Chapter 17

By three in the afternoon, Anne and Mary have made themselves at home in the flat atop Effen’s business. He’s left a message for Gustie at the park, and he still doesn’t know what’s going on. The rangers say only that they’ll give Gustie his message. They have no comment about Tom. Effen doesn’t like the sound of things, but he refuses to belabor the point with the girls. They have their own hardships. He’s not about to lecture. All he can do is show them it’s possible to be worried sick about someone, yet still keep your dignity.

The flat’s not the best place for entertaining youngsters. It has no computer, no television, no VCR. It has the CD player, but Effen’s recordings are an acquired taste for most adults, let alone children.

What the flat does offer is something most homes will never have: a harpsichord. Anne wants Effen to open it up. She has to touch the keys and the strings and the quills that pluck the strings. Mary watches, but her expression betrays neither interest nor boredom.

“Play something,” Anne says.

Rather than hit the girls with highly ornate Scarlatti or Couperin, he plays “Petite Camusette,” the same French Renaissance tune Tom heard at the barn the other day. The piece, about Robin and Marian going arm and arm into the greenwood, is short, quirky, and fun.

“Oops, here it is down here,” and “There it is, over there,” Effen says as snippets of the melody echo through the parts like bird chirping through the woods. Anne giggles. Mary watches, then, when the song is over, returns to the books and cassette player she smuggled through the snow beneath her coat. Anne asks Effen to show her how to play the harpsichord.

He gives her the chair, shows her some of the opening air from Bach’s Goldberg Variations. He repeats the opening bars further down the keyboard. She can’t read music, so she mimics his fingers' motions on the keys in the octave in front of here. Her own fingers are weak and uncoordinated, but she valiantly pushes ahead, determined to have everything working together. “You make it look so easy,” she says.
Effen shrugs. “It’s like anything else. Do it long enough, and it becomes part of you.”

Anne’s had enough. She stands. Effen reclaims his chair and continues the set of variations. After a few minutes, Anne asks Effen if he’ll do Tom’s funeral.

“He’s not dead, Annie, just missing. There’s a big difference.”

“Yeah, but if it comes to that, will you do it?”

He almost says, “That’s up to Tom’s family,” but decides it’s a terrible thing to tell a child whose mother spends time with a man in what looks like a marriage but isn’t. Say, “That’s up to Tom’s family,” and he’ll suggest that Gustie and the girls don’t count, or that Gustie is a harlot and girls are illegitimate. Effen knows Gustie is not a harlot and the girls have a dad who is a dad in every way, except he doesn’t live with them.

Effen’s not sure what the girls think of the arrangement between Tom and their mother. They seem to like Tom. They’re worried about him.

Anne is waiting for Effen’s answer. “Let’s see …” He squints. Maybe he can buy his brain some time by pretending to be lost. “I’m sorry. What did you say?”

“About Tom’s funeral.”

“Ah, yes, a funeral for a man who would probably kill us both if he heard us talking about him like this. I don’t know,” he says with sudden enthusiasm. “It depends. Maybe he’s already made arrangements. Maybe he hasn’t. Not everybody as young as Tom plans for that kind of a future.”

“Why not? They make wills, don’t they?”

“Yes, but when you’re Tom’s age, you don’t think of things like that.”

“Then who’ll decide what to do with him?”

“His parents, I suppose.”

“Will you do my funeral?”

Effen plays the cracks. “Annie!”

“What?”

“That’s a terrible thing to be talking about at your age! I forbid it. As long as you’re in my house, I absolutely, utterly, no-questions-asked forbid it.”

“Why? I mean, it’s what you do for a living, isn’t it?”

Jaysus, is she flirting with me or is she serious?

Effen glances over his glasses. The girls’ face, china-fresh as her mother’s, reflects nothing but serenity and the eerie wisdom that makes kids say profound things that nobody expects.

“Why are you thinking of dying?” Effen asks gently.

The question amuses her. “Hey, if I go into a book store, I talk about books. If I go into a pet store, I talk about pets. Didn’t you talk death stuff when your uncle had the business? I mean, you grew up surrounded by it, didn’t you?”

He doesn’t deny that, when he was Anne’s age, he was indeed Uncle Ed’s chief clerk and go-fer. “Of course, I also did regular kid things, like play baseball and practice piano.”

“So you didn’t think death stuff was weird.”

Effen gives in. “No, I did not.”

“So why should I think it’s weird? And why should you think it’s weird that I don’t think it’s weird?”

“All right, I surrender. You’ve proved your point.”

“Does that mean you’ll do my funeral?”

Effen sighs. “Only if they’re still letting me practice when I’m in my hundreds. Now do me a favor? Knock off the death bit and have some fun.”

Hearing her talk like this spooks him. Should he tell Gustie? He doesn’t want Anne to think he’s a tattle-tale. And God knows what Gustie’s going to have to deal with.
God in heaven, what has happened to Tom?

The longer Effen waits, the less his tolerance for waiting. He calls the park again. The rangers give him the same response.

“Mom kept calling, too,” Anne says. “Finally, they just came for her.”

Come midnight, Mary is asleep on the sleigh bed, and Anne is asleep on the sofa. Effen is stuffed low in the corner of the wing chair, trying to stay awake.

There’s noise downstairs. Someone’s unlocking the door?

He takes the main staircase, now brightly lighted by the period chandelier in the vestibule. Gustie and Tom have come for the ladies. Tom and Effen shake hands. Tom looks tired. He needs a shave. As they head for the flat, he tells Effen he’d been detained by a National Guard unit on a training exercise.

“National Guard from where, Nome? And why would they detain a park superintendent doing his job?”

Tom throws up his hands. “Don’t ask. They thought I was where I didn’t belong. Assholes. It was hours before Trenton decided who to send after me.”

Effen has the feeling Tom’s not telling the truth. As he speaks, he looks at Effen from the corner of his eye. Effen knows Tom as a businessman, and that is not Tom’s style.

Does Gustie notice? Probably not. They’re going upstairs. She’s watching her step. She looks beat. Her mind is on her daughters.

Anne throws her arms around Gustie and gives Tom a shy kiss on the cheek. “What happened?”

“It’s a long story,” Tom says, and promises to tell it on the way home.

Though the snow has long stopped, the streets have yet to be plowed. One of the state’s heavier park trucks is outside, waiting for Tom and the family. As the girls, bundled up, follow Tom outside, Gustie lingers. “I can’t thank you enough.” Her voice is soft, lest the girls hear.

“Sure, Gus, it’s okay.”

“No, I’m serious. I can’t tell you how much it means to me.”

“Well, it would mean a lot to me if you run along and get home safely. I’ll see you later.”

She has the hesitant, hopeful look of a person who wants to kiss someone but doesn’t know if it’s the right thing to do.

Apparently, it is not.

“G’night,” she says, and leaves.

The house is empty again.

Effen enjoyed being with the girls, and he misses them already. But he feels sorry for them. There are so many unknowns ahead of them. There are too many chances for things to go wrong.

Effen remembers what it was like when he was Anne’s age, but he can’t understand why people talk about how wonderful it was to be young.

He would hate to be thirteen or twenty or even thirty again. He would have this business with the farm waiting for him. And all the other miserable things.

He resumes his life where he left it eighteen hours ago: curled beneath the covers, doing his best to hide in the timeless safety of a deep, dreamless sleep.