Chapter 10 - The Salt on the Bread
Three days after New Year’s, the river began to thaw.
The sound came up the hollow in the afternoon—a low, rhythmic boom like distant artillery as the five-foot plates of gray river ice broke against the concrete piers of the railway trestle at High Crossing.
The kitchen was eighty degrees.
I had the woodstove running on four-year-old white oak that Jesse had brought up from his grandfather’s woodlot, the iron top so hot that the blue tea kettle was dancing on its trivet, singing its thin, whistling note into the steam that fogged the six panes of the back door.
Piper was sitting at the linoleum table, wearing her own clothes—the navy blue L.L. Bean down vest with the yellow zipper that we had found in the milk-house, washed four times in vinegar and sun-dried on the line until the smell of the kerosene was nothing more than a faint, oily memory behind the wool.
Her face was clean. The cherry-red had faded entirely, leaving her skin pale and clear, with two small freckles showing on the bridge of her nose that Brooke had spent three months trying to bleach out with lemon juice.
Barnaby sat under her chair, his yellow chin resting on the toe of her sneaker, his tail giving three lazy thumps against the linoleum every time the kettle’s pitch changed.
On the table between us was a loaf of rye bread, dark as river mud, and a small blue crock of coarse gray salt.
The heavy kitchen door opened without a knock.
Tommy Vance stepped into the vestibule, taking his Stetson off and shaking two drops of river mist from the brim. He wasn't in uniform; he wore an old sheepskin coat with the wool coming out of the cuffs and a pair of dark green trousers tucked into hunting boots that smelled of neatsfoot oil.
He pulled a brown manila envelope from under his arm and laid it on the table beside the salt.
"It’s done," Vance said.
I didn't touch the envelope. "The plea?"
"Second-degree assault and reckless endangerment with a depraved heart," Vance said, pulling out the third chair and sitting down with a groan that made the oak legs creak. "The judge took it this morning. Five to seven at Bedford Hills. No parole until the third year is served in full."
Piper reached out, took a slice of the rye bread, and dipped the crust into the salt crock. "What about Uncle Richard?" she asked.
Vance looked at her, his gray eyes softening behind the crow's feet. "Richard’s going to the farm down in Orange County for eighteen months, Piper. The one with the dairy cows. He’s going to be working the milking parlor from four in the morning until six at night."
"He's good with cows," Piper said, chewing the crust with that slow, deliberate motion she had. "He doesn't talk to them, so they don't get nervous. When Aunt Brooke talked to them, the milk turned sour in the pail."
Vance let out a short, dry bark of a laugh that ended in a cough. "Well, he won't have nobody talking to him down there except the state herdsman, and he’s dumber than an iron wedge."
He looked at me across the steam from the kettle. "The court cleared the title this morning, Clare. The deed is recorded in the town hall under Piper’s name. You’re the sole executor until she’s twenty-one, with no bond required."
I picked up the bread knife—the long, curved carbon steel blade that my father had ground down from an old cross-cut saw—and cut three thick slices from the loaf.
"Did Brooke say anything?" I asked. "Before they loaded her in the van?"
Vance took one of the slices, laid a pinch of the gray salt along the buttered edge, and looked out the window to where the orchard lay under the gray mist, the black branches of the apple trees dripping onto the melting snow.
"She asked for her fox stole," Vance said. "She told the matron that the winter air at Bedford was dreadful on the chest. She said her family had always had delicate lungs."
Piper looked up from her bread, her hazel eyes clear as cold spring water.
"Her lungs weren't delicate, Mama," Piper said, her small hand reaching down to scratch the dog between his ears. "She just didn't like the smell of the house when the truth was burning."
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I set the bread knife down on the pine board, reached across the table, and took my daughter’s hand. Her skin was cool, dry, and smelled of the cedar soap we had boiled on the hearth three days ago.
The kettle whistled—a long, steady blast of white steam that rose toward the whitewashed rafters, clearing the air until there was nothing left to smell but the wood, the salt, and the cold river wind coming through the door we had finally learned to leave wide open.
