Spoonwood (28 page)

Elenore, who was standing by the sink with her back to the table, understood the silent communication between the smokers. “The filthy habit,” she said, loud enough to be heard by all, her tone supplying the verb.

Persephone Salmon and Howard Elman stood outside on the deck, a butt can by their side. “Used to be I could smoke in the house,” Howard said. “Every day you lose a little more hair, a little more freedom.”

“Uh-huh.” Persephone was reevaluating her recent impression of the Elman place. From this vantage point the barn and the junked cars looked like sculpture, a diorama of country life in the twilight of the century.

Howard lit a Camel with an old, brushed-metal, fluid-style lighter, and then he lit Persephone's Kool.

“I always liked the noise those lighters make,” she said.

“Nothing like a Zippo—made in America—needs only a bit of love and a kind hand to throw the flame,” Howard said, paused, and went on. “I've cut down, but I can't seem to quit.”

“Me, I don't even try. I do change brands. Funny, but I only smoke when I'm in Darby. In Tasmania, I don't smoke at all,” Persephone said.

“Really? You feel stressed here?”

“Not stress, loathing. I never did like Upper Darby. It was Reggie's realm, and I was just the Squire's wife. If it wasn't for Birch, I would have been gone long ago.”

“Whoopsie-daisy. I never figured . . .”

“That anybody in Upper Darby had a problem?”

“I guess everybody's got some damn thing that nags at them.”

“What's your problem, Howie—you don't mind if I call you Howie?”

“Just don't call me late for eats.”

She could see he wasn't about to answer her question.

They smoked in silence for a few minutes, and Persephone could feel herself grow both calmer and more alert.

They talked about Birch for a while and then Latour.

“Freddie, he's doing okay by himself,” Howard said. “He goes to AA meetings. Sounds like he's delivering the gospel sometimes. Talk like that can drive a man to drink.”

“Is that so? Latour, growing up after all these years.”

“I think he's going to be all right.”

“I hope so, for Birch's sake. He needs a father.”

“Mrs. Salmon . . .” Howard extinguished the cigarette in the sand of the butt can.

“Please call me Persephone.”

“Persephone, some years back I poisoned the waters between the Elmans and the Salmons when I dumped refuse on your land.” He didn't look at her when he spoke. He looked far away, as if he were talking to someone high on the hill that shadowed this property.

“Literally, you poisoned the waters,” she said.

“Persephone,” he practically shouted, “you ever need anything up there on the hill, I mean to fix—I can fix anything you got busted. I want to do it.”

“Apology accepted.”

He looked at her now, right in the eye. “I didn't apologize.”

Persephone broke into laughter. “Howard Elman, you are such an idiot.” She punched his thick upper arm.

“No, no,” he said, droll and in command. “Pitchfork Parkinson is an idiot, Long Neck McDougal is an idiot, Freddie is an idiot—me, I'm only the biggest horse's ass in Darby.”

“You can depend on me to kick your ass when necessary,” she said.

“Deal.” He offered his hand and she took it.

And that was that.

The guests cleared out fast after coffee. Persephone helped Elenore with dishes and clean-up. Latour, Birch, and Howard went outside. Persephone could hear the
pip pip
of .22-caliber gunfire.

She watched Birch through the window. He didn't walk with a limp exactly, more an awkward shuffle. His grandfather crouched beside him. Latour stood by, arms folded.

As the women washed dishes Elenore underwent a change in demeanor. She stopped chattering, broke off eye contact, concentrated on the chore at hand.

“Elenore, you look to me like somebody with something on her mind.”

Elenore never stopped working, washing a dish, wiping it, putting it away, and she never looked at Persephone, who could see shame on her face. “When Lilith died, I was here and I did nothing,” Elenore said.

“I always thought if I'd been here instead of Tasmania, I could have saved her—that's the guilt I carry,” Persephone said, her voice suddenly clear of the rasp.

“But you had no chance; I did.” Elenore's eyes brimmed with tears. “You see, Mrs. Salmon—Persephone—she came here, pregnant, upset, and I sent her away out of spite. It was only hours
before she went up to those ledges to have her child and die. I've prayed for forgiveness, but I don't deserve it, and I'm not looking for it from you. I just want you to know. Because . . . it's necessary.”

“I can see how hard this is for you, Elenore. You haven't asked, but I do forgive you, just as I forgave myself. We're just human beings.”

The women embraced spontaneously and just as spontaneously they parted and returned to the kitchen work.

A few minutes later Maddy Mendelson showed up with Missy in a brand-new foreign-made four-wheel-drive. Persephone experienced a knot of resentment in her stomach. There had been a time when Reggie's Bronco was the only vehicle fit both for road and woods. Now four-wheel-drives were all over the place, operated by people who had no use for such vehicles. Persephone thought that if she could just get over these inconsequential biases she wouldn't need to smoke. If she could somehow purify herself before she died, she might leave this earth with some dignity and a sense of accomplishment.

She watched Birch hand the rifle to his grandfather, hobble over to the car; the rear door opened, and he entered. The car backed, turned, and drove by her window. Persephone waved but she couldn't be seen for the reflection. In the back seat of the car, the two young people were face to face. Persephone only had a glimpse but there was something fateful about the way they looked at each other.

In the barn Latour watched while his father changed the oil in one of the trucks. Latour wanted to make himself useful, but despite the fact that he and Howard had made peace with one another he couldn't feel comfortable around his father in the barn messing with cars and trucks. At any minute Latour expected to be ordered around, or criticized in Howard's oblique, sarcastic way. Part of F. Spoonwood Latour would always remain that small berated boy, Freddie Elman.

Howard went down into the pit and Latour followed. Latour had forgotten how much he hated the pit—the darkness, the smells of earth and machines all mixed up. Howard clicked on his light. It was on the end of a cord, the bulb encased by a rubber-covered metal cage. He shined the light on the undersides of the truck. Latour looked away, fighting off an unaccountable wave of revulsion.

“I couldn't survive in an environment like this,” Latour said.

“Too unwholesome for you?” Howard said as he worked. He could never quite take his son's sensitivity seriously.

“Too ugly,” Latour said.

Howard laughed. “Me, I come down here to relax. These vehicles, they might not run right but they never complain.” He put a pan for the dirty oil at his feet.

“Freddie—oops, I keep forgetting you go by Latour these days.”

“That's okay, Pop.”

Howard cursed at something under the truck. “Would you hand me that wrench?”

“Which wrench?”

“The three-eighths.”

Frederick handed Howard the wrench.

Howard put the wrench on a bolt, pulled, grunted, pulled again. It loosened. With his fingers he twisted the bolt until it fell off in his hand. Dirty oil dropped from the bowel of the truck in the pan below. Howard grabbed a rag and wiped his hands.

“Freddie—Latour!” he shouted.

“Yah, Pop.” He knew Howard was working his way up to something.

“Oh, I don't know.”

“You started to tell me something, and now you're backing off,” Latour said.

“I never backed off from anything in my life.”

Latour was puzzled and a little amused. He'd never known Howard to refrain from voicing an opinion, especially to his son. “Go ahead, Pop. Don't be bashful.”

“All right, goddamn it. I hope I don't jinx it, but I have to say it. About finding my mother—geez!” He stopped, unable to go on. “Oh, never mind. Listen, one thing I really missed when you were off by yourself was having to sharpen my tools. You got the knack, admirable, my boy—admirable.”

Latour smiled to himself. His old man couldn't bring himself to thank him for finding his mother. Mother and son had had a great reunion. No embraces or tears or speeches; they'd immediately started kidding one another. No doubt they were two of a kind. Latour wanted to tell his father that he loved him, but such language in or out of the pit was unthinkable.

Howard aimed his light at a new location and in so doing the glow revealed his face for a moment—quizzical, optimistic. “You, me, the boy, Elenore, Mrs. Salmon—I think we're gaining,” he said.

Outside, on the way back into the house, Latour noticed a junked car beside the barn, a Ford Falcon with a smashed-in grill.

“Isn't that Pitchfork's old car?” Latour said.

“Yep.”

“What did he hit, a tree?”

Howard said nothing.

Latour went over to the car. He picked a twisted bicycle spoke out of the grill. “Pop, this is what is known as evidence. Tell me what happened.”

“I don't know exactly—I wasn't there. But from what I gather the ignoramous was doing his usual . . .”

“Driving too fast.”

“Right. Same time you-know-who came out of nowhere, also no doubt not heedful.”

“Okay, Pop, I get it,” Latour said. Pitchfork Parkinson, barrelling down the road in his Ford Falcon, had run over and killed Garvin Prell.

When the men came in the women were sitting in the family room in front of the TV, which was tuned to a soap opera.

“Hey, I wanted to watch that,” Howard said with mock seriousness.

“Oh, shut up, Howie,” Elenore said.

“You know, Persephone, I always wondered,” Howard said, “why you go down under for months at a time.”

“My second husband teaches and lives in Tasmania. It's my true home. I come to Darby purely for business and family reasons.”

“You sacrificed your own desires for Birch,” Elenore said.

Persephone winced. She didn't want these people to know how vulnerable she was.

Latour unwittingly came to her rescue with an accusation in his tone.

“I bet there's more to it than that,” he said.

“You knew Lilith, but something's missing, isn't there?” Persephone snapped.

Latour's voice dropped almost to a whisper. “I want to know why she went to the ledges. Something was bothering her that I can't figure.”

“It was love,” Elenore said.

“It was spite,” Howard said.

“It was money,” Persephone said.

“Money, what do you mean? There was plenty of money,” Latour said.

Persephone shook her head no. “Reggie frittered away the family fortune, or what was left of it, on buying properties for his damn land trust.”

“It makes sense. I think she tried to tell me, but I wasn't listening. I couldn't imagine that the Salmon money had run out.”

“You see,” Persephone said, “that was her problem. She grew up as the rich girl in town. Nothing else would do.”

“So it was shame that drove her up there to have her baby,” Elenore said.

“That was part of it, no doubt,” Persephone said. “We'll never know for sure. This much I do know. Lilith was branded with the Salmon hubris.”

“What's hubris?” Elenore asked.

“Overweening pride,” Latour said, but that didn't satisfy Howard.

“Wait a minute, I'll go look it up,” he said, and stormed into the next room. When he returned he was holding the dictionary and wearing his reading glasses.

“Overweening pride, right?” said Latour.

“Hubris is pigheadedness, says so right here.” Howard tapped the dictionary with his thick forefinger, slammed it shut, put it down, and then quickly changed the subject. “Persephone, you finagled the trust charter and sold off the Grace Pond property to get dough.”

“I made a simple hard-headed business decision.” Persephone turned a droll eye on Howard. “You understand the hard-headed part.”

“Indeed I do.”

Elenore addressed Latour. “Well, I guess they have that in common.”

“They have us out-gunned, Mom,” Latour said, then turned to Persephone. “If Reggie left the house to Lilith, then Birch should have inherited it.”

Persephone smiled mischievously. “Well, of course. You understand the implications?”

“I'm beginning to,” Latour said. “Back when I had custody of Birch I could have moved into the Salmon estate with him and kicked you out.”

“This gets funnier by the minute,” Howard said.

Persephone couldn't help feeling smug. She looked at Latour and said, “Since I now have custody, I have the house.”

Latour smiled, an embarrassed smile.

“It's okay, Freddie,” said Howard. “The Upper Darby people aren't any better or smarter than we are, they just learn tricks from the cradle that we don't.”

“That's true, Howard,” said Persephone. “That's why I wanted to raise Birch.”

“So he could have your advantages,” Elenore said.

“He'll need every advantage,” Persephone said to Elenore, then to Howard, “and trick. When he comes of age he'll take my place as chair of the trust board.”

“Where there are competing forces,” Latour said.

“Monet—the Pocket Squire,” said Howard.

“Yes, Reggie's brother,” Persephone said. “He wants the trust.”

“Where does Monet get
his
money from?” Howard asked.