The Qualities of Wood (19 page)

‘There's nothing to tell,' he said. ‘I walked around his property like a stalker, looked through the windows and broke into his tool shed. I don't know why I did it, I really don't. He kept this secret, and maybe my trespassing somehow made up for it. One secret for another, one indiscretion.'

‘He doesn't seem like a very exciting subject.'

‘No, nothing scintillating at his place. Just some guy's house.'

‘I wonder if your father knew him,' she said.

‘I don't know. He would've been much younger than my dad.'

Vivian had been thinking about more recent years, about the unacknowledged visits made by Sherman to his mother's house. Maybe Mr Stokes's reaction when she mentioned Sherman sprang from the legacy of the hunting incident. It wasn't his fault that his father had been part of the horrible accident, but guilt naturally filtered down in a family, creating an atmosphere of mistrust and guardedness in which children grow wary and defensive. Maybe there were other reasons why Mr Stokes didn't like Sherman, and maybe there were none at all.

‘I didn't mean to alarm you, Viv.' Nowell squeezed her shoulder, pulling her against his side.

In the kitchen, Lonnie slammed cupboards and foraged through the refrigerator.

Several days went by and the inhabitants of the house fell into a routine. Nowell wrote and Lonnie tinkered around outside, and both helped whenever something heavy needed moving. Lonnie ran the errands and reported back from town. Vivian and Dot went through the rooms, clearing and organizing, and one afternoon, they finished removing the wallpaper in the hallway, without the help of alcohol. And they finally attacked the kitchen, the cupboards full of Grandma Gardiner's supplies. They kept a small amount of things for their own cooking and serving, but there were extra items that could be boxed and labeled for the yard sale Vivian was planning. There was a waffle iron, canning jars, a Dutch oven, a bread maker and as Dot had noticed, an overabundance of tea cups. The non-essential items were in boxes lined up in the den, already labeled with prices. In fact, most of the house had been gone through, but in the attic a good quantity of unsorted boxes remained, as well as some furniture: the short dresser in which Vivian had found the men's clothing and the gun, a dilapidated trunk with rusty hinges, the wooden headboard of a child's bed. Vivian planned to bring the larger items down a few days before the sale, which she had tentatively planned for the weekend of the Clement reunion, just under two weeks away.

Since their discussion about Mr Stokes, Nowell had thrown himself into his work with a new dedication. Almost a week had gone by and Vivian saw him only during brief dinner breaks or not at all if he took his plate back into the study. At night he worked late and he got up in the mornings before her. An aura of concentration hovered about him; a deep horizontal groove became a permanent feature of his face, separating his forehead into two near-equal halves.

Vivian and Dot often divided tasks and sometimes worked together, but
conversation stayed at a minimum. There was no unpleasantness, just a shared dedication to the work that needed to be done. Vivian felt limber and productive and slept well each night.

One warm morning, Vivian went up to the attic. She shoved a straw-ended broom into the corners near the ceiling, breaking up the spider webs. She imagined how her footsteps might sound to Nowell, typing quietly below in his study. Treading softly on the dusty wooden floor, Vivian swept in rows toward the dustpan, which lay beside the hatch door that opened to the staircase below. Leaving the dirt and debris in a small pile, she went to the dresser. She took the bag with the nicer clothing – the blue jeans and olive green slacks, the suit and dress shirts – and set it aside. She had already cleared the dresser and gotten rid of the underclothes that had been inside. Those items didn't seem appropriate to sell. Nowell had forgotten about the gun; it still sat on the dresser.

It was cool and heavy in Vivian's hands. She held it up and looked through the sight, then took it over to the window and tried to aim at the mailbox.

Sitting on the little seat and pressing her forehead against the window, Vivian looked for Dot, who was lying on a lawn chair in front of the house. The angle was too sharp; she could make out only the end of the chair, the plastic slats that extended beyond Dot's feet. She turned around in the narrow seat and leaned back, the gun resting on her lap, its long barrel reaching across her thighs.

Vivian had a birthday coming up, only five days away. She would be twenty-eight, the same age as Nowell for six months, until he had his birthday again. She usually looked forward to birthdays, but this year was different. Since they had moved into the house, it felt as if they had taken a hiatus from their regular lives. At the old, white house,
they lived according to their own calendars. Similar days succeeded each other and Vivian was responsible only for the maintenance of her mind and body, and for cleaning up the house on her own schedule. The days of the weeks lost meaning, any Saturday being just like a Tuesday. It seemed unofficial to celebrate a birthday, a passage in normal time. In the same way, Vivian had insisted on having their wedding in a church, even though she had never regularly attended one.

There was something else. This birthday, Vivian's twenty-eighth, was the first that had caused a vague, gnawing pang that felt suspiciously like regret. For the most part, she had put it out of her mind to such a degree that she had been genuinely surprised when a box arrived that morning from her parents and she opened it to find a smaller package inside, wrapped in bright paper. Her mother was always punctual, often early.

Outside, Lonnie's jeep barreled up the driveway and Vivian turned in the window seat as he pulled into the space behind the red truck. Dot appeared in the sunlight, wearing a green-and-white checkered bikini. Her hair was loose on her shoulders, golden red in the mid-day sun. Leaping up, she wrapped her arms around Lonnie's neck and he picked her up easily, sliding his hands underneath her buttocks. Like a child, she wrapped her legs around him, nuzzled her face into his neck. They shared a few words and kissed. Lonnie laughed and Vivian could hear the deep timbre faintly, like sound through a tunnel. She noticed the movement of his hands as they gripped and released and the rotation of Dot's hips against them. Vivian looked away. What if someone sees them? She thought.

She and Nowell used to have spontaneous moments. He'd pick her up at her dorm room and sometimes they couldn't make it the few miles to his apartment. They'd park in
abandoned parking lots or at the side of the road if it was dark. Sporadically, remnants of this early passion surfaced, surprising them both, but Vivian had found that married life was a series of phases.

Before they left the city, their lives ran a smooth course. Vivian had her job and friends and Nowell had his writing. They usually spent weekends together, unless Nowell was busy working. When they could afford it, they'd try new restaurants or catch a second-run movie at the renovated theater down the street. In the few times of emotional crisis they'd encountered, Nowell had been steady, sensitive and practical.

Two months before Vivian and Nowell's wedding, Lonnie flipped a motorcycle over an embankment on a country road and tore much of the skin off his back. He broke two ribs and a leg. Beverly called, frantic, in the middle of the night, and Nowell left before sunrise. Lonnie was flown to Beverly's house, where he would convalesce. Nowell was expected to stay and help. When the second weekend came, Vivian drove over to bring Nowell home.

Her mother-in-law's house had the dimness and antiseptic aroma of a sickroom. Lonnie had commandeered the entire living room. His crutches and wheelchair were propped against the wall in the entry and a bed sheet was draped over the long couch, on which he half-reclined with his broken leg elevated on a pillow. Vivian was shocked by his appearance. Stitches closed a gash over his left eye and the skin surrounding it was colored in varying shades of purple and yellow. His entire torso was bandaged with thick strips of tape that crisscrossed under his armpits, across his chest, and around the top of his belly.

Nowell was patient with him, and Beverly didn't seem to notice Lonnie's
complaints or general crankiness. He was on heavy pain medication.

Every morning and every evening, Nowell brought Lonnie two chalky pills with his meal, and every afternoon he helped his mother change the bandages that grew sticky and dark on his brother's back. When Vivian arrived, things seemed to have fallen into an organized routine, but Nowell assured her that the earlier days had been worse. She looked at the dark patches under his eyes and noticed the way Nowell's shirt hung, askew and loose, from his broad shoulders. She wondered if it was possible to lose weight in ten days. She was glad he was coming back to the city.

On the Sunday they were to leave, Grandma Gardiner made a brusque and informal entrance. Her visit was unexpected. She knocked solidly on the door and refused Nowell's offer to carry her bag. She explained that a friend of hers was coming into town to visit friends, and she decided to take the free ride and the opportunity to spend two days with her daughter-in-law, helping to care for her grandson. Nowell and Lonnie hadn't seen her for several years.

Beverly fixed sandwiches and tossed salad for lunch. The four of them – Nowell, Beverly, Grandma Gardiner, and Vivian – gathered around the polished maple dining room table normally used only for holidays, because Beverly didn't want Lonnie to feel that he was eating in the living room alone.

Grandma Gardiner picked at her salad, separated the radishes and the red cabbage from the rest and made a small red pile on her napkin. Beverly reached over and handed her another napkin, and in her halting, self-conscious movements, Vivian envisioned the newlywed daughter-in-law she must have been, nervous and anxious for the older woman's approval.

She couldn't remember much of what was said during that lunch, only the general, tense mood of the occasion. Beverly was extremely tired and Vivian would catch her staring at the side of a chair or at the deep folds in the tablecloth, a glaze coming over her eyes. Nowell was the same. She remembered that Grandma Gardiner wore a large round medallion on a tarnished gold chain. She remembered skinny legs, mottled with brown spots, and the golden clip in her hair. Grandma Gardiner was nondescript, especially to the mind of Vivian, who had a tired fiancé to think about and only two more months to plan for her wedding.

Vivian heard Lonnie and Dot conversing on the porch. When she pushed herself up from the child-sized window seat, something fell from her lap, making a loud bang on the wooden floor. The gun had just missed the top of her foot and now lay pointing towards her. She listened, but no one called up to her. Everyone was accustomed to the noises she made while working around the house. She picked the gun up, careful to point the barrel away from her body, and placed it in a box near the window, which held a set of iron candleholders and plated bookends shaped like buildings. Metal things, her organizing self thought.

She needed to get back to work. A brass coat rack dominated one corner of the room and Vivian struggled with it until she had moved it aside. Bending her knees, she lifted a box that had been sitting behind the rack, blocking the lowest drawer of the tall mahogany bureau. She carried it over to the dresser, and when she dropped it on top, dust ascended in a great cloud, covering her face.

‘Vivian?' Dot called from the kitchen.

She spit dust particles from her lips. ‘Yeah?'

‘Would you like some iced tea?'

‘Sure.' Shortly, Vivian heard the squeak of the staircase before Dot's head poked through the opening on the floor. ‘You didn't have to bring it up,' she said, coming forward to take the moist glass.

‘I wanted to see how things were going up here.' Dot put her hands on her hips and looked around. She wore a pair of khaki shorts and her bikini top.

‘Now you know my secret,' Vivian said.

‘What do you mean?'

‘I haven't done much. Every time I'm up here, I get distracted. Maybe it's because there seems to be so much, um, stuff. If I shift it around a little, I feel as though I've accomplished something.'

‘You've got some sort of organization happening here.' Dot motioned to the boxes lined up against the wall. ‘What are these?'

‘Those were already here. I need to go through them.'

‘We'll have to get one of those price guns, you know? We can probably make some real cash. You'd be surprised how much money people make at these things.'

Vivian was beginning to wonder if Lonnie and Dot had any plans to leave. Initially, Nowell told her that their visit would be two weeks long and they were past that now. Vivian didn't care, not really. Aside from the two times she encountered Lonnie drunk, their stay had been uneventful. Having them around had even been fun. She enjoyed talking to Dot, and Lonnie could be really funny, when he wasn't being obnoxious.

Maybe some part of her resented their presence. Nowell took more time off to do
things with Lonnie than he did to spend time with her. Since the one afternoon they went into town for a movie, she hadn't been away from the house with him. They slept together, but because they were developing disparate sleep schedules, that time was beginning to count for less and less.

Dot looked around the attic. ‘What can I do, anything?'

Vivian pointed at the purplish bureau. ‘I haven't looked in those drawers yet. Could you see what's in there, also in that small box sitting on top?'

Turning back toward the dusty box on the dresser, Vivian opened the top slats and pulled them back. Inside were baby items: a delicate crocheted blanket in white, lime, and yellow, a scuffed pair of leather boots in a box, a plastic bag filled with outfits.

‘Look at this,' she said. ‘Baby clothes.'

‘There's a whole drawer full of pictures and papers over here,' Dot said. She walked over to touch the baby items.

There was a tiny sailor outfit, complete with a rounded navy blue hat and knickers made of a coarse material. Dot held up a tiny pair of socks. ‘Is there anything written on the box?'

‘It looks like boy clothes,' Vivian said. ‘And they're old, so probably Sherman's?'

Dot fingered the tiny socks. ‘You can keep it all if you want. I just thought, you know, that Lonnie might like to have some of them.'

‘You keep them,' Vivian said.

‘No. We should split everything. There are two blankets, you know, these can still be used.'

‘Really, Dot. I don't want any of it.' Vivian picked up the box and set it away from the others, near the exit. ‘Let's take this down when we're done and you can show Lonnie.'

The purplish bureau had two empty drawers and one drawer full of more men's clothes. Shirts and shorts on one side, a brown and yellow flannel shirt and a gray sweatshirt on the other. Vivian handed Dot an empty box to put them in. The bottom drawer of the purplish bureau was full of photographs. They sat on the floor and sifted through them. Most were older, black-and-white shots. Grandma Gardiner had pasted many family pictures into photo albums that were downstairs in Nowell's study. These pictures were taken much earlier. Some were labeled, although neither of them could identify most of the names written carefully on the back. In the pictures that she appeared in, Grandma Gardiner had written simply ‘Me,' rather then Elizabeth or Betty. After a while, Dot and Vivian surmised that the photographs consisted mostly of her parents, brothers, sisters, and assorted other family members during her childhood. Vivian set aside one photograph of the young Elizabeth on a bicycle, her plain dark dress bunched up around her knees and a look of pure abandon lighting up her normally sedate face. She thought that Nowell might like to remember his grandmother this way. She and Dot sat side-by-side, leaning across each other now and then to view a photograph one of them had found. Dot hadn't showered after lying in the sun; she smelled briny and damp over the sugary scent of the bubble gum that she popped and blew into pasty, pink globes. Vivian's neck began to feel stiff and her feet grew numb from her cross-legged position. ‘I think I've had enough,' she said. ‘I'm getting uncomfortable here on the floor.'