Esther Stories Read Online Free Page B
many pictures.”
He took her hand and rubbed her long, thin fingers. “How long?” he asked.
Ellen let herself look at him before she yanked her hand away.
A purple cardigan with suede elbow patches, the brown coat with the fake fur like that cat, a ragged pea coat (where the buttons used to be are now only tiny rock-hard balls of thread), a sequined dress for a much bigger woman, enclosed in plastic, a royal-blue windbreaker with yellowed lining and a union local logo on the back, skirts clipped to hangers by rusty safety pins, four moth-eaten men’s suits, all charcoal gray.
Ellen had grown tomatoes and a few cucumbers in the backyard garden. The tomatoes were the children she always insisted she didn’t want, refused to burden the world with—she’d measure the vines as they grew up their plastic ladders and record the heights in a notebook she kept in the drawer with the car keys and matches. They’d eat them in salads, and sometimes just them, like apples. Ellen would pack up the extras in a shoe box and carry them upstairs to her.
After Ellen left, he began hearing shrieks in the night. He thought of going up there and knocking and saying, Is everything okay up here? I heard something. Some yelling. I was concerned. Was it you? But he never did go to her, and after a while he stopped worrying, because in the morning, as usual, he’d listen to her slow clack down the stairs right on time, between 7:30 and 8:00, and she was the same as always out the window, small but not hunched, curly white hair that looped up from her shoulders like a girl’s. It got to be that he’d stare at the ceiling and wait for her. The nights she didn’t shriek were the worst: that old hooter sleeping peaceful, fending off whatever haunted her, and him, never more awake, listening for his own breathing.
Six-thirty on a Saturday evening in July and the St. Vincent De Paul’s on Calvert Street is closed. A sign says PLEASE NO DONATIONS AFTER HOURS, but someone’s already left an old computer in the seat of a baby stroller, a microwave with no door, a box of waterlogged encyclopedias, a set of Santa salt and pepper shakers, a steering wheel, a tacklebox, and a cabinet that looks like somebody shot the back out with a pellet gun. He sets the clothes in a heap on the sidewalk next to the stroller and hurries away.
Another of Ellen’s ideas that they’d both believed in for a while was expanding the garden and selling their tomatoes right out of the driveway. He’d even found a good cache of lumber in the basement of one of their houses and hauled it over in the truck. He was going to build a small stand; Ellen wanted it to look like a puppet theater. The old lady upstairs was going to tend the counter on weekdays, when they were both away working. And there won’t be any problems, Ellen said, because she’ll figure out what to charge by the dip of the scale.
When she didn’t come down in the morning and then again in the afternoon, he called the fire department and said, Something’s happened to my tenant. She lives upstairs. I’m at 817 Strossen. When the two paramedics moved slowly, but absolutely, up the walk with their shoulder bags and cases and defibrillator, he handed one of them the spare key. An hour and a half later, as he stood on the lawn with the neighbors, the quiet lights of the ambulance, the two police cars, the fire truck, streaking across the windows—much more commotion than she ever made in life—they brought her down. The paramedic, the one with the sandy hair and different-color mustache, the one he’d handed the key to, stopped to talk to him. The paramedic might have asked, If you thought something wasn’t right up there, why didn’t you go up there and check on her? But of course he was trained not to get involved in anything personal, and God knew, he’d seen a hell of a lot stranger things on calls. For now the paramedic needed only her full name and next
He took her hand and rubbed her long, thin fingers. “How long?” he asked.
Ellen let herself look at him before she yanked her hand away.
A purple cardigan with suede elbow patches, the brown coat with the fake fur like that cat, a ragged pea coat (where the buttons used to be are now only tiny rock-hard balls of thread), a sequined dress for a much bigger woman, enclosed in plastic, a royal-blue windbreaker with yellowed lining and a union local logo on the back, skirts clipped to hangers by rusty safety pins, four moth-eaten men’s suits, all charcoal gray.
Ellen had grown tomatoes and a few cucumbers in the backyard garden. The tomatoes were the children she always insisted she didn’t want, refused to burden the world with—she’d measure the vines as they grew up their plastic ladders and record the heights in a notebook she kept in the drawer with the car keys and matches. They’d eat them in salads, and sometimes just them, like apples. Ellen would pack up the extras in a shoe box and carry them upstairs to her.
After Ellen left, he began hearing shrieks in the night. He thought of going up there and knocking and saying, Is everything okay up here? I heard something. Some yelling. I was concerned. Was it you? But he never did go to her, and after a while he stopped worrying, because in the morning, as usual, he’d listen to her slow clack down the stairs right on time, between 7:30 and 8:00, and she was the same as always out the window, small but not hunched, curly white hair that looped up from her shoulders like a girl’s. It got to be that he’d stare at the ceiling and wait for her. The nights she didn’t shriek were the worst: that old hooter sleeping peaceful, fending off whatever haunted her, and him, never more awake, listening for his own breathing.
Six-thirty on a Saturday evening in July and the St. Vincent De Paul’s on Calvert Street is closed. A sign says PLEASE NO DONATIONS AFTER HOURS, but someone’s already left an old computer in the seat of a baby stroller, a microwave with no door, a box of waterlogged encyclopedias, a set of Santa salt and pepper shakers, a steering wheel, a tacklebox, and a cabinet that looks like somebody shot the back out with a pellet gun. He sets the clothes in a heap on the sidewalk next to the stroller and hurries away.
Another of Ellen’s ideas that they’d both believed in for a while was expanding the garden and selling their tomatoes right out of the driveway. He’d even found a good cache of lumber in the basement of one of their houses and hauled it over in the truck. He was going to build a small stand; Ellen wanted it to look like a puppet theater. The old lady upstairs was going to tend the counter on weekdays, when they were both away working. And there won’t be any problems, Ellen said, because she’ll figure out what to charge by the dip of the scale.
When she didn’t come down in the morning and then again in the afternoon, he called the fire department and said, Something’s happened to my tenant. She lives upstairs. I’m at 817 Strossen. When the two paramedics moved slowly, but absolutely, up the walk with their shoulder bags and cases and defibrillator, he handed one of them the spare key. An hour and a half later, as he stood on the lawn with the neighbors, the quiet lights of the ambulance, the two police cars, the fire truck, streaking across the windows—much more commotion than she ever made in life—they brought her down. The paramedic, the one with the sandy hair and different-color mustache, the one he’d handed the key to, stopped to talk to him. The paramedic might have asked, If you thought something wasn’t right up there, why didn’t you go up there and check on her? But of course he was trained not to get involved in anything personal, and God knew, he’d seen a hell of a lot stranger things on calls. For now the paramedic needed only her full name and next
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