amy Kreisler opened the door to find a barrel-chested man in an orange work vest, a white van idling behind him in the driveway. She didn’t ask questions, just cocked her hip, waiting for him to get to the point. The doorbell had been ringing a lot these days: repo men, the sheriff’s deputy, a Realtor from the bank. By January first, it wouldn’t matter anymore. Mum and the little girls would have moved into Toby’s old place at the mill. As for Amy, she’d be staying with her best friend, Kristen, and her family at their house on Nelson Heights. Mum was crazy if she thought, for a minute, that Amy would be living in some freezing-cold dump, no hot water except what you heated on the stove, I mean, please. No wonder Toby had moved across the landing to Aunt Mal’s efficiency, where, at least, she had tried to fix things up. It wasn’t that he was trying to help them out, as people said. It wasn’t that he was going to be supporting Mum, financially. And if he was, well, he was a sucker, there wasn’t any need for that. That was the thing about Mum. She always had more money tucked away. She’d say she didn’t, but then, if she really wanted something, she’d go ahead and buy it anyway.
“You must be Amy,” the man said, stepping forward as if he planned to come in. Amy glanced into the kitchen, but there was only the leftover clutter of boxes and bubble wrap, newspapers, wadded-up balls of packing tape. Ever since Mrs. Railsbeck stopped coming, Mum had been increasingly careless. Last night, Amy had arrived home from work to find empty wine bottles, a broken glass, lasagna fixings strewn across the countertop. The oven was preheating. The refrigerator door stood open. It was as if Mum had been abducted by aliens in the middle of making supper. “Mum?” Amy called, but there’d been no answer. No note. Nothing. The girls—thank God—were asleep in their beds. It had been after midnight when Aunt Mal had brought Mum home, Toby following in the Suburban.
“Call if you need anything,” he’d said, pressing the keys into Amy’s hand, but Amy hadn’t thanked him, merely slipped them into the pocket of her robe without looking at him. It wasn’t that she disliked Toby, the way Mum did, it was just that there was the matter of his sister, who hated them, who was trying to sue them, who actually thought they’d run into her car on purpose. Sometimes Amy would forget about this, usually when she and Toby were talking about the future of the fish store—Amy planned to major in business administration, and she had lots of ideas about potential online venues—but then, all of a sudden, she’d remember, and, after that, she wouldn’t know what to say. That was the one good thing about the foreclosure, the auction, the bankruptcy. As Aunt Mal liked to say, by the time the Van Dorns quit dickering over the settlement, there wouldn’t be two nickels left for them to rub together.
But if that were the case, then maybe it was true, what people said about Toby having to support them. When he and Aunt Mal first got engaged, they were planning to buy a little cottage on the lake; they’d even driven her and the little girls out to see it one sunny afternoon, while Mum was on Community. But then, all of a sudden, they’d changed their minds. They’d moved into Mal’s efficiency. They were pretending that Toby still lived at his place so the crazy old landlord, Mr. Dickens, wouldn’t try to raise the rent. All of this made Amy very uncomfortable when she thought about it, especially since she was giving Mum less than half of what she earned at the Dairy Castle. The rest she was using to buy stocks online: technology, mostly, a few bio techs, a couple of blue chips for stability. Analysts were saying the NASDAQ might actually hit 5,000 by next year. No way was she going to miss out on something like that.
The barrel-chested man seemed to be waiting for her to say something.
“Yes?” Amy said, impatiently.
“Your mother,” he began, then stopped.
“What did she do now?” Amy said, but the man seemed surprised by this, even a little offended.
“Nothing,” he said. “But she’s real upset. I thought that maybe if I brought her home…”
His voice trailed off as he nodded toward the van, and Amy suddenly recognized him: Mum’s supervisor. The one who sometimes said hello to them at church. The one who drove Mum and the other convicts to their various Community assignments. For God’s sake, stop calling us convicts, Mum would say, and Amy would say, What should I call you, then? Volunteers? By now, the little girls were at the door, too, Lauren gnawing on a cold slice of pizza, Monica carrying her Princess doll.
“Wait here,” Amy told them, grabbing her coat from the floor where the mahogany coat stand once had stood, and she followed the man out into the driveway. She could just see her mother’s head, tipped forward, as if her chin were on her chest. Drunk, Amy thought, but when the man opened the door, she saw that this was wrong. Mum’s eyes were open, her face peculiarly white. She did not look at either of them. The wind toyed with a strand of her long, blond hair.
“Is there somebody you could call?” the man said.
A single tear ran down the side of Mum’s face, but it wasn’t as if Mum herself were crying, because anyone could see that Mum simply wasn’t there.
“Just a minute,” Amy said, and she ran back toward the house, ducked through the still-open door where the girls were waiting, watching.
“What’s the matter?” Monica said.
“Shut up,” Amy said, and she picked up the phone, dialed Aunt Mal at the mill. No answer. She dialed the fish store, only half listening as Laurel complained about the pizza, something about green peppers, too many, not enough, her turn, her share. “Shut up!” Amy said again, just as Toby picked up, and there was the man in the doorway again, half carrying Mum, his face beet red with strain.
“Everything okay?” Toby said, and Amy could hear customers in the background, the rattle of plastic bags. In an hour, Amy herself would have to be at work. That night, she and Kristen were supposed to go to a movie with Kristen’s boyfriend, Al, and a friend Al thought would be perfect for Amy. Besides, Amy had calculus to study for. She had a paper on the New Deal.
“I think you should come over,” Amy said.
“Okay,” he said. “As soon as I can.”
The man was in the family room now, looking for someplace to put Mum down, but the comfy old couch and chair were already at Toby’s place. All the living room furniture had gone back to Ethan Allen. The dining room set had vanished, too. The man dragged Mum back into the kitchen and dropped her, with a grunt, into one of the kitchen chairs.
“Mommy?” Monica said.
“Hello?” Toby said.
“No,” Amy said, and her voice was trembling. “I think you should come now.”
There was a beat of silence.
“I’m on my way,” Toby said.
Rex and I had spent our wedding night at the Pfister Hotel. The following day, we’d flown out of O’Hare for a honeymoon week in Tuscany. We rented a villa in an olive grove, just south of Florence, overlooking a quiet lake. It was November, unseasonably cold—though warmer than Wisconsin—and we’d hiked, every morning, along an old donkey trail until we’d reached the little town of Caprese Michelangelo. There, we’d eaten our breakfast of white beans drizzled with oil before prowling the local markets for vegetables, fish, cheese. Afternoons, we drove too fast along narrow, curving roads, the mountains standing over us like broad-shouldered angels. Rex said, more than once, “We are lucky, so very lucky,” and though I agreed, something within me winced, longing to shush him, hush him, hide us both away. Old gods, it seemed to me, were sleeping everywhere. It wouldn’t take much to awaken them: a glimmer of hubris, the least suggestion of good fortune. Each time the road dropped out beneath us, I white-knuckled the door handle, held my breath. Blindly, we plunged into valley after valley, rising and falling as if in flight, the trees a blur of color as we passed.
Awakening at the Pfister on the morning of Christmas Eve, I found myself missing Rex terribly. The troubles we’d been having seemed like nothing from where I lay, alone in a king-size bed as extravagant as any wedding cake: canopied, frosted, fringed. Beyond the heavy damask curtains, I could see the same gunmetal gray Milwaukee sky that had, on the first day of our marriage, appeared unexpectedly silver. Reaching my hand beneath my pillow, I’d discovered Rex’s hand, slipped my fingers into his, then realized—with a small, startled shriek—it wasn’t his hand but my own, numb from the weight of my shoulder.
Slow kisses. Pins and needles. Desire awakening, sharpening.
I would have settled, now, for simply hearing his voice. He still hadn’t called in on my father’s cell phone, the way we had arranged, though we’d gotten a brief, cryptic e-mail: Hard 2 phone. Everything fine. Hope yr same. Perhaps, he’d been too busy with Chelone to make it to Echo Island. Or perhaps the ferry had stopped running, as it did from time to time, due to weather, to mechanical problems, to the whims of the family that owned it. More likely, he’d been trying to call but kept getting disconnected. Last night, from the steakhouse where we’d all gone out to dinner, my father had checked for messages on the Florida machine.
Nothing.
“Now you know how we’ve felt all these months,” my mother said.
A rap at the door: shave-and-a-haircut. My mother’s signature knock. I got up, grateful for the distraction, and slipped into a plush, hotel robe. On top of the TV sat the FedEx package Arnie’s secretary had sent, per my instructions, care of the hotel. The package was still unopened. I flipped it over, so the address wouldn’t show, before letting my mother in.
“It’s eighteen degrees outside,” she announced, indignantly, stepping into the room. She was neatly dressed in a wool pantsuit, balancing two hotel mugs filled with coffee. I felt like a teenager, caught sleeping late, complete with a raging case of bed head. Not to mention the remains of my poisonwood rash, which was looking more and more like a bad case of acne. “You know what the temperature is in Miami today?”
I took the mug she offered me, shook my head. Sipped. The coffee was sweet, nearly white with cream.
“Eighty-two.” She glared around the room, as if she were looking for someone to blame. I’d forgotten how personally my parents took cold weather, as if it were something that had been engineered, specifically, to torment them. “Are you hungry? There’s plenty to eat in our room. I just came back from the buffet.”
From the pocket of her tailored jacket, she removed two hardboiled eggs. I started to laugh, I couldn’t help it. Here was something else I’d forgotten. At the steakhouse, my father had ordered the New York strip, while my mother, demurely, chose the salad bar. After eating what he wanted, my father handed his plate to my mother who, in turn, passed him her salad bar leavings: baked beans, macaroni, Jell-O salad. I glanced around, hoping the waiter hadn’t seen, but my father just laughed.
“As if he cares,” he said.
“As if any one person could eat six dollars’ worth of salad,” my mother said.
“Six ninety-five,” my father said.
“And these steaks are just too big for one person!”
“So ask for a second plate,” I said, but my father shook his head vigorously.
“Bastards charge you a plate fee.”
“At least the bread is free,” my mother said, giving the bulge in her purse a little pat.
How they’d driven Toby nuts, when he’d still lived at home, with all their little shortcuts, coupons, early bird specials. Those mashed-together slivers of soap that broke apart in your hands. Toby. I’d called him after getting in from dinner, this time at his apartment, but a child had answered—had his number changed? I’m not supposed to talk on the phone, okay? she’d said, and then hung up. He hadn’t been at the fish store, either, which wasn’t surprising, considering the time. Still, in the past, it wouldn’t have been unusual for Toby to be there, working late, perhaps even spending the night stretched out on the hospital cot he kept beside his breeding tanks. I reminded myself that his life would be different, now that he was engaged. He’d be spending time with Mallory, after work, on weekends. In fact, with the wedding just a few days away, he might not have time to see me. Perhaps, after what Rex had done, Toby didn’t want to see me. Perhaps he’d sent the invitation for the sake of his conscience alone, expecting it wouldn’t reach me, that I wouldn’t come from so far away.
“So what’s on your agenda for today?” my mother asked, sitting down with her mug at the glass-topped table.
I settled myself across from her. “Depends on Toby,” I said. “By the way, did his home phone change or something?”
“Who knows?”
My mother cracked one of the eggs, began to pick at the shell. I’d been surprised to learn that she and my father still hadn’t seen him—or Mallory either, for that matter. In fact, they’d only spoken with Toby twice. He was busy, he was sorry, he would make it up to them. There’d been talk of a prewedding dinner (where? with whom?), but that seemed to have fallen through. “Ah, the pressures of prenuptials,” my father had said, grinning, but this didn’t make any sense to me. It wasn’t that type of wedding, after all. How many details could there be, arranging for a justice of the peace to spend fifteen shivering minutes aboard the Michigan Jack?
“It’s just so strange,” I said to my mother, now. “I can see where he might not want to see me, but he can’t spare half an hour to say hello to you?”
“I don’t think you ought to take it personally,” my mother said. “I think something’s wrong.”
“Like what?”
“Well, he and Mallory had a contract on a two-bedroom cottage—did I tell you this? No? Well, a few weeks ago, they backed out of it. No warning. Lost their deposit and everything. And I just talked with Anna Schultz—she says hello, by the way—and she’s heard they’re staying on at the mill. Keeping both apartments.”
“Maybe they’re not getting along,” I said, and it was hard to filter the eagerness out of my voice.
But my mother shook her head. “Anna thinks it’s some kind of financial trouble. Evie Haldiger heard the same thing. You went to school with one of the Haldigers, didn’t you?” She cocked her head, thinking. “Vivian? Or was it Beatrice?”
I couldn’t have cared less about the Haldigers just then. “What expenses could he have, Mom?” I said. “The fish store’s up and down a bit, but he makes good money on those charters. Besides, you and Dad would help him out, if he needed it. And Mallory works, too.”
“Actually, we offered to buy that cottage for them. A wedding gift.” My mother held out the peeled egg. “Anything to get him out of that hellhole.”
“I’m not hungry.”
“You aren’t getting enough protein, I can tell.”
I took the egg; it was rubbery, cool. “So why did they break their contract?”
“I don’t know. But you should know that Toby refused our help with it.”
“Why?”
“Because he felt—well, he and Mal were concerned that it might cause problems with you and Rex.”
“They can’t think we’d be jealous of the money,” I said, flushing at the casual way my mother shortened Mallory’s name.
“They think,” my mother said pointedly, “you’d object to us doing something for him that would also benefit her. And I must admit, I had qualms about it myself. For Evan’s sake.”
I ate the egg. I didn’t know what to say. Had Rex come back from Echo with the news—Christ, your parents even bought them a place to live!—of course, I would have felt betrayed. And yet, I realized, I sincerely wanted Toby to have a home. I wanted him to be happy. He and Mallory were remarkably right for each other, despite the difference in their ages, their lifestyles, their assorted idiosyncrasies. The times they’d babysat for Evan, Rex and I had returned home, late, to find them playing Scrabble at the kitchen table, classical music on the radio, sipping tea made from herbs that Mallory had gathered, wild, along the railroad tracks. Profligate intersecting with claxon; civisms running up against elision. Toby was smart, even brilliant, but he’d barely graduated high school. Mallory had dropped out at sixteen, yet the camper she traveled around in every summer, selling jewelry at festivals and craft fairs, was crammed with paperback classics: Tolstoy, Austen, Camus. Where else would Toby find someone with his level of education, coupled with his own intellectual intensity? Where else would he find somebody who practiced what she preached about the virtues of inner beauty? Beneath the wool cap and the oversize shirts, Mallory was attractive, vibrant. Beside her, Toby both reflected that beauty and, somehow, absorbed it, too.
A few months prior to Evan’s death, Mallory had invited us all to dinner at her efficiency apartment over the mill. “Will we all fit?” I’d asked Toby, who’d said, “Why don’t you come and see?” Rex had begged off, claiming work, but when Evan and I arrived, we discovered a lovely meal laid out on the floor, spread across an Indian print: spinach lasagna, homemade bread, apple pie for dessert. The apartment itself, like Toby’s, was a festival of code violations: taped-over outlets, that bathtub still in the kitchen, the toilet—so I discovered—in a sinkless cell so low that you had to duck your head. But the boarded-up window overlooking the parking lot had been painted with a beaming, golden sun king, and the cracked plaster walls were concealed beneath the long, thriving arms of hanging ivy. A cast-iron dog, nearly three feet tall, kept the warped closet door from opening. A salvaged carousel horse pranced, midair, from its pole; it actually seemed to be bracing up the ceiling.
Evan, of course, had been delighted with it all. He suggested that we abandon our own dining table as soon as we got back home. He liked the futon couch, which doubled as a bed. He especially liked getting to choose his own tea mug from the mismatched assortment that hung, in a descending row, from hooks pushed into the wall.
“You found these in the trash?” he said, his voice scaling upward with admiration and awe.
“It’s amazing what people throw away,” Mallory said. “Pretty much everything in this room is something I found at the curb.”
“Including me,” Toby said, only he was laughing as he said it.
“That’s right,” Mallory said. “Dusted you off, changed your diet—”
“Now, if you could just get him to trim that beard a little bit,” I said, trying to join in, but it was wrong.
“I like your brother’s beard,” Mallory said, meeting my gaze.
I said nothing.
“Total acceptance,” Toby said, jumping in to fill the silence. “What more could any man ask for?”
When we got back home, Evan raced up the stairs to the crow’s nest, eager to tell Rex that we ought to get rid of our table so we, too, could eat on the floor. I put away our coats, cleaned up the remnants of Rex’s solitary supper—he was good about putting dishes away, but never noticed crumbs on the counter—then sat at the table, sorting through the mail, thinking about the way Mallory had looked at me when I’d commented on Toby’s beard. The way I would have looked at anybody, any woman, who’d made a similar remark about Rex. I would never like Mallory Donaldson, I decided. I’d never be fully comfortable in her presence. But I could see how, over time, I might come to like her—even love her—for Toby’s sake.
For her goodness to him. For her protectiveness.
“So what did she serve you?” Rex asked, coming down the stairs. “Weeds and seeds?”
“Lasagna,” Evan said, trooping after him, wearing his spaceship pajamas.
“Everything was homemade,” I said, determined to be positive. “And no white flour. No sugar. The apple pie was sweetened with dates. Did you brush you teeth?” I asked Evan, who arched his back and clung to the banister, echoing, “Brush, brush, brush!”
“Did he brush his teeth?” I asked Rex.
“Not yet,” Rex said, and he was laughing. “I’m sorry, I just can’t imagine Toby eating that way.” He picked Evan up, turned him upside down, carried him down the stairs by the knees. “Do you know what your uncle used to eat for breakfast every day?”
“Eggs!” Evan shouted. His head swung a mere inch from each step; I had to look away.
“A Snickers bar and a Coke.”
“Diet Coke,” I said. “Be fair.”
“And there he is, poor bastard—”
“Rex.”
“Poor chap, eating tofu three times a day.”
He dropped Evan into my lap, right side up, and Evan said, with sudden seriousness: “Mallory doesn’t eat anything that has eyes, Dad.”
“You mean,” Rex said, lowering his voice in exaggerated horror, “she only eats things that are blind?”
For a split second, Evan’s expression mirrored Rex’s, albeit sincerely. Then—zing. He got it. He shrieked with delight. We all were laughing together, now: uncontrollably, deliciously, cruelly. The laughter of people who belong to something, in the presence of someone who doesn’t.
Now I sat with my mother in silence, swallowing the last, dry mouthfuls of egg. Voices passed outside the door, a family heading toward the elevators, the mother’s voice low, but carrying: Don’t run.
“Anna told me something else,” my mother said. “About Cindy Ann. If you want to know.”
I waited.
“She’s not going to be at the wedding. She’s checked herself into some kind of hospital. For people who have been, you know, abused. Sexually, I mean. It’s somewhere north of Madison.” My mother tapped her finger against the glass tabletop. “I never heard anything about her being abused before, did you? Though the stepfather, what was his name—”
“Dan Kolb.” Suddenly cold, I tucked my bare feet under my robe. At least, I thought, I won’t have to see her. At least, she won’t have to see me.
“Anything’s possible, I suppose,” my mother continued. “But it seems like something an attorney would suggest, doesn’t it? To make her situation seem more sympathetic? Though I guess that wouldn’t matter, now that you’ve dropped the suit. And I have to say, I’m glad you did.”
I glanced at her, sharply, but no. She did not suspect the truth. Had there been so much as a whisper afloat, she’d have had the whole story from Evie Haldiger.
“I couldn’t care less about her, you understand,” my mother continued. “But I always hoped she’d pull herself together, for the sake of those girls. And Mal is a decent person, a good person. You can see how hard she tries. She sent us a sympathy card, did I tell you that? On Evan’s anniversary?”
“We didn’t drop the suit,” I said.
My mother looked stunned. “But—of course, you did. Before you bought the boat.”
I got up, walked over to the TV, picked up the FedEx package. “I thought we did,” I said. “But it turns out that Rex didn’t. He and Arnie got a detective to follow Cindy Ann around, taking pictures.”
“Pictures of what?” my mother asked.
I dropped the package between us on the table. “Pictures that document the fact that she’s still drinking. She’s been drinking all along, Mom. Rex always thought that she was.”
“And driving?”
“I suppose it’s safe to assume,” I said, “that if there’s one, there’s probably the other.”
“I don’t believe it,” my mother said. “I just can’t believe she’d be so stupid!”
“Here’s proof,” I said, nodding at the package. “And a settlement offer, too. Supposedly, she’s already signed it. Rex, too—or, at least, Arnie signed on his behalf. All I have to do is write my name on the dotted line.”
My mother was studying my face. “But you don’t want to do it?”
“If I don’t, I think it will be difficult for Rex and me to live together again.”
Suddenly, I felt so unbelievably sad that I had to close my eyes. For God’s sake, I thought. It’s Christmas Eve. It will be our second Christmas without him. And I just stood there for a moment, missing him so overwhelmingly: his body, his physical presence in the world.
“I imagine,” my mother said, gently, “that it’s difficult for two people to live on a boat during the best of times.”
“It’s more than that. We’re not getting over this. We seem better, at least on the surface, but we’re not. We’re just as furious and helpless and—”
My mother put her hand on mine.
“I can’t even talk about it,” I said, “because it just goes around and around in my head. Maybe Rex is right and this won’t ever be resolved unless there’s some kind of concrete restitution. God.” I stood up, but I didn’t move away from that anchoring hand. “I don’t know what I’m doing here. I probably shouldn’t have come back. I wish sometimes that a big wave would come and just—take us. End things. Once and for all.”
For a long time, my mother didn’t speak. Then she said, “You would know, from experience, how I’d feel if that happened.”
I squeezed her hand, sat down again. “I know. I don’t mean it,” I managed to say, although, at that moment, I did. “I guess I ought to look at the photographs, anyway.”
“May I see them, too?”
I shrugged. “Go ahead. It’s just pictures of her sitting around, drinking.”
But when my mother opened the package, dozens of page proofs slid out onto the table, black-and-white glimpses of Cindy Ann’s life, moment by moment, day after day. Unloading groceries, checking her mail, taking out the trash. Standing in front of the bank with Amy; exiting the Cup and Cruller with Monica. At the upscale gym on Lakewood. Sitting on the curb after a run. A separate sleeve of photos had been taken at night, the telescopic lens aimed toward the lighted windows. There was Cindy Ann with Laurel, the two of them watching TV. The four of them eating dinner together. Cindy Ann and Monica playing with one of the cats. And I suddenly saw not only these photos, but also the ones that hadn’t been taken, thousands of intimate snapshots that the detective had glimpsed during that week of her life. Cindy Ann undressing for bed, lamplight pouring down over her body. Passing, bare-shouldered, before the bedroom window, wet-headed from the shower. Dashing out, half-dressed, for the morning paper. He’d been diligent, the detective. Of course, he would have seen everything there was to see.
It was moments just like these Dan Kolb had stolen thirty years ago, biding his time. Private moments of quiet concentration. Casual clothes, careless limbs. A glimpse of a breast, a pale slice of skin.
Maybe he thought you wanted him to.
At the bottom of the pile was a manila envelope with a Post-it note stuck to the back. Jackpot, Arnie had written. Inside, I found enlargements of the most condemning photographs: Cindy Ann at Discount Liquors. Cindy Ann carrying the empty bottles out with the recycling. Sitting at the kitchen counter alone, another bottle in front of her, a half-empty glass. That same glass in her hand. That same glass at her mouth. Her expression like the pale, lost face of a ghost. Lines on either side of her mouth, purplish shadows under her eyes. Flesh thickening, slightly, around her upper arms. A body that might have been my own.
I guessed that Arnie had sent all the photos on purpose, in order that I might see for myself what, once, had galled me, enraged me. The semblance of normalcy in Cindy Ann’s life. The trips to the store, to the bank, to the gym. The meals with her daughters, the bedtime routines. But the longer I looked at each picture, the more obvious it became to me that nothing had been normal in Cindy Ann Kreisler’s life for a very long time. Still, her signature on the settlement agreement looked exactly as I remembered it—swollen with looping circles, curlicues, that dangling, girlish y.
Putting down the pictures, sliding them back into the envelope, I felt as if I was putting away the dark weight of my anger. Again, that unalloyed sadness overwhelmed me: heart to stomach, muscle to bone. How it hurt, and there was nothing to distract me, protect me. I would have to stand and take it on my own.
“Will she go to jail?” my mother asked, and I knew she was seeing what I had seen, because her voice sounded small and sad.
“She could. She isn’t supposed to be drinking.” I touched the fat settlement agreement. “But this is a financial settlement. Basically, she’d be paying us to keep these photos out of court.”
“With what? Evie says her trust money’s gone. The bank’s fore-closing on her house. Her oldest daughter has moved in with friends. From the sound of things, she’s ruined herself completely.”
I waited to feel something: vindication, satisfaction. Instead, what I felt was concern. I remembered Amy in that Dairy Castle uniform, moving toward me like a ghost. Thinking to myself, how strange it was, that she’d have to work the same, terrible job her mother had held. Had hated. Cindy Ann had never said so, but I knew.
A thought occurred to me then. “Have you heard where the younger girls are staying?” I asked. “While Cindy Ann’s at this hospital, I mean?”
“Who knows? Her mother certainly can’t take them. I suppose they’re with her other sister, you know, that Jehovah’s Witness.”
But I was up out of my chair, pacing around the room. I’m not supposed to talk on the phone, that clear little voice had said. The voice of a girl, roughly eight years old.
The voice of Cindy Ann’s youngest daughter.
“I know why Toby is avoiding us,” I said. “He and Mallory are taking care of those kids.”
“In that hellhole?” my mother said. “Good god, I hope not. For everybody’s sake.”
But I was already making plans. I needed to shower and dress. I needed to phone Lindsey Steinke, set up a time to go over our financials. I needed to stop by our house, check on our tenant, pick out a couple of sweaters, mittens, proper boots. After that, however, I’d be free to do some detective work of my own.
“I’m going to find out,” I said.
The potholes scattered through the mill parking lot had been spackled by thick, yellow slabs of ice. Slowly, cautiously, I pulled around back and parked beside the exterior set of stairs leading up to Toby’s apartment. The shades were drawn, but behind them, lights—all the lights, it seemed—were burning gold, the excess spilling out into the gloom. It was barely afternoon and yet, already, there was that sense of impending twilight that seems to linger even on the finest winter days. Clouds lay heavily at the edges of the fields, and the air held the faint, metallic tang that promises below-zero cold. I got out of my mother’s car and nudged my backpack onto the floor, fat with the cedar-smelling socks and pullovers I’d taken from the attic. There was no sign of Toby’s truck or Mallory’s weather-beaten Nova. Still, I could see dark shadows drifting, fishlike, behind the living room shades. Suddenly, I wished I’d waited for my parents, who’d promised to arrive later on in the afternoon. They were probably sitting down to lunch in the Schultzes’ warm kitchen just about now: Anna’s roast chicken, her pineapple upside-down cake.
“Join us,” my mother had said. “Whatever’s going on at the mill will keep for another few hours.”
Instead, I’d called our tenant, Chester Logan. Chester was from Chicago, a twenty-something Internet entrepreneur. He had “checked out of real life”—or so he’d explained, six months earlier—in order to write a technological thriller, something quick and snappy. It was going to sell a million copies, Chester was absolutely certain; Rex and I had listened to the entire plot, sitting at our kitchen table, wishing Chester would just sign the lease and go. Now, Chester was just as certain this novel was going nowhere. He was spending more and more time in Chicago, getting back into the technology game. What would I say if he found a subletter? Or, perhaps Rex and I were getting tired of life at sea? In which case, all I had to do was give him a few days’ notice. All I had to do was say the word.
“Let’s talk about this face-to-face,” I said.
Standing in the entryway of the home where I’d lived for nearly twenty years, I struggled not to burst into tears. The floor tiles were crusted with road salt and grit, the living room carpet hopelessly stained. Dried-out pizza boxes littered the kitchen counters, and a pyramid of empty Budweiser cans decorated the antique buffet. Worst of all was the smell of mildew, the dark spot on the ceiling over the dining room light fixture. Had there been some kind of leak? Chester looked pained.
“Sorry. I was filling the Jacuzzi tub, and, I don’t know, I kind of fell asleep.”
I told Chester I’d get back to him, after Christmas, about the lease, after I’d had time to think things through. After I’d had a chance to talk with Rex—though, already, I knew what Rex would say.
Put the house on the market.
It was what he’d originally wanted to do.
The landing between Toby’s apartment and Mallory’s looked exactly as I’d remembered it: abandoned. The wooden railings were rotting, riddled with holes left by carpenter bees. Dead leaves scattered in crackling ribbons, rearranging themselves with each gust of wind. But a homemade wreath hung from Toby’s door—the kind made out of pinecones, Styrofoam, glitter—and I recognized the same art project I’d been forced to do, forty years earlier, at school. Behind it, two young voices were arguing, rising and falling in a complicated counterpoint that resolved itself, abruptly, in silence. Putting my ear to the door, I could hear a television sitcom: canned laughter, tinny bursts of applause.
“Cut it out!” someone shrieked, and there was a crash, followed by the sort of scream that means business. I tried the door, but it was locked; since when had Toby ever locked the door? The doorbell, of course, was broken. I knocked, then hammered with my fists.
“Is everyone okay in there?” I called.
Instantly, the wailing stopped. Someone turned off the TV. I could hear rapid footsteps, a single bleat of dismay, then nothing.
“Is anybody bleeding?” I called. “Just tell me that.”
Another pause. Then:
“Yes.”
“A lot of blood or a little?”
The wailing began again. The first voice said, a bit impatiently, “She’s okay. She’s always hurting herself.”
Toby had always kept a spare key—heaven knows why—at the top of the doorframe. Feeling around in the grit with my fingertips, I dislodged it. It fell with a Christmasy chime.
“I’m letting myself in,” I said.
“We’re not supposed to let anyone in,” the first voice said.
“Is that Laurel?” I asked, opening the door.
The last thing I expected was the weight of an opposing body, thrown hard against the back of the door, a reverse battering ram. The door slammed on my shoulder, bounced back; I swore, caught the kick plate against my foot, then nudged my knee through the gap. By the time I wriggled inside, both girls were running, screaming, darting around either side of a large, toppled Christmas tree, which stretched the full length of the living room. A cat—one of Cindy Ann’s Angoras—flashed past, round as a puffer fish, every hair standing on end. I could only hope that Mr. Dickens was as deaf as he’d always pretended to be whenever Toby cornered him about apartment repairs.
“It’s okay, it’s okay,” I kept saying. But whose apartment was this? All of the junk and clutter was gone. Not only could you see the floor—aside from the tree, filling the room with its good, green smell—but it was carpeted, and the walls were a bright collage of artwork, prints, dozens and dozens of photographs. My mother’s photographs, in fact; Toby’s share of the framed snapshots that had always embarrassed us so. There he sat, a fat, happy baby. There he was again, holding me in his lap. There was the seemingly endless succession of family pets: the fish and rabbits, the cats and dogs, the terrible lovebird that shrieked and bit us all. Beneath this display was a fat, floral couch, a matching chair and end table. Bookshelves filled with books. Magazines in a basket. The bedroom door closed with a slam, but, before it did, I glimpsed tidy bunk beds, a pink and green rug, the second cat perched on the window ledge. I also saw a little girl, slightly older than Evan would have been, her forehead glossy with blood so red, so brilliant, it looked fake.
Shit.
“Does Toby keep a first aid kit?” I called, stepping into the bathroom. Here, too, everything was tidy. Scoured tiles. Clean towels hanging from the racks. Scented soap in a dish. The only thing I recognized about this place was the cold; I could see my breath with each exhalation.
“I have a gun,” came Laurel’s voice. “You better not try anything.”
For all I knew, this was probably true, but my shoulder hurt and I was starting to lose patience.
“For Pete’s sake, use your head,” I said. “Would I be looking for a first aid kit if I were trying to hurt you?” I found cotton gauze, some iodine. “Now, come out of there so I can look at Monica’s forehead.”
“Who are you? How do you know our names?”
“I’m your aunt. Or, at least, I will be as soon as your aunt marries my brother. Are you going to open that door, or do I need to call the Cup and Cruller?”
The bedroom door opened. Blessedly, there wasn’t any sign of a gun. Just Laurel, standing with folded arms, one hip jutting out. Unlike her sisters, her mother, she was plain: heavyset, fierce as a little bull terrier. Beside her, Monica peered at me impishly, blinking at the blood in her eyes. Both girls wore ski vests over their sweaters. Their noses were running. Their hair needed washing.
“Mal’s not working today,” Laurel said.
“Where is she?”
“What happened to your face?”
How tired I was of that question. The flesh-eating bacteria story had worked so well I considered trotting it out again. But I didn’t have the energy.
“It’s a rash,” I said.
“Oh. I thought that maybe, like, ugly faces just ran in your family or something.”
She was alluding to Toby’s birthmark; it took every ounce of self-possession to keep my expression steady. “Actually, this looked much worse a week ago. Now, would one of you tell me what happened?”
To my surprise, Monica skipped forward, hurled herself into my arms. Too late, I remembered my mother’s pale coat, but already, it was streaked like a candy cane. Evan had died without losing a single drop of blood; at the wake, he’d truly looked like he was sleeping. And now, here was Monica, this living, talking, furious child, bleeding as if she’d slit her jugular.
“She pushed me,” she sobbed. “I was up on the chair—”
“I didn’t push you,” Laurel said, bored. “You fell. Like I said you would.”
“Did she hit the wall?” I asked. “The end table?”
“She wasn’t supposed to touch the tree, okay? We’re supposed to decorate it tonight and, I don’t know, sing campfire songs.”
“Christmas carols,” Monica howled.
“Mum’s in a psycho ward and you’re gonna sit around singing Christmas carols? Sweet.”
Abruptly, Monica stopped crying. “Life goes on,” she said. She sounded like a very old woman when she said it.
“Hold still,” I said, and I parted the wet, sticky mass of her hair. There it was, a half-inch cut, just above the hairline. It didn’t seem too bad; in fact, the bleeding had nearly stopped. I pressed a clean, white square of gauze against the cut. An odd, animal look came over Laurel’s face, part fascination, part loathing. “What are you doing here, anyway?” she said. “Aren’t you supposed to hate us?”
I decided not to risk any answer. “Go to the kitchen,” I told her, instead, “and get me some wet paper towels.”
Instead, she turned and disappeared into the bedroom. Fine. The second cat, still on the window ledge, blinked its golden eyes.
“You’re okay to walk, right?” I asked Monica, who nodded with her whole head—another good sign, I thought. In the kitchen, I had her hold the gauze while I mopped her face, blotted her hair as best I could. She studied me closely as I worked, her gaze moving over me, feature by feature.
“You’re the lady from the accident,” she said.
“Yes,” I said. “I’m going to make you an ice pack, okay?”
“I don’t remember it.”
“The accident?” I was digging around in the freezer. “It happened very fast.”
“No,” she said. “I mean, I don’t remember any of it.”
There were only a few cubes of ice. I wrapped them in a dishcloth printed with roses, settled it onto her head. My shoulder still tingled from the impact of the door; I rubbed it, thinking of Rex. “There are parts I don’t remember, either,” I said, ignoring Rex’s voice in my ear: don’t discuss the accident, don’t reveal anything. What would he say, I wondered, if he knew where I was right now?
“But she doesn’t remember anything for, like, two weeks.” Laurel had reappeared, holding the first cat, draped over her shoulders like a stole. “And she wets the bed. What a nutcase.”
“Shut up.”
“She’s going to end up in a psycho ward, too.” She lowered her voice to a criminal’s hiss. “In a straitjacket. In a room with padded walls.”
If there really had been a gun in that apartment, I would have been a dead woman. “Where’s your aunt today?” I murmured to Monica.
“Helping Grandma move somewhere else.”
“To another nursing home,” Laurel said. “Igor’s helping, too.”
Monica’s pale eyes flashed. “His name is Toby,” she said. For a moment, I could actually see that they were sisters. Half sisters.
“Eee-gore,” Laurel moaned, dropping the cat with a thud. It rocketed back to the girls’ room, shot beneath the bunk beds. I glanced at the kitchen clock. One-fifteen. I doubted my parents would arrive before two.
“Have you girls had lunch?” I asked.
“We’re not hungry.”
“I’m hungry,” Monica said.
In the refrigerator, I found only soy milk, carrot juice, a few slices of veggie cheese. “It doesn’t work,” Laurel said. “Not like we need a refrigerator in here.”
Funny girl. There was brown rice in the cupboard, along with dried beans, lentils, a braid of garlic hanging on the wall.
“What if we order a pizza?” I said, but at that moment, there was a noise on the landing. Footsteps. The door swung open and Toby appeared, plastic bags of groceries dangling from each fist. When he saw me, his birthmark flushed dark, the way it did, blanching the other side of his face. “What the hell?” he began, but then he saw Monica, her bloodstained sweatshirt, her matted hair. In a flash, she was crying hysterically, as hard—if not harder—than when she’d first fallen. He dropped the groceries, vaulted the tree, scooped her up into his arms.
“What happened?” he said, glancing between Laurel and me. “What the hell did you do?”
The question could have been aimed at either one of us. A crafty look passed across Laurel’s face, but before she could open her mouth to blame me, Monica was sobbing out the whole story: how she’d made a special decoration, how she’d tried to put it on the tree, how Laurel had pushed her and then the tree—
“The bleeding’s stopped,” I told Toby, trying not to feel hurt that he’d suspect me, even fleetingly, of hurting this child. “I don’t think she’s going to need stitches. And the cut’s up in her hairline where it isn’t going to show.”
“You know what happens when you get stitches?” Laurel said.
“Laurel,” Toby said, wearily.
“They take this huge needle and they stick it in you. Jah!”
“Can we still have pizza?” Monica asked, sniffling.
“We were about to order one,” I explained, picking up the groceries, setting them on the counter, “but I can make something else, if you want. Burritos?”
I held up the box.
“Those suck,” Laurel said. “They’re vegetarian.”
“Pizza,” Monica said, nodding.
I waited for Toby to agree, but instead he sank onto the couch, still holding Monica in his arms. She tucked herself tightly against him; he rested his chin on the top of her head. It struck me, then. He loved this child. For all I knew, he loved them both.
“What are you doing here?” he asked.
“I came for the wedding,” I said.
“We invited you to join us aboard the Jack, not in our home.”
“Toby.”
“Considering the sort of litigation going on, contrary to what you told me in June—”
“I only told you what Rex told me. I thought I was telling the truth.”
“Funny, but your name’s on the settlement, too.”
“Which I haven’t signed.”
“So sign it. Get it over with. Anything’s better than having it hanging over our heads like this.”
“I suppose you’ve seen the photographs,” I said.
He did not look away. “If you want me to admit that you told me so, okay. You told me so. You and Rex both said that she was still—”
Then he glanced down at Monica, who was staring up at him; suddenly, I felt ashamed.
“I’m sorry,” I said. “This isn’t what I’m here for. I’m going to order that pizza, okay? Besides, Mom and Dad will be here any minute.”
“What?”
“We just want to help, that’s all,” I said. “We figured out why you were hiding from us.”
Toby closed his eyes, defeated. “You don’t know the half of it, believe me.”
“So fill me in.”
He made a slight, negative motion with his head.
“He can’t talk in front of the baby,” Lauren said. “And, besides, you’re not here to help. You’re here to spy on us. You might fool him, but you can’t fool me.”
“Should I call Pizza Haven?” I asked Toby, ignoring her, as if she were a tantruming two-year-old, kicking and screaming in the candy aisle.
“Out of business. There’s Pizza Hut.”
“You’re a spy,” Laurel shouted, “and he’s a pervert!”
“Pizza Hut, then,” I said, sliding the phone book out from underneath the phone. “But can I order something with meat?”
Toby and Monica said, together, “No meat.”
Laurel kicked the Christmas tree. “Nobody ever listens to me! Maybe I should just run away!”
“Well, stick around for one more day, if you can stand it,” Toby said, calmly. “Your mother’s coming home.”
In her astonishment, Laurel looked, abruptly, like the child she was. Monica, on the other hand, was suspicious.
“When?” she asked.
“Tonight, actually.”
“Is she better?”
Toby bit his lip. “We’ll have to see.” He looked at me. “She just called Mal from the hospital. We don’t have all the details, but the long and the short of it is, the insurance denied the claim. The hospital’s kicking her out. They won’t even let her spend the night.”
“But it’s Christmas Eve,” I said.
“And Mal’s got her hands full, getting her mother settled—did I mention they think Lena might have had a minor stroke?—which means I’ve got to drive to Twin Lakes to pick up Cindy Ann myself. That’s three hours round-trip, and the truck doesn’t have any heat right now and the guy I hired to fill in at the store hasn’t shown up for the past week. Oh, yeah, and Mal and I are getting married in forty-eight hours.”
“And the Christmas tree fell down,” Monica whispered, as if, once again, she might start to cry.
“Are you ever going to call for that pizza?” Laurel said.
I looked at her as if she were an alien. Then again, I was hungry, too. “Sure,” I said. “Why not?”
I called from the phone in the kitchen. When I returned to the living room, Toby was hauling the tree upright, and Laurel and Monica were settling down to watch a video. “It’ll be thirty minutes,” I said, steadying the upper branches while he adjusted the stand.
“I still can’t believe you’re here,” he said.
“I can’t quite believe it myself. I only got the invitation last week.”
“You said on your message. Actually, I’m surprised that it found you at all.”
We looked at each other.
“I really didn’t know about the suit,” I said. “I’ve been sick about this, Toby, truly.”
He nodded toward the kitchen, and I followed him there, leaving the girls glued to the screen. I braced myself for his questions, his anger, but as soon as we were out of their sight, he merely knelt before the oven, lit the pilot, left the door open like a gaping mouth. The first faint breaths of warmth stirred the air; I put out my hands, rubbed them together. Even the oven racks, I noticed, had been cleaned.
“This is how we heat the place,” Toby said, leaning back against the counter. “But we can’t let the girls light the pilot unless one of us is here, and we just aren’t prepared—we’re simply not equipped—”
“It will be easier,” I said, “once Cindy Ann is back again.”
But Toby shook his head. “I can’t believe they’re sending her home,” he said. “She was practically catatonic, Meg. Her therapist told us about this place, it’s for women who have survived some kind of—” He glanced toward the living room. “Trauma.”
I nodded. “I know. Mom told me.”
“How does Mom know about any of this?”
“We’re in Fox Harbor, remember?”
He smiled, but only with his mouth. “The thing is,” he said, “Cindy Ann liked it there. She thought it was helping. I thought it was helping. I actually had a conversation with her, and she apologized for calling me—well, the things she calls me whenever she’s been drinking.”
“Things like what?” I said.
Once again, he closed his eyes. I realized, with a start, that he was fighting tears. In all the years I’d known him, I’d never seen him cry, aside from Evan’s funeral. And then, again, six months later, when Rex and I told him good-bye.
“Toby,” I said. “Jesus. How can I help?”
A full minute passed before he spoke. “You could open the fish store for a few hours. Check the stock, do feedings. There’s instructions on the fridge. If Mom and Dad are coming anyway, maybe they’d keep an eye on the girls so I don’t have to drag them up to Twin Lakes. Especially since I don’t know what Cindy Ann’s state of mind’s going to be when I get there.”
But I had a better idea. “You go to the store,” I said. “I’ll stay with the girls until Mom and Dad come, and then—”
“Mom and Dad can’t drive to Twin Lakes. It’s a long way, Meg, and it’s going to be late—”
“I know,” I said. “What I’m saying is, I’ll do it. I’ll pick up Cindy Ann.”