Cloud Nine, page 11
The table was hewn from one enormous fallen oak, the grain visible and mysterious under many coats of shiny varnish. A large cast-iron kettle held the stew. Aunt Bess stood by the stove, supervising Mike, doling it into rough brown crockery bowls. Aunt Bess was plump, as filled out as her brother was gaunt, and made her way around the kitchen on her walker. Sarah watched her, wondering how she got up and down stairs, thinking her the perfect example of how hard life could be on the farm. Wearing her special-occasion navy blue dress with white polka dots, she took her seat between Sarah and Snow with a big smile on her face. Her scent was an amalgam of perspiration, mothballs, and Arpege.
‘It’s so nice to have some girls around,’ she said. ‘Gets kind of lonely with just the men to talk to.’
‘It’s good to see you, Aunt Bess,’ Sarah said.
‘The same to you, Sarah.’ Looking from Snow to Will, she said, ‘Sarah’s like the daughter I never had.’
‘Sarah had a mother,’ George said, frowning at Bess.
Sarah couldn’t bring herself to look at him, wondering why he would want to hurt his sister that way. Aunt Bess steeled herself, setting her mouth. But at Sarah’s glance, she raised her eyebrows and shrugged her shoulders. The mood at the table was as tense as Sarah had remembered, and she found herself looking at her son, wondering how he stood it.
‘This stew is delicious,’ Will said.
‘A Maine specialty,’ George said.
‘Glad you like it,’ Aunt Bess said, the praise making her happy again.
‘Don’t know what you’re missing, young lady,’ George said to Snow. ‘Muskrat stew puts hair on your chest.’
‘My dinner is just fine,’ Snow said, eating the plate of carrots, turnips, and kale Mike had chopped and Bess had steamed for her.
‘This is real New England eating,’ George said.
Snow paused, tilted her head. ‘We never ate muskrat stew, and we’re from New England,’ she said.
‘Oh, really? I thought Sarah said Fort Cromwell,’ Aunt Bess said.
‘Snow was born in Newport, Rhode Island,’ Will said. ‘When I was in the navy.’
‘Newport? Oh, my goodness, my husband and I lived in Providence, and we just loved Newport. Our favorite restaurant was the Pier – do you know it?’
‘Lobster bisque,’ Snow said. ‘I loved the Pier’s lobster bisque before I became a vegetarian. And Fred loved their seafood stuffing. Remember how he’d always have baked stuffed lobster, Dad?’
‘I do,’ Will said.
‘We’d drive down to Newport nearly every Saturday, just to ride around and see the mansions and go to the Pier. Oh, I –’
‘Navy man, eh?’ George asked, cutting Bess right off, peering at Will with new interest.
‘Yes, sir.’
‘See any action?’
‘Some.’
‘Like what?’
‘Like the Persian Gulf!’ Snow said proudly.
‘Yeah?’ Mike asked.
‘Yes,’ Will said, looking across the table at George. ‘Sarah told me you served in World War Two.’
‘That’s right. Army Air Corps, Eighth Air Force in Europe. Yep.’
‘Grandpa flew in the lead plane,’ Mike said.
‘On D day, he was one of the first planes over Normandy,’ Sarah said, feeling as proud as Snow. She always had for the fact that her father had been a hero in the war. He was passionate about the cause he had fought for. She watched him turn to glare at her.
‘Surprised you remember,’ he said.
‘Oh, I remember,’ she said softly. She had heard all the stories. He had told her most of them himself, but a few had come from her mother before she died. About how he had bombed Cologne and left the cathedral standing; about how the crew he had trained with in Colorado had been shot down over the North Sea, all killed except her father. Sarah kept his medals – the Air Medal, the Distinguished Flying Cross – in a small pink satin jewel case back in Fort Cromwell.
‘Persian Gulf, eh?’ George asked Will as if the others were not there.
‘Yes, sir.’
‘What was your rank?’ he asked, a glint in his eye.
‘Commander.’
Sarah watched her father’s face fall. He hated being outranked. She wondered whether he would offer the information that upon discharge from the air corps he had attained the rank of first lieutenant, but he didn’t. Pushing his chair back, he went to the refrigerator and took out a big pitcher. He poured himself a tall glass of milk, and one for Mike.
‘Anyone else?’ he asked.
‘I’ll take one, sir,’ Will said.
George gave him a sidelong glance. He had heard the ‘sir,’ the tone of respect, and was deciding whether to forgive Will for being a commander as he filled another glass with milk. Sarah watched him replace the pitcher, his eyes hard with anger. Why was life so harsh for her father? She had never been able to understand. The island days that had been bliss for Sarah had seemed to weigh her father down.
‘George was only a few years older than Mike is now when he went off to war,’ Bess said to Snow. ‘He was so brave, and we were all so afraid for him. My father was the meanest lobsterman you ever saw, he’d slice the buoys off a competitor’s pots without thinking twice, but, oh, he cried like a baby when we drove Georgie to the train.’
‘Bess, that’s enough,’ George said.
But this time he couldn’t ruin her mood of nostalgic affection. A gentle smile on her wrinkled face, she gazed at him with love, her brother who had gone to war. The siblings were elderly now, George and Bess, but watching them stare at each other, Sarah could see the unending connection.
‘She doesn’t mean anything by it,’ Snow said.
‘What?’ George asked.
‘She’s just teasing you. It’s what sisters do. They don’t do it to hurt you,’ she said.
George gave a long, exasperated exhalation that sounded dangerously like an angry whistle. He glared at her, holding back whatever poisonous comment he wanted to make. He didn’t like being spoken up to; whenever it happened, he usually retaliated sharply. But Snow was new to him, a guest in his home, a young girl. Saved by those factors, he let her off with a cantankerous scowl instead. With awe and admiration Sarah watched Snow in action.
‘You’re very lucky to still have each other. At your ages,’ she said.
‘Lucky?’ George snorted. ‘Hah! She’s a millstone around my neck.’
Even Bess couldn’t take it. ‘Lucky he still goes to work every day, that’s about it,’ she said. ‘I pray to God I die before he retires.’
Will caught Sarah’s eye, trying not to smile. Mike was openly grinning.
‘You don’t want to say that,’ Snow said confidentially to Bess. ‘You’ll miss him when he’s gone.’
Bess raised her gaze to meet her brother’s. He stood there, frowning at the outspoken child. His teeth were slipping, and he gave them a shove back into place with his thumb. A log collapsed in the fireplace, sending a galaxy of orange sparks up the chimney.
‘Hear what she says?’ George said, looking at Bess.
‘I hear,’ Bess said.
‘You’d better start being nicer to me.’
‘Take your own advice. Your own daughter walks in after six years, and you’re acting as mean as a black bear in a thicket. We have houseguests, and we’re bickering like blue jays.’
‘We’re nothing like blue jays,’ George said, his tone softening by way of almost-apology. ‘Are we, Mike?’
‘Not at all,’ Mike said. He and his grandfather exchanged manly nods, and Sarah sensed something protective toward Bess in the gesture. Her son had become part of this Elk Island household, and he wanted to make sure everyone knew it. Sarah could almost feel him averting his gaze from her.
10
Thanksgiving morning was crystal clear and very cold. The sun came up like thunder here, and Sarah made sure she woke up in time to see it. Again she felt the ripple of fever. It ran through her body as she got dressed. Her father was cheap with oil, so he kept the house cold at night. Standing in her freezing room, her skin felt hot. She stood naked by her bed, glistening with a fine sweat, trying to remember her dreams. They had been busy and passionate, causing her to toss around the bed all night, twisting in the sheets. Will’s was the face she recalled, as if he had been the one responsible for her fever.
But by the time she had pulled on thermal underwear, jeans, turtleneck, and a heavy sweater, she felt normal again. Her temperature was down. No one else stirred. She paused outside Mike’s bedroom door, listening for his deep, steady breathing. The sound contented her, as it always had. Knowing he would be there when she got back, she left the house and walked down the snowy path to the bay.
The stars were still out. They hung in the deep blue sky, low globes of light that someone had forgotten to extinguish. Sarah stood by the water, her hands stuck in her pockets. The geese were beginning to cackle in the barn, and the seals were starting to bark on the rocks. Again, returning to a place she loved so much after thinking she would never see it again, moved her immeasurably. Grateful for dawn, Maine, her family farm, her beautiful son, she opened her arms.
But she wasn’t alone. In the darkness she hadn’t noticed the man sitting on the rock. Hearing her footsteps, he rose and walked across the tidal flats. She saw him coming, silhouetted against the cold auroral fire. Looking up into his kind face, into eyes that hadn’t seen much sleep last night, she smiled.
‘Good morning,’ Will said.
‘You’re up early,’ she said.
‘I figured if I was the first one up, being this far east, I’d be the first person in the United States to see the sun rise.’
‘Do you mind company?’ she asked.
‘No,’ he said, standing beside her as they faced the sea. ‘Not at all.’
His leather jacket crinkled as he unfolded his arms. They listened to the wildlife growing noisier as the horizon blazed brighter. Waves broke over rocks fifty yards away. The tide was low, and Elk Island tides were notoriously extreme. The exposed sea bottom was rippled, the silver mud scored with rivulets of water running out to sea. Lobsters and crabs scuttled beneath the rockweed. Boulders changed shape and slid into the bay, and Sarah touched Will’s hand and pointed.
‘Seals,’ she said.
‘Those rocks?’ he asked. The animals did look rocklike, sleek and gray and thrown together in haphazard fashion, the water rising around them.
‘A whole colony,’ she said, watching the creatures arch their backs, pointing their noses toward the sky, fifty or sixty adults and at least a dozen young.
‘I’ll be damned,’ he said.
‘You didn’t have seals in Newport?’
‘Maybe one or two, spending the winter in Narragansett Bay. That’s about it. Someone would spot one, and the word would get out, and the kids would beg us to take them to Castle Hill or Beavertail to see if we could look for them. Wait till Susan sees these guys.’
‘Kids love seals,’ Sarah agreed. ‘When Mike was little, I couldn’t get him off the rocks. He wanted to chase seals all day long.’
‘He’s a nice kid,’ Will said. ‘He did a good job yesterday, getting the airstrip ready for us. And he’s glad to see you.’
‘Hmm,’ Sarah said, trying to be strong. But her insecurities got the better of her. ‘Why do you say that?’
‘I can just tell. The way he mentioned fixing that step last night. He wants you to see he’s indispensable. It’s a man-of-the-house kind of attitude. He wants you to be proud of him.’
‘I was thinking … something different.’
‘Like what?’
‘That he wants me to see he doesn’t need me at all. He’s adopted my father and Bess as his new family, he’s theirs now.’
The sun had broken out of the sea. It was a red ball shining through the outer islands dotted throughout the bay, turning the tall pines black and spiky and sharp against the golden light. The air was still frigid, and thinking of Mike in his new life in her old family made Sarah’s arms feel numb.
‘Why is he here?’ Will asked quietly.
‘He ran away.’
‘From home?’
Sarah paused, thinking of their last, and worst, fight. ‘From me,’ she said.
‘Isn’t that normal at his age? Guys go through a stage where they can’t stand their mothers. Or at least they can’t show it.’
‘He had his things packed,’ Sarah said, closing her eyes as she remembered. ‘Ready to hitchhike to Maine, to catch the ferry out here from Bethlehem. We fought, and then I caught up with him on the highway. I asked him to think of his future, stay with me just until he finished high school, and he just looked at me and said he couldn’t. He wouldn’t even listen.’ She took a breath. ‘He looked like he hated me.’
‘Why would he?’
‘Lots of reasons,’ Sarah said.
Will didn’t speak right away. He seemed to be watching the seals. As the sun rose, they were more visible. They looked bonded to the rocks, hardly separate at all, like infants pressed up against their mothers. Sarah had to lower her eyes.
‘He doesn’t hate you,’ Will said.
Sarah looked up at him. His face was dark with whiskers, sexy, and kind; he hadn’t shaved yet. He looked disturbed, as if he wanted more than anything for the words he was saying to be true.
‘How can you tell?’ she asked, praying he would tell her something she could stand to hear.
‘Because no one could hate you,’ he said.
Sarah’s heart fell. She had started to shiver, and she couldn’t quite get it under control. She had wanted something specific, some observation Will Burke had made after watching her and Mike, some revelation she could let herself believe. She didn’t say anything, but she didn’t have to. Will knew he had to give her more.
‘Because a boy who hates his mother doesn’t ask her to come all the way to Elk Island to spend Thanksgiving with him,’ Will said.
‘He didn’t want to be with me last year. I know it’s not why he left, but I found out I had cancer and he couldn’t get away fast enough.’
‘He was scared,’ Will said.
Sarah nodded. That was part of the reason; she knew, deep in her heart, that any son would be afraid of losing his mother, no matter how self-sufficient he was, no matter how many years he had been letting himself into the house after school while she worked hard to pay their rent, to sustain this old farm.
‘He wouldn’t want to lose you, Sarah. No one would.’
‘Oh, God, that sunrise is so beautiful,’ Sarah said, watching the sky turn from dark gray to blue, watching the last star fading into the light of the new day.
‘Happy Thanksgiving, Sarah.’
‘Happy Thanksgiving, Will.’
Ready for coffee and breakfast, wanting to see their children, they walked slowly up the frozen path to the still-dark house.
While all the adults were busy fixing Thanksgiving dinner, Snow decided she needed a tour of Elk Island. She bundled into her parka and checked all the rooms in the crooked little house. Her favorite was Aunt Bess’s sewing room. It was full of tiny white feathers. They stuck to every surface, including the ancient black sewing machine. A stack of finished quilts stood in the corner, and it made Snow happy to think of them on the shelves in Sarah’s shop, ready to make the people of Fort Cromwell feel safe and warm.
Finally she found Mike down by the bay. He was coming out the door of a tiny little shack, and he looked guilty the minute he saw her. He held a bushel basket full of feathers.
‘What’s in there, secret treasure? she asked, walking straight over to the shack.
‘Uh, no,’ he said.
‘Then how come you look so afraid I’ll open the door?’
‘Believe me, you don’t want to,’ he said.
Snow stood very still. She tilted her head, looking him over. She hadn’t spent twenty minutes freezing cold in front of a bathroom mirror for nothing that morning. Zero eight hundred, out of bed, and beautifying. Applying eye shadow, dark liner, mascara, and lip gloss here in the wilderness of deepest, darkest Maine, she had been thinking the whole time how cute Mike Talbot was. And now they were face-to-face. Tall, dark, and wow.
‘Why not?’ she asked. ‘What is it?’
‘The picking shack.’
‘The what? Why can’t I go in?’
‘It’s kind of gross.’
‘Gross? How?’
‘It’s where we take the feathers off the geese.’
‘Really?’ she asked, her eyes lighting up as she looked at the basket. ‘Are there a bunch of naked little geese running around in there?’
‘No, they’re dead.’
‘Dead?’ she asked, unbelieving.
‘Yeah.’
‘You have to kill them? To get their feathers?’
‘Well, yeah.’
‘Oh, my God,’ Snow said. This threw new light on Sarah’s shop. Snow hated killing animals. She refused to eat meat, not even chicken or fish. She despised rich women who wore fur coats, imagining the suffering endured by the tiny creatures. So what if they were rodents? She cringed, thinking of the sable coat Julian had given her mother. And geese were no different. She couldn’t believe this of Sarah.
‘Are you okay?’ Mike asked.
‘No, I’m not,’ Snow said. ‘Not really okay at all. Does your mother know about this?’
‘About what?’
‘Killing the geese?’
‘Well, yeah. Of course. She grew up with it.’
‘I just can’t believe it. I just can’t.’ Snow felt sick. Compared to all the other adults she knew, even compared to her own mother, Sarah was the best person in the world. But here she was, selling products that required the slaughter of beautiful birds! A pair of geese waddled by, nuzzling against Mike’s boots, which Snow suddenly noticed were streaked with reddish-brown.
