Edgar and Lucy

by Victor Lodato

  When she came to the house, she was wearing a frilly white top and a silver skirt that looked like it was made of metal. Her boyfriend was the man I’d seen kiss my grandmother in her coffin. “Dominic Sparra,” he said, shaking my hand. He poked his head into the downstairs bathroom and cried, “Ha!”—after which he told me, “You know, we stole those tiles, your grandfather and me.”

  “They were bad boys,” said Honey, and Dominic said, “We were young.” He nosed around some more. “I spent a lot of time in this house.”

  “He wanted to marry your grandmother.”

  “Honey!”

  “Well, it’s true. You always had the hots for her.”

  “We were just good friends,” he said, resting his hand on the piano. “She played like an angel.”

  When Dominic went into the kitchen to toss back some beers with the butcher, Honey and I sat in the dining room. She’d brought a tin of fancy tea with flower petals in it, which we drank using my grandmother’s good china cups.

  “I still have it,” I whispered.

  “The diamond?” Honey whispered back.

  When I nodded, she winked at me. “It was your lucky charm.”

  Later, in Florence’s room, I said she could pick out a dress, if she still wanted one. I hadn’t meant to make her cry. She chose a lavender sheath with orange rosettes and the signature butterfly-wing stitching.

  We sat on the bed and she told me stories—things I’d never known about my grandmother. That she’d played “Clair de lune” at her mother’s funeral, and that, one Fourth of July at VanDervoort Park, she’d sung the national anthem in a yellow turban.

  When I showed Honey the silk box with the braid of black hair, she smiled. “Oh, Flo.” She stared at it for nearly a minute with her strangely catlike eyes.

  “And you”—she finally said, turning back to me. “You’re quite the little man now, aren’t you?”

  I told her that I’d turned nine while I was gone, and she said, “Yes. It happens.”

  “What happens?” I asked.

  “Don’t you know?” She raised her chin slightly, as if posing for a photograph. “Time, my dear. Time.”

  74

  Tree of the Year

  In September, when the letter arrived from Robert Penny, Esq., my mother hid it and didn’t mention anything for nearly a week. Though it was addressed to me (Master Edgar Allan Fini), my mother had kept it away, she said later, only to protect me.

  When she finally threw the cream-colored envelope on the table, it was open. Ron pulled out the letter and read it. “We’re supposed to see him tomorrow.”

  “You don’t have to go,” my mother said, turning to me. “They can’t make you go.”

  Then, after a pause, Ron explained quietly: “It’s about that Billings guy.”

  I was eating a cookie. A crumb fell to the floor. I had the urge to run and hide.

  All I could manage, though, was to bend down and pick up the cookie crumb. Over the last several months, my mother and I had made an unspoken pact: we’d make my disappearance disappear. Suddenly it was in the kitchen.

  Jack, sensing danger, lifted her head from the doggy bed by the back door.

  My mother was standing behind Ron now, looking at the letter. I walked over and took it from them.

  “Don’t read it,” my mother said, as if doing so might contaminate me.

  The paper was cream-colored like the envelope, and felt rough, almost hairy.

  “Why do they call me Master?”

  “Because you’re a kid,” said Ron.

  This made no sense to me.

  Then I remembered how Conrad had sometimes called me Maestro, and I felt queasy—as if the letter had somehow come from him.

  “I’ll go talk to this Penny myself,” the butcher said.

  “No,” I surprised myself by saying.

  “He’s right,” my mother said. “Let’s just ignore it.”

  But she’d misunderstood me. I hesitated before quietly correcting her. “I want to go.”

  My mother snatched the letter from my hand. “Why? What could you possibly want from him?”

  Upstairs, the baby began to scream. We all looked at the ceiling as if at our own thoughts. Then my mother tossed the letter in the sink and ran some water over it, as if the thing were on fire.

  * * *

  In the van the next day, the butcher said, “You have to at least be curious.”

  My mother said the obvious—that it killed the cat.

  “Well, I don’t know about you,” the butcher replied, “but Eddie and I are dogs.” He winked at me in the backseat.

  I was wearing new clothes—a stiff pink oxford and hard-creased khakis. I’d grown nearly an inch while I was away, and my arms were slightly longer.

  My mother looked different, too—and I knew that I’d done this to her. There was something in her gaze now that reminded me of Florence. It wasn’t sadness, exactly. But there could be no lies now, no pretense that we were the same people as before.

  “You have reached your destination,” the GPS said.

  The butcher pulled over and parked under the shade of an elm, which according to a plaque near its base was Tree of the Year, 2001. I knew that something had happened then, something terrible I’d learned about in school—though I couldn’t recall what.

  * * *

  Someone was talking, but it seemed to be another language. I traced circles on my palm and stared at the wall.

  The office was dark brown, with wainscot paneling that looked like segments of a chocolate bar. Behind a desk made from the same recipe sat Mr. Penny. His enormous ears and gleaming bald head somehow seemed obscene—and though there were no wrinkles on his face, I could tell he was very old.

  “I don’t understand,” my mother said—the baby asleep in her arms.

  Mr. Penny smiled patiently. He read the sentence again.

  “The eight hundred and seventy-six acres in the Pinelands National Reserve, including the cabin and all its contents, are left to Edgar Allan Fini.”

  “How does he…?” My mother hesitated. She turned from Mr. Penny to me. “How does he know your middle name?”

  My face was burning and I was too ashamed to speak.

  Silence, and then a business-like cough, after which Mr. Penny continued.

  “Yes, well, this is simply disclosure. The next step, of course, is probate, which can take some time. At this point, no one is questioning the authenticity, and I’d be more than happy to—”

  “We’re not hiring you,” said my mother. “We’re not interested.”

  “Lucy.” Ron put his hand on my mother’s arm, before turning back to the lawyer. “We really can’t afford legal counsel.”

  “Yes, I gather that. But if I might just finish.” Mr. Penny tapped the pages on his desk. “The boy—”

  When the old man met my gaze, I looked away.

  “The boy has also been left a sizable sum of money.”

  In the absence of any response, Mr. Penny spoke agreeably to himself. “Yes, indeed.”

  And then: “The investments represent … well, as far as we can determine…”

  He stopped, understanding perhaps that his words were going to waste. He turned around a sheet of paper and slid it forward, so that Ron and my mother might look. “Right there.” Mr. Penny’s finger quavered like a compass needle. “Quite a substantial sum, as you can see.”

  My mother pushed the paper away.

  Mr. Penny grimaced. “Given the circumstances—”

  “Do you know the circumstances?” my mother interrupted.

  “I do,” said Mr. Penny. “I’m very aware of the complications here.” He touched the knot of his tie. “Still, it’s an incredibly generous gift. The property and the investments come to well over three—”

  “The property? You mean where my son was tortured?”

  “I can’t—I can’t speak on that, Mrs. Fini.”

  “Tell him, Edgar.”

  I
was overcome with panic. Had I been tortured? All I knew was that my nightmares hadn’t let up—dreams of guns, of fire and water and blood-soaked bandages. Still, I was in no position to say what it all meant.

  Ron put his hand on my shoulder because I was crying now. I wondered how much Mr. Penny knew. He must have known that another boy should have been sitting here. I made an effort not to look at any of the papers—afraid I might see Kevin’s name crossed out and mine inserted.

  “I have no tissues, I’m sorry.” Mr. Penny spoke exclusively to the butcher now. “Let’s try to put this into less emotional…” He sighed, looked helplessly at the walls. “Of course, I don’t mean … I’m sure it’s all very difficult for you. I only want to suggest that this would be helpful for the boy’s future. And for your other child, as well.”

  “I guess we’re just confused,” said Ron. “We don’t know this man.”

  “Yes,” said Mr. Penny. “I understand. But you must try to think of it as…”

  He seemed not to know how to think of it, though. He tilted his head and sighed again.

  The light coming in the window fell equally on all of us. I could see through my hands. I could see the blood. My mother was strangely quiet. Bubbles formed at the baby’s mouth, and she wiped them away.

  Mr. Penny closed the leather-bound folder on his desk. “What has happened is beyond terrible—Mr. Salvatore, Mrs. Fini—and I’m not here to defend anyone.” He paused, shook his head. “I knew Mr. Billings’s father. I’ve worked for the family for many, many years. Mr. Billings—the younger—was always quite impulsive and—”

  “Is this a eulogy?” asked my mother.

  “No,” said Mr. Penny. “Not at all. This is strange for me, too. It’s just … it would be silly to refuse this. For Edgar’s sake.”

  I made a sound—but no one seemed to understand it.

  “What’s that, young man?”

  Though I was looking at my hands, I could feel everyone’s eyes on me.

  “You have something to say? Edgar?”

  I wanted to crawl into the earth, where no one would ever ask me to tell the truth—where I might live among stones and be silent.

  “He has a wife,” I said.

  “Yes,” said Mr. Penny. “Ex-wife.” He seemed to know what I was driving at. “She’s been very well taken care of. You’re a good boy, to ask. But she’s not contesting this.”

  “What about other family?” asked Ron.

  “No,” said Mr. Penny. “No other family.”

  “I saw her picture,” I said—my voice barely there.

  “Listen to me, Edgar,” Mr. Penny said. “I’ve spoken with her at length. She wants you to have this.”

  No one said anything for a while—or if they did, I didn’t hear them. Finally I heard Mr. Penny say, “She’s lovely. What’s her name?”

  He was talking about the baby.

  “I don’t mean to pry,” he said, because no one had answered him.

  “Emma,” I said.

  I was proud of the name. My mother had let me choose it. But now she looked at me as if she’d just heard it for the first time.

  “That’s what you used to call your grandmother.”

  “I never called her that.”

  “Yes.” She smiled to stop her tears. “When you were little. You couldn’t pronounce gramma. It always sounded like emma.”

  “It’s a good name,” said Mr. Penny—and my mother agreed, kissing the baby’s head.

  75

  Blue Music

  She lived longer than anyone had expected, and when she died it was in her bed by the back door. Emma, who was five, said we should bury her in the yard, but Ron said no—it was illegal.

  Emma, being Emma, persisted. “Jackie’s my dog. So it’s kind of up to me, Dad.”

  “We’re having her cremated, honey.”

  “What’s cremated?”

  Ron explained, and when he was finished, Emma said, “I know exactly where we can put her—next to the fish pond.”

  “I just told you, honey, we can’t put her back there,” and Emma said, “Not in the fish pond, but next to it.”

  And so it was decided.

  My sister, who always called Jack by her proper name—Jackie—presided over the interment. The plastic Ziploc of ashes was put inside a pink Gigabyte Girl lunchbox—which Emma wanted to upgrade anyway, she admitted to me, to a Terabyte Teen (“I’m older now”).

  When my mother suggested wrapping the lunchbox in a garbage bag, Emma said that it would ruin the whole thing, to cover up the pink, and my mother said, “No one’s going to see it once it’s down there,” and Emma said, “I’ll see it because I’ll think about it. Plus, God will see it.”

  “Deeper,” she instructed the butcher as he dug. “Wait, Daddy.” There was a worm. “Eddie, get it out and move it over there.” She pointed toward Ron’s vegetable garden.

  The spot Emma had chosen for Jack’s grave was a sober corner of the yard with a patch of snarled yellow weeds. “Devil’s grass,” Florence had called it. I’d often seen my grandmother on her knees, tearing it out. I think Emma chose the spot because Jack liked to pee there.

  The shovel made a sharp sound on what we all thought was a stone, but which I quickly recognized, even half obscured by dirt—the sculptured snout, the crescent moon of the trigger. Smaller than Conrad’s, but the same animal.

  “Oh my God,” said my mother.

  “Oh my God,” repeated Emma.

  “Don’t touch it,” said Ron.

  “I’m not,” said Emma.

  Despite the octopus ink filling my belly, I knelt before the hole.

  “No,” my mother and the butcher cried in unison.

  “It’s okay,” I told them. “I know how.” I picked it up from the grip, turned the muzzle away from us, clicked the safety, and opened the chamber. There were six bullets. I shook them out into my hand, and then placed them in my pocket.

  “How do you know about guns?” my mother asked me.

  “I’m fourteen,” I said—which was easier than explaining that I’d learned at nine.

  “Okay,” said Emma. “I don’t like this. Can we finish with Jackie, please? Put the gun down, Eddie.”

  I was more than happy to oblige.

  Emma turned toward her father with an authoritative nod.

  The butcher placed a bone in the hole, after which Emma added a dirty tug rope Jack was fond of. She arranged it, just so, around the lunchbox. Then she stood, took a deep breath, and began.

  “She was a very good dog. There really wasn’t another dog like her. She was very funny, and also she was very…”

  She struggled for the word.

  “Loyal,” I suggested.

  “Yes. She was pretty great.” Emma took another breath and was quiet for a bit, contemplating the lunchbox. “I guess we have to cover her now. But do it slowly, Daddy.”

  The butcher picked up the shovel.

  “Don’t cry, Mommy.”

  “I’m fine, baby.”

  I could see, though, that she wasn’t. Her eyes kept drifting away toward the trees at the edge of the yard.

  Frank loves Lucy 4-ever. I wonder if she was looking at that.

  * * *

  “Who put that gun in there?” Emma asked later, at dinner, and my mother said, “Probably whoever lived here before us.”

  “And who was that?” asked Emma.

  My mother said that she didn’t know their names, and to stop talking and keep eating.

  “They were probably criminals,” said Emma.

  “I’ll bring it to the police station,” said Ron.

  “No,” said my mother. “We don’t want them asking questions.”

  “What questions?” said Emma.

  “I’ll take care of it,” my mother said.

  “Mommy doesn’t like the police,” Emma explained to me. “If they drive behind the car, she gets nervous.”

  “Here,” said the butcher, giving Emma more cavatelli
and broccoli.

  “This always made Jackie throw up. It’s not really meant for dogs.”

  “Yeah, and I wonder who gave it to her?” said the butcher.

  “Well, she liked it. It’s not our fault you’re a good cooker.”

  * * *

  It was still dark when my mother woke me and asked if I wanted to go for a drive.

  “Sure,” I said. In those days, I refused her nothing.

  It was too early for conversation, so we drove in silence. I saw the paper bag on the backseat and didn’t question it. On the highway we listened to the radio—my mother’s station of whining electric guitars and frantic drums. Occasionally she sang a refrain in her awful singing voice that was like someone talking in their sleep.

  We drove for a long time, maybe two hours. At one point, moving through a stretch of woods, I felt what I hadn’t in years—a vision-doubling panic. My mother seemed to sense this and patted my knee. We drove across a small bridge and then pulled over just before a second, larger one.

  We sat in the car for a while more, the radio still on. “You don’t smoke, do you?” she asked.

  I told her no. “Why—do you want a cigarette?”

  “I stopped when you disappeared,” she said. “But if you had one, I’d take it.”

  Parked at the side of a road, in some kind of canyon, with a river below us, I felt myself grow calmer. I’ve always loved sitting in a car with my mother—the hushed interiority, the twinship of it. We talked a bit about school, and then about Emma and Jack. I could tell that there were other things she wanted to discuss, but I was patient. Now and then she repeated herself, and I realized she was nervous. She pointed out the sign: SHEPHERD’S JUNCTION. “Funny name, huh? I mean where’re the sheep?”

  “Maybe they’re hiding,” I said.

  She smiled. “Maybe.” Her hand found my knee again.

  This wasn’t the day, though, when she told me the story of what had happened here. It wasn’t until years later, when I was in my twenties, that she began to speak of it.

  That day, when I was fourteen, we just walked on the side of the road, stood at the railing of the bridge and looked at the water.

  “It’s pretty,” I said.

  “Yes,” my mother said. “I thought so, too.”