"Let me get your suitcases out of the car," Uncle Roy offered while Jeff relaxed.
"No. Leave it."
"Well, later, then."
"No," Jeff repeated. "I'm going to stay over at my father's house tonight."
"We've got the spare room all ready for you," Aunt Kitty protested. You don't want to stay at the other house all alone."
"That's right," Uncle Roy echoed.
The two of them were so kind and well-meaning that Jeff hated to disappoint them, but his mind was made up.
"Thanks, really," he said, "but it's still my house and I want to spend the night there. At least tonight. I have a lot of old junk stored there and I want to begin sorting through it."
"Maybe tomorrow, then," Uncle Roy said quietly.
"Uh ... you said that Dad didn't suffer. Is that right?"
"Yes," Aunt Kitty confirmed. "Next-door neighbor, Mr. Hall-remember him? He called us right after he called the ambulance. Said he'd seen George chopping wood in the backyard. It was a hot day, just like this one."
"We've been having a helluvan early hot spell," Uncle Roy put in quickly.
"Anyway," Aunt Kitty continued. "Next time he looked that way, he saw George lying on the ground. He didn't wait; he called the ambulance right away, then us, and then he ran outside. He told us later that your father seemed to be gone already when he got to him."
"He couldn't tell," Uncle Roy added. "But he said he seemed to be gone. He couldn't find no pulse or breath in him at all."
"I'm just glad he didn't go through a lot of pain."
"No, he didn't. Thank God for that," Aunt Kitty said.
She showed Jeff his father's obituary in the local newspaper, and while he tried to read the brief notice she told him how good the ambulance crew was at CPR, how they'd got to the house in seven minutes, according to Mr. Hall, and ... Jeff found himself blinking to keep his eyes open. The flight, followed by the long hot drive, was catching up with him. The beer was good, but it made him sleepier. He rose from his seat to leave.
"1'm sorry," he said. "I guess I'm jet-lagged."
"Sure you are," Uncle Roy said, understandingly. "Here's your dad's keys. This one's the house and this one the garage."
"Thanks." Jeff put the keys in his pocket. "I haven't even thought to ask how Nancy is."
Nancy Lisker was his cousin, two years older and, like him, an only child.
"Oh, she's fine," Aunt Kitty said. "She'll be there tomorrow, in the afternoon and in the evening."
"Good," Jeff said. "It'll be nice to see her again."
"You know where the Butler Funeral Home is?" Uncle Roy asked. "Sure you do. The wake's there, from two to four in the afternoon and from seven to nine in the evening."
"You come around for breakfast in the morning," Aunt Kitty told him. "Anytime'll be fine."
"I'll call you first," Jeff said. "Uh ... is there something I should do or somebody I should see about any of the arrangements? There must be a lot of things to get squared away."
"The wake and the funeral and burial are all taken care of," Uncle Roy said soothingly, a hand on Jeffs back. "Just get yourself a good night's sleep, and we can talk tomorrow. Dick Hudson's your dad's lawyer. He'll be at the wake, and he'll fill you in on any unfinished business."
Jeff hugged Uncle Roy and Aunt Kitty again, and finally got away. They were fine people, but he wasn't in the right frame of mind to enjoy their company. As soon as he got in the car, he felt more awake.
It took less than ten minutes to drive to his father's house, his house, on the other side of town. It was another Cape, but with a better yard and on a nicer street. Had it been repainted in the last seven or eight years? Probably, but Jeff couldn't be sure. He pulled the car into the small driveway, took his two suitcases out of the back seat, and went inside.
The place was warm and stuffy from being shut up for a couple of days, but impeccably neat and tidy. Jeff opened several windows. In addition to a few items of food, he found a couple of cans of beer in the refrigerator. He took one and drank it while wandering from room to room. The house seemed remarkably impersonal, as if his father had taken care of every possible aspect of his private life and died leaving not so much as a scrap of paper out of place.
Jeff left the lights off as he sat in the front room for a while, drinking the beer and watching the dusk darken into night outside. Cool air gradually filled the house. He felt relaxed, even peaceful, and no longer quite so weary.
Next time I come back here, he thought, it'll be for Roy's funeral, or Kitty's. Unpleasant thought; he liked both of them. Roy would probably go first. Either way, there were at least two more return visits in Jeff's future.
At least? Now what does that mean, Jeff wondered as he went into the kitchen to get the other beer. He smiled at himself and at the way his mind sometimes surprised him. Something was taking shape, but what? Maybe nothing.
He was thinking about the Slaton house again. Almost as much as his father's death, that For Sale sign seemed to signify a door shutting on the past. The Slaton house, the mere name Slaton, held many bittersweet memories. They were still real, twenty years later.
The father-what was his name? He was some kind of engineer, wasn't he? A soft-spoken, more or less invisible man. Successful in his chosen field and within his own limits, but not the sort of person you noticed much, even when you were in the same room with him.
The mother-Dora, or Doris? She was a bit of a snob, in the silliest ways. She always left her latest book-club purchases on the coffee table. Once, out of the blue, she'd asked Jeff: "Have you read Mr. Mailer's latest?" She had a habit of talking to teenagers with that ridiculous mock-seriousness some adults think is real communication.
There were two Slaton boys, both of them several years younger than Jeff. He couldn't remember their names either. At the time, they had been kid brothers, occasional pests, nothing more. It was odd to think of them now as grown up, living their individual lives, somewhere.
And one daughter, Jeffs classmate and good friend: Georgianne Slaton. They had never been boyfriendgirlfriend to each other, but they had spent a great deal of time together. There had been a bond, a closeness between them that had lasted for four or five years. It was something good in his life to remember.
Jeff couldn't count the number of double dates he and Georgianne had been out on together. He with one of his three successive high-school romances, Georgianne always with Mike Rollins, her steady. Wherever Georgianne was now, it surely wouldn't be with Mike. He may have been a good high-school date, but she must have done better since then. Mike was jolly and energetic, but it was mostly surface flash. He'd probably found a place in marketing somewhere, but he couldn't have held on to Georgianne.
She had gone to college in Boston, as Jeff recalled. He didn't know where Mike had gone. A couple of months after graduation, Jeff had gone out to UCLA. He'd soon lost touch with Mike and Georgianne. High-school friendships, however intense at the time, often prove to be the most perishable.
Jeff put the empty beer cans in the kitchen. His old bedroom, he found, was almost completely stripped of personal items. It was like a guest room now, or a motel room, but at least the bed was made up. Jeffs body was tired, but he was awake for a long time, thinking, before he found his way to sleep.
CHAPTER THREE
Jeff woke up about ten minutes before the alarm was due to go off feeling rested and eager to get on with the day. He showered, toweled himself dry, and opened his suitcase to get some clean clothes.
It came as something of a surprise to find the pistol tucked in among his shirts. Now why the hell did I bring that, Jeff wondered. It was a cheap .22, and he had owned it for five years or more-ever since his company had landed its first significant defense contract. At the time, buying it had seemed the thing to do, for reasons he could no longer recall. Yet he had continued to carry it with him most of the time, and he had obviously packed it for this trip without even thinking about it.