Harbor Lights

by Theodore Weesner

  That Ron was never with her at times like these, even by phone, just reaffirmed the differences between them, Marian thought. Still, did Virgil think it was easy to say to your husband, with a flick of the wrist, Hey, I’m pregnant, one, and two, I’d like you to move out, because I’ve had it up to here with you, and I’d like a divorce? Did he think she could just open a can of worms like that and toss it in someone’s face? But she did have to get Ron told and was tempted to call right then. The force was with her—to lay him out with no less cool than a movie queen in a Technicolor moment on the big screen.

  She knew what Ron would say: “Hey, babe, busy right now, get back to you in a few, okay.”

  How could she tell anyone in the wide world that Ron’s singular interest for weeks—with his buddies Petey, Greg, the Tomster—had been researching combinations of beer, legumes, restraint, and anal “embouchure”? Embouchure, she had learned, was a technique for releasing sound from wind instruments such as flutes and tubas. Their goal: to compete in Toronto in November in the Book of World Records Farting Contest. “Hey babe, c’mon with us to Toronto—it’ll be a toot in more ways than one.” She could barely allow herself to live with him, let alone engage him in serious conversation. Bending over backwards and farting into a microphone on stage. “Whaddaya mean pregnant—I thought we were taking precautions? Whoa, babe, this isn’t what I was counting on.”

  Marian wished for the moment that she’d gone with her father long ago and become a lobsterwoman, running a boat of her own. Freedom and independence. She’d be a local character—a few hardy women ran boats up around Camden and Vinalhaven, but not here—and that was okay. She’d have time to think, and her little baby would be proud to have her as her mother. As for the Thomaston deal, so they had landed an account. You’d think it was exclusive rights to pasta in the North End. Prisoners making toys, bagel racks, perpetual wooden calendars. Hey, Jude, wow. The artifacts were authentic to Maine, all right, and so was the mentality that thought they were a big deal.

  Oh, well, be fair, Marian told herself. Running a store may not have been something she had asked for, but it was worse than ungrateful to resent what her mother had done for her. She loved her mother; her mother was her best friend, yet Marian knew she herself was more like her father—more reflective and not so gregarious or given to being popular and successful. On that thought, wrapping wine glasses in tissue paper, she pressed the last of four into a bag and felt it crack. Coming back to herself, to the customer, she said, “I’m sorry; I’m in too much of a rush—I’m sorry.” She removed the glasses, confirmed that but one was broken, and went to the shelf for a replacement. She apologized again as she wrapped the new glass and repacked the bag. “Something on my pea brain,” she said, and the white-haired lady, smiling, said, “Honey, don’t worry about it.”

  Standing there, gazing within, Marian saw that she did not know what she wanted from the world. She wished she could feel about the store the way her mother did. How wonderful it would be to love this space like that. To have it as a dream, and also not to feel alone with herself all the time and unable to tell others what she was thinking—or they’d think she was unappreciative, or even silly. Or, like Ron, would think she was spoiled. How nice it would be. Other people felt like that, didn’t they?

  Ron remained on her mind. She was imagining getting him told, speaking to him on her cell phone in a close-up moment, and, in the next instant, came to herself—the force was taking her over—really was unflipping her phone as she walked to the front door and out to the sidewalk. Nor did she hesitate as she reached the breezy air, punching the familiar digits—punch! punch!—as if they were Ron’s nose and he had to know she was at the end of her rope. The force was with her all right; let the chips fall where they may. “Ron Slemm!” she called to be heard through motors and fans filling the air around her. She disliked his name, always had.

  “He’s—”

  “It’s his wife—it’s important!”

  He came on and she called, “There’s something I have to tell you.”

  “Hey—”

  “I’m going to have a baby, okay. I know that’s nothing you want, but that’s the way it is. And I know I don’t want to live with you anymore. What I want is a divorce, as soon as possible. I want you to take your friends, your stupid farting contest, I want it out of my life—”

  “What’re you on—you drunk?”

  “Yeah, right, I’m drunk. With a little baby in my belly, that’s what I do, is get drunk. Grow up! I’ll tell you what I’m doing, Ron—I’m coming to my senses! And I have to go now because I’m working. I just want you to know what the deal is because—”

  “Marian, hold it a second, please, okay? You sound like you’re losing it. You want to talk about things, fine, we’ll talk about things. I’m sorry, whatever it is, I’m sorry, and we’ll talk about it. Just cool down, okay. You’re pregnant? You’re kidding? You sound like you’re about to blow a gasket.”

  “I’m not kidding. And I won’t be cooling down. My father’s dying, too—okay? With lung cancer. I can’t live like a teenager anymore! It’s making me sick of who I am!”

  “Marian, let’s talk about it, okay, after work? It sounds like you’ve been blindsided, and we’ll talk about it, but not on the phone, okay? Listen, I know I haven’t been real responsible lately, but I’ll change, I swear. The farting thing, it’s over, I’m sick of it myself. Let’s talk after work, when we can sit down and be calm. I understand you’re upset, I understand, and I don’t blame you—”

  She snapped the mouthpiece shut and cut him off. And she sighed as she glanced around the parking lot at the coming and going of cars and shoppers. Tears would have been relieving, but at the moment she had no feeling for them, not over Ron. As in high school, tears would have meant a crisis was over and they were making up—she would have welcomed it deeply—but now there were no tears, and what she knew within was that she had to hold her own. It was going to be next to impossible, but it was what she had to do. She couldn’t live another day the way she had been living. There were things to be said for marrying an older man, and right now they made perfect sense. She wanted adulthood in her life. Common sense. Intelligence. Wit and humor. And she hoped she could make things right with her father when she saw him after work. Above all, she wanted to get through to him with a message of love and understanding, before he was lost to her forever.

  Virgil was holding forth and the toast was proceeding as Marian, still trembling, arrived in the rear of the store. Her mother gave her an expression that said where have you been? Are you holding up okay? Virgil handed her a glass and, bottle in hand, reached to fill the delicate crystal with champagne bubbles and shooting stars.

  “This lady knew in her gut from day one!” Virgil said, swiveling back around, drawing laughs and smiles. “That Thomaston line was locked up—and ready to break out!” The group of ten or twelve, including some customers and other part-timers, continued to grin and snicker, and, not for the first time, Marian thought, well, maybe they have something there. The laminated woodcraft items would always provoke conversation over where they had come from, no doubt about that. Hands and hearts of stricken souls. As Virgil said, they carried stories.

  Stepping over to be next in line to embrace her mother, she wondered if she didn’t also need to grow up. Her mother whispered, “Honey, I love you so much,” and Marian’s eyes filmed yet again. Well, you don’t come of age at twenty-one but at twenty-seven, was the thought crossing her mind. You get pregnant, open your eyes, and all at once you grow up. She’d have to explain it to her mother. She could see her smile, could hear her laughter bubbling up.

  Warren

  Beatrice had yet to call. Deciding to let the answering machine take her reply, he left again, this time for the Co-op, to surrender his traps and fishing grounds. Giving up his grounds was a form of suicide he found hard to admit he was committing, yet it had to be done; all at once he wanted to get it behind him.


  How long was “after a while”? Or had she said “half an hour,” which would have elapsed more than an hour ago? If he could offer them forgiveness and extend a hand by way of saying good-bye, all that he wanted would fall into place. She knew his condition—what choice did she have but to name a time? If she felt threatened, let her bring Virgil. Think how surprised they’d be when they heard that he was offering friendship and forgiveness, was letting them off the hook.

  Dragging himself out to his truck, Warren felt a degree of calm. He had decided to give his traps away with his grounds because hauling gangs of gear to process and sell separately was more than he could handle. The best scenario was to have Joe DiMambro say to a young fisherman, here, you’re granted this area and the traps that are in place. Green-and-white buoys. It’s what he’d like if he were on the receiving end, Warren thought. Area marked by traps in place, courtesy of Warren Hudon. No strings attached.

  Grounds surrendered, he’d have Beatrice to speak to one last time and all would be in place.

  Then—he didn’t care. He’d lie back and watch baseball until nature had her way. Or he’d stare into space, for any comfort it might give him to think of things. Going without chemicals was how to do it, he was ever more certain. Wasn’t it in fighting death that pain rose to be endured—fighting, though death always had its way in the end? Wasn’t it in gazing upon the horizon that animals, in their greater wisdom, crossed to the other side? Had nature not long ago let man know how to die?

  Unconsciousness might occur like the sun going down, the light of the world going out, Warren thought. Fear was passing from him, and his only concession would be to ask for morphine if physical pain became unbearable, but he hoped not to ask for anything. He’d relish any thoughts to come his way—for thinking was life, and even as he hungered for death, he wanted his mind to remain clear until the end.

  “I guess I’ve got the obituary blues, if you know what I mean,” he tried to joke as he settled into a chair opposite Joe DiMambro’s desk at the Co-op. He had asked for a confidential chat with the door closed, and DiMambro had moved around to close them in, even drew Warren a partial mug of coffee from a stained glass pot on a side table.

  “Gee, Warren, I don’t think I like the sound of that.”

  “Well, there you have it. Cancer’s got me, and there’s not much to do about it.” A cough issued, as if for punctuation.

  “God, Warren, that’s hard to hear. I’ve been worried about you. We all have.”

  “I appreciate that,” Warren said, trying to smile. “I saw the doc yesterday, and he said it’s terminal. Wouldn’t say how much time, except not much. ‘Don’t plan any long trips,’ is what he said.”

  “Warren, good Lord.”

  “There’s something to be said for knowing ahead of time—gives you a chance to put things in order.”

  “Oh, I understand, still—”

  “What it is, I wanted to ask your help with some things.”

  “Of course, anything.”

  “Beatrice’ll be selling my boat, I expect. Everything’s going to her, and she’ll be coming around for help with the boat. As for my grounds and traps, I won’t be running them anymore—couldn’t if I wanted—and if you’ll make up something for me to sign, for you to bear witness, I’m leaving it all to the Co-op. What I’d like is for the members to take up a vote either for a lottery for all of it to go to one man, under twenty years of age in any case—I’m insisting on that—or to divide the grounds between a couple, each under twenty years of age. Only got a handful of traps out there right now, altogether, but they mark out the grounds. Not that much these days, but a decent stake, say, for a young man starting out.” Warren paused a moment as DiMambro stared at him. “That’s about it,” he added. “That’s what it comes to.”

  DiMambro seemed not to know what to say or do.

  Nor did Warren. Then he said, “You draw up a paper in two copies. I’ll sign them right now. You keep one; I’ll take one with me.”

  “You’ve thought this out … You’re sure you don’t want an attorney present?”

  “I’ve thought it out.”

  DiMambro appeared flustered for another moment, then reached for a pad of paper and ballpoint pen.

  Warren said, “If I can’t trust you, what’s it all amount to?”

  “Warren, I’ll do my best to see your wishes are carried out, just like you say. Still, I would advise having an attorney present.”

  “You would, for sure?”

  “I would, yes.”

  “Well, I guess I don’t want to. He’s a lawyer, you know.”

  “Ah.”

  “Just give me your word. Like I say, I can’t trust you, as a friend, what’s it all amount to?”

  “Warren, I’ll stand by my word.”

  “We’re just fishermen. We’re not lawyers.”

  “I’ll stand by my word.”

  “Thank you, Joe, I know you will.”

  “Shall we write it up? I’ll put it on the machine so we can have a look at it.”

  DiMambro went through the steps as if it were nothing more involved than a membership agreement, and in a few minutes, asking questions to clarify points of land and rock outcroppings that defined the boundaries, had a copy clattering like Morse code from the machine’s printer.

  “Can we call Joe Jr. on this as a witness?” Warren said.

  “Well, he’s under twenty, so there’d be a conflict there.”

  “Let’s just sign it then.”

  “I don’t think there’ll be any problem. The grounds are well known, and all the members will know what’s what.”

  Warren signed each copy first, then Joe DiMambro signed and came up with envelopes into which to place the separate copies.

  “My father fished those grounds thirty years, and I’ve fished them thirty myself,” Warren said. “His father fished them too, you know.”

  DiMambro gazed at him. “That’s sad in a way. But giving the grounds to a youngster. You couldn’t do a finer thing than that.”

  Warren had little idea what else to say, nor did DiMambro, and for a moment they sat in silence, two aging men not knowing quite how to look at each other with the present subject between them.

  Driving home, Warren accepted, on a simple turn of mind, that the end of the road was in view. His fishing grounds were gone, and he could as well have signed away his home and been walking down the street with no place ever again to rest his head. What else was he to do? He loved his daughter, and, only here, for the first time, understood the ease of transition a parent might know in having a child to whom to bequeath the reins of life. Beatrice would have that one day with Marian, he thought. It was yet another way in which she had closed him out, another trespass for which he would have to turn the other cheek, to make real his offer of forgiveness.

  Beatrice

  She was cleaning her glasses with a cotton hanky, one of her gestures when beset by anxiety. She and Virgil were alone in the office, and he had one more errand to run before returning to take her to lunch. “Would you like me to talk to him?” he was saying.

  It would only make things worse, Beatrice was thinking, and she shook her head. “He’s so determined about this favor—that’s what’s not like him.”

  “Well, I won’t have you meeting him in a public place—whatever he means by that. I won’t have that.”

  Beatrice had little idea what to say, to Virgil, Warren, anyone. By now she only wanted the problem to go away, and was thinking she’d grant Warren his favor if he’d just say what it was he was talking about. Anything to have it done with.

  “I’ll do whatever you want me to,” Virgil was saying, about to leave. “I don’t mind talking to him.”

  “That’s okay. He says it’s just some sentimental question.”

  Virgil kissed her on the cheek. “We’ll celebrate at lunch, then pick up the note at the bank. That’s the thing to keep in mind—you’ve won this account! You watch, people are goin
g to devour that line. It’s terrible about Warren, it really is—but let’s not let it spoil what it doesn’t have anything to do with. Okay?”

  On a fond look, as she nodded, Virgil was gone, and Beatrice, standing at her desk, tried to find a way to agree with what he had said. She needed time with Marian, she thought, to talk over all that was going on. They should go out for dinner, just the two of them—a late meal and a chance to talk, because the best medicine for both of them would be to log some solid hours at work and sort things out. Nothing helped like logging solid hours. She might even let Marian know that when the dust settled, and if she wanted, she could move in with her. She could have the baby at home, where there was space, and it would be easy to help her out. It was delicate stuff, all of it—life and death—but it would be easier to endure if they had some moves in mind down the road.

  And she couldn’t help thinking how pleasant it would be to open up the house again. To refurbish its dark and divisive decor, fill it with music boxes and nursery rhymes, with sunlight and innocence. It was a sizable house, within view and sound of the harbor, and what a relief it would be to have it free of the dark presence that had filled it all these years. A new lease on life—knowing freedom and having a baby to love and spoil. A little girl with silken hair to comb and caress—maybe a boy who would adore his gramma. Going home each day, she’d be ripe with joy. It wasn’t something she’d admit, and it pained her to think of forsaking Warren in his time of need, but she longed for things to be settled. Yes, to be free of him. To have rooms painted new colors. Ivory and eggshell in place of those browns and tans. What she was thinking was awful, she knew, and she’d never tell a soul—at the same time, ever since she’d read his note and begun to sense he was using his condition to get back at her, that in itself reinforced her urge to be free of him. A new life, at her age, and a baby in the house! Virgil could visit, and she would cook him a big meal! Maybe happiness would be theirs after all.