The Probable Future

by Alice Hoffman

  “I did, but I’m not sure I’m really welcome.”

  “My grandmother might put a curse on you and my mother might poison you with her casserole, but if you’re not afraid of them and you don’t mind vegetables, come on in.”

  “Did you say casserole?”

  “Oh, yeah, she’s been cooking all day.”

  “Really?” Matt thought that over, pleased by her interest, yet reminded of the time when the women in town filled his freezer with turkey-noodle lasagne and lima bean pie. “A casserole, you say?”

  Stella was already through the door.

  “Are you coming in?” she said when he paused.

  Matt had stopped so he could take the time to look around. He might never be invited back, and he wanted to experience Cake House. The only other time he’d been inside was the dreadful day when he’d sneaked in to defend Will against Elinor.

  “I saw you when you were born,” Matt told Stella. Argus, usually standoffish and dignified, followed along, nose twitching, in the hope another caraway cake might be tossed his way. “Actually, it was three days after you were born. I brought my mother with me, your grandmother, Catherine. We both agreed that you were the most beautiful baby in the world.”

  Stella smiled. Her uncle was the sort of person with whom it was easy to feel comfortable. “I made you bird’s-nest pudding, but I burned it.”

  “My loss, I’m sure. Although honestly, it sounds revolting. Were there beaks and feathers?”

  Stella laughed. “Pudding and apples.”

  “Equally bad. I hate sweets.”

  Elinor had come into the hall. Although she looked displeased to see a guest in her house, she accepted the bakery bag, into which she peeked. “Your mother’s favorite,” she said.

  Matt was impressed that she would have remembered. Though he’d worked for Elinor for years, he couldn’t say he knew her, and when people in town asked what she was like, he kept mum. All he knew was that she refused to pave the driveway, which he often suggested, and that she didn’t want to bother leveling off Dead Horse Lane.

  Now, standing here in the hall, Matt realized that although he’d only been in the house once before, he’d dreamed of it many times. In his dreams, it was always the original house, before the additions were added on like frosting. It was a house made of wood and mud and straw. Everything smelled like smoke and water lilies in his dreams, and he thought he detected the scent now, although it was quickly replaced by the aroma from the pan of rolls Jenny brought out of the kitchen. The rolls were from a package, but Liza Hull had advised that if sprinkled with butter and a few sprigs of rosemary, they’d appear to be homemade.

  “Well, here you are,” Jenny said cheerfully. She fanned herself with the tea towel; holding on to the pan of rolls must be causing her to burn up. The scent of rosemary made her feel somewhat intoxicated. “Our first guest ever.”

  Matt had recently read in Emily Hathaway’s household journal that some fools in love used to believe that the mere act of buttoning a shirt could reveal whether or not they had a chance with their beloved; evens and odds would predict the outcome. The same was true for plum stones found in a tart. Odd meant sorrow. Even, love.

  “You can take your wine home with you. We don’t drink,” Elinor said.

  “Some of us do,” Jenny said as she took the bottle of Chardonnay from Matt. “Of course, if Will were here he’d insist upon whisky. And only the best. Johnnie Walker, isn’t that what he drinks?”

  Once it was said aloud, Will’s name sat there on the carpeting, an unwelcome toad.

  “Good old Will,” Matt Avery said.

  In studying her uncle, Stella saw that he was her father’s opposite in every way. If the brothers were placed facing each other, it would be as though one were shadow and the other substance. Only which was which?

  “Aren’t genetics fascinating?” Stella said as they proceeded to the table. She was wearing the silver bracelet her father had given her and the bell chimed softly as she reached for the salad to pass to Matt. “The variations. The mutations. That’s why I’m going into medicine,” Stella informed her uncle. “Anything’s possible.”

  Matt was seriously impressed. When he was in ninth grade he was too busy dreaming to think about his future. His idea of a plan had been to walk over to North Arthur to the movie theater on a Sunday afternoon.

  “What are you into?” Stella asked.

  “You’ve seen what I do. I cut down trees. I also mow lawns. Plow driveways when there’s snow. Try to talk your grandmother into paving her driveway and trimming back some of that laurel.”

  “Never,” Elinor said.

  “And he studies history,” Jenny added. “He’s an expert on Unity.”

  “Oh, really?” Elinor put down her salad fork. “Tell me something I don’t know.”

  He could tell her that her granddaughter looked nothing like the other Sparrow women, with her gold eyes and hair the color of snow. She looked like the women in the Avery family, however, like Catherine and her sisters and her aunts, although no one among the Averys smelled like water lilies. Instead, he told Elinor that her grandmother, Elisabeth Sparrow, was said to be unable to taste, a lucky trait during the Depression years, since she could make do with next to nothing. This trait was said to be the basis for her excellent cooking.

  Elisabeth Sparrow, Matt went on, made a soup out of water lily pads that was surprisingly filling. Some of the other women in town at the time, including Lois Hathaway, had noted that Elisabeth also made a supper of local ingredients, water parsnip, parsley, and a few secret items, that she called nine-frogs stew. Before long, people in town who were out of work lined up on the porch of Cake House, too hungry to be prideful. Eventually, Elisabeth set up a kitchen in what was now the community center, and some people say that over the years she served over twenty thousand meals to those in need, including the men who’d been hired to build the train station. Liza Hull’s grandmother had eaten there nearly every night when she was a girl.

  “That’s how Liza managed to get hold of Elisabeth’s recipe for lemon chess pie,” Matt said.

  Stella ran to get Elisabeth’s cookbook. “It’s the original,” she told Matt, who was clearly impressed. Stella flipped to the last page and there it was, written down, the recipe for nine-frogs stew. “Ooh. It says to strain the water to get out all the mud and mosquitoes. Yummy. But there are two ingredients I can’t read.”

  Matt took a look at the cookbook. “I can’t make out the first one.” The handwriting was slanted, and the lettering was a pale orange, as though the ink had been made from lilies. “The last item on the list looks like sage.”

  Jenny applauded Matt’s knowledge of their family. “I told you he knew everything.”

  Matt stared at Jenny across the table in a way that made her uncomfortable. “I don’t know everything,” he said. “Not by far.”

  “Well, maybe you know why they keep the glass case in the parlor,” Stella said to her uncle. “Maybe you can tell me why no one in this family has ever thought to throw away those horrible things.”

  “Should I check on the casserole, or will you?” Elinor asked Jenny.

  “I will,” Jenny said, grateful to her mother for changing the subject. “I’m sure it’s done by now.”

  Stella turned to Matt. “Do you see what they do?” In the fading light, he could see there was already a frown line across her forehead. He recognized her place in the family, for he’d been there himself: the worrier, the one who sees what others deny, the responsible one left to clean up the messes made by others.

  “Would you like to show me the case?” Matt had always been curious. There wasn’t a day that went by when he didn’t wish he hadn’t been left behind to wait for his brother, breathing in the humid air that was so thick and green with pollen.

  Stella pushed her chair back.

  “We’re in the middle of dinner,” Jenny said. “Stella, please!”

  Ignoring her mother, Stella le
d her uncle to the parlor. It was the center of the base of the wedding cake, a room with a wall of windows; but the glass was old and the light coming through was murky. Argus lay at the threshold to the room, and Matt had to step over the dog. He had been waiting all these years to come back here, he hadn’t had a chance to look around when he came to rescue his brother, and now he wasn’t disappointed. He recognized the beams that crossed the ceiling as cherry, which gave off a mild, fruity scent. He noticed the bookcases had been built out of walnut. Stella brought him to the corner and pulled off the cloth which Matt knew had been embroidered by Sarah Sparrow, Rebecca’s daughter, and her own daughter Rosemary. There was a red heart, broken in half. There was a willow tree weeping black tears. The ground was covered with snowbells; the sky filled with birds. Every stitch had been carefully made; it had taken three winters, and a magnifying glass had been needed to see the thin silk thread. Matt barely breathed as he studied the contents of the case. What the historical society wouldn’t give to place these artifacts on display for a single afternoon. Why Mrs. Gibson would be all but delirious if anyone managed to smuggle a single one of these mementos over to the library. The silver compass alone would be thrilling. The braid of hair almost too much to absorb.

  Matt saw that his niece had a fearless nature, unusual in an Avery, but far from uncommon among the Sparrows. “These are the arrowheads shot at Rebecca Sparrow by some local boys. The Frost boys later admitted to it, and I think there may have been a Hap-good and one of the Whites involved, too. People said she didn’t feel pain, so these boys decided to put the theory to the test. Even if she didn’t react, it seems that she may have gotten peritonitis, because after being struck by these arrows, she walked with a limp.”

  Jenny had followed, but she stayed on the far side of the threshold. She had always thought of the glass case as their personal museum of pain, keepsakes to remind them not to trust anyone, never to forgive. Now, she wasn’t so sure.

  “That’s the thing those boys didn’t understand,” Matt told Stella. “Just because you don’t feel pain, doesn’t mean you don’t experience it.”

  He reached into his pocket and took out the tenth arrowhead. He had been carrying it around with him for more than thirty years. He should have brought it back immediately, but he had feared getting Will in trouble, and so the arrowhead had served as his lucky piece for all this time. Not that it had ever brought him the slightest bit of good fortune. Not that it hadn’t made him think of Jenny each and every day. All the same, without the arrowhead he’d probably be lost for a while, but he’d felt like that before.

  “I can’t believe it!” Stella let out a laugh. She’d noticed one of the arrowheads was missing, and had wondered what had happened. “Where did you get that?”

  “It was misplaced,” Matt said. He’d found it in Will’s dresser drawer years ago. “Now it’s back.”

  From where she stood in the doorway, Jenny recalled that she had left Will alone in this room on her thirteenth birthday. It had only been for a moment, long enough for her to argue with her mother, long enough for him to steal the arrowhead. If Jenny had been more cautious, she would have noted that Will had rubbed his fingers together that day, as though he were itchy, the sure sign of a thief.

  “Rebecca’s story has mostly been written up by a fellow named Charles Hathaway. Pathetic guy, really. Had the first land grant, then lost almost all of it and wound up with his own son despising him.”

  “Is that her hair?” Stella asked of the dark coiled plait. Rebecca, she thought. Show me a sign.

  Matt nodded. “I’d say it is. This town treated her badly, Stella. If you want to know the details, come down to the library.”

  “Sorry it’s been such a horrible dinner,” Jenny said when Matt had left Stella in the parlor, allowing the girl a bit of privacy as she carefully replaced the missing arrowhead.

  “Not horrible. Not for me.” He would not have cared if she’d served lily pad soup and the nine-frogs stew Elisabeth Sparrow perfected. He would have eaten tree bark, leather, snowdrops sautéed and served on a platter of rice. Food wasn’t what he was hungry for.

  “I’ll bet you hate casseroles, anyway.”

  “I wouldn’t say that.” Matt was standing near enough to be made light-headed by the scent of lake water. Was it on her skin? he wondered. Could this be the case with every Sparrow woman? Was it in their blood?

  “What would you say?”

  Jenny was a little too close to Matt Avery. She had grown reckless, that green sort of abandon spring brought on, even though it was no longer March. Could it be she was maddened by all the rain, daffodil rain, rose rain, fish rain, all of it pouring down in this part of the Commonwealth.

  “I guess I would say I wish things had turned out differently.”

  “Well, most people would say that, wouldn’t they?” Jenny felt itchy under her skin. It was the rosemary she’d sprinkled on the rolls, most probably. “Given the wrong turns a person can make, wouldn’t anyone feel the same?”

  Elinor had come to call them to finish dinner, but she’d noticed something in the yard. She peered out through the glass panel beside the front door, then signaled to Jenny by tapping her cane on the hardwood floor. “There’s someone out there. Someone’s walking down the driveway.”

  Jenny went to have a look. The glass was bumpy, riddled with air bubbles, difficult to see through. All she could make out were shadows and the hedge of laurel. “There’s no one.”

  “Do you realize you never agree with me?” Elinor said. “If I said it was noon, you wouldn’t care if the sun was in the center of the sky. You’d tell me it was nighttime. You’d want to argue no matter what. He’s right there! Look!”

  Jenny looked again, and this time she squinted and went so close to the window her nose touched glass. Sure enough, the figure of a man had turned off Dead Horse Lane and was headed up the rutted driveway, stumbling a bit as he went. The sky was still blue, but the road was already dark. There was a humming sound, from the bees in the laurel.

  Matt came and opened the door for a better view. At any other time he would have been distracted by Jenny’s presence, but now he paid attention to the man on the road. He would know that walk anywhere. He knew it as well as his own.

  “It’s Will.” From his tone anyone might think he was referring to a demon or a dog rather than his own brother. “He’s jumped bail.”

  “Well, I hope he likes cold food,” Elinor said. “At this rate, that’s all we’re going to have.”

  They could see now that Will was carrying a gym bag, clearly stuffed with clothes, as though he fully intended to stay. He strayed through several mud puddles, and by the time he got to the house, his shoes were covered with muck, his slacks were wet to the knee.

  “Jesus. This road,” he said. “It’s worse than ever.”

  “I don’t want you in my house, but if you insist on coming in, take off your shoes,” Elinor directed.

  Will leaned against the porch railing and removed his shoes.

  “Someone could say hello,” he suggested.

  Matt and Jenny exchanged a look.

  “Is something going on?” Will asked, puzzled.

  “You tell us,” Jenny said. “Haven’t you been ordered to stay in Boston? And while we’re at it, why haven’t you called Stella? She phones you daily, and you’re never home. Is there ever a time when you don’t think solely of yourself?”

  “How about you?” Will said to Matt. “Anything you’d like to berate me for?”

  “You still have mud all over you,” Matt said.

  “I screwed up,” Will admitted.

  The sky was pink in the farthest horizon, mixed with a pure shade of blue, the sort of blue Elinor had been searching for, the color she believed she might have found at last. From where they stood, the air closest to them was all shadows, ink poured from the well.

  “The house is gone,” Will said.

  “I sent Mrs. Ehrland the check for this month�
�s rent. She can’t kick you out,” Jenny said. “Though I’m sure she wants to.”

  “No. No. Not the apartment. The little house. Someone stole it.”

  Will looked ragged standing there, shoeless, with mud on his pant legs. He looked like a man who’d come to beg for his dinner, a seeker after charity, hopeful that his luck would change, but fairly certain it wouldn’t. From the way his brother was babbling, Matt wondered if he wasn’t suffering from the DTs, perhaps he was going cold turkey. But, no, Matt could smell whisky; Will had recently had a drink, perhaps on the train. The evening train from Boston had been known for its bar car even back when they were boys, along with a bartender who never asked for ID. Sometimes, Will would ride the train back and forth to Boston all day, throwing back whisky sours, gin, and ale till he couldn’t crawl in a straight line, let alone walk.

  Stella, having heard her father’s voice, ran out from the parlor. She threw her arms around Will. “Why didn’t anyone tell me you were coming?”

  “I’m not actually here,” Will said. “And this isn’t a real visit. Just a slight problem.”

  Matt recognized his brother’s tone, the voice of disaster, of failure, of borrowed money and fights in the street, of getting fired, quitting school, screwing the downstairs neighbor, walking away from a dying woman because it was too hard to look at her, too depressing, too desperate, too real.

  “Of course there’s a problem. You haven’t any shoes.” Stella glared at her mother, as though it were Jenny’s fault that Will was standing there in wet, muddy socks riddled with holes. “Are there slippers?”

  “Front closet,” Elinor said. “With or without pom-poms.”

  The light was fading so fast now that the pink laurel blossoms shone in the spreading pool of dark. There was the lazy end-of-the-day drone of bees who had drunk their fill. With the door opened, one large bumblebee mistook the front hall for the open air. It buzzed inside and landed on Matt’s hand. When he waved it away, the bee rose from his skin slowly, reluctant, it appeared, to depart. Jenny stared as the bee continued to circle, drawn to him still. It was cold with the door thrown open, yet another trick of April, warm days, cool nights. All the same, the air was thick with spring fever. It was still the season of rash decisions, of bravery where before there was none, of vision, of blazing white heat at the coldest of times. Proof of love could be found in a single blade of grass, in what was kept and what was thrown away. Jenny thought about the bee that hadn’t stung and the black carved angel on the town common. She thought about the fact that there had been two boys standing on the lawn on the morning of her thirteenth birthday, with only one dream between them.