“Oh! Is that all,” she said, relieved. “They’re probably the remains of some old prospector.”
“Very likely,” Elmer said. “But Myrna, it’s going to demand an answer to the Morton Claypool question.”
“I don’t see why. They wouldn’t be Morton’s remains.”
“You’re quite sure?”
She leaned forward, a bit impatient. “Don’t you think I’d have noticed?”
“They were under the rhododendron,” June said from the stove. “Definitely human remains.”
“A skeleton?” Myrna wanted to know.
“No. Actually, just a few bones. Which leads to the question, did some old prospector die, dismember himself and scatter his remains around the yard?”
Myrna shrugged. “Daddy did not intentionally disturb any graveyard or burial ground when building Hudson House, but that was a long time ago, you know. It’s possible the builders were less than cautious when they were excavating for the foundation. We have an ample cellar.” She rolled her eyes. “I haven’t been down there in years. The steps creak as bad as my knees and I’m not sure which will go first.”
“Did you hear me, Myrna? It’s time to take the question of what became of Morton Claypool seriously. You’re going to have to stop hedging for the fun of it,” Elmer demanded.
“Elmer Hudson, how dare you!” she replied. “You don’t really think I do that on purpose!”
“I’m absolutely sure of it! You enjoy alluding to having done him in. You write about women who kill their husbands all the damn time.”
“Now, that’s simply not true! My last two books had male killers.” She smiled snidely. “You don’t read my books, do you, Elmer?”
“I buy them,” he said.
“I read them,” June said. “And Dad is right, Aunt Myrna. You’re going to be asked a serious question and you’ll have to give a serious answer or there could be problems. You have a missing husband! Human remains have been found in your yard! You may not always write about women bent on revenge who get away with murdering their husbands, but you have enough times to get the tongues wagging.” June stopped and looked at Myrna, who positively beamed. “Look at yourself! You think it’s fun.”
“Now, don’t be ridiculous. I’m just proud as can be that you read my books.” She sneered at Elmer. “Not everyone does.”
“All right, all right… Talk to me about Morton, Auntie. Please,” June implored.
“May I have tea first?”
“Of course,” June said. Then she realized that Myrna wasn’t being shy or decorous; she wanted time to drum up a story. “No, wait. The water has to boil. I’m fixing the tea and you will have it the second it’s ready. For now, just tell us about Morton before Amelia is finished with her soap opera.”
“My, but you’re impatient.”
Elmer leaned into Myrna’s space. “Hardly,” he said sternly, a tone rarely taken with his sister. “We’ve waited over twenty years.”
Myrna sighed deeply, as if bored. Then she shook a bony finger in Elmer’s face. “You’re the only person I’ll allow to take that tone with me, you know.”
“I might not be, by the end of this. That Faraday fellow turned the bones over to the police, you know.”
“Ach, Tom Toopeek! Well, I daresay he knows the score. He’s not likely to overreact to the extent the two of you are.”
“Myrna!”
“All right, all right. But you’re going to be so disappointed. It’s a terribly dull story.” She took a breath. “Morton saw himself as suave, but, of course, if you remember him at all, you know he was terribly boring. Very sweet, but boring. If he hadn’t had his job selling paper supplies to businesses, he’d have had absolutely nothing to drive him. Morton was a sincere man, and smart in his own way. Our favorite thing to talk about were the books we read. He was an incredible reader. He particularly liked my books, which drew me to him, I suppose. I could nearly use him for research—he read so fast and remembered everything. But strangely, he never could apply anything he learned. No matter how hard he worked at his small business, he was never successful. He lost things, mismanaged customers, handled his records badly. He was something of a brilliant dunderhead. You know what he was? He was steady, that’s what!
“We had but one area of disagreement that was serious. I wouldn’t even consider letting him help me manage my inheritance and earnings. He had investment and business ideas, but I couldn’t! He was perfectly useless. He’d have bungled it all, so I kept making excuses and kept control. It bothered him. But he seemed to get used to that idea, over time.
“Morton was easily distracted,” she went on, “and no one around Grace Valley seemed to notice that there were periods of time he wouldn’t appear for months. I suppose I contributed to that illusion by saying things like, ‘Oh my, you’ve just missed Morton,’ when in fact he hadn’t been around in quite a while. Then for a period of months he’d be around every week.” Myrna leaned into Elmer’s space and whispered, “I suspected other women.”
“You should have told me,” he said.
“Why? This didn’t seem to be a problem for Morton and I.”
“Myrna, you’re an intelligent woman. What about things like disease?”
Myrna looked stricken. “You don’t imagine I’d sleep with a man who spends weeks, if not months, gone off to unexplained places? Morton was the dunderhead, not I!” She straightened indignantly, brushing invisible lint off one shoulder. “Besides, he wasn’t nearly as accomplished as he thought he was.”
“So…he was not such a good husband?” June asked. “Were you unhappy?”
“June,” she said earnestly, “it depends entirely on what kind of husband you need. Since I hadn’t imagined having any kind of husband at all, Morton wasn’t really much trouble. And I’ve always enjoyed talking books.” She looked skyward. “I really don’t know what happened to Morton. Suddenly he was gone. There was no getting him back.” She looked at her brother. “I confess, I didn’t try. I knew we’d both be better off if we just let things lie. But I assure you, I didn’t chop him up and plant him in the garden!”
The teakettle whistled and June prepared tea. As she passed a cup to Myrna, she said, “But Aunt Myrna, why have you seemed to kill him off in book after grisly book?”
Myrna looked at her as if she were a total dunce. “My dear child, do you think story ideas grow on trees?”
The quilting circle always met at Birdie’s house because it was centrally located and because she was the most senior member. She was just shy of being the eldest as well, but Tom Toopeek’s mother, Philana, was older by a couple of years. They would not have wanted to meet at the Toopeeks’ house, however, because there were so many distractions there. Quilting, Birdie always said, is a quiet sport.
There was an unenforced rule that everyone would bring some sort of dish or snack and Birdie would be obligated only for coffee. It was not an enforced rule because there were times a person was too busy and rushed to even stop by the bakery for a little something. Thus, about half of them would remember to bring something, and June least of all.
But June, who had been absent for a month, felt the need to make amends, so she was up at 5:00 a.m. putting a chocolate cake in the oven. For her to bring something, given her chaotic schedule, was something in itself, and for it to be homemade reinforced the message that she was sorry to have been away. And while she preheated the oven and mixed the cake, she realized how she had missed them, how she longed for the company of her friends. She had been lonely, after all.
As if that thought carried a message across the country, the phone rang. Somehow she knew. In some psychic way, she never for a second thought her cake would be ruined by a medical emergency. She picked up the receiver and heard the rich, deep voice of Jim. He said, “God, how I’ve missed you. Are you still my girl?”
She felt a warm flush pass through her. The sound of his voice, so familiar yet far from memory, filled her with new longing. And then a
bizarre thing happened. When she wished to murmur back to him in loving tones, instead she sniped, “Barely.”
“Uh-oh. Did someone wake up on the wrong side of the bed this morning?”
She took a breath and begged herself to be rational. It was not like her to be waspish. “Do you have any idea how many weeks I’ve waited for a call?”
“I’m sorry,” he said patiently. “I’ve wanted to.”
June sighed. “No, I’m sorry. I don’t know why—”
“It’s tough, this situation we’ve gotten ourselves into. I understand, June.”
“You can’t understand because even I don’t understand. It’s just that—” She couldn’t finish. Just that what?
“I didn’t want it to be so long,” he said. “I know I miss you as much as you miss me. More, probably.”
“Are you in danger?” she asked.
“No. Really, no. I mean, that may come before we’re finished here, but at the moment everything’s cool.”
“If it’s cool, then why couldn’t you at least have gotten a message to me that you’re all right?”
She was stunned. Where had that come from? She had been missing him, but she hadn’t been in any way angry. Or had she? Had she stuffed down some penetrating anger that had bounced up at her without any warning?
“June…”
“Oh God, Jim, I’m sorry! I’m so sorry! I guess I’ve been more upset than I realized. It’s probably because of my aunt. She’s in trouble and just yesterday I was in tears about it. You don’t know this, but I’m hardly ever in tears about anything. Jesus, forgive me. Yes, yes, I miss you, too.”
He was quiet a long moment, then she heard him sigh. “What kind of trouble?” he wanted to know.
“Somebody found bones in her backyard. Human bones. And, well, her husband disappeared about twenty years ago and she’s a writer and in several of her books over the years she’s killed off a husband or ten and buried them in the… This sounds really, really bad, doesn’t it?”
“Oh man,” he said.
“Maybe I’ve run into something I really can’t handle,” June said softly. “Little frail old Auntie Myrna in chains…” She sniffed quietly.
“June, are you crying again?”
It was not necessary to admit it, even though she muffled some of her tears in a handy tissue.
“I was so happy with you,” she said. “For such a short period of time.” And then it came again, the tears.
“Oh brother,” he said. “Look, try to get a grip. This isn’t going to last forever. And this is it, you know. The last time.”
“And you’re coming here?” she asked ridiculously.
“Where else would I go?”
“How do I know? You haven’t even called in a month!”
“I’m undercover!”
“Where we need to be is under the covers!” she nearly shouted.
Fortunately, what she heard in response was his deep laugh, rolling through the phone line to meet her. So she joined him, laughing at how stupid and out of control she was.
“I have to go,” he said when they finally stopped.
“Already?” she whined. “But you only just—”
“Listen to me, this is important. I’m not going to take any unnecessary chances, because I want to come back to you. You understand? So if I can’t call you, that’s just how it is. It doesn’t mean I’ve stopped wanting you.”
She wanted to tell him, “Say you love me again.” But instead she said, “I understand.” And she wanted to say, “I love you, Jim.” But instead she said, “Please be careful.”
“I will. Aunt Myrna will be okay, June. And I’ll be back with you soon.”
They disconnected and June drew a ragged breath. I’m losing it, she said to herself. Finally, there was just too much pressure. She blew her nose. She needed a long, hot shower to wash away the mood. She took her time, trying to get her thoughts on track. And when she got out of the shower she was greeted by the sweet-smelling smoke of burning chocolate cake.
The women of the Graceful Quilters made something of a fuss over June and Sadie. They would never know how much June needed the extra attention, after the way she’d started the day, and Sadie never turned down a pet. It wasn’t as if she hadn’t seen them, for she saw them all the time, in various settings around town. But it was different seeing them here, in a quiet room, alone, sharing secrets and trusting the confidentiality of the group. She presented them with a chocolate cake made by Burt Crandall at the bakery and confessed it was her second cake of the day. And then she noticed that her darling Birdie was looking positively haggard.
June’s bond with Birdie went back to her infancy. Birdie was June’s godmother, her deceased mother’s best friend. There wasn’t a thing June couldn’t tell Birdie, or ask Birdie, except on the subject of her son, Chris. Both Birdie and June had some ragged edges where he was concerned.
Sadie was relegated to the kitchen, where she cozied up to the radiator. When they all sat down to quilt, Corsica asked, “Where are your houseguests tonight, Birdie?”
“Chris put some money on a house out by Roberts’s flower fields, not too far from the Toopeeks’, but it’s not habitable yet. It’s been vacant for years and needs lots of work. Judge, Chris and the boys are doing repairs out there tonight while we quilt.”
“They need to get their own place,” Philana said, not looking up from her stitching. “It would strain anyone to have so much clutter and confusion.”
“You live with five grandchildren!” Birdie argued.
“But I always have done,” Philana said.
That was it, June realized. Birdie was exhausted by the unaccustomed complications of long-term houseguests.
“Chris was always a lot of trouble,” Birdie said quietly. “Oh, I couldn’t ask for a better son. But he’s busy. Always busy. And now there are three of them.”
“When do they expect to be in their own place?”
“Not quite soon enough,” Birdie said, and the tension was broken by laughter.
They shared the news of the town, talking first about Charlotte’s shaky recovery at home with Bud waiting on her, then about Jessie taking her GED test in two weeks to complete her high-school diploma. Harry Shipton came up, along with his gangling good looks and love of poker. Finally the bones in Myrna’s yard surfaced as a topic, and it was unanimous that they could not be any relation to Morton Claypool. Justine’s pallor was mentioned with worry, but June held silent about the possibility of pregnancy, and before she knew it, they were putting away their quilt and having a cup of coffee. It felt so good to be back among them, nurtured and nurturing.
The spell was broken with the crashing disruption of four males bursting into the house, the gamy odor of hard work at carpentry accompanying them. June gave Judge a kiss on his weathered old cheek, said hello to Chris and the boys and quickly made her excuses. But it was not awkward because all the women dispersed. No one wanted to linger over coffee and cake with the men present. The twins headed for the kitchen where they made fast work of what was left of the cake, calling to their grandmother for milk. Sadie was up and wagging hopefully, but the boys ignored her. What manner of boy didn’t stoop to pet a wagging dog? June wondered with a frown. “Come, Sadie,” she called. “Time for us to go.”
They all said their goodbyes on the porch, June being the only one on foot. Corsica and Jessie had ridden together, as had Ursula and her mother-in-law. Birdie went back into the house to attempt to regain control of her kitchen, while June headed down the street to the clinic where she’d left her little truck. The nights were cooling down faster as mid-September approached and she shivered in the chill air. As she passed under one of the two street lamps, she heard her name.
“Hey, June. Hold up.”
When she turned, Chris came out of the darkness toward her.
Ten
It’s not fair, June thought. She was moody, teetering on some weird emotional precipice. And lonely. So lonely
with Jim so far away and who knew when, or God forbid, if he’d be back. And in that condition she had to view Chris walking toward her, approaching her with that damn confidence of his, that sexy grin that had sucked her in as a girl and would threaten the chastity of a weaker woman now. I’m vulnerable! she wanted to shout. Don’t mess with me!
“I just wanted to tell you that I was glad to see you at Mom’s tonight,” Chris said. “She was complaining about hardly seeing you lately. She wouldn’t admit it, but I think she was secretly blaming me.”
“I’ve been really busy,” June said. “And so has Birdie.”
“Yeah. She’s doing too much.”
“She’s looking a little tired, Chris…”
“She’s not used to having a houseful of people.”
“People? Guys, Chris. A cranky old husband, a grown son who’s just left his wife, and teenage twin boys. There’s enough testosterone in her house to grow a beard on a melon.”
That made him laugh. “You’re right. But we’ll be out of her hair soon enough. As soon as the house I just bought is livable.”
“You’re absolutely staying then?” she asked.
They stood under the street lamp on the dark, deserted street. It felt like a spotlight.
Sadie, enjoying her freedom, pranced back and forth across the street, paused beside June briefly, then pranced off again. The world was a place of plentiful smells for a collie, but she always circled back to make sure June wouldn’t leave without her. “I’m absolutely staying. Which is why I wanted to talk to you. For just a minute.” He glanced over his shoulder at the café as if looking for a haven and a cup of coffee, but it appeared to be closed. George didn’t keep regular hours, but if anything was going on—like a town meeting, high-school ball game or special event—you could count on him to be open. He was just about the only game in town. But on this ordinary Thursday night, it was lights out at 9:00 p.m.
“I was just heading back to the clinic for my truck, then home. I have an early morning and…”