by Jay Quinn
“What’s the story on that guy?” I asked.
“Steve? Oh, he’s been here long enough to be a local. His folks moved to Salter Path when he was about 12 years old. He’s real ‘old school’ as the kids say these days.”
“What do you mean?”
“Well, he had a scholarship to the Naval Academy, but he gave it up to be a water man. He crews on a head boat during the summer—black marlin fishing mostly—and spends most of his off-season hunting and fishing the sound. If you want oysters, he’s the go-to guy. If you want to pay a hunting guide, he’s the best. People who’d shoot you for trespassing let Steve hunt their land.”
“And he raises Chesapeake Bay retrievers.”
“He’s got a pretty good reputation as a breeder and trainer. You’d be amazed at what some people pay for one of the Chessies he’s gun-trained.”
“Then I suppose he’d be out of my price range for a pet.”
“Not necessarily. I think he likes you or he wouldn’t have offered one to you.”
“How could he like me? He only met me that one time.”
“Oh … well … Chris, he’s really low-key, but he’s one of us,” Heath said, giving me a significant look.
“No way,” I said dismissively.
Heath laughed. “Don’t be fooled by the rough exterior.”
“So, how do you happen to—”
“He and I had a thing a few years back.”
“Oh, I see. Well, if he likes me, I’m sort of busy right now.”
We walked on in silence, nearing the dune we’d have to cross to return to my place. Heath still didn’t answer. Finally I said, “Am I busy right now?”
Heath sighed and stopped. “Look, Chris … you’ve just gotten out of a long-term situation. We’re enjoying each other’s company, but …”
Heath’s back was to the sun and I was standing in his shadow. I felt the unmistakable chill of being out of the sun. While I was disappointed—maybe even hurt a little—I was also glad to have to face the limits of my own expectations. I really didn’t want to give Heath the impression that I was looking for more than I was right then. As much as he’d wanted to gently set me straight, I felt the need to respond as strongly.
“Look, Heath,” I said. “You don’t need to say anything more. I feel the same way—it’s all too soon. I’m really enjoying your company right now. You should know for sure that I’m enjoying you in bed. But I don’t mean to give you the impression that I’m looking to get married again.”
Heath looked down at me and then away again, nervously. “Don’t be offended, Chris.”
I laughed. People had always thought I was on the defensive when I was only trying to be honest. It was the goddamn un-Botoxed wrinkles at the edges of my eyes and the deep line between my brows. “I’m not scowling at you, Heath. I’ve got my worry lines going because I’m trying to let you know I’m being serious.”
Heath looked back at me, and I gave him an open, sincere grin.
“I’m glad, Chris. I didn’t want to hurt you,” he said.
I thought a moment and tried to think of what to say to the man. I was genuinely puzzled; I didn’t think I’d said or done anything to communicate I wanted more out of him than someone to talk to and to have some seriously good sex with. “Heath, look. I’ll freely admit I’m more than in touch with my feminine side, but if I’ve given you the impression I wanted to turn back into a wife and have us become an old married couple, I apologize. That’s not who I want to be anymore.”
I tried to not laugh when I saw the deep relief wash over the man’s face. “No apology necessary, but that’s good to hear. Still, if you change your mind, you should know I’m not interested in anything other than what we have now.”
“Really?”
“Yeah, sir. Really.”
“Why’s that?”
“Well … Chris I’m not the marrying kind these days. And I think you might need to see a man about a dog.”
I was puzzled. That expression usually meant someone needed to go to the bathroom. I supposed he meant I needed a puppy to lavish my domestic instincts upon. Heath gave a low chuckle and turned toward the dune to head up to my house. Walking to catch up with him, I said, “I have no idea what you’re talking about.”
From the crest of the dune’s rise, he stretched out his hand to help me up the last steep steps of the way. “I think you’ll find out, sooner or later.”
After I said good-bye to Heath in the drive, I climbed the stairs to the porch to find Andrea alone sitting in a deck chair looking out toward the sea. She seemed content as she reached for my hand and guided me to the chair next to her. “I’ve started coffee,” she said, “it’ll be ready soon.”
I sat and said, “I think we’ll need a gallon. Speaking for myself, I’m still sort of drunk. I don’t like the thought of you guys driving home after drinking so much.”
Andrea squeezed my hand but didn’t let it go. She scooted forward in her chair and turned a bit to see my face. “We’re Ronans. You shouldn’t be too concerned.” Then, “Nice man, your Dr. Heath.”
“Thanks for that. He is a nice man, but he’s hardly mine.”
“Well, you certainly seemed chummy. I was wondering if I was going to have to deal with a new daddy, sheesh.”
I laughed gently at that, but I met and held her gaze. “Well, we’re enjoying each other’s company, but I’m not ready to even think of jumping into anything long-term.”
Andrea tried to grin, but her natural state of anxiety took over. “I hope you’re being safe.”
I let go of her hand, then patted it reassuringly. “Darlin’ daughter, I hope you don’t think you need to give your nontraditional- parent sex ed lessons.”
Worriedly, Andrea said, “AIDS is spreading wildly among retirement home residents. HIV infection in the elderly is a very troubling situation, Chris.”
Andrea could go from endearing to irritating with clocklike dependability. I sincerely hoped she’d switch back to endearing, quickly. “First, Andrea, I’m not elderly or retirement-aged. As your father reminds me every chance he gets. Second, while I appreciate your realizing I still have the capacity for a sex life, it’s really none of your business, okay?”
Undaunted, Andrea said, “Will you promise me you’ll be safe?” Andrea demanded it as she’d adamantly required my promises when she was younger. In some deep and abiding way her abandonment issues, birthed in her third year by her mother’s death, had wounded her subconscious beyond repair. She had always insisted on assurances no one could live up to. Privately I wondered how David managed to live with her.
“I promise, Andrea,” I said with a sigh. “I’ve just begun an exciting new phase of my life—just for myself, do you understand? I’m not going to jeopardize it by compromising my health for anyone. Okay?”
Temporarily satisfied, she gave an unguarded sigh of relief and stood. “I’m going to bring us out some coffee, okay?”
I nodded gratefully. “No liquor in it please. I’ve had enough of the Irish for a while.”
She winked at me, and I watched her walk back into the house quietly. Having lived in such a stir for so many years, I was appreciating my quiet life. I hoped Andrea wouldn’t wake anyone so we’d have a little while longer to talk. When the boys were in the same room with her, they ran roughshod over Andrea’s needs for attention. Ever the middle child, she ceded her space willingly and never complained. When she was in grade school, I would sometimes just spontaneously show up and sign her out for the day so she and I could share some uninterrupted time together. I missed that. I hoped she did too.
The sun was sinking low and our chairs were in full shadow. I was grateful again when Andrea returned alone with a steaming mug for each of us. I took mine and allowed her to settle before I asked: “Andrea, do you remember the time—I guess you were about 12—when I showed up to take you out of school early and we went shopping just for you?”
Andrea raised her legs to hook her hee
ls on the rim of the low chair and brought her knees to her chest. She smiled and blew the steam from the top of her mug before taking a sip. “Yes, I do. You did that often, Chris. It always made me feel so happy—it made the other stuff easier.”
“What other stuff?” I asked.
Andrea lay her head against the back of the chair and said, “Do you remember Trey playing that song ‘Your Mama’s on the Crack Rock’ over and over?”
I did indeed remember. I never would have expected Trey to like hip-hop when he was 13, but he did. Oh God, did he ever. He played that song until I thought I would scream. ‘Bitch Better Have My Money’ was another of his favorites. Still, the kids loved it when they’d catch me dancing to hip-hop in the kitchen, awkwardly trying to re-create the moves I’d seen on BET and MTV. In answer to Andrea’s question I sang the refrain in the song’s same falsetto, “Not my mama!”
Andrea giggled but looked away from me and up at the darkening sky. “Kids at school used to sing at me, ‘Yo mama’s got a cock, doc!’ Sometimes it was all I could do to keep from crying. But I never did. I just ignored them and walked away.”
I let that lie in the lengthening shadows as Andrea took another sip of her coffee. I wrapped my hands around my cup to warm them. Finally I said, “Please know I wish you’d been spared all that, Andrea. But I never regret one moment I had with you kids. When I hear stories like that, I wish your father had made wiser choices for you.”
Quick as a cat, Andrea spat, “He’s a selfish prick and always has been.”
I didn’t respond; there was no need.
“I have a right to my anger, Chris.”
I never bought into all of Andrea’s psychobabble, but she was as entitled to it as she was to her anger—she’d earned the degrees. I had no doubt she was an exceptional therapist—certainly she had a deep well of issues to draw her empathy from—so no matter how corroding I thought her constant return to that well, I rarely called her on it. Still, I thought, the greatest gift I could give her on Christmas was some hard-earned wisdom. “Yes, Andrea, you do have a right to every ounce of anger you have for your father, and, I suspect, for me. But don’t hold onto it so tightly you come to treasure it more than your other feelings. It’s corrosive and eventually it’ll eat away at everything you love.”
“Please don’t condescend to me, Chris,” she said coolly.
“I wouldn’t presume to do that. If you don’t consider anything else I have to say, just please consider the respect I have for you as an adult.”
That brought a sharp glance and a challenging reply. “I hope I’ve earned your respect.”
I sighed deeply. I never wanted this stolen moment to turn into a fight. “As I hope I’ve earned yours.”
The dying light betrayed a trickle of tears from the corner of Andrea’s eyes. I’d have given anything at that moment to have understood if her tears were hormonal or grief-born. Fundamentally and always, I could never understand her. If men were from Mars and women from Venus, I was from an unknown star in neither orbit. My sensitivity, as finely honed a skill as I possessed, still lacked a working edge with my Andrea. I only wished she hadn’t spent so much time in hurting, anger, and tears.
She sought my hand and squeezed it. I returned the pressure and we watched the last of Christmas day sink into deep twilight. I hoped that little bit of connection was enough.
Schooner appeared on the deck and plopped himself down in front of us. Cautiously he handed me a small, neat present, expertly wrapped. “This is from Frank,” he said.
“Who’s Frank,” Andrea demanded.
I looked to Schooner for his reply.
“My boyfriend,” he replied openly.
“At last!” Andrea answered dryly. Without another word, she took my coffee cup and went inside the house.
When she’d closed the door, I looked down at Schooner. He sat hunched over and cross-legged Indian-style before me with a happy grin on his face. “Boy, you sure got off easy,” I said.
“Andrea found a stash of Freshmen magazines in my room years ago.”
“You had a stash of those magazines and you never shared?” I teased.
“Mom, you are so gross sometimes. Shut up and open your present.”
I carefully pulled away the paper to find a box from Diptych that held a very pricey candle labeled “Feu de Bois.”
“Smell it and tell me what you think it is,” Schooner said.
I inhaled the candle’s scent deeply and was richly rewarded with the smell of a warm burning fireplace. I recalled telling Frank the only thing I didn’t like about the gas logs in my fireplace was their lack of scent. I told him I missed the smell of wood smoke in the house. “He remembered,” I said fondly.
Schooner patted my foot and said, “Frank’s the best.”
“I like your Frank a lot, Schooner. I really do.”
“That’s good, because I’m bringing him back on New Year’s to take down the tree.”
“Don’t you guys have something better to do on New Year’s than spend it with your old mom on a deserted beach?”
Schooner stood and reached for the candle. As I handed it to him, he said, “We talked about it. We want to spend it with you. It’s nice to be able to be ourselves here.”
“That’s cool, baby. Come back down. I’ll look forward to it. Besides, I was wondering how I was going to con you into coming back to take down that tree. Problem solved.” As he turned to go back inside the house, I said, “Schooner, will you tell me something?”
“Depends.”
“Okay, fair enough. How long have you and Frank been seeing each other?”
“Well, we’ve been seeing each other since sophomore year. We’ve got the same major. But we only hooked up right before Thanksgiving.”
That certainly explained his preoccupation and his rush to get gone then.
“But look, Mom. It’s like this: Neither one of us is out out, you know what I mean? My roommates don’t really know—not that they’d give a fuck, considering some of the shit I’ve caught them in. But … it’s all kinda new between me and Frank. You see what I’m saying?”
“I see what you’re saying. I probably shouldn’t make a great big deal out of this … is what I’m hearing.”
He gave me a curt nod in reply and struck his chest with the side of his fist. “I’m going to stash this candle in your room, okay?”
“I’m feeling you,” I said.
“Don’t even try, Mom. Street slang, it doesn’t sound good on you.”
“Thanks for reminding me I watch way too much BET. Could you send Trey out if he’s awake,” I said as he loped away. “… And get him to bring me some more …” —the door closed harder than it should have—”coffee?”
I shrugged and dug into the pouch of my hoodie for my cigarettes and lighter. The best I could hope for was Trey anticipating my need for another cup of coffee. The twilight had deepened into darkness and chill, but it wasn’t unpleasant. I was enjoying having some time alone with each of my kids on the deck. I lit a cigarette and waited for Trey to appear. Resting my head against the back of the Adirondack chair, I stretched my legs and sighed. It had turned out to be a wonderful Christmas Day.
Habits and traditions are grand for a while, but they can become a prison. Looking back on past Christmases, I was very relieved that I no longer had to face all the de-decorating and de-house trimming that was a consequence of living in Historic Oakwood. There were pedestrian and car Christmas tours through the neighborhood each year. Christmas revelers, done with the day’s festivities or simply bored, came from the cookie-cutter suburbs and drove wistfully through our old neighborhood during the season. From all I read and heard, they really enjoyed looking at the large old homes decorated and on display for the holidays.
From inside our turn-of-the-century Italianate home, I watched them standing out on the sidewalk or peering from their car windows. I always wondered what they were looking for. Did they imagine life in the old homes was
like a life they dreamed of and didn’t have? Did they think the traces of fading graciousness and entitlement that emanated from the aging plaster and hardwood floors endowed the current occupants with lives that were more meaningful than their own?
The reality of the neighborhood was quite different from the imaginings of wistful tourists. Our neighbors struggled with house payments, dreamed of better things, quietly drank, and loudly fought just like folks did in Cary, North Raleigh, and Garner. Perched on the edge of the ghetto, the old houses were wired with ugly burglary systems installed to keep the real world from intruding on the myth.
I bought into that myth, and tried to live the life of an upwardly mobile mommy with three perfect kids, a handsome and affluent husband, and a properly genteel giant of a hunting dog. I hung baskets of geraniums between the porch posts in the summer. I perched pumpkins on the steps to the front door in the fall. And, yes, at Christmas I festooned the house with swags of clear white lights, real magnolia leaves, and fresh evergreen wreaths that I suspended from maroon ribbons in every high, narrow window.
It was all artifice. I flicked my cigarette off the deck and onto the sand below, stuck my chilled hands into my hoodie’s pouch, and was quietly happy to leave the myth. That was all behind me. What was really behind me at that moment—across 14 feet of Trex deck—was my new house, securely set on pilings above the currents of the past. My new house sheltered the only true treasures that remained from my 22-year-old illusions. Those children were more my children than the woman’s who ran from them in death. My children sat in my warm house and ate my food. My children followed me after their father had jerked us all from the old dream, revealing his love and the myth were a sham. And I was very, very grateful for that fact.
“I brought you some coffee.” Susan, not Trey, stirred me from my reverie.
“Thanks,” I said, taking my coffee with one hand and patting the chair next to me with the other. “Sit with me awhile, dear heart.”