Cats fucking or fighting. This horrible clash of high cacophony was a horse-drawn noose dragging Nadine from her dreams. Jesus Christ, what else could it be at… what was it, 2AM?
“John,” she mumbled under duvet, comforter, blanket. “John.”
“Not Daddy, Momma. Me.”
Right. Nadine tossed back the covers and saw Dale, her son snuck in since her husband snuck out.
Wind flew through their gutters and duetted concordant with that wailing.
“Do you hear that?”
“Uh-huh,” and Dale rose, sucking in a single breath. Nadine watched the boy’s shoulders sag and knew they shouldn’t weigh that much, not yet. Dale grabbed the black baseball bat leaning against the corner and began to fit a sock over its tip.
“Muffin, what’re you doing?”
“Daddy said I need to defend the house now that I’m the man and if I put a sock over this bat, the bad guys grab the sock but not the bat. See? Then I can bash em.”
Nadine bared her teeth. She had learned the hard way that parenting was basically screwing up your kids as little as possible and indeed a deceptive responsibility.
“No, Dale, put that down.”
“But—”
“Now.”
“But—”
A shout from outside stole Dale’s rebuttal and pried Nadine’s eyes all the way up, for there waited bites behind those barks.
“Give me the bat and stay put.”
“Momma, relaaaax, that’s just Mr. Bob.”
Nadine stopped to listen and found him correct. Her neighbor, a youngish widower, was raising his voice at—
“Ruby.”
Nadine ran for the French doors and flung them open to the cold and she only then realized that the backyard lights were ablaze and the shrieking which woke her wasn’t a couple of cats but really Ruby and her violin. Sheet music had been affixed upon the woodboard deck and Ruby was sawing, sawing, sawing the strings, whatever dexterity learned during her lessons inaudible in that mad and angry slashing. And there from his blackened perch, Bob hectored Ruby as might some irate patron of the arts.
“Hey!” thundered Nadine. “Easy.”
“Middle of the night she’s out here killing me and you say easy?”
“Close your window, Bob.” But he remained and the bitter air vaporizing his rage rendered him a disturbed dragon ready to char her child.
“Ruby, baby, how about let’s come—”
The girl played on and sliced Nadine’s sentence while broken hairs from her bow danced to feral music disentwined.
“Unfuckinbelievable.”
“Close your window, Bob!”
Someone somewhere yelled shut up.
“Sweetie, please come inside. Please. I’m not upset anymore, I promise, we will figure everything out in the morning. I love you, Daddy loves you, it’s just—”
Ruby slid her fingers low on the neck and the instrument squealed like an infant pinched by thumb and nail. The tears standing in Nadine’s ducts quivered Ruby from a soloist into a duet and she wondered how often a person could fracture before finally bursting. She ran a hand across her aging face and smelled the lingering sandalwood of John, that fucking prick, a scent now savored by someone other, and the frenzied violin exorcising her daughter’s confused agony was a bedlam of melodies she’d never forget.
“Alright, bro, fuck this.”
Nadine looked up as Bob clambered out of his window and landed barefoot on woodchips. Bags so purple puffed his eyes as if he’d taken a beating, and in a way, he had.
Bob advanced on Ruby in a flash with arms outstretched and ready to snatch just as Dale exploded from the bedroom wielding the baseball bat. Nadine’s little boy swung the stick and screeched in tune with his sister’s notes. Bob saw the attack coming and grabbed the weapon, only to have it slip from his grip.
There was a sock dangling in Bob’s hand and laughter escaped his crooked mouth, laughter which swelled into incantatory cackling as if the bereaved man was witness to the absurd machinery of all the cosmos.
Dale walloped Bob’s knee and a flourish from Ruby’s schizophrenic violin scored his fall.
“Dale!” screamed Nadine as he hoisted the bat once again. His bony arms vibrated under its burden, and curled there on the concrete, Mr. Bob told him to do it, told him he hadn’t slept right in a year, told him he thought she was back in the house playing her own violin, told him how scared shitless he got, told him he was exhausted by the absence.
“Do you hear what I’m saying?” Bob asked a boy trying to be a man and of course Dale said nothing.
“Muffin,” whispered Nadine as she crept beside Dale and took the bat. She let it clatter to the ground. Nadine swept her son into a hug. He was already too big to carry.
“Momma, can we call Daddy?”
She felt his pulse knocking her heart and was sure it would shatter.
“OK.”
So Nadine dialed John and brought the phone to her ear but Dale intercepted it. She watched her son’s roving eyes lose luster as the call just rang and rang and rang. At some point Bob sat up weeping while Ruby at last concluded her concerto, the muffled refrain of John’s unanswered toll loud in that new silence.
“Sorry, Mom,” Ruby said.
“Me too, baby,” replied Nadine, the backyard shining yet as if the sun forgot to set.
