A Stranger's House (26 page)

Tom had looked at the beam, hit it a few times with his hammer, pushed on it. He said, “Sounds right to me. Let's rebuild the wall.”

That was when I started in on them to let us give them a ride home. Grady and Tom were picking up the stones already on the
ground and piling them a few feet away, where we would soon be scraping them. Martin was examining the foundation, gently pulling the loose stones from the wall, and placing them on the ground.

I said, “Why don't we drive you home tonight? It's getting colder, you know.”

Grady hesitated only a moment, a move hardly noticeable if I hadn't been watching him. He kept right on moving after that. Martin did not even blink, but went on eyeing, touching, feeling the stones and mortar.

Grady said, “You know already. You know we like riding our bikes. It's our exercise.”

“This isn't?” I said, and Tom laughed a moment, still moving, still piling.

Grady glanced at Tom, and gave a small, nervous laugh. He stood and wiped his forehead with the back of his arm. The canvas work gloves he wore seemed huge, just hanging on the end of his thin arms.

He gave me his adult smile. “Well, you know how much we appreciate the offer, of course, but the bikes, you know. They're already at Friendly's. We can't leave them there overnight.”

“They'll fit in the trunk,” I said. “At least I think they will. Tom?”

He shrugged, moving in rhythm now, leaning over, picking up a stone, moving it to the new pile. “Think so,” he said.

“No,” Grady said, and resumed picking up the stones.

“At least let us try,” I said, and took a step toward him.

“No,”
he said, and stood up straight, his mouth closed tight. He wasn't looking at me, but at some point off in the distance, his eyes focused, concentrated on something.

Tom stopped in mid-movement, a stone in his hands. Even Martin paused, squinted up at us from where he was hunched at the foundation. Then he went on to the next stone.

“Listen,” Tom said. “It's only a suggestion. Something to just help you guys. You don't want a ride, we're not going to give you one.”

Grady broke into a smile again and looked down, embarrassed. He put his hands on his hips, made a small circle in the dirt with the toe of his boot.

“Sorry,” he said. “I'm sorry. But we need the exercise. Even on top of what we get here.” He looked up at me. “Even in this cold,
too. Neither Martin or me have ever gotten a cold since we've been riding those bikes. And that's why. Riding those bikes has done that for us. When the snow gets too thick, that's when we walk. That's the way we live.” He glanced down, and up at me again.

The pile of loose stones had been moved by this time, the last stone the one in Tom's hands. I hadn't moved any closer, only stood there, looking away from Grady to the stones, Martin still working away.

Tom came to the porch, and I walked across it, hollow, vacant sounds of footsteps across plywood again. I was still wondering, that morning of the signing, why Grady refused, why he was so adamant, and I wondered if it had to do with his overseeing Martin, his taking care of him.

I could not see Tom now, my back to him. My arms were crossed, and I was looking off to the east, the sun not yet past the trees, its light cutting through the branches, broken by crooked, black limbs. I said, “Did you know that Mr. Clark had Martin put into the state hospital? That he's the one who had Martin committed?”

I hadn't yet told him this; for some reason, perhaps because it had appeared that Grady's telling me had been an accident that day in the kitchen, I had kept this fact to myself, hidden it away in some loyalty to Grady, to his hands on my shoulders and his comforting words while Tom and Martin had been muscling around in the crawl space.

“What?” Tom said. I heard his footsteps up onto the porch. They stopped a few feet behind me. “How do you know that?”

Already I was sorry for having spoken, sorry I'd marred our day with a fact I'd only surmised from an uncompleted sentence Grady had not wanted me to hear. I closed my eyes, let my head drop.

“Well?” he said.

“He told me,” I said. “I'm not sure why. I'm not sure, either, what it means.”

“It means,” Tom said, “that we're dealing with a real bastard. Which is, I imagine, what we've known all along.”

“Yes,” I said. I wanted to say no more of it, to get off the subject, and I realized then how long it had been with me, the image of Grady as a boy following Martin around from job to job, watching
him, watching him. That was when he started cutting school. That was when, I imagined, he started stealing things, and I wondered if it hadn't been things he'd taken to give to Martin, food from grocery stores for this retarded man he wanted to know better.

And for some reason, perhaps because my thoughts on Martin and Grady and Mr. Clark had made things slip, brought the day down from the high I'd felt all morning, I thought of Sandra, and of how I'd seen her only two or three times since we'd spoken, her huddling in the basement or in the computer room, and how I was the bastard here, just as useless in Sandra's eyes as Mr. Clark was in mine.

But then I took a deep breath, tried to clear myself of what I ought to do, of talking to her. I had my own life here. She hadn't wanted any help from me. She'd wanted nothing.

I let out the breath, leaned my head back, my eyes closed.

I opened my eyes and turned to Tom.

I said, “So after the porch is down, does that mean there won't be another one?” I uncrossed my arms, and I was smiling now. I could see the faintest wisps of air before me, my warm breath in this cold air. “Tell me,” I said.

 

Even Mr. Blaisdell seemed thinner, healthier, his office brighter and more comfortable. Rita Long-ford was there in her gold sport coat and polyester skirt and that lipstick; she'd brought with her the lawyer retained by her agency to represent clients like us, people who had no lawyers. He was young, overweight, and had on a brown corduroy suit, his belly poking out below the bottom edge of the vest. A future Mr. Blaisdell, I thought.

Ruth said, “Tom, Claire, this is Donald Finestra. Donald, Tom and Claire Templeton,” and we all shook hands. His hand was soft, too fleshy.

Tom said, “Rita's told us you're the best at these sorts of things, at reading contracts.” Tom smiled and crossed his arms.

“Well,” Finestra said, and adjusted his horn-rimmed glasses. “It's my job, and I'm glad to be of service to you.” His smile seemed genuine.

Rita, especially pleased at this exchange, gave an even bigger smile. “Well,” she said, and patted me on the shoulder. “Can we get started?”

“Why certainly,” Mr. Blaisdell boomed, taking charge of us all. He put out a hand toward the couch, and Tom and I sat. He sat in his leather chair, and read us several pages of the mortgage contract, Rita and Finestra standing off to his left and a little behind so that they could read along with him. Finestra had a brown attaché under one arm, Rita a black leather folder held tight against her chest.

Blaisdell finished, and Rita produced from her folder a gold fountain pen, held it out to Tom.

He stood up from the couch, the Naugahyde crackling with his movement, and he was at the desk, signing again and again, Mr. Blaisdell quickly flipping the pages for Tom, who hesitated before signing each time, then seemed to attack the predesignated slot with the pen, scribbling his name.

Rita nodded at me, her face still as solemn as ever, and I stood, signed on the lines just below every place Tom had signed.

I finished the last signature, and looked up, handed the pen back to Rita. She took the pen, handed it to Finestra. He smiled, gave a shallow, quick bow, and moved toward the desk. Mr. Blaisdell let the pages of the contract fall back to the first, where Finestra signed it. I watched his hand move with the pen, his signature huge and billowing at the bottom of the page. He handed the pen to Blaisdell, who scrawled his signature, only a series of odd angles, a long, smooth figure-eight flourish beneath it.

Mr. Blaisdell gave the pen back to Rita, who held it out to Tom.

“A memento,” she said, “of this fine occasion. May your home be a happy and prosperous one, filled with love and peace.” She smiled, and it looked as if tears were in her eyes.

Tom took the pen, and turned to me. He rolled his eyes a little at this display of emotion on Rita's part, and he smiled at me, and hugged me. Mr. Blaisdell put out his hand, and Tom and I shook it. Rita came around the desk to me and gave me a hug, our shoulders just touching. She kissed my cheek and said, “Congratulations.”

“So,” Mr. Blaisdell said, “Mr. Clark wanted me to let you know how pleased he is that such a fine young couple as yourselves has purchased his home.”

Rita picked up her purse from the edge of Blaisdell's desk, and she and Finestra started toward the door. “Sorry,” she said, “but we've got to be going. Another appointment!” She waved over her shoulder as she opened the door. Finestra moved the attaché to the other arm, smiled, and gave another quick bow. They disappeared into the hall, Finestra pulling the door closed behind him.

Mr. Blaisdell laughed. “She's too busy. Realtors are always too busy. Good ones, that is.”

The room was quiet a moment, and Tom said, “So this is it?”

“Well,” Mr. Blaisdell said, and looked down at his desk. “Just for you to get your copies of all this material for your own files, and I imagine that will be it.” He started flipping pages of the mortgage contract back, peeling off sheets for us. “Other things will be following in the mail. More information and payment booklets from the bank and the like. Those things.”

Finally he had a stack of papers together, bounced the bottom edges on his desk to straighten them out. Without looking at us, he said, “You haven't, by the way, had any more trouble with this Grady Clark, have you?” As nonchalantly as he could, I saw, he opened his desk drawer with one hand and fished through the clutter in there for a paper clip. He pulled one out.

“He's never been any trouble to begin with,” Tom said. “He's—”

“We haven't even seen him since that first day,” I cut in. Tom quickly turned to me, and I gave him a glance. Only that. A glance, my eyes meeting his for a moment. He looked at me an instant longer, I could see from the corner of my eye, and I hoped he was seeing what I wanted to do, and what I didn't want this direct line to Clark to know.

Mr. Blaisdell gave the papers one last bounce, then fixed the clip to the top edges.

“Good,” he said. He hadn't looked at us, and lay the stack on the desk again, lifting up a few of the pages. He was stalling, the air too quiet, his movements too easy as he let first one page fall, paused a moment, let two more go.

He said, “I don't suppose you've seen ...” and stopped. He let one more page fall, then picked them all up, handing them over to us. He was looking at us now, his face warm and friendly and open. A lawyer, I thought. “I don't suppose,” he said again, “you've encountered his compatriot. Martin Hosmer is his name.”

I did my best to battle him, giving him a puzzled, poignant face, my head tilted a little, my eyebrows with just a hint of thought as I tried to remember any acquaintance of Grady Clark's.

“Why no,” I said after what I thought was a long-enough moment of reflection. I turned to Tom. “Tom?”

“Who?” Tom said, and it was everything I could do to keep from laughing.

“Oh.” Mr. Blaisdell laughed, and put his hand out in front of him as if to wave off some nonsense he'd uttered. “Nothing, nothing at all. Just the crowd that boy runs with. I'm glad you haven't seen this Grady again. You won't, either. He's been told to steer clear. He will. He's just a punk.”

We all shook hands again, and then, just to top off the lie, the small charade between us, I went around his desk and leaned over, kissed his cheek. “Thank you,” I said to him, and did my best Sincere Rita Longford imitation.

“Oh.” He blushed, and said, “You just go make your house a home.”

We stepped onto the sidewalk just outside the door.

Tom said, “You.”

I smiled, relieved I wouldn't have to explain to him why we'd lied.

“I love you,” I said.

He said, “This is the day,” and I knew then that hope really
was
in Tom, that he was still ready for new life, ready to start.

I pulled him to me, held him close, my eyes closed, my chin on his shoulder, and I could feel my smile, no longer work, no longer anything but love for him.

Then I opened my eyes, wanting to take in the blue sky above these buildings on Main Street in a town from which we would soon be moving, but what I saw was the window of Mr. Blaisdell's office above me, and his face at the window, a face sagging with old flesh, his white pompadour. He pulled away from the glass the instant he saw me look, and disappeared.