Feerday’s Fog
MAITHY VU
Mr. and Mrs. Feerday always had breakfast in their back garden. The only exception was when it rained, in which case, they would have their eggs in the living room. On this day however, the sun radiated throughout the vegetables that crawled out of their flowerbeds.
Mrs. Feerday leaned back in her lounger hoping to get a bit of a tan. She alternated between letting her sunglasses rest on her nose and placing them on her head, because one was much too bright and the other too dark.
On his lounger, Mr. Feerday sat reading a book with his eyebrows scrunched. A notepad rested on his stomach. Once in a while, he would tug at the front of his shirt collar when it bothered his Adam’s apple.
“What do you jot down when you do that?” Mrs. Feerday asked him.
“Hm?” he grunted without looking up.
“I just meant— Who takes notes while reading a novel?”
Her husband shrugged. Mrs. Feerday sighed and reached over to the small table between them. She plopped a grape into her mouth and squinted at the sky beyond their stockade fence.
“That’s strange,” she mumbled through her chews. “Who would be having a bonfire at this time of day?”
“What do you mean?”
“Over there. See the smoke? I do hope it’s not a home that’s burning.”
It was Mr. Feerday’s turn to squint, though he couldn’t quite see what his wife was looking at.
“I can’t quite see what you’re looking at,” he said. “The sky seems clear to me.”
Mrs. Feerday stared at him in disbelief. “How do you not? The sky is nearly gray now. I can hardly see the mountains anymore.”
Mr. Feerday grumbled and shut his book. He stood, collected their empty plates, and carried them inside.
His wife was left there, staring off at the sky, wondering whether her eyes were deceiving her. Perhaps there was no smoke, and there really was nothing to worry about. She had the urge to tell someone, but if they offered the same response her husband did, she’d appear a fool. She decided to ignore it, despite the sliver of uneasiness that prodded her gut.
The next day, Mrs. Feerday tended to her garden and twiddled with her latest project while her husband labored at the scrapyard.
Mrs. Feerday was a lamp maker. She’d made dozens of lamps out of objects Mr. Feerday brought home. Twenty-eight of her creations were scattered around their small abode, and the rest given away or sold to local shops. This particular day, she’d made one out of chalkboard and half a globe. She would give it to their son Luken the next time they visited him at his university.
When Mr. Feerday came home, she greeted him at the door. He pulled an old fiddle out of his coat and handed it to her.
“Bit broken,” he said, kicking off his shoes. “But it might work nicely, eh?”
Mrs. Feerday examined the bent neck, single string, and splintered puncture at the edge.
“I don’t know if I can make something out of this,” she said. Still, she took it down to the cluttered basement where she kept all her materials. Then she heated up supper while her husband took a quick bath.
After their meal, they took a stroll around the neighborhood. Mr. Feerday always kept his arm around his wife when they walked, which felt especially nice on cold evenings.
“How was your day, dear?” he asked as they rounded a corner.
“Annalise rang,” she replied. “She and Gene invited us to their new place this Saturday.”
“We haven’t spoken to them in a year. What do they want with us?”
“Just dinner,” Mrs. Feerday said. “As friends do. We should bring something.”
“What do you suggest?”
“A wine, perhaps.”
“How about a casserole?”
“We can’t exactly bring a casserole to a chef’s home.”
“A dessert, then?”
“Annalise watches her figure.”
“I suppose wine will work.”
“I’ll bring a lamp as well.”
After their stroll, Mr. Feerday put on his favorite record and read in his armchair in the living room. Mrs. Feerday went down to the basement and got to work, where she remained until she no longer heard the record player.
Staring at a pair of ornate doors, Mrs. Feerday hugged a lamp made of cooking utensils against her chest. To her left, Mr. Feerday gripped a bottle of wine in one hand and pressed the doorbell with the other. They had endured a considerable number of headaches deciding on the perfect wine—one they could afford but fine enough that it wouldn’t appear tasteless on their end. Mr. Feerday eventually chose a burgundy he’d tried once at a nephew’s wedding.
The doorbell hummed in a way that was less “We’re here!” and more “If it’s not too much of a bother, we’d very much like to come in.”
Mr. Feerday drummed his fingers on the bottle. “Quite a house, isn’t it?” he murmured.
“Yes,” Mrs. Feerday said. “Annalise did say Gene’s restaurants were doing well.”
“The security gate seemed a bit unneces—”
A click as the door opened.
“Well, aren’t you two a dashing pair!”
Annalise beckoned them inside. A braid swayed across her back, a few strands falling in front of her face. She wore no bangles on her wrist nor studs in her ears. Her powder blue silk dress hugged her in all the most pleasurable places, and she was wearing dainty satin slippers as though she’d simply rolled out of bed.
Meanwhile, Mrs. Feerday had spent thirty-six minutes finding an outfit that would hide her gut, another twenty painting her face, and another fifteen putting her thinning locks into the perfect bun.
“I’ve made this for your home,” Mrs. Feerday said, holding out her design.
“It’s delightful!” Annalise exclaimed. She took it in both hands and held it up to her face, admiring the bulb nestled inside a whisk.
Gene popped around the corner wearing an apron and oven mitts.
“The Feerdays have come to play!” he sang. He gave Mrs. Feerday a kiss on the cheek, peeled off a mitt, and slapped Mr. Feerday on the back with the enthusiasm of a toddler.
“Doll,” said Gene to his wife. “Show them the place while I finish up here, would you?”
Annalise led them beneath a long marble staircase. Mrs. Feerday strained her neck trying to see the top of it, wondering how many rooms were on the second floor.
When they reached the dining area, Annalise placed the lamp on a mantel that lined the wall. It appeared small next to the brass candlesticks and antique pendulum clock.
“Lovely fireplace,” Mr. Feerday noted, still clutching the wine.
Annalise beamed. “I hope it’s not too warm. We like to keep the fire going.”
The three sat at the far edge of the long table. Mr. and Mrs. Feerday glanced at the dozen other place settings.
“Oh, those are always there,” said Annalise. “Tell me how you’ve both been! I haven’t seen you since the twenty-year reunion! What have you been up to?”
Mrs. Feerday stroked the silver fork in front of her, which sat delicately beside a porcelain plate. “Well, we finished mending the fence in our yard after that storm.”
“It was quite a storm!” Annalise chimed. “It destroyed the roof of our greenhouse. It took us weeks to find a suitable contractor to rebuild it.”
Mr. Feerday placed the bottle on the table. “Would you happen to have a cork s—”
“Ladiessss and gentle… man!”
Gene came strutting in with a platter of what looked like seashells collected from the beach. He set it down in front of them. “Coquilles Saint-Jacques!”
They feasted on fish soup and escargot and tartiflette, though Mrs. Feerday hoped no one noticed she could barely swallow the snails. She wanted to spit into her napkin, but it was cloth, so she did her best to chew without letting it touch her tongue.
Annalise and Gene discussed the twenty-eight countries they’d explored and exotic dishes they’d tried. Mr. and Mrs. Feerday had always meant to take a trip somewhere, but never got around to it after having their son. As much as Mrs. Feerday loved Luken, she sometimes envied Annalise for never having children. She and Gene appeared younger than ever with still so much ambition in them. She wondered if they’d ever been tired in their lives.
There was a clatter as Mr. Feerday dropped his napkin ring on his plate.
“Sorry, sorry,” he mumbled, placing it back down on the table. Mrs. Feerday noticed a billow of smoke above his head.
“Oh my, is something burning in the kitchen?” she asked.
“There shouldn’t be,” Gene said. “Do you smell something?”
“Oh,” Mrs. Feerday replied. “I just thought— The smoke…”
The smoke began turning into a dark, gray fog, much like the one she’d seen from their garden. The others stared at her with blank faces.
“You mean from the fireplace?” asked Annalise.
“No,” Mrs. Feerday muttered. “I... I must have been mistaken.”
She looked to her husband, who dabbed his lips with his napkin.
“Excuse me,” he said. “I need to use your washroom.”
“Just down the hall after the piano room,” Annalise directed.
Mr. Feerday shuffled away while Gene rubbed his stomach and leaned back in his chair.
“Have you two gone anywhere exciting?” he asked Mrs. Feerday.
“Oh, n-no. Not yet,” she answered.
Gene continued chattering, but she couldn’t process his words. The fog grew darker and closer, heightening her awareness of the mantel’s ticking clock.
“I better go see if he’s all right.”
Mrs. Feerday pushed back her chair and hurried into the hall. The fog hovered all the way to the end of it, blinding her as she searched for her husband. She called for him in every room she passed, until she reached a staircase leading down into darkness. She kept one hand on the railing as she descended, the other outstretched in front of her.
“My love,” she whispered. “Can you see me?”
The light switched on. Her husband stood with hands in his pockets, gazing at cabinets upon cabinets of bottles. He turned to her.
“They have a wine cellar,” he said.
They spoke not a word in the car. Mr. Feerday’s hands never moved from their position on the steering wheel. Mrs. Feerday sat clutching her handbag on her lap, staring out the window.
Even when her husband clicked on the high beams, she still could not see beyond the hood of their car. The fog followed them all the way home and stayed there long afterwards.
One morning, Mrs. Feerday woke with the usual heaviness as she opened the curtains of their bedroom window. The fog had hovered around her for so long now, she couldn’t even remember what the sky looked like before.
“There isn’t anything there,” Mr. Feerday said as he buttoned his coveralls.
As much as Mrs. Feerday despised the fog, it was nothing compared to the loneliness of being the only one to see it. She hated how deranged she must have appeared to her husband. The fog was one thing, but the way Mr. Feerday acted as though she imagined it was another. And the more he denied its existence, the darker it would become.
“I’ll get breakfast started,” her husband added.
As he went downstairs, the phone on the nightstand rang. It hardly ever rang this early. Mrs. Feerday hoped Luken hadn’t gotten into some sort of emergency.
“Oh, I’m so glad you’re there!” exclaimed a chipper voice. “Are you available today?”
Once she got off the phone, Mrs. Feerday ran down to the kitchen with a light in her heart and a quickness in her step.
“I may have my first client!” she cried. “Annalise was so impressed by my lamp, she put in a word with a friend who owns a string of hotels. She’s helping with the interior design at his new location today and thought I should bring pieces for him to consider.”
Mr. Feerday turned on the stove. “Hm?”
“My lamps… in a fancy hotel!” his wife exclaimed. She filled two glasses of orange juice.
Her husband cracked two eggs into a pan. “That would be something.”
Mrs. Feerday had hoped for a bigger reaction. “I don’t have time to eat in the garden,” she said. “I need to get ready.”
She took her glass of orange juice upstairs.
Exiting the grand hotel hours later, Mrs. Feerday wanted nothing more than to disappear. She could feel it—the quivering in her chest, the moisture forming in the corners of her eyes.
“Not here, not here,” she muttered to herself. “You’ve got seven blocks to get through.”
Annalise had been so thrilled when she arrived. Yet, as the hotel manager thumbed through Mrs. Feerday’s designs, he’d shaken his head.
“These won’t do. Thank you for coming, Mrs. Feerday, but unfortunately your lamps aren’t compatible with the style of our establishments.”
Annalise had apologized to her a thousand times after the manager dismissed himself, blubbering about how they hadn’t been seeing eye to eye.
“Your lamps add character. I know plenty of others who would love them,” she’d promised, but nothing could change the humiliating feeling that clouded Mrs. Feerday’s chest. As a result, though it was foggy outside with not a single ray of light, Mrs. Feerday wore her sunglasses all the way home.
At the house, the living room seemed to taunt her. The carpet had more stains than she could count. Blotchy marks sullied the coffee table where a young Luken had scribbled upon it with a pen. The wallpaper no longer showed its checkered pattern—black squares now fading into the white.
Mrs. Feerday retreated upstairs and slipped into her robe. She went into the washroom and splashed cold water on her face, as though it’d magically drain the swelling.
The lighting fixture made of coat hangers flickered above the mirror. Once she took in the gray hairs glimmering throughout her scalp, no amount of cold water could wash away the uncontrollable tears that followed.
It wasn’t the gray that bothered her. There were lots of women who looked quite distinguished with gray hair. Growing old never worried her. It was that she had hoped by the time she turned gray, she would have something to tell.
Yet, as she plucked the brightest strands and dropped them into the wastebasket, Mrs. Feerday felt as meager as she had at fourteen.
She looked back in the mirror. It was fogged—her reflection blurred and formless. She swiped her hand across it, but it made no difference.
Mrs. Feerday shuffled out of the washroom to the bedroom. The fog left the mirror and followed close behind as she buried herself beneath the covers. It stayed hovering above the bed where she slept for the rest of the afternoon.
When evening came, Mrs. Feerday had sunk so deep into the mattress, she didn’t bother greeting her husband upon his arrival.
“Dear?” he said, coming into the room. “I brought you a horseshoe.”
He touched her shoulder. Mrs. Feerday pulled the covers over her head. She heard a sigh, then a creak as he shut the door.
When he was gone, the fog coiled itself around her body, swallowing her whole. The air left her and she sobbed, praying for it all to stop, knowing it would not.
Mrs. Feerday threw off the covers, but the fog had blinded her. She hobbled across the room, sliding her hand along the wall. She found the doorknob, swinging it open as the fog went from gray to black.
“My love,” she shouted into the hall. “Can you see me?”
There was no answer. She brought herself to the floor, feeling for the top of the stairwell with her foot. When she found the edge, she slid down each step on her bottom, one by one until she could not feel any lower. She was so tired now—the fog squeezed tightly, and she wondered whether she should let it take her.
Then, the flicker of a lamp.
She could make out the long boat paddle beside the armchair. It was a standing lamp she’d crafted eight years ago, when he first took her on a rowboat out on the lake. The doorway to the kitchen would be just to the right of it. If she could make it through, perhaps the lamp made of glass jars atop their refrigerator would illuminate the door to the yard.
She stood and made way toward the light, arms outstretched, wobbling through the living room to the kitchen. The bulbs shone brightly within the glass, and she remembered how the same jars were once filled with blooming hydrangeas at their wedding. They guided her outside, allowing air into her lungs. She recognized the sound of gardening shears from across the yard.
There he was! She saw him—for a moment—just before the fog swirled around her again. It grew cold, chilling her body as it impaired her sight. And the more she tried to find him, the darker it got, until he was just a silhouette against the fence they’d built.
“My love,” she called. “Can you see me?”
He gave no response, the outline of his body fading faster as the fog froze her insides. She screamed as it bit into her chest. Her fingertips turned numb just before something grabbed them.
“I’m sorry, dear,” said Mr. Feerday. “I only just heard you. Did you need something?”
And with that, she burst into tears, her body trembling from the cold as her knees hit the stone path of their garden.
“I hate it! I hate it! I just want it to stop! Please, stop!”
“Oh,” Mr. Feerday said as he rushed to her side. “I’m right here. Hold onto me.”
She grasped his shoulder.
“What were you doing out here?” she asked. “I needed you.”
“I was gathering tomatoes. Figured I’d make supper today since you didn’t seem well. There’s this recipe in the novel I’ve been reading that I thought we could—”
Mrs. Feerday pulled away from her husband and got to her feet.
“It’s fine,” she said. “I’m fine now.”
Though the fog embraced her, she headed back inside. Mr. Feerday went after her.
“Are you sure? You seem rather shaken up.”
His wife headed toward the darkness of their basement.
“It’s nothing. Just let it go.”
He followed her down the steps.
“You’re obviously upset. Please tell me what’s the matter.”
Mrs. Feerday reached the bottom.
“I have told you,” she said. “Many times. You don’t believe me.”
“I do believe you.”
“No, you don’t.”
“I do. I’ve seen it.”
She turned to face him.
“Y-you’ve seen it this whole time?”
Mr. Feerday took a moment, giving in to the haze that surrounded them.
“Not always. Sometimes you see it and I don’t. Sometimes I see it and you don’t. After that dinner at Gene and Annalise’s, I had to turn on the high beams because I could barely see the road.”
“How could you?” Mrs. Feerday cried. “Do you realize how alone I’ve been? You tried convincing me it wasn’t there!”
Mr. Feerday shook his head. “I wasn’t trying to convince you. I was convincing myself. I was afraid.”
“Afraid? Of what it would do?”
“That I couldn’t make it go away.”
Mrs. Feerday let out a sigh. The cold seeped out of her chest.
“I never needed you to do anything. I just wanted it acknowledged.”
Her husband stepped toward her. It had been so long since she’d looked at him for more than a moment. His hair had grown lighter over the years, his eyes troubled, hands aged from working the scrapyard.
“I’m so sorry, my love,” he said.
The fog swirled around them. She buried her face into his chest, soaking in hints of scrap metal and familiarity. He embraced her, warming her shoulders as he did on their walks.
Suddenly, Mr. Feerday began to snicker. His laughter echoed throughout the basement, dissolving the darkness that tried to devour them.
Mrs. Feerday wiped her eyes, wondering what had come over him. Her husband attempted words between breaths.
“They had. . . an entire. . . wine cellar!”
She frowned. “It isn’t funny. I was so angry at myself. I should’ve known a chef would—”
“Bottles from floor to ceiling!” he chortled.
And as Mrs. Feerday glimpsed at his face, bright red from amusement, she felt the corners of her mouth twitch.
“We spent four days deciding on a bottle,” she said.
“Four and a half. The last day, you almost made a casserole!”
Then they both laughed hysterically—Mr. Feerday bending over as far as his knees, Mrs. Feerday shaking so hard, she was sure she’d lost an inch in her gut. And when their bodies stopped shuddering and air returned to their lungs, Mr. Feerday took his wife’s hand and held it against his heart.
“May I build a lamp with you?” he asked.
Mrs. Feerday scanned the basement filled with heaps of forgotten objects. She picked up the broken fiddle from a pile and decided it was perfect.
Mr. and Mrs. Feerday always had breakfast in their back garden. Though it only contained a few vegetable plants beside wilted flowers, and the loungers were worn and flimsy, that never seemed to bother them.
Once in a while, a fog would roll in so thick, they’d both become lost within it. When that happened, Mrs. Feerday always shouted for her husband.
“My love,” she’d call. “Can you see me?”
“No,” he’d reply. “But I’ll follow your voice.”
Mrs. Feerday leaned back in her lounger hoping to get a bit of a tan. She alternated between letting her sunglasses rest on her nose and placing them on her head, because one was much too bright and the other too dark.
On his lounger, Mr. Feerday sat reading a book with his eyebrows scrunched. A notepad rested on his stomach. Once in a while, he would tug at the front of his shirt collar when it bothered his Adam’s apple.
“What do you jot down when you do that?” Mrs. Feerday asked him.
“Hm?” he grunted without looking up.
“I just meant— Who takes notes while reading a novel?”
Her husband shrugged. Mrs. Feerday sighed and reached over to the small table between them. She plopped a grape into her mouth and squinted at the sky beyond their stockade fence.
“That’s strange,” she mumbled through her chews. “Who would be having a bonfire at this time of day?”
“What do you mean?”
“Over there. See the smoke? I do hope it’s not a home that’s burning.”
It was Mr. Feerday’s turn to squint, though he couldn’t quite see what his wife was looking at.
“I can’t quite see what you’re looking at,” he said. “The sky seems clear to me.”
Mrs. Feerday stared at him in disbelief. “How do you not? The sky is nearly gray now. I can hardly see the mountains anymore.”
Mr. Feerday grumbled and shut his book. He stood, collected their empty plates, and carried them inside.
His wife was left there, staring off at the sky, wondering whether her eyes were deceiving her. Perhaps there was no smoke, and there really was nothing to worry about. She had the urge to tell someone, but if they offered the same response her husband did, she’d appear a fool. She decided to ignore it, despite the sliver of uneasiness that prodded her gut.
The next day, Mrs. Feerday tended to her garden and twiddled with her latest project while her husband labored at the scrapyard.
Mrs. Feerday was a lamp maker. She’d made dozens of lamps out of objects Mr. Feerday brought home. Twenty-eight of her creations were scattered around their small abode, and the rest given away or sold to local shops. This particular day, she’d made one out of chalkboard and half a globe. She would give it to their son Luken the next time they visited him at his university.
When Mr. Feerday came home, she greeted him at the door. He pulled an old fiddle out of his coat and handed it to her.
“Bit broken,” he said, kicking off his shoes. “But it might work nicely, eh?”
Mrs. Feerday examined the bent neck, single string, and splintered puncture at the edge.
“I don’t know if I can make something out of this,” she said. Still, she took it down to the cluttered basement where she kept all her materials. Then she heated up supper while her husband took a quick bath.
After their meal, they took a stroll around the neighborhood. Mr. Feerday always kept his arm around his wife when they walked, which felt especially nice on cold evenings.
“How was your day, dear?” he asked as they rounded a corner.
“Annalise rang,” she replied. “She and Gene invited us to their new place this Saturday.”
“We haven’t spoken to them in a year. What do they want with us?”
“Just dinner,” Mrs. Feerday said. “As friends do. We should bring something.”
“What do you suggest?”
“A wine, perhaps.”
“How about a casserole?”
“We can’t exactly bring a casserole to a chef’s home.”
“A dessert, then?”
“Annalise watches her figure.”
“I suppose wine will work.”
“I’ll bring a lamp as well.”
After their stroll, Mr. Feerday put on his favorite record and read in his armchair in the living room. Mrs. Feerday went down to the basement and got to work, where she remained until she no longer heard the record player.
Staring at a pair of ornate doors, Mrs. Feerday hugged a lamp made of cooking utensils against her chest. To her left, Mr. Feerday gripped a bottle of wine in one hand and pressed the doorbell with the other. They had endured a considerable number of headaches deciding on the perfect wine—one they could afford but fine enough that it wouldn’t appear tasteless on their end. Mr. Feerday eventually chose a burgundy he’d tried once at a nephew’s wedding.
The doorbell hummed in a way that was less “We’re here!” and more “If it’s not too much of a bother, we’d very much like to come in.”
Mr. Feerday drummed his fingers on the bottle. “Quite a house, isn’t it?” he murmured.
“Yes,” Mrs. Feerday said. “Annalise did say Gene’s restaurants were doing well.”
“The security gate seemed a bit unneces—”
A click as the door opened.
“Well, aren’t you two a dashing pair!”
Annalise beckoned them inside. A braid swayed across her back, a few strands falling in front of her face. She wore no bangles on her wrist nor studs in her ears. Her powder blue silk dress hugged her in all the most pleasurable places, and she was wearing dainty satin slippers as though she’d simply rolled out of bed.
Meanwhile, Mrs. Feerday had spent thirty-six minutes finding an outfit that would hide her gut, another twenty painting her face, and another fifteen putting her thinning locks into the perfect bun.
“I’ve made this for your home,” Mrs. Feerday said, holding out her design.
“It’s delightful!” Annalise exclaimed. She took it in both hands and held it up to her face, admiring the bulb nestled inside a whisk.
Gene popped around the corner wearing an apron and oven mitts.
“The Feerdays have come to play!” he sang. He gave Mrs. Feerday a kiss on the cheek, peeled off a mitt, and slapped Mr. Feerday on the back with the enthusiasm of a toddler.
“Doll,” said Gene to his wife. “Show them the place while I finish up here, would you?”
Annalise led them beneath a long marble staircase. Mrs. Feerday strained her neck trying to see the top of it, wondering how many rooms were on the second floor.
When they reached the dining area, Annalise placed the lamp on a mantel that lined the wall. It appeared small next to the brass candlesticks and antique pendulum clock.
“Lovely fireplace,” Mr. Feerday noted, still clutching the wine.
Annalise beamed. “I hope it’s not too warm. We like to keep the fire going.”
The three sat at the far edge of the long table. Mr. and Mrs. Feerday glanced at the dozen other place settings.
“Oh, those are always there,” said Annalise. “Tell me how you’ve both been! I haven’t seen you since the twenty-year reunion! What have you been up to?”
Mrs. Feerday stroked the silver fork in front of her, which sat delicately beside a porcelain plate. “Well, we finished mending the fence in our yard after that storm.”
“It was quite a storm!” Annalise chimed. “It destroyed the roof of our greenhouse. It took us weeks to find a suitable contractor to rebuild it.”
Mr. Feerday placed the bottle on the table. “Would you happen to have a cork s—”
“Ladiessss and gentle… man!”
Gene came strutting in with a platter of what looked like seashells collected from the beach. He set it down in front of them. “Coquilles Saint-Jacques!”
They feasted on fish soup and escargot and tartiflette, though Mrs. Feerday hoped no one noticed she could barely swallow the snails. She wanted to spit into her napkin, but it was cloth, so she did her best to chew without letting it touch her tongue.
Annalise and Gene discussed the twenty-eight countries they’d explored and exotic dishes they’d tried. Mr. and Mrs. Feerday had always meant to take a trip somewhere, but never got around to it after having their son. As much as Mrs. Feerday loved Luken, she sometimes envied Annalise for never having children. She and Gene appeared younger than ever with still so much ambition in them. She wondered if they’d ever been tired in their lives.
There was a clatter as Mr. Feerday dropped his napkin ring on his plate.
“Sorry, sorry,” he mumbled, placing it back down on the table. Mrs. Feerday noticed a billow of smoke above his head.
“Oh my, is something burning in the kitchen?” she asked.
“There shouldn’t be,” Gene said. “Do you smell something?”
“Oh,” Mrs. Feerday replied. “I just thought— The smoke…”
The smoke began turning into a dark, gray fog, much like the one she’d seen from their garden. The others stared at her with blank faces.
“You mean from the fireplace?” asked Annalise.
“No,” Mrs. Feerday muttered. “I... I must have been mistaken.”
She looked to her husband, who dabbed his lips with his napkin.
“Excuse me,” he said. “I need to use your washroom.”
“Just down the hall after the piano room,” Annalise directed.
Mr. Feerday shuffled away while Gene rubbed his stomach and leaned back in his chair.
“Have you two gone anywhere exciting?” he asked Mrs. Feerday.
“Oh, n-no. Not yet,” she answered.
Gene continued chattering, but she couldn’t process his words. The fog grew darker and closer, heightening her awareness of the mantel’s ticking clock.
“I better go see if he’s all right.”
Mrs. Feerday pushed back her chair and hurried into the hall. The fog hovered all the way to the end of it, blinding her as she searched for her husband. She called for him in every room she passed, until she reached a staircase leading down into darkness. She kept one hand on the railing as she descended, the other outstretched in front of her.
“My love,” she whispered. “Can you see me?”
The light switched on. Her husband stood with hands in his pockets, gazing at cabinets upon cabinets of bottles. He turned to her.
“They have a wine cellar,” he said.
They spoke not a word in the car. Mr. Feerday’s hands never moved from their position on the steering wheel. Mrs. Feerday sat clutching her handbag on her lap, staring out the window.
Even when her husband clicked on the high beams, she still could not see beyond the hood of their car. The fog followed them all the way home and stayed there long afterwards.
One morning, Mrs. Feerday woke with the usual heaviness as she opened the curtains of their bedroom window. The fog had hovered around her for so long now, she couldn’t even remember what the sky looked like before.
“There isn’t anything there,” Mr. Feerday said as he buttoned his coveralls.
As much as Mrs. Feerday despised the fog, it was nothing compared to the loneliness of being the only one to see it. She hated how deranged she must have appeared to her husband. The fog was one thing, but the way Mr. Feerday acted as though she imagined it was another. And the more he denied its existence, the darker it would become.
“I’ll get breakfast started,” her husband added.
As he went downstairs, the phone on the nightstand rang. It hardly ever rang this early. Mrs. Feerday hoped Luken hadn’t gotten into some sort of emergency.
“Oh, I’m so glad you’re there!” exclaimed a chipper voice. “Are you available today?”
Once she got off the phone, Mrs. Feerday ran down to the kitchen with a light in her heart and a quickness in her step.
“I may have my first client!” she cried. “Annalise was so impressed by my lamp, she put in a word with a friend who owns a string of hotels. She’s helping with the interior design at his new location today and thought I should bring pieces for him to consider.”
Mr. Feerday turned on the stove. “Hm?”
“My lamps… in a fancy hotel!” his wife exclaimed. She filled two glasses of orange juice.
Her husband cracked two eggs into a pan. “That would be something.”
Mrs. Feerday had hoped for a bigger reaction. “I don’t have time to eat in the garden,” she said. “I need to get ready.”
She took her glass of orange juice upstairs.
Exiting the grand hotel hours later, Mrs. Feerday wanted nothing more than to disappear. She could feel it—the quivering in her chest, the moisture forming in the corners of her eyes.
“Not here, not here,” she muttered to herself. “You’ve got seven blocks to get through.”
Annalise had been so thrilled when she arrived. Yet, as the hotel manager thumbed through Mrs. Feerday’s designs, he’d shaken his head.
“These won’t do. Thank you for coming, Mrs. Feerday, but unfortunately your lamps aren’t compatible with the style of our establishments.”
Annalise had apologized to her a thousand times after the manager dismissed himself, blubbering about how they hadn’t been seeing eye to eye.
“Your lamps add character. I know plenty of others who would love them,” she’d promised, but nothing could change the humiliating feeling that clouded Mrs. Feerday’s chest. As a result, though it was foggy outside with not a single ray of light, Mrs. Feerday wore her sunglasses all the way home.
At the house, the living room seemed to taunt her. The carpet had more stains than she could count. Blotchy marks sullied the coffee table where a young Luken had scribbled upon it with a pen. The wallpaper no longer showed its checkered pattern—black squares now fading into the white.
Mrs. Feerday retreated upstairs and slipped into her robe. She went into the washroom and splashed cold water on her face, as though it’d magically drain the swelling.
The lighting fixture made of coat hangers flickered above the mirror. Once she took in the gray hairs glimmering throughout her scalp, no amount of cold water could wash away the uncontrollable tears that followed.
It wasn’t the gray that bothered her. There were lots of women who looked quite distinguished with gray hair. Growing old never worried her. It was that she had hoped by the time she turned gray, she would have something to tell.
Yet, as she plucked the brightest strands and dropped them into the wastebasket, Mrs. Feerday felt as meager as she had at fourteen.
She looked back in the mirror. It was fogged—her reflection blurred and formless. She swiped her hand across it, but it made no difference.
Mrs. Feerday shuffled out of the washroom to the bedroom. The fog left the mirror and followed close behind as she buried herself beneath the covers. It stayed hovering above the bed where she slept for the rest of the afternoon.
When evening came, Mrs. Feerday had sunk so deep into the mattress, she didn’t bother greeting her husband upon his arrival.
“Dear?” he said, coming into the room. “I brought you a horseshoe.”
He touched her shoulder. Mrs. Feerday pulled the covers over her head. She heard a sigh, then a creak as he shut the door.
When he was gone, the fog coiled itself around her body, swallowing her whole. The air left her and she sobbed, praying for it all to stop, knowing it would not.
Mrs. Feerday threw off the covers, but the fog had blinded her. She hobbled across the room, sliding her hand along the wall. She found the doorknob, swinging it open as the fog went from gray to black.
“My love,” she shouted into the hall. “Can you see me?”
There was no answer. She brought herself to the floor, feeling for the top of the stairwell with her foot. When she found the edge, she slid down each step on her bottom, one by one until she could not feel any lower. She was so tired now—the fog squeezed tightly, and she wondered whether she should let it take her.
Then, the flicker of a lamp.
She could make out the long boat paddle beside the armchair. It was a standing lamp she’d crafted eight years ago, when he first took her on a rowboat out on the lake. The doorway to the kitchen would be just to the right of it. If she could make it through, perhaps the lamp made of glass jars atop their refrigerator would illuminate the door to the yard.
She stood and made way toward the light, arms outstretched, wobbling through the living room to the kitchen. The bulbs shone brightly within the glass, and she remembered how the same jars were once filled with blooming hydrangeas at their wedding. They guided her outside, allowing air into her lungs. She recognized the sound of gardening shears from across the yard.
There he was! She saw him—for a moment—just before the fog swirled around her again. It grew cold, chilling her body as it impaired her sight. And the more she tried to find him, the darker it got, until he was just a silhouette against the fence they’d built.
“My love,” she called. “Can you see me?”
He gave no response, the outline of his body fading faster as the fog froze her insides. She screamed as it bit into her chest. Her fingertips turned numb just before something grabbed them.
“I’m sorry, dear,” said Mr. Feerday. “I only just heard you. Did you need something?”
And with that, she burst into tears, her body trembling from the cold as her knees hit the stone path of their garden.
“I hate it! I hate it! I just want it to stop! Please, stop!”
“Oh,” Mr. Feerday said as he rushed to her side. “I’m right here. Hold onto me.”
She grasped his shoulder.
“What were you doing out here?” she asked. “I needed you.”
“I was gathering tomatoes. Figured I’d make supper today since you didn’t seem well. There’s this recipe in the novel I’ve been reading that I thought we could—”
Mrs. Feerday pulled away from her husband and got to her feet.
“It’s fine,” she said. “I’m fine now.”
Though the fog embraced her, she headed back inside. Mr. Feerday went after her.
“Are you sure? You seem rather shaken up.”
His wife headed toward the darkness of their basement.
“It’s nothing. Just let it go.”
He followed her down the steps.
“You’re obviously upset. Please tell me what’s the matter.”
Mrs. Feerday reached the bottom.
“I have told you,” she said. “Many times. You don’t believe me.”
“I do believe you.”
“No, you don’t.”
“I do. I’ve seen it.”
She turned to face him.
“Y-you’ve seen it this whole time?”
Mr. Feerday took a moment, giving in to the haze that surrounded them.
“Not always. Sometimes you see it and I don’t. Sometimes I see it and you don’t. After that dinner at Gene and Annalise’s, I had to turn on the high beams because I could barely see the road.”
“How could you?” Mrs. Feerday cried. “Do you realize how alone I’ve been? You tried convincing me it wasn’t there!”
Mr. Feerday shook his head. “I wasn’t trying to convince you. I was convincing myself. I was afraid.”
“Afraid? Of what it would do?”
“That I couldn’t make it go away.”
Mrs. Feerday let out a sigh. The cold seeped out of her chest.
“I never needed you to do anything. I just wanted it acknowledged.”
Her husband stepped toward her. It had been so long since she’d looked at him for more than a moment. His hair had grown lighter over the years, his eyes troubled, hands aged from working the scrapyard.
“I’m so sorry, my love,” he said.
The fog swirled around them. She buried her face into his chest, soaking in hints of scrap metal and familiarity. He embraced her, warming her shoulders as he did on their walks.
Suddenly, Mr. Feerday began to snicker. His laughter echoed throughout the basement, dissolving the darkness that tried to devour them.
Mrs. Feerday wiped her eyes, wondering what had come over him. Her husband attempted words between breaths.
“They had. . . an entire. . . wine cellar!”
She frowned. “It isn’t funny. I was so angry at myself. I should’ve known a chef would—”
“Bottles from floor to ceiling!” he chortled.
And as Mrs. Feerday glimpsed at his face, bright red from amusement, she felt the corners of her mouth twitch.
“We spent four days deciding on a bottle,” she said.
“Four and a half. The last day, you almost made a casserole!”
Then they both laughed hysterically—Mr. Feerday bending over as far as his knees, Mrs. Feerday shaking so hard, she was sure she’d lost an inch in her gut. And when their bodies stopped shuddering and air returned to their lungs, Mr. Feerday took his wife’s hand and held it against his heart.
“May I build a lamp with you?” he asked.
Mrs. Feerday scanned the basement filled with heaps of forgotten objects. She picked up the broken fiddle from a pile and decided it was perfect.
Mr. and Mrs. Feerday always had breakfast in their back garden. Though it only contained a few vegetable plants beside wilted flowers, and the loungers were worn and flimsy, that never seemed to bother them.
Once in a while, a fog would roll in so thick, they’d both become lost within it. When that happened, Mrs. Feerday always shouted for her husband.
“My love,” she’d call. “Can you see me?”
“No,” he’d reply. “But I’ll follow your voice.”
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