The Sweet Spot

by Joan Livingston

  Jarring Pictures

  Once again jarring pictures woke Edie. Walker was going to shoot her, but this time she couldn’t get out of the way fast enough when he pulled the trigger. This time she died. She and Walker lay on the dock. Blood was everywhere.

  Edie threw off the top sheet. It was too hot. She was staying with Leona in one of her spare bedrooms upstairs. She came here after Pop brought her home from Walker’s camp, stopping at her house briefly, so she could pack.

  Harlan, who had followed Pop’s truck, stopped to see if she was okay.

  “Yeah, I am,” she told him.

  “I believe I understand why you went to help him,” he said. “I would’ve done the same for my ex-wife.”

  All the while she packed, the phone in her house kept ringing. She told Pop to leave it alone. She figured nothing she’d want to hear would be coming from the other end of the line. If it were somebody who mattered, they’d call Pop. No one would dare bother her at Aunt Leona’s. Thank goodness, Amber was still at sleepover camp.

  Edie left her bed to wander the room. She often slept here as a child, especially when her mother took sick and after she died. She and her aunt stayed up late, playing cards or watching TV. Now Amber did the same.

  In the distance, thunder knocked against the hills, and lightning bleached the sky. She studied the photos on the bedroom’s wall. They were all about the family, including the one taken of her and Gil at their wedding.

  “You got yourself a real special one, Edie,” her aunt told her then.

  Harlan said he understood why she went to see Walker. Her best comfort came from her family and a near stranger. Others wouldn’t be as generous. She heard enough gossip when she worked in the store. People here thrived on the misery of others: the drunks and cheaters; the wife and kid beaters; those who owed money; those who broke the law and got caught, those who didn’t; the deadbeats who deserted their families; and the feeble, old people left to fend for themselves by their ungrateful children.

  But this story was bigger and dirtier than any of those. The news about Walker was on the front page of the local paper, Pop told her, and Aunt Leona saw it on the TV news. Her name was in it and the bartender the cops say Walker beat to death. They even mentioned Gil. She didn’t want to see or hear any of it. She hoped instead it would pass as quickly as this storm, but that was unlikely. Fred called Pop to say she couldn’t work at the store anymore. She wasn’t welcome to shop there either. No, this wouldn’t end fast.

  The thunder grew louder, and rain splashed against the house. Edie shut the bedroom windows. She went downstairs and toward the kitchen, where a light shined. Aunt Leona was at the table. Cards were spread over its top for solitaire.

  “Can’t sleep either?” Leona asked without looking up from her cards.

  Edie took the chair across from Leona. Her aunt frowned as she studied her possibilities.

  “I can’t stop thinking about what happened,” Edie told her.

  She cried, so much crying lately. She was sick of it. Leona dropped her cards. She shook her head.

  “Maybe we should bring Amber home. She might make you feel better.”

  “No, I don’t wanna take her from camp. Let her have fun. It won’t be the same when she gets back. I don’t know how Fred and Marie will be.”

  “If that’s what you want, Edie.” Leona shook her finger. “Don’t you worry about those two.”

  “It’s not just them.”

  “People couldn’t stop wagging their tongues when I married a man forty years older than me.” She snorted. “The joke was on them. When Ralph kicked, I was set for life unless I did something foolish with the money. Course, that was before I ran away with his son, Tom. Now that was something real foolish.”

  The rain fell steadily, sending cooler air into the room.

  “I’m going to the wake tomorrow. Pop said he’d take me.”

  “You changed your mind.”

  “I don’t wanna see Sharon, but I owe it to Fred and Marie.” She paused. “Walker did mean something to me. I hope you understand.”

  Leona didn’t take her eyes away.

  “Then count me in. I’m going, too.”

  Edie swiped the tears with the back of her hand.”

  “You sure?”

  Leona patted her arm.

  “You know what we always say in times like these. We Sweets stick together.”

  A Very Interesting Person

  Edie knocked on Harlan’s kitchen door, and when she didn’t hear an answer she helped herself inside. The kitchen was the only room she had entered in all the years she knew Harlan’s grandmother. Elmira Doyle baked bread Saturday mornings, and when she and Amber delivered her groceries, she gave them a warm loaf to take home. She was a thoughtful neighbor who sent dinner after her mother died. She remembered Amber on her birthday and Christmas.

  She followed the sound of hammering to a back room. Harlan was there, his head bowed, so engrossed in the task someone could have taken his picture, and he wouldn’t have known. His eyes were up when he heard her finally.

  “Sorry, for just comin’ in,” she said. “I tried knocking, but I guess you didn’t hear me.”

  He put down a mallet and grinned at her.

  “I’m glad you did.”

  Her head was angled to the right.

  “I just came to thank you for the other day. For bringing Pop.”

  “No problem. How are you?”

  She shook her head.

  “Not so good. I’m having a hard time sleeping. Vera from the store called Aunt Leona’s this morning. She said my in-laws don’t want me working there anymore.” She shook her head. “I knew it already. Fred told Pop. She just wanted to rub it in. She’s Sharon St. Claire’s sister. Vera seemed to enjoy telling me. I expected that, too.”

  He stared past her briefly before he spoke.

  “Edie, one night I was up late working in my shop. I went outside when I heard an owl in the woods across the road. The moon was out.” He paused. “When I walked to the end of the driveway, I saw a truck parked near your house. I recognized Walker’s pickup. It was pretty late. I saw him again another time when I was coming home, but he took off soon after. I should’ve done something more. I’m sorry.”

  Her eyes narrowed.

  “I don’t know if it would’ve stopped him.”

  Harlan shook his head.

  “What are you going to do?”

  “I don’t have a clue. But I’m not gonna worry about it now.” She looked around the room. “You’ve done a lot in here.”

  “It’ll do until I fix up the barn for a workshop.”

  “That sounds like a big project.”

  “It will be. The barn needs to be cleaned and winterized, but it has a solid timber frame of hemlock, a sound metal roof, and plenty of space.” He grinned. “I need to go to the lumberyard your father told me about to get an estimate for the material.”

  “What about this room?”

  “It’s too small. I need a real workshop.”

  Edie wandered through the tools and stacks of lumber.

  “What are you building?”

  He ran his hand across a tabletop.

  “This is for a client in Boston. I’m using quarter-sawn oak. See the swirls here. This will be so slick when it’s finished. It’s a birthday present for his wife.”

  Walker showed her the way he attached the top to the legs, pulling the table apart, so she could see the mortise-and-tenon joints. He explained how he roughed the post-like tenons on the table saw before he chiseled them by hand.

  “By hand?”

  “There’s no other way to get it right. It takes a while.”

  “How’d you learn to do this?”

  He shrugged.

  “I studied art in college, but I wa
s lousy at it. I guess I’m more of a craftsman than an artist. I took a couple of classes in furniture making and began working for the teacher, then myself.” He nodded. “What do you think?”

  “That you’re a very interesting person, Harlan Doyle.” Her hands were on her hips. “I’ve been wondering if we might’ve met when we were kids. You know when your folks brought you from Florida to visit your grandparents.”

  “I didn’t meet many people outside our family. I do remember a girl in front of your house. She had gold-colored hair and was wearing a dress. She played with a tire swing, not on it, just twirling it. Maybe it was you, or maybe I dreamed it.”

  “We used to have a tire swing.”

  She stood in front of him.

  “Hmm. I probably would’ve been twelve. You would have been?”

  “Maybe four or five. Younger than Amber I’m guessing.”

  “Four or five? Just a little baby.”

  She smiled.

  “Yup, just a little baby.

  Stick Together

  Edie came through the front door. Her aunt was in her customary place on the couch, watching TV while she waited to go to Walker’s wake. Edie went home to change and came back dressed in black. Pop waited outside in her car.

  “Jesus, honey, you look like hell,” Leona said, pointing to the spot beside her. “Sit here.”

  Edie sighed.

  “Okay.”

  She knew it’d be only a few minutes before Pop started banging the car’s horn, but Leona was in no rush. Her thin hand patted Edie’s knee.

  “You worried about going?”

  “Yeah, I am. I don’t wanna see any of them.”

  Leona’s red hair shook as if it were on fire.

  “You wait a minute, Edie. Hold your head up high. You might’ve made a mistake hooking up with Walker, but it wasn’t your fault what he did.”

  “That’s what Pop says. It’s just not easy remembering.”

  Pop tooted the horn. He wanted to get this over with, too. She told Pop and Leona they didn’t have to go with her to the wake. She would face the family alone, but both insisted. “We Sweets stick together.” It was an old family joke, and Pop winked when he said it, too, hoping to make her smile at least. Edie gave that much to her father although it was difficult.

  Pop pressed the horn again, and Leona pawed at the air impatiently.

  “God Almighty, we better get going before Alban wears out that damn horn. Jesus, Edie, take my hand and help me up.”

  The Wake

  The parking lot at the Brewster Funeral Home in Tyler was jammed with cars and pickups, as were both sides of the road, but Pop found a tight spot closer. He led the way, smoking a butt with his head down as if he were reading words off the pavement. Edie clutched Leona’s arm. Leona tripped, but her aunt said to keep on, so they slowed and let Pop have his speedy pace.

  Walker’s crew, including Dean, stood outside the funeral home. She knew them all, friendly guys who worked hard and liked their boss even when he was a jerk. They used to come with Walker to the store for lunch or the Do-Si-Do for drinks after work. A few flirted, but she was never interested. Besides, Walker would have fired them.

  Dean came unsteadily toward Edie. His eyes were heavy and glassy, and he hadn’t shaved for days. A black tie hung loosely around the neck of his wrinkled, white shirt.

  “Damn it, Edie. Why’d he have to go and do that? I don’t fuckin’ understand it. Do you?” His voice slurred. “I should never have asked you to go.” He clutched Edie’s arm. “Can you forgive me?”

  “There’s nothing to forgive, Dean.”

  Dean gave Edie a sloppy hug and a kiss on the cheek. He began filling her ear with the saddest stuff about Walker, her, and him.

  “Remember when you gave Walker those four hand-tied flies last Christmas?” He sobbed. “He kept the box on his desk in his shop. He showed me those flies all the time. You made him so happy.” He held her tighter. “Walker was messed up, but he loved you, Edie. He really did. He should’ve ditched everything for you years ago. Then he wouldn’t have, you know, done what he did.”

  “Shh, shh, shh, take it easy, Dean. You can let me go now.”

  Dean kept his arms around Edie.

  “I should’ve gotten him myself. I should’ve told his folks.”

  The men from Walker’s crew listened and waited. Edie felt tears come.

  “Dean, let me go.”

  Edie squirmed until finally one of the crew pulled him away.

  “Get it together,” one man warned Dean. “We gotta go inside.”

  Dean used both hands to wipe the tears from his face.

  “Edie, you’re like a sister to me.”

  He pitched forward, but one of the crew yanked him back by his shirt, tearing a seam at the shoulder. His tie fell to the pavement. He blubbered her name.

  Edie backed away.

  Pop hopped from foot to foot.

  Leona complained, “Jesus, somebody take this guy home. He’s in no shape to go to a wake.”

  Edie and Leona trailed Pop through the funeral home’s foyer to its large, hot room. The place was packed tightly with people from town, many of them customers from the store and friends of the family. Most she knew all her life. She tried not to look at any of them.

  On the far side, the polished wood of Walker’s closed coffin glowed beneath a row of spotlights. A throw of white carnations covered its top. The words – OUR BELOVED SON WALKER – were written in gold on its blue ribbon. To the right, Fred and Marie, Sharon, and her family, chatted with mourners. Heads bobbed. Voices buzzed.

  Edie squeezed Leona’s arm.

  When Gil died, Edie stood in a place of honor with his family. She was eight months pregnant with Amber. Her belly was out to there, and no one let her do a thing but cry for him. People stood in a line that stretched out the door, so they could tell her how sorry they were.

  Edie took a deep breath before she moved forward with Leona. Two large fans stirred the air, but they brought no relief to the people whose foreheads glistened with sweat.

  Leona fanned an envelope she found in her purse.

  “This place is about ready to burn up.”

  “What’d you say, Aunt Leona?” Edie asked.

  “Take a look.”

  Leona’s mouth was pressed into a thin, red line, and when Edie glanced around, she understood. People stared at them. As her eyes went from one person to the next, she guessed who still liked her. She didn’t see many: her teammate, Patsy, who gave a low wave across the room; friends of Pop and Aunt Leona; the old folks on her Saturday delivery route. One man, a regular who lived alone since his wife died last winter, placed his hand on her shoulder and creaked, “Bless you, Edie. I know you meant good.”

  Edie clutched Leona’s arm. She wasn’t letting go.

  Walker’s crew stood near the door without Dean. They appeared out of place in the somber room. One of Sharon’s brothers, Buddy the cop, strolled across the carpeted floor to escort the men to the head of the line. Edie and Leona exchanged glances. Each knew what the other thought.

  Leona uttered a warning beneath her breath as the funeral home director walked across the room. Moments before, he talked with Sharon and her family. His face was pious as he pressed his hands together. His breath smelled like sugary mints.

  “The family was hoping for a quiet gathering this evening to remember the deceased,” he spoke in a hushed tone.

  Leona’s face was locked in a frown.

  “That’s why we came,” she said.

  The director cleared his throat.

  “We don’t want to have a scene here.”

  “Then maybe you should leave us the hell alone,” Leona snapped.

  The director clamped his mouth shut and left. Now ten people separated Edie from the fami
ly. Her stomach churned.

  Marie sat on a wooden chair next to Walker’s sons. Fred stood beside them, blanked by his grief. Edie worked with her father-in-law for years. He was always the first one in the store, she the second, coming with Amber when she was in school and by herself during the summer. They arrived as he stood on the front porch, fetching the bundle of newspapers or doing some other chore.

  He’d say, “Hey, Edie, how’s my girl?” and Amber would giggle and tell Fred, “Grandpa, I’m right here.” He asked the same question if Amber wasn’t with her, and Edie would let Fred know what her daughter did since the last time he saw her.

  Sharon hugged a well-wisher. She dabbed her eyes with a tissue and pointed toward the closed coffin. Edie touched the bandage on her forehead and thought again about what she could say to Walker’s family. But as she studied their grim faces, it didn’t seem possible she’d be able to speak.

  Pop, back from a smoke and a nip outside, led them forward. It was their turn to greet the family. He extended his hand to each man, but only Fred gave a stiff shake.

  “This is a hard time for your family,” Pop said. “We came to pay our respects.”

  Leona spoke, too, but Edie felt too sick to hear what she said. It was her time now, and her voice trembled when she told her father-in-law, “Fred, I’m so sorry about Walker. I wish it didn’t happen.”

  Fred held out his hands as if he was going to hug her, but instead he let them flop to his sides. He was breaking into pieces in front of her. Both sons were gone, one he loved and one he didn’t understand. What was left?

  She whispered near Fred’s ear, “Amber loves you.”

  He stammered, “Oh.”

  Marie kept her head lowered. Edie bent to say the same thing, but her mother-in-law threw up her hands. Fred went to her, but she squawked his name, and he stood there, helpless.

  “Who told you all to come?” Marie moaned.

  Edie stepped back, ready to leave, but Leona shoved her toward Sharon. The woman made an anguished cry and spun toward the wall. Edie bit her lip, waiting, but Sharon kept her back to her. So instead, Edie crouched in front of Walker’s twins. Shane and Randy wore white shirts with black bowties. Their eyes were dark and wet. She cried with them.