Love Bound

by Rebecca Ryan

  Realization is dawning. "And he was a veterinarian."

  "You win, my man."

  For the first time, my frustration, my inability to understand what’s going on, ebbs. He sits back down, and I ease myself into the other leather chair. "So that's why she won’t sell," I say.

  "When Claire was nineteen, I became their legal guardian."

  "How did you know them?" I ask.

  "You mean, what was a black guy like me doing in a place like this?" He pauses and glances at Gilbert. "I'll make this short. My great-granddaddy worked as a whaling captain out of Gloucester and we never left. I met Tony Russo in vet school at Cornell. He and Maggie were already married, and Chloe and Claire were just bitty little things. We graduated from vet school and became partners. And when they died, I became the kids' guardian."

  "Wait. They died? They're dead?" I ask.

  Geo winced. "Car accident. Claire was nineteen."

  Suddenly, little pieces of some puzzle I didn’t even know existed begin to snap into place. There’s nothing to say. But this changes some things that’ll have to be reconfigured. I can’t possibly take their birthright away. I mean, I guess I already have by buying The Inn, but the land is hers. Theirs.

  Gilbert clears his throat and coughs a little. "I explained to Dr. Johnson, though compelling, this wouldn't change your mind, and we'd move forward."

  Gilbert's a drip.

  Geo continues. "We all tried to keep The Inn going, but I had my hands full. Those girls—Jesus, what a handful. We mostly lived upstairs in the clinic and tried to get local women to help out at The Inn, but God almighty, that place is a piece of work to run." He wipes his forehead with his hand. "Every spring, Claire or Devon would turn on the water and we'd all just hold still, waiting to see if we heard running water anywhere."

  "So, you let it go," I guess.

  "Well, I held on to it as long as I could. When Claire graduated from Tufts and came back to practice, I left for Portland. This area isn't what it was in terms of work."

  "So, should we go over the paperwork I've drawn up?" Gilbert asks, and I want to slap him. The guy has the instincts of a rock.

  "No," I say. "No."

  "But what about the park you wanted to develop for your wife and—"

  I don't let him finish. "We're done. Bill me. I'll figure something else out." Why I ever confided in him, I do not know. Turning to Geo I say, "Let's take this outside."

  Gilbert's mouth opens and he stops in mid-shuffle, papers in hand.

  ***

  As we step out onto the front porch, Geo wipes his face again with a handkerchief and laughs. "Glen's a good guy. He's got a soft spot for a little Corgi named Beauty."

  "That's hard to believe."

  He motions for me to cross the street and I take his lead, following him to a little mom and pop convenience store with Tallouk's painted on a sign above the door. "Best fresh crab meat," he says, holding the door open for me.

  "I want to thank you for taking the time to come up here and tell me all this," I say.

  The store's floor is old maple hardwood and linoleum near the back by the refrigeration units. It smells of coffee and motor oil.

  "Those kids are my family," says Geo, reaching for a small tub of crab meat. "And they're all good people. Different as hell, but good. And Claire, she kept them all together. After Chloe—well, that's another story—but Claire really raised those kids. I was so busy working and trying to make sure their schoolwork was done. She ran the house and, for a while, they tried to keep The Inn running too."

  "Well, they don’t need me taking more away from them."

  "There's another piece of land," he says, as he tries to decide if he wants another container. "An acre and a half of Christmas trees not attached to the trust or the other property. It's down at the end of the dirt road there, and there's a trail through the trees that takes you right to it. You could try to buy that from her. There's no coast view, but it's beautiful. There's a little stream running through the middle that meanders off to the beach."

  But I have no appetite for any land grab. I stand there for a moment, awkwardly, ashamed that I’ve continued to be so aggressive about the land. About claiming that piece of rocky coast for my pain. About making it about Allison. As nice as Geo is, however, I’m not ready to have that conversation with him.

  But I don’t have to.

  He turns to me and lowers his voice. "I know you've got your own story, your own loss. And that's hard. You're a young man—to lose a wife." And that's all he says.

  Geo, unlike Gilbert, understands people and must see something in my face that tells him this is all I can take.

  "Buy you a beer?" he asks, opening a refrigerated glass case with bottles.

  I shake my head. "No thanks."

  "I'm sorry if I—"

  "You’re fine," I say. "I still have bad days." Every day. Every goddam day.

  Instead of offering advice or some platitude, Geo says nothing and for that, I’m so grateful.

  Sometimes silence is the most compassionate response.

  Chapter Seven

  Claire

  Over the next month and a half, the gelding continues to improve. He’s suffered a few setbacks—fluid in the left lung, an infection in a burn under his belly—but while working with him slowly, carefully, I’ve been earning his trust. Learning my routine, I've noticed he waits for me now when I come back from my swim, knowing the next step is some hay and companionship, though he seems ambivalent about both.

  One morning last week, I sedated him mildly while I cleaned the infection and scooped out pus, disinfected the wound, and stitched him up, using that loopy time to trim those hideous hooves as well. The horn of the foot came off in four large, curving rinds and I felt relief seeing them fall to the ground. I'd never trimmed a horse lying down before and about wrenched my neck, but it was worth it. He'd be able to walk correctly on sharp, dark hooves. I also floated his teeth. He'd been off his grain and had lost even more weight, but last week, after I filed his teeth down to the right size, he seemed to take some interest in molasses and oats and sniffed through the grain pan as if looking for gold nuggets. I even started keeping small pieces of apples cut up in my jacket pocket. A good sign.

  The bad sign was the silence from the attorney about Finn's quest to buy the land, and all the construction going on next door. Every morning I woke up and had to refocus after every phone call. Every ring could be Les calling to tell me there was some offer I couldn’t refuse.

  Or worse. It could be the county calling to excavate around the building to see if we were up to code. The "granite shelf" comment had done its damage, and I felt skittish, worried, and out of control.

  In the lull of not hearing from either an attorney or an official, Finn Colton and I began a kind of neighborly truce. He came over the morning I lanced the gelding's abscess. Once, as I was washing up in the sink, he'd seen my light on and showed up at the back door asking for two eggs. Then he needed the number for the local internet provider, so new it was not in the phone book. I warned him the connection would prove sketchy.

  After the first, freak ice storm, my old Jeep was stuck in the sand and he stopped working on the siding to come over and help me push it out. As usual, he was underdressed—no coat, no hat—and I could see his back muscles through the black cotton thermal shirt as he strained to get me out of my rut. When the car sputtered and fishtailed to safety on hard ground, he merely wiped his hands on his pants and went back to work, without even a glance over his shoulder at me.

  But I looked him over, at first surreptitiously and then not so much, and the more I saw of him, the better he looked.

  Along the coast, the evergreens keep the place in a season stasis and it’s the temperature and precipitation that aligns with the calendar. After weeks of watching him work outside, cutting sheetrock and two-by-fours in the space between our houses, sawdust clinging to him, his T-shirts folding along the lines of his back, his forearm
s still visible under long sleeves, out came the cable knit sweater. A cable-stitched, wool Aran, because that's what he wore when it sleeted this morning. Now, I watch him shake ice from his hair before he tramps inside.

  I turn from the kitchen sink upstairs to find both Devon and Laurel staring at me.

  "Why don't you invite him to Thanksgiving?" Devon sounds bossy.

  "What?" I say.

  "Oh, come on. You know you're obsessed," says Laurel.

  "I am not obsessed," I say, reaching for the window shade.

  Devon manages to bat my hand away as she takes a peek. The second floor of the clinic provides a nice view. "When he comes into the store old Sally turns red. Every single time," she says. "But who can blame her?"

  "I am not inviting him to Thanksgiving."

  "He's so fucking hot though. He could just sit there, and I'd be happy."

  "Devon, what is the matter with you?" I ask.

  Laurel pipes up with, "Mom always says it’s smart to keep your friends close and your enemies closer."

  I open the refrigerator to poke at the turkey soaking in brine in a large stainless-steel pot. Lifting the edge of the linen cover, I remind her, "I don't think that's what she had in mind. Besides, he's not the enemy."

  Laurel leans in to grab a jar of peanut butter off the counter. "Then invite him."

  "Invite him," repeats Devon, and we three freeze for a moment when the side door downstairs whips open.

  "Honey, I'm home!" calls a deep, baritone voice.

  Laurel lifts her chin and yells, "Upstairs!"

  There's no room on the skinny little staircase for all of us so we wait for Travis to emerge.

  "Man, is that pumpkin pie I'm smelling?" he says as he materializes from the depths of the stairwell. He drops his beat-up green duffel bag at the top and spreads his arms wide.

  He's grown again since he left for vet school in early August, and now he looks huge—all filled in, his shoulders broad, his hair low and sides faded and his waist brandishing a belt, something Devon picks up on right away.

  "Look at you. A leather belt."

  He cocks his head to the side for a quick minute and pulls her to him. "Gotta keep these up 'cause the ladies always want to pull them down."

  "Gross," says Laurel and kisses him on the cheek.

  "Hey," he says, "good going on the GED. Any more thought about school?"

  Laurel shrugs and kisses him again.

  GED? When did she do that?

  I stand like the patient mother, waiting for them to get their hellos in before I crash their party. Finally, he disentangles himself and throws his arms around me. I can feel how broad his back is and I get a hint of Adidas aftershave mixed with . . . no, that little boy smell is really gone.

  He slaps his hands together and takes in the food prep in various places around the kitchen. The cornbread and biscuits, cooling on the rack to be crumbled for stuffing along with old sourdough, a pile of diced onion and sage mixed together. Then, his favorite, the relish: a bag of cranberries, an orange, a cup of walnuts, and some maple syrup. Sweet potatoes are lined up, ready to go into the oven naked and stay naked as Laurel describes, and three cans of green beans and one of mushroom soup waiting for assembly.

  "So, I guess I'm doing the mac n' cheese?" he says, poking around in the cupboards looking for noodles.

  "You started that one," Devon says. "I leave for Montana and all hell breaks loose."

  "Hey, it’s my black roots," he says. "My people."

  "Well, at least put some lobster in it," says Laurel. "Give it a Maine flair."

  "In your dreams." Straightening up, a bag of macaroni in his hands, Travis glances around. "Where's my little man?"

  Laurel checks the wall clock. "I need to go get him. Wanna come?"

  For a split second, I’m slap happy. All of us are together, and then I remember we aren’t. There are those who will forever be missed.

  After they leave, Devon and I become dueling potato peelers, flinging skins into the sink when she brings it up one last time. "It's the right thing to do."

  "Stop."

  "You know I'm right."

  "I'm sure Finn has someplace to go."

  "He's been out there all afternoon." Devon drops her gaze to the window again. "He's got all that crap in the back of this truck and stuff everywhere. He's not going anywhere."

  "Maybe he's driving tonight. Boston's not that far."

  "Do you want me to ask him?" she asks.

  "Do you need my permission?" I counter.

  "Nope," she says cheerfully.

  ***

  The table looks great, I have to admit. I had Travis and Devon bring up the leaves to the table that our father made and the maple expanse spread into the living room.

  We also host Emily and Ralph Burke, a retired couple who live on the other side of the road, whose two adult children live in England, and Geo. Finn, who agreed to come, makes nine. Four on each side and Geo at the head. I find myself flustered Finn accepted, and oddly nervous.

  Cory picked some Bittersweet and I made floating candles, while Laurel found a piece of woody vine to weave across the table as well. Emily brought over some colorful felted acorns with the real caps glued on, and I put them in three small bowls for added color.

  I lit the wood stove for ambiance and by the time people started arriving around two, the place was warm, cozy, and smelled of turkey, green bean casserole, and apple pie.

  Cutting quite a figure in the hallway, Travis stands, looking at the pictures on the wall.

  I come up behind him, slipping an arm around his waist.

  "I miss them," he says.

  "I know. I do too."

  The photo of our parents was when they’d first brought him home from Texas. They look so happy, holding him swaddled in a blue and pink receiving blanket while the rest of us clamor to see his little face.

  "Chloe took this picture, didn’t she?" he asks, scanning the rest of the pictures. "I just suddenly got it. Why there's none of her."

  "There's a picture of her over there." I wag a finger to the far end of the hall where there's a group photo of the family. Geo had his finger cropped out—he was the one with the camera—and we’re all sitting on the ledge of granite that had been there before the barn was built, the slab with the vein of rose quartz running through it. The one I always sit on. Travis was about seven, Laurel ten, Devon fourteen, me about seventeen, and Chloe, nineteen.

  Mom and Dad were smiling, we were all dressed in white, the boys in big collar shirts, us girls in white shifts. It was corny as hell.

  Two years later, they'd be dead.

  "That proves nothing," he says. "We all have a print of that one."

  "I don’t hate her," I say. "I'm just angry."

  He corrects me. "Pissed." As he squeezes my arm, Travis whispers in my ear, "Let it go."

  The doorbell rings, an odd twanging that moans a little at the end, and my heart leaps in my chest.

  Finn Colton.

  But I recognize Emily Burke's tromping after Cory gets the door, and she rises from the staircase holding a large glass bowl filled with fruit salad and coconut flakes.

  I make myself busy with the gravy, handing off the whisk to Travis when the doorbell rings again. Ralph is in charge of dinner rolls, which he carries like they’re a newborn in a soapstone bowl. He sets them on the back of the woodstove, making certain there's enough heat to keep the soapstone warm.

  As Devon serves up wine and sparkling juice, the door slams from downstairs and I wave to Geo at the bottom. He always brings the hard stuff as I have no sense of bar etiquette. Usually a bourbon, something new, and mixers and citrus.

  He hugs everyone in turn and then wraps an arm around me. "Would have been here earlier, but life got in the way." His deep voice penetrates the room and we listen for more. In the living space, his voice carries well. "How's vet school going, young man?" he asks as he moves toward Travis.

  I look at them standing togethe
r, two black men, and think back to all the times vacationers assumed they were father and son. And then, later, they kind of were.

  I move past the family photo and push open my bedroom door. "Hey, Cory, you want to come with me to check the horse?"

  "Sure," says Cory. He's been doing Legos in there with the ambient noise machine on.

  "Can you take my hand?" I ask.

  "I'm fine," he says and waits for me to move from the door jamb before he follows.

  While tripping down the stairs, I grab a jacket on the line of pegs by the side door. It’s bitter cold out already. After I stuff Cory into his jacket, we move out to the stable.

  Cory helps me find an electric bucket that will keep the water from freezing overnight.

  Looping the cord over the bottom rail, I snake it up a vertical board and shove the cord under nails my father bent into place. "If I give you the hose, you want to fill it?"

  He nods.

  "You won't get wet?"

  Shaking his head, he grabs the end of the hose and turns on the spigot.

  "Over here, here," I say, pointing to the bucket. Water splashes.

  The gelding nickers softly and makes an appearance, though he ignores us and winds around the other side of the corral.

  "Can I ride him?" Cory says.

  "Not now," I say. "When he knows us a lot better."

  "How much better?"

  "A lot better," I repeat. I step over the bottom rung and duck my head as I come back around and go to turn off the spigot, but the knob comes off in my hand.

  Shit.

  I fumble around, trying to get just the right amount of pressure to get it to catch, then turn the thing off. Still leaking, I try again, turning it even harder.

  "His nose is soft," says Cory and I turn around in my squatting position to see him inside the corral, nose to nose with the gelding.

  The gelding's breath blows Cory's hair and I hold mine. One misstep and the boy could be kicked or crushed or bitten. "Cory. Listen. It's time to go in and eat," I say quietly.

  Both could spook, but they don't. They just keep breathing into each other.