Read Online The Safety of Objects: Stories by A. M. Homes - Free Book Online Page B

of his belongings and the sensation of being separated from them make him that much more determined to get inside. He breaks the key in half trying to work the lock open.
    “Shit,” he says.
    “Hello?”
    He hears his neighbor’s voice through the bushes at the end of the driveway.
    “Is someone there?”
    He doesn’t answer. He sits on the steps as though he’s been sent out as punishment. He is alone in what he thinks of as the middle of nowhere. For five minutes he just sits there, his knees up to his chest, poking the plastic ends of his shoelaces into the eyelets on his shoes, resting.
    This would never have happened on Eighty-seventh Street. He would have gone downstairs and gotten the extra key from the super. He would have run around the corner to the Pearlmans’ and waited there in the comfort of their living room. Jim is living in the past, a place where his memory tells him life was easier, almost effortless.
    Jim removes his tie and goes into the backyard in his pink oxford-cloth shirt and gray flannel pants. He relieves himself in an azalea bush, but it is boring, like being on a camping trip. Little green shoots are poking up all over the yard. His children have left a trowel and a hand rake in the dirt by the driveway, and it occurs to Jim that weeding will make him feel better; it will divert his anxious energy. It will make him a farmer, a man he has never been before.
    He gets down on his hands and knees and begins digging, pulling green things out of the dirt. He makes three stacks of weed balls and is in the process of making a turban out of his shirt when a car pulls into the driveway. He runs around the side of the house, joyous that his family has returned, his shirt wrapped loosely around his head, the sleeves hanging down like floppy ears.
    Bill’s Repair Man looks at him as though there’s some sort of a problem. His expression causes Jim to look down at himself. He’s covered with dirt. Clumps of soil are embedded in his chest hair. His gray flannels have grass stains unlike any seen in detergent commercials. One pant leg is ripped open at the knee, the skin under it raw, from when Jim accidently kneeled down hard on a buried rock.
    “Doing a little planting?” the repair man asks.
    The name sewn on his uniform says Bob even though the truck says Bill. Jim figures that Bob must work for Bill, perhaps they’re even related.
    “Weeding actually,” Jim says, relishing the sensation of explaining himself to a guy with his name sewn on his shirt who clearly doesn’t know putting in from taking out, planting from weeding.
    “I’m here to fix the hot water heater,” Bob says.
    “There’s a little difficulty with the door,” Jim says. “My key broke off in the lock.”
    “Which door?” Bob says.
    Jim points up to the kitchen door, and the repair man takes his toolbox out of the truck. Jim follows him up the stairs. Just as they’re getting the door open, Jim’s wife pulls up in the car. Susan seems surprised by the sight of him, and Jim’s not sure if it’s because he’s home hours earlier than usual, or if it’s the shirt on his head and the dirt on his chest that have thrown her off guard.
    “Daddy!” His daughter Emily hurls herself at him, hugging his knees.
    “Did you bring me anything?” his older child, Jake, asks.
    “Just me,” Jim says.
    Jake makes a face. He sees the weeds that Jim dug up lying in a heap by the driveway.
    “You’re in trouble now,” Jake says.
    “You idiot,” Susan screams as she rounds the edge of the car and looks into the backyard. “You dug up my marigolds.” She runs through the yard shouting. “What the hell is wrong with you? Are you insane?” Jim charges down the steps and into the yard. He’s almost willing to kill Susan to keep the neighbors from hearing her.
    “Be quiet,” he says loudly. “Be quiet.”
    “You ruined my garden, you fool,” Susan screams and then stands silent in the middle of the yard, her arms crossed