MAY
All eleven Wildwood stoplights are clogged with William Kenton College’s graduation traffic. Nick, who is not from Wildwood, follows my advice to cut through the speed-bumped neighborhood toward Old Ragland Road. The storm’s angrier than when we left the WCC. Water stands in potholes and yards and rainbows into the ditches when Nick drives through puddles on the asphalt.
“You’re going to miss the turn,” I say. He frequently has to U-ey in the middle of the road. “Use the cattle grate after the WKU mailbox after the Moose Lodge as a marker.”
We own ninety-seven lopsided acres of Simpson County, Kentucky. The southern perimeter lies spitting distance to Tennessee. The northern fronts half a mile on Old Ragland Road. From the Moose Lodge parking lot our mustard fields glow golden in the waning sunlight. Otherwise, the land hides among craggy hills and a densely wooded forest.
Nick takes the turnoff so hard our heads hit the roof of the car.
Evergreens on either side of the service drive have been shaved with a chainsaw, creating a tunnel through the pines. Bluebells are scattered through the undergrowth, the only vibrant color among the muted browns and greens. We slip and slide along, adding fresh tracks atop the ones from Dad’s Ram.
He’s out here somewhere.
What will he say? What will I? So that basement of yours where you keep important things? Literal? Figurative?
Dad’ll be soft at the beginning. He’ll wink. Maybe squeeze my shoulder. He’ll try to make this about me. “Sweetie, I’m worried about you,” he’ll say. “I wish you’d drop this obsession of connecting Aul to the Gemini Thief. Go back to one of your other projects.”
Since he is a person with equal compulsions, I asked once why mine worried him so.
“The other boys will come home. Aulus might not.”
The other boys. That’s how he refers to Chris, Rufus, and Zared—never their names.
Nick asks, “What’s the plan?”
I’ve been wondering the same thing. Do I ask Dad about the weekends he doesn’t sleep at home? Or the enormous amount of unchecked time at his disposal? If I do, he’ll likely say, “I’m adding on to the castle,” and slather on the details. “Bell tower. Might have to be a campanile. Securing the shipping container to the keep is tricky.” Once he’s in castle mode, the nine years he spent hiding his project evaporate, and the details bubble out in long run-on sentences of delight.
My dad has two children: me and this castle.
And maybe three more in a basement and another nine he cast aside in Tennessee?
“I’m going to ask him where he was last night. That’ll clear this up.”
Dad’s great love affair rises among the limestone ridges of Simpson County, a fortress of concrete and simple lines. She’s beautiful the way the Eiffel Tower is beautiful. Not so much for what she is, but that she is at all. Say what you want about my dad, he’s got vision and tenacity. I’ve loved those qualities, coveted them, but now . . . they feel like shadows on a moonlit walk. Maybe nothing. Maybe wolves.
Since my last visit, Dad has successfully secured two upturned forty-foot shipping containers to the keep, bricked them, and attached an American flag atop both towers. Streaks of red, white, and blue dapple the gray clouds with color.
“That’s nicely done,” Nick says.
The Ram sits among the scattered construction equipment. To the right of a makeshift parking lot, a blue tarp, weighted with tires and rain puddles, strains to keep bricks and wood dry. There’s inconsistent cell signal, so I crack the window and listen for the grind of machinery. Apart from the pitter-patter of rain striking the tarp, there’s nothing. “Dad!” I yell.
No return.
“Don Delacroix!”
Nothing.
We’ll have to hunt him down. I usher Nick out of the car and through the closest window cutout instead of tromping through the front yard to the door.
“Dad!”
Nothing.
I’ve been through the lower garage and up the steps into this catchall room many times. Right now it’s filled with rebars, stacks of Quikrete, pallets, a very large church bell that wasn’t here previously, and work boot tracks caked with mud. The interior door is open. Scant light falls in yellow-white rectangles across the hardwood floor. The mudroom has been drywalled, a utility sink installed.
Picking my way through the downstairs maze, I see that some rooms show progression, some don’t. Per always, the great room steals my breath. Dad’s best work by far. Wooden arches. Highly polished concrete floors. Twin staircases circling toward open second and third stories. There’s a three-tiered candle chandelier hanging from the thirty-foot ceiling and a stack of oriental carpets, not yet laid, that’ll warm the room.
He built this for me. To win me over after the lies came out. He drove us out here one night and marched me around with a lantern. We got to the great room and he said, “Tell me what you want and I’ll build it.”
I want him to be the good kind of crazy. I want people to marvel at him in secret, the way I often do.
“You okay?” Nick asks.
“I love this room.” I whisper like I’m betraying someone.
On the second floor, Nick and I find two work lamps pumping serious wattage and a couple of sawhorses balancing treated lumber. Atop the lumber: Dad’s Dr Pepper. There’s a receipt pinned under the aluminum can. It won’t tell me where Dad is now, but it might tell me how long since he’s been here.
May 10th. Today.
Dad bought this twenty-four ounce at 1:39 this morning.
Nick points to the bottom of the receipt. The address of the convenience store is faded but readable: Baxter, Tennessee.
“Thea! Honey? You here?” Dad’s voice calls from somewhere below.