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  Not that it would have done her any good. If she’d ever spoken back to Daddy with anything like Cal’s remarks … She shuddered, rubbed away the mist that clung to her lashes, and stared up at the window of her bedroom, the ruffled curtains crisp to this day. Try as she would, she could not conjure the kind of happy family memories that ought to be connected with the tall, brick colonial, her staunchly Christian home. Firm and steadfast, stay the course, trample any seed of variance before it sprouts. Imagination? Bah! Creativity? Humbug. The law, the Word, and Daddy.

  Maybe if she’d had siblings, a sister to lie on the floor with, share secrets, commiserate. But no, she wouldn’t have wished on anyone the scrutiny, the never measuring up, the aching to be accepted. They lucked out, the ones buried in the Jefferson City cemetery.

  What a morbid thought. Laurie walked up to the porch and went in, allowing herself the little rudeness of not ringing. Her mother returned the favor. Maybe they both needed to rebel a little. She stopped at the kitchen door and watched her mother cover Maddie’s hand with hers and press the cutter into the cookie dough.

  She was trying. Laurie had to hand it to her. With Maddie and Luke, Mother was trying. Maybe she had with her as well. Maybe when she was little, and she just didn’t remember. Maybe even later, and she hadn’t recognized it.

  Her mother looked up. “Back so early?”

  Laur ie caught the tone and knew exactly what Mother was thinking. No, Mother, we didn’t stoop to your suspicions. Nor would she. Hadn’t she just established that, done the responsible thing? Wouldn’t Mother ever give her credit for some sense?

  “Looks like fun.” She smiled at Maddie’s floured cheeks.

  Luke held up an oddly shaped cookie. “I made the bears.”

  “Yum.”

  “Want one?”

  “If I can gobble its head first.”

  He held it out to her, and she bit the head off. “As good as it looks.” Of course her mother had made the dough. That was a given. Marjor ie Sutton never risked her ingredients on inexper ienced hands.

  Laurie’s mood soured. “Maddie needs to get to bed, Mother.”

  “Yes, I know. But I had no idea how long you’d be with … Anyway, we’re finishing the last batch now.” She pressed the cutter herself over the remaining dough. “Wash her up at the sink, if you like.”

  Laurie worked the dough and sugar off Maddie’s tiny fingers under the water. “Having fun, punkin?”

  “We watched Cats and Dogs.” Maddie planted a sugary kiss on her cheek, then squeezed her neck with wet hands. How affectionate her children were. What did it take to drive that out of a child? Or had she, herself, been bor n deficient somehow? Had she ever squeezed her mother’s neck like that, or God forbid, her father’s?

  She hooked Maddie on her hip and watched her mother slide the spotless cookie sheet into the spotless oven. Luke circled her legs in his arms. Her children were the only good things to come of the mess she had made of her life. What would she ever do without them?

  3

  THE BEST PART OF THE ART OF LIVING

  IS TO KNOW HOW TO GROW OLD GRACEFULLY.

  Eric Hoffer

  HANDS JAMMED INTO THE POCKETS of his worn jeans, Cal stood outside the white br ick walls of the Montrose Behavioral Health Center. In there you didn’t wonder if you were cracking up; you knew it. And the best part was that everyone else was as cracked as you. He shook his head, thinking how belligerent he’d been. But he was past that now.

  So why had he stopped there today? He drove by the center every day on his way to work, but this was the first time he’d stopped in the three months he had been out. Closure? Or had seeing Laurie made things harder to accept? Her expectations, her impressions were based on the man she had known, the man he’d been. What would she think now? He sighed.

  A hand landed like a sledgehammer on his shoulder, and he turned to meet the smile, an awesome spread of lips, gums, and teeth as white as chalk. Cal couldn’t miss the grin, blaring at eye level above the rock-like chin and giant Sequoia neck.

  “Hey, man! How you been?”

  Cal’s own mouth spread. Pure Pavlov. When Reggie Douglas smiled, Cal smiled. At least he didn’t salivate.

  Dressed in his thin white coat, Reggie cocked his head and eyed Cal as he had each morning when he had come through the door of Cal’s room. Cal half expected him to ask if he was regular and taking his vitamins.

  “You’re lookin’ good. Whatcha been up to?” Reggie released his shoulder after a peremptory squeeze that made Cal glad this man was a friend.

  “Oh, you know, clowning around.”

  “Yeah. My niece said you did her school.”

  Cal shrugged. “How’re things?”

  “Crazy. You know how it is. Good thing I got the Big Man upstairs in control.” He hoisted his thick finger toward the sky.

  “Yeah, good thing, Reg.”

  “Hey, Jack Smith got clean. Finally decided it was not worth the trouble to keep sneakin’ stuff in.”

  Cal pictured Jack’s haggard face. “Come on, Cal. You got connections, don’t you? Get me somethin’ …”

  Cal swallowed. “I’m glad to hear it.” He didn’t have the sort of connections Jack had wanted—or that sort of addiction. Cal’s had been strictly legal poison. Only stuff he had free access to as both a paramedic and consenting adult. Amazing what you could forget with booze and prescription drugs—until they grew horns and fangs and you were fighting for your life. He’d won the fight—so far.

  Reggie squeezed his shoulder. “I gotta get inside. You coming?”

  “Not this time.” Cal jammed his hands into his pockets. “I think I’ll stay sane for a while.”

  Reggie raised the shiny ridge of his sparse eyebrows. “Just get it close, man. Successive approximation. One little step in the right direction at a time.”

  Cal nodded. “Give Rita a hug for me.” Rita James, M.D., Doctor of Psychiatry and part-time shoulder. She meant more to the department than any other resource, and personally far more to Cal than that. Like Reggie, she was a friend.

  “You got it.” Reggie zeroed in on the first set of doors. “I’ll see you tonight.”

  Cal heard the slap of Reggie’s pink palms on the door as his bulky shoulders, double roll of neck skin, and black, nubby head disappeared inside. He climbed back into his jeep and headed for the elderly care facility nearby.

  Forty-two pairs of rheumy eyes fixed on him as Cal pointed to the charts, telling the residents of Oaklane Manor the best way to enter and exit a tub to prevent a fall. These occupants still managed on their own, unlike their counterparts in the nursing section of the facility, and fire safety wasn’t the only concern he dealt with. When Billy rode his bike through a window, when Junior choked on a grape, when Grandma broke her hip, when a diner passed out, who got called?

  Not that he minded. Helping folks was the heart and soul of what he did. That was the job. Or it had been. No, it still was. Prevention was as crucial as intervention. More so, because there was little you could do once a situation went bad.

  Although the makeup and wig were back at the station, Cal threw in a joke. “There were three spinster sisters. The first decides to take a bath and goes up to the tub. With one leg over the side, she says, ‘Now was I getting in or getting out?’ When she doesn’t come back, the second sister goes to check. She heads up the stairs and when she gets halfway, she stops. ‘Was I going up or going down?’ The third sister shakes her head exasperated, saying, ‘Thank goodness, I’m not like them. Knock on wood.’ ” He rapped his knuckles on the podium. “ ‘Now was that the front door or the back?’ ”

  Chortles and snorts followed, and one purple draped woman removed her glasses and wiped tears from the corners of her eyes. Maud would be squeezing his hands when he finished, saying what a nice young man he was to come speak to them.

  Flipping the chart, he started in on the fire prevention rules. “Make yourself a checklist. Turn off the burner, the iron, t
he …” His voice droned. Ed Mills in the white vinyl armchair snored long and low, then flubbered his lips with the expelled breath. His lips sank in between his gums, then flubbered out again. No one jostled him awake. Cal asked if they were all familiar with the emergency exits of the general facility as well as an escape route from their own private units. Heads bobbed.

  No one looked confused, but he knew the disorientation they would face in a real emergency when smoke and panic concealed and distorted everything familiar. “Have an escape plan …” Could their aging limbs pull them along at ground level, where the air was cleaner? Could they move swiftly enough to escape the accumulating carbon monoxide, before even lungfuls of fresh air weren’t enough to staunch the poison already in their systems? What of misplaced eyeglasses needed to locate the glow of exit signs, arthritic knees, and—

  Ed snorted and shifted his position before resuming his snooze.

  Cal moved his hands like a symphony conductor until Ed’s snores settled into their regular pattern. His neighbors laughed, giving Cal good-natured smiles. Cal’s chest tightened. Maybe a few of the sparky ones would see to their neighbors and friends. The rest was up to the men at the station and those called from their homes, even from their beds, to put their skills to the test. Cal tightened his grip on the pointer. Skills fail. Men fail. He closed the charts. “So remember now, think safety. We can’t afford to lose the wisdom in this room.”

  Maud dabbed her eyes again, then honked her nose into a handkerchief. She was always touched that he cared enough to come. He never told her it was his job. And maybe it was more than that that brought him so regularly. He loved old people with their amused acceptance of their limitations, even the crotchety ones who complained about every ache. The more marginalized, the more he cared. Someone had to.

  When he finished the presentation, Cal took the elevator up. It wasn’t part of the job, but he always took a stroll on the confused floor. Sure enough, Martha was in the hall, stunning in an anklelength beaded gown, her posture at eighty-four was elegant, her figure svelte. Her arms, covered to the elbow in gloves, swung just so with each step.

  “I’m Martha, the Victorian.” She engaged him with her eyes. “They said my baby died, but I know they stole it.” Fallout from the days they didn’t let women see their stillborn children. Sometimes Martha was clear as a bell, but when she was in her promenade mode, she didn’t converse, she recited. She raised her chin again and walked on. “I’m Martha, the Victorian.” Cal let her stroll and went into the third room on the right.

  Here the woman was tied into a wheelchair to keep her from slipping out. She looked up. “Hello.”

  “Hi there, Olive.”

  She smiled, showing straight teeth. “Did I ever tell you my father was on the stage?”

  “Is that so?”

  “He was a comedian … and a tragedian.”

  They shared the laugh they always did.

  “He had lovely white hair. Oliver DeForest. That was his stage name. He was a comedian … and a tragedian.”

  Cal squatted down and took her hand. “You doing all right, Olive? Anything you need?”

  “My mother was a janitor.”

  “Nothing wrong with good honest work.” Cal patted her hand and stood.

  “Gladdy cut my eyelashes off. She was my half sister.”

  “Well, you have lovely eyelashes now, Olive.” He framed her with his fingers. “Pretty as a picture.”

  She laughed. “Go on, you flirt.”

  Cal squeezed her hand. “You have a nice day, Olive.”

  “A comedian and a tragedian. Such lovely white hair.”

  Cal left her reminiscing and ducked into the other rooms briefly. He was on the clock, so he couldn’t do much more than say hello. But that was enough. He walked out with a spring in his step.

  After leaving the home, Cal headed for the library. Merv Peterson had earned himself an early inspection by twice calling in a smell of smoke between true crime and mystery. Both times the men had pulled the engine around to assess from three sides without seeing so much as a puff. Both times the interior proved sound. Merv took his position seriously and made sure everyone knew his importance to the library. But before Merv made this a habit, Cal intended to set his mind at rest and maybe slap him with enough infringements to discourage future overreactions.

  Looking official in his uniform, with clipboard in hand, he sauntered into the stone-block building, pressed through the swinging half doors and made his way to the desk. Merv’s hound-dog jowls dangled, and his lips parted when he saw Cal coming. Cal held out his hand, and Merv joined it with his sub-normal temperature palm. “Did someone call?” Merv asked, darting his eyes to see who might have overstepped him.

  “No. I’m here to inspect.”

  “Oh … well …” Merv spluttered.

  “Don’t worry. I’ll whisper.”

  Cal found the two floors open to the public in relative good order, except for one blocked exit and an excess of flammables in a janitor’s closet. These he wrote up, then descended to the cellar, flipped the switch that lit a row of bare bulbs along the ceiling, and eyed the ghostly shelves of out-of-date and out-of-mind literature.

  “Whew.” He blew a dusty cloud, then made tracks through the gray thickness that muffled his steps. It was like walking the catacombs; no man-sized spider webs, but a smell and silence of age and solemnity.

  At the stone wall, Cal followed the wires up to the ceiling with a cloth from his back pocket, chasing the dust like fur before it. They were old, but sound. Must have been replaced since the place was built. He had hoped to make more of a point. Ah, an almost ceilinghigh pile of periodicals in the back corner, beside the boiler room no less. Cal slipped the clipboard from under his arm. Now that should keep Merv busy for a while, especially as the man would never part with a one.

  After a long discussion with Merv about the basics of fire prevention, Cal grabbed a bite at Benny’s Burgers, went through the usual debate at the register, then let Benny comp his bill. Two years ago he’d breathed life back into Benny’s son, who’d nearly drowned in a neighborhood pool. Benny swore Cal’s cash would never be good in his store again. And after all this time, he still refused to take it. Cal almost stopped eating there, had been reluctant to return until word reached him that Benny was crushed by his absence. How many burgers was a boy’s life worth? Cal made it in at least once a week. Best burgers in town.

  Two more appointments and he called it a day. It was Friday. Poker night. Cal rubbed his hands. For some reason, he felt lucky. That feeling stayed with him until Ray caught him at his door.

  “Cal!”

  Cal turned on the perch at the top of his stairs. “Can’t help tonight, Ray. Got plans.”

  “It’s just a short job.”

  “Got poker tonight, Ray.” He’d tried to include Ray once, but there was no bluff in the man at all. He’d felt so guilty over Ray’s losses, he’d made them up from his own pocket, which wasn’t deep to start with.

  “But I need your jeep.”

  Cal leaned on the rail while Ray described the job. Ray’s bomb wouldn’t do it; that was clear. He’d planned on this time to make the place presentable, but …

  “All right. Let’s go.” He headed back down the stairs. It wouldn’t take too long to drag the trunk sections of a fallen tree into the woods behind Fred’s house. And Ray was bobbing from one foot to the next like a kid going to the circus. Two jobs in three days was something.

  Cal reached the ground. “Got chains?”

  Ray nodded. “They’re in my trunk.”

  That was one thing to be said for Ray’s bomb. It had a trunk the size of Texas. “Move ’em over to the jeep.”

  Together they headed for Fred’s, a mile away by road, shorter if you walked around the pond and through the woods. Cal pulled the jeep into Fred’s backyard. Dogs came yapping from all sides, but there was no sign of Fred.

  “He’s not home.” Ray climbed out of the jeep
and greeted each dog as it slathered his hands.

  Cal joined the melee. When they’d satisfied the dogs, he pulled the chains from the trunk, hooked the loops over his shoulder, and started for the nearest piece of the old elm that had rotted through and snapped in the last storm. Fred had sawed the trunk into six-foot sections, but they were half that much around.

  Ray lifted while Cal looped the chain around, then attached the other end to the hook at the back of the jeep. It was rough ground between Fred’s kennels and the woods, but the jeep could handle it. Ray’s car would have lost its differential. They left the logs in a semicircle at the edge of the woods like a boundary marker.

  “Good enough?” Cal detached the chain from the hook after the last log had been placed.

  Ray nodded. “I think so. He said he’d pay me tomorrow.”

  So they could have done the job tomorrow. But Ray wasn’t like that. Everything was now for Ray. He wagged a finger. “I didn’t say I’d pay you.” The same old joke never got old for Ray. But with Benny’s gratis burger in his belly, Cal just figured what went around, came around.

  Cal clapped his shoulder. “Get in.” They drove home, and Cal gave Ray a wave as they parted in the yard. That lucky feeling hadn’t departed. If anything, it had grown.

  Having slept like a rock following the poker game, Cal staggered to the kitchen. Thank goodness for Mr. Coffee. If everything could be that simple. A pain connected his temples, which was hardly fair since he’d refused Rob’s Chivas and stayed clergyman sober. Boy, had Rita scowled when Rob walked in with the bottle. But it wasn’t all about avoidance. Half the battle was resisting while in the presence.

  It hadn’t been difficult either. He hadn’t drooled once, though Rita watched him as though she thought he might. She had difficulty leaving her professional role. Did she even have a life outside the loonies she rescued? Every man in the fire department had bent her ear at one time or another, debriefing whatever incident had caused stress, though most of them weren’t court-ordered into her special treatment program. That was reserved for the truly deserving.