Every Little Thing Read online

  One night, Allie couldn’t make it. A baby shower. And the phone rang that night. Two rings, Cohen answered, and someone hung up. Five minutes later it rang again. It was Matt.

  “Cohen?”

  “No, it’s Allie.”

  “Har har. Listen, what are you doing for supper? I know Allie is out, but I figure you gotta eat something anyway. I got the pasta maker out, and I have some Bocconcini, straight from Italy, the package says, for my tomato-basil salad. You’d have to be quite a fool to say no and miss out, but hey, some people are fools. And I thought we could crack out that chess board you admired that time?”

  “I can be there in fifteen?”

  “Take your time. I’ll be another twenty minutes slaving over this. Bring some red wine, of course.”

  “Okay.”

  “Grab a...I dunno. Something Italian.”

  “I’ll go all out. I’ve had my eye on a pricy Barolo for some time now.”

  “Yes. Yes that’ll do it.”

  FROM THAT NIGHT on, Cohen never declined an invite from Matt to a game of chess or a visit to check out a new gadget he’d ordered: a homemade ice-cream maker or a new digital camera. There’s no film. I don’t even understand. Come over and check it out.

  I read about them on Canon’s website while I was looking for a new telescope. They’re calling them digital cameras! It was Canon’s first model on the market. He was probably the first one to own one.

  If Cohen had plans with someone on a day Matt called, they’d always understood why Cohen would break those plans, to fill Matt’s loneliest moments. Especially Allie. Cohen had adopted Matt’s interests, one by one, to spend time with him. He’d feigned the interest, as a rule—golf, Scrabble,Roman Polan-ski films—but more than once he’d actually come to like some of Matt’s hobbies, like astronomy.

  Through Matt’s casual, backyard lectures about astronomy, the night sky was becoming a nightly show. Most people looked up and saw the same thing every night—a moon, stars—but it only took a couple of nights with Matt to see something more. That the world looked like a different place every couple of days. And a man like Matt needed to see that, and feel that way. To separate the days. Matt thought maybe he was teaching Cohen about astronomy, but Matt was really teaching him about love. That love was the dent you’d put in someone’s life if you left them behind. And Cohen could only hope, in thirty years, that he’d miss Allie, the way Matt missed Kristen, if Allie died of cancer too, thirty years from now.

  They’d sip beers and chat, and Cohen got it now, astronomy, and why people gave a shit about the stars. How every night was different if you’d just look up. So they’d look up at named patterns in the sky, constellations that were there some nights and not there others.

  “The stars are like a million bright mysteries, you know, because no one agrees on how the things even form. Some nights I come out here,”he’d told Cohen one night, “and I can get so lost in the stars that I forget I’m even rooted in the world. Does that sound crazy? A grown man like me, lying on his picnic table and looking up at the sky?”

  “No. That’s what a hobby is, isn’t it?”

  “No. A hobby is an interest; a way to waste time or relax. This is something more. For people like me, it’s an exercise in longing. Or proof there’s…something more.”

  For people like me?

  “Some of the stories behind these constellations are half-interesting,” he’d told Cohen one night, drunk, lying on that picnic table. “The Greeks say that Gaia sent a scorpion to kill Orion, after Orion tried to force himself on her, and now, at the times when the Scorpio constellation shines the brightest in the sky, the Orion constellation is the dimmest it gets. It shines less brightly. Like Scorpio is jabbing the bastard full of poison.”

  Cohen pulled the lever on his lawn chair. Leaned back. Took the sky in. “So, what else we got up there tonight, Matt?”

  “Cancer. And Lynx too. But those are harder to see. Especially Lynx. It’s one of the faintest constellations. Hevelius named it. He named it Lynx because you’d need a lynx’s eye to see it.”

  “Well, bring on the Cancer then, point it out!”And Cohen’s enthusiasm snagged on that word. Cancer. Kristen had been dead for years now, but Matt clearly had no intention of replacing her absence with another woman—just stars and telescopes and gadgets he didn’t need.

  “Cancer means crab, in Latin or Greek or whatever, right?” Cohen stepped up to the telescope. “Am I looking for a crab?”

  “Well, no, just pincers, actually. Just the crab’s claw. And it’s more like a tuning fork, really.”

  “Oh, c’mon!” he teased, “first Leo looks more like a lollipop than a lion, and now this? All these constellations a rip-off?” and Matt threw an astronomy book at him, both of them laughing.

  He liked Matt right from the start. Right from the day Matt had turned that reporter away, the week Ryan had drowned.

  A

  BROKEN WING

  THE DAY OF Cohen and Allie’s fifth-year anniversary, Cohen’s parents had him, Allie, and Matt over for an afternoon barbecue. Matt saw it as the right time to try out the mesquite he’d ordered from channel four one night. He showed up waving the bag of mesquite, a big grin on his face, I thought we’d try this, to spice up the chicken?

  He’d not read the directions and threw too many sticks in the grill. A cloud of smoke, too thick to see through, billowed up from the barbecue and clawed at his eyes. He ran from the thing like it was an angry beehive, and his eyes were red as boiled lobsters. They were spilling water, like cracked aquariums.

  The smell was too much for Cohen’s mother. She excused herself, breathing only through her mouth, so that the pitch of her voice was weird, claiming that she had to add a few dressings to the salads. Her salads were restaurant quality. They always were. She had a thing forThai cuisine—peanut sauces, sesame seeds, and the texture that coconut milk imparted on meats. Allie had always left with her recipes. His mother loved that. As they’d put on their shoes before leaving, she’d ask, You got your recipes, Allie? and Allie would tap her pocket, say yes, and Cohen would watch his mother nod, beaming a smile. See how much she likes my cooking?

  Matt’s overly mesquite chicken tasted like a mouthful of forest floor. “Well, I had to try it once, just to see?”

  A round of laughter before his mother interjected. “A toast to the cutest couple in town, on their fifth anniversary!” She ran a hand through Cohen’s hair before resting it on his shoulder. Five cups clinking together, not one of them the same: a glass of white wine, a glass of red wine, a beer bottle, a bottle of water, and a can of ginger ale.

  There was the toast, and then there were the questions, right away, a blitzkrieg. A guillotine of a statement. “So. You’re both thirty now. You’ve been together five long years.”

  Allie raised an eyebrow, and shrugged one shoulder. Yer point?

  Matt chimed in. “Any talk of wedding bells and children?”

  Cohen’s father, “Because no one has ever gotten any younger. No one.”

  Allie dove headfirst into the question. “Of course, yes, it’s just, there’s an order things go in. Career, house, wedding, baby number one. I mean, we need to do Europe first, while we can, and...”

  They were all exchanging smirks as Allie talked, to mock her need for order and having the next five years all charted out in daily planners. It was a running joke. Cohen and Matt apologized every Christmas Day that neither of them could find daily planners for years beyond the coming year. Can you believe they won’t make a 2005 daily planner until late 2004! I mean, what about people who are thinking 2005 in 2003? One year, 2003, Cohen and Matt got together and handmade her a 2006 agenda for a joke.

  “...babies are expensive, hence wanting the student loans and car paid off. And how many parents can flee to Europe, backpacking it for a month?...”

  But Cohen’s eyes were on Matt now. As his daughter talked about her future, Matt shifted uncomfortably. Not awkwardly— he wa
s smiling and laughing along, louder than anyone else—but uncomfortably. Someone would have to have known Matt, as well as Cohen had, to see the fidgeting. It was like a lie was trapped in his body and bouncing around in there. Creaking in his skin. Itching. The further into her future Allie got, in explaining why they weren’t married yet, the more Matt’s face tightened, and the more he stretched his toes up, off his sandals, and plunked them back down, over and over, like he did whenever he talked about his dead wife. Cohen looked at Allie, to draw her attention to her father’s odd postures, but she wouldn’t have noticed it anyway. She saw what she wanted to see.

  Later that day, Matt was waiting outside the washroom when Cohen came out. He put a hand on his shoulder, his warm breath smelled like peanuts, and he whispered. “This is the engagement ring I gave Kristen.”

  He was being secretive, occasionally looking over his shoulder as he uttered, “It would mean a lot to Allie, I think. Though maybe she’ll want her own, something more fashionable or contemporary or whatever, but I—”

  “My God, no. She’ll love it! She will. She’s already said she wants one just like it, honestly. This ring is right up Allie’s alley. Very thoughtful of you—”

  “Yes, well...she’ll recognize the ring without you having to tell her. I know that much. When Allie was eight or nine, she used to steal her mother’s engagement ring, this one,” Matt looked at it in his hand,“off our dresser. She’d tuck tissues between her bony little finger and the ring so it’d stayed in place. She’d wrap herself up in silk scarves and pretend she was a princess. Had a name for herself. Delilah, or Danine or something.”He got lost in thought and looked a little upset that he couldn’t be sure of the name. “I thought I’d give you the option of giving her this one, instead of buying one.”

  “No, this is great, saves me a few grand!”He laughed. He laughed the way men do, to water down emotion in a sentimental conversation. And normally Matt would have laughed at his comment. Instead he laid the ring in Cohen’s open hand, tossed it there really, and turned to walk down the hall.

  Cohen speed walked after him. “Matt, wait up? You know that was a joke, right?This will mean the world to Allie, and it means a lot to me you’ve put this ring in my hand.”

  When Matt turned around, he was more himself again already. Just like that. Smiling. “Yes,well, it’s great you think she’ll like this ring.”

  Cohen said, like he’d seen a ghost, “Of course, Matt. Of course.”

  Matt kept walking down the hall, towards the patio door.

  Cohen watched Matt through the open blinds, as he put his hands on Allie’s shoulders. He stood behind her, re-joining the boisterous conversation. Allie making his parents laugh, slap the table. They loved her as much as Cohen did.

  Allie put her hands on Matt’s hands and turned to look up at him. “Tea or Coffee,Dad?”She nodded to the kettle and coffee carafe on the table.

  Cohen’s cellphone went off in his pocket. He jumped in fright, before realizing it was just his phone. Everyone turned and looked at him. Standing there in the window like a stranger.

  It was Lee on the phone. For a man his age, his voice could rattle and boom in a way you had to brace yourself for. Cohen wasn’t ready for it, so he let it ring a few times, taking a deep breath, like he was getting ready for a marathon run. Lee would call Allie, once a week, to hit her up for more photos, and Allie wouldn’t need to put him on speaker phone for Cohen to hear him from across the room. His deep voice busting out of the receiver as if it were his own bullhorn. You’re my hot seller thisweek!I’m fresh out of your photos. The table’s scant, can’t have it! Allie would always offer to bring out a month’s worth, but Lee liked seeing her, and she him, so there were weekend runs, and Cohen often joined them. They’d eat lunch, insult each other, laugh.

  His phone had rung five times, as he stared at Lee’s flashing number, and his father shouted,“You gonna answer that or what!”

  He pointed to the phone, shouted through the window. “It’s Lee!”

  A collective Oh! from the table. Understanding laughter. Allie looking at him, laughing, but watching to make sure he’d answer. Her eyes had always gone soft for Lee—her vintage war vet BFF, fifty years her elder—and he loved her for it.

  “Hello?”

  “Cohen. It’s L-Lee. Need your help.”

  “What, you? You don’t say!”

  “I’m serious, and this favour’s not optional! I have a bird. It’s been shot. In the wing. But survived. A murre.” There were sounds of panic going off in the background, like thumping and helicopter blades. “I found the sucker washed ashore on the beach. Like a wrecked ship. I scooped it up. How soon can you come? Jesus!”

  “What?”

  “It’s poking at me!”

  “No, I mean What, like, are you serious!”

  “I figured you’d know where to bring the poor thing? Hold on a sec!” Lee covered the receiver with the palm of his hand. Everything sounded muffled. He heard, Calm down you stubborn bitch, or I’ll break your other wing! and then the scratches and muffling were gone and Lee was back. “It’s in my bathtub. I just tossed it in my bathtub and ran for my life! One minute, it’s calm as anything, the next it’s trying to bust through the walls. I dunno what to do here! Bring some sedatives and take this psychotic bastard away!”

  “It’s Sunday! I’m at my parents’ place, with Allie, we’re—”

  “Try telling the bird that. The fucker is the size of a penguin, and it’s all riled up and scaring the shit out of me. Have you ever heard one of these things agitated? It sounds more like dog—”

  “And it’s not like. You don’t get it. Every time you call. It’s not like I can just go and steal sedatives from my employer’s lab every time you rescue—”

  “Fuck ya then! And hang on a sec, I’m going back in...”

  There were more sounds of struggle, like Lee was choking the bird: it squealed like a gull and then growled like a cat, and then Lee hung up. He hung up knowing Cohen would come deal with it. Like he’d dealt with it the last two times this happened. The last time, a few weeks before this call, the bird, a boreal owl, was lying dead in Lee’s tub by the time he got there. It had been attacked by some hiker’s dog,Lee figured, and he convinced Cohen to bury it out back. I’m too old to be out digging in that half-frozen earth. You came all the way out here, he handed him a shovel, Make yourself useful!

  So Cohen went to help Lee, again. He rang the doorbell and heard Lee stumbling towards him. Cursing and swearing and kicking things out of his way. “Coming!”

  He opened the door with a panicked but playful grin on his face. “Well, thank Jesus you’re here!”He had the bird tucked under his left armpit so it couldn’t get free. “Jab the bastard, quick!”He turned his head away as he stuck the bird out towards Cohen.

  “Lee. Relax. There’s no jabbing, no needle.”He showed him a capsule in his hand.

  “What’s...are you kidding me? No needle? You brought pills?”

  “I brought sodium amobarbital. It’s enough to knock out a duck, and I’m hoping it’ll do the trick here.”

  “Hoping?”

  “Just. Take the bird back into the bathroom. Lay it down. It’s freaking out because you’re handling it. You’ve got your goddamn arm around its neck. What do you expect?”

  “It bites when I let go!What do you expect?”

  Laughing, “I grabbed some feed. I’m gonna lace the feed. Go put the damn bird back in the bathroom. We’ll lock it in there with the drugged feed. It’ll eventually eat it. I hope. And the drugs take about fifteen minutes—”

  “You hope?” Shaking his head. “You should’ve brought a needle-administered drug. Something we could’ve jabbed it with. Get the job done.”He stabbed an imaginary knife into the bird’s neck, to emphasize how easy it would’ve been.

  “Lee...that’s not how it works. And I’ll probably get in shit for taking what I took from the lab, by the way. It’s not even legal, really, what we’re up
to here. These are controlled substances. I have no legal right to have this on me. Do you get that? I have stolen a controlled substance, and you’re pretty well strangling an injured bird. We’re up to no good here.”

  “What do you mean, up to no good! I’m saving a poor fucking animal’s life here!” Lee looked down at the bird and laughed a little. “You’re a good man to have come. Sorry I ruined your—”The bird started jerking around under Lee’s arm again, yelping, sounding more like a growling cat than a bird. It swung its neck back and plunged its beak into Lee’s belly. Lee winced like he’d been shanked. “See! See that! One minute it’s fine, the next it’s a madman! Go! Do your thing!”

  “Sorry you ruined my what? My five-year anniversary?”

  “No I didn’t, did I?”He was running off to the bathroom, cradling the panicked bird. “Drug the food! Get to it!”And then he stopped and turned around, stopped walking. “Is this son of a bitch gonna attack me when I let go of it, to lay it in the tub?”

  “I dunno, but it’s not like you can keep it in your arms forever, right?”

  COHEN DISSOLVED THE sodium amobarbital in water, mixed it in with the grainy feed, and laid the bait in the bathroom, hoping it wasn’t too much sedative. He wasn’t going to bury another bird in Lee’s backyard. Two was enough. Three would be an unsanctified graveyard.

  When he came back into the kitchen,Lee was buckled over in pain and leaning against a wall: one palm flat against it, the other arm dangling like it didn’t know where to be. And then that arm clutched his back, like a ghost had swung a baseball bat. He steadied himself. “Been getting these quick blasts of pain in my back. Brutal. I’m falling apart. You want a cup of tea?”

  “Lee, I don’t know about that.”

  “What? Tea? The bird’s going to be a while isn’t it—”

  “No, the random back pain.”

  “I’m eighty-odd-years old. I’m lucky I’m not senile and pissing myself.”