Embers (21 page)

"
What?
"

"
He just told me. He has a pal in Chicago who owns a log
cabin just outside of town. It
'
s been rented but now the tenants are breaking the lease and moving out. There
'
s no phone; the owner can
'
t even get in touch with the tenants. I guess the owner
'
s completely fed up. He
'
s losing his shirt on it. It was supposed to be such a great investment, but you know how
that
goes. Anyway, he wants Tom to arrange for a realtor to list it, and for any repairs it might need. It all just happened.
"

"
How long is Tom planning to stay there?
"
Meg asked, trying to make the question sound offhand.

"
It
'
s up in the air,
"
Allie said.
"
I guess this trip is a combined convalescence and vacation, only Tom says I
'
m not letting him convalesce, so he
'
s going to have to call it vacation. He has tons of unused vacation time.
"

Allie added with a roguish smile,
"
As far as I
'
m concerned, the real vacation starts the day he moves into that cabin. Bye.
"

She waltzed out of the shed, leaving Meg with a sudden, fearful sense of emptiness.

A cabin in the woods.
Private, quiet, away from the Atwells hullaballoo. A cabin in the woods. A dream place for the right man with the right woman. For one brief, unique second, Meg hated her sister.

Jealousy!
The realization took her breath away.

With a shudder, she forced herself to pick up the next tissue-wrapped bundle. She had no heart for it: If the frame of the bed had filled her with such dread, what on earth would the mattress do? But the bundle turned out to be a refectory table, much longer than it was wide, and it belonged in the kitchen. She sighed with relief.

After the table Meg opened a box containing a mother lode of treats: teeny-tiny appliances for a kitchen that was already fifty years old in the 1940s, everything from a coffee grinder to a toaster to a tabletop radio in a cathedral-style case. She placed the utensils in the glass-fronted cabinets, and after she unwrapped the step-back cupboard, she filled it with the set of stoneware dishes and the collection of pewter, copper, and majolica teapots that she
'
d found. It seemed so obvious to her where everything went, and yet the more she realized it, the more frightened she became.

Meg unwrapped another flat, rectangular piece, an exact miniaturization of a bedspring, made of intricately looped metal coils. The next thing she discovered was the mattress. It was down filled, with a too-bizarre, too-authentic mark that looked like a small bloodstain on it. She shuddered again with a reluctance that bordered on loathing as she covered the mattress with white linens, then spread a little rustic coverlet of dark fur over it. Something about the feel of the soft fur sickened her, physically sickened her. It was almost worse than the runaway heartbeat, this nausea.

I have to get out of here,
she told herself, exhausted. Whether it was the coffee, the bed, or the gleam in Allie
'
s eye, Meg
'
s mood had plummeted to a depth of depression she hadn
'
t felt in years.

Suddenly she
'
d had her fill of the dollhouse. She fled, almost in a panic, not even bothering to lock the shed door behind her.

****

In the kitchen she ran into Lloyd and Comfort, who were in the middle of an unhappy discussion.

"
Repeat?
Whatd
'
ya mean, Terry has to repeat?
"
Lloyd wanted to know.

He was washing up in his wife
'
s spotless kitchen, trying without success to scrub car grease from his hefty forearms. Lloyd hated working on cars, despite the fact that the economics of his life made it unavoidable. Wood was one thing; Lloyd loved shaping it, smoothing it, making it conform to his touch. But dirty, greasy, hostile metal
—
Lloyd
hated
working on cars. His mood was always foul afterward.

He was furious about Terry
'
s flunking sixth grade.
"
terry
can'
t
repeat, gahdammit. Timmy
'
ll be ahead if Terry repeats. What the hell, we
'
re not throwing two graduation parties. What does he think, I
'
m made of money?
"

"
No, Lloyd, of course not,
"
said Comfort, rushing to hand him a strip of paper towels.

Too late. Lloyd had already grabbed his wife
'
s favorite decorative towel, a linen cloth silk-screened with a red barn and a gaggle of geese, and was rubbing himself clean with it.
"
If Terry fails, he don
'
t get no party come graduation. No party, no presents. Maybe
that
'
ll
put the fear o
'
Gahd in him. Gahdanimit.
"

"
I don
'
t know why he won
'
t study,
"
Comfort said, baffled by her uncooperative son.

Lloyd handed her the ruined towel, took the paper towels she gave him, wiped his sweaty neck with them, and tossed them into the same bag of trash that held Allie
'
s one gray hair.
"
What
'
d the boy flunk, anyway?
"

"
Math. And almost English.
"

Lloyd gave his wife a dry look.
"
That about covers it, then, don
'
t it.
"

"
His teacher did tell me he
'
s very good at sports. Although he
'
s not so good at sportsmanship,
"
Comfort felt obliged to add.
"
He isn
'
t what they consider a team player. Not that he ever was; you know how he l
ikes to go off with only Cough
drop by his side. Why is that? Why is Timmy so much more outgoing, such a better student? How can they be twins?
"

"
What
'
re you asking
me
for? They
'
re
your
sons,
"
said Lloyd, disassociating himself from the three of them. He tucked his shirt back into his pants and hitched his pants over his belly, then took out his comb and ran it once through his hair.
"
When do we eat?
"

"
Right now. Sit,
"
Comfort urged.
"
Mrs. Blethrow says he
'
ll have to have a tutor.
"

"
Tutor! Forget tutor! We can
'
t afford one.
You
teach the boy.
"

"
Oh, Lloyd
...
I don
'
t understand this new math.
"

"
So teach him old math.
"

Having settled the matter, Lloyd pulled out a chair from the Formica table and began to leaf through the week
'
s issue of the
Bar Harbor Times,
licking his left thumb carefully before grabbing the lower right-hand corner and swinging the page in an arc to the left. In a hundred such little ways he reminded Meg of their Uncle Billy, the one glaring exception being that Lloyd hadn
'
t come anywhere close to owning his own hardware store.

Meg pulled out a second chair.
"
Lloyd
—
I'll
help Terry with his math.
"

Her brother didn
'
t bother looking up from the sports page.
"
No need; Comfort
'll
take care of it.
"

"
You know how he twists Comfort around his finger.
"

"
He does that,
"
said Comfort ruefully, nodding her head.

"
He needs some one-on-one instruction from someone meaner than Comfort. That
'
s me,
"
Meg said with a bright smile.
"
Besides, you know I was a teacher
'
s aide.
"

"
Meg, you mean well,
"
said Lloyd, favoring his sister with a stiff smile. He went back to his newspaper.
"
Butt out.
"

"
But why
—
"

"
I
said
—
"

"
Okay, okay. I heard you. Crabass.
"

Comfort gave Meg a look of timid apology, then brought out what was left of the day
'
s breakfast bread and began sawing thick, crusty chunks on Lloyd
'
s new work island.

The kitchen is both her refuge and her kingdom,
Meg thought, leaning her head against the kitchen wall. She loved to watch her sister-in-law prepare food; Comfort was so obviously happy doing it. Almost nothing interested her more than turning out a really fine meal. It was Comfort
'
s not-so-secret dream to own a home-cooking restaurant, and if the Inn Between ever turned a really, really,
really
big profit, Meg intended to buy her one.

"
Gee, that work island t
urned out well — didn't it, Corn
fort?
"

It was, of course, Meg
'
s blatant attempt to tempt Lloyd back into the conversation. It worked.
"
Yeah,
"
he said, looking up to admire his handiwork.
"
It did turn out good.
"

Meg nodded her head.
"
It looks
exactly
like the one in the Sears catalog.
"

"
Don
'
t I know it,
"
he agreed.
"
Right down to the roll-out breadboard.
"

"
I don
'
t know how you do it. Nothing to go on but a picture.
"

"
You scale up, is all.
"

"
Well, it was a wonderful anniversary present. Wasn
'
t it, Comfort.
"

"
Yes. Oh, yes,
"
said Meg
'
s sister-in-law as she scooped clam-filled ladles of liquid into the family
'
s everyday crockery.
"
Very nice. Especially the roll-out breadboard.
"

She brought a bowl filled rim-high with chowder to her husband and set it carefully before him.

"
Well, someone turns out a chowder good as yours, she deserves a proper place to shuck the clams,
"
Lloyd said gruffly.

Comfort smiled from under downcast eyes and brought her husband the basket of bread and a plate of butter, and Lloyd slipped his arm around her waist in a quick, light squeeze.

It passed, in a house with no privacy, for love play. Meg was gratified to see that despite the years, and their failure to have any more children, and Lloyd
'
s on-again-off-again job situation
—
despite everything, they still loved each other in the low-key, understated way of Down East men and women.

By the time the meal ended, it was agreed that Meg would tutor the Terrible Twin in math
—
whatever it took to get Terry to Timmy
's graduation party.