator, bent over and poking through its bright, crowded interior. She was wearing a pale blue dressing gown, large puffy slippers, and several dozen blue plastic hair curlers.

Startled, Sue jumped back, and the refrigerator door closed, leaving the room in darkness. For several seconds the two women stood silently in total darkness. Then Sue opened the refrigerator door again, casting a wide beam of light over the floor, and said in an even voice, “I’ll be out in a moment.”

“I’m sorry,” Carol said, and quickly went back upstairs.

The old man’s condition had not changed for the first few weeks, but around midmonth, as the weather grew colder and day after day was overcast, windy, with scattered flecks of snow spitting from the low sky, he seemed to weaken somewhat. He woke from his sleep less frequently, and when he woke he simply gazed at the ceiling for a few moments and then drifted away again. There was an IV set up for him, now, with plastic tubes leading away from his body as well. Carol performed her duties carefully, mechanically, gracefully, as if the only sentient being in the room were she, but every now and then she would catch herself standing at the foot of the old man’s bed staring at his withered, expressionless face. It was practically the face of a mummy now, a face long vacated, and yet she stared at it as if waiting for a response to her presence. But none came.

Sam Wickshaw telephoned daily, at first strictly on the pretext of checking on the condition of his patient, his old friend and hunting companion, Harold Dame, but then, after a few weeks, it seemed he called to report on his own day’s activities. He described the patients he had seen that day, whether at his office in town or at the hospital in Concord, where he made early morning rounds; he referred to several real estate deals he was involved with, described his difficulties winterizing his summer cottage at Lake Winnepesaukee (mentioning his friend, and hers, Doctor Furman Bisher from Brookline, Massachusetts), and told her with great pleasure that he had bought a snowmobile, despite his wife’s objections; and in late November, four days before Thanksgiving, he described to her in great detail how, that very morning, he had shot and killed an eight-point, one-hundred-fifty-pound deer. “It was up behind Shackford Corners, a few miles from where you are,” he told her. “I was up on a ledge, a whole lot of larch trees around me, and all of a sudden, there he was, big as life, down below me tiptoeing through a grove of young ash trees. I gut-shot him, and he took off. Actually, even though I was above him a ways, I had a lousy shot,” he explained. “Anyhow, luckily he cut around to my right, and when I came off the ledge, there he was again, so I got a second shot at him, and that time, he went down for good!”

They talked. She explained how she herself didn’t like hunting or guns, but she didn’t judge those who did, and he said he sure was glad of that. Sometimes he asked her questions about herself, her family, her ex-husband, her ambitions, and she answered his questions. Not in detail, however, but briefly and, as much as possible, in general terms, which she knew was how he wanted her to answer them.

Once a week, he drove out to the house and examined the patient. The examination usually took less than five minutes, but his visits took most of the afternoon, for the two of them talked, Sam doing most of the talking. Sometimes they walked down the road a ways or drove to a particularly scenic spot that Sam wanted to reveal to her. And inevitably, when they returned in his car to the house, Sam turned somber and tried for a moment to tell Carol how much and in what ways he liked her. Each time, Carol was able to ease out of the conversation without doing more than frustrating the man, so that, with a wave and a cheery remark, he could pretend to himself that he had never said anything that could be misconstrued as inappropriate.

There was a Sunday, however, when it did not go so smoothly. Carol had slipped out of the car, crossed in front of it and waved good-bye, and this time he had stepped out also.

“Wait a moment,” he said seriously.

She stopped and stood before him, the same height as he but a larger person with a larger face, so that next to her he seemed suddenly fragile.

“Carol, I want to suggest something to you.”

She smiled and reached out with one hand and patted his shoulder. “I know you like me as a person, Sam. I like you, too. Let’s keep it that way,” she said.

“No, no, no, that’s not what I meant. What I mean is, I … ah… I’d like for you to work for me. I’d like you to stay up here, after Harold … after Harold is gone, and work for me. I like you … oh, hell, I know how that sounds. But I want you to work for me.”

Carol said nothing. She studied the man’s earnest, red face, as if searching for a lie.

“Well, you think about it,” he blurted. “You think about it.” He got back into the car and closed the door. Then he cranked down the window. “You think about it,” he said. He started the motor, dropped the car into gear and drove swiftly away, exhaust fumes trailing behind.

The night before Thanksgiving, Harold Dame the real estate man died. At ten-thirty, Carol walked from her room to the old man’s room, and as soon as she crossed the threshold, she knew he was dead. She had learned to hear his breathing without having to listen for it, so that when his breathing ceased, she knew. In the darkness, she reached forward and felt at his neck for his pulse, then turned and went back to her own room. She was in her nightgown, ready for sleep, with her bed already turned down. The portable television Sam had brought her was still on, and blue-gray figures flickered incoherently in front of her, as she sat down on the bed and picked up the telephone. She held the receiver in her lap for a moment and stared at the television screen. Finally, she dialed, and when Sam answered, she told him. “Harold died, Sam.”