Author: Shelby Rogers

It was raining, but Isaac Walsh wasn’t surprised. It was always raining. They’d had rain continuously for years, without relief. Remarkable, wasn’t it? He’d said so to Anne just this morning, but she’d only laughed in that careless way of hers, like wasn’t he an odd duck, thinking such things.

Anyway, the rain wasn’t so bad, though it made his joints ache—as a young man, he’d thought that was a myth. It was still nice to sit by the front window with a book in his lap and watch the puddles down on the sidewalk spread and ebb, spilling over. Kids skipping through them, dogs sniffing at bloated worms. The occasional cardinal at the birdfeeder. The book in his lap was beside the point. Isaac had been reading the same one for years, too. For at least as long as it had been raining. Something by Wendell Berry, with trees on the cover. Pretty ones, across a yellow field.

He turned the page experimentally, the paper making that shivery sound. It was grainy under his fingers and the sentence at the top of the next page was an interesting one. Oh yes. Interesting. Outside the window, a bedraggled sparrow hopped onto the perch of the red birdfeeder. Anne filled it with seed every day. The sparrow cocked its head at Isaac, like it had asked him a question, but if it had, he hadn’t been able to hear it through the pane.

That was the sort of observation that made Anne laugh. An odd duck. He tried turning the page again. Interesting.

Somewhere, a hammer hit nails. Or was it thunder? No, of course not, someone at the door. Over the sound of the rain, it had taken him a while to realize. He pulled himself to his feet.

“Coming! Just a minute.”

God, his back ached, and his voice felt like scratchy wool. Through the window, the sodden sparrow took flight.

The lock took him a minute, getting it turned right. When the door opened, there was a young man on the porch, wearing a blue raincoat and big glasses. A paper bag cradled in his arms had turned soggy and torn in several spots. With the hood of the raincoat up, it was hard to tell, but he looked like…

“Morning, Mr. Walsh. Got your groceries. You all right?”

Hearing the voice did it. Toady, that was the boy’s name. Toby, rather. A good one, if a bit odd himself. Laughed at strange things. Birds of a feather, they said, didn’t they. He remembered the sparrow and felt suddenly and unaccountably sad. But Toby looked worried now, so he must have been expecting something. An answer.

“Yes, yes.” Isaac stifled a cough. God, it was cold out here, the dampness getting in his bones. “Fine, thanks. Bring ’em in.”

The door shut too hard behind them, making Toby jump. Anne was always doing that, too. Something about the set of the hinges. Isaac’s chuckle turned into another deep cough.

“Are you sure you feel all right, Mr. Walsh?”

A good one, that was for sure. Better than some of the kids they’d sent at any rate. “Don’t you plan on getting old, Toby?”

The boy smiled sheepishly, setting the bag on the kitchen counter. A can of soup escaped one of the tears and almost rolled off the edge before he caught it. Good reflexes. “It’s Tony, Mr. Walsh. Did you remember about your appointment?”

“Anne can take me.” His calendar was on the fridge. He peered closer at it. Lots of empty squares. It was probably one of the damned doctors, trying to kill him, though they’d not succeeded yet.

“I’ll just clean up a bit, then we can go,” Toby said. “You can sit down.”

That sounded fair enough. Isaac made his way back to the chair by the front window, as the boy set to scrubbing and clattering around the kitchen. Putting everything in the wrong places, no doubt. Anne would have a fit when she got back. There was always an order to things, for her, but good luck figuring it out. Once she’d thrown a bowl across the room, when he’d left it in one cabinet instead of on another shelf for the umpteenth time. Or had it been the other way around? Didn’t matter, anyway.

He’d hardly sat down when the front door opened and shut behind him. Then someone in a blue raincoat was out in the yard, right by the window. Big bag of birdseed against their feet, scooping it up into the feeder. It was hard to tell through the rain-smeared glass, with his eyes all fuzzy now, but it didn’t look like Anne. Where had his glasses gone? Anyway, he didn’t think she had a blue coat like that. Isaac almost called out to the trespasser, just so they’d know he was watching, so as not to do any funny business. But they were filling the birdfeeder, weren’t they? Couldn’t be all bad then. The raincoat turned and smiled, waved. Young, glasses, curly brown hair. Looked just like, just like…

But then he was gone. The front door opened, shut too hard. It was always doing that, something about the hinges.

“You ready, Mr. Walsh? Anything you want me to bring for you?”

Hearing the voice, he knew, though the name still eluded him. Slippery things, names. Like birds. He turned in his chair and nearly tipped it, before Toby was there, balancing it and helping him up.

That was it: Toby, of course. The odd duck.

“I got your keys,” the boy said. “And your papers. Let’s go.”

“Is it still raining?” Isaac asked.

“That’s right, Mr. Walsh.”

No surprise. It had been raining for years. He coughed. “Remarkable, isn’t it.”

Toby walked with him to the door and helped him into his boots, his old brown coat. It still smelled like cigarettes, though he hadn’t smoked in what, twenty years? More. It was warm, though, and the pockets were full of memories. He’d worn it on the last trip he and Anne had taken, a cruise around Norway. At night, the stars were so close and numerous you could almost touch them. It was cold, like today, though the air there was breathless and dry.

He clung to the railing to get down the porch steps, but on the sidewalk it was easier. Little worms and fallen leaves clung to the pavement. The puddles looked bottomless as wells, but when he stepped in them they only splashed and sputtered.

“Stay dry, please, Mr. Walsh,” said Toby, laughing. His car was on the street right ahead, a little blue thing, looked like it would blow away in a storm. Same color as the boy’s raincoat.

“Where are we going?” Isaac asked.

“Dr. Gomez, remember? Just a check up. You’ve been taking your pills, right?”

He got into the car, his knees practically against his chest. Everything was plastic inside. “Don’t make cars anymore.”

“What?” Toby laughed again.

“Coffins,” Isaac muttered. That was what they made, these days. Cheap plastic coffins.

They pulled into the road. Houses rolled by, white and gray and brick-red walls, leafless trees, flashes of cloud. The whole brilliant world. When he was young, he’d never stopped to look at it, really. Too busy living. Loving.

“You in love, Toby?” he asked.

The boy seemed taken aback. “Sure. Maybe.”

“What’s that mean?”

“You know, we’ve only been together a little while. Taking it slow.” He steered casually, one hand on the wheel. It made Isaac nervous so he looked out the window instead. A woman rode on a bicycle, careless of the rain. A dog howled behind a chain-link fence.

“Slow,” he said. “That’s good. What’s her name?”

“Anne,” the boy said, which confused Isaac. Maybe it was a joke. He repeated the name, as a question.

“No.” Toby spoke a little louder. “Ryan. I said Ryan, Mr. Walsh.”

Funny, the way he said it, like a challenge. A little defiant, but also wary. Though Isaac had never been one to care about queers doing what they pleased, and who the hell was it hurting, anyway. Anne had grown up Evangelical. Still didn’t find such things acceptable, although she’d stopped talking about it nowadays. Everyone was a product of their life, weren’t they. Oh yes. You just had to get by.

“Ryan,” Isaac repeated. “Good name.”

“Thanks,” Toby said. They got to a stop light, sparkling red on the wet street. A vulture squated on the metal limb of the light, dark and motionless.

“Damn reaper,” Isaac muttered, but Toby didn’t seem to hear. He coughed. “How’d you meet him?”

“On an app. Just, you know, online. How about you? You were married, right?”

The vulture seemed to be watching. Lonely black eyes, but kind. Then they were moving and it was gone. What was it Ryan had asked him? No, Toby. He’d asked about marriage, hadn’t he?

“Yes,” Isaac said. “We met in college. June, uh, junior year. She was in accounting. Family didn’t want her to go. She fought the whole way.”

“Must have been a tough lady.”

“Oh yes.” A chuckle snuck up on him, making him shake. He could still see her as she’d been that first day, lonely on the fringe of a party. They’d hardly spoken, but he’d recognized her a couple of days later, after classes, and they’d fallen into a conversation that lasted most of the night. Philosophy, which they were both taking as an elective. Religion. Art. Family.

“Yes, that’s Anne,” he said. “Tough. Your Ryan, what’s he…”

“He’s a teacher. Math, over at Cherry Hill, the high school. It’s hard work.”

“Kids,” Isaac agreed. “Little devils, aren’t they.”

Toby laughed again. “Yeah. The stories he tells, man. It’s like a battle.”

“Yes. You do love him, don’t you?”

There was a long silence between them, only the hum and rattle of the car.

“I guess so, Mr. Walsh. I think so.”

A song was playing in the corner of his mind: It makes the world go round, love and only—

“You think so? What, you don’t know how you feel about it?”

—and only love, it can’t be denied.

He was an odd one, Toby. Odd duck. Funny sense of humor, and now he was laughing again. Out the window, the suburbs opened into a bare field, dark trees, like on the cover of that book he’d been reading. Farther back, an old brick farmhouse. He’d driven by here a million times and always wondered who lived there.

No matter what you think about it—

“You all right?”

Toby must have asked him something, and now his back hurt from the sitting. He cleared his throat. “What?”

“I asked how you knew, when you met your wife. Must have been something special.”

—you just won’t be able to do without it. Who was that? Neil Young? No. Dylan, that was it, he was almost certain.

“Special,” he repeated. “I don’t know the words. We were so different back then, but it didn’t matter if we agreed on this or that, you know. It was just right. Like in the song.”

“What song?” Toby said, but Isaac couldn’t remember the name. He’d ask Anne when he got home, she always knew those things. They fit that way.

God, he missed her.

Into the silence, the man sang: Take a tip from one who’s tried.

They passed a powerline, a whole flock of sparrows balanced along the wires. It had stopped raining for the moment, hadn’t it? Finally, after all this time. He tried to count the birds as they went by but it was hopeless. Each one was only a thin scratch along the sky.

“Beautiful,” he said, knowing it might sound odd.

“What is?” Toby asked. No surprise there. The young were always distracted, always hurrying past the truth.

At least Anne understood.

END