Envy the Night

show of gratitude? Please. Nora had tired of the regular routine of turning down dates from her customers—some of them offered sweetly if a little awkwardly, others in lecherous fashion—and maybe, maybe, she’d flirted with Frank just a bit earlier in the day. By the time they’d reached that cabin on the Willow, though, all she wanted to do was get his gear out of her truck, visit her father, and get home and into bed.

Home. That was how she thought of it now, although it was still a decidedly foreign and amusingly masculine place. At first she’d hesitated to make any changes, feeling like an intruder in her father’s house, wanting him to return from the hospital and find everything as he’d left it.

As the weeks turned to months, though, she’d become more of a realist. When he came home, he’d still need her there for at least a while, so it was fair that she begin to think of it as her home, too. The hideous old curtains went first; then she repainted the kitchen and deposited the bizarre “jackalope” creature—a rabbit head with deer antlers, some friend’s idea of high humor—into the basement. A day later, she felt guilty about the damn thing and brought it back up, hung it on the wall where it had been. Gradually the place began to take on a quality that was more comfortable. She was working on a mural in the back bedroom, a tropical scene she hoped he’d appreciate. If he didn’t, she’d hand him a roller and a can of that flat white paint that covered the entire house and let him do his worst.

Much as she loved him, he would not have been a good day-to-day father. Nora realized that now, but she’d believed otherwise as a child. In those days, struggling to adjust to a stepfather whose attempts at warmth seemed all too false, she’d been able to build Bud Stafford into a fantasy figure. It wasn’t difficult; in their rare times together Bud was attentive and thoughtful and funny, a strong man layered in self-confidence.

Nora began to see her mother as weak, money-hungry, someone who’d sacrificed passion for comfort. Only a fraction of that was true—the trade of passion for comfort. At this point in her life, Nora was certain her mother’s only passionate relationship had been with Bud. She was equally certain, though, that they could never have lasted together. Bud had taken Kate’s natural adjustment struggles to Tomahawk as a sign of weakness, deriding her instead of aiding her, using her privileged upbringing as a constant tool for teasing, because behind the teasing he could hide his insecurities. A family was certainly part of Bud Stafford’s vision for himself, but it was a family built on his own terms, and Kate hadn’t agreed to those. Had they loved each other? To this day, despite all the exchanged jabs, Nora believed that they had. Maybe still did. But they couldn’t live together.

The problem was that after the divorce Bud had decided he couldn’t live with anyone. It was a fine way to be when you were young and strong and always in control. The years caught up with you, though, devoured the youth and the strength and in the end even the control. Bud had no say over his existence now, and that, perhaps more than anything, held Nora in Tomahawk. Did she want to spend her life here, running a body shop and conducting empty visits at a nursing home? No. Nor did she want to fail, either, to lock the doors and shutter the windows and leave her father with a kiss on the cheek and a town full of people who admired him but couldn’t care for him.

So what did she want? How would it end? It was a question she’d been determined to ignore at first, firmly believing he’d return to the shop healthy and ready to work. Each passing month added weight to the reality, though, and she knew now that he’d never be back. Meanwhile the calls from Minneapolis and Madison had crested and faded, family and friends who’d been anxious to know when she’d return now giving up hope or losing interest. Back home life was plowing ahead, passing her by, and here she was in Tomahawk, lost in a routine of body shop business and nursing home visits.

She couldn’t let the business go under, though. Couldn’t close those doors and hang the for sale sign and let two generations of sweat and blisters and bruises disappear as if it had never meant a thing.

The one thing she still hadn’t gotten used to about her daily routine was the dark ride home. Still couldn’t relax driving anywhere out here at night. When the sun went down, the familiar ceased to be familiar, all landmarks hidden by shadows, everything beyond the reach of the headlights an unknown. They illuminated nothing but trees and pavement. She’d flick on the brights and then be dismayed when she saw how little it helped. You could see maybe an extra ten feet ahead, three to the sides, but for what? Nothing out there but more trees and more pavement, and the brights only made the surrounding shadows grow longer and seem darker. Many times when she left 51 she’d make it all the way home without passing another car, and that was a seven-mile stretch. Back in Minneapolis, you couldn’t go seven feet without passing another car. The first few weeks up here she’d actually come close to panic attacks during the drive home, everything looking so damn similar that she could have been on the wrong road, headed in the wrong direction, completely unaware.

Empty and alone and dark. That was what she’d thought of the place at first, and though she’d grown fond of many things about it as time passed, the night drive was not one of them. That was a time that hammered the old mantra—empty and alone and dark—back into her brain, left her longing for bright lights and loud music and the voices of strangers.

There was a light on at the house when she pulled in, and usually that was enough of a reassurance, but today the uneasiness followed her out of the truck and stayed with her until she was inside. Nothing shocking about that—it hadn’t been the most carefree of days. Well, it was done now, would be nothing but a memory by morning, fast on its way to becoming a story she would actually enjoy telling at parties, soaking up the way people’s eyes widened and their jaws hung slack when she described the gunshots echoing outside of her father’s shop.

Yes, soon that’s all it would be. A memory and a story.

She’d eaten no dinner, but the effort of preparing food seemed too much and her appetite too little, so instead she settled for pouring a glass of red wine and moving into the living room. Say this much for Dad’s furniture, she thought, it looks like something you’d want to hide even at a garage sale, but it’s comfortable.

She sank into one of his overstuffed couches and kicked her shoes off, unbuttoned the denim work shirt and slipped out of it, down to the sleeveless white shirt she wore underneath. Feet up on the coffee table and wine in hand, she exhaled slowly and lifted her glass to the jackalope.

“Rough day. How about you?”

It took one glass of wine and thirty minutes of bad TV before she gave up and decided to call it a night. She was exhausted, and tomorrow wouldn’t be a typical Saturday—she needed to get up early and track Jerry down, coerce him into getting the Lexus back into one piece. Once that was settled, she could turn it over to the police and, hopefully, have the whole miserable mess done.

Halfway to the bedroom, she remembered that the police might have used the shop number instead of the house if they’d learned anything or had any more questions. It was probably too late for that, but she was curious, and it was worth checking. She dialed the shop number and waited until she got to voice mail, then punched the pound key and entered the password. One message waiting, the robotic voice informed her. The police, surely.

It wasn’t the police.

Hello, I’m calling for Nora Stafford. This is Frank Temple. Listen . . . if you want that Mitsubishi back, I know where it is. But we’re going to need to talk some things over first. I think I might . . . there’s a chance I might know a little bit about that guy. Vaughn. I’m not sure of anything yet, but I’ve got some things that I should probably explain to you before anybody tries to deal with this guy. I’d like to talk to you, and then, you know, probably to the police. We’ll see.

He left his cell phone number, which she already had, and hung up. Nora stood in the dark living room with the phone to her ear for a minute, then punched the button that replayed the message. Listening to it again, she felt a twist of fear begin to counteract the sleepiness created by fatigue and wine.

Frank Temple knew where her car was? And, apparently, something about the man who’d taken it? Where, in the time since she’d dropped him off, had he stumbled across that sort of information, alone in his cabin on the lake?

I’d like to talk to you, and then, you know, probably to the police. We’ll see.

We’ll see?

13

__________

He woke to the sounds of birds, but it was anything but pleasant. Harsh, angry caws, shrieked in rage. Frank