by R.P. Burnham
The first thought Patti Ryan had when she woke was that Chris was coming home today. It was her last waking thought last night as well, for she had tossed and turned for hours thinking of him before she finally fell asleep sometime after two o’clock. Before she had crawled into bed she had reenacted her nightly ritual, this time with more than usual intensity, of looking at the photograph of her and Chris that the couple at Bedford Point had taken last summer and losing herself in the loving smiles and happiness they shared. To recover that moment and hold it forever had been the work of her mind, and yet it was impossible. She’d remember his smile, then have it dissolve away when confronted with everything she knew about his hard, savage single-minded devotion to his causes. Try as she might, she couldn’t trust him. She told herself his cold ego knew nothing of fidelity and steadfastness and that it was better to forget him. No sooner was that vow made than she would remember his shy need for her when meeting strangers such as when they attended the meeting of the Greens last summer, and she would be off again dreaming of a love that lasted forever. Then to rein herself in from such madness she would catalog all the times he had failed her: the big and little things, almost daily in occurrence, like forgetting to get something at the store she had asked him to get, the waiting for him at some street corner until it was clear he wasn’t going to show, the innumerable times he took her for granted, the times she wore new clothes and he did not notice, the favors done without thanks, the failure to remember a birthday or that she didn’t like vinegar on her french fries, the time in high school when they were rebel students and decided to mock the senior prom by attending and him not understanding that she really wanted to go and how disappointed she was after buying a prom dress to hear him say it was a joke and that he never intended to go and so of course they didn’t—enough remembrances to fill a book as long as War and Peace and ending when he walked out on her last fall without saying good-bye.
Such was her night and the reason she woke feeling unrefreshed and oppressively uncertain. And she was glad he was coming home? Filled with hope for the future, was she? Thinking he could change and become forever the smiling companion in that picture? So again reason did battle with hope, and reason, that pathetic, ridiculous thing that merely used logic and knowledge verified by experience—it lost.
She could hear someone coming out of the shower—probably Virgie since Donna usually was an extremely early riser who liked some quiet time alone every working morning, but maybe Alex if he had an early appointment now that he was working for his father this summer as he approached his final year of law school—but whichever it was, the prospect of facing her housemates caused her to turn her mind to last night’s phone conversation with Chris.
They were having a quiet evening. Alex was out somewhere, but Virgie was watching television while reclining on the living room couch, her usual practice since her deliverance from Tim Longo. Donna was sitting at the dining room table from where, in the small house without walls dividing kitchen, dining room and living room, she would occasionally watch the television while working on a jigsaw puzzle of Botticelli’s La Primavera that her boss at the daycare center had given her upon her return from a trip to Tuscany. She had bought cups and the like as gifts for all the women who worked for her but had miscalculated the numbers, and as a result Donna ended up with the puzzle. For weeks it remained unopened in its box, Donna never being interested in such pastimes, but something, boredom perhaps, had recently led her to break it out, and she had periodically worked on it since. Patti was sitting at the kitchen table finishing the last chapter of a biography of Margaret Sanger that Carl Stone had lent her. Carl was specializing in prenatal care, and all aspects of reproduction, including means and methods to avoid pregnancy, interested him. Patti had gone with him to the end-of-the-semester party for the nursing program a few weeks ago while Donna looked on like a proud mother seeing her daughter off to the senior prom. Patti, recollecting her face now, became aware that she had hardly given a thought to Carl Stone last night while wrestling with Chris’s ghost. But, then, the engagement had been less a date and more a matter of two colleagues carpooling—though she knew Carl didn’t see it that way. She had begun to try to think of Carl in a different way—he was after all a solid and decent man, unexciting perhaps, but steady and dependable—but that ringing phone had driven him clean out of her head.
Patti, at the kitchen table and therefore nearest to the phone, had answered it. As soon as she excitedly exclaimed, “Oh hi, Chris!” Donna and Virgie had turned to listen. Virgie’s eyes and mouth widened, while Donna’s eyebrows furrowed into a disapproving frown.
He was matter-of-fact, maddeningly so, but feeling the thrill of excitement energizing her body, she ignored his tone, telling herself it was just Chris being Chris. His court case for breaking and entering, which had been postponed in February, was scheduled for tomorrow at one o’clock in Waska, and he wanted her to accompany him.
“I’m leaving early and should get into Portland before ten o’clock,” he said. “Listen, could you come with me?”
“Of course,” she said without any hesitation.
“I don’t think it will take too long. I just talked to the lawyer Natalie Feldman arranged for me, and he told me that.”
“Okay,” she said. She didn’t dare ask him what his plans were after his case was heard. “How have you been?”
“Fine—and busy. Okay, gotta go. See ya tomorrow.”
Hanging up, she saw Donna staring at her. “He wants me to go with him to court in Waska tomorrow,” she explained.
Donna rolled her eyes. “He calls you at seven on the night before and expects you to drop everything?”
“I didn’t have anything to drop. I’m on vacation now, remember?”
“But what if you had? What if you had to work tomorrow or had a class? What if you had a final exam or something? He expected you to forget your life and yield to his.”
“It’s just Chris’s way. I bet he forgot all about the court date until today. He always thinks of appointments at the last minute. How many times have we seen that?”
Donna frowned impatiently. “Yeah, until someone reminds him.”
They both knew who the “someone” was in this case. Patti hadn’t forgotten, but to close off any further discussion, she said, “Don’t worry. I have my eyes open.” Right then she couldn’t stand another lecture from her self-appointed big sister on Chris’s self-absorption and unreliability.
Donna wisely refrained from any further comments, but Patti could see her mind working. It was that glimpse into her friend’s psyche that made her dread going downstairs. Somehow, she knew, Donna had formulated a plan of attack and would not let her off lightly.
She got up, wearing her usual long T-shirt and panties, and after making the bed cautiously opened the door. She could hear sounds from the kitchen and could tell both were either eating or getting their breakfast. Her bare feet on the carpeted hall and stairs made no sound as she came down the stairs. From the landing she could see Virgie eating a bowl of cereal. She looked different, and for a moment she paused to think of what it was. It wasn’t her clothes. She had been dressing slightly better for several months—though the transformation was a subtle one. Where she used to favor jeans with worn and torn knees and T-shirts, now she wore new jeans and colored jerseys. Most days sneakers replaced sandals. And now she almost always wore a bra. Her work was no different—in fact she was back at the UPS working for close to minimum wages just as she had in the past. The biggest change was her lack of any social life. Her experiences with Tim Longo seemed to have made her leery of love and males. Except for when she attended the group therapy meetings for recovering drug addicts, she rarely left the house unless with Patti or Donna. She didn’t consider herself a drug addict—her experience years ago with bad grass had already taught her that fire burns, and the cocaine and heroin she used under Longo’s sway was involuntary, she maintained—but let Donna talk her into going. She never mentioned
Longo after the first week home when Donna had taken on the role of a psychotherapist and explained how Longo had manipulated her, and that was why Donna felt she should have a place to speak freely. It was hard to tell if the sessions were doing any good. She was physically healthier but psychologically was, well, different, more flattened, as if she was just existing, not living. But this morning she looked different in another way, more like her old self, younger, maybe, happier. Then Virgie looked up from her bowl of cereal, and Patti came into the kitchen.
Virgie watched her progress, her hooded eyes shining brighter than they had in ages and appearing more energetic and alive. When she spoke, it was suddenly clear that it was a special day for her because Chris was coming home. In a voice that could not disguise her anxious expectations, she asked, “When do you expect Chris to arrive?”
“Around ten, I’d guess. He said he was starting before six.”
She spoke casually, trying to deflect overblown expectations. She saw Donna, who was bent down looking for something in the refrigerator, turn with the container of orange juice in her hand and regard her critically. She had caught the casual tone and was assessing its meaning suspiciously.
It made Patti feel faintly ridiculous, and she had to suppress the smile she could feel prancing at the corners of her mouth like horses at the starting gate. Perhaps Donna saw it too—the irony of her trying to dampen Virgie’s excitement while she shared it. Last night she had forgotten about Virgie’s love for Chris—she had in fact never taken it too seriously—but now she changed her mind. She could understand hidden love, its gnawing need, the irrational longing of it, and felt bad for her friend. There was not one iota of jealousy in her, of that she was quite sure, no fear that Chris would ever choose Virgie, but she could understand that had nothing to do with the feelings Virgie was experiencing.
The sense of the ludicrousness of her situation grew in her. She was actually doing to Virgie what Donna was doing to her! The funny thing was that she knew better than anyone that such maneuvers didn’t work. She who had spent half the night trying to dampen her own hopes and found it impossible knew that hope was like a hangnail. The slightest bump reminded you it was there and wasn’t going away. Wishes wouldn’t affect it. Reasoning with it was absurd. She thought of the photo of her and Chris again, how happy they looked with their arms entwined and wide smiles glorifying their faces in the best moment they had ever shared together. That couple was in love. They loved each other. It was hard evidence, strong enough proof to convince a jury.
And yet the hangnail hope was also like faith: it could not exist without doubt. That thought freed her from fearing Donna’s sharp tongue. She couldn’t say anything she hadn’t already thought.
Though not fearful, she still felt uncomfortable waiting for Donna’s expected assault on her and Chris. She got a bowl of cereal and poured milk while Donna, who was watching her weight having recently gained five pounds, toasted a single slice of whole-wheat bread and spread margarine on it while joking about how she really would prefer a couple gooey glazed donuts or at least real butter and a generous portion of strawberry preserves. That her laughter rang hollow told Patti that she was still biding her time.
In the meantime Virgie, who had finished her cereal, remained at the table. She seemed preoccupied until suddenly coming to a decision. “Don’t you think we should have a special meal for Chris tonight?”
She addressed Patti, but Donna answered.
“You’re assuming he’s staying?”
“Won’t he?”
She spoke so hopefully in a tiny voice and looked so earnest that momentarily a dark, sad cloud threw Patti’s soul into the shadows.
“He didn’t say anything about staying,” Donna said sharply as Virgie’s face fell. She turned to Patti. “Did he?”
She knew Donna was being cruel to be kind, but she also knew she would not be capable of destroying dreams. She thought of the time Lexi and Donna talked about male egoism and in so doing led to her losing Chris, and a flash of anger rose in her. But she stifled the impulse and merely shook her head.
“I’d guess that it would depend on if his work upstate is finished,” Donna said in the same cold tone.
“Well, he’d at least spend the night, wouldn’t he?” Virgie asked, her voice sweetly hopeful again. She exchanged a glance with Patti that seemed to imply she saw them as coconspirators against Donna. The alignments were certainly shifting. It was getting dizzying.
Then Donna finally played her hand. She rose from the table and walked to the sink to rinse her dishes. With her back to them, she said, “I don’t think it’s wise to depend on Chris, and I wouldn’t plan on anything special for dinner.”
After that she went upstairs into the bathroom. It appeared that that was all she planned to say, but when she came downstairs with the car key in her hand and said, “Come on, Virgie. It’s time for work,” she had one more thought to impart. At the door she looked back at Patti, who was just opening the newspaper, and said, “Oh, by the way, did you finish that biography of Margaret Sanger?”
Her tone put Patti on her guard. “Almost.”
“Do you still think she’s a feminist saint after reading it?”
“More so. But why do you ask?”
“Only because many biographies turn out to be so disillusioning. Your hero suddenly turns out to be a creep or an egomaniac—or both.”
“Well, she wasn’t perfect, but she’s still a great woman.”
“Okay, sounds promising. Next time you see Carl, ask him if I can read it too. See you tonight.” Then she was gone, but not before her face assumed a pleased, satisfied expression. And perhaps her minimalist and oblique technique worked, for instead of reading the paper while she waited for Alex, whom she could hear in the shower, Patti thought about Carl Stone.
He was tall, with a long face dominated by large wire-rimmed glasses. His dark hair was never quite combed, giving him a just-got-up-and-rushed-out appearance, a quality that Patti actually liked in him since it showed he was not in the least affected. He also had a self-deprecating humor that was equally admirable. It took a special kind of man to be a male nurse, one who was compassionate and caring of others, qualities that too many of the male sex were sadly deficient in, but whenever people asked him how he came to be a male nurse, he would answer that it was because he was too dumb to be a doctor—a statement of very doubtful accuracy since he was a brilliant student. So not only was he intelligent, self-effacing and caring; he was also honest, decent and dependable. His only real fault, Patti knew, was that he was not Chris Andrews.
And maybe Chris’s fault was that he was not Carl Stone. But no sooner had that thought occurred than she rejected it. Life wasn’t a beaker where different substances are mixed together to create a greater whole from disparate qualities. Oil and water never combined. It was equally foolish to compare the two. Donna hadn’t inserted any new doubts into her mind, but she had certainly awoken all the old ones. Sometimes Patti wondered if she was ever going to feel at rest and living without uncertainty, ever going to stand at a place where she could see more than a few hours into the future. Sometimes she thought all that Chris was doing to her was postponing her life and that she ought to forget him. But maybe the uncertainty was what made life exciting. Maybe Chris was life incarnate, always seeking, never finding. Maybe people gave up the best part of themselves when they settled for normalcy and routine. Is that what Donna wanted for her? What was gained from such a choice? Relief, rest, nothing more? She had no answers to these questions. She knew they were directly or indirectly all questions about Chris. He was the one she had to see clearly and without illusion. Doing that, all her questions would have answers.
She was standing by the sink, looking out the window hardly seeing the warm June day with the green leaves swaying in a soft breeze and the blue sky above, but with a sudden motion she turned and walked to the table.
One thing she could do was talk with Alex. She could trust his
opinion. He wouldn’t try to save her; he would let her be herself and make her own way.
Feeling calmer and more in control, she glanced through the paper without really reading much of it as she waited for Alex to finish his shower and get dressed. The latter procedure as always took a long time, so that it was 8:30 before he came downstairs. Having to be at the office at nine, he wasn’t going to have much time.
That’s why the moment he came downstairs she told him about Chris’s call and the fact that he was coming. Without going into much detail, she also retailed Donna’s objections, especially her main argument that Chris was unreliable.
Alex, eating his cereal, paused thoughtfully. “Well, you know she’s probably right. I like Chris, but I wouldn’t depend on him for anything important.”
“People change,” Patti said. She was standing on the other side of the table with her arms folded, slightly swaying as she shifted her weight from one foot to the other. “They grow. What if Chris is still in the young stage of life where you fight the world and want to change it?”
“I think some people live that life permanently.”
“And you think Chris is one of them?”
Alex rose and went to the sink to rinse out his cereal bowl. With a low, deep growl the garbage disposal pulverized the remnant of all the breakfasts this morning. “Probably,” he finally said when it was quiet. He started taking his vitamins. About seven different bottles had to be opened and a pill extracted.
While he was busy with that, Patti was thinking. She saw the photograph in her mind, the smiles and the entwined arms. “We’ve always had something special,” she said quietly, without any pleading.
Alex threw the collected vitamins in his mouth and washed them down with orange juice. Rinsing out his glass, he said, “I know. I’ve always known you two were soul mates. But sometimes a love made in heaven can only exist there.”
“You mean…?”
“Probably. But I understand where you stand. I thought Carleton was that special person for me, but living with him for just two weeks opened my eyes.”
“You say he was fussy and—”
“Fussy doesn’t begin to describe him. He’s actually a control freak. A plate couldn’t be a quarter of an inch from where it belonged without him getting upset. From a distance we were perfect. We just couldn’t live together.”
She didn’t have to verbalize the conclusion. Instead she said with false jocularity, “And you’re not exactly a slob.”
He smiled ironically. “Well, I’m not saying Chris can’t change. But Carleton is a different story.”
He was opening a small window and saying it was possible to be hopeful without being foolish. Love was bigger than any impediment thrown in its way. Life was always opening new possibilities. If they loved one another, anything could happen.
She looked up to see Alex watching her with a bemused expression on his face. She had the feeling he was reading her thoughts. “Well, I’ve got to get downtown. Is Chris staying here tonight?”
“He didn’t say.”
“Well, if he does I’ll see him. If he doesn’t, say hi for me.” Then he did something he hadn’t done in ages. He hugged her, squeezing her warmly and with feeling.
After he left she tried to figure out what it meant. Was he trying to tell he she was loved and needed regardless of what Chris did, or was it his way of saying he understood her situation and was wishing her luck?
She couldn’t say. She couldn’t even see two hours into the future. The future was somewhere on the road north of Portland heading this way.
She showered, thinking of him, and shaved her legs, then dressed carefully, choosing a red top, khaki shorts and Birkenstock sandals. Downstairs she thought of having another cup of coffee, but the possibility that she might have to pee a long way from a bathroom and the growing warmth of the day made her nix that idea. Instead she turned the coffeemaker off but did not throw away the remainder in case Chris would like a cup upon his arrival. Then she decided to sit on the front steps and let her hair dry. In the shade under the large oak tree in the front yard, it was a beautiful day, warm, not oppressively hot, and for a while she simply relaxed and let her mind go blank, though not too far off was the thought that she mustn’t stay here too long. It would look too anxious if Chris saw her on the front steps.
Her neighbor Bart Aurelieu came out whistling a tune and paused to chat over the hedge for a few minutes. He was a pleasant man in his fifties who worked in administration at the University of Southern Maine but whose mania and first love was fishing. Rubbing a sunburnt bald pate, he told her about his bass-fishing exploits last weekend and sheepishly explained when she asked if that was where he got the sunburn that he had fallen asleep in the backyard yesterday afternoon.
“Any new development with your gang? Virgie, is she still doing okay?” Patti had told him and his wife all about Tim Longo.
“She’s doing as fine as can be expected. The big news is that Chris is coming by today—he should be here within the hour, in fact.”
Bart was of a conservative bent but because of his love of fishing approved of Chris’s environmental work. “Must mean he’s got that pollution upstate under control,” he said with a grin. “You tell him for me to keep up the good work, though I know he doesn’t need me to remind him of that.”
She started thinking about Chris’s work after Bart strolled off, briefcase in hand, to the university. In the present state of society that work made him bang his head against the Powers That Be and The Way Things Are. Those with power tried to marginalize him, and he hated American culture as a result. But how far off the mainstream could he be when a Republican fisherman approved of him? Maybe he would not always be an outsider at war with society.
The thought—or was it a hope?—was cut short. A woman walking a baby in a stroller came by, and the little one, a dark-haired girl of about two, threw something onto the sidewalk. When the mother patiently retrieved it, she promptly threw it down again.
The mother smiled at Patti. “She seems to find this fun,” she said.” It’s the fifth time she’s done it.”
“Babies have minds of their own,” Patti said, returning the smile.
The mother, wiping the child’s drooling mouth with her bib, said, “They sure do.”
The baby’s crinkled-up face made Patti’s smile broaden into a grin. Watching the mother fussing and cooing at the child, she had the sudden desire to pick the baby up and hold her.
“You’ve got a mind of your own, don’t you, sweetie. Samantha’s getting to be such a big girl. Well, Mommy’s going to trick you and put the rattle under the cushion. Then we’ll see if you can get it.”
She spoke in the high-pitched tone one uses addressing a little child. She was so absorbed in her love that for a moment Patti thought she might have forgotten she had an audience.
“How old is Samantha?” she asked.
“Twenty months.”
“She looks very healthy.”
The mother smiled proudly. “She is. She’s never had a cold or even an upset stomach.” Then again modulating her voice up to the high-pitched range, she said, “You’re Momma’s little perfect girl, aren’t you,” while the child grinned happily.
After the mother and baby continued on their way down the street, Patti went inside. She sat in the easy chair that afforded a view of the street and tried reading the paper again. She looked for some environmental news that would offer conversational material, but found nothing.
The minutes ticked away slowly as they always do when one is waiting. Ten o’clock came and then 10:15, at which point she started pacing around the small house, going in a circle that brought her to a view out the window every ten seconds or so. While thus employing herself in the maelstrom of slow time, her mind began racing through all the possibilities awaiting her until she could not think coherently. She was gripped by the physical need to be with Chris—that, ultimately, was all that filled her mind. Finally a few
minutes after 10:30 she saw his familiar Japanese car pull up.
Chris got out of the car, and from the window she could instantly see a change. His blond ponytail was gone; his hair, in length just over the ears, was consequently darker, more brown than blond. But she didn’t have time to think about it. Forgetting all about unseemly haste, she flew through the door and down the walk as he walked around the car, only to feel the smile on her face deflate when she saw his angry look.
“What’s the matter?” she asked.
He came up to her. “Oh, nothing, just a dead moose hit by a car on the road when I first left and then people dumping stuff by the road outside of Portland. Nothing ever changes.”
He was beside her now. There was an awkward moment when she was prepared to kiss him and he looked away. “The street still looks the same,” he said for the sake of saying something.
“Yeah, same old same old,” she said, feeling deflated. “Do you want some coffee or something to eat?”
“No, I’m okay. I had breakfast outside of Bangor. I could use the bathroom, though.”
When he went into the house, she walked over to his car to look inside. What she was looking for was there: two worn suitcases, one faded leather and the other canvas, the canvas one jammed on the floor and the other lying on its side on the backseat. If they were there, then the truck was full. That told her all his worldly possessions were in the car. He had left northern Maine for good.
She felt her heart leaping at this sign, which took some of the sting out of his cold greeting. She looked up the street at a car slamming on its brakes and told herself it was just his way. She wasn’t surprised. He was shy, that’s all.
Chris came out of the house and asked if she was ready.
She had her wallet, keys and things in her fanny pack. She nodded.
“I’ve got to make a brief stop at USM to give some samples to Ted Autello. Will only take a sec.”
“Did you get all your work done upstate?” she asked as he started the car.
“It’s done except for these last tests.” He spoke in a way that said he didn’t want to discuss it any further. He was more closemouthed today than usual. Patti knew it could be a bad sign—he was preoccupied with something important or unpleasant, and it wasn’t the court appearance, she was quite sure. But now before anything was said, she was free to take it in its positive light. Maybe the many months away had made him aware of how much he missed her, but he was too shy and afraid to bring it up. She could understand that.
“I like your hair,” she said.
“Oh, that. It happened accidentally—a haircut gone bad.” He grinned for the first time, making her feel instantly comfortable.
“So it has nothing to do with looking distinguished for the trial.”
“Nope.”
They had arrived at the campus now, but Chris couldn’t find a parking spot. He drove down to Forest Avenue and circled around, finally pulling into a pickup and delivery slot. “I’ll leave the keys in the ignition. If you have to move it, just circle around once or twice. I’ll be right out.”
“Except for one smile, all business,” she murmured out loud as soon as she was alone. First the drop-off, then the court appearance. Well, after that they could talk. If he avoided it, she decided, she’d force the issue. One way or another, her fate was going to be decided today.
True to his word, Chris returned to the car within five minutes. He remained closemouthed, neither explaining what he had given Ted Autello nor what results he hoped for. Instead he grumbled about the traffic as they drove out of the city. After a period of small talk about that and little else, Patti told him the details about the outcome of the Ridlon case. He had heard about the Kimballs’ civil suit, but almost nothing about the victims. She noticed that he never asked how little Markie was doing and didn’t seem interested in the least in the news that the Kimballs were now building a house. As always with him, the past was the past. The only follow-up questions he asked concerned the EPA proceedings against Ridlon, and he did say that he was glad to hear Ridlon Recycling was out of business.
In Waska they stopped for lunch at a fast-food place before proceeding to the court. While they sat in a booth eating, Chris asked her if she was still planning on becoming a doctor. She hadn’t expected that question, which made her blush and instantly feel nervous. She had told him her aspirations to become a doctor on the day the picture of them was taken at Bedford Point. Was it his way of approaching the question of their relationship? His words seemed to hang in the air for the moment it took her to pull herself together. “I’m not sure. I’m beginning to think it would take too much work and time.”
The “time” was the honest part of her answer. She thought of the mother and child and their unalloyed happiness. Becoming a doctor would postpone her life. Then and there she decided being a nurse would be enough, but she didn’t explain that decision to Chris.
He in fact merely nodded and ate a french fry. “We might have to park a few blocks from the courthouse,” he said in the most mundane voice imaginable.
Which they did. Ten minutes later they parked on a side street and walked to the court on Main Street. Now that a piece of business connected to his calling confronted him, Chris was not a bit nervous and even assumed an air of cocky self-confidence. Inside, a heavyset and phlegmatic man in his late fifties recognized Chris, apparently from a description given by Natalie Feldman. He came up to them and asked, “Chris Andrews?” Briefly and in a very businesslike way he told them that the prosecutor was willing to cut a deal. Patti was left alone in the darkened and windowless hall, where she sat on a wooden bench. As a little girl she was once in a similar hall in a Portland court where she and her mother had waited for her father, and she still remembered how scary and inhuman the court had seemed to her. This one was no different. But she only had to wait about ten minutes before Chris and the lawyer came out of the prosecutor’s office. Chris nodded when she asked if everything was all right. “It’ll be a fifty-dollar fine. I’m to plead to trespassing, that’s all. They went into the court to listen to a man being charged with drunk driving. When he couldn’t make bail, he was remanded to the country jail. Apparently it was his second or third citation for drunken driving, and this time driving without a license was an added charge. Then a poor, miserable scrap of humanity, looking nervous and even terrified, was charged with shop-lifting. His public defender entered a plea of guilty for him, and a fine was imposed. But again, he was also sent to the county jail for a thirty-day sentence when he was unable to pay the fine. Next came Chris’s case. Patti was afraid he might grandstand, for he still appeared cocky and even arrogant, and she noticed the judge looking at him through narrowed eyes. But his only words were “Guilty, your honor,” and soon they were outside the court thanking the lawyer for his help and then waiting at the clerk’s office for a moment before paying the fine and leaving.
When they got out of the courthouse and were walking back to the car, Patti was very nervous. “Well, that was easy,” she said, stalling for time.
“Yeah, just as I figured.”
She took a deep breath and stole a glance at him. No longer cocky or confident, he was walking with his head down watching the ground. He looked nervous or preoccupied—it was hard to say which. “What will we do now?” she asked, her tongue almost not working her mouth was so dry.
He didn’t answer for a while. They were at the car and he fumbled for his keys. Then he straightened his back and seemed to become resolved. “What d’ya say we take ride out to Bedford Point?”
So he also wanted to talk. But not yet. During the drive across the bridge into Bedford and then down to the coast, she was nervous and could sense that he was too. The little that was said was forced, a strained effort to cut the tension rather than the easy and spontaneous communication between friends. She asked him if he thought his lawyer was a leftist. Chris answered that he didn’t think so. It was just a case to him, but he was competent and did
his job, just as Natalie Feldman said he would. They saw some Canada geese flying overhead and decided they were locals. A car passed them with many bumper stickers, PEACE NOW and SAVE THE EARTH being two that Patti could read. The car honked, probably because they saw the GREENPEACE sign on Chris’s front bumper, and they talked about solidarity for a few minutes before it petered out to silence.
Despite the beautiful day, there were only three cars in front of the path that led to the ocean. Walking quickly, they were soon at the cliffs overlooking the rockbound coast. They made their way over the rocks carefully. Unlike last time, Chris didn’t offer his hand when they came upon difficulties, and a few times Patti used her hands and knees to negotiate. The sky was blue and the sun had burned away any morning fog so that they could see down the coast a great distance. The white of the lighthouse shone in the sun across the bay, as did the glossy red paint of a sailboat tacking through the water a quarter of a mile offshore. With the tide coming in, a strong sea breeze was surprisingly cool for what inland was a very warm day in the upper seventies or even lower eighties. Many eiders and gulls bobbed in the swells. The sea was rough, and they could see whitecaps far offshore. Large waves crashing against the rocks threw up spray that would be exhilarating if this was a day where nervous anticipation didn’t preclude simple enjoyments. The whooshing sound of the retreating waves, followed by the large crash of the next incoming wave was so insistently and rhythmically regular that it sounded like the heartbeat of the living ocean. They sat on the same rock which offered a backrest they had used last year. Occasionally a particularly large wave would throw spray that reached them as a cold mist seventy-five feet away. After a while that spray together with the cool sea breeze caused her nipples to perk up, and she folded her arms across her chest to hide her embarrassment.
As in the car, both were nervous and tentative, both existing in an uncomfortable isolation side by side. Neither knowing where to begin, the scenery was remarked, a few birds noticed, and the coolness of the salt air discussed before Patti brought up the trial again, and that topic finally led to the serious discussion they had to have.
“That court business was surprisingly easy,” she said.
“Yeah. Everyone knew Ridlon was just trying to obscure the issue. I didn’t need the higher laws defense.”
Patti caught the reference to the conversation they had with Myron Seavey at the meeting of the Greens in Waska last year. “You mean what that librarian, Myron Seavey, suggested? Thoreau’s higher laws?”
“Yeah.”
“I saw his marriage announcement in the paper just last week.”
“He’s a good man.”
“I thought so too. I hope he’ll be very happy in his new life.”
“Yeah, maybe. Librarian in a small town. It’ll be a quiet life, entirely normal.”
He emphasized the last word strangely, almost in contempt and yet with a hint of despair. “If you mean by ‘normal’ wanting a life of contentment and fulfillment, a family, love, a sense of continuity, then I’m sure he and his wife will have all that.”
He turned to her. “We’ve never been normal people.”
What was he trying to say? She thought rapidly and then said, “Remember the time we were planning to go to the prom and you backed out. Why?”
He stood and rubbed his back. “Well, that’s my point. Why were we going? We joked about it, but the impulse was there to be normal. But we weren’t normal. That life was not for us.”
“Us?”
He looked at her through narrowed eyes. “Yeah, us. You aren’t conventionally bourgeois. You’re not normal.”
He was defining her, not seeing her. “You can still be a decent person and be what you call normal. Myron Seavey is both of those things.”
His eyes narrowed even further. “Well, maybe you’ve changed.”
And maybe I’ve always been me and you didn’t see it. The thought was on her tongue, but she didn’t say it. She stood and hovered beside him, both of them looking out at the vast Atlantic.
“Patti,” he said in a low tone that announced something different.
She looked at him. For a moment he looked into her eyes questioningly, then again directed his glance to the open sea. “You know I love you more than any other person in the world…”
She pursed her lips grimly. “Yes, but I hear a but. But it’s not enough. Love’s not enough.”
“You can put it that way. I have enough money for three, maybe four, more years of independent activism. The world’s environment needs fighters.”
She knew later she would feel the pain of what he was saying. Now she felt numbness. “So what are your plans?”
“I’m going tonight to Amherst, then I’m driving out west. I’m stopping in Cleveland, Madison, and Missoula, Montana to see some people. But I’m heading for Seattle. Orca whales are dying in Puget Sound from pollution, and the Hanford nuclear site is a national disgrace. A friend called me a few weeks ago and needs my help.”
“You’re not staying for supper?”
He shook his head. “It would be too awkward. I’ll drive you home and drop you off.”
He turned to start walking back to the car, but he stopped when she said, “You understand I can’t wait for you?”
“I wouldn’t expect you too.”
She could hear the effort to suppress emotions, and it suddenly became very important to her that she explain herself to him. Carl Stone’s honest and decent face passed through her mind. “I was watching a mother and her baby go by the house this morning. You could tell she loved that baby to distraction. Is that so wrong?”
He started to say something but cut it off, realizing that this was no time to hide behind a flippant remark. “No, I understand it. I really do, and I’ve been tempted to have that sort of life with you. But I can’t do it. Do you understand?”
She didn’t really think she did, but she nodded slightly. She looked out at the ocean, remembering how she used to love the feeling of limitless possibilities the vast expansiveness gave her. Now, with tears stinging at the corner of her eyes, she only saw the horizon.
“Well,” she said, “you’d better take me home.”
a note about the writer
R. P. Burnham edits The Long Story literary magazine and is a writer. He has published fiction and essays in many literary magazines. He sets most of his fiction in Maine, where he was born and raised and has deep roots. The Least Shadow of Public Thought, a book of his essays that introduce each issue of The Long Story, was published in 1996 by Juniper Press as part of its Voyages Series. Four other novels, Envious Shadows,On a Darkling Plain, A Robin Redbreast in a Cage, and The Two Paths have previously been published by The Wessex Collective. Burnham was educated at the University of Southern Maine (undergraduate) and The University of Wisconsin–Madison (graduate). He is married to Kathleen FitzPatrick, an associate professor of Health Science at Merrimack College in North Andover, Massachusetts.
