Improbable Solution

by Judith B. Glad

  But she'd seen the last geologist's report. The rich vein of diatomaceous earth had narrowed until it was little more than occasional pockets intermingled with the vitric tuff that was the major geological formation underlying the town. There was a chance, the report had said, that there was a richer deposit below the layer of tuff, but verifying that would require new exploration.

  The report must have arrived in the last weeks of her mother's life, because it was dated that spring. Pop wouldn't have cared then, and later he had probably forgotten, as he had so many important parts of his life.

  Well, even if she had the knowledge and experience necessary to reopen the mine—which she certainly did not—she didn't have the inclination. Her career had been on hold quite long enough, thank you. It was almost time for her to think of herself again, at long last.

  Only duty was keeping her here. When she had done all she could for Pop she would be free to go.

  And go she would. Instead of trying to sell the house, she was going to simply walk away from it. She could deal with it later, after she'd had a time for herself again. Milly or Georgina would keep an eye on it. Lyle would come in occasionally during cold weather and make sure the roof was tight and the pipes intact.

  Someday, when she had rebuilt her life, she would come back and close this chapter. Until then, there was nothing in Whiterock she needed.

  Nothing.

  INTERVAL

  Achievement! Loring will remain.

  What energy does he sense? Possible danger?

  Caution!

  SEVENTEEN

  The heat continued. Everyone spoke of how they couldn't remember such a long spell of hot weather, despite several long droughts over the past fifty years. Great, towering thunderheads built in the afternoons, but all they brought were hot, dry winds and distant thunder.

  Sally's visits to Gus became less frequent as Pop's condition deteriorated. She hated to leave her father, yet sometimes she had to. The only forgetfulness and peace she could find, even if only for a brief time, were with Gus.

  Often she didn't feel like making love. She would have, for Gus's sake, but he insisted he wasn't so desperate he was willing to just use her. "I like being with you," he told her one night. "That's enough."

  She wondered if he meant it, or was just being considerate. He was really a very nice man, for someone who said he didn't want anything more than good sex.

  One night they were sitting in his front room, sweltering in heat scarcely moderated by his laboring air conditioner. Gus suggested driving in to Vale for an ice cream cone, but she didn't want to be gone that long.

  "Then let's go to the concert." He stood and pulled her up with him.

  "Concert? What concert?"

  "In the park. You mean you didn't hear about it?" He locked the door, probably the only person in town who ever did.

  "I don't think there's been a concert there in fifteen years," she said, and remembered other summer nights when life—and she—was young.

  "Yeah, well, there's one tonight." Tucking her hand in the crook of his elbow, he pulled her toward the door. "I just heard about it this afternoon at the Post Office. Tom Holmes organized it, after he caught Buster and Ben letting the air out of tires of the cars parked in front of the Chalk Pit. It's his idea of giving the kids something to do."

  Half a dozen cars were parked along Fifth and a few more were in the grade school lot. They strolled to join the small crowd gathered on the dry grass in front of the bandshell. Off-key squeaks and squawks and an occasional scrap of melody sounded from the room under the stage.

  "Evenin', Miz Sally," Ernie Green said. "How's your pa?" He sat in an aluminum-and-webbing lawn chair beside Wilma Collotzi.

  "You know Will's not gonna get any better, Ernie, so don't be botherin' Sally about him," Wilma said. "Silly old man. No more brains than a bullfrog," she muttered, and moved her chair over beside Sally and Gus. "Don't know why I carried a chair all the way over here for him, anyhow."

  Since Ernie was a good five years younger than Wilma and lived closer to the park, Sally didn't know, either. She smiled and kept her mouth shut.

  The band emerged, and Wilma shushed everyone around her. The kids—and a handful of adults—carried folding chairs onto the stage and set them in a ragged semicircle. Once they were seated, Angie Garcia stepped onto the overturned box before them and clapped her hands.

  Sally had forgotten that Angie had been her piano teacher for one frustrating year a long time ago.

  The music was loud. It was also surprisingly melodious—Angie must have worked a miracle to pull such a disparate assortment of would-be musicians together into a halfway decent ensemble.

  "I would have given my right arm to have played in something like this when I was a kid," Gus said, his voice low in her ear.

  "What did you play?"

  "It's more like what did I try to play. I never had lessons, but I did have an old clarinet that had been my uncle's. A friend helped me learn the basics, and I used to amuse myself—and drive my mother almost to distraction—attempting to be the next Pete Fountain."

  "Pop played the baritone horn." Sally remembered summer nights much like this when she and her mother would sit here on the grass and listen to music as sweet as any she'd ever heard. "One summer I even played." She had to smile at the memory.

  "Just one?"

  "Since they only let me beat the bass drum because they were desperate, it's not surprising they found another drummer the next year," she said. "I have a pretty good sense of rhythm, but my ear is as tin as they come."

  The band began to play a medley of show tunes, and she closed her eyes. Pop had loved all the old musical comedies. He had hundreds of vinyl records, including some early Jeanette MacDonald-Nelson Eddy performances. There were even three original Caruso disks among his collection.

  How she missed the world of musical theater. She had worked in opera almost exclusively since leaving college, but her experience had included a few of the American classics like Showboat and Porgy and Bess as well. Her portfolio was stuffed with costume designs for all of her favorites.

  Gus's arm stole around her waist, and she leaned back into his embrace as the band played the first notes of "Old Man River." The arrangement they were playing tonight lacked the majestic baritone horn solo that had been Pop's favorite.

  "I hope they're going to make this a regular event," Gus said. "It's really great."

  Sally looked around. When she and Gus had arrived, there had been only eighteen or twenty people in the park; now there were dozens. Milly Kemp stood back behind the rows of lawn chairs. Georgina and Jack were here, too. Arne Lundquist sat with his son Eric and his grandchildren. Elizabeth Alpin looked extremely pleased with herself in a shiny new powered wheelchair, with Grip wheezing and drooling at her knees. To Sally's knowledge, Mrs. Alpin hadn't been out of the house except to attend church for more than a year, not since she broke her hip.

  Inexplicable tears sprang to her eyes. She loved these people. They were the flavor and texture of her life. How could she leave them, even after Pop was gone?

  Yet how could she stay? Whiterock had nothing for her except its people and a house empty of everything but memories.

  And Gus.

  Whiterock had Gus.

  * * * *

  Sally sat with Pop most afternoons now, talking to him, although she didn't believe he understood a word she said. It made her feel better, and maybe that was all that counted.

  She told him how Mrs. Alpin's roses had gone into dormancy due to the heat, how Bill Holmes was fixing up the old Anderson place, how Georgina predicted a new life for Whiterock now that Gus had shown faith in the town by making an offer on Cowles Implement.

  "But I don't know where he expects to find the business," she said as she bathed Pop's face on the hottest day yet. It had hit a hundred before noon, and she had no idea what it was now—just hotter. "But I wish him luck, because the whole town is counting on him making a dif
ference."

  "I think you're mistaken about Bernie not making a profit." Juana came in, carrying a stack of fresh sheets. "Pete says Gus told him if business stays as good as it has been, he's going to institute a bonus system. Pete should get a pretty good check every December."

  "I have trouble believing business is that good," Sally replied, as she gently patted Pop's cheeks with the towel. "There, now, that should feel better." She wiped the perspiration from her own forehead with her forearm. "Although I don't think anything really helps."

  The two fans stirring the air in the room merely made it habitable.

  "I think I'm going to bring him some ice cream," Juana said. "Cool him from the inside out. You want some?"

  Sally shook her head. "But I'd take a soda, if there are any cold."

  Juana stopped at the door, looking back. "You don't want to believe there's anything in Whiterock worth staying for, do you?" she said, and left Sally alone with her father—and her confusion.

  She sank into the chair beside Pop's bed where she'd spent so many hours lately.

  "She's right, Pop. I keep trying to convince myself I hate Whiterock when the truth is...I just don't know what the truth is." She found his hand, lying limp and lifeless on the thin sheet covering him, and enclosed it within her own.

  "I don't really know what I want anymore, Pop," she said, as much to herself as to him. "I called Kate Wilson in Portland last night. You remember Kate—she was my roommate my senior year in college. She told me I was crazy when I mentioned I was thinking of coming back. Give her a chance to live somewhere like Whiterock, she said, and she'd take it so fast my head would spin."

  Stroking along his flaccid fingers, she remembered when she'd thought his hands were the strongest, the safest, the gentlest.

  "I've been thinking about it, too. Whether I really want to go back to the city, I mean. I hate the traffic, and the air always smells like diesel exhaust. I hate being afraid to walk at night, and having to worry about my purse being snatched and my car vandalized.

  "But I can't give it up, Pop. I just can't! There's something really exciting about seeing my ideas, my dreams become real on stage. Do you remember when they used my costume designs for Peter Pan when I was in college? You and Mom came to Seattle for the play. And you sent me roses on opening night."

  Had his hand tightened on hers? She stared at him, but he made no sign he was aware of his surroundings. He had not moved, to her knowledge, for several days, except for swallowing when food was put into his mouth. Even the slow, shallow motion of his chest was almost imperceptible.

  "If there were only something here I could do. Or if I could take the house with me."

  The house her great-grandfather had built would sit empty, vulnerable to weather and decay. Every room, almost every wall, held memories. The attic was full of three generations'-worth of treasures and junk; the basement was almost as bad.

  Would she ever have the time to go through it all, seeking the keepsakes to give her roots as she grew further and further from where she began? Why hadn't she sorted it all out while she had the time, while Pop had still been alert enough to help her?

  She knew why. If she had begun, it would have been an admission her father was mortal, and she hadn't been able to face that so soon after her mother's death.

  Sally sat with Pop through most of that day, held by more than the heat. There was something about him—an elusive alertness?—that hadn't been there before. She used the heat as an excuse to avoid her daily trip to the Post Office, but the truth was, she didn't want to leave him.

  She was dozing, her head against the side of his bed, late that afternoon. She woke when the floor just outside squeaked.

  Juana stuck her head into the open doorway. "Telephone."

  Sally released Pop's hand and stood. She was stiff from sitting so long, and her hair was damp where it had been between her head and the bed. She went to the kitchen phone because the rooms on the east side of the house were cooler than those on the west.

  "Hello?"

  "Are you all right?" The faint voice had that hollow, faraway sound that cell phones sometimes caused.

  The abruptness of the question stopped her for a moment.

  "Gus? Is that you?" The connection was so poor she could hardly hear him.

  "Yeah, it's me." A loud buzz all but drowned him out. "Damn this phone!" His voice faded then grew loud again. "I had this feeling something was wrong. Is your father—", followed by something she didn't catch as the buzz returned.

  "Pop's about the same." She raised her voice, spoke slowly. "A little weaker but no real change."

  "I should be back in town by six. Should I come over?"

  This time she heard him clearly.

  "I-I don't think so, Gus. It's so hot..." Oh, God! She wanted him here more than anything, but if he came she'd want to go back to the apartment, to the sweet forgetfulness she only found with him.

  "...need me...five minutes..." Again his voice came clearly, "Did you hear me?"

  She nodded. "I heard you. Thanks, Gus."

  The line went dead. Slowly, she replaced the receiver. Of course she needed Gus, but Pop needed her.

  She went back to his room. Perhaps she'd bring the rollaway bed in tonight—her bedroom would be like an oven.

  "Sally, I think you'd better come here," Juana said as she entered. The nurse was standing by the bed, holding Pop's hand. No, she was taking his pulse.

  Sally practically ran across the room. She grabbed her father's other hand.

  Did he again return the pressure, or was it her imagination?

  She looked at his face that had been blank and vacant for so long. Now she had the strange feeling his eyes were closed in sleep instead of the half-consciousness of the past few days. And his lips were curved ever-so-slightly in a smile.

  Sally returned the smile, even knowing he didn't see. This was her father again, as he had been. The father she'd admired, respected, loved. Once more she felt an insubstantial pressure on her hand.

  She knew.

  "Goodbye, Pop," she whispered. "God bless."

  Even as she watched, his features seemed to sink together, to lose all character. His chest, barely moving for days, moved no more.

  Juana made the sign of the cross. Her lips moved briefly, and she placed the hand she was holding carefully on his chest.

  Sally wept, wondering at the eternal reservoir of tears within her. For a long time she stood by the bed, unwilling to relinquish Pop's hand, to relinquish this last touch. Finally, as Juana had done, she laid his hand atop the other one.

  "I'm free," she whispered to the empty room. "I can go now."

  And the cost of her freedom was unbearable. As she had known it would be.

  * * * *

  Gus stood at the back of the crowd on the hillside, looking not toward the minister who spoke of all the things Will Carruthers had been to Whiterock, but gazing down on the town he'd so recently tied his future to.

  He didn't want to be here. He hated funerals, had sworn never to attend another. Sally certainly didn't seem to care that he was here, no matter what Juana said. When he'd gone to the house the evening of Will's death, she'd treated him in the same impersonal way she had treated all the other people who'd come by—politely, with no hint of recognition.

  She hadn't needed him. Not then. Not in the three days since then.

  That's what you wanted, wasn't it? For nobody to need you?

  The service ended. Sally sifted a handful of dirt onto the coffin and stepped back. She was white as a ghost, and the stark black of her dress didn't help. Even her hair seemed to have lost its sunny color, and her eyes were the same cold, empty gray as the sky.

  Gus stayed where he was, ignoring the drizzle that wet his hair and sent drips down the back of his neck. He had the feeling all of Whiterock was in mourning, even the weather. At least the heat wave had ended.

  The rest of the mourners lined up to speak to Sally, who was standing
under the canopy with the minister and the unfamiliar woman who'd played the violin during the service. Gus overheard enough to eventually figure out the violinist was Sally's aunt from Florida. The line moved slowly, until he was concerned for Sally, greeting each person, hearing what a wonderful man her father had been.

  Marilyn's funeral had exhausted him. He'd felt as if each person who shook his hand took a little of him away with them. If Sally was feeling anything like that, no wonder she looked as if a slight breeze would blow her away.

  "She needs you," a soft voice said from behind him. He turned to see Georgina standing just behind him, uncharacteristically somber in a navy dress and pearls. Even her hair was tamed into a demure twist.

  "No, she doesn't."

  "Believe me, Gus, if a woman ever needed a man, Sally needs you right now." She slipped an arm through his. "She's had to be strong ever since she came home to nurse Elaine. That takes a lot out of a person."

  He shook his head. "Any need Sally has, I can't fill."

  "Seems to me you were doin' all right for a while there."

  "That was a different kind of need, and you know it." He wished he could bring himself to pull free. It was time he was back at the shop.

  "You know what I think, Gus Loring? I think you and Sally are two of the dumbest people I've ever seen. She's cutting off her nose to spite her face, and you're handing her the knife."

  "You're not making sense." But she was, in a strange, convoluted way.

  "Think about it," Georgina said, and pulled him with her to the end of the line.

  He tried to free his arm.

  When her grip only tightened, he said, "I've got work to do."

  "Not until you pay your respects," she said, and tightened her grip. "It won't hurt a bit, I guarantee."

  "That's what you think," he muttered, but when she asked him to repeat it he was silent.

  Impatiently he waited, while the line inched slowly forward. He spent the time sneaking glimpses of Sally while Georgina spoke with the people around them. She looked worse, if possible, than she had when he'd first seen her. Then she'd been overweight and unkempt. Now she was too thin and too carefully groomed, and seemed to carry the weight of the world on her slim shoulders. There were lines around her mouth and dark smudges under her eyes. Her movements were abrupt and nervous; her fleeting smile was brittle.