by John Saul
Michael hesitated, then nodded unhappily. "The funeral's over."
Amos Hall's head bobbed once. "That's right. The funeral's over, and now we all have to get on with life. Your mother's still in bed—"
"Is she all right?" Michael broke in.
"She's probably just tired. It was hot as blazes in there, so we put her to bed. When you go inside I want you to be quiet so you don't wake her up. Go on in and change your clothes, and then come out to the barn. There's still a lot to be done, and we only have a couple of hours of light left." He stood up, then offered Michael a hand. For a moment, he thought the boy was going to refuse it, but then Michael slipped his small hand into Amos's much larger one, and pulled himself to his feet. Still, instead of heading for the house, Michael hesitated. Amos waited for him to speak, then prompted him.
"What is it, boy?" he asked, his voice gruff, but not unkind.
Michael looked up at his grandfather, his eyes wide. "What—what's going to happen now, Grandpa?"
Amos Hall slipped an arm around his grandson, and started walking him toward the house. "Life goes on," he said, and then in a tone meant to be reassuring, "We'll just take it one step at a time, all right?"
But Michael frowned. "I guess so," he said at last. "But I wish dad were here."
"So do I," Amos Hall replied, but the gentleness had gone out of his voice. "So do I."
Janet awoke to the setting sun, and for the first time since she had been married, did not reach out to touch her husband. The funeral, then, had accomplished that much. Never again, she was sure, would she awaken and reach out for Mark. He was truly gone, and she was truly on her own now.
She sat up and began tentatively to get out of bed. The nausea was gone, and the flushed feeling with it, so she put her feet into a pair of slippers and went into the bathroom, where she splashed her face with cold water. Then she went back to her bedroom, took off the clothes
she had been sleeping in, and put on a robe. At the top of the stairs, she listened for a moment.
There was a murmuring of voices from the kitchen but only silence from the living room. Running a hand through her hair, she started down the stairs.
The family was gathered around the kitchen table, and as she came upon them she stopped, startled. It was as if they belonged together, the elderly couple at either end of the table, and Michael, so obviously theirs, between them. It must, Janet realized, have been what the family looked like twenty years ago, except that instead of Michael between them, it would have been Mark. And Laura.
Almost abstractly, she noted that there was no place set for her at the table.
Michael saw her first.
"Mom! Are you okay?"
"I'm fine. I was just tired, and it was so hot—well, I'm afraid your old mother had what they call a fainting spell."
"Are you sure you should be up, dear?" Anna Hall asked, her voice anxious. "Why don't you go back up, and I'll fix a plate for you. It's just leftovers from the reception, but we're making do with it. Or I could fix you some soup. There's nothing like good homemade—"
"I'm fine, Anna," Janet insisted. "If I could just sit down, I'll—"
"Get your mother a chair, Michael."
As his grandfather spoke, Michael got up from the table, ducked around his mother, and disappeared into the dining room. A moment later he was back, bearing one of Anna's needlepoint-seated lyre-back "Sunday" chairs.
"Now why can't I ever get action like that at home?" Janet asked as she settled herself at the table. "It would have taken me ages just to get his attention, and then there would have been a chorus of 'Aw, Moms,'—"
"Aw, Mom…"
"See what I mean?"
Amos glared at her. "Children do what's expected of them," he stated, his tone indicating that there was no room for discussion.
"Or perhaps it's just novelty," Anna hesitantly suggested. Amos turned, about to speak, but she ignored him, wheeling her chair away from the table. A moment later she handed Michael some silverware and nodded toward Janet. "Set your mother a place." She shifted her attention back to Janet. "It's a known fact that children behave better in other people's houses than they do in their own. As for expectations," she added, turning to her husband, "what about Mark? We expected Mark to stay in Prairie Bend forever, and you certainly made that expectation clear to him. So much for that theory."
An odd look came into Amos's eyes, one that could have been either hurt or anger. In the tense silence that followed, Janet reached out to squeeze the old man's hand. "I hadn't known Mark was supposed to come home after college," she said. "What would a sociologist have done here?"
Though she'd directed the question at her father-in-law, it was Anna who answered.
"At first, after he… left," she said in a near whisper, choosing her words cautiously, "we didn't even know he'd gone to college. We didn't know where he'd gone. All we knew was that he wasn't here. But we thought he'd come back." She shrugged helplessly, avoiding Amos's silent stare. "By then, we just didn't know him anymore. And you don't need a degree to run a farm. I guess he was never interested in farming. Not this farm, and not his own farm, either."
Janet's fork stopped halfway between her plate and her mouth, and she stared at Anna. "His farm? What are you talking about? Mark never had a farm."
"Of course he had a farm," Anna replied, her expression clearly indicating her conviction that Janet must be suffering a momentary lapse of memory. Then, as Janet's demeanor failed to clear, her eyes shifted to her husband, then back to Janet. "You don't mean to tell me he never told you about the farm, do you?"
Janet, feeling a sudden panic, turned to Michael for support. Was the same thing that had happened when she'd heard about Mark's sister about to happen again? "Did daddy ever say anything to you about a farm? About owning a farm, I mean?"
Michael shook his head.
"But that's not possible," Amos interjected. "You must have known. The taxes, the estate—"
"The estate?" Janet asked. What on earth was he talking about? Slowly she put down her fork, then looked from Amos to Anna. At last her eyes came to rest on Michael. "I think perhaps it's time you went up to your room."
"Aw, Mom…"
"Do as your mother says," Amos snapped, and after a moment of hesitation, Michael got up and left the table. Only when his footsteps had stopped echoing in the stairwell did Janet speak again. When she did, her voice was quavering.
"Now what is all this about?" she asked. "I thought you meant that Mark owned a farm a long time ago, before I met him. But when you mentioned taxes, and the estate—"
"He's always owned a farm," Amos said. "It was a wedding present, just as half of Laura and Buck's farm was a wedding present to them. Buck's parents gave them the other half. They don't live on it, but they still own it and take the responsibility for it. And if Mark had married a local girl—"
But Janet had stopped listening. "A wedding present," she whispered. "But you sent us silverware—"
"Well, of course there was that, too," Anna replied.
"But that was all there was," Janet insisted, her voice growing shrill in spite of herself. "If there'd been anything else, Mark would have told me. Wouldn't he? Wouldn't he?"
Amos reached out and took her hand. "You really don't know anything about it, do you?"
Mutely, Janet shook her head.
"It's forty acres," Amos said. "It was deeded to Mark on your wedding day, and he's owned it ever since. I know, because I was afraid he might try to sell it, so I've kept track. I always hoped he'd come and live on it someday, but I guess I always knew that wouldn't happen. Not ever, not the way he felt. But he did pay the taxes on it. As far as I know, he never tried to sell it."
"But what's happened to it?" Janet asked. "And why haven't I ever heard of it before?"
"I don't know why you've never heard of it," Amos replied. "But it's still there. It's yours now."
For a long moment, Janet stared at her husband's parents, her mind
churning. When at last she spoke, it was without thinking.
"He hated you very much, didn't he? All of you."
Amos Hall's eyes flashed with anger, but Anna only stared ahead, looking into space.
"Yes, I suppose he did," Amos finally said, the anger in his eyes disappearing as quickly as it had come. "But he's dead, now. All that's behind us, isn't it?"
CHAPTER THREE
Though she went to bed early that night, Janet Hall did not go to sleep. She sat up, staring out over the moonlit prairie, her robe drawn tightly around her as if it could protect her from her own thoughts. For a while she tried to concentrate on the stars, laboriously picking out constellations she hadn't seen so clearly since her childhood, but then, as the night wore on, her thoughts bore in on her.
It wasn't just his sister Mark had never mentioned.
There was a farm, too.
All along, there had been a farm.
Painfully, she made herself remember all the talks they'd had, she and Mark, all the nights—nights like this—when they'd sat up talking about the future.
For Janet, the future had always held a farm.
Nothing concrete, nothing real. For Janet, the farm of her dream was something from a child's picture book—a small place, somewhere in New England, with a whitewashed clapboard house, a bright red barn with white trim, an immaculate barnyard populated with hens and tiny fuzzy chicks, the whole thing neatly fenced off with white post-and-rail. There would be stone walls, of course, old stone walls meandering through the pastures, but the borders, the limits of her world, would be edged in white. And there they would live, their small family, released at last from the congestion of the city, their senses no longer dunned by the smells of garbage and exhaust, the sounds of jackhammers and blasting horns, but expanding to the aroma of fresh-mown hay and the crowing of roosters at dawn.
All idyllic, all a dream, and all of it, always, gently derided by Mark. All the reasons why it was impossible, all the excuses that they continually debated: They were city people, though they both had been born in the country, and New Yorkers by choice, Mark would insist; choices could still be made, Janet would counter. Mark was a teacher, not a farmer; there were colleges in New England, everywhere you looked—he could still teach, and they could hire someone to run the farm. Michael was happy in his school, Mark would point out; children change schools all the time, and there's no proof, Janet would argue, that city schools are better than small-town schools.
In the end, however, it had always come down to the one argument for which Janet had no answer.
They couldn't afford a farm, couldn't manage to save enough even for a half-acre in the suburbs, let alone a farm.
Now, Janet realized that it had all been a lie. From the day they were married, the lie had been between them, and she had never felt it, never faintly suspected it. There had even been times when Mark had seemed to join in her dream.
They had been in Millbrook, and they had come around a curve in the road, and there, spread out before them, was Janet's dream. It had been Mark who had noticed it first; Janet had been studying a map, trying to match the route numbers to the street names that seemed to be posted only every five miles and then changed with every village they passed through. Suddenly Mark had stopped the car and said, "Well, there it is, and even I have to admit that it's pretty." She'd looked up, and across a pasture that sloped gently away from the highway, she had seen her farm— white clapboard house, red barn, white post-and-rail fence, even a stream, dammed to form a millpond. And it was for sale.
They'd talked about it all weekend, even going so far as to investigate the possibility of Mark's finding a job in Poughkeepsie. But in the end, on Sunday night as they drove south on the Taconic Parkway, they'd faced reality.
They had no money, and they couldn't buy the farm without money.
But it had been a lie. And Mark had known it was a lie.
What else was there? How much had this stranger with whom she had spent thirteen years of her life kept hidden from .her? What else would she find as the days went by and she learned more about the man she had married?
Anna. Had Mark known his mother was confined to a wheelchair? It seemed impossible that he hadn't, and yet it seemed equally impossible that he had never said anything to her about it. But he hadn't.
When Janet had asked her mother-in-law about it just before coming upstairs that night, Anna had only shrugged, a look of philosophical resignation in her eyes. "I suppose he must have known," she'd said. "It happened after he went away, but I think Laura must have told him about it."
"But he never heard from Laura," Janet had protested. "He never even talked about her. Until yesterday, I didn't even know Mark had a sister."
Anna's eyes had flickered with pain for a moment. "You have to understand," she'd finally said. "There were some things Mark just wanted to shut out of his mind. He always did that, even when he was little. I remember he had a puppy once—a little black shepherd— but it got sick, and Amos had to put it down. Afterward, I tried to talk to Mark about it, but he wouldn't admit the puppy'd ever even existed. Just shut it out completely." She sighed, weariness spreading across her features. "I suppose that's what he did when he left Prairie Bend. Shut us out, just like that dog."
"But why? Why did he leave?"
And for that, there had been no answer. "It doesn't matter anymore," was all Anna would say. "It's all in the past. There's no use dredging it up now. It would only cause pain." She'd looked beseechingly at Janet. "I've had enough pain, dear. Can't we leave this alone?" Then she'd held out her arms, and Janet, her throat constricting with feeling, had leaned down, clumsily embracing this fragile woman she hardly knew.
As she sat in the darkness that night, trying to concentrate on the stars, Janet felt the props of her life slipping away from her, felt the rock of trust she'd always had in Mark dissolving into sand. Already, it was slipping through her fingers, leaving her with nothing to cling to.
By the time the horizon edged silvery-gray with dawn and she drifted into an uneasy sleep, Janet's grief over the death of her husband had begun to change into something else. An odd fear had begun to pervade her, a fear of what else she might discover about Mark, what other secrets might have lain hidden from her during all the years of her marriage.
When she awoke several hours later, she could feel a difference in herself. It was as if uncertainty had gathered around her, crippling her. She lay still for a long time, unable to make up her mind to get up, unsure whether she could face the day.
She closed her eyes for a few moments, and suddenly she saw an image of Mark's face, but his features were slightly blurred, and there was something in his eyes—a secretiveness—that she'd never seen before. And then the image changed, hardened and sharpened into the visage of Amos.
His eyes were clear, his features strong. And he was smiling at her, offering her the strength she could no longer get from Mark or find within herself.
She rose from her bed and went to the window. Below her, in the barnyard, she watched Michael feeding the chickens. A moment later Amos emerged from the barn, and as if feeling her gaze, looked up; she waved to him; he waved back to her.
And then the nausea hit her. Turning away from the window, she hurried to the bathroom, threw up in the toilet, and waited for the sickness to pass.
What's going to happen to us? she wondered a few minutes later as she began dressing. What's going to happen to us now?
Ryan Shields pedaled furiously through the village, then east on the highway toward his grandparents' farm. He didn't slow down until he'd made the turn into the driveway, but by the time he got to the front yard, he was coasting, his feet dragging in the dust as makeshift brakes. He came to a dead stop, expertly dropped the kickstand with one toe, then balanced on the leaning bike, his arms crossed, only his slouching posture preventing the bike from tipping over. It was a technique he'd learned only a month ago, and it had quickly become his favorite pose. He co
cked his head, squinting in the brightness of the sun, peering at the house. "Hey! Anybody home?"
A moment later the front door opened, and Michael came out on the porch. "Hi."
"Hi. Whatcha doin'?"
"Nothing. Everybody's gone into town to Dr. Potter's."
Ryan swung his leg over the handlebar, and stepped off the bike, which promptly fell over into the dust of the driveway. "Shit." He picked up the bike, carefully balanced it on the kickstand, then mounted the steps to the porch. "Is your mom still sick?"
Michael shrugged. "I don't know. I guess not. Anyway, it didn't seem like it this morning, and she was okay last night." Then he frowned. "How come you're not in school?"
"School's out."
"At home, we don't get out for another three weeks."
"We always get out early here. Most of the kids have to help their dads with planting. Can I come in?"
Michael's expression became guarded. "There's nobody home."
"You're home."
"But I'm not supposed to let anybody in the house when I'm by myself."
Ryan stared at him in disbelief. "Why not?"
" 'Cause you never know who might come to the door. There's all kinds of crazies in the city. What can you do?"
"Well, I'm not crazy, and this is my grandparents' house, and I can come in if I want to." Then, seeing Michael suddenly tense, he grinned. "Stop worrying. Grandma and Grandpa won't care, and it's their house, not yours. I come out here all the time." He brushed past Michael and went inside, then called back over his shoulder, "You want a Coke?"
Michael hesitated a moment, then decided that Ryan was right. This wasn't New York, and Ryan was his cousin. "There aren't any," he said, following Ryan inside and letting the screen door slam behind him. "I already looked."