Almost, Maine

by John Cariani

  And soon, she was passing Skyview Park.

  And the old Gallagher Potato Farm.

  And St. Mary’s Church.

  And Ma Dudley’s.

  And the Moose Paddy.

  Then she passed the Rec Center—and hoped Dana still had everything under control. And then, just before she got to Lendall’s, she saw the beam from a flashlight shining up ahead.

  Someone was out walking on the Road to Nowhere.

  Which was a bit unusual, because it was after dark.

  Gayle’s first instinct was to check to make sure that whoever it was was okay. Even though she really didn’t want to make sure they were okay—because she didn’t want to get sidetracked.

  But she had to see if everything was okay, because that’s what people from Almost, Maine, do. They check in on each other, because if they don’t, who will?

  As she got closer to the flashlight beam, she slowed down.

  Ginette bristled as she heard Gayle’s Jeep slow down and start creeping along behind her. She didn’t want to be seen out walking by herself on the Road to Nowhere after dark. Because she didn’t want people wondering if anything was wrong. So she kept her head down and walked faster, hoping the decelerating vehicle would just accelerate again and pass her by.

  But it didn’t.

  Instead, it rode along beside her.

  Gayle rolled down her window and asked, “Everything okay?” and tried to figure out who she was talking to.

  Ginette recognized Gayle’s voice and turned to her, a sheepish smile on her face.

  “Hi, Miss Gayle.”

  “Oh! Ginette! Hi!”

  “Hi.”

  “What’s goin’ on? Where ya headed?”

  “Home,” Ginette said.

  “Oh. Need a ride?”

  “No. Thanks, though.”

  “Everything okay?”

  “Yup,” said Ginette, still walking. “I just wanted to go for a walk.”

  “Okay.” Gayle could sense that everything wasn’t okay. But decided to let it go. Because she didn’t want to pry. So she said, “Well, be careful.”

  “I will.”

  “Bye.”

  “Bye.”

  Gayle rolled up her window and drove off.

  As she did, Ginette hoped that Gayle wouldn’t mention to her mom that she had seen her daughter out walking alone after dark. Because then her mom would ask questions—questions Ginette didn’t want to answer.

  But Gayle had no intention of mentioning anything to Ginette’s mom. She figured that Ginette was out walking because she had something she needed to work out on her own. And no one—including her mom—needed to know anything about it.

  So Gayle forgot that she had even seen Ginette, and she pulled into Lendall’s driveway so she could do what she needed to do.

  She parked near the side stairs that led to the front porch. And then killed her engine and the lights.

  Then she went over what she wanted to say to Lendall one more time. And how she was going to end things with him.

  And she felt good about her plan.

  And then had second thoughts—and wondered if she really wanted to do what she was about to do. And she sat in her Jeep and waffled—for a good fifteen or twenty minutes. Because, while what she was about to do felt absolutely right, it also felt absolutely wrong. And she almost lost her nerve.

  But then she remembered how quiet Lendall had gotten when she asked him what he thought about getting married.

  And what Sandrine had said that that quiet meant.

  And she found her nerve again. And she got out of her Jeep and started to make her way up the driveway to Lendall’s house to do what she needed to do—when she stopped.

  And remembered something.

  She had left her keys in the ignition—which she always did when she was in Almost.

  And she needed them.

  Or—one of them: the one to Lendall’s house.

  She needed to give it back to him.

  So she made her way back down to the Jeep, opened the driver’s side door, and reached in and pulled the ignition key out of its slot—which was on the same ring as her house keys and her dad’s keys and the keys to the Rec Center. The jumble of keys jangled as Gayle searched for the key to Lendall’s house—a key she had never had to use, because Lendall never locked his door. No one did in Almost.

  Once she had found it, she removed it from the ring, shoved it into her jeans pocket, tossed the rest of her keys on the driver’s seat, and closed the Jeep’s driver-side door.

  Then she looked up at Lendall’s house. And saw a dull blue light flickering inside.

  The TV was on.

  Lendall was probably watching hockey. Or—had been watching hockey. He had probably fallen asleep.

  So she was going to have to wake him up.

  So he’d be out of it at first.

  So she was going to have to be really clear.

  And she would be. She had gone over what she was going to say to him in her head several times. She thought her arguments were irrefutable. And her reasoning sound.

  She started making her way up the driveway again.

  And then climbed the steps onto the porch where she and Lendall had spent who knows how many lazy Sunday afternoons together in the summertime.

  She went to the door and was about to barge inside—when she realized that she didn’t want to do what she needed to do inside. She needed to do it outside, on the porch—in more neutral territory.

  So she gathered up all her gumption and went to the door—and suddenly realized that she was really mad at Lendall. And she pulled open the white aluminum storm door and pounded on the wooden main door—at least five times—and yelled, “Lendall!”

  Then she listened for a response. And waited for him to come to the door.

  But Lendall didn’t respond. Or come to the door.

  Gayle figured he must not have heard her.

  He was definitely sleeping.

  So she pounded again—three times—and yelled, “Lendall!”

  This time, Lendall heard Gayle and jumped a little as he woke up. Gayle was right: he had fallen asleep in his La-Z-Boy, watching the Bruins game.

  Lendall checked the time. His watch said it was 8:39.

  He wondered why Gayle was there. He had kissed her good night after Gayle got Country Swing up and running, and then Gayle headed over to Sandrine’s bachelorette party, and Lendall headed home, because he had to be up early. He wanted to get a couple of hours of work in on Marvalyn and Eric’s roof in the morning, because the rest of his Saturday was going to be taken up with Clair Gudreau’s funeral and the St. Pierre/LaFerriere wedding. So he was planning on falling asleep early with the Bruins game on.

  Gayle pounded on the door twice more and yelled, “Lendall!” and Lendall wondered why she was pounding on the door. “Gayle, just come in!” he called as he tried to get out of his chair—which took some effort. Lendall was thirty-seven and all the years he had worked in construction were taking their toll.

  While he worked on getting himself up and out of his La-Z-Boy, Gayle waited on the porch, facing the door, her hands on her hips. And then she pounded on the door five more times and yelled louder, “Lendall!!!”

  Lendall wondered why she was being so loud. The closest neighbors were far enough away that none of them would hear. But—still.

  “Gayle! Just come in!” called Lendall again, a little irked that Gayle was making him get up and let her in. They didn’t live together, but his place was hers and her place was his. So she could just let herself in like she usually did.

  When he finally managed to extricate himself from his chair, he shook off his drowsiness, turned off the TV, and switched on the lamp on the end table by his La-Z-Boy.

  Gayle pounded on the door again and yelled, “Lendall!!!”

  Worried that something was wrong, Lendall hustled over to his front door. He usually used his back door, but he had been remodeling his kitchen
for the past three years, and the back door was inaccessible. Contractors have to meet deadlines for their customers, so they never meet them for their own projects. Plus, the last thing they want to do in their spare time is what they do for a living.

  Gayle pounded again as Lendall flicked on the porch light. And then the seal of the weather stripping popped as he pulled open his front door. Gayle folded her arms and started pacing as Lendall pushed the white aluminum-and-glass storm door open and asked, “What? What’s goin’ on? What’s wrong?”

  Gayle stopped pacing and turned to Lendall.

  She was not what you would call a low-strung person. But Lendall had never seen her quite so high-strung.

  And she had a look in her eyes that Lendall had never seen before.

  “You okay?” asked Lendall, starting toward the woman he loved, but stopped. Gayle pulled away from him, not allowing him to touch her. “Hey. What’s up? What’s wrong?” Lendall asked gently as the storm door swung shut.

  Gayle inhaled sharply and said, “Lendall…” And then she held her breath and grimaced in a combination of pain and disappointment and anger and confusion. And she almost lost her nerve again.

  “Gayle—what’s wrong?” asked Lendall, concerned.

  Gayle exhaled loudly and her face relaxed, and then she inhaled sharply again and remembered how she had planned to do this. And then found her nerve again. And looked Lendall dead in the eye. And calmly stated, “I want it back.”

  Lendall scrunched up his forehead and asked, “Huh?”

  “I want it back,” Gayle repeated.

  Lendall scrunched up his forehead some more and jutted his neck forward and wondered what she wanted back and asked, “What?”

  “All the love I gave to you: I want it back. Now.”

  Lendall tried to figure out what Gayle was saying. And couldn’t. And scrunched up his whole face and asked, “What?”

  Gayle was irked by the question and had no patience for Lendall’s confusion. Because she couldn’t have been clearer. And, besides, she had already had this conversation with him many times in her head—since she had left the Moose Paddy.

  Unfortunately, she had forgotten that Lendall hadn’t been in her head. So he had no idea what she was talking about. Or what her intentions were. This was all new to him.

  Nevertheless, she still expected him to follow what she was saying. And she continued, “I’ve got yours in the car.”

  “What?” asked Lendall, looking toward Gayle’s Jeep, completely at a loss.

  “All the love you gave to me: I’ve got it in the car.”

  “Why?” asked Lendall, turning back to Gayle.

  “I don’t want it anymore.”

  “What?!?” Lendall was starting to understand what Gayle was saying. And he felt his insides get heavy and knotty.

  “You heard me. I don’t want it anymore. So I’ve brought it back.” Gayle nodded toward her Jeep and added, “It’s in the car.”

  “What do you mean you don’t want it anymore?”

  “I’ve made a decision: We’re done, and so—”

  “Whoa, whoa, whoa. What do you mean we’re done?”

  “Just what I said. We’re done, and so, I’ve brought all the love you gave to me back to you. It’s the right thing to do.”

  “Gayle, what’re you talking about?”

  “It’s in the car,” repeated Gayle, ignoring Lendall’s question.

  Perplexed, Lendall turned toward Gayle’s Jeep. And then back to Gayle. And was about to ask why she wanted all the love she had given him back, but before he could, Gayle interrupted him and offered, “I can get it for you … or you can go get it.”

  “Well, I don’t want it back,” said Lendall, scared of where this was going.

  “Well, I don’t want it!” exploded Gayle. “What am I supposed to do with all of it now that I don’t want it anymore?”

  “I don’t know,” grumbled Lendall, at a loss.

  “Well, under the circumstances, it doesn’t seem right for me to keep it.”

  “Under what circumstances?” demanded Lendall.

  Gayle ignored the question and continued, “And since I don’t want it anymore, I’m gonna give it back.”

  And, with that, Gayle headed down the steps of the porch and up the driveway to her Jeep to get all the love Lendall had given her so she could give it back to him.

  “Hey! Gayle! Wait—I don’t understand,” called Lendall, following the woman he expected to spend the rest of his life with. “What are you sayin’?”

  “It’s not complicated, Lendall!” called Gayle. “I’m getting all the love you gave to me and I’m giving it back to you.”

  “Well, I told you—I don’t want it back.” Lendall had followed Gayle down to the driveway. And Gayle opened the rear hatch to her Jeep.

  And Lendall stopped short, because the Jeep’s interior light revealed that the vehicle was stuffed to the gills—with full garbage bags.

  Lendall watched Gayle as she unloaded the Jeep.

  She removed a couple dozen garbage bags from the cargo area.

  And she removed a dozen from the backseat.

  And a half dozen from the front seat.

  And she tossed all the bags out onto the icy driveway.

  Gayle would have liked to chuck the bags across the driveway and at Lendall.

  But they were shapeless and soft and almost weightless. So they were completely unchuckable.

  Once she had emptied the Jeep of all the garbage bags, Gayle grabbed Lendall’s army duffel from the floor of the passenger seat and unceremoniously tossed it out onto the driveway. Whatever was in the duffel bag was much heavier than whatever was in the garbage bags, because it landed with a satisfying, chafey thud.

  When Gayle had finished the more-Herculean-than-expected task of unloading the Jeep, she slammed the passenger door closed with a flourish, folded her arms, and waited for Lendall to take what was rightfully his into his house, and then bring out to her what was rightfully hers.

  But Lendall wasn’t doing anything—except staring at all those garbage bags. There was something otherworldly about them. They barely seemed earthbound.

  Irritated by Lendall’s inertia, Gayle gathered a bunch of the light, shapeless, bulky garbage bags and decided that she would bring them up onto the porch herself and just leave them there for Lendall to deal with.

  And she blew past him and climbed the steps and dumped the first batch of bags onto the porch.

  As she did, she thought about all the sweet summer days and nights she and Lendall had spent on that porch, laughing, playing cards, and listening to music. And she almost started to doubt her decision to end things with him. But only almost.

  And then she made another trip to the Jeep to retrieve more of the bags.

  And she brought them up onto the porch.

  And then made a third trip.

  And then a fourth.

  And then a fifth.

  And then a sixth.

  And then a seventh.

  Lendall made his way up the steps and onto his porch while Gayle shuttled back and forth. And when she dropped off the last of the bags, Lendall asked Gayle, “So this is…”

  “All the love you gave me, yeah.”

  Lendall opened one of the bags.

  Sure enough, it was the love he had given her.

  Lendall took in the massive pile of shapeless, almost weightless bags that had accumulated. And was maybe a little proud of how much love he had given Gayle. And observed, “This is a lot.”

  “Yup,” said Gayle curtly, and she turned and made one last trip to the driveway.

  “A whole lot,” called Lendall.

  “Yup,” replied Gayle, and she grabbed Lendall’s old army duffel. And dragged it up the steps and onto the porch and dumped it in the old Adirondack chair Lendall sat in when the weather was nice.

  And it landed with a thud—on the chair. And in Lendall’s heart.

  Lendall looked at his old army
duffel. And presumed that it was full of all the stuff he had been keeping at Gayle’s—other stuff that Gayle was returning.

  And he realized that Gayle was serious about being done.

  And he had no idea why.

  And he needed to find out why.

  But before he could ask her why, Gayle said, “And now, I think it’s only fair for you to give me mine back, because … I want it back.”

  Lendall felt his chest tighten. And his breath got shallow. And he felt like he might throw up a little. Because he didn’t want to give her back all the love she had given him. At all.

  “So go get it,” ordered Gayle.

  “Gayle—why?”

  “I told you: we’re done.”

  “But I don’t wanna be done!”

  “Well, it seems like you do, and—”

  “I don’t!”

  “Well, I do!”

  “Why?!?”

  Gayle ignored the question and went on. “So don’t make this harder than it has to be. Go get what I came for. Now.”

  Lendall held his arms out, palms up, and shrugged and started to plead with his longtime love. “Gayle—”

  “Please, Lendall. Go get it,” snapped Gayle, not entertaining Lendall’s plea.

  Lendall dropped his arms and shoulders in defeat. Because Gayle was giving him no choice but to do what she had asked. Because she had decided that they were done. And the subject was not up for discussion.

  Lendall wondered what he had done to make Gayle want to be done.

  He couldn’t think of anything.

  But he must have done something that had hurt her in some way.

  And he almost asked for her forgiveness for whatever he had done.

  But what if he hadn’t done anything—and she just wanted to be done?

  His heart sank. And he ultimately decided that maybe the best thing he could do was honor Gayle’s request. And get what she had come for. Maybe if he did that, she’d calm down and help him understand why she wanted to be done. And then maybe she’d give him a chance to make right whatever he had made wrong. Or fix whatever he had broken. Or plead his case. And then maybe she’d give him a chance to make her understand just how much he loved her—and maybe he’d be able to change her mind about wanting to be done.