Year After Henry

by Cathie Pelletier

“Request line?” Larry said. “Could you please play ‘Disco Duck’?”

  Then he hung up the imaginary phone and looked at Jeanie, who still wasn’t smiling.

  10

  Jeanie knocked three times on Chad’s bedroom door before she heard him grumble something from the other side. She opened the door and went on in. To hell with privacy. She’d given him far too much space, as he called it, and look what he’d done with it. Chad was lying on his back, sheet up to his waist, one arm shading the light of day from his eyes. He lifted his arm and looked at her, his eyes still swollen from sleeping hard and heavy. There were days Jeanie had to knock ten times before the boy even grunted. She grabbed the pillow and pulled it out from under his head.

  “Hey!” said Chad. He was waking up now and she could see anger in his eyes. He reached for his pillow, but Jeanie put it behind her back. “What the hell’s up with you?”

  “I just cooked a great breakfast,” said Jeanie. “It’s the kind you used to love, before your father died. I want you at the kitchen table in ten minutes, Chad. We’re going to sit down and eat as if we’re still actually a family, because we are.” She threw the pillow onto the end of his bed. Chad sat up and grabbed it, hugging it against his chest. He was looking up at her face with that same boyish curiosity. This was the kid who asked more but why? questions than any child Jeanie had ever known. But why is the sky blue? But why can birds fly? But why do we need food to live? But why?

  Jeanie turned and left the room, left the boy sitting bewildered on his bed, the pillow cradled in his arms. She took the stairs two steps at a time, an energy and confidence she hadn’t felt in many months. It was the first time she mentioned Henry’s death. Not even to Mona Prescott had she been able to use any form of the word. Maybe the grief people were right, that if you can survive the first year, you can almost imagine yourself living again.

  In the kitchen Jeanie poured herself a cup of coffee. She heard Chad’s feet on the floor upstairs as he went into the bathroom and shut the door. Water begun to flush through the pipes. Jeanie dropped four slices of wheat bread into the toaster and watched as the inside coils turned a bright red. She went to the stove and picked up the bowl she’d left there, the eggs already scrambled, with bits of onion and spicy red pepper, the way Chad and Henry liked them. She turned the burner on under the flying pan and poured in the egg mixture. She stirred the yellow mess about with a fork and watched as it began to cook and harden into bite-size chunks.

  Upstairs, Chad opened the bathroom door again. Jeanie smiled. Why hadn’t she done this months ago? Why hadn’t she taken a parental stand? Now, if only Lisa were there to eat breakfast with them. It had been over two months since she’d been home and that was far too long, especially with the baby almost ready to be born. As soon as the memorial service was over, she would pack a suitcase for herself, another one for Chad. They would drive down to Portland and stay with Lisa until the baby arrived. They would be a family unit again, missing one member, yes, but able to function, and with a new member on the way.

  Jeanie went to the fridge for the butter dish and a jar of blueberry jam, also Chad’s favorite. The toast popped right on cue and she pulled all four slices out, buttered them, and put them on a plate, which she covered with a glass lid. She had already cooked the sausages and now she slid the six little logs off the platter they’d been resting on, into the pan with the scrambled eggs. She nudged the sausages off to one side and turned the burner down to low. They’d be warm again in no time. The timer beeped on the oven. The home fries were ready, nicely baked with slices of mushroom and smothered in freshly grated Parmesan cheese. It had been much longer than a year since she’d made Henry’s personal recipe for home fries. Ever since the doctor had told him to watch what he ate, Jeanie had begun serving fresh fruit for breakfast, homemade oatmeal with skim milk, with no attention paid to Henry’s constant complaints. And she had set about trying to get Chad accustomed to better eating habits while he was still young. But this was to be a celebration breakfast, one that would speak of those happier times the family had known. Surely this one morning wouldn’t hurt. She heard Chad coming down the stairs now, one step at a time, as if he was positive the world would wait for him.

  Jeanie filled the cup she’d put by Chad’s plate with hot coffee. His juice was already poured, in a small glass with an orange painted on its side. She grabbed his plate off the table and took it to the stove. She spooned out a large helping of the eggs and then rolled three of the link sausages onto one corner. She opened the oven door and scooped up a serving of the home fries, the hot, sticky cheese pulling away in strings. She wanted Chad’s plate all ready for him, waiting on the table like a picture out of a magazine. The most wonderful breakfast a boy could imagine. Again, Jeanie scolded herself. Why had she been so tied up with her own problems, her own grief, that she’d let family issues ride this long? Now, with the service just two days away, the best thing she could do to memorialize Henry Munroe was to save his son. She put the plate of food back on the table, fitted snugly between a fork and knife. Next to the plate was a freshly ironed linen napkin. The next morning, they would have fresh blueberries, a slice of wheat toast, cereal. And that’s when she heard the motorbike start up, out in the front yard. By the time Jeanie got to the kitchen window, all she saw disappearing around the thick bulge of lilac bushes by the mailbox was Henry’s orange bonnet.

  ...

  It was still early, just four o’clock, when Evie got out of her car in Murphy’s parking lot. She looked across the rows of parked cars in time to see Marshall Thompson slide a leg over the seat of his big black Harley. When he saw Evie, he waved a hand that held a beer bottle. Not only was this illegal, it was against Murphy employee rules to let customers leave the establishment with alcohol.

  Gail was wiping down the bar as Evie clocked in and started picking up empty glasses, dipping them into the bin of sudsy water. Monique, the new girl, was sweeping the floor over by the jukebox. Evie quickly counted heads seated at the bar and at tables around the room. Only fifteen customers, including Billy Randall, who was at the pinball machine. But happy hour was just beginning, and Fridays were always good nights for the tavern, a kind of early weekend frenzy. Murphy’s wasn’t fancy enough to beckon to the uptown crowd, the ones with good salaries and retirement plans, the lawyers and computer programmers and college types. They all drove their Beamers and Volvos out to the fancier bars down at the new mall. Murphy’s, on the other hand, seemed to call out to anyone who’d had a hard life and little money to spend telling the bartender all about it. Evie always felt good seeing Billy Randall in the place. Shortly after she began working at the bar, Billy had told her that if she ever needed his help, to ask for it. And Evie had asked for help on several occasions. And asking was all it took since word was out at Murphy’s that “Crazy Billy” had come back from Vietnam with a black belt in karate and jungle skills that even the Viet Cong hadn’t learned. If Billy stood up, a troublemaker sat down.

  “When’s Sheila getting here?” Evie asked. She would need at least two waitresses to handle the tables. And then Sheila would close, allowing Evie to go home early.

  “Any time now,” said Gail. “Hey, thanks a million for doing this, Evie. I know it’s your days off and all, but Marshall decided spur of the moment that he’s just got to see the sun come up over Quebec City.”

  “It’s okay,” said Evie. She hadn’t wanted to be back at Murphy’s so soon, but there were worse ways to kill a few hours. The memorial service was Sunday, and as far as Evie was concerned, she’d prefer to stay in a coma until it was finally over. Then, maybe then, Larry Munroe would find it in his heart to come on back to the tavern, to sit on his favorite bar stool, to go home with her at the end of the night.

  She missed him.

  Evie looked up to see Andy Southby just coming in for his two beers, those twelve quarters no doubt rattling about in his pocket. She closed her ey
es and imagined the face of a clock, the hour hand pointing at the number ten. Ten o’clock. In six hours, it would be a reality. The bar would have slowed down by then, and the two waitresses would be able to handle the crowd. Evie would be free to go. Before Monique and Sheila would have washed the glasses, swept the floor, and locked the tavern door just past midnight, Evie would have already smoked a joint on the porch swing, had a midnight snack, and then fallen into bed for a deep sleep.

  “Beer,” said Andy, as if this were a new revelation. Evie gave him his beer and then noticed that she was out of napkins. Gail was supposed to have stocked the bar before she left. With Andy sitting on his stool like a self-important gargoyle, Evie went back into the small office just behind the bar to get some napkins from the supplies kept there. Gail was standing before the mirror that hung on the wall next to Murphy’s computer, brushing out her long hair. Evie had always wondered how so much thick hair could disappear into such a tiny, tight knot, but Gail had a magical way of twisting it. Now, she tossed the dark hair back and fluffed it with her fingers. She pulled a lipstick from her purse and watched as Evie rummaged among the stacked boxes.

  “The kids are staying with Ronnie,” said Gail. “He’s taking them to the fair this weekend.”

  “Great,” said Evie.

  “Hey, thanks for talking to Margie yesterday,” Gail added. “It meant a lot to her.”

  “No problem,” said Evie.

  “Okay, I’ll bite,” Gail said. “What’s bothering you?” She leaned toward the mirror and began to apply the wine-colored lipstick. Evie pulled a large box away from the others, ripped the top open, and took out two bundles of napkins.

  “You really wanna know?” she asked.

  “Long as it doesn’t spoil this night,” said Gail. “I got my heart set on cruising along the St. Lawrence, wind in my hair.” She smiled then, her best smile, but it had always struck Evie as a sad smile, no matter how hard Gail tried to make it appear otherwise. She’d had a hard life, divorced young, two kids to look after alone, and so Evie found herself wanting to help the younger woman.

  “Well, for starters,” said Evie, “I just saw Marshall out in the parking lot, waving a bottle of beer around.”

  “It was almost full and he didn’t want to waste it,” said Gail.

  “Why? Did he pay for it?” Evie asked. Gail got that tight look on her face that she always got when Evie was pushing too far. But Evie no longer cared. “How fast do you think Murphy will fire you if he finds out? How’ll you pay the rent then, Gail, when you can hardly do it now?”

  “When was the last time you saw Dan Murphy down here?” Gail asked. “We run this dump while he plays golf all day.”

  Gail flipped up the side flap of her purse and tossed in the tube of lipstick. She went for her jacket on the pegs Murphy had driven into the wall where employees could hang their coats. It was the brown rawhide jacket she’d bought the same week she started dating Marshall Thompson, long rawhide strips hanging down from the arms, strips that grab the wind from the back of a motorcycle.

  “I better run,” said Gail. “Marshall will think I flew the coop.”

  “That’s what you should do,” said Evie. “He’s bad news, Gail. You’ve heard the stories about Paula.”

  Gail slid both arms into the heavy coat and shook the fringes to get them to fall right. She looked over at Evie.

  “Marshall says he never laid a finger on her.”

  Gail followed Evie back out to the bar. Evie knew she was waiting for a response but decided to say nothing. She watched as Gail grabbed her pack of cigarettes and lighter lying next to the cash register. At the door she turned and looked back at Evie. She blew a quick kiss and then the door closed behind her.

  Pop. Pop. Pop. A goddamned triple header. Evie spun around.

  “Andy, I’m warning you,” she said. “You do that one more fucking time and your ass is out of here.”

  “Jesus,” said Andy. He was putting his first quarter into the poker machine. “Who tied your panties in a knot?”

  ...

  It was just past nine o’clock when Larry pulled on a pair of jeans and his navy blue sweatshirt. He gathered up the Still to Deliver letters and stuffed them all back into the leather mailbag. Then he carried the bag over to his window, which he slid upward until it was wide open. He leaned out and surveyed the drop below. There were a few box elders planted beneath the window, but beyond them was clear and freshly cut green lawn. The Blakely kid, with those crossed eyes of his, had been there early that morning to do the mowing, as he did every Thursday. Larry reached for the mailbag and held it out the window far enough to miss the box elders. He let it drop. He heard it hit with a dull splat! on the grass below.

  He cracked his bedroom door a few inches and peered down at the living room. He could see his father’s legs sticking out from the blue sofa, crossed and dead weight, like two fallen logs. This would have been enough to tell Larry that the old man was asleep, but the soft snores that came rolling out in ripples was full proof. His mother was already brushing her teeth and doing her nightly duties before bed. Larry could hear the rattle of bottles around the tiny sink in her bathroom and the sound of running water. He bypassed the talking step altogether and came quietly down the stairs.

  At the bottom he could now see the full living room, his father on the sofa, head back and mouth open, the remote control lying listlessly on the palm of his hand. Now it was a matter of crossing the hardwood floor to the front door and hoping his mother didn’t step out of her bedroom and catch him in motion. If she did, Larry would say that he was coming down for a raid of the refrigerator and then do his best to retreat before she could begin her drilling of him. But her bedroom door was closed, a band of yellow light rimming the bottom. He heard the running water stop and the sound of a glass clinking on the sink.

  He closed the front door behind him and stood there, staring out at the night that had swept in over Bixley. His neighbor’s windows were warm yellow squares. Music wafted in from one yard, the canned laughter of a television sitcom from another. A car sped by, braking for the stop sign at the end of the street. It was the first time in a week that Larry had been out of the house, and now it felt good to have the cool night press itself down on his shoulders. It felt good to open his legs up in an ample stride, something he didn’t have space to do within his cramped bedroom. He found the mailbag where it had landed on the grass. He picked it up, checking to see that no letters had fallen out on impact. He shouldered the bag and crept back to the front of the house.

  The geranium pot, that cast-iron sentinel, kept watch on the street. Larry had to be certain the house key was beneath it, just in case his mother had sensed he would sneak out without her seeing him. She had that talent when it came to her boys, a kind of built-in radar. Once, in the eighth grade, Larry and Henry had slipped out at midnight to meet up with other boys down at the quarry, to throw rocks at the moon and share four cans of beer amongst seven of them, the worst thing they’d done yet in their young lives. But when they’d come home two hours later, they saw that a light was on in the kitchen, a light white with anger. Someone was up, and it had to be their mother. That’s when Henry lifted the geranium pot to discover that the house key was gone. After an hour of shivering in the damp night, it was decided that Henry should be the son to knock on the front door. It had opened immediately, and there stood Frances, a dozen pink sponge curlers in her hair, wearing her blue bathrobe and waiting to deliver the little speech she’d had plenty of time to practice. You are both grounded for three full weeks and that means television too. For the rest of that night, lying on his top bunk as dawn rimmed the horizon, Henry kept asking Larry, who had no answer himself, “How the fuck did she know?”

  Larry tilted the heavy pot that held the red geraniums over to one side. There was the silver house key, glittering up at him in a sliver of porch light. He eased the pot b
ack down and then, the mailbag secure on his shoulder, the way a good mailman would be certain it was, he left the light of the porch and headed out into the blue velvet of night.

  ...

  Jeanie wasn’t sure how long she’d been sitting in the Buick, pulled up to the curb on the opposite side of the street from where Evie’s Spiritual Portraitist sign was driven into the tiny front lawn. At least, she wasn’t sure in the way that time is measured on a clock. But using her new way of telling time, it was easy: she’d been sitting in the Buick at Evie’s Cooper’s house for two wine coolers and three cigarettes. She had made a decision just that morning, as the sausages cooked for breakfast, that she was done smoking. And wine would be that lovely glass of white that she ordered over lunch with Mona, now that they’d started their eating ritual again. Or it would be a glass or two of red when she and Larry met up for a visit. That is, if she ever got over her anger at Larry Munroe enough that she cared to visit him again. But it was seeing the orange bonnet spin out of the drive, with no concern whatsoever for her feelings, that prompted Jeanie to put off the no-smoking resolution. And since it wasn’t the best day to give up cigarettes, maybe it wasn’t wise to give up the wine coolers either. She didn’t blame Chad. She understood every move the boy was making. She knew it was his own way of hitting imaginary fists against the world. With all this talk of Henry in the air, all the pain had been brought to the forefront, away from those quiet, private places where people can grieve alone. Jeanie knew because it had happened inside her, as well. After all, when you memorialize someone, you’re admitting that he no longer exists. You’re putting the idea of his life on a small bronze plaque for passersby to stop and read. The memorial was on Sunday. As Jimmy Buffett once sang, “Come Monday, it’ll be all right.”

  Dear Jeanie,

  I am so very sorry for your sadness. I have seen your car outside my house on many nights.