Farthest House

by Margaret Lukas

  22

  We watch, we wait, and we pray that our loved ones find their way. There are no other roads to take. Who prayed for Sabine when at Willow’s age, in an era when there was little tolerance for women, and none for those who found themselves pregnant out of wedlock?

  On Thanksgiving, Willow woke to the predawn light and the sound of the front door opening and closing. She wiped sleep from her eyes, rolled over, and on her elbows stretched to look out the window. Papa, in his shoes with holes, his breath steamy, was running down the frosty sidewalk. Loping really, as though his knees and hips pained him, and yet, he pushed himself.

  Later, when families up and down the block were sitting down to turkey and stuffing, he ran again. The other hours of the day he spent in his room, avoiding the kitchen table where he normally drank. Instead, it was Willow who sat there, hoping he would come out and talk to her. She looked through newspapers from two years earlier when they discussed the earthquake in China, Nadia Comaneci’s perfect 10, and Howard Hughes’s death. Julian did not come out, and the only sounds assuring her he was still alive came from his constant pacing that agitated the walls and floors.

  On the way to bed that night, she paused at this room and dropped her head against his closed door. Sometime after midnight, she was awakened again, this time to the sound of hushed male voices: Julian’s and one only half remembered. The front door opened and closed. Again. Each time, cold air rolled down the hall and into her room. She left her bed, sat on the floor in front of her window with its pushed out screen, and watched. The two dark figures moved in and out of the streetlight’s glow—Papa and Red filling Red’s truck with newspapers.

  She watched for several minutes, wanting to run out into the night and help, but Papa had chosen the cover of darkness. He hadn’t wanted any witnesses other than Red, not even her. As the work continued, her emotions changed. Now, she wanted to run out into the night and make them stop. This was all her fault, and she didn’t want to lose the secret she and Papa shared. The hoards had been just between them, a tether that was being cut.

  She wondered about the emotional price Julian paid in walking to Red’s house and, after seven years, asking for help. How did a proud man admit to hoarding and say he needed a friend to come in the middle of the night?

  Through most of Friday, Julian again kept in motion, walking the streets until his feet were numb with cold and every couple of hours showering until the hot water ran out and cold drummed his naked body. The mirror still weeping after he left the room.

  Watching it all, I thought of Thomas’s pictures of sweat lodges and how Julian grew up with photographs of Native Americans on the den walls at Farthest House. And how he’d spent his childhood living on Old Squaw Road.

  Late Friday afternoon, with dusk descending, Willow finished washing out the refrigerator and scrubbing the floor in preparation for Derrick’s move in. He was out with his friends, a stag party this time.

  She ran hot water through her dishrag and wiped off the table, marveling that it was clear, no wine bottles sitting on top, no wet glasses with burgundy-brown rings in the bottom. It was day three of Papa’s abstinence, not that he was likely to stay sober. He had good intentions, she knew, but he was stunned by her pregnancy and upcoming marriage. Soon enough, he’d start drinking again. Still, she couldn’t remember if she’d ever seen him try to quit before. Maybe a man, sober until forty-eight, didn’t become an alcoholic in seven years. Drinking hadn’t been the demon that forced him out of work; drinking was the demon that masked his quitting.

  He surprised her when he stepped into the kitchen. His wet hair was combed, the comb’s teeth marks still visible, and his clothes were clean. “I remember,” he said, his eyes misting, “how you always liked dresses.”

  Willow’s throat tightened. “I had some cute ones.”

  “But not for a lot of years.” He cleared his throat. “Your mother’s wedding dress went clear to the floor. I think there were white beads.”

  “Papa, I know where this is going, and I don’t need a dress.” She planned on her white sweater from the Goodwill and the black skirt required for all school programs. The service would be only minutes long, just the skeletal requirements for legality. The only thing that mattered was after the service, that she and Derrick built a life together. “It’s not going to be that kind of wedding. Really, it’s okay.”

  He opened his hand, revealing four ten-dollar bills. “There’s a bridal shop just up Dodge Street. I know it’s late, but I’ll walk you up there.”

  The bit of money made her wish she could disappear. Forty dollars wouldn’t buy the kind of dress he was thinking of, floor length and beads. He had no idea about prices, but the hope in his eyes was huge. He wanted her to have a nice dress. He was her father, and he had one simple wish for her, that she have a nice dress for her wedding.

  Her hands lifted, her fingers intertwining and resting on the top of her head. She knew how to deal with his being drunk, how to blame him when she needed a scapegoat, and at times even how to make herself believe she hated him. She also knew how to shut off feeling until she could sit alone in the evenings without tears, or lie still under Derrick, but she didn’t know how to survive this. Julian, too, was close to tears, and she felt separate from the hand that came down and accepted the money. She wrapped her arms around his neck.

  “I remember how you were always asking,” he said. “You’ve always been beautiful, but tomorrow I want you to feel it, too.”

  When he let go, she folded the money in half, then again, giving her hands something to do. Forty dollars would buy so much paint. The thought made her weak, she couldn’t. If only she’d gotten the job.

  “Come on, I’ll walk you up there.”

  She couldn’t have him see what dresses cost, nor have sales clerks eye him with pitying looks. She wanted to give the money back, but his hope was too high. “You’ve walked enough today.” Was there no gas in the car for them to drive? “Let me go alone, you’re going to kill yourself with all this exercise.”

  “I know it’s not much.”

  She reached and kissed his cheek. It smelled of bar soap. Since Friar’s death she’d said so many cruel things to him and done so many cruel things to him. Acts she could never take back. And yet, for her, he’d swallowed his pride and called Red. “I’ll bet I can find something,” she said.

  “While you’re gone, I’ll move my things into your room. You and Derrick will need the bigger bed.”

  She hadn’t let herself think about a bed. “You can’t sleep in my room.”

  “You think I’m afraid of a few ducklings? Get going.”

  “You won’t even fit on that bed.”

  “I’ll fit better than the two of you. Now go.”

  She obeyed, needing to get away before she lost hold of her emotions again. At the door, she reached for her coat and opened it. Mary stood there, one hand in the air as if she were just about to knock. A dress bag lay over one arm.

  “What,” Willow asked, “are you doing here?” And why now? The timing felt like stalking.

  “Hello, Mr. Starmore,” Mary said as she stepped inside. “How are you? I wanted to talk to Willow. Is this a good time?”

  The sight of a strange teenager, acting as if they were old friends, surprised him. He looked to Willow with a raised brow.

  “Papa, this is Mary Wolfe.” Her own brow lifted. “Mary Wolfe.”

  His eyes narrowed. He didn’t know Mary had been at Willow’s window in May or that she’d been Derrick’s long-standing girlfriend. He didn’t even remember she was the one Willow accused of killing Friar, but he remembered other, older confrontations with her father.

  “Can we talk in your room?” She had turned to Willow, her voice calm. “Maybe we can make a trade?”

  The surprise and anger Willow first felt was changing into something more slippery. Mary had a dress to trade, now, right in the middle of a conversation about dresses? You killed Friar. But Willow didn’
t say it. Didn’t for her father’s sake and the expectant way he eyed the dress bag. Bringing up Friar yet again, reminding Papa of all the cruel things she’d said, would only hurt him again. Besides, there was also a tiny, or not so tiny, pleasure in the whole situation. The last time Mary was over, she acted aghast at the thought of even double-dating with Willow, and now Willow was marrying Derrick.

  Mary opened her coat to reveal a creamy turtleneck blouse, and she smiled again at Julian. “When I heard the big news about tomorrow, I hoped this was my chance. I want a painting she has, and she won’t give it to me.” Joking, her voice a girlish chuckle. “I’m hoping this time she’ll trade.”

  “White Mask?” Willow asked. “You really want it that bad?”

  “You know I do. Come on.” She started down the hall, knowing she left Willow no choice but to follow. In Willow’s room, she closed the door and stretched the dress bag out across the bed. “You got pregnant just to hurt me.”

  “Trust me, you aren’t that important.”

  Mary unzipped the bag and exposed a floor-length sheath of pale lavender brocade. The neckline had an inch-high mandarin collar, and the sleeves were tiny and capped. The dress was beautiful, slender, and elegant. “Well?” Mary asked. “You know you have nothing to wear, and I have a closet full of dresses. You can always paint another picture.”

  “Did you kill Friar?”

  “Who?”

  Papa was in his room. Willow could hear drawers opening and clothes being pulled from his closet. Would he use her dresser with the duckling handles? She felt pushed and pulled with warring emotions. “I need to know, did you kill my dog?”

  “Why would I kill your dog? Is that why you got pregnant?”

  Mary was never the same two visits in a row, but Papa was right, there was no evidence to prove she killed Friar, nor was there a way to bring him back. What mattered now was Papa wanting her to have a nice dress. And White Mask? The picture was small in comparison. “Do you want that so much just because I wouldn’t give it to you?”

  “What Mary wants, Mary gets. Remember that. Where’s that other one, that naked one? Did you give it to Derrick? I told him about you. I wouldn’t do it with him, but when he heard about your pictures, he knew you would.”

  “You’re lying. That would be admitting to him that you snuck in and out of my house.”

  Mary smiled, and carrying the painting, left. With her safely out the front door, Willow returned to her room and pulled the dress from the garment bag. An index card fluttered to the floor. She picked it up. Your baby will die, too.

  23

  In the morning, Willow stood looking out the window of Papa’s bedroom, her and Derrick’s bedroom now. Only a few colorless leaves, more beige than copper, still trembled on the trees, and the air shuffled between drizzle and snowflakes, the temperature well below zero.

  She moved around the room. With neither a basement nor a garage for storage, she and Papa had carried the dressing table to the curb where he taped a sign to the front: FREE. He stood at the front window then, looking out on the wet weather, hoping someone came soon. She returned to her new room, thinking all the while about the card in the dress bag. “Your baby will die, too.”

  Mother Moses lay across the bed, and Willow folded up the talisman and put it on the closet shelf. Derrick knew nothing of Mother Moses, and he’d never understand her significance.

  He’s going to be my husband. The thought sat her down. Now, making love to him would be fun. He’d whisper sweet things in her ear like Omar Sharif in Dr. Zhivago. Afterwards, she wouldn’t feel like she was drowning, she’d feel loved.

  With her hair washed and dried, she slipped into the dress and back into the bathroom for a look at herself. Standing on the side of the bathtub, one hand on the ceiling for balance, she tried to turn wedge-wise, her best shoulder forward. The brocade hugged her body and her still-thin waist. Derrick too, would grin at how pretty she looked, and he’d feel better about the day.

  At 1:45, fifteen minutes late, Derrick’s car pulled to the curb. She hurried half-mad with excitement around the edge of the main room where Julian sat in front of the television, staying out of his direct line of sight and trying to restrain the goofy smile sweeping across her face. She didn’t want him to see her, not yet. She wanted him to see her and Derrick together, a couple. She opened the front door grinning.

  For a long minute, Derrick looked up and down at the dress. His eyes raked the high neckline and tiny-capped sleeves and then they narrowed. “What the fuck?”

  A cold blade of betrayal slid into Willow’s heart, fitting itself there as though her life would always hold open a place for pain. Before Derrick could say, “Mary’s prom dress!” she knew.

  His face softened as he watched hers crumble. “She gave that to you?”

  Willow managed to stay standing, telling herself that Derrick understood Mary’s plotting. Still, she felt sick with shame, her hands folding over her stomach.

  He carried a suitcase and stepped around her and into the room. Julian, not ten feet away, remained sitting on the sofa, his back to them. Derrick headed across the room.

  The more pain Willow felt, the more she determined Papa wouldn’t feel any. No matter the number of people who didn’t understand her—or the tricks they played—they weren’t her family. She rushed after Derrick.

  At the sofa, Derrick, extended his hand. “Sir.”

  Julian’s eyes were on Willow, smiling. “Look at you.”

  Still embarrassed by the dress, she was glad he ignored Derrick. But Derrick hadn’t been the one who tricked her. She walked dumb as snot into Mary’s trap. If Papa and Derrick were to get along living under the same roof, they needed to begin now. She sat down beside her father. He’d showered and shaved, and his wet hair was combed, but he wore his oldest pair of jeans. She took up his hand. They hadn’t talked about his coming to her wedding. They only screamed at each other about how he wouldn’t. Had she been secretly afraid he’d be drunk, and did he believe she was ashamed of him? “Papa, will you please come?”

  Derrick made a point of checking the time on his watch. “I’d be happy if you came, but Father Steinhouse will be pissed, sorry sir, I mean angry, if we aren’t there in about five minutes.”

  Willow’s teeth clenched. “I will throw your damn watch in the toilet, first chance I get.” She fixed her eyes on his before turning back. “Papa, we’ll wait for you. Please, I really want you there.”

  Julian raised a hand, quieting Derrick who seemed to pace inside the space of his trousers. “You kids go on. I’ll change.”

  Resignation dropped cloud-like over Willow. She could feel herself sinking into it, her mind passing into that middling space of obedience. That narrow shelf where the weak curled up and pretended to rest, where women were their own wicked stepmothers, passing themselves poisoned apples so that their sleep was deep, easy, and without incident.

  She grabbed her old coat and followed Derrick to the door and out. She was surprised to see Mrs. Crat sitting stone-faced in the front seat of Derrick’s car. No Mr. Crat. The man obviously wasn’t attending, or the couple would have ridden together. She could tell Papa that Derrick’s dad hadn’t been there either. Maybe the absence explained how Derrick could so easily leave Papa out.

  Mrs. Crat’s face contracted, the eyes, mouth, even the woman’s ears seemed to pull in with a pucker. The dress, Willow realized. Her coat quit at her waist, and the long lavender brocade swept to the ground. Mrs. Crat had likely admired every facet of it on prom night, lined Derrick and Mary up before the fireplace, and taken an entire roll of pictures.

  Derrick opened the back car door for Willow, as though no other seating arrangement existed. She crawled in. “Hello, Mrs. Crat.”

  Silence. At least nothing loud enough for Willow to be certain she heard. As Derrick drove, she watched the back of his mother’s head. Pitch-dyed hair rode above a half inch of hoar frost at her scalp. If the wedding hadn’t merited a trip to t
he hairdresser, or even a cheap box of Clairol to wash that gray right out of her hair, how could she look askance at a used dress? Thank God they weren’t going to live at Derrick’s.

  Her thoughts went back to Julian. He hadn’t had a drink, at least not that she’d seen, since Wednesday when he’d swung his arm, sending wine spraying across the floor. That night, he confessed to Jeannie, the apology Willow heard creep through the floorboards to her room and up into her bones. Thanksgiving and yesterday he walked and stood in the shower, but he didn’t take a drink.

  She turned and looked back toward the house. The black and rusted Ford sat at the curb, likely out of gas. To come to her wedding, he’d need to walk. He wouldn’t make it in time, even if he tried. She shouldn’t have left him, not even with both him and Derrick telling her to do so. She should have forced him into the car with them, dressed in old jeans or not. Now, he was alone, while they were off getting married without him. Under a cloud that heavy, what father wouldn’t take a drink?

  There was no point trying to insist they turn back. Derrick wouldn’t, and Papa would only refuse her again. The best thing was to hurry through the “I do’s,” pray he’d hang on that long, and get back to him. Maybe, once the formalities were over, everyone would relax.

  Derrick turned into the parking lot. Only then did Mrs. Crat break her silence. “I knew your grandmother.” She spoke still looking straight ahead. “I heard her speak once at a luncheon.”

  The comment sounded moralizing, accusing, as if to remind Willow of character she lacked. The comment also sounded absurd. Willow could picture Mémé behind a podium, her long braid and bright sweater, a room full of women listening to her read for twenty minutes from her latest novel. Then the women returning to their salads and Chablis. From one such event, Mrs. Crat supposed she knew Luessy Starmore. If a person hadn’t spent days with Mémé in her attic, seen the way Mémé’s whole body softened at the sight of her Damask roses in bloom, heard her read Tennyson or Whitman, they didn’t know her. Willow leaned forward between the bucket seats. “Which of her novels did she read from?”