Thinning Ice

      “Jim! Jimmy, wake up!” Mela said. She shook Jim by the shoulder. A short burst of epinephrine coursed through Jim’s veins startling him awake.

           “What time is it?” Jim asked.

           “Six-thirty but I got called in,” Mela said.

           Magic hour light illuminated the closed blinds on their bedroom window. Jim swung his legs out of the bed. Mela’s bare feet thumped on the bedroom carpet with purpose; she was already in her scrubs.

           “I need you to drop Kayla off at daycare,” she said.

           Jim rubbed his eyes and the top of his head.

           “Did you hear me?”

           “Yup, drop Kayla off.”

           “I’ll pick her up when I’m off,” Mela said. “It shouldn’t be a full shift.”

           Jim put his pajama bottoms on and slid into his house shoes. He scuffed down the hallway and paused at Kayla’s doorway. Kayla was sat up in her crib, her arms flailed as she saw her dad. She tried to form a word but failed. Jim scuffed over and picked her up. Kayla grabbed his nose forcing him to breathe through his mouth. Even through the powerful grip of her smooth baby fingers he could smell his morning breath.

           “Did she eat?” Jim asked.

           There was no answer from the bedroom and he lowered Kayla back into the crib. The bathroom door was closed in the bedroom so he went out into the kitchen. The coffee was percolating, the black liquid dripped into the pot. The television was on CNN with the volume turned low. Jim watched the headlines scroll over the ticker and waited for the coffee to finish. Mela came out ready to go. She grabbed a thermos and poured coffee into it.

           “Did Kayla eat,” Jim asked.

           “No, not yet.”

           Jim poured his coffee into a mug. Mela gathered her things and walked out of the front door by the kitchen. Jim followed her with his coffee.

           “We need to put the car seat into your truck,” Mela said.

           The sun was just breaking over the horizon and already the breeze felt like it was coming out of a preheated oven. Small invisible waves of heat hovered over the road in front of their driveway.

           ‘Job security,’ Jim thought.

           “Jim, come get this.”

           Mela had unbuckled the child seat from the back seat of her Taurus. Jim placed his coffee on the sidewalk and walked over to grab the seat from her.

“How are you going to pick her up with no child seat?” Jim asked.

“I’m going to stop and get another one,” Mela said.

“Can we afford another one?”

“We can afford two cars.”

 Jim dropped it at that. The doors to his Silverado were locked. Jim set the car seat down and walked into the cold kitchen. He grabbed his keys off the key rack and walked back out into the early morning heat.

           ‘This is going be a dog day of summer,’ Jim thought.

           Jim buckled in the car seat in, grabbed his coffee and went into the kitchen to prepare the baby food. He brought Kayla out to the couch to watch CNN with him. Jim spooned out the baby food on autopilot. His attention was fixated on the American flag pinned to the lapel of a man on TV. The man wore a suit and stood in front pillars in a legislative hall.

           “Listen, this is not a partisan issue. This bill is a no-brainer. I made a promise to the American family; this bill fulfills that promise,” the man in the suit said. “The American family is the soul of this country. I think that is the one thing every member of this body can agree on. Men, women, husbands and wives should not have to struggle with low wages and long work hours to be a family. They are entitled to livable —.”

           Jim’s phone buzzed. He picked it up and looked at the number. He answered it quickly thinking there must be something he had forgotten.

           “Hello,” Jim said into the phone.

           “Where are you?” It was Kurt, his boss.

           “Getting ready to come in,” Jim said. “Why what’s up?”

           “You were supposed to be in already. There was an appointment at seven.”

           Jim remembered.

           “On my way, Kurt.”

           “You better be but not sure it matters now.”

           Jim hung up the phone and took Kayla to her crib. He laid her down and went into the bedroom.

           ‘Slow is smooth and smooth is fast,’ Jim thought. ‘Shower? No time. Here’s the schedule, I’ll execute it one step at a time: dress, brush teeth – no wait – brush teeth, dress, wallet, keys, Kayla – ah shit – I have to drop off Kayla – drop off Kayla, go to the shop, pick up the service van, and go to the appointment. I’m not gonna make it.’

           Jim brushed his teeth and tried to slide out of his pajama pants. He thought about how hard life must be with one hand. He was dressed, boots on but not tied and he stuffed his wallet into the back pocket of his pants. He started for Kayla’s room when he felt pressure move from his stomach to his lower abdomen. He sat on the toilet and thought about what an inefficient vessel the human body was to be interrupted by something as primitive as a bowl movement. Jim’s phone buzzed on the bathroom sink.

           ‘See, if your bowls didn’t move, you would’ve left your phone,’ Jim thought.

           It was a comforting thought as he made little strides towards the bathroom sink; his pants around his ankles.

           “Hello.”

           “This is Mrs. Shelby. I’m trying to get in touch with Jim, from Lancaster heating and air.”

           “This is him.”

           Jim had put the phone between his head and shoulder to wipe.

           “Yes, I had an appointment for my air conditioner for seven this morning.”

           “Yes ma’am, I’m running a little late but am on my way.”

           “The thing is, I have to leave shortly which was why I made the appointment so early.”

           Jim did not want to flush while on the phone. He had hand sanitizer in the truck.

           “If you could hold tight a little longer, I can be there in fifteen minutes,” Jim said.

           “I don’t know.”

           “I’m on the road now.”

           Which was technically true. Jim was walking out to the truck, and the road was right there. It took Jim twenty minutes just to reach the shop. When he pulled in Kurt was outside waiting for him. Jim parked and was waved by Kurt. Jim followed Kurt into the shop. He watched Kurt’s resolute stride move his stocky build to his office. Kurt shut the door and Jim smelled coffee.

           “You remember the conversation we had about thin ice?”

           Jim remembered and saw the same look on Kurt’s face. Jim had left Kurt high and dry too many times with a pregnant wife in nursing school and then the baby came. Kurt relied on his senior tech to help keep his small company growing. Jim wasn’t always there for him. Kurt wrapped a thick fingered hand around the handle of his coffee mug and told Jim Mrs. Shelby rescheduled. Thank god she rescheduled and did not go with someone else.

           “The ice is thinning,” Kurt said.

           Jim was crawling through an attic space later that day. The early afternoon heat made the air thick and barely breathable. Fiberglass stuck to his sweat covered arms and face, embedding into his skin. This was a helper’s job but Jim would do it. It was better than being unemployed. Jim crawled with a lamp in front of him. He stopped every five elbow and knee steps forward to scan the ceiling vents. Duct ran from an air handler to various fiberglass boots in the ceiling. The vents delivered cold air to different rooms in the house.

Jim suspected that one of the silver cylinders had come off the boot and cold air was being distributed to the attic. He could only feel the thick attic air that smelled of lumber. Jim moved forward with his knees and elbows on the wooden cross beams, the fiberglass installation just inches from his face. His pocket buzzed. He reached in his pocket an pulled out his phone.

“Hello.”

“Do you have Kayla? She is not at daycare,” Mela said through the phone.

Jim’s head started to buzz as the epinephrine entered his brain. His heart dropped. He did not have to think about it, his body just turned itself around and he crawled haphazardly to the attic entrance. He left the lamp where it was.

“Jim?”

“I don’t have her?”

“What?”

Panic was in her voice.

“She’s --,” Jim couldn’t finish the sentence.

“Is she in your car?”

Jim thought back.

“No, I’m on my way to the house.”

Jim fell down the attic ladder to the carpet and ran out of the house. He could not hold a thought but he could focus on driving. He pushed the company van down the road, he anticipated lane changes, vehicles pulling out onto the road, but caught every red light. He pulled into the driveway and the Taurus was already there. Jim walked into the cool kitchen to see Mela holding Kayla who was crying. Mela started toward Jim then stopped, looked at the wall and waved a hand in his face.

“I can’t,” Mela said.

“Mela,” Jim said.

“She threw up in her crib. She was on her side. Thank god she was on her side. You know what happens if she’s on her back?”

Mela glared at Jim as he nodded.

“I’m not even going to ask,” Mela said. “There is no answer to my questions. No explanation.”

“Mela, honey,” Jim started to say.

“Nope, nothing you can say. There was shit in our toilet. I just have – you know what, just get out.”

“Listen, honey,” Jim wasn’t even sure of what followed.

“I can’t, I just can’t right now. Don’t come home until I call you,” Mela pointed at herself. “I, will call you, don’t call me.”

Jim walked out of the house and stood on the driveway. Thick heat waves hovered above the road, blurring the grass on the other side. His ice was thinning but it could have been so much worse. He had the bitter sense of relief. Jim would be in the dog house, -- shit the dog house is the best he’d could hope for. Supervised visitation was more like it. He wondered what was wrong with him and how to take a step back. It was just today, it had to just be the heat on this goddamn dog-day of summer.