Farthest House

by Margaret Lukas

  “Tory would never fire you. Who else would work for decades and never snoop?”

  Mable left the room, then stuck her head back in grinning. “There’s been times when my vacuuming at the end of the hall was a bit more aggressive than need be, a bump here or there into the door. I’ve noticed odors, weedy-smelling things I’d like to clean out, but the door doesn’t open. I remind myself she’s never been inside my bedroom, either.”

  “Whoa,” Willow said, “grass? You suppose she smokes pot?”

  “I didn’t say so. She’s got her sherry for that. The old aunt used to collect every living bloom and weed and she’d paint pictures of them. Tory went on the hunts, too. They’d go into the trees, even down to the river. Wild flowers, weeds, she’d pick anything that caught her eye.”

  With Mable gone, Willow considered how Jonah was likely a big part of the reason Mable so valued her job. How else could she be near him without society freaking out? True, there were a few mixed-race couples now, but very few. And when Mable and Jonah were young, their relationship would have caused an upheaval. Jonah might have been run out of town, or worse, for being with a white woman, and Mable and her family right behind him. Was their relationship tied to Jonah’s covered windows? There were shades for that.

  38

  “Que serà, serà’. Whatever will be, will be.”

  Clay held Prairie, waltzing her to the music and making Willow wish for the umpteenth time that he was the father. How Prairie loved being in his arms, and how natural she looked there.

  “Come join us,” he coaxed.

  Curled at one end of the sofa, Willow smiled but shook her head. Her stomach felt settled, so long as she didn’t move, but her exhaustion was a lead blanket she couldn’t push off.

  Clay winked and went on swinging Prairie. He still spent his mornings in the library and afternoons helping Jonah with the heaviest work, pushing a mower or dragging heavy hoses. For the last week, however, Jonah’s begrudging tolerance of him had waned to the point of outright resentfulness. The afternoon before, he told Clay he didn’t need help. Then today, “Go finish up your own work.”

  Which Clay wasn’t doing. He drove up the hill with every intention of writing, but again, he left the library after only a couple of hours. “Something’s jinxed me,” he told Willow. “The writing’s not happening.”

  She gave him a weak smile, knowing he tried, but she thought the same of his attempts. Somehow, they weren’t working. So much of what he wrote about Mémé wasn’t new to Willow, and the new he did write seemed lifeless and too scholarly. To capture Mémé, his prose needed wings, not the boots of academia, and his aim needed to be spherical, not arrow-straight. She couldn’t tell him. Maybe, her criticism was really of her own work, which she wasn’t doing either, and all that she failed to capture of the Crones because she, too, failed to imagine enough.

  She shook off both concerns. At the moment, they were minor. Derrick had called. When Mable announced he was on the phone, Willow’s stomach dropped away, and her whole body gave an involuntary shudder. Shaking, she refused the call. “No, I won’t talk to him. Tell him I’m sick, or I’m not home, anything.”

  The record ended, and Clay put on another before he came to sit beside her, letting Prairie squirm from his arms and hurry away to the stack of records on the floor. “You feel like talking?”

  “To say that I think about Mary every day? That it kills me to think she’s getting off scot free?”

  “Criminals end up in jail. If she’s guilty, she’ll slip up and get caught. Criminals never act just once.”

  That’s exactly my fear, Willow ached to say, She’s not done! But what good would it do rehashing everything yet again. “What’s your secret?” She looked into his eyes. “How come you’re never afraid?”

  He kept his voice low, not wanting to distract Prairie from her play. “Never is a bit extreme. Though, for one thing, I don’t have a child to worry about.” Prairie laughed, a baby’s deep, abandoned belly laugh at how the records slid apart. Her laughter tickled him, and he knew he did have a child he worried about. If Willow had reason to fear letting Prairie go off with her ex, and some psycho named Mary, he’d do everything in his power to prevent it from happening.

  “Things will get better. Everything passes eventually, and everyone feels horrible at some time in their lives.” His eyes darkened. “I mean slain, really bad stuff.”

  “But not you.”

  The Adam’s apple in his throat slid down, rose again. “If you believe that, I’ve done a great job of hiding the truth.”

  For a time, they sat in silence watching Prairie continue to stack two LPs, put both hands on top and push, which sent her sliding forward until her arms gave out, and she collapsed in giggles.

  Clay spoke. “I’ve told you my brother Robbie had Down’s, but there’s a lot I haven’t told you.” He paused, “My brother, Robbie….” Then, “My family….” Finally, “You sure you’re up for this?”

  She nodded.

  “You’re not feigning interest, the way you do with my writing?”

  “That’s not…completely true. It’s just that I’m not the right critique partner for you. I have my own memories, maybe myths, about Mémé, and I want to keep them.”

  “Myths? That’s interesting. To know your conceptions of them are myth, and still you want to keep the fables. I’ve never thought of my family as the stuff of myths, maybe, as a Gothic theme park.”

  She frowned, trying not to laugh.

  “Okay.” His legs stretched out in front of him. “Where to begin? I think as soon as my folks knew about the Down’s, Dad started concocting a way of covering it up. Not covering up Robbie.” He took a deep breath, feeling his way in. “Dad needed to deny something more personal, as though he and Mom had failed on some profound level, and Robbie proved it to the world.”

  Tension ran down the arm he had around Willow.

  “Robbie was only four months old when Mom got pregnant again. Nine months later, I arrived to prove my dad could sire a normal child.”

  She thought of Papa. His death was still an open wound, something that couldn’t begin to heal until Red came with the news that Mary had been arrested. At the moment, she didn’t want to hear about the pain it caused a man to sire a less-than-perfect child.

  “Mom stayed home, and I mean never left the house. Dad carted me around to little league games, spelling bees, Boys Scout ceremonies, and school sports. Any place he could parade me and show the world he had this non-Robbie son.”

  “A trophy son? That explains the arrogance.” He didn’t laugh, and Willow could feel how remembering brought pain. He needed a moment, and she tried to give him that. “Papa thought my grades made up for our being hermits, for about anything he needed covered up, I guess. After Jeannie died—”

  “Your mother? You refer to her by her given name?”

  “Whew. Maybe we shouldn’t dig up the past.”

  “There are things you need to know.” Again, he took his time. “I loved my brother. Loved him. We learned to walk about the same time, played blocks together, shared baby bottles. It was like Robbie waited developmentally for me, so we could be twins for a small span of time. Then, I went forward, and he didn’t. From crib to preteens, we slept in the same bed, usually holding hands. We’d fall asleep that way and wake that way. When we grew too large for one twin bed, we still shared a room.”

  He moved an inch, his shoulders, his arms, his legs, as if the whole of his body had felt the need to shudder. “The first day of kindergarten, I left him crying at the kitchen door, while I walked out holding Dad’s hand. I felt like I’d socked him in the gut. I had. I could go and learn, but Robbie couldn’t.” He shook his head, “I know all this isn’t rational.”

  She shrugged, unsure of what to say and afraid of where the story would end.

  “Walking to the car that day, I realized, even if I couldn’t have articulated it, Robbie was different, and I was breaking this huge p
romise to him. An unspoken promise, sure, but we’d said it in our hearts. The two of us, we were in it together, Chang and Eng. Starting school though, my job was suddenly to separate myself from everything Robbie was, to put the biggest damn gap between us that I could. To be the most not-Robbie possible. Is there a larger betrayal of a brother?”

  “But this wasn’t your fault.”

  “Darling, you haven’t heard anything, yet.”

  He needed still more time, and she thought about the story of Mother Moses, and how with each telling she had to consider the starting place.

  “We even celebrated our birthdays on the same day, my birthday. It went like this, on my fifth birthday, five candles. I blew them out. Dad re-lit one for Robbie. Sixth birthday, six candles for me, a re-light for Robbie so he could play at growing up, too. And the kicker? I could have been twelve before it hit me.” He swallowed, “All along, I hadn’t seen it. It was natural as hell that Robbie got his one candle on my birthday. And the best part?” He looked into Willow’s eyes. “He loved his candle and never had any trouble blowing out that one candle, never thought there should be more. Of the four of us sitting around those birthday cakes covered in red globs of bleeding frosting that Robbie squished out of a corner of a sandwich bag—more like wounds than roses—he was the happiest.”

  “You don’t have to dredge this all up.”

  “I do. If we’re going to spend our lives together, there are things you need to know. Like how I never want a birthday cake. You present me with a cake, and my guilt over Robbie will probably force me out of the room. We’ll celebrate Prairie’s birthday, yours, but don’t do that to me.”

  He does mean to stay. The thought rushed down from Willow’s head to her lungs and into her heart. She snuggled closer, feeling the surety of his body. What couldn’t she endure with him in her life? She wanted him: his health and vigor, his honesty, and his sex. She wanted to take his clothes off slowly, one item at a time, and discover him. “Prairie will grow up wondering why we never celebrate your birthday. She’ll think me mean and vow to treat her husband differently.”

  “In the whole of English literature, is there a single example of a child growing up who wants to be just like Mom and Dad?”

  The sound of the doorbell chiming in the foyer made Willow lean back from Clay. She meant to go to the door, but Mable, squat and square in her flowered caftan, and looking like an upholstered chair on the move, was already crossing the foyer and opening the door. “Willow,” she called after a moment, “it’s a registered letter for you. Can you sign?”

  Panic burned Willow’s face and seared her hands. A registered letter could mean only one thing, Derrick. This had to be the letter, or the subpoena, or the court order forcing her to give Derrick equal time with Prairie, which meant equal time with Mary.

  “Let’s calm down,” Clay whispered at the way her face blanched. “It’s probably nothing.”

  She rose from the sofa but went to Prairie, taking the child into her arms. “I don’t want it! Refuse it.”

  Clay gave her a minute before continuing, “It could be anything. Nothing. Either way, eventually you’re going to have to sign or be served papers. If it’s important, you’re going to find out.” He walked with her to the door where her frightened signature on the postman’s form had all the pitches of a tiny scream. Still, she refused to touch the letter, hurrying back to the sofa with Prairie.

  Clay followed with the letter in his hand. “Do you want me to open it?”

  “Yes,” she said. “No. Yes.”

  “That’s two yeses and one no.” He began opening the envelope, taking as much care as if he were unwrapping a wound, giving her time to yell, Stop! Or decide to open it herself. She only closed her eyes and held Prairie tighter.

  He read the letter silently and then sat down beside her. “It’s not what you think.”

  She’d been holding her breath. She let the air ease out, but she was far from relaxed. Was Clay sure? Positive? If Derrick hadn’t instigated the letter, it was good news, even if it informed her that she’d inherited some massive debt of Papa’s.

  He handed her the letter as Prairie flopped across both their laps. Still Willow hesitated, her gaze avoiding the body of the letter and lingering on two words in the letterhead, “Law Offices.” When she could, she read the letter. Then again, more slowly, “Is this possible?”

  “That’s what it says. It looks official to me. Luessy left the place to you. It became yours on your twentieth birthday. You’ve owned Farthest House for a couple of months.” Willow couldn’t find words, and Clay continued, “You had no idea?”

  Overcome by what the letter did not say, Willow struggled to keep her mind on what it did say. “I own Farthest House?”

  Clay touched the letter. “This makes more sense than Luessy leaving the property to Greenburr. You’ve told me how close you were.”

  The letter trembled. She owned Farthest House? A gift equivalent to a second soul? A home for Prairie? This meant she had a better chance, should the next letter be from Derrick’s attorney, of keeping Prairie. “Why didn’t I know? Why did it have to be a big secret?”

  He was grinning at the joy on her face.

  “I’ll tell Jonah to get rid of his bees.” The words made her heart leap again. Was she so scared that she’d strike out at the first person she could? “I’d never do that.”

  “I know,” Clay said.

  Prairie wanted down. She paddle-ran out of the room into the foyer and headed for the kitchen and Mable. Her speed always frightened Willow, but this time there was the windfall bigger than anything else. She read the letter again, carefully refolded it on its original crease lines, and when she finished, she unfolded the sheet, as if for the first time. Her voice trembled. “When Mémé stood by my bed the night she died, she gave me Mother Moses and a rose. What better symbols for Farthest House? I think she was telling me this at my wedding, too. Telling me to ‘hang on.’”

  Footsteps sounded on the stairs, and Willow’s eyes widened. “It’s Tory. What do I say? Why did Mémé deceive her and make her think Farthest House was hers?”

  The footsteps had yet to land on the foyer floor, but Clay lowered his voice to a whisper. “She’ll be glad the place isn’t going to Greenburr. They’d tear down walls and put walls up and turn it into city offices or a medical clinic.”

  Willow wasn’t convinced. “It’s still a dirty trick…she trusted…I know how it feels to be double-crossed. Though nothing has to change, it might not seem like her home, anymore.”

  Tory stood in the doorway, “Whose home?”

  Willow swallowed, trying to hold the letter so still Tory wouldn’t notice it. At her side, Clay said nothing, and she appreciated his silence, his waiting for her to call the first play. But Tory had heard the doorbell, she certainly heard part of their conversation, and there wasn’t time to come up with a plan for breaking the news gently. Honesty seemed not just the best way out, but the only way out. She handed up the letter, and Tory reached for it.

  39

  Willow started awake, her eyes wide in the darkness, her heart thundering in her chest. Another nightmare, this time that Prairie screamed for help, and though Willow searched frantically and the crying was so near, she couldn’t find her.

  The screams came again, and the thumping in Willow’s chest that for half a second had slowed, kicked back up. Not just a dream, Prairie needed her. She threw back the covers and sat up, her feet hitting the rug and slamming a wave of dizziness into her head. Prairie cried out again, and the sound sent Willow running, the rug beneath her feet rolling on waves. Prairie wasn’t just whimpering from bad dreams of her own, but shrieking. Something was terribly wrong.

  In the hall, long and dark and empty of support, Willow nearly lost her balance but caught herself, both arms swinging into the air. She slowed. She’d be no good if she fell and broke a hip or sprained an ankle. At Prairie’s door, she smelled the vomit. Only that, she told herself, Prairi
e was sick. While Willow could identify with how bad puking felt—the pitching stomach, the loss of control as the stomach convulsed, the headache, and Prairie probably had a nose full of bitter, stinging bile—still these things passed. Mary wasn’t in the room hovering over the crib, and Derrick wasn’t standing crib-side, reaching in to snatch the baby away.

  Finding the light switch would have taken only a second, but Willow hurried to the crib using moonlight. “Mommy’s here, it’s okay.” Prairie sat with vomit on the legs of her pajamas and on the sheet between her legs, but she’d not rolled in it, didn’t have the rank stuff in her hair, wouldn’t need a full bath, which Willow felt too shaky to attempt. “It’s okay, sweetie.” She shushed and soothed and cradled the child, grabbing a fresh pair of pajamas and heading for the bathroom.

  Even washed up and in clean clothes, Prairie continued to whimper. She rested her head on Willow’s shoulder, her tiny thumb in her mouth, as Willow walked the floor, rocking and waltzing a few feet down the hall and then back, never getting too close to Tory’s door for fear of waking her. She did wonder that Tory wasn’t already up. Who could have slept through the screaming, or if awakened refused to come to the child’s aid?

  Maybe, she wasn’t being fair. Tory was in her sixties, and she did have the farthest back bedroom. She also kept the door tightly closed, even locked, and then there was her sleeping potion—a tall tumbler of sherry. Possibly too, Prairie hadn’t cried as long or as hard as Willow feared. Wishful thinking.

  She moved back into Prairie’s room, still kissing and cradling and eyeing the rocker. Changing the crib sheet would require more energy than she had, and she didn’t want Prairie in the crib anyway. God forbid the baby would need help again, and this time, Willow wouldn’t wake. The safe thing was for them to sleep together, but not yet. Prairie still needed soothing, and if she was going to be sick again, there was no sense in soiling another bed.