“Oh, bless her heart,” Lucy said. “Well, some of these things are her wedding presents. Did we tell you we’re giving her your great-grandma’s silver?”
Not a one of them was tactless enough to comment on Meg’s manner of marrying.
“Now,” said Two. “Tell me straight. How’s Duncan’s business going?”
“Oh, fine, Uncle Two. Just fine.”
“What is it again? Jewelry?”
But then Grandfather Peck came down the steps, bending in an odd flimsy way at the knees, and he had to be greeted and fussed over. Lucy kissed his bristly white cheek, Two shook his hand. “Happy birthday!” Lucy shouted.
“How’s the what?”
“Happy birthday!”
He looked at her for a moment, considering. “Oh, very well, thank you,” he said finally.
“You don’t have to shout, Aunt Lucy,” Justine told her. “Only narrow in. You know what I mean?”
“Oh yes,” said Lucy, although she didn’t. They went through this on every visit.
Once they were inside the house, there was the usual difficulty in knowing what to say about it. Certainly some comment seemed called for. But the rooms were small and dark. The windows were curtained only by great tangles of plants all merging and mingling and sending long runners clear across the floor. There were not nearly enough places to sit. In one of the little back bedrooms, Lucy was horrified to glimpse an absolutely bare, rust-stained mattress, striped blue and white. It reminded her of the time her church group had toured a flophouse for their social service project. “Justine, dear heart,” she said, “have we interrupted your bedmaking?”
“My what? Oh no, I’m going to run the sheets down to the laundromat this evening.”
“Perhaps I could help you put the fresh ones on.”
“But I don’t have any others,” Justine said.
Lucy sat down very suddenly on a chrome-legged chair that had been dragged out of the kitchen.
Grandfather Peck never would open his presents until after lunch. He had them taken to the table, and meanwhile he and Two settled themselves in the living room and discussed business affairs. Since both of them were retired, it was a vague, wistful, second-hand sort of discussion. “Dan I believe is very much involved with that Kingham matter,” Two said. “You remember Kingham.”
“Oh yes. What was that again?”
“Well, let’s see, I’m not quite … but he says it’s moving just fine.”
“Fine, is it.”
Perhaps Two should not have retired just yet. But he would feel better when his brothers joined him—Dan in two years, Marcus the year after that. (Sixty-eight was the age they had agreed upon.) Then Claude and Richard could run things on their own. There was no point in working yourself straight into the grave. Still, Two seemed bored and listless as he sat sunk in a corner of the threadbare couch. His father nodded opposite him. His father was so aged that he had reached a saturation point; no new wrinkles had been added in years. He looked not much different from the way he had at seventy. Not much different from Two, as a matter of fact. They might have been brothers. This was how they all ended up, then: arriving at some sort of barrier and sitting down to wait for death, joined eventually by others who had started out later. In the end, the quarter-century that divided their generations amounted to nothing and was swept away. Lucy passed a hand over her own wispy, corrugated forehead. She looked at Two, a handsome man whom she had determined to call Justin back when they were courting, but finally she had given in and called him what his family did. They won, as they always had. Everything was leveled, there were no extremes of joy or sorrow any more but only habit, routine, ancient family names and rites and customs, slow careful old people moving cautiously around furniture that had sat in the same positions for fifty years.
But just as she felt herself sinking into a marsh of despair, she heard Duncan’s light quick step across the porch. She saw him fling the screen door open—such a tall boy, or man rather, with his eyes lit from within and that awning of fair hair flopping over his high, pure, untouched forehead. She rose and smoothed her skirt down and held her purse more tightly to her stomach. “Duncan, darling,” she said. His kiss was as hurried as ever, brief and light as a raindrop, but she felt her heart floating softly upward and she was certain that this time everything was going to go wonderfully.
For lunch Justine served baked ham, potatoes, and snap beans. Everyone was pleasantly surprised. “Why, Justine,” said Two, “this is excellent. This ham is very tasty.”
“Oh, Grandfather did that.”
“Hmm?”
They stared at her. She seemed perfectly serious. Her grandfather was absorbed in salting his beans and could not be contacted.
For dessert they had a layer cake with nine large candles on it and three small ones. Lucy watched closely while it was sliced. “Is it a mix, dear?” she asked.
“Oh, no.”
“You made it from scratch?”
“Grandfather made it.”
This time, he looked up. He gave them a shy, crooked smile and then lowered his white eyelashes. “Why, Father Peck!” Lucy said.
“I did the ham too,” he said. “She tell you that?”
“Yes, she did.”
“Also the potatoes. I baked them first, you see, then scooped them out … found it in Fannie Farmer. Some people call them potato boats.”
Two looked at his watch.
“The cake is what is known as a war cake,” said the grandfather. “It makes do with considerably less butter and eggs than we would normally use, you see. After all, we’re living in reduced circumstances.”
He seemed to savor the last two words: reduced circumstances. Lucy thought they sounded smugly technical, like devaluated currency or municipal bonds. For a very brief moment she wondered if he didn’t almost enjoy this life—these dismal houses, weird friends, separations from the family, this moving about and fortune telling. If he weren’t almost proud of the queer situations he found himself in. But then Sarah said, “Remember Grandma’s orange peel cake?” and his face became suddenly thin and lost.
“Oh. Oh yes,” he said.
“She used to mix it secretly in the pantry. Remember? She said she would give the recipe to Sulie but Sulie says she never did. Although of course we can’t be too sure of that.”
“I wonder what was in it,” Justine said dreamily, and she paused so long with her knife in mid-air that Two grew impatient.
“Come on,” he said. He looked at his watch again. “It’s one thirty-two. Do you always have dinner so late?”
“Mostly we don’t have dinner at all,” Justine said.
“I ask because last year we ate around noon. Dessert was served shortly before one.”
“Was it?”
“The year before that, we ate even earlier.”
“Did we?”
“Is this a new hobby of yours?” Duncan asked Two. “Are you planning to graph us?”
“To—no. No, it’s just a little matter of timing, you understand. I thought the presents would be opened by one o’clock. Maybe we could do them before dessert.”
“But I had counted on enjoying my cake,” the grandfather said.
He and Two stared at each other, a pair of old, cross men. “This is a matter of timing, Father,” Two told him.
“Of what?”
“Timing!”
“Speak up.”
Two groaned.
“The worst of it is,” Lucy whispered to Justine, “now Two is growing a teensy bit deaf himself.”
“I most certainly am not,” Two said.
“Sorry, dear.”
Two picked up a small flat package. “From Sarah,” he said. “Happy birthday.”
Two’s father took the package and turned it over. How many times had Lucy watched him painfully untie a bow, peel off the Scotch tape, remove the paper and fold it carefully for future use before he would look to see what he had been given? Year after year he
received this cascade of shirts and socks and monogrammed handkerchiefs, all in glossy white boxes and handsome paper, tied with loopy satin bows. To each gift he said, “Why, thank you. Thank you very much,” after which he replaced it in its box. Probably none of these things would ever be used. Except, of course, Justine’s: a crumpled white sack of horehound drops that honestly seemed to delight him, although that had been her gift for as long as anyone could remember. “Can you figure it out?” he said. “Stuff’s practically impossible to find any more but every year she manages. Expensive, too. Justine makes do with Luden’s cough drops but I fail to see the resemblance myself.” He popped a lozenge in his mouth and passed the sack around. Only Justine took one. Nobody else could stand them. “Last chance till next year,” he told Lucy, flooding her with his pharmaceutical breath. Lucy shook her head.
Duncan of course gave nothing at all, and would never allow Justine to pencil his name beside hers on the sack of horehound drops. He didn’t believe in celebrating birthdays. He would give presents any time, to anyone, sudden surprising touching presents, but not when the rules said he was supposed to. And this year there was no gift from Meg either. Lucy was watching. No so much as a tie clasp or a bureau top organizer. She felt a brief surge of wicked joy: now Duncan himself knew the pain of having an ungrateful child. Perhaps he had thought, when Meg eloped, So this is what it feels like! This is what my parents have had to put up with all my life! But then she was ashamed of herself, and she felt truly sorry that her granddaughter had somehow forgotten such an important occasion.
Next to last came Laura May’s gift: needlework, as usual. This year a family tree, embroidered on natural linen with a wooden frame. “Why, thank you,” said her father. “Thank you very much.” But instead of setting it back down, he held it in both hands and looked at it for a long, silent moment. A diamond shape, that was what it was. Lucy had never noticed before. Justin alone began it and Meg alone ended it. In between there was a sudden glorious spread of children, but what had they come to? Nothing. Claude, Esther, the twins, and Richard stood alone, unmarried, without descendants. (Laura May had tactfully left off all record of Sally’s divorce and Richard’s annulment.) Only Duncan on the far left, son of the oldest child, and Justine on her far right, daughter of the youngest child, were connected by a V-shaped line that spilled out their single offspring at the bottom of the diamond. There was no room for anyone below Meg’s name. Lucy shook her head. “But,” said Justine, “maybe Meg will have six children and things will start all over again!”
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.)