Reverend Swan sighed and rammed his shovel into a mountainous bank near the door. It was ready for him there, when the next storm blew through or he needed to find some answers.
The smell of chocolate and marshmallows met us as we clomped into the house. Reverend Swan shrugged off his coat and bent to slip off his boots. When he straightened, his wife stood in front of him holding out a steaming cup. He took it and she kissed him, saying she had some ironing to do. She grabbed a cinnamon roll on her way out of the room.
We eased into chairs at the kitchen table. I chased the marshmallows in my hot chocolate with a spoon while Reverend Swan glanced through the mail. Utility bill, as usual, higher than the month before. Reminder from the diocesan office in Burlington of the annual spring meeting and bake sale. Flyer from a chain of hardware stores: “Fix up, clean up, spruce up for spring.”
And a letter from Brunswick, Maine.
Reverend Swan didn’t know anyone in Brunswick, Maine. Almost cautiously, he slit the envelope and read it.
Slowly his hand began to tremble.
Startled, I grabbed his wrist and whispered his name. “Are you all right? Reverend, is it your heart?”
He shook his head, opened his mouth, closed it. He handed the letter to me. “Read it aloud,” he croaked.
Dear Reverend Swan,
You probably don’t remember me…
I glanced at the bottom of the page. Walter Lamb. It wasn’t a name I recognized.
We came through your way last fall, me and the kids.
The Mainiacs. It was difficult to forget ten kids.
You put us up for the night, and the next morning your good wife cooked us breakfast. When we left your house, we drove on to the address you gave us and your friend there, Reverend Douglass, said he heard the paper mill near Brunswick was hiring. So we drove to Brunswick. And, what do you know, by nightfall I had a job. A man at the mill had an uncle who had a cheap apartment to let. It was small, but the kids got to like sleeping on the floor when we were at your place. Your missus told ’em that’s the way the Chinese sleep and they didn’t mind being Chinese for awhile.
Work at the mill ain’t nothing like work on the farm. Don’t know if I’ll ever get used to working with a roof over my head. The noise of the machines is louder than I ever thought sound could be. It’s nothing like the quiet fields. And beans sure smell sweeter than pulp. But me and the kids decided we could save a little money here. Maybe buy a few acres out of town. I don’t know about growing beans in this sandy Maine soil, but if anyone can do it, I can.
The kids are doin’ fine. They’re all in school. They really like Maine. They like the beach the best. None of us had ever seen the ocean before. The little ones ran right to the edge the first time we saw it, stuck their fingers in it, and ran back. It’s so cold, they said. We just stood there in the wind and watched it for the longest time. No one said a word. Finally, Sally said, “Papa, ain’t it ever gonna stop?” We all laughed. “Darlin’,” I said, “it’ll last longer than all of us.’
“Doesn’t it ever get tired?” Sally asked. No, I said, never.
When I look at the ocean, I think about you, Reverend. I think about what you said about never giving up because I had something to give. Keep going, you said, for the kids. That night after the kids were asleep, I never talked so much before about anything, much less my wife and the farm. But you let me talk. Even after I told you I wasn’t Episcopalian.
You said in this life there was no coincidences. You said I was meant to take those kids and make a new home for them. I don’t think about my wife much anymore, or the way she left us. I think about my kids and the farm we’re going to have someday. I want it to look out on the ocean. Because when I look at the ocean, it gives me the strength to never stop. Just like you did.
The letter was signed, Walter Lamb.
We sat in the silence left by Walter Lamb’s words. Moments slipped away loudly on the old clock on the wall; the cuckoo bird popped out, just as a jay fluttered to the snow bank outside and squawked. Slowly, ever so slowly, Reverend Swan’s lips curved into a smile.
I handed the letter back to him, “It seems you make a pretty good rest stop. I think I’ll send you all my referrals from now on.”
19. They Come and They Go
Perhaps every town has its dreams.
Just as people do.
Some towns want to grow and grow, big enough to attract a McDonalds, a Pizza Hut, a Kentucky Fried Chicken. They stretch eagerly toward the interstate highway over the hill and the travelers who need to eat and sleep and use the restroom. A four-lane strip of road and an off ramp can be a town’s ticket to life. Life in the fast food lane.
Other places don’t mind being small. They take pride in the fact that nothing has changed since their forefathers bought the land for a bead and a prayer. They’re not afraid to take on the government. To say, “You’re durn tootin’,” when the postal service asks if they really need a post office. To say, “No, thank you,” to federal authorities waving emergency funds for snow removal under their noses. “We’re perfectly capable of clearing our own snow, thank you. There was snow before there was matching grants.”
Such is Round Corners.
If Round Corners has a dream, it is one of balance, of not letting the government push it one way and the outsiders push it another. The countryside is speckled with New York stockbrokers raising sheep, corporate vice presidents running businesses by modem, and best-selling authors hunched over wood stoves. They come to Vermont to get away. They want out of the rat race and into nature. They want to live off the land in L.L. Bean boots and cashmere sweaters. They seek self-sufficiency. They write Christmas cards to city friends: “No traffic, no rush, no ulcers, no muggings. Yes, paradise. Am sending under separate cover can of maple syrup I made from sap from my own trees. May your holidays be simple and happy.” The imprint on the back of the card is a designer line of stationery sold only in the most exclusive shops in New York.
They come to escape and end up trying to turn the town into the one they left. They have all kinds of ideas for streetlights and road maintenance. They grow impatient when voters turn down a bond issue to renovate the 74-year-old school but support an initiative declaring the town “nuclear free.” (“How many ships armed with nuclear weapons do we get in Round Corners?” said Sheriff Odie Dorfmann, who opposed the proposal on grounds of absurdity.)
And then there are those who come, never intending to change anything and throw our lives up into the air like a basket of colored balls. When we land, we are mixed up, out of place, looking at things differently and likely to never be the same again.
Thomas tossed the sleeping bag into the back of the yellow van. Again, he surveyed the contents of the van. Again, I asked if he had the computer.
Yes.
And the modem? Yes. The binoculars? Yes. Star charts. Yes.
“Did you fold and pack the clothes that were in the dryer?”
“Yes and I even folded yours; they’re on your bed.”
Thomas was leaving. He had a ticket for Australia in his pocket. An airplane ticket. He could have gone by boat, but after the sinking of the Star in Heaven, the astronomers’ cruise ship, I wasn’t keen on the idea of Thomas traveling by boat. “I’ll worry until you dock in Sydney. I’ll probably need dental work from grinding my teeth. I’ll develop a twitch. I won’t get a thing done.”
T-Bone augmented my arguments with a grisly description of seasickness, which made Thomas’s face turn the color of my van just thinking about it.
“All right,” he said, “the friendly skies it is.”
That was just a week ago, and now he was going. Australia. The southern hemisphere has a whole different sky of stars this time of year, Thomas said, and besides, it’s warmer there. This is summer in Australia.
T-Bone handed Thomas a duffel bag, the last item to be stowed in the van. Thomas carelessly flung it in and turned toward us. “I hate this,” he said, “My mom s
ays departures are tough because luggage reminds people that it’s too late to say all the things they had wanted to say. So they babble inane, stupid stuff.” He grabbed my hand. “Let’s not be inane and stupid. Quick, let’s discuss the meaning of life, why we’re here, where we came from. Anything. A joke. Something that we’ll remember for the rest of our lives.”
I smiled and placed my hand on his cheek, knowing that although he spoke with a teasing voice, Thomas in some small place in his heart really meant it. I wanted to give him that, some profound sentiment to send him off into the sunset. But I couldn’t think of a single thing to say, not even some country western song wisdom. Somehow I knew he’d be all right. I told him once he had the gift of fitting in anywhere, that he was one of those people who created their own opportunities. Finally, I think, he believed me.
I hugged him. He sighed and swallowed, so did I. Finally, sniffing, I pushed away.
“I’ll send you photos. Pictures of me in a bush hat. Of kangaroos.”
I smiled shakily.
Again, Thomas checked the van: sleeping bag, duffel, computer, binoculars, cassette player, painting. It was a self-portrait. The first one I’d ever tried. It was small, the right size for a traveling man, just as he requested. In the painting, I’m hugging Milky Way. Both of us are wearing big smiles. The cow’s bridgework looks like something out of an editorial cartoon of Jimmy Carter.
Thomas studied the pile. His worldly possessions were exactly as he had left them. Nothing had jumped out of the van while his back was turned. He would not have to go through the indignity of dragging a duffel bag, kicking and screaming, back to the van or bribing a computer cable into behaving with a call to the local bulletin board. He couldn’t put it off any longer.
He turned and shook hands with T-Bone, the man who’d taught him everything he’d ever need to know about the end of a cow, and then some.
“Take care of yourself,” T-Bone said.
“Take care of her,” Thomas said nodding toward me.
“Go,” I said, pulling his head down and kissing his cheek.
Thomas nodded again then climbed into the van. It started on the fourth attempt. Then, with a grin and a wave, he was off, a bright yellow dot buzzing down the snow-packed road. We stood in the cold, shivering, watching the yellow van out of sight. A junco in the maple overhead chipped. T-Bone stamped his feet.
“He’s smart to get out before the thaw.”
“Yes,” I said. “Mud season does crazy things to a person.”
Harvey Winchester finally called at seven.
“Where are you?” Wynn cried.
“Still at work,” he said. The last real snowstorm of the season, the last humdinger, had downed trees which in turn had dropped powerlines. “There’s not a lick of light on the whole campus. We’ve got to remove those trees so the linemen can get to work. Every building, including the dormitories, is pitch dark. Who knows what those kids are up to?”
“Probably trying to stay warm,” Wynn said.
“That’s what I’m afraid of,” Harvey said.
“But what about the Lamaze class tonight?”
“Go ahead without me,” Harvey said. “And take notes.”
Wynn hung up on her husband and headed for the Round Corners Restaurant. There she whined over her second piece of German chocolate cake, “He was the one who liked going to classes. I only put up with all that panting nonsense for him. And now he’s out in the cold coaching linemen instead of me. This is the rehearsal of the birth of his own child, for gawdsake.”
The clock said seven seventeen. Even if he left that very minute, Harvey wouldn’t make it on time. The college was a thirty-mile drive, and tonight the road was swarming with snowplows. Wynn jammed her arms into Harvey’s big, old down parka. She couldn’t zip hers anymore. Harvey’s parka was too old, too worn, even for Harvey, a fashion illiterate if there ever was one. He offered to buy Wynn a new coat. But, she said, don’t waste the money. She didn’t care how she looked. She glanced at her reflection in the window. She looked like shit in hunter’s green.
She squared her shoulders the way martyrs of all time have prepared themselves. I took one look at her face and relented, “All right, I’ll coach you tonight. So will T-Bone.”
“Me?” T-Bone choked on his coffee. He spun around on his stool and gaped at me.
“Well, you have more experience than I have. At least, you’ve helped cows give birth.”
“I don’t know…”
“Oh, please,” begged Wynn; she liked the idea of having an authority consulting on her case.
T-Bone led us to his pickup truck, keeping a light grasp on Wynn’s elbow as we crossed an icy patch. He helped her into the cab, tucked a blanket around her, and asked if she was warm enough. “Yes,” said a surprised Wynn. Harvey, even in his heightened state of prenatal awareness, never offered a wrap.
I climbed in beside Wynn as T-Bone limped around the front of the truck to the driver’s side. I noticed T-Bone didn’t offer me so much as a dishcloth.
Lamaze classes were in the basement of the library. There were four couples, including the Winchesters. The instructor was a former obstetrics nurse. She was enthusiastic, supportive, perky. And skinny.
“She makes me want to throw up,” Wynn said. “Harvey, of course, thinks she’s wonderful.”
We began with massage. “Remember coaches a relaxed mother is a calmer mother,” said the nurse. Enough said to the coaches, who jumped to stroking their partners. Apparently none of them wanted an hysterical fat woman on their hands.
I reached for Wynn. “No, let T-Bone,” Wynn said, closing her eyes and laying flat on a mat, pillows propped under her knees and head.
I stared at T-Bone archly. He blushed and tentatively touched Wynn’s arm.
“I won’t break,” Wynn said.
T-Bone stole a look at the couple on the next mat. He tried to imitate the father-to-be, working joint by joint, muscle by muscle, down to the toes. The father-to-be kept up a constant patter of soft, reassuring whispering.
I knew what Wynn was experiencing. T-Bone has gentle hands, soothing hands, hands accustomed to calming creatures. He doesn’t grind or poke or punch, like some sadistic Swedish masseuse. Wynn relaxed. The tension poured out of her in buckets.
“What do I say to her?” T-Bone asked me. “Somehow ‘Cold enough for you lately?’ doesn’t cut it.”
I shrugged. “Tell her what you know.”
So T-Bone talked to Wynn of his farm and his cows, the way his land rolls from boundary to boundary and how he knows every bump. Soon, he told her, water will ripple through the hills. When the snow melted, his whole farm trickled with little streams, tiny waterfalls, microscopic rivers.
“I like to drive into the meadows and fields and see the earth waking up from winter. It makes me want to dance.”
“Dance?” Wynn said, sleepily.
“Celebrate. Feel alive. Grow peaceful and whole, yet excited. As if the rivers are bubbling inside me. Life rushing to the surface in me.”
“Yes,” Wynn mumbled, “like knitting squares for a baby’s blanket.”
I leaned back and closed my eyes, my only contact with the world T-Bone’s mesmerizing voice. I thought of granny blanket squares, fitting together so perfectly, so prettily. There was Wynn, needles in hand. Look at her knit. She is incredible; she can’t make a mistake even if she tries. Everyone wants an afghan by Wynn. People call her designs divine; surely that combination of hunter’s green and azure blue is inspired, they gush. “It’s nothing,” Wynn says biting the yarn with her teeth, “simply an old parka I found lying around the house and worked into the pattern of the afghan.” Then she cavalierly tosses a scarf over her shoulder, lowers the hood on the hairdryer and returns to her knitting, looking for all the world like a grounded Amelia Earhart getting a perm.
Such daring, her fan club whispers.
I turn away. I could do that. I could be daring and courageous. I left the beauty shop, saddled
up my cow and headed home to my studio…
“Maud. Maud! Will you wake up? We’ve got a situation here.”
“What?” I rubbed my eyes then pried them open.
Wynn sat up holding her stomach. She looked as if she had just swallowed a half-baked doughnut.
“Is she sick?”
“We were starting the breathing exercises, whatever they are, and she grabbed her stomach.”
“I’m conscious. You can talk to me.”
“Well, what is it?” I said irritated. Cows in my dreams always made me grumpy.
“I think it’s the baby.”
“Now!” T-Bone gasped.
“Now!” I shouted.
We made the twenty-minute drive to the hospital in 13.5 flat, hitting only one tree on a slippery curve west of town. As the orderlies wheeled Wynn’s gurney away, she shouted, “Maud, call Harvey and tell him fuck the trees. Get his ass here now.”
Harvey made it in time for the birth of his 7-pound, 4-ounce girl with thick black hair and fantastic eyelashes. At least, I think that was him, a blur flying through the waiting room, a chainsaw extension cord trailing behind him.
T-Bone and I waited to see the baby. She didn’t have any neck and she looked rather worn and wrinkled. She seemed to cry a lot. She needed a shampoo, blow-dry, and style. In short, she was beautiful.
T-Bone drove home slowly. The sun was just coming up. The weatherman on the radio forecasted a thaw. Just in time for Town Meeting Day. That’ll be a picnic. At T-Bone’s, we wearily milked the cows then crawled into bed with our clothes on. We held each other and waited for the same old dreams. But they didn’t come. We slept in peace as did the tired Winchester Family.
20. It Rained So Hard, It Washed the Spots Off the Holsteins
Rain.
Nature carved the snow banks with rain.
Whittled out monsters and animals and voluptuous women.
The frozen earth beneath the snow could not absorb the slicing water. So the water skated. Down the mountain, through the woods, across the pastures, over the roads. All the way to Lake Champlain. Everywhere in Round Corners patches of earth appeared. Dark spots dappled the snow, like the coat of a Holstein cow. People discovered they had yards and fences and had forgotten to take in the rake last fall. Sheriff Odie Dorfmann’s wife stared out her kitchen window at dozens of softballs, a stadium of softballs.
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