A grave denied (40 page)

Mac Devlin, now at the controls of the cherry picker, paused in the act of raising a load of shingles to the roof to take a drink. “Fine day,” he said, red face shining with sweat. He might even have smiled.

Auntie Joy scurried by with a nail gun and plucked up two cans of Diet Sprite on the run, tossing one to George Perry, who paused in the countersinking of Sheetrock screws for a cold drink. “God, how I hate Sheetrock dust,” he said cheerfully, and went back to work. Dan O’Brian and Millicent Nebeker McClanahan were stapling electrical cable to the studs right in front of him, and right behind him—“Anne!” Kate said. “Anne Flanagan! What are you doing here?”

“Cutting holes for the outlets,” the minister said, laughing. “Did you think I would miss out on this?”

Bernie and Enid Koslowski were mudding and taping one wall, working together smoothly, like a team who had done this before. On the opposite wall two older women were doing the same thing, one climbing a ladder to work on the open area above the living room, the other holding the ladder. Kate took a second look, unable to believe her first. “Cindy? Olga?”

Olga Shapsnikoff and Cindy Sovalik paid her no attention. “Old woman, you are not using enough mud on that seam,” Olga said.

From the top of the ladder Cindy Sovalik said, “Old woman, how can I put enough mud on the seam when this ladder shakes like there is an earthquake underfoot?”

Old Sam Dementieff was on the roof, skipping nimbly from rafter to rafter, accompanied by the rat-a-tat of a staple gun. Kate handed up a can of pop. “I can’t believe this,” she told him. “I just—I can’t—” Speech failed her.

He grinned down at her, sweat dripping from his nose. “Believe it,” he said.

And if Kate had been worried as to how to fill up all this achingly empty new space, her fears would have been allayed by the appearance of two beds and a couch big enough to fill up the living room all by itself and a dining table with four chairs handcarved from some kind of pine. There were pillows and sets of sheets to fit both beds, with blankets to spare, and kitchen utensils, and Costco packs of Ivory soap and toilet paper and paper towels. Keith and Oscar brought her a flat full of herb starters. “It’s not for the house exactly,” Oscar said, a little shy.

“They’re exactly right,” Kate told him.

“Here,” Old Sam growled, shoving a book at her, and damning the duo with a suspicious glare. “Get your library kick-started.”

Kate had to blink several times before she could focus on the page she opened at random. “‘There’s the picture—and it isn’t exaggerated,” “ she read.

We find them everywhere. Slowly, but surely, our male citizenry is becoming emasculated to the point of utter helplessness. Sliding along, content in their weakness, glorying in their inability to do things. Proud of the fact that they’ve never been taught to use their hands—and blind also, to the fact that they know mighty little about using their heads.

A laugh was surprised out of her, and she looked at the cover.
“Modern Gunsmithing”
she said. It had been published in 1933. She looked up at Old Sam, whose name was written on the flyleaf in round, careful boyish letters. “Thank you, Uncle.”

He nodded, satisfied, and stumped off.

But it was the gift from the four aunties that rendered Kate speechless. It was a handmade quilt embroidered and appliqued with Alaskan wildflowers, so colorfully and painstakingly made that they were even more glorious than the real thing. It was a solid piece of work, thick and soft and heavy.

“You have a son now,” Auntie Balasha said.

“So you get a quilt,” Auntie Joy said.

“You sleep warm under it,” Auntie Edna said.

“You watch that boy,” Auntie Vi said, “he get too skinny, you send him to me, I fatten him up.”

The expression on Kate’s face must have been enough, because they, too, stumped away with satisfied expressions.

Dinah said softly, “Everyone I talked to wanted to help, Kate. The people who couldn’t make it to the house-raising contributed materials or phone minutes or ran around for me in Anchorage or sent gifts. This wasn’t just the Park, this was pretty damn near the whole state. Brandan says hi, by the way. So does Andy Pence.” She smiled a little. “Bobby may never speak to me again, however. He’s so pissed he missed this.”

“He’s okay?”

Dinah nodded. “He’s okay. He’s staying for the funeral at Jeffrey’s request, but he’ll be back on Sunday.”

Kate smiled at her. “Is he glad he went?”

“Yeah. It was tough, he said, but his father was glad to see him, and his mother was glad because his father was glad.” She grinned. “He showed them a picture of me and Dinah, and Jeffrey was afraid it was going to push the dad into the great beyond then and there.”

Kate laughed. “Bring him out right away so I can show him the new house.”

Dinah’s eyes glinted. “Well, maybe not right away.”

By midnight it was done, right down to the plumbing and the wiring. Kate wandered around the inside, half dazed. The heavy wooden door fit solidly into its frame, weather-stripped within an inch of its life and snug behind a glass storm door. There were wall plates over the light switches and the electrical outlets. There were toilets in the bathrooms. There was a refrigerator and a stove in the kitchen, both propane-powered. A brand new woodstove big enough to heat the whole house stood in one corner of the living room, with pipe ascending to the ceiling and emerging outside in a capped chimney.

Oh, she still had to paint, and get a fuel tank for the furnace, and they’d left the choice and installation of floor covering up to her, but the windows were all in and they opened with little cranks and they had screens on them, even up in the loft. There was a deck—a deck, she couldn’t believe it.

The whole house smelled sweetly of cedar. In the morning, light would pour into the house from the windows that started at the floor and ended just beneath the eaves. Through them, the Quilak Mountains curved south and diminished into the west, and she could almost imagine that she could see a blue shine off the surface of Prince William Sound. She would wake up to that view every morning of her life.

She took a deep breath, blinked back tears, and walked out the door of the kitchen onto the deck and up to the brand-new railing, looking at the people sprawled around her front yard.

Jim Chopin was squatting at the edge of the crowd over a toolbox, wiping tools with an oily rag and stowing them away. He was responsible for some of the kitchen; she had seen him working in it. He felt her gaze and looked up.

She held it for a moment, and then let her eyes drop down over his body. She raised them again just as slowly, loitering here and there, a long, lingering, and from the expression on his face, almost palpable look. She met his eyes again, and smiled, a smile that told him she knew exactly what changes her look had wrought. He flushed right up to the roots of his hair, definitely a first in Park history, slammed the toolbox shut, and took off out of the clearing as if the hounds of hell were at his heels.

She looked back at the rest of them, her relatives, her friends, her fellow Park rats—yes, her family. No less than three barbecues were broiling hamburgers and hot dogs. Folding tables had been set edge to edge with buns and condiments and salads and desserts and a tower of paper plates and a bucket full of plastic flatware. Now that the work was done, tubs of beer packed in ice appeared. Someone was strumming a guitar and a few voices were beginning to sing along.

“Hey,” she said. Nobody heard her. “Hey,” she said, more loudly this time. Heads turned and voices stilled. She felt movement beside her and turned to see Johnny. Vanessa watched both of them through the window.

Kate held out an arm, and Johnny came to stand within its curve. “The kid and I want to say thanks for our new house. Thanks.” She laughed a little and shook her head. “There are no words.”

Her eyes filled with tears. There was nothing she could say that would express the fullness of her heart. Johnny gave her an awkward boy’s hug, and she hugged him right back.

People rose up, one by one, until everyone was on their feet. “Here’s to Kate’s new house,” Billy Mike said.

“Hear, hear,” someone else said.

“Here’s to Kate,” a third person said. There were cheers and whoops and whistles, and a growing, deafening sound of applause that thundered up into the perpetual twilight of an Arctic spring, spreading across the Park to Niniltna and the Step and the foothills and the Quilaks and the coast and the Gulf and— who knew? Perhaps even beyond.

Kate held up a hand for silence. She got it, eventually. She looked around for her glass and Johnny thrust his pop can into her hand.

“No,” she said, and raised the pop can like it was a crystal chalice filled with only the best champagne.

“Here’s to you.”

Sunday,June 1

I don’t believe this house we’ve got, this is nicer than Mom’s house in Anchorage, it’s as nice as Dad’s house on Westchester Lagoon. Everything is so new, I’m afraid to touch anything. Kate says that’s what a house is for, to live in, and that dirt happens and she’s bound to track in as much or more than me. And I have my own room, and there is an indoor toilet and Kate says maybe we’ll even get a hot water heater and be able to have showers!

I know Kate’s a little sad still about the cabin being gone. I mean, her father built it and she was born in it, so I can understand. But the new house is so cool, and the way it got built is even cooler. Ms. Doogan said it was positively Amish.

Van is living with Mr. and Mrs. Mike. She says it seems kind of funny to be living with the parents of the guy her uncle murdered, but she says they love kids and that seems to include her. They’ve got a little baby they adopted from Korea and sometimes she baby-sits and she likes that, too, especially since they pay her. There might be some trouble with DYFS when they find out that Billy and Annie just took her in, Kate says, and I’m quoting, “but it’s not like we haven’t bearded that lion in his den and whupped his ass before.” Sheesh.

Van says they talk at the Mikes, and you can play music and make as much noise as you want, Annie doesn’t mind. I’m letting Van settle in and then I’ll go visit. Mrs. Mike makes fry bread almost as good as Auntie Vi’s.

Jim hasn’t been around much lately, but we heard that Virgil Hagberg pled guilty to all charges. Auntie Vi says the stuffing went out of him when Telma was put into care, whatever that means. Hard to feel sorry for him. I mean, he killed two people and he would have killed Kate if we hadn’t shown up in time. And me, when he burned down the cabin. And Mutt. Still, it’s sad. Those poor dead babies. Mrs. Hagberg must really be crazy.

I’ve been reading up on the corvis family of birds, magpies, crows, jays, and ravens. I was having a hard time dealing with what they did to Mr. Mike’s son. I know it’s just nature but it was really ugly. I told Ruthe about it and she gave me a couple of books and I’ve been reading them. This Bernd Heinrich guy has spent a whole lot of time with birds, I’ll say that much for him.

I think I saw a wolverine the other day. I didn’t tell Kate because she hates them, which is kind of funny because she’s kind of like a wolverine. They’re pretty solitary and so is she. They defend what’s theirs and so does she. They need a lot of territory, a lot of space, and so does she. They stay off by themselves except in mating season. No way I’m going near that one. The wolverine I saw was beautiful, almost black with two lighter stripes down its sides, real shiny coat, shiny as Kate’s hair. It looked very tough and muscular, able to take care of itself. That’s like Kate, too.

Kate’s got her bedroom in the loft and I can hear her moving around up there. She’s already scrounging for some Blazo boxes so she can have shelves. I tell her she ought to break down and buy a dresser, but she say that an old Blazo box is probably better made than any new piece of furniture. I don’t know, my new bed is kinda comfortable. I like it.

The other day I asked Kate a question. “Why don’t you carry a gun?” I said. I mean, if she carried a gun, no way would Mr. Hagberg have been able to take her out with a shovel. Dad had a gun. Jim Chopin has a gun. Kate gets into it with bad guys all the time. I can’t figure why she doesn’t carry one. And then when she does, like when she grabbed the rifle when we heard Mac Devlin’s Cat up the trail, she never even took the safety off.

She got this funny look on her face. “Guns are too easy,” she said. And that’s all she said.

So now I’m wondering. Too easy for what? Too easy to shoot? But if someone’s trying to kill you you’ve got a right to defend yourself, and why should you have to work at it, why shouldn’t it be easy?

I’ll never understand Kate. Van says maybe I’m not supposed to, and maybe I’m not. She’s got a lot to teach me, though, Kate does, and I want to learn it all.

I’m home.