The Sweet Spot

by Joan Livingston

  Edie stood in water up to her waist. She wore a two-piece suit, the fabric pink and flowery. Her breasts shook above her top when she laughed at what the girl said.

  He held his breath.

  Edie’s head twisted from the girl to him. Her face and arms were bruised. Her lips were swollen and cut. He wanted to ask what happened although he was afraid to hear the answer.

  Harlan rose, stripping off his shirt, before he stepped carefully across the river’s stones. Edie kept talking to her daughter although at one point, when she checked Harlan, she lingered on his leg and torso. Her eyes pinched in pain.

  Finally, he was in water deep enough to let his body fall, groaning as his flesh released its heat. He swam a few strokes to where he couldn’t see the river’s bottom.

  “This is a nice spot,” Harlan said.

  Edie and Amber treaded water.

  “It sure is. My sisters and I went swimming here as kids with Pop. He did belly flops off the boulder for laughs. You know my father.” She shook her head. “When I was a teenager, we had drinking parties down here. We had lots of fun.” She pointed at Amber. “I don’t want you doin’ any of that.”

  “Aw, Ma,” Amber said.

  Edie told her daughter, “Amber, show Harlan how far you can swim under water.” She grinned. “I swear she’s part fish.”

  “Wanna see?” Amber asked.

  “Go ahead. I’ll watch,” Harlan said.

  Edie kept count as Amber dove beneath the water, swimming a straight line until she came to the surface, gasping for air.

  “How’d I do?” she asked her mother. “How’d I do?”

  “That was the longest ever. I counted to twelve.”

  “Yes!”

  Edie smiled.

  “Amber, we’re gonna head home now. The bugs are awful, and I gotta make dinner,” she said. “I’ll see you, Harlan.”

  “Wait up,” he said. “You’re right about the bugs.”

  Amber went ahead, collecting her things along the water’s edge. Edie lagged behind.

  “By the way, the town’s highway crew is supposed to be here Monday,” she said. “They’re gonna finally grade the road.”

  “That’ll be nice. The road is rather rough.”

  Edie held out her hand, and Harlan took it to give himself some balance when he stood on the bank.

  “It’s too bad it took a dead dog.” Edie lowered her voice. “Thanks for helping me with that.”

  “No problem.” He paused before he spoke again. His eyes curled downward at the corners. “Edie, are you all right? Are you in trouble?”

  Edie shook her head.

  “I’m fine, Harlan. Really,” she said although he could tell she wasn’t being true.

  A Dad Out with His Sons

  Walker glanced at his boys asleep in the cab of his pickup. They were flopped against each other, their cheeks red from being on the lake so long. He blew the smoke from his cigarette out the window, feeling a little beat himself. His foot tapped the brake pedal when he spotted the eyes of a wild animal shining in the darkness. It stayed on its edge of the wooded road, so he kept going.

  He chucked the butt out the window and took a swig from the beer bottle he held between his thighs. He tried calling Edie a couple of times this morning when his wife went to the store, but no one answered.

  Instead, he took his boys fishing, which tickled his wife, and he rushed them from the house before she got preachy about it. He let the boys fool around in the water while he did repairs on his camp. He rowed them in his canoe to his special fishing spot, where he caught the limit, including a trout measuring twenty-one inches. He had some good moments, letting the boys take over paddling and showing them how to clean the fish and ice them down. His father used to do the same with Gil and him. After his brother died, Dad didn’t want to come here anymore. He lost interest in the camp and a lot of things.

  Walker brought his boys to the Lookout Bar and Grille, where he and Edie ate, for burgers, and he gave them money to play the pinball machines. He was just a dad out with his sons today. The only hitch was when the waitress asked about Edie. He told the woman she didn’t come on this trip and hoped the boys were too busy with their food to hear her.

  His sons weren’t bad boys, a lot like him and Gil at that age, impossible to stay with one thing very long, fighting about the dumbest things. He really should spend more time with them. How old were they now? He thought they were younger than Edie’s girl, Amber. He wondered how much he scared her last night, yelling and going after her mother, how much she saw. He remembered Edie trying to get away from him as if he was going to hurt her more. He loved Edie, for God’s sake.

  Walker didn’t bother hitting the directional when he made the turn onto Doyle Road. He nodded when he saw Edie’s car parked in her aunt’s driveway and the front rooms lit. He knew she visited her aunt to play cards. There she was safe and sound, and he turned the truck around in Edie’s driveway to get home, whistling all the way.

  His wife waited for them. She helped him put the boys to bed and unload the fishing equipment, actually being nice about it. He had another beer in the kitchen, checking the messages Sharon wrote on a paper, all of them business.

  He took a shower, and when he was done, he found Sharon in their bedroom. Only one lamp was lit, but it was enough light to notice his wife wore a blue nightgown, and she had put on makeup. She came up to him, her belly pushing the fabric as if she were pregnant, but it was impossible since she got her tubes tied after the boys were born.

  “What do you say, Walker?” Her voice was low. “We haven’t done it in a while.”

  She rubbed against him.

  “Sharon, I’m pretty beat. It’s been a long day with the boys.”

  “Walker.”

  Her hips moved. He didn’t know whether to feel pity for her or disgust.

  “Is that a new nightgown you’re wearing?” he asked.

  “Uh-huh, I bought it just for you.”

  She made a humming noise as Walker got under the covers. She pulled back the sheet and moved close to him, touching him through his shorts, pulling the waistband down, so she could get at him. He was soft until she used her hand. He’d have to be dead not to feel anything when a woman does that, but there he was ready with the wrong one.

  Walker positioned himself above her, lifting the bottom of her nightgown and putting his hand on her. Sharon lay there, letting him do whatever he wanted, and she moaned when he got inside her. He thought about Edie, the way she moved against him, the things she said, how her body felt. Walker pushed faster and harder, punishing his wife until he had enough.

  The Lie

  Edie was at the deli counter Monday morning. She sighed when she heard her mother-in-law’s voice. The bruises and busted lip were awful, she knew, because she checked them enough times in her bedroom mirror. She wore a long-sleeved top on purpose.

  Marie’s hand flew toward her mouth.

  “Edie, what happened to you?”

  “I tripped over a footstool in the middle of the night. I was going kinda fast, so it was a bad fall.”

  Marie came closer.

  “Maybe you should’ve stayed home.”

  She thought about it before, but Walker’s crew was working next door on Harlan’s roof. She didn’t want him coming over to see her.

  “I know how I look, Marie,” Edie said. “Everybody’s been asking what happened.”

  Her mother-in-law studied her.

  “How about covering it up with makeup?”

  “I tried, but it turned out lousy. Anyway, nothing’s gonna fix this mouth.”

  Marie nodded solemnly. She gave a wary eye to her husband, who stood near the coffee machine. They probably thought she was drunk. Aunt Leona had warned Edie when she saw her yesterday.

  Marie’s f
orehead bunched above her brow.

  “Are you still going?” she asked.

  “To Amber’s school? Course, I am. She’d be disappointed if I didn’t. You?” Edie saw doubt in her mother-in-law’s eyes. “It’s okay, Marie. I wasn’t doing anything I wasn’t supposed to when it happened.”

  She let Marie drive her to the elementary school in her Thunderbird. Edie and Gil went to the same school when they were kids. As she and Marie walked through the hallway of the one-story wooden building, Edie recalled where her desk had been in each classroom. She remembered where Gil sat, in the back with Dean, the two of them fooling around, throwing stuff at her. Walker was in a grade younger.

  Tomorrow was the last day, so the school had an assembly in the cafeteria, which tripled as the auditorium and gym. The classes were going to perform, and Amber was supposed to have a small solo when it was the second-graders’ turn.

  Aunt Leona, who had already arrived, saved two seats in the second row for them. Edie knew all the mothers, and as she expected, they checked her out. Sharon sat to the left with her younger sister. Their heads pecked as they talked.

  Leona squinted through one eye.

  “Sorry to say, Edie, but you look like hell,” she said.

  “Thanks a lot, Aunt Leona.”

  “Not much you can do with bruises like that. I should know. I had one husband who was a beater.” She patted Edie’s knee. “Be brave, honey.”

  “I’m trying.”

  Edie ignored the stares of the other mothers.

  “The road crew showed up after you left for the store,” Leona said. “Christ Almighty, I had the darnedest time getting out with all those trucks in the way.”

  Marie nudged Edie as the children filed into the room. Edie picked out Walker’s twins from the kids in their class. Amber acknowledged her presence with a tiny wave. The poor girl still wasn’t feeling well, but Edie figured it had more to do with worry than a stomach bug.

  “Amber, Amber,” Leona said in a hoarse whisper until the girl smiled, and then she was back in Edie’s ear. “By the way, I got my apology.”

  “Already?”

  “Yup, just before I came here. I decided to go the highway garage instead of waiting for the road boss to come over to my house. I wasn’t about to have that grease monkey dirtying up my floors.” She shook her head at the thought. “I got myself all dressed up like I was going to church although heaven knows I’d never do anything like that.” She winked. “That’s why I’m dolled up this way. Pretty fancy, eh?”

  “I noticed.”

  “Anyway, I told that man it was a lucky thing my dog died right away, or I’d be seeing the board of selectmen about getting him fired.” She spoke so loudly people noticed, and Leona fired them all one of her mind-your-own-goddamn-business glares. “I swear the man went white as a ghost. The weasel did a little dance and said he was sorry for hitting my Bob.” She snorted. “Just to rub it in, I pretended I was hard of hearing, so he had to repeat everything but louder. I wasn’t going to let him off easy.”

  “Aunt Leona.”

  Leona worked her red lips, relishing the memory.

  “He said I might have noticed the highway crew was working on our road first thing this morning. I asked the son of a bitch what it’d take to get our road graded earlier next spring. Is he going to have to run me over?” She laughed ahead of the punch line. “You know what he said? No, but Alban will do just fine.”

  Edie laughed softly through her nose at her aunt’s silly story.

  The kindergartners were first, reciting a poem, and Leona poked Edie in the arm, whispering the boy on the right held his pecker the entire time. Marie bent forward and pressed a finger to her lips as if it would stop her aunt. Leona’s thin eyebrows rose so high they looked like they’d slide up to her hairline.

  The second-graders sang a round then a folk song. Amber took a step forward. She wore a new dress Marie bought her. Her dark hair was pulled back in two French braids that hung to her shoulders. The teacher, who played the piano, bowed her head, and the other kids fell silent. Amber’s voice spread through the room like the call of a solitary bird in the forest. Edie cried at its beauty.

  Too Damn Hot

  Walker yelled to Dean who worked the backside of Harlan Doyle’s roof. Dean’s head was down as he sliced shingles to size with a razor knife, but eventually he held his hammer mid-air and glanced Walker’s way.

  “Where in the hell’s that kid?” Walker’s words came out strained. “I sent him down to get a bundle of shingles twenty minutes ago. Christ, what was I thinking hiring him? That’s what I get for doin’ somebody a favor.”

  Dean pulled a few nails with heads the size of shirt buttons from his leather tool belt. He squinted at Walker.

  “Jesus, Walker, you’ve been on the kid’s case all morning.” Dean used the hammer’s claw to raise the brim of his Red Sox cap, stained by oil near the Boston B. “He probably went in the woods to take a shit. He’ll be back. You got a problem?”

  Walker glared. The other two men on his crew hammered the roof’s front.

  “Whose side are you on anyway?” he barked at Dean.

  “Shut up, Walker. Talk to me when you’re in a decent mood again, will ya?”

  Walker scooted to the ridge. He peered over the other side, and two sweaty, sunburned faces stared up at him. Damn, it was too hot for this kind of work although they’d be here a while longer. Early this morning, the crew used barn shovels to scrape the brittle shingles off the roof, letting them fall into a dump truck below. He told Harlan it must have been forty or fifty years since the roof was last touched.

  The house was old enough that wide planks had been nailed beneath the shingles instead of plywood. Most likely they were milled from the trees on this lot. A few would have to be replaced. Rot, Walker said, and Harlan, who wasn’t about to go onto the roof to test the theory, took his word. Later, when the crew tossed the boards to the ground, the man could see for himself they were shot. He would know Walker was honest after all.

  Now the crew hammered long rows of shingles in place over tarpaper. He figured they had another full day ahead. Walker watched the weather report this morning. A late-afternoon thunderstorm was the only threat.

  “Guys, take a break,” he said. “It’s too damn hot.”

  Walker lit a cigarette before he tossed a butt and lighter to Dean. He sat by himself as the other men climbed down to get a cold drink from the cooler. Below him, the town’s highway crew was on the road, grading and trucking in stone, raising dust that nearly reached them on the roof.

  He thought about seeing Edie at the store when he and Dean made a coffee run this morning. His gut twisted when he saw the bruises fanned across her cheek, and her split, swollen lips. She kept her eyes lowered. She barely spoke to him.

  She whispered, “Not here, Walker. People are watching. Your parents.”

  “Can I see you later? We need to talk,” he whispered back.

  “No.”

  “Can I call you?”

  “No.”

  “Come on, Edie, let me explain.”

  She went away without another word.

  His mother and father took him aside to ask about Edie, but it was clear they didn’t know he had any part in it. His neck and face heated anyway.

  “Does she get drunk a lot?” his mother said.

  “Jesus, Mom, she said it was an accident. Didn’t she?” he told her.

  When Dean asked Edie what happened, she lied about falling. It was the only time she looked directly at Walker. Dean saw it, too, because in the truck he asked what was wrong.

  “She sure wasn’t happy to see you.” Dean squinted at Walker through the corner of his eye. “What a mess on her face. Must’ve been quite a fall.”

  Walker kept silent. He hated hearing what Dean said because it made him feel
worse. She wasn’t answering her phone either.

  He flicked the butt over the edge of the roof before he climbed down the ladder. His crew talked with Harlan. The man stepped back to check the roof’s progress. He had a towel slung over his shoulder, and he wore shorts, so anyone could see hard stuff tore into his body. But if Harlan was self-conscious, he didn’t let on. Walker reached into the cooler for a bottle of Coke. The boy came from the woods, tugging his belt, and Dean gave Walker an expression that said he was right.

  “Heading out for a swim?” Walker asked Harlan.

  “Yeah, to the river across the road. This heat came on so fast, I’ve got to cool off.”

  “I know what you mean,” Walker said.

  The boy fished in the cooler for a drink, but Walker had lost interest in the kid. Instead, he watched Harlan make his way down the driveway. His weak leg chopped the ground. Walker would hate to be a cripple like him, but the man whistled, so it couldn’t hurt that much.

  So Sorry

  Walker was parked in Edie’s driveway for at least twenty minutes before she came home with her daughter.

  “Amber, go inside,” Edie said, and when the girl gave her mother a worried look, she nodded. “It’s all right. I need to speak with Uncle Walker for a few minutes.”

  His heart began a hard rush as he left the truck. He rehearsed what he wanted to say while he waited. Edie waved at Amber until she stepped away from the screen door.

  “Is this an okay time?” he asked. “I tried calling you, but… ”

  Walker removed his cowboy hat and bowed his head slightly. He planned to keep his voice warm and low.

  “Go ahead, Walker.”

  “Baby, I’m sorry, so sorry I hit you. I was way outta line.” He exhaled loudly. “Some idiot at the Do said you left with another man, and I believed him. I should’ve known better. It just made me crazy to think about you with somebody else. You gotta forgive me. Please.”