Nightlight
Page 15
But fathers-to-be are always fearful. As they should be.
“I’m delighted,” he had stammered. “Delighted.” And he no doubt was, delight being a much more well-mixed bag than is commonly understood.
He immediately poured himself a splash, and tossed it off, neat, as usual, and ran a hand through his hair. “I had been hoping,” he said. “No use pretending. I had been hoping very much. It’s such a pity your father didn’t live to see it.”
A pity that Phil, too, was fixated on the man he had never met, sensing his better even in his absence. But she had responded regally, “Not ‘it,’ dear.”
And then the tedium of pregnancy, capped by the cesarean she was thankful for, since it spared her the dynamics of barnyard agony. The twinge in the side, the world-weariness, she could cope with. And all the while, nursing the delicate thing with spasmodic arms and legs (“Quite natural,” said the nurse, reading her face) never dreaming what would happen to all of them.
Leonard had been Phil’s idea. An unpleasant name, she had thought, and yet dignified. She had never known where he had gotten the idea. Simply, “We’ll call him Leonard.”
And why not? Except that she slipped it into Len when he was only weeks old. Not Lenny, because cute names, like Jackie and Stevie, had always irritated her. Children were not toys.
There was an accident south of Saint Helena. A truckload of lumber was scattered across the road; it looked, when she walked up far enough to see it, as if someone surely must have been killed.
“No, ma’am,” said the dimply highway patrolman. “Nobody hurt.”
“How long will it be?”
“Can’t say. You could double back, and cross over to the Silverado Trail. That’ll get you on up to Calistoga.”
“But I have an appointment in Saint Helena at one.”
“I’m afraid you’ll be late no matter how you cut it.”
The lumber lay pink against the black asphalt of the highway. The metal bands that had held it had snapped, and snaked across the road.
She walked back, glancing at the cars she passed from under her umbrella. Strange how many people had places to go in weather like this. She was always surprised at how many people there were anyplace. When she got up early, four o’clock in order to catch an early plane somewhere, she was always surprised at how many people there were on the road, headlights blazing.
“What is it?” asked a pregnant young woman.
The truth seemed somehow too brutal to describe. “Lumber has fallen off a truck,” she said simply.
“Can’t they pick it up?”
“Of course they can pick it up,” Mary said, irritated. “But it’ll take time.”
“Oh,” said the young woman, as if she understood the concept of time for once in her life. “What are we supposed to do?”
“Wait, or else not wait.”
“But I have to go to Calistoga.”
Mary explained about doubling back to the Silverado Trail, but the young woman seemed disappointed in the nature of the world, and Mary wished she could explain something, almost an apology.
The young woman backed her small pickup out of the line of cars and drove away, driving fast. Mary felt her haste as a personal rebuke.
Mary sawed the Mercedes into the other lane, backed it around, and gunned it south. She drove fast. On the Silverado, going north, she passed the small pickup, its windshield wipers flailing against rain that was once again heavy.
Calistoga was a rain-stained clump of businesses and parked cars. Signs advertised mudbaths, and an old man flicked his cane at her as she breezed through a crosswalk.
From Calistoga she drove south again, by now resigned to the extra distance, the vineyards stretching to her left, long rows of plants with leaves as dark as meat. Water glistened between the rows of vines, and slopped onto the highway in places. Her car slashed through the water, and it gathered behind her, torn and healed within moments.
She found the realtor without difficulty, but sat in the car for a moment. His office was an unremarkable shed on spindly legs, obviously the sort of business she had always despised and pitied, the life’s work of a petty person.
“I’m Ed Garfield,” said the large, lumpy man. “What a shame it has to be such a lousy day.”
As always with jovial small talk, Mary was both reassured and irritated. She set forth small talk of her own: weather, traffic delayed, surprise how many people have to be someplace, all the while seething.
She could not waste time.
She switched the subject, like a player turning over a card.
“Yes, a real nice young man,” said Ed Garfield. “Came up here, oh, I don’t know. The days kind of blur together.”
“You gave him the key to the Parker cabin.”
“I did.”
“But you wanted to see me before you’d give me directions there.”
“Well, I realize now that I meet you that you are a reliable lady. But the sudden interest in the Parker cabin. I don’t know. It’s hard to say, exactly. But it really got my curiosity, if you know what I mean.”
“I don’t.”
“Well, it really got me wondering.”
Mary controlled several kinds of irritation. She was not used to dealing with such cumbersome people, but she knew she could manage. She let her face relax, and lowered her eyes for a moment. “You do have responsibilities.”
“Yes. My word yes. I can’t just let any old body pop up to a property I’m in the position of managing. Of course, now that I meet you I see you’re a reliable lady, so—”
“Tell me about the property.”
“The Parker cabin?”
“Who owns it?”
“The Parker estate owns it.”
“Who are they exactly?”
Ed Garfield leaned back in his chair, and regarded her with a look that seemed, for a moment, intelligent. “They are a bank, really. A trust for the Parker family.”
“I want to know everything you can tell me. I am prepared to pay you as a consultant. For background information.”
Ed waved a large hand, dismissing the idea of money, and yet the mention of payment had altered him, and he looked away, thoughtfully. “I hope there’s no trouble.”
“So do I.”
He smiled, recognizing that she could be as laconic as he could. Still, he did not begin easily. His hands found each other, large fingers feeling large knuckles. “The Parker estate is one person, a sole woman. Elderly, now. And not what the courts would call competent.”
“What’s wrong with her?”
“She can’t look after her own affairs.”
“Why not?”
Ed Garfield got up slowly, as if in surrender. He slouched his way to a yellow coffeepot. “I guess you want the whole story.”
Mary smiled. “Yes,” she said sweetly.
“The entire saga of the Parker place.”
“Please.”
“My wife is not well,” said Ed. “I look after her.”
If this was an explanation of something, it left Mary mystified. “I’m sorry to hear it.”
“You know how it is.”
“Life can be unkind.”
“But we bear up. Don’t we?”
“If we can.”
“Sure, we bear up. We don’t have much choice.”
More choices than we think, she thought darkly. But she smiled. “The Parker cabin.”
He offered her coffee, and she accepted, recognizing that the ritual was a prelude, a setting forth of the props that would make him feel comfortable. When he had placed a bone-gray cup on his desk blotter, and leaned back in his chair, he said, simply, “Insane.”
Mary waited.
“Estelle Parker her name is. Completely insane. Legally. And any other way. Sees things. Talks to things that aren’t there. That sort of thing.”
“Mad.”
Ed grunted. “Altogether. Which is very sad.”
Mary sighed in agreement.
They both listened to the rain for a while.
“You might say it runs in the family. These things do, I suppose. Genetics, that sort of thing. And then something very peculiar began to happen over the years.” He gestured with a flat hand, slow waving motions, as if years were a series of gentle hills.
“Something very peculiar indeed. People who rented the cabin as a vacation place, weekend in the woods, that sort of thing.” He prodded the side of his face with his forefinger. “They saw things, too. People walking around upstairs. Strangers coming down the stairs. People they didn’t know. Unfriendly people.”
“Was anyone hurt?”
“No,” he said thoughtfully. “But scared so bad it hurts. The Parker cabin got the reputation as a place you just couldn’t rent. It got a reputation locally, and generally I have had very little luck.”
“You rented it to my son,” she said, with an edge to her voice.
Ed held forth an open hand. “I told him all about it, and he said he’d heard about it. He wanted to stay in a place that was ‘psychically interesting.’ That’s the way he put it.”
Mary stared.
“He said he wasn’t afraid. He said he was doing experiments. My responsibilities to him were clear. Ethically and under law, I have to warn him. My responsibilities to the bank are clear, too. Rent the place, if I can.” He lifted the coffee cup, and then put it down without tasting the coffee, as if remembering that it was poison. “But I haven’t felt right about it. Oh, when weeks went by and I didn’t hear anything I figured, well I guess the Parker cabin is fit for human habitation after all.”
“I want to go there.”
“And then the other young man. Paul. Paul came here, and I told him to drop by the sheriff. Just to say howdy. Just in case. Because I had a funny feeling.”
“I have to go there now.”
Ed leaned forward, and put his elbows on the desk. “You can’t. The road up there is washed out.”
“You could have told me this on the phone,” she spat.
“I wanted you to come up here. I wanted you to know what is going on here.” Ed was crisp, suddenly. “If there’s trouble, I want to help.”
Mary was grateful, but confused. She had hoped that, at last, there might be nothing to worry about. “Do you think there is reason to worry? After all?”
“I called Al. The sheriff, an old football pal of mine, fishing buddy, all that sort of thing. Old friend. He said Paul didn’t stop by at all. Not even for a second.”
“So you think there’s trouble?”
“This Paul seemed like a real likable fellow. He had someone with him, a girl, and well, I figured they could take care of themselves.”
“I wish I could be reassured.”
“There could be a lot of trouble,” said Ed simply. “More trouble than you can imagine.”
Mary told him, briefly, that she had not received a telephone call from Paul. And she told him that her son was disturbed. “A chronic condition,” she said. Her worries about her son were compounded now by worries about her nephew.
Ed was thoughtful, pulling on his lower lip.
“But of course, there’s probably no reason to worry,” she smiled.
“A place like that calls to people like your son. It draws them.” Ed’s voice was quiet. He was almost talking to himself. “It draws people who are already disturbed, and it snaps them, like rotten lumber.”
Mary was cold, and rubbed her hands together slowly.
Ed looked into her eyes, but did not seem to see her. “If it were any other place I would say don’t worry. I’d say forget it. I’d say the phone lines are down, and there’s no cause for panic.” He looked away, and shook his head. “I should have warned both of them before I sent them out.”
“Certainly you had no way of knowing—”
“I knew. I knew it as well as anyone. That cabin, that innocent-looking building in the middle of the woods, is an evil place.”
Mary wanted to make a joke, something clever, but could think of nothing to say.
Ed gathered some papers, and thrust them into his desk. “I never had children,” he said. “Not a one.”
No regret, just a simple statement.
“Whenever I run across young fellows like Len or Paul, I feel like I want to help them, but I don’t know how. I know a young man doesn’t even like to be called ‘son.’ It rankles, you know.”
Mary could barely think.
“It rankles their pride. And so I usually wind up doing nothing. No use going around trying to be a father to the world. I just keep to myself. Mind my own business.”
“That’s usually the best course,” she managed.
“Oh, of course it is. That’s exactly right. It is usually the best course of action to take. No course at all. Just let people go their own way. But this time. This time it’s different. This time I feel like I sent two young men out into the worst possible situation.”
He shut his desk with his knee and hitched his pants.
“This time I’m going to try and do something,” he said. “I’m going to see what I can do to help you. Because if I don’t—well, if I don’t I may not be able to stand myself.”
28
Ed’s wife was a thin creature with red eyes. She crooned that it was a pleasure to meet Mrs. Lewis, and Mary sensed that this was the sort of woman who followed the society pages, and gave the invalid her best smile.
“We’re going to be going out to look at some property, Sally. I don’t know when we’ll be back, but I called Tillie to come on over and look after you.”
“Oh, it’s such a storm out, though.”
“That’s all right.” One of his hands covered both of hers. “Don’t worry about a thing. We’ll be perfectly all right, and it’s not raining half as bad as it sounds.”
Bric-a-brac. China birds nestled against each other. A woeful puppy. Handpainted pixies. Frightful junk, Mary thought, brushing by a chair with skirted legs. A Belgian carpet, and beyond, in the kitchen, a floor of green linoleum, split at one end, exposing a dark crack the shape of a knife.
“But she must have some coffee,” said Sally, looking toward Mary and, Mary realized, not seeing her.
“We had some coffee in the office,” said Ed.
“Oh, that stuff is pitiful,” said Sally. “Just awful. I wouldn’t offer that stuff to a snake.” Sally looked in Mary’s direction with a conspiratorial smile.
Mary said, in a tone that implied agreement, that her husband was very generous to offer anything at all.
“Oh, he’s a good man,” she crooned. “A good man,” finding Ed’s arm and patting it.
“What we need to do,” said Ed, turning on the car heater, “is borrow one of those sheriff department jeeps. Four-wheel drive, built like tanks. We’ll do what we can with that. Or, we could always borrow some horses.” Ed grinned at the thought. “But there we’re talking more man’s work.”
“I can ride.”
“The main thing is we don’t have to panic, or even work up a sweat getting up there. We just want to go on up there and check on them,” said Ed, swerving to avoid a dead skunk in the road.
The skunk odor sharpened the air for several moments afterward, and when it faded Mary said, “We should hurry before it gets dark.”
“It does get dark early when it’s raining like this, especially this time of year. But I think we can make it all right.”
For the first time in hours she felt a speck of hope.
“Unless,” Ed added, “we can’t make it at all.”
The sheriff’s department was a green stucco building. The lights inside it looked bright through the windows. Men in dark khaki rain slicks got in and out of pickup trucks.
“The place is a madhouse,” said Ed, surveying the parkin
g lot. “I’ve never seen so much activity.”
He hoisted himself out of the car, and told her to wait. He’d be back in a moment with a plan that would work no matter what. Mary did not like waiting, and got out of the car and hurried through the rain.
Asphalt tile was splattered with water, and mud was tracked down the hall. A man with a star on his chest flattened a mop against the worst of the mess, but did not begin mopping immediately, as if reluctant to destroy a masterpiece.
Ed leaned against a counter. A woman with a pinched face and a microphone across her mouth shook her head.
Ed put both hands over his face, then turned and bumped into Mary. “It’s a very bad situation,” said Ed. He strode to a map on the wall. He touched it, and its plastic covering crackled. “The road out there has been covered by a landslide it’ll take them a week to clear up. Not only that, there’s minor flooding all up and down the highway beginning not five minutes from here.”
“We can manage.”
“Not only that, there aren’t any jeeps at all. Not a single one. They are all over the county responding to this disaster and that disaster, and I don’t know what all.”
“We’ll have to do it ourselves.”
“I can’t drive my Fairmont through floods and boulders and fallen trees. We’ll have to completely rethink our plan.”
“I’m not rethinking. I’m going out there, and I’m leaving now. You can take me back and let me drive my car if you don’t want to come along.”
“I’m not saying I’m giving up. I’m saying that we may have absolutely no way of actually getting there.”
She ran through the rain, and waited for him to hunch his way to the car. He jingled the keys for a moment, and a drop of water ran from his nose onto his gray pants, where it spread and soaked into the cloth.
He started the car, but did not drive. “What’ll we do if we do get there? If. And there is a problem. The two of us. What are we going to do?”
“What could someone else do that we couldn’t?”
Ed drove. The car slowed to wallow through water, and for an instant the car floated as a spurt of water knifed under the door. The water curled in on itself and made a pool at Mary’s feet. The engine coughed, and the car continued to run badly long after they had left the flood behind.