The tower of tea towels threatens to topple as Tova adds another to the top. Stacks of this sort cover the floorboards of her attic. Above, the polished beams are bathed, cathedral-like, in the afternoon light streaming through the large picture window. Tova’s disposition, however, is less sunny. She cannot stand piles.
Will was a notorious maker of piles. Receipts, stale mail advertisements, magazines he’d already read twice, scraps of paper upon which he’d jotted some note or another that even he couldn’t decipher. In Will’s view these things needed to be kept. When Tova would nag him about the clutter, he’d simply collect the detritus into a stack, square off the corners, and plop it on the edge of some counter or credenza, with a satisfied remark. See? Nice and tidy.
Tova would wait until he dozed off in the recliner, and then, with a sigh, would shepherd the junk to its proper place, which was occasionally the filing cabinet, but more often the trash bin. When Will’s cancer generated enough paperwork to overstuff the small cabinet, Tova bought another, expanding her filing system so each page from the insurance company, every medical bill, had a proper home. Caring for her husband as the cancer worked its way through his organs may have taken over her life for a time, but she would not tolerate the paperwork taking over her kitchen counters.
“Quite a disaster, isn’t it?” Tova directs this question at Cat, who patters up the attic stairs. A gray tail appears a
moment later, popping up like a question mark behind a box. The cat winds his slender body between the stacks with impossible grace, arriving at a patch of sunshine near Tova’s side without disturbing so much as a speck of dust. He casts a bored glare before lowering onto his side and closing his yellow eyes.
Tova smiles, allowing a smidge of her crossness to melt away. “I suppose you tromped all the way up here to nap on the job, didn’t you?” She strokes Cat’s side, which starts to rumble, purring.
The room is divided into three categories. It’s a start, anyhow. A system. Tomorrow, Barb and Janice are coming over along with Janice’s son, Timothy, and two or three of his friends. Voluntary labor for all of this sorting and hauling. Tova promised to order pizza for everyone, even though eating delivery food when her freezer is full of casseroles seems indulgent. But she does need the help, and better for it to come from people she knows rather than allowing a team of strangers to descend upon her family’s heirlooms. Besides, Barb and Janice have been calling nonstop, offering to help. This will mollify them.
The first category of items, and by far the smallest, is for things she’ll take to Charter Village: a couple of Erik’s old toy cars, a handful of photographs, what’s left of her mother’s porcelain tea set, which she fancies she’ll take coffee in once in a while. It’s quite a shame so much of this has gone unused for years. Decades.
The slip of tissue that had wrapped the saucer gets wadded into a ball and tossed into the section nearest the door: trash. Here, too, goes a large volume of photographs and other memorabilia. Although it feels odd to discard these things, so meticulously saved, where else could they go? Janice suggested a storage unit, but why? There is no one left to want them.
Then there’s the largest pile: the donation pile. A truck from the local secondhand shop is scheduled to do a pickup
next week. Most of Erik’s toys are in this pile; perhaps they’ll be played with by someone else’s grandchildren. Alongside the old toys is her mother’s bone dinner china. It survived a trip across the ocean, so it should make it through a journey to the thrift shop downtown; whether anyone will buy it once it arrives there is another question. First, she’d tried to give it to Janice, but Janice said she didn’t have room. Barb, likewise, apparently does not have room among her elephants. She had considered offering it to Mackenzie, the girl who works the desk at the aquarium, or even the young lady who runs the paddling shop next to Jessica Snell’s office. But young women don’t want bone china anymore. They’ve no use for old Swedish things. They have their own dinnerware, probably from Ikea. New Swedish things.
Also in the donation section are five wooden Dala Horses, straight-legged figurines with their delicate paintwork in shades of yellow and blue and red. The sixth one, the one Erik broke, has been missing for ages. She always thought perhaps she’d find it and repair it, but what good would that do now? She takes one of the horses out and studies it. If she takes them with her, the whole lot will be left at Charter Village for someone else to dispose of. Not even a muckle- toothed lawyer and his private investigator will be able to find someone who wants them.
Still, the Dala Horses switch piles. They’ll go with her to the retirement home.
She picks up a stack of yellowing pillowcases; her mother had hand-embroidered the roses along the hem. The sheets let off a musty puff as Tova plops them onto the nearest linen pile, to be washed, of course, before being donated.
All of these things had been stored away for her to pass along someday, relics to be carried up the branches of the family tree. But the family tree stopped growing long ago, its canopy thinned and frayed, not a single sap springing from the old rotting trunk. Some trees aren’t meant to
sprout tender new branches, but to stand stoically on the forest floor, silently decaying.
She unfolds the next item to be added to the pile: a linen apron, its sturdy fabric heavily creased. It’s what her mother wore when she baked. Tova holds it close to her face; it smells sour, like flour turned bad. Folding up the fraying strings, she tries to push away the thought that has been nagging at her all afternoon. There was a girl.
If Erik hadn’t died that night, the girl might have been a daughter-in-law. Tova herself might have worn this apron when she taught her son’s wife how to make his favorite butter cookies, then passed the apron along to her when the time came.
Such nonsensical thinking must stop. Whoever she was, Erik hadn’t cared for her enough to ever mention her.
This last thought, as usual, stings.
Cat’s afternoon nap comes to an end when a horsefly hurls itself against the window, enticing the sleeping gray hunter into an earnest, if fundamentally pointless, hunt. Tova watches the cat leap at the window, pawing the glass, as the fly hovers, unconcerned, outside.
“I know how you feel,” she says, with a sympathetic nod. To know something is there, yet be unable to grasp it, is torture indeed. With an antagonized mewl, Cat stalks off, winding back through the maze of stacks and vanishing down the stairs.
Tova glances at her wristwatch: almost five. “Suppose I should think about supper,” she mutters to no one, unfolding her aching joints from her low chair and picking her way through the mess. It isn’t like her to leave a project half-finished. A rush of rebellion swishes through her as she turns her back on the unfinished piles and, stepping lightly on her still-tender ankle, descends the staircase.
Egg salad sandwich is tonight’s supper plan . . . again. All week, it’s been nothing but egg salad. (There was a coupon in last week’s circular: buy a dozen, get a dozen free.)
Tonight, however, she can’t bear to eat another crumbly sandwich.
It’s true, she’s been doing her shopping in the morning lately. Not because she’s avoiding Ethan and his coffee invitation. Of course not. She checks her watch again: she’s fairly certain he’ll be on shift now. She runs a hand down her face, which feels as worn as the relics in her attic, like the dust has settled into every crease and wrinkle. A friendly conversation with the Scot would be nice right now.
“I’m going up to the Shop-Way,” she informs Cat, who is now perched on the arm of the davenport, no doubt depositing a layer of gray fur which Tova will need to slough off with a lint brush later. Oh well. The davenport won’t be coming with her to the Charter Village, of course; it’s far too large. And, in any event, there are worse things than cat hair.
A hot, thick haze has settled over Sowell Bay, and a few bored-looking teenagers are encamped on the curb in front of the grocery, languid and lazy under the baking sun, limbs sprawled, reminding Tova of a collection of gangly insects. She tuts as she steps over one young man’s extended leg on her way to the front door.
The door chimes, and Ethan Mack glances up from his register with a broad grin and an “Afternoon, Tova!” An icy air-conditioned blast sends gooseflesh shivering up Tova’s arms. She ought to have brought a sweater.
“Good day, Ethan.” Suddenly out of any other words, she hurries toward the produce aisle. There, the temperature is even more frigid. She scoops a bagful of gleaming Rainier cherries and places it in her basket, then after a hesitation, fills a second bag. Cherry season is so short, and these do look delightful.
“Wow, three bucks a pound! What a steal.”
Tova turns to find a familiar woman nibbling on a cherry. It takes her a moment to realize it’s Sandy, from Mary Ann’s
luncheon. Adam Wright’s lady friend. Unlisted-in-the-phone- book Adam Wright.
“Oh! Mrs. Sullivan, right?” She swipes juice from her mouth with the back of her hand, then grins sheepishly. “Nice to see you again. I guess you caught me in the act, here.”
“No need to worry. I won’t alert the authorities,” Tova says with a small smile. “Pleasure to see you, Sandy. I hope you and Adam are settling in well.” Guilt nags at her, remembering how she drove through that neighborhood with the newly built homes, hoping she might happen to catch one of them fetching the mail or mowing the lawn. People deserved privacy on their own property. She, of all people, should appreciate that. And, even if she had managed to catch them, who is to say Adam remembers anything more about Erik’s purported sweetheart than he let on at the luncheon? The night in question was, after all, thirty years ago.
And yet, Tova cannot shake his words. She shivers again.
Sandy plucks another cherry from the pile and pops the stem off. “Thanks, and yes, it’s starting to feel like home. It’s just beautiful up here. Great to be out of the hustle and bustle of the city.” Cleaving the cherry in half with her teeth before picking the pit out, she makes a guttural mmmm sound and gives her fingertips a chef’s kiss. “Seriously, you should try one. They’re out of this world.”
“Aye, you there! No free samples!” Ethan booms into the produce section, wagging one of his meaty fingers as he approaches. Sandy’s face goes ashen, but Tova smiles and shakes her head. Ethan’s eyes are sparkling.
He gently nudges poor Sandy on the shoulder. “I’m just pullin’ your chain. Won’t no one be the wiser if you help yourself to a few. Brilliant season for cherries this year, innit?”
Sandy releases a nervous laugh. “Whew. I thought I was about to get banished from the town’s only grocery store.”
“A’course not. We’re a welcoming lot here, aren’t we, Tova?”
Tova inclines her head. “I should say so.”
Ethan chuckles and hooks his thumbs into his apron straps. “Well, I’ll leave you ladies to your shopping and sampling. Gimme a shout when you’re ready to check out.” With a cheery nod, he turns and lumbers over to a nearby cantaloupe display, where he busies himself straightening the mountain of melons.
“This town sure has its characters, doesn’t it?” Sandy muses, watching him. “Adam always tried to describe Sowell Bay’s . . . well, uniqueness. But I must admit, I didn’t understand until I came here myself.”
“Yes, well.” Tova studies the tile. She’s probably included as one of the town characters.
“You know, I never thought I’d live in a small town. Everyone’s so friendly, but also so . . . I don’t know. Up in everyone else’s business?”
“We prefer to say we care for one another.”
A tight, thin laugh escapes Sandy’s coral-colored lips as she lofts a bag of cherries onto a nearby produce scale. “Adam insists I’ll get used to it.”
“I’m sure Adam is correct.” Tova forces a smile. What do people gab about at Charter Village? Will she be a character there, too? Perhaps she’ll meet someone who was friendly with Lars. Would that be a good thing or a bad thing?
“Speaking of Adam.” Sandy leans in and shifts in her jeweled sandals, as if, suddenly, she’d rather not be in the produce section of the town’s only grocery store right now. “I feel like I should apologize for his behavior at the chophouse. Drinking like that, at noon! But he’s been under so much stress, with the move, and at work, and—”
Tova cuts in, “It’s quite all right, dear.” She means it.
“Right.” Sandy still looks deeply abashed. “But there’s one other thing. About that . . . conversation.”
Tova waits for her to continue, uncomfortably aware of her heart’s increased pace.
“He remembered her name. The girl your son was seeing, I mean.”
The piles of cherries blur into a swirling sea, pink and red. Tova leans on a produce scale, bracing herself against this sudden dizziness, her brain now running mad circles now around the words The girl has a name.
“Mrs. Sullivan? Are you okay?” “Quite,” Tova hears herself rasp.
“Okay.” Sandy hesitates, sounding unconvinced. “Adam didn’t think I should say anything, but I just figured if I were in your shoes . . . I mean, if I had lost my child and there was bit of information I hadn’t known, even something small
. . .”
You would want to know. Tova allows her eyelids to squeeze shut, trying to slow the spinning.
“Anyway, her name was Daphne, or so Adam said. He couldn’t remember her last name, but he did say she went to his high school.”
“Daphne,” Tova repeats. The name is thick and lumpy on her tongue, like an old piece of chewing gum.
A long moment passes. Finally, Sandy murmurs, “Well, now you know, I guess.”
Tova watches her pick up her grocery basket. The skin is pulled tight around the woman’s watering eyes. “Thank you, Sandy.”
With an awkward nod and a quick touch on Tova’s arm, Sandy ducks away toward the front register. From the corner of her eye, Tova catches Ethan staring at her.
He closes the gap between them, still holding a cantaloupe in each hand. “What was that Sandy Hewitt just said to you?”
Tova frowns, suddenly feeling like a rosebud under a cold dark sky. Pinched shut. “It was nothing.”
“She said a name.”
“It’s long-ago nonsense.”
“She said Daphne, didn’t she?”
Tova holds up her bags of cherries. “I think I’m ready to check out. Can you take these to the register and ring them, please?”
THERE WILL BE no supper tonight.
Two pounds of peak-season Rainier cherries, along with a hasty collection of other grocery items, are abandoned on the counter in Tova’s kitchen. Next to them, her pocketbook lies askance, right where it was carelessly flung, instead of in its proper place on the hook by the door.
Upstairs in the attic, Tova plows through the piles of linen and china, barely aware of the mess now. On the last shelf by the window, bottom row, is the book: Sowell Bay High School, Class of 1989.
Thirty years ago, she had pored through this volume, searching for something. Anything. And it would be remiss to leave out that, on occasion, she or Will had revisited the yearbook in the decades between, whenever some small spring leak of nostalgia broke through their hardened dyke. She has every photo of Erik included between its covers committed to memory.
But Tova isn’t looking for Erik this time.
Her mouth feels numb and dry as she flips to the index. The print is so tiny that she needs her readers; her fumbling fingers find them in the breast pocket of her blouse and jam them onto her face. She yanks in a hard gulp of air when she sees the name, and it stays there, caught in her chest, as she runs her finger down the columns of type, devouring every last word, until finally she reaches the end of the Zs and releases the ragged breath. There is only one.
Cassmore, Daphne A. Pages 14, 63, and 148.
