Written on My Heart (31 page)

P
arker came by and picked up the letters and said he'd get around to reading them when he could. A messy case involving warring lobstermen was taking up a lot of his time, he said. I said, I'm busy anyway and got back to my life. Stella and Grace left the house the day after our little showdown. Robin went back to Portland to finish her school year. Bud went back to Stoughton Falls to work after a week off.

“You going to be okay?” I asked as we stood by the pickup on the morning he left.

“I'm going to a meeting tonight and every frigging night this week. Billy got me all set up. I'll call you when I get back to the trailer.”

“Please, please call me if you need me,” I said.

“I need you all the time,” he said, putting his forehead against mine.

“I love you,” I said. “Remember, call me.”

He called me for three nights straight. “This is hard,” he said.

I decided to join him on Thursday. I left the kids with Ida and Maureen and drove to Stoughton Falls. I had supper waiting when he got home from his meeting. He was thoughtful and quiet, and told me that he had found a sponsor he could talk to when he needed to dull his cravings. Billy had called him every night that week, just as I
had, to check on him. We made love for the first time in a while. We were careful with each other, tender. Afterward, we held each other until daylight.

I scoured the trailer for his wedding ring on Friday morning before I left for The Point, but I couldn't find it. He had already looked through the truck and the shop and had come up with nothing. He felt bad about losing it, and I missed seeing the bright band of gold circling his rough, grease-stained ring finger. We decided that in June, on our wedding anniversary, we would buy him a new one.

Per our usual routine, he joined us for the weekend, and then drove back to Stoughton Falls on Monday morning. One Monday night, though, he surprised us by showing up back to The Point. “Daddy's here,” I said to the kids, and Arlee ran, while Travis crawled, to the door. Bud came in and I heard him talking to them, giving them kisses and hugs, and then he walked through the kitchen, brushed right by me, and picked up the phone.

“Hello, honey, how are you?” I said. He waved at me.

“Billy? This is Bud,” he said. “Yeah, you busy? . . . That'd be good.”

He hung up the phone and walked over to me. He kissed me, hard, and then let me go.

“What's going on?” I asked.

“Well,” he said, “I got fired.”

“Why?”

“Evidently I carry gloom and doom around all day,” Bud said. “Cecil said the customers been complaining that I'm not real friendly to 'em. He said I got too much going on in my personal life to pay attention to my work. I says, ‘Is my work bad?' He says, ‘No, but your attitude is. I'm going to have to let you go.' So he did. Well, I'm yours, honey. I'm meeting Billy at the Lobster Shack. Want anything?”

The Lobster Shack. Every time someone brought up the name, thoughts of Carlie thundered through the halls of my memory. I remembered the times I had hung out there while she worked. How I
loved to watch her and Patty have fun and flirt with customers. Those two had been such a team.

“No,” I said. “Good luck.”

I tried to feel bad about him getting fired, but I was overjoyed. Maybe, I thought, this will work out. Maybe Bud will be able to handle living here. The Point will be our sun and we'll revolve around it; go out into the world and come back here, for always.

Maureen joined the kids and me for a mac-and-cheese supper. I didn't tell her about Bud's job. I did tell her Arlee had called Billy an angel and she smiled. “He's not,” she said. “But he might be closer to God than the rest of us.” Her smile stretched to a grin. “At least, I think so.”

Bud walked back into the kitchen about halfway through supper.

“Dish up a plate,” I said.

“Ate,” he said. He sat down. “Well, Billy's got me working with a carpentry crew. And he wants me to sand, caulk, and paint his boat too. Get it ready to go out. Wants me to be his stern man on the
Blind Faith
for the summer.” He filled Maureen in. “Guess you can tell Ma,” he said to her. “It'll save me a trip.”

“Billy can use the help,” Maureen asked. “I could help too, if he needs it.”

“We're all set. We got it planned out for the summer. You stick to the Bible and Sunday school.”

Maureen's fork clattered onto her plate. “I can do anything I want to do, James Walter. I don't have to just ‘stick' to anything. Don't you tell me what I should be doing.”

“Calm down,” Bud said. “Billy needs you at church. He said so, while we was talking about what needs to be done. He says you're his right-hand girl. He says he feels like he's part of the family, what with the way you took care of him last winter.”

“Oh,” Maureen said. “Well, that's all right then.” She helped me with the dishes and left. I put the kids to bed and joined Bud on the sofa.

Bud said, “You know what I've been thinking? Everything in life is a deck of cards. You got your kings, aces, queens, jacks, jokers, and numbers that stand for the rest of us.”

“What made you think of that?”

“I don't know. It's as good an explanation as anything.”

“What number am I?”

“I'd say you're an eight.”

“Why?”

Bud smiled. “It's curvy on the top and curvy on the bottom,” he said. He leaned over and kissed me. Then, he said, “We got to move out of the trailer.” That turned me on so much I unzipped his fly, right then and there. Afterward, with television light from
The Six Million Dollar Man
reflecting off my bare butt, we decided where and when to move things from the trailer.

At seven on Tuesday morning, I found myself standing in front of Daddy's empty house. I took a deep breath, unlocked the front door, and entered the kitchen, where my childhood hit me like a ton of bricks.

Stella and Grace had left most of the furniture, along with dishes, linens, and day-to-day items I could choose to keep or to throw away. I walked into my old bedroom and remembered the night I escaped through my window to go explode firecrackers at the Barringtons' with Dottie, Bud, and Glen. I walked into the bathroom and could almost hear Daddy puking up his guts every morning after trying to drink away his grief for his absent Carlie. The kitchen, where he and Carlie had waltzed to “Love Me Tender.” Here was the living room, where I had fallen asleep on the sofa night after night after Carlie had gone, while Daddy drank himself down to hell. Daddy's workshop, which I had swept up before Stella had first come to dinner. I walked upstairs to the two tiny rooms that once had served as storage. Stella had turned them into sweet spaces that would make fine little bedrooms.

Something thumped somewhere in the house and I held my breath. “Are you still here?” I asked. No answer, but something warm moved through me, from the bottoms of my feet to the top of my head. Whatever it was, it left me crying a soft rain of tears. They wet the dust in my soul and sank into my heart, and I knew that my old house and I would get along just
fine.

M
ay 1, Travis's first birthday, was clear and warm. While he took his nap before his little party, I threw together a spaghetti sauce and let it simmer while Arlee and I went outside to the side garden to check daffodil and tulip bulbs.

A car headed past the house and parked in the Buttses' driveway. My smile showed up before Dorothea Butts even got her car door open. Arlee dashed across the road before I could say no, me on her tail.

“Hi there, you two!” Dottie called. Arlee flew at her and Dottie caught her up in her arms. “When the hell did you get so tall?” she asked.

“You remember it's Travis's birthday?” I asked.

“'Course I do. Couldn't forget that one. You home for good?”

I smiled. “Looks like it. Come over when you get settled.”

Madeline stepped outside, carrying Archer. He shrieked for joy when he saw Dottie. She headed straight for him, with Arlee following right on her heels.

“Send her home when you get tired of her,” I called.

“Will do,” Dottie said, and they all went inside.

At five p.m., Billy, Ray, Ida, Maureen, Bert, Madeline, Dottie, and Archer and our family filled the house with spaghetti, cake crumbs, melted ice cream, and party hats that Dottie had dug out of somewhere.
Travis didn't have a clue that the whole thing was about him, but he ate it up anyway.

It was over fast, presents strewn everywhere throughout the house, people stepping over babies and toys and boxes and ribbon to bring me their dishes from wherever they had found to sit. Ray brought me a soupy ice cream and cake plate. “Thanks,” he said. “You get a chance, you come up to see me.”

“I come up there too much already,” I said. “Maybe we should start dating.”

“I'm too young for you,” he said. “I told you before, I need someone to work at the store. Part-time, I know you got the kids, but I need help. Think you might be interested?”

“I am,” I said. “And I have some ideas I want to talk to you about.”

“Well, we'll see,” Ray said. “Anyways, let me know soon, will you? Don't play hard to get and make me wait.”

“I think I'd like playing store,” I said to Dottie later, as we rocked on the porch.

“You would,” Dottie said. “You can add, you like to keep things neat, you can make sandwiches, you're a wiseass, and you don't put up with bullshit. Kind of what Ray does every day.”

“How much he going to pay you?” Bud asked from his chair.

“Haven't got a clue,” I said. “Just asked me to come up and talk to him.”

“Make sure he pays you decent money. We could use it,” he said.

“Did you finish up the strawberry ice cream?” Dottie asked him.

“Scraped it clean.”

“Bastard,” said Dottie. “S'pose I'll have to have some more butterscotch.”

“That's gone too.”

“Cake? Is there some cake left?”

“That was gone before everyone left,” Bud said. “Got to be quicker than that.”

“I wonder,” I said, “if we could sell other things at the store.”

“Like what?” Dottie asked. “I'm heating up the leftover spaghetti.”

“A lot of us make stuff. Ida does the quilts, I knit, and Madeline paints. What if we were to make space for crafts and things like that?”

“Where would you put that stuff?” Bud asked. “Store's cramped as it is.”

“Maybe upstairs. We could put it in one of the rooms, or something. And, maybe, we can put in an oven so I can bake bread up there. Imagine how nice that would smell when you walked in?”

“When you going to have time to do that?” Bud said. “You're only working part-time, and you got to watch the store.”

“Not all at once,” I said. “Over time.”

“Kids, me, house, store,” Bud said. “Not enough of you to go around.”

“Maybe not,” I said, “but like you just said, we can use the money. And at Christmastime, we can sell wreaths up there.”

“Got any cheese left?” Dottie called from the kitchen.

A few days later, I went up to Ray's with some of my ideas listed on a sheet of paper.

He took them from me and pursed his lips. He didn't say anything for a long time. Finally, I said, “Well? What do you think?”

He looked at me over the top of his glasses. “I think you been thinking about this backwards,” he said. “All I want is for someone to work behind the register and to make sandwiches; to run the place when I want a friggin' day off. Let's start there, if that's okay with you. And though I'm sure time will prove me wrong, I'd be your boss. To start with, you'd be working for me.”

“Well, you got me all excited about this,” I said.

“One thing at a time, is what I'm saying,” Ray said. “And there's one catch.”

“What?”

“You got to get that thing people who quit high school and live to regret it get.”

“A GED. I got it covered. I'm looking into it. Gonna work on it this summer.”

“Well, I guess I can break you in while you get that GD.”

“GED. Right,” I said.

“So, when can you start?”

We worked out a few hours a couple of days a week, to begin with. I had to talk to Ida first, since she or Maureen would be taking care of the kids. I really had to get cracking on the GED. My mind spun like a waterspout as I walked down the hill to home. A breeze leapt up from the harbor as if hounds were chasing it. It kissed my cheeks and flung strands of my hair into my face.

I moved to the side of the road when I heard a car engine behind me. A Volkswagen bus passed me and Evie waved at me from the passenger's side. Painted on the back of the faded yellow bus were the words
PEACE
and
LOVE
. It stopped in front of the Butts house and Evie jumped down and ran inside. A thin red-haired haired man followed after her. Soon, loud voices came from the house. “Doesn't sound good,” I muttered to myself as I went into the house and helped Bud bundle up the kids for a visit to Popham Beach. While we were inside, the bus farted its way back up the hill.

“Evie don't tend to stay long, does she?” Bud said, and we headed out. We took the last parking space near old Fort Popham and spent a couple of hours walking that glorious beach, along with half of Long Reach. Shiny seals messed around in the briny water where the Kennebec River blended with the Atlantic Ocean. The kids threw wet driftwood into the waves and ran like hell from the incoming surf. We ate lunch on a bleached log and looked out over the Atlantic, soothed by the vastness of it. When the kids got cranky we stuffed them into the pickup and followed the line of cars back up the road. At home, we put Arlee and Travis down for naps and went outside to sit in the side yard. We hadn't even lowered our butts into the chair
seats when Glen's truck skidded to a stop in front of our house. He strode into the yard, a big grin on his face. “How's it hangin'?” he said, just like the old Glen might have done before Vietnam.

“Fine and loose,” Bud said. “How's it hangin' with you?”

“Tight and nasty,” Glen said.

“Should I be here?” I asked. Glen pulled me from my chair and wrapped me in a bear hug. “You thirsty?” I asked him.

“Wouldn't mind a beer or two,” he said.

I looked at Bud. He looked back at me.

Glen caught the look. “Or coffee, maybe? Been a long drive.”

I was inside when I heard Dottie and Glen shout hellos at each other. Shortly after that, she barged into the house.

“Shhh,” I said. “Kids are sleeping.”

“Sorry,” she whispered. “Hey, did you notice Glen's kind of normal? He on drugs?”

“Well, if he is, I hope he stays on them,” I said. “What's the latest with Evie?”

“Oh, Christ,” Dottie said. “She's decided she wants to live with Albert—that's the guy she's been with—in Portland. She wants to take Archer along with them. Albert's in some band and Evie says he'll support her and Archer.”

“Is Albert Archer's father?”

“Hell, no. He's the latest loser to go gaga over Evie. Madeline said that no, that wasn't going to happen. Told her that it was better for Archer staying with us, and if Evie wanted to fight it, she was going to file a runaway report and Evie would have to come home until she was eighteen.”

“I imagine that went over big.”

“Oh, wicked big. Evie said we could all fuck ourselves, that she was Archer's mother and that she was going to take him back, that she'd be back with the sheriff to pick him up. Madeline said, ‘Over my dead body.' Evie flounced out the door in a cloud of smoke. Albert took off after her. ‘Peace,' he says to us. ‘Peace.' Peace, her ass, I say.
Madeline won't let Archer out of her sight. She and Bert are trying to figure out whether to get the cops to bring Evie back home, or let it lie until Evie comes around.”

“That likely?”

“Nope. Anyways, right now she's with someone who don't appear to have the brains God gave an ant, but at least she's warm and dry.”

“Coffee?”

“We ain't drinkin' anymore?” Dottie said. “On account of Bud?”

“Don't want to do it in front of him.”

“Okay with me,” Dottie said. “By the way, I broke up with that Addie. She only liked me because I'm a famous bowler.”

“A ten-pin groupie?”

“Yep. I got 'em.”

We carried coffee and store-bought cookies out to the boys. I sat down next to Bud. I took his hand for a minute before squeezing it and letting it go. I grabbed the grass under my feet with my toes and tugged spring up and into my heart.

“I feel better than I have in a long time,” Glen said.

“You look pretty good,” I said. “What changed?”

“Well, I'm on drugs,” Glen said.

“What'd I tell you,” Dottie said to me.

Glen gave her a look. “Yes, I'm on drugs. They help with whatever's wrong with my head. I might not ever get back to normal, but it's a start.”

“When the hell were you normal?” Dottie asked.

Glen smiled and shrugged. “Traveling around this state changed up my head. Christ, I went everywhere. Might be a Maine Guide. I'd like to do that, I think, take people places to go hunting, or fishing or hiking, or whatever else they do. Talked to a few rangers and a couple of wardens. They told me how to go about it. Might move up north. Not that many people, just thousands of miles of woods.”

“You got a girl yet?” Dottie asked.

“No,” Glen said. “You want the job?”

Dottie and I laughed.

“What's so funny? I'm a fine catch. I'm only a little crazy and I got a great—”

“Truck,” Bud said.

I looked at Dottie, and she nodded. “Tell 'em,” she said.

“Dottie plays for the other team,” I said.

She rolled her eyes. “Bowls. I bowl for the other team.”

“What the hell does that mean?” Glen asked.

“I'm a lesbo,” Dottie said.

Bud and Glen looked at each other. Glen held out a hand as Bud fished out his wallet and slapped a twenty into his palm.

“What's going on?” I asked.

“Glen said she was a lesbo about five years ago. I didn't think she was,” Bud said.

“But, Dottie, the offer to be my girl still stands,” Glen said. “Might solve everything.”

“What do you mean?” I said.

“You gay?” Dottie asked.

Glen blushed. “No,” he said. “Never mind. Congratulations for being a lesbo, Dottie.”

“Thanks,” she said. “And congratulations to you for having a big truck.”

Bud stood up, stretched, and looked toward his mother's yard, where the
Florine
was berthed. “Speaking of being your girl,” he said to Glen, “what you doing with her?”

“Oh, I'm going out this summer,” Glen said. “Going up north next winter, though. You want, you come up with me for some time.”