In case what? In case she had to rent an apartment or a house for a while. That is unthinkable, a voice in her said as the animal part tossed the things into the Jeep and closed the door. With a glance at the barn, she simply locked the Jeep and returned to the kitchen, composing a mental list of what she would pack next.
Then Lydia mixed the bread ingredients and kneaded them. Frank stayed in the barn. Her hands worked automatically, her mind circling precautionary measures that she should take. Nicholas would be home in a few hours. Perhaps she could keep thoughts of the ravaged furniture out of her mind, and Frank would calm down long enough for them to get through this night. She put the dough in the oven to rise. Perhaps they would eat this bread together this evening, the three of them, and by morning be able to speak like reasonable people. It was not that much to ask, she thought with a deliberateness that felt something like prayer. It could happen.
21
White Hill, Michigan—April 1999
Do you ask for a scroll,
parchment, oracle, prophecy, precedent;
do you ask for tablets marked with thought
or words cut deep on the marble surface,
do you seek measured utterance or the mystic trance?
~ H. D. (1886–1961), “Demeter”
When Nicholas arrived home, he found his mother cooking. She turned and gave a cheerful hello.
“What are you making?” he asked, throwing his backpack into the corner.
“Beef stew. And there’s bread dough rising in the oven. Weren’t you going to Jack’s today?”
“Oh. Yeah. I was on my way there and remembered that it’s tomorrow I’m supposed to go,” he answered, watching her. “Kind of wasted my time.”
“Have much homework?”
“Some. Where’s Dad?”
“In the barn.”
“What’s he doing?”
“I have no idea.” She didn’t meet his eyes. “He’s been out there for quite a while.”
Nicholas felt a flurry of worry. “Did he find anything in the furniture?”
“I believe he did not.” She opened the oven, leaned down, and took out the two loaves of puffy, uncooked dough and set them on the counter.
“Yum. You haven’t made bread in a while.”
“Seems like a good day for a hearty meal.”
“Think I’ll say hi to Dad.”
“He might not be very friendly. He’s feeling…disappointed.”
“So what’s new,” Nicholas murmured as he left the house. He trotted across the grass to the barn and peered in at the door. “Dad?”
There was no answer. “Dad?” he said again, stepping inside. He heard a shuffling from the back of the barn. “You here, Dad?”
“What is it, Nicholas?” Frank’s voice was gravelly.
“What are you doing?” Nicholas’s eyes adjusted to the darkness, and he saw his father sitting on a folding chair among his antiques.
“What do you need?”
Nicholas didn’t notice the scattering of broken furniture parts until he tried to walk closer to his father. When he realized that something had been more or less attacked, he froze. What had happened? There was no way he was going to ask.
“I wanted to tell you… Um… Brad Kramer called. He left a message yesterday saying he’s got some books he wants you to price. Two boxes.”
“Okay, Nick. I’ll take care of it.”
“Are you going to, you know, go look through them?”
“I’ll get to it. I have a lot on my mind today.”
“But he sounded kind of urgent. Said they looked pretty good and he needed your advice as soon as possible.”
“Okay. I said I’ll take care of it. Don’t worry about Kramer. He’s full of himself.”
“I thought you liked him.”
“I like him fine. I have other priorities.”
Nicholas noticed that his father had a pad of paper and a pen in his hands, and his curiosity increased. What was going on?
“What are you doing?” he asked again.
“I’m cataloging everything I have here. All the antiques.” After a moment, when Nicholas still stood waiting, Frank looked up at him. “You want to help?”
“Sure.” It was the last thing Nicholas wanted to do but pretty obviously the only choice.
“Okay. Come on back here.”
Nicholas picked a path through the old shapes, some of them familiar, many too dusty or ordinary to clearly recall, until he stood next to his father.
“I’ll tell you what to write.” He handed the paper and pen to Nicholas. “Okay. Silver candelabra. Circa 1930. Two hundred fifty.”
“Two hundred fifty what?”
“Dollars. Just write it down.”
“Is that what you paid for it?”
“It’s what I’m estimating it’s worth, Nick. Write down the details I just told you.”
“Alright.” He continued his father’s itemized list of antiques.
“Dressing table. Oak. Circa 1900. Four hundred eighty.”
“How do you know the values?” Nicholas asked, writing.
“I get around. Auctions, catalogs. You got it?”
“Yeah.”
This process continued for half an hour, slowing down as Frank slid things around to examine them.
“What’s this list for?” Nicholas asked, wondering if his father really planned to include every item in the barn, as Nicholas was starting to fear he might.
“Whatever I might need it for,” Frank said, then exhaled heavily and sat down on a rocking chair. “I should have done it before. Retrieve some of the funds locked up in these antiques.”
“Oh. Well, I do have some homework—”
“Go then. Go on. I’ll finish.”
“But…maybe you should take a break. Mom said you’ve been out here a long time.” Nicholas watched his father’s weary-looking face stare vacantly, and it unnerved him a little. “Why don’t you go to the tavern? Look at the books? I’ll go with you if you want.”
“I thought you had homework. So you can take time to go look at books, but not to help me out here?” Frank propped his head on one hand and gazed at Nicholas.
“It’s just that…I’ve been thinking maybe I should try to get a job at Jacob’s. I thought I’d apply. That is, if you’ll be there. You know, to bring it up with Mr. Kramer.”
“You don’t need me to bring it up with him.” Frank eyed him, and Nicholas felt his cheeks begin to flush. “Besides, I thought you had a job. Things not working out with Kayak Jack?” A smirk brought a shade of cheer to Frank’s face.
“It isn’t that. Summer’s coming and…sometimes Jack has work, sometimes he doesn’t.”
Frank said nothing for a moment or two. “Okay. Yeah, okay. I could use a drink. Go tell your mother where you’re going. And get my keys.”
Nicholas ran to the house.
“We’re going to Jacob’s Tavern, Mom!” Nicholas called out when he didn’t find her in the kitchen. “Mom!” She answered from upstairs somewhere. “Dad and I are going to Jacob’s!”
He heard rapid steps on the stairs, then Lydia appeared in the downstairs hallway. “Why?” she asked.
“Brad Kramer got some books in, and Dad promised him he’d take a look at them.”
She looked skeptical. “Okay. Be back for dinner, though. Please.”
“Sure thing!” Nicholas ran back to the truck where Frank was brushing dirt and dust off his clothes. They opened the creaky doors and climbed in.
When they reached the bookshop and tavern room, Brad himself was removing liquor bottles from the shelf behind the bar and replacing them with new ones. He turned around.
“Hey, old man, what can I get you?” he asked Frank.
“Ah…” Frank began. “It’s b
een a long day. What the hell, I’ll have a double scotch on the rocks.”
“You want something, kid?”
“A Coke,” Nicholas said. “On the rocks.”
The two men chuckled.
“I hear you got some books in,” Frank said a few minutes later, taking a sip of his drink. Already he seemed younger and happier than he had been in the barn.
“Yeah, I set them out there for you.” Brad pointed across the room with the sink’s spray nozzle. “No rush, though. Drink your scotch.”
“But it’s urgent, you said?” Frank asked.
Nicholas stared into his Coke, calves tightening around the barstool.
“As always,” Brad laughed.
Brad’s ruddy, watchful face was always friendly when he talked to Nicholas’s dad, and he laughed a lot at Frank’s candid, often cynical remarks about people in town and at the college. They also shared similar tastes in wine, beer, and scotch, a subject that generated an unbelievable amount of conversation, in Nicholas’s opinion. He looked at the clock as he swung off his barstool to meander toward the shelves full of books. Half an hour had passed already.
“Nick!” Frank said over his shoulder after a few more minutes. “Didn’t you want to talk to Brad? The man’s gotta leave here soon.”
Nicholas walked heavily back to the bar.
“Yeah, I was wondering what jobs you might need people for this summer.” He scratched his head self-consciously, avoiding Brad’s eyes.
Brad’s gaze flicked back and forth between Nicholas and Frank. “Truth is, while I do get lots of tourists in the summer, I also have students who are out of school lined up for those jobs. September comes, more work hours usually open up.”
Frank cleared his throat. “I’ll have a stout, Brad.” Frank gave a rueful expression. “It seems that for Nicholas here… Well, the boatbuilder’s job isn’t panning out quite like he’d hoped.”
Brad nodded as he slid a glass of black beer toward Frank’s hands. “Could be we’ll be shorthanded at some point. Tell you what, buddy… Come see me on your own sometime after school gets out in June. Toward dinnertime I’m usually here. There might be a position open. You never know, and we can talk about how things work here. Okay?”
Nicholas nodded, smiled, and let his eyes rove toward the boxes of books while Brad was still watching his face. As if, in fact, Nicholas’s expression reminded him, Brad wiped his hands and told Frank again to take his time with the books.
“Let’s see what you’ve got,” Frank said, slowly rising to walk to the couch near the boxes.
He sat down and set his beer on the coffee table, then leaned back, and his thoughts seemed to float off to some distant point. Nicholas rapped his fingers on his knees, but his father stared at nothing, oblivious.
In his mind, Nicholas counted the drinks his father had consumed. Two double scotches and this beer. Thinking of past experiences with him, Nicholas calculated that he should still be able to concentrate. In fact, if only he’d get captivated by the books before he had any more drinks, his dad might become really lively. Nicholas had seen it happen plenty of times.
“We better get going on these boxes, Dad.”
His father shifted, sipped his beer, and sighed. “You know, Nick, I’m awfully tired. Of everything.” He tapped one box with his shoe.
“So, what… You’re going to just forget about them? How can you do that?” Nicholas leaned over to pull a book from the box closest to them. “Rudyard Kipling. Gunga Din and Other Favorite Poems. Gold-leafed pages. Looks pretty nice.”
Frank closed his eyes and leaned his head back against the couch. “What’s the copyright date? The most recent one.”
“Let’s see…1966.”
“Worthless.”
“How do you know? Your eyes are shut.”
Frank opened his eyes, sat up, and pulled the volume from Nicholas’s hands, flipping through the pages. “It’s okay for Brad, and it might look nice on somebody’s bookshelf. But a collector won’t want it. Write four dollars inside there. On the very first page. Here.” Frank fished around in his shirt pockets until he came up with a stubby pencil.
“So what about this one?” Nicholas pulled a fat book from the box. “Never mind.” He thumped James Michener’s Texas onto the floor. His father owned thousands of books and had assisted in numerous estate appraisals over the years, another subject he loved to go on about, so Nicholas’s mind possessed bits of knowledge about what his father did and did not value. He searched the titles.
“I haven’t heard of her,” Nicholas mused as he pulled up another book.
“Who?”
“Elinor Wylie.”
“Really?” Frank’s attention increased.
Nicholas handed his father a slim book, and he examined it.
“Hmm. Interesting book collection. Both Michener and Wylie. Still, worthless for any collector. Five dollars.”
“You men want dinner?” Brad asked.
“Mom’s cooking,” Nicholas said softly to his father.
Frank turned toward Brad and said, “No thanks. To tell you the truth, Brad, I just don’t have the brain for this tonight. Maybe later in the week?”
“Sure, Frank,” Brad said, slipping coasters onto the bar for another couple as they sat down.
“But, Dad—”
“Nick, I’m just damned tired.” Frank removed his glasses and rubbed his eyes.
“Maybe we could do this at home,” Nicholas suggested.
“That’s fine, if you want to take them home,” Brad said. “I’ll accept your help any way I can get it.”
“Good lord, Nicholas, I have papers to grade,” Frank growled softly at him. “Okay, you’re so keen on this, you can carry it. Just one of them. Come on, let’s get out of here. I’ve got to get to bed before dawn.”
“It’s just that books always cheer you up, Dad,” Nicholas whispered nervously. His father gazed at him for a moment, then patted his back.
Nicholas lifted one box to the coffee table to take home and carried the other one back behind the bar.
“This is not getting you out of doing your homework tonight. Come on.”
When they reached the house, Frank told Nicholas to put the box in the barn next to his chair.
“But—”
“Just do it, Nick. I don’t want your mother thinking I’m spending more of her precious money.”
His father went into the house ahead of him. After he’d put the box in the barn, Nicholas wrestled the door shut and went inside to find his mother ladling stew into three bowls. He sat down, and she brought the bread, butter, raspberry preserves, and bowls of stew to the table.
“I thought Dad came inside.”
“He did. I heard him go upstairs,” Lydia said. “I assume he’ll join us in a minute.”
They waited a while for Frank to join them at the table, one or the other occasionally saying something trivial that didn’t grow into a conversation. When ten minutes had passed and he hadn’t shown up, Lydia sliced off a few pieces of bread, handing one to Nicholas and placing one on her own plate. They buttered the warm slices in silence and began to take small bites of their stew.
“How was your outing?” Lydia asked.
“Okay.”
“Any interesting books?”
“Not really. But there are a lot left to look through.”
“Has Dad cleaned up in the barn?”
“What do you mean?”
“The torn-up furniture. You must have noticed, unless he’s already cleaned it up.”
Nicholas recalled the pieces he had stepped on and processed for the first time just what they were. “Oh. Yeah. What’s all that about?”
“The usual thing; he was looking for poems. I guess he got impatient.”
Nicholas almost laughed at the underst
atement, but looked up to find his mother distressed. She stood and walked to the sink where she rinsed her dish.
“So I guess he didn’t clean it up yet,” she said over her shoulder.
“No. He was doing something else. With the other stuff.” Nicholas’s mind groped for words that might cheer or console his mother. He wanted to tell her that things would get better soon. They had to get better because it was impossible that they would stay this way. He wanted her to know that she wasn’t alone, that she had him, but the words that came to his mind were more like questions than reassurance.
“Well, I’m going to do something else, too,” she said, drying off her hands, her voice strident. “I’m going to look harder for the answer to this Mary Stone Walker question in the real world. I’m going to put an end to his searching, his tearing up antiques and throwing away our money. I’ll keep talking to people until I find someone who knows something helpful, and I’ll track that woman down.
“She was a person with a life and a place in the world and a body…and her body didn’t just evaporate. She went somewhere, she did something, and chances are she died somewhere along the way. If we look for information in other places than inside furniture, maybe we can put an end to this endless quest, this”—she pulled the towel in her hands from both ends—“this madness. Before it ruins our lives completely.”
She held her fingers to her brow to cover her eyes, and Nicholas could see her upper body quake slightly. He walked to her quickly and put his arms around her narrow shoulders in a hug.
“Something good will happen, Mom.” She felt so small and fragile. His heart turned with sadness. “I promise it will.”
The Lake and the Lost Girl Page 19
