Mrs. Kimble (28 page)

T
he next day the phone rang three times. The first caller was Brendan’s friend Sean Guthrie, inviting him to play a new computer game. The second, a woman named Charmaine Watkins, looking for Ken. The third, a receptionist in the dermatology department at Georgetown Medical Center, reminding Dinah of her upcoming appointment. Ken had scheduled it for her a few weeks ago, a consultation about the new procedure.

The following day it rang twice. A reporter from the
Washington Post,
hoping to interview Ken. Another call from Charmaine Watkins.

The third day it didn’t ring at all.

S
eason’s greetings,
Dinah wrote.
Warmest wishes this
New Year. Ken, Dinah, and Brendan Kimble.
Her hand shook as she wrote their names. Ken had been gone for four days.

At first she’d been furious, then concerned; she’d imagined him collapsed in an airport, his heart seizing in a crowded airplane. Finally she’d called the police.

“My husband has disappeared,” she said. “He has a history of heart disease. I’m afraid something has happened to him.”

The sergeant hammered her with questions. Were there marital problems? Had her husband done this sort of thing before?

“No,” she’d answered calmly. “Of course not. Never before.”

She sealed the envelope. Ken considered it ridiculous to write cards by hand—he said preprinted ones were easier and classier—but Dinah insisted; it was her favorite part of the holidays. One by one she crossed the names off her list: distant cousins, coworkers from her days at Emile’s, a few of Ken’s business associates. He had no living relatives, other than his children; his only friends were couples they both knew. In all their years of marriage, he’d never
sent a Christmas card to Florida, let alone gone back for a visit. Dinah knew he owned property there—a time-share condo in Orlando, apartments near a golf course in Palm Beach—but never before had he mentioned any tenants.

She tucked the cards into her gym bag, to mail on her way to the club. She pulled a jacket over her tennis whites and was halfway out the door when the phone rang. It’s about goddamn time, she thought. She grabbed the phone.

“Miz Kimble?” said a woman’s voice. “This is Valerie Clark.”

“Val.” She took a deep breath. Surely Ken’s secretary would know how to reach him. “What’s up?”

Val hesitated. “Do you have a number where I can reach Mr. Kimble? We got a situation here…” Her voice trailed off. “I’m not sure how to handle it.”

“I don’t know where he is,” said Dinah. “I was going to ask you the same question.”

Val lowered her voice. “Miz Kimble, there’s two gentlemen here. From the Department of Housing and Urban Development. They’re asking a lot of questions. I think Mr. Kimble’s in some kind of trouble.”

“Trouble? What kind of trouble?”

“They want to see all the financial records. All the way back to eighty-nine. At first I said no, but I don’t see as how I have any choice.”

“Financial records,” Dinah repeated. She stared out the window, at the white sky threatening snow.

“If Mr. Kimble calls, tell him I need to talk to him right away,” said Val. “Tell him it’s an emergency.”

“Of course.” Dinah’s heart raced. “Val, that Charmaine Watkins
keeps calling the house. Do you know what she wants?” She heard voices in the background. “Val, are you still there?”

“Miz Kimble, I got to go.” Again Val lowered her voice. “About that Charmaine Watkins. She’s been after Mr. Kimble for weeks now. He told me not to talk to her. He said she just want to make trouble for him.”

She hung up the phone.

T
HAT AFTERNOON
Dinah sat on the living room floor with a cup of coffee, wrapping Christmas presents and listening for Sean Guthrie’s Jeep in the driveway. The snow had begun to fly. She wished she’d gone to pick up Brendan herself.

There was nothing to be done. She’d considered, briefly, going downtown to see the HUD people herself, but realized she had nothing to say. She knew little about the Homes Project beyond what she’d told Charlie at Thanksgiving.
It’s a terrific project. He doesn’t make a dime off of it.
For the first time she wondered if this were true.

Ken still had money. For a man who no longer took a salary or commissions, he had expensive tastes: exquisite clothes, a new Lincoln every year. He spent as freely as he ever had, and encouraged her to do the same. When she hesitated over a large purchase—Brendan’s computer, furniture for the guest room—he seemed almost offended. “I’m your husband, Dinah,” he’d say. “I’ve always provided for you.” He had an inheritance from his second wife, some successful investments. He did their taxes himself, with the help of an accountant. Dinah’s only contribution was signing the return.

They want to see all the financial records. I think Mr. Kimble’s in some kind of trouble.

Dinah measured a length of wrapping paper and set to work on the presents. Clothes and books for Brendan, though he would have preferred computer games. Ken was difficult to buy for; he had no hobbies and liked choosing his own clothes. She thought of his elegant shirts, expensively custom-made by a downtown tailor. He’d left them all behind. He’d worn a pinstriped suit the day he left; it was the only thing missing from their bedroom closet.

He’d always been fastidious. She tried to imagine him in Florida wearing the same pants day after day, washing his underwear in a hotel sink. He’d have to send his shirt out every night to be cleaned. He was prone to food stains at the cuffs; in summer, armpit circles, dark stains beneath the collar. Florida would be warm in December. Ken had told her once that he and Joan had barbecued on Christmas.

She put down her coffee and went upstairs.

Ken kept two distinct wardrobes: dark wool suits for fall and winter, linen for summer and spring. The winter clothes he kept in their bedroom; the out-of-season ones, in the guest-room closet.

She went into the guest room, opened the walk-in closet and flipped on the light.

His summer suits and white bucks, his linen trousers and patterned sport shirts were gone.

C
harlie hadn’t always hated Christmas. As a boy, when his grandma Helen was still alive, he’d loved the weeks of preparation, the baking of gingerbread, the occasional, magical appearance of snow. After her death there was no more baking, no more carols; his mother didn’t bother with a Christmas tree. She drank more around the holidays; if they were lucky she’d forget the day altogether. That way Charlie could eat dinner with Terence Mabry’s family. If Birdie remembered it was Christmas, she’d make him stay at home.

The Mabrys had rabbit stew on Christmas Eve, venison if Terence’s father had gotten a deer that year. They had buttered turnips, collards cooked with bacon, a sweet potato pie for dessert. Always under the tree would be a small gift for Charlie, mittens or a scarf. Maple, Terence’s stepmother, was an industrious knitter; Terence had more sweaters than he knew what to do with. After dinner Charlie walked home with a good feeling. Then, at home, Jody would be waiting for him on the stoop; their mother would be passed out drunk in the bedroom. He’d hide his new mittens in his coat pocket, ashamed he’d gotten a gift.

As an adult he’d tried other ways of getting through Christmas—twice he and Anne-Sophie had spent it in Bermuda—but guilt pulled him back to the house in Montford, to his mother and sister. There, the holiday unfolded the way it always had. His mother still drank; he still tried to sneak away for a visit to the Mabrys. There was only one difference.

Now, when Christmas was over, Charlie was allowed to leave.

O
N THE EVENING
of December twenty-third, he packed his overnight bag: clean shirt, socks and underwear, a carton of cigarettes. Until now he’d bought only packs; the carton was an admission of defeat. He packed aspirin, toothpaste, soap. These were things you couldn’t count on Birdie to have.

His pulse quickened when the phone rang. Anne-Sophie, he thought; perhaps she’d left something behind. He’d found one of her cookbooks on his shelf, a hair clip between the cushions of the sofa. They didn’t seem like things she’d come back for.

He picked up the phone.

“Charlie,” said a voice. “It’s Dinah. I know it’s the last minute, but would you like to join us for Christmas dinner?”

Dinah: Ken Kimble’s wife. After the Thanksgiving fiasco, he figured he’d never hear from her again.

“That’s nice of you,” he said. “Does—” He broke off. “Does your husband know you’re inviting me?”

“He’s out of town.”

“For Christmas?” A bell rang downstairs: the frozen dinner he’d heated in the microwave.

“It’s a long story.” She paused. “Will you come?”

“I can’t.” He zipped his overnight bag. “I have plans. I’m going to my mother’s.”

“How nice. Wish her a Merry Christmas from me.”

Like hell I will, he thought. He had no intention of mentioning Ken Kimble to his mother, let alone the man’s new wife.

“Brendan enjoyed meeting you,” said Dinah.

“He did?” For some reason this pleased him. “I liked him too. He’s a good kid.”

“Thanks.” She seemed reluctant to hang up the phone.

“Okay then,” she said finally. “Give my best to Anne-Sophie.”

“She’s gone.” He hadn’t told any of his friends, only his sister. Why he felt the urge to tell Kimble’s wife, he couldn’t begin to explain.

“We broke up,” he said. “She moved out last weekend.”

“I’m sorry,” said Dinah.

“Thanks.”

A long pause, the wire humming between them.

“Well, Merry Christmas to you,” said Charlie.

He hung up the phone. The house was deathly quiet. A bare branch rattled against the windowpane. Out of town, Charlie thought. What kind of man leaves his wife and kid alone on Christmas?

He went to the kitchen for his frozen dinner and ate in front of the television. When he’d first met Anne-Sophie, this habit had shocked her; after she moved in, they always ate together in the kitchen, a candle on the table between them. Now she’d taken the table with her, the queen-size bed they’d bought together. Charlie kept the stereo and television, the couch, the barbecue grill. They’d agreed easily about who would keep what. They had never wanted the same things.

H
E DROVE
to his mother’s the day before Christmas. Other years he’d stopped to pick up Jody, but this time they took separate cars. Jody would stay in Montford until New Year’s Day, or until Birdie drove her crazy and she left in a huff. When that happened—and it happened nearly every year—Charlie wanted to be as far away as possible.

It was late morning when he turned off the highway, the wan sky streaked with high clouds. He passed frozen fields, barns and houses, chimneys billowing smoke. In summer the fields would green, rise with corn, snow over with cotton. Now, in the low light, he saw only dirty golds, gradations of brown.

The house—his grandfather’s house—was set back from the road, at the end of a dirt path that cut through a forest. Charlie nearly missed the turn. The path was overgrown, narrower than he remembered, shrunken by time. The house stood large and cockeyed, needing paint; bare wood showed through in places, exposed to the damp. A shutter dangled from an upstairs window; it seemed to Charlie the old place was winking at him. When his grandfather was alive, he’d trimmed the shrubs to resemble sheep and rabbits. Since his death the hedge had grown in, forming a solid wall around the house.

He parked in the bare patch behind the house and walked around to the front, stopping to examine the trunk of a poplar. The tree was dead, struck by lightning the previous summer. He’d sent money to have it chopped down, but his mother refused to have strange workmen around, minding her business. He was staring at the tree when Birdie appeared on the porch.

“Charlie?” She patted her hair, slightly matted on one side. “Is it really you?” Her voice was clear and breathless, a love-struck ingenue from the matinees of her youth.

Of course it’s me, he thought. Didn’t I call and tell you I was coming?

She crossed the porch toward him, arms outstretched. She wore an old barn jacket over a faded housedress.

“Where are your shoes?” he asked.

“For goodness’ sake! I must have left them inside.” She stepped down from the porch and picked through the frozen grass in her bare feet. She tilted her head, like a girl offering her cheek for a kiss.

“Hi, Mama,” said Charlie. Her face was downy and slightly sticky. She smelled of hairspray and something dark and musky, onions perhaps. Her face looked freshly painted: rouge, eye shadow, a round bright mouth like a child’s drawing of a flower.

“Merry Christmas!” she chirped. “Merry, merry, merry! Come inside. I have a surprise for you.” She took his hand, her nails digging into the flesh of his palm. The porch steps creaked under their weight.

“How you been, Mama?”

“Marvelous. I feel marvelous.” She led him through the musty parlor, unchanged from his boyhood; probably uncleaned too. Heavy brocade curtains soaked up the light; thin rugs, worn bare in places, covered the floors. A long crack bisected the plaster wall, a jagged diagonal from floor to ceiling.

“I’m worried about that poplar,” he said. “One good storm and it’s going to come crashing down on your roof. When are you going to get someone out here to cut it down?”

“Soon,” she said. “Just as soon as I get around to it.”

The kitchen was bright and slightly malodorous, like food gone bad. The sink towered with dirty dishes; trash overflowed in a corner. On the small table were empty jelly jars, stacks of magazines, a portable television playing a morning talk show. There was a small clearing at one end, just large enough for a single plate.

“Surprise!” she cried.

Charlie looked around, confused.

“I’ve been baking for you all morning.” She watched him expectantly. Her front teeth were smeared with lipstick; her eyes danced. She pointed to a metal tin on top of the stove. “Go on. Have a look.”

Charlie opened the tin. Inside was a fruitcake, about eight inches across. It looked slightly burnt. He glanced around the room. It seemed impossible that one small, burnt cake had dirtied every pot and pan in the kitchen.

“Don’t I at least get a kiss? After all that baking?”

Again he kissed her cheek.

J
ODY ARRIVED
that afternoon, loaded down with bags from the Food Lion. Charlie helped her carry them from the car. She’d bought bread and milk and coffee, eggs and sausages, a premade frozen lasagna for Christmas dinner. That and all the Christmas trappings the store had to offer: two poinsettias, cookies shaped like Santas, paper plates and napkins printed with reindeer.

“Hi, Ma,” said Jody. She looked around for a place to deposit the groceries. Finally she put the bags on the floor.

“Hello yourself.” Birdie eyed the grocery bags. “What’s all this?”

“I stopped for a few things. In case you didn’t make it to the store.”

Birdie laughed. “Who has time for the store? I’ve been baking all morning.” She allowed Jody to hug her. “Girls your age don’t understand. Baking from scratch takes time.”

She stepped back and looked Jody up and down. “What’s this you’re wearing? A jogging suit?”

Jody smiled sheepishly. “It’s comfortable.”

“So is a bathrobe,” said Birdie. “But this is Christmas Eve! If you’re a young Grace Kelly, you can get away with traipsing around in a bathrobe, but the rest of us need to make an effort.”

Charlie left them in the kitchen. He walked down the dirt road to the pond, frozen around the edges but still soft in the middle. One winter when it froze completely, he and Terence Mabry had walked clear out to the center and taken turns with an old pair of hockey skates.

The road stopped abruptly and Charlie hiked into the woods, grateful for his work boots, their deep treads gripping the frozen earth. He found the path easily, still worn and smooth after all these years. He and Terence had made it going back and forth to each other’s houses. Now there were no children at either house, no one left to play in the woods. He wondered why it hadn’t grown over like everything else.

He followed the path to the clearing, brushy now, that Pappy had used as a shooting range. “Not another house for ten miles,” he used to brag. “Nothing out there but deer and squirrel and niggers, and if a stray bullet hits one of them, so much the better.” The memory shamed him, a part of his grandfather he’d never understood. Pappy had loved Ella Mabry like family, and never came back from town without three chocolate bars, for Jody, Charlie, and Terence. It was only Terence’s father he’d objected to. Pappy called him ignorant and lazy, though Curt worked harder
than any man Charlie had ever known, year-round at the sawmill in Gretna and farming his own land besides.

Charlie peered through the trees. Lights glowed in the distance. The Mabrys’ old bungalow had burned down years before; Curt had replaced it with a double-wide trailer. He’d added on a large front porch, planted the perimeter with rhododendrons and juniper bushes, so that from a distance it looked as permanent as a regular house. Since Maple’s death he’d lived there alone, over the objections of Terence and his wife, who had a big new house near the army base in Richmond. In his quiet way, Charlie thought, Curt was as stubborn as Birdie: attached to the house decomposing around her, the floors buckling under the weight of her own dirt and clutter.

He crossed the clearing. Curt’s dogs skulked out from behind the trailer, dragging their chains. “Hey, Rex,” said Charlie. “Hey, Blondie.” They were old yellow dogs, brother and sister, dead ringers for their mother, the original Blondie. Charlie climbed the steps to the porch and knocked at the door.

“Curt? You home? It’s Charlie Bell.” He’d always been Charlie Bell in Montford; his mother, too, was known by her maiden name. Nobody there had ever called them Kimble.

He heard movement inside the trailer. The door opened with a thin, metallic sound.

“Charlie Bell.” Curt was just as Charlie remembered him, small and strong and wiry. They shook hands. Curt’s palm was heavy and callused, thirty years of sawmill in that hand.

“I’m down visiting my mother. I was out for a walk and I thought I’d wish you a Merry Christmas.”

“Been a long time.” Curt glanced at the dogs. “I’m surprised they remember you.”

“They got old.”

Curt laughed, a deep bubbling sound. “Like all of us,” he said. “Come on in. I just made coffee.”

He limped slightly as he led Charlie through the neat living room. The trailer had a wonderful smell, fried potatoes and cherry pipe tobacco.

“What happened to your leg?” said Charlie.

“Arth-a-ritis in my knee,” said Curt, giving it an extra syllable. “Guess I got old too.”

He took the drip pot from the stove and poured two cups of coffee, dosed each one with sugar and cream.

“How come you’re not up in Richmond for the holidays?” said Charlie.

Curt brought the cups to the table. “Terence and Yvonne took the baby to Chicago. Give the other grandparents a chance, I suppose.” He sipped his coffee. “What about you, Charlie Bell? How old are you now?”

“Thirty-two,” said Charlie. “Same as Terence.”