Where is the Baby? (15 page)

Her grandmother smiled. ‘Wanting to make love to someone doesn't necessarily mean you love that person. Love is what remains after the heat dies down. If you still want to hear what he has to say, if you still like him in spite of his annoying habits, if he makes you laugh and is willing to listen to what you have to say, then what you've got might actually be love.' She paused to draw again on the cigarette before crushing it out in a small ceramic ashtray. ‘Take the time to get to know the one who seems to be the man of your dreams. Don't give your heart away too quickly.'

‘What if I never meet that person?' Tally asked.

‘Then enjoy your own company. Make friends and work hard to keep them. Friends are sometimes more valuable than husbands.' She looked off again into the distance. ‘We're in for quite a storm,' she observed. ‘We'll have to stable the horses and put the truck in the barn. Time to take shelter, Tally.' She turned and looked meaningfully at her granddaughter. ‘It's time.'

Tally chose to interpret the dream as a message. This was the place. The next morning, after a wonderful breakfast that included locally made jam, fresh-baked bread, eggs from cage-free chickens, and rich flavorful coffee, she decided she would stay here. She walked down the road toward the shops in the fresh and fragrant morning air, savoring the beauty of the trees and shrubs that were thick and richly green – at their peak. The town was a manageable size and had several restaurants aside from Chez Mae, a supermarket, a drugstore, sundry shops and, best of all, a book store. The houses on either side of the road were well-tended and charming. And she would stay here and find one that would suit her.

T
he snow started falling just after eleven in the morning. Dense flakes filled the air, whipped around by the wind. Tally stood at the window watching for quite some time, awed by the sight of what was going to be, according to the radio, a major storm. The visibility decreased rapidly so that within less than an hour all she could see from the window was a shifting curtain of white. Gone altogether was her hilltop view of the countryside spread below.

After a spectacular autumn with the lush foliage aflame with colors that seemed to glow from within even when it rained, there was a new fullness in her chest that displaced a small measure of her long-time sorrow. And she began to anticipate the onset of winter.

A couple of weeks earlier there'd been two days with some snowfall that had failed to accumulate, and she'd been disappointed. This, now, was the real thing: her first snowstorm. As she worked at stripping the layers of wallpaper from the dining-room walls, the radio playing low, she paused every so often to listen to the sound of the wind buffeting her house. She'd had the chimneys cleaned and pointed, so the fire in the living room burned well, an occasional puff-back caused by the wind.

She'd taken possession of the decrepit, long-vacant Victorian in early September and, in accordance with the building inspector's recommendations, she'd had all the major jobs done immediately, relying on Mae's excellent recommendations for various contractors. So, while one team was at work outside redoing the roof and another was dealing with the badly neglected septic system, a third team was removing and replacing rotted sections of clapboard.

Inside, a trio of electricians were rewiring the entire place from cellar to attic, alongside the plumber and his two helpers who opened walls and floors to remove what seemed like miles of lead piping before installing new copper pipe. After the wiring and plumbing had been brought up to code, the tile man and his assistant got to work redoing the two bathrooms. Then in the solid and fortunately dry stone-walled basement came the installation of the new furnace and hot water heater, followed by new fittings for the two and a half bathrooms and the kitchen. While this was going on, two more men pulled out the kitchen floor and laid down a new subfloor, over which went wide-board oak flooring to match the rest of the downstairs floors. Then a team of kitchen specialists tore out the old cabinets and counters, stripping the room back to the walls before installing new glass-fronted cabinets and butcher block countertops. When that was completed there came the delivery of the new kitchen appliances as well as the washer and dryer which went into what had formerly been the pantry. A glazier and his crew replaced the glass in most of the windows while in his wake came yet another crew fitting new storm windows and screens. Painters followed the carpenters and glaziers, sanding and scraping away the old flaking exterior paint, priming the window frames and new wood before applying a coat of white paint to the entire house and a coat of black to the repaired and rehung shutters. The painters would return in a week's time to begin the interior painting.

From early morning until six or seven in the evening for two and a half months, a dozen or more workmen had been all over the house. Every morning after a night at Mae's bed-and-breakfast, Tally stopped to pick up coffee and rolls in town and then set off in the new Jeep Grand Cherokee (which she'd acquired from the delighted, overawed dealer in Danbury in an even swap for the Mercedes which he intended to keep for his own use) to meet with the workmen at the house. Over the coffee and rolls they discussed their schedule before she set off to shop for more of the items on her very long list: kitchenware, and small appliances, bedding, a new mattress for Annalise's four-poster which, along with the rest of the furniture was due to arrive in a week's time; towels and shower curtains, a stereo system, a TV and VCR, groceries, and staples to stock the kitchen.

Along with these things, Tally acquired more books and music; she also ordered a Mont Blanc pen from a specialty shop in Manhattan along with some heavy-bond monogrammed note paper with matching envelopes. She bought more clothes, and a complete wardrobe of winter wear.

When, after seven weeks' work, the house was relatively habitable, she'd moved finally from the bed-and-breakfast. On her first night in the house (where she planned to spent her nights in an L.L. Bean sleeping bag on the floor of the master bedroom), she wrote to Warden Hughes and to Warren, letting them both know where she'd chosen to settle and providing her new address and telephone number. That done, she'd walked through the house, pausing to study each room's potential and planning where she would put Annalise's things.

Since moving into her new house in early November, she'd been stripping the walls. Now, in the first week of December, the second-floor walls were bare, ready for paint. She'd also finished the living room and downstairs half-bath and had just started on the dining room which had at least six layers of paper. The steamer she'd rented was some help but for the most part she had to resort to a scraper, working with care, trying not to damage the plaster that lay underneath.

As she scraped away now, her eyes went repeatedly to the windows and the white world beyond. The house felt as if it were wrapped in thick layers of cotton; all sound was muffled except for the wind causing puff-backs in the fireplace, and howling like something alive that wanted to push its way through any slight crevice and get inside.

Hayward struggled up the inclined driveway, near-blinded by the snow. Guided by the amber glow of light from the uncurtained windows, he made his way through the accumulating drifts toward the porch that extended across the front of the house. In the past couple of months, he'd noticed in his travels up and down the road that someone had, at last, had the sense to buy the battered old beauty. He'd long admired the house. He just hoped the new owners didn't ruin it with their efforts to renovate. He'd seen a lot of men at work on various parts of the house, their radios battling for ascendancy – a blaring level of discordant sound that made him wince as he'd gone past. Reaching the shelter of the front porch, he hoped now that he didn't scare the bejesus out of whoever was inside.

He knew the impression he made on first sight: a hefty, long-haired, bearded guy in old camouflage gear who might be the neighborhood weirdo or a visiting serial killer. Add the snow caked in his hair and beard and coating his down jacket and he'd probably have the door slammed in his face. He knocked, then waited, hearing footsteps approach.

The door opened and for several seconds Hayward couldn't speak. Standing there, gazing at him with no evidence of apprehension whatsoever, was the loveliest-looking woman he'd ever seen. Glossy black hair pulled into a loose ponytail, fine, fair skin and deeply sorrowful dark blue eyes; slim and medium height, she had on Levi's, a navy Shetland V-neck over a white T-shirt, and best of all, red high-tops. The high-tops made him want to smile, but he kept his expression neutral. One hand on the door, the woman waited calmly for him to explain his presence. The wonderful look of her made his knees want to buckle with pure pleasure. He'd felt this way a few times in his life about paintings he'd seen, or a spectacular view from a hilltop, or some exhilarating piece of music he'd heard. She was a living high-contrast work of art.

At last, realizing his silence could be construed as creepy in the extreme, he said, ‘I'm sorry to trouble you but my truck went off the road at the bottom of the hill down there.' He looked over his shoulder as if he could see it through the wall of blowing snow, then turned back to her. ‘The thing is, there's no chance of getting a tow in this.' He indicated the snow with a lift of his hand. ‘So I was wondering if you'd mind me bunking down in your garage until morning when this blows by and I can get someone up here to tow me out of the ditch. I've got a sleeping bag back in the truck.'

‘There's no heat in the garage. You'd freeze to death. Come in,' she said in a rich, low voice, stepping away from the door.

His brows drew together. ‘Are you sure? Most people around here are scared to death of me.'

‘Do they know you?' she asked seriously.

‘Only by sight.'

‘So they're scared by the look of you.'

‘That's about it.'

‘Should I be afraid of you?'

‘No,' he said, amused, risking a smile. ‘I'm utterly harmless.'

‘Then come inside,' she said. ‘I was about to put on coffee and make some lunch. Are you hungry?' she asked, going into a bathroom off the hall and returning with a towel.

‘Thanks a lot. I'm sorry to trouble you,' he said again, accepting the towel as she went off toward the kitchen. He was having difficulty accepting the fact that he'd been invited in. He'd always wanted to see the inside of this house but could never have imagined this scenario, couldn't have conceived of this woman.

‘I was going to break for lunch now anyway,' she said, without turning, on her way down the hall to the kitchen.

The towel was thick and soft and he glanced around as he dried his face and hair. Then, the towel draped over his arm, he unlaced his boots, pushed them off and placed them on the rubber mat by the door, before removing his parka and hanging it over the closet doorknob so that it dripped onto the mat.

Straightening, he looked at the woman in the kitchen, the sight of her like something that might heal the sick or produce stigmata in believers. She really wasn't the least bit frightened of him. Beautiful, plain-spoken, and unafraid. He didn't know what to make of her and wondered if maybe he was actually still in the truck, succumbing to hypothermia. But no, he could move and he could see, noting that the living room had a good fire going. There was a TV set and a stereo system, both on the floor, but no actual furniture except for a couple of oversized pillows and a low table. None of the interior walls had been taken down, which was a good sign. The paneling, though, had been painted at some point in time, and he shook his head at the sight of it. There was probably beautiful wood under that yellowed, flaking paint. The idiotic things people did never failed to dismay him – destroying natural beauty, creating wars to boost a flagging economy . . .
Don't go there!
With another shake of his head he proceeded down the hall, pausing to return the towel to the rail in the bathroom.

In the kitchen doorway, he said, ‘My name's Hayward Baines. People call me Hay. This is very kind of you.' Very brave, too, he added silently.

‘It's not kind, it's practical. How would I explain a frozen corpse in my garage?' she said without the hint of a smile.

‘I can see how that would be a problem,' he said wryly, reminded of the children he'd seen in Viet Nam, their painful gravity. ‘I'm used to the cold,' he explained, ‘and my sleeping bag is down-filled, good up to twenty below zero. Anything I can do to help?' His hands were stinging as they thawed.

‘Have a seat. The coffee won't take long and you look as if you could use some.'

‘I could. You're kind of short on furniture,' he observed, easing into one of the two chairs at a table that could have come from the Goodwill or had maybe been picked up from the side of the road. In this part of the world, when people didn't want things, they left them out, and in no time at all they were gone. It was an efficient system, all things considered. He'd picked up some useful items that way.

‘My things are due in another week,' she said. ‘The moving van is en route.'

‘I guess you'll be glad of that. Nice job on the kitchen,' he said, taking in the bright white appliances and near-empty glass-fronted cabinets, the new oak floor and butcher block counters.

‘Yes,' she said vaguely, scooping aromatic coffee into a paper filter seated in a holder. ‘This and the bathrooms are the only rooms that are finished. The interior painting still needs to be done but I wanted to get the major exterior work finished first, before winter set in: the roof and siding, the windows. And the interior necessities,' she added. ‘Furnace, water heater, new plumbing, all that.' She slid the holder into place in the coffee maker, pressed the ON switch, then turned to look at him.