“No,” he said, still shaking his head. “I think when you’re dead, that’s it. It’s final. You go back to where ever the hell you were before you were born, and all that’s left of you is what they bury in the ground.”
“So then it is important,” Angie said, a sudden intensity in her voice. “ ’Cause, like, if I don’t go to Larry’s funeral, if I don’t remember him, then it’ll be like he never ever lived.”
Dale nodded and, sighing deeply, ran his hand over his forehead.
“Okay,” he said. “You better get packing if you’re coming with me. I’ve got a few things to take care of, but I want to be on the road before lunch.”
IV
Donna LaPierre had thought, foolishly, perhaps, once upon a time, that she would never have to see the town of Dyer again, but it came into view as she created the hill just as she remembered it. After too damned many miles of twisting, narrow roads through Mattawamkeag and Haynesville, the pine forest thinned out, giving way to a scattering of houses and stores that marked the center of town, such as it was. North of town, toward Houlton, the woods had been pushed back, leaving low-knolled hills and wide, flat fields, covered now with the green vines of potatoes nearing harvest time.
Donna looked at the photograph taped to her dashboard just above the AM/FM radio. On the drive north, she had done something incredibly immature; it hadn’t made her feel good then, and it didn’t make her feel good now… but still, she thought, he deserved it!
With the tip of her cigarette, she had burned two small holes through the eyes of Bradley Phillips, the man in the photo… the man standing on a white-sand beach in Jamaica dressed in cut-off shorts and a T-shirt with the logo NO PROBLEM… the man with his left arm draped lovingly over Donna’s shoulder… the man whose bright gold wedding ring sparkled in the Caribbean sunlight… the man who had told Joan, his wife, he was in Jamaica “strictly on business”… the man who had finally told Donna.
“You self-centered, chicken-shit little prick!” Donna said, feeling her upper lip curl into a nasty snarl. She stuck up her middle finger and waved it savagely in front of the photograph, but the ash-rimmed eyes didn’t look back at her… or if they did, they were as sightless as if he were dead.
In spite of her embarrassment about what she had done, though, Donna didn’t just take the photo, shred it, and cast its tatters to the wind. She liked keeping it there—for just a while longer—as a memento of a love affair gone bad.
The two hundred and fifty dollar fine for littering wouldn’t be worth the pleasure, she thought, replacing her hand on the steering wheel as she slowed to a stop at the blinking red light in the center of town.
“Bradley, my man, you’ve littered up my life enough already!” she said, automatically snapping on the turn signal for the left turn onto Burnt Mill Road.
Taking the turn, she glanced over at the Mill Store, and sure enough, Sparky Wilson was sitting there, slouched in the shade of the gas pumps with his hat pulled down over his eyes to shield them from the afternoon sun. Donna couldn’t remember a time when Sparky hadn’t been propped out there by the pumps, and she seriously wondered if maybe, in the time she was away, Sparky had died and the town had put a life-sized statue out there to commemorate him. But no. As she completed her turn, she gave her horn a quick beep, and Sparky shook awake, glanced at her, and waved even though she could tell by his squint that he didn’t know who in hell she was.
Some things around here never change, she thought. And that was exactly why, as soon as she graduated from high school, she had left town for college with the intention of never coming back. That had been eleven years ago, and she had pretty much done just that. Only twice within the last five years had she come back to Dyer. And both times it had been for funerals, first her mother’s in 1984 and then her father’s in 1986.
As she drove slowly through town, Donna noticed plenty of other things that hadn’t changed. It was spooky how much it felt like she had never left and in some ways, that was exactly true. Small towns like Dyer do seem to create their own little sinkholes in time. While the rest of the world spins along, changing and growing, towns like Dyer stay the same. The population remains almost constant, the birth rate balancing the death rate. A few new houses go up on the outskirts of town, but lumbering and potato-growing have already seen their boom days, and nothing, not even the new varieties of potatoes, could revive them to their former glory days. There’s no influx of new jobs to lure new families. Sons and daughters assume their parents’ jobs and social positions, and only a few, usually the brightest students, get away to college and never come back.
Maybe that wasn’t Sparky back there at the pumps, Donna thought. Maybe Sparky got married, and that was Sparky Jr. out there, manning the pumps for the old man. It was possible… But she liked the Sparky memorial statue idea better.
“And here I am,” Donna said under her breath. “The one that almost got away.”
When she saw the yellow siding of her sister’s house up ahead on the right, she fished a cigarette out of her purse and lit it with the car lighter. She slowed for the turn into the driveway and a weary sense of sameness came over her. The driveway was still unpaved; it still had its Mowhawk centerstrip of grass and weeds where the wheels from Barbara’s car and Al’s truck hadn’t worn it away.
How many years had it been since Barbara had said she wanted to get it paved? Donna wondered. Maybe she should just give them the money to get the damned thing done while she was here visiting. Then, when she left again, she would be secure in the knowledge that at least something had changed in Dyer recently!
The screen door in the shade of the boxed-in porch opened, and Donna saw a wide smile spread across her sister’s face as she came quickly down the steps into the sunlight. Donna pulled in behind the family car, an old, sun-bleached blue Volvo station wagon, knowing she was taking Al’s parking space, and killed the engine. By the time she pulled the keys from the ignition and dropped them into her purse, Barbara had run down the steps and was reaching in through the open driver’s window to squeeze Donna’s shoulder.
“Oh, you’re early,” she said, her voice nearly squealing. “I wasn’t expecting you until ’round suppertime.” Donna popped open the door and stepped out to be engulfed in a warm hug. She held her cigarette away from them at a safe distance and gave her sister a quick kiss on the cheek.
“Radar detector,” Donna said, nodding toward her car. “A great invention if you want to make good time on the road.”
Barbara shook her head as she stood back, holding Donna at arm’s length and studying her.
“You’ve lost quite a bit of weight since I saw you last,” Barbara said.
Donna took a puff of her cigarette, and snorted out a thin burst of smoke with her laughter. “Yeah, I have, about a hundred and eighty pounds of dead weight.”
Again, Barbara shook her head as though in disapproval of her sister, or at least of her life style. “I’m sorry to hear about you and Brad,” she said, “but you didn’t really expect him to give up his wife and family, did you?”
Donna expelled smoke and dropped the cigarette to the driveway, grinding it out in the dirt with her heel. Drawing her hair back with her fingers, she sighed deeply and said, “Come on, now. Don’t start in with your big sister routine with me already, okay? I’ve had a bitch of a week.”
“Okay, okay,” Barbara said, and again she clasped her sister in her arms and squeezed her. “I’ve got the guest room all ready for you, and like I told you on the phone, you’re welcome to stay with us for just as long as you like.”
Donna smiled wanly as they broke their embrace. Reaching in through the open car window, she popped the trunk release. Hoping her sister hadn’t yet seen the photo on the dashboard, she reached over and flicked it to the floor. It landed face-up, and now it did look as though Brad was staring up at her with a blank, zombie stare. She repressed a shiver as she walked around to the back of the car to get her luggage.
; “Do you want me to try and find Junior to help with this stuff?” Barbara asked as Donna unloaded three large suitcases and several tied-shut boxes.
“If you can take this, I can get the rest,” Donna said. “Gosh, I’ll bet he’s grown up some since I saw him last.”
Barbara smiled with parental pride. “You should see him. He’s already up to here on me.” She tapped her arm almost at the shoulder, then held her hands out for the package Donna was holding out to her.
“Be careful with that,” Donna said. “It’s breakable. A little surprise for you.”
“What is it?” Barbara asked, giving the box a gentle shake.
Donna’s smile widened slightly, and she glanced to one side. “Remember that table lamp from the house? The one I took after Dad died?”
Barbara nodded, and a small scowl appeared on her face. “I sure do,” she said softly. “I remember us arguing like cats over who was going to get it.”
Donna nodded. “Yeah, well, I figured now that I don’t have any place to live, and you’re so settled here…”
Barbara snorted. “Hell, I don’t think blasting powder will get us out of this town.”
“I decided to let you have it,” Donna said. Then, swallowing with difficulty, she added, “And I wanted to apologize for being such an asshole about it.”
“Oh, you don’t have to apologize,” Barbara said warmly. “I know how much that lamp meant to both of us, and I think we both just kinda used it to focus everything we were feeling about Mom and Dad being gone. Tell you what. You can use it in your room for as long as you like.”
Donna shook her head. “You have to use it in the living room where everyone can see it. Otherwise, I’ll take it back. Another thing I’m going to do, too. I’ll give you the money so you can finally get this driveway blacktopped.”
“You don’t have to do that.”
“I know I don’t,” Donna said. “But I’ve been hearing you say you’re going to get that done for years now, and I figure, since you insist you won’t take any rent from me, that it’ll be one thing I can do to help you guys out.”
Barbara shrugged and cast a furtive glance at the gravel-strewn driveway. “Well, it is something I’ve wanted done for a long time.”
“It’s settled, then,” Donna said. “Call someone this afternoon and have them start tomorrow morning.” Bending down, she gripped a suitcase handle in each hand and, grunting, hefted them and started up the walkway toward the house. Barbara followed behind her with the box with the lamp in it.
After three more trips, the car was unloaded. Donna felt a measure of relief that that was all. After Brad had left her, she had quit her job at John Hancock in Boston, sublet her apartment until her lease expired, and sold most of her clothes and furniture to a secondhand store in Chelsea. Nestled into one corner of the small guest room in her sister’s house in Dyer, Maine, were her entire possessions. She was just about a vagabond, and, at least for now, that was all she wanted.
As the sun started its westward slide toward the horizon, the two sisters sat side by side on the front porch with their feet up on the railing and tall glasses of iced tea in hand. Their conversation wound in lazy loops and curves, like an old stream, as Barbara filled her sister in on the latest doings around town: who was married or divorced or cheating or whatever. All of Barbara’s children were off for the afternoon: Heather, who had just turned fourteen, was off to Houlton with some friends to see a movie, or she said. If Donna and Barbara guessed right, she was using that as an excuse to meet up with some boys somewhere. Kelly, the next in line, was taking piano lessons from Mrs. Plaisted, who played organ for the local Baptist church. And Al Junior, whose sixth birthday was only weeks away, had gone swimming with his friend’s family at Beaver Brook Pond.
Mention of Beaver Brook Pond sent a rippling chill up Donna’s back. The swimming hole was out on Mayall Road, the same road as the old homestead. When she and her sister were growing up, it was the site of hundreds of days of fun, the place for swimming in the summer and skating in the winter. But with those memories came memories of the house, once a thriving, warm, love-filled home. Now, Donna didn’t even want to think about it. Three years ago, when she came home for her father’s funeral, the place looked worn-out, tired and small. She tried not to imagine how it looked now, after three more years of desertion.
“Did you drive by the graves on your way in?” Barbara asked. She looked directly at Donna, but she didn’t seem to notice the crossfire of emotions Donna was sure were playing across her face.
“No, I came straight here. I’ve been driving since five o’clock this morning.”
“And here I am, talking your ear off,” Barbara said, shifting forward and standing up. “You should go inside and take a nap before everyone gets home. Then the house will sound like there’s an army in town.”
“No, no,” Donna said, waving her sister back down. “I’m comfortable right where I am.” She took a sip of iced tea and, as if in proof, smacked her lips with satisfaction.
“You’re sure?”
“I’m positive,” Donna said. “I wasn’t hinting or anything. If I was that tired, I’d tell you.”
“Well, I certainly hope so,” Barbara said. “After everything you’ve been through, I think you deserve to spoil yourself a little.”
Donna smiled and nodded, thinking to herself, you don’t know the half of it, sister dear. Lucky you! She hoped her voice didn’t betray her when she said, “I was thinking of driving out to the cemetery and maybe by the old house this afternoon, but I think I’ll wait ’til tomorrow.”
“I told you I was renting the fields to Higgins for growing potatoes, didn’t I? He doesn’t pay much, but every bit helps.”
Donna took another sip of tea. She tried to settle back deeper into the lounge chair, but one of the straps was digging into her back. “Old Sam Higgins,” she said. “Christ, he must own or rent pretty much every farm in the area by now.”
Barbara nodded agreement. “He’s got quite a business going. He was hounding me about selling the farm to him, but I couldn’t quite bring myself to do it. I still kinda have hopes you’ll move back to town for good.”
Donna looked down at the porch floor. “I don’t know. I don’t have any idea what I’m going to do. After what I’ve just been through, and what with Mom and Dad gone now… I don’t know.”
“I put flowers out whenever I can,” Barbara said, “but lately I’ve been so damned busy.”
While she was talking, a pickup truck drove slowly past the house, raising a fantail of dust as it went. Barbara followed the truck lazily, but then she suddenly cut herself off mid-sentence and bolted forward in her chair.
“What the dickens?” she muttered. One had gripped the porch edge so tightly her knuckles went white.
Donna looked quickly from her sister to the truck.
“I swear to God, that’s the strangest thing,” Barbara said softly, as if talking to herself. She eased back into her seat, but a deep, worried frown wrinkled her brow, and her eyes looked cold and hard, like ice caps, as she tracked the truck until it disappeared over the crest of a hill.
“I forgot to tell you something else. You remember Larry Cole, don’t you?”
Donna nodded. “Sure do. We went steady in junior high school, for a total of three days, as I recall. Remember? What, was that him?”
Still frowning, Barbara shook her head tightly from side to side. “No, no. I forgot to tell you. He died last night in a car accident out on the Haynesville Road.”
Now it was Donna’s turn to frown. “I thought he was working down in Augusta. Was he home visiting or something?”
Barbara shook her head again. “No, he was working for the State Transportation Department. I don’t know the whole story, but he was up here doing some survey work for a project to widen and straighten some of those roads.”
Donna didn’t really feel much emotion because of Larry’s death. True, they had known each other right up t
o graduation, but after their brief romance in junior high, they had drifted apart into their own circles of friends. She remembered that he had shown up at both her mother’s and father’s funerals, but that was to be expected, in such a small town as Dyer. Staring out to where the truck had disappeared, Donna thought she would probably attend his funeral.
“Was he married? Have a family or anything?” Donna asked once the sound of the passing truck had faded.
“No, I hadn’t heard that he was. Al will probably know more about it when he gets home from work. That’s the strangest thing, though,” Barbara said, still shaking her head. “I could swear that was him driving that truck.”
“It’s a nice trick if you can pull it off,” Donna said. She snorted a quick laugh, but after all this talk of deaths and funerals and the old home, she decided she would take a quick nap before Barbara’s family got home.
Chapter Two
“The Secret Place”
I
Jeff Winfield, one of Dyer’s two full-time policemen, hated the first day of the morning shift after a week of third shift, especially after the fatal car accident on Route 2A, known locally as the Haynesville Woods Road, last night. What it all boiled down to was one long, sixteen-hour shift starting at midnight, and not even three cups of coffee at Kellerman’s at five A.M. could get him going. And after that last visit to his doctor, he decided not to chance a fourth cup because of the havoc it might wreak on his bladder. He was only forty-two years old, but nineteen years on the Dyer police force made him feel much older!
The morning was clear and cool, with a hint of oncoming autumn in the air as he steered into the parking lot beside the police station. He cut the engine and sat for a moment, gazing vacantly at the back lot behind the station. Beyond the ten-foot-high hurricane fence, a meaningless precaution in such a small town as Dyer, Winfield always thought, a thin screen of maple trees were already turning yellow and red, and it was only August! Beyond the maples, he could see a long expanse of potato fields, their dark green vines dying, waiting for the tractors to come and churn up their harvest. The sky was a dull, cloudless blue, overhanging everything with a hazy oppression.
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