W is for Wasted

There were other elements in play. It would be disingenuous to claim I was above caring about $595,350. I’d never been close to that much money in my life, and while it wasn’t really mine, it was certainly a subject worthy of consideration. Briefly, I fantasized about what would happen if I disregarded the terms of the will and divided the inheritance equally among the three. How far might that go toward healing the rift? Nowhere. Ethan and Anna would blow their portion and then expect Ellen to fork over hers until that was gone as well. Ellen would agree because she felt guilty about the two of them, an attitude they’d fostered in her over the years.

I toyed with the idea of handing over part of the money—say, $100,000 divided three ways instead of the half a million plus. The flaw there was that if I thought they were entitled to a little bit of money, why not the whole amount? Either it was all right or all wrong. Acting in opposition to Dace’s wishes was clearly wrong, regardless of Ethan’s threats or Evelyn’s maneuvering. Money aside, from their point of view the crux of the problem was Dace’s love affair with hooch and his refusal to give it up. In his children’s eyes, he’d died preferring alcohol to them.

Driving south on the 99, I hadn’t even cleared the city limits when I caught sight of the highway sign for the Panama Lane off-ramp. The name jumped out at me because I’d seen it in my paper search for Choaker Lane where the Millhones had lived in the early forties. When I’d consulted the city map, the address was too far off the beaten path to worry about; at the time, Ethan Dace was uppermost on my mind. Now I was in range of the house where my father had lived and the question was this: did I care enough to delay my trip home?

Nah, not so much. The Millhones were long gone, and getting back to Santa Teresa mattered more to me than exploring sites of historical family significance. I was curious, but going five miles out of my way seemed irksome when all I wanted was to put distance between me and Bakersfield. On the other hand (I was always thinking in terms of this “other hand” horseshit . . .), who knew if I’d ever be here again? Henry would ask what I’d learned and I didn’t fancy telling him I’d jettisoned the search. He wouldn’t chide me, but I’d be chiding myself for not taking advantage of the occasion while I could.

I signaled my intention, took the off-ramp, and pulled over to the side of the road at the first decent opportunity. I was annoyed. Why couldn’t I go back to being an orphan like I’d been all my life? Had I ever once complained about it? No, I had not. I’d taken a certain peevish pride in being without close family. Now my lone-wolf status had been taken away and I resented the loss, even if it had always been entirely delusional on my part. As it turned out, I was embroiled in the same dysfunctional mess as everyone else I knew.

I opened the oversize map, which was thirty-six inches by fifty and printed on slick, heavy-duty paper that was awkward to unfold. Once I wrestled it into submission, I ran my eye down the page and traced Panama Lane both east and west. The delicate lace of intersecting streets defined a succession of neighborhoods. This must have been farmland once upon a time, perhaps much of it still was. The burgeoning city had spread out in all directions as the inhabitants multiplied. Through the windshield I was looking at the same flat landscape that characterized the entire area, which was pockmarked with housing developments that finally gave way to open fields. Choaker Lane was farther east, close to the north-south axis of Cottonwood Road.

As I drove, I kept an eye on the passing street signs. Having committed myself, I could picture my spotting the old homestead. Perhaps I’d park and get out. I might knock on the door to ask the current occupant if I could make a quick tour of the rooms. It was possible the present owner had bought the house from someone who knew when it was built or how many hands it had passed through. I slowed in anticipation of my turn and took a left, checking house numbers as I proceeded from 4800 down to the 4600 block with a mounting sense of dismay. There was no 4602. The entire neighborhood was gone. I pulled over to the curb.

Where the Millhone house had once stood there was a settlement of condominiums; identical six-story stucco structures, arranged in a staunch grid spread over twenty-five or thirty acres. The few trees I saw were young and newly planted. The streets that branched off of Choaker Lane had been named after New England states—Maine, Vermont, New Hampshire, Connecticut, Massachusetts, and Rhode Island. If the colony continued to expand, the Eastern Seaboard might be called into play, starting with New Jersey and running all the way down to Florida.

I pulled away from the curb and proceeded along Choaker until I reached a set of ornamental gates. I turned in and cruised the roads that ran between the monolithic buildings. There wasn’t much to see since they were all identical. My grandparents’ house had been erased, as had the houses on either side—as had the homes extending for six or eight city blocks in every direction. Even the soil had been excavated and carted away, so any relics—arrowheads, sun-bleached bones, the caps from old soda bottles—were gone now as well. I could take a metal detector and scan the surrounding area for two square miles without turning up so much as an old spoon.