by Jeffrey Lent
She fell quiet. He could hear her breathing. Heard the rim of a glass hit the phone and then her swallowing. He stared at a knot whorl on the desktop, his own breathing measured, biting deep in his lungs. Finally as she took a deep breath, about to speak, he spoke, flatly level to contain himself, anger coiled tight.
“For years,” he said, “I thought of that baby, that child we could have had. That would’ve come from the two of us. I gave up trying to imagine it, boy or girl, but I always thought somewhere out there was a child of ours, the one who could’ve been. And what it would’ve been like having that child, you and me. How different life would’ve been, what we would’ve made of it. That was your first baby, Emily. With me. And now you tell me it wasn’t one but two. Two babies, Emily. Two children. Two accidents you say. Accidents? Fucking accidents, Emily? Those weren’t accidents, not then and not now. Never. But hey, at least our children made you quit at two. I’m sorry about those accidents, Emily. I am. Oh Emily I certainly am. Who the fuck do you think you are? You want to know how it feels to me? Right now tonight?”
She was silent.
“As if for twenty-three years I was standing in a summer garden watching a certain firefly wink on and off and all that time instead it’s not a firefly but a pair of fucking headlights screaming toward me. And I’m frozen there. I can’t get out of the way. Run right over. That’s how I feel.”
She had to have her hand over the mouthpiece but he could hear her crying. He said, “Good night, Emily.”
HE SAT FOR time uncountable gazing at nothing. Nothing seeped and seethed around him as the house settled from the heat toward night, nothing some bleak version of peaceful despair, of funereal quietude. Nothing dribbled through his hands like some form of water, heavy water, mercury, some invisible poison that pooled around his feet and upward through his heart and mind. Nothing in his soul. And then wondered what that phone call had cost Emily, if she’d won what she’d set out to or not and knew she hadn’t, knew his anger however taut was nothing to match her own upon herself. That those two lost children lay heavy upon her as they did now him but in ways worse—all the years not only with those two lost children but the two living—not replacements or substitutes but surely in black moments grim reminders of those others. That she too lived with those holes and always had and always would.
SOMETIME LATER HE abruptly rose and emptied the wine down the sink and filled a quart jar with water and walked out into the night, crossing to the forge where he went down in the dark, shutting the door behind him. He flicked on the light over the bench and pulled close the chair to his drafting area. He tore the top sheet off the pad of graph paper and sharpened a pencil from the tin with his pocketknife, took a long swallow of water and then bent over the pad and in a top corner swiftly drew a rough rounded triangular shape, something not flat but of three dimensions, known to his eye and hinted by swift strokes of shading. Below that in the center of the page he sketched out the cage of iron bars that would begin far below the triangle, rooting them in the earth and then spreading and splitting apart at ground level as they rose to encase the triangle and joining again at the top to taper into a braided stream ended by a topknot of three thick iron strands, rounded and smooth as rope from which would rest a single three-inch ring that would swivel in every direction, swivel so that a tied horse might move about without wrapping itself around either the ring or the foundation below. There would be two of them.
Built around stones. And he knew exactly the stones he sought: white hard granite flecked with quartz and marbled with black veins and blots, softly rounded but with a base of sorts and three-sided to a smoothed round top—triangles, yet not, something older, worn, more forgiving of time’s passage and the travails of ice and rain and wind, of tumbling water and grinding glaciations. Encased within iron, beautiful stones, beautiful hitching posts.
He drank from the water and opened the drawer under the bench vise and dug for the small stone pipe and tin canister, opened it and pinched off a bit of bud and struck a farmer’s match on the face of the vise and drew in the smoke and held it, then slowly let it out. He was tasting last year, what the earth around him had thrown up to offer. He struck another match and finished the bit, even as the first lungful shimmied through his bloodstream and into his brain. He put pipe and canister back in the drawer and looked once more at the sketch and then tilted back to study the wall of tools. He had no need to consider the sketch further.
He’d find the stones up in his own woods. He had none especial in mind but knew they were there and would reveal themselves. And he would build and install the hitching posts and a job of work would be done. Secret cenotaphs and it wouldn’t matter if he never saw them again or if time to time he decided to drop by to visit and pass them on his way to the door. They would be there.
The stones of memory. Memorials hidden and plain as day. And as such stones they held multiples, conjoined, intertwined, a small community related all ways, always. Two children never born, two children never grown, two children grown arrested by time, the bond of two broken but never gone, two hearts, four hearts, two hearts, two, two alone. A speck of time enshrined, a bolt of love defined forever silent. And one day the iron would rust away or be torn up and discarded but the two stones would remain somewhere even as unimaginable time passed over and around them and they became smaller, rounder, small slips of pebbles some child one day might pluck from a road or streambed and hold a moment before tossing back toward where they came from; those intentions and emotions and hearts of human creatures only particle inhabitants of that grand journey.
He put out the lights and entered into the starry yard and saw the car parked there and went on to the house which was dark but for the same kitchen light he’d left on hours before. He turned it off and sat in the dark to unlace his boots and quiet as a thief went up the stairs and as he turned into his bedroom he heard her voice from down the hall.
“You okay, Hewitt?” Sleep-drifting drowsy.
“Tops,” he said. “Go back to sleep, sweetheart.”
He waited a moment but she didn’t respond.
HE WAS UP and out at first light, taking coffee with him in a thermos and working on the sketch, roughing out measurements—having to work from the top down so when he went looking for the stones he would hunt an appropriate range of size. He went as far as he could and then was daydreaming known sections of the woods, the brooksides and tumbling deep ravines, trying to let his mind’s eye see the most likely spot to seek his stones when Jessica came in barefoot and quiet as the dawn. At the moment he was bent studying the long dead worm trails in the beech tabletop. When she placed a hand on his shoulder he came close to knocking over his coffee but swiped the mug up at the last moment. He twisted around to face her.
“Hey, Hewitt.”
He swallowed some coffee, pointed at the thermos and said, “Coffee?”
“I’ve had mine.”
“So, did you have fun last night?”
“I did.” Her face solemn, attempting to give nothing away but he saw the flick of mischief in her eyes. She said, “Roger offered me a job. Full time. Or, as he said, until the snow or cold lock us out. Carpenter’s helper.”
“Are you going to do it?”
She scrutinized him and then slowly said, “I asked Roger could I study on it and he said Yup, long’s I wanted although not to piss and moan if I took too long and he gave the job to someone else. He just wants to get me going—there isn’t anybody else or he’d already a hired em. I don’t care to fetch and tote for others much but that’s how I’ll learn. And I think I might like to learn. It’d be good to know how to make things. He runs a small enough crew so I’d be doing more right from the get-go. So, I’m tempted.”
Hewitt poured more coffee from the thermos. Casual, he said, “You seemed happy enough working those other jobs with him. And you’re right—it’s good to know how to make things. And he does all sorts, small and large. You’d learn a range faster with hi
m than most. Like he said, you’d have downtime too. You wouldn’t feel … you know.”
“Boxed in? Tied down?” She was serious and yet Hewitt felt there was something else going on. She said, “Also, I wouldn’t feel like I was underfoot like a stray dog. More like I was pulling my own weight.” She paused and then said, “I think, if you can take a minute, this might be a good time for us to sit down and sort of talk about what we’re doing here, the two of us, and what you think it means and what I think it means, that sort of thing.”
He said, “I guess. If you need to.”
“It’s more your business, Hewitt. The reason I think we need to talk is while I was having my cereal a pair of phone calls came in. I let the machine pick them up but there was no way to miss hearing them.”
Hewitt said, “What’s going on?”
She looked at him a moment. “I’m not sure. But Mary Margaret said she and Beth and Meredith spent the night in Brattleboro and should be in around early afternoon and not to worry they’ll bring groceries.”
“Holy shit!” Hewitt stood up, started for the stairs, turned back to Jessica and pretty much froze. He felt like the man in the movies trying to go eight directions at once.
“She also said for you to not run off, they’re only coming for a couple days.”
“Oh, cripes.”
Jessica said, “So, ah, fill me in here. I mean, that’s your mother right? And sister and I guess her daughter?”
“Jesus, Jesus,” he said.
She walked over to him and took his upper arms in her hands. “Hewitt,” she said. “Get a hold of yourself. Seems like the thing for me to do is just disappear for a few days. I could get a motel room. It’s not a problem, okay? We’ll get this figured out right. It’s only nine o’clock. I could help get ready for them. You know, clean sheets, shit like that. Whatever.”
He took a breath. “Right. No. You’re not going anywhere.”
“Hewitt. Let’s get up into the air and you think this through. You don’t need me here. I mean, how many years since you last saw them?”
“Oh boy,” he said. “Just hold on. Slow down. Phew. Come on, let’s get outside.” And he turned and went up the stairs, the clump of his heavy boots shadowed by her flat footfalls behind him.
The sun was breaking through and the fog was lifting in long spirals and the sun was hot where it fell. They went to the front porch where he sat on the old pew bench running half the length of the porch. She pulled a metal yard chair around and faced him.
“Listen,” she said. “I’m serious. I can help you clean up a little and it won’t take me ten minutes to throw my shit in the car and be gone. Really, it’s fine.”
He shook his head. “I’ll be damned. Mother, Mary Margaret’s what she calls herself even if I refuse to, she was up for a week two summers ago. It was a little prickly here and there but mostly we get along and she understands my deal here. She wasn’t married all those years to my father and not learn a thing or two about men like me. But my sister Beth? And you said Meredith too? Good God, the last I saw them was at least ten years ago and boy oh boy was that a disaster. The little girl, she was maybe six, yeah about six, seven. And I scared the shit out of her. Maybe I teased her too much. All dressed up like a teenager and frightened of every goddamn thing, like she’d never seen dirt. And I didn’t know shit about little girls or how to be with her but I guess she saw the teasing as mean or maybe it was—that was still a pretty rough time for me. And Beth got tighter and tighter and it all ended fucked-up. Shit. What time is it?”
Jessica didn’t smile but reached out and ran her hand into his hair and gently rubbed his scalp. As if to cool the boiling. And it helped.
He looked over at her and said, “Okay. Okay, Hewitt. Deep breath now. I’m a grown-up, right?”
She laughed.
He said, “First things first. You’re going nowhere. Give me a few minutes and we can figure out what to tell them. Although, if there’s time, I don’t know, you said they’re only coming for a couple days, but if there’s time I’d like to tell Mother who you are. Okay we can’t use the same story we’ve been using. Mother’d see through that in a minute. Let’s just stick with what we’ve got—your car broke down out on the road and Walter has been helping you get it fixed and you’ve been working for Roger Bolton. That covers the basics and is true enough so we won’t mess it up. That way you can still be Jessica Kress. You know?”
She studied him and then mildly said, “Boy. You’re fired right up.”
“Sorry, sorry. It’s just a lot. Damn, Mother. She knew better than to give me more warning. She’s a tough old bird.”
“You sure it wouldn’t be easier if I was to just go for a couple days? It sounds like maybe it’s going to be enough of a handful as it is.”
He felt suddenly calm, as if he’d expelled the worst of his anxiety by talking. Hewitt looked at her and grinned. “I can’t make you stay. And I certainly understand if you want to go.”
She frowned a moment and reached to touch his hand. She said, “Okay. I’ll stay. I’m kind of curious. About them, you know, your family. And maybe also your mother but you talk to me before you tell her who I am, you hear? And, also, if I get feeling too weird I can always, you know, go visit a friend.”
He stood and used her hand to draw her up also and swiftly he moved to embrace her. Then he said, “Let’s go look at the bedrooms and figure out where they’ll all sleep. At least there’s a closet of clean linens.”
She grinned and said, “So I’m a maid now?”
“Just like me, sister. Just like me.”
Then her face darkened and she said, “Hewitt?”
“What is it?”
“There were two messages. The second one, she didn’t say who she was. But I’ve got a pretty good idea.”
He paused and looked at her, not sure if his tottering was visible or a thing wholly within. Then in a calm voice that came from some distance said, “I guess I better go listen.”
He left her on the porch, knowing she would not follow, would most likely even go down off the porch and out into the yard, away from the house, away from him. At the door he turned and she was turning away as expected. He said, “Wait.”
And drew his pocketknife out and said, “If you want, why don’t you go through the garden and cut an armload of flowers. They’ll help freshen up those rooms.”
She reached for the knife. “That’s a good idea.”
“WHAT WAS THAT old line of yours? Nights make deals that dawn unseals? All I want right now is to run away to Argentina or someplace and disappear. But I can’t. That’s how we get old, isn’t it? I’m feeling pretty damn old this morning. I was pretty pissed most of the night, feeling sorry for myself, you know, how can you treat me this way with all I’ve been through? That was a gut punch, Hewitt, and you know it. But it made me remember things. More than just those last few months when everything felt wrong with us. The rest of the time. God, Hewitt. I miss my husband. I don’t know how long it really went on but I wouldn’t have played the make up and live with it game. I would’ve booted his ass out the door. But he took that chance away from me. Which is pretty much what I did to you, what you were telling me last night. Fuck, I feel like life ran over me and backed up and did it again. What did I do to deserve this? Does innocence or best intentions excuse anything? I used to think so but don’t anymore. You’re right—those babies, yours and mine, they were scraped out of me like bumps in my road. But we can’t go back there. We can’t change it. I can’t change it. God, Hewitt. I so want to be a bitch and say I didn’t do anything to you, you did it all to yourself. Wouldn’t it be nice if I could say that? I’m sorry. I just wanted you to know … What? I don’t know … Oh, damn it. I’ve got to go, I’m late. Am I late for everything? Is that what it is, finally? Don’t answer that. In fact, do not call me. Don’t call, Hewitt. Maybe I’ll call again sometime but leave me be … Take care of yourself old friend.”
He played it one
more time and then midway through caught himself and hit the erase button.
He could use a shower with a family of women about to arrive. But doubted there was time and then rallied. He was just fine. You bet. He could handle the women. At least, best he could tell, Beth’s husband was not along.
He washed his face with cold water and went out to find Jessica.
MEREDITH WAS A stunningly feminine version of her grandfather. Hewitt sat watching and listening to her, learning her acutely at the same time he felt he was in the presence of his father. And the only other person, there or anywhere, who knew this, was his mother. Something within him softened toward his sister—Beth unable or unwilling to see her father in her daughter.
They were sitting in the garden. The slab of granite bench had been covered with a cloth and held what remained of a salad, the gnawed cobs of new corn, a platter with the carcasses of a pair of roasted chickens, plates stacked with dirty silverware and the remains of a roll of paper towels, pressed into service as napkins. Beth and Mary Margaret were drinking gin and tonics whose consumption they seemed to coordinate so both repaired together to the house to freshen their drinks. Hewitt strongly suspected this was for Beth’s sake, a chance to regain her balance. He was touched by what he’d never seen before, this fragility in his sister. Meredith and he were drinking red wine, she only seventeen but not only handling it well but aware of what she was drinking, prewar St. Julian. Selected intentionally when she asked for wine earlier.
“Red or white?” he’d asked, as if it didn’t matter to him.
“Oh, red. Thanks.”
Off he’d gone to the cellar.
Now out in the warm evening all of them together, Jessica quiet but not separate, sitting at one end of the slab in one of the chairs they’d gathered—Meredith at the other end with her mother and grandmother along one side, leaving Hewitt a side all to himself, which he liked because he could move his chair back and look easily from one to another. Although he was mostly engaged with Meredith and this not unseemly, since she was, at least ostensibly, the purpose of this trip.