STRANGELY, EVEN AFTER THE STORY IS OVER, and he knows everything, and nothing is left to be told, David Peterson doesn’t stop going by Mr. Hart’s house. He rides over the next day, and the next, and the next. There’s a lot to be done around the yard. David cuts and prunes, digs and snips, plants and grooms. He takes down the dead tree limb out by the road. He’s good at this work and, out of sight of his father, really enjoys it. The old man is happy to have him. They talk easily back and forth.
Have you written my story down yet? Mr. Hart asks.
No, David admits.
Well, get going. I’m not going to last forever!
I don’t know how to start.
At the beginning, Mr. Hart says. At Coulter’s Beach, when we found that body. I’ve still got Tony Mordello’s tobacco pouch, if that’ll get you going.
Is the half fifty-dollar bill still in it?
Where else?
The old man goes in his bedroom and comes out with a limp leather pouch that looks as if it’s been squashed under a mattress for most of its life. Which it has, Mr. Hart acknowledges. He never found a better place.
Open it, he orders. David does, and there amid the now almost scentless crumblings of what used to be tobacco leaf, he finds the old half bill, wrinkled and pale with age, but still giving off an aura of intrigue.
You take it, Mr. Hart says. I don’t need it anymore.
Really? The pouch, too?
It’s yours. Time it passed to somebody else.
Thanks! I’ll keep it safe.
I know you will.
I hitched down to Coulter’s Beach the other day. Tom Morrison’s shack isn’t there anymore, David says.
Mr. Hart nods. He’s spruced himself up this morning. His hair is slicked back. He’s wearing a clean shirt. Broom in hand, he’s been sweeping off the porch, all the while keeping an eager eye on the driveway. He heard from his wife last night. She’s coming home today. Could arrive anytime.
Tom’s chicken coops went out in the 1938 hurricane, Mr. Hart says. Tom didn’t care. He’d died and gone to the town cemetery five years before. I used to wonder how he was bearing up in such a civilized place, with all that company.
David grins. What happened to Sadie? After Billy was killed, I mean.
She stayed on with Tom just as you’d expect. Became a great crabber. Marina and I went down there from time to time. Tom always cheered us up. He was one of those that carry on no matter the hardship. It showed you what was possible.
I walked around that cemetery, David says. I found Eileen McKenzie’s grave.
Mr. Hart answers with a grunt. That cemetery has a good part of the town in it now. At least the part I grew up with.
I saw John Appleby’s name on a stone. Is that him?
Must be. He died young. A hunting accident is what they said. I always wondered. He was the kind of stinker nobody likes having around.
Fanny DeSousa, Mildred Cumming, Charlie Pope.
Yes, they’re all there. Mildred just died, lived to be ninety-six. People last a long time around here. Did you see the Hart plot in the south corner? It’s where I’m headed. My father and mother are both in residence. Aunt Grace, too. She never could find anyone who knew the score better than she did.
I saw them. I couldn’t find any McKenzies besides Eileen.
Nope, and you never will. Jeddy wouldn’t want to come back dead any more than he did alive. I don’t even know where the chief is buried.
What happened to Marina?
This question goes unanswered, and when David looks up from the bush he’s attacking with the clippers, he sees Mr. Hart staring at him. His glasses give off an amused glint. If you don’t know already what happened to her, I guess I won’t tell you.
At that moment, the sound of wheels comes from the driveway and a taxi pulls up. Mr. Hart drops his broom like a hot potato. He gives his hair one last swipe, straightens his shirt and hustles down the porch steps to greet it.
She’s here! he cries to David. She’s come back at last!