Beloved (21 page)

He looked up at her with a good-humored grin and Jane caught her breath: the man was transformed, completely transformed, by his love for his son. His hazel eyes shone with a kind of luminous goodwill and his mouth, normally so set, so unyielding, suggested that he was capable of gentler, sweeter language than she had heard so far.

"
N-no-o,
"
she stammered,
"
he
'
s being very careful. I don
'
t think he
'
ll be breaking through any sound barriers quite yet.
"

"
He
'
d better not,
"
McKenzie said, plowing the onion slices into the soup pot with his cleaver.
"
My neighbors out back would love an excuse to haul me before the Zoning Board.
"

"
Are they the same ones who don
'
t like your rooster?
"
she asked. When he nodded she said,
"
I
never hear him crow.
"

"
Of course not. I ate him,
"
McKenzie said, stirring the onions.
"
Had to.
"

"
Oh.
"
She didn
'
t know what to say, so she said,
"
That was considerate of you.
"

He gave her a wry look and went back to his onions.
"
So,
"
he said without looking up,
"
what brings you here?
"

"
Well, first of all, I
'
m here to thank you for the hand drill.
"
She saw he didn
'
t want to be thanked.
"
And to just make sure about the holly. You
'
re coming tomorrow?
"

"
Oh, hell,
"
he said, slapping his forehead.
"
I forgot about the holly. Jerry flew in early this morning for the three-day weekend. It was a last-minute thing; his mother was called out of town. I don
'
t think
—
"

"
Of course; you
'
ll be making other plans,
"
she said quickly.

"
On
Nantucket
, in March?
"
He snorted.
"
Not likely.
"
He thought about it a moment and then said, more to himself than to her,
"
maybe I
'
ll have him help me move it. It
'
d be something he
'
d remember
...."

He seemed to stop himself from sounding too keen on trees by making a big deal of stirring a bowlful of clam liquid into the
frying onions
. The mixture hissed and bubbled, then settled down. He kept on stirring while it thickened.

"
Well, look,
"
Jane said,
"
just play it by ear. I may or may not be at home myself,
"
she added, implying that her calendar was completely penciled in.

"
All right,
"
he said with a noncommittal glance.
"
We
'
ll leave it at that. Did you want to sit down?
"

It was the merest formality. She was aware that the air between them was cooling again, and she wondered why. Was it the talk of hollies? The talk of ex-wi
v
es? She shook her head, not wanting to stay on sufferance, and said,
"
Thanks, but my shoes are muddy. And I do have to be going. This is a wonderful kitchen, by the way,
"
she said, genuinely impressed. She took in one last sweep of the sunny, homey room with its multipaned windows and simple Shaker and
Mission
furnishings. It was a superb restoration.

McKenzie took a bowl of potato chunks and began shoveling them into the brew.
"
Yeah, well, my ex had a thing about everything being original. She and her interior decorator had at least three false ceilings taken down from this room alone. We spent four years camping out in one corner or another while they took away every memory I
'
d ever had of the place
—
at least, on the first floor,
"
he muttered with a dark look.

It was a look Jane knew well.
Uh-oh,
she thought. Best to avoid the subject of change. Still, she did risk saying,
"
It turned out beautifully.
"

He turned to her with an almost baffled look on his face, as if he didn
'
t understand how he could resist a room so warm and charming.
"
Yes. Celeste was a perfectionist,
"
he said quietly.

Jane had had her hand on the door latch for the past five minutes, despite the fact that her mother had taught her that lingering in the hall was the worst possible form. She said,
"
See you later, then.
"

Just then a kind of send-off committee sauntered in from the room beyond: an old, big gray cat with huge yellow eyes that narrowed when he saw her.
Beat it
,
he seemed to say.
You're on
our
turf now
.
He threw himself down on the braided wool rug and began grooming his belly.

"That's
Wicky,
"
McKenzie said, by way of an introduction.
"
Is he your beast in the basement?
"

"Maybe ... no ..
. I
'
m not sure,
"
said Jane, crouching down to give Wicky her fingertips to smell. The cat sniffed her hand regally, then bared his fangs in a nasty hiss.
"
Whoa!
"
she said, drawing her hand back.
"
Yes, that
'
s him, all right.
"
She stood up, embarrassed by the rejection, until she remembered that her hands smelled like Buster.

She remembered something else.
"
Cissy said that my aunt was supposed to have had a three-legged cat at one time. Do you know how it got that way?
"

"
Yep. Someone shot out a foreleg,
"
McKenzie said in a flat, controlled voice.

"
Oh, no,
"
Jane said, dismayed.
"
Is the cat still living?
"

"
No. She never would stay inside for Sylvia. Eventually something caught her. Dog, probably.
"

"
That
'
s sickening. Who would shoot a cat?
"

McKenzie put a lid over the pot and turned down the heat.
"
He knows who he is,
"
he said
without looking at Jane
.

"
I suppose I should be grateful that Cissy
'
s version isn
'
t true,
"
Jane said dryly.
"
Someone told her that my aunt needed the paw for a spell.
"

McKenzie grimaced.
"
That
'
d be
my
aunt. She lived in Bing
'
s hous
e with my uncle before they ..
. up and sold it,
"
he said, the muscles in his jaw working.
"
Aunt Lucille saw a witch under every toadstool. No one took her seriously.
"

"
Cissy did.
"

"
Cissy would.
"

She felt a nudge on the other side of the door; in came Jerry, his cheeks flushed with accomplishment.

"
I checked the oil, Dad,
"
he said triumphantly, as if he
'
d actually discovered some instead.
"
You
'
re down about a quarter of a quart. Or maybe a fifth. But you
'
re definitely down.
"

"
Go to it, Jer. You know where we keep it,
"
McKenzie said in a carefully offhand way.

Jerry turned and skipped away. McKenzie watched him with a look impossible for a nonfather to understand. Jane felt like an intruder.

Time
'
s up,
she thought, and this time she meant it. She left without being any the wiser about Judith Brightman.

W
hen Jane got back to Lilac Cottage, she saw a white
Toyota
pickup in her drive with a license plate on it that read
BILLYB.
Billy B. himself, a man in his early twenties at most, was prowling around the house with a clipboard in his hand, madly taking notes. Jane could see in his face that he thought he was looking at a year
'
s supply of Pampers and Gerber
'
s, at
least.

Jane waved and they introduced themselves. She said,
"
I don
'
t think I
'
ll be doing much to the outside of the house besides patching the roof
—
"

"
I can do that,
"
Billy B. said eagerly.

"
And replacing the two bad steps
—
"

"
I can do that.
"

"
And of course I
'
ll have the house painted when the weather turns warmer.
"

"
I can do that, too.
"

"
Gee. You sound pretty versatile,
"
she said vaguely. How much experience could he have? Two years? Three?

They went inside and it was the same thing in every room. Move a wall? Install cabinets? Replace the plumbing? New flooring? Billy B. insisted he could do it all and more besides.

He
sounded
like he knew what he was talking about. But so had everyone else she
'
d talked to. The people that Bing recommended were absolute pros. The difference was that Billy B. was not a buy-it-all-new maniac. Jane liked that in him, that willingness to compromise and patch when possible. The kitchen cabinets, for instance. Billy B. said they were perfectly usable; all she had to buy were new fronts. When they were in the basement, he even found the old fronts: glass-paned doors that Jane hadn
'
t noticed, hidden in the clutter.

She trusted him, despite his threadbare jeans and straggly hair. In the end, it all came down to price.
"
How much do you charge an hour?
"
she asked him bluntly.

When he told her, she was amazed; kids in
Connecticut
got almost that much for flipping hamburgers.

"
If I got a lot of work out of this, that price would be negotiable,
"
he quickly added.

Jane folded her arms across her chest and leaned against the ancient Frigidaire.
"
That
'
s less than anyone else has quoted me,
"
she said, studying him with a sideways tilt of her head.
"
How come?
"

"
Well, my wife just had a baby and had to quit her job at the liquor store,
"
he said, pulling nervously on his baseball cap. He added,
"
And business ain
'
t exactly been coming my way. I
'
ll be honest with you,
"
he said after some hesitation.
"
You
'
ll hear it anyway. I got into some trouble a couple of years ago. With the law.
"