I had stood there in front of the washing machine, staring at them in my palm, and wondered if I even
I dropped Leela off at the craft store, then rounded the corner and pulled up at the storefront for the mom- and-pop hardware store housed on the first floor of a crumbling Victorian building. Before he could get out, I said, “Come sit by me a second. I need to ask you something.”
Cooperatively—in his easy Scooter way—he climbed out and then back into the Jeep, settling into the passenger seat Leela had just vacated. I cut the engine and turned to face him, and he eyed me back warily.
“You remember when we painted the porch that day?” I began. “How you told me you were worried about Elias?”
He nodded.
“And it turned out you were right. And you came to me because you didn’t think the rest of the family was picking up on it.”
“I remember.”
“Well, now I’m coming to you. I’m worried about what’s going on with Cade. He promised me he wasn’t building bombs, and now he’s back in the shed again all the time. Just like after Elias died.”
He hesitated. “Did you look in the shed yourself?”
“He’s started using the padlock. I don’t know the code.”
Scooter shifted in the seat. He glanced back at TJ hammering against the seat back with the soles of his tiny sneakers. “He and Dodge have been talking a lot,” he said. “I think they’ve got something planned.”
His words should have come as no surprise, but I felt the squeeze in my chest even so. “Like what?”
“I don’t know. They talk about all kinds of things. Cade’s so pissed about Elias, and Dodge just feeds it and feeds it. I don’t even think Dodge feels that bad about what happened, truth be told. I think he just likes that he can puppet Cade by talking about it. But he still talks real big about how it was an injustice done to him and they need to settle the debt.”
“But what are they
He shrugged. “I couldn’t tell you. Olmsteads are never real clear on what they’re actually up to. Trust me, I hear stories from the Vogels.”
“Well, will you tell me if you do hear anything? Promise me you will.” He looked uneasy, and so I leaned in closer, dropped my voice. “I promise not to lay blame on you. And if you trusted me back then, I ought to be able to trust you now.”
He replied with a slow nod. Then he said, “If you need to get away from the house, go to the other Olmsteads. Randy and Lucia. You can trust them. They’re good people.”
I squinted at him in surprise. “How would you know?”
“They’re no strangers to me. I went to church with them growing up. I don’t see them too often now, but I know what kind of stock they are. They’re taking the blame for what the renters said to Dodge, and he’s spreading that around all over, and they don’t say a word in their own defense. It wasn’t them at all.”
“I know. Dodge is paranoid.”
“No, I mean, it was me. I got creeped out hearing all the remarks Dodge made about their daughter and I said something to them privately. I’m sure the other Olmsteads know it came from me, but they’re church people, they wouldn’t snitch on me about it. And of course Dodge thinks it’s Randy because he thinks everything’s Randy.” He cracked his knuckles one at a time, his gaze focused past my shoulder at the town scene around us. “The only reason I can trust you with all that is I’ve seen you can keep a secret. You’ve got integrity. I’m counting on you, same as you are on me.”
“What secret?”
“About Elias. That he didn’t love you like a sister-in-law. That time we were all working at the house, painting and whatnot, the way he looked at you.” I opened my mouth to protest, but Scooter shook his head. “A person would have had to’ve been an idiot not to see it. He took it to his grave, and you never stirred up contention over it. It was smart you kept that quiet. Candy didn’t like people who interfered with her brother too much.”
My voice seemed caught in the trap of his accusation. I looked away, and into the awkward silence he said, “Well, I’m going to go buy a hammer. You can pick Leela up and then swing back around to get me.”
The door slammed. After a moment I turned the key in the ignition and radio music filled the car: Alison Krauss, “
I dropped Leela off back at the house, then Scooter at the Vogels’, but from there I turned the Jeep east and kept on driving. A year ago, when Elias was struggling, I had considered calling Dave to ask his advice, but I shied away from doing so because I didn’t want to confess to an outsider that there was a problem in my family. Now it shamed me, the pride that had stopped me from seeking help. How many times had I heard my mother speak of the importance of humbling oneself and admitting when a situation had spiraled beyond one’s control? I owed it to her, and to Elias, not to make the same mistake twice.
I needed no map to find Randy’s place. As soon as I had read their address on the card Lucia had slipped in with the cookies, I knew it would be a place on the main highway just across the border in Maine. I’d guessed the house would be large, and I was right: it was a sprawling Cape Cod–style place, with a sloping second story on top of a ground floor sided in rough-hewn stone, attractive and not very old. From the porch a large American flag flapped in the April wind, and a sturdy wooden swing set in the front yard was crowded with shouting children. When I shut off the Jeep and opened my door, the children all turned to stare at me. Lucia leaned out of a window of the second story above the garage; after a moment she waved to me, then noisily clanged a bell attached to the siding. The children rushed back inside through the open garage door.
I unclipped TJ from his car seat and slammed the door, drawing a shaky breath. As I approached the house I could hear a woman’s voice calling to someone inside. In a moment the front door opened, and there stood Lucia in a blouse and long skirt, her hair arranged in a heavy braid that fell to the small of her back. “Jill Olmstead,” she said.
“Yes.”
“I can tell that’s Cade’s baby.”
She gestured me inside, and I stepped into the entryway. In the living room a woodstove blazed, and its gleaming light seemed to gild the camel-colored furniture and red rugs. It was a lovely house, tidy and clean and welcoming. A fresh scent of burning wood brightened the air. Photographs of the children hung from every wall. “Scooter told me it would be okay to talk to you,” I began.
“Of course it’s fine.”
“I was hoping I could speak to Randy. I want to talk to him about Cade.”
She led me into a large and open kitchen, where a tall man was rising from the table. His hair was dark, but his face was not unlike Cade’s: angular and handsome, though roughened by age and years of working in the sun. I said, “I came to see you because I have a concern about the family.”
“Do you, now.”
“I wouldn’t come to you if I had an idea of where else to go. Since Elias died things have been in sort of a downward spiral.” I forced myself to focus on the task at hand, not to allow my emotions to well. Randy Olmstead didn’t look like the sort of man who would appreciate a strange woman sniveling in his kitchen. “I thought they’d get better, but some people in the family aren’t dealing with their grief very well.”
“Scooter’s told us about that.”
I nodded. “Cade took it particularly hard. He’s angry. He was having a rough year even before it happened, so it’s that much worse after. And he takes Dodge so much more seriously these days, and you know Dodge. He’s—his ideas are—”
“He doesn’t always look at things from every angle.”
“That’s one way to put it.” TJ was squirming in my arms. Lucia scooped him up and carried him to another room, leaving me alone with Randy. I gnawed my lip, worrying over how much I should reveal. “Listen, Elias trusted you. I think Cade would, too, but he’s so angry—he needs somebody to talk him down, desperately. He seems
