Cloud nine, p.6
Cloud Nine, page 6
‘Don’t you talk to my dad that way,’ she said.
‘Listen,’ Julian said. ‘I’ve had about as much as I’m going to take with you disrespecting your mother. If your father won’t say it, I will. You’re hurting your mother, Susan. If you need to go back to Dr Darrow, we’ll see that you do. But cut the name bullshit right now.’
Will didn’t even feel it coming. The punch started somewhere in his gut, and by the time it got to his fist, Julian was laid out on his driveway, blood from his nose turning the snow pink. Alice was screaming, the mechanic was rocking back and forth on his heels, and Susan was crying. Will’s knuckles hurt, as if he might have broken them. His head pounded, an emotional hangover starting already.
‘I’m sorry,’ he said calmly, standing over his ex-wife’s husband. ‘But I can’t have you speaking to my daughter that way.’
‘Fucking maniac,’ Julian said, struggling to sit up. ‘No wonder the navy kicked you out. Fucking menace to society.’
Will considered holding out his hand to help the man up, but he didn’t want to add insult to injury. He gazed at Julian for an instant, making sure he could move okay, that he hadn’t broken anything. He glanced at Alice, ashamed of himself for making her cry harder. Then he turned to his daughter, tried to reassure her with a smile.
‘Sarah thinks it’s a beautiful name,’ his daughter said, her eyes wide, full of panic, looking as if the world had betrayed her, as if she had just walked away from a cloister or asylum and been horrified by the real world, what she found outside. But she had said the name Sarah, and Will felt something give. The anger drained out of him. He wished he were with her now, flying wherever she wanted to go.
‘Sarah? Who’s Sarah?’ Alice asked, but no one answered her.
‘Come on, Snow,’ Will said, his hands shaking. ‘Time to leave.’
Without another word, the pair climbed into Will’s old blue Jeep, and they drove away.
The Cologne Philharmonic was playing in the Marcellus College Concert Series that night, and Julian was a subscriber. But his nose was broken, and his mood was foul, so he was lying on the sofa with an ice pack and a bottle of Courvoisier while Alice tried to read. They were in the library, listening to Sibelius. A fire crackled in the fieldstone fireplace.
When she heard Julian start to snore, Alice lowered her book. She placed it on the low tiger-maple table and gazed at her sleeping husband. He loved her so much and tried so hard. Kissing him, she tiptoed out of the room. She wandered through the enormous house, listening to the wind outside. This was her home. She kept telling herself that, walking past portraits of people she had never met. Moving here, she had believed she was going to be so happy. She had found love, and it was going to save her.
At certain terrible moments in life, she had learned to make choices. At thirty-five years, set in ways she had been establishing for years, surrounded by people she thought she knew. Building a family with a man, raising his children, using his name. Going along, not happy, not unhappy, when the bottom just fell out.
Her only son died. They were all together when it happened. The scene was a nightmare, with no one doing what she would expect them to do and no one waking up in time. Everyone reacted in unexpected ways.
Nothing would bring him back, and Alice was left with the wreckage. A daughter who couldn’t stop crying, a husband who lost his mind.
Lost in his own hell, her husband turned neglectful. Had she ever loved him to begin with? She wasn’t sure. Being ignored when she had needed him so much made her start to hate him. He took his retirement, uprooted the family, and moved them far away from anything comforting or familiar. She had begged him to snap out of it, and he didn’t even hear her. She got a job just to get out of the house. She loved her new job, she loved her new boss.
And her new boss loved her. He treated her like a queen, a lover, a woman. They had an affair, but suddenly he was her whole world, so ‘affair’ didn’t begin to describe what they felt for each other. This was right, this was what she was born for, this was what God intended. So much so, she was willing to break her husband’s heart. Break up her daughter’s family. Her son was buried, but she imagined him giving her his blessing. He would want his mother to be happy.
Did I do the right thing? She would ask herself that question for the rest of her life. She loved her new husband, cherished him with all her heart, lay beside him at night and thanked her lucky stars. She quit her job to volunteer at the hospital because she was now so rich. But there was so much pain. She saw it every time she looked into her daughter’s face; she saw the broken man she left behind and blamed herself for all his sleepless nights. She knew he had them, because she knew him better than anyone else alive.
Walking through the big, empty house, Alice couldn’t stop thinking of Will’s rage, the fury in his eyes as he decked Julian. He’d been storing it up for a long time, just waiting for the right excuse. She blamed herself. Just as she blamed herself for Susan’s crazy name-changing, just as Will blamed himself for what happened to Fred.
Her feet felt warm in her fleece-lined slippers as she strolled the dark halls like a tormented sleepwalker. With Susan at Will’s, now might be the time to look through her drawers and see what she needed for clothes. With Christmas coming, she knew Julian wanted to buy her some special things.
But when she got to Susan’s room, she stopped still.
There, standing in the hallway, leaning neatly against the walnut wainscoting, were the two Gainsboroughs that Julian had given her. Alice stared at them, the beautiful paintings in their large gold frames. The little girl, the two small dogs. She remembered what Julian had said in the car on their way to the auction, about Will not being able to afford paintings like these, and she closed her eyes.
This was too much for her. She felt the weight of her daughter’s unhappiness bearing down on her shoulders, and she sank to the floor. Cold drafts of air blew through the rooms. Hugging herself, she lowered her head. Constantly preoccupied with Susan, she was too upset to be the woman Julian had fallen in love with. She was going to lose it all: her new marriage, her security, her daughter’s respect.
Sitting there, alone in the upstairs hallway of Julian’s stone chateau, she whispered one word: ‘Help.’
6
Sarah had just opened her shop on Saturday morning when she heard the bells above her door tingle. That fresh white-yellow early light was in her eyes, so she leaned down to see around the sunlight. Will Burke and his daughter stood there, holding two white bakery bags.
‘We came last night, but you had already closed,’ the young girl said.
‘You caught me,’ Sarah said. ‘I wanted to go to the movies in Wilsonia, so I closed a little early. What do you have there?’
‘We brought you breakfast,’ Will said. He looked tan and sexy, bundled up in a hunter-green ski jacket. His ears were red from the cold, and the corners of his gray-blue eyes crinkled in the sunlight.
‘You must have read my mind,’ she said, grinning. ‘I’m starved!’
‘Are you really?’ the girl asked.
‘Yes, Snow,’ Sarah said. ‘My stomach is growling.’
Snow’s intake of breath was loud and dramatic. The teenager stood there, one mittened hand over her mouth; she looked pale, with dark circles under her eyes. ‘How did you know I’d changed my name?’
‘You told me you wanted to be “Snow” for winter, didn’t you? Just look outside,’ Sarah said, pointing at the snow-covered street, the new powder lying on all the rooftops and evergreens, on the statue of General Jameson Cromwell standing on the town green.
Snow and her father looked at each other. Some violent feeling was clouding the girl’s eyes. She had been practically wringing her hands, but she began to calm down. She took a deep breath. Removing the plaid muffler from around her neck, she trailed it across the damask-covered bed.
‘Let’s sit back here,’ Sarah said, clearing a place on her desk for the doughnuts, coffee, and juice. Doughnuts weren’t on her list of healthful foods, they were too sugary and fried for her, but there was no way in the world she wasn’t going to have one just then.
With Snow and Will watching her, she selected a French cruller and tasted it, letting herself enjoy every bite. That was her motto: Once you decide to do something, you might as well love it. Such ease of mind didn’t always come freely, but it was always worth the effort.
‘You’re going to Maine, I hear,’ Snow said, placing a small white bag on the desk. Sarah moved to open it, but Snow gestured for her to wait till later. Curious, Sarah slid it aside.
‘Maine? Yes, I am,’ she said.
‘The five-day forecast looks cold but clear,’ Will said. ‘No storms in sight.’
‘Why all the way to Maine?’ Snow asked.
‘To see my son.’
‘You have a son?’ Snow asked, nearly dropping the doughnut she had just chosen.
‘Yes. Mike. He’s not much older than you.’
‘He doesn’t live with you? How come? Does he live in Maine with his father?’
‘Snow …’ Will began.
‘That’s okay. I love talking about him. He’s a man of strong beliefs and opinions, a total individual, and about a year ago he dropped out of high school to go home to Elk Island and save my father’s farm.’
‘You grew up on a farm?’ Snow asked.
‘Yes,’ Sarah said. She gestured at a pile of quilts stacked in the corner. ‘See those? They were made on our farm. About nineteen years ago I started a store like this in Boston because the farm was about to go under. My mother had been sick when I was young, and when I was fourteen she died. My father was just so distracted … especially after she was gone. He found someone from Thomaston who wanted to buy all the geese, and he had a man from Camden who wanted to buy the land. None of that sat very well with me, so I dropped out of college to start my business and support the farm.’
‘Like mother, like son,’ Will said.
‘Exactly. I have no one to blame but myself. Was that what you were going to say?’
‘No, I was going to say your father is a lucky man,’ Will said, handing her a cardboard cup of coffee.
Sarah thanked him, taking a sip.
‘Did you save the farm?’ Snow asked, sitting on the edge of her seat.
‘I can’t actually say we saved it,’ Sarah said, picturing the ramshackle buildings, the tired old geese, the falling-down fences, her Aunt Bess with her ancient treadle sewing machine. ‘But so far he’s been able to keep it.’
‘It’s still running?’ Will asked.
‘Yes. They put out ten quilts a year, and I pay them. They sell geese. Together we just about cover the taxes.’
‘Your father must love you so much! He must be so ecstatic to have Mike living with him now,’ Snow said. The thought made her so happy, she popped two doughnut holes into her mouth, one in each cheek, and left them there as she closed her eyes, basking in the notion of a grateful old father.
‘I’m not really sure how he feels,’ Sarah said.
‘Ask him!’ Snow said, stating what was so obvious to her.
It did sound simple. But Sarah and her father had years and layers of bitterness between them: disagreements over her mother’s treatment, the aftermath of her death, the fact that Sarah had left the island. Sarah tried to smile.
‘Why don’t you?’ Snow asked, looking troubled.
‘You know how I said Mike’s a man of strong opinions? Well, he got that from his grandfather. And most of his opinions collide with mine.’
‘Difficult,’ Will said, looking as if he understood.
‘It is.’
‘That’s no reason not to try,’ Snow said. ‘He’s a person too. If I’d given up on you, Dad, I’d hate to think of where we’d be. Talk about difficult.’
‘Hey,’ Will said. Was he kidding or hurt? Sarah couldn’t tell by his eyes.
‘Worse than difficult,’ Snow said, glancing at Sarah.
‘Fathers don’t have it easy,’ Sarah said. Although for some reason her thoughts slid to Zeke, who had had it about as easy as it got: From the minute Sarah had told him about her pregnancy, he had never wanted to see her again. Her father had gone crazy. His fury at Zeke had distracted him, at least a little, from the long-standing grief he felt for Sarah’s mother.
‘They don’t make it easy,’ Snow said.
‘What did I do?’ Will asked, taking another cruller. ‘To get me in such trouble?’
‘I happen to be referring to the fact that you quit the navy and dragged me and Mom way the hell into these ridiculous boondocks,’ Snow said, glaring at him. Then, afraid she was offending Sarah, she touched the back of her hand. ‘I’m sorry. They’re nice for some people, but we need the ocean.’
‘I understand completely. My son used to say the same thing to me, and he was right. I moved us away from Boston to these – what did you call them – ridiculous boondocks? Mike used to call it the middle of nowhere.’
‘If I had a family farm to run away to, I just might go there,’ Snow said.
‘Don’t run away,’ Will said.
‘He’s right, Snow. Listen to your father. It’s not worth it,’ Sarah said, feeling suddenly cold. She had worn a flowing silk jacket, rich with embroidery and brocade, and she pulled it tightly around herself. She looked at Will, saw that abstract fear in his face, and knew what he was feeling: the idea that his child could just disappear from him.
‘I don’t see why not,’ Snow said. ‘Mike took off and you’re following him out there for Thanksgiving, so your family can be together. The way it’s supposed to be.’
‘That’s a nice thought, but the reality’s going to be a little different,’ Sarah said. ‘My father doesn’t believe in much anymore except high and low tide and the phases of the moon. He hasn’t really celebrated a holiday for years – not since my mother died.’
‘Then why did they ask you?’
‘Her son asked her,’ Will said, although she hadn’t told him.
‘He did,’ Sarah said. ‘He knows I love Thanksgiving more than any other holiday, and he knows I’ll close the shop and give myself a few days off.’
‘More than any other holiday? More than Christmas?’ Snow asked.
‘Yes.’
‘Always? It’s always been your favorite?’
‘No, not when I was your age.’
‘Then when?’
‘Why do you love it so much?’ Will asked.
‘It started the year my son was born,’ Sarah said, looking into Will’s eyes. Seeing him with his daughter made her like him even more than before; she recognized his passion as a parent, and she knew he would understand.
Will nodded, riveted.
‘I just never knew how –’ Sarah paused, getting herself under control. ‘Incredible it would be. How it would change me from the inside out.’
‘Having children.’
‘Having Mike made me a different person. I fell madly in love with him, and when you’re in love, everything looks so beautiful. You stare at a sunset, and you can’t bear to think it won’t last forever. You think your heart will break. You know?’
As if she knew this was between the adults, Snow was silent. She sat very still, perched on the chair, her knees drawn up to her chin, watching Sarah and her father. But Will nodded.
‘I was so happy,’ Sarah said, her eyes shining. ‘The world made sense. I’d watch red finches at the bird feeder and imagine God made them for me and Mike. I felt so grateful. All I wanted to do was give thanks, and when Thanksgiving rolled around that year, it became my favorite holiday.’
‘And you told Mike?’ Will asked.
‘Every year. All the time.’
‘You can’t tell them enough,’ Will said. ‘You have to tell them you love them all the time.’
‘That’s why I’m going to Maine,’ Sarah said, bowing her head.
‘It’s been too long,’ Will said.
She nodded. Composing herself, she looked up.
‘I’m afraid the farm is wrong for him. It’s very isolated, there aren’t any other kids around. His father was from the island, but he’s dead. And my father …’ She glanced at Snow. ‘Well, my father is difficult. Losing my mother made him unhappy. He never got over it. Never. The years did nothing to soften his pain.’
‘Death does that,’ Snow said.
Sarah nodded. ‘I’m afraid his misery will rub off on Mike. My Aunt Bess used to be the smilingest person you knew when she lived in Providence. But when her husband died, she moved back to the island, and you should see her now. Living alone with my father all this time has turned her into an old prune.’
‘It sounds interesting,’ Snow said.
Sarah stared at her. What kind of wonderful girl would think such a bleak scenario sounded ‘interesting’?
‘I felt guilty for leaving,’ Sarah said. ‘But I had to.’
‘Did you take care of your mother?’ Will asked.
‘How did you know?’
‘You just seem like someone who would,’ Snow volunteered.
‘I did,’ Sarah said quietly, remembering her mother’s loving presence, her steady gaze. ‘But I had to escape.’
‘And now you’re going back,’ Will said, ‘for Mike.’
‘Exactly,’ Sarah said. Unconsciously, her hand strayed up to her head, where the cancer had been. ‘I want to set him straight before it’s too late.’
‘Before he turns into a young prune,’ Snow said.
‘Before he forgets why you love Thanksgiving so much,’ Will said.
‘Fuel up the big plane, Dad,’ Snow said. ‘Because I’m coming with you.’
‘No!’ Sarah said quickly. ‘The island’s a mess. There’s not enough heat in the house, the geese smell terrible.’ She felt worried, not wanting this to become a big excursion, a way for the Burkes to pass Snow’s school break, to get through whatever trouble they were obviously having.
Sarah had a mission. She saw her son as lost, a piece of driftwood far at sea, and she needed to bring him back. Wanting to say more, to stop this before it went too far, her thoughts raced. She didn’t want Snow, another person in need of attention, to distract her from Mike. But Will saved the day.
