I felt awkward. "I think Earl's thinking of moving on, anyway. Maybe I'll have to learn a little about yard work myself. Or you can teach me, and I'll just push the wheelbarrow around."
"You know, Dad," Paul said. "There's something I've been wanting to talk to you about."
I eyed him warily. "What?"
"The way I see it, if it hadn't been for me, you and Mom, like, you probably wouldn't be here now. So I was thinking some kind of reward was in order."
I ran my tongue around inside my cheek. "Like what?"
"I think you should let me get a tattoo."
"No way."
"Come on! Look, if that guy had -" and he paused here "- killed you and Mom, I'd have been able to go ahead and do it anyway."
"Too bad things worked out the way they did."
Now he was frustrated. He hadn't meant anything like that, and I was instantly sorry that I'd made the crack. But Earl seemed to find the exchange amusing.
Paul said, "You're screwing up my words. I guess I'm saying, I mean, couldn't I just get one? Remember I told you how people you know have them, and they're not bad people? Like my math teacher, Mr. Drennan?"
"I don't know."
"And what about Earl here? He's got one. Do you think he's a bad person?"
Earl's smile vanished. "Hey, Paul, don't go dragging me into this. This is strictly between you and your parents, okay?"
"But the thing is, you've got one, and here you are, talking to my dad and all, and I don't think he thinks any less of you because you've got one."
"Of course I don't," I said to Paul. "But Earl's an adult, and you're not."
"Just show it to him," Paul coaxed Earl.
"I don't think so, really."
To me, Paul said, "It's so cool, although I've only seen it once. Remember, Earl, we were putting in those shrubs, and you took off your shirt that one day, it was so friggin' hot?"
Now I was curious. "What is it, Earl? A naked lady, I'm guessing."
"No," said Paul. "It's way more cool than that. It's a watch."
Earl took a very long drag on his cigarette.
I said, "You might as well show me, Earl. Paul's going to hound you until you do."
Earl put his plate of lasagna down on the counter and slowly rolled up the right sleeve of his black T-shirt. He got it up above his shoulder and took his hand away.
It was a watch. But not a normal watch. It looked like a pocket watch, no strap, and it was melting, just like in that Salvador Dali painting.
He gave us a second to look at it, then rolled the sleeve back down.
"That's quite something," I said, and Earl's eyes caught mine.
Chapter 29
Sleep never came to me that night. I kept running things through my mind, bits and pieces of conversation.
How Earl claimed never to have lived downtown, that he'd come from the East Coast, or the West, I was trying to remember. But there was that night, when I'd blundered into his house and discovered his growing operation, and I'd happened to mention that this sort of thing had never happened when we'd lived in the city, on Crandall.
Earl had said something along the lines of "You lived on Crandall? Nice area. There was that little fruit market down at the end of the street."
The inconsistency hadn't meant anything to me then. But it meant a lot now. Especially knowing that Carrie Shuttleworth used to take her daughter to that fruit market.
It didn't have to mean anything, I told myself. There had to be at least a few guys in the world with tattoos of melted watches on their shoulders. Dali had pretty much made the melted watch an iconic symbol.
And the chain-smoking. Millions of people chain-smoked.
And the business about being skilled at electrical work. And the landscaping. That could all be coincidence, too.
You wouldn't hang a guy based on evidence this flimsy.
So why couldn't I sleep? Why did I have this terrible feeling in the pit of my stomach?
o o o
"You coming to bed?" Sarah said. There was nothing in her voice that said she wanted me there for any other purpose than company. These days, Sarah definitely didn't want to sleep alone.
It was after midnight; our guests had left several hours ago. Trixie, as I mentioned, had to work, and Earl left much earlier than planned. I had retired to my study, and was sitting at my desk when Sarah appeared in the door, leaning, one hand propped up against the frame. She was in a long nightshirt featuring a big picture of Snoopy in karate garb.
"Soon," I said. I had a folder in front of me, stuffed with newspaper clippings.
"Okay," she said, and turned to go.
"I heard you tell Trixie," I said, and she stopped, "that we might be going away. For a trip."
Sarah said nothing for a moment. "I guess I did."
"Were you just saying it, or would you like to go?"
She pressed her lips together, ran her hand through her hair. "I don't know. I think, sometimes, that I would. I let myself stop being mad at you for a while, and I like the idea. And then I get mad again, and stop thinking about it."
I nodded. I sat there, and she stood in the doorway, and about a minute went by.
"What if I could get our house back?" I said.
"What?"
"What if I could get our old house back? Move back into the city."