The Shelter Cycle (3 page)

“Would you mind if I told you the story of how I came to be here?” Colville closed his eyes for a moment, bowed his head, then looked up, smiling first at Francine, then at Wells. “This has been over the last few weeks. I mean, not that I didn't think of you before, Francine. But I was living in Spokane, in a little garage, kind of converted into a house. I had a yard, and I'd get animals coming right through sometimes.”

Turning his head, he gestured at the window, where dusk had turned to darkness, the glass reflecting back. “Anyway, one night I was awakened by a scratching. On the ceiling, the rooftop. A scrabbling, and then it was gone. In the morning I saw the prints, outside in the mud. There were scratches along the windowsill, too, like something had tried to peek inside, had watched me while I was sleeping.”

Colville was almost whispering now. Francine listened intently, leaning forward with her eyes closed.

“The tracks were all wrecked by the rain, and I couldn't decide if it had four toes on its front feet, five on its back—and then I couldn't remember if rodents had five and five or even which animals were rodents.” He laughed. “My father taught me all that, and I couldn't remember. But each night after that, when I got home from work I'd move my little card table close to the window, and I'd wait there, doing my crosswords and Sudokus, until I could feel something watching me. The first time I looked up, nothing was there. Only the window.”

Colville suddenly stopped talking. He cocked his head, listening.

“What is it?” Francine said.

“Is there anyone else in the house?”

“No,” she said. “Just us.”

“Do you have a washroom I could use?”

“Down the hall there, between the two bedrooms.” She pointed to the doorway, and Colville nodded. He rose, and Kilo followed close behind him.

Francine picked up her teacup, set it down. She looked tired, her hair pulled back in a loose ponytail, her lips moving slightly; Wells knew that this meant she was thinking, not that she was about to speak.

“Do you need something?” he said. “I'll get up.”

“No,” she said.

“Are we going to let him stay here?” He kept his voice low.

“What?”

“That's what this is about, has to be.”

“I don't think that's what this is about.”

“Is he all right?”

“I think so,” she said.

Wells wanted to say more, but he kept expecting Colville to return. He strained to hear, wondering how long it had been. Had the man gone into their bedroom? Or downstairs?

“Francine,” Colville said, coming in behind them, through the kitchen door. “It's so nice to see that picture of your folks there. At work on their shelter. Lifesavers.”

“That was the name of the shelter,” Francine said before Wells asked. “Because it was round.”

“How's Maya?” Colville said. “I saw her there in the picture, too.”

“Good. She moved back to Montana, lives in Bozeman.”

“Family?”

“No,” Francine said. “She lives alone.”

Colville had not sat down in the chair again. Instead, he put on his jacket, zipped it up, gathered his cap in his hands.

“Are you going?” Francine said.

“Going?” He looked around the room, at the front door, behind him, then sat down. “It's nice to be here with you,” he said.

“It's a surprise.”

“You thought I forgot,” he said. “Didn't you?”

“What?” she said.

“You thought I forgot where I was.” He wiped at his lips, smiled.

“No,” she said. “I didn't think that.”

“In my story, I mean. I didn't forget.”

“Okay.”

Colville tilted his head toward the ceiling, then lowered his gaze slowly, his eyes half closed as he began to speak. “I'd sit there at night by the window, doing my puzzles, waiting for her. What I learned was to watch out of the corner of my eye, my peripheral vision, not to turn my head.” He touched the edge of his eye with his fingertip. “And then the night came when I saw her—her sharp ears, and those thick hairs all around her bandit face. She'd sit on the sill and look in the window, like she wanted to help me somehow. If I stood up, she'd leap down, slip away. It looked more like she was climbing the ground, not running across it.”

“A raccoon,” Wells said.

“She was and she wasn't. Or she was more than that, too. What it was was the way she kept coming back—”

“You fed her?”

“I tried—marshmallows, tuna fish—but that wasn't what she was after.” Colville checked Francine's face, to be certain she was following. “All that sitting there together, so close like that without talking—she came to remind me of you, Francine. And then I started to think of the raccoon as you. I came to believe, to see how it might be you, calling on me.”

Francine lifted her hands, then set them down on her thighs again.

“It was you, wasn't it?”

“The raccoon?” she said.

“It wasn't just the raccoon,” he said. “I should tell you that. The raccoon showed me that you were trying to reach me, but it was the girl who told me where you were.”

“The girl?”

“The lost girl,” he said. “Your neighbor girl.”

“She told you?”

“I was reading the newspaper,” Colville said, holding up his hands, trying to slow down. “When I was in Spokane, and I read about this girl. All at once, when I saw her picture, I knew I had to come find her. I had a feeling. And then, then on the first day I was out searching, who should I see but you—right after those weeks of the raccoon. So that's how I know that none of this is some sort of coincidence.” He glanced at Francine. “And of course we were taught never to believe in coincidences.”

“Let's just slow down for a minute,” Wells said. “Hold on—”

“I did it,” Colville said, suddenly standing. He spoke as if scolding himself. “I kept talking and now I went too far. I can feel it, I can see that now.” He began patting his pockets, glancing around as if he might have dropped something.

“Wait,” Francine said.

“I really have to go. I do. Thank you so much. I apologize.” Turning, Colville pulled the door open, glanced back once. “Good night.”

The door closed, and Wells and Francine sat for a moment; the sound of footsteps faded away outside.

“There he goes,” Wells said.

“Colville.”

“Was he always like that?”

“I guess. I don't know. He was a boy when I knew him. A long time ago.”

Wells reached out, took Francine's hand.

“He seemed so nervous,” she said, “or something.”

“Or something,” he said. “I could tell it bothered you.”

“It was just such a surprise,” she said. “After so long.”

“And then all that about the raccoon,” he said. “What was that about?”

“I don't know,” she said, taking her hand back. “Nothing.”

“And the newspaper article? What was up with that?”

“I have to work early,” she said, standing. “I should take a bath.”

Wells sat by himself for a moment, then went into the kitchen and wiped the crumbs from the table. He began loading the dishwasher. The air felt tight, as if the atmosphere were still settling. It had been only an hour since he opened the door and Colville stepped inside, started talking, tightening everything up.

Kilo scratched at the door. When had he gone out? Turning off the faucet, Wells let the dog in, then walked past the sink, down the hallway. The water was running in the bathtub, the sound echoing. He pushed the door open.

Francine sat on the edge of the tub in her underwear and her shirt, pulling off one of her socks. Her belly made it hard for her to reach, to bend over. Standing, she began to pull off her shirt, then paused and looked at him, as if surprised to see that he was still there.

“Did he really think you turned into a raccoon?” he said.

“No,” she said. “I don't think that's what he meant.”

“That's how it sounded.”

“If you grew up like we did, it might make more sense.”

“I didn't,” he said. “And I doubt it would make more sense.”

Wells stepped closer; he reached out and traced the dark line that ran from her navel to the wide elastic of her underwear. It surprised him how hard her stomach was, how taut. He expected a ripple, a kick, but nothing came.

“Linea negra,” she said.

“What?”

“Black line,” she said. “That's what they call it.”

He wiped condensation from the mirror. “You don't have to stop undressing.”

“We're talking,” she said.

“Do you think we'll see him again?”

“I have no idea,” she said, turning away. “Would you close the door when you go out, so the cold air doesn't come in?”

T
WO DAYS PASSED
, three. Francine had been working for most of them—leaving early, coming home late. Tonight Wells lay in bed, listening until he heard her car in the driveway, her key in the door.

Kilo leapt from the bed and rushed down the hall; he returned in a moment, leading Francine into the bedroom.

“You didn't have to wait up,” she said.

“I wanted to.”

She shrugged her shoulders and let her white coat fall to the wooden floor with a heavy, dull clatter. A notebook came free and the rubber tube of a stethoscope slapped out, its metal bell bouncing.

“It's just the weight of it all,” she said. “The coat, the baby, everything.” She took out her earrings, set them on her dresser, then picked up something else.

“What's that?” he said.

“A heart,” she said, holding it out to show him. “A wooden heart.” It fit in the palm of her hand.

“I've never seen it before.”

“It's nothing—I've had it a long time, since I was a girl.”

Francine went down the hallway again. He heard water running in the bathroom and then the sound of her sighing. He waited.

When she returned, he switched off the lamp on the bedside table; he held the blankets up, so she could slide underneath, press her back against him. Pulling down the straps of her nightgown, he ran his thumbs along the sharp ridges of her shoulder blades, his fingers up under her hair, along her neck.

“That's better,” she said.

“Remember that time,” he said, “on the way to Moab? What was the name of that town, that motel?”

“Beaver. The Beaver Inn. That was a good time.”

Outside, a horn honked, a dog barked, and then it was silent again. The moonlight eased through a gap in the curtains; pale freckles spread across Francine's skin.

“I thought,” he said, “before, when I was thinking of all this time before the baby came, that it would be just us, the two of us, you know, doing all the things we wouldn't be able to do for so long.”

“If I don't work all these shifts now,” she said, “I'll hardly have a maternity leave. You'll see a lot of me, then.”

“But you won't be alone.”

“Jealous?”

He laid his palms flat on the small of her back, pressing gently. Outside, the wind raced through the trees; the house creaked and settled.

“This reminds me of when I was a girl,” she said. “How Maya and I used to talk in bed. We used to rub each other's back.”

“You shared a bed?”

“It was a mattress on the floor of the living room.”

“This was in the trailer?”

“On our side of the living room. The room was cut in half by a bookcase, where our altar was on one side and Colville's family's on the other.”

“What kind of altar?”

“I've been thinking,” she said. “Of how much fun we had back then. Playing around. Talking to Maya. Just being out in the canyons and everything.” She rolled over, almost trapping his hands beneath her body, her face close to his, her belly firm against him. “Sometimes it's hard to figure out how I got from there to here.”

“But you did,” he said. “Here you are.”

“Yes, I did,” she said. “And I am here.” She turned over, away from him once more; she was silent for a moment, and then she spoke again. “Having an older sister definitely helped. Maya had the answers. For the kids at school, I mean. Once we were in Seattle, living with our grandparents, she told me how to answer the questions: ‘Of course our parents had guns—didn't everyone hunt?' ‘Well, in Switzerland everyone's required to have a bomb shelter.' And most of my friends' parents were hippies, so if anyone asked about our church we could talk about Buddhism, or Taoism or Confucius. It didn't feel like I was lying—I was just figuring out how to tell my story so I could fit in.”

“Did it work?”

“I don't know,” she said. “We tried. It wasn't like we could go to Methodist church with our grandparents, that that made sense. We were used to being surrounded by people who all believed the same, who were preparing for the same things, you know? So when we moved away, we lost all that. It was hard to know what to do.”

“And you lost your folks, too.”

“That's what I'm saying.” Francine shifted, straightened her legs. “Knowing we're going to have the baby makes me think about them, my parents. It makes me remember everything, how it was.”

Wells waited. In the past she'd never wanted to talk about her childhood. She laughed it off or changed the subject; if he waited long enough, he hoped, the time would come when she would tell him about it.

“Seeing your friend, too,” he said.

“What?”

“Seeing Colville makes you remember.”

“Yes,” she said.

“Have you seen him since the other night?”

“No. I figure he's gone back to Spokane or wherever.”

“Spokane,” he said, “where you're a raccoon.”