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I was sure she thought my darker look and subdued manner were a result of my disappointment with my work. She immediately went into one story after another about the customers, Missy and Cassie, throwing every possible amusing incident out to distract me and cheer me up. By the time we pulled up in front of the cafe, she had managed to get me to laugh as well as smile. I felt guilty, however, for not telling her about Duncan and all that had happened.
Maybe I will later I told myself and went into the cafe to enjoy being with her and Uncle Tyler. At least for a few hours I could put all the weirdness behind me, I thought. I certainly didn't want to dump any of it into their laps. They would surely regret permitting me to come live with them, and I couldn't blame them.
Aunt Zipporah did finally ask me about Duncan. She wondered why he wasn't coming around.
I hesitated a moment, and then thought she was the one who had put the idea and the need for occasional little white lies into my mind. This seemed like the right time for one.
"He called once. I happened to be in the house and heard the phone. He was very busy with chores."
She nodded, holding a half smile.
She knows I'm lying, I thought. I'm not good at it. Grandpa use to tell me I was so used to telling the truth, telling exactly what I really thought, that a lie or even a half-truth would pop out like a pimple on my face. He was fond of saying I was my
grandmother's granddaughter
"Lawyers are skilled at turning a phrase, concealing a fact, twisting reality to fit the brief, but nurses have a need to tell it like
it is," he'd tell me.
"That's not true for Rachel," I told him. He laughed.
"Rachel is a different sort of lawyer. She should have been a surgeon instead. If you need your appendix taken out, she won't procrastinate or pretend otherwise. She'll take it out."
I'd rather be like Rachel, I thought and hated myself for not being that way now.
Duncan didn't call again that day, nor did he come to the cafe. I was troubled, but I swallowed it back as best I could and made every effort to hide it from my uncle and aunt, forcing smiles, talking with Mrs. Mallen, keeping busy. Even though I had little appetite, I ate more than I usually did. My cover-up seemed to work.
When we all went home after closing, I expected that Duncan might call. I kept listening for the phone, but it didn't ring, and I finally fell asleep. I didn't sleep well. I woke .in the middle of the night and tossed and turned for hours, getting up and standing by my window to look out at the field and the studio, hoping to see him hovering in a shadow. I didn't and finally fell asleep again. I slept well into the morning, and when I did eventually awake, I found that my uncle and aunt had left me a note saying they were going to the cafe together earlier this morning and Aunt Zipporah was leaving her car for me to drive to the cafe when I was up and about.
I made myself some coffee and sat thinking, again wondering if Duncan would call. I decided to call him and tried, but the line was busy. I tried again and again, but all I got was a busy signal. Finally, I asked the operator to tell me if the line was out of order. She checked and returned to tell me it wasn't.
"Someone might have left the receiver off the hook," she suggested. She said there was nothing she could do about it.
Would his mother deliberately do that? I wondered. Doesn't anyone call her? Wouldn't she be afraid to leave it off the hook?
When I went out to the car, I paused and looked down the road, thinking about Duncan and the strange things he had said to me on the phone. I made an impulsive decision, got into Aunt Zipporah's car, and drove off in the opposite direction from the cafe, following the memory of where Duncan had told me his home on the old egg farm was located. I recalled the cross streets, but I got lost looking for them and finally had to stop at a gas station and get directions. It wasn't that much farther.
There was no sign to indicate the property was Duncan's, but I saw a small statue of the Madonna just inside the driveway. The chicken coops were off to the right. They were long, gray buildings that looked dark and empty even from this distance. I saw a tractor parked beside one, but no one was around.
The house itself was a large, two-story Queen Anne with a turret roof on the lower porch and an upper porch just under the principal roofline. The exterior walls had patterned wood shingles, and the steeply pitched roof of irregular shape had a dominant front- facing gable. There was a short stairway leading up to the front porch. It was clearly a classic old house, and if it had some real money invested in it, it would surely be a prime property, I thought.
On first glance, it looked abandoned. All of the windows were dark. I drove a little further into the driveway, and when I leaned to the left, I could see a clothesline with sheets, shirts, skirts and dresses waving in the breeze just to the right of the rear of the house. The windows in the late morning sun glittered and reflected the blue sky.
I remained there, thinking and staring at the house. I saw Duncan's mother's car parked in front, but there was no sign of his scooter or of him. Should I just drive up and knock on the door? I wondered. What could she do, shout at me, babble some biblical quotes? At least I would know he was all right.
Yet I still hesitated. I had yet to see another car on this side road. Way off to the right, someone was developing the land. A bulldozer was parked there, but at the moment, there was no one working. I was hoping that at any moment I might see Duncan walking about the property, or at least he would see me parked out here and come to me, but nothing moved. Even the blades of wild grass off to the right and left seemed to have frozen.
I continued slowly down the gravel driveway, hearing only the crunch of tires and small stones. When I reached her car, I stopped and sat there for a few moments, now expecting that surely she or Duncan would step out on that porch. No one did. I turned off the engine and got out slowly, deliberately closing the door hard so someone would hear me. Again, I waited, watching the door. No one appeared.
A voice within me urged me to turn around, get back into the car and drive off. I seriously considered it until I heard what sounded like a woman's wail coming from somewhere inside the house. It sent my heart racing. I listened for it again, but heard nothing. Was it the wind? There was barely any breeze. Even the few clouds against the soft blue sky looked pasted, unmoving.
Why should I go forward? I asked myself. Why should I care? The debate raged inside me.
Finally, it wasn't only the similarities that I felt Duncan and I shared--this fear of inheriting evil, this self-defeating and depressing idea that no one would see anything good in us--that drove me to go to that front door. I had seen there was a softness in Duncan, a loving softness and a desperate need for real affection. In his eyes I saw the sincere affection he had for me. I had become his hope, his way back from the same twisted pathway I had been made to take. We could join hands. We could defeat the shadows and darkness. We could be something wonderful together.
Strengthened by my hope, I stepped forward and went up the short stairway. I barely heard my own footsteps and looked down to see if I was tiptoeing or walking on air. Moments later, I stood before the large, oak wood door and searched for a doorbell button. There was none, not even a knocker. Did no one ever come to this house? It made me think of a face without eyes.
I gazed around, looked back up the empty driveway at the quiet street, and then I knocked on the door and waited. I heard nothing, not a voice asking who's there or any footsteps from within. I knocked again, this time harder, and when I did, the door opened. It had not been closed tightly.
