Story: “Outside Are the Dogs”

7:00 PM

Margaret Ashworth had killed the lamb at four hundred twenty-five degrees for exactly twenty minutes then three hundred fifty degrees for exactly eighty minutes and it was perfect and she knew it was perfect because she had done this forty-four times before, once every New Year's Eve since 1979, except for 1987 when David had the flu and 2003 when Richard's mother was dying in that hospice in Danbury.

The lamb was perfect. The napkins were wrong.

She folded them again. Bishops' hats. The crease had to be sharp enough to cut.

Eleven months since Richard died and she was done with condolences. Done with casseroles. Done with the tilt of the head from women at church who'd never liked her anyway and now had permission to pity her. She wasn't grieving. She was hosting. Different verb. Different woman.

Six chairs at the table. Six place settings.

She stopped.

She'd set six. Automatically. Muscle memory from forty-four years of this same dinner with this same china with Richard at the other end of the table asking if anyone wanted more wine even though he already knew the answer.

Margaret picked up the sixth setting. Plate. Silver. Glass. The napkin she'd just finished folding.

She put them back.

Leave it, she thought. Let them wonder.

Outside, a car door.

Caroline came in already apologizing. "Philip insisted we leave early, the traffic, you know how he is —"

"You're not early. You're on time. That's not the same thing."

Caroline kissed the air beside Margaret's cheek. She smelled like department store perfume and white wine, which meant she'd had a glass in the car to steady her nerves, which meant things with Philip were worse than Margaret had guessed.

Good. 

Margaret collected information like other women collected china. You never knew when a piece would be useful.

Philip came in behind her, already smiling. Philip was always smiling. He had the kind of face that was built for it — open, friendly, forgettable. The face of a man who'd never been told no in a way that stuck.

"Is David here yet?" 

"Do you see David?"

Philip's smile flickered. Just once. Margaret filed that away too.

***

They came at seven fifteen. David first, Elena behind him, her dark hair pulled back so tight her face looked like a mask. She was looking at the dining room table. Counting.

"There's an extra setting."

"Yes," Margaret said.

"Who's coming?"

"No one."

"Then why —"

"It's for Dad." Caroline had appeared in the doorway, second glass of wine in hand. "A memorial thing. Like a ... what do they call it? An empty chair."

***

The living room arranged itself the way it always did. David by the window. Elena near the door, perched on the chair like she might need to leave quickly. Caroline and Philip on the settee, not touching.

"To the new year," David said, raising his glass.

They drank. All except Elena, whose glass stayed on the table.

Outside, a dog barked. Then another. Then a whole chorus of them, somewhere down the hill, in the dark.

"Strays," Philip said. "There's been a pack of them around the Hendersons' place. Someone should call animal control."

"Someone should," Margaret agreed. 

The barking stopped. All at once, like someone had given a command.

Margaret looked toward the window. The dark looked back.

Something's coming, she thought.

The doorbell rang.

"Are we expecting someone?" Caroline asked. 

"No," Margaret said.

The doorbell again. Two short rings.

"I'll get it," Philip said, already standing, grateful for an excuse to refill his glass on the way.

"Sit down," Margaret said. "It's my house."

She walked to the foyer. Through the frosted glass of the front door, a shape. Tall. Still. Familiar in a way that made her stomach tighten before her brain caught up.

She knew that silhouette. She'd spent twenty years trying to forget it.

No.

Not tonight.

Not him.

She opened the door.

Tom Ashworth stood on the porch. Richard's younger brother. The one they didn't talk about. The one whose name had been removed from Christmas cards in 2005, from the family trust in 2007, from conversation entirely by 2010. He was sixty now, gray at the temples, wearing a coat that had seen too many winters and holding a bottle of sparkling cider like a peace offering he knew would be refused.

"Margaret." He said. "You look well."

"You're not welcome here."

"I know."

"Richard is dead."

"I know that too. I was at the funeral. Back row. You didn't see me."

She'd seen him. She'd seen him and looked away and told herself she hadn't. One more lie in a lifetime of them.

"What do you want, Tom?"

"Richard invited me."

"Richard is dead."

"He invited me before he died. Sent me a letter. Asked me to come tonight, specifically. New Year's Eve. Said it was important."

He reached into his coat, and Margaret flinched — actually flinched, like a child — but what he pulled out was just an envelope. Yellowed. Worn at the edges. Richard's handwriting on the front.

"You can read it if you want. Or you can let me in and I'll tell you what it says."

"I don't want to know what it says."

"Yes you do." He smiled. The same smile he'd had at twenty-five, when he'd been the charming one, the reckless one, the one who drank too much and said too much and threatened to bring the whole beautiful lie crashing down. "You've been wanting to know for eleven months. You've been waiting for this. The other shoe. The knock on the door."

"You're drunk."

"Eleven years sober. But you knew that. Richard told you in his letter — the one he sent you. The one you burned."

Margaret's hand tightened on the doorknob.

From behind her, David's voice: "Mom? Who is it?"

Tom leaned in. Close enough that she could smell the cold on his coat, the soap on his skin, the absence of alcohol on his breath.

"Let me in, Margaret," he said. "Or I'll tell them everything right here on the porch. Your choice."

She let him in.

***

8:30 PM

Tom hadn't taken Richard's empty seat. At least for that. Instead he'd dragged the chair from Richard's study, wedged between Caroline and the window.

"So," Tom said. "Who wants to talk about the elephant in the room?"

"There's no elephant," Margaret said.

"There's an empty chair, Margaret. There's a place setting for a dead man. There's a brother you haven't spoken to in twenty years sitting at your dinner table on New Year's Eve. Pick your elephant."

"You invited yourself."

"Richard invited me. Months ago. Before he died."

"Richard wasn't in his right mind at the end."

"Wasn't he?"

Tom reached into his jacket pocket. Margaret's hand tightened on her glass.

He pulled out a photograph. Old. Faded at the edges. He laid it on the table beside his plate.

"Remember this?"

Margaret didn't look at it. She didn't need to. She knew which photograph it was. The one from the attic. The one with five people instead of four.

"Where did you get that?"

"Richard sent it to me. With his letter. He wanted me to remember what we used to be. Before."

"Before what?"

Tom's smile didn't waver. "That's the question, isn't it? Before what. Before I became the dog. Before I got put outside. Before you decided who belonged at this table and who didn't."

Caroline was staring at the photograph. "I don't remember this. When was this taken?"

"1986. You were four. David was six."

"Who's that?" She pointed to the fifth figure. A young man, early twenties, standing slightly apart from the others. "I don't recognize —"

"You wouldn't." Margaret's voice was flat. "He wasn't around long."

"Who was he?"

"Nobody," Margaret said. "A cousin. He died."

Tom laughed. Short, sharp, like a dog's bark.

"A cousin," he said. "Is that what we're calling it now?"

"Tom —"

"His name was Michael, Caroline. He was your father's friend. His very good friend. His very special friend."

The table went silent.

Philip's fork finally stopped.

"I don't know what you're implying," Margaret said.

"I'm not implying anything. I'm saying it outright. Your father loved Michael. And your mother knew. Your mother always knew."

"That's enough."

"Is it? Is it enough? Because Richard didn't think so. Richard thought it was time for the truth. That's why he wrote to me. That's why he sent me the photograph. That's why—"

"I said that's enough."

Margaret's hand came down on the table. The glasses jumped. Wine sloshed over the rim of Caroline's glass, spreading across the white tablecloth like a wound.

Nobody moved.

"Michael died," Margaret said. "It was an accident."

Tom held her gaze. 

"You're right," he said. "It was an accident. Just like James was an accident. Just like Richard was an accident."

"Richard had cancer."

They stared at each other across the table. The candles flickered. Outside, a dog barked.

"Who's James?" David asked.

Nobody answered.

"Mom. Who's James?"

Margaret picked up her wine glass. Drained it. Set it down.

"James was a mistake," she said. "This dinner is over."

"No it's not. It's just getting started. We haven't even gotten to the good part yet."

Tom smiled. That same smile. The smile of a man who'd been waiting twenty years for this moment.

"Midnight," he said. "You'll see at midnight."

***

10:00 PM

They'd moved back to the living room. The dining room was a crime scene now — wine stains on the tablecloth, food congealing on plates, the photograph still lying face-up beside Tom's empty chair.

Margaret stood by the window, looking out at the dark. The dogs were still barking, somewhere down the hill. A pack of them. Restless.

"Outside are the dogs," Tom said. "That's from Revelation. Chapter twenty-two. 'Outside are the dogs and sorcerers and the sexually immoral and murderers and idolaters, and everyone who loves and practices falsehood.' Richard used to quote that at me when he was angry. When he wanted to remind me why I'd been cast out."

He turned to face them.

"But here's what Richard figured out at the end. The dogs weren't outside. The dogs were always inside. Sitting at the table. Eating the lamb. Pretending they belonged."

***

11:15 PM

Philip was drunk. Actually drunk now, not just lubricating himself for dinner. He'd finished the wine, started on whiskey, generous doubles, and his charm had curdled into something mean and loose.

"There are a few more elephants in this room," he said.

"Philip." Caroline's voice was tired. "Please."

"I'm serious. David's been medicating his own mother for a year. Keeping Margaret docile. Manageable. That's not medicine, that's chemical restraint."

"That's not fair," David said.

"Isn't it? And Caroline — Caroline's known about me and Elena for six months and hasn't said a word."

The room went very quiet.

Caroline didn't look at Elena. Didn't look at Philip. Looked at the wall.

"I don't know what you're talking about."

"Yes you do. You found the texts. In September. You called Elena and she told you everything and you decided to just... let it go. Keep the peace. Maintain the illusion. Because that's what Ashworths do, right? That's what Margaret taught you. The appearance is all that matters. The surface. The story we tell other people."

Elena stood. Her face was blank, but her hands were shaking.

"I'm leaving."

"No you're not." Tom, from his chair by the window. "Nobody's leaving. Not until midnight."

"You can't keep us here."

"I'm not keeping you anywhere. But if you leave now, you'll miss the ending. And trust me — you want to see the ending."

Elena looked at David. David looked at the floor.

"Did you know?" Elena asked. "About Philip and me?"

David didn't answer.

"David. Did you know?"

"I knew something was wrong. I didn't want to know what."

"So you ignored it. Like your mother ignores things. Like this whole family ignores things until they go away or die or get buried in the backyard with the dogs."

"That's not —"

"That's exactly what it is. That's all you people do. Bury things. People. Secrets. Each other. And then you sit around your beautiful table with your beautiful china and pretend you're better than everyone else, pretend you belong inside while everyone else is outside, and you never once look at what's under the floorboards."

Philip laughed. "Well. That went well."

"You're a bastard," Caroline said. Quiet. Almost conversational.

"I'm a bastard who's been sleeping with your sister-in-law for six months while you wrote checks you can't cash and pretended everything was fine. Glass houses, sweetheart."

"Don't call me sweetheart."

"What should I call you? Bankrupt? Is that better? Should we tell your mother about the second mortgage? The credit cards? The tuition payments you've been missing since October?"

Caroline slapped him.

The sound was sharp in the quiet room. Philip's head snapped to the side. When he turned back, his cheek was red, but he was smiling.

"There she is. There's the real Caroline. I wondered when she'd show up."

"I want a divorce."

"You can't afford a divorce." 

"Then I'll burn the house down with you in it."

***

11:55 PM

The doorbell rang.

Everyone stopped. Caroline mid-sob. Philip frozen by the bar cart, his third whiskey suspended halfway to his mouth. David between Tom and Margaret like a man who'd stepped into traffic and forgotten how to move. Elena in her chair by the door, watching Margaret with something cold and clinical and unsurprised.

Tom was the only one smiling.

"That'll be for you," he said to Margaret.

"I'm not expecting anyone."

"I'll go," David said.

"No." Margaret cleared her throat. "It's my house."

Tom's voice followed her: "Might want to take a breath before you open that one, Margaret."

The porch light was out. She'd left it on — she was certain she'd left it on — but it was dark now, and the figure on the porch was backlit by the streetlamp at the end of the drive.

A silhouette. Tall. Familiar in a way that made Margaret's stomach drop.

Richard?

The thought came before she could stop it. The height was right. The way he stood, weight on one leg, that slight tilt of the head he always had when he was waiting for her to confess something.

But Richard was dead. She'd made sure of that. The truth was a pillow. A door closed on the night nurse who was running late. A decision made in the small hours when no one else was watching. 

Richard had known about James. Had known for months. Had been making phone calls to lawyers, to accountants, to people who could help him disappear Margaret from her own life. She'd seen the documents in his desk. The revised will. The letter to their children explaining everything.

She couldn't let him send that letter.

So she didn't.

And now Richard was dead, except someone was standing on her porch with Richard's height and Richard's posture and Richard's patience, and Margaret couldn't breathe.

The figure came closer, and could it be ...

James?

Her hand tightened on the doorknob.

James, who had loved her. James, who had threatened to tell Richard everything if she didn't leave with him. James, who had given her an ultimatum on a rainy night in November and received his answer in the form of a loosened brake line and a bridge with no guardrail.

He got out. He survived. He's been waiting.

The figure stepped forward. Into the edge of the light.

Michael?

Richard's Michael. The man Richard had loved in secret for fifteen years, the relationship Margaret had discovered by accident when she'd found the letters in Richard's study, the man she'd confronted in a parking garage in Hartford on a Tuesday afternoon.

Michael had laughed at her. Had called her a fool. Had said Richard was going to leave her anyway, that they were going to move to Montreal together, that she could keep the house and the children and the lie she'd built her whole life around.

She'd hit him with the car. Just once. But once was enough.

But what if he didn't die?

Midnight.

The fireworks started. Cheering. Car horns. The neighborhood erupting.

Behind her, footsteps. David's voice: "Mom —"

"Go back inside."

"Mom —"

"I said go back inside, David."

"Mom? Who is that?"

The figure took another step forward.

And Margaret saw —

— THE END —

The story was inspired by this Reedsy.com writing prompt:

Write a story that ends without answers or certainty.

https://blog.reedsy.com/creative-writing-prompts