Crolley had been the first one on Kelley Street to meet Miranda and her sons. He worked only on weekends—twelve-hour shifts of road maintenance for the Virginia Department of Transportation—and he came home in the dark. Consequently, on the Monday morning after she’d moved in, Crolley was surprised by the teal Tercel parked in the driveway of the pink house across the street. Not twenty-four hours before, the house had been vacant. He surveyed the block to make sure he hadn’t missed anything else.
He met Miranda because her toilet was clogged and she didn’t have a plunger. Crolley was on his porch when she rushed across the street for help. She wore a purple sweatsuit. In her bathroom, someone had sprayed citrus air freshener, and Crolley coughed as he drove his plunger into the overflowing toilet. Miranda’s two boys—pale, bony, white-haired—watched the scene from the bathroom doorway, their eyes glazed and their mouths straight lines of boredom. Miranda had large blue eyes that were almost cartoonish, as if a child had drawn them and glued them to her face. The way she watched him plunge—with the same fear and excitement that she might have if he were wrestling an alligator or dismantling a bomb—made Crolley feel needed and powerful. He hadn’t felt that way in a long time. At work, his fellow employees ignored him because he was quiet, and how many times had drivers ignored the Caution: Road Work Ahead warnings, or his neon orange vest, or his signs commanding them to slow? They sped by in their SUVs, narrowly missing him, forcing him onto the gravely, littered medians. Crolley wanted Miranda. He imagined the way he’d sink into her, the way her flesh would absorb his own stick of a body.
After the toilet flushed, Miranda thanked him and pointed at her sons, accusing them of dropping a toy in it. The boys shook their heads, but Miranda clapped her hands. “Boys,” she said, “fetch this nice man a soda pop.” They obeyed, moving as one, and returned with a cold Sunkist. Crolley felt he had to drink the entire Sunkist in their presence: they seemed to take pleasure in watching him gulp it down and he’d disappoint them if he only sipped it. When the can was empty, Miranda crumpled it in her hands. They all seemed to be waiting for him to say something, so he asked if the boys were twins.
Miranda frowned. She patted the boy wearing a green t-shirt. “Josh is the oldest. Ten. Dusty’s eight.” She said this as if Crolley should have known. But Crolley couldn’t see anything to distinguish one boy from the other except that Josh wore the green shirt and Dusty wore a red and gray-striped short set.
Miranda asked if he wanted another soda. Crolley said no, but told her to holler if she needed anything else. She said she would.
Over the next few days, Crolley watched TV on his front porch all day as usual. Miranda didn’t ask for any more help, but sometimes she waved at him before she and her sons squeezed into her Tercel and drove away for several hours. The boys were outside often, chasing each other back and forth across the yard in quiet games of tag. They ran as if in slow motion, drifting like moths in the June heat.