Five Tuesdays in Winter(54)

Matty was fascinated by her work, the new movements of her arms, the strange tool and its wonderful noise as she thrust it again and again into the earth, and the spray of dirt and rocks that came up over her back onto the grass, sometimes landing on the thick rubber lip of his red sneaker. He sat and watched her with more interest even than he watched the backhoes on Spring Street, digging up an old septic system. She worked hard and fast and the sweat began to mix with the milk and the tears inside her robe. She was surprised, given the season, how soft the earth was, how relenting. Soon she’d dug deep enough to step down into it. She felt its warmth curl around her ankles. Its smell was intoxicating. She’d paid so little attention to the earth in her life.

When she was done digging, she scooped Matty up and brought him into the house, fed him a small bowl of rice cereal mixed with applesauce (they were back in their regular spots on the wonderful wobbly shelves), and put him in his crib. He cried briefly, but by the time she came back downstairs and listened for him through the monitor, there was only the loud tide of his breath in sleep. She dragged the man from where he’d fallen across the pantry’s narrow threshold out the back door. His feet bounced carefree down the steps. He was light and fell into the hole gracefully, like a piece of cloth, so she didn’t have to get in there and rearrange him. There was no mound when she’d finished; every scoop of dirt had fit perfectly back in. She replaced the sod she’d carefully cut out and went inside. According to the clock on the stove, her work had taken forty-nine minutes.

The book was sprawled on the floor where he had flung it. She brought it over to the couch, tossed off the diaper, and lay lengthwise, on her stomach. She turned to the last chapter. The red cross-outs had faded, and it was, she could easily see now, a fine ending.





ACKNOWLEDGMENTS


I am indebted to the following people for their close reading, advice, and guidance with these stories: Don Lee at Ploughshares, Hannah Tinti at One Story, Christina Thompson at Harvard Review, Leigh Haber at Oprah Daily, Tyler Clements, Calla King-Clements, Eloise King-Clements, Josh Bodwell, Susan Conley, Sara Corbett, Anja Hanson, Caitlin Gutheil, Debra Spark, Linden Frederick, and Laura Rhoton McNeal. These pieces were transformed into a collection during a pandemic by the phenomenal people at Grove Atlantic: my brilliant and beloved editor Elisabeth Schmitz, Morgan Entrekin, Deb Seager, Judy Hottensen, Justina Batchelor, Sam Trovillion, Amy Hundley, Gretchen Mergenthaler, Julia Berner-Tobin, Paula Cooper Hughes, and Yvonne Cha. I’m deeply grateful to my dear and spectacular agent, Julie Barer. It’s impossible to publish a story collection without acknowledging my high school English teacher, Tony Paulus, who taught me what a short story was, then told me to write them. A thousand thanks to my husband, Tyler, and our daughters, Eloise and Calla, for everything every day.





About the Author


Lily King is the author of The Pleasing Hour, The English Teacher, Father of the Rain, Euphoria and Writers & Lovers, which was a New York Times bestseller. Euphoria won the Kirkus Prize and the New England Book Award for Fiction, and was also a New York Times bestseller. It was a finalist for the National Book Critics Circle Award. King is also the recipient of a Whiting Writers’ Award and has twice won both the Maine Fiction Award and the New England Book Award. She lives with her husband and children in Maine, USA.