a boy-sized space

     by Greg Turner

They drive east, out of North Carolina mountains into foothills, headed for coast. The husband presses the scan button on the radio. The radio plays four-second samples, station after station.
     “Can’t we just pick one?” the wife asks.
     “I will.”
     “It’ll cycle between ads.” She turns some in her seat, faces him. “There will be an ad, then another and another. And then there will be an ad on the first.”
     “You don’t know that. You don’t fucking know that.” He grips the steering wheel with both hands and stares out through the windshield. Around them, parched earth and dry grass over fields and into forests. The hum of the road. An ad on the radio. Another.
     “I miss him too, you know,” the wife says.
     He hears her take a breath, but nothing comes. Instead, the engine hitches and spits—the minivan decelerates, coasting a moment—then sputters again to life.
     “What’s that noise, Bob? Shouldn’t you pull over?” Since their son’s death fifteen months ago, she has been vigilant with worry.
     “Can’t,” Bob says. “No shoulder.” The two-lane blacktop before them is a charcoal gash across pasture land burned brown.
     “No shoulder.”
     “And it’s not an emergency yet.”
     “How do you know?”
     “We’ve still got power, Caroline. Can you check the map?”
     She fishes between the seats for the old fold-out, spreads it out across the dash, trails a finger over the state’s paper topography. “Shelby. It’s just a couple miles.”
     In town, they pull into Ruthie’s, a barbecue joint, smiling pig licking lips, knife and fork at the ready. Bob gets out. Still air and heat and the crunch of gravel. Inside, the place nearly vacant, dark and cool. The elderly woman behind the counter ready with an easy smile. “Help you, hon?”
     “I’ve got some car trouble. Maybe trouble. There’s a sound in the engine.” He pulls a napkin from the dispenser, goes to put it back, balls it up, and shoves it in his pocket. “You know a place I could take it?”
     “What kind?”
     “Minivan.”
     “What kind?”
     “A Toyota.”
     She nods. “Luke can work on that. He’s just around the corner. You tell him Irene sent you.”
     “Thank you. Thanks, Irene.” He hurries out.
    
At the garage, Bob learns it will take some time. ”We got one in here now,” the mechanic says, wipes shimmering hands on a stained, red cloth. “Another before you, but seeing as how you’re from out of town, we’ll look at yours next.”
     “Thank you,” Bob says. “Irene told me to come here. From the barbecue place. Over there.” He spins right, points. Pauses, turns left. “That way.”
     “I know,” the mechanic says, notes on yellow paper. “You got a cell phone?”
     Bob gives up his number, walks back to the barbecue place.
    
They sit under the hot tin roof at Ruthie’s. Between them, ribs slathered in sauce, a dish of coleslaw, empty paper plates. Caroline picks up a piece of garlic bread, pulls a crust, sets the bread down on her plate. The tin roof ticks in the hot, still air.
     “How long do you think the car will take?”
     He leans back from the table, sets his hands on his thighs. “I’m not sure. I’ll call the garage after lunch.”
     “Good,” she says. “That’s good.” Then, “The barbecue smells good.”
     He nods, takes a couple ribs, sets them on the paper plate in front of him. He looks at the slaw, the garlic bread warm and drenched with butter. He never cared much for slaw.
     They finish lunch in silence. Bob stares at the pile of bones between them. The sauce was spicy and good, and the heat enough to keep the ribs from going cold. The garlic toast is also gone, a French fry or two left. The slaw never looked right, and now two flies flit across its confettied surface. Bob sees Caroline watching the flies, shoos them away. His cell phone rings.
     “It’s the garage.”
     “Aren’t you going to answer it?”
     He looks at her, lets it ring once more through the little ditty that came with the phone. “Hello?”
     They’ve done some checks on the car and have some options. If he’d prefer, he can come down and they’ll talk about it in person. He would prefer the phone, but the connection’s bad, and Caroline’s eyes are on him. He rudders his hand over the slaw again. “I’ll come down.” He closes the phone. ”They want me to come down.”
     “To the garage?”
     “Yeah. You want to stay here?”
     She looks at the table, at the other customers on the patio. “Stay here?”
     “Yes.”
     “No,” she says. “I think I want to come with you.”
    
At the garage, Caroline waits outside. Bob stands in the hot, close office, smells grease and oil. A pine-scented air freshener, sun-faded, hangs from a nail in the wall. Curled papers and receipts lay strewn on the L-shaped counter, Luke behind it. To the right, a younger man, maybe eighteen, sits rapt by a small black-and-white television. The sound from the television is fuzzy, and Bob wonders whether the boy understands what anyone is saying.
     “Thanks for taking care of this so fast.”
     The mechanic looks at him for moment, pale blue eyes in a weathered face. “You got a fuel issue. Pretty bad, really. The filter’s shot, and the pump, nearly. Where you headed?”
     “To the coast. Wilmington. Maybe on down to Hilton Head.”
     “Pretty down there.” The mechanic grabs a clipboard from the desk and flips through some of the printouts. “Been married long?”
     Bob looks out the office’s wide, mirrored window. Caroline stands in the parking lot, pillar-still, and looks west. East? “Eight years almost.” He turns back to the man behind the counter. “Nearly eight.”
     The man flips through the pages on the clipboard. “Kids?”
     Bob’s stomach curls. “No,” he says. He pauses, the moment before him, ready for anything. “No kids.”
     “Count yourself lucky.” Callused thumb towards the teenager. “Can’t get a lick of work from this one.” The boy turns from the television, hard eyes flat with apathy. “You could probably make it, get down there, and have someone take care of it. But—” The man runs his finger along the page, stops halfway, peers close. “I’d just hate for it to give out with you on the road. I just don’t know.”
     “How much?”
     When Danny died, the doctors and nurses did what they could to save him. They searched for a heart, lucky enough to find the precious muscle and fly it all the way from Oregon. Bob sometimes thinks the heart beat too long. If Danny hadn’t lived long enough to smile at their faces, if he’d just had a breath, not even that. Anything would have been better than seeing him smile when they came in the room. Tubes and monitors around him like some kind of throne, tiny Danny nestled in pillows and blankets smiling genuine, looking at Bob and smiling. Then fading. Not that day, but another, and then another, the small heart not enough.
     Luke gives him a price.
     Bob feels a certain heat in his face, a burn in his eyes he hopes the mechanic doesn’t notice. He turns again to the window, breathes deep, turns back. “When will it be ready?”
     “Well, there’s where you got some trouble. I don’t have all the parts. I got a guy drives in every morning, but he’s been here already. He’ll be in tomorrow morning first thing, and we can get you on your way.”
     “Tomorrow morning?”
     “Tomorrow morning.” The man stiff behind the counter.
     “Is there a place we can stay?”
     “Up the road. You come from Ruthie’s? Head back that way, past Ruthie’s. You’ll see it over there on the right. It ain’t far. Rooms’re clean.”
     In the parking lot, Caroline still stands, still, gazes west. East, west. West, back home.
     He walks up beside her. Their shoulders nearly touch. “They don’t have the part.”
     “Why not?” She doesn’t turn to face him.
     “They have a guy who delivers parts. He’ll be here tomorrow. They don’t have it now.”
     “Do they need it?”
     “He says they do. Come on. I’ve got the key. There’s a place to stay, and he says it’s not far.” Bob walks the asphalt parking lot, ground shimmering, air still.
     The van won’t start. The engine wheezes, spits, catches then stops. A last sputter. Bob rests his head on the steering wheel. Then, “Please don’t say anything.”
     Caroline, stiff in the passenger seat. “Okay.”
    
They walk past Ruthie’s, and then through an uncomfortable expanse. A bodyshop. Some unknown warehouse, walls gleaming white in the hot afternoon. When they reach the motel, Bob’s shirt is wet beneath his backpack, dark where the straps cut across his shoulders, where his shirt touches his belly. Caroline looks winded, her mouth open. For a moment, he sees her as he used to, before the sobbing ceased and her face got hard. Skin brittle and lips tight. As he holds the door open for her, and she passes, he sees her shirt has soaked at the small of her back.
     When they enter, there is no one behind the counter. Bob looks to the office door back there, cranes his neck to see in. Desk, a phone, and computer. No one.
     “Do you want me to ring the bell?” Caroline asks.
     He looks at her, at her face, her eyes. “That would be nice.”
     She dings the bell twice in rapid succession.
     “Hello?” A voice from back somewhere. “I am here. Please wait.”
     They wait. Bob rests his fists on the counter. Soon, a small man comes out from a doorway, hidden from view. “Yes?”
     Bob says, “We need a room, please. Just for the night. Just a room.”
     “King or twin beds?”
     “Twin,” Caroline says. “That’s okay, Bob?”
     Bob nods. “Yeah. Twin.” He shoves his fists in his pockets and rocks back on his heels.
    
The room is cool and dim, heavy curtains blocking the afternoon’s harsh light. Bob sets the backpack on the bed closest to the door and turns on the tableside lamp. It bathes the room in a soft yellow light, suddenly evening. Caroline unzips the bag, retrieves some clothing. She says, “I’m going to take a shower.” Bob nods. She closes the door.
     Bob goes to the window, pulls back the curtains. Behind them, more curtains, sheer, and they cast the world outside in soft focus.
     He misses his boy so much sometimes, what the boy could have become. Misses the afternoons playing catch or reading Popular Science in the living room. Rocket models, toy fire trucks, arguments over the car. He misses struggling to save for the boy’s tuition, late-night fights in hushed tones, staying up late to make sure his boy makes it home from a football game, a Friday night. Prom.
     The sound he makes surprises him, so quiet in the room, beyond the white-noise hush of the shower, the gentle whine of water through pipes. He sits hurriedly, afraid he’ll otherwise collapse, and the sobs wrench out of him, clench his stomach muscles and tighten his throat.
     The shower sound stops. The shower curtain’s metallic rattle. He grabs tissue from the box on the dresser, swabs his eyes, blows his nose. He checks himself quick in the mirror.
     The bathroom door opens and Caroline comes in. She wears underwear and a tee-shirt, a little snug. Stands gorgeous and strong, her long legs and blond hair wet. She walks to him, clutches his waistband in her fist and presses her forehead against his shoulder. She nuzzles back and forth.
     “What?” he says.
     She looks up at him, tugs on his waistband.
     He grasps her hand, pulls it gently, removes her fingers one by one. “I can’t,” he says. “I just—” He stares at the two of them in the mirror, wonders how they have come to this, here, now. The soft light in the room, the afternoon haze from the windows and yellow glow from the lamp.
     Days after Danny’s death, they had sex in the late afternoon. Their bodies clashed as their hands and mouths roamed suddenly new, and he felt something different. Not the dull, hard grief that had settled in his stomach and not the gnawing panic that set his teeth to edge and quickened his breath in the cold, white light of a midnight bathroom. But the feeling was gone by dinner.
     “I can’t,” he says. He walks to the bed and lies down, facing the wall. He hears her sit on the opposite bed, then her weight shifts, the bed creak nearly masking her sigh.
     “What are we going to do about dinner?” she asks.
     “I’m not sure,” he says. “I’ll ask the desk guy.”
    
That night they eat again at Ruthie’s, white Christmas lights aglow on the patio. Mechanic Luke and his son at a table close enough to notice, townsfolk pealing laughter into the night.
     “The fries are cold,” Caroline says.
     “I know.”
     “And that’s it?”
     “What do you want me to do, Caroline? Fries get cold. You want me to take them back? I’ll take them back. But then we’ll have fries. We’ll have fries and empty plates and nothing but crumbs and sauce.”
     At the next table, Luke the mechanic, voice fatigued. “A ‘D’? C’mon, Nathan.” The teen sulks in his ball cap, shadow across his eyes.
     Caroline picks a cold fry, sights on it, one eye closed. “What do you think he would have been?”
     “I’m sorry?”
     “Do you think he would have been a good student?”
     “God, Caroline, I don’t know.” He stares at the tabletop, gray wood beginning to separate at the grain. Then nods. “Of course,” he says, looks to lights gone blurry, to clear sky beyond sodium streetlights, his chest tight and breath shallow. “Of course he would have been a good student.”
     Caroline nods slow, sets down the fry. “I think so, too,” she says.
     Back at the motel they move slowly to the bed closest to the window, the dark room unfamiliar, heavy curtains drawn against the outside heat. They bed together, Caroline facing the window, Bob at her back. He runs his hand along her hip, presses his nose against her shoulder, and brushes her skin with his lips. Then he drops his forehead against her back, between her shoulders, whispers into her spine. “I cried for him today,” he whispers. “I cried for him.”
     “I could hear,” she says, and like that they drift, spooning the night, the first time since Danny’s death without a boy-sized space between them.

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Greg Turner earned an MFA from the University of North Carolina at Wilmington and has since been employed as a résumé writer (don’t ask, he will not look at your résumé), advertising copy writer, help-files developer, project manager, college instructor, and Web designer and developer. His most interesting jobs have been in warehouses. He currently lives in Gainesville, Florida, with his wife and daughter and newly minted son, all of whom are much greater than he deserves.

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© Sotto Voce, 2009.
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