Beautiful to the Bone (The Enuis Trilogy #1) (31 page)

CHAPTER FORTY-FOUR

Traveling south on Route 371, the old highway straightened out, the terrain flattened, and the corridor of pine and poplar trees broadened like the sumptuous entrance to a private estate or castle. There was nary a car in either direction. The Chippewa National Forest, that first time with Harold, the revelation at the beauty opening up and surrounding me, and the anticipation of
us—
a couple of discovery.

Leech Lake spread out on my left, and soon I turned onto County Road 38 toward Kabekona Bay. The sign was still weathered, unimposing, but my heart dropped a few notches: “Woodland Cabins” and the arrow. I remembered a sliver of that day, the owner’s recognition of Harold as we entered, ever-so-slight. I’d meant to ask him about it, maybe I did, but it had been lost.

The whining of the vacuum cleaner was enough to drive me out, but I stood my ground in the reception cabin. I let the screen door slam and the woman jerked up from her cleaning.

“Oh. Oh! I didn’t hear you come in,” she stammered. “We’re not open for the season for another three weeks.”

I’d rehearsed several entrance speeches but they all failed me. “My husband stayed here, before we were married, and I need to find the woman.”

The lady switched off the vacuum and pushed the bandana back over her broad forehead to her tangle of brown hair. “What?”

I considered removing my shaded glasses for sincerity. Rethought it. “I have a photo of my husband . . . my late husband, and it’s important for me to find the woman he was with.” I pulled the photo from my jean pocket, shuttled closer, holding it out for the woman.

“I’m not sure . . . What is it you want?” She didn’t take the photo, her resistance growing.

“I need your help. I’m sorry, I know this is unconventional, but my husband . . . he committed suicide, and so much is unclear, and I thought that this woman — she was with him before me, before my time — she might have some clues, you know, for why he did it.”

“Have I seen you before?” The woman came closer.

I wondered if the truth was best. “Well, yes. I was here with him about a year ago. He proposed to me here. We had the cabin at the end.”

“Number one, The Tamarack.”

“He liked his privacy.”

“Look, I’m sorry, but we’re not a detective agency, and my guess is that my husband might not approve.”

“If you’d just look at my husband’s photo. Please.”

“Why a woman
before
your time? I’ve learned to stay away from such things.”

“We were barely newlyweds and he killed himself. Can you imagine living with that?”

The woman wiped the sweat away with her arm. She made a low humming sound, almost a growl. “Look, I’m going over to Cabin Number Eleven to patch a wall. Should take me half an hour.”

“I really can’t wait.”

“Be quiet!” snapped the woman. “See those binders?” She pointed to two shelves of binders that strongly resembled my own “Faces” scrapbook. “We keep one photo of every visitor or every couple that spends a week here. You’re probably in there with your husband. It’s chronological, you understand?”

The idea of photos unsettled me. “I doubt my husband would let you take a picture of us, and I don’t remember —”

“It’s in our contract and people appreciate it. Marty’s an amateur photographer. They’re spontaneous; they capture an intimate moment, memories. We’ve done it since the day we opened. I’ve got work to do.” She heaved brusquely and stepped away. “You’re welcome to search for your photo. I’ll be back in a half hour.”

She pushed past me but released the screen door gradually so it didn’t slam. I was left staring at three shelves of binders. Organized: a binder every year or two. But they weren’t
that
organized. No names or notations under a single photo, and the scrapbooks didn’t break evenly.

When I finally found the previous May, I discovered a photo that most likely was Harold and me, at a distance, out on the small dock, both with our arms up, as if in the midst of a conflagration. The photo cut a swath of pain along my sternum. I tossed the memory.

You’re a scientist. Narrow.
The handful of pages gave me thickness by year, a skill that Harold had manifested. I took that information.

Calculating back four years to January 4
th
, I began moving to the present, scanning the pages of photographs, four rows, five photos each. My eye checked the wall clock every few minutes.

I was looking for Harold, but given the photo of Harold and me from only a year earlier, a long shot might be hard to decipher. I was surprised to find that most of the photos were
not
framed long, but loving, tender, probably taken close-up with a telephoto lens. Still, to find Harold . . .

My task was made easier because the winter months were out. May to September, twice to mid-October. I removed my shades, following every frame with my finger, wanting to stop at times to take in the warmth of couples seeing each other, perhaps like they’d never seen each other before or might never see each other again. I suppressed the longing and moved methodically on.

The pages fattened behind me. I was almost within a year of reaching
my
May with Harold, when I flipped back a page, took a second look at a shot of a couple, apparently on the same weathered dock in front of Cabin #1 on which Harold and I had stood.
And fought?
It
was
Harold, despite the shadow across his face, because the gawky fellow wore a dark blue pinstripe suit jacket, and beneath it, a cotton candy coral shirt. At a summer resort, w
ho else!
A breeze came off the lake, a yearning that swept through the screen door and startled me. I closed my eyes then took another look.

He held the woman at arm’s length, taking her in, awe apparently in his eye, the blue green lake behind them. She was older than he, thin, almost as tall, eyes wide in complicitous thrall, her blonde hair cut too short or too long. Pammy.

His arms rested, cupping above her waist and her arms . . . she had no arms! Sprouting from each shoulder was a small nob, then a thin hand, nothing more. Thalidomide, or something like it.

I snapped the scrapbook closed, all wind knocked out of me. I started to cry, my chest ground into fine particles, and all of them slipping away. I couldn’t tell exactly why. But the clock was ticking and I had to keep moving.

CHAPTER FORTY-FIVE

Harold’s box of books had been delivered and sat open in the kitchen, Momma scavenging through. “What’s this crap?” she asked holding a cigarette perilously close to one of the old books.

“It’s
my
crap.” I pulled
Dickens and the Staplehurst Train Crash
from her and rounded up several others Momma had scattered on the table, one of which,
Great Expectations
, sat in a puddle of beer.

“Touchy, touchy.”

I wiped the beer off
Great Expectations
with my jeans and put it in the box. “Lyle!” I called out.

“He’s resting.”

“Lyle, can you come out here and help me move something?”

Momma glowered.

“Whatcha need?” Lyle walked stiffly, more gangly and disoriented than ever.

“She shouldn’t a waked you,” said Momma. “I told her you was restin’.”

“It’s okay, Momma, just layin’ down.” A small wave at me, a small smile.

“You okay?” I asked.

He motioned not to worry. “Whatcha need?”

“This box. Into the cellar.”

After a lot of shuffling and grunting, Lyle and I got the box to the cellar steps and down, but not before he had to take multiple breaks along the way. He was pretty pale.

“You sure you’re okay?” I asked again.

“Hangover.”

I wasn’t convinced.

“How’d it go?” He propped himself on the box. “With Sparky? She give you good juice?”

“I guess.”

“You learn somethin’ about Harold?”

“Can’t be sure. I’ve got very little to measure it against.”

“Small sample, huh?”

“Why, yes. You understand sample size?”

“Not really, just somethin’ comin’ up. Vocabulary. I try to keep learnin’. Makes for good lyrics.”

“You’re writing again.”

He shook his head. “Not really. Maybe thinkin’ about it.”

“Well, good, that’s great.”

“You need anythin’ else?” He tapped the box of books.

“I’m good. Thanks.” I leaned to hug him.

He started, he hesitated, he pulled away, signaled goodbye. “See ya,” he said, trudging his way up the groaning stairs.

Alone, my journal and
Bleak House
by my bedside
,
I paged through
Charles Dickens and the Staplehurst Train Crash
. My phone, suddenly connecting me to people, rang. I settled the book into my lap and reached for the phone. Roddy,
again
. I was ready to disconnect, then decided I’d throw the sailor off the ship, once and for all.

“Roddy,” I said flatly.

“Sorry to bother you,” he said, “but I got some information I thought you’d want.”

“How’s that?”

“Your friend Ruthie, the Jamaican lady, her grandson-in-law is looking for you.”

“Anthony.”

“Anthony. He’s gotten calls about the comb, whatever that means, and he’s not sure what he should do.”

I was speechless.

“Eunis?”

“Yes.”

“He said to tell you he hasn’t mentioned the comb to anyone. Still, he got a call. He says another curator got a call too. What’s all this about a comb?”

“No big deal, just some friends getting dramatic.” I imagined Roddy, probably a simper on his lips.

“Over a tool of beauty?” He said with some bite.

I’d never thought of it quite that way. “Yes.”

“Anyway,” he continued, “Anthony didn’t know how to reach you. What should he do?”

“I’ll call him. For now tell him to keep doing what he’s doing and say he knows nothing. How’d he call you?”

“Lyle gave him my number.”

“Lyle? Really?”
Why would Lyle do that?
A not-so-small worm of irritation twisted inside. But I was glad to hear Roddy’s voice after all.

“You okay?” he said, softening. “How’s it going up there?”

I tugged on my hair. “Fine, fine. Thank you, thanks for calling.”

“How are you?” he asked again.

“I’m reading Dickens.”

“Children searching for their father.”

“What?”

“Dickens, he was always writing about that. Anyway, how are you, really?”

“I’m fine, like I said.”

“Could you use some help?”

I laughed. “If I need to get bailed out, you’ll be the first I’ll call.”

“Good, I’ll count on it.”

The Dickens book beckoned. “Thanks, thanks again for calling.”

“Sure.”

“Okay, bye.” And as soon as I’d hung up I realized I hadn’t bothered to ask how he was doing.

I fiddled with
Dickens and the Staplehurst Train Crash
. I even considered calling Roddy back. Then came that recurring dead frame into which Harold swung, vacant eye, by his neck, then out.
Come with me
. “Damn it!” I picked up
Dickens and the Staplehurst Train Crash.
I began reading:

“On June 9, 1865, the Tidal Train which transported cross-channel passengers was making its way to London, clattering through Kent at 50 miles per hour. Between Headcorn and Staplehurst, 50 feet of track had been pulled up for repair, the tracklayers miscalculating the time of the approaching train, a train that carried Charles Dickens and his closely guarded secret, his mistress Nelly.

The train hurtled over a small bridge into a stream. Ten passengers were killed and 40 injured. Dickens, a small man, was able to squeeze through a window and help administer to some of the injured, but not before he helped a beautiful young girl off the train, desperate that the Press and his wife not know his secret.”

“Son of a bitch!” I could envision Harold reading those passages, doubt or guilt fixed upon his face, as if he, not his muse, had been discovered. Had I discovered? And every one of the few things that I thought I knew, and I thought I could control, now felt like a violation. My frustration filled the room.

“Harold, you bastard!” I grabbed the journal and threw it across the room, first striking the light bulb then the small washbasin and tearing the yellow suturing fabric off the mirror, as shadows swung back and forth over me, and the muslin marigolds folded to the floor. Through the mirror’s corroded surface, I saw my own nebulous rage, slow vapors rising, disappearing in darkness, and rising again. All so unscientific. Until I considered what Lyle said, about inhaling Carver’s chemicals and what it might have done to my brain. What it might have caused me to do.

So I steadied myself, opened my laptop and looked it up. The research showed that at high concentrations Formic acid (ant venom) has dangerous fumes potentially causing acidosis —confusion, memory loss, and seizures. What had I done?