“At the risk of being misunderstood as looking for sympathy, there’s one other thing I want to tell you about Benton,” Elizabeth said. “He used to put his camera on his tripod and take pictures of Jason when he was an infant — roll after roll. He’d stand by his crib and take pictures of Jason when he was sleeping. I remember asking him why he was taking so many pictures when Jason’s expression wasn’t changing, and you know what he said? He said that he was photographing light.”
Déjà vu: Ena with the afghan, Uncle Cal circling figures on the stock page, knocking his empty pipe against the old wooden chest in front of the sofa with the regular motion of a metronome, Elizabeth reading a book, her feet tucked primly beneath her, coffee steaming on the table by her chair.
“Went out and got drunk,” Uncle Cal said in greeting. “I couldn’t.” He tapped his shirt pocket. It made a crinkling noise. Pipe cleaners stuck out of the pocket, next to a pack of cigarettes.
Elizabeth was reading A Tale of Two Cities. She continued to read as if he hadn’t come into the room. The cat was curled by the side of the chair.
“Hanley Paulson isn’t coming,” Elizabeth said.
“We can go to lunch and leave him a note and the check,” Uncle Cal said.
“That would be just fine,” Ena said. “He’s not a common delivery person — he’s a friend of long standing.”
“Maybe someone told him Wesley was dead, and he isn’t coming.”
“I called him,” Ena said. “Not Wesley.”
“Wesley wouldn’t have paid seventy-five dollars for half a cord of wood,” Elizabeth said.
“Everyone is perfectly free to go out,” Ena said.
Nick went into the kitchen. He saw Benton and Jason and Olivia, all red-cheeked, with puffs of air coming out of their mouths. They were playing some sort of game in which they came very close to Olivia and ducked at the last second, so she couldn’t reach out and touch them. The sky was gray-white, and it looked like snow. Olivia was loosening the scarf around her neck and lighting one of her hand-rolled narrow cigarettes. Either that, or she had stopped caring and was smoking a joint. He watched her puff. A regular cigarette. Olivia’s jeans were rolled to the knee, and the bright red socks she wore reminded him of the large red stocking his uncle had hung by the mantel for him when he was young. “Let’s see Santa fill that,” his uncle had laughed, as the toe of the stocking grazed the hearth. In the morning, his usual stocking was in the toe of the large stocking, and his father was glaring at his uncle. His father did not even like his brother — how could he have wanted to send him to live with him?
Uncle Cal came into the kitchen and took cheese out of the refrigerator.
“I’m going to grill some French bread with cheese on top,” he said. “Will anyone share my lunch?”
“Give me whatever you’re having,” Ena said.
“No, thank you,” Elizabeth said.
“Not good for me, but I love it,” Uncle Cal said to Nick. “You?”
“Sure,” Nick said.
“You watch it so it doesn’t get too brown,” Uncle Cal said, smoothing Brie over the two halves of bread. “I’m going out for a second to clear my lungs.”
Nick looked out the window. Uncle Cal was bending forward, cupping his hands, lighting a cigarette. He had only taken one puff when a car pulled into the driveway.
“Is that Hanley’s truck?” Ena called.
“It’s just a car,” Nick said.
“I hope it isn’t someone coming to express sympathy unannounced,” Ena said. She was still wearing her pajamas, and a quilted Chinese coat.
Nick watched as a boy got out of the car and Benton went to talk to him. Benton and the boy talked for a while, and then Benton left him standing there, Jason circling his car with one arm down, one arm high, buzzing like a plane. Benton pushed open the kitchen door.
“Where do you want the wood stacked?” he called.
“Is that Hanley Paulson?” Ena asked, getting up.
“It’s his son. He wants to know where to put the wood.”
“Oh, dear,” Ena said, pulling off her jacket and going to the closet for her winter coat. “Outside the kitchen door where it will be sheltered, don’t you think?”
Benton closed the kitchen door.
“Where’s Hanley?” Ena said, hurrying past Nick. Still in her slippers, she went onto the lawn. “Are you Hanley’s son?” Nick heard her say. “Please come in.”
The boy walked into the kitchen behind Ena. He had a square face, made squarer by dirty blond bangs, cut straight across. He stood in the kitchen, hands plunged in his pockets, looking at Ena.
“Where would you like the wood, ma’am?” he said.
“Oh,” she said, “well, Hanley always stacks it at my house under the overhang by the kitchen door. We can do the same thing here, don’t you think?”
“It’s ten dollars extra for stacking,” the boy said.
When the boy left the kitchen, Ena went out behind him. Nick watched her standing outside the door as the boy went to his car and backed it over the lawn. He opened the back hatch and began to load the wood out.
“This is very dry wood?” Ena said.
“This is what he gave me to deliver,” the boy said.
Jason put his arms up for a ride, and Benton plopped him on his shoulders. Jason’s dirty shoes had made streaks down the front of Benton’s jacket. Uncle Cal put his arm through Olivia’s, and the two of them began to walk toward the back of the property. Nick watched Ena as she looked first toward Uncle Cal and Olivia, then to Benton and Jason, charging a squirrel, Benton hunching forward like a bull.
“Everyone has forgotten about lunch,” Ena said, corning back into the kitchen. She broke off a piece of the cooked bread and took a bite. She put it on the counter and poured herself a drink, then went back into the living room with the piece of bread and the glass of bourbon and sat in her chair, across from Elizabeth.
“Hanley Paulson would have come in for coffee,” Ena said. “I don’t know that I would have wanted that young man in for coffee.”
Nick tore off a piece of bread and went into the living room. Ena was knitting. Elizabeth was reading. He thought that he might as well get the plane that night for California. He got up to answer the phone, hoping it was Ilena, but Elizabeth got up more quickly than he, and she went into the dining room and picked it up. She spoke quietly, and he could only catch a few words of what she said. Since Ena could hear no better than he could, he did not think she was crying because the phone calls expressing sympathy about Wesley’s death made her remember. He felt certain that she was weeping because of the way things had worked out with Hanley Paulson’s son. It was the first time he had ever seen Ena cry. She kept her head bent and sniffed a little. Elizabeth was on the phone a long while, and after a few deep sniffs Ena finally raised her head.
“How do your parents like Scottsdale, Nickie?” she said.
“They like it,” he said. “They always wanted to get away from these cold winters.”
“The winter is bad,” Ena said, “but the people have great character. At least they used to have great character.” She began to knit again. “I can’t imagine why Cal would leave that fabulous house in Essex for that monstrosity in East Hampton. You always liked it here, didn’t you, Nickie?”