Under the Ice Read online

  Try to be more tolerant.

  The thought hit me hard, as if I were hearing it from someone else.

  Who? Elsbeth? My father?

  As I turned off the light and watched Siegfried fall asleep, I mused about my deceased wife and her brother. Intense and fiery, Elsbeth had complemented Siegfried’s gentle demeanor. The two had been bonded with psychic superglue. They were inseparable, and as children, we three had been best pals, wandering the Genesee Valley together on horseback. God, how I missed those days.

  Sighing, I stood.

  It’d been six years now since I lost Elsbeth.

  I shook the sad thoughts away, backed out of the bedroom, and pulled the door shut.

  Chapter 4

  Shelby burst into the kitchen with three canines racing beside her. The dogs simultaneously stopped and shook snow from their coats, which unfortunately landed in a cold flurry on my daughter. A breeze followed them into the kitchen and smashed the door against the wall.

  Shelby stood in the middle of the dogs, face screwed up in anger. “Argh!” She backed away from the dog mob and slammed the door shut. “Stop it, you guys. I’m going to smell like wet dogs now.”

  She kicked off my size eleven snow boots that she’d borrowed to fetch Sheba from the carriage house, left them on the floor in the middle of the room, and threw her coat onto a chair.

  I held back lecturing her about putting things away, especially my stuff. She frequently borrowed my boots for her trips out to the mailbox or to and from the cars. Why she couldn’t lace up her own boots was a mystery to me.

  “Are you okay?” I laughed.

  She flopped onto a chair. “They soaked me!”

  “Think you’ll melt?” I said, tossing her a playful smile.

  She rolled her eyes. “Dad!”

  I dropped a pat of butter into the cast iron skillet, cracked three eggs into the sputtering pan, and stirred them with a wooden spoon. Nodding toward Siegfried in the other room, I said, “Sheba will make him feel better. That was very thoughtful of you, honey.”

  “He adores that dog,” she said softly.

  As if on cue, Sheba pushed open the door to Mrs. Pierce’s bedroom and found her master. The springs squeaked when she jumped onto the bed. Max and Boris trotted into the great room and both rolled around on our antique Persian rug.

  Wet dog smell. Lovely.

  I continued to stir the eggs, marveling at Shelby’s ability to shift moods. First, screeching mad at the dogs. Next, melting with empathy for Siegfried.

  “Want some eggs?” I asked.

  Shelby wrinkled her nose and began rummaging in the refrigerator. “Yuk! No way. Do you know how much fat is in that butter?”

  I raised one eyebrow, casting a surprised glance her way.

  “Sorry, Dad. I mean, no thanks. I’ll just have some yogurt.”

  She grabbed a carton of cherry yogurt and stirred it slowly. I seasoned the eggs and scooped them onto a plate.

  “Dad?” she said, in a super-sweet tone.

  I knew a negotiating dance was about to begin. Sitting down to eat, I looked at her. “Yes?”

  “Um. About last night.”

  “Uh-huh.”

  “I didn’t smoke pot. Honest, I didn’t. Terry sat beside me and passed it around, but I said no. I swear to God.”

  I searched her eyes. She seemed sincere. “I’m glad, honey. That’s one of the reasons you’re not allowed to go to parties. There’s too much stuff floating around that could get you in trouble.”

  She frowned, pouted, and sighed. “I know.”

  She ate a few small bites of yogurt and then looked at me again.

  “Um, Dad? Since I got up so early, if I start my work now, do you think when I’m done, you could cut me a break? I’m supposed to go to Alicia’s for dinner tonight.”

  She looked at me with her big brown eyes. I half expected her to start making cute puppy sounds. She was so darned obvious.

  “Sorry, honey. The grounding stands. I know you’ve gotten out of it in the past, but it’s not going to work this time.”

  She pouted, played with the yogurt, and then snorted. “It’s not fair!”

  The argument was predictable and familiar. I sighed. “Shelby, life isn’t supposed to be fair. If you play by the rules, you get the perks, like the car. Driving is a privilege, not a right. You need to learn that.”

  She sighed again. “Please don’t lecture me, Dad. I can’t take it any more.”

  She sounded just like I had felt last night.

  Concentrating on her yogurt, she worked on the next plan of attack. “So, what lame jobs do you have planned for your slave?” she said, sounding more and more like the Grumpy character in “Snow White.”

  I snorted a laugh. “My slave?” She’d done so few jobs around the place in the past few weeks that I thought “the princess” would suit her better.

  “Yeah.”

  I had been thinking up jobs all morning and eagerly began to list them. “First, the barn. We have to clean those stalls.”

  She hissed a sigh and dropped her chin onto her hands. “We? Are you going to help me?”

  “No. You’ll do it alone.”

  Another eye roll. “What else?”

  “Shovel the path from the barn to the house. Everyone’s coming for dinner this afternoon. Then I want you to tackle the laundry. We have about ten loads to do, especially since the babies were sick this week. Mrs. Pierce got way behind.”

  Five-year-old Johnny and his twin fourteen-month-old sisters, Marion and Celeste, had been ill with an intestinal flu all week. We’d gone crazy changing and washing sheets, clothes, and even shampooing rugs. Between us all, we’d struggled to keep my grandchildren dry and clean. The diapers disappeared as quickly as a box of Kleenex empties when a child pulls them out for fun. Someone had been at the store every day, often twice per day, picking up extra Tylenol, Motrin, Gatorade, and Pedialyte popsicles. It was the week from hell.

  Shelby moaned and rolled her eyes. “You want me to wash pukey baby sheets? Oh. My. God.”

  I covered a smile with my hand and refilled my coffee cup. “Yup.”

  She finished her yogurt, tossed the can into the garbage from across the room, made the shot, and grinned. “I told you I should try out for basketball.”

  I laughed again. “Rightly so.”

  And then the chameleon changed color. Again.

  “So, everyone’s coming for dinner?”

  “They are,” I said.

  “Why do we have to feed the whole darned neighborhood, Dad? Why does everyone have to come here, every single weekend? Why don’t they ever invite us to their houses? It’s so annoying.”

  I picked up my dish and rinsed it under the faucet. I didn’t give her an answer. We’d always had a large crowd on the weekends. I loved feeding our family and friends. Family feasts were our tradition, after all. I preferred it in the summer, when I could harvest armloads of fresh vegetables from my garden, but I always found something good at our local Wegmans in the winter.

  I opened the dishwasher and put the plate inside, thinking about our adopted parents, Oscar and Millie Stone, who were coming to dinner with a number of other friends. At least once a week, Oscar drove Millie up the hill from Goodland Station to visit us. An accomplished nature photographer, Oscar tended lovingly to his wife, who suffered from advanced arthritis and was wheelchair-bound.

  The rest of the guests included Officers Joe Russell and Adam Knapp, our local police, who had become good friends over the course of the past few years. Joe Russell was dating my mother-in-law, Maddy, who also doubled as my secretary in the music department at Conaroga University.

  I smiled when I pictured Maddy, then closed the dishwasher gently. She was a vivacious, extroverted matchmaker who’d taken a shine to Joe. I tried to imagine a family feast without them, and failed. They were family, regardless of their genetic links or lack thereof.

  “What’s so funny?” Shelby asked.

&n
bsp; I shook my head and answered, “Nothing, honey. Just daydreaming, I guess.”

  “You do that a lot, Dad. So, after I do all those wretched jobs, can I go to Alicia’s? If I do the dishes, too?” she begged.

  I didn’t roll my eyes. I didn’t sigh. I remained calm. “Not this time, Shelby.”

  She blew her bangs up in the air. “Geez! You’re impossible. I can’t get anywhere with you today.”

  I dried off the skillet and hung it on the wall. “Guess you should’ve slept in,” I said, covering another smile.

  Chapter 5

  By late afternoon, the house was filled with people. Pots steamed on the stove and the aroma of rosemary and roasted lamb filled the air.

  “Green jelly?” Shelby asked with a raised eyebrow.

  I smiled and scooped mint jelly into a white bowl. “It goes with the lamb.”

  “Oh, gross,” she bellowed, pretending to wretch.

  I couldn’t help the laugh that burst from me. “Trust me, it’s good. Sounds weird until you try it, but it’s delicious.”

  She rolled her eyes, moped to the great room, curled up on my cushy leather chair, and promptly fell asleep.

  I’d worked her hard all day.

  Together, we cleaned both horse stalls. That part I’d given in on, because I really didn’t want the horses escaping from an unlatched stall door or a pitchfork left in the stalls that could injure our two Morgans. I guess I didn’t trust her enough to leave her alone at it with a bad attitude to boot.

  Next, we’d cracked the ice out of the water buckets and refilled them, and then filled both stalls with fresh pine shavings.

  I hadn’t asked her to feed the chickens. She was petrified of Rascal, the red rooster who behaved like a little general. He would routinely attack any human who dared to enter the henhouse, particularly if they emitted the slightest whiff of fear. Siegfried and I had mastered the bullying technique required to keep Rascal in line, but Shelby refused to cross paths with the feathered emperor.

  To be fair, I had to admit she’d worked all day, with no reprieve except for lunch. The dryer still hummed in the laundry room, working on its fourth load of laundry.

  I grabbed the strawberries from the fridge, rinsed them under cool water, and began to hull and slice them. I decided to try something new today, a magazine recipe, of all things. When the strawberries were done, I mixed them with baby spinach leaves in a large yellow bowl.

  Oscar and Millie Stone sat in the great room with Freddie and the twins. Millie rested in her wheelchair with little Celeste on her lap. Oscar cuddled Marion in his arms. Freddie perched close by, laughing and chatting with the group.

  I mixed the honey, vinegar, oil, scallions and toasted sesame seeds for the dressing, and set it aside until it was time to serve the salad.

  I glanced into the next room when the gang applauded for my mother-in-law, Maddy, who sashayed around the room in a fluorescent green chiffon frock. She mimicked a runway model, mincing up and down the room. With a great flourish, she pivoted on one foot and strutted down the length of the room.

  Twirling a long necklace of sparkly green crystal beads, she said, “Well? What do you all think? Will Joe like it?”

  The group murmured approval, but to my mind, the frilly dress looked a bit silly on her. But what did I know about women’s fashion? Maddy tended toward the outrageous, with vibrant colors and wild accessories. But Joe was crazy about her, so I guess it worked for him.

  Missing were Camille and Johnny, who had gone to the grocery store for me, and Officers Joe Russell and Adam Knapp, whom we expected shortly. I’d bought some hot fudge and butterscotch sauce to drizzle over vanilla ice cream. I’d remembered the cherries, but had forgotten the whipped cream. Before I could object, Camille jumped up from the couch, bundled Johnny into his winter clothes, and sped off to the store. Since we were married last year, she loved spending special alone time with her new grandson and took him along at every opportunity.

  “We interrupt this program for a special report.”

  The room quieted as Maddy, Freddie, Oscar and Millie turned toward the television. Marion wiggled down from Oscar’s lap and toddled around the room. I walked toward the archway that separated the kitchen from the great room and listened.

  “Rochester LIVE has just learned about a four-county drug bust. Today’s operation spanned four counties and resulted in the arrests of eighteen dealers and distributors. Local police and dozens of special agents participated in the sting that stretched all the way down to East Goodland in Livingston County.”

  Maddy’s hand flew to her mouth. “That must be why Joe’s been so busy lately,” she screeched. “By golly, no wonder he hasn’t had time for me.”

  I walked into the great room and ruffled Marion’s chestnut-colored curls.

  She grabbed my hand and tugged on my finger. “Opa,” she said wisely.

  “Does this mean he won’t make it to dinner?” I leaned down to kiss Marion’s soft cheeks. The scent of lavender baby shampoo drifted up from her damp locks.

  Maddy shook her head and smoothed her dress, admiring herself in the mirror on the wall. “Golly, no. I just talked to him fifteen minutes ago. He’s going to pick up Adam and head right over. He’ll be here.” She beamed at herself in the mirror.

  “Good.” I smiled while she made faces and arranged herself in poses, then headed back into the kitchen.

  Shelby had already set the table in the dining room, so I didn’t have to worry about that. The buffet was ready for the platter of lamb, the asparagus, the salad, and the buttered baby potatoes. I lifted the heavy roasting pan out and set it on the stovetop, then slipped quietly into Mrs. Pierce’s bedroom to check on Siegfried.

  He lay on his side. Sheba sprawled beside him, her head on his pillow. She nuzzled the back of his head with her nose and wagged her tail, as if to tell me she was taking good care of him. He had kicked off the sheets and comforter and his long legs hung off of the end of the mattress. One arm was thrown over his head.

  “Buddy? Are you okay?”

  He rolled over, laid a listless hand on Sheba’s head, and sighed. “Ja. But it’s cold in here, Professor. I am so cold.”

  I felt his forehead again and frowned. Still burning up. I pulled the blankets up over his shivering body and tucked him in, then grabbed the thermometer from the nightstand.

  “Here, put this under your tongue again. I think you’re ready for another dose of Advil.”

  He took the thermometer obediently.

  I grabbed the washcloth that had fallen onto the floor and rewetted it in Mrs. Pierce’s bathroom. The thermometer beeped and I checked the display. “One-oh-three-point-nine.” Worry stirred in my stomach. “Here, take these.” I gave him the Advil, placed the cool cloth on his head, and refilled his ginger ale with ice.

  Sheba licked his hand carefully.

  “How about some chicken soup? I made it for you this morning.”

  He shook his head and closed his eyes. “Nein danke. Maybe later.” His voice weakened and he began to drift off to sleep again.

  “Okay. I’ll check on you soon.” I patted his shoulder, straightened his covers, and went back into the kitchen to tend to my hungry crowd.

  Chapter 6

  Joe and Adam burst into the kitchen on a gust of frosty air. They stamped their feet, tore off their hats and gloves, and won a volley of greetings from the great room.

  “Come on in and get warm, boys,” Maddy hollered. “It’s cold out there.”

  Joe smiled and raised one finger in the air as if to ask for a minute. Unzipping his coat, he motioned for me to follow him into the mudroom. Adam shrugged out of his jacket, tossed it onto a chair, and hastened to Freddie’s side.

  Joe’s features seemed strangely frozen, and I didn’t think it was from the cold.

  He hung up his parka and shot me a half-smile. “Can I talk to you later, Gus?”

  “Sure, pal. What about?”

  He passed a meaty hand over his
short salt and pepper hair and sighed. His shoulders stiffened, and he glanced toward the great room. “I, ah. I can’t say now. But I really need some advice.”

  “Dad? I need your help.” Freddie hollered from the great room.

  I hurriedly whispered, “After dinner?”

  “Yeah. That’ll be good. Thanks.” He squeezed my hand, then wandered over to Maddy’s side.

  I hurried into the great room, where Freddie sat on a blanket on the floor changing Marion’s diaper. Waving toward the stairs with one hand, while trying to hold the wiggling baby still with the other, she said, “Could you please catch Celeste? And put up the baby gate?”

  Celeste was already on the third step.

  I raced after her. She had reached the fifth step when I scooped her into my arms. “What are you doing, you little monkey? No, no!”

  I plopped her down on the floor at the foot of the stairs and quickly set up the gate.

  She started to cry. I wasn’t sure if it was due to her foiled plans to climb to the second floor, or the fact that I’d put her down.

  She raised her tear-streaked face to me and lifted her arms. “Uppy, Opa.”

  “Okay, baby.” I picked her up and walked to the couch, collapsing onto the cushions with her.

  The faucet of tears turned off abruptly and she stopped crying. “Trot, trot?” she said.

  “Okay baby. Just a quick one, though.” It was her favorite game. I placed her on my knees, facing me, and grasped both of her chubby hands. “Are you ready?”

  The late afternoon sun shone in through the window and lit up her face. Her eyes, a gorgeous cerulean blue, were luminescent. Suddenly, it struck me. Celeste inherited Siegfried’s blue eyes, and Marion has the same dark chocolate eyes as Elsbeth.

  I’d never made the connection before. I laughed out loud when Celeste began to hop up and down on my knees in anticipation.