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9

Helping Hands

It was hot inside the cab of his truck, and now that he'd worked up a little sweat walking in the sunlight, he wanted a drink of something. They'd put in a new McDonald's up at Friendly Center and a Coke would do as well as anything.

Cindy Claybourne. He ached with sympathy for her, and, to be honest, sympathy for himself as well. He remembered one of his contractors quoting an old saying: "Never eat at a place called Mom's, never play poker with a man named Doc, and never sleep with a woman who's got more troubles than you." Till today he never would have thought there could be such a woman. But now he knew. At least he had never even thought of raising a hand to harm his own child. At least he hadn't been the one to abandon her. He had done everything that he could do short of murder to get his little girl back. So no matter how much pain there was in thinking about her, he was better off than Cindy. Maybe.

He had come so close. To what, he wasn't sure. To sex, of course; he hadn't realized how much he missed that part of his life until Cindy Claybourne woke his body up again. But it would have been more than that, and when he chose to walk through her front door, it wasn't a roll in the hay he was looking for. Not just a roll in the hay, anyway. Turned out Cindy needed a friend a lot more than she needed a lover. But what did Don need? Was Cindy right? Was he the kind of man who was just naturally a husband?

Not to hear his ex-wife tell it. Whatever it was that Cindy thought, whatever it was that he himself had unconsciously wanted when he led Cindy to the couch in her living room, he was certain of this: He was not ready to get back into the whole marriage business all over again. The last time had only built him up in order to tear him all the way down to nothing. It wasn't going to happen again.

At the McDonald's drive-up, it occurred to Don that maybe the girl back in his house would like a Coke, too, so he ordered a couple of large ones. He thought of getting something to eat, too, but he wasn't hungry. Still working off last night's feed, probably. Maybe the girl was hungry. He should get her something. So he ordered a Big Mac and fries and only snitched a couple of them on the way back to the Bellamy house, and then only because the smell of them was so strong inside the cab of the truck even with the windows rolled down. That must be deliberate. They must have figured out a way to make the french fries give off a hunger drug that you absorbed through the nose.

When he got to the house, the Helping Hands truck was already backed right up to the porch, with a ramp stretched like a bridge from porch to truck. A couple of black guys made the ramp bounce as they carried a couch across. They were only a few hours early. The guys were coming back out of the truck by the time Don got up the steps.

"Hey," said one of them, which instantly branded him as the driver. "You the owner?"

"Mick got you guys going early," said Don.

"Yeah, well, your wife told us take whatever look good as long as we don't take any of your tools."

Wife? It took a moment for Don to realize that they couldn't possibly be referring to his dead ex-wife. The homeless girl must have let them in. It irked him that she would dare to pass herself off as his wife. But there was no reason to explain the whole business to these guys. "She did, huh?"

"Be nice when you get your water hooked up, won't it? You both lookin' like you could use a shower." The driver smiled, big and toothy. He knew he'd put Don down, and Don wasn't altogether sure it was without malice. But Don didn't mind, especially considering that the comment was true. His revenge, if he had needed any, was the way the driver and his assistant looked at the sweating cups of Coke Don was carrying into the house.

It was the assistant who spoke up. "You gonna drink both of those?"

"Just the bottom half of this one," said Don. "Already drank the top half. Where is my 'wife'?"

"In the kitchen," said the assistant. "Thirsty work out here."

"Sure is," said Don. "Wish the water was on, I'd offer you some."

"You cold, man," said the driver.

Don grinned at him. "I'll be back with something for you guys. I didn't know you were gonna be here, so I only got something for her and me, you know how it is. Less you want to finish mine." He offered his half-empty Coke.

They both held up their hands to ward it off. "No, no, just teasing, man."

"I'll get you something. Whatever you want."

"Nothing, man, we just teasing."

Don shrugged and went on into the house.

In the parlor he took a quick inventory, purely by habit—he'd never had the Helping Hands people take anything he needed, but his new "wife" was complicating things. All his tools were there. But something felt out of place. It nagged at him for a moment. Maybe it wasn't in the parlor. Something he'd seen outside? He'd check it later. He carried his half-drunk Coke and her full one and the bag of food into the kitchen. There she was, looking into the open cupboards. As soon as she heard him, she turned and took a step and touched the massive kitchen table.

"I didn't know if you wanted them to take this," she said. "All the other kitchens have cheap crummy furniture like landlords buy, but this one might have been here when it was a real house. Solid."

It was solid, all right, but had no other virtues to recommend it. Plain as a board fence, that's what it was. "House has to be empty," said Don. "I want everything gone." He slid the full Coke and the bag closer to her. The sight of her there, prowling through the cupboards, "helping" with decisions, infuriated him. He knew, in the back of his mind, that his rage was completely unreasonable. That she had had the full run of every cupboard in the house for months, maybe years, for all he knew. That he was mostly angry because of his frustration over the whole business with Cindy. Because for a few minutes today he had actually thought maybe he was ready to start looking for a wife, but the venture had ended in failure, and now this waif presumed to call herself by that title. As if a wife of his would ever be so hungry-looking, so ill-provided for.

I want everything gone, he had said, and now, with firmness, he added: "Including you."

She took a step back from the table. "Aren't you glad I was here to let them in?"

Might as well tell her the truth, personal though it was. "Not when you tell them you're my wife. My wife's dead."

She looked at him with disgust. "I never told them I was your anything. I found them opening the door and looking around and calling for Mr. Lark and I told them to come on in and get started and don't touch any of Mr. Lark's tools in the front parlor. If the place were cleaner they might have assumed I was your housekeeper."

Of course that's the way it happened. Of course they'd jump to that conclusion. He felt embarrassed at his anger. Now it seemed stupid to him. And yet some of the anger remained. She was still trying to destroy his solitude. If he couldn't have a woman like Cindy Claybourne, why did he have to put up with a girl like this? "I brought you a burger and fries."

"I'm not hungry," she said coolly.

"And a Coke. Drink it and go." He hated himself for being so rude. But this had gone on long enough.

"That was nice of you," she said. There was not a trace of irony in her voice. But that didn't mean it wasn't snide all the same.

"The 'drink it' part was nice of me. The 'and go' part makes me a scumbag." Might as well be honest. He knew he wasn't being noble here.

She shrugged, bent over the cup, and Don saw the brown liquid rise through the straw. After a moment's sip, she stood up, swallowing as if the Coke were the elixir of youth. "Oh, that was nice."

"Hot day," said Don. He looked away from her, toward the window, where daylight peeked through the boards. He thought of the bright windows in Cindy's house. Cindy's immaculate, unlived-in house. Who was the homeless one, really?

Don himself was never going to be anything more than a camper here, a temporary resident, a workman, a servant of the house. It was only the law that gave him the right to throw this girl out of her home. And no one knew better than Don how unjust and arbitrary and sometimes downright cruel the law could be. Don wanted the house to himself because that's what he wanted and he was ready to use the law to get his way no matter what it cost someone else. So how was he different from his ex-wife?

Maybe she understood his silence. Maybe she felt his ambivalence, his shame at insisting that she leave. "Listen," she said, "it's your house. You got work to do."

She sounded understanding. She was giving him permission to throw her out. But it didn't take away the sting of knowing he was the kind of man who would do it. Damn her for forcing him to discover things like this about himself. "You've got no place to go," he said.

She shrugged.

He thought of the empty rooms, wall after wall, floor over floor. He thought of the tragic emptiness of Cindy's house. "It's not like I'm using most of this space."

He knew she was using reverse psychology on him, but that didn't mean it wasn't working. He didn't want to be the kind of man who threw people out into the... well, not snow, but autumn, anyway. Onto the street. He thought about what that might mean for a woman. No money, no place to stay. Didn't a lot of these girls end up turning to prostitution just to live? And then to drugs so they could live with what they'd become? Did he want that on his conscience? He couldn't take advantage of Cindy Claybourne when she was so vulnerable, but he could send this girl out maybe to be raped, just because he preferred to be alone?

"I'd just get underfoot," said the girl.

"Yeah, but you could stay out of my way while I'm working, if you wanted to." He knew even as he said it, though, that she wouldn't. What he was doing would be interesting to her. She'd have to watch. She'd look over his shoulder. She'd drive him crazy. Maybe he could give her some money to get cleaned up, new clothes, get an apartment, get a job. But if he did that, he wouldn't be able to finish the house without borrowing.

"I might even be useful now and then," she said. "What if you had to run an errand but somebody was coming by to make a delivery or something?"

It was already starting. She was already trying to find a role for herself in his life.

"I can't hire you as an assistant," he said. "I don't have the money for that."

"I can fend for myself," she said. "I did before you came."

How did she fend for herself? Rummaging through garbage cans? Or had she already been turning tricks? He knew nothing about her. What was he getting himself in for?

"As long as I don't have to leave," she said. Pleading.

"But you do have to leave." She had to understand this. "When I sell the house you can't be here."

"Till then. Please."

The begging sound in her voice grated on him, shamed him. He couldn't stand holding someone else's future in his hands. It made him want to get shut of her just so he didn't have to feel her desperation, her subservience. "Don't ask me," he said. "As long as you don't ask me, I'll talk myself into letting you stay. But when you start begging it just makes me want to throw your butt on out of here."

She looked puzzled, maybe a little appalled. "Why should it bother you for me to ask?"

Because it makes me feel like The Man, and I'm not The Man, I'm just a guy. "Shut up and stay. Pick the bed you want to sleep in and tell the Helping Hands guys to leave it for you."

He felt sick at heart the moment he said it. He had given in to his own weakness and her need, and he should probably feel virtuous about what a Christian he was, but all he could think about was having somebody behind him all day, watching everything he did, expecting him to be chatty or even civil, both of which were way beyond his ability. He wanted to walk out of the house himself and just keep on walking. He'd been struggling with this ever since the last hope of getting his little girl back was gone. The longing to shuck off the last vestige of responsibility, to cease caring even for himself, and just go out on the street until somebody killed him or he withered up and died of cold or hunger, he didn't care which.

At least this girl wanted something. At least she wanted to stay here in this house. What did Don want? To be left alone. They couldn't both have what they wanted, and it seemed damned unfair to him that he, who wanted so much less than she did, was the one who couldn't have it. That his own sense of decency had been used against him. People without a sense of decency never got exploited like this. If his ex-wife or his ex-wife's lawyers or the judges in every court he pleaded in had had a sense of decency... but they didn't. Only Don was burdened with such an inconvenience.

You jerk, Don said to himself. Now you're whining to yourself that you're the only decent person in the universe. What a simp.

Disgusted with himself, Don stalked out of the kitchen.

Maddeningly, she followed him. As they walked down the narrow hall to the parlor, she asked, "I can stay?"

Unbelievable. Hadn't she been in the room when he told her to pick a bed? He stopped and turned so abruptly to face her that she almost bumped into him.

"What," he said, "can't you take yes for an answer?"

He had expected to tower over her, but standing so close he realized that she was taller than he had thought. The top of her head came up to his chin. She was so slight of build that it gave the illusion she was tiny.

She looked him steadily in the eye. "My name's Sylvie Delaney," she said.

He almost snapped back at her, Why would I need to know that?

But in fact he did need to know her name, if only out of simple human courtesy. "Don Lark," he said.

Her gaze never wavered. Brown eyes. "Thank you for letting me stay, Don Lark."

Her gratitude made him almost as uncomfortable as her begging. "Just leave me alone when I'm working. And don't touch my tools. Touch nothing."

She held up her hands as if she had just touched a burner on the stove. "Hands off. Like a crystal shop." She grinned.

He wasn't amused. She had followed him down the hall, she had embarrassed him, and now she was trying to joke him into smiling at her. He wanted to hit something, he was so frustrated. "Why don't I feel better? I felt guilty throwing you out, and now I feel stupid and angry about letting you stay." He turned away from her and slapped the wall. "When's the part where virtue is its own reward?"

Behind him, she spoke softly. "Let me practice staying out of your sight for a while."

"Eat the burger and fries before they get cold," said Don. He stalked on down the hall, feeling even stupider because now that she was respecting his need for privacy, the need itself seemed childish to him. He imagined himself as a little boy, running into his room and slamming the door, shouting I hate you, I hate you, leave me alone.

He stopped when he got to the end of the parlor wall and glanced back up the narrow hallway. She was still there, spinning down the hall toward the kitchen in little-girl pirouettes, touching the walls as she went. Between and behind the noises made by the Helping Hands guys carrying some big piece of furniture along the upstairs hall, he heard her intoning, almost singing, "Thank you, thank you, thank you." Then she suddenly stopped and pressed herself against the south wall, one arm up as high as she could reach, so the whole length of her body was touching the wall. "Thank you house."

She was as nuts as the women next door.

Well, what did he think? Why else would she be homeless? A college graduate, living in a boarded-up mansion full of corroded furniture? Of course she was a loon. And he had just given her permission to live under the same roof with him.

Not that he hadn't shared a house with a madwoman before. At least this particular loon, this Sylvie Delaney had never looked at him with that blank stare that said, I know you're talking but all I care about is how am I going to score some more blow? So he was living with a better grade of lunatic.

He wandered out onto the porch. The Helping Hands truck was almost half full. He could hear the guys starting down the stairs with whatever it was they were carrying. He opened the door all the way and walked around it so he wouldn't be blocking their path. As he waited for them to get down the stairs, he glanced down at the deadbolt he had put on, still shiny and new, and ran his hand along the smooth wood below it down to the old latchset.

The movers were at the foot of the stairs, stopping to catch their breath. He heard Sylvie's voice and stepped around the door to watch as she spoke to them. They were leaning on a huge bureau, which they had moved with all the heavy oaken drawers inside it. Trying to save extra trips up and down the stairs.

"Just so you know," Sylvie was saying, "my husband and I have decided you should leave the bed in the front corner apartment." She pointed up, indicating the room directly above the north parlor.

My husband and I. Don's blood boiled.

"Whatever," the driver said. "This is pretty crummy old stuff."

"You should look so good when you're that old," said Sylvie. "And we're keeping the big table in the kitchen back there. There's a Coke on it, if you want it before the ice all melts. And a burger and fries but they might already be cold."

"Hey, thanks," said the assistant.

"Oh, you think it's your Coke now?" said the driver. "Come on, let's go." They picked up the bureau. The door was wide, but the bureau barely fit through without smashing their hands.

When they were past him, Don looked back into the entry. Sylvie was standing on the first step of the stairway, draped against the wall again in some parody of a girlish pose. He glared at her. She winked at him, grinned, and then turned and ran up the stairs.

He made the conscious decision not to be angry. If he let her teasing get under his skin already, it was only going to get ugly and that wouldn't make either of their lives any better. He leaned his head against the edge of the door and took a couple of deep breaths. Behind him the Helping Hands guys were jockeying the bureau into position inside the truck. He looked down the smooth expanse of the door and then realized what it was that had bothered him before, when he first got back after the closing. The door was smooth.

There should have been ragged screwholes where he had pulled off the hasp to get into the house when Cindy first showed it to him and Jay. But there was no sign that there had ever been a hole in the wood. He looked closely. The holes hadn't been puttied and stained. The woodgrain was smooth, continuous, unbroken. All the way above and below the deadbolt.

He remembered what the Weird sisters had said about the house. A strong house. And getting stronger, with the work he was doing on it.

He tried for a moment to doubt his own memory, to insist to himself that the lock had been on the back door, or that he had drilled the hole for the deadbolt right where the screwholes had been. Wasn't that possible?

No it wasn't. He had noticed at the time that the screwholes were too widely spread to be covered by the deadbolt, and so he had drilled a little farther down, though still well above the original lockset. No, somehow this door had healed itself.

He looked over at the carriagehouse. There were Miz Evelyn and Miz Judea, on their knees in the front yard, digging dandelions. If they noticed him, they gave no sign.

Well what was he supposed to do now? Run screaming into the street? The house was strange or he was crazy, and he was betting on the house. But strange or not, he'd just closed on the deal and there was no backing out now. And it was possible that he was simply remembering things wrong. Your mind could play tricks on you, everybody knew that. You remember things one way but in fact it happened completely differently. That's all this was. Just a memory thing. He could live with that. He had only been spooked because of the crazy things the Weird sisters told him.

The city van pulled up to the curb, and Don walked out to meet the guy and lead him to the water meter. All he needed now was to have the new water heater installed and there'd be hot and cold running water in the house. Flush toilets and hot showers without having to go to McDonald's or a truck stop. Life wasn't all bad.