Long Made Short by Stephen Dixon

don’t wait up for me. I’m thinking now I’ll just do the
     whole bunch of them, no matter how long it takes. Good night.” “Good night.” He gets
     into bed, opens a book, reads, feels sleepy, puts the book down, looks at her side
     of the bed and thinks “Remember what you promised to think about before? What was
     it? Bet you forgot.” Thinks. “Ah,” he says when he remembers what it was. “It’s true,”
     he thinks, “I really love her.” “You hear that, dear,” he says low, “do you hear that?
     I can’t wait till you get into bed so I can hold ya.” He puts the book and glasses
     on the night table, shuts off the light, lies on his back to see if anything else
     comes into his head, shuts his eyes, turns over on his side, falls asleep.

CROWS
    She went outside, came back in, pounded her head with her knuckles several times,
     went outside again, looked and looked, nowhere to be seen, couldn’t imagine what had
     happened, yelled “Henry,” and he appeared, his voice did, from the cellar. “Yes, what’s
     up? I’m down here.” “Thank God,” she said and held onto the doors folded over and
     then the walls as she went down the stone steps. “Don’t leave me like that anymore,
     please.” “Leave you how?” he said. “Like that, like that,” pointing upstairs. “Like
     what, like what?” he said, painting a lawn chair, looking up at her for a second.
     “Like leaving me. Tell me next time. You know how I am.” “No, I really don’t, or not
     exactly. How are you? You’re fine, I can see. But you were worried. Don’t be.” “I
     was worried. When I call for you, look for you, go up and downstairs and outside and
     down the road and around the house for you? Well, I only called that one time and
     I didn’t go down the road looking for you, but I almost did.” “Did you by chance ever
     think to call for me earlier or to look down here? When you see the cellar doors open,
     assume I’m down it.” “You could have been elsewhere while airing the cellar out.”
     “That’s true,” he said, painting, “you’re right. I forgot that’s what I do and it’s
     just the kind of day for that.”
    She looked around. “I think we should build a staircase inside the house to the cellar.
     Then you could go up and down with ease, even evenings if you’d like, for there’d
     be a railing and light. And also not get wet in the rain if it’s raining when you
     want to come here, or have to put boots on if it’s snowing. And I wouldn’t be searching
     franticly for you. I’d open the door to the cellar in the kitchen, let’s say, and
     know by the sounds or the light on that you’re down there.” “Then we’d call the cellar
     a basement. I never want to have a basement in this house. Then we’d fix it up, put
     in a convertible couch and lamps and fixtures on the walls for more lamps and insulate
     it so guests would come, or for when they came, and a place to dump the grandkids
     when they were being too restless or loud. And fancy windows and then bars on the
     windows to protect our valuable lamps and grandkids from vandals and thieves. And
     the walls would have to be plastered smooth and then painted bright to cheer up the
     room, and the furnace would have to be concealed because it’s an eyesore. And a drop
     ceiling to make believe we have no overhead pipes, and pictures in frames and so on.
     A mirror. A dehumidifier. A wine rack instead of the boxes the wine comes in I now
     use. Never. My parents had that, right down to the bar with two stools and a carbonated
     water tap, and it was disgusting. They had to clean it every other week. The floor—I
     forgot the floor—was linoleum, and when we left scuff marks on it we got reprimanded
     for it. I like the way it is. I open the cellar doors—clement or inclement weather,
     who cares? Climb down, do my work, single bulb dangling over the table, furnace like
     a furnace, no electrical outlets but the