“How much he going to pay you?” Bud asked from his chair.
“Haven’t got a clue,” I said. “Just asked me to come up and talk to him.”
“Make sure he pays you decent money. We could use it,” he said.
“Did you finish up the strawberry ice cream?” Dottie asked him.
“Scraped it clean.”
“Bastard,” said Dottie. “S’pose I’ll have to have some more butterscotch.”
“That’s gone too.”
“Cake? Is there some cake left?”
“That was gone before everyone left,” Bud said. “Got to be quicker than that.”
“I wonder,” I said, “if we could sell other things at the store.”
“Like what?” Dottie asked. “I’m heating up the leftover spaghetti.”
“A lot of us make stuff. Ida does the quilts, I knit, and Madeline paints. What if we were to make space for crafts and things like that?”
“Where would you put that stuff?” Bud asked. “Store’s cramped as it is.”
“Maybe upstairs. We could put it in one of the rooms, or something. And, maybe, we can put in an oven so I can bake bread up there. Imagine how nice that would smell when you walked in?”
“When you going to have time to do that?” Bud said. “You’re only working part-time, and you got to watch the store.”
“Not all at once,” I said. “Over time.”
“Kids, me, house, store,” Bud said. “Not enough of you to go around.”
“Maybe not,” I said, “but like you just said, we can use the money. And at Christmastime, we can sell wreaths up there.”
“Got any cheese left?” Dottie called from the kitchen.
A few days later, I went up to Ray’s with some of my ideas listed on a sheet of paper.
He took them from me and pursed his lips. He didn’t say anything for a long time. Finally, I said, “Well? What do you think?”
He looked at me over the top of his glasses. “I think you been thinking about this backwards,” he said. “All I want is for someone to work behind the register and to make sandwiches; to run the place when I want a friggin’ day off. Let’s start there, if that’s okay with you. And though I’m sure time will prove me wrong, I’d be your boss. To start with, you’d be working for me.”
“Well, you got me all excited about this,” I said.
“One thing at a time, is what I’m saying,” Ray said. “And there’s one catch.”
“What?”
“You got to get that thing people who quit high school and live to regret it get.”
“A GED. I got it covered. I’m looking into it. Gonna work on it this summer.”
“Well, I guess I can break you in while you get that GD.”
“GED. Right,” I said.
“So, when can you start?”
We worked out a few hours a couple of days a week, to begin with. I had to talk to Ida first, since she or Maureen would be taking care of the kids. I really had to get cracking on the GED. My mind spun like a waterspout as I walked down the hill to home. A breeze leapt up from the harbor as if hounds were chasing it. It kissed my cheeks and flung strands of my hair into my face.
I moved to the side of the road when I heard a car engine behind me. A Volkswagen bus passed me and Evie waved at me from the passenger’s side. Painted on the back of the faded yellow bus were the words PEACE and LOVE. It stopped in front of the Butts house and Evie jumped down and ran inside. A thin red-haired haired man followed after her. Soon, loud voices came from the house. “Doesn’t sound good,” I muttered to myself as I went into the house and helped Bud bundle up the kids for a visit to Popham Beach. While we were inside, the bus farted its way back up the hill.
“Evie don’t tend to stay long, does she?” Bud said, and we headed out. We took the last parking space near old Fort Popham and spent a couple of hours walking that glorious beach, along with half of Long Reach. Shiny seals messed around in the briny water where the Kennebec River blended with the Atlantic Ocean. The kids threw wet driftwood into the waves and ran like hell from the incoming surf. We ate lunch on a bleached log and looked out over the Atlantic, soothed by the vastness of it. When the kids got cranky we stuffed them into the pickup and followed the line of cars back up the road. At home, we put Arlee and Travis down for naps and went outside to sit in the side yard. We hadn’t even lowered our butts into the chair seats when Glen’s truck skidded to a stop in front of our house. He strode into the yard, a big grin on his face. “How’s it hangin’?” he said, just like the old Glen might have done before Vietnam.
“Fine and loose,” Bud said. “How’s it hangin’ with you?”
“Tight and nasty,” Glen said.
“Should I be here?” I asked. Glen pulled me from my chair and wrapped me in a bear hug. “You thirsty?” I asked him.
“Wouldn’t mind a beer or two,” he said.
I looked at Bud. He looked back at me.
Glen caught the look. “Or coffee, maybe? Been a long drive.”
I was inside when I heard Dottie and Glen shout hellos at each other. Shortly after that, she barged into the house.
“Shhh,” I said. “Kids are sleeping.”
“Sorry,” she whispered. “Hey, did you notice Glen’s kind of normal? He on drugs?”
“Well, if he is, I hope he stays on them,” I said. “What’s the latest with Evie?”
“Oh, Christ,” Dottie said. “She’s decided she wants to live with Albert—that’s the guy she’s been with—in Portland. She wants to take Archer along with them. Albert’s in some band and Evie says he’ll support her and Archer.”
“Is Albert Archer’s father?”
“Hell, no. He’s the latest loser to go gaga over Evie. Madeline said that no, that wasn’t going to happen. Told her that it was better for Archer staying with us, and if Evie wanted to fight it, she was going to file a runaway report and Evie would have to come home until she was eighteen.”
“I imagine that went over big.”
“Oh, wicked big. Evie said we could all fuck ourselves, that she was Archer’s mother and that she was going to take him back, that she’d be back with the sheriff to pick him up. Madeline said, ‘Over my dead body.’ Evie flounced out the door in a cloud of smoke. Albert took off after her. ‘Peace,’ he says to us. ‘Peace.’ Peace, her ass, I say. Madeline won’t let Archer out of her sight. She and Bert are trying to figure out whether to get the cops to bring Evie back home, or let it lie until Evie comes around.”
“That likely?”
“Nope. Anyways, right now she’s with someone who don’t appear to have the brains God gave an ant, but at least she’s warm and dry.”
“Coffee?”
“We ain’t drinkin’ anymore?” Dottie said. “On account of Bud?”
“Don’t want to do it in front of him.”
“Okay with me,” Dottie said. “By the way, I broke up with that Addie. She only liked me because I’m a famous bowler.”
“A ten-pin groupie?”
“Yep. I got ’em.”
We carried coffee and store-bought cookies out to the boys. I sat down next to Bud. I took his hand for a minute before squeezing it and letting it go. I grabbed the grass under my feet with my toes and tugged spring up and into my heart.
“I feel better than I have in a long time,” Glen said.
“You look pretty good,” I said. “What changed?”
“Well, I’m on drugs,” Glen said.
“What’d I tell you,” Dottie said to me.
Glen gave her a look. “Yes, I’m on drugs. They help with whatever’s wrong with my head. I might not ever get back to normal, but it’s a start.”
“When the hell were you normal?” Dottie asked.
Glen smiled and shrugged. “Traveling around this sta
te changed up my head. Christ, I went everywhere. Might be a Maine Guide. I’d like to do that, I think, take people places to go hunting, or fishing or hiking, or whatever else they do. Talked to a few rangers and a couple of wardens. They told me how to go about it. Might move up north. Not that many people, just thousands of miles of woods.”
“You got a girl yet?” Dottie asked.
“No,” Glen said. “You want the job?”
Dottie and I laughed.
“What’s so funny? I’m a fine catch. I’m only a little crazy and I got a great—”
“Truck,” Bud said.
I looked at Dottie, and she nodded. “Tell ’em,” she said.
“Dottie plays for the other team,” I said.
She rolled her eyes. “Bowls. I bowl for the other team.”
“What the hell does that mean?” Glen asked.
“I’m a lesbo,” Dottie said.
Bud and Glen looked at each other. Glen held out a hand as Bud fished out his wallet and slapped a twenty into his palm.
“What’s going on?” I asked.
“Glen said she was a lesbo about five years ago. I didn’t think she was,” Bud said.
“But, Dottie, the offer to be my girl still stands,” Glen said. “Might solve everything.”
“What do you mean?” I said.
“You gay?” Dottie asked.
Glen blushed. “No,” he said. “Never mind. Congratulations for being a lesbo, Dottie.”
“Thanks,” she said. “And congratulations to you for having a big truck.”
Bud stood up, stretched, and looked toward his mother’s yard, where the Florine was berthed. “Speaking of being your girl,” he said to Glen, “what you doing with her?”
“Oh, I’m going out this summer,” Glen said. “Going up north next winter, though. You want, you come up with me for some time.”
Bud looked at me. I shrugged. “I’m not your keeper,” I said.
“Hell you’re not,” Bud said, but smiled when he said it.
“And you’re not mine,” I said.
“Nope,” he said.
That weekend, we cleaned and moved out of the trailer in Stoughton Falls. The four of us, Glen, Dottie, Bud, and I, made short work of it. I left the grass a little long, and I did feel bad about not putting together the garden I had dreamed up, but it was the only thing I felt bad about. I would not miss anything else about it.
Bud and I celebrated my birthday up in Long Reach, where we went to an Italian restaurant and saw a movie at the same theater Daddy and I had gone to shortly after Carlie had gone. That night so many years before, restless and stunned, we hadn’t stayed for the whole movie. We had gone back to the truck, where Daddy had said to me, “Florine, the only thing we can do is take it day to day. You got school and I got work. We got to get on with both of them. You with me?” We had done that, he and I, longing for an absent woman we both loved more than each other. He had gone on to the arms of someone else, and I had, with the grace of Grand, Jesus, and everyone else on The Point, tripped and fallen into marriage and motherhood.
But this night with Bud didn’t hold painful memories. I sat through a whole movie holding the hand of the man I would love for the rest of my life.
Life was going well. Our friends were happy, Bud was working hard on staying sober, and we were thinking about our future. Our children slept in their beds, watched over by a loving grandmother and a sweet aunt.
And then, ten days later, my mother came home.
47
Arlee spent the early part of Tuesday morning, May 28, being pissed off at me because I wouldn’t let her wear the purple velvet dress that Robin had bought for her in California. She had sized it one up for Arlee, so that she would be able to fit into it for the upcoming Christmas. That morning, I made the mistake of trying it on her to see if it fit. Not only did it fit, she would outgrow it before Christmas.
“We’ll find someplace special to wear it when the weather gets colder,” I promised her, and I hung it back up in her closet.
“Why?” she asked.
“It’s hot, and it’s not a play dress,” I said.
“Why?” she asked.
“Because you can’t,” I said, and walked away with her brother in my arms. “Mean Mama,” followed me all the way down the stairs. “Yeah, yeah, yeah,” I mumbled. “Yeah, yeah, yeah.”
I set Travis on the kitchen floor while I turned around to put the kettle on for a midmorning cup of tea but a sudden retching sound turned me around in a hurry. He sat covered in vomit. “Oh, honey,” I said, “what the hell is that?”
He began to cry and I picked him up, holding him away from me as I carried him up to the bathroom. The telephone rang.
“Not a good time,” I said to the phone.
I bathed Travis, dressed him in clean clothes, and hoped he wouldn’t puke again. He whined and I cuddled him close.
I peeked into Arlee’s bedroom. There she stood, in front of the mirror, admiring her little madam self, still wearing her purple velvet dress. “Are you kidding me?” I hollered. “I told you no!”
“Don’t care,” she hollered back.
Travis whimpered and I lowered my voice.
“Take it off,” I said to Arlee.
“No.”
The phone rang again.
“Change it,” I said. I carried Travis downstairs and grabbed the receiver. “Hello,” I said. “Warners’ nuthouse.” I waited for a laugh but got a pause instead.
It was Parker Clemmons. “You busy right now?” he asked.
“Hah!” I laughed. “Yes, but I am every day. Why?”
“I’d like to come talk to you,” he said.
“Oh—you read Edward’s letters,” I said. “I didn’t touch them. They—”
“Florine,” he said. The quiet tenderness in his voice made my insides go hollow.
“What is it?”
“Is Bud with you?”
“He’s at Billy’s. What’s the matter?”
“You might want to have him come home.”
“Why?”
“I’m on my way over to talk to you. I have some news.”
“Why can’t you tell me now?”
“I want to tell you in person,” he said.
“Did . . . Did . . . Carlie?”
“I want to talk to you and explain what’s happened. We’ve been through a lot, you and I, and I want to talk to you proper.”
“Okay,” I said, and I hung up. Travis put his hands on my face and patted my cheeks. I buried my head against him and took deep, deep breaths while my heart hammered in my ears.
Bud came home and brought along Billy, Ida, and Glen, who had been painting the hull of the Florine. Glen had knocked on the Buttses’ door on the way up and gathered up Dottie. It was a warm spring day, but I shook with cold. Ida put her arm around me. We gathered in the kitchen. “Sit down,” she said. We all took chairs at the table. Bud sat next to me and Dottie took my other side, Glen next to her. Billy leaned against the wall behind the table. Bud took my hand and gave it a gentle squeeze. Billy said, “Let’s have a prayer.”
Healing phrases with “faith” and “forgiveness” in them bounced like buckshot throughout Billy’s words, but I didn’t hear most of what he had to say until “amen” came in strong at the end.
The room went quiet except for the blocks that Travis was banging together on the porch floor. Ida asked, “Do you want me to take the kids down to the house?”
I shook my head, but Bud said, “If you could, Ma, that might be best. We’ll let you know what’s going on when we know.”
“Travis may have some kind of bug,” I said, motherhood kicking in on automatic. “Arlee needs to change her dress before it gets dirty.”
“No,” Arlee said. I looked up, startled to find my l
ittle girl downstairs and standing in front of Billy. His hands rested on top of her head.
“You look some pretty,” Dottie said to her.
“Don’t encourage her,” I said.
“I a princess,” Arlee said.
“Come with Grammy, princess,” Ida said to her. She grunted as she picked up Travis. “Good lord,” she said, “Grammy isn’t going to be able to do this much longer.”
“I’ll help,” Dottie said. She took Travis from his grateful grandmother and they went out the door.
“I should make coffee,” I said to the three men in my kitchen. “You’ll have some coffee, won’t you? Think Parker might like some? It is getting later in the morning, so maybe everyone has had enough coffee for the day. He’s going to tell me she’s dead. I know he is. She’s dead.”
Bud caught me before I crumpled onto the floor and steered me back to the kitchen chair. I sat and covered my face with trembling hands. The front door opened and shut and Dottie came back in and sat down next to me. She rubbed my back with her big hand.
“Where’s the Kleenex?” Bud asked. I pointed to the porch, near the bassinet that Travis had outgrown. As he got up to get it, someone knocked at the door. Billy answered. I pulled myself together as Bud handed me a tissue and sat down.
Parker stood in the kitchen doorway, his hat in his hand.
“Tell me straightaway, please,” I said.
“Carlie’s dead, Florine,” Parker said. “I’m sorry.”
My heart snapped and I squeezed my eyes shut. Bud and Dottie grabbed my hands.
“When did she die?” I asked Parker through the storm in my head.
“In 1963, in Crow’s Nest Harbor. She’s been dead since before Patty reported her missing.”
I swallowed something sour. “How did she die?” I asked.
“Her neck was broken,” Parker said. “She didn’t feel a thing.”
I went numb. “Who did it?” I asked.
“We have a suspect in custody,” Parker said.
“Edward Barrington?”
“We have a suspect. Let me take you through this step by step.”
Written on My Heart Page 31