Fellow Mortals (13 page)

“Then why invite us out?”

“I didn’t mean
today
. I thought you had to shop.”

“You can drop me at the market,” Nan says, picking up a pad and reaching for a pencil. “I can shop and take the bus home.”

“He doesn’t like talking when he’s sculpting,” Henry says.

“Is he sculpting today?” Ava asks.

“I don’t know.”

“Well. If he doesn’t want me there, he can charge me at the car and knock me over.”

Henry puts the cooler down and fiddles with his whiskers. “Maybe just a real quick visit to the trailer. How long—”

“I’ll be dressed in twenty minutes.”

Henry stands there erect, gazing at the yard. Eventually he sighs and says, “Wing’ll be excited.”

“Wing is staying here.”

“He loves it out there!”

“Two sweaty men and a dog is a lot to ask of a woman. I’ll entertain Sam. Nan and Joan can entertain Wing.”

Nan writes
Nylabone
on the grocery list.

“Fine.” Henry sulks. “But you’re the one who tells him.”

*   *   *

If Ava didn’t know better, she might have assumed that he was harboring a woman in the woods, a thought that makes her smile, since he can’t hide a Christmas gift without her knowing what it is, where he bought it, and how proud of himself he is for keeping it a secret. She talks little on the drive across town, calmed by the wind swirling up her hair. Henry’s quiet, too, and even when she wants to point something out—a double-seat bike, a license plate that reads
DR FOOT
—she keeps it to herself to see if Henry says it first.

“Why didn’t you want me to come?”

“Huh?” Henry says, drifting in the road. “What makes you think that?”

“You said I shouldn’t come.”

“I didn’t mean it that way. I don’t want to pressure Sam is all. I can’t figure him out,” Henry says. “He seems happy one minute, then a black cloud hits him out of the blue. He got talking about suicide the other day.”

Ava shuts the window right as Henry says it, and it sounds as if the word’s sucked air from the car. A classmate of Ava’s killed herself in high school—pills, coma, complications. No one saw it coming till it happened, at which point everybody swore they saw it coming, her death a kind of pale, backward shadow in their memory.

“It’s good he’s staying busy,” Ava says. “He needs to feel alive, even if it hurts.”

Her own philosophy of late, dubious at best. They’d planned to share a bath last night, and even though Henry made it home well before dinner, he’d been quick to eat and roughhouse with Wing before asking how her day was, pacing while she talked, and falling asleep before she finished undressing in the bedroom. She filled the bath, deciding she would take one alone, but the stillness of the water made her open up the drain. They had laundry in the washer, dishes in the sink. She put a blanket over Henry, pinched a snore strip onto his nose, and spent the next two hours cleaning house and feeling terribly alive.

“It might take a year for any kind of normalcy,” she says.

“If he makes it that long.”

“We’ll have to make sure.”

They come around the block and Ava’s bothered by the openness. The only time she saw Arcadia Street was coming here for Henry, when the trucks were in the road and both the houses were engulfed. It’s simpler now, and lonelier, and sadder with the trailer.

“Here we are,” Henry says, stopping at the curb.

She’s sorry to have come today and isn’t sure why, and she’s about to call it off when Sam appears around the back. He waves and does a double take a hundred feet away and notices it isn’t Wingnut sitting next to Henry. He straightens when he walks and moves a hand to his hair, thinks twice, and does a last-second comb with his fingers.

“This is Ava!” Henry yells. “I should have told you she was coming. Ava, this is Sam.”

She hasn’t even gotten her seat belt off. Sam offers her a hand when she steps from the car. His palm has the texture of a sawed piece of wood, like it needs a good sanding and a warm coat of oil. He looks at her without quite locking on her eyes and says, “It’s nice to meet you,” in the same polite voice he used on the phone.

“Sorry to spring her on you.”

“I made him bring me,” Ava tells him. “I can go if it’s a problem.”

Sam shakes his head, not exactly answering.

“I’m so sorry,” Ava says, expecting him to slump, but he watches her impassively and seems to grow taller in the pause. She gives him back his hand, embarrassed to have kept it. The yellow of her dress looks paler in the sun, and when the silence of the moment carries too long, she faces him again and says, “We brought an extra breakfast.”

“Isn’t she great?” Henry says. “Let’s eat in the trailer. After breakfast I can drive—”

“Let’s eat in the woods,” Ava says. “I mean, if that’s okay.”

Sam reluctantly agrees by failing to answer either way.

“Maybe you’d like to change before we go?” she thinks to add, giving him a chance to switch shirts and find deodorant.

They walk across the lawn and Ava lags behind. Henry turns to Sam and whispers something private, likely an apology for bringing her along. She gets a peek inside the trailer when Sam opens the door. It’s spartan, neatly ordered: scarcely anything at all. Books, tools, a coffeepot. Nothing on the walls. There’s a power cord connected to an outdoor receptacle but otherwise he may as well be living in a box.

Sam returns better dressed. He needs a shave, his hair is matted, and even fresh deodorant has limits, but his white shirt highlights the color of his skin and there’s a touch of equanimity about him.

“Off we go,” he says.

Henry’s at his side but Ava pulls him back, pretending that she wants to hold his arm in case she stumbles. But the path is clear of obstacles and relatively level and they walk between the ATV’s tire grooves, the Coopers in the back and Sam far ahead. He often vanishes completely when the trail makes a bend. Henry’s silent as can be and Ava doesn’t press, preferring now to study her surroundings more attentively. The air is full of fragrances that fill her with up with color: mushroom, loam, evergreen, and violet. Something’s in the trees, deeper in the shade, where she can’t quite see and where the trail would be invisible. She thinks of hiding out there, on a bed of soft fern, with the jigsaw blue through the overhead leaves. She would sleep. She would wake and find pollen in her hair and it’s delicious to imagine being free of any care.

She’s startled to her senses by a cabin in a clearing. Half a cabin, rather: four walls without a roof or even windows, extra logs piled neatly near a smattering of saws. Henry tenses and his arm feels leaden in her hand, and when she looks at him he winces with a shrug.

“He made me promise.”

“Promise what?” Ava whispers, watching Sam across the way. “Tell me that you didn’t—”

“No, I didn’t lift a thing. He didn’t want Peg to give him trouble with inspectors. He said to keep it secret.”

“Not from me,” Ava says.

“She loves it!” Henry yells, drawing Sam’s attention. They walk toward the cabin in the flickers of the sun. It blinds them here and there and Ava shields her eyes, sizing up Sam and the muscles of his arms. He carries a pair of crosscut stumps one at a time and sets them in the grass, apparently a good deal stronger than he looks.

“I’m sorry I don’t have chairs,” he says. “I built a table, though.”

It’s standing in the shade: small, jointed oak, immaculately made. He places it between the stumps and Ava puts the cooler down.

“It’s perfect,” she says, claiming one of the seats. “What are you and Henry working on today?”

“Nothing big,” Sam says, hesitating slightly. “I need to chop some firewood but Henry—”

“He can do it,” Ava says, setting out the food.

“Is that okay?” Henry asks, like it wasn’t her idea.

“Go ahead,” Ava says. “Just take it easy. We’ll be here.”

She stares at him and tries to make it clear: let us talk. Henry blanks for a second, then nods conspiratorially, subtle as a whisper in a five-foot room.

“Yeah, take a load off,” he says. “Just stay away from those pepper sandwiches she brought.”

“I have bagels, too,” she says.

“Isn’t she great?” Henry mutters, heading for the trees where the chain-sawed limbs are waiting to be split.

The air is smoother in the clearing, like the middle of a lake. Ava settles on a stump and watches Henry start. He looks tremendous, sturdy-shouldered with the ax overhead, and yet he keeps glancing over, mindful of exertion. All at once the sun’s above the tree line, shining on the table and her pale, pale arms. Sam dwells on his bagel as a way of keeping quiet but he’s equally attuned to Ava’s pepper sandwich.

“That’s your breakfast?”

Ava smiles through a bite.

“What do you put in that?” he asks.

“Grilled red peppers, jalapeños, pepper jack cheese, and chipotle garlic mayonnaise. Now and then I dice some habanero in for kick.”

The heat begins to peak and Ava sips her water. She perspires and her sweat feels vaporous and clean. She dabs her temple and relaxes with her chin toward the sky, radiating up in answer to the sun.

“I’ve never understood the appeal,” Sam says, and even though her eyes are closed, she feels the rapt expression on his face.

“When chefs prepare puffer fish,” she says, “they leave just enough poison to make your lips tingle. Danger’s part of the experience. You feel entirely alive after dinner.”

“Have you ever eaten puffer fish?”

“Not yet,” Ava says. “There’s another pepper sandwich in the cooler.”

“Maybe later,” he says. “Where’s Wing today?”

“He’s home with Nan and Joan.”

Then he’s silent once again and doesn’t ask about the Finns. She gives him time, thinking maybe he’s affected by their names, but he sits without a word. They always ask about
him
.

“Henry didn’t tell me you were building out here.”

“That’s surprising,” Sam says.

“I can’t believe you did it by yourself.”

“It’s easy with a plan.”

“How did you lift the logs?”

He looks at her and takes a sip of coffee from a travel mug, comfortable and smiling very faintly, like a swindler.

“I use a block and tackle with the ATV. You set a pair of logs like ramps against the wall and pull the other log up.”

Ava pictures it—a fairly simple thing, after all—and yet she can’t imagine Henry standing idle and observing it. She’s seen him look at Nan when he’s prohibited from helping, even when it’s baking or something else he has no business getting involved with. It must have killed him, picking weeds while the cabin came together, and she wonders if he really kept it secret from embarrassment.

“You didn’t let him help?”

Sam’s smile falls away. He looks at Henry in the distance, mulling what he sees. “He’s lucky I let him do anything.”

Ava draws away, wounded by his tone. Sam’s mood abruptly shifts, just as Henry had described, as if the conversation siphoned off everything he had. His exaggerated sulk feels personal to Ava, a wall of humid air that cushions her away. The forest sags in, somnolent and dense. She has a very strong urge to slap him in the face.

The heat’s grown heavy and the gnats are coming out. Ava yawns to get a lift but her chest won’t rise. She stands and moves away. Henry notices at once. He runs a hand through his hair, flexing inadvertently, and walks directly over like she wanted, like she hoped.

She hugs him and his body feels succulent and firm.

“He wants to be alone,” Ava whispers in his ear. “He doesn’t want to talk about it.”

“Right,” Henry says.

They turn and face Sam, who’s slouching on the stump.

“I think we’re heading out,” Henry says.

Sam nods.

“You need me here tomorrow?”

“Whatever you want.”

“Okey-doke,” Henry says, turning awkwardly to Ava.

“Thanks for having me,” she says.

Sam’s determined to ignore her. She hugs him where he sits, one quick pump. He doesn’t see it coming and he doesn’t see it ending, and she wonders if the gesture was a terrible mistake.

She and Henry say goodbye and leave him there alone, sitting like a prop balanced on the stump. They walk along the path and feel the closeness of the shade. Even Henry doesn’t speak until the cabin’s well behind them. Ava picks a small red flower and examines it. She twirls it in her fingertips, holding it at the stem, until her body and her thoughts start to loosen with the petals. Henry’s sweat is a like fresh-cut onion on the breeze, too new to smell rank, closer to a chive. She wonders if the soil ever steams in the dark. She wants to feel pine sap melting in her palm, soft needles on her back and in the arches of her feet.

She wanders off the trail until she’s ankle-deep in maidenhair, soft green leaves swishing at her calves.

“Where you going?” Henry asks.

She throws the flower at his feet. Henry picks it up as if he’s meant to read a clue. Ava bends low to let her neckline breathe, and then she looks at him and grins and beckons with her fingers.

“Av, we can’t,” he says, wanting to but glancing up the trail.

“Shh.”

Ava turns, forcing him go follow.

She finds a chestnut tree, out of sight from the trail, and leans forward on a low-slung, belly-high branch. Henry crackles up behind her, unfamiliar in his sounds. She hikes her dress to her waist so it bunches on the limb, pillowing the bark so it’s softer on her skin. She totters there a moment, heels off the ground, while she uses both thumbs to roll her panties to her thighs. Henry doesn’t move. Ava stares around the forest, far as she can see, and right as she’s about to pitch forward on the branch, he grabs her by the hips and pulls her back, nice and hard. She lets herself drape, hair crowding at her eyes and her breasts falling upside down around her throat. It’s slippery for a change when he shoves right in and now she couldn’t get away even if she tried. She reaches for the soil just beyond her fingers, and a millipede curls and the rot smells clean. With every sudden oomph, Ava gazes more directly, past the trees, and those behind them, and the shadows in the gaps, pressing urgently against him when he pushes her away, leaning forward to escape when he pulls her up tight.