FOURTEEN
Landis had been on the front porch for about an hour when he heard the voice. He had fallen asleep with his head against the brick footing of one of the columns that held up the porch roof, and he was dreaming about fishing. Someplace in western Maryland he’d picked up a radio program on the subject, and now, in the thick afternoon, speckled trout leapt about the dark streams of his subconscious.
He opened his eyes to a female police officer standing a few feet below him at the bottom of the steps. “Excuse me?” she said. “Hello?”
“Yeah?” Still groggy, he saw the glint of sunlight off her badge and thought again of his dream fish. The river in his dream had been in Colorado, out near Divide. He was not himself much of a fisherman, but once a few years ago he’d gone with another guy who worked for Cecil Wormsley. He sat up, tried to get himself in order. Her police cruiser was double-parked a few yards away, lights flashing.
“Is this your house?”
“No.”
“Then can I ask you what you’re doing sitting on the porch?”
“I’m waiting for someone.”
“Who are you waiting for?”
He didn’t want to say Bernice’s name. He wasn’t sure how dangerous this conversation was, but it struck him as meaningful that police seemed to latch on to him these days like dogs on to a bad smell. “Is it illegal now to sit on someone’s porch and wait for them?” he said.
“Not necessarily. But you could be trespassing.”
“I promise you, I’m not.” The cruiser was disrupting traffic on the two-lane, one-way street. His own truck was parked on the next block north. “This house belongs to Donald Click. Go ahead and check.”
“And you know him?”
“Of course I know him. Do you think I’m a burglar who just felt like catching some z’s before making off with the TV and stereo?”
She took a step forward and he was suddenly sorry for being a smart ass. He needed to control that. She had heavy-lidded eyes, and her cornrowed hair was pulled back tight against her scalp. He liked the idea of a black woman doing this job—you’d never see it in the Springs. Maybe in Denver. He figured she probably had to be plenty tough. “We got a call about a suspicious person.”
“I’m not suspicious,” he promised. “Honest.”
“Someone thought you were.”
“Someone was wrong.” He watched as two more cruisers pulled up. The police here didn’t mess around, it seemed. He wondered how many other, real crimes were going unattended to right now.
“I’m still going to need to see some ID.”
He dug out his wallet and handed her his license.
“Colorado?” she said. “Long way from home.”
“That’s right.”
“Here for business?”
“I’m visiting friends. I might stay.”
“Depending on?”
“I don’t know. Can’t say I like the weather much. But the people seem friendly.” He smiled.
She left him and went to confer with her fellow officers, all of whom had gotten out of their cars. There were five of them now, all discussing the fact that a man was sitting on a front porch. She began writing something up, then returned and handed it to him. “You have a good afternoon.”
“This something I have to pay?” He scrutinized the yellow paper, searching for numbers.
“No sir. It’s a citizen-contact form, that’s all.”
“Thanks,” he said. Landis watched her and the others leave, the stalled line of traffic behind them finally freeing up and flowing again, like backed-up detritus behind a snagged bit of branch in a river. Out of the corner of his eye, he caught a movement of blinds in the basement window of the apartment across the alleyway that ran alongside the house. Some subterranean busybody. The world was full of control freaks. He waved, then resumed his position on the steps.
A few minutes later, he heard the door behind him rattle heavily, then open. It was a big door, probably swollen in its frame from the weather, certainly original to the house, which seemed about a hundred years old. Emily came out, dressed in blue shorts and a green T-shirt with the Road Runner on it. They must have come in through the back. He stood.
“She says you can come and sit in the parlor,” she said.
“She does? All right, then. That sounds great. I’ve been kind of hot out here.”
“There isn’t any air-conditioning,” she said. “But there are fans.”
He followed her in. The house was grand, but also broken down. It listed noticeably, and he could see cracks running along the plaster at the top of the walls, close to what must have been ten-foot ceilings. The parlor was to the left of the entrance hall, through pocket doors, its parquet floor made of geometric shapes in contrasting shades of oak. He settled himself onto the small sofa, with its back to the shuttered windows, and his weight displaced a noticeable amount of dust. In the corner opposite him, there was an old piano.
“Lemonade?” she asked. “We have Country Time. It’s pink.”
“That sounds great. I can get it.”
“No, you sit here.”
“Where is she?”
“Upstairs.” She left and Landis sat, waiting. He picked up a magazine off the table, a National Geographic from 1996, with a farm scene on the cover. It felt dusty, and he ran a hand over it, then wiped it on his pants. Bernice’s apartment in the Springs had always had clothes and newspapers strewn everywhere. A month after meeting her, he’d spent a day cleaning her refrigerator. It had been stuffed with unrecognizable and rotting things, and on the floor, under the drawers, was a congealed soup of mysterious, leaked fluids covered in a fur of mold. This dust was not hers, of course, though perhaps mixed in were bits of her childhood. He sniffed the air, which seemed like the inside of a long-unopened closet. He heard stairs creaking and felt, in spite of himself, like a teenager waiting to pick up his prom date.
“Well,” said Bernice when she entered the parlor. “Thanks for the subtle entrance.”
“Someone called the cops.”
“It wasn’t me.” She cast her eyes over him. She had on oversized chinos and a tight green T-shirt with a big white soft-serve ice-cream cone depicted on it. The ice cream had eyes and a smile. “You look like hell.”
He had slept in the truck, and hadn’t bothered to shave, and he suddenly wished he had. He’d been running hypothetical versions of this conversation through his mind for some time, but now that the actual moment had arrived, he found himself stumped for a good opening line. “What’s wrong with you?” he said.
“Is that really how you want to start this?”
“I was coming back. You needed to trust me.”
“You dumped us. Tell the truth.”
“I didn’t dump anybody.”
“Sure you did. It’s all right. Go ahead and say it. The truth will set you free.”
“Is she OK?” he asked. Emily was standing behind Bernice outside the parlor, in front of the central staircase, whispering quietly to a small doll.
“She’s fine. Thank you for your concern.”
“She forgot my lemonade.”
“Don’t change the subject. Do you want to tell me about it?”
“What do you want to know?” He did not believe he was technically guilty of anything, but with Bernice he always had the sense that he was accountable on other levels as well. Sometimes you hesitated about things, sometimes you had thoughts—that was just human nature.
“Did you go see her?” she asked. “Is that what happened?”
“I don’t know what you mean,” he said. “Who?”
“Her.”
“Her, who?” He wondered if she meant Robin, and then he wondered how she could even know about Robin, though it somehow didn’t surprise him.
“You know who. Cricket. Cockroach.”
“Junebug?” he said. “Hell, no. I haven’t talked to her in months.”
“I’ll bet.”
He was sort of
relieved that this was what she’d thought, but it also worried him that she’d gotten him so wrong. “Come on. You have nothing to worry about on that count. That’s ancient history.”
“I think you still love her.”
“That’s just not true.”
“Admit that you were planning to get out of this whole thing, and that’s why you didn’t call. You were going to go back to your old life and forget about us, right? Maybe you didn’t go see Junebug”—she puckered her mouth in saying it, as if she’d just eaten a cranberry—“but you were leaving us. I know you were. If you said it, if you just admitted it, think how much better you’d feel.”
He didn’t know what to do, admit to something that wasn’t true, or continue with a denial she wouldn’t accept. “What is your problem?” he said, finally.
“It’s not my problem we’re talking about here. It’s yours. You have a problem.”
“I drove all this way. Doesn’t that tell you something? I’m in this. I’m with you.”
She stared at him, trembling. “Do you know how you made me feel?” she asked, quietly.
“I’m sorry.”
“Sorry doesn’t fix it. Sorry doesn’t even get the tools out of the trunk to start fixing it. You abandoned me. You abandoned us. Both of us. This was going to be everything, our new family, our big do-over. And now it’s all ruined and instead of being out west where we’re supposed to be, we’re here.”
He wished for some perfect thing to say, knew it wouldn’t come, because it never did. Usually, if he waited long enough, it didn’t matter, and Bernice would just continue.
“You look pretty,” he offered. “Motherhood agrees with you.”
“I don’t want to hear that. I want to hear the truth.”
“All right,” he said.
“All right, what?”
He stood up. “What you said.”
“I want you to say it. You’ll feel better.”
He’d had an easier time with the cop outside. “OK. Sure, I thought about things.”
She blushed with anger. “I knew it.”
“Hey, hey. I’m sorry.” His eyes strayed to the bookcase behind her, which was full of art books. “I didn’t mean it.” He didn’t even know what he meant by this and had basically lost sight of the thing he was supposed to be guilty of. All he knew for sure was that he had betrayed her, or had considered betraying her, and that was enough. He was beginning to think he should have stuck to his guns and denied everything. “Anyway,” he said, “I’m here. How about I start unpacking?”
She shook her head. “How can I trust you?” she said. “After what you just admitted.”
“Oh, come on,” he said. “I didn’t do anything.”
“Everything’s different now. It’s Emily and me. We live here. All the plans have changed.”
“What plans? You never let me in on what the plans were to begin with, not really. And I’d like to point out that if the plans are different, it’s because you changed them! I call up Gillian and you’re gone. Just vanished, no forwarding address, nothing. What am I supposed to think?”
“What am I supposed to think? You didn’t call!”
“I did. Just not . . . immediately.”
“Did it take you three days to find a phone? You left me. That’s what it is. It’s sitting right here in the room with us like a stinking pile of shit. I need someone I can count on. Someone who will fight for me, not run away.”
There was a pounding of feet and a high-pitched moaning sound as Emily ran up the stairs.
“We upset her,” said Landis.
“She’s tired, that’s all. Tired and hot. I have to go talk to her.”
“I’m coming.”
She didn’t try to stop him. He followed her up, noticing the scabs around her ankles where she must have been picking at mosquito bites.
Emily had shut and locked the door to the room at the back of the house on the third floor. “What’s in there?” Landis asked.
“Bedroom.” She knocked. “Honey, can we come in? It’s OK. I’m sorry about the shouting just now. Don’t be upset.”
There was no answer. “What should we do?” asked Landis.
“I don’t know.” She tried the door again. “I guess nothing.”
“She’ll come out on her own,” he said, thinking it through. “She just needs a time-out. This can’t have been easy on her.”
“What do you know about anything? A time-out is a punishment. Jesus.”
“You know what I meant.” He knocked on the door. “Hey, Emily? I brought you a present.” From his shirt pocket, he took out the small windup crab he’d bought at a gas-station gift shop. It was red, with a smiling face and black-and-white eyes. He gave the knob on the back a couple of cranks and set the crab on the floor, where it began to walk sideways, buzzing quietly.
“A present?” said Bernice.
“It’s just a little something.”
They heard the sound of the lock turning. Then the door opened, and Emily came out into the hall. She watched the crab slow down, and when it had stopped, she picked it up and examined the mechanism. She wound it up and put it back down, where it began to move again.
“Say thank you to Mr. Landis,” said Bernice.
“Thank you,” said Emily.
“What do you think of this big old house?” he asked her. “Really something, huh?”
“I like it,” she said.
“What do you like most about it?”
She poked at the crab.
“Don’t put her on the spot,” said Bernice. “Maybe she doesn’t like anything about it. I never did.”
He looked around, then up at the skylight, with its dangling metal chain. “Why not?”
“Bad parents,” she said. “The usual story. You hungry or something?”
“I could eat.”
“Well, then come on downstairs. We’ve been to the store. Emily, baby, you want a snack? Fig Newtons? Goldfish?”
She shook her head. “Pearl,” she said.
“Right. You just go ahead and play, then. Though he wants lemonade,” Bernice said, pointing at Landis.
“I’m sorry,” said Emily. “I completely forgot.”
“Pearl?” said Landis, as they headed down the stairs. “Who’s Pearl?”
He sat at the dining table and ate what Bernice had made for him—salami and cheese on rye bread with a pickle and some potato chips on the side, and a Coke, which he’d opted for when he learned that the can of lemonade mix had yet to be opened. She sat opposite, eating potato chips straight from the bag, staring at him.
“What?” he said finally.
“I’m just thinking about it all.”
“And what do you think?”
“Well, I’m impressed. You tracked me down, you came all the way here. That means something.”
“We’re in this together.”
“You say that. But on the other hand, how can I trust you after what you admitted in the parlor?”
He closed his eyes momentarily with frustration, then took a breath. “I didn’t say anything in the parlor.”
“You may not think you did, but you did.” She popped a few potato chips into her mouth and chewed them noisily, then sucked the grease from her forefinger. “It’s like on airplanes, when they explain the safety procedures to you. You know? The flight attendant tells you that in the event of an emergency, oxygen masks will descend from the overhead compartment. If you’re traveling with young children, you should put on your own mask first, then put on theirs. Do you see what I’m saying?”
“No,” said Landis. “Are you planning to fly someplace with Emily?”
“I have to put on my own mask first.”
“What mask? What are you talking about?” He still had half a sandwich, but it was starting to stick in his throat. She hadn’t put anything on it, and it was very dry. “You got any mustard?”
“It’s not good?” She looked alarmed.
“No, no, it
’s great.” He drank some more Coke. “I just thought it would be better with mustard.”
“See? Now I’m all upset because I made you a bad sandwich. I’m emotionally shaky these days, in case you hadn’t noticed. So what I need is to be left alone to adjust my own mask and just breathe oxygen for a while.”
He thought about Hoyt Crudup. “I nearly died on the way here,” he said. “Ran right off the road. I had a kind of revelation.”
“Please,” said Bernice. “Spare me. I’ve got enough trouble with her.” She raised her eyes ceilingward.
“All that time alone, you get to thinking about things.”
“You should be careful. Thinking isn’t your big strength, is it? Anyway, you can’t stay here,” she said. “I can’t run the risk of you abandoning me again. You understand that, right?”
“I would if it made any sense,” he said. “But I didn’t abandon you. It’s the opposite—I drove clear across the country to find you and be with you. I think it’s crazy that you don’t see that.”
“Well, maybe I think you’re crazy to have come all this way.”
“That’s what your friend said. She said I should stay out of it. She said if we get caught eventually, I’m the one that’s really got a problem, my not being related to the kid at all.” He took another swallow of Coke. He was conscious of sweat all over his face. “So, I’ve been thinking, and it seems to me that we ought to get out of the country. Maybe up to Canada.”
“I’m staying here,” she said. “For a while anyway.”
“Why?”
“I’m from here. I’ve got a place to stay. I got a job.”
“We’ll need a birth certificate for her, even for Canada, but we could say something happened to it, like there was a fire.”
“I doubt that would work.”
“Then we’ll get a fake one. We could go to Canada.”
“Except then there’d be a record. I don’t think that would be so smart.”
“Bernice, I found you. You haven’t exactly disappeared off the grid. You’re findable. You know what else? What is your money situation, anyway? You can’t raise a kid on nothing. What kind of job did you get? Are you sitting on some trust fund, or what? I look at this house, I don’t know what to think.”
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