Spoonbenders

“Hey, I said I needed change,” Teddy said, playing the gruff customer.

“Oh, I’ll change it.” Teddy had taught him the patter, too. Matty unfolded the bill carefully, then stretched it out between his hands. “How about that?”

The five had turned into a two-dollar bill.

“Give it a little snap,” Teddy said. “Like a towel. Make ’em hear it. And don’t smile till the end. Tips ’em off.” The kid nodded, then went off to the kitchen without offering to return his five. At least he’d learned that much: never give the money back.

Teddy looked at the last envelope in the pile and felt a pinprick in his heart. Recognized the handwriting, that graceful, quick hand. Say what you will about Catholic school, those nuns knew how to teach cursive. Above the house address it said simply “Teddy.” No return address.

He dropped the rest of the mail back onto the table, then walked upstairs to his bedroom, gazing at the envelope, feeling heavier with every step.

God damn it, Maureen.

He went into his bedroom and shut the door. As always, he was tempted to leave the letter unopened. But as always, he couldn’t stop himself. Slit open the envelope, and read what she’d written. Then he dialed open the door to the little safe in his closet.

Inside, above the velvet tray that held his watches, was a stack of older envelopes. He used to get one every week. Then every few months. The last one had come a little over four years ago.

He held the envelope to his nose. Breathed in. Couldn’t smell anything but the old paper. Then he tossed it onto the stack with the rest and shut the door.

3 Irene

Nothing killed nostalgia for your childhood home like moving back into it. She’d come limping back to Chicago in her eight-year-old Ford Festiva, a teenage son in the passenger seat sprouting and stewing from every pore, dragging a U-Haul crammed with the entirety of her possessions: a mattress and box spring; a wood-veneer coffee table; two sturdy kitchen chairs; and two dozen wet cardboard boxes labeled HUMILIATION and DISAPPOINTMENT.

She was thirty-one years old. She’d failed to achieve escape velocity, and the crash landing was brutal.

There’d been a few Christmases, back when things were going almost okay in Pittsburgh, that she’d feel a thrill of warmth when she turned the corner into her old neighborhood and saw that pale green house, the hedges glowing with fat red and green lightbulbs, and the little square window on the second floor that marked her bedroom. Behind the house loomed the huge weeping willow, and when she saw its naked winter limbs she’d think of five-year-old Buddy up there, fearless in those years before their mother died, swaying in the high branches.

Now the first look at the house when she came home from work made her chest tighten in something like despair. She’d pull up after a nine-hour shift at Aldi’s, feet aching and brain punch-drunk with boredom, and realize, again, that the house was a trap.

Lately it had been a trap under construction, and today was no exception. She couldn’t even get into the driveway because of a stack of lumber. Annoyed, she parked on the street and went in through the front door. In the front hallway were three white boxes of various sizes, each splotched with black Holstein patches.

“Mom!” Matty shouted. He practically threw himself down the stairs. “Is this ours? Did you buy this?”

“I don’t even know what it is.”

“It’s a Gateway 2000! And a monitor. And a printer, I’m pretty sure.” He squatted beside the biggest box. “It’s got a built-in modem, with a Pentium.” The back of his head was matted and greasy.

“Don’t touch it. We might have to give it back. What time did you sleep to?”

“Uh, pretty late.”

“Did you take a shower today?”

“Sure.”

She looked hard at him.

“I mean, not yet. I was about to, then the computer—”

“You’re fourteen, Matty. You can’t walk around like a caveman.” And he should have known, too, that he couldn’t lie to her. Was he hoping that someday she’d be so distracted she wouldn’t notice?

“Can’t I just look at it?” Matty asked.

“Where’s your grandpa?”

“Out back, talking on the phone. Somebody called Smalls? Deep voice. He wanted Grandpa.”

“Destin Smalls?”

Matty shrugged. She started for the kitchen and the back door.

“I promise, I won’t even break the packing material,” he said.

“Do not open anything,” she answered.

Out on the patio, Teddy sat in a lawn chair reading a newspaper, his knees crossed, shoes gleaming. He wore his suit jacket despite the heat. The air smelled like cigarette smoke, but there was no cigarette in sight. His left hand rested mock-casually on the aluminum arm of the chair. The cordless phone lay on the cement beside him.

“Why is Destin Smalls calling you?” Irene asked.

Teddy didn’t look up from the news. “It’s none of your business.”

“Is he going to arrest you?”

That got him to lower his paper. It was the Tribune, which was weird. They were a Sun-Times family. “Don’t be ridiculous,” Teddy said. “He’s practically retired.”

“Then why’d he call?”