When they got the fish home and cut them open the eggs would spill out by the thousands onto the newspaper, tiny black yolks encased in mucus and streaked with blood. And by the time they were finished cleaning the fish, the eggs and the blood and the water and the ink from the newspaper were all smeared and run together on the floor. Erik standing back while Brian kneeled over the fish with his sleeves rolled up, his hand plunged into one stomach after another, the scars from the fire still new and inflamed, running from his wrists to his elbows.
“Yes,” Miranda said, dismissing Erik’s whole conversation about the farm, as if he couldn’t possibly know what rules were operating here.
At noon, when Brian and Nancy came back from their shopping, Miranda had stood up and said that she and Erik would go to lunch. When they got to the car she stopped outside the door on the driver’s side, opened her purse and gave two dollars to Erik. “Meet me downstairs in an hour,” she said. She looked at Erik and flushed guiltily. “There are some things which are too important to talk about.” Then she climbed in the car and closed the door, hardly waiting for Erik to get out of the way before backing out of the parking space.
The second day, the old woman was still stationed beside the fire exit. She was wearing the same bright robe but her hair had been pinned up and contained in a blue net. She beckoned to Erik as he passed, and then reached one hand up and leaned it against his chest. She looked at him closely, this time her pupils seemed tiny and sharply focused, then turned her head and pushed him away. “I’m sorry,” Erik said. The hockey player was back. He lay on the bed, his foot encased in a white cast which was placed in a sling hung from the ceiling. There wasn’t enough room for everyone to sit around Richard’s bed, so Brian and Nancy sat beside the hockey player and talked about cars. Richard seemed better. There was only a temporary inconvenience. He spoke of hiring the Frank brothers after he got home, to help out for a few weeks. His arm was still motionless but he could use his hand to hold the corner of the magazine.
At noon Erik went outside. The morning, warm and still at the farm with the first shadows lying long and transparent across the fields, had been destroyed by the city, turned into a hot and dusty day that couldn’t be absorbed by the lake and now eddied about the brick and limestone towers of the city’s buildings — hospitals and prisons. He followed the directions Miranda had given him, walking to Rose Garnett’s past a playground that had been turned into a daycamp, and a factory where he could see loaves of processed bread passing by an open window. The house was on a corner near the lake: cold sharp limestone that had faced down the water and the cold winter winds without yielding or even softening its edges in the time that had passed since it was built, his mother reported to him, by a retired British army colonel who had been attracted to Kingston by its peace and propriety. The lot was closed in by a thin wrought-iron fence, which appeared as much an unnecessary afterthought as the few rosebushes that bloomed unconvincingly in the shadows of the house.
He had not imagined how she would look, but expected her to have become a hazy replication of his mother, a middle-aged woman fortified by money and religion. Instead she was as she had been, a plain light-haired woman who moved and spoke without ceremony, as if she were an assistant in someone’soffice and knew nothing of any God or the glib magics that can be dispensed in the afternoon. “What can I do for you?” she wanted to know, as if it wasn’t obvious that he must want something more dramatic than could be named, everything or nothing. She brought him tea and sat down beside him on the couch, her legs crossed under the long dress, the bones of her hands and arms slender and quick, fine like the tips of her hair
“Yes,” Miranda said, dismissing Erik’s whole conversation about the farm, as if he couldn’t possibly know what rules were operating here.
At noon, when Brian and Nancy came back from their shopping, Miranda had stood up and said that she and Erik would go to lunch. When they got to the car she stopped outside the door on the driver’s side, opened her purse and gave two dollars to Erik. “Meet me downstairs in an hour,” she said. She looked at Erik and flushed guiltily. “There are some things which are too important to talk about.” Then she climbed in the car and closed the door, hardly waiting for Erik to get out of the way before backing out of the parking space.
The second day, the old woman was still stationed beside the fire exit. She was wearing the same bright robe but her hair had been pinned up and contained in a blue net. She beckoned to Erik as he passed, and then reached one hand up and leaned it against his chest. She looked at him closely, this time her pupils seemed tiny and sharply focused, then turned her head and pushed him away. “I’m sorry,” Erik said. The hockey player was back. He lay on the bed, his foot encased in a white cast which was placed in a sling hung from the ceiling. There wasn’t enough room for everyone to sit around Richard’s bed, so Brian and Nancy sat beside the hockey player and talked about cars. Richard seemed better. There was only a temporary inconvenience. He spoke of hiring the Frank brothers after he got home, to help out for a few weeks. His arm was still motionless but he could use his hand to hold the corner of the magazine.
At noon Erik went outside. The morning, warm and still at the farm with the first shadows lying long and transparent across the fields, had been destroyed by the city, turned into a hot and dusty day that couldn’t be absorbed by the lake and now eddied about the brick and limestone towers of the city’s buildings — hospitals and prisons. He followed the directions Miranda had given him, walking to Rose Garnett’s past a playground that had been turned into a daycamp, and a factory where he could see loaves of processed bread passing by an open window. The house was on a corner near the lake: cold sharp limestone that had faced down the water and the cold winter winds without yielding or even softening its edges in the time that had passed since it was built, his mother reported to him, by a retired British army colonel who had been attracted to Kingston by its peace and propriety. The lot was closed in by a thin wrought-iron fence, which appeared as much an unnecessary afterthought as the few rosebushes that bloomed unconvincingly in the shadows of the house.
He had not imagined how she would look, but expected her to have become a hazy replication of his mother, a middle-aged woman fortified by money and religion. Instead she was as she had been, a plain light-haired woman who moved and spoke without ceremony, as if she were an assistant in someone’soffice and knew nothing of any God or the glib magics that can be dispensed in the afternoon. “What can I do for you?” she wanted to know, as if it wasn’t obvious that he must want something more dramatic than could be named, everything or nothing. She brought him tea and sat down beside him on the couch, her legs crossed under the long dress, the bones of her hands and arms slender and quick, fine like the tips of her hair
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