Good Neighbors(59)

She climbed the stairs, where another tribal Persian rug ran the length. She listened first at Ella’s door, heard soft breathing. Next at FJ’s, heard the same. Last at Shelly’s. She listened for a long time. Imagined the breathing there. Willed it.

Time passed. More than should have passed. Fritz Sr. had to be asleep. It had to be safe, by now, to go to bed. She limped all the way down the hall, to her room. Opened the door. He was awake, even though it had to be after three. He sat on the edge of the bed, his face in his hands, his shoes perfectly neat and facing out the way he liked. Beside him was a wet washcloth, which he’d used to clean his ears.

She sat a few feet from him, on the other side of their enormous bed. He smelled like tea rose, her favorite of his scents, and she thought that perhaps now was the time. In the dark, at night, with a man who’d been so invisible to her for so long that it would be like telling no one. She would confess about the Hungarian Pastry Shop, and about all those doubts she’d had, which she’d never voiced when she’d agreed to marry him. How she’d found herself so very alone on Maple Street. How she’d turned inward. How she’d used a brush. Most of all, she would tell him about the murk that had weighed her down ever since The Black Hole. The murk she couldn’t wash clean of, that had assumed a personality all its own. The murk that had committed unspeakable acts.

She’d tell him these things, and in doing so, unmake them. It would be as if going back in time, back before Shelly, back before the Hungarian Pastry Shop, washed clean to the better life she should have lived. She willed this so very much.

“I have to tell you something,” she began.

He looked up at her, and she saw that he was crying. She couldn’t remember the last time she’d seen him do that. If he’d done it before now, he’d done it alone.

“I miss her so much,” he said.

“She’s not gone. Not to me.”

The floodlights in the faraway park shined a human-made moonglow through their windows.

“How do people live with this?” he asked.

“With what? Do you think I should feel guilty?”

“No. I mean, how do they live with losing a child?”

He’d grown a prickly mustache in the years they’d been together. And his hair was gray. He still dressed in khakis and polo shirts with chemical stains. Still worked long hours. She tried to think of a time he’d taken Shelly on a fishing trip. A time he’d played Uno or catch with her.

“You didn’t raise her. I don’t understand why you’re the one who gets to cry when you never did anything.”

“I’m overwhelmed,” he answered. “This isn’t my area of expertise. But I have the capacity. You’ve always known that about me. You and the children are the only people I’ve ever loved.”

She thought about the way the police had questioned him, and how he hadn’t backed her up. Had only said he wasn’t around enough to know about bricks or sinkholes or sleepovers. Whatever Rhea had told them was probably right. She thought about all the times she’d wanted to come to him over the last twenty-plus years, crying and begging for help. For affection. Approval. Validation. A single kind goddamned word.

She’d assumed that he’d come knocking on her study door because he’d been concerned. Perhaps even suspicious. But no. He’d just felt lost, like always, and had wanted her to tell him what to do.

“I hate you so much,” she said. “I wish you were dead.”





116 Maple Street


Wednesday, July 28

It was crazy late, but Julia couldn’t sleep. She tiptoed into Larry’s room. She didn’t know what she planned to say. Sorry didn’t seem to cover it. And anyway, sorry didn’t mean anything to somebody like Larry. He didn’t believe in words. Just actions. She planned to crawl into his bed and cuddle him. But he was sleeping. The new Robot Boy she’d made him was in the garbage by the door, blue dish towel arm curved over the edge, bolt hand resting outside the plastic bin.

She took it out, put it beside him. His cheeks were splotchy from crying. It was too hot for covers, so he was splayed, his hair wet with sweat.

“Larry,” she whispered.

He flopped in his sleep, turned over.

“You were right. I did want more ice cream.”

She went back to her room, to her window. Charlie Walsh was looking out his window, too. For most of the time she’d lived on this crescent, she’d kept the blinds closed. So had Charlie. They were a year apart; boy and girl, to boot. It wasn’t cool to live so close. Downright awkward, given Charlie’d told the whole Rat Pack he had a crush on her. But then Shelly fell, and she’d been tempted. Just to explain herself. To show him her dog-bit hand, her half-dissolved stitches, and say, “I got hurt, too. So, do you hate me? Do you blame me? Does everyone?”

Even then, neither had pulled back their curtains. It had taken the brick.

Curtains pulled, shade lifted, he’d acted as emissary for the whole Rat Pack the night after she came home from taking her mom to the hospital. Is your mom okay? The baby? he’d asked. It’s so bad, she’d answered. She went so crazy. I didn’t recognize her. Then she’d broken down and cried. He’d just watched until she was done. She’d hoped he would tell her that everything would be okay. He knew such things, because he was logical Charlie. But he’d just stayed with her instead, and that had felt scarier and more honest.