The River Valley Series Read online

  She wandered down the hallway. The wallpaper, once a light brown with small blue flowers, was now faded to tan. The hallway’s hardwood floor showed burns from dropped cigarettes, most notably between her mother’s bedroom and the bathroom. She wrote in her notebook under “Repairs” the estimated cost for the floor to be refinished and what it would cost to have the wallpaper replaced.

  At the end of the hallway, Lee opened the door to her childhood bedroom six or so inches before it pushed against something. She poked her head in the crack and saw piles of newspapers, Ladies Home Journals, Reader’s Digests, and romance and mystery paperbacks, stacked on the bed and floor. She felt a tightness in her chest and her right eyelid twitched. She closed the door with a slam. Her mother’s bedroom was also stacked with worthless junk. She wrote under “To Do” in her notebook, “Burn contents of bedrooms,” along with estimated costs for repairs.

  She walked to the ground floor, the hardwood stairs creaking with her footsteps and the stair railing swaying in her hand. From the foyer at the bottom of the stairs, Lee moved into the curved archway of the living room, felt for the light switch along the left wall, and flipped it, but the bulb was burned out. In the dim light she saw stacks and stacks of papers with a path to a stained and sunken couch. She walked through the path to the window and pulled back the worn burgundy velvet draperies. There was a small rickety end table next to the couch, damaged with rings from her mother’s drink glasses; a small television on an apple box; and piles of magazines, newspapers, and paperbacks. In the rare places where the wall showed, paper hung in strips. The smell of cigarette smoke permeated everything. She jotted in her notebook, “Burn or dump all contents of living room.”

  She trudged up the stairs, sat on the bed, and added the estimates for kitchen upgrades and repairs to the list. Altogether the costs of cleaning and repairs were shy of fifteen thousand dollars. She had five hundred dollars cash in her wallet that Linus insisted she take, several thousand in the bank, no idea how to do any repairs, and no money to pay anyone. The only answer was to find a job in town, scrimp, and use every spare dollar for the restoration.

  She heaved herself off the bed to unpack the few belongings she had left. She’d kept the bare essentials, only what would fit in one suitcase. Her intent was to hang her clothes in the closet by type, with color-coded hangers she brought from her closet in Seattle. But each item she unpacked evoked thoughts of Dan and her former life. The light blue cashmere sweater Dan chose for her at the Nordstrom sale last autumn, the white cotton panties he called her ‘granny underwear,’ the cocktail dress she wore to their last business event. She stopped unpacking and stared at the pine floorboards.

  * * *

  Later that morning she sat on the steps off the kitchen. The yard was a grassy area and outside the fence was untouched forest, heavy with Douglas firs, pines, madronas, and low-growing ferns. It was chilly and the air smelled of damp earth and the unique freshness of early spring. The crab apple and cherry trees hinted of their summer bounty with white and pink flowers, while the lilac and hydrangea bushes sprouted green buds. Only the daffodils and tulips opened to their full glory. There was the sound of a truck changing gears on the highway and birds chirping. She looked up into the tall trees outside the fence and beyond to the vast blue sky. As a child, in the summer months, the backyard was a place of solace. After her mother slept, she crept out to the yard, lay in the grass, and listened to the deep croaks of the bullfrogs with the high-pitched song of the crickets. She would gaze at the stars until the night’s vast sky enveloped her and she became a star herself and was at peace in that moment of connection to the largeness of the universe. But today it did not comfort her. Today, it amplified her feelings of isolation from the world, even from herself, as if mocking her with its beauty.

  Chapter 8

  Lee was thirsty. She rummaged through the cupboards for a glass. They were bare except for a few cracked plates; a cereal bowl; four faded salad plates, chipped on the edges; and one lone teacup, cracked but still intact. This was all that was left of the original set. Lee had given it to her mother for a Christmas gift when she was young.

  This old kitchen was cold and full of memories, she thought.

  The year she was seven Lee’s mother lost her job at one of the grocery stores in town. Neither of them knew then it would be her last job. Lee shopped for the groceries each Saturday morning at the other store, the one on the other side of town. Eleanor sat in the car, a floating head amidst the smoke from her cigarettes, a hand flicking the ashes out of a small slit in the window. Lee filled their basket with the same items every week: coffee, milk, peanut butter, cheese, bread, and ground meat. She paid with the Food Stamps her mother picked up every Monday afternoon. The autumn Lee was eleven, the store put up a display of dishes you could purchase with Green Stamps. The first time she saw them, Lee stopped to look at the display, wanting more than anything to give them to her mother for Christmas. She touched the light brown ceramic plates and ran her fingers over the white flower pattern etched on the edges. She held one of the dainty teacups and pretended to drink from it, until she heard her mother beep the horn and motion for her to pay for the groceries and come to the car.

  The entire dish set, which included four place settings, cost one-thousand Green Stamps. Each week the ladies at the check stand gave her fifty stamps, more than she should have earned for the amount of food she bought, not to mention that technically you weren’t eligible unless you paid with real money. But, at age eleven, Lee didn’t know and accepted the stamps, bliss in her heart each time. She couldn’t help but notice that the checkers glanced out at the smoke-filled car with a disapproving look when they put the stamps in her hand.

  One week before Christmas she counted out one-thousand stamps to the lady with the blond beehive named Bridget. Bridget called the rest of the ladies over. “Lee’s got enough, girls. She’s got enough for the whole set.” They all cheered for her, and the lady named Sue with the long brown hair who looked like Jaclyn Smith on the show Charlie’s Angels offered to bring it to her house the next day. “Can you bring it at night?” Lee asked her, glancing at the car. “My mother goes to bed early.” The ladies exchanged looks and Sue said, “No problem. I get off at eight.” That’s perfect, Lee thought, because Mom will be asleep on the couch by then.

  Her steps were light that day and her tummy did little flops. That night after writing in her worry journal, she imagined sitting on the floor next to an enormous tree, decorated with small ornate glass ornaments and twinkling lights. Under the tree were many presents in store-bought wrapping with giant bows, all for Lee. She and her mother were in new Christmas pajamas and slippers, sipping cocoa. Her mother, eyes twinkling like Pa’s from Little House on the Prairie, patted her hand. “I wish we had some new cups to drink this cocoa from.” And Lee said, kind of casually so as not to give away the surprise, “Maybe you should open my gift now.” Her mother’s face lit with excitement as she opened the box and saw the cups. “How were you ever so clever to think of it?” Lee shrugged modestly. Her mother took them out of the box one at a time, examining them in ecstatic excitement. “They’re so beautiful. Maybe we should have a dinner party!”

  But of course it wasn’t that way.

  When her mother tore open the newspaper Lee used in place of wrapping paper, she looked at them, a mixture of disdain and displeasure on her face. “What do we need all these for?”

  “It’s how they come, Mom. They don’t come in packages of two.”

  She reached farther into the box and pulled out a salad plate. “What are we gonna use these for?”

  Lee’s face turned pink. “They’re for salad. Or dessert.”

  “May as well just put everything on the same plate. Less to wash.” Her mother picked up the packaging and stuffed it back in the box. “You can put them away later, once you figure out what to do with the perfectly good dishes we already have.” Lee excused herself, ran to the bathroom, and sat on the
floor crying until she heard her mother call from downstairs that she needed more ice from the freezer in the shed.

  After that she didn’t allow herself any fantasies that involved her mother.

  Now, Lee drank several teacups of water and then washed the cup and put it into the cupboard. She leaned next to the sink and looked at the ancient stove and remembered a cold night, two frozen dinners heating in the oven. Her mother leaned on the counter, flicking her cigarette in the glass ashtray and sipping vodka on ice. Lee sat at the table, drawing a picture of an exotic bird from a photo in a magazine. The house seemed cozy, like they were a family from one of Lee’s fantasies. She imagined her father would arrive home from work any minute, dressed in a suit and holding a briefcase. He might kiss her on the head and call her “honey.” Her mother lifted her glass in a gesture towards the drawing. “What is that now, a bird?” “A parrot, Mommy, but it’s not right because I need color markers to make the feathers.” Her mother snatched the paper from the table and ripped it in two. “You think I have money growing from trees to buy you anything you want?” She slammed her glass on the counter and an ice cube fell on the floor. “Do you?” Eleanor poured more vodka in her glass and yanked the hot tin dinner from the oven. “You want to keep eating?” “Yes, Mommy.” She threw the tin on the table, and drops of Salisbury steak gravy splattered onto Lee’s homework folder. “Then shut up about pens.”

  Lee felt hot from the memory and washed her face at the sink. She wished she could call Linus but knew she could not risk alerting Von to her new location. It seemed like a month since she left him when really it was just fourteen hours since she’d said goodbye.

  It felt like the last eighteen years were a dream, and maybe she’d never really left. She felt the old sensation of being invisible, unsure if she even existed.

  She stared into the empty sink, thinking about the old adage that you learned how to be a mother from your own mother. If that was true, there was no way she could have a baby. The fact that her life mirrored her mother’s, even with all her efforts to break the cycle, made her feel almost hopeless. She had never known the feeling of wanting to give up before and it disoriented her. Even during all the difficult years in this house she always had a plan, a vision, for what her life could be. She used to think if she could just make it to her eighteenth birthday intact, she would have a chance to steer her own destiny.

  She looked around the faded kitchen and thought there was no way she could bring a child into her messed up life.

  Not letting herself think, she called information from the leased cell phone, asking for the nearest Planned Parenthood office. She asked for an appointment for an abortion. The calm voice on the other end of the line explained she must have an initial consultation before the procedure could be scheduled.

  “But I’ve made up my mind.”

  “Sorry, Miss, it’s policy.” They scheduled an appointment for three days later.

  Chapter 9

  The next day, Lee slowed her minivan to 25 mph as she crested a slight hill, glancing at the sign, “Welcome to River Valley, pop. 1432.” Her stomach tightened, thinking the population was the same as when she left, eighteen years before. Like many of the small towns that peppered the West, the population of the city limits did not reflect the residences scattered throughout the area, down country roads, deep into the woods, perched on sides of mountains—around 5,000 people total, Lee guessed. Regardless, she thought, there had been no growth in this area for twenty years even as the rest of the West expanded with opportunity.

  From the city limits sign, she saw from one end of town to the other. It was one main street with a series of shabby, worn-out buildings that held the essence of despair. It was the sag of the town, the way it looked like it had given up, that depressed her. It possessed all the same things every small town has, two grocery stores, two gas stations, five or six bars, eight churches, a library, schools, a bank with a sign that tells you the time and temperature, and the state-regulated liquor store. There was nothing remarkable in it, she thought, except the way the dramatic mountains surrounded the valley and the expansive sky made her want to hold out her arms and soar up into the blue. Perhaps it was the giant sky or the loom of the mountains that made the shriveled faded town lose heart. Next to their splendor, anything man-made might feel beleaguered but especially these low slung, sad structures.

  As she drove, she saw several wooden signs that read, “Thank you to the Beautify River Valley committee for these improvements.” Looking for the professed improvements, she guessed it must be the flower boxes and the turquoise paint color scheme adopted by many of the businesses.

  She turned left off the main street and drove by the junior high school, curious to see if it was still standing. Behind the brick building were the football field and bleachers where Mark Caldwell and Doug Flanders yelled out to her one day. “You know what a blow job is?” “No, but I’ll give you one if you don’t shut up,” she called back. For years she wondered why they fell over each other with laughter. She smiled thinking of it, though the feeling of confused embarrassment, knowing there was something risqué or sexual in their request but too naïve and unaware to understand what, lived near the surface of her, even now.

  She drove farther up the street past the high school. She turned back onto the main street and parked, checking her hair in the rearview mirror and reapplying her lipstick before surveying the line of businesses. She chose Ray’s Accounting, Taxes, and Bookkeeping. She walked into the small office, warm air blasting her face from the overhead heating as the door closed behind her. The office was bare except for a desk with a computer and a bookshelf of tax manuals. A man between fifty and sixty, with a helmet of brown hair that Lee suspected was a toupee, sat at the desk playing a game of solitaire on his computer. When the door closed he sprung from his desk, knocking his stapler on the floor. “You need your taxes done?” He wore a short-sleeved, wrinkled, button-down shirt, and brown polyester pants with a mustard stain on the left leg.

  Lee slung her bag over her shoulder. “No, I’m new to town and wondered if you needed any help?”

  He came around his desk, and Lee detected the sour smell of Bengay. “Gosh, I don’t have enough business for a helper.” He held out his hand, introducing himself as Ray Zander. He stroked his chin, his pace of speech slow and drawn out. “Sure wish I did.” He scratched his arm, and flakes of dry skin floated through the air, propelled by the blast of hot air from the heater vent. “Only folks making any money seem to be the crystal meth makers, and they don’t pay taxes.”

  The back of Lee’s throat ached. She forced politeness in her voice. “That’s a shame.”

  “We got a couple of new wineries outside of town. I do their books but they’re not hiring right now.”

  Lee moved her bag to the other shoulder. “What about the banks? Think they have any openings?”

  “Unlikely. Where’d you come from?”

  “Seattle. But I grew up here.”

  Ray arched his eyebrows. “That right? What’s your name?”

  “Lee Tucker.” This was the first time she’d said her maiden name in five years and she felt like an imposter.

  “What brings you back?”

  “My mother died last year and I’m fixing up her house.”

  “What kind of work you do?”

  “I was the president of a small high tech firm.”

  “Dot com? You go bust? I told my investment club all those crazy ideas would flop. Everybody jumping on the whole ecommerce thing like a bunch of sheep!”

  She tucked one side of her hair behind her ear, all of a sudden hot in her sweater. Sweat beaded on the tip of her nose and she resisted the urge to wipe it with her fingers. “We started our business after the dot com bust.”

  “That right? What kind of product?”

  “A computer game, for extreme gamers.”

  He looked at her blankly and she turned towards the door, noticing rain drops on the sidewalk.
“Thanks for your help.” She pushed the door open with her shoulder and stepped onto the sidewalk, already two steps down the street before she realized he was on her heels.

  Hands in his pockets, Ray strolled beside her, continuing the same slow pace of talking. “What happened to your company?”

  She stopped walking and wondered how much she should reveal? It would be all over town in a matter of minutes so she needed a sustainable story, especially if she wanted anyone to hire her. “My husband died unexpectedly and I lost the company.”

  Ray’s eyes softened and he patted her arm. “Sorry to hear that. I lost my wife last year to cancer.” He rubbed his eyes with his fingertips and his tone shifted to lower in his chest. “Just brings it back for me every time I hear of someone else losing their spouse.” He studied her face and then looked up at the sky, snapping his fingers. “You know, there is one place to try. It wouldn’t be the type of thing you’d want long term but it’d keep the wolf away, if that’s what you need. Mike opened a little restaurant six months ago.” He pointed down the street. “You remember where the old grocery store was?”

  “Sure.” It was run by Steve Turner, reputed to give free groceries to needy customers and hire the down and out, before one of the big chains opened in the mid-eighties and forced him out of business. Lee remembered him as a gentle soul, lids half closed, slipping her a piece of chocolate every now and then. “My mother worked there for a while in the seventies.”

  “You said your last name is Tucker? By golly, your mother was Eleanor Tucker. Sure, I remember her now.” He shuffled his feet and glanced again at the sky. “She had some health problems?”

  “You could say that.”

  His face softened as he connected her to the memory. “I remember you too, now you mention it. Little redhead, thick glasses, sweet thing huddled behind your mother’s check stand.” He half smiled and shrugged his shoulders. “Embarrassed to say I used to go in there for smokes. Kicked the habit now but I was in there every other day and if your mother was on shift in the late afternoon or evening, there you’d be, curled up with your nose in a book.” He cocked his head to one side and said with admiration in his voice and a hint of surprise, “You turned out real pretty.”