Page 52 of The Sound Of Us

My mouth falls open. And it’s not over the fact that he doesn’t even recall that I ‘got the cancer’ even before he fucking slipped his hand into my pants at that fucking church event and I thought I had to fucking marry him over it, since I’d be ‘damaged goods’ if I hadn’t.

It’s not even that he was the doting, supportive husband through chemo only when he had an audience, but he never let me forget behind closed doors how tiresome I was.

It’s the fact that a lucid, functioning adult would actually believe that he had the right to utter those words to another human being.

To another human being who he promised to love and cherish in fucking sickness and health. He’s sitting there acting like he’s the sole reason I didn’t die of ‘the cancer’ when I was eighteen.

His face suddenly breaks out into a broad smile. “What? You’re angry now? I was just joking, Axel. You don’t have to take everything so seriously.”

That unfurling in my chest again and along with it that inexplicable courage. “That was a horrible thing to say, Frank.” Also, if I knew how to make myself do it, I’d run so far away from you, you’d never be able to find me.

“God, you’re so sensitive. Can’t you take a joke? Just get my permission first before you spend any money. And you can start paying for the life insurance and groceries from this month. Also the credit card.”

“But if I pay for all of that I won't have anything left over.” What is Frank trying to do?

“Yeah, well, I've been paying for everything until now. It's your turn now. I'll be the pampered princess for a while.”

The chair scrapes against the floor. Frank rises, drawing himself up to his full height, his eyes boring into mine and a smirk on his face. He acts like it isn’t the case, but I know he’s showing me who’s boss around here. Put your head down and shut your mouth, Axel, is what he’s saying without saying a word. He doesn’t have to. I hear him loud and clear.

He throws a kitchen towel over my shoulder. “The boys are coming over later,” he says, squeezing my shoulder a little too hard. “Cook us something nice and you can go over to the lake and read for the evening.”

It’s the best thing Frank could have ever said to me.

Chapter 27

Eli

Axel said he wouldn’t be coming around anymore. I don’t believe him and I’m not going to help him with that, so I stock up on meaty bones and dog treats. Because if I can’t have Axel, then I’ll take his dog with all the charm and flattery I can muster.

And since there is that chasm of possibility that Axel’s moral compass is leading him away from me, I work on the house to pass the time. And since I can’t sleep, I make a list of things to do that would have me working well into the night.

Then when I no longer have manual labor to distract me, I pore through old newspapers dating back sixty years, when my father was a young man, trying to capture what living in his time might have been like. I can’t help thinking how much Axel would love sifting through history like this. I set the newspapers aside to show him when I see him again.

The weather is perfect for me to do some work on the outside today and, because I’m tired of the racoons, I get back to working on the fencing.

I was only halfway done before the snow came in last week, but now I can finish it.

By midday, I’ve managed to put up enough fencing to take me all the way to the lake.

The boulder that Axel reads on every night falls within the property’s perimeter. If I fence it in, he might never come back here to read. If I fence it out, he’ll think I don’t want him here.

I go with the lesser of the two evils. I fence the boulder out. At least he can read without worrying about trespassing.

By evening, I’ve covered most of the property line and Axel’s boulder sits outside the fencing. I’ll leave the installation of the gate for another time.

Heading back inside, I grab a beer, down it in three gulps, and strip out of my clothes for a much needed shower.

Later, because it’s such a still, calm night, I grab the rest of the six-pack and a container of cold pasta salad, and make my way back outside, toward the lake.

Sipping my beer, I gaze out at the lake, thinking back to the time I thought Axel would fall into the water.

I’m still suspicious of his intention, even if we never talked about it. Nobody stands on those rocks like that without a plan to fall in, especially if they’re drunk as hell.

The night is black. Starless. It’s perfect. I enjoy this stillness. This nothingness.

My father loved these starless nights. A blank canvas, he used to say, speaking of the night sky. A canvas where you could hang up every dream and desire and watch it come to life. And then, when the stars were out on another day, he’d point up and say, “there Eli, don’t you see all your hopes and dreams shining down on you? Let your dreams be as vast as the stars in the sky and may they all come true and shine like this night sky.”

My father was from another time and he spoke like it. The decades separating us could be observed in the simpleness with which he viewed life.

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