Freya’s missing sneakers, a blue sock, a green pencil, a yellow pencil, a spoon, three inter-linked paperclips, a peach stone, a Harry Potter CD now badly scratched, paper cut into dozens of pieces, a red hair tie, 16 pennies, a pink t-shirt, a rubbery carrot less three bites, books, an empty reel of Scotch tape, an orange sock.
Kay dutifully collected these items, the maternal choreography of bending, gathering, no longer nuts and berries but bits of LEGO. She shoved the vacuum cleaner under the sofa, under the chairs, across the floor. The machine began to falter, so she opened the canister. The bag was reusable. She lifted it out, walked to the trash and emptied the contents. Amongst the dust, the indeterminate debridement of Frank and Maria’s living, was a single pale-blue disposable surgical bootie.
For a moment, Kay simply held it. As an objective fact, it was nothing. She might describe the specific blue, the texture of the material, the elastic binding the whole together. When she touched it, nothing happened, it exuded no smell, and she was not psychic, she had no visions. But she had found it. It had been there to be found. In a way, the house had provided it to her. As it had the cupboard upstairs. Look here. The house was revealing itself, coyly. Not, of course, in a crazy, Stephen King way, Jack Nicholson leering down the corridor of a haunted hotel. The house wasn’t doing anything. But there was a tilting. It was as if her family had so changed the house, shifted the habit of its gravity, that revelation became possible. Objects slid free. She stuffed the bootie in her pocket and went out to the car.
The Town House was a house like the house on the hill she was living in, Frank and Maria’s, a house like other houses on hills or in valleys or towns. You just couldn’t tell from the outside what was inside, what was underneath. General Christmas, for instance, had been an excellent shop-keeper, he kept his prices low, the shelves well-stocked. He even extended credit to his poorer customers for things like gin and matches.
Kay walked up the wheelchair ramp, there was only a screen door so she pushed this open. The office was pokey, the antique computer with its dusty screen probably still ran on DOS. A large scroll of maps hung on the wall behind the desk. No one was at the desk.
“Hello?”
Along one wall, a huge vault displayed folios and leather-bound land records. She eased around the room to the maps, flipped through them. A topography of the town, a county map, a state map, a property map demarcating the property boundaries. Kay found Frank and Maria’s land. WILSON, it was written. Wilson, Wilson, she knew now.
On the desk lay a copy of the town report. She flipped through: the school budget, the road budget, financial statements, property transfers. Under the property taxes section was a list of delinquent payers and the amount overdue. Kay was surprised at this outing, it seemed shaming; everyone knew you hadn’t, or couldn’t, pay.
“Can I help you?”
Kay turned, abandoning the report.
The woman was dark-haired, apple-cheeked, wearing a floral sundress. She smiled, “I’m Nadine, the clerk here.”
“And I’m Kay Ward, hi.” Kay returned the smile. “We’re renting the house up the road. The Wilsons. Frank and Maria.”
“Is that AirBnb? I hear a lot about that these days.”
“No, it’s not AirBnb, we found out about it through another site.”
“Lovely views. Tough in the winter.”
“I can imagine. Wow, winter, I mean, maybe I can’t imagine. Um, Nadine, do you know how I could get in touch with Frank and Maria?”
“Alice would be the person to ask. She’s caretaking the place, right?”
“She doesn’t know.” Kay was cheery, a cheery visitor. “What a beautiful part of Vermont this is.”
“It’s not called the Kingdom for nothing,” Nadine enthused.
“My husband and I are thinking we might buy a place here, we’ve really fallen in love.” Kay made a vague gesture to the property maps. “Do you know what’s for sale? The Wilson’s place, maybe?”
“Oh, you’d be better talking to a realtor. But as far as I know Frank’s not selling, no.”
Kay noted the exclusion of Maria from ownership. “Do you usually see them around?”
“Not unless he comes in here.”
Again, the singularity of Frank. Kay glanced again at the property maps. She could make out the road, the boundaries of Frank’s land—Frank’s not Frank and Maria’s. It comprised nearly 300 acres buffered by a state park, no neighbor for a mile in either direction. She thought how the thick woods must absorb sound. “And you have no idea where they might be. Family? Vacation?”
Nadine cocked her head. “He has a cabin up north.”
“A cabin?”
“Derby, Granby? Not far from the border. His mother’s family were from there, old Québécois.”
“And Maria’s with him?”
“Maria?” Nadine was alert now.
“His wife.”
“I don’t know her.”
“Their kids?”
“I don’t know.”
“Where are they?”
Nadine’s lips opened, then closed. Thin, with the faintest trace of peach lipstick.
Kay pressed on, her voice light, airy. “When did you last see them—Frank, Maria, the boys?”
Nadine pulled her chair closer into the desk, putting it firmly between herself and Kay, her shield. “I’ve already told you I don’t know where they are but I’m sure they’re just fine.”
But Nadine wasn’t sure, not 100 percent. Kay could see the tiny fissure in the facade of certainty she’d tried to maintain. And not just now, right now, but before. Maybe for quite a while Nadine had sensed the Wilsons were not all right. This was a small community; Nadine knew most of the business there was to know: who was delinquent on their property tax, who was selling their land, who was buying, who was building, who had special-needs kids, who had disabilities, who applied for state heating aid. Nadine was not sure; Kay heard the lightest inflection, 20 years as a journalist had tuned her ear.
As a mother, she was merely late.