Book of Mercy (13 page)

Irene and Arthur had never officially put any of their unique homes on the market. People just saw them and wanted them. In the paint-by-numbers world of tract housing, an Arthur Crump house was a Gauguin. A lush architectural masterpiece where the floor plans were exciting, the cathedral ceilings soared, and the baths outnumbered the occupants.

And when Irene complained that they had just moved three years ago, Arthur would pat her bottom and say, “Christ, Irene, they’re offering triple what it cost us. I’ll build you another house.”

Arthur Crump loved to build houses for his wife—and to sell them out from under her.

Irene grimaced and tugged on the belt of her bathrobe. In twenty years of marriage, she had maintained a respectable figure, had always voted the same as her husband, and had decorated eight homes. Unlike the early days, she wasn’t involved in the business anymore, except for fiddling with paint chips and selecting tile for Arthur’s next masterpiece. She studied her reflection in the bathroom mirror. Where had that other woman gone, the one who worked in a crowded trailer on the construction site, who verbally skinned lazy subcontractors without giving it a second thought, who worked with joy keeping accounts and picking up lumber scraps on Saturday mornings? In those early days, all their energy—and money—went into the next house. She and Arthur often had gone without to make payroll for the crew. Her privileged background had not prepared her for that kind of life—so she had no inkling how it would make her feel to build something with her own hands, to sacrifice next to another for the sake of something bigger than you both.

Suddenly, Irene had the desire for a bologna sandwich on white bread and a beer. That was often dinner in those days, a meal she and Arthur shared, just the two of them, sitting on the floor in the middle of a house, barely framed. If she closed her eyes, she could hear the crickets coming out for the evening, their calls replacing the ringing of hammers. She could smell the fatty luncheon meat and taste the sharp beer. She could hear Arthur telling her his dreams. She could . . .

Irene walked into the shower—a small pink marble rotunda with a domed ceiling—and adjusted the water temperature. Water blasted from six gold showerheads mounted on the curved walls. She sank down on an ergonomic shower bench curved perfectly to fit the human spine, leaned her head against the wall, and closed her eyes. She often said her morning prayers in this position. “Please, Lord, make sure Cecily doesn’t screw up the puff pastry for dinner tonight, and let this be a quiet day in the library without all those gum-chewing, smart-aleck kids. Finally, Lord don’t let that couple from last night take my house.” She thought of her precious solarium. “Why does everything have to change, God, just when I get things the way I like them?”

It was while Irene was toweling off that God dropped an idea on her. Sometimes Irene got these feelings, so strong that it seemed someone was talking to her. No voices. She wasn’t one of
those
crackpots. She could only describe it as guidance, and it usually came when she was feeling low, frustrated, or ready to scream. And she had discovered, through the years, that when she followed this intuition, she almost always felt better, saner, happier.

Today, she knew she needed to stop by the bookstore, The Last Page. Arthur didn’t like her to shop there. “Stick to the Book-of-the-Month, mail-order; it’ll keep you out of trouble,” he said.

“But I don’t want all those nasty books about courtroom drama, drug dealers, and dinosaurs eating tourists,” Irene complained. She liked books in which men and women loved each other to the end of time and then some; where a husband didn’t sell a wife’s home and sanctuary. Besides, mail-order didn’t provide the pick-me-up she found in the bookstore. She went to the bookstore to feel some control over her life.

Still recoiling from the avaricious light in the eyes of last night’s guests, Irene swallowed one of her antidepressants and told herself she deserved a little boost.

O
N
T
HANKSGIVING
D
AY,
A
NTIGONE
was up to her elbows in relatives. Jonas and Marian Thorne, Sam’s parents, had driven up from Florida in their white van packed with coolers of “regular” food, as the carnivorous Thornes put it. Antigone’s parents, Annaliese and Henry Brown, had flown in from Massachusetts to the airport in Charlotte and rented a hybrid car. They brought a worn leather satchel (her father’s) and a new rolling briefcase (her mother’s) packed with books, academic journals, and student papers to read. This was the equivalent of two storm fronts converging on Antigone’s dinner table.

The deer nudged Antigone’s bulging coat pockets, searching for more of the small red apples she and Ryder had brought back from a trip into the North Carolina mountains. The trip to Annie’s Produce Stand was an autumn ritual, roller coasting over narrow roads to buy five bushels of apples and a half dozen jugs of apple cider. Annie, of weathered face and quick smiles, always asked about William and always sent Antigone home with an extra bag of squash. “Tell William I’ll see him next week,” Annie said with a wink. “I’ll deliver those other bushels he ordered personally.”

In the fall, the menu at the O. Henry Café overflowed with apple pies, baked apples, apple bran muffins, apple pancakes, applesauce, onion apple soup. William tried any recipe that called for apples and included apples in many that didn’t.

Apples were also a favorite treat of the deer. While William cooked Thanksgiving dinner, Henry and Annaliese Brown laughed as the young ones bumped against their daughter. “All right,” she said, pulling out two apples. The apples were balanced on the flat of her palms for only a second before they were snatched away. Of course, the fawns’ daring emboldened the others, which had been hanging back because of the unfamiliar scent of Antigone’s parents. Soon, all three of them were surrounded by apple-crazy, core-crunching deer.

Antigone contemplated her parents with a smile. Although the traditional Thanksgiving Day dinner at her house was noted on the Thornes’ calendar, probably years in advance, her parents played it loose when it came to holidays. Some holidays they had blown off entirely, phoning at the last minute, making excuses in preoccupied voices that Antigone recognized from years of benign inattention. This year, however, it was different. They were going to be grandparents, and their only child was having her first child. The ardent researchers and popular lecturers suddenly, and unexpectedly, found themselves obsessed with things requiring cuddling and cooing.

The deer crowded closer, sniffing Henry’s tweed jacket and licking Annaliese’s black designer pants. Neither seemed to notice. Antigone came from people who seldom concerned themselves with domestic details. Henry ignored the state of his clothes, and Annaliese never understood why she should be concerned about laundry when there were maids and dry cleaners.

Henry Brown, grandson of an affluent New England merchant, was sturdy and straight. His hands were small for a man and quick, the better to work a calculator. His eyes were kind, if somewhat distracted, behind round tortoise shell glasses. They were an unusual shade of hazel, a hue he had passed on to his daughter. He’d lost his hair at an early age; in fact, Antigone couldn’t remember ever seeing a photo of her father with hair. Annaliese’s sleek bob, on the other hand, was that champagne shade that disguised gray effortlessly. Antigone’s sun-streaked tresses wereearly the same color. She and her mother came from a long line of well-preserved Southern women, but they looked nothing alike. One was a well-tended English park, orderly, soothing, untouchable, and the other was a wild forest, where woodland spirits and practical woodsmen warred in the deep darkness.

Antigone’s mother calmly pushed a cold snout out of the empty pocket of her gray suede coat. “Are you feeling all right? I mean, with the baby. This is what, your seventh month?”

“Yup. I’m just peachy. Some leg cramps, swollen feet, endless fatigue.”

Annaliese tapped a white-tipped French manicured nail against her lips in thought. “When I was seven months pregnant with you, I remember I had the strangest dreams. They were quite beautiful in the beginning, full of handsome Greek warriors, beautiful sirens, and magnificent ships. I must have been teaching
The Odyssey
that semester. I quite enjoyed them until everything started turning into food. Boats became banana splits. The women’s flowing cloaks were mounds of mashed potatoes. I was always hungry,” Annaliese mused. “Are you famished all the time?”

Antigone nodded.

“I used to order huge meals when I was pregnant and only be able to eat a few bites,” Annaliese said.

Henry, studying the deer, said, “Our refrigerator was packed with leftovers and doggie bags. I always had something for lunch the next day.”