He took a long drink from his glass and then went to the table and poured out more. He could hardly feel the burn of it. It was like water with no kick, no hum. If he lost that hum, what’d be left for him? He carried the bottle and the glass outside and onto the porch step. It creaked, always, under his weight. Emma would hear the creak of the porch and the clump of his boots when he dragged his ass back from a day of hauling some goddamn thing—traps or potatoes or piles of manure—and he knew that she’d smile to know he was soon coming through the door. She’d be standing in the kitchen with the table set, the food all ready, and the smile would be there when she saw him. He shook his head at the thought. His need to touch her sometimes made his fingers move on their own, clutching the air as though reaching for some part of her, any part—hair or blouse or the soft slope of her hip. His whole hand could mold itself over the curve of that hip. He sat on the step and drank, then poured more from the bottle.
These days he knew that the sound of his boots was a different thing. There was some poor French girl on hand to hear them. Or Idella and Avis, poor mutts, in there trying to scrape something together for his supper. He scared them all. He couldn’t help himself. It was seeing them scurry around the table trying to put food out, afraid to look at him for fear he’d light into them, that brought it on—the temper, the hurt, the anger at the goddamned world that had taken Emma away and left him alone. It wasn’t them he’d be mad at. But it was them that got the brunt.
He saw a light flickering under the barn door. Dalton was in there still, in his own world. Funny kid, carving Maddie a spoon like that of his own accord. Dalton would’ve done things like that for Emma if she’d lived, he supposed. He would have made her things on the quiet. He forgot sometimes that Dalton, too, had lost his mother. He was more conscious of it with the girls. Their needs for Emma were clear. His helplessness with them was so strong that it ate at him like a crow picking at an ear of corn, up one row and down the other. Bill let the whiskey pool onto his tongue and behind his teeth, feeling its rusty warmth. He watched the soft glow of the lamp’s light spill under the crack of the barn door. Then, as quickly as it came, the lamp went out and the barn was dark again. Bill shook his head. It felt suddenly heavy—with worry or whiskey, he couldn’t be sure. He emptied the bottle into his glass. Holding the glass carefully against his chest, he got up and walked slowly out into the yard.
The air was swollen with moonlight, drenched in a grayish glow. He went over to the cliff edge and looked down at the beach. The water was out, the pale sand exposed and bright. Waves, skimmed with a sheen like a sheer layer of ice you could crack with a finger, lapped at the beach below. He took a sip. Emma’s voice was in his ear. She would put her arms about his middle and pull him to the cliff edge to watch the water and the light. The air would lift her hair as it hung loose about her shoulders. She’d hold out her arms to it and let the breezes fill her long sleeves till he could watch it no more and grabbed her back again, not letting the wind have her for long.
He looked back at the house. Even it, gray and ragtag and solitary as it was, had an unearthly glow. Emma had died in there. He’d never be able to leave it without her. This godforsaken mound of nothing was his, and he’d be living off it till the end.
A sound drew him back. A sliver of song floated up from the beach, its clarity muted by the slushing of the waves. Someone was singing. He trained his eyes down onto the beach and saw, now, that there was a figure sitting in Dalton’s beached boat. A cloud skimmed across the moon, blotting the light. He focused on the dark shape till the cloud passed. It was Maddie, singing in French as she huddled in Dalton’s boat.
“Maddie, what the hell you doing down there?” He held on to the top of the ladder to steady himself.
“Oh!” She turned and looked up. He could make out the white of her face amid a tangle of darker hair.
He emptied his glass and dropped it to the ground, then lowered one foot onto the ladder. His body felt thick. His feet seemed twice as heavy in the big boots. “Goddamn, Maddie.” He lowered himself slowly. “This goddamned ladder is hard going on a clear day.” He lurched for the next step and tentatively tried his weight, clinging wobbly to the sides. “One of these goddamned steps waggles like a cow’s behind.”
“The one almost to the last!” Maddie called.
With a deliberate step, he lowered himself down, cursing. When his boots were finally on the sand, he looked over at Maddie. “Goddamn it, Maddie. I told you never to go down that ladder alone, never mind at night, for Christ’s sakes.”
“I was watching the light on the water. I am so excited to be going in the boat.”
“Come on. Get up and get over here. I’m responsible, God help us all.”
“Some minutes, please. Look at the water.”
Bill looked about him. “Well. It is something. It don’t seem real.” His boots crunched as he stepped across clusters of mussel shells to reach the boat.
“I can’t sleep,” Maddie whispered. She sat huddled on the plank seat and looked up at him. “I don’t sleep much in the night.”
“Like a raccoon, then? Or a fox?”
She looked away. “Too many things happen in the dark. I keep my eyes open.”
“You are a mystery, Maddie. You’ve got secrets, I think.”
She shrugged and looked out over the water.
“I ain’t interested in knowing your secrets. You keep ’em. I got some of my own, I guess. Hell. We all do.” He put his head back and looked at the moon. “Whoa. With the up and down and whiskey and light, my head’s spinning.”
“Sit.” Maddie patted the seat beside her. “It’s my practice ride.”
Holding on to the sides of the boat with outstretched arms, he sat across from her. “It’s bright as hell down here. I’d say we’ve got double-barrel moonlight tonight, Maddie.”
“Oui.” She smiled. “It is so beautiful. I love it here.”
“ ’ Cause you’re looking at it in moonlight.”
“I have seen it in all kinds of light, even rain. I still think it is beautiful to live here.”
“You ain’t tried winter yet. It’s a rough go trying to live off land that don’t much want to be bothered. I just about push every goddamned potato through the ground with my bare hands. Rocks grow during the night. They go at it like rabbits.” He laughed. “They’re probably up there making more rocks right now for me to find in the morning. But my other seeds and plants go rotten or freeze or get done for by salt and wind and whatever else God cooks up in his wisdom.” He shook his head and sighed. “Potatoes keep us alive.”
“I love potatoes.”
“Glad to hear it. You must have some Irish in there with the French.”
Maddie looked down at her hands. “Maybe.”
Bill lifted a piece of torn net from the boat bottom. “And the herring runs, of course. We eat them little bastards the livelong year.” He pulled a tangle of seaweed from the weaving and tossed it overboard. “You ain’t been here long enough for that treat. We’re gone all night sometimes, the men. Whenever them fish are running, we’re running right along with them. We come back in early morning, before the sun.” He fingered the net. “The girls hold the lamps up. Right over there.” He pointed to a high place on the shore. “They scramble down that ladder, still warm from their little beds, and come to hold up the lamps. It’ll be dark yet, see, but we need to clean and salt and lay every damn one of ’em out to dry as soon as we land ’em. Supper or breakfast or both have to wait.” He looked over at her, holding up a portion of the net. “My girls’ arms are ’bout as thick as this here rope. But I need their help. Their little hands.”
Maddie sat silently and watched him.
“But I love it, too. This place. Who’s to explain? It’s the challenge of it. I’m stubborn, see, mule-assed. And when there’s something good here it’s like no other.” He stood and took a deep breath. “It’s like breathing in cold water when the wind blows across the bay.”
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“I want to eat it!” Maddie said, opening her mouth wide. “Ahhhhhhhh.”
Bill laughed and straddled the plank. He faced the open water. “Going out in the boat, you know, with the lobster traps, in summer—that’s a prize God gave me on some days. To feel the water under me and the air about and to pull them damn ugly things up out of the water that people pay for down in the States. It makes me laugh. We sell ’em, you know, to the lobster factory.”
“I know about the factory. Too much.”
Bill nodded. He leaned over and grabbed a handful of stones. One by one he threw them into the water. They listened to each distant plunk until all the stones were tossed and his hands empty. For a long time then, they sat staring out at the water and the shimmery light coating its surface. Finally Bill turned to her.
“It’s hard for my girls up here. I see the sadness in their faces, looking up at me, waiting for something I can’t give ’em. And I lose my goddamned temper. It whips through me. You ain’t seen that yet.” He spoke quietly, looking at the shifting moonlit water.
“You miss her so much, your wife?”
Bill reached down and grabbed a stone and threw it hard. It cut through the air till it hit a rock and bounced. “What kind of God likes all them pretty songs on Sunday and then takes away Emma, leaving behind her babies? What kind of God would that be?” He looked down at her. “It don’t leave you,” he whispered, “that kind of hurt.”
“No.” Maddie shook her head. “No. It does not leave you.”
“I had me the best.” Bill sat, his head lowered. Maddie watched him till he spoke again. “If I’d stopped at three. Three kids.” She could hardly hear him. “Emma, we called the baby, to carry the name.” He looked up at Maddie. “She reminds me, the baby—when I see her. It’s all together—her being born and losing Emeline.” He paused, then laughed softly and hit his hand flat on the wooden plank. “Christ. The damn drink is gone.” He looked at Maddie. “So I give the baby to Beth to bring up. How could I take care of a baby, never mind the rest?” He stared out for a long time at the water. “I hurt what I love the most. I kill what I love.”
“No,” Maddie whispered, shaking her head. “No. This is not true, what you say.”
“As true as there’s rats in the barn, Maddie.” He stood. “Come. Time for sleep. Tomorrow you take to the high seas.” He stepped out of the boat and then reached down and grabbed her hands to pull her to standing. “Jesus,” he said, not letting go of her hands. “You got a pair of hands on you that’d make a mule skinner proud. These are work hands.” She pulled her hands away and buried them in her skirt. “Christ, I’m sorry. I meant it as a good thing. It come out wrong. Christ.” He gently took hold of her elbow, coaxing her from the boat. “Come on, now.” Maddie smiled. “That’s not much, but I’ll take it.” He laughed. Smiling now, Maddie let him guide her out of the boat and onto the rocky sand. She lifted up her skirt and walked over to the bottom of the ladder, then turned to wait for him.
“You go on up and get to bed, Maddie. I’ve got to let out some of that whiskey I drunk before I climb any more ladders. I’ll add my drops of gold to the bay after you’ve gone. Good night.”
“Bonne nuit.”
“Bun nwee.” He watched her climb, her skirt hoisted, till she reached the top, waved down at him, and disappeared. Then he stumbled across the rocks to the water’s edge and relieved himself in a long and satisfying arc. “Pissin’ in the wind,” he muttered. “Here I stand, on a bun nwee, pissin’ in the wind.” He stood for a long time staring up at the moon. It was now high and bright over the water, more white than yellow.
“‘Buffalo Gal, won’t you come out tonight, come out tonight, come out tonight. . . .’” He walked clumsily over to the ladder and grabbed the sides. He sang softly and cursed loudly as he clambered closer to the top and finally up over the edge. On solid ground at last, he stood with his arms open wide toward the water and the wind. “‘And we’ll dance to the light of the moon.’” He laughed and stepped forward as though to do a jig, accidentally kicking the empty glass that he’d left on the edge and sending it over the cliff to shatter on the rocks below. “Damn,” he said, peering down and catching glimpses of moonlit shards. “There mighta been a drop left.”
He turned unsteadily away from the edge, facing the barn, which was bright gray with moony light. Dalton was standing in the open doorway, mute, watching him. Bill stopped for a moment, startled, then waved but didn’t speak. Dalton did not move, though Bill knew he was looking at him. He felt the eyes of his son watching all the way back up to the house and right on in. “Funny damn kid,” he muttered as he fell atop his unmade bed. “I go down with my boots on.”
The next morning Maddie roused Avis early, prodding her shoulder as she whispered, “Petite Avie. Get up now. We are going in the boat. Dalton says come.”
Idella was awakened, too, by the voices, but she didn’t move. She listened till they had sneaked out and down the stairs, too excited for silence. When she heard the front door close, she got up and looked out the window. Dalton was standing, tall as Dad almost, with his hand on top of the ladder.
Maddie and Avis, a basket of food between them, ran happily toward him. Their skirts blew against their legs in the windy morning. Maddie looked lighter than Idella ever thought possible, and girlish. She wasn’t much more than a girl anyway. Sixteen years old, maybe. That wasn’t quite a woman to her mind, and it wasn’t a child. It was somewhere in the middle.
“You two stay in the boat, goddamn it, and do what Dalton says.” Dad was out there, too. Idella could hear him, but she couldn’t see him. “Don’t you dare join the fishes, Avis!”
“We won’t! We will! We won’t!” Avis was laughing and jumping. Dalton took the basket and helped the girls down over the side, then slowly disappeared after them. Idella kept watching. Dad strolled up to the cliff edge now, his hands in his trouser pockets. He stood, rumpled and un-tucked, for a long time. Then he pulled a suspender up and walked back toward the house. Idella heard him come in.
“You up?” he called.
“Yes.” Idella went to the top of the stairs.
“I been thinking maybe we could go to town, you and me. Everyone else is on holiday. Let’s bring Maddie back a birthday surprise. What do you say, Idella?”
“I guess.”
“You think you could pick out something she’d like? I wouldn’t know what a young woman needs. We’ll all get a little something. You want candy?”
“Candy’d be good.”
“Pick out candy for you and Avis and then something nice for Maddie. Maybe a brush or a mirror. She’s doing things with her hair.”
Idella nodded. She would like a new brush herself. She wondered if Dad would think of that when it was her birthday. She felt a little old to always be picking out candy, though she did enjoy the hard red ones that came on sticks in the shapes of animals.
“Let’s go, then. Let’s do it. Cows are milked and chickens are fed. Get dressed, and let’s get going before they need it again.”
Idella noticed the tall man standing in front of the case of pipes and tobacco pouches from the time they entered the store. He looked up at the jangle of the cowbell over the door and kept watching and listening to them the whole time. What caught her eye first was the way his hat covered one ear but not the other and that as he listened he moved his chaw of tobacco from one side to the other of his mouth. He caught her eye once and smiled. After that she looked in any direction but his.
“Bill Hillock! Come to post another sign for a housemaid?” Mr. Wheeler was wiping his eyeglasses off with a dust rag, but he could tell it was Dad, probably by the way he walked into a place, so tall and straight. “I’m gonna start charging you a fee.” The men always teased each other before they did business.
“We got us one that’s fixing to stay on, I think. She likes the goddamned wind, if you can believe it.”
“You can keep her supplied with wind, by God.” Mr. Wheeler
carefully put his glasses back on, bending the wires over one ear and then the other. “I don’t know how you people stand it out there on that cliff come winter. It’d blow the skin off my old bones.”
“What are you two going on about?” Mrs. Wheeler came from the back of the store carrying a bolt of fabric. “Hugh, give me a hand with this wool—I can’t get it back up on the shelf.” She looked at the man standing in front of the pipes. “Can I help you?”
The man smiled. “I’m not sure yet. I’m thinking.”
Mr. Wheeler laughed. “Oh, don’t be doing too much of that. I hear it can be dangerous!”
“What would you know about it?” Mrs. Wheeler shot back, smiling. She turned to the man. “Let me know if I can help you. What you see is what we’ve got, if you’re looking for a new pipe. I’ll open the case if you want. Men seem to need to hold them awhile before they make a decision.”
“Watch what you’re saying, there, Frieda. It’s not just pipes they like to hold first.” Dad made out like he was going to put his arms around her, and she brushed him away.
“You damned fool, Bill Hillock.”
“That wouldn’t apply to your housegirls, now, would it?” The man spoke to Dad, his one cheek still swollen with tobacco.
“What’s that you said?” Dad asked.
“I say, that don’t apply to your hired girls, now, does it?” The man smiled. “That you got to hold ’em before you make any decisions?”
Idella felt how abruptly the feeling of fun had changed. No one spoke. Everyone looked at the man. Finally Mrs. Wheeler turned and smiled at Idella. “Idella, dear. What brings the lady of the house to town today?”
“We’ve come to buy a birthday present.” Idella smiled back, relieved.
“A present? For Avis? Is that why I don’t see her hand in my candy jars? You leave her home so you could get her a surprise?”
“It’s for the hired girl,” Idella whispered. “It was her birthday. And I don’t think she’s ever had anything nice. I’m going to help choose.”
The Sisters from Hardscrabble Bay Page 8