The Widower's Tale: A Novel by Julia Glass

Author:Julia Glass [Glass, Julia]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9780307377920
Publisher: Pantheon
Published: 2010-09-07T05:00:00+00:00

10

Where's the iron maiden, dude!"

"I told you to stay upstairs," said Robert. "You're going to wind up with a colonial nail in your skull."

Turo had followed him into Granddad's cellar. Just as Robert had hoped, snow fell on the last day of classes before the break. How perfect was that? Back in October, searching for a can of stain, he'd seen a stash of skis down here.

Hunched low, they moved carefully through the underbelly of the house, barely more than a cave. The floor was packed dirt, rocks protruding like the spines of primordial subterranean creatures. When Robert was little, he'd peer down the basement stairs in wonder and terror. Like Turo, he'd thought of dungeons: manacled prisoners and colonies of bats.

He switched on the fluorescent strip over a workbench cluttered with tools. At the opposite end of the cellar, chinks of lamplight pierced the floor of the living room, between the old planks not covered by rugs. Granddad had never installed insulation down there--one of too many trivial things, thought Robert, that irritated his mom.

Robert groped behind the wide stone arch that anchored the kitchen hearth. "Jesus." He coughed and spat, brushing at cobwebs now glued to his face. He pulled out two pairs of cross-country skis, one at a time. Hanging on a nail was a plastic shopping bag. Yes: boots.

Turo toyed with a couple of the tools lying on the bench, then wiped his hands on his jeans. "Does anybody ever do anything down here?"

Robert handed Turo Clover's skis. They were sticky with years of residue, heating oil fused with dust. He hadn't thought about boots for Turo. Robert's mother had huge feet, so he could wear hers, but Clover's would be way too small for Turo.

When they hauled the skis into the kitchen, Robert's dad was whipping cream. "Please take those outside! No spiders in my tiramisu!"

"Great title for a memoir, Dad."

"Outside!" Flecks of cream covered his navy-blue sweater.

It was the afternoon before Thanksgiving. Every surface in Granddad's kitchen was occupied by bowls, cutting boards, heavy knives perched at perilous angles, cartons of eggs, loaves of bread, vegetables, cheese. Robert's dad was making pumpkin tiramisu, vegetable terrine, and stuffing. It looked like he was planning to feed Afghanistan.

Other dads had midlife crises involving cars or boats or the totally tawdry affair with some desperate younger woman, but Douglas Barnes had smothered his fear of old age in an avalanche of butter. Or that's how Robert saw it. For the past year, whenever he went home to Newton, Dad got all tangled up in three or four complicated recipes at once, usually French. If he was rebelling against the "heart healthy" diet of Robert's childhood, it didn't seem to bug his mom too much. She joked that the cooking posed a greater danger than the food. More often than not, the smoke alarm went off, something got burned, and Mom had to stay up half the night washing every dish they owned. One time, a stray towel

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