“It still hurts to think I couldn’t afford the airfare to get to the funeral,” she sighed into the receiver, her turn to make an oblique recrimination. There was something else in her voice, too. Her tongue seemed slowed by age as much as by alcohol. She was getting old, Ben thought to himself. A pang sounded in a dormant part of his heart. My mother is getting old. “And it would have been a chance to meet my grandchildren, too. How many do you have now?”
“By the time the house sold, the market had already collapsed,” Ben said. He knew it was important to stay on topic. “And no one is ever going to buy that land upstate.” In her will, Grams had made clear that she wanted her grandsons to sell the old homestead. She’d never been one to saddle others with her problems. “The farmhouse there is just a ruin. She’d didn’t leave us much.”
“You went up there, then? Way the hell upstate? I always wondered about that cursed place. The stories she’d tell about it would frighten the sleep out of me for days at a time when I was a girl. Demons in the wood and devils at the door.”
Ben hesitated, but just for a moment. He knew she’d said such a thing only to get him to ask her about it. He would give her neither the satisfaction nor the leverage.
“Plus the hospital fees. And the lawyer’s fees keep piling up, all charged against the estate.”
“Oh, yes? Some lawyer fattening his bank accounts with fees. They add up, don’t they? Guess they’ll keep right on adding up until I finally fix my John Hancock to these papers.” The age had fallen from her tone, and the thick-tongued singsong of her voice formed into something with more bite. Suddenly she was again the fearsome woman who’d raised him. Ben could almost feel her bourbon-scented breath on his cheek. “But it’s curious that Grams didn’t leave more to me, isn’t it? Instead, she left it to her grandsons, who so fiercely kept me, her only child, from her in her last days. And she was so vulnerable at the end. So suggestible. I wonder what a court might make of that if I decided to contest the will. It would be interesting to find out, wouldn’t it? And all the while, the lawyer’s bills keep piling up.” Ben could practically hear her smile through the receiver. “A scandal, isn’t it? People think life is expensive, but draw it out long enough and the cost of death could bury anyone.”
In his time Ben had thought of his mother as a drunk, a liar, a grifter, an addict, and on occasion a plague cultivated in the deepest pit of hell. She was so many terrible things, but stupid wasn’t one of them. For just a second he’d forgotten that, and now he had a feeling of sick certainty that it was going to cost him.
—
The sky’s glow had dimmed by the time Ben returned to Swannhaven. When he reached the village’s valley, the woods along the sides of the broken county road were thick with shadow. Just as well, because the twilight matched his mood.
The negotiations had begun high, but in the end Ben could live with the amount they’d settled upon to put the issue to rest. Though his and Caroline’s accounts were not so flush as they’d once been, it seemed a small price to pay to conclude the matter and to be rid of his parasitic mother a while longer. A net win, he told himself. Not that this rationalization made him feel any less manipulated.
The few village buildings he could see from the road looked deserted, except for the Lancelight, with its modestly lit sign. While the single meal that the Tierneys had eaten there had not been pleasant, the food itself had been surprisingly good. The waitresses’ old-fashioned uniforms had lent the place an appealing retro feel, and the swollen pies under the counter glass had been perfectly browned.
Ben’s lunch had been early and light, and the memory of those pies made his mouth water. Caroline preferred that they prepare their own food, but she also talked a lot about building relationships with the villagers. And as a rule Ben preferred not to return home in a mood as bleak as the one he now found himself in. Their delicate domestic equilibrium demanded a certain level of affability on his part. A detour before heading home might put some space between him and that phone call.
The Lancelight’s parking lot was empty except for two tired-looking Toyotas. When he went inside, there was no one but an old man at the counter.
He stood just inside the doorway for a moment, waiting for someone else to materialize. The old man turned to him and then looked away, more interested in the coffee at the bottom of his mug. Ben coughed into his hand.
As he was about to leave, a woman burst out of the kitchen, tying her apron behind her as she walked.
“Knew that wasn’t Old Billy coughing,” she said. “He’s got that nasty old smoker’s hack.”
Ben guessed she was in her sixties. She wore a loose blouse that billowed behind her as she walked.
Old Billy muttered something into his drink that Ben couldn’t catch.
“If I’m a nag, you’re the sorriest ass I ever laid eyes on,” the woman replied. She turned to Ben. “Look at you, all proper. We don’t stand on ceremony here, sugar. Sit it down wherever you like.”
He stole a glance at the name tag she wore on her blouse.
“Lisbeth,” she said, noticing his interest. A smile deepened well-exercised lines around her mouth. “I’m the owner. Make the girls wear the tags, so I figure I should, too.” She leaned back, appraising. “I feel like I know you, honey; now, why is that?”
“I was in here once, with my family.”
Lisbeth hummed and slid her mouth to one side. “Mostly local folk around here; don’t see many blow-ins.”
“Actually—”
“You’re the one they talk about.” She slapped the top of her ample thigh. “Tierney. You’re up at the Crofts.”
“That’s right,” Ben said.
“My, you’re a young fella. Didn’t expect that. Was just asking myself the other day when you’d come down and visit. What took you so long?”
“We came in once,” Ben said again. “A couple weeks ago.”
“I’d remember,” she said, shaking her head. “Coulda been the week I got laid up with some bug. You get that fever that’s been going around?”
Ben shook his head.
“You’re not missing anything there. Now, you find a seat and I’ll get you some water. You want some coffee, too?”