Angel Landing (7 page)

She sat in the easy chair, her feet stretched out in front of the fire in the wood stove. She was waiting up for me the way she had done ten years before. That was the last summer I spent at Minnie's, I was eighteen, far too old for the curfew Minnie imposed on all her nieces and nephews.

“You're home,” she would say when I sneaked in the door at one or two in the morning. “Finally,” Minnie would say with a sniff.

I turned the key in the lock and walked inside, expecting an argument. Minnie would ask me where I'd been; I would inform my aunt that I simply refused to be treated as I had been ten years earlier. I paid eighty dollars a month for my room; not a fortune, still, I expected some privacy. But when I stood in the hallway and hung up my coat, Minnie didn't rush from her chair to accuse me for my late hours. There wasn't a sound from the parlor; Minnie must not have heard me come in.

I went to the parlor doorway and looked in. The fire in the stove had burned down low; Minnie's shoulders were hunched over, tears ran down her face. Immediately, I retreated to the entrance hallway; I had walked in on too private a time, I had seen too much—much more than Minnie would have ever allowed. I went to the door, opened it, then slammed it shut. I wanted to give my aunt time to collect herself; I would come in again, I would avoid her tears.

“Minnie,” I said after I had slammed the door shut. I thought I could hear her moving. “I'm home,” I said loud.

“That's nice,” Minnie called from the parlor. “That's fine.”

“Is there anything I can get for you?” I asked as I threw my coat around, creating as much noise as I possibly could, arranging it so that my aunt and I would not have to meet face to face. “How about some tea?” I called. I had never before seen Minnie cry; I had not imagined that she could. Even when Uncle Alex died, she had stood stoically at the gravesite.

“I don't want anything,” Minnie said from the parlor. “I'm reading a novel. Historical. About the Greeks.”

My aunt was lying; there had been no book on her lap, only a white linen handkerchief. And Minnie never read novels, historical or not. “All right,” I called to my aunt. “I'm going upstairs.”

I put my hand on the banister and then stopped; I could see Minnie's profile, she looked like any one of the old women I had seen earlier, at the Mercy Home.

“Good night,” I said. I didn't want to leave her alone, but I didn't want to force Minnie to explain her tears any more than I would want to explain the confusion which had been growing from the moment Michael Finn appeared behind the bleachers. “Good night,” I called again.

“Yes, yes,” Minnie answered, her voice urging me to hurry, to get up the stairs before any questions arose, before we had to confront each other. “Very good. I'll see you in the morning.” Minnie sounded as if she could not wait to be alone once more, then she would hold the linen handkerchief to her cheek, she would return to whatever thoughts kept her awake at such a late hour.

I went right to bed, but I couldn't sleep. Between the sheets, beneath the quilt Minnie had stuffed with goose feathers, I tossed and turned; I could hear the waves in the harbor as clearly as if water were rising right outside my door. Somewhere Michael Finn slept uneasily; and here, in our tall house at the end of Main Street, something was happening, to Minnie and to me. That may have been the time I should have rushed back downstairs; I could have returned to the parlor, thrown my arms around Minnie and wept with her, I might have borrowed her handkerchief and asked for some comfort. If I had gone back, Minnie might have confessed some bad dream, and when her new tears washed over me I could have dried them.

There was nothing I wanted more than sleep; I would not have even minded dreams. But I couldn't seem to erase Minnie's tears, or the sadness that had lined Michael Finn's face. If I could have drifted off beneath the heavy feathered quilt Minnie had sewn years before I had ever come to Fishers Cove, I might not have been overtaken by a terrible feeling of being alone. There was no point counting sheep, and not even warm milk and honey would have helped; what was to happen had already begun.

ON ICE

ONE

T
HE NEXT WEEK THE HARBOR
froze solid. Sailboats and sloops were caught until the spring thaw, the ferry to Connecticut would not sail again until April. Winter settled, the tulips and orange day lilies seemed buried forever beneath the soil. Slowly the temperature began to drop; and on the day I told Carter I knew who had bombed Angel Landing III, there was the threat of the first snow.

Carter was recuperating from the demonstration he had organized; protesters had been forced back by barbed wire and mace, and Carter had been one of a dozen members of Soft Skies who had been arrested. The protesters had been released after forty-eight hours, on bail posted by one of Carter's attorneys. When the other Soft Skies workers had gone home, to New Hampshire and Manhattan, Carter stayed on, planning the next attack on the power plant and nursing the wounds barbed wire had left on his skin. That morning I arrived at the Soft Skies office at eight-thirty; I unlocked the door with my key and found Carter still asleep on the mattress on the floor. He had slept in his clothes, and because the radiator in the office was faulty he had wrapped himself in two army blankets. When I sat down next to Carter on the mattress I noticed that he had forgotten to remove his glasses.

“Carter,” I whispered, “wake up.”

Carter opened one eye; his glasses were smudged, he smiled slightly. “Waffles,” he guessed. “You brought me waffles.”

“When did you eat last?” I asked. The office had no refrigerator or stove, and Carter usually ate potato chips and cottage cheese. Occasionally he heated a can of soup or beans over the flame of a cigarette lighter.

“I'm glad you're here,” Carter said, pulling me toward him.

“It's eight-thirty,” I said. “I have to be at work in fifteen minutes.”

“That's enough time,” Carter nodded. “Come into bed.”

“Listen to me,” I whispered. “I know who the bomber is.”

“Did you bring your diaphragm with you?” Carter asked.

“I'm serious,” I said. “I've set up a meeting for you with the man who bombed the power plant.”

Carter sat up and adjusted his glasses. “You know who the bomber is?” he asked.

“I do,” I confessed, embarrassed that I had known for a week without telling Carter. But something had kept me from sharing Finn with anyone, including other workers at Outreach, and Minnie, and most of all, Carter.

“The bomber just happened to come to you?” Carter asked. “He just walked into Outreach and said, ‘I have to talk to someone'?”

“That's right,” I nodded.

“Holy shit,” Carter said. “I'd better hurry.” He jumped up and started looking for his shoes.

‘You can't meet him until four-thirty,” I said.

“But that's not for hours,” Carter said.

“I can't help it,” I explained. “That's the time Finn and I agreed on last week.”

Carter stared at me. “Last week?” he said. “Last week?”

I cleared my throat, I shifted my position on the mattress. “That's when I first met him,” I admitted.

“You've known all this time?” Carter said.

“Listen to me,” I said, “we're talking about an extreme paranoiac. I worked hard to convince him to meet with you.”

“All right, all right,” Carter said. He sat down on the mattress and put his arm around me. “I know you wouldn't intentionally keep anything from me.”

I looked the other way; the truth was I didn't want to share Finn with Carter.

“Where can we meet?” Carter asked.

“Outreach,” I suggested.

“You've got to be kidding,” Carter said. “We've got to find a place where nobody knows us. Down by the harbor?”

“Not there,” I said. Our words would get lost beneath the gulls' cries and the waves; there was too much open space there, Michael Finn could run away.

“The Cove Theater,” Carter smiled. “That's it. Perfect.”

“A theater?” I asked.

Carter got up and leafed through an issue of the
Fishers Cove Herald.
“The early show,” he said. “It begins at four-thirty-five.” He came back to me and held both my hands. “I can't believe this,” he said. “You're wonderful. I don't know how you set this all up.”

“I just want to warn you,” I said, “before you get too excited. He's not political.”

Carter smiled sweetly. “Of course he's political. How can he not be? Bombing a power plant is a political act.”

“All right,” I said, “but let's just say it wasn't political, let's say it was a personal act, would you still help him?”

“I consider him my brother,” Carter said. “Whatever his reasons were.”

“Then I'd better tell you what he wants,” I said. “He wants an attorney. A good one.”

“I'll set it up,” Carter said.

I got up from the mattress and straightened my clothes. “I'll see you at the theater,” I smiled.

“Now, I know what he wants,” Carter said to me, “a good lawyer. But does he know what I want, Nat?”

I stopped at the door. “What could you possibly want from him?” I asked.

“I want to use him,” Carter said simply.

“For what?” I asked.

“The cause,” Carter answered.

“I told you he's not political,” I said.

“I don't care.” Carter shrugged.

“Charming,” I said.

“I'm just being honest,” Carter said. “This bomber of yours can be instrumental in closing down Angel Landing Three, and he has to realize that if he takes help from Soft Skies he's automatically one of us. He just is.”

“I'll tell him” I said as I walked to the door. “But he may not agree.”

When I kissed Carter goodbye I felt as though I'd just betrayed him. I left him wrapped in delight, overjoyed at the prospect of meeting the Fishers Cove bomber, unaware that I had somehow been unfaithful, that my loyalties had shifted.

Now I felt as removed from Carter as I did from Minnie. Since the night I had met Finn, that night when I had found Minnie crying in the parlor, my aunt and I had avoided each other. We still had breakfast and dinner together, but we were polite, our conversation was no more than small talk. It had been six days since that meeting in the field and nothing that had happened since seemed real, time moved differently now, as if the second hand on every clock was stuck in honey. I was conscious of waiting, aware of every hour that passed.

On that Tuesday we were to meet again I watched the street from my office window. I wondered if Finn would really return, or if he would appear to me only once. My morning appointments each seemed to last hours, days; and at lunchtime, when I went across the street to Ruby's Café, I found I couldn't eat the sandwich I ordered, even coffee seemed much too heavy. My three-o'clock appointment was with Jack, the young truant, and I dreaded our meeting; often Jack failed to speak one word during our fifty-minute session. This week, however, was quite different; this week he had decided to talk about his aspirations.

“What I'd really like,” Jack confessed, “is a motorcycle.”

I didn't bother to turn from the window to answer. “Oh, Jack,” I said, annoyed that he was no more realistic than he had been on the day he was first dragged into my office by the high-school truant officer. “It's eighteen degrees out there. No one drives a motorcycle in this sort of weather.”

“Not for now,” Jack said dreamily. “I'd ride it this summer.”

“Really?” I said. “Your family can't afford anything like that. With no education and no job, how are you ever going to get yourself a motorcycle?”

Jack blinked. “I know I'm not really going to get one.”

I looked over at the boy, wondering if I had been too rough.

“It's all up to you,” I said. “I'm sure if you really want something badly enough, you'll manage to get it.”

“No,” Jack said softly. He ran a hand through his fine long hair. “I'll never have a motorcycle. I was just dreaming about it.”

Jack stared at the carpet, but his eyes blinked rapidly, holding back tears.

“I'm sure you'll have a motorcycle someday,” I said.

Jack shook his head. “No, I never will.”

There was a knock at the door, and I was grateful to have reason to look away from poor Jack.

“Yes?” I called.

Emily opened the door a crack and peered inside. “I'm sorry,” she said. “I didn't want to interrupt, but there's someone here who claims to have an appointment.”

I bit my lip; it had to be him: early for his appointment, Michael Finn.

“Jack,” I said, “would you mind if the session ended now?”

“Okay,” Jack shrugged.

“That won't be necessary,” I heard my aunt Minnie say. “This will only take a minute.”

“You'll just have to wait,” Emily said, blocking the door with her body.

Minnie slammed a shopping bag against Emily's shins. “You're blocking the door,” she grumbled.

“You're damn right,” Emily cried, unglued and rubbing at her shins.

“It's all right,” I said. “This is my aunt.”

“Really?” Emily said, raising her eyebrows as she backed out of the office.

Minnie closed the door tightly. “Don't worry,” she told Jack as she put down her shopping bag and dragged a hard-backed chair next to him. “This won't interfere with you. You stay right where you are,” she nodded as she unbuttoned her camel's hair coat.

“You can't do this,” I told my aunt.

“I wouldn't unless I absolutely had to. This is an emergency. I don't think he minds,” she pointed at Jack. “Do you mind?” she asked the boy.