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  "I hope you were at your best, Lu." She and Mark consider Luke to be high-spirited. Unruly, Richard says. First, she's got to call Richard. And then: order. She relocks the front door. Even when she's home. That's how it's going to be.

  The light on the machine signals: warning, warning, warning. Five blinks. She takes a deep breath and listens. Two of them jail-computer calls: Rudy. Three hang-ups. She clears the machine and presses the Announcement button. She's got a new message: "Mark no longer lives here. If you're calling me, Del, please leave your number." Then she turns the volume as low as it will go.

  The two phone cradles are empty. She goes up into the loft. The reek of cigarettes is even worse up here. The once white walls and ceiling overcast by a film of gray. Give me a smog report, she used to call up to Mark in the haze. If it was a day he was talking, he'd say, Breathing's not recommended.

  First Del removes the pushpins from the Indian tapestries Mark put up to curtain his space from downstairs; then she unfastens the towels from the window. The living room brightens. Though the place needs a vigorous vacuuming, Mark's done a good job of clearing away, even stripped his bed. But the burns not so easily dealt with. On the foam mattress, a brown hole as big as her fist; the comforter's navy flannel covering, dotted through to its white batting. Black strips mark the window ledge, the chest, the floor. Amazing that they've never had a house fire.

  The phones? She wants to silence their ringers, be in control of all incoming. Delude on. Mark's books cascade from the ledge by his bed. Noam Chomsky, The Portable Jung, Soul on Ice, A Beautiful Mind, Aaron's old copy of the Bhagavad Gita, the cover attached with a strip of duct tape. Mark was a reader, but between the manic-depression, the medication, the drugs, he's said, he lost his focus. Maybe he'll want her to send him some books in rehab. She can't resist reaching over to straighten the disarray, and there, underneath, are the phones.

  Downstairs again, she sets them to charging and goes into her studio. Aaron's room. Her studio. She feels like a fraud calling it that; it's been so long since she's done any work in here. Still she did at least do some drawings in Crystal Key. She pulls these out of the portfolio case and spreads them on the day bed: the best ones are the conté on brown paper, with just bits of chalk highlights done while they drifted in one of the inlets of a little island nearby. The play of light and shade is what does it. Especially this one of Richard at rest in the back of the jon boat, his knees jutting up, with his fingers splayed over them, the knuckles foreshortened. Richard has large graceful hands that know what they're doing. Because she chose to sit low in the boat, her back resting against the front seat, beyond Richard's knees there's just a patch of shirt, the roll of his soft collar and then his profile, the bony ridge of his brow, his jaw toward the sky. A glint of green in his eye. For once she managed to get the warmth of Richard, rather than the fierceness that usually takes over most of her studies of him. They had lolled there on that little stream for several hours, her drawing, Richard watching an eagle on its nest in the top of a live oak. They'd had a good month, a stilling of much of their usual tension—all that distance from Mark's troubles.

  Del gathers up the drawings and slides them back into the case. Once she's gotten the house straightened out, maybe she'll have the quiet to get going on something. Something that will build to a project for an artist residency next fall. Spare. Lots of white, something carefully rendered off to the side. Her peripheral vision. When Marna returns, they'll get together at Marna's studio again, draw their grandly fat model—Betty Dawes, with all that lovely flesh slumping down. It will be good to see Marna, Betty, Leddy, Lynne.

  As she dials Richard's number, she rehearses the story of the detox journey, what to highlight, what to leave out. Richard had tried to make a connection with Mark and Aaron early on, but they had proved unreliable. Of course he wished them well, but the way they lived, their choices, the music they played all seemed so negative to him. The three of them were never easy together. Polite, but not easy. For years she'd tried to get him to understand she was not looking for advice concerning her children, she just needed to fill him in. Now her summaries of Mark's current storms are usually greeted with silence. Did you hear me? she sometimes says. I did, his answer.

  Richard's machine comes on after only five rings and she's relieved, but a few seconds into, "It's me. I'm back…," Richard picks up the phone. "Oh, you're there."

  "I'm putting linoleum on the landing."

  "I see you were down this morning. Thanks for the warm house."

  "I took Luke up on the hill. Found your missing boundary stakes."

  "Even the one down by the gravel bank? Probably that's where you were when I called from Watertown. It was a terrible trip up. Black ice. We got lost in Utica. We missed I-90. Ended up on 5."

  "Route 5? That's the worst way to go."

  "It took us forever. I spent the night at a place called the Nomad Motel. That about says it all. It was strange because…" Suddenly it feels as if there's no one on the line. "Richard?"

  "What?"

  "Well, anyway, Mark's there, the detox at Camden-Brookfield Hospital. He'll be there about five days and then on to a month of rehab and he says he's going to a halfway house in another state, that he is not coming back here." Silence. But she will keep on until she gets to the end. "In fact, he said if there's a gap between places, he'll stay with his NA sponsor, rather than come back here for even a day or two. Richard?"

  "Yes."

  "How are you?"

  "I'm all right."

  "Well, it's good to be back. I need to take the next few days to get sorted out here at…" She stops before she gets to home. "Are you working in Ithaca this week?"

  "Tuesday and Wednesday."

  Richard's trying a couple of days a week of carpentry work for a friend. Transitioning into the free fall of his retirement from the city.

  "Why don't you come down here for dinner Thursday, maybe spend the night? I should be out from under by then. We can have the house to ourselves."

  "Don't plan on that."

  "All right, then I'll see you Friday about four."

  He hangs up; she hangs up. He's unhappy: Why is his home not hers? She switches the ringer off.

  Even from the hall she hears the machine going through the click and whir it makes as it rewinds a new message. Right away, her heart. She could bury the machine under pillows, put electrical tape over the blinker. Pull the connections altogether, but that would make her even more anxious. On her way by the side door she passes her hand over the knob to make sure the lock is turned to horizontal.

  Del crosses the living room, heads for the refrigerator, Luke right by her side. He will miss Mark. The milk, orange juice and half-and-half cartons lined up on the left; the cheese and butter in their little dairy compartments. The grapes, the Granny Smith apples, their plastic bags peeled back and ready on the bottom shelf. The refrigerator is done. All right, now the machine. She slides the volume up enough to catch the voice: "Mrs. Merrick, this is Wayne Smith, your son promised…" Smithy. She erases the message.

  First, where to take Mark's computer? She doesn't want to ask Richard. Boxed, it will take up half of somebody's guest room. May I stash my son's computer in your home. We're afraid his drug associates might break in here. Please let me slide a little of this darkness and paranoia into your space. On her front door she could hang a sign like the one they have on the glass at Stop & Go warning that late at night there's very little in the till: MARK'S VALUABLES ARE GONE TOO.

  The answering machine clicks on again. She breathes, goes over and presses Play: a hang-up. She lifts a heavy afghan her mother-in-law made for her and wraps it, triple-thickness, around the machine. If she were being observed, the guys in white coats would be on their way. A couple of times a day, when she feels up to it, she'll check the messages.

  A pyramid of empty boxes is in the corner: for the monitor, the computer, the printer, the speakers, the four-track. Taller than she is. Save the
original packing, she told Mark before she left for Florida at the end of January. Without the original packing, you'll have trouble if you ever want to ship it. A ridiculous caution and she knew this.

  She puts Luke behind the gate in the hall, so he won't be in the way. Maybe she's going to have to take the computer to Richard's after all. She unplugs, unscrews, unclamps all of the cords and connections, careful to keep things that go together, together. Such a tangle, this crossing over, under, through, around, that, by the time she's finished diving beneath the table, snaking wires about, her motivation to get this damn thing out of the house has tipped toward "I must be out of my mind."

  Luke barks. Scares her so, she almost knocks the boxes over. Someone is coming. She doesn't know whether to go to the window or to rush to a part of the house where she can't be seen. Luke charges back and forth between the hall door and the gate.

  She moves to the edge of the window and peers down the road. An old truck, the front grille gone. The driver invisible. The truck pulls around beside her car and stops, but no one gets out. Barking, barking. Her throat so dry she can't swallow. Finally the door on the driver's side opens. Wild gray hair. A long red sweater. A woman, thank god. She's coming right up the walk.

  A loud rap on the window and above the barking, a voice, "Mark. Mark, I've got to talk to you."

  Carla. She has not seen her since the night they planted Aaron's cherry tree. Seven years ago and now Carla has come to her house. Luke stops. She slides back the bolt and opens the door partway. "Mark isn't here."

  "Del." Carla's face is shocking.

  Del pushes the door a few more inches toward closing. That's all she has to say. She does not want to hear about Smithy, the money.

  "Rudy was just released from jail. Somebody picked him up. Not me. But he called me from somewhere. In a crazy rage because he thinks Mark ratted him out. Insanity: how he's going to burn down your barn. I've been trying to get Mark on the phone."

  "Mark's gone away and isn't coming back. I don't want anything to do with this."

  Carla's eyes. Carla's eyes begin to cry. "Could I use your phone?" Carla moves forward.

  Del backs away and as she does the door opens a bit more.

  "Phone?"

  Carla's crying eyes glance up at the loft. Maybe she thinks Mark is still here.

  "I want to call the jail. Maybe they'll pick him up."

  Del tries to process the sentence: Rudy is going to burn down the barn. "I'll get you a phone." She must let go of the door.

  "And would you have a tissue?"

  Del hands Carla a paper towel and then retrieves the phone by the computer rather than lead Carla's eyes to the afghan bundle. She means to have Carla make the call from outside, but as she turns back, Carla steps in. She takes in the room.

  "Some movers are coming soon to get Mark's stuff. It's all going into locked storage." This tidy lie rises up whole, Express. She pulls a phone card from her pocket. "You'll have to use this to get the jail. You need a phone book?"

  "I know the number by heart," Carla says, patting her chest. "I know it all by heart." Carla leans against the counter with the card before her, dials like one experienced with the use of dozens of numbers to reach the outside world.

  The Sophia Loren look is gone. She's junkie-thin. The gray of a heavy smoker.

  "This is Carla Morletti, Rudy Morletti's mother. He was released sometime this morning … That's right, Rudolph Morletti … Yes, I know you can't give me any information. I want to give you some information. Rudy called me about an hour ago and he started making threats." Carla shifts in her direction. Motions, does she want to make this a three-way conversation?

  No. No, she does not. Her heart is blocking her throat and she can barely breathe.

  "Well, not threats to me personally. But he's talking about burning down a neighbor's barn. Can you pick him back up for that?"

  Luke responds to Carla's voice by slumping to the hall floor, his paws almost touching the gate.

  Carla listens a long time, shakes her head. She tucks the phone between her ear and shoulder, throws up her hands. On both wrists, braces. Carpal tunnel braces. Surgery that, Mark said, went very wrong. The braces are a surprise, but hands flung to the heavens, such a familiar gesture. Carla's "Can you believe it?" On the wall just beyond Carla's head there's a drawing of these flying hands. Long ago this woman was her friend.

  "Right. Right, 911. Yeah, I'll tell her." Carla hangs up and hands her back the phone and the card. "He said if Rudy shows up here and behaves in a menacing manner, that's what he said, a menacing manner, full of poetry this guy, he said then you should call 911. That'll bring out the troopers. But they can't respond to indirect phone threats unless you get an order of protection against Rudy."

  Del feels the phone clamped hard against her chest.

  "You want to know how to get an order of protection? You won't believe this. First thing you have to go to the town justice. Guess who the town justice is?"

  Does she need to know this?

  "Hoop Dawes. Hoop, the town justice. Needless to say I never have to give too much of the background in my dealings with him. His son Tommy was Tess's first boyfriend. Tess. At least she's well out of this."

  Tess. Carla's daughter. Twenty-seven, twenty-eight by now. According to Mark, traveling with a girl-band in Texas.

  "To say nothing of the fact that Hoop is almost certainly the grandfather of what is Rudy's kid. For sure. Got our eyes. You know Hoop's youngest daughter, Katie, the one who always wore the black lipstick, has a bat tattooed on her neck. Mind if I smoke?"

  Del pushes a chipped saucer along the counter, one of the many located all over to prevent the house burning down. "No, I don't mind." And she doesn't.

  Carla surveys the place again, directs her dark eyes toward the round stained-glass window high on the wall at the end of the living room. The broken window, two of the sections missing. "Always thought it was such a shame about that. Bet you just bawled."

  She did. When she opened the door and saw the jagged hole. Aaron was thirteen. He said he'd been playing the tongue drum. The SuperBall drumstick had flipped out of his hand, ricocheted from the loft, across the space above the living room. Del sank down and cried. And she never quite believed that was the way it happened. She borrowed a tall ladder and Aaron carefully pulled out the shards. Now, through the outside Plexiglas, you can see the corner of her room, the branches of a hemlock beyond.

  "And look at you, Luke. Bigger than ever."

  Luke rises, wags his tail. Del knows Carla has been here when she wasn't home.

  "Well, got to go," and Carla turns toward the door. "About Rudy. Don't hold back on 911, but there's a chance he's over it. That a lot of it went out with the screams."

  "Thank you."

  Just as Carla opens the door, she stops and looks back at Del. Those eyes sad again. "A lot's happened since then, hasn't it?" The door closes.

  Yes. Through her own blur, Del watches Carla go down the stone walk, the walk Aaron built the summer he was eighteen. For a second there's a flash of him there: a bandanna tied around his head to keep the sweat back, him lifting the big flat stones he'd dragged from the brook, setting them down in the loose gravel bed he'd made inside the wooden forms. So determined to stay with it, get it right.

  Del watches the truck zigzag down to turn at the barn. She watches until it is gone.

  6 : Living Trust

  ALONG THE SMOKING room wall, above the microwave, the TV, is a row of hand-printed signs: IT DOESN'T HAPPEN OVERNIGHT. GOAL: SANITY. WE STOOD AT THE TURNING POINT.

  Mark smokes and reads them left to right and back again. One voice telling him, Hold the bromide; while another says, Shut up. Last little cup of methadone doing its final good deed. If somebody asks him, What day is it? He's got it ready to go: Monday, March 4, 2002. Pull him in for a head-check, he could probably do the Rolling Stone Gathers No Moss test. A stitch in time is better than two bush-birds.

  Out this s
ide of the hospital, big trees line the road. Sap buckets. It's been a long time since he's seen trees. Taken in that much distance. Sap. He and Aaron, racing to the big, old maples, seeing who could get the most. Grandpa Merrick poking along the edge of Cobb's Corners Road in his truck. Lift the buckets off their hooks, get rid of any ice chunks, pour what's left into their pails and back to the open tailgate, without spilling. Aaron Cobb Merrick. Mark Lane Merrick. He'd always wished he'd gotten the Cobb. Cobb's Corners Road. It even appears on some maps. A long line: there's the missionary, his son that built the model ship on their return from India, his grandmother's father, his grandmother, his father. Him. Six generations of blood on that land. Blood. When the stone house ends up being his, probably one day he'll just sell the place. Too many ghosts. Spend the money to set up a recording studio. Buy a decent car. Travel. Some payment for all the shit that's happened to him.

  Right, or put it all in your arm.

  He hears his name down the hall and steps to the door. His social worker, Ms. Lund, heading his way, smiling. About the same age as his mother, but without the two lines between her eyes—none of these guys are going home with her. The detox staff has got the compassionate thing down. Detox—better than working in a rehab. Only six beds. The clientele earning the big E's for effort. Especially in a methadone place. Forgive my sins and lay the wafer on me. And gone in five days. Before Mr. Fiend knocketyknocks, starts running his usual numbers. Before Hyde tracks Jekyll down.

  When Ms. Lund gets in range, she mimes the phone at her ear, whisper-calls, "A woman. Says it's a friend. Says it's important."