She frowned, tilting her head. “Never mind,” she said. And then she averted her eyes for a moment, shifted in her seat, and looked up at me again. I was taken by surprise: her face was sober now, pained, and for the first time she appeared to me as a genuine adult. When her eyes again met mine, it was by the force of great effort and determination.
“Eric, look,” she said. “I want you to know that… I understand. About what happened. And, you know. I’m here for you.”
Anger was beginning to well up in me, and I struggled to tamp it down. The tone Jill had assumed was intensely familiar: that of the wise older sister, the protector, the paragon of selflessness and care. Did she have even the slightest idea how pathetic, how manipulative, she appeared to me now? The illusion of maturity that had tricked me just moments ago was torn away, and she was revealed for what she was: needy, self-absorbed, and small.
“I’m sorry, Jill,” I said, my jaw tight. “But I’m afraid you don’t understand at all.”
She opened her mouth to speak, closed it, exhaled slowly through her long nose. She turned to gaze out the kitchen window and appeared to gather herself.
“All right,” she said at last. “Maybe I don’t understand. But I know.”
“You may think you know something. But you know nothing.”
Now her lips tightened, and she shook her head, as if to say, “Why do I bother?”
I knew the gesture well, and it shames me to say that I lost my temper. The kitchen chair I stood beside found its way into my hands, and I lifted it three inches and banged it, with violent force, into my new linoleum floor.
“Enough!” I said to my sister, between clenched teeth. “Get out of my house.”
“Eric—” she began, but I would not hear it. I would not hear another word of hypocrisy from my sister’s mouth. The lies she had tortured me with — about our childhood, about our parents, our sad, doomed parents — would not be compounded. I knocked the chair to the floor with my open palm, and the pain that shot up my arm and into my shoulders registered as a kind of pleasure.
“Out!” I said. I suppose I was shouting. My sister stood up, trembling, and I must admit that I expected her familiar sneer to have taken its usual place on her face. But all I could find there was unhappiness and fear. Fear of my reaction, perhaps. But when a person has lived a life like hers, a life of promiscuity, rootlessness, and substance abuse, resentment and fear tend to replace all reasonable and proper emotions, and the world becomes your enemy.
She crept around the edge of the room, never once taking her eyes off me. When she passed through the doorway, I followed, into the hall, into the front room, over the threshold, and onto the stoop. There I remained, making sure she left. I watched her walk to her truck and open the door.
“I’m sorry, Eric,” she said to me. “I was only trying to help you.”
“Your kind of help is of no use to me.”
The fear was gone from her face now, supplanted by mere sadness, no doubt at the miserable life she had resigned herself to, and to which she was about to return.
For a moment, she appeared ready to say something. But in the end she climbed into the truck and drove away. I stood on the stoop for a long time, watching the truck recede into the distance of Lyssa Road. When finally it disappeared from sight, I waited there in the spring air for the tightness in my throat to subside.
By the time I turned to go back into the house, darkness had fallen. I had left no lights on, so I groped my way to the banister, slowly climbed the stairs, and stumbled into bed. I had only time to consider how little difference there appeared to be between sleeping and lying awake in darkness, before I fell soundly asleep.
The next morning, I woke to a new stiffness in my joints and an overall sense of disappointment and embarrassment. My failure in the woods and anger at my sister the day before had thrown my mind into disarray, and I felt the need to change tack. I would work inside the house, I decided — continue my improvements and try to enjoy the simple pleasures of labor.
I took up my pencil and clipboard, made a list, and drove to Milan, and the hardware store. My hope was not to have to encounter the tall, thin clerk who had affronted me some days before, and at first, when I pushed my cart in through the automatic doors, I thought that my hope would be realized. The only clerks visible were a couple of young women.
But fifteen minutes later, when I approached the checkout line, there he was. The store was quite crowded, despite the early hour, with middle-aged men wearing tool belts and sports-team-branded sweatshirts. Local contractors and builders, no doubt, preparing for their day’s work. I wheeled to the back of one of the young women’s lines, pretending not to see my nosy acquaintance. But in a frustrating trick of fate, the man in front of me had some intractable problem involving his company charge account, and meanwhile the tall clerk’s line quickly dwindled to nothing. He looked up at me from his register and signaled for me to pull into his lane.
I would not be so rude as to refuse. With a heavy heart, I did as he suggested, and began to unload my items onto the counter.
“Morning, Mr. Loesch,” he said.
“Hello,” I replied, surprised. Had I told this man my name? Perhaps he had remembered it from my credit card. I noticed that his name tag read RANDALL. But I declined to use this information.
To my temporary relief, Randall did not speak as he dragged my purchases over the price scanner and packed them into plastic bags. The credit card machine, however, took its time accessing my account, and as we stood waiting, he said to me, without turning, “You met a friend of mine the other day.”
Determined not to become annoyed, I replied with as much cheer as I could muster. “Is that so?”
“Mmm-hm,” he said, nodding. “Paul Hephner. The electrician.”
“Oh yes. Heph. He seems very good at what he does.”
“He’s the best there is,” Randall agreed. “We go way back. Hunting buddies.”
“I see.”
The cash register, at last, kicked back into life, and a receipt slid out silently from between its metal teeth. Randall tore it free and set it on the little transaction platform before me, along with a pen.
As I signed my name, he said, “You a hunting man, Mr. Loesch?”
“Not really,” I admitted.
“Just as well,” he told me, accepting the pen and receipt. He tucked my copy into one of my sacks and faced me, his arms crossed. “Those woods are a bitch to get through. And there isn’t much there.”
I transferred my bags to the cart and prepared to leave. “So you’ve hunted on my land,” I said.
“Tried to.” His eyes narrowed slightly.
I was free to leave, if I so desired. Nevertheless, and despite my reluctance to encourage this man in any way, I couldn’t resist making a small inquiry.
“Let me ask you something,” I said. “When you explored those woods, did you ever reach the rock outcropping?”
He seemed to relish the question. A small smile stole over his gaunt face, and he crossed one leg over the other and leaned back against his cash register. “Oh, I remember the rock you mean. Practically a little mountain, isn’t it? Just sticking up over the trees?”
“That’s the one.”
“If I recall, there was some talk of making our way to it, that day.”
“Yes?”
His smile spread into his eyes, and it was clear that he was enjoying playing with my expectations. He stroked his chin, gazing into space, pretending to think.
“But in the end,” he said finally, “we didn’t bother. Too much trouble.”
“I see.” I heard, in my own voice, more disappointment than I would have liked to betray.