Энн Тайлер - Searching for Caleb

Maybe so. Lucy pictured the diamond shape endlessly repeated, like the design on the border of a blanket. But the thought failed to cheer her up.

Then came the last gift, the largest, a gigantic cube two feet square. The card was the largest too. It had to be. Birthday greetings and many happy returns from your sons Justin II, Daniel Jr., and Marcus .

“ Well now,” said Grandfather Peck.

Two began chuckling. The wrapping was a joke.

First the striped paper, then a large white box. A slightly smaller box inside, then fleur-de-lis paper covering another box, then another, another . . .

Grandfather Peck grew bewildered. Mountains of ribbon and tissue rose around him. “What’s all this?” he kept asking. “What’s . . . I don’t understand.”

“Keep going,” Two said.

He and his brothers had spent an entire evening working on the wrapping. Ordinarily they were not humorous men, but while fitting cartons inside cartons on Lucy’s dining room table they had chortled like schoolboys, and Lucy had had to smile. She smiled now, seeing Two’s face all squeezed together to keep the laughter in. “Go on, go on,” he kept saying.

A hatbox, containing a shoebox, containing a stationery box, containing a playing card box, containing a matchbox. And finally the gift itself, wrapped in white paper. Two was laughing so hard that the corners of his eyes were damp. “It’s a joke,” he explained to Duncan. “See?”

“Typical,” said Duncan.

“No, see? They did it at this office party, when Dan’s secretary got married. They wrapped a little tiny present in a great big box, funniest thing you ever saw.”

“It would be funnier if they had wrapped a great big present in a little tiny box,” said Duncan.

“No, see—”

Grandfather Peck removed the Scotch tape from the minute rectangle of paper. He opened the paper carefully, but for once did not fold it and set it aside. Perhaps because it was too small. Perhaps because he was too shocked: his present was a single calling card.

“ ‘Worth and Everjohn, Inc.,’ ” he read out. “ ‘Your Local Domestic Investigation Agency. 19 Main Street, Caro Mill, Maryland. Why Stay in Doubt? Call Us and Find Out. All Reports in Strictest . . . ’ ” He looked up at Two. “I don’t quite understand,” he said.

But instead of answering Two rose and left the room. They heard him open the front screen door. “All right now!” he shouted.

The man he brought back with him looked like Abe Lincoln, even to the narrow border of beard along his jawline. He wore a black suit, a very starched white shirt, and a string tie. Probably he was in his thirties, but his weary, hungry expression made him seem older. Runlets of sweat streaked his temples. There was a pulse in the hollow of one cheek. “Sorry to have kept you out there so long,” Two was saying. “I know you must be hot.”

“Oh, I didn’t have nothing else to do.”

“Father, this is Mr. Eli Everjohn,” Two said.

Mr. Everjohn held out his hand, which seemed to have an unusual number of bones in it. Grandfather Peck peered into his face. “I don’t understand,” he said.

“Your birthday present, Father.”

“Oh, naturally,” Duncan said to no one. “I’m surprised they didn’t gift-wrap the man himself.”

“Well, they thought of it,” Lucy told him.

“Father, Mr. Everjohn’s a detective,” said Two.

“Yes?”

“He tracks people down.”

“Yes, of course,” said Grandfather Peck. He waited patiently, ready to smile as soon as he saw the point.

“He’s going to track Uncle Caleb for you.”

“How’s that?”

“See, Dan and Mark and I pooled together and hired him. We thought, why not get this thing settled? I mean determine, once and for all, that Uncle Caleb is . . . I mean you’re not getting anywhere, Father. Now we’ll spare no expense. We’ve picked a man who’s located here so that you can keep tabs, help out in any way that’s needed, and no matter how long it takes we’re prepared to foot the bill. Understand? That’s our little gift to you. Happy birthday.”

His father stared at him.

“Didn’t you hear?” Two asked.

“But I don’t . . . ”

Mr. Everjohn’s hand remained outstretched, motionless. You would think that he went through this every day.

“I don’t believe I require any assistance, thank you just the same,” Grandfather Peck told him.

“But Father! It’s your birthday present.”

“Then it’s his to refuse,” Duncan said.

“Stay out of this, Duncan.”

Duncan rose and came around the table. He shook Mr. Everjohn’s hand. “I believe,” he said, “that my grandfather likes to track his own people.”

“Certainly, for fifteen years! ” Two shouted.

But he was not a shouting man. Even his sisters, fluttering their hands toward their ears, couldn’t hold it against him. This was all Duncan’s doing, some germ he spread. “Two, dear,” Lucy told him, and right away he lowered his voice.

“Oh,” he said, “don’t think I don’t know why you’ve let him live here, Duncan. You like to see this happening, your grandfather chasing rainbows on the Greyhound bus line. But consider him, for once. At the present rate, how long will it be before he’s successful?”

“Forever, probably,” Duncan said. “But at least he’s happier than most other Pecks I know.”

Everyone looked at the grandfather. He stared blandly back, not giving away a thing.

“And I doubt if success is what we want here,” said Duncan. “What would you do with Caleb now? Where would you fit him in? In the end you’d just have to let him run on, like a fox after a foxhunt.”

“Oh, was he a sportsman?” Mr. Everjohn asked.

“What? I don’t know. No.”

“Of course not,” said Two.

Mr. Everjohn took a spiral notebook from his shirt pocket. He uncapped a Bic pen and wrote something down. In the sudden silence Justine said, “Maybe you’d like a seat.”

“What for?” Duncan asked. “He’s not staying.”

And his grandfather said, “Yes, actually Justine and I—”

“That’s just what we’re trying to spare you,” Two told him. “These endless, fruitless searches, wandering about the country like a pair of — let a professional do it.” He turned to Duncan. “As for what to do with Caleb,” he said, speaking very low and fast, “I seriously doubt that that problem will arise. If you follow me.”

“What, do you imagine he’s dead?”

Two gave his father a sidelong glance.

“You can’t stand to think he’s alive and well and staying away on purpose ,” Duncan said. “Can you? But he’s a Peck and he’s not even ninety, barely in his prime. I’ll bet you a bottle of bourbon he’s sitting in an old folks’ home this very minute watching The Dating Game. ”

Grandfather Peck slammed a hand down on the table. Everybody stared.

“I’ve stood a lot from you, Duncan,” he said, “but not this. I do not have a brother in an old folks’ home. ”

If he had spoken to Lucy that way she would have crumbled and died, but Duncan only raised his eyebrows. (And though she blushed for him, she felt a little thrill that nothing these Pecks could do would ever really touch him.)

“Mr. Everjohn,” said the grandfather, “I’ll tell you all I know, and then you get to work. I am not a drinking man but I want to collect a bottle of bourbon from my grandson here.”

Then he stood up and led Mr. Everjohn to the living room. Two went with them but the others stayed in the kitchen, gazing down at their slices of cake, which no one had the appetite for. Lucy tore her napkin to shreds and wondered where the Gelusil was. Sarah fanned herself with a sheaf of folded wrapping paper. Justine was chewing on a birthday candle and Laura May had picked up the family tree to admire her own embroidery. Only Duncan, circling the table aimlessly, seemed to have any energy left. He whistled something unfamiliar. He touched a strand of Justine’s hair as he passed. He looked over Laura May’s shoulder at the family tree. “Has it occurred to you,” he asked her, “that someone somewhere may still be searching for Justin?”