Purling Road - the Complete Second Season: Episodes 1-10 (9 page)

“I’m sure we can find something,” Muzzy said. She was cautious about getting overly excited or offering too much. After all, she hadn’t seen what this woman could do yet.

Grace was quick to show her. “Here’s a story from the Boston Globe that I rewrote. He’s a decent journalist, but I think my way sounds better. And here’s a short story I did just a few weeks back. Oh! And here are three articles from the Rockport Review where I found typos.”

Muzzy choked. “T-typos?”

“Yes,” she said with a smile. “It’s all right, minor things.”

Muzzy quickly scanned the article, seeing circled in red her own mistakes. She looked up, flustered.

“I can’t believe…I must have been…I work really, really long hours. I edit my own articles and sometimes—”

Grace put a hand on her arm. “You don’t need to explain. You are human, after all.”

Muzzy managed a weak smile, refused to accept the fact that she was human and set her eyes on the article again. It was horrifying, embarrassing, cringe-worthy to stare at that red ink circling her errors.

“Please, don’t give it another thought. The only reason I showed you is to prove that I could be useful in a number of different ways.”

“Do you have any idea what I’d give for an editor?” she asked, shoving the article away as if it were filthy.

“Well.” Grace swept her hand over herself. “Here I am.”

Muzzy quickly deflated. “I couldn’t have you take on this kind of work without paying you. However, since I’m renting your father’s house, and my expenses will actually be lowered, I think I can work something out. Even on a part-time basis. For now, let’s see what stories you have that we could start publishing.”

Grace nearly burst with excitement and began shuffling.

***

Jonathan and Ava drove home, an air of sadness about them. Jean sat in the backseat, frowning. He didn’t like death and grief. He wanted things to be the way they were. The Jenkins farm had always been a happy place for him. A big, vast world of adventure and fun. He had a special bond with Arianna and he worried about that. She wouldn’t let him in when he knocked.

“Will she be okay? Auntie Arianna?” he asked.

“I think she’ll be fine,” Ava said, turning to him, smiling. “She took care of Ethel for quite a while, and it’s always sad when someone dies, even when they’re very old.”

He didn’t look like he believed her.

“I heard Arianna let you talk to her?” Jonathan asked.

“Well, she let me in the room. But then, all she did was cry. She said a few things, but she was very drunk, and I didn’t understand any of it. I think she feels guilty. Somehow, she blames herself.”

“Maybe. Or it’s just the shock of it.” Jonathan wouldn’t pretend he knew what was going on in Arianna’s mind. Nor would he try. That was a circus he’d never willingly buy tickets to.

“How’s Caleb?” Ava asked, adjusting Amy on her lap.

Jonathan sighed. “As well as can be expected. It would help if he and Arianna were on better terms when this happened. He could use her support right now.”

They hit a pothole and everyone in the car jostled. Amy giggled.

“What are we going to do about Eddie?” Ava asked. She already had a good idea of what should be done and wondered if Jonathan had come to the same conclusion. As it turned out, he had.

“I hate to put off picking him up, but I wouldn’t want to bring him home with all this going on. I’ll write…or better yet, telegram the orphanage. I’ll tell them there’s been a delay, and we’ll be out next Sunday.”

“I was hoping…oh, well.” Ava sighed and looked out the window. Jonathan could read what she wanted to say but knew she was too kind to say it. She would never broach the subject of asking Arianna’s help with a party right now.

“We’ll organize our own welcome home party for him,” he assured, taking her hand.

***

Caleb woke up with a start and found Arianna gone. Her pillow still had the imprint of her head, the sheet neatly pulled back. His instinct was to worry about her, what she was going through, where she’d gone in the middle of the night. But his own grief kept him from caring too much. After all, it was his mother, and Arianna had come to detest caring for her. To look into Arianna’s eyes and see that she was glad or relieved to be rid of the burden would be too much. So he lay in bed, wide-awake, staring at the ceiling. The bedside clock chimed two times. He heard her downstairs, moving about, getting into cupboards, then nothing.

She’s probably having a drink,
he thought. The idea sounded good, so he got out of bed and, clad only in his shorts, went downstairs.

One dim light illuminated the kitchen, but she wasn’t there. She was sitting in the living room in the dark, nestled in the corner of the sofa with her knees drawn up. She clutched a drink with both hands.

“Is there any left?”

She didn’t take her eyes off Ethel’s chair.

“Under the sink,” she said in a ragged voice.

He padded back, opened the squeaky door, and reached in.

She must have just gotten up,
he thought as he held it up.
There’s half a bottle left.

He debated joining her in the living room or simply going back upstairs with the bottle. He swirled the brandy around in the glass for a moment and then gulped. He heard her sniffle and it actually brought him a little comfort. If she were glad to be rid of Ethel, she’d be upstairs sleeping like a baby.

He sat on the other end of the sofa and felt like there was an ocean’s distance between them in every way. He supposed there was.

Within moments, the silence was suffocating.

“Maura said she’d help with the cooking for the next few days so you don’t have to worry about that,” he said, frowning at his glass.

With a barely discernible nod, she took a sip, eyes still fixed.

Caleb regretted not asking Jonathan and Aryl to take the chair out earlier. He didn’t like to look at it. Thankfully, it was shadowed enough so that if he angled his head, he didn’t directly see it.

He finished his drink, rose to get more, and decided to just bring the bottle. Then they shared more silence.

He felt like she should say something and wondered why she didn’t. Then he remembered she was selfish, and even at this moment, when he’d lost his mother this very day, she would feel, somehow, it was all about her. Expect sympathies to flow to, not from her.

Unable to look at the chair, unable to look at Arianna, he lowered his eyes to his glass.

A third drink had him sufficiently numb, and he thought he could fall back asleep. Without a word, he rose.

Arianna spoke before he entered the kitchen.

“She deserved better,” she whispered.

Caleb turned.

“In her final days… she deserved better than me. I had no patience with her. I didn’t know how to handle her. She made everything so hard!” She grunted in an attempt to swallow a sob. “I told you and told you I couldn’t handle this, but you never listened.” She was less successful this time, gasped and tilted her glass back. “You know what the last thing I said to her was? I told her I didn’t want her here anymore.”

Caleb bristled.

“She said she didn’t want to move out, and I told her she had to. I couldn’t handle it. I couldn’t.” Arianna shook her head. “I told all of you, and she was the only one who listened.
You
never listened. But she did. And she went to that chair and died.” She clamped a hand over her mouth, desperate to keep control of herself, to not let the tears win.

Somewhere in the darkness, Caleb found a shred of sympathy.

“That’s not why she died,” he said softly.

Arianna’s eyes flashed up. She was nodding frantically. “It is. It is why she died. She would rather die than move out of the house. Maybe…maybe if I hadn’t said anything to her. Maybe if I’d just told her we’d think about it. Or better yet, called it all off.” Arianna jumped up and charged at Caleb. He was bracing for an attack, but all she did was rip the bottle out of his hand. She dropped the glass and it shattered.

Caleb sighed. “It was her time. It had nothing to do with the conversation you had.”

She scrambled back to the sofa. “You tell yourself that so you can sleep, Caleb,” she said in an ugly voice. “But I know the truth.” She drank right from the bottle, four hard gulps that left her gasping and writhing from the burn. He went to her and took the bottle.

“What good is this going to do, huh?” He put it on the coffee table and considered sitting down beside her. It nagged at him how the condolence was flowing in the wrong direction, and he decided to stay standing.

He could see she was physically struggling against rising emotion. Her eyes were everywhere, her breathing was erratic, and she didn’t know what to do with her hands.

In one last attempt to not feel the grief, she grabbed handfuls of her hair, leaning over her legs. And then the dam broke. One ragged sob after another shook her.

She repeatedly shoved off Caleb’s attempt to touch her. “Why’d you have to come down here?”

He stepped back and watched her until she regained enough control to speak, even if through ragged heaves.

“When we had nothing, no one to turn to, she welcomed us here. I was pregnant, and what would we have done if she’d turned us away? We’d be under a blanket tent in a shanty, that’s where. Homeless. Like vagrants. But she wouldn’t let that happen. She housed us and fed us and smacked your father on the back of the head more times than I can count because he wouldn’t warm up to you. She made things for these babies, helped them learn how to walk. She practically handed me her kitchen. She stepped aside and made this my home.” Her face disintegrated into a fresh wave of tears. “Why couldn’t I remember that? Why couldn’t I just stop and remember all that she had done? Instead, you know what I did in return? I was mean and ungrateful and impatient, and when I couldn’t take anymore, I tried to kick her out of her own house! The house she welcomed me into!” She slithered down on the couch and rolled away from Caleb. He waited several more moments through jagged crying.

“I’m awful,” she whispered. “The most horrible person ever. I’ll never forgive myself.”

***

Funeral days were miserable, exhaustive days. But the business and sheer workload required on those days were what saved one’s sanity, Maura firmly believed. She’d been at the Jenkin’s farm since dawn, cleaning the house and preparing food for visitors after the service. Tarin, who was now over the worst of her morning sickness, promised to come and help later in the afternoon.

As was Maura’s fashion, she had handled many of the details leading up to this day, including helping Caleb write out his mother’s obituary and submitting it to Muzzy for publishing. She expected a fair turnout at the house later.

The sun was out, the birds chirping, but the house was eerily silent. Maura wished she were making preparations for a better occasion. She worked until the last minute, giving her just enough time to change her clothes, tidy her hair, and get to the service with Ian and Scottie in tow.

It was short, as Caleb requested. His face still held that look of disbelief that this wasn’t real. Arianna managed to find a suitable black dress, and though she stood beside him at the graveside, there was a noticeable distance. Ethel’s friends, some of the oldest generation in Rockport came up to him with halted gaits and shaking hands, one after another. They mentioned how sad it was, how much Ethel would be missed, and told him stories about when he was a small boy. He tried to smile, shake hands, but really didn’t hear much of what they said.

He was more than grateful to get into the back of Jonathan’s Tourer and away from the cemetery.

He and Arianna didn’t speak on the way home. They got out of the car and Arianna walked toward the porch, Caleb to the barn.

***

Three days after the funeral, Arianna appeared to be her old self again with one exception. The iciness between her and Caleb had further disintegrated into a deep freeze. She used hand gestures and nodding for most of their conversation, and he made little attempt to improve the situation. He seemed happy with the distance. She looked happy when he was outside working, and she didn’t have to see the evidence that her marriage was crumbling right before her eyes.

She made extra bread that morning, two pies for dessert and put extra fruit and sugar on the twin’s oatmeal. She smiled sweetly at them, and they started back from the foot of the stairs where they liked to play with uncertain eyes.

There were still enough leftovers from the funeral to feed them for days. Arianna went ahead and made a roast anyway. She made a dozen biscuits, two trays of cookies, and two gallons of lemonade. By noon, she found it impossible to stop and went from one recipe to another using the excuse that the girls were coming over to tend the garden and company should always be fed.

Caleb walked in for lunch and looked around. “What’s this?” he asked his eyes ogling at the dishes all over the table and counters.