Everything (23 page)

I wondered where you two had gotten to, she says.

RL tries to think of what he might say but he doesn’t need to. His daughter closes the door most of the way, a sliver of dim light to illuminate the three of them, then lies down herself between them on the bed with her head down at the foot end. Just flops down flat.

After a minute she says, I have made such a mess of things.

And Layla is surprised when both June and her father start to laugh, loud genuine laughter.

* * *

What? she says. What’s so funny?

But in this moment neither one of them can stop to tell her, the laughter feeds on itself unwholesome like the laughter at a funeral or accident but still contagious and after a minute of this, of giggle and calm and then the laughter bursting forth again, Layla herself joins in, against her own heart, against her own sorrow but she laughs and June and RL laughs and Spode, the little dog, Spode hears them and noses the bedroom door open and sees the three of them together on the bed and knows in his dog heart this is where he should be as well. He is not going to be left out again. From the doorway at full stride he runs and when he reaches the bed he leaps and none of them are expecting this furball missile all teeth and play and this sets them off again and it will be a while, now, before the laughter stops.

Spring, he saw it first
on the hillside above town in the shape of a glacier lily, a yellow bell of a flower, small and shy among the weeds. Edgar stopped running to look at it but when he stopped the wind cut through him. Through his nylon jacket he could feel approaching snow. Black clouds, rain or snow out over Lolo.

But still, spring.

He ran full tilt down Cherry Gulch, past the dog walkers and bird-watchers, scaring up a flock of bluebirds as he ran, little bursts of pure bright color in the corners of his sight, a few robins, too, and the ever-present crows. The steeps of the trail hurt his knees to run but he wanted that, a little. Slipping and sliding on the gravel, counting on gravity to see him through, he passed the same gray-braided birder that he did nearly every week, a last spring maybe.
She looked like she knew something, like she had something to tell him, but she just smiled at him in a knowing way as he hurried past. Her binoculars and walking sticks. To be old, to be graceful, to be alert and interested. To be out in the weather, any weather, with her parka tied around her waist.

He hadn’t been to the new house, but he knew where it was from looking it up on the Internet. He had seen it from space, the green metal shingles of the roof.

When he wasn’t feeling sorry for himself, Edgar thought this was a wonderful world, with beautiful people in it, and occasional miracles.

What a fancy street this was, though. Right down next to the creek. All redwood and privacy fences, big Toyota SUVs in the driveways, little Minis, fun cars, cars for fun. Pretty women gardening in gardening clothes. Edgar wasn’t used to thinking about this as a town where people had money—they kept to themselves, the people with money, and didn’t show it much. Up in their log châteaus by the ski area or here, with a pretty little creek running through the backyard and nice quiet neighbors. People like us, Edgar thought. People with easy lives.

Now RL had joined up with them. Edgar didn’t work at the fly shop anymore and so it was technically none of his business but still, a disappointment. Where had the money come from?

The house itself was nice enough: pleasant, reasonable. It was mostly red-brown wood on the outside and not too fancy, with a couple of solar panels up on the roof and trees all around. The place next door was huge and white with plantation pillars all around the
porch but apart from that, RL’s house seemed like a reasonable place, a place where a person might be happy. A girl. He hadn’t seen her in three months.

Where a girl like her might be happy without him.

He hadn’t seen her since that night. Now he stood at the end of the walkway considering. He didn’t know what to hope for. He didn’t want anything from her. He didn’t even want to bother her and he knew that his presence would, it would bother her. He should really just go, back to the river and across, back to the house on the south side. He should forget her, as she had forgotten him.

But there was something real there, some betrayal. This was happiness itself. They made each other happy, when they weren’t making each other miserable, which was most of the time. Still it was real and he couldn’t just walk away. Run away.

He couldn’t move, either. Stuck to the street like a piece of spent gum.

His feet carried him toward the door, unwilling and wanting and unsure. This new house where she lived. RL might be there, which Edgar was afraid of, though he believed RL to know nothing of this. This was dangerous and stupid. Edgar himself: dangerous and stupid.

The door opened before he could reach it and the little dog battered and barked against the screen.

Spode, the woman said. Spode! Cut it out.

* * *

I was looking for Layla, Edgar said.

She’s not here.

Is there another time? I could …

No, June said. She opened the screen and the little dog rushed out at him, not such a little dog, really, but alert and sharp. Bright little eyes. He wanted to jump up on Edgar’s leg but kept himself from doing so by exercising some restraint.

June’s face was kind. She said, She’s not here, Edgar.

Is she in town?

No, June said. No she’s not.

Is there any way that I can get in touch with her?

I don’t think so, June said. She needed to get away for a while. It was a hard winter for her.

No, Edgar said, I know.

But he didn’t know anything—he saw it in her face, that almost contempt. She knew, he didn’t. She knew he didn’t. He felt himself shrinking—but she didn’t mean to be unkind. She reached her hand out and touched him on the arm.

I’ll let her know you came looking for her, June said.

Thank you, Edgar said. Is RL …

* * *

He’s down in Costa Rica, June said, building houses for poor people. Habitat for Humanity. I know! It’s not like him at all, is it?

I don’t know, Edgar said.

I think he surprised himself with that one, June said. Oh, well, come on, Spode. Come on back in.

The little dog—a handsome little dog, a little smarty-pants—took one last searching look at Edgar to make sure that he didn’t need to defend the house against him. Then he turned and went through the open screen, and June gave him a little shrug, let the screen close, closed the door behind it. There was nothing left to do but turn and go. He walked to the street, the cold wind blowing up out of the south. He would be lucky to get home without being rained on, or even snow. At the street he turned for one last look before he started to run again, a look back toward the house with its framing trees and solar panels and there, up on the roof—he hadn’t noticed it before—at the peak of the house was a fieldstone chimney, and as he watched a single puff of white smoke came out. Just that, a single breath and nothing more. He turned, then, and started to run again. But all the way home he wondered about it, saw it in his mind: a ragged cloud of white against the dark spring sky, a bit of vapor, of nothing, and yet he recognized it: the start of something.

A NOTE ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Kevin Canty is the award-winning author of the novels
Into the Great Wide Open, Nine Below Zero
and
Winslow in Love
, as well as the short story collections
Honeymoon and Other Stories, A Stranger in This World
and
Where the Money Went
. His work has been published in
The New Yorker, Esquire, GQ, Details, Story, New York Times Magazine
and
Glimmer Train
. He currently teaches fiction writing at the University of Montana.