by Ellen Block
“Like I said, whatever.”
Abigail went inside and slammed the door harder than she had intended, making it shiver on the hinges. Then she slid down to the floor and cried, also harder than she had intended.
quotha (kwō′thə), interj. Archaic. indeed! (used ironically or contemptuously in quoting another.) [1510–20; from quoth a quoth he]
The house was quiet. The solid stillness was so dense that it filled the living room and pressed against Abigail as she sat on the floor with her back against the door. When she lifted herself to her feet, her knees cracked. The pain in her arms was intense enough to make her ears ring. She was too tired to sleep, too hungry to eat. On reflex, she drove to Merle’s house and sat outside in the station wagon, baffled as to what had brought her there.
“You’re here. Might as well go in.”
Abigail headed around to the deck, where she could see in through the sliding glass door. The lights were on. She could hear a football game being broadcast. She tapped on the slider and heard Merle ambling toward the door. He noticed she had been crying. Abigail made no effort to conceal it.
“Something wrong?”
“No.”
“Something break?”
“No.”
“Did the lighthouse collapse?”
“No.”
“You want to come in?”
“Please.”
“You eaten?”
“Not much.”
“Got some leftover tuna casserole.”
“Sounds delicious.”
While he reheated the food in the microwave, Abigail took a seat. The kitchen table was covered in hooks and thread for fashioning lures. A miniature plastic beetle was affixed to a stand.
“Used to buy my lures,” Merle said, “but I thought I could make ’em more lifelike myself.”
“You’ve got talent. They look real.”
“Knock on wood the fish concur.” He set a mug of coffee before her. “Had a bad day, huh? I’ve had my share of those. I prefer the good ones.”
“It’s Nat Rhone. He’s so…”
“Arrogant? Obnoxious? Infuriating?”
“Yeah, that.”
“The guy’s not easy to get along with. Never has been. Never will be. He’s had a hard life.”
“Who hasn’t?”
The microwave beeped, giving Merle an out. He spooned a large serving of casserole onto a plate for her. “It’s hot. Don’t need to burn your tongue again.”
Ignoring the warning, Abigail dug into the meal. It tasted wonderful. She devoured forkful after forkful, cleaning her plate. She didn’t dare confess to Merle that it was the first warm meal she’d had since she arrived.
“For such a skinny person, you can really put it away. You’re not one of those, what do you call it, narcoleptics, are you?”
Abigail laughed, nearly choking on her food. “You mean bulimics? No, I’m not.”
She suspected that Merle made the slip on purpose to squeeze a laugh out of her. She appreciated that as much as the food.
“Want to talk about it?” he asked.
“It doesn’t matter. Nat’s got a chip on his shoulder. That’s that. Whatever happened to him, he must deserve to be angry.”
“Being that angry usually means somebody’s been hurt. Hurt something fierce,” Merle said, insinuating that he had a full story on the notorious Nat Rhone.
Abigail put up her hands, as if to physically stop him. “You don’t have to tell me. It’s none of my business. And Nat would go ballistic if you did.”
“Probably.”
“You’re going to tell me anyway?”
Merle’s expression was impassive. He was going to tell her anyway.
“If you’d confide Nat’s secrets to me, who’s to say you won’t spill mine to him? Or anybody else?”
“S’pose you’ll have to trust me.”
Trust was a tricky concept for Abigail. In the wake of the fire, she couldn’t always trust her senses or herself. Putting her faith in someone else was asking a lot.
“I’ll trade you a little trust for another plate of that tuna casserole.”
“Coming right up.”
The fishing lures and the racket from the football game were the lone strands of masculinity in Merle’s house. An ivy wallpaper border lined the kitchen, the magnets on the fridge were in the shape of watering cans, and the pot holders hanging from the oven had a floral motif. Merle, the strapping embodiment of manhood, was immersed in the girliness of his ex-wife’s possessions. At first, Abigail wondered why he held on to them after what she had done, jilting him and taking his child. Then she realized that if her house hadn’t been destroyed, she would have continued to live in it after the fire. She would have given anything to be reminded of the special times imbued in every wall, banister, and floorboard, willing to look past the sadness that was incised in them as well.
“Is this the kind of story that’ll make me cry? Because I’ve already done my share of that today.”
Merle set the refilled plate of casserole on the table for her. “Depends on what you cry at.”
“Okay, okay. If you’re going to tell me, tell me already.”
“Nat didn’t relay this to me himself, not personally.”
“Is that a preface to the saga?”
“It’s not—what do you call it—hearsay. But it’s not from the horse’s mouth neither.”
“Whose mouth is it from?”
“Hank Scokes.”
Abigail was hazy on the island’s lines of alliance. She was unaware of who was close with whom and who wasn’t. “I didn’t realize you and Hank were friends.”
“Friends in as much as I’ve known him most of my life.”
“Sorry. Go on.”
“A while after Hank’d taken Nat on as his mate, they got to drinking together. Liquor doing what it does, Nat opened up to Hank. Nobody else knew hide nor hair about the guy. Hardly the chitchat type. He’d already been fired by three other captains. Not because he couldn’t handle himself on a rig, but because of his temper. That got rumors swimming.”
“Rumors about what?”
“That Nat was some parolee or an escaped convict or that he’d broken out of a mental hospital with only the clothes he had on him.”
“Was that all he came to the island with?”
“Maybe less.”
“But that’s not what really happened, is it?”
Merle had a seat at the table with her. “Hank said one night after he and Nat drank a few beers—too many, knowing Hank—Nat told him he’d come here from South Carolina. Before that he’d been in Florida. He’d lived in a dozen places on the southern seaboard, taking any job he could get. From menial stuff to things he should’ve had a license for: electrical work, plumbing, engineering, you name it.”
“Wait. You sent someone who’s not a real electrician to check my wiring?”
Caught, Merle’s cheeks went pink. “He is the best electrician on Chapel Isle. Having the proper credentials is, um, a technicality.”
“Thanks for explaining. I feel much better.”
“As I was saying, Nat told Hank about how much he moved around, taking the bus if he had the money. Hopping trains if he didn’t. Then Hank asked Nat about his family. Well, Nat got real quiet. Didn’t answer. Thankfully, Hank, drunk as he was, had the sense to keep his trap shut and let the boy speak. Nat told Hank he didn’t have any family. None living, that is. Parents died in a car crash when he was a toddler, both of ’em killed instantaneously. He was strapped into his car seat, made it through the crash without a scratch on him.”
Hearing that, Abigail could have cried. Except she didn’t want to. What she wanted to do was wring Merle’s account from her head. She resented having to pity Nat Rhone, hated having something so personal in common with him. But she did. He’d lost his family and so had she. Abigail wondered if the tale touched a chord with Merle as well. Nat didn’t get the chance to know his parents, while Merle had a son
he hadn’t met. She would have liked to ask Merle about it. However, this was Nat’s history he was volunteering, not his own.
“He was sent to live with a relative, an aunt,” Merle went on. “As Nat got older, his temper got worse. The aunt couldn’t get him to mind her and there was no one else, so he was sent to a foster home, then got kicked out and bounced from place to place. Since nobody could control him, nobody would have him. Nat started stealing, getting on the wrong side of the law. Mentioned jail to Hank. Not prison, though. Broke into a car to take the change from the ashtray and got busted. That was when he was seventeen. He drifted from there on.”
“Why are you telling me this, Merle? So I’ll feel sorry for Nat and that’ll absolve his terrible behavior? A bad life isn’t a defense for bad manners or a bad attitude.”
“No, I’m only telling you so you’ll know.”
“How does that change anything?”
“There’s a wide gap between knowing something and not knowing something.”
Abigail pushed her plate aside. “I can’t take many more of these oblique maxims that sound like they came out of fortune cookies. They don’t make any sense.”
“Sure they do. You’re a smart lady. You get the picture.”
She did and she didn’t. Merle took her plate to the sink and washed it, while Abigail sat drumming her fingers. “What do I do when Nat shows up on my doorstep tomorrow to help me move the furniture from the basement?”
“Do what?” Merle nearly dropped the plate.
“We made an agreement. I’d paint Duncan Thadlow’s house with him if he’d move the antiques in the basement upstairs for me. It seemed such a shame to leave them down there. I’m no expert on wood, as you’ve already observed, but the dampness couldn’t be doing the furniture any favors, right?”
Merle was processing what she’d told him. The faucet was running on high. He appeared not to hear it.
“Merle. The water.”
“Oh. Yeah.” He shut off the tap, preoccupied.
“Are you all right?”
“Uh-huh. Hunky-dory.”
Abigail thought otherwise. “I’ve troubled you enough this evening,” she said, standing.
“Not in the least. You want me to pack you what’s left of the casserole?”
Stuffed, she rubbed her stomach. “I may not eat another bite for a week.”
“Don’t go getting narcoleptic on me.”
“Thanks, Merle. Really,” she added on a serious note. “I mean it.”
“You’re welcome. Really.”
Once Abigail was home, she remembered what she had intended to ask Merle. It wasn’t about Nat Rhone. It was about the ledger entry regarding the Bishop’s Mistress.
“One sad story per night is my limit.”
While brushing her teeth in the bathroom, she admired the grout work Nat had done for her, though she was too irritated to give him credit.
“Just because he’s handy doesn’t make him any less of a jerk.”
She shut off the light switch. If Nat was the top electrician on the island and he claimed there weren’t any issues with the wiring, she should believe him. But could she?
Downstairs, the phone rang, startling Abigail. It was past nine. She worried it might be her parents and rushed to answer.
“Abby, is that you?” The reception was spitting static.
“Lottie?”
“Yes, dear. It’s moi. Wanted to make sure you got my gift.”
“The romance novels. Yes, I found them. Thanks. They’re…” Abigail scrolled through a range of descriptive phrases, selecting the least disparaging. “A quick read. Say, there are a few things I’d like to discuss with you about the house.”
No time like the present to come clean about the changes she’d made.
“Wish I could chew the fat, dear, but my cousin is still recuperating from her girdle thing, and I have to wait on her hand and foot. Such a princess.”
“Then maybe I could come by the office to talk. When will you be back?”
“Say again, Abby?” Lottie’s cell phone hissed. “I can’t hear you over this noise. Sounds like frying bacon. Mercy, I need to put that on my grocery list. Wouldn’t a BLT be delish about now? Gotta go, Abby. You have my mouth watering with all this gabbing about food.”
“Hold on. Lottie?”
The line dissolved into a dial tone.
“From books to bacon. A quantum leap. She must have thought you were going to yell at her about the caretaker’s cottage. Can’t say you didn’t try to tell her.”
Upstairs, the ledger was lying on the unmade bed. Abigail moved it to the nightstand, then reconsidered. She had slept soundly the night before, which she hadn’t done in months.
It worked yesterday. It might work again.
Slipping under the quilt, Abigail placed the ledger at her side and waited patiently for sleep to find her.
ruction (ruk′shən), n. a disturbance, quarrel, or row. [1815–25; orig. uncert.]
Pain rather than sunlight roused Abigail. The ledger was digging into her shoulder blade. Her watch read a quarter past seven, the same time she’d risen the day before.
She moved the ledger onto the nightstand. “You’re as trusty as an alarm clock.”
If only her body were as dependable. Painting Duncan’s house yesterday had thrust Abigail past her physical limit. Stiff, she slowly rooted through the dresser for something to wear. She was running out of clean clothes. The garbage bag she was using as a hamper was full. A trip to the laundromat would be in order shortly, as would a stop at the market for some aspirin.
Abigail wanted to assess the situation in the basement before Nat arrived. Sheets off, she counted fourteen pieces of furniture. The dining chairs were light, and Abigail could manage them herself. However, navigating the narrow, rickety stairway was going to be a challenge.
As she crested the stairs, lugging a chair, there came a knock at the front door. Nat was on the other side.
“We doing this?” he asked.
“Yes,” Abigail sighed. “We are.” She waved him in.
“Do you need to change?”
“My clothes? Why?”
“They look too fancy to be moving furniture in.”
Abigail couldn’t see how a sweater and a pair of trousers could be construed as overdressed. “It’s not like I’m wearing a ball gown and pearls.”
“Okay.”
“I didn’t have anything else that was clean,” she admitted.
“Okay.”
“I have to go to the laundromat. I’m going tomorrow.”
“Okay.”
“I shouldn’t have to explain myself.”
“Okay.”
“Now you’re placating me.”
“I’m trying.”
“Stop.”
Nat motioned at the dining chair she’d brought up. “You started without me?”
“It was a trial run. The basement stairwell is fairly tight, and the one to the second floor is even tighter.”
“We can manage.”
His optimism surprised her. The normally surly Nat was undaunted, while she was ready to throw in the towel. Abigail hoped he wasn’t underestimating the project the way she’d underestimated him.
They descended into the basement, where he appraised the stairs from the bottom. “Small, but somebody got the pieces down here. Which means we can get them back up. They’re actually in decent shape,” he remarked, studying the writing desk.
“You’re familiar with antiques?” Abigail asked, careful not to act shocked. She didn’t want to let what she’d learned about Nat slip, yet she wasn’t inclined to be excessively kind to him either.
“A bit.”
“I can’t understand why somebody left them here, in a musty, dank basement.”
“People hide things for a whole bunch of reasons.”
“Who said the furniture was hidden?”
“Hiding it, storing it, whatever.” Nat got on the other side of
the desk. “We should do the heavy pieces first. You ready?”
Abigail was stuck on the notion that the furniture had been hidden intentionally.
“You’ve heard about the, um…How should I put this?”
“Ghost? Yeah. And? You didn’t fall for that story, did you? That’s just the local yokels trying to pull one over on ya.”
“Right. Of course.”
His dismissal made Abigail feel less apprehensive about what they were going to do, although only marginally.
“Ready?” Nat repeated. “Push that wingback chair over and we’ll angle the desk toward the stairs.”
While he removed the drawers, Abigail shimmied the wingback out of their path. Together they moved the desk to the foot of the steps.
“Turn it the opposite way,” he instructed.
“Which direction?”
“In line with the stairs, not perpendicular to them.”
Hearing Nat say perpendicular struck her. Abigail could tell that level of language suited him more than his regular style of speaking. What she respected about language was that it was like a puzzle—crossword rather than jigsaw. It provided a frame and lots of clues for understanding people. There was a distinct possibility Nat was dumbing himself down in order to fit in with the Chapel Isle men he socialized and worked with.
“What?”
Abigail was staring at him, waiting to hear him speak again and confirm her theory.
“Nothing, nothing,” she said, covering.
“Let’s switch places. You go high. I’ll go low. You’ll have to walk backward, but I’ll take most of the weight. This desk isn’t light, so tell me if you need to rest.”
For a change, Nat wasn’t insulting her. He was being honest.
She got into position and they lifted the writing desk in unison. Nat grabbed the legs to steady the load, while Abigail gripped the lip of the desktop. They had three stairs to go when Abigail’s fingers started to slip.
“I’m losing it.”
“We can make it.” He inched the desk higher against his chest, rebalancing.
“It’s going to fall.”
“No, it won’t.”