Nobody's Fool

Vera, but I know better than to throw up in her bathroom. Unless she’s changed, she doesn’t even like people to shit in it.”
    â€œShe hasn’t changed,” Ralph admitted sadly. “She’s got about a dozen air fresheners opened up all over the house. We couldn’t even smell the turkey.”
    Just hearing about the smell of air fresheners did the trick, and Sully leaned forward and threw up into the street. Ralph looked away. Not having eaten all day, there wasn’t much, and Sully, who had been sweating in anticipation, immediately felt better. He thought he recognized the decomposed remains of the second of Jocko’s yellow pills.
    Seeing what he’d done, the two men from the ambulance, who’d given a form to Peter to sign, came over to where he sat. “You all right, pal?” the smaller man wanted to know. “You want us to take you back to the hospital?”
    â€œNope, I sure don’t,” Sully told them. “I feel much better.”
    The man glanced at the vomit and looked away.
    â€œSorry you had to come out here,” Sully said. “My son can’t tell dead people from sleeping ones. I guess that’s why they made him a doctor of history and not medicine.”
    Peter had come over in time to hear this.
    â€œIf you’d breathed much more exhaust, you might
be
dead,” the ambulance driver said. “You should get checked out.”
    Sully stood to show that he was okay. “I’m fine,” he said. “I promise.”
    â€œOkay,” the man said, handing Sully a form. “Sign this. It proves we were here.”
    When Sully signed, the two men got back into the ambulance, burped their siren once and drove off. Sully, Peter and Ralph watched them go, and when the ambulance disappeared around the corner, all three men turned reluctantly to face house and home and family and explanation.
    â€œWell, son,” Sully addressed Peter, though it was Ralph he winked at. “Let’s go inside before our courage fails completely.”

    If it was women these three grown men feared—and it was—they needn’t have worried, because when they entered, the kitchen was empty, not a woman in sight, though this struck all three as perhaps even more ominous. The sink was still piled high with scraped dinner plates and casserole dishes plus assorted pots and pans, including the roasting pan in which Vera had made the gravy. In the sink she’d drawn a yellow tubful of water that wore a round hat of suds. The house was preternaturally still except for the sound of the television on low in the living room. From where they stood, Sully could see Vera’s father asleep in his chair two rooms away. “Where’d your mother go?” Ralph wondered, surprised by her sudden disappearance.
    Peter was not. “I’d be careful in here today,” he warned Sully. “Mom’s all upset.”
    â€œWhat about?” Ralph said, since this was news to him.
    â€œLet me guess,” Sully said. “Nobody loves her.”
    â€œClose,” Peter admitted. “Nobody loves her enough.”
    â€œI’ll go talk to her,” Ralph said like a man volunteering for hazardous duty.
    â€œHow long have you and Vera been married?” Sully said significantly.
    Ralph thought. “Thirty years. More.”
    â€œAnd you still don’t know any better than that?”
    â€œShe probably still thinks you’re dead,” Ralph said.
    â€œThen don’t disappoint her,” Sully advised.
    From the direction of the bathroom came the sound of running water and Will’s whining voice. “Wacker. Quit.”
    Peter rolled his eyes. “I’ll be right back.”
    Since no one had told him not to, Sully sauntered into the living room, where Robert Halsey slept fitfully, hooked up to his oxygen, green plastic tubing forming a childish mustache on his upper lip. A plastic mask dangled from the portable oxygen rig. The football game was on, and Sully sat down at the end of the sofa just in time to see somebody kick a field goal and the score come up across the bottom of the screen before going to a commercial.
    â€œHey,” Sully said to Vera’s father, who opened his eyes in response to this sound that was not television. “Wake up. You’ve got company.”
    The old man blinked, focused. “Sully,” he said, sitting up straighter, having slumped