The Last Days of Summer (16 page)

‘Come in, Elizabeth.' Mr Anderson was seated in an armchair by the darkened fireplace. Wrong season for a fire.
But it'd been raining out that night. She could remember that. A chill to the late March air. A freshness kin to cold.

Mr Anderson already knew why she was there. She could tell that much from the sad knowledge in his eyes as he regarded her. She'd never known Mr Anderson well. Had only really made his acquaintance through formal handshakes at church gatherings. He was semi-retired. Overweight, but not fat. A puzzle lay scattered on the coffee-table before him, less than a quarter complete. A watercolour of a museum piece she did not know or recognize. He smiled at her, that same sadness still lingering in his eyes. ‘Come in, sit down.'

‘Thank you, sir.' Lizzie sat on the couch across from him, shifting Joanne to balance her on her knee.

‘Coffee, dear?'

A gentle hand on Lizzie's shoulder. A soft squeeze. She looked into the weathered blue eyes of Mrs Anderson, and felt warmth there. Shook her head, ‘No, no, I'm fine.'

‘Nonsense.' That lovely warm smile. ‘I'll brew a fresh pot.' And Mrs Anderson slipped from the room. The smell of cinnamon lingered behind her.

‘Do you like puzzles?'

‘Excuse me?'

‘Puzzles.' He gestured to the table before them. ‘Do you like them?'

‘I … I wouldn't know, sir. I haven't played too many.'

‘No?'

‘No.'

‘Why's that?'

She hesitated. ‘Seems I always end up missin' pieces.'

He reached down and took a border piece into his hand.
Turned it to study it. ‘They're good for the mind. Puzzles.' A smile tickled the corner of his mouth. An ornate Victorian clock ticked the passing minutes. Raindrops beat against the windowpane, racing down the glass.

‘Sir, I ain't here to learn 'bout puzzles.'

‘Aren't you?' A bemused smile now broke his features, deepening his wrinkles. No malice in it, but Lizzie felt uncomfortable all the same. She felt herself go hot and red.

‘I find,' he said, more gently, ‘that puzzles relax my mind.'

‘It's my brother, sir.' Her voice faltered. ‘It seems he's in a bit of trouble.'

‘Yes.' Mr Anderson fit the puzzle piece into place. Sat back to admire its placing. ‘I'd heard.'

‘We need a lawyer, sir.' Her turn to pause. ‘I was hoping you might be him.'

A long silence stretched between them. He leaned back in his chair, elbows on the armrests, fingers entwined before him.

Regarded her.

Somewhere, far off, thunder rumbled. The call of a barn owl caused them both to turn towards the window. Glass streaked with raindrops. Raindrops caught the room's light, tiny rainbows reflected in each tiny drop before its downward race. Odd to hear an owl call like that in such a heavy storm.

His voice, deep and calm, like thunder, he said, ‘I'm not sure you can ask that of me.'

‘Why's that?' She turned quickly with the words, eyes defiant, jaw tight with stress. And hope.

The wind howled as it cut round the house. A high, whiny sound, slow to fade. Fingers still entwined before him, he shifted in his chair. ‘I have a conscience.'

The words slapped her. She stiffened. In her arms, Joanne gurgled and found her thumb with her mouth and sucked. Lizzie bounced her slightly on her knee. A mother's instinct. ‘You think I don't?' Words harder than intended. Joanne squirmed.

Mr Anderson shook his head. ‘That's not what I said, Elizabeth.' A throat-clearing pause as he looked down to his hands, then up again. ‘Do you think your brother's innocent?'

‘He wouldn't hurt no one.' She knew her words untrue even as she spoke them. Anger in her tone, her heart. She looked back to the window. Past the raindrops out to the darkness beyond. Then softer, scarcely a whisper, ‘I don't know what to believe any more.'

Mr Anderson leaned forward, resting his elbows on his knees, hands newly clasped together. He had an earnest face. One deep-set wrinkle that creased his forehead. Crow's feet round his eyes, his mouth. ‘That girl still in hospital?'

‘Yessir.' Voice barely a whisper. Throat too tight to swallow.

‘She doing OK?'

‘She'll live.' A hollowness to her words.

He nodded. ‘It may not seem it now but, trust me, that's a blessing.'

Lizzie leaned back, the leather of the couch smooth and cool against her back. Held Joanne tight to her. ‘They
called Bobby in, too. You hear that? Called 'im in to question.' Her voice rising, spiralling.

His still calm. ‘They have reason to?'

‘Bobby didn't do nothin'.' Words spat more than spoken.

‘They charge him?'

‘No.' She shook her head. ‘They didn't keep 'im long.' A pause that felt like hours. She broke it. ‘Jasper turned up at his shop, that's why. Turned up there all covered in blood.'

Silence between them a moment. He was the one finally to break it. ‘I don't like being the one to tell you this now, Elizabeth, but I feel it's best you know what rumour's spreading.' He paused. ‘They're sayin' Jasper couldn't have acted alone. Not on this one now, but the others. Folks are sayin' he had help. Seems most fingers are pointing at Bobby.'

Lizzie snorted. ‘That's ridiculous. Bobby never hurt a fly.'

‘I know, I know.' Both hands up as if to stop her. Something soothing in his tone. ‘But don't you worry, that Saunders girl will clear Bobby. You've nothing to worry about there. She'll say who put her in that state.'

Lizzie let out a long breath. ‘She ain't sayin' nothing, though. That's what I heard. She ain't said even one word yet.'

‘An' Jasper?'

‘He ain't said much neither.'

Mr Anderson leaned back in his armchair again, crossing his legs as he reclined. A flash of lightning lit the
room an eerie blue, and Joanne let out a tiny cry as thunder shook the house. Lizzie rocked and shushed her, rocked and shushed her, holding her close to her chest. Raindrops still beat with fury against the windowpane.

‘You'll be hard pressed to find a jury that will let him walk.'

She let his words hang between them. Knew them inside her as true. Shook her head. ‘He ain't done all they sayin'. He ain't capable of it.' Defensive. Petulant. Like a child.

Mr Anderson's voice softened. ‘Elizabeth …'

She raised her eyes to find his.

‘I can't defend a man I think is guilty.'

The door swung open. Mrs Anderson's warm smile brightened the room as she entered. ‘Now, here we are, dears, fresh hot coffee! Do you take milk and sugar, Elizabeth?' Kindness and something close to sadness hidden in those blue eyes. Bright and clear as crystals. She set the tray down on the edge of the coffee table, shaking her head as she brushed puzzle pieces aside.

Mr Anderson let out one dissatisfied breath and tossed his hands up in mock frustration. ‘The problem with puzzles,' he said, smiling, turning to Lizzie, ‘is having the space to sort them!' And then he winked. Lizzie had long thought back on that wink. Had wondered if maybe there'd been some meaning in it. Some code or double message she'd been meant to take away. She'd tried to take heart from, to find strength within, that wink, but as the years had passed, and Lizzie'd thought back on that moment further, that smile further, she'd thought more and more that maybe he was just a kind old
man, only offering her reassurance, no deeper coded meanings. No secrets. Just a smile. Just a playful wink. And nothing more.

Desperation rose in Lizzie's throat. Somehow she found the words, ‘No, ma'am, black is fine.' Her cup was poured. Set before her. Dark as the night outside.

She left soon after, too proud to beg for his aid. Too soul-weary for chit-chat. Coffee barely touched. Throat too tight with worry to let her drink. In the hallway as she was leaving, right before she'd reached the door, Mrs Anderson had caught Lizzie's arm. Her grip firm, fingers digging into Lizzie's skin, their eyes had met. ‘Sometimes,' she'd said, ‘when there's evil in this world, all we can do is pray.' The older woman's eyes searched Lizzie's another moment. ‘Be careful, hon.' And she released her arm.

Lizzie squints slightly as she follows Mrs Anderson's sedan with her gaze. Right into the sunlight. She blinks and the car's already turned, crossing the railroad tracks heading west, back out into the open stretch of the prairie. Early mornings, the tracks are scattered with migrants, Mexicans mostly, looking for work for hire. The sun is high in the sky now, though, and even the last stragglers not to find a day's work have cleared out and moved on, leaving the tracks empty. Tyre-tread marks lead from the paved road to crisscross each other in the sand beside the tracks. The only remaining testimony that the ranchers and oil men driven in from the bigger towns looking to hire had in fact been there. Lizzie'd known it wouldn't be easy, Jasper being home. She'd known that trouble might raise its head again. But she hadn't expected Esther to
refuse them like that. She'd hoped maybe life could go on again. Could resemble something close to normal. To how life's meant to be.

A bell chimes and Lizzie turns. Jasper and Joanne walk up the sidewalk towards them, shop door swinging shut behind them. Hand in hand. Like father and daughter might. Lizzie feels her throat go dry. Jasper meets her gaze. Holds it a moment. Looks down to where his hand holds Joanne's. Releases it. Joanne looks up at her uncle, opens her mouth to speak.

‘Girls, get in the car.' Lizzie's voice low, level.

‘But, Mom …' Joanne starts.

‘I said
now
.' No messing in Lizzie's tone. She can still hear her brother's laughter ringing in her ears.
What was I thinking, letting this man into our home?

Jasper looks back at his sister. Face blank. Hand fallen by his side, palm still up and open as though waiting to be held again. ‘Go on,' he says softly, and Joanne closes her mouth into a pout. Leaves his side. Climbs up after her sister into the pickup's cab, door not quite slammed but still shut hard enough to make the truck shudder.

The laughter's left Jasper's face, though that doesn't soften it, his eyes clouded with a darkness Lizzie doesn't understand, nor is sure she wants to. They gaze at each other for a moment in silence, Jasper standing on the sidewalk, hands by his sides, head somehow still held tall. Not proud. Not exactly. But tall all the same. Lizzie leans her back against the side of the pickup again. Can feel the metal hot through her shirt. Hot against the back of her legs. The sun still hot upon them.
Must be nearing noon,
from how high the sun now sits
. It is Lizzie who breaks their silence. ‘Don't know what was funny 'bout that to you.'

He raises his eyes from the pavement to meet hers. ‘You wanna have this conversation here?' Voice infuriatingly calm. As though everything is normal. As if they are just a normal family come to town to do their shopping. His voice deep and low.

She bites her lower lip, peers down the traffic-less street. Stop lights more for show than regulating traffic: whatever cars not local that do pass through town rarely ever stop. From somewhere music drifts. A country song, singer's voice low and sad, words too muffled to make out. ‘All right,' she says, and walks round to the driver's side. Starts up the engine on the third try, motor coughing and sputtering before catching.

A knock on the back window. She meets his gaze in the rear-view mirror. Eyes so familiar yet so unknown.

‘I can look at that for you,' he calls, gesturing towards the hood, and he nods before turning.

Lizzie shifts her foot onto the gas. Reverses out back onto Main Street. Says nothing. Trains her eyes away as they drive past Bobby's old garage, now ‘Frank's', bought out long ago.

Joanne sits in the dark shade of the porch, bare feet on the first step, hands on the floor behind her for support, shoulders hunched high by her ears. Her sister sits a ways behind her in one of the rockers, feet drawn up onto the seat before her, painting her toenails. Red. Strands of golden hair drop across Katie's face, fallen loose from
her ponytail. She holds her lower lip between her teeth, twisting her lips with concentration. In the driveway, not far before them, Uncle Jasper leans under the open hood of the pickup, but Joanne can't see him from where she sits, only the pickup bed, cab, its open hood, Uncle Jasper's hand and arm from time to time as he reaches up and holds the hood or grabs another tool. Even from where Joanne sits, his hands are black with grease.

‘Katie?'

‘Ummm?' Her sister does not look up.

‘Daddy used to fix cars, right?' Joanne can feel her sister's eyes upon her, but she does not turn. Stares at the pickup instead. Eyes locked on it.

‘That's right.'

‘And Uncle Jasper used to work with 'im?'

‘You know that already.' Tone not quite annoyed.

She twists around to face her sister. ‘You ever see Daddy do it?'

‘Do what?' Katie's focus is back on her toes again, brush held steady.

‘Fix somethin'.'

Katie laughs. ‘I seen 'im fix loads of things, Lady.' She smiles at her little sister. ‘He used to come home each night and toss us in the air, and his nails were black like an oil man's.' She winks.

Joanne smiles. Looks back out across the garden and over to the drive where the pickup sits parked. She wishes she could remember those dirty hands, or the prickles on his chin Katie's told her he used to tease them with. ‘And Uncle Jasper?' she asks. ‘You ever seen him fix anythin' before?'

Voice gone quiet. ‘I guess at some point I musta.'

Joanne scratches a mosquito bite by her ankle. Twists her leg to study it. ‘Katie?'

‘Yeah?'

‘Why don't you talk much to Uncle Jasper?'