13. Bethany and Doug

Bethany knew it was Doug by the way he slowly turned his key in the lock of the front door. He was trying to make the bolt slide silently, and it did not. She might have slept through it if she'd been asleep, but it made little difference. Any of the incriminating sounds produced by Doug's pre-dawn infiltration could have sprung her eyes open with the fear of burglary; as it was, she sat and thought about how much the slow groan of the door hinge followed by the slight hiss of Doug swearing in a whisper sounded like a bow and arrow being drawn and fired. She stepped where the floorboards met the buttresses and moved through the hallway darkness without sound.

Doug had the fridge open, but was looking at the floor. Bethany rested her forearm against the wall and watched her husband, trying to think what he was thinking.
"You been out?" She spoke gently and did not startle him.
"Been out, yeah." He nodded his head. He'd been drinking, she could tell.
"Doing what?" She leaned a little more into the wall, tilted her head against her arm.
He looked at her; she smiled. He cast his eyes down again to the floor. She stood up straighter and took her arm from the wall. Her lips parted slightly. She thought for a long time and said plainly, "How much'd you lose?"
Douglas had been reaching into the fridge for something and he froze. It was as though he'd finally decided what he wanted from in there and the question had undone it. He stood up and closed the fridge. "It wasn't much."
"Just tell me."
"Well," he turned one way, and then the other, seeing little except the outlines of the furniture in the dark and the pale relief of his wife in her white camisole. He sighed, and approximated eye contact. "I guess for us and for cards, not much money is two different things."
"Oh, Douglas." She felt very tired all of a sudden. If it was worth fighting about, she thought, it would be better fought about in the morning.

His wife dissolved backwards into the shadows and Doug looked into the fridge again. The light from inside blew back the darkness and his eyes closed pinhole-tight; everything outside the grasp of the little bulb ceased to exist. Doug took the bottle of milk and shut the door. He stood drinking, unable to see the walls around him, or the floor he stood on.

2. Simon

Simon gazed out into the yard where his labrador was rolling in the overgrown grass. When the dog stood up and shook the loose blades from his long golden coat, Simon lapsed out of his reverie and decided he'd mow the lawn. Today was the day. That lawn was getting mowed.

It had been two or three weeks now, partly because Simon had decided he liked the way the overgrowth looked at night. It reminded him of tumultuous waves on a stormy sea, and at 4 A.M. on a Thursday he'd leaned out an upper-floor window and imagined himself the captain of a Spanish galleon, trading sugar cane from Jamaica for Darjeeling tea. Before that, the reason for not mowing it was because of a slight twinge of tendonitis in his left knee, and he feared that pushing the mower might cause the condition to worsen. Before that, he had decided that gas-powered mowers were environmentally unsound and resolved therefore to get a push-powered one. Simon had forgotten all of this now. Today was the day.

The transformation from ragged green shag to cropped carpet was a surprise to Simon in the same way that haircuts often were. The rumbling engine and the smell of masticated vegetation inspired good feelings in him. When he surveyed his handiwork, a self-satisfied salute keeping the sun from his eyes, he caught a glint of something shining among the clippings. It was distinctly un-grasslike.

It took Simon a moment to piece together what it was. He guessed a ring would bounce off the front door, about that far, if someone were really and truly not coming back. "I'll pick it up later," he thought to himself, and went around to mow the other yard. When he'd finished, he went in, and the dog playfully followed.