Thin Ice

by Marsha Qualey

  “I do mean it”

  “Tell her you’re sorry.”

  Mrs. Drummond looked like an older version of Kady, bearing the same combination of grief and rage. “I’m sorry about your mom,” I said immediately. “And I’m sorry about skipping school this morning. Please…” I gave up. She wasn’t really listening, and explaining wouldn’t help.

  Jean and her father left to load suitcases. “How soon can you be packed?” Mrs. Drummond said.

  “Packed?”

  “You’re coming with us. Your winter break is next week and I don’t feel right about leaving you alone for all that time.”

  “I have plenty to do. If I stay, I’ll catch up on schoolwork, and maybe even get back to business. I have tons of frame orders. Oh, Mrs. Drummond, I am so sorry about your mother and sorry you have to worry about me, but I don’t want to go.”

  Kady left us alone, exiting the room with a quick, angry step. “Please,” I said.

  Mrs. D. looked out the window, toward my house. “My mother was eighty-two. How old was your mother when she died?”

  “Forty-three.”

  “So young. You hadn’t lived here that long and I’d hardly gotten to know them. I remember seeing Elizabeth planting tulip bulbs by flashlight the night before they left that last time. It was October, wasn’t it? Yes, must have been. I guess she was afraid it would be too late when she returned from Honduras.”

  Never had returned, of course. “What a funny image,” I said softly. “I’m glad you told me. I don’t remember much.”

  “So young,” she said again. She turned and hugged me. “No boys in the house. No parties. Get your work done. I want you to call me every night, no exception. And should Cody Rock or anyone try to get in, you call Al immediately. People want to help you; let them; it’s a sign of good judgment.”

  “I’m sure it is. I promise to do everything right.”

  “One infraction and it’s all over, and you come to live with us.”

  “I’ll be fine. I’ll be good, really really good. Thank you. I haven’t said it before, but thank you for everything, Mrs. D.”

  She sort of melted then, and the tears slid out. Kady materialized and hugged her.

  I turned around and faced the window and my empty house. A horrible thought crashed through: Would it have been so easy for Scott to leave if I’d ever said that to him? Just once, couldn’t I have done it even one time? Looked him straight in the eye and said, Thank you.”

  CHAPTER 14

  “This is for me?” No doubt about it, Hannah was an all-round gorgeous child, but it was her eyes that would be heartbreakers. They were wide and bright as she leafed through the card album.

  “You and the baby.” Yeeps, what if she didn’t know? I sneaked a peak at Claire, who didn’t look especially perturbed.

  Hannah carefully closed the album. “What if the baby doesn’t like sports cards? Can I have them all?”

  “Sure.”

  “But then you’ll have to give the baby something to make it fair. Something that belonged to Scott, like the cards.”

  “You’re right.”

  “Something that was special to him like these,” Hannah said firmly. “Scott’s the dad, you know.”

  Now I could see that Claire was upset, twisting in discomfort as her flesh and blood negotiated on behalf of the unborn sibling.

  “When she turns sixteen she can have his car,” I said.

  Hannah’s jaw dropped.

  “It’s a Plymouth Barracuda, kind of old, but in perfect shape. Best of all, it’s a convertible. You and I will have to take care of it, though, so it still works when she’s old enough to drive.”

  “I will,” she said solemnly. She mumbled something about going to bed early, then picked up the album and went to her room.

  “She’ll be up all night memorizing every card and checking its value in one of her collectors’ magazines,” Claire said.

  “They’re never worth as much as you might hope,” I said, thinking back to my trip to Mel’s.

  “It’s still a sweet gift. No way, though, are you unloading that grotesque car on my children. I certainly won’t thank you for that offer, but I will thank you for the pizza and the salad and the beautiful frame.”

  “Thank you for letting me invite myself over.”

  “We’re being very polite, aren’t we?”

  “Very civil. It occurred to me that I owed you a huge apology, and it also occurred to me that I’d like to know this baby you’re having. My niece or nephew. Hannah seems sure it’s a girl. Do you know?” Claire shook her head and turned to the sink to squeeze out a washcloth. She wiped down the counter without speaking, making long, wide strokes across the worn Formica.

  It was a small kitchen, bright and warm but crowded with the appliances, chairs, and table. Staff housing for park employees wasn’t spacious or luxurious, only four furnished rooms on the second floor of a duplex, spitting distance behind the park lodge.

  “How are you feeling?”

  “Pretty good. The fatigue is gone, and I never had much nausea.” She ran water and rinsed the cloth. “Tea?”

  “Yes, thank you.”

  “Not a very lively Saturday night for you, but then I suppose you can’t throw a party every week.”

  “What exactly have you heard?”

  She smiled. “There’s quite a grapevine in this town.”

  “It reaches out here to the park?”

  “Al keeps me posted.”

  “I bet. I haven’t seen him much lately. Does he still come out to search the river?”

  “Not as often. Once a week. He was here yesterday with his new girlfriend.”

  “He dumped the bank teller from Ashland? Scott would be pleased. I know he never liked her and was always trying to fix Al up with someone else.”

  Claire set mugs and tea bags on the counter. “In a way he did. She’s the woman who owns the search dog.” She picked up the whistling kettle. “Maybe she and Al will live happily ever after. That would be one good thing about Scott’s death.”

  “Disappearance, Claire. Not death.”

  She slammed the kettle down on the red-hot range coil. Boiling water splashed out of the spout and splattered across her hand. She waved the burned hand in the air, then quickly turned on the cold-water faucet. “Arden,” she said, her back turned to me as she ran water over the scald. “How do you think that makes me feel? How do you think I feel about someday telling my child that her father was so upset about the fact of her existence that he pretended to kill himself?”

  I rose and took over making our tea. She’d picked peppermint. I sniffed the tea bags, inhaling the sweetness. I poured water into the mugs. “Has John talked to you about the estate, about how the baby would get Scott’s money if he were dead?”

  Her head moved slightly.

  “I’ll take that as a yes. Claire, I’m not doing this to hamper the baby getting what should be hers. If he was dead, I’d be the first one to hand over everything.”

  “I am not looking for money,” she said tersely. “I don’t care about his money. Let’s not talk about money.”

  I set the kettle back on the range. “Tell me about the last few times you saw him.”

  “Because you care, or because you’re putting together some puzzle?”

  “I’d like to know more about my brother.”

  She tipped her head slightly to acknowledge the point. “We spent most of our time together talking.”

  Sure they did. I sucked down a smile and studied the steeping tea. And that’s how you got pregnant, nature lady.

  “He talked about you,” she said. “Your business, your grades—”

  “Uh-oh.”

  “He thought you and Hannah were a lot alike. When you were her age, that is. He was pretty certain you two would hit it off. Of course, he didn’t exactly rush to have us all meet, did he?” She fingered a brass button on her sweater, then laid her hands on her belly. “He got a little down s
ometimes. Said once it would have been easier for you if you’d had an older sister around instead of him.”

  “That’s absurd. And if he was so concerned, why didn’t he ever bring one home? He never introduced his dates.”

  She sipped tea, wiped her mouth with the back of her hand. “He talked about that, maybe just a few days before he died.”

  I shifted and raised an eyebrow. She shrugged. “Okay, before he plunged into the unknown.”

  “Better.”

  “He said he always worried about you being disappointed. That if you got attached to her and then they broke up, it would be hard on you. Actually, his exact words…” She smiled and shook her head.

  “His exact words were what?”

  “He said, ‘The instant Arden sniffs a family, she’ll go after it like a dog in heat.’”

  “Idiot. Like he knew me.”

  “He didn’t seem to worry about Hannah getting attached to him and then being disappointed. She liked him. She was always dragging him into the lodge so she could show off what she knew about the exhibits.”

  Poor Scott. The park lodge was a traditional Penokee elementary-school field trip destination. I didn’t imagine that the stuffed animals and birds, the Touch Me displays of bones, fur, feathers, and snakeskins had provided a very romantic setting.

  “One day, about a week after his first accident, I tried to teach him to snowshoe.”

  I spun around from the counter, mug in hand, and hot tea splashed on my wrist. “You did? Snowshoe? I never knew he could. Claire—that’s wonderful, that’s so important. If he asked you to teach him, don’t you see that he was thinking about how he could get from the river to the road?”

  “Whoa, Arden. What?”

  “He must have asked you to let him try the shoes because he was planning to use them that day to get away from the river.”

  She took the mug out of my hand. “This for me?” I nodded, “Nice try, Arden.” She sipped and shook her head when the hot water reached her tongue. “I forced him to try snowshoeing. And it didn’t go at all well. After ten minutes he was red and huffing and puffing. Hannah was pretty merciless to him; she runs like a rabbit on hers.” Claire cradled her mug and smiled. “I loved him for many reasons, but not his athleticism. If Scott actually snowshoed from the river to any spot on that road, then he must have been really determined to get the hell out.” She lifted the mug. “Go, Scotty—you son of a bitch.”

  I sat at the table with my tea, “When I find him I plan to kill him, you know.”

  She let loose little deep rolls of laughter. “No. Don’t”

  “Oh, yeah. I miss the guy, but I’m totally pissed.”

  “What I meant was, should this little grief-induced fantasy prove true, and should you ever find him, please just hold him until I get there. We’ll kill him together.”

  CHAPTER 15

  When I got back to the house I made my obligatory call to the Drummonds in Green Bay. Jean told me about their long day and I reported on my dinner with Claire.

  “Talk to you tomorrow,” I said. “Be good and kiss your mother.”

  I’d spent the afternoon cleaning the kitchen, getting groceries, and running other errands; then I’d gone to Claire and Hannah’s. I hadn’t checked the mail, which I usually did faithfully. I half expected to get a postcard from my brother. Someday, if I hadn’t found him first, I felt sure I’d check the box and, stuck between a couple of magazines, there’d be a small rectangle with a gaudy scene of some tropical resort, “Alive and well, it was all a joke, home soon, lots to tell, love, Scott.”

  No postcard, but there was something else almost as nice: Jace had finally sent me the morphed picture of Scott.

  It was so creepy—a face that wasn’t his, but was. The clean-shaven face I hadn’t seen in years. And maybe never would again.

  Jace had included a short note. Two sentences, the eloquent male.

  I think the picture’s pretty good. Aren’t computers wonderful?

  Aren’t computers wonderful?

  Once again, illumination.

  As I hit the computer power switch and listened to the machine boot up, I hoped I wouldn’t find anything too embarrassing. Of course, I’d already gone through his drawers and pockets, so what was one more intrusion on a private place?

  First I scanned his neatly organized and labeled folders.

  DESIGNS—those were elaborate, futuristic cars he’d created. DRAWINGS—just what it said. No bucolic landscapes, though; my brother was into drawing detailed fantasy figures BOOKS AND MOVIES—that was a long list of titles. He’d gotten around to viewing and reading some of them, and he’d included the dates and brief comments. Scott’s organization was even more compulsive with his e-mail. He subscribed to two Internet mailing lists, and each week he’d made a new folder and tucked away all the messages worth keeping. Each week! Was that anal or what? Most of it was car nonsense. Good for something, though: I made a mental note to get the oil changed on my Honda.

  I figured he probably had lots of new mail waiting, and I signed on to pull it down. His password? Ah, yes. BigTool. Macho man.

  The new posts and messages he’d never seen were just as boring as the stuff he’d filed, and it reminded me why I had quit the lists I’d found for crafters: too many irritating digressions into weirdness. I pretty quickly realized I could skim the stuff from the lists because there was no way he’d have announced to people all over the world his intention to skip. There were a number of off-list messages, though. Evidently my brother had established close, personal relationships with other mechanics and ’Cuda fans around the world.

  From Ebody@chip.link.com: Scott, I’m planning to go to the swap meet in St. Paul. Good hotels?

  Hemiwhore@nevada.tech.edu: I got the grill! Thanks for the lead.

  Oilchange@liverpool.com: No! I see Dickens behind the wheel of one of your big dull American cars. Oldsmobile 88, perhaps?

  Doc460@whip.tech.edu: Three words: Walt Whitman, Mazda Miata. Damn, that’s four.

  Cars of the dead authors. Man, these mechanics had fun.

  Those brought me up to New Year’s. I rubbed my eyes, massaged my mouse hand, fixed some cocoa, and went back to work

  The late-January messages grew serious and for three days had settled on a single thread: Claire’s pregnancy. Condolences, congratulations, advice, reproval, even crude jokes—everyone he’d met on the Internet had something to say.

  I tipped the desk chair back and swiveled away from the computer. So he’d poured out his heart to a group of faceless strangers. Not to me, or Al, or John. After twelve years of carving out a life in Penokee, my brother had turned away from the people he knew and decided these cyberpals were the best friends he had.

  No wonder it was so easy for him to leave: His life here meant nothing to him, his people meant nothing to him. Why hadn’t I seen it, why had I been so absorbed in my own glorious world that I never once realized he hated his?

  Howya doing, Scott? Whatcha thinking, brother? Tell me: What would you like?

  I slapped the mouse and it skidded across the desk, hit the keyboard, and bounced up, then landed on a key. A new message clicked into view. It was from a verbose guy I’d figured out was a long-winded racist woman-hater, certainly not one of the mechanics interested in making literary connections to auto repair. I hated his posts, and after the one where he blasted Claire for “trapping” Scott, I skimmed them all. I scanned this one and almost hit next before the message registered.

  I know the feeling, Scott. Boxed in, right? You said you wanted to jump—just let me know when you’re ready. I’m here.

  Bingo. Bull’s-eye. Home run.

  The message was dated two days after the disappearance. That meant this guy, Overdrive@thunderlink.com, hadn’t helped plan the escape, but he must have known something about what Scott was thinking or feeling.

  Boxed in. What exactly had my brother told this guy that he’d never said to me?

  I’m here for you
. Well, where was “here”?

  I checked the remainder of the mail quickly and found nothing special, unless silence from Overdrive was significant. He’d never written Scott again. Because my boxed-in brother came knocking at his door begging for help? I spent another half hour going back over all of Overdrive’s messages to the mech list, trying to cull a clue as to where he lived. I could have simply shot him a message and asked him straight out, but if he was hiding Scott, it would have been a signal that someone was looking.

  Around midnight I found the answer filed in the previous year’s March 1-7 folder. From Overdrive: Good news! For the second time the main shop has won the Northern Ontario Ad Council’s best print campaign. My gorgeous mug and studlike body (joke, mates) have become the symbol for Pete’s Body Shop. Can’t go into a restaurant in Thunder Bay without being recognized. Embarrasses the hell out of Pete Junior, especially when it’s a lady giving me the once-over. But then he’s only sixteen and no way he’s going to admit I’ve still got it.

  Oh, Pete in Thunder Bay, Just what is it you’ve got? My brother?

  *

  “Is Pete there?”

  All day Sunday I had planned for this moment. Might say I obsessed. I talked to Pete while I cleaned the kitchen, I typed Pete twice in the same sentence while working on an English paper, I said “Hello, Pete” when Mr. Drummond answered the phone in Green Bay. I figured if this Pete knew anything at all, I would sense it immediately, even if we weren’t face-to-face. There’d be a hesitation, or some cheery bluster, or maybe he’d blurt one of the favorite words that peppered his posts.

  Why did he feel boxed in, Pete? What did he say he was going to do about it, Pete? Where do you suppose he is, Pete? Why did he confide in you, Pete?

  “Sorry, miss, Pete isn’t here.”

  I squeezed the phone. I hadn’t prepared for that. “Will he be back soon?” In the background I heard the familiar loud noises of a garage.

  “Not until Thursday. He went to the shoe shop.”

  Four days to buy shoes? “Shoe shop?”

  “Soo shop,” he shouted. “Went to Sault Ste. Marie, to one of his other garages. Harbor View Auto. Like I said, back on Thursday.”