Chapter 20
“Look on the bright side,” Ben says, when I’m sitting at his kitchen table with a mug of hot chocolate. “At least the furnace itself is okay.”
“As far as we know,” I say darkly.
“Heating oil guys’ll be there tomorrow afternoon. Thursday morning at the latest, they said. Full tank of oil, it’ll be humming along like a—you know, like a thing that hums.”
“A hummingbird?” Punkin suggests.
“A hummingbird, sure.”
“I’ll pay you back,” I tell him. “Just let me know how much Dad was in arrears. Not now, though? Tomorrow. I don’t think I can take another thing tonight.”
“Understood. And, you know, you can take your time with that. No rush.”
“Ben’s a real lifesaver,” says Punkin. “He even reminded me to pack my nightgown and toothbrush.”
I look at her over the top of my mug. “I’m kind of hoping you’re smart enough to remember your own nightgown and toothbrush when you’re going for a sleepover.”
“I’ve never had a sleepover before. I was a little excited.”
“What?” Ben sets down his mug. “Never had a sleepover? Are you kidding me?”
“Well, I go to stay with Grandmère, obviously. But she already has plenty of nightgowns and toothbrushes for me.”
I check my watch and rise from the chair. “Speaking of nightgowns and toothbrushes.”
—
The bedding is old-fashioned but smells fresh. A single bed in a small, low-ceilinged girl’s room, all laces and peach and a curving wood-framed mirror atop the chest of drawers. I wonder who the girl was.
The floorboards creak like old bones. I sit on the edge of the bed and smooth Punkin’s hair, the same way as every night.
“We’re so lucky to have Ben next door,” she says. “He’s a lifesaver.”
“You keep saying that.”
“Because it’s true. I’m so glad that Grandmère and the aunts and uncles got to meet him. Can we do Christmas like that every year?”
“Honey, nobody wants to have Christmas every year in our creaky old house.”
“Not as creaky as this one.”
“True. This one definitely takes first place at the creaky fair.”
She snuggles under her covers. “At least Ben can come over. Are you two going to sleep together?”
“What?”
“Because there’s only one bed in this room.”
“Oh.” I lean forward to kiss her good night. “I’ll probably just take the sofa, honey. It looked pretty comfortable.”
—
Ben’s still in the kitchen, finishing up the dishes.
“Let me,” I say. “You’ve done enough already. Letting us barge in on you like this.”
“Too late. Last mug right here.”
He places it on the drying rack and turns around.
A dishcloth hangs over his shoulder. He wipes his fingers and leans against the old wooden counter.
Aside from a couple of midcentury appliances—real beauts, Punkin would have called them, before I arrived—the kitchen doesn’t look like it’s been renovated since the American Revolution.
The table seats four if you squash together.
A pair of gingham curtains hangs across the window over the sink. Thick black night through the crack.
“Hey,” says Ben. “Tough day?”
“Where do I start?”
He nods at the mug. “You want something stronger? We could open up your Prohibition hooch.”
“No, don’t do that. Save it for an occasion.”
“Well, there’s got to be something around here.”
He turns around and opens doors on the freestanding cabinets—a Welsh dresser on one side, a sideboard on the other.
“Ben, it’s okay. I mean, I notice you haven’t been drinking. I don’t want to—you know.”
“I haven’t been drinking,” he says, “but I’m not not drinking. Well, look here. The mother lode.”
He turns back with two bottles—one cream sherry and the other rye whiskey.
“Definitely the rye. But are you sure?”
Ben puts the sherry back in its cabinet and pulls a couple of lowball glasses from the Welsh dresser. “Anything with it? Ice?”
“Sure. Ice.”
“Never been that big a drinker. To answer the question behind your question. And I never drank during the season. I just stopped because—I don’t know.
I guess I didn’t want it to become a problem?
Given what I was going through. I thought this was a situation I should probably try to handle with no alcohol involved.
” He hands me the glass. Our fingertips brush. “To shitty days.”
The rye is old and rough-strong. “Wow,” I gasp.
Ben looks at the bottle. “Must be twenty years old at least. Last guy who lived here.”
We sit down at the table. It seems safer, I guess, than the sofa in the adjacent living room. I tell Ben how grateful I am. He says don’t mention it. That’s what neighbors are for.
“Besides,” he says, “the kid is good company, let’s face it. All those questions. You get over yourself pretty fast around a kid like her.”
“Well, she adores you. And she does not adore everybody, trust me.” I allow a cautious sip that traces a silky, satisfying burn down my throat. “To be honest, I was kind of worried, moving here.”
“Because she’s so precocious?”
I nod. “She doesn’t always relate well to kids her age.
She had to grow up so fast, you know? And outside school, it’s just her and me.
After Arnaud died, the other mothers stopping calling.
Playdates dried up. I guess I should have tried harder, but—I don’t know. I had so much to deal with already.”
“Luce, she’s just smart. Really fucking smart. And you’ve done a great job feeding that mind of hers. That’s what she needs.”
“The truth is, she needs siblings. But that’s not—”
I realize what I’m saying and bite the words off.
Ben sips his whiskey. “So tell me about your day, dear. Did you find the safe-deposit box?”
I circle the ice around the glass. “I have a really stupid question for you. Did you happen to mention the key thing to anybody? The fact that my mother remembered it was the safe-deposit key, I mean?”
“No. Why?”
“Because someone went to the bank last week, claiming to be me. Asked them to open the box for her.”
Ben sets down his glass. “Say what?”
“I know. So many questions. That’s why I was wondering. If you happened to mention it somewhere? Just in conversation.”
“Lucy,” he says. “Seriously?”
“I know. I know you wouldn’t. I just. Can’t imagine how anyone would know.”
He leans back in his chair. His hand dwarfs the glass, like it belongs to a doll’s set. A thought intrudes—that old saying about the size of a man’s hands. I lift my own glass to disguise the flush that’s rising to my cheeks.
“They didn’t succeed, though, right?” asks Ben. “I mean, the bank didn’t let this rando into the safe-deposit box?”
“No, no. Dad’s stuff was there. I have it in my backpack.” I force a smile. “No pirate treasure, alas. Or the missing laptop. Just his notebooks.”
“He put them in his safe-deposit box?”
“Yeah. I mean, God forbid anyone should steal his research notes. Swipe his treasure right out from under him.”
Ben rises from the chair and brings back the bottle from the counter. Refills us both.
“So that’s it?” he asks. “The treasure notes?”
“That was it. That’s all he ever cared about, right? The fucking treasure.”
“That’s not true, Lucy. He loved you.”
“But he loved this more.”
“Lucy—”
“No, I mean it. He literally gave up everything for this. This delusion. It consumed him. He let us all walk out of his life, but he wouldn’t give up his treasure hunt.”
Ben runs his palm along the thatch on his jaw.
“I’m just saying the two things can coexist. He could love you more than anything and still not be able to let this thing go.
Like an addict. Because what I saw was a man who loved his daughter.
He talked about you all the time. And it lit him up, Luce. I’m not just saying that.”
“All the time? I don’t know, Ben. Kind of sounds like you might have egged him on a bit.”
A grin dimples the corner of his mouth. “Hey, how could I resist? The girl who got away.”
“Ha. It’s not like you didn’t know where to find me.”
The grin vanishes. Ben turns his head to the window above the sink. The faded red gingham curtains, like a pair of miniature picnic cloths. The whole house is too small for him. Built hundreds of years ago for people half his size.
“This is kind of a big deal, Luce,” he says. “This safe-deposit thing. Did they call the police? Do they have a photo or video footage or something?”
“They’re looking into it.”
“I don’t know. I don’t think that’s good enough. I feel like there’s something missing here, you know? The whole why piece.”
“Do you think someone thought he’d actually found something?”
“If he went bragging on one of those pirate forums. Sharing info with each other.”
“Great. My dad finally decides to join the modern age and overshares with the pirate nerds.”
“You don’t sound worried,” he says. “You’re sitting over there in that house, all by yourself. With your daughter.”
“Ben, it’s Winthrop Island.”
“People do shitty things everywhere, Luce. People are capable of anything. I mean, look at me.”
“You?”
“If you look at what I did. What I’m capable of.”
“You were playing a game, Ben. It was an accident. A freak accident.”
“I think a lot about Ashley,” he says. “Ashley and the kids. I wrote her a letter.”
“What did she say back?”
“She didn’t.” He stares at his hands, knit together on the table before him. “Do you still miss him? Your—you know, your partner?”
“Arnaud. Yes. I miss him all the time.”
“That’s the thing,” he says. “It’s not something you can fix.”
I stare at the end of the table, against the wall, where Ben set the two glasses. Next to them, a few books are piled up, like he reads while he eats. The rye is all over my head now. Loosening the screws. Don’t overshare, I think. Don’t let the booze talk.
“Whatcha reading?” I ask.
He lifts the book on top. The Swerve says the title. A stern Roman profile gazes from the spine. “Ever heard of Lucretius?”
“He was a philosopher, right?”