February by Lisa Moore Page A

watching TV and stood at the end of the hall looking at her on the phone. Mommy, they screamed. The water poured down in fat ropes and thin sheets that tapered to a point and got fat again. Sheets of water that slapped the linoleum, and Helen shouted, Get out of the way. She told Dave she had to go. She ran up the stairs two at a time. When she came back downstairs the receiver was on the counter, buzzing hard.
    She would call her sister Louise to drive her to Cal’s body, she decided. She did not have to tell Dave or Meg she was going. She wanted to hold his hand too, no matter how cold it was. Maybe she would just sit outside the facility. Maybe she didn’t have to look at the body. But she had to be near it.
    . . . . .
    The Carpenter, October 2008
    HELEN SPILLED THE cleanser onto a sponge and went at the bathtub.
    Helen had waited for Barry one month exactly. Back in the summer. He had come into the house and they had introduced themselves but they did not shake hands.
    How strange, she thought, that they did not shake hands. Barry walked into her living room with his thumbs hooked into his belt loops, and he looked at the ceiling. For a while he didn’t speak.
    I’m going to tell you straight, he said. He stamped his foot twice. You’re going to need a sub-floor, he said. His eyes were grey.
    There’s no way around it, he said.
    Helen got under the bath with the Swiffer. It was a claw-foot tub. She didn’t care half as much about the kitchen, but she liked a clean bathroom.
    He’s an excellent carpenter and reliable and you’ll like Barry a lot. This was Louise’s daughter-in-law Sherry. Sherry had said, He is very good. Sean’s wife, Sherry: You’ll like Barry a lot.
    Had Sherry been trying to set them up? Helen froze at the thought, her outstretched arm still under the tub. Of course she was. Helen heard the reciprocal saw downstairs. The saw tore through, a revving up and dying down. But that’s silly, Helen thought. She waved the Swiffer back and forth, big sweeps. She heard Barry walk to the foot of the stairs and she felt a hot flash.
    I’m going to step out for a coffee, Barry called up to the bathroom. She imagined him on one knee, tugging on his steel-toed boot. She stood and saw herself in the mirror and she was bright red, with the sheen of a fast sweat on her forehead.
    Okay then, Barry, she called.
    Sherry had imagined her to be lonely. Helen was flooded with shame. The blood rushing to her head, making her ears ring. She would not be pitied.
    . . . . .
    The Valentine, February 1982
    THERE’S SOMETHING IN the mailbox, Helen said. A bright red envelope, big enough to hold the lid up about an inch.
    Louise was leaning forward, holding the wheel. She wore her fox-fur hat and black suede coat and matching gloves, and she had on a dark lipstick. They had come from Pier 17, where the bodies were, and Helen had not gone inside to see Cal’s body.
    Louise had pulled into the parking lot and they had just let the car idle. Helen couldn’t go inside. But she was glad to be there. Louise had picked her up and hadn’t said much, and they’d just stayed there is all they did. They stayed for a while. The radio was on, and after some time Louise turned it off. She wasn’t in a hurry. She took off her hat and put down the visor and smoothed her hair and put the visor back up. They didn’t have to talk.
    Louise reached over and opened the glovebox and rooted around, and there was a packet of tissues and she slit the plastic with her nail and tugged one out and Helen took it. Louise opened her purse and got out a cigarette and pushed in the lighter and waited until the lighter glowed orange and popped out.
    She lit the smoke, her cheeks caving, and pushed the button so the window went down a crack, and she blew the smoke out the window. After a while she threw the cigarette outside into the snowbank.
    Cancer sticks, she said. They watched an ambulance pull up and park, and someone got out and went into the