Brock for Broglio

He carefully sawed away the excess leather of the tire plug. He wiped the black muck off the blade with his thumb and closed the pocket knife. He placed his palm on the tire but could not feel any of the cool air escaping.

“Evan, what are you doing?”

She was using the agitated whisper she employed to save face when others were nearby.

He stood, slipped the knife in his pocket, and smiled at his approaching father-in-law. Randal was trailing a few steps behind.

“Here,” Carrie whispered, handing Evan the covered dish and swatting a few times at the stain of dirt now on the knee of the blue jeans she had ironed two hours earlier. “Why didn’t you put down a towel or something?”

“I didn’t think to bring my own, dear. I thought they’d pack one with my tire repair kit.”

She shot him a warning glare before whirling to smile at her father.

“I made your favorite, daddy.”

“Oh, you don’t mean chocolate cake with strawberry icing?” Dick asked.

She nodded.

“Your mother’s recipe?”

“Of course, but I don’t think it will be as good as hers was.”

Evan played his role in this production that introduced every visit, which was to smile and hold the cake.

“Well, go on in and see your cousin. I want to check this tire.”

“You don’t need to, Dick,” Evan said. “I just checked it.”

Dick smirked at Randal.

Carrie looked at Evan and mouthed the words, be nice, before crossing the yard to go inside. Evan decided to interrupt Randal’s admiration of Carrie’s yoga pants.

“How’s the baby?”

“Oh, good. Everything looks good,” Randal nodded. “Sarah has those sonogram pictures in the house. She’ll be waiting by the door to show you. She’s been showing them around everywhere.”

“This ain’t gonna hold,” Dick said, down on one knee. “You haven’t ever plugged a tire before?”

“About half a dozen a day for those three years I worked at the garage,” Evan said as politely as he could manage. “It’ll hold.”

“Randal,” Dick said, ignoring Evan.

“Yes, sir.”

“Run and get that tube of sealant I’ve got in the shed. Might be in the red toolbox. I’ll pack it around that plug and see if it’ll hold until Brian gets in at his shop at ten.”

Randal gave a nod and was off to the backyard.

“Yeah, you cut it down too close.”

“Don’t pull on it, Dick. It should be fine if it’s left alone.”

Dick stood with a groan, straightening slowly.

“Well, you go on and carry my cake in the house. Have the girls show you the baby pictures and Randal and me’ll be inside directly.”

Evan smiled with clenched jaws and did as he was told.

“That’s his head here,” Sarah explained to Carrie, tracing the outline with her finger. “And I guess that’s his little thing there. I can’t really tell much from it, but she said she’s sure it’s a boy.”

“I’m so happy for you,” Carrie smiled, putting an arm around her shoulders.

They heard Evan slide the covered pan onto the kitchen table and turned.

“Honey, come look at the picture,” Carrie said, waving him over.

“I heard it was a boy.”

Sarah nodded and traced the outline of the head again.

“Well, Carrie,” Evan asked. “Did you share our good news?”

Carrie’s smile dropped.

“What news?” Sarah asked, looking from one to the other. “You don’t mean you two…”

“Tell her,” Evan urged. “She’s family. I think she should know.”

Carrie put on a smile. “Yes, we just found out I’m pregnant.”

“Oh, my goodness!”

Sarah nearly knocked Carrie over in her excitement.

“We weren’t going to tell anyone yet.”

“Oh, I’ll keep the secret. How far along?”

“Six weeks.”

Carrie gave Evan another glare as Sarah looked down at her fingers to run the math.

“Oh, shoot. I think mine will be one year ahead in school. But they’ll still grow up together just like we did.”

Evan went looking for the only member of the household he cared to converse with - the fourteen-year-old yellow lab who used to answer to Bert back when he could still hear.

He found Bert in his usual corner of the dining room and sat down beside him on the carpet. Bert flopped his tail against the bookcase twice but wasted no other movements to welcome the unexpected guest.

“Yeah, you’ve got it figured out, Bertie-boy,” Evan said, scrubbing his knuckles back-and-forth over the ancient retriever’s head. “Just taking it easy like the Eagles told you to.”

Bert groaned his joy as he smiled with closed eyes.

Evan rested his head back against the wall and started to doze off. All told, he got about three hours sleep the night before, but not three straight hours. He only managed a few minutes more before Carrie’s sharp whisper roused him.

“Why the hell did you do that? We just decided this morning that we weren’t going to say anything until the second trimester.”

“I think you decided that, dear. I don’t remember saying anything at all.”

Evan rubbed his eyes and climbed to his feet.

“I’m the only one who has to say anything. I’m the one who’s pregnant, right?”

“Saying, ‘we’re pregnant’ is popular in some circles.”

“I’m pregnant! And it’s my decision to tell people or not. Now she’s going to spread it around everywhere. I bet a hundred bucks she’ll tell Randal before lunchtime.”

“Who cares if she tells Randal?” Evan asked.

“I can’t believe you did that. You just decide to do whatever the hell you want to and don’t care about anybody else.”

Evan chortled.

Her eyes bulged and she took a deep breath but he touched her cheek before she spoke.

“OK,” he said. “All right. I’ll bet you a hundred dollars if you like, but I think it’s a little silly since we have a joint checking account.”

She let the air out at once, trying to stay angry.

He took her face in his hands and ran his thumbs over her eyebrows. She was surprised and watched him.

“You look tired,” she said.

“I am.”

She stepped closer.

“So, why did you pick that fight last night?” She asked.

He did not answer.

“Do you remember that weekend we went to Saint Louis?” He asked.

“What? Eight or nine years ago?” She asked.

“Seven or eight,” he nodded.

“Yes, I remember. What brought that up?”

“Oh, me and Bert were just talking about it when you came in.”

She smiled.

“Saint Louis was good.”

She raised an eyebrow. “Not bad.”

He wanted to kiss her before the ceasefire passed, so he did.

“It was good,” he repeated.

She nodded and wiped a hand over his lips to dry them.

“Well, I think your dad was right.”

“I’ve never heard you say that in all my life. You must be tired,” she said. “What’s he finally right about?”

“The tire plug. I’m going to head over to Brian’s while it’s still got air. It can go flat in his parking lot while I take a nap.”

She squeezed his hand before letting go.

Bert came to life when he heard the front door open and shambled after Evan, whining.

As the car carried them away, relief washed over both animals on-board. The retriever’s tongue flapped freely, catching the wind from the open window. Evan kept a light hold on the leash as the car slowed, remembering his first dog had a habit of jumping out the window at stop signs to search for new smells. Bert held no interest in such youthful foolishness.

“What do you say, Bertie-boy?” Evan asked, looking down the roads at the neighborhood intersection. “Should we turn back around or forge ahead. I suppose we could take a right. I-44 is about ten miles that way. Shall we make a run for it?”

The car sat until Evan finally noticed a pickup had pulled up behind him. He went straight.

Evan found a parking spot on the edge of the Matteo’s Italian lot, near the grass. He checked the time on his phone and cleared his throat. He dug around in the gym bag in the backseat and pulled out a mostly clean t-shirt and a half empty water bottle. Bert sniffed both before deciding he cared about neither. After wetting a corner of the shirt, Evan tried wiping away the dirt stain on the knee of his blue jeans.

The two got out of the car and walked to the grass. Evan let Bert lead as the retriever considered candidate locations to urinate.

Evan looked toward the restaurant, watching a man hold the door for an exiting family before following his own wife and kids inside.

He pulled the old pocket knife out and looked at the scuffed handle. He found it by chance, not even knowing it had been lost. He had been searching for the remote control the day before. When it could not be found in the couch cushions it occurred to him that he had programmed it to operate the TV in the bedroom as well and expanded his search upstairs. Lying on his belly, his arm buried shoulder-deep between the wall and bed, his groping fingers found the knife.

He held the pocketknife close to his nose, trying to read the engraved initials, remembering finally that they had belonged to Carrie’s grandfather and must have been carved there somewhere in the 1980’s. Maybe ‘70’s.

Evan gave two gentle tugs on the leash and Bert started his slow walk back to the car without protest.

In the gym bag, he found a travel bottle of mouthwash and swished it from one cheek to the other until the burning fought back his sleepiness. Finally, he spat it out onto the cracked asphalt and closed the car door.

He watched the front of the restaurant. People coming. People going.

Going on three hours’ sleep makes time travel a simple trick. Seventeen years becomes a short distance. Memories become something more than the dim little nothings they are in a well-rested mind. Not just a sequence of events, more or less in the correct order. The smells are revived. The colors. The feel of something touched for the first time.

This is where they had parked the car that night. It was the spot she had instructed him to use, the view of it obstructed on one side by a privacy fence and on another by a weeping willow.

His nineteenth birthday spent thinking of nothing but Celia’s bashful promise to give him the gift he had been waiting eight months for without complaint. Each hour took days. Waiting. She would not be off work until 11:30. What if she changed her mind? What if her father Matteo decided not to take the night off and knocked on the window of Evan’s Blazer, asking why the backseat was down. What if he was too fast? What if he was too small? What if he was too soft? What if she laughed? What if she regretted it afterward?

Then the lights in the windows went dark and she stepped out, locking the doors. He rushed out to help her carry her bag.

“Don’t look inside,” Celia had warned. “I’ll seriously be mad if you do.”

Evan had promised not to. He opened the passenger door and handed her things to her once she was inside. He tried to swallow as he walked around the front to get into the driver’s seat but his throat was too dry and it hurt.

“Look it,” she had said. “I made you your favorite cake.”

“Yellow cake with brown icing!” he announced, holding the cupcake carefully.

“Wait, you have to blow out the candle,” she said, digging in the bag.

She held the half-pint of milk she had brought for him, watching him eat. What had she been looking for in him as she reconsidered? He waited to see what she would decide. She noticed his hand was trembling and she squeezed it. He was an instant from saying they didn’t have to. That they could go see a movie. Then she kissed him and climbed into the back.

Evan’s cellphone vibrated, jolting him back to the present. Bert licked his hand and went back to watching out the window.

It was a text from Carrie, saying she saved him a slice of cake.

He tossed the phone into the backseat.

Evan had heard that Matteo died two years ago. The restaurant was Celia’s now. He had also heard that she was divorced. He had heard somewhere else that time heals wounds. Wounds like a first love cheating at a party after six years together.

In some parallel universe he was still with Celia. They were married. Had children. One click over on the cosmic dial they were holding hands that very moment. If not for that party, he was sure it would be them. If Carrie had not been there wearing that red shirt with the collar that fell open when she leaned forward. The red shirt that cancelled one wedding and planned another.

Perhaps nothing would need to be said. Perhaps he would know the instant Celia noticed him in her restaurant. By the look on her face, he would know if that door was long since closed. If she were still angry, or thought of him only as a guy she dated in high school. But if she were still open to the idea of his return, that would be enough. Just the possibility.

If Celia said no, he would go back to his father-in-law’s house and eat his cake. If Celia said yes, or even maybe, he would return Randal’s pocket knife and leave Carrie to the mess she had made.

Evan opened the car door and stepped out onto the asphalt.