The Probable Future (26 page)

Matt stared at Jenny across the table in a way that made her uncomfortable. “I don’t know everything,” he said. “Not by far.”

“Well, maybe you know why they keep the glass case in the parlor,” Stella said to her uncle. “Maybe you can tell me why no one in this family has ever thought to throw away those horrible things.”

“Should I check on the casserole, or will you?” Elinor asked Jenny.

“I will,” Jenny said, grateful to her mother for changing the subject. “I’m sure it’s done by now.”

Stella turned to Matt. “Do you see what they do?” In the fading light, he could see there was already a frown line across her forehead. He recognized her place in the family, for he’d been there himself: the worrier, the one who sees what others deny, the responsible one left to clean up the messes made by others.

“Would you like to show me the case?” Matt had always been curious. There wasn’t a day that went by when he didn’t wish he hadn’t been left behind to wait for his brother, breathing in the humid air that was so thick and green with pollen.

Stella pushed her chair back.

“We’re in the middle of dinner,” Jenny said. “Stella, please!”

Ignoring her mother, Stella led her uncle to the parlor. It was the center of the base of the wedding cake, a room with a wall of windows; but the glass was old and the light coming through was murky. Argus lay at the threshold to the room, and Matt had to step over the dog. He had been waiting all these years to come back here, he hadn’t had a chance to look around when he came to rescue his brother, and now he wasn’t disappointed. He recognized the beams that crossed the ceiling as cherry, which gave off a mild, fruity scent. He noticed the bookcases had been built out of walnut. Stella brought him to the corner and pulled off the cloth which Matt knew had been embroidered by Sarah Sparrow, Rebecca’s daughter,
and her own daughter Rosemary. There was a red heart, broken in half. There was a willow tree weeping black tears. The ground was covered with snowbells; the sky filled with birds. Every stitch had been carefully made; it had taken three winters, and a magnifying glass had been needed to see the thin silk thread. Matt barely breathed as he studied the contents of the case. What the historical society wouldn’t give to place these artifacts on display for a single afternoon. Why Mrs. Gibson would be all but delirious if anyone managed to smuggle a single one of these mementos over to the library. The silver compass alone would be thrilling. The braid of hair almost too much to absorb.

Matt saw that his niece had a fearless nature, unusual in an Avery, but far from uncommon among the Sparrows. “These are the arrowheads shot at Rebecca Sparrow by some local boys. The Frost boys later admitted to it, and I think there may have been a Hap-good and one of the Whites involved, too. People said she didn’t feel pain, so these boys decided to put the theory to the test. Even if she didn’t react, it seems that she may have gotten peritonitis, because after being struck by these arrows, she walked with a limp.”

Jenny had followed, but she stayed on the far side of the threshold. She had always thought of the glass case as their personal museum of pain, keepsakes to remind them not to trust anyone, never to forgive. Now, she wasn’t so sure.

“That’s the thing those boys didn’t understand,” Matt told Stella. “Just because you don’t feel pain, doesn’t mean you don’t experience it.”

He reached into his pocket and took out the tenth arrowhead. He had been carrying it around with him for more than thirty years. He should have brought it back immediately, but he had feared getting Will in trouble, and so the arrowhead had served as his lucky piece for all this time. Not that it had ever brought him the slightest bit of good fortune. Not that it hadn’t made him think of Jenny each
and every day. All the same, without the arrowhead he’d probably be lost for a while, but he’d felt like that before.

“I can’t believe it!” Stella let out a laugh. She’d noticed one of the arrowheads was missing, and had wondered what had happened. “Where did you get that?”

“It was misplaced,” Matt said. He’d found it in Will’s dresser drawer years ago. “Now it’s back.”

From where she stood in the doorway, Jenny recalled that she had left Will alone in this room on her thirteenth birthday. It had only been for a moment, long enough for her to argue with her mother, long enough for him to steal the arrowhead. If Jenny had been more cautious, she would have noted that Will had rubbed his fingers together that day, as though he were itchy, the sure sign of a thief.

“Rebecca’s story has mostly been written up by a fellow named Charles Hathaway. Pathetic guy, really. Had the first land grant, then lost almost all of it and wound up with his own son despising him.”

“Is that her hair?” Stella asked of the dark coiled plait.
Rebecca
, she thought.
Show me a sign
.

Matt nodded. “I’d say it is. This town treated her badly, Stella. If you want to know the details, come down to the library.”

“Sorry it’s been such a horrible dinner,” Jenny said when Matt had left Stella in the parlor, allowing the girl a bit of privacy as she carefully replaced the missing arrowhead.

“Not horrible. Not for me.” He would not have cared if she’d served lily pad soup and the nine-frogs stew Elisabeth Sparrow perfected. He would have eaten tree bark, leather, snowdrops sautéed and served on a platter of rice. Food wasn’t what he was hungry for.

“I’ll bet you hate casseroles, anyway.”

“I wouldn’t say that.” Matt was standing near enough to be made light-headed by the scent of lake water.
Was it on her skin?
he wondered.
Could this be the case with every Sparrow woman? Was it in their blood?

“What would you say?”

Jenny was a little too close to Matt Avery. She had grown reckless, that green sort of abandon spring brought on, even though it was no longer March. Could it be she was maddened by all the rain, daffodil rain, rose rain, fish rain, all of it pouring down in this part of the Commonwealth.

“I guess I would say I wish things had turned out differently.”

“Well, most people would say that, wouldn’t they?” Jenny felt itchy under her skin. It was the rosemary she’d sprinkled on the rolls, most probably. “Given the wrong turns a person can make, wouldn’t anyone feel the same?”

Elinor had come to call them to finish dinner, but she’d noticed something in the yard. She peered out through the glass panel beside the front door, then signaled to Jenny by tapping her cane on the hardwood floor. “There’s someone out there. Someone’s walking down the driveway.”

Jenny went to have a look. The glass was bumpy, riddled with air bubbles, difficult to see through. All she could make out were shadows and the hedge of laurel. “There’s no one.”

“Do you realize you never agree with me?” Elinor said. “If I said it was noon, you wouldn’t care if the sun was in the center of the sky. You’d tell me it was nighttime. You’d want to argue no matter what. He’s right there! Look!”

Jenny looked again, and this time she squinted and went so close to the window her nose touched glass. Sure enough, the figure of a man had turned off Dead Horse Lane and was headed up the rutted driveway, stumbling a bit as he went. The sky was still blue, but the road was already dark. There was a humming sound, from the bees in the laurel.

Matt came and opened the door for a better view. At any other time he would have been distracted by Jenny’s presence, but now he paid attention to the man on the road. He would know that walk anywhere. He knew it as well as his own.

“It’s Will.” From his tone anyone might think he was referring
to a demon or a dog rather than his own brother. “He’s jumped bail.”

“Well, I hope he likes cold food,” Elinor said. “At this rate, that’s all we’re going to have.”

They could see now that Will was carrying a gym bag, clearly stuffed with clothes, as though he fully intended to stay. He strayed through several mud puddles, and by the time he got to the house, his shoes were covered with muck, his slacks were wet to the knee.

“Jesus. This road,” he said. “It’s worse than ever.”

“I don’t want you in my house, but if you insist on coming in, take off your shoes,” Elinor directed.

Will leaned against the porch railing and removed his shoes.

“Someone could say hello,” he suggested.

Matt and Jenny exchanged a look.

“Is something going on?” Will asked, puzzled.

“You tell us,” Jenny said. “Haven’t you been ordered to stay in Boston? And while we’re at it, why haven’t you called Stella? She phones you daily, and you’re never home. Is there ever a time when you don’t think solely of yourself?”

“How about you?” Will said to Matt. “Anything you’d like to berate me for?”

“You still have mud all over you,” Matt said.

“I screwed up,” Will admitted.

The sky was pink in the farthest horizon, mixed with a pure shade of blue, the sort of blue Elinor had been searching for, the color she believed she might have found at last. From where they stood, the air closest to them was all shadows, ink poured from the well.

“The house is gone,” Will said.

“I sent Mrs. Ehrland the check for this month’s rent. She can’t kick you out,” Jenny said. “Though I’m sure she wants to.”

“No. No. Not the apartment. The little house. Someone stole it.”

Will looked ragged standing there, shoeless, with mud on his
pant legs. He looked like a man who’d come to beg for his dinner, a seeker after charity, hopeful that his luck would change, but fairly certain it wouldn’t. From the way his brother was babbling, Matt wondered if he wasn’t suffering from the DTs, perhaps he was going cold turkey. But, no, Matt could smell whisky; Will had recently had a drink, perhaps on the train. The evening train from Boston had been known for its bar car even back when they were boys, along with a bartender who never asked for ID. Sometimes, Will would ride the train back and forth to Boston all day, throwing back whisky sours, gin, and ale till he couldn’t crawl in a straight line, let alone walk.

Stella, having heard her father’s voice, ran out from the parlor. She threw her arms around Will. “Why didn’t anyone tell me you were coming?”

“I’m not actually here,” Will said. “And this isn’t a real visit. Just a slight problem.”

Matt recognized his brother’s tone, the voice of disaster, of failure, of borrowed money and fights in the street, of getting fired, quitting school, screwing the downstairs neighbor, walking away from a dying woman because it was too hard to look at her, too depressing, too desperate, too real.

“Of course there’s a problem. You haven’t any shoes.” Stella glared at her mother, as though it were Jenny’s fault that Will was standing there in wet, muddy socks riddled with holes. “Are there slippers?”

“Front closet,” Elinor said. “With or without pom-poms.”

The light was fading so fast now that the pink laurel blossoms shone in the spreading pool of dark. There was the lazy end-of-the-day drone of bees who had drunk their fill. With the door opened, one large bumblebee mistook the front hall for the open air. It buzzed inside and landed on Matt’s hand. When he waved it away, the bee rose from his skin slowly, reluctant, it appeared, to depart. Jenny stared as the bee continued to circle, drawn to him still. It was
cold with the door thrown open, yet another trick of April, warm days, cool nights. All the same, the air was thick with spring fever. It was still the season of rash decisions, of bravery where before there was none, of vision, of blazing white heat at the coldest of times. Proof of love could be found in a single blade of grass, in what was kept and what was thrown away. Jenny thought about the bee that hadn’t stung and the black carved angel on the town common. She thought about the fact that there had been two boys standing on the lawn on the morning of her thirteenth birthday, with only one dream between them.

There was a faint buzzing sound inside Jenny’s head. That was the way it had all begun on the morning of her birthday. Once upon a time she had been absolutely sure of whom she was meant to love. She had seen what she wanted to see, not what was before her. She hadn’t stopped to turn around twice. Patience, that was the illegible ingredient in nine-frogs stew, that was what Jenny had missed entirely.

“Someone stole it?” Matt said to his brother. He had just realized the impact of this theft.

Will knew what his brother thought of him. It had been clear since that horrible New Year’s party, when he’d been too drunk to think straight and had gotten involved with one of his students. Well, Matt had every right to his disdain, but it was Jenny whose disappointment Will dreaded. Oh, they were over, he knew that, but she was due some consideration after all the years she’d put in. He fully expected her to be furious. She had every right to be. He had allowed a stranger into their house, he had put his needs first, selling his daughter’s safety for five hundred dollars that he had only possessed for an instant. The payoff had evaporated in his greedy hands, like smoke, leaving nothing but ashes.

Will looked at Jenny and for the first time he hid nothing from her. They’d been together so long, he owed her this at least: a single moment of honesty.

“Baby,” he said, the enormity of his failures crashing down on him as he stood beneath the laurel in his wet socks. He could see his reflection in the glass panels on the side of the door to Cake House: he appeared to be underwater, a drowning man with nothing to hold on to but a single shred of truth. “I made a mistake.”

“I understand completely,” Jenny told him. “So did I.”

THE CURE

I.

H
AVING LIVED IN ONE PLACE FOR THIRTEEN
years, Stella was now forced to move yet again. They had all agreed this was the best course of action; with the model house stolen and fears raised, it was decided that Stella must leave Cake House. But where would she go? An Avery cousin in New York was an option, or boarding school in Rhode Island or Connecticut. But Stella refused to leave Massachusetts. She was not about to enroll in a third school in a single year. No matter the circumstances, she planned to finish ninth grade at Unity High School. Let there be flood or famine, parental anxiety or real danger, she was staying put. For the first time in her life she was earning all A’s; she enjoyed going to the clinic and the rest home with Dr. Stewart. And there was her personal life to think of. What would Hap do without her? Who would Jimmy Elliot follow around if Stella left town, whose window would he throw pebbles at late in the evening, when darkness was falling and the warblers began to sing the last of their songs?