A few days later, Maeve came to Jude’s house carrying her tool bag. She said she had stopped by on her way back from the workshop. Jude had told her in messages about his dreams, the conversations with his father repeating themselves, and Maeve asked whether he still heard the voice after he woke. Jude said he did. Maeve was about to put down her bag when she looked up.
A black butterfly clung to the wall beneath the round clock. Its wings were such a perfect, pitch-black darkness that it never occurred to him to catch it or drive it out. The tip of its left wing was slightly damaged. Jude said it had not flown away even when he left the window open.
Dust gathers where a person has gone. Now and then, a dead insect will turn up, too. Something its owner had meant to put away someday would have to remain untouched for a while if the owner was never coming back. And objects were not all that remained. Dreams someone had pictured. Plans for the future. Relationships with the people they loved, things they had to take responsibility for—all of it was left behind. But unlike objects, those could not be gathered in one place and cleared away one by one.
The black butterfly, with the sheen on its wings, did seem to be alive. It seemed to have found its way inside only after his father died, but Jude had no time to spare for it. His father had left a mountain of paperwork. The people who had come to the funeral were people who remembered his father alive; there was nothing his father would be starting after that. Whatever happened from now on would be for those left behind to do. Jude did not know who should hear his answers now, either, to the tedious lectures his father had left him with.
What grade had he been in? A teacher had once left him with a few words, telling him to live a happy life. Jude would never hear her voice again. Even if he became happy someday, could he find her and boast that this was how happy he had become? He did not even know where she was. Even if they met, she probably would not remember having said it. Words that had stayed with him for years might be no more than part of a day long past for the person who had spoken them.
What should he have shown his father? To keep his instruction to see things through, whatever they were, how far should he have gone, and what should he have achieved? Jude did not know. All he could find to do right now was the same trivial work he had already been doing, and finishing it would not bring his dead father back. If only he had shown his father he was a little more dependable while he was alive. Whenever he began thinking that way, there were fewer things he wanted to say to his father and more things he himself had failed to do. In the end, his resentment turned on himself as well.
Maeve took a picture of the butterfly and put down her tool bag. When she looked for a chair, Jude pointed to the other side of the table. Maeve pulled the chair over where she could see his face.
“You mean you hear it when you’re at home?”
“Yeah. But I don’t hear it here.”
Jude pointed to his ear, then moved his hand to his forehead. There was nowhere he could point and say, here. If he said he heard it inside his head, it seemed there would be no way to distinguish it from his own thoughts; if he said the sound came from somewhere, it would be as though his father were in the room. Either way of putting it was a little different from what he had actually experienced.
“Every day?”
“Sometimes.”
“What does he say?”
Jude sat down and tried to repeat what his father said. Paperwork covered about half the table. When Maeve pushed some aside to make space, Jude stopped her hand, saying he was still sorting it out. Maeve took her hand away from the papers and looked for an empty spot.
“Is it all right if I spread a few things out here?”
From her bag came a small metal box, its detached cover, and a circuit diagram drawn on paper. She seemed to have brought something she was still working on. When Jude pulled a document envelope toward himself, Maeve laid a cloth in the cleared spot. She put the things on it and folded the edge of the cloth over twice so the screws would not roll away.
“That looks like quite a bit of work…”
“It’s nothing. I thought I’d borrow your hands for a minute, while I remembered.”
Maeve studied Jude’s reaction after she spoke. Jude gave a bitter little smile. He had sat down to explain what his father said, had not even decided where to begin, and already things were spreading across the table. Still, it was better than having Maeve do nothing but wait for an answer. Asking what he had heard was a simple question, but to explain how those words sounded to him, he felt he would have to begin back when his father was still alive.
Maeve smiled a little, too, and turned the cover over. Then she said she was thinking of moving workshops. She could not put up any more shelves in the place she was renting. If she stacked the repairs, she had to take down things she had not fixed yet just to get at something she had finished. When Jude asked why she did not move somewhere bigger, Maeve asked,
“Would you pay the rent for me, then?”
“I think that might be difficult.”
“Not that a bigger place would bring in more work.”
Everyone had to worry about making a living, wherever they were. As she spoke, Maeve tilted the cover to look at it. Only one of its four screw holes was scratched. To Jude it was simply a square piece of metal. He looked where Maeve was looking and asked,
“Looks like someone scratched it trying to force it shut with something inside?”
“Yeah.”
“Shouldn’t you put something smaller in it, then?”
“The smaller one broke, so there wasn’t much choice.”
Maeve asked him to hold the box at a slight angle while she fitted the cover. When Jude supported it with his fingertips, it was heavier than he had expected. Maeve said that was enough and put in a screw. Once one caught, the rest went in easily. When she said he could let go, he took his hand away and found something black on his fingertips. Maeve found a clean cloth in her bag and handed it to him. As he wiped his hands, Jude looked at the box with its cover fitted. He still had little idea what had been repaired, but it looked more complete than it had a moment earlier.
Maeve said she liked the moment when she returned a repair and its owner switched it on for the first time. She could ask, Is that how it used to sound? and listen to it once more herself. Jude knew Maeve when she talked about things like that. When she was worried that something she had agreed to repair might not switch on properly, she spoke in shorter sentences, but once she had returned it safely, she would tell him at length about what had happened before she found the fault. Today, too, she explained a component and went on to tell him what had happened when she replaced it. Whenever a name he did not recognize came up, Jude asked. Maeve pointed to the thing in her hands and explained again.
For a while, the thing he had meant to talk about did not come up at all. Jude did not try to steer the conversation back, either. He could listen to Maeve talk about something she knew how to do, and say he did not know when he did not know. Answers came more easily than when he was wondering how to explain his father’s voice.
“My father says the things he always said.”
Jude spoke after they had finished talking about the fault.
“Asking if I’ve eaten. What I’m going to do about work.”
“Do you answer him?”
“Yeah.”
“What do you say?”
“It depends.”
Jude wiped his fingers with the cloth once more. They were already clean. Maeve took the cloth he held out and put it in her bag. She did not tell him how he ought to answer, or what he should try saying next time. As she gathered the things she had brought, she asked,
“Are you feeling any better?”
Jude remembered that he had been smiling a moment earlier. Nodding did not seem as though it would be a lie. Some of the bitterness had gone out of that smile since Maeve first arrived. But he could not explain what had improved. It was not as though he could no longer hear his father’s voice, or the paperwork on the table had diminished. He simply did not want to say he was still not all right when Maeve asked.
Maeve said she was glad. She asked him to tell her what his father had said the next time he heard his voice, then closed her bag.
Maeve really did do as she pleased. Dropping into someone else’s house when it suited her, then asking to borrow his hands to fix something she had brought along. Talking about herself for ages before trying to hear his answer. Yet when it actually came to giving that answer, he was the one who did not know where to begin. He could not say she had done nothing but talk about herself, either. If Jude had answered at once when she asked what he had heard, the other conversation would not have gone on so long.
At the entrance, Maeve adjusted her grip on the bag and put on her shoes. When she stepped outside, the hem of her dark blue coat fluttered in the wind. Jude listened to her going down the stairs, then closed the door. Back in the room, he spread the papers out a little at a time where Maeve’s things had been. He had no more space to sort them than before, but he remembered how far he had read.
◇
A few days later, Maeve came again.
Jude had sent a message saying he had heard his father’s voice that day, too, and asking whether she could come over for a little while. Maeve said she had work to finish at the workshop and could not stay long. Jude replied that a little while would do.
It felt strange to ask this much of someone he used to work with. But he could think of no one besides Maeve with enough time to listen to his nonsense. Now that he had asked her to come, he did not know where to begin. His father’s voice did not come whenever he wanted to hear it. If nothing happened while Maeve was here, it might end with him simply explaining what he had heard all over again. Still, that seemed better than hearing it alone and sending her a message afterward.
Maeve pulled over the chair she had used last time. She took the cover of the thing she was repairing from her tool bag and put it on a corner of the table. This time Jude moved some papers aside for her without being asked.
“Raise your hand if you hear it again.”
“You won’t be able to hear it.”
“I know. So I can stop if I’m talking. Tell me what he said when he’s finished.”
“It’s almost always the same. Sometimes I dream it in the morning, sometimes I hear it when I’m just sitting here. That’s all.”
“What did he say today, then?”
Jude repeated what he had heard that morning. That he should see at least one thing through. Maeve asked whether this was about his quitting his job. Once he said yes, there was nothing more to say. When his father was speaking, he had so much to answer, but passed on to someone else, it was over in a few words. Maeve nodded as though she understood, but Jude felt there was still so much he had not explained.
See at least one thing through. To Jude, the meaning was simple. He had to keep pushing until he was better than other people. If he quit before that, all the time he had poured in so far seemed likely to come to nothing. Starting something else would not automatically carry that time over. He would have to learn again from the beginning, growing older in the meantime. His father told him to see things through, but whenever Jude heard it, his first thought was how much he would lose if he quit now.
Maeve left her bag open and stood it at her feet, close enough to reach. She talked about the workshop as she handled the cover. Someone Jude knew had brought the thing in, she said. Jude asked how that person was doing and listened to her answer. The conversation kept going, but his mind kept drifting elsewhere. He wished he could hear the voice just once more before Maeve went home. If she sat beside him and saw how he answered, might she understand a little better than if he tried to put it into words?
You only have to say something once, right now. The first time I heard you, you said all that when I hadn’t even asked.
While Maeve went on talking, Jude heard his father cough. When he raised his hand, Maeve stopped speaking and put down the cover. His father told him to see at least one thing through. When Jude said he understood, the next words were how long he intended to go on living like this. Words he had heard before. Once again, Jude tried to begin by explaining why he had quit.
“I had my reasons for quitting. I wasn’t just planning to do nothing.”
Maeve was watching him. All she would hear was what he was saying now. Would he look like someone explaining himself when nobody had asked? As Jude searched her expression, he missed his father’s next words. He knew his father had said something more, but had not caught the end of it.
“Wait. Again.”
Both the cough and the voice stopped. While Jude waited, Maeve asked cautiously,
“Was that to me?”
“No. My father.”
“Is he talking about you quitting the sound job?”
“Yeah.”
“Did you tell him why you left?”
“I did.”
“And even so?”
“But I only lasted three months.”
Jude closed his mouth after answering. That was not what he had meant to say. He had meant to explain why he quit to the person saying he had only lasted three months. But when Maeve asked, those words came out before the explanation. Jude tried to correct himself, but Maeve answered first.
“I know you left after three months. You said it wasn’t because you just wanted to do nothing.”
“It wasn’t.”
“Why do you say it like that, then?”
Jude almost asked what she meant, then stopped. Maeve had heard the words he himself had just spoken. He had meant to tell his father he had other reasons, but had explained to Maeve that he had lasted only three months. He could simply tell her why he quit, yet if he began that now, he felt the words he had missed would be lost for good. If his father would only say them once more, he could finish that first.
“Wait a minute. I think I just need to hear the part I missed.”
Maeve closed her mouth. Jude called to his father, but the voice did not return. He waited to hear even the same cough as before. There was no sound. After waiting with him for a while, Maeve pulled the cover on the table toward herself. Jude thought it was all right for her to go on working. All he had to do if he heard the voice again was raise his hand. It was a small comfort, not having to explain every time how much he had heard.
“What are you looking into now?”
“What do you mean?”
“Work. You said you were going to look for something else after you quit.”
He was looking. If opening job listings counted as looking. There were places he had begun applications for and stopped, and places whose deadlines had passed while he was arranging his father’s funeral. Which should he tell her about first? If he named somewhere he had not applied to yet, Maeve would ask what he would do there. He might just about be able to explain. But then she might ask why he had not applied. Once he had explained that as well, even his answer that he was looking might sound untrue.
Jude raised his hand.
“Do you hear it again?”
The room had been this quiet just before the coughing started, too. Jude waited without answering. He still heard nothing. But if his father began speaking while he was saying no, he felt he would miss it again. Maeve had stopped talking and was watching him as well.
“No. Not yet.”
Maeve asked nothing more. If she asked again, Jude was going to tell her about the listing he had opened earlier. That he had not applied, but there was somewhere he was looking into. When the conversation returned to the cover, though, he did not bring it up himself. While listening to Maeve’s explanation, he opened a bottle of water, and the cap slipped from his hand and rolled onto the floor. When Maeve picked it up and put it in his hand, Jude screwed it back on first. Realizing he had not drunk anything, he opened it again. He hoped his father’s voice would not come while he was swallowing.
After that, Maeve did a little more work on the thing she had brought. She returned to the person she had been talking about earlier as well. Jude answered late, and Maeve did not hurry him. Now and then, a small tool touched the table. Jude waited, listening to the sound. If he heard the voice once more, this time he meant to listen to the end without looking at Maeve’s expression.
Another hour passed like that.
Maeve’s phone rang. She sent a reply and began gathering the things she had brought. She had something to finish today and had to get going, she said. Only then did Jude realize how much time had passed. He had looked at the clock again and again while they waited, but when Maeve was about to stand, all that time suddenly seemed wasted. He only needed to hear it once more. There were still words he had missed, and he had asked her to come so that he could hear them.
Maeve put the cover and tools in her bag. Jude tried to ask her to wait longer, but he did not know how long they would have to wait himself. Wherever he looked in the room, there seemed to be no reason for her to stay a little longer. When the zipper of the bag began to close, the words came out.
“We haven’t finished talking. If we’re going to talk, we should see it through.”
Maeve stopped closing her bag and looked at him. Only after hearing his own words did Jude close his mouth. He had meant that he wanted her to stay a little longer. But he had said they should see it through. When his father said that to him, he wanted to ask what he was supposed to do and how far he was supposed to go. Now he was saying the same thing to Maeve about something whose end he could not foresee himself.
“You haven’t even answered what I asked. I told you I couldn’t stay long.”
She had. He was the one who had replied that a little while would do. At the time, he had thought he would hear it at least once more while she was here. In fact, he had. He had simply missed what came next and waited, thinking all he needed was to hear that part again. Maeve had already done what he asked just by coming. Even as he thought that, Jude wished she would put down her bag again.
“Sorry. I thought I’d hear him if we waited a little longer.”
Even after apologizing, what he wanted had not changed. Maeve closed the zipper all the way. When Jude said nothing more, she told him to message her if he heard the voice again, adding that she might not see it straight away when she was working. Jude nodded and followed her to the door.
While Maeve put on her shoes, he wondered whether to tell her now about the jobs she had asked about. That there were places he was looking into. He had not applied yet, but it was not as though he was simply doing nothing. Yet if he said it now, even that would sound like something he was bringing up to make her stay. He could not ask when she could come again, either.
“Hope the work goes well.”
“Yeah.”
Jude opened the door for her. Even after she had gone down the stairs, he stood for a moment with his hand on the handle. If his father started speaking now, he could call Maeve, who would still be downstairs. But even if she came back up, all she would hear, in the end, would be his answers. Once his father had finished, Jude would have to repeat what he had said. Jude closed the door when he could no longer hear footsteps on the stairs.
He went back to the room and sat at the table. The document envelope he had pushed aside to make space for Maeve’s things stuck out toward him. He could have put it back, but left it alone. He opened a job listing on his phone and thought he could have shown her this when she asked. As he read about the work, his eyes went to the experience he would need to put on the application. Wondering how to explain his time at the theater, he searched through old messages.
Thomas’s instructions on where to put the equipment were still there. Back then, Jude had known when the next job was. All he had to do was ask who was responsible for what and where he should go. Since quitting, he had not asked Thomas about the schedule. Before it occurred to him to ask whether things were going well, he thought of what he should do if they called him back. Though he had no intention of returning, he scrolled farther up through the messages. At least back then he had work to do.
Even when he could not hear his father’s voice, Jude was answering him. What he was looking into. What he had done since quitting. No one had even asked, yet he searched for something he could show them. Words he had brushed aside because he did not want to hear them while his father lived now followed him into reading a listing and writing a single line of an application. His father was not even speaking to him, yet unless he was ready with an answer, Jude felt like someone who had done nothing. If those words moved him so profoundly only after his father’s death, what had all those conversations while he was alive been?
◇
That night, Jude took the papers from one of the envelopes he had pushed aside and spread them out.
Sorting out the documents his father had left and calculating how much he would need to live from now on were separate things. He had thought finishing one might leave the other a little closer to being solved, but in practice he had to write different numbers on different sheets of paper. What had already been paid. What had not. What would have to be paid again next month, even if he somehow made it through this one. Jude pushed aside the papers bearing his father’s name and wrote this month’s living expenses on a fresh sheet.
Beneath that, he wrote the fixed costs. The money it took to keep the house, phone and internet bills, the amounts that went out on the same date every month. He drew a line to list the money the family spent together separately, then erased it. He could not tell where living expenses ended and other costs began. All of it was necessary as long as they were alive. Dividing it into different categories would not change the total.
He brought over the receipt his mother had left on the dining table, too. Reading down it line by line, he marked a few places. She had bought this as well? Hadn’t they bought it just recently? He knew things had to be bought again when they ran out. But it was also true that whenever someone said they had run out, his first thought was, Why is it gone already? Jude checked the date on the receipt and added the amounts again to make sure he had left nothing out.
The next day, when his mother said something they used around the house needed replacing, he answered before asking what was broken.
“Do we really have to buy it now?”
“Not right away, but we’ll have to sometime.”
Then couldn’t they buy it later? Jude was about to say so, but closed his mouth. He did not know when later would be himself. There was no reason to think they would have more money next month than they did now. Saying they did not need it right away did not mean they could afford it then. Even so, when his mother said nothing more, Jude let it pass.
Only after she had gone did he remember he had not asked what she wanted to replace. It might have been a nuisance for a long time. It might be something he had never used himself. Jude considered asking her again, then opened the sheet with his calculations. Still, she had said they did not need it right away. He could leave it out of this month’s expenses.
Once he thought that, he could look at the numbers again. He hated that.
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