He checks his watch. It is a gold watch that belonged to his grandfather. On the day his grandfather killed himself, he also shot two grouse. He went out in the morning for the birds, and in the afternoon for himself. They heard the story over and over when they were growing up about how their grandmother cleaned and cooked the grouse anyway. He studies the face of the watch, wondering whether his grandfather looked at it before he killed himself. She will be here in twenty-four minutes, he says out loud. He doesn’t see her car, but she must already be inside the school. She is a devoted stepmother. She is devoted to everybody but him. He envies Rebecca. He has one of Rebecca’s pictures that Laura left in his car by mistake. It is a crayoned picture of a flying red bird that looks like a flying pig. He takes it out and looks at it. He closes the glove compartment. Glove compartment. When people wore gloves. Years ago. His grandfather. There is a picture of his grandfather on a table in his mother’s house. He was a plain-looking man, with white hair and puckered cheeks and a cravat. He built his own house. Charles got his house from his grandmother, when she died. It was not the same house his grandfather built. With the insurance money she had bought a newer one. His grandmother thought he was the only worthwhile member of the family. In elementary school, Charles had sung in the choir. His grandmother loved music. She left him her house.
Laura should be here. What is he going to say to her? He wants, somehow, to convey to her that her husband is a dull man. Since he is also dull, he wants to point out that she wouldn’t be getting into anything unexpected; she would just be swapping a dull person who doesn’t care much about her for one who does. That sounds awful. He will have to think harder. He puts his watch away. It is heavy in his pocket. He pushes it far into the pocket, not wanting to lose it. What would his old puckered-cheeked grandfather think of his rendezvousing with a woman at an elementary school?
She doesn’t come. She’s five minutes late, then ten. He turns on the radio, hoping to find out that his watch is inaccurate. There is a special report about a child’s oven that blows up. Judy Collins. A financial report. He looks up and sees Laura’s car, a black Volvo. Laura pulls up alongside his car, on the other side of the street. “I’m sick,” she hollers. “I just came to tell you. I called, but you had left.”
“What’s the matter with you?” he says. Wind blows in his face.
“The flu,” she says. “I’m really sick. I’ve got to go back to bed.”
He looks at her stupidly. She looks very sick. Her hair is dirty. No question that it is more brown than blond. He stares into her eyes. They are bright. She has a fever. A car honks in back of her and she drives on. He thinks she is gone and can’t bring himself to start the ignition. Her car pulls up alongside his.
“Hi,” he says.
“I’m sorry I’m sick,” she says, leaning across the seat. “I’ll see you another time.”
“Isn’t there anything I can do for you?”
“No. I just want to go back to bed.” She shakes her head. She looks awful.
“You shouldn’t have come out.”
“I thought of you sitting here. I knew you wouldn’t believe I was sick.”
“I would have believed you,” he says, as indignant as she was when she said her husband didn’t open her mail. But he probably wouldn’t have. Even the bread-baking is in question.
“Will you call me?” he says. She nods, rolling the window up. Her car is moving slowly forward.
“I’m going to follow you,” he says. “You’re too sick to drive.”
“I only have a fever,” she says through the crack in the window, but he puts the key in the ignition, and she waits. The car won’t start. It grinds, but nothing happens. When he is about to scream, pound the windshield, holler and curse, it starts. He follows her car. He follows it all the way to her house, which he can barely see from the road. It is a twenty-minute ride from the school, along streets he has never driven. He starts to pull into the drive, but sees another car and backs up, drives on. At the end of the dead-end street he makes a U-turn and coasts slowly past her driveway. What if she is dying? He sees her get out of her car and walk toward the house. He watches her until she disappears, then coasts to the end of the street. There is a lot of traffic, once he leaves her block. He keeps thinking about turning around, going to the house and saying something to her, no matter who’s there. He lacks nerve. He’s not sure what else he lacks, because her husband’s no prize either. He is wondering about that when his car conks out at a stop sign. He tries to re-start it, but nothing happens. Finally, he sits there with the car flooded, cars pulling around him, head on the steering wheel. What the hell — it wouldn’t hurt to grow his hair some.
Eventually the car starts, and he drives back to his house. Sam’s car is out front. Charles pulls into the driveway and gets out, not bothering to put the car in the garage. The piece of junk doesn’t deserve to be covered. He goes up the walk. Sam opens the front door.
“What are you doing here?” Sam says.
“What are you?” Charles says.
“I felt funny. I took off a couple of hours early. The flu’s going around. I hope it’s not that.”
“If you think you’ve got the flu, what are you doing here?”
The wrong thing to say. Sam looks hurt.
“We can take care of you if you get sick,” Charles says. He nods agreement with himself at Sam, whose expression changes.
“What happened to Laura?” Sam says.
“She’s got it. She was awfully sick. I didn’t get to talk to her. I followed her home. That’s all.”
Sam shakes his head. He is drinking wine. A bottle is on the floor by the chair.
“Wine?” Sam says.
“What are you drinking that for if you’re getting sick?”
“I don’t know,” Sam says. “Where’s Susan?”
“Shopping.”
“I could go out and get food for dinner if there isn’t any,” Sam says.
“What would you go out for if you’re getting sick?”
Sam shrugs. “What are we going to eat?” he says.
Charles gets a glass and pours some wine. It is French wine, instead of the Gallo that Sam used to drink. Sam sympathizes with the boycott. Charles feels sorry that he is getting sick.
“I guess I should call the hospital,” Charles says. He gets up and calls. Pete answers on the first ring.
“Mommy did something that was a little silly,” he says. “She had some laxatives in her purse, and she took them. She hasn’t been feeling well today.”
“Laxatives? What for?”
“She’s going to be just fine, and fit as a fiddle for the Windy City,” Pete says.
“Can I talk to her, Pete?”
“Sure you can. She’s right here, and feeling better by the minute.”
There is a lot of rustling and whispering.
“Hello?” his mother says faintly.