What Was Mine: & Other Stories Read Online Free PDF Page B

what he called “a comedy and a tragedy” as ambivalence.
    “It was right there,” Henry was suddenly saying to Max. “Riiiight there, and I tapped it with the cane. Looked at Jim, back in the cart, and he looked away, to let me know he hadn’t noticed. Hell, I had done good to land it there, with one leg that wouldn’t even swivel. Who’s going to criticize somebody who’s half crippled? It’d be like taking exception to finding a blind man in the ladies’ room.”
    On Wednesday Len stopped by, having guessed that the bracelet in his car must have been Dixie’s, lost when she borrowed his car to go to Videoville. Henry was upstairs, taking his afternoon nap, when Len arrived. Elizabeth invited him in for an iced tea. He countered with an offer of lunch. He was house-sitting for his brother, whose house was about fifteen miles away. She didn’t know she would be driving thirty miles when she got into the car. Why take her there, instead of into Bethel, or to Westport, for lunch? He probably thought she was more fun than she was, because they had gotten involved in a drunken game the other night, playing matador in the backyard with the tablecloth and the bull tray.
    She had put on Dixie’s bracelet for safekeeping: copper strands, intertwined, speckled with shiny blue stones. The stones flashed in the sunlight. Always, when she was in someone else’s yard, she missed the music of the wind chimes and wondered why more people did not hang them in trees.
    She and Len strolled through Len’s brother’s backyard. She waited while Len went inside and got glasses of wine to sip as they surveyed the garden. The flowers were rather chaotic, with sunflowers growing out of the phlox. Scarlet sage bordered the beds. Len said that he had been surprised she did not have a garden. She said that gardening was Henry’s delight, and of course, so soon after the accident, he wasn’t able to do it. He looked at her carefully as she spoke. It was clear to her that she was giving him the opportunity to ask something personal, by mentioning her husband. Instead, he asked about the time she had taught in New Haven. He had been accepted there years ago, he told her, but he had gone instead to Duke. As they strolled, she learned that Max and Len had been college roommates. As he spoke, Elizabeth’s attention wandered. Was it possible that she was seeing what she thought?
    A duck was floating in a wash tub of water, with a large fence around it. Phlox were growing just outside the wire. Bees and butterflies flew around the flowers. There was a duck, floating.
    Len smiled at her surprise. He said that the pen had been built for a puppy, but his brother realized he could not give the puppy enough time, so he had given it away to an admirer. The duck was there in retirement.
    “Follow me,” Len said, lifting the duck out of the tub and carrying it into the house. The duck kicked, but made no noise. Perhaps it was not kicking, but trying to swim through the air.
    Inside, Len went to the basement door, opened it, and started down the steps. “This way,” he hollered back.
    She followed him. A fluorescent light blinked on. On one corner of a desk piled high with newspapers there was a rather large cage with MR. MUSIC DUCK stenciled across the top. The cage was divided into two parts. Len put the duck in on the right and closed the door. The duck shook itself. Then Len took a quarter from his pocket and dropped it into the metal box attached to the front of the cage. A board rose, and the duck turned and hurried to a small piano with a light on top of it. With its beak, the duck pulled the string, turned on the light, and then began to thump its beak up and down the keyboard. After five or six notes, the duck hurried to a feed dish and ate its reward.
    “They were closing some amusement park,” Len said. “My brother bought the duck. The guy who lives two houses over bought the dancing chicken.” He reached into the cage, removed