The Best American Short Stories 2014 (11 page)

 

The next morning, I slept much later than I normally do, and by the time I came downstairs, Wanda had gone off to school and the Djukanovics were back on the sofa in the den, watching television. They were watching the show about the little bossy cartoon girl who is some sort of explorer. That was one of Laila's favorite shows. It's odd what children like. For some reason this particular show just set my teeth on edge. When Mr. Djukanovic heard me in the kitchen, he quickly clicked the TV off as if he had been watching one of the pornographic channels. (Of course we don't get any of them, we have the no-frills, very basic cable package, and we only have that because you need it to get reception. I do miss the old days when there were just a few channels and just about everything was worth watching.) Mrs. Djukanovic got up and slunk out of the room and went upstairs. She was wearing a headscarf along with the dark glasses and looked quite—well, not frightening, because I know it's wrong to be frightened of people who wear headscarves and sunglasses indoors, but it was a little spooky. Or maybe I just don't get out enough.

Usually I put the coffee and water in the coffeepot before I go to bed each night, so when I come down in the morning all I have to do is switch it on—it seems like such a timesaver, but of course it isn't—but I hadn't done this when we'd gotten home from Gully's, I suppose because I was a bit discombobulated by everything and perhaps a bit tipsy, because Robert and I did drink the entire bottle of wine, a fact which in the clear light of day seemed quite shocking to me.

“Some coffee, Mr. Djukanovic?” I asked, as if I were in a television commercial.

He pushed himself up off the sofa—he was a big man, not fat really, but just large in a way that made our house and everything in it seem small. He sat on one of the stools at the counter that separates the kitchen from the den and said, “Yes, please. We could not find the coffee.”

“Oh, I keep it in the freezer,” I said, and realized how silly that sounded. But Alice had told me I should keep it there because it kept better, but I suppose anything keeps better if it's frozen. I certainly would. Why not just have done with it and put everything in the freezer?

Mr. Djukanovic and I watched the Mr. Coffee with undivided attention as if it were some sort of miraculous alchemical invention making gold and not Chock full o'Nuts. When it was finished, I filled two mugs and opened the refrigerator and poured some milk into a creamer because I grew up thinking it wasn't nice to put bottles on the table (or the counter in this case), and lifted the lid from the sugar bowl and slid it toward Mr. Djukanovic. For some reason I was very curious as to how he took his coffee, as if this would reveal something to me, something clarifying and comforting about the entire situation we found ourselves in, and I watched as he poured in milk and spooned two spoonfuls of sugar into the mug, and I thought, Oh, he takes it light and sweet, light and sweet. But I didn't know what, if anything, that meant.

Mr. Djukanovic sipped at his coffee and said, “You are very kind to invite us into your house. We are very grateful. Thank you.”

“Why, you're most welcome,” I said. “I'm so glad you can stay here with us.” I realized that this made it sound as if they were friends or family popping by on a holiday and not homeless refugees, so I said, “I am so sorry about your home, and your misfortune.”

“Yes,” he said. “It is bad. Very bad.”

“Terrible,” I said. “Just terrible.”

“I must apologize for my wife,” he said. “She is very ashamed. Because she is very proud, you see. She is so ashamed.”

“Ashamed?” I said. “Ashamed of what? There is nothing for her to be ashamed of.”

“Losing our house,” he said. “Our house in America. She loved it so much. She was proud of it. And so losing it, and having to come here. It is shaming to her. Also, she does not speak English.”

I wanted to ask him what language she did speak, but I remembered how we had got off to the wrong start with my question about his name, and things seemed to be going so beautifully now, so I thought it best to hold my tongue.

“It was not a good house, I know, but it was the only house we could afford,” he said.

“Well, I'm sure with the insurance money you can buy a nice new house,” I said.

“No,” said Mr. Djukanovic. “Because the house was in the flood place we could not have insurance. So it is just lost. Gone. Our house in America.”

“Well, I don't think that's fair,” I said. “Didn't the county condemn it? If they do that, I should think they'll have to give you something for it.”

“Something, perhaps, but not enough for a new house.”

“Well, you're welcome to stay here just as long as you'd like,” I said.

“Thank you,” said Mr. Djukanovic, “but we'll go as soon as we can. And live in a trailer.”

“Well, you have a home here,” I said. “There's no need for that. It isn't right, my husband and me all alone in this big house.”

“You have no children?” Mr. Djukanovic asked.

“Yes,” I said. “Or no. We had a daughter but we don't have her anymore. Well, in our memories we do, of course, but not—not here.”

“She is dead?” asked Mr. Djukanovic.

“Yes,” I said. “Her name was Alice.”

“Like in Wonderland,” he said.

“Yes,” I said. “Exactly like that.”

 

Of course Robert had sneaked down into the basement. I brought him a mug of coffee and a powdered-sugar doughnut. He sat at his worktable looking dejectedly at his belts. He had somewhat optimistically bought three hundred plain leather belts, which he intended to personalize and decorate with his leather-tooling kit and then sell on his website, but so far he had sold only three, and those were to people at church and only because of the Christmas Craftmart (another idea of Reverend Judy's, come to think of it, with half of his proceeds going to the church).

“You can't hide down here forever, you know,” I said. I cleared a place on the table and put down the coffee and doughnut.

“I'm not hiding,” said Robert. “This is my house. You can't hide in your own house.”

“Oh, I think you can hide in any house,” I said, but I didn't want to argue about it. “Are you warm enough down here?”

“Yes,” he said.

“Would you like me to bring down the space heater?”

“No,” he said.

He broke the doughnut in half, and then into quarters, and dunked one of the quarters into the coffee and then ate it. He brushed some of the powdered sugar that had come loose onto the floor. I was aware of him wanting me to go, to leave him alone, but something kept me standing there beside him. Since we moved the washer and dryer up into the breezeway (it really isn't a breezeway anymore since it was winterized), I hardly ever go down into the basement. One half of the basement—the dark side—was full of all the things we kept when we sold Charlie and Alice's house. It isn't very much, most of the things we donated to Goodwill (they will come and clean a house out; they'll take everything, anything), but there were some things I just couldn't bear ending up at Goodwill or in some unknown person's house.

“What are we going to do with all of that?” I asked.

“What?” Robert asked. He dunked another piece of doughnut into his coffee.

“That,” I said, and nodded toward the dark part of the basement. “Alice's things. Alice's and Charlie's and Laila's things.”

“I don't know,” said Robert. “You're the one who wanted to keep them.”

“Yes,” I said. “That's true.”

“It's ridiculous,” said Robert.

“Yes,” I said. “You're probably right.”

“Ridiculous,” Robert said again, but this time he said it gently.

After a moment he picked up an awl or something and banged it with a hammer onto a belt, but I knew he was only pretending. He'd probably ruin the belt, but it didn't matter, did it, because he had 296 more.

“I just had a nice chat with Mr. Djukanovic,” I said.

Robert said nothing, but continued to randomly (it seemed to me) tool the belt. Surely you had to draw some design on it first and not just whack away at it like a madman?

“They didn't have insurance on their house,” I said. “On account of it being in a flood zone. So they won't get any insurance money. And what will they do? How will they buy another house?”

“How should I know?” Robert said. “They should never have bought that one in the first place. You don't buy a house in a flood zone.”

“Some people do.”

“Yes, some crazy people.”

“I don't think the Djukanovics are crazy,” I said. “It was the only house they could afford.”

Robert said nothing, just tooled some more.

“Do you wish they weren't here?” I asked. “Do you wish they would go away?”

“Of course I do,” said Robert. “I wish nothing bad ever happened to anyone.”

“But it does,” I said.

“I know it does,” said Robert.

“So we should help them,” I said. “Shouldn't we help them?”

“Yes,” said Robert. “We should help them. We are helping them.”

“Maybe we can give them this house,” I said. “Maybe we should.”

“And where will we go?”

“I don't know,” I said. And I didn't. I couldn't picture us living anywhere else, not in another house, or an apartment, or a retirement home. But it did seem wrong, somehow, that we, and not the Djukanovics, should have this house. It seemed almost a crime.

“Isn't that what good Christians do?” I asked. “Take the coat off your own back and give it to someone who needs it?”

“Well, maybe a coat, because you can buy another coat. But not a house.”

“It shouldn't matter,” I said. “It's the principle.”

Robert sighed. “Then give them our house,” he said. “Give the Djukanovics our house. And we'll go live in the street. Is that what you want?”

“No,” I said. “No. Of course not.”

Robert said nothing. I wanted to say something nice about the belt, something encouraging, but it really did look ruined, so what could I say?

“Would you like some more coffee?” I asked. “Another doughnut?”

“No, thank you,” said Robert.

I stood there for a moment, and then Robert picked up his tools and attacked the belt again, and I went upstairs.

 

It turned out that both Mr. and Mrs. Djukanovic worked at Odd Lot Warehouse & Liquors but because they had missed work the day of the flood, they were suspended and couldn't work again for a week. This didn't make much sense to me, but then it has been such a long time since I had a job (I used to work in the gift department at Downer's Pharmacy during the Christmas season, but it closed when the CVS arrived, and that must have been at least twenty years ago), so I don't really know what the rules are nowadays. I did suggest to Mr. Djukanovic that perhaps if he explained about the flood and their house to the Odd Lot, explained that it was an act of God, they might make an exception in his case, but he told me he had already done that. I thought about calling Reverend Judy and asking her to look into it, but Robert told me it was none of my business and to stay out of it. Despite our tender moment in bed the first night that the Djukanovics arrived, Robert had become rather snippy with me, but I suppose it was just the strain of having strangers in the house and him spending too much time down in the basement.

I was trying to be especially friendly and kind to Mrs. Djukanovic because I felt so bad about her feeling ashamed, but it was difficult to do much of anything since she always scurried away when she saw me and didn't speak English. So I just tried to be extra nice to Mr. Djukanovic and Wanda. I went down into the dark part of the basement and found Laila's Barbie Dreamhouse and her huge collection of Barbies. They were all a little moldy, but I wiped everything down with Lysol and then left them in the den, and Wanda did seem to enjoy playing with the Dreamhouse, although she ignored all of Laila's fully intact Barbies and only played with her own armless doll. It all ended rather badly, though, because Wanda liked to reenact the flood and make the house collapse and by smashing it so often that it finally fell apart. That was fine with me, I had no use for it of course, but Mrs. Djukanovic was terribly upset about it and actually smacked Wanda, which shocked and upset me although I know in some cultures it's perfectly all right for parents to hit their children. (I never laid a finger on Alice; in fact all you had to do was give her a stern look and she'd be in tears.) So we had to throw the Dreamhouse out in the garbage, and I tried to give all the Barbies and their clothes and furniture and junk to Wanda, but Mrs. Djukanovic wouldn't let her have any of it, and she even took Wanda's own handicapped Barbie away for a day or two as a punishment. It all just seemed so mean and terribly unfair to me.

Robert said if I was going to get upset about every little thing that happened with the Djukanovics, they should leave, and if I cried one more time he would throw them all out, so after that I tried to look on the bright side of everything and keep my spirits up, and I made sure I cried only when I was alone.

 

The Djukanovics stayed with us for eight days, and then the emergency trailers arrived and were parked in the outfield behind the high school even though the baseball season was about to begin, but apparently no one thought about that. I'm surprised that it occurred to me, but it's the first thing I thought of when I saw them there, all lined up as if the circus had come to town. Alice used to play on the softball team and I did enjoy going to all the home games. The girls looked so pretty in their white uniforms, and the green grass and sunny afternoons. Alice was the pitcher.

I wasn't home the morning the Djukanovics moved into their trailer because it was a Wednesday, and I volunteer at the hospitality shop at the hospital on Wednesdays. When I was ready to leave that morning, they were up in the bedroom with the door closed and I didn't know what to do. Robert was down in the basement, of course. It felt wrong to just leave the house without saying goodbye to them, but I had always respected their privacy and never disturbed them when they were in their room, and I wasn't sure that I should start now. But then I decided I certainly had the right to say goodbye to them in my own house, so I went upstairs and knocked on their door.