Searching for Caleb

When he woke it was dark. Justine was still not back. He got up and felt his way to the kitchen, where he turned on the light and made himself a peanut butter sandwich. The cat watched him from the stovetop. "So this is what it's like to be grown up!" Duncan told her. She blinked and looked away, offended. He took his sandwich into the living room and settled down again beside his unfinished game. It was clear he was not going to win. Still, he shifted cards doggedly and pondered a choice of moves, munching meanwhile on his sandwich. There was nothing else to do.

Then the Ford drove up, and a minute later Justine's quick footsteps crossed the porch. When she opened the door he kept his eyes on the cards; she would never guess how glad he was to see her. "We're out of peanut butter," was all he said.

"Oh, are we?"

He moved a deuce.

"I think I'm losing," he said.

"Never mind." She came to kneel in front of him, a flash of red plaid, and scooped his cards up. Some were left on the rug and some flew out of her hands. "Well, wait a minute," Duncan said.

"Shall I tell your fortune?"

She had never told his fortune in all his life. He stared at her. But Justine only smiled-bright-eyed, out of breath, her hat a little crooked-and began laying cards in a disorderly row that she didn't even glance at. "You are about to alter your entire way of life," she said, smacking down some jack or king. She was watching Duncan's face.

"Yes, well," said Duncan, reaching for his bottle.

"You are going to become a fix-it man for a carnival."

He set the bottle down.

"Your wife will be their fortune teller. You'll have a purple trailer in Parvis, Maryland, and live happily ever after. How do you like me so far?"

"You're crazy," he said, but he was smiling, and he didn't even protest when Justine spilled all the rest of his bourbon while leaning over the cards to give him a kiss.

21

On moving day they got a late start, which was fine because there wasn't that much to move. They were taking only their books and clothes, plus Duncan's spare parts and inventions, packed in a little orange U-Haul van. They were leaving everything else behind. Furniture would be supplied in the trailer. Built in. Justine liked the idea of having everything built in. She enjoyed telling people they were traveling light, and would have thrown away even some things they needed if Duncan hadn't stopped her.

It was a clear, frosty morning in December, with a sky as blue as opals and a pale sun. Some of the neighbors had come to see them off. Dorcas Britt and her husband Joe Pete, and Ann-Campbell with Justine's cat struggling in her arms. Red Emma, Black Emma, old Mrs.

Hewitt and her poodle, Maureen Worth from across the street, still in her bathrobe, and Mrs. Tucker Dawcett, who stood a little apart and looked sad and wistful, as if she expected even now to be handed news of her husband's unfaithfulness like a parting gift. Justine went from one to another, setting her face against theirs and giving them little pats and making promises. "Of course we'll be back. You know we will." Duncan was rearranging boxes in the U-Haul, and from time to time he cursed and stopped to rub his hands together. Red Emma threw him a dark, sullen look that he failed to see. "You tell him to bring you on weekends, hear?" she said. "Don't you let him just keep carting you off every which way." She kissed Justine's cheek. Mrs. Hewitt hugged her. "Oh, it just seems like people are always going, leaving, moving on ..."

"But it's not far," said Justine. "And you can all come visit."

"In a trailer? In a cow pasture?" Dorcas said.

"You're going to love it," Justine told her. "We're going to love it. Oh, I can feel good luck in my bones, I know when we're doing something right. Besides, next month it will be nineteen seventy-four. Add all the digits and you get twenty-one, add those and you come up with three. Our lucky number. Did you ever see a clearer sign?"