He hadn’t tired his piece in the line of duty for so long he wasn’t even sure it was loaded. He rarely went to the firing range because he was a crack shot and had been since his dad put his first piece in his hand at age ten; he was one of those naturals who could hit anything they could see.
He pulled the .38 (never cared for the 9mm some of the others went for) and checked the chamber. It was full.
The old man was tall and scrawny, with loose pouches under his eyes and skin that looked untouched by the sun for a decade.
He grinned drunkenly at them, lurched to the refrigerator, and started loading it with beer bottles from the bag.
He moved aside a brown head of lettuce and a loaf of bread that looked petrified, then turned, holding one of the bottles. “Now where’s me manners? Anyone want a beer?”
Adam said, “No,” and Eve shook her head.
The old man took the bottle to an opener screwed into the Formica of one of the counters that had been as shiny as a mirror in the vision, and popped the top. Then he turned and raised the bottle. “To the day... and your news,” he said, and took a deep swig.
Adam started to say something, but the old man held up his hand. “No, boy, you’re supposed to let me guess.”
He took another swig, then laid his forefinger along his nose and crowed, “I got it.”
“You do?” Eve was having real trouble not laughing.
“Sure do,” he cried. “My boy here, smartest kid ever went to Sawyerville High, has finally popped the question, ain’t he, little lady? And you said yes, bless you. And you’re here to break the news and give the old man a gander at the bride to be.”
Wild laughter burst out of Eve, tears squirted out of her eyes, and it took every ounce of control to stop before she started to sob. She ran to the sink and tore a paper towel off the coat hanger holder tacked to the wall and wiped her eyes. She calmed down, turned to face them, and noticed that the sad-faced cookie jar on the counter in the vision was not there anymore.
The old man smiled uncertainly and Adam said, “That’s not why we’re here. Sit down, Father, I have to talk to you.”
“Father! Shit, boy—’scuse my language, little lady. You ain’t called me Father since your ma died.” He grinned at Eve. “She said Pop and Pa was for hillbillies and insisted the boys call me Father. When she insisted, you went along, she was that kind.”
“Indeed,” Eve said weakly.
“Sit down.” Adam gestured with the gun and the old man seemed to notice it for the first time. He peered nearsightedly at it. “So you took it. Knew it had to be one of you when I saw the box was gone and I figured even Mike wasn’t dumb enough to keep a gun around with two kids.”
He turned to Eve. “My oldest ain’t smart like this one, but he makes up for it in sweetness.” Then back to Adam. “You should’a asked me, son, I’d’a given it to you. Hell, I ain’t even looked at it—”
“Sit down.” Adam cocked the gun.
The old man looked at the gun, then at his son; his Adam’s apple bobbed in his chicken neck swimming in the collar of his shirt, and he sank down in a chair clutching the beer bottle.
“Adam? Adam, boy—what’s going on here?”
“Who was she?” Adam held the gun about a foot from the old man’s face.
“Who was who?” The old man stared at the light gleaming on the barrel.
“The woman who insisted I call you Father.”
“What kind’a nuts question’s that? She was your mother.”
“No, she wasn’t,” Eve said.
The old man tried to look nonplussed. “What is this? Who is this woman? What’s she been filling your head full of—and put that fuckin’ gun down. I’m your father.”
“Are you?” Adam asked.
“Yes,” Eve answered. You didn’t have to be a psychic to see the resemblance.
“Damn tootin’, and Barbara Healy Fuller was your mother!”
“No, she wasn’t,” Eve said again.
The old man shot her a look of shriveling hatred, then turned to his son. “Who’re you gonna believe, boy? This female outta nowhere or your own pa?”
Adam’s finger tightened on the trigger and the old man looked at the gun, then at his son. He closed his eyes slowly as if his lids were too heavy and kept them closed for a moment. When he opened them he was sober, and Eve felt the center of power in the room shift from son to father and she knew the old man was ready to die to protect his secret. Didn’t care much about living anyway, and in a flash she saw his life of empty days with game shows in the morning, the trip to the local bar to watch soap operas in the afternoon. She imagined the hours of insipid, intermittent conversation with men just like him until it got dark; then he bought beer or whiskey, depending on how much he had left from his Social Security check. Then he made his careful way home, zapped something in the microwave, and drank and watched more TV until he passed out.
That terrible secret was all he had left.
“Who was she?” Adam asked again, and the old man answered, quietly, “Your mother.”
Adam looked at Eve.
It was time to tell the truth, spin the final tale—time to make the doughnuts, she thought. She was sorry, because the old man had found a kind of dignity in his dogged protection of that lie and she was going to take it away from him. She could refuse, but Adam would kill her, and probably the old man and himself, and the kitchen that had been a gleaming testament to a houseproud monster would be awash in blood.
She didn’t know how long this was going to take or if Dave had any idea yet where she was, but there was no way to put it off.
She glanced at the empty spot on the counter where the cookie jar had been and wondered where it was now. Then, moving as slowly as she dared, she went to the table. The old man was riveted on the gun aimed at his nose and didn’t pay any attention to her.
She sat down next to him, slid her hand across the scarred Formica table, and grabbed his arm. He looked down as if he expected to see a hairy spider on his sleeve and she thought, C’mon, it can’t be that bad.
He jerked his arm away, beer spewed out of the bottle, and his sad, sagging face with its slick of liquor sweat became a young woman’s...
Who gazed lovingly at Eve. Then the camera in Eve’s mind panned back and Eve saw it was a young version of the old man she was looking at. His dark brown hair was thick and wavy, his skin was ruddy from working outdoors, his body hadn’t collapsed in on itself yet and was way too bulky for the kid’s lap desk he’d crammed himself into.
The woman’s hair was brown, her light brown eyes tilted a little, and she had wide Slavic cheekbones. She was small, fair, delicate, the absolute antithesis of the hefty bitch in the flowered dress.
They were in an old-time classroom with a blackboard and a big, scarred teacher’s desk. The room smelled of chalk dust and dry heat from nickel-plated radiators under long windows that looked out on brown grass. Snow drifted past the window and he said, “It’s snowing, Ed.”
For Edna.
Eve had finally gotten a name and no sinking sensation or stuffed ears this time... or in the kitchen on Raven Lake, either. The trappings were gone and there was just her and it and whatever she’d gone back thirty some years to see.