Learning to Live Again

by Marie Kinneer

  “Eat every bite,” she said with a pinched smile. “And before you eat one bite of that Western sandwich.”

  “Mom!” It was the same exasperated cry every night, but he ate it, she knew, just to make her happy. He was a good boy. Thank God for that. She didn’t know how half the people she knew handled the emotional strain caused by their children. She led a charmed life, for sure.

  “You’re late,” she said, leaning over the counter to brush her fingertips across his cheek.

  He pretended not to notice. “Some guy—Sam Gear—do you know him? He came in for a prescription. Wanted the old man to fill it. Said I was breaking the law or something—can I have some ketchup? Anyway, at closing he decided I could fill it after all.”

  “Sam Gear? Must be a relative of Allison Gear. Her husband’s name was Sam, wasn’t it, Hannah?” Margie knew who Sam Gear was. Allison Gear had a photograph on the mantle in her living room. Margie also knew that Allison’s son was coming to visit his mother, a rest cure after heart surgery. But Margie didn’t think she should share Allison Gear’s confidences with Hannah. For one thing, Hannah resented the closeness of the two women and, for another, Margie cherished that closeness for the precious gift it was.

  “Sam Gear in town? He’s Allison’s son.” Hannah scraped down the grill while she talked. “The Green Mountain Post had an article last month about him. Triple by-pass surgery. They didn’t expect him to live. I went to school with Sam … well, kind of. He was three years ahead of me. A football hero. Every girl I knew and some I didn’t had a crush on Sam. He was some good lookin’.” She stopped her cleaning to push a strand of blond hair off her forehead, and looked at Peter. “He’s got to be forty-four, forty-five. Tell me he ain’t bald and fat, Peter.”

  “He ain’t,” Peter said, “but he sure is uppity.”

  “That’s ‘cause he’s some kind of highly-paid mucky muck. Works for some big computer outfit in North Carolina. The paper made him sound like Einstein.”

  “Don’t like him much, do you, Hannah?” Peter said.

  She giggled. “If that man looks anything like he used to, honey, I won’t let his brains get in my way.”

  Peter slapped both hands to his mouth to keep laughter from spurting food all over the counter. The devil peeked from his dancing blue eyes.

  Hannah wiped her hands across her apron front leaving them to rest in fists on her ample hips. “And what’s so funny about that?” she asked, grinning at the boy.

  Peter shook his head and waved his arms, unable to speak or laugh out loud.

  “Careful you don’t choke,” Margie said. They sure were silly, but she was laughing, too.

  ******

  Outside the diner the street was wet from the fog, and smelled of rain though none was falling. The rush of the White River soughed like the wind as mother and son trekked past Brownie’s garage and over the bridge to Hiker Hill.

  “Hannah’s a trip, ain’t she, Mom?” Peter said, punching playfully at his mother’s arm.

  “Ow!” Margie rubbed the spot. “Hey, look. Mrs. Gear’s floodlights are on. And the house is all lit up. She’s such a dear lady. God grant you some happiness, Allison Gear.”

  Peter walked backwards, watching the Gear house flicker out of view as they made their way up the hill to their home. A floodlight at the southeast eave lighted the walk to the front porch and made long, spooky phantoms of their approaching forms. Pat barked, running toward them until the end of her chain choked her to a stop. She sat then, dusting the ground with a foot-long broom of a tail.

  “Hiyah, Pat!” Peter wrapped his arms around the dog’s barrel chest, but broke out of the embrace when her tongue against his ear became unbearably ticklish. “I love you too. Cut it out!”

  “Allison Gear told me last week that her son was coming home. I mean, she asked Hannah to get me out of the kitchen because she wanted to talk to me, and then she told me. Is that weird or what?”

  Peter gave his mother a skeptical look. “She trying to fix you up?”

  “I don’t know. I think maybe. Imagine that. Allison Gear. I can’t believe her thinking any woman good enough for a son of hers. Much less me.”

  Margie scratched Pat’s back. Then she gave her son her best smile, the one that told him he was her very best friend. Her confidant.

  “Race you,” she said, and beat it to the front door.

  “Not fair, Mom!” he said panting, slamming the door behind them.

  Margie’s mind was past the game. She shouldn’t ask him. She was being schoolgirl silly. “What does he look like?”

  “What does who look like? Sam Gear? I don’t believe this.”

  “Forget it.” Margie’s face turned red. Peter was watching her from under furrowed brows.

  “Hannah has a crush, don’t you think?” she said trying to ease the atmosphere.

  “He’s a geek, Mom.”

  CHAPTER III

  “Sam!”

  He awakened to a voice shaky with impatience. “This is the third and, I must add, last call. I refuse to lose the day trying to raise you. Do you hear me?”

  Sam looked toward the sound and the closed door to his childhood bedroom. “I’m awake, Mom, and sorry for your trouble. Uh, thank you.”

  “You’re welcome to your father’s alarm clock. I’m leaving it sitting outside your door.”

  Sam slid from the hard, narrow bed of his youth at least a half foot short of his six foot plus frame. He would go into Claremont, New Hampshire before this day was at end and buy a bed, queen size at least.

  Sunlight striped a dust cloud stream from the open window to the closed door. Sam’s eye followed the stripe to the window and a crisp, blue, smog-free sky. Clean, cold. A day for reckoning. A day for starting anew.

  ******

  Sam found his mother in the flower bed at the back of the house. She was digging up begonias; transferring them to pots for the house and the root cellar. A smile played along his lips striking chords of memory. Oh the begonias! How his mother nurtured those beauties.

  “Can I give you a hand, Mom?”

  “Certainly. Just be careful. Don’t nick the tubers. Loosen the soil with the trowel and then use your fingers. Easy does it.”

  On his knees beside her Sam stole a peek at the face beneath the floppy wide brimmed hat she wore to keep the sun shaded from her face and eyes. She’d aged more than he’d expected in the fifteen years since he’d last seen her. The crows’ feet weren’t deep at the corners of her eyes, but her cheeks were lined with crevices where her smile, when she wore one, brightened her face. Lucky for a growing boy and his sister, that was often. The hair, curly and sticking out at the back of her neck and around her ears, was grayish blue. He remembered it the color of semi-sweet chocolate. She was 19 years older than he. Sixty-four looked pretty good on Allison Gear, Sam thought.

  “Mom, is that restaurant we used to go to in Keene still operating?”

  “Keene? New Hampshire?”

  “Yeah. You know, where we used to go for steak and lobster.”

  “Lion something or other. I have no idea. I haven’t been to Keene in years.”

  “The Hungry Lion. How about I call and make reservations for tonight?”

  “Oh, Sam, not tonight. This is Thursday. I always go to the Railroad Diner on Thursday. Besides, I promised the girls I’d bring my gorgeous son with me tonight. They’ll never forgive me if I don’t show up.”

  Sam closed his fingers around a tuber and yanked a little harder than necessary. “You’re not trying to fix me up.” He made it a statement not a question.

  “Fix up? Of course not. But you have to taste the special, Sam, whatever it is . Her name’s Margie and she’s just the best little cook that diner’s ever had. Been here about five years now, I think.”

  Sam sat back on his haunches. It was silly, even childish to feel jealousy, but he did. It seemed it was more important to his mother to please the women at the diner than it was her son whom she’d almost
lost. And what in God’s name would he, Sam Gear, scientist/engineer, have in common with the cook of a small town, truck stop diner?

  “Uh, Mom, you know my stay here is temporary. I will have to go back to work and that means North Carolina.”

  “Oh, I know that, Sam. You told me you’re on a six week leave of absence to rest and recuperate, doctor’s orders, right?”

  “Yeah. Just don’t want you to … I don’t know how to say this.”

  “Get too attached?” She looked up at him then, her hand shading her eyes under the brim of her hat.

  Sam hadn’t mentioned that his boss, Mike West, mandated this leave. “Come back to us, Sam, fresh as a baby’s rump.” The analogy was typical of Mike West. A horse’s ass when it came to tact, but smart and ruthlessly ambitious.

  “Guess I figure I’ve done about enough hurt to you. I don’t even know how to begin apologizing.” Sam looked down at the ground, tamped the dirt smooth where the begonia had been.

  “Well, you can start by taking me to dinner at the Railroad Diner tonight. How about that?”

  Sam sighed in resignation. It wouldn’t hurt to humor his mother. Playing cupid wasn’t a bad trait; she was just trying to fix everyone’s lives. The divorce, Karen. Dear Mom, she could never fix that.

  ******

  “Apple pie,” Brownie cried, seemed to swoon with the scent and swung the diner door shut.

  Hearing his voice, Margie peeked out through the crack of light between the wall and the swinging door. In his olive drab uniform and Red Sox baseball cap, gaunt, silver-haired Brownie represented security and dependability to Margie. He was the father she never knew, or the favorite Uncle. A good friend and mentor at the very least, Margie wondered where she and her son would have turned five years ago without the kindness of this man. He and Allison Gear took them in, gave them hope.

  Hannah plopped a fresh mug of coffee and a spoon on the counter in front of an empty stool. Brownie sat, picked up the spoon and began tapping the side of the mug. “I’ll have a big slice, ma’am, if you please. And you can put a double dose of vanilla on that.”

  “The ice cream you can have, but them pies just came out of the oven. Got to cool some. How about the cherry in the pie case?”

  “Cool? Nonsense. Get Margie out here. She’ll cut me a piece.”

  Margie bustled through the swinging door, wiping her hands on her cook’s apron. “I swear, Brownie, you can smell that cinnamon and apple from your garage.”

  “You’re going to cut me a piece, aren’t you, Margie?”

  “If I cut it now, it will run and fairly ruin the pie.” Margie shook her head; her eyes alight with laughter. “You have to wait at least fifteen minutes.”

  “Phooey, guess I’ll read my paper and wait then. How about them apples?” Brownie teased with a wink and a smile.

  Margie watched him pick up a newspaper left sitting on the counter by a previous customer. He was still grinning as he thumbed the paper and sipped at his coffee.

  Hannah looked from Margie to Brownie, shrugged her shoulders and went back to the cleaning chore she had been occupied with before Brownie showed up. Margie slipped back into the kitchen and the Thursday night specials she was preparing. She knew he’d think her silly, but she had to ask him. She sloughed the dough from her hands, wringing them under the faucet, while she tried to form the question in her mind.

  ******

  Carrying the pie in front of her like a wedding bouquet, Margie opened the swinging door with a hip and presented a plate alamode to Brownie.

  He looked up at her over the half glasses he wore on the bridge of his nose. “Smells and looks like heaven.” He kept looking at her, waiting. “What’s on your mind?”

  “Nothing much.” She could feel the heat in her face. “I hear Allison’s son is in town,” she said, hoping she sounded as though she was just making conversation.

  “Is that a fact?” Brownie picked up his fork and scooped up a hunk of pie and melting ice cream.

  “I heard he had a falling out with his pa, and this is his first trip home in fifteen years.”

  “You know I don’t engage in town gossip.” Brownie put a bite of pie in his mouth and raised his fork for emphasis. “But if I was a bettin’ man, and I’m not, but if I was, I’d bet that falling out had more to do with Sam’s wife and his Pa then anything else.”

  “Did you know the wife?” she asked as a lead-in to her real question.

  “Did I know Karen?” Brownie dug up another hunk of pie and jammed it into his mouth. “I knew Karen, all right. Beautiful, smart and ambitious, thought she was Marilyn Monroe and Madame Curie rolled into one. She was born and raised right here in Green Mountain in the caretaker’s shack out behind the lumberyard. Sam married her after he graduated college than paid for her to go.”

  Brownie chewed, swallowed, and waved his fork again. “After she graduated, she was ready for the big time and Green Mountain didn’t offer it. She got a job in the big city with a big company. Sam did the same.”

  Brownie wiped his mouth with a paper napkin. “Great pie, Margie.” He slid from the stool, gave a tug to his cap, waved his hand in the air and was gone. Margie never got to ask her real question.

  ******

  Brownie walked back to the garage, his place of business going on some forty years. Seen a whole lot in that time. He wondered what his dear Catherine would say to Sam’s coming home after fifteen years. Missed his pa’s funeral, his mama’s bout with breast cancer, and that was just the latest. His sister’s graduation from the University of Vermont and her wedding came before that. He’d never have believed that little Sammy would turn out to be such a cold fish. You never know about people. Just when you think you got the goods on someone they turn out to be entirely different than how you knew them to be.

  Well, better call. See how she’s holding up.

  He waited with the receiver at his ear. His phone was an old one, not much past rotary dial. Allison picked up after four rings.

  “Guess Wednesday breakfast is off for the time being,” he said after her “Hello.”

  “Why’s that? You don’t like my pancakes anymore?”

  “Sam’s got in, ain’t he? You don’t need him wondering what his dad’s best friend is doing at his house eatin’ his mama’s food.” Brownie performed his hat routine while he waited for Allison to reply.

  “Art, this is my house and I can entertain or feed anyone I want. Sammy’s got no say.” She sounded piqued to Brownie.

  “Don’t sound like things goin’ any too good. You holdin’ up alright?”

  “I’m doin’ just fine.” Allison said. “Arthur, you’re not goin’ to stop comin’ over, are you?”

  “Just for the time bein’ is all. Don’t want no hard feelin’s. Let Sammy get acquainted again and back to his roots. That right with you?”

  “You have a dream again like the last one about Catherine?”

  “No. I just feel like you and Sammy need to bond. Nothin’ ought to hinder that and my bein’ around might. That’s all.”

  “Art, I really don’t think Sam would find your presence in the least bit strange or threatening. It would seem like old times. After all, you practically lived here after Catherine died. I mean it’s not like you’ve hinted at anything more intimate than us old friends getting together.”

  “Let’s just give it time. That’s all I’m tryin’ to say.”

  “There’s the door. I got to hang up.” And she did.

  Brownie didn’t believe it for a minute. He’d a heard the doorbell had it rung. Nothing wrong with his hearing.

  ******

  Allison looked around her kitchen and sighed. She ran his words and hers back through her mind. Was he trying to get out of coming over? Was this the first easy excuse he’d found? After all, she was the one who started this Wednesday morning event. Perhaps he didn’t know how to say no. Was this his first chance to make his escape? She brushed angrily with her handkerchief at the moisture gath
ering in her eyes.

  Memories of her childhood sprang up in her head, unwanted, but making her smile in spite of herself. Remember the time we were all down at the river determined to catch fish with a twig and a string? We were seven or eight years old, and I had such a terrible crush on you even then. Oh, Art. Remember how Sam put his arm across my shoulder and told me he would marry me one day? I said, “Oh, no you won’t. I got somebody else in mind.”

  ******

  Peter was being followed. It was more a sixth sense than anything tangible. Nonetheless, he knew. A twig snapped almost without a sound; a scent, faint, but out of place created the fist that balled in the pit of his stomach. A shadow appeared casting gloom across his path. Peter ran. Down a path lined with sugar maple trees, his feet slid over underbrush of dead leaves and damp earth. Lungs bursting, he reached the clearing. The Merryhill house, tucked in a covey of sleeping lilac bushes, peaked a rosy roof toward a cloudless sky. Home, just a breath out of reach. He could make it, he told himself. He could manage anything with home in sight. The ground raced past his feet as he watched the red colored tiles that made up the roof of home loom nearer. Pat barked, sensing his arrival. Fear vanished. Thursday, his night off from the drug store, was a catch up night. He’d cuddle up with Old Pat on the floor in front of the fire and do his homework. He was ready for this.

  ******

  Sam felt silly. He stared at himself in the full length mirror on the inside of the bathroom door. His sister’s mirror. He remembered the Christmas morning his dad put it up there for her. It was a big deal. It had taken three years of begging to earn the full length mirror. A year later she married and moved out of their lives. Like he tried to do, only he was back. Back and staring at a forty-five year old image of a kid who worried about making a good first impression. Why should he care what the cook of a diner thought of him. His mother’s effort at conjuring up some character he was supposed to represent was not an excuse for his behavior. Still he sucked in the tummy, took extra time with his hair, blow drying it to make it appear more abundant, shaved again—he’d shaved that morning—and, worst of all, was perspiring with nervousness. He’d have a real laugh at himself tonight when he came back to the house after meeting the town “dog.” But she might be a “looker.” And if his mother liked her, she was sure to be very nice.