by Mary Rickert
“After Nell left, it sat for a cuppa months and then some flatlanders came and called it a watchamugger? A Sue she place? You can guess how that went. After they left, Dolly bought it. Don’t worry about the sign. She just din’t get around to a new one. Menu the same as Nell’s, they tell me. I don’t got much occasion to go there, myself.”
Quark couldn’t say if the sudden exhaustion he felt was brought on by the conversation, the long ride through the night, the terrible weight of not knowing where the Old Man was, or simply being back in Bellfairie with its overwhelming atmosphere of decay.
“Guess it’s early,” Quark said, as if this just occurred to him. “Think I’ll grab a bite before I talk to the sheriff. You need a ride?”
Dean grimaced. Shook his head no.
Quark waved and continued down Seaside Lane, the air nipping the tired muscles of his face, the briny ocean scent filling his lungs. He remembered how he’d been before he left Bellfairie, during that brief period when he was old enough to imagine himself free of the Old Man’s grasp, yet young enough to believe he had within him the potential to be golden too.
Thinking of Wayne, Quark almost missed the turn down Avalon, going too fast for the dip in the road. Over the years it had only grown deeper. Naturally, nothing was done about it. To the citizens of Bellfairie a pothole was a matter of terrain; not a problem with a simple remedy, but the inevitable erosion—impossible to combat—of life.
If Bellfairie had a main street, Avalon, where the buildings leaned away from the ocean’s greedy maw, was it. Whenever Quark remembered it that way, he thought he must be exaggerating, but as he parked his truck he noted that the buildings clearly maintained a tilt. Even the American flag jutted from the post office at an angle; its red and white fringed edge pointed inland.
I should leave, he thought. Why is this my problem?
He turned off the ignition, reached to roll up the window, but stopped. Even with loose change right in the open, there was no need to worry about petty theft in Bellfairie, which was one of its few charms. His legs stiff from the long ride, Quark eased out of the cab and stood rattling keys like a gambler with dice, taking in the dismal remains: the post office with its crooked stairs, an empty storefront (once the dime store), a For Sale sign taped inside the dusty window, the Brass Lantern from which, he guessed, the last rum-soaked patron stumbled out about the time Quark was looking down on Bellfairie from that height where it seemed like a place someone might want to come home to.
The ground there had a magnetic quality, that’s what folks said. It brought ships to the rocky shore, held fog close, and pulled the moon so near that on some nights the whole town appeared inhabited by ghosts. Quark thought if he wasn’t careful, he’d get stuck, standing by his truck, rattling his keys. Hunched against the salty chill, he headed toward what used to be Nell’s with its absurd sign, “SuShi Palace.”
The bell when he opened the door might have been the same that announced his arrival all those years ago when he worked there as a dishwasher. The booths were still rust-colored, but the tables were covered with red tablecloths, which Quark guessed were leftover from SuShi Palace, as was the gold sea dragon hanging on the far wall where the fishnet had draped for so long. To his relief the old counter remained, a slab of teak said to have been used as a lifeboat by the shipwreck survivors, lined with bar stools and topped with silver napkin dispensers at reasonable intervals. People in Bellfairie liked their personal space.
Quark, being local-born, was aware of the abrupt stillness that settled on the place while he wiped his feet; the customers, in autumn flannel and cotton sweaters, nudging each other, jutting chins at his arrival. He shuffled through the diner with his head lowered as though still fighting the morning chill, a posture refined as soon as he was old enough to realize his size made folks uncomfortable. Frankenquark, that’s what they used to call him. He reminded himself that, while he never had become golden, he was an adult and did not need to feel trapped by Bellfairie or his dismal store of memories.
Too late, he recognized the sheriff sitting there. Not that Quark had anything to hide, he just wasn’t prepared for serious conversation. He nodded, but the sheriff had already returned to his coffee, draining his cup; raising his finger to signal for more. The waitress—Quark saw her nametag was “Dory,” which would have made him laugh if he had been in the mood—- filled the sheriff’s cup and, without waiting for instructions, Quark’s too, peering at him, as if assessing.
“What ya havin’ this mornin’?” she asked, her tone pleasant, her face placid. Well, a person must get used to sailing smoothly along if she is named after a boat. Quark chuckled, which caused Dory to glance at the sheriff.
Like she’s glad he’s here, Quark thought.
He looked down, happy to see Mr. Yarly was correct, the menu featured the classics. He tapped number five. Dory twisted her neck to see.
“Traditional or Belgium?” she asked.
Belgium? Belgium? Quark shook his head. “American.”
“Belgium are the fat ones, kinda like cake. Traditional are thin and crisp.”
Quark waved his hand. “Traditional,” he said and Dory walked away, her gait plodding with a limp, which reminded him of someone, though he couldn’t remember who.
“Good of you to come,” the sheriff said.
Quark stirred so hard the coffee splattered over the rim of the cup. “You always were a slob,” he heard the Old Man say, though this was obviously imagined.
“You know how he is. Stubborn.” The sheriff shook his head. “Kept sayin’ there was no reason to bother ya. Kept sayin’ he was fine.”
Quark pulled a reluctant napkin from the dispenser to wipe the spill.
“Just wanted to keep him from harming himself. Nick Rogers—can you believe that name—sounds like his folks were expecting him to be a comic book character, don’t it? Anyhow it went to shit when Rogers got involved.”
He pulled a dollar from his wallet and tucked it next to his plate, cleaned of any evidence of the meal that had been there, slapped his heavy hand on Quark’s shoulder. “Didn’t think you’d make it, but since you’re here, you should probably go to the courthouse. Scheduled for nine. Don’t expect nothing to come of it, but still might be a good idea for you to be there.”
Quark nodded, but couldn’t think of anything to say, and after a moment the sheriff walked away. Quark drank the coffee, which was bitter, slightly burnt, just the way he liked it, until Dory returned with his order. He hadn’t had a number five in years. The Old Man loved it too, Quark recalled, stabbing through the sauce to the traditional waffle beneath, cutting harshly, eager to taste the oysters in sherried cream, surprised when tears came to his eyes, happy there was no one to notice.
You could leave, he thought.
By the next time Dory refilled his cup, Quark was feeling better. He glanced down the long counter, looking for the discarded newspapers usually littering the place, but all that remained of their once quintessential presence was something called Bridal Bliss.
“Ya don’t recognize me, do ya?”
Quark willed his lips into what he hoped was a convivial smile before he saw it, the perpetually distressed countenance of—
“Doris. You knew me as Doris Lehart. Doris Kindal now.”
Quark struggled through the equation of time, distance, forgotten names and faces, almost shouting when it came to him. “Tony? You married Tony?”
“That’s right.” She moved to give Quark a refill he blocked with his hand. “Thought I was seeing a ghost when you walked in,” she said.
Quark shivered. Cold in here, he thought, remembering the unrelenting dampness of Bellfairie.
Dory looked at him with a strange, Mona Lisa smile, then left to pour for the other customers, returning later only long enough to slap his tab on the counter. He set two dollars beside his plate; double what he’d have left if he hadn’t remembered her as Doris Lehart with that collection of dirty stuffed animals she pulled
in the old red wagon with the loose lugnut or, later, as Whorey-Dory. My god, that’s what they used to call her. He cut a sharp look and, all the way at the far end of the counter—in the midst of pouring—she turned to gaze at him as if she knew. Quark added another dollar, then worried it was obvious he was trying to assuage his guilt. He considered taking it back, thought better, and walked to the cash register where he waited to pay his bill.
A few words drifted from the gray-haired couple at the nearby table; the man intently drinking his coffee, the woman in her Bellfairie sweater leaning over the yolk-smeared plate. “Missing,” she said and “probably dead” before the man clicked his tongue, which caused her to sit back so abruptly she knocked over the salt shaker. Right then the cash register rang and Quark turned to pay the girl who didn’t look old enough to be out of school, but what did he know of such things?
“You on holiday?” he asked, handing her a ten.
She snorted, counting his change before answering. “That’s right. It’s all a holiday now. Fun times.” When she closed the drawer, Quark saw she was pregnant which, for some reason, made him blush. To make matters worse, he tipped his imaginary hat at her and left SuShi’s Palace with the girl’s smirk embedded in his mind. She had dark hair, pale skin, and deeply red lips. Like Snow White.
Quark spent the short drive from the restaurant to his childhood home trying to remember the old fairy tale, but it had been a long time, and it kept getting mixed up in his mind, conflated with the pregnant girl, which created a disturbing montage, cartoonlike in its horror. How did she die? She fell asleep, right? No, that doesn’t make sense. She ate something first, didn’t she? A pomegranate, right?
The game of distraction served its purpose. Quark arrived at the old place as though magically transported, the memories lurking along the way undisturbed as the dead.
He stared at the house, its ungainly architecture squat in the middle of the stony yard. “They say you can’t go home again.”
He thought then of snow drifting from the metallic Bellfairie sky; white flakes slowly falling to the ground, covering the dirt, the cracks and peeled paint, the mismatched pots, all of Bellfairie smote by an icy benevolence, even the girl, lying in her open coffin, hands folded over her great belly, metamorphosed into a pleasant slope of white, a gentle hill of sleeping beauty.
With a sigh, Quark spun the steering wheel away from the house, driving fifty feet down the stone road before realizing he had a flat. He cursed, but did not kick the tire or hurl stones as the Old Man would have. Instead, Quark shoved his hands into his pockets and hunched his shoulders against the chill for the short walk into town.
He remembered how, when he was a boy, he loved the story the Old Man used to tell about how his mother had seaweed hair and left salt water in her wake. What was it he used to say? “Your mother left puddles, not footprints.” Never said, exactly, that she was a selkie, or mermaid, or monster; only implied she wasn’t entirely human, a notion Quark enjoyed until it made him uncomfortable.
He didn’t even remember her, but when the judge mentioned the murder confession (with all the gravitas of noting a shopping list) and cited Starling as the supposed victim, Quark gasped as if sucker-punched, stunned until he realized, too late, everyone was standing. He rose, under the bailiff’s pointed glare, for a moment afraid he would be indicted in the mess, but the judge turned away, disappearing through the door behind her desk.
It wasn’t until after Rogers (surprisingly toothy and freckled) exited through the side door that the other attorney approached, her head tilted as if she needed to make such an adjustment in order to accommodate Quark’s statue. Better at mimicry than innovation in any social interaction, he resisted the impulse to tilt his own head. When she extended her small hand, Quark concentrated to look in her eyes and not squeeze too hard.
“Glad you came. Did you see Rogers’s face? Now all we have to do is find Thayer.” She shook her head which, Quark noted, barely affected the neat helmet of straight hair.
“What’s this business about my mother? Why didn’t anyone tell me?”
She leaned back, her eyes widening.
Quark, used to the way strangers misread him, relaxed into a slump in an effort to appease. “Nobody said anything about murder.”
“Only Rogers,” she said. “I don’t even think he really believes it, and you heard the judge; she was pissed, right? Quark? It’s Quark, isn’t it? I’m sure this is a lot to process, but you might want to check your attitude. Everyone knows Thayer. Did you even realize he was staying with the sheriff? Ever since the Alzheimer’s—
“Oh, I don’t think—”
“Ah, shit. Sorry. I have to go. I have another appointment. I’m getting married. Here’s my card.”
“You’re getting married today?”
“Cake tasting. Call if you think of anything, okay?” She sidled, crablike, between the rows of chairs. “You’re staying, right? I hope you aren’t planning to leave. I think he needs you.”
Quark shook his head no, even as he said that, yes, he would stay “at the old homestead,” grimacing at his choice of words.
“Quark?”
She stood beside the massive door carved with mermaids, anchors, whales, seagulls, and starfish (rumored to have once been the decorative panel of the ship captain’s private chambers).
“Yes?”
“Everyone knows your mother committed suicide. People saw her jump, right? I remember Thayer, ever since I was a little girl, walking that bluff. I used to call him the crying man.” She smiled before pushing open the door, momentarily flooding the room with that Bellfairie air; briny, sour, and fresh, like clams in a bed of sea salt and fennel.
Quark turned toward the dais recently abdicated by the judge. On Sunday someone would drape a cloth over the desk and replace gavel with chalice, the space transformed from courthouse to church. He thought of dropping to his knees but couldn’t figure out what he’d do next. Clearly the notion was reflective of his exhaustion. He flicked the lights off on his way out the door which, in Bellfairie fashion, was left unlocked. Though he found the idea of going back to the house for a nap appealing, he walked in the opposite direction, already adjusted to the sharp incline of the narrow sidewalks.
He hadn’t forgotten; he’d only chosen not to think about her suicide. He used to wonder why she did it, imagining the wind in her hair, the shipwreck bells tolling below, but all the pondering never stopped her from jumping. He finally accepted he would never have an answer; he would never know her story or reasons.
He thought of his work back home, the small bones awaiting excavation, the delicate balance of preservation and decay, the quiet room filled with shadows beyond the orb of light that guided knife and needle. Far from Bellfairie with all its mysteries, Quark had built a life for himself in taxidermy. He worked hard to find his own way in the world, to escape his inheritance of loss, and he had never once, in all those years, missed the Old Man he was now expected to search for. Why? What was he supposed to do with him, once found?
“You haven’t been around, son. I’m just sayin’. Nobody blames ya. But what you need to understand is he’s been sending letters like this for quite a while. It’s not like anybody believes him. Except Rogers, who’s too green to be taken seriously.”
Quark shifted against the confines of the small chair. The room was stifling, windows inexplicably closed.
“I’d like to see it.” Quark felt he shouldn’t have to explain. After all, this was his own father they were talking about, this was his life.
Sheriff Healy sighed as he lifted his feet off the desk to thumb through the pages there, then turned to rifle through the stacks of paper on the shelf behind, mumbling about “this damn mess.”
Quark couldn’t fathom working in such disorder. What else is lost here, he wondered, noting the newspapers, photographs, and file folders piled on all available surfaces including the computer with its dark screen.
“You sure, now?”
He reached for the paper, heard the chair creak as the sheriff leaned back to watch. Apparently Sheriff Healy wouldn’t neglect an opportunity for investigation any more than Quark could pass by a small animal without considering its skeletal structure. “Didn’t get much sleep last night,” Quark said to explain the trembling in his hand, not looking up to monitor the sheriff’s response.
Not a whale, but a shark is what I want to come back as if there be any return or heaven for me it is the sea. I teethed on a shark’s tooth my ma once said and I have shark eyes small like that though Quark got them bad. Those little dark eyes of his like roe. Where is that boy? I look everywhere for him but he never comes and I fully confess in sin against God and man that I killed him with my fists because he used to glow the way his mother did before I threw her off the bluff. The bells are ringing from below and I am a shipbuilder weak in the waterways and she stands on the road now to my house my Starling. I spread broken glass to keep away her ghost but where is Quark? What have I done what have these hands made?
So ends this passage.
Quark pretended he was still reading, sure his cheeks were red, the telltale giveaway of the flash of emotions he could not contain. This explains a lot, he thought. It explains everything. When he finally looked up it was into Sheriff Healy’s gaze, direct as an old dog’s; watching, waiting, patient and intense.
“How could anyone take this seriously? I’m not dead, am I?”
Sheriff Healy leaned forward, hand extended to take the paper Quark happily rescinded.
“Obviously, he’s fallen off the deep end. He really did spread broken glass over the road. I got a flat.”
“Well, Quark, you know that’s a private road there. It’s not municipal business.”
“I’m not saying—” Quark caught himself. Took a deep breath. “I can’t believe anyone took that seriously.”
