‘Oh, that’s a terrible thing for me to say.’ She bit her lip to hide her smile. ‘I didn’t mean it that way. I know Lou is a good man, but lately he’s just been very … busy. Or more distracted; there’s nothing wrong with being busy, as long as you’re not distracted.’ She waved her hand dismissively. ‘But he’s not all here. It’s like he’s in two places at once. His body with us, his mind constantly elsewhere. The decisions he makes lately are all to do with work, how to help his work, how to get him from one meeting to the other meeting in the quickest time possible, yada, yada, yada … so him offering you the job, I just thought that … God, listen to me.’ She composed herself. ‘You obviously brought out the good side in him, Gabe.’
‘He’s a good man,’ Gabe repeated.
Ruth didn’t answer, but it was almost as though Gabe read her mind when he said, ‘But you want him to become a better one, don’t you?’
She looked at him in surprise.
‘Don’t worry.’ He placed his hand over hers and it was immediately comforting. ‘He will be.’
When Ruth told her sister the next day about the exchange, and her sister ruffled her nose thinking it all very weird and suspicious as she did most things in life, Ruth only then wondered why on earth she hadn’t questioned Gabe, why she hadn’t felt it all so very odd at that moment. But it was the moments that counted, being in the moment, and in that moment she hadn’t felt compelled to ask. She believed him, or at least she had wanted to believe him. A kind man had told her that her husband would be a better man. What good was an afterthought?
Lou awoke the morning after to a woodpecker sitting on his head and hammering away consistently with great gregariousness at the top of his skull. The pain worked its way from his frontal lobe, through both his temples, and down to the base of his head. Somewhere outside, a car horn beeped, ridiculous for this hour, and an engine was running. He closed his eyes again and tried to disappear into the world of sleep, but responsibilities, the woodpecker, and what sounded like the front door slamming, wouldn’t allow him safe haven in his sweet dreams.
His mouth was so dry, he found himself smacking his gums together and thrashing his tongue around in order to gather the smallest amount of moisture to give him the honour of avoiding the loathful task of dry-retching. And then the saliva came, and he found himself in that awful place – between his bed and the toilet bowl – where his body temperature went up, his mind dizzied and the moisture came to his mouth in waves. He kicked off his bedclothes, ran for the toilet and fell to his knees in a heavy, heaving, worshipping of the toilet bowl. It was only when he no longer had any energy, or anything left inside his stomach, for that matter, that he sat on the heated tiles in physical and mental exhaustion, and noticed that the skylight was bright. Unlike the darkness of his usual morning rises at this time of the year, the sky was a bright blue. And then panic overcame him, far worse than the dash he’d just encountered, but more like the panic that a child would experience on learning they’re late for school.
Lou dragged himself up from the floor, and returned to the bedroom with the desire to grab the alarm clock and strangle the nine a.m. that flashed boldly in red. They’d all slept it out. They’d missed their wake-up call. Only they hadn’t, because Ruth wasn’t in bed, and it was only then he noticed the smell of a fry drifting upstairs, almost mockingly doing the can-can under his nose. He heard the clattering and clinking of cups and saucers. A baby’s babbles. Morning sounds. Long, lazy sounds that he shouldn’t be hearing. He should be hearing the hum of the fax machine and photocopier, the noise of the elevator as it moved up and down the shaft and every now and then pinged as though the people inside had been cooked. He should be hearing Alison’s acrylic nails on the keyboard. He should be hearing the squeaking of the mail cart as Gabe made his way down the hallways …
Gabe.
He pulled on a robe and rushed downstairs, almost falling over the shoes and briefcase he’d left at the bottom step, before bursting through the door into the kitchen. There they were, the three usual suspects: Ruth, his mother and his father. Gabe wasn’t anywhere to be seen, thankfully. Egg was dribbling down his father’s grey stubbled chin, his mother was reading the newspaper, and both she and Ruth were still in their dressing gowns. Pud was the only one to make a sound as he sang and babbled, his eyebrows moving up and down with such expression it was as though his sentences actually meant something. Lou took this scene in, but at the very same time failed to appreciate a single pixel of it.
‘What the hell, Ruth?’ he said loudly, causing all heads to look up and turn to him.
‘Excuse me?’ She looked at him with widened eyes.
‘It’s nine a.m. Nine o-fucking-clock.’
‘Now, Aloysius,’ his father said angrily. His mother looked at him in shock.
‘Why the hell didn’t you wake me?’ He came closer to her.
‘Lou, why are you talking like this?’ Ruth frowned, then turned to her son. ‘Come on, Pud, a few more spoons, honey.’
‘Because you’re trying to get me fired is what you’re doing. Isn’t it? Why the hell didn’t you wake me?’
‘Well, I was going to wake you but Gabe said not to. He said to let you rest until about ten o’clock, that a rest would do you good, and I agreed,’ she said matter-of-factly, appearing unaffected by his attack in his parents’ presence.
‘Gabe?’ He looked at her as though she were the most ludicrous thing on the planet. ‘GABE?’ he shouted now.
‘Lou,’ his mother gasped. ‘Don’t you dare shout like that.’
‘Gabe the mailboy? The fucking MAILBOY?’ He ignored his mother. ‘You listened to him? He’s an imbecile!’
‘Lou!’ his mother said once again. ‘Fred, do something.’ She nudged her husband.
‘Well, that imbecile,’ Ruth fought to stay calm, ‘drove you home last night instead of leaving you to drive to your death.’
As though just remembering that Gabe had driven him home, Lou rushed outside to the driveway. He made his way around the perimeter of the car, hopping from foot to foot on the pebbles, his concern for his vehicle so great that he couldn’t feel the occasional sharp corner breaking through his flesh. He examined his Porsche from all angles, running his fingers along the surface to make sure there weren’t any scratches or dents. Finding nothing wrong, he calmed a little, though he still couldn’t understand what had made Ruth value Gabe’s opinion so highly. What was going on in the world that had everybody eating out of Gabe’s palm?
He made his way back inside, where his mother and father threw him such a look, he couldn’t for once think of anything to say to them. He turned away from them and returned to the kitchen, where Ruth was still sitting at the table feeding Pud.
‘Ruthy,’ he cleared his throat and made an attempt at a Lou-style apology, the kind of apology that never involved the word sorry, ‘it’s just that Gabe is after my job, you see. You didn’t understand
