One Year in Coal Harbor

by Polly Horvath

  “Let me help you think of this differently, then,” said Uncle Jack, again signaling with his hands for me to stay quiet, because I had opened my mouth, although even I didn’t know what I was going to say this time. I was feeling almost as insane as Eleanor looked. “Think about all the children born into poverty and starving. I know you go to the Anglican church, Eleanor. Haven’t they been collecting money to help children in Africa with AIDS?”

  “Yes.”

  “Well, some of them still die, don’t they? Really, lots of them. Because they’re not as lucky as you.”

  “Yes,” said Eleanor, but she still had on her insanely angry voice. I was kind of respecting how long she could keep herself stirred up. I didn’t think she had it in her.

  “And think of all the terrible things that happen to people. And to trees too. Is it the trees’ fault they are to be clear-cut? People and animals and trees and everything alive are born into circumstances they have no control over. Bad and unfair things, undeserved things happen to them every day. And knowing this and how lucky we are, we feel so helpless and maybe a little guilty because by chance we were born into better circumstances. And we can’t change that. We can’t level the playing field. We can’t make those circumstances not exist. But although we can’t keep undeserved bad things from happening, we do have control in making undeserved good things happen. We can say, Maybe this person technically doesn’t deserve that I give him a break, or look the other way, or let him get away with it. But I can. I have that power even if I haven’t the other. You see what I mean?”

  “No,” said Eleanor.

  “Is it fair that Ked has to stay in foster homes? That this is the childhood he is having?”

  “Yes,” said Eleanor.

  “No, it isn’t. Even you can see that!” I said.

  “Really, Eleanor, do you think so? A good Christian like you?” asked Uncle Jack, and I could see by his slightly sarcastic tone that she was really beginning to annoy him, because Uncle Jack was never sarcastic. “Why is it fair? What did he do to deserve it?”

  “Well, his parents—” started Eleanor, but Uncle Jack interrupted her.

  “We’re not talking about what his parents did or didn’t do. We’re talking about Ked and what he’s got to contend with that none of us can change. Now, if he stole the money, does he deserve for me to let him off the hook? Is that justice?”

  “NO!” said Eleanor, obviously feeling on much more secure ground now.

  “That’s right, if he stole the money, justice would say that he shouldn’t be let off the hook. But I don’t believe in justice.”

  “Huh!” snorted Eleanor, in a tone that implied that nothing he believed surprised her.

  “Because if there was justice, he wouldn’t have had the childhood he’s had. Maybe we don’t live in a just universe. Maybe we live in a universe where all you have control over is your own kindness. And as far as I’m concerned, the kind thing to do is to leave that poor kid alone. And think about it, that’s quite an interesting little power to have. Get it?”

  “No,” said Eleanor.

  I looked at Uncle Jack but he didn’t look back at me. It was really quite an interesting idea and I wondered if he had come up with it on the spot. He was looking intensely at Eleanor, trying to bend her to his will. I could have told him he was whistling in the wind. Eleanor is one of those people who are normally incredibly wimpy, so it’s really annoying to find just how stubborn they can be when their wimpiness should be working in your favor.

  Her brow was furrowed and she looked Uncle Jack right in the eye. “I don’t care. I’m going to tell everyone.”

  “Then you’ll have to explain what you were doing at my house when you saw him. What were you doing?” asked Uncle Jack, looking innocently curious.

  “I was …” She stopped.

  “Were you there to see anyone in particular?” asked Uncle Jack. I didn’t think he knew about Spinky. I was pretty sure I was the only one who knew about Eleanor’s abiding love for him, but Uncle Jack was so much smarter than the average bear that sometimes even knowing how clever he was, he surprised me.

  “I was looking for Primrose,” said Eleanor stoutly.

  “No, she wasn’t,” I said. “I know who she was there to see, and if we’re going to be going around telling everyone things—”

  “Never mind,” said Eleanor hastily. “You’re all crazy. You and your mom and your dad and your uncle. You’re all cracked. I don’t want to have anything to do with any of you.” Then, before she slammed the door, she said to me, “You’d better keep your mouth shut.”

  “You’d better keep your mouth shut!” I called after her.

  Then I sat down in the chair across from Uncle Jack and he got a box of bourbon biscuits out of his middle drawer and we silently ate about a dozen.

  “You know Ked didn’t take the money, don’t you?” I said.

  Uncle Jack looked at me for a long moment and then he said, “Of course, Primrose.”

  When I got up to leave he heaved a sigh and said, “I’m going to be gone for a few weeks.”

  “Where are you going?”

  “Down island. I have a lot of business there. I’ve been commissioned to hunt for some farmland around Duncan and I’m selling some holdings.”

  “This is the worst time to go,” I protested. “Any second Dan Sneild could pop the question.”

  “I’m sure he will,” said Uncle Jack, passing me the biscuits again. But now he had a twinkle in his eye. Did he want Miss Bowzer to marry Dan Sneild?

  “Harumph,” I said.

  “I think he is certainly going to pop the question and I think the answer is going to be yes and it’s part of the reason I’m going down island,” said Uncle Jack.

  “To escape?” I asked. “Because it will break your heart? Can’t you fight for her?”

  “Don’t worry, I have no desire to compete for the same heart that Dan Sneild is trying to claim.”

  So that was final. Uncle Jack didn’t love Miss Bowzer after all. I had been wrong all along and so had my mother. All that French food for nothing. My stomach felt like stone. Miss Bowzer would marry an otter and Uncle Jack would be lonely forever. I took another bourbon biscuit and crunched on it with sharp, cranky teeth.

  Uncle Jack did the same and finally said, “That friend of yours, Eleanor, is kind of a pill, isn’t she?”

  I nodded and grabbed another bourbon biscuit. “I imagine she made up that lie because I kind of ditched her.”

  “Jealousy,” said Uncle Jack, chewing ruminatively. “It’s amazing how often people try to stir up jealousy. You’re always lucky if it doesn’t backfire. Read Othello, Primrose, it’s a very interesting play. Shakespeare knew everything.”

  “I wasn’t trying to—” I began.

  “I didn’t mean you. I was thinking of someone else. We’re out of bourbon biscuits,” he said, shaking the empty box. “Want a fruit crème?”

  I was about to settle into emptying another cookie box with Uncle Jack when I saw Ked going down the street.

  “I gotta go,” I said.

  Uncle Jack looked up but kept trying to open the fruit crèmes and nodded. He was very intent on getting to those cookies and when I left he had two jammed in his mouth. He was not going to want his second TV dinner tonight.

  I ran outside and joined Ked.

  “I passed Eleanor,” he said. “She looked crazy and you wouldn’t believe the look she gave me. What happened?”

  “Oh, girl stuff,” I said. “And I was just visiting my uncle. You know, popping in.”

  I am the world’s worst liar, I thought. I didn’t sound remotely like myself.

  Ked glanced at me and I could tell he thought I sounded phony too but he just said, “Let’s get the bikes.”

  We rode and rode without talking and the woods and hills passed by and I couldn’t see how Ked could ever stand to leave this place. Why didn’t he fight to stay here?

  We rode so long that by s
uppertime my legs were shaky with fatigue but it was as if he and I and the hills were all part of one thing, separate from other things on Earth. Just as my mother and father and I were part of one thing, separate from all else. And these small subsets within the universe, I decided, are maybe what people love best. Whether it is you and the ocean or you and your sisters or you and your B and B, your husband and children.

  I was thinking about this after dinner while I did homework and my parents watched TV but it wasn’t until I was in bed that night that I thought about Eleanor again, insane with jealousy because she’d been excluded from Ked’s and my subset. Then I wondered who Uncle Jack did mean, if it wasn’t me, when he was spouting off about trying to stir up jealousy.

  In the weeks that followed, Ked and I rode out to Jackson Road every day to visit the trees while we could.

  There were usually a few Hacky Sack kids on Jackson Road keeping an eye on the mountain. We also ran into them at The Girl on the Red Swing, where Miss Bowzer had taken to feeding them in exchange for help in the kitchen. The first night they came in, trying to pool their money to split a dinner, she said they could have the leftover chicken for free—she had cooked too much. They said it was nice of her but they were all vegetarians.

  “I can’t just let them starve, Primrose,” she said to me. “They’ve got such big eyes under all that unruly hair. They remind me of a miniature poodle I used to have. He was always covered in tangles with his eyes just peeking out. Of course, he was a meat-eater.” She sighed.

  So after that she devised a vegetarian chili that they loved. She always kept a big pot on the stove and we got used to seeing them walking in at any time and helping themselves. Because of their ragged clothes and dreads she said they all looked like war orphans. She started calling them the vegetarian war orphans and it stuck and a lot of us called them that too.

  “Why are you helping them if you’re on the side of the loggers?” I asked.

  “People gotta eat,” she said.

  “I know it’s none of my business but how can Dan Sneild clear-cut a forest that will ruin the view of the B and B that you both love?” I asked, trying to avoid the vegetarian war orphans, who were swirling around performing tasks that I used to. It was wonderful to have Ked as my best friend (even though I only referred to him this way to myself) but as a result I had lost my routine with Miss Bowzer, and these interlopers had filled the vacancy.

  Ked elbowed me in the ribs. He hated it when I just came out and asked people things like this. He was the opposite of the vegetarian war orphans, who were like a strange nomadic tribe whose credo was “Stir up trouble.” They seemed to be having so much fun with the protest, I sometimes suspected they forgot what they were protesting and it wasn’t the trees they loved as much as it was the life they had created for themselves, drifting from town to town, eating vegetarian, doing good things and enjoying the camaraderie of righteousness.

  “There’s lots of stuff you don’t understand, Primrose,” Miss Bowzer said, bustling around, directing her patchouli-scented army.

  “You got that right,” I said, and Ked elbowed me again. He dragged me outside and we walked down Main Street.

  Then I remembered to tell him that my dad said the forecast was good for Saturday and he could come out on the boat. The last few Saturdays had been too stormy to take a beginner.

  Ked suddenly looked so excited that I thought he might be sick so I took away the Baggie of penuche Evie had sent with him and which we had started munching.

  “You could apprentice on my dad’s boat and then be a fisherman yourself someday,” I speculated, chewing Evie’s penuche with effort. The stickiness between your teeth was good for contemplating such things. Like cows chewing their cuds. I always think cows must have many deep thoughts.

  “Nah,” said Ked. “I could never afford a boat.”

  “Sure you could. You save up.”

  “Yeah, right, do you know how much those things cost?” muttered Ked, looking at the ground. “If I ever get a boat, it will be a miracle.”

  I decided to see if Miss Connon could help me find a Mary Oliver essay that Ked would like. Maybe she could find something that would make him feel more hopeful. But when I got to school the next day there at Miss Connon’s desk sat MISS LARK!

  “Where is Miss Connon?” I asked.

  “Be quiet and sit down. Be quiet and sit down, all of you!” said Miss Lark, and the second bell hadn’t even rung yet.

  When everyone was seated Miss Lark stood up in her large tan-colored tie shoes and ill-fitting plaid skirt. She wasn’t wearing a mackinaw but that was the only concession she had made toward normal fashion. She was wearing gray stockings topped by ankle socks!

  “Miss Connon will not be returning for the rest of this semester. I will be substituting,” she began, when a boy in the back yelled, “You’re that author! You can’t teach!”

  “Put your hand up if you have something to say, young man,” said Miss Lark. “I was a substitute teacher for many years and out of the goodness of my heart answered the call to duty because otherwise, you might have had to wait for a teacher to be found down island, which would mean missing school days that would have to be made up in the summer.”

  You could tell Miss Lark relished this prospect.

  “However,” she went on regretfully, “I have responded to the call of need and will take over until Miss Connon is herself again. If she ever is.”

  Well, you can imagine the furor this created. Everyone liked Miss Connon except for some of the parents who thought the books with big words she favored were inappropriate. It was a well-known fact that Miss Connon was always getting in trouble with various parents who thought she should make at least a passing try at keeping us stupid. But Miss Connon always said she had no patience with people who kept a white-knuckled grip on ignorance when any fool could see that if you didn’t know a word all you had to do was LOOK IT UP. I noticed that Miss Lark was of the ignorance-is-a-terminal-condition school because she had taken all the Mary Oliver and Walt Whitman books from the free-time reading shelves and replaced them with Nancy Drew and Hardy Boys.

  I told Ked all about this immediately after school.

  “What can be the matter with Miss Connon?” I asked. “Missing a whole semester?”

  “Maybe she has cancer,” said Ked.

  Then we spent the rest of the afternoon riding around and debating which illnesses you could get that would make you miss so much school. But it turned out to be one we hadn’t even thought of.

  “It’s not cancer,” said my mother at dinner. She’d been on the phone trying to suss out information. “She’s gone down island for a little rest cure.”

  “She was just tired?” I said in disbelief.

  “Yes. Teachers work very, very hard. She was tired and she needed some psychological help.”

  “She’s mentally ill?” I asked in further disbelief.

  “Oh, Primrose, don’t be so melodramatic. Everyone needs help from time to time. Why don’t you make her a card and I’ll mail it tomorrow.”

  And then my mother changed the subject.

  That night after my mother thought I was asleep she gave my father the lowdown.

  “Complete nervous breakdown. That’s what Ruth, whose sister Joan teaches with her, says. Joan says people kept finding her crying in the teachers’ lounge and doing odd things like forgetting to bring her lunch and spending the whole lunch hour staring into space. Well, no wonder, John. She had the care of both elderly parents, her disabled sister and all that teaching. You know, teaching is always hard. Giving, giving, giving. So much going out.”

  “It ranks second below air traffic controllers for burnout rate,” said my dad.

  My mother rattled on as if she hadn’t heard him—the way she does when she’s all excited to relate something. “And she didn’t have enough coming in. I think that’s what did her in. You have to have a balance, John. It can’t all be outgoing. I wish there was something w
e could do for her. Primrose liked her so much.”

  “Who is taking care of the parents and sister?”

  “A cousin came up to lend a hand.”

  “Well, then it sounds like her bases are covered.”

  “For now, but I wish something wonderful would come into her life. That’s what she needs. She needs incoming. To restore some balance. She needs something good to happen to her. Out of the blue! Do we know any nice single men, maybe?”

  My father laughed and then their voices faded as I drifted to sleep, thinking of all the books Miss Connon had found for me.

  I set my alarm clock for four a.m. Saturday and ran to Bert and Evie’s. My dad had gone down to the docks and I had told Ked I would meet him at his trailer and walk with him there. But when I got to the trailer, I found out Bert and Evie were planning to come too. This was such a big day for Ked. Evie had her Polaroid camera and kept snapping pictures of him: Ked leaving the double-wide on his first day of fishing, Ked leaving the trailer park on his first day of fishing, Ked between Bert and me on his first day of fishing, Ked taking a bite of a muffin with mini marshmallows as we walked down to the beach on his first day of fishing. She kept ripping off the Polaroids and showing them to me as they developed.

  “It’s so nice to have these mementos of the occasion,” she said conspiratorially to me. “Men don’t think about commemorating the occasion—not the way women do—but they’re glad afterward. I’m going to make a scrapbook for Ked. And I’m going to macramé a nice cover for it and attach some seashells.”

  And I thought again how perfect Evie and Bert would be as Ked’s adopted parents. How Evie would always be macraméing things for him and how Bert would keep him company at guy things. How he could join a sports team finally because he would know he’d be around the whole season and Evie would bring snacks with mini marshmallows to the game and no one in the whole world would be prouder of a son than they would be whenever he did anything noteworthy like take his next breath. My dad would teach him to fish. And maybe he would tell me I was his best friend and I would say, Isn’t that funny, you’re my best friend too, and afterward everyone would know. And maybe we’d be friends for life and many years from now be the two old-timers who sat in The Girl on the Red Swing and dawdled over our coffee and young people would come to us for stories about the way things used to be in Coal Harbor.