The Northern Reach

by W. S. Winslow

  Forcing the disgust from her mind, Victoria called upon the Almighty as well as several saints to request leniency in the matter of Tiger Moody’s salvation, undeserving though he certainly was. She also put in a personal request for the strength to get through the next twenty-four hours, blessed herself, and headed back down the aisle. She stopped to offer Frenchie an uncomfortable kiss and receive a hug from Uncle Millhouse, who told her where she might find her aunt Earlene.

  Eyes downcast, hoping to make it to the next room without having to talk to anyone, Victoria picked her way through the clots of gossiping biddies, low-slung keg bellies, and skanky blondes who could only be Tiger’s ex-wives or girlfriends. Though affecting blinders, she was not deaf, and when the familiar chocolate-covered bass came flowing over the hum of the crowd, it seemed to ooze down the back of her neck. She looked up. Over in the corner, talking to his father and standing a full head taller than most of the guests, Dougie Lemay was staring at her. She’d wondered whether he’d be here and half hoped he’d gotten fat or lost some teeth since high school. No luck. When their eyes met, he waved and sent Victoria a Pepsodent smile that raised a low purr in the back of her throat. Dougie’s face hadn’t changed one bit since the last time she saw it, hovering above her in the bed of his pickup on prom night. She balled her hands into fists to stop them twitching, nodded, and kept moving.

  As promised, Uncle Mill’s wife, Earlene, was in the side lounge, chatting with her relatives.

  “Well howdy, stranger,” Earlene said as she folded her niece in a firm embrace. Victoria inhaled her aunt’s familiar scent—Jean Naté toilet water mixed with Niagara spray starch. Growing up, Earlene had been the calm center of Victoria’s world. Now, each breath filled her with the familiar push-pull of connection and estrangement, the need to burrow and the urge to flee. She exhaled, let go, and stepped back.

  Earlene said, “Mill told me you were right out straight with wedding plans and work, but I made up your bed fresh just in case. It’s awful about Tiger, of course, but we’re always glad to have you home.”

  Earlene and Mill were among the few members of the family for whom a hug was more natural than a slap, and once again Victoria was overcome with gratitude to them for taking her in and raising her as their own after Tiger went to prison all those years ago. One glance at the crew in the other room reminded her what her life would have become without them.

  Victoria made small talk with Earlene’s sisters and their husbands: Marlene’s new one, who seemed nice enough, and Coralene’s husband, Wayne, doused in cologne and sporting his usual vacant smile. The men were the only ones in the building, besides the undertakers, wearing coats and ties. She filled them in on her life down in Portland (very busy) and the plans for her wedding to Tino (very small). If any of them were perturbed at not being invited, they didn’t show it.

  The Three Lenes. Since she was little, Victoria had thought of the Baines sisters that way. The oldest, Coralene, was too hard, frosty and short as the month of February. Marlene, the youngest, was too soft with her whispery lisp, pink lipstick, and pudgy ankles. Earlene, though, was just right—a handsome woman who was both serious-minded and warmhearted. With three boys of her own, she’d made room for Victoria, given her purpose, pride, and even love. It hadn’t erased the burden of having her father in jail for trying to murder her mother, but it had gone a long way toward lightening the load.

  Millhouse

  Next morning, the first thing Millhouse Moody noticed as he pulled into the parking lot of the Church of Saint Paul the Bleeding Apostle, locally known as Bloody Paul, was his niece on the church steps talking to a tall young fellow in a dress coat and a lumpy scarf, the two of them forming an awkward bas-relief against the church’s pocked granite face. The lancet windows on either side of the portal had been boarded up for as long as Mill could remember, and the building’s only ornamentation, a soot-covered rose window high above the entry, gave the facade a distinctly cyclopean appearance, a single cataract-clouded eye to watch over God’s chosen. Below it, Victoria was gesturing and shifting from side to side like a welterweight, which was a dead giveaway she was het up.

  Vicky was certainly a fighter, Millhouse mused, though not always an effective one. She had an unfortunate tendency to lead with her chin and seemed to remember to cover up only after she was down. It occurred to Mill that she’d inherited both tendencies from her father, and at the memory of Tiger, he let out a small sound, somewhere between a sigh and a moan.

  “Who that boy there, talking to Vicky? She not happy, her,” Frenchie observed from the passenger seat, squinting at her granddaughter through a cloud of cigarette smoke. “Calvaire, she look just like my Tiger when she does that, swaying in da breeze. You think maybe she gonna hit him?”

  “I expect that’s her intended. With that blond hair, he don’t really look Italian, but I can’t imagine who else it’d be.”

  “Last night, Vicky tell me he can’t come. Too busy at the shop. Look like maybe he get off the day, eh? She think we don’t know she is shamed of her father, but I tell her Tiger never want to kill her maman. An accident. So what?”

  “Well, I don’t suppose she wants us gawking at her, and I need to have a word with Father Barbizon to give him some, er, notes. For the eulogy.”

  Millhouse stepped out of the big sedan and ambled around the front, picking his way across the frozen puddles and crunchy slush. He swung the passenger door open and offered Frenchie his forearm. As she took it, he noticed the flesh had melted away from the backs of her hands, revealing a spiderweb of bones and a lacy tangle of veins where the ashy, mottled skin had collapsed around them.

  They arrived inside the church just after Mahlon Thibodeaux, who waved and then continued fussing with the stand for his electronic keyboard in an alcove next to the altar. The full pipe organ would have cost a fortune.

  In the nave, the too-clean smell of lemon Pledge nearly overpowered the last traces of incense from the evening Mass, and poor Jesus, battered all to hell with a fat blood tear frozen below his left eye, drooped on his crucifix, looking, Millhouse always thought, like he wished it would all just fucking end.

  After settling his mother in a pew next to Chubby, Mill went in search of the priest. As he navigated the hallways and passages he remembered from his brief career as an altar boy, he thought about his niece. Frenchie was right. It was plain Vicky’s family embarrassed her, except for himself and Earlene, or so he assumed, but with a father who’d done time for attempted murder and a crazy old whore for a mother, she was certainly entitled. Still, it worried him that she’d hidden things from the boy. If he were worth his salt, he wouldn’t care, but there was no telling Vicky that. Of course, the fact that he’d shown up for the funeral might be a good sign, provided it indicated backbone and not a bonehead.

  Millhouse followed the lemon-mildew scent downstairs to Father Barbizon’s basement office. He knocked softly at the open door to announce his presence.

  In his priestly underclothes of black slacks, shirt, and collar, Norman Barbizon looked like a child’s drawing: an egg-shaped middle with stick arms and legs, topped by a large square head.

  “Good morning, Father,” Millhouse said, hovering in the doorway, trying to seem aggrieved and ingratiating at the same time.

  “Come in, please, Millhouse. How’s your mother?”

  “Well, you know she’s seen a bit of life, but I don’t suppose anything prepares you for something like this. Tiger was her baby, you know.” Millhouse had to exert some effort not to tear up. He’d never had any illusions about his brother, but he’d never wished him dead either, and it was all so hard on his mother and sister.

  “Well, it does seem unnatural for parents to bury their children, I know, but God’s plan is mysterious and not for us to understand, just to believe.”

  Millhouse was seized with more than a passing urge to knock the smug expression off the priest’s big face, but it was important to Frenchie that Tiger be buried in the
church, so he nodded, unclenched his fists, and forced what he hoped was a beatific smile. It felt more like a grimace.

  “I’ve got notes for Tiger’s eulogy here. I don’t know whether anyone else will want to speak, but I’d like to say a few words at some point after you finish. I think Fren … ah, my mother, spoke to you about hymns.”

  “Yes. That’s all very helpful. Thank you, Millhouse.”

  “One last thing, Father. This morning Earlene reminded me we’d been holding on to a donation to the building fund and thought maybe I could just give it to you. That be all right?”

  “Of course. How very generous of you both. We so appreciate all you and Earlene do for the parish. Thank you,” he said, pocketing the envelope containing a backdated check and a stack of twenties without opening it.

  “Happy to help, Father. I’ll leave you to your preparations. Oh, by the way, how’s that LeSabre working out?” He’d sold the car below cost to the priest, who’d never met an option he didn’t covet.

  “Quite comfortable for a used car. So nice of you to provide the tape player. Mother loves her Wayne Newton.”

  “Well, good then.” And you’re welcome, he thought.

  As Millhouse walked through the doorway, he resisted the urge to look back over his shoulder. He didn’t need to. Reflected in the glass that covered a painting of Saint Francis, he saw Father Barbizon had pulled the envelope from his pocket and opened it. He was just beginning to thumb through the cash when Millhouse turned the corner.

  Tino

  He had never been to Wellbridge and had no idea where Victoria’s uncle lived, so Tino went straight to the church and waited. As his mother had pointed out, Victoria was bound to show up there eventually. Of course Mamma had been right to insist that he drive up to support his future wife. “Husbands and wives should share everything and have no secrets, son.”

  Tino had objected to the insinuation that his fiancée was less than transparent. After all, hadn’t she just been thinking of his poor father and all the work he’d have to do while they were in Rome for two weeks on their honeymoon? Mamma had to admit that, yes, that was very considerate of Victoria, and of course, Big Tino’s health was always on everyone’s mind these days, but still a seed of doubt had been planted, and it quickly sprouted into the decision to attend the service despite having told Victoria he would not.

  At the garage door, Mrs. Benedetti handed her son a paper bag and a red-plaid thermos, saying, “Make sure to stop at least once to stretch your legs. It should take about three hours to get up there, but you’ve got plenty of time, so don’t speed. I packed a doughnut to go with your coffee and a banana in case your bowels act up. You’ll call me after the service, won’t you?”

  Tino promised to proceed with caution, then waited while his mother scurried back inside the family split-level to get a scarf to go over his topcoat and keep him from freezing to death in the almost certain event of a mechanical breakdown on the highway. He was thinking of Victoria and counting down: three hours to Wellbridge, seventeen days until the ceremony, another eight hours to the wedding night. When his mother returned, he was holding the thermos in front of his fly.

  The Happy Couple

  Victoria had approached the church at the appointed hour, her overnight bag and camel hair coat (the one Tino had given her last Christmas that was a twin to his mother’s) thrown on the back seat. The bag was half-zipped, with the arm of her sweater hanging out. It looked like a corpse rolled up in a rug. At the sight of Tino standing out front, she blasted past the church and pulled behind the dumpster of Red Craven’s gas station. She weighed her options, fight or flee; there was no choice but to return to Bloody Paul’s.

  Talking with Tino only made things worse.

  “I told you, Victoria, I was worried about you. A good husband is there in time of need,” he recited between bites of banana.

  These were his mother’s words, she knew, and now she’d have to take him to the funeral. Her only hope was to keep Tino outside for as long as possible before the service, then figure out how to get him away fast. She might have to cry, which she almost never did, but by the time they got to the top of the stairs, she was struggling for control.

  Once inside the church, Victoria leaned heavily on Tino, steering him toward the oversize pillar she and her cousins always sat behind during Mass because it was the safest spot to nap or read comic books. She gave a low moan and collapsed onto the pew just behind it. Tino followed, and just like that, she’d gotten them settled into the seats with the worst sight lines in the church.

  With the vibrato on his Casio cranked up so high the first three pews were quivering, Mahlon was working his way through “What a Friend We Have in Jesus.” It sounded vaguely like his version of “Tie a Yellow Ribbon Round the Ole Oak Tree,” which he’d played at every wedding reception or anniversary party Victoria had ever attended. She slid low on the pew and scrubbed her face with her palms.

  “I knew you were more upset than you let on,” Tino said with an approving look. It was disconcerting how much her apparent weakness pleased him, but she decided to worry about that later and gave him the pathetic simper she knew he was looking for, then began roughly kneading his hand for good measure. When he smiled down at her, she took a loud, shuddering breath and buried her face in his shoulder, so that it was nearly impossible for him to turn his head toward anything but the empty aisle to his right. All she had to do was keep him occupied until the Mass began, and she’d be home free.

  The hymn closed in an agonized crescendo, but instead of silence, a murmur rippled through the crowd. “Who’s that?” Tino whispered. He’d extricated himself from Victoria’s grip and twisted around to look past her to the center aisle. With her head now detached from Tino’s shoulder, Victoria was able to see.

  “No idea,” she lied.

  Jessie

  Jessie Angelique Martin Moody made sure she was the last mourner to enter the church, just before the priest, the pallbearers, and her ex-husband’s corpse. She was pleased that most of the congregation witnessed her arrival and that with each step down the center aisle, the buzz grew. She made no effort to hide her limp; rather, she exaggerated it. Hitting her mark at the first empty row of pews she came to, she genuflected lazily, flicked an errant strand of feathered hair off her shoulder, and took a seat ten rows behind the family of the deceased.

  She wondered where Victoria was but didn’t want to give anyone the satisfaction of seeming interested in the proceedings. She didn’t need to check the room to confirm that she was the only funeral-goer in thigh-high boots, a red miniskirt, and a fur jacket.

  With nearly everyone in the church giving her the stink eye, it was hard to maintain her invisible safety wall, so Jessie stared at the biggest floral arrangement on the altar and began counting the blossoms. Forty-eight cheesy white carnations, and instead of the regular organist, there was Mahlon Thibodeaux playing his little electric piano. Sounded more like a roller rink than a church, but Tiger’s family had always been cheap.

  To give her audience something to think about, Jessie made a show of reaching down into the gold disco bag she’d dropped on the kneeler. The only person who saw what she pulled out was old Amos Toothaker, sitting across the aisle and trying to pretend he wasn’t watching her.

  She palmed the dirty white rabbit’s foot, a real one with a single toenail that she’d rubbed shiny over the years, directing her right thumb to the sueded spot where the fur had been worn away, and began tracing the familiar, soothing circles.

  “I always said I’d outlive that rat-bastard and wear a red dress to his funeral and spit on his grave,” Jessie had told the girls at the Club La Parisienne up in Bangor the night before. Besides a series of black eyes, a persistent case of the clap, and baby Victoria, the rabbit’s foot was the only thing Tiger had ever given her in the six years they were together. He’d taken plenty, though: her dreams, every penny she’d saved, and finally two toes from her left foot when he’d gotte
n drunk, accused her of cheating on him, and tried to run her down with his Ski-Doo. Three years in the state prison hadn’t been near enough time, Jessie thought, but in the end there had been more than enough poetic justice to go around. She imagined it was painful to bleed out from the neck like he did. Not bothering to suppress a smile, she slipped the rabbit’s foot into her jacket pocket so she’d have it to hand when the time came to bury it with Tiger.

  Procession

  After her mother’s sensational arrival, it took a good few minutes for Victoria to get her breathing under control and pull a plan together. Tino, she remembered halfway through the service, loved a parade, and she realized it would probably be impossible to avoid attending the burial, since it involved being part of an official procession. Throughout the Mass she continued to produce little hiccuping sounds between raggedy, grief-stricken breaths, then afterward told him she needed a minute to collect herself and stayed put in her seat until Jessie was out of the church. As Aunt Earlene passed their pew, she paused to give Victoria a questioning look but continued out the door without speaking.

  Figuring that driving would keep Tino occupied, Victoria handed him her keys and crumpled into the passenger seat of her car. She delayed their departure by refusing to put on her seat belt while she rummaged for nonexistent objects in her purse. Among the last to emerge from the church were Dougie Lemay and his father, Spike, who was Tiger’s best friend and the only person with him when he died. Victoria scratched an imaginary itch on her scalp and pushed her hair forward to curtain her face as they passed.

  Victoria’s Corolla crunched across the gravel lot and caboosed the motley train of funeral home vehicles, rusted-out trucks, and ancient sedans held together with Bondo and bumper stickers, including, but not limited to, DOES THIS CAR MAKE MY ASS LOOK FAT? and GUN CONTROL MEANS USING BOTH HANDS.

  They drove down Main Street and headed north toward the Catholic cemetery, just over the town line. Once clear of the inhabited part of Wellbridge, the land rolled open and clear down to the reach and the bay beyond. The ground was snow covered, but Victoria remembered it in summer, green with black patches where the blueberry scrub had been burned and dotted with improbable granite boulders abandoned thousands of years before by retreating glaciers. They’d always struck her as looking forlorn, the great rocks, like they were waiting for something, anything, to come along and pick them back up, or at least point them out of town.