The Waterfall

by Carla Neggers

  “You could do worse,” Lucy whispered to herself as she entered her office.

  She had learned most of what she knew about the Wheaton-Redwing family not from closemouthed, elusive Sebastian, but from Rob Kiley, her only full-time employee. He was parked in front of his computer in the open, rustic space that served as her company’s home base. Rob’s father was the boy Joshua Wheaton had saved sixty years ago—one of the circuitous but inevitable connections Lucy had come to expect from living in a small town.

  Rob didn’t look up. “I hate computers,” he said.

  Lucy smiled. “You say that every time I walk in here.”

  “That’s because I want to get it through that thick, cheapskate skull of yours that we need a full-time person to sit here and bang away on this thing.”

  “What are you doing?” Lucy asked. She didn’t peer over his shoulder because that drove him nuts. He was a lanky, easygoing Vermonter whose paddling skills and knowledge of the hills, valleys, rivers and coastline of northern New England were indispensable. So were his enthusiasm, his honesty and his friendship.

  “I’m putting together the final, carved-in-stone, must-not-deviate-from itinerary for the father-son backpacking trip.” This was a first-time offering, a five-day beginner’s backpacking trip on nearby trails in the southern Green Mountains; it had filled up even faster than he and Lucy had anticipated. Rob looked up, and she knew what he was thinking. “There’s still time for J.T. to join us. I told him I wasn’t a substitute for his real dad, but we can still have a lot of fun.”

  “I know. This is one he has to figure out for himself. I can’t decide for him.”

  He nodded. “Well, we’ve got time. By the way, he and Georgie are digging worms in the garden.”

  Lucy wasn’t surprised. “Madison will love that. I just sent her to check on them.”

  Rob tilted back in his chair and stretched. Sitting at a computer was torture for him on a day when he could be out kayaking. “How’d she do driving?”

  “Better than I did. She’s still lobbying for a semester in Washington.”

  “Grandpa Jack would love that.”

  “She’s romanticized Washington. It’s everything Vermont isn’t.”

  Rob shrugged. “Well, it is.”

  “You’re a big help!” But Lucy’s laughter faded quickly as she slipped her hand into her pocket and withdrew the bullet. “I want you to take a look at something.”

  “Sure.”

  “And I don’t want you to mention it to anyone.”

  “Am I supposed to ask why not?”

  “You’re supposed to say okay, you won’t.”

  “Okay, I won’t.”

  She opened her hand and let the bullet roll forward in her palm. “What do you think?”

  Rob frowned. “It’s a bullet.”

  “I know it’s a bullet. What kind?”

  He picked it out of her palm and nonchalantly set it upright on his cluttered desk. He’d grown up around guns. “Forty-four magnum. It’s the whole nine yards, you know, not just an empty shell.”

  She nodded. “I know that much. Can it go off?”

  “Not sitting here on my desk. If you dropped it just right or ran it over with a lawn mower or something, it could go off.”

  Lucy stifled a shudder. “That can’t be good.”

  “If it went off, you wouldn’t have any control over where it goes. At least with a gun, you can take aim at a target. You might take lousy aim. But if you run over a live round with a lawn mower, there’s no chance to aim at anything. Thing can go any which way.” He sounded calm, but his dark eyes were very serious. “Where’d you find it?”

  “What? Oh.” She hadn’t considered a cover story and hated the idea of lying. “In town. I’m sure it’s no big deal.”

  “It’s not Georgie or J.T., is it? If they’re fooling around with firearms and ammunition—”

  “No!” Lucy nearly choked. “I stumbled on it in town just now. I didn’t want anyone to get hurt, so I picked it up. I was just wondering if I was panicking unnecessarily.”

  “You weren’t. Someone was very careless.” He touched the dull gray metal tip of the bullet. “You want me to get rid of it?”

  “Please.”

  “Do me a favor, okay? Check J.T.’s room. I’ll check Georgie’s. If I find anything, I’ll let you know. You do the same. I don’t keep a gun at home, and I know you don’t, but they wouldn’t be the first twelve-year-old boys—”

  “It wasn’t J.T. or Georgie.”

  Rob’s eyes met hers. “If you won’t check J.T.’s room, I will.”

  Lucy nodded. “You’re right. I’ll check his room.”

  “The cellar, too. I nearly blew myself up at that age screwing around with gunpowder.”

  “I don’t have gunpowder—”

  “Lucy.”

  “All right, all right.”

  Rob was silent, studying her. She’d known him from her earliest days in Vermont. He and his wife, Patti, were her best friends here. Georgie and J.T. were inseparable. But she hadn’t told him about the weird incidents.

  Lucy tried not to squirm. Sweat had matted her shirt to her lower back. So much to do, so many responsibilities. She didn’t need some crackpot targeting her. “Just get rid of the damn bullet, okay?”

  Rob crossed his arms on his chest. “Sure, Lucy.”

  She could guess what he was thinking—what anyone would be thinking. That she was on edge, frayed and crazed, more than would be warranted by a rapidly expanding business, widowhood, single motherhood and an impending trip west. That he wanted to call her on it.

  Lucy took advantage of his natural reluctance to meddle. “I’m sorry if I seem a little nuts. I have so much to do with this whirlwind trip to Wyoming this weekend. You can hold down the fort here?”

  “That’s in bold print on my resume. Can hold down forts.”

  His humor didn’t reach his eyes, but Lucy pretended not to notice. She smiled. “What would I do without you?”

  He didn’t hesitate. “Go broke.”

  She laughed, feeling better now that the bullet was out of her pocket. These incidents had to be unrelated. It was kooky and paranoid to think they were part of some kind of bizarre conspiracy against her. What would be the motive?

  She left Rob to his computer aggravations and bullet disposal, and went outside. She’d ask Rob later what he thought about this Widow Swift business. She had a good life here, and that was what counted.

  “I made lemonade,” Madison called from the front porch.

  “Great. I’ll be right there.”

  Lucy reminded herself it was only in recent months her daughter had come to feel aggrieved by their move to Vermont.

  “I’m pretending I’m living in an episode of ‘The Waltons,’” Madison said when her mother joined her amidst the hanging petunias and wicker furniture. Indeed, she had filled one of Daisy’s old glass pitchers with lemonade and put on one of her threadbare aprons. Sebastian hadn’t taken anything of his grandmother’s before he’d sold her house.

  “Did you ask the boys if they want any?” Lucy asked.

  “They’re still out back digging worms. It’s disgusting. They smell like dirt and sweat.”

  “You used to love digging worms.”

  “Yuck.”

  Lucy smiled. “Well, I’ll go ask them. And since you made the lemonade, they can clean up.”

  The two boys were still hard at work on the edge of the vegetable garden, precariously close to Lucy’s tomatoes. Not that she minded. She wasn’t as enterprising a gardener as Daisy had been. She’d added raised beds and mulched paths to take up space and had cultivated a lot of spreading plants, like pumpkins, squash and cucumbers. She had little desire, however, to can and freeze her own fruits and vegetables. This was enough.

  “Madison made lemonade. You boys want some?”

  “Later,” J.T. said, too preoccupied with his worm-digging to look up.

  He, too, had Colin’s
coppery hair and clear blue eyes, although his sturdy frame was more Blacker than Swift. Lucy smiled at the thought of her kind, thickset father. She had inherited her mother’s slender build and fair coloring, and both her parents’ love of the outdoors. They’d recently retired to Costa Rica to run a hostel, leaving behind long careers at the Smithsonian. Lucy planned to visit them over Thanksgiving, taking Madison and J.T. with her and working on the details of a Costa Rica trip she wanted to offer to her clients next winter. It was a long, painstaking process that involved figuring out and testing every last detail—transportation, food, lodging, contingency plans. Nothing could be left to chance.

  Flying to Costa Rica to see them, Lucy thought, made more sense than flying off to Wyoming to see Sebastian Redwing.

  J.T. scooped up dirt with his hands and piled it into a number-ten can he and Georgie had appropriated from the recycling bin. “We want to go fishing. We’ve got a ton of worms. Want to see?”

  Lucy gave the can of squirming worms a dutiful peek. “Lovely. If you do go fishing, stay down here. Don’t go up near the falls.”

  “I know, Mom.”

  He knew. Right. Both her kids knew everything. Losing their father at such a young age hadn’t eroded their self-esteem. They had Colin’s optimism, his drive and energy, his faith in a better future and his commitment to making it happen. Like their father, Madison and J.T. loved having a million things going on at once.

  Lucy left the boys to their worms and returned to the front porch, where Madison had brought out cloth napkins and a plate of butter cookies to go with her lemonade. “Actually, I think I’m more Anne of Green Gables today.”

  “Is that better than John-Boy Walton?”

  Madison wrinkled up her face and sat on the wicker settee, tucking her slender legs under her. “Mom—I really, really don’t want to go to Wyoming. Can’t I stay here? It’s only for the weekend. Rob and Patti could look in on me. I could have a friend stay with me.”

  Lucy poured herself a glass of lemonade and settled onto a wicker chair. Her daughter was relentless. “I thought you couldn’t wait to get out of Vermont.”

  “Not to Wyoming. It’s more mountains and trees.”

  “Bigger mountains, different trees. There’s great shopping in Jackson.”

  She brightened. “Does that mean you’ll give me money?”

  “A little, but I meant window-shopping. It’s also very expensive.”

  Her daughter was unamused. “If I have to sit next to J.T. on the plane, I’m inspecting his pockets first.”

  “I expect you to treat your brother with respect, just as I expect him to treat you with respect.”

  Madison rolled her eyes.

  Lucy tried her lemonade. It was a perfect mix of tart and sweet, just like her fifteen-year-old daughter. Madison untucked her legs and flounced inside, the sophisticate trapped in the sticks, the long-suffering big sister about to be stuck on a plane with her little brother.

  Lucy decided to give her the weekend to come around before initiating a discussion on attitude and who wouldn’t get to do much driving until she changed hers.

  She put her feet up on the porch rail and tried to let the cool breeze relax her. The trip to Wyoming made no sense. She knew it, and her kids at least sensed it.

  The petunias needed watering. She looked out at her pretty lawn with its huge maples, its rambling old-fashioned rosebush that needed pruning. She’d just gone to town with her fifteen-year-old behind the wheel, inspected a can of worms and dealt with her daughter’s John-Boy/Anne of Green Gables martyr act and a bullet on her car seat.

  The Widow Swift at work.

  Lucy drank more lemonade, feeling calmer. She’d managed on her own for so long. She didn’t need Sebastian Redwing’s help. She didn’t need anyone’s help.

  J.T. permitted his mother to help him pack after dinner. Lucy kept her eyes open for firearms, bullets and secret antisocial tendencies. She found none. His room betrayed nothing more than a twelve-year-old’s mishmash of interests. Posters of Darth Maul and peregrine falcons, stuffed animals, Lego models, sports paraphernalia, computer games, gross-looking superheroes and monsters, way too many Micro Machines.

  He didn’t have a television in his room. He didn’t have a computer. Dirty clothes were dumped in with clean on the floor. Drawers were half open, a pant leg hanging out of one, a pair of boxers out of another.

  The room smelled of dirty socks, sweat and earth. A dormer window looked out on the backyard, where she could still see evidence of the digging he and Georgie had done.

  “You didn’t bring your worms up here, did you?” Lucy asked.

  “No, me and Georgie freed them.” He looked at her, and corrected, “Georgie and I.”

  She smiled, and when she turned, she spotted a picture of Colin and J.T. tacked to her son’s bulletin board. Blood rushed to her head, and she had to fight off sudden, unexpected tears. The edges of the picture were cracked and yellowed, pocked with tack holes from the dozen times J.T. had repositioned it. A little boy and a young father fishing, frozen in time.

  Lucy smiled sadly at the image of the man she’d loved. They’d met in college, married so young. She stared at his handsome face, his smile, his tousle of coppery hair. It was as if she’d gone on, propelled forward in time, while he’d stayed the same, untouched by the grief and fear she’d known since the day his shattered father had knocked on her door and told her that his son—her husband—was dead.

  The searing pain and shock of those early days had eased. Lucy had learned to go on without him. So, in their own ways, had Madison and J.T. They could talk about him with laughter, and remember him, at least most of the time, without tears.

  “You can pack the extra stuff you want to take in your backpack,” Lucy said, tearing herself from the picture. “What book are you reading?”

  “A Star Wars book.”

  “Don’t forget to pack it.”

  She counted out shirts, pants, socks, underwear, and debated whether to bother looking in the cellar and the garage. J.T.’d had nothing to do with the bullet in her car.

  She set the clothes on his bed. “You’re good to go, kiddo. Can you shove this stuff into your suitcase, or do you need my help?”

  “I can do it.”

  “Don’t forget your toothbrush.”

  She went down the hall to her daughter’s room. The door was shut, her music up but not at a wall-vibrating volume. If Madison needed help, she’d ask for it. Lucy left her alone.

  Her own bedroom was downstairs, and on the way she stopped in the kitchen and put on a kettle for tea. She’d pack later. It was an old-fashioned, working kitchen with white cabinets, scarred counters and sunny yellow walls that helped offset the cold, dark winter nights. The biggest surprise of life in Vermont, Lucy had discovered, was how dark the nights were.

  She sank into a chair at the pine table and stared out at the backyard, wondering how many nights Daisy had done exactly this in her sixty years alone. A cup of tea, a quiet house. The Widow Daisy. The Widow Swift.

  It was dark now, the long summer day finally giving way. Lucy could feel the silence settle around her, the isolation and loneliness creep in. Sometimes she would turn on the television or the radio, or work on her laptop, write e-mails, perhaps call a friend. Tonight, she had to pack. Wyoming. Good God, she really was going.

  She made chamomile tea and took her mug with her down the hall to the front door, locked up. Shadows shifted on the old wood floors. She had no illusions the ancient locks would stop a determined intruder.

  A sound—the wind, maybe—took her into the dining room.

  She hadn’t touched it since moving in. It still had the old-fashioned button light switch for the milkglass overhead, Daisy’s faded hand-hooked rug, her cabbage-rose wallpaper, her clunky dining room set. A 1920s upright piano stood along one wall.

  A breeze brought up goose bumps on Lucy’s arms.

  Someone had opened a window. Again.

  The ta
ll, old windows were balky and difficult to open. Since she almost never used the dining room during the summer, Lucy didn’t bother wrestling with them. She’d meant to have them looked at before the good weather, but hadn’t gotten around to it.

  She felt along the wall with one hand and pressed the light switch. It had to be a kid. Who else would sneak into her house and open the windows?

  Light spilled into the room, casting more shadows. It could be a great room. One of these days she’d have the piano tuned, the rug cleaned, the wood floors sanded and oiled. She’d hang new wallpaper and refinish the table, and have family and friends over for Thanksgiving. Even her father-in-law, if he wanted to come.

  The floor seemed to sparkle. Lucy frowned, peering closer.

  Shards of glass.

  She jumped back, startled. The window wasn’t open. It was broken, its upper pane spider-cracked around a small hole. A triangle of glass had hit the floor and shattered.

  Lucy set her mug on the table and gingerly touched the edges of the hole. It wasn’t from a bird smashing into her window, or an errant baseball. Too small.

  A stone?

  A bullet?

  She spun around, her heart pounding.

  It couldn’t be. Not twice in one day.

  She saw plaster dust on the chair next to the piano, directly across from the window. Above it was a hole in the wall.

  Holding her breath, Lucy knelt on the chair and reached up, smoothing her hand over the hole. The edges of the wallpaper were rough. Plaster dust covered her fingertips.

  The hole was empty. There was no bullet lodged there.

  She sank onto her hands and knees and checked the floor. She looked under the piano. She flipped up the edges of the rug. She could feel the hysteria working its way into her, seeping into her pores, sending poison into every nerve ending.

  She flopped back onto her butt and sat there on the floor. So, she thought. There it is. Some bastard had shot a hole in her dining room window, sneaked into her house, removed the bullet and sneaked back out again.