He knew, not because he had been told, but because it felt right to him. As he rode home the church bells rang, first on Cherry, long and hollow, beckoning the others. Then on the corner of Bedford: the ones that were next to him, even though they were miles away. Two baseballs used in the catch game with his imaginary father spun in the spokes of his undersized bike, hot pink breaking through the chipped black spray paint. The hot sun burned his skin, and the tall grass of the park tickled his legs when he went there to toss baseballs high up into the air, trying to separate the red stitching from the white of the ball that became a blur as it spun towards his mitt. It was one of the rare occasions that he was actually outside on a summer day, most of which he spent trapped in his small home. Wednesdays always had a different feel to them: the smell of fresh air not breathed through a vent, and natural warmth brought on by the hot breeze passing over his face. Wednesdays were his father’s day off work, when he would take Mike’s place on the sunken-in old couch, and Mike would escape to the field.
    Dinner burned in his mother’s eyes when he walked into the small kitchen, letting the unruly screen door slam behind him. She started dinner as soon as she came home, the same time everyday, even on Wednesdays, the only day that Mike didn’t stand in the front window, waiting for her to return. She was stirring something that had to do with noodles, her arm straining to move the spoon through the thick liquid. He peeked into the living room, to see if his father was still in front of the television. He was asleep on the couch. His snoring echoed in his mother’s annoyed ears, and he watched as she turned the spoon faster, until she gave up, exhausted, putting it down to let the water boil, and heading to her room.
    She lay on her flower bedspread, and cried into her pillowcase. He didn’t follow her down the small hallway anymore. Instead he waited in the kitchen, staring at the shapes the steam made. It startled him each time—the hissing sound of water boiling over on the stove, and he’d have to catch his breath before he turned down the burner. Gripping the plastic in his hands, turning quickly, he still feared the burn. Dinner always boils over.
    He grabbed three of everything and placed them on the small dining room table, trying not to wake his father. It was only when it became quiet after the familiar sound of the TV screen turning blank that he awoke with a start, and they would sit down to eat in silence. Mike stared at his mother’s blank expression, focused on someplace that wasn’t anywhere near the dinner table.
    She smelled like the city—car exhaust and old newspaper. That’s how the train would smell: the times he went with her on the weekends to the lake, waving calm when it was sunny. They’d throw crackers from her favorite restaurant into the water for the ducks, sitting on the sidewalk that ran along the lake, legs dangling over the edge. Watching the crackers melt in the green water, the mushy mess swallowed whole by the ducks. She’d laugh, struggling with the plastic package, her hazel eyes glowing. He liked her best then, when she watched the ducks, when she was in between, after work and before home, wearing not the work clothes or the ones she changed into later, but those in between ones, when she was just like him.
    Mike only liked the city from the top of the Ferris wheel on cool summer nights, at the carnival that was held in the parking lot of their church. “I wonder if they turn off the bells for the carnival.” he thought. He never heard the bells ring when they went there, and he was disappointed because his church’s bells were the loudest, the ones that were inside of him.
    His mother would go on the Ferris wheel though she didn’t like it—it made her dizzy, she said, from all the spinning. She went because she couldn’t bear to watch from below. He was sure that it didn’t spin really, that the car just floated, gliding over the trees that nearly touched them. There in her yellow windbreaker, the nylon cold against his skin, his legs melted to the seat by the moisture hanging in the summer air, he’d point to it—the Sears Tower—visible each time the car swayed forward, reaching the top. When the Ferris wheel stopped he’d stare at the building, just to see if it would move, because he was sure something that big had to sometime, fatigued from trying to keep itself standing. He’d rock the car as he turned toward her, looking at her eyes to make sure that she too saw it, in case it moved. But he only saw the lights from the Ferris wheel: tiny white bulbs reflecting back at him.

    Martin lay sprawled out on their old couch. He was tired: he did a lot on his days off, his only one in the long week, and he thought he deserved a break. Jen sighed each time she walked past him, deliberately banging the pots in the kitchen as loudly as possible. She hated his couch and had been trying to get him to buy a new one for years. “You work in a furniture store for God’s sake!” It was from his first apartment, the only time he had been on his own. When he wasn’t going to work in a furniture store for the rest of his life.
    You have to be careful, and push the mower in perfectly straight lines, or else you’ll get crooked patterns. He took pride in his lawn, even though his father was never keen on his idea of becoming a gardener. “But it’s not practical Marty. Think about it.” He wanted Martin to work at the factory with him, but Martin had taken a stand. Eighteen and working at a furniture store, he was proud he had defied his parents. Then, he met Jen and they had Mike. They could have the rest of the house, but he decided long ago that the lawn was his. “Come on Marty, it’s just grass!” Just grass. She’d never understand. When he had nothing left it would still be there, calling him each day to take care of it, watch it grow.

    She started stirring more furiously when Mike walked in. He walked past her and she slowed as he left, listening to the rhythmic sounds of Martin’s snoring. I’ll bet he hasn’t moved from that couch all day. I clean the house on my days off. She rapidly shook salt into the noodles and began stirring again. Work was long and tiring, but at least it moved her through the day. Being at home slowed things down to almost a crawl. In their tiny town, dwarfed by the city, she suffocated. It comforted her to see the sky lit up by the lights at night, to know it would always be there.
    Her job was something that she liked because it was familiar. She typed. It was never the same thing, but it was. Different words to say the same thing to different people who responded the same way each time. Maybe she would throw in a comma where it didn’t belong—maybe, but it never affected anything. No one ever noticed.
    She took the train into the city every day because driving involved too much thinking. She liked to stare out of the train window at the tiny suburbs that zipped by, sure she had missed one each time she blinked. She had been taking the same train at the same time for the past fifteen years; the only time she ever stopped was for the two months after Mike was born. She remembered hearing the train from their house where she sat, rocking him. He was always such a strange baby, content to sleep all day. She put him in the very middle of their bed once, standing a few feet away from him. It only took him a few seconds to realize what had happened and begin to cry. She didn’t understand it, how he could be so happy behind the bars of his crib. Now he can’t wait to leave. Leaving him like that in the summer made her feel guilty, but he insisted on not having a babysitter, and she insisted he remain safely inside. She was comforted in knowing he listened and didn’t leave the house. He’s much happier inside anyway, just like he was when he was a baby.
    She placed the spoon on the stove, and reached into the cabinet to pull out a pot, knocking over the others in the process. She cringed as they clanked against the floor, and she began picking them up, trying to quietly replace them. Peering into the living room, she made sure she hadn’t woken up Martin. Mike trudged into the kitchen, sitting down on a stool to watch the water boil, and she left, walking to her room and lying down on her bed, collapsing into the comforting push of its stiff mattress. Here, she tried to forget. It wouldn’t be long before she’d hear dishes clattering, telling her that dinner was ready. Her thoughts never wandered far enough.

    He pressed his face against the living room window, leaving greasy spots where his forehead rested every day except Wednesdays. His father would come home first, startling him from the book he was reading, and he’d quickly hide it, hoping his father wouldn’t notice it was missing. He would begin to wait just as the sun was shining directly through the front door windows in three long rays across the floor, and he wouldn’t move until she came home. His heart quickened with the familiar whine of her car accelerating up the driveway, and he ran outside in bare feet, the summer air choking him. Her hair was flattened, and she was dragging her purse and briefcase toward the house, her high heels stuffed away. She wore gym shoes over her pantyhose; under the dress that he hated she wasted on work. She still smelled of perfume splashed on early this morning, stumbling in the dark house. He always listened to her blow-dry her hair, two hours before he’d normally get up. She was beautiful before the city. He had only seen her once before work, peering into the crack of the door she had left open to let cool air in, and she had told him to go back to sleep, so now he only listened and imagined each movement he heard from the bathroom. The city smell was there now as he clung to her neck, his arms squeezing her so that he would force her limp arms to hug him back.
    He was sure that if he caught her here in the driveway, in that in between place, that he’d somehow be able to prevent the soaked pillowcase. But it had been more difficult to make her hug him lately. He knew, one day, she’d leave him, and then he’d be trapped inside all day, greeted only by his father. Mike wasn’t sure if his father knew. He never moved from his spot on the old couch, probably afraid she’d blame him for the crying, even though Mike knew it wasn’t his fault. It’s her job; it’s doing this to her.
    After dinner, she would take her walk. She read in her Reader’s Digest about how it was good to take walks after dinner. He always wanted to come, tearing through his drawers for a pair of socks and searching for shoes. The walks were his chance to make her forget about the city. Sometimes, he would hold her hand, his much softer and tanner than her own, already wrinkled and pale, almost frail under his firm grasp. He was almost certain, sometimes, that she did hear him when he listed those dusty books in the basement. He felt the things he saw outside deserved to be called by their correct names; he couldn’t imagine loving something and not knowing what to call it. He looked toward his mother, her hand occasionally squeezing his, the only sign she was still there.
    The walks were never long enough. He would try to lead her to the park so that she could hear the church bells ring. But she would always turn around, only a few blocks away. “It’s getting dark, we should head back.” It wasn’t that dark yet; it wouldn’t be for a while, but Mike never protested. He walked through the door, his mother trailing behind him, retreating to her room. Leaning his head against the doorframe, he listened to her crying. Mike began to wonder if the walks were failing too. In his room, he lay down and pulled one of his father’s books from beneath the pillow. His father was clanking dishes, making his nightly bowl of ice cream. As if on cue, his mother emerged from her room and he heard her dragging the ironing board out of the hall closet. Mike sighed, slid the book under his pillow, and turned off the light.
* * *
    He would stop reading as soon as Martin came in the room, though Martin was never really sure why. A smile would come over his face when he saw the upper edge of a book peeking out from beneath the sports page. He had tried to come in quietly, had hoped that if he caught his son reading they’d have something to talk about. Instead, he looked over at Mike who was standing at the window. Defeated, he walked over to the couch, and started to fall asleep, dreaming of gardening with his son.
    The sound of Jen’s car accelerating woke him up, and he turned his head just in time to see Mike rushing out of the room. He stood up, walking slowly over to the kitchen window just as they were embracing, and turned away. Retreating back to his couch he pretended to be asleep so that Jen wouldn’t bother him to fix something else. The house was fine the way he saw it, but if she couldn’t have a bigger house she wanted this one to be perfect. He knew if he stirred even a little she’d remark about how the screen door was slamming again. What the hell do I know about screen doors? Martin wouldn’t tell her that, though. So the screen door stayed broken, and she’d always notice that. Not how green the lawn was, or how he had planted a new row of flowers, for her. Martin parted his eyelids as she walked past. She still looks beautiful, even after a long day of work.
    After dinner he went down to the basement to see what Mike had read that day, scanning the shelves for missing or out of place books. Mike usually never misplaced them, but Martin always knew, somehow, which ones he had read. He ascended the steps again after he heard the screen door slam twice, the second time a little harder because Mike would rush through it to catch up with her. He stood in front of his lawn. The backyard was his favorite spot, because there was nobody around. He liked it there after dinner, when the sun was beginning to set and the remains of light would shine through the slats in the fence. He made sure to get the tallest, most private fence available to protect his lawn from his neighbor’s weed filled one. Martin shuddered at the thought of the weeds as he bent down to run his fingers through the soft green blades.
    He sat down on the driveway until he heard them returning from the walk, Mike’s voice trailing from down the sidewalk. He walked back into the house, careful not to let the screen door slam. Later, he’d creep into their room after Jen was sleeping. He always walked in slowly, almost tiptoeing, over to their bed. He sat on the very edge, undressing and carefully lowering himself down as if he was afraid if he sat down too fast he would break. He sometimes lay awake, watching her sleep. She lay still, so still that Martin’s heart would pound and he’d begin to sweat. He used to hold her while they slept, his hands running through her soft brown hair, smoothing it and pushing it back from her face. He couldn’t remember when she had stopped letting him do this, shrugging his arms away. He never worked up enough courage to move his hand once he placed it upon the edge of her pillow. He stared at the back of her head, sure that he probably wouldn’t wake her if he ran his hand over her hair just once.

    She slammed her hand down on the alarm clock, sat up, and glanced over at Martin, curled up in a ball on the edge of the bed. The alarm never woke him. Walking down the hall she quietly closed Mike’s door, and stepped into the bathroom, beginning her morning routine. She did everything the same way each morning, and she was pretty sure that she’d miss the train if she didn’t. She sighed as she washed her face: the weekend was coming, and she wasn’t prepared for the next two long days.
    She stood with her toes touching the very edge of the yellow line, careful not to step over it any more than that. It was becoming progressively warmer as the sun began to rise, and the rush of the train pulling into the station offered a nice breeze; she closed her eyes momentarily to enjoy it. She walked to her seat, and began staring out the window, trying to focus her eyes before the train moved and everything became a blur. She liked this part of her day and hated to miss it.
    Later, after their usual Friday pizza, after they cleared the paper plates, she slipped on her walking shoes. She walked down the driveway and began to pick up her pace as she reached the end. He’d come, even when she thought she was sneaking away, sliding out of the door before he’d notice, or when she ran out, unable to listen to Martin’s ranting. He still followed, shoes sliding off his feet as he gained on her, calling out to her in a panicked tone—“Mom, wait.” She couldn’t remember the last time she had walked by herself, maybe before Mike was old enough to know that she was leaving.

    It was dark in the morning, and Mike had a difficult time waking up. They were going downtown today. He glanced out of the window at the sky. It looks like rain. He couldn’t remember the last time they had gone and it wasn’t gloomy, though he was sure it couldn’t have been cloudy every time. Searching for clothes, he heard her walking down the hall, towards his room. She is probably already dressed and ready to go. He wished she would slow down on weekends and wouldn’t get ready like she was going to work.
    He threw crackers into the water, watching the ducks swim toward them, their tails making tiny trails. He looked over at his mother, noticing that she hadn’t even opened the package of crackers yet. “Mom, are you going to feed the ducks?” She opened the package and tossed in nearly all the crackers, floating in all directions once they hit the surface, and were quickly darted at by the gliding ducks. They would always go to the same spot along the lake, right near the building where she worked. Sometimes, he caught her glancing toward and quickly looking away from the building as if she was fighting some magnetic force that kept pulling her gaze towards its windows, dingy green like the lake. Even when she didn’t look at the building it was still behind her, and he wanted to tear it down so that she would stop listening to it and pay attention to him and the ducks. The sun was beginning to break through the clouds in thin rays, catching the building’s green windows and reflecting into her eyes each time she stared toward it. Mike couldn’t bear to look at her anymore, turning his attention to the lake.

    Martin rose from his bed. He never needed an alarm to wake up, not even on weekends when everything was quiet. After his shower, he walked to the basement, grabbing one of his books to read while he ate his breakfast. Mike has read this one. He wished that he could be home on weekends to take Mike to the city. It always seems to rain when they go. How could she never notice that? He smoothed out the bent corner and then changed his mind, re-creasing it and flipping the page. He glanced over at his watch and sat up, slamming the book shut. He was late every morning.
    He drove over the speed limit. There’s no one out at nine a.m. on a Saturday anyway. The quiet of Saturday mornings in their suburb was comforting to him, and before work he’d often stop and sit out on the stoop that led into the small square furniture store, listening to the silence. He read the sign out loud as he pulled into the parking lot, “Paul’s Furniture.” Paul was nowhere to be found, it was Martin who opened the store daily. Customers frequented Paul’s Furniture only a bit more often than Paul did, and Paul would often come in and blame this fact on Martin, who would promise to try harder next time. It used to be successful; at least it was when he started, when Paul used to come into work everyday. He never told Jen this, because it would give her another reason to complain to him about how he should get a better job. Shaking his head at the weed-ridden patch of grass in the front of their store, he was happy where he was.

    She took her place at the table. “I left the noodles in too long,” she said. No one seemed to notice, and she was already serving herself by the time Martin decided that he was going to say something. He nearly mumbled the complaint, “they are just a bit softer than usual,” right before stuffing his mouth full of them. She picked up her fork and prepared to eat but stopped, watching Martin chewing with his mouth open. The furniture store wasn’t supposed to be forever. He ate furiously, hardly finishing his chewing before he stuffed more into his mouth. She picked up the ranch-dressing bottle, putting her hand on the cap to open it and then changed her mind. Instead she pulled it back and threw it straight at him but missed, the bottle flying between he and Mike and thumping against the wall. She stood up and glared. He was holding his fork mid air, noodles falling to his plate. “If the noodles are so fucking soft then why are you eating them?” He just stared at her. She watched him grab his plate from the table; his face crumpled and turning red, tripping as he ran down the steps to the basement. She left the table, looking back at Mike who was still eating.
    It didn’t help. She thought it would, but it didn’t. She knew the ranch dressing wasn’t going change anything, just like throwing some random punctuation into letters at work never changed what the letter said. She thought about Martin in the basement; realizing that she had never noticed before that he was always down there.

    The ranch dressing flew past his head, smashing into the wall. He picked it up and set it on the table, next to the spaghetti sauce stain that he’d been blamed for. It was just a complaint like any other one, and he hadn’t even realized his father had said anything until he felt the plastic bottle zip past his ear. His mother, whose response to complaints was slammed doors and silent glares from across the table, was struggling to catch her breath, her shoulders rising and falling rapidly. Mike turned his fork in the spaghetti, ignoring his father storming to the basement.
    He had never seen his mother that mad, not even when he broke her favorite perfume bottle, crying, “I was just trying to smell it,” after she had come home late from work one day. He had been sick of the Chicago smell that sometimes wafted itself even into their little town, especially when it rained—like dead fish. Sick of how, even when the power went out, the lights from the city kept the sky bright so that it was never really worth carrying around a flashlight. Her perfume, the smell of her before she went to work. Her alone, and it had slipped through his fingers.
    He retreated to his room, but this time it was different. Sighing, he stared out of his window at the sky, not quite as orange as it usually was after dinner, and began reading. Dull sunlight shone through the slits in his blinds onto the glossy pages of his book. He heard her crying, but this time he could hear it from his room. He hoped she had figured out that her crying had nothing to do with ranch dressing and everything to do with the city, but he doubted it. Hers is a different kind of crying than the tears that slide down his cheeks now—his mother who finally tries to fix things by dressing their living room wall. He flipped through the pages, glancing over at his clock, realizing how early it was, since they hadn’t eaten dinner. There was significantly more light coming into the room, shining onto the pages, and nearly blinding him. She won’t come home from work tomorrow. He tried to concentrate on his book, wondering if his father had ever read them. He couldn’t help but feel a type of sadness for his father who had so many books, but never left his own backyard.
    He knew this walk wouldn’t do anything. He let his mother talk, which she did, telling him about her day at work, trying to make him forget about what had just happened. Mike tried not to listen. He just wanted to be outside, to be close to what he loved: to listen to the bells. He was sure they rang when he wasn’t there and he didn’t want to miss them ringing, ever.
    “What’s wrong?”
    Mike stopped walking, and glared. He didn’t respond, just stared at her for a long time. He turned and ran. He wasn’t going to pull her by the hand toward the park, because they were never going to go. He was sure he could hear them ringing, which made him run faster. The waning sunlight filtered through the leaves of the trees in the park as he ran into the middle of it, listening.
* * *
    Martin sat in the basement, wiping the tears from his eyes and from the pages of the book he held. He didn’t think she’d become that angry because of noodles, but he figured that wasn’t why she was upset. Mom was never really happy with Dad either. He began to wonder if she ever loved him at all, and decided it best not to think about it. He heard the door slam and closed the book, holding it to his chest as he moved up the stairs. He walked out to his backyard and sat in the middle of it, crushing the grass beneath him. Still clutching the book, he curled up into a ball, cradling it. Mike put it back in the wrong place. He rolled onto his back, staring at the sky and the rays of sunlight that broke through the clouds. Mike will become a gardener. Martin opened the book and began reading.

    She stood in the middle of the sidewalk, trying to understand what had happened. She looked toward him, running, disappearing down the sidewalk, and becoming part of the blur of trees that was ahead. She was going to call out to him to come back, to hold her hand and talk to her, but she didn’t. She just let him go. She returned to the house, surprised not to see Martin in front of the TV. “Marty?” She looked for him everywhere and finally gave up, glancing out her window into the backyard. She caught a glimpse of him, curled up on the grass. She stood up, preparing to go outside and apologize, but she stopped at her door, turned around and looked back out the window at him. She lay down on her bed, closing her eyes. It was getting dark.