Spoonwood (25 page)

PART 2 The Calm

After math there is algebra.

— Birch Latour, in an email to Missy Mendelson

1

IN THE WIGWAM

T
he storm hit earlier and harder than predicted, so that Persephone had to put the Bronco into four-wheel drive to make it up the long hill from Center Darby to Upper Darby. She was thinking how much she loved a blizzard, which was rare on the trust lands because the hills and trees broke up the wind. But once in a while a storm would come straight from the northeast down the Connecticut River valley and the wind would howl and the snow would lash the trees. The road would suddenly disappear into the whiteout. A normal, prudent person would be frightened and slow down almost to a stop. Persephone grew more excited and speeded up, driving by guesswork, poor Roland Lachance rigid and stoic by her side.

It was only after her loved ones died that Persephone had become herself. That was the irony that kept coming back at her at odd moments in the middle of the night. After her husband died and then her daughter, she'd aged overnight. In grief the worries of losing one's looks, the failures of self-realization as a consort to a powerful and charismatic husband, had become irrelevant. It was no longer necessary to be pretty. She could just be. Despite the pain, she liked herself in grief. She was more honest, more real.

Garvin's death, coming without warning, had rocked her again. She'd adopted him as a son in her heart; his death had left her bereft both of hope and self. She'd thought of suicide after Garvin's sudden violent end. All that kept her going was the thought of her grandson. Since Birch had come into her life five years ago, she'd looked outward at the world without fear and with a sense of humor. During the rare moments she searched inward she saw an old dug well gone dry after a drought, nothing to see inside, nothing to fear but echoes. She'd narrowed her life to a single purpose: prepare Birch for the difficulties of the world.

The boy had made remarkable gains, but these days she worried about him. Doc Mendy was worried too. Birch had finally made friends, had plunged into childhood as if diving off a cliff into a boiling sea. He'd been happy, or so it seemed, but when he found himself alone again he was at a sudden loss. Doc Mendy had explained it this way: “Birch has had a brief but intense childhood. He's missed out on the normal defense mechanisms one builds as a child. Meanwhile, the defenses of his previous life with his father have been badly damaged by this selfsame childhood. The normal upheaval brought on by puberty is exacerbated by his peculiar past. We must keep an eye on him as he makes the transition into adolescence.”

His father! Persephone felt a surge of anger at the thought of Latour. Every time Birch made progress, the specter of Latour loomed over the boy and herself, too. Latour had frustrated her in ways even he could not have imagined. For one thing she'd discovered that though she had gained custody of Birch, she could not change his name to Raphael Butterworth Salmon. Latour, who normally ran roughshod over the law, had gone through all the legal channels in changing his own and his son's name. Now only Birch could change his name but only when he came of age. Even now Latour was squatting on the trust just to spite her. Doc Mendy had advised her not to prosecute Latour as long as Birch remained in a teen state of confusion.

The Bronco slipped and swerved on their half-mile-long driveway. “When we pull in, get the jeep and plow this damn road,” she said.

“If you don't kill us first,” Roland said.

“Someday I'm going to fire you for insubordination,” Persephone said.

“I wish you would. Only thing worse than riding with you, Persephone, is working with you.”

And they both laughed.

She left the Bronco in park, the engine running, leaving the vehicle for Roland to put away, while she went to the house, stimulated by the storm, almost content.

Soapy was waiting for her at the door. “Katharine called,” Soapy said. “She's going to stay the night in her office in Keene.”

“Katharine is a wuss.”

“Isn't Birch coming in with you?” Soapy said, looking past the open door into the storm.

“Birch is not with me. Isn't he in the house?”

“No, I thought he was with you.”

“Oh, my God,” said Persephone.

Persephone telephoned 911; she sent Roland to Ancharsky's Store in the jeep to recruit some help from local men who'd know the woods. Out of courtesy she informed the hated Elmans of the situation, and finally Mrs. McCurtin, knowing she would spread the word: Birch Latour was lost in the blizzard.

Persephone slid into her snowmobile jumpsuit, put on her helmet, and went back into the storm. She kept her snowmobile well tuned up and it started right away. She'd had it in the back of her mind to bomb along the trails after the storm, enjoy the first burst of hard winter before leaving for Tasmania. Even now, in the middle of an emergency, a possible tragedy, danger to herself, she couldn't deny the thrill of speed and cold, the exhilaration of pushing the machine and herself to the limits. About six inches of snow had fallen, but since there was no base every once in a while the machine would scrape against bare ground. She'd sail over a bump airborne and free, and she would scream like some crazed nymphomaniac.

In minutes on the trail she thought that she herself would perish, for the wind was blowing the snow every which way, creating great moving white clouds that obscured everything. She
asked herself if she really cared whether she died. Damn right she cared. As long as she might help this boy she had to stay alive. She had a little bit of luck. The wind died when she turned a corner of the hill, and she could see. Below was Latour's shanty.

A moment later the wind smacked her again, and for a few seconds she lost sight of the shanty. She shut off the engine and stood in the whiteout, trying to get her bearings. She took a few steps downslope, fell, rolled to a stop against a tree, struggled to her feet. She wondered if it were possible to light a cigarette in this wind. “Hello!” she shouted to the wind.

The wind answered by slapping her face.

She continued down, almost walking past the shanty into sure oblivion, but the storm died down for just a moment so that she saw a vague shape, more the embodiment of the idea of shelter than anything else.

Latour had scrounged a second-hand door and fitted it into a wall of sticks, plywood, and plastic. She pounded on the door. No answer. She pounded again. She screamed. “Let me in, Latour—let me in!” No answer. She shoved her shoulder against the door and pushed. The door did not budge. The place was better built that she'd imagined. Then she did the obvious. She turned the doorknob, and the door opened.

In one sweep of the eye she took in the entire structure. No one home. But the wood stove was running, and the place was warm.

She experienced a moment of stupor, her worry dulled by exhaustion and shock. And then she remembered her cigarettes. She might forget her grocery list, the time of day, someone's name, but never the cigarettes. She lit one off a burning candle. With the first drag, the pleasant sear in her lungs, her mind cleared.

It was likely that Latour too was caught in the storm. She would have to face the storm and look for Birch. She had no idea where to go next—the pond, perhaps. She took another drag, put the cigarette between her lips, and opened the door. The wind blew the cigarette out of her mouth, and it flew away like a bird. She could not see her snowmobile. Could not see even a tree. She believed now that she, too, was destined to perish in the storm. Well, all right. She started up in the general direction of her machine.

And there it was—she sensed it before she saw it—a vision of her death, a moving obelisk coming to take her away. She stood still, waiting, watching the shape, formless and in soft focus, moving slightly from side to side, but slowly coming forward. The whole meaning-thing was right there for her to see: the infant son lost before she knew how to love him, the daughter she could not love, the husband who could not love her, the ghosts of Upper Darby proclaiming her obligations and damn any ambitions she might harbor, the meaning of her life a shapeless, shifting blob in a freezing, windblown fog.

In a twinkling the shape vanished, and now she could see only one form—Latour carrying Birch in his arms.

“Is he alive?” she shouted into the wind.

“I don't know,” Latour said.

They went inside. Birch's face was pale, eyes closed, arms dangling limply from shoulder sockets.

“I'll take him to the hospital on the snow machine,” she said.

Latour shook his head no. “He couldn't take any more cold, and anyway it's hard or impossible to see out there.”

“Where are those damn rescue people?” she said, just for something to say.

“We'll have to do what we can for him here. Take your clothes off, Mrs. Salmon.”

“What did you say?”

“Strip to your underwear.” Latour put Birch on the bed and pulled off the boy's shoes.

Persephone took her boots off, wiggled out of her jump suit, stripped off her slacks and sweater, paused at the high-collar white blouse, then finished.

Latour looked her over, looked at the clothes at her feet. “You're messy,” he said. He undressed himself and Birch, then he zipped two sleeping bags together. The boy was white as the snow. For a moment Persephone and Latour in their underwear stared at one another: the older woman with a body still okay but her skin raw, red, scaly, joints swollen with arthritis; the man in his prime, thick all over, looking like a wrestler in his jockeys.
She was aware that her black panties and white bra did not go well together.

They put Birch's cold, almost stiff body into the sleeping bags, then they crawled in with him, one on each side. They enveloped him with their arms and legs. Birch's body was so cold it made Persephone shiver. By contrast, Latour's leg, draped over her own, was warm and heavy. They lay in silence until the twilight came.

“In case you need to get up, there's a flashlight on the table,” Latour said.

“Thank you,” Persephone said.

And they were quiet again until it was dark in the hut. Birch's body was warmer now.

“I can feel him breathing,” Latour said in a whisper.

“He'll live.” Persephone, too, whispered.

“How the hell would you know?” Latour said, still whispering but louder, angrier, his tone giving her just a hint of the thrill of a fright.

“Because I insist upon it,” Persephone said.

“You insist upon it. That's arrogant as hell.”

She could barely hear him. They were like agitated lovers quarreling in a chapel, struggling to keep their voices down.

Where did you find him?” she asked.

“At the ledges.”

“You knew he would go there?”

“It was just a guess,” Latour said. “Well, maybe more than that. It's a mystery like everything else. Persephone, have you been to the ledges? The lean-to?”

“No, I couldn't bear to see where Lilith died.”

“I'm sorry. I should have known how hard it was for you.”

“It's all right. Grief made me selfish, too. I'm amazed you could find your way up there and back in this storm.”

“I didn't find anything. The whiteout was so bad I couldn't tell up from down, and then something happened.” Latour stopped talking, as if he was afraid of betraying a confidence. Then he went on. “I lost my way going up, and then I heard a noise in the wind. I followed the sound to the ledges, and Birch was lying down all curled up. Coming back with him, I was lost again, and
then I heard that sound. The last time I spoke to Lilith, when she was dying, her voice was weak from loss of blood. I thought at the time it was like the sound of mist. That's what I heard in the howl of the blizzard, her voice, real soft but coming.”

“It was your imagination.”

“I suppose.”

“Latour, what were you doing out there in the storm to begin with?”

“Birch. I've been following him for weeks, worried about him.”

“We all have.”

In the long pause that followed Persephone listened to Latour's breath, labored with anguish. Finally, he said, “How did you find me?”

Persephone couldn't stifle a sardonic laugh.

“You knew about this place?” he said.

“Of course, you idiot. Everybody knew about the homeless man who'd parked himself on the trust lands. No derelict would park himself so deeply into the woods. Nobody but you.”

“You never thought about evicting me?”

“It would have given me great pleasure to kick you out, jail you, vaporize you, but Birch's therapist advised me to take it easy.”

Now it was Latour who laughed. “Unbelievable,” he said, paused, and went off on another track. “Birch didn't get himself lost accidentally. He went up to the ledges on purpose. What would the shrink make of that?”

“Birch was upset when his friends left the area, but there was something else bothering him. His therapist didn't know what it was.”

“I guess we won't know until he wakes up. And maybe not even then. He always had secrets, even as an infant.”

“He got that from Lilith. You love him, don't you?”

“I thought—I still think—he belonged to Garvin, not me. In other words, I didn't deserve to love him like a father. It was in the back of my mind: Maybe I didn't love him. I didn't know what I felt until now. I do love him. He'll always be my son.”

“I used to imagine that he would grow up to be tall and handsome like Reggie or compact and athletic like Garvin, and maybe with a little bit of the classic lines of my own people, the Butterworths,” Persephone said.

Latour interrupted her with a bitter laugh. “But not like an Elman. He would never look like Howard or me. And you were right about that; he didn't grow that way.”

Something in Latour's voice made her think about Mendy and Maddy, Roland and Soapy, the great body politic of Darby, New Hampshire, the desperation of the Hunger Money people for acknowledgment or achievement, some damn thing.