A Stillness of Chimes (7 page)

Laura sat up, wide awake in the night. A pie tin was rolling down the road, clanging and clattering.

No, it was only the wind chimes jangling in the backyard as the storm
troubled the branch they hung from. She’d been dreaming about pies, coffeecake, and casseroles. About Ardelle and all the other hometown folks who’d brought meals after the funeral, thinking good food and a hug could fix just about anything.

But one wild thread of the dream included a blurry glimpse of her dad trotting down a woodland trail with his hound dog, Geezer, at his heels.

She turned toward the neon-green glow of the digital alarm clock, a fuzzy rectangle of light, and squinted. Ten minutes past three. Lowering her head to the pillow, she curled into a ball and tucked her flannel nightgown around her icy feet.

Between snatches of sleep, she’d spent the night plagued with vivid memories of her dad and his buddy, Gary Bright. With their blue eyes, narrow faces, and sandy-blond hair, they’d always looked like brothers. They’d been as close as brothers too, since their days together at Prospect Elementary.

Gary was like family, still. If anybody could help her sort out the truth, Cassie’s dad could. He might be as skeptical as Sean, though.

Something knocked softly in the night. Knuckles rapping on the back door? A silly notion, but she lifted her head from the pillow and listened, her skin prickling.

Nothing but wind. Branches bumping each other. One storm had passed, and another one was moving in. That was all.

She tugged the blanket more snugly around her neck.

A soft thud met her ears—and then a faint meow. That thud, at least, was only Mikey, probably jumping down from the table he knew was forbidden territory. The poor old kitty slept most of the day and roamed the house at night, wanting to escape to the great outdoors. He must have been
going stir-crazy all month, cooped up by himself except for Ardelle’s daily visits.

With a vague thought of fixing a hot drink to settle her nerves, Laura threw back the covers and swung her feet to the cold hardwood floor. The furniture hadn’t been rearranged in years. Every time she came home, she prided herself in finding her way through the house in the dark. She could even brew tea without turning on a light.

By moonlight, Laura found her glasses and thick socks, then made her way into the living room to fetch the small quilt that lay folded across the back of the couch. Wrapping the quilt around her shoulders, she headed for the kitchen. She still didn’t want to turn on a light. Just in case somebody was out there.

Silly, maybe, but she’d learned caution when she was a young girl and a prowler had roamed the town, tossing pebbles at window screens. Time to lock and load, her dad had said. They’d all breathed easier when the Peeping Tom turned out to be Slattery. An oddball, but harmless. Still, Laura had felt safer once he’d skipped town.

Now was her dad a prowler?
An oddball, but harmless
. That’s what everybody would say. It hurt to think of people putting him in Slattery’s category—sick, dirty, twisted—when her dad had always been upright and honorable.

The kitchen smelled like potting soil and flowers, earthy and flowery at the same time. Like she’d always imagined Eden. Recalling what Sean had said about the lilies, she closed her eyes, going back to long-ago Easters with her parents and both sets of grandparents. Her mom always put fresh flowers on the table, and she gave Laura the job of scattering candy-coated Jordan almonds across the white tablecloth like pastel confetti.

Every year, her dad began their feast by reading a few Bible verses aloud.
She’d loved to inhale the heavenly aromas—roasted lamb, scalloped potatoes, homemade rolls—while he read the amazing story. An angel. An empty tomb. The grave clothes, abandoned. Then the best part:
He is not here; He has risen!
It was the best twist ever, the happiest, craziest surprise ending. It always made her want to stand up and cheer, but she’d only wiggled on her chair and tried mightily not to sneak any more of the candy-coated almonds.

After dinner, it was time to hunt for Easter eggs and candy. All the loot was hers because she was the only child, the only grandchild. While the grownups sat and talked, she listened quietly and enjoyed her haul. The day seemed to be wrapped up in a big, loud
Alleluia
because her dad kept singing under his breath:
“Christ the Lord is risen today, alleluia! Sons of men and angels say …”

Laura opened her eyes and faced the present. Her whole family was gone. She was the only one left.

Leaning against the counter while Mikey butted his scruffy head against her ankle, she looked out the window above the sink. It had no blinds to cover it, its only dressing a lacy white valance.

A fast-moving cloud drifted onto the half moon like a blanket that a child held up to his face to play peekaboo. Within moments, the cloud scudded past.

Her dad might be somewhere out there, under that cold sky. Homeless by choice. With no blanket, no bed, no roof, he’d be freezing. And crippled? Sean had said something about that. Crippled, freezing—and maybe not quite right in the head—but alive. Laura’s breath came faster at the thought.

She shifted her gaze from the bare-faced moon to the moon-silvered road. Her heart crashed against her ribs.

A spot of blackness in the night, a swift-moving figure swept out of the yard, across the road, and up the hill to disappear in the shadows of the graveyard. She strained her eyes, but it—he?—had vanished.

Her dad? No, that was crazy. If it was her dad, and he wanted to see her, surely he would knock on the door and call her name. He wouldn’t creep around in the night like a criminal.

Laura dropped the quilt. Nearly tripping on the startled cat, she ran to the back door and checked to be sure it was locked. She wedged a chair under the doorknob, then felt her way through the darkness to the front door to do the same thing there.

Making the rounds of the house, she locked the windows, even the small, high one in the bathroom, and drew the drapes and blinds tightly shut. Last, she opened the door on the colder air of her parents’ room. Moonlight shone on the massive, hand-carved headboard that the young Elliott Gantt had made for his bride.

Laura dealt with the bedroom window and returned to the kitchen, trying to decide what to do. She didn’t want to sic the sheriff’s department on her prowler, in case he was her dad, and she didn’t want to call Sean the skeptic, especially at three in the morning. She only wanted to communicate with her long-lost father.

She crossed her arms, rubbed her hands up and down on her shoulders, and closed her eyes. Then, holding her hands still, she pretended her dad’s hands were gently resting on hers. She imagined him giving them a squeeze and asking her a teasing question.

“So, Laura girl, you think you deserve some answers?”

“I sure do,” she whispered. “Where are you? What happened, really?”

In this very room, the night before his last fishing trip, she’d told him,
“Good night, good luck, I love you.” He’d kissed her forehead and said, “Good night. I love you too. Always.”

Always
. It wasn’t something he usually tacked onto his “I love you.” Once his boat turned up empty, she’d attached special significance to that word. She’d wondered if he’d had a premonition of his death. Now it seemed possible that he’d known he was saying good-bye for the rest of his life.

Energized by the idea that it was at least possible that he was her prowler, she turned on the kitchen light. She found a blank sheet of paper and a wide-tipped marker so she could write a note in large letters, legible from a distance.

Pacing the floor while Mikey watched from his refuge under the hutch, she pondered one message after another.

Dad, I still love you, no matter what
.

I know why you stopped loving Mom, but did you stop loving me too?

Or simply:
Daddy, why?

If she didn’t know what to believe about him, she certainly didn’t know what to write. And maybe he was long dead, and her prowler wasn’t anybody she’d want to welcome.

Laura abandoned the blank paper on the table. Leaving the porch light on, she walked back through the shadowed rooms and climbed into bed. With the covers pulled up to her chin, she lay there, remembering so much she’d never told anyone. Not even Sean.

Especially not Sean. He’d loved her parents so much. Telling him what she’d overheard would only break his heart. She’d done too much of that already.

Cassie slogged into the gorgeous, unfamiliar kitchen and avoided looking at the clock. The sunshine pouring through the windows told her all she needed to know.

Her mom never used to sleep late.

It was still too early to call Drew. The three-hour time difference made it hard to find time to talk, just when Cassie had so much to say. She should probably save most of it until she got home, though. She’d have to look him in the eye when she said it.

In the dining room, her dad adjusted his tie, using the glass doors of a huge, brand-new china cabinet as his mirror. Gary Bright, hotshot investor and the best dad in the world, had gained weight but only enough to make him look well-fed and prosperous. A fat cat is a happy cat, he liked to say. But she’d seldom seen him look so worried.

He noticed her and gave her his typical goofy grin. “Mornin’, glory.”

“Mornin’, Dad. You’re still here?”

“Yes, but I’ve been working since the crack of dawn. Now I’m off to an appointment in town.” He tucked his crisp white shirt more snugly into his khakis.

“Mom’s still in bed?”

He nodded, and the worry returned to his eyes.

Cassie spoke softly even though she knew her mom was on the opposite end of the sprawling house. “Maybe you’re worried about nothing. Maybe she just needs more sleep for some reason. And she’s always been a neat freak. Shoot, she used to make me and Tig make our beds at five in the morning when we were leaving on vacation. Remember?”

He laughed. “I sure do. Well, keep an eye on her and let me know. Oh, Tig called an hour ago. They’ll come over after Trevor gets out of school.”

“Great.” Cassie slumped into a chair at the table. She loved her kid sister’s perfect family, but sometimes Tom, Tigger, and Trevor were just too cute, right down to their matchy-matchy initials. With another baby on the way, they were already hunting through the
T
section of the baby-names book. Baby Number Two was a girl, of course. Exactly what they’d prayed for.

Her dad eyed her. “Got up on the wrong side of the bed, Eeyore?”

“Always.” Cassie yawned. “Does Tigger have to come over every single day I’m in town?”

“Yes. She has missed you since the day you ran off with Drew.”

“We didn’t run off. We thoughtfully spared you the expense of a fancy wedding so you’d have more money to blow on Tig’s.”

He chuckled. “That was so kind of you.”

“It was, wasn’t it? By the way, I’ve missed her too. I’m not a cold-hearted monster.”

“No,” he said in a dry tone. “You’re a warm-hearted monster.”

“That’s me.” She squinted across the room at the coffee maker. The newfangled type, it made one cup at a time. “You feel like making me some coffee?”

“Sure.” Frowning again, he stuck a coffee pack into the machine and pulled a brand-new mug out of the cupboard.

Everything in the house was new. Even the table. Cassie missed the old, scratched one she’d grown up with. She preferred their old house down in town too. This custom-built ranch on a hill looked like a model home, decorated by strangers. Sterile. Soulless.

“Do you ever miss the old house?” she asked.

“The one where I had to hack at the kudzu with a machete every year to keep it from swallowing the backyard? The one where you had to put your conversation on hold every time a train came by because you couldn’t hear yourself think?”

“Yeah, that one.”

“No, I don’t miss it. Not one bit.”

Cassie sighed. It was silly to prefer the old, cramped kitchen to this new marvel of granite countertops and the latest appliances. It was silly to prefer the old view—of basically nothing—to a stunning expanse of smoky-green mountains. And it was ridiculous to miss the old house, where passing trains rattled the windows. Where friends might knock on the door and walk right in.

She’d been in town for three days, and except for Drew’s parents, not one soul had dropped by. Not her friends. Not her parents’ friends. If the UPS driver hadn’t brought a package, nobody but family would have driven up and down that long driveway in days. Maybe her dad’s new prosperity had scared everybody away.

He moved behind her and started massaging her shoulders. “It’s great to have you home, baby. Thanks for making the trip.”

“Thanks for paying for it, but I still think you’re exaggerating the problem.” Cassie let her head droop forward.

“I still think I’m not.” He moved the massage upward. “Your neck muscles are tight as a drum. See, you needed to get away.”

“To play shrink for Mom? It’s hardly relaxing.”

“I’m not asking you to play shrink. I’m only asking you to pay attention. And see if you can get her to open up. But that doesn’t mean you can’t get out and visit your friends.”