The House On The Creek (21 page)

Give the kid a break
. Damn Everett, anyway. He’d be gone the day after tomorrow. And once again it would be Abby left behind to pick up the pieces of her heart, her family, her life.

“I wanted to give him a lot of time to make plans.”

“But you don’t even know if you’ll make the finals.” Abby said. She hoped she sounded firm. She felt anything but.

“We will.” For the first time, Chris looked up from the table. “We’ll make the team finals and we’ll win. Because I’m team captain and I’m good. And I want him to be there.”

“I’ll be there. And after we’ll do something special. We could drive into Richmond. Have dinner and see a movie.”

“I want
him
to be there, too.” Chris said, earnest. “I wrote him an email and told him exactly when it would be and exactly how to get here. And I gave him our phone number, just in case. So if he calls, Mom,” he faltered. “You won’t hang up on him?”

Abby wanted to weep. “No, sweetheart, of course not. But, you know, your father is a very busy man...”

“He’ll come. I know he will. It’ll be great.”

Abby nodded, and reached over to ruffle her son’s hair. He didn’t squirm, so she hugged him hard.

“I hope so, bud. I really do.”

The house looked big and dark and spooky. No lights on in any of the windows, not even a porch light or a lamp over the cool two car garage. The rain had stopped, but the wind still screeched over through the trees.

Overhead, disintegrating storm clouds rushed across a silver moon.

Chris stood at the end of the long drive and tried to gather his courage. The darkened house made the hairs on the back of his head stand up and prickle.

For an instant, he saw it as it had been when Edward was still alive. Sagging around the edges, paint cracked and peeling, torn curtains in the windows and mildew on the plaster walls. The perfect setting for a ghost or two or three.

Chris shuddered. Huddling his coat tight against the wind, he glanced over his shoulder at Creek Lane and thought about turning back.

But it was too far to walk. And he didn’t really think he’d be able to catch another lift this far off the main road.

Besides, he reminded himself, it wasn’t really all that late. Just after nine. Everett was probably at the back of the house, watching news on that monster of a TV. He’d probably turned off all the lights in the front of the house to conserve energy. Chris had heard through Roddy that people from the West Coast were all about going green.

Lifting his chin, Chris walked slowly up the rest of the drive, trying not to step too loudly. The butterflies in his stomach lessened a little when he got close enough to see the new coat of paint his mom had put on the front door.

The shiny paint reminded him that the house was practically brand new, inside and out, and hardly haunted looking at all any more.

Besides, he didn’t really believe in ghosts. Not really. Because his mom had spent hours in old houses, hours after dark even, and she’d never seen one haunt. And, just last Halloween, he’d walked through Bruton Parish cemetery in CW.

Right at midnight he’d hunched down behind the ancient church, just waiting to see an old Civil War soldier come popping up from behind one of the moss covered tombstones.

But nothing had happened.

And if he didn’t have to be afraid of a Civil War era graveyard, he certainly wouldn’t let Edward’s house frighten him away. Even if it was really dark and empty looking.

It didn’t occur to Chris until he’d climbed the front steps that maybe Everett had gone out. The Spyder wasn’t into the drive, but maybe he’d just moved it into the garage and out of the rain.

Praying as best he could - because, please, God, he didn’t want to walk all the way back home on a windy, freaky night like this one - Chris lifted his fist and pounded on the door.

His knock seemed to echo away into the distance. Chris leaned hard against the door, but he didn’t hear one single scuffle through the thick wood. He pounded again, and then, in desperation, pressed the doorbell over and over with his thumb.

On about the seventh try a light came on in the front hall. Chris puffed out a sigh of relief, and buried his fists in the pockets of his coat.

The door swung open with a creak that would have done any haunted house proud, but Chris was no longer afraid. Because beyond the square of light he could see the floors his mom had redone, and he could smell lemon and beeswax and fresh paint. Scents that reminded him of his mother, and of home and safety.

“Christopher.” That long, slow drawl made Chris want to smile.

Often, lately, when he stopped to listen to the sound of his own voice between his ears, he thought that when he grew up and his tones deepened and became less squeaky he’d sound just like Everett Anderson. Southern as grits and sweet potato pie.

He guessed that moving away to a place where people were weird about conservation and whales and the ozone layer couldn’t really make a person less Southern.

“Where’s your ma?” Everett shifted slightly in the doorway, looking over Chris’s shoulder.

“She’s not here.” He did his best to sound casual. Everett didn’t look like he’d been watching TV. In fact, he looked like he’d been sleeping. His funny blond hair stuck up in clumps, and his feet were bare. He wore baggy sweat pants and the fancy blue sweater he wore didn’t match the pants at all.

Chris thought he looked like he’d rolled out of bed and pulled clothes on at the sound of the doorbell.

Except Everett had a beer bottle in his hand. And, when Chris looked more carefully, a gold pen stuck behind one ear. So maybe he hadn’t been sleeping, after all. Just working.

Still, all at once, Chris felt a little guilty.

“I didn’t mean to bother you,” he muttered, although that wasn’t what he’d had in mind to say at all. “I know it’s kinda late.”

“Come in out of the wind.” Everett waited until Chris stepped into the hall. Then shut the door firmly. “You drive yourself here, kid?”

“No.” Chris tried to look as innocent as possible. “Took a cab.”

It was only a little white lie, really. His mom would kill him if she new he’d hitched. Besides, it was the first time he’d dared, and he wasn’t sure he’d ever have the guts to try it again.

Everett’s eyes narrowed, and he looked as though he knew exactly what was going on in Chris’s head. “Abby know you’re out?”

“Noooo.” He said it carefully. “She was asleep at the kitchen table. I didn’t want to wake her.” He didn’t want to remember how he’d sat in the hall and listened to his mom cry herself to sleep so he screwed up his guts, and looked Everett straight in the eye. “I snuck out. I wanted to talk to you.”

Everett’s face didn’t have any expression at all. He stood so still and silent for so long that Chris had to resist an urge to wiggle. Then he nodded, and pointed the butt of his beer bottle at the room off the hall.

“I’ve got a fire going in the parlor. Sit down and warm yourself. I’ll join you in a minute.”

“Where are you going?” Chris asked, although he could guess.

“To call your ma and let her know you’re not dead on a back road somewhere.”

Now he had to wiggle, a little. “She’ll just come right over and pick me up.”

She’d be all fire mad. And she’d probably cry again when she thought he wasn’t looking. The thought made Chris’s stomach hurt so he bit his lip and reminded himself that he was almost twelve, and twelve year olds didn’t get all snuffly at the drop of a hat.

“Then you’ll have to talk fast,” Everett replied. “Go and sit down.”

Chris trailed across the pine boards he’d helped his mom sand and into the parlor. The room was mostly empty except for a card table and two plastic chairs. Chris thought the furniture looked like it had been picked up at a garage sale.

His mom had furnished most of the big rooms. He thought maybe Everett could use some help decorating the smaller rooms, too, if the parlor was any example.

Papers covered the table in sloppy piles. A smooth little laptop hummed next to something that looked like a poster sized spread sheet. There was a calculator with about a million buttons, and the number in the window was big enough to need about an hour of long division.

Chris picked the nearest of the plastic chairs, and dragged it across the room to the hearth. He sat down, extending his feet to the fire, and closed his eyes. He sat as still as possible and waited for the sound of Everett’s return, but he’d forgotten his host was barefoot, and he didn’t hear a noise until Everett slipped into the room.

“I woke your mom up.” He didn’t sound very happy about it. “She didn’t even know you’d gone. She was ready to rush over but I told her to wait until she was clear headed enough to drive.” He collapsed into the other plastic chair and thunked his beer bottle onto the table. “So, you’d better tell me what this is about before she shows up and tans your hide.”

Chris studied his fingernails and groaned. “She’s really mad. Spitfire mad, ever since this afternoon. Ever since I told her I emailed my dad.”

“You run over here to avoid a whuppin’?”

“She doesn’t whup me.” Chris said, shocked at the idea.

“She might after this stunt.” Everett didn’t exactly seem pleased, but some of the lines in his forehead had softened. “You’ve made her feel pretty rotten, keeping this thing with your daddy a secret.”

Chris tightened his hands in his lap. “I thought maybe you could help with that. I thought maybe you could explain to her so she’d understand.”

“Me?” Everett widened those really green eyes that Chris had thought at first were colored contacts. “Why me?”

Chris thought about what he’d overheard his mom say about Edward and his son, and tried to figure out how best to say it without seeming rude.

“Because you were dirt poor, once, too,” Chris burst out, figuring maybe shortest was sweetest. “So you understand.”

Everett’s eyebrows almost disappeared into his hair. “You’re not dirt poor, kid. You’re got a nice warm house and good clothes and food on your table every night, and a mom who’s willing to pay for soccer lessons.”

Chris’s tongue wanted to stick to the roof of his mouth. He stared at his fists so he wouldn’t have to see the strange expression on Everett’s face. He rushed ahead. “But it wasn’t always that way. When I was little we were hungry all the time, and mom had to get our clothes at Good Will.”

He picked at a hang nail. “She came from dirt poor and I know she hated it. She says we’ve been really lucky but I guess she’s afraid.”

“Afraid?” Everett picked up his beer and took a long swig.

“Yeah. Of, like, going back. To the way it was.” Chris explained as carefully as he could. “She worries about it all the time. She wants me to go to a good college. And she’s scared about what will happen if her business doesn’t work.”

There was a crescent of dirt beneath one fingernail and he scraped it away. “Sometimes at night I’ll get up to use the bathroom, and she’ll be sitting at the kitchen going over bills. Sometimes she stays up all night long.”

Chris stopped and looked up. Everett propped his elbows on his knees, and stared back. “What’s this got to do with your father?”

This was the hardest part. Harder, even, than walking up the drive to a dark and spooky house.

“My dad’s rich,” Chris said. “He’s real rich.”

“He told you that?”

“No.” Chris felt the flush of embarrassment rise along his cheeks. “No, I don’t think he remembers I exist. But he’s a banker. In Richmond. And when I got his address off the internet I showed it to some kids at school, and they said it’s a real posh neighborhood.”

When Chris looked up to check his audience a second time Everett didn’t say anything. He just watched without moving.

“Anyway.” He took a deep breath. “I thought maybe if I wrote him, maybe. Maybe we could be friends, or something. And maybe he’d think I was smart and good at school. He’d see how great I am on the debate team, and I could show him some soccer moves and my report cards. And maybe he’d like me enough to help out a little with college. Since he’s rich, and all. And I’m his son.”

Still Everett didn’t say a word. And Chris was too afraid to look up again.

“I wouldn’t ask him for much.” He tried to talk quickly, before all the fluttering in his stomach made him sick up. “Not for a car or anything like that. Just enough so maybe Mom won’t worry so much. After all, he’s got a responsibility to his kid...doesn’t he?”

The last words were said with as much bluster as he could manage. Queasy with fear and embarrassment, he peeked up under his eyelashes, and saw that Everett was standing up.

“I thought maybe you could explain to Mom without hurting her feelings,” Chris said, more quietly. “Because you grew up together and she likes you, and she listens to whatever you say. You might make her understand. Without hurting her feelings about being poor,” he repeated the most important point.