by Bill Clegg
He pedals furiously until he’s passed the church and turned left onto an old, unused logging road. He can practically taste the smoke in his mouth as he jumps off the bike, unzips his knapsack, and lunges for the bong. His arms are still shaking. What the fuck just happened? he mumbles to himself, remembering the smell of gas. What did I do?
He thinks, briefly, of going back, calling upstairs into the sleeping house to wake Lolly or anyone who will listen. He considers this as he packs his bowl with thick pinches of pot and fishes in the front pocket of his knapsack for a lighter. He settles down in the grass next to his bike and crosses his legs, Indian style. He runs through the consequences—the police, his parents, Luke. He pulls the bong toward his lap, leans forward, and as he slowly fills his lungs, his mind empties. He holds off exhaling for as long as he can, and when he does, pot smoke curls around his head and dances above him like ghost flames. He closes his eyes and pulls his knees toward his chest. The preceding hours, minute by agonizing minute, become less urgent, gradually vanish. He smokes another hit. His body calms, he exhales, and the world is, again, simple: the humming cicadas, the spark of a lighter, and the sound of one boy breathing.
June
Lolly was right. The Moonstone sits at the edge of the world. June has driven as far as she can and this is where she will stop. In this room with white walls and gray carpet and a golden mermaid painted on a piece of driftwood hung above the bed. She will stay here for as long as she needs to, maybe forever, she thinks as she switches the light off and lays her head on the pillow. She hears the ocean outside, pounding the shore, over and over, and for the first time she allows herself to remember that night, does not will it away.
She is standing at the sink, filling the kettle for tea, but she is already boiling. About something that has sat unbudging and blunt between them since New Year’s Eve when he asked her to marry him. She’d responded by laughing; evading the question by pretending he was joking, as if he’d suggested they cross the field behind their house, march up the steps of the main building at the Unification Church, and join the Moonies. Her laugh that night was so dismissive and distant, so effective, that it took him almost a month to bring it up again. He’d built a fire and they were eating bowls of risotto she’d made, left over from the night before when Lydia was over for dinner. She’d asked about Lolly’s wedding in May. Lolly had called after Thanksgiving to tell June she and Will would accept her nearly-a-year-on-the-table offer to have the reception at the house. This now gave them less than six months to rent a tent, June explained, mail invitations, hire a caterer, organize flowers, and all the rest of it. June noticed Luke get quiet around the talk of wedding plans, but he didn’t say anything after Lydia left. He waited until the next night and asked if June’s hesitation had to do with money and the great difference in their circumstances. He was making a decent living with his landscaping business, but he could not compete with what she had in the bank and the house, which had been paid off when she was still married to Adam. He said if that was her concern, he was happy to sign any prenup or contract she wanted. She can’t say the idea of a prenup hadn’t crossed her mind since he’d proposed; it had, but barely. The truth was, she hadn’t considered the option of marrying him seriously enough to think through the financial or legal consequences. The only consequence that flashed through June’s mind on New Year’s Eve, when Luke bent down on one knee and held out an unusual and pretty pink enamel ring, was Lolly. It had only been a few years now that she’d been communicating with her. Less than two since she would even acknowledge Luke’s existence and speak his name. Only a few weeks since she’d accepted June’s offer to have the wedding reception at the house. To barge into all this with the news that she and Luke were getting married would only confirm her fundamental theory about June: that she thought of herself first and foremost and only, and that her actions never took into account the impact they’d have on others, especially Lolly. This is what June thought that night as she tried to make up for her insensitive first response, tried to assure Luke that this was not something they needed to worry about. She did not explain her reasons because instinctively she did not want to pit Luke against Lolly. Position Lolly between Luke and what he wanted. She had finally convinced Lolly to give Luke a chance and did not want to risk his resenting her. But she did not say any of this that night in front of the fire in February. She also did not say she’d laughed when he proposed because she was caught off guard and because it was impossible. What she said was that she loved him and for now that had to be enough. And for that night, and a while after, it was. She kept the ring in its gray box in the top drawer of her dresser with the rest of her jewelry. She told him it was too large, that she would have it sized at a shop in Salisbury; but in truth the ring fit perfectly and she had no intention of wearing it. Not because she didn’t think it was beautiful—it was, in its particular, vintage art deco way—but because she did not want to be wearing the open question on her finger, waving it between them daily. What she wanted was for the question itself to go away.
But tonight the question has returned, and her response is much worse than before. She is frozen at the stove, one hand in a fist on her hip, the other holding the knob that produces no spark, no flame. Luke has just left, and behind him the door to the screened porch has just slammed. With words she can’t recognize, she has driven him away. She fiddles with the knob, twists it all the way left again and waits for the stove to light, but instead there is only the faint smell of gas. Oh, shit, she mutters, thinking the pilot might have gone out again. It was so hard to tell with this stove. Sometimes it would light right away, explode in a fireball, or it would take forever or not at all. She turns the dial all the way right, off, and as usual it sparks—once, twice, again, again . . . It will quit after a few minutes, or maybe longer, but eventually the ticking will stop. It’s been like this for years. She will replace this heap, she swears to herself every time it fails to light, like now, and keeps ticking long after the burner has been turned off. She will replace it when she fixes the torn screen on the porch and the broken dryer downstairs, but not until after the wedding, not until things settle down. She leaves the stove and rushes through the porch door and out toward the lawn. She pauses to let her eyes adjust, for the blank dark to fill with the shapes of trees, shed, field, tent. Near the far tree line at the back of the field, she can see the bright smudge of Luke’s white shirt above the tall grass. She runs toward it.
On the mown path along the edge of the field she follows his figure to the woods, where it disappears off the nearest trailhead. The moon is nearly full, and the field, the woods, the far-off Berkshires, are lit with a silver light, as if the world were an exposed negative. By the time she steps onto the trail that leads to the Unification Church property, she’s lost him. She scans for any flash of Luke’s shirt and calls out his name as she goes, careful not to trip on a root or rock on the path. She follows the trail they have walked together a thousand times and remembers again the night he asked her to marry him, how unprepared she was for the question and how relieved she was to derail the prospect, at least for a little while. There was no one else she wanted to be with, but even beyond the issues with Lolly the idea of marrying again was difficult to engage. Prenups, the fear that he would resent her for not being able to give him children, the embarrassment of their age difference, the memory of her bitter divorce with Adam—all these things would crowd in and it would be impossible to imagine.
For an hour she follows the path—through the woods, along the back lawn of the Unification Church, and down the road that circles back to the side field of her property. Even in the moonlit night, she cannot find him. She steps into the field and can see across it to the dark mass that is her house and the silhouette of the great white tent that has been assembled for the wedding reception tomorrow. It looks like a giant dog curled at the foot of the house, guarding her sleeping family. She starts to cross the field and stops when she hears a twig snap be
hind her. She calls Luke’s name and walks back onto the trail a few yards in and calls again. An owl sounds a muffled taunt in response. Fool. Fool. Fool.
She leaves the woods and slowly makes her way along the mown path toward the lawn, listening behind her as she goes. She reaches the tent and looks back before stepping inside. She scans the eerie, silver-tinted field and the trees beyond, but does not see Luke.
She steps inside the tent toward the end of one of the three long reception tables not yet set with china and flowers. She sits down on one of the wooden folding chairs and thinks of the clamor and laughter that will fill this space tomorrow and remembers her wedding to Adam twenty-three years ago. She was pregnant with Lolly but no one, not even Adam knew. She had not taken a test nor seen a doctor yet, but she knew, and she remembered thinking she now had what she needed from a husband: a child—and therefore could disappear and start her life over with her son or her daughter and not have to go through with all of the rest of it. She hadn’t thought of that night or her escape fantasy in over twenty years. It had never occurred to her before now to imagine what it would be like to be married to someone who had these thoughts the night before her wedding. She wonders if Adam registered her ambivalence then and for the first time considers how those feelings might have set an early course for what would later play out in their marriage. She wonders if Lolly is having the same thoughts now, lying awake beside her husband-to-be, plotting a secret flight before dawn. Not likely. But then who would have imagined anything that June was thinking all those years ago; on the surface she was a giddy bride marrying her college love, continuing a life in New York that seemed blessed. Still, deep down she knew it was more likely to fall apart than succeed. She knew, but she smothered that knowing with the future that everyone in her life saw for them and that she could, through their eyes, occasionally see. Her father was struggling with a bad heart then and her mother died when she was in college, so there was also, she remembers now, a feeling of needing to be anchored, placed in the world.
She experiences an unfamiliar mix of compassion and resentment when she thinks of Adam sleeping upstairs in the house. She remembers Lolly insisting he spend the weekend with them and is grateful she eventually backed away from that fight. It escalated quickly the day before he came, and after a sharp exchange and a long walk in the woods, it became clear that if she insisted Adam stay at the Betsy, where she’d booked him a room, the weekend would be ruined and it would demolish all progress she and Lolly had made and sabotage the chance for more. And Lolly was right. Adam’s being around had been easy and felt strangely comfortable. She cringes as she thinks how close she came to drawing the line and refusing, what the fallout would have been. She holds her head in her hands and squeezes.
She sees Luke. Months ago, on one knee, proposing; the pink enamel ring wedged in its gray velvet box, the destroyed look in his eyes when she laughed. His confused and beautiful face tonight when he stood in the kitchen and asked, plainly and without anger, Why? What she said next came not from anything she believed or meant but what she imagined others saying, what she feared her friends in the city snickered behind her back, and the small-town gossips murmured at the grocery store. What she said held all the agitation she felt because the evening with Lolly had ended on a sour note, because the subject of Luke and June’s getting married had come up at all, and because Luke hadn’t just simply brushed it off and restored ease. What she said next were words she would do anything to retrieve. Because you’re not the guy someone like me marries, you’re the guy someone like me ends up with after their marriage is over. She heard the words for the first time as she said them, had not thought them through, considered or uttered them to herself before, under her breath or out loud. She saw them fly and hit their target, and as he stormed away, she turned the dial on the stove to the right, off, and with the slam of the screen door and the riot of tree frogs and cicadas outside, the ticking began.
She pulls her legs toward her chest and positions her tennis shoes on the edge of the folding chair and looks up into the billowing silver-white tent. She rocks, slowly, feeling the guilty, shameful bruise of being wrong spread across her chest and up her neck to her face. How could she be so cruel to a man who had only ever offered her friendship and kindness and love? She knows the only way he will ever forgive her, the only hope they could have after what she has said is for her to simply say yes. To marry him. She is fifty-two; Luke is thirty. They have known each other for three years, and never has he been dishonest or unkind. Careless, maybe. Selfish, yes. Impatient, sometimes. But he has been more of a partner to her than Adam ever was, and she trusts him. And unlike Adam, who avoided her physically after Lolly was born, Luke found ways to touch her all through the day. His fingers would often brush across the top of her arms, his hands constantly palming her backside when she crossed in front of him. And the sex, though more frequent than she might have preferred, was often as emotionally overwhelming as it was physically surprising. His body, in clothes and out, still shocked her, and touching him could send her into girlish fits of giggling or silence her completely. Why should she let her past and her pride stop her from giving him what he wants? What she wants. She stretches her legs and places her feet on the chair in front of her. She breathes in the still night air and feels the muscles in her shoulders and neck loosen as she exhales. There it is, she thinks to herself, remembering a similar feeling of relief when she decided to leave Adam. She remembers, too, how after she’d made the decision she looked back on the preceding years of her marriage—all the doubt and lies and clues—and wondered why it took so long to do what was suddenly so obvious. These were the questions then and the questions now. Why were some decisions so tortured and then not? Why has she only ever learned the most important lessons at the speed of great pain?
She pulls her jacket across her chest and settles into the two folding chairs she’s made into a makeshift bed. She will wait for him to come back. She will stay out here in the summer night, with the deer sneezing in the woods and the frogs chirping from the trees. She will wait for him here. Under this wedding tent, she will wait. And she will say yes.
Silas
It is after three in the morning by the time he has pedaled back to town. He has not taken a hit since just after Lydia Morey stood on the sidewalk screaming at him. There will be no more hits tonight since his bong is now reduced to a pile of broken glass rattling in his knapsack. But for once he doesn’t want to be high. For once he doesn’t want anything between him and the world. He’s tired, and it is time. But before doing what he knows he should have done months ago, he needed to go back, retrace his steps, and remember it clearly enough to tell. He remembers Luke telling the three of them he needed them to work twice as hard that day. You’re good, he said. But today I need great. He remembers bolting with Ethan and Charlie to the back field as soon as Luke was out of the driveway, fucking around on the Moon and rushing through the remaining work when they got back. Luke must have seen the shitty job when he got home. He would have said something when he saw them next, but he wouldn’t have blown up or been an asshole. He would just have said he needed better than they gave, and if they couldn’t clean up their act, he’d have to find other guys. He’d said it before and it usually made them feel guilty enough to kick ass for a month or so and get back in his good graces. He remembered how Luke was an adult but didn’t seem like one. They feared him a little but mainly they respected him. Physically, for one—no one they knew was stronger; but he was responsible without being an asshole. Worked hard without being a dick. Every once in a while, when they’d be working on a job with him, he’d get mad at something he’d done and throw a shovel, or one time he broke a rake across his knee. But these outbursts didn’t happen often and they weren’t directed at the guys who worked for him. Luke was a good guy. Not the druggie Silas’s mother made him out to be when she first refused to let him work for Luke. But when no other jobs came up that summer between eighth grade and his fre
shman year in high school, she caved in. Still, she warned Silas she was keeping an eye out and to watch out for what she called screwy business. There was never any screwy business, and after a while the stories of jail and drug dealing seemed like they must have been about someone else. They made no sense with the guy he’d worked for on and off since he was thirteen. But his mother never backed down, never allowed for the possibility that she or any of the other gossips in town were wrong. And then the accident happened and she had what she needed. I’m sorry, but I knew something would go wrong over there, she said the same day it all happened. You can only fool people for so long. I’m just glad Silas didn’t get wrapped up in it. He remembers his mother on the phone that day. How it only took minutes before she was spreading stories, coming up with a cause and a culprit. But what he remembers most sharply is that he said nothing to stop her or any of the other people who cracked jokes, embellished rumors, or passed judgment. What he remembers is saying nothing. What he remembers is seeing Lydia Morey at the coffee shop a few months after everything happened and wanting, right then, to go up to her and tell her the truth. He didn’t have the guts then, just like he didn’t have the guts every time he’d seen her after. Instead, he followed her at a safe distance around town. He’s even stood in the driveway outside her apartment building and watched her walk from room to room. Every time he has seen her, he thinks this will be the time he will step out of the shadows, and each time he loses his nerve. Not only because of what it might mean for him, but because he can’t imagine not seeing her anymore as he has. Unaware, sad, alone. It would be impossible to explain to someone else, but he thinks of himself as her guardian, her shadow. No one would see it that way, he knows, especially Lydia. And once he says to her what he has to say, he expects he will be the last person on earth she will want to understand. Maybe if he hadn’t frightened her tonight things might have stayed the same. He might have stayed her shadow for years. But there is no way he can be invisible to her again. And he can’t undo what he’s done. If there is one thing he has come to understand this year, it is this.