Likewise, Seichan was shocked at how aged Gray’s parents appeared, frail shadows of their former selves. His mother, her hair disheveled, was dressed in a housecoat, cinched at the waist, and slippers. His father, barefoot, wore a pair of boxers and a T-shirt, exposing his prosthetic leg, belted at the thigh.
“Harriet! Where’s my sander? Why can’t you goddamn stay out of my stuff?”
Gray’s father was standing at a workbench, his face red with fury, his brow damp with exertion. He struggled to secure a piece of wood into a vise clamp. Behind him, a table saw idled with pieces of oak cut into haphazard sections scattered on the floor beneath it, as if he’d been trying to construct the pieces of a wooden puzzle whose solution only he knew.
Gray stepped forward and unplugged the saw, then crossed to his father and tried to gently guide him away from the workbench. An elbow lashed out, striking Gray in the face. He stumbled back.
“Jack!” his mother yelled.
His father looked around, confused. Realization seemed to sink through whatever fugue state the man was in. “I’m . . . I didn’t mean . . .” He placed a palm on his forehead, as if feeling himself for a fever. He reached an arm toward Gray. “I’m sorry, Kenny.”
Gray’s face flinched a bit. “It’s Gray, Dad. Kenny’s still in California.”
Seichan knew Gray had a brother, his only sibling, who ran some Internet start-up in Silicon Valley. Gray, his lip split and bleeding, approached his father more cautiously.
“Dad, it’s me.”
“Grayson?” He allowed his son to take his arm. Eyes, red-rimmed and exhausted, stared around the garage. A flicker of fear passed over his face. “What . . . where . . . ?”
“It’s okay, Dad. Let’s go inside.”
He sagged, wobbling a bit on his bad leg. “I need a beer.”
“We’ll get you one.”
Gray guided him toward the rear door to the house. His mother hung back, arms crossed tightly over her chest. Seichan stood a few paces off, unsure, uncomfortable.
His mother’s gaze, brimming with tears, found her face. “I couldn’t stop him,” she said, needing to explain to someone. “He woke up all agitated. Thought he was back in Texas and was late for work. Then he came out here. I thought he was going to cut his hand off.”
Seichan took a step toward her, but she had no words to comfort the distraught woman. Seeming to sense this, Gray’s mother ran her fingers through her hair, took a deep steadying breath, seeming to draw a bit of steel into her back. Seichan had seen Gray do the same many times before, recognizing at this moment the true source of his resiliency.
“I should help Gray get him back to bed.” She headed toward the house, crossing close enough to reach out and squeeze Seichan’s hand. “Thank you for coming. Gray always shoulders too much alone. It’s good that you’re here.”
His mother headed toward the door, leaving Seichan in the yard. She rubbed the squeezed hand, still warm from the touch. She felt an inexplicable tightness in her chest. Even this small bit of inclusion, this bit of familial closeness, unnerved her.
At the door, Harriet turned toward her. “Do you want to wait inside?”
Seichan backed away. She pointed toward the front of the house. “I’ll be on the porch,” she said.
“I’m sure it won’t be long.” With a small, sad smile of apology, she let the door close behind her.
Seichan stood a moment longer, then crossed back to the garage, needing to do something to steady herself. She turned off the light, pulled closed the door, then headed to the front of the house. She climbed the porch and sank onto a bench, bathed in lamplight from the front parlor. She felt exposed, her body limned against such brightness, but no one was about. The avenue remained dark and empty—yet so inviting. She had a momentary desire to flee. The streets were her only true home.
Eventually the lights in the house began to go off, one by one. She heard muffled voices but could not make out the words. It was the slow rumble of family. She waited, trapped between the emptiness of the street and the warmth of the home.
At last, a final light blinked off, sinking the yard into shadows. She heard footsteps; the door opened to the side. Gray came out, letting loose a long sigh.
“Are you okay?” she asked softly.
He shrugged. What else was there to say? He came and joined her. “I’d like to stick around for another half hour or so. Make sure everything stays quiet. I can call you a taxi.”
“And go where?” she asked, letting a little black humor blunt the grimness.
Gray sat down next to her, leaning back. He remained silent for a long moment before speaking again. “They call it sundowner’s syndrome,” he said, plainly venting, or maybe he was trying to make sense of it himself, to give his pain a name. “Dementia symptoms get worse at night for some Alzheimer’s patients. Don’t really know why. Some say its hormonal changes that occur at night. Others that it’s an unloading of the day’s accumulated stress and sensory stimulation.”