The Old House (12 page)

It was all Buddy could do to keep from crying in disappointment.

“I can smell dinner cooking,” Cassie said. “I'd better check the oven before I go up and change my clothes.”

“Do I have to change my clothes?” Grandpa wanted to know as he and Addie followed Cassie toward the back of the house. “I remember my mother always made me change my clothes the minute I got home from school so I wouldn't get my good ones dirty.”

“Most people don't bother with that anymore,” Addie was telling him as they walked out of sight. “They just wash load after load in their automatic washers.”

“I used
to sell automatic washing machines. Didn't I?”

Buddy wasn't listening. She stared at the telephone, willing it to ring again with Bart calling back, but it didn't.

“Uh . . . ,” Max said, clearing his throat.

Buddy looked at him.

“Uh, Pa's in kind of a bad mood today. Worse than usual,” he said. “He, uh, he said it was a good thing I did the chores he told me to do yesterday. You know, cutting the grass. And taking the newspapers to be recycled. And I”—he cleared his throat again, and blushed—“I didn't tell him you did it. I let him think—”

“That's okay.” Buddy shrugged. “It doesn't matter.”

He hesitated, then said, “Thanks. I guess I'm a coward, but when he's off his feed, he's . . . hard to deal with. When we lived with my mom, she wouldn't let him pick on me, but that meant they were always fighting. Cassie never fights with him, but she doesn't always take my side in an argument, either, except to make sure I get the benefit of the money my mom sends. Did your folks fight?”

“Not
very often. Hardly ever. Cassie seems nice, though. It seems funny that she's your stepmother. You like her, don't you?”

“Cassie?” He made a face that she couldn't quite interpret. “Yeah, I guess. It's better living with her than with only Pa. And she cooks good. But she's what my mom calls an
enabler
.”

Buddy allowed herself to be distracted from her disappointment about missing Bart's call. “What's that mean?”

“It means she doesn't do anything wrong herself—like drink too much and fall down, or be mean to other people—but she makes it possible for Pa to keep on doing those things. My mom couldn't make him stop, so she left, see? She wouldn't let him keep his beer in the house. She tried to insist that he take the responsibility for paying the rent and buying the groceries. She didn't try to find other ways to take care of those things so Pa could just coast, the way he does here. She didn't make excuses for him. She didn't make it easier for him to skip the responsibility part of marriage, the way Cassie does.”

“An enabler,” Buddy repeated. “Someone who . . .
who enables someone else to do something he shouldn't be allowed to do.”

“Right. Mom said she felt guilty leaving me behind, but without money or a job or a place to stay, she couldn't take me along. She couldn't even guarantee that we'd both have enough to eat. But she promised that someday she'd get me back, when she could take care of me.” Max bit his lip. “Do you believe in someday?”

Buddy didn't have to think about that for very long. “Yes. Someday she'll come back for you, and someday—soon—my dad will come back for my brother and me.”

This wasn't the time to admit how scared she was that something terrible had happened to her father, that he might not be
able
to return.

“I'm twelve,” Max said. “When I'm eighteen, and out of school, I'll get a job and take care of
her
, if I need to.”

Six years
, Buddy thought. That was a long time.

Yet not as long as it would be for her if Bart didn't find Dad, if the two of them didn't come back together.

Beside them, the phone rang.

Max grabbed it. “Yeah? I mean, hello? Yes, she's right here.”

“Bart?” Buddy asked eagerly, taking the phone from Max.

“Yeah, it's me. Listen, I found somebody who saw Dad. Four days ago. She's a waitress in a little restaurant on Highway 101. She even remembered what he had to eat. Two hamburgers with everything, fries, and an order of onion rings. And she filled his Thermos with coffee. She didn't see Rich, but she said Dad told her his partner was in the sleeper, and he took him a ham sandwich and a piece of cherry pie. Remember how Rich always liked cherry pie?”

“Yes. So she was sure it really was Dad? Does she know what happened to him?” Buddy's chest was tight again, barely allowing her to breathe. “Was he all right then?”

“He was fine. She said he was cheerful, mentioned that he had a new job and that he had two kids at home, and that they'd probably have to move as soon as he got a couple of paychecks so that he could afford it.”

“
Then where is he?” Buddy begged. “How could he just disappear with an eighteen-wheeler?”

“I don't know yet. She said he kept trying to use the phone, but some guy was hogging it and he finally gave up and said he'd try farther down the line. But I know he got this far, heading south. I thought you'd want to know that I had some definite word, and a time when he was here. So I'm taking it slow, driving in the direction he was going. I'm stopping everywhere I think he could have stopped. For fuel, for food. I've got his picture with me, that one of him we took last summer at the beach, and this waitress recognized it right away. Maybe somebody else will, too.” Bart hesitated. “You doing okay, Buddy?”

She thought of the way Addie had spoken about their father, and what it was like being in the middle of a dysfunctional family, and having to go to school in Haysville tomorrow with a bunch of strangers, and of Grandpa blowing up the microwave and the remote control, and knew this wasn't the time to tell Bart
about any of that. “I'm okay,” she said. “Call me again the minute you learn anything else, will you? Promise?”

“Promise,” Bart assured her. “I miss you, Buddy.”

“I miss you, too,” she said, feeling the sting of tears. “Good luck, Bart. Keeping looking until you find him.”

“I will,” he said, and then he was gone.

“He didn't find your dad yet,” Max said as she slowly replaced the receiver.

“No, but he found a waitress who remembered seeing him. He's getting closer.”

“He'll probably find him tomorrow, maybe, then.”

She didn't know if that was true or not, but she was grateful to Max for helping her hang on to the hope.

Max inhaled deeply. “Smells like the chicken must be close to done. Cassie makes great dressing to stuff a chicken. At least Pa married somebody who keeps us fed, even if he doesn't pay for much of it.”

They heard Grandpa's voice raised querulously in the kitchen. “Somebody must have
taken them. I know I left them on my dresser, where I always kept them.”

As they walked into the room, Cassie was dishing up mashed potatoes. There were two golden brown roasting hens resting on twin platters on the counter. “Max, would you call Gus, please? It's all ready to eat right now.”

“Why did somebody take my pills?” Grandpa demanded, paying no attention to what Cassie was saying. “My hip is hurting, and I need the pills.”

“I'll get you the pills, Grandpa,” Addie assured him. “I put them away so you wouldn't take too many of them like you did the last time your arthritis kicked up.”

“It always hurts when it's going to rain. I want the pills where I can take them when I need them.”

“I have to keep them, because when they're on your dresser, you take too many of them all at once. That's not safe. Just tell me when you need them,” Addie said, and disappeared into the hallway to the ground-floor bathroom. She returned with a small bottle and dumped several pills into his outstretched hand.

Grandpa was not mollified. He was still angry that Addie had taken them. “I've been taking my own pills all my life—over ninety years, isn't it?—and I don't need somebody else to tell me when I need them.”

“You need someone to keep you from overdosing,” Addie said calmly. “The last time you had a bad spell, you took thirty capsules in one day. That could make you very sick, or even kill you.”

“You're treating me as if I were a child,” Grandpa said. “This is still my house, and I'm old enough to know when I need a pain pill.”

“It's just that you forget how many you've taken, honey,” Cassie soothed. “Take those, and you'll feel better soon. Max, haven't you gone after your father yet? The food's going to get cold. Sit down, Grandpa. Buddy, would you dish up those green beans in that blue bowl, please?”

Five minutes after they'd said grace and commenced to eat, Grandpa suddenly blurted into the middle of a conversation about who they'd talked to at church, “You should have been at services, Gus. The pastor gave an excellent sermon about the evils of drink.”

Gus glared at him. “Don't bother telling me about it. I've already heard it. Pass the butter, Max.”

“I'll have some, too,” Cassie requested.

That was enough to get them off the subject for a few minutes, and then Grandpa said, “My hip aches. I need a pain pill. Those red and yellow ones.”

“You just took two of them ten minutes ago,” Addie said. “Wait a little longer, and they'll start to work.”

Buddy, savoring roasted chicken and mashed potatoes and gravy and biscuits, thought of how much more fun it was to eat with Dad and Bart, even if they weren't eating such a delicious meal. Everybody would be laughing, not squabbling. But she felt sorry for Grandpa. It must be awful not to remember things any longer than he did. She could see how he'd make a mistake and take too many pills, when he couldn't remember that he'd already taken some, and she understood why Addie had taken them away and hidden them. But she longed for a more normal household, with no grumpy Gus eating in his undershirt, no Max sunk in silence
after his father had chewed him out for not remembering to bring in the Sunday paper before he went off to church.

After dinner, which was capped off by apple crisp and ice cream, the adults all decided they were in need of naps. It was hard to understand how Gus could need one, since he hadn't even gotten out of bed until the others got home, but as long as he went away, Buddy was happy to have him go back to sleep.

She didn't feel any need of a nap. She decided to finish the book about the family whose lives had been disrupted by a bear, and retired to the little sewing room.

Later she was aware of the reawakening of the household; there were sounds, voices, the slamming of a door. Then Max stood in her own doorway. “Have you seen Grandpa?” he asked.

Buddy set her book aside. “Not since we ate dinner.”

“He seems to have disappeared,” Max said. “Nobody can find him. I think they want us all to look for him.”

They began to look for Grandpa around four in the afternoon.

They checked out the entire house first, of course, including the attic. Because her legs were younger, Buddy got to climb up there. The stairs were so narrow and so steep, she didn't wonder they hadn't tried to haul the stuff from the sewing room and Addie's back bedroom office up there. It was so packed with junk, there wasn't room for much more, anyway. The result, she decided, of the family's having lived in one place for so long. There was no sign of Grandpa, and the search moved outside.

At first nobody panicked. Since the old man saw so poorly, nobody thought he would have wandered far from the house. But after an
hour, when there was still no clue as to his whereabouts, they broadened the base of their operations.

“Max, you go toward town and ask, house to house, if anyone has seen him,” Addie directed, and her voice had become sharp with anxiety. “I'll take the other end of the street. Cassie can take the car and head over toward the school, and then the church. Gus—”

Gus grunted a denial. “Don't assign anything to me. I'm not feeling well enough to go out and walk up and down for blocks. I'll stay here in case there's any news on the phone.”

“What shall I do?” Buddy asked uncertainly.

“Why don't you go with Max? One of you can take each side of the street. Just tell them Harry Ostrom. Everybody knows him.”

But nobody had seen him. On a Sunday afternoon, people were eating big dinners, taking naps, and watching television, or were over on the athletic field at the school, tossing or kicking balls.

When Buddy and Max met in the middle of the street at the intersection with the main
highway, Max was scowling. “How far could he go, for pete's sake? In a town the size of this one, nobody can get really
lost
, can they? I mean, he might not be able to see to find his way home, but we ought to be able to find
him
.”

“Maybe Addie or Cassie has found him,” Buddy said hopefully. “Let's go back to the house. Unless you think he might have crossed the highway. Should we ask over there on the other side?”

Max considered. “No. Not without checking at home. Just in case he's turned up.”

But Grandpa had
not
turned up. Cassie was on the edge of tears. “Maybe we'd better call the police in to help look for him.”

The police force in Haysville consisted of two officers and one patrol car. Both officers knew Grandpa, and even the one off-duty brought out his own car to help look.

By seven o'clock, when Buddy's stomach was starting to rumble, the entire town had been alerted, and remained baffled. Grandpa Harry Ostrom might have vanished into thin air.

By that time the temperature had dropped,
and the darkened sky was overcast. A light rain had begun. Grandpa had been right about the weather changes that set off his arthritis.

“He'll get pneumonia if he's out in this,” Cassie said, twisting her hands together.