She's Not There (16 page)

CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO

It was close to 11:00 p.m. by the time Amelia saw the glow of lights in the town ahead. A search on her iPad had brought her to this place in north Iowa. When she had typed in her grandmother’s name, a website called PeopleFinders had told her there was an Avis Martin living in a town called West Lake Okoboji. The site wanted her to pay $39.99 to get the exact address but she couldn’t access it without a credit card.

But she didn’t really need it. As soon as she saw the name Lake Okoboji, she knew in her gut it was the right place. She wanted to believe that her instincts were somehow melding with her memories, providing her a strange kind of compass she could rely on until something more solid came back. But she knew she had been here before.

A welcome sign told her the town ahead was Arnolds Park. That name, too, registered as familiar, yet nothing she saw
looked
familiar. The Impala’s heater didn’t work well, and she was half-frozen and light-headed with hunger. She spotted a motel, and there was a bar next door. She pulled the Impala into the bar’s lot and hurried through the snow to the entrance.

The heat inside was like a warm embrace. The walls were ancient knotty pine varnished by years of smoke and frying grease, and a row of cracked red vinyl booths lined the wall opposite the long scarred bar. A string of twinkling lights sparkled against a flyspecked mirror behind the rows of booze, and a Christmas song—“Feliz Navidad
”—
floated above the swish of a dishwasher. The only other people in the bar were two old men playing cards in a far corner booth. The bartender, a heavyset woman in a Hawkeyes sweatshirt, threw Amelia a curious look as she made her way to the bar.

Amelia settled on the old wooden stool, her duffel on her lap. The bartender tossed down a cocktail napkin.

“Hey there,” she said. “I’m Kathy. What can I get you?”

“Can I get a sandwich?” she asked.

“Just chili left this time of night. But it’s good.”

“Okay. Chili and a . . .” Amelia’s eyes drifted to a Miller beer sign behind the bar and she had no idea why but suddenly she wanted one. “A Miller, please. The kind in the clear bottle.”

Kathy wandered down to a cooler. “Glass?” she hollered.

“No.”

Amelia glanced around, struck by the idea that the woman in the red halter dress in the Fort Lauderdale magazine wouldn’t be caught dead in this bar, drinking beer from a bottle.

Kathy returned with the beer, and a few minutes later, set a bowl of steaming cheese-topped chili in front of Amelia. It was delicious. So was the beer.

Kathy washed some glasses and wiped down the bar, then she returned to Amelia. “Where you from?”

It occurred to Amelia that this was the kind of town where strangers were immediately spotted. But it was also a town of people who had lived here their whole lives, people who might know her grandmother.

“I’m from Burlington,” she said. “I’m trying to locate a relative. Her name is Avis Martin. Do you know her?”

Kathy, who was probably shy of thirty, shook her head. “Sorry, never heard of her. You try calling her?”

“I don’t know her number.”

“And directory assistance won’t give you squat, right?”

Amelia had a thought. “Do you have a phone book?”

“Phone book? Wow, do they even make them anymore?” Then Kathy smiled. “Hold on a sec.”

She came out from behind the bar, went to the pay phone in the corner, and unhooked a bound book from its chain. She brought it back and slapped it down on the bar, and then left to take a new round to the old guys in the back booth.

Amelia turned it around and opened it to the
M
listings. There it was—Avis Martin, 3611 Fairfield Street, West Lake Okoboji.

Fairfield. She
knew
a woman named Fairfield. Carol Fairfield, a friend from . . . where? Not here.

You going to Minneapolis this year, Mel?

Of course, Alex. I go see Carol every year. You know that.

How about I come along this time and meet this woman?

You’d be bored stiff. It’s a chick trip.

Then she knew. Fairfield wasn’t a friend, it was a place.
This
place, the road where her grandmother lived. She had flown to Minneapolis and come here many times, but why had she lied to her husband about seeing her grandmother?

Kathy had returned. “You find your relative?”

“Yes, I think so.”

“You going to call her?”

Amelia had been staring at the name “Avis Martin” in the phone book and looked up quickly. No, she didn’t want to call because she wasn’t sure what she would say to a ninety-year-old woman she didn’t fully remember. Her hope in coming here was to see The Bird face-to-face, because she was sure that when she did, all the missing memories would fall into place and words would not be a problem.

“I don’t have a phone,” Amelia said.

Kathy pulled a cell phone from her apron. “Here, use mine.”

Amelia hesitated and then took the phone. She punched in the number, her heart pounding. She got a recording saying the phone had been disconnected, and hung up.

“It’s been disconnected,” she said, handing the phone back to Kathy. Relief set in, then disappointment. Was The Bird dead and buried somewhere up here, for some reason never making it back to the family plot in Morning Sun?

She looked at the cover of the phone book. It was from 2004, ten years ago. But the PeopleFinders site had shown that Avis Martin was still living in West Okoboji, and everything inside her was telling her The Bird was here. She could drive to the Fairfield Street address and see if anyone was there, but it was near midnight, and right now she couldn’t bear knocking on another door and having another stranger tell her they didn’t know where her family had gone.

Her eyes moved to the two old men sitting in the back booth. She pushed off her stool and walked over to them. Up close, they looked like twin characters from a cartoon or fairy tale but she couldn’t place the names. Pudgy forearms, bulbous noses, big ears, and white hair.

“Excuse me,” Amelia said.

Both men looked up from their card game.

“My name’s Amelia, and I’m wondering if I could ask you something.”

“Sure, missy.”

“Have you gentlemen lived here a long time?” she asked.

“All our lives,” one of the men said.

“Now, that ain’t exactly accurate, Al,” the other said. “We came here when we were six. And when we were ten we had to go live in St. Louis for a year when Ma got sick.”

Smurfs, Amelia knew suddenly. That’s what they looked like.

“She doesn’t care about all that, Fred,” Al said. “How can we help you, missy?”

“I’m looking for Avis Martin. She used to live here.”

Al scratched his chin. “The name sounds familiar.”

“Avis Martin,” Fred said. “Wasn’t she that piano teacher over in Wahpeton?”

“No, you’re thinking of Marvis Boyd.” Al was frowning; then suddenly he slapped the table. “I know who you mean! Birdie! Birdie Martin.”

Fred smiled. “Yeah, they called her Birdie ’cause of her name. Avis and Martin, those are birds, you know.”

“Yeah, she had that ol’ house on Fairfield out by Atwell Point, with all them big lilac bushes outside.”

Suddenly Amelia could see the bushes, a curtain of purple flowers swaying in the wind. And the smell, God, what a glorious smell, every summer.

“Yes, that’s her,” Amelia said. “Do you know where she is?”

Al drew a deep breath. “I heard she was in a home now.”

“A home? A nursing home?” Amelia asked.

Al nodded. “I don’t know for sure, but you could check easy enough ’cause we only got one here. It’s called Edge of Heaven, ’round the west side of the lake.”

“Thank you,” Amelia said. “Thank you so much.”

When she returned to her place at the bar, Kathy was clearing away her bowl and looked up. “Were they any help?”

“Yes, they were.” Amelia pulled three tens from the duffel and laid them on the bar. “Here’s for my dinner. Buy those gentlemen a round and keep the rest for yourself.”

“Thanks. Will do.”

Amelia gathered up the duffel and left the bar. She pulled her sweater coat tighter against the wind cutting across the lake. She was exhausted, and the cold was settling deep in her bones. The red
V
ACANCY
sign from the Lakeside Motel glowed like a beacon through the snow. She started toward it.

Tomorrow would be good, she knew. She knew, too, that for the first time in a week, she would sleep well. She had found The Bird.

Her dreams were filled with strangeness. Not nightmares exactly, she realized upon awaking, but vivid hallucinatory images and meanderings. A screaming peacock whose tail fanned out into a rainbow. A giant wheel that spun off sparks that flew up and embedded in the night sky as stars. And an exhilarating dream of standing on a roof with Ben as someone yelled at them to jump off and fly away.

When she called The Edge of Heaven, the receptionist told her that Avis Martin was, indeed, living there but that visiting hours were delayed until two because today was set aside for the residents’ monthly physicals. Amelia took a shower, and when she wiped the steam from the bathroom mirror, she was pleased to see that the bruises on her face were almost gone. She gently pulled the remnants of the dissolving stitches from her chin and combed her hair carefully. She wanted to look her best when she saw The Bird.

It was three more hours until she could go to the nursing home. She couldn’t bear sitting in the motel waiting. She decided to go see the house on Fairfield Road.

As she steered the Impala slowly through the curvy roads of the lakeside neighborhood, she knew instinctively where to go. She was guided by something deep inside her, like an internal compass had clicked on, helping her find her way . . .

Home.

She stopped the car. It was a compact, two-story wood-frame house in a faded gray color, with a sloping front yard dotted with bare thick-trunked oak trees. There were some old aluminum beach chairs stacked near a weathered wood picnic table.

She peered out the window at the house for a long time. The two small windows flanking the screen door stared back at her like dark eyes, beckoning her. She killed the Impala’s engine and got out.

Amelia sensed the house was empty. It had a lonely feel, like it was waiting for someone to come back and breathe life into it. She picked her way down the icy slope to one of the windows, wiped away the dirt with her sleeve and peered in.

It was a living room. White wainscoting and flowered wallpaper, mismatched Victorian furniture, odd fringed lamps. Amelia focused on an aluminum walker standing next to an upright piano. Suddenly, she could see herself sitting on the bench next to The Bird, who was playing and singing loudly, a song about a budgie.

No, no . . .
buddy
.

And then words were there in her head.
Nights are long since you went away, I think about you all through the day, my buddy, no buddy quite so true. Miss your voice, the touch of your hand. Just long to know that you understand. My buddy, your buddy misses you.

It was the song The Bird sang to her all the time. The emotion swelled up from Amelia’s chest and made her throat tight. She needed to see more.

She went to the other window. It was the kitchen. Old white wood cabinets with glass doors, red Formica counters, two checked dish towels still hanging by the sink. Burnt cookies . . . the smell was there in her nostrils. And the shrieking stream of profanity that poured from The Bird’s lips as she pulled the smoking cookie sheet from the oven, and the sound of plates breaking against the wall.

And Ben. He was there, too, whispering to her to go upstairs and wait until the tornado blew over. Tornado? Had there been tornadoes here? A tightness began to build in Amelia’s chest, crowding up against the good memories, and she swallowed hard against it.

She moved quickly around to the back of the house. There, far below, down a zigzag of wooden steps, lay the lake. It was gray-green and wind-whipped, but in her mind, Amelia was seeing it as it looked in summer—sun-flecked deep blue waters crisscrossed by the wakes of speedboats and water skiers—and she was hearing it, too—calliope music from the amusement park drifting on the warm wind.

Where was the park? She couldn’t see it. The wind was making her eyes water. She pulled her sweater coat tighter and went up to the bank of windows, looking in.

It was a sun porch, filled with white wicker furniture, a battered desk, and an old table covered with a checkered cloth. She could make out the pieces of an unfinished jigsaw puzzle on the table.

What will this look like when we’re done, Grandma?

I don’t know, Mellie. Let’s put it together and find out.

They had never finished the puzzle, Amelia remembered. Why? What had happened? She knew now that she and Ben had come to the lake house every summer; that it was their safe house, their refuge from the shadows and chill of the house in Morning Sun. When had she stopped coming?

The sun had disappeared behind a bank of bruised clouds hanging over the lake. It had to be near two by now. It was time to see The Bird.