“Let’s go outside and have a cigar,” Mark suggested.
“Sure,” I said.
Outside, the underage crowd guzzled bottles wrapped in brown paper. They groped each other beneath the bright lights of the street lamps where clouds of moths floated, as if they’d vaporized out of the couple’s heads. Mark had a silver cigar case with his initials engraved on it in curling script.
“Cigar?”
I shook my head.
“They’re Cuban.”
“I prefer Costa Rican,” I said.
“No wonder you drive your father crazy,” said Mark.
I laughed. I didn’t like Mark, I never had, but I was finding the familiar good, despite myself.
“What are you doing in Portland? There’s absolutely nothing here,” he said.
One of the teens threw a bottle onto the street. It shattered prompting a chorus of retarded laughter. I really didn’t know what I was doing in Portland. “I’m slumming it,” I said finally. “So are you.”
Mark regarded me closely. He was bouncing to some tune playing in his mind. He shook his head. “No,” said Mark. “I am slumming it. You are insane.”
I had trouble sleeping that night. The wind blew, shivering the leaves and somewhere, two branches sawed against each other, creaking and groaning into the night air. There was some nocturnal thing out there, lost and alone, calling from the woods. It sounded like a cat. Arthur was sleeping deeply, snoring into the crook of my neck. He smelled like shampoo and cigarette smoke. Something about Arthur made me feel indescribably sad. I liked him in the pit of my stomach. I knew he was going to go bald young and he already had a bit of a potbelly, but picturing him aged ten years made me laugh. I wanted to be there for it, but felt that this was unlikely. I got out of bed. All this thinking had made me want a cigarette.
I stood out on the back deck. The tide was in and the bay a gorgeous glossy black. The moon was almost full and shone a full path straight into the open sea, or maybe all the way to Spain, then that thing called again, a lonely scream, and before I really understood what I was doing, I found myself walking in my bare feet out toward the woods.
The grass was freezing the soles of my feet and making my toes ache. I paused at the edge of the greenery and took a last drag off my cigarette before throwing the butt onto the damp grass. The scream sounded again and then was silent. I began to get scared. There was something unnatural about that scream. I wondered if that’s what banshees sounded like, if otherworldly creatures lured people out with similar pathetic, helpless cries. I stood still listening to my own breathing, feeling my pulse in my finger tips. Something made me look quickly over my shoulder, but there was nothing there. I turned back to the woods and saw it—a light—moving deep in the trees. The light disappeared and I was just about to convince myself that there had been nothing, when the round, hovering glow swung sharply to the left and became a beam. There was someone lurking in the woods. Someone with a flashlight. I turned and ran back to the house.
I was completely out of breath when I reached the deck. I’d left the sliding glass doors wide open. I put the planks in place to lock the sliders shut, then crossed the living room to bolt the front door.
“Katherine?”
I spun around. “Jesus Christ.”
Arthur was standing there with his hands in his armpits. “Did I scare you?”
“You almost killed me. What are you doing up?”
“I had to go to the bathroom. What are you doing up?”
“I’m always up,” I said. “Go to bed. I’ll be right in.”
I don’t know why I didn’t tell him about the light.
Maybe because I thought it was Bad Billy, safe in the woods. And I wanted to keep him out there, loose in the woods, a part of Maine’s untamed beauty. Maybe Bad Billy was necessary for culling the herds of people, something natural, as wolves were necessary to keep the deer population in check. I tried to argue that he wasn’t doing any harm, there were lots of people after all. But murdering helpless individuals pretty much defined “harm.” But what about helpless? What made these people helpless? Why didn’t they defend themselves, and if they did, why were they so ineffective?
I found it hard to sympathize with people like that.
When I could hear Arthur’s snoring again, I packed a trash bag with a blanket, a candle, matches, two cans of beans, three apples, half a loaf of sliced bread, a can opener, and, in a generous moment, a canister of Planter’s cheese twists. I brought these out to the edge of trees, whistled (because that’s how you call wild things) and then left running back to the house. I locked the door with my heart pounding in my chest. I settled onto the couch with Frankenstein, which my mother had read to me when I was a child but couldn’t remember well, knowing that the next morning my monster Bad Billy—who I was sure was hiding in the woods—would have taken the bag, taken the beans, and returned to his lair. I would take care of my monster and he would keep me free.
10
The next morning, I was awakened by a banging on the door. I had no idea who it was. My guilt (or whatever corresponding mechanism I had) suggested Boris. Arthur was sound asleep. I got up and tiptoed along the hallway. There was more banging. I went into to the bathroom, which gave a good view of the driveway. To my delight, there was a FedEx truck parked up against Arthur’s van. I ran to the front door. The man was walking away.
“Hello,” I called. “Sorry I took so long. I was asleep.”
“That’s okay,” the man said. He took a pen from behind his ear and handed it to me. “Just this envelope, but I need a signature.”
The envelope was light. I shook it. Something rattled inside. I signed my name in the correct box. “Thanks,” I said.
I made a pot of coffee before opening the envelope. I sat sipping the coffee, looking at the envelope, which I had leaned up against the carton of half-and-half. I don’t know how long I was sitting there, but it was long enough for Arthur to get up and take a quick shower. He came into the kitchen wrapped in his towel and took the chair across from me.
“Is that the envelope from your mother?” he asked.
“From my father. My mother’s stuff from my father.”
We sat still. “Aren’t you going to open it?”
I nodded. I took the envelope and tore the strip at the top. Inside was a photograph taken on the front steps of our house. My mother looked particularly glamorous in the picture, fierce round bob, Lilly Pulitzer dress, long legs, kooky sunglasses. I held her hand absentmindedly, staring with ill humor at the camera. My father smiled out with perfect teeth. I handed the picture to Arthur.
“Where’s this taken?” he asked.
“Hingham,” I said.
“Is this your house?”
I nodded.
“Wow. It looks like a bank.”
“The pillars are gone now,” I said. “My mother always hated them. Made her feel like she was living in a mortuary.” The next thing I pulled out of the envelope was a safe-deposit key. A paper tag hung from it, yellowed, and on this was a long number in fading, feathery ink written in my mother’s hand—exotic-looking “I”s and the French sevens, cut off at the waist. “Safe-deposit box,” I said to Arthur. “This must be the jewelry.”