Written on My Heart (10 page)

“No shit,” I said. “When?”

“This afternoon. She was higher than a kite. Came through the woods and sat down with some family having a picnic. Tried to talk to them but she wasn't making much sense. Left them and went off down the path. The mother come to me, said she seemed out of it. I walked the way the mother told me she went. Got to the bench. That metal plaque with the saying on it was lying on the ground next to a screwdriver. The bench was scratched up where she'd pried it off. Heard someone yell and found her catty-corner on the rocks, cut up and bloody, hollering away.”

“Hollering what?”

“Couldn't make sense of it. I called for some help and we hefted her back up onto the path and got her on her feet. We tried to clean her up,
but she got riled and said she wanted to get out of there and get home, so I walked her back up the path to the house—place still gives me the willies—and waited until the maid come to the door.”

“Louisa?”

“That her name? Anyways, Louisa hauled her inside, said thank you, and pretty much shut the door in my face.”

“Every one of them is a pain in the ass,” I said. “I wish they'd just go away.”

“You think they do it on purpose? You don't even know her.”

“She's a Barrington. That's enough,” I said. “Speaking of pains in the ass, Glen's at the house with Bud. Come have supper with us.”

It was good to have the four of us together again. We talked that night about what we had done and who we had been, not who we were and what we were going to do. We drank beer and took a trip back down memory lane, remembering times that would never come around again.

G
len didn't talk about the war much, except to Bud. He didn't flirt with Evie Butts, who fidgeted and wriggled around him like a dog in heat. He thanked Maureen for writing to him, but told her it was okay if she didn't do that. He didn't go uptown to Long Reach to visit his high school buddies. In fact, he didn't do much of anything.

Most of the time, he slept on Grand's porch, in her old rocker. I fed him and went about my day while he rocked and slept and rocked. Bud joined him there when he got home from work. After supper, they drank beer and talked until the night switched places with dawn. One night, cranky, cold, and lonely, I came downstairs at about midnight. I said to them, “Time to go night-night,” and I huffed back upstairs. Bud followed me right away, leaving Glen on the porch. “Thank you,” he said as we got into bed, and he was asleep two seconds later.

The next morning at the kitchen table, after I'd coaxed Glen into the kitchen with six scrambled eggs and half a pound of bacon, I said to him, “What is up between you and Ray? I told him you were home and he didn't know. I felt bad for him.”

Glen snorted. “Don't go feeling too awful sorry for him,” he said.

“Why not?”

“He told me the army might be the best thing for me. Give me a good start in life. Christ, Florine, it's hell. You don't know. You just don't
know.” And with that, he wiped his face with the paper napkin I'd provided, got up, kissed the top of my head, gave Arlee a big hug, and left the house.

“Glen's gone back,” Bud told me that night. “Called Fred's and told me goodbye.”

“I hope it wasn't because of me,” I said. “All I did was ask him about Ray, and he stomped out of the house.”

“Leave was over anyway,” Bud said.

“He's not who he was,” I said.

“None of us is,” Bud said.

“Do you ever wish you had gone into the army?”

“No,” Bud said. “I don't think I could've stood being told what to do, more so if what they was telling me to do was crazy.”

The next morning when someone knocked at the screen door, I hoped it might be Glen, come back to us. But this shadow form was tiny and most unwelcome.

“Go away,” I shouted, and I snatched Arlee away from the door and stepped back, ready to run.

“Florine,” Stella said through the screen, “don't be afraid. I came to say I'm sorry.”

“Go away before I call the sheriff,” I said. “Parker told me to call him if I needed to, anytime. I don't want you anywhere near us.”

“I don't blame you,” she said. “I was kind of crazy.”

“Kind of?”

She sighed. “Okay,” she said, “I'm calling in my chips from that time you wrecked my bedroom,” she said. “I just want a little of your time. That's all I want from you.”

“I would think you scratching up my face evened things out. I don't owe you anything.”

“Well, I'm sober and I want to apologize.”

“You can do it from there,” I said.

Another sigh. “I guess we're just destined to tolerate each other. Okay.
I'm sorry for every miserable thing I've ever done to you. I'm sorry for how I made you feel when I slept with your father, even though I loved him more than life. I'm sorry for being drunk all the time after he died. And I am very, very sorry for attacking you. Thank you for not pressing charges. I will not bother you, or your family, again.” She turned to go.

Goddammit, Grand
, I said to my grandmother, who pushed me toward Stella's apology. I walked to the door and said, “Wait.”

Stella stopped. I noticed that she wore no makeup and that she looked older. Tired. “That baby isn't such a baby anymore,” she said, taking in Arlee's rosy cheeks and redder-than-ever hair. “And she is the picture of her grandmother.”

“Yes, she is,” I said. “Are you moving away or are you back?”

“I'm back,” Stella said. “It's my home.”

“Grace leaving? She's a real hoot.”

“When Grace focuses on something, she nibbles on it like a squirrel with an acorn. Anyway, she's staying with me for company for a while. I'm sorry she made you move the boat. I love that boat too. As far as I'm concerned, you can move the
Florine
back onto the lawn.”

“We'll leave her where she is,” I said. Arlee whimpered and put her head on my shoulder. I stroked her hair. “Stella,” I said, “I'm tired of this crap. I have a baby now. We'll never get along. Let's just start and stop right here.”

Stella nodded. “All right,” she said. “I'd like to hear the word ‘forgive' from you, but I can wait.”

I couldn't say the word. Instead, I said, “I hope you're able to stay out of the sauce.”

Stella nodded. “Me too,” she said. “I'll see you.”

I didn't tell her that we were moving.

The night before Bud left for Stoughton Falls, I took Arlee down to her grandmother's house for her first overnight. I tried to be calm, but I failed.

“She'll probably wake up in the middle of the night,” I babbled to Ida.
“She'll want a hug, and a bottle. She doesn't stay up long; it's more like she wants to know someone is there. She wakes up really early. Usually, Bud takes care of her in the morning so she might be strange about that. But I'll be down for her before breakfast.”

Maureen took Arlee's hand and led her into the living room and out of my sight.

“Florine, she'll have a wonderful time,” Ida said.

To my shame, I began to cry. “I know,” I said.

“Bud will be okay too. You knew what you were getting into when you married him, Florine,” Ida said, her voice gentle.

“I know,” I said. “He's always wanted to leave.”

“You need to let him try things out,” Ida said. “He's had sparks in his shoes ever since he was a little boy.”

“I told him I would go anywhere with him,” I said, “but that was before we were actually leaving.”

Ida said, “Go and be with Bud. Have a wonderful night and don't let him know how you really feel. Send him off with a smile and he'll be happy to come back.”

I left my little girl with her aunt and her grandmother. With every step up the hill, my legs and feet felt as if they were being torn from their roots.

Bud and I had a light supper. We didn't talk much, partly because we were used to being interrupted, and partly because I had to concentrate on not running full tilt down to Ida's to grab my baby back. We packed everything that Bud needed to live in Cecil's shed, so that he could just hop into the car and take off in the morning.

After that, we went to bed. It was strange to be able to make love noises without being afraid of waking Arlee, but Bud's body and the way it moved with mine brought back things I had almost forgotten about during my first year as a mother. We loved each other into deep sleep at about midnight, but soon after that, I woke and was up before I knew what I was doing. My feet automatically started for Arlee's room. I stopped in the hall and turned around. I walked across our bedroom
to the window and looked down over Ida's house. All was dark and, although I strained my ears, I couldn't hear a sound, which I hoped meant that Arlee was asleep.

Bud whispered, “Come back to bed, baby. She's safe.” I went to him and we found each other again.

He left as the sun rose over The Point, but before he did, he pulled me close and whispered, “I told you when we got together our very first night, Florine, I ain't leaving you. I'll always be back. Count on it.”

“And I will never leave you,” I said.

I stood on the road and let the rising sun warm my face. Then I ran down to Ida's
house.

“W
hen you going to get a license?” Dottie asked me.

“When I get a minute,” I said. “I've been kind of busy.”

“Doing what?”

She ignored my look. We'd been in the car for about two hours. She was driving me to Stoughton Falls to look at a house trailer that belonged to one of Cecil's friends. Over the phone, Bud had told me that he'd checked it out and that he thought it might do for us for a start.

He called me every day from a phone at the back of Cecil's garage. Auto-repair noises took up a lot of ear space at first, but I learned to tune them out in favor of my husband's quiet, deep voice.

Life in the shed was interesting, he told me. He shared it with a bat that came out every night. Said he just ducked into his sleeping bag while the bat cruised the shed, snapping up bugs before flying out for the night. “Never have a mosquito in the place,” he told me, like it was a point of pride. He soaped up and shampooed in a nearby pond, he said, and an old double-seater outhouse sitting near the shed took care of his other needs.

“Why?” I said.

“Why what?”

“Why two seats? How would that happen? Do people wait for each other so they can go to the bathroom together? Don't you think that's weird?”

“Hadn't thought about it.”

“Do you switch off seats?”

“No, I use one.”

“Which one?”

“The one on the left. This what we're going to talk about?”

“Arlee said ‘Ida' today. Only it was more like ‘Ia.'”

“That's my girl.”

“How's work?”

“Lots to do up here. Cecil's got a good thing going. Busy from morning to night.”

“Me too. Baking lots of bread.”

Long pause.

“Bud?”

“Shit,” he said. His voice quivered. “I miss you so much.”

My throat closed, but I managed to squeak out, “Me too.”

We heaved and sighed over the phone for about ten seconds.

“I need you here,” he said.

“I need you,” I said. “Period.”

I looked out the window at the way the generous August sun cast a pale gold sheen over The Point. A cicada's
zzzzz
high up in a nearby tree signaled dog days. It was hot. It was sunny. It was perfect, except for no Bud. Arlee looked for him every day and she fussed when he didn't show up, but I didn't tell him that over the phone because I didn't want to break his heart. I didn't tell him that she stood in front of the screen door and waited for the sound of his car. I didn't tell him that I cried as I watched her wait for him and that I had to distract her to get her away from the door.

One day, early in the morning, Bud called. “Cecil may have a line on a place for us to live,” he said, not even trying to contain the excitement in his voice.

“That was fast,” I said, while I thought, Well, crap, it's real now.

Bud was due home the next day, Friday, but we decided that he should stay there through the weekend so Dottie and I could ride up on
Saturday and check out the trailer. So, my best friend and I, along with Arlee, found ourselves driving toward Stoughton Falls and Cecil's garage, where we would pick up Bud and go on to see the place together. Arlee sang a song only she understood from her car seat in the back.

“Don't think I want to live in a trailer,” I said to Dottie.

“Now, you don't know until you see it,” Dottie said.

“What if I hate it?”

“Why you worried about something hasn't happened yet?”

“Just getting ready for the worst.”

“You got to change your attitude.”

“When you going back to college?”

“Not soon enough for you, I guess.”

“I always miss you when you go.”

Dottie slowed down as we reached a stop sign. We had reached Route 100 in Stoughton Falls.

“Left or right?” she said.

“Right,” I said. “Cecil's is down the road.”

Cecil closed on weekends, so we found only Bud slouched on a bench beside four giant green doors hiding the greasy cave where he tinkered with other people's cars and trucks. My mouth slid up to a grin when I saw him. Dottie played chicken, driving as close to him as she dared before his smirk made her stop. She hadn't even shifted into park before I jumped out and filled my empty arms with my husband. I drank in his scent of automobile oil and car paint as if it were Champagne. I found his lips just as he found mine, but before we could get much further, Arlee whined from the backseat and Bud let go of me and bent to take her from her car seat.

Dottie got out of the car and stretched. “I ain't kissing you,” she said to Bud. “But I got to pee, that's for sure.”

I did too, so Bud let us into the office and waiting room beside the garage and gave us a tour. The garage, with its four lifts, was twice as big as Fred's shop.

Dottie raided the candy machines in the office and stuffed her
pockets with M&M's, gumballs, and peanuts. “Well, we going to see the trailer or what?” she said.

We got back into the car. Bud climbed into the backseat beside Arlee, and we turned around and drove back toward the intersection. We went through it, and about a half a mile farther Bud said, “Turn in here,” and Dottie took a right into a dirt driveway.

The trailer sat to the left of the driveway. “It's pretty big,” Bud said. “See, they got a picture window and a fence around the yard so Arlee's got a place to run.”

Dottie stopped the car in front of a small, dark-brown shed with a wide door. “I'm thinking of storing Petunia in here,” Bud said. “Or we can use it however you want.” He hopped out of the car. “Backyard too, with a picnic table.”

I sighed as I forced myself out of the passenger seat.

“Give it a chance,” Dottie said under her breath. “It don't look so bad.”

I held Arlee as we followed Bud into a small backyard with the picnic table he had mentioned. A garden shed stood to the right of the yard. The lawn had been mowed a few days earlier. The blue siding on the back of the trailer looked cared-for. Propane tanks, closed in by a high, dark fence, stood close to the right side of the back of the trailer. A line of stunted firs and pines crowded the edge of the back lawn.

“We can clean them out, make some paths through the woods,” Bud said.

“Ain't that illegal?” Dottie said, but Bud ignored her as he walked toward the front of the trailer.

The good-size front yard was surrounded by chain-link fence. “You can make a garden in the yard,” Bud said. “Plant flowers, maybe?” A small gate in the fence led up a set of steps to the front door. Bud unlocked the door and we followed him inside.

I put Arlee down and she ran to the picture window that looked out into the front yard. She put her small hands on the glass surface. Little prints remained when she took them away. She ran down the hall, Bud chasing her.

“It's not horrible,” I said to Dottie. The space inside surprised me. The kitchen took up the right end of the trailer, with cupboards and counter space. Off of that was a little room with space for a washer and dryer.

A small bar separated the kitchen from the widest part of the trailer. On the right, I could fit a dining-room table and chairs. To the left, where the picture window was, we could squeeze in a sofa, a chair or two, a coffee table, and a television set. Dottie and I followed Bud and Arlee down the hall. A large room at the end of the trailer would be our bedroom, should we decide to live there. To the right was a bathroom bigger than the one at Grand's house, and next to it, two small bedrooms sat side by side.

“One can be a bedroom for Arlee,” Bud said. “Maybe you could use the other room to do some knitting or whatever you want.”

“Or a guest room,” I said. “For Dottie, when she wants to drop in.”

“Sounds good to me,” Dottie said. “I ain't sleeping on the sofa.”

The tour over, we ended up back in the living room. I looked outside at the yard, and beyond that, at Route 100, which, on a Sunday, wasn't as busy as it would be on a weekday. I would find that out later, along with details I couldn't take in on that day.

“Well,” Bud said. “What do you think?”

“It's okay,” I said.

Dottie took Arlee out into the yard while Bud and I stayed inside the trailer and broke in the floor of our bedroom. We were harsh in our eagerness to attach ourselves to each other again, if only for a few minutes. Our bones ground together as we tumbled from corner to corner and back to the middle of the room.

“Thanks for the privacy,” I said to Dottie on the way home.

“I aim to please,” she said. “Is it always that
quick?”