Bewildered, Amy’s smile of welcome vanished and she twisted around in Faith’s lap to look at her mother’s face. It was still there. “Daddy?” Daddy walked into the kitchen. “Forgot I couldn’t get in that way,” he said ruefully. “I’ll go out to Concord Lumber tomorrow and order a new door. The sooner the better.”
Faith agreed. She was consumed by a desire for action—and a return to normalcy. The sound of the washer and dryer was calming. She’d already done several loads and there was a mountainous pile still left on the laundry room floor. She could also hear the vacuum as the cleaners worked to erase all signs of intrusion and investigation. The fingerprint powder was proving difficult to remove—and it was everywhere. Black on light surfaces, white and rust on dark.
When the children had come home, Ben, although reassured by Pix that nothing of his was missing, raced to his room. Faith followed him, carrying Amy. He was burrowing in his Lego bag and triumphantly held a small chamois pouch aloft.
“It’s still here! The robbers didn’t find my coin collection. Boy, would they be sorry if they knew.” Ben’s coin collection—a few francs, Canadian money, and the prize, a 1950 silver dollar. Intact. Lesson number one, Faith said to herself: Hide your best jewelry in the Legos or Lincoln Logs. Forget adult hiding places. Better still, place in Baggies and have your child create Play-Doh sculptures around them.
“The prints will be ready tomorrow. They put a rush on them.” Faith blinked and tuned in to what Tom was saying. Prints? Fingerprints? No, the photographs of their silver and jewelry that Tom’s Dad had been insistent they take a couple of years ago when he did his own. “Believe me,” he’d said, “I know insurance companies, and God forbid you should ever need these, but if you do, it will save a lot of aggravation.” Well, they needed them now. Tom had taken the negatives down to Aleford Photo to have enlargements and multiple copies made.
“They’re selling bowling balls.”
Faith put her finger to her lips. She’d told Ben the one with the blue sparkles was long gone.
“Yes, dear. We can talk about it later,” she told Tom.
Tom didn’t get the hint. This happened a lot in child rearing. “The guys at Aleford Photo—
they’ve got a table with all sorts of stuff on it, ancient Polaroid cameras, light meters, a pair of snowshoes, a paint sprayer, a kerosene heater, and a bowling ball.”
Faith gave up and laughed. Maybe what they needed right now was a sparkly bowling ball.
“I know. I’ve seen it. Recently, they’ve added arts and crafts—macrame and beadwork. They knew all about the break-in, right?” “Of course.” Either Bert or Richard—Faith could never remember which—was an auxiliary cop —crowd control on Patriot’s Day and traffic duty during holiday seasons for greater Boston’s pilgrimage to Aleford’s popular farm stand for a fresh turkey, tree, or first corn. The police scanner, which was on all the time, substituted for eleva-tor music at the camera shop. People had long ago formed the habit of dropping in to catch up on the news. And now, Faith thought, they can satisfy a host of passing whims, as well—like a sudden urge to bowl a few frames.
“Can we get it, Dad?”
“Get what, sweetheart?” Tom picked Ben up and sat him on the counter, eye-to-eye.
“The bowling ball.” He leaned around his father and said sternly to his mother, “You said it was gone.”
“It must be another one,” Faith said, matching his expression. She had no intention of letting her five-year-old get the upper hand.
“It
“We don’t need a bowling ball.” The moment had passed and Faith’s common sense had returned. She was forced to maintain a constant de-fense against Tom’s Yankee acquisitiveness, the kind defined by the words “Doesn’t cost much and could be useful,” as opposed to other forms of attainment, as in “Let’s browse at Blooming-dale’s.” She knew what Tom’s parents’ house was like, or, more specifically, their attic and garage.
The garage had been too full to park in since 1962 and Fairchild cars had to suffer the vicissitudes of New England winters. No one seemed to care.
The story of the Aleford Photo indoor yard sale—true, though hard to believe even of them—was Tom’s first attempt to get back to the way their life had been that morning, before the breakin. And it felt like swimming in Jell-O. From the moment he’d seen Faith in the upstairs hall, he had begun to pray. Help me find the way back.
And he had been repeating this and various other prayers ever since. Irrationally, he felt deeply upset that he hadn’t been able to protect his family from this crime. Closer to the surface, he was equally upset that Faith had discovered the burglary alone and had continued to be alone for much of the police investigation. Yet, he was also thankful—thankful she had not walked in on the robbery in progress. Unlike poor Sarah Winslow, Faith hadn’t been home. It was the first thing he’d thought of when he got the message. The relief he’d felt far overshadowed any feelings of loss.
He walked over to his wife and put his arms around her. Faith still looked stricken and she was holding Amy as if the baby were some kind of life buoy. We can’t let this get to us. Help me find the way back. He repeated it again.
But it was going to be hard. It was hard now.
There was a knock on the front door. Both adults jumped. Tom went to answer it, returning with a large shopping bag, held flat across his two hands.
“Another one?” Faith asked incredulously.
“Another one,” he answered, a warm smile crossing his face. He placed the parcel on the counter in front of him like an offering.
As soon as word got out that the Fairchilds had been robbed, phones started ringing and the casserole brigade sprang into action. Blissfully unaware that tuna noodle, even with crumbled potato chips on top, would be greeted by Faith as culinary crime, the housewives of Aleford reached for their Pyrex and got to work, offering solace the only way they could.
Earlier, Tom and Faith had followed Chief MacIsaac to the police station, where they waited on the uncomfortable vinyl-covered chairs while Charley got the fingerprint machinery ready.
“Just let your hand relax,” he’d told them, then held their wrists and swiftly pressed their fingers first over a roller of sticky black ink, then onto the paper. “Saw one of those new inkless machines the other day over in Lexington. Pretty nifty, but,” he’d added forlornly, “wouldn’t be worth the ink even to list it in my budget.”
After the ordeal that left Faith oddly feeling somewhat like a felon, she was all for Tom, a Town Meeting member, to demand the town vote in an inkless machine. The ink was impossible to get off, especially with the brand X liquid soap in the station’s tiny bathroom. “Out damned spot,” Faith had said as they washed up. She wasn’t joking. Her hands were red and raw from scrubbing.
The soap in the dispenser smelled like Lysol. “Is this really happening?” she’d asked Tom.
“But I want a bowling ball. I never threw one. I want to do it!” Ben’s voice was tremulous. Faith stood up and sat Amy next to her brother. Amy, thank God, was young enough to be oblivious to the horrendous events of the day. As far as she was concerned, things had gone rather well.
She’d played with her special friend, Nicholas, had lunch with her beloved Pix, and watched Samantha the goddess run around catching a little ball a lot. Yet, although Amy might not be old enough to know what had happened, she was dangerously adept at reading her mother’s moods, translating them instantly into her own replicas. Tired of doing wash, trying to restore order where none would exist for a while, and, most immediately, tired of the bowling ball argument, pained by what it actually represented, Faith was having a hard time controlling her emotions. She mounted a herculean effort not to let the tears so near the surface spill from her eyes or the angry words so close to her lips spew forth.
She put her arms around both kids, kissing her frightened son. Ben would require a great deal of reassurance—and patience—but no bowling ball.
“Let’s go for a drive. I think this family needs to have some ice cream!”
“The farm?” Ben knew when to push his luck.
Great Brook Farm was in Carlisle, a bit of a drive, yet it happened to fall in with Faith’s other plans.
“The farm,” she said, and took Amy off to get her ready. “On the way, we can have a kind of treasure hunt. It will be fun, you’ll see.” Tom looked mystified. “Treasure hunt?” He followed his wife out of the room.
“I want to look in a couple of Dumpsters. It’s possible that they’ll get rid of the stuff they don’t want, like our drawer.” She had heard this was a common practice. Pull over, go through the things, and winnow out. She’d
