The Shortest Way Home

by Juliette Fay

  Though he hadn’t seen her in many years, Sean immediately recognized Cormac’s cousin Janie. She held a little girl on her hip and headed toward the counter. Behind her was a man with thinning auburn hair holding a boy’s hand. Cormac shook the guy’s hand and said to the little boy, “Hey, where’s my hug!” He leaped up and Cormac caught him for a quick squeeze.

  When they approached, Sean waited to see if Janie would notice him. Her light blue eyes went wide for a second, and she said, “Spinster! No way!” She came around the end of the counter and hugged him. “Ow!” said the little girl. “You cwushing me!”

  Janie introduced her daughter, Carly, and her five-year-old, Dylan. “Almost six,” insisted Dylan. “Like five and four quarters.”

  Sean laughed, and Janie said, “We’ll work on that one.” Then she laid a hand on the arm of the man and said, “This is Tug Malinowski.” There was a hint of awkwardness that Sean recognized, having known her in the gawky inelegance of her teenage years. He supposed she hadn’t quite figured out what term to use when she introduced the new love of her life. But then she slid her hand into Tug’s, and almost imperceptibly both of their faces went a shade happier.

  Sean had witnessed this often enough, the way even the mildest physical contact could change a person’s visual. A patient would be failing, but then someone close to her would arrive, and her color would immediately improve, her vitals reflecting the uptick. He could almost see Tug’s red blood cell count increasing. It seemed to have the same effect on Janie as well.

  Sean reached out to shake Tug’s available hand. “I’ve heard good things.”

  Tug seemed pleased by this, his glance shifting briefly to Cormac. “Likewise,” he said.

  Dylan pulled him over to peruse the cupcakes. Barb came through the door, and Carly wiggled out of her mother’s arms and ran over. ­Momentarily alone, Sean and Janie took the chance to catch up. After a few minutes he said, “I was really sorry to hear about your husband, Janie.”

  “Thanks.” She nodded. “He was a good guy. You would’ve liked him.”

  It caught at him for a moment, the look on her face. Smart-alecky Janie Dwyer with a permanent whisper of pain behind her eyes. “How’re you holding up?” he asked gently.

  “Better,” she said. He suspected it was the way he felt about losing his mother at such a young age and, not long after, his father. You could never really be fine about it, but you could slowly, haltingly learn to feel better than you did when it was freshly excruciating.

  Customers started arriving, and Sean had to return to cash register duty. Janie and Tug took the kids to set up chairs along the parade route, Janie calling, “Catch up with you later, Spinster!” over her shoulder.

  “Spinster?” said Kevin, when there was a break between customers. “What’s that?”

  Sean chuckled. “Well, it’s kind of a nickname. Cormac used to call me Spin because we were on the tennis team together and I guess I had a pretty good topspin. And then Janie started calling me Spin­ster as a joke, because it’s a word for an old woman who never got married.”

  “Good one,” Kevin nodded, grinning slyly.

  “Thanks a lot!” Sean laughed. It struck him how Kevin’s round, green eyes could be so Hugh-like when the boy was joyful.

  The Confectionary got very busy just before the parade started. Everyone wanted to make sure they were fully stocked with caffeine, carbohydrates, and fruity drinks before settling into their beach chairs along the route. Barb manned the cappuccino machine, and Cormac handled the big orders while Sean and Kevin served customers. Once the parade was streaming by, however, traffic into the shop dwindled. Kevin wandered over to sit on one of the high stools by the front window to watch the cavalcade of performance groups and unusual vehicles.

  “Hey,” said Sean, wiping coffee puddles off the counter. “You said parades are boring.”

  “They’re okay.”

  “You can go outside and watch if you want. Just keep an eye out, in case more customers show up.”

  “I can see from here.”

  “Seriously, it’s fine. Go on out.”

  “I like it here.”

  Sean looked up. Kevin’s mouth was set, as if he were ready for a fight. “Hey, it doesn’t matter to me,” said Sean. “I was just thinking you could hear better out there.”

  Kevin grumbled to himself, and Sean decided to ignore it.

  Cormac and Barb emerged from the storage room. Her pink lipstick looked weirdly smudgy, and a sprig of his hair stuck out at an odd angle from his head. Oh, my God . . . they were making out, Sean realized. Sucking face in the back room like a couple of teenagers!

  “So, um,” said Barb, tightening her ponytail. “How’s your back?”

  Sean busied himself with refilling the napkin dispenser to hide his knowing smile. “Pretty good actually. I went for that massage—thanks to you,” he emphasized this point. “And I definitely feel better.”

  “That’s fantastic!” Barb clapped her hands together. “Isn’t Missy a dream?”

  “Oh, uh . . . Missy was having a little trouble of some kind. A woman named Rebecca took over. She was great.”

  Barb was skeptical that any massage therapist could be better than Missy. Sean finally succeeded in convincing her that, although he’d suffered the misfortune of being massaged by someone else, Rebecca had kept him from feeling completely deprived. “She had this way of . . . well, it hurt, but it was like a useful kind of pain, so I didn’t mind it. Also, her voice was very relaxing. Like we’d be talking about something serious, but . . . I don’t know. It all seemed good.”

  Cormac hung an arm over Barb’s shoulder and grinned. “Well, fly me to the moon, Spin.”

  Sean felt his face go warm. “Ah, shut your pie hole.”

  After the parade there was another rush of customers, but by noon the doors were locked and the four of them were cleaning out the coffee urns and putting things away.

  “Kevin,” said Cormac. “Come on over to the display case and pick your favorite.”

  Kevin’s face lit up with shy excitement as he went to claim his prize. Cormac put a hand on his shoulder, and Sean saw Kevin sidestep away. He chose a piece of blueberry pie.

  “You probably want the smaller slice,” said Cormac. “I don’t want to burden you with that big slab.” Kevin held his breath for a moment. He glanced up at Cormac. “I’m just kidding!” Cormac assured him. “After all your hard work, you can have the whole pie if you want.”

  “Really?”

  “Kevin . . .” warned Sean.

  “It’s the Fourth of July,” said Cormac. “Pursuit of happiness day. Let the kid have his pie.”

  * * *

  After they closed up shop, Cormac and Barb went down to Belham Town Beach on the shore of Lake Pequot to meet up with the rest of his family. It was their tradition to picnic and swim until the fireworks were set off at the far side of the lake in the evening. They invited Sean and Kevin to join them, and Sean would’ve loved to spend the day floating around in the cool lake water with the McGraths.

  Kevin wasn’t interested. He wouldn’t say why, but continued politely to decline all possible permutations of this plan. As they walked home, Sean finally said, “Well, do you care if I go down to the lake without you?” The boy seemed to spend countless hours on his own—maybe he’d prefer to be left to himself.

  Kevin shrugged, but his face was set in that pre-angry state Sean was beginning to recognize. “You said we could go for a hike.”

  “Well, what if we went tomorrow?”

  “You said today,” he muttered, gripping his boxed pie. “You said after I helped at the bakery.”

  “Fair enough.” Sean resigned himself to keeping his word, though he secretly longed to be with the McGraths. He’d spent so much time at Cormac’s house in hi
gh school, entertained by Cormac’s incessant bickering with his father, being spoiled by his mother and basking in the reflected glow of familial warmth. It was a far cry from his own place of residence, where his father came home less and less frequently until he stopped coming home at all, and Aunt Vivvy ran the place with all the warmth of a garden hoe.

  After stopping briefly at the house, Kevin led the way across the backyard and into the woods, a backpack hanging from his narrow shoulders.

  “What’s in the pack?” Sean asked as the trail became a barely visible footpath through the underbrush.

  “Water—”

  “Water? How long are we going for?”

  “Do you have an appointment or something?”

  Sean couldn’t tell if he was pointing out the obvious—that Sean rarely had any particular plans—or if it was truly an innocent question. In either case, the implication was clear: they weren’t on a schedule, and it would behoove Sean to shut up and hike. He consoled himself with the knowledge that Jansen Woods wasn’t that big. How far could they go?

  They didn’t talk much, walking one behind the other, except for Kevin’s occasional admonitions to watch that root sticking up in the path, or jump over this puddle. He moved quickly, confidently, and seemed to know every turn and boulder.

  “That’s the back of the cemetery over there,” he said, pointing across a meadow toward a stand of trees. At first Sean didn’t see it, but after a few more steps he discerned that the gray shapes sticking out of the ground beyond the trees were regularly shaped and evenly spaced.

  “Our Lady’s?” Where his mother and Hugh were buried.

  “Yep.”

  “You ever go over there?”

  “Sometimes.”

  Sean wanted to ask more questions, but couldn’t quite form them. What exactly did he want to know about Kevin’s side trips to the cemetery? Did the boy know his father and grandmother were buried there? Probably. And did he visit their graves? What did it feel like looking at them? Was it weird or sad . . . or just nothing? Lila had died before Kevin was born, so that was unlikely to elicit any real emotion. And what about Hugh? What kind of father had he been? Had he continued to flit from odd job to wild party to chemically induced hilarity to sleeping all day, as he always had? Did Kevin miss him? Did Kevin even remember him? But Sean found no voice for his questions as they moved through the woods.

  “You ever go?” asked Kevin.

  “No.”

  “Ever?”

  “No.” And it seemed there was some explanation required, something more well thought out than I just never wanted to. But Sean didn’t really have one, and Kevin didn’t pursue it.

  Soon they were climbing Jansen Hill, which was not particularly steep, but Kevin didn’t break his pace, and Sean could feel his heart rate rising and beads of sweat popping out on his forehead. Near the top a huge tree had fallen. Kevin hoisted his skinny body up onto the log, pulled the backpack off, and set it beside him. As Sean situated himself, the boy took out a stainless steel water bottle, unscrewed the top, and drank several gulps. He offered it to Sean.

  “Thanks. This came in handy, huh?”

  “You have to stay hydrated,” instructed Kevin. “You never hike without water, even if it’s supposed to be a short one, because you could get lost. And then what? You’d be in big trouble.”

  “True,” said Sean with a smile. “Where’d you learn so much about it—that Man vs. Wild show? Oh, God. This isn’t”—he narrowed his eyes dramatically at Kevin—“pee, is it?”

  “Ew, no!” Kevin laughed.

  “And where’d you get this stylin’ water bottle?”

  “REI. I used my birthday money. I wanted to get a new sleeping bag, but I didn’t have enough. Plus it would’ve been hard to carry home on my bike.”

  “Wait, you rode your bike all the way to REI? There are some pretty busy roads over there. Why didn’t Auntie Dee or Auntie Vivvy take you?”

  Kevin reached for the water bottle and took a sip. “Auntie Vivvy doesn’t drive anymore. That’s why she’s got you doing the groceries. And Auntie Dee took me once after I helped her learn her lines for Wicked. But she doesn’t have any lines this time. Plus she’s never around.”

  Sean’s heart sank. The kid was basically raising himself. This should’ve been clear to him before, of course. He should’ve gotten it that first morning when he’d heard Kevin fixing his own breakfast and getting ready for school, without anyone to so much as remind him to take the lunch he’d made for himself. Sean should’ve been sure when he saw Kevin’s perplexed reaction to having him show up for the Clap Out. And yet Kevin didn’t seem to want people around very much. The kid’s resourcefulness was impressive. It seemed to suit him, this solitary, self-sufficient way of moving through the world. Sean was a bit like that himself.

  Kevin took a deep breath, a hint of contentment settling on his face. “It smells good up here.”

  Sean inhaled the scent of pine needles and a host of other woodsy things he couldn’t name. “Yeah,” he said. “It smells like the world is supposed to smell.”

  Kevin nodded, fully satisfied, it seemed, with his uncle’s answer. Sean wondered if he’d ever seen the kid look so relaxed. “What else you got in that backpack?” he asked.

  Kevin reached in and took out a plastic container. Inside was a wide, crookedly sliced slab of pie and two plastic forks, purple and sticky with blueberry juice. He handed one to Sean, and licked the handle of his own. “Go on,” said Sean. “It’s your pie. You first.”

  Kevin lifted a forkful to his mouth and chewed happily. “What did he call it?”

  “What did who call what?”

  “That big guy, Cormac—what did he call today?”

  “I think he said it was pursuit of happiness day.”

  Kevin grinned. “Cool,” he said and took another bite.

  CHAPTER 10

  The following week things got a little strange.

  It had started so well. Cormac had asked if Sean was interested in another shift or two at the bakery, and he’d said yes. It felt good to meet someone else’s needs again, even if it was just pinch-hitting while Cormac’s employees took vacation time. Cormac insisted on paying him, and at first Sean had said no way. It ruined that sharp, righteous feel of helping. Cormac seemed to intuit Sean’s reasoning. “Pal,” he said, “I hate to break it to you, but it isn’t that much. Considering what you could make at a hospital, this definitely qualifies as volunteer work.”

  And then it occurred to Sean that it wasn’t a bad idea to give his trust account a little nourishment. His back was better—not great, but manageable—and soon it would be time to find something new. Maybe not so far away, somewhere it wouldn’t take days to come back to Belham for visits. Because it was clear to him now that he’d been thoughtless to let so much time go by, especially with Aunt Vivvy getting older and Kevin approaching his teen years. The boy didn’t seem to have inherited Hugh’s proclivity for mischief, but even a good kid could get into trouble on a bad day. Sean would have to stay in better touch. Maybe get a cell phone and learn to text. Maybe even get on Facebook—he’d heard it was pretty popular with kids these days.

  Sean started disaster-surfing on Deirdre’s laptop again, the familiar time-to-move-on feeling poking at him intermittently. He had the sense that if he could just recapture the purpose and contentedness, and (if he were honest) the righteousness he’d felt earlier in his career, everything could go back to normal. Or some facsimile thereof.

  He crossed off several places in Africa right away. Too far. And too much civil unrest. He was still having those flashes of preteen rape victims and severed limbs and wasn’t sure he could stomach a return to those kinds of daily visuals. He focused his search on natural disaster relief. At the moment, Haiti was looking pretty good.

  The followi
ng week, he borrowed Kevin’s alarm clock so he could be up in time to walk over to the Confectionary by five-thirty. He felt calm and happy as he strolled through the slanting rays of early morning sunlight. Entering the Confectionary, he smelled the yeasty sweetness of dough rising and the sharp, invigorating scent of recently ground coffee beans. It reminded him of his childhood visits to the McGrath house—the encouraging smell of food.

  Aunt Vivvy’s house smelled of cleaning products and talcum powder, the latter his aunt’s one indulgence. She never baked unless it was compulsory, like a birthday cake. Meals were adequately nutritious and efficiently prepared, in quantities designed to avoid leftovers.

  Now wearing a cranberry-colored CORMAC’S CONFECTIONARY T-shirt, Sean stationed himself behind the register. A teenager trudged in wearing a similar shirt, eyes half-lidded in semiconsciousness, and introduced herself as Theresa. “Call me Tree,” she mumbled. “You ring, I’ll brew. I can’t talk to people this early in the morning.”

  “Tree,” said Cormac. “Hair.” She let out a dejected sigh and wound her hair into a strangled bun. Cormac leaned over to Sean. “Use as few words as possible,” he murmured. “She’s a good worker, but her language processing skills don’t kick in until about seven.”

  The first few customers gave easy orders: a large coffee and a cruller. A cup of tea. They were dressed for work, made no eye contact, and were obviously anxious to spend as little time in this particular transaction as possible. Then a woman came in wearing workout clothes—turquoise yoga pants and a matching sleeveless top. She had big white sunglasses with gold letters on the sides: DKNY.

  Dinky? thought Sean.

  She lifted them up onto her head, pushing back the glossy light brown hair that fell in gentle waves toward her breasts, and squinted up at the menu board. “Medium half-caf iced skinny latte, two Splendas, and a dash of nutmeg, please,” she said, never even glancing at Sean. “No, make that large.”

  There was a flicker of something pinging at the back of Sean’s brain, but he was so distracted by trying to get all the right letters written on the cup, he didn’t focus on it. He handed off the cup to Tree and rang up the order. “That’ll be four-ten,” he said, fairly certain he’d gotten both the letters and the cost computation right. Smiling with satisfaction, he glanced at the customer, recognition hitting him with a crackle of electricity.