Bathroom Stall

Then came Sunday morning.

Nancy was in the kitchen measuring out Harold’s morning blood-thinner pills when a sudden, heavy thump shook the floorboards from the bathroom down the hall.

The dull thud rattled the medicine cabinet glass at seven in the morning.

Nancy dropped the tea kettle and ran into the narrow hallway. The bathroom door was jammed half-open. Inside, Harold lay wedged in the six-inch gap between the base of the toilet and the particle-board vanity. His right leg was bent double under his left thigh, his useless arm pinned to his chest. The smell of damp terry cloth and cold sweat filled the small room.

“Harold,” she breathed, dropping to her knees. Her kneecaps hit the floor tile with a sharp crack.

“Get off me,” he grunted. His left hand clawed at the bath mat, trying to get leverage against the slick vinyl. His face was blotchy and red.

She hooked her hands under his armpits. She dragged upward with her legs, her spine popping twice near the belt line. Harold was a hundred and ninety pounds of slack, uncooperative weight. He groaned, a harsh guttural noise, and shoved her chest away with his good arm.

“Stop it,” he snapped, his voice thick with shame. “Don’t you call anybody. Don’t you dare touch that phone.”

“You’re stuck, Harold. Let me help you.”

“I said no.”

It took forty-one minutes. Nancy knelt in the cramped space, guiding his good foot while he pulled himself up inch by agonizing inch using the towel bar. The metal bracket groaned in the drywall, almost pulling free. When he finally hauled his weight onto the toilet lid, his breath came in ragged, wheezing gasps. He didn’t look at her. He refused the ice pack she offered for his shoulder, shoving it back into her hand.

By late afternoon, the house was stifling with unspoken rage. Harold sat in his brown leather recliner in the living room, a tartan blanket pulled up to his chin, staring at a muted baseball game. Nancy sat at the laminate kitchen counter, rubbing the sharp ache in her lower back. Her fingers trembled so hard she spilled her cold coffee across the morning paper. She wiped it up with a paper towel, then sat back down, staring at the blank drywall. She could do nothing for him. She could do nothing for herself.

At 5:03 p.m., the silence shattered.

Outside the closed double-pane window, forty feet across the grass, the orange gas engine roared to life. The high-pitched whine rattled the window glass.

The damp soaked through Nancy’s wool slippers before she reached the middle of the lawn. Cold mud caked the soles. She didn’t turn back for boots; she kept her eyes fixed on the fence line of Unit 58, her knuckles white where she clutched her gray cardigan shut at her throat.

The two-stroke engine screamed, high and ragged. Gray exhaust drifted over the cedar divider, sharp with unburned gasoline.

Elena stood on the wet flagstones, steering a blast of air against a mound of soggy brown maple leaves. Heavy yellow hearing protectors clamped over her ears. Behind the glass slider, the Martinez kitchen light threw a warm rectangle onto the concrete.

Nancy reached the gate. Hawthorne Ridge called the patios limited common elements, but every unit had this six-foot cedar fence and a latch to mark its space. Her fingers curled around the wet latch bar. It lifted with a dull clink. She pushed the gate wide and stepped onto Elena’s flagstones.

Elena felt the draft or saw the motion out of the corner of her eye. She spun, releasing the trigger. The engine dropped to an oily idle, rattling against its orange plastic casing. Elena slipped one yellow cup off her right ear, letting it rest against her temple.

“You need to turn that off,” Nancy said. Her voice came out thin over the motor’s sputter. “Shut it down right now.”

“It’s five in the afternoon,” Elena said. Her face held no expression. “I’m clearing the walk.”

“Harold is sick. He fell this morning. He is inside in pain, and you are running this machine directly under our bedroom.”

Elena glanced down at the gate standing open behind Nancy, then back to Nancy’s wet slippers. “I’m sorry he fell. But the leaves are slick, and my mother has to walk out here tomorrow morning.”

“Rake them,” Nancy said, stepping closer. Her shoulders were rigid. “Use a broom. You do this three times a week just to harass us.”

“I have ten minutes left,” Elena said. “Get off my patio, Nancy.”

“You don’t get to order me around. You will listen to me.”

Elena didn’t argue. She didn’t raise her voice. She looked Nancy straight in the face, pulled the yellow cup down, and let it snap firmly back over her ear.

The plastic clicked against her skull. Elena turned her back, squeezed the black throttle, and the engine shrieked to life.

The exhaust blew across Nancy’s shins. The noise hit her like a slap.

Nancy stepped forward and locked both hands onto the vibrating plastic nozzle.