Through an open window, p.25
Through an Open Window, page 25
“Well, that night they both acted like asses,” said Emlynn, sniffing and twisting her paper towel in her hands. “Personally, I think brothers should be closer. Especially twins, for Pete’s sake. Just look at how thrilled your mother is to have found a brother she never even knew she had.” Mouse crossed her arms in silent communication that Emlynn was too upset to pick up on. “I know you were shocked last night, and I don’t really blame you for leaving like you did. It was an emotional meeting. I guess we all felt it. I stayed awake till early this morning thinking about it. I couldn’t get over how thrilled Margaret was. I mean, I’ve never had any siblings myself, but Lord knows I always wanted some.” She looked over at Mouse and sniffed loudly. “Frankly,” she said, “I’ve always thought the three of you take one another for granted.”
Mouse stiffened, then stood up abruptly and walked to the window, her back toward Emlynn, who blithely continued on. “Just imagine,” she said, “if that Kitty woman really knows what she’s talking about—and between you and me, the jury’s still out on that, she seemed like some kind of nut—but if she does, and I…I really am pregnant…then our baby now has a great-uncle! That’s wonderful, isn’t it? Somebody older to take the place of the grandfather it won’t have.” Feeling suddenly better, Emlynn blew her nose again, then popped open the cold can of Coke. “I can barely believe this all started with that envelope I found in the old dollhouse. I mean, what are the odds? I can still see myself, squatting there in the window and seeing the thing poking out from under those little stairs, never once dreaming what it would unleash. And here we are.”
Mouse wheeled around. “I think you’re jumping the gun a bit, don’t you? You can’t possibly know for certain this man is who he says he is. Can you? I mean, really. Can any of us?”
“I…I don’t,” Emlynn sputtered, her receding tears whipping around and popping back into her eyes.
“Look, Emlynn,” said Mouse, briskly. “You seem to be feeling a bit better. If you don’t mind, I really need to get back to work. This wedding Friday night is one of our biggest this year, and I just don’t have time to talk anymore.” She walked to the door and opened it, and Emlynn, shocked into silence, picked up her purse and walked quickly out of the office, down the hall, and out the front door, leaving her six boxes of cookies still sitting atop the front counter.
* * *
—
It took her longer than usual to nudge the last customers out of Verbena Apothecary. At closing time, Susie Blanchard was still nosing around in the new fall shipment of scarves and shawls from Drake Island Woolens before finally deciding—another ten minutes later, and after trying each one of them on in front of the old floor-length mirror, then throwing them, unfolded, back onto the shelf—that Wesleyan probably didn’t really get cold enough anymore to justify such a dear purchase. Emlynn was, for her, a bit terse in saying goodbye, but if the woman noticed, Emlynn couldn’t honestly say that she cared. The bell clanged loudly when she shut the door behind Susie, and Emlynn flipped the sign over from Open to Closed with such force the thing took a whole minute to stop swinging.
Her emotions had been on a fair ride all afternoon. Leaving Elegant Agatha’s, Emlynn had bawled her way up Old Chimney Brick Road, slammed her fist on the steering wheel as she turned onto Pierce Avenue, and then, wondering again if it could be possibly true she was pregnant, grinned all the way down Meridian Street. Had she been caught by traffic cameras, one look at the footage and she would’ve been shipped straight off to the psych ward at Elberta General.
By the time she pulled into the narrow gravel lot that ran behind the stores on the square, Emlynn had worn herself down to a dull depression that would last the rest of the day. Now, finally alone, she felt exhausted and weepy as she walked to the shelf and began to refold all the Drake Island Woolens that Susie Blanchard had left in a pile.
As she folded a gray tartan shawl, Emlynn thought again how quickly Mouse had ushered her from her office this afternoon, and she grimaced once more with embarrassment. It should’ve been obvious to her that Mouse wouldn’t want to talk about the sudden appearance of John Dilbeck. That boundary had been made perfectly clear by Mouse’s behavior last night. And yet, Emlynn had jumped right over it anyway. She now rested her head against the tall wooden shelf and closed her tired eyes, her mind trying to sidestep recrimination. In the eight years she and Lawrie had been together, she’d never once had a cross word with his sister.
But she’d really thought, hadn’t she, that Mouse would’ve come around since last night, that she might’ve already called Margaret to apologize for doubting the man. It was so clear he was who he said he was. Like Lawrie had said as they’d driven away from Nathan Culpepper’s last night, anybody could see it, even before they noticed that catawampus little finger sticking out from Margaret’s and John’s—and Mouse’s—right hands. These people were family. It was there in the way they cocked their heads when they listened, the way they both crossed their left leg over their right. And for goodness’ sake, their voices were almost the same.
Placing the neat stack of soft woolens back in their place, Emlynn wondered now if Mouse blamed her for all this. After all, she’d been the one who’d pulled that old yellow envelope out from under the stairs of the dollhouse. She’d been the one to give it to Margaret. And as far as Emlynn could tell, she was the only one who agreed with Margaret that something bigger was obviously at work here. A little practical magic was all right with her. She didn’t doubt for a minute that Margaret had seen the ghost of her aunt. And if the old lady wanted to use Emlynn in some small way to help facilitate the reunion of her great-niece and great-nephew, then she was happy to be placed into service.
Emlynn wandered through the shop, turning out all the lamps. A gentle rain had begun falling again, the sound like fingertips softly tapping on the awning outside. She placed a hand on her tummy. The baby was smaller than a sunflower seed, but somehow, she knew it was there. Almost like magic.
From where Emlynn stood in the shadows, she saw Enid Harper hurrying by, her two-year-old son, Sergio, frequently darting out from under the umbrella Enid was trying to keep steady above them. They were halfway past Verbena Apothecary’s window when little Sergio skidded to a stop, pointing. With one exasperated look to the heavens, Enid bent down beside him, listening and nodding as Sergio commented on the Halloween décor. Every colored light, every tiny pumpkin, and finally, the magical dollhouse. Emlynn’s eyes followed theirs and she suddenly gasped. Why hadn’t she thought of this earlier?
She could see the tiny screws lined up along the edge of the roofline, each one about the size of the head of a pin. They shone silver in the white glow of the streetlight outside. Only slightly aware of a high-pitched whine in her ears, Emlynn turned and walked quickly to the back of the shop, returning with the smallest screwdriver she could find.
It took her a good thirty minutes to loosen each one, the tiny screws pinging against one another as she dropped them into a small jar. When they were all out, she placed both hands wide on the roof of the dollhouse, took a deep breath, and lifted it off. She placed it down in the window beside her, then, with both hands crossed under her chin, she peered over the rim.
So many letters. There must have been a hundred of them. All addressed to Lawrence Elliot. All postmarked from Enoree Island.
27
Mouse
Nick Moretti lay sprawled on the sofa, watching the news with the sound off. From where Mouse stood in the kitchen, stirring a chicken perloo, she could see he was losing the battle to stay awake. Well, he’d been up since four-thirty this morning. Over at the end of the counter, Mouse saw her phone flash again. It was the third time in the past five minutes.
Her conversation with her mother hadn’t gone well and Mouse knew it. She’d taken the call in the laundry room so as not to disturb Nick, and stood straight-backed by the dryer, one hand gripping a bottle of Mrs. Meyer’s detergent, while Margaret told her all about going back to Aunt Edith’s old house this morning. Then there’d been the visit she and John made to Lawrie’s clinic, and the lunch with Harriet Spalding they had scheduled for tomorrow. “Would you like to go with us?” Margaret asked. Mouse would not.
Faced with her daughter’s unresponsiveness, Margaret had continued to talk, no doubt hoping a flood of innocuous conversation would break down Mouse’s defenses. “And Tom thinks I should let him put in a pond over in the corner out back. Fill it with cattails and water lilies, you know, that sort of thing. He says there’s plenty of room, but I told him Jubal would probably just lay in it all day.” A long quiet pause. “What do you think, Mouse?”
What did Mouse think? She thought her whole family had lost their minds. Why was nobody listening to her? Why had they all just taken this stranger into their lives like crazy people? Those DNA results couldn’t come fast enough. She’d gotten off the phone with her mother with the always reliable excuse that she had something cooking on the stove, which she had, and then immediately silenced the thing. But it had flashed just three minutes later. And now it was flashing again.
Throwing her damp dish towel over her shoulder, Mouse crept up to the phone as though afraid the caller might see her. It wasn’t Margaret, after all. It was Emlynn. Mouse backed away, looking up to the ceiling and closing her eyes.
She had been perfectly horrible to Emlynn, and she knew it. The one person in the whole family who was always sweet and uncomplicated, who came without a sheaf of operating instructions you had to decipher to get through an evening unscathed. And Mouse had treated Emlynn like a mere annoyance, shown her out of the office in the rudest way possible. After Emlynn had come to her crying. Mouse took the dish towel and whipped it down on the counter, the loud wet smack waking Nick.
“What the hell?” Mouse heard the TV remote hit the floor.
“Sorry! Sorry. I just…dropped something.”
“Oh, okay. Right.” Nick sat up a bit straighter. “Ah, heck,” he said, staring at the TV screen. “I bet I missed Bogey’s interview, didn’t I? They were supposed to talk to him about the new flu vaccine tonight. I told him I’d watch. Shoot.” Nick turned up the sound. “You didn’t happen to see any of it, did you? Maybe just what he was wearing? I could comment on his tie, or something. Make him think I saw the thing.”
“Nope. Sorry,” said Mouse, giving the chicken perloo another stir before putting the lid back on the pot with a clatter.
Nick rose from the sofa and went around to stand behind her, fastening his hands on her hips. “Boy, that smells good,” he said. “But you didn’t have to do all this tonight. We could’ve gone out. I know you’re covered up this week with that wedding.”
His kindness was genuine, but Mouse was sure she could hear implicit questions burrowed inside it. She could tell how much he wanted to ask her about John Dilbeck. Had she talked to her mother? Had she changed her mind? Had she come to the realization that Margaret was probably right to believe John was her brother? Didn’t she see now how great this all was? An equivocal resentment made Mouse stiffen her spine when she felt Nick brush back her hair to kiss her neck, but before it registered with him, the doorbell rang, and he suddenly released her.
“Who on earth could that be?” he asked, not expecting an answer as he moved toward the hallway.
Mouse cocked her head, listening, but couldn’t hear anything over the sound of the television. Glancing back into the den, she saw the doughy, red face of Bogey Crawford staring at her from the large screen, the words “coming up next” crawling slowly beneath him.
She had just started to call out to Nick when he walked back into the kitchen holding a large cardboard box in his arms. He set it down on the table and switched on the lamp that sat on the sideboard. “Well, that was weird,” he said, stepping back and turning to Mouse.
“What was weird?” she asked, looking over at the box. “Who was it?”
“It was Emlynn,” said Nick, drying his hands on his trousers. “She just kinda pushed this into my arms and took off. Said she was late for dinner or something. Told me to give you this note.” He handed Mouse a folded piece of paper, her name written in pencil on top.
Mouse took the note and stared at the box for a moment. “Uh…Bogey,” she said, without looking at Nick. “He’s about to come on. You know, the news.” She pointed over her shoulder. “I mean, he’ll be on next.”
“Oh, great,” said Nick, loping off into the den.
Unfolding the small piece of white paper, Mouse read the short sentence written in Emlynn’s hand. “I just found these in the dollhouse.”
The box was slightly damp from the rain. Drake Island Woolens was printed in black on the side, but for some reason, Mouse knew it wouldn’t contain anything like that. She walked slowly over to the table. Bogey Crawford’s wide drawl suddenly got louder as Nick turned the sound up on the TV. “Nobody likes to do it, exactly,” Bogey was saying, “but it’s just part of life these days if you want to stay well. Believe me, if you put it off, and you get the flu, you’ll wish like the dickens you’d gotten the shot.”
Mouse lifted the lid off the box.
28
Mouse
Though the sun had yet to crack the horizon, Mouse could tell it was going to be a beautiful day. The sky had that satiny look, the last of the stars still stubbornly glowing.
She was glad to be the first person here, glad to have a few minutes of quiet before the commotion began. The Goldsmith wedding was a big one; she wouldn’t get to bed until midnight, at least. As she pulled into her usual place at the side of the long brick building, her headlights caught a family of deer gathered at the edge of the woods. The doe hesitated a moment, staring boldly at Mouse, almost in recognition, then bolted away into the darkness, her two spotted young ones close on her heels. Smiling, Mouse felt tears prick her tired eyes. Now that the tears had finally started, she didn’t seem to be able to stop them.
There’d been too many letters to read in one sitting, so Mouse had taken out only a few at a time, she and Nicky sitting cross-legged on the sofa till late in the night. Some were so thin and flimsy with age, only the ink on their pages seemed to hold them together. At first, she’d tried to tell herself none of them constituted any proof that John Dilbeck was really her uncle, but the more she read, the less that seemed to matter. Each sentence written in his hand had been in response to something her father had written, and as she read through John’s letters to Lawrence, she heard her father’s voice in her head as clearly as though the two of them were having a conversation beside her.
Sometime around ten that first night, she and Nick each reading a letter, he’d suddenly gone quiet, staring over at her. “What?” she’d said, reaching for the one he held in his hand. Nicky snatched it away.
“What does that one say?” Mouse demanded.
“I’m not sure you should read this, Minnie. In fact, maybe we shouldn’t be looking at these things at all.”
“Give it here, Nicky,” said Mouse, firmly. And Nick handed it over to her.
August 21, 2001
Dear Lawrence,
Heard you on the radio last night. I swear, if I didn’t know better, I would’ve thought you knew what you were talking about. Ha, Ha. Personally, I’ve always felt there was more to be mined from Disraeli’s story myself. You’re just the fellow to do it. Sounds like that interviewer agrees. Carrie and I wish you great success with this new book.
Thanks so much for the picture of Ben. A handsome baby if ever I saw one. And I think you may be right; he does look a bit like his grandfather. Ha, Ha, again. Boy, that Mouse doesn’t let the grass grow under her feet, does she? Two babies in less than two years. I wouldn’t worry, though. You’ve always said she could do anything she put her mind to. And by the way, I’m not going to say this again, Lawrence, but don’t even think about paying me back that money. I told you at the time it was a gift. I like being able to think I had a small hand in her success. And that catering company of hers is going to be a success. I just know it…
Mouse had read the letter three times, turning it over to see if anything else was written on the backs of the pages, something that might make more sense. “You mean…” she began, looking up at Nick. “You mean, he loaned Daddy the money? The money I used to start Elegant Agatha’s?”
“Doesn’t sound like a loan. Sounds more like a gift.”
Mouse remembered how empathetic her father had been about not telling Margaret what he had done. It had given Mouse the uncomfortable notion that, deep down, her mother might not have approved. That thought had festered inside her, unacknowledged, yet constant, for years. And it had never been true. It had been John that gave her the money. And of course, Margaret hadn’t even known. She hadn’t known John even existed.
Mouse had wept on and off for two days.
Closing the car door, she headed now toward the building, pea gravel crunching under her shoes. The choir of crickets and tree frogs was singing their one last song before dawn, a wall of sound so familiar, so Southern, Mouse normally gave it no mind. But she paused to listen today. Then, pushing open the tall, heavy door, Mouse heard her phone ring, the tone strangely intrusive here in the darkness. The door thudded shut behind her, and she flipped on the lights.
Throwing her bag on the counter, Mouse opened it up and the ring of the phone got much louder. Kitty’s number was shining up from the screen. No surprise, Mouse thought. Mothers always had a few meltdowns the day of their daughters’ weddings, and Lord knows, she’d never expected Kitty Goldsmith would be an exception. She was probably worried there wouldn’t be enough lemon squares. “Hey, Kitty,” Mouse said, pulling off her jacket.
