If this were a movie, thought Bee, the music would swell right about now. And the dying fire would catch and her tea would be hot again, with a curl of perfect steam rising from it. Then suddenly, Trish sat up straight.
“Wait a sec.”
“What?”
“She wrote me again.” She handed Scott her drink and, heaving herself up off the couch, she walked over to the kitchen area. Bee watched Trish head toward the desk in the back corner of the kitchen by the doors out to the deck. She sat down in the chair there and started going through one of the drawers.
Bee glanced at Scott, who raised his eyebrows. He didn’t know what this was about.
“Aha!” said Trish. “Here it is. Not the letter but something else.”
She came back and resumed her seat. From an envelope she pulled a square white card. A wedding invitation, Bee assumed. And that’s what it was: an invitation to the wedding of Jillian Amy Green to Matthew Logan Needham. The wedding had taken place in July of 2012 at Saint James Anglican in Perth, Ontario.
Bee looked over the card at Trish. “Did you go?”
“Good Lord, no! But I did send her a gift and a letter wishing her the best. And she wrote back.” Trish chuckled ruefully. “I can’t find it now, but I remember that the return address on the letter she sent me was ‘Mrs. M. L. Needham.’”
Bee couldn’t figure it out at first. She took the invitation from Trish. “Who’s M. L.? Oh right, her husband’s name. Good grief. Do people do that?”
“Women used to. Not content to lose just their maiden name, they went whole-hog and lost every trace of identity.”
“Wow” was all Bee could say. She flipped over the envelope that the invitation had come in. The address printed just said Needham.
“Her own folks were dead.” Trish shook her head. “Mrs. M. L. Needham. I don’t mean to be snotty about it. She was, I think, basically a good old-fashioned girl who had to go through two terrible relationships — before finding herself a good man.”
“Ah, but do you know he’s a good man?” said Scott.
“Yes,” said Trish definitively. “Because that’s what the other letter was about — the second one that I can’t find. She wanted to let me know that the former Jilly Green was blissfully happy and expecting a baby. She said she had everything she wanted and couldn’t wait to be a mom.”
Perhaps it was the mention of the word “mom” that set Trish to crying again. It came softly and she buried her head in Scott’s shoulder. The past evaporated, just like that. The stories had happily distracted Trish, and now there was just this most painful and unforgiving present. It was Bee’s cue to leave. Quietly she rose from her chair, kissed Trish on the top of her head, and let Scott give her a one-armed hug. She left without a word, but looking back she caught Scott’s eye and mouthed, “I’ll be back,” and he nodded.
She unlocked her car and climbed in. An idea was forming in her mind. Could she go through with it? She started the engine. Yes, she thought. I can.
She woke early, even earlier than her hard-working parents. She dressed in a denim pencil skirt and a simple black V-neck top. She was going for something between country and business. She left a note on the kitchen table:
Dearest Momsie and Pop,
Your daughter is feeling remarkably well and has decided to go on an “expotition.” I’m not sure if I shall find a heffalump or not, but I’ll be home with stories to tell by dinner. Have yourselves an exceptionally useful and happy day.
XOX
Your daughter of all these many years
She bustled along 417. In the eastbound lane the morning traffic was bumper-to-bumper but she, heading west, could have gone the speed limit if Toddy the Turtle had been capable of it. Behind her the sun was coming up gold, glinting in her rearview mirror, forcing her to dig through her purse for her sunglasses. She merged onto Highway Seven.
She didn’t have much to go on. The address on the wedding card had been in Perth, which was roughly an hour and a half out of Ottawa, probably more in a children’s-picture-book car. That was fine. The whole expedition could easily be a bust, but at least she’d get a day in the country out of it, a sunny day at that, after days and days of rain.
She made it to Perth, pulled into a Shopper Drug Mart on the highway, and checked the address on Google Earth. The house from which the wedding card had been sent took her through the actual town, which was surprisingly pretty, something you’d never know if you’d flown by on Seven.
Finally she pulled up outside the house and realized as she checked the address again that this couldn’t be the newlyweds’ place. It was large, impressively old, and expensive. The new hubby’s parents, she guessed. Oh well. Nothing ventured, nothing gained. She knocked on the door and a nice-looking woman in her fifties answered. A kind woman, it seemed — kind enough not to be too taken aback by Bee’s question. Bee was glad she’d made herself presentable.
“That’s my daughter-in-law,” said the woman, Mrs. Needham, as Bee had guessed. “I don’t know how you ever got this address. They live out at the farm.”
“Oh,” said Bee. “Do you have their address?”
Mrs. Needham was kind but not imprudent. “What’s your name, dear?”
“Beatrice. Bee. Bee Northway.” She held out her hand.
“Hello, Bee,” said the woman, and shook her hand. “May I ask what this is about?”
Bee tried to think of a good lie but quickly decided Mrs. Needham was not one to be taken lightly. “It’s a long story,” she said, “but I am going out with a boy named Donovan who used to know Jilly and he . . .” She stopped talking because she had watched Mrs. Needham’s forehead crease and then her face cloud over.
“The boy who died?” she said.
It was not what Bee had expected. “Uh, yes.” The woman was examining her closely now and frowning. “If I remember correctly, you said you were going out with a boy — as in the present tense.”
Bee felt as if she’d been caught in a stupid lie, one she had not intended. “I didn’t know that you would have heard,” she said. The woman didn’t respond right away, but her expression was severe, quizzical. Bee cleared her throat. “I’m not used to talking about him in the past tense,” she said. This was all too true. The woman’s expression lightened somewhat, but she was wary. Bee held her gaze.
“They were here for dinner on Sunday, Matt and Jilly. She was quite upset. It wasn’t just the boy, of course.” Bee shook her head. “Jilly . . . knew his father some time ago.”
Knew?
Bee wondered what Jilly might have told her mother-in-law about her relationship with Allen Ian McGeary. “Knew” hardly covered it, except in the biblical sense.
“I haven’t seen or heard much about it in the news,” said Bee, “so I didn’t expect it would have, you know, gotten out here.”
“We’re not exactly in the boonies, dear,” said Mrs. Needham. “But you’re right. The news came via the jungle drums. Someone out there must have known someone who knew McGeary and word spread that way. Nothing stays secret long in Sugar Valley.” She smiled as if to temper this mild rebuke. Then she frowned. “Terrible business.”
“Yes,” said Bee, hoping she would not recount the whole sordid mess, whatever she knew.
Mrs. Needham was just opening her mouth to hold forth again when a voice called from inside the house. “Ruth, are you ready?”
Mrs. Needham turned and called back inside, “Ready when you are, Henry.” Then she turned back to Bee and her expression had changed to one of concern, although there was still a good deal of curiosity in her eyes.
“We’ve got to run. You’ll find Jilly at 2767 Cedar Bog Road. Shall I write it down for you?”
Bee pulled her cell phone from her skirt pocket. “No thanks, I’ll just key it in and GPS it.”
The woman chuckled. “I’d be surprised if Cedar Bog Road is on GPS. It’s a land out of time.” She didn’t say it with any malice. “It’s east of town just off Highway
Seven. Maybe fifteen miles past the city limits.” Bee keyed in the address. “Have you driven from Ottawa?” Bee nodded. “Then you passed it.”
“Thanks so much,” said Bee, looking up from her cell phone, which was busily tracking down this “land out of time.”
“Ruth?” The voice from inside sounded more insistent.
“She should be in,” said Mrs. Needham. “Give her my best.”
Bee promised to do so and was thankful for the news. She should be in.
As Ruth Needham had supposed, her son’s address on Cedar Bog Road was not on GPS, so Bee drove east, keeping an eye open for signposts, blinking into a sun blazing now in the eastern sky at just the height to make her sun visor useless. At one point she saw a sign saying SUGAR VALLEY ROAD, pointing to the right off the highway. She slowed down and almost turned, just out of curiosity. She had this eerie feeling that to do so would be to travel back into Donovan’s past. Which is what she was doing anyway. Suddenly she wasn’t at all sure what she was up to.
A car beeped at her impatiently. She checked her rearview mirror. A pickup with muddied sides and ridiculously oversize tires. What had Sergeant Bell called it? A lift job. Her hands gripped the steering wheel tightly. She checked the rearview mirror again, watched the vehicle pull up close behind her, impatient. Shit. What was going on? She stepped on the gas, trying to milk out a little more speed. The truck driver blasted his horn at her, made her startle and shout out loud. She looked again — several more anxious glances in the rearview mirror — and finally noticed the pickup was black. She breathed out, long and slow. As she rounded a long curve, she could see in her side-view mirror a line of cars and pickups and SUVs strung out like a kite tail behind her. The pickup driver honked again, and she caved into the pressure and pulled over to let him pass. He had a decal on the rear window that said MY DRIVING SCARES ME TOO.
It was not far to Cedar Bog Road, and had she not been going at Toddy the Turtle’s slightly whiny cruising speed of 70 clicks, she might have missed it. The sign was on a slant as if it had been plowed into, so that the arrow actually pointed down into the weedy verge of the dirt road. She turned right and headed along the side road with her cell phone sitting on the seat beside her, the address emblazoned upon the screen on a yellow note. It was to prove of absolutely no use for there were no houses. Not ones anyone lived in anymore. There were fields to her left and a forest to her right. She had driven nearly two miles and was beginning to feel distinctly as if she’d made a mistake before the forest dwindled, the view opened up to her right, and she saw a throng of buildings up ahead that she hoped might be inhabited.
As she drew nearer, one new-looking building dominated her vision since it was nearest to the road. She slowed to a crawl and read the hand-painted name on a pristine white mailbox: THE NEEDHAMS it read, nothing more. So be it. She pulled into the driveway. On her left was a herd of old barns and outbuildings that looked as if they’d been put to pasture. Just barely living history, she thought. Once she’d passed the large, new aluminum facility, she saw on her right, hidden from view, an old red-brick farmhouse surrounded by maples, still bare but with the branches bristling — quickening with new life.
She was there.
A dog came bounding toward the car, a big one, but with a wagging tail and curly black hair that made it look more ridiculous than frightening. A Labradoodle, she thought. You could bark as loud and ferociously as you wanted, but with a name like that — not to mention a face like that — you’re never going to be taken seriously as a guard dog. She pulled in beside a little green Honda with a baby seat in the back. She turned off the motor and looked again at the old buildings to her left, the ancestors: old friends, sapped of color with bad backs, leaning toward one another as if hard of hearing. One or two of them were constructed of logs. Rusted farm implements prowled the edges of this graveyard. She could see their teeth through the long grass.
By contrast, the farmhouse was set back on a pretty lawn, and it looked just the way a farmhouse should, with a wraparound porch and steep gabled roof, newly shingled, by the look of it. The windows, framed in white, were filled with reflected sky. It looked to Bee as if even the shadows on the porch had been freshly painted, they were so crisp and even. A screen door on the side porch opened and a woman came out carrying a toddler. The woman stared toward the car. Bee waved; the woman did not wave back. Bee hoped it was only that the sun was in her eyes and she couldn’t see Bee’s greeting. At least I’m not arriving bearing bad news — news she doesn’t already know, Bee thought. But her heart rate picked up, all the same. This whole idea suddenly seemed inane. She took a deep breath and climbed out of the car.
“Hello?” said the woman as she wandered off the porch onto the lawn.
“Uh, hi . . . Jilly?” said Bee.
The dog took to barking, big time.
“Spinach, down!” said Jilly.
Spinach laughed at the notion of doing as he was told. Or that’s how Bee interpreted the series of barks he flung into the cool spring air. She smiled at him, but when she turned back to Jilly, she stopped smiling. The woman looked intently at her, and if there wasn’t exactly hostility in her eyes, there was uneasiness. She was wearing clogs and faded jeans and a loose-fitted, wrinkled yellow shirt that might have been spotless one baby feeding ago. She was attractive, but her eyes were ringed with tiredness, probably as a result of the chubby squirming creature in her arms.
“I spoke to your mom?” said Bee. She paused, got no response. “She gave me the address.”
Jilly finally nodded. “My mother-in-law. She phoned to tell me you were on your way.”
The baby at least was waving at Bee, who returned her greeting. Jilly hoisted the baby up. “This is Cassie,” she said. The baby waved some more but then wanted down, and down she got.
“I was a friend of Donovan’s,” said Bee, figuring that getting down to business might be the best tactic.
“So Ruth said. What can I do for you?” There was no attempt at sharing sympathy for someone they both had loved at very different times in his life. There was, instead, as far as Bee could figure out, suspicion.
“I was with him in the hospital. He wasn’t really conscious but he could talk, sort of, and he mentioned you.”
Jilly nodded slowly, as if she wasn’t entirely surprised. Which was really surprising to Bee. Meanwhile, Jilly’s gaze never left Bee’s eyes. Bee pushed back her hair. It had come out of its ponytail, but she didn’t want to fuss with it now. This was not the welcome she had expected, especially not after what Trish had said last night. She had a feeling Jilly was sizing her up, so she stood stock-still and let her. The woman seemed to reach a conclusion.
“Would you like a cup of tea?” she said. There was some warmth in her voice but not enough to boil a cup of water.
“Thanks, that would be great.”
Jilly swooped up baby Cassie, who complained and wriggled, which set Spinach to barking again.
There were choices to make about the tea and Bee settled on mint, picked, apparently, from Jilly’s own garden. Bee, sitting on the porch, was to watch the child while Jilly went into the kitchen to make the tea. The suspicion she had sensed earlier was allayed a bit by this show of trust, although it wasn’t a task Bee particularly wanted. She wasn’t sure what she thought about babies. But she was glad to rest her eyes from the sun under the porch’s roof. She fixed her hair, straightened her skirt. Resisted the desire to put on more lip gloss. She could hear a tractor a ways off. Cassie, who was on the lawn, found something to play with, a pebble. Bee worried that she might eat it and choke to death. Gack! What a thought. How soon would she slough off this morbidity?
Soon enough, Cassie threw her stone away — at Spinach, who thought it was part of a game. In place of the stone, Cassie found a twig about as long as her arm, which she commenced talking to while the dog sniffed around at her feet. Watching them, dog and girl, Bee relaxed a little. She wasn’t really needed to watch the child; Spina
ch was doing that. As for Jilly’s guarded if not exactly chilly reception, she was not sure what to think.
The screen door snapped and Jilly reemerged with a tray of cups and a plate of fat cookies.
“Not an old family recipe,” she said. “I used to bake but these days I’m lucky if I even bathe.” Bee laughed, a bit too shrilly, but could think of nothing to say. Jilly placed the tray on a rustic-looking table between the two chairs and sat in the other one. She leaned forward in her seat, her eyes on her daughter. “I’m sure you have a reason for being here, but first I’d like to hear how Patricia is making out.”
“Oh, sure. Yeah. I saw her last night.”
Jilly glanced at her and then returned her attention to Cassie. “I can’t imagine what she must be going through.” Bee followed her gaze to the child a few yards away, squatting to scratch at the dirt with her newfound friend, Mr. Stick. “Is she bearing up okay?”
Bee nodded. “She’s with a wonderful man.”
“She is?”
Bee nodded. “Scott’s great. Donovan really loved him. He was like a real father.” It was a calculated thing to say, but completely true and she had to think that Jilly would be pleased to hear it.
Jilly turned her attention to pouring their tea.
“Honey?” she said.
Bee shook her head and took the cup from her. Her hands were shaking and she hoped Jilly wouldn’t notice. She needn’t have worried; the woman’s eyes had turned back to Cassie, who was heading straight toward a dried-up dog turd. In one fluid movement Jilly had replaced the teapot on the tray, was out of her chair, and in three steps had swooped the baby up and brought her back, wriggling and complaining, while Spinach laughed his doggy laugh to see such sport.
The Ruinous Sweep Page 20
