“Louis,” she said, coming to him. She crushed him to her soft chest. “Oh, it’s so good to see you.”
Another sensory flood. The feel of her cheek, soft as wilted rose petals, the smell of the Johnson’s Baby Powder she always used and that he, as a boy, assumed was peculiar to all white women. A memory rushed up to him, of Frances’s face coming close in the dark as she tucked him in bed and kissed him good night.
Louis finally pushed from her embrace.
“You look too thin,” she said. “You’re not eating.”
He smiled. “I make do.”
She gave a snort and turned to the counter, coming back with a tray. “Here,” she said.
The tray held a container of Win Schuler’s cheese and a plate of carefully fanned crackers and tiny pickles. There were two blue cloth napkins and a silver cheese spreader.
“How long until dinner?” Phillip asked, pulling two beers out of the fridge.
Frances wiped her forehead. “A while. Why don’t you two go downstairs and have one of your visits? I’ll call you when I’m ready.”
Phillip nodded his head toward the basement door and Louis followed, carrying the tray. Louis slowed as he neared the bottom of the stairs. Knotty pine paneling and a bar. Blue-tiled linoleum he had helped Phillip install. Christmas lights twinkled in the mirror behind the bar. On the bar itself was an old radio, a blue rotary dial phone, a bowl of walnuts, and a miniature aluminum tree.
“Is that the same tree that was here when I was a kid?” Louis asked.
Phillip took a seat at the bar. “Yup. Probably twenty years old by now. Every year, she drags it out again.”
Louis slid onto the stool next to him. “Please don’t tell me those are the same walnuts.”
Phillip smiled. “Could very well be. Want one?”
“I’ll pass.”
Phillip reached for a nut and the silver cracker. Louis knew Phillip was fifty-six, and except for the limp from the Korean War, he was lean and healthy. His face was still striking, and as Louis watched him now, he had a memory of one afternoon when he was twelve and was watching TV and happened upon the movie The Day the Earth Stood Still. He had looked at Michael Rennie and wondered what his foster father was doing playing a spaceman in some corny old black-and-white movie. It was a full year before he finally worked up the nerve to ask, and Phillip had just laughed and laughed. It was years later that Louis stopped thinking of Phillip Lawrence as some mysterious alien presence in his life.
Louis considered Phillip’s face now. The network of lines had deepened and there was something else in his foster father’s face he had never ever seen before—a deep, aching sadness.
Phillip felt his gaze and looked up. Louis looked away, picking up his beer and swinging his stool around on the pretense of looking around the basement.
“Nothing’s changed. Place looks good,” Louis said.
“Well, there’s a lot of stuff that needs fixing, but one of the benefits of getting old is your eyes start going, so I don’t notice it as much.”
The trickle of memories continued. The basement was musty and outdated, but it was the best room in the house. This was where everything happened. Louis could almost see the heaps of crumpled holiday wrapping paper. See Phillip leading the Cub Scout meetings that he used to watch from under the steps, too shy, too scared, to join in. He could remember the indoor campouts in winter, a half dozen boys in ragged sleeping bags, Phil sitting cross-legged whispering ghost stories.
“You seem different, Louis,” Phillip said.
“Different how?”
“Different as in . . . calm. Maybe even happy.”
“Things are good right now.”
“Good. You’ve waited a long time.”
Louis turned back to Phillip. He wanted to tell him that he seemed different, too. But instinct was telling him he had to leave it up to Phillip to bring up his friend and the empty grave.
The furnace kicked on, and hot air puffed down from the ceiling vents. From the kitchen above came the sound of clattering plates and Frances humming quietly. Louis reached for a cracker and spread some cheese on it. He heard Phillip take a deep breath and he figured he was about to tell him why he had asked him to come up.
But Phillip was quiet, cracking the walnuts.
Louis realized he would have to do the prodding. All those countless times when Phillip had been the one to urge him out of his shell. It felt odd to have the roles reversed.
“Phillip, why did you want me to come here?” Louis asked. “What exactly is going on?”
Phillip glanced at him, then went back to the walnut, carefully picking the bits out of the shell.
“I don’t know where to start,” he said quietly.
“Try the beginning.”
Phillip set the nutcracker down and turned to face Louis. “I’ve been visiting the grave of my friend for sixteen years. Last month, I went out there and there was a sign saying the place had been sold and that families could claim the remains for relocation.”
“You said that in your letter,” Louis said.
Phillip nodded. “When they found out I wasn’t a relative, they wouldn’t tell me anything. But there was this woman there, I guess she felt sorry for me or something. She told me that my friend’s family . . .” Phillip paused. “They didn’t want the remains.”
Phillip brushed his hands together to get rid of the walnut shells. “I asked if I could do it and she said yes. So I signed a paper and made the arrangements for a new plot at Riverside back here in Plymouth. I even bought a new casket. But when they went to transfer the body, that’s when they found out . . .”
Phillip stopped. His hands encircled the beer bottle, but he didn’t move to take a drink.
“You said in your letter the coffin was empty,” Louis prodded.
“No, it wasn’t empty. It was filled with rocks. That’s what they found when they opened it.”
Phillip was sitting there, like if he let go of the bottle it would fall apart in his hands.
“So,” Louis went on, “you think your friend could be alive?”
Phillip shook his head slowly. “No, no. I know that isn’t possible.”
“You said in your letter you didn’t tell Frances. Why not?”
Phillip was very still, his voice low. “Because my friend is a woman I knew before Frances. I don’t think Frances would understand.”
Louis took a drink of his beer, his mind already forming questions, some too personal to ask. “Phil, I can’t lie to Frances.”
“I know, I know.” Phillip looked at Louis. “I just want to find out what happened. Maybe there was just a mix-up at the cemetery, a bookkeeping error or something. Things like that happen, don’t they?”
Louis nodded.
“I just want to see my friend reburied.” Phillip’s expression was beseeching. “Can you maybe just look into things? Can you help with that at least?”
“All right,” Louis said.
There was a sudden noise above and they both looked up to see Frances standing at the top of the stairs, craning her head to look down.
“What are you two up to down here?” she asked.
“Just