Acts of God by Mary Morris

everyone who did went out and bought their own linen. Invariably the renters complained.
    Everything was in tiptop shape, ready for the new season. I called Shana to report in and told her I’d be back the next day to take care of some paperwork. On my way home I stopped for groceries at the food co-op, where Ted and I each put in three hours a month and got great prices on organic produce, and finally at Photofax for the film from the reunion I’d dropped off a few hours before. When I got into the photo place, I fumbled through my wallet but couldn’t find my ticket.
    â€œI’m sorry,” I told the man behind the counter, who knew me since Photofax did all our film, “I can’t find my ticket. It must be in my car. It’s Winterstone.”
    He poked around in his box of film that had just been processed and handed me a thick envelope, thicker than I thought it would be. Then I drove home with the trunk full of groceries and the film.
    *   *   *
    When I pulled up in front of my house, the young man who had planted himself there a few days before was back. This time he had a notebook and pen in his hand as if he were waiting for his teacher. I shook my head when I saw him, but there was something rather sweet in his thin, sandy hair, his cheerless face.
    He was probably close to Ted’s age, but he looked so much like a boy as he stood there in his glasses and a red sweater, chinos and All-Star Converse monochrome sneakers. I couldn’t help feeling he was trying to make a good impression.
    I gave him a dirty look as I pulled up, but he rushed over to my car. “Mrs. Winterstone, please, may I speak with you?”
    I got out, threw open the trunk, and he stared at the bags of groceries. “I’ve been away for a while.” I stood back and stared at him. “What is your name?”
    â€œI’m Bruno. Bruno Mercedes. I have a letter here that Francis Eagger wrote to my father. They carried on quite a correspondence over a number of years, yet they never met. My father, he was a minister, and he and Mr. Eagger exchanged letters about religion. You know, Mr. Eagger was a deeply religious man, as well as a nature poet.”
    â€œNo, I didn’t know that.” So why did he drink himself to death in our kitchen? I wanted to ask Bruno Mercedes. Instead, as I scooped up the film and the blanket, I said, “Bruno, would you help me carry my groceries inside?”
    I may as well have been asking him to carry pieces of the cross, the Holy Grail. Bruno reached into my trunk, clasping a brown bag of raw vegetables and rice cakes, another of cereals and paper products. These were not heavy bags, but the boy shook under their weight.
    He followed me like a disciple toward the house. He knew, and I knew, that I wasn’t asking him to carry these because I couldn’t carry them myself. I was asking him to do this so I could invite him inside without actually asking him to come in. I wanted to know what it would be like to have someone like Bruno Mercedes, a devotee, a believer, and a potential boarder, inside my house. Or the former house of Francis Eagger.
    With a hushed silence Bruno entered the living room. I heard him sigh and then he said, as if he would fall over, “Where should I put these?”
    â€œIn the kitchen,” I said, pointing the way.
    I paused in the den to toss the blanket over the chair near the hearth, then followed behind as Bruno made his way into the kitchen, where he put the bags down on the counter and then took a deep breath. “Can I see the rest of the house?”
    I led him first down the narrow corridor into Jade’s room, which faced the woods. It was a simple room and she’d hardly changed a thing since she was a girl. She still had dolls on the top shelf, a collection of shells, Sierra Club calendars, flip tops that she’d been stringing together since she was about five years old. A doll