Learning to Live Again

by Marie Kinneer

  “What are you up to, Merryhill?” Mr. Edmond, in social studies, asked him.

  Peter imagined what if he is my dad? What if my mom really did come to Green Mountain to find my father? Suppose, I mean I know none of this is true, but just suppose he doesn’t even know he has a son.

  ******

  “Where’s that Sam?” Hannah asked, poking her face around the swinging kitchen door, “Ain’t seen him in here since you and he went out Wednesday night last week.”

  Margie busied herself with the biscuits, refusing to look up at Hannah. “I’m sure I don’t know. Haven’t heard a word.”

  “Oh, he ain’t called either?” Her whole body wedged in now, Hannah stood against the wall with arms crossed in front of her. “You didn’t fight, did you? Argue about something, I mean.”

  “No.”

  Margie slapped the last round mound of dough on the aluminum sheet and slid the pan into the black oven hole.

  “Well, what you suppose?” Hannah’s voice rose with apparent impatience.

  “I suppose he isn’t interested.” Margie stood, stretched her back, and stared impassively at Hannah.

  “He was interested or he wouldn’t have asked you out. What did you do to turn him off?”

  “Hannah, you’re yelling at me, for heaven’s sake.” Margie’s eyes blinked in sudden succession. “I thought when we parted he was pretty turned on, as you put it. I expected him to call,” her bottom lip quivered, “but he hasn’t.”

  “Maybe you ought to drop by, see if he’s okay—sick or something. You know—you haven’t heard from him. A neighborly call. What could it hurt?”

  ******

  Margie left the diner at four that Monday afternoon. She was coming down with something, she told Hannah and Brenda. Love sick. Snow was truly in the air. Her breath left prickly crystals on her upper lip and her chin stuck a second when she scrunched it up to test the cold. She was glad she’d worn her parka to work in the warmer morning. Her bare hands made fists deep in the furry pockets; her shoulders scrunched up around her neck, lifting her collar higher to protect her uncovered ears. It was time to keep a hat and scarf on the hook with her coat, she thought. Had Peter dressed warm enough today?

  The first snowflake plopped on her eyelashes and fell a teardrop hanging there. She brought her hand out of its pocket muff to swipe at her cheek, but then the other eye let go a few drops too and she ceased the effort. Crying now, she told herself she didn’t know why—then kicked at pebbles with frozen toes packed in penny loafers. She stopped her journey at the turn to the Gears’ house and listened to a day so quiet she could hear her heart beat.

  “What could it hurt?” she repeated Hannah’s words aloud.

  She found a tissue in her pocket, wiped her face and blew her nose. “If this is love, Lord, I’ve never been here before, and I’m not sure I thank you very much.” She sighed, not moving, while snowflakes made a blanket covering her shoes. Her emotions had run the gamut since their date Wednesday night from joyous upon wakening Thursday morning to heartbreak by Friday afternoon. He hadn’t called, he hadn’t come by. The weekend came and went with no word. Her feet started in the direction of his yard, then turned back toward the road, then turned around again. “Damn you, Sam Gear,” she yelled into the air. She noticed smoke emitting from the stovepipe atop the work shed behind the Gear house and her feet took off in that direction.

  “Hello, Sam,” she said to his back. He was standing at a workbench polishing something with a rag.

  He turned to look at her. “Hey,” he said.

  He raised his head to peer out the window behind her. “Cripes, it’s snowing,” he said and looked back at her. “You look like a snow bunny. You must be freezing. Come in and sit by the stove—what are you doing out in this dressed like that?” He walked to where she was standing, took her hand and pulled her toward the potbelly stove in the middle of the shed.

  “Here, sit,” he told her grabbing a stool and placing it in front of the stove. “Girl, what are you doing out in this weather with no more clothes than what you’re wearing? Look at your shoes.”

  “I was going home. It wasn’t this cold and wasn’t snowing this morning when I went to work.”

  “But the weather report predicted this last night. It’s late coming, in fact.” He looked out the window again as if to make sure the snow was really falling. “I was beginning to think they were wrong for a change. Don’t you listen to the weather?” He turned back to her.

  “Usually. I didn’t listen last night.”

  “Well, I guess you’d better start planning on bad weather with boots and gloves and hat. It’s winter, little girl.”

  “I’m thirty years old. Don’t call me ‘little girl.’”

  A large smile spread across Sam’s face. “What would you like me to call you?” His voice was soft like the snow.

  “How about Margie.”

  “And why haven’t I called?”

  “Now that you mention it,” her voice spiked soprano.

  “Because, little Margie … hmmm. I’ve been rehearsing this for four days now, but I still don’t have it right.” He grabbed another stool and sat down facing her. “Give me a couple more days?” His hands were folded in his lap, his face serious. It was all she could do to keep her hands from reaching out to his, to touch him.

  “I’m going to let my hair grow and I’m getting it permed. I made the appointment,” she looked at a spot on the wall to her left while she talked. She wasn’t going to cry. God, help me.

  Sam put a palm to his forehead. A long breath escaped his diaphragm that sounded like “Whoooo.”

  “You’re still in love with your wife.” She drew her eyes to his face.

  “I’m not sure I was ever in love with my ex-wife. Sure I thought I was, but lately I’m wondering if I was just in lust. I’ve done nothing but think since I’ve been back home and what I realize is I don’t know one damn thing about love. Not if it means giving of myself. My idea of love has always been about other people loving me.”

  A radio hummed softly from a shelf above the workbench. Margie caught a scrap of song, country. The scent of wood burning mixed with oil and grease and the after shave Sam wore filled a memory card in Margie’s mind. She would replay this scene in her lonely bed tonight with the nuances of sound and smell in tact.

  Margie started to say something, shook her head, looked around, and tried again. “I don’t know how to do this. I have no experience whatsoever. To tell you the truth, my date with Dr. Pharr was my absolute first. You were my second.” She bit her bottom lip and took a deep breath. “Do I tell you how I feel about you? I hear ‘This is the new millennium, a woman can chase the man, take the upper hand,’ but in my heart I know it isn’t that way at all. At least not here in Green Mountain.” She looked at his face, his eyes on hers. “Tell me why you didn’t call.”

  She stared into the blue of his eyes, at the straight line of his nose with the slightest indentation at the tip, then the fullness of his lips—a heart shape on top and bottom and she knew she had always known him. His body too was familiar and she knew without touching how it felt to bury her head against his neck, to find comfort in his embrace, to lie with him and love him. But, God in heaven, why didn’t he know her?

  Sam ran a hand over the top of his head, around the back of his neck. “My mom caught me on my way to my bedroom after our date Wednessday night. ‘Don’t you break that little girl’s heart,’ she told me. I said, ‘How do you know she won’t break mine?’ ’Samuel Nathaniel Gear,’ she said shaking a finger at me, ‘You mind you don’t fool with her unless you’re serious.’ ‘Yes, Mam,’ I said, saluted her and went on up the stairs.”

  “That’s why you didn’t call? Because your mom is concerned?” Margie shook her head. “I don’t understand. Do you think she’s more worried about me than you, or she thinks you might be some callous womanizer? What?”

  “Neither. I didn’t call because she’s absolutely right. Yo
u’re … you said it yourself—inexperienced and, more than likely, pretty vulnerable.” The look on his face made her feel like a child. “A single mother, struggling to make ends meet.”

  “Hold on just a minute there.” She could feel heat in her cheeks. “I manage my own life, sir, and have done so for some time now. Not dating Joe, Dick and Harry is out of choice, not lack of opportunity, thank you very much.” Margie was standing now and pacing with hands resting on each side of her waist. “As a matter of fact, I’m not real pleased about this er thing … uh, this … feelings.” Margie expelled a breath, long and labored before she continued.

  She sat back down on the stool clasping hands at arms length in front of her. “I don’t know what’s come over me,” she said looking at Sam eye to eye, “I can’t blink my eyes, your image is burnt in back there, somewhere,” she waved a hand over her shoulder then reclasped her fingers, “inside me.”

  She looked down at her hands. ”I’m okay with my life just as it is. No complaints I can’t deal with by myself. My knight in shining armor is out there somewhere, and he’ll find me in God’s good time. I believe that with all my heart.” She looked up at him, resting her eyes in his. “I don’t know what this is, Sam, but you are no more part of my plan than I am yours. As far as this woman is concerned, the faster I get you out of my system, the better.”

  Sam’s eyes squinted ever so slightly and a smile raised his cheeks. “Are you telling me if we go to bed we’ll get each other out of our systems?”

  “Is that what I said?” She grimaced and shrugged her shoulders.

  “Something tells me I’m in big trouble—Are you listening to this, Mom?—Can I record this conversation?” He clasped her small hands in his large ones. “I’m no Don Juan, you know. As a matter of fact, I only had sex with a couple of girls before marriage and never cheated on my wife. Not once in fifteen years. I don’t know if that means I’m faithful, or undersexed, but I don’t know too many guys with the same claim.”

  Concern washed over Margie’s face. “Did you make love often with your wife, though?”

  “Oh yeah.” He was chuckling now, holding hands, and watching her. Suddenly his face grew serious. “That is, before she had the miscarriage, so-called.” He let go of Margie’s hands, rubbed his hands over his knees, stood up and started pacing.

  “Karen got pregnant about seven years ago. The condition lasted about six weeks and then mysteriously disappeared. In what should have been her third month she told me she had miscarried the month before. She was so busy with a big audit, the event had slipped her mind. Actually, what she said was that she couldn’t find the right time to tell me, but the night I brought home the crib she decided to just blurt out the fact I’d have to bring it back.” Sam stopped at the window and stared out at the falling snow.

  “Our marriage lost its shine after that. I buried myself in my job, and never brought up the subject of that night. The crib is still in the empty room that was going to be a nursery some day.” He stopped talking—just stood with his arms leaning against the window frame, staring out.

  “You don’t believe she miscarried?”

  “Oh, I believed her—I was angry she hadn’t told me. Months later I came across a cancelled check paid to an abortion clinic on the date she was supposed to have been out of town on that audit.”

  He turned from the window, looked at Margie, and smiled. “I’m going to have to carry you to the house. Those shoes are not made for the likes of this weather. I’ll bet there’s three inches out there already.”

  “Your shoes aren’t much better.”

  “High top tennis shoes beat loafers in three inches of snow any day of the week. Besides, there’s no sense in both of us getting wet feet, and I’m better equipped to do the carrying.” He flexed his muscles. “Unless, of course, you’d like to try.” At that he held out his arms.

  Margie stood and walked to Sam in wonder. She wasn’t sure where all this was leading, but her heart raced and her feet glided on air.

  CHAPTER XI

  The snow piled up steadily on the steps in front of the drug store. At four-thirty Peter was on his third sweeping. Time to get the shovel from the basement; the snow, heavy now, was sticking stubbornly to the steps despite his efforts. Snowmobiles and deer season raced around in Peter’s mind and he played one after the other, dreaming up scenes with the falling powder as the backdrop.

  “What’s goin’ on with you and the Michelson boys, Merryhill?” Joe Piccolo, in his long black coat and unbuckled galoshes, stood in the path of the broom.

  “Nothing’s going on. Who’s asking?” Peter could look Joe straight in the eye without moving his head. He’d been able to do that for six months now, but it still surprised him. Joe Piccolo appeared so much taller when seen from a distance than he really was.

  “Who’s askin’? I am, asshole.” Joe sauntered past him into the store, scraping his feet to keep his galoshes under foot. “You got Pop’s blood pressure drugs ready?” he asked while he walked around the horseshoe counter, fingering the displayed wares.

  Peter left his sweeping, propped the broom in a corner and walked behind the counter to watch his customer.

  “You coulda finished. I ain’t gonna steal nothin’.”

  “I know that, but I’m not supposed to let anyone wander around in here by themselves. Mr. Smith is on a delivery and Dottie ran to the Post Office.” Peter searched through the prescription bags and pulled out the one marked “Amos Piccolo.” “I could only give you ten ‘cause this stuff’s on backorder again.”

  Joe scrunched the bag into an inside pocket, leaned against the counter and waved a come-on gesture with a gloved hand. “Let’s hear it.”

  “Nothing to tell.”

  “You hear they’re tryin’ to get a gang together? They think this is Chicago or New York City.” Joe never smiled but there was a chuckle in his voice. “They jump you again for drugs?”

  “No, man.” Peter clamped his hands under his armpits so Joe couldn’t see them tremble.

  “They told me my reign was over. My kingdom was about to topple. Stupid punks.” Joe hauled himself up on to the counter, resting on one buttock cheek.

  “What did you tell them?”

  “I just looked at ‘em. You know, the evil eye. But, hell, I don’t even know what they’re talking about. What reign? What kingdom? They think I’m the leader of The Green Mountain Gang or something? Like there is such a thing. Tell you what.” Joe jumped down off the counter. “They piss me off, they’re gonna be wearin’ buckshot for underwear.”

  Peter faked a grin. He knew Piccolo must be real mad. He never talked this much.

  “Don’t you give them Michelson boys drugs, Merryhill.” Joe shoved his face inches from Peter. “You got that?”

  “Got it.”

  ******

  Snow blanketed the cold in the hills of Vermont, Sam thought, for it seemed warmer now with the curtain of white draping all around them than it had earlier when he’d made his way to the shed. Of course, Margie in his arms could certainly account for the warmth his body felt, but even his face seemed less cold by degrees.

  It had been a long time since he’d carried Karen, but he didn’t remember her feeling as light or as soft as a teddy bear. Margie had her hands laced at the back of his neck, her head rested against his shoulder for the ride to the house. Sam memorized the feel of her touch, and the scent of her hair, for the next long night he’d have to spend alone.

  “No one’s carried me over a threshold before, Mr. Gear, makes a lady feel right romantic.” Margie batted her eyes at him.

  “I certainly hope so, Miss Merryhill,” he grinned lasciviously, “I plan to take every advantage of the situation.”

  “Oh my.” Margie burst out laughing.

  But once inside the house Sam’s stomach started to churn and tumble inside his body like the dryer in the utility room off his mother’s kitchen. He felt more like Don Knotts than Don Juan. But then the look in Margie
’s eyes looking into his changed everything.

  ******

  Peter saw them enter the pharmacy out of the corner of his eye. He had just swept the gathering snow away from the front door, off the wooden entrance landing and down the steps again. He was on his way to the closet in the back to put the broom away when they made their entrance after five that afternoon.

  It was almost a month ago that they had followed him home from school. A month ago he had lain in the hospital. He’d been expecting them to resurface and was only surprised they’d waited this long.

  Mr. Smith was in the pharmacy filling prescriptions and Dottie was at the cosmetic counter helping Mrs. Carlisle decide on which age defying cream to buy. Mrs. Carlisle was about Peter’s mom’s age and looked pretty good to Peter, but he didn’t know much about that sort of thing. He was better at medicinal applications. Mr. Smith talked and talked, bending Peter’s ear ad infinitum, with lectures on every shelf containing anything remotely apothecary in nature. There was a shelf dedicated to laxatives or dysentery; joint problems; foot corns or warts or bunions; head colds or allergies or lack of sleep or too much sleep or headache; vitamins and minerals to detoxify your blood, add energy, aid your eyesight or hearing, activate your immune system, kill bacteria or make bacteria; build your bones. And in the pharmacy itself there were thousands of medications that were physician prescribed each with its own definition and warning literature handed to Peter. It seemed to Peter that Mr. Smith sometimes forgot that he was just a kid who worked for minimum wage as the gofer in the store. Some days Mr. Smith thought Peter was a son whose intention was to learn the business. Pharmaceuticals was okay as far as businesses went, Peter supposed. Everyone needed medicine from time to time, but it wasn’t his calling. No, he was going to be a pilot. At least that was his dream this week.

  The boys circled the horseshoe shelves of over the counter medications where Peter was stationed with the middle of the store cash register. The oldest, wearing a chain of keys hanging from a belt loop on a pair of jeans that were made for someone much larger and taller strode to Peter’s left. The younger brother similarly dressed but without the chain strode right. They picked up and put down bottles and boxes as they meandered slowly toward the back of the store. Peter watched one then the other to catch if some items were ending up in pockets rather than back on shelves. Was this a robbery in the making? He tried to tell if one of the pockets in their coats bulged with a weapon. “Can I help you find something?” Peter asked looking from one to the other of the boys.