White Elephant Read online

  Who was damaging them? The residents of Willard Park were hot with curiosity and concern. She, along with everyone else in town, had received a poem about trees in her e-mail inbox today. It was the second time this week. This one had been by Robert Frost, the first by Thoreau. Who was sending them? The address was mysterious: [email protected]. It might be a town employee or a member of the town council—someone with access to the resident e-mail list. It was probably Ted Miller, who was, well, preoccupied was one way of putting it. Apparently that was all he and Allison talked about anymore.

  Ted thought Nick Cox was to blame, but what did he have to gain from damaging the trees that weren’t on his property? If she were to hazard a guess, she’d pick the little gang of teenagers in town, the ones too young to drive, who tromped around in hiking boots and leather jackets laughing loudly and pushing one another. Or maybe Nina Strauss, trying to drum up a little interest in Willard Park before the weather turned cold. She was just loony enough to think any publicity was good publicity. Or maybe it was Grant, turning to petty vandalism now that he couldn’t smoke weed anymore. God. She hoped it wasn’t Grant.

  “What’s your theory on the trees?” she said.

  “What trees?” Grant said, which was confirmation enough. He worked his fingers into the steel beams that were Suzanne’s shoulders.

  “That feels great. Can we just do this? You rubbing my back?”

  “Sure, hon. Roll on your belly and I’ll give you a real massage.”

  She tensed, the work he had done so far undone in a single instant. “I can’t.”

  Adam appeared at their bedroom door like a benevolent ghost, saving her—for the moment—from having to tell Grant.

  “I can’t sleep!” he screamed.

  “Hold on there, partner. It’s okay. I’ll sit with you.” Grant climbed out of bed.

  “I want Mommy!” Adam cried, so Suzanne, feeling victorious despite herself, took him back to his room. She lay down beside him and rubbed his back, much as Grant had rubbed hers. She took in the smell of him, the sweet smells of the soap from his bath and little-boy sleep. After a while, Adam fell asleep, his thumb in his mouth; she was nearly asleep herself, but she made herself get up. She had to tell him.

  He, too, was asleep by the time she returned.

  She tapped him on the shoulder. He didn’t budge. She squeezed his upper arm gently. “Grant?”

  He murmured a little.

  “I’m pregnant,” she said, sotto voce. Okay, done.

  She started breathing more deeply now. She imagined herself as a big balloon, inflating, deflating. She was on her way to becoming a big balloon, that was for sure.

  “You’re what?” Grant said, his voice quite alert for someone who had just been asleep.

  “Pregnant.”

  “Pregnant?”

  “Yes.”

  He didn’t say anything.

  “You’re upset,” she said.

  “No! No! It’s great!”

  “I thought you’d be glad,” she said. “You’re the one who wanted a big family.”

  “I did,” he said. “I mean, I am. I do!”

  He kissed her cheek, embraced her. But she’d heard that initial internal groan.

  “I do. I mean, of course I do. Suze, you’re a great mother.”

  “I can’t get any work done as it is, Grant.”

  “Hire a sitter. It’s worth it.”

  “He wants me.”

  “Get your mom to come up.”

  Did he have to bring up her mother? Her mother wanted to come for Thanksgiving, but Suzanne told her the house wasn’t ready for visitors. Actually, Suzanne had shouted into the phone, “Not now, Mom!” She’d meant to call back to apologize, but hadn’t.

  It wasn’t her mother’s fault, she reminded herself. Why was it she couldn’t manage to forgive her? And for what? Her father was the one who had abandoned them.

  For years, she’d thought he’d left because she was a disappointing daughter. The inner child in her still thought so—a psychologist had explained this to her—but the outer adult could see it was ridiculous: fathers didn’t throw over their families because their daughters failed their ice-skating tests. Still, it was hard for her to rule out a correlation. The night before he left, when he came to kiss her good night, she’d told him she’d fallen while doing a backward swizzle. “That’s all right, champ,” he’d said. “You’ll get it next time.” But there hadn’t been a next time. She’d given up ice skating. Given up the clean white skates and the promise of sequined dresses, the glides and twirls that felt like flying. She’d never flown again.

  She lay awake for a long time, tolerating Grant’s arm around her, imprisoning her. She felt him drop off to sleep, his weight sinking into hers.

  “You’ll never leave us, right?”

  “What?” he said, waking. “No.”

  She had made him swear to it before she agreed to marry him, and she needed to hear it periodically. Neither she nor their potential children were going to go through what she and her mother went through. That was part of why she wanted to be a success. Needed to be a success. If ever she were alone, she had to be able to support her child—her children—without subjecting them to humiliating compromises.

  “You love me,” she said, after long minutes.

  He had drifted off again; this time the sleep was deeper.

  “Right?” she whispered, into his ear.

  “Mm-hm,” he said, turning over. In an instant he was snoring, leaving her to lie awake, wondering whether he had heard her.

  10

  NOVEMBER 24

  They were fat with food, full of it, drunk with it, nearly asleep from it. Thanksgiving was like that, which was part of what made it Ted’s favorite holiday. It was the one day when everyone’s job was to overeat, to take a deep breath and make room for seconds. That was really all that was expected of you. And cooking, of course, but Ted liked to cook. He made all of his mother’s old recipes, from sweet potatoes with marshmallows, to cornbread stuffing, to pumpkin pie with butter pecan ice cream. He preferred pumpkin pie with whipped cream, but tradition was tradition. Terrance made the cranberry sauce; he loved to watch the cranberries boil and pop.

  Around four o’clock Allison’s parents called, full of the details about the dinner at the assisted living home: Four turkeys. Five kinds of pie. Three kinds of potatoes. It was like the Twelve Days of Christmas. They used to come down for both of the major holidays, but they seemed to prefer Thanksgiving at Brighton Manor, which was both hurtful to Allison and easier at the same time. After the annual Miller family Boggle tournament—a game Terrance could play as well as the rest of them—they were free to do as they pleased. Allison stretched out on the sofa with her script, and Jillian disappeared back into her room. Ted got his coat on. Terrance did too.

  “Tree watch?” Allison said.

  “Vandalism doesn’t take a holiday,” Ted said.

  “Isn’t that an Agatha Christie book?” Her tone was testy. She missed sex, she’d told him the night before. He had nodded, sympathetic. She was both trying to be patient, and, on occasion, making an effort to engage him in what had once been a normal marital activity. He ought, at least, to try to do his part, he thought uncomfortably.

  “Ready with my flashlight,” Terrance said, turning on the flashlight on his phone.

  Outside it was cold enough to see your breath. It felt late, but it wasn’t. Thanksgiving was like that too. Seven felt like eleven.

  “I forgot my gloves,” Terrance said.

  “Just keep your hands in your pockets,” Ted said.

  He, on the other hand, needed his hands to take notes in his vandalism notebook. The police were always polite when he called in the day’s damage—three more trees cut down; another tree toilet-papered; graffiti on a mailbox; stickers on the stop signs that said, beneath the word STOP, “clinging to the past”—but they had only come out a few times at the very beginning to have him file a report. Somet
imes a police car drove through town at night, but what good did that do? Ted had suggested to the mayor that a volunteer force of residents take shifts monitoring the town since it was really too big a job for him alone, but she refused to add it to the November meeting agenda. Alternatively, he’d suggested a hotline for residents to call in anonymous tips, but this had not met with her approval either.

  It was Lucy who had, inadvertently, provided a platform for town residents to help when she asked residents to take a vote: Were they for the moratorium or against it? She took everything off the bulletin board and set out two bowls full of thumbtacks: blue meant “for,” and red “against.” At the end of the month she would tally which side had the most tacks, and declare a winner.

  It was clear there was cheating from the get-go—someone (Ted had a guess) stuck all of the red thumbtacks in the board before the end of the first day—so you could say it was a failure, but Ted thought it was a success because people started using the tacks for their intended purpose: to attach notes to the board: Small fire along the creek, teenagers in attendance; Mindy and Juan Sanchez have retained an architect; Bob Wilson took an electric hedge trimmer to his azaleas November 11; Kenny Adisa spotted taking a late-night walk.

  Ted had some concerns Lucy would take down the board: it made the town into a little bit of a police state. But wasn’t a police state what they needed right now? You had to go early and often if you wanted to see the dirt before the accused took it down: Melanie Frank said her black walnut trees are “not worth the trouble”; Ana Lopez cheats on her taxes; Antoine Beignet has a second family in Toledo. Some of the notes had nothing to do with the matter at hand.

  The semiweekly quotes and poems from [email protected] were another step in the right direction. Some people thought Ted was sending them, which flattered him—it was a good idea. He couldn’t think who it might actually be. A woman, he guessed. Most men didn’t care for poetry. Well, he did, but he wasn’t most men. The most recent poem was Joyce Kilmer’s famous “Trees.” Allison had read it aloud at breakfast yesterday. “It’s all about sex,” she’d said, inspiring both Ted and Jillian to cry “Mom!” in dismay.

  Still the question hung in the air in Willard Park: who was cutting down the trees? And the answer hung there, too, just out of reach for lack of concrete evidence.

  Over thirty lawns in town sported the sign Jillian had made. Ted was proud of that. He’d had to replace several of them after they were damaged—some by weather, others by intent—but that was to be expected. He checked to make sure theirs was intact, then headed toward the Coxes’. Lights were on in every room. This seemed like a sort of vandalism in its own right: a crime against the planet. Nothing new for Cox and co.

  In the front yard, there was something new though: Cox had posted a sign of his own, one that depicted houses of different sizes and styles, all with smiling doors. The words “Living in Harmony” were written across the bottom. While Jillian’s sign looked like it had been made by a twelve-year-old—as it had been—Cox’s looked professionally rendered; it sported red and blue ink instead of just black.

  “Look at that, Terr! Do you believe it?”

  “Living in Harmony,” Terrance read, sounding out the words. “That’s nice.”

  “No. It’s not. He doesn’t mean it. It’s aggressive.”

  “Oh,” Terrance said.

  “He’s trying to say that people who don’t want to allow big houses in town are the ones causing the trouble.”

  “But, Ted . . . harmony means together.”

  The police would react in the same way, if he were to call it in. Let me get this straight: you’re protesting a sign that says, “Living in Harmony”?

  Typical Nick Cox! He could make an attack look like an olive branch.

  They saw more of Cox’s signs as they walked. He wondered if Cox had even asked the neighbors for permission or just hammered them into the ground while they were basking in their post-turkey haze. He used two wooden posts instead of one, which made them sturdier.

  The neighborhood was littered with signs now. It not only took away from Ted’s message, but made a messy time of year look even messier. Leaves were stuck to the road after last night’s rain, clogging sewer entrances. On the lawns that had not yet been raked, they clung together, turning into a mucky brew. The neighborhood was a study in opposites: lawns with leaves, lawns without; houses lit and full with people, houses dark and deserted; lawns with pro-moratorium signs, lawns with anti. The roads were particularly quiet. When, every now and then, a car did drive by, it was jarring.

  “You’re quiet tonight,” Ted said to Terrance.

  “It’s peaceful at night, Ted.”

  “You’re right.”

  “I like it at night.”

  “Me too.”

  “When we were little we were scared of the dark,” Terrance said. “We used to sleep with four night-lights. Remember, Ted? Now they have glow-in-the-dark stars, but they didn’t have that then, Ted, did they? Does Jillian have a night-light or does she have stars? I think she has stars. Do you think they have night-lights in space, Ted? Or do the Martians just have stars?”

  Ted was sorry he’d said anything. And not. Terrance’s chatter was a comfort. He’d known it all his life.

  He caught the sound of something squeaking, an irregular metallic sound accompanied by a rattling and clunking. What in the world? “Hear that?” Ted said.

  “Yes,” Terrance said.

  “Is it a bike?” Ted said, though it didn’t quite sound like a bike. “A little weird to be out biking in the cold at night.”

  “It’s not normal,” Terrance said.

  “Not really. No.”

  “But what is normal?” Terrance said. He could sometimes be quite philosophical.

  The sign on Cathie and Jim Buchanan’s lawn had been knocked over and was torn, graffiti written in black marker across the front: Move with the times or move away! Ted picked up the pieces and put them in the garbage bag he’d brought, and made note.

  The squeak and clatter were coming closer, but there was no light to accompany them. There was also the sound of footsteps—running and jumping feet, as well as more sober walking feet.

  “Halt! Who goes there?” Terrance said, shining the flashlight behind them. He moved it through the air till he landed on a woman pulling a child’s wagon. Nina Strauss.

  “Oh, for God’s sake,” Nina said, covering her eyes.

  Terrance waved athletically, as though he were flagging down a rescue boat. The light from the flashlight bounced off the tree branches and the road.

  “Why it’s the Brothers Miller,” Nina said.

  “The Miller brothers,” Terrance said. “Miller comes first.”

  She handed them each a jar of apple butter with a sticker of her face affixed to the side.

  “Are you the Apple Butter Fairy?” Terrance said.

  “No,” she said, but she sort of was. She gave jars to the neighbors every year.

  “It’s kind of you,” Terrance said.

  “Hardly,” Nina said. “It’s business.”

  The sound of running and jumping explained itself then, too, as her son, Mark, jumped down from a tree. Leaves fell with him, like rain.

  “Say hello, Mark,” Nina said.

  “Hi,” Mark said. He shook his shaggy hair out of his eyes and gave a little wave to Terrance, which was sweet, as if he could see that Terrance was a kindred spirit. Then he ran on, scrambling up another tree.

  “Did you spend the holiday with relatives?” Ted said.

  “Yes,” Nina said. “My son.”

  He’d never felt sorry for Nina before, but he did now, a little. Two people was small for a Thanksgiving gathering. They’d be eating leftover turkey till July. He nearly suggested she join them next year, but he caught himself just in time.

  “It’s a little hard to sell houses when the town looks like the outside of a polling station,” she said.

  “No one buys this t
ime of year anyway, right?”

  “Not this year, they won’t.”

  “Not long till the hearing,” Ted said.

  Nina harrumphed. She rolled down a walkway toward the Chatterjees’ house, and Ted and Terrance continued down the street.

  Terrance was the one who spotted the maple lying on the Lamberts’ lawn as if it were sunbathing. He shined the flashlight on it, making the shadows deep on the grass. This tree was a little bigger than the usual, a few years older, its trunk and limbs a little thicker. Cox seemed to be upping his game. “This is a big tree. Why would someone . . . ?”

  “They can plant another one. Right?” Terrance’s voice reflected the upset he’d heard in Ted’s. “Trees grow. Right?”

  “Of course, but. Well, yes. You’re right. Trees grow.”

  “Trees grow. That’s the thing about trees. So it’s not so bad, Ted.”

  “I guess . . .”

  “That’s the thing about trees,” Terrance repeated, self-soothing. “People don’t grow back, but trees do.”

  “That’s right,” Ted said. When their parents died Terrance had had hopes of resurrection. “Time to go off-road.”

  They cut into the woods, down along the creek, where it was easy to destroy trees undetected. Everything looked all right down here tonight, the only fallen trees ones Ted had already taken note of. They were headed in the direction of the old tire swing, where kids used to spend summer days back when Ted and Terrance were boys. Ted took a path away from the water, and Terrance followed.

  Shame was strange. It didn’t wear off over time the way other emotions did. Hate calmed down with time, and passionate love did, too, both of them settling into something softer, something easier to bear. But shame . . . All he had to do was think of that day and he felt it roaring right back up through him, steaming through his chest and settling in his head, where it stayed, throbbing.

  That day, the summer they were eleven, it was even hotter and more humid than usual. Ted and Terrance had gone to collect tadpoles. They had jars to catch them with the creek water. They walked along the water’s edge, shorts rolled up high, until they came to where the kids were taking turns on the swing. Ted turned around to avoid the big group—he’d learned to steer his brother away from packs of kids—but as they started to head back, one of the older boys asked if they wanted a ride on the swing.