Set This House In Order Part 43

The miner's hard hat is lying on the ground just inside the cave mouth. Mouse picks it up and places it on her head -- the fit is as perfect as last time -- and the lamp comes on.

"I got it f.u.c.king figured, Sam, " Maledicta says, outside, talking around the cigarette in her mouth. "We stay on this road till the Illinois border, just to f.u.c.king make it look good, then we cut straight south and make a right turn at St. Louis. If we f.u.c.king floor it, and don't stop to p.i.s.s, we could be in f.u.c.king Santa Fe by dawn tomorrow. . ."

That had better be a joke, Mouse thinks. On the other hand, if Maledicta and Sam do get up to mischief, it will provide a good excuse for cutting this exploration short.

Mouse descends to the big cavern, pausing at its entrance to listen for the sound of footsteps.

She hears none, just the steady inhale-exhale of the sleepers. Still she's nervous, and it occurs to her to wonder whether the lamp in the miner's helmet can be made brighter. She reaches up, and sure enough, there's a k.n.o.b set into the side of the lamp. Mouse gives it an experimental twist, and the light blazes up, bright enough to blind any approaching memories.

Good. Mouse dials the k.n.o.b back again, not wanting to see too much herself unless she has to.

The pile of white pebbles is right where Mouse dropped them last time she was down here. She begins gathering them up again, then hesitates, thinking that it will be awkward, carrying a bunch of pebbles around; she'd rather have at least one hand free, in case she needs to turn up the lamplight. She looks around her immediate vicinity some more and finds a coil of heavy white twine, conveniently wound on a reel.

Now, to anchor it somewhere. . . a handy stalagmite presents itself. Mouse ties one end of the twine around it, and gives a few hard tugs. The knots hold.

"OK." As an added precaution in case the twine breaks, Mouse decides to follow the cavern wall. She does eenie-meenie-meinie-moe to choose a direction, and strikes off to the left, unwinding the twine behind her as she goes.

She hasn't gone far when she hears a familiar sound -- slap slap -- and freezes. This time, though, it's not approaching footsteps; it's water. Splashing. There's a smell, too, a salty musky smell, like warm brine. Suddenly sure she's on the right track, Mouse continues, and comes to an opening in the cavern wall. The s.p.a.ce beyond is awash in soft pink light.

Mouse goes inside. It's a grotto, like a sea cave or a desert mountain lair; at its center is a shining pool, lit from below, as if whatever force gouged it out of the grotto floor struck neon beneath the rock.

Mouse steps forward to the lip of the pool, and sees herself floating in the gently steaming waters.

No, it's not her: the soul in the pool may be similar in form -- not an exact twin, but close -- but in essence she and Mouse are light-years apart.

Loins.

She is naked, of course. She floats on her back, arms and legs moving languidly in the water, stirring up little waves that lap at her upturned b.r.e.a.s.t.s, at her. . . oh G.o.d that's disgusting. Mouse stares, repelled yet fascinated, too.

It's the outward likeness that gets to her. Mouse -- she doesn't ever spend time thinking about this, but she knows it's true -- is no more s.e.xually attractive than dirt; she's never been s.e.xy, not once in her whole life. But Loins is. It's hard to say exactly why or how -- she's not actually doing anything, just floating there -- but it's undeniable, she just exudes it somehow, other people viewing this same scene would see it too. And if Loins can be s.e.xy, and Loins resembles Mouse, then that would seem to imply that Mouse could be s.e.xy too, that she's got potential.

This is not information Mouse wants. It's shameful, another strike against her already tainted character. And yet for an instant -- the barest millisecond, you could say -- she feels an astonishment that is not entirely unpleasant.

Then the shame comes welling up, and Mouse hears her mother's voice condemning her, cursing her for wanting to throw away her good fortune, wanting to f.u.c.k it all away on some Trash Town boy. It is almost too much -- Mouse has to fight to keep from blacking out.

Loins notices her then. She splashes upright in the pool, and her hands come up to smooth back her wet hair, a gesture that has the side effect, probably intentional, of thrusting her nipples forward. Her mouth twists in a grin.

"Well," she says, "I didn't ever expect to see you down here. Come for a swim?"

Mouse makes a gagging noise.

"I guess not," Loins says, and giggles. She starts to get out of the pool; Mouse backs up in a hurry. "So what is your pleasure? Is this about last night?" Loins steps out of the water, and reaches for a towel that's been draped over a boulder. She dries herself -- hair, face, neck, arms, back, b.r.e.a.s.t.s, belly -- always managing to hold the towel in a way that leaves the maximum amount of skin exposed to Mouse's view. "Nothing happened, you know. I tried to f.u.c.k Andrew, but he wouldn't play along at all. .

." Dry above the waist, Loins places one foot up on the boulder, flips the towel between her legs and rubs vigorously, much more vigorously than necessary. Her head tilts back and she stops talking for a moment.

Mouse shuts her eyes.

"Oh, my!" Loins exclaims, her tone conveying much of what Mouse can't see. "Hoo!. . . Excuse me. What were we talking about? Oh right, Andrew -- he was a perfect gentleman." She laughs.

"Perfectly boring. . . although I suppose he was a sweet thing after all, trying to protect your virtue."

More laughter. "You know he really chewed me out. . . figuratively, that is."

Stop it, Mouse thinks.

"Yeah, he read me the riot act. p.i.s.sed me off a little. He said some nice things about you, though.

. . I don't know, maybe you should try f.u.c.king him."

"Stop it," Mouse says, her eyes open now but averted, which is no way to lay down the law. She forces herself to look at Loins directly: "Don't say that."

Loins, done drying herself, has slung the towel around her neck -- but it's shrunk to the size of a washcloth, so it doesn't cover anything. She's still naked. "Don't say what, 'f.u.c.king?' I'd think you'd be used to hearing that by now, hanging out with Maledicta. But then I guess it's more of an adjective when she uses it." She sits down on the boulder. "You want me to stop saying it, or you want me to stop doing it?"

"Doing it." Pushing the words out: "I'm tired of. . . of waking up with strangers."

"So you want me to stop picking up guys in bars."

"Yes."

"Yes," Loins echoes, for a moment sounding reasonable and accommodating, like it's no problem, Mouse should have said something a long time ago. Then her smile turns wicked again: "Well, I guess we all want something, huh? Me, I want a good time."

"A good time." Mouse loads the words with all the scorn she can muster. "Is that why you have to get drunk? Is that why you leave me to deal with them in the morning?"

"Mornings are boring," says Loins, unruffled. "And the drinking, half the time that's not even me, and even when it is, it's just part of the play. It is a good time -- you'd know that if you had the courage to do it yourself once. You want to know what the best part of it is?"

"No, I don't, I want you to --"

"It's not the actual f.u.c.king -- oh, I won't lie, that can be fun too, if the guy knows what he's doing.

But the absolute best part is right at the beginning, hooking them, getting them to want you. The moment when you know you have them, when you know they'd do anything to be with you. . . mmm, there's no other satisfaction like it." Loins closes her eyes, as if savoring a memory. "Oh, my. . ." She leans back over the boulder. "Just thinking about it gets me. . . right . . . here." Her feet come off the ground, tucking up under her behind, and her knees splay apart, and Mouse stands there, gaping, the miner's lamp shining like a spotlight on -- Too much. Mouse retreats, stumbles from the grotto into the big cavern. The miner's lamp switches off, she wills it off, and she blunders on, in darkness, out into the middle of the cavern, and throws herself down among the sleepers, letting the shame roll over her.

Time pa.s.ses. Mouse lies in the dark, fading in and out of consciousness, until she feels a tug on the twine that is still wrapped around her fist -- -- and then it is afternoon, and Mouse and Andrew are sitting in a restaurant booth. Judging by the empty plates on the table between them -- and the bloated feeling in Mouse's stomach -- Maledicta and Sam have just finished gorging on pastry and cheesecake. "Sam!" Andrew exclaims, as he examines the bill.

"H-how did your meeting go?" Mouse asks. About as well as her encounter with Loins, if his demeanor is any indication.

"I have a new place I need to stop, before we go to Seven Lakes," Andrew tells her. "If I'm lucky, Seven Lakes may not matter so much."

"OK," says Mouse. She looks out the window at the restaurant parking lot, and sees little to distinguish it from the other roadside parking lots of the past three days. "Where are we now?"

"Gary, Indiana," Andrew says. "Almost there."

He pays the bill, and they go outside and find the car; Mouse drives. Half an hour later they are in Michigan. They follow the coast of the great Lake; by late afternoon they are in Muskegon. Andy Gage's hometown is inland from here, but Andrew has Mouse keep driving north.

Eventually they leave the highway for a narrow two-lane road that runs right along Lake Michigan's sh.o.r.e. After a few miles the road forks, with one branch going down to a sandy beach, and the other curving up to a wooded bluff. They take the high branch.

The cemetery is called Lake View: a half-acre wedge of gra.s.sy plots set right at the edge of the bluff, bounded by a low stone wall and flanked by stands of maples. The ground slopes up from the drop-off, giving the rows of headstones the appearance of seats in an amphitheater. " 'Lake View,' "

Maledicta observes derisively from the cave mouth. "Boy, it must have taken some f.u.c.king inspiration to come up with that name."

"Be quiet," says Mouse, still nauseous from one too many slices of pie, not to mention one too many cigarettes.

"What? What did you f.u.c.king say?"

"You heard me." Loins may be more than Mouse can handle, but Maledicta doesn't scare her anymore.

Andrew has already gotten out of the car. He walks as far as the cemetery gate and then stops; Mouse can't tell if he's afraid or just thinking. She carefully sets the Centurion's parking brake -- the cemetery visitors' lot is on a slope, too -- and goes to join him.

"Andrew?" says Mouse.

"It reminds me of the pumpkin field," he says. "It's not exactly the same -- we don't have so many graves -- but still. . ." He turns to her. "Hold my hand?"

She nods, and slips her hand in his. Andrew lifts the latch on the gate. They go in.

"They won't be buried out here," Andrew says, as they walk among the rows of the amphitheater. "This is only part of the cemetery -- the oldest part -- and my father says it filled up a long time ago." Mouse examines some of the headstones in pa.s.sing and sure enough, the most recent dates are from the late 1950s.

Andrew heads for an opening in the stone wall; beyond it, a path winds uphill through the trees to another graveyard. This one is much larger than the amphitheater, but lacks the view of the lake, unless you want to climb one of the taller monuments.

"OK," Andrew says, pausing to confer with a member of his household. "OK." He points. "That way."

They cross the graveyard on a diagonal. Andrew counts rows under his breath; around row twenty-five, he slows down and starts checking individual headstones.

"What name are we looking for?" Mouse asks.

"The stepfather's," Andrew says. "There."

It's a huge standing slab of polished granite, the kind normally used to memorialize entire families.

The chiseled inscription reads: HORACE GARFIELD ROLLINS.

FEBRUARY 3, 1932 -- MAY 24, 1991.

Here I sleep but for a while Until I am called up again Into my Father's house Andrew's face betrays a welter of emotional states. Whatever else he is feeling, though, he is angry; his hands clench into fists, and Mouse's own hand gets squeezed so hard that she cries out.

"Sorry," Andrew says absently, releasing her.

He shakes his head at Horace Rollins's gravestone. "May 24th. That's the wrong date."

"The wrong date?"

"Not the date I was hoping for," Andrew clarifies -- though for Mouse, this doesn't actually clear up anything.

Andrew stares at the headstone a while longer. Then he says "OK," steps back, and turns to the grave to the immediate right, which, according to its marker, belongs to Joshua Green, who died on June 5th, 1996.

Andrew's brow creases. He checks the s.p.a.ce to Horace Rollins's left, but that's an empty plot.

"Where is she?" Andrew asks; the question is not addressed to Mouse. "Is it possible that she isn't really -- . . . Well, she's not where she's supposed to be, father."

Andrew begins a systematic search of the surrounding graves. Three rows up and half a dozen plots over, he finds what he's looking for.

This marker is much more delicate, a slender tablet of rose-veined white marble. It reads: Althea Gage December 8, 1944 -- December 16, 1994 Beloved "1994," Andrew says, and this time his face reveals no conflict of feeling, just pure sadness. "It's true, then."

Mouse doesn't have to ask what he means. Obviously, Andy Gage's mother didn't die when he was young; and the fact that she is buried here, so close to Andy Gage's stepfather, suggests that she didn't run away, either. . . although it's interesting that she's not buried right next to the stepfather, as she was apparently meant to be.

Andrew's eyes well up with tears, slowly at first; then all at once his whole body sags and is consumed by weeping. "Momma," he says, the voice not Andrew's now but Aaron's.

Mouse steps up beside him, wanting to comfort him but not sure how. He looks at her sidelong, and smiles bitterly through his tears. "You see?" he says. "You thought you were worthless. But at least your mother felt something for you, even if it was wicked. Our mother, though. . ." He turns back to the stone, his bitterness beginning to ferment into anger. "Why couldn't you love us?" he demands. "How could you love him, and not us? How?"

Without warning he whirls around and charges across the rows at Horace Rollins's marker, as though meaning to tackle it. The sheer ma.s.s of the stone defeats him; his fists glance harmlessly off its polished surface, and when he hurls his whole body against it, it barely shudders, while he is thrown back off his feet.

"Aaron!" Mouse calls, running over to see if he is all right. When she reaches him he is weeping again. He raises an arm and grasps her hand as she bends over him; his knuckles are skinned and b.l.o.o.d.y.

"Why didn't she love us?" he asks, through sobs; Mouse isn't sure who is speaking now. "What could we have done that was so wrong, that she would reject us so totally. . ."

"I don't know," is all Mouse can think to say. "I'm sorry, Aaron. . . Andrew. . . I don't have an answer."

Letting go of her hand again, he rolls over on his side and curls into a ball.

"Why didn't she love us?" Andy Gage wails. "Why?"

NINTH BOOK:.

HOMECOMING.

25.

"You thought our mother died when Andy Gage was very young, didn't you?" my father said.

"I never really thought about it at all," I told him. "I mean yes, I guess I a.s.sumed she'd died a long time ago -- that's how it always sounded when you talked about her -- but I never dwelled on the question. Why would I? It's not my job to look back."

We were sitting on the front steps of the house. Sitting in daylight: the mist had receded overnight, though it still shrouded the entire lake. Early this morning my father had managed to rebuild the pulpit (a definite patch-job, but functional), and Seferis was up there now, keeping an eye on the body -- or rather, keeping an eye on Aunt Sam, who was in the body, riding across Wisconsin with Maledicta.

"This is the program from our mother's funeral," my father said. He held up the pamphlet that he'd pulled from under the mystery door yesterday. "I threw the original away, but I guess somebody brought a copy inside when I wasn't paying attention. . . either that, or the memory persisted on its own somehow."

He handed it to me. The cover bore Althea Gage's name, and a date.

"December 1994," I said, surprised. "Is that right? Only three years ago?"

"Two and a half."

"That recently?" Then it hit me: "This would have been just two months before I was born."

He nodded. "I got the news about our mother the same week Dr. Grey had her stroke."