The Hungry Season

by Greenwood, T.

  “I’ll call you later,” she says.

  “Promise?” he says.

  She smiles and jumps up to kiss him on the nose. “Yep.”

  He watches the car disappear down the road and then he goes into the cabin and crawls into his bed. Within moments he is fast asleep.

  They don’t press charges against the girl. She’s clearly very ill. Deluded. She has no history of violence. Sam felt sorry for her. A tenderness even. It’s crazy, he knows. But there was something about her that pulled at his heart. That desperation, that wanting. For something so ridiculously simple. She just wanted to meet him, she said. She just wanted to be able to talk to him about his work. He saved her life, she said. His words saved her.

  The police called her mother, who explained her history and who would arrange for her to be flown home. There’s a restraining order protecting them, but they hardly need it. She’s in the hospital, in the psych ward, and besides, her ankle is smashed to smithereens.

  As they drive back from the police station at dawn, Mena leans into Sam’s shoulder. He kisses the top of her head. The scent of her hair makes his shoulders relax. He can feel her breath growing shallow, her body letting go. How many trips have they taken in this car? How many times have they sat this way: her head resting on his shoulder, the road unwinding in front of them? The kids in the backseat. The windows rolled down. How many miles have they gone?

  He is almost looking forward to the drive back to California. Maybe they can take a different route this time: go through Memphis. Maybe they could go even as far south as the Gulf Coast, let Finn use that damn surfboard he dragged all the way out here. Hell, if they have time, they could see the whole damn country.

  There’s a weird smell in the car. He can’t quite place it. He wonders if one of the windows was left down during the storm. He takes a deep breath. It’s a strong, wet smell.

  Mena lifts her head up and squints at the sun, which is bright through the windshield.

  “What’s that smell?” Sam asks.

  “Hmm?” Mena asks, her voice like a hum.

  “It smells bad,” he says. “Almost like a wet dog.”

  Mena jerks awake. “Oh, shit,” she says.

  “What’s the matter?” Sam asks.

  “It is dog. There’s a dead dog in the back of the car.”

  “What?” Sam says, peering into the rearview mirror. He can’t see anything except the muddy window behind him.

  “That stupid dog. The one that chases cars? The one that belongs to the cop?”

  “It’s in the back of our car?” Sam asks, incredulous.

  Mena covers her mouth with her hand and starts to laugh. “Oh, God, it’s not funny.” But she is laughing.

  And he is laughing too.

  “It really stinks,” Mena says, trying hard not to erupt into a fit of giggles.

  Sam pulls his T-shirt up over his nose and mouth and rolls down the window. Mena rolls hers down too.

  They both lean their heads toward the fresh air outside. And their laughter carries on the wind, winding through the trees, rising up into the blue, blue sky of this new morning.

  Mena peers out at the audience after the performance, locates Sam and Finn in the middle row. As she and Jake and Oscar all bow, the entire room erupts into applause. Jake squeezes her hand, and she smiles at him. Her chest swells with an old feeling. Pride. They did a terrific job. Lisa is in the wings, clapping her hands wildly.

  After the lights are on, and she’s changed out of May’s red dress in the makeshift dressing room, she goes out to find her family in the crowd of people lingering on. Sam is holding a bunch of black-eyed Susans. Her favorite.

  He hands them to her and leans into her, whispering, “You were amazing.”

  “Good job, Mom,” Finn says. He’s been extra good, extra nice, ever since she found out about the weed, but she senses he means it.

  Alice smiles at her and says, “That was awesome.”

  Effie and Devin are there too, but they have to get back to the sitter.

  “We’ll call you tomorrow,” Effie says, hugging her.

  Monty has come up from New York for opening night too, leaving his wife behind this time. He’s got a room at the motel in town. He kisses her cheek and says, “Wow, Mena. I had no idea you were so good. Maybe you and Sammy should move to New York so you can get back into acting.”

  “No thank you,” Mena says. “I’m ready to go home.”

  And she is. So ready. She is actually thinking she might try to do some more acting when she gets there. She’s got some friends who run a small theater downtown. Maybe she’ll audition for one of their shows. Maybe just a small part.

  They turned down the offer on their house. Told Hilary they had no intention of getting rid of the bungalow. Sam said he must have been crazy to even consider it. Already Mena is fantasizing about what she’ll be able to cook once she has her own stove back, her own copper pots and pans. Fresh produce from the Farmers’ Market on Newport Avenue on Wednesdays. The Greek market. An oven that actually heats up to the correct temperature.

  “Are you coming to the cast party?” Oscar asks. His wife is with him, and she is clinging to his arm. Her hair is like a puff of pale yellow cotton candy.

  “No,” Mena says. “I’m exhausted. Maybe on closing night. But tonight I just want to get home. Have a glass of champagne for me.”

  “Is it still okay if I go hang out at Alice’s for a bit tonight?” Finn asks as they make their way out of the Town Hall.

  “Fine,” Sam says. “Be back by midnight though, okay?”

  “One?”

  “Okay, one.”

  Finn nods and holds his fingers up. “Scout’s honor.”

  “That doesn’t mean anything if you were never a Boy Scout,” Sam says.

  “What time is it now?” Finn asks.

  Mena glances at her watch. “It’s only nine-hirty. You’ve got some time.”

  They drop off Finn at Alice’s house. Mena is glad her mother is home tonight. “One o’clock,” she warns. “That means you’re home by one, not leaving at one.”

  Sam had sat her down and explained the whole horticultural experiment of Finn’s. She was livid at first, but she also thought about the mistakes she’d made. Or almost made. She was tired of pointing fingers. She was just tired of being angry. She also had a feeling she didn’t need to worry about him so much anymore.

  She is worried, however, about what will happen when they have to leave Alice behind next week. This is the first time in so long that she’s seen Finn happy. He’s head over heels for this girl. He’s already asked if they can come back to the lake next summer. He’s trying to figure out how Alice can come see him at Christmas.

  When they pull up to their cabin, Sam lets the engine idle and turns to her. “I’m proud of you,” he says. “I’d forgotten what it’s like to watch you on the stage.”

  Mena brushes the air in front of her face. “Shush.”

  “You’re so beautiful,” he says.

  She’s about to swat this compliment away too, but he grabs her hand before she can. And he kisses her. She stops breathing as their lips touch. This moment is like a million other moments, but completely different. Familiar and entirely strange at the same time.

  And then he is helping her out of the car, unlocking the cabin door and guiding her inside.

  Inside, he takes the bouquet of flowers from her hands and sets them on the counter. And he pulls her close to him, pressing his whole body into hers, his arms wrapped around her, clinging to her. And then he is kissing her neck, moving his hands along her body’s lines, unbuttoning her blouse, his fingers remembering these buttons, nimble and quick. Intent. Her whole body shivers.

  He slips the blouse over her head, dropping it to the floor, and presses his head against her chest, listens to her heart, to its frenetic flip-flop. And then he releases the clasp on her bra and she feels the air on her skin, feels his breath on her skin.

  “Samm
y,” she says, and it comes out like a breathy moan.

  He shakes his head.

  They are alone. And he wants her, wants her.

  She pulls his sweater over his head, tears at his buttons, can’t get to his skin fast enough. Their clothes fall to the floor. They walk, move, naked together toward the table.

  “Wait,” she said. “This probably isn’t smart.”

  “What?” he says, breathless.

  “This table,” she says. “It won’t hold us.”

  He laughs and he lifts her up, cradling her bottom with both hands, her legs wrapped around him as he carries her to the living room. They don’t make it to the bedroom. He backs her up to the blue piano, and when her butt comes down on the keys, the noise makes her laugh. He lifts her back up, pulls her toward him with one hand and lowers the lid with his free hand, and then her back is against the piano.

  She reaches around him, grabs the strong muscles of his rear end and pulls him toward her. The hard certainty of him startles her.

  She opens her eyes and looks into his as if to ask, “You sure?”

  It’s been so long, it actually hurts. Her eyes sting and she holds on to him, digs into his back as if he were a ball of clay instead of a man.

  He whispers into her neck, all those old words. All the best words.

  I love you, I loveyou, iloveyou until it is only one word. Until it is the same as breathing.

  Before dawn, Sam leaves Mena in the bed sleeping, naked and beautiful under the covers. He climbs quietly up the ladder into the loft and opens the laptop.And the words are suddenly there again. At his fingertips, spilling, filling the pages. He writes for hours, until his wrists ache with the effort.

  When someone has suffered from starvation, bringing them back to health is not as simple as giving them a plate full of food, a fork, a knife. Rehabilitation must come slowly, carefully, so as not to shock the body. Refeeding is an art, the delicate balance of what a body wants and what a body can stand.

  Sam closes his eyes, watches as Billy stands in line outside Shevlin Hall. He feels the way his tongue runs over his lips at the smell of bacon that emanates through the closed doors. It is summer, and the sun is warm. He is not the same man who came to this campus last November. He is a shadow of that man, a husk. But he is alive. Still, remarkably, and though he knows that the smells are likely deceiving, that they won’t, can’t, simply allow the volunteers to gorge themselves, he savors the remembrance of other breakfasts. He closes his eyes, feels the warm sun on his eyelids, and dreams the smell of bacon, the sweet acidity of juice, the buttery warmth of fresh biscuits.

  Downstairs, Mena is making breakfast. He can hear the shuffle of her feet, the soft hum as she cracks eggs into a bowl, whisks them with sweet buttermilk and cinnamon. As she cooks, he writes, and he watches his fingers in amazement as they tap, tap, tap at the keys.

  Finally, Mena calls up to him, “Breakfast!” And he is so hungry.

  By the time Finn got home from Alice’s house that night, everyone was asleep. His parents hadn’t bothered to wait up for him like he expected. No one was there yelling at him about being ten minutes late. He’d even let the door slam shut, waiting for the light to come on. But nothing. He’d crawled into bed and fallen asleep smiling.

  Now he wakes up to the sounds of the percolator, the smells of coffee and bacon. To the shuffle, shuffle of his dad’s slippers and their hushed voices, quiet so as not to wake him.

  When he goes into the kitchen, his mom and dad are already sitting at the table, eating. His mother’s face is flushed pink, her hair messy. His father squeezes his mom’s hand and they say, together, “Morning.”

  He plops himself down in a chair and his mother says, “Want some coffee, Finn?”

  They never let him drink coffee.

  He nods and she gets up, pouring the hot liquid into a chipped mug. “Sugar?” she asks.

  He shakes his head and takes a long sip from his cup. The coffee is hot and bitter, and it warms him up from the inside out. And suddenly, he is overwhelmed by everything. By the fractured recollections of that crazy night, by thoughts of Alice, by the sheer stupid nostalgia he’s starting to feel about this cabin. But most of all by the fact that this is all he wanted. Really. That simple gesture of pouring him a cup of coffee nearly brings tears to his eyes. All this time, he’d just wanted them both to somehow accept that he isn’t the same person anymore. That he isn’t their baby. He isn’t a kid. He isn’t carefree or careless anymore. He isn’t Finny; he isn’t half of a whole. He is just Finn. Almost seventeen years old. More man than boy. Part of this family, but also almost grown.

  He holds out his empty cup to his mom, and she fills it again.

  “Let’s go out to the island this afternoon,” his father says to them both. “Just the three of us. Have a picnic. Take a dip.”

  Finn says, “Yeah. Let’s do that. It’s going to be like eighty degrees today.”

  After breakfast, Finn goes to his room and grabs the surfboard, angling it out of the narrow doorway, through the house, and outside. At the water’s edge, he strips down to his boxers and steps into the water. And then he is gliding, paddling out across the still water on his board. The air is getting warmer, but the water is still chilly. It is like skimming across glass. He is the only interruption in all this stillness.

  When he gets to the center of the lake, he stops paddling and climbs onto his board, straddling it, holding on tight.There are two loons swimming near him. They aren’t even afraid of humans, it seems. He wonders what happened to the baby. It’s almost the end of summer; he guesses it must be all grown up.

  Back at the house, his mom has already started packing. She’s ready to go home, she says. Ready. He wonders what it’s going to be like to go back to California. But as much as he misses it, part of him wishes they could just stay here. That he could just be here, with Alice, forever. His father has promised that they will come again next summer. And he’s got some money saved; maybe he can fly her out to see him during winter break. He tries not to consider the distance between them as he dips his hands into the cool water.

  “Tell me a joke,” he says to Franny. “Make me laugh.”

  The ocean is calm today, no swells in sight.

  “Knock, knock,” she says.

  “Who’s there?”

  “Finn.”

  “Finn who?” he asks. She is next to him on her board, her hair wet, her eyes sparkling in the light.

  “Finn-ish up already and open the door!” she says, throwing her head back, laughing. “Get it?!”

  “Ha, ha,” he says, rolling his eyes.

  They both look behind them toward the endless expanse of water, but the sea is still. No waves. Just calm, calm water.

  He lies back down on the board, puts his hands in the water, and starts to paddle back to shore.

  NOW.

  Here they are now:

  Late summer evening: Mena and Alice are in the kitchen of their cottage. Mena is showing Alice how to make bread. Sam watches them through the window from his Adirondack chair in the yard. They are laughing, their voices soft behind the glass. Mena catches him watching her and cocks her head. Smiles shyly. He almost turns away, wondering how long he’s been staring, but instead nods back at her, grins.

  The air smells like autumn, the smoky musky scent of fall. Already, the air has gotten colder. Today when he and Mena went for a walk around the lake, he saw the first maple yielding to the approaching season: red leaves like a crimson splatter among all that green.

  Effie and Devin arrive with Zu-Zu, who runs up to Sam with a plastic container full of cookies. “Tookies,” she says to him, thrusting the container into his hands.

  “Are these for me?” he asks.

  She nods her head and squeals, delighted. He takes the cookies from her, and she climbs up into his lap. He opens the container and offers one to her, takes one himself. She leans back against his chest, makes herself at home, and looks out at the water with
him, nibbling.

  “Don’t let her have any more before dinner,” Effie says to Sam. “No more,” she coos to Zu-Zu. “Sam, we brought wine too. Is Mena inside?”

  “She’s in there with Alice,” he says, and Effie and Devin disappear into the house.

  “Finn?” Zu-Zu asks.

  “He’s just down there,” Sam says, pointing to the shore.

  Finn is down at the water’s edge, ankle deep in the lake, his naked chest glowing in the half-light. He skips stones across the water, one after the other. He’s gotten so tall this summer; he’s taller than Sam now. His shoulders have broadened. His hair has grown. His arm is strong, and the stones skim the surface, weightless.

  Sam is thinking, of course, about the words that might capture this: the feeling of one child breathing against his chest, while another disappears into the shadows. For the eager moonlight that appears before the sun has even fully set. For summer’s quiet acquiescence to fall. For that place between today and tomorrow.The words escape him for now, elusive, but it doesn’t matter. Zu-Zu breathes against him. His son walks in and out of light. Summer comes to an end. Tomorrow they go home.

  Time to eat, Mena says.

  They all sit at the picnic table. Mena lights candles. In the flickering light, Sam watches her. Wants her. He remembers the way her skin felt against his. The warmth of her stomach, her hands, the heat of her breasts.

  He pours wine into glasses. Effie lowers Zu-Zu into Devin’s lap. Alice and Finn lean into one another. Mena sits down, sighing, smiling. And they eat.

  Their voices, tinkling like glass, echo off the still water. It is the end of the summer, dusk, and the lake is theirs. Twilight, and everything is possible.

  After dinner, the wine is gone. Finn and Alice disappear into the shadows together. Devin and Effie take Zu-Zu home. They clear the table, and Sam pulls Mena by the hand to the chairs that face the water. He sits down, and she curls up on his lap. It is chilly now that the sun has set. He wraps his arms around her.