First You Try Everything by Jane Mccafferty

night while Ben lay in his bed, near the
window, watching the tree’s branches lift in the wind, thinking he’d find
another apartment in the morning, fighting a feeling of despair. He’d wanted
peace and quiet more than anything.
    But the next day, the couple had emerged from their
door arm and arm, smiling and wishing him a great day after telling him about
the pancakes they were headed to eat at Pamela’s in Squirrel Hill. “You could
totally join us,” the young woman said, and Ben said no, thanks, but marveled at
her wide-open expression, how her eyes were washed clean of the night before,
how neither one of them looked especially tired or broken. He and Evvie had
rarely fought like that, but when they had, the next day they’d barely been able
to function. They’d moved like zombies, wept with pity as they apologized to
each other, lost their appetites, called off work. Finally they’d drink too much
wine to celebrate how the echoes of the fight were fading. Neither one of them
had been built for conflict.
    H e’d
left Evvie almost everything, taking only his clothing, some music, some books,
and the single mattress. It was like being in college again, only you were
haunted—your expectations mostly collapsed and in need of serious, and probably
impossible, restoration—and yet there were moments when part of him took flight,
through a set of heavy doors that opened to a whole new life.
    Other times he’d be standing at the sink and find
himself suddenly weeping.
    The simplicity of the space was both soothing and
jarring. He missed Evvie, in moments. Missed Ruth too, and in one of his dreams
the dog could talk on the phone and told him to get his ass back home. A few
times he’d driven back to the house, parked a block away, walked toward the old
front door, and almost knocked, but then at the last minute had turned away and
walked across the street to see the river below in the dusk, a view he’d taken
for granted when living there.
    He’d played guitar for hours tonight and was happy
not to have Evvie in the other room wondering when he’d stop. Happy not to feel
her need so thick in the air it had been hard to breathe in that house for the
past year or more.
    On the answering machine was Evvie’s voice, as
always. It had been two months already and she showed no signs of accepting what
had happened. His patience was beginning to wear thin.
    Hiya, Ben, just wanted to say
hi. You all right? Call me. Cedric says hi, he misses you. Not to mention
Ruth. I guess she can come stay with you next week. If you want. She seems a
little down. The vet was thinking she should go on some kind of Prozac, and
I was like, no way.
    He always called her back—the first forty times
he’d been kind—and now with reluctance that bordered on anger. “I’m fine,” he
said, emphatically.
    â€œHow is that possible?”
    Her voice was childlike. She had been stripped
right down to the bone. She was not angry, but bereft and confused. It was not
easy to hear. It hurt him. He braced himself against it and, like Cedric,
reminded himself that there was far worse agony in the world; plenty of things
were worse than a broken heart.
    Soon cultivated anger would shift in his gut like
tectonic plates.
    â€œDid you read about Saviour?” she said, barely
audible. Was she holding the receiver away from her mouth or just pretending to
be catatonic?
    â€œNo. Can you speak up?” Night in the window was
filled with wind and rain. He didn’t want to picture her in the old house or ask
if the roof was leaking. He knew it was leaking.
    â€œIn Nairobi this stray dog, Saviour, found a
newborn baby girl in the woods. She was in a bag, and the dog dragged her across
a busy road through a barbed-wire fence and into a shed where her puppies slept.
The dog laid the baby girl down next to the puppies. The baby’s picture is on
the front page of the