The Return

by Margaret Guthrie

Lydia had forgotten how cold the little bedroom could get. Its one register that allowed heat to come up from below was like a spoon dipping into the lake to drain it. It brought to mind those cold days in Chicago when Uncle Ted and Aunt Nora took them to the ice-skating pond near Lake Michigan and to the Museum of Science and Industry. They were so bundled up in heavy coats and pants, mittens and hats that falling down was about as fun as skating. She never did get much past learning to keep her ankles straight and a few stiff-legged strides that took her across the ice in a random, uncontrolled path. She hadn’t gotten past being a menace.

  Now she was bundled up in a heavy comforter, trying to tuck it around her cross-legged sitting position so she could meditate. It wasn’t the best arrangement, she’d have to adjust it tomorrow. Ice was forming on the window, making frost patterns inside that used to put her into fantasies of frozen forests and ice-maiden lands where everything was white and silvery and sculptured. Sculptures could be changed, chiseled a little here and a little there, making an entirely different object. Kind of like human beings, Lydia thought, that change over the years as experience chisels us here and there until what we are is not what we were.

  Gradually her body warmed and the thick comforter pulled up around her neck became heavy, but still she sat in the dark with her eyes closed and let her mind calm until it became an almost sleep, in an almost other place which was dark and still. In this place she started walking slowly, reaching out like a blind person, her fingers touching a cool rough surface; brick she determined. A brick wall. It guided her in the dark toward something that filled her with fear. Some unknown danger ahead, some unknown threat. She was suddenly jerked out of the almost sleep to a startled wakefulness of wide open eyes. Of course it was dark, quite dark in the room, as dark as it had been outside, along that wall. It was the dead of night. The thought stopped her. Dead of night. She shivered.

  This wasn’t the meditation she was expecting. Not at all. Maybe she was just tired—the trip, the weather, the house, the different location, the absence of the usual group chanting after work was done, just before going to her small room at the Ranch, which until now she hadn’t realized had really been heated. Such was the efficiency of the straw-bale building that Randy Taylor had them build, she decided. She’d put that in her report tomorrow, if they got the computer up and running.

  Lydia was about to throw off her covers, now that she was wide awake, and pull out something to read, when she heard a scratching at the door and a muffled meow. “OK, Sid,” she whispered as she crept to the door and opened it. “I’ll let you in tonight, but let’s not make a habit of this.” He streaked in past her and slid under the bed as if he’d seen a ghost—or something. It raised goose-bumps on her arms. Or maybe she was just cold. She found the switch by the door—it seemed a lot lower than she remembered it, and turned on the overhead light, not exactly blasting the room with light from its 60 watt bulb, but at least giving enough to find some socks and a book of poems to take back under the covers with her. Another matter to take care of tomorrow, or as soon as possible—get a reading lamp near the bed. She left the door open a crack, hoping Sid would go on down to his own bed. But soon he crawled out and jumped up, purring and rubbing her arm, as if she had rescued him from some nightmare. Again she attributed it to the move, the new place. Why not?

  It was daylight when next she woke, to her surprise. Sid was gone, the ceiling light was on, and a smell of coffee drifted up from below. How long had Margie been up? She felt guilty. Her watch said eight o’clock. She pulled on sweat pants and shirt and padded down the stairs, opened the closed door. Closed door. They had closed it when they came upstairs for bed. Hadn’t they? So how did Sid get it open for his trip upstairs?

  It was the first question she asked Margie. The first words out of her mouth. No good-morning. Just “Didn’t we close that door last night?”

  Margie looked at her, pan of hot oatmeal in her mittened hand, about to take it to the table. “I suppose. Why?”

  “Well, then, did Sid open it? He climbed in bed with me sometime in the middle of the night.”

  “Not if it were latched tight.” Margie laughed. “And he was down here when I got up. A light sleeper I’d say, your cat.”

  Lydia began to wonder. Had he seen a ghost? Mother, she said to herself. What mischief are you up to? Opening doors for Sid? None of this would she mention to Margie. “Yeah,” she answered and headed for the bathroom. Then she remembered the brick wall dream. Nor that, she added.

  “I’ve hired Jake to clear the driveway,” Margie announced when Lydia returned to the kitchen, dressed in grey sweats with a blue and white neckerchief serving as a collar. “He’s got a small tractor with a blade, he said, and will give it a zip after he clears the school drives. I presume that will be soon, since the buses are already over there with their kids.”

  “Gosh, how many inches did we get?” Lydia went to the living room windows which looked out toward the school. The sun was so bright on the snow that it hurt her eyes. It sparkled like diamonds thrown carelessly and capriciously over it. By noon they would no doubt be gone, trampled into snow angels, or circles for games of stop and go.

  “About six, I guess. Not enough to close the school.” Margie came over to stand beside Lydia and watch the gaiety of kids tramping up the steps and into the school building where they had spent their first few years. “Low enrollment, though, is going to close the school. Sherrie said this might be the last year. Then they’ll be bused to Delora. What they’ll do with the buildings I don’t know.” Margie headed back to the kitchen. “Hey, ready for some coffee?”

  “Sure.” Lydia followed. “Seems like you’re depending a lot on Jake, who knows what happened, Margie. And who’s not too happy we’re back.” Lydia saw Margie’s back stiffen and immediately wished she hadn’t said that. Margie turned, gave Lydia a hurt look, then moved on to the stove where she began to pour coffee into two mugs.

  “He’s all we have at the moment, Lydia. He knows this house and what used to be the farm before it was sold off, better than we do.” Margie handed her a steaming mug and took her own to the table. “Help yourself to the oatmeal.”

  “I guess you’re right. Grandma and Grandpa surely depended on him. And Jake’s father, too. I just find it ironic that he’s the one we’re going to have to work through, or with. The one who can tell us or not tell us what we want to know.”

  “We’re going to meet others, too,” Margie said. “We’re going to meet the other four that were there That Night and some who weren’t. I mean, everyone in New Hope knows everyone else, so we need to be careful and friendly and treat everyone with respect and not hurry into questions about the past.” She had her hands around the mug and her arms tucked into her sides in reaction to the chill in the house.

  Lydia dipped oatmeal into a bowl, brought it over and set it in front of Margie. “You are going to eat this, aren’t you? After fixing it?” Margie gave a distracted grunt which Lydia took as a yes, then filled a bowl for herself.

  “We can go over to Delora soon and get the groceries we need,” Margie said. “The store here in town doesn’t carry much and they charge an arm and a leg.” She sighed. “I’m going to miss those big shopping centers.”

  “I never liked Jake and his father,” Lydia blurted out, remembering something that sent a small shiver through her. It was a vague something, a look perhaps, a grin maybe, a tease, something that big boys enjoyed and little girls did not.

  “You didn’t?” Marge stirred milk and sugar into her oatmeal. “Something happen you haven’t told me?”

  “Remember the last time we were here that summer it happened?” Lydia asked. “They were both out in back, near the tool shed, I think.” Lydia squinted her eyes, thinking, concentrating on an image. “They looked over at me and laughed. It scared me. Why were they laughing? Because I was little? I must have run inside, but
I never told anyone. I didn’t want to cause any trouble.”

  “Oh, boys liked to tease you Lydia, because you were so easy to scare. It was fun for them. That’s all.” Margie flicked her hand as if shooing away a fly.

  Lydia looked at her in astonishment. “How can you stick up for them? It wasn’t fun for me! It was sexual...somehow.” Lydia felt suddenly deflated, embarrassed, confused. “You think it’s all right to be teased for being a girl?” She just couldn’t accept Margie’s dismissal.

  “Oh, Lydia. Boys tease because they can get a reaction. Men, too. It’s their way of puffing themselves up. I wasn’t a tomboy, but I could tag boys about as good as they could tag me, and I could win a few hand wrestles, too. You just ran off.”

  Maybe she was right. It was Margie, after all, that Lydia ran to some-times when she got a skinned knee or some other hurt. Margie, not Mother. Margie was available. Lydia relaxed somewhat but found herself turning the spoon in her hand over and over as if studying it would settle her mind, and emotions.

  Margie looked over at her as if to check if she were all right before she started on her next thought. “I want to know what you think of this, from Sherrie.” She paused, studied her coffee. “About those that were in the gym that night Mom and Dad were killed. She thinks they are still afraid they might be charged with something.”

  “Oh? I thought the case was closed, that Dale Harris admitted to attacking them. In that letter the newspapers mentioned that he wrote from Vietnam.”

  “He didn’t admit to killing them, though. He just said he was sorry if he had hurt them. Like he didn’t know they’d died. Maybe he never knew. Maybe he died without knowing.”

  “But the others knew.”

  “Sure, and it took a while for them to tell the sheriff.”

  “Well, I guess I’d be scared too if someone I was with did what Dale Harris did. But I’d like to know why they ran away and let our parents lie there and die.”

  “And how they got away with not being charged as accomplices.”

  “So, if they’re still feeling guilty about the whole thing maybe they’re afraid we’ll try to get them charged, even now?” Lydia leaned down and petted Sid who had come over and was now rubbing her legs and purring so hard he vibrated. Purring as if he wanted to enter the conversation, tell about that door, maybe. Tell them about what he had encountered in the dark of night.

  “All I want is the truth,” Margie said in a way that reminded Lydia of her project for The Ranch and the question Mr. Taylor had asked her. What is truth?

  “If the truth is so charged with horror and guilt how does one start to talk about it?” Lydia asked, blowing on her oatmeal, steaming still.

  Margie frowned as she considered the question. “Well, we’re not here to be their personal therapists, that’s for sure.”

  “Maybe we’ll have to start with the friends of Mom and Dad’s that are still around. They’ll surely tell us what they know. Like Pearl Palmer, the sheriff’s wife, who still teaches here. Fifth grade, I think.”

  “Such faith you have, Lydia.”

  “We may find people want to talk. If there’s unfinished business.” She was thinking of her mother, but maybe it was not so far off to think others still living had not had closure, as they now called it. She got up and stirred Sid’s dry food. He wasn’t eating, she didn’t know why. He came over and sniffed, tried it again. She stayed awhile as he chewed a few of the niblets, then went back to the table.

  “The sheriff died several years ago,” Margie said, thinking about Pearl. “Is that why she still teaches? I mean, she must be in her sixties, maybe?” Margie spooned oatmeal into her mouth, savoring the taste of cinnamon and raisins.

  “Maybe she just likes kids,” Lydia said.

  “Maybe,” Margie agreed, then changed the subject. “Sherrie’s really nice, Lydia. She’ll help get people to talk to us, until she leaves. Lots of people come in for things they want printed up—flyers, church bulletins, Christmas letters, Newsletters. And she’s very good at helping them with layout. You know, what gets noticed. What catches the eye. So in-between the business talk she gets their news about people. Who has what sickness. Who had visitors from out of town. Who is going where. Who came back from where. She’s like the barber or beauty operator.”

  “So she shares the gossip?” Lydia made a face. Gossip was discouraged at the Ranch. But in this case, it could be useful. She wouldn’t scorn it too much, anyway.

  Margie shrugged. “She’s friendly. Anyway, you might want to know why she wants us to learn the business and take it over.” “Wait a minute. You said ‘us’? I didn’t come here to learn a business. I have to work up this course material.” Lydia struggled not to feel put upon but she knew her face betrayed her.

  “You’ll want to, Lydia. It will make a great place to meet these people in a casual way.” Margie smiled. It was maddening.

  Lydia pushed her empty bowl away and leaned on her elbows, bringing her hands up under her chin. She took a deep breath, then another, letting the oxygen clear out the sudden anger. “Perhaps,” she managed to say. Truth in interpersonal relationships, she reminded herself, might after all be something one could learn from gossip. Maybe Margie would be a help in sizing people up. Maybe she had the gumption to ask questions she would never think of asking. And she, Lydia, could write up the reports. She gave a little laugh. “We’re spies, Margie. Nancy Drew detectives.” And just what would they find out that would set her mother at ease?

  Margie humphed. “Yeah, right.”

  “So why does she want you to take over the business?” Lydia made sure she didn’t use the word ‘we.’

  “Oh. Her ex-husband wants to give their relationship another try. He has a trip to the Bahamas in mind.”

  Lydia looked at her skeptically. “You encourage that? Or is that what you wish Brad would do?”

  “Brad? You mean His Lordship the Judge?” Margie rolled her eyes. “Lydia, that man doesn’t want an unhappy, whiny woman weighing him down.”

  “And what about a demanding 17 year old daughter?” Lydia hadn’t seen her niece in many years, but pictures revealed her as a pretty, long-haired blonde, her perfect smile showing confidence, and from the many complaints Margie had voiced over the phone, a girl adept at manipulation.

  “Ha. Dianne gets what Dianne wants. She doesn’t have to demand.” Margie got up and took her dishes to the sink and started running water into a pan of suds. Lydia could almost see the sparks of anger and hurt rising from her like an erupting volcano.

  “I’m sorry, Margie.” Lydia thought about going over and putting an arm around her, but held back. She waited for the rest of what Margie wanted to say to come out.

  “You know what that little ingrate said? ‘You can’t make me live in that dump.’ Her favorite words, ‘you can’t make me.’ I’d just run away, she says.” Margie had tears streaking down her face and she just let them.

  “Is this the first time you’ve cried?” Lydia asked gently.

  Margie nodded. “I’ve been too ashamed,” she said, pulling her hands out of the water and wiping them and her face on the nearest towel.

  Lydia got up then and gave her that hug. “Nothing to be ashamed of, Margie. That’s a teen talking, remember. The identity searching teen. Didn’t we all go through it one way or another?” Lydia was listening to her words as if to someone else, thinking at the same time of the teens of thirty years ago, the ones they wanted to confront, to reprimand, to light into. The ones who took away their parents. The ones who now were adult parents. What could they be feeling? remembering?

  Margie was back in control, tears wiped away, smile back in place. “I’m sorry. Maybe some day Dianne will wake up and discover her father’s indulgences aren’t all she wants. That maybe she wants a mother’s love. Only, what if she just transfers that habit of getting everything she wants from her father to
her some day boyfriend or husband? That’s what worries me.” Margie, a wet cloth in her hand, busily wiped off the table, the stove, the counters, the refrigerator. Lydia stood and watched, becoming slightly amused.

  “Well, I guess you’re just going to scrub those men right out of this kitchen,” she commented with a slight crooked smile.

  “Oh,” Margie said, looking over at her, then laughing. “Right.”

  “So, when am I going to meet Sherrie?” Lydia noticed that Sid had wandered off, probably to get away from the sparks in the air.

  “Today, if you want. Unless the snow has closed her down. I’ll call.” Margie went to the phone on the kitchen wall next to the door into the living room. But before she could make the call, the sound of Jake’s snowplow on the drive made her decide to wait. The noise grew louder as he came closer to the back of the house and toward the garage. They could hear snow being blown onto the side of the house, as if angry children were pounding it with snowballs.

  A few minutes later Jake knocked at the kitchen door, having opened the porch door and come on in. Margie answered.

  “I’ll have to shovel the last bit, Miss Kinnen, up against the garage. Then I’ll be off. Only, I think you ought to know I’m not going to be able to use this snowplow anymore. It’s the school’s, and the school board doesn’t want it off their property. It’s not like you can’t do it yourself, though. You can probably get a small snow blower second-hand, you know. Don’t need a big machine like this. And of course you have to keep the sidewalk out in front clear. That’s where school kids walk all the time so it’s got to be done real early, by seven in the morning about. Now you’re living here, guess that’s up to you.” During this long talk, Margie had the kitchen door open letting in cold air from the porch. True, the storm windows were on, but that didn’t keep the cold out much. Margie seemed torn between inviting him in and standing there as they negotiated. Lydia was behind her trying to look busy.

  “But our contract,” Margie said, pulling her sweater close to her chin, and holding the door partly open. “Maybe you ought to come in and talk about this.”

  Jake wiped his boots on the mud rug but didn’t move to take them off. In his orange overalls over other clothes, he looked bulky but not any taller than Margie. He stepped in and Margie closed the door behind him. She offered him a cup of coffee and motioned toward a chair at the table, which he took.

  Lydia poured coffee into a mug and set it in front of him.

  Jake stared at her as if trying to figure out who she was, as if he should know but couldn’t quite place her. He watched her every move as she brought her own half-filled mug of coffee to the other side of the round table and settled in beside Margie. The gaze of those dark eyes made her skin crawl. Still, it wasn’t quite the same as that childhood recollection. There was apprehension in that look, no teasing, no smirch.

  “Who are you?” he asked, finally.

  “Lydia,” she answered. “The younger one.” She smiled inwardly, guiltily pleased with his discomfort.

  “Oh, yeah,” he said slowly, then brought the mug up to his lips and he looked over at Margie. “The contract.” He lowered his cup, balanced it in his left hand as he took off his cap and laid it on the table. “Frankly, Miss Kinnen, I’ve got enough to do at the school, and now you’re living in the house, seems to me you probably want to take care of things yourself. That’s what the tenants did. Now, I don’t mean I won’t be available if there’s a problem. Like with the furnace, or whatever...”

  Margie interrupted. “All right. But then the $50 we’ve been paying every month...”

  “Don’t need it. Starting April, you can just forget about it. Guess you’re getting the house ready to sell? I know an agent at Century 21 over in Delora. He’s the one they call on here, mostly. John Cramer’s the name. Tell him I suggested him if you call. Phone number’s in the book.” Jake downed his coffee and grabbed his hat, and swung around ready to get up.

  Margie looked flustered. Lydia could see she had questions. As did she. “So, we’re supposed to shovel the walk. And we can buy a blower where?”

  “Oh, I bet your friend Sherrie can tell you that. She gets all the sales notices to print up doesn’t she?” Jake stood and moved to the door. “Thanks for the coffee. Oh, there’s shovels in the garage. Want me to leave the door up for you? That’s what most people do. Not much stealing around here.” He had his hand on the doorknob and melting snow left puddles on the linoleum floor.

  “Yes,” Margie answered, and he was out the door, opening the porch door and down the two steps before she could say anything else. She turned to Lydia and sighed. “What was that all about?”

  “He’s scared of us, Margie. And he’s scared of someone on the school board, too.” Lydia said. “Where’s a rag?” She gestured toward the puddles.

  “Goodness. I didn’t bring any rags. Use those paper towels under the sink.” Margie looked beat, like she had lost a battle. Did she wilt like that with Brad? Truth in interpersonal relationships. She was getting material all right. Didn’t take long, once you began to notice, pay attention to how people interacted. She bent to her task of wiping up Jake’s footprints, the evidence of his being here. Only, she thought, that evidence will be remembered long after his footprints are gone.

  Chapter 4