Movement inside. As a third glass slider rumbled open, Brenda readied herself. Sweeney now stood in the opening, hands in his pockets. He was still in his white business shirt from Friday, the sleeves rolled up.
“I should have called first,” she said.
“It’s all right, I’m done for the day. I was out in the garage.” He turned on a light and stepped down. His place was bigger than Mrs. Krause’s, a single-family house. As Sweeney came forward, she saw his swimming pool was half empty. A garden hose hung over the side.
“Did you walk across the course?” he asked.
“I drove.”
“A typical Detroiter. No one ever walks there.” He unlatched the screen door.
“I was going to grill something for myself and invite you to dinner,” she said. “But I decided that wouldn’t be in your best interest.”
She stepped in, and Sweeney closed the door. On the plane, he would not have wasted a chance to joke about her cooking. She pointed to the hose. “Do you have a leak?”
Hands back in his pockets, Sweeney turned to look. “I let the pool service lapse,” he said. “The club called just before I booked my flight. Someone complained it smelled. I had them pump it and scrub it out this morning.”
He was distracted. Forgetting things. His patio furniture was still covered with tarps. “What’s that?” She pointed. A horizontal blue cylinder rested at the far end, looking like a giant rolling pin.
“That’s called a pool blanket,” he said. “You roll it over the water at night.”
“To keep it clean?”
“To avoid depression and poverty,” Sweeney said. “Depression when you see the heat floating up at night, poverty when Florida Power and Light sends you the bill.”
That was more like him. “Well,” she said, “in the absence of salmonella poisoning at my place, perhaps you can suggest a restaurant.”
“I wouldn’t be good company.”
She saw he meant it. He was back here for the first time alone, burdened by memory. But Brenda felt a half-selfish, half-generous wish to comfort and be comforted. “Come on,” she said. “You told me I have to eat stone crab and key lime pie down here. You have a responsibility.”
He smiled at her, tired in his dirty white shirt. “Working all day?” she asked.
“Pretty much. Let’s have a drink, I’ll tell you all about it.”
She followed him up the center step, into a spacious, carpeted living room. Sweeney turned right and snapped on a light. Brenda followed him into a large kitchen. As he knelt at the far end and opened a cupboard, she looked around. What was it that kept putting her in dead wives’ houses? Brenda admired beautiful cherry wood cabinets, the rich green granite countertop. Charlie’s house always intimidated her. It spoke of his wife’s refined good taste, her confidence. It reflected the unity and coherence of someone naturally given to knowing her own mind.
“There—” She looked over. A small crowd of bottles stood on the counter. “Pick your poison,” Sweeney said. “Glasses here, ice in the fridge door. I need a clean shirt.”
He left through the front entry, and she went to the counter. He had Campari. She got down glasses and carried them to the refrigerator. As she filled a glass with ice, Brenda smiled. Colorful giant ladybugs clung to the door, magnets to hold notes. You have no fridge magnets, she thought as ice rattled into the second glass. No photos or to-do lists. She returned to the counter and poured Dewar’s for him, then the Campari. She found club soda and topped off her drink. With a glass in each hand, she moved back toward the living room.
But stopped. Spread out on the kitchen table were photos of children. From the fridge door, she thought. His grandchildren. In his pool, on Naples beach. Two snapshots had been taken on a ski slope. In one, the children appeared with their parents. In the second, the two stood before Sweeney and his wife.
There she was, Teresa Sweeney in ski pants and a turtleneck sweater. She had arched eyebrows and a very Irish, coming-at-you directness. She was slender, with short, dark red hair. In another photo she had been captured with one grandchild on her lap, the second child curled under her arm. She was reading to them, looking earnest and unaware of the camera. The children appeared to be utterly absorbed.
How could she do it? Brenda thought. To Sweeney and to them? Next to the photos lay an open spiral notebook with male handwriting. She listened for sounds before leaning to look. A list. UP cottage, Midland house, Florida house, 401K, equity portfolio, cars, a sailboat, a runabout. Sweeney’s worldly possessions. Each item was linked by a line to a name or charity on the right.
A door closed. She moved quickly with the drinks into the living room. He had turned on lamps, and she spotted a stack of coasters on the coffee table in front of the couch. She stepped to the table, set the glasses on a stack of magazines, got two coasters and set the drinks on them, then looked around for something to comment on. Feminine taste was evident in the wrought-iron coffee table, the lamps and paintings. But the room was also masculine—a saddle leather couch and matching club chairs. She sat in one of the chairs as Sweeney came from the front.
He had put on a black camp shirt, striking in contrast to his white hair and ruddy color. He stepped between the couch and low table, took up his glass and drank. Sweeney carried the drink to the open door wall and looked out.
“Yes, I’ve been on the case here today,” he said. “Cleaning up and throwing out. I filled four trash can liners. Stuff accumulates at an amazing rate.”
“I wish I could say the same.” He turned and looked at her. “Some have the problem of debris,”
