34
THE OAK TREES outside Maudie’s bedroom windows were barely visible when she woke, the sky deep gray, just beginning to lighten. Rising, she pulled on her warm robe and slippers and headed downstairs, glancing into Benny and Jared’s room to make sure the two slept soundly. She liked her early mornings alone, she liked the solitude. Today she would move into her new studio and she could hardly wait to get started; she wanted to do what she could before Jared came down to help her, wanted to do it her way. She felt like a kid at the prospect of her new work space, was nearly giddy with excitement.
In the kitchen she made a pot of coffee, and while it brewed she stepped into the dark studio, enjoying the clean smell of new lumber and fresh paint. Beyond the bare glass of the floor-to-ceiling windows the twisted oak branches loomed black and remote against the predawn sky. It was still too dark to see if anyone stood among the trees, looking in—but Pearl wouldn’t be prowling this early in the morning, she needn’t be prepared for her at this hour, Pearl was a late sleeper.
She was so anxious to get settled, to stack her bolts of bright fabric neatly on the shelves, to arrange her quilting frames, quilting table, and cutting table, to have them all in place beside her computer and sewing machines. Once she got to work, she’d feel that she was really home.
Working here would be like working right in the garden, she thought, in her own small Eden where her invented patterns would vie in color with cascades of garden flowers. Martin would have liked the new studio, she told herself, trying to put away the heaviness that surrounded every thought of him; he would have approved of their moving back to the village.
Quickly she returned to the kitchen, poured a cup of coffee, and carried it into the chill garage, propping the door open behind her. Setting her cup down on a carton, she pulled the lightweight office cart over to a stack of boxes and began sliding the smaller ones onto it, using her good arm. Jared and Scotty would help later with the heavy ones, and the furniture. She worked for nearly an hour, trying not to think about Martin. Thinking about Benny, and about Pearl, her emotions swinging from sadness to rage, to a cold need to see Pearl punished, to make right this one terrible wrong in the world. Wheeling her loaded cart into the studio, she opened the boxes, began to stack fabric neatly on the shelves, to arrange her spools of thread and small equipment in the new drawers that Scotty had built. When she had put away all she could, she returned the empty boxes to the garage, stacking them in one corner. That was when she realized that some of the packed boxes were missing: two bankers’ boxes containing Caroline’s personal papers and the mementos and photographs that she was saving for Benny. They had been right here just days ago, when she removed the sealed envelope from the kitchen box.
She wondered if Benny might have taken the boxes up to his room. But no, she’d cleaned in there late yesterday, had dusted under the beds and in the closet. Would the child hide them somewhere? Did he think she might throw them out when she moved everything else, that she’d decide she didn’t want to store them? She had said she’d be glad when the garage was cleared out, when she could pull the car in. Did Benny think she’d give Caroline’s things away, after she’d gone to the trouble of packing and moving them three hundred miles from L.A.? But who knew what scenario might occur to a child whose first seven years had been filled broken promises?
No, she thought. Pearl had returned, but when? Had she, not finding the ledger pages, taken the boxes to allow time for a more leisurely search? Maybe she thought Caroline had secreted the papers among her tax files or medical records, where one would have to go through everything to find them? Anger filled her that Caroline’s family photos were gone, and the mementos of Benny’s few short months with his stepmother that the child so valued, as well as Caroline’s marriage certificates, Benny’s father’s enlistment papers, and the official notice of his death. She didn’t like losing Caroline’s tax records, either, which she’d agreed to send on to Caroline’s sister along with a clutter of old family recipes and letters, and copies of a family genealogy that Caroline had saved for her own children, too many heavy items to take on the plane when she had the two children and their suitcases. The bigger cartons, containing the rest of the children’s clothes and books and toys, seemed undisturbed, nearly hidden beneath Maudie’s own cartons. She stood in the cold garage sipping her cooling coffee, feeling both frightened and energized, her hand straying once to the comforting weight hidden in her robe pocket. Now, with the whole village edgy over the invasions, who could fault her if she was prepared to defend herself and protect her grandchild?
It was six-thirty when she heard Jared getting up, heard the shower running. Rousing herself, she hurried back into the kitchen to heat the waffle iron, to get out the big pitcher of waffle batter she’d made the day before, the butter and syrup, and to put bacon on the grill. In the downstairs bath she washed her face, gargled some mouth-wash, and ran a comb through her hair. When Jared came down, she said nothing about the missing boxes. Just as, days earlier, she hadn’t mentioned the missing keys. Jared appeared in the kitchen showered and scrubbed, dressed in a fresh blue sport shirt and Dockers. Benny straggled down behind him yawning, still in his sailboat pajamas. They ate in comfortable silence, Jared reading the sports page, Maudie scanning another ugly editorial about the invasions, then turning to the home section, while Benny carefully distributed the butter and syrup evenly into each well of his waffle. He ate each quarter with equal concentration, as if even homemade waffles were a special treat. It was seven-thirty and they’d finished breakfast when Scotty arrived, parking his truck at the curb. Coming in, accepting a quick cup of coffee, he stood at the counter to drink it, avoiding the syrupy mess at the table, which made Maudie smile. Scotty’s bright blue work shirt made his red hair and beard blaze like flame. “Wanted to get in an hour’s work or so, before we begin pouring cement up at the cottage,” he said.
Jared grinned and rose, and the two men headed into the garage, Benny following. During the next hour, the child insisted on carrying heavy loads for such a little boy, but Maudie didn’t caution or scold, she knew the one thing Benny needed was to feel useful. The two of them had spent the previous afternoon, as Scotty finished up the painting and hardware and locks, baking cherry pies and apple tarts for the Damens’ potluck afternoon and evening that this year fell on the same Sunday as the village pageant. Benny was so excited about dinner at Ryan and Clyde’s house and all the events to follow: the reenactment, in the park, of the journey of Joseph and Mary; the choirs in the village streets; and, most of all, the wagon rides put on by half a dozen village horsemen, who would trailer their horses and haul the wagons into town for the event. The usually silent child had chattered nonstop as together they prepared the cherry filling and peeled the apples. In the warm, spice-scented kitchen, Benny had seemed almost to forget the nightmares that made him wake up screaming and continue shivering as she held and cuddled him.
In L.A., friends had told her she should take Benny to a therapist, but she didn’t want to do that; she didn’t like the idea of a stranger manipulating the child’s emotions. She would provide all the therapy she could, holding and loving Benny, getting him to join her in household tasks and encouraging new interests. Providing real sit-down meals and as much companionship as an old woman could give a little boy. Benny loved being in the kitchen with her; Pearl’s kitchen had been a cold, neglected place where the child had to make his own sandwiches and hope the milk wasn’t sour. Benny liked being with Ryan and Scotty, too, liked watching them at work. Under the watchful eye of Scotty and of Lori Reed, he was learning the proper use of the simpler carpentry tools, to drive a nail without smashing his thumb, to saw a board straight and easy.