“If he did well, why do you have that look?” Jonathan asked as they turned to walk to the lot.
“It’s nothing,” Aryl said, picking up his step.
“With you it’s never nothing, Aryl. Tell me.”
“He just…there’s something that I don’t like, Jon. I can’t put a name to it, but I get the feeling that he’s hiding something. I can see it in his eyes.”
Jonathan smirked. “You’re supposed to be training him, not gazing into his eyes. But that does seem to be happening a lot around Rockport lately.”
Aryl grunted and shouldered him, nearly knocking Jonathan off the edge of the dock into the water. “You know what I mean, Jon.”
“I was skeptical at first, too. But every time I looked, he was keeping up with you just fine. I think you might be looking for a reason to not keep him on. You don’t want things to change, I understand that. But they are changing and if he’s good, we need to keep him, no matter what you see when you look into his eyes.”
“You’re alright with not knowing hardly a thing about him? Trusting our business and our livelihood to a complete stranger?”
“We’re not trusting him with anything, Aryl, but to do his fair share of work each day. Wait a week. Let’s give him a chance to not be a stranger, alright? Maybe he’s trying to impress us.”
“Maybe,” Aryl said, sounding unconvinced. “But if I find out he is hiding something and it’s bad, we have to get rid of him.”
Jonathan huffed his breath as they lugged their catch ashore to sell.
***
The next day, Muzzy was eyeballs deep in copy, worrying aloud how she would manage to get all the stories edited, the mock up arranged and the papers printed in time for morning delivery. She dug through one of many piles on her desk, looking for Claire’s satire.
“Soon as I have that check from Lucky Strike, I’ll hire someone, I promise, Muzzy, just hang in there,” she whispered aloud. She wiped the bridge of her nose and left a faint ink trail as the bell on the door jingled. She looked up to see a well-dressed man. After a second, she recognized him from the meeting in Boston.
She stood quickly, wiping her hands on her pants. “Oh, Hello, Mr…”
“Tierney,” he said with a smile.
“Yes, Mr. Tierney. I remember you from the meeting. How are you?”
“I’m well.” In one hand he held a packet of papers. “I’ve brought the contract to sign.”
“Oh…I thought surely you’d send this by courier. I wasn’t expecting you to see to it personally.”
“If it was just the contract, I would have.” He held up the other hand. “But I also brought the check. Is Mr. Brown here?”
Muzzy’s look of elation quickly gave way to panic. She thought quickly. “He is!” she said, smiling wide. “He’s in the back, actually. However, he’s drowning in work…we have a large print run ahead of us tonight.” She walked around her desk and held out her hand. “I can run these back to him, get his signature real fast and run them right back out to you. How’s that?” she asked, willing her hands to stop shaking.
Mr. Tierney knit his brow, clearly unhappy. “I was hoping to speak to him. Are you sure he can’t step out for just a moment?”
“Oh, no…he’s far too busy trying to wrap everything up nice and neat before he rushes back to be with his poor mother.” Her eyes darted. “Who’s dying,” she added solemnly.
After a moment’s debate, Mr. Tierney held out the papers with a critical eye. Muzzy took the packet, nodded a thank you and scurried to the back room. Once behind the closed door she blew out her breath and closed her eyes. She flipped through the papers, looking for all the places that required her signature. Pulling a pen from her ear, she used the edge of the printing press to bear on. The signature was bold and masculine, practiced many times over. The bank had never questioned her joint account with Mr. Brown and she had no reason to believe that Lucky Strike would question it either. All she need do was sign, get the check into her hands and see Mr. Tierney out the door quickly. Then she could breathe.
With her hitched breaths the only sound in her ears, she stood up and smiled as she turned around. Her eyes went wide.
“Mr. Tierney…”
“So it’s true,” he said, glancing from her to the papers in her hand. “There is no Mr. Brown.”
Frozen, she simply stared.
“I’ll have to take those back.” He took a few steps and held his hand out with a look of deep disappointment.
“Please, Mr. Tierney, it doesn’t matter if there really is no Mr. Brown. It’s true, I’ve been running this paper by myself, living and breathing for it all this time. I took every cent of my inheritance and sunk it into a typewriter and a printing press. And look what I’ve turned it into! At the meeting in Boston you said that you were impressed with my knowledge and the papers’ growth in the last few months. This doesn’t have to change anything. In fact, having this account with Lucky Strike made me want to work harder than ever!”
“While I admire your work ethic, the fact remains that you and your friend came into our office and lied. Even if I could look past that, we can’t grant an account of this size to a woman. Our board of directors would have fits.”
She surrendered the papers slowly and watched as he tore them in shreds.
Muzzy gathered herself tall. Her chin quivered and her nostrils flared. “The fact that I’m a woman should have nothing to do with it. I know this business better than you do. And I’ll find a way to make it, with or without this deal.”
Mr. Tierney tossed the shreds of paper in the garbage pail. “I’m afraid it’s going to have be without,” he said, tipping his hat and walking away.
***
Ava knocked softly on Jean’s door, then poked her head in. Jean was laying on his bed. When he saw Ava, he slid the framed picture of his mother, Elyse, under his pillow.
“Jean, Owin is here. He wants to know if you’d like to play.”
“It’s cold outside,” he said, sitting up.
“Well, that’s never stopped you before.” She sat on the edge of his bed and pushed the bangs off his forehead. “Do you want to tell me what’s wrong? Are the kids at school still teasing you?”
He wiggled his shoulders around and she wasn’t sure whether to take it as confirmation or denial.
She plucked his winter hat off his bedside table. “Why don’t you go for a walk with Owin. You could use the fresh air.”
He swiped the hat from her hand lethargically, but made no move to get up.
“Or…” Ava said, taking the hat back. “If you’d rather, I could send Owin up here?”
“I guess,” he said, dropping his eyes. With a look of concern, Ava felt his forehead. His cheeks had color and his appetite had been good.
“Alright, then,” she said quietly as she stood.
She returned a few moments later with Owin and small plates of bread and jam. Jean slid off his bed and sat on the floor, picking at the fibers of the area rug.
“Here’s a snack,” she said, setting the plates down on the floor between them. “Let me know if you want more.”
Owin crossed his legs and reached for the bread.
“Why didn’t you want to come out and play?” Owin asked, licking the jam from where it leaked out between the slices of bread.
“I just don’t feel like it.”
“Are they still teasing you at school?”
“Yes. I tried ignoring them like you said. It isn’t working.”
“Well,” Owin said with a resigned sigh. “You might have to punch them.”
“I can’t punch them,” Jean said, looking up for the first time. “Dadee would be angry at me for fighting. And I can’t punch them because I think what they are saying might be true.”
Owin waited with wide eyes, his mouth chewing furiously.
“They’re saying my mother was a prossle-toot.”
Owin wrinkled his nose. “A what?”
“A pro
ssle-toot.”
“What does that mean?” Owin asked.
Jean slumped, his chin in his hand. “A bad woman.”
“Mrs. Garrett’s not a bad woman. She’s a great mom.”
“Not Ava. My other mom. The one who brought me here. They said she was a bad woman and left me here because she didn’t want me anymore.”
“Have you asked your father? He’d know if she was a prossle-toot or not.”
“I don’t have to ask him. She brought me here and left me. And that means that they’re right. I don’t want to talk about it anymore.”
“What are you going to do if they don’t stop?”
Jean dragged a piece of bread off the plate and shrugged. It didn’t matter so much whether the kids kept teasing him; the truth was out. His worry now was that if his own mother didn’t want him, was his father only keeping him because he had to?
“You know what you should do?” Owin’s face lit up. “You should get your Aunt Arianna to go into the school.” He giggled from behind his piece of bread. “She’d spank every last one of ‘em that’s giving you a hard time and when she was done, they’d never bother you again.”
Jean fought it, but imagining that forced a smile to break through.
Episode Three
“Out of Hiding”
Jean sat in the school’s office, slumped in the chair, staring at his shoes. The receptionist walked by, stopped and glared with a look of intense disappointment. With an angry huff she continued on, poking her head into the principal’s office. She turned, gave Jean a sharp wave and pushed the door open.
He rose slowly and dragged his feet. Sitting down in the chair across the desk, his eyes were wide, his swollen mouth in a sagging pout.
“Would you care to explain yourself, Jean?”
His eyes darted up, then back down. He gave a small shake of his head.
“You know that fighting is against the rules, don’t you?”
Nod.
“And you know that I am going to have to send you home for the day with a letter to your parents?”
Nod.
“What I would like to know is what caused you to fight with Bradley. This is so out of character for you.” For the first time the principal’s eyes softened. “What made you so angry?”
Jean remained quiet and after a moment, the principal gave a resigned sigh. He swiped the letter off his desk. “Give this to your mother and father. We’ll see you back in school the day after tomorrow.”
Jean tucked the letter in his coat pocket and started to stand.
“And Jean, if you’d like to talk to me about what happened when you get back, you’re welcome to, alright?”
Jean met his eyes briefly and nodded. He’d only partially dreaded the principal’s reaction. He completely dreaded his father’s.
As he walked out, the receptionist and another teacher were standing by the window, their backs turned, whispering furiously between themselves.
“Well, I’m sure the kids are teasing him about it. I heard from the gal at the bakery that his mother really was a whore. One of those fancy ones that lives in Paris.”
“Oh? I heard at the summer market that she died shortly after dropping him off with his father. I wonder if that’s even true?”
“I doubt it. I can’t imagine living that life with a child in tow. She obviously needed to get rid of him. It’s just so good of Mr. Garrett to take him having no actual proof that it’s even his child. I heard it was a complete surprise!”
“Whether he’s Mr. Garrett’s or not, did he even have a choice? The gal at the library said that his mother arrived, dropped him off and was gone on a train all in the very same day!”
Jean cast his eyes further down and began the long walk home.
Jean arrived to find the house quiet. Ava was out, Amy with her and Jonathan was at work. He was glad. After overhearing the adults today, he knew not only that the talk, the teasing would never end, but that he had been dropped here like a package with no return address. His mother didn’t want him and his father had been forced to take him in. Ava was nice, but he was sure that she was only trying to make the best out of a bad situation.
Everything set Jean apart from other children. His quiet nature, his lingering accent, his love of small babies and even his parentage.
He didn’t bother to take off his coat. He trudged up the stairs to his room, pushed the door open and stared. He remembered cleaning out this room with his Grand-mere. It was cleared out as suddenly and hastily as his arrival. A lot of what had been in this room was moved to the attic.
Under his bed he kept a box of things that Elyse had packed when she first brought him here. He wished he could remember her more, but the memories were starting to fade. The details of her face were harder to see, her words were harder to hear. Even the conversations on the big boat, on the train, all the way until they walked up to this door, were almost gone; he remembered very little of her words now. He supposed it didn’t matter what she had to say; what she did was leave him.
From the box he pulled a baby blanket of blue satin embellished with lace. He spread it out on his bed and in the center placed his favorite book, a change of socks, the picture of his mother and the little bear that belonged to Jonathan when he was a boy. After looking at it for a moment he took the bear and set it on the nightstand.
After all, it wasn’t his. Knowing it was cold out he put on an extra scarf before he tied the bundle. Tucking his pillow under his arm he carried the bundle by the knot and went downstairs.
He placed the letter from the school on the table with a sigh, turned and walked out the front door.
***
David knew that the time was drawing close before the telegram arrived. Walking into Dr. Blair’s office with the paper and a big smile, he held it up.
“I’ll need that time off now, Doctor. I just got word.” He lowered his voice, looking over his shoulder. “Loretta’s getting close. I just heard from my mother.”
Dr. Blair walked around his desk and grabbed David’s hand. “Congratulations,” he whispered. “Give Loretta my best.”
“I’ll leave just after my shift if that’s alright?” he asked.
“Yes, of course. I wouldn’t want you to miss the birth if you can help it. Safe travels, David. We’ll manage without you. Somehow.”
With a big toothy grin, David dipped his head and walked back out into the hallway. He was met with a loud shriek from the commons area. He quickened his step to see how he could help and hoped the rest of the afternoon would pass quickly.
He liked his job at the Massachusetts Asylum for Feeble Minds and Lunatics, but he could do with some time away. He’d worked every hour they’d allowed him to, pulling more double shifts than any other employee in an effort to save money. And, he missed his wife and son.
He took the bus that shuttled employees from the hospital grounds closer to town. The driver made a special stop for David about midway to let him off. Though he was bursting with excitement, he didn’t dare tell anyone of his news or the real reason for his abrupt departure. He couldn’t. After all, only Dr. Blair knew that he and Loretta, a nurse on the women’s wing of the asylum, were even married, let alone that they were expecting their second child.
David waited until the bus passed and then began down a long dirt side road that forked off. It led to a field with two grazing horses and three curious cows. He crossed the field every morning and evening and while the horses didn’t seem to notice or care, the cows had begun to anticipate him and waited for him where he would dip between the split rail.
They were noisy animals until he stopped to give them a pet and ask how their day was. Then they were content to follow him to the other side of the field and watch until he was out of sight. In the morning they would wait at this exact spot for David to return. Only tomorrow he’d be well on his way to Georgia. He chuckled as he passed them with nothing more than a hasty swipe between the eyes, and wondered how long they’d
wait by the fence in the morning.
Across the field he followed a small stream about a quarter of a mile. After that, another long dirt road, a trail, really, that led deeper into the thin northeastern woods.
His home, a rented one, was a three room clapboard house. It was small, single story with a tin roof. The garden plot where Loretta grew vegetables sat off at an angle, dark and flat, tilled and waiting for spring.
Inside was all the evidence that a woman was here. Or at least lived here when she wasn’t giving birth in secret. Decorated in bright and airy pastels, Loretta had done a lot with very little more than natural talent in order to make this place home.
David went into the bedroom and pulled a travel bag from under the bed. He chose three outfits and packed them neatly. On top he placed his razor, soap and a small bottle of cologne that Loretta had given him last Christmas.
He set the bag on the floor, pushed back the blankets and lifted the side of the mattress. He groped blindly underneath, looking for the hiding spot. A hole in the worn out mattress, when flipped over, served as the perfect place to hide a tin of savings. He felt for the lumpy cloth and pulled it. The tin fell out, clinking with change. The green tin with a lid that fit too tightly held more than change. David twisted it off and smiled when he looked inside.
He pulled out a small roll of bills and set it aside. He transferred the change to his pocket and counted off ten dollars. Before putting that in his pocket as well, he took two away. Then he added three. It was impossible to know how much he’d need for the entire round trip, plus what Loretta might need for the baby, and he wanted to give his mother something for putting them up all this time. He decided to take the entire roll of bills, their life savings of forty-four dollars, and stuffed it in his pocket.
It was safer this way, he reasoned with himself. To leave it in an empty house for two weeks was to invite disaster. It didn’t matter how far off the beaten path they were, home burglary was growing more frequent. And common hiding places weren’t so common, really. The first place thieves looked was under the mattress.
Purling Road - The Complete First Season: Episodes 1-10 Page 6