Bloodline(6)

If Ronald’s a gentleman, he won’t mention my mortifying mistake.

In fact, I’m going to decide it never happened.

“Come on, you,” I say to Slow Henry.

I toss a parting glance at the house next door, noticing its window is open the exact height as mine. I shiver and squeeze Slow Henry tighter, making my way to the main floor.

The dining room seems to have shrunk, jammed as it is with strangers, all of them eagerly watching me descend, a hungry nest clamoring as its food drops down. My gut grows slimy.

“There she is!” a large man booms from the bottom of the stairs, his voice so loud that Slow Henry yowls and leaps out of my arms. The man is square-jawed, one of the biggest humans I’ve ever seen, the size and build of a grizzly bear. “Ronald and Barbara’s new daughter-in-law!”

“Mr. Brody,” Deck cautions, appearing beside the man.

Before I can figure out the joke, Mr. Brody wraps me in a hug that steals my breath.

“My name’s Clan,” he says, still too loud. “Clan Brody. We live right next door.”

Engulfed in his arms, I think about the empty house I just peeked inside, the one with sheets draped over the furniture. He must mean the other next door.

“You’ll have to tell my wife, Catherine, if you need anything,” he continues. “She’s in charge of Lilydale’s welcoming committee.”

“Nice to meet you,” I murmur into his shirt.

They sure like their hugs in Lilydale.

“Oh, let her go, Clan,” I hear. I’m released to face a woman with a sharp, broad face. She looks familiar.

“I’m Catherine,” she says, holding out her hand.

When I clasp it, I realize she doesn’t look like anyone I know. Rather, she’s a dead ringer for the mother captured in Dorothea Lange’s iconic Depression-era photo, the one of a woman sitting grimly on the edge of a tent, covered with her dirty, tired-looking children. Migrant Mother. That’s the photo’s name.

Clan the Brody Bear and Catherine the Migrant Mother.

“My turn,” I hear.

Catherine releases my hand. Another man moves in to embrace me, but he makes it short, a quick squeeze before stepping back. He’s wearing browline glasses, striking against his tight, narrow face.

“Mr. Schramel,” Deck says respectfully, gripping the man’s hand before turning to the woman with mouse-colored hair standing next to him. “Mrs. Schramel.”

Another casserole, I think, noting her acorn-shaped covered Pyrex dish with a matching acorn-patterned towel wrapped around its bottom and handles. But then I catch myself being ungenerous. It’s a reflex, something I do as protection when I’m overwhelmed. Here I am judging these lovely people—Deck’s family and friends—when they’re bringing me food and welcome.

“Mildred,” she says, ducking her fuzzy brown head.

Browline Schramel and Mildred the Mouse.

It’s what I do to organize the chaos of the world: create characters out of the people I meet and turn those characters into stories. But there are too many new faces coming at me. Browline Schramel and Mildred the Mouse step aside, and I find myself in the arms of a police officer, still in uniform.

“Amory Bauer,” he says, “chief of police. And this is my wife, Rue.”

If I were to pick two people in the crowded den less likely to be a couple, it would be Amory and Rue. She’s tiny and birdlike. Her neck twitches, and her eyes behind her glasses dart everywhere. Amory, however, is a mountain of a man, even larger than Clan in girth but not height. He was handsome once, I can tell from the pale blue of his eyes and the silver streaking his ink-black hair. He’s carrying forty extra pounds, though, most of it inner tubing his stomach. His smile, while dashing, has an arrogant tilt.

My mother never liked police officers. Said they couldn’t be trusted, not one of them.

Amory Mountain and Birdie Rue.

“Last but not least,” Ronald says, pushing a wheelchair to the front of the receiving line. (That’s what this is. A receiving line.) The man in the wheelchair is hunched and trembling.

“Pleased to meet you,” I say, hands stiff at my side. Should I crouch so I’m at his eye level? I hate myself for not knowing how to speak to someone in his condition. I dearly hope I’m not making him uncomfortable.

“Did you hear that, Stanley?” A woman appears next to him, patting his hand, gazing at him lovingly before winking at me. “This is Deck’s girl. She says she’s pleased to meet you.”

Stanley doesn’t make a noise, but he drags his rocking head upward for a moment. A bulbous nose shades thin lips. I think I spot a flash of something smart in his rheumy brown eyes, but the light promptly fades.

The woman holds out her hand. “I’m Dorothy. Dorothy Lily.”

Despite being petite, she carries herself in a way that suggests authority. She’s wearing a smart red pantsuit, the flower-shaped, enameled white locket at her neck her only jewelry. I self-consciously straighten my posture. “Joan. So nice of you to drop by.”

“So nice of you to move in,” she says, her smile distant but warm. “It’s been too long since we had young blood on Mill Street.”

Startled, I glance around the room. The guests are snacking on Ritz crackers and deviled eggs brought by I don’t know who, the men drinking beers like they’ve visited here before. I suppose they have. “You all live on Mill Street?”