The Changing Seasons 2003

Backstory

2012-06-14T09:58:00.000-07:00

This is one of my personal favorites. In 2003, I tried to learn my lesson from the failure of "The Leading Men" by following the old adage "write what you know." So I took settings and characters loosely based on those around me. The city of Freepoint, Michigan is actually a combination of several Michigan cities. The Herbert Chemical plant is based on the real plant I grew up around; the name coming from the name of that real-life company's founder. So I definitely had some fun twisting reality around to suit my purposes.

The story is about young Floyd Jensen, who suffers from a rare genetic defect that has delayed puberty until his college years. Because of this Floyd is a bit of a recluse, until a chance encounter with a beautiful stranger begins four seasons of growth, death, and renewal.

Please enjoy "The Changing Seasons..."

BTW, on a side note, never use Roman numerals for chapters, at least not until the manuscript is finished. It's a real bitch to go through and edit all those if you decide to insert or delete a chapter.

Epilogue

2007-06-14T09:56:00.001-07:00

Epilogue

Light pierced the cracks of the blinds and fell across Floyd’s face. He stirred and then sat up in surprise. Nothing. He’d dreamt of nothing the entire night. Abby had not been disemboweled or decapitated by the gunman. Her naked body had not crept into his bed to surprise him. For the first time since her death, he had slept through the night uninterrupted. Freedom. At last his subconscious had cut the chains to the past.

He sat up and stretched limbs filled with energy, ready to take on the world. Floyd charged into the bathroom and paused at his reflection. There was a new sparkle in his eyes, an inner glow shining through now that he had regained his sense of purpose. His eyes were now clear and soon his skin would be toasted brown by the Pacific sun. One remnant from his days of despair remained; Floyd found a pair of scissors and pulled his long hair back into a rudimentary ponytail as he’d seen Abby do hundreds of times. The ponytail fell to the floor in a heap and for a moment Floyd stared at it. Like the hair, he’d cut ties with the past; he was ready to move ahead into the future.

He emerged from the bathroom and looked through his drawers for clothes to wear on his Independence Day. He took out the forest green polo reserved for Tuesdays and the gray slacks slated for Mondays. It was a start to erasing the routine he’d let his fear create for him. He laughed now at how stupid the whole system sounded to him—he would wear whatever the hell he felt like now.

He pulled down a battered blue suitcase from the top shelf of his closet and began to stuff it full of clothes to take with him on his journey. He had no idea of how long he would be gone, or if he would ever come back at all. As he emptied his drawers into the suitcase, he couldn’t think of anything else he wanted to take with him; none of the baubles he had accumulated during his years of hiding meant anything to him now.

Then, as he snapped the suitcase shut, his eyes fell upon the picture of his family that had provided the excuse he needed to flush the painkillers down the toilet. He hadn’t considered until now what he should tell his family about his decision. He couldn’t just sneak out of the city without even a note to explain why he was going. He wanted them to know why he had to leave; he wanted them to understand what he had learned about himself.

He went out to the living room and found one of his notebooks and a pen before returning to the bedroom to contemplate how he should word his farewell address. The same blockage that occurred when he tried to write the marriage proposal to Abby—the sheer overload of thoughts and emotions—caused him to tap the paper impotently for a long time. Just tell the truth, he told himself. He wrote one word, then another, then another until he had the first sentence. From there, the rest flowed from his mind and onto the page. He finished and checked over the final product.

I’ve spent my whole life hiding from the world because I’ve been too afraid of what people would think if they knew me. In my heart I’m still afraid, but I know that somewhere out there, I can find the courage I have always lacked, as Todd did.

I know that nothing I can ever do will make up for my failure to protect Abby, but my life is no longer about who I was; it is about who I will become when I finally emerge from the cocoon I have slumbered in for so long. Whether it is as a butterfly or still a worm remains to be seen, but I will return as soon as I know the answer. Until then, one thing will never change—I love you.

--Floyd

He folded up the notebook paper and stuffed it into an envelope; after a moment’s hesitation he sealed the envelope—it was done. He addressed it to his mother and searched the apartment until he found his last postage stamp hiding under the keyboard of his computer. He knew he should deliver the message in person, but his mother’s tears would only discourage him from what he had to do. He couldn’t delay any longer than he already had.

Floyd tucked the envelope into his pocket and took the picture of his family. Next to it was the photo of Abby and her family he’d taken from her dorm. A final tear came to his eye as he held her picture in his trembling hands. Wherever she was, she was free from her mother’s control. She was finally free to be herself. He imagined that when he met Abby again, it would be this Abby in the picture—with blemished skin, oversized glasses, and imperfect breasts.

No matter where he went or what he did, he knew he would never find anyone like her; he would never find anyone who understood him as well as she had. No one would ever replace Abby, but he didn’t want to go on alone; he’d been alone far too much of his life already. He thought of his failed date with Michelle Kapanen and wondered if he could find love again, albeit a less complete love than he’d shared with Abby. It would only be possible, he decided, if he was not afraid to open his heart to someone else and if he was not afraid to reveal the secret he had kept for so long. He would somehow have to find the strength to not be a coward in love as well as in life.

Floyd wiped the tear away and carried both photographs to the living room; he stuffed them into his backpack so that he might carry Abby and his family with him wherever he went. Then he slung the backpack over his shoulder and hauled it along with the suitcase and a grocery bag of food down to his car. The trunk shut with a sound of finality, the last nail in the coffin of his old life. He sat behind the wheel for a moment and took a deep breath. Then he started the engine and pulled out of the parking lot. He dropped the letter addressed to his mother in the first mailbox he came across. There was no turning back now.

The Shadow passed through Freepoint one last time. Past the Herbert Chemical Company sending orange-tinged clouds into the morning sky; past the tall grass and failed promises of Ridgewood Manors; past the boarded-up fronts of Main Street; past the slumbering ghosts of Andromeda Comics; past the awakening superstores of the new city; and onto the empty asphalt expanse of I-775. Freepoint, his cocoon for the twenty-two years he’d spent in hibernation, faded in his rearview mirror.

He did not look back.

Chapter XIV

2007-06-14T09:54:00.002-07:00

Chapter XIV

She appeared from nowhere to straddle him while he slept—completely naked with her face obscured by her long, dark hair. When he awoke, he found her lips only inches from his own and her blue eyes peering out from behind her wild hair. She ran her slippery tongue along the side of his face while she tore away his blankets and clothes. Now as naked as she was, he didn’t bother to ask who she was or why she had come. It only mattered that she was here and moving her hands expertly over his body. He caressed her firm, perfect breasts and squeezed her little brown nipples; her head lolled back and she groaned with pleasure. Then he moved his hand to push the hair away from her face and confirm that Abby had come back to him…

The harsh beeping of the alarm shook Floyd from sleep; Abby evaporated into oblivion again. Floyd groaned and stared up at the ceiling while the alarm clock continued its obnoxious call. The same dream that had haunted him for the last month left him with the same empty, lonely feeling. He sat up and felt the spot next to him where Abby had once slept beside him. Nothing—as it would be forever.

The violent, gory nightmares had faded in the wake of his father’s death, replaced by the dream that was in many ways more sinister. To the relief of his neighbors, he no longer woke up screaming, but every morning he awoke to the disappointment and heartache of the realization that she was never coming back to him. The dream and its accompanying emptiness spoke volumes about what his life had become in the last month.

With a sigh, he reached over to turn the alarm clock off.

He hopped out of bed and shuffled into the bathroom. He still hadn’t regained all the weight he’d lost since Abby’s death and his skin still had a sickly pallor to it. Nor had he bothered to see the barber since his father’s funeral; with his shoulder-length hair, some people called him ‘ma’am’ by mistake. As he brushed his teeth, his face retained the flat, neutral expression he’d worn for the last month.

While the water ran in the shower, Floyd put his head against the mildewed green tile wall and closed his eyes. He tried to recreate his dream as the warm water ran down his back, but he couldn’t quite conjure the image in his mind. Why did the alarm have to go off at that moment? he wondered. Why couldn’t he live in the dream forever?

Instead, he showered, toweled off, and dressed for the day. After he did laundry he always arranged his shirts and pants in the same order in their respective drawers; he pulled out his Monday outfit of a midnight blue polo shirt and gray pants. Afterwards, he ate his Monday breakfast of toast with grape jelly and a glass of orange juice before he gathered up his wallet, keys, and backpack.

He stomped down the stairs without locking the door to his apartment—if anyone wanted his meager possessions they were welcome to them—and down to his car. The engine of the Dodge Shadow coughed to life and Floyd waited for a moment behind the wheel to let the car warm up. As he did, he had the familiar, suffocating sensation that always hit him as he drove to work. He didn’t have to go to work; he could take I-775 to the main highway and all the way to the West Coast if he chose. Of course he would have no money, no job, and no place to live, but he could find a way to get by. Out there, far away from the chilly Michigan air, he could create a new and better life for himself. He could have friends, attend wild parties, and find love in the cool Seattle air or amongst the trendy Los Angeles club scene.

No, he told himself—as he did every day—he didn’t want to leave Dale, his mother, or Abby. On Wednesdays he went over to Todd’s place—careful to circumvent the store—to see his growing nephew. Every Friday night, he went over to his mother’s house to have dinner and play gin with her to keep her company. And on Sunday mornings he visited first his father’s grave and then Abby’s to make sure they were well-cared for and to keep them abreast of the latest news. He couldn’t just pick up and leave them all behind. No, he would not dip his toes in the Pacific Ocean, at least not today.

Instead, he drove through the old city on his way to the Herbert Chemical headquarters. His cooperative education coordinator had left his job open during his leave of absence; he had managed to get his old job back once he resumed his education at Freepoint State. He passed under the great cement supports of I-775 and joined the line of Lexuses, BMWs, and Mercedes Benzes filing into the Herbert Chemical parking lot.

Without looking for a better space, Floyd resigned himself to parking in the worst spot at the very back of the lot. He trudged through the clammy May air, a chill penetrating his light jacket and causing him to shiver more out of habit than anything else. He sighed as he passed through the front doors of the building and went by the model brine well to join a flock of people at the bank of elevators. He was the only one pushing the button to go down and when he tired of waiting for the elevator, he found the stairs and made his way to the basement.

He traversed the cement catacombs to the mailroom, where he deposited his lunch in the tiny refrigerator before hanging up his coat and going to work. The mail room was empty, but Floyd already knew what to do, it was the same thing he did every day. He sorted through the waiting tub of mail and tossed the small white envelopes and big manila ones into bins for each department.

After he finished, he loaded the sorted mail onto a cart and pushed it to the freight elevator to deliver. He staggered wordlessly through the building like a zombie and deposited mail in the same offices and cubicles he’d once hoped to work in. As he passed a gaggle of chubby, middle-aged women gathered around the coffee maker in Accounts Payable, one of the women called out in her forced, too-sweet voice, “Morning Floyd!” He grunted in reply, as he did every day; it was as though he’d never left.

He hated his alarm clock more than ever.

The traffic on I-775 at five o’clock was just as clogged as the traffic in the morning. Most of the Lexuses, BMWs, and Mercedes Benzes were on their way home or to the country club or theatre or whatever rich executives did after leaving work. Floyd, on the other hand, had to grind his way through the cool air with only three hours of Professor Hinch’s high, nasal voice lecturing on the glory of Earnest Hemingway to look forward to. Most of the class would sneak out after the break at eight, but Floyd—because he had nothing else to do—always stayed until the end.

The traffic ground its way to his exit and he pulled onto the road leading to Freepoint State. The Willow River sparkled in the fading sunlight as he drove over it; Floyd sometimes wondered what it would feel like to stand on the edge of the aging bridge and then hurl himself into the river. He shook the dark image away and let out the same weary sigh he always did when he passed under the blue-and-white banner proclaiming, “Welcome to Freepoint State University!”, and wound his way to the parking lot nearest to his class.

As at Herbert Chemical, Floyd no longer bothered searching in vain for a good parking spot, but rather went right to the back and took the worst space possible. The air was not as cold as in the morning—the weatherman promised a warm front would bring the first real taste of spring to the state tomorrow—allowing Floyd to walk to class without his jacket. He stopped at the doors of the Redding Center and saw a crowd of people dressed in evening gowns and suits there to attend some play or concert; Floyd went around the building and through the grove of pine trees to Sanders Hall.

With an hour left before class, he went down the hall to the alcove where he had first laid eyes upon Abby. As he always did, he bought some coffee with his last two quarters in the hope that the caffeine would keep him from falling asleep during Hinch’s lecture. While the paper cup filled with steaming liquid, Floyd craned his neck to see if anyone else was around. Every time he used the vending machines, he hoped he would hear her voice asking him if he had change for a dollar and he would find that through some miracle she was not dead after all. Instead, he took his coffee from the machine and went upstairs to class.

He took his usual seat in the back row of the lecture hall and watched the other students file in. No one sat within two rows of him, as if they sensed he had some sort of disease that would infect them if they came in contact with him. Hinch had Floyd’s sense of routine and appeared right at the starting time. Floyd half-listened to the professor drone on about Hemingway’s compact, yet powerful prose in A Farewell to Arms and scrawled some notes in his notebook; he would never read the notes, but the task gave him something to do.

A half-dozen watches beeped when eight o’clock came around and Hinch stopped in mid-sentence. “Well, let’s take a short break and then we’ll discuss the rest of the chapter.” Most of the class gathered up their books, backpacks, and jackets before disappearing for another week while Floyd strolled down the steps of the lecture hall and to the water fountain. The cold water provided the jolt his system needed to wake up and face another two hours of Piglet’s obnoxious voice.

On his way back to class, he stopped by the vending alcove and waited. She never came, just as he knew she wouldn’t. By the time he returned to class, only a handful of other students remained, all gluttons for punishment like him. Hinch looked around the room, but if he took note of the sudden emptiness, he showed no sign. He continued his lecture as if he’d never stopped and Floyd leaned back in his hard chair.

Why am I here? he thought as he looked down at his notes. Returning to school had not rekindled his love of books; if anything, he’d grown to despise them more than ever. His plan had always been to use his Literature classes to better himself as a writer, but now that he’d given up writing, there was no point. He would earn his degree by the end of the year, a degree with no value whatsoever in the job market.

A month of resuming his old habits had not given him any direction about what do with his life. Time was ticking out; when he graduated he would have no job and would have to find something else. He would probably end up either slaving away again in the kitchen of Burger King or back at Andromeda Comics—he didn’t know which was worse.

“Mr. Jensen?” he heard Piglet’s voice call out to shake him back to reality. He looked around the classroom and saw that everyone else had gone.

“Yes, sir?” Floyd asked.

“Class is over,” Hinch said. “I didn’t want you to get locked in.”

Floyd nodded and stuffed his notes into his backpack. He sprinted down the stairs to the front of the room. “I’m sorry,” Floyd said.

“It’s all right. I’m sure it’s been difficult for you to readjust after,” Hinch stopped and searched for the right euphemism for Floyd’s absence, “all that happened.”

“It’s not so hard,” Floyd replied and tried to force some cheerfulness into his voice.

To his surprise, Piglet put a small, bony hand on his shoulder. “If you need any help, or just to talk, my door is open.”

“I’ll remember that,” Floyd growled and walked away. As he left Sanders Hall, he caught a glimpse of the pond with its bronzed geese and stopped. He walked across campus to the spot where he and Abby had met to reconcile after the incident at her mother’s house. He remembered the cold piercing through his jacket that night and shivered. As at the vending alcove, he waited there by the pond for her to appear as she had that night, but she never came.

He sat down on a nearby bench and sighed. He didn’t have anything to say to Hinch; the person he most wanted to talk to would never hear his voice again. He stared at the bronze Canadian geese in the middle of the pond until a campus police officer came by and shooed him away. Why am I here? he asked himself again as he trudged through the empty parking lot to his car. He drove home and collapsed immediately in bed; he closed his eyes and drifted off into darkness, where she awaited him once again.

It was Sunday, the day Floyd devoted to visiting the graves of his father and Abby. He stopped at the florist, where they had grown so used to his visits that they had his order—carnations for his father and roses for Abby—ready for him before he arrived. He paid for the flowers and drove to Freepoint Municipal Cemetery, where his father was buried.

The grass planted on the dirt covering the coffin had begun to grow; by midsummer his father’s plot would have the same color and texture of all the others. Floyd cleared away the wilted flowers from his previous visit and laid the fresh ones at the base of the tombstone. He ran his hand along the glossy gray stone and traced his father’s name with his finger. “Mom and Todd are doing fine,” he mumbled. And what about me? he thought. How was he doing?

He sighed and sat down cross-legged in front of his father’s headstone. “I’m not fine,” he admitted. “I just don’t know what I’m doing anymore. I don’t know what I should be doing. I wish someone would tell me what to do.”

He shook his head; he couldn’t remember ever going to his father to ask him for guidance. Only now, after his father was gone, did it occur to him to ask. Floyd scooped up a handful of dirt and watched it pass through his fingers and back onto the ground. “I wish you were still here to help me.”

He wished he had someone alive to ask for help; he didn’t want to burden his mother with his problems and he wouldn’t trust any advice Todd gave him. No one could help him figure it out; no one could tell him what he should do. Why am I here? he asked himself over and over. He still had no answer.

The more he thought about it, the more significance the question took on. It was about more than why he went to work or school—why did he still exist while Abby had died? They’d both been shot, but he’d survived and she hadn’t. She who was pretty, smart, and with a bright future ahead of her was dead while he who was a complete wreck with nothing to look forward to was still alive. It wasn’t fair. Given a choice, he would have chosen to take the fatal bullet, at least then his life would have had some meaning to it.

He reached out and touched his father’s tombstone again. “What dreams did you have for me?” he wondered aloud. When he was born, had his father envisioned a future lawyer, doctor, or Olympic athlete? Maybe his father had held him and seen a pastor, a president, or a CEO. Instead, he’d gotten a pathetic failure; a son who didn’t even produce enough testosterone to be a real man. “I’m sorry to let you down,” Floyd whispered and trudged back to his car.

He made the trip across town with a weary heart and silently berated himself as he passed through the new city and into the outlying suburbs. He was a loser, a miserable excuse for a son; he had failed at whatever his father had hoped for him. He was little more than a shell of a human being with no hopes or dreams of his own. He was nothing.

Floyd pulled into the driveway of Maple View Cemetery and walked along the familiar path to Abby’s grave. Today was more than a Sunday—it would have been Abby’s twenty-second birthday. “Happy Birthday,” he whispered and laid the roses at the foot of her monument.

Twenty-two. She would have graduated next winter and begun her career as a chemist, following in her father’s footsteps. She could have met someone who did produce enough testosterone to be the man she deserved. She could have gotten married and raised a family—enough children and grandchildren to fill the dining room of her mother’s house. So many things she could have done if only he’d never run into her. If he’d never entered her life, she would be celebrating her birthday right now with her friends instead of lying in a coffin. “I’m sorry,” he said and wiped away the tears forming in his eyes. “It’s all my fault.”

He closed his eyes and ran a hand along the poem her father had selected to honor her memory. Why her? he wondered and wished a real angel would swoop down from the sky to explain the divine wisdom to him. Why take someone so beautiful and leave a foul worm like himself? It wasn’t fair to deny the world her promise, her potential, her gifts.

“It should have been me,” he said not just to Abby’s grave, but to whatever divine power controlled the universe. “It should have been me!” he roared again and pounded the ground with his fist.

“Come with me,” Abby’s voice whispered into his ear.

“I can’t,” he moaned and pressed his forehead to the ground. He couldn’t go with her, not now. He didn’t want to hurt his mother. He wanted to see Dale grow up. He couldn’t do it.

“Come with me,” she insisted.

“Stop it!” he shouted and looked up at the angel, beseeching her. “Stop tormenting me!”

“Come with me.” Her voice echoed across the cemetery and stretched into infinity.

“I can’t,” he whined. “I’m too scared.”

The moment the words left his lips, it was as though a curtain had been pulled away from his eyes and he understood everything. He was too scared. That night when he’d held the pills in his hand, he’d convinced himself that he could not commit suicide because of the harm it would do to his mother, but the real, more selfish reason was that he had been too scared to go through with it.

He was a coward and he always had been. Too scared to reveal his secret to anyone, he had shut himself off from everyone, including his family. He’d filled his time with solitary activities like reading and writing to avoid ever having to face the real world. He wanted to be a writer because it was one of the few professions where he could operate without ever having to interact with the real world. He was too scared to make friends; he would surely have let Abby slip through his fingers if she had not asked him out first.

Every morning, when he got behind the wheel and longed to drive to the West Coast, he let his fear guide him back to Herbert Chemical, back to the life he despised because he was too much of a coward to risk leaving his safe, familiar life. He used responsibility to his family as a cover, a way to rationalize his cowardice the same way he had when he’d flushed the painkillers down the toilet. It didn’t matter that he did love his family, he never would have gathered the courage to swallow the pills.

He reached out and touched the stone angel, the testament to his ultimate act of cowardice. He had done nothing while the gunman raped and murdered Abby. Though he would never know for certain, in his heart he knew he could have freed himself from his restraints if he had really loved her enough to overcome his fear. That he had not proved how unworthy he was to ever have possessed her heart.

For as long as he lived, he knew his cowardice in that moment would haunt him. No matter what he did, where he went, or who he met, he would always have to live with the memory of what had happened in the storeroom of Andromeda Collectibles. He could no more forgive himself for that indiscretion than he could bring Abby back to life.

“What should I do now?” he asked the stone angel. He had been a coward for his entire life, an overgrown mouse shying away from the light to hide in the darkness, but could he change? Could the mouse become a man? When the angel did not answer his question, he stood up and touched the hem of its skirt that in his dream would have taken him to paradise with Abby. “I have to find out.”

He meandered back towards his apartment, new testimony to support his cowardice appearing with every mile. The country club whose golf course he had befouled under the cover of darkness. The subdivisions he had terrorized with acts of petty vandalism while the owners slept. The convenience store where he had twice purchased alcohol to escape his suffering. The outcropping of rocks on the beach where he had often gone to hide from the world. And then, finally, Andromeda Comics, where he had done nothing to save the woman he claimed to love.

By the time he trudged up the stairs to his apartment, he wanted to escape his life; he wanted to become an entirely different person so he did not have to bear the burden of his myriad acts of cowardice. His teary eyes chanced upon his computer and he recalled the night when he had written what he thought was his last story. As far back as he could remember, he had used his writing as a means to escape the sadness and loneliness of his real life by immersing himself in another world. As the dark waters of despair and self-loathing threatened to close in around him once again, he needed that escape more than ever.

He turned on the computer and loaded the file for The Vicarious Future. For so long he had allowed it to languish unfinished, the reason becoming apparent as he read through it. The story of a deformed man hiding in the darkness to keep from revealing himself to the world mirrored his own life. Roy’s pain at losing Mary foreshadowed his own at losing Abby. As he read the last lines he had typed, he understood what he had to do now.

His hands began to fly across the keys at a pace he’d never achieved before; he lost nothing in translation between his mind and his hands this time. The words poured from him in one long torrent as he chronicled Roy Anderson’s further descent into a world of shadows. Floyd worked for hours straight until he neared the end. Roy’s story could end any number of possible ways—suicide (he thought of the painkillers), the murder of Mary’s family (he thought of Abby lying on the storeroom floor), or wasting away until there was nothing left of him (he thought of his father)—but none appealed to Floyd.

He and Roy were kindred spirits, two men adrift in an ocean of pain and loneliness. Whatever ending he wrote for Roy was the ending for his own life; the ending that had eluded him since Todd had returned. The thought of his brother gave Floyd pause and he stared at the screen for a long time.

Todd had been a coward like him. Whereas Floyd isolated himself from the entire world, his brother had staked out a narrow kingdom in the confines of Andromeda Comics. When marriage and family had threatened to overrun his world, Todd had left Angela at the altar and gone on the run. Only Todd had somehow found the courage to come back and take responsibility; he had married Angela and become a father to Dale. Somewhere on the road, his brother had discovered the courage he had always lacked.

Floyd knew how to end the story now.

I shiver in the cold and drape another ragged blanket over my shoulders. The fresh snow glistens blue in the moonlight and the icy wind carries the sound of voices shouting to my ears. As I huddle against the wall—the windows too caked with ice to see out—I listen to Mary’s voice admonish Ricky for not cleaning his room. Over the years her voice, once as sweet as an angel’s song, has grown as cold and harsh as the wind.

She cries more often now when she thinks no one is watching. I know the reason is the same as why I cry: the future that could have been. She still loves her husband and son, but more and more she thinks of a different life, another possible outcome. Despite all that she has, the fantasy of what might have been grows heavier upon her shoulders every day. It threatens to consume her as it already has me.

Her voice grows louder and her son responds in kind. The husband sees fit to involve himself in the squabble at that point and his participation ends the struggle in short order. A door slams, followed by only the sound of the wind. In the silence, my eyes droop and my head sags against my chest.

The crunching of snow wakes me and as I listen, the sound grows louder. Another vandal here to throw snowballs at the house, I tell myself. The sound passes only inches from me, and then makes its way to the front steps. Footsteps clomp up the stairs and to my amazement, the front door creaks open.

In the moonlight, I make out the small, bulky form of a child bundled in a heavy parka. I press myself against the wall and think about what I should do. In the eternity I’ve imprisoned myself in my own house, no one has dared try to enter. After some deliberation, I decide to see what the young burglar is after.

It is soon apparent the child is not here to rob me. He throws himself against the wall and buries his head in his hands. His tiny sobs echo through the darkness and he mumbles something that is muffled by his mittens. The child continues to cry for the rest of the night while I remain pressed against the wall, a silent observer to his heartache.

As the sun rises the next morning, I see that my visitor is no stranger, but rather is Mary’s son. Ricky is curled up against the wall after exhausting himself enough with his tears to fall asleep. Under the weight of my many blankets, I rise slowly to my feet and creep towards the child. Peeling off one of my blankets, I cover the shivering boy with it and take a step back to admire him. His chubby cheeks are as red as his coat and steam escapes his nostrils with each breath.

He must be ten or eleven years old by now. It won’t be long until he becomes a teenager, though I doubt his flabby body will ever turn hard enough with muscle to impress the opposite sex. In another eight years, perhaps he will be forced to go off to war, to leave everyone and everything he loves behind. For now, though, he sleeps innocently, just a little boy in a decaying old house.

Unable to resist the urge, I reach out and stroke his hair. At my touch, his eyes fly open and he sits up. A scream is on his lips, but his throat makes only a gurgling noise. “Don’t be afraid,” I croak, my voice unused for so long that my words slur like a drunk’s. I haven’t seen my reflection since coming home, but I know that to him I must look like a corpse returned from the grave to steal his soul. “I’m not going to hurt you.”

Ricky sniffles and wipes tears from his cheeks before asking, “Who…who are you?”

I shrug. “I’m nobody, not anymore.” I wrap my blankets tighter around myself to conceal the scarred remains of my face from him. “Why did you run away from home?”

“My mom bought a new dog,” he says and fresh tears spring from his eyes. “But I don’t want a new dog, I want Duke back.”

I nod and know I should have thought of this sooner. The milkman had hit Duke, Ricky’s faithful companion, a week earlier. I’d heard the sound of screeching brakes followed by the concussion of the animal against the truck. Later, I’d watched Mary’s husband carry the dog’s carcass to his car. “I see. Your mother only wants you to be happy. In time, I’m sure you’ll grow to love this new dog.”

“No stupid new dog can replace Duke; he was the best dog in the world,” Ricky says with such conviction that I don’t dare argue with him. Instead, I put a hand on his shoulder, and to my surprise, he lets it remain there.

“I know how much you loved Duke, but he’s gone. Nothing is going to bring him back.” Ricky looks at me skeptically. “You can’t change the past; you have to remember what he meant to you and look forward to the future. Do you understand?”

Ricky nods slowly. “I think so.”

I hear Mary’s voice calling for her son and pat Ricky on the shoulder. “You should go now. Your mom is worried about you.” I help him to his feet and usher him to the door.

On the front steps, he turns back and asks, “Why do you live in a scary house like this?” It’s a question I’m unprepared for, a question I cannot answer, so I merely shrug in reply.

Ricky takes off across my yard and manages to squeeze his stocky frame through a hole in the fence. I stand on the front steps and my heart leaps as I watch him rush into his mother’s outstretched arms. She hugs him and presses her wet cheek to his, the relief obvious in her every gesture. Ricky’s father scoops him up and the three of them head inside. Before they reach the door, Ricky motions to my house and I throw myself into the doorway, out of sight.

Later, while Mary and her husband lecture their son about running away from home, Ricky’s parting question echoes in my mind. I stare at my hands, now only skeletal claws, and ponder why I keep my vigil. Why do I huddle here, in the cold and dark, and watch Mary’s family? I’d never made a conscious decision to do it; it had simply happened and then become a habit. Like a drug addict, I did not have the strength to stop, and so had let my addiction rule me.

As I think of my conversation with Ricky, the answer to his question floats into my consciousness. By watching Mary and her family, I thought I could somehow vicariously experience the life she and I were supposed to share after the war so that I would not have to let go of her. Yet I’d always been an outside observer; I am not a part of her life anymore. I’m not the Roy Anderson she knew, but rather a pale, distorted reflection of that man.

I am too afraid to let go of her; I am too afraid to face the world alone. I have to face it though. I have to accept that my life with Mary ended the day I shipped out for France. The rest of it—these years of watching her from afar—were not a life. They were the last, desperate act of a man too scared to find his own life.

I know now what I must do.

I cannot change the past. I have to remember what Mary means to me. I have to look forward to the future. In this dark, decaying house are only the shadows of broken dreams. Somewhere out there, my future awaits. When darkness falls, I slip away into the night.

I don’t look back.

Floyd saved the file onto the hard drive and then copied it onto a disk that he packed in his backpack. He could not change what had happened to Abby. He would remember what she meant to him. He would look forward to a future without her.

With that thought, he fell asleep.

Chapter XIII

2007-06-14T09:54:00.001-07:00

Chapter XIII

Floyd awoke to the sound of screaming; it took him a groggy minute to realize that he was not the one making the noise. He stumbled out of bed and over to Dale’s crib, where his nephew wailed and kicked at the air. Floyd scooped Dale up and felt his diaper—time for a change. “Don’t worry, I’m going to take care of everything,” Floyd whispered and shuffled into the bathroom. Once he’d changed his nephew’s diaper, he took him out to the living room and sat down on the couch. Floyd rocked Dale back and forth in his arms until the child calmed down. “See, what did I tell you?” Floyd said and touched the end of Dale’s nose.

Floyd checked the clock on the wall and sighed. The honeymoon—reconciliation was a more appropriate word—was almost over. Angela and Todd had been married by the justice of the peace the day earlier; Floyd and his mother served as witnesses to the brief, dry ceremony. The newlyweds had agreed to spend one night in a local motel to get reacquainted before they both went back to work. They would be checking out of their motel by noon; Floyd was supposed to meet them at Andromeda Collectibles with their son. Then Floyd would lose the two greatest responsibilities in his life: the store and Dale.

There had been no argument over the ownership of the store; Floyd had torn up the papers that would have granted him official control. Nor did he want to spend the rest of his life caring for the place where Abby had died. Better that he pass along those ghosts to his brother’s keeping. He wouldn’t lose any sleep over losing the store; it might help his peace of mind not to have to go there anymore.

What would hurt him was losing Dale. His nephew had come to mean so much to him that he didn’t know what he would do without those eight hours a day of caring for him. He’d come to rely on that time to fill the void in his heart left by Abby’s murder. Now he would have nothing. “I’m going to miss you,” he said. Dale gurgled and reached out to touch Floyd’s nose. He hoped that was the child’s way of saying he would miss his uncle too.

With another sigh, Floyd stood up and took Dale back to the bedroom to get dressed. A winter chill still hung in the air; Floyd dressed his nephew in mittens, hat, and a thick coat to make sure he didn’t come back to his parents with a cold. “I doubt your father would notice,” Floyd grumbled.

As he drove to Andromeda Collectibles, Floyd wondered how long Todd would play at being a husband and father before the responsibility suffocated him and he ran away again. One month? Six months? A year? Maybe, Floyd thought, it isn’t a game this time. Maybe Todd had changed. Maybe his time on the road had taught him how to accept the consequences for his actions. For Angela and Dale’s sake, Floyd hoped so.

He pulled up to the store and unbuckled Dale from his carseat. “We’re here,” Floyd mumbled. He walked up to the front door of Andromeda Collectibles with a sense of foreboding; what would he do now? His hand rested on the door for a long time before he gathered the courage to open it.

All the lights were off; he had arrived too early. “I guess we’ll just have to wait,” he said to no one in particular and sat down behind the counter—the position he would soon relinquish to his brother. He looked around the store and all the memories flooded back to him; few of them were positive. Here he had experienced the worst pain of his life, almost lost his mind, and then found salvation in the child he held in his arms. It seemed appropriate that he would lose Dale in the same place where he’d lost Abby; Andromeda Collectibles would always be a testament to loss and pain for him.

The front door opened and the newlyweds appeared. Floyd stood up and met Angela halfway; he pressed her son into her arms. “Was he a good boy?” she asked.

“Always,” Floyd replied. “How was the honeymoon?”

“Fine,” Angela grunted. The ice in her voice told Floyd that he should not press for further details. “I’m going to put Dale down for a nap.” She gave Todd a sisterly peck on the cheek before stomping up the storeroom stairs.

Floyd and his brother stood far apart, twitching but saying nothing. “So what happened to the display case?” Todd finally asked.

“There was an accident,” Floyd lied.

“And where are all the comics?” Todd gestured to where the mismatched racks had once held thousands of comic books. “What’s with all this other stuff?”

“Just trying to diversify,” Floyd replied.

His brother grunted and motioned to the computers. “Those are a nice touch, though.”

“I’m glad you approve.”

Todd caught the sarcasm in Floyd’s voice and put a hand on his shoulder. “Hey, bro, you did a great job, I’m not knocking it.”

“Yeah, whatever,” Floyd mumbled. He went behind the counter and grabbed the ledger where he’d kept track of the store’s finances. He’d gotten lax on the bookkeeping after Abby’s shooting; he’d stuffed receipts and notices in the ledger to deal with at some future point in time. He showed the records to his brother, who blew out a deep breath.

“Shit,” Todd groaned. “What the hell happened?”

Floyd didn’t want to explain his mental breakdown after Abby’s death to his brother; he doubted Todd would understand. “We ran into some financial problems,” Floyd said.

“I guess so. I’m going to have to file for bankruptcy or something.”

“You do what you got to do,” Floyd replied. He didn’t have the energy to argue with Todd about how the store had already been teetering on the verge of bankruptcy before he left. Instead, he pulled out his checkbook and wrote out a check for what he estimated was the amount of cash from Andromeda Collectibles he still had in his bank account. “That should be everything. Unless you want to audit me.”

The brothers stared at each other for a long time and then Todd laughed uneasily. “Yeah, maybe I’ll do that.” Floyd shook his head and went around the other side of the counter on his way to the door. “Thanks for taking care of things for me. And I don’t just mean the store.”

Floyd nodded. “You’re welcome.” He stopped at the door and asked the question weighing heavily on his mind since Todd’s return. “Why did you come back?”

Todd shrugged. “I just woke up one day and realized it was time.”

Floyd considered the answer for a moment and decided not to press his brother on the issue any further. As Floyd pulled open the door, Todd asked, “What happened to my stool?” Floyd couldn’t hold back his laughter and wondered when was the last time he’d laughed in Andromeda Comics.

He left the store and saw Gary and Max approaching—they always did have an impeccable sense of timing. “What’s going on?” Gary asked. “Is the store closed?”

“No, Todd’s back in charge,” Floyd replied.

The two regulars jumped back as though he’d slapped them. “Todd’s back?” Max breathed. “Why didn’t he tell us?”

Floyd shrugged. “He’s been busy.” He patted Gary and Max on the shoulders and headed towards his car. “Hey,” he called to them, “just because I’m not there, don’t think you can download all the porn you want.”

“When have we ever done that?” Gary protested and winked.

Floyd smiled, glad to be rid of the store, but the question loomed in his mind—now what? He had no job, no one to take care of, and he couldn’t go back to school for at least another month. What would he do now?

As he climbed in his car and started up the engine, Michelle Kapanen ran up to his window and tapped on the glass. He rolled the window down and saw that she was almost in tears. “Weren’t you going to say goodbye?” she demanded.

“Oh, well, I guess I got caught up in so much other stuff that I forgot,” he stammered. “It’s not like we won’t ever see each other again,” he added to put her at ease, though he had no intention of coming back to the store except to visit Dale.

Michelle wiped her eyes and nodded. “Look, I was just wondering if maybe you’d like to go out tomorrow night. You know, have dinner or see a movie or something.”

Floyd stared at her for a long time and considered the proposal. The question of what to do next still loomed large in his mind. He didn’t care much for Michelle; he barely knew she existed, but who else did he have in his life? Abby was dead, Dale had two parents to care for him, and Floyd’s mother had her hands full looking after his father. He didn’t want to be alone, tormented by the painful memories in his apartment. He wanted someone to take care of, to love. Maybe Michelle could be the one. “Yeah, sure,” he said at last. She squealed with delight and promised to call him later after he gave her his number. When he pulled away to head for home, he shook his head. What the hell, he thought.

As Floyd pulled up to the curb of Michelle’s parents’ house—situated in the middle of the suburbs he had terrorized after the first disastrous encounter with Abby’s mother—he remembered how difficult his first date with Abby had been; he remembered the awkward silences that had threatened to spoil their relationship before it began. He only hoped that now, with some dating experience under his belt, he would be able to carry on a conversation. He never got the chance; Michelle began talking as soon as she came down the steps of her parent’s house in a flower print dress that reminded him of the one Abby had worn on their first date.

He tried to keep up with her as he drove to the mall, but soon found himself tuning her out. To maintain the front that he was still listening, he would nod every so often. As at Andromeda Collectibles, she never showed any sign of noticing his inattention; she continued jabbering until their movie began and other people in the audience hissed at her to be quiet. “Go to Hell!” she shouted to the audience in general. She crossed her arms and pouted through half the picture while Floyd hunkered down in his seat and wondered what he was doing here.

The hero of their movie downed a glass of whiskey; the sight of it sent Floyd’s mind tumbling back to the night when he had almost committed suicide. He had been so close; he had held the pills in his hand. All he had to do was swallow them and wait for the end to come. “Come with me,” Abby’s voice echoed in his head and he looked around the theater. Michelle shot him a dirty look and he turned his attention back to the screen.

He didn’t want to go back to the despair that had seized him that night and had continued to plague him until Angela had pressed Dale into his arms. His nephew had been his anchor, but without him, Floyd felt like a ship lost at sea, taking on dark water. Before long, he would sink back into the black ocean that had once engulfed him.

He leaned over and kissed Michelle.

The kiss took her by surprise; she flailed her arms until she got a grip around his neck and kissed him back. When he pulled away, she stared at him, her mouth hanging open and eyes bulging. He leaned back in his seat and took several deep breaths. What had he done? He’d betrayed Abby. He stood up and made his way down the aisle. “Floyd? Where are you going?” he heard Michelle call after him as he raced out of the theater.

Floyd burst into the bathroom and locked himself into a stall; he sat on the toilet and buried his face in his hands. What had he done? How could he do that to Abby? She was dead because he had done nothing to prevent her murder and now not even six months later he was kissing someone else, a relative stranger no less.

“I’m so sorry, Abby,” he whispered into his hands. “It didn’t mean anything.”

It didn’t, he knew that. He’d only kissed Michelle out of desperation, as a way to prevent descending into the depths of his crippling loneliness. During the kiss, he’d only thought of Abby—the way her lips tasted, the smoothness of her skin, and the silkiness of her hair.

In the Herbert Chemical bathroom the thought of her had driven him into her bedroom, and forced him to confess his darkest secret to her. This time the lust could only torment him; he would never taste or feel her again. He had to accept that Abby was dead. Nothing he’d felt for her could help him now; his lingering love for her would only send him crashing back into the depths.

Floyd wiped his eyes and staggered out of the bathroom. He shambled into the lobby of the movie theater and found Michelle searching the crowds for him. A smile came to her face when she saw him and she ran into his arms. He ran a hand through her hair—it had a rougher texture than Abby’s—and mumbled, “I’m sorry. I’m back now.”

They skipped the rest of the movie and went to dinner at Groesbeck’s. Floyd wanted to avoid any similarity with his date with Abby; he ordered the lasagna and a glass of white wine. Michelle ordered the same, but with a Coke; she was not of drinking age yet, a fact Floyd was unaware of until that moment. As they waited for their entrées, she resumed talking as though nothing had happened. He rested his chin on his hand and pretended to listen.

His feelings for Michelle didn’t matter so much as her proximity to him. She was too immature, too perky, and too self-involved for him, but it didn’t matter. For whatever reason, she had taken an interest in him and that was all he needed right now. He needed someone he could go through the motions of a relationship with; he needed someone who could help him forget about Abby. The waiter nudged him and put his food down before him; he wondered how long he had been daydreaming while Michelle continued to ramble on.

Floyd ate his food in silence with a phony smile fixed to his lips. He tried to tell himself that when viewed by herself—without comparisons to Abby—Michelle was not so bad. She was not beautiful, but not ugly either; she was a plain, nondescript girl of whom there were millions throughout the country. As immature and self-involved as she was, she had endured his inattention and rudeness. She was a good, ordinary girl—she was no Abby.

He had no connection, no spark, with Michelle. He and Abby had understood each other so well in spite of their awkward pauses, or maybe because of them. Inside they had been so much alike—shy, inexperienced, and hiding a terrible secret from the world. They had so many similarities to build upon. They had shared a love of books. They had grown up in the same town. Her mother and his father worked for the same company.

He and Michelle, on the other hand, were nothing alike. She was outgoing and—from what little of her chatter he listened to—she’d had her share of boyfriends growing up. She didn’t like to read books. She had spent most of her life in Pittsburgh. No one in her family worked for Herbert Chemical. They didn’t have anything to build upon, except her bizarre attraction to him. It would have to be enough.

Her prattle continued all the way back to her house, where she finally shut up and stared at him expectantly. He leaned over and gave her a dry, passionless kiss. She pulled away with her lips curled in a disapproving frown. “My parents aren’t home if you want to come inside,” she announced.

He shook his head. “I couldn’t,” he replied.

“Why not?” she whined.

“It’s just…it’s too soon,” he answered. They had only gone out on one date; it was too soon to reveal his secret to her. He thought back to that night in Abby’s bedroom when he’d first shown her what he’d hidden his entire life. She had understood his pain and shame because she felt the same way about what her mother had done to her. When he looked over at Michelle, with her eager, pleading eyes, he knew she would never understand, not the way Abby had. Abby had been one in a million.

She crossed her arms and her lips trembled; he thought she would burst into tears at any moment. “Don’t you want to be with me?”

He took her hand and looked into her eyes. “It’s not that,” he protested. “I’m not…I’m not ready yet. I need time.”

“You’re still thinking about her?” she accused him and pulled her hand from his grasp. “What about me? Aren’t I beautiful? Don’t you want me?”

“I do…”

“Then come inside with me,” she interrupted.

He hung his head. He couldn’t tell her about his secret. Not now. Not ever. “I’m sorry. I can’t.”

Her face turned red. “Why not?” she roared. Her voice lowered as she growled, “She’s dead. Forget about her.”

Before he knew it, his hand reached out and slapped her across the face. She reeled back against the door and rubbed her cheek. The sound of his hand impacting against Michelle’s skin brought Floyd back to the storeroom, where the gunman had slapped Abby across the face time and again as she fought against him. “Get out,” he whimpered.

Michelle climbed out of the car and slammed the door shut. She touched the spot where he’d hit her and as he drove away, she screamed, “I don’t ever want to see you again, you…you freak!”

As through their entire relationship, he didn’t hear her.

Floyd sat in the darkness of his apartment and stared at his hands. He couldn’t believe he’d hit Michelle. In all his life, he’d only hit Todd on a few occasions, and that was in self-defense. He hadn’t even tried to throw a punch at the gunman before his wrists were bound up. He didn’t think he could ever hit a woman; he didn’t think he was the kind of person to do that. The incident called into question everything he thought he knew about himself; if he could slap a girl, was he capable of something even worse?

In the last nine months, everything he’d thought he’d known about himself had turned out to be untrue. He had thought he was responsible; then he ran over Abby in the hallway of Sanders Hall, vandalized a golf course, fell asleep while his brother ran away, and wrecked Andromeda Collectibles in a fit of rage. He had thought he was brave; then he did nothing while Abby was raped and murdered. He had thought he was a good person; then he slapped Michelle for saying nothing more than the truth. Even his good deeds like taking over the store in his brother’s absence and helping with Dale were a cover to assuage his guilty conscience and make himself feel better.

He’d spent twenty-two years living a lie and now he didn’t know who he was anymore. Looking back at everything that had happened since he’d run into Abby, he could no longer assure himself of the most basic thing—that he was a decent human being. He didn’t know what he was capable of, how low he could sink. His moral compass was in a state of flux; he could no longer trust it to guide him.

He didn’t know where he wanted to go anyway. With no job, no school, and no writing, he had no purpose anymore. He had no idea what he wanted to do or what kind of man he wanted to be. When he’d slapped Michelle he’d finally cut the anchor and found himself adrift again on the dark sea of despair. I’m nothing, he told himself. I’m just a lump of flesh taking up space.

The telephone ran and shook him from his dark thoughts. He let it ring. The answering machine—he’d bought a new one after he started taking care of Dale—picked up after the fourth ring. “Floyd? It’s Mom,” her voice bordered on panic and he lurched to his feet. “It’s your father. We’re going to the hospital.” By the time he grabbed the telephone, the line had gone dead.

“Mom?” he called into it and got no answer. He ran out the front door and flew down the stairs to his car. As he drove to the hospital, all his other concerns and worries fell away; he cared only about his father. God, let him be all right, Floyd prayed as he sped across the old city to Freepoint General Hospital. There was very little traffic so late at night; he reached the parking lot of the emergency room with surprising ease.

The doors of the emergency room slid open for Floyd and he ran towards the front desk. Someone grabbed his arm and wheeled him around; he found himself looking up at Todd. “What’s going on?” Floyd asked.

“He stopped breathing. They took him in for surgery,” Todd explained and led Floyd to the waiting area, where Angela held Dale in one flimsy plastic chair while next to her, Lynn stared down at the floor. Floyd didn’t know what to say to his mother; he sat down next to her and said nothing.

Across the white linoleum floor, another family huddled together; it took Floyd a moment to recognize them as the Accounts Receivable manager from Herbert Chemical and her family. The manager and her husband sat close together while their pudgy daughter slept with her head on her mother’s lap. Their son was missing and Floyd wondered what had happened to him. He imagined the boy swallowing household chemicals, falling down the stairs, and running into the path of an oncoming car. When the boy returned in the company of his grandfather, Floyd blew out a breath he didn’t realize he’d been holding. The manager’s son hopped onto his father’s lap and Floyd cast his eyes down to the floor as a pang of guilt seized him.

The minutes dragged on with no word from the doctors. Todd—the irresponsible one who’d just gotten back from five months on the run—became the family spokesman and visited the front desk every few minutes to get an update. The nurse at the desk would only say that Floyd’s father was still in surgery; they would report any change as soon as they had word. The minutes became hours and Floyd feared the worst. The downcast faces of Angela and Todd told him that they too were expecting bad news. Through it all, his mother stared at the floor and wrung her hands; her expression never changed.

The doctor—a little Indian man in blood-spattered scrubs—entered the waiting area. When Floyd saw the doctor’s grim expression, he steeled himself for the news. “I’m sorry,” the doctor began and explained everything they had done to try to revive Floyd’s father. In the end, there was nothing more they could do. He was dead.

“Oh God, no,” his mother wailed. Todd patted her on the back while Floyd remained numb with disbelief. He’d known it was coming—they all had—but now that the moment was at hand, he couldn’t believe it. His father was gone.

Floyd got to his feet and lunged after the doctor. He grabbed the man by the arm and spun him around. “There has to be something more you can do,” Floyd pleaded. “There has to be something else.”

The doctor shook his head and put a hand on Floyd’s shoulder. “I’m sorry, young man, we did everything we could.” Floyd released the doctor’s arm and watched him walk away. The verdict was final, there was nothing that could change it. He returned to his grieving mother and still no words would come. Instead, he put an arm around her shoulder and hoped the gesture would convey what he felt.

Later they were informed they could go see his father. Floyd and Todd held their mother’s hands as they made the grim pilgrimage to the operating room where the doctors had fought to save their father for hours until they finally gave in to the inevitable. When the doors opened, Floyd’s legs buckled and vomit rose in his throat.

Ernie Jensen lay on a gurney, his face a pale gray-white and the rest of him covered with a sheet. Floyd took a step forward and peeked under the sheet; he turned his head just in time for his vomit to splatter on the floor. He sank to his knees and took several deep breaths as he tried to recover from the horror of what he’d seen.

The medical staff had cleaned up his father’s body before letting the family view it, but their cleaning could not mask the gruesome state of the corpse. The doctors had cracked his father’s chest open during the efforts to revive him. Blood had crusted around the area and Floyd thought he could see his father’s heart, or it might be his imagination—he didn’t have the strength to look under the sheet again. With his chest cracked and all the incisions for various tubes and equipment, his father looked more like a piece of meat than someone who had once been alive, who had once loved his sons.

Floyd felt Todd’s hand on his back. “Come on, let’s go,” Todd whispered. Floyd nodded and rose to his feet. On the way out, he paused to pull the sheet over Ernie’s face. It was the last thing he could do for his father.

The funeral was held three days later. The limousine Todd—who had made all of the arrangements—had rented wound its way through the streets of the old city on the way to St. Mark’s. Floyd remembered all the times he had traveled this route with his father at the wheel of their car. Back then, the neighborhoods they passed through had all looked idyllic with big Victorian houses sporting bright new coats of paint, white picket fences, and lush green lawns. Like everything else, the paint of the houses was now fading, the white picket fences falling down, and the green lawns growing unchecked. So many times Floyd had yearned to live in one of the big Victorian houses, but now they looked little better than the homes in Ridgewood. Floyd sighed and turned away from the window.

He sat next to his mother in the limousine; she stared straight ahead with the stony stoicism his father had always worn. Floyd wished he knew something to say to make her feel better, but nothing came to him. She had lost her husband of twenty-eight years, a man Floyd had hardly known at all. When he tried to think of moments of tenderness he had witnessed between his parents, he couldn’t think of many other than his father making breakfast on their anniversary. Perhaps his mother’s relationship with Ernie, like his own, had been built on a common understanding that did not need many displays of outward affection.

The limo pulled up to St. Mark’s and Floyd took his mother’s hand to help her out. Unlike the neighborhood around it, St. Mark Lutheran Church had not changed much. The imposing hexagonal brick building with its meticulous stained glass illustrations of the twelve disciples along the five sides outside the church made Floyd feel small and young again. As if the designers of the church had wanted to subconsciously prepare the parishioners for what would await them when they got to the afterlife, the stern image of St. Peter glared down at Floyd and his mother as they went through the front doors of the church. Once inside, Floyd paused and wondered where to go. Todd took their mother’s arm and led her into the church; Floyd waited for Angela and Dale and ushered them to the seats Todd had reserved in the front row of the church.

Sunlight poured in through the giant stained glass image of Jesus over the altar and fell onto the glossy black surface of the coffin. Todd took Lynn’s hand and led her up to the casket while Floyd remained rooted to his seat and stared down at the lush red carpet. In the wake of Ernie’s death, Todd had taken over as the man of the family. As relatives filed into the church and formed a line to pay their respects, Floyd picked up his head and noted the way Todd accepted the condolences with grace. Maybe he has changed, Floyd thought. A fat, middle-aged uncle, whose name Floyd couldn’t remember, put his hand on Floyd’s shoulder.

“How are you holding up?” the uncle asked.

“Fine,” Floyd mumbled while Todd continued to nod, smile, and shake hands with the relatives as though he were a politician on the campaign trail.

“Your dad was a good man,” the hefty uncle said before sauntering off.

Angela tapped Floyd’s shoulder and asked, “You mind holding Dale while I look for the bathroom?”

“No problem,” Floyd replied. He cleared his throat and whispered, “It’s to your left and down three doors.” She nodded and pressed her son into his arms. Dale giggled, oblivious to the seriousness of the occasion. It struck Floyd then that Dale would never know his grandfather; he vowed to make an effort to tell his nephew about what a good man Ernie Jensen was one day. Floyd pressed Dale to his chest and shed the tears he’d saved up since first getting the fateful call from his mother three days earlier.

The pain he felt in his heart over his father’s death was different than his pain over Abby’s death. While she had been ripped from his life in one violent moment, he had experienced the loss of his father a little at a time over the past year. Yet even with a year to prepare for the inevitable, the thought that he would never see his father again struck him with as much force as the realization in the hospital that he would never see Abby again.

When Angela returned and he handed Dale back to her, she saw the tears running down his cheeks and patted him on the back. “It’s all right,” she whispered in the same voice she used to soothe Dale when he cried.

“I know,” Floyd whispered and dried his eyes. “I just can’t believe he’s gone.”

“At least you had a chance to know your father,” Angela replied as Todd and Lynn took their seats next to her. But I didn’t, Floyd thought to himself as the pastor walked down the aisle past him to begin the funeral service.

The service was brief; the man who had replaced Pastor Ray didn’t know Floyd’s father and hence kept to generic remarks. When it came time for friends and family to speak, Floyd got to his feet before he knew what he was doing. He ascended the carpeted steps to the altar and faced the crowd. He tried to speak, but nothing came out. He cleared his throat and felt the eyes of the assembled friends and family upon him. From the corner of his eye, he saw Todd rising to his feet to come collect his brother.

Floyd cleared his throat again and thought about what Angela had said. “There’s not a lot I can tell you about my father,” he began. “I didn’t know him that well, not as well as a son should know a father.” Floyd paced the altar and motioned to the casket where his father lay—his skin still with an unnatural gray tinge and clad forever in a suit two sizes too large for his shriveled body. “But I know a few things—the most important things.”

His throat had turned as dry as cotton and he paused in a vain attempt to work some moisture into his mouth. “I know that he was a good father, who sacrificed his dreams to care for his family. He worked a mundane job for twenty years to provide a home for his wife and children. He always made time for Little League games or Cub Scout meetings or…” Floyd stopped and thought of all the doctor’s appointments his parents had endured for his sake. “Or to take his son to the doctor. He was always there for us, even when we weren’t there for him.”

Floyd walked over to the casket and ran his hand along the smooth black finish. “There’s something I always meant to say, but never did.” He turned to the casket and put a hand on his father’s cold shoulder. “I love you, Dad.”

Floyd had managed to hold back the tears, but as the last words escaped his lips, the emotion welled to the surface. He wiped his eyes and staggered back to sit next to his mother, who grabbed his hand and squeezed it. He squeezed back and stared down at the floor while others came up to the front of the church to share their memories. Floyd tried to listen, but was too caught up in his own memories of his father. He thought of the last holiday they’d spent together, when they’d finally embraced on the deck after Todd’s sudden return. At the end, when it was too late, they’d broken the wall of silence and let their feelings show through. If only they’d found a way to break through the wall years earlier.

The funeral service ended and Floyd followed his brother and a handful of uncles serving as pallbearers. When Floyd touched the brass rail of the coffin, he was reminded of the night at Ms. Chapman’s house when he’d angrily defended his father before storming out. Why couldn’t I have told him that? he asked himself. Why hadn’t he ever told his father how proud he was of him? He and Todd took the lead of the casket and marched down the aisle of the church on the way out to the hearse. Floyd watched the hearse depart before he trudged to the waiting limousine, full of regret.

He sat down next to his mother, who dabbed at her eyes with a handkerchief. Floyd reached over to take her hand and give it a squeeze; she smiled and squeezed back. Across from them, Todd had an arm around Angela, who held the sleeping Dale in her arms. No one said anything as the limo glided through the deserted streets of the old city on the way to the cemetery.

Once they parked at the cemetery, Floyd followed everyone to the small plot where his father would be interred. Floyd noted how different his father’s grave was from Abby’s. No marble angel stood over his plot like a stone sentinel. The glossy gray stone was marked with the family name at the top and had only his father’s name, birth date, and the day he died—no poetry or words to remember him by. That was the way it should be, Floyd thought. Ernie Jensen had been a man of few words; he didn’t have any words to remember him by. There was room on the stone for his mother’s name, birth date, and day of her death whenever that should come to pass; Floyd shuddered at the thought of losing her too.

He picked his way through the crowd and stood next to his mother to watch the casket lower into the ground. The pastor read the Lord’s Prayer over the grave and made a few more generic remarks before inviting anyone to speak. No one volunteered; Floyd had already said everything he wanted to say. People headed for their cars to begin the trek back to St. Mark’s for the funeral luncheon.

Floyd remained rooted in place, not wanting to leave yet. Todd patted him on the back and left with Angela and Dale in tow. His mother stood next to him for a long time before she asked, “Could I have a moment alone?” Floyd nodded and staggered off towards the limousine. He watched from afar as his mother knelt down and spoke one last time to her husband. What would she do now that she had no one to care for? he wondered. He shook his head and remembered his musings from the night his father died. What would he do now?

His eyes caught sight of Todd taking Dale from Angela’s arms; a smile spreading across Todd’s face caused Floyd’s heart to sink. The last few days had shown that Todd had changed, that he could take responsibility when he had to. He would be a good husband and father, as his own father had been. Floyd no longer had to worry about his nephew’s well-being.

He watched his mother walk away from the grave, wiping the tears from her eyes. It had been hard on her to have to take care of her husband like a child for the last year and then to lose him, but he knew she was strong enough to recover—much stronger than he had been after Abby’s death. He would be around if she needed him, if she needed someone to talk to or look after. In the long run, though, he wouldn’t have to worry about her either.

The only person he was worried about was himself. He had no life, no dreams, and no goals for the future. He’d lost Abby, the store, and his will to write. He could look forward to visits with his nephew, but it wouldn’t be the same. With Todd back in charge of the store and without the woman he loved, Floyd was back to where he’d been before he’d met Abby.

When he went home that night, he opened the top drawer of his dresser still filled with clothes Abby had left behind. He fondled the rough cotton of a T-shirt, the heavy wool of a skirt, and the smooth silk of a pair of panties as he conjured an image of her in each article of clothing. Then he tossed them into a shopping bag that he tied shut and threw into the dark recesses of his closet.

He pulled out his various pants and polo shirts and began to fold them and arrange them into neat little piles—midnight blue polo shirt and gray slacks for Monday, forest green polo and khakis for Tuesday, and so on. When he closed the drawers, everything was arranged exactly as it had been before Abby had ever entered his life. Floyd set the alarm clock before he realized that he had nowhere to go in the morning.

Chapter XII

2007-06-14T09:53:00.001-07:00

Part IV:

Spring

Chapter XII

The last snow of the spring had blanketed the entire city of Freepoint in white. The sun reflected off the new-fallen snow and into Floyd’s eyes as he wound up the driveway of Maple View Cemetery. The ground crunched beneath his boots as he made his way to the solemn stone angel watching over Abby’s grave. A veil of snow concealed the angel’s face, sparing Floyd from its resemblance to the woman he loved.

He knelt down at the base of the monument and brushed it off to reveal her father’s inscription; the rest of the angel was too high for him to reach. “I’m sorry I haven’t visited,” he mumbled to the ground as he placed a dozen red carnations in the snow.

Since the confrontation with Ms. Chapman, he hadn’t worked up the courage to return to Abby’s grave. At first he’d been too drained, too numbed to visit; later he hadn’t wanted to reopen the old wound. He’d come today as a last test to prove whether or not he’d recovered his sanity.

After taking care of Dale for the first time, Floyd had managed to regain some of what he’d lost in the wake of Abby’s death. Having someone else to care for gave him the incentive he needed to get up in the morning, a reason to live. Looking after a baby forced him to keep his mind focused, ever on alert for danger; even a child as young as Dale could find some way to get into trouble at Andromeda Collectibles. That simple, primal instinct provided the gateway to resume such basic functions as eating, grooming, and interacting with others.

Then this morning, Floyd looked in the mirror and for the first time in almost three months he saw his own reflection. Never before had he been so happy to see his boyish face. He’d put on about twenty pounds—so that his bones were no longer visible—and his skin, while still pale, was no longer chalk-white. He looked like a human being instead of a corpse; he had come back from the dead on Easter Sunday.

The image in the mirror convinced him that he’d regained enough strength to come out to the cemetery. Finding flowers proved difficult on Easter Sunday; the carnations from a big supermarket in the new city were the best he could find. The sight of the red flowers against the snow made him think of blood and he closed his eyes. Even with Dale in his life, the nightmares continued to plague him every night. He opened his eyes and his hands shook as he saw an image of Abby’s corpse rise before him; imaginary blood sprang from the scar on his hand and splattered onto the flowers. He took a step back and pressed his hands to his face. It’s not real, he told himself. He repeated the words like a mantra until his hands stopped shaking and his vision cleared.

Floyd sighed and tried to think of what to say to Abby. “Happy Easter,” he mumbled, the words sounding lame to his ears. “I’m so sorry about what happened,” he added.

Tears threatened to boil to the surface and he questioned the wisdom of coming here. “I miss you,” he rasped. His throat had turned to cotton and his tongue had swelled; sweat had formed on his brow in spite of the chill in the air. The idea of feeling so awkward around a corpse six feet underground made him laugh; he wiped the sweat away and tried to express what he felt. “It’s been so hard without you.”

He sighed as a wave of despair threatened to plunge him back into the sea of hopelessness. Reaching into his wallet, he pulled out a picture of he and Dale taken two weeks earlier; the grin and twinkling eyes of his nephew drained the dark waters from his mind. “This is Dale,” he said and pointed the photograph down to where he imagined Abby lay. “I wish you would have gotten a chance to meet him. He’s a great kid.”

Floyd reached out and propped the picture against the base of the monument. “I wish I could have given you a baby. I wish…” his voice caught in his throat. He thought back to the dream he’d had during his coma; he remembered the dining room full of he and Abby’s progeny. That would never happen now; there would be no sons or daughters to bear their grandchildren. “I’m sure you would have been a good mother. Not at all like your mother.”

His mind flashed to Ms. Chapman and he imagined her in that big house, all alone on Easter. Her ex-husband was happily living on the east coast and her daughter was interred in Maple View Cemetery; she had no one left to share the holiday with. He considered going to her mansion to try and reconcile—for Abby’s sake. So that her grave would never again have to endure insults and recriminations as it had the last time Floyd had visited. He thought of what he would say to Ms. Chapman and what she would say back; he shook his head and knew he wasn’t ready for that confrontation yet, if ever.

“I really would like to make up with your mom,” he mumbled to Abby. Ms. Chapman’s last words echoed in his ears and he sighed. “Maybe someday.” He kissed his hand and touched it to the cold stone of the monument before standing up and trudging back to his car.

He sat behind the wheel for a long time without turning on the ignition. He’d done it. He’d returned to Abby’s grave and kept all the old pain and despair from overwhelming him. A smile spread across his face; a great weight had been lifted from his shoulders. He turned on the engine and pulled away from the cemetery.

On the way to his parents’ house, he glanced at the vast white sea that was the country club. Covered in a pure white blanket, it was hard to imagine that it had once inspired such hatred to drive him to shit in all eighteen holes of the golf course. He shook his head and drove on to the convenience store where twice he’d stopped to buy booze to dull his heartache. This time he came out with only a can of pineapple for the Easter ham. As he left the convenience store’s parking lot, he saw his reflection in the car’s mirror; he was glad to still see his own face looking back at him.

Floyd pulled into his parents’ driveway and saw everyone else had already arrived. He found Angela and his mother in the kitchen with baby Dale in a highchair. Floyd bent down and wiped the drool from his nephew’s mouth. “How’s my little man?” he asked the baby. Dale giggled and reached out to Floyd with his stubby little arms. Floyd scooped up his nephew and whooshed him around the kitchen while making fighter jet noises. The flight concluded when Floyd pressed his nephew’s face to his and kissed him on the forehead. “Wasn’t that fun?” Floyd asked. Dale responded by spitting up on Floyd’s collar.

“Must have been some turbulence,” Angela observed and handed Floyd a towel to wipe his shirt with. “Happy Easter.”

“Yeah, Happy Easter,” Floyd mumbled. “How’s dinner coming?”

“Almost done,” Lynn answered. She looked up from the potatoes she was peeling and gave him a smile. “You get the pineapple?”

Floyd snapped his fingers; he’d left the can on the front seat of his car. “I’ll go get it. Be back in a second.”

“I’ll come with you,” Angela said and followed him to the front door.

“I don’t think we need two people to retrieve pineapple,” Floyd said.

Angela rolled her eyes and hissed, “I need to talk to you for a second—alone.”

Floyd nodded and they trudged through the snow to his car. He found the can of pineapple on the front seat and plunged it into the pocket of his jacket. He closed the car door and turned to Angela. “So what’s up?”

“Well, you’ve been really good with Dale…”

“He’s a great kid,” Floyd interrupted.

She nodded and continued, “I know it’s a lot to ask, but they’re putting me on the night shift this month and I was wondering if you might look after Dale for me?”

“I don’t know, my place isn’t really set up for a baby,” Floyd said. The real issue wasn’t with Dale—he loved his nephew—but rather with himself; he didn’t know how his tortured screams during the night would affect the child. Awaking to such a horrible sound might scar Dale for life; he didn’t want to hurt his nephew if he could help it.

“I was thinking you could stay up in my place after you close the store,” Angela said.

Floyd massaged the back of his neck with one hand as he tried to think of a good excuse. When none came to him, he decided to go with the truth. “The truth is, I don’t think it would be a very good idea. My nights are still pretty rough. I don’t think you want to put Dale through that.”

She stared back at him silently for a long time and then nodded. “I suppose you’re right,” she mumbled and turned away. As she was about to walk off, Floyd reached out and put a hand on her shoulder.

“Wait,” he said and took a deep breath. “We can try it for a night or two and see how it works out.”

When she turned around, he was surprised to see tears in her eyes. “Thanks,” she said. “I don’t think you know how much it means to me the way you’ve helped out with Dale. I just wish…” Her voice trailed off, but he had a good idea what she wanted to say. She just wished Todd could be there to help, to see how their child was growing, and to hold her on those cold, dark nights. As an uncle and babysitter there was only so much that Floyd could do; he could not replace his brother in the way she needed the most.

Floyd patted Angela’s shoulder and smiled. “You know how much I enjoy taking care of Dale.” He thought of the strength his nephew’s picture had given him at Abby’s grave. “Really, I should thank you.”

She returned his smile and wiped the tears from her eyes. “You’re welcome,” she replied. They went back into the house and Floyd’s mother gave he and Angela a questioning look, but said nothing.

“I brought back the pineapple,” Floyd said for lack of anything better to say. He plunked the can down on the kitchen counter and took a step back. Dale gurgled and Angela picked him up.

“Someone needs changed,” she announced.

Floyd put up his hands. “Don’t look at me,” he protested. Angela just shook her head and went down the hall to change her son. Left alone with Lynn, Floyd looked out the window towards the unfinished deck where he knew his father would be. “How’s Dad?” he asked.

His mother forced a smile to her lips. “Better,” she replied. It was a lie and they both knew it. His father had not been better in a long time. “You should go bring him in so he can get ready for dinner.”

Floyd nodded and went out to the deck, where his father looked frailer than ever; Floyd thought he could see through Ernie’s sagging, gray skin. “Happy Easter,” Floyd said and yearned for Dr. Stevens’s mastery of false cheer.

“Happy Easter,” his father mumbled from the folds of his jacket.

“Dinner’s almost ready,” Floyd said. Ernie nodded but did not move; Floyd shrugged and sat down next to him.

Even on Easter the clouds continued to billow from the Herbert Chemical smokestacks. The fluffy white pseudoclouds floated through a perfect blue sky; the sight was beautiful enough to make Floyd forget the environmental implications. The sun was high in the sky; it wouldn’t be long until the last snow melted and the flowers bloomed. Floyd imagined green fields dotted with wildflowers, trees full of leaves, and the beach packed with people in shorts or bathing suits. Spring was just around the corner.

As he caught a glimpse of his father, he knew it would probably be the last spring thaw his father ever saw. Floyd looked around the half-finished deck and suddenly wished he had the skill to complete it so that his father might get to host one barbecue before he died. Why not do it anyway? he asked himself. The deck didn’t have to be finished for a small get-together of family and close friends. He would have to run the idea past his mother after dinner; it was a gift they all owed his father for the sacrifices he’d made.

Floyd stood up and took the handles of Ernie’s wheelchair. “We’d better get inside,” he said and took a last look at the disparity between the brilliant sky and his fading father. “It’s getting late.”

Floyd sat down at the dining room table in his usual position on the right side with Angela on the left side, his mother at the foot, and his father at the head of the table as always. Todd’s chair, that had been next to Angela’s, now sat in the corner of the room to make a place for Dale’s highchair. Todd’s absence became more pronounced at a family gathering like this; Floyd wondered where his brother was spending Easter. Probably out on the high seas, he thought bitterly.

Floyd’s father had once led the family in prayer before dinner, but now that task fell to his mother. Like Todd’s empty chair, the prayer emphasized how much things had changed in the last eighteen months. Just two years ago, Floyd’s father had been full of life, Todd had been happily running the store, and Floyd had been looking forward to his future as a writer. The change had not happened overnight, but rather slowly over time, like the testosterone shots Floyd took. First, Floyd’s father got sick, then Todd had left Angela, and then Abby was murdered. One tragedy piled on another; Floyd wondered what would befall the Jensens next. He didn’t know how many more tragedies his fragile family could take.

While he didn’t say the prayer, Floyd’s father insisted on slicing the ham himself. The knife shook in his hands and he had to use one hand at the end of the blade and another on the hilt of the knife in order to cut the meat. Floyd held out his plate and his father dumped a slab of ham that tapered from an inch thick to razor-thin onto his plate. “Thanks,” Floyd said. He noticed his father’s pained expression, his disappointment at botching a task at which he had once been so adept.

It wasn’t supposed to be this way, Floyd thought. His father was only fifty-five; he should have had many good years left in him. As he watched Ernie struggle with the task of slicing the ham, Floyd cursed how unfair the universe was. His parents had never been given a chance to enjoy his father’s retirement from Herbert Chemical; the stroke had sent Ernie straight from middle age to old age. His mother would never get a chance to enjoy having her husband around the house; she had gone straight from mothering her children to mothering her husband. It wasn’t fair at all.

Floyd looked down at his plate and listened to Lynn talk about the latest family gossip without interest. Some cousin was pregnant. An uncle had received a big promotion at work. He didn’t recognize any of the names and simply nodded along with his mother. He willed the gloomy dinner to end; anything was better than this slow torture.

Then the front door opened and a ghost appeared in the dining room.

At first Floyd didn’t recognize his brother—he’d lost at least a hundred pounds, shaved his beard off, and let his hair grow long. Todd had dressed almost exclusively in T-shirts and blue jeans for as long as Floyd could remember, but now he dressed like a farmer with a brown Carhart jacket, red flannel shirt, and grungy Red Sox baseball cap. When Floyd caught his brother’s eyes, they were still brown but looked harder.

No one spoke for a long time; Floyd’s father dropped his fork on the floor and Dale coughed. Then, at last, his mother asked, “Todd? Is that you?”

“It’s me,” he said. Even his voice sounded different, deeper than Floyd remembered.

“My God, where have you been?” Lynn asked and bolted from her chair to wrap her arms around her prodigal son come home.

“Here and there,” Todd replied and returned his mother’s hug. While mother and son embraced, Floyd looked over at Angela, who’d gone as white as the snow outside. After five months of waiting and hoping, Todd had returned.

When Lynn pulled away from her son to grab Todd’s neglected chair from the corner, Floyd fixed his brother with a hard stare and asked, “Are you here to stay?”

Todd nodded. “I’m back for good.” Lynn put Todd’s chair down next to him and when Todd sat down, his eyes went wide as he spotted the baby next to Angela. “Is that, is he…”

“That’s your son,” Lynn answered. “His name is Dale.”

“Oh my God,” Todd breathed. “He’s beautiful.”

When Todd reached towards his son, Angela snatched her child away and stormed out of the room. A door at the other end of the house slammed; no one moved for a long time until Todd got to his feet and followed after his fiancée. Floyd looked around the table from his weeping mother to his stoic father. All three of them—suddenly bystanders to a domestic disturbance—listened for any sound from Angela or Todd.

Todd shouted something, Dale screamed, and the door opened. Angela stomped through the dining room and out the front door with Todd hot on her heels. “Come back!” he called after her. “Please, you don’t understand…” his voice was cut off as he slammed the front door behind him.

Floyd waited until he heard a car engine start and tires squeal before he stood up and went to the window. Angela’s car screeched out of the driveway and roared out of Ridgewood. Todd came up the front steps and as he approached, Floyd was shocked to see Dale in his arms. He couldn’t believe Angela had left her son in the care of the father who’d abandoned him. The front door opened and Todd looked around the dining room. He pressed Dale’s red, teary face into his mother’s arms. “Can you watch him until I get back?” Before his mother could answer, Todd was already out the door and climbing into his truck.

Some things had changed while others stayed the same; Floyd watched his mother try to comfort her grandson, now abandoned twice by his father.

Floyd changed Dale’s diaper while his mother performed a similar task with his father. Changing diapers had become second nature to Floyd; he could almost do it blindfolded. After he finished with his nephew’s diaper, he picked Dale up and patted him on the back. “Don’t worry, Mommy is going to be back soon,” he whispered.

He hoped Angela would be back soon; so far she had been gone for three hours. It was getting dark outside and he began to wonder if she had pulled a Todd and skipped town. More likely, she and Todd were hammering out their differences and agreeing to some form of joint custody. “Everything is going to be fine,” Floyd assured his nephew.

He didn’t believe that in his heart. While glad that his brother had finally returned, he remained skeptical about Todd’s intentions. What would happen when the prodigal son was faced with dirty diapers and midnight feedings? Would he take off into the night once again when confronted with the grim reality of raising a child? Before the botched wedding, Floyd would not have doubted that his brother would do the right thing, but after all that had happened, he didn’t know anymore. “I’ll still be here to take care of you,” he sang to Dale. The little boy fell asleep in his arms and Floyd smiled.

No matter how Angela and Todd decided to divide their custody, Floyd would still be available to help care for his nephew. Dale had saved his life; he had given his uncle a reason to live. For that reason alone, Floyd would do everything in his power to make sure Dale grew up healthy and happy.

He went into the living room and sank into his father’s old recliner. Dale stirred in his arms as Floyd sat down, but the baby didn’t wake up. “Don’t worry about anything,” Floyd told his nephew. “Your parents will always love you. Even if they aren’t always around.”

Headlights shone in the window and Floyd tried to make out which of Dale’s parents had arrived first. To his surprise, Angela and Todd walked in the door together. As much as he wanted to know all the details about what had happened, Floyd didn’t know how to tactfully ask. “Is everything all right?” he asked.

“Yeah, everything’s fine,” Todd replied. He stepped forward and held his arms out. “Can I hold him? I promise I won’t wake him up.” Floyd shot his brother a dubious look and then eased the sleeping infant into Todd’s waiting arms.

“Be careful. Hold him like this,” Floyd said and instructed Todd on how to hold his son.

“I think he likes me,” Todd whispered as Dale reached out in his sleep with his tiny hands to touch his father’s smooth face. “He’s so cute.”

Floyd took a step back and watched his brother with a jealous eye. He had nurtured Dale for the child’s entire life, and now his brother had swept in off the street to take over that role. Floyd wanted to rip Dale from Todd’s arms and run away; he wanted to keep his nephew to himself.

Angela came up to his side and whispered, “We need to talk.”

Floyd nodded and followed her out to the deck, where the frigid night air had him shivering in seconds. Angela stomped her feet and blew into her hands to warm them. “I’m sorry to drag you out here, but I don’t want to wake Dale up.”

“So what did you guys decide to do?” Floyd asked.

Angela held up one finger and showed Floyd the engagement ring she hadn’t worn since her wedding day. “We’re getting married.”

Floyd suddenly felt cold, but it had nothing to do with the weather. “What? When?” he stammered, unable to comprehend the situation.

“We’re going to the courthouse tomorrow. I’d really like you to be there as a witness.”

“Of course,” Floyd replied. “But don’t you think this is a little sudden?”

She shrugged. “I think it’s better that way.”

“You shouldn’t rush into it because you think you have to,” he said.

“I want to.” She stared at him for a moment and then continued, “I know it’s hard for you to understand, but I still love Todd.”

Floyd raised his voice, unable to contain his anger. “After all he did? He left you at the altar! He left you to have Dale alone. Are you just going to let him hurt you again?”

“What do you want me to do?” she shouted back. “Raise Dale alone like my mother did with me?”

“No, of course not, but…”

She put a hand on his shoulder and lowered her voice. “I know how much you love Dale. This doesn’t mean you can’t still see him.”

Angela had sniffed out only part of the reason for Floyd’s objection. He did fear that with Todd and Angela marrying he would never get to see the nephew who had come to mean so much to him. He worried that without Dale to care for, the dark waters of despair would crash over him again. All that aside, there was a much more sinister reason he didn’t want to tell his future sister-in-law: he wanted Todd to suffer.

For Todd to just waltz back into Freepoint and resume his life as though nothing had happened was a grave injustice. It only rewarded his brother’s selfish behavior by not slapping him with any consequences for his reckless, irresponsible actions. That, in turn, would encourage Todd to continue his careless ways, which would wind up hurting Angela and Dale again and again. And Floyd would have to stand by and watch from the sidelines as his brother destroyed not only his own life, but those of his wife and child. “Have you ever thought about what happens when he gets tired of being a father? When he leaves you holding the bag again?” Floyd growled.

“I know you don’t believe me, but he’s changed.”

Floyd laughed bitterly. “I’m sure he has.”

Angela glared at him and said, “I’m not asking for your permission. Will you come with us to the courthouse?” He nodded and Angela thanked him before she went back inside.

Floyd turned away from the house and looked out at the orange clouds from the Herbert Chemical plant drifting through the sky. His body filled with the same rage that fueled his destroying Andromeda Collectibles a month earlier. It wasn’t fair! his mind shouted. Todd was getting back his fiancée and son with no penalty while Floyd—who’d ran his brother’s store and helped raise his son—was left with nothing.

He punched the rail of the deck and couldn’t keep the tears from coming. Why did Todd get Angela and Dale back while he lost Abby? “It’s not fair!” Floyd screamed into the night air.

“No, it’s not,” his father said from behind him. Floyd spun around, amazed that he hadn’t heard the door open or Ernie’s wheelchair roll onto the deck. “I’m sorry,” Ernie said.

Floyd wiped his eyes and nodded. “It’s not your fault.” Then he did something that he had never done before; he collapsed weeping into his father’s arms. “Why?” Floyd asked over and over again. The question had so many meanings. Why had his father gotten sick? Why had Abby died? Why did someone always bail Todd out?

His father patted him on the back and mumbled, “I don’t know.” When Floyd managed to get a grip on his emotions, he sat down next to Ernie and they watched the sky as they had so many times before. As they did, another question came to Floyd’s mind when he thought of rushing into his father’s arms. Why had he waited so long?

Chapter XI

2007-06-14T09:50:00.001-07:00

Chapter XI

An ear-piercing scream echoed in Floyd’s ears and he realized as he sat up in bed that the sound had come from his own lips. He leaned back against the headboard and ran a hand through his sweaty hair. His blankets were knotted up around him from his violent thrashing, his sheets drenched with sweat, and his pillows scattered about the room. Another night, another nightmare. As his rapid breathing came under control, he slipped back under his covers and stared at the ceiling, too scared to close his eyes.

Over the last month, the nightmares had not subsided; they had grown ever more violent and gory. In the latest dream, the gunman not only raped Abby, he decapitated and disemboweled her as well. And as happened every night, Floyd had been forced to watch the wicked black blade slice through Abby’s tender flesh as though it was butter. He’d lain in a pool of her blood, screaming without sound until he awoke.

In his dream, his screams made no noise, but in real life they shook his entire building. In two years he’d caught little more than passing glances of his neighbors; in the past month they’d all dropped by in varying states of agitation to see if someone was actually committing murder and to ask him to keep the noise down. He’d tried to sleep with a gag over his mouth, but it only reminded him of the tape over his lips that night in the storeroom.

Unable to control the nightmares, he knew it wouldn’t be much longer before his neighbors asked him to leave. Where would he go? The last thing his ailing father needed was to get woken up in the middle of the night by his son’s screaming. He could sleep in the store, but the racket he made would keep Angela and little Dale from getting any rest. They have a place for people like me, he told himself. It’s called a sanitarium. No doubt he would fit in nicely in a mental hospital with the other raving lunatics.

Floyd sighed and listened for any sign that his latest bout of hysteria had disturbed his neighbors. He turned his head towards the bathroom, where he’d flushed down the pills and booze that would have taken him to Abby. When he’d rejected suicide he thought he could live with the pain, but each day it grew worse. He didn’t know how much longer he could go on without losing his mind, if he hadn’t already.

He spent the rest of the night staring into the darkness and listening to the sound of his pounding heart. When the alarm sounded, he rolled out of bed and gathered up his clothes—the same black T-shirt and jeans he wore every day. In the last week he’d been forced to carve a new notch in his belt to cinch the jeans around his bone-thin waist. He trudged out the door without breakfast—he hadn’t eaten breakfast since the gunman put a bullet in his midsection.

As he pounded down the stairs to his car, he saw one of his neighbors shepherding her two small children into her car. When she spotted him, she furiously shoved the kids into the vehicle and slammed her door shut. That’s right, stay away from the crazy man, Floyd thought as he climbed into his car. The Shadow limped out of the parking lot and plodded towards Andromeda Collectibles.

Floyd parked next to the store and turned off the engine, but his hands remained on the steering wheel. Each day it became harder to find the impetus to get him to leave his car. “Time to roll the boulder uphill,” he mumbled as he swung the Shadow’s door open.

He no longer needed a cane to walk, but he began to limp as he neared the front door of the store. The limp was born of mental rather than physical fatigue; the sense of dread that weighed on him every time he unlocked the door put the stress on his legs. He threw open the door and flipped the sign to OPEN. Weariness washed over him like a wave as he staggered to his post behind the counter.

Despair pressed him to the bottom of a dark sea; he watched the world drift by from the ocean floor, the faces blurred and sound muffled. He witnessed everything with a passive detachment, too far removed by the icy waters of hopelessness to interact with the world above him. When someone asked him for help he would just continue to stare—too tired physically and battered emotionally to speak. Most customers understood that he was capable of only ringing up purchases set down on the counter; anything else required too much effort. The less sensitive customers would ask him if he was retarded or on drugs, to which he would make a noncommittal grunt and resume staring into space.

Since he’d reopened the store, Gary and Max had become his silent partners. Given their long acquaintance with Andromeda Collectibles, they were more than capable of assisting customers with questions or concerns. Whether they performed this service out of pity for him or loyalty to Todd he didn’t know, nor did he care. When he unlocked the front door of the store, his mind emptied of all emotion save for the lingering dread weighing down his soul.

“Hey Floyd!” a familiar voice chirped sometime during the day, penetrating the murky gray waters of his mind.

A disturbing constant of the last month was the presence of Michelle Kapanen five or even six days a week. She would browse the almost unchanging selection of used books, grab one from the shelf, and stand with it just to the side of the counter, from where she poured out the story of her life to him, oblivious to his lack of interest.

A few tidbits managed to drift down through his watery indifference. She was a freshman at Freepoint Community College. She didn’t have a major yet—she was deciding between teaching and criminal justice. Her family had moved here from Pittsburgh two years ago. She had a cat named Sparkles that had come with her from Pennsylvania. Her favorite color was blue.

Once he’d snapped out of his catatonic state long enough to look at her. She was tall and lean—almost as pale and thin as he was—with long chestnut hair and freckles. In another time he would have taken an interest in her, but the only woman he cared about now lay in a coffin in Maple Valley Cemetery. Yet despite his inattention—or because of it—Michelle Kapanen continued to browse the used books and jabber at the counter. He allowed himself on rare occasions to wonder if she was drawn to him because she felt him a kindred spirit or if she had taken on the responsibility of saving his soul. In either case, he felt a brief pang of pity for her.

Michelle was gone by the time the clock struck eight and Floyd’s mind resurfaced. When they saw him rise from his chair, Gary and Max were quick to shut down their computers and scurry away with a muttered farewell. They, like his neighbors, were scared of him. When he saw his ghostly reflection in the glass of the front door, he couldn’t blame them. With his pale skin stretched tight across his bony frame, he looked like the Grim Reaper.

He drove home, unconscious to anything around him, and trudged up the steps to his apartment. A note on his door from the post office informed him that his mail was being held because he had not cleaned out his mailbox despite their repeated warnings to do so. Floyd left the note on the door and splashed down onto the couch. He flipped on the television, where the Red Wings played the Toronto Maple Leafs. While his eyes watched the red and blue shapes speed around the ice, his mind could not follow the action.

His stomach rumbled and he forced himself to go into the kitchen, where he threw a TV dinner into the microwave without bothering to even poke holes in the plastic wrap. He watched the digital numbers tick down with the same weary emotional distance that overcame him when he worked at the store. When the numbers reached zero, he pulled the meal from the microwave and didn’t flinch when he pulled the plastic off and a jet of steam stung his face. He ate a few bites of a gelatinous red glob that passed for lasagna before setting the cardboard tray aside and turning off the television.

“Are you sure he’s still alive?” someone had asked once. As he staggered back to the bedroom and prepared for another night of violent dreams, he no longer knew the answer.

The door slammed shut behind Michelle Kapanen, the sound of it jolting Floyd from his usual stupor. He blinked in surprise and took a look around him—the store was empty. He checked his watch and saw that it was almost time to close the store for the night. With a groan, he swung off his chair and stretched his seldom-used muscles.

Then he saw the package on the counter.

It was a blue and white Federal Express envelope; Gary had signed for it after the courier failed to rouse Floyd from his catatonia. Floyd stared at the envelope for a long time, his mind grinding into gear as he tried to remember any packages he was expecting. The return address was the Law Offices of Irving Cox in Boston. No doubt some collection agency was bringing legal action upon him for not paying a bill. He touched the envelope, but didn’t pull the tab to open it. Why bother? Let the lawyers sue him and take their pound of flesh, if they could find one. He didn’t care.

He took a deep breath, yanked the tab, and turned the envelope upside-down. A stack of papers fell out and fanned across the counter. Floyd picked one up at random and scanned the dense legal text; none of it made any sense to him. He was about to toss the sheet of paper aside when his eyes caught the signature at the bottom.

The paper bore Todd’s sloppy John Hancock. Floyd gaped and then noticed the seal of a notary public—the contract had been notarized three days ago. He frantically pawed through the rest of the papers to garner some idea of what was going on. At last he found a typed memorandum also bearing Todd’s signature. As he read the message from his brother, Floyd’s fists clenched and his teeth gnashed together.

“Greetings from Boston!” he heard Todd’s voice in his ears as he read the memo. “I’ve stopped in here to finalize some paperwork. Don’t come looking for me; I’ll be long gone by the time you get this. Tell Mom that everything is fine and tell Angela I’m sorry.”

“I don’t know when I’ll be home—I’m having too much fun. Last week, I was working on a lobster boat in Maine. If only you could have been there to see me! It’s a lot harder than it looks. Being there on the ocean is unbelievable; you’ve really got to try it sometime.”

“The reason I’m writing you is to transfer ownership of the store to you until I get back. This way everything will be nice and legal. The lawyer who drew it up says that as long as you sign it and get it notarized by your own guy everything should be fine. I guess I’ll have to trust him on this.”

“I know this isn’t fair to you, but I just need some time to figure things out. I couldn’t get married knowing that there was so much out there I’d never seen and done. I didn’t want to feel trapped. I hope someday everyone can forgive me.”

Floyd crumpled the memo and stared at the assembled papers as though trying to immolate them with his mind. So now the store really was all his—nice and legal as Todd had said. After four months it was a useless, futile gesture. Floyd threw the memo across the store, where it skittered to a stop at the base of the comic book rack.

“You have to be responsible for your actions, and their consequences,” he’d been told. He’d lived his whole life by that simple philosophy. He tried to be responsible, to do the right thing, and where had it gotten him? Responsibility had led him to take care of Abby, and look where that had gotten both of them. He’d taken over the store to atone for his failure as a best man, and since then he’d lost everything in life that mattered to him. Meanwhile, the one time responsibility had threatened to imprison Todd, he’d run off and was now having the time of his life.

Todd was exploring the country while his former fiancée raised his child alone and his brother kept his stool warm until he decided to return—if he ever did. He allowed others to carry his burdens because he was too afraid to do it himself. As he always had, he’d fled as soon as the going got too tough for him. His irresponsibility had driven him to change majors every year in college and then to drop out altogether to flee to the safety of Andromeda Comics, where his father had borne the brunt of the financial risk for him. Someone was always there to bail Todd out—his parents, his brother, or his fiancée.

And where was Todd when others needed his help? When his fiancée needed him to help raise their son, when his mother needed someone to aid her in caring for their ailing father, or when Floyd needed a brother to help him through his grief, where was Todd? Catching lobsters in Maine, oblivious to the pain his parting had caused.

Over the four months Todd had been gone, Floyd had experienced a range of emotions about his brother—pity, disappointment, and anger—but as he glowered at the legal papers on the counter a raw, powerful hatred crept into his mind. Todd had abandoned them all. He’d used them when it was convenient and then fled at the time they needed him most. Floyd took the papers in his hands and tore them into confetti-sized shreds; they drifted to the floor like multi-colored snowflakes.

He wanted to find Todd and make him experience some of the pain he’d caused by his cowardly exit. He wanted Todd to face the challenges of raising a child alone. He wanted him to try and keep his sanity while his spouse withered away and the rest of his family fell to pieces. He wanted his brother to wake screaming in the middle of the night after another gory nightmare. But as much as he wanted it, Floyd knew it wouldn’t happen. Todd was too much of a coward to face up to his responsibilities.

Floyd’s hands flexed and his eyes narrowed as he looked around the store. Todd had left all this to him. “I don’t want it,” Floyd growled. “Any of it!” He hefted the old metal cash register and heaved it like a shot-put through the front window of the store. Broken glass and coins spread out on the sidewalk; the cash register had rung up its final sale.

For a moment, Floyd stared at the shattered window, his chest heaving and fingers twitching. In all his life, he’d never felt such a surge of power—the raw, primal glee that came from the obliteration of a hated enemy. The moment he’d hurled the cash register, his soul had been set free from the bonds of responsibility. He didn’t have to roll the boulder uphill for eternity; he could smash it into dust. He could take the store from his brother forever.

He pulled down the bookshelves; the used books Michelle Kapanen had yet to thumb through scattered across the floor. Then he reached behind the counter to heft his chair over his head. He brought it down on the surface of the glass display case; the chair smashed through the shelves and vibrated in his hands as it hit the floor. Floyd reached in among the scattered coins, cards, and vintage comics to grab one of his more expensive items—a baseball bat autographed by former Tigers great Al Kaline. He used Kaline’s bat on the computer terminals; he pounded the computers long after they and the bat had shattered. He tossed the splintered handle of the bat away and fixed his gaze on the comic book rack. With a grunt, he hefted it and ran it through the front door like a battering ram. The long cylindrical rack flew from his hands and into the street, a trail of slick comics left in its wake.

Floyd stood in the center of the store and looked around at the devastation. A smile spread across his lips. The ocean of despair had drained away; he was back on dry land. One more thing left. A chill as always came over him as he entered the place where Abby had died. Resting against one wall he saw his target—Todd’s stool. The symbol of his brother mocked Floyd. “You bastard!” Floyd screamed and bashed the stool against the floor until only splinters remained.

Then Floyd sank to his knees in the center of the storeroom, his anger spent. His heart pounded in his chest, his breath came out in ragged gasps, and his muscles burned. Sweat stung his eyes and when he reached up to brush it away, he noticed the blood from a long, jagged gash on the palm of his left hand. He watched with grim fascination as the blood trickled down the flesh of his hand and formed a puddle on the floor in almost the exact spot where Abby had died. The sight of it brought his every nightmare to life.

The gunman had taken the same pleasure in raping and killing Abby that Floyd had felt demolishing the store. His hatred of Todd had unleashed a dark, raging monster; the same monster that had taken Abby from him. The blood he saw was no longer his, it was hers pooling on the floor. He put his hands to his face, let out a final incoherent scream, and passed out.

Floyd awoke to someone’s hand on his shoulder, shaking him gently. He groaned and opened his eyes to find himself sprawled on the storeroom floor of Andromeda Collectibles and Angela on her knees next to him. Her hand had shook him awake. “Floyd?” she asked. “What happened? Did someone ransack the place?”

“I did this?” his shock turned it into a question. He said it again with more certainty, “I did this.”

“Why?” He sat up and told her about Todd’s package. When he finished, she hissed, “That prick. That selfish prick.”

“Yeah,” Floyd mumbled. He held up his hand and saw dried blood caked around the gash on his palm. He winced when he tried to flex his hand; it hurt like hell.

“We should go upstairs and clean that up,” Angela suggested.

“I’m fine,” he said and got to his feet. He stepped in the tiny puddle of his blood and tracked it across the floor into the store. He took in the overturned shelves, smashed display case, and shattered computers. The utter devastation he’d wreaked boggled his mind; he let out a low whistle. “I can’t believe I did this.”

“I think it looks better this way,” Angela said from behind him.

“I should clean up the mess in the street before the cops find out,” Floyd mumbled. He went back into the storeroom to find a broom and dustpan to sweep up the glass. Angela followed him and grabbed a box of garbage bags. “You don’t have to help me. This is my mess,” he said.

“It’ll go quicker with two of us,” she replied. He shrugged and followed her outside. That no one had come along to take the cash register or any of the comics splayed across the road was a testament to how deserted this part of the old city had become. He sighed and retrieved the dented comic book rack from the middle of the street while Angela began to sweep up the glass around the dented cash register. “You know, you should file a claim with the insurance company. Tell them some vandals ransacked the store.”

“The insurance lapsed last week,” he said.

She stopped sweeping and glared at him. “Why didn’t you renew it?”

He shrugged. “Why bother?”

She motioned to the carnage around them. “So how are you going to pay to fix all this?”

“You think I should?”

“Well, what else would you do?” she asked.

He shrugged again. “Close the place down. Say the hell with it all.” He tracked down the last of the comics in the road and threw them in a trash bag. “This isn’t my store. It never was. Besides, I thought you liked it this way.”

“I was joking,” she snapped. “Cutting your losses and running, that’s something he would do.” The heat in her voice gave Floyd no illusions about whom she meant. He took another look at the damage and sighed. She was right. To leave the place in this condition because he didn’t want to make the effort to fix it was something Todd would do. Quitting was a natural gift of his.

“I guess you’re right.” He examined the broken window and door. “I’ll have to buy some plastic to cover those up. Then haul that display case to the dump. And look for some new computers.” He counted off each item on his fingers.

“Let me call my brothers tomorrow and see if they can help,” Angela suggested.

“Sure,” he mumbled. They worked in silence for a few minutes until he could bear it no longer. He had to ask the question preying on his mind. “Why are you being so nice to me?”

“Well, we are almost family,” she replied.

“Yeah, but we were never,” he searched for the right word, “close.”

She shrugged. “I don’t know,” she said. “Maybe it’s because of everything you’ve done for Todd. I know it hasn’t been easy for you.”

He looked down at his feet and asked, “Were you the one to…find Abby and I?” She nodded. “Was she still…alive when you found her?”

Angela shook her head. “She was already gone.” Tears threatened to pour from Floyd’s eyes and Angela put a hand on his shoulder. “I’m really sorry about what happened.”

“It’s not your fault,” he replied. They both looked down at the ground for a while. “Is it true, what Todd said about your brothers? What they did to you?”

She nodded. “They used to, until I got big enough to fight back. I don’t really blame them; they weren’t old enough to understand what was going on.” A strange smile came to her face. “Todd didn’t tell you what happened to my mom’s boyfriend, did he?” Floyd shook his head. “One night, after he was done with me and was laying there passed out, I cut off his dick with a butcher knife.”

Floyd stared at her in shock. “Really?” he stammered.

She nodded. “They were able to reattach it, but he didn’t come by anymore.” She laughed and said, “My brothers thought they were next, so they gave me a wide berth after that night.”

“Oh my God,” Floyd breathed. “That’s terrible.”

Her smile faded and a tear came to her eye. “When I saw you two lying there, it was almost like being back in that trailer.” He tried to put a hand on her, but she shook it away.

“I’m sorry,” he mumbled. “I shouldn’t have asked.”

“Let’s just finish cleaning this up,” she growled. The moment of tenderness they’d shared was over; the defenses were back up. They finished sweeping up the sidewalk and she helped him tape garbage bags over the door and window. “That won’t keep much out,” she observed.

He shrugged. “Anyone who wants to come in here isn’t going to find very much.” He turned out the lights and they stood in the darkness, unsure of what to say. “I should go home,” he said.

“You want to come up and see Dale?” she asked.

“No, I don’t want to wake him up.” She turned to go, but he reached out with one hand to stop her. “By the way, my offer is still good. If you need any help looking after him, I’m always here.”

She looked him up and down. “Are you sure about that?” she asked and disappeared up the stairs to her apartment. He stood rooted in place for a long time, thinking about that last comment. He held up his pale, bony hand and examined his wound. No, he hadn’t been here, not for a long time.

Floyd posted a sign on the remains of the door the next day to explain that the store was closed for ‘extensive remodeling’ and would reopen in a week. He stood at the door to greet Gary and Max, to prevent them from getting a good look at the devastation he’d wrought upon Andromeda Collectibles. They gave him skeptical glares when he professed ignorance of what happened; Floyd knew they would return later to find out why they couldn’t get their daily dose of online pornography. In the meantime, Floyd worked to sort the viable inventory from what had been ruined.

He went about the task with the same mindlessness that had overtaken him since returning to work at the store. The violent passion and later the guilt that had seized him all fell away as he focused on the simple process of cleaning up. There were moments when he could convince himself that someone else had run amok in the store, but then one look at his bandaged hand brought back the memory of the chair shattering the display case, the cash register breaking the window, the bat smashing the computers, and the comic book rack flying through the front door. He would stop working for a moment and look around as though waking from a dream before delving back into the dark depths of despair.

The interior of the store was cleaned up by the time Angela’s brothers arrived at noon. They’d brought their own beer with them; they were each drinking one as they walked through the broken door. “What the hell happened here?” the older brother asked.

“I don’t know,” Floyd replied.

Not even Angela’s greasy brothers would swallow his non-explanation. They shook their heads and finished their beers in unison. “So you need our help fixing the place up?” the younger brother asked.

Floyd nodded. “I just need some help replacing the broken glass,” he began and motioned to the display case, “and hauling that away to the dump.”

“Yeah, no problem,” the older one said. They sized up the situation and began taking measurements of the window and door. Floyd took one of their beers and drank it slowly while he watched them work. The alcohol did little to ease his gloominess; he threw it away after drinking half.

He heard footsteps pounding down the stairs and Angela emerged from the storeroom behind him. Floyd took note of the way her brothers cringed and hung their heads when they saw her; they looked to him like dogs fearful of getting smacked on the nose with a newspaper. She held Dale in one hand and two bags—one for diapers and one for accessories—in the other.

He assumed she would brush past him and go out the door, but she stopped and turned to him. “Floyd, I need to take you up on your offer,” she whispered. She shot a glance at her brothers, who feigned intense interest in their measurements. “I’ve got a job interview and I need someone to watch Dale.”

“Yeah, sure,” Floyd mumbled without enthusiasm.

“I wouldn’t ask, but my mom is working and your parents have to go to the doctor,” she added. Another glance at her brothers told him that they were not an option for babysitting.

“It’s fine,” Floyd said. She pressed the baby into his arms and set the bags down on the floor next to him.

He held Dale awkwardly while Angela leaned down to kiss her son on the forehead. “I’ll be back in a couple of hours,” she said more to Dale than to Floyd. Then Angela hurried away and for the first time in his life, Floyd had to care for a child. He rocked Dale in his arms and slid the bags along with him as he walked over to one of the wingback chairs.

“Hey little guy,” he whispered, not sure what he should say. “I’m your Uncle Floyd. Your mom is going to be back real soon, I promise.” The baby gurgled in response.

The brothers kept their distance from Floyd and their nephew while they loaded the frame of the display case into the back of their truck. They took off for the dump without a word and Floyd guessed that Angela must have issued instructions—verbally or perhaps through some kind of sibling telepathy—that they were not get near her son. The door slammed shut behind the brothers and Floyd was left alone.

The advantage of not having a sense of smell became apparent when he felt the sudden heaviness of Dale’s diaper. The mess woke up the baby, whose screams and tears were like a miniature version of Floyd when he awoke every night from his violent nightmares. “Bad dream?” he asked his nephew. Dale wailed in reply and Floyd held him tightly to his chest and kicked the bags over to the counter. “I know how that is.”

He’d never changed a diaper and as he spread out the various supplies on the counter where the cash register had once stood, it was clear that the process was harder than he thought. Dale continued screaming, his brown eyes watery and face red while Floyd tried to figure out how to change the diaper. He decided that it made the most sense to dispose of the dirty diaper and then clean up the area. He threw the soiled diaper in the trash and used one of the baby wipes to clean up the brown mess left on Dale’s tiny rear end. “There we go,” Floyd announced, proud of himself for not bungling the first phase of the operation.

“Now for the fun part,” he mumbled while the child’s wailing pierced his eardrums. Floyd read the instructions on the bottle of baby powder and spread a liberal amount across Dale’s bottom. Then he reached for a fresh diaper and fumbled with the tabs to secure the diaper in place. After the third attempt, he pounded the counter and shouted, “Damn it!”

“What happened here?” Michelle Kapanen asked from behind him.

“I don’t know,” Floyd snapped and pulled out his fourth diaper.

“What a cute baby!” Michelle gushed and tickled Dale’s soft belly. The child giggled and cooed. “Is this your son?”

“No, my nephew,” Floyd replied. He attempted to seal the diaper and groaned in frustration as it slid off Dale when he tried to lift the child.

“Here, let me,” Michelle offered. She took another diaper from the basket and expertly fastened the tabs so that the diaper was snug to Dale’s body. “I used to do a lot of babysitting,” she explained. He thought she might have mentioned that before, but he didn’t know for sure.

“Thanks,” Floyd said. Michelle picked up Dale, who fell asleep almost immediately in her arms. Michelle continued to rock and hum to him while Floyd watched in amazement. “I guess he likes you,” he mumbled.

“You just need practice,” Michelle said. She passed Dale to Floyd and instructed him in the proper way to hold the child. He rocked the baby in his arms and a smile came to his face. A joy he’d thought long-extinguished flooded through him as he watched the way the child slept so peacefully. “Babies are so adorable,” Michelle whispered.

Floyd had never thought so; he’d always thought of them as helpless, screaming, messy things whose only purpose was to annoy him whenever he had to wait in line at a store. Now, as Dale slept in his arms, Floyd understood why people loved babies so much. They were beautiful, so full of innocence and hope for the future. A tear came to Floyd’s eye and he wiped it away with the back of one hand as he wished he could have given Abby a child.

Michelle put a hand on his shoulder. “It’s all right,” she whispered. “You’re doing great.” He nodded and refocused his attention on the child he held.

“Everything is fine,” he whispered to his nephew. “Everything is fine,” he repeated and believed it for the first time since Abby’s death.

The door opened and Michelle jumped as though she’d been caught in bed with another woman’s husband. Angela scooped up her son and rubbed the tip of his tiny nose. “How was he?” she asked.

“Great,” Floyd answered. He cleared his throat and asked, “How’d the interview go?”

“I got the job,” Angela replied. “I start as soon as they find a uniform for me.” She must have sensed his questioning look, because she added, “It’s just working the counter at McDonald’s, but at least it’s something.”

“Right,” Floyd said and watched Angela take Dale away from him. “I’ll take the bags for you,” he offered and bolted out of his chair. He followed her upstairs and waited for her to unlock the door to the apartment.

”He really didn’t give you a hard time?” she asked.

“No, he was great,” Floyd replied. He hauled the bags inside and left them on the couch. He stood there with a blank expression, twitching while Angela set Dale into the chipped white crib where Floyd and Todd had once lain. “He’s a good kid.”

“Not like his father, I hope,” Angela hissed.

Floyd nodded, suddenly uncomfortable. “I guess I’d better go.” He jerked forward and descended the stairs with a weary, defeated gait. When he returned to the store, he found Michelle still standing there.

“I was thinking, if you weren’t busy later…” she began but was cut off as the door banged open and Angela’s brothers came in hauling a pair of doors they’d salvaged from the dump.

“I’ve got to get back to work,” Floyd snapped to her. Pain flashed across her face and she trudged out of Andromeda Collectibles on the verge of tears. In another time and place he would have cared; he would have chased after her to apologize for hurting her. But the ray of light from his time with Dale had been dispersed by the dark waters that now crashed over him again.

Floyd threw his keys on the end table and collapsed onto the couch for another drab evening before another terrifying night. He knew what other people did. Other people watched movies in the theater, danced in nightclubs, or cheered on their hometown teams in stadiums. Other people had hobbies, interests, and causes they cared about. Other people had homes, friends, and families.

Family. The word echoed in Floyd’s mind and brought an image of his tiny nephew to his eyes. He recalled the way it had felt to hold little Dale in his arms, to have someone else to care about. He hadn’t felt such an emotion since Abby had died. And he liked the way it felt; he wanted to experience it again.

With a groan, he got to his feet and propelled himself towards the telephone across the living room. The memory of that brief glimpse of happiness drove him to pick up the receiver and punch in Angela’s number. As her voice came on the line, his mind went blank. He didn’t know how to ask her without sounding desperate, and if he did that, she wouldn’t want to entrust him with her son. “Hi, it’s Floyd,” he mumbled into the phone.

“Something wrong?” she asked.

“Um, no,” Floyd answered and rubbed the back of his neck as he thought of how to proceed. “Have you, you know, found anyone to watch, uh, Dale yet?”

“I was about to call your mom to ask her,” Angela replied.

“Well, you could just leave him with me,” Floyd said too eagerly. “Then you wouldn’t need to drive out of your way,” he added to cover his tracks.

“Are you sure?” she asked.

“Oh yeah, I’ve got the diaper thing all figured out now,” he said and chuckled mindlessly.

There was silence on the line for a long time. “I don’t know, I’m not sure I like the idea of leaving him in that store all day.”

He saw Gary and Max downloading pornography on the computer terminals, Abby lying dead on the storeroom floor, and himself smashing the display case in a violent rage. No, Andromeda Collectibles was not the best place to raise a child. He couldn’t blame her if she didn’t want to leave Dale there. Floyd saw his last chance for happiness slipping away. “I won’t let anything happen to him. I promise,” he said with such conviction and force that he surprised himself.

Angela blew a sigh into the line and said, “What the hell, we’ll give it a try. I have to work from eleven to seven tomorrow.”

“No problem,” Floyd replied, relief tangible in his voice. “I’ll see you then.”

The phone went dead in his hand and he slammed it back on the cradle with force born from his happiness. He let out a contented sigh and settled back on the couch, where he found himself back where he’d started the evening. He counted the seconds in his head, each one bringing him closer to reuniting with his nephew. Full of nervous energy, Floyd paced back in forth between the living room and bedroom.

He stopped when he saw the picture of his happy family, the same one that had driven him to dump the painkillers down the toilet. Family. When was the last time he’d seen his? After he’d recovered enough to drive himself to the store, he hadn’t gone back to visit his parents. He’d lacked the energy, the will to drag himself over there. And if he had, what would he have said? He’d convinced himself it was better his parents didn’t see him in such a sorry state, so he’d stayed away.

Thinking of it now, his selfishness rivaled Todd’s. He hadn’t been there for his parents any more than his brother had. Only Floyd didn’t have the excuse of being thousands of miles away. His only excuse was that the tide of his despair had been too strong to fight against, so he hadn’t. He’d given into it and shut himself off from the only people left who cared about him.

With the same purpose that had driven him to call Angela, he snatched his keys and pounded down the stairs to his car. As he drove, he had no idea what he would say or do when he got to Ridgewood Manors. He only knew that he had to go there.

The setting sun cast shadows around Ridgewood and gave the place a more desolate look. He pulled into his parents’ driveway and killed the engine. As he walked up the steps, he tried again to think of what he would say when the door opened. Why had he come? The reason was so basic and yet so impossible to convey. He knocked on the front door and waited.

His mother threw open the door and stared at him for a long time. “Floyd, what are you doing here?” she asked.

“I was, uh, just in the neighborhood,” he mumbled.

She motioned for him to come inside and he followed—a stranger in the house where he’d grown up. “You’re just in time,” his mother said. “I was about to take dinner out of the oven.”

Floyd forced a smile to his face. “Great,” he replied.

“Go check on your father while I get dinner,” Lynn commanded and he obeyed. He found his father on the deck, huddled against the nonexistent cold in his heavy jacket.

“Nice night,” Floyd called from the steps.

“Hey kiddo, how are you doing?” his father asked, his voice more frail than usual.

“Good,” Floyd said and sat down next to Ernie. He couldn’t think of anything else to say; he decided to bask in the warm feeling that came from such close proximity to his family. They watched the pink-tinged industrial clouds float through the sky until his mother called them to dinner.

Floyd wheeled his father inside and they sat down to a simple meal—meatloaf, green beans, and mashed potatoes. He’d never enjoyed meatloaf, but on that night he ate it ravenously, drawing the attention of his parents. “You must be getting your appetite back,” his mother said.

“Yeah, I guess I am,” Floyd replied. He noted that while he’d emptied his plate in record time, his father’s remained almost untouched. “Dad, you better eat something,” he said.

Ernie nodded and continued to pick at his food. After Floyd and Lynn finished, his father’s plate was still loaded down. Floyd exchanged a worried glance with his mother and then pushed Ernie into the living room to watch television while Lynn baked brownies for dessert. Floyd sat down on the old, ragged couch next to his father’s wheelchair and they watched the TV with the same silence as on the deck.

It was, Floyd thought, how it had always been between them. They didn’t say more than they had to. Most of the time they didn’t say anything at all. Without a word, a hug, or even a handshake their love was understood. Yet as he sat on the couch and looked at his frail, disappearing father, there were so many things he wanted to say. I love you. I’m proud of you for sacrificing your happiness to provide for Todd and I. I hope you’re proud of the man I am. So much he wanted to say, but he couldn’t find the strength to say anything. By the time his mother came into the room, his father had fallen asleep and Floyd knew he would never get the chance to voice what had always gone unsaid.

Chapter X

2007-06-14T09:49:00.001-07:00

Chapter X

The Buick pulled up to the curb and from the backseat, Floyd looked up at the dark façade of Andromeda Collectibles—the place where his heart had been ripped from his chest. His mother turned to face him and frowned. “You don’t have to do this,” she said. “Your father and I can take care of the store.”

“No,” Floyd mumbled. “I’ll do it.” He opened the door and retrieved his cane from the seat next to him. He’d spent two weeks in painful physical therapy rebuilding the strength he’d lost in his legs while he was in the coma; the doctors assured him that over the coming weeks he would rely on the cane less and less until he no longer needed it at all. He limped to the door and waved to his parents to tell them everything was all right. The Buick pulled away slowly from the curb and Floyd was alone.

He took a deep breath and turned the key in the lock. He opened the door and stepped inside. The building, once so familiar, now looked like a scene from a nightmare. Every shadow concealed a monster waiting to spring from the darkness; every creak and groan signaled the approach of some fiend. Floyd staggered through the aisles to the front counter and collapsed gratefully into his chair.

For the month and a half since his shooting, Andromeda Collectibles had lingered in limbo. The store had been shut down for two weeks during the police investigation, and then reopened sporadically by his parents whenever they found the time. From his mother’s entries in the ledger, Floyd ascertained that business had dried up except for the patronage of the most die-hard regulars. Overdue notices and letters from collection agencies were stuffed in the ledger, waiting to be paid with money that did not exist. One-by-one, Floyd wadded up the notices and pitched them into the trash. Let them try to collect, he thought.

He put his head down on the counter and tried to think of a good reason for doing this. His loyalty to Todd and his own sense of responsibility had brought him here the first time, resulting in nothing but pain and death. In the end, he could think of no other reason than that the store was his curse and he would ask no one else to bear it for him. Better that it destroy him—a man with nothing to live for—than his innocent parents.

The front door opened and Floyd jumped in his seat. It was not the gunman come to finish him off, but rather Gary and Max. They shuffled forward like he was a wild animal poised to strike at any moment. “We heard what happened,” Gary mumbled.

“It’s terrible,” Max added. Floyd grunted but said nothing. Still keeping their distance, Gary and Max took their familiar positions at the computer terminals. Floyd didn’t have the will to even tell them not to visit the porno sites; he no longer cared what Todd’s regulars did. What difference did it make? What difference did any of it make?

Gary and Max made no sound save for the clicking of their fingers on the keys. Their usual high spirits were dampened by the bleak, oppressive atmosphere in the store that cast a shadow over everything. After two hours, they could take no more and paid for their time—as well as an armload of comics—before departing without a word. Floyd watched them go, but made no attempt to lift his head from the counter. No one else entered the store that day, as if the entire city of Freepoint could feel the negative energy pouring off of Floyd.

As night approached, Floyd finally lifted his head and limped to the front door to change the sign to CLOSED. He paused as his hand touched the lock on the door. If only he’d locked the door after Abby had arrived, then she might still be here. In his rush to get to the beach to propose he’d been stupid and careless. As always happened, his stupidity and carelessness hurt others more than it hurt himself.

“You have to be responsible for your actions, and their consequences,” the voice of his second grade teacher hissed into his ear. Once that voice had brought he and Abby together, and later it had set in motion the events that would take her from him. This time, he stared at the floor and shook his head. It didn’t matter.

He knew he hadn’t pulled the trigger, but he’d created the situation by asking her to come to the store, by not locking the door, and by not finding some way to prevent the gunman from raping and killing her. His inaction had led to her death, and yet the knowledge of that gave him no peace. In this case, taking responsibility would do no good; it could not raise the dead.

He found himself standing in the doorway to the storeroom, unsure of how he’d gotten there. In this room he had made love to Abby for the first time, and it was here the woman he loved had been taken away from him. His fingers trembled as he reached for the light switch; he expected the gunman to leap out at him at any moment. The lights flickered on and he saw nothing. Nothing at all.

The police and his parents had so thoroughly cleaned the storeroom that no trace of the struggle remained. He ran his hand along the imprint of the shelf where he and Abby had shared a kiss and where later Abby had been knocked unconscious by her attacker. He knelt down and touched the cold cement floor where he had made love to Abby and where later the gunman rape her in the hope that it would somehow bring back a trace of her presence. Nothing. To his left, he imagined the spot where he’d lain like a coward, feebly struggling to free himself while the gunman raped and murdered Abby. Tears came to his eyes as the horrible scene played over and over in his head.

Floyd jumped as a hand touched his shoulder. He found his mother standing behind him with a look of concern on her face. “I’m fine,” he snapped before she could say anything.

“Come on, let’s go,” Lynn whispered and took his arm. Floyd paused in the doorway and flipped out the light.

He awoke later that night with a scream and sat up. Floyd looked around his darkened bedroom; the realization that he’d been dreaming came slowly. He panted and clutched his covers with white knuckles while sweat dripped down his body. As he became acclimated to the time and place, his breathing slowed and his hands loosened their grip on his blankets.

He’d awakened from the nightmare of his coma only to spend each night reliving it. Every night Abby died and then disappeared while he could do nothing; every night he experienced the same panic until he remembered what had happened. In the hospital, nurses or his parents would comfort him at his bedside, but now that he was home there was no one to help him through the madness.

He threw off the covers and rolled out of bed—the bed he’d purchased to accommodate he and Abby. He shuffled into the bathroom and threw cold water on his face. The chill from the water reminded him of Abby’s cold flesh in his dream. He toweled off with trembling hands and looked in the mirror. His eyes had turned bloodshot and were rimmed with dark circles from two weeks without a decent night’s sleep. How much longer can this go on? he wondered. The doctor had said the nightmares would fade over time, but if they didn’t, then he could recommend a psychologist who specialized in Post Traumatic Stress Syndrome.

Floyd returned to bed and turned on the light next to the bed. He grabbed the worn copy of A Farewell to Arms his mother had brought him to read while he recovered in the hospital; he had not penetrated the first page of the novel. Floyd stared at the first page and read the opening line over and over again without a single syllable transmitting to his brain. He threw the book across the room, where it splattered against the closet doors and slipped down to the floor.

As he looked down at where the book had landed, he knew he couldn’t make his mind focus on the novel. What did books matter anyway? Abby had loved books; he remembered the shelves lining the walls of her dorm room and the library of her mother’s house. Their shared love of literature had helped bring them together, and ultimately had brought her to her doom. Books meant nothing; they couldn’t help anyone.

Floyd threw the covers off and stomped out to his computer in the living room. He’d wasted his life on books—reading and writing them. No longer. The computer booted up and he stared at the blank screen of his word processor. One last story, he thought as his hands began to fly across the keyboard. The only story he had left to tell.

Tartarus

By Floyd Jensen

The dream shattered into shadowy fragments and Brandon Gibson’s eyes shot open. A scream—whether his own or someone else’s he couldn’t remember—echoed in his ears. His nose burned with a fetid stench, like the smell of a dead animal that had lain on the side of the road for days. When he tried to swallow, a coppery tang filled his mouth. The way his senses still reeled from the dream, Brandon sensed it was more than a dream, but when he tried to recall even a single image, the dream slipped out of his grasp like a phantom.

He rolled over and found the spot next to him on the bed vacated. Still filled with dread from the nightmare, he bolted from his bed and dashed into the bathroom. When he saw that it too was vacant, a cold lump formed in his stomach. He pounded down the stairs and into the living room, where he found only unopened boxes and furniture still wrapped in plastic.

Slipping through the empty dining room, his heart raced as he imagined a host of grim scenarios. The pregnancy had become too much and she’d committed suicide. She’d grown tired of his lengthy business trips and left him. The truth, he discovered as he swung open the door to the kitchen, was more horrible than he could imagine.

Daphne lay on the floor, a pool of blood from the hole in her forehead forming a halo on the white tile floor. Her blue eyes were wide open, unfocused, and when he knelt down beside her, he felt the coldness of her pale skin. He pressed her head against his chest and ran his hands through her sticky red hair. Tears poured down his cheeks as he rocked back and forth and mumbled incoherent syllables. “I’m sorry,” he whispered.

Her eyes continued to stare up at him, pleading with him, but she was long past saving. He gently closed her eyes and eased her back onto the floor. When he saw her belly bulging against the pink maternity gown, he thought of the child Daphne carried within her. If he hurried, maybe the paramedics could arrive in time to save the baby.

As he stood, he heard the back door creak behind him, followed by the echo of footsteps on tile. Brandon turned and found himself facing a man in a dove gray trench coat and black ski mask wielding a 9mm Beretta pistol. “Who are you?” Brandon demanded. “What do you want?”

The gunman lifted up the ski mask enough for Brandon to see his face. He recoiled in horror and tears sprang to his eyes. “Why?” Brandon pleaded.

“I have a job to do,” the gunman replied and squeezed the trigger. The pistol’s silencer wheezed and spat a single shot that drilled into Brandon’s chest. He collapsed next to the body of his wife and, as the world turned black, he groped to find her cold hand…

The dream shattered into shadowy fragments and Brandon’s eyes shot open. A scream—whether his own or someone else’s he couldn’t remember—echoed in his ears. His nose burned with a fetid stench, like the smell of a dead animal that had lain on the side of the road for days. When he tried to swallow, a coppery tang filled his mouth. The way his senses still reeled from the dream, Brandon sensed it was more than a dream, but when he tried to recall even a single image, the dream slipped out of his grasp like a phantom.

His heart thumping in his ears, he rolled over and found the familiar softness of his wife’s plump body next to him. The terror from the nightmare subsided as he stroked the broad expanse of her back. Though it had been six years since Erin had been born, Daphne still looked ready to give birth at any moment. At his touch, she groaned and her eyes fluttered open. When she recognized him, her chubby face lit up with a smile. “Where were you last night?” she asked and tucked strands of red hair behind her ears.

“I had to work,” Brandon replied.

“On Christmas Eve?”

“I know, but it was important.” He kissed her on the lips. “I promise I won’t let anything interfere with our plans today.”

“You better not,” she admonished him and the bed creaked as she sat up. He tried to kiss her again, but the door burst open and a pink object hurdled over the bed to land between them.

“Mommy, Daddy, come on!” the object cried. Little Erin grabbed Brandon’s hand and tried to tug him off the bed. “It’s Christmas morning.”

Brandon crushed his daughter in a bear hug. Erin had her mother’s pudgy frame and he squeezed her little potbelly as he asked, “Do you think Santa left you anything?”

She looked up at him and shook her head as though he were an idiot. “Of course.”

He tousled her short brown hair and looked away thoughtfully. “If he’d seen that room of yours, he might have been scared off.”

“Daddy,” Erin huffed and rolled her eyes.

“Well, let’s say we find out,” Brandon suggested and swung his daughter onto his shoulders. Daphne waddled ahead of them and flung open the doors to the living room, the glittering tree and rainbow of lights astounding Erin. Brandon knelt down to allow his daughter to safely dismount and watched as she dove into the pile of brightly wrapped presents.

“Careful honey,” Daphne cautioned and giggled at the scene of Erin tearing into the stack of gifts like a tornado, a trail of wrapping paper left in her wake. Brandon put an arm around his wife and watched the scene with satisfaction. The nights and weekends spent dueling with other frantic parents to obtain the perfect gifts paid off as his daughter squealed with delight and held up each present in turn.

Only after Erin had exhausted herself—she clutched a handful of booty to her chest as she rested on the floor—did Brandon and Daphne sit down to open their own gifts with far less enthusiasm. Once they’d set aside the neckties, sweaters, and household appliances, Brandon put an arm around his wife and surveyed the ruins of their living room. “I’d better start cleaning this place up,” Daphne said and began to heave herself to her feet, but Brandon grabbed her arm.

“Wait, just one more,” he said with a smile and pulled a flat felt box from under his couch cushion.

She gasped when she opened the box and pulled out the diamond pendant. “It’s beautiful,” she breathed. He stood and draped the pendant around her neck, the gold chain just long enough. She kissed him on the lips and whispered, “Thank you.”

“Merry Christmas,” he replied and kissed her back.

“Gross!” Erin squealed. She looked up at them with a six-year-old’s revulsion.

Daphne’s cheeks reddened and she looked down at the floor. “Honey, why don’t you help me clean up,” she said weakly. Brandon took the hint and donned his parka and boots before he went into the garage to get the snow blower.

It had snowed overnight, enough to give everything a sparkling white sheen and to make the roads and sidewalks slippery. No road crews would run today, at least not this far from the city, so he would have to undertake the dangerous trek to visit Daphne’s parents out in the country with only the tracks of other cars to guide him. Coming back at night would make things even more difficult and he wondered if they should forget about it altogether.

No, he decided as he finished plowing the driveway. Daphne lived for Christmas dinner; her entire family gathered for the holiday. In traditional fashion, the women would do dishes and trade gossip after the meal while the men went into the den to watch the football game on television. Later they would all assemble to drink eggnog and sing off-key Christmas carols until enough people passed out to signal that it was time to go home.

As much as he enjoyed the company of her family—her parents had practically adopted him once he’d married their daughter—he knew his wife had ulterior motives in showing up at the Christmas dinner each year. Her parents and brothers were all farmers, working-class people, and the family gathering provided her with the opportunity to show off her successful husband, beautiful daughter, and expensive jewelry. She did this not to lord her prosperity over her family, but to show them that while she hadn’t gone into their business, she was still happy and well cared for. No amount of snow would keep her from that.

Once he’d tucked the snow blower away in the garage, he went inside and found order restored to the living room. He followed a delightful mixture of scents through the dining room and into the kitchen, where Daphne supervised four boiling pots on the stove and an oven full of baking pies. “Smells good,” he observed and wiped a smudge of flour from the end of her nose.

She didn’t take the bait, turning her back to stir one of the pots instead of rewarding him with a kiss. “Everything’s almost ready,” she mumbled.

He put his arms around her apron-clad waist and pressed his head to her shoulder. “What’s wrong?” he asked. “Nervous about seeing your folks?”

“No, it’s not that.” She pushed him away and waved a hand along her body. “It’s just what Erin said earlier…do you think I’m too fat?”

He smiled and put his arms around her again. “Of course not. In fact, I think you could use to put on a few pounds.”

“Come on, I’m serious.” She brushed tears away from her face. “When you go on those long business trips, I worry that maybe you’ll find someone more attractive…”

He put a finger to her lips to silence her. “There’s no one else for me except you. I love you and nobody is going to come between us.” Brushing hair from her face, he suggested, “How about I mind the store while you get cleaned up?”

She kissed him on the cheek and her smile returned. “Try not to burn anything.” Only after she’d disappeared did he allow himself to heave a sigh of relief. He’d dodged a bullet today, but in time the issue would come back to haunt him again. He might not be so lucky the next time.

Later, after he’d filled the trunk of his silver Mercedes sedan with presents and baked goods, Brandon climbed behind the wheel of the car. “Everyone ready to go?” he asked. He glared at Erin. “No one has to go to the bathroom before we leave?”

“Daddy, let’s go,” Erin chided and rolled her eyes at him again. He slipped the car into gear and hoped she didn’t really have to go to the bathroom, because she would have to crouch in a ditch along the side of the road if she did.

As he drove, the number of houses dwindled while the number of barren fields increased. “Look Mommy!” Erin shouted and pointed to a group of dairy cows milling in front of a dilapidated barn with an advertisement for Mail Pouch tobacco fading on one side.

“I see them, honey,” Daphne replied and, while she smiled, Brandon could tell she hadn’t fully recovered from their conversation in the kitchen.

To try and lighten the mood, he suggested, “It’s so festive-looking out here, how about we sing a song?” When no one answered, he launched into “Jingle Bells”.

While the sleepy countryside passed them by, they filled the Mercedes with the sounds of the season. They sang in round, with Erin starting, her little voice full of infectious joy. When Brandon’s turn came, he disrupted the harmony by singing the wrong words. Each time he slipped up, Erin interrupted, “Daddy, those aren’t the right words.” He would then wink at her and invite her to do better, which she did. Daphne eventually joined in and he hoped it was a sign that she was feeling better about herself.

Brandon had begun his own version of “O Holy Night” when Daphne screamed. He slammed on the brakes and the Mercedes fishtailed as it struggled to come to a stop along the snow-covered road. The car stopped only inches in front of the deer frozen in the center of the road and Brandon heaved a sigh of relief. He checked to make sure his wife and daughter were unhurt and was relieved to see that both were.

While they waited for the deer to gather the courage to complete its journey across the road, Daphne’s scream reminded Brandon of the nightmare he couldn’t remember. Had it been a premonition of some kind? A warning not to leave home today? He took a deep breath and shook his head. It was just a stupid dream and a stupid deer. “Are you all right?” Daphne asked.

“I’m fine,” he snapped. The deer disappeared into a field and Brandon eased the Mercedes forward. An uneasy silence hung in the car and this time he had no desire to break it. Instead, he focused on the roadway to make sure that his nightmare would remain just a stupid, meaningless dream.

When they stopped at the four-way stop that, along with the old general store, made up the town of Red, Brandon’s tension eased. Another mile and they would be safely in Daphne’s parent’s driveway, where the only harm that could befall him was perhaps being an unlucky bystander if her brothers got into a drunken brawl. Red disappeared in the rearview mirror and ahead of Brandon waited a narrow, crumbling bridge over a dried-up creek.

At first he thought it must be an optical illusion—another silver Mercedes sat on the bridge. As he approached, he saw that the other car wasn’t moving; it had positioned itself to prevent anyone from crossing the old bridge. “What’s going on?” Daphne asked, but he had no answer to give her. The Mercedes in their path didn’t have its hazard lights on and he couldn’t make out anyone behind the wheel. Maybe the driver went for help, he thought. Maybe they forgot the hazard lights.

Then he saw a head in a black ski mask pop over the car’s roof. “Get down!” Brandon shouted.

“Why?” Daphne started, but he shoved her down an instant before the windshield shattered in a spray of gunfire. Brandon opened the glove compartment and heard Daphne’s shocked gasp as he hefted the 9mm Beretta pistol he kept there for emergencies.

He fired a pair of shots to distract his attacker while he threw the car into reverse. The Mercedes struggled in the snow, but slowly backed away from the other car. Erin whimpered and wriggled into her mother’s arms, burying her head in Daphne’s bosom. “Don’t worry, it’s going to be OK,” Daphne whispered.

But it wasn’t, Brandon saw as he watched the gunman come around the front of his vehicle and kneel down. When the attacker hefted an olive tube, Brandon knew there was no escape. “Jump!” he commanded, but it was too late. A tongue of flame erupted behind the gunman’s shoulder, the missile impacting against the front of Brandon’s car a heartbeat later.

Before he could think or even scream, he found himself lying on his back in the snow along the road, the Mercedes a burning hulk a short distance away. He stumbled to his feet and brushed fragments of glass and debris from his smoldering clothes. Blood oozed from numerous gashes and dripped into his eyes, but he didn’t notice. He focused solely on staggering to the charred remains of his car.

When he reached the passenger’s side of the Mercedes, he buried his face in the snow and wept. While he’d somehow been thrown clear of the explosion, Daphne and Erin had not been so fortunate. He found their remains—rendered unrecognizable by the flames and shrapnel—still sitting in the passenger’s seat. In death, mother and daughter were forever fused in an embrace.

Footsteps crunched the snow behind him and Brandon looked up to see a man in a black ski mask and dove gray trench coat approaching with a 9mm Beretta pistol in his hand. Brandon had no weapon and no strength to fight back, instead he sobbed and pleaded, “Why?”

The gunman stood over Brandon’s kneeling form and jammed the pistol into his mouth. Only then did the gunman cast the ski mask into the snow to reveal an all-too-familiar face. “I have a job to do,” Brandon replied and pulled the trigger…

The next morning, Floyd woke up at his keyboard and read the last lines he’d typed. He saved the file and turned the computer off. It was done, his final story. From now on, books and writing meant nothing to him—like everything else. He heard his alarm clock from the bedroom and checked the time. His mother would drop by in an hour to take him to the store, but he had an errand he needed to run, alone.

Floyd changed into fresh clothes and then went out to his car. The doctor hadn’t cleared him to drive again yet, but it didn’t matter. His legs began to ache halfway to the university; he pulled over to rest them for a few minutes before he continued. As he drove over the bridge leading to campus, he thought back to the fateful day that had brought he and Abby together. If he hadn’t been ticketed for speeding, he might have never known her.

No doubt she would have been better off if he hadn’t ever run into her in the hallway outside the vending alcove. His love had brought her happiness, but it had also led to her destruction. She’d been destined to become a chemist like her father; perhaps she would have discovered a medicine to cure cancer or found a way to solve world hunger. Instead, she lay forever in a coffin because of his love.

Floyd fought away a tear and parked in a handicapped parking spot. Let them tow his car if they wanted! He hobbled through the immaculate Redding Center and around the pond with its bronzed geese to Admissions. Floyd took a deep breath at the door and then threw it open. When he got to the front counter, he stopped in his tracks.

“Floyd?” Janet, Abby’s former roommate, asked. “What are you doing here?”

“You work here?” Floyd stammered.

“Just for the semester,” she replied. “I’m…I’m really sorry about what happened.”

“I’m the one who should apologize,” Floyd growled. “It was my fault.”

Janet took a step back from the counter. “I’m sure it wasn’t,” she mumbled. It occurred to Floyd that while he’d visited Abby’s apartment innumerable times, he barely knew Janet. He certainly didn’t know her well enough to vent his personal problems to her.

“I quit,” he said. “I’m never coming back.”

“Are you sure? I know what happened is tough, but…”

“I quit,” he repeated. “Are you going to help me or not?”

She came around the counter and put a hand on his shoulder. “Why don’t we go somewhere to talk about this?”

“I don’t need to talk about it,” he fired back. “I’ve made my decision.”

He said it loud enough that he saw heads turn in their direction. Janet’s face flushed and she leaned forward to whisper, “Look, I don’t want you to do anything rash. Take some time and think about it.”

“I don’t need to think about it,” he hissed.

She straightened up and folded her arms across her chest. “Well, what about your parents? What are you going to tell them?”
“I don’t care,” he replied. His parents had never supported him pursuing a Literature degree anyway; they should be thrilled he wanted to drop out.

“I know it hurts now, but this isn’t the answer. Think about your future…”

“My future is dead,” he snarled and pushed away from the counter. He slammed the door behind him and started for his car. The hell with Janet and Admissions anyway. If she didn’t want to help him, then he would just not come back. The hell with all of them.

A hand touched his shoulder and he turned to see that Janet had followed him. She shifted nervously and said, “I still, um, have some of Abby’s things. Maybe you and I could go back to my place and you could, you know, take something to remember her by.”

“Sure,” he said and began the long trek to her dorm.

Memories of he and Abby floated to the surface of his mind as he walked silently next to Janet. Walking across campus with Abby leaning against him for support, the bag of ice from the cafeteria tied to her foot. Meeting with Abby at the pond on that cold night. Chasing after her to follow her to up to her dorm. Confessing his secret to her and then listening to her own shocking tale.

He stopped at the steps to Abby’s dorm and paused. Like the night he’d run after her and followed her upstairs, he knew he would pay a price if he made the journey up the steps. Janet took his arm. “I’ll help you get up the stairs,” she said, misinterpreting his hesitation. He nodded and let her guide him up the steps. Floyd was winded by the time they reached the top; he leaned against the wall while Janet unlocked the door. Once his strength returned, he followed her inside and stood rooted in the doorway.

The bookshelves were empty. The books Abby had so loved were piled into a series of boxes on the floor. “Her mother took most everything else, but she didn’t want those,” Janet explained. Floyd hobbled over to the boxes and picked up one of the books. He ran his hand along its smooth dust jacket; like in the storeroom of Andromda Collectibles he hoped that by touching something she’d handled he would once again feel her presence. He felt nothing. “I’ll take them to your car,” Janet offered.

He threw down the book in disgust. “I don’t want them. Is there anything else?”

“Just one other thing,” Janet replied and handed him the picture he’d noticed the first time he’d entered the dorm room. It was the picture of Abby—before her mother had taken her to California to be rebuilt in her image—and her parents. Of course Ms. Chapman wouldn’t want the picture. She wouldn’t want anything to remind her of the husband she despised and the daughter who’d failed to live up to her expectations.

He ran a finger along Abby’s bespectacled, blemished face. This was the girl he’d always known. This was the sweet, shy girl who—despite Ms. Chapman’s best efforts—had remained underneath the expensive clothes, makeup, and breast implants. This was the woman he’d fallen in love with and who had loved him. This was the woman he’d killed.

Floyd clutched the picture to his chest and couldn’t hold back the tears. Janet put a hand on his shoulder, but he shook it off. “I’m sorry,” he whispered, as much to Abby’s spirit as to her roommate.

Like Ridgewood Manors, Maple Valley Cemetery was not located in a valley and the only maple trees were saplings. In a former life, the cemetery had been a corn field, but as the population north of the Ojibwa River grew, so too did the need for a final resting place for the new city’s dead. Thus the corn had been uprooted, replaced by grass and scrawny trees that one day would grow tall enough to provide shade for mourners.

Given its brief history, it didn’t take long for Floyd to locate where Abby’s body forever rested. A marble angel towered over the other monuments in the cemetery; the Pedersons had spared no expense. With its delicate frame, well-defined breasts, and long hair falling past the joint on its back where its wings came together, the angel reminded him of Abby. Like the bronzed geese on the pond at Freepoint State, Abby’s angel was forever poised in mid-flight. On the base was carved Abby’s full name—Abigail Jean Pederson—and the dates of her birth and death. Below that were the final two verses of Longfellow’s “The Children’s Hour”.

I have you fast in my fortress,

And will not let you depart,

But put you down into the dungeon

In the round-tower of my heart.

And there will I keep you forever,

Yes, forever and a day,

Till the walls shall crumble to ruin,

And moulder in dust away!

Though he didn’t know for certain, Floyd figured the poem was her father’s idea. Ms. Chapman did not seem the type to value flowery, sentimental language. She was more the type who would agree to the angel and poem because it looked more impressive than a simple tombstone.

The effect of the monument was spoiled for now by the dirt patch where the grass had still not grown back after the burial. Floyd knelt down in the dust and ran his hands over it. Six feet below him, the woman he loved was sealed inside an ornate coffin that despite its best efforts could not stop her body from decomposing. Time took her physical body from the world a day at a time until one day there would only be dust amongst the silk lining. The thought made Floyd sick to his stomach and he tried to block the grim vision from his mind.

“I’m sorry, Abby,” he whispered and traced the letters of her name along the base of the monument with his finger. “I’m so sorry.”

He spread a dozen roses along the ground where she had been buried and wiped away his tears. With his coma and subsequent recovery time in the hospital, he had missed the funeral; this was his first visit to her grave. There was a finality to it that he’d not felt in the storeroom of Andromeda Comics, his apartment, or her dorm. In those places, elements of her—a photo, a hairbrush, a book—remained as they always had, giving the illusion that she might return at any moment. Here, in the shadow of the marble angel bearing her name, he had no choice but to face the truth; the cold, unchanging past stared him squarely in the face. The hope he always carried with him as much as he didn’t want to—the hope that he might wake up with her next to him and find this all a dream—was dashed in the face of such indisputable evidence.

Death was an absolute; it either happened or it didn’t. And as much as he wanted to, he couldn’t deny that it had happened to Abby. “I’m sorry,” he repeated the words like a grim mantra. Yet no matter how many times he said them, the words provided no comfort.

He put his head against the warm marble of the angel and his tears ran along the carved letters to drip to the ground. “It should have been me,” he said, his words muffled by the stone. “It should have been me.”

He heard footsteps behind him and turned his tear-streaked face skyward to find Ms. Chapman’s silhouette looming above him. “How dare you desecrate her grave,” she growled.

“I just came to pay my respects,” Floyd mumbled. He stood up and dried his eyes with the back of his hand.

“I don’t want to see you here again,” Ms. Chapman hissed.

Floyd stared at her for a moment and his fists clenched. “You can’t stop me.”

She wagged a finger at him. “Don’t test me, young man. I can have a restraining order sworn against you so fast…”

Floyd took a step forward. “Yeah, you go right ahead. Get a restraining order. Throw me in jail. Hire some goons to beat the shit out of me.” He motioned to the rectangle of earth under which Abby’s coffin resided. “Nothing you can do can hurt me any more than this.”

“We’ll see about that.”

He wasn’t about to back down in the face of her threats. No one would keep him from visiting Abby. If he had to break out of prison, then so be it. “You can’t stop me. I love Abby and she loved me…”

“She did not,” Ms. Chapman snapped. “My daughter would never love someone like you.”

Floyd took another step forward. “How would you know?” he hissed. “How would you know anything about her? You were too busy making your money and trying to change her.”

“I loved my daughter!” Ms. Chapman shrieked, her face burning red with anger. The emotion drained away quickly and her voice took on its usual icy chill. “You have no idea what it was like to watch her become more and more like her father everyday. A pathetic little nobody with no future.”

“She wasn’t!” Floyd roared. He pointed a finger at Ms. Chapman’s chest. “You made her feel that way. You made her feel worthless. You made her hate you.”

Ms. Chapman took a step backwards as though he’d slapped her. “She didn’t hate me,” she said, her voice small.

“She left home because of you. Because of what you did to her.” Floyd’s eyes narrowed. “She told me everything about what you tried to do to her, about how you wanted to make her into someone else. Someone you could love.”

“What I did was for her own good,” Ms. Chapman protested, her voice quavering. “I tried to help her.”

Floyd tapped his heart with one finger. “You could change everything on the outside, but you could never touch what was on the inside. All your money, doctors, and stylists couldn’t change who she was underneath.” He reached out and put a hand on Ms. Chapman’s shoulder. “I knew her. I knew her inside.” His voice lowered to a whisper. “She never needed you to fix her, she just needed your love.”

Tears broke through Ms. Chapman’s cold façade and for a moment she looked ready to collapse into Floyd’s arms. Then her face flushed, she shook away his hand, and slapped him hard across the face. “You bastard!” she screamed. “How dare you presume to tell me about the daughter I brought into this world! You killed her! You took her away from me and as long as I live, I will never forgive you!”

She turned on her heel and stormed away, leaving Floyd to rub at his cheek where she’d slapped him. Her last words echoed in his ears and he dropped to his knees. He put his head on the ground and sobbed until he had no tears left. Then, spent of all emotion, he fell asleep at the base of the marble angel, his arms wrapped around it as though trying to hold her one last time.

A shrill croaking awoke Floyd and he found himself curled up on the ground at the feet of Abby’s marble angel. He heard the sound again and saw a monstrous shadow stretched out on the raw, moonlit dirt before him. A crow flapped its wings and hopped along the shoulders of the angel. Floyd watched the bird’s dance, a chill running down his spine. “Nevermore,” he whispered into the darkness.

He stared up at the angel and thought back to the dream he’d had. The marble angel had come to life; its stone surface took on a white glow that blinded Floyd and caused him to bury his head in his hands. Something warm touched his shoulder and when he looked up, he saw that the angel was Abby. “Oh God, Abby, I’m sorry,” he whispered, in awe of her with her brilliant white robe and wings.

She held out her hand to him and sang, “Come with me.” With a flap of her wings, she rose a few feet in the air; the hem of her robe fluttered at Floyd’s eye level. If he took a hold of her robe, she would take him with her into paradise, where they could be together forever. But to go with her meant leaving everyone else behind. He hesitated; his fingers brushed against the glowing surface of her robe. “Come with me,” she invited again.

He grabbed hold of her with both hands.

They began to ascend into the air; a bright light opened in the sky overhead—Heaven. Where he and Abby would never be separated again. Where they would never have to worry about his deformity, her mother, or the gunman. Where his every fantasy would be fulfilled.

The black bird came out of nowhere just as Floyd and Abby were about to be drawn into the light. The bird’s claws sunk into Floyd’s chest and tore him away from Abby. It drove him down towards the ground, to where only pain and darkness awaited him. He screamed Abby’s name, but she didn’t hear him. She was already gone.

He sighed and leaned his head against the base of the monument. The angel. The black bird. It all made sense now, but Abby’s haunting voice stuck in his mind. “Come with me.” If only he could.

The crow cawed again and Floyd scrambled to his feet. Like Poe’s raven, this solitary black bird mocked his pain and loneliness. Floyd searched the ground for a stone and after finding nothing, he took a quarter from his pocket and hurled it at the vile bird. The crow called once more before shooting away into the night. Floyd waited until it disappeared before he ran his hand along the angel’s robe—hoping it would come to life as in his dream and bear him away to paradise—and kissed the cool stone.

When he got to his car, he half-expected to find the crow or some goons hired by Ms. Chapman waiting for him. Neither his feathered tormentor nor muscle-bound henchmen appeared; Floyd left the cemetery behind. He checked his rearview mirror, but no one followed him.

He slowed as he passed by the country club whose golf course he had befouled in his drunken frenzy. At the time it had been so liberating to shit on the rich people’s property; only later did he understand how futile the gesture was. The same could be said of his argument with Ms. Chapman at Abby’s grave. Getting angry with her had felt right at the time, but now he knew better. What right did he have to accuse her of not loving her daughter when he was responsible for Abby’s death?

The country club faded in his rearview mirror and he came upon the convenience store he’d visited that night. He pulled into the parking lot and rested his head against the steering wheel. When he closed his eyes, he saw Abby calling out to him, pleading for him to rescue her. Her eyes bored into his soul; they hovered there like a raven he could never drive from his mind.

He stumbled into the store—wiping tears from his eyes as he went—and came out with two bottles of whiskey. The temptation to open one and down it right away gnawed at him, but he resisted. He’d caused one death, no sense adding another to his conscience. Instead, he let the whiskey bottles clink together on the long, dark drive back to his apartment. His legs weighed a ton each as he clomped up the stairs and through the door. He panted and leaned against the wall for support while he caught his breath.

A blinking green light called to him from across the room and he limped over to the answering machine. He played the message lurking on the machine and his fists clenched when he heard Dr. Stevens’s nurse say, “Mr. Jensen, this is Dr. Stevens’s office. You missed your appointment last month. The doctor would like to see you as soon as possible. The office is open until four if you want to make an appointment today. Thank you.”

He ripped out the cords leading into the answering machine and hurled it across the room, where it sprayed a rain of plastic shrapnel as it shattered. Floyd collapsed onto the couch, his chest heaving from the effort. After all that happened, Stevens still thought he would care about getting a measly shot! As if an injection of testosterone would solve all of his problems.

He didn’t care about curing his Kallmann’s Syndrome anymore. He didn’t care about looking normal or functioning sexually like a normal male. What difference did it make if Abby wasn’t around to see it? Like books, writing, and everything else, it just didn’t matter anymore. Fuck Stevens and his needles! Let him grope someone else’s balls!

Floyd yanked one of the bottles of whiskey from the bag and took a healthy pull from it. The warm flood of alcohol only strengthened his resolve to be rid of Stevens and his injections forever. There was no sense in continuing to treat the illness when he had no hope for the future. As he’d told Janet, his future was dead.

He drained the first bottle of whiskey in short order and passed out on the couch. “Come with me,” Abby’s voice whispered in his ear and he shot bolt upright. He searched the living room for her, but saw only darkness. He lurched to his feet and stumbled to the bathroom.

Floyd flipped on the light and his haggard face looked back at him. His hair—with bits of grass and dust from Abby’s grave embedded in it—stuck out at all angles. After the coma he’d lost a considerable amount of weight so that his clothes hung from him like a scarecrow’s. His skin was pasty and moist from sweat. He looked like a corpse; the undead come back to life to haunt the living. “Come with me,” Abby’s voice hissed.

His eyes fell upon the bottle of painkillers next to the sink.

The doctor had prescribed the medicine after he was released from the hospital; Floyd still had over half the bottle left. And an unopened bottle of whiskey awaited him in the living room. “Come with me,” her voice beckoned.

He understood now.

He took the bottle of pills and walked to the living room without a limp; his legs were driven with purpose now. After scooping up the bottle of whiskey, he marched to the bedroom and threw himself on the bed he had bought for he and Abby to share. This is where it would end. This is where he would die.

He shook out the bottle of painkillers into his hand and stared at the pile of white pills. It was all so simple. He would down the drugs with the bottle of whiskey and wait for darkness to claim him as it already had Abby. He would fall into a blissful sleep and never wake up.

He leaned back against the headboard and took a deep breath; his eyes fell upon the picture of his family taken ten years earlier. His father sat tall and proud next to his mother while Floyd with his unchanging face and Todd with his acne and scruffy beard smiled and put a hand on their parents’ shoulders. A normal, happy American family.

No longer. Now his father was little more than a gray ghost. His brother had fled from the altar and disappeared. And as for him—he sat here in his bed with a handful of pills and bottle of whiskey, ready to end his own life. What of his mother? She’d watched her husband fade to nothing, her eldest son run away, and her youngest son lie in a month-long coma. He remembered her emotional outburst in his hospital room; he felt her tears upon his cheek and her hand running through his hair. She had borne such a terrible burden, how could he add to it?

“You have to be responsible for your actions, and their consequences,” said the voice no longer of his second grade teacher but of Abby.

He closed his hand around the pills and staggered to the bathroom. He shut his eyes and flushed the painkillers down the toilet; he dumped the whiskey down the sink. Then he collapsed on the bathroom floor and stared at his thin, pale hands.

What now? he asked himself. Without Abby he couldn’t live; without hurting his mother he couldn’t die. He was trapped in some grim region between life and death. Nothing to hope for, not even the release suicide would provide.

Tartarus. The word echoed in his mind and he thought of the last story he’d written. At some point, hadn’t Sisyphus realized the boulder would always fall down upon him no matter how hard he pushed? Had the promise of the food and water just out of reach ever lost appeal for Tantalus? Had Prometheus’s flesh ever grown numb to the talons tearing into it? Floyd flexed his hands and let out a breath; he too now lived in a world without hope. The pain of Abby’s death would forever crush him like Sisyphus’s boulder, tear his soul apart like Prometheus’s winged attacker, and taunt him like the branch over Tantalus’s head.

Floyd returned to his bed and watched shadows crawl along the ceiling until it was time to go to work. He threw on his clothes, found his keys, and trudged down the steps to his car. He now knew what those three tortured Greeks did.

He would push the boulder uphill because he had no other choice.

Chapter IX

2007-06-14T09:48:00.001-07:00

Chapter IX

Floyd’s eyes fluttered open; a blur of white light was visible over his head and slowly coalesced into the shape of a fluorescent strip over his bed. Machines all around him gasped, beeped, and whirred as they went about their single-minded purpose of keeping him alive. He lifted up his hands and found tubes stuck into the back of each hand. A white gown covered his body and matched the sheets, curtains, and walls. A hospital room.

The memory of how he’d gotten here came to him slowly. The click of a gun. The man in the trench coat. Emptying the register and handing over Abby’s engagement ring. She bound his wrists with tape. And then…

He put his head on his chest and sobbed. And then he’d watched the man rape Abby while he struggled in vain against his restraints. A shot. Darkness pressed around him. Then another shot. “Abby,” he whispered, his mouth as dry as cotton. He had to find her.

When he tried to sit up, his head spun and he collapsed back onto his pillows. He moaned and groped for the call button. Maybe a nurse could find Abby for him unless—he didn’t want to complete the thought of what the nurse might tell him.

A pale, thin nurse, her dark hair piled under her hat, rushed into the room moments later. “Mr. Jensen, you’re awake,” she mumbled and checked the machines around him to measure his vital signs. “I’ll get the doctor,” the nurse said before scurrying away.

“Floyd?” he heard his mother call. She burst into the room and raced over to his bed faster than he’d ever seen her move. She ran a hand through his hair and looked into his eyes. Then—for the first time in over ten years—she hugged him. “Oh my God, we thought you were dead!” He put his arms around her and felt her tears against his cheek.

“Mom, it’s all right,” he whispered. He looked over her shoulder and saw them all huddled at the foot of his bed. His father. Angela with baby Dale in her arms. Todd. And in the shadows of the doorway, Abby leaned on a cane. “It’s all right.” Lynn pulled away and collapsed onto a chair next to his bed. “How long have I been out?” he asked.

“A month,” his mother answered.

He fixed his eyes on his brother. “When did you get back?”

Todd shrugged. “I called Mom a couple weeks ago and she said you were in the hospital.” He put an arm around Angela. “We got married yesterday.”

“Congratulations,” Floyd muttered and sank deeper into his pillows. Abby still had not moved from the doorway; no doubt she felt out of place among his family. “Can I, um, talk to Abby alone for a minute?”

His mother frowned, but nodded. “We’ll be right outside.” Everyone filed out except Abby; she closed the door and took a step towards the bed.

Floyd stared at her and tried to think of what to say. “I’m sorry,” he said.

“Oh, Floyd,” she whispered and collapsed into his arms. As he stroked her hair, he saw the angry red scar down her cheek. “I thought I’d lost you.”

“I thought I’d lost you too,” he replied. He held her at arm’s length and she self-consciously brushed hair away from her face. “What happened? I heard a second shot.”

She looked down at the floor and lifted up her blouse to reveal a bandage on the right side of her abdomen. “They said it didn’t hit anything important, except…” her voice trailed off and tears stung her eyes. “I’ll never be able to have a baby.”

He took her back in his arms and mumbled soothing words. The possibility of their conceiving a child had been remote before, but now even that slim chance had slipped away. The gunman had stolen Abby’s most precious power—the ability to create a life. “Oh God, I’m sorry,” he moaned into her hair. “It’s all my fault.”

“No, we’ll find a way.” She looked him in the eye and forced a smile to her lips. “We’ve been through so much already, we’ll get through this too.”

“I love you,” he said, but the words now seemed empty and inadequate in the face of what had happened to her.

“I love you too,” she whispered and sat down on the bed out of his reach. He wished he knew what to do now. Something so horrible had come between them; he didn’t know how to begin approaching it. After a lengthy silence, Abby patted his leg. “I’ll let you get some rest.”

As she reached the door, she paused and stared at him sadly. She too wanted to talk about it, but didn’t know where to begin. “What happened? After I was shot, I mean,” Floyd asked.

She looked down at the floor and gripped the doorknob for support. “After the second shot, he heard Angela at the front door and took off. She called for help.”

Floyd’s mouth dropped in surprise. Angela, the girl he’d never liked, whose wedding he’d ruined through his incompetence, had saved his life. And Abby’s. He would have to find some way to thank her, to make everything up to her. Abby nodded to him and slipped out the door. After she left, Dr. Stevens’s twin entered the room, complete with the same condescending voice and phony smile. “How are we feeling?” he asked.

How could he feel? Floyd wanted to ask. He’d watched the brutal rape of the woman he loved; how could he feel about that? “Fine,” he lied. He knew things would never be fine again.

It took two weeks for Floyd to recover enough strength in his legs to leave the hospital. He limped along the trail of Bayview Park with the aid of a metal cane—as did Abby. For short trips she could walk without the cane, but for a long journey like to the beach, she kept it handy for when her legs tired. Floyd’s mother trailed behind them with a picnic basket, a sight that made Floyd regret his request to come out here.

No one spoke as they navigated through the thick crowds; a late-winter heat wave had moved in and brought summer temperatures in March. Floyd ignored the people all around him and involved himself with the simple task of putting one foot in front of the other. When they reached the beach, the sands were alive with the throngs of people taking advantage of a temperate, sunny day. “This is a mistake,” Floyd meant to think to himself, but when Abby turned her head, he realized he’d said it aloud.

“You wanted to come,” she replied.

“I know,” he grumbled as a beach ball landed at his feet. He swatted it away with the cane. “I wanted to do this at night, when there wouldn’t be so many people.”

“How about we go over there,” Lynn suggested and pointed to a less congested location along the beach. Floyd followed behind her, his misgivings growing with each step. His mother stopped at the base of the rocky outcropping where Floyd had often gone to be alone with his thoughts; today a group of boys threatened to dash each other’s brains out on the rocks with their roughhousing. Floyd had wanted somewhere absolutely private, but his legs were too tired to ask Abby and his mother to go anywhere else.

After his mother spread out the blanket and set the basket down in the middle of it, she helped Floyd and Abby to the ground. “You kids have fun,” she chirped before waddling away into the crowds.

Floyd unpacked the basket and took a bite of his sandwich. He watched the boys playing on the rocks for a minute and then turned to Abby. “You never told me how long you were under,” he said.

“Two weeks,” she replied. “They released me the day before you woke up.”

“That was good timing.” He sighed and looked down at the blanket. “Did you, you know, dream?”

She shrugged. “It’s hard to remember. I’m pretty sure I did.” One of the boys’ mothers called for them and they dismounted the rocks before splashing into the bay. “Did you?”

He closed his eyes and nodded. “I dreamed about us.” She raised an eyebrow and he tried to elaborate.

In the first dream he stood at foot of the altar of St. Mark’s. Pastor Ray—who’d conducted services at the church throughout Floyd’s childhood but had died five years ago—stood on the top step of the altar and smiled down at Floyd with paternal fondness. Todd, Gary, and Max were deployed on one side in tuxedoes while Angela, Janet, and a girl Floyd didn’t recognize stood to the other in frilly pink gowns. Ms. Chapman sat next to his parents in the front row and dabbed at her eyes with a handkerchief. The organist began to play the wedding march and Floyd saw Abby gliding towards him in a sparkling white dress. A lacy veil covered her face, a long white train flowed behind her, and a complicated series of pins held her hair up off her neck. She reached out with one gloved hand to take his and they faced Pastor Ray. He ran through the ceremony and concluded by saying, “I now pronounce you man and wife. You may kiss the bride.” Floyd lifted the veil and as he and Abby kissed, the world around them literally disappeared a piece at a time until Floyd was all alone. He screamed into the empty darkness that had stolen Abby from him.

His other dream took place far in the future. He found himself looking in the mirror at a bald, fat, wrinkled old man with the ends of a necktie in his pudgy hands. He stared at his fingers, certain that at one point he’d known what to do with the silky fabric. After fumbling with the tie for a minute, he grunted in frustration and let the ends hang limply along his white silk shirt.

Abby glided up next to him; her hair had turned white, her face lined, and body dangerously thin under her bulky pink sweater, but she still looked beautiful. “Let me,” she wheezed and took the tie in her bony hands. Her deft fingers made short work of the necktie; the two of them stood looking in the mirror for a moment. Long ago he’d been afraid to stand with her in front of a mirror, but now when he saw their reflections, they were perfect complements to each other. “Are you ready?” she asked.

“For what?” When he’d picked out the shirt and necktie he’d known what they were for, but now the reason had vaporized. They were going somewhere. Somewhere important.

“The party,” she said as though to a small child. “For our anniversary.”

“Oh, yes,” he replied. “Just one last thing,” he said with a wink and kissed her. The touch of her lips was as he remembered; it made him feel young again. “I love you.”

“I love you too, but we’d better get down there. Everyone is waiting.” She took his arm—in large part because he would forget where he was going halfway down the steps—and led him down the hallway. He remembered this house. Long ago he’d come here with Abby to meet her mother. His hand ran along the smooth, cool surface of the brass rail as he descended the stairs and he remembered the imperial grace of Abby’s mother. How she’d humiliated him that night!

They reached the bottom of the stairs without incident and Abby steered him towards the dining room. She opened the doors and he saw that the huge room was packed with smiling faces—old and young. Sons and daughters, grandsons and granddaughters, great-grandsons and great-granddaughters, they were all here. As Floyd and Abby entered the room, they broke out into applause that rolled over Floyd like the pounding surf of the ocean. Abby guided him to the long table where an enormous white cake studded with candles of every color waited.

Floyd squinted to read the text spelled out in yellow frosting on the cake. ‘Happy 50^th Anniversary!’ it said. Had it been that long already? It seemed only yesterday they’d stood at the altar to begin their new life together. He couldn’t even remember when or how they’d accumulated such a large family—didn’t he used to have a problem making babies?

He didn’t remember seeing anyone light the candles, but found himself holding Abby’s hand and standing over the roaring inferno. “I don’t think I have enough breath for this,” he said.

She squeezed his hand and smiled. “We’ll do this together,” she whispered. The assembled family counted to three and then he and Abby blew on the cake with all their might. A cloud of smoke formed over the great room and obscured everything around Floyd.

When the smoke cleared, he stood in empty blackness. The family, Abby, and the house were all gone. “I woke up after that,” Floyd concluded. As he spoke, gray clouds rolled in and blocked out the sun.

Abby reached out to take his hand with tears in her eyes. “They were just dreams,” she said. “I’m still here.”

“Right,” he replied and leaned forward to kiss her.

Then he saw the blood spreading across the front of her white dress.

He lifted the hem of the dress and his eyes went wide with horror. Blood poured from the wound in her abdomen and onto the blanket. When he looked back up at Abby, her skin had turned as pale as her dress; her hand became ice in his. He laid her down on the sand and took off his shirt to press against the wound. The blood continued to flow and Abby’s breathing started to come out in gasps. “Abby, no, stay with me,” he pleaded. “Someone help me!”

The beach was now empty, the water motionless, and the sky impossibly black. Abby’s body bucked once and then a final gasp escaped her lips. “No, don’t go!” Floyd screamed. He frantically blew air into her lungs and pumped her chest in an attempt to start her heart. Then the beach around him evaporated, leaving only darkness in its wake. Floyd collapsed onto Abby’s corpse and sobbed. “Not you too,” he whispered.

Her body disappeared below his; he floated in a sea of inky blackness. Alone.

His eyes shot open and he sat upright in his hospital bed. Moonlight poured in from the window to his right; the lights of Herbert Chemical were visible in the distance. His heart pounded in his chest and his breath came out in ragged gasps. He saw the tubes in the backs of his hands and the machines around him and a chill ran up his spine. Is this real? he wondered. He pinched himself and collapsed against the pillows as pain lanced through his arm.

He buried his head in his hands and cried. This was no dream.

He awoke the next morning and saw his father’s frail form next to him. For a moment he thought maybe he’d died during the night and his father was here to welcome him to the afterlife. He sat up and tried to say something, but his tongue was thick in his mouth and only a grunt came out. “Hey kiddo,” his father said. “They told us you woke up during the night.”

Floyd motioned for the glass of water on the stand next to his bed. His father handed it to him and helped him tip the cup to his lips. The cool water loosened his mouth enough for him to speak. “Where’s Mom?” he asked.

“Getting breakfast,” his father answered. “How are you feeling?”

Floyd ignored the question; a darker, more important issue weighed on his mind. “Dad, what happened to Abby?” When his father’s head drooped, Floyd knew his dream had told the truth. “She’s dead, isn’t she?”

“I’m sorry, son. They did everything they could for her. It just wasn’t enough.”

Floyd dropped back against his pillows and stared up at the ceiling. The shot he’d heard before blacking out had been meant for her; unlike his dream, it had proven fatal in reality. He’d known it when he woke up; he’d sensed it even in his coma. “How long have I been out?”

“A month,” his father replied and Floyd shivered with déjà vu. “We were starting to think…” his father trailed off, but Floyd knew what he meant. They were beginning to think he wouldn’t wake up.

“I wish I hadn’t,” Floyd replied bitterly.

His father groped for his hand and said, “Don’t talk like that in front of your mother.” When Floyd caught his father’s eye, he saw the strong, powerful man who’d ruled supreme through Floyd’s childhood.

“I won’t,” Floyd mumbled. As if on cue, his mother came through the door, a tray laden with food from the cafeteria in her hands.

“You’re up,” she stated without emotion. She handed the tray to his father and sat down in the chair next to him. “We were starting to get worried.”

“Yeah, Dad mentioned that,” Floyd growled. He thought back to his dream and asked, “Have you heard from Todd?”

Lynn shook her head. “Nothing. Angela and the baby moved in with us during the police investigation.”

“Did they find the guy?” Floyd asked with a shred of hope in his voice. His hopes were dashed when his mother shook her head. He sighed and turned his gaze back to the ceiling. Of course they hadn’t caught anyone; they probably didn’t know who they were looking for.

His mother touched his arm. “We have to get going; your father has a doctor’s appointment this afternoon. We’ll be back right afterwards. Is there anything you need before we go?”

“Can you make sure the cops know I’m awake. I want to make a statement.”

“Of course,” Lynn replied and kissed him on the forehead. Without warning, tears poured from her eyes as the emotional dam she’d been holding back burst. She ran a hand through his hair and put her head on his shoulder. “I’m so sorry,” she whispered.

He patted her back and tried to think of something comforting to say. “It’s not your fault,” he said.

“We shouldn’t have let you run the store alone,” she sobbed.

“No, Mom, that doesn’t matter.” He held her at arm’s length and said slowly, “It’s my fault. Everything. Todd, Angela, Abby—I’m the one to blame.”

“No…” she began.

“It’s true!” he roared with such force that his mother slipped from his grasp and took a step back. She stared at him in shock and then turned to go. Before she wheeled his father out of the room, she paused at the doorway and her mouth moved to say something that didn’t come out. Instead, she shook her head and disappeared with his father.

Later, Floyd gave an emotionless statement to a pudgy young detective who assured him that the police would do all they could. The thief Floyd described was a suspect in other robberies across the country. The detective went out of his way to let Floyd know that besides the Freepoint Police Department, the gunman would have the Michigan State Police, authorities from other states, and the FBI on his trail. It was only a matter of time. Floyd took the detective’s card and with a forced smile promised to call if he should remember any other important details.

After the detective left, Floyd sighed and looked down at his hands. It didn’t matter how many people were looking, they wouldn’t catch up to the gunman—he had a month’s head start. Like Todd, he could be anywhere by now. Floyd didn’t hold out much hope that the thief would be stupid enough to stay in the city. He would never get to face his attacker; the gunman would never pay for his crimes.

And what would it matter if they caught him? Finding and convicting him wouldn’t bring Abby back. She was dead and nothing could change that. In the blink of an eye, the thing he loved the most in the world had been taken from him. The only woman he’d ever loved was gone. He closed his eyes and was transported back to the storeroom.

He saw Abby lying on the floor, a pool of blood forming around her. Her eyes turned towards him, pleading with him. “Save me,” her voice echoed in his mind. But he couldn’t. He’d passed out and left her to die alone. He hadn’t been able to hold her hand or comfort her in her final moments. He hadn’t been able to reassure her how much he loved her before her soul ascended to the afterlife.

She’d died because of him. If he hadn’t asked her to meet him at the store, she would still be alive. If he hadn’t taken over the store for his brother to start with, then none of this would have happened. Abby would have his ring on her finger and they would be setting a date for their wedding. So many ‘if’s, but in the end, none of it mattered.

Abby was dead. Nothing would change that.

Chapter VIII

2007-06-14T09:47:00.001-07:00

Part III:

Winter

Chapter VIII

A sliver of light shined in Floyd’s eyes and he groggily turned to the alarm clock he’d forgotten to set the night before. Abby stirred beside him and he ran a hand through her hair as he leaned into her ear to whisper, “Come on, let’s just stay here all day. We can call in sick.”

“I can’t,” she replied and rolled over to face him. “I have an early class today.” She climbed out of the queen-sized bed they’d picked out together—their first major purchase as a couple—and started to gather up her clothes.

Floyd would have given anything for a few more minutes in bed with Abby, but he reluctantly threw off the covers and staggered into the bathroom. Once he’d finished relieving his bladder and starting the hot water in the shower, Abby joined him under the steamy spray. They said nothing as they washed each other; they’d done it so often that it was now commonplace. After they toweled off, she stood before the mirror to brush her hair while he made sure to stay as far away as possible; the sight of himself naked beside her still made him cringe. If Abby noticed his strange behavior, she gave no sign.

When they went back into the bedroom—safely away from the mirror—he asked, “Do you think you can drop by the store tonight around closing time?”

She raised an eyebrow. “What for?”

He wrapped his arms around her waist and kissed her. “I’ve got a surprise for you,” he replied.

She kissed him back and smiled. “Why not give it to me now?”

“It’s not ready now, but by tonight it will be,” he answered.

“Oh, that sounds interesting. Am I going to like this surprise?”

He shrugged. “I don’t know, but I hope so.”

“In that case, I think I can make it,” she said and kissed him again. Floyd wanted the moment to last forever, but after a minute, she slipped away from him and tucked a tress of wet hair behind her ear. They stared at each other for a long time before she mumbled, “We’d better get going.”

“Yeah, I guess,” he said without enthusiasm. “You want any breakfast?” he asked while he opened his drawers. He pulled out a handful of clothes and stepped back to put them on while she rummaged through the drawer reserved for her when she spent the night.

“No, I should hurry up and get to class.”

By the time he’d finished getting dressed, she’d already collected her things and was heading for the door. He intercepted her and grabbed her arm. “I’ll see you tonight,” he said and gave her a quick kiss on the cheek. “I love you.”

“I love you too,” she replied and hesitated for a moment before stepping out the door. Floyd hunted for his backpack and took the ingredients out of the refrigerator to make a sandwich to take with him to eat at the store. As he spread the mayonnaise, he thought about the long silences that had crept back into his relationship with Abby.

He knew the silence was not because they were having problems. Since the night in the storeroom, their sex life had flourished as they gained experience and learned more about each other’s appetites. They had picked out a new bed and she had brought over some of her clothes so they could spend more time together. In the short time since Todd had fled, their relationship had advanced to the point where there was only one place left to go. The silences, the awkwardness, had returned because neither of them knew how to broach the subject of where to go next. It was a stalemate Floyd intended to end tonight, when at last he would cross the invisible line in the sand.

He finished making his sandwich and hurried out the door into the frigid January air. He had hoped for better weather for tonight, but he didn’t want to wait any longer; he had waited the better part of twenty-two years already. The weather aside, he still needed to pick up a few items for what he knew would be the perfect evening, but first he still had to open up the store.

In the two months since its reopening, Andromeda Collectibles had made slow but steady progress. More customers came in each week to browse the comics, books, coins, and the other assorted items Floyd offered. Business was by no means booming—profits had increased marginally—but considering the state of the store during Todd’s reign, it was a gold rush. As he went to the front door, Floyd found Gary and Max already waiting for him. “You’re late,” Gary grumbled.

“Sorry,” Floyd mumbled and ushered them inside. Some of his changes had worked too well—instead of huddling around the comic book rack, Gary and Max now spent most of their time on the Internet. Neither of the two men owned a computer, but they’d learned very quickly where to look for pornography on the World Wide Web. “Keep it clean,” Floyd warned his two most frequent customers as they fired up the computers.

“Don’t we always?” Gary responded.

Floyd sighed and collapsed into his chair after he put on a pot of coffee. He’d purchased the coffee machine for the customers, but he soon found that the caffeine helped keep him awake during the long days sitting at the counter. As he thumbed through the latest copy of Newsweek and waited for the coffee to brew, he heard the sound of an infant crying echo down the storeroom stairs.

Dale Stewart Edinger had been born January 8—he’d weighed eight pounds, six ounces and measured eighteen inches long. Angela had given birth to her son with only her mother in the waiting room through all sixteen hours of labor. Todd had not returned or sent word all through the holiday season to check on the progress of his former fiancée or their child. By the time little Dale was born, even Floyd’s mother began to express doubt that her son would ever return.

Over time, everyone had grown used to living without Todd. Angela had managed the pregnancy on her own with only minimal help from her mother and his parents; she never took Floyd up on his offer to help her if she needed it. Floyd had arranged a leave of absence for the winter and would have to take a heavier load of classes through the summer to graduate by next winter.

Even Todd’s regular customers had grown accustomed to Floyd and had stopped asking when his brother might come back. Floyd turned his gaze back to the computer terminals, where Gary and Max stared at the screens with intense concentration. “You guys keeping it PG over there?” Floyd asked.

“Of course,” Gary huffed. “We’re just reading.”

“Uh huh,” Floyd replied and checked his watch. Ordinarily he would go over to make sure Gary wasn’t lying to him, but today he had more important things on his mind. He had to get ready for the most important night of his life—the night he would propose to the woman he loved.

Floyd had visited Mason’s Jewelers several times throughout the holidays. Whenever he managed to find a few minutes to drive out to the mall he would go into the store, gaze at the bewildering selection of engagement rings, and dream of the perfect moment when he slipped the gold and diamond band on Abby’s finger. Each time the salespeople in their sharp, monochromatic suits would glare at him as though they could see through his pocket and into his empty wallet. He would browse the store until one of the salespeople worked up the ambition to ask him what he was looking for. His answer was always the same. “I’m just looking,” he would mumble and beat a hasty retreat.

Today was payback for all the embarrassment and humiliation he’d suffered. He’d secreted away enough money in the last two months to buy a ring for Abby. The process of hoarding the cash had required deceiving her on a few occasions. Whenever she was with him when he made a deposit—or the one time when she’d found one of his bank statements and seen his bloated balance—he would tell her that the money was earmarked for Andromeda Collectibles, which was not entirely a lie in that a very small portion of the money in his bank account did belong to the store. With Todd gone and unable to legally open an account in the business’s name, Floyd had been forced to mingle his business and personal finances. A worn ledger Todd had sporadically used documented how much money belonged to Floyd and how much belonged to the store; he made sure to keep this ledger hidden from Abby at all times so he didn’t arouse her suspicions.

As he walked into the jewelry store—his head held high and checkbook poised in his pocket like a gunfighter’s revolver—the first butterflies nibbled at Floyd’s stomach. This was it. D-Day. The day his relationship with Abby would ascend to a new level or crash into the ground. The thought made Floyd want to run to the bathroom, but he plowed ahead. He’d come too far to turn back now.

He browsed the inventory as he’d done before, only this time with a more discerning eye. If he didn’t find the right ring, he risked a disaster of titanic proportions. While he didn’t think Abby would break up with him because she thought he’d given too little thought or went too cheap on the engagement ring—he didn’t think her to be that shallow—the ring symbolized his desire for and commitment to her. He wanted to show her in a tangible way how much she meant to him. Even if she was disappointed and didn’t break up with him, whenever he saw the ring on her finger he would be reminded of his failure. He didn’t want to have to live with that.

After looking up and down one glass case, he found himself face-to-face with one of the salespeople he’d dealt with in the past, a man with hair as gray as his suit and a lean, lupine face. “Is there something I can help you with?” the salesman asked with a bored air.

“I’ll need a few more minutes, thank you,” Floyd replied. The salesman nodded, but didn’t travel far now that his pointed snout smelled a sale. Floyd tried to tune out the man’s hungry gaze as he continued to prowl the store in search of the perfect ring.

Then he saw it sparkling under the glass. The light hitting the diamonds reflected in every direction and drew him in. The ring was nothing too ornate—a single half-carat diamond surrounded by a galaxy of diamond chips set into a smooth, twenty-four carat band. A simple, yet elegant ring, like Abby herself. He pointed to the ring, the gesture immediately summoning the salesman. “This one,” Floyd said. “This one is perfect.”

The salesman nodded and opened the counter to take the ring from its black velvet backing. He held it up in the light and Floyd stared in awe as he imagined it on Abby’s slender, graceful finger. The salesman spoiled the moment by invoking the price of the perfect item, an amount that made Floyd cringe. It would cost all of the money he’d saved, plus a little from the store’s side of the ledger. But he had to have this ring. I’ll pay it back later, he told himself. “How will we be paying for this purchase today?” the salesman asked as he retrieved a burgundy felt box.

“Check,” Floyd replied and whipped out his checkbook with deadly speed. He scrawled the amount with a trembling hand and cringed at the superior look the salesman tried to mask with the back of his hand. No doubt the salesman thought Floyd was writing a bad check. The salesman picked up the slip of paper with distaste. “I hope you understand that for a purchase of this amount, I have to confirm this with my manager,” the salesman said and Floyd could only work up the courage to nod in reply. He waited while the salesman sauntered off and consulted a woman in an equally drab suit with an equally superior expression.

When Floyd could take no more of listening to the two whisper, he turned to watch the mall traffic parade past the jewelry store. He didn’t know what he would do if they rejected his check—to withdraw the cash from the bank would require emptying his account and that would require forms and red tape he didn’t have time for. There were two other jewelry stores in the mall—big national chains that would likely be less sympathetic towards him—or as a last resort he could get as much cash as possible and go to a pawn shop. He didn’t want to settle, though. He’d found the ring he wanted and nothing else in his mind would do.

Behind him, the salesman cleared his throat and Floyd turned to await the verdict. “Here you go, Mr. Jensen. You will find our refund and exchange policies written on the back of your receipt. Have a good day,” the salesman said in a dry monotone as he pushed the ring and receipt across the counter. Floyd nodded as he tucked it into the pocket of his jacket and left the jewelry store with a lightness in his step. He had the perfect ring to give to Abby to show her how much he loved her. He couldn’t wait to see her face when he opened the box and revealed it to her.

Then he stopped off at a liquor store and picked out the most expensive bottle of champagne and two cheap flutes, further dipping into Andromeda Collectible’s money. From a payphone outside the liquor store, he confirmed his reservations at the Freepoint Grand Hotel; he would have use of the Bridal Suite all weekend for a little pre-marriage honeymoon. When he got back to the store, he took the bottle of champagne up the stairs and paused at Angela’s door a moment before knocking. “Is that for me?” she asked when she opened the door.

“Oh no, I’m sorry,” Floyd stammered. The memory of her hurling objects in the vicinity of his head always made him nervous around her. “Can I keep this in your fridge until Abby gets here?”

Angela waved him inside. “Sure, knock yourself out. I barely keep anything in there anyway.”

Floyd stepped into her apartment, now sanitized of any trace of Todd’s presence, and saw little Dale strapped into a car seat. “Going somewhere?” he asked.

“Your mom invited me to go to her place for dinner so she can see her grandson,” Angela replied. He detected the bitterness in her voice at the hint of the baby’s father.

Floyd looked down at the squirming infant and froze. He never knew how to act in front of children. He wasn’t adept at making faces and funny noises to entertain kids; he couldn’t bring himself to forsake his dignity for a child’s amusement. Floyd thought he saw a hint of Todd in the baby’s chubby face and brown eyes, but he didn’t dare say it out loud in front of Angela. “He’s cute,” he said instead.

“All babies are cute,” Angela replied. Floyd took her icy tone as a signal to finish his errand and leave. The refrigerator was devoid of anything except a half-eaten pizza, a jar of pickles, and a bottle of milk that had expired a week earlier; the champagne and glasses fit with plenty of room to spare. His mission accomplished, he hurried past Angela and her son.

“I’ll see you later. Tell Mom I said hi,” he said before the door slammed in his face. He checked his watch and bounded down the stairs. He had three hours to figure out what to say to Abby when it came time to take the ring from his jacket pocket.

When he went to unlock the front door, he marveled at Gary and Max’s ability to intuit the precise moment the store would reopen. Or perhaps they had hung around the area and waited for the moment Floyd returned. In either case, they were the last people he wanted to see while he struggled to create his proposal to Abby.

With a muttered greeting, the two men scurried to their computer stations and twitched in their chairs like drug addicts in need of another fix as the machines booted up. “Keep it PG,” Floyd warned them as he settled into his chair. A yellow notepad lay on the counter in front of him and awaited his words of love.

“We always do,” Gary replied and Floyd decided not to waste his time by correcting him in the matter.

He stared at his notepad and tapped on it with his pen. The problem was not writer’s block, but rather an overabundance of thoughts and feelings that he couldn’t harness into coherent thoughts. He needed to condense his love for Abby into three or four perfect sentences; he doubted his ability to memorize a lengthy soliloquy in his current state of nervousness. “Always keep your points simple and concise,” Professor Foley, an expert at conciseness, had barked with military precision during one class. How to put his proposal simply and concisely?

Before he could set his pen to paper, Max burst out into a laughing fit over something on the screen. Gary leaned over and soon broke into peals of laughter that grated on Floyd’s nerves like nails across a chalkboard. He glared at his two most frequent customers before returning to the empty sheet of paper. Abby I love you. I want to marry you, he wrote on the paper. He couldn’t get any more concise than that and yet when he saw the tiny blue letters swimming in the vast, yellow sea of paper it looked so insignificant, so inadequate. Not enough, he thought and crossed the words out.

Gary and Max began to laugh again and this time Floyd growled, “Keep it down.”

“Sorry,” Max mumbled.

They turned to their separate screens and each began to type at a furious pace. With his own writing mired in a mental logjam, the sound of their typing echoed in his brain like a pair of telltale hearts. He grit his teeth and tried to force his mind to string together the words he’d waited so long to say. He didn’t have long before Abby would show up, but he couldn’t concentrate with the racket emanating from the computer terminals. Why did I let them in? he wondered.

When Max laughed again, something in Floyd’s mind snapped. “Goddamnit, can’t you two see I’m trying to do something important here? Shut the fuck up!”

At this outburst, both men looked up from their computer screens and to Floyd, who bowed his head, suddenly exhausted from his volcanic outburst. “What’s wrong?” Gary asked.

“It’s nothing,” Floyd mumbled.

“Come on, you can tell us,” Gary prodded.

They were, Floyd decided, the last two people in existence he wanted advice from on the subject of love and marriage. “I don’t think it’s anything you can help me with,” he replied. He sighed and reached into his pocket to take out the ring in the hope that it would inspire him. Gary and Max let out a low whistle at the same time and came over to the counter to have a look at the ring.

“Wow, that’s beautiful,” Gary breathed. “Is that for that hot chick who comes in here all the time?”

“Abby,” Floyd snapped. “Yes, it’s for her. I’m trying to think of how to propose.”

Max’s face took on a faraway look and then he whispered, “I’ve waited my whole life for you. Without you my soul is empty, devoid of any meaning or purpose. I want to spend the rest of my life with you.” Max’s voice turned hoarse and his face red as he explained, “That’s what I said to my fiancée.”

“When did you have a fiancée?” Gary asked.

Max shrugged and stared down at the floor. “A long time ago.”

“So what happened to her?” Floyd asked.

Max’s eyes began to tear up. “She died. Drunk driver,” he bit out and then became too overcome by emotion to say anything else.

“Oh God, I’m sorry,” Floyd said, but remained rooted to his chair. Max and Gary came in every day, but he didn’t know them very well; he didn’t know if he should touch Max, so he remained pinned in place by indecision.

“I, um, guess we’d better leave,” Gary mumbled and steered his friend out the door. Floyd watched them go and then turned his gaze to the pad in front of him. Thinking of what Max had said, the mental logjam cleared and the words began to flow from Floyd’s mind. He scribbled furiously on the paper until he had a final workable product.

He held it out at arm’s length and read aloud, “Abby, I spent my whole life thinking that love was impossible for me, but you made it possible. With you, I believe all things are now possible. I want you in my life forever—will you marry me?”

“Did you say something?” Abby asked and he threw the pad facedown onto the counter in horror. How much had she heard?

“No, it’s nothing,” he stammered and came around the counter to give her a kiss on the cheek. His face was red with heat and sweat began to form on his brow. “I’ve got a surprise for you. I’ll be right back.” He kissed her again and darted up the stairs to Angela’s apartment. He stopped halfway up and realized that he’d left the pad of paper behind.

Floyd grabbed the bottle of champagne and recited his lines over and over again. “Will you marry me?” he whispered aloud as he ran his hand along the cold surface of the bottle. Slamming the refrigerator door shut, he closed his eyes and imagined the scene.

They stood next to the boulders on the beach of Bayview Park, holding hands while steam from their nostrils crystallized in the icy air. The moonlight reflecting off the bay gave the water an ethereal quality while in the distance, the lights from Herbert Chemical made the horizon appear as though it were on fire. Floyd turned and looked Abby in the eye. “Abby, I spent my whole life thinking that love was impossible for me, but you made it possible. With you, I believe all things are now possible.” He paused, removed the ring from his pocket, and went down on one knee. When he opened the burgundy box, her eyes went wide and filled with tears. “I want you in my life forever—will you marry me?”

“Of course I will!” she shouted and collapsed into his arms. They kissed for what seemed like an eternity until he reluctantly pulled away to catch his breath. “I love you,” she whispered as he slipped the ring onto her finger.

He popped the cork from the bottle of champagne and poured it into two glasses. They toasted without words and the sound of the glasses clinking together echoed across the empty beach and into infinity. Floyd downed his champagne in one gulp and tossed the glass away. She threw her glass after his and leaned forward to kiss him…

A distant crash from downstairs shook him back to reality and he hurried towards the stairs. “Abby?” he called from the top of the steps. “Is everything all right?” He bounded down the stairs, into the storeroom, and heard a click behind him. He turned and the champagne and glasses shattered on the floor as his hands went numb.

“Everything’s fine,” a hoarse voice growled. Floyd found himself staring into the barrel of a 9mm Beretta pistol. A man in a black ski mask and dove gray trench coat that hugged his muscular physique like a second skin had one beefy arm wrapped around Abby’s throat. She had a ragged, bloody gash along her left cheek and Floyd thought he saw a blue hue creeping into her features. “Empty the cash register, now,” the gunman commanded.

Floyd stood rigid, his mind not able to comprehend the situation. Everything was moving too fast; he couldn’t make sense of anything. The questions formed slowly in his mind. How had this man gotten in? What did he want? Was he going to hurt Abby? What could Floyd do to stop him? Floyd stared blankly at the robber, his mouth agape. His forehead broke out in sweat, his breath came out in ragged gasps, his heart pounded in his chest, and his vision blurred. “Are you stupid?” the gunman snarled and waved his pistol. “Give me the fucking money!”

Floyd’s limbs jerked as though he’d been shocked with electricity and he shuffled to the cash register. He opened a brown paper bag and shoveled the day’s meager earnings into it. When he handed the bag to the gunman, the thief examined the loot and his eyes narrowed. “That’s it?” he demanded. Floyd was too paralyzed with fear to respond. “That’s it?” the gunman roared again and tightened his grip on Abby. A weak grunt escaped her lips and sent a shiver down Floyd’s spine.

He nodded dumbly and waited for the thief’s pistol to fire. “Empty your pockets,” the robber commanded. Without thinking, Floyd complied and dumped his wallet into the sack. He paused when he reached into his jacket pocket and touched the felt box he’d hoped to give to Abby tonight. “Come on, don’t hold out on me or I’ll put a bullet in your lady friend.”

After he took the box from his pocket, Floyd hung his head and dropped it into the bag. “Open that,” the gunman ordered and Floyd obeyed. The thief smiled at the sight of the ring and Floyd thought he saw a brief sparkle in Abby’s eye. “That’s better.”

“That’s everything,” Floyd whispered, his voice sounding small and distant to his own ears. The thief rolled up the paper bag and stuffed it into a pocket of the trench coat. “Please let her go now,” Floyd pleaded. Abby’s face had turned a deeper blue; her eyes bulged a little more. The thief nodded and shoved Abby into Floyd’s numb arms. Her body trembled against his and her running mascara stained the collar of his shirt. He touched her hair and tried to think of something soothing to say, but still under the Beretta’s watchful gaze, no words would come.

“This is hardly worth it,” the thief muttered. He took down a roll of duct tape from a shelf and handed it to Abby. “OK, Romeo, down on the ground. You, wrap the tape around your boyfriend’s wrists and ankles.”

“I’m sorry,” Abby whispered in Floyd’s ear as she bound his hands in front of him and his feet together. He lay on the floor of the storeroom, his mind still working in slow motion. Only when he saw the hungry look in the thief’s dark brown eyes did he understand what was going to happen next.

“No,” he rasped. He couldn’t let it happen. “No!” he shouted and fought to free himself from his bonds.

“Put a piece over his mouth,” the thief commanded. Abby knelt down in front of Floyd and for a moment their eyes locked. He saw her fear—she too knew what was about to happen—but he was powerless to save her. Once she’d secured the duct tape to Floyd’s mouth, the gunman tucked his weapon away and snatched the tape from Abby’s hands. She took a step back, but he reached out and pinned her against the heavy old metal shelves. He ripped off a rough rectangle of tape and slapped it over her mouth.

“Such a pretty little thing in a dump like this,” the gunman hissed. “It must be my lucky day.” The thief grabbed her by the shoulders and spun her down to the floor only inches away from Floyd. As he straddled her, the gunman lifted the hem of his trench coat and dropped his pants. His grim agenda was now all too clear and Floyd screamed incoherently into the duct tape covering his mouth.

The thief reached for the buttons of Abby’s shirt; she flailed her arms in a vain attempt to keep her attacker at bay. Frustrated at her resistance, the robber slapped her across the face; she whimpered while Floyd let out another impotent scream. The thief tore open Abby’s shirt and for an instant he marveled at her perfect, surgically-enhanced breasts. He ran one hand along their pale surface and paused to squeeze her right nipple. Her body bucked; the thief struck her across the face again. “Stay still,” he growled.

His hands roamed along her soft belly down to her waist, where her underpants and skirt obstructed his ultimate goal. With a grunt of pleasure, the thief resisted Abby’s kicking and clawing as he revealed her dark underbrush of pubic hair. “That’s it,” the thief mumbled.

Floyd could only watch as the man pinned Abby’s struggling arms with his hands and thrust himself between her legs. She squirmed beneath him despite repeated blows to the head and warnings to keep still as he forced himself upon her. The thief’s breath came out in short gasps, his trench coat jerking in time with his body.

Abby turned her head to face Floyd, her eyes open wide and filled with tears. He fought against the tape, and willed himself to break through it to end her suffering, but it would not give. Instead, he watched in silent agony as she let out one last scream and the thief blew out a contented sigh. The robber hiked up his pants and stood over Abby’s writhing form. The pistol reappeared in his hand and he looked into Floyd’s eyes. “You little shit, I bet you never gave it to her half as good as that.”

The pistol fired.

A surge of pain ripped into Floyd’s stomach and for a moment he just looked down and watched the blood spread across his shirt. Then he turned his head back up to stare at the thief’s smiling face in shock. Abby jumped to her feet and lunged for the gun, but the robber threw her against the shelves and she crumpled into a heap on the floor.

The world around Floyd began to spin and dim. Darkness pressed in from the corners of his vision and smothered him like a blanket. He fixed his whirling, dimming gaze on Abby, who lay unmoving on the floor. “Abby, I love you,” he whispered, his voice muffled by the tape.

Then, as everything went dark, another shot boomed in his ears.

Chapter VII

2007-06-14T09:46:00.002-07:00

Chapter VII

After a bleak Thanksgiving spent sequestered in his apartment, eating turkey TV dinners and sleeping chastely in each other’s arms, Floyd took Abby back to Freepoint State the next morning before heading to Andromeda Comics for the summit called by his mother to decide what to do about the store in Todd’s absence. He would have preferred to have Abby come with him for support, but she had an important exam to study for and could be kept from it no longer. After a brief, passionate kiss in the doorway, he drove across the old city and found his parents and Angela’s mother already waiting for him.

A sign on the door of the store—hastily scrawled on a sheet of notebook paper in his father’s spidery handwriting—declared that the comic book shop had closed for the weekend to undergo routine maintenance. The sign promised the doors would reopen on Monday at the usual time. It mentioned nothing about an impending change in management or that Todd had taken an unexpected leave of absence. Reading between the lines, Floyd knew his parents still hoped their prodigal son would return after a weekend of cooling off.

Floyd used his key to enter the store and found his parents and Angela’s mother stationed around the cash register. Ernie had parked his wheelchair to one side, while Lynn occupied Todd’s stool and Angela’s mother smoked a cigarette on a stack of boxes. “Hey there,” his father greeted him weakly. Floyd nodded and went into the storeroom in search of another chair. He managed to find a rickety folding chair and sat between his father and Angela’s mother.

Lynn cleared her throat. “Now that we’re all here, we have to figure out how to run this place until Todd comes back.”

Floyd wanted to scream that Todd wasn’t coming back, but he held his tongue for his mother’s sake. She no doubt had more faith in Todd as he had; she still hadn’t accepted that her son had taken the coward’s way out and had abdicated his responsibilities. “What if he ain’t coming back?” Angela’s mother snarled.

“We’ll figure that out later,” Lynn snapped. “For now, we need to make a schedule of when we can be here.”

“Why don’t we just sell this place? It would serve the bastard right,” Angela’s mother growled. Floyd could think of several reasons why they had to keep the store running. Primary among those was that they weren’t likely to get enough money from the sale to settle the store’s debts. Not in the property’s condition and not in its location; no one wanted to buy property in the old city right now, when all the commerce was happening north of the river.

“His father and I can be here most days, except when we have doctor’s appointments.”

“I can help out on my days off,” Angela’s mother conceded and snuffed her cigarette out on the counter.

Before he could stop himself, Floyd blurted out, “I’ll take over the store. It’s my fault he’s gone, I’ll handle everything.”

“Floyd…” his mother began to protest, but he cut her off.

“It’s all right. I know more about how to run this place than anyone else. It’ll be fine.”

“What about school?” his father asked.

Floyd shrugged. “Semester is over in a few weeks. I’ll try to make arrangements with my professors to take the exams after work and then next semester I can take a leave of absence if I need to.” He spoke with a calm he did not feel, a calm that surprised him. When he’d walked in the door, he had no intention of running the store all by himself, but as he’d listened to his parents and Angela’s mother, he saw no reason for them to sacrifice or suffer because he had failed in his duties as best man. He owed it to them to handle Todd’s business until either his brother came back or they decided to finally sell Andromeda Comics to anyone suicidal enough to buy it.

His parents stared at him for a long time. “I suppose that would work,” Ernie mumbled.

“If you want to…” Lynn’s voice trailed off, leaving him a chance to change his mind, but he’d made his decision. He would take over the comic book store, at least for now.

“Well, I guess that settles it then,” Angela’s mother said and lit up another cigarette.

“Um, what about…” Floyd began and his eyes turned skyward.

“She’ll come out eventually,” Angela’s mother replied. Todd’s jilted bride had locked herself in their apartment above the store after leaving the church and refused to come out. Floyd didn’t dare climb up the stairs to knock on her door; he remembered her tantrum at the church all too well.

“Maybe someone should go up there,” Lynn ventured.

“Just give her some time to cool off,” Angela’s mother said. “She’ll get over it.”

“I’m worried about the baby,” Lynn replied. “I hope she isn’t doing anything that could hurt it.”

Everyone stared up at the ceiling, as if they could somehow see through it to determine if Angela had taken up drinking or smoking or ingesting some other poison. When they turned their heads back down, they stared at each other for a long time without speaking. Floyd’s mother finally broke up the meeting. “Well, I guess everything is settled then.” Floyd helped her wheel his father out to the car and waved goodbye to them from the sidewalk. Angela’s mother grunted a farewell and threw her cigarette at Floyd’s feet before her rusty old car screeched away.

Floyd went back inside and looked around his new domain. He was now master of Todd’s sad, broken kingdom. It was a role he’d never wanted, but that he’d brought upon himself. With a weary sigh, he settled onto Todd’s stool and stared at nothing in preparation for his new life.

When he could bear no more of sitting in the empty store, Floyd locked up Andromeda Comics and drove around the city without any idea of where he was going. What had he gotten himself into? He hated even driving by the store and now he would be working there six days a week for who knew how long. Worse yet, he’d volunteered for the punishment, which meant he couldn’t change his mind now. He was stuck in Hell for however long it took Todd to wise up and return.

After hours of driving around and trying to conceive of some way to get out of the horrible obligation he’d roped himself into, he climbed the steps to his apartment and crashed on the couch. He watched the third period of a Red Wings game out on the West Coast without interest. When the game ended—he had no idea who won—he flipped channels until he found an action movie he’d seen dozens of times before. As the movie played, he pondered how he’d doomed himself and wondered how he could keep from going insane. Halfway through the movie he fell asleep on the couch, curled up just as he had been on the fateful night when Todd had left Freepoint.

Floyd awoke in a sweat and looked around his apartment in a daze. The television showed a test pattern and emitted a high-pitched tone that sent him scrambling to find the remote. He turned the TV off and sat on the couch with his head buried in his hands, as he tried to shake off the awful nightmare he’d had.

In the dream he was on a date with Abby. They laughed and chatted in an unfamiliar restaurant just as they had countless times before. He took her back to his place and they began to strip off their clothes. Only then did Floyd see the reflection in the mirror. He saw Todd staring back at him. When he looked down, he found that his body had ballooned into his brother’s flabby frame. He touched his face and felt Todd’s scraggly beard. With a start, he turned to Abby and saw that she’d metamorphosed into Angela, her pregnant belly sagging over her waist. At that point he screamed and woke to discover that it was all a dream.

The message of the dream was clear—by taking over Todd’s business, he risked becoming Todd and living his life. Less clear was whether Abby changing into Angela meant that she would become Angela, or whether in the process of becoming Todd he would forsake Abby in favor of Angela. Neither option held any appeal for him.

He shook his head and paced around the living room with agitation. He hadn’t even taken over the store and already he was losing his mind. There had to be some way out of the trap, some way to avoid his grim fate. The simplest way would be to go to his mother and explain that he couldn’t do it. But after failing to keep Todd in town, he didn’t want to concede failure again. No, he needed a way that would guarantee victory with honor.

He saw a book of matches and smiled. Burn the store down. If it was gutted by fire, then he couldn’t work there. With the insurance money, maybe they could even pay off the store’s debts and have a profit left over. All he would need was an oily rag, a match, and his problems would be solved.

Get a grip, he scolded himself. Arson was not an option. Not only did he risk getting caught, but then Angela and her unborn child would be homeless. He couldn’t do that to her, not after the pain he’d already inflicted upon her. He had to find another way to weasel out of this jam. Abby. Maybe she could think of something.

He dialed her number and listened to it ring ten times before her groggy voice answered. “I need your help,” he began.

“Floyd? Do you know what time it is?”

He checked the clock on the wall and winced. “I’m sorry, but I need your help,” he repeated.

“Can’t it wait until morning?” she whined. He sighed and explained the situation to her in a manic voice, his words slurring together. He described his volunteering to take over the store, his sense of doom, and then the dream. When he finished, he waited for her to say something and thought she might have fallen asleep. “I’m not sure what to say,” she finally said.

“I need to think of some way to get out of this without disappointing everyone.”

“Floyd, this is ridiculous!” Abby hissed. “Just because you manage the store does not mean that you’re going to turn into your brother. It was a bad dream, nothing more. Now go back to sleep and we can talk about this in the morning.”

“Don’t you see, it’s like an infectious disease! The more I hang out at that awful place, the more it will eat away at me. Look what it’s done already.”

She sighed into the receiver and said, “I’m going to say this and then go back to sleep. The store is yours, at least temporarily. If you don’t like it, then change it to something you do like.” Floyd heard a violent click followed by a dial tone and hung up the phone. Of course! He could make Andromeda Comics into something he would be proud of. He could transform its ruins into a magnificent, noble structure. It all made sense now.

He grabbed a notebook and scrawled page after page of notes on how he would turn the store into something better. If Todd came back, he wouldn’t recognize the place. Floyd continued writing until the sun came up. Exhausted, he stumbled to bed for a brief nap. When he woke up, he felt refreshed, ready to take on the monumental task of turning Andromeda Comics around. When he passed by the mirror, a chill ran up his spine and he checked his reflection to make sure his dream remained a figment of his imagination.

When Floyd opened the doors of Andromeda Comics the next day, it was with a new resolve to change the dilapidated store into something he could be proud of. His heart leapt as he tore down the faded posters in the front window and let sunlight pour in. Next he set to work on clearing the walls until only blank white space was left. Standing on a rickety stepladder, he painted over the old sign and changed the name to “Andromeda Collectibles—Comics, Coins, Books, and More” in order to encourage a more diverse clientele.

For the next phase of the remodeling, he worked up the courage to call Angela’s brothers. He offered them a case of beer and some money if they would haul away the mismatched shelves he no longer wanted. Floyd watched the brothers whoop and holler as they drank the beer he’d provided and hauled the shelves away to parts unknown. When they finished and mercifully disappeared, Floyd had a clean canvas to work with.

The difficult part, he admitted to himself as he closed up for the night, was that he only had one day left to work his transformation. He wanted the new, improved Andromeda Collectibles to open on Monday morning as promised. “Everything is going so great,” he gushed over the phone to Abby.

“That’s good news,” she replied without interest. She still had an important test to study for and he knew when she saw what he’d done—how he’d followed her advice—she would be impressed. Until then, he had to find a way to complete his plan in one day. He sighed and again called Angela’s brothers to enlist their aid. For another case of beer and fifty bucks, they agreed to help him with the last stage of his project.

He met them the next day at a discount furniture retailer in the new city. “So what are we doing here?” the younger brother asked and guzzled the first beer Floyd had given him.

“We need to get some new furniture,” Floyd replied and led them into the store. He noted the skeptical looks of the salespeople as he and Angela’s brothers walked through the aisles. Floyd found the furniture he wanted—a pair of green wingback chairs, three bookshelves and four small computer stations. Between the brothers’ truck and his car they managed to get everything inside and back to the store in one piece. They spent the rest of the day assembling the shelves and computer stations and moving them to the proper locations.

When they finished, Floyd surveyed the store and toasted the brothers with the last of the beer. “Ain’t you got anything to go on those shelves?” the older brother asked.

Floyd shrugged. “Not yet.” He thanked them for their help and sent them on their way. After they’d gone, he stood in the center of the renovated store and pictured it as it would look in a few weeks when he’d acquired everything he needed. It would be perfect.

He fell into a deep, peaceful sleep that night and woke the next morning with a spring in his step. He whistled in the shower, sang in the car, and hummed as he unlocked the door to his store. After tearing down the note in the window, he sat down on the gray office chair he’d purchased—he’d moved Todd’s stool to the storeroom—and waited for his first customers.

As expected, Gary and Max were the first ones through the doors. They stood awestruck in the doorway, their mouths hanging open. “What happened?” Gary asked.

“Where’s Todd?” Max whimpered.

“Todd’s not here,” Floyd replied.

“How come he didn’t tell us about any of this?” Gary wondered and Floyd thought of how to break the news to them.

“Todd’s not going to be running things for a while,” Floyd said.

“So, um, where are the comics?” Max asked. Floyd pointed to a single spinning stand where he’d compiled the most popular titles.

“If you want anything that’s not in there, just let me know,” Floyd told them and watched them go about their usual business of huddling together while they read the latest adventures of their favorite superheroes.

Gary and Max’s disappointment didn’t escape Floyd, but he didn’t care. He hadn’t remodeled the store for them—he only wanted to retain just enough of the old store to keep their business—he’d done it for himself, and for Abby. He’d wanted to make a shop that she wouldn’t be embarrassed to walk into and where he wouldn’t be embarrassed to be seen by her. He didn’t want her to come here and pity him for working in a dive. As long as he accomplished that, he didn’t care what Todd’s regular customers thought.

He spent the rest of the day explaining the new layout to Todd’s other regular customers, each of whom gave him a disapproving glare as they paid for their purchases. Floyd shrugged off the evil eyes and watched the clock. Abby had taken her test today and was finally free to meet with him. He’d left a message with her roommate asking her to come see the changes she’d inspired and anxiously awaited her visit.

He’d just ushered out the last of Todd’s regulars and changed the sign to read CLOSED when she appeared at the window. He scrambled to the door and held it open for her. “I’m glad you came,” he said and kissed her on the cheek.

“This is really…different,” she mumbled as she looked around the store.

“It’s not finished yet,” he added hastily. He motioned to the empty bookshelves and computer stations Angela’s brothers had built for him. “I’m going to put used books in over there and install some computers so people can come in to use the Internet. And I’ve added a couple of chairs for people to sit in so they can read or talk or whatever. I’m thinking about adding a karaoke machine, but I need some singing lessons first.”

They both chuckled nervously at the last comment and he waited for her appraisement. “What happens when your brother comes back?” she asked.

“I don’t care,” Floyd snapped. He took her hand and forced a nervous smile. “I know it’s not much right now, but just imagine what it’s going to look like when I’m done. It’ll be a place where people can spend time and have fun. Who knows, it might add some life to this neighborhood.”

Without a word, she kissed him on the lips and after a surprised moment, he kissed her back. “I’m sure this is going to be wonderful,” she whispered in his ear.

Satisfied with her appraisal, he led her towards the storeroom. “I don’t think I’ve shown you the new, improved stockroom yet,” he said. Out of sight of any prying eyes, Floyd pressed Abby against the ancient metal shelves that had existed since the store’s first incarnation and kissed her with a fierceness born from his sense of accomplishment.

He eased her down to the cold cement floor and then rolled over onto his back. He motioned for her to get on top of him, as in dream, but when she threw aside her clothes and smiled down at him, it was more wonderful than any dream. Using some of the techniques he had witnessed in the movie from Todd’s bachelor party, Floyd entered Abby with much more confidence this time. Her eyes bulged and a low moan escaped her lips before she collapsed onto the floor next to him. “Wow,” she gasped.

“Yeah,” he wheezed, his body covered in sweat from the exertion. While his body was so tired that it took a colossal effort to turn his head to look at Abby, his soul was rejoicing. Then he saw Todd’s stool out of the corner of his eye and shivered at the memory of his nightmare. Todd’s store was gone, but his ghost remained.

The next morning, Floyd unlocked the door ready to do business. None came. He spent the day pacing around his new business and imagining how it would look in a few weeks. If Andromeda Collectibles didn’t go under before then. He needed some business to generate the income he needed to make the last improvements. By the end of the day, he sank into his chair and rested his chin on his hand.

He’d arranged for an advertisement in the Freepoint Daily News, but it wouldn’t appear for another week. Until then, he’d hoped word-of-mouth would generate some business for him; after a day of waiting he had to conclude that it wouldn’t. He sighed and cracked open The Sound and the Fury.

With all his spare time he’d made appointments to see his professors and discuss his new situation with them. He intended to complete his assignments and take his exams, he just needed their approval to make the deadlines more flexible for him. Some, like Professor Hinch, he figured would be an easy sell while others like the crusty Professor Foley would need more convincing. He also had to explain to his cooperative education supervisor that he needed time off from his job at Herbert Chemical.

He could delay his schooling for a semester, but things would get complicated if Todd hadn’t returned by then. Floyd would have to work some classes into his schedule, limiting how much time he could commit to running the store. Although if business didn’t pick up, he wouldn’t have a store to run by the spring.

He stared at Faulkner’s dense prose for a few minutes and then tossed the book aside. With nothing else to do, he went back to the storeroom to run through the inventory. He had crates of comic books Todd would have put on the shelves, but which Floyd would have to send back to the distributor because they didn’t fit in with the new layout. He organized the crates by return address and piled them into one corner. As he set about sweeping the floor, he heard a heavy thud above him.

No one had been in contact with Angela since the day Todd had left her and he worried that the sound he heard had been her lifeless body hitting the floor. Floyd tossed his broom aside and dashed up the stairs. He pounded on the door and called Angela’s name. She didn’t answer and he fumbled with his keys to find the one for Todd’s apartment.

He’d stuck the key in the lock and was about to turn it when the knob was yanked from his hands. Angela stood in the doorway and stared at Floyd in disgust—her hair disheveled, clothes rumpled, and face streaked with grime. “What do you want?” she growled.

“I heard a noise and, um, I thought I’d see if you needed any help,” Floyd stammered under her withering gaze.

“Yeah, I got something you can help me with.” She snorted and motioned for him to come inside. He was afraid that he—like the orphan Pip in Great Expectations—would find Angela still wearing her wedding dress and have the wedding cake on a table while she waited for her lover’s return. Instead, he found piles of open boxes scattered about the living room. He looked inside one and saw Todd’s collection of bootleg anime tapes. “You can help me get rid of his stuff.”

“You’re giving away Todd’s things?” Floyd asked.

“Give them away, throw them away, cram them up your ass, I don’t care what you do as long as I don’t have to see anything that reminds me of that bastard,” Angela snarled and threw a picture of she and Todd into a box hard enough to shatter the glass of the frame.

Floyd rubbed the back of his neck and examined the sea of boxes. “Well, we could take them to my mom’s house. I’m sure she has room for this stuff, until…” he trailed off when she shot him a dirty look. Apparently Angela didn’t think Todd would come back either. “Right, I’ll start taking these down.”

He dragged a box down the outside stairs, careful not to trip and break his neck. He didn’t think he’d have room for everything unless he made two or three trips. As dead as the store was, he figured he would have the time. He locked the front door of the store before he went back upstairs and found Angela crying on the couch.

Floyd didn’t know if he should approach her or not. The memory of his dream haunted him; he didn’t want her to get the idea he was coming onto her. He settled on sitting down on the opposite end of the couch and reaching out to put a hand on her shoulder. “It’s all right,” he said without conviction.

“That stupid bastard,” she cursed. “I thought he loved me.”

“I’m sure he does,” Floyd replied and moved a little closer to her. “He’s just scared.”

Angela leapt to her feet and he saw fury in her eyes. “He’s scared?” she roared. “Why should he be scared? He’s not the one who’s pregnant! He’s not the one who has to raise a child alone! He’s not the one who has people looking at him, snickering about what a whore he is!” She hefted a plastic model of the starship Enterprise and hurled it against the wall just over Floyd’s head; plastic shrapnel littered his lap as he worried what she might do next.

“He’s going to come back,” Floyd said feebly. Neither of them believed it. “He’s going to do the right thing.”

“Yeah right,” she snorted. She touched her stomach and added, “You know when we first found out I was pregnant what he said?”

Floyd shrugged. “I don’t know.”

“He said, ‘I’m sure we can find someone to get rid of that.’ He never wanted this baby, why would he come back to be a father now?” Floyd stared back at Angela in shock. He never would have thought Todd would suggest an abortion. The more he learned about his brother, the more he realized how wrong he’d been about Todd all along.

“I don’t know,” Floyd said again. He stood up and put his hand on her shoulder again. “But everyone else will be here to help. If you need anything, I’m right downstairs most of the day.”

“Thank you,” Angela whispered. Floyd nodded and lifted another box. On his way to the door, she called out, “Would you?”

“Would I what?”

“Would you leave if your girlfriend got pregnant?”

He didn’t want to admit to her how if Abby got pregnant, he would know the baby wasn’t his. “No,” he mumbled. Later that night, alone in bed, he stared at the ceiling and pondered the question again. Scientists often talked about how in an emergency situation people could develop superhuman strength to save a loved one. Sometimes, Floyd thought, people develop superhuman weakness instead. When called upon, some people stayed and fought while others fled. Floyd wanted to believe he would fight, but deep inside, he knew that he would flee as Todd had.

While he’d never liked Angela very much, he had to admire her courage in the face of adversity, a courage he knew he would never possess. He closed his eyes and dreamt of running until his legs cramped and woke him. He sat up in bed, covered in sweat, and sighed. Even in his dreams he was a coward.