Dragonfly by Jax Hill 

The days were cool now. It wasn’t too cold to be outdoors, but we were all wearing jackets, and we didn’t linger as long in the evenings as we might have done. Torstein, he didn’t have a home. He stayed with Jack and Jazz a lot of the time, and sometimes he would stay with me or Ferdy. Maggie had offered him a room in the second condo, but I don’t think he ever stayed there. Sometimes he stayed outdoors with the homeless people. They were always glad to have him, and they tried to do something special for him ... but it usually ended up that he bought their dinner.

 

He had never been to my brother’s house. Pete’s marriage was ... rocky, maybe you could say? I don’t know if his wife was manic-depressive or just a sort of mean woman, or what the problem was. They’d had two nice children, a boy and a girl, twins. They were red-headed kids, cute as could be, and right form the start they loved each other more than anyone else. They tolerated their mom somehow, and they were fond of Pete, but they were each others’ best friends. They’d gone off to college together two years ago. They were both studying marine biology.

They’d grown up in the fish market and already knew everything about fish. I don’t know what they were learning at college, but they were good at it and got good grades. Pete’s wife, since they’d been gone, she traveled a lot. Pete didn’t go with her much, at first, because we were running the fish market. And because he didn’t really like spending that much time with her. Since we’d sold the fish market, he’d had plenty of time to travel with her ... but he’d met Torstein and started hanging out with us on the streets or in the park. I don’t know what his wife thought of it. I don’t even know if Pete told her. It was almost like they were leading separate lives.

So I was surprised one day when he called and told me Phyllis was sick, and he was going to stay home with her. We almost always met for coffee late in the morning and then went looking for Torstein and our crowd. (Unless we needed money, in which case we’d meet Jack and Jazz really early and go out fishing.) I asked Pete was there anything I could do for him — run to the pharmacy or something? He said no; he thought maybe it was just the flu, but he wasn’t comfortable to leave her, and he’d call me if he needed anything.

Since I wasn’t meeting Pete for coffee, I just brewed some at home. I had a nice apartment with two bedrooms and some very nice modern appliances back in the day. I hardly ever used them. I only cooked occasionally and then it was only to grill fish and toss salads; I didn’t know how to do much else in the kitchen. So I got my coffee machine going, lingered over the newspaper, and never went out to find Torstein until about noon. We had lunch, visited some of his homeless friends, and went to the park for Story Hour about three in the afternoon ...

Mari and Tawny were really great at this by now. Actual adults with jobs would come and listen if they had the chance, people taking a break from their work in the downtown high-rises. You could tell the girls practiced, and they did these great character voices. Little kids, homeless people, old drunks, everybody loved it. So we watched the performance, then Torstein went off and started visiting with all the folks, the way he would. It was routine now. He floated from little group to little group and spoke to everyone and sometimes whistled for Ferdy and gave someone a hand-out.

Around six p.m. he said to me, “Let’s take Ferdy and Franz and go to Pete’s for dinner.”

This was wrong and so may levels. First, I’d told Torstein the reason Pete wasn’t here was that his wife was home sick. Second, Phyllis never liked people coming to her house without advance clearance of at least a day, or preferably a week. She liked to steam clean everything before anyone walked in the door! Third, I wasn’t even sure if Pete would have any dinner for us if he’d been tending his wife all day. I explained to Torstein that I didn’t think this was a good idea, but he said, “Sure it is! Come on, I’m hungry.”

In the car on the way, I called Pete to try to give him some warning, but he didn’t pick up his phone. I had to leave a message. When we got there, he looked at me as if I were crazy, but he let us in the door. The house looked great, as always. Phyllis was an awesome housekeeper. She was the only one who would have thought she needed to have the maids in before we came. We all thought the place looked super.

Pete said, “Come on in, guys. Go into the kitchen there, I’ll see what I’ve got to feed you.”

But Torstein said, “I heard your wife is sick. I came to visit her.”

Another bombshell! The last thing Phyllis would want if she were laid up in bed without make-up and a peignoir would be anyone coming into her room!

“Oh, ah, that’s not a good idea,” Pete said. “She doesn’t look her best and she wouldn’t want to —”

“I don’t mind,” Torstein said. “I’m sure she won’t either.” Before anyone could stop him, he was up the stairs calling, “How are you, Phyllis?”

“Really, Torstein,” Pete was saying, doggedly running along behind him, “she’s not gonna like —”

But Torstein brushed past him into the master bedroom. I had run up to the landing to try to stop him, but I figured Phyllis wouldn’t want me there, too, so I stopped, in agony about what would happen next. The last thing you want to do to a manic-depressive person who’s obsessed with appearances is drop in on her when she’s sick.

I heard muffled voices coming from the sick room; apparently Phyllis was too sick to blow up, or else she was restraining herself for appearance’s sake and would blow up at Pete after we left. I held my breath ... and in a moment, Pete came out of the room, looking a little dazed. Torstein followed him in just a few seconds, calling back over his shoulder, “That would be wonderful, Phyllis, thank you!”

To me Torstein said, “She feels much better now and said she’d be happy to make us dinner. She’ll be down in a few minutes.”

The next day, when I met Pete for coffee, Phyllis was with him. She said she hadn’t had anything planned, and she wanted to see what we boys did all day. After that, she came most days. She and Maggie became quite good friends. And once a week or so, we all went to Pete’s for dinner. Phyllis was a really good cook.