Here on Earth

by Alice Hoffman

  The Judge now comes in. “There’s the turkey,” he says. His one holiday task: to carve. Louise has left out the knife he likes best and the large silver fork which belonged to her mother.

  As usual, the Judge is wearing a suit and tie; he seems much too tall for the kitchen. He carves the turkey, teasing the women as they travel back and forth to the dining room, bringing out platters of food. He’s the same man who’s stood here in Louise’s kitchen every Thanksgiving, but today something is different. The Judge’s hands shake as he carves. It’s a slight tremor, so mild no one would notice, except Louise.

  When the Judge is done with the turkey, he goes to wash his hands. From the window above the sink, he can look into the yard. “Well, well,” he says when he spies Gwen and Hank out there. “The reluctant guests?”

  “They don’t consider adults to be human,” March jokes.

  “I’ll lasso them,” the Judge says. “I’ll offer food, that should do the trick.”

  As he goes out, a cold blast of air rips through the kitchen. The Judge is so tall he has to crouch to maneuver past the branches of a peach tree Louise planted in the first year of their marriage. This was the Judge’s parents’ house until the older Justices retired to Florida; Bill grew up here and Louise often thought of that when she was tempted to throw him out. She simply couldn’t imagine him living anywhere else. And anyway, it’s too late to think about such matters. What’s done is done.

  “You’re sure you’re okay?” Susie now asks her.

  Louise moves her hand to her face, as if smoothing something out. Susie and March both look concerned. Louise must have slipped and shown them a bit of her pain. She must have let something through.

  “A touch of the virus,” Louise says. “Absolutely nothing.”

  The three women stand by the back door and look out. The terrier is in a pile of leaves, chewing on a stick, while Hank and Gwen whisper to each other.

  “Everybody inside,” they hear the Judge’s voice call.

  The dog starts running toward the Judge as soon as it hears his voice, and has leapt into his arms before the Judge knows what hits him.

  “Wow, is that dog crazy about you,” Hank says. “Look at her.”

  The terrier is making yipping noises as it licks the Judge’s face.

  “Stop that, Sister,” the Judge says, but he seems extremely pleased to be holding this creature to his chest, in spite of the burrs in its fur and the mud on its feet.

  At the door, Louise Justice turns pale. Clearly, this was their dog—his and Judith’s—and now, in spite of the chilled wine, Louise has a mouthful of grief. Susie had begged for a dog when she was young, but the Judge had always said no. Too much hair and dirt and fuss.

  “Mom,” Susie says softly. She doesn’t understand this—could it be that her mother knows about Judith Dale and the Judge? “Maybe you’d better get the dog out of here,” Susie suggests to March.

  “I’m sorry,” March apologizes. She and Susie exchange a worried look. “I wasn’t thinking. I’ll put the dog in the car.”

  “No,” Louise says. “Don’t.”

  Outside, they can see that the Judge is crouched down; he’s scratching the terrier’s head. These girls in the kitchen, March and Susie, feel sorry for her, Louise is well aware of that. But what do they know about love? You make bargains you’d never imagine you’d agreed to, and you do it over and over again.

  “I’m fine,” Louise says. “We’ll start with the chowder, before it turns to ice.”

  These girls think in black and white, love or rejection, yes or no. Louise watches the Judge as he makes his way to her back door and she feels the intensity of being together for nearly fifty years. She knows him completely, and not at all. She made her choices, just as March and Susie are doing. Young people believe that regret is something you will never feel if you simply do as you please, but sometimes it’s a matter of degree. Would Louise have preferred not to have the Judge at her table? Would she have preferred to have raised Susie alone, or have some other man watching TV with her in the evenings, someone easygoing, someone whose affections she could be sure of?

  “We’re sitting down to chowder,” Louise tells the Judge when he comes inside.

  The Judge has muddy paw prints on his pant legs; the suit will have to be sent to the dry cleaner.

  “Look at this mess,” he says. When he brushes the leaves off his jacket, there’s the tremor, in his hands.

  “It’s not so bad,” Louise says, cleaning off the lapels. “It’s a miracle fabric.”

  The Judge laughs. “I can always trust you to perform miracles.”

  “Hardly.” Louise snorts. He was charming as a young man, so tall, so much fun in spite of his serious nature. She loved him then and she loves him still. Someone else might have left, but she stayed, and here she is, beside him.

  “What’s wrong with that daughter of Ed Milton’s?” the Judge asks. “I’ve never seen a more sullen child.”

  He wasn’t really there when Susie went through her worst times, at exactly the same age. Susie hated herself and everyone else, but the Judge was too busy to know. He was working, or over at Fox Hill, and maybe Louise was too quick to settle all of the daily details and problems before his car pulled into the driveway.

  “The poor thing is twelve and she’s worried that Susie will be a wicked stepmother,” Louise tells the Judge. “I’m sure it will work out fine.”

  Hank and Gwen come in now, embarrassed to be late, worried about the dog.

  “I’ll leave my dog in the mudroom,” Gwen tells Mrs. Justice. “If that’s okay.”

  So it’s her dog now. The Judge smiles to hear that, and Louise notices he has the look he always has when he’s thinking about Judith.

  “That’s perfectly fine.” Although Louise is addressing Gwen, it’s the Judge she’s looking at. “Whatever makes you happy.”

  By the time they finally leave the Justices’ it’s late and so cold they see their breath in the air. They have all overeaten, even Sister, who was slipped a plate of turkey and stuffing. It’s a dark and beautiful night, dreamy and black, filled with the silhouettes of bare trees.

  “Thanks for taking me with you,” Hank says when they pull up to the Farm. “The food was great.”

  The dogs in the driveway rouse themselves and head over. Hank has brought them a bag full of leftovers which he sets down in the driveway.

  “I can see why you like him,” March says to Gwen.

  Gwen’s got Sister under her arm. Just being with all those normal people tonight has made Gwen realize how much she hates living out here. She watches Hank pet those dreadful dogs, the ones Belinda first took in out of pity.

  “You don’t see anything,” Gwen tells her mother.

  March stays in the driveway when Gwen goes inside. March has had several glasses of wine and she feels a little tipsy. She had fun tonight, something she hasn’t had in quite a while. Finally, she and Hank walk toward the house together, and that’s when March realizes that Hollis’s truck is gone. They go inside and look around, but no one is home.

  “If you’re worried, I could take your car and look for him,” Hank offers.

  “No,” March says. “I’m sure he’s fine.”

  After Hank goes up to bed, March tries to call Susie, to talk about Ed Milton and his daughter, but the phone still isn’t working. Maybe the wires have frozen; the house is cold, and outside the temperature is dropping. March makes herself a pot of tea and takes it into the parlor. She can view the driveway from here, and sometime after midnight she spies headlights when Hollis arrives.

  “Hey,” Hollis says when he comes into the parlor and sees March. He grins and takes off his gloves. “How was it?”

  “Great,” March says. She’s relieved that he smiles, as if there was a right and wrong answer to his question and she’s scored correctly. Since Hollis seems to be in a decent mood she dares to venture a question of her own. “Where were you?”

  “Me?�
�� Hollis sits down in the easy chair across from March. The cold is still on his skin and he rubs his hands together. “I took a ride up to Olive Tree Lake, to look at that development going up there and see if I want to buy into the project. Then I drove past the Justices’, but the party must have broken up. I guess I missed dessert.”

  “And it was good too.” March has the funniest feeling about tonight. Hollis isn’t looking at her. He hasn’t looked at her once. “You’re sure everything’s all right?”

  “The only problem is how cold it is in here,” Hollis says. “The burner’s not doing the job.”

  “The phone’s not working either.”

  Hollis goes to the fireplace and sets out some kindling and two logs. He bends down, one knee in the ashes. He has always found it best not to look at whoever he’s lying to, although, in point of fact, nothing he’s told March is an outright fabrication. He was up at Olive Tree Lake, true enough; he’s simply failed to mention that he was there fucking Alison Hartwig. It wasn’t as though he planned it. He drove down to the Red Apple to get a big bag of dog food, and there she was, buying eggnog and soda to bring home to her kids and her mother. He knew he was going to fuck her the minute he saw her; he knew it would be good to fuck someone he didn’t give a damn about.

  He has always been at March’s mercy, and that’s a problem. His own love for her is an agony. It makes him feel like a beggar, even now, and he can’t have that. Let someone else beg. Let Alison Hartwig beg him to fuck her. At least it won’t be him down on his knees.

  March has come up behind him. She places one hand on his shoulder, and her touch makes him feel like weeping. But he doesn’t. He’s not even certain if he’s capable of crying. People said that, when his son died—Look at him, has he once cried? Well, maybe he has no tear ducts, or maybe he’s not human, but he can’t do it, and what’s more, he won’t.

  “I missed you tonight,” March says.

  Hollis reaches to take her hand then, but he’s careful not to look at her. He keeps his eyes trained on the fire before him, and he doesn’t dare let anything get in his way.

  20

  When the cold comes to New England it arrives in sheets of sleet and ice. In December, the wind wraps itself around bare trees and twists in between husbands and wives asleep in their beds. It shakes the shingles from the roofs and sifts through cracks in the plaster. The only green things left are the holly bushes and the old boxwood hedges in the village, and these are often painted white with snow. Chipmunks and weasels come to nest in basements and barns; owls find their way into attics. At night, the dark is blue and bluer still, a sapphire of night. During some winters, it is so cold that tears freeze before they fall and a pony’s breath may turn to ice inside its nostrils and lead to suffocation.

  This year, December is so clear and icy cold the air itself seems as if it were a bell about to be rung. A Christmas tree is always put up on the first Friday of the month in front of Town Hall, beside the statue of the Founder, who, to ensure the festivity of the season, will be decorated with a wreath of ivy until the New Year. One week of frigid weather is nothing to a New Englander, but after two a person’s patience can be tried. The Lyon Cafe always does its best business at this time of year. Some people say the surge in popularity is due to the hard cider served only in December, but the old-timers know it’s because there’s nothing better to do. The best there is at this time of year is cider and gossip, and at the Lyon Cafe, on a cold December night, it’s possible to find both.

  “Is everyone in the entire universe here?” Susanna Justice asks her mother when they step into the Lyon after a meeting of the library committee. Louise has attended as the secretary of the organization—a position she, thankfully, will be giving up at the end of the year—Susie, as a reporter who still has to go home and think of something interesting to write about the fund-raising drive in time for tomorrow’s Bugle.

  “Order the cider,” Louise tells her daughter as she sets off to grab a table and Susie heads for the bar. There’s some serious drinking going on at the Lyon, and the noise level is such that Susie and Louise have to sit close together at their table, with their heads nearly touching, in order to hear one another.

  “I hope you’re going to mention Harriet Laughton in your article,” Louise says. “She’s the heart and soul of the fund-raising committee. I wanted to ask March to join the committee, but I can never seem to get hold of her.”

  “I know. I couldn’t either.”

  Susie had been calling and calling, with no success. When Richard phoned her to say he also couldn’t reach March and hadn’t heard from Gwen for several weeks, she went out to Guardian Farm, and she didn’t like what she found.

  “What do you want?” Hollis said to her when she got out of her truck. Susie was so startled by the hostility of his tone that she took a step backward; she shaded her eyes against the sun, the better to gauge his expression, but there was nothing to see. Just an angry man, staring her down.

  “Actually, I want to see March,” Susie had said. “Is that a criminal offense or something?”

  All she got for an answer was the wind, flapping between them. A loose shutter on the house banged back and forth. Susie could practically see Hollis reaching inside himself for a way to get rid of her, a lie to tell. Funny how she’d never noticed before how much he’d aged; his posture was that of a young man, but that’s not what he was anymore.

  “What are you going to do, Hollis? Call the police and have me escorted off your property?”

  Before he could respond, March came to the door. She ran out to hug Susie, then insisted on dragging her into the kitchen for a cup of tea.

  “Why didn’t you tell me Susie was here?” March said to Hollis. “You hate company, that’s all there is to it.”

  She had thrown her arms around him, and Hollis had let her kiss him. For an instant, he seemed happy, there in her embrace.

  “‘He’s all bark,” March said to Susie as they headed for the house. “Oolong.” March had remembered her friend’s favorite tea. “Right?”

  “Right.”

  Once in the kitchen. Susie couldn’t help but notice how streaked with white March’s dark hair had become. March had stopped coloring it. and now simply drew it away from her face with silver clips. Hollis had come in after them, but after he allowed March to tease him about being antisocial. he withdrew to the parlor. Still, Susie had the sense he was listening.

  “I’m worried about you,” she told March after she’d been served a mug of tea. The house was cold and dim; March was wearing a heavy gray sweater that looked like one of Hollis’s castoffs.

  “You’re always worried about me.” March laughed. She explained that she would have been over to see Susie, but her Toyota had suddenly died. As soon as Hollis finished working on it, she’d come for a visit. “You don’t have to worry,” she’d insisted.

  But sitting in the Lyon with her mother, Susie is still worried. “To tell you the truth, I wish March had never come back here,” Susie admits as she and Louise sip cider in the crowded tavern. “What does she see in him?”

  “Ah, love,” Louise says with a surprising amount of bitterness.

  Susie tilts her head and studies her mother.

  “Didn’t you think I knew?” Louise says. “How could I not?”

  “Are you talking about Dad?”

  “I didn’t think it was a suitable topic for discussion. I still don’t.”

  Louise checks the buttons on her sweater, as if something was undone. Clearly, even talking around the edges of the Judge’s relationship with Mrs. Dale is tremendously difficult. Watching her mother, Susie feels extreme tenderness.

  “Then we won’t discuss it,” Susie says.

  “Fine.” Louise takes her daughter’s hand in her own. “That’s settled.”

  “Unless you ever want to,” Susie can’t help adding.

  “Susie,” Louise warns.

  “Fine. Next topic.”

  “Di
d you call Richard Cooper back and let him know you went to see March?”

  “I did. He’s all broken up about March leaving, but his main concern is that Gwen’s living out there. I can’t say that I blame him.”

  “I saw her down in the Marshes,” Louise says. “That girl, Gwen.”

  “Are you serious?”

  “I brought out some groceries and warm clothes sent by the library committee—there was a wonderful sweater, a hundred percent wool—and I put everything on the porch, the way I always do because Alan doesn’t like it if you knock on the door. That’s when I saw her.”

  “Inside the house?” Susie can hardly believe it. “I thought he didn’t speak to anyone.”

  “Well,” Louise says, “he’s obviously talking to her.”

  In fact, Gwen has been going out to the Marshes most afternoons. Hank has so many chores to do, along with any after-school jobs he can find, as well as working on his senior thesis, that Gwen has too much time on her hands. She sometimes rides Tarot out to the Marshes, but usually she leads him, so he’ll get a little exercise without having to carry her weight. Despite the cold, Tarot is content to accompany her; there are still some withered apples on the ground in the Coward’s yard, and the grass is high and salty. The Coward has begun to tell Gwen about her family: How beloved her grandfather Henry was. How her other grandparents, the Coopers, were said to think so well of themselves they had to deflate their heads every morning or else they’d sail away on the strength of their own vanity. He has recounted a few small details about the fire, when his wife died, if only to suggest the reasons he has plunged into this life he now leads. The weirdest thing is, when he speaks about himself he uses the third person: Alan Murray couldn’t go into that house. He stood there and stood there, but he couldn’t move.