Searching for Caleb

In the morning everyone suggested they stay a while, but Duncan said he was anxious to get going. He barely tolerated the lengthy discussion on traffic conditions, alternate routes, and whether or not to take a Thermos. He acted jittery and exasperated during the loading of the car trunk, while the uncles were padding more of Meg's wedding presents with the flowered sheets that Aunt Lucy had insisted they accept. ("I can't forget that bare mattress in your little home," she had said, shuddering.

"Nobody just washes their linens and puts them right back on. You give them a rest in a cupboard first, which increases their life span by sixty-six percent.") Then there were the ritual cold drinks out on the porch, with Duncan finishing first and nervously rattling his ice cubes while waiting for Justine. Justine took extra long, to make up for him.

She kept gazing around her at her family. "If only you could have got in touch with Meg!" Aunt Sarah told her.

"We'll call and break the news as soon as she gets back from the beach."

"She'll feel terrible, missing the funeral."

There was a quavering in the air, thin sad thoughts hovering among them.

Uncle Two cleared his throat sharply. "Well!" he said. "I never asked how the health food business was going."

"Antiques," Duncan said.

"Antiques, then."

"It's okay." He looked off across the lawn and tapped his glass.

"Justine, we have to get started if we want to beat the heat."

"Oh. All right," she said. But she would rather have stayed. It gave her a tearing feeling to have to rise and kiss each soft, kind face in turn.

The family descended the steps with elaborate care, proving their reluctance to say goodbye-except for Duncan, of course, who danced down the walk ahead of them tossing and catching a spangle of car keys.

"Duncan, boy," said Uncle Mark, "if your grandfather left any unpaid bills, now, medical expenses and so on-"

"I'll let you know."

"And I suppose I'd better write those detective fellows, tell them to close their case." He opened the car door for Justine. "Durned people have been spending money like water anyway," he told her. "I'm glad to be shed of them."

Justine threw Duncan a glance, but he wouldn't meet it. He had made her promise to keep Caleb's secret forever, unless he changed his mind and wrote. So all she could say to her uncle was, "I'll tell Eli myself, if you like."

"His latest expeditions are downright bizarre," her uncle said. "Why would he want to bribe a florist?"

"I'll take care of it."

She climbed into the car, and Duncan started the motor. "Finally," he muttered. Then they were off, zooming down the road scattering a cloud of maple-seed propellers while Justine leaned out the window to wave. Aunt Lucy shouted something. "What?" Justine called. Aunt Lucy shouted again.

"Duncan, stop," said Justine. "Your mother's trying to tell us something."

Duncan slammed on the brakes. The car whined into reverse. "What?"

Justine called.

"I said, Don't forget to rest your linens!"

Duncan clapped a hand to his head, but Justine only nodded and called, "Thank you, Aunt Lucy," and blew her a kiss, and then more kisses for all the others, until Duncan jerked the car into forward again and bore her away.

17

Duncan had been playing solitaire for months now, but nobody guessed it had been that long because at first he had kept it a secret. At first he always did. Like an alcoholic hiding his bottle while everyone else drinks in public, he had stashed decks of cards in out-of-the-way places and he played in uncomfortable and poorly lit corners. At the smallest sound he was ready to scoop his game together and look up with an innocent face and a smile. (He did not like to be caught depending on things.) But gradually, drugged with patience and canfield and accordion, he forgot his surroundings and forgot to hide the cards, then failed to notice when someone came upon him, then finally wandered into the living room absent-mindedly and laid out his game in the center of the floor where everyone had to stumble over the great spread V of his legs. He played throughout meals, visits, family quarrels, and his grandfather's wake. He returned from Baltimore carrying a suitcase in which a single deck of cards had scattered itself through everything-interleaving with the pleats of Justine's funeral skirt and standing upright among the bristles of her hairbrush. But he didn't bother collecting them. He took instead a double deck that had been waiting all this time behind a begonia pot, and he settled himself on the floor and laid out a hand of spider, which was his favorite, most absorbing game, requiring hours and days of deliberation and strategy and intricate plotting. He kept losing and laying out new set-ups. Justine wandered through the rooms still wearing her hat.