I carried the rest of my things from the truck—a few clothes, two folders of documents, some toiletries—to the cabin and took them upstairs. The bed was stripped, everything neatly washed and folded. I sniffed the linens: clean, but no longer smelling of laundry soap. It had been at least three days, then.
The weather forecast was wrong; the snow did not come. A little before nine that night I bundled up in jacket, hat, and gloves and went outside to stand under the cold magic of stars and listen to the huge attentiveness of dark. I stood for a long time.
An owl flew across the moon and from half a mile away the sound of a Subaru engine drifted up the mountain. It grew louder, and five minutes later Tammy pulled into the clearing.
When she climbed out of the car, I saw the difference, the sleekness, her buttocks ripe as mangoes, her arms and legs plump and muscled.
“What are you doing standing out here in the cold?”
“Looking at the stars. Thinking of Thomas Wolfe’s description of the night.”
“Oh. Right. Where’s the trailer?”
“In storage in Asheville. I thought there would be snow and I wouldn’t be able to get it up the track.”
We went inside. I lit two lamps, then sat on the couch. Tammy went straight to the stove and opened it so she could rub her hands in front of the naked flames. “Forgot my gloves. I forgot to buy gloves I’ve been so busy.”
That was my cue to ask what she’d been doing, but I felt out of sorts, grumpy on Dornan’s behalf, even though, rationally, I knew none of it was really her fault; it was just that she looked so good and he looked so bad.
“You don’t seem exactly thrilled to see me.”
“I’m not too happy with the world in general. Everything is so … complicated.”
“Things didn’t go so well in Arkansas, huh?”
“No. Well, yes, sort of.”
“Well, that’s clear.” Déjà vu. She shut the stove door. “Have you eaten? One thing I learned while you were gone: you can cook a whole meal in one pan if you just fry everything. How about steak, eggs, and fried potatoes? And then you can tell me all about it.”
She cooked. We drank coffee with our meal. In the mixed lamp- and firelight, Tammy’s rounded cheeks glowed like those of an ancient, burnished idol.
“You look good,” I said. She raised her eyebrows. “The mix of softness and strength suits you.”
“I feel pretty good. More at home with myself, you know what I mean?”
“Yes.” At least sometimes.
“So now I want to hear about Arkansas.”
I told her about the Carpenters, of Luz and her Spanish and Adeline’s covert fostering of it. Of Jud and his discomfort with strangers, of Button and his odd eyes. Of Goulay, and Mike.
“You tied him up like a pretzel?”
“He looked more like a pool triangle, actually.”
“I don’t get how he got his hands loose to hit you.”
“I was careless. I made an assumption—that he wouldn’t be flexible enough to step backwards through the belt and get his hands to the front.”
“Well, hey, you won in the end, even if you did get a few more dings to add to your collection. But the letting-them-go part doesn’t seem too smart.”
“I couldn’t turn them over to the police, because then I would have had to explain how I’d come by my information.” She gave me a crooked smile, and eventually I nodded. “Killing them would have upset Luz.”
“They might come and find you.”
“They can’t, and they won’t. They’re going to be only too glad to forget I exist.”
She gave me a look. “Oh, right. You said you’d be shutting down their business. That’s pretty easy to forget.”
“True. Except it’ll be my lawyer doing the watching.” Bette already had the preliminary information, and was busily amassing more. When we had sufficient hard evidence, she would—without using my name or Luz’s details—bring in the child welfare agencies, charities, and news organizations, the crusaders and rights groups, and INS. There had to be a way of helping these children without wholesale deportation. Meanwhile, if Goulay broke or even bent so much as a traffic ordinance, Bette would tie her up in knots.
Then I told Tammy about Luz. “So Adeline has told her I’m an honorary aunt. But I don’t know if I’m doing the right thing, if I should have left her or taken her away. How can you tell if a child is getting what she needs?”
“Jesus, if you could answer that one you’d be pulling down the big bucks as a parenting guru.” She grinned. “Imagine the Oprah show: ‘Well, Oprah, you tell them what to do, and if they don’t, you kill them and buy another.’ No,” she said hastily, seeing the look on my face, “you’ll figure it out after a while. It’s like anything else: you get better with practice.”
“Do you think I’ll do a good job?”
She looked at me, fascinated. “Are you asking me for reassurance?”
Being vulnerable got easier with practice, too. “I suppose I am.”
“This has got to be a first. Okay. Well, you’re stubborn and smart, and you like to be the best, so whether you end up being Fairy Godmother or the Wicked Witch to that little girl, you’ll find a way to make sure she gets a good life.” She grinned again. “As long as you don’t fuck it up. Or as long as she doesn’t. It takes two, you know.”
It takes two. “Tell me what you’ve been up to.”
“I took that job at Sonopress—start Monday. I found an apartment in Asheville, it’s small but it’ll work for a while. I got the utilities turned on day before yesterday and the phone went in today.”
“I guessed. All your things were gone.” I paused. “Dornan was here. He told me you talked.”
“How is he?”
“About as you’d expect. Sad. But no blame.”
“I’m not sure I deserved him.”
“People aren’t merit badges.” Which is a good thing because I had never deserved Julia. People just … choose, and then leave, one way or another.
Tammy got up, went to her jacket, and pulled out her cell phone. “I don’t need this now.”
“Keep it, just transfer the account to your name.”
She nodded. Thanks would have been ridiculous. “I’m taking the car back tomorrow. I’ll make sure they run it on my plastic, now that I’ve got an address to bill things to. Here’s the new address and phone number.”
A three-by-five card with that strong black lettering I’d first noticed weeks ago when I had searched through her papers. I put the card in my pocket.
“Dree said she’ll introduce me around, and I’ll meet people just doing my job. It’ll be cool not being in the city for a while. You’re going back, aren’t you?”
“Yes.”
“Why?”
I was quiet for a few minutes. A year ago, Tammy would have been unable to bear the silence. Now she just got up and brought the coffeepot to give us both a refill, and settled back comfortably, happy to wait. “I don’t know. To be in the world. It’s home.”
My muscles lay lazy and loose on my bones, the food sat well in my stomach, the mug warmed my hand. I sighed and leaned back. Tammy’s weight shifted slightly with the couch cushion, touching me now at hip and thigh. As we breathed her jeans rubbed against mine, seam to seam, but there was no question being asked, and no answer needed. The tension was gone.
She kept her T-shirt on and climbed under the covers, and when I came to bed she took me in her arms and I rested my face on her breast, and we lay like that for half an hour, not talking, not moving, just holding and being held, until our hearts slowed, and our breathing softened, and we slept.
I didn’t wake in the middle of the night; I had no bad dreams; I slept, neither protector nor protected, just one human being next to another, mending.
When we woke, I made breakfast, and she left at first light.
• • •
By midday the yellow snow clouds began dropping their load and fat flakes si
fted down in silence. The Subaru tracks were invisible within ten minutes. I packed the truck bed carefully, snow boots and shovel on top, just in case. The woodworking tools were well oiled and wrapped in tarps, the hogpen securely locked. I’d drained the pump so freezing water didn’t split the pipe while I was away, and the cabin, ashes raked, flue shut, food removed, and bed stripped once more, was as winterproof as I could make it. I had built well. It was sturdy. It would be here when I came back in spring.
I changed my mind about the snow shovel and boots, and threw them in the backseat instead.
I made one last circuit of the clearing, beginning with the cabin, checking the door and windows, then moving on to the heath bald at the south end. The trees would soon be hidden with snow folded down on the branches like meringue. If I stood here a month from now, all would be white, with nothing but animal tracks to indicate the massive fecundity beneath. It has been here two hundred million years, a climax forest, very stable, not changing, not in the middle of turning into anything. I envied it.
A wren flittered onto the boulder I had used as a seat a few weeks ago: a tiny mouthful of a bird, fluffed against the cold like a Viennese truffle. It tilted one bright eye at me, then another, just like Luz, and flew on over the snow. Six months from now, it would have three cheeping fledglings running it ragged.
“I’ll be back,” I told it, and crunched my way to the truck.
It started with a low rumble that suited the wintry quiet, like a bear grumbling in its sleep, but once I was at the top of the track I turned off the engine, took my foot off the brake, and coasted down the road in silence.
“Lovely,” said Julia. “Like Narnia. You mustn’t forget to send that child her Turkish delight.”
“What do you think of her?”
“She’s nine. It’s hard to tell. But she’ll probably grow up to be a Bible-spouting evangelist who thinks you’re Satan incarnate by the time she’s twenty. At least she’ll be a Bible-spouting evangelist who won’t be pushed around. Not if you have anything to do with it.”
“I’ll teach her how to fight.”
“You taught Ms. Tammy a thing or two, certainly.” She smiled privately. Snow began to build up on the windscreen. “You should probably turn the engine on now and get those windshield wipers going, or we’ll end up nose to nose with a tree.”
I did.
“If you teach her to fight, don’t be surprised if she fights you. Once she’s grown she might just leave.”
“People always leave.”
“Often. Not always.” I felt a ghostly touch just beneath my right eye. “Is that a tear?”
“Will you leave me eventually?”
She laughed, a round rich laugh full of good humor. “Aud. Look at me. Stop the car and look at me.” I braked and stopped but did not turn off the engine. I looked at her. “Reach out and touch me.”
“No.”
“No. Because you can’t. Because I’m dead. I can’t leave you, Aud, because I come from you. I am you. You know that.”
Tips of manicured but winter-pale Bermuda grass glittered in the frost under a hard blue sky and stinging lemon sun. Everyone wore sunglasses. Atlanta. I turned right off McClendon, and right again, and parked on the street. For some reason I was surprised to find the maple on my front lawn bare of leaves. I was even more surprised by the rose bushes, which had not been here in May, when I left. I got out of the truck and stretched.
Someone had cut the grass and cleared the leaves. I walked down the driveway, through the double gate, and into the back. No flowers now, in November, but the mystery gardener had been at work here, too: shrubs trimmed, grass neat, flower beds turned. I peered through the garage window. The Saab was still there.
My key still fit the front door. I closed it behind me. The soaring living room felt enormous after the cabin. The floors gleamed. I sniffed: Murphy’s wood soap, and recently split kindling. Someone had laid the fireplace. In the middle of the dining room table stood a vase of freshly cut carnations. And a note, on yellow, lined paper.
Somebody called Beatriz has been taking care of the garden since you’ve been gone. She says you know who she is. Annie came into the coffeehouse the other day and said if you were coming back she wanted the key to the house because she wanted it to be nice when you got back—but she said she’d call you. I told her to leave the key in the mailbox. Don’t blame me if she didn’t! Welcome home.
Dornan
Still holding the note, I walked back outside to the mailbox. The brass key was there. No mail. No doubt yet another uninvited guest had brought that in and put it somewhere.
A dinged-up old VW Rabbit pulled up outside the house opposite and a man with a scraggly goatee and bright yellow fleece jacket got out and climbed the steps. No sudden barking. He let himself in. New neighbor. Deirdre and her two massive dogs must have moved. At least he didn’t seem interested in my business. I put the key and the note in my pocket and went back in.
The phone machine blinked green. Next to it lay a sheaf of carefully transcribed messages, all in Dornan’s hand. I read the top one, dated five months ago, at the end of May. Atlanta police: routine call (but isn’t that what they always say?) about some arson murder last week. I flipped forward a few pages—one from Philippe at the Spanish consulate, wanting me to take on another body-guarding job—and a few more, then back two. June 14th. Else Torvingen (your mum?), wanting to know if your friend was all right. Another caught my eye. Señor SomebodyorOther (heavy accent) saying something about how you owe Them (definitely capital T) a Favor (ditto) and they’re going to Collect. Some job or other they want you to do. You’re supposed to call. A Tijuana number. I went through the rest, page by page, dozens of them, until I came across another message from my mother, this one dated on my birthday. Else Torvingen again, sounding frosty. Something along the lines of “Hey, you didn’t call me back (you ungrateful cow), maybe you’ve gone off somewhere again without telling me, but Happy Birthday anyway.” I glanced absently at the rest.
Sometimes it takes two.
One new message. I pressed PLAY.
“Aud, it’s Annie. I have been so worried about you. Why didn’t you tell me where you’d gone? I finally managed to track down that nice young man who runs the coffeehouses and he was kind enough to lend me your key”—not even a Sherman tank would deter Mrs. Miclasz when she had decided on something—“so that I could make the house a bit more welcoming for you when you got back. There are some bits and bobs of food in the fridge, and I tidied up a little. Aud, don’t disappear again. I know you feel alone, but there are people here who love you. Call me.”
I walked numbly to the fridge: milk, bread, cheese, eggs, apples, pâté. Even beer.
People here who love me. I had helped Beatriz last year, and seen her blossom. I had forgotten she was coming back from Spain to work in a downtown advertising agency. Annie, whose daughter I had killed. People here who love me. Whether I liked it or not.
I wandered into my workroom. The chair I had been working on before Julia’s death gleamed. I pushed it with a fingertip and it rocked back and forth on its runners, wood against wood. In the bedroom there were more flowers, and the bed was freshly made. I stroked the silky antique quilt. I imagined Julia’s mother smoothing it with her hands. Julia had never seen it.
And then I couldn’t avoid it any longer: the laundry room, where I would find my clothes and Julia’s still on the floor where I had dropped them months ago, the day I got back from Norway. The clothes that still smelled of Julia.
I closed the bedroom door, trod through the kitchen, and stopped at the door. I smoothed back my hair, took a deep breath, and went in.
The clothes were gone.
I tidied up a little. Freshly laundered sheets …
I ran into the bathroom and yanked open the linen cupboard. No neatly folded clothes. Into the bedroom. Nothing in the closet. I jerked the top drawer of the dresser so hard it flew out, dumping underwear on the carpet. Nothing, n
or in the second drawer, or the third. Nothing.
I ran into the living room, the dining room, the kitchen. Nothing. Nothing. She was really gone.
And then I laughed, and walked back to the laundry room, and to the dirty linen basket, and lifted the lid. There they were. I reached for the blue shirt but didn’t pull it out immediately, just ran my hand over it, touched the buttons, rubbed the cuff between my thumb and forefinger. Then I lifted it to my face and breathed.
Sunshine and musk and dusty violets, but so faint. I breathed again: her rich skin, and her hair, oh dear god her hair … Tears ran down my face, my neck, dripped on my hands, onto her shirt. All I had left of her. So faint. So very very faint.
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
The texts at the beginning of each section, while inspired by the Oxford English Dictionary and the Encyclopaedia Britannica, are faithful to neither.
I’m grateful to Timmi Duchamp, Steve Swartz, Holly Wade Matter, Mark Tiedemann, Vonda McIntyre, Ed Hall, and—particularly—Cindy Ward for their many useful comments; to Marcus Eubanks, M.D., who helped with the medical details; to Carolyn Soloway, immigration attorney, who has now helped me twice—with information for this novel and in real life; to John Swartz, for sending a box of leaflets, directories, and maps; to Brooks Caruthers, for Arkansas details; to my editor Sean McDonald, for prodding me relentlessly in the right direction; to Colleen Lindsay; and to my agents, Shawna McCarthy, Danny Baror, and Jane Bradish-Ellames.
Table of Contents
Cover
About the Author
Other Books by This Author
Title Page
Copyright
Dedication
Contents
Part One
Chapter One
Chapter Two
Chapter Three
Chapter Four
Stay Page 29