The Book of Speculation: A Novel

“Ten minutes?” he says.

“Ten minutes. That’s how I know something’s wrong, Churchwarry. We shouldn’t drown at all, and definitely not so many of us.”

He starts and stops a few times before asking, “Was it a bad thing that I sent you the book?”

“No.” There’s something else, though, something nagging at me. “A man I just spoke to, a carnival owner, thinks that the book being at auction means that the show went under. Some of the people in the book—Koenig and his family—there’s no record of them after 1824.”

There’s a small silence while he thinks. I wait, peeling my arms from where they’ve stuck to the vinyl seat back.

“I don’t know that I should be encouraging you,” he says, though the tone in his voice says he’s thinking more. “But the book is very damaged, and if the Koenigs were with the show…”

There’s satisfaction. He’s thinking what I am. “I’m thinking it was a flood. That could be where this all started.”

“Maybe,” he says. “If you have a year range it’s a place to begin looking. Do you really think that a flood could be the cause?”

“I don’t know,” I say. “But my sister is pretty convinced I shouldn’t have the book. I wanted to ask her about the tarot cards in it, but she ripped all the sketches of them.”

“Really? Interesting. Symbols can be powerful triggers.” He pauses. I plug my ear with a finger, straining to listen.

Churchwarry hasn’t paused at all. My phone cut out. No connection, nothing but the brief memory of a window repair I had done in April, and falling behind on the phone bill. A repaired window on a house I’d just as soon fell off a cliff, a house I have to go back to in order to call Churchwarry.

*

The car flies over the dip in Buck Harbor Road, staying airborne for seconds. Enola took out the exhaust system here when she first learned to drive. When I pull into the driveway Frank’s truck is still parked in it, its shadow huge. I could just ram it. I pull the emergency brake and cut the engine but don’t get out. He’s inside the house, his stark profile in the window.

I wait. A broken spring in the seat pokes my back, scratching a reminder of something. Three of Swords, a heart triple pierced. Eight of Swords, the man stabbed in the back, run straight through. I don’t remember all the cards that were in the book and my sister eliminated any ability to check, but I’m sure some of them just appeared in her reading. Everything is getting mixed up. My mother moved back and forth between Frank and my father, and Frank has things I’ve seen in pages of my family history. Enola and Doyle are passing cards, sharing fates and futures, like ink bleeding down a wet page—the ruined end of a book.

A tap on the windshield. Small, pink, oval fingernails surrounded by dotted skin. Alice.

“What happened between you and my dad?” Little wisps of her hair escape her braid, giving her the curious look of being almost on fire. “I asked you to stay away from him. This is why I didn’t want you taking his money. He’s been in there for hours and says he won’t come out until he talks to you. What did you say?” Her voice is high, tight.

I didn’t say anything, he did the talking. No, that’s a lie. I told him I’d fucked his daughter—but of all the sins spoken, that was the least. That was the one thing I did right. And now I know I won’t tell her; it would kill a piece of her.

She crosses her arms over her stomach. “You didn’t tell him, did you? You didn’t tell him I slept with you.” I glance back across the street. Leah is peeking out from a bent slat in a window shade. Our eyes meet and the blind snaps shut. Alice takes my silence as assent. “You did? Jesus. Why? That wasn’t for you to say.” The mix of anger and worry is striking on her. “Go talk to him,” she says, softer now. “I can fix it later, but just get him out of the house. He’s got high blood pressure. Being this upset isn’t good for him.”

She knows his blood pressure, his cholesterol, each arthritic joint. Things I never knew about my father, even after he was gone.

“I’m not taking money from your dad. I told him.”

“What?”

“I don’t want it. You’re right; he’s too wrapped up in my family. The money would make it worse and I don’t want that. I’m letting the house go.” I didn’t know until I said it, but it’s true. “Please don’t be mad at me anymore.”

“I don’t want to be mad, but you keep doing things.” She steps back from the car enough so that I can open the door. When I get out she asks, “Where are you going to go?”

“I don’t know. I could go with Enola for a while. Her boss seems all right. I put in for the curator job in Savannah and they’re calling my references. Liz can talk anyone into anything, so there’s a chance.”

“Oh,” she says, and I wish it was more. She looks down at my ballooned ankle. “Foot any better?”