A lot of people Hooper met said they loved the heat, that they would never move back to the snowy winters and humid summers of the Midwest, but he knew that these were the same people who stayed inside all summer with the air conditioner running. The desert sun in the summer was not to be underestimated. Hooper always wore long-sleeve cotton shirts, loose khaki pants and a full-brimmed hat when he worked outside, so his skin was protected from the full power of the sun. He brought a gallon jug of water in the trucks with him on his jobs, and sometimes drank it all. The intensity of the sun made him more aware of his movements and the need for efficiency. He became ascetically absorbed in his work, content simply to make his body move, to harden calluses, negotiate respectfully with cacti, stay hydrated, observe lizards and birds.
Cosmo had been gone a week. Hooper and Tillie had put up fifty flyers, checked the animal shelters every day, and cruised a different neighborhood every morning and evening. He asked everyone he knew, including clients, the homeless guys that hung out at the park, the people at Cafe Joe, Rick at the nursery, the neighbors across the street, anyone, to keep an eye out. He realized they might never find her, but he had to try.
Margaret's place was just about done. He had planted honeysuckle along the edge of the deck, where it could snake its way up the latticework that shaded the area. A swath of reddish rocks created a transition from deck to desert. Just beyond that, he had filled in some barren areas with some aromatic bushes, creosote and snakeweed, and, as a personal preference, two small ocotillos. He was working now on the area around the spa, putting in more delicate plants, some salvia, penstemon and desert milkweed to attract hummingbirds. All he had left to do was bring in some containers with plants like fairy duster, feather dealea, and verbena. If he and Tillie could afford such a place, he thought, this was how he might fix it up.
It was noon: he could faintly hear a clock inside the house chime the hour. Time to pack it up. Margaret was never around while he worked; they were communicating via the phone machine. As long as he got paid, he didn't mind. His tools and empty plant buckets stowed, he climbed in his truck and wended his way back to Campbell Avenue.
Margaret's clock had reminded him of his brother, Tom, who had a passion for mechanisms. Their parents' house in Buffalo had had an abundance of clocks, one in every room, sometimes two. He never understood how they had acquired so many. Clocks that ticked nervously or grrrd with an electric hum, clocks that glowed green on the microwave and VCR or that chimed every quarter hour. None, however, were in synchrony, which had comforted Hooper and annoyed Tom, who was constantly fiddling with the minute hands or digits.
As a kid, Tom had taken apart countless clocks, radios, toasters, and ballpoint pens, to see how they worked—and then he put them back together. He had such a sure, delicate hand with tweezers and other small tools, such patience finding the right piece of the puzzle or waiting for glue to dry thoroughly, that Hooper joked the two of them could not possibly be related. When Tom was fifteen or so he put together a scale model of the U.S.S. Constitution, complete with intricate rigging, lifeboats and miniature sailors on the deck. He tied tiny knots; looped thin halyards around little winches; threaded tackles small as the clasp of a necklace; and meticulously dabbed on accent paint. He repeatedly pored over the instruction sheets. Although Hooper could admire Tom's skills now, at the time the project was much too fastidious, too painstaking for him to bear, and he could only watch Tom work a short time before he had to stretch his muscles and get some fresh air.
Stopping at a red light, Hooper took a long drink from a warm water bottle. The brothers had been so different as children: Tom methodical and reserved, Hooper undisciplined and outgoing. Hooper had memorized poetry in high school, Tom the periodic table. Hooper had always preferred to be outside, even in winter, building a snow fort or a snowman, sledding, or cross-country skiing. In summer he'd pedal his bike around the park, or he'd ride the skateboard up and down the sidewalks until he could no longer stand the jarring his body took. As for projects, he liked to help his dad puttering around the house. They would go to the hardware store together for some supplies, and his father initiated him early to the treasure trove that was his workshop: a dozen different sizes of nails in dusty mason jars; a pegboard wall of hammers, screwdrivers, saws, wrenches; shelves of wires and string, electrical parts, broken gadgets, extension cords. His dad never threw anything away; in fact, he often brought home things other people had put out for the garbage, like an old shovel or a handful of half-inch dowels. “These might come in handy someday,” he'd say, ignoring his wife's grumble.
When their parents died, together in a car accident, Hooper was twenty-six, Tom twenty-four. They spent a week after the funeral going through their parents' effects, working through each room together. Emptying clothes out of the bedroom closet, they rediscovered Dad's leisure suits and Mom's Sunday hats. They dumped shoes in a box for charity without pausing to look at them, lest they notice the worn heels and cushions that once supported feet. They managed a laugh over some Halloween costumes, a fringed flapper's dress, a German lederhosen. In the kitchen they found a whole set of dishes they'd never seen before, which they gave to Dad's sister. They worked methodically for long days without much of a break, finally getting some pizza or Chinese for a late dinner, sitting wearily at the kitchen table, drinking Guinness or some other thick dark beer. They discussed as little as possible what to do with things; it was as though they both feared what would happen if they paused to reflect. Most of the boxes went to the Goodwill, some few items went to other relatives, and, finally, they threw out much more than they would have imagined.
Hooper asked Tom if he might take some of Dad's better tools. He asked for some photographs and a corner shelf he particularly liked—and their grandmother's house in Tucson. Hoping to retire eventually to the Southwest, their parents had been renting the house through an agency for eight or so years. With two dwellings left in the estate, Hooper had a simple proposition: Tom could have the Buffalo house and everything in it, and Hooper would have the Tucson home, to live in or sell as he liked. Tom was satisfied with the arrangement, but he wanted Hooper to take more of their parents' belongings—at least some luggage or an end table, some of Dad's books. But when Hooper assured him that he didn't want any of his parents things—not his mother's aprons or some dusty Christmas ornaments—he could see that something besides grief had made his brother silent and he finally coaxed it out of him.
“I don't know why you even came,” Tom said bitterly. “None of this means anything to you.”
Exhausted from so many days' physical and emotional exertion, Hooper was staggered. He tried to explain that he wasn't rejecting the past. His family, alive and dead, was vital to him; he thought about them every day, but his memories, his connection to his loved ones, didn't necessarily reside in these objects.
“How can I say this, Tom.” Hooper scratched the week's growth on his chin. “Grandma's house represents a fresh start for me. Something to look forward to. It's the coward's way out, really. It takes more strength of character to stay here.”
“Strength of character? Is that what you call it. I thought it was just a pathetic means of clinging to the past. Or having nowhere else to go.”
Hooper did his best to talk his way out of this misunderstanding. They were both mourning and distressed, he said; it was no time to make judgments, and too soon to think clearly. Each of them had to do what seemed best, just to get through.
“Listen. I'm relieved that you'll be living in this house. It gives us both a small sense of continuity.”
Tom eventually seemed mollified, but Hooper still was pained that he had hurt his brother's feelings. Maybe he was heartless for not wanting mementos. In looking through his parents' belongings, though, he had felt the utter uselessness of clinging to someone else's junk. It was nice junk, some of it; but it was not his junk, and he did not want to be weighed down by its dross. He couldn't begin to separate the meaningful from the unremarkable. That little frog knick-knack his Mom got on a vacation at the Cape? The cracked vase she sometimes put her peonies in? He couldn't bear to be nostalgic about every teacup or lamp or deck of cards; he marveled that Tom was willing to live with such reminders. The tools, at least, were of practical value.
He drove slowly. He told himself he did so to soak up some air conditioning, but he also knew he did not want to go home, where Cosmo would not greet him, would not search madly for something to pick up in her mouth, would not do her going-in-circles happy dance. He thought that her absence would weigh on them for years, every time they found dog hair on the vacuum cleaner hose, behind the bookshelves, or drifting among weeds in the yard, every time they said the word, “Ready?” He missed their bedtime routine, where they would both get a drink; then Cosmo would give Tillie a slurpy kiss and settle down by Hooper's side of the bed with a sigh.
***
When he got home, Tillie handed him a letter. It was a familiar hand, with a date stamp from Buffalo: Tom. Hooper was astonished at the coincidence, and yet somehow it seemed fitting. He sat at the kitchen table and ripped open the envelope with some misgiving. A letter from Tom was rare. They sent Christmas cards and gave each other a call on their birthdays, but that was about all the contact they had.
He read the first paragraph to himself, then looked up at Tillie, his hand over his mouth.
“What is it?” she asked. “Can I read you some?”
“Please.”
“Okay. 'I bet you're surprised to get a letter from me. Maybe as surprised as I am to write one. To be honest, I'm writing on the advice of my therapist, whom I've been seeing since Jenny and I separated last spring.'”
“Oh, no.” Tillie sat down next to him.
He read on. Tom and Jenny had decided to divorce. He thought Hooper would want to know, although he said it was too complicated, too confusing to explain. He felt like a failure, “'still wondering what I did wrong, though Jenny says not to blame myself.'”
“Poor man,” Tillie said. “It was good of him to write.”
“Yeah, it was.” Hooper scanned the first page again, as though looking for something he missed. “This seems so strange. I feel like I hardly know him. That's my fault. I haven't written or called in a long time.”
“He's your brother, though. It's not too late.”
“I suppose.” He scrutinized her face. “Isn't it funny?”
“What?”
“That I live with you. That you live with me.”
“Very funny.”
“I mean, out of all the people in the whole big world ricocheting around like pinballs, we bump into each other and stick like glue.”
“We're lucky.”
“Yeah. I can't imagine living with anyone else but you. Everybody else bugs me.”
“I bug you.” She laughed. “But it's different. I love you.”
“I love you, too.” She paused. “Maybe you should give him a call.”
“Good idea.”
“This is changing the subject, but what's in that box in the office? I just noticed it today.”
“Oh, I forgot about that. I haven't really looked at it, but I thought there might be some stuff for props.”
“Well, it's stinky. Sort of musty smelling.”
“Sorry,” he said. “I'll sort through it right now.” They both went to take a look. It did smell, like old gym socks; he hadn't noticed that at first. He pulled out a strainer, some water-damaged paperback books, a dishtowel, and a ball of orange yarn, and said it would all go in the garbage. “Why did I even bring this home?” Under the towel, however, was a small black lacquered box, cracked and peeling. Inside it was a piece of red satin, and inside that was a dog tag on a long chain made of little metal beads. Hooper turned it over. Both sides were blank.
“That's odd,” Tillie said. “Those are meant to be written on.”
“Yeah. Well, this is all junk. I'll just get rid of it.” He put everything back in the cardboard box and was about to take it outside to the trash, but as Tillie left the room he pocketed the necklace, without knowing why.