The Return of Jonah Gray (20 page)

“She lives in Oakland,” Eddie said.

The old man didn't appear to have heard him. “What's your name, little one?”

“Eddie,” he said. He no longer seemed scared.

“Do you live here?” I asked.

“This is my home,” the old man said. “I'm not going anywhere. I don't have to. I've paid…paid, paid…bills.”

“It looks like you're quite a gardener,” I said.

He looked at the back lawn, then shook his head. “Allergies.”

I wanted to ask him more—who he was and if Jonah's wife or son were around, but I didn't want Eddie to realize how little I knew. I'd gone far enough and I didn't want to push it. It was time to return to my own family.

“We should get back. Our family is waiting.”

“Your family,” he said. “You say hello. For me.”

I could tell that he still meant the Potters. “I will,” I promised.

“How's your father?” the man asked.

“He's okay,” I said. It didn't seem to matter whether I was answering for my own father or for the unknown Mr. Potter.

“Don't blame him for getting old,” he said. “It happens. To the best of us.”

“I won't,” I assured him.

“Don't be a stranger. I'll mix lemonade next time. Always nice to have the company of a young lady and gentleman,” he said, his words at last running smooth.

“See you,” I said, though I didn't actually expect that I would again. Eddie and I made our way back up the driveway. The man waved and turned back toward the house.

“He was nice,” Eddie said.

At the end of the drive, I strapped my nephew into the trailer, then climbed back onto the bike.

 

“There you are,” my mother said, seeing us arrive. “I was beginning to worry.”

“We had an adventure!” Eddie announced.

“Is that right?” my father asked. “An adventure?” He was back at the table, less wan than when we had pedaled off. He patted the bench beside him and Eddie sat down.

“We met a man with a limp, only he wasn't scary and I didn't point,” Eddie said.

“How considerate,” my father said.

I looked at my father. The old man had been right—I couldn't blame him for getting old or sick. It just happened.

“Do you need anything, Dad? A drink? Something to eat?”

He reached out and I gave him my hand.

“Nothing,” he said.

ON MONDAY MORNING, AS THE MAILROOM ATTENDANT
made his rounds, a letter landed on my desk. The return address read 530 Horsehair Road.

A bolt of panic. Had the old man figured me out? Had he realized who I was and tracked me down? Did Jonah Gray know that I'd been snooping around his house?

But then relief. The letter had been postmarked that past Friday. It was in the mail before I'd gone to Stockton and trespassed. I breathed a little easier.

Dear Ms. Gardner,
Jonah Gray had written. I recognized his handwriting from his return.

Ethan Gray was no child, I suddenly realized. It all made sense. Ethan Gray was Jonah's father; 530 Horsehair was Ethan's house. The unexplained medical expenses, the donation to the VFW, even the AARP membership dues that I'd found confusing—they slipped into place in this now more rational universe.

That was why he had left Tiburon, left his job, sold the boat. He hadn't run away. He had run toward. He had run to help his father.

I thought about the old man in the garden, about his limp (from the stroke), his halting speech (aphasia, I could now deduce), his determination to stay in his home. This was the father Jonah Gray hadn't known as a child, the man he had both hated and found a way to forgive. For a second time, Jonah had upended his life to go live with him. Strange how a simple explanation can change one's perspective.

There wasn't much more to Jonah's letter.

But my family issues aren't your concern and are not meant as an excuse. My audit interview takes place next Wednesday. Whatever the result, it'll be over after that.

Yours, Jonah Gray

I looked at my calendar. Heaven help me, he was right. I'd forgotten that his interview was on Wednesday, just two days away. I searched for Susan's documentation on the Gray return, but that seemed to be one piece of his file she hadn't returned. Even if I did nothing else for the next two days, it would be a push to finish my analysis in time.

“Knock, knock.”

Jeff and Ricardo were standing, like a bar chart, one tall, one short, at the entrance of my cubicle.

“Oh, hi. What are you two doing?” I asked.

“Are we still on for dinner tonight?” Jeff asked.

“Dinner?” I repeated.

“It's that meal at the end of the day,” Ricardo said. “I'm sure you know some obscure fact about its history.”

During the course of our initial date at Hunter's, Jeff had mentioned going out to dinner on Monday. I'd just forgotten it, but now, here it was, the Monday in question. No wonder the guy requested definite affirmatives. Maybe I was a flaky Californian after all.

“Seven o'clock tonight?” Jeff asked. “That's what you'd suggested.”

“Where are you two lovebirds going to go?” Ricardo asked.

I ignored him. “Seven o'clock,” I agreed, though it meant that I wouldn't be able to work late. There was always Tuesday night.

Jeff gave me a big smile before leaving. But once he and Ricardo were gone, I felt myself frowning. Jeff was a nice guy. And I had enjoyed kissing him at the tail end of our first date. But I wondered what that simple action had gotten me into.

I supposed that I had already made my choice. I was going on my second date, and after that, perhaps a third. I'd sworn to Martina that Jonah Gray was behind me and my date with Jeff was meant to prove that. But now I wondered why I'd been so quick, going from sixty to zero, as Martina said, in just a few minutes. If only Jonah had written me a few days earlier.

My phone didn't ring for the rest of the day. It rang only twice all told. Once was my mother, and once was Martina, asking which flavor of jerky had been my favorite. The calls from irate and protective gardeners in Jonah Gray's army had stopped coming in. He'd called them off, all right. And I was surprised to find myself a little sorry that he had.

Throughout the day, as I prepared for Jonah's audit, my mind wandered back to Stockton, peering in the windows of that old farmhouse, focused on a man whose world wasn't even mine to reach for. I couldn't stop imagining how our conversation would go on Wednesday. What would he say? What would I say? How would his laugh sound in person? Would his eyes light up? Would we speak of Roanoke? Or the Catalina?

And even if he turned out to be a jerk, a bore, evasive or defensive, that, too, would be something. As he had written in his letter, whatever happened, it would all be over and done with soon enough. And all that had drawn me to him—the phone calls, the postings, the life revealed in his returns and his words—all those things could be packed up and put away, and I could get on with it, with the rest of my life.

IT WAS JUST ANOTHER FACE-TO-FACE. I TOLD MYSELF
that I wasn't hungry. That's why I hadn't been able to eat breakfast. I needed new clothes. That's why nothing I pulled from the closet looked right. I drank too much coffee. That's why my heart started pounding when the receptionist called to say that my eleven o'clock appointment had arrived.

I made my way to the lobby, focused on my breathing. I wanted to portray steady. In charge. Sane. Not a man-hater or a bean counter or a trespasser. But when I surveyed the reception area, my heart sank a little. No one in there looked the way I thought Jonah was going to look. Though I still hadn't seen a picture of him, the act of combing through a man's financials always created a clear mental image. I figured I'd know him when I saw him. But there in the reception area, I wasn't sure what I saw.

Three of the people waiting were men of around Jonah's age. One sat with his eyes closed, head leaning against the wall behind. He was dressed entirely in denim—shirt, jeans and cowboy hat, all the same deep-rinse indigo. I hadn't figured Jonah Gray to be an all-denim guy, and if he were to wear jeans, that they would be faded, with smudges of dirt permanently ground into the knees.

The second guy was dressed nicely enough. Smart, flat-front twill pants and an ironed button-down. But he was twitchy, nervous. He wiped his palms on his pants again and again, smoothing out a wrinkle that wasn't there. He looked around the room, caught my eye and quickly looked away, and all the while, his knees bumped up and down to an uneven beat. That didn't square with my impression of Jonah either. The overgrown house. The relaxed and steady tone of his voice. The way he wrote about gardening through the dusk, lost in the smell of dirt and roots and leaves, until he realized that he was pruning by moonlight. Could this possibly be the same guy?

And then there was the third man. He sat still, quiet, unassuming at first glance. But a silent anger seethed from every pore, from the clench of his jaw and the way he held tight to a can of soda, squeezing the roundness from the aluminum. He barely moved, but the under current of rage that radiated from him was so bitter, I found myself stepping back.

“Jonah Gray?” I said, too quietly to be heard. I didn't want any of the three of them to stand. And yet, I had to know. “Gray?” I said more loudly.

A woman stood. “Here,” she said.

I watched her approach, wondering whether someone was playing a trick on me. Was Ricardo in on this?

“I'll be representing Mr. Gray today,” she explained. “I'm his CPA. My name's Linda.” She looked more like a pageant winner than any CPA I'd ever seen, with coiffed hair and perfectly arched brows.

“He didn't come with you?” I asked.

She looked around the waiting room, then back at me. “No,” she said. “He's not required to. But you must know that.”

I was relieved and disappointed at once. I motioned for Linda to follow me. “So Mr. Gray decided to send a professional,” I said, as we headed for my cubicle. “He's not scared of me, is he?”

“Excuse me?” Linda asked.

“Nothing,” I said. It was a question that I wasn't sure I wanted answered.

“Do you know what I'm going to ask about?” I quizzed her, once we were sitting at my table, each of us with our papers arranged.

“I have an idea,” she said.

“In Jonah's—I mean, Mr. Gray's—last return, he neglected to declare some significant capital gains from the liquidation of a retirement account.”

“It was a lot of money,” Linda said, nodding.

“Are you admitting that your client knowingly filed a fraudulent tax return?”

“Fraudulent, no. Inaccurate, sure. And that's not the half of it.”

That wasn't the way most CPAs spoke to me. They didn't get chummy. They stuck to the facts and gave away as little information as possible. And apparently she wasn't finished.

“Poor guy,” she said. “He was totally fucked over. Excuse my French. But royally fucked.”

That definitely wasn't the way most CPAs spoke.

“Fucked?” I asked. As luck would have it, Fred Collins was passing my cubicle at that moment. He stopped, took a step back and looked inside.

“Royally,” Linda said, offering him a Miss America-quality smile.

Fred smiled back, looking more confused than anything. He edged away.

“Here's the long and short,” Linda went on. “Jonah's wife, Pilar, she's Argentine. Never really took to the States.”

“It sounds like you know him pretty well,” I said. Why did I say that? What did I care how well the pretty CPA knew him? The man was married.

“I've been friends with the Grays for a long time,” she said. “Anyhow, Ethan—”

“Jonah's father? With the stroke?”

She looked at me as though she didn't appreciate being interrupted. “Right. He had the stroke last July. Plowed, full bore, into that poor oak tree before he could get to the hospital. Thank goodness a neighbor found him. That's when Jonah convinced Pilar to move to Stockton. Temporarily, of course. So Jonah could take care of Ethan. Well, Pilar, I only met her once or twice, but I mean, San Francisco was way too stifling for her. So you can imagine her reaction to Stockton.”

“And the stock sales are related to the move?” I asked, in case Fred lurked nearby. I hoped to sound at least somewhat professional.

“Let me finish so you get the full picture. So Pilar left.”

“Pilar left?” I repeated. “You mean, Jonah's separated?”

“Not separated. Divorced. I think it was final last month,” Linda said. “She left about four, five months after they moved to Stockton. Left Jonah, left the States, hightailed it back to Argentina.”

“So Jonah's
not
married?” I asked, making sure that I understood. “Because his return said single and then married and I just didn't know—” I was afraid to feel relief before it was warranted.

“What did I just say? He's divorced. She left in January, just after New Year's. Poor guy—he was a wreck. Came home from work one day and poof, she's gone. Not only that, but she had cleaned out his investment accounts back around Christmastime. The girl faked a whole, happy holiday season just to buy herself enough time to get home. It's the sort of thing that gives women a bad reputation. She should have been an actress.”

I was reminded of the hostess at Hunter's. Some people were very good at faking it.

“The thing was, if she had told him she was unhappy, Jonah would probably have given her the money.”

“Of course he would have,” I said.

Linda looked at me strangely.

“I mean, who wouldn't, right?” I tried to sound less giddy.

“Anyhow, with the move to Stockton and forwarded mail and all the hell with Ethan and the new newspaper job, he didn't put it all together for a few months—after he'd filed. He didn't think he had any stock sales to report. Talk about your marriage penalty.”

“I'll admit that I was surprised when his replacement return came back with the Married box marked. He never mentions his wife.”

“You've spoken to him?” Linda asked. “He told me that he wrote to you, but he said that the two of you had never spoken.”

I felt my cheeks go red. I couldn't admit that I was Jeffrine. “No,” I said.

“What do you mean, never mentions her?”

“On his Web site,” I said.

“Oh, that. Right. Man, the people who follow that are so crazy about him. It's cute. A little weird, but cute.”

“I bet he's got a beautiful garden,” I said.

Linda seemed to remember where she was. “Anyhow, I've worked out a payment schedule, to cover what he owes plus penalties.” She handed me a sheet of paper. “I told him that we might be able to negotiate something a little more amenable.”

“Maybe—”

“But he wanted to make sure everything was paid in full. Believe me, he wants this whole thing behind him. This audit has been nothing but a reminder of Pilar and a terrible year.”

“I hope it hasn't been
that
bad,” I said.

Linda looked at me as if I were unhinged. “Being audited by the IRS? Hello? You've got to realize that it's a nightmare.”

“I guess.” I felt like a total dork. I wanted her to say, “You're right. He should have come in person. You and he would really like each other.” But she wasn't going to say that. She wasn't the unhinged one.

“So why do you think she left?” I asked, pretending to look at her proposed payment schedule.

“Pilar?” Linda paused for a moment before answering. “I wouldn't tell him this, but I think there was someone else. There had to be. Don't get me wrong—she was plenty jealous that Jonah would drop everything to take care of his father. He even donated this beautiful little boat he had to the people who helped Ethan after the stroke, when he could barely get a word out.”

“How is he doing?”

“Jonah?”

“No, the father. Ethan.”

“Better. Being at home has helped. And having Jonah there to take care of him.”

“Were you surprised that he would just pack up and move to Stockton like that?”

Linda frowned, as if she was thinking about it. “He's not very close with his sisters, so Ethan is really the only family he has,” she finally said.

“But after what happened when Jonah was a kid—”

“How do you know that?” Linda asked abruptly.

“Research,” I said.

“I'm always surprised at what you people can dig up. Ethan wasn't the greatest father around. Not at the beginning. But they both came around. I think they're a lot alike, actually. So when Ethan had the stroke, it wasn't really a question of ‘if' but ‘how soon.'” Linda stood. “Anyway, here's my card.”

“You're a Potter girl,” I said, more to myself than to her. But of course, she was standing in front of me.

“I'm sorry?” She looked almost alarmed. “Do you know my family?”

“No,” I said. “It's just something I say. You're a Potter girl. I'm a Gardner girl. It's nothing.”

She looked at me for what seemed like a long time. “I trust you'll let me know your thoughts on the payment schedule and if you need any additional information,” she finally said.

I had nothing to lose. “He's one of the good ones, isn't he?” I asked.

“Who?”

“Jonah. I mean, Mr. Gray.”

Now I'd surprised her. She sputtered a little before answering. “He's one of the best. Why?”

“Numbers tell you a lot, but they can't tell you everything,” I said.

She smiled. A CPA could appreciate that.

 

I didn't hear from Linda Potter again. My job was to sign off on the facts of the audit. Restitution was handled elsewhere. And so, once she left my office, I sat at my desk, not sure what to do. Could it really be over?

“Of course you'll move on,” Martina soothed, over beers that evening at the Escape Room.

“Of course I will,” I said. “I guess I should be glad that my first impression was accurate.”

“You sound really glad.”

“I mean, I pegged him pretty quickly. I knew he seemed like a good guy. All those people couldn't have been wrong. Of course, now with the audit over, I don't have any reason to contact him again.”

“No reason.”

“Are you just repeating me?” I asked. “That's obnoxious.”

Martina blinked. “I'm not sure what you want me to say. I'm not sure you ever really wanted to meet him. Or anyone, for that matter.”

“How can you say that? Why wouldn't I want to meet him? And I've met Jeff, haven't I? I've got a third date with him on Friday.”

“But you've always got a reason why it doesn't work. And it's never your doing. It's your job or the work thing or bad timing.”

“Sometimes it
is
my job. You saw how quickly Kevin ran out of here when he saw my business card.”

“So get a new job. But you won't, because you don't like change any more than Gene did. Why else would you keep agreeing to meet me here?”

“The Escape Room is convenient,” I said. “And it's comfortable.”

“What's comfortable about it? The bathrooms are gross. The peanuts are stale. And have you ever actually found a date in here?”

I had to admit that I hadn't.

“I think you like knowing what you're going to find in here and that no one's ever going to challenge you. God knows, you're in little danger of meeting anyone here who might matter. And if you do, you chase them away.”