The Witch (24 page)

“Go away, Milo.”

“You're a modern girl, aren't you? You believe everything you read in your magazines, you want everything you see in television commercials. You dress yourselves up like tramps and then you expect people to take you seriously when you go to work and start ordering everybody around.”

Edie tried his Internet history. News sites, mostly, and some that might have been escort services, and a few more surprising ones that featured comic book characters and cute animal videos.

“Are you listening to me? I should have left you where I found you, out in the cornfields with the illiterate undergraduates. I brought you here, I introduced you to people you never would have met on your own in a million years, the very best artists, writers, thinkers. I hoped you'd fit in, or at least that you wouldn't embarrass me. Did you even attempt to improve yourself? To do the kind of serious, first-rate research and scholarship that you claimed was your life's goal?”

She didn't want to believe anything Milo said, but what if he was right about her? What if she was ordinary? All those years spent reading and studying and grinding away at her thesis. Suppose she had no particular aptitude or talent, no thoughts worth thinking, let alone writing down? What presumption, what a waste of time and energy, what a fool that would make her.

“Shall we enumerate all the ways in which you're a disappointment? You've simply traded one mediocre job for another.
Now you will produce the televised pap which your students back in Cornville gobble up. You haven't made a positive impression on a single one of my friends. They barely remember your name. And by the way, you've gained some weight.”

Here was a Skype account, with a history of calls to “Brenda.” Brenda? She heard Milo stamping around in the hallway, impatient because she wasn't answering. She said, “Just how many dead wives do you have, Milo? I'm a little confused.”

He made a roaring noise and rattled the door again, then retreated down the hall. Edie tried Jake Bialosky's number again, and again got voice mail. She punched in her sister Anne's phone number and waited while it rang. Anne answered. “Edie? What's up?”

“Do you think I'm fat? I mean, was I fat the last time you saw me?”

“What? You're not even close to fat, if you were a supermarket chicken nobody would buy you. Can I call you back? Jenna's ready for bed and she wants me to read her a story.”

“Okay.” Anne hung up. Edie called Jake's voice mail again. “Hi, this is Edie again, I was really hoping to talk to you.”

Jake clicked on. “Hello? You still there?”

“Oh, hi. I don't know if you remember me, but . . .”

“What's going on over there, what's the matter with Milo?”

Adrenaline was catching up with her and making her shake. “I'm not sure, well, he has an eye infection.”

“And it's making him have fits? You mean, seizures? Did you call an ambulance? Do you need me to come over?”

“Not that kind of fit. More like, a tantrum. What, you're in town? Aren't you in the army? I locked myself in his study and he's trying to break down the door.”

“I'm coming over.”

“Wait, I need to ask you . . .” Her phone buzzed. Anne was calling. “Hold on a minute, would you?”

Edie switched over to Anne's call. Anne said, “Jenna's looking for her tiara, she won't get in bed without it. Whoever came up with the idea for princess merchandise, they really cashed in. I just wanted to say, I don't think you're a bit fat. But you could do some toning exercises, things that strengthen the core, you know, Pilates, or some of the yoga classes. You must have a gym on every corner in that neighborhood.”

“I can't stay on the line. Milo's mad at me, he's been carrying on about me getting a job. And some other stuff.”

Anne was asking what kind of job when Edie switched back to Jake. “Hi, Jake?”

“I'm just now getting into a cab.”

“Oh, good. But listen, I need to ask you, what's your mother's name?”

“It's Friedman. Brenda Friedman. She remarried. Why? What's Milo doing?”

Edie listened. She heard noises at some distance, the sound of heavy objects hitting the floor. She guessed Milo was in her study, laying waste to her bookshelves. “He's around here somewhere.”

“If I can't get into the building, I'm calling the police.”

“Okay, bye.” Edie hung up and typed in the number on the Skype account. A woman answered on the fourth ring.

“Myron?”

“No, this is . . . a friend of Myron's. Is this Brenda?”

“What friend, where's Myron?”

“He's busy.” The throwing noises had stopped. Now he was whacking and hacking at things, most probably with the
ceremonial Japanese katana sword that was on display in the dining room.

“You wait right there!” the woman told Edie.

A minute later the computer screen dimmed, then brightened. An old woman with unconvincing red hair stared out at Edie, looking her over. “Who are you?”

“I'm Mi . . . Myron's wife.”

“No you're not. The wife is some colored girl.”

“I'm the new wife.”

“Well I'm the old one. Ha.” Brenda's neck and face were powdered with some flour-like cosmetic and her red lipstick was slightly off-center. Her head bobbed around on the screen in a disconcerting way, as if it was severed.

“Wasn't there some other lady? After you? The one who—”

“Dead Debbie. The one who died at the dentist's, they gave her too much gas. There was a big lawsuit. Dead Dental Debbie. We were all very sad about it. Ha. Does Myron know you're calling?”

“No, I was just, you know, curious. I guess he didn't tell you about me.”

“He mostly likes to call and talk about his latest too-big-for-his-britches big deal.” The head tilted and squinted into the computer screen, taking Edie in. “How old are you anyway? Since when did he start marrying children?” More of the squinting. “None of my business, but can he still manage a normal married life? If you know what I mean.”

“I met your son Jake. He came to visit.”

“Jake is a good boy. Like his brother. I tried to do my best. What's that racket?”

Out in the hallway, Milo was using the sword to gouge and
splinter the wood around the doorknob. Edie said, “We're having sort of a fight, me and Myron.”

“Well let me talk to him. He needs to calm down, his blood pressure is way beyond stupid.”

“I've been trying to get him to ease up on the red meat and butter.”

“That's good, that's what you ought to be doing. He takes up with all these fast numbers who don't know a thing about feeding a family.”

Edie's phone chimed. It was Anne calling back. “Excuse me a minute,” Edie told the head. “Hi, did you get Jenna to bed?”

“Yes, finally. You got a job? A real job, I mean, not just teaching?”

“That is so insulting, why do you always have to devalue me? I don't want to talk about this right now.” She hung up. “Sorry,” she said to Brenda Friedman. “My sister. She has these attitudes.”

“Is that Myron I hear carrying on?” Brenda asked. He was pounding on the door with his fists and bellowing.

“Uh-huh.”

“You should let me talk to him, he knows I don't put up with that kind of foolishness.”

“Here he is now,” Edie said, as the door burst and gave way. Milo leaned on the door frame, gasping for breath. The sword point was broken off. His green eyeshade had worked its way up over his forehead, and his eyes were clotted with rheum. He turned his head from side to side, as if trying to find her. Edie stood, ready to bolt or crouch.

“Myron, for God's sake, look at you,” Brenda Friedman said from the computer. Her red mouth made a disapproving shape.
“Get a grip! You sit down right now before you hurt somebody! What happened to your eyes?”

Milo dropped the sword and sank to his knees on the carpet. Brenda said, “Sit up, I can't see you very clear. What are you now, some man-of-action superhero type? Every new woman, it's a new you. Then you get tired of yourself. You get tired of the woman. Myron! Talk to me!”

Milo hauled himself up to rest his chin on the desk. “Brenda, I don't feel so good.”

“I'm calling 911,” Edie announced, as Milo clutched at his chest, turned beet-colored, and fell over backward with a crash.

“Myron, Myron!” A wailing noise from the computer. “Boychik! Why did you ever leave home?”

Jake Bialosky arrived just as the paramedics were wheeling the gurney with Milo's body through the apartment door. Milo had been bundled and zipped into a heavy-duty black rubber bag for transport. A number of the seldom-seen neighbors had opened their apartment doors to observe his progress down the hall. Jake conferred with the paramedics, then touched Edie's arm. “You okay?”

“Yes, thank you.” And she was, or she would be, once she got over being stupefied. She looked Jake over. “You aren't wearing your uniform.”

“I was mostly trying to impress before,” he admitted.

“I guess you're like, a man of action.”

“What?” Edie shook her head: never mind. “Did you need to go back in and sit down?” Jake asked.

“Not in there. I don't think I want to have anything to do with the place.”

“Understandable.”

She would sell it all and move to somewhere cool and modern and clean. She would keep her nifty underpaid job. She would become the person she was meant to be all along. It was as if forces greater than herself had solved the problem of her existence. She turned to Jake. “Would you think it was terrible of me if I said I really could use a drink somewhere?”

He was studying her, making up his mind about her, or maybe remaking it. “My mom called me. I should call her back.”

“Of course.”

“Listen, maybe you could use some help the next few days. I feel kind of bad about, well, everything.”

“Me too,” Edie said, although she was pretty sure that there were things she might, in time, come to feel not bad about at all.

“There's a dog that's seen better days,” Sheila said. She was standing at the front window, eating her breakfast of peanut butter and toast. Ellen came up behind her to look. Sheila already had her coat on, and it was hard to see past her sister's thick, corduroy shoulder.

“Where?” Ellen said, but then she saw the dog. It was standing on the sidewalk as if taking the air, or maybe it had no particular place to go. It was a largish, buff-colored dog with a plumey tail that curled over its back. It did not resemble any recognizable breed, and whatever its mix of ancestry, the parts had not meshed well. Its legs seemed longer in back than in front, its chest was too heavy, and its head, with its long, upright ears and narrow black muzzle, resembled a kangaroo's. “It's a boy dog,” Ellen said, pointing. “See?”

“Don't be cute,” Sheila said. They watched as the dog took a few steps, then lay down on the sidewalk. “I expect it's a stray. If it's still around when it's time for you to go to work, call me
and I'll call the dogcatcher. Don't go out there. You never know about a strange dog. It could have rabies, it could bite you. It could have mange. You understand? Ellen?”

“Yes,” Ellen said. Every minute of every day there were things she was supposed to do and not do. That was Sheila. She'd worn out a husband and now she was wearing out Ellen.

Sheila turned away from the window and started laying hands on all the items she needed to leave the house: purse, keys, lunch sack, coffee mug. Although she took these same things with her every day that she went to work, there was always something hectic about the process, as if Sheila was afraid one of them might have escaped. It made Ellen nervous, and that made Sheila nervous, staring Ellen down with her severest eyebrows. “Did you take your pill yet?” Sheila asked her.

“Yes.”

“Don't say yes if you aren't sure. Let's go look.”

In the kitchen, the brown prescription bottle was still in its place in the cupboard next to the sink. Sheila took the bottle out and set it on the counter. “We've talked about this. I've talked until I was blue in the face.”

Ellen understood that “blue in the face” was just a way of speaking. But it got caught in the drain of her brain, where it went round and round, blue in the blue in the blue in the

“Ellen? I have to get to work.”

Ellen took the glass of water Sheila had poured out for her, and the pill she held out, and swallowed it down. “There you go,” Sheila said. “Now you're right as rain. You're giving me that look again. Do not give me that look. When you get to work, I want you to talk to Mrs. Markey and the other people. I want you to make an effort. Smile. Just for practice, it doesn't have to mean anything.”

Sheila was her younger sister, but she acted like she was the older one.

Ellen stood at the front window and watched Sheila back the car into the street. The dog was still there, in the middle of the sidewalk, looking around him like he was in the bleachers at a ball game. Sheila paused the car and tapped the horn, probably to try and get him to go away, but the dog just looked around some more, and Sheila drove off.

Ellen stayed at the window. She didn't have to get to work until ten, and even then it didn't really matter if she was late. The dog had its mouth open and was panting, even though it wasn't hot outside. Ellen wondered if he was thirsty. He probably didn't live around here and had been wandering around trying to find his way home, and now he was too tired to go any farther. Maybe hungry too.

Ellen filled a plastic bowl from the cupboard with water. She opened the refrigerator and took out the leftover casserole, beef and noodles. She cut a big square of it and put it on a paper plate and set it in the microwave to take the refrigerator chill off. They had lunch meat, ham, and Ellen laid some of that on the plate, along with a couple of pieces of cheese that she peeled loose from their plastic wrapping. They had never had dogs in the house, so she wasn't sure what they ate, except dog food.

She carried the water to the front door, set it down, and went back for the plate of food. Then she opened the door just enough to look out. The dog hadn't moved. Ellen waited to see if it was going to run at her and try to bite, but it just turned its black kangaroo-shaped nose in her direction, in a polite way, as if not wanting to ignore her. Ellen put the bowl and the plate a few steps out on the front walk. “Here you go.”

Ellen went back in the house and shut the door. She watched
as the dog appeared to think about getting up, then scrambled to its feet and came up the front walk. It put its nose into the food and ate it in big smacking gulps. It lapped up the water, then went back to the paper plate to lick it clean. When it was done, it nosed around the evergreens beneath the window. Its curled tail stuck out from the bushes like a handle.

Ellen left the window to put the food away in the kitchen, and when she came back, the dog was gone, on its way home, Ellen hoped. It was best that it not be here when Sheila returned from work, since Sheila really was somebody who would call a dogcatcher, then call again if they didn't come fast enough.

Ellen went upstairs and lay down in bed and looked at the ceiling until she was tired of looking. The only times she could do nothing was when Sheila wasn't around. Sheila used words like “interactions” and “engaged,” words she had been taught to use. Ellen was not supposed to live in her own head, since that had turned out to be a bad neighborhood. When Sheila was home, Ellen always had to be occupied with something, watching television or reading a magazine or making a mess out of her latest handcraft project. She couldn't get any of them to turn out right, knitting, embroidery, even plain sewing. She got bored with them, and sometimes she tied knots in the yarn, or put in a trail of stitches out to the edge of a pillowcase just to see what Sheila would say, and Sheila always said, “That's very nice, Ellen.” The handcrafts had been Sheila's idea. The word for this was “therapeutic.”

Sheila had moved back into the house after their mother died, so there would be somebody to take care of Ellen, but really because she and her husband did not want to live together anymore and the Church did not allow divorce. Sheila was not
her only sister, but the others lived farther away and were okay with being married, so Ellen was stuck with her.

It wasn't like she needed anybody to take care of her. She wasn't stupid, only crazy, ha ha. It was more like, other people required explanations and reassurances.

Ellen's job was at the thrift shop run by Saint Brendan's, sorting the donated clothes. Ellen was not welcome in church itself after the terrible things she had said about Father Harvey that time, things that had not really happened, it was explained to her, except inside her head. The thrift shop was a good fit for her, Sheila said, because she could walk to it, she didn't have to dress up, and the people there were used to her, meaning, they knew she took crazy pills. It was all right being there, but it wasn't the kind of job you could get excited about.

She left the house by the back door, like she always did, and she didn't see the dog until she had started off down the alley. It must have been hanging around in the front yard and had to catch up with her. It trotted out from behind a garage and stood in her path, waiting. Ellen stopped and she and the dog looked each other over. The dog wasn't panting anymore, but its red mouth hung open, because it was either smiling or getting ready to bite.

“Hey dog,” Ellen said, and it wagged its big tail. She took a step toward it and it came up to her and sniffed her legs. Was it still hungry? She'd made herself two sandwiches for lunch, one ham and one peanut butter. She opened her lunch sack and held out half the ham sandwich to it. The dog reached out and took it in its mouth, but not in an especially snappy way. More like, it would have had good manners if it wasn't so hungry.

When it finished the ham sandwich it looked up at Ellen
and wagged its tail again. It had brown eyes with light-colored lashes, and a hopeful expression. Up close, there was gray in its face. Ellen took out half the peanut butter sandwich and again the dog ate it down, coughing a little, probably because the peanut butter got stuck in its throat.

“That's all I got,” Ellen said, though that wasn't entirely true. She set off down the alley and the dog trotted along at her side. She guessed the dog was all right, at least it wasn't going to bite. It didn't have a collar. Was it a wild dog? Did they have wild dogs in town? Did they live in the park? Even in winter? Where in the park? It wasn't like they had caves or anything. It was going to be winter pretty soon, and winter was cold, a time of dark and deadness. When people died they got whittled down to bones, don't think that don't think that, but not before the nasty, decomposing part. Eventually everything and everyone died, all of nature and people too, tribes nations civilizations planets the whole universe! A reverse explosion, a Big Bang of sucking nothingness!

But this was brain drain thinking or actually more of a brain blender where everything got mishmashed together and the flopping panic rose up in her throat and she just had to stop it all and breathe, and look around her, and see that she was right where she was meant to be, crossing the street on the way to work, the brown dog going along at her side like he had a job of his own to get to.

Her pills didn't always work like they were supposed to, but she knew better than to tell anyone that.

The thrift shop was in an old brick house. Ellen walked around back to the loading dock, where people dropped off their donations. The dumpster was here too, and a hose spigot but no
hose. She poked around under the loading dock where sometimes things ended up, and found an enamel pan. She filled this with water and set it off to one side, where there was still some of the old yard's grass. “Well, I have to go to work now,” she told the dog. It lifted its nose and gave her an expectant look, so she patted it twice on the top of its flattened head. It had a good feel, a furry feel. “Bye,” she said.

Mrs. Markey ran the thrift shop. She was one of those big-smile people. “Good morning, Ellen,” she sang out, every day when Ellen came in, like this was something to be really happy about. Mrs. Markey wore a blue smock with a cross and “Saint Brendan's” embroidered on it. “Isn't it a beautiful day? I just love this time of year, with the leaves turning and the air all crisp. Don't you?”

“Sure,” Ellen said. She didn't much notice weather.

“I should let you get started,” Mrs. Markey said, as if she and Ellen had been having some delightful, extended chat.

The donated clothes arrived stuffed into plastic garbage bags or paper sacks, or sometimes just wads and heaps of them left on the loading dock. Ellen wore rubber gloves and tossed some of them into the rag bin, others into the different carts meant for children, men, and women. The carts went to the laundry room and the clothes were loaded into the giant washers and dryers and then folded or placed on hangers. Sometimes the clothes needed mending, and those were set aside. Sometimes fancy or unusual items came in, party dresses or leather jackets, and these were put on a special garment rack.

On occasion, when Ellen had found some of these fancy clothes first, she folded them up small and hid them under her coat and took them home with her. She didn't have any good
clothes anymore; the pills made you gain weight, and nothing fit. But in the back of her closet she had a collection of net petticoats trimmed with ribbon, and a lace dress with a neckline in the shape of a heart, a skirt that glittered with sequins, plus filmy scarves and blouses, jeweled shoes, and a pair of long red leather gloves. Sheila would have said, “Now where in the world do you plan on wearing any of that?”

Ellen didn't think much about the dog while she worked. The pills made it hard to concentrate and there were so many things that could send you off in a different direction. These socks? These sad, busted drawers? All day long, humiliated garments passed through her hands. And while she knew that the craziest part of her crazy was believing that things meant more than they did, where did you draw the line? Did the lost, the broken, the distressed, count for nothing? Save me save me save me, each one said, as she hesitated over the rag bin. Then Mrs. Markey or somebody else poked their head in and said something that needed a certain kind of answer: prompt, cheery, yoo-hoo! Ellen mumbled and stumbled and people got that regretful, wise expression.

Ellen left at four o'clock to go home. She looked around for the dog, and right away he crawled out from underneath the loading dock, wagging his tail like they were old pals. “Hey,” Ellen told him, “I'm thinking we should get you some real dog food, what do you say?” And the dog did a kind of happy dance, kicking up with his back legs and then his front legs, like he understood everything and thought it was a good idea.

So they set off down the street to the grocery, the dog staying right at her side, stopping when she stopped, then starting up again. Ellen told him to wait while she went into the store.
The grocery! Some days it was full of shouting colors and products on the shelves that reached out to you like the tentacles of seaweed but of course not seaweed. Today she was in a hurry. She propelled her cart through the aisles and bought two kinds of bagged dog food, in case he didn't like one of them, and a box of dog cookies in the shape of bones. She got a package of hamburger, because they could both eat that.