Tamara was struck with a vision of herself as an old woman, bones bent from more than seven decades of holding themselves up. Her lying on the plaid couch and filling the air with the stench of decaying flesh. Robert gone somewhere, off to another marriage to a woman who didn’t have imagination, who didn’t “hear voices.” Cats. She would need lots of cats, the cliche of the crazy old dowager.
She shuddered and looked through the window into the lighted kitchen. Her heart leaped with joy and she broke into a smile, the thoughts of her own mortality falling from her like blossoms from a storm-struck peach tree.
Kevin and Ginger sat at the table, bent over their schoolbooks. Kevin looked so much like his father, with his thin nose, curly hair, and quick brown eyes. Ginger was a miniature replica of Tamara. Ginger had blonde hair, too, but it was slightly more reddish than her mother’s. She had the turned-out ears as well, and her straight hair was tucked behind them. But the ears were not unflattering, as much as Tamara had hated her own worst feature. In fact, Ginger's ears complemented her wide expressive face. And her lips were plump and curvy, the kind some man would be falling all over himself to kiss one day.
There you go again with that "future" nonsense. Better enjoy what you have, because it can all be taken away in the blink of an eye.
Like her father had been taken.
Because she had ignored the voice of the Gloomies.
Happy, happy thoughts, damn it.
She honked, waved, jumped from the car, and ran to the front door, the rain tapping out its tireless rhythm on her head and shoulders. The kids met her just inside the house, ducking under her wet trench coat for a hug.
"Hello, my cuties," she said. "What did we learn at school today?"
Kevin hopped up and down. "I made three homers in kickball. We had to play in the gym because of the rain, and all you had to do for a homer was, like, kick it into the bleachers. I rocked their little world, dude."
Kevin wagged his index fingers as if they were six-shooters, then blew the imaginary gun smoke from his fingertips and returned the weapons to their holsters.
"Uh-okay, dude." Tamara stroked Ginger's soft hair. "What about you, pumpkin?"
Ginger looked up and flashed her mother a bright green smile. "I ate a crayon."
"My goodness. You get in the bathroom and brush your teeth right this minute."
"Sorry, Mommy," Ginger said, but Tamara could tell she wasn't. And Tamara had to wait until Ginger was down the hall before she could allow herself to laugh into her hand.
"Has Daddy called?" she asked Kevin.
"Not since we got off the bus."
Tamara looked at the clock. Twenty past five. Robert's shift ended at two, and his production work usually took only a couple of hours at the most. Still, she shouldn't worry. He was a big boy. He would be here.
He wouldn't die on her. Not like Dancing with the Gloomies again. Well, it’s a morbid kind of day, what with this dreary weather. And thinking about the past doesn't do a thing to cheer you up.
"Hon, would you bring some kindling from the laundry room?” she said to Kevin. “I'll build a nice fire and make us a round of hot chocolate."
Kevin whooped in anticipation of a good sugar buzz and skated across the oak floor in his stockinged feet.
Tamara put the kettle on to boil and was rummaging in the cabinets when the whispers returned.
Shu-shaaa.
Soft as a snake burrowing in the crevices of her mind.
“No,” she said, slamming the cabinet closed. She had heard nothing. Because Gloomies weren’t real.
Especially not this one, the strange sibilant phrase that chilled her bones and carried doom as if it were a typhoid wind.
Even when Robert pulled into the driveway ten minutes later, Tamara still hadn't shaken the sense of foreboding.
Happy, happy thoughts. For the kids. For him. For herself.
“You look like you had a rough day,” she said as Robert elbowed through the door, arms loaded with radio copy, cassette tapes, and damp manila envelopes.
“Hundred percent chance,” Robert said. He leaned forward to kiss her. “But the sun’s breaking through the clouds.”
Happy thoughts indeed. “Hmmm. Another kiss like that, and I could get a sunburn.”
He winked. “Later, when it’s dark.”
“Is that your forecast?”
“No, honey, that is a guarantee.” He dumped his work onto the sofa and sat down. He was already lost in Robertville, studying some advertising circulars.
Tamara knocked on the table. “Hello? Aren’t you going to ask about my day?”
“Yeah. Can you believe it? Hardware store wants to do a special campaign for Blossomfest.” He hummed an uneven jingle then said in his radio voice, “‘Spring has sprung and Windshake is blooming, time for scrubbing, mopping, and brooming.’ Catchy, huh?”
“My day was fine. I proved that ESP doesn’t exist.”
“Huh?”
“My husband can’t read my mind because he can’t even read my lips.”
“Sorry.” Robert put his papers away, went to her, and massaged her neck. “I’d be afraid to read your mind. But I can read your body like a book. Every single page.” He rubbed lower then stopped when Kevin came into the room with a load of firewood.
“More Gloomies?” Robert whispered to her.
She looked away and nodded. This was one of those times she wished her constitution enabled her to lie. His hands dropped from her shoulders, the room grew ten degrees cooler, and household chores suddenly seemed intensely interesting.
Tamara and Kevin sipped hot chocolate and built the fire while Robert started supper. After the meal, Tamara sat at the kitchen table with a stack of student papers she had to grade. But her attention wandered and her gaze kept returning to the window. The world outside was harsh, gray, and ugly. The rain ran down the glass in silver streaks, not merrily but angrily, as if it would like to come inside and make itself at home.
As if it were thin fingers scratching, scratching, scratching, searching for a fissure.
And the sound the water made: shu-shaaa, shu-shaaa.
She turned her chair around so that she faced the wall and put the weather out of her mind. A storm in Windshake was more the rule than the exception, especially at this time of year. She told herself that all was well, her family was safe and snug and soon to be tucked in.
Happy, happy, happy.
But still the Gloomies swirled in her head and heart. The soft whispers played all evening and followed her into a restless sleep, crowding the three-foot gap of ice between her husband’s flesh and her own.
Ralph Bumgarner shook the Mason jar and held it up where the sunshine broke through the bare limbs of the oak trees. Ralph hardly had much face. He was mostly ears and teeth and nose, his head just an excuse to hold up a Red Man cap. He squinted like a scientist studying a test tube as he shook the jar again. Bubbles rose in the jar and clung to the glass at the surface of the liquid.
"Frog eyes, same as always," Don Oscar Moody said. "And it'll burn a blue flame if you light it. That's when you can tell a good batch."
"A man's got to be careful these days. Now, it's nothing personal, because I've been buying off you for six years. But everybody makes mistakes."
"Hey, I got pride." Don Oscar pounded himself in the chest twice with his thumb. His friends told him he looked like Mister Magoo, because he was round-headed and bald with a bulbous nose. So what if the veins in his face had blossomed and broken from a lifetime of taste-testing his product? He'd never put much stock in looks anyway, and at least he had Ralph beat all to hell in that department. "Family's been doing this for generations."
"And you do it proud," Ralph said, shaking the jar again. "But a fellow hears stories. People going blind and such."
Don Oscar stomped his boot into the mud. Beggars ought not be choosers. "Now, you just come here and look," he said, grabbing Ralph by the shoulder.