Jim Shepard - Kiss of the Wolf

“He just came over,” Todd said.

“What’s he, live two houses down?” Nina said, exasperated. “Get in the car. Put the dog in the house and get in the car.”

Todd grabbed Audrey by the collar without calling her and dragged her toward the house. She thought she’d been bad and went limp, so she was harder to pull. Brendan watched him struggle, with a little smirk.

“Take the helmet off,” Todd said, frustrated. “I gotta go.”

“Can I keep it on till you get back?” Brendan said.

Todd’s mother came out of the house. She looked grim. “Let’s go, if we’re going,” she said.

“Take it off,” Todd said. “I gotta go.”

“You’re going?” Joanie said. “You don’t have to go.”

“He should go,” Nina said. “Don’t you start with me now. I just went through all of this with him.”

“Ma, what’s he have to go for?” Joanie said.

Nina swore.

“You got the other one,” Brendan said. “Why can’t I keep this one till you get back? You ain’t gonna use it.”

“Ma, he can’t go,” Joanie said.

“He can’t?” Nina said. “Why can’t he?”

Brendan was hitting his facemask with his palm from different angles. Audrey sniffed the air around him to try and sort out what he was doing.

“Get in the car,” Joanie said, angry. “Grandma’s decided you have to go.”

“I’m go ing,” Todd said. “I’m going.”

“So I can keep the helmet till then?” Brendan asked.

“Take it off, ” Todd said.

Brendan yanked it off his head like someone pulling taffy. When he got it off, his ears looked like he’d been out three hours in the dead of winter.

“I’ll see you later,” Brendan said disgustedly.

“You can come back,” Todd said.

“Yeah. I’ll get right over here,” Brendan said.

Todd got in the car. Nina put it into gear. They backed down the driveway. They passed Brendan, who didn’t look up. “Now he’s mad at me,” Todd complained.

“Don’t worry about him,” Nina said. “Worry about me.”

They drove without anybody saying anything. Todd rolled his window down.

The Monteleones lived in Lordship, ten minutes away.

Todd’s mother was looking out her window. He was dizzy and a little sick. He had a fantasy that they had the body there and they were going to make him touch it.

Nina adjusted her side mirror, and he could see his eyes. He thought, What you’re doing now: this has to be some kind of sacrilege.

“You gotta move outta Milford,” Nina said. “You’re not near anybody. Milford. You know whose idea that was.”

She meant it was Todd’s father’s idea.

They went over the Devon bridge. The metal part in the middle made the noise under the tires he remembered from the Merritt Parkway bridge the night before.

“Lucia said they said he was dead before he hit the ground,” Nina said. “He wasn’t dragged or anything. Least he didn’t suffer.”

“Ma,” his mother said.

Nina shrugged. Todd closed his eyes so tightly he saw lights behind them.

“How old was he?” his mother asked. She was still looking out her window.

“How old could he a been?” Nina said. “He was born five, six years after you. So what’s that make him? Twenty-eight? Twenty-nine?”

They drove on. Bradlees’, Spada’s Blue Goose Restaurant, Avco-Lycoming Industries.

“It’s a sin,” Nina said.

“Have they told Perry?” Joanie asked. Perry was Tommy’s younger brother. He was in the Navy.

Todd’s hands were in his pockets. He heard one pocket starting to rip.

Tommy was coming back to him. He’d been an usher at the wedding. He’d been behind Todd in the line to use the men’s room. He’d said something to him. He’d had his jacket and bow tie off and his sleeves rolled up.

“Try WICC,” Nina said. “See if they got anything about it.”

Joanie fiddled with the stations. She got WICC. The local news opened with contractors and fraud on a municipal project near Seaside Park, a lot of money disappearing. It ended with a mention of the Bridgeport Rosary Society’s bake sale, still a week off.

“I don’t believe it,” Nina said.

They passed Sikorsky Airport and the decommissioned runway. Grass was growing through the cracks in the tarmac. At the light, they pulled up next to a terrier with one of its front legs in a splint, apparently waiting to cross the street.

“They’re probably waiting to make sure they notified the family,” Joanie said.

“The family knows,” Nina said. Todd flashed on all the crying and misery. He imagined himself in the middle of it, responsible.

The Monteleones lived on Spruce Street. There was only the one car there when they pulled in. “She’s all alone?” Joanie said.

“Maybe Tommy Senior went out,” Nina said. She shut the engine off and opened her door. She waited for a minute, listening. Then she got out. She leaned into Todd’s open back window. “Stay here. I’ll see if she’s in any shape. Give me the box.”

Todd handed up to her the carton with the Pyrex dishes of soup and lasagna. She crossed the lawn to the front steps and set it down to get a better grip on it.

“I can’t believe this,” Joanie said. She put her fingers to the bridge of her nose, and Todd could see them shaking.

“Are we gonna tell them?” he said. But he couldn’t imagine doing it. He couldn’t imagine anything that was about to happen.

Nina climbed the steps, holding the box with both arms. She tapped the screen door lightly a few times with her foot.

“You didn’t recognize him?” Todd said. “When you went over to him?”

“I didn’t look that close, ” his mother said. She was upset.

He slid down in his seat, hiding from the house.

“How often have I seen Tommy Monteleone?” his mother said. “Three times in my life?”

The Monteleones’ screen door was open, and Nina was handing the box through.

“He had a mustache,” his mother added. “The guy we hit didn’t have a mustache.”

“I don’t wanna go in there,” Todd said.

“Didn’t he have a mustache at the wedding?” she asked.

Nina was talking to whoever was on the other side of the door, probably asking if this was a bad time.

“Of course this is a bad time,” Joanie said.

“She’s probably like you, after Dad left,” Todd said. He meant Mrs. Monteleone. “She probably doesn’t want to see anyone.”

His mother didn’t say anything.

The screen door swung closed, and Nina grabbed it. She turned to the car and waved them in.

Todd scrunched down lower. “Ma, we can’t do this,” he said.

His mother brought both hands together over her face and then moved them apart, rubbing her eyes. She opened her door. “C’mon,” she said.

He had his hands between his thighs. She crossed around the car behind him. He thought for a second she’d gone on without him.

She poked her head in his window the way her mother had. “C’mon, sweetie,” she said. She needed to clear her throat. “We’ll make it. C’mon.”

He opened the door and got out and followed her to the front steps. The grass on their lawn was still shaded, so it was wet. The neighbors two houses down had a blue-and-white Virgin Mary, set in a shell in a rock garden. His mother held the screen door for him, but he let her go in first.

The blinds were pulled in the living room. It took a little time for his eyes to adjust.

Nina and Mrs. Monteleone were standing in the hallway off the other side of the room. Mrs. Monteleone had one hand on the sofa back and another on the wall, as if to steady herself. She nodded at them, once.