Juliet in August (32 page)

He can't imagine any other life. He doesn't want to. He wants only to be Lee Torgeson. He wants only to be here. Before he closes the closet door, he runs his hand over the blue velvet box on the shelf above. The watch box. Together, the two boxes remind Lee of secrets, one he kept, and one that was kept from him. They seem, in a way that makes no real sense, to cancel each other out. He picks up the watch box, opens it and stares at the satiny lining. It was the worst thing he'd ever done in his childhood, breaking the watch and throwing it in the sand and then lying about it. He takes the old watch he found on the trail out of his pocket and puts it in the box. Then he closes the lid and returns it to the closet shelf.

He goes back downstairs, hesitates briefly, and then calls directory assistance. Even though he knows it's too late and nothing will come of it. His heart beats normally. The operator tells him there's no listing for the Kelsey Hotel, but there's a listing for the Kelsey Care Center with the same address as the one on the postcards. Lee calls, and the person who answers tells him that the care center is, in fact, on the site of the old hotel. The hotel itself was torn down fifteen years earlier.

So that's it,
Lee thinks.
The trail ends.

Lee is suddenly so tired that all he can think about is his bed. The horse will have to wait until tomorrow for his bath. He goes outside to fill Cracker's dish with kibble, and when he steps back into the porch his eye lands on the spot where Astrid found the laundry basket all those years ago, and he stares at it, but only for a second or two.

He doesn't bother with a bath for himself, either, he's too tired, but when he goes to bed his mind won't stop working. It's still not completely dark outside, and even with the curtains drawn there's too much light in the room. When he closes his eyes, he sees miles and miles of yellow sand passing beneath him and old postcards scattering like playing cards in the wind. The dog barks and the sound seems to be coming from under his bed. Lee hears the cattle, the coyotes, every sound intensified, right in the room with him. His body aches and his saddle sores burn. He can't get comfortable.

For the second night in a row, he gives up on sleep and goes downstairs to the kitchen, and he sees once again Astrid's tarnished teapot. The word
samovar
pops into his head, the image of a teapot in the sand, and the caption,
The Persian samovar, whether simple or elaborate, is an essential item of hospitality, and hot tea is enjoyed no matter how temporary a desert encampment might be.
He resolves to polish Astrid's tea service, take care of it, and in doing so, make it his. He roots through the bottles of cleaning products in the cupboard under the sink, and he actually finds a jar that claims to be silver polish. He reads the instructions and goes to work.

Subtopia

“I broke my arm, Daddy,” Daisy says from the couch as Blaine and Shiloh come through the door.

Shiloh is in front, and then Blaine, carrying the rifle. It's past the children's bedtime, that of the youngest ones at least, but Vicki had let them stay up for her own sake, frantic as she was about her absent husband and son. The house smells of Pizza Pops.

“Where did you find him?” Vicki asks Blaine. “He's been gone all day.”

“Walking home” is all Blaine says.

Shiloh immediately goes downstairs to his room, and within minutes his CD player is blasting. Blaine leans the rifle against the wall and sits at the dining room table, the one that belonged to his mother, without saying anything more to Vicki, without acknowledging Daisy and her cast.

“Look, Daddy,” Daisy says.

He still doesn't look. He takes a box of bullets out of his pocket and lays it on the table in front of him, then he takes off his cap and lays that on the table, too, and exhales a sigh that, to Vicki's mind, goes on forever, as though he's completely emptying his lungs of air. She'd been expecting anger, planning for it all day, ever since she loaded the kids in the car and went to town, but this is not anger; it's something else altogether, something more frightening. She doesn't like the way he's leaned the gun against the wall so casually. Blaine is always careful with the guns, so careful to keep them in the locked cabinet.

“What is it, Blaine?” she asks. She can hear the caution in her voice. She doesn't like that, either, caution in her own house. She's been feeling it for days, ever since she picked the beans. The beans that are now missing. She'd thought maybe Blaine had come home from work early and done them himself, but when she checked the freezer they weren't there. It was a ridiculous thought, anyway. Blaine wouldn't know how to process beans.

“Look, Daddy,” Daisy says again, this time getting off the couch and approaching Blaine, holding her arm with its white plaster casing out in front of her.

Blaine puts his index finger through the opening in the band of his cap and twirls the cap on the table. The peak spins around and around like a ceiling fan.

“Why won't Daddy look at my cast?” Daisy asks her mother, and Vicki shushes her. She can't be sure what to do or say until she gets a better reading of Blaine and what is going through his mind. There's something in the drone of Shiloh's music that reminds her of the sound of a small plane spinning out of control toward the earth.

“Go sit on the couch for a minute,” Vicki says to Daisy. “Let Daddy rest. He just got home.”

“But I broke my arm,” Daisy whines.

“I know,” Vicki says. “We'll tell Daddy all about it. Just give him a minute.”

Daisy returns to the couch, putting on her best pout. The other kids, all but Shiloh, have appeared from down the hall, having heard Blaine and Shiloh come in. Lucille, with her lopsided haircut, wraps herself around Vicki's leg. Of all the kids, Vicki thinks, she is the most sensitive to adult moods, gets upset when adult voices are raised. The kids wait to see what will happen. They want to know what Blaine will think about Daisy's broken arm, but they know better than to interrupt whatever is going on. They wait for Vicki's lead.

Blaine finally acknowledges that Vicki is looking at him.

She takes a first stab. “I'm sorry about the day, honey,” she says. “Things started out so well, then one thing led to another.”

Blaine still doesn't speak, just stares at her as though she's a stranger in his house, and the silence is so unnerving that she looks away.

“Well,” she says, “I guess you two must be hungry.”

She goes to the kitchen, which is open to the dining room, and takes the remaining Pizza Pops out of the freezer and finds a clean baking sheet. She keeps her eye on the situation and every once in a while she shoots the kids a look that says,
Wait. Be good. Just wait.
She puts the Pizza Pops in the oven and then she carefully breaks up the boxes they came in and sets them aside for recycling. She feels Blaine watching her. Shiloh shuts his droning music off, and then Vicki hears his footsteps coming up the stairs.

Finally, when she can stand Blaine's silence no longer, she asks, “What's wrong, Blaine? You'd better tell me.” Even if the answer would best be spoken behind closed doors, without all the kids listening, she has to ask.

Blaine stops spinning his cap and says, “How did you pay for those pizzas?”

Vicki opens the cutlery drawer and retrieves knives and forks for Blaine and Shiloh. “I wrote a check,” she says, her back to him. She can smell the Pizza Pops now, their tomato sauce unlike anything she can create herself on the stove. She expects the anger will come soon, about the check, Daisy's arm, the pizza smell. And the beans, of course, although she has no idea what she'll say about that because she doesn't know where they are.

She tenses, gets ready, and then Blaine says, “This is not my fault, Vicki. I hope you know this is not my fault.”

She turns around, and the look on his face scares her half to death. There's not a trace of anger, just a terrible, terrible sadness. She remembers the long sigh when he first sat down at the table, like a dying man's last breath.

Shiloh appears on the landing from the basement.

“Where were you all day, anyway?” Vicki asks Shiloh, fear creeping into her voice, disguising itself as annoyance.

“While you were looking for some stupid kitchen pot, I was looking for something else. What's wrong with that?”

“Just leave him be,” says Blaine to Vicki.

“Buck's dead,” Shiloh says to Vicki. “Did you know that?”

“What do you mean?” Vicki asks. “Bucko's out in the pen.”

“No, he's not,” Shiloh says. “He's dead. He colicked and died.”

“Is this true, Blaine?” Vicki asks.

Shiloh says, “It's because of you, you know.” He's in the room now, moving closer to the kitchen and Vicki.

“Me? How is it because of me?” Vicki is remembering the horse and the way he looked in the morning, how he was standing in the pen staring at his flank and she thought it was the flies bothering him.

“If you'd stayed home like Dad told you, we would have noticed.”

“Never mind, Shiloh,” Blaine says. “What's done is done.”

“That was Dad's horse, the last one, the only damn horse left on the place.” Shiloh is standing right next to Blaine now, waiting for him to tell Vicki she's useless. But he doesn't. He's too upset about the horse to talk, Shiloh thinks, and so he speaks for him, says what he knows Blaine wants to say. “It's all your fault that we're in this whole mess,” Shiloh says to Vicki, “because you're so bloody useless.” He lifts his chin, triumphant, and looks at his father.

Blaine stands up, towers over Shiloh. Shiloh hears his mother say, “Don't, Blaine. He doesn't mean it.”

Don't, Blaine?
What's she telling Blaine not to do? Shiloh looks at his father's face and is confused when he sees that Blaine is not even looking at Vicki, he's looking at him. He grabs Shiloh by the shoulders as though he's going to shake him, and Shiloh has no idea what is going on. He shrinks back, tries to turn and run, but Blaine's grip is too solid, and he can't get loose.

“Don't,” he hears his mother say again, more quietly this time.

“Daddy,” Lucille says with worry in her voice, and Vicki picks her up.

“Shush, baby,” Shiloh hears Vicki say. “It's okay.”

And then he feels his father's arms around him, and he struggles to get away, tries to push himself back, but he can't, he has to stand there because Blaine is holding him so tight. One of Blaine's big hands is on the back of Shiloh's head now, pressing his face into his chest, and Shiloh doesn't know what to do. He can see the kids and Vicki watching, their eyes wide. Vicki is smoothing Lucille's hair, that stupid haircut, and he can see that she is picking at something, a little piece of gum that Karla Norman missed. Then Shiloh closes his eyes and stops struggling to get away, and he lets himself sink into his father's chest and he's afraid he's going to cry, he won't be able to stop himself, and he leaves his face in Blaine's T-shirt so no one will notice if he cries. Leaves it there until the feeling goes away and he's sure he
won't
cry.

And then Blaine's arms loosen their grip and Shiloh steps back, and Blaine says to him, “It's not Vicki's fault, Shiloh. It's nobody's fault. Things happen. Don't ever call your mother useless again. I don't want to hear that. Not ever.”

Then Shiloh feels ashamed, more ashamed now than he would have felt had his father yelled at him, smacked him even. His face burns with shame, but his father says, “Put that rifle away for me, will you? You know where the key is. Just make sure none of these kids sees where it's hidden.” He remembers when Blaine showed him where the key was and said,
You're old enough to be responsible
.

Shiloh picks up the rifle from where it's leaning against the wall and asks, “The bullets, too?”

Blaine nods and says, “You know where they go.”

After Shiloh has gone down the hall to where the gun cabinet is, Vicki says, “I don't want to be too hard on him, but we have to say something about today. About him being gone all day.”

Blaine thinks for a minute, and then he says, “Mostly I think you baby these kids, Vicki, but forget about today. Let's pretend today didn't happen. Let's pretend that it's yesterday. I'll eat the damned Pizza Pops and pretend they taste like food. How about that?”

Daisy gets off the couch and holds out her cast. “But I really did break my arm,” she says. “See?”

Blaine looks at the cast, then says, “Well, I guess you did. You'd better bring me a pen, then.”

Daisy finds a pen by the phone and takes it to him and holds up her cast, and he writes something. Daisy can't read what it says; the writing is too messy.

“It says, ‘Today you're the winner of the best kid contest,'” Blaine says. “Don't you know about that contest?”

Daisy shakes her head.

“Well, it's a contest, and today you won.”

When Shiloh comes back, Vicki says to him, “You're off the hook. We've all got amnesia about the whole day.”

Shiloh isn't sure what she means, but it's good enough. He can smell the Pizza Pops and realizes he's starving. Although this is something Vicki will not allow the kids to say—
I'm starving
—not as long as there really are starving kids in the world.
I'm hungry
is the proper way to say it.

“I'm hungry,” he says.

He goes to the fridge, looking for milk to go with his supper, and there's Karla Norman's chocolate birthday cake sitting on a shelf under its plastic cover, only he doesn't know it's Karla's cake.

“Who's the cake for?” he asks.

Vicki looks at the kids, at Martin who held the cake on his lap most of the day. “We can't remember,” she says. “I guess it must be for us.”