Chapter 26
"Getting the Ducks in Line"
WE HAD DINNER AT COUNTRY CUPBOARD, A BIG RESTAURANT I HAD VISITED BEFORE WITH MY MOM AND WILSON. LUTHER WAS ON THE PHONE AGAIN WHEN OUR MEAL WAS SERVED, BUT HE RANG OFF QUICKLY AS HIS VORACIOUS APPETITE OVERCAME HIS BUSINESS ACUMEN.
WE LINGERED LONG OVER THE MEAL AND THE EXCELLENT PIE AND COFFEE AT THE END. THE TOPIC OF CONVERSATION CENTERED ON THE ESTATE SALE AND THE BEST TIME TO SCHEDULE IT. SINCE WILLY WAS THE EXPERT IN THIS ENDEAVOR, HE TOOK THE LEAD IN THE DISCUSSION. I SAT AND LISTENED WHILE THE TWO OF THEM BATTED IDEAS BACK AND FORTH CONCERNING DATES AND TIMES. WILLY AND LUTHER AGREED THAT IT WOULD HAVE TO BE A TWO-DAY AFFAIR. THERE WAS JUST TOO MUCH TO TRY TO GET IT DONE IN A SINGLE DAY. I SHRUGGED WHEN ASKED FOR MY OPINION. "MAYBE THREE WOULD BE BETTER …" I GRUMBLED.
THEY STARED AT ME AS THOUGH I'D SUDDENLY GROWN ANOTHER HEAD. AFTER THAT THEY DIDN'T ASK FOR MY OPINION.
By the time we got back to the house, my ass was dragging, my head was pounding and my damn leg was throwing sparks. I had been so distracted during the day that I had not even taken my meds. I made up for it by taking enough to knock me for a loop.
Somehow I bluffed it out until they left about 9:00 p.m. I went to bed in my underwear and turned onto my side to grasp my cramping thigh. I was still awake at two o'clock. The worst of the pain finally eased sometime after that, but I was too spent to care. It was the last thing I remembered until daylight woke me for good and I heard someone moving in the kitchen.
I pulled on a pair of raggedy, scroungy cutoffs, hobbled to the wheelchair and plopped into it. Every muscle in my body felt like it had been pummeled by the welterweight champion of the world. I rolled into the bathroom and scooted across to the john. Niagara Falls. I hefted back to the chair and followed my avid curiosity to the kitchen to see who … or what … was rattling the pots and pans.
Willy was in a pair of old jeans, worn sneakers and a raggedy tee shirt. I paused at the end of the hallway and watched him. He didn't see me right away. He was cooking bacon in the oven, on cookie sheets lined with parchment paper … ve-r-r-ry slowly, and the aroma was tantalizing. My stomach rumbled. I rolled closer and he reacted to the movement in his peripheral vision.
Busted!
"Well! The caissons come rolling along. Good morning, Sunshine. Did you sleep well?"
Too late, I realized he was staring at my scar. Cutoffs on Barbados had been the norm, and Hooley saw the damned scar every day and never thought anything of it. I heard Willy hitch his breath and knew instantly that I'd screwed up. I made a face and instinctively shielded the area with my hand. But by then the barn door was open wide and the all the horses were gone. "I'm … sorry about that," I said. "I don't usually put this on display. I didn't exactly expect anyone to be here." (Which wasn't completely true.) I spun the chair back toward the bedroom to cover my Freudian slip ….
"Wait!"
The tone of his voice stopped me in my tracks.
"What?"
He could probably see the humiliation radiating off the top of my head.
"I was an Army Medic in Iraq and Afghanistan, Greg," he replied quietly. "I've seen it all. You don't have to run and hide. It's no wonder your wound has twisted you. That scar is kind of offputting, isn't it? But if I can look beyond it, you can too. Come on back and give me a hand with breakfast. Luther will soon be here. Okay? I just talked to him awhile ago ... and to be perfectly honest, we're both much more interested in the part of you that lies above the waist than what's below it ..."
Reluctantly I turned back to face him. "So what can I do to help other than get in the way?"
"Greg … you sound like your father."
"Which one? The Marine? Or the one with the Highland Brogue?"
"John House, of course. He had the same fatalist attitude you have."
"You knew him, huh?" I was well aware that Willy was purposely switching the focus of the conversation and baiting me to ask him what he meant.
"Certainly I knew him," Willy shot back. "Quite well, in fact. He was a crusty, plain-talking Jarhead, your old man. He called me 'BlackQuack' and I called him 'McFuck' … when your mom wasn't around. We were good friends, and I miss him."
My inhibitions fled like cats with their tails on fire. I expelled a snort of laughter, and Willy glared at me. "You okay?"
I nodded. "I'm fine."
He stared at me, frowning. "I wonder how many times you've said that over the years. I've heard you use it a half-dozen times in the last two days."
"I say it a lot, I guess," I admitted. "It gets people off my back."
"No it doesn't. Count the times you thought you had to say it."
He laughed then; sardonic laughter that said flatly that I was full of shit. "If you say something in your own defense often enough, it just makes people hide and watch … especially the ones who've known you for any length of time … the ones who care about you."
My thoughts turned immediately back to Wilson: that meddling, demanding, anachronistic, pain-in-the-ass who had been my best friend. Every time I told Wilson I was fine, his meddling increased two-fold.
I hadn't seen it quite that way before.
*Ahhh … damn!*
Luther couldn't have timed things more perfectly. The Mercedes pulled into the driveway when the eggs were ready to come out of the pan, the toast was warm and buttery, the coffee ready to be poured, and the bacon in all its aromatic glory lay popping and glistening on the platter.
When Luther walked in the door, he placed his briefcase on the counter and looked at me in silence. His immediate attention also turned to "The Scar of the Show". I knew I should have gone back and changed into jeans. His only comment: "You were mutilated beyond all humanity, weren't you, my boy? No wonder you've become bitter about it. How it is today? Are you feeling all right?"
I winced at his words, straightforward as they were. It was on the tip of my tongue to say: 'fine'. But I clamped down on it and tried to deflect instead. "It hurts. It always hurts, Luther. What do you say we sample some breakfast before you dial 911 … ?"
The three of us sat around Mom's kitchen table feasting on Willy's excellent breakfast in guarded silence. Over second cups of coffee, and still munching on leftover strips of bacon that lay cooling on the platter, the conversation lightened up with anecdotes about my parents. I listened with growing unease. It was like hearing stories about myself when they spoke of John House and his rigid, voluble ways. Some of it made me uncomfortable. For the first time ever, I had reason to relate to my father.
When my insecurities raised their ugly heads, I asked them why they'd bothered to befriend me, an irritable recluse who continually cast a black light on the world around him.
Both of them looked at me with raised eyebrows and knowing smiles. "You are very much like your father, my boy," Luther said. "But that's not a bad thing. He was a proud man. He had a strict code of honor that hung from his neck like a noose … as though he might be accused of being disloyal if he didn't keep it wrapped around him."
I raised my own eyebrows at that. "I'm not sure I understand your meaning ..."
"Really? Well, I remember that even as a boy you were a lot like him. Your facial expressions, your mannerisms … even the general curtness of your voice and the sarcasm … oh the sarcasm! But your biggest problem seems to be that you always want to run and hide your injury from the world. And that's impossible. Everyone who sees you knows immediately that you are disabled. You seem ashamed, but you shouldn't be. It is way beyond your control, don't you see?
"The biggest difference between you and John is the fact that, as a grown man, you are meticulously educated, and John was not. His education came from the life he led. The military, and his early upbringing, became as much a part of him as the Hippocratic Oath is a part of you."
I listened closely; still covering my scar and concentrating on what I was being told. Things I had never considered before filtered through my mind like a field mouse through buckwheat. Everything Luther said fit well with my biggest hang-up and the man I had grown up with and called "Dad". (Among other things …)
They told me about John's obsession with self-discipline and personal honor that guided his chosen pathway. Luther stressed that John House had often been at a loss how to handle a gifted son whose monumental intelligence often confused him to the point of distraction.
*You did what you thought was right, Dad. You were old-school … old-military … and I must have been a pain in your ass. In a way your method was sort of like: "My-Name-is-Sue-how-do-you-do?" You wanted me to be tough, and able to handle anything life threw at me. But you didn't reckon on the infarction … and what it did to me later … you didn't know how to treat me after that. I became more of a hard-ass than you ever were … just not in the same way. And the gulf between us widened. Sad thing was, we dragged Mom along with it. She couldn't choose between us, and now it's too late. I'm sorry. I'm trying to fix it … but it still hurts.*
When I looked up from my mental excursion into the past, Luther and Willy were both looking at me with concern.
"Sorry. I didn't mean to go riding off into the sunset like the Lone Ranger … but I was reliving some of the stuff you were telling me about. I guess my Dad and I were more alike than we were different. I'll try to stop hiding my leg. I know there's nothing I can do about it …"
"Amen," Willy said. "How about we change the subject!"
Luther brought his briefcase over to the table, along with his coffee.
"I spoke with a man who owns a firm called 'General Resources', he said. "His name is Reginald Thackery and we've known each other a long time. He's reputable and his firm is based here in Lexington." Luther held up his hefty briefcase to emphasize his words. "His people specialize in estate sales. He told me this time of year is pretty well booked up. The next date they have available will be the seventeenth and eighteenth of October. If we don't mind the wait, they will be happy to handle your sale, Greg. What do you think?"
"That's almost two months away," I replied. "But it gives us plenty of time to go through everything and sort it out. Other than that, I don't know anything about the particulars of it. I can make arrangements to ship Mom's piano to my storage unit in Princeton … and check out what it will take to send Dad's Dodge pickup to Barbados. The rest is up to the two of you. I'll help the most by keeping out of your way and keeping track of inventory … save you some time."
"Good," Willy grumped. "We'll need all kinds of information when we sort stuff out … and you're the only one who has any clue at all where most of it came from, or any idea of its original value. You may find some stuff from your childhood that you'd like to hang onto. You never know. We'll have to bring in some appraisers … for Thomas's stamp collection and the old Jeep, for instance … your mom's jewelry … and John's military hardware and aviation souvenirs … that sort of thing. There are also two more safety deposit boxes that have to be gone through. You're the only one who has access, so if you're sitting in a corner somewhere counting the beans, I can keep track of you …"
I stared at him long and hard. Incredulous. I had no idea this multiple-party estate had so much to be accounted for. I was a babe-in-the-woods where all the intricate calculations were concerned. But I was willing to learn and also have something to occupy my mind.
I smiled foolishly and held up a hand in self-defense. "Just call me your willing slave …"
Willy snickered into his coffee. Even Luther smiled.
Two weeks passed quickly. Luther had business to attend to elsewhere with the law firm, but Willy and I began the task of inventorying everything that death had left behind in that very large, very empty-of-life house. There were ghosts from the past everywhere I looked.
Puffing from exertion, Luther Finn came in the back door one afternoon and leaned over the table where I was busy on the laptop with a new article for JAMA.
"Thackery called awhile ago, and I thought I should come over to talk to you. There has been a cancellation on an estate sale two weeks from tomorrow. Thackery wants to know if we'd like to move your sale ahead by a month. What do you think, Greg?"
I scratched my head and looked up at him. "In for a penny, in for a pound. Better tell Willy …"
Luther groaned.
It was a "go".
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