“I thought that was my line,” the man in the car says. He disentangles himself from the bucket seat, swings open the passenger door and crosses the yard, bussing first Gert, then Andie, on the cheek.
“Richard?” Gert says.
“Daddy?” Andie echoes.
Time hasn’t been kind to Gert’s brother. He’s got the weathered face of a man who’s done hard living. He’s still a natty dresser, though, just like in the old days. His pants are pressed, he’s wearing a clean shirt, and despite the heat he’s got a sweater-vest on top. He took off his baseball cap before he kissed the girls, and now he’s turning it in his hands, his bald head glistening in the sun.
“Hey now,” he says. “I told you I had something special for Andie, didn’t I?”
“No, I don’t believe you did,” Gert says. “And I distinctly recall you saying you were coming next week.” She’s got that look on her face, and I can tell it’s making him nervous. With good reason. It’s been my general experience that Murphy women don’t care for surprises. He does a little shuffle step, catches himself, and pretends he was stepping back to look at Andie.
“Well, you know, I just couldn’t wait. Hard to believe my little girl’s so grown up,” he says to no one in particular. Andie’s face takes on the same look as Gert’s, and Dick almost trips over himself in his haste to move back toward the car.
“So, ahh, Andie, aren’t you going to introduce your fellow?” Dick turns to Gert. “He flew in all the way from Italy just to surprise her.”
“He’s not my fellow,” Andie says. “We broke up, in case he didn’t mention it. Shit.”
“You broke up with me,” Neal says. “I don’t recall agreeing to it.”
“Yeah, well, who hasn’t had a lover’s spat or two, eh, Gert?” Dick says. “The trick is to make it up before too much time passes. Never let the sun set on a quarrel, is what I say. Of course, the ladies usually say something different.” He gives out a dry little chuckle that dies on the wind. “So, anyhow, when he called a few weeks ago looking for Andie, I told him I was heading out to see her myself. Thought I might as well bring him along.”
The man straightens up from against the car where he’s been leaning and offers his free hand to Gert. “She’s right, you know, about the lover’s quarrel, but I hope you won’t hold it against me. I’m Neal. Neal Roberts. It’s a pleasure to finally meet you. Andie’s told me so much about you.”
Oh, he’s smooth, that one.
“Likewise, I’m sure,” Gert murmurs, casting a sidelong glance at our niece.
There’s a pause. While everyone’s busy figuring out what not to say, the fellow catches sight of the goats.
“Hey, look,” he says, striding over to them. He gives the mother goat a pat on the ribs that almost fells her. “Andie never told me you kept animals here.”
“Generally speaking, we don’t,” Gert informs him. But Neal has finally noticed Cort, who is gripping the goat’s belt so tightly his knuckles are white.
“Neal Roberts,” he says, pumping Cort’s hand vigorously. “You a friend of Andie’s?”
“Something like that,” Cort says, and he looks at Andie, who looks away. Neal sees this and looks puzzled, then surprised, as if the harmless garter snake he’d just picked up turned out to be a rattler. The two men stand there, staring at each other, and the testosterone level is so high even the goats are getting randy.
“How long do you plan on staying?” Gert says to Dick, who’s been watching the standoff with interest.
“What?” Dick says, then follows her gaze to the car, which is laden with suitcases. “Ah, no. I’m heading to the city for a few days. Got a lady friend there. We’re going to take in a few shows, some shopping, the works. I just thought I’d swing by, see Andie, and drop Neal off at the old Murphy homestead.”
I snort. The Murphy homestead was a three-room shack long since torn down for firewood, but Gert just raises an eyebrow. Dick sees it and hurries on.
“Right, well, you know what I mean. Show him the house, anyhow. The boy’s got an eye for real estate. Who knows how long it will be here? And, I, um, figured Andie wouldn’t want her old dad getting in the way of the big reunion, so I was planning to head out after lunch. Me and the lady friend have tickets to a show tonight.”
“You have got to be kidding me,” Andie says.
“I don’t know what you’re talking about, babe,” Neal says. He abandons the staring match and comes to stand in front of her, still clutching the roses. “All I know is, I missed you. I came halfway round the world to tell you that I love you and I miss you. That’s got to count for something, right?”
“I cannot believe this,” Andie says. She looks at him, at her father, then turns and heads toward the house. Neal goes after her, and Cort is left holding the goats and watching Andie walk away. My vision telescopes, and suddenly it’s Andie and it’s not, it’s Gert, and it’s August, and the peaches are ripe and Gert is coming home and she’s leaving and from my place at the attic window I’m watching her walk away. I’m in the kitchen and I see Andie coming toward me, the fellow in hot pursuit, and then I’m outside again and Gert has crossed to stand in front of Cort. She puts her hand out, as if to lay it against his arm, but then thinks the better of it. She brushes the hair out of her eyes instead, but there’s a softness to the gesture that makes me want to weep, and when I call her name this time, I could swear she hears me.
“Come on, Gertie. You can’t be keeping goats. You’ve always hated them,” Dick is saying. “They’re the last thing you need right now. I thought you were trying to unload this place.”
“Hmmm?” Gert says, and it’s as if she’s pulling her thoughts back from a long ways away. She gives her head a little shake, and the strand of hair falls back again. This time she leaves it there. “Nonsense. We’re just having a little problem keeping them in their pasture, and you remember what a nuisance escaped goats can be, Richard. But you must be tired after the drive. Why don’t you go up to the big house for a cold drink, and make sure you stop by the cottage before you leave.”
“Aren’t you coming in?”
“No,” Gert says thoughtfully. “No, I don’t believe I am.”
Cort tugs on the belt, but the mother goat digs in her heels. I can see amusement twitching the corner of Dick’s mouth, and all at once I’ve had enough.
I shift so that I’m between the goats and the driveway, and with all my energy I think of winter, of the coyotes of my youth, of want and fire and famine. The goats’ eyes bulge with terror and they take off at a run toward the pasture, towing Cort behind.
Andie
THE faucet is cool beneath Andie’s touch. She runs the water, letting it stream over her wrists and hands, then fills the pot for coffee. From the window over the sink she can just glimpse a curve of driveway, and she lingers there, staring, pretending to herself it’s because she wants to see the sun rise, not because she knows it’s early yet, and if Cort’s driving in to check the goats he’ll have his headlights on.
She’s overfilled the pot, so she pours the excess water out, then changes the filter and puts in fresh grounds. She’s running on coffee and sugar these days, and that, plus a lack of sleep, must be why she’s on edge. Every creak and groan from the floorboards makes her jump. She’d like nothing more than to go up to the attic, close the door, and take a nap. It’s quiet there, peaceful, and when she paints she feels herself falling into a trance, as if she’s dreaming the scene rather than painting it. When she puts her brush down and looks at it, it’s as if it’s someone else’s work entirely.
But if she goes upstairs she risks Neal following. He’s a bulldozer, knocking down all objections with the strength of his will, and her painting is so new, so fragile, she’s not ready to share it yet. She feels as if her whole body is bruised and exhausted from yesterday, although only his words touched her, trailing her throughout the rooms and the fields until she could scarcely think straight, until it was so late and so da
rk that she’d agreed to let him spend the night in the spare room she’d cleaned out for her father, who’d long since left for the city, taking the rental car with him.
She has to admit, it’s heady stuff, this devotion. Neal’s the type of man anyone would swoon over. He’s so handsome women steal looks at him, then blush when he returns their gaze. They cluster round him at parties, drawn by his laugh, by his easy way of talking, and when he grins they blush again. And now she’s the center of his attention, just where she’s always longed to be, with no distractions, no sidelong glances at what else is in the room or on the table. And yet it doesn’t feel quite like she thought it would.
She opens the cabinet and takes down a cup, waiting for the coffee to brew. It’s one of a set she gave Frank for Father’s Day a few years ago, fine black ceramic she sent from Italy. It cost more than she could really afford, but she loved the way her hands curved around the mug in the store, the way she imagined coffee would look against the smooth ebony. Frank took his coffee black, just as she has since she was sixteen, and they shared a private joke that it’s why, at five foot eight, she’s not closer to six feet tall. She traces the lip of the mug with her index finger, and wonders idly what she gave her father that year.
The thought of Richard makes her shoulders tighten until they’re almost at her ears, and she takes a conscious breath, then blows it out as if she’s extinguishing a candle. She’d been a fool to think he’d stay the night at Evenfall. Aside from dropping her off and picking her up during school vacations, she can’t remember him ever spending time here. Even then, if he could have let her out with the car still moving and not been arrested, she suspects he would have done so. The fact that he came at all yesterday speaks more about Neal’s determination to win her back than about any filial bonds.
In the four years she spent in Italy, her father visited her exactly once, for one day last summer, before disappearing with his latest girlfriend, who had blonde hair piled high atop her head, a tight black tank top sporting boobs harder than apples, and a bank account she was perfectly willing to empty on a trip for two to Italy. When Andie and Neal took them to a gelato stand, she’d recoiled as if they were offering her antifreeze to taste.
“Oh no, honey,” she’d drawled through the smoke from her cigarette. “That stuff’s poison after a certain age. Don’t tell me you still eat it?”
They’d left the next day for Venice because Marilyn—that was her name, Andie remembers (“like Monroe, get it?”)—had read in her guidebook that Venice was for lovers and honeymooners. It had been no great loss, although if she’s honest, she’d hoped her father would come alone. But Richard’s never been one for father-daughter bonding. At the train station in Rome, he’d put his arm around her, and she’d been sure he was going to congratulate her on the life she’d made for herself, on how far she’d come on her own.
“I’m going to tell you one thing, kid,” he’d said. “In a relationship, somebody always loves the other person a little bit more. Make sure you’re that person, and not the somebody.”
Thinking about that day, her face flushes. She’d been showing him her success, but he’d seen something else entirely, something to which Andie, with all her degrees and intelligence, had been blind.
And yet, it’s not as if he disliked Neal, as another father might have. On the contrary. On the rare occasions when Richard called—usually for her birthday, and always a few days late—it was Neal he spoke with the longest. Part of that was simply Neal’s gift for smoothing over social situations. But part of it, too, was an easy rapport the two shared, a connection, as if it were they who were related, not Andie and Richard. If she’d thought about it, she’d have assumed that connection would have ended when Neal fucked his secretary. But apparently not.
The coffee’s ready. She pours herself a cup and takes a sip, and when she burns the tip of her tongue it’s a welcome distraction.
“Hey, coffee. Just what I need.” Neal stumbles into the kitchen, yawning and scratching his chest. He’s got drawstring paisley pajama bottoms on with no top. The bottoms are new since Andie left Italy.
“Help yourself,” Andie says. Let him get his own damn coffee.
Neal waits a beat. When she doesn’t move, he goes through the cabinets until he finds the cups. “Hey, I remember these,” he says. “We got them at that little kitchen shop, the one in Lucca. It had all those weird cooking tools, remember?”
Andie does. They’d wandered through the store hand-in-hand, whispering invented uses for the rubber and wooden implements, giggling like teenagers at the basting brushes and syringes. Neal found an ornate silver juicer, bulbous and heavy, and when he picked it up and brandished it suggestively, Andie had laughed out loud. The woman behind the counter looked up, suspicious, rattling the pages of her newspaper to let them know she’d seen and did not approve.
“No,” Andie says, and turns away to gaze out the window again. “I don’t.”
Neal sighs. He pours himself a cup, takes a sip and makes a face.
“Jesus, what is this stuff?”
“Maxwell House. Coffee of champions. That and Folger’s is all you’ll find at the grocery store.”
“You should’ve told me. I would’ve brought over some dark roast.”
“I didn’t know you were coming, remember?”
“Yeah, well.” He takes another swallow before setting the cup in the sink. “I thought Connecticut was supposed to be some kind of outpost of good taste. What happened?”
“You’ve got Hartman confused with the other end of the state,” Andie says, sipping her coffee. “Up here all you’ll find are dairy farms, submarines, and wetlands. That and some Native Americans growing hydroponic lettuce and talking about starting a casino.”
“In Connecticut?” He snorts. “That’ll be a big moneymaker.”
Andie stares out the window, willing Cort to appear. She can’t shake the sensation that she owes him an apology, though for what she couldn’t say. It’s not as if she knew Neal was planning to show up. And even if she had, she doesn’t owe Cort anything. He’s the one who started this stupid fight by stomping out the door. Over what? Nothing, that’s what. Over the fact that their lives weren’t going in the same direction, which is nothing but the truth. So far as Andie’s concerned, the fact that Cort can’t handle it shows how immature he really is.
“Andie, come on. Have you heard anything I’ve said?”
She turns from the window to see Neal looking at her. He’s leaning against the counter with his arms crossed, and he has that maddeningly patient look that makes her crazy, as if he’s dealing with an unruly toddler.
“Look, I know you left under bad conditions. What I’m trying to say is that I’m sorry, okay? I didn’t mean for it to go that way. But you didn’t exactly stick around and let me explain.”
She puts down her coffee cup. She crossed an ocean to avoid this conversation again, and now they’re having it right here in this kitchen. The muscles of her shoulders are tight, and she shrugs one, then the other, trying to release the tension.
“What’s to explain? It seems pretty straightforward to me,” she says. “The only thing left to talk about is how you’re getting to the airport.”
“Come on, Andie. It doesn’t have to be this way. I screwed up, okay? I admit it. But it wasn’t as bad as it looked. Nothing really happened, I swear.”
She remembers how his head had been bent to the crook of her neck, lips nuzzling the flesh there. He’d had one hand at the buttons of her white blouse, undone just enough to show the lacy ribbon at the top of her bra. Italian lingerie costs a fortune. Andie wore—still wears—simple cotton Hanes bras, devoid of decoration. She can’t remember the woman’s face or even the party they were at, but she can still see that lacy black ribbon.
“I don’t really want the details, Neal.” There’s an icy weight in her stomach, and she’s having a hard time breathing. She takes a step toward the kitchen door but Neal moves to block her w
ay.
“Look, babe. I know you’re mad,” he says. “And I don’t blame you. But I came all this way to say I’m sorry—doesn’t that count for something?”
She thinks of the nights she spent waiting for Neal to come home, watching the sun rise over the ancient buildings, wondering how many other women were awake and watching by their windows with her, how many had watched over the years. She wonders how many of those nights he’d spent with someone else. She shakes her head.
He puts an arm gently around her shoulder, pulls her close.
“I’ll make it up to you, I promise,” he whispers in her ear. He drapes his other arm around her, enclosing her in his embrace. She stands stiffly, willing herself not to dissolve against him. His beard brushes her cheek, carrying with it a faint trace of his cologne, a scent so familiar it takes her by surprise. She sees his face coming closer, the pores and wrinkles, and she closes her eyes. He kisses her, and her eyes are closed so tight she sees stars, spreading out against the black into constellations, into galaxies, dazzling her so much that she’s left blinded, has to open her eyes, and is just in time to see, through the kitchen window, the stand of birch trees illuminated by the bouncing headlights of a small red truck.
august
Gert
GERT’S made a lifetime out of walking away, out of keeping herself to herself and avoiding other people’s troubles. Stick your nose out, get involved, and you’ll only get hurt. Yet for the past few days she’s been haunted by the look in Cort’s eyes when Andie’s beau showed up. She’d like to swat her niece’s behind for playing with the boy’s heart when she had no right to it in the first place. She tells herself it’s not her problem, that the boy’s well-being is no concern of hers.
And yet. The memory of that look stays with her throughout the day and into the next. It’s not till she catches sight of her face in the mirror beside the cottage door that she recognizes where she’s seen it before.
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