Ida glowered, jerked her face toward a waitress, blurted "Table five's still waiting for that pitcher of beer," and scowled at Grady while pressing her hand on the cash register. "Sorry? Let me tell you something. Brian shut me out after his children died. We visited. We spent time together. But things between us were never the same. For the past ten years, it's been like we weren't blood kin. Like" – Ida's facial expression became skeletal – "like there was some kind of barrier between us. I resented that, being made to feel like a stranger. I tried all I could to be friendly to him. As far as I'm concerned, a part of Brian died a long time ago. What he did to Betsy and himself was wrong. But it might be the best thing that could have happened."
"I don't understand." Grady leaned closer, trying hard to ignore Roy Orbison's mournful song and the stares from the silent, intense factory workers.
"It's no secret," Ida said. "You know. The whole town knows. My husband divorced me eight years ago. After we were married, I kept having miscarriages, so we never had children. It aged me. How I hate that young secretary he ran off with. All I got from the settlement, from the greedy lawyers, from the God-damned divorce judge, is the rickety trailer I'm forced to shiver in when the weather gets cold. You're sorry? Well, let me tell you, right now as much as I hurt, I'm not sorry. Brian had it all, and I had nothing! When he shut me out… The best thing he ever did for me was to shoot himself. Now this tavern's mine. Finally I've got something."
Grady felt shocked. "Ida, you don't mean that."
"The hell I don't! Brian treated me like an outcast. I earned this tavern. I deserve it. When they open the will" – Ida's stern expression became calculating – "if there's any justice… Brian promised me. In spite of the distance he kept from me, he said he'd take care of me. This tavern's mine. And I bet you could use a drink." She stiffened her hand on the cash register.
"Thanks, Ida. I'd like to, but I can't. I'm on duty." Grady lowered his gaze and dejectedly studied his hat. "Maybe another time."
"No time's better than now. This is happy hour. If you can't be happy, at least drown your sorrow. Call this a wake. It's two drinks for the price of one."
"Not while I'm in uniform. But please remember, I do share your grief."
Ida didn't listen, again barking orders toward a waitress.
Disturbed, Grady picked up his cap and stood from the stool at the bar. A professional instinct made him pause. "Ida."
"Can't you see I'm busy?"
"I apologize, but I need information. Where Brian… Where Betsy was… What do you know about where it happened?"
"Not a hell of a lot."
"But you must know something. You knew enough to go out there."
"There?" Ida thickened her voice. "There? I was there only once. But I felt so shut out… so unwelcome… so bitter… Believe me, I made a point of remembering how to get there."
"Go over that again. Why do you think he made you feel unwelcome?"
"That place was…" Ida furrowed her already severely pinched forehead. "His retreat. His wall against the world." Her scowl increased. "I remember when he bought that hollow. His children had been dead five months. The summer had turned to fall. It was hunting season. Brian's friends made an effort to try to distract him. 'Come on, let's hunt some rabbits, some grouse,' they told him. 'You can't just sit around all day.' He was practically dragged from his bedroom." While Ida continued to keep her left hand rigidly on the cash register, she pointed her right hand toward the ceiling above the tavern, indicating where Brian and Betsy had lived. "So Brian… he had no energy… if it weren't for me, the tavern would have gone to hell… he shuffled his feet and went along. And the next day, when he came back, I couldn't believe the change in him. He was filled with energy. He'd found some land he wanted to buy, he said. He was… Frantic? That doesn't describe it. He kept jabbering about a hollow in the mountains. He'd wandered into it. He absolutely had to own it."
Ida gave more commands to her waitresses and swung her dour gaze toward Grady. "I figured Brian must have had a nervous breakdown. I told him he couldn't afford a second property. But he wouldn't listen. He insisted he had to buy it. So despite my warning, he used this tavern as – what do they call it? – collateral. He convinced the bank to loan him money, found whoever owned that hollow, and bought the damned thing. That's the beginning of when he shut me out.
"The next thing I heard – it didn't come from him; it was gossip from customers in the tavern – was he'd arranged with a contractor to put in a swimming pool out there, some buildings, a barbecue pit, and… The next year when construction was finished, he invited me out there to see the grand opening.
"I admit the place looked impressive. I figured Brian was getting over his loss, adjusting to the deaths of his children. But after he, Betsy, and I and their friends – and my fucking, soon-to-be, ex-husband – had a barbecue, Brian took me aside. He pointed toward the woods, toward the pool, toward the buildings, and he asked me… I remember his voice was low, hushed, the way people talk in church.
"He asked me if I felt anything different, anything special, anything that reminded me of… anything that made me feel close to his dead children. I thought about it. I looked around. I tried to understand what he meant. Finally I said 'no.' The camp looked fine, I said. He was taking a risk with the bank. All the same, if he needed a place where he could get away and heal his sorrow, despite the financial risk, he'd probably done the right thing. 'Nothing about the swimming pool?' he asked. I told him I didn't understand what he meant, except that his children liked to swim. And with that, he ended the conversation. That was the last time he invited me out there. That was the real beginning of the distance between us. The barrier he put up. No matter that I saved his ass by taking care of the tavern back then, just as I'm taking care of it now."
Grady knew that he'd exceeded the limit of Ida's patience. He searched his troubled mind for a final question that might settle his confusion. "Do you know who owned that hollow, or why Brian suddenly felt compelled to buy it?"
"You might as well ask me who's going to win the lottery. He told me nothing. And I told you, I don't have time for this. Please. I'm trying my best not to be rude, but I've got customers. This is the busiest time of the day. Happy hour makes all these people hungry. I've got to make sure the kitchen's ready."
"Sure," Grady said. "I apologize for distracting you. I just wanted… I'm sorry, Ida. That's why I came here. To tell you how much I sympathize."
Ida glared toward a waitress. "Table eight still needs those onion rings."
Grady stepped back, ignored the stares of the factory workers, and left the tavern. As the screen door squeaked shut, as he trudged past pickup trucks toward his cruiser, he heard the customers break their silence and murmur almost loudly enough to obscure another mournful tune, this one by Buddy Holly: "I Guess It Doesn't Matter Anymore."
He radioed his office and told the dispatcher he was going home. Then he solemnly drove along sunset-crimsoned, wooded streets to the single-story house he'd shared with his wife and son.
The house.
It haunted him. Often he'd thought about selling it to get away from the memories that it evoked. But just as he hadn't disposed of Helen and John's possessions, their clothes, the souvenir mugs that Helen had liked to collect, the video games that John had been addicted to playing, so Grady hadn't been able to convince himself to dispose of the house. The memories tormented him, yes, but he couldn't bear to live without them.