A Peculiar Grace Page 12

  LATE IN THE long summer afternoon he quit work for the day. Moments ago he’d taken the real egg from the pritchel hole and tossed it in a long jubilant arc out through the open doors where it spattered somewhere out of sight or sound in the grass. And stood in its place an egg of iron. Not yet perfect but even and balanced. All that was left was finish work.

  Hewitt loved those words. Finish work.

  Some small filing. A bit of grinder work. Wire brushing. Perhaps even a final heating for a few judicious taps. Brushing again and steel wool. From three feet away the egg would appear perfect; from a foot the faint traces of the hammerwork would be clear. Exactly what he wanted.

  He heaped the fire in the hearth together so in the morning it would take minutes to pump up hot and left the building. Not pausing at the top of the stairs to look a last time at the egg. One of those days where he walked with quiet certitude upon the earth, a solid footing that radiated from within some blue lightning synapses outward through his body and infused the earth around him, the air pulled into his chest. Blood pumping.

  So he walked to the shed and drove the Farmall up the hill. Into the woods and around the side onto the ridgeline on the old road and came to a stop by the stone chamber where he had first found her.

  It would have been amusing if not so alarming. The Volkswagen was pulled as close to around back of the chamber as the underbrush would allow and covered with an assortment of snapped-off branches and hemlock boughs and whatever deadwood she’d been able to pull in.

  The drystone chamber was about twelve feet in diameter and eight feet high, with an extended passageway jutting out not toward the road but away from it where it might command some long since overgrown view of the rest of the ridge. An outsized stone igloo. It was one of five Hewitt knew of, although he’d heard there were others. No one knew who built them or why. If the scientists, archeologists and such, ignored them it might be because people didn’t talk about them. No verbal or written record of them appeared in the history of the white settlers—nor a practical use any descendants could agree upon. There was no mention of such structures used by any native peoples. Rumors of Vikings rambling through this country a couple of centuries before the first Europeans and as proof was cited the age of the stonework and this from men who knew drystone. And then there were the rude carvings in the stones. Some obviously of more recent vintage but a disturbing few that were little more than worn slash marks in a small variety of shapes. Runes was the word in common local usage. Years ago Hewitt heard this particular chamber was sited so on winter solstice the rising sun flooded the entrance passage. One time Hewitt had tested this theory in those bleak years, his own Dark Ages when he’d hiked up full of a neat mixture of cocaine, whisky and Quaaludes, and woke at sunrise saved from freezing to death by a south wind and the heavy thick snow it brought. There had been a sunrise somewhere but no rays falling here. He hadn’t tried it since.

  Thoughts run faster than deer or common sense. So he came around to the opening tunnel and was about to call her name when a rush of air grasped and elasticized his inner ear to a bright pip of pain even as at least his other ear heard the deep punch of a gunshot from within the chamber. And then he was standing four feet back without a clue how he got there. Oddly, his first thought was regardless of how strong that punch of sound had seemed to him it must have been horrible within the confines of the chamber. Then very quickly he was pissed off.

  “Hey! What the fuck are you doing? You nearly fucking killed me.”

  He was shaking. His mind registering what his body already knew. She really had almost killed him. That whistle in his ear, throbbing gently now like a vein awakened, receding like the moan of a passing train. If you had your ear on the tracks.

  It was quiet but not so quiet that he couldn’t hear her inside moving around, a scurrying low to the ground like a squirrel trying to get to the other side of a tree. For the briefest of moments he wondered if she was alone. And if he was a fool not to get on the tractor and get out while he could. But he walked slowly back around the curve of the chamber and out along the entrance stonework so he was out of sight but could speak easily toward the opening.

  “Hey! It’s me out here. Hewitt.

  Nothing so he tried again. “Whatever’s after you, Jessica. It’s not me. Alright?”

  He was leaning one hand against the stones. So old that they were sealed over with moss and years uncountable of leaf mold. He waited even longer this time and then said, “I thought you got rid of that gun.”

  He was about to give up when, hoarse and diluted she answered him.

  “I lied.” Then, her voice even more broken and frightened, begged, “Leave me alone.”

  A surge of anger he wanted out but not this much. “If you want to be left alone so fucking much why did you come back?”

  “Can’t you leave me alone?”

  “Why’d you come back here?” His anger now clear but also tamped. Fucking tender heart.

  It was quiet then a long time. Long enough so after the protracted days at the forge he began to feel the ache in his knees and cramps in his thigh muscles. Still he held on to the stones. Waiting. Because he knew it was required that he wait.

  It was almost a shock when her voice came. A small voice. Almost that of a child.

  “Because I could.”

  It was so true he felt himself suddenly about to cry. All the anger gone by those three words.

  And he remembered that morning he almost died up here waiting to see a sunrise and all that had led him to that and he stood and smacked the stone hard with the flat of his hand and gazed off into the woods. A red squirrel with bulging cheeks dashed toward the chamber before sensing displacement and like so many things it did not retreat but simply was there and then not there.

  Hewitt said, “I’m going now.”

  No response.

  He waited and then called her name.

  After a bit he called again.

  She took what time she needed. Then said, “Just. Leave. Me. Be.” A voice filled with sorrow loaded with tears.

  He paused and almost quit and then knew he could not. He said, “All right. I will. But Jessica? Is there anyone after you?”

  This time there was no hesitation. He heard something striking the wall within the chamber. It could’ve been a stone. It could’ve been her head. But over it all came her cries. “No No No No No.”

  HE DIDN’T EVEN bother with Mississippi, guessing there was no one there he’d want to talk to. So he sat at the tiny telephone table and dialed information for Memphis. Trying to think if Memphis was one or two time zones behind. It was near six o’clock. Then informed the computerized voice that he needed to speak with an operator. A clicking and a buzz and for a moment he thought he’d been disconnected. A woman responded.

  “Help you.”

  This was going to take some work. Hewitt said, “Good evening, ma’am. I’m trying to find the number for a Mr. Kress.”

  “First name.”

  “I’m sorry. I don’t have one.”

  Her sigh was audible. She said, “In the greater Memphis metropolitan area I show thirty-six listings for that name sir. Do you have an initial or street address?”

  “No I don’t but—”

  “I can only provide two numbers per service call. I’m sorry sir.” She was going.

  “Wait. Please. I know he’s a lawyer. An attorney.”

  “I don’t show yellow page listings, sir.”

  “Yes, ma’am,” he said. “I understand that. But this is a matter of some urgency concerning his daughter.”

  “You should call the po-lice then.”

  “Ma’am? It’s truly not an issue for the police.”

  Silence. She was guarded now. She didn’t respond but didn’t hang up either.

  Hewitt spoke gently. “This girl, this man Kress’s daughter. She’s not in the sort of trouble the law could help with. In fact they could make it worse for her. She’s just a disturbed young
woman who sort of washed up on my door and needs more help than I can give her and I’m trying to contact her father is all. What she’s told me, he’s the only one might be able to help.”

  “If you can hold please sir.” And the line went into static. But she came back quickly with the name of a law firm, Malcolm & Kress, the phone number and even the street address.

  Hewitt thanked her. All she said was, “Have a nice day, sir.”

  The law firm of Malcolm & Kress was closed but the machine informed him he’d reached the offices of Winston Malcolm and Joseph Kress. He was gaining on his man.

  Another round with information. This time the pauses and clicks of automation and then the number was read to him not once but twice at a rate an alert seven-year-old could grasp.

  The man himself answered the phone. Hewitt introduced himself and began to explain where he was calling from when Joseph Kress interrupted him.

  “Is this about Jessica?”

  “It is.”

  “Are you a social worker? Or from a shelter?”

  I guess so Hewitt thought. “No,” he said. “She just sort of appeared about a week ago and—”

  “And you want her off your hands?”

  “You’ve been through this before, haven’t you?”

  “Too many times.”

  Hewitt turned that phrase over in his mind, wondering how a parent arrived at too many. And what that meant. Was it great fatigue or resignation or just calling it quits? He said, “I’m not trying to get rid of her. But what she tells me is circuitous and often contradictory.”

  “We all pretty much feel that way.”

  “Mr. Kress. I’m not a father. So I can’t imagine what it must be like. But what I see, when she’s fine, is a bright young woman with a quick mind and a sense of humor. I’m not trying to save her. But I don’t want to do anything that would make things worse.”

  There came now a sigh over the line. Hewitt had an image of a man still in his suit, perhaps his coat off and tie loosened. Somewhere in the house his wife was likely preparing dinner.

  “You said your name is …?”

  “Hewitt. Hewitt Pearce.”

  There was a pause, then Kress said, “Listen, Hugh.” There was a pause and the distinctive crinkle of ice cubes striking the sides of a glass. Kress said, “She’s got a sheet as long as your arm. Shoplifting. Vagrancy. Public nuisance. Never any drugs or violence or prostitution or anything like that. A handful of dismissed things like public menace which were only brief stops on the way to the hospital. Sometimes they called me and sometimes not. Four times she’s been committed. The first two by her mother and myself. The other two also involuntarily but by the authorities. You following me?”

  “Pretty much.” Maybe it was the drink. Something had changed in the man.

  “She can be normal as you or me one minute and then she’s gone again. I believe she can turn it on or off. Stuck in a room with a shrink she can come out an hour later with the guy swearing there’s nothing wrong with her. She’s been diagnosed so many times it almost seems like she’s the one pulling the strings there. Don’t get me wrong—I know she’s around a curve from where the rest of us live. And every couple years the medical boys and girls change their minds about what’s what and so she glides through one thing to another. I’m an attorney. I’ve seen every scam in the book. But whatever else she is, Jessica’s no grifter. That doesn’t mean she won’t take what she can get if it’s offered. Hell, we all do that.”

  “Maybe so.” Hewitt paused. He already knew this was a dead end but was determined to ride it out. He’d learn something one way or the other. So he said, “So, what prompted me to call was we’d been getting along pretty well and I thought maybe this was a good place for her to rest. She seemed more worn out than anything else when she first showed up. But this afternoon she went up the mountain behind my place here and when I went to check on her she kind of took a potshot at me. That sorta spooked me.”

  “Damn. That’s my fault. When it became clear she was going to stay out on the road for some amount of time nobody could guess at I gave her that goddamn gun. For self-protection. I thought I was doing the right thing. She sure as hell hasn’t shot anybody, though.”

  “Well, she missed me.”

  Joseph Kress sighed. In a flat voice he said, “I last saw her two years ago for two days. I drove to west Texas to try to help her because she asked me to. The second day we went out for lunch and she went to the bathroom and didn’t come back—out the damn window and gone. Fucking disappeared on me and I wasted another day driving around cheap motel parking lots looking for that fucking car. Other times I sent her money to come home and that was that. And I’ve had more conversations over the phone with people trying to help her than I can count. You listening to me, Hugh?”

  “I am.”

  There was a long pause. Then Joseph Kress said, “Look, call me. If I can help. Whatever comes up.”

  Hewitt held the phone hard against the side of his head. His ear was hot. He thought At least he didn’t offer to send money. He said, “I will.”

  * * *

  AFTER HE HUNG up he went out to the screened summer porch. There was still no trace, no faint smoke rise to announce her presence. There wasn’t anything he could do about her; he certainly wasn’t going back up the hill this evening. The phone call had offered illumination, but of all the wrong kind. It put him too dearly in mind of his own plummet and the years of despair when even his mother had finally told him, over the phone, her voice thick with tears that he had to stop calling her like this. Among the least amusing aspects of her confession was Hewitt had no memory of late-night telephone calls to her. No wonder his sister had largely bowed from his life. In fact she had declared as much. But she had called him one morning to tell him his most recent telephone call had left their mother in wild despair. And Beth would not tolerate this. Nor would she be part of it in any way. He had to gather himself. Then finished by swiping hard: How would their father look upon Hewitt’s self-indulgence? “Think about it Hewitt,” she said before the line went dead.

  A night in the woods might do Jessica good. Whatever chased her up there didn’t seem to have anything to do with him. He’d check on her in the morning.

  There was a cob-smoked ham steak in the fridge and he thought half of that would be just the ticket after his day of work. He should walk out to the asparagus bed and cut the fresh stalks certainly up since his first supper with Jessica.

  His hand swiped down along his front pocket to feel the weight and length of his jackknife. He walked to the screen door opening off the porch down into the yard, recalling Joseph Kress admitting he’d provided his unstable daughter with a handgun. For protection. Standing on the soft evening grass, now with the barn in sight and the swallows in their furious end-of-day feeding on insects. It was a frightening thing. Not that a man would feel he should take that step, knowing there was a deep unholy gamble involved. But more a profound sadness a girl so far off kilter lived in a world where such a choice had to be made.

  He went down to the patch and worked slowly through, cutting the thicker stalks and tucking them into his shirt pocket.

  He was halfway back to the house when he realized it had been days since he’d picked up his mail. Nothing would be there except bills and catalogues and other rubbish. But while the box on its post was large there was only so much the rural route carrier could stuff in. A single mother with three kids. No reason to make her life more difficult. Or his—at least a dozen times Stuart at the post office had called to remind him to empty his box. So he went out the drive on to the hardtop and lifted out the armful of mail, hugging it to the right side of his chest to not break the asparagus as he walked to the house.

  Inside he spilled it all down on the kitchen table and then laid the tender spears in the clean sink. He’d noted the Bluffport, New York, paper wrapped around the mail and thought he’d page through as he ate. He took the ham wrapped in white butcher paper
from the fridge and laid it on the counter, about to pull the tape free to unwrap it when he stopped and stepped slowly away, as if backing from coiled danger. After a moment he returned to the table and pulled free the paper and unfolded it so the entire front section lay flat below him. He placed his knuckles either side of the newspaper and leaned down to the lead story.

  Sweet Mary Mother of God.

  NUSSBAUM WAS DEAD. Emily’s Dr. Martin Nussbaum was dead. According to the account near midnight his Lexus struck a cow that wandered through a broken fence on to a county road. Died of massive head and chest injuries. The article gave little more information. So little in fact Hewitt had no choice but to conclude there was more story but not to put in the paper. The blessing of the small town weekly which still, near alone in these days, regarded privacy as an essential quality of integrity. No mention of why the good doctor had been out driving at such an hour of the night, nor where he’d been traveling to or from. If he’d been at the hospital or a medical crisis this would’ve been mentioned. The piece largely focused on the loss to the community. His survivors. There was no comment from his wife but then why should there be?

  Nussbaum was dead. Hewitt wandered back and forth across the kitchen. Dead and buried. He bent and leafed through to the obituary but this provided no information Hewitt did not already know.

  He wandered. Was it possible he’d somehow wanted this? Hoped for it? No. A divorce yes. But not this. Dead and buried. Hewitt could not have precisely stated the day of the week so he got down the feed-store calendar and placed it next to the paper. Son of a bitch. Emily’s husband died the night, not far from the hour, that Jessica had first driven into his life. Was buried three days later, the morning service and committal would have been the day after he and Jessica had driven into Hanover.