A Field Guide to Deception (4 page)

Two days later, Liv's hands were bleeding. She'd finished the run along the driveway, and now had only the front of the property left to fence. At the riverbank, she lay on the grass, held her hands in the water, and squinted as cigarette smoke burned her eyes. Suddenly he was on her back, heavy and painful, with his knee in her spine. She rolled over and clutched him to her, her cigarette flung away. “Simon. Simon.”

Claire had grilled asparagus and fish with lemon and butter and roasted garlic. She hadn't noticed Liv's hands until they were washing up, Simon asleep under the table.

In the following flurry, Liv found herself seated at the kitchen table, her hands deep in a basin of warm water and Epsom salt. Claire's lecture was magnificent. It had a thesis and sub-points and a magnanimous conclusion: “We're taking the weekend off. You and I have been working like slaves, and it's over. We'll hike and eat and play with Simon. No research or tools or mending of anything. Promise me.”

“I promise.”

“You're not allowed to injure yourself again. Promise.”

Laughing now, this woman so beautifully earnest, Liv said, “Yes. I promise.” She couldn't stop grinning—high—poisoned maybe, by lingering fumes from the stain, or some toxin in the fish, or the river water.

Claire lugged the child from beneath the table, carried him away to
bed, and then returned to pour each of them another glass of wine.

“Tell me about your trip,” Liv said.

Claire had thrown rocks into the river with Simon, and walked along the trails, watching butterflies. They'd collected sticks and roasted marshmallows, and she had avoided mushrooms by focusing her considerable attention on the child. At night, she'd told him stories about the stars. When he fell asleep, she wished for Liv. Pressing her jacket tightly around her, she'd wished she weren't alone.

I missed you, she wanted to say to this woman soaking her hands in Epsom salt. I missed you, and I don't know what to do with that. “I haven't taken a research trip without my aunt, ever.”

A fly had gotten into the kitchen; she could hear it buzzing against the screen door. After she let it out, she said, “Fourteen years.” She might have been talking to the fly, or the door. She sat and added, “practically my entire adult life. I worked with her, and lived here in this house, and obsessed about mushrooms for fourteen years. She's dead and the work is five chapters from over, but I'm still here.” Water sloshed in the basin as Liv shifted; they watched until the water stilled. “The normal, daily parts are hardest: meals, and grocery shopping, and reading to Simon. All the things that haven't changed.”

Twenty when she agreed to work as her aunt's assistant, Claire hadn't expected to keep the job long, had accepted her aunt's proposal only because she thought no one would ever search for her in Spokane. Spokane: where the world ended.

“Look at this place,” Claire said, and swept her arm back to take the entire L of the house in. “I missed it. I missed this sad refrigerator—that shade is called pimento, if you can believe it—and the wood paneling in the basement, and that shitty linoleum in the bathroom.” She shook her head. “I was only gone for three days.”

“Just imagine how much you'll miss it when we gut the place,” Liv said. “Maybe we should leave one room completely intact as a shrine to seventies décor.”

Claire laughed, put her feet in Liv's lap, and leaned her chair back. When Liv didn't object, Claire laughed again. Enough of shrines, she thought.

Five

An intrusion in the dark

Claire woke, alert and listening, just as she had during Simon's infancy. Had he cried out? She crept to the doorway and peered into his room. He lay perpendicular to his bed, his arms dangling. She tucked him in properly, listened to the depth of his breathing.

Three in the morning, she guessed. She wandered to the kitchen for a glass of water, heard the whir of the refrigerator, and something else. Strangely watchful now, as though she expected an intruder, she tiptoed into the great room. No one here. She paced through the last of the stately furniture—soon to be replaced by comfortable, plush sofas—and walked along the line of photographs documenting the construction of this stone house, and stepped over several bins of toys. A thief would break his neck. In the dining room, Claire checked beneath the walnut dining table, in the corner by the hutch, and finally the lock on the sliding door.

What had she heard? At the top of the stairs to the basement, on the metal strip that edged the carpet, she stood and listened. Ridiculous. A grown woman frightened—her pulse rapid—at the thought of descending. She even considered flipping the light on. In the end, she dashed down the basement stairs and stood in the dark, gasping, as she tried to decipher her sense of alarm.

When had she last been in Dee's study? She touched the desk, remembered that she hadn't yet searched through this room for the missing research. Probably dusty—the papers, the books, the windowsill—probably everything in this room had dust on its surface. Or worse, centipedes, and poisonous spiders, and if they were here, they could be
in the rest of the house. She'd have to clean. Now. The entire basement. She'd vacuum first, and obliterate the worst of the infestation. Mice—maybe mice had woken her with their skittering.

In the utility closet, she grabbed the duster, and started with the windowsills. She vacuumed, and scrubbed, and emptied the garbage cans, and ran back upstairs to make pancakes when she heard movement above her, and then left Liv and Simon to their sticky devouring, only to run back downstairs, to stand in the middle of the shag carpet, and contemplate the paneled walls. It looked like a country lodge down here. There should be mounted heads of horned creatures.

“Hey,” Liv called from the basement door, “you're not allowed to do any work. Remember?”

Startled, Claire turned toward Liv as though toward laughter.

Liv came down the stairs, “What's going on?”

“I don't know what I'm doing here. There's something—something I'm supposed to do, but I have no idea what. I'm just standing here, waiting for an answer.”

Liv considered the disarray in the sad, paneled room. “Maybe it's the book. Maybe you feel guilty about playing hooky.”

“Maybe.”

“Maybe it's the décor in here.”

“I know. It's so grim.”

“Or maybe you just need to be outdoors. Let go a little.”

“Let go?” Claire asked.

“It's what all the kids are doing.”

“Right, the kids. I nearly forgot.”

“Don't worry,” Liv said, “I'll help you remember.”

“Now why would that worry me?”

They drove Claire's car to Riverside State Park, played Norah Jones to appease Simon; he'd decided no other artists existed. After crossing the swinging bridge above the river, they picked up the trail, rutted and loping and easy enough for Simon. Pockets filled with treasures, Simon would dart down to the river to hurl stones, then catch the women up again, gasping for breath, his face euphoric. Liv collected stick-swords for him and they battered rocks as they passed. Cyclists
hurled through, their bikes wrenched by stones and roots on the pathway. And dogs, off lead, sprinted down the trail and into the water, the light around them smoky.

In her backpack, Claire carried water bottles, and spicy jerky. She had chocolate Sundrops for Simon as well. Ahead of her, Liv walked in sandals, her calves flexing during quick scrambles, her shoulders browning, unprotected by the thin straps of her orange tank top.

“Maybe it's grief,” Liv said.

“You mean this morning?”

“Yes.”

Claire ignored this. To their right, the river tore past in frothy pitches. Why should having a child make her feel so much more alone? But it was true, Simon put her solitude into relief and it hurt her now. Her solitude hurt her.

From the front of a raft, a woman screamed as the raft shot down the rapids beyond them. They heard the scream bend.

“Fun,” Claire said, the brim of her hat pulled too low to see Liv properly. Away from the house, she'd expected to outdistance the strange nagging, but she could feel it out here too. Liv's interruption bothered her, called her mind into focus.

“I've rafted here,” Liv said. “It's too short, over too quickly.”

The trail wound through a stretch of burn. Claire watched Simon jump over a charred log. Grief, her stubborn mind said. Maybe it's grief. She had never worried while her aunt was alive. Never thought she'd be alone with a three-year-old. How did this happen? A morning jog, and you're dead: a body in the snow. Among the burn, dozens of saplings poked through the litter.

Simon slept on a towel from her pack; Claire and Liv reclined against a log. Along the little beach were smooth white stones of various sizes, and pieces of driftwood. Liv's feet were bare; her shirt bunched behind her head.

“What do your tattoos mean?” Claire asked.

“Nothing. They're just designs.”

“Are they Polynesian?”

“That's right.”

“So they're symbols without meaning?”

“They aren't symbols, just designs.”

“I think maybe it was grief,” Claire said.

Liv looked at her. She tore into a piece of jerky and passed the bag to Claire. Claire had meant to say more. From the trees: birdsong. Light dappled the water.

“How is it you're in Spokane?” Liv asked.

“How is it anyone's here? Isn't that really the question? It seems like people end up here on their way someplace else.”

“So, how is it you ended up here?”

Claire pushed her hat up, and said, “I came here when I was twenty. Working for my aunt was just this temporary thing that lasted for fourteen years. Why are you here?”

Liv lit a cigarette, stretched her body out, “I have no idea really. I was living in Portland and then I thought it wasn't good for me. One morning, I packed my shit and drove here.”

“You have family here?”

“Not anymore. Most of my friends have moved away.”

Claire drank water and swatted at a mosquito. “Why wasn't Portland good for you?”

Beyond Liv's feet, the water snagged. Pine trees leaned overhead.

“Portland is too close to my family,” Liv said.

“That's me and Seattle.”

“But with Simon, wouldn't it be worth the trouble?”

“Not for either of our sakes. Dee was the only family I ever got along with.” Claire grabbed a handful of rocks, and skipped them across the river, four five six times.

On the shag carpet in her aunt's study, Claire sat cross-legged, chin in her hand, and fumed. It was two in the morning, and she'd felt that nagging alarm again. Why was she awake and in this room? What was she meant to do? She would finish the bloody field guide. She'd find the notes and finish, and no one would ever guess there had been
entire days when she'd stared at her keyboard and not written a sentence. No one would ever know.

This room was a hideous beast. Brown in every direction, like being buried alive. Maybe instead of starting with the kitchen, Liv should gut the basement. Would the nagging—and this sense of claustrophobia—vanish with the paneling? Claire waited, listening, and still nothing came to her.

In the dark, she climbed the stairs, walked through the cold stone rooms, and stood on the deck. She could hear the river and the rustle of leaves. As she debated whether or not to give sleep up, and work for a while, headlights cut through the night. Liv's truck crawled down the gravel road to her camper. For a moment, Claire considered calling out, but remembered she only had on boxers, so withdrew, instead, to the house. Her curiosity about Liv deepened with every step.