The Far End of Happy (14 page)

When Corporal McNichol excused herself to get some lunch, Ronnie suddenly found herself alone in the hall meant to be social. How many days, since becoming a mother, had she begged for some time alone? She’d meant alone with her writing, or alone with a book.

Not this alone.

For the first time, she considered Jeff’s odd note stuck to the phone this morning, with its implication that she was having an affair. Her great fear was that if she stayed in this marriage much longer, his accusation might come true.

She’d met Kevin three months ago, in August, when Ronnie set off with Jeff, the boys, and Max for their annual vacation at the Jersey shore. To Ronnie, it felt like visiting family. The house was the only legacy connecting her to her father, and her week there was, in Ronnie’s eyes, the only nonnegotiable item on a cost-saving budget. Once Jeff had parked in the driveway, she grabbed a few bags of groceries and left him and the boys to pull things from the back of the Suburban. Max raced past her as, halfway up the wooden stairs, Ronnie felt for the key, hanging on an inconspicuous nail hammered into the beam supporting the decking above. She waited up by the door for the boys to catch up, savoring the narrow ocean view between the houses across the street.

Andrew pounded up the stairs and dropped his bag. Will followed. “Ready.” Ronnie compared the heights of both boys to the random-seeming nicks on the weathered door frame that had marked her height each summer of her childhood. “Beat me again, boys. One day you’ll stand taller than me or your dad.”

She turned the lock and opened the door. With the first whiff of wet flip-flops and sun-dried towels, all of the Ronnies of every age fused together around the spine of this annual pilgrimage that had roots sinking all the way back to her mysterious father. Here, she felt whole.

While the boys went down to the car for another load, she put away the groceries, set out water for Max, and enjoyed a quiet moment with the living room couch.

The old leather still felt pliable beneath the hand she trailed across its back.
Hi, Dad.
When it was warm from the sun and little Ronnie would lie down on it to nap, its mass accommodated and supported every part of her the way she imagined a father would if curled beside his child. Her father had loved that couch, she thought, and his parents before him, and maybe the couch loved her a little bit back. At least that had always been her fantasy, and she couldn’t see how it hurt her to believe it.

What Ronnie knew of Dominic Gallagher: he loved the beach and had inherited this house from his parents after the three of them were in a car accident—one he had survived, and they had not. Since her parents weren’t married, the house did not go to her mother, but even though they had little money for frills, Beverly had rented the house from its new owners for a week each summer. Even though a stepfather sometimes came along, Ronnie had always sensed that time spent at the beach house was so that her mother, Ronnie, and her father could be together.

In the thirty-five years since his death, the population of this rental-heavy beach town had turned over several times, and no one remained who could tell Ronnie more about her father. Her mother was shut up like a clam on the subject. Why was Beverly so determined to keep the man to herself, when genetics would suggest that he belonged more to Ronnie than to her?

Ronnie couldn’t imagine having her family wiped out in a single moment. She would have loved to ask her father about this. Already a budding journalist in grade school, Ronnie had once written out a list of questions she wanted to ask her father and had climbed onto the leather couch, faced its broad back cushions, and asked them out loud.

1. What is your favorite TV show?

2. Do you like cooked carrots? (I don’t.)

3. How old were you when your mother first let you swim beyond the breakers? (Still waiting here.)

4. Did you ever have a dog? (I’m not allowed. We move too much.) What kind? What was its name?

5. How did it feel to lose your entire family at once?

She then wrote the answers that came to her, pretending her father had whispered them in her ear.

1. My favorite TV show would be whatever you’re watching, so I could sit next to you on my leather couch and watch together.

2. Cooked carrots, blech. You kidding me?

3. Fifteen. You have a ways to go yet, squirt.

4. I did have a dog. He was a fluffy cockapoo, and his name was Max. For fourteen years, he was my best friend.

5. Oh, Veronica (sorry, I mean Ronnie—Veronica is just such a beautiful name). I sure hope you never have to find out.

The interview was written on stationery decorated with a string of daisies across the top and bottom. She had lined it herself, using a pencil and a ruler, to keep the questions straight. At first she’d kept the list in the bottom of her jewelry box. A few years ago she moved it to a pocket in the front of her first journal, when she redefined what was most precious to her. It wasn’t the jewelry Jeff had bought her, but the thoughts and imaginings now begging expression.

Considering the accident of her conception and the impermanence of stepfathers, Ronnie still used the pages of her journal to question why she was meant to survive. Was it for the sole purpose of renovating a farmhouse in Pennsylvania? She couldn’t believe that; the next person to live in the house would swap out the Armstrong for tile, the Formica for granite. Was it to have her sons? Certainly this was true, yet in the great chain of life, she hoped to provide a stronger link. She must have some higher calling, and for a long time, it bothered her that she still had no clue what that would be. She’d found purpose in her writing, but pursuing it tugged at Jeff, who didn’t understand or respect her passion for it. But it energized her—and the more it did, the more run-down Jeff appeared in comparison. Ronnie had hoped that this year, some time at the shore would restore him.

And restore her as well. This year Ronnie felt less like a whole woman and more like a mass-produced doll with different outfits. Mom Ronnie. Writer Ronnie. Farm store Ronnie. Barn Ronnie. Renovator Ronnie. Romantic Ronnie. Okay, she wouldn’t even know how to dress that last version anymore, but she hadn’t abandoned all hope of putting that piece of herself back into production. She was hoping for a dream vacation in that regard.

Max jumped onto the leather couch and curled up for a nap. Ronnie held the door as Jeff and the boys brought in the rest of their luggage. “Who wants to get baptized?”

She didn’t wait for an answer but ran back down the stairs. The boys passed her on the way to the water. She checked over her shoulder with irrational hope. No Jeff.

The boys awaited her at the wet sand’s edge. She joined them, huffing. “I don’t think I can lift and dip anymore,” she said. “You’re getting too big.”

“That’s okay, Mom,” Andrew said. “We’ll do it like you do.”

The next wave was on its way in. “Ready?”

All three of them dipped their fingers into the water, touched them to their foreheads, then pressed the remaining water to their lips.

When they got back to the house, the new owner, Kevin, was pulling tools from his pickup truck.

“Hi. What’s going on?” Ronnie said.

“I noticed yesterday that the garage didn’t survive the last renter. The door won’t go all the way up. Sorry I couldn’t get it fixed before you guys got here. This shouldn’t take long.”

Jeff eyed the tools, practically drooling. “Need some help with that?”

“No thanks. You relax,” Kevin said.

That would be a problem. Even though this year he was vacationing with a recently strained back and a swollen knee, Jeff would never think of injury or pain as an excuse to relax.

The midday heat was building, so after she unpacked, Ronnie brought Kevin a glass of iced tea. Jeff paced above her on the deck, smoking.

“You didn’t have to do that,” Kevin said as Ronnie approached.

“Oh. Okay then.” She lifted the glass to her lips.

“But I won’t refuse it.” She smiled and handed him the glass. He pressed it to his cheek before sipping.

“The mint’s from our garden.” Ronnie leaned against the garage door frame. “So how’d you come to own the house?”

“Hurricane Sandy,” he said. “I owned my own construction business on the southern tip of the island but lost my home, my workshop, and everything in them when the hurricane hit.”

“That’s horrible,” she said. “I guess you had hurricane insurance?”

Kevin set down the tea and returned to securing all the places where the garage door track was attached.

“That was way too nosy, wasn’t it? Professional hazard. I’m a writer.” She could sense Jeff, above her on the deck, rolling his eyes at the word
professional
.

“Hey, cool. I’ve never met a writer before. Have you written any books?”

“Who knows, I may one day. And that insurance bit just sprang to mind. My husband’s family is so big on insurance you’d think they sell it or something. In this case, it sounds like it would have come in handy.”

Kevin smiled, although his eyes seemed sad. There was a story on his face. “I was just trying to figure out how to shorten up the answer. Hurricane insurance is handy, yes, but it has a huge deductible. I used up my life’s savings paying it and purchased this home with the insurance money.” He was now slowly rebuilding his life, he explained, through rental income and the generosity of buddies willing to put him up when he needed to vacate the place. “We all kind of help each other out here.”

“I appreciate you renting to us,” Ronnie said. “More than you know. This place belonged to my father back in the late seventies and to his parents before him.”

“Really? You’ll have to tell me more about that sometime. I’m a bit of a history nut.”

“You’ve kept a lot of the furnishings the same. Thank you. This place is all I have of him. I don’t have much money, but if you ever wanted to sell anything, I’d appreciate it if you’d at least let me try to make the first offer.”

“Don’t worry. I’m a contractor, not an interior decorator. Place suits me fine. I was lucky to buy it furnished.”

Kevin set up a stepladder and went over to the breaker box and cut the lights. He then climbed up and removed the casing for the door opener’s motor unit.

“You need me to hold a flashlight for you?” Ronnie said, falling into her typical role. Jeff could never see a thing unless she positioned the light just so.

“No need,” Kevin said, pulling a small headlamp from his back pocket. He slipped its elastic band right over his baseball cap and turned it on. “Ah, this is all corroded. Hey, can you pass me the wire stripper? It’s that tool with the yellow—”

“I know.” She handed it up to him. “If you’ll let me,” Ronnie suddenly found herself saying, “I’d love to write up a profile on you and try to get it published.”

A sound on the stairs drew her attention. Jeff was bumping a vacuum cleaner down the steps, unreeling an extension cord behind him.
What
the
heck?

“Ha! Not sure why,” Kevin said. “I’m nothing special. My block alone was full of more interesting stories.”

“Such as?” Ronnie almost had to shout—for some reason, Jeff had started vacuuming out the Suburban. “Wait.”

Ronnie opened the front door of the Suburban, pulled a pen and pad from the front door pocket, and mouthed to Jeff the word “stop.” He ignored it.

Returning to Kevin, she said, “Mind if I take notes?”

“Suit yourself.”

“You were going to tell me what else happened on your block.”

“A tree came down on my next-door neighbor’s house and killed him, right in his bed. He hadn’t evacuated. His wife had gone to check on their kids—if she hadn’t, she’d be gone too. He was only thirty-four. I know it for a fact—I’m lucky to be alive.”

“What happened to his family?”

“They moved in with relatives near Pittsburgh. I don’t think they’ll be coming back.”

“But you stayed.” Ronnie listened to the drone of the vacuum. “I don’t think it’s the hurricane’s story I’d want to tell as much as the story of human resiliency. I assume you evacuated?”

“Yep. Stayed inland with my wife’s family.”

“I’d love to meet her. She might have insight for the article.”

Jeff turned off the vacuum. In the sudden silence, Kevin climbed down from the ladder. “Not everyone is as excited about resiliency as you are.” He drained his iced tea.

“Oh. Sorry.”

“The toughest loss, for sure.” His voice grew rough with emotion. He cleared his throat. “She couldn’t face rebuilding, and I couldn’t avoid it. Reminds me of something my grandfather used to say: ‘You can compromise on who takes out the trash, but you can’t compromise your principles.’”

Ronnie laughed at the old man voice he adopted. “I think I would have liked your grandfather.
Eek!
” Cold water sprayed her legs and splashed onto Kevin. She looked out—Jeff now stood behind the Suburban with a hose.

“Overshot,” he said.

Ronnie darted him another look.

“No bother, man,” Kevin said. “Felt good.”

Ronnie wiped her notebook on the seat of her shorts.

“Want to see what I found when I got back?” Kevin said, reaching into his back pocket.

“Sure.” He leaned in close and held up his smartphone. Despite the day’s heat, a clean, fresh-from-the-line scent lifted from his T-shirt. Ronnie felt Jeff’s glare boring into her but refused to acknowledge it.

Kevin flipped through picture after picture of houses collapsed and buckled, with sections displaced or missing. She flinched when she saw the tree crashed through his neighbor’s roof. “My god. Jeff, you should see these.”

That was all the invitation she was going to give him. He did not join her.

“See that Long Beach Bakery sign floating in this one? That store was five doors down. This was my block.”

“Oh my god. Which was your house?”

“It’s here.” He pointed. “And here. And I think that’s what was left of my roof’s peak over there.”

“And people complained that we were without power for five days. Were you able to salvage anything?”