No Ordinary Day (6 page)

“Well, you’re wrong there. I have a solid tin ear.”

“I doubt that. Let’s test it out. Close your eyes.”

“Why?” Lucy asked suspiciously.

“Humor me for a moment,” said Glen, amused.

Lucy exhaled sharply, then closed her eyes nervously.

“Listen for the sound of the river rushing by, the water wheel, the sawmill—it’s closed now, with dusk coming, so you can’t hear the machinery, but if you listen closely, you can hear the creaking of the wood. Listen for the bells, which are about to toll the hour, and then play the hymn
All Through the Night.
It’s a shame there are no kids out, but you can listen for the patter of the rain instead.” He fell silent, and Lucy could hear the sounds he had just described.

“You’re right,” she said. “I
can
hear it.”

“Now open your eyes,” said Glen Daniels, “and take another look at your town.”

Lucy did so, and took in an unexpected breath as she did.

The Adirondack mountains rose up on both sides of the river valley, their purple and green peaks wreathed in heavy fog that also frosted both the Hudson River and Lake Obergrande to the east. In the heavy pall of rain, Lucy took in the sight gratefully, so much more lush and beautiful than the mid-West dustbowl where she had grown up.

Even swollen with rain, the air atop the hill was sweet and clean, with the lights of the little village shops and restaurants just beginning to glow.
Such a pretty place,
she thought, looking at the quaint buildings that lined the streets around Tree Hill, each corner lighted by a traditional street lantern atop an historic pole
. I’m so glad I live here
.

Making the need for strong advocacy at the Town Board meeting tonight even more crucial.

“It’s amazing how much a place in the world is made more beautiful by its natural music. I love listening to the music of this place.” Glen’s voice broke the silence, but it wasn’t a disruption as far as Lucy was concerned. It blended in with the sounds from all around that she could hear beneath Obergrande’s vast branches, the new leaves sprouting on the vast network of twigs amid countless empty nests left over from years before, nests that would soon have new occupants and a cacophony of new birdsong.

“Me too,” she said aloud, resting her hand on the massive trunk, running her fingers through the deep rivers in the bark. “It’s like the tree is singing.”

“Not just the tree—the whole place,” Glen said, pulling his jacket a little closer around him as the rain began to drizzle again. “The symphony of this area is amazing—the percussion is the rattle of the wheels and the machinery of the mills, the splashing of the water of the river running through them as it grows stronger, swelling into the massive force that is the Hudson.”

He inclined an ear to the western side of the village, where the churches stood.

“The melody of the song is the carillon in the tower of Our Mother of Sorrows, singing to the evening sky. Our Lady of Lourdes, the church in Schroon Lake, has a carillon, too—I’m told it’s a French-Canadian tradition. The descant—”

“The which?”

“The descant—the musical term for the high part floating over all that rich sound—is the laughter and noise of the children playing in the park when it hasn’t been raining forever. And the bass is the never-ending rumble of Route 87, the Northway, in the distance, that brings me to this place each day, that takes me home at night. The tree is the conductor of the symphony. Can you hear the music? Close your eyes again, and listen.”

Curious now, Lucy obeyed.

“You’re right,” she said after a moment, opening her eyes again. “I
can
hear it—and it’s beautiful. I never thought of it that way before. Thank you for taking the time to show me.”

Glen smiled slightly. “Speaking of time, we both better get going. I have a lot of stuff to take care of tonight, and you have a meeting to catch.”

“Yes. Well, thank you for dinner.”

He bowed slightly. “It was my pleasure. Thank you, Lucy. Here—you hold on to the umbrella. You can give it back to me at school tomorrow.”

He turned toward the street parking where he had left his car.

Only to stop when Lucy caught his sleeve.

“Glen?”

He turned around again. “Yes?”

She let her hand encircle his wrist, pulling him gently back under the umbrella, then stood on her toes and, to his surprise and hers, kissed him on the cheek.

“Thank you again. See you tomorrow.”

Glen exhaled, smiling more broadly. “Will do. Good night.”

“Good night.”

He waited beneath the tree while she made her way down the opposite side of the hill, heading into the brightly lit Town Hall, which was already bustling with townsfolk streaming in.

Then smiled to himself again and descended Tree Hill to his car in the returning rain.

At the primitive campsite

“If I had
known this might happen, I would have kept nursing her,” Anjolie said, rubbing her eyes. She put her palms against her temples and watched Bram feeding the baby with a bottle he had warmed over the last of the lantern’s fuel.

“You had to return to work,” her husband said quietly, smiling at the little girl and letting her curl her fist around his finger.

“Some women can do it
and
return to work,” Anjolie said, trying to block out the sound of the rain strafing the top of the tent again.

“We can try that with the next one, if you wish.”

Anjolie leaned back against the bedroll. “We are almost out of baby formula, Bram. What are we going to do?”

“Rain or no rain, tomorrow we break camp and make our way to Obergrande,” Bram said, directing his words to the baby, who was watching him with enormous eyes from behind her bottle. “They will have everything we need there—especially shelter.”

“That will be nice. I can’t wait to be warm and dry again—and inside.”

“The town has a beautiful old hotel, according to the guidebook,” Bram said as the baby finished her bottle, sipping air. “We have been frugal so far—we can probably splurge on a night or two there.”

His wife sighed wordlessly.

He thought of the second-hand canoe they had bought off a front lawn in Newcomb to the north, now upside down outside the tent to keep it from filling with rain. The man who had sold and delivered it to them looked doubtfully at their set up, but had said nothing, just wished them well.

Bram was beginning to understand the man’s expression.

“We’ll be all packed to go at first light,” he said. “With any luck, the rain will break and we will have an easy ride down the river.”

Anjolie, a champion paddler in Holland, nodded and settled down on the sleeping bag, damp with the seepage of the water and mud beneath the tent floor.

Bram set the empty bottle aside and put his daughter on his shoulder.

“Excellent work,
kindje,
” he whispered in her tiny ear, the Dutch word for
baby
. She tucked her head into the crook of his neck and sighed as he rubbed her back. “Tomorrow may be a wet day, but it will be the day you finally arrive at the place our ancestors once lived—and what may well be our new home.”

His daughter belched politely, squirmed, and then settled down again.

Rather than putting her in the setup behind them, Bram laid her down next to Anjolie and stretched out on the other side of her, cradling her in between them, remembering what his early camping leaders had taught him.

The largest number of people who die when camping on mountains, and in forests, do so of hypothermia,
Heer Von Nostrandt, the scout master, had said.
The second largest are the ones who die from falling trees
.

Bram tried to close his ears to the sound of the gusting wind rustling and cracking the branches outside their tent.

But it roared in his dreams anyway.

‡

5:55
PM

Obergrande Village

T
he Obergrande Town
Hall parking lot was packed with cars, making Lucy glad she had left hers on the street below Tree Hill. The hall itself was ablaze with light, and even more crowded with people than its parking lot was with cars.

The mood inside the hall was tense and brawly, with many people standing in pairs or small groups, arguing already. A larger number were standing in the hallways, looking grim, or seated already in the rows of chairs inside the largest room in the hall that served as a gathering place for board meetings on the third Thursday of each month, and town court every Wednesday evening.

Lucy had been to almost every Town Board meeting for the last two-and-a-half years, starting immediately upon coming to Obergrande. This was the first time, however, she had noticed more than one uniformed security officer in attendance—she counted five before she even made it out of the main entrance.

Their presence made her suddenly nervous.

She passed Mr. Credman, her elderly next-door neighbor, who was pointing his finger in the face of a man who looked as if he were on the Town Council, judging by the badge he wore and the look of annoyance on his red, wrinkled face.

A group of three women had similarly cornered the Obergrande village major, Ray Tibedeau, who was listening patiently to their concerns, voiced rather loudly, just as another group had surrounded Bob Lundford, the Obergrande town supervisor, who was not looking as patient. His face was set in a stern mask but was as red as that of the man who was being yelled at by Mr. Credman.

Tibedeau was in charge of the central village that lay in the center of East Obergrande, the part of town directly west of the river, where the sawmill and furniture factories stood, along with the elementary school, the library, and most of the middle-income housing in the town that backed up to the lake, and West Obergrande, the wealthier end of the town where expensive houses, historic estates and elegant camps were sheltered in the woods, accessible mostly by private roads.

Lundford was responsible for the whole of the town, including the village.

Neither of the men were looking happy at the moment.

“All right, enough of this hallway blather,” said Lundford. “Take your seats, folks. This is a government building, not a boxing arena. The monthly meeting can’t start until you are sitting quietly in your seats and we are ready to open business.”

The people who were standing in the hallway mostly complied, grumbling and still arguing loudly.

It was clear as soon as everyone was inside the courtroom that there would not be enough chairs for the regular citizens of the town that had come for the meeting. Lucy found a place to stand along the wall, surrounded by a number of parents of her students, who nodded pleasantly at her.

She turned her eyes toward the front of the room.

Sitting at the table were people she had recognized from various events at school, especially the Memorial Day parade, the members of the Town Board and the Town Clerk.

At the far left end of the table sat a man she recognized as the town’s lawyer, James O’Connor, who said very little at most board meetings, and two military men in uniform.

The older of the two men had closely cropped hair and wore a number of medals and military insignia, particularly pins that looked like small castles, on his chest, and a stern look on his face. The younger man, whose head bore the signs of what appeared to be a fairly recent buzz cut beneath a military beret, was attired in the uniform of the Army National Guard. He maintained a solemn expression, and Lucy found herself looking at his face, wondering why the volunteer soldiers she had seen wearing this uniform always seemed to be handsome but grim.

Then she remembered the sort of things the National Guard had to do, and answered her own question.

“All right, settle down and we’ll get started,” Bob Lundford said, sitting down at the place directly in the center of the table in front of a microphone. “We have a number of items of official town business to attend to, which I’m sure most of you couldn’t care less about, but it has to be done according to the law, so try and contain yourselves for a few minutes longer. There’s no point in being abusive to people you’ve elected to do these jobs which, believe me, do
not
pay enough to put up with nights like this.”

Lucy leaned up against the wall in the midst of the packed crowd. Every seat was taken, with an overflow into the exterior hallways.

Behind her on the wall was a banner with Obergrande’s symbol, a tree around which a river flowed in a circle in front of a range of high-peaked mountains. Lucy stared at the town flag as the board meeting started, almost missing the Pledge of Allegiance. She turned quickly toward the American flag at the front of the room and caught up with everyone reciting the pledge, probably the last thing they would all agree on that night.

Then she looked back at the town symbol again, remembering the first day she had seen it.

It had been in this very town hall, three years before, when she had come as a new homeowner to register to vote and get the information she needed about town services like garbage removal.
Obergrande?
she had asked Betty Finley, the town clerk, who now was sitting at the head table, taking notes and looking nervous.
What does that name mean
?