Ashes (21 page)

“I’m sorry.”

“Don’t be. But I do think it’s a tale for another time. I’ll tell you this, though, Jennifer.” He folded his hands together, looked down at them. When he looked back up at her, his eyes, usually so merry, were grave. “Sometimes doing what you need to do — doing what’s right — means leaving things behind. Even things that you love.”

“Go on,” Mr. Bradbury said that afternoon. “I’ll lock up.”

“You sure?”

“Positive. You look exhausted. Go home and get some sleep.”

She stopped protesting and walked outside, heading to her car. As she walked down the library steps, she heard a man’s voice say, “Ms. Thomson?”

“Yes?” She turned and saw Gene standing there. He had clearly stopped by his home on the way from his boat. Instead of boots and jeans he wore cords, scuffed loafers, and a turtleneck. He was dressed to make a good impression, but not a romantic one; this felt more like a job interview. He wore a navy pea coat that for some reason made her think of the Old Spice TV commercials they showed when she was a kid. She got a quick flash of Gene walking along the street, whistling that stupid Old Spice jingle, and she bit the inside of her cheek to keep from giggling. Gene didn’t look in a giggling mood.

“I wanted to apologize for what I said the other day,” he said. “You wanted to help and I was rude to you.”

“That’s OK.”

He shook his head. “It’s not. You probably think I don’t want to help Matthew. I do. I wanted to talk to you about him. Can we?”

She nodded. “Can we go sit down somewhere? It’s been a long day.”

“Sure, I know a place close by.”

* * *

F
our blocks from the library was a tavern called the Blue Moose. It didn’t look terribly appealing, at least from the sidewalk. The logo of the Blue Moose had faded from bright blue to a pastel shade, the door was in need of a paint job, grass grew through the cracks in the sidewalk. She hung back a moment, and Gene turned to look at her. “It’s nicer on the inside than the outside,” he said. “Trust me.”

She did, and was glad. Inside, the Blue Moose was the sort of tavern she knew and liked, comfortable upholstered seats and dark wood accents, lamps with green glass shades. By the cash register were two chalkboards, one with the day’s specials, the other with some important admonitions:
No spitting, no cursing, no lying (fish stories excluded), no Newfie jokes.
In one corner was a pool table, where two men, one of whom she recognized as the harbormaster, stood playing. The rest of the place was full of tables, and most of those tables were full of people.

Gene seemed to be a regular here. At least, the waitress knew him. “Hi Gene,” she said. “How’s life?”

“Not bad, Kristy,” he said. “Is there a deuce in the back open? I need to be able to hear myself talk.”

“Straight on to the back. I’ll be by in a minute.”

They settled themselves in the deuce booth and when the waitress came by, ordered coffee. When the waitress left Gene said, “Sure you don’t want anything else? I’ll buy.”

“I’m fine. And no offense, but let’s keep it dutch for now.”

Their coffee arrived. Gene stirred his meditatively for a moment. “I’m sorry that I got so upset the other day. What I said, about, you know, not being able...” He sighed, ran a hand through his thinning hair. “It’s not something I go around telling people. I cover my tracks pretty good. But that’s not what I want for Matthew. And I felt so...ashamed.”

“Of Matthew?”

“No!” There was a peculiar tension in his voice she thought might be anger. “No. Ashamed of me. For letting him down.” His light blue eyes seemed to almost glow. No, that tension was not anger but love. “You have to understand, Matthew’s everything to me. We lost his mother and ... there’s no one else in my life. I can’t let him down. I have to help him. And I need your help to do that.”

Jennifer thought of her own father, a ghost during the weekdays, only present at dinnertime. Busy with golf on Saturday, TV sports on Sunday. He left when she was five, and she could honestly say she barely noticed. There had been none of this devotion she saw in Gene’s eyes, this almost ferocious love. “What can I do?” she asked.

“It’s a lot to ask, but would you tutor him?”

Jennifer felt her jaw drop. “I don’t think I can do that. I mean, I don’t have any training. I didn’t even finish college.”

“Like I said, I know it’s a lot to ask. But I talked with Matthew and he said it would help a lot if he could learn from you.”

“Why me?”

“He said you were really nice. He thought for sure you were going to yell at him when you caught him messing up the book, but you didn’t. He really likes you.” Gene shrugged, seeming to imply that he wasn’t so sure, but was willing to trust his son’s judgment. “I can’t pay you a whole lot.”

“You don’t have to pay me.”

“I want to. I don’t like taking charity, not unless I really have to.”

“You could bring me some salmon.”

“Whole thing or fillets?”

“Fillets please. I can’t eat food that looks back at me.”

“So, do we have a deal?”

“I’ll do my best. I’ve never done anything like this before, so I can’t make any promises.” She thought frantically. Where to begin, where to begin. “Give me a week so I can get some materials and stuff. Mr. Bradbury can probably point me in the right direction. And then we can set something up.”

“Maybe he could come to the library after school?”

“Sure. And I could drop him off when I head home. You’re not far from the harbor, are you?”

“No, not far at all.”

They sat silent, drinking their coffee, for a few moments. She wondered if she should ask. What the hell, why not? “Just tell me one thing first. How did you know who I was?”

“From your picture. The one ... well, you know.”

Oh yes, she knew. How long was all that going to hang over her? Coming up on a year now and people still saw her not as Jennifer but as the girl in the picture. Was she going to be stuck with that for the rest of her life, like a scar?

Probably.

“I’m—” he began.

“It’s all right.” She cut him off. She’d help his son, but Gene himself was another matter. If he had a problem with her for some reason, let him deal with it. “I’ll talk to you and we’ll set something up, OK?”

“Great. Thank you,” he said. He smiled, she was surprised to see that his smile was like Matthew’s; fleeting and sweet, like a ray of sun on a gloomy day.

* * *

M
r. Bradbury came through, as she’d known he would. She told him the situation, and went to shelve a cartful of fiction. When she came back, there was a list of books waiting for her, as well as information about home schooling and tutoring programs. If only the rest of it would be so easy.

“Tell me,” she asked later that morning as she made out the list of people who needed letters tactfully reminding them to return their overdue books. “When did Gene Tally’s wife die?”

Mr. Bradbury gave her a quizzical frown. “Gene told you Rebecca was dead?”

“Well, no, not in so many words.” At the same time she realized that Gene had not spoken his wife’s name. “It kind of sounded that way, from what he said.” Jennifer, again, felt like an idiot. Gene seemed to have a knack for making her feel that way.

Mr. Bradbury shook his head. “Gene and Rebecca are divorced. Two, maybe three years now. Gene and Matthew both took it badly.”

Jennifer waited for details, but none were forthcoming. She knew that if she had asked, even if she had promised scones and cookies, Mr. Bradbury would say nothing. She wasn’t surprised. After all, she thought with a faint smile, you could take Mr. Bradbury out of the priesthood, but you couldn’t take the priesthood out of Mr. Bradbury.

* * *

S
uzanne Delacroix gave her the full story. Jennifer dropped by on Saturday afternoon with a plate of chocolate mint brownies, thinking that Suzanne’s day care kids would like them, and that they might help coax the story out of Suzanne.

But Suzanne needed no coaxing. “I’m surprised you haven’t heard about Gene and Becca. It’s kind of a famous story around here.”

“What happened?”

Suzanne looked around instinctively for little pitchers, but it was just her and Jennifer in the kitchen. “Becca is what happened. That woman was a bitch and a half if I ever saw one.”

“You’re kidding.” Jennifer was instantly intrigued; it was the first unpleasant thing she’d heard Suzanne say about anyone.

Suzanne shook her head violently, sending her red-brown curls swinging. “Becca came up here on a vacation, I think. Something like that. Anyway, near as people can tell, she was from a sophisticated family, or at least they had money. But apparently she thought a blue-collar guy would be more exciting. Like the way some women have a thing for firemen or cops. And pretty soon she latched onto Gene. And he fell hard for her.” Suzanne shrugged. “Who could blame him? Becca was beautiful. The sort of beautiful you usually see in the movies. She must have looked like a goddess to him. That’s the way he treated her, by all accounts. Bill’s office is near the harbor and he said that every day Gene would get off his boat and buy flowers for Becca from that florists’ shop there.

“I don’t know too many details. I don’t know Gene all that well and even if I did, God knows he wouldn’t talk about it. But the story is that things started getting rocky after Matthew was born.”

“Rocky how?”

“I’m guessing money. Gene doesn’t make a whole lot, and Becca didn’t want to work. Plus they were from such different worlds. Speaking as a married lady, let me assure you that hot jungle lust can only keep things going for so long. After that, you’d better find things about each other you like, if you haven’t already. But whatever the reasons, Becca loaded up a truck with everything that wasn’t nailed down and took off. And I don’t just mean her things. She took stuff Gene inherited from his parents, some of Matthew’s toys — anything she thought she could get money for, really. I heard she even took the ice cube trays.”

“She wasn’t a woman, she was the Grinch.”

Suzanne laughed, the laugh of someone who knows things aren’t funny, not really. “It gets better. She changed the locks on the doors. So that afternoon, Becca’s hightailed it off to God knows where, and the school bus drops Matthew off.” Suzanne scowled. “Why that bus driver didn’t make sure Matthew got in the house OK....but poor Matthew knocks at the door, thinking his Mom’s going to be there. And she’s not. Matthew’s a smart kid, he finds the spare key. It doesn’t work.”

Jennifer sat, openmouthed, cold inside. How could anyone do a thing like that? Leaving, she could understand. Taking her own things, no problem. Taking everything, and then leaving your five-year-old child to wait and wonder where his mommy was? “That was absolutely cruel.”

“I second that emotion,” Suzanne said, clinking her coffee mug against Jennifer’s. “So Gene comes home, finds Matthew scared to death and crying. Gene had to break into his own house, and of course found Becca gone. Along with everything else. Mrs. Sanders, who lived next door, said that night she could see Gene, walking back and forth, just holding Matthew in his arms. Said they both looked like ghosts.”

They both fell silent. There was nothing to say. Jennifer wondered where it came from, this cruelty people could indulge in. How could someone plant a bomb and snuff out hundreds of lives and justify it in the name of whatever cause they counted dear? How could a woman leave the man she had wed and the child she had borne, in such a cold way, calculated to hurt them? Was there something wrong with these people, or was such evil in every human heart, only waiting for the right circumstances?

No, not in my heart, don’t let it be in me.
And yet, what would she do if she could confront whoever had blown up the federal building? Would she ask for blood in return for those lost lives? If she saw Rebecca Tally now, would she exact revenge for the damage she’d done to Matthew?
I don’t know.

“Pardon?” Suzanne asked.

“What?”

“You said something.”

“Oh.” She must have said
I don’t know
aloud. Well, there was one thing she wanted to know. “Do you know if Becca was from California?”

Suzanne thought for a moment. “Now that I think of it, she was. San Francisco, I believe. How’d you know?”

“Lucky guess,” Jennifer said.

S
ean caught the scent of Blaine’s Christmas tree farm before he saw it, the clean aroma of pine. About five miles outside Du Lac’s city limits, it was bordered by a high chain-link fence, presumably to keep people from helping themselves to a free tree. A sign over the main gate read:
Evergreen Farm Christmas Trees,
with a smaller sign below,
Merry Christmas all year long!
Beside the main gate, a building painted to look like a red barn, Christmas lights around the roof’s edge. He parked the van, got out to open the main gate, and took a moment to look over the building. The windows were all shuttered.
Cashier
read a sign over one window;
Refreshments
over another. The menu was still up. Coffee, cocoa, hot apple cider. Brownies and caramel apples. Treats to induce holiday spirits and keep the kids from getting too whiny. He drove through, closed the gate behind him, and drove up the well-maintained dirt road. He might have been on asphalt, the drive was so smooth.

On both sides of the road he saw rows of trees, some young, some that would be draped with lights and tinsel next Christmas. Then the road curved and he was at Richard Blaine’s house. Sean suspected that Blaine made good money; his farm seemed to be prosperous enough, and Blaine himself did not have the tenseness of a man living on the edge of his means. But the house was a one-story, simple and unpretentious. It would be beautiful come spring, if the many flowerbeds and rose canes he saw gave any indication. Who would have suspected that the plans for the Los Angeles bombing had been laid in such a pretty place?

A horse’s whinny startled him. At the rear of the house Sean could see a small stable and corral. Poking their heads out of the stable windows were two horses; the brown one he’d seen Blaine ride on New Year’s Day, and a smaller palomino. As he got out of his van he saw that he was not alone. Doug MacReady was here already, leaning against his truck and looking at the horses.