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The Last First Day

Page 15

by Carrie Brown


  She lifted her gaze, looking up at his face as if there were nothing else in the world to look at, only turning her eyes away from him at the last second, following a volley of gunfire to see her father’s body bounce forward as if he had been lifted on invisible wires and then shoved roughly between his shoulder blades. He threw his arms open.

  A spray of blood preceded him into the heavy air of the July morning.

  That afternoon in the police station, Ruth said again and again that she and her father had been in Wells for only one day. Months later, however, sitting with Dr. and Mrs. van Dusen in their living room, three FBI agents perched uncomfortably on the slipcovered sofa and easy chairs, she learned that searches of the house had been conducted that day anyway, floorboards pried away, a section of the concrete in the garage that appeared freshly spackled broken up with pickaxes.

  These efforts had revealed nothing, she was told that day in the van Dusens’ living room, not a single bill of the thousands, the tens of thousands her father had allegedly stolen over the years, arranging auctions for desperate farmers and small businessmen and then leaving town before any of the proceeds could be turned over to the anxious men and women trying to clear themselves of debt by divesting themselves of everything they owned.

  Her father was alleged to be responsible for two deaths, the FBI agents said: In Ohio, one suspicious farmer had apparently gone to find the auctioneer at a warehouse office one evening and had been shot in the back. In upstate New York, a man who supplied trucks for the sale of clock factory equipment was found drowned in a pond, a wound the size of a hammerhead on his brow.

  No bank accounts ever emerged.

  It was possible, Ruth understood eventually, that her father had opened accounts and rented post office boxes in various places. It was possible that he had given false names and addresses for all of it. It was even possible that he’d hidden the money somewhere, buried it in a field under a tree he imagined he would one day find his way back to, like a dog recovering a bone. She thought about these things over the years, the possibility of the money sitting in a bank deposit somewhere until after years had gone by, when she assumed that the contents would simply be gathered up and stuffed into a sack and taken … where? There must be someone, she supposed, who looked at accounts that were inactive for suspiciously long periods of time. What happened to unclaimed money? Did the banks give it away to orphans or widows, to firemen’s funds or to the government?

  Sometimes she thought about the strange man Jake, about a little key or the code to a padlock concealed on his person somewhere. Maybe he was the keeper of the secret? Maybe he had taken the money?

  But anyway, it wasn’t the money that interested her, of course, she told Dr. Wenning.

  It was not about the money, she said to Peter. It was about never knowing, never knowing anything at all about her father or why he had done what the police said he’d done. She assumed he was guilty, because the police had said so, but it was awful to contemplate.

  She never forgot her father’s tongue twisters.

  Round the rough and rugged rock the ragged rascal ran.

  Once a fellow met a fellow in a field of beans. Can a fellow tell a fellow what a fellow means?

  Her father survived his injuries the day he was finally caught in the backyard, but after six months in prison, he hanged himself in his jail cell. Or someone else did it for him, Ruth and Peter—older, more experienced by then—speculated later.

  Her father did not contact her directly after being taken away—perhaps he had not been either able or allowed to, she imagined later. At some point it occurred to her that perhaps he had not been her real father, after all, that maybe somehow he had been saddled with her, the baby of an unfortunate acquaintance. The mystery of this possibility—that a man who could steal from people, who could shoot someone in the back or bash in his head with a hammer, could also take in and raise a baby, could care for her—would remain with Ruth, haunting her.

  He was not unkind to me, she told Peter.

  I think he loved me, she told Dr. Wenning once.

  No, no. I’m sure he did, she said.

  But actually, she realized finally, she was never really certain about that, either.

  The van Dusens’ house was a small, pale gray Victorian. She realized later that it was in the same neighborhood as the rented house in which she and her father had spent their single night in Wells—in fact, they had walked past it on their way to the beach for the fireworks display—but she did not recognize the house when the police car pulled up to the curb at the close of that endless day when her father was captured.

  That was the word the police used. Captured.

  It was explained to her late in the day that a local doctor would take her in for the night. Wells was a small town, and there was nothing else to be done with her immediately. (Surely that had been an oversight, Ruth thought later; hadn’t they known all about her?) Someone would come to get her in a day or so, she was told; a permanent place would be found for her. Meanwhile, the van Dusens would look after her.

  When she was helped from the police car early that evening, Ruth felt hollowed out. She had thrown up repeatedly into a tiny corner porcelain sink in the ladies’ bathroom at the police station.

  Now the last light of the day fell in fronds over the grass, over the quiet face of the house, over its deep front porch furnished with brown wicker furniture. Shrubs covered in lacy white blossoms lined the walkway of the house. Green urns spilling yellow flowers flanked the steps to the porch. In a front window, a lamp with a round blue glass shade floated like a planet hovering in the dusk. Ruth had an impression of silence and calm.

  I don’t understand, she had said again and again at the police station.

  That afternoon people had touched her shoulder and bent to offer her things, a glass of water, a handkerchief, once an open box of candy, dark chocolates nestled in frilled paper. She had recoiled as if being offered poison.

  A policeman sitting across from her at the table had riffled the pages of a notebook. Other relatives? he said. Anyone else we ought to know about?

  What? Ruth had said. It was almost as if she couldn’t hear properly.

  I think you might have made a mistake, she said once.

  One of the policemen had rubbed his hand across his mouth in a distressed way. No, honey, he’d said. Afraid not. No mistake.

  He’d asked again about the money, where it might be, what her father might have done with it.

  She had looked back and forth among the three men in shirtsleeves who had crowded into the room. Two of them wore guns in holsters strapped over their shoulders.

  I’ve never seen any money, she said.

  One of them, leaning against the wall, arms folded, had shaken his head and looked away from her out the window.

  Jesus Christ, he said. Jesus H. Christ.

  Poor sucker kid.

  The policeman holding her arm did not even have a chance to knock. The man who opened the door as they reached the porch was tall and slender, with a neat brown goatee and large, calm blue eyes. He was dressed in a white shirt, the material starched and ironed, and gray cuffed trousers. A crisp crease ran from his shoulder to his elbow, where the sleeves were rolled.

  Behind him stretched a softly lit hallway with a shining floor. A blue and white bowl of flowers had been arranged on a table under a tall mirror. Directly ahead rose the stairs, covered in a cherry-colored carpet; a glass lamp with a dark shade illuminated a table on the landing above.

  A woman came out of a lighted doorway adjoining the hall, wiping her hands on a dish towel. She was much shorter than her husband, her face round, her pale hair parted cleanly down the center and pulled back tightly in a bun. The skin around her eyes was pale, too, almost translucent. Around her nose and lips, little patches of redness flared, the suggestion of sensitivity. She wore a white blouse and an apron over a patterned skirt.

  I’m Dr. van Dusen, the man said. How do you do
, Ruth?

  His voice was soft. He turned, put a hand on the woman’s shoulder. This is my wife, he said. Mrs. van Dusen.

  The policeman ruffled Ruth’s hair roughly. Thanks, Doc, he said.

  Ruth pulled away from his hand, the gesture too familiar.

  You’ll be all right now, little girl, the policeman said, clearly embarrassed. He shuffled awkwardly on the porch, took off his hat and tucked it under his arm.

  We didn’t know what else to do with her, he said over Ruth’s head. Apparently it’ll take someone a couple of days to get here.

  It’s all right, Dr. van Dusen said.

  He opened the door wider. Come in, Ruth, he said. You must be very tired. Mrs. van Dusen will take you upstairs.

  Ruth could not bring herself to look at either of them. She understood that the gulf between her and the rest of the world, a gulf she had already felt to be almost insurmountably wide, had now become vast beyond her imagining. She would just walk forward. In her mind there was a vague idea of escape, but not now. Not now, she thought, with so many people looking at her.

  Mrs. van Dusen led Ruth up the stairs. At the landing she turned and preceded Ruth into a big bedroom with an expanse of pale green carpet. A large bed with a dark, heavily carved headboard stood against one wall.

  Mrs. van Dusen turned down the coverlet away from the pillows on the bed, revealing their immaculate whiteness.

  Then she seemed to be at a loss. Finally she indicated the bed, and Ruth understood that she was supposed to sit down. Was she to take off her clothes? Get under the sheets? She had no nightgown, she thought. How could she go to sleep without a nightgown?

  Then the absurdity of this struck her—why was she worrying about a nightgown?—and she felt her legs tremble under her.

  She sat down on the bed, the mattress billowing away softly beneath her. She had never been in a room so large or so clean. There were photographs in silver frames behind glass on a table topped with a woven cloth, yellow and scarlet threads in a geometric pattern. Roped and tasseled gold cords hung around heavy, dark blue curtains. Ruth stared at it all.

  After a moment’s hesitation, Mrs. van Dusen knelt beside the bed and began to unlace Ruth’s shoes as if she were a child.

  I’m sure you need to sleep now, Mrs. van Dusen said.

  Ruth looked down at the top of Mrs. van Dusen’s head, the part in her hair.

  She did not want Mrs. van Dusen taking off her shoes, but she did not know how to stop her.

  Mrs. van Dusen slipped Ruth’s shoes off her feet. Then, after a moment of hesitation, she raised Ruth’s legs to the coverlet.

  Ruth lay down obediently.

  Dr. van Dusen came into the room carrying a glass of water. He pulled up a small chair beside the bed. Mrs. van Dusen retreated to the doorway where she remained, a worried presence.

  From his pocket Dr. van Dusen took a brown vial. He shook two small white pills into one hand and then passed Ruth the glass of water. He opened his palm to her.

  She sat up and took the pills, swallowing them with the water, and then lay back down.

  She did not know what the pills would do to her. Perhaps everyone intended to kill her, the daughter of a murderer.

  She looked up at the ceiling, as white and smooth as Mrs. van Dusen’s pale forehead.

  How do you feel, Ruth? Dr. van Dusen said.

  She did not know how to say: Is my father dead?

  Where is my father? she said instead. She had not wanted to ask anyone in the police station that question.

  Dr. van Dusen reached over to the bedside table, adjusted the angle of the lampshade to direct the light away from her face.

  He was handsome, she thought, watching him. His hair was a thick, golden brown, combed back from a high forehead. The goatee gave him an air of distinction. He was a little different from other men she had known, she sensed. In a book, she realized, his expression would have been described as intelligent.

  Do you want to use the bathroom? he asked. Are you cold?

  She shook her head, but then she realized that her teeth were chattering.

  Ruth lay rigidly on top of the bedspread; Dr. van Dusen reached down and pulled up a blanket folded at the end of the bed, tucking it in around her. He put a hand on her shoulder. His touch seemed to absorb the shaking and he left his palm there. The weight of it was comforting. She made an effort to quiet her body.

  You’ll feel better soon, he said. What you’re feeling now? That’s shock.

  He looked at his watch and then at her face again. Your father, he said, has been taken to the hospital.

  Mrs. van Dusen came back into the room and quietly pulled the curtains.

  Sleep now, Dr. van Dusen said. It’s all right, Ruth. You can close your eyes. It’s safe just to go to sleep.

  Ruth could not see them, standing in the hall outside the bedroom door, which had been left ajar, but she could hear their low voices.

  She wanted to stay awake, to look again at the room around her. Against one wall was a gleaming dresser of dark wood. She assumed she was in a guest bedroom, but a man’s empty white shirt and doctor’s long white coat hung on a wooden hanger suspended from one brass handle. A dressing table with an oval mirror stood between the two windows, the rainbow glint of faceted glass jars on its surface. A small stool with a low upholstered back and a tufted red seat was drawn up before the dressing table. Two long fissures of summer-evening light glowed between the long dark curtains. In the corner of the room was a chaise longue covered in a printed fabric, a round table beside it stacked with books. She couldn’t quite make out the design of the fabric. She struggled to prop herself up on one elbow; it felt important to see clearly where she was. There were little boats with black masts scattered across the fabric. Or were they Chinamen with pointed hats?

  The room seemed as calm and otherworldly as a distant universe. The weight of her head suddenly felt insupportable, and she allowed herself to fall back to the pillow. She felt tears on her face, but before she could wipe them away, she was asleep.

  When she woke later she did not know where she was, nor for one paralyzing moment, who she was. The events of the day—something terrible was there, behind her thoughts—swarmed and bulged at the edge of her consciousness, a menace.

  Around her, the house—the van Dusens’ house, she remembered now—was completely quiet. Night had fallen.

  Then everything came back to her. Where was the hospital where her father had been taken? Should she go find him? But she did not want to find him. It must be true, everything they had said about him.

  She sat up quickly and put her feet on the floor. Her head seemed to soar away and bump the ceiling and then return to her shoulders. She waited, her heart racing. When her vision steadied, she stood up and walked across the carpet toward the door. Where were her shoes? Someone had taken away her shoes, but she could not stop to look for them. It was necessary that she leave as quickly as possible.

  The room tilted, and she staggered. She put out her hand, bruising her knuckles against the dresser.

  The bedroom door was ajar. In the upstairs hall, the shaded lamp on the little table was turned on, casting a soft pool of light on the polished wood. Three other doors leading to the landing were closed. A window in the hall overlooked the street, and she could tell from the light outside that it was near dawn. Somehow she had slept all night.

  The staircase was ahead, a gleaming banister descending precipitously into the darkness.

  Down she went, but her head felt disconnected from her feet. The sensation was like walking down a waterfall.

  She paused at the foot of the staircase in the front hall. The front door was ahead, two long panels of glass etched with garlands on either side. When she passed before the long mirror her reflection startled her, and she nearly cried out.

  Where would she go? Where in the world could she go now? But she must, she must.

  She opened the front door.

  A boy—the boy
from the day before—was sitting on the lowest step of the porch. Bundled stacks of flat newspapers lay on the pavement in front of him, a pile of rolled papers on the steps beside him.

  She could not believe it was the same boy.

  A bicycle lay across the front walkway, one wheel canted skyward. The boy’s hair, mussed from sleep, stood up in a cowlick in the back. When she’d seen him on the street on his bicycle, she’d thought his hair was the color of haystacks. Now, under the porch light, she thought of gold.

  He turned around, startled, at the sound of the door opening. She looked at him sitting on the porch steps, and then she looked past him to the dark street, a streetlight burning in what seemed to be the center of every tree’s leafy crown. She had to leave, she thought. There was no choice.

  She saw the boy stand up as she took a step onto the porch.

  The next instant, it was as if she had dropped into deep black water. She felt herself pitching forward into nothingness.

  Every time she awoke over the next hours or days, the light in the bedroom was different. She lost track of time. Whatever was in the pills Dr. van Dusen gave her made her able to do nothing but sleep. She woke only to creep to the adjoining bathroom and then back to bed. Sometimes when she woke, Dr. van Dusen was sitting on a chair beside the bed, glasses on his nose, reading a book held on his lap.

  Once when she woke—she could tell by the light outside the window that it must be early evening—Dr. van Dusen was seated beside the bed, and Mrs. van Dusen was entering the room carrying a tray.

  He smiled up at her as she handed him the tray.

  I thought she might like chicken, Mrs. van Dusen said quietly, and then left the room.

  Ruth struggled to sit up. Dr. van Dusen stood and set the tray on her knees.

  On a plate was a scalloped dish of creamed chicken in a pie crust, a spoonful of bright green peas.

  Head lolling—it was a struggle to keep her eyes open—she took one bite, and then another. She put down her fork. The food had no taste or smell at all.

  Dr. van Dusen glanced up from whatever he was reading.

 

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