Shelter Me

by Juliette Fay

  “And I tell you, ask and you will receive; seek and you will find; knock and the door will be opened to you…”

  “Now our Gospel today is a story from times of old,” quivered Father Gilroy when he’d finished with the reading.

  They’re all stories from times of old, thought Janie.

  “How-ever,” persisted Father Gilroy. He said it as if it were two words, in his distinctly Boston accent: How evah. “We can exTRAPolate from this story given to us by our Lord.” Owah Lawd.

  “It’s about PERSEVERANCE, perseverance in the face of ADVERSITY. Well, let’s see now…” Father Gilroy seemed to lose his train of thought for a moment. “Yes, well, uh, it’s about friendship, too. Sometimes a friend wants more from us than we want to give. That friend wants something that seems UNREASONABLE. Come over in the middle of the night for a loaf of BREAD? When we’re sleeping? That’s UNREASONABLE!

  “How-ever, that friend keeps knocking. That friend keeps ASKING us for something he NEEDS…” Father paused and brushed a hand over his mouth, wiping something away. “You ever notice how darn near half these stories have to do with HOSPITALITY? It’s all about feeding and sheltering people, for Pete’s sake! It’s all about fish and bread and who’s cleaning up after!

  “Well, I’ll tell you why. It’s because back in the times of old, when they didn’t have garage door openers and microwaves and all those fancy gadgets you women want these days, if people didn’t feed and shelter each other, THEY DIED! So here’s that friend, banging on your door in the middle of the night, trying to keep his visitor from starving to death right there in his living room. GET UP, for the love of Mike! Give the guy some bread!”

  Father Gilroy turned away from the lectern then and took a step down as if the homily was over. But before the other foot hit the floor, he turned back, remembering something. “We don’t always know what our friends need. And they usually don’t bang on the door and yell it. It’s all so much more COMPlicated these days. We have all these newfangled gadgets, like those cellular telephones that don’t even plug into the WALL, and still we aren’t too good at listening. And when WE’RE the guy that needs the bread, we have to persevere. Because sometimes people don’t know how to listen, and we gotta keep asking.

  “We gotta keep knocking on each other’s doors, because otherwise,” Father Gilroy glared at the congregation, “WHAT’S the POINT.”

  BARB FUSSED OVER THE kids as Janie and Aunt Jude waited for them to pick out a cookie from the Confectionary display case after Mass. They leaned against the high counter that spanned the bakery’s front window. Customers sat on stools and sipped their Chai and French roast, stoking up to meet the icy blast of air that awaited them outside. An older man approached them, tentatively at first. He tightened his trench coat and fingered the end of the belt nervously. “You’re Mrs. LaMarche,” he said.

  “Yes…,” said Janie.

  “I’m Ed Martin. From the bank. I worked with your husband. I remember seeing you and your son come by a couple of times.”

  “Oh,” said Janie, straining to be gracious. “Hi.”

  “Yes, well, I don’t want to bother you…I just wanted to say that…” His words came out faster now, as if he were propelling them from his mouth, “Well, your husband was a good boss, a good man, and we all remember him fondly.”

  It was obvious that he had had to gather up all his courage to approach her, and this, in addition to his kind words, softened her. “Thanks, Ed,” she said. “Thanks for telling me.”

  “I hope you and your family are…are doing okay?” he stammered.

  “We’re hanging in there.” And they were, she realized. So slowly she had barely noticed, their status had been upgraded from “still shitty.”

  “Oh, that’s great,” he exhaled. “I’ll tell everyone I saw you. They’ll definitely want to hear.” He nodded and excused himself and was out in the street in moments, nearly at a jog.

  They watched him recede down the street, and Aunt Jude reached her bejeweled hand around Janie’s shoulder and gave her a squeeze. “Good,” she whispered. It was the shortest sentence Janie had ever heard her utter.

  “So,” Janie said after a moment. “Thanksgiving.”

  “Oh yes!” said Aunt Jude. “I’ve ordered the turkey from Stop & Shop. They have those free-range turkeys now. I know you like that kind of thing. It’s a happy bird right up until it’s…well, it’ll be delicious, I’m sure.”

  “Think you’d have enough for one more?”

  Aunt Jude’s face went wide, on full alert. “Well, YES! Of course! Did you want to invite someone? Is it that nice blond woman, Dylan’s little friend’s mother? It’s so hard when couples part. Her husband has the boy and she’s all alone.”

  “Uh, actually the three of them are going to her in-laws’ in Ohio. Her ex-husband’s mother called crying and begged her to come.”

  “Isn’t that so kind!”

  “Of Heidi or her ex-mother-in-law?”

  “Both!”

  “I suppose,” said Janie. It all seemed a little nuts to her, and yet she had to admit it was kind, too. Weird and kind. “No, I was thinking of asking Tug Malinowski, the guy who built my porch.”

  “Oh, Tug! Of course!” Aunt Jude was a little too excited about this. Janie ground her molars.

  “It’s just that he’s all alone and I kind of feel sorry for him.” The lie caught in her teeth but she spit it out, anyway. If Aunt Jude got all revved up about this, Janie would chuck the whole idea.

  “Well,” said Aunt Jude, looking away, suddenly focused on untangling her necklaces. “He seems like such a lovely person. I’m sure he has many friends with open doors. It would be our pleasure to have him.” She glanced pointedly back up at Janie. “Our pleasure.”

  JANIE DECIDED TO PICK Tug up at his house on her way to Aunt Jude’s. If he came on his own, the whole family would watch her greet him, like scientists studying the introduction of a new specimen into the habitat. There was nothing to see, really, she told herself. Just two friends happy to see one another. Nothing so out of the ordinary. Still, why subject herself to more scrutiny than necessary?

  When she pulled into the gravel driveway, she saw that his house was a little smaller than hers, probably two bedrooms, she figured. It had an upscale log cabin feel to it, without the actual logs. The clapboards were cedar, and had apparently been applied with some protectant to retain their warm reddish-brown hue. In the center of the wall facing the street, there was a large cedar door with three bull’s-eye glass windows along the top.

  She could see part of the back of the house from the driveway. A deep porch ran across it with a spectacular view of Lake Pequot. The lot was modest, and there were houses within thirty feet on either side, as was common for lakeside cottages. But the windows on the sides of his house were small, some with rippled glass that would let light in but not the prying eyes of neighbors. All the sight lines led out to the lake. Tug’s renovation of his grandfather’s cottage had preserved privacy amidst the press of so many other houses. He got it right, she thought.

  Dylan wanted to be the one to ring the doorbell, so she let him jump out while she stayed in the car with Carly. His unzippered jacket flapped in the wind off the lake. When Tug opened the door, Dylan hugged him. Tug squeezed the boy and rubbed his hand over Dylan’s head. “Someone got a haircut,” she heard him tease.

  “Me! I did,” said Dylan. “It’s for Thanksgiving.”

  Tug went back in the house for a moment and returned with a bottle of wine and a covered dish. When he got into the passenger seat, he leaned over and gave Janie a quick kiss on the cheek. “Happy Thanksgiving,” he murmured, and turned immediately to set his items on the floor. She could smell the wool of his navy blue V-necked sweater.

  He fingered the tiny button on the collar of his shirt. “Should I be wearing a tie?”

  “No, you’re fine.” She twisted around toward the rear window as she backed out. “We’re business-casual for holi
days.”

  “You look very nice.”

  “Thanks.” She smiled self-consciously. It had taken her a good twenty minutes to choose the outfit: a pale blue silk blouse and a pewter-colored skirt scattered with tiny blue and black spirals, the diaphanous printed layer clinging to the satiny monotone slip. It was a distinct departure from the jeans and T-shirts she’d worn exclusively in the previous months. Not overly alluring—she’d been careful about that—but flattering to her figure, which had begun to remember the shape it had held before two pregnancies. It was at first infuriating, and then, finally, funny to her that she’d spent so much time on what to wear. Once the decision had been made, she’d hastily hung up the rejected outfit pieces, covering the tracks of her ridiculous indecision.

  “What’s in the dish?” she asked.

  He squinted and shook his head, “Ah, it’s probably terrible.”

  “What is it?”

  “Well, I tried to…you know…come up with something a little more interesting than a bottle of wine. I brought that, too, of course. But I figured your aunt probably had all the bases covered, so I tried to think of something that she wouldn’t maybe have.”

  “Tug,” she laughed, swinging onto the main road. “What’s in the dish!”

  “Indian Pudding. It’s a mess. I almost left it home.”

  “I’ve had that before, I think. With the cornmeal and the molasses, right?”

  “Yeah, I found the recipe online.” He shook his head. “I might leave it in the car.”

  Janie had to laugh. The thought of him, normally so competent and self-assured, leaning over a stove with a wooden spoon, squinting at a recipe, maybe with an apron on, trying so hard to please people he barely knew…and ending up with, as he put it, “a mess”…it just tickled her.

  He began to chuckle. “You should see my kitchen. Looks like somebody threw a grenade.”

  “Bring it in,” she cajoled. “Please? I want to see one thing you don’t do well.”

  He smiled at the compliment. “Maybe.”

  AUNT JUDE FLUTTERED AROUND them too much when they arrived. She welcomed Tug like he was a returning war veteran, and it got under Janie’s skin. She glanced at Cormac, who clasped his hands in front of his chest and made a simpering “My Hero” face behind Aunt Jude’s back. It had the desired effect of lowering the voltage of Janie’s irritation.

  “Hey, it’s my old furniture-moving pal,” Cormac said to Tug, shaking his hand. Cormac glanced over at his father and then turned back to Tug. “Speaking of which, can you hang around and help me put this room back together when dinner’s over?”

  “Sure.”

  “Good, because the old man isn’t really up to it anymore.” Cormac raised his voice just a little. “He’s gone a little soft, you know, now that he never lifts anything heavier than a pound cake.”

  “Shut your trap,” Uncle Charlie growled from across the table. “I’m in the best shape of my life.”

  “Okay, Toughie,” placated Cormac. “Remember your blood pressure.”

  “My blood pressure’s lower than yours, ya little snot.”

  “Come on,” Cormac said to Tug, “let’s get a beer. Budweiser, Pop?”

  “Get it from the back of the fridge. They’re colder.”

  WHEN THE TURKEY LAY carved in generous slabs on the worn patterns of Aunt Jude’s serving dishes, she began to hand bowls and platters to the adults to bring out to the table. “Careful, now,” she chattered at them, and “Don’t forget the serving spoon!”

  “Now let’s see, this would be, um…Tug?” she trilled. “Does your dish go with dinner or dessert?”

  “After dessert,” he said. “I’ll use it to seal up any cracks you might have in your driveway.”

  “Cracks?”

  “He’s kidding, Auntie,” said Janie. “It’s dessert.”

  Choosing seats became a barely polite fire drill, with Dylan insisting on sitting between Cormac and Tug, Barb offering with particular vehemence to have Carly by her, and Aunt Jude being none too discreet about seating Tug next to Janie. “I’ll sit in the damned kitchen!” Uncle Charlie muttered, impatient to land somewhere, anywhere, and get to his food.

  With an exhortation from Aunt Brigid that everything was getting cold, they took their seats. Aunt Jude said grace. “Bless us, O Lord, as we enjoy this feast of your gifts, and help us, dear Savior, to know your grace in all things, in sorrow and in joy.” Hands started to unclasp around the table, but Aunt Jude went on. “It’s been a difficult year, Lord. A member of our family has gone to his reward in heaven. He was a loving father, husband, and friend and we miss him so much.”

  “She’s talking about Dad,” Dylan whispered to Tug, who nodded.

  “But, as always, you have given us so many things to be thankful for. Our bodies are healthy and we have work and activities that we enjoy. Most importantly we have each other and we know how fortunate that makes us in a world where everyone seems so cut loose from each other. We have our dear Barb joining the family,” she gave a smile to Cormac’s betrothed, “and we have new friends that lighten our load and remind us of all that life has to offer.”

  Janie cringed at this obvious reference to Tug. He seemed so still next to her, not the barest twitch of a muscle in his hand as it held hers. In all of this getting-together-for-Thanksgiving business, she’d only been aware of her own hesitation. His utter stillness, a seemingly immutable intent not to be thrown by the insinuations of others, gave her an inkling of what it must be like for him, appearing new on such a scene as this.

  “We praise you, Lord, and offer our sincere thanks for all your blessings. Amen.”

  IT WAS ONLY WHEN she’d pulled away from the house with no one but Tug in the car that Janie realized she’d chosen her fury purposely. There was nothing to be angry about, really. Everyone had behaved themselves, if you ignored the TV-ad-worthy looks of rapture the aunts gave as they sank their spoons into Tug’s Indian Pudding. And Cormac had merely mentioned that if Tug stirred constantly over a low flame next time he wouldn’t get so many lumps. Tug nodded and said maybe he shouldn’t have been watching the Patriots game. He gave a hilarious impression of himself holding an imaginary spoon stock-still as he stared in disbelief at Tom Brady’s fourth-quarter game-loosing intercepted pass.

  “I saw that!” said Cormac. “Pop, did you see it? It was like something out of a Greek tragedy!”

  “Oh, I saw it alright,” said Uncle Charlie, shoveling up another wad of lumpy pudding. “The guy’s had too many damned actress girlfriends, is what I say. He’s distracted!”

  Everyone was laughing, but Janie was still stuck on how Tug should have worked harder to make the pudding smooth. Why did Cormac have to criticize? Did he think Tug was the kind of guy who hangs around cooking treats all day? No, he came up with this idea to try and please them…. She looked around the table. Everyone was laughing and eating Tug’s dessert like they’d had nothing but dry toast and thin soup all day. Maybe it wasn’t such an insult, after all.

  It was when the dishes were being washed, and last bits of meat were being extricated from the turkey, and the men were reassembling Aunt Jude’s living room that Janie slid into a slow boil. Dylan sat at the kitchen table licking the drips from the ice-cream scoop while they all worked. “I don’t want to go home,” he said. “I want to stay here. Please, Mom? Can’t me and Carly have a sleepover with Auntie Jude?”

  “Aren’t you tired, Dylan?” Janie stalled. Was there a reason for him not to stay? She couldn’t think of any, but there was some sort of weird alarm going off in the back of her brain nonetheless.

  “A little, but not that much. Please, Auntie Jude?”

  Aunt Jude was very happy to have them. A little too happy, Janie thought. But she had already agreed before she realized the repercussions. Her response was fury, as if the whole family had manipulated a five-year-old to send her off with Tug alone. She could barely contain herself as she kissed everyone good-bye and watched them shake
Tug’s hand and pat his shoulder and express their falling-down ecstasy at his having joined them.

  Out on Route 27, Tug inhaled and heaved a great sigh. The sound of his relief pulled her out of herself and away from stewing about the humiliation she’d suffered. Or might have suffered. Maybe. Anger is so easy, she realized. It’s being scared that’s hard. And if she were to heave her own great big sigh of relief, she knew it would be fear she exhaled, not rage.

  “That was great,” Tug said, glancing out at the houses they passed, some dark, some with their own holiday scenes appearing in the windows. “Your family’s really nice.”

  “I’m glad you had a good time. The pudding was a huge hit.”

  “Ah, they were just being polite.”

  “Uncle Charlie’s not polite, and he ate about a quart of it.”

  When they turned onto his street, Tug said, “Why don’t you come in and see the house? I’ll give you the nickel tour.”

  Janie didn’t answer right away. Her heart began to throb in her chest. My God, it’s just Tug! she told herself. You’ve been alone with him a hundred times! She pulled into the driveway and stared out at the lake. The moon lay behind a cluster of thin clouds, and threw a muted reflection onto the darkened waters. Tug didn’t get out of the car. He waited for her reply. “I don’t know,” she said finally.

  “Nothing’s going to happen,” he said.

  “I don’t know what to do.”

  “Janie,” he said gently. “Just come in the house.”