Yours Until Morning

by Patricia Masar

  June smiled. “I don’t know New York very well. I’m from Boston,” she said. “My mother still lives there, although I think she’s wanted to move ever since my father passed away.” June blushed, feeling foolish for babbling. No need to mention she hadn’t spoken to her mother in years.

  Richard stepped down off the porch and stood next to her on the grass. He was tall and slender man with neatly clipped sandy brown hair. June couldn’t tell what color his eyes were. Dark, she thought, although it was hard to say. She could smell the sea air in his clothes, the tang of aftershave.

  “Care for a smoke?” Richard held out a pack of cigarettes.

  June hesitated for a moment and shook her head. “Thank you. But you go ahead.” The match flared and June looked at his eyes. Brown. Like chestnuts.

  He smoked his cigarette in silence. She didn’t know what else to say and began to feel foolish standing there. “I guess I’d better go in now,” June said. But she didn’t turn to leave.

  Richard dropped his half-smoked cigarette on the ground and tamped it out with this foot. “Well. Good night then.”

  “Give my regards to your wife. She stopped by the other day. We had such a nice chat. Please tell her she can drop by again any time.” June smiled uncertainly. She turned to go, walking back slowly in the damp grass that tickled her feet. But once back inside her kitchen she didn’t turn on the light. She stood at the window in the darkened room, watching Richard’s shadowed profile. He hadn’t gone inside yet, was still standing out on the lawn, his hands stuffed in his pockets, his head tilted back. She couldn’t see what he was doing. Looking at the stars, listening to the chirp of insects? He didn’t seem to be in any hurry to meet his wife in town.

  On the other side of the screen a firefly glowed briefly and disappeared. June raised her hand to her throat to feel for the pulse in her neck. The fireworks had ended quite some time ago. John and the girls would be home any minute. She watched Richard a little while longer, studying the line of his back and shoulders, the gleam of starlight on his hair. All she could hear was her own breathing and the faint whirr of crickets. At last she moved away from the window and went upstairs to get ready for bed.

  5

  Five in the afternoon and O’Malley’s was packed to the rafters and filled with smoke. The blue fish were running and the catch was up. The men who made their living from the sea were riding high, flashing dollars, buying rounds of drinks for the house. John hoisted himself onto a bar stool next to a man who worked at the fish cannery. They nodded to each other and John ordered a whiskey, shouting over the raucous laughter coming from the tables in the back. Dan O’Malley, poured out John’s drink and winked as he set it down on the bar. “Bottoms up.”

  John swirled the golden liquid in his glass and swallowed.

  Through the late afternoon and into the evening, he drank with the fishermen and dock workers and the men from the cannery in boozy camaraderie. They cheerfully downed glasses of whiskey and beer, slapping the empties back on the bar for a refill. John drank just as hard as the rest of them, except it wasn’t whiskey in his glass, but caramel-colored water. That John was a teetotaler was one of the best kept secrets in town.

  Years ago when he’d first moved to Lockport he’d struck a deal with Dan O’Malley that he would do all the repairs on his brother’s boat for free if Dan promised to fill his glass from a whiskey bottle filled with colored water instead of the real thing. As far as he knew, no one had ever caught on. It wasn’t always easy to pull off though. Sometimes Dan couldn’t switch the bottles without anybody noticing so he poured John a real glass of whiskey, which John nursed in his hand until Dan could change glasses. The bar was always dark and smoky and the men were usually too drunk to notice or care what anybody was drinking. John had guessed long ago that it was more his presence in the bar from time to time that counted with the men. His small deception about the whiskey wasn’t hurting anyone.

  Growing up in an Irish neighborhood in Pittsburgh in the shadow of a steel mill, John hated what alcohol had done to the men who worked at the mill. His own father would come home drunk every Friday and Saturday night, crashing around downstairs, knocking over furniture, yelling for John’s mother. She had learned to lock her door on those nights, to cover her ears and ignore the pounding and shouting, until finally he’d give up and stumble off, more often than not, collapsing on the staircase landing and sleeping where he fell.

  It was the drink, his mother would tell him, an insidious poison that turned his father into a raging beast. All during his growing up years she admonished John never to touch alcohol, that if he did, he would turn into a no-good drunk like his father.

  “Never trust an Irishman who doesn’t drink,” his father countered, tempting John again and again with glasses of whiskey and bottles of beer from the time he turned sixteen. John had always refused to touch a drop and the stink of whiskey on his father’s breath was enough of a warning for him to hold his ground.

  When he moved to Lockport, a town so small that everybody’s business was known to all, he realized right away that to be accepted he’d have to spend some time every week down at O’Malley’s Bar where the fishermen and dock workers hung out. Along with building a reputation for fairness and skill, he badly needed the business contacts.

  Drinking glass after glass of ‘whiskey’ was a small deception that was worth the risk when he thought about all the friends he’d made over the years. “Hey, Kerry,” the others called as they spotted him at the bar. They slapped him on the back and inquired about his family. He’d worked for almost fifteen years to build a reputation as one of the best boat builders on the Cape and he wasn’t about to ruin it by letting on that he was deceiving them, that he stayed stone cold sober for hours on end, while everyone around him grew louder and more boisterous, breaking out in raucous laughter, sliding from their bar stools and onto the floor in drunken glee.

  John turned to the man next to him. “Are you fellas still on strike over there or did you convince those fat cats to up your wages?”

  The man grinned morosely. “We’re back at work. Three days it took of back and forth. Didn’t get all we wanted, but it was something. Can’t ask for anything these days, can’t hold a union meeting without people saying you’re a Commie. So we got what we could.” He turned laconically back to his drink and John thought for a minute about what he said.

  “Sometimes I think everyone’s gone crazy. Did you see in the paper, they’re asking for volunteers to keep an eye out for Russian subs. As if they’d be aiming their missiles at Lockport.”

  The man grunted. “I saw it. Everything’s Commie this, Red that. We beat the Ruskies out of Cuba. They’re not going to risk it again. What in hell’s name would they want up here?” He turned back to his drink again as if not expecting, or not interested in, an answer.

  John saw Jimmy Sanders coming toward him through the smoky air, holding a tankard of beer.

  “How’s the charter business?” Jimmy said, slapping him on the back and sliding his sinewy, sun-baked body onto the next stool.

  “Not too bad this year. People are feeling pretty good, ready to spend their money now that all that Cuban mess is out of the way.”

  “It’s a good year is right,” Jimmy said, taking a pull of his beer. “Blue fish are so thick on the water, you can practically walk across their backs from here to Nantucket.”

  John smiled. Jimmy always had a way with words. He talked with gestures, drawing pictures in the air, waving his work-scarred hands in vast circles.

  “How’s that fancy boat coming?”

  “So far, so good. I hope there’s no hard feelings about my not working on your rig. I can do the repairs in September.”

  “No problem. It was minor stuff anyway and we’re doing okay for now. Hey, I saw your little girl the other day. Evie? She sure is getting pretty. You’ll want to watch that one. Boys must be swarming around her like bees in a hive.”

  John looked away, embarr
assed. Jimmy was an old friend. He didn’t like the idea of him looking at his daughter that way.

  “We missed you on the Fourth. Did you go out of town?” John said.

  “Emma’s mother wanted us to go over to her place for the fireworks. Claims Winnemanette puts on a better show than Lockport. So we took the kids on up there. Just as well, keeps them away from their friends and out of trouble.”

  “Isn’t Robbie going out on the boat with you now?”

  “Some days. I’m trying to whip some sense into him. He’s fourteen, old enough to do a man’s job on the boat, although Emma doesn’t like it. Thinks I’m working him too hard.”

  Jimmy stood up unsteadily. “Getcha another drink?” His face was red from the heat and the beer.

  John shook his head. “I’d better be off. June’s waiting.”

  Jimmy gave him a commiserating glance, as if the only thing standing between them and drinking till dawn were their wives waiting at home. “Give that wife of yours a kiss for me,” Jimmy said.

  John watched as Jimmy staggered off toward the bar to get another beer before getting up and sliding out the back so he wouldn’t get trapped in any more conversations. He’d been feeling tired lately, out of sorts. Sandhurst’s boat was taking up all his time and energy. He couldn’t remember the last time he’d worked such long, hard hours and for the first time in a long time he wasn’t much interested in the company of his fellows.

  He slid behind the wheel of his truck and twisted the ignition, but nothing happened. Just a whirring sound and a dull click. He tried again and again, turning the starter fast and hard, then delicately. He slid out of the truck and pulled up the hood. It was probably the distributor, John thought, reaching in to wiggle the wires. The engine was filthy and coated with grease. Time for an overhaul, he thought slamming the hood back down. He’d been neglecting a lot of other things lately with Sandhurst’s boat keeping him busy day and night. He left the truck parked at the back of O’Malley’s and began to walk home. It was six-thirty and he’d be late for dinner now. One more reason for June to be upset with him. Lately, it seemed, he hadn’t been able to do anything right. She was so often fretful and unhappy, worried about Claire, but he refused to believe his daughter would be sick forever. The doctors said she would most likely get better when she went through puberty. June didn’t trust the doctors, but John chose to believe them. She’d also mentioned that she was having problems with Ben, but John couldn’t see what the trouble was. Ben seemed happy to him, a normal child. So he wasn’t talking up a storm yet. All babies were different and Ben would start talking when he was good and ready.

  He was happy to have a son. He had wanted more children after the girls were born, but because June had been so miserable during the pregnancy, her slender body swelling up like a blowfish, he hadn’t pressured her about having any more. Ben had been a surprise addition to the family, a delightful one, and John hoped as he grew older to interest him in boats and the sea. That Ben might want to take over the business, was a dream John kept buried in the back of his mind, blooming like a hothouse flower sometimes when he thought about the sign he’d put over the entrance to the boat yard. Kerrigan & Son.

  The sun was lower in the sky now, casting the soft light of early evening over the land. The ocean was calm with only a gentle surf dumping waves on the beach. It was John’s favorite time of day when the long hours of work were behind him and he felt filled up with a sense of accomplishment. He had worked hard all day on Sandhurst’s boat, constantly aware of the race against the clock. He was going to finish the boat by the derby if it killed him. But two days ago Jack had up and left as he’d been threatening to do and John knew he’d better find an assistant soon or he’d never finish the boat on time, not on his own. He didn’t know what had gotten into Jack, just taking off for Florida like that, but knowing Jack, there was probably a woman involved.

  At least the bonus money was something to strive for. Like the rest of the country he finally felt he was entering a period of increased prosperity. He and June had struggled in the last few years, forgoing some of the modern appliances and conveniences that other people had. But two years ago they had bought their first television, and even though it was only a second-hand one, John had felt a kind of peace settling in his bones that he was able to afford something like that. Except for Claire’s affliction, which he thought June made too much of, his children were healthy, his business was good. They had a roof over their heads and enough to eat. A man couldn’t want much more than that and he was happy.

  Even though he was late for dinner, the evening was so inviting, the air so rich with the smell of honeysuckle and wild roses that John took the long route home, walking along the backside of the beach and then over the rickety wooden bridge that spanned the inlet to the marsh, relishing the quiet, the sound of shore birds twittering in the dusk. When he turned into the lane and saw his house with the kitchen light burning, he felt a tremendous expansion in his chest, a sense that all was well, that all he cared about in the world was housed under that roof, a solid house he’d insulated and caulked against the strongest winter winds.

  “You’re awfully late,” June said, as he came in through the kitchen door. “I was getting worried.”

  “The truck broke down. I had to walk home and it was such a nice evening, I took the long way.”

  “I’ve already fed the girls.”

  June stood at the sink, her back turned, rinsing the pots and pans. He leaned over to peck her cheek, but before he could make contact with her skin, she turned her head.

  John sighed. She was in one of her moods tonight. Maybe she’d gone over to Hammett Mills with a girlfriend to look at the appliances at Lane’s. Whenever she did that she would come home frustrated and cross. He knew she was desperate for a new washing machine and he had been planning to surprise her for her birthday this year, but whenever he looked at the prices, his throat clenched up at the expense. Even if he paid in installments it would be near impossible. If the charter business was good this year and he got the bonus from Sandhurst he’d be able to put aside a little extra and get her that Maytag she wanted and maybe even a new Electrolux. The cord on their old vacuum cleaner was frayed and he had already fixed it twice, but June wouldn’t let the girls use it for fear they would electrocute themselves.

  “How was your day?” John asked, getting two plates out of the cupboard.

  “I’ll do that,” June said taking the dishes from his hands. “My day? Fine. The usual.”

  “Where are the girls?”

  “Watching television.”

  It was a muggy night with no breeze. June set out plates of food and poured them both glasses of iced tea.

  “Oh, by the way,” she said, there’s a hole in the screen above the sink. I put a piece of tape over it, but maybe you can take a look at it after dinner. The mosquitoes have been fierce lately.”

  John took his place and tucked a napkin into his collar. “This is good,” he said, starting in on the casserole. It was a bit dry, but he always made a point of praising June’s cooking, no matter what.

  “It was better an hour ago. It’s a bit dried out now.”

  In the silence of the kitchen, John could hear the murmur of the television set and the symphony of crickets in the tall grass outside. He sneaked glances at his wife. She seemed paler than usual. There were little blue smudges under her eyes and her hair, usually so neat, was in disarray, a few damp curls had sprung their bobby pins and lay along her neck.

  “You’re not sick are you?” John asked. “You look a little pale.”

  “It’s this heat,” June said, patting her mouth with the napkin. “I’ve put the fan in the girls’ bedroom so they’ll be able to sleep tonight. If we’re lucky we’ll get a little breeze. I sometimes wonder if it wouldn’t be better to move closer to the water. It’s always so hot back in here.”

  John said nothing. Every year about this time, June would suggest that it would be nicer if they co
uld move closer to the water, that the house was too small and too hot up on the second floor where they slept under the eaves. But they couldn’t possibly afford to move closer to the water. Besides, John liked living back in the dunes, away from the tourists and the summer people. His house was his own private haven, a welcome retreat after dealing with the charter customers all weekend long.

  “I’ve got someone coming over from the Oak Bluffs tomorrow to interview as my assistant,” John said. He’d been frantically searching for someone else to help him ever since Jack up and quit. “Those other two men I talked to didn’t seem quite up to the job. This man sounds like he’s got the right amount of experience.”

  “Mmh. That’s good. I’d hate to think we’re going to lose that bonus.”

  They ate the rest of the meal in silence. As soon as they were finished June stood up to clear the plates. “Why don’t we take our dessert out onto the front porch. There might be a breeze now. I made an angel food cake today.”

  “Shall I carry it out?”

  “No, I’ll do it.” June reached up to tuck a stray curl into place. She repositioned the bobby pins in her hair and smoothed the wrinkles out of the skirt of her dress.

  John stood idly in the kitchen, wishing he could help her in some way, not just with the household tasks, but with her mood. Maybe he should suggest she see a doctor. Perhaps she was low on iron or had some other minor ailment that plagued women. He wanted to kiss her closed eyelids the way he’d done when they’d first met, meet the warm pucker of her lips with his own. But she was so far away, so withdrawn into herself, he had no idea how to reach her.

  “Why don’t you go on out and light a mosquito coil. I’ll be out with the cake in a minute.”

  John turned to leave the kitchen, but he kept his ears pricked for the sound of ice clinking in a glass, of a bottle being opened. He wasn’t sure, but lately he thought she had taken to pouring vodka into her iced tea. A few weeks ago he’d found a bottle stashed in the back of the kitchen cupboard. She seemed so dazed and distracted lately, lost in a place he had never been, that he could only blame it on drink. It was a worrying development, but he didn’t know what to do about it.