Stay (28 page)

They all stood in front of the house to wave me goodbye. Jud stood as though in church. Button moved restlessly, head turning this way and that. Adeline had one arm tight around his shoulders but her eyes rested on Luz. Mine, her gaze said, My girl. Lucky woman: to believe she’d lost her girl and to then get her back. She had never even said thank you.

Driving across the Mississippi, I was nearly blinded by the sun glinting off the buildings in downtown Memphis. Once on the other side, I hit drive-time traffic, so I found a strip mall with big parking lots, parked the rig, and went into a bar. It was small and long, just a dark oily bar down one side and a jukebox, currently silent, at the back, opposite the toilets. I took a seat on a stool with ripped red vinyl and asked the thin, balding bartender what they had in the way of imported beer on draft, which turned out to be Bass ale, chilled until flat and practically frozen when it should have been room temperature and aromatic.

At some point Luz would wonder who I was and why I paid for everything. I’d seen how stubborn she was; one day I might have to give her some answers.

I sipped my beer.

My mother had never given me any answers. Then again, I hadn’t asked her any questions, once I understood that the answers wouldn’t come from the place I wanted them to. Asking questions made you vulnerable. But I wasn’t Luz’s mother. I was a banker with the honorary title of aunt.

A woman with dyed black hair slid onto the stool next to me. “Fucking kids,” she said. “Fuckers took all my money, said they wanted some food for a change. Food my ass. Drugs. Only in seventh, and eighth grade and already probably smoking and snorting and sticking it in their arm. Yo, Jim Beam here, Barney! Fuckers.” She turned to me. “You got kids?”

“I’m not sure.”

“What kind of answer is that? Do you got kids or don’t you?”

“Beats me.” My phone rang. “That’s probably her now.” But it was Dornan.

“Aud, where are you?”

“In a nasty little bar in Memphis drinking nasty beer.”

“Do you have Tammy with you?”

“No.”

“Only I’m here, in the clearing—”

“You were supposed to stay in Atlanta.”

“She didn’t call. You didn’t call. So I came out here, and the trailer’s gone, and there’s no sign of Tammy.”

“I see.”

“You see? What do you mean, you see? Where is she?”

“I don’t know.”

“Christ. So she’s done another disappearing act?”

“She was fine when I saw her a few days ago.”

“If that bloody Karp—”

“She was fine. And Geordie Karp isn’t in any position to do anything anymore. She might only be gone for a few hours.”

“When are you coming back?”

“Day after tomorrow.”

“What are you doing in Memphis?” I didn’t respond. “I’ll see you up at the cabin day after tomorrow then?”

“Yes.” He hung up.

“Yours sounds bad,” the woman with the Jim Beam said. “Fuckers. Here’s to kids.” We clinked glasses, I drained my beer, and left.

I was forty miles outside of Memphis when my phone rang again. I answered it cautiously.

“Hello?”

“Aud? Eddie.” The muscles in my belly went rigid. “The story has taken an amusing turn. In just the last week, apparently, our twin avenging angels have been spotted in two other states outside—”

This is what happened when you walked away from your armor. All it took was one phone call.

“—sylvania. It seems—”

“Where?”

“Two incidents in West Virginia and one in Pennsylvania. Is this not a very good line? Should I call you back?”

“No. I’m sorry. Go on.”

“It seems that the credulous readers have taken our entirely imaginary twin angels to heart. Apparently they have stricken a wife beater with terminal cancer and terrified the life half out of three seventh-grade bullies in the schoolyard at Chester Junior High, both up near Clarksburg. And in Sunbury, Pennsylvania, they appeared in the middle of the road and made a truck run off the pavement, killing the driver and one passenger. Another passenger survived. The two victims, according to the surviving witness—who, incidentally, on seeing the terrible twins glowing with wrath, has changed his evil ways forever—ran a dogfighting ring that local authorities have been trying to shut—“

West Virginia and Pennsylvania. Not Arkansas. Not Tennessee.

“—
Post
has substituted color paintings of the angel twins for last issue’s quick pencil sketches. Offhand I’d say that they intend to play this one for a while.”

“No police comment?”

“Oh, this story has moved way beyond the realm of such mundane concerns. Knowing of your interest, however, I did take the liberty of contacting the NYPD and asking for a quote on their progress with the Karp assault.”

“And?”

“ ‘No progress at this time.’ They made some noise about being happy to talk to any member of the public who wants to come forward with evidence, from any state, but they didn’t offer me an 800 number.”

“They’ve stopped looking, then.”

“I would agree. Unless, of course, a miracle happens.” He giggled at his own wit. “Oh, and Karp? They found some family. Cousins, I believe. The
Post
describes them as ‘estranged.’ They say, and I quote, ‘If his insurance won’t pay, turn him off. He’s not our problem.’ ”

I drove through the night.

An angel and aunt. Banker and devil’s advocate. Aud rhymes with crowd. My name is Legion.

P
owdery snow dusted the road up the mountain
but it was thin and would probably melt off by midafternoon. I would have been able to get the trailer up, after all. Tracks of two different vehicles striped the snow, one set very fresh.

Dornan’s Isuzu stood in the clearing, and thin gray smoke drifted from the cabin chimney. When I climbed down from the cab, my breath steamed, even though it was after midday, and the carrier bags I held in each hand crackled in the cold. The trees stood gaunt and bare against a gray sky streaked with blue. Winter had been late in coming this year, very late, but it had finally arrived.

My boots crunched on the frozen turf, and when I reached the cabin I paused to tap my heels on the stoop to knock away snow, making a mental note to buy a real doormat, before I opened the door.

Dornan sat on his heels by the hearth, poking at the logs in the stove. He spoke without looking up. “It’s different, trying to make a fire inside something.”

“You seem to be doing well enough.” I put down my bags, pulled off my jacket, and hung it on the banister. His lay over the couch in front of the fireplace.

He looked up. “Your face. And you’re limping.”

“Superficial. It’ll heal. I’ll make some tea.” He nodded, more to himself than me.

I carried the bags to the kitchen, filled a kettle, and brought it out to put on the stove. It would be a while. Back in the kitchen, I busied myself with pot and mugs, milk, sugar for Dornan, and the shortbread biscuits I’d bought in Asheville. I brought everything on a tray which I put on the hearth, and then I sat on the couch and Dornan stayed on the floor, and we watched the flames in silence, waiting for the kettle, and the tea, before he said what he had come to say.

The flames grew and rubbed like cats against the cold iron, which ticked and creaked as it expanded. After a few minutes, I heard the first rumble of water warming. I ate a piece of shortbread. It dissolved, rich and buttery, on my tongue.

At the first quavering whistle, I lifted the kettle from the stove using the front of my sweater as an oven mitt, and poured the water and curling steam into the pot. Heavier steam curled back out and I sniffed it. Aromatic.

“You always do that.”

“I know.”

I stirred deliberately, put the lid on the pot, and waited.

After three minutes, I poured. Perfect color, like dark oak. I handed a mug to Dornan. He stood, added sugar, and sat again, cross-legged, facing me. His face was tired, but very still. When the worst has happened, there is a certain peace for a while.

“She came back, and now she’s gone again. She told me some of it.” He tasted his tea, added more sugar, stirred, sipped again, and added, “I’m glad you hurt him.”

I nodded but my heart squeezed. Annie had said almost the same thing while Julia lay fighting for her life: I’m glad you killed them.

Dornan stared at his tea. “Now we’ve both lost them.”

There didn’t seem much more to say.

After a while, I made more tea and Dornan added more wood to the stove. The cabin grew warm. The sun managed to break through the cloud and stream through the front windows. I watched the flickering flames and thought of nothing in particular. Eventually Dornan stirred.

“The forecast is for snow tonight, and I have to be in Atlanta by midmorning. I should start back now.”

“Dornan—”

“No. I’ll be all right. The sun won’t be down for another two hours and I’ll be safely onto the interstate by then.”

“That’s not what I was going to say.”

“I know.” He smiled sadly. “But I don’t want to hear anything else. She’s gone. She said she’s sorry, that she always liked me, but that she should never have agreed to marry me in the first place.” He stuck his hand in his pocket and pulled something out. He opened his hand: Tammy’s engagement ring.

“I’m sorry.”

“Not your fault. I know, that’s not what you meant, either.”

He stood, reached for his jacket. “I just stayed to tell you. And to thank you. For everything. For finding her and bringing her back, in more ways than one.”

He pulled on his jacket, a cheerful magenta-and-black waterproof, probably picked for him by Tammy, and moved towards the door. I put down my mug and followed him. When he put his hand on the latch, he smiled again. “We hung a good door, didn’t we?”

“We did.” He didn’t move. “I can show you my workshop, if you like, when I get back to Atlanta.”

“You’re coming back then?”

“Yes.”

“When?”

“Soon. Very soon. A day or two.”

“Good. Being out here alone is not good for a person. Grief, I find, is…” He shook his head. “Listen to me, talking as though I know it all.” He laughed shakily. “I thought it would be easier this time.” He looked so small and wounded in his bright jacket that I opened my arms and pulled him in. He wrapped his hands over my hips, leaned his forehead on my breastbone, and wept. He smelled of woodsmoke and tea.

Eventually he stopped. He tried to wipe his face on his jacket sleeve. I brought him a box of tissues. “As you said, every modern convenience, even in the middle of nowhere.”

A smile tried to break through his grief, but unlike the sun, it failed. He mopped and snorted for a minute or two, but turned down my offer of more tea. “I really have to get back, to stay busy. At least for a while. No,” he said as he opened the door, “don’t come out with me. Stay where it’s warm. I’ll be seeing you in a day or two.” He stepped onto the stoop, then turned and took my hand. Either his was very warm, or mine cold. “Friends help. Don’t forget that.” He patted my hand, then walked with that quick step of his over to his Isuzu, opened the door, slid in, turned on the engine and lights, and pulled away.

I carried the rest of my things from the truck—a few clothes, two folders of documents, some toiletries—to the cabin and took them upstairs. The bed was stripped, everything neatly washed and folded. I sniffed the linens: clean, but no longer smelling of laundry soap. It had been at least three days, then.

The weather forecast was wrong; the snow did not come. A little before nine that night I bundled up in jacket, hat, and gloves and went outside to stand under the cold magic of stars and listen to the huge attentiveness of dark. I stood for a long time.

An owl flew across the moon and from half a mile away the sound of a Subaru engine drifted up the mountain. It grew louder, and five minutes later Tammy pulled into the clearing.

When she climbed out of the car, I saw the difference, the sleekness, her buttocks ripe as mangoes, her arms and legs plump and muscled.

“What are you doing standing out here in the cold?”

“Looking at the stars. Thinking of Thomas Wolfe’s description of the night.”

“Oh. Right. Where’s the trailer?”

“In storage in Asheville. I thought there would be snow and I wouldn’t be able to get it up the track.”

We went inside. I lit two lamps, then sat on the couch. Tammy went straight to the stove and opened it so she could rub her hands in front of the naked flames. “Forgot my gloves. I forgot to
buy
gloves I’ve been so busy.”

That was my cue to ask what she’d been doing, but I felt out of sorts, grumpy on Dornan’s behalf, even though, rationally, I knew none of it was really her fault; it was just that she looked so good and he looked so bad.

“You don’t seem exactly thrilled to see me.”

“I’m not too happy with the world in general. Everything is so… complicated.”

“Things didn’t go so well in Arkansas, huh?”

“No. Well, yes, sort of.”

“Well, that’s clear.” Déjà vu. She shut the stove door. “Have you eaten? One thing I learned while you were gone: you can cook a whole meal in one pan if you just fry everything. How about steak, eggs, and fried potatoes? And then you can tell me all about it.”

She cooked. We drank coffee with our meal. In the mixed lamp- and firelight, Tammy’s rounded cheeks glowed like those of an ancient, burnished idol.

“You look good,” I said. She raised her eyebrows. “The mix of softness and strength suits you.”

“I feel pretty good. More at home with myself, you know what I mean?”

“Yes.” At least sometimes.

“So now I want to hear about Arkansas.”

I told her about the Carpenters, of Luz and her Spanish and Adeline’s covert fostering of it. Of Jud and his discomfort with strangers, of Button and his odd eyes. Of Goulay, and Mike.

“You tied him up like a pretzel?”

“He looked more like a pool triangle, actually.”

“I don’t get how he got his hands loose to hit you.”

“I was careless. I made an assumption—that he wouldn’t be flexible enough to step backwards through the belt and get his hands to the front.”

“Well, hey, you won in the end, even if you did get a few more dings to add to your collection. But the letting-them-go part doesn’t seem too smart.”

“I couldn’t turn them over to the police, because then I would have had to explain how I’d come by my information.” She gave me a crooked smile, and eventually I nodded. “Killing them would have upset Luz.”

“They might come and find you.”

“They can’t, and they won’t. They’re going to be only too glad to forget I exist.”

She gave me a look. “Oh, right. You said you’d be shutting down their business.
That’s
pretty easy to forget.”

“True. Except it’ll be my lawyer doing the watching.” Bette already had the preliminary information, and was busily amassing more. When we had sufficient hard evidence, she would— without using my name or Luz’s details—bring in the child welfare agencies, charities, and news organizations, the crusaders and rights groups, and INS. There had to be a way of helping these children without wholesale deportation. Meanwhile, if Goulay broke or even bent so much as a traffic ordinance, Bette would tie her up in knots.

Then I told Tammy about Luz. “So Adeline has told her I’m an honorary aunt. But I don’t know if I’m doing the right thing, if I should have left her or taken her away. How can you tell if a child is getting what she needs?”

“Jesus, if you could answer that one you’d be pulling down the big bucks as a parenting guru.” She grinned. “Imagine the Oprah show: ‘Well, Oprah, you tell them what to do, and if they don’t, you kill them and buy another.’ No,” she said hastily, seeing the look on my face, “you’ll figure it out after a while. It’s like anything else: you get better with practice.”

“Do you think I’ll do a good job?”

She looked at me, fascinated. “Are you asking me for reassurance?”

Being vulnerable got easier with practice, too. “I suppose I am.”

“This has got to be a first. Okay. Well, you’re stubborn and smart, and you like to be the best, so whether you end up being Fairy Godmother or the Wicked Witch to that little girl, you’ll find a way to make sure she gets a good life.” She grinned again. “As long as you don’t fuck it up. Or as long as she doesn’t. It takes two, you know.”

It takes two. “Tell me what you’ve been up to.”

“I took that job at Sonopress—start Monday. I found an apartment in Asheville, it’s small but it’ll work for a while. I got the utilities turned on day before yesterday and the phone went in today.”

“I guessed. All your things were gone.” I paused. “Dornan was here. He told me you talked.”

“How is he?”

“About as you’d expect. Sad. But no blame.”

“I’m not sure I deserved him.”

“People aren’t merit badges.” Which is a good thing because I had never deserved Julia. People just… choose, and then leave, one way or another.

Tammy got up, went to her jacket, and pulled out her cell phone. “I don’t need this now.”

“Keep it, just transfer the account to your name.”

She nodded. Thanks would have been ridiculous. “I’m taking the car back tomorrow. I’ll make sure they run it on my plastic, now that I’ve got an address to bill things to. Here’s the new address and phone number.“

A three-by-five card with that strong black lettering I’d first noticed weeks ago when I had searched through her papers. I put the card in my pocket.

“Dree said she’ll introduce me around, and I’ll meet people just doing my job. It’ll be cool not being in the city for a while. You’re going back, aren’t you?”

“Yes.”

“Why?”

I was quiet for a few minutes. A year ago, Tammy would have been unable to bear the silence. Now she just got up and brought the coffeepot to give us both a refill, and settled back comfortably, happy to wait. “I don’t know. To be in the world. It’s home.”

My muscles lay lazy and loose on my bones, the food sat well in my stomach, the mug warmed my hand. I sighed and leaned back. Tammy’s weight shifted slightly with the couch cushion, touching me now at hip and thigh. As we breathed her jeans rubbed against mine, seam to seam, but there was no question being asked, and no answer needed. The tension was gone.

She kept her T-shirt on and climbed under the covers, and when I came to bed she took me in her arms and I rested my face on her breast, and we lay like that for half an hour, not talking, not moving, just holding and being held, until our hearts slowed, and our breathing softened, and we slept.

I didn’t wake in the middle of the night; I had no bad dreams; I slept, neither protector nor protected, just one human being next to another, mending.

When we woke, I made breakfast, and she left at first light.

By midday the yellow snow clouds began dropping their load and fat flakes sifted down in silence. The Subaru tracks were invisible within ten minutes. I packed the truck bed carefully, snow boots and shovel on top, just in case. The woodworking tools were well oiled and wrapped in tarps, the hogpen securely locked. I’d drained the pump so freezing water didn’t split the pipe while I was away, and the cabin, ashes raked, flue shut, food removed, and bed stripped once more, was as winterproof as I could make it. I had built well. It was sturdy. It would be here when I came back in spring.

I changed my mind about the snow shovel and boots, and threw them in the backseat instead.

I made one last circuit of the clearing, beginning with the cabin, checking the door and windows, then moving on to the heath bald at the south end. The trees would soon be hidden with snow folded down on the branches like meringue. If I stood here a month from now, all would be white, with nothing but animal tracks to indicate the massive fecundity beneath. It has been here two hundred million years, a climax forest, very stable, not changing, not in the middle of turning into anything. I envied it.

A wren flittered onto the boulder I had used as a seat a few weeks ago: a tiny mouthful of a bird, fluffed against the cold like a Viennese truffle. It tilted one bright eye at me, then another, just like Luz, and flew on over the snow. Six months from now, it would have three cheeping fledglings running it ragged.

“I’ll be back,” I told it, and crunched my way to the truck.

It started with a low rumble that suited the wintry quiet, like a bear grumbling in its sleep, but once I was at the top of the track I turned off the engine, took my foot off the brake, and coasted down the road in silence.

“Lovely,” said Julia. “Like Narnia. You mustn’t forget to send that child her Turkish delight.”

“What do you think of her?”

“She's nine. It's hard to tell. But she’ll probably grow up to be a Bible-spouting evangelist who thinks you’re Satan incarnate by the time she’s twenty. At least she’ll be a Bible-spouting evangelist who won’t be pushed around. Not if you have anything to do with it.”

“I’ll teach her how to fight.”

“You taught Ms. Tammy a thing or two, certainly.” She smiled privately. Snow began to build up on the windscreen. “You should probably turn the engine on now and get those windshield wipers going, or we’ll end up nose to nose with a tree.”

I did.

“If you teach her to fight, don’t be surprised if she fights you. Once she’s grown she might just leave.”

“People always leave.”

“Often. Not always.” I felt a ghostly touch just beneath my right eye. “Is that a tear?”

“Will you leave me eventually?”

She laughed, a round rich laugh full of good humor. “Aud. Look at me. Stop the car and look at me.” I braked and stopped but did not turn off the engine. I looked at her. “Reach out and touch me.”

“No.”

“No. Because you can’t. Because I’m dead. I can’t leave you, Aud, because I come from you. I am you. You know that.”