He still heard her voice outside in the backyard, talking with Maddy. He could pick out only a few words here and there: turkey, Daddy, birdie, Uncle Brucie, pie, Celia, Mommy, ambulance. Madison had never forgotten the thrill of the ambulance showing up in front of their house a few weeks earlier and still talked about it frequently. Bruce wanted to buy her a toy ambulance for Christmas if he could find one. He would love to get one she could actually sit inside and pedal around like one of those little kiddie cars. It would have to have a siren, too, which would probably drive them all crazy.
And, of course, Madison—he stopped to give special thanks for her. He was looking forward to the new baby, due in only two months now, but he didn’t see how any baby could ever be as perfect as Maddy. He was hoping he wouldn’t show his partiality too much. The ultrasound had revealed that this one was going to be a girl, too, and Bruce felt sorry for her already, having to live in the shadow of her clever and gorgeous big sister her whole life.
He heard his brother-in-law upstairs walking through the house calling for Kimberly. Over and over he called her name, then Madison’s. Sometimes, even though he could put a computer together blindfolded, Matt simply didn’t seem bright enough to deserve Kimberly and Madison. If he himself ever had a wife and child, Bruce thought, he couldn’t imagine not being aware that they had gone outside. Wouldn’t most husbands and fathers develop a sort of radar about things like that?
Not that he would ever be a hoverer. Women needed their space the same as men did. He would never want a woman who depended on him exclusively for her happiness and well-being. His mother had been that way with his father, and look what had happened to her. And he would never expect any woman to account to him for every minute of her day, every penny she spent, every thought that crossed her mind. He would never want a woman whose mystery was solved, whose complexity was unraveled so that there was nothing left to wonder about.
Bruce got out of bed and opened his blinds. Kimberly was sitting at the patio table in front of something that looked like a kind of old-fashioned hole punch. It quickly came to him what it was, though, when he saw her pull a pecan out of a paper sack, insert it in the contraption, then pull a lever. Maddy was puttering around the patio in her footed pajamas swiping at acorns with a stick.
How typical of Kimberly, not only to let Maddy go outside in her pajamas in November but also to go to the trouble of cracking her own pecans when she could buy them already shelled at the grocery store. For that matter, he had been standing in the yard with her when Milton Stewart had given her a plastic bag full of shelled pecans last week. Why didn’t she use those? Surely she had something better to do with her time on Thanksgiving morning. How were the dinner plans coming along, for instance?
He looked over at the Stewarts’ driveway and Celia’s empty parking pad. He wondered how many days she’d be staying with her aunt and uncle in Georgia. He didn’t remember her mentioning when she’d be back. His mind went back to what had happened two days earlier in Kimberly’s front yard, and he couldn’t help smiling.
It was funny enough the way it had played out, but it might have been even funnier if Celia had indeed dealt a blow to Matt’s head, as she had intended, instead of merely smacking him once across the wrist, if there could have been a big lump the size of an egg above his eyebrow, say, something as a visual reminder of The Incident for days to come. Maybe even a laceration and a few stitches. Bruce thought of Matt trying to look dignified as he carved the Thanksgiving turkey with a big pad of gauze on his forehead. Not that he wished Matt ill. He was okay for a brother-in-law.
No doubt Celia could have inflicted a serious wound if Bruce himself hadn’t run out of the house shouting, “Hey, hey, stop. It’s okay! That’s her father!” And he wondered later how much damage she could have done, catching Matt unawares as she did and wielding a weapon which, though lightweight titanium, was nevertheless a sturdy, unbendable metal.
As Bruce watched Madison now, squatting down to pull the cap off a large acorn then fit it back on with a look of pure delight, his heart overflowed with gratitude that someone had been looking out for her safety and had sprung into action, misguided though it was. That was something else to give thanks for while he was at it.
Bruce tapped on his bedroom window, and Kimberly looked up from her pecan cracking and waved. Maddy saw him, too, and came running over, swinging a stick over her head. Bruce opened his window a little and knelt down in front of it. “Hey, there, Maddy. How’s my girl?”
“I got acorns,” she said, opening her fist to show him two.
“Nice,” he said. “But don’t eat them.” He made a face. “Icky.”
She squatted down again and dropped the acorns onto the patio, then set about trying to decap them.
“I’m going to make a pecan pie,” Kimberly called to him. “This old relic was Mom’s.” She pointed to the pecan cracker. Bruce knew what this meant. She would get so involved with this one little part of Thanksgiving dinner that they would be lucky to eat by midnight. She would have to shell and clean all the pecans after cracking them, then hunt up the recipe, which could be anywhere, then find a store open to buy an ingredient she didn’t have on hand, then make two or three piecrusts before she got one right, and so on. He and Matt would end up in the kitchen trying to help her finish things up, all of them bumping into each other and getting out of sorts. But at least pecan pie sounded better than her original plan of macaroons for Thanksgiving dinner.
“Why not use the pecans Milton gave you?” Bruce asked.
“Oh, I put those in the freezer,” she said, as if this explained everything. “I got these fresh from that man that sells them over on Highway 11.”
“Oh, I see,” Bruce said. “So what time are we planning to eat?”
She looked up at the sky as if to see how high the sun was. “Oh, maybe . . . how does four o’clock sound?”
That meant six o’clock at the earliest. “Okay by me,” he said. “You need any help with anything? I make a mean batch of mashed potatoes, you know.”
“’Tatoes,” Maddy said, looking up happily. She threw one of her acorns toward the window.
“Nah, Matt said he’d help,” Kimberly said. “He learned to make this German potato salad overseas and some kind of meatball dish he wants to try.”
Potato salad and meatballs? For Thanksgiving dinner? Bruce felt another part of his day fall into line. He’d find someplace open for lunch and eat a triple-decker turkey sandwich. Or maybe he would drive to a cafeteria over in Greenville and eat a whole traditional Thanksgiving meal around three o’clock so he could just pick around at whatever ended up on Kimberly’s table.
“I was going to j-o-g over to the p-a-r-k,” he said. “Want me to take you-know-who in the s-t-r-o-l-l-e-r?” Which would modify his jog into a slow run or fast walk, but he didn’t mind. The resistance of pushing the stroller could actually give him a better workout if he did it right. Or he could ride Kimberly’s bicycle and fasten Maddy into the seat on back.
“Matt said he was going to take her somewhere when he got up,” Kimberly said.
Oh, of course. Daddy was home now. What was he thinking? Uncle Brucie’s services were no longer needed.
“He’s still sleeping,” Kimberly said. “I think he’s still got a little jet lag.”
“No, actually, he’s been wandering around the house calling for you,” Bruce said. “I think he’s in the shower now. I hear water.”
Two little boys suddenly appeared in the Stewarts’ backyard, racing around a stone bench over by the clothesline, squealing and flailing their arms, followed presently by a younger taller version of Milton Stewart, ambling along, gazing up at the treetops as he smoked a cigarette. Evidently the Stewarts were having a family Thanksgiving. No doubt Celia was happy to be missing out on all the commotion.
That was the thing about a basement apartment. You were at the mercy of the herd overhead. Kimberly and Maddy padded around as softly as the cat, but since Tues
day night, Bruce had been constantly aware of the fact that Matt was home. What was he doing up there? Clogging? Bruce was glad his bedroom was beneath Maddy’s, not Kimberly and Matt’s. He surely didn’t want to hear any thumps and bumps above him at bedtime to remind him that he was living in a house with a married couple.
He put on a pair of sweat pants and a hooded sweat shirt, and when he stepped outside ten minutes later, Kimberly and Maddy had left the patio. On the wrought-iron table sat a small bowl of pecan halves with broken shells strewn all about. He heard an excited shriek from inside—no doubt Maddy was being informed of her special outing with Daddy.
The Stewarts’ grandsons were now on their knees scooping together a pile of leaves, stopping every few seconds to throw handfuls at each other. Bruce saw his neighbor on the other side splitting a stack of wood while his wife stood on the back step talking on a cell phone. She threw her head back and laughed, a high ringing laugh. Somewhere nearby he heard the deep woof of a dog and, farther off, the sound of a chain saw. It was ironic, he thought as he jogged slowly up the driveway, that on a day when the neighborhood was hopping with activity, he should feel more alone than ever.
34
Out of Distress to Jubilant Psalm
It was a Friday three weeks later, on the last day of school before Christmas vacation, when the ice storm hit, eventually bringing down entire trees and knocking out power throughout much of the area. Rain and low temperatures were a bad combination here in the foothills of South Carolina. By nightfall, Berea, Derby, and Filbert were plunged into darkness. According to the news reports, Greenville still had power except for a few outages on the northern side, for though they had the low temperatures, they had escaped the rain, at least so far.
It had started misting around nine o’clock but increased to drizzling steadily by ten, and parents had begun arriving at Berea Middle School soon afterward to pick up their kids before the roads got too bad to drive on. There were loud complaints about why they hadn’t canceled school to start with, and the principal was kept busy trying to tell parents it hadn’t been his call. It came from higher up. He kept reminding them, too, that the weather forecast hadn’t helped any. They had predicted light freezing rain for tonight, but not this early and not this much.
A December storm was rare, especially one this bad. Real winter weather usually didn’t come to South Carolina until January or February, if it came at all. By one o’clock the teachers were told to go home. Bruce stayed until the bus kids got on their way, then offered to follow Elizabeth Landis home because she was nervous about driving on ice. By the time they left together a little before two, the power had already gone out and the parking lot was like glass.
Most of the students were wishing the bad weather had arrived earlier in the week so they could have missed several days of school, but the teachers were glad for the timing. None of them wanted to give up part of spring break for makeup days, yet none of them minded one bit getting out of their afternoon classes on the last day of school, when the kids were pumped up with vacation fever and ripe for mischief.
Elizabeth made it home okay, and she waved her thanks as Bruce pulled into her driveway behind her to turn around. The garage door was up, and Bruce saw her husband step out the side door, as if he had been watching for her. He waved to Bruce, too, as Elizabeth pulled on into the garage. There was a curl of smoke coming from the chimney, and as Bruce drove away, he saw her husband opening the car door, holding out his hands to help her carry things in. How nice it would be, Bruce thought, to have someone waiting to welcome you home, even if it was a home without power for the time being, even if you couldn’t use your stove to cook a meal together or your television to watch a movie together. You could still make sandwiches and sit by the fire together.
The news reports were already warning that power restoration could be delayed because the temperatures were expected to stay below freezing for the next two days and there was a fifty percent chance of heavier rain tonight. Maybe Elizabeth and her husband would drag out sleeping bags and bed down in front of the fireplace. Maybe they had a kerosene lamp to read by and lots of candles for atmosphere. Maybe they had an old transistor radio and could listen to classical music as Elizabeth read poems aloud. Her husband was a musician—Bruce had met him a couple of weeks ago at C. C.’s Barbecue. Maybe he would tell Elizabeth tonight about a new piece he was composing, get out the manuscript and play the melody for her on his trumpet. Later they could make milkshakes out of the ice cream that was starting to thaw in their freezer.
Driving home very slowly, Bruce wondered how many married couples would be able to transform the inconveniences of tonight into happy memories. He liked to think that it would be in his power to do that someday, to carry a woman through such a time with laughter and good cheer, to play off a disaster and shape it into a fine moment in a relationship. He used to be good at thinking up resourceful ways to rise above bad circumstances, but he wondered if he still had his touch.
Kimberly still liked to talk about the time she was seven and Bruce, who had recently gotten his driver’s license, promised to take her to the community swimming pool one Saturday. But when they got ready to go, the battery in their parents’ Chevy Impala was dead. Kimberly had burst into tears at the disappointment, but Bruce had whisked her out of the car and into the little red wagon they used to play with, then had handed her an umbrella to shield herself against the sun, and off they went. It was the ride of her life, she liked to say, from their house over to the pool some fifteen blocks away. They had even stopped at the Sunshine Grocery for cold bottles of Nehi grape soda on their way.
For most of his life, Bruce had always handled setbacks as challenges to be enjoyed. A forty-five minute wait at a restaurant? No problem. Whip out a deck of cards, play Twenty Questions, make up stories about the other people waiting—there were all kinds of possibilities. The lead actress in your play loses her voice the day before the big performance? Have her go through all the motions on stage and mouth all the words while you read all her lines over a microphone off stage. Luckily, the play had been a comedy, so his male falsetto had simply added to the effect. But there was always a way to make a bad situation better if you used a little creativity. Every time he watched that silly movie The Out-of-Towners, he imagined how he would have handled all those catastrophes differently from Jack Lemmon.
But in most situations there needed to be another person for motivation. For instance, he never would have pulled an empty red wagon across town by himself at the age of seventeen. So though it might be fun to tough out an ice storm someday, he had no desire to do so by himself this weekend. There was a fireplace upstairs in Kimberly’s den, so Bruce knew he could keep warm, but without power what would he do tonight? He didn’t have much to eat in his apartment, and he surely didn’t trust Kimberly to have laid in a supply of food before she’d left town with Matt and Madison yesterday to visit Matt’s parents in Tallahassee, Florida.
Maybe he should throw some things into a duffel bag and drive over to a motel in Greenville for the night. He could go to the old Sleepy Town Inn on Highway 25 with the trim little marquee out front that proudly advertised VCRs and Movie Library, only he would take his own movies along. He could imagine what kind of movie library a motel called the Sleepy Town Inn would have.
He had planned to go Christmas shopping this weekend, so he could do that tomorrow. He usually didn’t buy many Christmas gifts, but he always tended to get extravagant with the ones he did buy. With only seven shopping days left, he should probably go ahead and get started.
Everyone he passed on the road looked worried. Not that he could see their faces, only the rigid slant of their bodies, their heads thrust forward, both hands clutching the steering wheel. It irritated him to hear northern aliens joke about drivers in the South when the roads were bad. So they were careful on ice—was there anything wrong with that? And all those other snide worn-out comments about everything shutting down and all the bread
and milk disappearing from grocery shelves at the least suggestion of a possible snow flurry—it all got so tiresome. Those were the only things northerners seemed to be able to laugh about as they moved in and acted so superior. Take us or leave us, Bruce liked to say—preferably, leave us. Go back home to Yankee land, where everybody thinks it’s a crisis when you have a whole week of ninety-degree weather in the summer, where the soles of your feet are so tender you couldn’t begin to go barefoot on hot asphalt the way we used to do as kids.
He saw no lights on anywhere as he got closer to his own neighborhood. It was raining seriously now and freezing immediately. What a weight the tree branches had taken on in only a matter of hours. Already they were coated with ice and bending over like tired old field hands. Even though the storm would bring everything to a grinding halt, it would be a beautiful sight in the morning—a glittery crystal world like that scene in Dr. Zhivago.
A half mile from home a large tree branch lay right in the middle of the street, one end ripped jaggedly where it had broken off. Thankfully it had landed parallel to the curb so there was room to ease by. Maybe he should have headed south without coming home first. He could have bought toiletries somewhere and worn the same clothes tomorrow. But then he would have had to watch one of the motel’s movies or whatever happened to be on television. He thought of some of the pathetic one- and two-star stuff he had sat through, with titles like Cries from the Tomb or Tender Caress or Swamp Leech, all of which had two things in common: pointless plots and very bad acting.
A night away from home might be a good way to start his Christmas vacation, Bruce decided. It would provide a clear dividing point from the concerns of school, and he was more than ready for a break from all that, even if it had to start out with an ice storm. This past week had seemed way too long. The prize rock collection of one of his eighth graders had disappeared from his classroom without a trace, and the girl’s parents were irate. Two boys in his homeroom had gotten into a fistfight out in the hall, and his seventh graders had bombed another test—this one on vertebrates—the average grade being sixty-eight percent. These were setbacks he hadn’t been able to counter very cheerfully. He had been every bit as exasperated as Jack Lemmon, had even shouted at the two boys, had actually pulled at his hair when he looked through the test papers.
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