She waits until I look up at her to continue. “What thing?” I ask.
She glances over to check that Wayne and Oren are busy talking. “You probably don’t know that there’s a switch by the barn door that operates the hay pulley—or that there’s a generator out there in the barn that I fired up when we were out there earlier.”
“I don’t remember . . . ,” I say, wondering what she’s getting at. I’m pretty sure she did no such thing.
Mattie lifts one eyebrow. “I think if you search your memory you’ll recall my saying that I just wanted to check that it was working. I left it running in case we needed it later. So when Chief Barnes pointed his firearm at me and made it clear he intended to kill me and then you and Oren, I switched on the hay pulley to disarm him.”
“That’s not what happened,” I say.
“Do you want to explain to the police what did happen?” she asks me. “Neither you nor Oren have any idea how to operate that pulley. And if you say you did it . . . well, I don’t want to add any complications to your custody suit for Oren. You do want to seek custody, I’m assuming.”
I nod, unable to speak for a moment. Then I manage, “What about you?”
“I’ll tell my story as best as I can and hope the judge and jury believe me. I’ve got a couple of lawyer friends . . . I’ll be fine.”
She looks away then to ladle the last bowl of chili. She’s not at all sure she’ll be fine, but I don’t think I can argue her out of it. And I do want to get custody of Oren. I want it more than I’ve ever wanted anything. The fact that Mattie is willing to risk her own welfare for me to get it makes me feel for the first time that I might be worthy of it.
Chapter Thirty-Four
Mattie
WE SPEND THE waning hours of the night circled around the woodstove playing Texas Hold’em. At first I think we’re all trying to act normal for Oren’s sake. Alice keeps giving him more hot cocoa and cookies (so much for those dental bills), Wayne engages him by talking about astronomy (and promising to let him come look through his telescope), and I cheat every once in a while for the pleasure of Oren catching me. But at some point I catch a satisfied smile on Oren’s face and realize that here is a child who takes on the weight of the emotions around him by playing the peacemaker. I’d done it myself for my parents most of my life; the only time they didn’t bicker between themselves was when they were united in their regard—or censure—for me. Winning first prize in the spelling bee and getting the highest grades in school worked for a while, but then so did getting called in by the principal for cutting class. I bet that poltergeist Davis mentioned is another way Oren shoulders that weight. There’ll come a time when it’s too heavy on him and I hope to be around to ease it a bit.
No one wants to go into any other room, so Wayne and I haul sleeping bags and camping mats into the kitchen. Alice and Oren curl up together, and Wayne and I share a pot of coffee, talking in whispers, as if Oren and Alice were our kids.
“You were in the class three years ahead of me,” I say. “You played football and scored the tie-breaking touchdown of the last game your senior year.”
“Guilty,” he allows, blushing. “You were editor of the school newspaper and wrote an exposé of the money wasted in the school cafeteria. You couldn’t wait to shake the dust of this town off your feet. Didn’t you go to one of those fancy women’s colleges? Wellesley? Vassar?”
“Barnard,” I admit. “And it was an exposé on the food wasted that could be redirected to a food pantry. I made poor Mrs. Kaminsky, the head cafeteria manager, cry. I was kind of a shit.”
“You were doing what you thought was right,” he says. “And look—you’ve got your food pantry and shelter and crisis hotline. You’ve done a lot for this town and the county.”
“Some people say Sanctuary just draws bums to the town,” I say.
“Some people are assholes,” he counters. “I’ve always been proud to have a place like Sanctuary in our town. I never miss the Cookie Walk.”
I cringe. “I’m sorry I didn’t recognize you when we met at Stewart’s.”
“No worries,” he says, getting up to put a log in the stove. “You must see a couple dozen people a day.”
This is true, but how have I missed this nice guy who contributes food and services regularly and was a classmate? What else—and who else—have I been missing all these years while I barricaded myself in this house and the work of Sanctuary? Sure, I’ve been “doing good,” but how much of that was to appease my conscience for what my father did?
When I turn back to Wayne I see he has nodded off in his chair, coffee mug still in his hand. I take the mug from him and bring it and all the other dishes to the sink. It’s stopped snowing and the sky is lightening. I feel a pressure against my leg and for a moment I think about feeling that two nights ago and wondering if it was Caleb. But when I look down I find that it’s only Dulcie, looking up at me expectantly to be let out.
I guide her through the thicket of sleeping bodies and open the back door. There’s almost too much snow, but the overhang has kept enough off that I’m able to clear a pie-shaped wedge. While Dulcie lumbers a couple of feet into the deep snow and finds a place to pee, I stand on the stoop and watch the sunrise. It tinges the snow a creamy orange, so much like the Creamsicle bar I used to get from the Good Humor man that it makes me hungry. The sky above is a clear, radiant blue with a smattering of celestial bodies: Arcturus, Jupiter, Spica, and a waning crescent moon. Spica is the only star of the constellation visible, but I know Virgo is there. Justice.
I once asked my father the difference between justice and vengeance, and he told me the plot of a Greek play. Orestes has killed his own mother, Clytemnestra, because she killed his father, Agamemnon, which in turn was in revenge for him killing their daughter, Iphigenia.
Talk about a dysfunctional family! Doreen had exclaimed when I told her the plot of the play during one long, quiet shift.
The problem is that with his mother’s blood on his hands, Orestes is pursued by the Furies, the snake-haired, bat-winged agents of vengeance who hound their victims to a painful death. He flees first to the sanctuary of Apollo at Delphi, where Apollo tells him to go on to Athens. There Athena has Orestes tried for his crime by a jury of Athenian citizens.
This is the birth of law, my father told me, triumphing over the old blood rules of vengeance.
The jury is split, but Athena casts a deciding vote for Orestes. The Furies don’t take it well. They rage against the Athenians and their city until Athena offers them an alternative: if they break the cycle of blood vengeance they will be worshipped by the Athenians under a new name: the Eumenides . . . or the Kindly Ones.
So basically she turned them into good furies by using positive reinforcement, Doreen said. Athena would have made a great third-grade teacher.
I smile, feeling like Doreen is standing here with me. Wait until she hears this story! Then I hear police sirens coming up the hill and remember I have others to tell my story to first. I can only hope my listeners are as well disposed as the old gods.
THEY TAKE US all into town to the police station to take our statements. I remind the officer—Tracy Bennerfield, who was in the third grade with Caleb—that they need to alert the Department of Child Welfare to be present on Oren’s behalf. Tracy bristles and says that she knows that, but I see her nudge her fellow officer to remember to make the call.