Silk and Stone (15 page)

He began to think, by that night, that everything must be all right, like Ellie had said. Nothing strange happened; Aunt Alexandra didn’t show up to make good on her lizard threat; Uncle William didn’t come to accuse Mother and Father of telling stories about his wife.

Mother finished one of her watercolor paintings of the mountains while the Saturday-night chicken and dumplings bubbled lazily on the stove. Father pulled the summer’s first ears of corn in Mother’s garden, then sat on the front porch, cranking a churn of peach ice cream and listening to a baseball game on the portable radio.

Jake and Ellie sat in the middle of the cow pasture as the sun set, discussing the day endlessly, while tiny bats zipped across the purple sky above the granite chin of Razorback Bald, and deer edged out of the forest to steal grass beside the wire fence.

The Cove was as peaceful as ever. They dragged themselves to supper and ate enough to keep Mother from noticing their mood. By then it was ten o’clock, and they escaped to get ready for bed. “See?” Ellie whispered when she met Jake coming out of the hall bath. “Nothing happened.”

He didn’t think he could sleep, and for a while he lay in his bed with the sheet thrown back, his skin damp and sticky inside one of Father’s old T-shirts, and he watched fireflies make yellow pinpoints of light against the screen of his open window. They were eyes, winking at his secret. Exhausted, he drifted into dreamless sleep.

“Son, wake up.” Father bent over him. Jake rubbed his eyes and tried to focus. The hall lamp made a box of light across his bed; the air had the cool, settled feel of deep night. Jake looked at him groggily. Father’s inky-black hair made a ragged outline against the light; he was
dressed in a fresh shirt and pants. “Get up and pull some clothes on,” Father said. “We have to go to town. Ellie’s already up. Hurry.”

That cleared away the cobwebs in Jake’s drowsy mind. He heard Mother’s quick footsteps moving around hers and Father’s bedroom, next door. He got a terrible sinking feeling around his heart. “What’s the matter?”

“Uncle William had an accident.”

Chapter
            Seven
 

T
he little tree in a corner of the hospital sitting room had dropped most of its leaves on the floor, and the dirt in its pot was sprouting cigarette butts like some kind of seed pods. Jake kept staring at it from his and Ellie’s seats on the cold plastic chairs along one wall. His throat dry as old glue, he whispered to Ellie, “How can Uncle William get well in here if they can’t even keep that tree going?”

“I don’t know,” she answered, glancing around worriedly. “But when I’m a doctor, I’ll take care of my trees.”

A lady in a candy-striped dress pushed through big double doors and jerked when she saw them. “What are y’all doing in here?” she asked. Her voice echoed in the empty room. “Dr. Raincrow sent me to check on you. You’re supposed to be waiting in the car.”

Jake slid off his chair and faced her. He couldn’t sit
still. He couldn’t wait in the dark, in the car. “How’s our uncle? What happened to him?”

“He fell down and bumped his head. Now, you two ruffled chicks come with me, and I’ll buy you some hot chocolate from the snack machines, and—”

“I’m scared,” Ellie announced, running over to the lady and sticking her hands up. “Will you give me a hug?”

The lady’s mouth made an
oh
of sadness, and she put her arms around Ellie. Jake gazed at his sister in wary surprise, and Ellie peeped back at him with green-eyed slyness from under one of the lady’s pink-striped bosoms. “I’ll tell you what,” the lady said. “Y’all wait right here, and I’ll bring you some cookies from the nurses’ lounge. Okay?”

“Okay,” Ellie said, still staring at Jake evenly.

The lady disappeared up a narrow hallway off the sitting area, and the second they were alone, Ellie turned toward Jake. “He’s hurt real,
real
bad, and he’s behind two big doors with signs that say
EMERGENCY ROOM STAFF ONLY.”

They nodded at each other. Then they hurried through the doors into the belly of the hospital, and began searching.

She was free, finally free, and she had the dead husband to prove it. Alexandra huddled on a metal stool with a blanket around her shoulders, her bare feet tucked under the torn hem of her pale silk nightgown. She felt stiff and swollen; her left shoulder ached where she’d fallen against the sharp edge of the bedroom dresser, and there were rug burns on her elbows.

The pitiless overhead lights hurt her eyes; the room was all glaring light and stainless steel and shades of white. Nurses moved around her, and ambulance drivers, and the sheriff stood in one corner, making notes on a small pad. Someone pressed a cold cloth to her forehead, but she didn’t acknowledge it. “Your friends called,” a nurse whispered. “They gave Tim half a Valium, and he’s sound asleep in their guest room.”

Alexandra nodded woodenly.

Her eyes stayed on the gurney where William lay, a long, large mound under a white sheet. One of his pale, beefy arms was draped on the gurney atop the sheet. Sarah sat on a chair next to him, crying, her head bent to his arm and her hands clutching it. Hugh stood beside her, rubbing her shoulders as he talked with the emergency room doctor, too softly for Alexandra to hear through the buzz of shock in her ears.

She wanted to scream that she did love William in a way, and she’d played by society’s rules as best she could through ten years of a completely mismatched partnership, and why hadn’t anyone ever cared when she was a fresh-faced girl being squeezed into a narrow future by her family’s ambitions?

Her stomach churned, and she hugged herself hard.
I could have backed out. I could have run away with Orrin, the way Frannie—

No. The brief stab of guilt fluttered uselessly against the brutal truth. She was not suited to noble sacrifice; she’d been raised to equate self-esteem with a husband’s money and social clout. No matter how much the women’s libbers talked about new horizons, mo matter how many women put on pantsuits and carried briefcases, or how many college girls slept around to prove their sexual independence, nothing had changed.

Except that now she had all of William’s money and prestige, and a son she would mold into an asset, and she was free to make her own choices. She had, in effect, more than Frannie or any other woman would ever get by pointless rebellion.

She was sorry William had paid the price, but relieved that he was gone.

The sheriff came over and squatted in front of her. He was an accommodating man from shabby mountain beginnings, and he preened over the new jail, the new patrol cars, the crisp, tailored uniforms—all paid for by rich new residents who laughed at him behind his back. “I’m sorry, Mrs. Vanderveer,” he whispered. “Just let me
go over this here terrible night one more time. Then I’ll leave you alone, ma’am.”

“I understand. Go ahead.”

He looked at his notepad. “The judge got in a bad way from drinkin’, and he come upstairs from his office a little after midnight.”

“Yes.”

“He come into the bedroom, where you was reading a book, and you tried to get him to sleep.”

“Yes.”

“But he was in an ill mood, and said he meant to go out for a drive. Seeing that he could hardly walk, you begged him not to.”

“Yes.”

“You tried to stop him, but him, uh, bein’ not in his right mind, wrestled over the car keys with you, and you got knocked—you, uh, you fell down.”

“Yes.”

“He run out to the upstairs hall, and before you could get to him, he tripped at the top of the stairs. He hit his head on the top post and fell on down to the bottom.”

“Yes.”

“Little Timmy got woke up by the noise, and come out to see, and you took some time gettin’ him calmed down.”

“Yes.”

“And then you called the ambulance.”

She shivered. “Yes.”

The sheriff nodded and flipped his notepad shut. “A terrible thing. I’m real sorry, ma’am.”

She had no trouble crying. She was overwhelmed by the idea of how well she’d survived, and a sense of being invincible, and reliving every sacrifice that had brought her to this point in her life.

“Now, now,” the sheriff said, patting her shoulder. “There won’t be much talk. Poor Judge Vanderveer just tripped and fell down the stairs. That’s all I’m gonna say in the report.”

“Thank you. I don’t want his good name hurt by gossip.”

The sheriff solemnly tore scribbled pages from his notepad, crumpled them, then tucked the wad in his shirt pocket. “Done,” he said.

“Uncle William’s
dead
?”

The boyish voice rang with horror, bringing everyone in the room to shocked attention. Hugh Raincrow whipped around, and Sarah swiveled on her chair, her swollen eyes filling with ragged alarm. Alexandra inhaled sharply. Goose bumps scattered down her spine.

Jake and Ellie stood just inside the room’s doors, staring at the gruesome scene, as dry-eyed as bandits. The sight of her nephew frightened Alexandra more than anything she’d expected, bringing a dizzy sense of the unexplainable, the threatening.
But he’s just a child. Just a child. Just a child who’s listened to Sarah’s vicious gossip about me
.

Just a child who, somehow, had guessed her most damning secret.

“Hugh, take them out of here,” Sarah cried. “Sweeties, go outside. Go. I’ll be right there. I promise.”

“But he’s dead,” Jake said, clenching his hands by his sides.

Hugh looked at them sadly. “That’s right. Come here.” Alexandra recoiled in amazement and dread as he brought them to William’s side, an arm around each of their slender shoulders. With a detachment that belied the strain in his face, he calmly explained to them about skull fractures, and edema of the soft tissues surrounding the brain—on and on, in his most professional tone, until Alexandra realized the wetness in her palms came from her fingernails digging convulsively into the flesh.
Goddamned doctor
, she thought hysterically.
Goddamned eccentric Indian, showing off his tough little mongrel children
.

“He fell,” Ellie said, crying, and looked at her brother. “He had an accident, and his brain swelled shut.”

Jake broke away and stumbled toward Alexandra, his chalky face and brilliant green eyes a weird contrast to the Indian-black of his hair; his eyes searing her with an intensity so startling, she leaned back on her stool. When
he stuck out his hands, fingers splayed, she used all her willpower not to shield her face.

The sheriff rose from his crouch and waved Jake forward. “That’s right, boy,” the fool said somberly. “Your aunt could use a hug.”

Her breath rattled in her throat. Her hand darted in front of her eyes. “
No!
” she yelled, not caring what anyone thought of her strange reaction.

But it was too late. Jake latched on to her wrist and gripped like a vise. Some stunning emotion flooded his face; his mouth opened in a silent gasp. Alexandra jerked her arm away. “Get them out of here! They shouldn’t be here! I can’t take this!”

Nurses surrounded her. She was dimly aware of Hugh guiding the children out, but before the doors closed behind them, she caught one last glimpse of Jake’s face.

It was filled with pure contempt. He couldn’t know anything, but he did. She collapsed into a nurse’s consoling arms.

Just when her future belonged solely to her for the first time, a new and unimaginable threat had taken seed.