Their father had left it all when he moved out, opting for a condo near the Archeology Association he’d joined after his work as a professor ended. He left everything except a photo album, his clothes and a handful of knickknacks he’d purchased with his wife over the years.
He’d left many of his archeology books. He wanted Bette to have them. She’d followed him into the field, though her chosen focus was anthropology, the remnants of civilizations rather than their bones. He said they’d offer inspiration and reminders to keep going; you never knew what lay beneath another foot from the surface, keep digging.
It took her father an hour to make the drive to his former home. When he arrived, the hair on the left side of his head stuck out in tufts as if he’d been massaging and pulling at it on the drive, which he had, Bette knew. It was one of his nervous ticks, one she’d inherited.
“Hi Dad,” Bette said, hugging him and walking back to the house with Homer practically stepping on her heels.
“Martin Henderson works at the university. I’ll call him and see if I can’t track down this Western person.”
“Weston,” Bette corrected.
“Sure, yes, Weston.”
Her dad grabbed the phone in the kitchen and sat down at the table with a pen and a notepad.
Bette tried not to hover over him as he dialed the number, but she couldn’t help it. Her lunch plates were still in the sink. She washed them, glancing back repeatedly and trying to make sense of the one-sided conversation as her father spoke into the phone.
Homer hung up. “He didn’t have Weston’s number, but he gave me the number for Jared Knudson. Apparently, they’re chums.” He dialed again. “Hi, may I speak to Jared Knudson please?”
His pen was poised and ready, but he looked momentarily crestfallen.
“Out of town for the entire week? Where? Mississippi. Hmm… Could I get his number there? It is a matter of some importance. Yes, okay. I understand.”
Homer hung up again and chewed the end of the pencil.
“He’s visiting his ailing mother in Mississippi. His wife refused to give me his number, but said she’d ask him to call us back.” He tapped the pencil against the wire binding on the notebook. “Someone has to know this guy.”
He stared at the paper beneath him. He’d written almost nothing on it and then his eyes brightened and he slapped his forehead.
“Crystal!” he exclaimed. “Crystal knows him. His number is somewhere in her apartment. Come on.” He stood and strode out the door.
Bette followed him. She’d looked for Weston’s number earlier, but not thoroughly. At that point, she’d still assumed it was all a big mistake. Crystal had forgotten, or some unseeable thing had come up, preventing her from arriving.
It was still reasonable that she’d appear at any moment, filled with apologies. But that time had dwindled. They’d moved into dangerous territory — into that foreboding stretch that signaled something was wrong. If it had been anything within Crystal’s control, Bette would have heard from her by now.
Bette’s father drove, tapping on the steering wheel and pulling at his hair when they stopped at red lights.
“Have they added two minutes on to every red light in town? This is ridiculous.“ He thumped his hand on the wheel and the car shot forward the moment the light turned green.
Bette wound her fingers together and unwound them. She pulled at a string coming loose from her jeans. She looked out the windows, searching the people in restaurants, the faces of women walking to their cars, but none of them was Crystal.
When they opened the door to Crystal’s apartment, her dad held out his arm.
“Disturb as little as possible,” he told her, moving into the apartment light on his feet.
Bette surveyed the room.
The front door opened into a large combined kitchen and living room. Beyond that, a short hallway led to a single bedroom and a bathroom at the end. Colorful Indian tapestries hung from the yellow walls.
Crystal didn’t have a kitchen table, but used a small island for eating. It was scattered with text books. Every chair had clothes slung over the back. Every surface contained books and journals.
Stained-glass hummingbirds, angels and flowers hung in her picture window. A pair of purple fuzzy slippers in the shape of Bigfoot’s feet rested near her couch.
Homer walked to the hanging wicker chair near the picture window looking into the courtyard behind the apartments. A stack of magazines stood on a table, a book of poetry balanced on top. He picked up a pen and gently opened the cover of the book, allowing it to drop when he saw nothing of interest.
Bette headed straight to Crystal’s room.
She eyed books and papers on the dresser. Clothes lay strewn across a chest and filled a hamper behind the door.
Beside Crystal’s bed stood a nightstand holding a telephone, a notebook, and a paperback copy of The Handmaid’s Tale.
Bette picked up the notebook and thumbed through the pages.
She read mostly scattered thoughts, things Crystal probably recorded when she woke in the night struck by inspiration for a poem. The series of numbers Crystal had been obsessed with most of her life was marked throughout the pages: 6251991.
In the other room, she heard her father click play on the message machine.
“Crystal, it’s Wes. I’m sorry, okay? Please just call me.”
“Hi Crystal, it’s Nina Henderson from Hospice House. I wanted to let you know George Potter’s son brought you a thank you gift. He might be sweet on you. No need to stop in and grab it. I’ll put it in your cubby.”
Two more messages from Wes, each sounding more urgent than the last.
“They had a fight,” Homer said. “And she might have called you back if you’d left your unholy number!” He blurted, glaring at the machine.
Bette’s father rarely swore, but when he did, his word of choice was unholy.
“I checked her address book. I don’t think Weston’s number is in this apartment,” Bette sighed, tugging at her long hair.
“It’s got to be. It’s somewhere…” Homer’s eyes scanned the room slowly, coming to rest on the corner drawer in Crystal’s kitchen.
The infamous junk drawer, that dark burrow collecting the oddities people couldn’t seem to throw away.
Homer went to the drawer and slid it open. It stuck. He tugged it and then carefully reached a hand inside, pushing the contents around until he managed to open it all the way. He laid a clean dishtowel on the countertop and started removing items, one by one.
Unable to stand and watch without helping, Bette joined him.
Her dad extracted six pens in various colors, and two pencils, one with the eraser broken off. He took out a necklace tangled into a pile of cheap silver with a small butterfly pendant. He removed three batteries in various sizes. The first bit of scrap paper contained a scrawled recipe for coconut lime banana bread.
He found a broken Christmas ornament of a puppy wearing a Santa hat; its foot was missing. Peppermint candies, loose change, a wadded-up dollar bill, three playing cards and a brochure for bungee jumping all came out of the drawer.
He pulled out a scrunched napkin from Luna’s Cafe. When he gently unfolded the edges, Bette saw the phone number emerge beneath the name “Professor Meeks” and next to that, with a smiley face, “Wes.”
“That’s it,” she shouted, ripping the napkin out of his hand and running to the phone.
Her father said nothing, but smiled grimly and began to put the items back in the drawer.