Part 15: Home Alone

Hello again, dear readers. It would seem that we left our story in a fairly stable position. Marvin was home and apparently had been accepted by all concerned. I was no longer worried sick and I could return to my house and garden work. Fred was friendly and above all hungry. Jill was surprisingly cool-headed and jovial as she made breakfast for four. She seemed almost obsequious, and frankly I was surprised. She played the part of the perfect housewife, or maid, and treated Marvin as if he were just another guest. She acted as if everything were normal. No, worse. She acted as if everything were perfect. It was unnerving. 

"Are you going to get back to the story, then?"

"I'm leading into it."

"Okay. Sorry then."



Considering the circumstances, everything seemed to have gone quite smoothly. Conversation, breakfast, laughter. Jill had even given him a kiss on the cheek before she left.

Fred's visit was somewhat strange, but Phil couldn't say it was entirely unexpected. He hardly knew the man and most of what he did know about him came from stories around town. This in itself wouldn't have been strange at all. In most towns people always have some story to connect to those familiar faces you see around all the time, those people you recognize and frequently encounter but never actually speak to. 

The thing that was different with Fred is that he spoke to you. When Phil was in his teens, he used to visit his grandparents who lived on the north side, and sometimes he would even stay the weekend. Fred was a regular part of those weekends, especially in summer. Maybe it was the nice weather, or maybe it was just that Phil spent more time outside, but Phil remembered seeing Fred striding down the street and sometimes stopping to talk with neighbors. 

Fred used to stop to talk with Phil's grandfather quite a bit, seeking him out in the back yard when he was working in the garden, or strolling up the front path when he was trimming the roses. They seemed to talk about plants for the most part, and it seemed that Fred asked a lot of questions and Phil's grandfather limited most of his conversation to giving short two- or three-word answers. Sometimes, when Phil's grandfather was elsewhere, Fred would stop to talk to Phil, too. Thinking back now, Phil couldn't recall exactly what they talked about.

Phil's grandmother had told him back then, in that conspiratorial way that elderly grandparents speak to teenagers, to be nice to Fred because he didn't have a family and was alone. She also told him not to pry or ask too many questions. Maybe that was part of the reason Phil couldn't actually remember the conversations. Maybe they didn't really talk about anything important at all.

Phil stood in the doorway a few minutes more, watching as Fred made his way up the street, taking those long, machine-like strides and swinging his arms in long straight arcs that reminded Phil of clockwork pendulums. Fred turned down the main road, heading in the same direction as Jill's car when it disappeared from view. Then he too was gone.

Phil closed the door and walked back through the living room.

Spotting the lamp on the end table, Marvin jumped from Phil's shoulder to an arm of the sofa. He crawled over to that lamp and up the base to the shade holder. The equidistant spokes were an ideal place to start work on a web. The lamplight was warm. He crawled along a spoke to the bottom edge of the lampshade and launched a thread into the air, waiting for it to catch somewhere. The silky line rippled as it went, moving with the warm air currents.

As Marvin waited, he scanned the room for other potential architectural projects. There was an overhead lamp hanging from some sort of chain, right in the middle of the living room. It was definitely another potential site. That one would have to wait for later, though.

Phil walked into the kitchen, looking for something to busy himself. They had finished cleaning up after breakfast, and now he almost wished they hadn't. 

He walked back out onto the porch. The sun was higher in the sky now, but it wasn't a particularly hot day. Maybe he should settle into some serious yard work. Jill always chastised him for making all these grandiose plans for the yard and then never seriously doing anything about it. Jill would have harassed him until he got to work on the yard.

Jill.

Phil looked over to the above-ground pool, which was decidedly worse for wear after ten years. He could repair that, too. It was just a little outside rust. And the lining needed a good cleaning. The structure was still sound, though. "All I need to do is fix those small rust patches, tighten up the ladder, and give the bottom of the pool a good scrubbing." 

He stopped himself. Jill used to tell him that if he made all his plans out loud, he'd never do it. Actions speak louder than words.

Jill.

He wondered again about her reaction. So normal. Over gin tonics she had said she believed him about Marvin, but even then Phil had his doubts that she had really believed him. And although it hadn't seemed like such a big issue to Phil to share his own breakfast with Marvin, the whole concept really hit home with others present. The four of them had all been so natural at the table.

Maybe that was just the effect Marvin had on people.

Phil looked down at the table and saw an empty coffee cup which didn't appear to have been used. It was sitting on a folded piece of paper.

Phil,

Don't think we've finished talking. You're lucky Fred was there or I would have ripped your head off. You had me really worried, and I stayed over because I was actually afraid of what you might do to yourself. It was bad enough I had to listen to the whole spider story, but on top of it I come to find out that what you were telling me was true?! 

You'd better thank your lucky stars that you had eggs in the house, or it might have gotten ugly.

This conversation is far from over.

DO NOT EVEN THINK ABOUT CALLING ME. I will call you when I have had time to process. And be careful where you let that insect crawl around. It might have diseases.

Not that I care. If you get bitten and die, don't come crying for help.

I'll be in touch soon.

Jill

That was more like Jill. He folded the note and slipped into the back pocket of his trousers.

Phil noticed that Marvin was no longer sitting on his shoulder. He walked back through the house, calling out to him.

"Marvin? Where did you get off to now?"

"Here," came a small voice from the lamp.

"Ugh, cobwebs," said Phil as he swiped away the line that Marvin had left to drift in the air.

"Hey! Why did you do that?" Marvin said, poking his head out from under the lampshade.

"It was a..."

"It was my bridge thread."

"Your what?"

"My bridge thread. I need it to get started on a web."

"Oh, sorry. I thought it was a cobweb."

"Well it wasn't."

"You're not planning on covering the whole house in that, are you?"

"How much do you think I eat, anyway?"

"I honestly have no idea."

"Well, if webs are an issue, I can downsize without too much difficulty."

"Meaning?"

"I can be discreet."

"Okay."

Marvin prepared to launch another thread and noticed that Phil was still staring at him.

"Phil? Don't you have some yard work to do?"