Runaway

house.
    “Aw go on, Pet,” the driver says, pocketing the fare and getting quickly back into the car.
    “Shut up. Shut up, Pet. Settle down. She won’t hurt you,” the woman calls. “She’s just a pup.”
    Pet’s being a pup, Juliet thinks, would not make her any less likely to knock you down. And now a small reddish-brown dog arrives to join in the commotion. The woman comes down the steps, yelling, “Pet. Corky. You behave. If they think you are scared of them they will just get after you the worse.”
    Her
just
sounds something like
chust.
    “I’m not scared,” says Juliet, jumping back when the yellow dog’s nose roughly rubs her arm.
    “Come on in, then. Shut up, the two of you, or I will knock your heads. Did you get the day mixed up for the funeral?”
    Juliet shakes her head as if to say that she is sorry. She introduces herself.
    “Well, it is too bad. I am Ailo.” They shake hands.
    Ailo is a tall, broad-shouldered woman with a thick but not flabby body, and yellowish-white hair loose over her shoulders. Her voice is strong and insistent, with some rich production of sounds in the throat. A German, Dutch, Scandinavian accent?
    “You better sit down here in the kitchen. Everything is in a mess. I will get you some coffee.”
    The kitchen is bright, with a skylight in the high, sloping ceiling. Dishes and glasses and pots are piled everywhere. Pet and Corky have followed Ailo meekly into the kitchen, and have started to lap out whatever is in the roasting pan that she has set down on the floor.
    Beyond the kitchen, up two broad steps, there is a shaded, cavernous sort of living room, with large cushions flung about on the floor.
    Ailo pulls out a chair at the table. “Now sit down. You sit down here and have some coffee and some food.”
    “I’m fine without,” says Juliet.
    “No. There is the coffee I have just made, I will drink mine while I work. And there are so much things left over to eat.”
    She sets before Juliet, with the coffee, a piece of pie—bright green, covered with some shrunken meringue.
    “Lime Jell-O,” she says, withholding approval. “Maybe it tastes all right, though. Or there is rhubarb?”
    Juliet says, “Fine.”
    “So much mess here. I clean up after the wake, I get it all settled. Then the funeral. Now after the funeral I have to clean up all over again.”
    Her voice is full of sturdy grievance. Juliet feels obliged to say, “When I finish this I can help you.”
    “No. I don’t think so,” Ailo says. “I know everything.” She is moving around not swiftly but purposefully and effectively. (Such women never want your help. They can tell what you’re like.) She continues drying the glasses and plates and cutlery, putting what she has dried away in cupboards and drawers. Then scraping the pots and pans—including the one she retrieves from the dogs—submerging them in fresh soapy water, scrubbing the surfaces of the table and the counters, wringing the dishcloths as if they were chickens’ necks. And speaking to Juliet, with pauses.
    “You are a friend of Ann? You know her from before?”
    “No.”
    “No. I think you don’t. You are too young. So why do you want to come to her funeral?”
    “I didn’t,” says Juliet. “I didn’t know. I just came by to visit.” She tries to sound as if this was a whim of hers, as if she had lots of friends and wandered about making casual visits.
    With singular fine energy and defiance Ailo polishes a pot, as she chooses not to reply to this. She lets Juliet wait through several more pots before she speaks.
    “You come to visit Eric. You found the right house. Eric lives here.”
    “You don’t live here, do you?” says Juliet, as if this might change the subject.
    “No. I do not live here. I live down the hill, with my hussband.” The word
hussband
carries a weight, of pride and reproach.
    Without asking, Ailo fills up Juliet’s coffee cup, then her own. She brings a piece of pie for herself. It has a rosy layer on the bottom and a creamy layer on top.
    “Rhubarb cusstart. It has to be eaten or it will go bad. I do not need it, but I eat it anyway. Maybe I get you a piece?”
    “No. Thank you.”
    “Now. Eric has gone. He will not be back tonight. I do not think so. He has gone to Christa’s place. Do you know Christa?”
    Juliet tightly shakes her head.
    “Here we all live so that we know the other people’s situations. We know well. I do not know what it is like where you live. In