Anxious Hearts

by Tucker Shaw

  This time she’s only gone for a minute or so, and when she checks back in, she checks in hard.

  “Where has he gone?” she says, suddenly full of energy, her blazing blue eyes drilling into mine urgently. “Where is he?”

  “Who?”

  “Gabriel!” She’s almost shouting, scolding me. “Where has he gone?”

  I wonder if I could get away with pretending that I don’t know what she’s talking about. I’m trying to forget Gabe. But I answer her.

  “I don’t know, Ada. He is gone. He left a year and a half ago. You remember. I haven’t seen him since. No one has. You know that.”

  Ada leans back in her chair. “Water,” she says, and I bring it to her. I lie down on her bed.

  Ada begins to tell me the story of her husband, her own Gabriel, her Lawrence, who served in World War II and Korea and returned home with honors, only to disappear in a nor’easter during a fishing voyage off the coast. They never found his body. Ada tells me about his funeral, and about how she never believed him to be dead, and how she never went a day without hoping he would come home and they would be together again. “Believing he’d come back is what has made my life worth living,” she says. “He has not been here for over thirty years. But he’s been here.” She puts her hand on her chest and inhales slowly before whispering, “Forever.”

  When she finishes, I am not sure if I am asleep or awake for several minutes. I just lie on the bed and breathe.

  “You must find him,” Ada finally says.

  “How?”

  “I don’t know, my dear. But where your heart has gone, so must your hand. It is the only way.” She closes her eyes.

  After a minute or so, I sit up at the edge of the bed. I say, “I tried, Ada. But he’s gone.”

  Ada’s chin falls to her chest with a sigh, and her breathing slows. It must be naptime.

  “And I have a life to lead,” I mumble to myself, propping up Ada’s head with a pillow.

  Gabriel

  ONCE MORE, GABRIEL AWOKE WITH A START JUST before drowning in his dream.

  But this time, all wasn’t silent when he awoke.

  An argument was in the air outside his prison. Gabriel could hear it through the window slit in the earthen wall. Three voices, maybe four, were talking over one another in a swell of heated speech, each voice louder and more urgent in succession. They spoke and shouted, one after the other and one over the other, in the language of his captors, familiar in cadence but unintelligible.

  As the bickering continued, a new voice soared over the others, silencing all the rest. Gabriel sprung to his feet. It had been nineteen months, and he didn’t recognize the words, but Gabriel knew the booming voice.

  Basil.

  Gabriel jumped up and looked through the window slit but couldn’t see anyone, only prairie grass and clouds. The voices had been coming from around the corner. “Father!” he yelled.

  The voices outside fell silent.

  Gabriel pressed his face into the opening. “Father!”

  “Gabriel!” shouted Basil. The voices rose again, all of them more frenzied now, but Basil bellowed louder than the others, interspersing his own language with theirs, layering word over word in ways that defied precision but, as Basil delivered them, were unmistakable and clear: Open the door and release my son.

  “Gabriel! Attend, my son!” he roared. “Are you injured?”

  “I am safe, Father,” Gabriel yelled back. “I am unharmed.”

  Gabriel could picture Basil’s veins popping on his neck, his eyes wide and tense, the corners of his mouth lathered. He spoke low now, careful and direct, with exceptional force. Gabriel understood none of the words, but they were powerful enough, and Basil’s tone was powerful enough, to silence the others.

  Soon, the door to Gabriel’s earthen cell began to rattle, and then it swung open violently. Light poured in, and just as on the last day of Pré-du-sel, Gabriel was blinded for a moment. He shrunk away from the door and crumpled against the wall, shielding his eyes from the onslaught of light.

  “My son!” Basil said. “You are alive.” He stepped down into the dark, earthen room. “Come. Where have you been? What took you so long to get here?”

  “Father,” Gabriel said. “I cannot see. The light.”

  Basil grasped Gabriel under his arms, drawing him up to his feet. “Come, Gabriel.”

  Gabriel rubbed his eyes as his vision crept back. He stepped through the doorway and out onto the grass, which stretched to every horizon. Blinking, squinting, he looked around for the other men, but there was no one else there. Only Basil.

  He turned back to his father. “Where have they gone?”

  Basil, whose hair had gone from black to gray but whose arms were perhaps even more powerful than before, stood before his son in dusty gaiters and a worn doublet of deerskin, and regarded him head to heel. “My son,” he said, shaking his head at Gabriel’s tattered breeches and road-worn shoes. He stepped forward and embraced Gabriel with a powerful, breath-stealing grip. “They have gone.”

  “Who are they?” said Gabriel.

  “It doesn’t matter. They have gone. We are alone now. They will require a fee, of course.”

  “A fee?”

  “A fine, I should say.”

  “A fine? For the rabbit?”

  “Nay. Not for the rabbit. For trespassing,” he said. “They’ve requested four pelts and a barrel of cider. But I’ll wait them out and barter them down to just a barrel of cider. They’ll accept. They need me. I’m the only one in these provinces who knows how to shoe a horse.” Basil tossed back his hair and laughed heartily. “You do remember how to press cider, yes?”

  “Who are they?” Gabriel asked again, and more forcefully. “Tell me, Father. I have a right to know. Tell me now! Who are my captors?”

  Basil regarded Gabriel sternly, then spoke slowly to his now-grown son, nineteen months and a lifetime wiser than before. “Only trappers,” he said, “from the north. Their villages, too, were burned by the New Colonists. They have hardly any land, and you were on it.”

  “How do you know their language?”

  “I don’t,” Basil said, dismissing the thought with a lordly shrug.

  “But,” Gabriel said, “they listened to you.”

  “They think I’m important, Gabriel, because I act important.” Basil smiled. He boosted Gabriel onto his horse and, taking the reins, walked triumphantly upstream toward the river, leading the horse and quarry behind him. “Come. I will lead you home. It’s just a short distance,” Basil said. “Along the riverbank.”

  The white-blue sky was everywhere, unbroken by tree or hillside. Gabriel sat rigid in Basil’s saddle and watched it through jostled eyes as the towering clouds glided silently by.

  “Evangeline,” Gabriel said.

  “What?”

  “She is there, too?”

  Basil did not answer right away, but Gabriel also did not repeat himself. He knew that Basil had heard the question.

  “You must forget her, Gabriel. Your future is here, with us. We are building anew. We will build, and we will multiply. Our defiance will be our language, our ways. They can move us, but we will persevere. We must. It is our only path. We must stay together.”

  “Evangeline.” Gabriel’s voice caught in his throat.

  “My son,” Basil said.

  “I must find her.”

  “Gabriel. This land seems foreign to you, remote. But we are not so far away. Only five days from here, at the mouth of this river, the Lesser River, lies the port of Vieux Manan, where the New Colonists have assembled to fortify their garrisons. Once again, they seek to destroy us, to disperse us. We must prepare to defend ourselves against them, to protect our adopted land. We cannot allow ourselves to be evicted again. We have formed an alliance with the northern territories. Gabriel. We will fight.”

  Gabriel shook his head. “I must find her, Father.”

  Basil drew in a sharp breath as if to bellow, but he w
as silent. For several minutes, neither man said a word—not father, not son.

  Finally, Basil broke the silence. “Evangeline is not important, Gabriel. Your place is here,” Basil said. “You cannot go to find her. It is a reckless errand, dangerous and costly. And you are needed by your people. Honor is a higher calling than love, my Cadian son.”

  “She is my wife.”

  “No, Gabriel. She is not. You have been counted among the dead, along with Benedict Bellefontaine. You have been but a ghost to the Cadian people, a memory, a lost soul. And to Evangeline.” Basil’s tone was grave. “She has chosen another, and her wedding day is nigh, if not already passed.”

  “Impossible,” Gabriel protested. “You lie.”

  “I do not lie, Gabriel. Evangeline is to marry Jean-Baptiste Leblanc in the city of Vieux Manan. Michael the fiddler brought the news when he arrived a fortnight ago.”

  Silence. Gabriel ground his teeth. Jean-Baptiste Leblanc. It could not be.

  Gabriel closed his eyes. For a moment, he was back in his never-ending nightmare-dream, swirling into the cold black waters, drowning again in icy Glosekap Bay. Then, in a gasp, his breath returned and his eyes opened.

  “I do not believe you, sir,” Gabriel said. He reached around and took the reins from Basil and cantered ahead. “I cannot. I must go to her.”

  “But you don’t know where you’re going!” Basil shouted after him.

  Gabriel only sped up. He had heard enough. Gabriel would follow the river to this city called Vieux Manan, and there he would reclaim his beloved. No one would stop him. Not even his father. He sped to a gallop.

  “Gabriel!” Basil roared after him. “Attend! I will not lose you again! I will not lose you to this foolhardy quest!”

  But Gabriel, itinerant, lovelorn Gabriel, did not stop for his father’s call. He was closer now, closer to Evangeline than perhaps he’d ever been. He would not stop now, or ever, until she was again in his arms.

  He sped along the path, the only path, toward a thicket of low trees in the distance.

  eva

  I am wicked late to Penobscot Pines this morning. I’m supposed to get there at eight o’clock and make sure that the files are ready for Dr. Wadsworth. She reads them over a cup of coffee every day at 8:15.

  Dr. Wadsworth is very organized. She is also very skinny.

  But I don’t make it by eight. There are two reasons. The first reason is because I oversleep. The second reason is because on the way to Penobscot Pines, I get stuck at a railroad crossing while some endless freight train goes by, carrying massive stacks of Maine lumber to God knows where.

  I sit there, listening to the too-peppy DJs on the morning radio talk show about the Boston Red Sox’s winning streak, or losing streak, or something like that, and I zone out, watching the train flash by, car by car, click-clack, click-clack.

  I stop watching the train and focus on the space between the cars, which flashes in and out of view in millisecond blasts as the train speeds by. I see, in those flashes, a beat-up pickup truck waiting on the other side of the train tracks, its half-rusted grill illuminated in quick pulses of light.

  And I see him behind the wheel.

  Gabe.

  He’s in the pickup truck, wearing sunglasses and a baseball cap. It is Gabe. Clack. Clack. He is unmistakable. Clack. With every flash, a scene emerges from between the cars. Gabe and I by the dock. Clack. Gabe and I at Quoddy. Clack. Gabe and I kissing in his headlights. Clack. Gabe in my sleeping bag. Clack. Gabe disappearing over the cliff.

  I stare, motionless, through the racing rain.

  But when the train ends and fades into silence, there is no truck on the other side of the tracks. There is no Gabe. He is gone.

  I sit for a moment, not moving, until the car behind me honks. I look into the rearview mirror and wave. “Sorry,” I say, knowing the woman in the car behind me can’t hear.

  When I arrive at 8:25, Dr. Wadsworth calls me into her office. I sit on one of the folding chairs in front of her desk. She gets up from her chair, walks around the desk, and perches on its edge, standing before me, stern and serious. I know I’m in trouble.

  “I’m sorry, Dr. Wadsworth,” I say, looking at my knees. “I’m late.” I close my eyes and wish this moment were over. “There was a train.”

  “Eva,” she says. “Eva, listen to me. Ada died last night.”

  “What?” I look up, almost to her face but not quite, stopping at her pendant, a sterling globe on a chain that lies across her rippled sternum. “She was fine yesterday,” I say matter-of-factly, like I know something.

  Dr. Wadsworth doesn’t repeat it, because she knows she doesn’t need to. I heard her. Ada died last night. That’s it. No embellishment, no I have bad news, no I know how you must feel. No candy or sugar at all.

  Ada died last night.

  Just like that.

  “Ada died last night,” I say.

  Dr. Wadsworth just nods.

  I shouldn’t be surprised. Ada was old. She wasn’t well. She’d been preparing to die for months. Ever since she got to Penobscot Pines.

  But I didn’t think it would happen last night. She seemed so lucid yesterday, so energetic. Most people around here die after coughing for two weeks, or after breathing through a machine for a month while their families haggle over what to do with them, or something.

  Not Ada. Ada just died.

  I’m sad. I think. And scared. I have to tell Da’, and he’ll get all weepy, and we’ll have to figure out what to do, a funeral and whatnot, and then I’ll have to do it. Now I’m mad. Once again, I’m going to have to do everything. Is it my fault my father’s so feeble? No. Not my fault.

  Then again, maybe it is. Maybe I made him feeble. Maybe I just wore him out. But I’m the one who has to suck it up and do everything.

  I wish I could ask Ada what to do. But Ada died last night.

  “I think you should go home,” says Dr. Wadsworth. She picks up her clipboard and pen. “Go home this afternoon. Spend a few days with your father. I’ll see you back here on Monday.”

  “What about my shift?” I say hopefully. “I’m on the schedule, see?” I point to the dry-erase board on the wall. I’m clearly down for work today and tomorrow.

  “Go home, Eva,” she says. And then she gets up and leaves the office to make her morning rounds, which will be one stop shorter than yesterday. I wonder if Dr. Wadsworth still gets sad when a resident dies, or if it even affects her anymore. She’s worked here over ten years.

  I wonder how long it will take them to fill Ada’s bed.

  The ride home is a slow procession of station wagons from Massachusetts and Quebec, filled with Maine-gawkers covered in mosquito bites and sunburns, screeching to a halt at every ice-cream stand and any sign that says CLAMS, and asking questions like, “Is this lobster salad authentic?” The drive should take two and a half hours; today it takes five.

  Normally, this would be misery. But I’m in no rush today. I don’t mind. It’s not like I’m all that eager to get home.

  I spend the time rehearsing what I’m going to say to Da’.

  “Da’,” I’ll say. “Ada died last night.”

  A few miles after Machias, the traffic dissipates. Before long, I’m pretty much the only one on the road. I roll down the windows and cruise under the brilliant-blue summer sky. The pines overhead whiz by, dropping splotches of sunshine onto the road as I take the small rises and curves one after the other, slow here, then fast, then slow again. I take out my tired ponytail and let my hair whip across my face and eyes, and wonder if I’ll stop when I get to Franktown or if I’ll just keep driving forever.

  When I get home and yell hello and walk in the door and see Da’ sitting in his upholstered armchair by the window overlooking the street, smiling at me with serene, bloodshot eyes, I realize he already knows.

  “Come here, Eva, my girl,” he says.

  “Da’,” I say. I stand beside his chair and put my hand on the armrest. He has one of
Ada’s old quilts wrapped around his legs.

  “Eva,” he says. He reaches up and pulls me down onto his lap and pulls my head onto his shoulder. “You were her angel.” He reaches up and strokes my hair with his fatherly fingers, brushing it off my cheek softly. “And now, she will be yours.”

  I don’t cry. Instead, I fall asleep. Right there on Da’s shoulder.

  Gabriel

  AT THE BASE OF THE THICKET WAS A SMALL, stony river-beach. Four birch canoes lay in a jagged row on the rocks. Gabriel quickly tied Basil’s horse to a tree, dragged the sturdiest-looking canoe into the shallow water, and without pausing or looking back for his father, paddled, swiftly and powerfully, into the depths of the slow-moving Lesser River, trusting the current, slow and languorous here, rapid and swirling there, to guide him downstream to the seaport of Vieux Manan, to Evangeline.

  He wove handily through the drooping boughs of the ancient willows and the tangles of incessant river weeds, steering around the shifting sandbanks and rocky islets, paddling with newfound strength and energy, beyond the edge of the vast western grasslands and into the teeming forests beyond, where the river’s shadowy aisles grew darker and closer, and the moist, thick air flowed like syrup into his lungs.

  Gabriel’s rhythms as he rowed coaxed his thoughts toward Evangeline. He imagined them together in the one-room log-and-earth cabin he’d built on the pastured hillside above Pré-du-sel, framed with chestnut and stone, and roofed with thatch from the marshes. The wood of his oar recalled the oak he’d hewn into her cider press. He pictured the long bench, the ladder-back chairs, even Evangeline’s footstool, all carved by Gabriel’s own hand. Gabriel had honored his wife’s wishes and built a kitchen window over the low sink basin, overlooking a sloping field of wildflowers, oxeyes and hawkweed and white clover. There was a sturdy shed with room for four goats and a dozen hens. Farther on, an orchard of saplings, and the living waters of Glosekap Bay.