Red Ruby Heart in a Cold Blue Sea (9781101559833) (10 page)

17

O
ne day in early April, the school bus dropped Dottie and me off, and we walked to Ray's so we could buy a snack and split it. Dottie always bought the goods, because I didn't want to go in and see Stella. That day, after coming out of the store and while trying to work the cellophane off some Hostess cupcakes, Dottie said, “Your dad's in there.”

“Is he? What's he . . . God damn it,” I said. I ignored the cupcake Dottie held out and I marched inside. Daddy was leaning up against Stella's counter, but he straightened when he saw me and looked guilty as hell. I turned and stormed out of the store. Daddy followed me.

“You seeing her again?” I asked. “Just let me know.”

“No, I'm not seeing her,” Daddy said.

“Good,” I said.

“What do you want for supper?” he asked.

“Too busy talking to pick up something at the store?” I asked.

“Jesus,” Daddy said. “Why would I need a wife? I've got you to nag me.”

Maybe he wasn't lying, then, but late one night not long after that, I heard the sound of footsteps on the driveway. I bolted up out of bed and looked out of my window. Two figures walked up the driveway, away from the house. I figured out that the tall one was Daddy, but who was the smaller one? Then I knew.

I got out of bed and went into the kitchen. The faint trace of Stella's cologne and something I would later come to know as the smell of sex hung in the darkened kitchen.

“Screw you, Stella,” I said, then realized someone already had. A little later, Daddy sneaked back down the driveway, came into the house and went to bed.

In the morning I said to him, “Thought you weren't seeing her.”

Daddy put the coffeepot on the burner and said, “I wasn't.”

“But you are now?”

“I want to,” he said. “But I want you to be all right with it.”

“Can't have both,” I said.

“What the hell does that mean?”

“It's me or her.”

Daddy sat down across the table from me.

“Florine,” he said, “how can I explain this so you'll understand it?”

“Explain what?”

“I like this woman,” Daddy said. “I've known her a long time. If your mother hadn't come along, I might have married her, and she could just as well have been your mother.” I gave him such a look of disgust that he added, quickly, “'Course, that didn't happen.”

“Good thing,” I said.

“But all that put to one side, I need some company.”

“What's wrong with the company you got? You got Grand, me, Sam, Bert, Ray, Pastor Billy, and more. What's wrong with us?”

“You're all good company,” he said. “I mean someone I can really talk to. A good friend I can spend time with. And she can cook like no one I've ever known.” Daddy smiled. “And I know you liked that meal she cooked, too, even though you pretended you didn't like it. I ain't totally ignorant. I know you, some.”

“What you mean is you need someone you can fuck,” I said. “Isn't that it?”

I could tell that he wanted to hit me, or yell at me so loud it would blow me off the chair. But instead, he let out a long, slow breath, then he said, his blue eyes sharp, “I suppose it's too much to ask that you don't use that word. But I don't want to ever, ever hear you use it like that again. I hope that when you're ready to be with someone—you treat that time with the goodness it deserves.”

He got up and walked to the front door. He put on his coat and turned back to me. “I got to get out of here for a few minutes, I guess. I never thought I'd hear my girl talk that way and I'm ashamed of you. And I'll tell you right now, Florine, the real reason why I want to see Stella. I'm dying inside with missing your mother. I could suck on some bitch of a bottle, but I'd rather talk to someone. Be with someone who can help me get through this. You think about that and I hope you can dig down and haul up some kindness from somewhere inside you.” And he left the house.

I tried. I did. When I got home from school a couple of nights later, Daddy was in his woodworking workshop, off the living room. The smell of pine tickled my nostrils as I looked in on him.

“You mind picking up the house?” he asked, not looking up.

“Why?”

“Stella's bringing dinner,” he said. “And I expect you to be nice to her.”

My good intentions scattered like marbles the minute she came through our door. I hated the way she stretched like a snake shedding its skin when Daddy took her coat, the way she wore full war paint on her face.

“Hello, Florine,” she said to me.

“I got homework,” I said. I went into my room, sat at my desk, took out a couple of pieces of lined notebook paper and wrote
I hate Stella Drowns
until Daddy knocked on the door and called me to supper.

“Not hungry,” I said.

“Get out here,” he said. “Please.”

Stella heaped noodles, brown sauce, and dark chunks of beef onto my plate.

“That looks good,” Daddy said.

“Beef Stroganoff,” Stella said.

“Beef strong enough?” Daddy said. Stella giggled. “Silly,” she said.

Daddy started to take a bite, but Stella put her hand on his arm. “Aren't you forgetting something?” she asked.

Daddy looked confused.

“She means grace,” I said. “Remember, she said it before.”

Stella bent her head and said some words.

Daddy added an Amen and then forked food into his mouth. He sat back in his chair and gave Stella a broad smile. “My God,” he said, “I don't know when I've ever tasted anything so good. But,” he added, and winked at Stella, “it needs a little salt.”

“Oh dear,” Stella said. “Not enough?”

“Plenty,” he said. “I just like a lot of it.”

“Salt's not good for you,” she said.

Daddy laughed. “Oh, I know, but I got to have some fun, don't I?”

She lifted an eyebrow and said, “I'm not fun enough?”

“I just like more salt than normal,” he stammered.

“Well.” Stella sniffed. “I'll put more in, I guess.”

Daddy put the saltshaker down. “It's fine the way it is, isn't it, Florine?” he said.

“A turd is dinner to a dog, but that doesn't mean I have to eat it,” I said.

Stella's eyes turned to glassy shards. “Well,” she said, “you're honest.”

“She's not fit to sit here,” Daddy said, his face red. “Go to your room.”

“Should have let me stay there in the first place,” I said.

I slid off my chair, went into my room, slammed the door, and put Elvis on my record player. I played “Jailhouse Rock” loud. I imagined Carlie coming back home right now, in the middle of their dinner. She'd look at Stella, smile and say, “Hey there, Stella!” sit down, serve herself up, thank Stella for coming, and we'd all go on from there.

After a long time, I took Elvis off the turntable, climbed into bed, and slept. I woke later to the sound of Stella crying and Daddy talking. I crept from my bed and cracked the door so I could see them. They were by the front door and Stella had her coat on.

“This is too soon,” she said. “Carlie is still in your eyes. I can't live with that.”

“It'll take me awhile,” Daddy said. “You got to be patient with me.”

“Florine doesn't want me here. I don't want to force her.”

Daddy walked toward her and she backed off. “Stella,” he said.

Stella said, “I waited for years for you, Leeman. It was hard for me to watch Carlie have your baby. I wanted that for us.”

“I'm sorry,” Daddy said.

“Good night,” she said, and left.

“The witch is dead,” I told Dottie at school the next day.

“Ding dong,” Dottie said.

But that night as I lay in bed, I heard Daddy answer the door in the dark. I opened my bedroom door just enough to see Daddy and Stella locked together in a kiss, making noises deep in their throats. They moved toward Daddy's bedroom and in less than a minute, the bed squeaked faster than a hamster running on a rusty wheel.

That did it. I dragged Carlie's suitcase from under the bed. I'd already packed some clothes and other things I'd need. I put Carlie's favorite Elvis album on top and shut the lid. I opened my window and dropped the suitcase, then myself, to the ground. Daddy hadn't been the only sneaky one. While he'd been making nice with Stella, I'd been taking little dribs and drabs of money from his wallet and his pockets. I had enough money so I could walk to Long Reach, get a one-way ticket on a bus to Crow's Nest Harbor, and start looking for my mother.

It was about eleven o'clock, and the April night was dark and chilly. I hustled up the driveway. I glanced down toward the water and I saw that the lights were out at the Warner and Butts houses. I pictured them sleeping with no cares, and jealousy broke over me like a rogue wave. They had each other and now, Daddy had Stella. I was alone.

The sheer weight of that fact made me sit down on the large white rock at the end of our driveway. Then, like a single, fat raindrop that warns of something bigger coming, a little noise came from somewhere deep inside and worked its way out of my throat. Self-pity played with grief and I knew that no one would give a flying fig if I wandered up the road and went away to become an orphan.

But then, a light snapped on in Grand's bedroom. She parted her curtains and peered out, closed them up. Then the front door light went on and she came outside and walked to where I sat on the rock. When she reached me, she said, “Well, Florine, what in the world?”

Without waiting for an answer, she picked up my suitcase and we walked to her house, where she sat me down at the kitchen table.

“Nobody loves me,” I wailed.

“Oh for heaven's sake, that's not true,” Grand said. “Now, I was sound asleep and I heard you crying and I woke right up. Guess that's love, don't you think?”

“I guess.”

“I should think so,” she said. “Come on with me.” I climbed into bed with her and cuddled back to her warm soft side.

I woke up late the next morning to find Daddy sitting on the side of the bed.

“I want to stay here,” I said.

He didn't argue. “Maybe we need a break,” he said. “You can stay with Grand for a while, but I expect you home for supper.”

We tried. But it made me crazy to know that Stella would probably come by after I left for the night. I began to skip suppers, saying I had too much homework and I needed to eat at Grand's, so I could get on with it. Soon, I hardly went to Daddy's house at all.

My thirteenth birthday on May 18, 1964, was held at Grand's house. The gift I most wanted in the world was not to be mine, and I knew that, but how I wished she were with us that day. I knew that if she was anywhere, she would know it was my birthday, and she would have called, or come home, if it were at all possible. The beginning of my understanding that she wouldn't be coming home hit me hard on that otherwise bright, sunny, warm day.

Grand made a confetti angel food cake and she, Daddy, me, and Dottie ate it with chocolate ice cream. Since Dottie's birthday was on May 19, we usually shared some part of our days, and always our cakes and ice creams.

Dottie brought me two of her lonely dolls, with Madeline's permission. These dolls were my favorites and I had named them Caroline and Patricia, for Carlie's and Patty's real first names, long ago. Dolls on my thirteenth birthday may have seemed odd, but Dottie knew what I needed, and I held them in my arms as Daddy took a tiny box wrapped in gold paper with white ribbon curls out of his pocket. He handed it to me and said, quiet, “This is from your mother and me.”

I looked at him, confused.

“Go on and open it,” he said.

A green velvet box nestled inside. I lifted the lid, said, “Oh,” and shut it again.

Grand took the box, opened it, and pulled out a gold ring set with a tiny green stone.

“Your birthstone,” she said. “A real emerald. Hold out your hand.”

It slid around on my right ring finger, and Daddy said, “Too big. Damn it.”

“We'll get it fitted,” Grand said. “Until then, I have just the thing.” She hurried upstairs. I stared at the ring, rubbed my fingers over the prongs.

Daddy said, “We wanted you to have this for your thirteenth birthday. Carlie picked it out way back in June. I hope you like it, honey.”

Grand came downstairs holding a golden chain. She took the ring from me, slid it onto the chain, and fastened it around my neck as tears ran down my cheeks. In all the time I had it, it never left my neck, or later, my finger.

18

I
loved living with Grand. For one, she wasn't likely to go hunting for a man, nor was a man likely to call for her. Probably she wouldn't just disappear and I wasn't waiting for the phone to ring. Here, sorrow was allowed to perch and settle inside of me, instead of digging its claws into my heart and flapping its wings, trying to rip it out. When my longing for Carlie got too strong, Grand was there to comfort me in her plain, strong way. We knew each other's routines and I knew what was expected of me.

Church, for instance.

I'd been to service with Grand before. It was the only thing she'd asked of Carlie and Daddy, that I go with her a few times each year. So ever since I'd been able to sit for any length of time, Carlie had rousted me up on certain Sunday mornings and trotted me over to Grand's house in my church clothes. Daddy and Carlie didn't go to church. Daddy said the water was his church. Carlie thought God was part of everything, everywhere. “And in you,” she'd say, and touch her finger to my heart.

The Baptist church was up on Route 100. Sam Warner drove us there, every Sunday. I doubt he would have gone, except that Ida loved Jesus, too. Despite quiet Ida's friendship with silence, she got her point across, and if she wanted Sam in church, Sam went. He might sell his soul to the devil with as much drink as he wanted any night of the week, but he had to get it back, intact, by Sunday morning for his come-to-Jesus meeting.

Grand sat in the backseat between Bud and me. Maureen, who so far in her life appeared to be as quiet as her mother, sat up front between her parents, the top of her smooth brown head barely visible. Grand hummed “The Old Rugged Cross” in a wavery voice, and Ida hummed along with Grand. Bud looked out the window, thinking about escape, I figured.

After Sam parked the car, we went inside the little white church, and Grand marched me down to the front row. We sat with three or four older ladies who made room for us by scooting down along a seat worn smooth by warm, shifting bottoms. There, Grand left me for Jesus, lifting her eyes to the ceiling and saying “Amen” in a sure voice.

In this place, Pastor Billy carried himself like a he-gull in his prime. His sermons were both strong and gentle, filled with stories of love and forgiveness. He never preached hell and damnation. Because he was a fisherman, too, he understood what his congregation faced as they rode the waves; how things could get out of hand in a mad minute. They needed comfort, not threats.

Every Sunday, he asked me how I was doing. His big hands, like my father's, were tough and callused. He always set one of those hands on the top of my head and left it there for a few seconds, as if he was wishing good things into my heart.

One Sunday afternoon in late June, after Sam had dropped Grand and me back home, I got it into my head to take a walk to the spot where I'd thrown the red ruby heart into the sea. Pastor Billy had been preaching about Jonah being cast into the raging waters, and how the sea had become calm, and it reminded me of that time.

“I'm going out for a little while,” I told Grand.

“Not too long,” she said. “I'm making Sunday dinner and I'll need your help.”

The air in the woods was sweet and warm like baby's breath, and it seemed that Carlie walked beside me. I hadn't been wrong, I thought to myself. She was here, just as she had been on that bitter New Year's Day. My heart rose as I neared the rocks. But I stopped when I saw someone sitting on a stone bench that hadn't been there last winter.

The sitter, a man, turned his yellow head and our eyes locked. It was Mr. Barrington. Had it only been a year ago that he'd walked down the line of us, and each of us had said we were sorry for almost burning down his house? I felt the ghosts of Carlie's hands squeeze my shoulders and I reached up to touch them.

Mr. Barrington squinted at me. “Is it you?” he whispered.

“It's Florine Gilham,” I said, trying to figure out how to back up and bolt the other way without looking like that's what I was trying to do.

“Of course,” he said, and he stood up and held out his hand. I didn't see why we needed to shake hands in the woods. Still, Grand would have wanted me to be polite and Mr. Barrington wasn't a stranger, so I took his hand. He gave it a firm squeeze.

Then he said, “It's nice to see you, Florine. I've been coming down here for years.” He looked out over the water. “Since way before you were born. I finally paid the park to put a bench here.” He pointed at a small brass plaque that read,
On life's vast ocean diversely we sail, Reason the card, but passion is the gale.
Alexander Pope. I wondered if Alexander Pope was a relative, but I didn't dare to ask.

“Sit,” he said, and pointed to the bench. I sat. I looked down at Mr. Barrington's new Top-Sider moccasins. Then I looked at my feet. One of the shoelaces on my right sneaker had broken and I'd tied it back together. A big knot snarled up the laces.

“You're about the same age as Andy, aren't you?” Mr. Barrington asked. “He was born in December 1950.”

“May,” I said. “1951.”

Mr. Barrington said, “They say that spring babies are easier to get along with than winter babies. Maybe it's the weather.”

I knew that some might argue that easy-to-get-along-with spring baby part about me, but I let it go.

“Your father's probably been out on the water for a few months already,” Mr. Barrington said. “We just arrived. Seems we get here later every year.”

“Yes, he's working,” I said.

Then Mr. Barrington turned and held me with those dark eyes. “I wanted to say how sorry I am about your mother,” he said. “She was a lovely woman.”

“Thank you,” I said.

That being said, he switched back to his son. “Andy is taking an Outward Bound course this summer,” he said. “Hurricane Island, up the coast. New program. Hear of it?”

“No,” I said.

“'Course not,” Mr. Barrington said. “No reason you should. You live Outward Bound on The Point.” He smiled. I noticed the stubble on his face, and how the rough blackness of that made his lips look smooth. He had a beautiful mouth, something I'd never particularly paid attention to before in a man or a boy. It disturbed me that I was noticing it on him. I stood up. “I have to go, Mr. Barrington,” I said.

He stood, too. “Of course,” he said. “I'm sorry I kept you. I need to get back as well. Barbara and I are celebrating our fourteenth wedding anniversary this weekend. The guests will be arriving even as I take this quiet time for contemplation. Do me a favor,” he said, and he winked at me. “You bring that gang back. We could probably use some fireworks this weekend to get things going.”

“Bye,” I said.

“Yes,” he said. He held out his hand again and I took it. He didn't let it go, this time, though. He lifted my hand to those smooth lips and I felt their coolness, even as the stubble pricked the back of my hand. I pulled away as a park ranger walked down the trail with a group of nature walkers.

Mr. Barrington and I brushed by them and I walked in front of him as fast as I could without seeming rude. We reached a fork in the trail and he said, “Goodbye, Florine.”

“Goodbye,” I said, and I started to hurry away.

“Florine,” he called, and I stopped and turned around.

“You're lovely,” he said. “Just like your mother.”