Thin Days by Lauren Johnson

I’m outside on the patio smoking when Carlos finds me.

“You’re not supposed to be smoking,” he says, but he doesn’t really care.

“I’m vaping,” I say, indicating the little stick I’m holding. It’s weird, but I like it. I can get pineapple, kiwi, watermelon. Fruit cancer.

We’re looking at the ocean. This is the best job either one of us has ever had for ocean viewing. It’s early in the morning, just after six a.m.

“Who said that thing about never dying, just fading away?” I ask. God, it’s beautiful here. California coast. Fucking waves and shit.

“I don’t know,” Carlos says. “Neil Young?”

I don’t think that’s right, but I can’t think of who else it might be.

“I don’t think it was Neil Young,” I say, and Carlos nods. He’s pretty agreeable. Not all the other caregivers I’ve worked with are, so I like change of shift with Carlos. He’s here most of the time that I’m not, although there’s another part-time woman named Tamara who works Sunday to Monday, nine to nine.

From the baby monitor we hear shuffling. I reach into my pocket and pull out the speaker, put it to my ear.

“Should I check the camera?” he asks.

“Can you even see her on it today?”

“You can see her outline,” he says, and goes inside to get it. He brings it out, but the glare is too much and we have to go back to the kitchen to see the screen. It’s an expensive one, but it’s still just a baby monitor—not the best image. I can see the outline of Barbara’s back and shoulders where she stands, staring out the upstairs slider. I can see the Pacific, and Catalina Island way out there, right through her.

“It’s a thin day,” Carlos says, and I nod.

Barbara has thin days and thick days now, although the thick days are becoming less frequent. So far no one else has said anything about the thin days, so we can’t be sure anyone else sees them. Or doesn’t see, rather. What I mean is, we can’t be sure no one else doesn’t see her like we do. Like we don’t.

Sometimes Carlos and I wonder if we’re crazy. We discuss this at the end of shift, just like we discuss blood pressure and bowel movements and how much she ate. So far we think we aren’t.

Carlos has a wife and two little girls. He has to go right when his shift ends at seven so he can get the kids off to school. His wife leaves for work when he gets home; she’s an RN at Olive Grove. Fortunately, they live near the hospital, so when he’s a little late it’s not the end of the world.

“I gotta leave right at seven today,” he says, and I nod. That’s why I come early, to talk to him before he has to leave.

I have a wife too, but whenever I’m home she goes to her mom’s house. Since I work two twenty-fours back-to-back, and then another two later in the week, we don’t think she needs to move out completely, at least not yet. I still have hope we can work it out, but if we happen to pass each other in the driveway now she gives me a little wave, like I’m the neighbor, or the mailman. My guess is this is not a good sign.

Carlos leaves right at seven. I make him a cup of joe for the road, and when I’m sure he’s gone I bring my laundry in and start a load. I’d get fired if anyone found out, but who’s going to tell? My apartment has machines, but they aren’t free. You gotta have quarters and quarters only. It’s not the money; it’s the damn quarters. I never have any when I think of the wash.

At noon I take Barbara her lunch. She likes a tuna fish sandwich, with capers and very little mayonnaise, cut into small pieces. She also likes the crusts cut off, or she did, back when she cared. Now she doesn’t eat much, but she likes to have the food around. Sometimes she puts it in her closet in a shoebox. We figured this out the first time by the smell. That was a bad day. She wouldn’t let us throw the shoebox away, so Carlos had to sneak up in the middle of the night and swap it out with a different one. Fortunately she has boxes and boxes and boxes of shoes. Shoes with names like Ferragamo, Christian Louboutin, Gucci, Brian Atwood. When we need a new box we take the shoes out and put them in the closet in the largest of the five downstairs bedrooms. Then we put the box back so she can put her sandwiches in it until it gets gross. Then we throw that one away and the process starts all over again.

It’s a good thing she has a lot of shoes. She’s already lived eight months longer than they told us to expect.

Today when I go up with the tray she’s on the little sofa in the room she calls the TV room. There’s no TV in it that I can see, but maybe there used to be. She’s asleep when I get there so I put the tray down on the side table and tiptoe out.

Forty-eight hours later I go home. My wife isn’t there, but she’s left me a note:

WE’RE OUT OF LAUNDRY DETERGENT

When I go back to work 24 hours later, Carlos is there. I’m running a little behind since my wife was parked behind me when I got up to leave this morning. That never happens. I had to wake her up to get her keys.

Carlos is sitting at the kitchen table playing solitaire. In the chair across from him is a little old man.

“Hello,” I say, but the man doesn’t answer or even seem to hear.

“Who’s this?” I say to Carlos.

“Her husband, I think,” he says, laying down the Jack of Diamonds.

“Husband?” I’m confused. No one ever mentioned a husband.

The man stands up and heads for the stairs, and when he does I see all the way to the back yard and on through to the ocean, right through his shoulders.

I look at Carlos, but he doesn’t seem alarmed.

“When did he get here?” I ask. The man stumps away with his cane, making good time for an old guy. He’s wearing a baggy cords and a flannel jacket and seems to be whistling softly under his breath.

Carlos doesn’t answer so I go into the living room and look at the family photos on the walls. Barbara has two kids: a girl and a boy. Or a woman and a man now, I guess. I’ve met the man a few times. The woman—her daughter—I don’t know about her.

There’s no picture of a husband, but there is an old one of Barbara as a little girl, posing with a woman I guess is her mom and a younger version of the man who was just sitting in the chair in the breakfast room.

I walk back to the kitchen where Carlos is gathering up his things.

“That’s not her husband. That’s her dad.”

Carlos looks sideways at me and grins. “I’m not going to mention this in the shift report.”

We laugh, and he leaves.

Later, when I go up with the tray, the old guy is sitting on the couch in the TV room. Barbara comes in from her bedroom with her shirt on backwards and her shoes on the wrong feet. This happens fairly often now. She doesn’t seem to notice him but I can’t be sure. I get her situated and she takes a few bites of her sandwich. I can see the couch right through her chest. The sandwich goes down and disappears.

As she eats, her outline gets a little darker.

“Barbara,” I say. “You have company?” I say it kind of like a statement and kind of like a question. I indicate the man with the slightest tilt of my head. I don’t want to alarm her. She looks in the man’s direction but gives no sign that she sees him.

Barbara doesn’t talk much today, so after a while I go back downstairs. When I look at the monitor, she’s fallen asleep, head back, mouth wide open, oxygen hissing softly in her nose. The man is gone.

Tomorrow is trash day, so I wrestle the damn cans to the curb. One of them hits a rock in the street and tips over. By the time I get it cleaned up, the gate is closed, and I have to punch in the code to open it again. It beeps loudly and slides back. Sitting in the middle of the driveway is a large white cat.

I’m neutral on cats. I don’t love them, but I don’t hate them either. This cat seems to feel the same way about me. Thing doesn’t run, but it doesn’t come near me. He just sits there, his tail flicking back and forth, so I walk past him, towards the house. When I turn back to look, he’s gone.

Now I’m 12 hours into my second 24, and I swear the house feels different. Like there are others here with Barbara and me. It’s not altogether unpleasant. I step out to smoke – a real one this time. The waves are loud tonight, which means the moon is probably getting towards full, but I can’t see it behind the clouds.

From the back porch I see the cat. He’s glowing, and not from the moon, which is still behind the clouds. This time he does come towards me, and then past me, into the house right through the slider, which is closed.

I finish my cigarette and stub it out in the shoebox with the remains of the tuna fish sandwich.

When Carlos arrives the next morning, he doesn’t see the cat sitting by the back door.

“Watch out!” I yell, but his foot passes right through so there’s no danger of him falling. The cat slips out through the door, which Carlos has already closed.

“What did you see?” he asks, but I don’t want to tell him because I want to know if he sees it for himself. He’s OK with this and says he’ll let me know tomorrow.

I’m almost home when I remember the laundry detergent. I stop for a double double burger and on a whim get one for my wife too. I figure I’ll leave it in the fridge for her, with a note, but when I get home her car’s in the driveway and somehow I know she’s waiting for me.

She’s sitting at the kitchen table when I come in.

“I got you a burger,” I say.

“We need to talk,” she says, but I ask if we can do it tomorrow because I just worked two back-to-backs. After a minute she nods, and then goes to her mother’s, taking her burger with her. I decide to see this as a good sign.

Once she’s gone, I go into her room—what used to be our room—and look at her things. I pick up her hairbrush, her nail file, her soap. I put on her UCLA sweater because it used to be mine and fits me—she only uses it to sleep in, like a nightgown. It’s hers now though; all of me has been worn out of it. It smells like her face lotion, and there’s a smear of nail polish on the sleeve. I remember the day she spilled it; she cussed like a teenager in a way I admire. She swears well. She takes no shit.

I fall asleep on her bed. Fortunately, she makes a lot of noise the next morning letting herself in, and I have time to dive for the bathroom and turn on the shower.

“I have to go in early,” I say from the shower when she taps on the bathroom door. “Carlos texted and he needs help moving her downstairs.” This is a lie, obviously, but not the kind that used to get me in trouble with my wife, back when she cared what I did and what I said. She says OK, but that we have to talk soon, so then I say OK, and she leaves, and I dodged a bullet for another day.

When I get to Barbara’s house at seven, her son’s car is in the driveway.

Carlos is talking to him, the son, whose name I can’t remember. He’s as big and solid as Barbara is small. I can see that Carlos is tense by the way he’s standing, gripping the side of the kitchen counter and then letting it go, gripping it again.

“She’s no different than before,” Carlos is saying. “Still the same.”

“I don’t think so,” Fat Son says. “She’s worse. I think it’s time to move her someplace.”

Carlos shakes his head, and Fat Son gets annoyed.

“It’s not time yet,” Carlos says.

“She’s worse than before,” he says again.

“She won’t like it,” Carlos says. “It will upset her.”

“Listen, man,” says Fat Son. “I don’t give a damn what you think.”

I step into the room and let the door close behind me the way it wants to, which is loudly. Fat Son swings around.

“There’s no need to talk to him that way,” I say.

Carlos is strong, but I guess you could say he’s a small guy. I’m not. I’m the kind of guy that causes other guys to look up when I come in the room, then look down again, then look up when they think I’m not looking at them. I’m tall and have a little extra weight on me, but it’s weight like guys who play football have, which I did. Offensive Tackle, in fact, all the way through college, until I blew out my knee. Now, most likely even Fat Son could run away from me, but he doesn’t know that.

“I’m on now,” I say. “Carlos needs to leave. His wife will be late for work.”

The little old guy with the cane walks into the kitchen. Carlos and I look at each other. Fat Son doesn’t see him. He says he has to leave too, and does, and fast, before Carlos.

I follow him out to the driveway.

“Hey,” I call as he’s backing out, “How come your sister never comes to visit?”

He gives me the finger and leaves. Fucktard.

Because of Fat Son, Carlos is running late, but he pauses on his way out the door.

“I saw the cat,” he says, and then, “You’ve lost weight.”

When I go upstairs to check on Barbara, she’s sitting on the couch in the TV room with the cat curled up in her lap. Next to her on the sofa is the old guy. They’re not really doing anything, but that’s typical of Barbara now. Sometimes it takes her most of the day just to drink a cup of tea.

“Barbara,” I say, “Would your friend like something to drink?” But she just smiles at me, a serene smile that’s still solid, showing her strong white teeth. She has amazing teeth for a lady her age. Sometimes I think that will be all that’s left to see, her teeth, like that cat in Alice in Wonderland.

Through her chest, I can see the sofa. It’s a thin day.

My wife texts me that we still need to talk. I text Carlos and ask if he wants me to cover his next two shifts. That would leave me here for 72 hours straight, which is against the rules, but no one needs to know. At first he says no, but then I tell him I have two Dodgers tickets if he wants them, and he says sure, why not. He asks if I need extra money, and I say yes, even though I don’t.

In the afternoon, after Barbara’s nap, she and the old man walk down to the edge of the backyard to look at the ocean. This is the first time I’ve ever seen Barbara go outside, even though Carlos and I have been trying to get her to since we started working here. I have to open the slider for them; for Barbara, actually: the man walks right through, then stands there waiting patiently for her to follow. She’s too weak to pull the heavy glass door back, so I do it for her and then trail along behind them, wheeling the portable oxygen tank. They don’t speak to me but they don’t seem to mind having me there. They stare out at the ocean, not talking, until the wind gets to be too much for Barbara. I settle her back upstairs and go down to make lunch. On the monitor I see the outline of the cat when he jumps in her lap.

That night, I watch the game on TV as I’m making Barbara’s lamb chop. Suddenly I realize I haven’t eaten all day. I add three more chops to the pan alongside Barbara’s one and eat them like popsicles as I stand in front of the stove. If I could, I’d eat the bones. Instead I suck on them, then throw them in the garbage.

When I take her dinner upstairs, Barbara’s asleep on the sofa in the TV room. For a minute, I’m afraid. Gently, I shake her shoulder, and she opens her eyes and stares at me without recognition.

“Barbara,” I say, “It’s time for dinner.” I peel back the foil and she smiles at me radiantly when she sees the lamb chop, as though I have brought her a precious gift. Slowly, carefully, she cuts it into tiny pieces and guides them to her mouth. She’ll only eat dinner if we bring it to her on a tiny plate, with tiny portions: one lamb chop, three or four green beans, a quarter-sized dab of mashed potato. If we bring more, she shakes her head, then waits until we leave the room so she can put it all in the shoebox.

When I come downstairs, there’s a young woman sitting at the table with the old man and the cat. I say it’s a woman, but it’s really just her outline; I see her in glimmers, like when you’re looking into the sun. I think she’s the one from the picture in the living room. I nod to her, and it seems like she nods back. She stays awhile, and then fades away.

On the monitor I watch Barbara as she drinks her tea. One minutes she’s there and almost solid; the next she’s glimmering and wavy. She’s smiling though, and humming softly to herself.

The rest of the time passes, like it always does.

“Great game,” Carlos says when he comes to relieve me. “Anything new?” I tell him about the walk down to see the ocean, about the lamb chops. I don’t mention the woman. I don’t know why, but I don’t want to tell him.

When I get home, my wife is sitting at the breakfast table. She should be at work.

“I think it’s time for one of us to move out,” she says.

“Which one?” I ask, and she shrugs. She wants me to decide.

“Why now?” I ask. She says it’s time to get on with our lives.

“Get busy living or get busy dying,” she says. “Text me when you decide.”

“I love you,” I say.

“You look like you’ve lost weight,” she says as she shuts the back door.

Alone in the apartment, I think she’s right. I feel lighter. My clothes are loose on me. I look at my hand, my arm, my calf; they seem to shimmer, like I’m seeing them underwater. Like they’re dissolving slowly, getting wider, letting other things in. There are other things coming in now, I think. I gather up a few clothes and throw them in my gym bag, then text my wife that she can keep the apartment. She texts back a thumbs up.

Get busy living or get busy dying.

When I leave, I take the UCLA sweatshirt. Carlos isn’t expecting me, so he’s startled when I come in. He squints at me like he doesn’t understand what I’m doing there, but then he nods, so I go upstairs and sit down on the couch with Barbara, the old man and her daughter. The cat jumps in my lap. Barbara smiles at me and puts her hand on my arm; her fingers are the softest things that have ever touched my skin. She lifts her hand and points out the window, still smiling, while the ocean shimmers and glows and smashes and lasts forever.

Lauren Johnson is now a two-time contributor to the Los Angeles Review. Her work has also been published in Tertulia, The Rambler and Better Culture and Literature. Her story Casualties earned a past honorable mention in Zoetrope’s All-Story contest. She splits her time between upstate New York and Ojai, California.