Dinner was a silent affair; only the sound of cutlery on the plates broke the stillness. The girls seemed to sense the tension between their parents. They hurried through their dinner, heads bent over their food, and then asked to be excused. Ben had made a mess of the food on his plate, and June picked him up out of his high chair to give him his bath and put him to bed. As soon as she’d left the kitchen John stood up and began to clear the table. For once June didn’t call down to him to leave everything for her to do later.
He could hear the sounds of the television coming from the living room, but he didn’t join the girls. He sat at the kitchen table and lit his pipe and watched the light outside fade into dusk.
“Should the girls be spending so much time in front of the TV?” John asked when June finally came downstairs. “They should be out getting some fresh air.” He spoke up as much to break the silence in the room as to get back on an even keel with June.
“It’s awfully muggy out for them to be out running around. Evie’s tired anyway from being at Betty’s all morning. And Claire’s been looking pale so I wanted her to rest. TV won’t hurt them. It’s harmless as long as they don’t sit too close and ruin their eyes. I’ve noticed Claire squinting lately. Maybe I should take her over to Dr. Billings and see if she needs glasses. Maybe it’s bad eyesight that’s caused her. . . problems.”
“Maybe, but the doctors didn’t think so when she had all those tests.”
“Well. Doctors. They don’t always know everything.” June’s manner was still cool. She sat at the kitchen table, her body angled away from John, and lit a cigarette.
Out of the corner of his eye, John studied the slope of her shoulders. She blew smoke out of her mouth and stared off into space. She seemed to have retreated once again into a world of her own. A tiny smile tilted the corners of her mouth and then just as quickly, it died away. June had just put Ben down for the night, but something must have woken him and now he started to cry. She sighed and started to get up from the chair.
“Let me get him,” John said. “He’s probably just hot. Why don’t you go out and get some air, maybe stop over at Emma’s. Jimmy’s probably sound asleep by now, I bet she’d like the company.”
June looked up, surprised. “All right. You don’t mind seeing to Ben? A stroll might be a good idea.” She smoothed down her dress and checked her face in the small powder compact she kept in her purse.
John went up the back stairs, calling to Ben in a sing-song voice. Ben quieted down and John entered the small alcove where Ben’s crib was jammed under the eaves. He reached in and picked up his son and held his hot body against his shoulder.
“Hey, buddy. Having a bad dream?”
Ben rubbed his fists against his eyes and John carried him into the bathroom to give him a drink of water. He heard the screen door close softly. June going out. She’d been taking a lot of walks lately in the evening, going off by herself to get some air. She never said where she went, but the exercise seemed to do her good. She always came home with a flush in her cheeks and a quiet, faraway look in her eyes.
Ben had fallen asleep on his shoulder. John lay him down gently in his crib and smoothed the damp hair away from his forehead. The sounds of the television drifted upward. Better go tell the girls to turn it down a bit, he thought. He was glad to be home alone with the children. It reminded him of the one evening a week in the winter when June would go out to play bridge. A different feeling settled over the house then. The children seemed more relaxed, the rules less rigid. He wasn’t as strict about bedtimes as June was. The girls would tussle and giggle on the living room rug, their shrieks ringing off the walls. June was always after them to keep the noise down.
John descended the stairs, humming under his breath. Whatever June’s misgivings were, he was confident in his new assistant. After the way he saw Emerson working today, he was sure the two of them would finish the boat on time. He couldn’t wait to work on her tomorrow. Soon he and Emerson would find their own rhythm like he and Jack once had and they wouldn’t even have to talk or tell each other what to do. Each would complement the other and they would move around the boat in an elaborate ballet, sculpting something of beauty. John could picture the finished boat sitting in the water, the hull gleaming white, the sun glancing off the brass fittings and varnished wood, old Benson Sandhurst at the helm in a yachting cap and white trousers, puffing on an expensive cigar.
In the living room he sneaked up behind the girls and tickled their feet. They shrieked with laughter, begging him to stop. Then he remembered, guiltily, that Ben was asleep and, playing the stern father, stopped his tomfoolery and asked them to turn the television down.
8
A storm blew up out of nowhere, turning the sky fierce and black. It had been blowing hard since last night and Claire stood in the protection of the front porch to watch the rain pummel the dunes. The downpour flattened the grass and the wind whipped the branches of the pines behind the house. Power lines hummed as lightening flashed and a crack of thunder shook the earth. A woman was running down the lane toward the house, her wet dress flapping around her legs, her hair stuck to the sides of her face. As she came closer Claire recognized her mother’s friend, Mrs. Sanders. She ran up the front steps and stood in front of Claire, shivering like a dog, dripping wet, trying to catch her breath.
“Is your father here?” Emma said in little gasps. “I need to speak to him.” She called in through the screen door. “June? Is John here? Jimmy and Robbie are still out on the boat. They didn’t come back last night. Jimmy would never stay out in a storm like this. I need John to alert the Coast Guard.”
June came out onto the porch. “Emma, you’re a sight. Jimmy’s still out there? I wouldn’t worry. It’s just a summer storm. It’ll blow over in a while. Jimmy would radio for help if he got into trouble. He knows how to sit tight and ride out a storm. Come on into the house and get out of those wet clothes.”
June led Emma into the house and Claire tagged along behind them. She was excited by the storm and the heightened sense of drama. Nothing interesting had happened for a long time. The wind continued to lash the trees and the rain churned the ground into mud. There was no sign of the storm letting up. Claire could only imagine how the ocean looked – like a boiling cauldron with giant waves pounding the jetty and the shore. If only she could get out of her mother’s sight long enough to run out into the yard to feel the rain beat down on her skin and the hair rise on the back of her neck as lightening streaked through the sky.
In the kitchen, dressed in a pair of her mother’s slacks and a pink cardigan, Mrs. Sanders perched on the edge of a chair, gray faced, smoking one cigarette after another, the ash dropping onto the table in her distraction. She did not seem to notice that June was just as distracted as she was, getting up often to pace the kitchen, and pausing to stare out the window at Stone cottage. The two women sat like this for a long time, smoking and drinking coffee and talking in low voices, while Claire hovered in the background.
Her father did not come home and Claire was sure he was still down at the boatyard, making certain that everything was secure and that his own boat, the Evening Star, was safe. He’d lost his first boat three years ago in a storm like this one, when he’d thought it wasn’t severe enough to do any damage. Her mooring had broken loose and she’d been smashed up on the rocks of the jetty. So Claire knew this time he would want to be sure that nothing happened.
It wasn’t until late afternoon that the wind began to die down and the rain slowed to a drizzle. The sun broke through the clouds for a moment before disappearing again and except for the sodden flowers and puddles in the lane it was hard to tell there’d been a storm at all. Mrs. Sanders left the house and headed down to the harbor to wait for her husband’s boat to come in. Claire figured she would go over to Dot’s Coffee Shop and sit with the other wives, talking their worry over cups of coffee and pieces of pie. Her father would probably stop in at O’Malley’s to talk with the other men abou
t the storm that had just passed, and other storms they had weathered, the waves getting higher and the wind fiercer with each telling.
Outside on the front porch, Claire sniffed the air. It felt cooler and was charged with the smell of ozone. The rain had washed away the heat. She ran out in her bare feet and waded through the puddles, squishing her toes in the mud before running on the grass to clean them off. June opened the doors and windows to let the cooler air blow through the house and, now that it was dry, she hauled the laundry basket out into the yard to hang up the sheets. Claire looked over at Stone cottage. Paul Hutchinson was out on the porch, swinging idly around the banister. She wandered down the lane, pretending to be looking for early blackberries.
“Pretty good storm, huh?”
Claire looked up at Paul, surprised he had spoken. “Yeah, it was okay. Not as big as some I’ve seen, but it was a good one.”
“Did you see the streaked lighting? I wanted to go outside with a key and a kite like Benjamin Franklin, but she wouldn’t let me.” Paul made a face in the direction of the front door.
“Who, your mother?”
“Yeah. Who else?”
Claire shrugged. “My mother’s like that too. If we’re in the bathtub and it even looks like it might rain, she yells at us to get out quick and dry off. Tells the same story over and over again about this girl she knew at school who was killed by lightning while taking a bath.”
“Ben Franklin didn’t get struck by lightning. He discovered electricity.”
“Maybe that’s just a story, that thing about the key and the kite. Maybe it didn’t really happen that way.”
Paul scowled. “Sure it did. I’ve got these books, a whole set, on the lives of the great inventors. Franklin, Edison, Alexander Graham Bell. That’s what I’m going to be when I’m older. An inventor. I’m going to study engineering at MIT.”
“What’s MIT?”
“A college. In Boston. But you’ve got to be really smart to go there, so I study as much as I can.”
“Is that what you do inside the house all day, study?
“Sure.”
Claire smiled. “Me too. Sometimes. Mostly under the covers at night with a flashlight. I like math. It’s my best subject at school, but my mother’s afraid that I’ll hurt my brain if I study too much and that if I’m good at math, boys won’t want to go on dates with me when I’m older.”
“You like math?” Paul grinned. “I’ve got some books you can borrow if you want. All kinds of games and puzzles. There’s some really neat stuff in them.”
“Okay. Can you come out? I can show you this great place back in the dunes where I like to hang out. You can hide out where no one can see you and just think about things. Go on, ask your mother.” Claire appraised Paul as he stood hesitating on the front porch. She was surprised to find out he liked so many of the same things she did. Maybe getting to know him wouldn’t be such a bad idea after all.
Paul’s face darkened. He had a funny cowlick that bobbed when he talked. “I’m not sure she’ll let me. My mother worries a lot. She thinks if I’m out of her sight I’ll keel over and die.” Paul clutched his throat and bulged out his eyes.
Claire laughed. “Just go ask her, maybe she’ll let you this time.
Paul turned and entered the house. He was in there for a long time and Claire could hear two voices, one high and plaintive, the other low and mumbling and tried to imagine what Paul’s mother was saying to him. At last the screen door opened and Paul bounded out, his face shining in triumph. “She says I can go. Let’s get out of here before she changes her mind.” He bounded down the porch steps and started running down the lane ahead of Claire.
“Hey! Wait up. You don’t even know the way.” She ran to catch up with him and they walked side by side back into the dunes and through the scrubby forest of pine, chattering all the while about school and their teachers and Paul’s best friend back in New York and about the storm, and other storms they had seen and everything else that came into their heads.
When they were well out of sight and shouting range of Stone cottage, Paul slowed his pace and scuffed his feet in the sandy soil. Small pine cones lay scattered on the ground and he gathered them up and tossed them at the trunks of trees. He mostly missed and Claire felt like teasing him, but she kept quiet. It wasn’t his fault that he lived in a city. She led him through the pine forest and out to the other side of the point and down to the beach where the rollers were coming in high and strong in the wake of the storm. Making their way down the beach, they kept their heads bents, searching for agates and sea glass and interesting shells, or anything else the storm might have washed up. They walked and walked, farther than Claire had been in a long time. She liked Paul’s company. He didn’t talk that much, didn’t try to take charge and lead the way, or tell her what to do and what to think about things the way other boys did. She told him the names of plants and trees and wildflowers and he listened thoughtfully, his brow furrowed like a grown up, his gaze turned inward and she could almost see the wheels spinning in his brain as he digested and stored this information.
When they reached the end of the beach, their pockets sagging with rocks and shells, they turned inland and crept along a trail into one of the bogs, pretending they were Russian Spies. Claire pointed out the poison ivy they should avoid and told Paul how in the fall the place was swathed bright red by the cranberries that grew in the bogs.
They crept through the tangled undergrowth and, on impulse, Claire led Paul down a narrower path that skirted the beach. A hundred yards in there was a clearing and in the middle of it stood a small fisherman’s hut.
“Hey, this is great,” Paul said, bounding past her and peering in the windows.
Claire, playing it cool, wasn’t impressed. “These are all over the place. Fishermen use them to store their gear. It’s probably locked.”
“Not this one.” Paul pulled open the door and peered into the gloom.
Claire gazed over his shoulder, waiting for her eyes to adjust to the light. It looked like someone had been there recently. A table and two chairs were set up at the far end of the hut. A half burned candle stood upright in an old saucer. Cigarette butts, some stained with bright pink lipstick, were heaped in a giant scallop shell. Claire walked into the hut and sat down on one of the chairs. She looked at the cigarette butts and the half-burned candle and the bunch of dried wildflowers in a Mason jar. On a shelf in the back of a hut a blanket was carefully folded, and a rolled up rug leaned against the back wall.
“It doesn’t look like a fisherman’s hut to me,” Paul said. “There’s no fishing gear here.”
Claire was silent. She didn’t know what to think. She felt as if they were trespassing, somehow, as if they had stumbled upon something they weren’t supposed to know about. She sniffed and thought she could smell the faint odor of stale perfume, under the pervasive odor of damp and salt that permeated the wood of the hut. “Maybe we shouldn’t hang around in here.” Claire allowed the door of the hut to bang close. “Maybe these people will come back,” she said, eyeing the cigarette butts.
“Not much to see anyway,” Paul agreed. “Let’s walk back along the beach. I’ve got a pretty good collection of rocks, but I wouldn’t mind getting a few more.” He jiggled the stones in his pocket and looked down at his feet. “I have to be back by six for dinner anyway.”
Claire made a face, but decided not to tease. She knew what it was like to have an over-protective mother. When she thought about it, she and Paul were more or less in the same boat. She felt sorry for Paul having a mother like that. Even though Claire hadn’t seen much of Mrs. Hutchinson, whenever she did, she seemed to be scowling. Her own mother nagged a lot, but most of the time she was nice about it, even if the niceness had a ‘for your own good’ air about it. And lately, Claire noticed her mother seemed happier, going around the house smiling and humming while she cleaned.
They pushed their way through the scrub pines and down the dunes to the beach.
Paul was quieter now and walked with his head down looking for stones. Claire wondered if he really was sick, or delicate, as she’d heard her mother say. He was small for a boy of thirteen, Evie was certainly taller than he was and his skin was pale, with faint blue shadows under his eyes, as if he rarely got out in the sun. But she liked him, better than she thought she would. He was funny and liked math and had something wrong with his health, all things they had in common. Maybe sometime she would tell him about her epilepsy, say the dreaded, forbidden word out loud, shout it into the wind. Something about Paul made her think he would understand and she wouldn’t feel so alone.
They walked along the beach, kicking the driftwood and seaweed washed up by the storm in search of interesting rocks, even though Claire had lost interest in collecting.
When she looked up, Paul was staring hard at the water.
“What are you looking at?”
“Nothing.” He shrugged. “My dad says there might be Russian subs out there, patrolling the coast, spying on us. The government’s asked people to keep a look out.”
“Russian subs!” Claire snorted. “Why would they come here? We haven’t got anything they’d want.”
“I dunno. It’s just what my dad said. So I was looking, you know, for the periscopes.” He drew a picture in the air with his hands.
Claire looked out over the calm water of the inlet and the ocean beyond. The swell was going down now and there was nothing to see but the water moving up and down in long undulating waves, like the rippling back of a slow-moving serpent. “We’d better go back,” Claire said authoritatively, looking at the position of the sun. “It’s getting late.”
Yours Until Morning Page 8