built-up grease released just enough by the rain to make conditions unpredictable, hazardous. Because of the slow traffic, he arrived at work forty minutes later than usual. That set the tone for the rest of the day. He arrived home nearly two hours late.
“Are you all right?” Catherine asked the moment he stomped through the front door, water dripping in sheets from his woefully inadequate excuse for raingear.
“Sure,” he said as he shrugged out of the overcoat and shook it outside trying to remove as much moisture as possible before bringing the water-laden garment indoors.
“Let me take that,” she said. She picked the coat up with two fingers and carried it to the first bathroom and hung it on a hanger over the shower curtain.
“Is it bad?” she asked, her voice muffled by the door.
“Worse,” Willard muttered as he toed off his shoes. His socks were wet, the cuffs on his pants-his best suit pants-were wet for a foot or more up his legs. His shoulders were damp. He felt sodden, drenched inside and out.
Catherine reappeared from the bathroom carrying a vivid purple beach towel that had somehow slipped into the daily-use stack in the linen closet and was now unofficially “Daddy’s” towel.
He scrubbed his face and hair with the coarse material.
“Get out of these clothes,” Catherine said as she helped him out of his suit jacket. “You’re a mess.”
“And this is just from running from the driveway to the front door,” he said, suppressing a shiver. “The garage door wouldn’t open again. I don’t know, maybe it’s the remote. I’ll have to get it checked. Soon.”
“Honey, you’re freezing,” Catherine said as she felt his hand. “Hurry and change. I’ll make some tea. That’ll warm you up.”
“Sounds good,” he said, already halfway down the hall toward the bedroom.
The Levelor blinds were drawn, so the room was dark. Even with the furnace running, the room felt miserable, clammy and damp. He shivered again. He stripped his wet things off, dropping pants, shirt, socks, underwear in a heap on the floor.
No use hanging up the suit, he thought. It’ll have to be dry cleaned after this, no matter what.
He rummaged naked through his closet, finally pulling out his thick terry-cloth robe and slipping it on. The action stirred memories-wonderfully pleasant memories. He smiled. He shoved his feet into slippers and, for the first time all day, began to feel warm. He felt his muscles relaxing.
He turned to leave the room, and as he did so, he noticed something.
In the dim light, he almost didn’t see it. Perhaps if he had blinked at the wrong instant, he wouldn’t have seen it at all. But there it was. In the corner, just below the line where textured ceiling joined wall, there was a jagged hairline crack, no more than two or three inches long. His stomach wrenched.
That’s all I need, he thought. After this rain, after nearly getting drowned because the garage door is defective, to look up and see this.
He gritted his teeth.
Hair still damp from the rain, still wearing nothing but his bathrobe, he began padding slowly through the house, beginning with the back bedrooms, progressing to the bathrooms, the hall, the entry, the family room, the living room, ending up in the kitchen.
“Willard,” Catherine said, a note of scolding in her voice. “What are you doing barefoot? You’ll catch your death.” She held out a bright red mug, steam coiling from the surface of its contents. “Here, this will help.”
He ignored the mug and instead continued his slow, almost stalking survey of the kitchen, each wall, the ceiling, the floor tiles under the back window, several still ragged and broken from the night he punched through them with the paring knife to reveal the roach-filled rift.
“There’s more of them,” he said, almost absently.
“More of what?”
“Cracks.”
Catherine glanced around. Now that he mentioned it, she could see tiny cracks in the angles where walls joined walls, where walls joined ceiling. She turned a slow circle. There was a thin shadow connecting one corner of the doorjamb to the ceiling. Another starting from the far corner of the window and spidering upward a foot or so.
“I hadn’t really noticed them,” she murmured.
“They’re in every room. Every one,” Willard said.
“Mom. Dad,” came Burt’s voice from the living room, just a few tones away from whining. “Will’s cheating.”
“What?” Catherine and Willard answered at the same time, turning to face their middle son.
“He’s cheating!” This time the voice was sterner. Burt obviously felt more comfortable with his complaint now that he had his parents’ attention.
“They’ve been playing Monopoly since they got home from school,” Catherine said. “They couldn’t go out, and they were getting antsy, so I let them take the board into the boys’ bedroom.
Catherine’s father had introduced Will, Jr., and Burt to the wonders of high finance the previous Thanksgiving at her family’s home in Santa Barbara, while she and her mother were cleaning up after the traditional family feast and Willard and Catherine’s youngest brother sat transfixed by one football game or another.
Neither of the boys had quite grasped the subtleties of the game, but since Grandpa hadn’t been too strict about the rules, they had gradually evolved their own version, one that was a bit faster, a bit wilder, a bit more cut-throat than a strict interpretation of game protocols might normally have allowed.
After several hours at the board, as they were putting the pieces away and carefully separating the play money into appropriate piles, Grandpa said, “Why don’t you guys take this on home with you. Grandma and I don’t play it anymore so you may as well.”
Both boys went running into the kitchen. “Mom, can we, can we?”
It took a minute or two for Catherine to figure out what they were yelling about, since their voices overlapped so much that she couldn’t quite understand the words, and her father just stood in the doorway, grinning, no help at all.
But in a few moments, the Huntley children were the proud owners of one well-used Monopoly set. It was a special-occasions-only treat for them, since they routinely became so engrossed that their games threatened to go on for hours. Rainy days frequently counted as special occasions.
“Okay, what’s going on?” Willard spoke from the open doorway, Catherine behind him and Burt scuttling beneath his arm and squatting in his usual position by the board.
Will, Jr., sat there, looking owlishly up at his parents, his eyes wide with innocence but the trace of a grin- almost a gloat-hovering on his lips. Suze was across from Will, also her usual position, her face flushed and her eyes screwed up as if to keep from crying. Sams crouched along the side of the board between Suze and Will. He held a handful of play money in his chubby fists-he played Banker, holding out money when required so the others could take what they needed
Three voices answered Willard’s question.
“Nothing!” A sharp treble with a hint of a crack in it.
“Will’s cheating!” Burt’s voice.
“Will’s hiding money under the board! He knows he’s not s’posed to hide money under the board.” Suze was a stickler for rules, even if the kids had made them up themselves.
Willard held out his hand.
“All right! All right! Enough!”
Silence fell.
“You guys know what happens if you fight over a game.”
“But, Dad…!” This time four voices tumbled over each other, Sams’ joining the rest.
“No. You know what happens.”
“Okay,” Will, Jr., said. Shoulders slumped, he started picking up bills that had been scattered on the board and the surrounding carpet during the disagreement. Burt collected houses and hotels, dropping them into the proper slot in the box. Suze gathered up the tokens and put them away. Sams just sat there a few bills still grasped between his fingers. Will, Jr., had to pull them out of his hands before Sams finally gave up. Only then did he start to sniffle, prelude to a cry.
