‘Oh, Vivian!’ She felt a soft tug on her shoulder, a slight shaking. Groggily, she opened her eyes. She must have fallen asleep on the porch.
Dot stood over her, haloed by the porch light. ‘I had no idea you were sleeping out here,’ she said.
Vivian sat up, yawning. It was fairly dark already. ‘What time is it?’
‘Seven-thirty,’ Dot said, chuckling. ‘I fell asleep too.’ She tilted her head towards the yard, where all of the yard sale items still sat out. ‘I guess we’re not used to having an actual job. Really tired me out. I slept for over two hours.’
The moon sat on the spread of treetops like a pale egg in a nest. It was a hazy moon, gray-white with blurred edges. In the city, Vivian had seldom noticed the moon’s infinite variations and effects. The current moon held its surroundings in a pregnant lull; its soft light reflected from the old white paint and made everything glow. Other times, she had seen another moon, one with a texture like stucco that stood out boldly in stark relief against a cobalt sky. Its light was harsher, its range broader. But the light of this night’s moon, the hazy, gentle moon, trod softly across the high grass and the short hills. Like candlelight, it flattered its subjects.
The moon could be painted over and over, Vivian thought, like Monet’s water lilies. She felt at that moment her unique place in the world. She wondered how her impressions could ever be reproduced, because the distance between perception and idea was like the space between two skyscrapers. One had to leap across. If I were to measure and draw the scene according to proper linear perspective, the moon would seem smaller and farther away than how it feels to me at this moment. Maybe everything doesn’t fit into a pattern, she thought, maybe things are only as they appear in a single moment.
Crickets belted out their fractious melody underneath the house. One day soon they would leave this house, and Vivian would miss the openness and calm of the land, the way the trees stood guard like sentries, the moon like a changing spotlight on their lives. As the first night breeze collected somewhere in the distance and blew softly across her skin, she contemplated the changes to come.
28
The next day, Saturday, turned out to be the busiest of the three-day yard sale. People arrived early again, only this time, Vivian was ready with a thermos of coffee and a plate of warm cinnamon rolls.
Lonnie burst through the door and onto the porch. ‘Vivian, tell Dot you don’t want her to leave.’
Dot followed closely behind, carrying a handful of napkins to set with the rolls. ‘Lonnie, please,’ she said.
‘We’re going to miss you, that’s all. Right, Vivian?’
‘Yes,’ she said.
‘I have to go,’ Dot said. ‘Lonnie, you know it won’t be a fun trip for me. Besides, I’ll be back in a week.’
‘If you run there every time she calls…’
Dot whirled around. ‘What if she really needs me this time?’
He gave her a skeptical look.
She laid out the napkins, one over the other, in a half-circle. ‘You’d do the same, if it was your mother.’
Vivian went back into the kitchen to pour herself a cup of coffee. In a few moments, Dot came inside. ‘I need to pick up a few things for my trip,’ she said. ‘Do you mind if I leave for a couple of hours?’
‘No, go ahead.’
‘Lonnie is staying.’
‘Thanks,’ Vivian said. ‘Nowell can be roused from his work, too.’
‘Okay.’ Dot stood in the center of the kitchen, her hands on her hips. ‘Okay,’ she said again. ‘Do you need anything from town?’
‘No,’ Vivian said. ‘It may be pretty crazy down there today. They’re having that parade at noon, then the big thing at the park.’
‘You’re right, it’ll be crowded. I’ll go now, while it’s still early.’
‘Good idea.’
‘One more thing,’ Dot said. ‘Could I borrow the truck? Lonnie wants to do something to the jeep while I’m gone.’
‘Do you think you can drive it?’
‘Drives like other cars, doesn’t it?’
‘It’s big, that’s all. It took me a while to get used to it.’
She smiled. ‘I’m a little taller than you and besides, you’ve got that pillow in there. I’ll just sit on that, like you do.’
‘The keys are hanging by the door.’
After she left, Vivian stared out the kitchen window. She could see the corner of the wooden shed and a distance from that, the gray stones of the musty-smelling well. Overhead, a brownish bird jumped from branch to branch, then buried his long beak behind his wings. From the study, Nowell’s light taps on the computer keyboard were barely audible over the humming of the refrigerator, which had started up suddenly as she stood there. In the front yard, Lonnie called her name.
She walked outside and greeted a woman who had offered half-price for the brass coat rack. Vivian quickly agreed to her terms and asked Lonnie to load the item into her truck. ‘I’m surprised anyone would buy that,’ she said to him as the woman drove away. ‘It’s so tarnished.’
‘You’d be amazed what you can do to old things like that,’ Lonnie said. ‘All you need is a good brass polish. Cleans right up, good as new. That was a nice dresser you sold to Mr Stokes, too. A coat of stain was all it needed.’
‘Did you want it?’ Vivian asked. ‘I told you, if you see anything…’
‘No, I didn’t want it. I’m only pointing out that some things are worth saving. Like this jeep.’ He patted the roof. ‘It was rebuilt with junkyard materials. The engine is from a jeep that was totaled, and the body once caught on fire. It was a hobby with the guy who sold it to me, restoring things.’ He walked around to the front and looked under the hood. ‘Haven’t had a single problem. It’s got four good tires and a new battery. The seats were reupholstered after the fire. I guess they were pretty charred. We don’t use the air conditioning much, but it works. I tested it the other day.’
‘That reminds me,’ Vivian said. ‘Did your mother get her air conditioner at the house fixed?’
‘I think so. You’d have to ask Nowell.’
She pushed her hair from her forehead. ‘Your mom doesn’t ask you for many favors, does she?’
Lonnie looked up, his forehead creasing into three long crevices. ‘No, she usually asks Nowell. You know that.’
‘Why is that?’
‘Because Nowell is the one who’ll come. He’s trying to make it up to her.’
‘For what?’
‘For not being around earlier, for going off to college, for not taking over my dad’s business.’ He wiped the tip of a cable, the wire connection, with a red rag. ‘Mostly, he’s trying to make up for my dad. Only, I don’t think he knows it.’
‘What did your dad do?’
‘He wasn’t around either.’
Vivian felt a chill on her arm. ‘Where was he?’
‘Good question,’ Lonnie peered at her sideways as he leaned over the open mouth of the jeep. ‘Traveling for the business, trying to make sales.’
‘He traveled a lot?’
‘Not when we were real young, but later.’
‘He didn’t say where he was going?’
‘Oh, sure. He could name towns. He talked about people he met and deals he made. At the time, I believed him.’
‘But then you didn’t?’
‘Didn’t what?’
‘Believe he was going where he said he was going.’
Lonnie’s eyes widened. ‘I said that?’
Vivian sighed. ‘Did you believe him?’
‘What else was I supposed to think?’ He walked around the edge of the jeep, turned a cap on something and yanked it off.
Vivian smelled the dank rustiness of water and metal; she could taste it on her tongue. She was tired of dodging the subject. ‘Did you know that your dad came out here a few times a year?’
Lonnie wiped the black rubber cap on the side of his shirt and tapped it back into position with his fis
t. ‘He came more than that.’
She was shocked. Nobody else had confirmed what Katherine told her. ‘How do you know?’
‘I followed him one time, when I was sixteen or seventeen. I walked in as he was sitting in the kitchen there, having cake with my Grandma Gardiner like it was an everyday thing.’
‘What did he say?’
‘Nothing. I had been here a couple of times as a kid. After he pulled up to the house, I drove around for a while then came back. I didn’t know if my grandma would recognize me after so much time, but she looked right up and called me by name. What a nice surprise, she said, that I came with him.’
‘Why did he keep his visits secret?’ Vivian asked. ‘Why didn’t he bring everybody – your mom, Nowell?’
‘I don’t know, maybe he didn’t want to share. My grandma treated him like a king, and me too while I was here. Every morning she’d cook a big breakfast: homemade biscuits, sausage and gravy. I stayed for two nights then headed home. I think he stayed a couple more days that time.’
‘And your mother never knew?’
‘No.’
‘You never wanted to tell her?’
‘Sure I did.’ Lonnie ran his hand through his dark hair, which had grown out a little since they arrived. ‘I thought he would tell her. The business was really growing, and I think he was having some problems with Mr Ward, his partner. That’s why he started traveling in the first place. I had no idea at the time how long it had been going on.’
‘The visits?’ she asked.
He blinked. ‘Yeah, the visits. All those years, we quit doing things as a family. He’d say he didn’t have time, he was trying to build the business for us. And here he was, coming out here while our own grandma was a stranger to us. He was selfish, that’s all there is to it.’ He wiped his forehead with his shirtsleeve, leaving a speck of oil. ‘She remembered it, the time I followed him. Remember when I was laid up, after the motorcycle crash?’
Vivian nodded.
‘When my grandma came, we talked about that visit. We watched a television show together while I was here, she said. Something about angels. I didn’t remember that. I mostly thought about those big breakfasts.’ Lonnie reached across the engine and adjusted something. ‘It’s a shame, my mom and my grandma both living alone. My mom was so lonely, especially after Nowell left. He always thinks that it was me, but she missed him a lot. She missed them both. Ever since I can remember, she’s been lonely. That’s why she spends so much time down at her clubs and at the church; that’s why she volunteers to do all those things. I had to let myself off the hook. I couldn’t do anything about what he did. I can’t even regret keeping quiet about what I knew, because I don’t think telling her would have made any difference.’
Vivian had been quiet, soaking in everything Lonnie said. ‘Nowell never knew, about your dad?’
‘He doesn’t want to know anything.’
‘But you said he tries to make up for it.’
‘And I said that he doesn’t know that he’s doing it. He’ll never admit that anything was ever wrong or that anything is wrong with her now.’
‘You think something’s wrong with your mom?’
‘Ignoring something doesn’t make it go away,’ he said.
In all the time she’d been at the house, Vivian had felt that there was a mystery of sorts. But after what Mr Stokes had said, after she began to realize what role her own imagination had been playing, she wasn’t sure. ‘You said yourself,’ she told Lonnie, ‘it wouldn’t do any good to tell her. Besides, he was just coming to visit his mother.’
Lonnie leaned against the door of the jeep, crossing his arms over his chest. Reddish-brown hairs poked over his green tank top, matching the whiskers that sprung from his jaw and chin. She had always thought that his beard was darker than Nowell’s, but it was the same hue, exactly. ‘It’s about keeping secrets, Vivian. I’ve done the same as them, that’s all. I had to pretend then, and I still pretend now. Maybe I didn’t do anything wrong, but I didn’t open my mouth, either. I didn’t force Nowell to come home and see what was happening, I didn’t force my mom to stand up for herself. I stood by and let her fall. Dad was gone most of the time by then, just before he died. You know that argument I had with Nowell about the Father’s Day shirt?’
She nodded.
‘I think it stays in my mind because in a way, I was trying to get my dad to come back. It sounds crazy now. A tie or a shirt can’t make someone do anything, but I thought it might. I wanted to pick something just right. I didn’t have enough money, but I was willing to pay it back. I had just gotten a new job, a good one. I thought he’d be proud.’ His eyes were glistening. ‘That’s why it made me so mad. It sounds stupid now, but sometimes I still think I could’ve done something. I just stayed there, just let her fall. I was as bad as Nowell, but at least he didn’t know everything.’
Katherine’s light green car turned slowly onto the driveway and pulled up next to the jeep.
‘I worry about Dot,’ Lonnie said. ‘I wish she wouldn’t do this alone, but she won’t let me go with her.’
Vivian took a step towards Lonnie. ‘What do you mean about Nowell not knowing everything?’
‘And I’ve seen what can happen to women. They’re defenseless sometimes.’
She didn’t know who he was talking about – Dot, his mother, Dot’s mother, or something else entirely. If Sherman had been visiting his mother without telling his wife, that was dishonest and maybe even childish, but Lonnie talked about his absences with such bitterness.
Katherine waved from the passenger seat and beside her, Max grinned behind the wheel.
Vivian turned back to Lonnie, but he had moved to the rear of the jeep and was pulling a red metal toolbox from behind the seats.
Katherine got out of the car first. ‘Hello!’
‘Is this the place I’ve been hearing about?’ Max asked.
‘Depends on what you’ve been hearing,’ Vivian said.
‘Great deals,’ he said.
‘Then this is the place.’
A station wagon stopped along the main road and two more customers walked onto the lawn. Vivian got the tool belt that Katherine had set aside for Max, and she answered a few questions for the other people. Lonnie was still tinkering around the jeep, ducking his head under the hood and pulling tools from his box. Vivian walked around with Katherine and Max as they inspected the items for sale.
‘Have you been into town?’ Katherine asked.
‘Not for a few days,’ Vivian said.
‘It’s packed down there. I’ve never seen it so crowded.’
‘How are things going with the reunion?’
She picked up a ceramic flower vase. ‘I think everything’s running smoothly. We had the store open yesterday, so we saw all the people running around. Looks like a bunch of Clements to me.’
‘You can’t tell them apart from anyone else,’ Max said.
‘I’m just kidding. What do you think of this vase, Max?’
‘For two bucks, it’s a steal.’
Katherine tucked it under her arm; her bracelets clanked against its hard surface. ‘They had an emergency city council meeting, over letting some woman hand out pamphlets during the celebrations.’
‘I think I met her,’ Vivian said. ‘Delta Clement Burnside. I went to the community center and she was outside,’ she explained.
Katherine leaned over. ‘I guess hardly anyone bothered to show for the meeting. Seems everyone was pretty certain they’d keep that Fire – what was her name?’
‘Burnside.’
‘Right. Everyone was sure they’d keep her away. There were only twenty or so there, but here’s the interesting thing. Guess who spoke up in favor of letting her attend?’
Vivian shrugged.
‘Mr Stokes.’
‘What does he have to do with any of that?’
‘Got me,’ Katherine said.
They watched as Max picked up an old wooden bat and pra
cticed his swing.
‘What did he say?’ Vivian asked.
‘Something about peoples’ right to freedom. He said it wasn’t fair to keep people away, that it was like putting animals in cages, keeping them from running. My friend remembered that, putting animals in cages. She thought it was a strange thing to say, but I guess he really made his point. Didn’t matter, of course.’
‘They denied her request,’ Vivian said.
Katherine nodded.
A red hatchback pulled into the driveway behind Katherine’s car. They watched as someone in a peacock blue outfit stepped from the car and walked towards them.
‘It’s Kitty Brodie,’ Katherine said in a low voice.
‘Good morning,’ Vivian called.
Mrs Brodie’s hair shone in the morning light. ‘Hello, Mrs Gardiner.’
‘Please, call me Vivian.’
She smiled. ‘I drove by yesterday and saw all the things out here. I thought I’d come by and take a look.’
Max stepped forward and took her hand. ‘How are you doing, Kitty?’
‘I’m doing alright.’ She looked back and forth between him and Katherine. ‘Thanks for asking. How’s business? I’m afraid I haven’t been down to pick up that silk blouse yet. I’ve been absent-minded lately, can’t seem to remember where I leave anything.’
‘Don’t worry about it,’ he said. ‘I’ve got things people have left since Christmas. Sometimes I think I should charge for storage.’
The Qualities of Wood Page 27