Nobody's Fool

moving past her.
    â€œBefore you do,” she caught him.
    â€œWhat?”
    â€œI’m going to need some help next week. I don’t know who else to ask.”
    â€œOkay,” Sully said.
    â€œDon’t say you will unless you mean it.”
    â€œI’ll make time.”
    â€œOne morning should do it. There’s two places I want to look at. One in Schuyler, one in Albany.”
    â€œOkay.”
    â€œQuit saying okay.”
    â€œOkay.”
    â€œGo let him in.”
    Sully did.
    â€œYou two were talking about me,” Rub said as Sully closed the door behind him and relocked it. “I could tell.”
    â€œMake him pay,” old Hattie said audibly at Rub’s elbow.
    Rub, who was frightened of all old women, stepped quickly aside to look at Hattie and determine, if possible, if she’d been addressing him. She never had, even once, during all the years he’d been coming there, though it appeared she was doing so now, and, even worse, demanding money he didn’t have. Without taking his eyes off the old woman, he whispered, “Could I borrow a dollar?”
    When Peter, sleepy-eyed but dressed for work, emerged from the room he and Will were sharing at his mother’s, he caught Ralph poised and listening outside his wife’s bedroom door. In times of trouble, their bedroom became her bedroom, and Ralph knew he was not allowed in without permission. Together the two men stood in the narrow hallway between bedrooms, listening for sounds on the other side of the door. But the only sounds in the whole house emanated from downstairs in the kitchen, Will’s spoon scraping his cereal bowl. When Peter turned and headed down, Ralph followed him.
    â€œYou ready, sport?” Peter said.
    Will was ready. He’d finished his cereal and was engaged in a scientific experiment with the few remaining Cheerios in his bowl. In the beginning, they floated. You could hold a Cheerio under the surface of milk for a long time, but as soon as you removed the spoon, it floated right to the top. You could break it in half, and then the two halves floated. Break the two halves in half and all four floated. But when you broke them into smaller pieces, they bloated up, lost their buoyancy, turned to brown muck in the bottom of the bowl. Without arriving at any conclusions as to what this phenomenon might mean, Will nevertheless found it interesting. It was nice to be able to think such thoughts in peace. Until recently, he’d get about halfwaythrough such a complex thought and Wacker, who could sense other people thinking, would do one of his sneak attacks. Will rubbed the tender flesh along the inside of his right arm between the elbow and the armpit. The soreness was going away. He was beginning to heal. He smiled at his father and grandfather.
    â€œHow about putting that over on the sink,” his father suggested. “Help Grandma out, okay?”
    Will did as he was told. “Is Grandma sick?” he said. He knew something had his grandmother all upset, and he hoped that soon somebody would explain why. It had something to do with the telephone and somebody who kept calling his father and talking to Grandma Vera instead. And it had something to do with the fact that they weren’t living with Mommy and Wacker and Andy anymore. And it had something to do with Daddy telling Grandma Vera last night that maybe he wouldn’t go back to his teaching after Christmas. Maybe they’d stay and he’d work with Grandpa Sully. Grandma Vera had gotten maddest at that. She was still mad. Mad at Daddy and at Grandpa Sully and Grandpa Ralph for not being on her side. She was mad at Mommy for leaving. About the only person she wasn’t mad at was Will himself, for which he was grateful, except she kept asking Daddy, “What’s going to happen to this child? What’s going to happen to your family?” Which made Will wonder if she could see some danger coming that he was unaware of.
    When Will took his cereal bowl and placed it on the drainboard, Peter said to his stepfather, “Why don’t you come along and grab a cup of coffee at the diner?”
    â€œI better not,” Ralph said.
    Peter shook his head. “I’d sure get out of here for a while,” he said. “You’re going to bear the brunt of this if you’re handy.”
    Ralph shrugged, followed them out to the back porch, where Peter and the boy donned their