Searching for Caleb

"What's stopping you? Jobs? You know there's lots to do in a law office that wouldn't take a degree. Your cousins could fix you up. Quick mind like yours, there's lots to-"

"Thanks anyway," Duncan said.

"Do Justine good. See there? She's looking a little tired."

Lucy glanced over at her. Why, she was. It was true. Now that she was not running or laughing or talking too much, her face seemed strained and pale. Blame Meg, that's who. Children! She shifted her gaze to Duncan, an aging little boy. Secretly her favorite son, and she had always imagined what a fine man he would be once he was grown and mellowed. But that had never happened. He was preserved forever as he had been at ten, reckless and inconsiderate, not kind at all, not ever willing to make allowance for other people's weaknesses. He had needed a good strong wife to settle him down and round his sharp edges, but he hadn't got one. Only Justine.

Was Justine the way she was deliberately? Had she just flat out decided one day that she would refuse to take responsibility, that Duncan could go caroming straight to hell taking wife and daughter along before she would say a word? Something made Lucy speak up suddenly, when she hadn't even known she was going to. "Oh," she said, "if only poor dear Caroline could have been with us today!"

The look Duncan gave her was as cold and hard as glass, but Lucy felt her little triumph warming all her bones when she saw how still Justine grew.

By the time they were back in the car it was very nearly twilight. Even so, Lucy took the preaddressed envelope out of her purse and unfolded a sheet of stationery and wrote, as Two had taught her to:

Dear Justine, June 6, 1973 Thank you so much for the lovely time! As always you made a perfectly charming hostess, and the War Cake was delicious. We shall remember our visit with a great deal of pleasure.

Love, Aunt Lucy

She placed the note in the envelope and sealed it, "Whenever you notice a mailbox, Two . . ." she said, but then she trailed off, bleakly tapping the letter against her purse. Two moved his lips as he drove. In back, Laura May and Sarah sat side by side beneath veiled brown hats and looked out the windows at their separate views.

12

Now Justine and her grandfather had no place to go. At first they hardly noticed; they traveled less during the summer months anyway. But as June dragged on, hot and humid, and then July took over, Justine grew unhappier. She didn't have enough to do with herself. There was some troubled feeling gnawing at the back of her mind. Uneasiness drove her into quarreling with Duncan, snapping at her grandfather, telling skimpy, half-hearted fortunes for her clients. She spoke with an unplaceable foreign accent for days at a time. She insulted Dorcas. The cat moved out of the house and into the crawlspace behind the rose bushes. Her grandfather sat on the porch, unusually still, with his face slack and vacant.

"Look, Grandfather," Justine said, "isn't there someone you would like to look up? How about that man in Delaware? Maybe he's remembered something new."

"It wouldn't be any use," her grandfather said.

"Well, I don't see why not."

"That detective fellow didn't even take his name down. Took hardly any of those names. Seemed to think they would serve no purpose whatsoever."

"Oh, what does he know," Justine said.

She had begun to resent Eli's odd, probing questions and the mysterious silence that followed all answers. After each of his visits she felt tampered with. He had a way of arriving when no one was home and settling himself to wait on the front porch. When she and her grandfather returned he would loom up, tall and black as a raven, with his squared-off hat centered over his chest. "Eli!" she always cried, but her heart grew thick, as if preparing against invasion. And her grandfather, who made a point of remembering every passing name, said, "Mr.-ah," and stood scowling down at his shoes like a forgetful schoolboy. But Eli was humble and awkward, and he began by discussing something harmless-his shadowing practice, his wife's calligraphy lessons. After all, he was in no hurry.

Then Justine warmed to him all over again, to his absurd fringe of a beard as precise as the brush on a typewriter eraser and his preposterously long, multiple-jointed fingers fumbling at his hat; and her grandfather relaxed enough to grow politely bored. "Come inside, Eli," Justine would say. "I'll make you some iced tea." But at that very moment his face would narrow, his fingers would grow still. "What all were the records your family owned?" he might ask.

626

"What?"

"Recordings. For that old-timey phonograph."

She had to turn to her grandfather, who scuffed the porch floorboards petulantly. "Caruso, I remember," he said finally. "Other things. Red Label discs."

"Oh yes. Red Seal."

"In the beginning they were called Red Label."

"Ah," said Eli.

"Don't you know anything?"

"But what besides Caruso? Any more?"

"I don't recall."