Read Online Where the God of Love Hangs Out: Fiction by Amy Bloom - Free Book Online

people across the street.
    The man put “AA for the Older Alcoholic” in front of Clare and said, “You’re not alone.”
    Clare said, “That is so not true.”
    She kept the orange-and-gray pamphlet on her kitchen table for a few weeks, in case anyone dropped in, because it made her laugh, the whole idea. Her favorite part (she had several, especially the stoic recitation of ruined marriages, dead children, estranged children, alcoholic children, multiple car accidents—pedestrian and vehicular—forced resignations, outright firings, embezzlements, failed suicides, diabetic comas), her absolute favorite in the category of the telling detail, was an old woman carrying a fifth of vodka hidden in a skein of yarn. Clare finally put the pamphlet away so it wouldn’t worry Nelson when he came for Friday night dinner. Margaret Slater dropped him off at six and picked him up at eight-thirty, which gave her time for bingo and Nelson and Clare time to eat and play checkers or cribbage or Risk.
    Nelson Slater didn’t know that William’s Sulka pajamas were still under Clare’s pillow, that the bedroom still smelled like his cologne (and that Clare had bought two large bottles of it and sprayed the room with it, every Sunday), that his wing tips and his homely black sneakers were in the bottom of the bedroom closet. He knew that William’s canes were still in the umbrella stand next to the front door and that the refrigerator was filled with William’s favorite foods (chicken-liver pâté, cornichons, pickled beets, orange marmalade, and Zingerman’s bacon bread) and there were always two or three large Tupperware containers of William’s favorite dinners, which Clare made on Friday, when Nelson came over, and then divided in halves or quarters for the rest of the week. Nelson didn’t mind. He had known and loved Clare most of his young life, and he understood old-people craziness. His great-aunt believed that every event in the Bible actually happened and left behind physical evidence you could buy, like the splinter from Noah’s Ark she kept by her bed. His Cousin Chick sat on the back porch, shooting the heads off squirrels and chipmunks and reciting poetry. Nelson had known William Langford since he was five, and Nelson had gotten used to him. Mr. Langford was a big man with a big laugh and a big frown. He gave Nelson credit for who he was and what he did around the house and he paid Nelson, which Clare never remembered to do. (A man has to make a living, Mr. Langford had said one time, and Nelson did like that.) Nelson liked the Friday night dinners, and unless Clare started doing something really weird, like setting three places at the table, he’d keep coming over.
    “Roast pork with apples and onions and a red wine sauce. And braised red cabbage. And Austrian apple cake. How’s that?”
    Nelson shrugged. Clare was always a good cook, but almost no one knew it. When he was six years old and eating gingerbread in the Wexler kitchen one afternoon, Mr. Wexler came home early. He reached for a piece of the warm gingerbread and Nelson told him that Clare had just baked it and Wexler looked at him in surprise. “Mrs. Wexler doesn’t really cook,” he said, and Nelson had gone on eating and thought, She does for me, Mister.
    Clare put the pork and apples on Nelson’s plate and poured them both apple cider. When Nelson lifted the fork to his mouth and chewed and then sighed and smiled, happy to be loved and fed, Clare had to leave the kitchen for a minute.
    After a year, everything was much the same. Clare fed Nelson on Friday nights, she taught half-time, she wept in the shower, and at the end of every day, she put on one of William’s button-down shirts and a pair of his socks and settled down with a big book of William’s or an English mystery. When the phone rang, Clare jumped.
    “Clare, how are you?”
    “Good, Lauren. How are you? How’s Adam?”
    Her daughter-in-law would not be deflected. She tried to