John Brandon - Further Joy

When the guy finally gets into the space and rises up out of his Grand Marquis, the three of us stand and cheer. I hold the angel statue up like a trophy. It seems like the old days for a moment — Lara is genuinely giddy and my wife’s smile is full, unfettered. She’s not withholding a part of herself, not acting reluctant in order to make some point. And I feel I’m partly responsible for getting us here, having been a steady, buoyant presence in our little home.

The next morning my wife gets up early. That’s not unusual; most nights, one of the two of us slips out, sleepless, to watch the wee-hour newsfeeds. An hour or so later I get up, too, and make a full pot of coffee. The night is just subsiding; by the time the coffee is done brewing, I can see out the windows. I pour myself a mug and carry it to the back of the condo to check out the birds on the golf course. As I pass through the living room, I see that my wife isn’t on the couch.

I can hear now how quiet the condo is. I walk to the front end and ease Lara’s door open a couple inches, sensing that her room is empty. I set my coffee down on the Formica table in the kitchen. Maybe the two of them went running together, though that would surprise me. Out the front window I can see that Lara’s car isn’t there.

I decide to forgo a bowl of cereal, in case they went out to pick up something for breakfast. I head back to the rear windows and lean on the sill. A mismatched gang of water birds is advancing up the fairway. It’s like they’ve fanned out to look for something one of them dropped. There’s a blue heron and an ibis and a snowy egret — a few distracted gulls, not helping with the search, nestle on the clipped grass like it’s a calm bay.

When I’m too hungry to wait any longer and my coffee is cold, I return to the kitchen. The angel statue catches my eye, proud-looking, planted over on the white sideboard. And then I see the note pinned underneath it. The stationery bears the logo of a hospital, and the hurried writing tells me that my wife and Lara drove up near Sarasota for the day, to hang out on Lara’s friend’s boat. And that they may stay the night. It’s my wife’s handwriting. She didn’t put her name at the bottom, or put my name at the top — didn’t sign off with the word love . She’s being petty, Lord knows to what end.

I dump my coffee and pour a fresh mug. No name for this friend of Lara’s? Near Sarasota? I suppose I should be happy the girls are reconnecting, returning to one another’s favor, but happiness isn’t the feeling that’s arriving. The note didn’t say whether they were going to sit at the dock or take the boat out, but I assume it’s raining in Sarasota too. It feels like the whole state has been under these clouds.

I sit in the kitchen until my coffee is lukewarm again, then I grab my keys and head down the front steps. I’m not sure where I’m driving until I pull into the grocery store. I fill a hand basket with fruit and grab a sixer of cheap beer. I can already envision the apples and limes in bowls in the kitchen, already feel how they’ll help the condo, and I can see the forthright, cheerful cans of beer on a shelf in the refrigerator. At the checkout I take a newspaper too.

Back at the condo, I spread the paper out. There’s an article revealing the best places to use a metal detector. An article about a wild boar that startled some beachgoers. A girl in Fort Myers was shot while sitting in her car. I read every word. I’m trying to lose track of time, and it’s working. A soldier went berserk in a post office. A new podiatry clinic is opening.

When I fold the paper back up, it’s the middle of the afternoon. The coffee pot has been on all day, and I finally shut it off. I shouldn’t call my wife’s phone, but I know it’s only a matter of time before I do. I take a shower and eat something, then I open a beer and go to the front porch. 20-Point Turn is no good all alone. It’s just people parking and nothing more, people coming back from dinner before it’s even nighttime. I can hear the card games from the other porches — outdated games I don’t know the rules to. There are silences, murmurs, peals of laughter. Lara’s space is taken now, by a long, gray Lincoln. I find myself doubting very much that Lara has a friend in Sarasota, or that that friend has a boat, or that my wife would want to be on that boat.

I pull out my phone, as I knew I would, and when I call my wife it goes straight to voicemail. Lara’s phone gives me the same treatment. It’s possible they’re offshore, out of cell range. I have no way of knowing.

At lunchtime the next day, they still haven’t surfaced. What I understand is that my wife hasn’t been my ally for some time. It’s true we love each other. It’s true that eventually she’ll return from wherever she is and all this will pass. But we’re not allies.

I wonder what to do next. There’s a mammoth sporting goods store nearby that I wouldn’t mind walking around in. Doubtless there’s a coupon booklet in the mailbox. On the muted TV there will be sobering news from Africa, from the Pacific Rim, from everywhere. The rain is going to cease soon — later today, tomorrow — and the thought worries me. All the old people will rejoice, beaming in their tennis clothes and grilling steaks and rubbing down their long automobiles to prevent water spots. They will cherish those little duties. Our neighbors are finished with the tasks they toiled away at in life; they know what it is to be finished, to have worked a lifetime toward a satisfaction that begins rotting after a week.

The man did not offer to buy Mitchell a coffee. He described the job as a sales position but managed to avoid saying exactly what Mitchell would sell. Mitchell found he could not get a word in, and after a while he quit trying. The man seemed like he’d been to prison, something about how cloudy and expressionless his eyes looked. His pinstripe suit was like a disguise. He had made several allusions to a payment of $300 and Mitchell finally understood that the man wanted him to pay $300. The man made wisecracks about some starving-artist types that were haunting the coffee shop, making fun of what they did with their time and also making fun of their clothes. He was holding a laminated graph. It showed a steep increase in something. Mitchell’s mind went to the gas he’d wasted driving into Albuquerque. His mind went to all the things he’d at one time or another studied in depth — the history of Paris, North American hummingbirds. He’d once known the entire Book of Psalms by heart. To buy himself an espresso drink would be, at this point, an extravagant expenditure.

***

Mitchell had spent six years with Bet. Bet had family money and fancied herself a writer and moved every few months, on whims. Mitchell had met her when she’d passed through Chattanooga. He’d agreed to tag along with her, had left his crappy adjunct job at a branch of the state college to drive the open parts of the country with the windows down. That was the kind of thing he’d always been able to do — make his escape when others were afraid to. He’d come to know Bet better than he’d ever known another person, and perhaps they’d grown too close. This last move they’d wound up in some bleached, dusty town out east of Albuquerque, and after only two days Bet had said she wanted to pack back up and move again. She’d said she had complaints, but they weren’t really about New Mexico. There’d been a convoluted fight during which Bet had used the term “curdled” to what she believed was great effect, and then she’d left. Six years. She’d driven away in her tasteful little SUV, crying in sharp breathy yips. It was the same way she cried at anything — the death of an animal, songs. She produced these high-pitched whimpers and her nose got stuffed up, but only a tear or two would fall. It was one of the only things Mitchell didn’t like about her, her crying, and he was glad that this was the last image he’d had of her as she left. If she’d driven off with one of her resigned frowns, it would’ve crushed him. If she’d flashed him that look of distanced amusement, the one cheek bunched up and her eyes barely squinting, he’d probably still be standing out there, frozen at the edge of the parking lot like a cactus.