From Away

by Phoef Sutton

  “You didn’t lay the groundwork, you just said it. You said the whole thing.”

  “I’m sorry. I just thought it might take you a while to get used to the idea. I mean, sometimes you lash out when you’re surprised, and I thought it would be better if….”

  “Better if I lashed out at you?”

  “Yeah, I’m used to it.”

  “So, am I supposed to act surprised when he asks me?”

  “This is not a birthday party. He wants to marry you. You’re talking about everything but the point.”

  “I know.” She went back to picking, angrily pulling the flaky white meat out of the shell with an old metal pick.

  “So?”

  “So, I’m supposed to give the answer to you?”

  “Well, I’d like to know what you’re thinking. And I’d like to know why you’re mad.”

  She rested her head on the back of her hand. “It wouldn’t work out.”

  “Okay. Tell him that. Why are you so sure?”

  She looked out the window at you running across the brown grass. “What’s he going to do when he finds out about Maggie’s dad?”

  “He knows about Maggie’s dad.”

  “I’m supposed to keep telling that story?”

  “Okay, tell him the truth. Neil’s a big boy, he can take it. Do you know how many babies on this island come from single mothers?”

  “Are their fathers married?”

  “Go ahead and make it sound as bad as you can. Neil loves you. He’ll just get pissed at the asshole and love you more.”

  “He’ll have to know everything about me.”

  “He wants to know everything about you.”

  “I mean everything.”

  “What is that? And why do you always talk that way? What have you ever done that was so awful? The only question is, do you want to marry him?”

  She picked up a bit of crab and chewed on it thoughtfully. “I think, yes.”

  “Great!” I pounded the table; finally, something was working out.

  “But I’ll have to tell him everything.”

  I was hardly listening now. I was up on my feet pacing the room. “Fine, I know you always act like you have this big secret. Trust me, we all have one. So, you sold pot in high school, is that it? Big deal. Half the fishermen here smuggled the stuff in the eighties. And you tried cocaine in college. But you didn’t get hooked did you? And you don’t think Neil expects you to be a virgin, do you—”

  “I made a movie once.”

  I stopped. That’s never a phrase a man wants to hear his sister say. “A movie?”

  “Remember when Maggie was about eighteen months and you watched her while I went to LA for five days to visit my friend Gina Resnick?”

  “Uh-huh?”

  She pushed off from the table and walked out onto the porch. You (and no, you are never, never going to read this part, but I have to put it down now so I can cut it out later) were digging with your Pokémon shovel and pouring the dirt over your arms.

  “Gina was doing this ‘scene’ and she wanted to know if I wanted to be in it. Paid five hundred dollars for an afternoon’s work. That’s a pretty good deal, huh?”

  I came out and sat next to her.

  “Okay. Okay. You’ve been carrying this around with you all this time like you committed murder. Well, I hear you. And it’s not so bad. You didn’t kill anybody.”

  She laughed.

  “Okay, but you were young—”

  “It was three years ago, Sam.”

  “You can do a lot of growing up in three years.”

  “I’m not making excuses. I did it because the money was good and I thought it would be fun.”

  “Fine. Fine. So, you had an adventure, and that’s in the past.”

  “What’s Neil going to think?”

  “Well, you’re not going to tell him.”

  “I am.”

  She went back inside and started picking at the crab again.

  “Jesus Christ, why would you do that?”

  “He has a right to know.”

  “No, he doesn’t.”

  “What if he finds out?”

  “How’s he going to find out?”

  “It’s a video. It’s out there.”

  “Come on. I work in a video store. The shelf life on those movies is, like, two months. It’s long gone by now.” I reached over and grabbed the crab claw from her. “Damn it, I know what you’re doing. You’re using this as a way to scare him off because you’re afraid to take a risk at being happy.”

  She slammed the pick down. “What do you know about it, asshole? Have you ever faced anything in your life?”

  “Why are you attacking me? And what does that mean, ‘faced?’ What are you even talking about?”

  “Maybe I want Neil to know, okay? Maybe I want him to know because I want to be able to talk to him about it sometime, to talk to him about how it feels to have something like that in my past. Maybe I want him to know all about me and what I’ve done and love me anyway.”

  We talked in circles for half an hour, but by the time Neil walked in, she hadn’t moved an inch. She’s almost as stubborn as you are.

  (When I re-write this for you I’m going to have to clean it up, I know. What will her secret be? Shoplifting. A prison stint? Alcoholism? Maybe I’ll ask you for advice. Or is it possible that I will tell you the truth and it will be okay? That honesty really is the best policy? No matter how old I may get, I’ll never be grown-up enough to believe that one.)

  Charlotte walked right up to Neil and said, “I’m ready,” and headed out to the truck, which was a little odd since he hadn’t even spoken yet.

  Neil looked at me in surprise. “How’d it go?” he whispered, even though she was well out of earshot.

  What could I say? I’d supposedly been getting her ready for a shock, now I had to prepare him for one. “It’s kind of up to you now, Neil. Do you love her?”

  “Oh, yes.”

  “A lot?”

  “Sure.”

  “Then I don’t see why it won’t be all right.”

  I walked him out and told them both to be gone as long as they needed. Then they drove off and I went out to play with you. That’s one thing I’m good at.

  We dug a trench in the dirt and lined up your little plastic dinosaurs until you lost interest in that. Then, we played hide-and-seek and you never came to find me, so I had to start whistling, and you thought it was funny to walk right by me and not see me, so you did that for about twenty-five minutes. It was so funny we both just about wet our pants laughing. I made you a daisy chain of some island flowers that weren’t daisies, and you scouted the shore for bits of sea glass and old bleach bottles.

  By the time the sun was going down, I had to go in to pee, and you said you wanted to stay and dig for clams on our beach. I watched you from the upstairs window. Watched the sun setting over the Thorofare, a sight so beautiful it completely distracted me from the sound of my own urination. I wondered about Kathleen and where she was and what Jellica was doing with her.

  I needn’t have worried. Jellica was down on the shore with you.

  I saw the two of you clearly. Like any other pair of kids running and laughing on any other shore. She was wet and dripping like before, but it didn’t look so ominous here, by the seaside, where any little kid might get wet. I could hear your laughter through the windowpane. But I could hear hers louder, because the glass didn’t block it out. It rang inside my head.

  A boat went by and threw a set of angry waves at the rocks; Jellica let them lap over her feet and laughed louder as she pointed across the water to Brown’s Head Island. You walked into the surf to see where she was pointing.

  I was down the stairs in a second, hardly bothering to zip up. I banged open the screen door and ran out into the twilight air. You were alone at the water’s edge, playing with seagull bones.

  Out of breath, I plopped down next to you on the wet sand.

  “You should
n’t play so near the water, you know. Not when it’s getting dark.”

  “I’m not afraid of nothing. I have bravery.”

  “Who were you playing with a minute ago?”

  “Jellica. She tole me her name, you know.”

  “I know. Where’d she go?”

  “Dunno. You scared her off.”

  “Do you like playing with her?”

  “Sometimes. Sometimes she can be kinda crabby. She was nice today.”

  “That’s nice.”

  You leaned over to me, confidentially. “I don’ think she’s got a lotta friends.”

  “Do you have friends, Maggie?”

  “Not so many.”

  “Doesn’t it…doesn’t it scare you to play with her?”

  “Nope,” you were very definite. “Mommy can’t see Jellica, can she?”

  “No. Only special people can see Jellica. Do you see a lot of people like her, honey?”

  “Sometimes. Most of them are sad. Some of them are funny.” You looked up at me, wet hair sticking to your face. “How come they scare you?”

  “I’m scared of a lot of things.” I pulled you onto my lap and we sat, watching the water turn darker. “Can you teach me bravery, Maggie?”

  “Sure,” you said. “Can you teach me how to write my name in scrip’?”

  “Yes.”

  So, we had a deal.

  TWENTY-THREE

  You’re still asleep in your hospital bed. Your IV is still doing its rhythmic drip. Are you resting? Are you at peace? God, I hope so. Sleep. Gather your strength. Come back stronger.

  I got a Snickers bar from the vending machine. I’ll get stronger, too.

  The next morning, the morning after that ordeal with Mrs. Day, I woke up late. I mean, I actually woke up late; I didn’t wake up early and lay there for hours in a sugary funk of half-dreaming masturbation. I said a prayer for the absent Krispy Kreme Donut Man, showered, and got dressed. I actually thought about whether my shirt went with my pants—I didn’t know if it did or not, but I considered the question, which was very grown-up of me, I thought. I was coming along.

  Walking downstairs, I heard dishes clinking in the sink and Trisha Yearwood singing her heartbreaker hit “The Song Remembers When” on the stereo. I didn’t take that as an indication that things had gone well for Charlotte last night. Your mother doesn’t mix housework and country music unless something has gotten seriously fucked up.

  There was laundry neatly arranged on the kitchen table; a pile of socks and undies neatly folded and waiting to be tucked away for comfort. Coffee was brewing in the Braun, and strips of bacon were resting in their aura of grease on flowered paper towels while eggs spit in the frying pan.

  “Mommy’s makin’ resa-rant breakfast!” you said, looking up from your Lite Brite.

  “You act like Mommy never cooks, Baby Cakes.” Charlie’s forced cheerful tone was painful to hear. “You like yours over easy or sunny side?”

  “Like they do at Denny’s!”

  “Fine, why don’t you go get your Scooby Doo coloring books and crayons and you can pretend we’re at Denny’s and you have a Kid’s Menu?”

  “I like this game!”

  You were gone in a thunder of bare feet. I poured myself a cup and sat down while Charlie switched off the stereo.

  “Know what? I’m tired of sad songs. I think I’m going to go through all my CDs and throw out any of them that have sad songs. You want ’em?”

  “Sure. That’ll be pretty much the whole collection.”

  “No, I’ll keep the instrumentals. From now on, that’s all I’m buying. Maybe you can teach me to like that jazz crap you listen to. No words.”

  “What’s wrong with words all of a sudden?”

  “Oh, songs with words are always love songs. Love songs are full of shit.” She flipped the eggs so hard they broke, splattering yolk onto her hand. Without a word, she dumped the eggs into the sink.

  “I’d still have eaten those,” I objected.

  “You like sunny side, you’re getting fucking sunny side.” She smiled again, and the dreaded chipper voice returned. “You know, when we get back home, I’m going back to college, get a degree I can actually use. This temp thing, there’s no future in it. It’s temporary, right? That’s why they call it that, right?” She laughed.

  “What did he say?”

  “He called me a whore.”

  She was standing with her back to the sink, still smiling.

  “Jesus, Charlie. What did you say?”

  “Well, you know, I tried to argue with him, but the only real defense I could come up with was how little money I got for it. So really, the best I can say for myself is that I’m a poor businesswoman.”

  I stood up and put my arms around her. She put hers around me, too. Neither of us were all that comfortable about it, but we needed it.

  “It’s for the best,” she said.

  “The hell it is. I’m going to talk to Neil.”

  Her hug tightened into a vise grip. “You are not going to do that.”

  “I am.”

  She pulled away from me and gave me her best scary look. I’d been trained all my life to allow that look to turn my insides to tapioca.

  I gave her a kiss on the cheek. “Sorry, Charlotte. After yesterday I don’t scare so easy.”

  “Don’t.”

  “Don’t what?”

  The Beachcomber was the closest thing to a bar on the Island. Ratty foosball and pool tables in the center of the room, white plastic tables by the window overlooking the harbor, a refrigerator stocked with Bud Lite hidden behind the counter. Sometimes somebody was there to take your money; sometimes you just dropped it into a Styrofoam cup and hoped it stayed there. Neil was on his second honor beer.

  “Don’t talk to me about this shit.”

  “Neil, goddamn it! You know her, you’ve known her all your life, you know what she is.”

  “Guess I don’t.”

  “That’s bullshit. What did you find out that’s so important it cancels out years of knowing her?”

  “You seriously asking that?”

  “You never did anything wrong in your life?”

  “Yeah. I took some lobsters over the size limit. I didn’t…” He leaned forward and whispered in the empty room, “…I didn’t sell my ass on fucking VHS.”

  “And you can’t forgive her for that?”

  He rested his head in his hands. “Sure, I can. Why not? People do lots of things.” He looked up at me. “But if you’re asking me do I want her to be my wife? I gotta say no.”

  “Okay…look, like you said, people do lots of things. But what they do, that’s one thing. Who they are, that’s something else. You know who Charlotte is.”

  He was listening, I’ll give him that. But he shook his head in the end. “No. For the mother of my children? Sorry.”

  “Charlotte is a damn fine mother.”

  “I know she is.” He spread his huge hands across the table, gripping the surface, as if he were about to pick it up. “I love Maggie. I see her with Maggie and I…but she had sex ’cause somebody paid her. Will you tell me how that doesn’t make her a whore?”

  I started shifting napkins around in the table.

  “Look, Sam, I know she’s your sister and I love you. Hell, I probably still love her. But I can’t marry somebody who…can’t we just pretend I never had this stupid idea?”

  “I thought it was a pretty great idea.”

  “You’re the only one.”

  “I thought it was a great idea, Neil.”

  We stopped talking then, with so much sadness hanging in the air I could see it gathering around us like mist. I might have left, but then the next time I saw Neil we’d have both been uncomfortable, might even have passed each other without speaking. I couldn’t stand the thought of us behaving that way, so I figured if I just stayed with him until the discomfort passed, that would never happen. Maybe I’d have to stick around him for a few weeks, but, hell, I
had no other plans.

  Neil finished his beer. I finished my beer. He walked down Main Street to get a crab roll at the Harbor Gawker. I walked down Main Street to get a crab roll at the Harbor Gawker. We didn’t feel the need to analyze whether I was doing this with him or just alongside him. It’s this ability to ignore the obvious that makes men such wonderful companions for each other.

  Deputy Beirko was sitting in his car at the curb under the stone eagle. Both doors were open, and I could hear him arguing with someone inside. “Goddamn it, what do you want me to do?”

  “Something, Donny. Some damn thing.”

  Donny shifted in his seat, blocking my view of the woman he was arguing with, but I knew from her voice that it was Kathleen.

  “I can’t just go over there.”

  “Why the hell not, Donny?”

  “I got no cause.”

  “I’m not asking for cause. I’m not asking you to do anything when you get there, I’m just asking you to knock on the fucking door.”

  Donny jumped out of the car like a scalded cat. “Goddamn it, Kathleen, you’re pushing this too hard. Don’t push this, okay? You are not a cop anymore, okay? I’m the cop here.”

  Kathleen leaned out the door and despite her anger I saw that her eyes were red, as if she’d been crying not too long ago. “Then how come I’m the one in the patrol car?”

  Beirko yanked the door open so hard, it swung back and slammed shut on him again. He fumbled with the handle and swung it open, slower this time. “Get out.”

  “Jesus, Donny.”

  “Get out of the car, ma’am.”

  She climbed out of the car and leveled her eyes at the deputy. “This is one of those times when you have the chance to do the right thing or act like an asshole, Donny. Don’t you know they tally those up when you’re trying to get into heaven?”

  Donny was getting all official on her. “If you can give me some information to corroborate your belief that this individual is the individual you claim she is, and that she is suspected of some crime, I will be happy to follow up on this. Until then, I have no intention of harassing an innocent citizen. Now, I have my patrol to see to.”

  She stepped away from the car, hands open at her sides. “I had hopes for you, Donny. I really did.”