She looked at him blankly for a moment. “He doesn’t feel like he can leave,” she said again.
“I assure you he can,” Cahill said.
“We have our art work in common,” she said, as if he’d asked for further explanation.
He looked at her.
“Matt and me,” she said finally.
“This matter is entirely between you and Matt,” he said. “You don’t have to persuade me of anything.”
“He respects you. You’re like a father figure to him. It’s just that he doesn’t think he can leave you.”
“You’ve said that many times,” Cahill said. “I’ve explained that he can leave.”
“He loves me,” she said. “He said he’d take care of me.”
“Well,” he said, “perhaps you can work things out. When people are meant to be together, such things have been known to happen.”
“You’re trying to get rid of me,” she said in a trembling voice. “You don’t think I’m good enough.”
“Please do me the favor of not attempting to read my mind,” he said. “I was about to eat a late dinner when you knocked, and now it’s time to do that, if you’ll excuse me.”
She stamped her foot. The woman was ridiculous; he would have to get a peephole and not let such people in.
“Can I see?” she said plaintively.
Cahill stared at her. “See what?” he said.
“Just once, can I find out if somebody’s trying to get rid of me or if you’re really eating dinner?”
He almost expressed his surprise, but checked his reaction. He leveled his eyes on her, wondering whether she wasn’t shamed by her own childishness. Of course, such people rarely were. “By all means,” he said. “The kitchen door is right there.”
Surely she would not really go in, but no—of course she would. Like an obese patient advised to diet who would proceed immediately to the nearest vending machine for a candy bar. There she went, to view his potpie. She would be seeing that, and the landslide of mostly unread newspapers that needed to be thrown out, a few days’ worth of dirty dishes in the sink. He had not yet carried out the trash, so perhaps even the dead chipmunk had begun to smell.
“That’s all you’re eating?” she said, returning to the room. In a gentler tone of voice, she said, “I could cook for you. Make extra when I cook for Matt and me.”
“I assume Matt doesn’t know you’re here?” he said.
She shrugged. “I can’t find him,” she said. “I thought maybe he was here.”
He gestured toward the front door. “When you find him, you can discuss with him these generous impulses,” he said. “I wish you good night.”
She started to say something. He could almost sense the second when she decided against it and turned to leave. He followed her out the door and stood on the stoop. No lights were on in the barn. The stars shone brightly, and there was a faint, wind-chime-tinged breeze. Breezy’s house was the only one he could see that was lit. Matt’s car was not in the driveway. Audrey waved sadly, overacting, the poor child cast out into the night. He did not return the wave.
Damn the woman! There was nothing he liked less than getting caught up in other people’s soap operas. He wrote a quick note on the pad by the phone and walked over to stick it to Matt’s front door. “Met your friend Audrey,” the note said. “Stop by when you get back.”
The next morning, when he answered his front door he saw not Matt but Deirdre Rambell, who worked as a secretary at town hall and had heard about what she called, with hushed sincerity, the situation. “Deirdre, it’s a few rocks that I’ve already put back,” he said. “The town is making a mountain out of a molehill.”
“Oh, it’s the Historical Society, you know. The volunteers go around checking, and they really care. For my own part, I’ve always felt the dead have souls that cannot be at peace when they sense any lack of respect.”
“Souls sense respect?” he said. He realized with slight embarrassment that although he was wearing chinos, he still had on his pajama top.
“Indeed they do,” she said.
“Then let me inform you, Deirdre, that at this point I have replaced all but a couple of the six or seven stones necessary to give the souls their deserved respect. Let me also ask you this: Do you happen to really know or care anything about the people buried on this property? About their lives, I mean—as people, rather than as souls?”
Nothing in his tone registered with her. “Aren’t they Moultons?” she said. “Fine people, among the first settlers.”
“Onward!” she exclaimed when she finally drove away.
Yes, he thought, that sort of woman always feels that she’s making progress.
You Got No Choice appeared next, apologizing for what he called the “slipup” at town hall. “That lamebrained letter was embarrassing,” he said, rolling his eyes. “I just found out, Doc, and came right over to apologize.”
“You, and the rest of the town, will be relieved to know that, as infirm as I am, the wall has been repaired, and now all is well with the world.”
“Excellent, Doc!” He tugged the brim of his cap.
“You wouldn’t have seen Matt’s van anywhere around town, would you?” Cahill said. “I haven’t seen him in a while.”
