II

In the cold December daylight, the muted atmosphere of the town gave it all the impression of being almost abandoned. From the withering ivy that crept up the fence that surrounded the partially rusted playground near the old orphanage to the majority of the shops along the outlet strip being long out of business, Winston took in the bittersweet nostalgia of it. The crunch of his boots against the gravel was nearly deafening by comparison, his breath shaky and hasty exhales of exhaustion while he hiked his way along the gravel road away from the clinic just past the diner with its flickering neon sign in the window beckoning him inside. The paper bag containing his daughter’s medicine crinkled within the confines of his pockets with every step, though the man stopped to scrutinize the siren’s call of the scent of breakfast that wafted from the diner’s door, a blonde woman stepping out from within to release it to the world.

The woman in her navy blue button-up pencil dress and matching cardigan offered Winston only a lingering passing glance, holding the door open for but a moment then releasing it as Winston failed to approach it. He watched her on her way and, with a purse of his lips, he decidedly entered the building and was greeted with the warm embrace of coffee and bacon that gripped his nostrils and tugged him to the nearest empty booth, though he had little intention to linger for long.

The quiet clattering of utensils and low drone of the 8 o’clock news served as white noise for his thought organization process, his eyes on the elderly waitress behind the pie display case though not truly seeing her until their stares met.

“G’mornin,” she greeted him half-heartedly, painted lips a fine line and lazy eye wandering. “You want your usual, Mr. Nottin?”

Winston’s gaze remained blank as he worked on comprehending the question. “Winston. Winston Dudley. I just moved here last night,” he said awkwardly. “I think you have me confused for someone else.”

“Mhm,” she replied carelessly, resting a rough and flaky elbow against the countertop. “You want your usual or not?”

He nodded slightly after some hesitation. “... Okay,” he said, lacking the will and energy to combat her conviction and with a swift swing of her hips, she excused herself to the kitchen.

Winston leaned back against the rough patchwork cushion of the booth seat and wove his fingers together, thumbs tapping one another idly as he watched the world beyond the window. He could see the woman in blue that had let herself out earlier make her way to a pickup that was parked across the street and was concerningly more rust than it was vehicle. Her slender fingers fiddled with the keys and promptly dropped them to the dirt with an audible groan of frustration and a loose string of imaginary swears, the tightness and length of her skirt making it difficult for her to lean down far enough to grab them again in the manner of which she was attempting to. As tempted as he was to chuckle at her foible, he couldn’t shake the feeling that she was somehow familiar to him, from the moss of her eyes to the corn silk of her hair, he couldn’t quite place it.

Her success in retrieving her keys was celebrated with a victorious “yes!” and at last she regained entry into the truck, the vehicle hacking and sputtering to life and puttering away towards the hills. An amused chuckle was finally yielded from his throat and the moment was bookended by the return of the waitress as she nonchalantly placed a smiley-faced pancake in front of him intended for children.

“Enjoy,” she said tersely, though Winston was beginning to suspect it was simply her default.

“Th-thank you…” he murmured, staring down at the plate in bafflement.

As unfulfilling as he found his impromptu breakfast, the solace of it was far preferable to what he knew he would have to return to, coat wrapped tighter around himself as he shuffled his way back up the hill to the farmhouses. Squinting, he realized that the very same rusted truck was parked in the dirt driveway of the right-neighboring house, the woman having already vanished inside presumably. In front of the left-neighboring house, an elderly couple were tending to the shrubs planted beneath their windows, bickering about something or other that Winston’s cold and tired brain wasn’t compelled to make sense of, only hearing vague words pertaining to slugs.

“Good morning,” he greeted them out of obligation.

The old woman turned her head, squinting at him from beneath her straw sunhat. “Hiii!” she called warmly, wildly waving a hand in his direction. “Are you the new neighbor?”

“Yeah, just moved in last night,” he replied loudly enough for them to hear. “I’m Winston.”

“It’s nice to meet you!” she shouted back. “I’m Macy! This is my husband, John!”

“Hi, John,” Winston said.

“Hey,” was John’s only contribution, his face scrunched unhappily against the glaring sunlight.

“You liking the new house?” Macy asked, taking off her gardening gloves.

“Yeah, yeah. I mean, we haven’t unpacked yet but we’re getting to that today,” Winston said with a shrug and a shiver, beginning to regret initiating a conversation as he was increasingly eager to be indoors. “There’s uh… something in the attic leaking. I think a damaged pipe or something.”

“Ohh, yeah, these old houses have their wear and tear,” she said sympathetically. “I’m honestly surprised that house doesn’t have anything worse. Nobody’s lived in it for years.”

“It shows. I’ve got a lot of cleaning up to do today,” Winston chuckled uneasily. “The mice took over the kitchen. I think something died in the drain.”

Macy winced. “That’s no good. You let us know if you need any help with that. I can get you the number for the plumber around here. His name is Al. You know Al?”

“No, I, uh, don’t know Al. But thank you. I’m sure Al does good work.”

“Al does great work. I’ll find you the number.”

“Thank you, Macy,” Winston said, creeping his way towards his own abode slowly to mark the end of the conversation. “You two have a good one. It was nice to meet you.”

The author's narrative has been misappropriated; report any instances of this story on Amazon.

“Oh, you, too!” Macy chirped.

Turning on his heel, Winston let out a breath he’d apparently been holding and marched to the porch, already hearing Colette’s screams from within. He held his breath once more, bracing himself, and let himself in with a less than enthusiastic “hi, I’m back.”

“Where were you?” Marie’s sharp tone punctured his eardrums and already he could feel his strength oozing from the openings.

Winston pulled the paper bag from his coat, setting it down on the tall box that stood in the entryway. “I was getting the meds, remember?”

“Why did it take you so long? Do you hear her?” Marie asked irritably, attempting to console the troubled child in her arms. “I can’t deal with her and the house by myself.”

“I stopped to talk to the neighbors,” he sighed, taking off his coat to hang. “Macy and John next door. They said they’d give me the number for the plumber to do something about upstairs.”

“That’s good,” Marie murmured. “It’s been driving me crazy all morning. I think it’s time for you to dump the bucket.”

“I’ll get on it,” he muttered, trudging upstairs to investigate the half-full bucket.

“I was thinking,” Marie piped up as Colette finally quieted down. “Maybe tonight we can do something fun.”

“Like what?” he asked, dragging the bucket downstairs to empty into the kitchen sink.

“I don’t know. Go out to eat. Watch a movie. This town’s bound to have a cinema, right?”

“You want to take Colette into a theater?”

“Then we’ll watch a movie here after Bill gets here with the furniture. You said he’s coming around noon, right?”

“That’s what he said,” Winston said, putting the bucket back beneath the leak.

“Then we’ll wait for Bill and figure something out. It’s not like you’re getting any work on that novel done.”

“What’s that supposed to mean?” he asked, propping the now emptied bucket against the edge of the sink.

“You know what it means.”

“I am trying to provide for my family, Marie,” he said slowly, bucket clutched as he came to stand in the kitchen archway.

“I’m just saying, you could provide by getting a real job that you actually get paid for,” Marie said airily, bobbing Colette in her arms.

“I will get paid for this. I already signed off on it. I just have to finish it,” Winston said.

“And when are you going to finish it? Next week? Next year?”

“When I can. Why don’t you get a job?”

“Because I already have a job and it’s called being a mother!” she snapped. “I have to stay home to take care of Colette!”

“That’s what nannies are for! That’s what babysitters are for! Your sister offered to babysit plenty of times so you can work! Why don’t you take her up on that?”

“Because she doesn’t know how to take care of a child! She and Bill don’t have any children; they don’t know how to be parents! How can I trust them with my daughter if the only thing they ever raised was hell in college frat parties?!”

“Give them a little credit! We’re not in college anymore! They’re perfectly nice and smart people with a nice house and I’m sure they could figure it out just fine!”

“I don’t want them ‘figuring it out’ when it comes to my daughter’s safety!” Marie hissed. “You know what I think? I think you’re just lazy. I think you’re doing whatever it takes to avoid working a day in your life and you use the excuse of writing your stupid novel to avoid doing so. You make all these promises about all the books you’re going to sell but you haven’t even finished the second!”

“I’m going to!”

“It’s been three years, Winston! We can’t keep living on your mother’s handouts and what’s left of the first book’s revenue! It wasn’t even good. Barely anybody bought it.”

“People wouldn’t have bought it if it wasn’t good,” he said through his teeth.

“Oh, then let me know when you’re ready to sell the movie rights! Don’t forget us when you’re sitting on your throne at book signings as the world famous author of the world’s dumbest detective series! It’s pathetic how much you cling to this! Why can’t you man up and go out there and work?!”

“Why can’t you just support me?!” Winston shouted, tightening his grip on the bucket as Colette began to cry again, the drip accumulating upstairs and collecting into a new puddle on the floorboards. “I’m trying! I’m doing my best! I’ve been taking care of everything, haven’t I? You always use this motherhood excuse to just sit there and tell me what to do and how bad I am at it! You talk about how you have to take care of Colette, huh? Refuse help because the rest of them aren’t good enough? I think you’re the one who’s afraid to work! You’re barely even a mother, Marie!”

“You’re barely even a man!” she barked. “I do everything for Colette!”

“You really want to see how much of a man I am? Huh? Do you?” he growled, squeezing the bucket.

“Drop it, Winston! Just drop it! Drop it!”

There came a loud banging at the front door and Marie scoffed, relocating to the other room with the child.

“Hey! Everything alright in there?” came a man’s voice from outside. “Do I need to call somebody? Hey!”

Regaining his composure and setting the bucket down with a deep inhale, Winston made his way to the front door to see the man in the orange shirt standing at his doorstep.

“I could hear the screaming from next door,” the man said, brows furrowed. “Everything okay?”

“... Yes,” Winston said a bit shakily with a nod. “Yes. Yeah. Everything’s fine. I just got into a little argument with my wife. I’m sorry about that.”

“No worries. Keep it down next time, yeah?” The man gave him a two-fingered salute and backed off of the porch, walking off.

Winston shut the door again with a sigh and turned his attention back to patch up the stairs. The spot in the ceiling had gotten browner, larger, the drip coming faster.

Plip plip plip.

“Okay… We take care of this first…” he whispered to himself, picking up the bucket and trudging back upstairs to set it back in place.

The smell had only gotten worse, taking everything in Winston’s power not to gag. In some odd way, it was a relief, the nauseating scent of decay overwhelming enough to put his quivering temper on the backburner. The sound of his cell phone ringing was even more of a distraction, welcome until he realized it was Bill that was calling. Swallowing his nerves, he answered.

“Hello?”

“Hey, it’s Bill,” Bill’s tired and husky voice came through. “Listen, Lindsay’s asking about the book club or whatever it is she and Marie do. Marie was supposed to give her the week’s recommendations but hasn’t sent it to her yet.”

“We’ve been a little busy. I’ll tell Marie to get on it,” Winston said, scooting the bucket to be more centered beneath the leak.

“Thanks. I appreciate it.”

“Hey, um, how are you and Lindsay?” Winston asked, leaning against the wall.

“We’re doing alright. Thinking of heading up the coast next summer.”

“Oh, that sounds nice.”

“You okay, man? You sound a little off,” Bill said.

“I’m fine, I’m fine. Marie and I just… got into a little spat.”

“Ahh, say no more. I understand. Just tell her to get that list to Lindsay when she has the chance.”

“Will do.” Winston swallowed. “Hey, uh, Bill? Can I ask you something?”

“What?”

“... Never mind. Um. See you later.”

“Huh? Yeah. Okay. See you.”

Winston hung up and rubbed the side of his face, staring balefully up at the stain in the ceiling. It seemed to bend beneath the weight of something and Winston could almost imagine it bursting like a bubble and the flood of stinking fluid jetting down upon him. If he closed his eyes, he could imagine it sweeping him away, down a long river, never to be seen again.