White Picket Fences (3 page)

“I don’t know,” Tally answered, though she knew her grandmother most certainly was not breathing. “Maybe.”

“It’s all right, honey. The paramedics are on their way. Okay?”

“Okay.”

“Tally, are you alone?”

She had looked at her grandmother’s lifeless eyes staring back at her. They were the eyes of a stranger.

“Yes. I’m alone.”

The minister’s cottony voice again plucked her back to the chapel. He was giving a benediction. The closing prayer. “Amen.” The minister closed his little black book.

Aunt Jill shoved her handkerchief in her pocket and stood up. Men came from the back of the room to prepare the casket for its journey to the family plot in Ohio. Nancy stepped away from the wall and reached into her purse for her cell phone. A man seated behind Tally asked the person next to him if there was going to be coffee and at least cookies, and several chairs made soft scraping noises as the handful of people rose to their feet. Amanda reached for Tally’s hand and squeezed it.

Tally’s eyes were dry.

three

T
he Tucson airport was quiet for a late Friday afternoon.

Amanda handed Tally a strawberry smoothie and sat down in the molded chair next to her. Most of the other chairs in their row were empty.

“Thanks.” Tally sipped from her straw and looked away, toward a window and the Arizona landscape. Amanda turned to Neil and offered him a sip of her cinnamon latte.

“No thanks, hon.” He held the sheaf of legal documents that allowed them to take Tally, temporarily in the custody of Pima County, across state lines. He’d already read them once before, in Nancy’s office. He now pored over them again, as if on a hunt to find a slippery sentence that could somehow foist permanent custody of Tally on them. Nancy had assured them it was nothing like that at all. His brow creased as he read.

Amanda sipped the latte and leaned back in her seat. Neil still seemed reluctant for them to step into the role as Tally’s care-givers—even now in the airport with their niece sitting next to them—but Amanda wondered if it wasn’t mostly because she’d said yes to it before she’d even asked him.

The call from Nancy Fuentes had come while she was making supper just two days before.

“Is this Amanda Jan… Janvier?”

“It’s ZHAWN-vee-ay. Yes.”

“This is Nancy Fuentes from Pima County Human Services in Tucson, Arizona. Your niece, Tallulah Bachmann, is here in temporary foster care and she really needs a place to stay.”

“Why? What’s happened? Where’s my brother?”

“That’s the problem. He’s in Europe. Poland, we believe. But no one knows how to reach him.”

“Poland! What’s he doing in Poland? And why is Tally in Tucson?”

“Well, we don’t know exactly why he’s there, nor can we confirm that he is, in fact, there. Your niece said that’s where he is, apparently looking for family members. Tally has been staying with her grandmother, Virginia Kolander. I’m sorry to say Virginia died yesterday of a heart attack. So Tally’s alone here.”

“Is Tally all right? Where is she?”

“She’s fine. She’s in a temporary foster home here in Tucson. Look, it would be nice if Tally could stay with family until we can track down her dad,” Nancy continued. “We’re wondering if you’d be willing to come to Tucson and get her. I know it would mean a lot to her. It wouldn’t take long to get the paperwork done since you’re family. You could take her home after the funeral on Friday. I think she’d like to be here for that… Mrs. Janvier?”

“Did Tally give you our number?”

“Ah, no. She gave me your names, though. I had to look you up. Look, you’re all she has for family. There’s just one other aunt. But she and her husband live in a condo with two teenage sons in Miami. She doesn’t have an extra bedroom. She… It wouldn’t work. And it’s too far away for my liking. I know you have kids about the same age as Tally and one of them’s a girl.”

“Did you look that up too?”

“Your niece told me.”

Neil, smelling of Right Guard and linseed oil, came in from the garage as she hung up the phone. He nodded to Amanda, walked to the sink, and began to wash his hands. The waxy odor of oil fusing with apple-scented hand soap swirled around her.

Her husband grabbed a dishtowel to dry his hands, and Amanda waited for him to ask who’d called. He had to have heard the phone ring. The garage was one wall away. When he didn’t ask, she cleared her throat.

“Virginia Kolander died.”

Neil draped the towel neatly on the handle of a nearby cabinet. “Who?”

“Tally’s grandmother. Janet’s mother.”

“Oh. Too bad. Did we know her?” He opened the fridge and grabbed a bottle of lime-flavored water.

“No. Not exactly.”

Neil opened the bottle and took a long drink. When he pulled the bottle away, he said nothing.

“Tally was with her when she died,” Amanda continued. “Neil, she needs a place to stay.”

Neil frowned. “Where’s Bart?”

“He’s not in jail, if that’s what you’re thinking. He’s on some trip to Europe. No one’s really sure where, though. That’s the problem. He hasn’t called.”

“Europe?” Neil’s tone was incredulous. “Bart’s in Europe?”

“Yes.”

Her husband’s eyes widened behind his rimless glasses. Neil made no attempt to hide his surprise. “What for?”

“I just know he’s not here and no one knows how to contact him. Tally doesn’t have anywhere else to go.”

“Who told you all this?” A slight frown rested on Neil’s lips.

“A social worker in Tucson. That’s who I just got off the phone with. She said Tally told her Bart is in Poland looking up our relatives.”

“Looking up
relatives?
You’ve got to be kidding. Do you even have any over there anymore?”

“I don’t know. Maybe. I don’t know, Neil.”

Neil looked away and took another drink. He set the bottle down on the counter behind him. “Tally doesn’t even know us. We don’t know her.”

“I’ve sent her a birthday present every year—at least when I know their address—and a gift at Christmas. We’re not complete strangers to her. And she was here once.”

“That was ages ago,” Neil said. “And what about Delcey and Chase?”

“What about them? Tally’s their cousin. This is what families do. They help each other out when times are tough. It wouldn’t be so bad for them to see that life isn’t always easy.”

There was a momentary pause.

“You already said yes, didn’t you?” Neil finally said.

She felt her face flush. “It’s just for a few weeks at the most. Bart’s going to come back for her. I know he will. He would never abandon Tally. He’s got a long list of faults, but that’s not one of them. He would never leave her.”

“Where’s she going to sleep?”

“We can put her with Delcey,” Amanda offered, her confidence returning. “There’s room for another twin bed in there.
And if that doesn’t work out, she can have my sewing room. It’s just for a little while.”

He was silent for the next moment. She sensed he was doing some kind of calculation in his head. It unnerved her.

“What?” she asked.

“All right. We’ll do what we have to do. But you really shouldn’t get your hopes up. You can’t undo in a couple weeks what Bart has spent years doing. You’ll only end up disappointed.”

“What do you mean?”

“You know what I mean.” Neil turned and headed back to the garage and the bookcases he was building.

“So you’re okay with this?” Amanda called after him. “Can I tell the kids, then?”

“Definitely tell the kids. They need to know what to expect.”

He opened the door to the garage. A whiff of wood shavings met Amanda’s nostrils as he left the kitchen and the door swung closed.

Neil reached for the latte. She handed it to him. He took a sip, grimaced, and handed it back. “Whoa. Too sweet for me.” She noticed the stain under his fingernail again.

He’d been up past midnight staining the bookcases he was donating to a local nursing home for its fiftieth anniversary and the opening of a residents’ library. He was supposed to be done with them by the weekend. The hastily planned trip to Tucson was cutting into that deadline, but she knew he would find a
way to get them finished. That was just his way. He would finish them and they would be beautiful. Neil had lately made quite a name for himself as the soft-spoken financial planner who made stunning furniture in his spare time and donated it all to charity. The last project he had done, a grandfather clock for a local multiple sclerosis foundation, had netted more than two thousand dollars in a raffle. It was an impressive timepiece, as was the headboard he’d made for a couple who’d just returned from the mission field in Ghana.

She’d been surprised by Neil’s ability to give away so much. He had always been careful with money, including how much he put toward charitable causes. But lately he gave away nearly everything he made in his shop.

“You’ve got a little bit of wood stain under your fingernail,” she said.

“I was kind of in a hurry last night. I can’t put the finish on the shelves until the stain is dry.”

“You’ll finish them in time.”

“Have to.” He stood and stretched. “I’m going to find a restroom.”

Neil walked away, and Amanda noticed that Tally followed him with her eyes. Amanda made a stab at small talk. “Your uncle Neil has a woodshop in our garage,” she said. “Makes the garage kind of messy but he builds really beautiful furniture. He’s making bookcases for a nursing home. They’re going to be so lovely.” She leaned in. “I wish we could keep them.”

Tally didn’t turn her head. Her gaze was on Neil’s back, now many yards away. “He doesn’t really want me to come home with you, does he?”

Amanda involuntarily sucked in her breath. “Well…of course he does. Tally, Uncle Neil is just… He’s kind of a quiet man. Not at all like your dad.” She laughed. “That’s probably why I married him!”

Tally didn’t laugh in return. “I don’t really want to come home with you either. No offense. I’d rather just go back to San Antonio.”

Amanda swallowed the sting. The girl hadn’t meant to hurt her, she knew that. “You liked it there?”

“We had a nice trailer. Double-wide.” She turned to face Amanda. “We weren’t living in our car anymore.”

“Oh. Well. A double-wide. That sounds nice.”

“Dad had a job driving some rich guy around. It was a nice car. He liked driving it.”

“So he was a chauffeur,” Amanda said.

Tally seemed not to hear her. “And I really liked the school I was going to. And my friends.”

Amanda considered putting an arm around her niece, but she couldn’t decide if Tally would want her to after she’d tried it at the funeral home. “The school where you’ll be going is a really good one. One of the best in the state. They called me yesterday. Nancy got all your records faxed to them from San Antonio… and from the few days you were here in Tucson. So you’re all set to start on Monday. Chase will show you where everything is. It’ll be okay. And I’m sure it’ll be for just a little while.”

Tally said nothing.

“Chase is kind of quiet too. Like his dad. Half the time you
have to guess what he’s thinking. But he’s very artistic. Very talented. He’s into making videos. You know, home movies? I think he might want to go into filmmaking. He wouldn’t want to be an actor or anything. He doesn’t like being on the other side of the camera.”

Tally took a sip of her smoothie. “He has blond hair?”

“Oh! Well, it’s sort of like mine now. Darker. But still curly. Delcey’s hair is still blond, though. Delcey’s your typical thirteen-year-old. She loves to talk to people and go to the mall and chat with her friends about boys. You know.”

Tally exhaled softly.

Amanda risked the rebuff and put her arm around Tally’s shoulders. “We’ve put a guest bed in Delcey’s room for you,” she said. “I hope you won’t mind having her for a roommate. We only have one other room, the sewing room, and it’s a bit of a mess. Well, actually it’s a
huge
mess. Will that be okay?”

Tally shrugged. “Whatever.”

“Hey, on Sunday there’s a picnic at our church. You’ll be able to meet some girls your age. Chase will show you around. The food’s always good. They have a huge barbecue. And a pie contest. Oh, and a silent auction. Uncle Neil’s made this darling cradle for it. It’s really cute. I think it’ll be a lot of fun. Does that sound all right?”

She shrugged—one shoulder this time. “Sure.”

Amanda paused and then leaned forward. “Tally. If you knew where your father was, you would tell me, wouldn’t you?”

Tally nodded silently and without hesitation.

“He’s not… Bart’s not in some kind of trouble, is he?”

“He’s not in trouble,” Tally said quickly, leaning away from her.

“Do you know why he went to Poland? I mean, why now? What does he want?”

For a moment Tally seemed to ponder an answer. Then she stood up. “You can ask him yourself when he comes back. I’m done with my drink.” She walked over to a trash receptacle and tossed it in.

four

B
roadway and Union during the evening rush. A homeless man in tattered denim sauntered next to a young executive in Italian leather and Armani, and neither was aware of the other. It didn’t get more real than that.

Chase Janvier repositioned his tripod for a new vantage point across the intersection in front of the U.S. Courthouse. He opened up the lens of his video camera and zeroed in on a head shot of a tailored woman in stilettos, busily tapping at the tiny keys of a BlackBerry as she walked. She clutched a half ring of bagel in the hand that held the device. The woman didn’t look up to get her bearings as her heels staccatoed the sidewalk. She knew where she was going.

The woman’s pace overtook the tattered man who’d stopped to poke at a candy wrapper on the pavement with his foot. Chase pulled back the zoom as she passed him. Would the man catch a whiff of her perfume and turn his head as she walked by? Or would she would be as invisible to him as he was to her?

Slowly the man in rags swiveled his head in the woman’s direction. Chase leaned forward, itching to capture a remnant of the man’s earlier civility, his ability to appreciate beauty. The man’s eyes locked on the woman’s hands—delicate, pale, and jeweled. He took a step toward her, the candy wrapper forgotten.
Chase filled the viewfinder with the man’s face and at once saw what the man was staring at: not the graceful features of gentility but the half ring of bagel. The man pivoted and took another step toward the woman, then quickened his pace to match hers. If Chase didn’t move, he’d lose them in the crowd.