“Start from the beginning,” I said. “Tell me what you know about Arthur and Gwendolyn.”
“You’ve already forgotten the story of the princess in the garden?”
“No, but maybe you could tell the sequel to that story in a little more straightforward style.”
“I liked the way he told it,” Rachel said.
“Thank you,” Travis said. “It’s nice to be appreciated.”
I held my tongue.
We waited. He sat quietly, looking as if he were mentally composing another tale. He stared down at his scarred hand; his expression changed to one of profound sorrow. Suddenly he stood up. “I’m sorry, I can’t,” he said. “Not tonight. It’s too soon. Excuse me.”
He murmured thanks to Rachel for the meal, said good night, and walked to the front door. I followed him.
“Travis, wait,” I said, as he opened it.
“What do you want?” he asked.
I stepped outside with him on the front porch, closing the door behind us. It was dark there, and somehow that made it easier to talk to him. The porch lamp wasn’t on, and there was no moon. A street lamp down the block provided the only light.
“You’re a member of my family. No ifs, ands or buts. And if you need my help, I don’t want you to feel-what happened between our parents-that was-that had nothing to do with you.”
I saw him smile a little in the darkness. I heard him pull his keys out of his pocket. “If you’re talking about the infamous pass my father supposedly made at your mother, I probably know more about it than you do.”
There was that word “supposedly.” Mary had used it, too. “I was there,” I said. “You weren’t even born yet.”
He didn’t say anything for a moment. It was a warm night, and the scent of salt air on a light ocean breeze was mixed with wood smoke from fires on the beach. A couple of cars drove past the house. Finally he said, “Close your eyes and picture that day. You were what, about ten years old?”
“Eleven.”
“Ah, yes. Eleven. An age when girls are thinking much more often about what goes on between men and women. Are your eyes closed?”
Reluctantly, I went along with the program. “Yes, now they are.”
“My mother was out of town, visiting our grandmother in Kansas, right?”
“Right.”
“My father was injured while working on a tree.”
“Yes. He fell from a ladder. He hurt his shoulder, I think.”
“Yes, his right shoulder and elbow. He fell on his right side. He had been treated at the hospital, but he needed a ride home. You and your sister were with your parents when they met him at the hospital.”
I nodded. “He had a cast on his arm, but they were going to let him go home. We were going to drive him home.”
“Right. But on the way home, you stopped at a pharmacy, so that he could fill a prescription.”
I opened my eyes. “How do you know so much about this?”
“Close your eyes. My father told me, of course. No, don’t look. Just try to go back to that day. I think you’ll be able to see it a little differently.”
“Okay, so we’re in the drugstore,” I said.
“Yes. You stay with my father and your mother, your sister Barbara goes off with your father, trying to talk him into buying something for her.”
“Yes. I don’t remember what it was, though.”
“My dad said she wanted some sort of curlers that could be preheated?”
I laughed. “Yes!”
“Now think of my father and your mother standing at the counter, and you, nearby.”
“Just on the other side of my mother, a little behind them.”
“And what happens?”
I frowned. “Your father reaches over with his good arm-beneath the counter, out of sight of the clerk-and takes my mother’s hand and squeezes it in his own. My father is just walking up the aisle behind them. He’s seen your father take her hand, and he has a fit.” I opened my eyes. “Or did your father tell it differently?”
“No. He told me all of that. But you’re forgetting part of the story.”
I frowned.
“Close your eyes again, think of what happened.”
“Wouldn’t it just be easier to tell me?” I said.
He shook his head. “Better if you remember it on your own. It’s funny-whenever I dared to ask my father questions about the night of the murder, he said the same thing-if he just gave me the answers to my questions, I’d never know whether or not he was telling the truth. I’d either come to trust him for other reasons, or learn the truth for myself. So think about that moment in the pharmacy just before you go to sleep tonight. Maybe you’ll dream the answer.”
“Dream it? You’re kidding.”
He shook his head in resignation, pointed the plastic alarm remote on his keychain toward the camper and pressed a button.
The explosion blasted out the windows of the cab and sent the hood of the truck rocketing up into the air, making it into a strange, careening metal kite. We were both knocked back through the doorway into the entry. I sat up, dazed, and saw that both truck and camper were on fire. “Cody!” I cried.
15
We ran toward the camper, but by now smoke was pouring out of it, and the heat was too fierce to get close to it. Travis tried, but I pulled him back, afraid that he would be burned.
“Get the hose!” I said. “Near the front steps!” As he ran for the garden hose, I bolted over to the Karmann Ghia, opening the trunk to get the small fire extinguisher I carried there. Rachel charged out of the house just as Jack came out of his. Seeing the fire, he hurried to his van to get another extinguisher. Rachel ran back inside to call 911.
I aimed at the door of the camper shell, as did Travis; I felt a hard lump in my throat and tears stinging my eyes, but tried to hold on to a slim hope that Cody was alive. Despite the heat, Travis reached for the door handle, but the instant he opened it flames and smoke roared out, pushing him back.
“Get away from it!” Rachel shouted at us. “Let the fire department take care of it!”
“Cody!” I said. “Cody was sleeping inside!”
Jack’s extinguisher was empty; he was pulling Travis back. Soon mine was empty as well. I tried to reach for the hose, but Rachel grabbed my arms from behind. Horrifying images of Cody burning alive in that camper drove me into a frenzied struggle against her. She quickly maneuvered me down to the lawn and pinned me there. My face in the grass, my breath coming hard, I heard sirens howling their way closer. The sound somehow got through to me in a way all my discomfort did not; I realized that if Cody was in that camper, there wasn’t a chance in hell that he was alive. I heard myself groan as the fight drained out of me and an agonizing ache replaced it. Rachel let up a little. I wasn’t going anywhere.
“I’m sorry about Cody,” I heard her say as she moved off of me, “but keep in mind that it could have been Travis.”
“Small consolation,” I heard Travis say as he sat down next to me.
I found myself wishing that they would both go away. Or shut up. Just shut up.
Or better, maybe I could just disappear, be somewhere where I didn’t have to smell smoke and didn’t have to think about what was burning in that camper. Where I could get sick or scream or sob or smash something to pieces, or follow any of the other impulses warring within me. Perhaps, I thought, it would be nice to faint. Unfortunately, I have some idea of what it takes to make me do that, and-damn it all to hell-I knew I wasn’t even close.
Cody. Poor Cody. I should have never-but I stopped myself from taking that road.
I started wishing that Frank were home, because I knew he would know what not to say, but then I was glad that he didn’t have this addition to the list of things he was trying to cope with.
“I left a window open,” Travis reminded me. “Maybe Cody got out before the camper caught fire.”