“She’s sensible, is all,” Willa told her. “She could see you were going to be fine, and so she took it in stride.”
Denise didn’t look convinced.
Privately, Willa felt there were other things that should worry Denise more. Look at that crush Cheryl had on Sir Joe, for instance; look at how she missed Sean. This was a child who felt the lack of a man in her life. And there were times when she seemed to lack a mother as well, because surely the average mother would not expect a nine-year-old to fend for herself as much as Denise did. But Denise was saying, “Most kids would be having nightmares right now. They’d be asking if their mom was okay. They’d be upset that she was suffering instead of rolling their eyes any time she made the least little complaint.”
Willa couldn’t help smiling at that. It was true that Cheryl showed no patience with Denise’s moaning and groaning.
“And I’m all she’s got!” Denise said. “Who would Cheryl have gone to if I’d been shot dead, I’d like to know!”
Willa said, “How about, well, her father?”
“Oh, him,” Denise said airily. “Her father doesn’t know she exists.”
“Oh,” Willa said.
“Too many Amstel Lights one night, my sophomore year in college.”
“You were in college?” Willa asked.
“Towson University. You sound surprised.”
“No, no, I just meant…that must have been hard.”
“You’re durn right it was hard.”
Willa folded back the top sheet, and then she went over to the armchair to help Denise stand. Since yesterday they’d developed a system: Willa faced her and held out both hands, and Denise took a firm grip of them and heaved herself upright. Then Willa backed toward the couch with her—a distance of only a few steps, so they didn’t bother with the crutches.
“I’ve always been a little disorganized,” Denise said once she had dropped onto the couch. “So I didn’t catch on I was pregnant until I was five months along, and by then it was too late to do anything about it.”
In Willa’s opinion, this was more than just a little disorganized, but she bent silently to lift Denise’s feet and help her swing them onto the couch. Denise lay back with a sigh and pulled the top sheet over her. She was wearing a pair of voluminous shorts and an oversized T-shirt—her one outfit for both night and day. She and Willa had settled on it the previous evening when they were getting her ready for bed.
“What I thought: I’d have the baby and then finish school,” Denise told the ceiling. “But that didn’t actually work out.”
“I did that, too,” Willa said. “I quit college when I got pregnant with Sean; thought I’d go back as soon as he was born. But I ended up staying home till both boys were in their teens.”
“Well, that’s a lot different,” Denise said.
Because Willa hadn’t needed to support herself, she meant. And because she’d had the money to go back once she had decided to. There was really no comparison, was what Denise was saying.
Peter and Cheryl were off buying lunch things, their third errand this morning. Peter seemed glad to have something to do, and Cheryl liked to tag along with him. (Yet another man to shadow.)
He’d gone ahead with the Monday plane reservation, it turned out, even though it meant they’d have to transfer in Denver. That was how desperate he was to leave. Never mind that Denise still needed help, and Cheryl was too young to be the only one in charge, and none of the neighbors seemed able to take full responsibility.
Besides which, when Denise phoned her family after breakfast she hadn’t so much as mentioned her situation. “Oh, things are good here,” she had assured them. “Going great!” Clearly these weren’t people she felt she should call upon.
Now Willa said, “I wish we weren’t leaving tomorrow. I’m worried how you’ll manage.”
“I wish you weren’t, too,” Denise said. “But hey: you’ve got lives of your own, I guess.”
“Not really,” Willa said. “I don’t. And Peter’s supposed to be retired, or all but retired. But you know how it is: he just can’t quite let go yet.”
“Well, he’s a guy,” Denise said.
“Right.”
Sometimes Willa felt she’d spent half her life apologizing for some man’s behavior. More than half her life, actually. First Derek and then Peter, forever charging ahead while Willa trailed behind picking up the pieces and excusing and explaining.
“Durn, I meant to put ice cream on the list,” Denise said suddenly.
“You want me to phone them?”
“Nah, who needs the calories, right?”
“I’ll just phone them,” Willa said. She went to the foyer for her purse.
“Tell them mint chocolate chip, but not the green kind, hear? I like the white. None of that artificial coloring.”
“White mint chocolate chip,” Willa said. She took out her phone and tapped Peter’s number.
“Yes?” he said. She heard voices behind him, and the beep of a scanner.
“Denise was wondering if you could buy ice cream,” she told him. “Mint chocolate chip, the white kind.”
“White chocolate?”
“White ice cream.”
“Okay,” he said. “We’re already in line, but that’s okay.”
“Sorry.”
“That’s okay.”
He was being extra accommodating because he felt bad about making her leave so soon. Willa could read him like a book.
“Cheryl will know the brand,” Denise said after Willa had hung up. “That is no Chuck E. Cheese child, I tell you.”
“Chuck E….?”
“Nor McDonald’s child, nor Burger King. Cheryl’s a Red Lobster child, through and through.”
“Ah,” Willa said.
“I don’t know where she gets it from.”
“Well, look at you: you’re the one who doesn’t want artificial coloring.”
“Only for fear of cancer.”
“Even so, though,” Willa said.
“I shouldn’t have ice cream anyway. It’s not like I’m getting much exercise just laying here.”
“Oh, I always think tension and pain and anxiety burn more calories than exercise,” Willa said. She slipped her phone back into her purse.
Denise said, “Yeah, but then you’re so tiny and petite and got those bitsy little bones and all. You have a whole nother metabolism. Plus, you’re already married and you can relax now. I am still hunting.”
“Really? You’d like to be married?” Willa asked her.
“Of course I would. Are you kidding? People are supposed to be married. Supposed to go through this world two by two.”
Wasn’t that a line from Our Town? Willa remembered something of the sort from when her mother had played the Stage Manager. She remembered absorbing its truth even as a child.
As delicately as possible, she asked, “Did…you and Sean ever think about getting married?”
She had been wondering that since she and Denise first met. Denise was such a change from Sean’s usual type of girlfriend, the cheerleaders in high school and the sorority girls in college, all so prim and pert that Willa had had no clue what their true feelings were.
“I thought about it,” Denise said. “Can’t say as Sean ever did.”
“Oh,” Willa said sadly.
Well, it was probably just as well.
* * *
—
In the afternoon, Callie stopped by with a canned ham. “Sorry, but I’m not a cook,” she told Willa as she handed it over. She was wearing a dressy dress and a lot of jewelry, and as soon as she entered the living room she announced that she’d gone to church that morning. “I put forth your name during the offering-up of prayers,” she told Denise. “I said, ‘My neighbor Denise has been shot, a
nd her with a daughter who is still a dependent child.’ ” She made her way to the armchair and sank into it with a thud.
“Actually, I’m more a preteen than a child,” Cheryl said. She was sitting on the rug tailor-fashion, petting Airplane.
“You don’t look like a preteen,” Callie told her.
“Come January I’ll have two digits. Plus also, I’m not dependent.”
“Well, have it your way,” Callie said without interest. In broad daylight, Willa saw, her hair was that overblonded kind that made her face seem much older than she probably was. She kept plucking at stray curls with her fingertips, as if she sensed that they were unsatisfactory somehow. “How you feeling?” she asked Denise.
“I’m going crazy,” Denise said.
“Turn on the TV, then. I don’t get why you don’t have the TV on.”
“I’ve watched TV till my eyes are crossed.”
“Could I offer you a glass of iced tea?” Willa asked Callie. She was looking for an excuse to leave them on their own, but Callie said, “No, thanks. So, where’s that handsome husband of yours?”
“Oh, somewhere around,” Willa said. He was shut away in the guest room with the air conditioner running, but she didn’t want to admit it. She said, “I’ll just…” and pointedly raised the ham she was holding and made her escape to the kitchen.
After she set the ham on the counter, she checked the soil around her little saguaro on the windowsill. Then she shifted her gaze to the backyard next door, where Erland was aimlessly bouncing a shuttlecock up and down on a racquet. In the yard on the other side, Mrs. Minton stood holding her walker one-handed while she painstakingly, ineptly draped a petticoat over a clothesline.
Cheryl walked into the kitchen and said, “Willa, are you-all really leaving tomorrow?”
Willa turned away from the window. “We’re supposed to,” she said.
“I don’t think I’m strong enough to get Mama to the powder room on my own.”
Willa studied her. “I don’t think you are, either,” she said.
“And I’ll have to buy groceries and all, and fix the meals.”
“Well,” Willa said, “maybe I should ask Peter if he can change our reservation.”
This should have been enough, but Cheryl went on watching her expectantly and so finally Willa added, “I’ll just go do that now, why don’t I.” She wasn’t looking forward to it.
As she left the kitchen she heard Callie telling Denise, “You’re better off without him, in my opinion. When I got rid of Darwin it was like a weight lifted off my chest. Freedom! Fresh air! In my opinion, men are overrated.”
Willa paused to hear what Denise’s answer would be, but there wasn’t one—just a whooshing sound as Callie exhaled. She must be smoking. Willa could smell it, in fact. She glanced into the living room as she passed and caught Callie in the act of tapping her ash into the philodendron plant.
Climbing the stairs was like climbing into different weather, steadily warmer and warmer. But when she opened the guest-room door a rush of cold air hit her, and the roar of the air conditioner filled her ears. Peter was propped against his headboard with his shoes off, reading the Sunday Times magazine. He looked up and asked, “How’re things going down there?”
“Callie’s here for a visit,” she told him.
“Great,” he said, and went back to his magazine.
“Peter,” she said, “I’m thinking we shouldn’t leave yet.”
At first it seemed he wasn’t going to answer, because he went on reading. But then, with his eyes still on the page, he said, “I disagree, in point of fact.”
“But I don’t know how the two of them are going to manage on their own,” she said.
“They’re not on their own. They have neighbors. They have Denise’s coworkers.”
“That’s not enough,” she told him.
Now he looked at her. “Here’s a thought,” he said.
She perked up. But what he said next was, “Denise could call one of those agencies. Hire somebody to help out.”
“You know she can’t afford that.”
“So? Maybe you could chip in on it, if it’s only for a week or so.”
“Okay,” she said, “but…”
She wasn’t happy with that. She knew it might be more practical, but somehow it just filled her with unhappiness.
“Little one,” he said finally. “Listen to me a minute.”
She forced herself to meet his gaze, meanwhile twisting her wristwatch band.
“You realize what’s going on here,” he said. “Both of your sons are grown and gone, and anyhow they’ve turned out to be something of a disappointment—”
“Disappointment!” she cried. She stopped twisting her watch band. “They’re not a disappointment!”
“Well, they don’t have much to do with you; let’s put it that way.”
“Yes, they do! We’re supposed to have supper with Sean tomorrow night!”
“Willa. Haven’t you canceled that yet?”
She was silent.
He said, “And supper was your idea, not his. As for Ian: well, face it, Ian is almost never in touch.”
“Because Ian doesn’t have cell-phone coverage, that’s why! He does call any time he gets back to civilization. Oh, you’re just saying this because you’ve never had children,” she told him. “Kids grow up. They’re supposed to grow up. And besides, these are boys. You can’t expect boys to be all chatty and confiding, you know.”
“In any case,” he said, “isn’t it just that you miss being a mother? I can understand that. But look at it this way: now you’ve got me. The two of us are free now to enjoy our golden years.”
He was using the term ironically, but Willa didn’t smile.
“For instance,” he said. “I’ve suggested several times that you should take up golf.”
“I tried that,” she said. She’d had a couple of lessons, even, and bought herself an array of sporty little drip-dry skirts and white cotton socks with bobbles on the backs.
“But then you gave it up,” he said.
“Because I never got the hang of it! It isn’t my fault I’m not athletic! Anyhow,” she said, because she felt she was being sidetracked, here, “if you really insist on leaving tomorrow, maybe I’ll just stay on by myself.”
She paused, but he didn’t say anything.
“Just let you go home without me,” she said, “and stay till Denise can get around better. Ben says she’ll have a walking cast soon. Then she’ll be able to—”
“Ben who?” Peter asked.
“Ben her neighbor, Peter. The doctor, remember? A walking cast would let her go up and down stairs and such, and then I’d feel okay leaving her.”
Unfortunately, she just at that moment recalled that Ben had said the walking cast would happen in a couple of weeks or so. But she decided not to remind Peter of that.
Peter said, “All right, Willa. If that’s how you want it.”
And he went back to his magazine.
She stood there a moment. She had a slightly stunned feeling. He was really going to make her do this on her own?
Finally she said, “So could you please cancel my plane reservation?”
He just nodded and turned a page.
She stepped out of the room and shut the door behind her. Heat slapped her face like a warm washcloth, but as she descended it grew cooler.
In the living room, Denise was sliding a straightened wire coat hanger down inside her cast. “My surgeon says I’m lucky,” she was telling Callie as she scratched an itch. “He says it could have been that kind of bullet that ricochets around inside of you. I said, ‘Lucky!’ I said, ‘Is that what you call this?’ ”
And Callie was doing that smoker’s thing of turning aside to exhale and then ineffectuall
y flapping a hand to clear the air. “Typical,” she said, but whether of surgeons or of men in general, Willa couldn’t say.
* * *
—
Callie had barely taken her leave when Ben Gold rang the doorbell with Mrs. Minton in tow. Willa opened the screen for them and stood back to let Mrs. Minton shuffle in, Ben following close behind in case she tottered. She’d left her walker at the bottom of the porch steps; evidently she used it just for balance. She kept telling herself, “Careful, now. Careful, now.” Her skirt was unbecomingly short, barely knee-length, so that her blue-white mottled shins showed, and her sleeveless blouse exposed her stringy arms. It was the first time Willa had seen her out of her housecoat.
When she reached the living room, she halted to examine Denise. “Why, you look very healthy,” she said.
“I am healthy,” Denise told her, “except for this damn leg. Cheryl, scoot out of that chair and let Mrs. Minton sit down.”
“What did it feel like, getting shot?” Mrs. Minton asked. She was inching toward the armchair now, Ben still shepherding her. “I’ve always wondered.”
“Felt like nothing, at first. Like a jolt. But now it’s giving me fits. Seems like the pain is subject to gravity; stand up and it swoops clear down my leg and slams into my heel.”
Mrs. Minton said “Tsk!” She gripped Ben’s hand as she lowered herself into the armchair. “I trust you’re being a help to your mother,” she told Cheryl, tugging her skirt down.
Cheryl said “Yup.” She was kneeling beside Airplane now, tickling him behind the ears.
“Who would like iced tea?” Willa asked, but Mrs. Minton said, “Oh, no, thank you, dear,” and Ben said, “None for me, thanks.” He settled in the rocker.
“Where’s that husband of yours?” Mrs. Minton asked Willa.
“I think he’s upstairs packing,” Willa said. “He has to go back tomorrow morning.”
Cheryl and Denise both looked at her. Denise said, “You’re not going with him?”