A shard of moonlight glowed in the room.
It hadn’t seemed this bright from the hallway, she thought with a tinge of wonder. Then even that suggestion of strangeness disappeared and she returned to the business at hand-being a mother, protecting her boys from…, well, to be honest, she thought, from funny noises in the night-like funny noises in the car, she added mentally, that in the comic strips only wives hear but that husbands must eventually pay for when the funny, imaginary noises suddenly transform into reality and become cracked blocks or stripped brakes or exploding radiators or expiring transmissions.
She stopped.
She didn’t like the direction her thoughts were heading. She looked around.
She could define the outlines of the bunk beds, the box bed against the far wall, the dressers. She crossed to the dresser and turned on a small Mickey Mouse table lamp. It had been Will’s, but he had recently announced that it was “baby-stuff,” and Burt had inherited it by default. In the soft golden glow of the 40-watt bulb, she studied the room.
Sams was curled up against the wall, swaddled in his favorite blanket, the satin edging stuffed into his mouth like a surrogate thumb. It was in fact a surrogate thumb, and sometimes he sucked on the edging until it was so wet and filthy and smelly that Catherine wanted to burn it. But each time it went into the wash, Sams would stand solitary guard over the machine until it came out, then transfer his attention to the dryer.
Somehow, she never quite found the courage to get rid of the thing.
She leaned over and pulled the edging out of his mouth, shivering when she felt how clammy the material was. But she knew that even asleep Sams would have it in his mouth again in a matter of seconds.
Sure enough, before she had straightened, his hand flailed for a moment, made contact, and retrieved the grungy satin.
Oh well, she sighed silently.
She turned her attention to the other boys.
Will, Jr., on the top bunk, was nothing more than a heap of bedding. She knew that he must be in there somewhere, but it took a bit of probing to find a scrawny, warm arm connected to an equally scrawny shoulder that led to neck and head. His forehead felt a bit warm, but Catherine put that up to the excitement of moving.
On the lower bunk, Burt presented an opposite picture. Most of him was exposed to the cold. His legs were clearly visible, encased in flannel pjs that had pulled up almost to his knees; his stomach was similarly exposed almost to his chest. But his head was covered. For Burt, that always seemed enough, no matter how cold it might get. She shook her head, tugged his pajama tops to his waist, and pulled the pant legs to his ankles. She unwrapped the mound at his head, straightening the blanket and tucking it around his body and wondering as she did so how the kid had managed to avoid a fatal case of pneumonia during any of his eight winters. But he never even had so much as an ear infection or a light case of croup.
She shrugged.
There was no understanding kids. But then, that was something she had learned long before. She leaned over and planted a kiss on Burt’s forehead, knowing full well that before she was out of the room the bedding would begin its inevitable trek upward, past shin and knee and tummy and chest, to wrap like a friendly serpent around his neck and head. Oh well, as long as…
Thump.
She straightened so suddenly that she cracked her head on the edge of Will’s bunk. This thump echoed the other ones, the mysterious sounds that had drawn her from her bed and sent her on this nighttime search. She pulled herself away from the bunks and stood in the center of the room.
Eyes closed, ears strained, she concentrated. After what must have been minutes, she heard it again.
Thump thump thump.
It was coming from the roof! She was sure of it. She crossed to the window. The moon glowed faintly through a break in the cloud cover. The rain had stopped, but the wind was still high enough to rustle the elm in the corner of the lot.
Behind the tree, through its December-naked branches, she saw the lights of traffic on the freeway. Even at this hour, she thought, still as busy as ever.
Thump.
Now she had a handle on the sound.
She left the boys’ room and went into Suze’s. She slid the newly hung curtains open and watched as the wind fingered through a line of black yew trees bordering the property next door. The branches seemed dipped in silver and sable, at once intriguing and subtly frightening in the intensity of light and shadow. Catherine shuddered.
Thump.
Yes, that had to be it.
She left Suze’s room, with a final glance at the mound that hid her daughter, and returned to her own bedroom. Willard hadn’t moved. She stepped out of her scuffs and, still wearing the flannel robe, slipped beneath the covers, feeling their clammy chill where they had been turned back, the lingering warmth of her own body further down. Willard seemed to be radiating waves of heat, but Catherine knew that it was only because she had become chilled from her little trip. She put her feet on Willard’s calves. Part of her wanted him to wake up, at least enough to reach for her, perhaps enough to want to do more.
But another part urged him to remain asleep. She didn’t want to tell him what she had done.
She didn’t want to admit that the thumping of seedpods dropping from the yews onto the roof had nearly freaked her out as badly as had the hot water expanding pipes over a decade before. She didn’t want him to know that she had been nervous and upset her first night in the house…in their house. She snuggled against him.
Mentally she thanked the previous owners for being so desperate to move to their new, custom-built house in Newton Park, at the eastern edge of the Valley, that they took a deep cut in their asking price. After all, escrow had fallen through on two previous attempts to sell the house, and if it fell through a third time, Chuck Maxwell had explained, the other family stood a real chance of losing their new place. They had to sell.
And she thanked Chuck as well, with his creative approach to real estate that had gotten them just past the money requirements for the house. A five-thousand dollar landscaping allowance for the bare back yard, paid by the Merricks as part of the deal, had given them just the edge…and the house at 1066 Oleander was theirs.
Theirs.
The word made her feel snug and safe. She nestled against Willard’s back and, her arm resting across his shoulder, finally drifted into sleep.
From the Tamarind Valley Times, 5 November 1989:
SEARCH CONTINUES FOR MISSING VALLEY BUSINESSMAN
The investigation into the disappearance of Bryan Sidney, the Tamarind Valley realtor and construction executive missing since last Friday, expanded today to include county agencies. Sidney, 47, senior partner in Ace- High Construction and co-founder of McCall/Sidney Realty, was reported missing on October 30 when he failed to appear at a meeting of the County Realtors’ Association annual meeting in Santa Barbara, at which he was to deliver the opening address. A full investigation has been launched, said a County Sheriff spokesman today, although there are no substantive leads as yet.
A long-time bachelor, Sidney was last seen by his secretary when he closed his office Thursday evening. He had no scheduled appointments for that night, she claimed, but it was possible that he might have gone…
Chapter Three
The Huntleys, January 2010
Settling In
1
