“But the tender grace of a day that is dead  Will never ...

As she came onto the porch, she saw her dad sitting in his favorite chair. He had papers spread around him, his black-rimmed reading glasses perched on his nose and a pencil over his ear, frowning at something. The same ratty floor lamp with the masking tape patches that she’d used to read her favorite books shone over his shoulder, bathing him in a cone of yellow light. He had on his test correcting music. Even over the rain, she could hear the stirring Beethoven.

She paused there, watching, as he plucked the pencil from his ear, made a notation on a paper, scratched his head with the eraser, and parked it again. She was weary and her eyes ached, but viewing this familiar scene, she felt a lightening of her gloom. So comforting to know that however screwed up some parts of life might be, things here were normal and predictable.

A jagged bolt of lightning raced like a strobe light through the black sky, washing everything in stark white light. From habit, she counted the seconds. Steam engine one. Steam engine two. Steam engine three. Kablaam! A crash of thunder rattled the windows. Her father raised his head, looked around, and came over to peer out. Jenny considered teasing him by staying where she was and peering in, but all he would see was a dark shape. She hurried to the door and turned the knob. It was locked. They never locked the door. She knocked.

Locks were undone and the door flew wide. Her father scooped her off her feet, and carried her into the hall, setting her down with a thump. He snapped on the overhead light and studied her the way he always did when she’d been gone more than a few days. She knew what was coming. The inventory. “Let’s see. Four limbs. One head. Two eyes. Nose. Mouth. Two ears. Still got all your teeth? No visible body piercing. No canes or crutches or other signs of disability. I guess we’ll keep you.” He would have kept her with canes, crutches and multiple body-piercing. Still, she found the ritual comforting.

He reached past her, pushed the door shut and turned the dead bolt. “Come in the kitchen,” he said. “I’ll make some tea. We weren’t expecting you until tomorrow.”

She hung her coat on a peg and followed him into the kitchen, noticing he gave the room a quick scrutiny before entering. “What’s with the locks and bolts, and knock-knock, who’s there?”

He grabbed the kettle off the stove and filled it. Waited for the burner to burst into flame. “Somebody tried to break in yesterday while we were at work. Luckily, Mrs. Mason saw them and called the police.”

Home was supposed to be inviolable. Jenny’s stomach knotted. She’d come here for sanctuary. “They catch ’em?”

He shook his head. “Gone by the time the police got here. Seems that after Mrs. Mason called 911, she got out Hugh’s shotgun and came over to make sure nothing happened before the police arrived. She found two of ’em using a crowbar on the back door, called out, ‘Yoohoo!’ and when they turned, she put the first barrel into the ground by their feet. Says she didn’t mean to do it, that thing always had a hair-trigger. She says they lit out for their car like the devil was chasin’ ’em. Much as it bothers me to think of someone trying to break in, I wish I’d seen it.”

Jenny nodded. Adele Mason was bean-pole skinny, seventy-seven years old, and about 4’ 10”. The biggest thing about her was her voice. She was one of the women her mother had used as a role model when Jenny was growing up. She never let size, age, sex or any other damned thing stand in her way. She had married her sweetheart, borne him a son, then seen him go off to Vietnam, and gotten back a changed and shaken soul, a man too timid to drive or hold a job, barely able to leave the house. Other women might have crumbled under such a burden, or wallowed in self-pity at the bad hand fate had dealt. Adele Mason had taken tender, loving care of her husband for forty years without a word of complaint. Along the way, she’d borne two more sons, the last when she was in her forties, and afterwards, started a trucking business. The business grew along with the sons. When Adele retired at seventy, she’d passed along a rock-solid work ethic and a thriving business.

She could have moved to a bigger house, bought fancy clothes, a nicer car, but Adele was a make-do Yankee. She’d taught Jenny how to knit, crochet, make a quilt, and how to make jam and jelly, things Jenny’s mother had lacked the skills to teach. She’d served as Jenny’s surrogate grandmother, coming to Jenny’s concerts, her plays, her high school graduation. She had taught Jenny to take pride in her accomplishments and chided her when she was afraid to be good in school because the boys made fun.

Her sons, Hugh, Tom, and Andy had been Jenny’s uncles. Hugh taught her the constellations, sitting outside with her on summer nights, showing her the sky through his telescope. Tom taught her to shoot cans off the fence. Andy, the youngest, had been her favorite. He’d let her ride with him on the tractor, letting her steer while he worked the pedals. She’d called him ‘Dandy’ even since she’d first toddled over to him on chubby legs and held out her arms, demanding, “Pick me up, Dandy.” She hadn’t even realized it wasn’t his name until she was about eight. He’d called her ‘Spitfire,’ ‘Spit’ for short and still did. Dandy had taught her to hit a softball and drive a truck. How to say ‘no’ to a guy and mean it. When Dandy got married, she’d felt betrayed. Recently, Dandy’s wife had left him, taken their kid out of state, and broken his heart.

“Jenny, you want anything in this? Milk, sugar, lemon?” He had to repeat the question twice before he got her attention.

“Have I got honey?” He opened the pantry closet and called back over his shoulder, “Rosemary, clover, or Old Stroudwater?”

“Old Stroudwater? What the heck? Sounds like vodka, or something Tom and Huck had to take to the cemetery.”

“I’ll have clover. Rosemary doesn’t sound right for tea. Where’s Mom?”

He tipped his head sideways as though considering. “Well, let’s see. It’s Saturday night, so where would she be? Country western line dancing? Down at The Brewery, slurping suds? Baked bean supper? Give me your best guess.”

“Bingo,” he said. “Give the woman a prize. Let’s see what we’ve got. Rubber chicken? Whoopee cushion?” He took something from the top of the refrigerator. “How about a stuffed rabbit that eats a carrot if you wind it up?” He wound it and set it in front of her. Its buck-teeth chattered as it raised its paw and stuck a mangy-looking felt carrot into its mouth. After the tenth time, she wanted to shoot it.

“Physics class. It was competing with me for attention, so it was forfeited in the interests of science.” He sat down across from her. “Pleasantries being dispensed with, tell me why you’ve been crying, kiddo.”

Her tears flooded back. “Oh, Daddy. That rat Drew… he…” Her father offered a handkerchief smelling of Ivory Snow and hot irons. God, it was good to be home! Through high school and college she’d listened to people complain about their families. How had she gotten so lucky? This big calm man with the ugly name, Elmer, had always been there to pass her handkerchiefs and to listen when she needed that.

She blinked back tears. “I came home early from the library last night and caught Drew in bed with my friend Betty. He said it was no big deal. That Betty didn’t matter to him so sleeping with her shouldn’t matter to me. I don’t see how having sex with someone you don’t care about is less of a betrayal.” She stared at the floor. Decades of busy feet had worn the pattern off the linoleum. Her parents, more into ideas than decor, hadn’t bothered to replace it.

“I was shocked. It was as if he’d stabbed me, and he stands there, stark naked, smiling and trying to make conversation. I couldn’t stay to talk about it. I told him to get dressed, then grabbed my stuff, got in the car, and started driving.”

She shrugged. “And here I am. My lover. My best friend. I just don’t understand.”

“You know I don’t like change,” she said warily.

“Jennifer Cates, you’re only twenty-one. You should embrace change.”

“Sorry. Too many generations of Maine stick-in-the-muds, I guess.”

“Stick-in-the-muds? They were adventurous, Jen. Think of it. Leaving their settled homes and lives and coming to a wild, harsh place like Maine. Bears and Indians. French trappers. No law and order. No near neighbors. On my side of the family, you’ve got pioneers, not stick-in-the-muds, and on your mother’s side? Well, if anything, they were more adventurous. Fleeing Cossacks and pogroms. Traveling across Europe by night, frightened, hungry, hunted, hoping to get someplace where they could take a ship to America.”

“You make it sound so dramatic.”

“It was dramatic, kiddo. It was nature red in tooth and claw, as Tennyson said.” She drank her tea. Tea always tasted better here. Maybe it was well water. The water in her apartment always smelled like chlorine. The clock on the wall said ten. “Shouldn’t Mom be back by now?”

He looked at the clock and then his watch, as if he doubted the number. “She should. She just ran down to pick up a few files, said she’d be back by nine-thirty. There was a program she wanted to watch at ten. But you know how she is. Maybe there was something in the mail or a phone call to return, even if it is Saturday night. If she’s immersed in her work, a tornado could carry the building away, and she’d just brace herself with a foot and keep working. That’s where you get your passion for work from.”

“I got a double dose.” She smiled at him. “You weren’t eating bon bons and reading the latest Tom Clancy, were you?”

“Were you spying on me?”

“Watching. Indulging in a moment of nostalgia.”

“Nostalgia. Haven’t they got some new medicine for that? Clears your sinuses and relieves nostalgia in minutes?”

“You should talk. You still have the little metal soldiers you played with as a boy.”

“Probably worth a fortune by now. I’m saving them for my retirement.”

“To sell?”

“To play with.” He checked his watch again. “Let’s call your mother, tell her you’re home.”

Jenny looked around the kitchen, so comfortingly familiar. The same pictures and cartoons and invitations stuck to the refrigerator by a motley assortment of magnets. The same canisters and appliances on the counters. The African violets by the sink, plants her mother disliked but tended out of duty. Gifts over the years from Adele. Sensing they weren’t loved, they would not thrive, but neither would they die. Except one, which bloomed lavishly, obscenely, a mass of pale pink flowers. This was the one her mother had dashed to the floor at Christmas, yelling, “Three leaves. Seven years this plant has camped out here with three miserable leaves, not doing a damned thing! A wart would be more satisfying.” Crash went the pot. Smash went the plant. In a moment of weakness, her mother had repotted it and put it back on the shelf. It had bloomed ever since.

She laughed.

“What’s this?” he said. “I thought you were in the depths.”

“That stupid plant.”

“Your mother is thinking of changing professions. Abusive plant therapy. She thinks it would be fun to have a greenhouse where she tossed plants around, beat them up, and generally mistreated them. No more judges, opposing attorneys, desperate clients or paperwork.”

He crossed to the phone. Beside it was a message board. One message said, “Call Drew.” Like there was anything he could say that would make things okay. She erased it.

Her father dialed a number, waited, hung up. “She’s not answering. Must be on her way.” This time they both checked their watches. The office was five minutes away. Her father wandered over to stare out the window. “Lotta rain,” he said.

She murmured an assent. She was watching the second hand on the clock make its rounds. A violent crack as jagged lightning shot through the darkness. A ball of blue fire shot out of the telephone, crackling in the air. Jenny counted. Steam engine one. Steam engine. This time the roar was so loud she jumped and cried out. Her father put an arm around her shoulders. “Some storm,” he said. The lights flickered and went out.

Automatically, she opened a kitchen drawer, took out a flashlight, and opened the pantry door to look for candles. The power went out often enough that her mother kept a supply of candles, batteries, and a propane lantern on the top shelf. She got down the lantern and handed it to her father. There was a hiss, the scratch of a match, and then the kitchen was filled with glaring light. “Ugly,” she said.

“Useful.” He checked his watch. “Been fifteen minutes.”

“We should go check.”

“I can go. You’ve driven enough. You’re tired.”

“No, Daddy. You can’t leave me alone in this scary house. Besides, my car is behind yours.”

“Wouldn’t be the first time I’ve maneuvered around your car, kiddo.” He turned the lantern down low and found a second flashlight. “Get your coat, then.”

Her coat smelled like fast food and bad coffee. She wrinkled her nose as she grabbed a baseball cap off a peg. A red one with Mason Brothers Trucking on it, stolen from Dandy at Christmas. Her father undid the locks, waited for her, then patiently redid them. She slid behind the wheel, waited until he’d fastened his seatbelt, and backed smoothly out of the driveway. Around them the night roared and crackled. All the lights on the street were out.

They crawled down the street, the car plowing through giant puddles like a sturdy little tug. Stopped at the corner and turned right, flowing with the streaming water down the big hill to Main Street and turned right again. She pulled in and stopped behind her mother’s battered old Saab, then squeezed her father’s hand. They didn’t speak. They opened and closed their doors in unison, and ran to her mother’s building. The door opened with a squeal, admitting them to a staircase. The power here was on but the lighting was dim—a single bulb trying to illuminate a brownish yellow stairwell and the worn wooden stairs. Her mother was a poverty lawyer. Her clients couldn’t pay for plush carpeting and fancy digs.

Their feet echoed hollowly on the uncarpeted stairs. At the top, they turned left. The office door, a half-glassed number with Lila Friedman, Attorney-at-Law, in chipped gold letters, stood open. The room beyond was dark. Jenny reached for the light switch, snapped it on, and put her hand to her mouth, muffling a scream. The room had been ransacked. Files had been dumped, drawers pulled open, books knocked off the shelf. The flowers Lila always had lay on the rug. Side-by-side they stepped into the big room where her paralegal and the secretary worked, trying not to step on the papers. The office beyond was dark and the door was shut.

“Maybe she went to get the police,” he said. “We should check.”

“Wait!” Jenny stepped across the room like someone crossing a stream on slippery rocks, and opened her mother’s office door. She flicked the light switch. Nothing. Light coming in through the low, crescent windows, wasn’t bright enough. She pulled out her flashlight, sliding the beam nervously around the big dark room. Like the outer office, this room had been trashed. Papers lay in drifts on the threadbare carpet. She explored the room with the beam of light, finding nothing.

“Over there.” Her father pointed with his flashlight. “What’s that?” Something white was sticking out from behind the desk.

Jenny started walking, keeping the beam on it as they crossed the room. They moved slowly, avoiding the strewn papers, until they could see a slender woman’s hand, unadorned except for a slim gold band.

“Lila!” Her father rushed forward and threw himself down beside the still figure.

Jenny followed quickly, bringing the light. The yellow circle fell like a spotlight on the woman on the floor. She lay face down in a pool of blood, her long, dark hair hiding her face.

“Lila!” he said again as his fingers burrowed through the hair, seeking a pulse. “Oh. Lila. No!” He pulled his hand back and buried his face in both hands, then sprawled across the woman’s body, sobbing.

Jenny gripped her mother’s wrist with gentle fingers, searching for a pulse. She felt as if the world had come loose from its moorings. Nothing that was supposed to be, was. Not back in Ohio, not here. “Come on,” she whispered. “Please. Be alive.”

Outside the window, lightning slammed into a transformer. A spectacular shower of sparks cascaded toward the ground like fireworks. The dim light in the other room went out.

She shifted her fingers and tried again.

“It’s no use, Jenny,” he said. “She’s gone.”

Then she felt it. A thin, faint pulsing under her fingers. “No, Daddy. No. She’s alive.”

Her mother lay in a pool of her own blood, a heavy cut-glass vase in pieces around her head. Her father was draped across the body, his crying sharp as knives in the cold, dark room. He hadn’t heard what she’d just said. She grabbed the phone on her mother’s desk. The line was dead. She fumbled her cell phone out of her pocket and called 911.

“Daddy, there’s an ambulance coming,” she said. He hadn’t heard. He was muttering to his wife, telling her how much he loved her. Jenny hurried across the office, heedless of the papers this time, rushed downstairs, and into the street. The rain had turned to snow. Fat flakes slapped her face and clung to her hair. She stood at the edge of the street and waited for help to arrive.