Fiction from The Literary Review

I Will Clean Your Attic

Michael Parker

After he left her it began to snow. This was the South, and snow down South brings its own brand of harried and exhilirating incompetency. There is no budget for salt and sand; the main thoroughfares are ineptly freed of drifts but the side streets are left marooned. Schools shut down at the first sign of flakes, and stay closed until the grass dominates the soiled slush. Stores surge with overtime stockboys and delivery trucks but lose the fight to the flood of anxious customers who line up for bread and beer and candles.
     To Laura it was only snow, and she knew it would not last. She found things to like about it: children squealed and tumbled outside, and birds lingered with gratitude in the box of feed outside the breakfast nook. Music sounded alive in the firelit living room.
     And yet it was intolerable, for it made all the more painful Christopher's absence. It turned rooms hollow, the snow. As it lingered, she closed the curtains and paced, entombed. The mail stopped coming. A note appeared in the slot: Unable to deliver, ice on steps. She looked forward to catalogs with the indifferent intensity she paid to cooking shows. She neither ordered merchandise nor cooked more than rice and the occasional chicken breast but without her distractions she felt desperate. Before the snow came, three weeks after he left her, she had just been able to sleep again, four hour stretches uninterrupted by nightmare or the angry punching of numbers on the phone. She had managed a movie, a workout in the pool; she spent a weekend preparing her tax return. But now everything was buried beneath the bright layer which made teenagers polite and neighbors friendly.
     One Saturday she reached the end of her exile. She forced herself into an ancient down jacket Christopher had left behind and stuffed her sweatpants into boots and went out to the garage for the snow shovel and the rock salt and went to work on the front steps.
     The front door had been shut tight and locked for a week now, and the lock was frozen. She struggled to open it, her boots sliding on the wood floors. There was no traction; she pulled the edge of the rug over and tried again and finally it swung free. A slip of Xeroxed paper, a flyer, drifted inside. Its edges had curled, its print had faded, as if it had gotten wet, then dry, then wet again. She could barely make it out. I will clean your attic. I will shovel your walk. I will I will I will—a long list of I wills, domestic and household chores. The refrain suggested the writer had been ordered by a teacher to write one thousand times on the blackboard his litany of I wills. I will not give this any more attention than thou would a pizza coupon, she vowed. But she studied it, the cold rushing in from outdoors, her limbs starting to shiver as she read it over and over. A name—B.C. Bradshaw—a phone number. She folded it in eighths and stuck it in the pocket of her husband's abandoned jacket. Let him deal with it. Though it was never his job; she always spent more time on the yard than he did. She took care of the house and yard and he took care of himself. He needed to be taken care of and while she took care of home and him, he found a woman named Sydney to take not necessarily better but a different kind of care of him.
     It took all afternoon to clean the steps of ice. The next day at the regular time for her mail to come she read at a book in the living room, paying more attention to the sound of the postman's approach, the creaky slot opening, the plop of newsprint and envelope on the floor, than the book in her hand. But she made no move to gather the mail from where it fanned across the floor. If the absence of catalogs was so painful she was better off without them. She told herself this. She told herself a lot of things, over and over, mumbling them aloud as if learning a new language in preparation for departure to a country where she knew no one.
     The mail she heaped on the coffee table. For a week it grew until one day it toppled. She bent to clean the mess from the rug and discovered yet another flyer from the attic cleaner. B. C. Bradshaw. Perfect name for a workman. Didn't they all go by their initials? She pictured his pickup in the drive, aslant from bad tires, its dashboard adrift in receipts and more of the same crudely executed flyers and empty cigarette packs. A lug wrench, a monkey wrench, some other kind of wrench. She sat in the corner of the living room drawing wrenches around the margins of the flyer.
     She went to work at the free clinic, interviewed prospective patients, forced herself to believe that their misery was real. The flyers kept coming. She threw them away, she pulled them out of the trash and kept them in a stack. Determined to stop the flow, she dialed the number listed in a rage one day, her breath coming hard and hot as the dial tone bleated. The voice on the answering machine was the generic computer-generated voice of some woman who sounded, in her electronic monotone, slightly British. Laura had owned one of these herself once, cheapest on the market, so cheap you could not personalize your message. She hung up in horror, as if she'd called to leave herself a message. Don't marry him, her message would say. He will clean your fucking attic.
     One Saturday she read the long afternoon away in the living room when the doorbell rang. She shuddered at its echo, bolted up as if someone was spying on her, as if this was not her house and the owner had come home to surprise her squatting there. A year or so ago, the house had been broken into while they were out at a party; since Christopher left, she'd been nervous, especially about opening the door to strangers. She crouched on the sofa, peered through the blinds. The man on the stoop looked both suspicious and familiar. Like someone she'd interviewed at the clinic. She did not want to open her door to him until she realized that she had probably sat across from him in her office. She had never once had a patient show up at her house and was too curious to ignore the bell.
     He introduced himself. B. C. Bradshaw. She knew she should cut him off before he got started on his attic cleaning spiel, but she found herself embarrassingly eager to check him out. He was a few years younger than her, late twenties maybe.
     I run a small business. Odd jobs around the house. You should have gotten my flyer, I sent a couple your way.
     Laura realized that she'd never seen a postmark.
     Sent? You mean you mailed them?
     Well, no ma'am. I dropped one in your box, I was working your neighborhood.
     With a vengeance, she said.
     What's that?
     She was glad he did not call her ma'am again.
     I got more than one.
     Haven't had a whole lot of takers. Lots of people don't want to think about spring cleaning right yet.
     Spring cleaning, she said. She wanted it to be a question. She wanted to consider it as an option, something she ought to have thought of herself now that the season of Christopher's abandonment had passed and a natural division had been reached, an organic and easily observable one of weather and calendar.
     I do attics, garages. I'll do your basement.
     I don't have an attic, she said.
     He cocked his head and looked at her. He backed down the walk and cocked his head again, at the house this time, looking up at each side, stroking the stubble on his chin, posing all the while as if he was being asked to improvise a mood in a drama class. Exaggerated incredulity. She studied the attic cleaner's eyes, milky blue, stunning against the blackness of his unfashionable shaggy hair. She watched him pantomime suspicion and when he walked back to the stoop she said, Okay, I have an attic. What is this? You go around trying to catch people in lies?
     He laughed. I don't imagine there'd be much profit in that.
     She wanted to laugh also, but she was a little uneasy at how heartlessly she found herself mocking this guy. B. C. Bradshaw. She heard herself on the phone to a friend, I got a guy who can handle that for you, B. C. Bradshaw, no I'm not joking, I know, isn't it perfect?
     So look, he was saying, if you say you don't have an attic I guess that means you don't want it cleaned.
     Come back later, she said. But why? She didn't want him to.
     Attic out of town?
     Gone south for the winter, she said.
     Condo in Florida I guess.
     Actually, Mexico. A cabana.
     She wanted him to leave but she had fallen into a rhythm and she was enjoying it and she realized that this was the first time she'd engaged in such spontaneous and meaningless chatter since Christopher left.
     I guess I'm like my neighbors, she said. Not quite ready for spring yet.
     He shrugged, bony shoulders rising beneath the too-large LeHigh sweatshirt.
     It'll come. Before you know it, it'll be summer.
     She shrugged herself. A shrug seemed the only appropriate response to the passing of seasons she did not have the strength to heed.
     But you aren't like your neighbors, she heard him say.
     She braced herself for a cheesy come on. She sort of hoped he would, so she would not feel guilty for not wanting to open the door to him. Then she could tell all her friends, the ones who'd lost patience with her moping, the ones she knew were tired of listening to how much she loved Christopher still and hated him, how badly she wanted to forget about him and how easily she'd take him back this minute, now, no questions asked, about this creepy guy, and get extended credit in the sympathy department.
     Your neighbors don't even answer the door.
     Maybe they didn't care to be blanketed by flyers.
     Blanket? That bad?
     You hit pretty hard.
     I want work bad enough to be persistent I guess.
     Come back next Saturday. When he was gone she realized this was exactly the way she dealt with Christopher, too. Oh, so you found someone else, okay, go away and come back when you feel like it. Next Saturday maybe? She went back to the sofa and her book but found herself instead of reading dreading the Saturdays to come in this life.
     But one came, a week later. She thought of disappearing, going out of town, but she knew he would turn up again. He was a blanketer, persistent, he wanted work.
     What'll it be? he said.
     She looked out in the drive. Don't you have a car?
     I'm on foot today, he said, but if you need something hauled off I can run and get the truck.
     She stared at him long enough to let him see her skepticism.
     I didn't know what you wanted me to do for you today.
     Clean my attic I guess.
     Okay if I put the stuff out in the garage, come by and pick it up later?
     How did you know I have a garage? It wasn't visible from the front of the house at all—it was not really a garage, but a listing shed in the far right corner of the yard.
     When you didn't answer the front door I figured you used the back, he said. I tried the back door once, back when we had that big snow.
     She didn't like the thought of him sneaking around, disliked even more his bootprints in the snow she tried so hard to keep virgin. It had become a game during the days before the snow melted, seeing how little she could disturb the whiteness with footprints, making sure only her own tracks led in and out of the house that was hers alone now.
     Let's get going, she said.
     He followed her in. The phone rang when they were halfway up the stairs. She told him to wait, but he kept climbing. No problem he said, I'll find it, it has to be at the top of the house
     No, wait here, she said. Alerted by her tone, he froze on the steps while she raced to the kitchen, her face tight at the thought of him sneaking around upstairs, checking out her bedroom.
     You sound tired, said Christopher.
     She was sick of people telling her she looked tired, or sad, or thin.
     I can't talk now, she said. What do you want?
     Can you talk or can't you?
     Fuck off, she said, and hung up.
     She took the phone with her, sure that he would call back. Usually she wanted him to, usually she told him to fuck off so he would call back, but halfway to the stairs she returned to the kitchen and cradled the phone and switched the machine on. Since he left she'd not used it; she hated to come home and hear the glee in his voice when he'd called knowing she was out and thus avoided talking to her.
     All set? said B. C. Something in his voice suggested he'd overheard her phone conversation. She passed him on the landing and led him into the guest room closet from which a staircase led to the attic. They stood among the piles of boxes and suitcases, the framed diplomas and the guitar cases.
     For someone who doesn't have an attic, yours is in bad need of cleaning.
     You know, you might want to think about branching out. She felt she still held the phone in her hand, her every nerve poised for its shrill trembling.
     He looked blankly her way.
     You're kind of overly specialized, don't you think?
     You trying to tell me attics don't need cleaning?
     Seems like the kind of thing most people would want to do for themselves.
     Kind of personal, hey?
     She looked around at the junk. Mostly Christopher's. She didn't like B.C. Bradshaw's tone, which suggested he knew more than he let on.
     Hey, look, doesn't matter to me what it is, he said. I'm not cataloging, I'm toting.
     She laughed. The word tote always made her laugh. So tote that barge, lift that bail, she said.
     Tell me which one to lift and which to tote and I'm there.
     She pointed to a set of free weights, told him to take them down to the garage. It was a three trip job, and while he was gone she went about organizing piles of Christopher's belongings she wanted out of the house. Almost all of it was his, and though he'd taken his clothes, he'd left most of his stuff here and she wanted him to, for it meant that once he tired of the girl named Sydney he would be back. I'm not leaving you for her, he'd told her time and again, and every time she'd asked him why he was with her, he'd said, I'm not With her. I see her sometimes, but it's not like you think. Nothing's like I think, she thought, the world is not what I think, it's what you think and always has been, your reality was the one we moved around in and now you have a new one and it's not some place I'm dying to visit. He'd wanted to see her, to have dinner a couple times a week and go to movies and even take an occasional trip together, springing for separate rooms but holding hands in the car, on walks at the beach. The only thing that has changed is that I just can't be with you right now. I need to be by myself. I love you as much as I ever have baby, I just can't be with you right now.
     You have no idea how much you've hurt me, she said to herself as he lugged his mother's hook rug to the pile.
     What's that? said B. C.
     She hadn't heard him come up.
     What does B. C. stand for? she asked.
     Ben Curtis.
     Not Benjamin Curtis?
     Just Ben.
     Why not go by Ben?
     Just never have, he said. He seemed shy now. She saw that he'd rather ask questions than answer them. He went to work, and in his work he seemed to be attacking some great dark guilt.
     Would you like something to drink? she asked.
     That would be nice, he said. But I ought to get all this down first. He pointed to the piles. The garage had no door and she knew she should not leave Christopher's stuff out in the open, for they'd been broken into before, and even if nothing was stolen a storm could blow rain in and ruin everything. Yet she'd already started this attic cleaning. She'd hired herself an attic cleaner.
     When he finished she heard his knock at the back door. She offered him a beer.
     No thanks. Never touch it.
     Never? She didn't know what she'd do without a drink at the end of the day. She knew she was drinking too much in the eyes of say, her grandmother or her family doctor, but she never had a hangover and never drank before six and she felt she had full license to, if not drown her misery, bathe it a bit each night.
     Oh, I used to.
     She felt bad for pushing, but he didn't seem at all bothered. In fact, it seemed he wanted to talk, despite his earlier reserve when she'd asked about his name.
     I quit going on seven months ago. Six months, twenty-three days in fact.
     She got him a Coke from the refrigerator and tried to change the subject, for it seemed too much like her job, listening to the testimonies of the recently rehabbed. He talking about his Alcoholics Anonymous meetings and though she considered herself a compassionate person, she had an unwarranted and unfair distrust of self-help of any kind, especially those groups which seemed to her Sunday school dressed up in street clothes. She half-listened as he described his home group, how often he attended meetings, his sponsor who was helping him now with step nine.
     What's step nine? She didn't want to be rude. It was hard to enjoy the beer she'd poured into a fluted schooner, but she could not simply ignore him.
     Step nine's about making restitution to the ones you've hurt.
     And who are you making restitution to? Before the words were across the table she realized how nosy she sounded. She had the childish urge to put her hand over her mouth. She thought so constantly and obsessively of Christopher now that communion with others, on any other topic, felt impossible.
     You, he said.
     She put down her beer. No, really, she said, and he interrupted her to say, I'm serious, Miss . . . and in the silence she realized he was waiting for her to say her name which she did not want to say even though she would write him a check soon enough and he would know.
     What are you talking about?
     You had a break-in back a couple years ago.
     That was you?
     He tried to look penitent, which made her even angrier.
     Get out, she said.
     He held up his hands. I'm not here to . . .
     I don't care what you're here to do. You're not here to clean my attic, that's for sure.
Really, if you'll tell me your name so I won't have to keep calling you ma'am.
     You stole my husband's checks. You know my name.
     That was a long time ago. Maybe you kept your name when you married him. For all I know you're not even married anymore.
     She reached for the phone. I'm calling the police.
     Won't you at least let me apologize? I just came here to make amends, I wasn't planning on charging you for . . .
     Oh, so you're going to make up the price of the stuff you took? Let's see, some silver, a c.d. player, a VCR, a television, my husband's checkbook. What about the less tangible things you took from us? The safety, the peace of mind, the happiness. You think you can pay that back also?
     I'm sorry, he said. You're crying, don't cry.
     She started dialing. He was gone by the time the 911 operator came on.
     Just forget it, she said, and hung up.
     She drank the rest of her beer in a swallow and poured another, took it into the living room. Drinking, she remembered the night of the break-in, the party they'd gone to, one of Christopher's co-workers, an obligatory affair with all the canned laughter and dead silences and salted peanuts of office parties. She'd drunk too much jug wine. She barely remembered the ride home, tense and stiff, as if she'd carried the forced conviviality away on her clothes. In the car she criticized a woman Christopher worked with for no good reason other than her cocktail chitchat was tedious. As if her own at these affairs was quotable. Christopher had started in on her then, her ambiguous statements interpreted, her judgments examined.
     They'd fought their way inside and carried on their fight in the kitchen and the creepiest part of that night was this: they did not realize someone had been there until the next morning. They'd gone to bed still angry, Christopher turning away from her to read, she too tipsy to read, curling wine-groggy and anxious into a fitful night's tossing. The next morning, when Christopher went down to make coffee, he'd noticed the spaces where their possessions had been, discovered the missing c.d. player, the silver pilfered from a bottom cabinet, a week or two later his checks missing from a file cabinet in his study. She did not care in the least about losing these things; what bothered her was how they could have settled down to their miserable sleep in a house violated, how they could have ignored it, not felt it, another presence in the sanctity they'd managed to preserve during the roughest of times. She realized later that despite the tension of that night, the way they'd both gone to sleep still angry, they—at least she—had pretended an invincibility no longer possible. She'd assumed it would all be fine in the morning. In memory, the burglary seemed the beginning of the end.
     The day after she ran B. C. Bradshaw off, Laura had an alarm system installed. It took the better part of the week, as she opted for the type which activated each window, the most expensive system available. She called her lawyer to see if there was some way Christopher might share the cost of this extravagance, as it was his defection which made the purchase necessary.
     I'm good, Laura, but I'm not that good.
     It's his fault, she said.
     Maybe you should have checked with me before you had it installed.
     I still need it whether he pays or not, she said. She thought of telling her lawyer the story of B. C. Bradshaw but so far she had told no one, which was strange—she remembered half-hoping he might hit on her that first day so that she might use his advance to garner sympathy from her pity-depleted friends. But it did not feel right, sharing this secret with anyone else. And it seemed more powerful if kept a secret, even from Christopher, though the thought had occurred to her that if he knew he might even come home. Perhaps this incident would remind him of the vow he took. She'd never thought to take it seriously herself when they were content, but now it seemed a monumental promise. Love, honor, protect. If the greatest of these was love, she'd settle for the least of these, the last. She knew she needed protection only from herself, but knowing this did not mean that she was capable of it.
     Twice during the next week she set off the alarm accidentally and had to apologize to the sullen dispatcher at the police department. The junk from the attic remained in the garage, a reminder of many things—the return of the burglar to the scene of the crime, Christopher's leaving, a cleaner attic, the coming of spring. She liked looking at it out the kitchen window at dusk, a bourbon warming her stomach, fueling her indignation at the way things were.
     On Saturday evening she heard a noise at the back porch. Immediately afterward the alarm went off, and she grabbed the phone and ran to the kitchen to find Christopher at the door, his keys in hand, his face screwed into a wince at the bleating of the alarm. She tried not to smile as she held up her hand to signal for him to wait, called the police department to explain that it was an accident, switched the alarm off and stepped out on the back porch.
     Jesus, Laura.
     Laura shrugged. She looked behind him to the shiny Volkswagen Jetta in the drive. Christopher wore gym clothes, and was sweating. Before he left, the most exercise he managed was a walk around the block.
     New image, new car?
     It's Sydney's. Mine's in the shop. Speaking of new toys.
     You forget we were broken into. I live here by myself. I need to feel safe.
     She regretted saying this, as it suggested to him that she'd felt safe when he was around, but he seemed too flustered at setting off the alarm to pay much attention.
     I came to get some things out of the attic.
     You might have called.
     I did, remember? You told me to fuck off and hung up on me.
     I had it cleaned, she said, and when he looked confused she added, The attic.
     What do you mean you had it cleaned?
     She didn't answer, for she thought she had given it away, her secret, her attic cleaner.
     I mean I cleaned out the attic.
     You got rid of my things?
     She crossed her arms and nodded at the garage.
     Oh great, he said. You get an alarm for your stuff and you leave mine out for the taking.
     You want it, take it. I don't think anything's missing.
     I'll have to rent a truck.
     I know a guy who has a truck. He'll deliver it. He's pretty cheap.
     Who?
     You don't know him.
     I don't think that's such a good idea, do you? I don't send Sydney over here to pick up my mail.
     She couldn't decide whether to laugh or slap him. It amused her, Christopher assuming the housebreaker was her Sydney, and it infuriated her that he thought her capable of replacing him in a few weeks time with some guy who owned a truck.
     Some of us find it hard to go from one lover to the next without even stopping to take a shower.
     Christopher said, Well, who is he then?
     She thought she heard a bit of jealousy in his voice. Maybe I should have played along, she thought, but what's the point of stooping? Besides, she wouldn't exactly win when Ben Curtis showed up in his janitor pants. Christopher would only feel sorry for her. She wouldn't mind pity from her friends, but she was strong enough suddenly not to need it from him.
     He's just some workman. I hired him to do some yardwork.
     Christopher looked around the yard.
     He hasn't started yet, she said.
     Well, I'm pretty busy.
     Oh, I bet.
     He sighed and turned to look at the garage. Okay, he said. When?
     Next Saturday.
     You're going to leave it out here for a whole week?
     Take what you can. Unless Sydney's particular about her car.
     Why do you insist on making this harder?
     Because you do, she said, and she left him there on the porch. From the kitchen window she watched him haul a few boxes to the trunk of the Volkswagen before giving up and driving off. Before he'd even backed out of the drive she was on the phone to B.C. She felt oddly elated calling him, as if it could not wait another second, and was disappointed when the monotonal British lady came on to ask her to leave a message.
     That week she succumbed to leaving her own machine on when she was at work in case B. C. called. She'd asked him to call if he had any questions, otherwise she'd see him Saturday morning, but she'd assumed he'd call to let her know he was coming anyway, and found herself a little disappointed at night when she came home to no blinks on the machine. It wasn't until late Friday night, sitting up at the kitchen table with a cooking magazine and a bottle of Zinfandel, that she realized she was anticipating his arrival as she would a date. But he wasn't a date, he was a thief. She wondered if he'd been watching the house for some time, if in his surveillance he had learned things about them that they didn't know, or care to acknowledge, themselves. Perhaps he was more than just a garden-variety thief; perhaps he was expert at reading the subtleties of the homes he violated, chose to break and enter into only those homes which were already broken.
     Oh, come on, she told herself as she corked the bottle and rinsed out her glass so she would not have to come upon the red dregs staining the glass in the morning, he's just some brainwashed dry-drunk who wants my forgiveness. Despite her disdain, having someone ask her forgiveness seemed luxurious to her, no matter that it was the wrong party doing the asking.
     Early the next morning—an hour before she planned to get up—she heard a car in the drive and looked out of her window to see him already out of the truck, crossing the yard to the garage. She took a twenty-minute shower which did not succeed in washing away the bleariness. She'd been overserved, and she told herself it was a weekend, but still she felt guilty, as if he would take one look at her and know that she stayed up late with a bottle. She knew how reformed drinkers could turn sanctimonious about everyone else's drinking habits. Like divorced people she knew who became suddenly and implausibly knowledgeable about other people's marriages, as if they could sense from a tense word or brusque gesture everything that was hidden from view.
     He was far too chipper, and she told him so.
     He laughed. Used to be I'd be getting home about this time. Though most weekends I didn't bother going home at all. Now I have a meeting I go to every morning. Dawn Patrol. Start the day out strong.
     She offered coffee, but he declined, saying it would take several trips and he had other work to do that afternoon. She tried not to show her disappointment.
     Where am I taking it anyway?
     I'll have to ride with you, I'm awful at directions.
     He put the box he'd grabbed down on the tailgate of the truck. You sure?
     You don't allow passengers in your truck?
     I just thought, you know.
     What?
     Well, that you hired me to do it because you didn't want to do it yourself.
     I'm not going to help you unload it. I'm just going to navigate.
     Okay, he said, but she could see from his expression that it was not okay, that he did not approve. She went in for more coffee and a donut from the carton she'd bought at the store the night before to share with him. Why do I need his approval? she thought, going teary at the kitchen sink. He's the one that needs something from me. Still, when the truck was almost loaded she poured him a glass of juice, took the donuts out to the back stoop, and was pleased when he sat down to eat.
     Is it hard for you, not drinking?
     He chewed for a while, swallowed. He did not look at her.
     You think about it all the time. You know that feeling you get when you leave the house to go to work or on a trip and you realize     you might have left the stove on, and you can't rest until you go back and check it out?
     She nodded, unable to speak. She knew that feeling well these days. She would manage a few seconds of distraction, or blissful freedom from thoughts of Christopher, and then her not-yet-believable circumstance would crop up to antagonize her. It had not gotten the least bit better so far, and it had already been three months.
     She knew a little something about denying something you loved. But what was a bottle compared to a heart you cannot imagine living without? Who was he to go around claiming to be maimed, when it was only corn, barley, hops and sugar he was battling, rather than heartbreak, misery, loneliness unto cooking shows?
     I used to imagine what my life would be like without booze, he said, reaching for another donut. I'd even have dreams, or visions, of what it would be. Clean white sheets on my bed. A good shave every morning.
     He caught her stealing a glance at his cheeks and blushed.
     I thought everything would be in control, you know. That everybody I hurt would take me right back, and when I'd come around they'd be glad to see me. I figured I'd never again have to stick my hand between couch cushions in my sister's den searching for dropped quarters. I thought maybe I'd be able to stay with a woman longer than a few months. Fresh start, clean slate, second chance.
     Laura tried hard to listen, but found herself thinking of how she'd imagined her life without Christopher, of the deep loneliness and misery she'd envisioned which had turned out to be true. So she was better off than this attic cleaner. At least there were no ravaged expectations. Her imagination had not swindled her.
     I take it things aren't perfect yet.
     He turned away from her. Let's just say I'm a whole lot better off than I was.
     Let's go, she said. He took note of her abruptness but did not say anything, merely nodded while she went inside to put away the donuts and find her wallet. She did not think she was a whole lot better off than she was before, she did not want to be better off than she was before, she wanted her husband back, and yet she knew that he wasn't coming back. And she knew also that the home B. C. Bradshaw violated was already violated, that she could not blame him or herself or even Christopher for the dissolution. It may have seemed like snow down south—she might have pretended to be caught unprepared, ill-equipped to handle the clean up—but the disturbance had been brewing for some time, and she'd done nothing to take shelter.
     In the truck she gave directions to get them out of the city, then lost herself in bitterness until she looked up to find him scrutinizing her.
     Which way now? he asked.
     They were stopped at a light at the edge of the clustering strip malls that ringed the city. She knew only vaguely where she was going. Several times some years ago, when they were remodeling their house, she'd gone to the landfill with Christopher, but he'd always driven and once they got out of town into the country, the sideroads all looked alike to her. She didn't want to ask, but he would know soon enough where they were going.
     You know the way to the landfill don't you?
     He tapped the brakes and turned to her. You're taking all this stuff to the dump?
     I don't need it anymore. The dump is where you take stuff you don't need, right?
     If it's something that no one else might need, sure. But there are other places to take perfectly good merchandise.
     The same place you took our c.d. player, right? And my grandmother's china? But not my husband's checks, I guess.
     Your husband left you, didn't he?
     Just drive.
     You're dumping his stuff to get back at him.
     Look, she said, I don't need this from you. I hired you to haul this stuff away, not to counsel me.
     You don't really want to do this, you know.
     You don't really know what I want. What do you really want from me? You want my forgiveness? Is that all?
     I don't expect you to forgive me. It's just a part of my recovery, making amends to the parties I've wronged. I don't have a lot of say over a whole lot in this life, like whether you forgive me or not.
     So all you have to do is apologize, and then it's fresh start, clean slate, second chance?
     He pulled off the road then, into the parking lot of an antiques store. She tried to focus on the things the owner had put outside to entice customers, but the rickety office chairs and mediocre oil paintings depressed her, as they reminded her of the load in the back of the pickup, which would soon be dumped among the hills of ordinary daily waste. Christopher's cross country skis and the leaky pup tent where they'd survived a freak April snow storm in Linville Gorge left for scavengers to find.
     What is it you want me to help you do? he asked softly. Because I know it's more than just clean your attic.
     She started to cry. She looked away from him, at an older man in a rocking chair on the porch of the store. He wore oversized black shades favored by people with cataracts, but she could tell by the way he cocked his head in their direction, his gaze frozen on the bed of the pickup, that he was interested in their load.
     Look, it's okay, he said when she did not answer him.
     No, it's not okay, she said. I'm not ready to forgive anyone. I'm not capable of it, and I don't see why I should have to go around forgiving everyone their sins. It's not what I'd imagined for myself, this bitter old martyr I've become. I might as well open up a confession booth in the mall. Make some money out of it at least. I can quit my job and slurp Icee's behind the curtain and dispense forgiveness to the wretched all day long.
     Maybe you need to forgive yourself.
     She turned to face him, felt the heat in her cheeks, turned away again. The antiques dealer was still studying the merchandise. For what? she said to the dealer, although she was talking to her attic cleaner.
     I couldn't really tell you what for. But it seems like to me you're being awful hard on yourself. Blaming yourself for things that aren't your fault.
     That's the problem with you people, she said. You refuse to take responsibility for your actions. Don't blame yourself, blame someone else. Blame your genes, blame your parents, blame suburbia. If I blame myself it's because I'm brave enough to accept the blame.
     Okay, he said. Simply, softly: okay. She waited for him to continue but he left it at okay, as if they had come to some agreement. As if it was okay by him if she accepted the blame. They sat there. The engine ticked, and the cab of the truck began to heat up. She wanted to roll down the window but she did not want to draw the attention of the antiques dealer.
     That guy over there's already got his calculator out, said B. C.
     Yeah, I noticed. I don't have any antiques, though.
     Just old stuff you want to get rid of? I bet he'd take it.
     She looked at him again, carefully this time. He was wearing a cap, and his hair was wild beneath it, and his eyes were kind even if she did not want to trust them.      
     Where does he live? he said. I'll drop you off at home and take it over there.
     Why not? she thought. She could squint and pretend he was Christopher, come back to retrieve his things, or she could look him dead in the eye and forgive him, this housebreaker who, no matter what he'd taken from them, had at least forced her to clean her attic.
     I guess we can call it even now, she told him, even though she knew, and suspected he knew as well, that both of them were a long way from finding any kind of balance. She felt the load shift in the bed behind her as he whipped the truck around in the parking lot, and when a box toppled onto the gravel and he braked to retrieve it, Laura angled the rearview so that she might watch it shrink and told him to keep going.