Free The Dispatcher by Ryan David Jahn Page B

He didn’t even look away from the television commercial telling him he needed to switch toilet paper brands.
    ‘I want you to move out.’
    A pause. Then: ‘Okay.’
    ‘That’s it?’
    He nodded.
    ‘You’re not gonna get mad? You’re not gonna fight me over this?’
    He shook his head. ‘No.’
    ‘Do you wanna know why?’
    ‘No.’
    ‘I’m sleeping with Bill Finch.’
    ‘I know.’
    Debbie stood there for a long time. He didn’t look at her, but he could sense her in his periphery. After a while she simply said, ‘Fine,’ and walked away.
    The next night he slept on Diego and Cordelia’s couch.
    And a week after that he put the extra TV, some books and book cases, a couch from the garage, Maggie’s bed, and his clothes into a truck he rented from Paulson’s U-Haul and drove to his new apartment. He could have afforded a house, but did not see the point. Houses were for people with families and expanding futures. He was no longer one of those people. His future was shrinking.
    The first few weeks were strange and sleepless. Not because he missed Deb—he did not exactly miss her—but because he was used to having someone sleeping beside him. Soon enough, though, he got comfortable with the absence. His body learned to spread out across the full width of the bed. He stopped sitting up at night to call Debbie’s name. He stopped believing she was merely in the next room.
    Ian knocks on the front door and waits.
    He scratches the top of his head where the blond hair is thinnest, then arms the sweat off his forehead. It’s still hellish out.
    Debbie pulls open the front door from inside. She’s wearing beige shorts and her white work T-shirt with PINK’S SALON written in cursive across the right breast. She manages the place for Vicki Dodd—who’s the only reason the Dodd family has any money left at all, her brother Carney being useless—and must have just got home. When she sees Ian she frowns. It’s brief, and the frown is immediately followed by a polite smile, but the frown was true and the smile is false. Ian understands this. As far as Debbie is concerned he can be nothing more than a walking reminder of the biggest loss she’s ever suffered. He just looks too much like the daughter she has spent the last seven years trying to forget. She’s tried to bury her again and again. He’s from a part of her life she no longer wants to think about.
    ‘Ian.’
    ‘Deb.’
    ‘What is it?’
    ‘Have you heard from Bill or Sheriff Sizemore?’
    ‘No.’
    ‘Mind if I come in?’
    ‘Did something happen? Is Bill okay?’
    ‘Bill’s fine. I thought he might have called you.’
    ‘About what?’
    ‘I think you might want to sit down for this.’
    ‘What is it?’
    He doesn’t answer. He simply stands there and waits.
    She searches his face for clues, but he gives her none. He keeps his expression blank.
    After a moment Debbie steps aside to let him in.
     
     
     
    Ian watches Deb as she sits on the couch and looks up at him. Her shoulders are tense, the cords in her neck taut, hands clenching her knees. There was a time when Debbie touched him with those hands, when she caressed him with them. But that was long ago, and he cannot even feel her touch in his memory anymore.
    ‘What is it?’ she says.
    ‘It’s Maggie.’
    Debbie sighs and the tension leaves her body and she relaxes into familiar bad posture.
    ‘They found her body,’ she says.
    The relief in her voice, the unspoken but nearly audible ‘Thank God,’ makes Ian want to grab her shoulders and shake her and shout at her. What is wrong with you, Debbie? This is your daughter we’re talking about. Your daughter . How dare you sound relieved when discussing her death?
    But he knows what’s wrong with her. She wants to move on. The funeral wasn’t enough. It didn’t provide the closure she thinks she needs. Coffins can’t contain memories and dirt cannot cover them. She wants a corpse. She doesn’t understand that even a