Here Lies Linc (22 page)

I shifted uneasily in my seat. “Of course, this was considered quite a scandal back then,” Miss Raintree went on. “Especially in a small town, with Papa’s position in the community.” The wrinkle between her eyebrows deepened. “My mother had always been a very proper woman, all about appearances. She was horrified by the news and immediately decided I would go live with an acquaintance of hers in Wisconsin. She wanted my condition to be kept completely secret … and she wanted to find another family to take the child.”

She licked her lips and her eyelashes fluttered. “While Papa was hurt and disappointed by my behavior, he didn’t agree with Mother. He wanted us to raise the baby as our own. But several months before the child was due to be born, my father died of a heart attack. It came with no warning, out of the blue.”

Just like Dad
.

I think I must have made some kind of surprised noise that snapped Miss Raintree out of her storytelling trance, because suddenly she was turning to me, her eyes welling up with pain. “Without Papa, I had no choice but to give my son up, to the people I had been living with in Wisconsin—an older couple who were never able to have children of their own. The Crenshaws.”

Miss Raintree waited, watching my face for a reaction, but all I could do was stare back at her with my brain scrambling to catch up.
The Crenshaws
. What was she saying? This
couldn’t be right. This sad lady with her lonely old house, where trick-or-treaters were scared to ring the doorbell, was supposed to be Dad’s real mother? No way.

She swallowed and went on. “Our agreement was that I would go back home. I would make no claim on the child. I would never try to contact him. And in return, Mrs. Crenshaw would send me letters periodically about his progress.”

So that explained the note from the attic.
I apologize for breaking my promise and writing to you
.

Delaney was watching me too, I could tell. But I couldn’t meet her gaze, not even when Miss Raintree rose from the table and went over to an antique sideboard that stood against the wall. On the top of the sideboard was a wooden box, which she brought back to the table and set down in front of me. The lid was fancy, inlaid with flowers and vines made from chips of pearl.

“These letters have become my most treasured possessions,” Miss Raintree said as she lifted the lid. I leaned forward and peered inside. It was like peeking over the edge of a cliff.

A stack of fat envelopes, addressed from Verona, Wisconsin, to 266 Fulton Lane, waited for my next move. When I didn’t reach for the stack, Miss Raintree did it for me, gently pulling six or seven envelopes from the pile. Then she laid out the pages of stationery on the table—some had flowered borders, some were more formal in ivory, all of them filled with graceful script. There were photos too, one or two in every envelope. A baby with a rattle. A toddler in footie pajamas. A boy in a baseball uniform.

 … A geeky teenager in a graduation cap, his proud parents on either side.

It was the same picture I had found in our attic. It was Dad. Miss Raintree stepped back as I finally lifted one of the letters and skimmed its opening lines.

My fingers felt numb as I pulled another letter from the pile.

Miss Raintree was talking again. I looked up, dazed, from the pages in my hand. She had returned to her spot at the head of the table. “Ellen Crenshaw was the kindest of women,” she was saying. “I always knew she felt deeply for my situation. When Mrs. Crenshaw wrote that she had christened my son with the middle name of Raintree, I began to think that someday she would change her mind and tell him
the truth. And that he would come and find me. I’ve never given up hope. Even when Mrs. Crenshaw’s letters stopped coming.…”

“You wrote to her once,” I said. It had been so long since I’d spoken, my voice was hoarse.

“Yes.” She hesitated and bit her lip. “I broke our agreement, but I have to admit part of me was praying that your father would find my letter and begin to put the pieces together.”

“He did,” I told her.

Miss Raintree nodded slowly. “I’m sure it’s difficult for your father to make contact after all these years. But all I can do is keep praying that he’ll come so that I can ask for his forgiveness … and my goodness, Lincoln,” she exclaimed. She slid her hand toward me, across the dusty wood of the table. Her eyes shone with a joyful light. “Here you are!”

I knew it was cruel to leave her happiness hanging in the air. I knew I should take her hand or say something, but my mouth had filled with the taste of dust, and I could smell the mildew, sickening and sweet, rising from the worn Oriental carpets, seeping into my skin and my clothes. How was I supposed to tell her Dad was dead? And what did she expect from me? Did she expect me to jump up and give her a big hug and call her Grandma?

I had started to scrape the letters and pictures back into a messy pile. “Thank you,” I babbled. “Thanks for showing me these and telling me your story.” I rose awkwardly from the table, almost sending my chair toppling backward. Miss
Raintree looked up at me in shocked dismay. “I’m sorry,” I blurted out. “I think … I think I need a little fresh air.” I began edging toward the doorway. Delaney looked startled too. She was getting to her feet uncertainly.

“Will you come again soon?” Miss Raintree pleaded. “Will you talk to your father?”

“I …”

I couldn’t tell her the truth right now. I had to get out. “I’ll come again soon,” I said weakly. “I promise.” Then I turned and bolted. I could hear Delaney making apologies and saying goodbye behind me as I rushed through the house, trying to remember the way to my grandmother’s back door.

D
ELANEY ALMOST HAD TO JOG
to catch up with me on our walk back to the bus stop on Grand Avenue. She must have known that I might start bawling or something if I didn’t keep marching forward. She didn’t ask me to slow down.

“Linc,” she panted as she hurried along, “are you okay?”

I nodded, but I kept staring down at the sidewalk in front of my feet. She stayed quiet for another block before testing my spirits again. “You got yourself a grandma,” she said softly.

“Yep. I got a grandma, all right,” I finally said, slowing my pace. “Not exactly the model I would have ordered from the catalog, but I’m guessing in this case the no-returns policy applies.”

Delaney brushed off my meanness with a flip of her hand. “Oh, you’re just overwhelmed right now,” she reassured me. “Once you’ve had time to let this sink in, you’ll start to feel
better.” When I didn’t answer, Delaney kept musing on her own. “I
liked
her. She told you the truth, exactly like it happened, instead of trying to sugarcoat things because you’re a kid.… I even liked her house. All it needs is a good cleaning and a coat of paint or two.…”

Delaney ignored my skeptical look. We had made it to the bus stop. I flopped down on the metal bench and let my head loll back. Somehow I was surprised to see that the sky was the same bright blue as it had been an hour ago. To me it seemed like whole seasons had come and gone since we’d arrived on Fulton Lane. “But how am I supposed to go back there and tell her that her long-lost son is
dead
?” I moaned up at the branches overhead.

“It’ll be hard,” Delaney agreed as she sat down beside me. “That’s why you can’t wait too long. The longer you wait, the harder it’ll be.”

I sighed. “I can’t even imagine how Lottie’s going to react to all this.” The ugly scene in the attic flashed into my mind.

“Well, one thing’s for sure,” Delaney said, reaching down to give my hand a quick squeeze. “With the news you’ve got, I bet you won’t have any problem getting your mother to listen this time.”

I couldn’t help smiling. Delaney had actually held my hand, even if it lasted only a second or two. And she was right—this discovery about Dad’s real mother wasn’t the kind of thing Lottie could close up in some box in the attic.

I felt the tiniest ripple of excitement deep down in my chest. I’d always been jealous of kids who lived in the same
town with a whole pack of aunts and uncles and cousins and grandparents. Even if Adeline Raintree wasn’t the grandmother I would have ordered, it might be really nice to set a third place at our table now and then.

It was almost dusk by the time I made it back to Claiborne Street. I didn’t have a chance to keep worrying about how I would break the news to Lottie. The bus driver had just closed the door behind me when I spotted my mother coming down the block. C.B. and Spunky were with her. I started to call out but then stopped when I saw her expression. There was no mistaking what kind of mood my mother was in. Her lips were pressed into a thin line, and she jerked on the dogs’ leashes, trying to yank them out of their tug-of-war game.

Before I could even say hello, she was fussing at me. “Lincoln! Where have you been?” Her voice crackled with irritation as the dogs dragged her toward me. “C.B. was beside himself when I got home from work, and Mr. Krasny has called three times, wondering why you hadn’t come to walk Spunky.”

“I’m sorry,” I said as I reached down to greet the dogs. “I forgot to tell him I’d be late today.”

“Well, where have you been?” she demanded again.

“I went with Delaney to—”

“Delaney? Delaney who?”

I closed my eyes for an instant. I needed to keep calm. “Delaney Baldwin, Mom. I’ve told you about her.…
Anyway
,” I said with a huff, “you’ll never believe what happened this afternoon.”

Lottie wasn’t listening. Spunky had started barking at some guy who had banged out of the house across the street, dressed head to toe in black leather. I almost had to shout to be heard over all his yapping. “Lottie! I’m trying to tell you something.”

Lottie let out an angry grunt as Spunky lunged forward. Now the guy in leather was climbing on a giant motorcycle parked in his driveway. “Listen, Linc,” she snapped as she wrestled Spunky away from the curb. “I don’t like what’s going on here. I’m starting to think that enrolling you at Plainview was a huge mistake. Ever since you started there, you’ve been different. You’re gone all the time with all these new friends I’ve never met, and you come home acting surly and defiant.”

Even with Lottie ranting, I couldn’t stop watching the man across the street. He kept stomping on his kick-start pedal. It took him five or six tries to get his Harley to splutter to life. “Like Monday, for instance!” Lottie’s voice had turned sharper. “You disappeared for hours. Then you stormed into the house with no explanation. And now this! You’re three hours late on a school night and you’ve forgotten all about your obligations to Mr. Krasny.”

“What are you saying, Lottie?” I burst out. “What do you want me to do? You want me to quit Plainview right now? You really think that would be a good idea?”

Lottie cast a look up at the darkening sky in exasperation
as the motorcycle man revved his engine. “I don’t know, Linc,” she cried out. “All I’m saying is that I might have to consider moving you back to your old school if this unpredictable behavior of yours continues.”

My insides clenched. “You wouldn’t do that,” I said. “You can’t!”

Her face turned hard. “Don’t push me, Linc,” she threatened in a voice I didn’t recognize. Spunky gave another lunge toward the curb. “Now will you take this crazy dog before he tears my arm out of the socket?”

I snatched both leashes from her hands. “I can’t even talk to you about what’s really going on. Every time I try, you don’t want to hear it.”

At last the man was maneuvering out of his driveway. Lottie waited with her teeth gritted until he had sped off with an obnoxious roar. “What do you mean, what’s really going on?” she asked suspiciously. Her question rang out in the sudden quiet. “Tell me. I’m all ears.”

I stood staring into her blazing eyes, listening to the whine of the Harley’s engine fade into the distance, and I could feel the last traces of electricity from my wild afternoon fizzle away like a blown fuse.

“Well?” Lottie repeated, more impatient than ever. “What do you have to tell me?”

“Nothing,” I said as I pulled the dogs in the opposite direction from home. “Never mind.”

• • •

When I finally showed up on his doorstep with Spunky, Mr. Krasny was too preoccupied to bother asking where I’d been all afternoon. “Oh, good. You’re here,” he said. “Come inside for a minute, son. I have to show you what I’ve found.”

Mr. Krasny led me back to his kitchen, pumping his frail little arms as he shuffled along. If I had been in better spirits, I would have smiled at how spry he had suddenly become. But I was still reeling from my fight with Lottie. What if she was serious about making me quit Plainview? I could already imagine the I-told-you-so look on Sebastian’s face when I showed up on the Ho-Hos’ doorstep.