Jacob's Folly Read Free Page A

(I felt I had a heart) pumping in my chest, I lowered myself gradually, both craving an encounter anddreading it. As I came closer to Leslie, I felt a warm tide of air swirl around my body. I felt naked. Lowering myself still more, I found the air around him was nearly hot, and thick as honey. This man stank of woodsmoke. He was still pissing, his face and pallid member both turned toward the dawn sky. I felt he was looking right at me. I waited for him to see me, for the terrible encounter to occur. I assumed that when it did I would know what to say, and I would understand why I had been sent back to earth. Yet Leslie was not reacting. His big jaw set, light blue eyes focused at a point just beyond my head, he zipped up his trousers, turned, and walked away from me, toward one of the box houses. Was I invisible? Suddenly frightened to be left alone outside, I flew behind him, arms outstretched, determined to follow him to shelter. I beat my wings as hard as I could, but the air resisted me. My flight felt turgid. I was floating as much as flying. Before I could reach him, Leslie had opened the door to his house and closed it gently, shutting me out. I set down on the hard, shiny leaf of a bush by the door, folding my wings petulantly as I realized that, on top of everything else, I was tiny—one of those angels that fits on the head of a pin!
    With my man gone, the air went cool. Cold, scared, baffled, I focused my mind on Leslie, and was astonished to find myself as good as in his bedroom, staring down at his big-boned, comely wife—even as I shivered outside.

3
    H earing her husband come in, Deirdre Senzatimore shifted under the dense duvet, opened one eye, and looked at the crack between the curtains. Electric blue. Almost morning.
So many fires in the night
, she thought, drifting.
Why?
… In her sinking mind, her deaf five-year-old son, Stevie, was starting a small fire in her bedroom, and as it grew, the heat became unbearable. “Where did you find those matches?” she asked him, unable to pry her head from the pillow. But the little blond boy was laughing, lighting one match after another, tossing them around the floor as if throwing crumbs to pigeons. Just then, Leslie walked in wearing his full fireman’s gear. He had a swollen canvas hose in one hand and doused Stevie with a fat jet of water. Deirdre cried out for him to stop, but he kept the stream of water on the little boy, as if it were the child that was on fire. The water turned off as if controlled by a tap somewhere; Deirdre ran to her dripping son to find that Stevie was covered in shimmering, translucent stones. Deirdre picked one off and held it between thumb and forefinger. It was a diamond.
    Feeling her husband in the room now, and waking, Deirdre turned inside her thin cotton nightgown, twisting the fabric as she peered at him, then let her head fall back on the pillow. Hair wet from bathing, and naked, Leslie climbed under the bedding, pulling his wife intohis chest, encircling her in his big arms, feeling her soft belly, her full breasts, all that strong flesh somewhat collapsed beneath the thin fabric. He brushed her heavy hair from the back of her neck and pressed his face to it. Her skin was very warm, nearly hot.
    â€œHow was it?” she murmured.
    â€œBasement fire,” he said. “Wiring.” Within seconds, they both fell into a pit of sleep.
    Leslie had first spotted Deirdre at the Stop & Shop in Patchogue, when they were both nearly thirty. She was pushing a large cart filled with groceries, her young son walking by her side. Bud was a skinny six-year-old with large dark eyes. He sang quietly to himself as he walked, one finger hooked over a wire in the metal cart. As Leslie passed him, Bud looked up and grinned mirthlessly with one side of his mouth. Leslie raised his eyebrows, but he didn’t say anything; you couldn’t talk to children you didn’t know anymore. Then he looked up and saw