by Jane Gentry
Elizabeth picked up the scattered mail and arranged it as she walked behind him. A very official-looking envelope wound up on top. In small menacing capitals, it announced its origin: United States Treasury, Department of Internal Revenue.
“Steve,” she said. “Here’s something from the IRS.”
“Toss it in the trash,” he said. “They keep sending me the same letter over and over.”
Elizabeth knew something about the IRS.
“They don’t just go away, you know. You don’t owe them money or anything, do you?”
“No. They only think I do.” He saw her concern and explained. “Every couple of months, for the past few years, I’ve gotten this letter which tells me I owe the IRS 4800. For a while, I wrote back and explained why I don’t owe them anything and proved it, and they sent me another letter saying they were sorry. I wrote six times, they replied six times. I’m still getting the letters, but now I just throw them away. I figured six times is enough.”
“With any normal entity, you’d be right,” said Elizabeth. “But with the IRS—you’d better keep writing.”
“Bah,” said Steve. He took the mail from her hand and threw the offending missive into the trash can beside his desk.
Elizabeth shook her head. “You never know,” she said. “You really ought to open that.”
“Bah,” said Steve again. As he made his way across the cluttered room, he flapped a hand at the bookshelves. “Help yourself to anything you want.”
Elizabeth looked about her. His office seemed made of books. Books poked into shelves, books stacked on chairs, books scattered on the floor, piled on the desk, balanced on the narrow windowsill. It looked chaotic, but he seemed able to put a finger on whatever he wanted. He dug about in a box and surfaced with the last three volumes in the Fireman series.
“There,” he said, giving them to her. He dusted his hands over his hair. When she started to look at the one on top, he clapped one big hand across the cover. “We gotta go, toots. You can read them on the way.” He left the room bellowing, “Ride in the car, Sammy.”
Sammy met them at the door with his leash.
Elizabeth looked at her watch, once they were on their way to Lin’s. Ten-thirty exactly. In a scant twenty minutes, Steve turned off the highway onto a narrow country road, and then into a narrower, meandering driveway. The rain had stopped and only mud remained.
“Here we are,” he said.
The house was a big fieldstone edifice that looked about two hundred years old. The springhouse still squatted over a fast little brook, and an old well—with a cast iron grate bolted to the top—was cool with water.
The front door slammed open before Steve and Elizabeth could get out of the car. Four towheaded little boys shot out to welcome them, followed by an immaculate, white standard poodle who was almost as tall as Sammy. Kids and dogs capered about like mad things, until Lin appeared and restored order with a whistle that could stop an army in full flight.
“Hi!” she called. She was as towheaded as the kids and pregnant.
Steve hugged her and introduced Elizabeth. Then he pointed to her barely rounded maternity shirt and said, “Again?”
“I knew you’d say that. That’s why I didn’t tell you.” She turned to Elizabeth. “He’s really rude. Come on in—I’m dying for company.”
“I never saw anybody with so much company,” Steve teased. “Look, Lin. Don’t you know what causes that?”
“If it’s what I think it is,” Lin said, “I’m not going to quit. Where’s Charles?” she asked the biggest boy.
“Hiding,” he said.
“Well, find him,” she instructed. “And if you can’t, then come get me. Okay?”
The child nodded solemnly. He had thick, blond lashes and eyes as dark as the blue in the American flag.
“That’s good, then,” said Lin, giving his blond thatch a pat. “You want to meet Uncle Steve’s friend?”
No nods. Eight blue eyes stared at Elizabeth.
The boys clung to the hem of Lin’s shirt. She identified them by size and age, starting with the tallest. “Zach, Dan, Sandy and John. Seven, five, nearly four and just barely two.”
The baby looked sideways at Elizabeth and stuck two fingers in his mouth. Steve picked him up and sat him on his shoulders. Johnny squealed. His three brothers looked envious.
Lin grinned up at her brother. “Go find Tom, you itch. He’s in his shop. And take these brats with you. Don’t forget to look for Charles, Zach.”
She led Elizabeth into a big, bright kitchen with a long refectory table down the middle. She poured them both some hot chocolate and sighed as she sat down. Elizabeth looked around curiously.
“I’m redoing my kitchen,” she said. “I know it must be younger than yours, but it doesn’t look half so good.”
“Mine used to be horrible, too. Tom fixed it.”
“Do you rent him out?”
“I’m sure something can be arranged.” She waggled her head. “You look just like I thought you would.”
“What has Steve told you?”
Lin reeled off a catalog of personal information: Cara, Melody, Robert, Elizabeth’s kitchen, her grandmother’s wine, her business.
“That about covers it,” said Elizabeth, liking Lin immensely. She fit like an old shoe—maybe because she was so much like Steve. “Cara has brought home ‘horses and a farm.’ What kind of farm?”
“We raise dogs and kids.”
“No crops?”
“God, no. Tom can’t even keep paint green, let alone a crop. And I have other concerns, obviously.” She refilled the cups. “Tom’s an expert on antique restoration. He consults with museums and teaches at U. Penn. He did this table. You should have seen it when he brought it home. Looked like kindling.”
A sturdy subterranean thumping began, and a faint voice called, “Hey! Hey! Zach! Let me out of here.”
Lin looked annoyed. She rose and kicked the corner of the rug aside to reveal a trap door in the maple floor. She grabbed an iron ring and pulled. A dirty little boy emerged.
“Charles, what are you doing down there?” Lin demanded. She dropped the trap back into place and covered it with the rug.
“We were playing spy,” said Charles. “Dan put me in.” He went outside.
“I have to get a lock for that thing,” said Lin. “Today. Want to walk out to the shop with me? I’ll get Tom to do it now.”
“Wait,” said Elizabeth. “I want to see. Why’s it there?”
Lin opened the trap door again. “This house was a stop on the Underground Railway. The main part of it was built in the 1700s, and the family just kept adding room after room as they needed space. So in 1830, when they added a kitchen and a still room, they dug a hole in the floor and put a trap door over it.” She paused. “Gives me chills to look at it.”
Elizabeth peered into the dark, dirt-walled hole. It was barely deep enough to stand in. There was no light at all. To be shut up in there in the dark, cold and wet, hungry and afraid for your life and the lives of your children—horrid, unthinkable, and yet people had been there, had feared and had survived. She shivered.
“It affects me the same way,” said Lin. “I keep imagining me down there, trying to keep the baby quiet while people who want to kill me and my children walk around the room over my head.” She stopped and looked very unhappy. “It’s such a clear picture. Sometimes I dream about it at night. And I don’t want the kids playing there. It’s too solemn a place for play.”
The two women were silent for a minute, then Lin said, “How are the girls getting along?”
“Like the Hatfields and the McCoys,” Elizabeth told her. “Oh, Lin, they’re awful. I don’t know what we’re going to do. You should see them.”
“I should. Maybe I could help. I’ve been talking to Melody about it. You know, she really likes you.”
“I like her, too.” Elizabeth leaned back in her chair and sighed. “She’s a lovely little girl. And so is Ca
ra. But you’d never believe it when they’re together.”
“Steve’s falling in love with you, you know.”
“I know,” said Elizabeth. “I can see it coming. But it’s a mistake.”
“I could say I don’t want to pry,” Lin said. “But I’d be lying. How about you?”
“Oh, I could love him, all right, if I let myself,” Elizabeth said. “But I’m afraid to. Cara and Melody are so awful. And what if we do fall in love, and they keep hating each other until we’re ninety? We’d be miserable forever.”
Lin looked worried. “Is it as bad as all that? Steve said he thought it would work out just fine. He said you were making progress.”
“Steve,” said Elizabeth with exasperation, “is a man. What does he know? It was men who thought we could survive a nuclear war, if you’ll recall.”
They laughed together, a little.
“Why don’t you bring the girls out here and leave them with me every once in a while?” said Lin. “They could keep the kids occupied. They’d have to cooperate, and maybe they’d learn a little about each other.”
“I will if you’re not afraid they’ll mark the baby,” said Elizabeth. “Or frighten the boys.”
Lynn laughed. “Now, really. They can’t be that bad.”
“You think,” said Elizabeth. “They’re as intractable as a religious war.”
The men rattled around the back door.
Lin rose to reheat the cocoa. “You guys bring them out anytime,” she said. “If nothing else, it’ll give you a break.”
Elizabeth knew she meant it, and thought the experiment was worth a try. Lin was calm and cheerful and sensible, and really not involved except as an impartial counselor. Maybe she could do something with Cara and Melody. You never knew: miracles sprang from the most unlikely sources.
Tom and Steve had the menagerie in the mudroom, removing boots and hats and washing off anything that moved. In a few minutes they emerged, not exactly clean, but not tracking mud, either. The children charged up the stairs to the playroom, with Sammy gamboling behind like a spring lamb. The poodle came around the table and tried to get in Lin’s lap.
“Poor little Miggy,” said Lin. “Did those nasty rough boys give you a hard time?” She hauled the dog’s forequarters onto a pair of clean jeans. “Give Mama a nice kiss. Isn’t she a pretty girl?”
Miggy went to greet Elizabeth. “She’s gorgeous,” said Elizabeth truthfully, letting Miggy nuzzle her. But she’s no Sammy, she added to herself.
“Miggy,” said Lin, “is the kids’ college fund. She’s won every show she’s entered. A few more points and she’ll have her championship. And her puppies will sell for a fortune.”
“Will they sell for enough to cover the vet bill?” Tom wanted to know. His blue eyes smiled at Elizabeth from above a Viking’s red beard. He stuck out his hand and introduced himself. “Can you guys stay for lunch? It’s my turn to cook.”
“In that case, we can’t stay,” said Steve.
“But it’s haggis,” said Tom. “I made it especially, out of my own sheep.”
“I’m not staying unless there’s scrapple, tripe or chitlings.”
“I’m going to throw up,” said Lin.
“So am I,” said Elizabeth. “And I’m not even pregnant. We can’t stay for haggis,” she told Tom. “Because we have to pick up our termagants at noon. But thank you for the offer. We really must leave now, before the haggis comes out of the stew pot.”
“Lin’s corrupted your taste,” said Tom. “My haggis is wonderful.”
Pandemonium reigned in the playroom. Sandy came downstairs crying, followed by Johnny who said proudly, “Me bite. Me bite.”
Sandy held out his arm and exhibited a perfect imprint of John’s small teeth.
“Everybody here bites,” said Tom. “Except me.” He popped Johnny into a high chair, and Lin carried Sandy off to the sink to wash his wound.
“Well, Libby,” said Steve. “We’d best escape the haggis.” He kissed his sister and the two little boys and high-fived Tom, who was busy putting peanut butter onto bread.
Elizabeth looked covetously around her. This was exactly what she wanted: a big cheerful kitchen full of dogs and babies and noise and love.
Outside, it had begun to rain again. And back in town Cara and Melody waited. Elizabeth hugged Lin, and Sandy held out his arms.
“Bye-bye, Aunt Steve,” he said, turning his sweet round face up for a kiss.
I would love to hear him call me Aunt Libby, she thought wistfully, taking him into her arms and cuddling the warm little body to her. Then she shrugged into her coat and ran to the car through a pelting rain.
“I didn’t want to leave,” she said, as Steve turned onto the highway. “It’s so lovely there, with all the kids and commotion.”
He folded her hand into his. “It makes home seem awfully quiet, doesn’t it?”
“Yeah.” She watched the windshield wipers click from side to side. “Lin said to bring the girls out. She thinks they can learn to cooperate by baby-sitting.”
“Stranger things have happened. We’ll try it.”
Ahead of them, brake lights flashed. Traffic slowed to a crawl.
“I’m going to be late to pick up Cara,” said Elizabeth anxiously.
“They’ll be all right until we get there.”
“It’s not them I’m worried about. It’s me.”
“Afraid we’ll get caught?” asked Steve. There was a little steel in his tone.
“Well, I don’t see any reason to look for trouble,” said Elizabeth defensively. She watched the wipers for a while before she spoke again. “I mean, we’re going to have enough of a trauma with the pizza trip, aren’t we?”
“We’ll see,” said Steve. He was grimly thoughtful on the drive to Harkness, where Melody and Cara were waiting, on opposite ends of the broad porch.
“Great,” Elizabeth muttered. “They’re out already.”
Steve pulled to a stop beside her car. “I won’t kiss you, out of deference to your fear of your daughter,” he said. “But I’m telling you, Elizabeth, we’re in for some big trouble if we don’t take control of this situation now. Think about it.”
“If you have any concrete ideas about how to take control of it without destroying those two children,” she said, “I’d be happy to hear them. But just steaming around making portentous male pronouncements is hardly helpful. And I am not afraid of Cara.”
“I’ll call you from New York tonight,” said Steve. “We can fight some more then.”
“I’m not fighting,” she said.
“Good,” he said, and gave her a smile that melted her heart. “Chin up, chickie. Think about what I said, even if it does make you mad.”
She knew what she’d think about.
“Be careful driving to New York,” she said. And she leaned across the seat to kiss him. She’d take the chance that the rain would obscure the girls’ vision and that Cara would wait under the porch roof until Elizabeth got the car as close as possible to the bottom step.
Steve put his hand gently to her face. “Be of good heart,” he said.
Elizabeth got out of the car with the uncomfortable feeling that she might, indeed, be afraid of Cara. Or at least, afraid of the trouble Cara would have caused if she’d seen that kiss.
Steve was right. They had to come out in the open.
Chapter Five
At ten that night, Elizabeth was in bed with The Hail Mary Margin. She liked it, but a good book was hardly what she wanted, she thought, as she opened its cover. She couldn’t concentrate. Every minute she expected Steve to call, and she couldn’t relax until he did.
Still, she couldn’t help being captivated by the story Steve had written. The hero of Fire in the Hole had changed. Jord Varic had to destroy a flaming rogue star fragment, which threatened his home planet and the woman he loved.
Steve was no longer twenty and no longer wanted to be James Bond. He had just married Marian, and Hail Mary
idealized women as men newly in love and newly committed tended to do. His face on the back cover had changed and matured. The cocky impudence had quieted into self-confidence, and there was a sexy twinkle in his eye that made her grin at the picture.
She was deeply into the book and jumped when the phone rang. Steve! Finally! She snatched the receiver off the hook like a drowning woman clutching at the very last straw in the ocean.
“Hi!” she said, breathless with anticipation.
“Cara just called,” said Robert irritably, from the other end of the line. “You have to talk to her.”
“Damn it, Robert,” said Elizabeth. “What now?” Why, why, why did she have to be afflicted with Robert?
“She wants to come to California, and she can’t,” said Robert. “I want you to tell her that.”
Oh, God. More trouble. Robert was always trouble. She’d rather have cockroaches than Robert.
“Why don’t you tell her that, Robert?” asked Elizabeth, through her teeth.
“I tried,” said Robert. “I told her how busy I am, and I told her I had lots of trips coming up.”
Elizabeth pinioned the phone between her shoulder and her ear and curled all ten of her fingers into claws. “Did you actually say ‘No, Cara, you can’t come’?”
“Of course not,” said Robert. “I couldn’t make her understand.”
“I don’t see why not. It doesn’t seem that hard to me,” Elizabeth told him. “You both speak English. I’ll tutor you. Just say, ‘Cara, I don’t want you to come.’”
Robert wouldn’t answer that. “It’s just not convenient for her to come,” he said. “I’m too busy for her right now.”
Elizabeth could hear noises in the background: music, the tinkling of glasses, the sound of a woman—one woman—singing along with the melody from an old show tune. She was off-key.
“You’ve been too busy for Cara since the day she was born,” Elizabeth told him. “And if by some horrible celestial mistake you should find yourself with a free day, I wouldn’t let her any closer to Los Angeles than the eighty-second meridian.”
That was true. Cara was too innocent to know the truth about Robert. Robert’s women got younger as he got older, so the one with the tin ear was probably just above the age of consent. Robert had the ego of a four-year-old and the sexual habits of a goat, and Cara’s presence wouldn’t inhibit his selfishness in the least. Elizabeth couldn’t let Cara see that. She needed to believe in a loving father, and Elizabeth intended to see that she could.