The Invited(19)

“Blue,” she said. “Like the sky. Like the color of Mama’s favorite dress. You know the one I mean?”

Daddy frowned hard, his brow wrinkling all old-man-like, as if the memory of Mama in her dress was just too much for him. He seemed to get visibly smaller, shrinking before her eyes. “I know the one you mean,” he said, voice low and crackling. He looked down into the coffee mug, then took a sip even though it was steaming hot. “I’ll pick up some paint samples on my way home and let you decide which one’s closest.”

“Sounds good,” Olive said. She put a cinnamon roll on a plate and handed it to Daddy.

“Thanks,” he said, taking a big bite as he headed back out of the kitchen to get ready for work. “Mmm! You’re getting to be quite the cook.”

She thought of saying, They’re from a tube, Dad. A trained monkey could make them. But instead, she called out, “Thank you,” and took a sip from her own giant mug of coffee.



* * *



. . .

She heard the shower go on, the plumbing making a not-so-comforting thumping sound. She was sure they’d put some of the pipes back together wrong when they redid the bathroom. Sometimes the thumping of the pipes turned into a low whine, sounding like there was a monster trapped behind the walls, screaming to get out. She had no doubt that they’d need to take the wall down again and replace the plumbing. Then maybe Daddy would decide that the shower should be moved to another wall and they’d do everything all over again.

Twenty minutes later, she was wrapping up the rest of the rolls when Daddy came in, smelling like mentholated shaving cream and Irish Spring soap. He filled up his travel mug. Olive handed him the sack lunch she’d packed for him: a ham sandwich, an apple, and two cinnamon rolls.

    “I’m off,” he said, grabbing the keys to his truck. “You want a ride? I’ve gotta be over on County Road this morning—they’re redoing the culvert—but I can drop you off on the way.”

County Road was on the other side of town from the high school. It wasn’t on the way at all. She smiled at his kind offer. “No thanks, I’ll take the bus.”

“Better skedaddle if you don’t want to miss it,” he warned.

“On my way in five minutes,” she said.

“Good girl,” he called as he went out the front door, not looking back. She heard his old Chevy start up, cranking slowly like it wasn’t sure it wanted to go anywhere, but then it caught and roared to life.

She sat back down, got out another cinnamon bun. She wasn’t going to catch the bus. Odd Oliver wasn’t going to school at all today.

She had other plans.





CHAPTER 5



Helen





MAY 19, 2015

Nate had his laptop open and played her the terrible sounds again and again. A red fox screaming. A fisher. Both noises cruel, pained, and hideous sounding. She flinched each time he pushed the play button. He cocked his head, listened harder, like he was trying to learn their language.

“Is either of those what you heard?”

“I don’t know. I don’t know what I heard,” she said, taking a long sip of wine. “Now would you please stop playing them over and over?”

She was tired and sore and wanted a hot bath. But they had only a tiny shower, barely large enough to turn around in, with a stained plastic enclosure and a handheld shower wand with water pressure so bad, Nate called it the spit bath. That would have to do.

“People call them fisher cats, but they’re not cats at all,” he explained. “They’re actually a member of the weasel family.”

He pushed play once more and the kitchen was filled with that horrible screeching.

“Please, Nate,” she begged. “Just turn the fucking thing off.”

They’d spent the morning stacking the lumber they’d had delivered under a nylon canopy, then set up a second canopy as a work area and place to store tools. The guy who delivered the lumber told them there had been a terrible accident down near the center of town last night—a school bus carrying high school kids went off the road. Three dead, twenty injured. The road was still down to one lane while the police worked the scene.

“My cousin was on that bus,” the lumberyard man told them. “She’s okay, but her and the others, they say the driver swerved to avoid a woman in the road.”

“My god,” Nate said. “Was the woman hit?”

    “No sign of the woman when the fire department got there. Just the wrecked bus and a bunch of hysterical, hurt kids.” The lumberman looked out at the trees, eyes on the path that led down to the bog.

“Terrible,” Helen said.

“Maybe that’s what you heard last night?” Nate asked. “Screeching tires? Sirens?”

She shook her head. She was familiar with those sounds; with the highway not far from their condo, she’d heard them plenty back in Connecticut.

“I doubt you would have heard anything way up here,” the lumber guy said.

“Sound travels in funny ways,” said Nate, more to himself than the lumberyard man, as if he was trying to convince himself that the accident might well have been what Helen had heard.

Once the lumber was stacked, she and Nate started framing one of the walls.