“That’s no excuse!” Paul shouted. There was a crashing noise and the sound of glass tinkling. “Oh, shit—”
“I’m back,” I said, surveying the damage from the kitchen doorway. They had obviously started to clean up after dinner. Paul was at the sink, his arms wide, and Rachel was standing on the other side of the open dishwasher. Lia was in her high chair and Beanie on her booster seat at the table, plastic bowls of melting ice cream in front of them.
“Okay, nobody move,” Paul said. “There’s glass all over the floor. Welcome home. You’re not going to believe what happened this afternoon. This whole babysitting stint is over.” He bent down and began to pick up the shards of a water glass that he must have hit against the countertop.
“Daddy, please, that’s totally unfair,” Rachel said. “It’s not anybody’s fault. Just because Mrs. Zeller didn’t notice that—”
“A huge electrical storm was raging outside her window? Rachel, please, give me a break. She’s not to be trusted. She’s—Maddie, do you know that Anne left these kids up at the pond—”
“Yes, Mom knows. She was the one who brought us all home, Daddy.” Paul looked up at me from where he was crouching. He held a long sliver of glass between his right thumb and index finger.
“I got worried when I couldn’t get through on my cell. Rachel’s right. I think the power outage did something to the signal.”
“And so you behaved like a normal person. You dropped everything and drove up there to make sure your children were safe. Thank you, dear. You just proved my point. End of argument, Rachel. I won’t have you working for that woman any longer.”
“And why do you get to decide for me?” Rachel said. “This is just so typical of how things work around here, you know? You two tell me that I’m old enough to make my own choices, to be my own person. But anytime you feel like it, you think you can just snap your fingers, and I have to do whatever you say!”
“This is not just any time,” Paul said, as he opened the door under the sink and pulled out the dustpan and brush. “This was an extremely dangerous situation when the adult responsible for your safety was suddenly missing in action.”
“Rachel was like an adult,” Beanie announced. She hates conflict of any kind, even if it’s just between cartoon or fairy-tale characters, and often plays the role of family diplomat and peacemaker. “And we weren’t afraid, Daddy.”
“That’s great, sweetheart,” Paul said as he brushed up the splinters of glass around him. He got back on his feet with a heavy sigh. “I don’t mean to dictate to you, Rachel. I’ve been really proud of the way you’ve handled yourself this summer. I know how hard you’ve been working. Not just for the Zellers but for me and your mom, too.”
“Then let me keep this job,” Rachel insisted. “Come on, I can handle it. The money is fantastic; there’s no place else I could be earning even half this much. And I really love Katie and Max. We have a great time together, don’t we, guys?” Rachel turned to her sisters. Lia, the bottom half of her face covered in chocolate ice cream, cried: “Maxie! I love Maxie!”
“Rachel is the best babysitter,” Beanie said, loyally. Sometimes I feel almost jealous of the adoration she so clearly feels for her older sister. It’s what I always wanted: someone to look up to in life.
“What do you think, Maddie?” Paul asked me. “She’s your friend. You know her a lot better than I do. You know how I feel. I’ve always thought that she’s more than a little—”
He wasn’t going to come right out and say what he felt about Anne in front of the girls. And I could tell that his anger was receding. He was ready to be swayed by Rachel. To listen to whatever I had to tell him. Paul very rarely doubts me, or challenges my opinions. He doesn’t need to, because we see eye to eye on most issues. In fact, the Zellers are the only thing that has come between us in a long time. But from the moment he met Anne, Paul was put off by her. He saw instantly what it has taken me most of the summer to face: beneath all that composed beauty and natural charm are uncertain depths and unresolved problems. And now there was the added complication of Luke. If Rachel’s summer job ended, it would put Luke and Anne’s relationship in serious jeopardy. Rachel was the reason they could meet as often as they did. It had been Rachel’s babysitting that had afforded them the opportunity and freedom to discover each other, to fall in love, to start planning a new life. And now, more than ever, I knew they desperately needed that time together.
But I also had my daughter’s welfare to consider and parental worries that were far more serious and substantive than anything Paul knew about. What was I exposing Rachel to if I let her keep working for Anne? Surely she’d wondered why Anne encouraged her to get the kids out of the house every day. Or what Anne was doing with all that time by herself. I know Rachel helps with the laundry and makes the beds. She understands the intimate workings of the Zellers’ domestic life. How much does she really know? Or guess?
“Mrs. Zeller and Mom are like best friends, Daddy,” Rachel said in a tone that implied she was simply stating the obvious. “Of course she thinks I should keep helping her.”
“Really?” Paul said. “Well, I’d still like to hear it from her. Maddie?”
I told myself that I was doing it for Rachel. This was what she wanted, and she’d answered my concerns by so clearly stating her eagerness to hold on to the job. Would she have been that adamant if she was seriously troubled by anything happening in the Zeller household?
I told myself I was doing it for Paul. To shield him from his own overly protective instincts. If he learned about the affair now, I knew he’d absolutely refuse to let Rachel continue to work for Anne. And where would that leave Luke’s chance at happiness?
I told myself that I was doing it for Luke, Anne, her children—everyone but the true beneficiary. Because I couldn’t face the fact that I was doing it for myself—and for a friendship that had done so much to enlarge my sense of who I could be. I no longer trusted Anne, but I couldn’t give her up. It would feel like letting go of everything I’d worked so hard for. Yes, I understood that this was actually a moment of truth for me, a turning point. But I chose without really thinking. How could I let myself consider the consequences? I know I should have felt torn, guilty, or, at the very least, uncertain. But I didn’t. This was what I wanted—and that need overwhelmed everything else.
“I think Rachel’s right,” I said. “She’s certainly shown us how responsible she can be. I think she gets to decide this for herself.”
“Okay,” Paul said, throwing up his hands in mock exasperation. “Out-maneuvered and outvoted by my women once again!” The tense tableaux relaxed and everyone began moving again. Lia opened her arms to me, her signal to get down. Beanie leaned over to lick her bowl like the cat she often pretends to be. Rachel went back to loading the dishwater. Paul came over and hugged me as I set Lia back on her feet.
“Where’ve you been?” he asked.
“Well, I went over and had a word with Anne,” I told him softly. “Believe me, I was furious, too, when I found them all straggling down the road like that.”
“I bet,” Paul replied. “Did she have a better excuse for you than the one she gave me? I mean, what’s with this falling asleep in the middle of the afternoon?”
“That’s what she told you, too, huh?” I replied. At least it fit into the general picture I’d already painted for Paul of Anne’s emotional problems. “It’s the insomnia, I guess. It must throw your regular sleeping patterns totally out of whack. But she knows how upset we are. I really think she’ll try to be more thoughtful in the future.”
“Owen phoned me at work today,” Paul said, as I rinsed my dinner plate in the sink. Rachel had taken the girls out to the tent and we were alone in the brightly lit kitchen. “He’s calling a special meeting to vote on the town hall plan.”
Owen Phelps is the longtime head of Red River’s select board, upon which Paul is now serving his second term. During that period, one of the most controversi
al issues has centered around the old meetinghouse that in recent years has housed many of the town offices. In desperate need of repair, the fate of the once gracious Greek Revival structure is a subject of hot debate. Over the past three years, a variety of plans and proposals—from making it the headquarters of the Historical Society, to dividing it into retail and commercial spaces, to razing it entirely—have dominated most town meetings. Now, in a move that Owen believes will solve numerous problems, he’s made an exploratory application and been granted an initial go-ahead by the state to file an application for the building to be recognized as a historical landmark. Such status would bring with it the possibility of numerous grants and allowances, making plans for its future less divisive and stressful for everyone concerned.
“Good,” I said. “When’s it going to be?”
“On the twenty-fifth,” Paul said. “I already put it down on the calendar. I think we should both be there.” There was something about his tone that made me turn around and look at him.
“I’m happy to go. But are you really worried this thing won’t pass? It’s a great solution. I just wish someone had thought of it a couple of years ago.”
“I’m not worried about the vote,” Paul said. “But Owen mentioned that he’d been contacted by Richard Zeller, who apparently is lodging a formal complaint about Luke’s property. He says he thinks the town needs only one dump.”
“Oh, no.” I sat down next to Paul. “What did Owen say?”
“Oh, you know Phelps. He made a joke about it that I won’t repeat in polite company. But he thinks Zeller ought to have his say. I’m hoping that he just intends to listen—and then stall him.”
The phone rang then. I got up and answered it, correct in my assumption that it was Aaron calling for Rachel.
“She’s outside with the girls,” I told him. “Hang on and I’ll get her for you.”
After Rachel had gone upstairs, Paul talked some more about Zeller’s complaint, whether or not we should be seriously alarmed—or perhaps warn Luke what was up. But Paul was still hurting from Luke’s response to the last time he’d intervened—when he ended up buying that awful sunflower—and decided just to let things take their own course. I listened for the most part, adding my two cents from time to time. Of course, this was the moment to tell Paul that Richard Zeller had every reason to be furious with Luke, and it had nothing to do with the rusting sculptures marring his expensive view. But I didn’t. I’d made my decision. The news that Richard was going public with his complaints complicated matters, but it really didn’t change anything. Or so I told myself.
By the time Paul and I headed up the stairs a half hour later, I’d forgotten that Rachel was on the phone until I saw that her door was still closed and that the cordless receiver was missing from its cradle on Paul’s bedside table. It was nearly ten o’clock now, and they’d been talking far longer than usual. I knocked as I always do before entering Rachel’s room. She was lying on her stomach on the bed, facing away from me.
“… no, it’s not like that, really. But Katie did ask me if I liked him, and of course I said yes. He’s really one of the sweetest—”
“Rachel—”
“Mom!” She spun around, red-faced. “Don’t you knock first?”
“I did, sweetie. I guess you didn’t hear me. It’s getting late.”
“Okay,” she said, sitting up on the bed and crossing her legs. “We’ll say good-bye soon. Could you please close the door now?”
Paul was already in bed, and I was brushing my teeth when I heard Rachel’s footsteps on the stairs. I opened the bathroom door.
“Rachel? Got a sec?”
“It’s kind of late.”
“You’d still be on the phone with Aaron if I hadn’t come in.”
“Barged in is more like it.”
I walked across the landing and leaned over the banister. She was halfway down the stairs, dressed in the flannel pajamas I’d bought for her a few Christmases back. Bright red candy canes danced in the dim light from the bathroom overhead. It seemed as though only moments ago I’d put her down in her crib.
“I did knock, but you were too engrossed in your conversation. What were you talking about for so long?” I knew as soon as I asked that this was exactly the wrong approach. I’d made a point of not prying into Rachel’s relationship with Aaron. In the past, she’d been quick to tell me to mind my own business when I made such a slip.
“Just the usual stuff,” she told me. “Mostly about my plans to go up there. He thinks I should take the bus to Bangor, and his dad can pick me up.” The Neissens have a summer house on the coast of Maine where she and Aaron planned to spend the long Labor Day weekend.
“Is everything else okay?” I asked.
“What do you mean by everything?” I thought I heard her sigh.
“I don’t know,” I said. “You’re just growing up so fast. I don’t want you to ever believe that you can’t tell me things—whatever you might be feeling.”
“Sure, Mom,” she said, as she continued down the stairs. “See you in the morning.” I knew she was only heading out to the tent to curl up in her sleeping bag between her two younger sisters, but it still felt to me as though she was walking away for good. That, in one way or another, she had been leaving all summer, this part of her and then another, disappearing into a world that I could no longer control. And where I was forbidden to follow.
Part Six
22
After I left home, Ruthie’s mom let me stay with them for a couple of months until I got waitressing work in Northridge and a studio apartment in the depressed area behind the old railroad depot downtown. I made it through those grim days only because I knew the situation was temporary.
I moved into the house trailer on the Alden farm the weekend after Paul was released from jail. It was a single-wide Elcona, over twenty years old even then, and had housed extra farmhands during the years when the dairy actually needed more help. Though Clara had made Nelwyn and Louise scrub and air the place out for me, the small wood-veneer-paneled rooms still smelled of mildew and a peculiar kind of vegetal rot. The Formica tabletop in the kitchen area was scarred with cigarette burns and the bathroom showerhead had been decapitated. But it seemed wonderful to me then, and remains so now in all my memories of the place. Love endows the lowliest things with beauty. It was our first home. It’s almost impossible to believe that it no longer exists in any place but my heart—and Paul’s. Bob had it towed and junked a few years after we left, but I swear that if I could step up into that dim, cramped space today I would still be able to reach—blind—for the oven mitt on its hook by the two-burner stove or a new, dry, bright pink sponge in the tiny cupboard under the sink.
Paul did everything but sleep over with me there, and even then he rarely left until after midnight. But his parents were strict Catholics and his family’s social life had long revolved around St. Anne’s, the small parish church over in Covington. It was assumed that we would get married there, and I would have been happy to do so. Religion didn’t color my attitudes the way it did the Aldens’. It wasn’t the first thing I wondered about when I met somebody new, though I know it was that way with Clara. I don’t think she could ever have fully embraced a non-Catholic in her family. And I was raised a Congregationalist, which was, in Clara’s mind I’m sure, one small step up from being an atheist. It was true that my belief system had very weak roots. I was a joiner by nature, and I was eager to make myself a part of the Alden family. So the idea of converting, planting my faith in more fertile ground, appealed to me: it seemed like a quick and painless way to gain acceptance.
“I’m hosting a tea for Father Timothy on Thursday,” Clara announced at dinner the second Friday that Paul was back. By that point, I’d worked myself up to the day shift at Salter’s in Northridge, and was able to join the Aldens most nights at the big round table. Paul was back at the dairy, working alongside Ethan. When Bob graduated from high school in another month, he’d be joi
ning his brothers and then, the three of them had decided, they were going to approach Dandridge about making some necessary renovations and investment in new machinery and livestock. It was Bob who had come up with the idea of converting the operation to organic, selling most of the Holsteins and buying up Jerseys, whose milk was yellower and thicker, just right for the heavy cream and yogurt products he saw the dairy shifting into. Bob spent a lot of time up in the trailer with Paul and me outlining and expanding on his ideas, and Paul just let him talk. I knew Paul was for changing and upgrading in general, but I also sensed he was still feeling his way with his family, especially Dandridge. They said very little to each other in front of the rest of us, but you could feel each of them secretly monitoring the other, antennae up and attuned to what was said, what was not.
“I thought Maddie might like to join me,” Clara added. “Father Timothy only gets a chance to visit every other week.” Catholics were so few and scattered so far afield in the county that the parish had to make do with a traveling pastor, and even then St. Anne’s was not big enough to rate more than a weekday stopover.
“She’s working afternoons,” Paul said, not looking up from his plate.
“I could probably get—” I began, before Paul cut me off.
“We’ll talk about it later.”
“What’s there to talk about, son?” Dandridge asked. “It’s time she got going on this if you’re planning on a summer wedding.”
“I haven’t had the chance to work out the details with Maddie yet,” Paul said.
“Well, get working then. I don’t like all this pussyfooting around. And I don’t like her living in that broken-down old rust bucket out there. It’s time for you two to clear things up and move in here with us where you belong.”
I think Dandridge believed that in the best of all possible worlds, his children would never leave him. At that point, with six bedrooms and the large unfinished attic space where Ethan and Bob were living, it was more than feasible. I knew that Clara was fixing up the two-room annex behind the kitchen with the idea that Paul and I might move in there. It had been a storage area for many years, but had originally been a servant’s room of some kind. It had its own small bathroom and entrance with an overgrown rose trellis on either side. The plan was still vague, but Clara had asked my opinion about fabric for curtains she was making for the bedroom windows. It didn’t occur to me then, but it says something about Clara that she knew enough not to offer Paul and me one of the large, sunny upstairs bedrooms. She was already aware, I believe, that Dandridge and her middle son required at least one floor between them to be able to sleep in any kind of peace.
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