The Dismantling by Brian Deleeuw

Author:Brian Deleeuw
Language: eng
Format: epub, mobi
Publisher: Penguin Publishing Group
Published: 2015-03-29T16:00:00+00:00

MARIA shivered as they made their way from Abraham to South Tenth the next morning. She walked with her arms folded tightly across her chest, her chin tucked into her collar. Her hair was greasy and lank, her skin oily. She was breathing heavily by the time they reached her building, and she leaned on Simon as they climbed the stairs.

Simon had slipped the keys back under the insole of her Chuck Taylor moments after Rudich had shown him into her hospital room. She’d been eating breakfast, or at least staring down at the breakfast tray, rubbery orange eggs its centerpiece, ringed by pallid fruit salad and a carton of chocolate milk. Without looking up, she’d tilted the tray toward him: “Any takers?” He’d laughed as he moved the sneakers and bag of clothes back to the floor, shielding the action with his body, hoping she wouldn’t notice as he jammed the keys under the sneaker’s insole. When he sat in the chair and turned around, she was still staring down into the microwaved egg patty, poking at it with her plastic fork as though it might wriggle to life and scramble, lizard-like, off the tray.

She hadn’t wanted him to accompany her home. After he’d signed her out of the hospital, she’d tried, exhausted and woozy from the morphine, to convince him to leave her outside on Lee Avenue. He told her he wasn’t going anywhere else until he’d seen her safely inside her apartment; if she wanted to get rid of him, they might as well start walking. She’d crossed her arms and stared him down, trying, he thought, to summon the strength to argue. But she was too weak and tired and sick, and finally she slumped against the wall of the hospital and nodded in resigned agreement.

Now he was doing his best to convey the impression that this was the first he’d seen of her building, of her dispiriting apartment. She unlocked and shouldered open the door. Inside, she headed straight for the bedroom, reappearing a moment later.

“At least it’s still there,” she muttered.

“What?”

She shook her head with a little flick of irritation. “Nothing.”

Simon realized she must be talking about the safe. “What are you going to do now?”

“Probably stick my head in the sink and wash my hair. It feels like somebody poured a bowl of Crisco on my head.”

“I mean, what about tomorrow?” he said. “Next week, next month—what’s your plan?”

She looked around the empty room. “Maybe buy some furniture?”

“Tell me why you’re not going back to LA.”

“I’m sick of the traffic.”

“Maria, please.”

“I’m sorry I had to lie to you. But it wouldn’t have mattered if I hadn’t gotten sick, and that wasn’t my fault.”

“But why did you lie?”

“I don’t have to tell you that.”

“All right. All right.” Simon fingered a dent in the shoddy plaster wall. “So you were just going to skip out on the follow-up care?”

“I felt all right at first. Yeah, I was tired, I was in pain, but I figured that was normal.

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