Mary and O'Neil Page 0,8

beside a rusted saw blade and a monkey wrench and the head of a hammer, half peeking from the dirt. The scene leapt into view. More saws, hammers, wrenches, an iron sledge, a workbench with a vise, all of it bathed in the brilliant sunlight. The basement was full of tools.

It was then, standing at the edge of the farmhouse’s foundation, that Arthur felt it: a terrible fear, like falling, and then, in its wake, a deep and melancholy calm.

He looked up. Dora was standing beside him, gazing into the hole. He said, “This is something the two of you wanted.”

She answered without raising her head. “What do you mean?”

“To build a house. Out here, somewhere.” He took her gloved hand. “You and Sam.”

Dora said nothing, but her face, paling, gave the answer. She had looked at this very place before, when Sam was still alive. They had stood right where the two of them were standing now. He imagined what that had been like, the hopeful feeling of it, and the sounds of their two boys tearing around the woods, somewhere nearby. It would have been when Leo and Josh were small.

“I really am sorry,” Arthur said.

“Well, you’re right. We did come out here.” She shrugged, and gave him a distant and painful smile. “It was a long time ago, Art.”

“No, I mean I’m sorry that I can’t”—he stopped. He had approached the edge of something, and then he crossed it—“do this.”

For a moment neither of them spoke. Wind moved in the trees, and the branches swayed.

“Oh, it’s all right.” Gently, Dora freed her hand from his—as gently as the first time she had taken it, across the table in the restaurant, months before. She folded her arms over her chest.

“I truly am,” Arthur said.

She laughed, almost bitterly, though Arthur knew that, like him, what she felt was more like sadness. “What you are is relieved, Art. Still, it would have been nice, at least for me.” She sighed then, deeply, and Arthur saw that her eyes were glazed with tears. With a long finger she brushed one away. “Forgive me, but I really liked being a wife. I was good at it, and I miss it. Maybe all I’m doing is remembering.”

And that was the end of it. They drove back to town, and by the time they returned they were friends again, with things to do: Dora to fetch the boys at Scouts, and Arthur to phone Miriam (not here, they told him; she’d only just stepped out) and then drive out to the Price Chopper in Vermillion to do the shopping he’d promised her he’d do. He pushed his cart through the bright, busy aisles, the air smelling of the cold from the open freezer cases, and knew that he was saved. The thought filled him with an almost manic energy—for he also knew, now, that he would never be caught, nor would have to confess—and standing in the checkout line, jammed into the final gauntlet of movie magazines and candy displays, he found himself talking, almost babbling, to a woman one aisle over, a neighbor who had once baby-sat his children. Was his mother well? And the kids? Yes, fine, though of course the nursing home did things, certain things he didn’t care for; they wouldn’t for instance let her out for walks when it was raining, which she had always loved, and his children, well, Kay was settling into married life, the usual bumps in the road but nothing serious, her husband, Jack, was still finishing his dissertation, Arthur couldn’t even understand what the hell it was about, trying to teach, she knew how that went, and O’Neil was still enjoying school, running cross-country and thinking about maybe medicine, though he’d have to decide soon, however he and Miriam managed to pay for it, well, that was another subject entirely; they were driving up to see him in a couple of weeks, to meet his new girlfriend, from Boston. . . . It poured forth from him. It disgorged, like the contents of his cart—flank steak, spaghetti sauce with pork and mushrooms, ice-slickened canisters of frozen juice, and all the rest, a hundred bucks’ worth (for he had overshopped)—onto the cheerfully humming rubber conveyor belt. He wanted to talk, to tell his story; to sing it if necessary, like a hymn, or the tale of a traveler come home at last.

Now, two weeks later, Arthur sits in his office (ten fifty-two and counting; he