But of course, they both knew why he cared.
“I’ll tell her you said hi,” Dennis told him, clapping him on the shoulder.
Dennis walked toward the door, and Mack shifted into drive. As he started to pull from the parking lot, Diane walked from the office. Dennis held up a hand as if to stop her, but she brushed past him.
Mack slammed the brakes, and Misty went tumbling to the floor. She gave him an irritated look and jumped back on the seat.
“Sorry, girl,” he said rubbing her head. “But look who’s coming.”
Misty’s ears perked up and she let out a stream of excited barks, rearing up and pressing her paws against the window.
As Diane walked to the driver’s side, Misty fumbled over Mack and stuck her head out.
Diane’s silky dark hair was pulled back in a red headband and flipped out at the bottom. She wore a red pencil skirt and a black sweater.
She looked happy, and Mack withered a bit inside.
“Misty, you’re messing up my makeup,” she scolded, but hugged the dog around the neck.
Mack leaned from the window and kissed her cheek.
“How’s Misty’s slobber taste?” she asked him.
“Like good memories,” he admitted. “You look beautiful, Diane.”
She smiled, her red lips curving up and her dark eyes sparkling in the sun.
“You look tired,” she told him honestly.
He scratched at his jaw, conscious of his unshaved chin and unclean shirt. He wondered if he smelled. He hadn’t taken a shower once at the cabin.
“I haven’t been piling up too many Z’s lately,” he admitted.
“Why is that?” she asked, taking a step back but continuing to rub Misty’s head.
He imagined the figure of the dead man and shuddered.
Diane frowned.
“Did something happen, Mack? Is Kate all right?”
Mack swallowed, the need to unburden his story creeping in and grabbing him by the throat. He’d never been big on talking emotion, but when he did go there, he only went with Diane.
“Kate’s fine. I’ve been at the cabin for a few days. I found something while I was there… a body. I found a man’s body in the woods.”
Diane put a hand to her mouth, eyes growing wide.
“That’s terrible, my God. Did he get lost in the woods?”
Mack shook his head, remembering the rusted knife poking from the faded shirt.
“I think he was murdered.”
She shook her head in disbelief, pushing Misty back as she continued to struggle further through the driver’s window.
“Who is he?”
“I don’t know.” Mack grabbed Misty’s collar and pulled her back into the truck. “The police were going out there, but… who knows? It will probably take a while before they identify him.”
“Mack.” Diane put her hand on the door. “Why are you telling me this?”
“I just needed to get if off my chest, I guess.”
“What I mean to say is, why aren’t you home telling your girlfriend, Tina?”
Mack laughed uncomfortably.
“I can’t talk to her, Diane. Not like this.” He waved a hand between them. “The truth is, Tina and I were never — I mean, we’re not… we’re not you and me.”
Diane looked away from him, gazing at the office where a man had stepped out and stood watching them. He was tall, not quite Mack’s height but close, with light hair and tan skin. If Mack didn’t hate him on sight, he might have called him handsome.
“That’s Dale,” Diane said.
“Dale’s your boyfriend?”
Diane nodded.
“Diane and Dale,” Mack muttered. “Has a nice ring to it.”
“He works for Stephen. He moved here from Detroit last year. He wants to marry me,” Diane spoke in an offhand, thoughtful way, as if she too was still trying to make sense of Dale.
“Is that what you want?” Mack asked, forcing the tremor out of his voice.
He wanted to reach out and take’s Diane hand, but he clutched the steering wheel instead.
Diane watched Dale for another moment. He smiled and waved at her.
Mack’s father would have called it a shit-eating grin, and the man himself a jockstrap.
“I have to go, Mack. I’m sorry about the man in the woods. I can’t imagine.” She gave Misty a final rub on the ears and kissed the dog on top of her head.
She gazed at him for a final moment, and Mack clutched the steering wheel to keep from throwing open his door and jumping out.
She waved and walked away.
It took the better part of an hour to work up the balls to bid Tina farewell.
When he finally turned onto Harper Road, his ‘you’re better off without me’ speech swirling in his head like a bad tune you can’t shake, he almost drove by.
But then he saw her empty driveway and slammed on the brakes, whipping his car to the left and barely missing her mailbox. That would have been a cherry on his shit-sundae of a weekend.
Mack slid his key in the lock and cracked the door, listening.
He wouldn’t put it past Tina to park down the street and wait in the foyer to confront him while his guard was down.
The house stood quiet. Tina didn’t like quiet. At any given moment, the radio, the television and some beauty appliance, usually a hair dryer, were all yelling at once. Some days, he sat in his truck to escape the ever-present noise.
“But not anymore,” he said, more gleefully than he should have. He immediately turned, half-expecting to find her behind him, armed with a nail file.
She hadn’t left him a note, but he figured she’d picked up an extra shift. Or maybe she had found a hot date a few nights earlier and decided to shack up with her new guy.
“Doubt it,” he muttered, rushing up the stairs and into her bedroom. He stuffed his things into his bag and thundered down the stairs and out to his truck.
He drove to the edge of town, where the farmhouse he’d shared with Diane stood forlorn amongst the remnants of a once-garden. It was overgrown now. A tangle of weeds and wildflowers invited the bunnies he and Diane had worked so hard to chase from their meager vegetables.
Misty barked excitedly and leapt through the window before he’d even stopped the truck.
Diane hadn’t wanted the house. After the divorce, she moved into an apartment in town.
Knocking around the empty house had been near-unbearable those first few months, and when Tina appeared, Mack fell over himself to put an end to the long nights listening to the creaks of his house, the snores of his dog, and the yawning emptiness in the bed beside him.
“And now that’s over too,” he muttered, slamming his truck door and following Misty onto the porch.
The house felt closed-up and musty. He walked from room to room, opening windows and welcoming the warm breeze. He hadn’t been home in a month, and the groans of the house beneath his feet seemed especially loud, as if she wanted to communicate her bitterness at his absence.
Misty followed on his heels as he walked back outside and grabbed his bag from the truck, dropping it in the front hallway when he returned.
He searched the kitchen cupboards for food, settling on stewed tomatoes, jarred years earlier by Diane, and a can of ham.
He ate and then nodded off on the couch to the Twilight Zone. The episode involved a little boy who terrorized his small town with his mental powers.
When Mack woke, the television emitted a low static sound, the picture replaced by a black and white haze. He stood and walked to the set, pausing when he heard a sound within the static.
“Mine,” a deep, gritty voice said, as if the man spoke from within the buzzing television. The sounds merged and made it hard for Mack to distinguish one from the other. The humming grew louder. “Mine,” the voice said.