Local Knowledge

by Liza Gyllenhaal

  “Did you see Anne?” he asked.

  “Yes,” I told him.

  “Is she okay?” He was searching my face as if to see some trace of her there. “I’ve been worried.”

  “Why?”

  “Because of what he might do to her,” Luke said. Then he looked behind me up the hill. “I don’t want him to see me here. Come back around to my place.”

  He disappeared into the undergrowth before I could say anything further. When I pulled up in front of the house, he was waiting for me on the front steps. He was smoking a cigarette.

  “I thought you’d quit those things,” I told him as I crossed the yard toward him. “Like about ten years ago.”

  “Yeah, well,” he said, taking the cigarette from his mouth and dropping it on the step, where he ground it out with his boot heel. “I’ll stop again as soon as we get settled. Come on in. I want you to see all the work I’ve been doing.”

  “No,” I told him. “Let’s just talk here, okay?”

  “Sure. It’s cooler out here anyway. Look what I found,” he said, nodding to a pair of ancient metal chairs he’d unearthed from somewhere and set out on the porch. They had the salvaged look of something he’d originally intended to use for one of his art objects. The legs wobbled and creaked when we sat down on them.

  “Paul told me you were clearing things out,” I said.

  “Well, I’ve been doing my best to get ready. I’ve gotten rid of most of the furniture inside and have been repainting the rooms. But I’d like Anne to arrange things the way she wants to, you know. When she moves down.”

  I stared out across Luke’s porch to the piles of garbage bags and then, beyond, to the graveyard of rusting pieces posed across the shabby lawn: the flying hubcap tortoise, the scarecrow of molting broom heads and peeling handles, the enormous rabbit with its ancient TV antennae ears. Maybe it was the softening effect of the fading light, but Luke’s sculptures no longer seemed so sinister to me, or even ugly, really. Instead, I think I finally understood their wacky humor, the sad, self-fulfilling prophecy behind their creation, how all our most cherished belongings come to this in the end. Ashes to ashes. Junk to junk. And our ambitions, too, I thought; everything we hold dear. It seemed to me that this is what Luke had always known, even as a boy; and why he’d always scared me. But he’d changed since meeting Anne. The irony and sarcasm that had once been so much a part of his character had diminished. In their place was this new earnestness. He seemed to have no edges to him anymore; instead he generated a kind of open-armed, unself-conscious optimism. He was like someone who’d found God or Zen. Except with Luke, what he’d found was Anne. It had humanized him, brought him down to earth. He didn’t frighten me anymore. It was too late to wish that he would.

  “So when is she leaving Richard?” I asked him. “What has she told you?”

  “That’s why I stopped you, Maddie. How did she seem to you when you saw her?”

  “But you’ve seen her yourself, haven’t you? You two have talked?” I asked, turning toward him. “Since Richard’s been back?”

  “No, we haven’t. But you say she’s okay? I hate to think of her up there with him. What he might do to her when she tells him about us.”

  “Just when do you think she’s planning on telling him?”

  “When it’s right,” Luke said. “I know Anne. This can’t be easy for her, inflicting pain. She needs to find the right moment.”

  “Oh, come on, Luke,” I said. “Richard’s been back six days already! And do you want to know why I’m here? Why I went up there? To drop Rachel off so that she could babysit. Anne’s all dressed up. They’re going out to a dinner party.”

  “Maddie, what is it?” Luke asked, leaning over and peering at me through the gloom. “You sound so angry. What’s going on?”

  And I realized that, in fact, I was angry. No, I was furious. Burning with shame. The more I thought back on my conversation with Anne, the clearer it became that she was dropping me. She was ending the friendship. Was it because of what I’d told her about Luke? And if that was the case, how could I believe she was even planning to tell Richard about her affair—let alone go through with her decision to leave him? It had been almost a week, and what had she been doing?

  “Anne knows,” I said.

  Luke slowly fished another cigarette out of his front shirt pocket and lit it. He didn’t need to ask me what I meant.

  “How did she find out?”

  “Richard did some digging into your past. He rehashed the whole thing at the town meeting Friday night.”

  “Ah,” Luke said. “I see. Oh, Jesus, poor Paul! Now I understand why he seemed so pathetically grateful when he dropped by here Sunday and saw what I was doing.”

  I was touched that Luke’s first reaction would be concern for Paul rather than his own situation. I decided I had to tell him the whole truth, even if he ended up blaming me for everything.

  “Richard came to the meeting directly from the city,” I said. “So I guessed that Anne didn’t know yet. I called her when Richard was on his way back to the house and told her before he got there. He’d been so nasty about you, Luke. I couldn’t stand the thought of what he’d say to her, and I was hoping that—”

  “I see. I understand. Thank you, Maddie. I’m sorry that this had to fall on you. But of course it’s better now that it’s all out in the open.”

  I was confused by how well he was taking this news. I would have thought he’d be furious. Frantic. But he actually seemed calmer and more confident now than when I first came upon him on the driveway.

  “She was pretty upset,” I said. “She didn’t want to believe me.”

  “Well, of course not. We thought we’d told each other everything. But, you know, in some ways this will actually make things easier between us. More equal and balanced.”

  “I don’t understand.”

  “No. And that’s the way it should be. This is between Anne and me. But don’t worry,” he added as he got up from his chair. “Everything’s going to be fine.”

  “You still believe she’s going ahead with this?”

  “Absolutely,” he said as he led the way through the stacks of garbage bags. “There’s no question in my mind.” He walked me back to my car. It was dark now, inky black under the towering hemlocks. He took my elbow as he guided me around the side of the house.

  “I want to have you guys over,” he told me as I opened the car door, “as soon as Anne and the kids are settled in here, okay?”

  I told him we’d be looking forward to it. He seemed to have such a clear vision of how things were going to be for them. Anne and him. For everyone he now included in their enchanted circle. I could almost imagine what he saw: the four of us, sitting down around his kitchen table, Anne pouring coffee, our children running around outside, their laughter drifting in an open window. But then, the future isn’t ever much more than a dream, is it? Beckoning, elusive, disappearing down a sudden flight of stairs. Nothing about it is certain or clear, though—and this is what breaks your heart in the end—everything is always possible.

  It was nearly seven thirty—an hour and a half past Kathy’s usual day-care pickup time—when I finally turned into the driveway leading up to the farmhouse. Kathy never minded when I was late in the past, but things had changed between us now. We hadn’t spoken much since BlueFest. I knew I’d been avoiding her. I understood that I’d let her down that summer; that in many ways I’d been failing her ever since I started working for Nana. I’d kept up with her in the beginning, chatting every day or so and seemingly staying in touch. But the truth was, I did what I could to remain on her good side because she was so helpful with the girls. She’d become useful to me, rather than close. And then we began to seem so different in my mind. She wasn’t interested in my job, in hearing about Nana, my clients, the money I was making. Her world was circumscribed by the farm; Bob; her children—and mine. Honestly? I felt that I was leaving her behind. That I’d outgrown her. I’d me
t Anne. I didn’t need Kathy anymore.

  There was a Taurus I didn’t recognize parked next to Bob’s pickup; I figured I wasn’t the only late parent, after all.

  I made my way up the toy-strewn front walk and then around to the kitchen, where I saw lights on in the windows. I never knock, of course. I just pushed open the screen door. Bob and Kathy were sitting across the kitchen table from Charlie Lowry. Charlie had been a year behind me in high school; he was now a successful real estate agent at Millennium.

  “Sorry I’m so late,” I said, staring stupidly at the papers spread out across the table.

  “Maddie!” Bob jumped up from his chair. “Hey. We were all just talking here. You know Charlie, right?” Charlie had shot up as well.

  “Sure,” he said, holding out his hand. “Of course. I think we were just finishing up, actually. What do you say, Bob? Kathy? I’ll give you a call next week, okay?”

  “No, please sit back down,” I told the two men. Even without everyone’s obvious embarrassment, it was clear to me that Bob and Kathy were talking to Charlie about selling the farm. It was a slap in the face—it felt to me like an actual blow—that they hadn’t confided in Paul and me. And that they hadn’t at least approached me about handling the sale. Kathy refused to meet my gaze; instead she stared intently into the coffee cup she was cradling between her fingers.

  “I don’t mean to interrupt,” I said, breaking the awkward silence. “I’m just going to run downstairs and grab Lia and Beanie. We’ll go out the basement way.”

  “No, honestly—” Charlie began to say, but Kathy cut him off.

  “The kids are out back,” she said, looking up. I felt the hostility in her gaze. “They’re in the tree house with Charlie’s daughter. I’d take a look at Beanie’s ears, if I were you. She was complaining about them hurting her earlier this afternoon.”

  Lia prattled away on the drive back to the house. Beanie was quiet, which is nothing unusual, but I took her temperature when we got home: it was 102. I gave her some eardrops and made her lie down on the futon on the screened porch. We served her sherbet on a tray. She had a few bites, and then rolled over and fell asleep. Lia and I had dinner at the far end of the table, near Beanie. Around nine o’clock, after I’d done the dishes, Lia and I went back out to the porch. I sat down on the edge of the couch and shook Beanie’s shoulder.

  “Time for bed, honey. I want you and Lia to sleep inside tonight, so that I can keep an eye on you, okay?”

  “I can’t really hear you, Mommy,” Beanie said, sitting up and shaking her head. Her voice was too loud. “You sound like you’re talking from inside a cloud.”

  “It’s probably just the drops,” I told her, gathering her into my arms. She was hot and sweaty. It always comes as a surprise to me how light Beanie actually is. She’s small-boned but long-limbed; it was like carrying a bundle of kindling up the stairs. I’d gotten both girls into their bunk and was giving Beanie a half caplet of Tylenol to help her sleep when we heard Paul come in downstairs. It was nine forty-five. I knew he must be exhausted.

  “Come up and say good night to the girls,” I called down to him. “I’ve got your dinner all ready.”

  I heard him climbing the stairs. Then I heard the whistle coming from the direction of the firehouse. This was the third time in the last month; the last two alarms had turned out to be prank calls. Probably teenagers, Paul had told me; Tom Langlois had insisted they install a caller ID system. I heard Paul swear and start back down the steps at a run.

  “Grab a piece of that chicken on your way out!” I said, hurrying down the stairs after him. “You’ve got to be starving.”

  “I’ll be back in ten minutes is my guess,” he said. I was right behind him when he reached the kitchen door. When he turned around to say good-bye, he almost couldn’t help but find me in his arms. That’s where I wish we could have stayed, the two of us. With Lia asleep above us, and Beanie just drifting off. But where would that have left Rachel? No, it was already too late at that point. Sometimes I think it was always too late. Paul was halfway down the driveway when the phone rang. Damn, I thought. It was probably Dean or Jeb at the firehouse, calling to say it was just another false alarm. As I reached for the phone I decided I would say something to Paul later on about stepping down from the department. He did so much for the community anyway; it was time to let someone younger and less burdened deal with this sort of nonsense.

  “Mommy?” For a confused moment I thought it was Beanie, somehow calling me from the upstairs phone. The voice sounded so young. She was crying.

  “Rachel?”

  “Mommy. Please come get me. Something bad has happened. Please come now.”

  37

  I knew I couldn’t risk leaving Beanie and Lia alone in the house. I carried them down separately and got them into their car seats. Lia woke up, protested briefly, and fell back to sleep. Beanie stayed knocked out. They looked like two life-sized rag dolls, arms and legs akimbo, hair flopped over their faces. The whole time I kept wondering what had happened at the Zellers’. My guess was that Anne and Richard had returned from the party already fighting, or had started in when they got back to the house. And then they’d continued their argument in front of my daughter. That Rachel had been forced to witness Anne’s showdown with her husband somehow didn’t surprise me. I could see Anne using Rachel as a kind of foil, both audience and witness. I didn’t put much past Anne now, I realized. Fear forces us to compartmentalize our thoughts, I know. I guess that’s why I didn’t allow myself to think about Luke. Anne and Luke. How she might have been using him, too.

  On certain nights, when there’s the right amount of cloud cover, the lights of Albany glow above the hills to our west and north like a kind of low-rent aurora borealis. That’s what I thought it was at first, though a part of me knew that the night was clear. I saw it as I made the turn onto River Road, although it was at least a half mile away: the fire trucks, the flashing lights, the billowing, obscuring smoke, and, above it all, roaring with triumphant abandon: the flames. Traffic was already backing up. I heard a siren behind me and saw lights circling in my rearview mirror. There’s not much of a shoulder there, but I did what I could to pull off to the side of the road. Two fire trucks, a tanker, and a police cruiser sped past; they had come down from Covington.

  It was then that I understood just how bad things really were, though I still didn’t allow myself to think about what was happening. I just knew that I had to find Rachel. The traffic wasn’t moving in either direction; I realized they must have blocked it off at the scene of the fire. I made a U-turn and headed back into town. People were coming out of their houses now. A group had gathered in front of the general store, looking down River Road. I saw Phyllis Linden standing on her front porch, rocking her new baby on her hip. Her husband, Carl, serves with Paul on the volunteer fire force. I pulled into the driveway and ran up the front path to ask her if I could leave Lia and Beanie with her while I looked for Rachel.

  “They’re both asleep in the back. They can stay right there in the car seats, if you just keep an eye out for them from the porch.”

  “Sure, Maddie. I’m up anyway until Carl comes home.” As I ran back down the path, she called after me:

  “She’s going to be okay.”

  Or maybe she said We’re going to be okay. It doesn’t matter. It’s those unexpected small kindnesses that touch you the most when tragedy hits. I tried to walk back along River Road, but it was totally clogged. People had gotten out of their automobiles and were milling around, talking on their cell phones. I remembered that there used to be an old logging trail that ran more or less parallel to River Road; Paul and I had cross-country skied it the first winter we were married. I cut up through the woods. The path was still there, defined by an eerie pinkish glow. I ran toward the light.

  Nobody knew for certain how it had started. A spark, perhaps, falling on a grease-stained rag resting on old newspapers. Luke, unaware of the growing conflagration, traini
ng his blowtorch at the scrap metal arranged on the worktable in front of him. Not noticing until it was too late. Or maybe it had been a cigarette. Left to smolder on some chipped saucer or Mason jar lid, scattering hot ash as it fell onto the litter-strewn floor. How the fire started, though, wasn’t as important in the end as why it spread so quickly: raging upward to the floors above, roaring into the attic, engulfing the cottage in an inferno of smoke and flames. Luke’s basement workroom had its share of solvents and flammables, but that wouldn’t account for the speed with which the fire spread. Sadly, Paul came up with the answer for this, one that was eventually supported by the official investigation into the cause of the accident: it was the spray-in cellulose insulation that Luke had blown between the walls and rafters of the old house a few months after he’d moved down from the mansion for good. That had been years ago; the small amount of flame-retardant chemical applied to the insulation at the time would have long since lost its protective qualities.

  By the time I reached the edge of the woods abutting Luke’s property, the fire trucks had been forced to pull back from the house. Later, Paul would tell me that five towns had sent their fire equipment and emergency personnel. Dozens of firemen and EMS workers stood around and watched helplessly as flames shot through the rafters and cinders flew up into the smoke-filled night. I scrambled down into the underbrush, fighting my way through the brambles and weeds, and finally came out onto the soft green at the bottom of the Zeller property. From there I could see that several fire trucks had trained their hoses on the woods behind Luke’s place, obviously working to keep the fire from spreading. I looked up at the Zellers’; it appeared as though every light in the place had been turned on. But then I realized that the windows were actually filled with the wavering, wanton light of the burning house below. I started up the driveway, but two firemen I didn’t recognize stopped me before I’d made it twenty feet.