But after that, after all of the all of that, when it was finally time to go, and Ulysses had shaken Billy’s hand and thanked him for his friendship, and Billy had wished Ulysses well on his quest to find his family, Billy had taken a pendant from around his neck.
—This, he said to Ulysses, is the medal of St. Christopher, the patron saint of travelers. It was given to me by Sister Agnes before our journey to New York, but I think that you should have it now.
And then, so that the medal could be hung around his neck, Ulysses knelt before Billy, just as the members of the Round Table had knelt before King Arthur in order to be knighted.
—When you put it, said Woolly to no one but himself, while wiping a tear from the corner of his eye, when you put it all together just like that, with the beginning at the beginning, the middle in the middle, and the end at the end, there is no denying that today was a one-of-a-kind kind of day.
THREE
Woolly
Coriander! said Woolly to himself with enthusiasm.
For while Duchess was showing Billy how to properly stir a sauce, Woolly had set about alphabetizing the spice rack. And it didn’t take long for him to discover just how many spices began with the letter C. In the entire rack there was only one that started with the letter A: Allspice, whatever that was. And Allspice was followed by just two spices that began with the letter B: Basil and Bay Leaves. But once Woolly moved on to spices that began with the letter C, well, it seemed there was no end to them! So far, there had been Cardamom, Cayenne, Chili Powder, Chives, Cinnamon, Cloves, Cumin, and now, Coriander.
It certainly made one wonder.
Perhaps, thought Woolly, perhaps it was like the matter of the Ws at the beginning of questions. At some point in ancient times, the letter C must have seemed particularly suitable to the naming of spices.
Or maybe it was at some place in ancient times. Some place where the letter C had more sway over the alphabet. All of a sudden Woolly seemed to remember from one of his history classes that many moons ago there had been something called the Spice Route—a long and arduous trail along which tradesmen traveled in order to bring the spices of the East to the kitchens of the West. He even remembered a map with an arrow that arced across the Gobi Desert and over the Himalayas until it touched down safely in Venice, or some such spot.
That the C spices originated on the other side of the globe struck Woolly as a clear possibility, since he didn’t even know what half of them tasted like. He knew Cinnamon, of course. In fact, it was one of his favorite flavors. Not only was it used in the making of apple and pumpkin pie, it was the sine qua non of the cinnamon bun. But Cardamom, Cumin, and Coriander? These mysterious words struck Woolly as having a distinctly oriental ring.
—Aha! said Woolly, when he discovered the bottle of Curry hiding behind the Rosemary in the second-to-last row of the rack.
For Curry was most certainly definitely a flavor from the East.
Making some space, Woolly tucked the Curry beside the Cumin. Then he turned his attention to the very last row, running his fingers along the labels of the Oregano and the Sage and the—
—What in the world are you doing there? Woolly wondered to himself.
But before he could answer his own question, Duchess was asking another.
—Where did he go?
Looking up from the spice rack, Woolly discovered Duchess in the doorway with his hands on his hips and Billy nowhere to be seen.
—I turn my back for one minute and he abandons his post.
It was true, thought Woolly. Billy had left the kitchen despite having been put in charge of stirring the sauce.
—He hasn’t gone back to that goddamn clock, has he? asked Duchess.
—Let me investigate.
Quietly, Woolly headed down the hallway and peeked into the living room, where, in fact, Billy had returned to the grandfather clock.
Earlier that morning, when Billy had asked when Emmett would arrive, Duchess had replied with a great deal of confidence that he would be there in time for supper—which was to be served at eight o’clock on the dot. Normally, this would have prompted Billy to take an occasional glance at his army surplus watch, but the watch had been broken by Emmett on the freight train. So he really had no choice but to pay an occasional visit to the living room instead, where the hands on the grandfather clock now indicated, rather unambiguously, that it was 7:42.
Woolly was tiptoeing back toward the kitchen in order to explain this to Duchess when the telephone rang.
—The phone! Woolly exclaimed to himself. Maybe it’s Emmett.
Making a quick detour into his brother-in-law’s office, Woolly zipped around the desk and picked up the receiver on the very third ring.