The Disintegrating Chay

Daniel Kim's investigation into the elusive Chay Emerson is fraught with failure and ill intentions - short story

Disintegrating Chay

 

 

 

“Daniel Kim.” Jeanne rolled her as of yet unlit cigarette between her chopstick-like fingers. “Daniel Kim, reporter extraordinaire. Back again.”

“Hope you like coffee.” Daniel shrugged at the cup waiting for her on the porch railing. After his third visit and third time of getting the door slammed in his face, Daniel decided it was best to stay nonthreateningly next to his car by the curb and leave his peace offering on the porch. He knew when Jeanne would come out, 7:30 like she did every day, and had timed his coffee-buying accordingly so that it would still be hot by the time she walked outside. It was the little things, he told himself, that’d finally soften her. Girls liked spontaneous stuff like that.

Now that he thought of it, Daniel wasn’t entirely certain why Jeanne went out onto her front porch every morning at precisely the same time. It certainly wasn’t to get to her job, which she either didn’t have or worked from home. He always assumed he’d interrupted her from grabbing a smoke, but she’d never actually lit up in front of him. No, she just stood there, twirling that cigarette like a more wispy girl might coil her hair in her fingers.

Eyes squinting at the coffee Daniel had left for her, Jeanne slid up to the porch railing. She was tall, taller than Daniel anyway, with long features in contrast to her hair which was buzzed short on either side of her head. Her clothes, a Power Puff Girls T-shirt under a large pair of overalls, were splattered with paint. With a jolt to his gut, Daniel watched as Jeanne picked up the coffee, peeled off the lid, and sniff it. Her face even broke out into a smile. “Aw, you shouldn’t have.”

Daniel’s stuffed his hands into his coat pockets. “I’m glad you like it.”

“No really, you must have gotten up so early. Why it’s nearly�"” Jeanne twisted her wrist to look at her watch�"flipping the cup sideways. Daniel watched as the perfect-hot coffee dropped in one short steaming arc through the early morning autumn air and disappeared into the prickly flowerbed below.  “Oh.” Jeanne blinked. “Oops.”

Daniel bared his teeth in what he hoped was a grin. He could no longer feel his face so he wasn’t entirely sure.

The now empty cup knocked hollowly against the porch railing when Jeanne set it back down. “I’m starting to really hate investigative journalism. Probably my least favorite out of all the journalisms. I can’t imagine its any more thrilling for you. Unless you’re some kind of masochist. Are you a masochist, Daniel?”

And just like that here they were again, back where they started almost a week ago. More to give himself something to do than anything else, Daniel fished his pack of American Spirits out of his jacket pocket and hung a cigarette from his mouth. “You know how to get me to leave,” he said before cupping his hand over his mouth to light up. A smoke would help him battle his splintering nerves anyway.

Jeanne nodded. “Yes, call child services. I’m glad we finally agree.”

Jeanne could play aloof all she wanted, but Daniel hadn’t missed how her eyes were suddenly hooked on his face. “Do you need a light?”

Jeanne tucked the cigarette she held behind her ear. “Don’t smoke. I like my lungs thank you.”

She was lying just to spite him, and she wasn’t even bothering to be clever about it anymore.  “Visited the hospital again yesterday,” Daniel said. Breathing the smoke out through his nostrils somehow made him feel saner though he didn’t know why. “Spoke to her physician, Dr. Goldbloom? He told me Chay Emerson was discharged from the hospital two weeks after the accident. Now her roommate said she didn’t return to their apartment for six months. Was she staying with you during that time?”

 “Wow,” Jeanne said, words rife with droll. “You really are only asking questions you already know the answers to.”

Wrong, that had been a guess. He’d been lucky. It was the first new information he’d wrestled out of her since her name. Daniel’s stomach churned. “So where is she now?”

“Who?”  

Daniel pulled the smoke from the cigarette until the tip glowed an angry orange�"he didn’t want to play this game anymore. Chay. Chay Emerson, the only woman he’d been asking about for the past week. The woman whose Facebook friends Daniel messaged one by one until finally an ambitious but poorly articulate musician named Mason had forked over Jeanne’s address. Jeanne Andronowitz with the above-ground kiddy pool in the front yard of her West Philly town house. Jeanne Andronowitz, Chay’s college roommate, the only person who’d admitted to speaking to Chay since she crashed her car and split her skull open. Jeanne Andronowitz, possibly Chay Emerson’s only true friend in the entire world.

 “Careful.” Jeanne’s expression closed again. “You should maintain some distance between you and your subject. People are going to start thinking you’re in love with her.”

“Just trying to get a better impression of her state of mind.”

Jeanne’s head was thrown back into the shadow of the house with the force of her laugh. “Right. That would make sense if you were a reporter, after all. If.” Her knuckles wrapped on the porch railing. “Even with me, Daniel. Are you even out of high school?”

Filter crushed between Daniel’s teeth, he flicked his cigarette butt at the storm drain nearby only to watch it bounce off the grate and back into the road. He could feel anxiety like a cinderblock on his chest. Instead of looking at her face, Daniel aimed his eyes at that ridiculous unlit cigarette that Jeanne kept behind her ear�"why did she even have it if she didn’t smoke? “Even with me. You know where she is.”

He could see all too well the clownish grin she was now directing at him from the porch railing. “I know where she is.”

“And you’re sure that’s not here in your house?”

“I checked everywhere, even under the floorboards.”

Daniel’s jaw locked into his smile. She could goad him all she liked. Every time she tried to get him mad, Daniel would think of Chay, her dark hair in front of her face, one strand stuck to the lip-gloss at the corner of her mouth, the perfectly round birthmark beneath her ear. He thought of the picture they printed of her in the hospital, the plastic tube in her throat and the limp flesh surrounding it. He thought of the scum photographer who’d snuck his camera into the hospital to snap that photo to release it on eleven o’clock news. Or maybe it was a family member who’d taken it with their smart phone then sold it, Daniel didn’t know. He was getting himself distracted.

"Are you Korean?" Jeanne asked.

“Half.” Daniel corrected automatically.

“Ah.” Jeanne must have spotted something in Daniel’s face and, like a boxer who’s spotted an opening, kept the punches flying. “You guys are all either a Park or a Kim or a Li. You ever been? To Korea? Probably not, right? Or maybe you have and you just couldn’t stand it.”

Her words filled his ears with buzzing. No, it was way she’d said it�"loose, thoughtless�"that made the bile rise in his throat.

Jeanne shook her head, eyes turned up at the roof, and said, “Look kid, I don’t want to know what your deal is. But trust me, you don’t want to see her. ”

Daniel felt himself scoff before he could stop it. “Oh I don’t? I must’ve been hanging around this dump for the stellar company then.”

“Oo. Don’t get mad now. You were doing so well.” Jeanne was smiling. She was smiling.

Daniel felt the flush rise in his face against the bitter cold air, sweat drop from his pits beneath his windbreaker. “Dr. Goldbloom said he hasn’t seen Chay in months. You think she needs to be protected? She needs to go to physical therapy. She needs sunlight and people to get better. ”

“You know that, do you?” The woman’s expression was crowded, emotions fighting for dominance over her face. “If you’ve been so privileged to her needs, why can’t you find Chay yourself? A real reporter wouldn’t loose their cool so easily. If you were here on behalf on the Inquirer, you wouldn’t give a s**t about keeping doctors’ appointments.”

“I am an editor for the Inquirer! Not that I need to prove myself to you�"”

“Editor?” Jeanne’s mouth opened, closed, then finally asked, “What the hell is an editor doing out here?”

The question lingered in the silence that followed it.

Daniel’s anger left him feeling cold and stupid. “Look, she asked for me�"for my help.”

Jeanne’s brow rose almost to her hairline. “From the mote of lava or the fire-breathing dragon surrounding her tower?”

The back of Daniel’s neck prickled. All too soon he was pulling out his wallet, flipping open the leather, and slipping the newspaper clipping out from the last pocket. It was stained brown from the wallet’s dye, and the ink had softened under the many passes of Daniel’s hand as he spread it out to look at it on the plastic tabletops of Wendy’s and corner store delis. So familiar he was with the paper that Daniel could have no more easily handed a sliver of his own flesh over to Jeanne. And yet, compelled by some foolish remnant of pride, he placed it into her hand.

Jeanne’s eyebrows did not fall from the height they’d reach on top her forehead, even as she peeled the page loose from itself and unfolded the material to expose it to the open air. She read the circled advertisement without the muscles in her face releasing so much as a flicker.

Fingers rubbing together, missing the paper that used to be there, Daniel was suddenly eager to get the clipping back. Concerned that perhaps Jeanne would rather rip it up than return it to him. “See?”

As quickly as his worry blossomed, Jeanne returned the paper with a flip of her wrist. “When did that come out?”

Daniel scanned the clipping with his fingers from corner to corner then slipped it back into the dimple it had made in his wallet. “Last month.” The 23rd of August.

“So she’s asking for you?”

“In that ad, I believe so yes.”

“Right.” Jeanne twisted round to her front door with every intention to disappear, then popped back round expelling an exaggerated sigh. “Hm.” Jeanne raked a hand back through her hair. “Gosh, little man. You’ve done it. You’ve worn me down.”

Daniel didn’t believe her for a second. He’d weathered too many of her jokes already.

“She never left.”

“What?” The tide of the conversation had shifted but not in the direction that Daniel had thought it would. He didn't know if it was the nicotine rushing his system or the woman’s suddenly stony expression, but Daniel knew the game was over. “Never left what?”

“Where she’s already been.” Fingers jammed into the pockets of her overalls, Jeanne finally turned back to the front door. “Good luck!” Then she threw open the screen, entered, and left the door to snap shut behind her as though the woman couldn’t be bothered to shut it herself.  

 

-

 

The digital letters of Chay Emerson’s address glared up at Daniel from her profile page, swimming in and out of the glare of his laptop screen: 312 West Seymour Street. It had always been there, within the reach of his fingertips.

Clearly Chay Emerson wasn’t a woman concerned with security as she hadn’t enabled a single privacy setting on any of her online accounts. He hadn’t even needed her to accept his friend request on Facebook in order to view her recent activity, which was next to nothing since last fall’s storm of posts to her wall after news of the accident broke on Philly Local: from the generic Get well soon! and I’ll be praying for you to RIP messages from some individuals Daniel chose to believe were simply misinformed. Daniel had even set Chay’s profile page as his home screen in order to check for any updates, only she hadn’t so much as liked a photo or posted a status since college. But every time he opened a new tab there was the happy, doughy-cheeked twenty-seven year old Chay Emerson of a year ago to inspire him, ecstatically looking up at the camera with a red velvet cupcake in one hand and the neck of a bottle of red wine in the other.

It was too easy, finding her address. He’d seen it before, after all. The very first thing he’d done at the beginning of his search for Chay was call the home number listed right beneath the address. He’d even called her old work pretending to be an inherence agency to get her most recent contact information only to find both phone numbers had been disconnected. He’d driven to the house and stared up at its stone porch from within his rental car. He’d done just about everything except ring her doorbell. It hadn’t occurred to him to try after one of Chay’s well-wishers told him that Chay had been committed, her roommate moved in with a boyfriend and the apartment left abandoned until the lease expired.

Despite knowing exactly where his next move would take him, Daniel did not jump into his car heart-pounding, tires-screeching onto the highway. No, instead Daniel returned to his hotel�"he had one last night on his reservation already paid for after all. Snug in the room that had become the command center of all things Chay Emerson, and consuming cup after cup of instant ramen, Daniel decided not re-watch the news segments about Chay Emerson on late night Fox News or Dr. Rhawn on The Doctor’s talk show discussing the risk of driving under the influence and the degeneration of America youth. He did not call to follow up with any of his interviewees or read through his transcript notes. No, Daniel sat in his hotel room and marathoned Family Feud until the sun came up again.

Tomorrow was Tuesday. Yet somehow Daniel knew Chay Emerson would be home.

He wished the drive up to Germantown had been more eventful, that he had blown a tire, or that there’d been a massive rainstorm that morning just to enhance the experience. But he had no such luck.

Finally, cap tugged low over his eyes and taking the last concrete step up onto her porch, Daniel’s moment had come. He saw his hand reach forward and�"before he lost his nerve�"ring the doorbell. Two minutes later Daniel rang it again. Trying not to be impatient. Trying not to throw up.

At long, long last there was the tender sound of feet on the stairs and the blissful clunk of the lock being unlatched before the door shuddered open.

The face that appeared between the taut chain of the door was pale against the wood with one round eye blinking in the sunshine. Daniel froze, like that eye was the owl and he its mousy prey.

“Can I help you?” The voice was papery in substance, sliding through the door like a secret note.

“Hello. Are you Chay Emerson?” She was. She was. Daniel knew it.

The woman blinked yet the lid did not appear to bring any moisture to the glass of her eye. “Yes.”

Words controlled and tone even, the complete antithesis of his gut, Daniel said, “I was hoping we could talk.”

The woman’s bug-eyed stare continued. Did she recognize him? Did she realize why he was there? The longer he stood at the door, the more it seemed like the room beyond her was breathing. The air that escaped from the apartment was strangely moist for early fall and had a sour odor.

“I’m sorry.” The chain slackened as the door moved to a close just before Daniel’s foot dropped into its path.

“Wait, please!” Daniel blurted. He wiped the cap off his head so fast his forehead burned. “It’s me, Daniel Kim, remember?”

The edge of the door paused an inch from closing. He could just make out the slim bump of her wrist through the remaining gap.

“I saw it and I knew it was from you.” For the second time in two days, out came the wallet, falling from his pocket, the velvet-soft newspaper lifted up to the sun, not that Daniel needed to look at the clipping to know what it said: “‘Three years past, how you turn my world, you precious thing. Come home and save me.’” Daniel felt the beginnings of a laugh bubbling up in his throat even as the impulse confused him. “No name on the advertisement, obviously but I knew it was you.”

“Daniel Kim…” She was trying out his name, rolling it over on her tongue.

Daniel waited, knowing that he and the fate of his breakfast were completely at her mercy.

There was a dry sound�"it might have been a gasp, it might have been a sigh, or simply her palm scraping on the door handle; it didn’t matter. The next sound Daniel heard was the chain dropping from the latch and the creak of the hinges as the door opened.

 

-

 

The shape of Chay changed with each step she took, fluttering in the stale air as she climbed the steep stair to her second story apartment. At the top of the stairwell, Daniel nearly tripped over the heap of newspapers strewn untidily by the doorway.

Her apartment was a monument to squalor, a treasure trove of things in every possible interpretation of the word. Every surface was so occupied that Daniel could not find a piece of floor to step on as he entered. Piles of Chay’s possessions teetered against every wall, and the apartment’s smell clung to Daniel’s nose, an amalgam of scents from every possible source�"pizza boxes, moth balls, air fresheners, dryer sheets, fast food, window cleaner. There seemed to be some order under the appearance of chaos as one pile near to Daniel’s right was exclusively made up of McDonald’s breakfast sandwich wrappers. Another by the door held only the McDonald’s takeout bags.

“So. This is where you live,” Daniel said without breath. As he watched Chay walk across the room that he realized the woman wasn’t wearing a bra by the wiggle of her chest. The paunch of her stomach also pressed tight against the fabric of her pale green tank top.

Chay took a seat on a chunky coffee table that had a socks piled up underneath it. In answer to Daniel’s question, she said, “Yes. How can I help you, Daniel Kim?”

Daniel sat on the blue-and-white-striped couch, and the cushion crunched beneath his weight. She might have been a doll replica of the Chay Emerson of from his memories, made from the plastic of her eyes and dressed in the fabric of her skin, but not impossible to recognize. “Thanks for letting me in. I hope you don’t mind that I’m here.”

Chay’s head bobbed politely. “Why would I mind?”

Daniel noted how her eyes followed the passage of his hand through the air as he placed it on the stack of unopened bills between them.  “I’m so sorry. To hear about your accident.” Even as he said it, he was reminded of the endless stream of sentiments posted to her Facebook wall. No, he wasn’t like them. His words weren’t empty. After all, he was here, wasn’t he? “I didn’t even know you were injured until after I saw the ad and tried to find you.”

If possible, Chay’s smile grew.

Daniel breathed because he was afraid he'd forget to. Maybe it would be better for him to start with something lighter. “What have you been doing?” he asked, eyeing falling on the fast food containers.

Chay’s head rolled onto her left shoulder and she shrugged. “Reading.”

“Doesn’t anyone come to visit you?" He thought of Jeanne, how it had been next to impossible to get her to talk. Had Jeanne ever lowered herself to come here, to see Chay with her own eyes? Daniel’s gut clenched against the anger, stowing it for later use.  

The line of Chay’s mouth bent, forced into a shape that was alien to the rest of her face. “You did.”

Daniel felt like he had just touched a live wire and its current was coursing through him, tingling and destructive. “I can help you clean your house, if you like,” he suggested, his eagerness mounting. “It should be pretty easy once we remove most of the trash.”

Chay’s head turned away from him towards the window and in the glow of sunlight filtering in through the pale blue curtain, her eyes suddenly turned startlingly green.

Daniel’s eyes caught on Chay’s hair. What had been dark when he’d first known it had since been bleached, or perhaps this pale yellow was her real hair color. Daniel didn’t know why he hadn’t noticed it sooner, how her curls were so conspicuously gathered on one side of her head. He found himself watching that wall of hair, expecting it to shift like curtain before a premiere. After all he’d seen the hospital photos, he knew that beneath that tangled mass was the evidence of her accident. For one intense moment Daniel believed that everyone in the world had seen the scars from her head injury except for him. Even above Jeanne hypocritical stubbornness, this seemed the greatest injustice of all. After all he’d been through to get here, after he’d been called by Chay personally, he deserved to see it.

Daniel wiped his hands on his jeans because he suddenly found them moist in the trapped air of the apartment. “I should have looked for you sooner. But I didn’t know what to do. I didn’t have your phone number or even your last name until we received that ad to the Inquirer. I never forgot about that night though even after three years, I couldn’t. I just didn’t know how to get back to you.”

“That’s OK,” Chay answered. She was still smiling but her expression had crumpled.

“It’s not.” Daniel pressed, “I thought about you all the time. The night we had�"I was so young, I probably seemed like a complete idiot to you.”

Despite her grinning face, Chay’s eyes dragged into a void that existed between them. “It’s nothing, David. I don’t�"”

David? “No, you have nothing to be sorry about,” Daniel told her seriously. “You’ve�"” Daniel swallowed. “I know I missed out on most of your recovery, but I can help you now. I’ll take you to all your appointments, I’ll keep the house clean.”

“Please,” Chay interrupted. Her shoulders rolled in, there was a shake of her head that kept on going, swinging from side to side. “I think you should go.”

“�"go?” Daniel’s mouth was still open. The rest of the sentence he had just worked up the nerves to say was still waiting at back in his throat. “Ok, I can take it slow. I can work with that. The fact that you remembered me, of all people�"”

“No.” Enraptured in the window, Chay was still turned away from him. “I’m waiting for someone else.”

Daniel stared at her, his brain moved like it was wadding through sludge. “Your ad was for me. I’m the one you’re waiting for.”

Chay did not answer, the lips of her mouth wide and stretched.

“We�"you�"you sent the ad to my newspaper. You had to know I worked there. Didn’t you?” Everything was too dry.

“There’s been a mistake.”

Daniel’s hesitation held him captive. Try as he might to continue, he could not find the words. He wanted to ask how�"no, it had to be him. It just had to be. It had been three years ago when they’d met, three years ago was their night. And she’d called him “you precious thing”�" like in the ad�"three years ago when they grappled together in the backseat of his mom’s van and when she hissed in his ear, “Don’t make me go. Save me a little longer, you precious thing.” He remembered her smeared eye makeup and the cool touch of her lip stud as it slid over his chin when they kissed. The ad was for him!

Drowning in garbage, fighting for control over his reeling brain, Daniel suddenly saw it. And when he did the current of electricity riveting through his veins froze. He lifted himself up off of the couch and leaned forward. Chay did not try to avoid his hand as he reached above the greasy locks of her hair to pluck out the cigarette that had been resting behind her ear.

Returned to the couch, Daniel held the lone cigarette in front of his face. It was old. The paper had gone soft after so much handling, yet it had never been lit.

“But you smoke,” Daniel said.

Still sideways to him, mouth ajar, Chay shook her head.

“That was the first cigarette I’d ever had. And it was yours. You must�"”

No, Chay didn’t smoke. But someone else did. Someone whose cigarette she had never let go.

Hypnotized by this flimsy trinket, Daniel looked back at his journey and felt sick. He’d missed it all. Everything, or at least, everything that mattered.  Like the very earth had been yanked out from under him, like a cosmic kid pulling off the ultimate prank. The pounding in his head must have the universe laughing at his expense.

“I’m sorry.”

Daniel was so startled to hear her speak, he almost dropped her precious cigarette on the floor. When he met Chay’s stare it was to see her eyes as round as marbles.

Strangely, the only thing Daniel wanted to do in the whole, wide world was smoke.

Chay’s eyes stuck to his face even as Daniel placed her cigarette on the stack of bills between them. Daniel took the stairs, trotted down to the bottom floor, and left the house without another word. Even outside, he felt her mad eyes rolling after him, down the stone porch, into the sun-speckled driveway.

The next thing Daniel knew, he was sitting in his rental car, smoking with all the windows rolled up until the inside of the vehicle had filled with a grey fog that seeped into every corner of the upholstery. Security deposits be dammed.

 

-

 

Jeanne was home. Daniel shouldn’t have been surprised even if it was 12:30pm on a Tuesday. But then, he’d been wrong before.

“You said you didn’t smoke,” Daniel accused.

“Good god!” Jeanne looked down at her hand where a lit cigarette was clenched between her two fingers, mouth slack in mock horror. “How’d that get there?”

Daniel didn’t know how to handle her sarcasm. He’d just gotten used to her anger. It looked like Jeanne hadn’t slept in the twenty-four hours since they had last spoke. She was wearing yet another pair of overalls that were as equally splattered with paint as her last pair. Daniel hadn’t thought it was possible for a person to own more than one. “I saw Chay.”

“Did you?” Jeanne stated before aggressively inhaling from her cigarette.

“I just thought you’d want to know,” Daniel said, “That she's, ah...”

“Yeah.” Jeanne’s jaw locked. Despite the crisp chill in the air, she pushed open the screen door and stepped out onto the porch, careful to avoid the paint cans and plastic sheeting that might mess up her racecar slippers.

She must have been freezing but she sat on the chipped wooden railing anyway, bringing her down almost to Daniel’s height. Unbidden, she extended a pack of Camels and a Zippo across the space between them. Daniel took the offering but felt no inclination to smoke. His throat was still raw from finishing off his pack in the car.

"The last big fight we had before she went and crashed herself was about me smoking in the house," Jeanne explained, looking out at her frosty driveway and brown lawn. "She actually took off the ring and threw it in my face. Just like in the movies, can you believe it?” She smiled in the worst kind of way.

Daniel buried his hands into the pockets of his coat, angry that he felt like he was imposing on Jeanne’s memory of Chay. Her Chay. “You knew the ad Chay placed in the Inquirer was meant for you, and you sent me over there anyway.”

“Yes.” Her eyes slid, looking sideways at him. “I’m sorry.”

Daniel wanted her apology to mean nothing to him, he wanted to throw it back in her face. But what Daniel wanted and what he needed were two different things now. And he laughed as he dragged a hand down his face and said, "I don’t know what the hell I’m doing here."

Impossibly, Jeanne brightened. "In my defense, you can't expect a lady who's trying to quit to be clear headed when you light up in front of her like that.”

Daniel couldn’t help himself. “How did you know?”

Jeanne lifted her shoulders. “‘How you turn my world, you precious thing’? Come on, it’s from Labyrinth. You know, the movie?” Then added softer, “Girl loved her some David Bowie once upon a time.”

The downward spiral that was Daniel depression hit another bend. He thought back to the Chay of his past. Of the coy and giggling woman who’d bought sixteen-year-old Daniel cigarettes and beer, huddled with him in the parking lot of the movie theater where she’d picked him up, telling him to breathe in and hold it until his throat burned. Had he smoked the whole pack himself? He’d been too drunk to remember. Had she bought the cigarettes for him just to make him smoke, just to make him smell like Jeanne? He remembered Chay tasting like beer, he remembered coming inside her like it was his last act on earth. All the while she was thinking of her own “precious thing.”

They were on eye-level with each other now, Jeanne and Daniel. And when Jeanne’s stared drifted back over to the door and the paint supplies that were stacked up against the wall of the house, Daniel had a perfect view of a second cigarette that she had left perched behind her ear.

“Here.” The cigarette hanging from her lips trailed a thread of smoke through the air as Jeanne bent to pick up a paintbrush then tossed it to Daniel. It hadn’t been washed out since its last use and the bristles were a solid glued mass. “Go crazy.”

Daniel fumbled with the brush. “What?”

But Jeanne was already reaching for a flathead screwdriver to open one of the paint cans. “You might as well make yourself useful while you’re here.”

“What about Chay?”

Jeanne picked at the dried paint on the head of the screwdriver. “What about her?”

Daniel still felt the odor of Chay’s apartment like lead on his clothes. “You have to get her out of that house. You’re the only one that can.”

Jeanne lifted one yellow T-shirt covered shoulder. “It doesn’t matter.”

“It doesn’t matter?” Daniel lost his breath he was so furious. “Wh-what do you mean it doesn’t matter? Why don’t you go over there and make her listen to you? Why haven’t you dragged her out of that house and put her somewhere where she can get help?”

Thunk�"Jeanne stabbed the point of the screwdriver into the seal between the paint can at its lid, making Daniel start. And she glared at Daniel incredulously when she said, “You think I haven’t?”

 Jeanne wrenched the screwdriver free. “I put her somewhere alright and she ran from it. Moved her into my house, she left. She went back to that hole of an apartment, locked the door, and dumped her savings on As-Seen-On-TV crap and�"apparently�"cryptic, useless newspaper ads!” Jeanne stood, raking back her hair back from her face again, drawing the cigarette from her lips, and exhaling a huge cloud of smoke up into the air. “She doesn’t need to trick me into going over there. I haven’t moved, Daniel. She has my number. She has the fingers to use it.”

The woman standing opposite to him was not the impish and defiant woman he’d grown to know over the last couple of days. This woman was worn thin, exhausted all the way.

Daniel dug up the last of his self-worth and said, “There has to be something else you can do.”

Jeanne swerved back to the house, eyes at the ground, point of the screwdriver pressed into the heel of the opposite hand. “This, where she is�"how she lives now, this is what she wants.”

Daniel shook his head, uncomprehending. “That’s not living.”

Jeanne’s expression was so tender just then that Daniel felt a fresh wave of guilt bowled him over. “That’s up to her. She’ll either get herself out of it or she won’t.”

Daniel’s head hung down from his neck, manically trying to bury his stare into the wooden boards of the porch. Dismantled as he felt, Daniel nevertheless believed he knew Chay Emerson better now than when she was a specter of his past. He hadn’t fathomed someone like Jeanne could even be a part of her life. If Chay had found someone who cared that much for her, why wouldn’t she do anything and everything she could to make herself better? If not for herself, then for Jeanne? 

“So. Remodel?”

The woman’s question was so simple that it jarred Daniel right out of his stupor.

“I figure, as long as I don’t take out any of the outside walls, I should survive the winter,” Jeanne reasoned, smacking the side of the house with rough affection. Amused by Daniel’s deepening confusion, Jeanne grinned as she stooped to peel the bottom of paint can off the plastic tarp. “The porch needs a second coat. You in?”

Daniel felt like he was still trying to catch up to her. “Aren’t you cold?”

“Not as long as I keep moving.” She held out the can for Daniel to take.

Daniel didn’t know what he was doing. He should probably go home or back to work. He should call his parents and tell them that he loved them. He should drive his rental car out of the state and just keep driving until he could no longer feel the acid eating away at his stomach.

Instead, he accepted the paint from the impervious Jeanne and, throat closed too tight for speech, moved to the unfinished wall of her house.

Author's Note

A little deviation from the normal I hope. Feedback is always appreciated. Thank you, thank you, thank you!