A Peculiar Grace

by Jeffrey Lent

  The wine was halfway down in his cup. Enough to mute the volcanic day. Enough to, finally, fall all the way back to that other early morning message. Emily. Emily had called again.

  He couldn’t call her back, but for the moment was content with that. He was a different man from that youngster. Thank God or time. Or the events of this summer. Or some magnificent rolling-up of his life to this point. He would wait. Like a quiet whisper behind a door she didn’t even know was in her house. With the wine soothing and smoothing he wished she were there beside him.

  And then there in the near dark she was sitting beside him, in the blue dress he’d last seen her in, her face tilted a little to one side but looking at him, silent. He observed her. As he did she flowed back and forth between the woman he’d glimpsed that summer and the girl forever etched in his memory. There had been, long ago mostly, so many evenings when she appeared before him. So many nights beyond counting he had talked to her. And she had been silent, listening—a phantom pulled by night and whisky and the aching pain of his soul to come before him and suffer audience. But tonight there was none of that. He had nothing to say. He no longer believed any power was in these visitations he conjured. But it was a pure pleasure to have her sitting, however briefly, beside him on the hill.

  Broken without regret by the bobbing climbing white shirt suspended above near invisible jeans of his niece seeking him out. She settled into the space where Emily had been. She had a new beer and shook a cigarette loose and struck fire to it, fire that lit her face and blocked out for a moment everything else and when the lighter went out there was only the glowing end of the cigarette and the party below and beyond that the dense star-dancing summer night.

  Hewitt said, “Having fun?”

  “I am,” Meredith said. “It’s really cool coming here. To the party, I mean.”

  “I saw you got yourself a new boyfriend.”

  She looked at him in the dark and laughed, a quiet laugh far back down in her throat. She said, “Isn’t that just the shits? He’s such a sweetheart.”

  “You say that only because he had you in a crowd of people that all know him. If he’d caught you alone you’d be gasping about the dirty old man.”

  “Well, he’s got quite a trick going with that walker. I mean he had me by one hand so I had to help with the walker and all the time his other hand floated around a good bit more than I cared for. How bout you, Hewitt? You okay setting up here by your lonesome?”

  “Oh, I’m fine. You know there’s always a geek who likes to sit in the corner and watch what’s going on.” He smiled and said, “So has all this crap with Mother and your mom scared you off the idea of school here?”

  In the assured voice only a seventeen-year-old can have, she said, “They’re not my problem. I liked Middlebury, I liked it a lot. And I kind of like the idea of being close by a relative. Because the next couple years are going to be pissant weird between my folks. The way I see it, the more miles between the two of them and me, the better off I’ll be.”

  It was quiet. Hewitt wasn’t sure how to respond and then thought, If she’s going to trust you it has to start right now. So he said, “I expect you’re right. All the way around. Most likely weirder than you think. Those things usually are. But if you’re here, I’ll leave you be except when you want to come see me. You know what I mean?”

  After a moment, her voice floated, “It’d be nice to have a place to come to.”

  BUT FOR A single dim light from the living room, the house was dark as the two cars drifted into the yard. The three of them made their way to the house where Jessica slipped through the pantry and the connecting office to the hall, all in the dark, her footfalls muted by the stair runner except when she hit the eighth step with its giveaway creak. Hewitt turned on a light in the kitchen and drank water, Meredith standing behind him, waiting. He looked at her and she shrugged and together they went into the living room.

  The museum light was on over the stereo shelves and Beth was wrapped in a dark robe, curled on the couch, somehow more substantial in the near dark than if the room were bright. There was a single LP jacket and sleeve propped against the shelves and Hewitt wondered what she’d been listening to, what this evening had prompted for translation into music. He said hello to his sister and she repeated the word back to him and then spoke to her daughter.

  “Did you have fun this evening sweetie?”

  “I did. I had a really good time.”

  “Good. Come give me a kiss and get along to bed. We’ve got a long day tomorrow. Your Gram and I decided we’d drive to Burlington for your interview at UVM and then get on the interstate and head home.”

  “You mean we’re not coming back here tomorrow?”

  “No. You’ve had ample occasion to get to know your uncle, and if you end up attending college up here you’ll have more time. But meanwhile, both your grandmother and I want to get along home. Now, give me a kiss.”

  Meredith looked at Hewitt. He said, “I suspect your mother’s right. If you go to college here, that’d be great but, you know, even if you stay in North Carolina doesn’t mean you can’t come for a visit. If you want, come for your winter break this year and I’ll show you back-country skiing you can’t even imagine. Think about it. And I’ll see you in the morning. We’ll have a big send-off breakfast.”

  Meredith went to her mother and bent for her cheek.

  Beth said, “Oh, honey. Are you still smoking?”

  “No. I mean, I bummed one. That’s all.”

  “Oh ho,” said Beth. “And I’m the Queen of Sheba. Get out of here. Go on to bed.”

  * * *

  HEWITT TOOK HIS seat in the little rocker by the shelves.

  “You know, Hewitt,” Beth said. “All Mother had to do tonight was admit she’d done what she’d thought best but now knew was wrong. But she couldn’t do it. All it would’ve taken was one small admission from her and she and I could have been different with each other. Which would’ve been a damned nice thing. I just don’t get it. Does she hate me so much? Because I had a hard time with Dad for a few years and never had the chance to make it right? I mean, how many people does that happen to? You know? And why in the world did she attach her life so closely to mine? What the fuck’s that all about? Jesus, Hewitt, I’m closing in on half a century. Is it just me, Hewitt? Or is there something a wee bit off-kilter with this whole thing?”

  Hewitt rocked. “I’d say so.” He paused and said, “You know, Beth? People always have secrets. And secrets make fear. Have you ever tried to get her to talk about her life and family in Ireland? That she left behind when she was barely into her twenties?”

  “Not word one. Except for the ancient ancestors, the kings of Ireland.”

  Hewitt stood up. He said, “I don’t think it’s meanness, causes her to do what she does. Some skewed sense of self-preservation. I don’t forgive her anything that shouldn’t be. But I also suspect we all do something similar on some level.”

  Beth stood also. She said, “I know. I know I’m faced with a long road before Meredith will forgive and understand her father. And me too.”

  “I bet she’ll get it quicker than you think.”

  Beth said, “You know, I’ve done the best job I could. I really did.”

  “She’s a great kid, Beth.”

  She said, “I’ve got to go to bed, Hewitt. But, hard as this visit’s been, I’m glad I came.” And she stepped close to hug him.

  AFTER SHE’D GONE upstairs he sat for a while in the quiet house, aware it might be as full of his family as it ever would be again.

  Nine

  For several days Hewitt felt a precise exhaustion, particular in location and frustrating because something long waiting had been clarified—but only to a point. The morning of their departure Mary Margaret had been chipper as if nothing untoward had occurred during her visit, although she barely said a word to Jessica. Who later said, “I liked Meredith. And your sister. But it was fucking weird watching your moth
er trying to figure out what to do about me. She’s a piece of work.”

  “She can be,” Hewitt said. “Remember what a panic I was in when you walked into the forge and told me they were coming? But she’s my mother.”

  He could only imagine the three long days of their journey home.

  He kept his eye on Jessica, grateful she hadn’t left as well. She certainly could have. But she remained and he was watchful in a casual way and went about his work as best he could because it was the only thing to do. She’d made no effort to contact Roger about the offered job and this troubled him but he remained silent. Give it a little time, he thought.

  THERE CAME A day the heat did not abate but the sky was low and the air sodden. That night it began to rain, a broken series of showers and longer patches of quiet steady drizzle, then on throughout the day. Following that day of steady rain there was another of sporadic showers and short drenching storms. And the earth ate most of it, although the brooks roared on the hillsides and the river swelled muddy with foaming back-curled waves. The next dawn revealed a world of thin cleansed air and a few goldenrod in early bloom and the lone wild crab apple was bitten by leaves edged in yellow and red. Otherwise the replenished earth insisted summer was deeply intact, spurts of growth in the meadows darkly rich and the leaves of the trees had lost their drought droop.

  He was gazing more or less blankly out the window over the sink and made a mental note to check the woodshed. If the weather remained cool and bright it would be a good time to take a few days and scour the woodlot for dead or dying trees to cut up and split for the winter. He was wondering, in an unworried way, if Pete Snow recalled his tall tale of looking for a small cart for woods work. An ancient but serviceable wooden manure spreader was in the barn. Years ago he’d removed the beaters and apron chain and replaced the rotted floorboards with sturdy two-inch hemlock planks. The tongue of the wagon had been cut down so horses would never again draw the spreader but the Farmall could handle it easily.

  The first of the water was trickling through the grounds when a disembodied voice in the dark of the hall said, “Is that coffee?”

  “Good morning.” He poured coffee for both of them and said, “I’ve got to go out to the forge for three maybe four hours. Something about a job got figured out in my head. But after lunch, I was thinking of taking the tractor and tools up to the woods and cut some firewood for the winter. It’s going to be a glorious day. I’d really like it if you came up to help me. It’s not hard work. I like to go along at a comfortable pace. It’s just such a fine time of year to be outside.”

  She took a long time looking him square eye to eye. Finally she said, “I need a decent breakfast. There’s piles of linens mildewing in the baskets. I’ve got some reading I want to do but I can pitch in. And it sounds like it might could be nice working up there. And Hewitt?”

  “Jessica?”

  “I’m fine. I really am.”

  * * *

  SOMEWHERE IN THE night Hewitt realized in order for his hitching posts to work, for them to hold the stones, the iron encasing them had to be bowed in such a way as not to touch them or over the years orange lines of rust would lie upon the rock. Yet at the same time the posts must not endanger a horse—no gaps a nervous hoof could get caught in for instance. So the iron must hold the stones neatly as a cage and it was this design change he sat configuring and refiguring throughout the morning. The exact dimensions could not be determined until he found the stones but the symmetry had to be in place before he even laid eyes upon them—the idea had to be fully formed so he’d not be tempted to compromise.

  When he’d first come in he’d left the door open at the top of the stairs and then opened the lower double doors. The air in the forge breathed cold from chilled iron and steel and brick and at first the outside air wasn’t much warmer but fresh. By the time he was on the third sketch the sun was up enough so the air flowing through was warming and the row of windowlights over the upper door threw down small broken rectangles of light. It was around that time the old orange and white splotched barn cat trod silently down the stairs and settled against his right boot. The cat usually only came to the forge in the most bitter weather, standing in driving snow outside the upper door and yowling righteously until Hewitt heard him over the sound of his work and went up to let the old fellow down to spend the afternoon curled tight against the side of the hearth, the bricks warm and the earthen floor warm and well out of the way of both Hewitt’s heavy boots and the sparks, the bits of hot metal that would fly from the cherry metal beaten upon the anvil.

  So Hewitt gave little thought to the cat. With the wet of the past couple of days he was just an old cat looking for a warm spot. And Hewitt was in that exquisite thrall when he was overtaken by design—those moments when all the rest fell away and he was only working. He made his way through the series of sketches and measurements, never needing to move and only marginally aware of the small weight of the cat on his boot.

  The final plan he spent a great deal of time over, checking and rechecking his measurements to the point where he could no longer quite make sense of the numbers, which meant he’d taken it as far as he could without the stones themselves. Slowly he emerged from this state of concentration that was near narcotic. He had his hands flat on that final sheet of graph paper as if it might fly away. He looked out the open doors on to the day. Hours had passed. From the far corner of the desk he lifted a cold chisel Timothy Farrell had made many years ago and presented to Hewitt as a gift. Hewitt never had used the chisel on iron, although there was no practical reason not to—he had far older and less well-made tools he used regularly. But the cold chisel was special and so stayed on his makeshift drafting desk as a paperweight.

  He thought then of lunch and the afternoon up in the woods. The world at that moment held perfect symmetry.

  It was only when he began to move that he felt the weight of the barn cat against his boot. He looked down and saw the cat was not against the side of his boot but over it, the cat stretched out as if wanting to quietly get as close to Hewitt as he could without disturbing him. Stretched so, the cat’s head was down on the floor one side of the boot and his hind legs and tail sprawled from the other side, so his chest, his ribcage under the tattered coat was so visible Hewitt didn’t need to bend to be able to count the ribs. Or to realize the cat was dead.

  Hewitt gazed down. Then bent and picked up the dead cat and held it on his lap. The cat was ancient, so old Hewitt wasn’t sure but thought it had already been in the barn as a kitten when his father died. The cat came in the way of country cats—appearing one day and taking claim of the place. Hewitt held the wornout body and knew it didn’t matter when the cat had come—it just seemed he’d always been there. Mostly shy and hidden but then showing up at the oddest of human moments. And somewhere in the back of his mind Hewitt had always known he was not truly alone, that there was a witness. Not so much a companion but a quiet discreet soul tucked back in some corner of the barn.

  Holding him, Hewitt felt he was holding primeval evidence of his own life but also a secret life now, as with all lives passed, lost to time. The cat didn’t even have a name. He was the barn cat.

  After a bit Hewitt went out the lower doors of the forge, cradling the body against his chest and mostly out of sight of the house went around to the back of the barn and let himself in. Avoiding the house because this business was between him and the cat and no one else. In the barn he found a burlap feed bag and stuffed a corner deep into his back pocket and got a spade. It was not a question of finding the right spot. The orchard was, for the cat, an extension of the barn—a good place to hunt mice and moles. Hewitt laid the cat on the burlap sacking and dug a good deep hole, the black dirt coming easy and then wrapped the cat and settled him down in the hole. “Catch a mouse, old fella,” he said and with his hands pushed enough dirt back into the hole to cover him and then used the spade to finish the job. Last thing he set the chunk of sod back into place and lightly
tamped it with his feet. Then wiped his hands on his jeans and carried the spade back to the barn.

  Once back outside he looked around at the day. It was an exquisite day, a fine day to die, he decided. For an old cat a much better one than some frozen winter morning.

  He went to the house and washed his hands. The house smelled of laundry soap and the triple lines above the flower gardens were billowing with sheets. The table was set with plates holding thick tuna sandwiches. Glasses of ice water and a bowl of bread and butter pickles.

  She said, “I figured if we were going to buck wood we needed a big lunch.”

  He sat and ate a pickle. He said, “This is great.”

  She was in the heavy boots and work clothes she’d bought when she was working for Roger Bolton. Her gloves lay on the edge of the table.

  She took a bite of her sandwich and still chewing said, “Good morning?”

  He took his own bite and chewed slowly and swallowed. Then said, “I got something worked out I’ve been stewing over.”

  She ate a pickle and drank water and said, “What were you doing up in the apple trees?”

  He told her.

  She put down her sandwich and said, “Oh, Hewitt.”

  “He was an old cat. He’d a good life.”

  After a long moment she said, “And you feel like you ignored him most of the time.”