A man i used to know, p.10
A Man I Used To Know, page 10
“Don’t rush anything,” she said. “You’ve had some pretty serious injuries, you know. We’ll want a reasonable amount of recovery time before you can travel again. In the meantime, there’s lots of room at our house for Casey and Kelly.”
“Lucky kids,” he said with a reminiscent smile. “I wish I could be ten years old again and going fishing with Archie Marsden.”
Lila opened her mouth to speak, then thought better of it, closed the door quietly and hurried off down the hallway to begin her rounds.
KELLY WOKE UP and blinked in confusion, wondering what was wrong. Somebody had come along while she was asleep and moved the window of the camper. Or else she’d fallen onto the floor.
In sudden panic she leaped to her feet, looking for Casey.
But the little boy was nowhere to be seen. She was in a strange. place, standing on an air mattress and sleeping bag in the middle of the floor. The walls were lined with books and framed oil paintings of horses and dogs. On a couch nearby was a rumpled nest of blankets.
She knew Casey had been sleeping there, but no trace of him remained..
Kelly grabbed the duffel bag and rummaged through it, pulling on her jeans and T-shirt. As she dressed, she recalled the dreamlike events of the previous evening, the pretty lady who’d chased her away from the trash bin, then said she was a doctor and served up bread and stew in a kitchen where dogs slept on the floor.
But where was Casey?
She left the den and made her way down the hallway, trying to find the kitchen from memory. As she walked, Kelly gazed around in awe.
After living so long in the little camper, she found this house as big as a palace. The floors were shiny wood, and most of the furniture was made of leather, soft and inviting. Big windows looked out onto a peaceful morning, with views of trees, rugged cliffs and a river that sparkled in the sunlight.
Finally she came to the kitchen and stood barefoot in the entryway on the cool wood floor. A couple of dogs sprawled in a square of sunlight near the outer door. The big spaniel sniffed the air, then got up and padded over to lick Kelly’s hand.
Casey sat at the table with an awed and frightened expression. He wore the Star Trek pajamas she’d dressed him in last night, and his curly hair stood on end. His eyes were wide and dazed, the way they always looked when he wasn’t quite awake yet. Silently, he watched an old man who stood by the counter buttering toast.
Kelly looked around, taking stock of the situation. When Casey caught sight of her, his face crumpled and he seemed on the verge of tears.
If he started crying, she didn’t know what she’d do. It was hard to concentrate on anything else when Casey was making a fuss.
Kelly crossed the room hastily and slipped into a chair beside him, leaning forward. “Be quiet,” she whispered tensely. “Don’t start bawling. There’s nothing to be scared of.”
He gulped and swallowed hard, his brown eyes shiny with tears.
Kelly gave him another stern warning glance. Her little brother stuck his thumb in his mouth and remained quiet for the moment
The old man turned and looked at her. Kelly was badly frightened by his unsmiling features and jutting gray eyebrows. But she quelled her fear and stared back at him with a look of cold wariness.
“What do you want to eat?” he said curtly. “Toast or cereal?”
“Toast is fine,” Kelly said. “Please,” she added automatically.
He carried a stack of buttered toast over to the table, along with a couple of plates. He was very thin and was dressed in clean blue jeans, moccasins and a green plaid shirt. His hands were gnarled and knotted with veins and covered with brown spots like freckles, only bigger.
When the old man set the toast down, Casey looked at it, then up at Kelly with an expression of startled distaste. The tears gathered and spilled over, running down his plump cheeks.
“What’s wrong now?” the man asked gruffly.
“He doesn’t like toast with seeds and hard stuff in it. He thinks they’re bugs,” Kelly explained for her brother, who was still crying silently.
“Well, that’s just ridiculous. This is healthy wholegrain toast. Now, eat your breakfast!” the old man said, turning suddenly to Casey, his eyebrows looking very fierce.
It was too much for the terrified little boy. He began to howl in earnest, then slid down from the chair and ran back to the den, flinging himself onto the couch. Kelly followed closely behind. He curled up in a ball under the quilt so that all that was visible was his thatch of curls, and cried louder when Kelly tried to talk to him.
The man passed by, holding a knife and a piece of wood, and stood helplessly in the doorway. Kelly, who was kneeling by her brother, felt a shiver of alarm when she saw the knife.
But this old man didn’t look like somebody who wanted to kill them. He just seemed upset that people were around interfering with his life.
He wants us to go away, she thought. And I wish we could, but I don’t even know where we are.
Still, her concern for Casey made her act ruder than she’d intended.
“Now look what you’ve gone and done,” she said angrily. “Why’d you have to yell at him like that, anyhow? He’ll probably cry all day.”
The man looked distressed. He opened his mouth as if to speak, then closed it again and trudged off down the hall and through the front door. After a couple of minutes she peeked outside and saw him slumped in a chair on the veranda, whittling at the block of wood.
Kelly edged nearer and flattened her face on the glass to get a better look, but it was hard to tell what he was making. The shavings fell away from his hands in long golden curls and dusted the floor of the porch. Three dogs lay around him, one with its chin resting on his moccasined foot.
He couldn’t be that bad, Kelly thought, if the dogs liked him.
Despite her nervousness in the old man’s presence, part of her felt a sneaking sympathy for him. She sensed that he was like her in some ways, a person who didn’t fit in or do the things people expected of him, so everybody got upset.
Besides, he seemed lonely and that always tore at Kelly’s heart. She knew a whole lot about loneliness.
But then she looked at Casey, still howling under the quilt, and her face hardened.
Serves him right if he’s lonely, she thought. Mean old thing.
At that moment the phone began to ring. Kelly went back to the window, expecting the man to get up and answer it, but he didn’t. He just went on whittling while the phone rang and rang in the quiet house.
Finally, she went out into the hall and lifted down the receiver.
“Hello?” she said.
There was a brief silence on the other end. “Kelly?” a woman’s voice said. “Is that you?”
“Yeah.”
“This is Lila. I’m the...the lady who brought you there last night.”
“I know who you are,” Kelly said.
“I just wondered if everything’s all right out there.”
“That old man made Casey cry,” Kelly said. She peeked through the door of the den and held the receiver out for a moment. “Did you hear that?” she said, bringing the phone to her ear again. “He’s still bawling like crazy.”
“Oh dear,” the woman said. “What happened?”
“That man tried to give Casey toast with bumps in it, then yelled when he wouldn’t eat. Casey always cries if you yell at him.”
“Well, no wonder,” the woman said, sounding so annoyed that Kelly grinned in spite of herself. “I’d cry too if a stranger yelled at me when I wasn’t even sure where I was. Poor little Casey.”
“The old man is sitting on the veranda now,” Kelly said. “He’s carving something with a knife.”
“And how’s Casey, besides being scared?”
“Still crying. I guess he’s hungry, too, because he didn’t have any breakfast, but I don’t know if I can get him to settle down and eat anything now.”
“Oh dear,” the woman said again. “Kelly, could you wait just a minute, please? There’s somebody here I have to talk with.”
“Sure.” Kelly leaned against the wall, twisting the phone cord around her fingers and listening to a muffled conversation at the other end. She wondered how her father was feeling today, and wished she could summon the courage to ask the doctor lady.
“Kelly?” the woman said. “Are you there?”
“Yeah, I’m here.”
“Well, my friend Marie is a nurse who works here at the hospital in the children’s ward, and she’s got the rest of the day off. She’s going to drive out there and take care of you and Casey. All right?”
“We don’t need anybody to take care of us,” Kelly said automatically, though Casey’s howls were getting loud enough that they scared her a bit.
“I’m sending her out for my own peace of mind,” the woman said. “You’ll both like her. She’s a very nice lady who just loves kids. Oh, and Kelly...”
“Yeah?” Kelly said again.
“Your father is feeling a lot better this morning. He’s going to be fine. I can probably take you and Casey in to visit him tomorrow, if I can get away from work for a while. And he should be calling to talk with you later this morning.”
Kelly felt a flood of relief so intense that her knees turned to rubber and she was glad to have the wall for support.
“He’s okay?” she whispered. “Really?”
“He’s really okay,” the woman said. “Now, you go and look after Casey, and Marie will be there in a few minutes, all right? I have to run now.”
Kelly was close to tears, struggling hard to get herself under control.
Finally she said, “Okay.” Then after a pause she whispered, “Thank you.”
But the woman was already gone. Kelly hung the phone up and wandered back into the den to kneel by Casey’s small writhing body.
CHAPTER NINE
THE DAY SEEMED interminable, filled with small emergencies, unscheduled appointments and even a staff meeting that stretched on for almost an hour.
It was well after six o’clock before Lila could drag herself away from the clinic. She stopped briefly at the hospital and ran up to check on Tom.
“He’s much better,” the red-haired duty nurse reported. “Out of bed and walking up and down the hall most of the afternoon.”
“You’re kidding.” Lila stared at the pretty young woman. “With that list of injuries?”
“He’s a very tough cowboy,” the nurse said. “Also a very charming one. He looks great in his hospital gowns,” she added with a grin. “Especially the one that opens in the back.”
“We’d better get him a pair of pajamas,” Lila said with a touch of irony. “Can’t have the nursing staff getting distracted. Where is he now, Jane?”
“Ken took him down to X ray. He should be back in fifteen minutes or so.”
Lila hesitated, then shook her head. “I can’t wait that long. Could you tell him I’m taking some time off tomorrow, and I’ll bring his kids for a visit in the afternoon?”
“Sure thing. That’ll make him happy. He’s crazy about those kids.”
Lila wondered how much Tom had been chatting with the pretty young nurse, and was both amused and dismayed by her quick flash of jealousy.
Crazy, she told herself as she hurried out to the car. Just crazy...
She headed west into the setting sun, a little worried about Marie, who’d spent the whole day at the house with Archie and the two children.
Not that Marie hadn’t seemed happy to volunteer. She was just beginning a long-anticipated two weeks off. She assured Lila that she didn’t want to sit around in her lonely house and had no idea what to do with all the free time.
Still, Lila felt guilty about saddling her friend with two displaced children and a moody old man.
But the scene at the house when she finally arrived was pleasant, almost idyllic.
Archie sat out on the porch as usual, whittling on the ever-present block of wood. Lila glanced at the shape in his hands but it was too early to see what he was making this time.
“Where are Marie and the kids, Dad?” she asked, pausing at the top of the steps.
He jerked the handle of his jackknife toward the river.
Marie sat by the water’s edge in jeans, sandy bare feet and a sweatshirt. Her gray curls glistened in the slanting rays of light. Casey squatted contentedly nearby, gripping a handful of shells, and both watched while Kelly tried to skip flat stones across the water.
Marie seemed to be giving instructions. Lila saw her friend pick up a stone from the riverbank and hold it out, demonstrating. Kelly watched intently as the stone skipped and danced on the surface of the river. She tried again and shouted in frustration when her pebble sank after its first bounce.
Lila smiled and turned back to her father. “They seem pretty contented.”
“Noisy kids,” he muttered, keeping his head averted. “Turning the whole house upside down. I wish you’d get them out of here.”
“Oh, Dad,” she said gently, moving to touch his shoulder. “Since when did you ever mind a little noise or clutter? These are Tom Bennet’s kids,” she added with determined cheerfulness, “and they have nobody to look after them until he’s well enough to leave the hospital. So they’re staying here whether you like it or not.”
Lila walked into the house, conscious of the stubborn set to his jaw as she passed. Inside, she ran up to her room and changed into khaki slacks and a cotton shirt.
She stopped in the kitchen long enough to grab a banana and drop a couple of bagels into a plastic sack, then went outside to join the little group on the riverbank.
Kelly and her brother were both at the water’s edge, where the little girl was still trying to skip stones. Casey watched and did his best to imitate, but his efforts were so ineffectual that the pebbles he threw barely made it into the water.
Lila sat down on the sand next to Marie, munching one of her bagels. “They look a lot happier now,” she said. “Thanks, Marie. This was so nice of you.”
“It was fun.” Marie lowered her voice. “But that Kelly is a pretty strange kid. Practically impossible to get close to.”
Lila watched the wiry girl as she roved the beach looking for fiat stones. “She seems to be getting along with you just fine.”
“I think she’s pretending, sort of humoring me.” Marie leaned back and hugged her knees. “My guess is she’s keeping up appearances for Casey’s sake, because she doesn’t want him to get upset or frightened. But underneath she’s still being very cautious, just watching and waiting.”
“For what?” Lila peeled the banana.
“I guess for the chance to escape from all of us and take charge of things again. She doesn’t like having everything slip beyond her control. I sense a lot of anxiety in that child.”
“Poor little girl.” Lila ate her banana thoughtfully, brooding over the two children at the water’s edge. “What a load of responsibility for an eleven-year-old.”
Casey looked around, caught her eye and gave her a radiant smile, then turned away as if suddenly overcome by shyness.
“He seems happy, at least,” she said. “Not a lot of emotional complications in Casey.”
“That little boy,” Marie said fondly, “is an absolute darling. I could just gobble him up, Lila. What a sweetheart.”
Lila glanced over her shoulder at the silent figure on the veranda. “How’s Dad been?”
“Oh dear.” Marie’s smile faded. “It’s really sad, isn’t it? I thought you were exaggerating about him, but you weren’t. I can hardly believe that poor man is the Archie Marsden I once knew.”
“Has he talked to you at all?”
“Hardly a word. It’s like you said, mostly grunts and mutters. But he’s not rude, just so completely drawn into himself.”
“This is really hard on him.” Lila waved a hand toward the two children. “Having a major disruption like this in his life is so upsetting, but I just didn’t know what else to do.”
Marie squinted into the fading sunlight. “Can you believe that little girl playing such a trick on everybody, and staying all alone with a four-year-old for days on end in the parking lot?”
“I can believe it,” Lila said, “now that I’m getting to know Kelly.”
“You know, there’s something there...” Marie paused.
“What do you mean?”
Marie shook her head. “Something about these kids. I can’t quite put my finger on it, but they seem...I don’t know.”
“What?” Lila urged. “What are you trying to say, Marie?”
“I don’t know,” the older woman repeated, picking up a handful of sand and letting it sift idly through her fingers. “There’s something...tragic about them. But I can’t figure it out, and they won’t open up and talk like other kids do.”
“Tragic?” Lila asked. “I don’t understand.”
Marie shook her head again. “Never mind. It’s just a feeling I keep getting, that’s all. Anyway,” she added, “how would we expect them to feel when their father’s in the hospital and they’re at the mercy of a bunch of strangers?”
“I talked with Tom about that very same thing just this morning,” Lila said. “I told him it was irresponsible to drag these kids around the country with him and not have some kind of safety network in case something happened to him.”
Marie gave her a thoughtful glance. “And how did he react to that?”
“About the way I expected. He told me it was none of my business.”
Both women sat for a moment and watched the children running along the riverbank. They were keeping pace with a muskrat that swam parallel to the shore, its sleek body breaking the water in tiny ripples.
“Tell me again about your connection to this man,” Marie said at last. “He’s an old friend?”
“A very old friend. We grew up together.” Lila pointed across the river at the horizon to the south. “Tom lived over there, but he’d already learned all kinds of ways to get across the river by the time he was Kelly’s age. We played together for years.”
“Played together?” Marie’s glance was searching this time, and Lila felt her cheeks warming uncomfortably.
