Margaret from Maine (9781101602690) (13 page)

Chapter Fourteen

M
argaret used the half bath off the kitchen. She washed her face and hands and then took a moment to brush back her hair with her fingers. She felt tired and her face, she decided, appeared washed out. She wanted to pinch her cheeks, as Scarlett O'Hara had done in
Gone with the Wind
,
but that seemed silly. She wished, absently, that she possessed more skill with makeup. She did not care for makeup as a rule, but there were times, times like now, when a touch of makeup would have been a welcome friend. She wanted to look her best with Charlie, and if that made her vain, so be it. She leaned close to the mirror, checked her skin, checked both sides of her mouth, then stared for a moment into her own eyes.

It was all very simple. She had fallen for Charlie, and Terry had confirmed what she already knew—that Charlie was a fine man—and then Terry had put into her head the idea that one could go around things a little in a time of war. Margaret was not sure Terry had meant it that way, but there it was: she could divorce Thomas and adopt him so that her responsibility to him changed from wife to mother. And, really, wasn't that a more honest arrangement? She
was
a mother to him; her visits had long ago changed from a wife's visits to her husband's bedside, to the practical, maternal visits she experienced now. Was he being turned enough? Had they tried a new regimen against staph infections? Procedural questions and discussions. How many years had it been, she wondered, since she had climbed into bed with Thomas and held him, used the weight of his body for comfort? She had done that often in the first months after his return. Wife and husband. It had not been a case of playing the dramatic near-widow, the yearning, devoted wife, but rather, a case of longing and desire, a case of a wife wanting her husband to return to her.
Come back to me,
she had whispered like a prayer, saying it in their private moments, whispering it in his ear, and she had said it so much that she had believed, in a small, delicate tissue of hope, that he would hear her and follow her voice back to consciousness. It was ludicrous; she knew better. But it had been a wife calling for her husband, and she wondered now, staring into the mirror, when that impulse had changed. When had she become the mother visiting the child with measles?

It was important, she decided, not to obscure things. Not to pretend one thing and do another. No hypocrisy. If she wanted to be with Charlie—and she did, down deep inside her—then she needed to be clear and forthright about it. In some curious way, Thomas deserved that. He deserved honesty. She was going to go with Charlie to the Blue Ridge Parkway, and she accepted that as a married woman, as a woman with a husband in a bed in Bangor, Maine, as a person whose wedding vows still remained intact. Eyes open, she told herself. No pretending or giving the choice a fancy coloring.

She examined her face one more time, brushed down her clothes, shaped the dress around her hips and breasts, then stepped back into the kitchen. For a moment she misremembered the direction of the backyard. It took her a second to get her bearings. By the time she sat on the lovely living room couch, her phone open to her ear, she heard a clock ringing noon.

* * *

“Will you go for a little walk with me?” Charlie asked and held out his hand. “Terry's turned on a movie for the kids and she's going to sit inside and watch it with them. Everyone else has cleared out. I want to show you something.”

“I'd love to.”

“There's a pretty spot up here and a tree you should see,” he said. “We'll leave whenever you say.”

“I made a call to the airport,” she said, and she remembered her vow to be open and honest about her desire. “I've moved my flight to Wednesday. I want to be with you, Charlie, and that's that. I want more of you.”

“Did you really? You're not joking, are you? That's perfect.”

She nodded. Her color rose.

“I've called everyone and made my excuses. Blake is going to look in on Gordon. He'll be fine. I've decided I want to spend more time with you. And I'm determined to be direct about it. I'm not going to pretend anything about it.”

Charlie took her hand and kissed the back of it.

“Yes, to everything.”

“Are you sure? I can still change it back. I realized as I made the call that I was being presumptuous. We hadn't actually confirmed things.”

“Positive.”

“I want to get away with you.”

“We can leave this afternoon. Let's just get out of town. I'm completely free. I know someone who will lend us a car. He's offered it before and I never took him up on it.”

“I have nothing to wear. I know women say that, but I really don't. I packed for the bill signing and that was about it.”

“We can shop. Pick up a few things.”

She nodded and put her hand in his. Charlie waited until they were closer to the river, then he kissed her.

“Yes, I want to go away with you. I've had a wonderful weekend,” he said. “The best I can remember in a long time.”

“So have I. I don't know whether you've made it easier or harder to go back home.”

“We're not going to talk about going home. Not for a while. We're hunting for rhododendron blossoms. It might be a little early, but we can chance it.”

He kissed her hand again. The air felt cooler nearer the river. He heard frogs starting, bullfrogs and green frogs, the twangy rubber of their voices. Clouds had begun to cluster in the west. It would rain later, he imagined. It pleased him that she had experienced good weather. He clamped her arm under his elbow.

“Do you see it yet?” he asked when they had gone a little farther.

“Is that a tree?” she asked, her voice delighted. “I thought it was a tent. I didn't think a tree could be that color.”

“Apple blossoms. Terry claims it's an antique variety because it blossoms so much later than the other trees.”

“Do you mean to tell me I've been smelling apple blossoms all this time? I thought it was cherry blossoms in Washington.”

“They're earlier. April usually.”

He led her to the tree. Usually, he thought, people planted apple trees together so that their spring foliage would have greater impact, but this tree seemed wild and unruly. Clearly it had escaped the landscapers, or had volunteered on its own, springing up and growing close enough to the river so that no one bothered it. It was larger than most apple trees he had seen in Washington. Its branches spread out over the river and the reflection of its boughs created a second tree, a wavering twin that moved and shimmered in the passing water.

“Listen to the bees,” Margaret said, stopping for a moment when she came to the drip line. “They're crazy for it.”

“Somehow this tree feels more honest than the others around this town. It's earned its way. No special treatment.”

“Oh, it's absolutely perfect. Just perfect. In another day it would begin to fade. Or a day earlier . . . it wouldn't be the same. It's lovely.”

“The tree's great hour,” Charlie said. “Someone wrote that about a cherry tree.”

He watched her bend a bough down and put her nose into the blooms. She looked beautiful standing beneath the ripe blossoms, like a painting of some sort, although he couldn't call one to mind. An Impressionist probably. Bees hummed and bumped into the red-white flowers, their leg sleeves stuffed with propolis, their flight drunken and contented. He walked up behind her and held her in his arms. She crossed his arms over her waist. The scent of the blossoms touched everything.

He kissed her. He kissed her until he felt their heat begin to build and carry them. He smelled the apple blossoms and heard the bees.

“We should get back,” she said after a little while. “You've got me stirred up and we're a perfect scandal out here.”

“You're passionate. No one would know it to look at you. Not right away. But you are.”

“You bring it out in me.”

“We bring it out in each other.”

He took her hand and began walking with her. He felt good and calm, though he still had the impression of her kisses on him.
Rhododendrons,
he thought. He would have her for two more days. Three, counting tonight. He glanced at her from time to time as they walked. How beautiful she was; it made her more beautiful that she did not have a sense of her own fine looks. If it was possible, he wanted a mental snapshot of her standing beneath the apple blossoms. It had all been mixed together: water, light, apple flowers, bee hum. The blossoms had turned her skin softly pink and the water behind her had made her appear to be in motion or flight. He felt heat rising in him again, but he also felt the desire to have her beside him.

“I want to be in a bubble with you,” she said. “Just for these next days. I don't care about anything else. I apologize to the world, but I'm going to be selfish and that's that. Or maybe not a bubble exactly. Maybe the basket of a hot air balloon so that we can see everything and feel everything, but no one can touch us.”

“That's a deal.”

“Let's leave as soon as we can.”

She turned and kissed him. Charlie held her and kept her arm when they walked back toward the house.

* * *

Gordon watched the movie. It was an old movie about a dog and a boy somewhere far away and he decided he wanted a dog himself. A dog made sense. This dog, for example, could alert people to problems, or run with you when you rode a bike, and at night it slept on the foot of your bed and kept bad guys away. He wondered, as he watched, his body slumped against a rack of cushions on the couch, why he had never understood about dogs before. He hadn't understood that they could be friends, guards, a bunch of things that helped a person to live. Grandpa Ben had owned a dog years ago, he knew, but that dog had always been the butt of jokes, or stories about how stupid it had been, and so it lived in his memory in an entirely different form from the dog on the screen. This kind of dog, a collie, even Grandpa Ben would like.

Gordon turned when the door to the room opened and he saw his grandfather move in the kitchen. Grandpa Ben let him watch television more than his mother did.

“We're going to get going pretty soon,” Grandpa Ben said a few minutes later. “Can you go to the bathroom and get ready?”

He nodded, but he didn't move.

He wanted to tell Grandpa Ben about dogs, about his new understanding, but he didn't know how to phrase it. He moved a little forward on the couch seat. He did that whenever he wanted to prolong his television watching. It made his mom or Grandpa Ben think he was getting up, when in fact he had merely moved a few inches.

“Come on, sport, turn off the TV and get ready,” Grandpa Ben called.

They were going to the hardware store. That was Grandpa Ben's favorite place to go.

Gordon slid off the couch and took a step toward the television. He held the remote control in one hand. That was another trick. You could wait and have the remote control ready to shoot the TV dead, but you could stall and pretend it wasn't working right. He pointed the remote at the television and stood for a moment to watch the collie run across a grassy field. Yes, he thought, a dog like that. A dog exactly like that.

Rhododendrons

Chapter Fifteen

C
harlie held her hand as he drove them out of the city in a borrowed Jeep Wrangler, the top down, the wind chilly and fresh. His holding her hand was one of the small, endearing differences from Thomas, Margaret thought. Thomas had been sweet as a suitor and a husband, but he had behaved as though a rule book existed somewhere and one didn't willingly violate it. Looking back, they were not silly rules, but they took some of the fun out of life: don't call before or after nine o'clock; always clean the dishes before going to bed; two-drink maximum; thank-you note the day after receiving a gift; dinner early, usually around five thirty, consisting principally of meat and potatoes. She valued his practical nature, his three-thousand-mile oil changes, his careful monitoring of the furnace, his chimney brushes that he ran up and through each flue on a bright day every September, his handiness with the tractor; but it could at times be more weighted than she liked. In contrast, Charlie's hand holding, his impetuous kisses under the apple blossoms, his tenderness when he turned over her hand and kissed it, his overt desire for her, thrilled her and made her eager to discover what came next. Thomas suffered by comparison, and she did not like to let her mind wander to those considerations, because Thomas was in Maine and he was now locked inside his body and he had no chance to respond or to develop or to grow as he might have as a husband.

They came to a patch of traffic. Margaret didn't bother to try to see what was wrong or why things had slowed. Washington struck her as a confusing city; she had not understood where she was for most of the weekend and she didn't particularly care.

Charlie slipped the Jeep into neutral and leaned across and kissed her so hard it flattened her. She felt her blood ripen and she broke away and glanced around her, but no one noticed. She climbed across the seat, her hand scrambling at the seat belt, and she kissed him as passionately as she had ever kissed a human being. She adored each inch of him—his lips, the shape of his forehead, his proud, heavy hands that gripped and pulled her closer. She felt slightly mad, slightly out of control, and she imagined him kidnapping her, stealing away with her, taking her up through the forests of Maine and Canada, not stopping but traveling north, always north, until they found the end of the road.

She pulled back when he nudged the Jeep forward.

“Maybe,” he whispered, “best lifetime kiss. Right here, right now. In a traffic jam in Washington, D.C.”

“I feel as though we could do that whenever we want. You melt me.”

“A gift from the gods on Mount Olympus.”

“I'm serious,” she said.

“We have it,” he said, moving the Jeep close to the car in front of it and taking her hand again. “We have great potential, Margaret. That's all I've wanted to say. We've just spent one weekend together, but it feels longer, it feels more substantial. It's good fortune to meet someone that you like well enough to spend time with, and then to think about the whole big picture. . . .”

He had to switch lanes and they gained speed. Then he had to stop a little abruptly.

“Whatever happens,” he said, “I'll remember you.”

“Don't project forward,” she said. “Please. That's a rule for the next couple days. I don't want to think about anything. I'm sealing my mind up. We're on an adventure, that's all. Nothing else matters right now.”

He nodded. Then a lane in the traffic cleared and he accelerated into the opening, his hand returning to hers after each time he shifted.

“Larry said he has a few maps under your seat. Can you try to fish one out?”

She reached under and pulled out two atlases. They appeared the same to her. She checked the dates and slid the older one back under the seat. She loved maps. She spread the atlas on her lap.

“You're navigator,” he said. “I think we want Route 66 and then it changes a bunch of times to different numbers.”

“We're going to North Carolina?” she asked and started turning the pages.

“Virginia first. I guess the Blue Ridge Parkway is about eight hours away. Not that far. We'll figure it out.”

It took Margaret a few minutes to familiarize herself with the maps. Wind came over the top of the Jeep, but the heater kept her feet and legs warm. The sun had already begun to slide into the earth. She squinted to see the connections on the map. The area around Washington was so congested it took her a moment to spot their destination in Asheville, North Carolina. At least it looked to be the proper destination. She ran her finger back and forth and finally found the Blue Ridge Parkway. It seemed to follow the ridge of the Smoky Mountains.

“Got it, I think,” she said. “There's a points-of-interest box here and a bloom schedule.”

“What are we going to see?”

“Catawba rhododendron . . . a purple variety that blooms from early June . . . rosebay rhododendron, a white or pink variety; flame azalea and pinxter flower and mountain laurel; redbud and trillium and tulip trees . . . oh, Charlie, it will be stunning.”

“If we're not too early.”

“No, we should be okay. It says it depends on elevation and microclimates. A feast for the eye, it says.”

“My eyes aren't hungry,” he said and squeezed her hand.

Was this really happening? she wondered. Was she traveling through a new part of the world with a man she cared about, with wind coming in and carrying the scent of spring, with nothing to do or care about except their mutual pleasure? A pang of guilt tried to slip into her thoughts, but she pressed it away, shook her head no, and concentrated on the map. She would be a good navigator, she decided. She would give herself to the trip. And when Charlie tapped her knee and pointed to the sky she looked up and saw they drove beneath a wedge of geese. She might not have seen them except for the darkening sky. They resembled black stitches zippered against the clouds. Their sound reached them only intermittently; once or twice she heard them calling when the traffic relented enough to permit sounds beyond the road. The geese flew north. Margaret tilted her head back and gazed up and felt such a moment of joy that she could not tell if she rode in the Jeep or traveled in the sky beside them.

* * *

In the silence of sunset, Margaret gazed out at the passing scenery, her mind floating and empty, time fading in and out like wind over grass. She felt Charlie's hand in hers, but he was quiet, too, his concentration on driving. They were on the right route now; she felt confident of that; she had done her job. The first wave of talking, of adrenaline and excitement at leaving, had passed. In its place she felt content and quiet, and thoughts, untethered by the changing countryside, by the foreign Jeep, even by Charlie, came and went, holding to no logic or continuity. For a moment, a round of blood through her veins, she was in the procession with Thomas, driving him from the airport to the hospital the first day he returned from Germany, Grandpa Ben beside her, the police running a flashing light to make way through the sparse Bangor traffic. Then the car became her parents' car, and they were on the way to Rangeley Lake, to the summer cottage they rented for a week each August, and in an instant her memory turned to images of Blake playing wing on the high school lacrosse team, dear Blake who was determined and strong, a tricky player, and they were young and cleated on fresh green grass, autumn stirring around them, both of them in mouthpieces, plaid skirts over running shorts. She watched Blake take a shot on goal, and then the goal no longer belonged to a lacrosse field, but was instead a span of netting over an acre of corn, and she walked through the rows on a transcendent evening, midsummer, full moon, fireflies, the rustle of corn husks like a procession of kings and queens coming down a long stairway, their gowns whispering. This was after Thomas had returned, she remembered, and she had stretched out on the soil, deciding once and for all that this was her land, too, her farm, and she had looked up at the sky boxed by the tasseled heads of corn, and she had vowed to keep the farm, to work until her hands grew stunted with arthritis, because Gordon belonged on the land. The stars had just begun to come out and she heard the cows lowing, and then she was in the middle of a lake, Rangeley Lake, on a small Boston Whaler, her dad driving, her mom trailing a hand through the water. It all mixed together, every life did, and she felt a sudden stab, a painful throb thinking of the sweetness of her boy, his soft sideburns, his T-shirts and his soldier men, the way he played on the front steps, arranging the soldiers and cowboys and space creatures, his lips moving with dialogue only he heard. Then Thomas's eyelids flickering, his hand twitching, and he walked toward her on a spring morning, a cup of coffee in his hand, a gash of motor oil across his right forearm, his smile broadening at the sight of her, of his wife, of his home. The wind that passed over the farm was the wind that came across the Jeep top now, and she suddenly felt she had no substance at all. She was a white sheet flapping on a line in summer sunlight, and the mail delivery car came by and opened the mailbox and dropped in the day's delivery, and she saw the vehicle drive off, then Blake was in it at a drive-in movie, a boy's arm around her in the front seat while she, Margaret, watched the light play out across her friend's cheek.

“You okay?” Charlie whispered.

She shook her head no. Then yes. She was not sure of the proper response. But she could not break the stream of images. She squeezed his hand. She snapped and flew in the wind above the Jeep, the white sheet, the summer day, the drizzle of a spring rain falling softly on the wide leaves of a waiting hosta.

* * *

It was a beautiful room. Margaret put her shopping bags down on the bed and turned and smiled at Charlie, who followed her in with their suitcases. Exquisite, really. It had been one of the inns suggested by Terry. The Ruggles, it was called, named after a bend in the river outside. It had been built in the 1800s, not long after the Civil War, and it had worn its age well. Margaret took in the features: a small beehive fireplace on the south wall; deep, comfortable-looking chairs; a wide, handsome bed, with what looked like a handmade coverlet; a floor-to-ceiling bank of windows overlooking the river. It was luxurious, Margaret decided, without being fussy or pretentious. A casual elegance. She felt welcomed and comfortable.

Charlie set down the suitcases. Margaret slipped past him and closed the door.

“Do you like it?” Charlie asked, turning to her.

“It's gorgeous! It's perfect.”

“Well, we're lucky it's a little early in the season or it would be booked. And it's a Sunday night.”

“It's so good to be here with you, Charlie.”

“No regrets? No second-guessing?”

She smiled. She crossed to him and kissed his cheek.

“None whatsoever,” she said.

“I think if we open these windows we'll hear the river,” Charlie said and slipped his arms around her. “The fellow at the desk said they have good fishing here.”

“Are you much of a fisherman, Charlie?”

“Fair. I had a friend growing up—Pete, he's my best friend—who fished the bass ponds around our area and I did some of that with him. I learned to fly-fish about a year ago at a weekend clinic type of thing up in Boston. I can cast all right, but a lot of it escapes me. But I guess there's no hurry. No fisherman like an old fisherman.”

Charlie moved to the windows and cranked the right-hand one open. Immediately the sound of the river filled the room and the air became fresher. Margaret took a deep breath.

“Is that the Shenandoah?” Margaret asked.

“I think so. We'll be able to sort it out better in the daylight. Would you like a fire?”

“I'd love a fire.”

“That's something I can do fairly well. I haven't told you I'm an Eagle Scout.”

“Were you really?” Margaret asked and felt her heart melt a little.

“I was. I am. You don't think it's terribly dorky?”

“Not at all. You're the all-American boy.”

“A little bit,” he said and began working at the fireplace. “Corn-fed Iowa boy, West Point, the army . . . Maybe I ought to grow out my hair and get a Harley or something.”

“Absolutely,” Margaret said and began emptying the shopping bags onto the bed.

How natural it felt, Margaret realized, to have Charlie making a fire while she unpacked. It had been ages since she had spent time with a man other than Grandpa Ben and Gordon. She had forgotten what it was like to divide labor, to work in complementary ways, to feel the pleasure of teamwork. She stopped for a moment to watch Charlie making the fire. True to his word, he did it expertly: two fire dogs, a bit of paper, and then the fire started. He knelt beside it and waited, adding a few sticks. For a moment the flames appeared to move with his hands.

“Not really fair to use fatwood,” he said, his eyes on the fire. “But they put it here, so we might as well make use of it.”

“An Eagle Scout should rub two sticks together, shouldn't he?”

“You laugh, but I can do it. I have the badge to prove it.”

She wanted a picture of him there, to stop time and lock it into her memory. The evening light fell softly into the room and she heard the river passing by, its course full-throated this early in spring. Dear Charlie. She observed the outline of his prosthetic; his trouser leg sagged around it. Firelight moved and caused his skin to change colors. She liked watching his patience with the fire. Some men seemed always in a rush, but Charlie moved with a measured confidence so that his presence reassured her.

“I'm very lucky to be here with you,” she said softly, a pair of jeans half folded in her hands.

He looked over and smiled. Yes, just like that, she thought. Remember him. Remember him like this.

* * *

As he walked down the hallway from their room to the grill, Charlie felt happy and buoyant. He liked this place, the Ruggles Inn. The room was exactly right and the atmosphere inside the inn was relaxed and comfortable. Charlie admitted to himself that he liked inns and hotels. Always had. Heck, he even liked motels. Maybe it was the transient nature of such places, but he felt a genuine spring in his step, a sense of well-being as his shoes moved over the thick weave of carpet in the hallway. It was the cocktail hour. His parents had always talked about a cocktail hour and he had thought such an idea old-fashioned and somewhat quaint, but here he was anticipating a good drink and a good meal in a pleasant inn. Why not? Cocktails separated the day from the night, his dad always said. And now the day had given way and it felt good to be inside and looking forward to Margaret's company.