Coming Apart Read online

No one moved. No one spoke. The Shermans formed an uncomfortable picture. In those few seconds before the strange spell was broken, Nikki studied her father and was surprised by what she saw. He was dressed neatly and he was wearing a jacket. No necktie, but a jacket and a clean white shirt and corduroy pants. Corduroy pants. Where were his falling-apart jeans? Where was his stained T-shirt? And where had the jacket come from? She noted that his hair was clean and that he had combed it, leaving noticeable comb tracks on either side of the part. His nails had been trimmed and he had shaved that morning. Also, he was growing a mustache.

  “Well,” said Mr. Sherman at last. “This is some greeting.”

  Nikki glanced at Tobias and saw him tense.

  “Cat got your tongue?” Mr. Sherman asked Mae, who nodded.

  Otherwise, no one moved.

  “Hi, Dad,” said Nikki finally.

  “I got something for you,” Mr. Sherman told her. “Got presents for all of you.”

  Mae released herself from her mother’s waist. “Presents?”

  At this, Nikki and Tobias smiled, and Mrs. Sherman said nervously, “Well, that got her attention.”

  Mr. Sherman began to remove items from one of the shopping bags.

  “Are both bags full of presents?” asked Mae incredulously. She leaned in for a closer look.

  “Why don’t we sit down?” said Mrs. Sherman.

  They sat around the kitchen table, and Nikki’s father handed out gifts as if he were Santa Claus. The presents weren’t wrapped, but Nikki didn’t care. She found herself feeling as incredulous as Mae looked. Their father had never bought gifts for any occasion. He hadn’t remembered birthdays; he hadn’t even bought Christmas gifts.

  “Here you go, Tobias,” said Mr. Sherman, pulling a heavy green sweatshirt from the first bag.

  “Wow,” said Tobias softly.

  “And this is for you, Nikki.” He handed her a small box. When Nikki opened it, she found a pair of silver earrings inside. They weren’t for pierced ears, but they were pretty, and Nikki thought she might be able to wear them anyway. “Thank you,” she said politely.

  Mr. Sherman reached for the bottom of the bag and finally withdrew a box of perfume, which he handed Nikki’s mother.

  Mae was now eyeing the second bag. Her father set it on the floor next to her chair. “Everything in there’s for you.”

  Mae’s eyes widened. “Everything?” She scrambled from her chair, knelt on the floor, and began pulling things from the bag — a princess costume, a book about horses, a sticker book, and finally an elaborate doll. “This is for me, too?” she asked, cradling it and gazing fondly into its face. “Really? This is for me?”

  “Who else would a doll be —” Mr. Sherman started to say, but then he caught himself. “For my special girl,” he said instead, and patted Mae’s shoulder.

  It was on the tip of Nikki’s tongue to ask why her father had given so much to Mae, but she remained silent. Maybe it was okay. Mae was little, and she was fun to shop for. Still, an annoying mosquito of a thought was buzzing around in Nikki’s head, demanding to be caught. And examined.

  “Well,” said Mr. Sherman, “I guess I better get a move on. It’s going to take a while to go through everything. I’ll start in the bedroom. I’ve got empty suitcases in the truck. Do you have any boxes?”

  “A few,” replied Mrs. Sherman, and Nikki’s parents disappeared upstairs.

  Mae sat on the floor in the living room, the doll at her side. She looked through her new book. She made a picture using the stickers. Then she undressed the doll and dressed it again. “These are the fanciest clothes I’ve ever seen,” she remarked.

  The doll was fairly fancy, too, with silky brown hair, a painted face, eyes that opened and closed, and real eyelashes.

  “Look, Nikki. The dress has lace on it. Oh, and there are tiny pearl buttons on her shoes!” Mae was glowing. At last she exclaimed, “Daddy’s nice!”

  Nikki glanced at Tobias. She could feel something tighten in her chest. But Tobias said nothing, so Nikki merely peered out the side door to check on Paw-Paw, who was lying patiently in the winter-brown grass, and who looked dolefully at her but didn’t move.

  Mr. Sherman ate lunch with his family, a hurried affair of tomato soup and peanut butter sandwiches. Then he slipped his coat on. “Going into town to meet with my lawyer,” he said, “but I’ll be back in a couple of hours.”

  “I’ll find some boxes for you while you’re gone,” said Tobias.

  “That would be helpful,” replied Mr. Sherman, but Nikki noted that he wasn’t smiling and she realized something about his eyes. They could bore into you with the hard, calculating stare of a snake. Nikki shivered and looked away, but Tobias held his father’s gaze.

  “Bye, Daddy!” called Mae as Mr. Sherman hustled out the door.

  The second his pickup truck had disappeared from view, Nikki let Paw-Paw back into the house. “Poor old boy,” she said, and gave him two biscuits.

  “Mommy, Daddy gave me the best presents!” exclaimed Mae.

  “You’re very lucky,” her mother replied.

  Two hours later, Mr. Sherman returned, and Tobias met him at the door with a stack of cartons he’d found in a shed.

  “How did the meeting go?” asked Mrs. Sherman.

  “Why don’t you come upstairs with me and I’ll fill you in?”

  Nikki wandered around her yard. She wanted to put food out for the stray dogs but knew she would have to wait until the evening, until after her father had left. He was staying … Where was he staying? Nikki wasn’t sure. With friends? She didn’t remember her father having any friends, except for the men he sometimes drank with. Well, maybe he was staying with one of them. She wondered how long it would take him to sort through all of his things. There were closets and shelves and the storage room. He kept tools in one of the sheds. It could take a while. Days. And then there were to be more meetings with the lawyers. She looked at her watch. Her father had been back for just several hours and already it felt like weeks.

  The afternoon was growing dark. When Nikki saw a light go on in the living room, she went back inside. Her mother was sitting on the couch, Mae at her feet with the doll.

  “Mom? Can I talk to you?” asked Nikki.

  “Sure.”

  “I mean, in private.”

  They went upstairs to Nikki and Mae’s room. Mrs. Sherman sat on Mae’s bed and Nikki closed the door. She felt tears threatening to fall and wanted to feel her mother’s arms around her. Instead, she stood in front of the bed, feet planted, and said firmly, “Mom, I want to know what’s going on with the custody arrangements.”

  Mrs. Sherman glanced at the door. “Nikki,” she said in a whisper, “I think it would be better if we talked about this later. When your father has left.”

  “But Mom —” Nikki could feel a pounding that started in her head and moved down to her chest. “What happened when he talked with his lawyer today?”

  “Seriously. We’ll discuss it later.”

  “Denise!” roared Mr. Sherman from down the hall, and Nikki’s mother winced.

  “Later. I promise.” She kissed Nikki on the head and hurried from the room.

  Nikki flopped onto her bed, sighing immensely, and reached for A Tree Grows in Brooklyn, which she was reading for the next meeting of the seventh-grade book club. Nikki was entranced by the story of Francie Nolan and her family, of their lives in Brooklyn at the beginning of the twentieth century. But she found herself unable to escape into their world when it seemed possible that her own world was about to collapse.

  “Now?” said Nikki the moment she could hear her father’s truck roar to life. It was past the Shermans’ usual dinnertime, Mae was hungry and overtired, and everyone was crabby after the long, strained day.

  “As soon as dinner’s over,” Mrs. Sherman said wearily. “Mae needs to eat. We all do.”

  Nikki waited until the food had been eaten, the table cleared, the dishes washed. Then she glanced at her mo
ther with raised eyebrows.

  “All right,” said Mrs. Sherman. “Let’s go back to your room.”

  Mae was engrossed in her doll again, seated on the couch in the living room, caressing the silky hair. “I think I’ll name you Peppy,” she said softly. She didn’t glance up as Nikki and Mrs. Sherman left the kitchen.

  “Mom, please tell me that Dad isn’t going to get custody of us,” Nikki said desperately, the moment her door was closed. This time she sat next to her mother on Mae’s bed.

  “I can’t make any promises,” her mother replied. “I don’t want to do that until every last piece of paper has been signed. But I am fairly certain that I am going to have full custody of you and Mae.”

  “Me and Mae?!” cried Nikki in alarm. “What about Tobias?”

  “Oh, honey. I didn’t mean to scare you.” Mrs. Sherman pulled Nikki closer to her. “Tobias is an adult. The custody arrangements apply only to you and Mae.”

  Nikki relaxed against her mother. “I thought … I thought we were going to be separated.”

  “No. Tobias will stay in college and come home to us on vacations.”

  “And Mae and I won’t ever have to see Dad again?”

  “Like I said, I don’t want to make any promises yet. But if I do wind up with full custody — and I expect to —” added Mrs. Sherman hastily, seeing the look on Nikki’s face, “then you and Mae won’t have to visit your father unless you want to. It will be up to you.”

  Nikki tried to feel relieved. But she was afraid that if she let relief trickle in, then something would go very, very wrong. The mosquito was buzzing inside her head again, and she really needed to examine it. Long after her mother had left the room, Nikki lay on her bed and tried to capture the mosquito, tried to identify what, specifically, had troubled her that day. Not the thought of custody arrangements going awry. Not her father’s unsettling presence in the house. Mae? The gifts?

  No. It was two words:

  Daddy’s nice.

  Rudy Pennington had begun nearly every day of Jacques’s long life by sitting next to him on the couch in the living room and holding a Morning Discussion. Jacques, who was allowed anywhere in the Row House and on any surface, would position himself on the middle cushion and look seriously into Rudy’s face while Rudy stroked his ears and told him about the day to come.

  “You’re going to like today, boy,” Mr. Pennington might say. “Lots of company, and I think we’ll walk into town after lunch. Maybe we’ll visit Min at Needle and Thread. And, let me see, after that we’ll stop in the Cheshire Cat before we go home. We’ll pick up some more biscuits for you.”

  On Sunday, the day after Nikki’s father had arrived, Jacques joined Mr. Pennington on the couch as usual, but he didn’t sit at attention. He lay in the crack between two cushions, his head drooping over the edge.

  “Jacques?” said Rudy. “Not feeling very well today?”

  Jacques rolled his eyes toward Rudy.

  “Do you want a belly rub?”

  Jacques glanced away.

  Mr. Pennington rested his hand on Jacques’s head. “All right. We’ll have a quiet day, then. Let’s see if you want any breakfast.”

  In the kitchen, Mr. Pennington spooned Turkey ’n’ Sweet Potato Feast from a can and stirred in some kibble. He set the bowl on the floor and then refilled Jacques’s water dish.

  “Jacques!” he called. “Breakfast!” He remembered the days when Jacques would hop up and down at his feet, snuffling and woofing, while Rudy prepared the food. How long since he had done that? How long since he had eaten his meals with such speed that Mr. Pennington would say to him, “My word, did you inhale that?”

  “Jacques?” called Mr. Pennington again. He picked up the dish, intending to carry it into the living room and allow Jacques to eat on the couch, but suddenly there was the old dog making his way into the kitchen. Mr. Pennington set the bowl on the floor again and stood above Jacques, watching. “Do you think you can eat?” he asked.

  Jacques looked up at Rudy as if to say, “I’ll try,” and then sniffed cautiously at his dish. At last he sat on his haunches, his left leg sliding to the side, and took a delicate mouthful.

  “Good boy,” whispered Mr. Pennington.

  Jacques tried another mouthful.

  Ten minutes later, the dish still half full, Jacques sat back from his laborious chewing.

  “Is that it?” asked Ruby. “You don’t want any more? You did pretty well, old boy. We’ll save the rest. Maybe you’ll want it later.”

  Ten days, the vet had said. Jacques had two weeks, maybe three, left. He was old, and he was giving out, pure and simple.

  Jacques hobbled back to the living room, gathered himself to jump onto the couch again, slipped, and fell on his rump. He turned wounded eyes to Mr. Pennington. In an instant, Rudy had gathered him in his arms and lifted him onto the cushion.

  “You sit here,” Rudy told Jacques. “I’m going to make some coffee and read with you for a while.”

  Mr. Pennington had read several chapters in The Peterkin Papers, by Lucretia P. Hale (which Min had told him was her favorite book when she was a little girl, and if it had been Min’s favorite, then Rudy wanted to experience it), when Jacques suddenly awakened, looking perkier, and jumped to the floor on his own.

  “Feeling better?” asked Mr. Pennington.

  Jacques headed for the kitchen, moving at a noticeably faster clip. Mr. Pennington followed him. When Jacques stopped at the back door, tail wagging in a tentative manner, and looked up at the man who had been his friend for so long, Rudy opened the door and Jacques ambled outside.

  “What a nice day,” remarked Mr. Pennington. “Hardly feels like January. This could be a morning in October. Or March.” He tipped his head back to feel the sun on his skin, thinking that dogs like to be sun-warmed as much as people do.

  When Jacques had made his way down the steps and into the yard, Mr. Pennington said, “Let me get my jacket and we’ll take a little walk.”

  For the next half an hour, Rudy and Jacques toured the backyard of the Row House. Jacques stopped in all his favorite places, and Rudy joined him. They sat on the bench and Rudy said, “Remember when there were three of us sitting here? Old man, old woman, and you? You were a pup then. Those were nice days.”

  Jacques stopped under an oak tree and Mr. Pennington peered up into its stark branches. “You almost caught a squirrel one day,” he said, “but it escaped up this tree. You were moving so fast, I thought you’d run right up the trunk after it.”

  Jacques sniffed at the remains of Mr. Pennington’s vegetable garden. “You used to like to garden with me,” remarked Rudy. “You’d sit out here while I planted and weeded. And you liked to eat green beans. Remember that? And to play with the vines?”

  Jacques settled himself between two rosebushes. “Another of your favorite spots,” said Mr. Pennington, “although how you sat here so often without getting pricked by the thorns is beyond me.”

  Jacques struggled to his feet and headed for the back door.

  “Time to go in?” asked Rudy. “Let’s get you a biscuit.”

  Inside, Mr. Pennington took a cookie from the jar of doggie treats, and Jacques ate it, tail wagging.

  “Ha,” said Mr. Pennington with a smile. “You’re going to prove that doctor wrong. What does she know about your spirit?”

  Jacques gave Rudy a grin and headed for the living room. Mr. Pennington remained in the kitchen, cleaning up his breakfast dishes and thinking about what to fix for supper.

  He heard a sharp intake of air from beyond the kitchen door.

  “Jacques?” Rudy paused to listen. “Jacques?”

  He stepped into the dining room and saw Jacques lying on the floor.

  As Jacques had grown older, Rudy had wondered if one day the old dog might die in his sleep, and whether Rudy would be able to distinguish sleep from death. Now he saw that death looked very different from sleep. Jacques was lying absolutely still, legs stretched before h
im, tongue protruding slightly, eyes open. There was nothing sleeplike about the rigid, surprised posture.

  “Well, boy.” Mr. Pennington’s voice caught and he raised a trembling hand to his lips. Then he bent over and stroked Jacques’s body, feeling not lifelessness, but something between life and death. No beating heart, but warmth, and that silky fur, and Jacques’s particular musky scent.

  At last Mr. Pennington straightened up and reached for the telephone. “Min,” he said. “Jacques is gone.” He listened for a moment. “Thank you.”

  Min arrived at Mr. Pennington’s house two minutes later. She put her arms around her friend and held him close.

  “I called the vet,” said Rudy, dabbing at his eyes with a limp handkerchief. “The office isn’t open today, but she’ll meet us there anyway.”

  “We’ll take my car,” said Min.

  Rudy wrapped Jacques in the blanket he had slept on since he was a puppy and carried him to the car. He held Jacques while Min drove, and he never stopped stroking his ears. “I love his ears,” he said to Min.

  There wasn’t much to be done at the vet’s office. The doctor greeted Rudy and Min at the door, took Jacques, blanket and all, from Rudy, and laid him on an examining table.

  “When did it happen?” she asked.

  “Less than an hour ago. We’d been out in the yard and he seemed happy, and then we came inside and a little while later I found him lying on the floor.”

  “I can assure you it was painless,” said the vet.

  “I wish I’d been there with him at the very … the very moment,” said Rudy.

  Min reached for Rudy’s hand. “Maybe he wanted to spare you.”

  “Maybe.” Mr. Pennington turned to the doctor. “What’s to be done now?” he asked.

  “We can have him cremated, if you like. We’ll have his ashes ready for you in a couple of weeks.”

  “All right,” replied Mr. Pennington.

  “I’m very sorry for your loss,” said the vet. “Jacques was a wonderful dog. He was a favorite here in the office.”

  Mr. Pennington smiled. “Thank you. I appreciate your coming in today.”