WISHBONE (23 page)

The woman instantly relaxed at the sound of his voice, smiling once again. “Well, you must be Mr. Grenier up at Arlette’s Victorian.”

“No…yes…I am Julien Grenier, but
I
own the Victorian.”

The woman blushed. “Well, of course you do,” she corrected herself. “Don’t mind me. What can I do for you?”

“I would like to see the records on the house? Previous sales…occupants?”

The woman’s smile faded again. “Oh, Mr. Grenier, we don’t keep all that here. We’re a small office. We hold only the most current records.” She paused and leaned back, glancing into a room to her left. “Bernie?” she called out, then turned her attention back to Julien. “Is there some sort of trouble with the house?”

“Who’s having trouble with a house?” Bernie Lind stepped out from his office eyeing Julien curiously.

“Bernie, this is Mr. Grenier from up the mountain…the Victorian.”

“Mr. Grenier, a pleasure to finally meet you. I’m your Mayor, Bernard Lind.” He smiled and briskly shook Julien’s hand. “Looks like you’ve been in some sort of tangle.” He laughed as he eyed Julien up and down.

Julien recognized the man’s surname to be the same as the town doctor. 

Ignoring his prying commentary he went on, “I was asking for the records of the house.  We find a jewelry box in the barn and want to know who it might belong to.”

Bernie laughed again.

Does inappropriate laughter run in the family?
 

 “That’s impossible.” The Mayor chuckled again, only this time with a wheeze that quickly turned into a hacking cough.

“Oooh…” The woman pounded on the Mayor’s back with a concerned grimace. “You and those cigars...”

Bernie’s cough dissipated and he wiped at his mouth with a handkerchief. “Didn’t Randall remodel that barn for you?”

“Randall…” Julien fumbled to quickly create plan B. His mind went blank yet again.

Every time he thought he had a leg up on the situation, more questions surfaced…questions for which he had no answers, further whittling his confidence.

“Yes, Randy. He would’ve seen something like that. Must be junk, Mr. Grenier. Maybe play trinkets belonging to my niece, Sarah. I can call her mother and ask if—” 

“No,” Julien interrupted, as the mayor stepped to the side, reaching for the phone. “No…I can ask Sarah. She’s at the house right now.” 

He backed away from the counter never having developed plan B for the jewelry box story and sure he never would. He could have insisted that the box was found in the lower level where Randall had not been working, but in reality, there was no jewelry box, and he did not want to raise any more eyebrows than he already had. 

The mayor nodded and winked. “I’m sure it’s Sarah’s,” he agreed.

“Yes, perhaps you are right.” Julien smiled at the woman behind the counter then turned away leaving the building in a hurry.

Something is very wrong here.

Julien was about to climb onto his bike when he spotted Dr. Lind getting into his car. He hurried across the grass, passing a tall bronze statue at the center of a roundabout.

“Dr. Lind!” he called before the man could close his door. “Dr. Lind…’allo.” He approached the doctor’s car.

“Well, I see that leg is healing nicely,” Lind said sarcastically as he climbed back out of the car.

Julien glanced down. “Yes…I guess it was not as bad as you thought?”

The doctor looked him over. “Well, it looks like you’ve managed to get yourself into more trouble.”

“I had a small accident with my bike,” he said, motioning across the street at the Indian Chief chopper. “I wanted to talk to you about Sarah…”

“Oh?” Dr. Lind asked. “Is she causing a problem?” He laughed nervously.

“No, no…”  Julien shook his head. “No, it’s not…well…” He realized he hadn’t a clue what to say. He panicked.

I should have never come here today.

I have no plan.

“Are you alright?” the doctor asked, tilting his head back and peering at him suspiciously through his glasses.

“The chickens,” Julien said. “What is her thing with the chickens?” He tried to buy time dancing around the topic.

Dr. Lind chuckled. “You scared me for a moment there. Yes, she has a way with those birds, doesn’t she?”

Julien nodded uneasily. “You could say that,” he said.

“You know, tending to those chickens has made a world of difference for Sarah. Before them, she was alone in her own mind; there was no communicating with her. My sister-in-law, Arlette…she is the one to thank. She started taking Sarah up to the old house when Sarah was only three, maybe four years old.”

Julien asked, “How old is Sarah?”

Dr. Lind thought for a moment. “Seventeen now … practically a woman. The years pass so quickly.” He laughed again.

Julien’s confidence grew. “Actually,” he began, scratching at the back of his head stalling to muster the courage to say his peace, “there has been something…”

The mayor called out from across the street, “Carl!” He jogged toward them. “Arlette’s been hounding me all morning and I keep forgetting to call you. Are we on for this weekend?” 

The mayor is Arlette’s husband.

The mayor turned his attention to Julien. “Hello, again, Mr. Grenier. You should have my brother take a look at that.” He pointed at Julien’s bruises. Bernie held his hands up and took a step back. “Am I interrupting anything?” 

Dr. Lind shook his head and looked to Julien for agreement. “We were just talking about Sarah’s magic with those chickens.”

Julien stood silently watching the interaction between them.

Dr. Lind looked at him, still suspicious. “Was there anything else, Mr. Grenier?”

Julien shook his head and backed away. “I have to get home.”

“Well, you take care of yourself. No more close calls for you.” Dr. Lind laughed and the mayor joined in. 

As he straddled his bike, Julien could hear Bernie’s hacking cough in the distance. He rode away from the town en route home. By the time he reached the mountain road, he was chastising himself for not telling the doctor to keep his daughter off their property and demanding that the town produce all public records on the house. He parked the bike alongside the Lexus.

Julien fearfully walked past the porch swing and entered the house. Rachael sat at the dining room table sipping a glass of wine.

“Do you want some?” she asked.

He nodded and slid into the seat across from her. She disappeared into the kitchen returning with another glass. She poured him some wine and sat back down.

“You went into town looking like that?” she inquired.

“How do you know where I went?” he answered with a question.

“Where else would you go?”

“For a ride,” he responded. He took a sip of the wine and rummaged through a pocket for his cigarettes.

She calmly confronted him. “There you go again…never quite a lie, just an incomplete story…”

Julien watched her, searching for some sign of the Rachael he knew and loved.

She continued, “Nine…no…what is it now? Eleven years of your vague stories and tightly-kept secrets?”

Julien defended himself and said, “Some things are better left forgotten, Rachael.”

“Like your rules.” She stretched across the table and toyed with his pack of cigarettes. Reaching awkwardly, she removed one and rolled it toward her. Julien did not bother to help, but leaned over the table to light it with his Zippo.

 “So it seems,” he agreed. “All I wanted was for us to be responsible. Whatever this…game has brought to us, I wanted us to be careful…not to affect others…not hurt one another…not be greedy.”

“Julien, wanting a baby that was brutally taken from me is not being greedy.”

“She was not meant to be,” he said with sadness.

“Fuck you! You didn’t
want
her to be.”

He snapped back at her, “I didn’t
know
about her!” 

“Shit… Julien…” She jumped up and went to the bottom of the stairs to listen for Jessica.  Satisfied that she had not been woken by his voice, Rachael returned to the table. “Keep your fucking voice down,” she demanded.

“My bike…I could have bought that bike. The pool…that can be bought too. Rings, televisions, stereo systems, tattoos, even the horses…they can all be bought. That baby is not real, Rachael.”

Rachael released a low guttural laugh. “You won’t let this rest. As long as we were wishing for material bullshit it was all good, but finally something that means anything
real,
and suddenly it’s a problem.”

“Are you listening to anything I am saying? This is not only about a baby. What about my father? Look at me, Rachael…do you honestly believe I did this to myself?”

“Maybe your demons
are
coming back to haunt you.” Exhausted by the repeated argument, a frustrated sigh escaped her. “Look, I don’t know what happened to you in France…you’ve never told me.” She shook her head, stopping herself before she made another accusation.

“Maybe so,” he admitted. “But if I did tell you, it would have no bearing on what is happening here today.”

“What about your leg…the ladder?” she questioned. “That was just fine. You couldn’t buy that wish.”

“I would gladly have that surgery if it means our lives are back to normal right now and none of this has taken place. Besides,” he looked at her before going on, “that was the first wish.  I had no idea what we were getting ourselves into. I didn’t even believe in the game. I
still
don’t believe. There’s something more going on here.”

“Spell this out for me, Jules…what are you asking for? What do you want?”

“I want us to make a final wish…to make everything right again. Wait…” He stopped, positive he caught her in her game. “You are trying to get me to say it out loud…” He laughed. “…that way the wish can never come true.”  He pointed at her narrowing his eyes. “You are very smart, Rachael. There is my girl. She is in there some places.”

She grinned proudly and poured more wine for them both. “You do understand that I can never trust you to play the game again, don’t you?”

“We just played a few hours ago,” he countered. “You trusted me then.”

“Yeah, well…”  She took another sip of wine. “That was an emergency.”

“Rachael?” He scoffed.

She parroted his accent back at him. “
Rachael.”
She tried not to laugh. “It seems you’re not thinking clearly these days, Julien.”  Her eyes grew wild. “We have the world at our fingertips here…the power of God.”

“What happens when we run out of chickens?”

“Have you done a head-count out there? There are dozens of ‘em. The fuckers breed fast enough to reload the joint before we can cook them all…or, we just wish for more! It’s simple.  Besides, Sarah’s got a way with those birds.” She grinned.

“Let me ask you, why did you not wish for that night…the burglary… never to have happened? You could have wished us back to our anniversary. We could have had a wonderful night and be back home in the city. You would have still been pregnant.”

“Oh, I thought about it,” she offered. “I thought about it a lot, but the rape is done and over. Shit! I’d even go through it again for what we have now.”

“The power of God,” he said sarcastically.

“Uh-huh…” She lit another smoke and continued, “…and I have Jessica back, like nothing ever happened…and a beautiful home and our child will never have to be sick or want for anything. Those bones are like little miracle machines, Jules. If only you weren’t so fucking worried about losing control of everything. I mean, that’s what this is, right? I’ve made a decision and put my foot down, and you’re not happy about it.”

Julien looked into her eyes and asked, “Do you love me?”

Rachael huffed and looked away.

“Rachael…I am asking you this. Do you still love me?”

“What…to love you means I have to agree with everything you say? Always be at your beck and call?”

“Have I ever treated you with disrespect?” he pleaded. “Asked anything of you that was dangerous or led you into trouble?” 

“Julien, I
do
love you.” She looked him in the eyes. “But I absolutely do not agree with you on this one, and as much as I
do
love you
, don’t force me to choose between you and that baby, and honestly…” she took another sip of wine and avowed, “I can’t say that I trust you right now. I don’t.”

“So you will sacrifice me—and I don’t mean our marriage, I’m not even going there yet—I’m talking about everything that has happened to me since we started this game…the visions, and my father, and the accident with the ladder. For whatever reasons, I seem to be developing very bad luck and I think…no…
I know
Sarah has something to do with this.”

“That’s it!” She yelled and jumped up. Her chair flew backward, landing on its side with a crash.

Julien’s phone rang in the kitchen. He got up and went to it. He hoped it would be Matt calling from home and did not want to avoid him again, causing another unannounced trip.

He answered, “’allo.” 

“Julien, its Philip,” the voice of his former boss came through the phone.

“Phil?” Julien asked in a surprised tone.

Philip cleared his throat. “How are you?”

“Good, good. Yourself?”

“Julien, I’m calling you because…” He sighed. “Julien, this is never easy…we’re all broken up about this…I know you were very close and I have to let you know… Matt and his wife were killed in a car accident today.”

Julien felt the air rush from his lungs and the room began to blur. He slid down the counter to the floor in shock.

Philip continued, “Julien, they were heading up to see you and Rachael. The accident happened just a few miles from your new place. I guess it was supposed to be some sort of surprise.” Philip listened for a response from Julien; there was silence. “I’m so sorry; I just thought I should be the one to call you.”

Rachael stood over Julien now; she pried the phone from his hand. She could not imagine whom he was talking to, or what he was hearing. “Hello?” she said frantically.

“Rachael, it’s Philip. I’m so sorry, Rachael. “Maybe I shouldn’t have called, I just thought…” he stopped short, not wanting to continue.