At Last (The Idle Point, Maine Stories)

by Bretton, Barbara

  Across the street, Noah walked quietly next to a well-dressed woman. The woman looked straight ahead as they walked. Noah looked down at the ground. For some reason Gracie's heart hurt as she watched them. That couldn't be his mommy. A mommy would hold your hand and ask you about your day and look happy to see you again, like Gramma Del did but better.

  Gramma Del was daddy's mother. Gracie knew she did the best she could, because that's what Gramma Del was always telling her. "You should have better than an old woman taking care of you," she liked to say when she was giving Gracie her bath. "Things aren't meant to be this way." She lived out back in the small cottage behind the house and mostly minded her own business when it came to her son's comings and goings. She looked the other way when her son rolled home smelling like beer at all hours of the day or night and only spoke up when he didn't come home at all.

  "This child deserves better," Gracie had heard her grandma say more than once. "She deserves a real family." Sometimes Gramma Del came into the house very late and carried a sleepy Gracie out to the cottage to spend the night. "I had a bad dream," she liked to say as she made room for Gracie in her narrow feather bed. "Glad you could visit." Gracie always laughed, even though she knew that wasn't the reason at all.

  Maybe that was why daddy had brought home that skinny red-haired woman at Christmastime and said, "Graciela, meet Vicky. She's your new mother." Gracie had burst into tears then run from the room as fast as her new sneakers would carry her. Daddy had yelled at her to come back and apologize—"right this second, young lady!"—but Gracie didn't care. She threw herself on her bed and sobbed until her eyes hurt so bad she couldn't see. She didn't want some stranger coming in and pretending to be her mother. She wanted her real mother, the brown-haired woman with the gentle smile who looked down at her from the photograph on her nightstand.

  Gracie wasn't sure how she knew this but somehow she understood that she wasn't supposed to talk about the nights when her daddy fell asleep on the floor with an empty bottle beside him or how the redheaded woman walked out one day at the beginning of the summer and took everything that wasn't nailed down along with her. Gracie had been in her room, pretending to be sound asleep, but she'd really been watching through a crack in the door while the woman and her squeaky-voiced sister took money from daddy's pockets and the bottles off the shelves.

  No, she'd never talk about any of that. Not with anyone. People whispered enough about the Taylors anyway, about how her daddy couldn't seem to hold down a job and how he should be ashamed to have his mother working as a cook to keep a roof over his lazy no-good head. She hoped Noah wouldn't stop liking her once he found out about her family because if he did, she would never go back to school again and nobody, not even Gramma Del could make her.

  But then maybe Noah already knew. If Gramma Del worked for Noah's daddy, maybe Noah knew all about her family and liked her anyway.

  She hugged that thought close all the way home.

  #

  "Change your clothes before you have your snack, Noah." Mary Weston took off her hat and placed it neatly in the center of the hall table with the red feather pointing toward the door.

  "Yes, ma'am."

  "Your parents will be home from their trip sometime this afternoon. We don't want them finding you looking like a hooligan, do we?"

  "No, ma'am." He didn't have any idea what a hooligan looked like or why they wouldn't want him to look like one. Hooligan. The sound of it inside his head made him smile. Hoooo-li-gin. Somehow he'd bet hooligans had more fun than he did.

  "Is something funny?"

  "No, ma'am."

  Mary's sour face puckered even more. "Then why aren't you upstairs changing clothes?"

  Noah didn't have to be told again. He turned and raced up the steps two at a time, putting as much distance between himself and the housekeeper as he possibly could. He wished school could last twice as long. It was a lot more fun playing with the other kids than being alone in this scary old house. He ran down the second floor hallway, making sure he didn't catch sight of the pictures on the wall. His mother said these were his relatives, the people his father came from, and that he should be proud but Noah was mostly scared. They were all old and angry-looking and sometimes he thought they'd reach right out of their picture frames and spank him just because they could. He'd never told that to anyone before. He knew what they'd say. "You're letting your imagination run away with you, young man. Paintings can't hurt you. Now stop being silly and practice your piano."

  He didn't want to practice his piano. He wanted to tell stories about monsters who ate stupid grownups and wizards who rose up from the rocks out beyond the Point and turned lonely little boys into knights in shining armor. He had already decided that that was what he would do when he grew up. He wanted to live in a crowded house with lots of brothers and sisters and noise and music and laughter and dogs. Maybe a dog in every room and parents who let you play in the mud without getting yelled at.

  Noah's parents loved him. They told him so all the time, like when they were heading out the door for a night in Boston or a weekend on the boat. Sometimes days would go by when he didn't even see his father and that made the rare nights when they all ate dinner together special. He watched his father very carefully and tried to imitate the way he held his knife and fork, the tilt of his head when he spoke. His father was the smartest man in the entire world and, with one exception, Noah wanted to be just like him when he grew up. He'd make sure he had plenty of time for his kids.

  #

  "What is the problem with you, child?" Gramma Del planted her hands on her hips. "There's nothing wrong with that blue jumper."

  "It's not pretty enough," Gracie said, scowling at her reflection in the small white-framed mirror nailed to the wall over her dresser. "I want to be pretty."

  Gramma Del sighed and Gracie pretended she hadn't heard the sound. She knew just what it meant. She wasn't pretty like Laquita or Mary Ann—the face in the mirror told her that—and most likely she never would be. Her face was small and narrow. Her eyes were plain ordinary brown and big like cartoon eyes. Her clothes always looked like they'd belonged to somebody else, even when they still had Dotty's Discount Dress Store tags on them. Even Laquita who had all those brothers and sisters had nicer dresses.

  More than anything, Gracie wanted to fit in. She'd been in kindergarten for three weeks now and she had learned a lot. As much as they liked her, she was still an outsider who couldn't quite figure out why. It was more than the lookalike dresses from the big store down in Portland and the Little House lunchboxes. Maybe it was that they all had mothers who took them to school in the morning and waited outside for them in the afternoon. Even Noah's mother showed up more often than not, all dressed in her fancy clothes that made Gramma Del roll her eyes when she thought Mrs. Chase wasn't looking. "Doesn't have the sense the good Lord gave her," Gramma Del said, tugging at the hem of her grey sweater.

  Gramma Del walked Gracie to and from school most days but every now and then her father took over the job. Gracie hated it when her father waited for her at the corner in his dented pickup truck with the sign Taylor Construction written on the driver's door. Her father didn't like to talk much in the mornings and he didn't understand anything about matching your tights to your jumper or why peanut butter and jelly sandwiches should be on fluffy white bread, not rye with the little seeds that got between your teeth.

  But oh how she loved school. For a few hours every day it didn't matter that she wasn't like the rest of them. In that little classroom, she was one of the gang. She could read what was on the blackboard before Mrs. Cavanaugh explained it. At first Laquita and Noah thought it was some kind of magic trick. Then, when they realized she could read and write the looks on their faces made her laugh. She knew the mama gerbil was going to have babies before Mrs. Cavanaugh did.

  Mary Ann saved a place next to her at naptime and even though she'd much rather nap on Noah's side of the room, she didn't want to hurt Mary An
n's feelings so she stayed where she was. Besides, she could watch Noah from over there and not be afraid he was going to catch her doing it. She loved the way his thick dark lashes rested against his cheeks, the way he smiled a little in his sleep. Sometimes he seemed ashamed to be her friend but that was okay too because she knew that when Don and Tim and the others ran off, she'd still be there waiting for him.

  #

  Noah's parents didn't argue very often. The sound of their cultured Yankee voices, raised loud enough to be heard from the hallway, scared him. He pressed himself against the wall near the kitchen and tried hard not to listen but their words found him just the same.

  "Del brought her here when she was a baby," his mother said. "I don't see the difference, Simon. She was no trouble then and she'll be no trouble now."

  "I have nothing against the child," his father said, "but I don't want to open the door to her father."

  "She's a little girl. Do you want her safety on your conscience?"

  "I'll agree," his father said, "but only as an interim measure. Del has two weeks to make other arrangements."

  The silence was long and dark and Noah wondered what it was about Gracie's father that made his own father sound so serious. Noah had seen Gracie's father three times in front of school, hunched behind the wheel of a truck with swirly letters painted on the side. He didn't walk Gracie to the steps like her Grandma Del did. He didn't meet her at the corner like Noah's mother. Instead Gracie's father stayed in the car and drummed his fingers on the steering wheel and when Gracie waved goodbye he just gunned the engine and drove off without waving goodbye right back.

  Noah knew that there were rich people and poor people in the world. His parents had explained it to him when he'd asked why a maid cleaned their house and her own while his mother went to lunch and didn't clean anything at all. What he didn't know was why Gracie didn't have a mother or why his father didn't like her.

  His parents' voices grew softer again and the shaky feeling inside his stomach went away. His mother appeared in the doorway. She smiled at him but he saw that her eyes looked sad. "There you are," she said, holding out her hand. "Breakfast is ready, then it's off to school with you."

  "Are you and Father mad?" he asked as he slid his hand into hers.

  The smile faded. "Why would you ask that?"

  "I heard you talking," he said as they walked down the hallway to the breakfast room.

  "Grownups sometimes sound very serious, honey, and it can sound like we're angry. It's just our way."

  "Is Gracie in trouble?"

  She stopped and crouched down next to him, taking his face between her hands.. "Nobody's in trouble," she said and he noticed the shimmer of tears in her big blue eyes. "It's just that Gracie needs a place to play after school and Del thought it might be nice if the two of you played together."

  "Here?" In his whole life he'd never had a friend come over to play and the idea made him want to turn somersaults up and down the hallway. Even his birthday parties were held at a fancy restaurant in Boothbay Harbor on the water.

  His mother nodded. "Not as a permanent thing," she said. "Just until Del can make other arrangements."

  "Can Laquita and Don and Tim come home with me too?"

  "Maybe someday," his mother said, the corners of her mouth angling down toward her chin. "Right now Gracie is as much as your father can handle."

  #

  Sometimes Daddy slept in his La-Z-Boy with his feet pointed right at the TV screen and a shiny mountain of beer cans on the floor near the lamp with the shredded shade. Grandma Del said he worked too hard and that the sandman's job was over before Daddy could even make it to his bedroom. He sprawled across the chair with his arms flung out over the sides and his feet hanging off that funny little leg rest that hung off the end of the chair and snored like a summer thunderstorm. She didn't mind the fact that he fell asleep in his chair. Other daddies on TV did that too so she knew it was okay. That was how Gracie knew the way things were supposed to be.

  Gracie hated the way the beer smell clung to his skin. It made him smell like a stranger, like somebody she didn't want to know. She'd asked Gramma Del if maybe they could hide his six-packs but Gramma Del just shook her head and said the world wasn't big enough to hide temptation from a man bound and determined to fall.

  Five times in the last two weeks he'd forgotten to pick up Gracie from school and Mrs. Cavanaugh had to call Gramma Del at work. Gracie had sat quietly on the front step while Mrs.. Cavanaugh paced the sidewalk, glancing at her watch as she peered up and down the street. The worst part of all was the way the other parents looked at Gracie. Their eyes would get all big and sad-looking, and they'd quickly turn their heads away and walk a little faster.

  "We're going to make a few changes around here," Gramma Del said as she walked Gracie to school the morning after Daddy drove his truck onto the McMahon family's lawn and hit a sugar maple. Gramma said that Daddy wouldn't be picking her up after school any more. From now on Gracie would be walking home with Noah and Mrs. Chase.

  Gracie stared up at her grandmother. "I'll go home with Noah?"

  "Yes," Gramma said. Her mouth was so tight the word barely squeezed itself out. "Mr. Chase said you can sit quietly in the kitchen with me while I fix their supper."

  "I can't play with Noah? He has electric trains."

  Gramma's grip on her hand tightened.

  "Ouch!"

  Gramma's fingers loosened a teeny bit. "You are to stay in the kitchen with me, missy, and that's an order. Mr. Chase doesn't much like strangers in his house." She laughed one of those grownup laughs that Gracie didn't understand. "Except the ones on his payroll."

  #

  It was said about Simon Harriman Chase that what he didn't own wasn't worth owning. His family had founded Idle Point before the Revolutionary War and it was his family who had kept it going through good times and bad. They had started out as shipbuilders and were modestly successful until Josiah Chase discovered a vein of tourmaline on his property and the family fortune was made. The Chase influence was still felt in shipbuilding, in tourmaline mining, in real estate, but for the last sixty years the Chase family had been synonymous with journalism. The Idle Point Gazette had achieved a national reputation for fair, incisive reporting and had the awards to prove it. Simon's father handed over the reins of leadership to his eldest son eight years ago and so far Simon had managed to maintain the same standards of critical excellence his readers had come to expect from the Gazette.

  He ran the paper, chaired the local Chamber of Commerce, volunteered his time and money to the school board, hospital, and church. He was a model citizen, an accomplished man who hated a child with an intensity that sometimes scared him.

  The sight of poor plain little Graciela Taylor with her brown hair and brown eyes and skinny little body filled him with helpless rage. He didn't wish her dead. He simply wished she had never been born.

  Chapter Two

  She was such a little thing, Ruth Marlow Chase thought as she took Gracie's hand in hers. The child's hand was tiny, much smaller than Noah's and he was only six months older. The bones felt so fragile to Ruth that for a moment she longed to gather the girl close to her and tell her everything would be all right. God knew, she hadn't wanted to feel anything for Mona Taylor's only child but Ruth was a kind woman and it was impossible for her to steel her mother's heart against a child, especially one as small and easily forgettable as Gracie.

  Gracie had brown eyes, brown hair, and skin as pale as milk. Tiny face no bigger than a minute with features so regular they barely registered on you. Her clothes looked to be plucked from the box in the rear of the Church marked "For the poor." The child was plainer than plain, not at all like her mother, and that struck Ruth as terribly unfair. Mona had been blessed with the heart-shaped face of an angel. Wide brow, delicate chin, full lips and huge brown eyes that drew you into their depths against your will. Sweet-faced and sensual and—

  Ruth stopped herself. She
had been trained never to speak ill of the dead and Mona was gone five years this past May. So much had happened in those five years: Noah was in their life and she had discovered a happiness she hadn’t believed attainable. All of those years spent searching for the answer and it had been right there, hiding behind a wall of disappointment so high she thought they would never get past it.

  It all changed the day Mona Taylor died.

  Ruth's face burned with embarrassment. How could she think such a thing with Mona's little girl walking next to her, as quiet and drab as one of those little field mice Ruth saw scampering across the lawn in the morning. She had wished many times that Mona and Ben Taylor would pack their bags and leave Idle Point forever but she'd never once wished the woman dead, not even in her darkest moments. You couldn't build a good life on a foundation of hatred. You couldn't raise a healthy happy child in an atmosphere of anger. There was so much sorrow and hatred in the world. Was it so wrong of her to want to keep it as far away from her family as she possibly could?

  Maybe Simon was right and she shouldn't have said yes to Del's request. Certainly the good Sisters of the Blessed Virgin would have opened their doors to Gracie for a few hours each afternoon. She knew Del was a Catholic, one who probably gave away far too much of her salary to the Church. The old woman kept a blue rosary in the right-hand pocket of her apron and fingered it nervously like one of those Greek fishermen with the worry beads Ruth had seen on their vacation last year. Certainly if Del had approached the nuns, they would have found it in their hearts to help out.