Hippie House (28 page)

It was unusual for Halley to wander, and even more doubtful that she would now that she was so old. She was a very social dog and rarely let us out of her sight. Eric sent me down to the duck house while he walked around to the other side of the pond. He was exceptionally anxious when I met up with him again.

“She couldn't have gone far,” he insisted. “She doesn't have the strength.”

“Maybe she's in the barn.”

I didn't know how she could have possibly got in the door, the latch was so stiff, but we checked it out anyway. We walked through the barn together. Eric lifted the trapdoor through which we dropped hay into the cattle trough below.

“Do you suppose she could have somehow got in with them?” I asked.

Eric dropped the trap. “Only if the door was open to the barnyard.”

It was very unlikely she would be in with the cattle—Halley didn't like to be around them in a space as confined as that. Despite this, entering through the barnyard, we pressed our way through the frozen muck into the basement of the barn where the ceiling was low and the room steamy. A few cattle noted our presence with low, mildly disinterested sounds.

I was certain Halley couldn't have gone far. I was also certain she'd show up. She always had in the past. “I'm going back to the house,” I told Eric. “Mom asked me to start supper tonight.”

Eric threw his hands in the air. I wasn't sure if he was frustrated with the search or with me for abandoning it.

“She's probably tracking a rabbit in a field somewhere. She'll be back,” I told him.

Eric didn't follow me. I returned to the kitchen, where I began peeling potatoes. Within half an hour, Mom arrived home and my father returned from the workshop. Dad went down to the basement, sent by Mom to retrieve a jar of pickles. I had just
finished setting the table when I heard a familiar clip-clop on the wooden stairs.

“Look who I found,” Dad chuckled, emerging from the basement behind Halley. She rushed over to greet me, madly wagging her stubby tail. She was panting and slobbered heavily. “She locked herself in the pantry. She must have been snuffling around and knocked the door closed again.”

It had happened once before. Poor Halley, she was beside herself. The way she panted in her panic, it didn't take long for her to turn the small preserves room into a sauna. She must have been sweltering down there.

“Halley, you goof.” I gave her fresh water and tried to get her to calm down.

Dinner was nearly ready and Eric still had not returned. We sat in the living room waiting, although not impatiently; Dad was reading the newspaper and Mom was leafing through a magazine.

I did try calling Eric's name out the door but there had been no response. “He was worried,” I explained. “He must be searching every corner of the farm.”

But none of us were aware how worried Eric actually was. Although, when I tried to trace it all back to one incident, I realized it was much more than concern for Halley that led to what happened next. It was all that had happened since the previous December. It was the horror of discovering Katie—resurfacing. It was the helplessness, the guilt Eric wrestled with as he blamed himself for an inability to prevent Malcolm's death. He was already haunted by two ghosts; he couldn't handle another in Halley.

My father heard the engine first. Of course it was not surprising that he would be the first to recognize the sound of his own plane. He dropped the newspaper in his lap and listened, as if, initially, he doubted the reliability of his own ears.

It took me a minute to clue in. I was used to hearing the Maul Rocket, but never, it occurred to me, while Dad was sitting in the same room.

“That sounds like your plane,” my mother commented, the obvious also not registering in her voice right away. This was followed by “John!” a moment later when it had registered and Dad was already on his way out of the house.

My mother and I tore after him. The sound of the engine became very loud as soon as we were out the door. The Rocket had just cleared the woods at the end of the airfield by the time we'd passed the barn and reached the hangar. There was no point jumping up and down and yelling. My father knew Eric would not hear or respond. Although that didn't stop me from doing it.

There was not much we could do—in fact, there was nothing we could do. My father paced before the hangar while Mom and I stayed back, watching the plane circle over Fraser's fields. Eric did not have his license yet, and so, of course, he had never flown the plane alone. I couldn't imagine what was going through my brother's head that he would do such a thing.

The sound of the engine receded as the Maul Rocket disappeared from sight. Dad stood still now, with his hands in his pockets, staring off to where his plane had last been visible in the sky.

Mom ran to the workshop, where she called Uncle Pat. Not that there was anything he could do either, except that perhaps she felt that none of us were in a frame of mind to make a sensible decision. My uncle would remain level-headed enough to know what to do.

Uncle Pat arrived within minutes, but it was a long twenty minutes more before the familiar sound of the Rocket returned. This time my father and uncle flagged him with both arms, hoping Eric would land. The plane began to lose altitude. It
appeared that Eric planned to come in. As he descended over the woods beyond the field, the wings of the plane tilted from side to side as though Eric was having difficulty maintaining control. My father locked onto it with his eyes, willing it, I believed, not to go down.

Eric cleared the trees. He was now over the field and the Maul Rocket was almost on the ground. One wheel touched down before the other, the plane dipped sharply to one side and a wing grazed the frozen ground. A six-foot section at the tip of the wing crumpled as the aircraft swerved.

“Oh my god!” my mother cried, releasing her hold on me. Along with my father and Uncle Pat, she ran toward the damaged airplane. Veering off toward the fence between the airstrip and Fraser's field, it came to an abrupt stop.

I followed, hanging back a little, afraid of what I might see. My father pulled at the door and bent down inside the plane. By the time I was close enough, I could see Eric was bleeding from a gash where he had hit his forehead on the instrument panel. His head fell forward and he seemed disoriented, confused, unaware of what he'd done. “I couldn't find her,” he told us. “I thought I might be able to see her, or at least some kind of a sign.”

Was he completely wacko? Whatever made him think that from three thousand feet in the air he could pick out a small white dog on fields and woods blanketed in snow?!

Dad released the seat belt before putting an arm around my brother's shoulder. “Never mind. Halley's just fine. She was in the house all along.”

Between them, he and Uncle Pat helped Eric out of the cockpit and onto the ground.

Eric was unsteady on his feet. He leaned against the plane while Mom dabbed the cut with her apron and wiped away the blood running into his eye. Uncle Pat returned to his truck and drove it onto the airfield.

I'm not sure what came over me as Eric hobbled toward the vehicle, except that I had a sudden and horrible vision of me, sitting at a Monopoly board with a pile of money in front of me, all alone.

“You idiot!” I lunged at him. “Why would you do that?!” I whacked him hard. And then, since nobody else was going to say anything, I added, “Look what you did to the plane!”

Dad took hold of my shoulders. “Come on, Emma. Your brother's going to be okay. Go help your mother look after Halley while we're gone.”

E
RIC TOOK QUITE
a knock on the head in his brush with disaster, but that may have been what roused him from his despondent state. Whatever it was, I realized why my father had not made an issue out of what he'd done to the Maul Rocket at the time. He knew that when Eric eventually did come around, he would be hard enough on himself. The sight of the crippled Rocket left him with a sick feeling, and until the aircraft was taken away to be repaired, Eric could not go near the airfield. He insisted on paying for the damage, but my father told him he would rather see him work hard at school than take on a job to pay for what he'd done.

“You're looking at university next year. We don't want to jeopardize your chances. However, if you insist on making it up somehow,” Dad tossed a wink in my direction, “the sunroom needs painting, the linoleum needs to be replaced in the kitchen and the windows all need a coat of stain. When your head has recovered, of course.”

Eric rolled his eyes. He told me later it would be a whole lot easier if he just went out and got a job. That way he could pay off the airplane and the debt would be settled. Dad's approach
might seem casual, but it could have him painting and nailing for the rest of his life!

I was sewing for the drama production again that year. The school was putting on the rock opera
Jesus Christ Superstar
. I loved the music, but the costumes were not much of a challenge, at least not compared to the Victorian gowns of the previous year. I figured I could go a little crazy with King Herod's robe, so that's what I opted to sew.

I was also working on a black velvet outfit for the Christmas dance: a pair of pants and a bolero vest. Ruby had taught me some tricks to match the grain and keep the soft pile intact. But on the day of the dance, as I pondered the finished outfit on my dress form, it occurred to me that trimming the vest in gold braid would give it a festive touch. I had the afternoon to do it—that is, if I could get into town to buy the braid.

I stuck my head into Eric's room. “Will you drive me into Pike Creek?”

He was sitting on his bed, strumming quietly, working out the chords to a new Led Zeppelin tune, “Stairway to Heaven.” Eric continued to play. “Jimmy's going to be here in a few minutes. We're going to the rummage sale at the church. You can come with us if you want.”

Perfect. I returned to my room to turn off the sewing machine.

The rummage and antique sale was held in the basement of St. Mark's Church. It was an annual event to raise money for Santas Anonymous. Eric and Jimmy liked to go for the old radios and electronic equipment. They always found something that interested them.

Jimmy arrived at Ruddy Duck in his dad's new Thunder-bird. On the way into town Eric commented on the acceleration, inspected the dashboard and asked a bunch of questions about the engine before saying, “Your dad sure is letting you drive it a lot.”

“I know. I don't get it. I used to have to beg two days in advance if I wanted to borrow the Olds. It's weird, but my parents have been really laid-back about everything I do lately.” Jimmy paused before adding, “I figure it's Malcolm. I suppose I should take advantage of it. I don't expect it can last.”

Eric and Jimmy dropped me off in front of the fabrics and notions store in Pike Creek. We made arrangements to meet at the church an hour later.

It didn't take long for me to choose the trim; I already had a gold braid in mind. I had seen it earlier in the season and was thankful there was still enough on the roll. I stopped to rummage through the bin of remnants and marked-down notions. There was a remarkably gauche, twisted, silver and orange braid that would only appeal to someone completely insane. Or someone who was making a costume such as King Herod's robe. The whole roll was fifty cents, which said a lot about how popular it had been.

I still had plenty of time to kill before meeting Eric, so after leaving the fabric store I dropped by the drugstore to visit Megan, who still worked on weekends. She was allowed to take a coffee break. We sat in the back storage room. I leafed through a
Vogue
magazine while Megan moped. It turned out she'd broken up with Duncan the night before, or it could have been the other way around. At first she wouldn't tell me when I pressed her for details. “We're just not compatible.” is what she said.

Alright. Since she didn't want to talk about it, I attempted to take her mind off it. I pulled the braid from the paper bag. “What do you think of this braid? Isn't it perfect for my black vest?”

Megan sat forward. “Okay, one thing—he's got this really annoying habit of chewing his ice. How can he expect me to pay attention to a movie when all I can hear is chomp, chomp, chomp?”

I returned the braid to the bag. “Yeah, well, I can see that might be a problem.”

“And he hardly ever phones when he says he's going to. He's always at least fifteen minutes late. And get this—he puts ketchup on eggs!”

I closed the magazine in front of me. I was now sorry I'd asked. All I really wanted to do at that moment was get home, not hear every little thing that was wrong with Duncan. “Uh,” I stood up, “I've got to get back to the church. I have to meet Eric. Call me when you finish work and we'll make arrangements for tonight.”