Silent Words

by Lisa Fenwick

  In the photo, both of us were smiling wide, and I was still holding a helmet in one hand while I leaned against the car, Dad beside me with two drinks ready to go. What I didn’t know at the time was that a few days earlier, a doctor had told Dad he had only a few weeks to live. That was the reason that the picture was on my desk. It was the last one that I took with him before he was too sick to stand up, let alone go out for a day and have some fun.

  Chapter Five

  Amy

  The Present

  Ugh. I knew that I was stalling. I placed my grocery order way later than I should have to be sure it would get to the house before I had to leave for the cottage so I could meet the new renter and let him in.

  When the delivery boy arrived, he helped put the groceries away. I petted Smokey for a while before I got his harness, and we finally left the house.

  The entire time, I knew exactly what I was doing. I was trying to miss the appointment after leaving the cottage and feeling bad about all the work that Jen had to do for it to be good enough to rent out again. I hated the idea of renting it out again. Even though Peggy, the realtor, had given this new guy a glowing recommendation, I just couldn’t bring myself to feel good about having another man in the place.

  The idea of having another man in the place stopped me. I took some time, as I reluctantly put one foot in front of the other, to examine that sentiment. I turned it over in my mind whether my objection to this new renter was that he was male, or if I’d be just as averse to a woman moving into the cottage.

  From what Peggy had said, the guy was a young New York lawyer, taking a sabbatical from work for personal reasons. What kind of personal reasons, she hadn’t said, but Peggy had always been that way. She had no filters and was completely open about herself but was very, very strict about others’ privacy. She had been perfectly discreet about my prospective new tenant’s personal matters, and I knew that she’d also divulged nothing about me to him that I wouldn’t want her sharing.

  I found myself wishing she’d been a little bit flexible, though. For her to tell me he was great was something I could rely on. She was a great judge of character and would tell me up front if there was anything about him that would give her pause about recommending my cottage to him. But after Peter, I just found myself wanting to know enough about this person to know why he was coming out to rural Massachusetts from the big city. What was he running or hiding from? What was he looking for? Peter disrupted my sense of safety and security, and I was having a really hard time trusting somebody on secondhand knowledge.

  I was so lost in my thoughts that I barely noticed my usual harassment by the Johnson demons. I knew their laughs and steps until I felt something hit my back with a hollow-sounding thud and a splash of cold wetness.

  “Who did that? Who threw that at me?”

  The kids started to laugh, but something cut it right short. I heard footsteps, heavy ones, moving fast behind me. I took a tighter hold on Smokey’s lead and told him, “Smokey. Ready.”

  I felt him shift position, tensing up to leap into action if necessary.

  “You brats better start apologizing!” It was with a tremendous sigh of relief that I recognized the voice of old Mike Parker. He had a personality that gave him the presence of a professional linebacker. He was an old Army drill sergeant, used to training infantrymen, and he kept that air of irrepressible authority when he retired, along with the parade-field voice. He filled me in on the local news in town whenever he visited me, which wasn’t often. But apart from him and Jen, there was no one who spoke to me, and I never really understood the reason why.

  “Maryanne!” Parker bellowed. “Maryanne, your kids are at it again.”

  “They’re just being kids, Mike,” Maryanne Johnson shouted back from inside the house.

  She didn’t care about how they made me feel, and I didn’t know who I hated more for their behavior.

  Her or them.

  No, it was her. Kids pick things up from their parents, and there was no way that they decided that I was the witch lady. No. She must have done it, and I just wanted to get out of there and never pass there again, even if I did have as much right to be outside in town as they did.

  “They’re being a nuisance is what they’re being. Let me catch them in my yard. I’ll be putting the fear of God into them.”

  “You touch a hair on any of my kids…”

  I turned and said, “Thank you,” in the direction that Parker was shouting, and continued on my way. Standing there listening to him stand up for me while Mrs. Johnson yelled back at him was less appealing than meeting the new renter. I knew Parker wasn’t offended by me taking off while he had words with Mrs. Johnson. He ran interference like that for me a lot. I think it made him feel good to be able to keep a bit of an eye on me, and he’d told me before that he was glad to give me a chance to simply escape if I needed to.

  Parker was one of the very few people that lived in Berwick that I liked. He had been a friend of Dad’s family; I think he’d dated my dad’s oldest sister for a while before he went off to the Army. He retired while I was still in the foster care system and had heard about what had happened to me. I always suspected that he knew what kind of person Dad was, and it made him kind of protective of me. He never said it out loud, but there was an awful lot between the lines whenever he mentioned Dad. It was good to have him in town, with so many of my neighbors having been so cold and closed to me.

  I suppose it didn’t help that I kept myself very much to myself, but there were things about me that I wasn't going to just up and tell people, because they’d take advantage. I needed to really trust somebody a lot to truly let them in. I knew that I was hard to get to know because I was so guarded, but at the same time, it would have been nice if people just took the time to notice that I was just a very private person who was going to take a while to open up and not look down on me because of that, or make any sort of wild assumptions about me.

  Before I knew it, I was at the gate to the cottage. I checked the time, and I was just a couple minutes late, but I didn’t care for being on time, especially after the verbal abuse that I just suffered from little kids.

  “Hi? Amy Martin?”

  “Yes. Hello.” He was to my left; I heard the car door open and then shut. I could hear a dog bark and the rattle of tags. I’d almost forgotten that he'd told me he had a dog and had forwarded his training certificates. I didn’t like turning away potential tenants because of pets—it would be hypocritical of me, since I had one myself—but I couldn’t let just any dog into the cottage. I needed to know they had the basics of good behavior down so they didn’t mess up the place or make a bunch of noise that would disturb the neighbors, or bite somebody on my property.

  “Smokey, relax,” I said. “Sit.” My dog settled in beside me, leaning slightly against my leg. “Mr. Gould?”

  “Noah, please. It’s too formal to call me, Mr. Gould,” he said. I kept a hand on Smokey’s back while Noah walked up to me, in case his dog was too exuberant in his approach.

  “Easy, boy,” Noah said, as his dog whimpered a bit. Smokey was excited but didn’t give any sign of being apprehensive or threatened, which let me relax. He was not only a good judge of people but a good judge of other dogs too.

  I offered my hand, and Noah took it easily. It was reassuring to know that he was being gentle. In that one handshake he wiped away my anxieties about renting the place to him.

  “In that case, just call me Amy,” I said. “This here is my best friend, Smokey. I’m going to keep him back here for a second until he gets a good feel for your dog.”

  “Of course,” Noah said, making some soothing noises at his dog and backing up a step.

  “I trust your drive up here was good and you had no problem finding the place?” I asked. I turned to open the front gate, maneuvering so Noah ended up to my left, the same side Smokey walked on, putting my big dog between us. I heard Noah pull his around to the other side of him. Smokey cued o
ff of my body language that he should screen me, but he didn’t pick up that I was uncomfortable, so he stayed calm. I just liked to play it safe on my first meeting with somebody, even if Peggy told me they were great.

  “The drive was good. I would say it was easy to find this place, considering that I’m from New York City, but to be honest, I live in a place where the streets are on a strict grid, not meandering in the fork where two rivers meet.”

  “Do you want to know the secret to navigating Berwick?” I asked.

  “Sorry, but I didn’t understand you,” he said. “Could I ask you to look directly at me when you speak?”

  I was aware that he was making some sort of gesture, but I couldn’t make it out at all.

  “Sure,” I said, turning my head to fully face him.

  “Do you want to know the secret to navigating Berwick?” I asked again, with a slight smile.

  “Please,” he said.

  “Streets with women’s names run parallel to Bear River. That’s the big one to the south. Streets with men’s names run perpendicular, so every intersection is a cute couple. Mary and Richard, Elizabeth and Thomas, and so on.”

  “Interesting. Kind of funny in a way,” he said.

  “I could never decide if that’s outdated or not. On the one hand, all of the couples are straight, and we know that’s not true. On the other, every street does have multiple cross streets, so it’s kind of like a big love fest.”

  Noah said, “Is there an intersection of Chris and Pat in town?”

  I felt more at ease, not just at the idea of being inside the cottage alone with him but also with the idea of him living in Auntie Jean’s old place.

  “No such luck. Last year, somebody put in a petition to rename two intersecting streets as Shawn and Sean, though. You know, with different spellings?” I could tell that Noah was having a little bit of a hard time keeping his dog settled. Since Smokey was still not showing any signs of stress, I figured it was as good a time as any to let them meet.

  I crouched down and gave Smokey a scratch between the ears. “Let’s introduce the dogs to each other? I can feel Smokey getting restless.”

  He laughed. “He’s a clever dog. I’m afraid I’m not really a dog expert like you. Yes. This is Boy.”

  “Really? His name is Boy?” I asked.

  “Really. When I got him as a puppy, I used that as a placeholder, assuming that soon enough his personality would come to the fore and he’d tell me his name.”

  “No such luck?”

  “None,” Noah said.

  I could hear the two dogs sniffing at each other, and I could feel that Smokey’s body language was easy and relaxed.

  “Good dog!” I said, rubbing him between his shoulder blades.

  “Would you like a tour of the cottage? It’s not very big, but there are, um, quirks that you’ll appreciate me explaining to you.” I unlocked the front door and unclipped Smokey’s leash. “Let the dogs run around and explore the place together. After all, they speak the same language.”

  “I’ll just unhook him,” Noah said.

  I waited as he did it. Then I could hear the two pups barking and roaming together as if they were old friends. It took me aback how quickly Smokey bonded with Noah’s dog. It made me think that Smokey must get lonely too sometimes, and it made me feel a little sorry for him. Being a recluse had suited me for so long, but I never thought about how Smokey felt about it. He’d never been close to another dog, yet in a short space of time I could hear him running and barking like he had a cheer in his bark and a spring in his step. I wondered if Noah would mind if he visited his dog, just so that Smokey could have the company. I laughed to myself about the idea of it. One minute I was nervous about meeting this guy, and now I wanted to visit him regularly.

  “Yeah as you were saying, it makes sense. My old apartment in Manhattan was nearly eighty years old, which gave it an interesting personality, if you know what I mean.”

  “Eighty isn't old. My house was built in 1848, this cottage in 1899.”

  “Damn, that's really old. I’d never guess. It’s beautiful,” he said.

  “Beautiful, built to last, and cared for,” I said, stepping into the kitchen. “I’m carrying on the tradition of the previous owners and keeping certain features untouched from the original, while freely updating others.”

  “Forgive me, Amy. I didn’t make that out,” he said, and at that moment, I realized what the issue was and must be. It was his hearing. I couldn’t see him, but he couldn’t hear me properly without seeing my lips. Knowing that he had a disability, too, made me like him even more. Even if I didn’t know what he looked like. No way could someone like him be single. Nice. Kind and he came from the city. That was uncommon.

  I turned and repeated myself.

  “The molding, baseboards, and doors are all original?” he asked after taking a good look around the kitchen.

  “Yes, I haven’t changed them. We kept all that intact, in every room, or recreated it where we’ve added on or moved walls. We did have to replace the hardwood floors in the kitchen, bathroom, and the mud room, but kept it in the bedroom and living room. The plaster and lath walls in most of the house have been replaced with drywall when the previous owner upgraded all the wiring and plumbing and put insulation in the exterior walls.”

  “Very nice,” Noah said.

  “Okay. Quirk number one,” I said, making sure to face him before I opened the cabinet under the sink.

  It took maybe twenty minutes to get through the cottage, and we ended up back in the kitchen. By this time, I’d told Smokey he could lie down, and he was curled up by the wood stove in the living room, Boy sitting next to him.

  The rental documents were in a folder on the counter.

  “Seeing as you’re a lawyer, I’ll assume you’ve already read over these?” I asked, having emailed them to him a few days ago.

  “I did. And I did my very best to accept the terms as offered and not switch into professional mode and tear them apart.”

  “How bad were they?”

  “Not bad. It looks like you used a standard template that’s been around for a while. It’s a fair agreement.”

  “Well, here’s the actual paper copy we’ll be signing, if you’d like to read it again.”

  “Is there any reason for me to believe you’re handing me something different than you emailed me?” Noah asked, a note of amusement in his voice, a note that I found I liked. It put me at ease.

  “I think I’m a trustworthy person,” I said. I didn’t know why, but I felt myself blushing when I said that, and I lowered my head because I was feeling suddenly shy, something that I hardly felt. Normally I would feel embarrassed if I stumbled or if something wasn’t in the place that I expected it to be and I needed to use my hands and not my knowledge of where things were in the cottage. Jen had picked up on this and tried to put everything back in its place. I could tell as soon as I walked in that she had done a good job cleaning. I needed to call her later and thank her for that. The odor that I smelled when I came in earlier was replaced by vanilla and lemon. Nice touch.

  “Sorry, I didn’t catch that,” Noah said.

  I lifted my head back up. “I said that I think I’m a trustworthy person.”

  “Peggy said the same about you, and I’ve learned that I can bank on her word.”

  “How do you know Peggy? Or did you find her on the Net?” I asked him.

  “No. I know her personally. She used to be part of the office management team at my dad’s law office until she retired in 2014. And she said she lives across the street from you?”

  “Yes,” I said. Peggy was like Mr. Parker, somebody in town who had taken the time to know me and to earn my trust. “She is tremendously helpful. Her niece, Jen, handles all the cleaning for me. Since you opted in on that, she’ll be coming by every other Friday. I think that it’s better if you’re not home when she cleans. It’s better for her. Is that okay?”

  “Sure, not an
issue. What do you mean all the cleaning? You rent out other properties too?”

  “No. She cleans my place too.”

  “Ah. Okay,” Noah said. “If there’s a restaurant you can recommend, I’d be happy to have an early dinner out on alternating Fridays.”

  “Bev’s Home Cooking is the best in town but very definitely caters to local folk,” I said, "so it depends on your taste buds. I expect coming from NY, you’re pretty open to new flavors?”

  He laughed. “I guess so. How long do I have to be here to be considered local folk?”

  “On a six-month lease? You’re not going to make it unless you take up with a local, and you’re able to fit in with the small-town life. Behr’s Bar is the nicest place we’ve got that’s friendly to folks that ain’t from around here,” I said, affecting a bit of a southern accent. I was talking about these places as if I visited them on a local basis, and his question about being a local hit a nerve. I was brought up here and spent most of my adult life here, and yet the locals called me a witch!

  “Sorry, I didn’t get that. I hate to admit it, but I still need to work on my lip reading. What was the name of the second place, and what did you say afterwards?”

  I told him about Behr’s again, this time a lot slower and clearer.

  “Could you spell the name, please?”

  “B – E – H – R,” I said. “Two doors up from the intersection of Lauren and William.”

  He thanked me, surprisingly kindly for how many times he needed me to say something again. Then he confessed, “I’m actually almost completely deaf. I have a pair of experimental surgical implants that are linked to some customized external hearing aids. I’m still completely deaf to most frequencies, but I have some very limited ability to hear a narrow band of the normal pitch range of human voices. Between that and lip reading, I can usually follow a conversation.”