Percival Everett - Half an Inch of Water - Stories

“Ask her who the father is,” she said. Karen was angry.

“Not now, Karen.”

Karen walked into the house.

“I’m sorry, Daddy.”

Gunther said nothing.

“Danny is the father,” the girl said.

“Does he know?”

“I told him. He’s terrified you’re going to shoot him.”

“I might.” He looked at the graying sky. “You can tell him that I’m not going to shoot him.”

“He says he’ll marry me.”

“That’s just stupid,” Gunther said. “You’re only seventeen. Even if you were nineteen, that would be stupid. He’s what? Eighteen? You don’t need two children to take care of.”

“I want to go to Denver,” Sarah said.

“Do you?”

“Yes.”

“I want you to think about this hard. I’m not going to tell you what to do, but I want you to think it through real good.”

“Okay.”

“You think I should talk to Danny?” he asked.

“I wish you wouldn’t,” Sarah said.

“Well, I’m going to see him around. I reckon I ought to talk to him just a little bit, don’t you think? I’m not going to scare him. I promise.” It was a promise Gunther meant, but knew it would be difficult to keep. He felt strangely good about himself for the measured calm of his reaction, felt like he was being a good father. He realized what a rare feeling that was for him. “I’ll take you to Denver if you want. Just tell me when.”

The girl was crying hard now. He held her.

Karen was sitting up in bed pretending to read a fat novel when Gunther came into the room. He walked over to their bedroom window and looked out at the yard below.

“Tell me how could this happen?” she said. “How could she let something like this happen?”

“It happened,” he said.

“What are you going to do about it?”

“I’m going to take care of our daughter. Just like you. That’s really all we can do.”

“And about the boy, what are you going to do about the boy?” Karen closed her book and tossed it onto the rug at her bedside. “She’s seventeen. He’s eighteen. Isn’t that statutory rape?”

Gunther sat on the bed and put his hand on Karen’s foot. She pulled it away. “What will arresting that boy do for Sarah? It will tear her up. That Danny’s not a bad kid. I don’t like him much, but he’s not a bad kid. What will that do to him? To his parents? What will it do to us?”

“Why are you all of a sudden Mr. Calm?”

“I don’t know.” Gunther looked across the room and out the window. “Is that snow?” He walked over to look out. There was a flurry, the snow moving harmlessly, the wind hardly a bother.

He turned to see that Karen had picked up and opened her book. She pretended to read again. It was clear she was not going to look at him.

Gunther went downstairs and sat alone in the kitchen, watched the snow turn serious. The truth was that Gunther did feel windless. He felt unusually calm and he wasn’t sure it felt good, though he was pleased with how he was handling the situation with his daughter. He held his hand out, like a gunfighter in a movie, to check his steadiness. His hand did not quiver. He checked his pulse. Fifty. It had never been fifty. He wanted to be anxious about his newfound serenity, but instead he grew even more relaxed. The irony was not lost on him and in fact played out as being strange and slightly amusing.

He left his house, moving toward his office. At the crossroads outside town he came upon his young deputy, Marty Hawn. He was leaning against his patrol car, smoking a cigarette.

“I thought you were giving those up,” Gunther said.

“Seems kinda silly having to smoke out in the snow like this,” the young man said.

“Everything okay?”

“So far. How about with you?”

Gunther stared out through his windshield and wondered what a truthful answer might sound like. “It’s been an interesting day,” he said.

Marty offered a quizzical look. He was only twenty-one and didn’t look that old, a big kid who had excelled in high school football, but wasn’t good enough for a college scholarship. He liked astronomy.

“Come by the station after your rounds. We’ll take Grace out and grab some coffee,” Gunther said.

“I’d like that.”

His cell phone rang and he answered it. It was Grace. “Are you coming in to the office?”

“I suppose I should.”

“Where are you now?” she asked.

“With Marty at the Shell station. What’s up?”

“Apparently Gilly White is out plowing the road in front of his house.”

Gunther looked at the hills and the roads. “But the snow’s not even on the ground yet.”

Grace said nothing.

“I’m heading over there now.”

“What is it?” Marty asked.

“Gilly White’s acting crazy again.”

“You want me to go over there?”

Gunther shook his head. “I’ll see to it. You finished your shift.”

By the time Gunther arrived at Gilly White’s place, snow was beginning to stick to the ground. White’s tractor was parked halfway off the road, the snowplow blade down and lifting the front end just a bit. The dirt road was a mess, deep gouges and wounds that promised to become fantastically problematic once the lane was wet from rain or melting snow. Gunther got out of his truck and walked over to where White sat on the running board of his tractor.

“Been drinking?” Gunther asked.

“You can tell?”

“A guess.”

Gilly White was holding a pistol in his left hand. He was missing the middle finger of his right. Gunther had never asked him how he lost it. Gunther didn’t like the gun there, didn’t like them much anywhere. He was not armed. His pistol was in his glove box. He didn’t like wearing it.

“Yeah, I been drinking,” White said.

Gunther looked at the tractor and road. “You did quite a number on the road there.”

“Needed plowing.”

“Done?”

“Out of gas,” White said. He traced the top of the barrel of the pistol with his right index finger.

Gunther slowly pulled his mobile phone from his pocket. He called his office. “Grace, I’m over at the White place. Yes, everything is all right. The tractor’s out of gas in the road.”

“You want me to send Horace with his tow truck?”

“Yeah, send Marty out here with some gas,” Gunther said.

“I understand,” Grace said. “Right away.”

Gunther put his phone away. He looked up at the sky. “You were right to start plowing. This is going to be a big storm.”

“Yeah, a real blizzard.”

“Yeah, a real blizzard.”

Gunther looked back at White’s house. It was set some fifty yards off the road, down a straight drive. The front door of the house was open. No smoke came from the chimney. “Your family at home?”

“Oh, yeah,” White said.

“How are they doing?”

“You know.”

“Tell me, Gilly. How are they?”

“You ever play Xbox?”

“What?”

“Xbox.”

“No. What’s that?”

“A video game.”

Gunther nodded. “I don’t know much about that stuff. How old is your son now? Is he six yet?”

“Not yet.”

“You want to wait here for the gas? I think I’ll go say hello to Kate. What’s your boy’s name?”

“David.”

“And David. You going to be okay here?”

White nodded.

Gunther didn’t like turning his back on the man, but he had to get to the house. As he approached he was struck by the stillness, the coldness of it. He felt cold inside. He wanted Marty to be there already. As soon as he stepped through the door he called Grace.

“Where’s Marty?”

“Ten minutes away.”

“Tell him to make it five.”

“What’s going on?”