“Just a minute,” I said. The bandage on my left hand was driving me crazy. I took it off hurriedly. The blister on the meaty edge of my palm was the size of a half-dollar. I threw open the door.
It was Britney Watling. She had some visible scrapes and scratches on her face from the misadventure the night before last.
“Can I come in?” she said.
“Sure,” I said, remembering the sizzling sound of my palm frying on her doorknob. “Would you mind following me out back, though. I’m getting some things together out there.”
I wondered whether she had come to apologize for nearly getting both of us killed in her burning house. She followed me.
“That’s a very pretty garden,” she said. She looked on edge, as if she had been sleeping poorly. “What’s that thing in the center?”
“It’s a birdbath.”
“Oh? Looks like a pile of rocks.”
“It’s that too, I suppose. Are you feeling all right?”
“What do you mean? Am I okay in the head?”
“No, that’s not what I meant—”
“Because folks are acting like I’m a crazy person.”
“Well I don’t know whether you are or not,” I said, “and I wouldn’t try to judge.”
She glared at me a moment and then seemed to soften up. “Can I sit down?” she said.
“By all means.”
“Folks seem to think I started that fire.”
“Well did you?”
“No! A candle set it off. I couldn’t sleep in the heat. I was reading a book. I must have drowsed off and knocked the candle over. The bedclothes caught and then a curtain, and then it got up into the window sashes, I guess.”
“Can you tell me why you went back into the fire when I tried to pull you out?”
“I don’t know,” she said, sweeping the floor with her eyes, as if she might turn up an answer there. “I lost heart, I suppose. First Shawn. Then my home. I didn’t really want to die. I have a child to look after. It was moment of… selfish confusion.”
“I’m sorry so many bad things have happened to you.”
Looking down at her sitting there only emphasized her small size. Shawn must have been at least twice her weight. I seemed to remember them dancing together once at a levee in Battenville. Like a bear with a doe, each full of youth and life in its own way, but an odd pair.
“I know you’ve seen your share of heartache too,” she said.
“Life remains a precious blessing for us the living.”
“I hope I come around to feel that way.”
“I hope you do too.”
I hadn’t been away from home for a week in as long as I could remember, and it was hard to determine how much food I ought to bring for myself. I had a hunk of Terry Zucker’s smoked hard sausage, which I wrapped carefully in a piece of waxed canvas and tied with an old piece of string. I saved absolutely everything.
“Are you going somewhere?” Britney said.
“Yes.”
“Is it a secret?”
“I have to go to Albany. I’ll be gone most of a week.”
“Albany? What’s down there?”
I told her about Bullock’s missing boatmen.
“Tom Soukey used to babysit me when I was a little girl,” she said. “He was in high school. I beat him at checkers. I hope you can find them.”
“I don’t know what we’ll find down there,” I said. “I haven’t been out of the county in years. Anyway, they’re coming by to get me soon and I have to go see about something before that.”
“Okay, then,” she said resolutely. “I came here for a reason. I have a proposal.”
“What’s that?”
“I thought you might need somebody to keep house.”
It took me a moment to absorb that.
“I can’t pay someone to keep house,” I said.
“That’s not what I had in mind.”
Now she was making me nervous. I put some corn bread, hard cheese, three onions, and a head of garlic into an oilcloth and tied it with more string into a compact package. Anything you cook will taste okay with onions and garlic. I figured we could get eggs along the way. Everybody had chickens nowadays.
“What did you have in mind?” I said.
“Like I said. Keep house for you.”
I just stared at my bundle.
“To be on the premises,” she said.
It took me a moment to get it.
“You want to live here?” I said.
“We don’t have any place to live.”
“You just lost your husband.”
“Thank you for reminding me.”
“I mean, how would it look?”
“You can say yes or no.”
“I hear you’re with the Allisons?”
“We can’t stay there. It’s not a comfortable situation.”
“There are quite a few vacant houses in town.”
“This isn’t a good time for a single woman with a child to live alone.”
“Mrs. Myles lives alone right next door. Maybe you could live with her.”
“She was my fifth grade teacher. I don’t want to live with her.”
“Well, why do you want to live with me?”
“I would feel safe here.”
I went over to search the shelves above the counter for my purple Lexan water bottle. I hadn’t seen it in a while and they sure weren’t making them anymore.
“It looks to me like you could use somebody to keep house around here,” she said.
“I’m not used to living with other people,” I said.
“You had a family once. Look at this place,” she said. “It’s like some old trapper dude lives here.”
“Thanks.”
The Lexan bottle was not where I thought I put it. Did I leave it over at Pragers’? It was making me upset.
“It wouldn’t look right,” I said. “You moving in here.”
“You have been alone for some years now, isn’t that right, Robert?”
“Yes.”
“Do you want to be alone to the end of your days?”
“I’m old enough to be your father, and I was present where your husband was murdered. People might get some strange ideas.”
“I’m well aware,” she said. “But I need a helping hand, and these are not normal times. I’m old enough to remember the difference. I once had my own television. My mom drove a pickup truck. We used to go to the Target in Glens Falls and buy stuff when she got paid. Those days are gone, and so is any idea of what’s normal or decent. I don’t want to put in with that New Faith crowd and pray three times a day and have some pack of busybodies raise my child. And I won’t put in with Bullock and be a damn serf. We can help each other, you and me. Just let me and Sarah stay here while you’re gone. We’ll weed your garden for you.”
I gave up looking for my water bottle.
“All right,” I said. “You can stay while I’m gone.”
“What about when you’re back?”
“I mean you can move in after I leave today, and we can see how it works out when I return.”
“I still have a big garden of my own behind where the house used to be, plus the cow, so you don’t have to worry about feeding us.”
“All right.”
She gave me an intense studying look. I worried now whether she would throw her arms around me and sob, and make me feel uncomfortable. But she just took my right hand in hers and shook, like a sales representative sealing a deal.
“You were kind to me when I was very low,” she said. “I’m grateful, and you won’t regret this.”
“There’s four bedrooms upstairs,” I said “It’ll be obvious which one’s mine. You and Sarah can have any two of the others. Please don’t go rearranging things too much, especially the kitchen setup. I’ve got everything where I know how to find it.”