The Last of the Stanfields

by Levy, Marc

  It was George-Harrison, grouchy as ever. He rolled down the window.

  “Run inside. I’ll wait while you get your stuff. Just hurry up.”

  “Just hurry up, please!” I corrected him.

  “Fine: hurry up! Right now, please!”

  I was in such a crazy rush that I tossed everything pell-mell into my bag—jumpers, trousers, underwear, back-up shoes, MacBook with charger, toiletry bag, and my tiny travel makeup kit. I paid for the room just as quickly. When I made it back outside, George-Harrison was still there waiting. He grabbed my bag and threw it into the back of the truck.

  “So? Where to?” I asked.

  “Back where it all started, at least for me. Something we would have tried from the start, had I been more persistent.”

  “What does that mean?”

  “It means we’re going to my mother’s nursing home. She does have little windows of lucidity—always brief, and extremely rare. But hey, you’ve had some wild luck so far. Maybe some of it can rub off on me. I don’t expect you to come along. If you don’t, I’ll totally understand. Especially considering everything I said earlier.”

  “So . . . that whole diatribe was just your way of telling me you want to introduce me to your mum?” I sighed. “All you had to do was ask. Getting to meet my mother’s long-lost love? I wouldn’t miss it for the world!”

  George-Harrison gaped back at me, trying to figure out if I was messing with him. I responded with a look that said pretty clearly, Yes, you dummy.

  “Well, we’ve got a solid ten-hour drive ahead of us, so you’d better make yourself comfortable,” he grumbled. “Or rather, try to make yourself comfortable. Lord knows, in this pickup, it ain’t easy.”

  We left Maryland and crossed through New Jersey. As we passed the outer limits of New York, the Manhattan skyline came into view in the distance. I couldn’t help but think that one of those buildings had an apartment with a view of Central Park, where my grandparents, two strangers I would never know, once lived.

  The whirlwind of the city soon gave way to the forests of Connecticut. The branches of the white oak trees were already bare, but it didn’t make the landscape any less stunning. After merging onto a new expressway at Westport, we stopped at a little place for lunch right on the banks of the Saugatuck, where the river rises at high tide with water from the ocean. The geese meandering by the gentle banks of the river had already flown away by the time we finished our meal. Their squadron formed a large V in the sky, pointing south.

  “Those guys come from back near where I live,” George-Harrison remarked. “Good old Canada geese. When I was a kid, my mother told me that when the geese leave, snow falls from their feathers . . . then they splash into the waters of the southern hemisphere and turn it blue, swallowing liters of it and coming back our way to paint everything in spring colors. It wasn’t total make-believe; every year when they take off, you know winter is on its way, and then they come back and bring the nice weather with them.”

  I looked to the sky at the geese shrinking smaller and smaller in the distance, until they were little more than tiny specks that soon disappeared altogether. I wanted to fly away with them and touch the soft sand on a southern beach, where I could turn off my racing thoughts and bask in the warm glow of the sun.

  After filling up somewhere in Massachusetts, George-Harrison asked if I would take a turn behind the wheel.

  “Do you know how to drive?”

  “Yes. Mind you, back home we drive on the left.”

  “Well, on the highway it shouldn’t make that big of a difference. I’ve got to take a short break or I’ll fall asleep. It’d be a lot safer if we took turns. We’ve still got a ways to go, after all. We’re only halfway.”

  It wasn’t until we crossed over into Vermont that he finally drifted off to sleep. I glanced over at him from time to time as he slept, still keeping an eye on the road. He looked so peaceful. It made me wonder how he managed to stay calm the way he did. That kind of stillness had always eluded me; I needed to be in motion nonstop. I had such a hard time with silence that I sometimes found myself talking just to fill the space. And yet, I no longer felt that need when I was with George-Harrison. It was as if his calm was rubbing off on me. His mere presence made me want to embrace the silence head-on.

  We passed by a town called Glover, and I felt a small pang of sadness at the sight. An English art dealer so humble he wanted his name to disappear with him? Imagine how he would have reacted, seeing a whole town bearing his name!

  I found that I quite enjoyed driving the pickup. The steering was tough to handle, but the low hum and purr of the engine made me feel like I was in control. And—unlike Dad’s Austin, which nearly scraped the tarmac—the truck was high up off the ground. I checked my reflection in the rearview mirror, smiling at myself like an idiot in the silent car. At least, for once, I didn’t look all that bad. Maybe life was nice up in the True North. Vast lakes, endless forests, open spaces, wild animals—somehow, everything seemed so wholesome up here. Once more, I could hear Maggie’s voice telling me that I watched too much TV.

  The last remnants of daylight burst out over a mackerel sky. Night was on its way, the treetops darkening as we climbed further north. I opened the window and filled my lungs with air so pure and fresh it was intoxicating. As I fumbled to turn on the headlights, George-Harrison reached out and hit the switch on the dashboard without even opening his eyes.

  “You’re not too tired?” he asked, groaning as he woke up.

  “I think I could go all night. I’m really enjoying myself.”

  “Luckily, we don’t have that far to go. Won’t be long before the Canadian border. We can cross over just after Stanstead. At this time of night, there shouldn’t be much of a wait. Once we’re in Canada, we have less than an hour to go.”

  The officers at the border checked our passports. We had nothing to declare at customs, and my backpack interested them even less than George-Harrison’s little suitcase. Two passport stamps later, we had crossed over into Quebec. George-Harrison directed me onward, glancing quickly at the clock on the dashboard.

  “Still time to stop over at the dep,” he said.

  “Depp . . . as in Johnny?” I asked.

  “You wish!” he laughed. “Dep as in dépanneur. It’s what we call convenience stores around here. I don’t have a thing in the fridge at home, and they’re open late.”

  “I thought we were going to see your mother.”

  “We’ll have to head over there tomorrow. It’s too late tonight, so let’s make a pit stop at my place, there’s plenty of room. I’ve had my fill of hotels.”

  “Didn’t you say something about your bedroom being tiny?”

  “And my studio too big, right you are . . . but I can take a hint. I made sure to tweak the space a little after Melanie left. And don’t worry—even if I am a bear, it’s not like I’m going to drag you off to some cave out in the middle of the woods.”

  “I wasn’t worried!”

  “Well, maybe a little,” George-Harrison said with a playful grin.

  We made a stop at his dépanneur, which was little more than a block of concrete next to a lamppost, with all the charm of a cemetery. George-Harrison seemed like a regular, judging by the firm handshake the guy gave him on the way in and the help we got with our groceries on the way out. I was ravenously hungry, and grabbed items off the shelves without restraint as I walked the narrow aisles. George-Harrison watched all the while, giving me a little side smile that made it clear what was on his mind.

  We drove farther into the pitch-black night, until George-Harrison pointed me down a small dirt road. I couldn’t see a cave, but we were definitely heading out to the middle of the woods. Soon we arrived at a clearing at the end of the road, where I could make out George-Harrison’s studio in the moonlight. It was nothing like I had imagined. His ex-girlfriend’s claim that it was “too big” was a gross understatement—it was massive! More of a hangar than a studio, it had a
surface punctuated by large windows with metal frames, with a high sloping roof hanging over the sides. George-Harrison grabbed a sleek little garage-door opener out of the glove box. With the push of a button, the entire structure lit up and the garage door opened in front of us.

  “Pretty modern, huh?” he said. I pulled into the garage, and the surprises just kept on coming. I realized that George-Harrison’s entire home was actually within the hangar itself. The elegant chalet stood on stilts, with the wooden facade painted a pretty shade of blue. It had a charming deck with a thick railing wrapped all around it, beyond which I could see a table and chairs.

  “My bedroom used to be up on the second level of the studio. When she left, I took it apart and built this house in its place.”

  “Right. That’s what you mean by ‘tweaked the space a little’? At least now I know you’re not the type to exaggerate.”

  “I may have gone a bit overboard. Knowing she was gone for good made me want to keep building the space up more and more every summer, and I guess I never really stopped.”

  “What was that, revenge?”

  “Something like that. It’s pretty damn stupid considering she’ll never even see it.”

  “Well, you definitely didn’t improve your chances by building it inside the hangar. You could at least send her a picture, you know. If I were you, I’m not sure I’d be able to resist.”

  “Seriously?”

  “We can even do better than that. How about a selfie with me in it? That’d show her.” That made George-Harrison burst out laughing. “It is kind of weird, though,” I admitted, glancing about.

  “What’s weird?”

  “Most houses are built outside.”

  “This way, in winter I don’t have to shovel snow just to get out my front door.”

  “And what about taking your dog for a walk?”

  “I don’t have a dog.”

  “Oh, come on, admit it. It’s like paradise for a recluse!”

  “Or paradise, period. You don’t think it’s nice?”

  “Nice? The fact that you’re a nutcase?”

  “The house! You don’t think the house is nice?”

  “I do. I also think it’s nice that you’re a nutcase.”

  George-Harrison took my bag and ducked into the chalet. When he returned, he set the table for us out on the front porch. We wouldn’t be dining under the stars, but the weather—if you could call it that, since we were inside—was nice enough. The scent of wood wafted through the entire studio, only adding to the feeling that we were out in the middle of nowhere. But not in a bad way.

  We were both exhausted from the long drive and decided to call it an early night. George-Harrison set me up in the guest room. It had an understated aesthetic and was decorated in shockingly good taste, far more refined than my place in London. Melanie was an idiot—a man with such style couldn’t possibly be a bear.

  The next day, before George-Harrison could stop me, I jumped behind the wheel of the pickup. He did protest that it was his car, but I reminded him that he had done all the driving in Baltimore, and it was only fair. He seemed to get a kick out of my childish and stubborn behavior. We took to the road once more.

  After two hours of driving with George-Harrison as my copilot, we passed through a wrought-iron gate and continued down a gravel road toward an elegant residence perched on a hill. The park surrounding the place was empty, the weather far too cold for the residents to venture out for a stroll.

  “It’s not exactly Hyde Park, is it?” George-Harrison said.

  “Have you ever been to London?”

  “No. I only really know it from movies, but I did check it out a bit online, you know, back when we were in Baltimore.”

  “Really? You don’t say. Why would you do that?”

  “Just out of curiosity.”

  I parked beneath an ornate awning and the two of us entered the residence.

  As we walked into the reading room, I quickly recognized May from the picture at Sailor’s Hideaway, although presently she was far less jubilant. She sat staring sourly at an old woman playing a game of solitaire at a nearby table, as if upset that she hadn’t been invited to join in. May’s skin had been marked by the passage of time, but the twinkle in her eyes was just as bright as it was in the photo on the wall. The sight of her made my heart swell in ways I hadn’t anticipated. This woman loved my mother, and my mother loved her. May knew things about my mum that I would never understand. It made me think of an old African proverb. When an old person dies, it’s as though a library has burnt to the ground. I longed to discover the volumes May still carried around with her, even if she herself had long since forgotten them.

  “You brought your girlfriend!” she cried, rising to her feet to greet us. “I’m so glad the two of you patched things up. I knew you couldn’t stay mad at each other forever. I can’t even remember what you were fighting about in the first place, so it couldn’t have been that serious!”

  George-Harrison was mortified. I let him stew in it for a couple of seconds before coming to his rescue. I reached out to shake her hand, but May pulled me in close for a hug and spoke right in my ear. “While I have you here, let me just say that it’s not my fault if my son is such an enormous pain in the ass,” she whispered, pressing her cheek against mine. Her skin was soft as anything, and she had a surprisingly strong grip for her age. I picked up the scent of ambergris, which I immediately recognized from the fragrance that Mum had worn every Sunday.

  “Is that . . . Jicky? Your perfume?”

  May gaped back at me, peering right into my eyes. “Why ask, if you already know?” she said, turning back toward her son.

  I decided to give them some time alone and told them I was going to take a walk around the grounds.

  “If you’re planning on smoking a cigarette, be subtle about it! They confiscate every last smoke, the bastards. Not for your health, God knows, but just to keep them for themselves! So, how is school going, son?” she asked. “Are they giving you lots of homework?”

  I stepped outside, but it was far too chilly, and besides, I wasn’t a smoker. Slipping back into the reading room, I settled down at a table near an old man with his nose buried in a book. Whatever he was reading must have been very funny, since he chuckled several times as he read. After a few minutes passed, I realized that he hadn’t turned the page. Not even once. The realization was far more chilling than even the cold outside. I could see May and George-Harrison talking on the other side of the room. The conversation seemed sporadic, but in truth I wasn’t spying to try and figure out what they were talking about. I was gazing at George-Harrison in awe. He was so patient and loving, the way he seemed to hang on her every word, however nonsensical. I almost wanted to lose my memory so someone would show the same affection toward me.

  The old man beside me burst out laughing once more, but this time, his guffaw quickly transformed into a hacking cough. All at once, the man’s face turned cherry red. He leapt to his feet, retching, and then collapsed to the ground.

  The care worker on call in the reading room rushed in to help, but soon became totally overwhelmed and paralyzed with panic. The other residents watched with giddy curiosity, more affected by witnessing something out of the ordinary than by the fact that one of their peers was fighting for his life. Suddenly, George-Harrison pushed past the panicking care worker and leaned down over the suffocating man. He shoved two fingers into his mouth to open his airways. The man let out a gasp and his breath steadied. Though still incapacitated, he seemed out of immediate danger, with the color returning to his cheeks. But he had yet to open his eyes, and he didn’t respond when George-Harrison gently shook him.

  “Mr. Gauthier, can you hear me? Squeeze my hand if you can hear me.” The old man gave George-Harrison’s hand a weak little squeeze.

  “I’ll call an ambulance,” said the care worker.

  “There’s no time,” George-Harrison insisted. “It’ll take them half an hour to get he
re, and he needs to get to the hospital sooner than that. I’ll drive him. Grab some blankets; we can put him in the back of my truck.”

  A young attendant who had been serving cookies nearby offered to take him in her own car, a station wagon, so the poor man could at least stay warm. Two other staff members arrived soon after to lend a helping hand. When Mr. Gauthier was all set up in the back of the station wagon, George-Harrison announced that he was coming along, too. I wanted to go as well, feeling partially responsible since the poor guy had collapsed before my very eyes, but the stupid station wagon only had one other seat available, and George-Harrison said I should stay behind.

  I watched from beneath the awning as they exited the wrought-iron gate, hugging myself to stay warm as the headlights faded from view.

  When I returned to the reading room, everything was back to normal. Residents were carrying on as if nothing had happened, or else they had already forgotten the whole episode. The woman next to May had returned to her game of solitaire, while others were content watching TV or simply staring into the distance. May peered straight at me with an odd look, crooking her finger and beckoning me closer. I sat down beside her.

  “It really is something getting to meet you, you know,” she said with a smile. “You look so much like her. It’s uncanny. Like a ghost from the distant past. She’s gone, isn’t she?”

  “Yes. She’s gone.”

  “What a god-awful tragedy. I should have been first to go. But, oh well. She always knew how to make a dramatic exit.”

  “It wasn’t intentional, and it really wasn’t dramatic either, at least not the way you mean,” I replied, leaping to my mother’s defense out of pure instinct.