The Children (31 page)

Joan and I have to be out by tomorrow. Once the estate was settled, we were given a month to pack and leave Lakeside. Laurel gets everything—the house and Spin's savings, which were more than he had let on. (He was always thrifty, just like Whit.) When Joan dies, Laurel will inherit the rest. The Whitman stocks, all the old Whitman steel money that had been preserved so carefully by Whit, Whit's father, and his father before him.

We've been given one month to make the last twenty-seven years go away. Truthfully, most of the stuff in this house is Whitman stuff. It all belongs to Laurel now, so there isn't a lot to move. Everybody left us alone at first, but these past few weeks, Laurel and that architect have been driving up here and walking all over the place. Joan manages to exchange curt civilities with them. I never come down when they're here. I've heard them whispering, more than once, that they know I'm in the attic, “hiding.”

Once, when Laurel and the architect were talking about me, I wasn't in the attic at all, I was in the little crawl space behind a closet in the master bedroom, the same room that they were in. I know all the hiding places in this house. It's satisfying knowing that I'm still able to fit into my favorite hiding spots from when I was a little girl.

One morning last week, I was up in the attic when Riley started growling. I told him to hush. I had been teaching him not to make noise when people come in, but that morning, he kept growling.

I opened the attic door a little. The footsteps in the foyer were heavy—slow and unfamiliar. I closed the door and waited. I peeked out the attic window but didn't see a car in the driveway.

The person was in the kitchen now. Joan had gone out for her run. Neither she nor I had gotten around to doing the dishes from the night before. I was planning to do them when I finished what I was doing on the computer. Now I heard the water running and the dishes clattering. That's when I realized who it was.

Mr. Clean had lain low for most of the winter, but in April, he had hit two more houses. He was taking more risks, showing up when people were only out for a few hours. Washington was on the local news one evening, urging residents to lock their homes and never to open the door to strangers.

So that morning, when I heard the commotion in the kitchen, I tiptoed down the back stairs. I was barefoot and made my way down so slowly. I know every floorboard that creaks in this whole house.

When I arrived at the bottom of the stairs, I peered into the kitchen. Mr. Clean's back was to me, but I recognized his stooped posture. It was Norm Hungerford. Whit's old friend, Mr. Hungerford. I watched him for a few minutes. I was afraid of surprising him, afraid he might have a heart attack or something. Finally I just walked into the room and said, “Mr. Hungerford?”

Mr. Hungerford looked at me quizzically. “Yes?”

“Hi, I'm Charlotte, Whit's daughter.”

“Oh, well, hello, dear,” he said.

“What are you doing?” I asked.

“Helping Betty with the dishes. Run along now.”

Old, senile Mr. Hungerford had been Mr. Clean all along. His fingerprints matched those taken in the other houses. He never tried to evade being caught. Washington loved this. He said that's how it happens sometimes. When you try not to get caught, you usually do. When you just go about your business, you can get away with a lot.

Sally found a sublet in Manhattan, but she comes up here on weekends to stay with Washington. They're together now. The filmmaker loved her score and she's spent much of the winter recording it. Now she's helping us pack up our things. Joan is staying in Harwich, renting a lovely house right near the club. She can walk to the tennis courts from there. I'm going to stay with her. Just for now. She has an extra room. It's just a temporary setup.

Everett has to be out of his house tomorrow, too. He has a friend with an old barn, and that's where he's storing his stuff until he moves. He's going to Vermont, not California. He's been to Vermont, but he's never been to California. That was his reasoning.

After Spin died, Everett and I still talked about moving someplace together, but our grief and remorse got in the way. We never talked about it, but our plan to move on was too enmeshed with Spin and his death. Maybe it would be forever, there was no way to tell. Those first few weeks after Spin's death, we had to keep reassuring each other that it was an accident, that it wasn't our fault. We never lied to the authorities. It was Washington who questioned us first, and we told him the truth. We told him about the night of the Fourth, and about the argument on the beach. About how Spin had charged Everett first, but that Everett had tripped him, causing him to fall. It was an accident.

Laurel, of course, disputed this. She called Washington's superior to say she wanted somebody else assigned to the case. She told him that Everett had a violent history, that he had been arrested for assault in the past. She knew this from Spin.

Why hadn't Whit let our mother go to the police when Sally was raped? Everett would never have been arrested if he had let her do that. He never would have attacked that Osborne kid if Whit had done the right thing.

“You're allowed to be angry at Whit,” Sally's therapist had told her. “You're allowed to hate him.”

Laurel claimed that I was a known liar. She told the officer who replaced Washington on the case about my mommy blog. Fortunately, old Ethel Garner had been sailing past our beach in her Sunfish that afternoon when Spin died. She had seen the entire incident and confirmed our version of what happened. The death was determined to be an accident, but everybody in town now thought of Everett as Spin Whitman's killer. There was lots of commentary on the
Harwich Times
Web site about the whole thing. Here's a sample:

ELW
: Sad about what happened to Whit Whitman's kid.

LUCYDUECEY
: I feel bad for Ev Hastings. They were best friends. Sucks. I hear that the chick who married Spin is selling the house. No more Whitmans in Harwich.

HORSEGAL
: End of an era.

BILLFEN
: I don't feel bad for Hastings. I think there's more to this story than meets the eye. I heard the new wife was forcing him to move out. He might have wanted Spin gone?

GARDENIA
: What a horrid thing to say!

JS:
@BILLFEN WTF is the matter with you? You suck.

TMK
: Whit's wife and daughters are still at Lakeside, no?

LUCYDUECEY
: Second wife. Stepdaughters. They've all moved on, I think. Sally used to come up here a lot, but I haven't seen Charlotte in years.

ALI
: Not true, Charlotte's still here. I see her all the time.

BIRDDOG
: I've only seen her on Facebook in recent years.

ALI
: Huh, I guess that's the only place I've seen her, too.

JAMESP
: I went to Holden with Spin. He's a great guy.

BILLFEN
: “Was” a great guy, huh, Ev?

JAMESP
: Moderator? Can you please delete the outrageously disrespectful comment above?

You get the idea.

I heard from Matt a few days after Spin died. He sent an e-mail with his condolences. I have no idea how he knew about the accident—it only made local news, and there was no mention of me or Sally, since we're Maynards, not Whitmans. I asked him how he'd heard about it, but he didn't say. He likes to be invisible. He somehow snuck into our family via the Internet and had a look around. I know it sounds creepy, but in fact, I find it comforting to know that at any given moment, when I'm at my computer, my friend might be watching me.

We've been going out for drives every day, Ev and me. We still talk about possibly getting back together. We like to assure each other that this is going to happen, but who knows? We need time. Sometimes we get out of the truck and walk around. I'm much better about this now. I still don't like open fields or places where people are walking around, but I like quiet country lanes and wooded paths.

On the first warm day of spring, about two weeks ago, we actually took a walk along the old railroad bed. Everett had three dogs he was training and we needed to exercise them. We ran along the path with the dogs—they were young and we wanted to tire them out. The dogs raced into the old tunnel, but I hesitated before going in. Everett was surprised when I told him I hadn't been there since that night we found Sally.

Later I told Sally that we had been to the tunnel.

“So?” she said. “Washington and I walk there a lot. It's so pretty this time of year. I've been back there a bunch of times.”

I've started a new blog; it's another mommy blog. The diaper company has worked with me to develop it. I have two children again, but neither of them has special needs; that's where I ran into trouble the last time. Theo, my three-year-old, is a tyrant; he just got expelled from preschool. Poppy, who's seven, is small for her age, but she's very bright and has a big heart. She's the kindest person—an “old soul,” as my followers often comment. She takes after my brother, Cole.

Cole's death was the reason I started the blog; it was a way to deal with my grief. I was surprised that the diaper company wanted me to start up a new blog, but they had been angry that I terminated the old one without consulting them. Now they know the deal; they know it's not real. That was never really an issue for them. They're really only interested in the numbers. I've had this blog up for only six months and I already have more followers than Lazy Susan ever had.

Tomorrow, Laurel's contractors will start “gutting the place” (their words). I recently heard the architect talking to his assistant about a screening room and a gym. These things are very attractive to buyers, according to him.

I don't like thinking about what Lakeside will look like later, after we're gone. I'm glad I'll never see it. Yesterday, Everett took away the banjos Whit gave Sally and me. He took some books and photographs that are ours as well. This afternoon, the appraisers are coming here to do an inventory. We don't have any way of proving the banjos were gifts. But they were. Everything else will be sold or demolished: Aunt Nan's floral bedspreads and gilt-edged mirror. Joan's heirloom irises. The old scarred butcher-block countertop. The little swale in the floorboards in front of the old porch swing. Sally and I helped wear the wood out there with our bare feet. Whit probably started the little groove when he was a boy, swinging on that same swing. I heard the architect say that the floorboards on the porch had dry rot, all of them, and would have to be replaced. He warned his assistant not to sit on the swing. “Look how rusty that chain is,” he said. “Accident waiting to happen.”

I'm focusing on my blog now. I like to write about my kids. Today I wrote about how sweet they smell after their baths. Theo has a little cowlick in the same place as his father's. I like to trace it with my finger when he's falling asleep. The only time he'll hold still long enough for me to really cuddle him is when he's all drowsy in those last moments at the end of a long summer day. He still likes to curl up in my lap and listen to stories. He still sometimes sucks his thumb when he's falling asleep. He works his jaw in little circular motions and his big brown eyes gaze thoughtfully at the air in front of him.

What does a three-year-old think about? What does he remember? Who will this little person be, in the end? I love telling him about his great-grandmother, who thought her sweater was a cat. And about her own mother, who killed a rabid raccoon with a book, and ate her pie from a plate like a dog. The stories are familiar; he's heard them many times and he smiles at his favorite parts, even as his eyelids grow heavy. Soon he'll be asleep. Soon it'll be dark enough to walk outside and go for a swim.

The moon is almost full now. Each night this week, the sky's grown brighter and it's harder to see the stars, but not impossible. I'll still be able to see Polaris tonight. Someday, I'll show it to my children. It's at the end of the Little Dipper, right there, at the tip of the handle. Once you find Polaris, you've found true north. You can navigate anywhere from there. Find a landmark, I'll tell the children. You have to find a hill or a house or a tree while it's still dark; that way you'll be oriented the next day, when the stars are gone. Kids find it comforting to learn stuff like that—how to find your bearings, how to get where you're going, what to do if you're lost. I remember resting my head on Whit's shoulder one night when I was very small, so I could follow his calloused finger as it dropped from Polaris to the ridge below. The second ridge in the row of hills across the lake was our true north. The sky's fading into a watery pink now. The lake's turning iridescent and dark. In a little while I'll swim out to the float. I'll look for Polaris, then find the ridge below. I'll remember it, though there's really no need now. Tomorrow we'll all be gone.

 

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

I wish to thank my brilliant editor, Brenda Copeland, and my wonderful agent, Maria Massie.

Many thanks also to the great team from Macmillan/St. Martin's: Sally Richardson, Stephen Morrison, Laura Chasen, Meg Drislane, Olga Grlic, Brant Janeway, Michelle Ma, Jessica Preeg, Lisa Senz, Laura Wilson, and Dori Weintraub.

Finally, much gratitude to my mother, Judith Howe, and my sister, Meg Seminara, who read the many drafts as they morphed into this book, and to my husband and children, who suffered through my writing it.

 

Also by
Ann Leary

Outtakes from a Marriage

An Innocent, a Broad

The Good House

 

ABOUT THE AUTHOR