I shook my head: I was doing a terrible job of thinking happier thoughts. So I picked up my pace, hoping speed would clear my mind a little.
Up ahead, I heard the shrieking whine of a power saw, and soon after that I smelled the sweet sawdust of freshly cut wood. As I drew closer, I could see an old man building something in his garage woodshop.
Normally I would have kept on going, but I was eager to be distracted. And even from the sidewalk I could see his confidence in handling the wood, like he’d been doing it his whole long life. His movements were so smooth, they almost looked like dance.
When he stopped and lifted his safety glasses to wipe the sweat from his face, I took a few steps up his driveway.
“Hi there,” I called. “I’m sorry for interrupting—but I just wanted to ask what it is you’re making.”
He squinted at me for a second, like he was deciding whether to answer. “What I’m making?” he eventually repeated. Then he shook his head and smiled slow and wide. “Well, miss, if you’d really like to know, I am making my own casket.”
Chapter 16
I TOOK a big step back down the driveway. “Oh dear,” I said. “I’m so—”
The old man started to laugh. “It’s nothing to be afraid of, young lady,” he said. “You can’t catch what I’ve got.”
“That’s not why—,” I began. “I’m not—”
But I was so flummoxed I couldn’t finish a sentence.
The old man stopped chuckling and beckoned to me, his face softer now. “Come here,” he said. “I might as well show you what it looks like.”
I couldn’t be rude to a dying person, and so I did what he told me to. I walked into his garage workshop, looked down at the box he was building for his own dead body, and shivered.
You can try to stop thinking about death—but death might not want you to.
He pointed to the nearest corner, where the long side of the casket joined the shorter top end. “See this here? Not a single nail keeping these pieces of oak together. That’s what you call a dovetail joint, and it’s older than the pharaohs.” He ran his hand along the smooth grain and nodded to himself. “I figure what’s good enough for Tutankhamen is good enough for me.”
“Sure,” I said, a little hesitantly. “That seems reasonable.”
“Go on,” he said. “You can touch it.”
I didn’t exactly want to. But I did, and the wood felt warm, almost alive, under my fingertips.
Then a door at the back of the garage opened, and a slender white-haired woman poked her head out. “Bob, did you take that casserole out of the deep freeze?” the woman asked. Then she saw me. “Oh, hello there,” she said.
“Hi,” I said. “I’m just… um, admiring your husband’s woodworking.”
She gave him a sharp look, then turned back to me. “He’s scaring you, isn’t he, with his I might die while you’re standing here talk.”
“Actually we hadn’t gotten that far,” I said. Thankfully.
“Bad ticker,” Bob said, patting the pocket of his denim work shirt, right over his heart.
His wife pretended to snap a tea towel at him. “Not that bad,” she assured me. “He got kicked out of hospice last month.”
“Wasn’t dying fast enough. Not that I complained, mind you,” he said.
She smiled at both of us. “My name’s Kit. And you are?”
“Anne,” I said. “I’m, uh, visiting the Londons up the street.”
“Well, Anne, my husband has obviously unnerved you, and I think you need a fortifying cupcake. I made them for my grandson’s birthday tomorrow, but I have extras. Hang on.” She retreated into the house and came out a moment later with a cupcake for each of us. “I always double the recipe,” she said, winking.
“Thank you,” I said, feeling grateful but still slightly unsettled.
Bob brushed the sawdust from his hands and took one, too. “Tutankhamen died of gangrene from a fractured leg,” he said, between bites. “Gangrene is your body decomposing while you’re still alive, you know, and so the pain is unimaginable. He was only nineteen years old.”
“Honestly, darling, hush,” Kit said. She turned to me. “So you’re here to see Pauline London? She’s lovely. We’re in a book club together.”
“She was my mom’s best friend,” I said. I took a bite of the cupcake, which was rich and chocolaty, with a cream center like a homemade Ho Ho.
Kit’s eyes widened. “Was your mother Mary Lynch?”
“Before she was married, yes.”
“Oh, I heard all about her! Pauline adored her. She likes to tell how they toured Europe after they graduated—and how they didn’t know a thing about the world, and so they stumbled around the continent, innocent as ducklings.”
I laughed. “Yeah, I was going to ask her about that. I’m sort of… collecting people’s stories.”
Kit’s face lit up. “I’ve got one,” she said. “Would you like to hear it?”
“Yes, please,” I said.
“I know exactly where this is going,” Bob mumbled.
“Of course you do. I tell it all the time,” she said to him. “It’s about Bob and me. How we weren’t supposed to meet.”
“What do you mean?”
“We’d been set up on a blind date—but not with each other.” Kit rested her hand on the coffin as she spoke. “I was supposed to meet my date at this little Italian place. I’d told him I’d be wearing a dress with a flower pinned to it, and that I had black hair. He said he’d be in a blue jacket and a red tie.”
“A maroon tie,” Bob said. “I had a maroon tie.”
“Hush, don’t get ahead of me,” she scolded.
“So I go to the restaurant, and I see an incredibly handsome young man with a blue jacket and a maroon tie. And I think, Men are terrible at colors, he probably thinks that’s red, poor thing. And I sit down and we start talking, and we’re having a lovely time, and we’ve just started our entrées when we realize that there’s another couple, not two tables away, who look just like us. The woman has black hair and a dress with a flower pinned to it, and the man’s wearing a red tie.” Grinning, she slapped the coffin for emphasis. “I’d sat down across the table from the wrong fellow! Oh, it was so embarrassing. Because by now they’d seen us too! I didn’t know what to do. Were we supposed to switch? And Bob says—”
“I said I’d sooner marry her that very minute than give her up to the guy she was supposed to meet,” Bob said.
Kit beamed at him, and Bob reached out and took her hand.
“That’s incredible,” I said.
“Oh, it’s a wonderful story,” Kit said. “And it led to a wonderful life.”
Bob arced his cupcake wrapper into the trash can. “Tutankhamun was a minor king,” he said pensively. “A total nobody back in the dynastic days—but today everyone knows his name. I guess it goes to show you that life is full of surprises.” He paused. “Or maybe I should say death is.”
Kit shook her head, smiling. “Bob, really. Enough with the pharaoh business.”
Bob shrugged and then gazed down the driveway out toward the street.
“Would you like another cupcake?” Kit asked.
“No, thank you,” I said. “I should get going.”
When I looked over at Bob again, I saw that tears were streaming down his cheeks.
“Look at that cardinal,” he said. “That same guy’s been coming to sit in my Japanese maple for three years now. And I planted that tree when we bought the house. My favorite dog’s buried over there, by the mailbox. And see where the grass looks lumpy? Our kids dug a big tunnel under the yard one summer, and it’s never looked right since. They’re all grown up now. Only one lives nearby.”
Kit moved to his side and put her arm around him. “Hush, darling,” she said.
“The world is so beautiful,” he said, softer now. “How am I supposed to leave it?”
It wasn’t a question anyone could answer.
Chapter 17
/> OH MY darling Annie,” Pauline said, pulling me in for a hug, “you look just like your mother.”
Then she stepped back, wiped her eyes almost angrily, and said, “I’m sorry, dear, I promised myself I wasn’t going to cry.”
I was feeling a little on the weepy side myself thanks to Bob, so I tried to smile as I said, “That makes two of us.”
Watching Pauline as she bustled about in her kitchen, pouring us mugs of mint tea, I tried to imagine what my mom would look like if she were alive. Would she have Pauline’s silver hair and crows’ feet? Would she be slightly stooped, and just a bit soft around the middle? It was impossible to imagine her as anything but what she’d been—strong and lovely, and then suddenly pale and sick.
“Don’t mind the dog,” Pauline said, stepping over the prostrate form of an ancient-looking Labrador lying in the middle of the living room carpet. “He’s a good old thing but he only wakes up for dinner.” She sat down on a brocade couch and patted the cushion next to her. “I got out all my old photo albums for you,” she said.
“How did you know?” I asked excitedly.
She smiled. “Daughters always want to see their mothers,” she said. “I know you’re actually a professional, though, so I’m afraid these pictures won’t look like much.”
But Pauline was wrong—the pictures were perfect. In an album with a fake leather cover, I found a photograph of my mother, smiling at the camera and holding a bouquet of wild violets so big she had to clutch it with both hands. My breath caught in my throat. She was so young—much younger than me—and so beautiful.
“That was in Barcelona,” Pauline said, looking over my shoulder. “The night before, we’d gone to see the opera, and Queen Sofía was there, in a box seat. We could see her glittering crown from all the way across the room. But we were so jetlagged—we missed the ‘O mio babbino caro’ aria, because we both fell sound asleep in our seats.”
When I turned the page, I saw my mother and Pauline, their arms around each other, posing in front of a café.
Pauline laughed. “Oh boy. I remember your mother ordered a bean soup there, and it came with something that looked like part of a human finger! We both just about screamed. ‘Oh, no, el cerdo,’ the waiter said. ‘La piel!’ It was pork fat, with some skin attached, and apparently she was supposed to eat it. But Annie, it looked like a knuckle. So your mother, always polite, took it out of her bowl and hid it in her napkin.”
We went through two more albums, with Pauline narrating everything she could remember about their adventures. There was something both beautiful and sad about these pictures from four decades ago. Their colors had faded, and the contrast had lessened, and so everything seemed bathed in a kind of soft golden light.
The color of nostalgia, I thought.
When we’d finished, Pauline turned to me and said, “So that’s your mother and me in our youth. What’s your story, dear?”
“Well actually,” I said, “I’m sort of collecting stories. Pictures, too. For what I hope will be a book.” I pointed to my camera, resting on an end table. “It started when I realized I wasn’t really in touch with anyone from my life—not in any real or meaningful way. So I decided to visit people who mattered to me and see what they were up to.”
I decided not to add the part about not having a home anymore.
“I’m glad I passed the mattering to you test,” Pauline said, smiling. “Your idea sounds like This Is Your Life, except that you’re in control.”
I looked at her blankly.
She laughed. “Oh, you’re too young, aren’t you?” she said. “It was a TV show where they surprised a person with folks from their past.”
“It sounds like reality TV version one point oh.”
“It was certainly better than The Bachelor,” Pauline said dryly. “By the way, that’s a fancy camera you’ve got.”
“It’s new, and I barely know how to use it,” I admitted.
“Have you printed out any pictures?”
“Not yet,” I said. “Though my brother gave me a portable wireless printer.”
“Well, let’s!”
“Do you know how?”
She clucked her tongue at me. “Darling, ten-year-olds are making parkour movies on their iPhones. You and I can work a small printer.”
“Speak for yourself,” I said, grinning.
I went to retrieve my car and brought in the printer, still in its box. With some trial and error, we managed to set it up, and at Pauline’s kitchen table, we printed out all the pictures I’d taken so far. Here was Josh and Kate; there was Ben and my ex.
I shook my head in dismay: the colors weren’t right, and I could see pixilation where I should have seen nothing but smooth pigment.
But the compositions were strong, and the power of the faces was undeniable.
“I think you’ve really got something here,” Pauline said.
“Good stories, and the good people who told them,” I said, nodding.
Pauline smiled at me. “I’d buy that book,” she said.
Chapter 18
BUT WHERE would I go to find the next story? That was the question.
Early the following morning, I closed my eyes and pointed my finger at a map of the United States. I’d decided to let fate guide me.
“Denver,” I said when I opened my eyes. “That seems as good a place as any, right?”
“And a good bit better than some,” Pauline agreed. “I thought you were going to land in the middle of Lake Superior at first, and I doubt you’d get good stories from lake trout.”
I traced my finger along the curving blue line of I-70. Denver was probably nine hours west—which meant it was nine hours closer to a place and a person I’d kept in the back of my mind ever since North Carolina.
A destination I couldn’t quite admit to myself that I had.
Pauline handed me a paper bag bulging with food for the road and called, “Send me a postcard, dear,” as I pulled away.
The weather was gorgeous—the sky bright blue and dotted with pillowy clouds—but the drive grew monotonous quickly. I understood why John Steinbeck took his famous road trip with a standard poodle as opposed to a spider plant.
So when I saw a hitchhiker, standing by the side of the road in the middle of nowhere, it almost seemed like a sign. Two hitchhikers, really: a girl and a dog.
I pulled over and rolled down the window. “You need a ride?”
It was an idiotic question—what did I think she needed, a unicorn? But I was nervous, because I’d never picked up a hitchhiker before.
The girl nodded and hurried over, her backpack flapping against her slim hips and her dog bounding after her.
“I assume you’re not an ax murderer,” I said as she carefully set Spidey on the dashboard and climbed into the passenger seat. Her dog, a pretty yellowish mutt, took its place on the backseat, pressing its nose to the window. “Or a runaway,” I added, because I’d just realized just how young she was.
The girl smiled; she had dark eyes, round cheeks with deep dimples, and an unfortunate lip ring. “Thanks for stopping,” she said, her voice slightly breathless. “I’m Savannah. That’s Lucy.”
“And…?” I prodded. As if I was waiting for her to admit that she had an ax in her bag.
“And I used to be a runaway, but then I turned eighteen. So now I’m just an adult without a car. Or a house.”
I had to smile then, because now we had something in common. “My name’s Anne,” I said, “and I don’t have a house either.”
Savannah nodded like this was totally normal. “I’m so glad you stopped. I was out there for hours,” she said. “I had to turn down like six pervy-looking guys. They’re happy to give you a ride, but they want something in return, you know?” She gazed out the window over the green fields and sighed. “So where are you going?” she asked.
“Denver,” I said. “What about you?”
“Away.” She turned around and gave her dog a reassuring pat on th
e flank. “Just you and me, kid,” she said to her.
I watched Savannah out of the corner of my eye. She was vaguely punk looking, with dark short hair and a smattering of freckles across her cheeks. Her clothes were faded and wrinkled, but clean; she’d obviously put major walking miles on her black combat boots.
“Where are you coming from?” I said. “If you don’t mind my asking.”
She seemed to grimace a little. “Do you want the long story or the short?”
Needless to say, I thought of my book. “The long,” I said.
She leaned her seat back and said, “Okay, then I have to back up like three years. When, honestly, I was… not the greatest kid. But I wasn’t the worst, either. I didn’t steal or fail all my classes—only geometry, and like, who cares? They’re just shapes. But I skipped school a lot. My boyfriend’s brother was a dealer, and there was always weed and pills around. And I was like, ‘Drugs? Sure, I’ll take those.’ I was fighting all the time with my mom and my stepdad, and I kept telling them that I was going to run away.”
“So one day you did,” I said.
She shook her head. “No. That’s the messed up part.” She took a deep breath and then blew it out in a low whistle. “This happened when I was seventeen. I stayed out really late partying one night, and then I went home and passed out in my bed with my clothes and shoes still on. But I woke up super early, and I just knew: There was someone in my room. And I sat up and called out, Who’s there? And the next thing I knew there was a bag over my head, and people were grabbing my arms and legs and pulling me out of my bed. And I was screaming my head off, Mom, Mom, help! Mommy!!”
Savannah stopped and turned around to pet Lucy again. I was practically holding my breath.
“I couldn’t see anything. I was being kidnapped. One person’s tying my hands behind my back and the other’s half carrying me downstairs. I was still screaming.” She paused and shook her head. “And that’s when I heard my mom’s voice. She said, really quiet, ‘Savannah, this is for your own good. You’re going to a place where you can be helped.’”