Better To Rest

SEVEN

Kagati Lake was covered with a foot of crusty snow, but someone had plowed enough of the strip for Wy to put the Cessna down. Leonard Nunapitchuk was there to help her unload the supplies for the little sundries store his wife, Opal, had started in their living room when she got the bid for postmistress.

“Good to see you, Leonard. How you been?”

However hard she tried to make it sound like a casual question, it wasn’t one and they both knew it. His wife had fallen victim to the serial killer Liam had apprehended the month before. Still, Leonard wasn’t a whiner. “Oh, muddling along.”

“And the kids?”

His expression lightened a little, and he nodded upslope, where his three remaining children had built their homes and brought their spouses. “Fine.” His eyes, nearly hidden in the mass of wrinkles surrounding them, narrowed with what might have been a smile. “I’ll be a grandfather come spring.”

“That’s great news, Leonard.”

“Yeah. If it’s a girl, Sarah says they’re going to call her Opal.”

“Opal would be happy to hear that.”

“Yeah,” he said again. “I just wish-” He stopped himself and said in a bright voice, “It’s too cold to stand around out here jawing.”

Wy followed his lead, emptying out the back of the plane and reinstalling the seats that she had folded and stored. “Dusty and his wife are making a Costco run into town,” she said in answer to Leonard’s inquiring look.

“Who’s minding the kids?”

“They’re bringing them.”

Leonard looked at the plane, which seated six, and back at Wy.

“They’re all under eight. She’ll hold the baby and I’ll buckle the two smallest kids in one seat. I just hope nobody throws up. I hate people puking in my planes.”

“Can’t say I blame you.” He loaded his boxes onto a handcart and waved good-bye. She watched him push it up the trail and disappear into the brush that hid the rambling log house from the airstrip. It was a big house. It had to feel pretty lonely after his wife’s death. She wished she had time to follow him up, accept a cup of coffee, play some cribbage.

But she had to get back to town, and Tim. And Liam.

Before she could go very far down that road the Moore gang arrived. She got them sandwiched in and they were in the air fifteen minutes later. The most she could do was circle Leonard’s house and run up and back on the prop pitch. He’d hear the enginewah-wah and know she was saying good-bye.

On the way back to Newenham she took a short detour to fly low and as slow as the Cessna would allow over Ted Gustafson’s place at Akamanuk. A tall, spare, grizzled Scandinavian bachelor homesteader, Ted was also diabetic and dependent on the regular supply of insulin Wy delivered at three-week intervals. He came outside when he heard the engine and waved a reassuring hand. Everything okay there. She waggled the wings and climbed back to five hundred feet.

They landed in Newenham a little before five, just in time for the Moores to catch the last Anchorage-bound flight of the day. Wy noticed a body bag being loaded into the cargo hold, and wondered who had died, and if it had been a death Liam had had to respond to, and if so, what time he would be home. It was her turn to cook, and Jo and Gary both had been invited. She decided on macaroni and cheese with onions and garlic, her mother’s specialty and a dish that could easily be made larger by the addition of another vegetable on the side. She snugged down the Cessna, checked the Cub’s tie-down lines, and headed for Eagle to lay in supplies.

Jo and Gary were already at her house, engaging Tim in a fierce battle of cutthroat pinochle. “I can’t believe you shot the moon!” he was saying when she walked in.

Jo gathered up cards with a complacent air. “Yes, well, like I always say, cutthroat is not for the faint of heart.”

“Only the hard of head,” Gary chimed in, so opportunely that it could only have been something he had said and she had heard many times before.

Jo aimed a halfhearted cuff at the side of his head and shuffled the cards in an alarmingly professional manner, fanning them, flipping them, and dealing them out again in a blur. Tim was trying hard not to look impressed and failing. “Could you, like, maybe, teach me how to do that?”

“Like, maybe, I could.”

Gary looked up and saw Wy, and flashed a warm, intimate grin. “Hey, girl.”

“Hey, Gary.”

Tim observed this exchange through narrowed eyes.

“Back on the ground, fly girl?” Jo said. “Just in time to pour another round. You have your uses.”

“You’re welcome,” Wy said dryly, and got three Coronas from the refrigerator.

“Did you get any Coke at the store?” Tim said.

“How many have you had already today?”

He looked annoyed. “I don’t know.”

“At school?”

“I don’t know,” he said.

“One at lunch, one every break, did you stop off at Eagle and pick one up after school?”

“I don’t know!”

She kept her voice soft and even. “We talked about this, Tim. There’s too much sugar in those things, more than six teaspoons a can. They’ll rot your teeth, make you fat, give you diabetes like Ted.”

“I don’t care.” At least he wasn’t yelling anymore.

“I do. And what I say goes.” She pulled a can out of one of the bags. “How about a diet Coke?”

“They don’t have the kick. And they’re too sweet.”

“I’ll squeeze a lemon into it.”

“Great.”

“You in?” Jo said, giving his handful of cards a pointed look. “It’s your bid.”

He examined his cards, and eyed the kitty with a suspicious expression. “I guess I’ll open.”

“Pass,” Gary said promptly.

“Pass,” Jo said promptly. “Going, going, gone for the bargain-basement bid of fifteen.”

“Oh, man,” Tim said, “I can’t believe you dumped it on me again. I’m going out the back door for sure.” He reached for the glass Wy had set next to him and took a drink. “Okay, okay, what have we got?” When he overturned the jack of hearts that filled out the run in his hand, he whooped in triumph, to accompanying moans from Jo and Gary.

It proved to be the last hand of the game, as Jo won on points and tonight’s rules said you didn’t have to take the bid to win. Tim vanished into his bedroom and the latest Bon Jovi CD. At least he went in for real rock and roll instead of Ice-T and the Backstreet Boys. Parents, Wy was learning, had by virtue of their job description much cause to be grateful for small favors.

The toilet flushed and Gary came into the kitchen. “You got any tools?”

Wy looked at him and he held up a hand. “Sorry. Stupid question. You got any non-FAA-approved tools?”

“There’s a toolbox in the closet next to the front door. Why?”

“You’ve got a leak in your bathroom.”

“What?”

“Don’t worry about it; I can fix it. You got any scraps of Sheetrock around?”

“Sheetrock?”

“Never mind, I’ll take a look, see what you’ve got.”

“Gary-”

“Don’t bother,” Jo said, taking a stool at the counter. “You know what he’s like when he gets in fix-it mode. Where’s Liam?”

“He didn’t call?”

Jo pointed at the message machine. The red light wasn’t blinking.

“Oh.” Wy put water on to boil for the macaroni, and got cheddar and parmesan out of the refrigerator. “Jo-”

“You want me to go and you want me to take Gary with me.”

“Well…”

“No.” Jo gave her a sunny smile. “For one thing, I can’t leave; I’m on a story.”

“What story? You said you were here on a family visit yesterday.”

“That was before somebody rolled a severed human arm with a gold coin clenched in its fist out into the middle of Bill’s dance floor.” She gave Wy an expectant look. “Come on, give.”

Wy was reluctant. “I don’t know. I think it’s part of an ongoing investigation.”

Jo made a face. “All right, all right, I promise not to use anything until Liam gives me the okay. What did you find up on that glacier?”

Jo, her green eyes alive with curiosity and her blond hair virtually curling tighter in anticipation, was hard to resist. Wy grated cheese and chopped onions and minced garlic as she told the tale. When she came to the end of it, Jo let out a long, appreciative whistle.

“Wy?” Gary called. “Have you got any spackle?”

“Who cares?” Jo said impatiently. Gary tramped down the hall and out into the garage, muttering beneath his breath. “It’s really an old C-47?”

Wy shrugged. “That’s what it looked like from where we were standing.”

“World War Two?”

“Maybe. It’s pretty busted up, and I’m not that familiar with DC-3s.”

“I thought you said this was a C-47.”

“They’re the same plane. The DC-3 was used for domestic passenger service, the C-47 for the military, freight, troops. It’s a hell of a plane. They’re not making them anymore but they’re sure still flying them. They’re great for freight.” Her eyes lit. “I’d love to get my hands on one for the business.”

“And you got the tail numbers?”

“The last three numbers, all that were left before the break in the fuselage.” She moved her shoulders uneasily.

“What?”

“I didn’t like seeing that wreck.” She thought. “If it comes to that, I don’t think any pilot likes seeing any wreck.”

“This is an old one.”

“Doesn’t matter. I can’t help wondering, why’d they go in? Weather? They get lost? Instrumentation go out on them? Crew fall asleep?”

Jo, caught up in Wy’s imaginings, said, “Think they knew? Or did they just hit and kerflooey, that’s all she wrote?”

“They knew,” Wy said flatly.

“How do you know?”

“The pilot knew, for sure, and probably the copilot as well. They may not have known but for a split second, but they knew they’d fucked the pooch, all right.”

“I found this light fixture on the workbench,” Gary said, coming into the room. “Where’s it supposed to go?”

“My bedroom, but Gary, you don’t have to-” She stopped when he headed down the hall. She turned to his sister. “What’s the other thing?”

“What?”

“You said, when I tried to kick you out of Newenham, that you couldn’t go because ‘for one thing, I’m on a story.’ What’s the other thing?”

“Oh. That.”

“Wy?” Gary’s was a voice crying in the wilderness. “Where do you keep your paint?”

“At the paint store! What’s the other thing?” she repeated to Jo.

“Okay.” Jo fortified herself with a long swallow of beer. “It’s this. Liam doesn’t have anything to be worried about. Does he? With you and…” She jerked her head toward the bathroom.

“No.”

“He doesn’t seem to know that.”

“I don’t follow you.”

Jo’s sigh was heavy and martyred. “If he were sure of himself with you, he wouldn’t give a damn how many ex-boyfriends were hanging around.”

“Oh, for God’s sake, Jo, can’t you let this alone? I told you yesterday I-”

“I know.” Jo nodded. “I listened very carefully and I heard every word you said.”

“So?”

“So, what I didn’t hear you say was that you were completely, totally, and irrevocably committed to Liam Campbell, forsaking all others, world without end, amen. If I don’t hear you saying that, I’m pretty sure Liam doesn’t, either.”

Wy was confused. “I still don’t get what this has to do with your bringing Gary down here to get Liam all riled up.”

“You say you love him.”

“I do.”

“You say you want him.”

“I do.”

“But you won’t say you’ll marry him.”

“I can’t have kids.”

“I know that. And you told him, and so does he, now.”

“He wants kids.”

“Does he want them more than you?”

“He says not.”

“And you don’t believe him.”

Wy was silent.

“And all these years, I thought you were so smart.” Jo gave her head a long, sad shake. “Somebody’s got to hold your feet to the fire, girl.”

“And you think you’re just the person to do that.”

“Who better?”

“Seen anything of Jim Wiley lately?”

Beneath Wy’s amazed gaze, Jo’s fair skin flushed a deep and unexpected red. “Up yours, Chouinard.”

“Up yours times two, Dunaway,” Wy said, delighted to turn the tables. “Come to think of it, I haven’t heard any tales this past month of your latest conquests, and usually I get on average at least one call a week. Not to mention which, you’re traveling with your brother, also a rare event, as you usually use your trips to see me as getaway weekends for you and your latest. You and Jim, hmmm. You wouldn’t be seeing each other socially, by any chance?”

“In his dreams.”

“Or in yours,” Wy retorted, and then had to duck.

After dinner and coffee and still no appearance by Liam, Jo and Gary took their leave with suitable expressions of gratitude. During the time before and after dinner, Gary had found and fixed the leak in the bathroom, recaulked the bathtub, installed the new light fixture in Wy’s bedroom, and put a ground fault interruptor in the outlet next to the kitchen sink.

“Handy, isn’t he?” Jo said.

“Speedy, too,” Wy said.

Gary gave Wy a long look. “With some things. With others, I take my time.”

“Too much information,” Jo said. “We’re out of here.”

Wy closed the door behind them and went back to Tim’s room.

He was sprawled across his bed, head propped up on a pillow, reading.

“Hey,” Wy said.

“Hey,” Tim said without looking around.

Wy sat next to him. “What are you reading?”

He turned the cover of the book toward her, and went back to reading.

“Little Fuzzy,”Wy said, pleased. “One of my favorites. For fun or for work?” Mrs. Cash, the English teacher for seventh, eighth and ninth grades at Newenham Public School, was teaching a science-fiction lit class this semester.

“Work.”

“You like it?”

“Yeah.”

She refused to let his laconic replies deter her. “What else is she assigning?”

“I don’t know.”

She stifled a sigh, and then was startled when he actually volunteered a remark.

“She made us watch television today, before she handed out this book.”

“What?”

He angled a sly look up at her.“Star Trek.”

She grinned. “Which one, and which episode?”

“ ‘TNG.’ The one where Data has to prove he’s not a toaster.”

“Ah.” She thought. “So you’re headed for a discussion on sentience.”

“Looks like.”

“How do you like the course?”

“It’s okay, so far.” He turned back to his book.

She looked at him, his hair cropped and spiked with gel in the approved current style, the blue jeans that now, mercifully, fit instead of hanging off his butt. His watch was the X-Men one she had given him for Christmas, to match the Wolverine T-shirt and his very own VHS copy of the movie, which by now was about worn out.

His desk was a disaster area, littered with textbooks and notebooks and CDs and a Walkman and a Game Boy, undoubtedly loaded with Tim’s beloved Tetris and ready to go. On the wall was a poster of Euclid holding a pair of calipers, with a caption reading,There is no royal road to geometry. Next to Euclid was a poster of Jennifer Lopez holding nothing and wearing less.

On a short picture ledge, ordered specially for the purpose, sat a photograph of a girl with pale olive skin, a mass of straight brown hair, and tip-tilted, laughing brown eyes. The brass of the frame was newly shined, and the ledge, unlike any other level surface in the room, was dust-free.

Wy steeled herself. “Natalie’s coming over tomorrow afternoon.” She had learned the hard way not to refer to Natalie Gosuk as his mother.

His back stiffened into one hard, inimical line. “What time?”

“Four o’clock.”

“You’ll be here?”

“Yes. Every time. Always.”

He put down the book and rolled to look at her. “I don’t want to see her.”

“I know.”

“But you’re making me.”

“Yes.”

“Why?”

If was the first time he hadn’t shouted the question at her in a rage, and she wanted so badly not to blow the answer. “She’s your birth mother, Tim.”

“You’re more my mother than she ever was or ever will be.”

Wy thought of the shivering, wounded scrap of humanity she had found crouched beneath his mother’s front porch on a flight into Ualik over two years ago, and said, “I can’t argue with that.”

“Then why?”

Hard as she tried, she couldn’t go straight at it. “I understand your anger at her, Tim. I share it. Anger is a good thing in many ways. Anger makes you fight back. A lot of times it’s the difference between surviving and going under.”

He looked at her.

“It’s just that, sooner or later, you have to accept what happened to make you angry, acknowledge it and move on.”

“What if I don’t want to? You bet I’m mad at her.” His voice rose. “I hate her! And she deserves it!”

“Yes, she does, but are you going to spend the rest of your life angry with her?” Without waiting for an answer, she said, “You have that choice. It’s up to you; you can live from now until you die blaming everything bad that happens to you on your lousy childhood and the awful things your mother did to you.”

“It wasn’t just her.”

It was as close as he’d come to talking about the rest of it. “I know,” she said gently, when what she really wanted to do was rip and tear. “But what I’m telling you still goes. You can’t do anything to change the past. I’m not saying you shouldn’t be angry, but you’ve got to learn to put it aside and move on. The jails are full of people who never learned to do that.” Interesting, she thought, how sometimes she opened up her mouth and Liam Campbell came walking out of it.

In that maddening way teenagers have of making logic where none exists, he said, “You saying I’m going to jail if I don’t let her visit?”

“No. I’m saying if you can learn to tolerate her company for a few hours a week, you’ll be a better person for it.” She hesitated. “She’s an alcoholic, Tim.” He shot up, knocking his book to the floor, and she held up a hand. “It’s not an excuse, I know. But it is a reason. Sober, she might have been a completely different person. A completely different mother.”

“She wasn’t sober.”

“No, she wasn’t. And she lost her chance to be that person with you. But she’s sober now, and she’s reaching out. And you have to remember something.”

“What?”

“Whatever else, she gave you life.”

“It wasn’t much of one.”

“It is now.”

His eyes held more bewilderment than rage. “I can’t believe you’re making me do this.”

She said the only thing she could say. “I love you, Tim. I will always be on your side, no matter what.”

She wasn’t sure he believed her, but she was wise enough to leave it at that.