‘It feels humid again,’ grumbled Jack, not looking up from his pills.
There was that feeling to the day. Oppressive, noisy with birds fretting about the air pressure.
‘It is another beautiful day!’ corrected Milly forcefully. He glanced up, and there it was. Her stubborn face. The fiercely cocked left eyebrow.
‘Beautiful!’ She spat the word at him.
Jack ignored her, focused on the pills. Hadn’t he already taken that pink one?
‘You’re just tired,’ accused Milly. ‘Why do you stay up so late?’
He remembered last night vaguely. His reluctance to end the day – well, of course. How many more days did he have? He wondered why Milly always wanted to rush to the end of the day, closing blinds early, going to bed by nine.
‘Me, tired! I’m not the one getting up in the middle of the night to eat yoghurt! And God knows what else. Didn’t we have a whole loaf of raisin bread? Milly?’
She ignored him, brushing crumbs from the counter to the floor for the dogs.
Jack and Milly were lucky. They could see Mount Tamalpais from their living room window, San Francisco Bay was half a block away, and their street was leafy and quiet. Once there’d been a chicken farm right here. Milly liked to remember this fact. A time when their house was just a marshy field full of hens and rickety sheds. Other houses were close, but it still felt private here. Their world had only them in it. And the ghosts of King and Jaspy.
‘Sam! I mean Jaspy! I mean Jack! Jack!’
Names felt like random odd socks to Milly. She knew they each belonged to one particular other, but she was in a hurry, darn it. She grabbed the name that came to her easiest, and sometimes that happened to be the name of a child or a dead dog.
‘Jack! Do you hear me?’
Jack was almost done. Two more pills, and that would be that. His plan was hatching now, and he almost smiled. Funny how having a project – any kind of project – was so cheering. The day ahead beckoned, and he swallowed the last pills with mango juice. It tasted sweet and cold: delicious. He hadn’t noticed this earlier. In fact, everything was shifting now. It was almost imperceptible, but there it was. Everything had a tingly halo around it, even the sound of the morning radio, the appearance of his wife, the smell of the burnt toast. The house itself was vibrating with foreknowledge.
Today will be different.
For years now, Jack had been conscious of a waiting sensation. All day, every day, he’d been waiting for their lives to get back to normal. Never mind that his old life drove him half crazy, the way the cheque book never balanced, Milly cooking meatloaf three times a week, the dogs never doing what he told them to do. That was normal, and normality was what he yearned for now. Having a plan, no matter how bizarre the plan, tasted like normality to Jack. He was in control again.
‘Jack!’ she shouted again. That man was so deaf.
‘Whath ith it?’ His tongue was suddenly furry and swollen, and the words came out thick as molasses.
‘Where. Are. The. Dogs.’
‘The thog’s er thead, Milly.’
‘What’s wrong with you?’ she asked. He asked himself the same question. Was he drunk? He had to concentrate, remember if that amazing martini he made recently was as recently as five minutes ago. No, no, it was just more post-stroke crap. He took a deep breath and corralled his tongue. So annoying. You think you’re in an ordinary day, then wham. Some days he drooled. Some days his left eyelid only opened halfway till lunch time.
‘I thaid. The thogs. Er thead.’
‘Oh! I knew that!’ Angry at herself again.
‘Courthe you thid, tharling. I knew thath thoo.’
‘I just told you that! You always have to be right, don’t you?’
Jack smirked and sighed. The woozy feeling hovered about an inch from his skull. Would it descend and engulf him? Some days he woke inside this cloud of fug, other days merely slipped into it, then out. Like a seal bobbing in some waves, gasping for oxygen. Now and then he still got rushes of energy, when he thought all things were still possible, if he could just get his teeth in and shave. He’d buy a new hat. A nice grey fedora, or a soft brown trilby. Nothing like a new hat to perk a man up. Then he’d go to the Montecito Travel Agency and walk out with a plane ticket tucked into his wallet. If the damn agency was still there – last time he looked, not only couldn’t he find it, but the teenage boy he asked had never heard of it. And come to think of it, did men wear hats anymore? On what day had men stopped thinking they looked great in hats? He sighed again, remembering how putting on a hat used to make him feel ready for anything.
‘I guess that means I don’t have to feed the dogs then.’ She sighed.
‘I guess not. No more feeding the dogs.’ No lisping this time, whew! Come home to Daddy, tongue.
‘As if you would. Even if they were alive, I mean. As if you ever did.’
Then a giggle snuck into their eyes, but they didn’t give it away. No, no! It was automatic, this withholding of pleasure from each other as long as possible. The smiles resided quietly in the corners of their softly puckered mouths. Their yellowing eyes.
‘Hey, you think it’s easy being perfect? It’s lonely, I tell you, lonely as hell out here,’ said Jack, staring her down, and she surrendered at last. That old girly giggle.
Bless her; it was so easy to make her happy. And wasn’t that forgetfulness of hers also a blessing for him? She forgot all his misdemeanours hourly, and kept sliding back to her original adoration of him. In her brighter days, she could sulk for entire weeks. Once, when she was about twenty-five she didn’t speak to him for almost a month.
But wait. Her face was changing again. He could watch her thoughts flit through her mind as easily as if she was speaking out loud. Oh no, here we go again, he thought. The cocked eyebrow, the look.
‘Did you return Elisabeth’s call?’
‘You never said she called.’
‘I told you, Jack. Three times, I told you.’
‘Are you sure?’
‘Would I lie?’
Thinking about his daughter, the great idea drifted off. He’d had the idea before; it was a fantasy, a comforting dream. He’d even attempted it once and failed. Besides, his bowel movement was calling, and all other thoughts (even about his daughter) were shunted to the side. Who could have predicted that one day the high point of his day would be a crap? Perversely, it could also be the most hellish part of the day. Excruciation followed by bliss. An accomplished bowel movement was like the first time he sat in the driver’s seat and really opened up the Singer, hit a hundred miles an hour. The Singer scream. One thing was for sure: bowels were king. Jack never ever messed with them. Off he toddled to the bathroom, like a sinful Catholic to confession. He took the newspaper and then picked up a pen in case he had to resort to the crossword. So another morning was lived through. It was hot already. The windows throughout the house were open, but there was no breeze.
Jack’s Glenmorangie glass from last night, his wine glass and his martini glass, were stacked in the decrepit dishwasher with the breakfast dishes. With great difficulty, clothes were dragged on for the millionth time, teeth were inserted, tears were cried, ringing phones were answered.
