Down by the River

by Robyn Carr

  “Then we’ll have to pay very close attention, see if he drops us a hint as to what’s wrong. Has he mentioned the name of this family member?”

  “Not a word. But he has mentioned having an ex-wife. Should we call her?” Susan asked.

  “I don’t know,” Elmer said. “What if she’s bitter?”

  “What if she makes trouble for him with the church?” George asked.

  “Harry has mentioned being on good terms with her,” June said. “But I don’t think calling her is the answer. Not yet, anyway.”

  “Let’s just keep a close eye on Harry for now,” Elmer said. “If anyone gets a notion as to what’s wrong, I’m willing to do whatever I can to help. I’m willing to bet there’s a town full of those willing.”

  Elmer had no idea how close his words came to the answer.

  Grace Valley resembled other cities and towns in the dichotomy the holidays presented. On one hand, there was a sense of coming together, a feeling of celebration. Families and friends united first to give thanks, then to exchange gifts and tidings. On the other hand, it was the worst season for depression and domestic problems.

  But even those people most down on their luck were making optimistic plans for the season of joy. Erline and her children were going to join Jurea and her teenagers for the very first turkey Clinton and Wanda would have. The oven was still new to Jurea, but she loved it dearly. She asked for lots of advice from anyone who would give it, and as a surprise, Harry Shipton brought her a sixteen-pound frozen turkey. He stood, gangly and grinning at her door, his arms full of plucked bird, and said, “Jurea, this is for you and your family. Happy Thanksgiving.”

  She wept for an hour.

  Jurea’s life had been hard and she didn’t expect much from it, so she never complained. But once she’d been brought out of the woods with her children and embraced by the town and the church, her life had changed in so many wonderful ways that she had trouble believing it wasn’t all a dream.

  She sent Wanda next door to get Erline and the babies, to show them the turkey. Erline was likewise moved to tears, but fortunately she didn’t take up all day with weeping. “I don’t have a workable kitchen,” Erline said, “but I can help you with some things like potatoes. I used to do the potatoes for my stepmother when I was a young girl. Both the white and the yams.”

  So the women got down to the nitty-gritty of planning out the food. They asked Harry to come to dinner, but he disappointed them by saying that he’d be visiting extended family in the Bay Area, back in time for an evening Thanksgiving service for those residents who could push back from the table and lumber over to the church.

  This would be the first Thanksgiving for Leah Craven and her five children after the death of her abusive husband. Even though they were clearly better off without him, holidays were not easy. It was a strange confusion, and the Craven family didn’t exactly understand it, but while they gave thanks there would be no fighting and hitting on one of the holidays that almost guaranteed it, there was also a cloud of sadness. So when there was a knock at the door and Leah looked out to see Harry Shipton’s old station wagon in front of the house, she swung open the door optimistically, hoping Harry would have some helpful and supportive words for her.

  “Hi, Leah. This is for you,” he said, presenting her with a twenty-pound frozen bird. “I hope you don’t already have one.”

  Leah kept better control of her grateful tears than Jurea had. But the truth was, she was worried about the meal. There was so little money, just what the garden could earn in summer and what she and Frank earned at the café.

  Harry had to decline yet another invitation.

  The pastor drove around the town and rural area of Grace Valley delivering a few more turkeys. The congregation bought them and a small committee came up with the list of families who should get them, but they left it to Harry to deliver them. Everywhere he went he was met with pure joy and gratitude. Not only that, people were always happy to see him. He was drawn into their homes, embraced with the love they had for him, and he a newcomer at that. At every home he was begged to come to dinner. There was no mistaking the genuineness of these offers, of this outpouring.

  He only wished he deserved it.

  June, who for the first time she could remember, had time to plan in earnest for a holiday, also had a friend to get it ready with. Nancy Forrest had a new kitchen and a white thumb for baking. The women spent the Tuesday afternoon before the holiday meal baking pies and homemade bread.

  “You’ll never know what a treat it is for me to look around your new home and think about what Jim might have done. This is a whole new life for him,” June said.

  “What was his life like as a cop?”

  “I’m learning about that a little at a time,” June said, avoiding the truthful parts that were actually secret. “He was just a kid when he started back in Wisconsin, first in a little rural village, then in Madison, where he grew up. He said it was all he’d ever wanted to do, but once he’d put in twenty years, he was ready to move on.”

  “To Grace Valley of all places?” Nancy asked as she rolled out dough.

  “Oh, you know that story, right?”

  “I’m not sure….”

  “He was camping out in the woods with friends when one of them got hurt. Accidentally shot. Jim brought him into town, saw lights on at the clinic, and while I picked a bullet out of his shoulder, we fell in love.” She smiled sentimentally. “Jim fainted.”

  Nancy had stopped rolling. “Well, jeez. Isn’t that romantic.”

  “I thought it was.”

  “But what made him decide to stay here?”

  “He didn’t stay here, he went back to work,” June explained. “He visited a couple of times, told me he just about had his twenty years in, but really, I didn’t have any expectations.” Nancy made a dubious face. “Okay, I might have had them, but until I told him I was pregnant and he came back and said he was here for good, I wasn’t sure that would happen.”

  “And you’re happier than you ever expected to be?” Nancy asked.

  Just as June was about to answer, the front door opened and Chris walked in. He wore a ski jacket over his shirt and tie and carried his briefcase. He smiled and said, “Hey, ladies,” but didn’t hang around to talk. He passed right through the living room, headed for the back of the house. Maybe he’s going to see the boys, June thought. Or to change clothes.

  She looked at Nancy and saw her eyes glued to the empty space that had marked Chris’s passage. She bit her lip, troubled. Then she looked at June and said, “Excuse me a sec,” and, wiping her hands on a dish towel, followed him.

  By the time she came back, June had the rolled-out crusts lining four pie pans. Nancy had a look on her face that made June think maybe she should leave.

  “Problems?” the doctor asked carefully.

  She shrugged. “It’s not the end of the world.”

  “Um, should I…I could put these pies in and leave, come back and pick them up tomorrow?”

  “No, let’s finish. You can watch me drink a glass of wine.” She forced a smile. “Next time we’re alone, I’ll tell you all about my husband and his current crisis,” she whispered.

  “He’s having a crisis?” June whispered back.

  Nancy leaned across their work space to get closer to June. “June, this is Chris Forrest. You remember him. He’s been having one crisis after another since I met him in the eighth grade.”

  Which made June laugh, which made Nancy laugh, which, before long, had them laughing hysterically at the laughter as well as the subject. June had to hold on to her stomach while it shook. Then June’s hand went suddenly to her startled mouth and, stricken, she said, “Oh! I think I peed my pants!”

  The highlight of the Thanksgiving holiday for the Hudsons, and quite a few curious townsfolk, had to be the arrival of Edward Mortimer, the first known suitor for Myrna Hudson Claypool in twenty years. Elmer and June were comfortable that Morton Claypool had jus
t wandered off and was most likely deceased by now, but there were still quite a few residents in Grace Valley who thought Myrna might have done him in. Imaginations had run wild all over town not long ago when bones had turned up under Myrna’s rhododendron, and very likely fell in disappointment when Myrna was absolved of any wrong-doing.

  But this guest, Edward, was being met with much enthusiasm. He was coming by bus from San Francisco on the busiest travel day of the year. Elmer drove Myrna’s big Caddy to the Rockport bus station while June and Jim, as support staff, went in Jim’s pickup. The bus depot, usually a fairly quiet place, was brimming with people traveling to and fro for the holiday.

  Myrna was decked out in her cashmere coat with the fox-tail collar and one of her very favorite hats, a black velvet with a wide brim, gold lamé band and a poinsettia. Her wiry white hair was tucked neatly underneath and her cheeks and lips were rosy with rouge and excitement.

  June had her arm looped through Myrna’s and whispered, “How are your nerves?”

  “As solid as a rock, thanks to you, dear.”

  “Me? What did I do?”

  “You should know. You simply wouldn’t take seriously all my ridiculous fretting. Why, it’s like I’ve known Edward all my life. You know, for writers, sometimes knowing each other’s work is more intimate than what is shared by husbands and wives. It’s intellectually intimate.”

  “Goodness,” June said, giving silent thanks that she wasn’t a writer. She stole a glance at Jim, who stood at her side, and her breath caught. It was a feeling she never hoped to replace with intellectual intimacy. She reached for his hand.

  Myrna was oblivious. “It’s true. In all the years I spent with Morton, we were never as intellectually close as Edward and I.” She chuckled conspiratorially. “I wonder, if Morton had stayed, if I’d have ended up having an affair with Edward.”

  “What rubbish,” Elmer said.

  “Rubbish to you, maybe,” she returned contrarily. “But don’t think I haven’t thought about it lately. You see, dear, Morton was a love, but he was dull. And Edward, while years older than Morton, is extremely stimulating.”

  “Is that right?” June asked out of politeness. “Look, the people are getting off the bus. You’re sure you’ll know him? There wasn’t a single photo on any of his book jackets.”

  “I’d know him with my eyes closed,” she said. “Plus, he promised to wear a red carnation in his lapel.”

  Seven or eight people disembarked, then there was a break and no one came. Then another six or seven, then no one. For a long time afterward June asked herself what would have happened if there’d been no red carnation. What would they have done? Finally, after about twenty people got off the bus, there came this very slight, very neat-looking man of eighty-six in a rather old-fashioned but tidy navy blue pin-striped suit, white shirt and red tie, dark felt hat with a black satin band, and wearing a red carnation. And it was none other than Morton Claypool.

  “Dear God,” June said in a breath.

  “Jesus Christ in heaven,” Elmer concurred.

  “What? What’s the matter?” Jim asked, as the little man drew near.

  Finally the man stood before a speechless Myrna, slowly removed his hat and bowed. He smiled. “My dear,” he said. “I am home at last.”

  June was stricken with disbelief, but finally tore her eyes away from Morton to glance at her aunt. Myrna’s lips were pursed and her cheeks redder, if possible. Her hair seemed to spring loose from under her wide-brimmed hat.

  “That’s what you think!” she said, then turned on her heel and stomped off.

  “This is what we usually refer to as a fine kettle of fish,” Elmer told Morton.

  Elmer drove Jim’s truck with Morton as a passenger, his bags tossed in the back, while June drove the Caddy, Myrna sitting in the passenger seat in a monumental pout and Jim in the back seat. Myrna would not even consider having Morton in the same vehicle with her. She’d fled to the Caddy, got in, slammed the door and locked herself in while the others all stood around and tried to figure out how to shuffle drivers and passengers.

  “She didn’t appear especially happy to see me,” Morton said.

  “You’ve always been a gifted observer,” Elmer said. “Morton, what the devil were you thinking?”

  “I was thinking of coming back to Grace Valley,” he said. “Now that I was convinced Myrna wanted me.”

  “Where the hell have you been?” he demanded.

  “Mostly in Redding. But I did treat myself to a little traveling.”

  “But why did you stay gone so long? We looked for you! We were worried!”

  “Piffle,” he said.

  “What?”

  “I said ‘piffle.’ You didn’t look. No one looked. Not at all.”

  “Well…” Elmer didn’t quite know what to say. No one had looked until very recently, and by then the trail had gone cold. In fact, Myrna insisted that no one look for him. In double fact, she hadn’t even noticed he was gone until months had passed.

  “I bet no one even noticed I had gone until years had passed,” Morton said.

  Elmer felt himself blush. “That’s just not true,” he said. It wasn’t years. “My sister quite naturally thought you’d walked out on her. Left her. Her reasoning was very simple, if you’d been hurt or killed, your employer would have called her. But when she checked with the paper company, they said you’d been showing up at work regularly.”

  “Humph,” he said. “I imagine no one in your family will ever admit how long it was until someone called them.”

  “Now, see here,” Elmer said, getting a little miffed himself. “Are you going to pretend to be angry at all of us? It’s possible that Myrna waited a bit too long to call your employer, but think of her feelings, man! She was abandoned! And it turned out you were quite well, working away, not even bothering to phone her!”

  “That’s not exactly so, but I’m not going to defend myself any further. I was invited for Thanksgiving and I’ve come. If no one wants me around after that, I’ll go back to my little apartment in Redding. No hard feelings.”

  “No hard feelings?” Elmer echoed, astonished.

  “Not on my part,” he said.

  Elmer sighed deeply. “You know all those books in which the husband was killed off?” he asked.

  “I should. It was originally my idea.”

  “Well, it could become a reality. She’s pissed.”

  In the Caddy, there was a similarly emotional conversation, but that’s where the resemblance stopped.

  “You had absolutely no idea?” June asked.

  “What do you think?” Myrna countered.

  “But now, in thinking back, did nothing trigger suspicion?”

  “That Morton, he always did have a sneaky, underhanded streak. You have to watch those quiet, dull ones.”

  June drove quietly for a spell while Myrna sat way across the seat, seething. “Imagine,” June finally said. “The very man who suggested that you write book after book killing off the husband was your husband! Tell me, when you were being investigated by the district attorney for suspicion of murdering him, did he say a word?”

  “Not a peep!”

  “What balls,” June said with a short laugh.

  “He’s a blithering coward! A boring one at that. Didn’t I always say so?”

  “You did indeed, and you were completely wrong, weren’t you.”

  “What in the world…”

  “Auntie, I don’t know the exact reasons for all this, but essentially your husband went away and began writing you letters. The man you didn’t have all that much use for wooed you in print and won your heart. You said yourself, you were intellectually closer to ‘Edward’ than Morton. You spent more years adoring him through the mail than you ever did when he was right under your roof!”

  “And now I despise both of them, regardless. I wonder, is that old shotgun of my daddy’s still in the attic?”

  “Hoo-boy” was heard from the
back seat.

  She pulled off to the side of the road, put the car in Park and faced her aunt. “Auntie, listen to me. I know you’re miffed, and maybe you have a right to be, I don’t know—”

  “You don’t know?”

  June folded her hands over her rapidly growing stomach, peered down at her tiny but formidable aunt and lifted one brow. “Auntie, you didn’t realize for six months that Morton was gone. It’s possible he left because he was feeling just a tad neglected.”

  There was a sound from the back seat. It was something like a backward sneeze that dissolved into a clumsy fit of coughing. Or else it was a poor attempt at disguising unintentional laughter.

  “He should’ve spoken up if he needed something,” Myrna said. Then she glared over the seat at Jim. She made him redden.

  “Be that as it may, I’m certain both of you bear some responsibility for this mess. He’s here, it’s a holiday, a family holiday, and we’re going to make the best of it. I don’t know how this whole thing will turn out in the long run. Morton might choose to go right back where he came from. He seems to have made a good life for himself, writing. In the meantime, we’re going to be civil. And kind. Aren’t we, Auntie?”

  She huffed and looked out the window.

  “Aunt Myrna? Aren’t we?”

  She looked back at June. “This is going to take some doing.”

  “Whatever it takes. Right, Auntie?”

  “I suppose you have a valid point. We probably both contributed, although my contribution was slight and my retribution could be vast.”

  “Aunt Myrna,” June warned.

  “I can be civil. I can attempt to be civil.”

  “There. You see? We might as well have an enjoyable holiday. I’ve been baking for days. I’ve gotten good at it.” June turned back to the steering wheel and put the car in Drive. “Think of it this way. We’re blessed that Uncle Morton is alive!”

  “Humph. We’d be blessed if he were under the rhododendron!”