Light from a Distant Star (30 page)

Writing the letter was a relief. She couldn’t prove or even be sure of Max’s innocence, but at least she’d done the right thing by telling her parents about Mr. Cooper. All she could do now was wait for the wheels of justice to start turning. And turn they would. That she was sure of.

In the other room her father was asking about the cat. He didn’t understand. What about Ruth’s allergies? Or had the woman paid the deposit and then said she had a cat? he asked. Oh no, Miss Schiff had been very upfront about it, her mother said. But didn’t the ad say no pets? he asked. The first ads had, her mother admitted. But not this time. For whatever reason. Misprint or something. No big deal.

“Besides, she’s way up on the third floor now. I mean, how far can cat dander travel?” her mother said.

“Hm, good question. I’ll get back to you on that,” he said, and Nellie smiled.

“Plus, she’s probably outgrown it all now.” Her mother sounded tense.

“So’d you tell her?” he asked after a moment.

“What?”

“Sandy.”

“I don’t see how that’s my responsibility. Besides, she probably already knows.”

“You just said she doesn’t know anyone in town.”

“I said she had no family left here.”

“What’re you going to do, let her move in and then find out?”

“I don’t know.” Silence. “Besides, once she’s settled and loves it here, then it won’t seem like such a big deal.”

“Sandy.”

“What?”

“You’ve got to tell her. It’s the right thing to do, that’s all.”

“Oh, that’s all? That’s all? Easy for you to say.”

“And if she doesn’t want the apartment, then someone else will.”

“No they won’t! Of course they won’t!
I
wouldn’t! Just going in there tonight made me sick to my stomach!”

“Then that’s the way it has to be, Sandy. For now, anyway.”

“
For now anyway!
Everything’s always just for now, isn’t it?”

“Sandy. C’mere.”

“No. You don’t know how hard this is for me. And it’s not just the money, it’s everything. It’s all so horrible. And here we are, stuck in this mess.”

“We’re not stuck. And we’re not in any mess. Bad things happen and they happen to everyone, not just us.”

“All the talk, I just hate it.” Her voice broke.

“You’ll see, hon. In a few months, this’ll all be over and forgotten. I can’t tell you how many tragedies I’ve discovered that’ve happened in this town through the years. And this’ll be just one more, that’s all. One more historical nugget.”

“Nugget! Oh, God,” she gasped.

“You know what I mean. Listen, tomorrow you call Miss Schiff and you tell her the truth, and who knows, she probably won’t even care.”

W
ELL
, M
ISS
S
CHIFF
did care. The apartment would remain empty. Her mother stopped running the ad. Why throw thirty dollars down the drain every week? Every day after work she would ask Benjamin if he’d heard anything from Andy Cooper yet. And every day the answer was the same. He kept leaving messages, but Andy wasn’t getting back to him.

T
HE LAVENDER WAS
being overtaken. It was a hot Sunday afternoon and they’d been weeding the herb garden. Kneeling halfway into the bed, her mother was digging out the last of the invasive mint. Nellie stood over her, waving away the bees they’d disturbed.

“We’re gonna get stung,” she warned again as she gathered the straggly stems and threw them into the wheelbarrow.

“We’ll be fine,” her mother murmured, which Nellie heard as a cool stillness. This was her mother’s happiest time, though lately she’d barely been able to keep up with all the yard work. Nellie’s father had taken over the lawn mowing, but after beheading the front-yard petunias with the Weed Whacker, her mother had reclaimed the trimming.

Her mother’s sweaty, red shoulders were flecked with soil from the weeds she was so furiously yanking out. Grunting, she leaned in farther to pick up the long, dusty worm she’d just displaced. She dropped it, wiggling, into a hole and smoothed soil over it. The backs of her mother’s legs were getting burned. Nellie took a few steps to the side trying to shield her from the sun.

“I can’t see,” her mother called up from the shadow and Nellie moved.

She loved her mother, but not with the same easy pleasure that she loved her father. An ache was how she loved her mother, with a sympathy she did not understand.

A bee buzzed close by her ear. She screamed and ran toward the porch.

“Nellie!” her mother chided, rattling through the tool bucket for her trowel.

“I might be allergic, too!” she said, coming back. Like Ruth, who carried a bee-sting kit in her purse.

“Don’t worry, you’re not.” Her mother sat back on her heels and stretched.

“But what if I am? You don’t know. What if a bee stings me and my tongue swells up and I can’t breathe, then what do I do?”

“Well, then I’d run inside and get Ruth’s EpiPen and give you the injection.” Her mother seemed amused. “You don’t think I’d let anything happen to you, do you, Nell?” She got up and put her arms around Nellie. “Do you?” she asked, and Nellie shook her head. “Well, what is it, then? Come on, hon, you can tell me; you know you can.”

“I’m gonna tell the police about Mr. Cooper, I have to!” she blurted and her mother stepped back.

“No, you don’t
have
to. And you won’t. Absolutely not. Do you hear me? Do you understand what I’m saying?”

She nodded. “But I don’t think
you
understand,” she said in a small voice, determined not to look away from her mother’s stare. Even with the bee at her shoulder she would not flinch.

“Oh, my God, Nellie, you’ve really got to stop, you can’t keep doing this. You’re only thirteen so you think everything’s so simple, but it’s not.”

“I don’t think it’s simple. I didn’t say that.”

“No, but you want it to be. Because you’re very idealistic—you always have been and that’s wonderful, but comes a time, Nellie, when you’ve gotta listen to us, and trust us. Your parents. You just have to.”

“Even if I’m right and you’re wrong?”

“Oh, for God’s sake, Nellie,” her mother sighed. “You know what I think? I think a lot of this is drama, okay? And I’m not trying to belittle you or make you feel bad. Because we’re girls, we’ve all been through it. Sometimes we get these feelings, these ideas, not so much in our head but in here,” she said, tapping her chest. “And they can take on a life of their own, and before we know it, it’s like an obsession, we can’t even think straight anymore. So not another word about this, okay, hon? Please? Things are hard enough right now, don’t you think?” Her bucket rattled as she picked it up and started toward the house.

That’s why loving her mother was so complicated, Nellie thought as she struggled to push the heavy wooden wheelbarrow into the barn. Because they weren’t the same, they weren’t at all alike, which made her feel bad for both of them.

I
T MAY HAVE BEEN THE DWINDLING DAYS OF SUMMER OR MAYBE
Henry just felt safer now, but he had resumed work on the tree house with a feverish intensity. The rickety walls had been cross-braced. The roof was almost finished. While scouring the neighborhood for usable boards, he’d discovered a house on Cork Street being renovated. He had climbed into the Dumpster when a carpenter drove up and caught him trying to hoist an old window over the side.

“What the hell’re ya doing in there?” the carpenter yelled, so Henry told him. His tearful honesty was rewarded when the carpenter not only put the window in his truck but dropped it off at their house on his way home from work.

Right after breakfast Henry headed out to the tree house only to be ordered back inside. He had to wait until at least ten. Last night Miss Humboldt had called to say that Tenley hadn’t been feeling well lately, and the early morning hammering was disturbing his sleep. At ten sharp Henry’s labor began.
Bang bang bang
rang his steady hammer strikes through the open window. It was a beautiful morning, sunny and crisp, its perfection tinged by the fading hydrangeas, a sure promise of fall, another day nearer the start of the new school year. The phone kept ringing. Every time it did, Nellie cringed, afraid it was Miss Humboldt. So far the calls had all been for Ruth from her friend Torrie. This last one had been going on for almost an hour, and Nellie had to use the phone.

“Hang up!” Ruth barked when Nellie lifted the receiver again. She told Ruth she’d been on the phone long enough and she needed to call the salon to ask if she could go to Charlie’s because Ruth would be home with Henry. “Hang up! I’ll be off in a minute! Just hang up!”
Ruth yelled, and Nellie realized Torrie was sobbing on the other end of the line. She hung up without another word.

Soon after, Ruth came thumping down the back stairs into the kitchen. She slumped over the table glaring while Nellie dialed the salon. Of course she could go to Charlie’s, her mother said, sounding rushed. When all her chores were done, she added.

“That’s really rude, you know, picking up the phone every two minutes!” Ruth said when Nellie hung up.

“It wasn’t every two minutes,” Nellie said, wiping off the counter-top.

“That was a really private phone call,” Ruth said.

“Well, how was I s’posed to know?” She turned on the water and wrung out the sponge.

“Every time you picked up, Torrie, she was, like, a wreck.”

Nellie didn’t say anything.

“The thing is, she’s having a really hard time,” Ruth called over the running water.

“That’s too bad.” Feigning disinterest, she shut off the water and started to leave.

“And it’s hard on me, too. Being the only one that knows, that is.”

“How come? I mean, how come you’re the only one?” Nellie had no clue what she was talking about, but if she asked, she’d never be told.

“The thing is, her parents think she’s such a saint, and, plus, her mother’s this big pro-life fanatic.”

“Oh,” Nellie said. Maybe Ruth thought she’d been listening on the line. Or maybe she just needed a sounding board.

“She wants me to bring her in to the clinic. On Thursday. And I said I would, but I don’t want to, and I don’t know how to get out of it. I mean, I feel like I’m letting her down, but then there’s the other part of it. You know what I mean?”

She didn’t, but she nodded.

“I just keep thinking, I mean, what if Mom had done that? I mean, I wouldn’t be here right now. I never would’ve happened. For Torrie it’s just like this awful problem she’s gotta take care of, and then when she does, everything’ll be the same, back to normal again. But not for me it won’t. I mean, if I help her, it’ll be like getting rid of myself in a way,
because I know what the other part of it’s like. The being unwanted part.”

For a moment they just looked at each other. Her sister’s eyes were red and glistening, but she wasn’t crying. Nellie was.

“Mom wanted you. You know she did,” Nellie said, rubbing her nose on the back of her hand.

“Yeah, but she was the only one,” Ruth said, then burst into tears. “My own father, he just took off.”

“But he was in high school—his family made him.” Or so the story went.

“He’s not in high school now.”

Again, Nellie nodded. They were both sniffling.

“You know how many letters I’ve sent him? Four! And he hasn’t written me back, not one single letter.”

“Maybe he didn’t get them.” Her mind was racing. If she gave Ruth the letter she’d hidden, she’d be in huge trouble, and Ruth would be even more hurt by her father’s brush-off.

“That’s what I keep thinking,” she said.

Outside, the hammering suddenly stopped. There was a car running in the driveway. Then a knock at the door. It was Detective Des La Forges, asking for their mother. He wanted to tell her something. She was at work, Ruth said, quickly adding that he shouldn’t go there looking for her. It would be too upsetting. The jowly faced man said he understood. He’d call her later at home.

Nellie was leaving for Charlie’s when Ruth told her to wait. She looked in the refrigerator for something to give him.

“Here,” she said, wrapping the end of last night’s meat loaf. “Tell him he can heat it or make sandwiches with it.”