Strange Fits of Passion (8 page)

Julia stepped out of the car without ceremony and repeated that someone would be by to plow the lane. I didn't like to think about how Julia had seen my face and had not believed my lie, and so spun off from the curb perhaps a little faster than was necessary. It was only near the end of the drive back to the cottage, alone in the car with Caroline, still sleeping in the back seat, that I could begin to release the crabbed muscles in my back.

At the cottage, I lifted Caroline, basket and all, into my arms and walked with this bundle into the house. Gently, so as not to wake her, I placed the basket on the rug in the living room. As long as the baby stayed asleep, I would have time to bring in the groceries and put them away.

This task pleased me, made sense to me in the same way that caring for Caroline often did. I placed the perishables in the refrigerator, the packages and cans in the cupboards. I looked at the dishes and the silverware. The dishes were white plastic with blue cornflowers, the kind supermarkets offer as promotions. In a cupboard under the counter, I found a cache of pots and pans and serving bowls.

When I had finished with the groceries, I turned to examine the interior of the cottage, as if for the first time. I was thinking that it was mine now, mine and Caroline's, and that no one could tell me how to live here, could tell me what to do. I walked around the corner into the living room. The furniture was spare, even homely: a lumpy sofa covered in a frayed and faded chintz; a wooden rocker with its caned seat coming loose; a maple end table I associated with my mother's house; a braided rug, worn smooth over the years. The walls were plain, painted several times, the last coat a pale blue, but the windows were appealing—large multipaned windows with white gauze curtains at the sides. There were pictures on the walls, trivial paintings of mountain scenes, painted by amateurs for tourists, I suspected. I began to take them down, to stack them behind the sofa. I found a hammer in a kitchen drawer to remove the nails. The walls should be bare, I thought; nothing could compete with that view.

I opened a door and walked into the downstairs bedroom. There was a single bed with a cream chenille coverlet, a tall maple dresser in the corner. The crib might fit in there, I thought, but I wondered if I shouldn't have the baby with me, in the upstairs bedroom.

I climbed the stairs to see if there was space for the crib there. In the center of the room was a large double bed with a carved mahogany headboard. The bed was exceptionally high—I could almost sit on it from a standing position without bending my knees—and on it was a heavy white quilt, intricately pieced together with hundreds of patches in rose and green. I ran my hand over the cloth, admiring the stitches with my fingers. I tried to imagine who it was who had made this quilt and when: Julia as a younger woman, Julia's mother? The widow who had gone back to Boston? To the right of the headboard was a bedside table with a lamp. And to the left was the view—a view farther out to sea than could be seen from the lawn. I sat on the bed and gazed at the seascape through the bank of multipaned windows. In summer the gauze curtains would billow out over the bed.

I could see the boats moored in the channel from a different perspective here—the painted floorboards, the traps stowed in the stern, the yellow slickers hanging just inside the wheelhouses. I could also see the tip of the point, with the gravel beach and the sand beach meeting at a place where the slope cut sharply into the water. To my right, south along the coast, I could make out the map of the shoreline, with a large rock jutting up through the surface of the ocean. Far out to sea, there seemed to be a momentary pinprick of light, a lighthouse, though I thought it might have been a hallucination.

I relaxed my gaze on the horizon and let my eyes drift from the area where I had seen the light, to allow the signal, if it was really there, to come into my vision. It was then that I heard it: it was a small sound, an intrusion. I clutched the fabric of the bedspread, stopped breathing altogether so that I might hear more keenly. It was the click of a key in the lock, the sharp tread of footsteps in the hallway. He was home sooner than I had thought he would be, I was thinking. I must pretend to be asleep. I must turn out the light.

But it was not the sound of a man in a hallway. It was merely a car, an engine straining, in the lane. I released the fabric and looked at my hands.

I listened to the car in the lane, heard it backing up, then the sound of something hard scraping gravel or ice. It must be the man with the plow, I realized. I stood up to peer out the window, but I could not see him from there.

In the living room, Caroline was stirring. I was distracted and busy then—changing the baby, feeding her, putting clothes in drawers. In the background was the whomp and scraping of the plow.

I heard the truck pull into the gravel driveway. I walked with the baby to the living room window, glanced down. The truck was a rusty red pickup with a cap, much like the ones I had seen that morning at the co-op. Below the driver's-side window there was a pattern of scrollwork in flaked gold. The driver alighted from the cab. He was wearing a Red Sox baseball cap and a denim jacket that was too tight across the waist.

He rapped at the glass. I walked with the baby to the door and opened it. He stood on the steps with a crib, staring at me, seemingly unable to move.

Then I remembered.

"I had a car accident," I said.

"Wow. You all right? Where did it happen?"

"New York," I said. "Come in. I don't want the baby to catch cold."

He maneuvered the crib through the door. He asked me where I wanted it. I said I'd like it upstairs, in the bedroom, if he could manage it.

"No problem," he said.

I laid the baby in the basket and meant to help him with the crib, but he was halfway up the stairs by the time I turned the corner. I could hear the crib being opened, the sound of the casters as he shifted it into position. Then he was back on the stairs, pulling a pack of Marlboros from his jacket pocket. He was short and stocky, but he seemed strong. He made his way down the steps as though moving to an inner jittery beat.

"Mind?" he asked as he reached the bottom step.

I shook my head. I walked into the living room. He followed me.

"My name is Willis, by the way," he said. "Willis Beale. I saw you in the store yesterday."

I nodded, but we did not shake hands. "I'm Mary," I said. "Mary Amesbury."

"When did it happen?"

I looked at him. Instinctively, my hand rose to my face, but I lowered it.

"A couple of days ago," I said, picking up the baby.

"Oh," he said. "I thought it mighta been on account of the storm."

His hands were rough, the fingernails cracked and broken. I could see, too, that his jeans were worn, frayed, with grease marks, like finger paint, along his right thigh. He walked to the large window overlooking the point and studied the view. He had a day's growth of beard and used his cupped hand for an ashtray. Despite the sense that he was in constant motion, he seemed in no hurry to leave.

"That's my boat out there," he said. "The red one."

I looked at the boat he was pointing to. I could see the name
Jeannine
on the stern.

"Me and a couple of other guys, we use the point. The channel's deep, and that island there gives good shelter. It's faster out to the grounds from here. You can get yourself a good head start. My father, he used to keep his boat here too. So when it came my turn, I started comin' here."

"Thank you for plowing the lane," I said, "and for bringing the crib."

"No problem," he said, turning, looking almost startled as he again saw my face. He shivered slightly. "Cold out there," he said.

"You should have a warmer jacket."

"I got one; I should wear it. But I dunno, I always wear this jacket. It's a habit. My wife, Jeannine, she's always naggin' at me, Tut on your parka.' I know, I should. She says I'll get pneumonia."

"You might."

"How old is the baby?" he asked.

"Six months."

"Cute."

"Thank you."

"I got two kids, four and two. Boys. My wife, Jean nine, she'd die for a girl. But we're on hold now. For a while, anyway. They dropped the price of lobster on us last summer; times is tight. You alone here or what? Your old man comin'?"

"No," I said. "I'm on my own now."

The
now
had slipped out without my wanting it to. He heard it, caught it.

"So you left him or what?"

"Something like that."

"Jesus. Winter, too. You goin' to be alone through the winter?"

"Oh, I don't know," I said vaguely.

He reached over and tickled Caroline under her chin. He looked for a place to stub out his cigarette, could find nothing, walked over to the sink, turned on the water. He opened the cupboard under the sink and threw the butt into the trash basket. He leaned against the counter, his arms crossed over his chest. I thought he must be expecting a cup of coffee, as payment for plowing the lane. Perhaps it was the custom here.

"Can I get you a cup of coffee?" I asked.

"Oh, no, thanks, but I'll take something stronger you got it."

I remembered that he had seen me buy the six-pack at the store.

"I do," I said. "I've got some beer. In the fridge there. Help yourself."

He opened the fridge, took out a can of beer, and looked at the label. He popped open the top, swallowed long and hard. Then he leaned against the counter again, holding the can with one hand, the other in the pocket of his jeans. He seemed somewhat more relaxed, physically calmer.

"So are you from New York City or what?"

"No," I said. "I'm from Syracuse."

"Syracuse," he said, pondering the city name. "That's north?"

"Yes."

He looked down at his feet, at the heavy work boots soiled with dirt and grease.

"So what brought you to St. Hilaire?" he asked.

"I don't know," I said. "I just kept driving, and it was getting dark, and so I stopped."

That wasn't true. I had picked St. Hilaire deliberately, picked the town because its dot on the map had been small and far away.

He opened his mouth, as if about to ask another question, but I said, quickly, "What is pot warp?" to deflect him.

He laughed. "Yeah, you really aren't from around here. It's rope. Warp is rope, the pot is ... well, you know, the lobster pot."

"Oh," I said.

"Give you a ride out on my boat if the weather warms up some," he said.

"Oh, well, thanks, maybe," I said.

"Course, I'll be pullin' it the fifteenth, so you want to go, it'll have to be afore then."

There was silence in the kitchen.

"Well, I guess I better be goin'," he said after a time.

He walked to the door. He paused a minute, his hand on the knob. "So, OK, Red, I'll be goin'. You need anything, just give old Willis a call. Watch out for the honeypots, now."

"Honeypots?"

He laughed. "Come here; I'll show you." He gestured for me to come to the door. I walked over to where he was standing. He put his hand on my shoulder, pointed with his other hand.

"You see out there—that salt muck? Low tide in a couple of hours. We get extreme tides here; the bay will be almost drained by suppertime—apart from the channel, that is. Anyway, you look carefully you can see gray patches in the brown, right?"

I looked closely, thought I could see small circles of gray, about three or four feet in diameter, in the wide expanse of brown.

I nodded.

"Those gray patches," he said, "are called honeypots. They're like quicksand. You walk into one of those, you'll be up to your waist in muck in a matter of minutes. Not too easy to get you out, either. And if you're still stuck when the tide comes in, well..."

He released his hand from my shoulder. He opened the door wide, turned on the top step, faced me, his shoulder holding the door open.

He braced against the stiff wind at his back. He nodded, as if to himself.

"You'll be all right," he said.

That's W-i-l-l-i-s B-e-a-l-e. I'm twenty-seven. I been a lobsterman since I was seventeen. Ten years. Phew. Jesus.

My boat, she's a winner. I don't want to brag or nothin', but she's pretty fast. Every year they have the lobster boat races over to Jonesport on the Fourth of July; I always place in the top three. I come in second this year. She was my dad's afore he retired, but I trimmed her down some. I fish the grounds nor'east of Swale's. My dad fished there, and his father afore him. It's my grounds now, you understand that. No one in town, they'd dare go near 'em. That's the way it goes—handed down father to son, it's your territory. I catch a poacher out there, I put a half hitch on his buoy spindle. I don't give no second chance. The next time I catch the son of a bitch, I cut his pots. My grounds is my livin'. You put your pots out to my grounds, it's just like walkin' into my house and stealin' the food off of my table. You follow me?

When is your article comin' out, anyway? You goin' to put my name in it?

Oh yeah, I knew her. I was around here and there. I keep my boat over to the point, and I had to help her out some. Plowed the lane. Like that.

I thought she was real pretty. Real nice. She was always nice to me. I coulda gone for her, you know what I mean, if the circumstances was right. But of course, I'm married and I love my wife, so anythin' like that was out of the question.

But you see, this whole mess, I have my own ideas about it. It's a complicated problem.

Well, we only ever had her say-so, didn't we? I'm not sayin' she was lyin' or anythin' like that, but you take Jeannine and me. I love my wife, but I won't say that we haven't had our moments. And maybe once or twice we kinda got into a little pushin' and shovin', you follow me. Nothin' heavy. Just a little somethin'. It takes two to tango, right? I'm just sayin' how are we ever goin' to know? And she took the kid, right? Well, I'll tell you the truth: If my wife ever did a thing like that, I'd knock her block off. What guy wouldn't, if you're goin' to get truthful. You steal a guy's kid and run off where he can't find you, that's goin' to make a fellow pretty wild, I don't care whose fault it was. I mean, there's ways to deal with problems in a marriage. You don't have to run away. You got to talk it out or get divorced or whatever, right?