Searching for Caleb

20

Duncan sat on the floor with a twelve-hundred-piece jigsaw puzzle, “Sunset in the Rockies.” He had found all the straight edges and constructed the frame; but now he was simply moving pieces around, picking one up and tapping it against his teeth while he stared into space, setting it down, picking up another, turning several over to expose their gray cardboard backs. He considered turning the whole puzzle over and doing it all in gray.

He considered moving Justine back to Baltimore.

“Is that what you want?” he asked her when she came through wearing her hat.

She looked startled. “What?”

“I asked if you wanted to move to Baltimore.”

“Baltimore?”

“Baltimore, Maryland, Justine.”

She stared at him.

“We’ll live in Great-Grandma’s house. Your house,” he told her. “I’ll find some kind of busywork with Peck and Sons. You know Dad’s always said I could.”

“You mean, stay forever?”

“No reason not to.”

“Never again move?”

“Not unless you liked.”

She thought a while, biting her lip.

“But you might not be happy there,” she told him finally.

Which was her way of saying yes. He felt the answer settling on him by degrees, like a large heavy blanket drifting down. He was done for. Yet at the same time he had a sense of relief, almost. What else would you call this sudden giddiness? The other shoe had fallen. He nearly laughed.

Underneath, he must have known all through their marriage that this was where they were headed.

Justine fit books into cardboard boxes. Then machine parts. Duncan let his jigsaw puzzle dissolve and scatter while he took up a new kind of solitaire. Lately he had become talkative and fanciful, almost silly; he was emerging from his silence. But the bourbon and the solitaire remained, because he had lost his job by now and if he didn’t look occupied in some way Justine would ask him to help her. That was one thing he could not do. He would feel like a child repacking his pathetic provisions — blanket, alarm clock, teddy bear — after half a night of running away. Or like some sea animal, declawed and deformed by battle, scuttling back to his shell with whatever scraps of himself he could salvage. He remained on the floor, pretending to be deep in his game. Meanwhile his mind had sprung awake again and was playing games of its own. He composed a list of all his favorite words, aloud. “Luncheon. Reality. Silver salver. Ippolitov-Ivanov.” Justine sat back and wiped her hair off her forehead.

“Sometimes I wonder why we travel with so much stuff,” she told him.

One of the puzzling things about Justine was that she always seemed to be shaking lately, and it hadn’t stopped when he decided to move her to Baltimore. The streamers of her hat trembled gently, and whenever she drank coffee (which was the only thing she would touch) she spilled it. She reminded him of a fragile tree full of birds. But what could he do that he hadn’t already done? He tried diverting her thoughts. “Justine,” he said. “You know? In twenty years I firmly believe we will be traveling instantaneously by transposition of matter. You get in this glass box, see, if you want to go to, say, Omaha, and someone in Omaha gets in another glass box—”

“I travel fast enough as it is,” said Justine, “and way too far.”

“You haven’t traveled so far,” Duncan said. “Then bulletin boards would spring up everywhere: ‘Gentleman from Detroit wishes to go to Pittsburgh; does anyone in Pittsburgh wish to go to Detroit?’ There would be new hope for the unemployed. Bums could make money being transposed to Cincinnati when someone in Cincinnati wanted to get out. You go to a park bench. ‘Look, fellow,’ you say—”

“But it would always be me who ended up accepting,” said Justine. She rose, and for no apparent reason examined her face in the speckled metal switchplate on the wall. “I can turn into anyone. That’s my curse.”

Her curse was her ability to see all sides of every question, but that wasn’t something Duncan wanted changed and so he didn’t mention it. Finally Justine turned away and bent to pack another box.

She was fitting some things of Meg’s in now. Each object she handled very gently and lovingly, taking much longer than necessary. She rolled a stray belt meant for a dress Meg might not even be wearing any more, and she tucked it in beside a mildewed high school almanac. She took the lid off a tin of pebbles that Meg had collected on a Virginia beach in the summer of 1965, and she held each pebble up to the light and smoothed it with her fingers before replacing it.

At mealtimes, if he remembered, Duncan made sandwiches and poured two glasses of milk. But Justine seemed to have given up on eating. She didn’t even go to the diner; she didn’t go anywhere. When he urged her she would take one bite of her sandwich and then set it down. “Come on. Eat,” he told her. Though he could see that it wasn’t possible. He could tell from the way she chewed; her mouth was too dry, or too small, or something. Never mind, she would eat when she got to Baltimore. Aunts would take her in hand. He thought of the aunts for the first time with gratitude, imagining how they would relieve him of Justine’s dull white face and her limpness. Then he caught himself and looked away from her eyes, which were fixed on him too steadily.

He could always leave her, of course. He could settle her in Baltimore and then go off again on his own. But he knew that he wouldn’t. If he didn’t have Justine he wouldn’t even know how to see things, what to look at; nothing would exist for him if he couldn’t tell Justine about it. The first flat-brimmed hat in a department store window would break him. He would be unable to last the night without her rustling, burning wakefulness guarding his sleep. So he put away all thoughts of leaving, and he wrote the letter to Peck & Sons asking for work. But when the answer came, he didn’t want to open it. He stuffed it in his pocket, angry already at the phrases he knew it would contain. Finally Justine found it, and opened it for him. “Well? What does it say?” he asked.

“Oh . . . they’ll get you something.”

“But what does it say? Are they glad I’m finally listening to reason? Do they say they always knew we would end up coming home?”

“No, they don’t mention it,” Justine said.

He snatched the letter away from her — his Uncle Mark’s signature beneath a secretary’s crisp black typing. Probably, his uncle said, there would be some employment for him although it was hard to say what, on such short notice. And no, the firm had no need of a fix-it man, what kind of a question was that? And of course it was true that Great-Grandma’s house was legally Justine’s, although really the family had been the ones to see to its maintenance all these years and Esther and the twins were so accustomed to living there . . .

All in all, Duncan thought the letter sounded disconcerted. As if secretly the family had enjoyed having the two of them ricocheting around somewhere. He had not expected that. Nor had he expected to feel so offended, once he found it out.

But the wheels were set in motion, anyway, and now they gave notice to the landlord and made arrangements with the movers. (“I’m not hiring a U-Haul,” Duncan said. “I don’t have Grandfather.” But really he was just indulging in his new policy of floating to places. He pictured the Mayflower men hauling out the living room rug by its corners while he remained seated on it, steadily playing forty thieves.) They notified the electric company and the water department, breaking off ties, unplugging all their cords to Caro Mill and reeling them in. They wrote a letter to Meg giving their new address. (“Although,” Justine said, “there is no way we can ever let Caleb know . . . ”) Nowadays when Duncan passed the Blue Bottle he saw an unfamiliar young man established behind the counter, picking his fingernails and gazing idly out the reglazed window with its display of gilded china teacups.

At Thanksgiving they stayed home, since they would be going to Baltimore anyway in another few days. They ate dinner on the living room floor: a combination pizza that Duncan had bought from a takeout place. “Really you shouldn’t have,” Justine said. She meant because of the cost; their money was nearly gone. They were living on BankAmericard. “But it wasn’t expensive,” said Duncan, “and I thought you liked combination pizzas. I told them to put extra anchovies on. Why aren’t you eating?”

She took a bite. She didn’t seem to be tasting it.

“Isn’t it good?”

“If Caleb were here we’d be taking him to the family today,” she said.

“If he were here, yes.”

“And they wouldn’t have liked him.”

He leaned forward and tapped her plate. “Eat,” he told her.

The morning after Thanksgiving Dorcas came to have her cards read. She was considering marrying a moviehouse owner named Willis Ralph McGee. “How do you like the name Dorcas McGee?” she asked Duncan.

Behind her, Ann-Campbell said, “It stinks.”

“Who asked you?”

Now that it was cold Dorcas wore a car coat heaped with blond fake fur, but her feet were still in spike-heeled sandals. Blood-red toenails glinted beneath nylon, overrun the next moment by the last of Duncan’s forty cards. She moved her toes a fraction of an inch away. “You said I would meet somebody soon, Justine, and so I did,” she said. “Now I want to know what kind of husband he would make.”

“Lousy,” said Ann-Campbell.

“Will you hush that?”

“My daddy, Joe Pete Britt, is not ever going to stand for this,” said Ann-Campbell. “Here, Justine, I brung in your mail. There’s a bill from Howard pharmacy, a Korvette ad—”

“Just give it to her, Ann-Campbell.”

Justine set down a roll of binder’s twine and took the letters. “Well, here is something from Mayflower,” she said. “I just hope they’re not putting off the moving date.”

“I hope they do!” said Dorcas. “Just years and years.”

“Here’s something from — who do we know in Wyoming?”

Justine tore the envelope open. Duncan laid down a nine of clubs, which Dorcas immediately stepped on. “Now I don’t want to hurry you or anything,” Dorcas said, “but me and Ann-Campbell are going out to Woolworth’s for a hot fudge sundae and we were just stopping by briefly to get my fortune told.”

“You prick a balloon,” Ann-Campbell told Duncan, “and see what number is wrote on it. That’s the price of your hot fudge sundae. Could be a nickel. Could be a penny.”

“Is that so,” said Duncan. “Would you move your foot a little, Dorcas?”

“Could be forty-nine cents,” said Dorcas. “It always has been.”

“Well!” said Justine.

They all looked up at her, but it seemed she was reading a letter. She would read for a moment and then look up, then start reading it all over again. “What is it?” Duncan asked her.

“Well, it’s a—”

He waited, but she went back to the letter.

“Reason I’m in a hurry is that tonight we have this special date,” Dorcas said. “I have a feeling he’s going to propose. Now I don’t want to answer without knowing what the cards say, do I?”

“Certainly not,” said Duncan.

“Justine? If you don’t want to do it all you have to do is tell me.”

“Look at this, Duncan,” Justine said.

He took the letter, a cream-colored sheet crumpled and gray around the edges.

Duncan laughed — a single, sharp sound. He handed the letter back.

“It’s a thank you note,” said Justine.

“That’s right.”

“A bread-and-butter note.”

“That’s what they call them.”

“I just want to ask you one thing,” Dorcas said. “And I want an honest answer. Hear? Now Justine, you have been putting me off all morning and it’s not the first time. Other people have noticed too. Nowadays you just drift the cards down like your heart’s not in it. Anything anybody asks you definite, should they do it or should they not, you don’t want to reply. You just shuck it off, like. Well, what I want to know is, do you not really care to read the future any more? Are you trying to phase it out? Because all you got to do is say the word, Justine. Not to keep on going with your mind on something else the way you have been lately.”

“What?” said Justine.

Dorcas looked over at Duncan.

“Oh, your fortune,” Justine said.

“That’s right.”

“Well, let me find my . . . ”

She fetched the straw carry-all, unwrapped the cards from their square of silk.

“My great-uncle Caleb wrote a thank you note,” she told Dorcas.

“Now isn’t that nice.”

“Thanking us for his visit.”

“You can always tell good upbringing, is what I say,” said Dorcas, but her eyes were on the cards, which Justine was gently shuffling over and over again. “Aren’t you going to want a table to lay those out on? Or you’re just going to go on shuffling evermore.”

“Oh yes,” said Justine. And they went off to the kitchen, leaving Ann-Campbell behind. Ann-Campbell squatted next to Duncan. “Will Justine let Mama say yes to Mr. McGee?” she asked him.

“I don’t know.”

“Will she tell her to marry daddy again, Joe Pete Britt?”

“Tune in next week and find out,” said Duncan.

“Huh?”

“Nothing.” He tipped back his head for a swallow of bourbon.

“Who is this great-uncle Caleb man?”

“That old guy we had around for a while,” Duncan said. “Who is either very dumb or very very smart, it’s hard to tell which.”

“If she marries Mr. McGee I might just come along to Baltimore with you all,” said Ann-Campbell, edging closer. “I think that might be what’s going to happen. Justine will tell her to go ahead.”

“Justine won’t tell her anything, don’t worry,” Duncan said. “She hardly opens her mouth any more.”

But just then he heard her laugh, a clear light sound that startled him, and he looked up from his cards and met Ann-Campbell’s speckled green eyes fixed thoughtfully upon him.

After lunch Justine worked in the yard a while, pulling up yellowed cornstalks. She returned with her face pink. Starchy-smelling air trailed behind her. “Feel,” she said, and laid her stinging hands on Duncan’s cheek. He drew back. “Doesn’t it make you want to get outdoors?” she asked him.

“Not exactly.”

“Aren’t you tired of sitting here?”

She spun away from him and went off toward the kitchen. A minute later he heard her running water in the sink, clattering dishes, but she must have grown tired of that, because very soon she was back in the living room. She stood at the window a moment, and then took a second pack of cards from the sill and settled down on the floor with them, not far from where Duncan sat playing forty thieves. He could hear her murmuring to herself as she laid them out. “ . . . the queen of change, beside the king. The wish card, the journey card . . . why so many journeys? Look how far the loved ones are! This is the card for journeys beyond other journeys, I’ve never had that one before. The card for, what was it?”

She fell silent. Duncan looked up to find her chewing a thumbnail and staring into space.

Shortly afterward she left, sliding into an old lumber-jacket that used to be Duncan’s. She didn’t say where she was going. Duncan heard the Ford start up, a burry sound in the frozen air. First he was pleased, but then he wondered if she would keep her mind sufficiently on her driving. He noticed how empty the house felt. There was a strong wind blowing up from the north, whistling through all the cracks. The sky was white, and the room seemed lit by a bleak cold glare that hurt Duncan’s eyes. Everywhere he looked there was something dismal to see: packing cases, dry dead plants on the windowsill, a sprawl of tomato-stained pizza wrappings from the day before. He rose and went to the bedroom. He was only planning to rest; he lay on the unmade bed with one arm across his eyes and thought about the turn his life was taking. But then he fell asleep and dreamed about antiques — jewelry that came in clusters and jungles of carved chair legs. Even in his sleep it was impossible to find any space that was pure and simple and clean of line.

When he woke it was dark. Justine was still not back. He got up and felt his way to the kitchen, where he turned on the light and made himself a peanut butter sandwich. The cat watched him from the stovetop. “So this is what it’s like to be grown up!” Duncan told her. She blinked and looked away, offended. He took his sandwich into the living room and settled down again beside his unfinished game. It was clear he was not going to win. Still, he shifted cards doggedly and pondered a choice of moves, munching meanwhile on his sandwich. There was nothing else to do.

Then the Ford drove up, and a minute later Justine’s quick footsteps crossed the porch. When she opened the door he kept his eyes on the cards; she would never guess how glad he was to see her. “We’re out of peanut butter,” was all he said.

“Oh, are we?”

He moved a deuce.

“I think I’m losing,” he said.

“Never mind.” She came to kneel in front of him, a flash of red plaid, and scooped his cards up. Some were left on the rug and some flew out of her hands. “Well, wait a minute,” Duncan said.

“Shall I tell your fortune?”

She had never told his fortune in all his life. He stared at her. But Justine only smiled — bright-eyed, out of breath, her hat a little crooked — and began laying cards in a disorderly row that she didn’t even glance at. “You are about to alter your entire way of life,” she said, smacking down some jack or king. She was watching Duncan’s face.

“Yes, well,” said Duncan, reaching for his bottle.

“You are going to become a fix-it man for a carnival.”

He set the bottle down.

“Your wife will be their fortune teller. You’ll have a purple trailer in Parvis, Maryland, and live happily ever after. How do you like me so far?”

“You’re crazy,” he said, but he was smiling, and he didn’t even protest when Justine spilled all the rest of his bourbon while leaning over the cards to give him a kiss.