Bill left the bag of potatoes out in the hall. He took a sheet pan from the kitchen and filled it with spuds then placed them on the shelves of the convection oven. He did not turn the oven on.
Since he was back around where Mary was, he checked the prime rib again. This time he poked it with his fingers, once in the middle and once on each end cut.
“Maybe another half hour,” he said.
Mary was stirring a big pot of Bordelaise sauce. She had just put the pan of yellow rice in the oven. “The rice comes out in about a half hour too,” she said. “Tomorrow we need to make rice pudding for Bea.”
“Big whoop. I may be tripping again tomorrow.”
“That mean you going to be staring into things for hours like you did with the egg wash?”
“Maybe.”
“You scared me that day.”
“Wasn’t anything.”
“Why you do that to yourself?”
“Stretch my mind.”
“You mean fry your brain.”
“So who cares?”
“What about that girl of yours?”
“She’s got her own world.”
“Well, what about you?”
“Me? That’s a joke.”
“Boy, you don’t care about yourself, no one will care about you.”
“Ain’t that the truth.”
“Yeah, it is. So figure it out. It’s a sad day when no one cares about you. And you just a baby, too.”
Bill looked to his feet. He wanted to say something, but he held it in. He wanted to tell Mary, and he would one time when they were at the Upper Room, that no matter who loved him and how, he never felt loved. He wanted to tell her, and he would that one time, that there was an emptiness in the well of his heart that never got filled. He wanted to tell her, and he would that one time, that he did not believe in love. He did not believe in love, he did not believe in justice or in right. He did not believe, not anymore, that doing good got you good. This didn’t mean to do bad or to do wrong, certainly not knowingly. But that moral arc some people talked about, Bill did not see it, could no longer see it, maybe had never seen it.
Bill turned to go downstairs. He’d been standing a protracted moment looking at his feet, Mary watching him look at his feet.
“Cat got your tongue?” Mary asked.
“Don’t have anything to say,” Bill said.
“Boy, you don’t have to clam up with me. You can say anything and it stays with me. Especially this stuff.”
Bill smiled at Mary again. “I’m gonna get high before I come up for the service. Don’t forget to take out the rib and start the baked potatoes. You want to get high, come down.”
Tears formed in Mary’s eyes. She wanted to throw her arms around him and hug him. She wanted to kiss him as if he were hers, to let him know that she cared about him. But she was conflicted. Truth was she was afraid. She knew it was stupid. He was taken. Maybe for the way he was that wasn’t such a good thing. But it was the reality. She wanted to say the hell with it and take a shot, but Mary, like Bill, was not one to just take a shot. She had to reason it out, like Bill did, and justify it to herself, like Bill had to. So they were stuck. Maybe it was better they were stuck.
Bill took a long drink of bourbon before he went back to cutting steaks. He had come down from being really drunk and was now maintaining his head, keeping himself comfortably high, how he would stay until about ten o’clock when he had to let himself get straight to drive home.
Upcoming:
The Ghost Writer, Rose’s Story: A Look At The Worlds We Hide
