Page 22 of Whistle

“Cartoons?” he said, and nodded. His expression grew wistful. “Our grandson loves cartoons.” Daniel had another pull on his beer. “Although we don’t see him too much. And he’s in his teens now, anyway.” There was a sadness in his eyes.

“So you obviously have grown children.”

“Two. Son and a daughter. Son lives in Milwaukee. Him and his wife don’t have kids. Daughter’s in New Haven, mostly raising her boy alone. She got divorced a while back and her husband’s not on the scene much.”

“That’s too bad.”

“Oh well, what can you do? You bring them into the world, you raise them, then send them off on their own. Just wish they visited more. Offered to look after Thatcher—that’s our grandson—a few times over the years so his mother could get away, but she’s not been inclined to take us up on it.”

So there was something going on there, Annie felt, but she didn’t guess what, and wasn’t sure she even wanted to know.

Another few seconds of silence. Finally, Daniel said, “You might have noticed I didn’t really want to step inside.”

She had, but didn’t say anything.

“Dolores and me, we’ve lived in that house since 1961. That’s...” and he paused, doing the math in his head, “...sixty-three years. Built that house with my father when I was eighteen. He was a carpenter, built houses all around these parts. And I worked with him since the time I was twelve. When I was seventeen, I met this girl.”

He smiled, and a web of creases spread out from both eyes. He gave her a sly look. “We were young and kind of stupid, and I guess if we’d both known more we wouldn’t have got into the situation wedid. Dolores kinda got pregnant.” He grinned at his choice of words. “I guess there’s no ‘kinda.’ You either are or you aren’t.”

Annie smiled. “That’s been my experience.”

“So the pressure was on that we get married, and while Dolores’s folks were ready to disown her, my mom and dad were more what you’d call supportive. Dad said we need to build you a house, and he bought that parcel of land over there.” He pointed a long, bony finger at his place. “Your place was here. It’d been here a long time. Not fixed up nice the way it is now, updated and all. That fellow that lived here and his wife—they were both photographers of some sort—did some upgrades, but I think I’m wandering off topic here.”

“Take your time.”

“Me and Dolores got married right away and lived at my folks, and by the time she was ready to have the baby the house was done. Moved in, been here ever since.” He suddenly looked proud, his chest swelling. “That’s our house and it always will be.”

But just as quickly his eyes seemed to mist over. He gazed out over the yard, not really focusing on anything.

“Dolores’d mostly been what you might call a stay-at-home mom, but she’d always been one to take the odd job here and there. For some time there, she baked out of the home and they sold her cakes and pastries at a place in Fenelon. She liked that. When our kids were in high school she got work at the IGA, cashier mostly. And she’d do housecleaning for folks. She wasn’t proud. When the folks that lived here asked if she’d do that for them, I said, hey, do you really want to clean house for your neighbors? And she said, what are you talking about? You think they’re better than us? A dollar’s a dollar. I didn’t have any argument for that. So that’s what she did. Cleaned over here once a week for about three months before it happened.”

Annie tensed, feeling that he was working up to something, but said nothing.

“I was home. Happened to look out the window, see Mrs. Anderson running over here fast as she can. I meet her on the porch and she’s saying come quick, something’s not right with Dolores. So I go running after her. I was younger then, in better shape—this was more than twenty years ago, what I’m telling you about—and was able to keep up with her, and even before I got to the house I could hear the screaming. Never heard a sound like that come out of my Dolores.”

Just tell me what happened.

“I get in the house, and she’s just standing there at the base of the stairs. Rigid, like she’s at attention. Arms at her side, and she’s got her mouth open and she’s wailing. I’m standing right in front of her, sayin’ her name, saying, ‘Dolores, it’s me, it’s Daniel,’ and it’s like she’s looking right through me, like I’m not even there. They called an ambulance, and the paramedics, they gave her something to calm her down and took her to the hospital, and the doctors, they say it was whatcha call some kind of a psychotic break and a bunch of other mumbo-jumbo, but the bottom line is I don’t think they know what the hell happened.”

Annie said nothing.

Daniel sighed. “A switch got flipped, and one moment she was fine and the next everything in her head went kablooey.” He shook his head slowly. “Like there’d been this little time bomb in her noggin waiting to go off for years, and it just decided to do it while she was over here vacuuming and dusting. Like a heart attack, you know, but in her head, but not a stroke or one of those TIAs, either? If it hadn’t happened there, I guess it would have happened someplace else. One doctor said, it was like if you opened a door and someone jumped out to surprise you. Like if that moment of shock never went away.”

Annie thought about that. “Like if something scared her?”

Daniel shrugged. “Like if something maybe scared her in hermind. If that makes any sense. Anyway, because Dolores associates this place, and anyone living here, with her, whatever you call it, condition, she keeps her distance.”

“Of course.” Delicately, Annie asked, “How long did it take for her to recover?”

Daniel chuckled darkly. “Love to let you know when that day comes.”

“All this time?”

“Well, it’s not like she’s been screaming for twenty years. It’s more like a part of her got turned off. She takes her meds, and she doesn’t talk much, and she watchesThe Price Is Rightevery day, and she likes to sit on the porch with a book that she won’t read, and I don’t really know how much of her is really there, but sometimes life throws you a curveball and you have to deal with it. I love my Dolores, and that’s all she wrote.”

He managed a grin. “So, welcome to the neighborhood,” he said, and laughed.

Annie forced herself to smile. “Thank you.”

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