Beneath the Bonfire by Nickolas Butler Page A

through all time, waiting for either a dial tone or a dead click. Neither of which ever come. He grows older in that telephone booth, so much older, until it becomes his glassy coffin.
    *   *   *
    â€œMiracle Whip,” Renée says. “She had two of those. Wouldn’t want to run out of Miracle Whip now, would we.”
    She throws the glass jars into the garbage bag.
    Mason stops working and looks at her on her knees, the edges of her underwear peeking up and over the waist of her blue jeans. He feels something like lust rush over him and considers going over to her, fucking her, surprising her. Maybe that is exactly what they need. Maybe that is what she wants from him. To end their cold war. To collapse onto, against each other, for all their tension and anger to be broken loose.
    But he is afraid. Afraid she’ll scream, afraid she’ll look at him like a madman, a rapist. And maybe that is what it would be. How can he even know anymore.
    She stands up slowly, her hands pressed against the small of her back. He smiles at her. But his face feels stiff, his lips dumb, the muscles there frozen. Smiling, it seems to him, has become like a rainbow in wintertime. Not impossible, but implausible.
    â€œI need a break,” she says. “I need some fresh air.”
    He touches her shoulder and she starts, as if shocked. Looks at him coldly.
    He could not have cleaned the house without her. His mother lived in this house alone for the last thirty years. She was not a hoarder exactly, but she did accumulate things. The attic was the worst. Mouse turds and choking dust and pink fiberglass insulation and sweltering heat and biting cold. Boxes of magazines, boxes of yarn, of Christmas lights and relics of Mason’s childhood. Box by box they threw it all away. A two-person bucket brigade.
    Ren é e never complained. He admires that about her. She is tough.
    *   *   *
    Last year Mason had a heart attack. It happened at the movies. All the telltale symptoms: the sweats, the lightning bolts of pain in his arm and chest. She knew right away.
    â€œHold still,” she said evenly, “let me get help.”
    He was glad then for her telephone, which she used to call 9-1-1 while he sat, watching the opening credits of a film they would never finish.
    She followed the ambulance rather than ride with him.
    â€œGo on,” he said, “I’ll be okay. It just makes sense. Then we don’t need a cab to come get the car.”
    She had stared at him.
    He knows that what he should have said is Please. I need you. Please come with me. I’m scared.
    In the ambulance an EMT said to him, “You’re a lucky man. Your wife caught it quick. Most people aren’t that lucky. A few minutes’ difference and man, I tell you, you’re a goner. And look at her back there. She’s holding it down. Practical too. You guys thought to get your car.”
    Mason wept, his face falling apart. He did not make a sound. The EMT turned to him and said, “Man, you all right? You in pain? Let’s get you some meds. Hold on, man. Stay with me, man. You’re fine. We got you. We got you. Hang in there. I’m right here. Your wife is right there, man. I can see her. I can see your wife, man. She’s following us. We’re almost there.”
    *   *   *
    He gets to his knees, peers into the refrigerator. Even after all of Ren é e’s work, it is still full of food. Apples, carrots, cabbage, cheese, milk, pickles, salad dressing, sour cream, whipped cream, yogurt … It looks like she was still feeding a family. Like she was ready for Ren é e and him to come over for a feast. That she was lonely for visitors, diners, mouths to feed.
    He misses her. She knew he wasn’t happy. Once she actually asked about his marriage. She put her hands on his face as if he were nine years old. Looked into his eyes until he could no longer