Lily looked at the twisted angle of his neck and the horrible stillness.
He was drinking and he fell down the stairs. He was drinking and he fell down the stairs, she repeated. That was the whole story.
§
Henry lit a cigarette.
“Put that out.”
“Why?”
Lily looked at him. Henry held the cigarette between forefinger and thumb.
“There aren’t any animals in it,” he said.
“You can be a real idiot.”
He took a long and deliberate inhalation and then ground out the cigarette. “There.”
“Am I supposed to be happy?”
“No.”
“I’m going to the bedroom.”
“Okay.”
“You’re lucky,” she said.
“Why?”
“That I have such patience.”
“Hm.”
She left the room, and Henry lit another cigarette.
“I can still smell it,” Lily said from the hallway.
Henry put it out and then stood. His suit hung loose, his shoulders like two clothespins and the form of a body guessed at beneath. He chose a record from the shelf, the same record he always chose. The soft buzz of the recording was white noise to the crisp arising notes. He sat down and closed his eyes.
“Can you turn that racket down?”
He looked up. Lily was back in the doorway, her hair now changed. Henry got up and turned the volume down.
“I’m going out,” she said.
“Where?”
“To the office. I forgot something.”
“Okay.”
Lily stood there, and they looked at each other. The moment passed, and Lily turned, her heels clipping down the hallway. Henry reached for the volume and turned it back up. He heard Lily’s loud sigh, before the front door opened and closed. He sat down again, then lit a cigarette.
He sat smoking. When the record finished, he started it again. When his cigarette ran low, he lit another.
Four hours and fifty-seven minutes later, the front door opened again.
Henry had been watching the clock. He was also nearing the end of his fifth bourbon. The drive to Lily’s office was twenty-three minutes. Five minutes – maybe even ten – to get whatever she had forgotten. Then another twenty-three minutes. Henry sipped his drink. Roughly three hours and forty-seven minutes were yet-to-be unaccounted.
He poured his first drink, reasonably, while he was waiting. When he started prepping dinner, he poured his second. When Lily still had not yet returned, he poured his third. Beyond any reasonable timeline and with dinner ready, he poured his fourth. He ate alone, barely picking at his food and throwing the leftovers away. He spent the last hour stewing alongside his fifth companionable glass.
“I’m home,” Lily called from the door. The lightness of her tone suggested she had been drinking.
Henry did not answer, and heard Lily coming through the hallway. She held her heels in her hand.
“There you are,” she said, her glance flickered to his glass and the full ashtray.
“Yes.”
She paused, “Well, I’m going to bed.”
“Wait,” Henry said, lurching to his feet. Lily was already going toward the stairs, and Henry swept staggeringly across the room. “I said wait.”
Lily leapt up the stairs, and Henry raced forward and lunged for her arm. He missed, and at the same time she turned and pushed him back. His foot missed his intended step, and for a brief moment he was suspended in air. Then, there was the loud crash, and he tumbled down the last steps and hit the floor.
§
Lily looked at the twisted angle of his neck and the horrible stillness.
He was drinking and he fell down the stairs. He was drinking and he fell down the stairs, she repeated. That was the whole story.
END.