Monday - Chapter 5
Joe’s drive to the boarding house resurfaces bad memories, but the friendly faces he meets there help him adjust to his new home away from home.
New to The Road Cain Walks? See the Table of Contents to start the first chapter.
Joe drove his Cherokee between the small brick buildings that made Pine Haven something more than woods and cow pastures. He passed the All Rise Tavern, abandoned on a Monday afternoon. Next door, the First Baptist Church of Pine Haven was just as busy. Businesses he didn’t recognize lived in old houses he did, huddled in the shelter of “town.” At the edge of it all, a stoplight swung in the wind.
The worst memories made the deepest impressions. It was Joe’s fault his mother drove him across town the night she died. His father had reservations for dinner, but Joe threw the usual tantrum. He dropped on the living room rug, demanding to stay with his grandparents instead of their neighbors—screaming until his face burned. When she gave in, his father yelled and slammed the front door as he left.
Driving Joe across town, his mother stifled tears as a drunk driver ran the stop sign at Old Tower Road, headlights off and gas pedal to the floor. The impact bounced her head off the window and leaned her over the center console, blood rushing fast from a gash over her ear.
In lieu of flowers, the town put up that stoplight.
After a quarter mile of trees, the wind clattered the plain white sign for the Hovington House against its post. Joe turned down a gravel road into the woods, its steep hill climbing toward a massive lawn. A man sat on the front porch of the old plantation house in a rocking chair, his attention drifting as the Cherokee’s tires slipped into the muddy parking lot.
Joe parked between a red convertible and brown panel van, the rain pounding the Cherokee’s hood as if daring him out. Psyching himself up, he stared into the field beyond the Hovington. A dilapidated shack stood near the tree line, a narrow trail disappearing into the woods behind it.
The rhythm of the wipers lulled Joe into memories of days in that field, sneaking through its tall brown grass to the old slave house. He used to talk Bill Lewis into riding bikes down the trail to the fire tower. A little older, he traded Bill for Lori Clark, walking hand in hand with a blanket over his shoulder and ideas of what to do with it. Sometimes it was him alone, peeking into the shack’s windows and sitting in its yard to stare across the highway to the maple on Memorial Hill.
A knock on Joe’s window snapped him out of his distracted gaze, a dark blur peering through the glass. Joe cracked the window.
The old man from the porch shivered, his white hair washed down his forehead. His wet clothes sucked to his wiry frame and rounded with the bulges of his bones. “Need help?”
“Thanks.” Joe popped the back hatch and followed the man, grabbing the heavier of the two suitcases and his laptop bag. They sprinted to the front porch and rounded the bushes to its steps.
Out of the rain, Joe panted. “Thanks again.”
The man waved his hand as if swatting a mosquito. “I didn’t have anything else to do today.”
His accent was flatter than Joe expected. “You’re not from around here.”
“Missouri. I got here this morning and just beat the rain. Glad I did too. In this mess, I’d end up in a ditch. Thought I’d have the place to myself until your headlights came over the hill.”
“If you hadn’t been here, I’d still be in my car.”
The man laughed and offered his hand to shake. “Dan Thomas.”
“Joe Richards. Thanks again for your help. You can leave that bag here.”
Dan gestured to the screen door. “The least I can do is get you to the desk.”
Joe scraped his shoes on the door mat and frowned at the red clay he left behind. Slipping off his loafers, he nudged them aside and peeled off his wet socks. He shoved those in his pocket as he followed Dan inside.
The Hovington lobby was a small sanctuary, the ceiling too high to leave much beyond it but roof. A chandelier dangled beside a large, wide staircase ascending to six doors on the upper landing. Classical music played in the background, loud enough to hear but soft enough to ignore.
Standing at the reception desk, Dan chuckled. “The rooms may be small, and there’s not much to the mattress, but I’d give it three stars on ambiance alone. That glamour might wear off in the morning when I’m complaining of a stiff back, but until then, I’m off to drier clothes.”
As Dan climbed the stairs, Joe chimed the small silver bell on the desk.
A girl called out behind a door across the room. “Just a minute.”
As the door opened, Dan’s shut upstairs with a short click. The young woman who entered the lobby was pretty, her blonde hair in ringed tresses across her shoulders. Approaching the desk, her lips curved a coy smile. “How can I help you?”
“I’m Joe Richards. I have a reservation.”
She opened a drawer and flipped through a stack of index cards.
“You get a lot of guests here?” Joe asked.
“Not too many. Some people come to get away. Others stop on their way through. Most of these canceled because of the storm. As of now, it’s just you and Mr. Thomas.”
“I just met him. Nice guy.”
With a glance up to Dan’s room, she leaned over the desk. “Kind of weird. He checked in this morning and sat on the porch all day staring at the rain.”
“Maybe he couldn’t find anything better to do.”
“There’s a TV in the sitting room. Oh, here we go. Dr. Joseph Richards.”
“That’s me.”
She peeked over the card. “Doctor?”
“Psychologist.”
“What brings you to Pine Haven?”
“I have some work over at the prison.”
“That’s it?”
“All I can say.”
“Patient confidentiality and all that?”
“And all that. My key?” Joe hoped his polite smile took the edge off the question. He didn’t mind talking to her, but his wet clothes chafed him raw.
Her hand dipped back into the drawer and came out with a small metal keyring. “Your room’s at the top of the stairs. Bathroom’s at the other end of the second floor. Need help with your bags?”
“I can manage.”
She rounded the desk and stifled a laugh at his bare feet, pale against the red carpet with sprigs of dark hair across his toes.
“I left my shoes by the door so I didn’t track mud on the carpet.”
“I’ll get them polished and to your room.”
“You’d do that?”
“It’s kind of my job. We also take care of laundry, unless you have specific instructions. You’ll need a dry cleaner for something fancy.”
She pointed to the door behind her. “The dining room is through there. Ms. Finch’ll cook whatever you want within reason. Need anything at all, call down and ask for Suzanne.”
“That’s you?”
With a smile, warm and bright, Suzanne answered, “It is.”
The room at the top of the stairs smelled of furniture polish, the floorboards squeaking as Joe crossed to the bed. A wardrobe stood in as a closet with three hangers dangling from the rail inside. In the corner, beside a large window, a small, scarred writing desk sat with an old wooden chair pushed into the nook.
Joe unzipped his suitcase on the bed’s comforter and unpacked dry clothes he carried to the bathroom. After a quick shower, he returned to his room to find his black leather loafers beside the door, good as new, with a folded laundry bag beneath them. A note tucked inside one shoe read, Stay out of the mud next time! Shoving his wet clothes into the bag, Joe hung it from the door knob.
Inside the room, a green light blinked on Joe’s cell phone.
The first message was from Elaine. “I just wanted to make sure you got there okay. I love you and miss you. Don’t forget to dream about me.”
The next was Rucker, his simple message: “Call me.” The same man had once grumbled, If I wanted to talk to a machine, I’d call my ex-wife.
Joe called Elaine back first but got her voice mail. He hung up without leaving a message.
As he dropped to sit in the desk chair, Joe’s mind drifted back up the interstate to Silver Springs, Maryland. He imagined the breakfast he missed—Elaine and Brad at the table, her smiling as their son talked about leaving for summer camp tomorrow. To stave off the looming homesickness, he went downstairs.
The lobby sat empty again, now with the smell of something frying in the kitchen. His stomach gurgled as he continued to the porch, replacing the thick aroma of grease and flour with the metallic tang of rain.
Dan sat in his rocking chair, raised on his toes. “If I stayed in there another minute, I’d have kicked that kitchen door down.”
Joe grinned. “If it tastes like it smells, I’ll help.”
Dan gestured to the empty chair beside him and returned his gaze to Memorial Hill. “I see you found at least one dry outfit.”
“I couldn’t have managed without you. Did I thank you?”
“At least three times, but you never did tell me your name. Not that it matters. I already know.”
“Do you?”
Dan narrowed his focus on the rain, concentrating. “I’d say you’re from up north. Near the capital. Maybe Virginia—no, that’s wrong. Maryland. You’re some kind of doctor. Something with the mind.”
As Joe’s smile faded, he said, “That’s amazing.”
“I’ve been reading people so long, it’s no more than a parlor trick these days.”
“What kind of work do you do?”
“I’m retired from everything now, but I started as a carnival hypnotist.”
Joe barked a laugh.
Dan raised a thick white eyebrow. “I’m serious. I was with Dr. Eerie’s Great and Wonderful Show before selling insurance out in St. Louis. But I haven’t been much more than a widower for the past year.”
“I’m sorry to hear that.”
“Sorry is for when your wife dies. At this point, I’m just trying to figure out who I am without her. You married?”
“Twenty years.”
“Kids?”
“A ten-year-old boy.”
Joe took out his wallet and a picture of Elaine and Brad on the front steps of their house.
Dan studied it. “A fine-looking family.”
As Joe took the picture back, Dan fished out one of his own. In it, he and a woman his age sat holding hands, a younger man and woman and three children surrounding them. Dan pointed to the younger woman, her hair long and dark. She had her mother’s fair face and father’s bright eyes. “My daughter Kim.”
Dan’s finger then tapped the older woman. “That’s my Martha.”
“She was beautiful.”
Dan smiled. “Thank you, but I’m well aware.”
“So you were a hypnotist?”
“I spent three years on the road, Martha with me for most of it. We had a decent act. These days they’d call it racist: me in a purple turban and her done up like a gypsy. She was irresistible. I hate to brag, but I was pretty damn good myself.”
“Why’d you stop?”
“Martha got pregnant and refused to bring Kim up on the road. I would have put up a fight a couple years earlier, but she had me trained by then. All she needed was her sweet little grin and I’d have killed for her. She picked St. Louis because she liked the name. What about you?”
Joe sighed, his gaze drifting to Memorial Hill. “Nothing exciting. I grew up two miles down that highway and got out as soon as I could. Went to college in Chapel Hill. Met Elaine and married her after graduation. We moved north, and I earned my doctorate and a job at a psychiatric hospital. Brad came five years later, and here we are.”
“Here we are.”
“So how did being a hypnotist tell you so much about me?”
“It didn’t, but with a little persuasion, the girl working the front desk will tell you more than you ever wanted to know.”
Joe cackled.
Patting the arms of his chair, Dan stood. “Speaking of which, I think I’m ready to find out if those wonderful smells were torture or they really do feed us here. Don’t feel obligated, but you’re welcome to join me.”
Joe’s gut growled his answer. He followed Dan in and through the door behind the desk to a small dining room with a dark walnut table and matching china cabinet. Another door stood open on the other side. Suzanne came through it before they chose their chairs.
“I was about to go ask if one of you wanted some fried chicken.”
Dan sat. “Darling, I dare you to try to keep it from us.”
With a brief smile, Suzanne disappeared again through the door and came back carrying two plates, each with a chicken breast, mashed potatoes and gravy, green beans, and a large buttermilk biscuit.
Dan’s eyes goggled as she set his plate in front of him. “My God. Is it my birthday?”
Suzanne giggled. “The way Mrs. Finch puts it, you might not remember your rooms, but you won’t forget your meals.”
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