Authors: Stewart O'Nan
The Good Wife (4 page)
THEY TAKE HIS ROLLAWAY, THE TIERS OF FIRE-ENGINE-RED TOOLBOXES still locked—confiscated. They take the brand-new chainsaw and
the Skil saw and the electric hedge trimmers, copying down the serial numbers. They take a dirtbike and a spiderwebbed ten-speed from under a green tarp; they take his new deer rifle and his compound bow and his grandmother’s old shotgun—all stolen, according to the warrant.
the Skil saw and the electric hedge trimmers, copying down the serial numbers. They take a dirtbike and a spiderwebbed ten-speed from under a green tarp; they take his new deer rifle and his compound bow and his grandmother’s old shotgun—all stolen, according to the warrant.
She’s never seen the dirtbike or the ten-speed before, and she’s not sure of some of the power tools, but she was with him at Ben’s Den when he bought the bow. His grandfather’s initials are carved into the stock of the shotgun, all they have to do is look.
It doesn’t matter; the warrant lets them take anything. They have pages of property claims, long lists of descriptions.
They take his weight bench and his dumbbells. They take the eight-track player and the quad speakers he wired up in the corners of the garage so he could listen to Little Feat and Lynyrd Skynyrd and the Allman Brothers while he lifted. They have to back up a truck with a hydraulic gate to take the tile saw, and she can’t stop them, can’t say that Russ needs it for a job.
Eileen deals with the police, makes sure to get a receipt while Patty guards the bedroom, glaring at the invaders with their cotton gloves searching her dresser drawers, pawing through her bras. While she’s busy shadowing them, Mr. McChesney climbs in his van and takes off without a word to her.
The house is occupied, a dozen cops tromping snow through the rooms, blackening the yellow bathmat. The head detective assures her they won’t be much longer. There’s nothing they can do but wait, so Eileen makes lunch for her. Patty sits at the kitchen table slathering their peanut butter and jelly sandwiches and imagines splashing the detective with the potful of hot chicken noodle soup.
It’s impossible to talk with all the cops around. She and Eileen huddle at the table, spooning up noodles, taking patient bites of their sandwiches. The soup tastes good; it used to be her favorite
when she was little. She used to keep a kind of food diary, a faithful record of what they ate for every meal. The cops would probably think her shorthand was some kind of code.
when she was little. She used to keep a kind of food diary, a faithful record of what they ate for every meal. The cops would probably think her shorthand was some kind of code.
What the stolen property means about Tommy—if it’s actually stolen and they’re not just hassling them—she doesn’t want to contemplate. That he was lying to her the whole time. That he thought she was too stupid to notice.
The detective comes through and says they’re finished with the back of the house. Eileen does the dishes while she fixes the bedroom, digging under the corners of the waterbed to fit the sheets on—tough, since she can’t bend at the waist. The cops have knocked over her perfumes and haven’t bothered to set them upright. She’s surprised they didn’t take her jewelry box just on principle.
She’s going to have to wash the bathroom rugs, there’s no way around it. As she’s straightening the shelves by the sink, she stops, his deodorant in hand. She pulls the cap off and rubs the lime stick on her wrist, sniffs it with her eyes closed. The scent is nothing at all like him. She caps the stick and puts it back, glad no one saw her.
The detective says they’re all done. She has to sign a list of everything they’ve taken, Eileen double-checking it over her shoulder. The detective turns his clipboard sideways and carefully tears off a copy for her.
“When will I get everything back?” Patty asks.
“That depends on the outcome of our investigation.”
“Is that a week, a month, what?”
“That’s as soon as we can, ma’am.”
She chains the door after him, shoots his car the finger as it eases down the drive, then stands there, making sure he leaves.
“Well,” Eileen says, “at least they didn’t take the TV.”
“Yeah,” Patty says, “great.”
They clean up, going room to room. The garage looks empty without his weights and his toolbox, like they’ve broken up and the cops have helped him move out. She wishes she could remember seeing the dirtbike before. Outside, snow coats the pines. The drive is a switchyard of tire tracks. She should scrape off her car and bring it in, but just rolls the door closed and goes upstairs.
SHE HAS TO CONSCIOUSLY PREPARE TO CALL HER MOTHER, TO PSYCH herself into the right frame of mind, as if she has only this one shot. Eileen understands, and offers to run out to the P&C and grab something for supper. She won’t take the twenty Patty shoves at her, and then she’s out the door and the house is finally quiet. For the first time today, Patty’s totally alone.
She gathers what little information she has on the lawyers and squares a pad and a pen with her chair at the kitchen table before bringing over the receiver and sitting down. She can’t get too emotional or her mother will turn cold and logical on her, as if Patty’s incapable of dealing with this rationally.
She stands and hangs up, circles through the living room and the kitchen and the bedroom and then back again, pausing at the front window to stare at the bare trees crossed against the sky, trying to find an answer that will satisfy any questions her mother might ask. Because she can’t just give her the money, that would
be too easy. Patty’s fear is that she’ll say it’s just not possible, meaning Patty’s being unrealistic.
be too easy. Patty’s fear is that she’ll say it’s just not possible, meaning Patty’s being unrealistic.
She looks at the estimate she scratched down last night and thinks it won’t be good enough. Her mother will want to know exactly how much this is going to cost her, to the penny. She’ll ask Patty to come up with a number before she makes any decision, and they don’t have time for that.
She wonders how much she could really get for the truck.
The fucked-up thing about it is that Shannon would have the money.
She brings the phone over again and stabs at the buttons before she can think. For the hundredth time today she wishes for a cigarette.
“I was wondering when you’d call me back,” her mother says.
“It’s been kind of crazy here.”
“I can imagine.”
“I saw him. He’s doing okay.” She gives her mother a chance to interrupt, but the line is silent. “They’re saying he broke into this house with Gary—”
“I heard,” her mother says. “Mrs. Tuthill was good enough to call me and tell me all about it.”
“He didn’t do it. I know he didn’t.”
“But he was there?”
“He was with Gary. They were drunk.”
“That makes me feel better,” her mother says.
“Mom, come on.”
“Are you aware that you knew her?”
“I haven’t been listening to the news.”
“Patty, it was Mrs. Wagner.”
Her mother waits. Patty’s so overwhelmed by the idea that she can’t place the name.
“Elsie Wagner’s mother. You remember. Elsie used to lifeguard at the Y when you girls were little. Tall blonde, freckles, wore her hair in a ponytail?”
Patty doesn’t completely remember her, but she can’t say that.
“Her mother went to St. Ann’s with the Tuthills. They’re going to have the funeral there on Saturday.”
She mentions this as if Patty should go.
“I didn’t know” is all Patty can say.
“So, how are
you
in all of this?”
you
in all of this?”
“Okay. Tired. I’m still trying to find a lawyer.”
“What have you found out?”
“They’re expensive.”
“That goes without saying.”
She mentions the five-thousand-dollar retainer.
“That’s highway robbery,” her mother comments. “How many of them have you talked to?”
“He’s the one everyone recommends.”
Patty registers her silence.
“The police have the truck. I figure if we sell it—”
“I know what you’re asking. Do you honestly think I have five thousand dollars just lying around? I wish I did. I’d give it to you in a heartbeat, Patty, I would.”
“I wasn’t asking. I just wanted to let you know what we’re doing.”
“Then I apologize. It sounded like you were building up to something. I didn’t want you to get your hopes up.”
“Don’t worry,” Patty says, “I’m not.”
She barely listens after this, drawing a fat black X through the numbers in front of her. Her mother won’t let her go, offering to come over. She saw a show about burglars taking advantage of women in her situation; the way she says it, it’s like Patty has a terminal disease.
“Eileen’s here,” Patty says.
“Eventually she’s going to have to go back to work. You really shouldn’t be there by yourself.
“Let me know if you need help,” her mother says as they say goodbye.
“Thanks, Mom,” Patty says. “I will.”
SHE TALKS WITH THE PUBLIC DEFENDER’S OFFICE, THEN MAKES A second trip to the jail. He takes it better than she expected, and she understands that she’s let him down. The sun is setting over the hills as Eileen drives her home. Patty’s glad to see it go, and at the same time worries about him spending the night there by himself. The day is finally over, but the feeling that she’s forgotten something nags at her.
Eileen makes dinner, their mother’s chicken casserole with the swiss cheese and boxed stuffing mix. It smells good, but they’ve both been awake too long, they’re shaky from running on raw nerves, and neither of them feels like eating. Patty rakes hers over her plate, wondering what Tommy’s having. She’s supposed to drink milk for the baby, and gags a glass down, tipping her chin up to help her swallow. What she could really use is a double shot of Jack to punch her into a different frame of mind, but that’s at least three months away. She takes her vitamin at the sink and starts to do the dishes.
“I’ll get those,” Eileen says.
“I’ve got to do something, otherwise I’ll go nuts.”
So Eileen dries, squatting and craning to fit the pots and plates into the cupboards.
They don’t dare watch TV, and the stereo’s a trap, all the songs that belong to him. Eileen votes for gin, and Patty gives in to her. They sit tailorseat on the couch, facing each other, wrapped in sleeping bags, a supply of soft dutch chocolate cookies within reach.
“This is like a slumber party,” Patty says.
“Except there’s not popcorn all over the floor.”
“And Mom’s not screaming at us.”
They pick up and discard from a pillow set between them.
“That was stupid,” Eileen tells herself when Patty nabs the queen she just dumped.
They don’t keep score, but it seems to Patty that Eileen wins almost every hand. She wonders if it’s too early to go to bed.
Eileen wins again.
“It’s just not my day,” Patty says, and they quit. She finds the jokers and folds the flaps closed. “Are you going to be okay out here? You can watch TV if you want, it won’t bother me.”
Eileen’s fine.
“Thank you,” Patty says, and leans down to kiss her forehead the way she did when she used to babysit her. Now Eileen’s taking care of her; it’s like they’ve changed places. Like always, their mother and Shannon are nowhere.
She brushes her teeth and pees, the bathroom all hers, unnatural. Dropping her clothes in the hamper, she sees one of his tube socks under yesterday’s jeans, the butterscotch dye of his workboots worn into the heel. For an instant she’s tempted to rescue it, but doesn’t.
She circles the bed and gets in, her skin absorbing the chill of the sheets. She’s too tired to read, and the book seems stupid now, bad luck; she’ll give it back to Eileen. She settles in, then decides it’s too
cold and levers herself out, gropes the three steps to his dresser and hauls on his favorite Bills T-shirt and a pair of wool socks. They don’t help right away; she just has to stay still and let the bed warm, like an engine. All day she’s wanted to crawl under the covers and surrender; now, with the house fallen silent around her, it doesn’t feel like an escape. She rolls over and curls around the body pillow.
cold and levers herself out, gropes the three steps to his dresser and hauls on his favorite Bills T-shirt and a pair of wool socks. They don’t help right away; she just has to stay still and let the bed warm, like an engine. All day she’s wanted to crawl under the covers and surrender; now, with the house fallen silent around her, it doesn’t feel like an escape. She rolls over and curls around the body pillow.
She’s seen the beds they have in jail on TV—steel bunks with thin mattresses and scratchy blankets. She’s afraid he’ll be cold. He needs two pillows; sometimes when he doesn’t sleep right his neck hurts and she has to rub Heet into his muscles.
She feels herself concentrating, focusing her closed eyes as if she can see his cell. She needs to relax and see nothing, an empty screen. She thinks of Casey, floating warm inside her, his heartbeat slowing, echoing hers. Sometimes at night she feels him flutter or turn, a dolphin swimming, but right now he’s quiet. He’s probably as tired as she is.
Outside, a car motors by, a jetlike rush of wind, then nothing.
The bed warms, and she drifts into a pleasant half-sleep, a dream of summer on her grandmother’s farm when she was eleven—the old metal seat of the tractor, the barn that smelled of musty hay and cow dung. She’s happy there, peeking over the rough boards of the stalls. The cows look up at her with milky eyeballs but don’t stop chewing. Their gums are a mix of pink and black like a dog’s.
When the phone goes off, it’s like a memory, the ring calling her back to the present. Immediately she knows it’s about him, someone from the jail. It’s past midnight, the time reserved for bad news. She slaps at the phone, grips it.
A man asks if this is Mrs. Dickerson—older, serious, official.
“Yes,” she says, “this is she.”
“Mrs. Dickerson,” he says calmly, “do you know how easy it would be to kill you right now?”
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