by Davis Bunn
“They connected all right. All that summer and into the fall. Then Sylvie left and never came home again.” Carey’s face shone with the astonishment of discovery. “That was the same summer I started getting into music. Why haven’t I ever thought about that until now?”
“Carey, I really—”
“And Buddy was the one who started it all. I mean, sure, I’ve always been into music. But Buddy used his money from a summer job to buy me a laptop and software system so I could begin mixing.” Her face abruptly creased with the effort to force words through sudden tears. “He was protecting me even then. Giving me a way out. A place to hide and grow. And I’ve never thanked him. I never even saw it until . . .”
Kimberly had the professional’s response there in her mind. She could have waited until Carey finished, then explain that in times of great stress, a natural response from young people in vulnerable emotional states was to dive into whatever offered them a sense of safe distance. She could explain that Carey’s reaction was completely natural, that to acknowledge the gift or the giver risked drawing a fragment of what they sought to run from into their hiding place. Instead, Kimberly did the only thing that made any sense, which was to rise from her chair and walk around her desk and kneel beside Carey’s chair and hold her and rock her and let her weep.
CHAPTER 21
Buddy took the 101 north out of San Luis Obispo. At Paso Robles he turned east on State Road 46, an older highway that cut through wine country before entering the flat Central Valley. The road’s solitude formed a welcome distance to the shock over being sued for the first time in his life. The clownish man with his jiggly walk approached him over and over. Buddy was fairly certain the nightmare monster had just grown a sidekick.
He drove under the I-5 and headed east on the old State Road 41, so lost in thought that the time and the distance did not touch him. At Lemoore he took an even smaller regional highway, veined with bad repairs like an old man’s nose. As he passed through Visalia, his phone rang. It was lovely to hear Kimberly’s voice fill his car. “Carey told me about your father taking you to court, Buddy. I’m so sorry.”
He was not going to hide away. Not with Kimberly. Not ever. “It was a shock.”
“To be struck by this just as you’re arriving back from the retreat, that must have been awful.”
“What if this was why I went on retreat?”
“That doesn’t . . . I don’t understand.”
He watched the thoughts coalesce in the empty two-lane ahead of him. “I went up there hoping to get a clearer sense of who I am. But nothing happened. I rested. That’s all. But maybe this was exactly what I needed. A time to regroup and prepare. So I’d be ready when I got home and they attacked.”
The road drilled through a series of former almond farms. The ten-year drought had rendered the trees into bone-white sculptures. Recent storms had refilled the reservoirs, and here and there a few of the trees were coming back to life. Buddy liked how Kimberly took her time responding. Finally she asked, “Where are you now?”
“West of the Sequoia National Park. I’ve been going about this all wrong. The first thing I do when I face a problem at work is I prepare. I am good at research. I hunt down every possible detail about the issue and the people I’m facing.”
She spoke very slowly. “So now you’re . . .”
“I know almost nothing about Pop’s early days. I know where he’s from. I know he lost his parents when he was very young. I know he was raised by his grandfather and some other nameless kin. I know he left the family farm when he was sixteen. I know he studied at UC Davis. I know he met Mom there. And that’s not enough. I’ve respected his silence and his secrets. But not anymore. I feel like . . .”
Kimberly let the silence hold them for a time, then urged, “Tell me what you are thinking, Buddy. Please.”
“All these years I’ve worked with Pop, I stayed focused on how he used to be.” Buddy’s thoughts formed with the slowness of frozen honey, as though he struggled for clarity against the weight of years. “But he isn’t that man anymore, is he?”
Her voice carried a remarkable mixture of concern and well-honed intelligence. “Given everything I am learning about Jack from you and your family, I would surmise that your father went through a major upheaval. As a result his life has become dominated by something he refuses to acknowledge. Or perhaps recognize that it even exists.”
“But it does,” Buddy said. “And I haven’t wanted to accept that this is the man he is now. I’ve wanted to imagine that somehow I could be a good-enough son to take things back to the way they once were.”
He expected her to say that this wasn’t his responsibility—which he knew. But this wasn’t about knowing, or even accepting. For the first time in his life, Buddy felt as though he had finally come face-to-face with why he had remained working for his father for so long.
Instead, Kimberly asked, “So you are traveling . . . ?”
“I need to know who I’m dealing with here. Because the truth is, I don’t know my father at all.”
* * *
The town of Bennington was typical for the Sierra foothills. The main street was fronted by a tangled lace of brick and age. Decorations from some distant celebration hung forlorn and tawdry along slanted telephone posts. Half the storefronts were empty. Most of the vehicles parked down the too-silent avenue were rusty pickups. Up ahead, the road ended at the base of a wooded rise. A brown hardwood forest clung to the hillside with the same grim determination that Buddy saw mirrored on every face he passed. He walked down the street until he found the town’s one surviving diner. The glass front door possessed a bell that clanged when he entered. The faces that turned his way were all old and seamed with hard luck and grueling years. The young people would gather at the fast-food joints on the outskirts of town. Or they would be gone.
“Sit wherever you like, hon. I’ll be right with you.” She was heavy and swayed slightly as she walked over. Her smile was both warm and weary. “Coffee?”
“Please.”
“The meat loaf is dandy.”
“Sounds good.”
Buddy ate and felt the gazes slip over him in the polite manner of people who were unused to strangers and not inclined to make him welcome. When he was done, and he had refused the offer of a recharged mug, the waitress finally asked the question he’d been hoping for. “What brings you to these parts?”
“My father is from here.”
“That so? What’s his name?”
“Jack Helms.”
“Don’t ring a bell.”
“It was some time ago.”
She swung her pot in the direction of a table by the rear wall, where a group of old men clustered. “If anybody’d know your kin, it’d be them back there.”
He noted how she did not bother with the questions he’d have expected anywhere else. Why Buddy had waited until he was grown to come calling. Or why his father had left and never returned. Buddy took his mug and walked back to the rear table. “I’m sorry to trouble you. My name—”
“I know who you are, boy.” The man wore bifocals and a battered Dodge Ram cap. “When you walked in that door, I said to myself, ‘Great heavens above. Young Jack has finally dragged his sorry carcass back home.’ What’s your name, boy?”
“Buddy. Buddy Helms. Jack Helms is my father.”
“Had to be Jack’s boy I saw. Almost like they did—whatcha call it?—them scientists making one body straight from another?”
“Cloning.”
The man was all sinew and sagging skin. He used a grimy work boot to kick out the table’s empty chair. “Bet you get that a lot.”
“No, sir. Actually, I’ve never heard it before in my life.”
“Go on, now.”
“I’ve never seen a photograph of my father earlier than my parents’ wedding. I don’t know a thing about his early life.”
“So you finally decided to come calling. See what you could dig up on your own.”<
br />
“Something like that.”
“Where’s your old man now?”
“He and my family live in San Luis Obispo. All but my older sister, who moved north.”
“San Lu’s as good a place as any, I suppose, for losing a body in a crowd. Which I suspect was Jack’s purpose all along.”
Buddy sipped at his cold coffee and did not reply.
The talk resumed its wandering course, moving from crops to the weather to the local high-school football team. No further mention was made of the man who had left these men and their town behind. They asked Buddy no questions. Buddy sat and waited them out.
Finally the old man in bifocals rose and gestured with one arthritic hand for Buddy to follow. He shuffled across the diner, waved a vague farewell to the waitress, and headed for an ancient pickup parked at the curb. The seat smelled of oil and old sweat and the front windscreen was cracked. The truck’s curved hood might once have been black, or it could have been blue. The old man’s hand seemed permanently molded to fit around the plastic bulb on the gearshift emerging from the steering column. Buddy did not try for small talk, and the man did not seem to care. Whatever reasons had brought the Helms boy back home were none of his affair.
The old truck wheezed out of town, the grinding gears as loud as the motor. They took a narrow highway deep into the shadowed hills. Twenty minutes later, the old man pulled to the side of the empty road and pointed out Buddy’s window. “That there’s your pappy’s spread. Still belongs to him, far as I know. Ain’t nobody ever come asking to buy it, I can tell you that much.”
A sullen stream trickled down the base of a steep-sided valley. The narrow base had once been cleared and tilled, but was now overgrown. “Where was his home?”
“Track your way up the right side. See that ledge midway up the slope?”
“I can’t . . .”
“Don’t matter none. Ain’t nothing left but the foundation stones.”
“What happened to the family?”
“Not enough bottomland is what happened. This here is what we used to call a heartbreak valley. They planted fruit trees along the creek, strawberries and such up to where the slopes grew too steep. They did well enough in years when the rains came. But a long drought wrecked their lives and killed your grandmother before Jack had his first hard-sole shoes. Your grandpappy, he held on to the farm by making applejack.” The old man wiped a string of spittle from the edge of his mouth. “You ever tasted homemade brandy?”
“I haven’t. No, sir.”
“Your grandpappy had a fair hand at ’jack. Got in some barrels of peach and pear as well. He made his own charcoal, he sure to goodness had enough wood. He ran his mix through a charcoal filter. Smoothed out the taste. Got himself an extra twenty cents a jar. They did all right, till the revenuers came a huntin’.” He pointed down the valley, his finger curved and trembling. “Them revenuers struck down both ends of the valley. Wasn’t nowhere for your kin to go but up the slope. Jack’s family chose to shoot it out. Stubborn pride and no hope make for a terrible mix. The revenuers got your grandpappy, his brother, his boy. Your pappy was the only one lived to breathe another day.” The old man dropped his hand. “Heartbreak valley, sure enough.”
They drove back into town in silence. When they pulled up in front of the diner, Buddy asked, “Any idea what happened to my father after that?”
“Your old man didn’t tell you, maybe it’s best you let the past stay buried.”
Buddy remained where he was, and did not speak.
The man’s breathing rattled his throat. “I don’t know nothing for certain, understand. But I heard it enough to say it’s probably true. By that time the big grower-combines out in the flatlands, over by Visalia and Hamlin, they put in together and set up canning factories all their very own. Around when your family got shot up by the revenuers, the canneries had maybe six hundred people working there. The work was steady, and for a time that was enough. But it’s the way of folks when they get a little to want more. So they complained, and somebody up north sent down some organizers. The folks had good reason to complain, that’s what I heard. Wasn’t no easy street, working in them canning mills.”
Buddy stared at the old man. “My father was a union buster.”
“All I can tell you is, one day your old man was running from them revenuers and sleeping in my pappy’s chicken coop. The next, he had himself a pocketful of folding money. He wasn’t more than a few weeks past his seventeenth birthday. Suddenly the boy is sleeping in the town’s finest boardinghouse and wearing pants with a seam you could cut yourself on.”
Buddy stared out the cracked front windscreen. The pieces fit together so tightly he could almost hear the fragments click into place. The rage, the unbending determination, the righteous black-and-white perspective, the rants, the fury.
“He must’ve been good at whatever they had him doing. On account of how he got sent to another of their factories. Came back driving a new car. Said he was headed down to Hamlin. That was the last I ever saw of old Jack. Leaving town in the first new car I’d ever laid eyes on.” He reached over. “Let me see your hands, boy.”
Buddy held them out. The old man ran his thumbs down the palms and smiled. “Got Jack’s size, but not much else. You ever seen the working end of a plow?”
“No, sir.”
“Oh, my, yes, these here are city hands.” He turned them over and ran his thumbs over the knuckles. “Don’t get in many fights, neither. Your old man, now, he was a brawler. Always did love a good fight, your Jack.”
Buddy thanked the man and stepped from the car. He stood there and waved as the pickup trundled away. As far as he could tell, the old man never glanced back.
CHAPTER 22
It was the worst possible moment to have the pain overtake her. Beth had known such attacks before, but up to now they had struck in her weakest hour, just before going to bed. The tablets had become a crutch, she knew, and their effect was so pleasant she actually looked forward to them now. They came with all sorts of warnings about grave side effects. But the visiting nurse had told her flat out that Beth would not be around long enough to worry about something as inconsequential as addiction. The nurse’s instructions could not have been more clear. At the first sign of pain, take the tablet. To wait only heightened the dosage required to erase the pain. But pleasant as the fog was, Beth could not abide having her thoughts grow addled. Especially now.
Even so, she knew she was going to have to take a pill. She couldn’t meet her visitor standing all hunched over with one hand strung up to her side like a chicken wing. So she stopped fighting the inevitable. Then she hurried out to the veranda, where to her vast relief Josiah was in his customary position, rocking gently, watching the world sweep past their front lawn. “I need your help. I have company coming and—”
“Say no more, Beth.” He pushed himself out of the rocker and shuffled toward his door. “I’ll just go see to my dinner.”
“Will you please hold up and listen? I have a guest coming and I’m in pain.”
“I can see that. What can I do?”
“She mustn’t know I’ve taken a pill. I need to go lie down for a while. These pills, they make me so groggy I can’t think straight. I need you to come wake me when she shows up.”
Josiah did not like that one bit. “What is your guest gonna think about an old black man going into your bedroom?”
“More than she will seeing me passed out.”
“Why don’t you just tell her?”
“Because I can’t. My family doesn’t know yet. Well, my husband does, but the children must be told before the world.” She felt the first wave of comforting oblivion rise up inside. “Will you help me or not?”
“Well, of course I’ll help. But not by me waltzing into your bedroom. I can’t imagine what secrets you’re trying to hide, but it can’t be worse than your kin suspecting you’ve taken up with the likes of me.”
She allowed him to take her
arm. “She’s not my kin. She might be someday. If my boy has the sense God gave a gnat.”
“She’s pretty, I take it.”
“A lovely spirit inside a beautiful lady.” She leaned on him more than she meant to, but just then she had no choice. “Oh, my.”
“Steady, now.”
“I had no idea they were so strong. Normally, I only take them at night.”
“Well, at least you’ve stopped looking like you’re gonna keel over from the pain. Now you just look ready to keel over. Anyplace you can lie down except your bedroom?”
“The sofa in the parlor might work.”
“All right, here’s what we’re gonna do.” He eased her down, then covered her with a blanket. “I’m gonna open that window just a fraction. Soon as she pulls up, I’ll reach through with my cane and nudge you. How does that sound?”
“I didn’t know you had a cane.”
“You’re not the only one hiding ailments. What is the lady driving?”
“I have no idea. But her name is Kimberly and she’s tall, with long hair that’s sort of black and red at the same time. She’s supposed to be here around two.”
“That leaves you almost an hour for a rest.” He remained standing over her. “Is it bad, what ails you?”
She did not need to ask what he was talking about. “Bad as it can be, I suppose.”
He hummed a sympathetic note. “You rest now. I’ll stand watch.”
* * *
The invitation to meet Beth Helms at her new apartment had caught Kimberly by surprise. But as she drove along the unfamiliar downtown streets, Kimberly wondered if Beth already knew what she intended to say. Which was impossible. But still. The chance to talk together away from the counseling center was a relief.
Nothing could have prepared her for the apartment building. Beth Helms was a slender, elegant woman who dressed in a timeless manner. She was quiet and still enough to fade comfortably into the scenery, which Kimberly suspected she often did. She would have looked at home in a palace.
Kimberly checked the address another time. The residence had once been stately, she supposed. Now it was one step above falling apart. The brown lawn was more dirt than grass. The front walk was cracked, the veranda’s railing was more raw wood than paint, the window frames were splintered, the roof peeling. The building would not have been out of place in Detroit.
