by Ann Tatlock
I leaned my elbows on the windowsill, listening. I could almost hear the rush of the Little Miami. The trees were choir lofts of birdsong. And down below, somewhere toward the back of the lodge, came the sound of gravel crunching as someone walked the unpaved drive leading to the road. I pressed my nose to the screen and waited to see who it was. Probably Morris Tweed on an early morning errand to who-knew-where.
When at length the figure came into view, I saw it wasn’t Morris but someone else. I couldn’t see the face, but I knew the hat. The safari hat that Jones wore out in the sun. He had his hands stuffed deep in his pants pockets, and his shoulders were drooped as he walked. He was headed in the direction of town. I’d never known Jones to go into town, or even to leave the grounds of the lodge at all, except when he was out on the river.
I wondered what his destination was at this early hour.
I watched him, small and lonely, until he’d crossed the road and disappeared from sight.
Mother sang hymns of joy in the bath that morning. I heard her as I stood at the dresser braiding my hair. Cassandra and her family would arrive by nightfall. I didn’t consider that anything to sing about, especially since their coming signaled my leaving. My eyes were still red and puffy from a night of crying, though I’d washed my face twice in cold water and soothed it with lotion warmed between my palms.
I dragged myself downstairs to breakfast. Mother’s excitement was salt on a wound, and I was glad to finish eating and go to the kitchen to help Annie. Uncle Luther had sent Earl and Jason to cover at the Eatery while Uncle Cy was away, which freed me up to do other things. Working with Annie was what I preferred over all the other tasks I did at the lodge.
All morning I was drawn to the window that looked out over the side yard and the wall. In between cooking and cleaning and washing dishes, I stood there wondering whether Link might come for lunch with some of the other men of the camp.
I wondered too how anyone could want and not want something so desperately at the same time.
No matter what I wanted, he didn’t show. The day hobbled along on wounded feet. At dusk a car pulled up to the lodge with Minnesota plates. Cassandra and her family had arrived.
Mother and Daddy rushed out to meet them while I trailed behind. I walked solemnly across the graveled lot toward the laughter, the hugging and handshaking, the cries of “Grammy! Grandpa!” from my nieces.
When Effie and Grace saw me, they squealed loudly, “Aunt Eve!” They ran to me and I kneeled down on the hard gravel and took them both in my arms. They were hot and sweaty and sticky and oh-so-sweet as first one then the other pressed her cheek to mine and filled the air with kisses. Only then did I realize how much I’d missed them.
Grace clung to my neck until Warren came and gently pried her away. “You have all week to be with Aunt Eve, so give her room to breathe,” he said with a laugh. “Hello, Eve, by the way. It’s good to see you.”
I rose from my kneeling position and stretched my legs. “Hello, Warren. Have a good trip?”
“Tolerable,” he answered. “I suspect it’ll be an early night for all of us. It’s a long way from Minnesota.”
I nodded. Out of the corner of my eye I could see my sister reaching in through the open car window to retrieve her pocketbook. At the same time she was talking animatedly with Mother.
“Your room’s all ready for you,” I assured him. “Soon as you have some supper, you can fall right into bed.”
“Lovely place here,” he said, looking around. “Should be quite a nice week.”
“Yeah.” I nodded again, even as I imagined the tunnel that ran under our feet to the gas station across the road. “No better place to take a vacation.”
I hardly realized I was looking at the station until Warren followed my gaze. “Well, that’s convenient,” he said. “A place to gas up and get the car washed. It’s filthy after the drive down. I assume you know the fellow who owns the station.”
“Oh sure,” I said. “Calvin Fludd. Go on over tomorrow and he’ll get you all fixed up.”
“All right. Looks like Drew’s ready to haul in the luggage. Guess I’ll go help him.”
The girls were gathering pebbles at my feet. As Warren went to help Daddy with the suitcases, Cassandra and Mother left the car and casually moved toward me. I told myself to smile.
While they were yet several steps away, Cassandra raised her arms. “Eve!” she said. “I’ve missed you something awful!”
In the next moment, I was being squeezed in her embrace. I tried to breathe. When she let go, I scrambled to remember how to speak.
“I-I’ve missed you too,” I stuttered.
She wrapped her arm through mine, locking elbows. “We have so much catching up to do,” she said as she pulled me toward the lodge. “Even a week is hardly going to be enough time. Oh, isn’t it wonderful to be here! I want you to tell me everything about your summer. . . .”
As we strolled arm in arm, Cassandra chattered like a magpie. At one point, I stole a glance over my shoulder at Mother. Her expression was one of quiet victory, as if the day she had long been waiting for had finally arrived.
Chapter 31
For two days I went along with it all. In this dizzying game of make-believe, the lodge was simply a lodge, Uncle Cy stored only canned goods in the cellar, the train from Cincinnati carried no surprises, the gas station sold only gas, and the car wash was clean as a whistle. Any trouble in Mercy, Ohio, was caused solely by wayward chickens and gophers that carried the remains of our ancestors through the streets of the town. Other than that, all was right with our world.
Neither did I have a broken heart, as no one—not Mother, not Daddy, not even Annie—knew about what had happened between me and Link.
For those first two days, while we waited for poor Uncle Cy to bring his dead wife home, we were a family enjoying a holiday. We cooled ourselves in the river. We picnicked on the island with Uncle Luther and the cousins. We played croquet with Cassandra’s girls, took them rowing in the boats and drove to the ice cream parlor in town to indulge in hot fudge sundaes.
At night, after the girls were asleep, Cassandra hurried across the hall to my room and, sitting cross-legged on the bed, acted as though we were boarding-school roommates chatting about our lives. She untangled my long braid and brushed out my hair. She suggested I might want to cut it on my eighteenth birthday, as a bob with a permanent wave would make me look more grown-up. She asked if she could paint my face with rouge and lipstick, and so I let her. She turned her head this way and that and stuck out a pouty lower lip as she studied her artwork.
“You’ve become quite pretty, you know, Eve,” she said admiringly.
“I have?” I held the hand mirror in front of my face and thought how strange I looked with the added color.
“Of course, silly,” she said with a wave of her hand. “Don’t you know that?”
When she idly asked me about going to school at Mercy High, I told her I was enrolled—which I was—and I pretended as though I would be starting there in just another month. We talked about the lodge as though it was my home. We talked about the town as though I belonged there. We talked about my future in Mercy as though I had one.
At times it was a pleasant place to be, this nest of lies. For certain stretches—sometimes minutes, often hours—I could pretend it was all real. Other times, I was amazed at how different the truth of our existence was from the staged scenery we wandered through. I was always mindful that Uncle Cy wasn’t the only lawbreaker in the family: Daddy and I were too. Simply because we knew. Jones Five and Ten hung heavy over my head.
Finally, on Monday night, a break in the charade came when Daddy called us all to the dining room after Effie and Grace had been put to bed. The kitchen was closed till morning and the lighting in the dining room was dimmed, though the tireless ceiling fans whirled faithfully overhead. The numerous windows were thrown open against the heat, and all the night sounds drifted in—the chorus of crickets an
d tree frogs, the creaking of rocking chairs, and the soft murmur of voices as guests settled on the porch to enjoy the evening.
We gathered over glasses of iced tea, and from where I sat I could see Thomas leaning idly on the front desk, waiting for the phone to ring or for a guest to stop by with some request or other. The tables around us were empty, but Daddy spoke in low tones anyway, as though he feared being overheard.
“I’ve got something I’d like to talk with all of you about,” he began. He had both hands wrapped around his sweaty glass of tea.
“What is it, Daddy?” Cassandra asked. “Is something wrong?”
Daddy shook his head. “No, nothing’s wrong. I’ve just been thinking, is all.”
“About what?” Mother asked. She cast Daddy a worried glance.
Daddy sniffed and cleared his throat. My heart thumped in my chest. I knew what was coming. After what seemed an interminable amount of time, Daddy said, “I believe we made a mistake, coming here.”
“What?” Mother cried. “A mistake? What do you mean, Drew?”
She looked at me. I looked away, down at the table.
Daddy said, “You know I’ve never belonged here, Rose. That’s why I left all those years ago. When Cy invited us down, I felt compelled to give this place another chance, especially since I needed a job, but I’ve decided coming here was wrong. We don’t belong in Ohio. We belong in St. Paul. That’s our home and I think we ought to go back.”
“But, Daddy,” Cassandra exclaimed, “where will you live? What will you do?”
“I haven’t quite figured all that out yet, darling,” Daddy confessed. “I was hoping maybe you and Warren might have some ideas, since you’re still there.”
Warren fidgeted in his chair, took a long sip of iced tea. Then he said, “Well, Drew, we have an extra room at our place. You all could stay with us for a time, till you get yourselves settled.”
Cassandra’s jaw dropped and her eyes widened a notch, but she said nothing.
“That’d be more than kind of you, Warren—”
“But, Drew,” Mother interrupted, “I’m not sure we should impose.”
“Oh, no imposition, Rose,” Warren rushed to assure her. “After all, you’re family. We maybe should have made the offer before you came all the way down here, but we thought your minds were made up.”
Daddy nodded. “My mind was made up, but now I’ve changed it.”
“But that’s what I don’t understand, Drew,” Mother said. “What changed it? I know we were both hesitant at first, but everything seemed to be going along so well for us here.”
“Rose, there are some things I don’t expect you to understand. One of them is how a man feels about being the man of the house and providing for his family. I want to make us independent again. Sure, we’ll be beholden to Warren and Cassandra for a time, but eventually we’ll have our own place again. I promise you that.”
A leaden silence followed Daddy’s announcement. While I waited for someone to speak, I happened to look at Thomas, who was looking at us. Though he couldn’t possibly hear what we were saying, I had the feeling he knew exactly what we were discussing. He impatiently tapped at the front desk with the eraser end of a pencil, as though he wanted us to hurry up and come to a consensus about leaving. I was sure he was beating out the minutes until he could be rid of us.
Mother broke the silence. “Well, I don’t know, Drew,” she said. “I mean, you’ve caught me off guard. I had no idea you were thinking about going back to St. Paul. I don’t know if we should. I don’t know if it’s right for Eve. I simply don’t know. . . .” Her words trailed off.
Warren said, “Listen, Drew, I’ll ask my father if there’s anything you can do at the company. I should think there must be something.”
“I’d be grateful to you, Warren. I’ll do anything, anything at all, so long as I can win my independence back.”
Warren nodded. “I’ll telephone Dad tonight. We’ll get this thing settled as soon as we can.”
Cassandra flopped back in her chair, limp as a rag doll. “Well, I just can’t believe it,” she said. “You’re all settled in here. You’ve got jobs here. Now you want to uproot yourselves again and go back up to where you have nothing?”
“We’ve got plenty there, darling,” Daddy said. “We’ve got you and the kids, for one thing. We stay down here, we won’t get to see our grandkids grow up.”
“Yeah, but St. Paul? What’s St. Paul compared to this place? I mean, the island is such a great place to live.”
“It’s a nice place to visit,” Daddy said. “But like I say, St. Paul is our home. That’s where we belong.”
Mother put a hand on Cassandra’s shoulder. “Listen, honey, I can understand if you don’t want us staying with you. Maybe we can—”
“No, no, no, Mother. It isn’t that. It’s just . . .” She sighed and looked around the table. She offered us all a tentative smile. “I guess I’m just surprised, is all.”
Mother frowned at Daddy. “So am I. Why didn’t you talk to me about this before, Drew?”
“Honey, I don’t know. I guess it’s really only been in the last few days that I’ve known what I want to do. It kind of hit me all of a sudden that leaving—going back home—is what’s best for the family.”
Mother opened her mouth, but before she could speak Warren jumped to Daddy’s defense. “I understand how you feel, Drew.” He patted Cassandra’s hand as he added, “It’s just something you ladies can’t appreciate, this burden of trying to do what’s best for the family.”
I couldn’t help it. I snorted out a chuckle at that, knowing full well the weight of Daddy’s burden. Just as quickly I tried to look somber, as though contemplating our move.
Still, Mother turned stern eyes in my direction. “What’s so funny, Eve?” she asked.
I feigned innocence. “Nothing’s funny.”
“I thought you laughed.”
“Me? No, just clearing my throat.”
“Well, what do you have to say about leaving here?”
I sat up primly. “I’m willing to do whatever Daddy thinks is best.”
“It’s settled then,” Daddy said, with a look around the table. “We’re going home. We’ll leave when Cassandra and Warren leave—”
“But, Daddy, we’re leaving next Saturday!”
“That’s right, Cassandra, and we’ll be ready to go by then. It’s not as though we have a whole houseful of possessions to pack up. We can caravan to Minnesota and keep an eye on each other while we’re on the road.”
“I agree,” Warren said. “Best if we all plan on going back together.”
God bless Warren for being so agreeable. He made it easy for us to escape.
I felt a little lighter when I went to bed that night. One lie had been mercifully removed. No longer would I have to pretend we were going to go on living in Ohio. All I would have to pretend now—and for the rest of my life—was that, other than Daddy’s fickleness, I had no idea why we would ever want to leave such a beautiful place as Marryat Island.
Chapter 32
Warren and Daddy swam with the girls while Cassandra and I sat in beach chairs set back from the river’s edge. Between us, on a small wicker table, were two tall glasses of lemonade, the ice long gone. The August sun was a scorcher, its heat tempered only by an occasional cloud or, even rarer, a reluctant momentary breeze.
Cassandra read a True Detective magazine while fanning herself with the August issue of Ladies’ Home Journal. She wore a modest navy blue swimsuit, as modest as my own, but she didn’t hesitate to stretch her long sleek legs out in front of her, her painted toes digging in the pebbly beach. Her floppy sun hat hid her face from my view.
I closed Agatha Christie’s The Man in the Brown Suit and pushed my sun hat high on my forehead. The island was alive with laughter; it was a living, swarming throng of swimmers, boaters, sunbathers, picnickers. Sitting in the midst of it, I felt my rib cage swell with something bittersweet. I loved th
is place for its visible snapshot of fun and pleasure and rest; at the same time I hated it for the corruption festering beneath the surface. In a few days, when I left Marryat Island behind, I would take away joyous remembrances, and I would be haunted by terrible memories.
And long after we left this place I would think of Link, and wonder.
“Say, Eve?”
Cassandra turned to me. She’d let True Detective fall to her lap, though she went on fanning herself with the Journal.
“Yeah?”
“Mother told me this morning about your boyfriend, and I wanted you to know . . . well, I’m sorry. I know how much it hurts.”
I squinted out over the water, trying to imagine how Mother had learned about Link. “My boyfriend?” I asked.
“Yes. Maybe I shouldn’t have said anything, but . . . oh, I hope you don’t mind Mother telling me about Marcus.”
I laughed lightly. “Oh, him.”
“Oh him?” She sniffed. “Well, I can’t say you sound very brokenhearted to me.”
I shrugged. “I can do better than Marcus.”
“Of course you can,” she said brightly. “And you have plenty of time to find just the right one. And common sense too. Between the two of us, you were always the one with common sense.”
I frowned at her, but she had turned away to look out over the water. “Just look at that Gracie, will you?” she said, sitting up and resting her elbows on her knees.
For a moment we watched the child as she tried to swim, her long skinny arms turning like windmills, her tiny feet splashing up a squall in the otherwise placid water. She threw her wet curls back and laughed openly at the sky. It was a song of unspoiled joy.
“She’s really growing up fast,” I said. “Effie too.”
“I can hardly believe they aren’t little babies anymore. Seems like just yesterday they couldn’t even crawl, much less swim.”
