Gallatin Canyon

Aliens

Homer Newland, a partner and franchise specialist at a Boston law firm, had had a distinguished career and a very long one before retiring at seventy-five, when he was certainly still useful but had become more aware of the frequent need, when meeting new clients, of demonstrating that he still had all his marbles. So he indulged a lifelong dream and returned to live in the West, where he’d grown up but which in his long absence had made the place of his nativity hard to grasp.

For decades he had nursed his dream of going home, but when he moved back his dismay was all-consuming; Montana seemed like a place he had once read about in a dentist’s office, and his daughter who lived there felt the pressure of his impending return. It reminded him of his early days in Boston, when he was always the only person anyone had met named Homer, and the name seemed to suggest risible rural origins. His internist, originally from Wisconsin, was named Elmer, and that seemed to help. Homer was a widower, after enjoying marriage for forty years to CeeCee, a pleasant alcoholic from Point Judith, Rhode Island. Their vacations were spent not in Montana, as he would have liked, but on the island madhouse of Nantucket, which he detested, as he did all seaside places. Too well-bred to cause the fuss that might have led to intervention, Homer’s wife had boozed her way right off the planet and was buried among kin in the Point Judith churchyard, and Homer was back home in Montana, not quite comfortable and blaming a scholarship to Harvard Law for turning his life upside down. His now-waning grief at CeeCee’s death had been marked from the beginning by ambivalence; it was possible that either she or both of them were better off now that she was gone.

Twenty years ago, Homer sent their only child, Cecile, to a dude ranch, hoping to find a kindred spirit in his Montana romance, and it worked. Cecile met a local football star and settled down to raise two children, very much a local, soon treating her own father with that ambiguous humor reserved for out-ofstaters. His grandchildren were precocious, in his opinion, and a bit crude, also his opinion. Cecile and her husband, Dean, were fairly crude themselves, always fighting and frequently separated. Homer had to make an effort to keep from finding everything somewhat crude in his old home place. Nevertheless, this further motivated him to retire there instead of visiting as he had been doing. He bought a nice place outside town with a view of the Absarokas, a long driveway, and a deep hundred-gallon-a-minute well. In his pleasantly interfering way, Homer could be quite forceful, causing more than a few unpleasant moments in his daughter’s household, an ill-run enterprise at the best of times. He was determined to find his solace in nature but not having much luck at it.

The new quarters became in just a few years quite lonely. But Boston was long behind him and he didn’t know what to do with himself. Nor could he account for the decades spent in Boston leaving so little trace. He couldn’t go back there, he didn’t have a wife, and he read himself into a hole. He brought himself excruciatingly up to speed on national and world affairs. In two years he would be eighty, and of all things he’d have liked a fresh start. He was remarkably fit for his years; maybe that was the problem. Considering his prospects without the alibi of decrepitude kept him on edge. He snapped at the propane man, not out of the blue — the lout had backed his big truck over a lilac — but a loss of composure uncharacteristic of Homer. He had generally been solicitous, especially of tradespeople on whom he’d come to rely, and of the key gossips around the post office. Next, he quit greeting the UPS man and just let him leave things on the porch. He felt that some birds were bullying others at the feeder and started to fret about stepping in, before recognizing that this might just be some geriatric absurdity. He had enough money to keep managed care at bay, and he was determined never to need it.

On his not infrequent trips back to the city, he felt the extraordinary energy that seemed to emanate from the streets — staying only in hotels with thriving, even booming, lobbies — and on returning home he’d feel dissatisfied with land where all life seemed to have belonged to absent Indians and the blank faces of the neighbors. Believing that the great beauty of the place would have a possibly sweeping impact on an out-of-towner, he began to think of inviting a lady friend for a visit, a benign calculation that enlivened him considerably. At his age, a smorgasbord of widows lay before him. Surprisingly hale, several had undergone a kind of spiritual tune-up with the departure of their husbands and had become wonderful, even creative, company. There were a few with whom he’d had flings as much as forty years before.

Madeleine Hall was particularly vivid in his memory. He might have been in love with that one. Well, he was and God knows he acted it out. Homer felt that, blessed by longevity, he could be in a position to take advantage of this sentiment, and he elaborated upon the idea without losing sight of the fact that it was really about avoiding loneliness. He dismissed any notion of answering isolation with some fellow sufferer, since the thought of a woman who was herself lonely put him off: needy females had repelled him even in his youth, when neediness was more in style. He married CeeCee for her toughness, but then the drink got her. His greatest disappointment at his wife’s dipsomania had been the decline of her contentiousness as she grew supine and content in addiction. And so he began to stray a bit, his handful of city flings thrilling him with their conflicts and rage. Married in Montana, Cecile had lost all contact with her mother and was strangely unsympathetic to her plight, viewing the addiction strictly as an extravagance not everyone could afford.

It was quiet at home, and then very quiet.

Homer and Madeleine’s wonderful fling back in the fifties included risk-filled lovemaking right under the windows of her husband, Harry, a fund manager and broad-bellied former Princeton football star, and once they’d done it in the very home of Homer’s passed-out CeeCee. Homer had wished Madeleine’s interest in him originated in distaste for Harry. Unfortunately, it was sex and sex only; she adored Harry but he was now too fat, preoccupied, and plastered to fulfill what she considered a tiny part of her life. Madeleine’s leggy tennis player’s body was full of wanton electricity, and this memory was not entirely absent as Homer greeted a nice-looking old lady as she got off the plane. Her smile was the first thing that caught his eye — it was drawn off center — causing her to remark lightly, “I’ve had a stroke. Is it still okay?”

He took her in his arms and let the passengers find a way around them. He didn’t quite understand his present desperation. His excitement to show her his house in the country, to introduce her to his daughter and grandchildren, had coalesced into uncomfortable urgency. The vacuum filled with a roar.

Madeleine had not been there long before she discovered Homer’s neglect of the flower beds around the house, not that they amounted to much, nearly odorless rugosa roses for the most part. But she was not happy about the weeds in the hard ground that resisted her arthritic fingers, or about the signs of careless pruning. She could see that this was not anything Homer cared about. “I care about it,” he protested, “but I’m not a gardener.”

“We’ve got to get some water on them before I can do a single thing.”

Homer tried to think of the implied time span of an improved rose bed and was apprehensive. “You see this,” he said, indicating a faint ditch running around the perimeter of the beds. “This is how they were always irrigated. But it’s a bit of trouble.”

“How much trouble can it be?”

“You have to go up the river and turn some water into the ditch.”

“And after that you’ve got water down here?”

“Yes.”

“Then what’s the problem? These roses are being tortured, and I can’t get the weeds out of the ground.”

Madeleine walked ahead of Homer as the trail progressed along the river and up through a chokecherry thicket. He was fascinated at her forthright progress, given that she did not know the way. He slyly let her lead them down a false trail that ended at the bottom of an unscalable scree slope, fine black rock shining in mountain light. She smiled to acknowledge that he probably knew the route better. At length they reached the head gate, an old concrete structure with 1927 scratched into the cement. In the bend of the river, it diverted water to ranches in the area, and in its steel throat snowmelt gurgled off to the east to meet with crops and fertilizer. Homer’s place was not a ranch, but it still retained its small right to a share of water, just enough for a garden and a few trees. He seldom used it, but when he did he usually got a call from one of the neighbors who also used the ditch regularly and invariably addressed him as Old-Timer.

Downstream from the head gate, another ditch branched off, back toward Homer’s place; he pulled the metal slide that held back the water and a small stream headed for his house. “This will be nice for the trees and flower beds.”

“If it softens the ground, I can do something with it,” said Madeleine. “You’ve just let things go, Homer. It looks like a transient has been squatting there.”

“Madeleine, I’m doing something about it right now.”

“How long will it take for the water to get there?”

“Not long.” Actually, he didn’t know.

Homer went back to the head gate, followed by Madeleine, hurrying along the path. He thought of that awful word spry and wondered why he imagined he might be exempt. Spry was supposed to be positive. It was awful.

A truck stopped on the road above them, a blue-heeler dog in back and rolled fabric irrigation dams piled against the cab. By the sound of the truck door being slammed, Homer knew this would not be a friendly visit. But he continued his adjustments, meant to preserve the water level of the ditch even after he had extracted his small share for the garden. Madeleine was looking up at the truck as its driver wheeled around the tailgate and started toward them. This was Homer’s neighbor, Wayne Rafter, who raised cattle and alfalfa on the bench downstream. Wayne had a round red face, surmounted by a rust-brown cowboy hat with a ring of stain above its brim. He wore irrigating boots rolled down to the knee and carried a shovel over his shoulder.

He said, “What are you doing with the water?”

“We’re sending a little down to the garden.”

“You need to leave my head gate alone. You’ve got the whole valley screwed up.”

Madeleine said, “That little trickle?”

“Stay out of this,” said Wayne, without looking at her at first. When he did, he said, “What’s wrong with your face?”

Homer answered that she’d had a stroke and was immediately sorry he’d said anything at all. Wayne dismissed the explanation, saying that a lot of folks had had strokes. Homer felt a pressure he might not have if Madeleine had not been looking on.

“I do have a small water right attached to my property.”

“Very small.”

“But it is a right.”

“Not if you don’t use it. It reverts.”

“I’m using it now.”

“You’re in the goddam way.”

“I wonder if we should get a ditch rider.” A ditch rider was appointed by the court to supervise the allocation of water.

“Do you have any idea what that costs?”

“It might be necessary if you prevent me from taking my water. Shall I arrange it?”

“No, don’t ‘arrange it,’ Old-Timer. Just play with the water if that’s what turns you on.”

At this, Wayne marched off with his shovel over his shoulder and soon his truck was gone, a dog barking and running around in the bed.

Madeleine said, “Wow.”

“Yep.”

“Is that how they are?”

“Can be.” Homer’s insouciance concealed his humiliation.

Madeleine stared around herself into immediate space. Homer knew the remark about her face must have stung. Long ago, she’d been so careful about her looks, a little fashion-driven for Homer’s taste but always ready to be seen, always lovely. They started back toward the house quite depleted by the encounter.

“Harry was truculent,” said Madeleine. They found candles and Madeleine made their meal, a nice salad and cold cucumber soup good for a warm summer evening. “But I wouldn’t say abusive. Abusive is when they focus on you. He just raged around, and whatever he might have done to me he did equally to the furniture.”

In the sixties when, for whatever reason, CeeCee had started tying a scarf around her head, she acquired a reputation for heightened spirituality among acquaintances who didn’t realize she was drunk. For them, she never passed out but was “transported.” Part of this was abetted by CeeCee as an apparatus for her illness, and her conversation was increasingly ethereal as she discovered the allure of non sequiturs. Their neighbor, Dick Chalfonte, a thoracic surgeon, was enchanted, and Homer suspected that days spent out of town — some surreptitiously with Madeleine — allowed Chalfonte’s fascination to be transmuted into something more tangible. Homer didn’t like this thought at all but, because of Madeleine and his own fair-mindedness, found indignation unavailing; anyway there was some consolation if Dick Chalfonte was able to make contact with a soul drifting slowly to another world. It might have been that Homer wished he would take her away altogether, but of course this was unthinkable.

Madeleine rolled her napkin ring from side to side with her forefinger. “We used to think it was an affectation when you wore cowboy boots with your suit.”

“And my Turnbull and Asser shirts. Of course it was an affectation. What else does a young man have? I was trying to make a name for myself, and in that town there didn’t seem to be many possibilities left. Who’s ‘we,’ anyway?”

“Harry and me, I guess. Harry thought you were a phony.”

At night, they talked about poetry. Madeleine had a particular aversion to the poet H. D., whom she called “I. E.” for what she called a perverse inability to say anything plainly. Homer feebly recited Wordsworth, to which Madeleine remarked she greatly looked forward to getting, spending, and laying waste her powers. And when Homer remarked that General Wolfe would have preferred to have written “Elegy in a Country Churchyard” than to have conquered Quebec, she urged him to stop thinking of poetry in terms of its public currency.

“I just read the funnies,” said Homer.

They had twin beds with a reading lamp and nightstand between them, an easy distance for holding hands. The lamp could be adjusted so that Madeleine could read while Homer drifted off. She looked up from her book.

“Homer, are you afraid to die?”

“No.”

“The Day of Judgment?”

“Nope.”

“Homer, are you afraid of anything?”

“I’m afraid of rigor mortis.”

She chuckled—“But exactly”—and went back to her book. It soon dropped to her lap. He watched her until she fell asleep, then slipped his hand free of hers and turned off the lamp.

Homer’s daughter, Cecile — named for her mother, though unlike her in every way and never called CeeCee — phoned at about ten o’clock at night. Madeleine was asleep and Homer was setting out mousetraps, one for the cereal cupboard, one under the stove, and one in front of the refrigerator he hoped he would remember when he was barefoot in the morning. He didn’t like this, but the humane traps were too humane to catch mice. He rotated the geranium on the windowsill to equalize its sun exposure and watched the grosbeaks and juncos scouring the ground under the empty feeder. Hawks sometimes killed juncos at the feeder; while nature might be red in tooth and claw, Homer worried about being complicitous in the death of the juncos. In fact, he’d twice moved the feeder to give the songbirds better cover from overhead but underestimated the hawks’ capacity for swooping.

“Father, I’m having a yard sale tomorrow morning at ten. Can you help me look after the kids?”

“Cecile, I’m not so good at that.” His tone was pleading.

“You’ll be fine. They like you.” This was a command. In fact, the children were quite distant with him. He thought he detected acid in her next remark. “You can bring your friend to help you.” Cecile knew Madeleine’s name perfectly well.

Homer was afraid of children. He could barely remember being one, and he really didn’t understand them or why they acted as they did. He certainly didn’t dislike children, but he found them emotionally opaque except when tribal or violent. Actually, he longed for Cecile’s children to like him. But he was not always ready to test the idea, and they had rather peered at Madeleine on meeting her.

“You’ve got to do this. What’s-her-name can help me with the sale. She’d just scare the kids. They don’t know her.”

“Why are you having a yard sale at all? Your furnishings are sparse now.”

“Not sparse enough, buddy, not by a long shot. So get it together, Grandpa, and head on down here.”

Cecile was always lightening her load, paring away at things, fixing a car that should have been traded, and he knew why: she was preparing for flight. She was readying herself for the moment when her life would change and she could escape. She had lost all her former levity, no longer introducing her father as a “forensic barber,” and had recently had her breasts dramatically augmented, a move he viewed as panic inspired by those magazines at the checkout.

He helped Cecile prepare the yard sale while Judy and Jack, seven and two, still slept inside and Madeleine waited for them to awaken. Cecile, a rag tied around her head, grunted enthusiastically as they hefted the NordicTrack to the sidewalk. A low egg-yolk-yellow September sunrise was stretching shadows across the street to lawns with uncollected morning newspapers. On the pavement an old steel porch glider rested, his lower back pain reminding Homer how it had arrived. Also: a bread box, an early microwave, percolator, a run of National Geographics, a yoga mat, a cactus, a birdcage, several of Cecile’s college paintings in the once universal style of Georges Roualt, a child’s English saddle with jodhpurs and boots (Cecile’s), scenic place mats, a standing ashtray with a lever that flushed the butts and ashes down a trapdoor, a silhouette of an Indian chief made with bullets, several rugs, a Monopoly game, a Parcheesi set, a Coup Feret set, a double-deck card holder for canasta, a checkerboard — these last worried Homer, as it was hard to imagine Cecile without her games — incidental Venetian blinds, canoe paddles, a Dutch oven, and a mosquito net. Here we hit the strata of the ex-husband, where lay the heart of the yard sale as they announced Cecile’s single status: commemorative whiskey bottles from Old Fitzgerald, I. W. Harper, Jim Beam, Ezra Brooks, and others, depicting Man O’ War, a largemouth bass, a fire truck, Custer’s Last Stand, the OK Corral, Elvis, W. C. Fields, cat-and-dog, rooster, turtle, an Indian with a tomahawk on a white horse, a Florida gator, a black rotary phone, the Run for the Roses, a Siamese cat, a kachina doll, the Wyoming bronco, a raccoon, the Chevy Bel Air, Ducks Unlimited, Van Gogh’s Old Peasant, and there was also a set of train-related decanters: engine, mail car, caboose, water tower. Homer found it dizzying but Cecile assured him it would be the big draw and she was right. One customer drove from Yakima, Washington, for the rotary phone, while a few more, drawn by the bottles, bought other items, mostly small cheap things to satisfy the urge for a transaction aroused by the bottles.

Cecile wanted to stay outside to guard the merchandise, so Homer waited in the living room with Madeleine for the children to awaken. They felt so apprehensive they hardly spoke, and Homer looked around at the room as if through Madeleine’s eyes. Only the front window admitted much light, enough to bleach the rug but not enough to lend any cheer. The living room of a single mother, he reflected, is a sad room. This one, containing so many things CeeCee had sent from Rhode Island, hoping for a response from Cecile, was especially sad. Even the old Aeolian player piano seemed to refer to cheerful times long gone by. The furniture was sad, the curtains were sad, the strewn toys were sad, the chandelier was utterly sad, but the china cabinet with its unemployed crockery was tragic. Over the fireplace there was still a color-saturated photograph of Dean, Cecile’s ex-husband, in a classic football pose: knee raised, twisting off the opposite foot, ball tucked under one arm, the other projected, fingers spread wide, barreling toward an imaginary tackler.

“That’s my son-in-law.”

“What became of him?” asked Madeleine.

“Still in town. He’s a bit impaired. He had an accident. They’re separated.”

“What kind of accident?”

Homer thought. There was a long version and a short version. He elected the latter. “He fell off a building.”

“Good grief. But he’s out of the picture?”

“Sort of,” said Homer, with meaning.

“I see. Once they’re in the picture,” said Madeleine, “they’re never really out of the picture, are they?”

How could my daughter have all this weight on her shoulders? His view might have been colored by his relationship with his grandchildren. He tried hard to charm and amuse them despite their lack of fondness for him. Still, he gave Cecile credit for an outstanding job: Judy and Jack were lively, curious, and confident. Also, they were calm. Judy was even a bit lofty. And why should they know him better? He never seemed to know exactly where he was, and the children could sense it. Jack once asked him if he was an alien.

“Why are you here, Grandpa?” Judy stood in her doorway, wearing her pajamas. She was seven and had chosen not to see Madeleine at Homer’s side, another alien. Homer had imagined a situation in which the children adored her on sight.

“I’m looking after you and Jack while your mom has her yard sale.” She was small with an oval face and burning black eyes. Homer’s attempt to explain things had a whiny edge that he could tell annoyed her. Jack wasn’t paying any mind and looked dopey. “Can you say hello to Madeleine?” He wondered whether he should have introduced her as Mrs. Hall, but he was somewhat jealous of Harry Hall, long dead though he may have been.

“Me and Jack are against the yard sale.”

“Of course you are,” said Madeleine merrily. “I dislike change too. But how can we stop it?”

Judy stared at her as though she were nuts.

Jack stood at Judy’s side, still half-asleep. To Homer, he resembled all two-year-old boys, though not nearly so fat as some. He had dark hair as his father once had, and it stuck out in a burr. He stared at Judy, awaiting her leadership. Then, as it was not forthcoming, he wandered to Madeleine and reached for her hand.

“Well, how does breakfast sound?” asked Homer, immediately recognizing the absurdity of the question, as breakfast had no sound. The new acuteness about diction, with Madeleine listening, produced this odd thought.

“Cheerios for me. Capt’n Crunch for him. Honey on mine. Sugar on his. The honey bear is over the toaster. It’s on a paper towel because it was sticking to everything. The bowls are still in the washer. We don’t use napkins, we use paper towels. Regular spoons, not soup spoons, and not too much milk.”

It didn’t take much for this to seem like drudgery. He was displeased by the cereal rustling from the waxed paper liners of the boxes into the bowls. It looked like packing material. “You don’t have to sit here and stare at us,” said Judy pleasantly. Madeleine strayed back out to the yard sale, doubtless to warm things up with Cecile. Homer watched her go.

“I didn’t mean to stare. My thoughts were wandering.”

“Do you find us obnoxious?” Judy asked.

Now Homer was wide-awake and attentive. “Judy, how can you ask such a thing?”

This was too plaintive. Her gaze darted over his face. “You seemed off in the clouds, Grandpa, probably thinking about your new girlfriend.”

“It doesn’t mean I find you obnoxious.”

Jack poured his cereal into Homer’s lap and, when Homer jumped up, started wailing as if his grandfather meant to attack him. In a moment, while Homer knelt on the floor, a rag in his hand and an icy feeling in his crotch from the milk, Cecile came in with no particular look of concern, quieting Jack and organizing another bowl of cereal. She pushed Jack’s chair very close to the edge of the table, which seemed to make his movements less random. Jack just stared into his bowl, unsure what to do with it. Homer got up indecisively. Cecile said, “Your new friend is working the crowd.” Jack waved his spoon jubilantly and then looked around to gauge its effect.

“Let’s spruce them up and take them to the sale,” she said, “a little poignancy to drive up prices.”

A wet washcloth and extraordinary efficiency in lifting limbs or whole bodies into the apertures of their clothes had the two children spiffy in very short order, though it left them dazed. With Homer in the lead, Cecile herded the children from behind. Homer immediately mingled with amiable body language among the skeptics looking at the merchandise. Suddenly, Cecile cried, “Oh, no!” and whirled on Madeleine.

“What happened to the bottles?”

“A man came for them, a man in a wheelchair. He said they were his.” Madeleine suddenly looked her age, with something comic about the makeup she’d applied so carefully.

“Did he pay for them?”

“He said they were his.”

“Lady, I gotta tell you: this is a sale. You know, where objects are exchanged for money?”

“Yes, of course, I do know that.”

“Who do you suppose got them?” Homer asked rather lamely.

Madeleine said, “He was in a wheelchair. I can’t believe they didn’t belong to him. In fact, I thought he said they were his.”

“That cripple happens to be my husband. If you’re around here long enough, you’ll learn not to put anything past him.” Cecile looked at the scattered offerings of her yard sale as though seeing them for the first time. She said, “I’m breaking down. Take Jack and Judy to see the kittens. You can go with him, lady.”

“Her name is Madeleine.” Homer started to back toward the outside door, guiding Madeleine by the elbow, the rigidity of which let him know that she was getting angry. “Where are the kittens?”

“Judy, honey, please show Grandpa and his lady friend the kittens. Now, Judy, okay? Her name is Madeleine.”

When Homer looked back from the house, he saw that Cecile’s interrogation of the customers must have been somewhat accusatory: they were fleeing.

Once in the house, he clapped his hands together and rubbed them briskly, as though he had a pleasant surprise in store. Judy’s evaluating squint indicated his failure to convince. “Who would like to show me the kittens?” No answer. “Where are the kittens? ” Let’s try not making it a question. “I’ve been wondering how many kittens there are.”

“There are two,” said Judy, with authority.

“But I suppose Mrs. Hall and I can’t see them. That’s the feeling I’m getting from you, Judy.”

After a moment. “You can see them. Follow me.”

Towering behind Judy and Jack across the living room, in the unaltered light, past the gut-wrenching china cabinet, through the kitchen, into the pantry, and out to the garage, Homer tried to emanate modest obedience for fear Judy would change her mind, but she strode along, an algebra teacher of the future, until they reached a storage closet, where she pointed to a latch she couldn’t reach. Madeleine, who seemed to have lost all confidence, trailed behind, utterly lost. Jack tried to crowd in front of Judy but she moved him aside so that Homer could open the door. When he did, he felt around the inside wall for a light switch until Judy told him, “Reach up and pull the string.” He did as he was told and the resulting low wattage barely illuminated a room filled with discarded household goods: rugs, bath mats, cleaning rags, and worn-out towels. These formed a kind of rough nest next to which Judy sat, holding Jack’s hand to keep track of him. She looked up at Homer and said, “They’re in there.” Then she looked over at Madeleine and said, “You’re allowed to look.”

Homer had to get on all fours to make an adequate inspection, and when he peered around he quickly found a gray kitten with vivid black stripes and black ears. He cupped his hand over it and felt the little motor start as it lifted its head against his palm. “Here’s one,” said Homer, and Judy was at his side at once. He smiled up at Madeleine, hoping to draw her in, but her face projected only some indeterminate fear. His knees hurt and he was concerned that in getting back up he would stagger.

“Where’s the orange one?” Judy demanded.

“What orange one?”

Homer lifted the gray kitten to make way for Judy’s inspection and felt the needle claws pricking his palm. Judy crawled around, lifting wads of fabric and old towels, which cast shadows up the wall, all the way to the back of the closet, where she stopped suddenly. “Here he is!” she cried. “He’s dead!”

Judy was seated with her back to him for a long time, long enough for him to see her shuddering with silent weeping. He crawled over and pulled her into his arms, at which point the sobs became audible, and Jack, without any idea of why he was upset, joined in to make it deafening. Homer drew Jack to his side, and soon the quiet was broken only by Judy’s snuffling. Homer felt mucus run onto the hand that gripped her tight, and he looked up at Madeleine with an expression of helplessness. When Judy began to calm down, he spoke very quietly about how the kitten was in heaven and how we all hope to go there someday; thinking to close his argument, he said, “Kittens are like all creatures, including us, Judy. They don’t live forever, and neither do we.”

The effect of this was to amplify Judy’s anguish. “I know that,” she said, indignant in her grief, “but I thought we all went at the same time!” Strangely, Madeleine nodded in agreement.

Homer could think of nothing to say. He would have had to care about the kitten to have been inspired to the right remark; Judy seemed to see through his dissembling. Besides, nothing was up to Judy’s profound statement, which hung in the air. “I wish we did,” he said, “it would be so much better. I don’t know why we don’t all go at the same time but we don’t, and we have to accept that.” That’s that, he thought, take it or leave it. Besides, something troubled him about Madeleine’s nod of agreement.

To make things worse, Madeleine’s eyes began to fill, and Homer wondered if it was over that brute Harry Hall and his size-thirteen oxblood saddle shoes, ungainly even in death. Homer could almost hear his booming voice: Come on in, Homer. You like gin? I’ve cornered the market!

Judy no longer cried, but she was very somber and far away. “Someone is responsible,” she said.

“God!” barked Homer with exasperation. “God is responsible!” This yard sale was about to kill him. “Madeleine, is there anything I can do to make you feel better?” he inquired coolly. She was touching each of the children unobtrusively. She didn’t know how to comfort them. He didn’t know how to comfort her.

“Let’s go to the living room. Maybe we can think better there.” The children followed Homer, who, aware of his waning desperation to make anyone happy, followed Madeleine. In the living room, he looked around briskly, as though trying to choose among several marvelous possibilities. “Here, come sit here,” he said, and indicated the bench in front of the old player piano. Judy’s grief kept her from seeing through his various efforts to entertain her. They obeyed with dull bafflement as he loaded a roll of music and started pumping the pedals. “Pretend you’re playing!” he called out, over the strains of “Ida Sweet as Apple Cider.” Looking at each other, the children put their hands on the keys, which snapped up and down all around their fingers as Judy took over the pumping and Jack howled like a dog; soon they were caught up in it.

Inexplicably, Madeleine began doing a graceful if somehow cynical foxtrot with an invisible partner. Homer stared at her, arms hanging at his sides. The noise was unbelievable. Into the space between Madeleine’s arms, Homer placed Harry Hall and his big belly.

Homer darted out the front door to the yard sale, where Cecile was persuading a pregnant teenager that the light-dark setting on the toaster still worked. Four or five others grazed among the offerings, concealing any interest they might have had, though a middle-aged man in baggy khakis and an Atlanta Braves hat was bent in absorption over a duck decoy lamp that had never been completed. “Dark Town Strutters’ Ball” poured from the house, stopped abruptly, then resumed with “I Want a Girl Just Like the Girl Who Married Dear Old Dad.” Homer could hear Madeleine joining in with a sharp, angry contralto. When the teenager replaced the toaster on the card table and wandered off, Homer said, “One of the kittens died.”

Staring at the unsold toaster, Cecile said, “You’re shitting me. When it rains, it pours. My God, what’s with the piano?” Holding a cigarette in the center of her teeth she blew smoke out of either side of her mouth.

“Go in and comfort Judy. I’ll try to sell something till you get back.”

“No reasonable offer refused.” At this two or three browsers cocked their heads, which Cecile noted. “Just kidding, of course.” She went inside and Homer surveyed the prospects, holding his lapels like an expectant haberdasher. No one met his eye and, instead of rubbing his hands together, he plunged them into his pockets and considered the weather: low clouds, no wind. The player piano stopped abruptly and the shoppers all looked up with the silence.

Homer went over to the man still examining the duck decoy lamp. “Why don’t you buy it? It’s beautifully made. It works. I can’t imagine any home that wouldn’t be improved by it.”

“I’m just trying to picture the sort of people who wanted this in the first place,” said the man. “This doesn’t look like a duck, it looks like a groundhog. I hate it. I really hate it.”

“The people who wanted it in the first place are my daughter and her husband,” said Homer.

“My condolences,” said the man, before he turned to go.

Homer stared hard and said, “Go fuck yourself.” He could hardly believe he’d said it. It was like a breath of spring, such vituperation.

“Get in line, Pops.”

Cecile returned and muttered, “Bugs Bunny on low. Usually holds them. Your friend is resting on the couch with a washcloth on her head. She looks like she’s on her last legs.” A very thin older man in a navy-blue jogging suit with a reflective stripe down the pant legs was interested in the NordicTrack. He had an upright potbelly, bags under his eyes, and a cigarette in his mouth that made him turn his head to one side to examine the distance meter on the machine. Homer watched Cecile approach within a foot of the prospect, but the man went about his examination without acknowledging her. He knelt to examine the bottom of the machine, then sat back on his haunches, removed the cigarette, and bethought himself. When he finally stood, he said something very brief to Cecile. She seized her head in both hands while he puffed and looked the other way. When she came back to Homer with some bills in her hand, she said, “I got creamed but it’s gone.” The new owner was trying out his new machine, the cigarette back in his mouth. A gust of wind showered Homer and his daughter with cottonwood leaves. Wild geese creaked above. Soon there’d be ice on the river.

“You seem to have gotten over the bottle collection,” said Homer. He saw the American flag go up a pole across the street, a hedge concealing whoever raised it.

“Guess again.”

“Why don’t you go and ask Dean to give them back?”

“That’s what he’s trying to accomplish. The whole issue has been over him having anything I need.”

“Does he?”

“Yeah, the bottles.” She stared hard at him. “I know exactly what you’re thinking, exactly. You’re thinking, How can anyone lose themselves in such trivia?”

“Nope.”

“Well, I’m not going to dignify this by fighting over it. But don’t you ever look down your nose at me. Just because things haven’t exactly worked out doesn’t make us white trash.”

“It’s beyond me why you’d have such a hateful thought. Your mother would have felt the same way, if you had ever deigned to share your thoughts with her.”

Homer had already decided that he would retrieve the bottles. By that time the sale would be over and the awful things would be part of the desolation of the living room again. When he asked his daughter why none of the other customers had mentioned the theft, she said, “The only one he had to fool was your friend, and I guess that wasn’t too hard.”

Homer just let it go. It was hopeless.

He went inside to check on Madeleine. Without removing her hand from over her eyes, she said, “I feel terrible for losing those horrible bottles,” and when he tried to speak, she waved him away. He went back outside and watched the tire kickers and the idly curious begin to drift away, leaving four who looked like real buyers. Out of the blue, he wanted to make a sale. Homer thought they were couples but, after considerable study, could not match them up. He became fixed on this task as a difficult crossword puzzle, but finally he sighed and gave up. He was wary of misreading anyone as he had the duck-lamp guy. He couldn’t believe the two redheads were together, because he’d never seen that before; which left the two short ones, and that pair seemed less unlikely. Their gazes crisscrossed like light beams, giving nothing away. Homer wondered whether they were like our ancestors, wary and footloose. The red-haired male took sudden notice of the American flag ripping away in the wind across the street, and Homer realized he was avoiding eye contact. No sale.

He returned to the house, where he found the children sitting on either side of Madeleine. “We’re discussing their Halloween costumes,” she said, her warmth restored. “Judy is going as a punk rocker and Jack is going as a traffic cone.”

Homer said, “Let’s get out of here.”

Cecile was still outside, cleaning up after the sale, tossing everything toward the garage. Madeleine and Homer paused on the sidewalk for a moment. It seemed not unreasonable that Cecile might say a word or two to them, but she didn’t. Homer wondered whether his daughter had developed this awful carapace on account of being raised by a helpless mother. Once inside his car, he said, “Can I take you to dinner?”

“We’re going to get those bottles,” said Madeleine.

“Oh, you don’t want to go there. That’s a real can of worms.”

“Bring it on.”

Imagining for a euphoric moment that Cecile’s ex-husband would see the light quickly, Homer reluctantly agreed to go to Dean’s house. Wait till she gets a load of this! was his uncharitable thought. It was getting dark as he started the car.

“I’ll buy the bottles,” Madeleine cried.

“That won’t solve it.”

She said, “I thought I’d seen everything.”

He stepped up onto Dean’s porch and rang the bell, nearly embedded in careless layers of house paint. He had a reassuring hand on Madeleine’s back. There was some sort of somber music coming from within. The door began to open. He wanted to help but knew that Dean liked doing this sort of thing himself. The door opened wide, revealing the interior of what was little more than a cottage, single story by necessity, with the kitchen and living room adjacent to the front door. Then Dean rolled around into view. He had a smile on his big soft face, and the weight of his head seemed to be sinking into the expanding circles of his neck. One hand poised birdlike over the controls of his wheelchair. None of the waywardness was gone from his sky blue eyes. On the television screen, an aircraft carrier was sinking with slow majesty. Homer was relieved to find that the dirge he’d heard at the door was not just something Dean was listening to.

Homer introduced Madeleine and Dean greeted her warmly, and they followed him into the house.

“That’s a new wheelchair,” commented Homer as he made his way past Dean. There was very little furniture but the gas fire log made a twinkling, habitable light, concealing the bareness of the room. “Brand-new,” said Dean. “Haven’t even knocked the paint off it.” There were some trophies on an old library table and milk crates filled with paperbacks, a cheesecake calendar on the far door, which led to the bathroom. The young model, naked on a white fur rug, was holding an automobile muffler.

“Front-wheel drive. Watch this.” Dean pivoted around the back side of the door and, with a graceful thrust of the chair’s motor, swung the door to and latched it. “Onboard battery charger,” he said, leading Homer into the living room. “Actually got to pick the color. That last chair wasn’t nearly enough for quads, more for limited-leg-use folks.”

Madeleine said, “I’ll bet you can go anywhere you want.” She seemed to like Dean. Maybe it was just for leaving Cecile. Homer was glad to see it. He knew Madeleine had had about all she could stand.

“Hell, I’m on the town again.”

He wheeled over in front of the television, on which the funeral of Princess Diana played: it was an anniversary on an odd year. “Madeleine, check this out: here she is again!” Homer didn’t know where this was headed but he was encouraged by the friendliness with which Dean addressed Madeleine.

There were slow panning shots of Diana’s cortege interspersed with scenes from happier times, including those with paramour Dodi Fayed at the beach; then the mayhem with the paparazzi and the fatal limousine chase with the drugged chauffeur ending in underground calamity.

Moving to the side, Homer determined that the shaking he saw in Dean’s body was caused not by grief but by laughter. Madeleine noticed and said sharply, “She died young!”

Dean said, “It’s a start.”

“What?”

Dean turned it off with his channel changer, and as the picture sank to a blue dot he said to Madeleine, “None of that would have happened if she’d been fat.”

Two years earlier, Dean had attended an after-game Cats-Griz party at the Nez Perce Inn, a dependably rowdy annual uproar, and fallen from a second-floor balcony into the parking lot with a freshly opened beer in his hand. He woke up the next morning, hungover and paralyzed. He had been out of work, but now he was running for mayor.

The commemorative bottles were lined up on the floor next to the north wall, receiving the last light of the day. Dean said, “There they are.”

“Let me take them back to Cecile,” Madeleine said reasonably.

“Over my dead body.” His lips were drawn flat across his teeth. He was quite menacing.

“Ohhkay.”

Homer could see that Madeleine was not happy. She would bolt at the first opportunity. All the mean people, all the open space, seemed to be closing in upon him at once.

“I don’t like disappointing you, Madeleine. Or Homer neither. But those bottles are mine.”

“No doubt they are, but I’m the one who let you take them, and now it seems I’m in trouble. You ought not to have done that to a lady. Besides which, you have two beautiful children and you continue to poison your relationship with them over your bottle collection. I’m an out-of-towner and I don’t get it. Cecile has quite a job with those children. She could probably use some help as opposed to battling over a collection of whiskey bottles.” Homer was impressed at the practical way Madeleine swallowed what must have been her distaste for Cecile.

“I’m lucky she isn’t feeding them sardines with the mother-seagull glove to make them think they can fly. Do tears embarrass you, Madeleine?”

“Not at all.”

“Homer’s seen all this before. I blubber, and he just goes with it.” He swept his hand down his face, but it continued to glisten. “The bottles don’t belong to Cecile. I bought those bottles full and I emptied them in my own home. They’re a monument to better days. So, here’s what you tell Cecile: no dice. Also, where’s the phone decanter?”

“Yakima,” Homer said, rather pleased he could supply this fact.

“I emptied that phone last New Year’s Eve. Cecile was upstairs watching the ball come down on Times Square. When she showed up, do you think she wished me happy New Year? No. She said, ‘Shit-faced in a wheelchair is a look whose time will never come.’ ”

Madeleine gazed at Dean for a long moment, with wonder or compassion Homer couldn’t say, though he struggled to understand. He seemed to expect that she would say something wise, should she finally speak, but all she said was, “I give up. Perhaps the bottles are happier with you.”

Madeleine couldn’t make it all the way that night, but Salt Lake City was a hub and gave her several options for the morning, and there were shuttles to the hotels near the airport. She assured Homer that she had loved visiting the West and learning firsthand that it was, as all had promised, breathtaking. And just think: once in Salt Lake, you could go direct or change in Memphis, Atlanta, Minneapolis, Chicago, Detroit, Cincinnati— all those cities! — and still get home. Homer seemed downcast at these prospects, but she assured him it had been a treat catching up.