A Whisper of Bones

by Ellen Hart

  The food he’d just eaten felt like an anvil inside his stomach. Thank God it was Chinese food. He’d be hungry again in an hour. “Please, don’t get upset. Whoever the bones belong to—and however they got there—it has nothing to do with me.”

  She didn’t respond. Instead, she stared at him. Looked right through him.

  “Hey, why don’t I go unload some of the stuff you brought home.”

  “What aren’t you telling me?”

  “Nothing,” he said, giving her a peck on the cheek. On his way to the back door that lead out to the garage, he grabbed her keys. “Anything you’d like me to bring in first?”

  She was already clearing the cartons from the island. “I thought you might like some of my dad’s tools. They’re in the trunk.”

  “Oh, sure. That sounds good.”

  “Don’t try to carry in too much at one time. You’ll hurt your back.”

  He chuckled, opening the door and flipping on the overhead light. The car sat next to his Suburban, still covered with snow, dripping water all over the concrete floor. He wasn’t the least bit interested in his father-in-law’s tools. He merely wanted to get away from his wife. To flee.

  As he descended the steps, he used the remote to open the trunk. Sure enough, when he looked inside, he found a bucket load of old stuff. He picked up a cordless leaf blower that looked like it had seen better days. Next to a set of gear wrenches were a couple of metal measuring tapes and a circular saw blade. There was an oil filter wrench, a socket set, several shovels, and a plastic partitioned box filled with various screws, bolts, and nails. Toward the back of the trunk was a roll of wire mesh. When he pulled it out, the sight that caught his eyes caused him to gasp.

  Feeling all the blood drain from his face, he reached for the ax. Staring dumbly at the blade, he swallowed. Then swallowed again. The ax felt heavy in his hand. Heavy and cold and dangerous. He needed to put it down, to get rid of it, and yet something stopped him. What the hell was he doing? Just drop it, he ordered himself. Back away.

  From the kitchen doorway, his wife called, “Did you find something you like?”

  He raised his eyes to hers, felt himself break into a cold sweat.

  “Frank? Is something wrong?”

  “No, no. Everything’s fine.”

  “It’s cold out there. You can do that later. Come inside.”

  He shut the trunk. The ax was still in his hand.

  “Come on. I made us some decaf.”

  “Sure, hon. Sounds good.” Holding the ax at his side, he went back into the house, shutting the door quietly behind him.

  21

  Eleanor had just finished getting a fire going in the fireplace when Lena rolled herself into the living room. By the smell of her, Eleanor could tell she’d been at the bottle again. Lena had taken to smoking in her room, thus containing the reek of her menthol cigarettes to a small part of the house. Even so, wherever she went, she carried the stink of her various vices with her.

  “It’s really coming down out there,” said Eleanor.

  Lena’s lap was covered with a blanket. She wore two sweaters over her bony shoulders. “We better call that kid who shoveled for us last year, see if he’s up for doing it again this winter.”

  “Already did,” said Eleanor, closing the top of the kindling box and then sitting down on top of it, warming her hands near the flames. “I spoke to his mother. The snow’s supposed to taper off midmorning. She said she’d send him over after he gets home from school.”

  “If there is school tomorrow. They may cancel it.” She cackled. “Do you ever remember our school being canceled because of seven inches when we were kids?”

  “No,” said Eleanor, thinking back. “Only for a blizzard.”

  “I used to love going for walks when it was snowing out. Nothing like it. A real wonderland.”

  “I remember that, too,” said Eleanor. She twisted around when she heard the TV snap off. The tall blond renter emerged from the den carrying a sack of pretzels and immediately headed up the stairs, taking the steps them two at a time. Once she figured he’d gone into his bedroom, she looked back at Lena and was about to comment on him when she saw that her sister was still staring at the empty stairway, seemingly deep in thought.

  “He remind you of anyone?” asked Lena.

  “Not really. Should he?”

  “If Timmy’d had a son, he’d look just like that kid. He’d be the right age, too.”

  “Timmy didn’t have a son. You know that. He died when he was a boy.” She decided to get something off her chest. “Speaking of Tim, why on earth did you have to tell Britt that he was a figment of her imagination?” She’d been upstairs at the time getting her purse. When she came back down into the living room, she had to scramble to figure out what Lena had told Britt.

  “I didn’t want to bare my soul to the likes of her. It was none of her goddamn business. All I wanted was for her to leave and never come back. But no, oh no. You had to invite her to dinner.”

  “You put me in a terrible position. You made me lie to her to back up some ridiculous story that Tim never existed. I’ll never, to my dying day, understand you.”

  “You’re always talking about family solidarity. That’s all I was asking.”

  Eleanor looked into the fire, deciding to take a more gentle tone. “Tim died in a car accident, Lena. It wasn’t your fault. His death doesn’t make you a bad mother.”

  Lena rolled her wheelchair closer to the fire—closer to her sister. She pulled a flask from inside her sweater, unscrewed the cap, and took a several swallows. “Our family secrets seem to be unraveling. I might as well toss another one on the pile.”

  Eleanor sensed the old house breathing around her. She loved the feeling of being cocooned, cradled, safe. “What are you talking about?”

  “Timmy.”

  “What about him?”

  “You’re going to hate me.”

  “I already hate you.”

  She smiled. “I lied to you.”

  Eleanor closed her eyes and groaned. “Might as well say it, whatever it is.”

  “I’m an old woman,” said Lena. “I need absolution.”

  “And you think I can provide it?”

  “I didn’t say I was crazy,” she said with a wry smile.

  “Just tell me,” said Eleanor. She was tired and ready for bed.

  “The fact is, when Timmy and I left after … after we buried the body in the garage, I drove back to a commune in upper New York State, where we’d been living for several years. Don’t give me that look. It was the seventies. Seemed like the thing to do. I’d been with a guy there. Timmy loved him and he loved Tim. And, well, you know me. I wasn’t a very good mother, or partner. I cheated on this guy. I’d go into town, have a few drinks at the local bar. Some nights I didn’t come home. It got pretty bad between us. He finally kicked me out, told me I couldn’t stay at the farm anymore. I wasn’t pulling my weight. He said that Tim would be better off with him. He figured he was Tim’s father, so he had rights. I disabused him of that idea, which only made him angrier. He told me he didn’t care. He loved Tim.”

  Eleanor had lived with her sister for a large part of her life. She didn’t think Lena had the capacity to surprise her anymore, and yet now she had.

  “I left Timmy there. With him.”

  Eleanor was stunned. “You’re telling me you left your son with some hippie on a commune and just took off?”

  “Yes.”

  “You mean, Timmy didn’t die in a car accident like you said when you came back home?”

  “He’s alive. Somewhere. He probably hates me. He has every right to.”

  Eleanor wasn’t just stunned, she was outraged. “You abandoned him? Your own son? How do you think that made him feel?”

  Lena fortified herself with another swallow from the flask. “The guy I’d been with told me to leave, go off at night like I often did. We agreed that he’d wait a few days and then tell Timmy that I’d
… you know, died. Gone to heaven. That I was in a better place and all that crap.”

  Revulsion rose up inside Eleanor, nearly cutting off her breath. She couldn’t believe her sister could be that cold, that irresponsible. “Did you ever love your son?”

  Lena leaned forward in her wheelchair, wiped the cuff of her sweater across one eye. “Of course I loved him. I regretted what I’d done almost immediately. But what could I do? Go back and make my boyfriend look like a liar? Confuse Timmy even more? What could I give him? I had no money, no prospects. I saw myself the same way you did—a loser. A screwup. Cheap. Genetically deficient. You can’t call me a name I haven’t called myself.”

  As always, Lena was making the story, this sepia-stained semi-reality, all about herself. Poor Lena, Eleanor wanted to say, but instead, said, “You never tried to find Timmy?”

  “It was years before I did. But yeah, I tried. By the time I took a motorcycle trip back to the farm, it wasn’t there anymore. Nobody knew where any of the people who lived there had gone. It was a dead end. I stayed in the town where I used to go drinking at night, spent some time at the bar. I walked around berating myself. I felt close to Timmy for the first time in forever. I guess I’m glad he doesn’t know I’m still alive. If he did, and he had any balls at all, he’d find me and take revenge. I used to be afraid of that—of him finding his contemptible mother. Of course, other times I prayed that he would find me, no matter what the outcome, just so I could see him again.”

  Eleanor was rarely so angry that she contemplated violence, and yet what she felt toward her sister at this moment wasn’t anger, it was pure rage.

  “Where are you going?” asked Lena, rolling her wheelchair back as Eleanor got up.

  “My room.”

  “Do you hate me?”

  Eleanor felt nothing but wreckage in her stomach. She’d always felt guilty for judging her sister so harshly. She no longer did. Lena was the black hole who’d dragged everyone down into the abyss with her. “What do you think?”

  Looking up, her eyes wet, she held Eleanor’s gaze. “It’s like I’ve spent my entire life suspended over this terrible, brutal darkness.”

  All Eleanor could force out in response was, “Poor Lena. Poor, sad, put-upon Lena. It’s always about you, isn’t it. Your pain. Your problems.”

  Lena stared at her for a long moment, then, with her lips pressed into a thin, determined line, she returned her attention to the fire. “I knew you’d understand. You’re always so kind. Such a fine, generous woman. People love you because you’re sugar sweet.” She took another gulp from the flask. “I may be a mess, but I don’t hide behind a bunch of empty platitudes.”

  “Goodnight, Lena.”

  “Yeah. Whatever you say, Eleanor. You always know best.”

  22

  When Butch was in high school, his best friend, Corey Miller, would sneak out of his house, almost always during a winter storm, borrow his dad’s car, a sweet BMW E30 325iX with all-wheel drive, and come by Butch’s place. He’d wait at the end of the drive with the lights off until Butch climbed out of his bedroom window, and then the two of them would drive around town, reveling in the empty streets. On those nights, they rarely saw a cop car. If they came upon someone in the ditch, they’d help out, but mostly they kept to themselves, smoking cigarettes and turning the radio up loud. Driving in winter storms was not only something Butch was accustomed to, it was, strange as it might sound to people born and raised in Arizona or Florida, something he craved.

  Tonight, though many people in the Twin Cities were heading home early, he was sitting in a quiet, residential part of Bloomington, watching a house across the street. He had yet another Jenny in his sights and the weather only added to his excitement.

  Butch had always found Jenny a beautiful name. He’d known a couple girls named Jenny in high school. Both were friendly, easy to talk to. He was beginning to think of his time in Minnesota as an odyssey, a quest. He wasn’t a warrior returning home, as Odysseus had been, though he was seeking something to soothe—and perhaps end—the aching inside him. A confusing romantic breakup in the fall had left him reeling. He’d managed to work his way through four of the seven stages of grief, but seemed to be stuck most days on the anger part. If he didn’t find some way to relieve the pressure building inside him, he feared he’d never get to the acceptance stage, that he would forever be locked in a battle between loneliness and despair.

  The snow seemed to come in waves—sometimes heavy, though periodically it would let up long enough for him to snap a few shots of the living room. It was Christmastime. The tree in the picture window was covered in twinkling lights. He wanted a close-up of Jenny, of course, but the people around her were every bit as important. He could see a couple of men, neither of them old, both with big guts spilling over their belts as they sat on the couch watching TV. No children were visible. No toys. Nothing that would indicate that children lived in the house. There’d been a couple of times when he’d knocked on a door, asking for this or that, hoping to be invited in. Tonight’s storm gave him a perfect excuse. He could say his car was stuck in the snow, that his cell phone was out of juice, and that he needed to use her phone to call a tow truck. Alas, he could tell by the people surrounding her that he’d barked up another fruitless tree. He’d been so confident this time. This Jenny fit the bill in so many important ways.

  Feeling disappointed, he was about to pull away from the curb when his cell phone rang.

  “This Butch?” came a familiar voice.

  “Sure is. Hi, Lena. What’s up?”

  “Are you home?”

  “Um, no. Just came out of a movie. It’s really snowing hard. Have you looked outside?”

  “Yeah, yeah. Listen up. I’m just about out of booze. I was wondering if you could swing by a liquor store on your way back and buy me another bottle of Old Crow. The bigger one this time—the one in the plastic bottle.”

  “I can try,” said Butch. “It looks to me like everything is closing early. I’ve got a bottle of Canadian Club back at my house. It should tide you over until I can get to a store. That work for you?”

  “I suppose. I used to like CC and Coke. Yeah, sounds good. Look, don’t knock on the door when you come. There’s a key hidden outside. You remember that old concrete birdbath that’s filled with rocks? Sits on far end of the porch? Just dig around in the rocks and you’ll find it. Be sure to put it back before you leave.”

  “Will do,” said Butch.

  “Good man. Drive safe.”

  Even with four-wheel drive, it took Butch almost forty-five minutes to cross the city. When he entered his house, he was overwhelmed by everything that still needed to be done. Hammond had dropped off the linoleum he wanted installed in the kitchen. He’d also left a note on the kitchen table, telling Butch that he’d decided the wallpaper in one of the bedrooms needed to come off. Butch felt like a slave. The money he was saving by agreeing to such cheap rent in return for his work in the house hardly covered his time. But it was the price he had to pay. He set his camera on the futon in the front room. He wanted to download the photos he’d taken right away, take a closer look at his new Jenny, but he also needed to deliver the booze to Lena.

  Finding the key where she said it would be, he opened the front door, then returned the key to the birdbath. The interior of the house felt deliciously warm. Lena was staring into the fire in the living room when he came in and didn’t seem to hear him. As he kicked the snow from his boots on the rug by the front door, Novak sailed into the room from the dining room, his arms cupped under a heavy load of firewood. He dumped it next to the fireplace and then turned to Butch.

  “Averil,” he said. “You made it.”

  Butch found himself wondering why Novak spent so much time at the Skarsvold place.

  Backing her wheelchair up, Lena turned around. “Welcome to the party.”

  Butch handed her the bottle.

  “Can’t stay,” said Novak. “Gotta get home to th
e ball and chain.”

  “Don’t call her that,” said Lena. “It’s disgusting. Unless you hate her.”

  “Sorry,” said Novak, looking both surprised and a little put out. “I just wanted to find out if you’d made any decision about selling your house.”

  “Eleanor’s having none of it.”

  “Yeah, but you own half of it. Make her buy you out.”

  “With what? Tea bags?”

  “You got rights, Lena. Ain’t good to let her walk all over you.”

  She considered it. “If you did help us do some painting, some repairs, we couldn’t pay you.”

  “Just cover the cost of the materials. If you wanna give me something more when you sell the place, that’s cool.”

  “We can’t even afford the materials.”

  Butch pulled the piano bench out and sat down.

  “Yeah, but you’re gonna get a settlement from your insurance company to rebuild the garage, remember? Just have the rubble removed and use the rest for repairs. Far as I can see, it’s win-win. Just think what you could do with the money you’d make from the sale.”

  “I have thought about it,” said Lena. “The only way I can figure to make Eleanor sell the house is blackmail.”

  “Hilarious,” said Novak. “No, I’m serious.”

  “You don’t think old people have secrets they might want to protect?”

  “We’ll figure a legal way out,” said Novak. “Prison ain’t really an option.”

  Watching Lena and Novak go back and forth, Butch couldn’t help but wonder why Novak was pushing her so hard to sell.

  “Well, better head home to the … my lovely, smart, super-sexy wife,” said Novak He eyed Lena. “That better?”

  “Much.”

  He grabbed his coat, calling “Later” as he drifted out the front door.

  When Butch looked at Lena, he could tell she was deep in thought. “I should probably let you have some peace and quiet.”

  “I’ll have plenty of peace and quiet when I’m six feet under. Toss another log on that fire, will you?” She wheeled herself over to the recliner by the couch.