Heat and Light by Jennifer Haigh Page A

pulls into his driveway, gravel crunching, bouncing over potholes he’s been meaning to fill. A light is on in the kitchen. Inside he finds Shelby at the kitchen table, staring at her laptop. She wears ancient gray sweatpants and an old flannel shirt.
    â€œOlivia was sick after supper,” she tells him. “She threw up twice. I’m so tired I don’t know what to do.”
    He leans in for a kiss and gets her forehead. “Again?”
    â€œShe has a nervous stomach.”
    â€œWhat does she have to be nervous about?” He opens the fridge, locates and unwraps a leftover chicken leg.
    â€œLet me get you a plate.”
    â€œNah, that’s okay.” He eats standing over the sink.
    â€œThe bank called. I took a message. It’s here somewhere.” Shelby riffles through the clutter on the table—junk mail, clipped coupons—and hands him a yellow Post-it note.
    Rich takes it without looking and tucks it into his pocket.
    â€œYou’re exhausted,” says Shelby. “You can’t keep doing this.”
    â€œDad needs the help.” His father is healthy, mainly, though he spends more and more time running to doctors—the knee, a lingering cold, recurring appointments for what his doctor calls blood work (what exactly they’re hoping to find in Dick’s blood, Rich isn’t sure). The Commercial is too much for a man his age, and yet he’ll never let go of it. Dick Devlin is that rare thing in Bakerton, a successstory: a respected businessman, president of the Borough Council. His old union buddies scrape by on Black Lung and hold court in the Legion, drinking to kill the day.
    â€œHe needs to hire someone,” says Shelby.
    â€œHe shouldn’t have to. It’s a family business. Darren could do it.”
    This is not a new conversation. Unlike his sisters, who disappeared long ago into marriages and children, Rich’s kid brother—eternally single, earning chicken feed as a drug counselor in Baltimore—has nothing better to do. He’d make more money and live cheaper and better, helping Dick run the bar. It’s the least he can do, in Rich’s view, Darren who caused their parents more grief than the other three kids combined.
    â€œHe’d never move back here,” says Shelby.
    â€œWhy the hell not?”
    â€œNo bones in the disposal, sweetie. Remember last time.”
    He throws the drumstick in the trash.
    â€œYou’re home early,” says Shelby. “That’s good, anyway.”
    He takes the last beer from the fridge. “Yeah, well. Gia’s helping Dad close. Supposedly. It’s her night off.” Just saying her name has an immediate effect on him. He can nearly feel the weight of her head in his lap, though he’s never, in actual fact, experienced such a thing, a warm mouth in a parked car. Shelby isn’t adventurous that way, or any other way he can think of.
    â€œSo why is she hanging around there?” Shelby turns her attention back to the screen. “She told me she quit drinking.”
    â€œI didn’t actually see her drinking. None of my business what she puts in her mouth.”
    Shelby looks puzzled.
    â€œShe was talking to those drillers. Just, you know, being social.”
    His wife frowns, as though it’s an alien concept. As though they hadn’t—before they were married, a lifetime ago—closed a few bars together: Rich and Shelby, Gia and whatever dirtbag she happened to be dating at the time. Back when Shelby and Gia were tooyoung to order their own drinks, Rich—fresh out of the navy, newly divorced—had paid for them both, liking how it looked. They had seemed, at first, like two versions of the same thing, one brunette, the other blond. At a certain point he had to choose between them. Shelby had seemed the safer choice, a quiet, pretty girl who could be trusted.
    â€œI worry about her,” says Shelby. “She’s