The Probable Future

by Alice Hoffman

  “Hey, there!” Liza had opened her window so she could shout at the man on the ladder. There was a big, rusted truck parked across the street. “Think I can put in an order for some of that oak for firewood? I just love that tree. It kills me that it’s being chopped down.”

  The man nodded and waved. He was tall, with fair hair and broad shoulders; he wore earmuffs to cut down on the sound of the saw. Watching him, Jenny felt something lurch inside of her; perhaps it was seeing him up on that ladder, for she had a fear of falling. Or it might be the way he was looking at her, as if he had already fallen. He hung on to one of the dying branches and watched them drive away.

  “Who is that?” Jenny asked as they headed toward the dirt road everyone in town called Dead Horse Lane.

  Liza was the one to laugh now. “You don’t know?”

  “Should I?”

  Maybe she felt queasy because of the ruts in the road and the way the SUV lurched over ditches, past the swamp cabbage and the wild peach trees. Or maybe it was because she could now see Cake House through the trees, its many architectural details thrown together to form a whitewashed wedding cake, one that was tilted on its foundation and covered with vines.

  “It’s Matt Avery.” Some people didn’t see what was right there in front of them, even if they had twenty-twenty vision. Some people needed to be led by the hand or they’d miss the most important facts of their own lives. Liza shook her head as they turned into the driveway. “That’s the man who’s in love with you,” she informed Jenny Sparrow.

  THE GIFT

  I.

  THREE WOMEN IN THE SAME FAMILY FIXING A meal in one kitchen could only mean trouble. Even at breakfast, problems were sure to arise. Someone was bound to prefer hard-boiled eggs to fried. Someone was certain to resent a comment that veered too close to criticism. Someone could be counted on to slam out the door, insisting she was no longer hungry or that she never ate breakfast anyway, and hadn’t for years. In the Sparrow household, there was the sort of civility that was far worse than yelling and screaming. It was a cold curtain of mistrust. When people related by blood were so careful with each other, when they were so very polite, there was soon nothing left to say. Only niceties that meant so little they might as well have been spoken to a complete stranger. Pass the butter, open the door, see you after school, there’s rain again, it’s sunny, it’s cold. Has the dog eaten? Has the window been shut? Where are you going? Why is it I don’t know you at all?

  Such statements did not add up to anything like a family, and yet Elinor Sparrow had hope. True, she and Jenny had spoken less than a mouthful of words to each other since Jenny’s arrival; they had sat down together at the dinner table on a single occasion, and then only because Stella forced them to do so—an attempt which, having been met with nothing but awkward silence and lukewarm asparagus quiche, had not been repeated. Still, you never could tell. Especially when it came to family. You thought you were done with someone, and they’d reappear when you least expected to see them. Who, after all, would have ever imagined Jenny Sparrow would be living at Cake House again? No one in the town of Unity, that was certain. No one in the entire Commonwealth, Elinor was willing to wager. And yet here was Jenny, sleeping on the best linens, hand-stitched and presented to Amelia Sparrow from Margaret Hathaway eighty years earlier, in gratitude for easing the birth of her newborn son, Eli, a gentleman now so old patrons had to repeat themselves twice whenever they got into his taxi, and, even so, they still had a good chance of winding up at the wrong address.

  Elinor had used the best of everything to make up Jenny’s room. She’d swept the floor herself, so there were no spiderwebs or mouse droppings; she’d opened the windows, to ensure fresh air. On the bureau, she’d left a vase of branches from one of the peach trees on the hill, well aware that Jenny would not have wanted anything that grew in her mother’s garden. It was a good choice; when the forced blossoms opened, the room smelled like peaches and had filled with the dense heat of summertime.

  Luck came in threes, or so Elinor’s grandmother had always said. First there had been Stella’s arrival, then Jenny’s, wouldn’t it make sense for something equally impossible to follow? Of course, Elinor could not expect a reversal of her medical condition—she found herself weakening more each day, needing more sleep and less food—but perhaps the rose in the north corner of the garden would indeed be blue. It was no less unlikely an event than her daughter’s return. And there was Jenny, in the flesh, washing her face with cold water in the mornings, for the hot tap never quite worked at Cake House, fixing herself a cup of strong coffee, the beans hand-ground, for the electric grinder was on the fritz, before she headed down the lane to the tea house, where she’d taken a job.

  Was a blue rose any more a fantastic notion than the idea that Elinor’s granddaughter, whose first thirteen years she had missed entirely, now helped out in the garden on sunny afternoons, laughing at the birds who followed closely as she raked mulch, waving away bees that drifted through the damp April air. If the blooms did turn out to be blue, Elinor would feel that she had completed something: a single act that had left its mark, that’s what she wanted. Another, more impatient woman might have cut open one of the buds on the hybrid and taken a peek, but Elinor knew that a blossom that hadn’t yet opened was an untrustworthy measure. Yellow climbers could appear to be orange, snowy floribundas might be streaked with a pink tint that would disappear as soon the petals unfolded in the light of day.

  We know what we need when we get it, Brock Stewart had once said. Elinor understood this to be true whenever she heard Jenny in the hallway, when she looked up from her work in the garden to see a light burning in the kitchen. She knew it when the kettle on the back burner of the stove whistled, when the back door opened and shut, when the house she lived in wasn’t empty. She hadn’t understood how alone she’d been until she was no longer alone. She had cut herself off, not unlike those invisible roses which could not bear the weight of humankind.

  Elinor had begun to seriously doubt every one of her decisions, and this uncertainty had led her to do a very foolish thing; she had allowed Dr. Stewart to drive her to the hospital in Hamilton for her most recent oncology visit. There had been one condition: he was not to discuss her case with her oncologist, Dr. Meyer. He was not to treat her like a patient once they crossed over the Unity town line.

  You know me well enough to know what I’ll do if you ask me not to butt into your life, Dr. Stewart had said.

  And, yet, when Elinor came into the hall after her appointment, there he was, conferring with Dr. Meyer. Hopeless, she’d heard someone say. Or was it hapless? Or was it blessed, or was it some entirely new language, one she had no prospect of ever understanding?

  You promised me you wouldn’t treat me like a patient, she had said to Brock Stewart when they left the hospital. She was so angry and so disappointed by his untrustworthy behavior, she could hardly catch her breath. You heartless creature. How could you lie to me?

  Maybe that had been what was said in the hallway. Heartless.

  I don’t lie, Brock Stewart had said, wounded.

  What had surprised Elinor most of all was that she hadn’t seen his deception. Gauging an honest man had come so easily to her, like breathing in and breathing out. But now breathing itself hurt, and she’d been blindsided by Brock, just as she had been by Saul. She might have taken the train home, she might have never spoken to the doctor again, if she hadn’t been so damned exhausted. To salvage some of her pride, she walked ahead to the Lincoln, got in, and refused to look at him.

  I never said I wouldn’t talk to her, Brock Stewart reminded her when he got in the car. He had turned the key, but he let the old Lincoln idle. You know me well enough to know I could never do anything to hurt you. But you are my business, Elly.

  She knew this was true as soon as he said it. It had been true for some time, but she had ignored it. They knew each other better than they knew anyone else in this world, but they had never before adm
itted what they meant to each other. Elinor didn’t look at the doctor on the ride home, but when the Lincoln pulled up in front of Cake House, she turned to him.

  How dare you give me hope at this point?

  Ever since, her optimism had surfaced unexpectedly and unbidden, at a time when surely it would have been far wiser to have given up completely. Anyone would understand if she’d chosen to draw a quilt over her head. If she’d closed her eyes and taken a double dosage of the morphine she had saved for the evening. She should have burned anything that smacked of hope in a red-hot fire; she should have swept up all the ashes. Instead, she let it rise up within her. She let it wake her in the morning, and help her to sleep at night. She let it fall down in the rain, and wash down the green lawn into mud puddles where the snapping turtles laid their eggs at this time of year, as hopeful as she was, eager for the arrival of what they cared about most in this world.

  AS FOR JENNY, no matter what she did in Unity, she was bombarded by two simultaneous sets of images—whatever she was currently doing, washing the dishes in the old soapstone sink, for instance, was overlaid with something she had done years earlier, climbing out the window above that same sink at midnight to meet Will, or arguing with her mother, or watching her father rake leaves into huge piles near the stone wall one brilliant autumn afternoon.

  Each morning, when she heard the clock in the hall chime, Jenny was both rising out of bed to wake Stella and getting ready for school herself. She felt her old jeans slide up against her body when she slipped on a pair of black slacks. Her black hair fell to her waist when she combed out the strands that had been cut well above her shoulders. Her reflection in the mirror was more trusting than it would later become, as though she were still convinced love would win out, still certain the path she chose was the one she was meant to follow.

  In the shadows of the laurels, in dark corners of empty rooms, she could see the girl she’d once been trailing after, flicking her long, black hair over her shoulders, waiting for time to pass so she could grow up. She’d been in such a hurry, she’d never taken a minute to think things over. Now she wished she would have opened her eyes and considered her options instead of spending so much of her time dreaming, other people’s dreams at that, those worthless things. Indeed, there was a reason why she’d been happy enough to avoid her own dreams: hers were always dreams of mazes, intricate traps formed of hedgerows or concrete or stone. In her own dreams she tried her best to find her way, but each night she was lost once more, deeper in the maze, making an even more pathetic attempt to escape.

  She understood what she was telling herself: her life had gone wrong, her choices had all led to dead ends. A job would do Jenny good; it took her away from Cake House, it gave her a reason to set her alarm and pull on her clothes and walk across the lawn while the birds were still waking, calling in a glorious ribbon of unending song. She left the house before Stella, and maybe that was a good thing as well. Better to leave well enough alone now that they were under one roof. Better to skip breakfast, keep quiet, stay away from any topics that might cause dissension, which at the moment included just about everything, so that only the weather seemed safe conversation, and even then, there were often arguments about what the day might bring.

  Surely, Jenny’s first shift at the tea house was incredibly long. No one could debate that. She had no idea so many people in town stopped by on their way to work, or came in for lunch. They all were so persnickety about what they ate: mayo with this, mustard with that, tea with lemon, coffee with cream. By late afternoon her head was reeling. But at least she had not once thought about Will Avery, left to his own devices in her apartment, inviting his girlfriends up, no doubt, using every dish in the house, leaving the back burner of the stove switched on while he took a leisurely nap. At least she had not thought of Matt Avery, either, or at least not so very often. The vision of Matt’s cutting down the tree, waving at them from atop the ladder. It should have been a foolish image, ridiculous, almost, with that saw droning on, and all those bees floating around him. It should have been easy to chase Matt Avery out of her head right alongside his older brother, what with all the work that was at hand and so many tea house details to consider—fizzy water or tap water, knife or fork. But there he was, like a line of heat across her skin, a bee caught between glass, humming along no matter what the circumstances.

  “There are women who have thrown their aprons on the floor and flown right out the door after their first day of working here,” Liza Hull announced once the teatime crowd had cleared out and the end of the day was in sight.

  Liza presented Jenny with a plate of lemon chess pie and a hot cup of coffee. Jenny never ate pie, but Liza’s recipe was a mixture of tart and sweet that wasn’t easy to refuse. Some people vow that when someone feeds you well, you have to be honest with them, and Jenny was no exception to this rule. She asked the question she would have been most mortified to recite at any other time.

  “Were you serious when you told me about Matt?”

  “Come on, Jenny. Didn’t you ever notice the way he followed you and Will around? He was like a dog, checking out your every move.”

  “He idolized Will.”

  Liza Hull snorted. “He thought Will was a moron. He told me so himself. The way he saw it, Will had been granted everything a man could want in his lifetime, and he’d thrown it all away.”

  “A quote from twenty years ago,” Jenny said dismissively.

  “From last week, Jenny. He was in here for tea. And bread and butter—that’s his favorite, for some reason. Just like you are.” Liza grinned and Jenny could see how someone who knew Liza well could think she was pretty rather than plain.

  Jenny had been warned that customers often arrived just at closing, and sure enough, at ten minutes to four, Sissy Elliot was helped inside the tea house by her daughter, Iris. A light rain was falling and they tracked in puddles of mud. In the kitchen, Cynthia heard the scratch-scratch of the walker and put a hand to her forehead as though she were in pain.

  “Don’t tell me. It’s my granny and my great-gran. Why can’t they go to the Pewter Pot on the highway?”

  Cynthia immediately started pulling the tiny braids out of her hair, which she had died a hennaed red the color of a stoplight. She threw on a long white baker’s coat to hide how short her skirt was, although there was nothing she could do to conceal her multicolored leggings and her thick-soled black studded boots. Cynthia set to work rubbing off her dark lipstick, then wiped the black liner from her eyes.

  “I’ll wait on them,” Jenny said. “Relax.”

  “Thank you, more than you can know. My great-gran hates me. I’m like the missing link to her, less than human, more than a bug.”

  “She can’t be that bad,” Jenny insisted as she grabbed some menus. Liza and Cynthia stared at her. “Can she?”

  Iris Elliot, who was Henry’s mother, and Cynthia and Jimmy’s grandmother, was a pleasant woman who looked embarrassed when Jenny handed them their menus. “Hello, dear. Sorry to come in so late. We won’t be a minute. My mother just wanted some tea.”

  “Jenny Sparrow,” Sissy said thoughtfully. She was ancient, with a sharp face and cloudy blue eyes. “Aren’t you the one whose husband is in jail for murder?”

  “That’s me.” Jenny recommended the lemon chess pie and the homemade shortbread, although what she really felt like serving up was a plate of nails.

  “Well, don’t you worry,” Sissy went on. “Iris’s boy Henry will get him off no matter what awful thing he’s done. But it must be a horror to have a husband like Will Avery. Even before he committed that murder, he must have worn you down. It shows in your complexion, you know. Pallid.”

  “Ex,” Jenny said. “We’re divorced. And he didn’t commit anything.”

  “What about your poor mother?” Perhaps Sissy could no longer hear. Certainly, she was unable to listen. “How is she? Still as bitter as ever?”

  “My mother,” Jenny found herself saying, “co
uld not be better. But I’ll be sure to give her your regards,” she said as she went for the sugar and cream. “You’re right,” she told Cynthia and Liza in the kitchen. “She is that bad. She had me defending my mother. I never thought I’d see that day.”

  “Spit in her tea,” Cynthia whispered. “It would serve her right.”

  When Jenny brought out the pot of English breakfast tea and two orders of pie, Sissy Elliot still hadn’t let go.

  “So many people are getting divorced I can’t keep track. Of course, it’s not always a moral failing, more like an epidemic of bad judgment. Anyone could have told you your life would be ruined if you married Will, and here you are, waiting on tables. Speaking of that, where is my great-granddaughter? She’s on the same downward spiral. Cynthia!” she shouted.

  Cynthia Elliot stuck her head out of the kitchen. “Hey, Grans. I’m doing dishes.”

  Iris Elliot waved. “You go right ahead,” she called to her granddaughter. “Don’t let us interrupt.”

  “What has she done to her hair?” Sissy wanted to know. “It’s monstrous. And why is she washing dishes? She never does anything at home.”

  “They pay her, Mother,” Iris Elliot said. “It’s her job.”

  Out in the kitchen, Cynthia Elliot angrily added more soap to the sink. “What a bitch,” she said of her great-grandmother when Jenny returned. Cynthia was good-natured, but now she was all riled up, and her hair was stuck straight out, like a porcupine. “Is it all right to say that about someone in your family? Lightning won’t come through the window and strike me dead, will it?”