Stiltsville: A Novel - By Susanna Daniel Page 0,121

more wine.

The evening settled into a languor of the sort that happens only with old friends—it was this, more than anything else, that convinced me that the whole thing had been a good idea. Paul and Dennis made plans to go fishing, and after the meal I brought out a key lime pie and Paul assumed, incorrectly, that it was homemade, and we all talked about how the key lime pie from Publix was the best and there was never any sense in making your own because it wouldn’t measure up. Then we talked about a new development going up down south, replacing a shoddy batch of mini mansions that had been leveled by Andrew, and how Paul knew one of the contractors and was thinking of buying there. His condo on Fisher Island was overpriced, he said, and the ferry was a pain.

“An awful lot of room for one,” said Dennis, and Paul said, “Aye,” and looked over at Marse, who was beaming. In all the years I’d known her, she had never lived with a man. The man she’d known best and longest was Dennis, and after I’d come along her friendship with him had channeled its way through me.

Paul offered to build us a ramp from the back deck to the patio. “It would take an hour—two, tops,” he said, and, as an example of how much our lives were changing, how unfitting our usual preferences had become, Dennis accepted the offer and said he would appreciate it.

It was dark now, and the water lapped quietly in the waterway and gurgled in the swimming pool. The mosquitoes were out. I lit the citronella candles that sat on the deck railing, and the light shone on our profiles. Paul’s face was round and fleshy in the torchlight, and hair showed at the neckline of his shirt. I could tell that he and Marse were holding hands under the table. Dennis’s face was sharp by contrast. He coughed a little and smoothed down his shirt. “I haven’t laughed this much in a while,” he said, and Paul leaned forward, as if to get him to repeat the comment, but Marse repeated it for him. She was another wife to Dennis. I’d thought this before, but it was truer now, with her running his errands (just that week she’d picked up his prescriptions for him, then stayed for dinner), and making meal provisions and repeating his sentences when guests couldn’t hear. She was almost as at home in the role as I was. I had shared him, a little, all those years, but I didn’t mind. Paul’s blessing came back to me. It wouldn’t hurt, I thought, to give thanks a little more often. But I knew that if I tried to institute a mealtime ritual, Dennis would scoff. It was fine for company, but for us alone, no ritual was needed.

One Saturday later that month, Paul came over to build the ramp, and while he worked, Marse and Dennis and I lolled in the pool. Marse had brought water weights—they were dumbbell-shaped floats that filled with water—and led Dennis through the exercises he’d learned from Lola. Margo and I had been to water aerobics that morning, and now she was taking a nap in her old bedroom, and Stuart was in the front yard, trimming the alamanda bushes, which he’d noticed were growing unruly. I’d let go of the gardener. The expense had seemed unnecessary in this time of tightening our belts. It was as if—as Marse led Dennis in his exercises and Paul hammered away on the ramp and Stuart gardened—we’d acquired a whole new staff.

Lola’s pool exercises were working. Dennis had regained a little strength in his hands and legs. He’d been walking more—just from room to room, that sort of thing—and seemed always to be gripping something—a racquetball, a water bottle—even when we were watching a movie or reading. He was sleeping less fitfully; Lola said his muscles had been too weak to make the basic adjustments needed for a comfortable night of sleep. His voice, however, was still deteriorating. It occurred to me that we were marking time, unit by unit, and those loyal compatriots who were with us now would be with us until the end. And distantly I wondered, as I did almost continuously, when that would be. It was nearing but not yet urgent, like a hurricane that’s only just started to form in a far-off place. There was a part of