The Train of Small Mercies (16 page)

Rebecca turned away from the cornfield and shook her head. “Did you get better?” she asked in her weak voice.

“I sure did. I got all better in no time. Just like you will.”

They were passing a dairy farm now, and a field so green it looked like it had been drawn in Magic Marker was dotted with cows. Rebecca was fidgety and gingerly rubbing her eyes, careful not to touch the bruised side of her face. Delores had picked up a bag of jelly beans to improve her mood, but Rebecca mostly just stirred her finger around in the bottom, moving colors.

“So many cows,” Delores said. “I know a cow goes ‘Mooooooooo,' but I'm forgetting how a sheep sounds. How does a sheep talk, pumpkin? Hmmm?”

Rebecca shook her head to let her mother know that she could do a reasonable bleat some other time, but that she was not in the mood to perform now.

Delores brought the car to a stop. “They're all looking at us, aren't they? Those cows are wondering,
What are you two doing out here?
And that's a good question. A very good question.”

U
ntil Maeve started working for the lieutenant governor's family, she had not paid much attention to politics, despite her mother's worshipful affinity for John Kennedy, who was still a Massachusetts senator when they arrived from Ireland. And, as she pointed out repeatedly, a Roman Catholic. The lieutenant governor was a Republican, and in the speeches Maeve heard him make and in the few conversations she had with him that weren't about the baby, Maeve was moved by his efforts to deliver welfare services to the state. After his term as lieutenant governor ended, he became state attorney general, and some months later, when Robert Kennedy announced his bid for the presidency, Maeve followed Kennedy's campaign with keen interest. She couldn't fathom that a man who wanted to do so much for this country had found the time to have so many children, and when pictures of his family showed up in
Life
magazine and in
The Boston Globe
, she liked to imagine herself taking care of baby Douglas, who was just a newborn, and feeding him at the table while Bobby and Ethel, amid the rest of their children, ate breakfast and talked about the busy day ahead.

It was early May that Maeve had taken the bus to Hyannis for her initial interview for the Kennedy nanny position. Maeve had never seen a house so big—in every way it looked to her like three houses put together. The head nanny, Mrs. Bernard, was waiting for her between the enormous columns framing the front door. Maeve had hoped that at some point she might get a chance to hold Douglas in her arms and demonstrate immediately her special way with babies. And after she was escorted in and seated, somewhere in the large house she could hear the faint sounds of a baby shouting out, babbling.

After asking about Maeve's trip down from Boston, she said, “The lieutenant governor tells us that you have been excellent with his young son.” Her skin was dark, and she spoke with a Spanish accent. “But he is still so young. And I'm wondering why you would be ready to leave him for another child?”

“I love him dearly, I do,” Maeve said. They were seated in the sunlit living room, on two avocado-colored wingback chairs, and there were framed photographs on the shelves that Maeve wanted to look at but knew that she shouldn't. Beyond them, she could see through the glass doors sailboats bobbing past, like low clouds, not far from the edge of the lawn. “And I love children of all ages—boys, girls equally. But I think it's probably true that I'm the very best with babies, and so when a baby becomes a toddler, I sometimes feel ready to get back to another baby. I can't say why, really. Maybe babies and I just understand each other—daft as that sounds.”

The nanny looked at Maeve without smiling, and Maeve, understanding that the Kennedy children weren't to be deserted like this, said, “It's been like that since I was caring for my three sisters, you see. I could get them to settle down or to take their milk or to fall asleep when no one else could, and everyone considered that a gift. And maybe that's true enough.”

“I take care of baby Douglas right now,” Mrs. Bernard said evenly, “but when Mrs. Kennedy delivers in December, we'll need someone to give full attention to the new baby. Mrs. Kennedy expects the family to be traveling quite a bit with Mr. Kennedy, and that means you would also need to be traveling—in planes and trains, hotels and cars. In foreign countries. So are you a good traveler, Maeve? We're looking for someone who can be extremely flexible and able to adapt.”

Maeve nodded and lowered her voice to a solemn register. “I'm very easy in that way, yes, ma'am. I think if you would ask the lieutenant governor, he would say the same, I'm certain. I'm quiet. I'm easy to get on with. And as long as the baby is happy, I'm happy. And with me children are always happy.”

T
he three boys found it difficult to talk about much other than the lateness of the train and the possible reasons for its delay. (
It took the wrong track. Someone stole the casket. It collided with another train.
) Michael had remained on the tracks, and they shouted at him until they became worn out, and then went back to complaining about the train once more.

Finally, in the clearing, a black bead began to emerge. From that distance the train looked like a drop of ink slowly pouring out. Daniel's eyes stretched wide, and in his shock the branch beneath him shook. This caused Ty to whip his head around, and though his view was too obscured to see what Daniel had seen, he understood the train had come into view. He began his descent in a jerky, careless manner, stopping only for one second to see for himself the train's progress.

“Michael!” he screamed. “Get off the tracks! The train is coming
right now
!” He scrambled past Walt and moved his legs out of the way for Ty; whatever was going to happen, Ty would lead the way. Ty let the bark scrape against his legs as he moved down the last branches, accepting that there should be some amount of pain involved in a moment like this. He jumped eight feet to the ground, his body collapsing onto itself. As he ran to the tracks he turned and called for Walt and Daniel, who were scrambling down, and then he looked again to the train.

 

 

 

James Colvert quickly had established their morning routines. He liked to wake at dawn and fish for a half-hour from the shore. Michael wasn't necessarily expected to be out there, but on the days when his father's tackle box bumped against the door, or he accidentally let the screen bang against its frame, Michael got up and joined him. His father preferred silence when they fished, and if they had catches worthy of a meal, they'd cut and clean them on the back step before going in. Afterward, James Colvert liked to walk the mile to the drugstore in town for a copy of the
Detroit Free Press
, mostly for the baseball box scores he liked to pore over. On these walks he sometimes talked about his own childhood summers, the way his father taught him to fish and hunt and navigate a canoe through choppy waters. He had a few stories that briefly involved Michael's mother, but when Michael mentioned her in a story of his own, James Colvert's face tightened, as if he had just stepped on a sharp object. By the second week Michael decided not to mention her anymore. He would see her at the end of June, his father told him. Until then, Michael would have to be content to think about her when he got into bed, or as he swam in the lake by himself, or if his father had remained in town to watch a Tigers game in the one bar that held aloft a battered set in the corner, next to the kitchen.

On their last morning together, Michael was surprised to wake up before his father. The cabin was still, save the occasional flying insect, and he could hear his father's raspy breathing in the next room. Underneath the window shade he could see that the sky was the color of their one kitchen pot. He thought of taking his rod and reel out by himself and surprising his father with a catch all his own. Mostly they had gotten by eating channel catfish for dinner that his father had reeled in that day, but Michael had grown bored with the taste. And he was tired of being hungry in between meals, since there were almost never any groceries in the house.

His father had said the lake was also stocked with walleye and whitefish, but they hadn't pulled up anything like that. Michael imagined himself carrying a plate of whitefish that he had broiled, with butter and lemon juice flowing over the sides, his father seated at their shabby little table.

“Well, let's eat,” Michael would say, his face suppressing any hint of vanity.

Instead, Michael was content to remain stretched out on his bed and puzzle through a dream he'd had about being in a canoe with Superman, who, while trying to catch fish with a net, had talked serenely about his days battling Lex Luthor. Before the dream was finished, Lex Luthor appeared in a canoe behind them but seemed little interested in causing any disturbance.

When his father did wake up, he moved in a slow, halting manner, and stared out the window as he sipped the coffee he had made. When he became aware that Michael was watching him, he said, “We might need to get us another fan. I couldn't sleep at all. Did you hear me rolling all around in bed?”

“No,” Michael said. “I heard that raccoon scratching around by the front door, though.”

“Well, he's got his right. We're in his home, after all. We're the trespassers.”

On the water they could see Mr. Ahrens, who had the skip out. He stayed in the cabin two doors down with his wife of forty-three years, Edna. “You know what Edna told me the other day—I ran into her in town,” James Colvert said. “She said she didn't even care that much for the water. Said she preferred the mountains. And yet this is where they've spent every summer since World War Two. I said, ‘Why do you keep returning, then?' And she said, ‘Have you ever seen Lewis in the water? He's just like a little boy out there, he's so happy.' I guess that's true. Look at him.” His voice was almost wistful, and it was the first time Michael had imagined his father to be lonely. The way he had talked about his days in Michigan—being captain of his bowling team, his neighbor friend who trained hunting dogs, the workshop he had built for himself in his garage—it hadn't occurred to Michael that his father was anything but happy to have started a new life for himself.

Michael put his face to the glass, but there was little he could see beyond the small white sail and the red hat Mr. Ahrens kept firmly clamped to his head. He watched as long as he thought he was expected to acknowledge the remark, and then he went back to the kitchen table. He wondered what his friends were doing in school. Was this the last day? He couldn't remember now. His father had told him that everything had all been worked out—the remaining tests, his homework—in a way that didn't make much sense, but he had decided not to think about it. He wondered, too, if his mother had explained to his friends when they had come around looking for him about his going away with his father. Except for the girl whose father owned the Castaway—the little diner in town—and who sat at the counter reading Nancy Drew books, he hadn't seen another kid his age. Surely there would be more kids who came to the lake for the summer, or who at least pulled up in packed-down station wagons with their parents to stay for a week or two, but he hadn't yet asked his father about that. He worried his father might think that he wasn't having a good time.

Michael was hungry but unsure what he could eat, and waited for what his father might say or do next.

“We need more bloodworms,” James Colvert said finally.

“We could go into town,” said Michael, who was always relieved at the chance to get in the car and to possibly eat at the Castaway. James Colvert agreed.

When they arrived, they were seated in a corner booth, and before the waitress could refill James Colvert's cup of coffee, Michael had eaten all his banana pancakes—and all the toast that had come in a plastic basket.

“Somebody was hungry,” she said, and winked at James Colvert. He watched the waitress as she moved a couple of tables down.

On their way back from the diner, less than a mile from their cabin, Michael spied a raccoon splayed at the edge of the road. Its insides had drained to the grass, but its head was undamaged, perfect. Both ears sat straight up. The tail was so flat it appeared as if someone had painted it onto the surface.

“I wonder if that's ours,” Michael said. Most nights, as he lay awake in bed and listened to an animal crawling and scratching around the cabin, he could conjure up a vision of himself chasing after it. Now the worry that the raccoon on the road was the same one that hovered just on the other side of the walls of their cabin at night made him sorrowful. He could already hear the sickening stillness that awaited him when he got under his sheets that night.

“A one-way pass to Raccoon Heaven,” his father said, watching his rearview mirror. “Where there are no more cars. No more worries. But I doubt our little friend comes this far into town.”

Michael wanted to look back one last time before they rounded the bend, but he also didn't want his father to think he was concerned either way. With fish they considered too small to keep, his father got impatient with how delicately Michael removed the hook from the fish's mouth.

“Get it out and get him back in, or else your oils are going to rub off on him and he won't have anything on him to protect himself,” he said one afternoon, taking the wriggling fish from Michael's hand. “He'll be dead.”

When they got out of the car, James Colvert walked with the day's newspaper tucked under his arm past their cabin and down to the water, where they kept two metal fold-out chairs. The heavy chairs looked out of place, and Michael was embarrassed that they didn't have canvas ones, or the cheap, lightweight kind available at the Red & White store. These chairs belonged stacked up in a basement, or perhaps spotted alongside the road at a yard sale. They sank deep into the grass.