Part 28 (1/2)
Then they lowered the mahogany box into the ground, and they all stood there, watched as the mourners filed out, and waited for the men to begin filling the hole.
They returned to the bungalow around eight. Mary sat out on the porch with a book, and after hiding a while in her room, Jenn came out to the living room, sharing the couch with her father. He hid his smile behind his hand.
”What'cha watchin'?”
He muted the television. ”The news.”
”How's the world.”
”Unchanged.”
”You remember, before it happened, you promised me something.”
He nodded. ”I remember.”
She placed a hand on his knee, leaned forward, caught his eye. ”Where were you?”
Robert waited. He didn't know how to continue. Finally, he figured the only thing to do was tell the truth. She would either buy it or not. ”You know about my mother, right?”
Jenn nodded. ”She died young.”
”Turns out it wasn't that simple.”
”What wasn't?”
He paused, looking over. Jenn's eyebrows were raised. ”Do you believe in ghosts?”
Her eyebrows drew together. Her face was unreadable. ”I don't know.”
”I don't know, either.” A bald faced lie.
”So why'd you ask?”
Robert buried his face in his hands. How could he explain it?
She scooted over, took his hand, rubbed over the veins on top of his hand. ”It's okay,” she told him, continuing to knead his hand.
With Jenn rubbing his hand, he found the courage to explain. He started way back, back in a forgotten, mythical West, in a town called Tempest.
He told her everything. When he'd finished, she asked him what she was, and he did his best to tell her. Jenn seemed frightened, a little shocked, but like Mary, perhaps because of Mary, she accepted it far easier than he had imagined possible.
When he'd finished, Jenn put her arm around him. ”I missed you, Daddy. I missed you so much.”
He wrapped his arms around her and began to cry.
They cried and he apologized, again and again, and finally Jenn asked him if he was all better. Robert laughed and cried, and Jenn joined him.
Around midnight, Mary came inside. She and Robert recounted the funeral, pretended it was beautiful, but then Mary snorted. ”G.o.d, it was horrible, wasn't it?”
Caught off guard, Robert laughed, nodding his head.
”She would have thought it was horrible,” laughed Mary. ”She would have liked everyone to get together, tell stories about her, and toss back pitchers of beer.”
”Got any beer?”
Mary smiled at him, a gleam in her eye. ”She drank Pabst,” she told him, the laughter suddenly taking hold of her. The gleam became a tear. She shook with it, the laughter.
Robert chuckled, opened the refrigerator, took out two cans, popped the tops, handed one to Mary, and they clicked them together. ”To Grady,” he said, and they took long, slow swigs. When they lowered their beers he asked, ”Got any stories?”
”Oh yeah,” said Mary, grinning, a tear streaking her cheek.
It didn't take Robert long to ease into the habit of just living again. He might have thought it would, but routine is a magic thing. At first he noticed it one morning when he opened his eyes and felt little or no anxiety. It was a slight peace to be sure, but it was there just the same. He laid still for the better part of an hour, not moving from the couch because he didn't have to.
At ten minutes to noon, Mary strolled into the kitchen, asking how he liked his coffee. He told her he liked it the same way he liked his men: hot and black. He smiled at her, hoping she recognized a joke when she heard one, and she smiled back. To Robert this moment seemed like one a husband and wife shared. Provided they didn't hate each other.
”How long you been up?”
”Exactly one minute.”
”Me too. Nice to sleep in.”
”Can't remember the last time I could.”
Mary filled the pot with water, set the decanter beneath the spout, and began to scoop coffee into the filter, started the brew cycle, then came over and joined him on the couch, where they spoke of the mundane a while. When Robert noticed that she was scooting closer every few minutes, he wondered if his earlier thought had been right on. He'd wanted to kiss her for days, but hadn't believed she was interested. Even now, as the sweet smell of her perfume neared, he wasn't sure. But then he felt her hair on his shoulder. He kept on talking, nervous now, and then her hair was on his neck and she was kissing it. He turned and she kissed him on the lips, on the chin, on the cheek, and soon a familiar feeling came over him.
”Why do you think they call it having s.e.x?” asked Mary, leaning over him, her long hair brus.h.i.+ng his stomach.
Robert looked over. ”What?”
”You have lunch, you have a baby, but don't you do s.e.x?”
He laughed, shook his head.
”No, really, the only way you can make s.e.x sound like a verb is if you say the F word. Otherwise, it sounds like a buffet.”
”I would definitely say,” he said with a weary sigh,. ”that we did s.e.x.”
”Good,” said Mary, then she rose, threw on a robe, and went into the bathroom.
Robert fell back into his pillows, still not quite believing what had just happened.
Dan had left many things up in the air-chiefly, what had happened to his mother, and to Montague Greer. After a number of weeks, he finally decided to head to the local library.
Once there, he got on the Internet and found the site of the local Simola Straight paper. Over the next hour, he filtered through the mundane, prosaic life of a town, only stopping to rub his eyes, or to get some water from the fountain by the restrooms. He found nothing until the second hour, as he shuffled back two years into the town's past. He came upon this headline: PROMINENT Ca.s.sADAGA CITIZENS VANISH.