Kathryn Davis - Duplex

“They shouldn’t have let you leave the hospital before you were ready,” Carol said. She was standing back on the sidewalk, Miss Vicks’s dog lying in the gutter at her feet.

“What hospital? I was never in any hospital,” Eddie replied. “Besides, no one told me not to leave.”

“That should have gone without saying.”

As the car continued speeding toward the Avenue, Eddie’s mother caught a glimpse of Mary through the passenger window. She looked older — not old, but not young, either — sitting there blowing her nose while her husband’s long fingers deftly wormed their way around behind her bent neck to come out the other side and pat her on the shoulder. Maybe it was that she seemed less vibrant, less hopeful, though that may have had less to do with aging than with the way she was living her life now that Blue-Eyes had been sent away to school. Eddie’s father had told her he was pretty sure he’d seen Mary walking near the former trolley barn in the direction of the Mermaid Tavern. She was always nicely dressed but seemed to have trouble staying upright — following in her mother’s footsteps, you might say. Women often got the tips of their high heels caught in the trolley tracks.

“Didn’t anyone hear me?” Eddie’s mother asked. She had come onto the porch when she heard the brakes and now she couldn’t believe her eyes. Her husband was standing on the grass verge, hugging a person who looked exactly like her son. “Lunch is ready,” she said.

Meanwhile Carol XA stood there cradling the limp russet body of Miss Vicks’s dog in her arms. Of course the robots were aware of the fact that all living beings experienced a thing called “death,” but none of them had ever given much thought to what being dead actually meant. No one heard the sound the robot was making as the car arrived at the Avenue and turned right; it wasn’t coming from Carol but from somewhere far away that also seemed like it was inside her mouth. I don’t think she’d known what would happen when she stopped the car, only that it was her job to get Eddie out of it.

“You’re looking good,” said Eddie’s father.

“Thanks, Dad,” Eddie said.

Inside number 24 the card table had been set for two. With Eddie’s help his mother added a third setting, summoning as she did the future she so ardently desired. Together she and Eddie arranged the sea-leg sandwiches on the blue willow plates, poured iced tea into the jelly glasses, and folded the napkins.

“It’s good to have you home, son,” Eddie’s father said, shaking the napkin back into a square and inserting it in his shirt collar like a bib.

“It’s good to be home,” Eddie replied. He said it to be polite, but as soon as the words left his mouth he realized it was the truth. In a way it was like he’d never left. After lunch he and Mary would walk back to school together. Miss Vicks would be at the blackboard, writing yet another problem in long division.

“How is Miss Vicks, anyway?” he asked, and his mother looked down at her sandwich.

“She died,” Eddie’s father said. “We thought you knew.”

“She hadn’t been well,” said Eddie’s mother. “She hadn’t been well for a long time. That photographer from the paper took some cute shots of her posing on that horse of his — I think he was the last person to see her before she went. The paper used one of them for the obituary. I’ve kept it around here somewhere in case you wanted to see it.”

“That’s OK, Mom,” Eddie said, putting a hand on her shoulder to make her sit back in her chair. “You can look for it later.” He took a sip of his iced tea and frowned. “The thing is,” he said, “I could have sworn I heard her talking to me the other night. Not all that long ago, either.”

“If anyone was going to return as a ghost, it would be Marjorie Vicks,” Eddie’s father said, but Eddie shook his head.

“It was her, ” he said. “She told me I ought to come home.” He looked puzzled. “She told me to come home and here I am.”

Undaunted, the sun came swimming through the bow window; as if on cue they all lifted a sandwich quarter from their plates.

“Well, however it happened, we’re glad you’re here,” said Eddie’s mother. She was watching to see whether he would eat the sandwich. The sea-legs looked like they came from a crab, but she was pretty sure they’d been produced in a factory. “You’re a grown man. You’ve got a life of your own to live now.” What she was thinking was “if you’re actually alive to live it” only she didn’t dare say it aloud.

The grandfather clock in the corner began playing the Westminster chimes just as it always used to, except out of phase. Eddie used to be afraid of the face on the moon that appeared in the upper part of the dial when the real moon outside became full. Let’s go upstairs and get away from that, he’d whisper to Mary — that was how he first got to touch her breasts. They’d been quite small and perfectly hemispheric like teacups. Remember that time in assembly? she’d asked. When you were Mr. Robin and I was Miss Springtime and I forgot my line and you said it for me? Wake up, Mr. Robin! And then I hit you on the head with my wand.

“Actually,” Eddie said. “I’d like to move back into my old room if it’s all the same to everyone.” From where he sat he had a view of the first few steps leading to the second floor. His room had been at the head of the stairs and from his bed he and Mary were able to see into the backyard. He knew without looking that the climbing roses were in bloom.

“You wouldn’t recognize it,” his father said. “Your mother took it over years ago.”

“He snores,” his mother explained. “I could never get any sleep.”

“Of course you need your sleep,” Eddie said. He patted his lips with his napkin, though he hadn’t had a bite to eat.

“Everyone needs sleep,” Eddie’s father said. “Even a famous ballplayer like you.”

Eddie began to get up from the table. “You’re right,” he said, and he realized he had never felt so tired in his life. “There’s a big game tomorrow. I ought to be getting to bed.”

The sandwiches had all been eaten; the juice glasses were empty. Outside it was pitch black. “My goodness,” said Eddie’s father. “Where has the time gone?”

The grandfather clock started to strike but no one was counting.

His mother began clearing dishes, talking softly to herself. “Speaking of time,” she said. “One night, a long time ago, you were late coming home. Do you remember?”

It was all his father could do to keep from crying. “We tried to do our best, Eddie,” he said. He was scrubbing away at a place on the surface of the card table, scrubbing and scrubbing as if there were a spot there even though Eddie couldn’t see anything. “We never knew what happened.”

“I sold my soul,” Eddie said. “I sold my soul to the sorcerer. And this is what I got in return.”

IF SHE’D ONLY GONE A FEW STEPS FARTHER THE NIGHT before, Marjorie Vicks would have ended up at the back entrance to the Seaview Hotel. The door there had once been bright blue and was built into the wall she’d fallen asleep against, the hotel’s name stenciled in gold across the top of a single small window above the tiny gold image of an anchor. While she slept the weather had taken a turn for the worse. She arose feeling stiff and chilled through; a heavy dew had fallen, leaving her clothes thick and wet, the fate, as she had come to understand, of all women who ran away from home.

A hallway filled with garbage led to the hotel kitchen. The kitchen was empty, a kettle on the verge of whistling on the stove. From the floor above came the sound of someone running a vacuum cleaner. She tried calling “hello” but her lips were stiff and she had trouble forming the word.