Debra Dean - Confessions Of A Falling Woman And Other Stories

"Do you need a hand?" he asked. "Michael and I could rent a truck."

She answered reflexively. "Oh, no, I'll figure something out.

"I have to rent something to drive anyway. Might as well be a truck. I could pick it up in the morning, swing by Polly's after I stop at the police station." Neil was reaching for the phone, pressing a number on the speed dial. "I'll give Michael a call, see if he's free."

"It's almost midnight. Really, this isn't…"

"It's Saturday night. What do you think, I'm going to wake him up?" He wedged the phone between his shoulder and ear, and sliced the chicken breast into strips as he talked. "Hey. It's your old man." He was talking to Michael's voice mail. "If you're not doing anything in the morning, I could use your help. Someone made off with my car, and I promised your mother we'd help her move some furniture from Polly's. Shouldn't take more than an hour or so. I'll be up for a while. Give me a call."

It was Neil's habit to lowball the time involved in doing anything. He never allowed for traffic or missed turns, for checkout lines or the myriad of obstacles that could spring up. He saw only the unimpeded flow of his will. She, in turn, had always overcompensated by anticipating every roadblock. Right now, for instance, she could imagine with perfect clarity the phone call she'd get tomorrow: Neil explaining that he'd been held up by mysterious forces, the rental car agency that had rented every truck off the lot before his arrival, the desk sergeant who needed more paperwork filled out. Of course, it would only be a few more minutes and then he'd be on his way. Fifteen minutes, tops.

She knew him better than he knew himself. She could predict what he would order off a menu. She knew his habits and secret vanities, the way he squinted when he looked in the mirror, the way he could disappear into a project and not hear what was around him, not the babies crying, or later, the boom boxes thumping in the upstairs bedrooms. She knew the kind of jokes that made him laugh, the strangled cry he made when he climaxed, how he was always a little sheepish afterward.

She let the last swallow of wine roll around in her mouth and slide warmly down her throat.

He was the same man, and yet he wasn't. The entire time they'd been married, he'd never made anything more complicated than a sandwich, and here he was, testing a strand of pasta from the pot, sifting chopped basil and pine nuts over the chicken. She wondered how else he had changed.

The food was good. She had another glass of wine, and she talked about her mother's defection to North Carolina, and he talked about a trip he'd recently taken to Phoenix for a convention that had been heavily attended only because it was February and Phoenix was warm in February. They exchanged opinions about Michael's new girlfriend and agreed that this one seemed good for him, not like the last one. And they reminisced, like old friends who haven't seen each other in years. He had forgotten, until she mentioned it, the three months his crazy aunt lived with them. Poor thing, she really was crazy, not just an expression. They shouldn't laugh, but did he remember how they found the coffee can half-full of pee under her bed? And Daisy, the pet goat. What had they been thinking? The constant bleating and the damn thing ate a thousand dollars' worth of landscaping before they'd found a home for it.

Was it Banff where they'd cooked up the idea of getting a little dairy goat? It was that old man, the caretaker, and his stories about the health benefits of goat's milk. He would come by the cabin on some pretext, always in the late afternoons, and hang around telling them yarns about cougars and grizzlies until Neil invited him to stay for dinner. What a character. The trip had ended badly, though. They had been there a little less than five days when Michael found a yellow jacket nest.

"You remember? He swelled up like one of those balloons in the Macy's parade." Neil shook his head in wonder.

One minute Michael had been screaming and the next he was turning blue. Elaine would never forget how calm Neil had been when he told her to hold the boy still while he punctured his throat. He needs air, Neil had said. She had screamed at him, called him a bastard and who knows what else, all the while desperately trying to wrench her baby away from him.

"Man, you were a she-cat," Neil laughed.

Elaine smiled, but the memory filled her with shame. "I didn't trust you," she admitted.

He stopped and looked at her and took this in, his eyebrows lifting in surprise. "I would never have let anything happen to Michael."

She nodded. "I know. Nevertheless."

Every day of their marriage, patients had turned their lives over to Neil. He had split them open at the sternum, taken hold of their beating hearts, and they had adored him for it. She had envied them their faith, the look she had seen in their eyes when they introduced themselves later in a restaurant or a store. "Your husband is an amazing man," they'd say. "But I guess you know that."

Tears sprang up in her eyes and she pressed them back with her fingers, shaking her head at her foolishness.

"When we split up, I realized I'd been bracing for it for years," she said. "When Jody and Hal separated. And then Kris Little, the Dali guy that used to work at the gallery. He dragged himself around like a dog that's been hit and left in the road. And I was thinking, when the time comes… I don't know what I was thinking, not that it wouldn't happen to us but that I was going to manage it better." She closed her eyes and exhaled jaggedly. "I mean, I loved you, but I just held a little in reserve, you know?"

He reached over and tentatively rested a hand on her back. He stroked her hair, smoothed the back of her neck. "I loved you, too." His voice was soft and hoarse.

The moment was suddenly taut. His hand slowed, feathering across her skin, leaving trails of heat. Elaine felt herself suspended from a great height and she willed herself to fall.

And then they were kissing. Their mouths and their hands remembered. He squeezed her hand and pulled her to her feet. She followed him through a dark, high-ceilinged living room and up an open staircase with cable railings like a ship's, and she had the sensation of being at sea, the taste of salt, a swaying unsteadiness in the rolling dark.

A phone was ringing in the dark and then the voice of her husband was speaking to someone, something about a car. For a long, reeling moment, she panicked, seeing the crumpled bodies of her children smashed against a windshield. Neil's voice was measured, no hint of alarm.

"Is it the kids?" she breathed.

"What?" He had hung up the phone. "Oh, yeah, probably a bunch of kids out for a joyride." He switched on a reading lamp and swung out of bed. "They didn't get far. The cops found it in the high school parking lot. The front left fender is banged up pretty good."

His car. The world righted itself again, and she found herself in an unfamiliar bed. The sheets smelled of bleach. Neil was pulling on shorts and jeans and socks.

"I'm just going to walk over and get it," he said.

"Now?" It was late, still dark outside.

"I don't want it towed unless it's necessary, and I hate to leave it sitting there. Go back to sleep." He leaned over and brushed his lips across her eyelids and her mouth. She felt her nipples harden against the starchy sheets and wondered idly if she should be feeling something else. And then he was gone. She heard a door somewhere in the house bump shut.

It was quiet, just the electric hum of a suburban night, but she couldn't sleep. She saw that her clothes were strewn across the flat expanse of carpet in a trail leading to the bed. The bedroom had the same elegant blankness as a hotel suite, right down to the big television screen recessed into the far wall. Below and on either side of the TV, barely visible seams outlined what must be drawers and closet doors. She got out of bed, lurching just a little as she stood. She was pleasantly woozy with sleep or wine. There were no latches or door handles, so she began bumping the wall in different spots with the palm of her hand. She listened. Nothing. And again, nothing. It was like being a safe cracker – she could be in one of those sixties caper movies. She wasn't aware of looking for anything in particular. A cabinet door clicked open. Inside were shelves with stereo equipment, drawers of CDs and videotapes. In the dim light, she made out titles of exercise videos and several recent movies. She recognized Neil's hand in the selection of music, mostly CDs he had taken with him when he moved out. He had stopped paying attention to music after college, and so his tastes were frozen back in the Monterey and Motown period. When he'd hum tunes around the house or sing in the shower, it was always thirty-year-old songs and he'd make up his own words. She wondered if Nicole had even known he was changing the lyrics or if she thought there really were Dylan songs called "Mr. Tangerine Man" and "Knockers on Heaven's Door," if she thought the Beatles sang "When I'm Six-Foot-Four." She wondered if he'd put on Al Green when they made love.