by Abi Maxwell
They scarcely spoke on the trip. She had locked up their house and asked the neighbors to keep an eye on things, and she had stopped the mail and told her work she would be back in a month. Still, as they drove, she kept looking into the side mirror at the landscape behind them with the feeling that all of it, Charley’s life and her own in the West, was not only a book they were closing but one they would not ever open again. Not that they wouldn’t return—just that she felt they were driving forever away from the particular life they’d had.
Charley drove almost the entire way, even in the cities, though she hadn’t wanted him to. She let him choose all the music. She stole glances of him out of the corner of her eye as they went. He leaned forward as he drove, and he drummed his fingers on the steering wheel. She had raised him, she thought now and then. She had raised a good, kind man. When she had become certain that he was sleeping with Annika, she had forced him to listen to her while she talked about sex. “Don’t be a man,” she had found herself saying.
“What the hell does that mean?” he’d practically yelled, but she knew he was more embarrassed than angry.
“You just make sure she likes it every single bit as much as you do.”
They’d been in his room, sitting on his bed, but he’d gotten up and stormed out when she said that, slamming the door and leaving her alone. She’d laughed a little to herself, then left the room to make their dinner. They ate together silently. He didn’t ever say a word on the subject, but still she felt good for having at least said something.
Now, as the cornfields shouldered themselves up into woods and hills and then mountains, she would look at her son and feel an unabashed pride. She had done it. She had had him and raised him and he had lived and grown and become a whole, complete person.
“Here,” she said, when they neared the exit. “Hurry, move over, you’re going to miss it, Charley.”
“Jesus,” he said, looking in the rearview mirror and moving over out of the passing lane. “You could have given me some warning.”
“Left,” she said, when they reached the end of the exit ramp. Her town was some fifteen miles away. Here, at the highway, she couldn’t believe what had happened. A giant sprawl of stores, restaurants, even a movie theater. She might not have recognized it had she not read the signs. Because of the lights, it took twenty minutes to get through a stretch of road that in her youth had taken one or two minutes. As they drove, Charley kept complaining that he felt claustrophobic, that he couldn’t see for all the trees. “You’ll like the lake,” she told him, and had him turn off the main road and twist their way down to the spot she used to go to years ago. It was still there, just as it had been. The same big rocks, the same blueberry bushes. She almost told him she used to go there with his father but then after years of silence on the subject she knew that would be too much. Instead they just got out, splashed water on their faces and took in the wide open view, and then got back in the car.
She had forgotten that the barn had burned down. Or not exactly forgotten, but the picture in her mind had not adjusted itself to the home without that barn. Anyway, as they crossed the little bridge onto her road she saw that a new one had been built in its place. She didn’t say anything, and Charley just kept driving, and then by the time they reached the old Hennessey house she said, “Pull over.”
“This is it?” he said.
“No, turn around.”
“You passed it? You passed your own home?”
“I don’t know.”
“What do you mean you don’t know?”
“Stop it,” she said. “Just stop it.”
He did. He turned the car around and just as he pushed the gas she told him to stop.
“Here?” he said. “There’s no house here.”
“Just pull over,” she said, and she began getting out of the car before he had even come to a complete stop. Late October now. Charley had seen the tamaracks turn in the West, but he had never seen leaves like this. The ground crunched as she stepped over the stone wall. She didn’t bother calling for him. He was climbing out of the car, murmuring about what a freak she was being. She didn’t care. She just kept walking into the thick woods. She knew he would follow eventually.
A tree had fallen over The Den. A giant white pine. From its char she could tell it had been struck by lightning. It had fallen right onto the foundation but hadn’t crushed the rock. Still, with all those branches the relic had become so hidden that it wouldn’t be found unless someone was looking. Charley wouldn’t have found it; he would have found only a down tree. She could hear him calling her name now. She sat down on the ground, leaned up against the tree. That deep, wet smell. It was so familiar.
“Here,” she called to him. “In here.”
As he headed for her he tripped on the edge of the foundation, then leaned over and noticed the definite line of rock that formed an enclosing.
“The Den,” she told him, and stood up. “From the story.” She thought he would complain about her running off like that, but he just moved along the low border and swept leaves off so he could see the structure better. He walked around the perimeter, crossed over the tree, and went to the fireplace.
“It’s real,” he said after some time, and she said yes, yes, it was.
They walked back to the car. Her feet were damp from the leaves and it made her whole body shiver. He headed for the driver’s seat but she told him she wanted to drive. It was only a minute down the hill, less. She coasted and pulled in the driveway and turned off the car. There were people in the field, two of them, and sheep. She didn’t open her door.
“Aren’t you getting out?” she said to Charley.
“Yes,” he said simply, and left her there. She held her breath in the closed car. One hand on the key and the other on the door handle. Her son was standing firmly in front of the car. What must it feel like to be him right now? Strangely, as they’d made their plans, he hadn’t been angry, or at least not any angrier with his mother than he generally was. She thought she would have felt rage, to be that child who learns too late that he has a family. When would that rage come? He was unmoving as the people approached. Her sister, her sister’s husband. Charley was safe and would remain so. He could do this next step alone.
But then it had always been Henrietta and Charley against the world. Henrietta and Charley in their private shell, and maybe it was that seal that surrounded them that kept his rage at bay. She wouldn’t just step out of it now.
The man was waving. Did he greet all visitors so boisterously? Or did he already know who was in the driveway? The woman wore overalls and thick gloves. A long rope of braided hair hung over her shoulder. With her wet feet, Henrietta felt so cold. Cold like her last night here. She remembered that freezing rain, the way it had soaked right through her body. Her sister held one hand up to her eyes, like a visor, then dropped the hand and began to run. Without thinking, Henrietta opened the door and stepped quickly out of the car. Seeing her, Jane slowed down and covered her mouth with her hand, and then ran again, then slowed down once more. Henrietta looked past her, to the stone wall at the edge of the field. She used to relish the moment of stepping over that wall and entering into the woods, the one place where she felt no one’s gaze upon her. She had felt that so strongly out there—even when her sister was spying on her she had felt that. It was a kind of freedom. She could go back to that place now. She could go anywhere, she thought as her sister approached her. Here, there, it wouldn’t matter. They had shamed her, they had powered over her, but she had kept on. She could be home now, and free.
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
I know that writing a book will always be hard, but this book, coupled as it was with the birth of my child, felt impossibly hard, and getting to the end of it seems like a miracle. I have so many people to thank for keeping me afloat these six years:
So much gratitude to Eleanor
Jackson, who read this manuscript over and over again, in so many forms, and always responded with wisdom, kindness, and faith; and to Jenny Jackson, who also met this book with faith and who edits with such an intuitive and brilliant eye. Thank you also to Zakiya Harris and the rest of the people at Knopf who have given their time, energy, and skill to this book.
Thank you to Deirdre McNamer for such steady insight and support.
Love and thanks to Kerstin Ahlgren Breidenthal and Sean Breidenthal for the endless conversations about feminism that had so much to do with this project and for celebrating every false finish of this book with me. The very beginnings of this story were inspired by the childhood misadventures that my stepsister Whitney Blankenbaker let me follow her along on, so thank you to her for that. Thank you to Lucinda Hope for providing so much of the childcare that allowed me to write this book. Thank you to Richard and Kathy Keller for giving me a room in their house where I could work. Thank you to Lorna Wakefield for once again naming my town and to Luke Wakefield for fielding all the questions about barn fires. Thank you to Jon Keller, Claire Schroeder, Elizabeth Tidd, Lura Shute, and Zelda Keller for all your love and support. Also, so much gratitude to the rest of my New Hampshire community, who keeps me living here and writing about this state. Particular love and gratitude to the memory of Steve Ahlgren, who always encouraged me to think about the stories New Hampshire houses told.
Various passages of the book The History of Sanbornton by M. T. Runnels inspired the story of “The Den,” including his records of Cold Friday, though I changed the year and the temperature of that event. In addition, that book provided some specific language for this novel, such as the sign for the bounty on wolves. Eric Sloane’s An Age of Barns, Manchester’s Millyard Museum, and Alice Munro’s The View from Castle Rock and her interviews about that book were all of great help. Special thanks to Dan Flores, whose Coyote America provided so much research and insight, and who also graciously sent me the PDF of his manuscript so that I didn’t have to wait for publication to try to find my way out of The Den. Thank you also to Chris Schadler of Project Coyote, who gave a lecture that proved invaluable to this book.
Finally, thank you to Jacob Maxwell, who has lived (and suffered!) through this book right along with me and who has provided absolute, unwavering faith the entire time.
A NOTE ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Abi Maxwell is the author of Lake People. Her fiction has also appeared in McSweeney’s. She studied writing at the University of Montana and now lives in New Hampshire, where she grew up, with her husband and son.
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