Shiloh and Other Stories - Bobbie Ann Mason [91]
“There goes Nancy, talking about her deprived childhood,” Jack says with a laugh.
Nancy says, “Jack is so concerned about wasting energy. But when he goes out he never wears a hat.” She looks at Jack. “Don’t you know your body heat just flies out the top of your head? It’s a chimney.”
Surprised by her tone, she almost breaks into tears.
—
It is the following evening, and Jack is flipping through some contact sheets of a series on solar hot-water heaters he is doing for a magazine. Robert sheds his goose-down vest, and he and Grover, on the floor, simultaneously inch away from the fire. Nancy is trying to read the novel written by the friend from Amherst, but the book is boring. She would not have recognized her witty friend from the past in the turgid prose she is reading.
“It’s a dump on the sixties,” she tells Jack when he asks. “A really cynical look. All the characters are types.”
“Are we in it?”
“No. I hope not. I think it’s based on that Phil Baxter who cracked up at that party.”
Grover raises his head, his eyes alert, and Robert jumps up, saying, “It’s time for Grover’s treat.”
He shakes a Pet-Tab from a plastic bottle and holds it before Grover’s nose. Grover bangs his tail against the rug as he crunches the pill.
Jack turns on the porch light and steps outside for a moment, returning with a shroud of cold air. “It’s starting to snow,” he says. “Come on out, Grover.”
Grover struggles to stand, and Jack heaves the dog’s hind legs over the threshold.
Later, in bed, Jack turns on his side and watches Nancy reading her book, until she looks up at him.
“You read so much,” he says. “You’re always reading.”
“Hmm.”
“We used to have more fun. We used to be silly together.”
“What do you want to do?”
“Just something silly.”
“I can’t think of anything silly.” Nancy flips the page back, rereading. “God, this guy can’t write. I used to think he was so clever.”
In the dark, touching Jack tentatively, she says, “We’ve changed. We used to lie awake all night, thrilled just to touch each other.”
“We’ve been busy. That’s what happens. People get busy.”
“That scares me,” says Nancy. “Do you want to have another baby?”
“No. I want a dog.” Jack rolls away from her, and Nancy can hear him breathing into his pillow. She waits to hear if he will cry. She recalls Jack returning to her in California after Robert was born. He brought a God’s-eye, which he hung from the ceiling above Robert’s crib, to protect him. Jack never wore the sweater Nancy made for him. Instead, Grover slept on it. Nancy gave the dog her granny-square afghan too, and eventually, when they moved back East, she got rid of the pathetic evidence of her creative period—the crochet hooks, the piles of yarn, some splotchy batik tapestries. Now most of the objects in the house are Jack’s. He made the oak counters and the dining room table; he remodeled the studio; he chose the draperies; he shot the photographs on the wall. If Jack were to leave again, there would be no way to remove his presence, the way the dog can disappear completely, with his sounds. Nancy revises the scene in her mind. The house is still there, but Nancy is not in it.
—
In the morning, there is a four-inch snow, with a drift blowing up the back-porch steps. From the kitchen window, Nancy watches her son float silently down the hill behind the house. At the end, he tumbles off his sled deliberately, wallowing in the snow, before standing up to wave, trying to catch her attention.
On the back porch, Nancy and Jack hold Grover over newspapers. Grover performs unself-consciously now. Nancy says, “Maybe he can hang on, as long as we can do this.”
“But look at him, Nancy,” Jack says. “He’s in misery.”
Jack holds Grover’s collar and helps him slide over the threshold. Grover aims for his place by the