by Lisa Wingate
I leaned over and kissed her, because we’d talked long enough.
When the kiss was over, we stood on the dock and talked some more – longer than we probably should’ve. She asked about how I felt when my daddy left, and so I told her. “For a while, Mama just kept telling us he was gone working, but then she finally sat us down and let us know they were splitting up. There she was with teenagers to raise, and she must’ve been worried about whether she could handle everything, but she didn’t let it show. She just told us we were still a family, and it’d be okay, and we believed her. She made it all right, even though she had to earn a living, and she never knew for sure when my daddy would drop by or whether he’d bring money. Mama just told us that what he decided to do didn’t have anything to do with us or with her – it was him that was broken, and he’d have to work it out.
“But I think the best thing my mama did was not take any excuses. She let us know that everyone’s got struggles, and she still expected us to say yes, ma’am and no, sir, and keep up in school, and do our best not to embarrass the family name – which wasn’t to say we were always successful at that. We were boys, after all.”
I left off before adding that sometimes what Mama had to say wasn’t what we wanted to hear, but you could count on her to give you her opinion anyway. The last thing she’d said to me, when she was thin and pale as a ghost in her hospital bed, was It’s time to quit hiding under the blanket, Martin. At first I thought she was cold and that she wanted a blanket, but then I got the message. She was telling me I needed to quit holing up in the grief over Aaron and Mica. It was time to shuck off the blanket, get out of bed, and get busy with the hard work ahead.
Those were tough words to hear, but she was right. I wasn’t hanging on for Aaron and Mica; I was doing it for me. Now it was time to move on – not just a little, but all the way out from under the blanket.
I walked Andrea to the edge of the dock and kissed her goodnight, then watched as she headed up the hill to the house. I waited until she was inside before I got in the boat and went home.
For once, my cabin was in one piece – the little bandito hadn’t found a way out of the cage. To make things even better, there was a message on my answering machine from the rehabber. He was in shape to take in animals, and he’d be coming by to pick up Bandito tomorrow, which meant I’d be a single guy without a roommate again.
I went to bed, thinking I was actually gonna miss Bandito a little bit. But just a little bit.
By the next day, I was ready to throw him in the lake. He’d chattered and carried on most of the night, upset that he couldn’t get the cage open. One thing about raccoons – when you make them mad, they stay mad. I hadn’t gotten a nickel’s worth of sleep.
I showed up at the Waterbird for morning coffee looking rough enough that even the docksiders noticed. Sheila gave me the hawkeye while I was paying for a doughnut. She tried to pawn off a breakfast burrito on me, but I’d learned to stay away from those things. With Sheila in charge, there was no telling what you’d find hidden in there – healthy stuff that might shock a meat-eating man’s system and cause him to do something weird, like listen to opera or watch figure skating when there was a perfectly good football game on.
“You look awful,” she pointed out, like I didn’t know that for myself. “Long night?”
“Not so bad.”
“You work on the lake after you left here?” For some reason, Sheila was on me like a tick on a back-porch hound. I wasn’t in the mood for it, really. I had a headache, and I was kicking myself for not asking Andrea on a real date when we were together last night and the mood was right. It was time to quit sneaking around in the dark, like there was something wrong with us seeing each other.Time to move on with life. I was even thinking of telling Reverend Hay I’d take that little part in his next theater production. There wasn’t much reason for me to avoid Hay anymore, since sometime in the wee hours of the night I’d promised God that, if He’d just make that raccoon shut up, I’d go to church. God could probably get through to a lot of wayward folks if He’d just send a raccoon to keep them up thinking all night long.
“Quiet evening out on the water after it got dark. Not much to do,” I said, and waited while Sheila dragged her feet about getting napkins and gave my doughnut dirty looks. She was wishing she could talk me out of that thing and into one of her tofu burritos. Fat chance.
“I noticed there wasn’t much traffic.” Finally she found the napkins, then took the time to put some in the basket on the counter before delivering a couple my way. “You catching anyone fishing without a license up in Larkspur Cove?”
In the docksiders’ booth, Nester choked on a swallow of coffee. I checked over my shoulder and caught Nester, Burt, and Pop Dorsey watching me. They had a couple of the regulars with them this morning, too – Charley from Catfish Charley’s and his brother, Herbert. I got the idea that I’d been the hub of conversation before I walked in. Leave it to Sheila to be watching the lake at night.
“Saw your lights headin’ across-water in a hurry when I put the dogs out.” Nester tossed in his two cents. “Figured you was after somebody. You apprehend any dangerous felons when you left Larkspur, did’ja?”
Burt snickered again, and Dorsey joined him. It didn’t take a genius or a fully awake man to know what they were getting at. I felt my ears going hot. “It’s way too early for this,” I said. “Hand me my thermos. I’ll go fill it someplace where the clientele’s not so windy.”
Nester belly laughed. “Whew, listen at Romeo, there! He’s breakin’ out the five-dollar words now. Clientele. Been hangin’ around in Larkspur, gettin’ all high-tone.”
“Y’all …” Sheila jumped in like a schoolmarm hushing a couple troublemakers, but the word came out in a laugh, like ya-ha-hall. She grabbed my thermos and headed to the coffeepot to fill it up.
“All right, that’s it. I’m heading out,” I said, then moved down the counter so I’d be ready to hit the door with my breakfast. Not that I minded the ribbing so much, really. It was probably the push I needed to get on with asking Andrea for a real date. Looked like everybody knew about us anyway. It was so obvious that even the docksiders had figured it out. If I didn’t do something in public with her now, the boys would have me pegged as some kind of waterborne Casanova, sneaking around under the cover of darkness.
I pointed a finger at their table while I was waiting on Sheila to cap my thermos and hand it over. “Next time I catch one of you yay-hoos over limit on fat bass in your live wells, I’m gonna throw the book at you.”
Nester, Burt, and the others roared, but Dorsey’s smile faded a little. “Guess I’m safe on that one,” he said when the noise quieted down. “Since Sheila won’t let me get near the water.” He scowled toward the counter, like a prisoner looking at his jailor.
Quick as a flock of sparrows, the laughs were gone. Sheila huffed and set my thermos on the counter. I grabbed it and my doughnut. “You give us a few more days, Pop. We’ll get that dock fixed up to where even Sheila can’t find a reason to worry.”
“We’re gonna use my welder and some scrap iron this evening to get Pop’s boat hoist in shipshape,” Burt added.
Sheila rolled her eyes, huffed, and disappeared into the kitchen.
“Guess we got rid’a her.” Nester chuckled.
Pop gave me a grateful look. The docksiders started talking about the hoist, and I headed out while the conversation was on something other than Andrea and me. Before I started down the hill, I called to see whether Andrea would be up in Chinquapin Peaks around lunchtime. I suggested lunch at the park – my turn to bring the food – and she took me up on it.
“I’ll grab something at Catfish Charley’s so we don’t have to eat alfalfa sprouts and goat cheese,” I told her. “Sheila’s on a nutrition push again.”
Andrea laughed and said, “I don’t mind alfalfa sprouts.”
Lunch in the park wasn’t really the date I had in mind, but I figured I still had a co
uple days before the weekend – enough time to come up with something good to do this Saturday.
We went on like that for the rest of the week – I called her in the morning, found out where she was going to be around lunchtime, and we met for lunch. The only thing that bothered me about it was that, whenever I cycled the subject around to her plans for the weekend, she found some way to change to another subject – any other subject. We talked about life and movies, and favorite TV shows when we were growing up, where we’d gone to school, the fact that we’d both spent time around Moses Lake.
I told her why I’d wanted to come back, and while we sat listening to the Wailing Woman and the mockingbirds, I told her about losing Aaron and Mica in the boat accident.
“That must be hard,” she said, slipping her hand over mine. “I can’t imagine.”
“It is hard,” I said. “It really is hard.”
“If you ever want to talk about it, I’m a good listener.”
“I know.” I squeezed her fingers, but I didn’t say any more. I wasn’t ready to, and she seemed all right with that. She didn’t push for more details. We just sat together listening to the river pass.
Friday night, while we were sitting out by her boathouse, we talked about her first couple visits with Birdie – two in three days, which was more than normal. She’d made the extra visit because the case had her stewing. I knew she wasn’t supposed to discuss the details of what went on in a session, but Reverend Hay had told me about all the things CPS wanted Len to do, so it wasn’t really any secret. CPS had a long list, and for someone like Len, it was way beyond what he would be able to do or pay for. Len didn’t understand it all, but he knew enough to be worried.
I was only halfway focused on the conversation. After a whole week of lunches in the woods and nights at the boathouse, it was clear enough to me that Andrea still didn’t want Dustin to know about us. I’d taken him to class all week, and he’d helped me with a few projects on the lake and with Pop Dorsey’s guardrails and hoist. Somehow, even the docksiders had figured out not to bring it up about Andrea and me when the kid was around. So far, Dustin didn’t seem to have a clue. I didn’t think I ought to be the one to tell him, so I just didn’t say anything.
It was getting to me, though. Sitting here behind the boathouse in the dark, I felt like we were still hiding from everyone and lying to her boy. I was worried about what he’d think when he found out. To my mind, it was better to make things public, to be honest about it – to just go ahead and have a real date. I started thinking through the possibilities, trying to come up with something good. We had a few waterfront restaurants on the lake – greasy spoons and Catfish Charley’s. There was a little movie theater down the road a piece in Cleburne, where folks from the lake did their real grocery shopping and went for hardware, paint, plumbing supplies, and that sort of thing. Back in the day, there’d been a drive-in movie theater in Moses Lake, but it’d been closed for years. The Eagle’s Nest Resort had a nice restaurant overlooking the water. I’d have to make reservations ahead for that. I could grill something over at my place, but the cabin wasn’t much to look at… .
“We’ll have to find some assistance for Len,” Andrea said, but my mind wasn’t in Chinquapin Peaks. It was closer to home. “But I’m still not sure the caseworker sees him as a decent long-term caretaker solution.”
“I think Len could be, if he had help fixing up his house, and someone to explain things, like how and when to get Birdie to the school bus once school starts, and why he has to. I think he’d try, and once it’s a routine, he’s pretty much a creature of habit. But he’ll be slow to understand it all at first. A guy like Len takes patience, more than anything,” I told her, and then we both sat looking at the lake for a minute, thinking.
“We’re about done with building Pop’s boat hoist at the Waterbird,” I said, finally. “While everyone’s got their tools out, I thought I’d get some of the docksiders together next week and head on up to Len’s to see if we can help shape up the place – just make a couple big days of it. Like one of those work frolics the Mennonites do, or a barn raising, only kind of the opposite.” I stared out at the lake, thinking about how to steer the conversation to another track. It was Friday night. Time to leave work behind. Time to talk about doing something tomorrow. Something out in public.
Andrea sighed, her fingers slowly shredding a dead leaf that’d blown onto the dock. She was dropping little pieces into the water and watching them float away. “Well, I think I’ve figured out how to help with the clothes and school supplies, at least. Sheila told me there’s a thing called Community Closet going on tomorrow afternoon at the Moses Lake gym. Several area churches and organizations hand out school supplies, and kids can shop through donated clothing and shoes. I offered to take Birdie there, and surprisingly enough, Len agreed. From what I could gather, they’ll be out at the Crossroads selling vegetables, and I can stop by and get her anytime after lunch. I hope he doesn’t change his mind.”
“I doubt he will. Len’s mind is pretty one-track.” Right then, my mind was, too. But it wasn’t on Len. “If it’s Saturday, you can figure he’ll be out by the state park entrance all day, catching the weekend crowd. That’s got to be pretty boring for a little girl. He’s probably happy you offered to take her off his hands for a while.”
“I guess.” Andrea watched the bits of dead leaf float toward shore on the moonlit water. “Birdie still has such a long way to go before school starts, though. She’s barely communicative.”
“Give it a little time.” I tossed a pebble from the dock and sank one of her little leaf-boats. “You can plow a field in a day, but you can’t make the crop grow.”
She dropped the rest of the leaf and nudged me with her shoulder. “You’re right.” She turned my way, and I would’ve kissed her, but that was where all our conversations ended. This time I wanted to get some things said. Now was probably as good a time as any.
“So how about we hit the lake tomorrow morning for a while – you, me, and Dustin? He’s been after me to take him on up the river channel and show him the caves with the mammoth fossils. My partner’s covering the lake this weekend. I’m off work. Free as a bird.”
Where I’d been hoping for another smile and something like, That sounds good, instead, she pulled away and looked at me like a squirrel caught in the middle of a six-lane highway.
“I can’t.” The answer was quick, like she didn’t even have to think about it.
I hoped she meant she was tied up working tomorrow morning – behind on those reports she was always plugging away on in her living room late at night.
“Well, Hay’s got a dinner on the grounds planned at Lakeshore Church on Sunday after service – horseshoes, swimming, homemade pie, that kind of thing.” Not my favorite sort of shindig, but it was sure enough public. “Dustin has it in his mind to go, by the way – don’t know if he talked to you about it yet. Cassandra and her folks will be there, if that explains anything. You know, maybe we could even talk Len into bringing Birdie down. You said she needs to be around people.”
“Oh … I don’t …” It was pretty obvious that Dustin hadn’t mentioned the Sunday dinner to his mom yet. Hopefully he wouldn’t mind that I’d let the cat out of the bag.
Andrea’s shoulder shifted away from mine. She pushed her palms together and tucked her hands between her knees, her head bowed forward, so that her profile was a shadow against the moonlight. “Mart … I …” She didn’t have to finish the rest of the sentence for me to know I wasn’t going to like what was coming next. “I can’t. I’m sorry. I don’t think … Dustin isn’t ready for something like that. He’s finally finding his feet here, healing a little bit, even. I can’t take the risk of … derailing him.”
“Risk?” Maybe I was just worn out after a long week, or maybe this game of cat and mouse with Andrea was finally getting to me, but aggravation buzzed around me like a mosquito looking for a place to land. “I’m not sure I see how a day on th
e lake or dinner on the church grounds is a risk.”
She stiffened, her back straightening, her chin coming up. “I can’t have him getting his hopes up.”
“Getting his hopes up for what, exactly?” Wherever her train of thought was, I’d just been left behind in the dust.
She took a breath, held it a minute before letting it out, looked down at her hands. “I know I should have said something earlier, Mart. I’m sorry … I just … I haven’t been thinking … the way I should. I’m a mom. I have to consider Dustin first. It’s my job to protect him.”
“Protect him from what?” The words came out sharper than I meant them to, but by now, I was irritated. All this hiding behind the bushes was ridiculous. We were both adults, after all.
“From being disappointed again. From having his heart broken. From having false hopes. He’s already been through so much. He’s had someone he idolized, someone he loved and needed, who was supposed to love him and protect him, just toss him out like yesterday’s toy. He’s vulnerable, fragile.” She flipped a hand through the air, then tucked it between her knees again. “He doesn’t need anything else to think about. He needs stability, safety. He can’t handle anyone else coming and going from his life.”
Coming and going. Those words painted an ugly picture. It stung, and I was offended. “So you’re saying you think I’m the kind of guy who’d spend time with your boy just to impress you? That if you and I called it off at some point, I’d just drop him like a hot potato?”
She huffed a breath, like I’d misunderstood her. “I’m not saying anything. I just can’t take the chance. He can’t handle another heartbreak.”
“He can’t, or you can’t?”