A Spool of Blue Thread (16 page)

“I know he doesn’t mean any harm, but I have poems and private journals and little thoughts I’ve jotted down. I’d feel silly if anyone saw them.”

“Well, of course,” Nora said.

“So I figured I’d haul it all to the sunroom and do some pruning. Then I’ll see if Red will lend me one of his desk drawers.”

“I’d be happy to bring down what’s left,” Nora said.

“Oh, I think I’ve got everything, dear.”

And the two of them went their separate ways.

For supper they had Denny’s grilled steaks and Nora’s homemade
succotash. Nora cooked in a sort of country style; succotash wasn’t something the rest of them were accustomed to. And she did that modern thing of preparing a whole different dish for the children when they wouldn’t eat their steaks. She went out to the kitchen without complaint and fixed macaroni and cheese from a box. Abby told the boys, “Oh, your poor mother! Isn’t she nice to get up from her meal and make you something special,” which was her way of saying that her own children used to eat what was set before them. But the boys had heard this before, and they just gazed at her expressionlessly. Only Red seemed to read her meaning. “Now, hon,” he told her. “That’s how things are done these days.”

“Well, I know that!”

The boys had spent the latter part of the afternoon at the neighborhood pool with Nora, and they were pink-faced and slick-haired and puffy-eyed. Sammy’s head kept drooping over his plate; he hadn’t slept during his nap. “Early bedtime for all of you,” Stem told them.

“Can’t we play catch with Uncle Denny first?” Petey asked.

Stem glanced over at Denny.

“Fine with me,” Denny said.

“Yippee!”

“How was work today?” Abby asked Red.

Red said, “Work was a pain in the ass. Got this lady who’s—”

“Excuse me,” Abby said, and she stood up and went out to the kitchen, calling, “Nora,
please
come eat your supper! Let me do the macaroni.”

Red rolled his eyes and then, taking advantage of her absence, reached for the butter and added a giant dollop to his succotash.

“I knew that lady was trouble when she brought out her four-inch binder,” Stem told Red.

“Pick, pick, pick,” Red agreed. “Niggle, niggle, niggle.”

Nora emerged from the kitchen with a saucepan and a serving spoon, Abby following. “Great succotash, Nora,” Red said.

“Thank you.”

She dished macaroni onto Tommy’s plate, then Petey’s, then Sammy’s. Abby resettled herself in her chair and reached for her napkin. “So,” she told Red. “You were saying?”

“Pardon?”

“You were saying about work?”

“I forget,” Red said huffily.

“He was saying about Mrs. Bruce,” Stem told her. “Lady who’s getting her kitchen updated.”

“I warned her about that grout,” Red said. “I told her more than once, I said, ‘Ma’am, you go for that urethane grout and you’re adding on two days’ work time. Cleanup is a bitch.’ ”

Then he said, “Oh, pardon me,” because Nora was sending him a sorrowful look from under her long, heavy lashes.

“Cleanup’s hell,” he said. “I mean, difficult. Major hazing problem. Didn’t I tell her that, Stem?”

“You told her.”

“And what does she do? Goes for urethane. Then throws a hissy fit over how much time the guys are taking.”

He paused a moment and frowned, perhaps wondering if the word “hissy” were something Nora could object to.

“I don’t know why you put up with people like that,” Denny said.

“Comes with the territory,” Red said.

“I wouldn’t stand for it.”

“
You
might not,” Red told him, “but we don’t have that luxury. Half our men were idle for the first two weeks in April. You think that’s any picnic? We take what jobs we can get, nowadays, and thank our lucky stars.”

“You were the one who was griping,” Denny said.

“I was explaining how work
is
, is all. But what would you know about that?”

Denny bent over his steak and sliced off a piece in silence.

“Well!” Abby said. “I don’t know when I’ve eaten such a lovely meal, Nora.”

“Yes, it’s good, sweetheart,” Stem said.

“Denny grilled the steaks,” Nora said.

“Good steaks, Denny.”

Denny said nothing.

“Now can we play catch?” Tommy asked him.

Stem said, “Let him finish his supper, son.”

“No, I’m done,” Denny said. “Thanks, Nora.” And he pushed back his chair and stood up, even though most of his steak remained and he had barely touched his succotash.

On Tuesday, Denny slept till noon. Then he mopped all the bathroom floors and the floor in the kitchen. He swept the front porch, wiped down the porch furniture, and tightened a loose baluster he discovered in the porch railing. He repaired the clasp on a string of Abby’s beads and swapped out the battery in a smoke detector. Later that afternoon, while Nora and the children were at the pool, he put together an elaborate vegetable lasagna to serve for supper that night. Nora had been planning to serve hamburgers and corn on the cob, as she told him when she returned, but Denny said they could have those the next night.

“Or we could have your lasagna the next night,” Nora said, “because hamburgers and corn on the cob ought to be eaten fresh.”

“Oh, you two!” Abby cried. “Neither one of you needs to trouble yourself about supper. I’m capable of
that
much.”

“My lasagna should be eaten fresh too,” Denny said. “Look. Nora. I’m just trying to keep busy here. I don’t have enough to do.”

“There’s a reason for that,” Abby announced to the room at large. “Too many people are trying to help!”

But she might as well have been a gnat. Neither one of them so much as glanced at her; they were too busy facing each other down.

Supper that night was hamburgers and corn on the cob. Halfway through the meal, Denny asked, in a tone of detached
curiosity, “Stem, did it ever occur to you that you may have married your mother?”

“Married my mother?” Stem asked. “Which mother?”

“They both claim to be oh so accommodating, but you notice how—” Denny broke off. “Huh?” he said. “
Which
mother!”

He sat back and stared at Stem.

Nora continued placidly spreading butter on her ear of corn. Stem said, “Nora is very accommodating. I’d like to know how many other women would be willing to pack up and leave their homes behind the way she has.”

“Oh,” Abby wailed, “but we didn’t
ask
her to do that! We wouldn’t ask it of any of you!”

Nora said, “Of course you wouldn’t, Mother Whitshank. We volunteered. We wanted to do it. Think of all Douglas owes you.”

“Owes?” Abby said. She looked stung.

All at once Red came alive at the head of the table and said, “What?
What’s
going on?” He glanced from face to face, but Abby made a dismissive downward gesture with one hand, so he didn’t pursue it.

On Wednesday, Denny got up at ten thirty, so maybe he was inching into a halfway normal schedule. He vacuumed all the bedrooms and folded a load of laundry that Nora had put in the dryer, completely mixing up which clothes belonged to which person. Then he replaced a button on one of Abby’s blouses, leaving a spill of spools and crochet hooks on the shelf in the linen closet where Abby kept her sewing box. After that he played Crazy Eights with the little boys. When Abby told him she was heading off for her pottery class, he offered to drive her, but she said she always hitched a ride with Ree Bascomb. “Suit yourself,” Denny said, “but I’m just sitting here twiddling my thumbs; you might as well make use of me.”

“You’re
very
useful, dear,” Abby said. “It’s just that Ree and I have been riding together forever. But I appreciate the thought.”

“Can I borrow your computer while you’re gone?” Denny asked.

“My computer,” Abby said. A panicked look crossed her face.

“I’d like to get online.”

“Well, you aren’t … you won’t read my e-mail or anything, will you?”

“No, Mom. Who do you take me for?”

She didn’t seem reassured.

“I just wanted to connect to the outside world, for once,” Denny said. “I’m kind of isolated here.”

“Oh, Denny, haven’t I been saying? You ought not to
be
here!”

“How welcoming,” Denny said.

“Oh, you know what I mean. I’m not an old lady, Denny. I don’t need to have my hand held. This is all so unnecessary!”

“Is that so,” Denny said.

And then, as if her words had jinxed things, that afternoon she had one of her blank spells.

She had promised to be back from her pottery class around four. They didn’t start worrying till five. Red and Stem were home by then, and Red was the one who said, “Don’t you figure your mom should be here now? I know she and Ree get to talking, but still!”

“Do you have Ree’s phone number?” Denny asked.

“It’s on the speed dial. Maybe one of you all could call. I’m not so good on the phone these days.”

All three men looked at Nora. “I’ll do it,” she said.

She went to the phone in the sunroom, and Red tagged after her. Stem and Denny stayed seated in the living room. “Hello? Mrs. Bascomb?” they heard her say. “This is Nora, Abby Whitshank’s daughter-in-law. Do you happen to have her there with you?”

There was a pause, and then she said, “I see. Well, thank you so much!… Yes, I’m sure she will. Goodbye.” The receiver clicked into its cradle. “They got back to Mrs. Bascomb’s an hour ago,” she said, “and Mother Whitshank set out for home straightaway.”

“Damn! Sorry,” Red said. “I’ve told her and told her, I said,
‘Make Ree take you all the way to our door.’ She knows she’s not supposed to walk home by herself. Shoot, I bet she walked over there, too.”

Stem and Denny exchanged glances. The distance was barely a block and a half; it was news to both of them that Abby couldn’t be trusted to manage it.

“Maybe she stopped by a friend’s house on the way back,” Nora said.

“Nora,” Red said. “People in this neighborhood do not
stop by
.”

“I didn’t know that,” Nora said.

They returned to the living room, and Denny stood up from his chair. “Okay,” he said. “Stem, you walk up Bouton toward Ree’s. I’ll head in the other direction in case she somehow bypassed the house.”

“I’m coming too,” Red said.

“Fine.”

The three of them left. Nora stepped onto the porch to watch after them, her arms folded across her chest.

Stem took off toward Ree Bascomb’s in his long, loping stride, while Red and Denny turned in the opposite direction. Red’s pace was more laborious. Always before, he’d been a man in a hurry; now he trudged. They hadn’t even reached the third house before they heard Stem call out, “Found her!” Or Denny heard. Red continued plodding on. Denny touched his sleeve. “He found her,” he said.

“Eh?” Red turned.

“Stem found her.”

They started back, passing home. They could see Stem up at the far end of the block, facing the Lincolns’ house, but they couldn’t see Abby. Denny walked faster, letting Red drop behind.

Abby was sitting on the brick steps leading to the Lincolns’ front walk, with a colorful pottery object resting on her lap. She seemed fine, but she was making no attempt to rise. “I’m so sorry!” she told Denny and Red when they reached her. “I don’t know how to explain it. I was just sitting here; that was the first thing I knew. I was sitting
on these steps and I thought, ‘Am I coming, or am I going?’ I honestly couldn’t tell. It was so
unsettling
!”

“But you had your pottery,” Stem pointed out.

“My what?”

She looked down at it—a charming little clay house, no bigger than a box of notecards. The exterior was a vivid yellow, and the roof was red. A snarl of green pottery tendrils spread across one end of the roof to give a suggestion of leafy boughs.

“My pottery,” she said wonderingly.

“So you must have been coming, right? Coming home from pottery class.”

“Oh. Right,” Abby said. Then she cupped the house in both hands and held it up to them. “My very best work so far!” she said. “See?”

“Good job, hon,” Red told her.

And all three men nodded too vigorously, beaming too brightly, like parents admiring a piece of art that a child has brought home from nursery school.

Because of the way the house on Bouton Road was designed, a person could stand at the upstairs hall railing and hear everything that was said in the entrance hall below. The Whitshank children—and sometimes Red as well—used to do this whenever the doorbell rang, lurking invisibly overhead until they could be certain that it wasn’t just one of Abby’s orphans.

But Merrick, of course, had been a child in that house herself once upon a time, so when she dropped by on Thursday evening, she peered overhead the instant Abby let her in. “Who is that?” she called out. “I know you’re up there.”

After a pause, Denny appeared at the top of the stairs. “Hi, Aunt Merrick,” he said.

“Denny? What are
you
doing home? Hello, Redcliffe,” she added,
because Red had stepped forward too now, his hair still damp from his after-work shower.

“Hey there,” he said.

Abby said, “How nice to see you, Merrick,” and gave her a peck on the cheek, craning around the cardboard carton in Merrick’s arms.

“Abby,” Merrick said neutrally. Then, “Why, hello, cutie!” because Heidi had just bounded in, panting and grinning. Merrick was always much nicer to dogs than to humans. “Who is
this
sweetie pie?” she asked Abby.

“That’s Heidi.”

“Don’t tell me poor old Brenda finally died.”

“No …” Abby said.

“Well, how do you do, Miss Heidi?” Merrick said, and she shifted her carton to one hip in order to stroke Heidi’s long nose.

Not counting the carton, Merrick was the picture of elegance—an angular, hatchet-faced woman, her too-black hair cut as short as a boy’s, wearing slim white pants and an Asian-looking tunic. “We’re about to leave for a cruise,” she told Abby, “and after that I’m going on to the Florida place, so I’ve brought you all the goodies from my fridge.”

“Hmm,” Abby said. Merrick was forever foisting her dribs and drabs of leftovers on the family. She disapproved of waste. “Well, bring them in,” Abby said, and she led Merrick toward the kitchen. Red and Denny, who had made their way down the stairs as slowly as possible, trailed them at a distance.