by Virginia Watts

Short Story published by Verdad

During a library funding raising event, Candice was immediately attracted to Theo Lofton and his wife Liz. Having recently lost her mother, she was feeling unmoored and skittish, struggling with the idea of being the only one left of her birth family. When you are the youngest child, there is always someone to give you advice, a hug, a familiar voice that answers the phone in the middle of the night. She hadn’t seen it coming, how being left behind by an older brother and then her parents would hollow her out.

The Loftons appeared to be the about the same age as her parents before their deaths, late-seventies, but in better shape, still actively involved in community events. Candice sat across from them at the luncheon in the library’s social room, introduced herself, and friendship was born. The three joked about the inedible sandwich wraps: slimy turkey, limp lettuce, pallid tomato slices, no mayo, no spices. Liz’s apt observation: The only flavor here is derived from the tomato seeds. Stale chips and flat Coke hadn’t helped the cause, but the trio stayed for lukewarm coffee and the donated, likely expired, Girl Scout cookies anyway. Being with the Loftons gave Liz her smile back.

When the couple insisted on walking Candice to her car, they exchanged phone numbers, and Liz invited Candice to lunch at the Lofton’s home. That was the beginning of many shared meals together, happy times Candice never expected to find. She feels better when she is with the Loftons, calmer. She’s always been high strung, uptight, flighty, accurate labels people attached to her over the years. She knows she is impatient, that her short fuse frustrated her family, tanked a potential marriage, cost her friendships, but she’s working on it. She’s always working on it. There’s therapy, yoga, and now her friendship with Theo. He takes her by the hand with his words. Even when he isn’t with her, she hears the steadying tone of his voice urging her to let things go, breathe, walk away.

When someone side-swiped her car in a parking lot, he said. It’s just metal. It can be fixed. No one is hurt. When service was exceptionally slow at one of their favorite restaurants, Philomena’s, he patted her hand. What’s the rush. We’ve got drinks to share and stories to swap. He never missed an opportunity to voice his belief in Candice. I could see you starting to get upset with the hostess’s attitude, but you only let it bother you for a second or two. Recently, Candice had to work harder than she had in a long time to keep irritation at bay. There was unfortunate news. Theo had been diagnosed with an incurable illness. She immediately bit a hole in the side of her cheek. It was such a shock.
 
“How can you be nonchalant about this, Theo?” She spewed because she couldn’t help it. “I can’t believe this. Are they sure? This is so damn unfair.”

“They are going to try some new experimental treatments. There is always hope.”

“Why you of all the people in the world? I’m sorry, Theo, I’m just…” Candice stomped her foot, something she did when she was spinning out of control. Theo reached out, placed a steadying hand on her shoulder.

“Candice, I have never told you the story about the time I lost my temper to such a degree that I never let my temper control me like that again,” he said.

“Why haven’t you told me that story before? Seems like one I should have heard by now.”

“Because I am not proud it. On the contrary, I’m deeply ashamed of it. I think it’s high time you hear it.”

You see, I was a strong-willed teenager, ornery, difficult to handle. One summer when I was seventeen, I was late for a party, late for getting myself into trouble. You know how teenagers can be.

The Loftons remained sparse on the details of Theo’s condition and Candice is a friend, not a daughter. It’s not her place to pry. Something about melanoma gone haywire, infiltrating to the pancreas. Maybe it’s for the best. Dwelling on internal organs is a subject Candice avoids, what they do, what they look like, pinky peach, ruddy auburn, or some hue they shouldn’t be, grey as ash left behind in the fireplaces of man. Candice spent decades begging her parents to quit smoking and going bonkers when she smelled smoke on their clothing.

A few days ago, Candice texted Liz. “Is Theo well enough to go out for dinner sometime this week? I’ll pick you up. I know he loves the rare cheeseburgers at Philomena’s.”A response pinged back in seconds. Candice anticipated bad news as a wave of intense nausea. It’s harder to lose people you want to keep forever once you’ve already lost people you wanted to keep forever. Liz’s answer: “I’m afraid not but come to our house for dinner Tuesday at 6. I’d love to cook something for you. It will cheer up Theo.”

Candice arrives at the Lofton’s colonial early thinking she will visit with Theo while Liz is putting the finishing touches on dinner. As usual, one garage door stands open. The garage has a door that leads into the house, the entrance Theo and Liz use most now. In times past even close friends like Candice would enter the Lofton house by way of the front door which leads into a grand foyer filled with framed photos of their only son Chad at various life stages. In the most recent photo, a grey-haired Chad stands on a fishing pier flanked by his grown children, the Pacific Ocean rearing up behind them like the wings of a giant water vampire.  

Candice enters the garage. Only one car now because of Liz’s botched cataract surgery. She refuses to operate a motor vehicle “like Cyclops.”Where her silver Camry used to be, oil stains on a concrete floor cracked by time. Items on shelves along the back wall of the garage lean against each other for moral support, neglected and dust laden. The fire engine red of a Craftsmen toolbox is the only color among clear plastic tubs labeled in Theo’s neat cursive: Christmas, Halloween, Air Conditioner Filters, Car Wash Stuff, Miracle-Gro, Lightbulbs, Bird Seed, Ice Melt, Chad’s Golf Shoes/Tees, Miscellaneous Stuff.

My family ran a cattle farm in Texas. It was my job to corral the cattle into the barn for the night. I wasn’t allowed to go anywhere until that chore was complete.

Candice knocks on the door. A sign used to hang there. A wooden goose with a gingham bonnet that reminded Candice of the stuffed Holly Hobby doll she had as a child. Holly Hobby as a goose. Hanging from Holly’s beak, a postcard: WELCOME TO OUR HOME. Now, Holly is passed out on top of one of the plastic tubs and the door is bare.

Candice knocks again. Waits. Knocks. Waits. Knocks. Waits. Eventually, she tries what appears to be a round, black doorbell near the top left of the door frame. The yellowed casing around the doorbell is cracked, crumbling. Thin, red, and white wires leak from one side box like the veins of a dismembered limb. This button closes the garage door. Now Candice is trapped inside a dim, musty space.

“Shit,” she mutters, turns the doorknob, sticks her head inside the mudroom. “Theo? Liz? Hello? Anyone home?” The sound of her voice is strange, the house, so still. It’s possible Liz forgot she invited Candice to dinner, although that doesn’t sound like Liz.

Candice pads to the kitchen. The Loftons are expecting her. There is the familiar, enticing smell of Liz’s homemade marinara sauce, a lidded pot on the stovetop, and the orange glow of oven coils. Beside the silver sink bowl, fresh bread in a paper sleeve, stack of three Corelle plates. Candice remembers when her parents switched to Corelle. So much lighter, her mother explained.

“Liz?” Candice calls again.

Like a magic trick, Liz materializes in the entrance of a hallway that leads to the den. Still beautiful at eighty-three. Shoulder length, white hair, a tad greasy, tied back tightly. Her ice blue eyes are always striking against her olive complexion. Recently, dark bags have formed under her eyes. Weariness born of sadness and Candice suspects, loneliness. Chad lives on the opposite coast, many of the Lofton’s friends have passed, and Theo needs Liz with him. She can’t leave the house to play Mahjong at the senior center with girlfriends or hop on a bus trip to Atlantic City to play the slots the way she used to. Another wave of nauseous rockets Candice’s gut, leaving her seasick.

I’d gotten the entire herd inside, but there was one calf that wasn’t having it. I tried to coax him. Me on my horse, trotting back and forth, calf darting free every time.

“Thanks a million for coming,” Liz whispers in Candice’s ear as she embraces her. Stepping back, she touches her fingertips to her hair, maybe realizing she hasn’t washed it in some time. Candice makes it a point to avoid looking at Liz’s hair for the rest of the visit.

“I’m so glad you invited me,” Candice says. “Something smells wonderful, and here I thought we were having turkey wraps.”

“Fat chance,” Liz says, a weak smile appearing and quickly disappearing from her lips.

“Manicotti.”

Turning her back, Liz heads to the stove to stir the bubbling sauce. “Theo is in the den, getting ready for dinner. He has a change of clothes in there. He wants to look spiffy for dinner. Take the paper towel off the platter in the center of the table, won’t you Candice? Have a look at what I prepared. I haven’t done that in so long. I’m proud of myself. You prefer white wine, right?”

“Whatever is open, red or white,” Candice answers, lifting the paper towel to reveal an antipasto salad arranged as a work of fine art, concentric circles of various meats and cheeses, olives, roasted peppers, artichoke hearts, tomatoes, all on a bed of lettuce with a little mound of anchovies glistening in the middle. They are fish, Candice reminds herself firmly, not sundried organs preserved in golden olive oil. Why must a mind have a mind of its own.

As Candice is complimenting Liz on the dish, she notices a long strand of white hair emerging from underneath the artichokes. The errant worm stretches itself across the prosciutto, tunnels underneath the capocollo. Entertaining is a talent Liz cherishes. A hair in her famous antipasto will mortify her. Candice positions herself on the other side of the kitchen table to block Liz’s view of the antipasto when she turns around.

Liz is shaking spices into the sauce on the stovetop when Candice notices him, Death, through an archway that leads from the kitchen into the Lofton’s formal dining room. Death is standing beside the mahogany table with his back to windows where outside, the sun is falling again. Candice doesn’t know how exactly, but she is certain of two things. This is Death himself, and he is not here for her. Her body freezes. The most she can do is sip air, stare.

She’s spied his image before, lurking in the hospital hallway when her father’s life was fading away. Later, eating a bowl of chocolate ice cream in the assisted living dining room just after she found her mother lifeless in her apartment. Those times Candice had been terrified of Death, too real to be a mere figment of her imagination but something she couldn’t explain. Later, she’d dismissed him as a symptom of panic, though he returned to her in nightmares. Now he’s invaded the private home of dear friends. Something familiar inside of Candice bubbles to the surface. Fury.

Death is the spitting image of John Denver, same round wire glass and wide lips lending a bullfrogish, ribbit-worthy quality. Paisley shirt with a wide, navy-blue collar. Jeans. Copper belt buckle shaped liked a guitar. Everything you’d expect from the tacky 70s, Candice’s growing up years. He always had the same, silly ass smile plastered across his face, sang annoying, vapid songs like the one about his grandmother’s feather bed. No one is that happy all the time.

The lenses of Death’s glasses reflect the kitchen’s fluorescent ceiling lights, obscuring his eyes, but he appears to be examining the abysmal condition of the dining room’s crystal chandelier. The Lofton’s house cleaner never bothers to remove the cobweb rope bridges that link the dulled prisms together. Candice wonders what else she neglects because Liz and Theo don’t notice anymore.

Death’s grinning lips are stitched shut so tightly that every maneuver, whether frown or smile, would be excruciating. Of course, it’s doubtful that Death feels pain. It seems he approves of the neglected state of the lighting fixture, even finds humor in it. A torch ignites inside Candice. Her cheeks flare crimson.

Finally, I couldn’t stand it anymore. I hopped off my horse, grabbed fresh hay, lured the calf to it and scooped him in my arms. I was strong. My daddy worked me hard.

“My goodness, Candice,” Liz’s voice from across the kitchen sounds like someone talking in a rowboat that Candice is swimming underneath. “Are you okay? Would you rather eat in the dining room?”

To Candice’s horror, Liz has turned away from the stovetop. She is following Candice’s gaze into the dining room. Death lowers his chin to look directly at the two women. As he does the edges of his mouth creep up a fraction higher. He lifts a hand to wave, moving just his fingers up and down quickly in the mocking gesture of an intimidating schoolyard bully. Candice hears herself hiss.

Liz appears in front of her, grips her shoulders, begins shaking them gently but Candice can’t seem to peel her eyes away from Death. Liz turns her head, glances behind her toward the dining room again. Death takes this opportunity to bow and sweep one arm across his body like a court jester inviting the women to join him in the dining room. The audacity of this guy. Arrogant prick. Candice bites her tongue. Tastes blood.

Candice realizes that Liz can’t see Death. Relieved, she gulps, flashes Death a smug smile of her own over Liz’s shoulder. Death responds with dismissive gesture as if shooing away an annoying insect. Then he turns his back and strides out of the dining room toward the foyer. Candice reaches down, grips the side of the table to steady herself.

“I’m sorry,” she stammers, knees jelly, heart off the rails. “Long workday. I love eating in your kitchen. You know that.”

Liz’s shoulders relax a fraction. “Let’s have some wine then. Maybe that will help you feel better after such a trying day at work.”

While Liz gives the sauce a few more stirs and removes wine glasses from a kitchen cabinet, Candice slumps into the chair she always uses in the Lofton’s kitchen, the one with its back to the dining room, and tries to think of an excuse to switch her position at the table to keep an eye on Death. She can’t bear the idea of him coming up behind her, cold fingers tiptoeing around her temples, clamping clammy over her fluttering eyelids. Guess who!

There’s a problem, though. Candice can’t take the seats Liz and Theo always use and the other chair at the table is stacked sky high with unopened mail. It would be hard to explain moving all that material just to switch her location. At least Liz can’t see Death, but what about Theo?

“Maybe I should go in and say hello to Theo,” Candice suggests, though her legs are quaking under the table. She is not sure they would work for walking at the moment.

“Give him a little more time,” Liz answers, placing a wine glass next to Candice’s wicker placemat. The two placemats that Liz and Theo use are littered with food debris. “He is probably still changing his clothes. I’ll be right back, Candice. I have a case of wine in the mudroom that my neighbor dropped off.”

That calf was a feisty fellow. In truth, I admired him, a worthy opponent. We had quite a wrestling match. The calf tired out before I did. I carried him into the barn.

While Liz is gone, Candice tweezers the end of the hair with her fingertips, gives the strand a few tugs, and pulls it free like a silken thread from an antipasto tapestry. She deposits the hair onto the linoleum floor which conveniently is also white.

One problem solved often makes room for another. Candice’s wine glass is dirty. Fingerprints smudge the perimeter and, on the rim, a rosy lipstick stain. She hears a snort. The hairs on the back of her neck rise. Candice swivels her head to glare at Death over her shoulder, but the dining room is empty. He must be watching her from the edge of the foyer. She squints, but it has become too dark to see that far. All the same, she gives a spirited middle finger, mouths a vehement: Fuck off! Death snorts again. Unbelievable. He is really enjoying himself. Giddy, gloating ghoul. Candice could just strangle him even though the absurdity of that desire is not lost on her. There is no way to kill death, even if it would be glorious to try.

 When Liz reenters the kitchen, Candice hops up.

“It’s red wine,” Liz says breezily. “Luckily, my neighbor remembered to buy bottles with screw tops this time.”

Candice lifts the bottle from Liz’s hand, twists the cap, leans over the kitchen table, and fills her wine glass to the top. Handing the opened bottle back to Liz, she snatches the glass, positions her lips directly overtop someone else’s lipstick and sips. Liz’s mouth drops open slightly. Keeping her lips glued to the glass, Candice smiles, nods to communicate that the wine is delicious, then sips again.

“Sit back down and enjoy,” Liz says, her voice controlled although her eyebrows are raised in a certain amount of alarm. “I’ll just go and see if Theo is dressed and ready to join us now.”

When Liz disappears, Candice pulls her shirtsleeve down over her hand and polishes her wine glass. A dirty glass will embarrass Liz. Thank God Candice managed to hide it. She hurries to the other wine glasses on the counter, twirls them to assess cleanliness. Filthy. She polishes them with her shirtsleeve, glancing behind her toward the dining room. No Death. Where did he go?

This whole experience is alarming. Not the fact that Death is here. The cold certainty of his existence makes sense, sort of. Theo is very unwell. What is shocking is Death himself. To Death, death seems to be a sick game. Candice never thought of Death as cruel, exactly, just inevitable. Shouldn’t Death appear as the robed Grim Reaper here to harvest another soul with his scythe? Maybe the Reaper is more like hired help, and he has the day off. In comparison, the Reaper seems like an okay fellow with an unfortunate employment situation. Who would want to be the full-time bearer of the ultimate bad news. As for his scythe, he uses that like a walking stick, beckons mutely with a cloaked hand. You never see a ridiculous smile plastered across the Reaper’s face. You never see his face at all.

Just as soon as the barn roof was over my head, it hit me, what an unthinkable thing I’d done.

Something is burning. Narrow tendrils of smoke are escaping from the edges of the oven door. Candice rushes to the stove, yanks a few drawers open in search of hot mitts. Nothing. Her shirt sleeves will have to do again. Stretching the fabric down over her fingers, she lowers the oven door, swats away a black billow of smoke, and reaches in for the glass dish of manicotti. Heat seers through the shirt. She plops the dish on the stove top, heads to the sink to cool her skin. Good thing she wore a thick flannel shirt. The ensuing coughing fit she muffles into her elbow isn’t enjoyable, but no real harm done.

The same cannot be said for the manicotti. Most pieces are too charred to be edible, but the main course may still be salvageable. There are some servings in the center of the pan that are only bone dry. With a heavy dosing of marinara sauce, they could be resuscitated and made chewable again.

Candice checks the sauce. It too is beginning to scorch and stick on the bottom of the pan. She turns off the burner, slides the pan off the heat. After some vigorous scraping, the sauce seems fine overall, save a few floating, black, squiggly shapes. She considers trying to spoon those out, but Liz will be back soon.

She glances over at the dining room. There he is again. That self-righteous son of a bitch. Absolutely infuriating how he cocks his head, the vainglorious smirk stapled on his lips. That’s it! Candice slams the stirring spoon on the counter and goes for Death like a freight train, hot snot flying from her nostrils, blood pressure barreling though her eardrums, teeth bared and gritted. She doesn’t care if Liz returns to find her frantically gripping at air. Candice is going for the jugular on Death’s neck. She will destroy this heartless, smirking, snorting freak with everything she’s got. Whatever it takes, if it’s the last thing she does, Candice will get rid of him.

Anger doesn’t solve anything in life. We’ve both had to learn that the hard way, Candice. Anger brings only misery and regret.

When Candice reaches the threshold to the dining room, Death extends one arm, splays the fingers open on his hand as if warning her to stay back. She halts despite herself. What if getting too close to Death brings, well, death. She is so very fond of Theo, but she isn’t necessarily willing to swap her own life for his. Theo is eighty-four. Candice is fifty-five.

While Candice is frozen in a cement block of confusion, Death somehow manages to steal her glass of wine from the kitchen table. Apparently, he can teleport objects. Not all that surprising since Death is a being from the beyond who should possess fantastical skills, although teleporting objects feels more like a cheap parlor trick. Candice isn’t all that impressed.

From the dining room, Death winks at Candice,runs one, long, red fingernail between his lips as if he is slicing open stitches. He sticks a long, salmon pink tongue down past his chin to lap up the Cabernet like a dog, an admittedly impressive impression of Gene Simmons from the rock band Kiss. Utterly vulgar, revolting, although at least he looks less like John Denver now.

“Give me the damn glass,” Candice hisses.

Death shrugs at Candice, belches, winks down at her wine glass in his hand, then tosses it into the kitchen. Stemware summersaults through the air. Candice manages to catch the glass.  She juggles it with her sore fingers but hangs on. She is placing it back on the table when Liz reenters the kitchen alone. Liz halts mid step, takes in Candice’s red face, her snotty nose and emptied wine glass, the dish of burned manicotti dropped crooked onto the stovetop, discarded stirring spoon, generous splatter of red sauce underneath it.

“Good heavens,” Liz manages. “It appears you’ve saved things in here just in the nick of time.”

“It was no problem,” Candice says, wiping her nose with a paper napkin from the stack Liz keeps on the kitchen table. “Sorry about the mess. Where’s Theo?”

“Unfortunately, he is feeling nauseous, hasn’t gotten around to changing his clothes yet, but he wants us to enjoy the meal anyway, well, what we can of it.” Liz grips the spoon, begins poking the manicotti for signs of life. “I can’t believe I burned this.”

“Is Theo worse?” Candice wheezes.

“No, this is how he is in the evenings. Nothing unusual. Nothing to be concerned about. We’ll chat with him after we eat.”

“Are you sure?” Candice presses. “Should we call 911?”

“Yes, I’m sure. No need for concern.”

A cold panic rushes through Candice’s core. She glances into the dining room. Death is smiling up at the chandelier again. Candice steps to the sink to place Death and Liz behind her back. Gripping the countertop, she blinks fast, pushing away tears. She doesn’t want Liz to see she is upset, more like frantic, and she doesn’t want to give Death the satisfaction. By the time she turns around, composed, he has disappeared again.

Liz manages to carve out two, adequate servings of manicotti. When the dining room continues to remain empty and Candice has some more wine, she wonders if panic is playing tricks on her again. Lately, she’s lost sleep worrying about Theo and admittedly feeling sorry for herself. She’ll miss him so much.

Although the manicotti begins as tasteless goo in her mouth, eventually it is scrumptious like everything Liz prepares. The two women talk about subjects other than Theo’s health, primarily Chad’s recent trip to Greece. Several times during the meal, Candice considers asking Liz if she and Theo would consider selling the house. It would be better for them to move into an assisted living community. This place has become too much for them.

Candice had to force her own rapidly failing parents to make the move to assisted living. The morning they left their home runs like a ticker tape through Candice’s heart. A longtime neighbor Jim who owned a van drove them and some of their belongings out of their beloved neighborhood of nearly sixty years. Candice sat behind her father, tried to field his raspy questions.

“Candice, what will we do without a proper mailbox? Do I have to answer my door if I don’t want to? Who has a key? Don’t sell the house. We will be able to come back. I don’t want anyone washing my underwear in this place we’re going to. I don’t care if laundry services are included in the sky-high prices they charge.”  

When had her father’s neck become twig like? Where were his real shoulders, broad and strong, his booming voice, his sense of humor, his fearless being? Even though Jim was a careful driver, the van ride that day felt like tumbling inside a barrel toward Niagara Falls, her parents’ favorite vacation place. Dad always said that when people move to “old folks homes,” they die more quickly. They were both gone in less than two years, her father first, her mother months later, so maybe he was right.

Candice offers to do the dishes, tells Liz she’ll clean up the kitchen, then come to visit Theo in the den if he’s up to it. Liz apologizes because the dishwasher isn’t working, gives Candice a hug and heads upstairs to use the bathroom. Candice can hear water rushing through pipes, a toilet being flushed, water flowing into a sink. Still no sign of their unwanted guest.

Candice takes her time washing dishes, uses lukewarm water because her fingers are still sore from rescuing the manicotti. Maybe she scared him away. She did try to attack him. Maybe she should move in with Theo and Liz, temporarily. She could fend Death off like a Viking shield-maiden, a warrior slayer. Candice smiles, imagines her costume, allows herself some satisfied humming. Metal armor, chainmail over animal skin, thick leather belt for her weapons, axe, sword, horned helmet, war paint, red as blood, black as hate, across her cheeks and forehead. That’s what she’s daydreaming about when Liz’s sudden cry from the den can mean only one thing.

“Theo! God, no! Theo! Wake up!”

Candice sprints into the hallway. She knows Death will be there, waiting for her, and he is, blocking the path to the den. Same exasperating smile on lips that have sewn themselves back together with uneven, black stitches. His absurd, round glasses have slid to the middle of his nose. When he winks at Candice, she screams and throws herself into battle. Forgetting her sword, her axe, the knife that must be tucked inside her boot, she grabs the neck Death seems to offer her, digs in her fingernails and squeezes.

Death doesn’t struggle much, doesn’t try to claw Candice’s fingers away from his neck. All for the better, because Candice is determined to obliterate Death. She’s the only one here who can do it. Some training from an old self-defense class sparks to life. Seemingly infused with superhero strength, Candice spins Death around, manages a firm choke hold.

And then everything stops. A cottony silence descends like in a war movie when there’s been bomb blast. No blast here though, just the absence of sound. A sound inversion. Blood pounds in Candice’s ear canals, rushing in the wrong direction. She becomes aware of something warm and heavy in her arms. She looks down at what she is cradling.

The calf had gone limp in my arms. Head rolled back, mouth open, tongue lolled to one side, eyes frozen, staring. You see, I’d killed it, squeezed life clean out of it. I laid it down on the barn floor, gently, like that made up for something, hung my head, wept. Afterwards, I knew I’d never be able to forgive myself for what I’d done so I vowed to never let my temper rule me like that again.

In the hallway, Candice surrenders, drops her arms. She swallows, blinks, lifts her chin, moves toward the sound of Liz’s sobs. In the foyer, a grandfather clock doesn’t chime, an only son doesn’t blink, and the weak glow of a crescent moon creeps slowly upstairs.

Copyright © 2023 Virginia Watts. All rights reserved.