Ruin Falls (23 page)

He began his climb up. No rungs had been mounted; there was no rope. Tree shimmied up the trunk as if he were some kind of long, snaking animal.

On a whim, Liz called out, “Do you happen to know a website named PEW?”

Tree held on with one arm. “Nope, sorry,” he replied. “But if you’re looking for Paul, then I’d say that online is a good place to start.”

There was that dislike again, a dark fin of feeling that kept breaking the surface.

Liz summoned breath and asked, “Why do you say that? Why do you hate him so much?”

Tree slid back down the trunk, fire pole–style. “I don’t hate Paul,” he said. “I hate his type.”

“What does that mean?”

Tree stared up at his dwelling as if there was no place he’d rather be right then. Then he looked back at her. “Your husband is a pretend radical. A mock maker of change who spends his time in books, not the environment he supposedly wants to impact. He does nothing of any substance. And any efforts he makes will amount to nothing.”

Liz took a few steps back from the flood of vitriol. What a blow this man’s presence on campus must have been. He saw through Paul in ways Liz herself didn’t have the knowledge to.

Tree again began the ascent to his rooftop canopy. “Paul talks a good game,” he said as he climbed. “And sometimes he doesn’t even do that.”

Suddenly, the forest floor felt as if it were giving way beneath her feet. Liz began to make her retreat, stumbling over broken twigs and leaf matter in her haste to depart. She hadn’t been able to find Paul on that site, amongst all the clucking and the chatter. But there was a more obscure thread there, a place where people hardly spoke at all. And Liz could imagine her husband having found in it yet another place to reign.

CHAPTER THIRTY-EIGHT

T
he desire to call Jill was pure instinct—
You will not believe the character I just met
—and she speed-dialed as she drove. Jill spent enough time at home that the first number that came up was her landline, but she didn’t answer.

Instead, the person who picked up responded to Liz’s greeting in a quavering voice. “Are you a good friend of hers, dear?”

“Yes,” Liz said with a frown, turning the steering wheel one-handed. “I am.”

“Would you be able to come by? I’m here caring for Jillian’s boy, and he’s gotten himself a little upset.”

Liz swung the wheel the other way and headed into town.

When Liz arrived, an older woman was standing in the doorway, twisting a dishcloth around her hands. The woman’s hairstyle was a tight swirl of curls, unlikely to move, but her dress and stockings were rumpled, indicating the extent of her distress.

“I’m so sorry,” the woman said. “I only asked how he was—”

Liz had called Jill’s cell, but hadn’t gotten ahold of her friend. “Do you know when Jill is coming home?”

“I tried calling her, but you know how the cell pockets are. She said something about meeting a new doctor. And she was going downstate for seeds.”

Fall-planted wildflowers that needed a winter’s dormancy to settle in. Jill had such high hopes for that meadow—if the yield could produce enough to supply florists, their revenue would treble—and yet it all seemed so silly and distant to Liz now.

A pretend radical, she heard Tree say. Liz was a pretend grower. Flowers. Frippery.

She became aware of a knocking sound upstairs. “Is Andy up there?”

The woman nodded, still wringing the towel.

Liz started up the steps. The sound grew louder as she went, headache-inducing by the time she was at the back of the house, where Andy’s bedroom was. Liz found him sitting on the floor, a hockey puck in his hand, which he was rhythmically banging against the floor. The floorboards shook, and Andy’s whole body moved as the recoil entered it, but he didn’t stop banging, a vacant expression on his face.

Liz spoke from the doorway, gently, as you would to a cornered animal.

“Andy?” What to say? “I’m sorry you’re upset.”

He gazed at her blankly, still hitting the floor with the puck. Liz wanted to bring up her hands to block out the noise, but who knew what that would do to Andy?

What had the woman said to upset him? A greeting as banal as Liz’s own.

“How are you,”
she said. “That can be a pretty dumb question. Hard to answer, too.”

Andy continued to tap the heavy black disk of rubber, but he was pulling his punches now, not using as much of his immense strength. The floor was no longer vibrating.

Liz squatted down beside him.

“You’re the lady who was here before,” Andy said.

He had held on to the memory of her visit. That must be a good sign.

“I’m your mom’s best friend,” Liz said after a moment. “I’ve known you a long time.”

Thud, thud, thud
with the puck. The edge caught Andy’s thumb, and he winced.

“That means I should remember you,” he said.

Liz caught sight of his stricken thumb, bright red and even larger than usual, bulbous on the end where the puck had hit it. She wondered what Andy would allow her to do. A bandage, some ice? He was still beating the puck, oblivious to the way his thumb must be smarting. The rhythm was getting into Liz’s head, making her flinch in preparation for every new strike.

“But I—” Andy finally ceased banging. “I don’t. I just don’t.”

“I know,” Liz said quietly. “It’s all right.”

“It is?”

Andy looked down at Liz from their shared position on the floor. He had an expression of such despair on his face that Liz had to steel herself against tears.

“And?” she said. The boy didn’t respond, and she realized he didn’t recognize the nickname. Liz reached up to his shoulder, a good six inches above hers. He watched as she did it, the puck motionless in his enormous hand. “I used to call you And.”

A pause. “You did?”

Liz nodded. “Ever since you were a baby.”

He closed his eyes. Liz could see his broad chest rising and falling with each breath.

“Can I have that?” she asked, reaching for the puck.

After a span of time, Andy handed it over. “You can keep it.” He looked down, finally noticing his swollen thumb. “I don’t think I’ll need it again.”

The sight of the old woman made Andy recoil, and take a huge, ungainly spin around on the floor. He lowered his face what seemed a great length to hide it against Liz’s shoulder. The incongruity of the gesture, how young and vulnerable Andy seemed, made Liz decide to do what she’d done with her own kids during moments of trouble, the brief spurts of pain they had experienced until now. Immersion in dirt, being surrounded by live, growing things was the way Liz knew to bring a body back to life.

She located an ice pack for his thumb, and then she brought Andy home to Roots.

She set Andy to clearing the heirloom variety of cornstalks they had experimented with this season. The corn had a reputation for pest-resistance, and Paul predicted an effect of far-reaching importance on the entrenched corn lobby.

“Revolutions have been fought for less,” he’d said.

Liz remembered regarding his words with something approaching awe. Paul said the world was changing, and she’d believed him. And then he destroyed her whole world.

Liz bore down on the soil, fistfuls crumbling away in her hands.

But Tree said that Paul had done nothing of real importance. Was her husband trying to remedy that somewhere now? Liz needed one last try with PEW. She glanced over at Andy, who seemed calm finally, clearing enormous armfuls of stalks as if they were blades of grass.

“Leave those two rows back there,” she called. “We’ll let them go brown for the Halloween decorators.”

Andy took in her words, then gave a nod of assent. “They’ll put bunches on their porches when the kids come to get candy.”

Liz looked at him.

He yanked up another towering stand of stalks. Half the field had already been emptied.

Footsteps came from alongside the house, and Liz rose.

Jill rushed toward her, but swerved upon seeing Andy. She gathered her son into her arms, although it looked more as if she were swallowed up by him. When she spoke, her face was muffled against Andy’s shirt. “Mrs. Williams told me. I’m so glad you could come. I can’t imagine what might’ve happened.”

“He’s okay. We’ve been fine.”

Jill looked at her, then up at her son. “But she said he became completely out of control—”

Liz caught Andy’s eye over his mother’s shoulder. “He’s fine, Jill,” she said, a bit sharply. “Aren’t you, Andy?”

The boy gave a nod.

“Come on,” Liz said. “Let’s go inside and make dinner and then we can talk.”

Liz described her arrival at the house, moving on to the connection Andy had made with her once Liz stopped taking huge steps around his memory loss, and just spoke normally.

And Jill listened, dismay, then surprise, and then even hope moving over her face like clouds across the sky.

“Maybe …” Liz turned from the pot of ravioli she was stirring on the stove. It was the first food she had made in days, and her stomach rumbled. “Maybe Andy doesn’t need you to try so hard, Jill. The doctors, the alternative remedies. Maybe what he needs is for us all to stand back and get out of his way.”

Jill looked down at the table, smudging a coffee ring with one finger.

A noise came from above.

Liz and Jill both looked up.

“Did you hear that?”

Jill stood. “I’ll check.”

There was another thump overhead, loud enough to make the ceiling shake.

The penetrating branch, the fake repairman
. Liz’s chest clamped, remembering.

“Call 911—” Liz began, but Jill shouted, “Andy?” and then both women ran for the stairs.

Liz got there first. Paul’s study was intact. The noise had come from the opposite direction, over the kitchen.

Where Reid and Ally’s bedrooms were.

CHAPTER THIRTY-NINE

R
eid’s room was empty, undisturbed. Liz couldn’t stand to look at the ghostly neatness that had replaced its former shambles. Her son used to make snow angels on his bedsheets. He discarded pilfered items like a cracker-crumb trail. But she’d cleaned the room before they left for vacation. Now every toy sat on its shelf, and all the sports equipment was neatly stowed.

Liz pulled the door shut, then walked across the hall to Ally’s room.

Andy was inside it. He had one of the dresser drawers open, pulled out so far it had overslid its casters. The drawer must’ve dropped, and Andy was in the process of putting it back. That was what accounted for the thud they’d heard.

“And?” A sour taste filled her mouth, not the residue of tomato sauce, but something else, something inedible. This boy she’d known since he was kicking inside her best friend’s stomach had encroached upon her missing daughter’s things. He was an intruder now and she wanted him gone. Liz forced her face to smooth out so that Andy wouldn’t become alarmed. “Did you need something?”

He didn’t respond.

Jill was there, pushing Liz aside. “Andy! What are you doing? Come downstairs with me.”

Andy studied both of them with an expression that was sharper than usual.

Jill tugged at her son’s thick arm, but she wasn’t able to budge him. The pressure resulted in Andy shifting on his feet, which caused a swath of cloth to become visible behind him. It was hanging out of the drawer, one of Ally’s leotards.

Liz felt her throat close. She had to cling to the side of the door for purchase. Jill didn’t seem to notice, monitoring Andy’s increasing agitation. The boy was shuffling from one large sneakered foot to another.

“I have to put back the drawer,” he said. “It goes back in.”

“I can do it,” Liz said.

Neither of them heard her.

Jill was still pulling at her son’s arm.

“I have to put back the drawer,” Andy repeated.

He had lost the renewed cogence he’d come to.

“I can do it,” Liz said again. Though how she would manage the task without touching Ally’s leotard—feel the synthetic slick of its skin—she had no idea.

Andy leaned down, his strength great enough to reinsert the drawer single-handedly, since Jill still had hold of his other arm. But he was about to catch the leotard in its lip—

“I can do it!” Liz screamed, and both Jill and Andy swiveled.

Jill yanked Andy, and this time he stepped forward.

“Really,” Liz said. She was crying, though she hardly registered it and they didn’t seem to either. “Just take him, Jill. Just go.”

Liz stumbled forward, snatching up the leotard and pressing it to her face like a caul. Her tears soaked the fabric, making it sheer, allowing a passing glimpse of Andy, whose face had folded in on itself in an expression of dreadful knowing. He was fully aware that he was the fiend Liz had just begged her friend to remove.

Why would Andy have been looking in Ally’s room? Reid’s, she could have understood; Andy might’ve wanted something to fool around with, a hockey puck or stick. But Ally wouldn’t have had anything desirable, although it could be that logic was lost on Andy.

Liz laid the leotard down. She made sure the drawer rolled smoothly on its casters. Then she left Ally’s room and went down the hall to Paul’s study, where she turned on the computer.