Garden of Stones (28 page)

“Can I do it?” she asked breathlessly.

“Can you do what?”

“Cut it open.”

Instead of answering, Garvey put the tip of the knife to the top of the breastbone, his hands steady. Slowly, surely, he drew down, and the bird’s flesh split. When he reached the end under the tail, he peeled the skin away tenderly, revealing its glistening pink innards. There was no blood, which surprised Lucy, and then it didn’t.

“No. You can’t,” Garvey said. Then he set the split bird carefully on the table. “Not yet, anyway. You have a lot to learn first.”

32

Years later, when Lucy thought back over her time at Lone Pine, it was the months that followed that she thought of as the happiest of her life. She did her work each day, the smells of ammonia and bleach becoming as familiar to her as once was her mother’s perfume or her father’s pipe smoke. As spring was overtaken by summer, Mrs. Sloat divided her time between motel business and trips to Owens Lake several times a week. Sometimes she returned with fish; sometimes she didn’t. Twice, Lucy glimpsed Mr. Dang when she went into town on errands with Mrs. Sloat. Both times, he wore a necktie and a hat, despite the heat. Lucy had a hard time imagining him on a boat in his shirtsleeves, checking his lines and dipping his hand into a bucket of bait.

Ruby and Hal ate their weekend meals with Lucy and took her for drives in their mother’s truck. They made her laugh with their clowning around. The stash of coins and the occasional bill grew in her secret hiding place, each addition bringing her closer to her dream of escape. And best of all was the time she spent with Garvey, learning and assisting at his bench after her work was done each day.

As time passed, Lucy learned to relax around him, and his silence gave way to measured conversation, and later to longer stories, from his boyhood adventures in the foothills and hunting camps, his college years, the football games and fraternity pranks. Hours could pass before Lucy noticed the sun sinking in the sky or her stomach growling in hunger.

And the animals: Lucy watched Garvey study them before he took them apart and slowly, with tender and fastidious attention, put them back together. He coaxed emotions from them that they’d never experienced in life, using his scalpels and thread and forms and glues and paints to create poses and expressions that were somehow knowing and sly and mischievous. Garvey’s animals were not only livelier than their former selves, but transformed by his hands into nearly mythic beasts.

Lucy watched Garvey when she was supposed to be studying the way he notched a jaw or slit the dry tissue of a nose. Tragedy had transformed her, but it seemed that Garvey was teaching her that her transformation was not yet complete. That like the limp, lifeless corpses that he began with, there was, buried inside her, the potential for wondrous and surprising things, things that only he could see.

Their lessons slowly took on a new rhythm. Garvey would have the tools and supplies laid out when she arrived, but instead of beginning right away, they would talk for a while. Lucy told herself it was only a courtesy, nothing more. But there were days when talking took the entire afternoon, when they never got around to the animals at all. Or when, as he guided her hand along the knobby curve of a spine or the smooth-sanded surface of a base, his fingers lingered on hers.

One warm June day, Mrs. Sloat came to the doorway, which Garvey had propped open to let air into the room. She was wearing a town dress and a slash of lipstick.

“Lucy,” she snapped. “I need you to come pick up the drapes from the cleaners and help me hang them.”

Mrs. Sloat liked to have company when she did errands. Often she sat in the car and had Lucy go into the store. She was shy about her limp, less steady than she was at home, where she’d navigated every hall and step a thousand times. Lucy had become accustomed to their trips to town; people no longer gaped and whispered as they once had. The clerks and stock boys even greeted her like a local.

Lucy had no desire to stop what she was doing, but she knew Mrs. Sloat wouldn’t take no for an answer. She sighed and set down the tiny paintbrush she had been using to touch up the color along the gums of a pretty two-point buck shoulder mount.

“She’s busy,” Garvey growled.

There was a silence. Lucy glanced back and forth between Mrs. Sloat and Garvey, who didn’t bother to look up from the striped trout he was working on. Today’s painting lesson had filled the air with acrid fumes, and after a moment Mrs. Sloat sneezed twice in rapid succession.

“Seems like you can’t tolerate the air in here,” Garvey said. “Maybe you ought to be on your way.”

“Not without my
employee,
” Mrs. Sloat huffed.

The change in Garvey was instant and breathtaking. He jammed his hand down on the wheel so fast that metal scraped on metal and the chair shuddered and turned. It was as though he meant to propel himself out of the chair. In that moment, Lucy wouldn’t have been surprised if he’d stood on his ruined legs and gone after his sister, and she must have felt it too, because she stepped back, nearly falling.

“Whose employee?
Whose
fucking employee, Mary? It seems to me that you’ve been forgetting something important.”

“I only said—”

“Everything in this house, every inch of this land, every miserable dollar in the bank is
mine
.” He was bellowing, spittle flying from his mouth, his fists clenched.

“Stop it, Garvey, the guests—”

“Let them hear! Let them all hear! Let them shut this place down, I don’t care anymore.”

“Watch what you’re saying,” Mrs. Sloat said, regaining her composure. “You can’t treat me this way. You can’t run this place without me. You can’t even go up the stairs.”

Garvey opened his mouth in retort, but Mrs. Sloat was back in the fight, and she pulled herself up to her full height, towering above her brother.

“Don’t forget, the money’s not really yours. It’s in your
trust
. You think if I walk in that bank and tell them my brother’s losing his mind, they won’t shut down your allowance like
that?
” Mrs. Sloat snapped her fingers for emphasis. “It’s all legal, Garvey. There’s not one damn thing you can do about it.”

“But Lucy doesn’t—”

“Do you really think she wants to be your assistant?—your
protégé?
I have news for you, oh brother of mine, she might not look like much, but on the inside she’s every bit as cagey and coldhearted as any other woman. She’s looking out for one person and one person only—her
self
.”

Mrs. Sloat glared at Lucy, then walked out of the room. Garvey watched her go, and then rested his head in his hand.

“God,” he said softly. “What a fucking mess.”

Lucy sat frozen in her chair, unsure of what to do, embarrassed almost to tears by Mrs. Sloat’s insinuations. “It’s true, then?” she asked. “She could do that to you? She could take what’s rightfully yours?”

“No, no, it’s—well, it’s complicated. My mother was trying to be fair to everyone, I guess. And instead she set it up so my sister and I can never escape each other.” He rubbed his face. “You should have seen her, when she went off to college—most beautiful girl around. Could have had anyone she wanted—”

He stopped abruptly, and Lucy knew immediately that he thought he’d offended her. “No, no,” she whispered. “It’s all right.”

“No. It’s not. Lucy... Look at me.”

Her gaze traveled a slow path from her hands twisted in her lap up to Garvey’s face, full of anguish but still handsome, still perfect. What a pair they made; Garvey as good-looking as a movie star, stuck with a body that didn’t work—and Lucy, lithe and strong from her work, but doomed with a face that would always turn people away.

“The things I said to you,” he said softly, “when you first came here. I was... I was horrible to you. I’m so sorry.”

“It doesn’t matter. It’s all right.” Lucy tried to blot out his apology with her words; she couldn’t bear for him to show himself to her this way.

“It matters. Everything matters.” Garvey took a deep breath but didn’t look away. “You matter.”

Lucy didn’t dare reply. Garvey’s eyes, moody-gray on a good day and nearly black when he was angry, were unreadable. He reached out a hand, his fingertips brushing her forehead so gently she could barely feel his touch.

His fingers traveled down the outline of her scar, achingly slowly, as though he sought to know her through his touch. He was not repulsed by her ugliness, and Lucy’s breath caught in her throat as his fingers fluttered against her eyelashes, as his thumb found the corner of her mouth, and gently slid along her lips.

Lucy closed her eyes and placed her hand over Garvey’s. She held it hard against her mouth, her lips pressed against his palm. She couldn’t bear to let go. It had been so long, so terribly long since she had touched anyone, since she had felt another human’s warmth.

Garvey’s other hand touched her cheek—her good cheek, the smooth one, the perfect one—and then his fingers were in her hair, pulling her closer, and Lucy made a sound like a sigh that was really a plea, the desperate voice of her longing for the kiss she had never dared to imagine until just this second. Garvey’s lips on hers were tentative but hungry, and Lucy assured him with her touch, her arms around his neck.

Her body was trembling when she pulled away from him. He looked stricken. “I—I’m sorry—”

“No,” Lucy whispered. She put a finger to his lips to silence him, and went to the door, which Mrs. Sloat hadn’t closed all the way. She pushed it shut and turned the bolt, then came back to stand in front of Garvey’s chair, her knees touching his. When she lifted her dress up over her head and let it fall to the floor, her skin prickled in response and her blood surged with longing.

“Lucy,” Garvey said. He was so close she could feel his breath through the thin cotton of her camisole. “What are you doing...?”

She reached for one of his hands, and pressed it to her rib cage. His hand fit perfectly, wrapped around the curve of her waist. His fingers splayed across her skin, gentle and warm.

“The other,” she whispered. “Please.”

And he did. He lifted his other hand and placed it next to the first, encircling her waist with them. He let out a groan—of pleasure, pain, longing; Lucy had never heard a man make such a sound but discovered that she understood this new language perfectly.

“Lucy. You know I’m— I can’t—and you’re—”

“Shhh.” She let her eyelids drift down and concentrated on the place where her body met his. “Just...this. Just for now.”

After that they didn’t speak.

33

San Francisco
Friday, June 9, 1978

Patty tried Jay’s office again.

“I’m so sorry, Patty, I don’t know what to tell you.” If Jay’s secretary was getting exasperated, she didn’t show it.

“I called the airline. They said his plane landed almost an hour ago.”

“But they could have taxied for a while, there might be traffic. I really do expect him to be here in the next half hour or so.”

“And you’ll have him call me first thing?”

“I will, I promise.” She hesitated. “I’m really looking forward to the wedding, you know. We’re all just so happy for you and Jay. You’re perfect for him.”

“Oh.” Patty was so surprised that for a moment she forgot her panic.
Really?
she wanted to say. Instead, she bumbled through an effusive thank-you and hung up, then set the phone down and forced herself to take a few deep breaths.

Okay. Jay would be in the office soon, he’d get her message (messages, three of them), he’d call her back and he’d know what to do. His best friend, Bryan, was an attorney; he’d probably know who to call. If she could just be patient another half hour, they would take the next step together.

There was a soft tapping at the door. Patty jumped—could it be Jay? Surprising her, stopping by the house first before he went to work? She ran to the door, but this time, before opening it, she looked through the peephole.

A middle-aged man in a red windbreaker, Levi’s and cowboy boots waited, eyes hidden behind aviator sunglasses. His haircut looked expensive. He didn’t look like a cop, but Patty had had about all the surprises she could stand for one day. She hesitated, wondering if he’d heard her footsteps, thinking she’d just retreat back into the house.

“Lucy,” the man said. His voice through the door was muffled. “Lucy, are you there?”

Patty was sure she had never seen the man before in her life. Curiosity overwhelmed her better judgment, and Patty opened the door.

His expression changed to one of surprise.

“I’m sorry, I was looking for the home of Lucy Takeda.”

“You’ve found it. I’m her daughter. Patty.”

His surprise deepened, and then he smiled. “I’m so sorry, I didn’t know—please, forgive me. I’m a friend of your mother. Jessie Kadonada.”

* * *

He wouldn’t stay more than a few minutes. Patty offered him tea, coffee, a glass of water, but he kept looking at his watch.

“I really ought to get back on the road,” he said. “I have a long drive.”

He lived in Portland, he’d explained, and he was here on business. Patty thought it odd that he’d driven—Jay, who traveled for business two or three times a month, always flew, even if he was only going to Reno.

“Any idea when your mother might be back?” he asked.

“She got called away sort of unexpectedly. Was she expecting you?”

“Yes, we made tentative plans to meet. Of course, it’s possible I misunderstood....”

They looked at each other; Patty got the sense he was choosing his words as carefully as she was. She wanted to tell him that she’d seen his photographs in Forrest’s album, that she could see the resemblance between the shy boy and the man he’d become. But then she would have to explain how she had come across the album. Jessie didn’t mention Forrest; if he knew about the man’s death, he was covering it well. He really did seem like a man paying a casual visit to an old friend.

But it still seemed to Patty too coincidental that he had come to town only days after Forrest had been killed. Especially because now she knew that her mother had lied when she said they had lost touch. He knew where she lived; he knew details about her life.