by Kate Wilhelm
Almost gently she reminded herself that she didn't really know; she could be as wrong as he had been with all his theories. Her gaze came to rest on the shotgun she had placed on the table along with a box of shells Coop had given her. All she had said to Coop was that she regretted the rifle the police had taken away. It had been enough. If it hadn't been, she would have asked if she could borrow it.
She worked on the discarded computer first: disconnected cables, reconnected others, brought up the systems information, then a file or two. She had been right. Everything written before twenty months ago was still on the hard drive. She hesitated, but only briefly; what was the point in printing out anything else, just to bury it? She reformatted the disk drive, returned all the cables to their rightful places, and it was done.
In the afternoon she sorted papers, separated out stories from private matters. The box she had bought to hold his private papers was filling, and she worried that it might not be quite big enough. It was a poor companion to his box, but the best she had been able to find. The wood was pale, intricately carved, just as the other one was, but it had been carved for the tourist trade, and that made a difference.
No longer reading every word, she found the work of sorting was going faster than she had thought it would. When she grew tired of reading, she roamed the cabin, fingering objects that he had liked enough to keep. There weren't that many, although there was a ton of books. A mantel clock that was wrong as often as it was right; he had had to reset it frequently, but he had liked it, and paying much attention to the time had never been one of his virtues. She checked it against her watch and reset it. Several framed pictures of her at different stages, a baby, first-grade age, teenager, a more recent one of her swimming in the lake ... On the dresser in his room a framed studio picture of Willa; she was radiant and lovely in it. Next to it a carving from Bali, a white bird, possibly a crane. For years it had been attached to a piece of driftwood, then it had been broken off the base, and he had made a frame to hold it. The frame was very simple; the bird hung from the top by a nearly invisible nylon string, free to move in all directions. He had glued the frame back onto the driftwood, as white as the bird. She touched it and it swung to and fro. It was so lightweight, so beautifully balanced, it responded to the most gentle breeze.
On his desk was a paperweight she had given him for Christmas one year. She shook it and watched rainbows form, become elongated, and finally settle into a blue base. She had saved her allowance for more than a month to buy it, she remembered, and moved on.
That night she wrote out a new will, and although she kept it as simple as possible while making it clear that she intended it to replace the one on file with Brice's attorney, it took her hours to finish. She kept forgetting something, or making a mistake in the wording and had to start over again and again. No corrections, no errors; it might have to stand up to a challenge in probate court. She burned each discarded draft in the woodstove and she burned a lot of them before she was satisfied. On Saturday she would row across the finger and put it in Coop's mailbox, raise the flag, and know it was done. Over the weekend she would have to remember to ask Felicia to hold a letter she was expecting until she collected it.
On Saturday she found a piece about Willa; she started to read it, then put it down. It was too personal, too private. How Willa had blushed at what he had written in the novel, how much more she would blush if she saw this. That afternoon Abby finished sorting; everything left could be seen by anyone who cared to look, and her pale box was filled all the way. She closed the box and locked it with a tiny key, and then said, "Tomorrow afternoon."
She made a cheese omelette and salad, and as she ate she thought again of what Jud had written about Willa; abruptly she put down her fork, and went to the phone to call Felicia. They should all three attend his funeral, she thought. The three people he had loved, who had loved him, they should all be there.
When Felicia hung up after talking to Abby, she regarded Willa with a searching gaze. "She wants us to go with her to bury her father," she said. "Tomorrow."
Willa had been pacing restlessly most of the afternoon, gazing at the lake, pacing again, unable to sit still more than a few minutes at a time. Now she exhaled a long breath and nodded.
"And afterward, we'll tell her about Brice," Willa said. "We'll bring her back here with us."
Felicia shook her head. "Afterward we'll have a wake for Jud. I'll make us some dinner and we'll eat over there with her."
Willa started to protest, and Felicia said softly, "She knows. We don't have to tell her anything. She knows. She isn't likely to come back with us."
"Then ... She can't just sit over there not knowing what he might do. He might show up tonight, tomorrow, who knows when? She can't just sit and wait for him to come. That's crazy!
Originally Felicia had thought that when they told Abby what they believed, she would be shocked, disbelieving, horrified, and finally accepting. Then, she had thought, they would all come to the cottage and decide what to do. But seeing Abby with the shotgun, knowing her, recognizing the change in her expression, she had thrown out all the planning. Abby already knew, and she was making her own plans.
All night she had worried the problem of what to do, what Brice might do, what Abby was planning. He had gotten away with it the first time, and however he had managed then must seem the likeliest way to get away with it again. But not before midnight on Sunday, not before the thirty-day grace period. And since he didn't know for certain when Abby would return to Eugene, he probably wouldn't trust waiting until Monday night.
Now she said, "Willa, please sit down. I've given this a lot of thought, and here's what I think we can do. First, nothing's going to happen tonight; the thirty days aren't over yet. Tomorrow night we'll hole up in the Halburtson house and keep watch. We'll take turns, one of us rest on the sofa, one keep watch. You can see the start of the driveway from the dining-room window, and if he shows up, we'll call Abby and tell her to hide in the woods. She might get a little cold, but that's all, and she knows those woods the way you know your own house. That won't be a problem for her. And we'll call the sheriff. So Brice will go over and find the house empty, and come back across the finger. But we'll disable his car, let the air out of the tires, and the sheriff will come and get him and find whatever evidence they need to keep him."
Willa sat at the table considering it, and finally nodded. "But I'll try to get her to come back with us, or to let me stay there with her. Something might go wrong, and she'll be alone. Maybe we're wrong and he won't come at all, or he has different plans in mind. An accident in their house, something like that."
The image of Abby holding the shotgun was in Felicia's mind again, but she nodded. "Yes, we'll try to get her to be reasonable, but I don't think we should mention Brice yet. She's working things out for herself and needs a little time to finish." Then very briskly she said, "I hope and pray I'm wrong, and nothing will happen this weekend or ever. If nothing happens, we'll have our talk with her on Monday, but for Sunday night, we'll keep watch over her, just in case. Now I have to go to Bend and do some dinner shopping, and buy a long rope. We won't dare show a light in the Halburtson house, and we'll need a guideline to follow to the carport to get to his car. You want to come along?"
They went shopping, and afterward they drove to the Halburtson house and took the rope around to the back, where Felicia tied it to the porch rail, and then strung it along the path, wrapping it around a tree here and there as she went. At the boat shed she stopped and tied it.
"This is enough," she said, surveying the boat shed, the carport off to the side, the boat ramp down below. "The light from the ramp will be enough for the rest of the way; it's just that first section that's too dark." She looked at the cabin across the finger; smoke was curling out of the chimney, lights already on in the upper part reflected palely on the black calm water. Later, when daylight failed, the reflected light would be an illuminated path.
22
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No one talked as Abby led the way up the drive, then onto the ruined road toward the bridge over the north finger. Willa carried the box of papers, Felicia the shovel, and Abby the box with her father's ashes. It was very quiet in the woods that early afternoon, little wind, no frolicking dog; they had left Spook in the cabin, and the forest creatures had been stilled by the arrival of intruders. It wasn't very cold.
After crossing the bridge, Abby turned toward the lake; there was no trail, but she knew where they had to go, and although it was not a strenuous walk through the woods, she kept the pace slow, afraid that Felicia would tire. When they stopped, the north finger was in sight, grumbling and hissing its way over and around rocks and blowdowns on its way to the lake, which was in view below.
Mindy's grave looked different; a flat black obsidian rock had been placed on it. Jud had been here, Abby thought; he had repaired damage done by an animal or a storm.
She and Willa took turns digging, and during her rest periods she gazed at the tall trees, mostly pines, not very big through the trunk but elongated, reaching for light; through the silvery gray-green needle patches of pearly gray sky shimmered, and down below, the black lake was a reflecting pool. Underfoot, centuries of pine needles carpeted the earth, sound absorbing and resilient; trees felled by the most elemental of all foresters told their own stories, bore witness to the time lines of their history. Those most recently struck down were still cloaked in thick russet bark; then the mosses claimed the tree trunks, brilliant greens and grays, and the multihued lichen, white, red, yellow ... Burrowing creatures inhabited the decaying trees, cave dwellers deep in the inner recesses. The crumbling bark became foothills to the cave dwellings; then the trees were no more than dark mounds with one last visible act to perform—nurse trees to seedlings, preserving the species. And finally even those mounds sank back into the earth, leaving places on the forest floor where the earth offered less resistance to whoever trod upon it. Here and there, like sculptures, black obsidian rocks rose, some fractured and faceted, some polished by years of tumbling, artless art. Abby thought this was the most beautiful place in the world.
When the grave was ready, she placed the box of papers in first. Neither Willa nor Felicia had asked what it contained. Then she put the mahogany box in the grave, and for a moment stood gazing at it silently, saying good-bye. Willa took a gold chain from her neck and placed it on the box, and Felicia added a small figurine. Abby and Willa took turns filling in the grave, and then all three gathered rocks to cover it, protect it.
His funeral, Abby thought: silent, reverential, fitting. It was done. His secrets were buried with him for all time.
Back inside the cabin, Abby put another piece of wood on the fire, then said, "I have cheese, snack food. Let's have it now. Tea? Coffee?"
"Nope," Felicia said. "I bought two bottles of a very nice wine, fume blanc. And a duck. He used to drop in and say, 'You'll never guess what flew into the car on my way home from Bend. A duck. Maybe I can make us some dinner.' And, of course, I'd make dinner. He did love duck. And he always brought in a bottle of fume blanc to go with it. Between the two of us we drank it all."
Abby smiled faintly and went to the refrigerator to find the cheese. In the novels Link's aunt Sookie had made duck for the boy, then the man. She had always known that Felicia was Aunt Sookie, she realized: his mother, companion, confidante.
"Too early to start the duck," Felicia said, rummaging now in the refrigerator with Abby. "Ah, here it is. Pate."
They sat at the table, looking out over the lake, nibbling, sipping wine, and then Willa said, "He brought a duck in to my house once and asked if I knew how to cook it. I said no but I was game, and he said so was the duck. Anyway, I got out my handy-dandy cookbook and followed instructions to the letter, and we ate it, but afterward all he said was, 'Never mind.' "
They all laughed. Willa gave Felicia a fond look. "I didn't know at the time what the competition was. I never tried it again."
"I used to try to make chili the way he liked it," Abby said. "But no matter how much chili powder or red chilies I put in, he always added more at the table. So this one time I decided to get it right to start with, and doubled the amount I usually used, then added even more. He came in while it was simmering, and I was off in the woods or something, and he must have thought he'd fix it himself and added still more red chili flakes. When we sat down, I waited for him to sample it, looking forward to his surprise when he found it was okay for once. He nearly choked on the first bite. He let out a yell, and gasped, 'Milk! I need milk.' He drank a glassful, and then he looked at me and said, 'Abby, you're an overachiever.' "
They sat and told Jud stories, smiled and laughed, drank wine, and lapsed into silence now and again. After one of the silent periods, Felicia shook herself. "I'll get that duck started," she said.
When she went to the kitchen, Abby and Willa followed and watched her preparations. Her secret, Abby thought, was that she braised it first in a mixture of wine and water, with garlic, ginger, a leek, a carrot....
"We'll let it simmer awhile. What goes with duck is mashed rutabagas, brown rice, and a salad. Should have red vine-ripened tomatoes, but forget that this time of year. All tomatoes are good for now is to look at." When Willa and Abby offered to help, she shooed them away. "Later I'll take the duck out and set it to the side and strain the broth and chill it down, so I can get the fat off the top. Used to keep it for making biscuits, but I gave that up." She glanced at Willa and Abby. "You girls like biscuits?" They both nodded. "Calories be damned! Cholesterol be damned! Biscuits, with duck fat. Best thing there is for making biscuits while the oven's so hot from finishing the duck, crying out for biscuits."
Watching her, Abby smiled; then, looking past her, she saw out the kitchen window that the ramp light across the finger had come on. Beyond the reach of pale light the world was as dark as the black lake. She emptied the wine bottle into their glasses and raised hers in a semisalute. "Calories be damned," she repeated.
Felicia finished the duck by covering it with a paste she made from a little broth, mashed leek and carrot, more ginger, more garlic, and a dollop of orange marmalade, then put it in the hot oven. It came out half an hour later crackling golden brown all over; the biscuits went in, and she finished mashing the rutabagas, tossed the salad, then surveyed the table, gave it a satisfied nod, and said, "Let's eat. I'll get the biscuits in about one more minute."
It was a beautiful and delicious meal, and for a time no one spoke. Then Abby asked Willa, "How much detail did you and Dad go into about an art colony? What made him think of such a thing in the first place?"
"You," Willa said after a tiny sip of wine. No one was drinking much wine now, a sip from time to time was all. "I'm afraid I had been bitching about some committee work I couldn't get out of. He asked me what a girl like you could do with an advanced degree in art history. You know the answer: work in a museum, do restoration or authentication, teach. He said you chose to work in the museum instead of being a T.A., and that said something." Willa smiled faintly. "He knew the kind of work you're doing, hauling and crating, hanging a show, taking it down, more hauling and crating...."
"I might like to teach," Abby protested, "just not like they'd want me to."
"That's what he said, that you'd be a fine teacher if they gave you your head, and that what you needed more than anything else at this point was to travel and see some real art, and then he started talking about an art colony. Established artists who need space and quiet now and then, students who are there because they want to learn something, maybe an occasional Elderhostel."
She looked at Felicia, still pink and flushed from her kitchen duties, with her curly white hair curlier than ever. She looked like Mrs. Claus, after a good nutritionist had worked the elf over for a year, trimmed away every excess pound.
"He said," Willa continued, speaking now to Felicia, "that you needed a really good reason for staying here at the lake because your kids were driving
you up the wall, pressuring you to move to civilization and act nice. And, by God, an art colony would be a fine reason, if you would agree to take any part in such a crazy idea.
"I said I'd give up my position, go on part-time, and divide the year, half here, half in town, the best of both worlds...."
Abby's mind was drifting: the Xuan Bui Institute in Vietnam near her village, the Jud Vickers Art Institute here by his cabin, his lake. How excited he must have been.
They talked about the art colony throughout the rest of dinner. Abby made coffee, and later she and Willa cleared the table and washed the dishes.
Then Felicia said, "Abby, thank you, child, for letting this day happen, for letting us be here. Thank you. Now, we should be going."
Willa clasped Abby's hand fiercely. "Come with us. We'll toss a coin for the cot; the winner gets the sofa. Please, Abby, come with us."
Abby shook her head. "Fm glad I realized in time that I didn't want to be alone today, that you both belonged here, too. But now I have to be alone. For a while." She hugged Willa and kissed her cheek. "Thanks, Willa." Then she drew away and embraced Felicia. "And you. I can't thank you enough. I love you both so much."
