“Trudy, can I go to the bathroom?” Ingrid asks. She crosses her legs and hops. “Too much hot chocolate.”
“You don’t have to ask. Go, go.” Trudy pretends to kick Ingrid’s butt as she skips down the hall to the bathroom.
“Anyhoo, I almost set that old chain saw aside. I was going to sell it at the annual townwide yard sale. But—I don’t know what came over me—I yanked the cord and fired up that Husqvarna. It was the first time I’d ever held a chain saw, let alone used one. The thing was a bad boy. It rattled my whole body, buzzed right into my bones.”
Ingrid prances from the bathroom, but Trudy steers her around. “Wash your hands,” she says. “With soap. For as long as it takes to sing ‘Happy Birthday.’
“Anyhoo, behind the shed there was this tall old stump. I went up to it. I attacked it with the chain saw. And before I knew it—well, why don’t I just show you.”
Ingrid’s back from the bathroom again. She wipes her hands on her jeans. “I didn’t want to mess up the nice fairy towels.”
“That’s all right, Pumpkin,” says Trudy. “Get your coat on. I want to show you two something outside.”
We bundle up and follow the snowplowed path to the shed. Moonlight glimmers off the ice-coated trees. Ingrid hums “Happy Birthday.”
Behind the shed Trudy shines a key-chain flashlight on the snow-covered tree stump. She brushes the snow away, revealing the likenesses of buildings that lean cartoonishly, still their natural wood color.
“Voilà,” she says. “The Boston skyline, as studied from right here, through an old pair of bird-watching binoculars that Lew kept in the shed. I’ve been looking at those skyscrapers on clear days my whole darn life, as I’m sure you have, too. There I stood with this rumbling chain saw in my hand. I took a good long peek at the Prudential and carved it into the wood. Then I took a good long peek at the old John Hancock Building and carved that into the wood. ’Fore I knew it, I had chainsawed what any New Englander worth his salt—even a Mainer who can’t remember the last time he left the state—would know as Boston. Into a damn tree stump.”
“Wow.” I run my mitten over the buildings. Trudy rattles off the names as I caress them. “One Financial. Custom House Tower. Yep. They’re all there. Even the Citgo sign. See? They’re crude, of course. Certainly not as fine-tuned as the work I produce now. But not bad for a first effort.”
Ingrid wanders to a chicken-wire fence enclosing a low building with a small door. “Trudy, where are the goats?”
“They’re all inside, Pumpkin. Keeping warm in the hay. Anyhoo.” Trudy pockets her little flashlight, and we go back to the house under moonlight. Ingrid stays behind. She clicks her tongue and tries to coax the goats from their little house.
“That’s how I discovered my . . . rather unusual, rather latent talent,” Trudy says.
I catch my balance on a patch of ice. “No shit.”
“Nope. No shit whatsoever. Weird thing is, I couldn’t remember Lew ever using that chain saw. Ever. Now, maybe he used it as a younger man, before I knew him, when Garrett’s mother was still around. But it was almost like that chain saw was hanging there all those years, just waiting for me to come along and put it to use. Hey, want to take home some goat cheese? I make it myself. It’s delicious stuff. I just got my organic certification.”
“Oh no. Thanks anyway.”
“I’ll put it in a little gift bag for you. Ingrid? Leave the goats be. Come on, now.”
“Just one second,” she calls.
Back in the kitchen Trudy wraps up some goat cheese.
“Trudy,” I say, “I just can’t believe you’re—”
“So different from Ye Olde Home Ec Bitch?” She hands me a surprisingly heavy fairy-stamped paper bag. Piercing the bag is a little fairy—pointy chin, wistful expression, a beaded charm made from wire. I admire it for a moment, pluck it from the bag, and slip it into my pocket.
“I’m not that woman anymore, like I said,” she says. “Time changes a person, Rose-Ellen. So does tragedy.”
I think it’s the first time anyone’s said that word—“tragedy”—in my presence, since The Trip. I wait for her to say more—about how tragedy will change me—but instead she nods and says, “Keep it in the freezer. It’ll last longer.”
Ingrid comes inside, her eyes shining, her cheeks red. “I like goats,” she says. “I like their beards, and the way they poop and eat at the same time.”
“I like that about them, too,” Trudy says, and I can tell by her face that she’s holding back laughter. She kisses Ingrid’s forehead. “Hey,” she says. “Where’s your old hat?”
“Oh.” Ingrid holds her arms out as Trudy zips her coat to her chin. “I lost it.”
“We’ll get you another one, then.”
“I don’t want another one. I want the old one. It was my mother’s.”
Trudy glances at me. “Your mother’s, huh?” she asks.
“Yes.”
“So you’re just gonna walk around without a hat?”
“Yeah.”
“Suit yourself. Thanks for visiting.”
“Trudy, what about the baking contest?” Ingrid says.
“I’ll put on my thinking cap, Pumpkin Pie.”
Ingrid buries her face in Trudy’s sawdusty clothes. “Love ya ’n’ like ya,” she says.
“Love ya ’n’ like ya,” says Trudy, a sad sort of smile on her face.
I BACK OUT THE DRIVEWAY. Trudy waves from the living room behind a chorus line of stained-glass fairies.
Ingrid hangs her whole upper body out the passenger seat window and waves both arms. “Good luck with your top secret project!”
I roll down my window, too, and crank up the heat, and we howl as we sail down Route 331, back to the center of town. I take the road a little too fast, and my stomach spins into my throat, so I slow down. Ingrid begs me to speed, but I tell her it’s not safe.
We pass the Prince of Peace Church, where I glimpse Father Chet in the second-floor sacristy window, his dark skin contrasting with the white wall behind him. My heart does its wild dance. Fast beats, then no beats.
Maybe it’s sick, but I admit: I kind of like it, that feeling of suspension, that sense that something unknown—a force, a spirit—holds on to your heart, and won’t let it beat, and won’t let it go, at least for a little while.
EJ
EJ’s refilling a coffeemaker with decaf almond when France swings her cruiser behind the Muffinry van and parks. He knows she hates that joke about cops hanging out in the doughnut shop, and even though the Muffinry isn’t a doughnut shop, it’s close enough. Especially now that EJ serves beignets. So she always parks behind the building, out of view of Main Street.
“Hey, Eege,” she says, stepping through the back door. She pours a cup of regular and sits on a sack of flour.
“France?” he says, which means, “Hi.”
“Got any s’mores today?”
“Only in muffin tops.”
“I’ll take one.”
“Comin’ at ya, hey,” says Travis from the register. He plucks a pastry tissue from a box, pinches the biggest muffin top, and Frisbee-flings it at France.
She catches it one-handed and takes a huge bite from the cakey disk. “Mmm. Delicious, Silo,” she says, mouth full.
The nickname—Silo—makes EJ pause; it might be the first time anyone’s called him that since The Trip. He flips the switch on the coffeemaker and savors its burbling sound.
“Hey,” says France. She stands next to him. He can smell the marshmallows and graham crackers on her breath. “I want to talk to you about something,” she says.
He surveys the Muffinry. Three old ladies sip coffee by the big bay window, but other than that, the place is empty. “What about?” He moves on to the butterscotch coffee—bangs the reservoir against the trash can, puts in a new filter.
She moves aside to give him elbow room. “Nick.”
He’s about to open the silver coffee bag when she says
it. He pauses, the bag pinched in his fingers. “What about him?”
France hides her chapped lips behind her coffee cup. “I feel like there might be something we could do,” she says. “Publicly.”
He opens the bag, dumps the coffee, slides it into the machine.
“Because,” she says. “You know. Nothing was ever done.”
He turns on the coffeemaker. “What are you talking about?”
She glances at Travis; he’s hunched over the counter, fiddling with his BlackBerry.
“Closure,” she says.
“Closure?” EJ repeats.
“Yeah. Closure, fa crissake. Don’t you get it?”
He opens his mouth to answer, but the Muffinry bells jingle and six people enter. Two moms ushering four kids. Travis pockets his BlackBerry. “EJ, please, hey,” he says.
EJ sighs. He tops off France’s cup, fits a lid on it, and hands it to her. “You on tonight?” he asks.
“No.”
“Come over, then. And dress warm.”
Nick
November 4, 2006
From: [email protected]
To: [email protected]
Hi, Hot-Pants.
Today I was taking pictures of Russ and Father Chet and a bunch of New Orleans guys as they rebuilt an altar in one of the churches down here. At one point I put down my camera to take a swig of water, and next thing I know, Father Chet is pressing a hammer into my hand. I told him I don’t really know what I’m doing, but he showed me. I wasn’t sure if I should be helping out. I mean, that isn’t really my place. But when I looked over at Dennis, he smiled and shrugged. So I spent an hour or two learning from Father Chet. Some of these guys can hammer a nail in one or two swings. By the end of the day it was still taking me four or five swings, but I definitely got better as the day progressed. I never realized how satisfying it is to build stuff with your hands. Especially alongside other people. Also, I never really appreciated what a skill it is, this type of work. It’s amazing the results you get, and how quickly you get them, when everyone is unified.
Chief Kent threw his back out early in the morning, so he went with Pastor Sheila to the library to help sort books. Pastor Sheila had thousands of books shipped down here in crates. (Dennis wrote about that book drive, remember?) The books were donated by people visiting the Wippamunk Library. The library down here was totally wiped out. They lost everything. There are actually no public libraries open in New Orleans, according to Pastor Sheila. But now this one library has a children’s library that is bigger and better than it was before the hurricane, before the floods, thanks to the librarians and Pastor Sheila and the good people of Wippamunk. When Chief came back he was saying how cute all the kids were and how this one kid sat so still on his lap and listened to him read this one book over and over again, like thirty times.
EJ drives all the way into the touristy downtown to get coffee from this chick, Charlene. He is totally crushing on this girl. She’s cute, too. I wonder if it will turn into a long-distance relationship or something. Seriously, he’s that into her.
Anyway Charlene gives us coffee for free along with these Cajun doughnuts that they make down here that are seriously friggin’ delicious. They would put Ye Olde Home Ec Witch to shame. Remember Mrs. Chaffin??!! Remember that story about Russ, how he took all that pink felt from some girl’s sewing table and sewed a big old dick-and-balls together, and stuffed it with cotton and propped it upright on Mrs. Chaffin’s desk? Remember how Ye Olde Home Ec Witch LOVED EJ??? Anyway, that’s neither here nor there. . . .
France was planting flowers in front of the church’s new sign and every car that passed beeped and waved and they yelled thank you out the windows. Everybody who beeped, France flashed them the peace sign, and that made them beep even more.
So right now I’m pretty tired, but it’s a good kind of tired.
So have you heard back from Dr. Fung yet about your ultrasound? Maybe you shouldn’t be worrying about Gail’s mural right now because lifting your arms over your head to paint probably puts some strain on your heart, and maybe you shouldn’t be doing extra stuff like that until you know what’s going on with your ticker? Just a thought. Gail can wait, you know?
Sweet dreams from the Big Easy.
Nick
4
Zell
“SHOULDA BEEN ME,” Gladys sings. “You know that it shoulda been me.”
I straddle my saddle stool and review my latest project: bones of the left hand, anterior view. I select the pencil labeled BONE WHITE, number 081, from the slopes of little bins.
My phone rings. I draw and hum along with Gladys as the machine picks up. A voice blares from all the way downstairs: “This message is for Rose-Ellen Roy. This is Joan from Dr. Carrie Fung’s office at Worcester Cardiology. We’ve been trying to get in touch with you for some time now—quite some time now—and have left . . . countless messages over the past year stating that—”
I lean over, lift the phone off the receiver, and reset it. I return to my segmented phalanges. I half expect Joan to call again, but she doesn’t.
I draw all morning and break for lunch with Russ. This Friday he brings a small cheese pizza from Orbit—the best and greasiest pizza in the whole state. My slice wilts and drips oil when I lift it from the box. Russ gives Ahab a wad of sliced turkey. He wolfs it down.
Before I return to my office, I tie on Nick’s camo apron because it comforts me somehow. Back upstairs I recue Gladys. By late afternoon my finger bones stretch long and unadorned like a spiny desert plant, like a prehistoric insect. Finally I select SIMPLY BLACK—number 003—and sign my initials in the bottom right corner. I spray the paper and leave it to dry.
I approach the turntable, ready to lift the needle off Gladys, when the phone rings again. I consider hanging up on the caller before the machine even picks up, but instead I wait and listen. It’s my sister.
“Yoo-hoo, Ze-ell, where’ve you been?” Gail asks. “Why don’t you come up this weekend for a visit? It’s been so long since you’ve been up here. We miss you. Tasha has been asking about Ahab. Tasha, come say hi to Ahab.”
“Abe-abb!”
“Say hi to Auntie Zell, too.”
“Abe-abb!”
“Anyway, come up anytime. And bring some Muffinry muffins. How ’bout a half dozen blueberry-brans for Mom and Dad’s freezer? Blueberry because mom likes the antioxidants, and bran because Dad likes the fiber. And look, it doesn’t matter if you finish the . . . listen. We just want to see you. Don’t worry about the bathroom. Don’t even think about the bath—” Beeeeeep. Gail talks so long, the machine cuts her off. I wait a second, but she doesn’t call back.
I grasp Hank’s plastic hand. I study the tips of his fingers, the knobby, pebblelike bones in his wrist. I imagine Gail’s slope-side home—the gabled red-tin roof, the twelve-person hot tub on the wraparound deck. Her house is halfway up the Sachem trail on Okemo Mountain, in a thicket of pines. My parents live there, too.
Carefully, in my mind, I enter the house. I call “Cheerio!” to Gail’s husband, Terry. He’s short and British, and his breath always smells of asparagus. In my mind he lounges on the couch in front of the roaring fire in the fieldstone fireplace. On his chest, Tasha sleeps and drools.
I imagine Terry quietly calling “Cheerio!” back. Over Tasha’s head he gives me the British version of the middle finger: index and third fingers in a narrow V, back side out, like a backward peace sign.
In my mind I pass Terry. I glide past the gleaming stainless-steel kitchen, down the hall. I open the French doors that lead to Gail’s guest bathroom. I admire her three-thousand-dollar toilet, which looks like a tall hatbox.
Taped to the side of the vanity is an envelope. Inside the envelope is a photograph, one Nick took, of mountains in the first stages of thaw, of glistening boulders and evergreens. In front of the evergreens pose four people, as happily exhausted as sled dogs.
Who were they? When were
they?
I snap back to real time, real place, as Ahab sidles up to me in that silent, ghostlike way of greyhounds. He licks Hank’s heel.
I fold Hank’s fingers down so just the middle one protrudes. “Heave ho,” I say in Ahab Voice. I laugh at my joke. But just as easily as the laugh bubbles up, tears bulge. And a second later they roll down my cheeks, and then I just can’t stop: I’m crying as hard as I did when I found out Nick was gone. I have no idea what prompts the sobs. They just come. And whoever says it takes one year to recover from the death of a spouse is crazier than I am.
Balls.
I clutch the turntable to my chest. Ahab follows me all over the house. I can’t be in the office, where Hank hangs, where my big eyeball watches me from next to my old scuffed heart. I can’t be in the bedroom, with Nick’s trash-picked furniture. The kitchen doesn’t do because I can see Mount Wippamunk framed in the window, all lit up, skiers and boarders little dots that jump side to side. The living room’s out because Nick’s dad’s pottery—vases and bowls, decorative plates and teapots and teacups—crowds the shelves.
So I back into the little bathroom under the stairs. The powder room, Nick called it. I shoo Ahab because it’s closet size, and the two of us don’t fit inside. He blinks at me rather mournfully as I close the door between us.
I balance the turntable on the sink. I cue Gladys and the boys. I crash onto the toilet seat and slump against the wall.
The acoustics in here are fantastic. Violins swell, a woodblock knocks like a heartbeat, and Gladys pleads. All she needs is time. Maybe a thousand years.
Years ago I painted a mural in here. It’s of Ahab, back when he was a strapping young captain. I captured him midstride, all four legs tucked under him. A furry torpedo. The photograph I painted from—one Nick took, of course—hangs in a frame above the sink.
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