All That's Missing (13 page)

“Ebenezer Crookshank was quite distinguished.”

Was that a dirty look she gave him? How was Arlo supposed to know what kind of hats people wore in the old days?

While the car idled at the intersection, Arlo craned his neck to read the brass plaque under the streetlight on the corner.
SITE OF TOWN GAOL
1769.

“What's a
gale
?” he asked.

“That's
jail,
son. Old English spelling. Guess they didn't teach you that, either.”

“Is that what Ebenezer Crookshank is famous for building?”

His grandmother tightened her grip on the steering wheel. “Of course not,” she snapped. “There was a huge house on the river. Unfortunately, it burned.”

The light changed and the car rolled forward.

“You probably aren't aware of this,” his grandmother continued, “but your forebears were among the first settlers in the Northern Neck.”

“Forebears?”

“Ancestors, Arlo. Your great-great-great-great-grandparents. On your grandfather's side, of course. My people are from farther south.”

“I don't think I knew that.”

“No, I don't imagine you did. In fact, I'll bet there's a wealth of information you're lacking.”

You could almost slice a sandwich on the sharp edges in her voice.

They whizzed past the remaining blocks of the tiny business district. Then the road widened into four lanes and they passed a modern high school and a steel-and-glass public library on the right.

“Modern monstrosities, aren't they?” his grandmother said.

Arlo kept his lips sealed. Sometimes the safest answer was no answer at all. Poppo had taught him that, too.

After the library, they passed a line of small houses.

“I don't suppose there's anything more you'd like to tell me about how you got here,” she said.

If Arlo told her the truth, she'd probably call the police as soon as they walked through the door.

“Did you hear me?”

“Yes, ma'am, I heard.”

“Well?”

“That's pretty much the whole story.”

“
Mmm-hmm.
Well, perhaps you'll feel like talking later.”

OK, so she wasn't buying it. She wasn't exactly bending over backwards to make
him
feel welcome, either. Everything about her was sharp and poky, like a pile of old bones.

Arlo imagined a white room with a bare lightbulb hanging from the ceiling. Ida Jones stood over him wielding a large stick.
We have ways to make you talk,
she snarled through a curled lip.

“Did you say something?”

“No, ma'am.”

She was eyeing him again, giving him the fish eye as if he were some professional thief plotting how to rob her. Arlo stared at the hillside on their right. The houses had been replaced by a tall grassy mound that sloped down to an open field. Edgewater was a good name for this place. Arlo felt like he was hanging onto the edge of something, all right. In fact, he felt like the ground was about to bust loose underneath him.

Meanwhile, the car bumped over a rough seam of pavement. Then the road narrowed as they crossed a tidal creek. Ahead of them, Arlo noticed a wooden building teetering off a thin spit of land where the creek spilled into the river.

“There's the marina where your father used to work.” His grandmother dipped her head in the direction of the river. “That was
before
he met your mother, of course — back when he was saving for college.”

“I didn't know my dad went to college.”

“That makes two things you didn't know. Or is it three?”

Ouch! Bones again.
To think that he could have stayed in Marshboro instead of coming here. . . . But no. He had to find this wonderful grandmother who was going to help him — help them both. Yeah. That was a big mistake.

As the highway straightened out, the small houses were replaced by grassy fields and long driveways that led to places you couldn't see.

When the car hit a dip in the pavement, Ida's foot slipped off the accelerator and the car slowed instantly. Someone in the car behind them laid on the horn.

“You can jolly well wait your turn.” Ida frowned into the rearview mirror. “Impatient twerp!”

Meanwhile, the car behind them sped up and zoomed past on the left.

“No manners these days. I tell you, Arlo, it's every man for himself. Civilization has gone to the dogs.” She scooted forward in her seat. “What were we talking about?”

“My dad?”

“Ah, yes. Well, maybe that's a subject best left for another day.” She glanced sideways again, causing the car to drift into the left lane.

“Look out!” Arlo yelled.

“Goodness. You startled me, Arlo. Passengers shouldn't distract the driver. It's dangerous.”

No kidding.
Arlo didn't breathe normally again until she flipped on her blinker and signaled a right turn onto a gravel driveway. He wouldn't have known it was a driveway if it weren't for the mailbox. You couldn't see the house. It was obscured by trees.

“I don't suppose Albert told you about my apple trees, did he?” She nodded toward a cluster of evenly spaced trees on their left.

“Not that I remember,” he said.

“
Hmph.
Figures,” she said.

Then, they rode on in silence. The driveway seemed to go on forever.

“Saved all through high school,” she was grumbling as they approached a clearing.

“Sorry. Did you say something?” Arlo asked.

He couldn't tell if she was talking to him or mumbling to herself.

“Won that award. Set for life. Until
she
came along.”

“Are you talking about my dad?”

She shifted in her seat and made a small throat-clearing sound. Before conversation resumed, one of her front tires hit a rock and the car lurched to the right. She jerked the wheel to pull it back in line.

“How many times have I told those people at Bert's Auto to fix the power steering?” she said, her voice rising to a shrill pitch. “If you ask me, we were better off with
un-
power steering. At least in those days, all you had to do was put a little muscle behind the wheel and the car turned exactly the way you wanted.”

It's the driver who's broken,
Arlo thought.

As the car continued on its path, Arlo thought about the photograph of his mother and father in front of the tree. It must have been taken here. In front of one of those apple trees. He wondered if it was before or after his father left school. Did his grandmother already hate his mom then, or had that come later?

The driveway dipped and the land flattened out in a broad lawn with a large house perched on the left. The house was three stories tall, with shutters at the windows. Arlo couldn't see much more than that in the darkness until they drew closer and the headlights shone on a large strip of paint that had peeled loose from one of the shutters. On his way through the yard, Arlo tripped over a piece of broken roof tile.

“Careful,” his grandmother said.

“Thanks,” Arlo said. He followed her past the front steps.

“You were here years ago,” she said, stooping to collect bits of a flower blossom that had dropped onto the brick path.

“I don't remember,” Arlo said.

“How could you? Two years old, that's what you were.” She eyed him sharply. “Why, I hardly remember you myself.”

They moved on to the kitchen door, where a small brown dog with ears like a collie jumped against the screen. As his grandmother held the door open, the dog pranced outside. He ran straight to Arlo and jumped against his legs.

“It's all right, Steamboat. Arlo's our guest.”

His grandmother took Steamboat's head in both her hands and kissed the space between his ears. She whispered in a louder-than-necessary voice, “Arlo's hiding something from us, Steamboat. Maybe you can make him tell us what it is.”

The dog fixed his eyes on Arlo.

Meanwhile, she moved inside the house and, with a wave of her hand, invited Arlo to follow.

They climbed a short staircase to the kitchen, bypassing a door which — she informed him — led to the basement.

Everything was white — cabinets, ceiling, tile, refrigerator — the one exception being the large island in the center of the room, which looked to be an old wooden cabinet someone had painted a deep shade of blue. A chipped pottery bowl held a dozen red apples, and beside it a ceramic pitcher boasted a bouquet of sunflowers.

Arlo took a seat on one of the tall wooden stools while Ida fit her keys over a small brass hook on a wooden rack above the light switch.

“Wait till I wipe the mud off your paws, Steamboat.” Ida retrieved a towel from under the sink while Steamboat waited patiently on the top step. “You mind turning the light on for me?” she said to Arlo.

“Sure.” When the light came on, Arlo noticed that the wood on the key rack spelled out the word
JONES
. His hand went instinctively to the wood carving in his pocket. Had his father made that rack? Or maybe his grandfather Jones had been a wood-carver. Maybe he had passed that skill on to his son. Arlo didn't know anything about Slocum Jones other than the few things Poppo had told him, which really didn't amount to much information — besides the name and what Poppo thought of him.

Ida finished cleaning Steamboat's paws. Then she carried the towel down the steps and hung it to dry over the boot tray.

“I suppose you're hungry,” she said. “A boy your age? Hungry all the time, I expect.”

Was there something wrong with having an appetite? “I wouldn't mind eating,” Arlo said. “I mean, it's not like I'm starving or anything. Mrs. Stonestreet gave me that lemonade.”

“Probably didn't scratch the surface, did it? Why, I'll bet you go through at least a gallon of milk a day. I'll warn you: I don't keep a lot of food around the house.”

Arlo swallowed. “Anything's fine,” he said.

“You like sardines?”

Was she kidding?
Did
anyone
actually
like
sardines? “I eat Vienna sausage sometimes,” Arlo said. “Do you have any of those?”

His grandmother's eyebrows came together in a scowl. “Potted meat will kill you,” she said. “You know that, don't you?”

Arlo shook his head.

“Of course you don't. Living with that grandfather of yours, how could you? I'll bet he feeds you all manner of things. Potted meat's probably just the tip of the iceberg. No doubt that's his idea of a gourmet meal.”

Whoa. When Poppo said there were hard feelings, he wasn't kidding, was he?

Arlo watched as she opened the door to the pantry. The shelves were nearly empty, except for dog food. She reached up to a metal rack mounted on the back of the door and plucked off a can of sardines.

“A growing boy needs protein,” she said. “Fish oil doesn't hurt, either. Good for the brain. Wouldn't hurt your grandfather to try some.”

Elbow jab to midsection. Direct hit. Ten points for Ida Jones.
Was brain food what Poppo needed? Was that the problem?

“Maybe one sardine?” Arlo held up a shaky finger. If it would make her stop saying mean things about Poppo, he'd eat anything.

“Let's have crackers, too. Add a little mustard and you've got yourself a meal. Nothing better. I'll bet your mother never fixed you anything like that.”

Did “barely two-year-olds” eat sardines? His mother hadn't lived long enough to feed him anything fancier than mashed potatoes, applesauce, and oatmeal.

“She was partial to
pizza,
as I recall,” Ida said. “The greasier the better.”

“I don't remember what she liked.”

Ida coughed. Good. That silenced her. Temporarily at least. Arlo had time to breathe. He watched her wash her hands and then fill the kettle at the sink.

“How's Albert doing these days?” she asked.

Was she trying to be nice?

“He doesn't own the doughnut shop anymore,” Arlo said.

“Retired, is he? I guess he's old enough. But what on earth does he do with his time?”

“We go fishing some.”
Not lately, of course. But she didn't need to know about that.

“Wake liked to fish. Still have one of his old rods in the garage. Thought I might give it to you one of these days.
If I ever laid eyes on you again, that is.
” She plunked the kettle on the gas burner, then pivoted around to glare at him. “How many years has it been? Ten?”

“Nine,” Arlo said.

“Yes.” She pressed her lips together firmly, creating a thin pressure line between her mouth and her nose. “Exactly. Which means you're in what grade now?”

“Sixth.”

“I remember when your dad was in sixth grade.” She took a china teapot out of the cabinet and filled the mesh cup inside with loose tea from a small silver tin. “Wake was such a good student. Always at the top of his class. Until he met your mother, of course. . . .”