Searching for Caleb

It was very kind of you to invite me to stay with you. The frankfurters you cooked were delicious, and I shall remember my visit with a great deal of pleasure for a long time to come.

Love, Caleb Peck

Duncan laughed-a single, sharp sound. He handed the letter back.

"It's a thank you note," said Justine.

"That's right."

"A bread-and-butter note."

"That's what they call them."

"I just want to ask you one thing," Dorcas said. "And I want an honest answer. Hear? Now Justine, you have been putting me off all morning and it's not the first time. Other people have noticed too. Nowadays you just drift the cards down like your heart's not in it. Anything anybody asks you definite, should they do it or should they not, you don't want to reply. You just shuck it off, like. Well, what I want to know is, do you not really care to read the future any more? Are you trying to phase it out? Because all you got to do is say the word, Justine. Not to keep on going with your mind on something else the way you have been lately."

"What?" said Justine.

Dorcas looked over at Duncan.

"Oh, your fortune," Justine said.

"That's right."

"Well, let me find my . . ."

She fetched the straw carry-all, unwrapped the cards from their square of silk.

"My great-uncle Caleb wrote a thank you note," she told Dorcas.

"Now isn't that nice."

"Thanking us for his visit."

"You can always tell good upbringing, is what I say," said Dorcas, but her eyes were on the cards, which Justine was gently shuffling over and over again. "Aren't you going to want a table to lay those out on? Or you're just going to go on shuffling evermore."

"Oh yes," said Justine. And they went off to the kitchen, leaving Ann-Campbell behind. Ann-Campbell squatted next to Duncan. "Will Justine let Mama say yes to Mr. McGee?" she asked him.

"I don't know."

"Will she tell her to marry daddy again, Joe Pete Britt?"

"Tune in next week and find out," said Duncan.

"Huh?"

"Nothing." He tipped back his head for a swallow of bourbon.

"Who is this great-uncle Caleb man?"

"That old guy we had around for a while," Duncan said. "Who is either very dumb or very very smart, it's hard to tell which."

"If she marries Mr. McGee I might just come along to Baltimore with you all," said Ann-Campbell, edging closer. "I think that might be what's going to happen. Justine will tell her to go ahead."

"Justine won't tell her anything, don't worry," Duncan said. "She hardly opens her mouth any more."

But just then he heard her laugh, a clear light sound that startled him, and he looked up from his cards and met Ann-Campbell's speckled green eyes fixed thoughtfully upon him.

After lunch Justine worked in the yard a while, pulling up yellowed cornstalks. She returned with her face pink. Starchy-smelling air trailed behind her. "Feel," she said, and laid her stinging hands on Duncan's cheek. He drew back. "Doesn't it make you want to get outdoors?" she asked him.

"Not exactly."

"Aren't you tired of sitting here?"

She spun away from him and went off toward the kitchen. A minute later he heard her running water in the sink, clattering dishes, but she must have grown tired of that, because very soon she was back in the living room.

She stood at the window a moment, and then took a second pack of cards from the sill and settled down on the floor with them, not far from where Duncan sat playing forty thieves. He could hear her murmuring to herself as she laid them out. ". . . the queen of change, beside the king. The wish card, the journey card . . . why so many journeys? Look how far the loved ones are! This is the card for journeys beyond other journeys, I've never had that one before. The card for, what was it?"

She fell silent. Duncan looked up to find her chewing a thumbnail and staring into space.

Shortly afterward she left, sliding into an old lumberjacket that used to be Duncan's. She didn't say where she was going. Duncan heard the Ford start up, a burry sound in the frozen air. First he was pleased, but then he wondered if she would keep her mind sufficiently on her driving. He noticed how empty the house felt. There was a strong wind blowing up from the north, whistling through all the cracks. The sky was white, and the room seemed lit by a bleak cold glare that hurt Duncan's eyes. Everywhere he looked there was something dismal to see: packing cases, dry dead plants on the windowsill, a sprawl of tomato-stained pizza wrappings from the day before. He rose and went to the bedroom. He was only planning to rest; he lay on the unmade bed with one arm across his eyes and thought about the turn his life was taking. But then he fell asleep and dreamed about antiques- jewelry that came in clusters and jungles of carved chair legs. Even in his sleep it was impossible to find any space that was pure and simple and clean of line.