The Half Moon: a Novel by Mary Beth Keane

Author:Mary Beth Keane
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Scribner
Published: 2023-05-02T00:00:00+00:00

* * *

Once Rob left, Malcolm sat at the bar and ate an entire bag of party mix, pouring it into his mouth directly from the plastic pouch. He found two oranges, which he peeled and ate. He checked his phone but all he’d gotten were dumb memes of people wiping out on ice and two from Toby complaining that he was in his third hour of family Monopoly. Nothing from Jess.

He used the landline to call his mother—thank goodness he kept the old, corded phone—but it rang and rang. He walked through the bar and flipped chairs over on tables. He swept. Nearly forty-eight hours after losing power the water in the slop sink still ran warm, so he filled a bucket, cleaned every corner of the floor. It was good to be moving, doing something productive. He scrubbed the bar, the back bar. He wiped down the bottles. He got down on the hex mat and cleaned under the rack. He got so warm while he worked that he took off his coat. He imagined Emma walking in, surprised to find him there. He imagined what he’d say, and then what she’d say, and what might happen. He imagined Jess walking in and his body locked up. He wouldn’t make it any easier for her. He’d just stare at her until she spoke, and then he’d tell her it didn’t matter to him in the least what she did with her life. He cleaned the bathroom, emptied all the garbage cans, brought the bags outside, and since he was out there anyway he shimmied his shovel loose from the spot where it had frozen, and then walked around front to clear the sidewalk. He purposely left his phone inside, but after a few minutes he let himself check. Nothing.

The water in the tank wouldn’t stay warm forever, so he went to the men’s bathroom and splashed his face, not caring about the puddle growing on the floor. He used the hidden key to open the supply cabinet where the spare hand towels were kept, and he found three fresh undershirts, plain white, still with cardboard inserts. He slowly unfolded the top shirt, held it against himself. “Well okay,” he said, taking off the T-shirt he was wearing and pulling the new one over his head. He used his stale undershirt to wipe down the sinks, wipe up the water on the floor. He wiped down the urinals. Then he dropped his old undershirt into the garbage can and scoured his hands.

Fully dressed once again, he went down to the storage room to get the generator he bought in a panic after a freak hurricane, not long after the bar became his. The generator was on the cheap end, not meant to keep the place running, and Jess had argued at the time that they’d be better off spending more on a good one than any money at all on one that would prove near useless in a crisis.

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.