Lineage (20 page)

“Every man is on some level, I suspect,” Lance said as he stepped into the kitchen, noticing how clean and orderly the room was. There were no stray dishrags lying on the spotless counters, and not a solitary crumb could be seen on the wide cutting block near the sink.

“Bud Light okay?” John asked, holding up two already-frosted bottles.

“Perfect,” Lance said, taking one of the beers from John’s outstretched hand.

“Let’s go out on the deck,” John said, motioning to the rear of the house. Lance followed the caretaker through a narrow den with wide windows, to a sliding door that opened onto a spacious deck. The platform overlooked a sweeping lawn that fell away from the house and terminated in a dark pond. Cattails leaned in the breeze of the evening and a pair of ducks glided across the surface of the water. A modest gas grill smoked contentedly at the far corner of the deck, giving off a subtle smell of past meals.

“Wow. You have a beautiful place here, John,” Lance said, taking in the view.

“Yeah, it’s no
Superior
, that’s for sure, but it’s calm and quiet. That’s all a man my age needs, calm and quiet.”

Lance nodded and studied the older man for a moment. The stoop of John’s shoulders beneath his shirt along with the slight downturn of his mouth told volumes. He was alone. Regardless of the fact that there had been no sounds of stirring within the home to announce another’s presence, Lance could read the caretaker’s face and posture like a road map. Memory and sadness were John’s real clothes, and Lance knew from wearing his own outfit of misery that they were unyielding burdens that refused to be sloughed off, no matter how hard one tried.

“Have a seat,” John said as he folded himself into a padded wicker chair beside a glass table at the center of the deck. Lance did the same, and for a time both men sipped beer in silence.

“Beautiful night,” John finally offered, gazing around at the tall trees that ringed the clearing behind the house.

“Yes, it is,” Lance agreed.

“Getting used to the area then?” John asked, shifting in his chair while taking another pull from his half-empty bottle.

“Yeah, I am. It’s definitely a change from the cities, but I’m enjoying it. My other place is a lot like yours actually—secluded and wooded. I like the feeling of not being hemmed in by houses.”

John gazed out across the pond. “My wife and I lived on the north side of
Minneapolis
when we were first married. Couldn’t stand it, and that was sixty years ago. No offense, it was like a shoe two sizes too small, just didn’t fit. We moved up here in 1950. Built the place and haven’t left since.”

Lance nodded, feeling more and more foolish as the older man spoke. John’s words and easy demeanor were forthright, and Lance became ashamed at the thoughts of suspicion he had plastered the man with. The remorse he felt at branding him a criminal outstripped the assurances John had stated earlier, and Lance set his beer down on the table next to him.

“I do have to apologize, John. I’ve been an ass. I was so sure you were responsible, and I reacted and lashed out. I had nothing else other than your standoffishness and the fact that you had the only other set of keys to go on. So, I’m sorry.”

John had lowered his head to gaze at the beer bottle in his hand. He didn’t look up as he replied.
“Like I said earlier, no need to apologize.
I didn’t act myself the day we met. I was flustered at the prospect of the house changing hands again, and I let my emotions get the best of me. I don’t blame you for questioning me, you don’t know me, but my hope is you’ll get to over the time you own the old place.” John broke his eye contact with the bottle and looked up at Lance imploringly.

“I think that’s just fine,” Lance said, smiling across the table. A glimmer of light shone in John’s morose eyes for a moment and then was gone like a comet burning to nothing in the atmosphere. “Now that we’re on the same side of the fence, tell me what’s been going on in the house. The curiosity’s been driving me bat-shit crazy.” Lance sat back and laughed as a smile broke John’s wrinkled face.

After taking a drink to wet his voice, Lance recounted the occurrences of the past two nights to John, who sat quietly listening. Lance paused only when John went to the kitchen to retrieve two fresh beers. Lance left out what he had seen through the keyhole of the locked door on his initial viewing of the house along with the nightmare that had visited him earlier that day. His trust of the older man was building and he didn’t want to taint it with unsubstantiated feelings, irrational dreams, and something that could have been his eyes playing tricks on him. Instead, he fell silent after finishing the account, letting the whisper of the wind in the pines and the occasional
chittering
of a red squirrel pervade the tranquility of the absence of words. John turned his beer in slow circles on the table beside him for a time, deep in thought. He remained impassive for so long that Lance began to consider assuring him that he hadn’t imagined the nighttime encounters, when the other man spoke.

“Did you see what they looked like?”

“No, nothing distinguishing.
Last night I did see his eyes. I couldn’t tell what color they were in the dark, though. I did buy a gun today. I got it from Stub on the far end of town.”

John smiled. “I’m
gonna
wager he lectured you more than once on safety, along with having a light on your gun.”

“Yeah, he did,” Lance said, laughing. “I’m all set up if someone comes back, though.” John seemed pleased with this and drained the last of his beer, as Lance finally asked him one of the questions he had been wondering since leaving the house earlier that evening. “Do you have any idea who would want to break into the place and not steal anything?”

John sat staring at the planking of the deck. His eyes glazed in thought, but Lance waited, unwilling to break John’s concentration with impatience.

“I can’t think of anyone that would want to scare you off, if that’s what you’re asking,” he said at last. “The place had its share of visitors over the years. The local kids would sneak onto the grounds to smoke pot or mess around with each other when there wasn’t a resident owner there. I’ve had to replace a fair share of broken windows over the years too, most likely by the guys who didn’t have girls to bring there.” John made a huffing noise of disdain and looked out over the yard. “No, other than the occasional vandal, there hasn’t been much trouble there.” John turned his attention back to Lance as he continued. “I’m sure you’ve already explored the notion of someone you know breaking in there for some reason or another?”

Lance nodded. The list of people who had anything against him was short, and the reasons they begrudged him didn’t justify entering his home at night, either.

“I’m pretty sure I haven’t made anyone mad enough to do that,” Lance said.

“If a man has no enemies, he has no character. I think Sinatra said that.”

“I think Oscar Wilde said it first, and more eloquently,” Lance said, keeping his face straight. John stared at him for a moment and then burst out laughing. John had a rolling chuckle that exuded warmth, and Lance imagined that even if the other man had been actually laughing at someone, the butt of the joke would’ve been helpless not to join in. Lance grinned at the elderly man’s mirth, feeling his endearment grow where there had only been anger before. John’s laughter faded and his face became sober again.

“All I can say is keep a sharp eye out, and I’ll keep my ears open if there’s something going on in town that I’m unaware of. I’m sorry I don’t have any answers for you, son. I wish I did, I really do. My wife used to say I was a lift in the shoe of the world. She said I always tried to make things right where I had no business doing so. ‘Let things be as they are, Jonathan,’ she used to say.” Lance watched John’s face darken at the mention of his wife. “I used to tell her I only wanted to help. Maybe that’s why I took to caretaking so well, making sure other people’s homes
were
set, sometimes before my own was.” Lance watched John wade through the mire of his thoughts. After a time, the older man seemed to emerge and rejoin his guest in the present, the vestiges of the past slipping away to merge with the growing shadows of the yard.

“Well, what say we have some dinner? I’m hungry as a lion in a cornfield.” John stood and walked haltingly into the house, arthritis faltering his meaningful stride.

“Can I do anything?” Lance asked, standing from his chair as he held his empty beer bottle.

“No, just burning a couple steaks on the grill if that’s okay with you,” John said, turning before he crossed the threshold of the house.

“That’s great. Could I possibly use your bathroom?” Lance asked. The two beers he had consumed pressed painfully against his bladder.

“Second door on the right, off the living room,” John said, pointing as he disappeared through the opening to the house.

Lance followed John through the sliding glass door and shut it behind him, closing out the warmth of the summer evening. He watched the caretaker make his way into the kitchen and begin loading several thick steaks onto a glass platter near the sink.

The hallway that led from the living room was narrow and dim, and the four doorways were dark rectangles branching off in different directions. As he walked, Lance realized a feeling of relief had settled upon him since entering John’s home. The guilt he had been harboring since their morning encounter had evaporated. The relief was so absorbing that he didn’t notice when he mistakenly turned the knob of the first door on the right and opened the door to John’s bedroom.

Immediately he realized his error, but couldn’t help noticing several empty whiskey bottles, lined up like soldiers near the foot of the double bed in the center of the room. A few full bottles were mixed among them, their amber liquid almost black in the low light. Lance frowned and started to shut the door, feeling as if he had just looked through someone’s window from the outside and seen them naked. The bottles didn’t seem at home there, and he had no doubt they had been placed there temporarily.

A picture propped on the dresser near the door caught his eye as he retreated, and he paused. A much younger version of the man fussing behind him in the kitchen was holding a woman with curly blond hair; his arms were wrapped around her as though he were afraid she would diffuse at any moment and slip away. The woman, in turn, held a boy around twelve years of age. The boy was laughing, his eyes focused on something other than the camera, and Lance could see an incongruity in his expression that suggested an accident or a disability of some sort. The family in the picture seemed the embodiment of happiness, and in that moment Lance recognized the silence of the house around him for what it truly was: grief. Mourning held a different kind of quiet. The simple lack of sound only roughly resembled the silence of grieving. When studied, the two were as dissimilar as tears and water.

Lance pulled the door shut without a sound and continued to the bathroom. When he reemerged from the house, John was already seasoning the hissing steaks. The caretaker glanced over his shoulder and gave one of the first smiles Lance had seen, hoisting up the corner of his mouth like an uncooperative tent.

“I hope you like your steak
rare,
’cause it’s the only way I know how to cook ’
em
.”

Lance laughed, and somewhere in the back of his mind, he noted that the old man was definitely growing on him.

Their dinner was eaten without much conversation. Most of their attention turned to the food before them, with only the occasional comment of hungry appreciation from Lance. The sun continued its descent behind the tall pines in the backyard. The birds that had been so active, flitting to and fro earlier, were now settling for the night. A chorus of crickets began their creaking song, while the ducks below on the pond continued their soundless laps.

Lance finally pushed back from the table, his stomach feeling as though it were in need of some well-placed sutures. John had already finished and was nursing his fourth beer at the other end of the table. His eyes remained on the deepening murk of the water at the bottom of the hill. Lance watched him in the fading light, as he debated asking the other man questions that pushed and pulled at his curiosity like an unruly tide. In the end, his need to know won out over patience, and he reasoned that sometimes the only true way out is through. Lance opened his mouth to speak, but John’s question halted the words on his tongue.

“Ever been married, Lance?”

“No.”

“Why?
If you don’t mind me asking.”

“It scares the shit out of me.” John looked over at Lance and chuckled.

After a moment of staring at Lance, who had only broken into a slight smile, John said, “I get the feeling you’re serious.” Lance merely nodded and sipped at his beer. “What a thing for a horror writer to be scared of,” John mused. “I guess you’re not unfounded in thinking that way. I sure as hell was scared when I was standing at the head of that aisle, staring at the woman who was
gonna
be
mine for each day after.” John stopped speaking, as if Lance had interrupted him. He looked out across the pond, to the emblazoned tree line beyond the water. The sun’s corona gave the illusion of a great forest fire behind the oaks and pines.

“I guess my parents didn’t give me the best example to judge it by,” Lance offered. “I’ll wager that between the right two people it can be something beautiful.”