Here on Earth (33 page)

March looks at Hollis.

“That won’t work out,” Hollis says. “Friday isn’t good.”

March loops her arm around Hollis’s waist. “I guess we have plans. Please tell Louise thank you anyway for the invitation.”

“Well, we’ll be in touch.” The Judge nods. “We’ll figure something out.”

Hollis remains by the back door until the Judge has gotten into his car and pulled down the driveway. When the Saab turns onto Route 22, Hollis heads for the little blue bedroom where Gwen has been listening to every word through the thin plaster walls.

“What’s wrong?” March says, following Hollis, not that he’s listening to her. In his opinion she doesn’t need to understand this; he can take care of the girl, after all.

Hollis stands in the doorway to the little room. Gwen is on her bed, a blanket wrapped around her, though it’s flimsy protection. She feels all clenched up, as if she were expecting to be hit.

“If you ever bring the Judge out here again,” Hollis tells Gwen, “you will seriously regret it.”

“Wait a second,” March says, confused.

“Let me handle this.” Hollis cuts her off. “Do you understand what I’m saying?” he asks Gwen.

Gwen is going along with her plan of no resistance. She nods, agreeing to whatever crap he’s spouting, grateful that the blanket is covering her and he can’t see that she’s shaking. Grateful that her mother is there, for March’s presence seems to offer some immunity from Hollis coming any closer.

“I don’t want him or anyone else on my property,” Hollis informs March. “This girl needs to know that.”

He’s got that look on his face March knows far too well. He’s in a mood, he won’t back down; he’s thinking only of the doors which were closed to him, not of how they’re all open to him now.

“That’s fine,” March says. “The Judge won’t come back here.”

She counts to ten and by the time she reaches that last number, Hollis has gone outside to cool off. The screen door slams behind him, and there’s an echo, cold wood against colder wood. They can hear his footsteps on the frozen ground on this quiet December night. They can hear the clatter of a typewriter as Hank works on his senior paper on the Founder, and a soft whining from Sister, who is hiding under the bed, fur darkened by dust. March goes to the window and sees Hollis out there by himself, looking up at the stars.

“He doesn’t mean any of that,” March says to her daughter. “Not really.”

Gwen looks at her mother. She feels an odd tenderness, the way one might when finished with crying.

“Mother,” she says simply, as if she were teaching sums to a six-year-old, “he certainly does.”

Susie Justice gets home in a hurry, after a whirlwind trip to Florida. In six days she has been to Palm Beach, Fort Lauderdale, and Miami, then hop-skipped over to Orlando. She’s writing a four-part series for
The Bugle
about vacation possibilities and retirement options, which will be chock-full of places to stay and eat and swim. She will not, however, mention in this cheery article how dreadful it is to come back to the cold once your trip is over, although she might suggest it’s best to have the person who retrieves your mail while you’re away take a look at your oil burner as well, as Susie’s seems to have died during her absence, and she comes home to a stone-cold house, with pipes that are close to bursting.

Ken Helm is down in the basement, fixing the burner, and Susie is in her kitchen, still wearing her coat and her gloves, when Ed Milton arrives with a pizza and Susie’s dogs, who have been staying with him for the past few days and who now follow on his heels, staring at him with adoration, since he was the one to most recently measure out their kibble.

“Wow,” Ed says when he sees how red Susie is. Florida, after all, will do that to a blonde.

“I ran out of sunblock,” Susie explains.

“I should have gone with you,” Ed says. “I would have made sure you paid attention to the SPF.”

Maybe his arms around her feel so good because it’s freezing, or maybe she really missed him. “I wouldn’t have listened to you,” Susie murmurs.

“What is going on in here?” Ed asks. “It’s freezing.”

There is a metallic banging rising from the basement.

“Ken Helm,” Susie explains. “Oil burner.”

As much as she hates to admit it, she did miss Ed, and this makes her nervous. This is not the way Susie likes to run her life, mooning over somebody, thinking about making sure they get into bed as soon as Ken Helm leaves, even though she should be attending to the Florida article. She’s going to have to find a getaways-to-Florida book at the library tomorrow, since she paid more attention to trying to track down Hollis’s past than she did to restaurants and theme parks.

“The most interesting thing about Hollis,” she tells Ed, as he opens the pizza box and they begin to eat standing up beside the counter, “is that nobody wanted to talk about him. His lawyer down there refused to see me. I went to this huge condo complex he owns in Orlando, and no one would speak to me. Not even the janitor. When I went to the racetrack he’s part owner of down in Fort Lauderdale, people clammed up so tight they wouldn’t even tell me the temperature. It’s like he doesn’t exist, in spite of everything he owns down there, which let me tell you, is plenty.”

“So, nothing?” Ed asks. He grabs another slice of pizza and begins to eat, eyes trained on Susie.

“I found one guy who let me take him out for a drink.” She laughs when she sees the expression on Ed’s face. “He was ancient, an old horse trainer who was still lugging around water and oats at the track. When I brought up Hollis’s name, he said, ‘Mr. Death.’ ”

“What’s that supposed to mean?”

“He wouldn’t say. But he did tell me that Hollis made his money by staying close to rich people, and by the time he was done, he was rich himself.”

“Rich people with horses?” Ed asks.

“That’s right. Do you think it was illegal gambling?”

“Susie,” Ed says. “Don’t go down this road.”

Susie blinks. Ed thinks she’s got something. The heat has kicked on, and the oil burner in the basement has begun to groan.

“Don’t ever tell me to quit,” Susie says. “I mean it.”

“Okay. Then if you want to know what I think, I’ll tell you. Insurance fraud.”

“There you go,” Ken Helm shouts from the basement. “It’s working now.”

“There was just a case of this over at the Olympia track. You’ve got an expensive horse that’s not performing, the cost-effective measure is an accident or death and then you can collect your insurance payment.”

“This is great,” Susie says. “I got him.”

Ed shakes his head. “You’ll never prove it. Hollis’s involvement in anything like that was all so long ago that by now, records will be tossed, even by the insurance companies, and everyone will have terminal memory loss.”

“You’re telling me to forget it? After all this?”

“Some people get away with things,” Ed Milton says sadly.

“Well, someone should pay him back for everything he’s done,” Ken Helm says. He has come upstairs, dirty from crawling around in the cellar; the wall he’s leaning against will have a film of black dust when he’s gone. “Hey there, Chief,” he says to greet Ed. “That should hold your burner for a little while,” he tells Susie, “but you’re going to need a new one, eventually.”

When Ken leaves, Susanna Justice walks him to the door. “You’re going to keep looking for something on him, aren’t you?” Ken asks as he’s leaving.

“I don’t know,” Susie admits. “I might give it up.”

She doesn’t have the heart to tell Ken that the sort of judgment he’s seeking is not necessarily hers to set forth. Maybe she should have quoted the only passage from Matthew she can remember:
What I want is mercy, not sacrifice.

That night, while Susie unpacks her suitcase, she can hear Ed running the water in her shower, and for some reason the sound gives her hope. She may decide to shock everyone in town, including herself, by marrying this guy. Marriage, after all, is a leap of confidence: We will be together, now and in the future. We are one, from this day forth. The Judge is thinking about such matters tonight as well, as he sits in his kitchen with a single light turned on. Marriage is many things to many people: a contract of convenience, a plight of truest love, an agreement made with a friend, or even with an enemy or, oftentimes, with a stranger you’re convinced that you know. Can you love two people? The Judge has mulled over this possibility for more than thirty years, and still has no answer. The answer, of course, is based on one’s interpretation of the nature of love, and the Judge considers himself to be too old and tired to expect any clarification at this point.

Still, he is thinking of Judith Dale tonight, as he often does at this hour, a time when most sensible people are already getting ready for bed. If he loved her would he have let her live the way she did, always waiting for what scraps of time he had, never having the choice to have a child of her own? But he did love her, that’s the thing, and he continues to love her even now. When he feels this way, he often gets in his car and drives, so he can cry alone. Oh, how he wishes he could confide in Louise, who has, for all these years, been his dearest friend. The Judge gets his coat, and as he’s about to go out the back door, Louise comes into the kitchen.

“This came this morning,” she says, handing him a thick envelope addressed to Gwen.

“A plane ticket,” the Judge guesses.

Louise nods. “I hope so. Why don’t you drop it off on your way to the cemetery.”

The Judge stands there, confused. Did she just say that?

Louise smooths the back of his coat, where it’s bunched up. She’s ready for bed, and her face is washed and clean; she looks a good deal like the girl that he married.

“Louise,” the Judge says.

“I’ll wait up for you,” she tells him. She hopes that after all this time, he won’t suddenly take it upon himself to apologize. She simply wants him to understand that she knows. That’s all. “I’ll fix us some tea.”

The Judge drives out to Guardian Farm thinking that after all he’s seen, people continue to amaze him. There’s very little traffic on the road, and no moon tonight. The Judge parks and gets out, carrying the envelope from Richard Cooper. Now there’s a man who’s got a great deal to learn, and who doesn’t seem to yet be aware of the difference between freedom and license. He should have come here with March in the first place. If there’s one thing the Judge has learned after all these years, it’s that only a fool tempts fate.

Gwen answers the door, wearing a heavy sweater; her hair is uncombed and her eyes are sleepy. Hollis and March are upstairs, and Gwen’s been fixing Hank some coffee; he’s finishing his paper on the Founder tonight, probably pulling an all-nighter, since his senior thesis is due in the morning.

“I didn’t ask you to come here,” Gwen says straightaway when she sees the Judge. She steps onto the porch, pulling the door closed behind her. She’s developed a nervous habit of chewing on her lip; when it bleeds she doesn’t seem to notice. “He doesn’t like company.”

“Your father sent a letter,” the Judge says.

“Oh,” Gwen says, relieved. “Oh, good.” She takes the letter and opens it while Sister noses at the door and comes to sniff at the Judge’s shoes. “A plane ticket,” Gwen announces, and then, surprised, she adds, “Actually, two.”

“He’s hoping against hope,” the Judge says.

“I don’t understand any of it,” Gwen says.

“Well, you’re among the majority, if you’re talking about love.”

“That’s not what they’ve got,” Gwen says, looking up at the bedroom window.

When the Judge heads for his car, Gwen slips the plane tickets inside the waist of her jeans, then picks up Sister and goes back inside. Hank is still at the table, papers spread out before him, but he’s stopped working.

“What did he want?” Hank asks. Does he sound like Hollis ? Lord, he hopes not. He’s not jealous, but he is desperate. He gets this way whenever he feels he might be losing Gwen.

They can hear the Judge’s Saab; it’s so loud when it starts up all Gwen can do is pray Hollis won’t hear.

“Nothing,” Gwen says. “He just stopped by.”

Hank feels a pain behind his eyes. Maybe he’s lost her already.

“Shit,” Gwen says when she hears something upstairs.

Hollis has slammed the bedroom door and is already coming down the stairs, cursing her. He’s calling her a bitch before he’s reached the first floor; no one’s ever taught her a lesson, but that will all change now.

“What’s wrong?” Hank says when Hollis comes into the kitchen, but even before the words are out of his mouth, Hollis is after Gwen, as if she were a mole he’d found in his garden and he had the right to grab her and shake her by the neck.

“Hey,” Hank says. He gets up from the table so quickly that he upsets his cup of coffee, and liquid spills over his research materials.

“I told you I didn’t want the Judge here,” Hollis is saying to Gwen. “But you think you’re too good to listen to anybody.”

“I don’t have to listen to
you,”
Gwen says right back to him. She feels as if he could snap her spine if he chose to, but she doesn’t care. How much she hates him is all she can think about at the moment.

March has come down from the bedroom, and she stands in the doorway to the kitchen. Now she knows how people freeze; she understands how that fire burned out of control before Alan could walk through the door. There is her daughter, frightened and shouting. There is the man she loves with his hands on her throat.

“I’m going to make you listen,” Hollis is saying to Gwen.

“I don’t think so,” Gwen says. She can see Hank coming toward them, but that’s not what gives her courage. She truly doesn’t care if Hollis hurts her; she wants him to, because that would only serve to prove her right in her opinion of him.