The Good House Part 5

Four.

SACAJAWEA.

WHERE YOU GOING?"

The question caught Rick Leahy by surprise. His son's voice had nearly been washed out because it had come from the left side, Rick's bad ear. He'd just touched the doork.n.o.b of the double-wide trailer he shared with his three kids, expecting to slip out unnoticed, but Sean was slumped down on the sofa in the living room, nearly invisible between two piles of unsorted clean laundry. Rick hadn't seen him at first, but now Sean's white-blond hair was unmistakable, the cloned image of what Rick's hair had looked like until it had darkened to a honey shade in adulthood. Sean was staring at the television screen, a bowl of cereal balanced on his knees.

What was Sean doing up by ten on a Sat.u.r.day? The other kids were still in bed.

"Quick ride," Rick said. It wasn't a lie, but it wasn't truthful, either.

"Want to come?"

Sean shook his head. His cheeks and chin were overgrown with what looked like phosph.o.r.escent stubble, in need of shaving. He knew Rick was full of c.r.a.p, but both seemed content to play it this way, not pus.h.i.+ng too hard. Sean might not like where he was going, but there wasn't anything he could do about it, either.

"Be back in an hour," Rick said.

"Do the wordsbad karma mean anything to you?" Sean said.

Rick didn't have an answer for that right away, and he didn't want to argue.

"I wish I could bring your friend back, kid, but I can't," Rick said after a pause, in his most patient voice. "I really am trying to understand how you feel about this. We just disagree."

"Yeah, whatever," Sean said. In other words,Yeah, screw you, Pops. "It's your life."

Rick felt like he was antagonizing his son, a feeling he did not enjoy, especially after the nightmare Sean had been through these past couple years. But he wasn't going to conduct his life according to Sean's superst.i.tions either. If Sean had his way, the property next door would have been walled off since his friend Corey's death.

"Be back in an hour," he said again, and he eased his way outside.

Chestnut was Rick's favorite riding horse, the six-year-old mare he'd bought soon before he found the cheap parcel of land in Sacajawea he now called home, five acres of mostly flat meadowland ab.u.t.ting the woods. He had five other horses now-three were his, and two were retired racehorses biding their time while their owner in Portland waited for buyers or takers for stud services. Named for her coloring, Chestnut was a sweet girl, an animal who understood Rick's whims without much prodding. Rick shouldered a woven basket and took a short running leap to climb the horse's back, with only a thick, patterned Navajo blanket serving as a saddle beneath his well-worn jeans. By now, after riding for years without a saddle, he figured he hadcojones of iron. Rick clucked, spurring Chestnut with his heels. "Come on, girl," he said, and she began a spirited trot away from the barn.

His sister said he collected children and horses, and maybe Bonnie was right. He loved both. Sean was his biological son with a one-night stand who'd given the boy up shortly after his birth, but Tonya and Andres were adoptive children who had lived with them for nearly four years now. Miguelito, the four-year-old he'd had as a foster child, had been adopted out last year when an uncle came forward and the caseworker decided he'd be better off with family. That hole in their home still hurt like h.e.l.l. The agency had warned Rick something like that could happen, but imagining it and experiencing it were very different, like trying toimagine what it would feel like to get his leg sheared off. Kids needed homes, sometimes only for a short time, and he'd willingly offered his-but he'd gotten too at-tached to Miguelito. After Miguelito left, he'd brought in the two racers instead of applying for another foster kid. He would soon, maybe, but not yet. The horses were not his to keep either, but he knew the sting wouldn't be nearly so bad when it was time for them to go.

Above him, the sky staged a skirmish between the blurry morning sun and soupy clouds. As usual in the fall, the clouds seemed destined to win in the end, but not yet. So far, it was so bright and warm that Rick took off his denim jacket and tied it around his waist. Indian summer, he thought. Good. With suns.h.i.+ne burning off the morning dew, conditions were perfect for his morning enterprise. The ground would be good and dry.

Rick's acreage was long and narrow, on a slight incline. The cross-fencing he had built prevented a direct path to the Toussaint woodland directly beside him, so Rick rode Chestnut all the way down to his front gate, which was open, and doubled back to find the trail to the woods he had beaten into the soil over the past two years. There were only a couple of spots that weren't too steep to give his horse access, if he wanted to avoid having to ride all the way down to the dead end of the road and then take the same trail the kids used on their way to The Spot. Rick wasn't interested in The Spot. He had his own path, closer to his property line. The woman who owned the house, Angela Toussaint, had given him permission to ride on her property anytime he chose, but he wasn't really after a morning ride today. That was what he'd lied about.

He wanted to stock up on herbs.

Sean called it stealing, but Rick saw it differently. Angela Toussaint had seemed like a cold character when she'd first come to his house and announced her policy of meeting the parents of any of her son's friends, but she'd invited him to help himself to any of the gifts her land had to offer; walnuts, blackberries, blueberries, apples, or a half-dozen other fruit varieties he could find if he searched long enough.Otherwise, it all just goes to waste, she said. She hadn't mentioned the unattended herb garden behind the house by name, but why should it be excluded?

Chestnut stumbled slightly and slid a half-foot where the soil was loose and damp at the most dramatic drop in the makes.h.i.+ft path. Then she got her footing, and they traveled safely beneath the canopy of evergreens that shaded the Toussaint land, the biggest remaining parcel of forest in town. The path was narrow, barely a path at all. Rick's face wasthwapped by brittle, dead limbs he didn't duck in time to miss. Rick kept his elbow up, guarding against upcoming limbs that might be meaner. At Chestnut's pace, a good pop would knock him on his a.s.s.

There were still enough clear views between the trunks and limbs for Rick to see the rear of the regal house on the ridge above him, every window darkened. Occasionally, Rick saw Joseph Everly tooling around in the backyard, tending the rosebushes or mowing back the brush always trying to reclaim the small back clearing. And sometimes Rick saw a light on in the house, or open windows, signaling that Laurel Everly was doing her work inside. But aside from the presence of the Everlys, the house was dead. A beautiful post-Victorian, lifeless.

Rick fantasized about buying the house if it was ever put up for sale, but he knew he could dream on. He'd won a workmen's comp settlement ten years ago, and lived very carefully as a full-time father ever since, but there was no way he could afford a house like this one. Must be five thousand square feet, maybe more, and Sean had told him it was like a museum inside. Besides, Sean would flip out if he tried to buy the Toussaint place. He wanted nothing to do with it.

Apparently, Angela Toussaint felt the same way, Rick mused. Sorry d.a.m.n shame.

Rick loved beautiful, unappreciated things. Maybe that was the root of his love of foster kids, he thought. Rick couldn't stand to see kids unloved. He'd fought for sole custody of Sean after the boy's Deadhead mother confided that she was planning to sell their blond-haired, blue-eyed baby boy to the highest bidder. And all of his "found" kids had special needs: Tonya had been five when he'd met her, legally blind, her contemplative dark eyes hidden behind thick, owlish gla.s.ses. Andres was a mixed-race Puerto Rican with a killer talent for drawing, saddled with his share of learning problems and a touch of attention deficit hyperactivity disorder. Miguelito had been a dark-skinned Mexican, his ethnicity alone serving as a liability in a system where most adoptive parents were searching for infants who looked more like Sean. But aside from the factors that had trapped the children in foster care for most of their young lives, Rick knew his kids were beautiful.

Beautiful and unappreciated. Just like Angela Toussaint's stately sh.e.l.l of a house.

Overhead, a raven taunted Rick with a piercing squawk. The ravens on this property were G.o.dd.a.m.ned possessive, chattering at him as if they expected him to pay a toll. Protecting their nests, no doubt. This one was right on schedule, like the ogre under the bridge in the children's fairy tale. "f.u.c.k off, bird," Rick muttered, and he heard the bird's wings flutter in what sounded like a fury.

Once the house was no longer in sight, Chestnut slowed, unsure of where to proceed as the rough path forked before them. Rick urged her to go left, past the large cedar tree with a heart-shaped crater in its trunk that served as his landmark. They came to the creek-bed bordered by salmonberry and horsetails, where the rus.h.i.+ng waters had begun to rejuvenate with the infusion of October rainwater. In summertime, this portion of the creek dried to nearly nothing, although it never vanished. Chestnut splashed through the shallow creek to the other side, and the evergreens gave way to red alders and bigleaf maples, and then to a small clearing.

There, Rick saw a crooked configuration of three waist-high wooden fence-posts, blackened with age. There was no fence, and the remaining fence-posts, wrapped in vines and crabgra.s.s, had probably been standing here since the Depression. At one time, old lady Toussaint must have come out here regularly tending to her herbs, because the plants still grew wild in cl.u.s.ters that seemed most abundant where her fencing might have stood. Rick had come across the herb garden by accident during one of his first rides here, and he'd been thrilled with his find.

He had a smorgasbord out here. Already, he spotted the ring of sweet basil plants, with their hairy stalks and yellow-white flowers. He could smell basil from a mile away. Not too far from there, closer to the creek, he saw a cl.u.s.ter of flowering valerian plants. And sweet woodruff growing behind one of the fence-posts. And some thin, practically leafless stalks of dill. His eye also caught the pretty yellow blooms of large-flowered mullein plants basking in a patch of sunlight. About ten yards east, he saw a few large elder shrubs, recognizable by their tiny yellowish white flowers and cl.u.s.ters of violet globe-shaped fruit, nearly black. It all grew of its own accord, some of it out of season. The plants didn't care about the calendar. This was herb heaven.

"Good catch today," Rick said, dismounting.

He untied the leather string on his basket and opened it, pulling out his dirty work-gloves, a small paring knife, and the honed-edge sickle he used to gather herbs. Once he collected and dried these plants, he would make teas that would help him and his kids cope with headaches, indigestion, constipation, sleeplessness, overexcitement, and any symptom a cold or flu might throw at them. Not to mention that the basil plain tasted good, the secret ingredient to his kids' favorite spaghetti and herbed chicken recipes.

Somehow, the basil he grew in his home garden didn't have the same flavor, and he couldn't get valerian to grow from seeds at all. Besides, no other homegrown or store-bought herbs could offer anything close to the potency of the herbs he found on the Toussaint property. When he and his kids came down with the flu last summer, he'd knocked it out of their systems within a day. People in town said the old woman had been famous for her teas, and now he knew why.

Maybe it was something about the land, the nutrients in the soil. Whatever it was, Rick chuckled as he imagined the pretty penny he could earn if he ever found the nerve to plant a couple hundred marijuana seeds out here in the abandoned Toussaint herb garden. He'd have an empire in green. Better than Lotto, he thought.

But that was just idle thinking. Rick had given up gra.s.s at the same time he'd given up college, when he'd found himself responsible for raising a child. If he had an entrepreneurial bone in his body, he'd strike a deal with Angela Toussaint to grow more herbs out here, cultivate them, and market them, even if it was just to a local clientele. h.e.l.l, he could make money on the woman's name alone, the way people in town talked-Madame Toussaint's Magic Teas!Use the old lady's picture on the box. He could envision it, all right.

But Rick Leahy had more ideas than he had drive or discipline. If he hadn't lost the hearing in his left ear after a forklift broadsided him in the s.h.i.+pping yard at his old job in California, he'd probably still be working there today, fantasizing about his escape and hating every minute of it. But G.o.d looks out for children and fools, or so the old proverb said. His sister had hired him a good lawyer, and he'd walked away with five hundred thousand bucks, even after attorney's fees and taxes. Someone with a fire under him could have invested that money and made something of it, Bonnie always said, but Rick was happy with his little chunk of land, his kids, and his horses.

Beside him, Chestnut chuffed restlessly. Her hooves came too close to the dill, so Rick guided her to a safe distance from his cache, looping her reins around the Y intersection on a thick branch of a fallen alder trunk. Fall leaves crunched under his boots as he walked back toward the dill, where his basket was waiting. Good a place to start as any, he decided.

Another bird complained, and when Rick looked up, he noticed a raven perched on each fence-post, all three of them regarding him with a convincing imitation of intelligence. Their black eyes were unblinking, appearing to follow his movements. Weird. He couldn't think of a single time he'd come out here when the ravens didn't gather around the garden to watch him. Still, he couldn't spot the nests. "Ah, I see you brought friends," Rick said cheerfully. "Well, f.u.c.k your friends, too."

A mosquito whirred in Rick's right ear, and he absently slapped at it before beginning his search for the ribbed fruit on the dill plants ripe enough to be of use. Had to be brown, and most of it wasn't ready yet, but some was. Good enough. The flowering stems were good medicine, too.

The Doobie Brothers popped into his head, "Black Water," so he sang quietly to his horse, the trees, and the ravens. "I wanna hear your funk in Dixieland...hey Mama, won't you take me..." He was sure he was butchering the lyrics, like always, a disability Sean razzed him about. But he knew the melody, and this song always took him back to his childhood in Santa Cruz. WatchingHappy Days with his sister, who'd had a crush on Chachi. Eating Now N' Laters. He could almost taste the candy now, tangy and sweet on his tongue. "By the hand, hand...gonna take your hand, little Mama...gonna dance with your daddy..."

Rick had thought he was in a good mood, so the sadness caught him by surprise.

He'd had his share of bad news in life, and he'd learned how to shrug it off with a sense of routine. He fixed things. If he couldn't fix it, like losing Miguelito, he shed his tears and learned to live with it. That would be his key to longevity in life, he always said. But after fifteen minutes of collecting herbs, soon after he'd moved from the dill to the valerian root he gave Andres in small doses to help him quiet his mind at night, Rick noticed that he felt so sad that his muscles had turned leaden. He could have just been kicked in the gut, for all the sorrow he felt knotted in his middle. The s.h.i.+ft had been so gradual, he hadn't even noticed until he was stewing in it, on the verge of tears.

Rick stopped singing. What the h.e.l.l was going on with him? He looked up from the small mounds of soil where he'd uprooted the valerian plants and stared around him. One raven had flown off, but two still remained, staring. The ravens no longer amused him.

"Go on, get away," he said, chucking a stone at the nearest fence-post. He had a good arm, so he hit it dead center. With unpleasant cries, both birds flew off. But they didn't go far. He could hear them in the treetops, all three of them up there, probably. Or more.

Rick saw an image in his mind, then. But not exactly. It was more like reliving the moment when he'd first seen the image, crisp and clear: Migeulito's brown arms reaching toward him from the caseworker's embrace the day she and the boy's uncle came to pick him up. They'd done the transfer slowly, letting the uncle spend time with Miguelito in the weeks preceding the change, and Miguelito seemed to like the guy, which had been a relief to all of them. They'd acted out the pleasantries in the living room, him and the other kids pretending they were greeting Miguelito's thin, pock-faced uncle as a good friend because the caseworker thought it would be less traumatic that way. But when it had been time for Miguelito toleave, the kid had let out such wounded howls, his arms outstretched, brown eyes imploring as he called for Rick. Remembering the horror of that instant, Rick felt tears p.r.i.c.k his eyes. His vision blurred.

"Motherf.u.c.k," Rick said, tasting his anguish anew. First Sean's friend had shot himself in the head, then they'd lost Miguelito a year later, when his uncle materialized out of nowhere. "Who the h.e.l.l did we p.i.s.s off? Can you tell me that one G.o.dd.a.m.ned thing?"

Rick didn't know who he was talking to, but he felt certain someone could hear him. G.o.d, perhaps, the orchestrator of it all. That sense, rather than giving Rick satisfaction, made his grief and anger more keen. What was the point of trying to spread love and do the right thing if it came to nothing in the end? What was the point of any of it?

Whatever it was-whoeverHe was-was watching Rick right now. He knew it.

"Youb.a.s.t.a.r.d!" he shouted suddenly, nearly pitching himself off-balance. He had never been more angry, and the shout tore at his throat. His phlegmy, altered voice echoed deep into the heart of the shady woods before him, toward The Spot and the reaches he rarely explored. "You heartless b.i.t.c.h-b.a.s.t.a.r.d! Go f.u.c.k up somebody else's life!I've done my share!"

Spittle sprayed from his mouth. Both hands were locked into fists, rock-hard. He wanted to hurt someone, maybe to kill something. Rick was breathing in furious gasps.

Then, the moment broke. Rick was left crouching beside his basket with a clear mind, the terrible mood lifted, hearing the whirs and whistles of insects around him. What the h.e.l.l hadthat been about? He could hear his last shout even now, bouncing in the woods. A stranger's words in his own voice. He'd gone from singing the Doobie Brothers to screaming like a lunatic in the s.p.a.ce of mere minutes. His underarms were damp, itching uncomfortably.

Do the wordsbad karmamean anything to you?

For the first time, the wordsbad karma meant a whole h.e.l.l of a lot to Rick Leahy. Rick began to feel caught in a net, as if the tree branches surrounding him served as webbing. Almost as if-and this next thought made the hairline on his neck sizzle slightly-he could not leave here today when he was ready.Rick had never been claustrophobic, indoors or outdoors, but now he understood what the affliction meant. He felt trapped.

"This is nuts. I'm actually sitting here bugged out for absolutely no f.u.c.king reason," he said. He tried to use an old trick he'd learned as a kid when he had nightmares, using his voice as a.s.surance, a window to reason. Buoyed by his wave of rationality, Rick laughed at himself. "You're letting Sean's head-games get to you. This is priceless, Leahy."

What happened next hadn't happened to him as a kid, or at any other time.

At first, the sc.r.a.ping sound he heard in the leaves behind him sounded like the noise a small animal's hurried pa.s.sage might have made. A rabbit, a squirrel, maybe a creature as large as a fawn. The sound startled him because it was so close-ten yards, maybe fifteen-but he didn't see any movement. Chestnut, sensing the s.h.i.+ft of his mood, stirred with a snort, taking tentative steps forward and then backward, as much as her tied reins would allow.

"Easy, girl," Rick told her, really talking to himself.

The sound came again, a little louder this time, though not as close, and from the opposite direction. Rick's head whirled around. Nothing but the forest ahead of him, where it grew more densely, away from any clearings, gardens, or beaten paths. Where very little sunlight bled through.

A man might have made that sound. Or something bigger.

"Mr. Everly?" he called.

The mosquito's whine in his ear was deafening this time, and Rick slapped at his earlobe so hard that it stung. Then, his hand froze where it was, like the fl.u.s.tered pose Jack Benny used to strike all the time, except that Rick didn't feel fl.u.s.tered. He felt numb. His left hand was raised, and he'd slapped hisleft ear. He hadn't heard a sound out of that ear in ten years, and yet he'd just heard a mosquito buzzing there, big and bad.

"What the f.u.c.k...?" he whispered.

Rick snapped his fingers outside of his ear, straining to hear, but the sound was indistinct, his right ear fooling him by taking up the slack. The dead s.p.a.ce on his left side was still there. The judge had ruled he hadpermanent hearing loss, with five hundred thousand bucks to back it up. But Rick had heard something there a moment ago. A mosquito, or some insect. Something.

Rick's heart cranked up, and he felt dizzy from the rush of blood to his head. He didn't know what was going on this morning, but he didn't like it. Not a puny little bit. He also wasn't going to stick around to see if he'd come to like it any better. He was remote from everyone out here. He could shout himself hoa.r.s.e, and no one would hear him.

"Know what, Chestnut?" he said. "I think I'm about ready to..."

He didn't finish the sentence, because the noise had started again, a motion of dry leaves sc.r.a.ping the forest floor. But this time, even with his bad ear, he made no mistake: It wasn't a rabbit, a deer, a man, or anything else living. This was much louder, bigger. The ma.s.s of leaves s.h.i.+fted with a sustained rustling hiss, there was a short pause, and then the ma.s.sive s.h.i.+fting came again. The noise reminded him of what it might sound like if someone had an impossibly large broom and was slowly sweeping, sweeping, sweeping. An acre's worth of leaves seemed to move at once, as if the ground was methodically shaking them from its back. There was no breeze to speak of, so it couldn't be the wind. What, then? Rick stared, seeing no movement anywhere in his line of vision. But he heard it, and that was enough. The sweeping.

Coming straight at him, from somewhere in the woods.

Blood-flow seared Rick's face. He sprang to his feet, abandoning his basket and tools. He freed his sweating palms from his gloves, still breathing hard. Chestnut whinnied when he approached her, wild-eyed, and he shushed her as nervous perspiration dripped into his eyes. He stroked her nose and muzzle, clucking, telling her she was a good girl. Chestnut was pulling so much that he had a hard time untying her reins, and when he did, he was afraid she wouldn't stand still long enough to mount.

Horses were neurotic as h.e.l.l, but this wasn't like Chestnut. She was scared, the way she'd be scared if they were surrounded by a hidden pack of wolves. Using the felled alder to gain height, Rick flung himself across his horse's back, landing hard and off-center. His t.e.s.t.i.c.l.es flared with hot pain. After making a confused half-circle, Chestnut turned toward the creek, back the way they had come. "Come on, girl," he said, and man and horse began their flight from Marie Toussaint's herb garden together. Some kind of bird, perhaps one of the ravens, wailed behind them.

Paw-paaaaaaaaaaawwww.

For a horrible instant, the cry sounded precisely like Miguelito's, the day they sent him away. Pure instinct made Rick sit straight upright, looking back. He saw only his basket, the fence-posts in the clearing, and the shadows in the woods. Goose b.u.mps blotched Rick's arms, and he spurred Chestnut faster, hunching down close to her mane. "Jesus...That wasnot Miguelito," he murmured once, then twice, and soon he believed it.

Halfway home, when he could no longer hear the eerie sounds of rearranging leaves or birds parroting human cries-and was discovering rapid solace in the notion that he had imagined most of what he had heard-Rick cursed himself for leaving his basket of herbs. He had one h.e.l.l of a stomachache, and a cup of dill tea would take care of him good.

Five.

Two weeks later.

FRIDAY.

OCEANBEACHHIGHWAYin Longview took drivers through the city beneath hilltops dotted with expensive homes half-hidden behind evergreens. Because the streets were slick from earlier rainfall, the noontime sun made the four-lane highway's asphalt gleam as if it were topped with gla.s.s.

The roadside scenery, though, was less impressive: Ocean Beach was flanked by fast-food chains, grocery outlets, and strip malls. Taco Bell. Starbucks. Chinatown Restaurant. McDonald's. Wal-Mart. Video King. The chains were more densely packed than Angela remembered, but the city of thirty-five thousand did not seem to have changed much, carrying on its existence without her just fine, thank you. She and Naomi would soon pa.s.s the more scenic portion-the historic affluence of the Old West Side and Lake Sacajawea-but Angela hadn't come to Was.h.i.+ngton to spend time sight-seeing in Longview. In the most literal sense, she was just pa.s.sing through.

She and Naomi had arrived at Portland International Airport an hour ago, picking up their rented Ford Explorer for the road portion of their trip after the two-hour flight. Getting to Gramma Marie's town, as always, was nothing short of an expedition, and Angela always felt a little like the town's Native American namesake when she set out for Sacajawea, as if she, too, were guiding Lewis and Clark through the wilderness. Once they had crossed the bridge from Portland's airport to drive north, entering the state of Was.h.i.+ngton, most signs of settlement vanished, with a nuclear power plant and scattered highway signs interrupting the meadowlands, farmhouses, miles of greenery, and a town facing the highway called Kalama that evoked images of a 1950s movie set, with few other reminders that they were still in the twenty-first century. It was pretty, all right, especially on sunny days like today, with the fall leaves in full plumage, but Angela was a city girl at heart. Her eye was wary of open s.p.a.ces, accustomed to man-made distractions. Longview was about an hour from Portland, and there were countless commutes in L.A. that took the same time-but for some reason, the drive here always felt longer.

Naomi was asleep on the pa.s.senger side, strapped safely into her seat, her black miniature poodle, Onyx, curled at her toes. Angela didn't like that dog-she might be able to respect a small terrier, but apoodle? She and her friend had come close to their first real argument when Naomi insisted on bringing him. Angela had given in, remembering that people who spent as much time away from home as Naomi often needed security blankets, and Onyx was Naomi's. No matter where she was, as long as she had her dog with her, Naomi could feel she was at home, and Angela envied that about her. Silly haircut or not, Angela understood the dog's value. His purple collar was on the gaudy side, but at least Onyx wasn't trussed with little pink bows.

For now, Angela was glad both pet and master were asleep. She didn't want a single aspect of Longview to catch her friend's eye-Ooh, girl, can we stop for a latte?orHey, is that a Thai food restaurant? orWhere's that lake, Angela? Let's pull over and take Onyx for a walk. In spite of how long as she'd been putting off her return visit, once Angela had made the decision to return to Sacajawea, she'd hardly been able to think about anything else. Nervousness still fluttered beneath it all, and she'd suffered through her usual h.e.l.lish nights, but mostly she felt eager. She longed to see Gramma Marie's house, the round attic window, the walnut tree, all the touchstones of her childhood. Even the pain waiting there intrigued more than frightened her. In the past few weeks, she had learned to view her return to the place of Corey's death as any other challenge she had faced in her life-something she could vanquish. And even if she was wrong, if she could not salvage any of the joy she had once felt in Gramma Marie's house, at least she would know, and that knowledge would be hers to keep. Knowledge would give her its own strength, an end to her limbo.

Thirty minutes to go. Almost there. Angela's heart was already throbbing.

"I can't believe I'm back here," she whispered, amazed at her courage. "Bless you, Naomi. I owe you a big one. I'm gonna work my a.s.s off for you. That first million is just the beginning."

Naomi, still sleeping, offered a delicate snore in response.

City reverted to country in a blink of an eye. Ocean Beach Highway became State Route Four, shrinking to a narrow lane heading west out of Longview's city limits. Immediately, the convoys of logging trucks began, some in pairs, some in fours, each strapped with a dozen or more thick, freshly cut trees with their sap-orange cores exposed, stripped of limbs. The trees were long and somehow proud despite their fallen state. The strip malls were replaced by swampy ca.n.a.ls on either side of the road, until the land grew steep on the northern side, transforming into rocky ridges where small waterfalls of frothy rainwater tumbled down.ROCKS , a yellow highway sign warned. Fencing was draped high across some of the stony ridges to keep the rocks in place, to prevent them from escaping and smas.h.i.+ng into the winds.h.i.+elds of pa.s.sersby. On the south side, the water grew less swampy, widening until it converged with the green-brown waters of the Columbia River. If she kept driving, Angela would end up at the Pacific Ocean, but that was a couple hours' trek, and it wasn't her destination. Sacajawea was only thirty miles from Longview. It was close.

As always, Angela gripped the steering wheel more tightly on the Four, looking out for tumbling rocks, stray wildlife, and a dozen other hazards that plagued this road. A speed sign warned her to slow to thirty miles per hour because of an upcoming curve. From now on, Angela knew, this road would require her full concentration.

Following one of the sharp curves in the road, Angela was uplifted by a new angle of the wide water before her, reminiscent of the ocean she would never reach. Across the river on the Oregon side, the waters were skirted by mountains that nearly blended into the clouds hanging above them. The clouds' bellies were dark, bloated with unshed rainwater, but their edges still shone cottony and white, brightened by the suns.h.i.+ne prevailing in the noontime sky. Seagulls and other seabirds wheeled around each other, some of them so far away they were pinp.r.i.c.ks. This was beautiful.

"Naomi," Angela said. "Wake up. You'll want to see this. We're almost there."

Blinking, Naomi stared at the panorama. "Oh, yeah, girl, this is so pretty.This is where your grandmama lived?"

"Pretty close."

"No wonder she didn't mind being isolated up here in the middle of nowhere."

"It has its moments," Angela said.

Naomi squirmed like an excited child. "This'll be like going to a spa, huh? Toussaint Lodge."

Why not? Angela loved the claw-foot bathtub in the upstairs bedroom, the living room's picture window was perfect for deer-watching in front of the fireplace, and she and Tariq had installed a hot tub on the backyard deck, one of their last home improvements. People paid good money to visit a place like that. "Yeah," Angela said, smiling. "I hope so."

Her mother used to say that hope was nothing but a heartache that hadn't happened yet. But Angela was still addicted to it. She had never learned how to give it up.

Tariq's VW van was parked on the roadside at Toussaint Lane, waiting.