Where Darkness Dwells (34 page)

The pickup truck chewed at the driveway, tearing away his attention. It was his mom, fresh home from Calder's. He gathered up the bean scraps, clearing the table clean. When she came through the door, she immediately saw his look of guilt.

"What now?" She handed him a crate of canned goods.

"Nothing. Just finished up the beans like you asked." He took the crate to a counter and began unloading it.

"You sure nothing's wrong?"

"Everything's fine. How was the market?" he asked, trying to distract her.

"Got everything on my list. When you're done there, can you get the ice from the truck?"

"In a jiffy," Jacob said, heading for the front door.

A peal of laughter came from outside. Jacob looked over his shoulder cautiously, as if someone had told him to turn around with his hands up or he was going to get it.

From the look on her face, she suspected the reason for his harried expression. She held up an authoritative hand. "Jacob, wait a minute."

He rolled his eyes impatiently, but didn't leave.

"So, how do I let him know I like him?"

"Oh, Mary, there's ways of letting him know without letting him know you're letting him know."

Once again, the girls laughed. He wondered if their neighbors could plainly hear the conversation with them being so loud. His embarrassment would kill him if he didn't leave the house right away. His mom smiled at him. His cheeks burned hotter, the blush spreading like wildfire down his neck. Before his mom could say anything, he hastened out the door to fetch the ice from the truck bed.

Every day that passed without Jimmy's return, Jacob learned new ways to miss him.

11.

After carrying the ice block inside and unwrapping it from the straw-packed butcher paper, Jacob hefted it into the icebox. His rushing adrenaline made it seem half as heavy--the only consolation coming from his earlier humiliation. They would chip off pieces from the block as needed, for iced tea or lemonade, but otherwise, the ice would cool anything perishable inside the icebox for four or five days. Some families were having such a hard time getting by that they had to eliminate ice from their market order. Instead of keeping an icebox, they would store perishables in their well bucket, lowering it to the water's cool surface. His mom insisted on having ice, even if at times it seemed like an unnecessary indulgence.

Jacob removed the drain pan from the bottom of the icebox, dumping the cool water into a tub for washing the night's supper dishes. His mom would be on him if he didn't drain the melt water and it ended up overflowing. Jimmy used to perform this task, and like every other Jimmy chore, it had fallen on Jacob to take up the slack.

His mom hadn't said a word about overhearing the girls' chatter, for which he was grateful. She was scribbling away on a writing tablet when he finished with the ice. He gathered up the bean stems from the kitchen table to toss on the mulch pile his mom used to fertilize her expansive garden. Nothing in their house went to waste.

"Jacob? Got a second?"

"Sure." He left the bean scraps where they were. He wanted to get away from the house, putting distance between him and Mary, and the paralyzing thought of seeing her face to face.

"Sit down, please." She slid the writing tablet across the table. Scribbled in her stiff-angled script was a list of names.

"I was hoping you could do me a favor. I think it's high time we pulled out of our doldrums. We should always be sad over George's passing, but Jimmy is fine. In his own convoluted way, he's trying to make a man of himself by enlisting. If he's a man, then we should respect his wishes, even if we don't necessarily agree with them. We need to stop lurking about the house like we're in mourning." She played with the nub of pencil in her hand, as if deciding if she should follow through with what she wanted to say.

With the enthusiasm in which his mom had embraced Jimmy's supposed enlistment, Jacob had almost convinced himself of it as well. Thinking that way was easier, but deep inside he knew it wasn't true. Every day that went by with no letter from Jimmy, the harder it would be for his mom to believe. But as long as she believed, Jacob could pretend to believe also.

"What's the list for?" Jacob asked when she hadn't said anything for a while.

"It's an invite list. I've been thinking we should have a good, old fashioned potluck."

"A potluck? Here?" It was the last thing he expected his mom to say. He could scarcely recall more than a handful of times when they had invited anyone over. Their family was forever accepting invites to get-togethers, but his mom had always kept their home private. Whoever came to the house was considered family and in select company.

"I wish I'd been more open with our friends after your father died. I suppose I was too cautious. As the years went by, some of the townsfolk looked down on me for not remarrying. So I cut away from them even more. They couldn't understand a widow trying to raise two young sons on her own. But I've done it, and for the most part I think I've done a fine job.

"Louise can't raise her baby like that, it's too hard. For me, it was easier to close everyone out instead of risking one more person hurting me. Louise isn't like that. You know yourself, Louise needs her friends. She would just about crumble if she was alone."

"And the list?"

"I need you to invite everyone on that list to the Saturday afternoon potluck."

"I can take the truck?" he asked, trying not to get his hopes up.

"I suppose I'll have to allow it. If you walked, the potluck would've come and gone by the time you finished."

Her words freed him from invisible bonds. Except for the one trip to the Banyon house, he hadn't left the property since his reprimand for going out to Greta's house. He wanted to hug her, but instead took the list and quickly glanced at it. "I'll get on this right away. My chores are done. I weeded the garden, milked Polly, and mended the chicken coop."

Before she could change her mind, he was out the door and in the truck. It roared to life when he turned the ignition. He had to use all of his will power to not stomp on the gas and shoot gravel across the yard from all of his excitement.

The Fowlers were listed first. Initially, Jacob wasn't enthusiastic about the idea of hosting a potluck, but after thinking about it, he understood his mom wanted to accomplish more than just surround Louise with an understanding public. She didn't need to explain her logic; it was as clear to him as if he read it in a book. Have a get together. Invite Charles Banyon into a comfortable situation. See how he's handling being sober when the others would be drinking. It was almost as if she were offering Banyon a way out. If he screwed up, then Ellie could stay at their house while he stumbled home. Or, if for some reason he didn't louse it up, the neighbors could embrace him, embrace him how Louise would be embraced. Jacob wondered if he sometimes underestimated his mother.

Kicking up dust, getting away from the house for the first time in days, escaping Louise's constant updates about her never-ending nausea, he couldn't remember a time when he felt freer.

His thoughts still often centered on Jimmy, but as long as he had Greta's promise that he wanted more than anything to come home, he'd have to take her word for it, and wait for the day when he'd once again see his brother. He had never doubted Greta's word; she had never been proven a liar by anyone. But the truth was, he had little else to cling to at this point. He couldn't just go on make believing like his mom.

His mother had been hovering over him like a hawk since he'd returned from Greta' tree house, so he hadn't had a chance to follow Cooper. He thought about pitching the list out the window and heading straight for his house, but as he scanned the names while maneuvering the truck around a bend in the road, Cooper's name appeared at the bottom, just below a cross-out of his name.

So his mom had written down Cooper's name, thought better of it, then second guessed herself and added his name again. He'd be heading out to Cooper's house eventually, but since Jacob was closer to the Banyon place, it might be best to attack the list as efficiently as possible. He didn't want to risk angering his mother, not when she seemed in a better mood lately.

He pulled into the Banyon's long driveway. Coming to a stop in front of their house, he feared his suspicions of Mr. Banyon had come true. The man was tilted back in a rocker on the front porch. His arms hung askew to the sides of the arm rests, as if he weren't aware enough to move them back into a more comfortable position. He couldn't see the man's eyes--his head was tipped back too far--but he assumed they were closed.

The truck brakes needed fixing and screeched when he stopped. Mr. Banyon didn't stir.

Jacob hopped down from the truck and approached the porch. When he was standing three feet from Ellie's dad, he still couldn't tell if he was alive or dead. He couldn't smell alcohol in the air, but that didn't mean Mr. Banyon hadn't slumped in the rocker to pass out. He hoped all he'd done was pass out.

Keeping an eye on Mr. Banyon, Jacob knocked on the front door, the pressure of his knuckles on the weatherworn wood pushing it open on its rusty hinge. With his heart stirring mightily in his chest, Jacob expected to see some kind of upheaval inside. Gouts of blood sprayed across the walls. Ellie's body face down in a twisted heap.

The room unfolded in layers, leaving an entirely different, but still quite unexpected, impression.

At first, all he saw was wood. All hues of earth tones, from white pine to rustic mahogany, in all textures and shapes. Then he noticed the menacing-looking tools spread across any available open space: sharp-pointed awls, ragged-toothed saws. Tools to gouge with, rend apart, hollow out.

And the smell. Overpowering. Vaporous. biting.

He stepped back from the open door, catching his breath.

He heard a creaking board from behind him and spun around.

"You just walk in to any old house you choose?" Mr. Banyon's voice was sarcastic instead of biting. He sat up in the rocker, stretched his hands above his head and couldn't quite stifle a whine that could have been his muscles screaming awake. "Yeah, this one passes the mustard if I do say so myself."

"You're back to making furniture?" Jacob asked, halfway ashamed for the fear he'd felt. The other half of him still stood on suspicious feet.

"Sure am. Just taking a break when you pulled up. Testing out this new rocker, why, it put me out cold in five minutes." Mr. Banyon stood and stretched his back. He didn't look as shaky as when Jacob and his mom dropped off Ellie's clothes. His eyes were clear, even though he had just woken up. "I'm hungry, boy. Want something to eat?"

Mr. Banyon walked inside, leaving Jacob to contemplate alone on the porch. He hadn't seen Ellie yet, so he kept his guard up.

He remembered the reason for his visit and his mom's invitation list. He followed after Mr. Banyon, and when he could focus on something other than the clutter of furniture making, Mr. Banyon stood in the corner kitchen, cutting slices of bread for a sandwich. "Didn't know a boy your age should drive. Your mom know you're out driving?"

"She's the one sent me out this way."

"That so?"

Jacob didn't respond. Mr. Banyon finished making his peanut butter sandwich, and then consumed it in less time than it took to make. "I better make another. You sure you don't want any? Well fine, that's just more for me. I tell you, I haven't eaten this much since I was your age. Drying out gives a man his hunger back."

"Mr. Banyon?"

"Yes, boy?"

"Ellie around?" he asked, afraid to find out the answer.

"Out back. She got the mule hooked up to the grind mill. Most time you can just leave the beast to do his burden, but that mule is stubborn even for his namesake. She's out there prodding him along, grinding corn for meal right now."

Jacob walked through a maze of unfinished furniture pieces until he could see out the window overlooking the backyard. The glass pane shined with the midday sun. It looked clean enough to eat off of. In fact, the rest of the house was just as clean, if you discounted the small mounds of saw dust here and there. Ellie was outside at the mill Mr. Banyon had designed and built himself. She had a switch in here hand, but the mule seemed to be walking his perpetual circle just fine for the time being. As if she knew Jacob was watching, she looked over her shoulder, giving him a friendly wave.

"Boy? You just gonna stand all day looking out that winda'?"

"No, sir. Mom wanted me to invite you and Ellie to a potluck this coming Saturday. If that'd work for you."