Searching for Caleb

Land was purchased in Roland Park. Master builders were hired to supervise the construction of two large houses set side by side, with almost no space between them, although great stretches of land lay all about. And meanwhile Margaret Rose was fitted for a complicated ivory satin wedding dress with one hundred and eight pearl buttons running down the back. They were married in the summer. Because the houses were not yet finished Margaret moved into Daniel's boyhood room, where his wooden-wheeled roller skates sat next to his shelf of law-books. She was a small, vivid girl who generally wore dresses of soft material like flower petals, and at any moment of the day she could be seen running up and down the stairs, or flinging open windows to watch some excitement in the streets, or darting into Justin's room to see if he needed anything. At the sight of her Justin would begin blinking and nodding in his doddering old man's way, and he would go on nodding and nodding and nodding long after she had kissed the top of his head and left again. Oh, he hadn't been mistaken, Margaret Rose was what this house had needed. And she would be certain to provide descendants. Why, by the fall of 1905, when Justin Peck's golden oak and wine-colored household set off on a caravan of wagons to Roland Park, Margaret Rose was already holding a baby in her lap and expecting another. Things were working out just fine. Everything was going according to plan.

By 1908 they had bought a snorting black Model T Ford with a left-hand steering wheel and splashless flower vases. Each morning the two brothers rode off to work in it-handsome young men in hats and high white collars.

Daniel had his own law office now, a walnut-paneled suite of rooms with an oil portrait of his father over the mantel. He was taking on no partners because, he said, he wanted to have his sons for partners, not just anyone. And Caleb had rebuilt his father's warehouse, bigger and better than before. He had a brand new roll-top desk with twice as many cubbyholes.

Whenever Caleb chose to marry, another house would be built beside the first two, but meanwhile he lived at home with his parents. He was a quiet man who became quieter every year. It was a known fact that he drank sometimes, but he never troubled anyone and he never became rowdy or noisy. In fact Margaret Rose said she wished he would get noisy, once in a while. She was fond of Caleb. Between them they had a few old jokes, which would cause Margaret to laugh in her low, chuckly way until Caleb, in spite of himself, would let his own mouth turn up shyly at the corners. He would come talk to her in her shady back yard, waiting patiently through all her children's interruptions and requests and minor accidents. And several times she gave evening parties expressly to introduce Caleb to one or another of her pretty cousins. Girls always liked Caleb. But though he might dance with them or take them for a drive, he didn't seem interested in marriage. More often now he stayed home in his room, or he toured the taverns, or he went someplace else, no one knew where. Really, not even Margaret Rose could say for sure what Caleb did with himself.

For Christmas one year, Margaret persuaded Daniel to buy Caleb a Graphophone. She thought it would be the perfect gift for someone so musical. Along with it came disc recordings of Caruso, Arturo Toscanini, and Jan Kubelik on the violin. But these discs affected Caleb the way formal concerts did; he became restless and absent-minded and unhappy. He started pacing across the carpet and up and down the hall and eventually straight through the front door and out of sight, and was not seen again for the remainder of the day. So the Graphophone was never taken up to his bedroom, as Margaret had intended, but drifted into Justin's room instead, where it amused the old man for hours on end. He seemed particularly fond of Caruso. He would order Margaret to stand beside his bed cranking the machine and changing the heavy black discs. Margaret was surprised. If this was the way he felt, why had he forbidden Caleb's music in the house?