Spencer wondered if that episode was when his heart had gone blank, watching that opposing coach foam his way to indigo. Sure, Spencer had mustered enough emotion in his later years to court Cassandra and propose to Cassandra the way a practical, math-minded actuary might court and propose, but when things had gotten tough, when the family pandemonium had begun, he’d reverted to squinting into the sky and erasing himself. When his children presented him with frustrating scenarios, when Cassandra laid out her to-do lists on the dining room table, one-two-three-four-five, Spencer could feel apathy coming on like a trance, like a squeegee down a plate glass window. That was when he went through the motions of pretending to care, of pretending to be interested, when what he really wondered was what would life be like if no one did anything. If everyone just got on the floor and curled up together and only rose to use the toilet and to make instant oatmeal. Spencer thought for a moment about voicing this to Dr. Darvin, but instead, he just sat there on the gray couch and thought of the sofa back at the two-story. What had those people on the fabric been doing? He’d stared at them for years while Cassandra sat by his side, in the early years with her laugh and wine, in more recent years with her ballpoint and lists, but now he couldn’t recall what those people printed all over the camelback had been up to. Fishing, maybe. Threshing wheat. Spencer couldn’t recall and it hurt to try. So, he stood up, helped himself to some Wint O Greens, put on his hat, and tipped it.
Spencer thought that going back to the house to say goodbye and pack up his things would be hard on the kids. He felt like it would be a big event, a dramatic exit. So he left the clothes and the kids and Cassandra the same way he left cocktail parties—without saying so long or thank you. He just went to work one morning and didn’t go back home when he was done. On the way to his new apartment, he bought a bar of Zest and a cheap yellow toothbrush and he left everything else back at the two-story. He figured it was thoughtful of him in a way. Cassandra and the kids could slowly get used to him not being there, and then when they got used to that, maybe toward summer, they could go through his closet and empty it out and get used to his clothes not being there either. What else had he really left behind besides some oxfords and khakis? His uncle’s war helmet, he supposed. Maybe a set of damp encyclopedias in the basement. A box of Wheat Thins. (He was the only one who ate Wheat Thins.) It wasn’t like it was hard to start over. He just needed some basics. Some socks and paper plates. A container of Coffee Mate. Batteries for the remote.
Spencer’s friends thought he was crazy. They told him as much. Cassandra looked good for her age. She wasn’t more than about 130, 135 in the winter. Once or twice a month, she could be a real pill, a borderline bitch, but the rest of the time, she was a doll, sometimes a saint. She had good teeth, a genuine laugh, a way of anticipating the needs of the kids. She still gave it up every week or so, usually in a tired sort of way, but she acquiesced nonetheless. The kids weren’t terrors. They had manners enough, a modicum of charm. Regardless, Spencer wanted none of it. He wanted the queso and chips. He wanted the Pearson brothers on Channel 241 running Klondike gravel through their sluice box. He wanted no talking, no folded laundry in the front hall, no obligation to explain the rules of badminton, Clue, the fox-trot, geometry. He saw himself never having to show someone how to ride a ten-speed, how to wind up a rubber hose, how to measure twice, cut once. Never again would he want to put his fist through a wall watching Levi tie his shoes by clumping his shoelaces up in a little pile. Never again would he experience the agony of seeing that nightly lump of toothpaste in Melody’s sink. Did she just let it fall there off her toothbrush? Did she spit it out whole? How much had he spent on these lumps? Spencer knew it was wrong. There were people out there who had kids dying. Kids hooked up to tubes and bags and pumps. But stilclass="underline" a scooter left behind the wheel of his Camry three or four times a week. It was just one thing after another.
On the first morning in the new apartment, Spencer looked out at the reservoir and stretched. He didn’t feel anything. Neither remorseful nor refreshed. He just felt nothing. Which was how he wanted it. Before it had always been something.
At work, he ran some numbers, then he had a piece of cake in the break room, then he ran some more numbers. When he went back for a second piece of cake, he ran into Babson, the IT guy, doing the same.
“Good cake,” Babson said. “I think it’s spice. No one ever makes spice cake anymore.”
Spencer just chewed and gave a nod.
“Hey, sorry,” Babson said. “About everything going on.” He brushed some crumbs from one hand onto the knees of his pants. “I heard around.”
Spencer wasn’t sure what to say, so he said, “Well. Life’s no picnic.”
Babson crossed his arms and nodded. “You got that right,” he said. “Even a picnic is no picnic. The last time I went on a picnic, I …” Babson trailed off.
“What?” Spencer said.
Babson looked as though he’d been caught reaching for a third piece of cake. “Oh, nothing,” he said. “I don’t know what I was going to say.”
Spencer felt suddenly persistent, almost pushy. “No. You were going to tell me something. Come on. Tell me. Tell a man a story.”
Babson raised his shoulders and shook his head. “It’s really not that great of a story,” he said. “I just came across an animal is all.”
Babson paused and Spencer stared in a way intended to make Babson feel obligated. Spencer knew it was out of character for him to act as such. It was the first time he was using his predicament to garner pity, to force a reaction, but he felt an urgent and inexplicable need to know the details of the story. “What kind of animal, Babson?” Spencer asked. He surprised himself by calling Babson by name. He surprised Babson, too.
“It was a cat,” Babson said quietly. “Tangled in some wire.”
Spencer felt something close to empathy wash over him; he could feel the very wire on his own leg. “Like barbed wire?”
Babson shrugged. “Yeah,” he said. “I tried to get him out, but it just made things worse.” Babson uncrossed his arms and rubbed his neck. Then he clasped his hands behind him.
“So,” Spencer said. “Then what?”
Babson cleared his throat. “I had no choice,” he said. “I put it out of its misery.”
Spencer held his cake a little higher, intrigued. “Really?” he said. “And how did you do that?” Spencer asked. “How does one go about putting a cat out of its misery?”
Babson gave a weak smile. He looked at the floor, then out the glass door of the break room. He moved in front of the door to block it. “I had no choice,” he said again, almost whispering. “It was the right thing to do.”
Spencer stood in a way that he normally didn’t stand. Unyielding, feet slightly apart, one hand speared in a pocket, the other, paused indefinitely, with the cake out in front of him. Babson looked out the glass door then back at Spencer. “I didn’t have anything on me,” he said. There was a long pause before Babson spoke again. “It was a picnic, for chrissakes. All I had was a corkscrew.”