A Gracious Plenty

  But there are nearby trees all around, and none of them are moving. The air is still, solid as a bone.

  “He did sing pretty,” Reba tells me. “He could raise the goose pimples on my arms. Just thinking about it gives me goose pimples,” she says. “See?” And she shows me. She holds up her arm, studies it, looks at me, smiles, and wanders off, never telling me exactly why she stopped by. She climbs into her Plymouth and looks back at William Blott’s monument, then drives away like she’s in some kind of trance.

  BY TWILIGHT, EVERYTHING’S become faint, all the voices, all the sounds. I can’t hear William Blott’s trumpet any better if I try. It’s like somehow, something’s shifted, a zipper that got zipped wrong. It’s like I’m hearing them through layers and layers of wool. And I can’t tell if they’re slipping away or if I am.

  I would like to blame it on the storm, but the storm’s not here. Not yet. It’s beneath me, above me, humming like bees, buzzing before you see them. I’d like to blame it on wind, but there is no wind to speak of. There’s just the thickness, dense as a scab. The knowing that the air is wrong, the sky is wrong. There’s tension. We’re nearing the end of the grace period.

  “You cannot stay here,” Papa tells me, and I hear him. I hear him, but it’s like he’s calling from a foreign country, his voice sealed up inside a drum. “You gotta find somewhere else to go.”

  “I’ll be fine,” I claim, and I say it too cheerfully—because I don’t believe it for a second. I catch myself hollering out over the cemetery, hollering just to trees and stones, and when I look around, it seems so empty. It seems so quiet that I almost panic.

  Then Papa shouts back, “You don’t understand. This ain’t about you. This is bigger. There won’t be no way to assure your safety.” He spaces between each word like he knows there’ll be an echo, a dark shadowing around each syllable, dirt clinging to every sound.

  “I’ll stay in the house,” I compromise. “How big a storm can it be?”

  But the Mediator backs Papa up. I can’t see her, either, but I can hear her tinkling, then just her voice: “This isn’t a request, love. It’s an order. I want you out of here before dark. Do you read me?”

  “I have a job to do,” I call. “Everything I’ve got’s here. I’ll be fine here, won’t I, Ma?”

  But I can’t hear anything. I keen my ears. I block out everything to hear my ma.

  “Ma?”

  And there’s nothing.

  “Ma!” I call. “Ma?”

  It feels worse than it did the first time I lost her. I lean against her tombstone and try to imagine it her lap. I close my eyes and make myself pretend that I’m sitting between her legs, leaning up against her, and I breathe and try to imagine her smell, witch hazel sweet.

  But my spine finds no comfort against stone.

  “Papa?” I cry.

  “Get on outta here now,” he stammers. “Don’t make this harder than it is. Much as we love you, we can’t give you what you need.”

  I get up slow, feeling old in my back and something like wings fluttering inside my chest, like there’s something trapped in there, and I can’t figure out which direction to walk. A part of me thinks leaving must be the right thing to do—because the graveyard is so different, so lonely, with the Dead calling from a place I cannot reach. But it’s my place, and all around are the trees and bushes I planted, the bricks I arranged to outline plots, the benches I placed, the fences and gates, the flowers, the fruit dropping down onto graves like blessings. The place is a map, and it’s a map of me, somehow. To leave it is an impossibility. That’s how it seems.

  “I ain’t going,” I say, and I settle over Lucy Armageddon’s grave. I reach up and pick a few weeping willow leaves and stick them in my mouth and chew them bitter. At least there is something to taste, something strong.

  “Lucy,” I call, but I hear nothing. “You gotta tell William Blott that Reba’s coming around. You gotta tell him to stop the storm.”

  I wait for her to respond, but she doesn’t.

  “Lucy, where are you?” I holler.

  “She’s here, Finch,” the Mediator calls from a low-down place. “But she’s busy. We’ve got work to do that you can’t be a part of. You have to go now.”

  And then I get mad. Because who do they think they are? And how can they just leave me out after all this time? “Where do you want me to go?” I ask her. “Where?”

  The Mediator returns my tone. “The Holiday Inn, for all I care. Just get out of here. You’re not a part of this. It’s time to go.”

  “I ain’t going!” I scream to her. “And you tell William Blott that he better get a handle on his rage. ’Cause he’s about to punish people he didn’t give a fair chance. Reba’d come around if he’d give her time.”

  If the Mediator hears me, she doesn’t let me know. I’d rather she yell back than leave me in silence.

  I lean against Lucy’s stone and look up at the sky where so much is building. I look out over the land where I have built so much. I wait for the moon, but the moon doesn’t come, or the stars—there are no stars.

  No moon, no stars, no voices, and the landscape so strange. It’s as if I’ve lost my sisters and brothers.

  “I know what it must have been like when you looked in the mirror,” I tell Lucy. “When the boy who carved you had gone and you just had those words left. It must have looked so different when he was gone.”

  I stay out on Lucy’s grave for a long time before I see anyone. Then it’s a shadow, walking toward me, toting a flashlight, and I know it’s Leonard before he even gets close, because he cuts the quiet with his hollering. “Finch? Finch?”

  He comes to me at the Lucy stone and says tentatively, “Am I interrupting? You talking with your friend who committed suicide? ’Cause I’ll wait.…”

  And I put my mouth right down to the ground and holler, as loud as I can, “Did you hear that?”

  “I tried to call,” he tells me, offering his hand. “But you didn’t answer, and I got worried. I thought you might be out here.”

  I let him pull me up and walk me back toward the house.

  I stop at a boxwood and break off a little branch, the leaves clustered together and wet with leafy rain. “Don’t it make you lonely?” I ask him. “To see all those little leaves together and to be so big?”

  He says, “Not especially, Finch. But I’ve never seen things the way you do. Come stay at my place, anyway. Just until the storm passes.”

  “I can’t,” I tell him. “This is my home. I should be here.”

  “Just come till the storm’s over. Please,” he begs. “I could sure use your help. We’ll go to the main house to look after Father and Mother until this clears. There are plenty of rooms.”

  And I think about his father and all the troubles between them. I think about my papa and the last thing he said to me. “I gotta feed the cats,” I tell Leonard. “You wanna wait, and I’ll follow you?”

  ALL MY LIFE, I’ve seen the Livingston estate, but I’ve never been on the grounds. The place is huge, with a white picket fence stretched over acres of green fields and trees, and a single gravel driveway points like an arrow to the main house, where the former mayor and his wife still live. It’s a white house, with columns in the front, and it looks like a birthday cake to me. It’s big, and Leonard tells me it was built before the Civil War. He says it can stand most any storm.

  “Is that so?” I ask.

  “Well,” he says, laughing. “It can stand any weather. But Father’s nearly brought down the walls a time or two.”

  Leonard lives in a separate building that he calls “the garage.” It used to actually function as a garage before his father closed it in to make a clubhouse for his politician friends. Now the space is an apartment. “A garage apartment,” Leonard calls it, though it looks to be bigger than my whole house.

  “Nice place,” I tell him, and I sit down on an expensive-looking faded couch next to two kittens—the ones he took from my yard?
??except now they are tame and purring, clean and wearing tiny collars, sleeping on pillows.

  “Those are my girls,” he says, smiling. “Mary Kate and Ashley.”

  “You gave them human names?” I say. “I hate it when people do that.”

  And Leonard just shrugs and grins. “I didn’t have time to clean up,” he says. “I didn’t know I’d have company. Can I get you something to drink?”

  “Just water’s fine.”

  I can see his whole kitchen, appliances lined up against one wall, the sink at the very end. He’s got bowls stacked up on the counters and boxes of cereal left out on the table, the tops wide open. He opens a cabinet full of cut crystal glasses but brings me my drink in a pink plastic cup that doesn’t look especially clean. I think it’s probably a compliment—that I’m drinking from a cup he likes. But I can’t be sure.

  “How long you lived here?”

  “Eight or nine years. I didn’t move out until I was in my thirties.” He laughs.

  And it’s funny to see him in his space, relaxed. He’s taken the chair beside me and kicked off his shoes. His feet carry an odor, but he doesn’t seem to notice or mind. It’s like being with a whole different Leonard.

  All around, there are antique tables that don’t match, placed next to a metal filing cabinet, a plastic laundry hamper. He has paisley curtains and a lace tablecloth stained with coffee. There’s checked upholstery on the recliner, pushed up beside a floral-print sofa. In one corner, there’s a sleigh bed made of cherry, and it’s covered in a faded cheap blue comforter with a hole in the shape of an iron. It’s the biggest mismatch I’ve ever seen, and I like it.

  “You iron your bedspread?”

  “Oh, no,” he explains. “I was ironing my pants on the bed when that happened. The phone rang and I forgot—”

  And I laugh. “So, did you do the decorating yourself?”

  “I hired a professional,” he jokes, and gestures with his arms. “Don’t you like it?”

  “Sure.”

  “Really, I get all mother’s rejects. Every time she goes shopping, I get the hand-me-downs. Lately, she’s been buying in bulk. She bought four sets of china in the same year. Keeps forgetting,” and he shakes his head. “I’ve got three of them boxed up in the closet. You need any china?”

  “No thank you,” I say, wondering what I’d do with china if I had it.

  “She gives me all kinds of stuff,” he tells me. “This chair was in my bedroom when I was a teenager. Sometimes it’s almost like I still live with them.”

  “You didn’t go far. That’s for sure.”

  “Rent’s cheap. Besides, with Mother in her decline, there’s plenty to do around here.”

  “You ain’t gotta explain it to me,” I say. “I lived with Papa till he died.” Then I add, “I didn’t realize your ma was so sick.”

  “Physically, she’s not too bad, but her mind’s going. It’s been going on for years, but we didn’t notice at first.…”

  “Oh.”

  “Father has a hard time with it. She says all kinds of things—whatever comes to her mind. Sometimes she talks about when they were young and frisky,” he admits, and flushes. “Finch, maybe I shouldn’t have brought you here. I just didn’t want you to be alone when the weatherman’s calling for such bad conditions and the air’s so funny.”

  “It’s okay,” I say.

  “But you see, we’ll have to go to the house, and sometimes it’s—Hell, Finch, I wish we could just stay here. There’s no telling what’ll happen. Me and my father …”

  “I know,” I tell him. “Everybody knows. It makes me tired just to think about it.”

  “I’m sorry,” he says, and he stares out the window.

  “Come on,” I tell him. “We might as well get over there. The wind’s picking up.” And so we head outside and race across the big yard. The evergreen trees that circle the lawn flap their branches like flags. We crunch along the wet gravel walkway, our faces kept down from the rain.

  And I’m hurrying to get inside when Leonard rings the doorbell.

  “Don’t you have a key?” I ask him. “They’re expecting you, right?”

  “Yeah,” he says, and fishes through his pockets. “If he don’t answer in a minute, I’ll let us in. Father likes to have control over who comes and goes.”

  “Jesus,” I mutter.

  Though in truth, if it wasn’t for blowing rain, we wouldn’t get wet waiting on the steps. There’s an awning overhead to keep us dry, but the wind whisks water everywhere.

  Mr. Livingston opens the door slow, like he doesn’t care how wet we get. He studies us and seems almost confused.

  “Father,” Leonard says. “Father, this is Finch Nobles.” And he shoves me forward. I stick out my arm, the burned one.

  “Well, yes,” he says. “We met this morning. It seems like days ago, doesn’t it?”

  “Yes,” I say, and he takes my hand. He pulls me inside and leaves Leonard to deal with the rain and the door.

  “I’m glad you could help us out, Miss Nobles. Our regular evening nurse went to be with her family due to the weather.”

  “Uh, no, Father,” Leonard explains. “Finch isn’t a nurse. She’s here with me, to sit out the storm.”

  Mr. Livingston looks at Leonard and looks at me, and drops my hand and steps back. Then he steps forward again and says, “I see” in a tone I can’t identify. He takes my hand again and says, “My deepest apologies, Miss Nobles.”

  I look to Leonard because my mind is slow at catching on.

  “If you need something done …” I offer.

  “If you’re a guest here, you’ll be treated like a guest,” Mr. Livingston insists. But the way he looks at Leonard, I know that something’s amiss.

  We settle down in the study, the chairs all made of leather and big enough for two to sit in. It is hard to imagine Leonard ever living in this house.

  “How’s Mother?” he asks, and I try to cover the dirt I’ve tracked in with my shoe.

  “Fine. She’s sleeping now. I hope she’ll sleep out the night.”

  “I told Finch she could stay in a guest room,” Leonard says, but his voice isn’t gruff the way I know it to be. His voice is high and he asks it like a question, and I’m suddenly homesick, very homesick, for my little house. All I want is to be sitting on my porch, watching the wind blow. It wouldn’t matter if the house blew down with me in it—if I was at home.

  Mr. Livingston motions Leonard into the hallway, says, “Excuse us, please, for just a moment,” and then I hear the angry whispering, the accusations. I hear Leonard apologizing and Mr. Livingston tapping his foot on the hardwood floor, making quite a racket and whispering loudly about Leonard’s mother and what could happen.

  And I decide their house is no place for me, storm or no storm. I’d rather be at the Holiday Inn, and though I don’t know where one is, I decide I’ll find one if I have to, if the Mediator chases me out again.

  But when I head for the door, Mr. Livingston suddenly appears and takes my arm. “Allow me to give you a tour, Miss Nobles?”

  I look back to Leonard, and he’s flushed, his blue eyes wide, his jaw tight. “Go ahead, Finch,” he says through gritted teeth. “Father’s a real storyteller. You’ll enjoy it.”

  Leonard stays behind as Mr. Livingston leads me around the first floor, giving me the history of the community and of the house as we go. But I can’t listen too good for wondering what’s going on inside Leonard, and what’s going on in the cemetery, and what I’m going to do next.

  “This woodstove,” Mr. Livingston tells me, “was purchased from a man named Adam Smith by my great-grandfather back in the early 1800s.”

  “Do you know who made it?” I ask him.

  And he looks at me perturbed. “Who made it? I don’t care who made it. I care that it’s nearly two hundred years old.” And he moves us along.

  “This moose was shot by my wife’s brother, Mr. Albert Dubus. He brought it all the way from Canada.
…”

  The head on the wall is dead, of course, but the eyes are wide open, the pelt supple, the rack impressive. And I wish I could talk to the moose. I’d rather talk to the moose than to Mr. Livingston, and after he walks ahead, I reach out and touch its neck.

  Mr. Livingston leads me to the kitchen, which is large and well furnished but otherwise unexceptional. “The original kitchen was out back,” he says. “If you look out this window, you can see the building right there,” and he points and turns on an outside light. “The food was made there, where there was space for a large hearth, and then the servants brought it into the house. But now, with modern appliances”—and he winks—“we don’t need such a space.”

  “What do you use the old kitchen for?”

  “Right now, it’s not in use,” he answers quick. “For many years, my wife, Mrs. Livingston, used the area as a reading room. Before that, it was a play area for the boys—it kept Leonard out from underfoot.”

  “I see.”

  “I had another son,” he tells me, like I don’t know. “God took him from me when he was just a child. He had great promise, that boy. They say he had my eyes.”

  “I’m sorry,” I say. “At least you’ve got Leonard.”

  But Mr. Livingston doesn’t reply to me at all.

  He takes me up the front staircase and shows off the rooms, restored to their pre—Civil War decor. He shows me knick-knacks inside each room, clocks and plates and pictures and statues. He shows me gifts he received from important people and points out one particular bed shipped all the way from Switzerland, then points out the place where Leonard cut his teeth. “I had it stripped and sanded and varnished again. But it will never be as valuable,” he says.

  He leads me to French doors that open onto a balcony. I can see the limbs of trees practicing karate out there.

  “Children find the one most important thing you own to destroy. You don’t have children, do you?”

  “No,” I say.

  “No, I don’t suppose you do.”

  And I don’t know what he means by that, but it stings my face.

  All the doors upstairs are open except for one, and that one, he explains, is his bedroom.