An Unfinished Life by Mark Spragg

Author:Mark Spragg
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Fiction
ISBN: 9781400043804
Publisher: Knopf Doubleday Publishing Group
Published: 2008-12-03T00:00:00+00:00

HE DOESN’T SEE Jean until they’re across the workyard. She’s on a ladder leaned against the side of his house, and he might not have seen her at all except for the racket she’s making.

Griff stops when he does, and he sets the pail on the ground. “Can you lift that by yourself?” he asks. When she doesn’t answer he looks down and sees that she’s nodding. He thinks that’s another thing he’s learned about her. That when she’s worried she doesn’t speak. “It’s all right,” he says.

He watches her lift the pail and carry it, hunched and spraddle-legged, to the steps. She hefts it up one step at a time, and once she’s on the porch he walks over to the ladder and stands looking up at her mother.

Jean’s got a smooth wire fed through an eye-hook she’s screwed under the eaves. The other end of the wire’s already attached to Mitch’s cabin at the same height. She ratchets out the sag with a come-along, and when she’s got the wire taut she twists it off and unclips the come-along and drops it to the ground. Then she sees him. “I wanted to get this done before I left for work,” she says, starting down the ladder. “Why doesn’t Mitch have a wheelchair?”

He pushes his hat back so he can see her without tilting his head. She’s above him, two rungs off the ground.

“He wouldn’t get in one.” He looks toward the cabin and can hear Mitch’s canes tapping against the floorboards, the soft scrape of the bad foot dragging behind the other. “I tried.”

Jean steps to the ground. “He’s dying, isn’t he?” She’s skinned a knuckle, and she sucks at it.

They hear Griff come out on the porch and watch her walk to the big Russian olive tree in front of the house. She climbs up the boards nailed into the trunk and sits at the edge of the platform built through its limbs.

Jean takes her knuckle out of her mouth. “I remember when you built that,” she says. “I remember the thorns.”

“Mitch and Griffin built it. I just paid for the lumber, and hell yes he’s dying. He always had high blood pressure, and now he’s only got one kidney left and it isn’t working like it should.” He can hear Mitch at his workbench.

They watch Griff climb down and pick up the gray cat that’s mewling at the base of the trunk. She unsnaps her shirt and stuffs it inside and starts back up to the treehouse.

“What about dialysis? You could take him into Sheridan.”

“I already told you I couldn’t even get him in a wheelchair.” He looks at the wire and realizes he’s been whispering. He clears his throat. “You got any more improvements you want to make around here?”

“I thought Mitch might like to get outside, but the ground’s too soft and uneven. This way, if he wants to, he can hook a cane over the wire and it’ll steady him.” She picks up the come-along.

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