The Probable Future

Jenny looked again, and this time she squinted and went so close to the window her nose touched glass. Sure enough, the figure of a man had turned off Dead Horse Lane and was headed up the rutted driveway, stumbling a bit as he went. The sky was still blue, but the road was already dark. There was a humming sound, from the bees in the laurel.

Matt came and opened the door for a better view. At any other time he would have been distracted by Jenny’s presence, but now he paid attention to the man on the road. He would know that walk anywhere. He knew it as well as his own.

“It’s Will.” From his tone anyone might think he was referring to a demon or a dog rather than his own brother. “He’s jumped bail.”

“Well, I hope he likes cold food,” Elinor said. “At this rate, that’s all we’re going to have.”

They could see now that Will was carrying a gym bag, clearly stuffed with clothes, as though he fully intended to stay. He strayed through several mud puddles, and by the time he got to the house, his shoes were covered with muck, his slacks were wet to the knee.

“Jesus. This road,” he said. “It’s worse than ever.”

“I don’t want you in my house, but if you insist on coming in, take off your shoes,” Elinor directed.

Will leaned against the porch railing and removed his shoes.

“Someone could say hello,” he suggested.

Matt and Jenny exchanged a look.

“Is something going on?” Will asked, puzzled.

“You tell us,” Jenny said. “Haven’t you been ordered to stay in Boston? And while we’re at it, why haven’t you called Stella? She phones you daily, and you’re never home. Is there ever a time when you don’t think solely of yourself?”

“How about you?” Will said to Matt. “Anything you’d like to berate me for?”

“You still have mud all over you,” Matt said.

“I screwed up,” Will admitted.

The sky was pink in the farthest horizon, mixed with a pure shade of blue, the sort of blue Elinor had been searching for, the color she believed she might have found at last. From where they stood, the air closest to them was all shadows, ink poured from the well.

“The house is gone,” Will said.

“I sent Mrs. Ehrland the check for this month’s rent. She can’t kick you out,” Jenny said. “Though I’m sure she wants to.”

“No. No. Not the apartment. The little house. Someone stole it.”

Will looked ragged standing there, shoeless, with mud on his pant legs. He looked like a man who’d come to beg for his dinner, a seeker after charity, hopeful that his luck would change, but fairly certain it wouldn’t. From the way his brother was babbling, Matt wondered if he wasn’t suffering from the DTs, perhaps he was going cold turkey. But, no, Matt could smell whisky; Will had recently had a drink, perhaps on the train. The evening train from Boston had been known for its bar car even back when they were boys, along with a bartender who never asked for ID. Sometimes, Will would ride the train back and forth to Boston all day, throwing back whisky sours, gin, and ale till he couldn’t crawl in a straight line, let alone walk.

Stella, having heard her father’s voice, ran out from the parlor. She threw her arms around Will. “Why didn’t anyone tell me you were coming?”

“I’m not actually here,” Will said. “And this isn’t a real visit. Just a slight problem.”

Matt recognized his brother’s tone, the voice of disaster, of failure, of borrowed money and fights in the street, of getting fired, quitting school, screwing the downstairs neighbor, walking away from a dying woman because it was too hard to look at her, too depressing, too desperate, too real.

“Of course there’s a problem. You haven’t any shoes.” Stella glared at her mother, as though it were Jenny’s fault that Will was standing there in wet, muddy socks riddled with holes. “Are there slippers?”

“Front closet,” Elinor said. “With or without pom-poms.”

The light was fading so fast now that the pink laurel blossoms shone in the spreading pool of dark. There was the lazy end-of-the-day drone of bees who had drunk their fill. With the door opened, one large bumblebee mistook the front hall for the open air. It buzzed inside and landed on Matt’s hand. When he waved it away, the bee rose from his skin slowly, reluctant, it appeared, to depart. Jenny stared as the bee continued to circle, drawn to him still. It was cold with the door thrown open, yet another trick of April, warm days, cool nights. All the same, the air was thick with spring fever. It was still the season of rash decisions, of bravery where before there was none, of vision, of blazing white heat at the coldest of times. Proof of love could be found in a single blade of grass, in what was kept and what was thrown away. Jenny thought about the bee that hadn’t stung and the black carved angel on the town common. She thought about the fact that there had been two boys standing on the lawn on the morning of her thirteenth birthday, with only one dream between them.