Cloud nine, p.12
Cloud Nine, page 12
‘Is that blood? On your boots?’ she asked.
‘Yeah,’ he said, looking down for an instant.
‘Go on,’ Snow said, scaring the geese. She waved her arms, chasing the birds down the path. They ran ahead of her, looking over their backs as if she were a madwoman with an ax. All the way to the edge of the cove, which was filling fast as the tide poured in. The geese veered off just as they reached the water’s edge. Snow stood there, watching them run back to Mike.
They can’t fly,’ he explained. Their wings are clipped.’
‘More cruelty,’ she said. ‘I can’t believe they die for their feathers. For quilts!’
‘We kill them for food,’ Mike said. ‘My grandfather and aunt would starve if we didn’t have the geese to sell.’
‘No one should starve,’ Snow said nobly, her lower lip quivering as she stared at the geese. ‘But quilts!’
‘I know how you feel,’ Mike said. ‘When I was little, my mother told me the geese liked having their feathers taken. I pictured this really serene procedure, combing the geese … but it’s not that way.’
‘When did you find out?’
‘Not till I moved up here,’ Mike said.
‘Oh,’ Snow said, shuddering. She tilted her head again, suddenly feeling sorry for Mike. What a horrible thing to learn. And now he was trapped on this island, taking care of his mean old grandfather and killing geese. Staring at Snow, seeing her terrible distress, he looked very worried.
‘Grandpa handed me an ax one day and told me what to do,’ he explained. ‘If we didn’t need the money so badly, I’d never kill another goose.’
‘Stop the death,’ Snow said. ‘You have to stand on your principles.’
Mike shrugged. He looked as if he were about to laugh, but he turned serious instead. That’s what I’m doing,’ he said. ‘Keeping the farm alive.’
Suddenly he reminded Snow so much of his mother. His eyes were really beautiful, deep and full of some amazing yearning. He wanted something so badly: Snow felt she could almost peer inside his soul. She had seen that same intensity in Sarah’s face. It was the thing that had initially drawn them together. Just remembering that feeling made Snow forgive Sarah for the geese. What she wanted more than anything in the world was to reunite, really reunite Sarah and her son.
‘You don’t have to kill the geese anymore,’ Snow said softly.
‘What?’
Snow took a step toward him. The sun was in her eyes, and as she squinted she felt herself start to smile. They were so close, she could feel the warmth of his body. A shiver ran down her spine, and she felt herself wanting to save the day, to make everything better between Mike and Sarah.
‘You can come home with us,’ she said. ‘When we leave on Sunday. There’s room on the plane.’
Mike was breathing funny. His mouth was open slightly, and he licked his lips. She could see by the way he blinked and looked away that he was very nervous, and she wondered what he was thinking. They were wearing gloves, but she touched the bare spot on his wrist, between the cuff of his sleeve and the top of his glove. The connection shocked them both.
‘I can’t go back with you,’ he said, his voice nearly a croak.
‘Why not?’ she asked.
‘Because I have things I have to do here.’
‘Oh …’ Snow said, tipping her head back.
Mike just stood there, paralyzed by Snow’s touch. He dropped the basket, and it clattered against a rock. Drifts of white down rose around them like a private snowstorm. The feathers swirled in eddies, flying on the air currents, sticking to whatever they landed on.
‘Sorry,’ Mike whispered, still just staring at her.
‘For what?’ she whispered back.
He could barely talk, he was breathing so hard. ‘For getting feathers in your hair.’
‘You’re forgiven,’ she said.
And then they didn’t talk anymore, until Snow’s neck ached from bending back for so long as she stared up at Mike, wondering why she felt this way, until they heard Aunt Bess ringing the bell, telling them that Thanksgiving dinner was served.
The main course was goose. It was roasted golden brown, its skin crackling. Sarah had made her mother’s apple stuffing, and Will had mashed the potatoes. They had turnips and parsnips from the root cellar, and Bess had prepared prunes soaked in brandy and stuffed with goose liver, a recipe she had saved from her entertaining days as the wife of a jewelry manufacturer.
‘Isn’t this a little swanky?’ George asked, frowning at the spread. He seemed particularly upset by the candles, tall white tapers Bess had unearthed from one of her boxes from Providence.
‘It’s a holiday celebration, George,’ Bess said.
‘I don’t like candles. I like to see what I’m eating.’
‘The Pilgrims ate by candlelight,’ Snow said.
‘The Pilgrims didn’t have electricity, but we do,’ George reasoned. ‘Now, that’s something to be thankful for.’
‘I think it’s romantic,’ Snow said, and Sarah noticed Mike starting to blush.
‘Come carve the goose, George,’ Bess called.
‘I brought it to the table. Let’s give Will the honors.’
‘Thanks,’ Will said as George handed him the Sheffield cutlery set.
Everyone had changed into their best clothes. Snow wore a short plaid jumper, Will wore soft gray corduroys and a navy blue sweater. Aunt Bess kept on the same blue dress with pearls, Mike had put on clean khakis and a blue oxford shirt, and Sarah wore a long hunter-green velvet dress.
Her father wore gray flannels and a white shirt. The shirt was yellowed with age, stiff with starch. Sarah knew he hadn’t worn it in years, and she felt touched by his effort. She wondered whether her mother had been the one to iron it. Sarah watched him limp around the kitchen, knocking the fireplace tools over as he added another log to the dwindling fire.
‘Goddammit,’ he said, burning his hand as he pulled the poker out of the flames.
‘Come here,’ Sarah said, pulling him over to the sink, turning on the faucet. Water, icy from the well, came gushing out, and she pushed her father’s hand into the stream.
‘Can’t see a thing with those damn candles,’ he said.
‘Dad, it’s only three o’clock. It’s broad daylight. If it makes Aunt Bess happy to have candles, let her.’
‘It’s hoity-toity,’ he grumbled. ‘Just to let the company know she used to live in grand style, down there in Providence with old what’s-his-name.’
‘Uncle Arthur.’
‘The executive. Get a load of those stuffed prunes. Can’t you just imagine serving them up to the country club set? They’d have the runs to last them till Christmas. Makes me so damn mad. Blow those candles out, will you, Sarah?’
‘Mom loved candlelight,’ Sarah said.
She had been holding her father’s rough hand under the faucet, amazed at the strength and tension in his wrist and forearm, but suddenly it went slack. At the mention of Sarah’s mother, all the fight went out of him. His whole body relaxed. For the first time since arriving on the island, Sarah could look at her father and not think about how angry he was.
‘Yes, she did,’ he said.
‘Especially around the holidays,’ Sarah said. ‘We always had candles for Thanksgiving and Christmas, remember? Beautiful tall ones, just like these.’
‘They had to be white,’ her father said. ‘Boats and candles, she always said, had to be white. I miss her every day.’
‘I know you do, Dad.’
His anger was back, or something close to it. George Talbot peered into his daughter’s eyes as if he wanted to catch her in a lie. As a teenager she had sometimes come home after dances on the mainland, and he had stared at her in this same intense way, with protective suspicion, as if he would see in her eyes the reflection of boys she had kissed, beers she had drunk.
‘How’s that sickness of yours?’ he asked.
‘It’s fine.’
‘What d’you mean, it’s fine? It can’t be fine. It’s over or it’s not. But it can’t be fine.’
‘Dad, medicine has come a long way since Mom died,’ Sarah said. She had turned off the cold water, but she continued holding his hand. Wanting to reassure him she was all better, she didn’t understand why her heart was pounding like mad. And then she noticed Mike. He was leaning against a counter across the room. Will was carving the goose, and Snow was tempting Mike to pull the wishbone, but he was looking over her head at his mother, listening intently.
‘I’m fine,’ Sarah said again.
Her father waved his hand. ‘What a bunch of double-talk. If you can’t answer a straight question, I won’t bother asking. Blow them candles out, Bess. I mean it, now.’
But the candles stayed lit. The families sat at the big table, in the seats they had claimed last night. Already, it felt like a tradition. Will had been honored to be asked to carve the goose, and watching Bess and Sarah fill the plates, it pleased him to be told how well he had sliced the meat. He had thought that Snow would miss her mother, but he shouldn’t have worried. She was lost in adolescent rapture for Mike Talbot, unable to take her eyes off him.
Will felt the same way about Sarah. She wore a long, beautiful velvet dress that hugged her body perfectly and made him want to take her in his arms and give thanks of a very quiet and private nature. Watching her reach for a silver dish on a high shelf, he caught sight of her collarbone, delicate and pale, and imagined kissing it. She kept glancing at him. Moving around the kitchen, she gazed over with those deep blue eyes.
She took the seat across from him. Will had not felt anything close to all right for several Thanksgivings now, but he felt that way today. All right. Sitting near Sarah made him happy. She calmed him and excited him at the same time, a way he couldn’t remember feeling for a long time. He felt as though he knew her well, had known her forever, better than anyone else in the world, and she knew him too. It was impossible, but it was the truest thing he knew.
George had gone out to the barn for a jug of hard cider, and everyone was waiting for him to return. Bess seemed impatient with her brother’s bad mood, and the kids were oblivious, but Sarah took it in stride. Will wondered whether she knew her father’s rotten manners were the result of missing her mother. He wondered whether George knew it himself. He figured they must: they had had enough time to figure it out.
Will had learned more recently. The grief he felt for Fred had barely dulled to an ache. After five years it had just begun to feel manageable. He recognized the emptiness in the old man’s eyes. He had seen the same blank look in his own eyes in the bathroom mirror. Listening to George question Sarah about her own health had shaken Will, but just for a minute. She was fine, she had said so herself. Her bright eyes were testament, her glowing skin, her amazing energy.
Finally George slammed through the door, set the jug down on the table.
‘Storm’s here,’ he said. ‘We got high clouds moving in fast, flurries just starting to come down.’
‘Winter’s too early this year,’ Bess said.
‘We’re having a storm?’ Sarah asked. ‘Oh, I hope so. I’d love you guys to see a real Maine gale.’
‘Should hit around midnight,’ Will said. He had checked with the weather service, and the storm fit right in with their travel plans: an early snowstorm would end by noon tomorrow, give way to an Alberta clipper, dry Arctic air that wouldn’t interfere with their flight home. Although, looking around the warm basement kitchen, seeing the excitement in Sarah’s eyes, he wouldn’t mind being snowed in for a few extra days.
‘It’s only November, and we’ve already had two big snowstorms,’ Bess said, sounding worried.
‘What do you expect?’ George asked. ‘You’re in Maine, not Florida.’
‘Don’t worry,’ Mike said. ‘We have the plow, and there’s enough firewood cut to take us into spring.’
‘Our beautiful goose is getting cold,’ Bess said, still upset.
‘Let’s eat,’ George said, agreeing with her for once.
‘I’d like to say grace,’ Sarah said.
George slouched, a sullen look on his face, but everyone else folded their hands and bowed their heads. The candles flickered. Will closed his eyes. He heard Sarah clear her throat and take a deep breath.
‘Bless us, O Lord,’ she said. ‘Thank you for the food we are about to eat, thank you for our health. Thank you for bringing us together on this island, thank you for one another. Thank you for everyone we love, especially for those who can’t be with us right now.’
‘Fred,’ Snow whispered.
‘Fred,’ Will repeated.
‘Mom,’ Sarah said.
‘Yep,’ George said. ‘My Rose.’
‘Arthur,’ Bess said.
‘Can I say something?’ Mike said, immediately getting everyone’s attention.
‘Of course, honey,’ Sarah said, blinking at him with such hope and love in her eyes that Will wanted to reach over and hold her forever.
‘Just this,’ Mike said, clasping his hands and bowing his head even lower than before. ‘I’m thankful you’re well. And you’re here.’ He paused, then stared at her very hard. ‘Okay?’
‘Okay,’ Will said, because suddenly Sarah could not speak. ‘Amen.’
Mike glared at him, and Will figured it was because he’d answered for his mother. His eyes reflected anger, but he nodded.
‘Amen,’ they all said.
Will had caught Sarah’s eye, and she didn’t look away. The table was laden with food, the fire was warming the cozy room, six people of three generations were gathered closely together. Sarah was home with her son, and for one amazing moment, looking at her, Will could almost imagine that they were all part of the same family. They were connected by some mysterious and nameless love. Even Fred was with them.
Later, when the house was quiet and everyone had gone to bed, Sarah came down to sit by the fire. She felt too churned up to sleep. The house was full of old memories of her mother and father, of the family the three of them had been. And seeing Mike again was incredible. Staring at the glowing embers, she sat on the window seat feeling quiet and content from just being under the same roof as him.
‘I thought I’d be the first one up and the last one to bed, but here you are,’ Will said, surprising her as he entered the room.
‘Can’t sleep?’ she asked.
‘I haven’t tried yet,’ he said. Coming closer, she saw he was wearing his parka and boots, both dusted with snow. ‘The storm’s starting. I was just outside.’
‘Get warm,’ Sarah said, sliding down the window seat.
Will slid off his boots and placed them by the door. He hung his jacket on the coatrack. He held back, standing in the shadows. Sarah watched him reach into his parka pocket, transfer something into his jeans. He was big but very graceful, and she realized that she enjoyed watching him.
‘I keep interrupting your solitude,’ he said.
‘That’s good,’ Sarah said. ‘I have enough of it in Fort Cromwell.’
Will nodded. ‘It gets quiet without them around.’
‘It does,’ Sarah said, knowing he was referring to the kids.
The snow had begun to fall outside. It blew against the windows, driven off the sea by the wind. Across the room the dying fire crackled. Sarah looked over at Will and smiled.
‘This is nice,’ he said.
‘I know. I’m glad you came in.’
‘No, I mean all of it. Thanksgiving with your family. Thank you for inviting us.’
‘You’re welcome,’ Sarah said. ‘I’ve been feeling guilty about bringing you all the way out here. Is there somewhere else you usually go?’
Will paused. ‘Used to go, maybe.’
‘Like where?’
‘Well, we used to have Thanksgiving with my parents. We lived in Newport and they lived in Connecticut, so it was easy. Every year we’d drive down.’
‘Your mother cooked?’
Will nodded. ‘Yes. She was a good cook too. She had this thing about Thanksgiving – everyone had to have everything they wanted. So if one person liked one kind of cranberry sauce and someone else liked another, we had both.’
‘Bountiful,’ Sarah said. ‘The old Pilgrim spirit.’
Will nodded. He got quiet. Maybe he felt he had said enough about it, but he seemed to enjoy talking. He kept going. ‘My father grew up in Mamaroneck – in Westchester County – and his family smoked their turkeys. So instead of choosing between smoked and roasted, we had both. When I married Alice, my mother sat her down and found out everything she’d had at her family Thanksgivings in Northampton. Like sweet potatoes, creamed corn, chocolate cream pie. Things that were sort of different for us. We didn’t do away with our things, we just added hers.’
‘Sounds like a wonderful time,’ Sarah said, curious about Alice.
‘It was. I miss them. My parents died within six months of each other, about five years ago.’
‘That’s recent,’ Sarah said, looking over.
‘It is. I feel it today,’ Will said. ‘My mother went first, a sudden heart attack one spring morning. My father just didn’t want to live without her. It was so obvious – he just got tired. Stopped going out, doing the things he always did. Never even put his boat in the water that summer. He just died in his sleep one night in September.’
‘I’ve heard of couples like that,’ Sarah said. ‘Who love each other so much, they can’t live without each other.’
‘That was them,’ he said.
‘My father didn’t die after my mother did,’ Sarah said. ‘But he changed. He wasn’t always so … hard,’ she said finally, trying to think of the right word. ‘He was so mad at God for taking her, he’s never forgiven anyone. Especially me.’
‘When did she die?’
‘When I was fourteen,’ Sarah said.
‘Why especially you?’
‘I remind him of her,’ Sarah said, although she knew that wasn’t the real answer.
Will nodded. They listened to the storm for a few minutes. With the fire dying, the room was getting cold. Sarah didn’t want to stop talking, so she walked over to the fireplace and stirred the embers. Mike had brought in a stack of wood earlier. Sarah chose a small log and threw it on. There was a bed of hot coals, so the outer bark started to catch and blaze immediately.
