Excerpted from:
THE WEIGHT
by Ryan Lewis Merritt
Something broke, and Jim turned his head to see what it was.
Darryl stood behind him with the back end of the couch in his hands, his shoulders seesawing under the sagging weight, eyes fixed on the dusty garage floor.
“Forget it,” Jim said, tugging roughly on his end of the couch to pull Darryl forward.
“Sorry,” Darryl said, looking up.
Jim shook his head.
“Come on,” he said, leading the couch up the ramp.
Jim knew he should have taken the back position. It was obvious from the first few pieces of furniture that Daryl didn’t have much experience moving things – the way he started with the lighter items first, shoving things in the truck with no clear design. Jim knew it wouldn’t be long before one of Darryl’s careless elbows knocked into something breakable, but he refused to put himself into a position to watch over him, to see him any more than he absolutely had to. His presence, three feet away for the past hour, was enough. Jim kept reminding himself that it didn’t matter what broke, what didn’t. It wasn’t his problem anymore.
In the back of the truck, Jim tugged the couch free from Darryl’s soft grip and shoved it flush against the rear passenger side corner. He straightened his gloves and watched Darryl retreat back down the ramp and through the garage with his odd, bouncing rhythm, head tipped back at an arrogant slant.
As Jim looked away, his eyes fell to the couch. He felt a deep, nagging ache in his knees already, and he thought about sitting for a second – his first instinct whenever he saw the tough, weathered fabric of the cushions. The family couch – the one they would all gang up on, pressed four across, watching movies or football games back when they all cared enough to watch football games with him, indulge his habits. Before the boys’ mother began to make it clear on her own that she wouldn’t be indulging him anymore, the first, early step in his slow exile from their lives. She’d still make the popcorn, but she’d drop it off and hang back in the kitchen or go to another room, talk on the phone or page through a magazine. So maybe it was inevitable, he thought, looking down at the couch with all its scars, the subtle discoloration of countless stains. This is what those things lead to, the harmless changes you ignore.
He heard the pressurized thunk-thunk-thunk of a basketball on pavement as he came down the ramp, and as he stepped around to the side of the truck he saw Dusty dribbling at the back edge of the blacktop, standing tall over Joe, who was frozen in a grappler’s crouch. Dusty suddenly pulled up and arced a beautiful, fluid jump shot over his brother, who, being half a body shorter, could only turn and watch its disappearing flight. Jim heard the ball brick off the unseen rim and thump off the truck’s hood. The boys laughed.
“Hey!” shouted Jim.
Dusty looked over for a moment and calmly looked away, as if Jim had shouted to someone across the street.
“Careful with the truck, okay?” Jim called.
Dusty ignored him and went back to dribbling, passing the ball between his legs.
“Okay, Dad! Sorry!” Jim heard Joe shout back.
Jim watched Dusty, the smooth athleticism of his movements tugging at his own displaced memories of high school and junior college ball. Dusty was taller than Jim had been at sixteen and would probably pass his father within a year. He had resisted Jim’s attempts to bulk him up with weights, to add substance to a thin frame so vulnerable to hard hits. To avoid the injuries that had shortened Jim’s own athletic career. Dusty never wanted to hear any of it.
Jim turned back toward the house and walked through the piles of marked and unmarked boxes and furniture to be discarded, the pile of his own things set way back in the far corner of the garage. He looked back toward the truck, which was barely a quarter of the way full.
He stepped into the house and saw Lorraine standing at the kitchen counter, looking out the window, squinting, still too vain to wear glasses. So many times he had seen her like that, but never, he realized, like this. Where she wouldn’t be again. He couldn’t picture it. How many times had he come down the stairs in the morning, or come home from work at night, arrived back from a camping trip to find her standing there, eyes frozen out on the yard? It was her own form of silent meditation, as if her thoughts were all lined up out there on the yard, on the green grass they had planted together or the bright shining snow the boys would drag themselves through all winter. He had, several times, stood in the same place and looked out, trying, unsuccessfully, to get inside her head. He had always respected the privacy of her thoughts, but now he wondered if he should have been asking about them all along. He knew that, one of those times, she had looked out there and seen her life without him. Maybe that’s what she was seeing now.
“Where are the boys?” she asked, not moving her eyes. Not moving anything. She must be well attuned, he thought, to the sounds of him coming in the house.
“Out playing ball.” Jim fiddled with the straps on his gloves.
Lorraine nodded.
“I’ll tell them to come help,” she said, but she didn’t move.
“Nah. It’s fine. Give them the time.”
Finally, she looked at him.
“The time to what?” she asked.
Jim shrugged.
“They’re probably going to miss it here,” he said.
“Don’t you think I thought of that,” Lorraine said sharply, returning her gaze to the yard.
Jim nodded and headed toward the dining room, where he could hear Darryl bumbling around among boxes and chairs.
“There’s a beer for you,” Lorraine said. “On the counter.”
He saw the sweating can of Bud Light on the worn wood, a crescent of condensation to its right, the ghost mark of another can.
“Thanks. I’ll get it to it later.”
He heard a thump in the living room, a muttered curse.
“Is it really necessary for him to be here?” Jim asked.
Lorraine turned her head. Her blonde hair had ribbons of gray in it now.
“Who?” she asked.
Jim shook his head and walked toward the living room.
“Yes. It is,” Lorraine said.