Retirement Plan (5 page)

Lois followed Uncle Harry across the stubble field and into the woods. The air was cold enough that Lois could see her breath. They hadn’t put up a deer stand yet that year, so they decided to lay a blanket on a small hill overlooking the stream where the deer liked to cross. Harry fell asleep first. Lois hadn’t even realized she’d been sleeping until a sound woke her. She opened her eyes and not ten yards away stood a big buck. He snorted and Uncle Harry’s breathing changed. He was awake too. He took her hand and placed it over the rifle. The stock was cold.

“Slowly, now,” he whispered.

The buck cocked its head as little by little she rolled over and brought the rifle up. She closed one eye and had it in her sights. Only when she started squeezing the trigger did the buck jerk his head up, alert. He moved at the same time the shot went off. For a long moment after the crack of the rifle she couldn’t hear a thing.

Then Uncle Harry’s hand was on her shoulder. “Open your eyes, kid. You got him.”

The buck was writhing. “Should I take another shot?” she asked.

“Naw. He’ll quiver a bit, but he’s gone.”

At Uncle Harry’s insistence Lois walked slowly toward the great animal. She’d hit him in the throat. Above the oozing, bloody gash, his head slanted awkwardly because of his great antlers. The deer’s bloody coat hadn’t bothered her as much as the large brown eye staring up at her. She saw it in her dreams for a long time. Even in Vietnam, when she’d killed Charley, she could see that unblinking, accusing eye. Lois didn’t like killing, but she could do it if she had a good reason, and paying the taxes on the house was reason enough these days.

The sun was a yellow ball low in the east, casting long shadows by the time Schneider’s red Explorer rolled to a stop on the small asphalt drive next to the building.    Lois had bolted the M-16 to the tripod at the edge of the road. She knelt in the ditch and scooted down on her belly. Then she pushed her black-rimmed glasses up on her forehead and lined up the sight. Waves of heat rose from the asphalt country road in her line of vision. Sweat trickled from her forehead, her knees ached from the damp ground, and the arthritis in her lower back radiated pain that she forced herself to ignore. Somewhere behind her a bird warbled. Then the M-16 exploded, and Josh Schneider fell.

Limping slightly, Lois found the shell in the gravel a few yards ahead of the truck.  She pocketed it and got back into the cab. This time she didn’t go closer to make sure Schneider was dead. He hadn’t moved. From what she knew about him, she was ready to let the bastard bleed out slowly if he was alive and conscious. She loaded her gear into the truck and fought sleep all the way home.

*

Morgan passed Tallulah’s on the way to and from work daily. When she’d first returned from Texas to help her mother, she’d pulled into the parking lot on Friday nights and watched people in groups of three or four come and go, laughing and calling to each other. She’d gone in and found an empty stool at the bar. While people were friendly enough, she’d left the way she came, alone. She’d felt a pang and the usual confusion. Did she want another woman? If not, what was the attraction? She’d recall the condo that she and Steve had rented, and then, with a mixture of guilt and shame, she remembered Chelsea.

Her last week in Texas had been bad. Her husband, Steve, had quit talking to her and stopped coming home right after work, and her neighbor, Chelsea, had turned off her phone and wouldn’t answer the door. Morgan (her name had been Tisckos back then) had been looking for some method of escape when her mother called. Sometimes she wondered what would have happened if she’d stayed. Steve might have forgiven her, or Chelsea might have changed her mind. Coming home and filing for divorce had been the path of least resistance.

She and Steve had moved to Texas after their honeymoon. He’d landed a good job in a software firm and she’d enrolled in a criminal-justice program at a local college. The autumn that Chelsea Payne and her husband moved into the condo next door, Morgan’s classes were mostly at night. During weekends over a grill in the backyard, the couples discovered they had a lot in common; both were new to Texas, both were there thanks to an aggressive headhunter, and both were from the Midwest. Chelsea and Jim were a little older and had been married longer, but the couples became fast friends.

Morgan liked the way Chelsea could make her laugh. She was slim and attractive, a look Morgan envied. Chelsea sold real estate and worked out of her home. In the late morning they got together for cups of chocolate-raspberry coffee. Chelsea was easy to talk to and Morgan, who missed her family and friends back home, talked a lot. They developed a swift intimacy. In the evenings while the guys played video games, she and Chelsea would sit on the deck, drink cheap wine beneath a sizzling blue bug light, and talk about their hopes and dreams. Chelsea had grown up with five younger brothers and an older sister who got married and a couple of years later came back home with two more little boys. Chelsea didn’t want children. She said she’d had enough.

“Steve wants a big family,” Morgan said. “Three, maybe four, children.”

“What about you?” Chelsea asked. “What do you want?”

“I’d like to have a daughter someday,” Morgan said wistfully. “I liked the relationship I had with my mom.”

“My mother was a broodmare.”

“Ha. You can’t fool me. Lots of people farm where I come from. Brooding is for hens.”

Then they were both laughing.

Morgan had replayed the next moment in her mind a thousand times. She’d reached across Chelsea for the wine bottle and found herself in an embrace. Chelsea’s moist lips found hers. Morgan started to push her away, but something stopped her. A warm sensation spread through her belly.

Chelsea’s mouth was at her ear whispering, “I’ve wanted you since I met you.”

“Wha…?”

“You’ve never been with a woman?”

Morgan didn’t want to seem ignorant, and she didn’t want to discourage Chelsea’s advances, so the “I’m married” sort of stuck in her throat. Chelsea knew she was married. Good grief, Chelsea was married. Morgan giggled nervously and began apologizing.

“You didn’t do anything,” Chelsea whispered. Then she put her hand on Morgan’s knee and started sliding it upward.

“The guys are right inside.”

“You want me to stop?”

“Not really, but—”

“You wanna go to my place?”

Morgan nodded. Sweat dripped out of her hair and into her eyes as she stood, and hand in hand they started across the lawn. Then Morgan said, “Stop.”

Chelsea dropped her hand and faced her.

“I got sweat in my eye.”

“Come on, then.” Chelsea took her hand again. “I’ll guide you. I got everything we need at my place.”

Until that moment Morgan had never considered cheating on Steve. With Chelsea, she wasn’t even sure who would do what. But she couldn’t seem to stop herself.

After that, they were together daily. Morgan, it turned out, was a quick study. She was so drawn to Chelsea, all she could think about was her smell, her taste, and the weight of her body as they moved together. During breakfast across from Steve, she thought about the trails of lava that were Chelsea’s fingers, touching her and penetrating her. Lying in each other’s arms, they talked about a dream world where they could leave their husbands and be together.

Morgan knew some women did that. As a teen she’d babysat for a boy whose grandmother and her friend were lesbians who’d made a whole life together.

Steve Tisckos was a good friend and she loved him. But the pull toward the woman next door was too powerful. Morgan couldn’t concentrate and dropped her classes. She was home constantly, and Chelsea made time for her by showing houses in the evenings when their husbands were there. They were in love.

Then one morning over a breakfast of cold cereal again, Steve said, “Are you all right, honey?”

Morgan shrugged. “I didn’t feel like cooking, okay.”

“You don’t have to cook all the time. I’m fine.”

“I’m in love,” Morgan blurted.

Steve covered her hand with his. “I love you too.”

“I’m in love with Chelsea.”

People carry certain things to their grave. Morgan would never forget the scar on her knee from falling off her bike and needing twenty-seven stitches, a yellow kitten that got run over when it was her job to watch him, and Steve’s face when she next looked at him.

At home in Illinois, Morgan tried to pick up the pieces of her life. She wasn’t ready for another relationship. She was confused. She was busy with her father. She’d started night school again. Eventually she’d gone out with the son of a buddy of her father’s just to keep the peace at home. She’d accompanied him to movies, concerts, and several awkward dinners, but she’d felt only that she was wasting her time. She stopped seeing him and told her father she just wasn’t ready yet. The guy was engaged and married to someone else within a year. Morgan was happy for him.

Chapter Four

He was there again, sitting on the bench nearest to the slide. Celia Morning first noticed her new neighbor early in July while she and her kids were at the park. He’d been watching the children play. Today he had a large puppy with him, and now and then a child would want to play with it. She thought she should talk to him, but something made her hang back. When her youngest, the four-year-old, grew interested in the puppy, she called to him. “Timmy, it’s time to go.”

John, Jr., and Merris were on the monkey bars. “Come on, you two. We need to get home for lunch.” She stood, grabbed Timmy’s sweaty little hand, and motioned to them. “Let’s go.”

Merris untangled herself from the bars and said something over her shoulder to her younger brother, who was at the top of the slide. He slid down and landed with both feet in the sand.

Since her husband’s death, Celia had been too preoccupied to realize that old Mrs. Pickett’s house had sold. The entire spring seemed to be missing from her life. One minute Jack came home from jogging complaining that he couldn’t catch his breath, and the next she was sitting alone in the park, watching her kids play in the heavy midday heat.

What would Jack say about the new-puppy development? Her mind danced from one thing to another. She’d planned to make spaghetti for dinner, but was there enough hamburger left or did she need to go to the store? Jack would want garlic bread… Then, like a hundred times before, she realized all over again that Jack wouldn’t be at supper.

Losing him, she’d not only lost her lover, her husband, and the father of her children, but also her best friend.

Her mother had come for several weeks and helped her with the funeral and the kids. As a widow herself, she’d known how to deal with the death certificates, the bank, and the rest. She’d asked Celia to return to Ohio with her. But Celia didn’t want to uproot her children in the midst of the biggest crisis of their lives. She wanted to keep things stable for them. She’d begun calling her mother in the evenings after the kids were in bed, and instead of telling those special things to Jack, she told them to her mother. But she’d honestly been surprised one night when her mother asked about the new neighbor.

“What new neighbor?”

“The man who bought Mrs. Pickett’s house. Right next door to you. I met him the last time I stayed with you. He told me he’d bought the place but wanted to fix a few things before he moved in. So has he?”

Celia carried the phone to the window and looked out across the driveway. A light was on in the kitchen. “Someone’s there.”

“You haven’t met him?”

“No.” 

 Celia learned Jason Smallwood’s name three or four days later when a piece of his junk mail got mixed in with her own. By then she knew he lived alone.

She made up her mind that summer to put flowers along the walk. She wanted fresh flowers to dress up the house and to take to Jack’s grave on Sundays. One morning she’d been wrestling with a heavy landscape rock when she sensed someone next to her.

“Let me get that for you,” Jason Smallwood said.

“Oh, I can get it.” She picked up the rock but couldn’t walk with it.

So Smallwood took it from her and put it in place. Then he commented on the flowers. “You keep working on this yard, and I’ll have to get after mine so it won’t look bad in comparison.”

The morning had been cool, but the sun was bright and yellow. “Your house looks a lot better than it did,” she’d said, squinting up at him. And that was true. He’d bought the corner bungalow. Old Mrs. Pickett had lived there until her death and most things had gone untended for years. Smallwood had done a lot of work. He didn’t seem to have a regular job. He mainly worked on the house or sat in the park.

Celia had offered him a glass of iced tea that day, but he’d told her he had an appointment and left.

Some time after that, on the third day of school in late August, Celia had picked up Merris to take her to a lunchtime dental appointment. As she exited the building, holding her daughter’s hand, she’d seen him standing at the corner of the schoolyard. He was wearing his signature Cubs ball cap, a white T-shirt, and faded blue jeans that were much too tight. He hung over the chain-link fence talking to two little girls on the opposite side. The puppy wasn’t with him.  

Then in mid-September, at a PTA meeting, Amanda Reavy, who lived across the street and four houses down from Celia, pulled a chair up and, without ceremony, whispered, “That Smallwood guy, does he make you uncomfortable?”

A woman in front of them turned and looked back.

“Talking in here makes me uncomfortable,” Celia said.

Amanda flushed but didn’t give up. “Come out into the hall, then.” And she stood and made her way to the gym door. A moment later, Celia followed.

Alone in the corridor, Amanda said, “We’re the only ones on the block with sole responsibility for our children. Single mothers have to stick together.”

Celia nodded. She was now a single parent, though she didn’t like to dwell on it.  Amanda had divorced more than a year ago, and her two boys were the same ages as Merris and John, Jr.

Amanda said, “That Smallwood gave me the creeps from the first day. But lately it’s worse. I’m a light sleeper. When I wake, I sometimes read for a while over a cup of warm milk.”