“All of it?” She had expected a token, no more.
“Everything. Including the switch plates if you want them.”
Robin folded her arms and pressed them hard and tense against her chest. “I had no idea. Everything about this has been such a surprise.” She looked at the old man and he nodded. They both knew she meant Django too.
“I haven’t handled this well, Robin. You deserved more preparation, but I must confess I wasn’t thinking clearly for a while. It was such a monstrous shock.” He kept talking, talking. “I’m an early riser and I’d just made my coffee when the call came—a police chief up in the desert—and I literally dropped the cup. My wife came in and saw me just standing there, staring at the mess on the floor.” He pressed the heels of his hands against his eyes. “Caro and Jacky were the most vital people I’ve ever known. I miss them all day, every day.”
She wished she could comfort him, but she did not know how so she focused on practical matters.
“What about Jacky’s studio? All the sound equipment and electronics?” In one of their rare telephone conversations Caro must have told her this.
“It goes to a high school music academy in Southeast. A charter high school, whatever that is. I’ve never been quite sure. He wanted Django to have his piano. And any CDs he wants. Jacky had thousands. Will you have room for it all?”
Robin stared over Guerin’s shoulder at the digital clock on the stove. “They planned it all.” The luminous numbers bored a hole between her eyes. “As if they knew…”
“Last year they tossed out the old will and I wrote a new one for them.”
“That means she really wanted me to have Django.”
“Oh, yes, my dear. They both did. They were very clear about that.”
“But why?”
“She loved you, Robin. And obviously she trusted you. There’s no money in the will for you, but you’ll receive a stipend for acting as Django’s guardian and everything else in the house, the furniture and the art, the rugs—all of it is yours, Robin. You’ll be a wealthy woman.”
If Caro trusted her enough to leave Django in her care, if she wanted her to have the contents of this beautiful house, why had she never reached out? What secret had Caro been hiding?
“There’s one other thing.” Guerin pulled a business card from his wallet and handed it to Robin. “Caro stipulated in the will that if anything happened to her, she wanted you to be the one to tell your father. She wrote his address and phone number on my card. He’s not far away. Up the road in Temecula.”
Robin escaped into Caro’s home. Taking all afternoon, she walked through the rooms, down every hall, and looked into each closet and cabinet. As she walked she heard her sister’s voice, a running commentary on the contents of the house.
Sell that painting. No one needs two hundred thousand dollars’ worth of white on white.
Keep those baskets; they were made by an old Washoe Indian woman. No one else knows that pattern.
That bit of silk—it’s nothing special, but I loved it.
Robin marked some of the items she wanted shipped to Arroyo with yellow tape; blue was for undecided and white for consignment. To do the job properly she would have to come back for at least another two or three days. Her mother might like some of the furniture, or perhaps she would move to Tahiti as Guerin had said, live in a hut, and take an island lover. At this point in Robin’s life, almost anything seemed possible. She wondered if she would miss her mother if she left Southern California and added that question to the list she did not want to think about at present.
There were yellow roses throughout the house, and someone—probably Mrs. Hancock—had seen to it that the windows were open, filling the rooms with air and light. Robin imagined her sister’s spirit, a sprite, dancing through the rooms ahead of her.
Django pulled out of Mrs. Hancock’s comforting embrace. Turning his back to her, he wiped away his tears and fiddled with a line of vintage Star Wars figures his father had given him for his seventh birthday. He tore off strips of yellow tape.
“So how are you getting along down there in Arroyo?” Mrs. Hancock asked. “Do you have a nice room of your own, Django?”
“It’s okay.”
“Will it be big enough for your furnishings and all? Your father wanted you to have his piano. That’s a Steinway grand. Will there be room for it at your aunt’s house?”
“I guess.”
“Well, I hope that means yes. Don’t forget to put some tape on the bed and the dresser. And your PC.”
“I’ve got my laptop already.”
“You remembered that? With all you had on your mind? That was smart, but you’ve always had a steady head on your shoulders, Django.” He taped the furniture he wanted, the pictures and posters, the sports equipment, knowing that her eyes were on him the whole time. “There’s not a bite of food in the house, but I could go down to Subway and get you a sandwich if you’d like. Or maybe one of those fancy coffee drinks from Mr. Locastro at Calabria? He was asking after you, Django. Up and down Sunset you’ve got friends sending their best wishes.”
“Did Lenny or Roid call?” Maybe they had lost his cell phone number. “Did they come over?”
“I’m sorry to say, they did not.”
“I’ve been texting and leaving messages.”
Mrs. Hancock nodded and pursed her lips.
“Maybe they went on vacation. Roid was saying they might go to Hawaii.” He felt foolish saying it. Even a digital dragon like Mrs. Hancock knew there were cell phones in Hawaii.
“You think maybe they got sick?”
Mrs. Hancock bent to pick up something on the floor, something so small he couldn’t even see it from where he stood.
“Maybe there was an accident?” If there was anything Django had learned in the last weeks it was that with terrifying speed unspeakable things could happen to the people he loved.
“Try not to fret too much, dear boy.”
She put her arm around him. Part of Django didn’t want to turn toward her and didn’t want to cry again, but he couldn’t stop himself. Sorrow was a time machine and he was a little boy again.
Mrs. Hancock said, “When a person suffers a great sadness, some of his friends can’t help themselves; they just have to turn away. Roid and Lenny—they’re just kids and they don’t want to think about how this happened to you because it means it could happen to them likewise.”
Mrs. Hancock smelled like roses, sweet and cinnamon.
“You know, I was married once, before I came to work for your dear mama and daddy. My good husband had cancer and died when he wasn’t even forty. He never went to the hospital; I kept him at home and nursed him myself. At the end, the last weeks, his friends all stopped coming ’round. Our little house was so empty, Django. Empty as you feel right now.”
He brushed his tears away with the back of his hand.
“I’d be lying if I told you I didn’t care. To be sure I did, but in time I understood that the men he worked with, his poker club and all—they were afraid. They didn’t want to think about death. They wanted to live their lives like they were immortal.”
“Mr. Cody said we were a posse and that we were going to change the world.”
“And, of course, you miss them. It’s a dreadful time for you and don’t I know that. Myself, I’m going soon to live with my daughter and her family up in Bakersfield, and everyone is telling me how I ought to be happy not to work anymore. But Django-boy, I’d stay with you if I could. If they’d let me, I’d raise you up myself.”
“I could ask Mr. Guerin—”
“Your parents wanted you to go to your aunt. It’s in the will.”
“She doesn’t know about kids. I don’t think she likes me very much.”
“What do you mean she doesn’t like you? How can she not like a good, smart boy like you? I never knew a better boy. Are you minding your manners, Django? Do you remember to look around you or are you in your head all the time, dreamin
g up those Jett Jones stories so you miss half of what’s going on?”
“I’m gonna live with Huck. It just takes a little while to arrange.”
“Ah. I see. Well, it’s a rotten situation all around, but give it time. That’s all I know to tell you. In time the pain will fade a little.” She stroked his cheek. “Learning that lesson is a part of growing up, my dear. It’s a pity and a crime you had to learn it so young, but there you are.”
“Will I forget them?”
“Those two? Your dear mother and that rascally wonderful father? Never, Django. No one ever forgets their kind. Especially not their son.”
The garage had a side door. Django let himself in and turned on the lights. Each of his parents’ cars was still in its place as if waiting for them to come back: a silver-blue Mercedes sedan, an old MG convertible with a wooden dashboard, a white Land Rover. But at the far end of the garage one space was unoccupied, and that was why he had come into the garage. In order to believe that they were really gone, he had to see the empty space where the gorgeous new Ferrari should have been. That empty space was more definitive than all the explanations given by Ira and Mr. Guerin and Mrs. Hancock.
He opened the door of the Mercedes and slipped in behind the wheel. The car was only a few months old and still smelled new, but his mother had left a scarf on the passenger seat, and when he wrapped it around his neck, the scent of her perfume was still in the fibers. Yesterday or that morning, an hour ago, he would have wept; but at that moment, alone and unobserved, his eyes were dry. Possibly he had used up his lifetime supply of tears.
The key was in the ignition where his mother always left it, and all Django had to do was open the garage door, turn the key, and drive out the gate and over to the 495, left on Highway 101, and then straight up the map to San Jose and then Los Gatos. It had been his mother’s favorite car trip, and they made it almost every spring when everything was green. There were special places along the way where they always stopped for great hamburgers or to look at a spectacular view. Once she made Jacky detour into Morro Bay so they could look at the house on Estero Street where she had grown up. It was hard to imagine his mother living in such a plain little house, she who loved things beautiful and extraordinary.
The problem was, he didn’t know how to drive.
Chapter 19
Foo woke Madora in the middle of the night, rattling the back door with his nose and whimpering. The warm wind blew up swirls of gritty dust that raked the side of the house and rattled the roof, putting the dog’s nerves on edge, and hers as well. She let him in and together they snuggled under a comforter on the couch. Foo slept immediately but the noise in Madora’s head kept her awake. Thinking back, she could not remember when she last enjoyed a good night’s sleep.
During the months of Linda’s pregnancy, as Madora fed and cared for her, she had made a fragile peace with her conscience by believing what Willis told her, that they were doing good. As Willis had once saved her, he wanted to do the same for Linda, and there was something almost holy in that. But now that it was time for Linda to start a new life, he resisted letting her go. Did he intend to keep her in the trailer for months longer or even years? It would mean that Madora and Willis would never leave Red Rock Road; there would be no medical school, no marriage, no family.
As soon as she got back from the diner the day before, she had taken food to Linda, who had responded by making her mess in the middle of the little square of carpet beside her bed. Madora, her nerves already frayed from the rush to get home before Willis, stood in the door of the trailer and screamed at her until she wore herself out. And last night she had been so afraid Willis would find some clue that she had been away from the house, she had barely been able to talk sensibly.
Why had she ever thought he would let her work again?
One hundred questions and problems and doubts flew through her mind like the termites she saw swarming every spring. First one, then another and another and then a cloud of them. They chewed at the uprights that supported the roof of the carport. This year or next the carport would collapse, and the damage spread to the timbers of the old house, and it too would begin to crumble.
She listened to the wind and the scratch of grit on the window glass, and gradually, perhaps from exhaustion, the confusion began to clear. She saw not just the present but into the future as well. Even if there were a safe way to set Linda free, other girls would follow her, and probably they too would be pregnant. Recalling the night of the baby’s birth, she remembered Willis’s high color and excitement. He had been radiant with power that night. To feel that way again he would continue to imprison girls, calling it rescue, calling it a second chance, his mission. There were a thousand ways to hide the truth.
Willis said Linda would never go to the police because it was her nature to reject authority; but if he really believed this, why not set her free? Even if he was right and Linda never said a word, there would be no assurance that they could trust the other girls, the strays Madora was sure would follow Linda. One of them would tell her story to others like herself: girls and boys she met on the street, drunks and addicts and homeless. The story of her captivity would begin to move about like a living thing, gaining in detail and intensity. Inevitably, Willis would be found out and sent to prison. And what would happen to her?
Foo growled in his sleep, and his little tail wagged against Madora’s thigh.
She did not want to go to prison.
“So,” Willis said the next morning, “you’ve been after me to go to town. How ’bout this morning? Would you like that, Madora?”
“I guess.” She moved slowly about the kitchen, groggy from lack of sleep. If Vik was in town, or Connie, they would want to talk about her visit to the diner. In town she might see Walt, and if he spoke to her there would be no way, afterwards, to explain the circumstances to Willis.
“What’s the matter with you?”
“I didn’t sleep much.”
“You slept with the dog. On the couch. What do you expect?”
Willis had not taken Madora into town for months. She had lost count of the time. Of course she wanted to go with him. He seemed to have forgotten that Linda had not had breakfast, and Madora did not remind him.
“If you don’t want to go—”
“No, I do, really. Can we stop at that bookstore where they have magazines? They’re real cheap there, Willis.”
He shook his head. “You’ll want to stay all day, and I don’t have time. I’ve got an appointment, plus we can’t leave Linda alone for long. And the longer you put off cleaning up her mess, the tougher it’ll be.”
Madora wasn’t going to do it. She wasn’t even going to think about it.
“What kind of appointment? Is it about medical school?”
“What’re you talking about?”
“You said you have an appointment.”
He looked at her and slowly shook his head. “You ought to think about what you say, Madora. You really ought to try connecting your mouth to your brain for once.”
“I didn’t know—”
“You didn’t know what? That when a man’s got things on his mind, a good woman doesn’t hammer him with questions?”
“I wasn’t hammering.”
He let out a long groan and rested his forehead on the tabletop. “You are so stupid, Madora.”
She had no education, but that did not mean she was stupid. Willis was restless and discontented, mad at the world and taking it out on her. She tried to be understanding, but it was hard when she had her own reasons to grumble.
“I’m lonely,” she said.
“Yeah?” He raised his eyebrows in mock surprise. “So’s everyone else, Madora. There’s nothing special about you.”
By the time Willis parked the Tahoe in the lot behind the supermarket in Arroyo, he was in a playful mood. He pushed the shopping cart up and down the aisles of food, lobbing boxes of cereal and loaves of bread into the cart as if money was of no impor
tance. He grabbed a giant-sized yellow packet of M&M’S off the shelf and tossed it at Madora like a beanbag. Luckily, she caught it. Twenty minutes later, standing in line for the only open cash register, she kept thinking what would have happened if she had missed it. She saw the package bursting and the candy-coated peanuts rolling underfoot. For half a minute she wondered if Willis might have thrown the bag at her in the expectation that she would miss the catch. To humiliate her. It was an odd thought and she was instantly ashamed of thinking it. Still, when she looked at the yellow bag on the conveyor belt, she did not want the candy.
Willis said something to the checker. The girl blinked and blushed and put her hand up to cover her mouth.
There will always be girls, Madora thought.
As they were putting the bags of groceries into the Tahoe’s way-back, a woman called out from a few parking spaces away.
Beside Madora, Willis stiffened. “Hey, Ms. Howard, what’s up?”
“Same as you, I guess. We got back from LA yesterday and there’s nothing in the house to eat.” She smiled at Madora like a woman in a magazine ad selling lipstick or toothpaste. Madora wanted to be introduced, but at the same time she longed to vanish from the scene. She felt conspicuous, as notorious as a woman with her face on a poster in the post office.
“I tried to call you, Willis, but the number you put on your application—”
“I know, I know. I thought about it after I left your house. I gave you an old one.” Willis hit his palm against his head as if to knock some sense into it. “Most of the time, I forget I even own a cell phone. But it doesn’t matter. I called your mother and I’m seeing her today.”
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