enough. The cleanup crew, two young black men being watched by an older one, turned their heads to cast us a glance.
It was one of those moments that you always remember for no apparent reason. It was dreadfully hot, the sun brilliant in a cloudless sky. The three workmen had huge, dark stains on their shirts, and one of the younger men had a red bandanna over his head. The ancient city dump truck was painted dark orange. Condensation from the cup containing my soft drink was making a wet blotch on the paper bag; I worried that the bag would break. I was feeling glad to see Macon, but also impatient to get inside the cool house and eat lunch and check on Madeleine’s brood. I felt a trickle of sweat start up under my green-and-white-striped dress, felt it roll its ticklish way down under my belt to my hips. I looped my purse strap over my shoulder so I could have a free hand to hold up my hair in the vain hope of catching a breeze across my neck; I hadn’t had time to braid my hair that morning. I looked down at a crack in the driveway and wondered how to get it repaired. Weeds were growing through in unattractive abundance.
I was just thinking that I was glad Mother had married John Queensland, whom I found worthy but often boring, rather than Macon, whose face was made disturbingly attractive by his intelligence, when one of the workmen let out a yell. It hung in the thick, hot air; all three men froze. Macon’s head turned in midstride, and he paused as his foot hit the ground. All movement seemed to become deliberate. I was acutely aware of turning my head slightly, the better to see what the man with the red bandanna was lifting off the ground. The contrast of his black hand against the white bone was riveting.
“God almighty! It’s a dead man!” bellowed the other worker, and the slow motion speeded up into a sequence too swift for me to replay afterward.
I decided that day that the dead person could not be Macon Turner’s son; or, at least if it was, Edward had not been killed by Macon. Macon’s face never showed the slightest hint that this find might have a personal slant. He was excited and interested and almost broke his door down to get in to call the police.
Lynn came out of her house when the police car appeared. She looked pale and miserable. Her belly preceded her like a tugboat pulling her along.
“What’s the fuss?” she asked, nodding toward the workmen, who were reliving their find complete with quotes and gestures while the patrolman peered down into the thick weeds and vines choking the base of the sign.
“A skeleton, I think,” I said cautiously. Though I was sure it was not a
Lynn looked unmoved. “I bet it turns out to be a Great Dane or some other big dog. Maybe even some cow bones or deer bones left over from some home butchering.”
“Could be,” I said. I looked up at Lynn, whose hand was absently massaging her bulging belly. “How are you doing?”
“I feel like…” She paused to think. “I feel like if I bent over, the baby’s so low I could shake hands with it.”
“Oo,” I said. I squinched up my face trying to imagine it.
“You’ve never been pregnant,” Lynn said, a member of a club I’d never belonged to. “It’s not as easy as you might think, considering women have done it for millions of years.” Right now, Lynn was a lot more interested in her own body than in the body at the end of the road.
“So you’re not working now?” I asked, keeping one eye cocked at the patrolman, who was now using his radio. The workmen had calmed down and moved into the shade of a tree in Macon’s front yard. Macon disappeared into his house, popping back out with a camera and notepad.
“No. My doctor told me I had to take off work and keep my feet up for as long each day as I can. Since we got most of the boxes unpacked and the nursery is ready, I just do house things about two hours each day, and the rest of the time,” she told me gloomily, “I just wait.”
This was so-un-Lynn.
“Are you excited?” I asked hesitantly.
“I’m too uncomfortable to be excited. Besides, Arthur is excited enough for both of us.”
I found that hard to picture.
“You don’t mind anymore, do you?” Lynn asked suddenly.
“No.”
“You dating anyone else?”
“Sort of. But I just stopped minding.”
Luckily Lynn stopped there, because I simply would not say anything more about it.
“Do you think you’ll keep the house?”
“I have no idea.” I almost asked Lynn if it would bother her if I did, then I realized I didn’t want to know the answer.
“Are you going to that party?” Lynn asked after a moment.
“Yes.”
“We will too, I guess, though I’m not much in partying shape. That Marcia Rideout looked at me like she’d never seen a pregnant woman when she came over to meet me and leave the invitation. She made me feel like the Goodyear blimp and an unmade bed all at once.”
I could see how that would be, given Marcia’s aggressively good grooming.
“I better go check on the kittens,” I told Lynn. The situation down at the end of the street was static. The patrolman leaned against his car, waiting for someone else to show up, apparently. Macon was standing at the end of the pavement looking down at the bones. The workmen were smoking and drinking RC Colas.
“Oh, you have kittens? Can I see?” For the first time, Lynn looked animated.
“Sure,” I said with some surprise. Then I realized Lynn was in the mood to see baby anything.
The kittens were more active today. They tumbled over one another, their eyes still not open, and Madeleine surveyed them with queenly pride. One was coal black, the others marmalade and white like their mother. Soon their energy ran out and they began to nurse, dropping off into sleep directly after. Lynn had carefully lowered herself to the floor and watched silently, her face unreadable. I went into the kitchen to replenish Madeleine’s water and food, and I changed the litter box while I was at it. After I washed my hands and had a gulp of my drink and most of my hamburger, I went back to the bedroom to find Lynn still staring.
“Did you watch them being born?” she asked.
“Yep.”
“Did it look like she hurt?”
“It looked like it was work,” I said carefully.
She sighed heavily. “Well, I expect that,” she said, trying to sound philosophical.
“Have you gone to Lamaze?”
“Oh, yeah. We do our breathing exercises every night,” she said unenthusiastically.
“You don’t think they’re going to work?”
“I have no idea. You know what’s really scary?”
“What?”
“No one will tell you.”
“Like who?”
I thought it over. “Well, I sure can’t answer any questions, but I’d tell you the truth if I could.”
“I expect,” Lynn said, “that I’ll be telling you, and pretty soon.”
When I left the house to return to the library, I saw two police cars parked in Macon Turner’s driveway, and the city truck was gone. The rest of the skeleton having been found was a great relief to me. Now the police would be working on finding out who it was. Perhaps the remaining bones would be enough? If they could find out from the bones, I mentally promised The Skull I would give it a decent burial.
I was guiltily aware I was not taking any morally firm position.
