“If Tom knew, he’d try to change my mind. He’d give me a combo it-takes-a-village and life-begins-at-conception speech. He’d try to get me on his side about the house. He’d want me to be reasonable, whatever that means. Maybe we could keep the house without him. You and me and Libby.”
“Is that really what he’s thinking? He’d seriously want to get rid of this?” Danny waved at the house, the sea, and her eyes followed.
“He doesn’t have the power to obliterate a landscape, don’t worry. He just might be intrigued by the cash money involved. His ears would perk up for three million.”
“That’s awfully specific there, G.” He turned to face her and stroked his chin like a villain.
“There is no secret. I mean, besides the one you already guessed—snooped. The point is moot. So you don’t need to stress.” She patted his knee. Danny gave her a sidelong, yeah-right look.
“Fine. It can just be you, me, and Bibs. And baby makes four. I can drop out of school and help you,” said Danny. He patted her belly. Gwen shoved him over. She was sure he believed in that math, that the addition of a baby would make everything better. There had existed some sort of magic between their mother and father and Danny. The three of them. But Gwen was not three. She was only two. And soon she would be one.
“Sorry, D, you’re stuck in your ivy-covered prison for another year. You’ll have to run away and join the circus on your own time.”
“Don’t tempt me,” said Danny. Propped up on his elbow, he had his phone out again. “All I’m saying is Little Junior Mint needs to see this place.” He cocked his head toward the house. “Maybe they should be called Embryo Mints; they sort of have that curled up, fetal look. Stupid reception.”
“Gross. You just ruined my favorite movie snack.” Gwen pointed at his phone. “You gotta go to the float if you want that to work.” He rolled his eyes and put the phone back in his pocket.
“Sure you’re not just getting fat? Maybe it’s a beer baby? Just name him Stella. I know, Frito.” Danny pulled a few more berries off a bush.
“Please, he would be a genius. Fig Newton is way more appropriate.” Gwen was using both hands to separate branches, to search out the hidden berries.
“As in Wayne?” said Danny.
“As in Isaac. Aren’t you in school?”
“Now I’m craving beer and Fritos. Sympathy pregnancy.” Danny stood up and brushed off the seat of his pants. He walked up the ridge a bit to get a better look at the view. Suddenly, he started waving one hand around his head and jumping up and down.
“Bees!” he shouted. Gwen ran down the ridge twenty feet and turned to see Danny running in circles. “Bees!” he cried again. Now he was swinging his bucket wildly and whacking his back with it, blueberries flying. She tried to say something, but she couldn’t stop laughing.
“Run toward the house,” shouted Gwen, “not in circles, you fool.” She wasn’t sure he could hear her over the thunks of the bucket and the snapping of brush. She started waving her arms toward the house. Danny, bucket helicoptering overhead, jelly-legged on the uneven ground, veered toward the house. He bore down on Gwen, who stood directly in his path.
“Move!” he shouted. Now she was running too. The two of them sprinted across the meadow as if a cloud of killer bees pursued, as opposed to a trail of squashed blueberries. They ran through the house, buckets still in hand, and out onto the front porch.
On the porch Danny lay down on the warm planks. “I think we lost them.” Gwen headed into the house, the screen door slamming, then she was back out, ordering him to sit up. She had a bottle of ammonia and some cotton balls.
“Let’s see,” she said. He lowered his head and showed a sting on the back of his neck and two on his arm. She swabbed down the bites, blew on each one.
“I lost all my berries.” He held his empty bucket, slightly dented, between his knees. “I told you this wasn’t a good idea. You really need to start listening to me.”
Poor Danny. He just wanted a little more life and a little less death.
THREE
DANNY
July 2
Danny woke up from an unintentional nap in a chair on the porch, his book was closed in his lap. He’d lost his place. Maybe that was for the best. He’d been reading the same page for weeks. Thirsty, he looked over his shoulder at the house. He could hear someone in the dining room opening and closing drawers in the sideboard. Libby. He decided he’d have to go in through the great room door if he was going to avoid her.
Libby was fairly good about letting everyone read or laze around on the porch, but if she caught one of them walking around, on their way to the bathroom, getting a glass of sun tea, she inevitably had a job for them. Danny was an expert at avoiding her. To get to the kitchen for a drink he would have to go up the main stairs and down the back to avoid her as she probably sat at the dining room table sighing over the week’s menu. This was a habit she had picked up from their mother. The preoccupation with food: purchasing, storing, preparing. He recognized it, and knew, as with Scarlet, the best defense was a good offense. If he could have, he would have walked the ridgepole to get out of doing work.
Danny walked softly across the porch and opened the screened door to the great room, slowly, to keep the hinges quiet. But once inside, he nipped fast to the base of the main stairs to stay out of sight, and pressed himself against the wall directly under the taxidermied moose head. Then began the painstaking process of getting up the old stairs silently. This was an exercise in hope and memory. Which side of the third step creaked? He always got it right. At the top he walked quickly down the hallway. He descended the back stairs mostly using his hands on the banisters to support his weight. He emerged into the bright kitchen, to find Libby holding the compost bucket. Damn it.
“Oh, good. I could use a hand.” She held the bucket out to him. And then she went back to, he wasn’t sure, checking the levels of the various cooking oils?
“Mother!” he said under his breath. He put the bucket down in front of the sink and took a drink from the tap.
“When you’re done can you dig a trench?” Libby had a pencil behind her ear and a list in her hand. This was a bad sign. She said it like she often asked people to dig trenches.
“A trench. You mean like a long pit, that kind of trench?” Danny knew there was a reason he should’ve stayed in bed this morning.
“Is there another kind of trench?” Libby wasn’t even looking at him but at her list. “It needs to run from the side door around the back to the pump house. We’ve got to lay some new PVC.”
“Sure . . . That sounds relaxing.”
Now she looked at him. “You big baby. Dump the food and get a shovel. I’ll help for a bit, then I have to go get Melissa. She’s on the late boat.”