Ellen Block - The Language of Sand

“Wait. You sent someone who’s not a real electrician to check my wiring?”

Caught, Merle’s cheeks went pink. “He is the best electrician on Chapel Isle. Having the proper credentials is, um, a technicality.”

“Thanks for explaining. I feel much better.”

“As I was saying, Nat told Hank about how much he moved around, taking the bus if he had the money. Hopping trains if he didn’t. Then Hank asked Nat about his family. Well, Nat got real quiet. Didn’t answer. Thankfully, Hank, drunk as he was, had the sense to keep his trap shut and let the boy speak. Nat told Hank he didn’t have any family. None living, that is. Parents died in a car crash when he was a toddler, both of ’em killed instantaneously. He was strapped into his car seat, made it through the crash without a scratch on him.”

Hearing that, Abigail could have cried. Except she didn’t want to. What she wanted to do was wring Merle’s account from her head. She resented having to pity Nat Rhone, hated having something so personal in common with him. But she did. He’d lost his family and so had she. Abigail wondered if the tale touched a chord with Merle as well. Nat didn’t get the chance to know his parents, while Merle had a son he hadn’t met. She would have liked to ask Merle about it. However, this was Nat’s history he was volunteering, not his own.

“He was sent to live with a relative, an aunt,” Merle went on. “As Nat got older, his temper got worse. The aunt couldn’t get him to mind her and there was no one else, so he was sent to a foster home, then got kicked out and bounced from place to place. Since nobody could control him, nobody would have him. Nat started stealing, getting on the wrong side of the law. Mentioned jail to Hank. Not prison, though. Broke into a car to take the change from the ashtray and got busted. That was when he was seventeen. He drifted from there on.”

“Why are you telling me this, Merle? So I’ll feel sorry for Nat and that’ll absolve his terrible behavior? A bad life isn’t a defense for bad manners or a bad attitude.”

“No, I’m only telling you so you’ll know.”

“How does that change anything?”

“There’s a wide gap between knowing something and not knowing something.”

Abigail pushed her plate aside. “I can’t take many more of these oblique maxims that sound like they came out of fortune cookies. They don’t make any sense.”

“Sure they do. You’re a smart lady. You get the picture.”

She did and she didn’t. Merle took her plate to the sink and washed it, while Abigail sat drumming her fingers. “What do I do when Nat shows up on my doorstep tomorrow to help me move the furniture from the basement?”

“Do what?” Merle nearly dropped the plate.

“We made an agreement. I’d paint Duncan Thadlow’s house with him if he’d move the antiques in the basement upstairs for me. It seemed such a shame to leave them down there. I’m no expert on wood, as you’ve already observed, but the dampness couldn’t be doing the furniture any favors, right?”

Merle was processing what she’d told him. The faucet was running on high. He appeared not to hear it.

“Merle. The water.”

“Oh. Yeah.” He shut off the tap, preoccupied.

“Are you all right?”

“Uh-huh. Hunky-dory.”

Abigail thought otherwise. “I’ve troubled you enough this evening,” she said, standing.

“Not in the least. You want me to pack you what’s left of the casserole?”

Stuffed, she rubbed her stomach. “I may not eat another bite for a week.”

“Don’t go getting narcoleptic on me.”

“Thanks, Merle. Really,” she added on a serious note. “I mean it.”

“You’re welcome. Really.”

Once Abigail was home, she remembered what she had intended to ask Merle. It wasn’t about Nat Rhone. It was about the ledger entry regarding the Bishop’s Mistress .

“One sad story per night is my limit.”

While brushing her teeth in the bathroom, she admired the grout work Nat had done for her, though she was too irritated to give him credit.

“Just because he’s handy doesn’t make him any less of a jerk.”

She shut off the light switch. If Nat was the top electrician on the island and he claimed there weren’t any issues with the wiring, she should believe him. But could she?

Downstairs, the phone rang, startling Abigail. It was past nine. She worried it might be her parents and rushed to answer.

“Abby, is that you?” The reception was spitting static.

“Lottie?”

“Yes, dear. It’s moi . Wanted to make sure you got my gift.”

“The romance novels. Yes, I found them. Thanks. They’re…” Abigail scrolled through a range of descriptive phrases, selecting the least disparaging. “A quick read. Say, there are a few things I’d like to discuss with you about the house.”

No time like the present to come clean about the changes she’d made.

“Wish I could chew the fat, dear, but my cousin is still recuperating from her girdle thing, and I have to wait on her hand and foot. Such a princess.”

“Then maybe I could come by the office to talk. When will you be back?”

“Say again, Abby?” Lottie’s cell phone hissed. “I can’t hear you over this noise. Sounds like frying bacon. Mercy, I need to put that on my grocery list. Wouldn’t a BLT be delish about now? Gotta go, Abby. You have my mouth watering with all this gabbing about food.”

“Hold on. Lottie?”

The line dissolved into a dial tone.

“From books to bacon. A quantum leap. She must have thought you were going to yell at her about the caretaker’s cottage. Can’t say you didn’t try to tell her.”

Upstairs, the ledger was lying on the unmade bed. Abigail moved it to the nightstand, then reconsidered. She had slept soundly the night before, which she hadn’t done in months.

It worked yesterday. It might work again.

Slipping under the quilt, Abigail placed the ledger at her side and waited patiently for sleep to find her.

ruc tion(ruk′shən), n. a disturbance, quarrel, or row. [1815–25; orig. uncert.]

Pain rather than sunlight roused Abigail. The ledger was digging into her shoulder blade. Her watch read a quarter past seven, the same time she’d risen the day before.

She moved the ledger onto the nightstand. “You’re as trusty as an alarm clock.”

If only her body were as dependable. Painting Duncan’s house yesterday had thrust Abigail past her physical limit. Stiff, she slowly rooted through the dresser for something to wear. She was running out of clean clothes. The garbage bag she was using as a hamper was full. A trip to the laundromat would be in order shortly, as would a stop at the market for some aspirin.

Abigail wanted to assess the situation in the basement before Nat arrived. Sheets off, she counted fourteen pieces of furniture. The dining chairs were light, and Abigail could manage them herself. However, navigating the narrow, rickety stairway was going to be a challenge.

As she crested the stairs, lugging a chair, there came a knock at the front door. Nat was on the other side.

“We doing this?” he asked.

“Yes,” Abigail sighed. “We are.” She waved him in.

“Do you need to change?”