The Patch Job
“We’re out the door, Jean,” Kyle said, setting two mugs in the sink and turning away.
“Alright,” I said, tugging on the finger of my rubber glove. I could tell he’d been crying though God knows why. I was the one left here with a demented old man.
“Don’t trouble yourself,” he said, letting the screen door bang behind him and his partner, their radios squawking as they went.
I added more hot water. My hands suddenly felt cold. He was back. The word ‘husband’ felt strange and my tongue moved carefully over the ‘band.’ Bill was back, as if the last five years never happened. I snapped off the gloves and put on the flannel shirt hanging by the backdoor, my eyes fixed on the hall where, ten minutes ago, my husband was wheeled by.
I blinked. No, I wasn’t seeing things. There in the pink carpet were parallel tracks, like train tracks of mud to the end of the hall. And there, muddy shoe prints. These men, so eager to help their hero, never thought about what they left behind. What was left was in my bedroom, watching what sounded like baseball. I picked my way down the hall past the bathroom, the laundry chute and framed photographs and opened the bedroom door.
Bill sat slumped in his wheelchair by the bed, staring at the small TV I mounted with Frank’s help. The boys had dragged my night table over to where it now held his un-coastered coffee. I took in the muddy tracks around the room. Kyle and his partner, Dave or something, had snooped.
The doorway was far enough for me. Smelled like a sewer back-up in there. I wasn’t going to be intimidated in my own house, and blurted, “Bill.”
The least he could do was acknowledge I was there. He didn’t turn his head. If he was going deaf, no one from the nursing home told me. My phone vibrated and I answered it in the kitchen.
“Hi Frank, you saw my text.”
“Jeannie, why would you let him come back?” I pulled the phone from my ear and frowned. “I didn’t let him come back,” I said. “They just brought him back.” I opened the fridge and shut it. “You think I want him here?”
“Who brought him?”
“Who do you think? His acolytes, Kyle and the other kid.”
“But don’t you have to give permission?”
Pulling the door open again, my brain registered four bottles of beer inside. Had I given permission? The phone call with the nurse felt rushed. “They said it’s not safe there with the outbreak.”
“For how long?” she asked. “You know, this is really going to cramp our style.”
I forgot to ask. I shut the fridge and something about the hall corner caught my eye. A clump of wall-paper-encrusted drywall lay on the carpet like a small, out-of-season snowball.
“Goddammit,” I spat in the phone. “Bill’s wheelchair hit the corner.”
“What?”
“In the hall.” I crouched by the corner and touched it, surprised at a glimpse of metal. Heat built up behind my eyes.
“Bad?” Frank asked.
“It’s not good.”
“I’m coming over.”
A busted corner wouldn’t seem like a big job to Frank, but I knew better. To start, I didn’t have any more of that wallpaper. My fingers picked at an edge until it gave, and I pulled. It came away from the wall, all the way up in one piece. The glue must have dried to nothing, it’d been on there so long. The next panel did too. When I reached the picture frames, I set them in stacks on the kitchen table. Curling waves of rosebuds and doves filled the hall. I should have done this years ago. I never liked it. As I triumphantly released the last panel, a crash came from the bedroom.
There was Bill, just how I left him. I took a few steps in, one eye on his hands. I should have done a better job calling for updates, playing the dutiful wife. I had no idea if he could still walk. I couldn’t see what caused the crashing sound and took a few more steps and then there it was: a stain on the wall and a broken mug on the carpet.
His eyes stayed fixed on the screen. He’d aged. He had more ear hair. His belly looked odd. Oh my God, no one told me he wore a diaper. No, he was going back. I pulled out my phone, fumbling to find the recent calls.
“That’s it. You can’t throw shit in here, Bill.”
His left cheek spasmed.
“What’d you do that for?” I asked louder, drunk on danger.
No response.
I pressed the power button on the side of the TV.
It blipped back on, courtesy of the remote in his hand.
“Answer me.”
His eyes turned on mine and I couldn’t move as he pulled down his sweatpants and diaper and took out a hard, pink penis. He gripped it, his eyes still on me, saying, “First, a beer.”
My insides sunk to the floor. I was a bride again, confused and upset. I was the housewife, numbed, knowing what happened if I didn’t, knowing no one would dare listen if I said anything. Not their Bill. I stood transfixed by the pink flesh disappearing and reappearing in his fist. Eventually, my body demanded I breathe and returned me to the kitchen. I hugged my arms around myself, then heard gravel crunching in the alley.
Frank walked in the back door and set her keys on the counter, saying, “I take it your day isn’t going as planned?”
I heard myself say, “He wants a beer.”
“So give him one.”
“But,” I said, pressing my palms in my eye sockets.
“Come here, Jeannie,” she said, putting her arms around me, kissing my cheek, my lips. “Can I be frank,” she said, kissing the top of my head. My brain told me I missed the joke. “You don’t need this crap. We’ll make a call and get him sent back.” She took out two beers and snapped off the lids. “You’re the one who needs a drink.” She looked down the hall. “Did he rip out the wallpaper too? Must’ve been a hell of an entrance.”
That was meant to be funny too so I smiled. Frank doesn’t know. She only knows me this way, not the wife I was. I showed her the damage and said, “I’ll have to replace the corner bead, this metal spine here. Then the drywall on both sides. Mud, sand, and paint, I think.”
“Tell me more about this mud,” Frank said, leading me to the couch in the living room.
She pulled my shirt over my head. I wasn’t expecting this, but it was fine.
“I can’t believe he’s actually here,” I said, trying to enjoy her lips on my neck.
“It’s kind of a turn-on, your husband down the hall.” She moved onto my collarbone. “Maybe he’ll catch us. Wheel over and watch.” I pictured Bill coming our way, bashing his wheelchair in the drywall again and again as Frank put her hand down my pants. “Nothing’s going to change, Jeannie. He’s got dementia, right? We could probably screw right next to him and he wouldn’t know.”
She tugged my pants off and I laid back, feeling my skin move in rhythm against the cushions. I closed my eyes and saw Bill’s dark ones, so I opened them and studied her one grey eyebrow hair. A car passed by. I forgot to lock the front door. Normally, I’m so careful. Things aren’t so progressive here as they are in the city, and folks have a way of popping by. I listened, expecting a patrol car in the driveway. Kyle’s boots on the steps. Suddenly her eyes were on mine.
“I’m sorry,” I said. “I just can’t.”
“That’s ok,” Frank said, and stood up. “I really should go introduce myself.”
“No, not yet.” I couldn’t handle the thought of Frank and Bill’s penis in the same room.
Hands on hips, she said, “So what do you need to fix this? I’ll go pick it up. And while I’m gone, you can call the nursing home.”
After she left, I dialed and listened to the hold music, preparing what I’d say. I needed a status update and opened the bedroom door, noting the penis was tucked away.
“There’s my girl. Come here, darling.”
I stayed put.
“I’m sorry, sweetheart. You know how I can get. Come over and let me look at you.”
I got closer, curious if he forgot who I was or if this was a moment of clarity.
“How’ve you been? The boys been looking after you?”
I stood, the night table between us. “Kyle pops by once every so often. Still claims he can’t fill your shoes.”
He chuckled. I’d heard of people who’d been awful to their families turn soft like teddy bears in their old age. If that was Bill now, maybe he could stay, but I’d still need someone to change his —
His hand lunged for mine and yanked it, pressing it against his crotch. I pulled, but he held it there, surprising me with his strength.
“Let go,” I cried, feeling his grip tighten where he broke it once before.
He released me, pulled out his thankfully flaccid penis, and peed on the carpet. I ran out, shutting the door behind me, to the sound of a bat cracking and the crowd cheering.
Frank would see the bruise when it came. But if Bill was still strong, if he could walk, I couldn’t have him hurting her. He was my problem, mine to solve. The phone still played the hold music, and I leaned against the counter, noticing the bag Kyle left on the kitchen floor. Inside I found a pack of diapers, wipes, and a few bottles of pills. I opened the one with the red circle and line through a martini glass, and got a beer mug out of the cupboard. To the powder from the capsule, I added a beer. He wanted a beer, so I gave him a beer, and brought it to him, setting it on the night table, backing away quickly. I tucked the pills back in the bag as Frank’s car pulled up in the alley and the screen door swung shut.
She set a bag of drywall mud, a new corner bead, beer, and sandpaper on the table. “Oh and I got these,” she said, holding up a bag of peanuts. “Least I could do, considering I’m diddling his wife.”
“Thanks. Can’t wait to see the shells in the carpet.”
Peanuts, then. I gave Bill a bowl of them, my nose twinging at the smell of urine. As I turned to go, the announcer shouted a score. Bill shelled a peanut, then another, the shells falling on the floor. He popped the nuts in his mouth, then there was another announcement, and the entire world seemed to cheer, Bill punching his fist in the air, cheering and cheering. Then he stopped. His face looked strange, blotched. He reached for his beer, but I snatched it away. He reached, then tried to get out of his chair, but fell back in his seat. He stared at me, hands at his throat until his head slumped.
“Bill?”
I didn’t dare check if he was breathing. I circled around him, and from behind, gave his back a little push. There he went, face first into the wet carpet. He could still be alive, ready to clamp his hand around my throat like he did before I put him in the home. I wasn’t going to spend the rest of the summer in turtlenecks, and set the beer back on the table. The hold music changed songs, and I ended the call.
Frank was stuffing the wallpaper strips in a garbage bag. “What color paint are you going to get?”
“I like this color.”
“Builder-grade white?” She chuckled. “Whatever you want, Jeannie.”
I got my hacksaw from the basement and sawed away at the corner. My wrist screamed, but I wasn’t going to stop. Frank pulled the wallpaper off the other side of the hall and put on the radio to drown out the game. As I cut the new corner bead to size, I checked my watch. I knew I’d have to check on Bill at some point. Frank would wonder how he was, how he was enjoying the peanuts. I took the beer she offered me and tried to attend to the music and not the images my mind presented. I tried not to blink. When I did, I relived each violation. Each humiliation. Every room in that house, a scene of hurt.
I shook my head and set the new corner bead in position. Not anymore. The house didn’t match my memories. This hall was the last bit to change. I pried at the mitered baseboard in front of me. Might as well pull up the carpet when the corner was done. I always hated it too.
Frank pulled out the vacuum to suck up the drywall dust. I opened the drywall mud and scooped a generous amount onto the seams, spreading it with the trowel. We didn’t hear the screen door open, and were startled to find Kyle standing over us.
“I thought I’d bring Bill a meatloaf sandwich,” he said, eyeing Frank who bundled up the last strip of wallpaper.
“Kyle, this is my friend Frances.”
“Pleased to meet you ma’am.” He took in the repair job and gave a low whistle. “You ladies, you’re like my wife. Once she gets an idea in her head…I sometimes come home to the whole living room rearranged.” Thumbs in his belt, he nodded in the direction of the bedroom. “How’s Bill?”
“The game’s on,” I said, wiping my hands on my pants. “Can I get you a beer?”
“I’m good, thanks. Still on duty.” He walked past us down the hall and into the bedroom.
I finished mudding the drywall and Frank vacuumed up the last of the powdery dust. Suddenly Kyle tapped my shoulder, and I looked up to see him make a throat-slitting motion.
Frank turned off the vacuum as he shouted in his radio, “I need an ambulance sent to….” and let the screen door slam on his way out.
Frank stood the vacuum out of the way, about to take a look in the bedroom, when he returned, clipping his radio back on.
“Jean,” he said. “And you, ma’am. You better come sit down.” I watched the muscles twitch in his face as he pulled out a kitchen chair for each of us. I heard whooshing, underwater sounds as Kyle’s lips form words like ‘peanut’ and ‘coroner,’ and Frank’s words like ‘peanuts’ and ‘fault.’ I sat very still, staring past them both, letting his reassurances hum in the background while I focused on the corner. The patch was a dark pink, an obvious fix, but it would fade to white as it dried.
“Had he relieved himself the last time you checked on him?”
I realized Kyle was talking to me and automatically shook my head.
He said, “It happens. When a person dies, sometimes the body just lets go.”
I made to get up, but Kyle put his hand on mine and said, “You don’t want to go in there, Jean. Trust me.”
I hadn’t planned to. I just wanted a glass of water, but I’d wait.
Kyle met the paramedics at the door, each in protective masks. Frank and I stayed put, hearing the squeal of a stretcher expanding. We smelled Bill before we saw him rolling down the hall.
“Mind the corner,” I said.
One of the paramedics nodded without looking up.
At the door, Kyle said, “I’m sorry.”
Somehow, I had my hands over my mouth, holding back horrible sounds.
“You’ll stay with her a bit?”
Frank nodded and stood behind me.
“I’ll stop by tomorrow, see how you’re holding up.”
I nodded.
Kyle said, “At least he had a good death. I can’t think of a better way to go, watching the game with a beer and some peanuts.”
Frank made agreeing sounds, but then the peanuts had been her idea.
“You might want to open a window in there,” Kyle said in an aside.
He finally left, and Frank locked the door.
“It’ll be alright, Jeannie,” she said, hugging me. “Here today, gone tomorrow. That’s life. Though in Bill’s case, he sped that one up a bit.”
This time I got it and let out a snort.
“What can I do for you? I know he was a sonofabitch, but I get it if you still have feelings about it all.”
I said, “Let’s go rent a carpet cleaner and get some takeout.”
“That’s my girl.”
“And maybe a can of paint.”
I picked up my keys, knowing my eye would probably go to that patch every time I passed it, but like the drywall mud, this moment would fade with time too. It’d be like it never happened.
Anna Shannon (she/her) is writing a novel based on the researched history of a 19th century Quebéc City female (gasp!) photographer, wet and dry plate photographic technology, and the tumultuous events in western Canada in 1885. Her short stories, prose and essays have appeared in The Coachella Review, Remington Review, The Existère Journal of Arts and Literature, and more. Her short story, “The Tenant” was a finalist in the Regulus Press’ Literary Taxidermy contest, and published in 34 Stories. Anna is a proud board member of the Writers’ Guild of Alberta, and member of The Writers’ Union of Canada. She is a technical writer and theatrical costumer, and lives in Calgary, Alberta on Treaty 7 land.
