The Revised Fundamentals of Caregiving (24 page)

“And what's that?” I say.

“He won't tell me. He has 'vestors lined up, though.”

Determined to be mum on the subject, Elton's thin lips are set, his eyes evasive.

“Oh, just tell us your idea,” says Dot.

“Yeah, c'mon,” says Trev. “How good could it be?”

Th
is one gets Elton's attention, he locks eyes on the back of Trev's head.

“Tell 'em, honey,” says Peaches.

“Look at it this way,” I say. “You're a guy who likes to dot his i's. We could be like your focus group. Help you iron out any wrinkles in the plan. You know, head off any questions your investors might have.
Th
at's how your corporate think tanks do it.”

Elton considers, scratching his weak chin a few times and looking out the side window at the Montana landscape. “S'pose there's somethin' to all that,” he says.

“And besides,” says Trev. “You've already applied for the patent, right? So it's probably processing as we speak. Plus, you've got the sealed envelope. By the time anyone tried to steal your idea and get a patent, you'd already have the patent.”

“True,” he says. “You gotta point there, hoss.”

“So just sketch it out for us,” I say. “Give us the general idea. Without the schematics.”

Elton gives me a final snake-eyed once-over before making the leap. “Okay. I'll give you the gist of it. But just the edges.” He leans forward in his seat. “See, it's kinda like one of them boxes with the fake dog barks I was on about, except that this is even better 'cause it makes a burglar think there's a human bein' inside. Human bein' is gonna deter a burglar better than any dog. Only takes a porterhouse and a tranq to disarm a damn dog, no matter what he is. Believe me, I know.”

“So like your box is a person talking?” says Dot.

“Better,” says Elton. “Burglar's gonna get wise when he hears every house on the block has the same voice talkin'. And then you gotta have two voices, 'cause who sits and talks to themselves on and on? I s'pose you could have different voice selections or different models, but that's just making things too complex.
Th
e most successful business ideas are simple.”

“So what is it?”

Elton folds his arms, and leans back on the bench seat, his weasel eyes smiling for the first time. A quick mirror-check of Peaches confirms that her eyes are smiling too.

“My box,” says Elton triumphantly, “is a TV.”

“A TV.”

“Right.”

“I don't follow.”

“You know, like instead of a dog barking, my box—and it's got a name, but I ain't tellin' it—has a recordin' of somebody watchin' TV.”

A short dull silence settles in along with Elton's revelation. I hesitate to comment. Who am I to shit on Elton's dreams? But I just can't help myself.

“Why not just use a real TV?” I say.

“Because this is smaller. Who wants a big TV sittin' in their entryway?”

“Right,” I say. “But who keeps a TV right by the door? ”

“You don't, dummy. You keep the box by the door.
Th
at's the whole point.”

“Okay. But what I'm getting at is, your idea—the box—is supposed to make burglars think that somebody's inside watching TV, right? So they won't break in.”

“Now you're getting' it, hoss.”

“Right. Okay. I mean, yeah, I can see why a dog would be right by the door, because he knows somebody is out there. But who keeps their TV right by the door?”

“Hoss, you ain't the sharpest tool in the shed, are you? You don't have to keep your TV right by the door.
Th
at's why I invented the box.”

“No, I mean, like why the box in the first place? Wouldn't it just be better to use a regular TV? I mean, since the sound would be coming from where people normally keep their TVs—instead of coming from right behind the front door? Wouldn't it be more realistic?”

If not stunned by this line of questioning, Elton appears at least a little confused, as though he's just found himself in the ring with a southpaw. For a brief moment the implications appear to trouble him, and he's back on his heels, circling, figuring, looking for an opening. But soon his eyes light up again, and with a wink in the mirror, he goes in for the kill.

“Well then, hoss. In that case, you just keep the box by the TV.”

grand canyon

N
ot until the AC goes tits up east of Seligman do I really begin to fathom what a terrible idea this southwest vacation was. What was I thinking? Arizona in August. Wife seven months pregnant. I must be an idiot. By late afternoon, Janet is so sweaty and blotchy she looks as though she might faint at any moment. Piper slumps in the backseat, her fair skin burned lobster red.
Th
e car is a blast furnace with the windows open wide.

“How much farther?” says Piper.

“Almost there, honey,” Janet moans.

Th
e truth is, we're still sixty-odd miles shy of the south rim.

“Maybe we should just stop in Williams,” I say. “Bag the Grand Canyon for today. Get a motel and rest up—maybe take a swim.”

“No!” says Piper.

“Mommy doesn't feel good,” I say. “She needs rest.”

“No, no. I'm fine,” Janet says, her eyes closed. She pats me on the thigh and smiles weakly. “It'll be fun.”

“But I just think—”

“Really, I'm fine,” she says. “I think it's starting to cool off.”

“Ha!” says Piper. “Cool off? It must be a gazillion degrees. How many more miles to go?”

“Not many,” I say.

“
How
many?”

“About sixty.”

“Oh brother,” says Piper. “Why did they have to put the Grand Canyon way out in the middle of nowhere in the first place? Why couldn't they put it where we live?”

Janet smiles weakly once more with her eyes closed. “Be patient, sweetie,” she says. “It'll be worth the drive.”

“How do you know?” she says.

“I just know,” says Janet, who leans over and rests her sticky head on my shoulder. Laying a hand atop her swollen belly, she opens her eyes briefly and looks up into my face.

“How about you, handsome?” she says to me. “You doing okay?”

“Tip-top,” I say.

“You're sure?”

“I'm sure.”

Within minutes, they're both asleep, and I'm wending my way north through the scrubby pinewood toward the south rim, all alone. But nowhere near alone. Because I can feel the weight of Janet's head on my shoulder, and her cool breath on my neck, and I know for certain that she will always be there beside me. And in the rearview mirror, I can see Piper, her determined chin pressed fast against her sunburned sternum, her little mouth twitching in sleep, and I know with equal certainty that she will always be my little girl, no matter how big she gets. And next to that, what's the Grand Canyon?

the story with peaches

B
y Alberton, the rain has let up, though Montana's signature big sky remains hidden behind a low sheet of gray muslin stretching from horizon to horizon. In the past hour or so, the cramped mountain landscape has gradually unfolded into a sprawl of green grazing lands, peppered with poplar-ringed farmhouses and grain silos, broken on all sides by a relief of knobs and rolling green hills.
Th
e interior of the van is at once stuffy and moist. I can smell the cigarette smoke clinging to Elton's ragged flannel. Something smells like wet dog.

Trev is asleep again, mouth open, chair tilted back at a twenty- degree angle, his hands stuffed in the pockets of his big blue hoodie. I'm proud of him, and a little shocked. He's been a great traveler despite the absence of routine. Never have I known him to be so flexible, and I can't help but think Dot has everything to do with it.

Dot has resumed wearing headphones, face pressed to the fogged-
up window, looking sleepy-eyed out across the landscape. Peaches sits in the middle, with Elton slumped beside her, his weak chin resting on her shoulder, snoring intermittently. Peaches has slipped on some jeans in lieu of her cotton dress and borrowed one of my sweatshirts, a faded black pullover. Her big stomach rests on her knees, out in front of her, where she lays a protective hand on it.
Th
ough her grammar may suffer, her voice is melodious. What is almost drawlish coming from Elton sounds like gentle strains from the mouth of Peaches. One projects laziness, the other ease.

“Actually, it don't matter much that Leon kicked us out,” she says. “We was plannin' on deliverin' the baby in Jackson all along. My mama's there. And my insurance coverage is there. Elton got the minimum nine months' parole since he copped, so we ain't gotta be in Montana but another week, anyhow. Says he don't need to worry as long as he keeps his nose clean for seven days.”

“
Th
ings have a way of working out,” I observe.

“We got it all planned out already. We'll wait till next spring to get married. Elton's gettin' what he calls start-up money from his 'vestors.
Th
at'll get us settled. Overhead, he calls it. He says it ain't good to be overly optimistic, on account of it bein' bad business. Says a lot of good ideas fail on account of too much optimism. So he says he might have to sub-size our income for a while. He did some cookin' back in Henderson.”

Mental note to self: Don't eat in Henderson on the way back.

“Do you know if it's a boy or a girl?”

“He's a boy.” Here, she lowers her voice. “Elton wants to call him Elton. But I like Daniel, after my granddad.”

“Daniel's a nice name,” I say. “So, Peaches is your real name?”

“Yeah, I know, funny name, huh?”

“You're asking a guy name Benjamin Benjamin?”

“But I'm used to it. Peaches, I mean. Folks in Henderson say it suits me.”

Indeed, she's just a sweet kid, any way you slice her. Rosy-cheeked, genuine, forthcoming. How long before the optimism runs out? How long before Elton runs out on her or gets jugged again? How long before she's buying formula with food coupons? How long before the cumulative effect of all that disappointment exacts its toll, and Peaches starts holding her cards close, and those cheeks start going sallow, and she looks more like a Madge than a Peaches?

“So when's your due date?”

“Not for three weeks,” she says, as though three weeks were an eternity.

“You excited?” It's a question I need not ask, because even in a dirty sweatshirt, with her wet hair hanging in straggles, and Elton snoring fitfully into the nape of her neck, she glows.

“I can't wait to get my hands on my little bubba. My mama already made up the sewing room into a nursery—made it into a circus theme.”

“What about Elton?”

“Oh, he's excited in his way. He just don't show it much. Sometimes he acts scared about it. But last week up in Helena, I caught him pricin' teddy bears when we was at Target.”

“
Th
at's a good sign.”

“We wasn't there on account of the baby, though. We was there pricin' various antitheft alarms and thingamajigs. Market research, Elton calls it.”

“
Th
at Elton's on the ball.”

She lowers her voice again. “Well, by God, he's tryin', he really is. Better than I can say for most. Better than that no good brother of his.” She glances sidelong at Elton to make sure he's sleeping before taking her voice down another notch. “His daddy beat him up pretty regular. Beat him up bad. It was no secret in Henderson. Never laid a hand on that brother. It got so poor Elton lived in a friend's garage senior year, on account he was afraid he might start fightin' back. Elton ain't ever laid a hand on me.”

“
Th
at's good.”

“So far, he's always done right by me. So I got no choice but to believe in him.”

Just as Missoula appears on the horizon, Elton wakes up, as though to testify on his own behalf. “Hot damn,” he says, snapping his fingers. “I been thinkin' in my sleep again, and I think I saw what you was drivin' at regardin' my box. You was trying to say, ‘
Well, why not use your real TV, 'cause it'd be more realistic,
'
am I right?”

“Exactly.”

“It came to me that you was right. It
would
be more realistic. Not because what you said about keepin' it away from the door, though, but because of somethin' else even more realistic.” Here Elton leans in conspiratorially and rests a hand on my shoulder. “I don't know how I didn't see it before.
Th
e lights! Don'tcha see? My box has gotta have flashin' lights, so it'll look like a TV—you know, bouncin' off the curtains and the walls and whatnot!”

“But . . .”

Elton bowls right over me. “ 'Course, it'll cost a little more to produce. But then we'll make that up on the other end, so margins reckon out roughly the same, maybe better, since it's fancier. Now, with the lights, we can call it an antitheft
system,
see? 'Cause it's got more than one part.”

“But Elton, if . . .”

“Hell, colored LED lights oughta do the trick. Can't be that expensive. Makes the whole system more, I don't know, ingenious, I guess.”

Once I'm sure Elton is going to pause, I fill the breach. “But Elton, if it looks and sounds like a TV, and you're gonna set it by the TV, to act like the TV, well then, I guess what I'm trying to say is, why not . . .” But I just don't have the heart and wave it off at the last second. “You know, I think you're right, the lights really take it up a notch. I think people will feel safer.”

“
Th
ey will be safer,” he says with conviction.

Peaches gives his leg a proud little squeeze and keeps smiling. She believes in him, with all her heart she believes, and nobody's going to talk her out of it. For that, I love her. Suddenly she grabs Elton's wrist excitedly and sets his hand on her belly.

“He's kickin',” she says. “Feel it? You feel it, hon?”

Elton's face lights up in recognition. “Well, I'll be damned.
Th
e hell if he ain't!”

Peaches is all aglow, and I think: He's a lucky sonofabitch, that Elton.

Th
at's when I spot the Skylark in the rearview mirror, hovering just above Peaches's right shoulder, and my blood begins to boil.