Furnace. Muriel Gray
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a shower and crawled into their flowery linen nest for the first sleep of home. The difficult sleep. After six nights stretched out in a sleeping bag on Jezebel’s sagging foam mattress behind the cab with dozens of truck engines thudding outside, finding oblivion in this big, fresh, soft and silent bed took time.
This morning it couldn’t be found at all. Josh was weary, but closing his eyes brought nothing but the road rolling by on the inside of his lids. He lay in the bed, his hands behind his head, resigned to sleeplessness, content with merely resting in a state of semi-reverie until Elizabeth came home, when he hoped she would slide into the warmth and join him.
Josh remained motionless but wakeful for several hours, sufficiently relaxed to be unaware of the day as it played out its variations of light behind the closed bedroom drapes, but then he was a master of rest without sleep. Driving created a new gear for the mind, a neutral that demanded little of the body except breathing. It was almost trance-like and he’d driven in such a state plenty of times, despite the plain reckless danger of it. His enjoyment of the escape it afforded was broken by the sound of Elizabeth’s key in the lock, and the slam of the screen door. He opened his eyes, surprised to have dreamed what seemed like the entire day away, then stretched and lay back with his eyes closed, waiting in delicious anticipation for her to come to him, knowing that she’d see his pick-up parked outside and realize he was in bed.
It was comforting, hearing her sounds, the clatter of domesticity, as she moved about in the kitchen, opening and closing cupboards, putting away things she must have bought on the way home, and the scrape of a chair as it was pulled out from the kitchen table. Josh waited.
There was silence.
He slid his legs reluctantly out of the warm bed, pulled on a voluminous sweatshirt and yawned. As he made for the door he remembered her gift, fished in his jeans pocket and transferred the small box into the pocket of the sweatshirt. Then he made his way through to the kitchen, scratching at his skull like a bear.
She was sitting at the table motionless, her back to him, her head turned towards the small window. Elizabeth had hair that was only marginally longer than his own, but the cut was feminine and accentuated the graceful sweep of her neck. He leaned against the door-frame and drank in the slender architecture of her shoulders.
She turned and looked up at him. Brown eyes in a pale and almost masculinely handsome face looked as if they wanted to return his heat, but they were clouded with a film of defeat.
Josh put out his arms and she stood up and moved into them. With an almost imperceptible sigh of pleasure he allowed his fingers to part the dark hair and caress her head.
‘Bad?’
She nodded against him with a tiny movement.
Josh put his mouth to the top of her head and spoke into her hair.
‘Hell, they just don’t know what lucky is, Pittsburgh folk. The chance to zip themselves into a chicken suit, right here on their doorstep, and where are they all?’
‘Fuck off.’
She mumbled it into his chest but he could tell it was said through a smile. He lifted her head and made to kiss her, but her smile died as she looked into his eyes. Then she pulled free.
Josh put his now-empty arms up in a gesture of surrender.
‘Joke.’
‘I know.’
She sat back at the table, where he joined her and took her hand.
‘It’ll pick up. Just one guy who gets his rocks off at a party dressed as a pirate and tells his friends, believe me, you’ll be beating them off with shit-covered sticks.’
‘You’ve been gone a long time.’
An accusing tone she never used. It threw him, and he withdrew the hand that had been covering hers.
‘Got an extra load from Louisville. Couldn’t turn it down. I told you.’
‘We need the money that bad?’
‘Yes.’
She looked down at the table.
‘Sorry.’
His hand was still on the table top. Avoiding his eyes she slid her hand over and laid it on his. Josh reached into the sweatshirt pocket with his free hand, took out the small box and slid it towards her.
‘For you. It’s dumb but it’s for luck.’
She looked up and met his eyes, a smile beginning to ghost in them again.
‘You been screwing someone?’
‘I wish.’
She opened the box, rustled the piece of tissue paper and revealed the dull metal brooch. Her name was etched clearly but unevenly on it, with the E too far from the L and the final T and H crammed so tightly together they were practically one letter, but Elizabeth took the cheap gift from the box as if it were a Fabergé egg.
‘This is beautiful.’
‘It’s just junk. I thought you’d like it.’
‘You thought I’d like junk? That’s what I call romantic.’
She was smiling full on again. For Josh, the brooch had already proved hundreds of times its worth.
‘You like it?’
‘I love it.’
‘Well wear it and things’ll look better tomorrow.’
Her face clouded again and she toyed with the brooch, making a scraping sound on the table as she shifted it around.
‘Maybe.’
Josh held the bridge of his nose between a finger and thumb.
‘What’s the deal here? I’ve been gone longer and you’ve said less.’
‘I had things to talk to you about, that’s all.’
‘Well talk to me now.’
‘It’s too late.’
Josh sighed and bent his head. ‘Shit, Elizabeth. You’re acting like a teenager whose prom date hasn’t shown. I’m kinda tired here.’
She looked at him coldly, stood up, still clutching the brooch in her hand, and walked to the sink to stare out the window.
Josh watched her face as she turned back to him, and saw some kind of battle being fought behind those brown eyes. One of the emotions eventually won and she spoke softly, as if ashamed of its victory.
‘I’m pregnant.’
Josh blinked. He was aware that his heart had picked up its pace, but if that meant more blood was suddenly required and being provided, its rapid distribution seemed to be having little effect on him. It was as though his system had stalled like a smoky engine, leaving him temporarily unable to speak or move. He searched for the kick-start, and when he found it and spoke merely for the sake of speaking, realized that he should have waited.
‘Is it mine?’
Elizabeth’s face, already harder than he had ever seen it, darkened into the suburbs of fury.
‘I’ll give you one chance to take that back.’
He swallowed. ‘Shit, I’m sorry … I mean … Fuck.’
She regarded him with a mixture of contempt and grief. The same eyes that only minutes ago had looked up at him like a lover were now scouring him with acid accusation.
Josh tried again. As he got up to move towards her she made him jump with a sudden violent movement, lifting her arms and waving them in front of her as if to protect herself. He backed off, hands held out in an imploring gesture, and his voice, when it came, was higher than he would have liked.
‘I didn’t mean that. I don’t know why I said it. I’m glad. God, Elizabeth, I’m