The Probable Future

  “I think you’re addicted,” Jenny had teased him, and of course she was right, although ice cream wasn’t his problem. These days, he never touched the stuff, not even a plain dish of vanilla bean. At the tea house, Liza Hull always swore he was her only customer who preferred bread and butter to cake and pie. Matt grinned whenever Liza kidded around, but he kept quiet, and he continued to order bread and butter for dessert, for the truth was, that trip to Cambridge had cured him of the urge for sweets.

  Matt liked to lose himself in hard work, but lately he found himself thinking about history the whole time he was landscaping, wondering if Farmer Hathaway or one of the other founding fathers of the town, Morris Hapgood or Simon Elliot, perhaps, had walked exactly where he now stood, or if Rebecca Sparrow had sat in the woods he was clearing of brambles and poison ivy, there to watch the light as it filtered through the trees on the Elliots’ hillside, where the air was by turns green and gold. In the evenings, Matt always stopped at the library on Main Street on his way home. Beatrice Gibson and Marlena Elliot-White, the librarians, most likely would have put in a call to the police if he ever failed to show up, that’s how regular his visits were, that’s how dependable Matt Avery was.

  By now, Matt had read through all of the journals in the historical research room under the stairs. He had grown so used to twists and turns of the founding fathers’ script he could read what to any other man might look like chicken scratch or loop-de-loops. Each time he walked along Main Street, or reseeded the grass on the village green, or thinned the ivy that was choking the linden trees near Town Hall, or relocated a hive the honeybees had set up in the roof of the courthouse, Matt had the distinct feeling that he was walking through time. He thought of those who had lived their lives in Unity and died there, too, every time he went out his own front door and saw the grove of wild peach trees which thrived in an empty lot across the way. Matt Avery believed that history was made of the smallest details, the letter written, the list dictated on a deathbed, the ingredients of the dinner cooked with care, the variety of trees that had been chopped down, and those which had multiplied.

  On the town green there were several memorials, testaments to the men from Unity who had died in war. Matt always stopped by the stone erected in honor of the four boys lost in the Revolutionary War on his way home from the library. Michael Foster, Seth Wright, Miller Elliot, George Hapgood. Not one of them had been more than twenty. Each had worn a bounty coat, one of the more than ten thousand woven by New England women, each tagged with the maker’s name inside, the mark of hope for those boys who were brothers and husbands and sons. An angel had been carved into their memorial stone, tears pouring from her eyes. Matt might be the only man in town who knew that a local stone carver named Fred Bean, who had lost his own young son to diphtheria, had spent six months working on the black stone, a hard slab of granite brought down from the north country. There wasn’t a day that went by when Matt didn’t think about that angel’s tears. That was history, in his opinion: that sorrow was unalterable and ever present. That tears could be preserved in the hardest granite.

  Sometimes, the ink from the journals of those who’d recorded their daily existence in Unity rubbed off on Matt’s fingers. Sitting there with these personal accounts written so long ago, he always felt as though he held a life in his hands. Perhaps this was the reason the thesis he was writing had grown to three hundred pages. The dissertation had come to focus on the Sparrow women, as if the thesis had a mind of its own and had chosen the topic despite what Matt might prefer. Whenever the Sparrows were mentioned in one of the old record books, the scent of lake water arose off the paper, green and sweet and unbelievably potent. Perhaps this was what had led Matt to them. Perhaps this was why he couldn’t seem to stay away from the facts of their lives. Deep down, Matt had an addictive personality. He had begun to understand that he was not as unlike Will as he would have liked to have thought. He was loyal and dependable, true, but there was something more that drove him, an intensity he liked to deny because it made him uncomfortable. Whatever he desired most inched under his skin and it stayed there, like a bothersome pebble he did his best to ignore.

  People in town used to wonder when Matt was going to get married, but they’d given up on that notion. Now, they asked when he was going to finish his thesis and get his degree from the state college instead, just as unlikely a proposition it seemed. Some folks had gone so far as to have taken bets, with Never being the resounding favorite, not that anyone wished him ill. Matt’s neighbors liked and respected him as much as they distrusted his high-and-mighty brother. It was well known that Will Avery never did a favor for any man in town. He never made a move that benefited anyone other than himself. But blood is blood, and trouble is trouble, and early one Monday morning Matt drove into Boston to join Henry Elliot—whom he’d known all his life, but who was still charging him big-time for his legal fees—for a meeting with Will, whom Matt hadn’t seen since that New Year’s Eve so many years ago, when they’d tried to kill each other out on the street.

  It was difficult to find parking in downtown Boston, especially with Matt’s huge old pickup truck, dented, rusted through with salt, too big a vehicle to parallel park on narrow streets that long ago had been cow paths. Still, he made it to the courthouse on time. He greeted Henry Elliot, whom he worked for occasionally, and whose own son, Jimmy, was known to be a hellion. It was only then, after he and Henry had discussed the fact that Jimmy had been picked up on possession of marijuana charges over Christmas vacation, then released pending community service, some of which was to be spent as Matt’s assistant during the big spring cleanup of the village green, that Matt realized the man standing next to Henry was his brother.

  Last time they’d met, Matt’s fury had been unleashed by too many boilermakers mixed with champagne. He had walked into the kitchen at exactly the wrong time during a sloppy, crowded New Year’s Eve party. Because of this, he’d caught Will making out with one of his students, a beautiful young girl who couldn’t have been more than twenty. Will had her up against the wall, hand down her pants, right next to the high chair where Jenny gave their daughter her breakfast every morning. He didn’t seem to give a damn if people went in and out of the kitchen, looking for ice or another cold beer, as long as Jenny had no idea of what was going on. And she didn’t, not a clue. The topper was, he had grinned at Matt when he caught sight of him, always the show-off, the liar, the big brother with a huge appetite for whatever he could beg, borrow, or steal.

  Now, Will didn’t even look like the same man. He seemed rung out, his complexion sallow, and he’d lost a good deal of weight. There was a tremor in his hands, the sign of a man who needs a drink badly and hasn’t had one in days. He’d aged, that was it, and he’d done so badly.

  “Hey, Will.” Matt gave a noncommittal but not unfriendly greeting. He was wondering if Will had looked this wasted at their mother’s funeral. Matt couldn’t quite remember that day. All he knew was that after the service, Will and Jenny hadn’t come back to the house, leaving straightaway from the cemetery, despite the casseroles arranged on the dining room table and all of Catherine’s many friends who were bound to stop by. Will backed away, insisting he and Jenny had to get home to Stella, left at the last minute with a baby-sitter they didn’t know well.

  Go on, Matt had called after him. There were neighbors watching, but he didn’t care. Run away, you cheap bastard, he’d shouted as Will walked to his car, another one that he’d manage to wreck before too long.

  Today Matt had brought along a check made out to the Commonwealth, as Henry Elliot had instructed; all they would need to do was add the amount at which bail was set.

  “Hey, brother,” Will said, clearly amused at Matt’s discomfort in the courthouse. Not that Will fared much better in his appearance; he had a terrible haircut and was wearing the same clothes he’d been arrested in, his usually pressed slacks and white shirt now wrinkled and sour-smelling, but a surefire step up from the unifor
m of the Boston city jail.

  Matt moved to the left, to get a little breathing room. This was his brother, but Will was a stranger as well. He’d been gone since Matt was in high school, and even before that, he’d always been slippery. Someone who can’t trust his own brother is naturally self-contained, cautious to a fault, suspicious if pushed. Matt turned to Henry Elliot, grateful that there was someone other than Will to talk to. “Parking was hell,” he told Henry.

  “Get used to it, bud.” Henry was distracted, looking through his notes before they came in front of the judge. “You’re in the city now.”

  True enough, Matt felt hulking and out of place in the courtroom, even though he’d thought to put on his one good suit. He was wearing his work boots and a tie that he’d had since high school. The courthouse certainly hadn’t been made for people over six feet tall; Matt guessed it had been built in about 1790, perhaps even earlier, when most people were still fairly short. At that time, the accused would walk through the side door across from the judge’s chambers, unwashed and underfed, shackled at the hands and the feet, possibly repenting, no matter if he was guilty or innocent, in the hopes of a less harsh sentence, or perhaps saying nothing at all, as Rebecca Sparrow had done at her trial. Matt had memorized the reportage of her final words in Hathaway’s kitchen, uttered to the judge brought down from Boston. There is nothing left for me to say, Rebecca had told them. You have taken my voice from me.

  Henry Elliot, a pessimist by nature, had insisted there was very little evidence against Will, other than the fact that he’d reported the crime several days before it had occurred. Still, bail was set high, due to the nature of the crime. It was everything Matt had been left by his mother, his entire savings, his nest egg cracked in two for the likes of Will.

  “Don’t worry,” Will assured him. “I’m innocent. You’ll get your money back.”

  They all went round the corner to a coffee shop once Will had been released, with the stipulation he stay in town in case further questioning was needed. Will insisted a decent cup of coffee would help calm the tremors in his hands, a nightmare affliction for a musician that he hoped would be cured by a double espresso.

  “Your landlord isn’t so easily convinced when it comes to payback,” Henry Elliot said.

  Henry still seemed distracted. It was his manner and his fate to worry and fret, and although his character served him well in matters of law, he had no control over his own family. His wife barely spoke to him and his daughter, Cynthia, a good girl at heart, was busy painting her nails black and staying out all hours. But it was Henry’s son, Jimmy, who was the real worry; he reminded Henry of Will, back when they were in high school, always looking for a shortcut, always thinking of himself. In fact, Henry had warned Jimmy about Will Avery, a cautionary tale, a disaster waiting to happen. The guy with everything, who winds up with nothing. Don’t think the same thing can’t happen to you, he’d told his Jimmy. Don’t think you’re above failure.

  “You’ve missed paying rent, so you’ve been kicked out of your apartment.” Henry had the papers in front of him. “And the music school? They phoned my office to ask that you not report back until your legal matters were settled.”

  “To hell with them.” Will ordered another dose of caffeine, not that he had any cash on him. But someone was bound to pay the bill, so he got himself a croissant as well.

  “This has always been his attitude,” Henry Elliot said to Matt. “He was like this in high school. He would copy my homework and wind up getting a better grade than I did.”

  This past fall, Matt had been hired by Henry’s wife, Annette, to put in a Zen garden, something the family thought that terrible old lady, Henry’s grandmother, Sissy, would enjoy. There were a fair amount of bees on the property, always a sign of good luck. Matt himself never worried about stings, since the bees ignored him, always attracted to his brother, who was deathly afraid of bees, due to his allergy. Matt was thankful to have the bees share the landscape with him; he enjoyed the thrum as they went about their business and he worked away.

  He had used natural rocks and sand from the marshes for the Elliots’ garden; he’d planted bamboo in stone containers, but the matriarch of the Elliot family had trouble making it down the stone path because of her walker. When she got there, she scoffed at the notion of planting bamboo.

  That’s a weed, she had announced. It may be from China, but it’s still a weed.

  Sissy Elliot hated the garden, and now Henry said he was the only one to use it; he went there to escape from the troubles of the world. He’d probably head there that very evening when he got home.

  “I think we might want to hire a detective,” Henry told the Avery brothers. “Maybe find out something the police have overlooked. At least see if there’s someone out there with a motive of some sort. It’s in your best interest to clear your name,” he told Will, who appeared bored. “No one’s buying that crap that your daughter told you the victim was going to die.”

  “Is that what he told them?” Matt asked. Henry Elliot nodded grimly. “What an idiot.”

  “Stop talking about me as if I wasn’t here. I am here, and I’m listening. Stella was the one who told them that, not me. But if you want to get a detective, be my guest. …”

  Henry looked at Matt. Will didn’t seem to understood this undertaking would demand money. “Sure, go ahead,” Matt said, thereby agreeing to foot the bill. “Sounds like a good idea.”

  “How about a lift?” Will said when it came time to leave. Henry had an appointment, so it was left to Matt. They walked round to his truck. “This is what you drive?” Will laughed and took note of the rust and the dents. “Good old Matt. No BMWs for you.”

  He was referring to the way he’d spent his own inheritance from their mother. He stopped working full-time, took Jenny and the baby to Paris, where they’d fought bitterly, and bought that damned car, the BMW, which had flipped over on him when he was driving on the beach at Duxbury after a few too many cocktails with a woman whose name he didn’t remember. Something with a C, Charlotte, perhaps, or Caroline, or, God help him, Catherine, the same as their mother’s name. In the end, Will had sold that lemon of a car for next to nothing and he’d regretted the trip to Paris. Matt, he supposed, had invested his half of their mother’s life savings wisely and was now fairly well off, in spite of his rust heap of a truck. Plus, he’d gotten the house, now worth double what it might have been eleven years ago. At this point, he probably had thousands piled up in the bank, an old miser of a bachelor with no one to spend his money on.

  “Where to?” Matt said when he pulled into traffic. People liked to honk their horns at you here in Boston, he’d noticed that. In a few more minutes he’d be rid of his brother, at least for the time being, so he might as well keep his temper.

  “Marlborough Street.” Will grinned. “When all else fails, there’s always Jenny.”

  They drove there in silence. Although he hadn’t been back since that awful New Year’s, Matt remembered the way. Why, he could have found it in his sleep, blindfolded, tied up with rope. He recalled exactly what Jenny had been wearing that night—a black sweater decorated with glitter and pearls, and a red skirt. Too festive? she’d asked him right before the party. Do I look like a Christmas tree? He thought he’d never seen anyone quite so beautiful. No. Wear it, he’d told her, and she had. Wear it, he’d said, when all he’d really wanted was to undress her, right there in the living room, with the guests already at the door.

  “Want to come up? For old times’ sake?” Will suggested when they pulled alongside the apartment building. “Rest your bones before you head back to the old homestead.”

  Matt shook his head. No way was he going inside.

  “And by the way,” Will told him, “I never minded that Mother left you the house.”

  “She didn’t think you’d want it. So she gave you the larger share of cash.”

  “Did she?” Will was surprised by that. “You’re saying I got more?” br />
  “I was the executor. I ought to know. She wanted things to be fair.”

  “Fair.” Will was surprised. He really didn’t know the first thing about his mother, the way she thought, how she could have continued to love him despite his selfish ways.

  “Let me guess,” Matt said. “Your share’s all gone.”

  “You want to think the worst of me, be my guest.”

  “Just tell me.”

  Matt suddenly felt entitled to something. If not to Jenny, if not to a life, then at least an admission. But he never got it. Will never managed to say, I got more. I admit it. I was granted the larger portion time and time again. A bee had found its way into the truck and it banged against the windshield.

  “Jesus.” Will panicked. “Get rid of it.”

  Will was rightfully frightened of bees, so Matt guided the intruder out the window with a newspaper. It was a gut reaction; protect Will once more, no matter the cost or the consequence.

  “Now you’re safe, brother. But one question. And I want you to answer this time.” Matt had fought the urge to set the bee onto his brother’s skin. “What makes you think she’ll take you in?”

  “Jenny?”

  Will got out of the truck, then leaned back in through the opened window.

  “It’s in her nature.”

  It was the time of year when the magnolias began to bloom all over the Back Bay, on Commonwealth Avenue, on Beacon Street, here on Marlborough; even the tiniest patch of yard could be home to a huge magnolia tree. The light was altered when they bloomed, pink-tinged, hopeful, brighter somehow.

  “I really do appreciate what you’re doing for me,” Will said. So he did understand that lawyers had to be paid, that bail money came not from the stratosphere, but from somebody’s savings, that detectives wanted cash. “Don’t think I’m not grateful.”