thought of Susan, brave and clever and forgiving, moving with smooth-limbed certainty into a future that held only better and better news. What had happened didn't matter. It was only a couple of times, drunk; a small thing. It was only kisses and hugs. It was love, that's all. He thought of calling Susan but knew his pride would not recover from the memory of a half-drunken conversation with his own daughter in which he begged for forgiveness. He'd be old one day. He had to be careful about the past he made for himself.
Billy's shirt lay in a bright heap on the floor. Constantine bent over, hearing the faint crackings of his stiff knees, and picked it up. It was light as smoke, made of some gauzy fabric. Thumbnail-sized orange poppies and trumpet-shaped purple flowers bloomed on a field of black. Constantine lifted the shirt to his face, inhaled its odor. It smelled like his son—his sweet cologne and deodorant, a hint of the wintergreen candies he chewed for his breath. Billy was obsessed with the idea that he smelled bad, and Constantine understood his boyish terror. He himself had chewed anise, doused himself in scent, scrubbed his teeth three times a day. What thoughts of Billy's so terrified him that he drenched himself in perfume, scalded his flesh with showers that steamed windows all over the house? What thoughts? Constantine dropped the shirt back on the floor. Then, because he was a family man, because he had love for his son shot through with hatred, he picked it up again and draped it carefully across the back of a kitchen chair.
How many people had seen his wife being arrested? How many were talking about it now, over dinner? I told you this would happen sooner or later, what can you expect from people like that? His eyes burned. So much work, so much daily caution. All so precariously balanced.
He went to the sliding glass door, looked out into the back yard. Susan, up north in a tidy little apartment, setting out dinner. That's what he wanted to think about. But the idea of Susan, like his happiness and his outrage, flew defiantly around the room and refused to settle where his rightful feelings were housed. What pulsed in him were bitter prayers for Billy and Mary and himself. Deliver us from our nameless defeats, the rats inside the walls.
He walked out into the yard and stood for a while, looking up. It would be dark soon. The sky was flattening, losing its blue depths, settling in around the earth. A jet pulled a vapor trail, pink-gold in the dying light. Constantine's house looked big and dense as a battleship. Its windows reflected the sky and the black branches of neighbors' trees.
This yard would be perfect for a garden if the Wilkinsons' maple didn't throw too much shade. Over there, at the south end, that would be the spot. Holding his empty glass, he walked over and paced off the modest square that seemed the most promising place. Yes, a garden. Bean rows, lettuce, the gawky beauty of sunflowers. Right here. Strawberries winking like jewels. Tomatoes big and fleshy as men's hearts. He looked down at the grass beneath his feet. His feet looked trim and prosperous, sheathed in expensive white loafers. Their gold buckles gleamed. He took a sip from his empty glass and continued looking down at the ground he owned.
Zoe had heard what happened in the kitchen. She'd been watching everything. Now she saw him through her bedroom window, standing alone in a new smallness. She sat smoking a joint and watching him on the lawn with night coming around him. She felt the whole house shrinking.
She put out the joint and walked down the hall, past the living silence that came from Momma's room. She walked through the colors and the quiet order into the back yard, where the evening insects made their circles.
“Hi, Poppa,” she said.
He turned, surprised. He took her in. She saw from his face that she was pale and wild, the strangest of the children. She was loved but she was not known.
She was going somewhere else. Every day she said goodbye.
“Zoe,” he said. She saw that he had forgotten about her.
“Uh-huh,” she said.
“Aw, Zoe. Look. It's you.”
“I know. I know it's me. I saw you from the window.”
“I—” Poppa raised his arms and lowered them again. “Are you okay?” he asked.
“Sure.”
A silence passed. Then Poppa said, “I was thinking about