At Last (The Idle Point, Maine Stories)

by Bretton, Barbara

  "Family first" was Simon's motto. Nothing came before the sanctity of the family. He hadn't always understood the meaning of those words but since Noah's arrival, he was a different man. Ruth knew she would be a fool to rock the boat but she was very fond of Del and there were times when she felt she owed the Taylors something. She wasn't exactly sure what or why, but a nagging sense of guilt was always there when she thought of what had become of Ben and his family. Somewhere along the way there must have been something she could have done to change things. Maybe if she'd stood up for herself with Simon or challenged Mona or been a better wife, a better woman, there might have been enough happy endings to go around.

  But she hadn't. Ben was a drunk who lived off the money his elderly mother made cooking for the Chases. His wife was dead and buried while his sad-eyed little girl clung to the hand of a stranger with the kind of trust that the world would knock out of her before too long. And then there was Ruth, queen of the house on the hill, blessed with a husband who was the most powerful man in town and a beautiful little boy with the face of an angel and all because she'd opted for silence, for the status quo. In the end there had been just one happy ending to go around and it belonged to her.

  #

  Del was waiting for them on the front steps. Her hands were buried deep in the pockets of her apron and she didn't smile until Mrs. Chase let go of Gracie's hand.

  "In the house, child," she said to Gracie with a nod of her head toward Mrs. Chase and Noah. "We've been enough of a nuisance for one day."

  "Not at all," said Ruth Chase, her pale green eyes widening with surprise. "Gracie was great company, wasn't she, Noah?"

  Noah was six years old and he had other things on his mind.

  "Cookies and milk on the table, same as always," Del said as the little boy ran toward the kitchen door. "Wash your hands first."

  "You take such good care of him," Ruth said. She still had the same nervous smile she'd had as a girl. Del remembered that smile from the days when Gracie's father was captain of the high school football team and all the girls in town vied for his attention

  "It's my job," Del said, her fingers tightening around her rosary beads.

  "You treat Noah like one of your own."

  "He's a good boy."

  Ruth glowed with pleasure. She adored that child which was a point in her favor as far as Del was concerned. Maybe if people paid more attention to their own it would be a better world.

  "Gramma Del." Gracie tugged at the sleeve of her grey sweater.

  "Go inside," she said, patting the child's soft brown hair. "I'll be right there."

  "Gramma Del!" More urgent this time.

  Ruth smiled knowingly. "There's a bathroom right next to the kitchen," she said. "I'll show you."

  Del stepped between the woman and child. "I'll show her, thank you kindly."

  "You're busy," Ruth said, the nervous smile flickering. "Besides, I love having a little girl around."

  "If you don't mind me saying so, missus, Mr. Chase doesn't feel the same way."

  Ruth waved her hand in the air. "He's all bluster, Del. Surely you know that. He's just one for schedules and appointments. I wouldn't worry about him."

  "I wouldn't either if he was my husband," Del said although that wasn't entirely true. He was the kind of man who demanded obedience from everyone. "I need this job, Mrs. Chase. I can't afford to make him angry."

  She didn't wait for an answer. She turned instead and shooed Gracie into the house for cookies and milk.

  #

  By the time Gracie settled in at the kitchen table, Noah had finished his milk and cookies and gone upstairs to play. Gracie painstakingly colored some pictures in the Barbie coloring book Gramma Del had given her for her last birthday, but secretly she was listening for Noah. The house was as big as the school where she went to kindergarten, almost as big as the food store on Main Street. You could fit her room at home into the bathroom and still have space enough for the kitchen and hallway too.

  She'd never thought about what it meant to be rich. Gramma Del and Daddy said the Chases were rich and that they were poor and when she asked why, her daddy had just said, "Because that's the way it's always been," and opened another bottle. It was very quiet in the Chase house. The only sound was Gramma Del singing to herself as she washed lettuce at the sink and sliced red, juicy tomatoes.

  "Can I play with Noah?" she asked, pushing away the coloring book.

  "You stay right here and keep me company," Gramma said.

  "I want to watch cartoons."

  "You'll watch cartoons when we go home."

  "The cartoons'll be over when we get home."

  "Then read one of your story books, Graciela. I'll be finished here in two shakes of a lamb's tail."

  She didn't want to read a storybook. She wanted to find Noah and watch cartoons and turn somersaults down the long hallway.

  "Does Noah have a puppy?" she asked, swinging her legs back and forth.

  "No puppies," said Gramma.

  "Bet he has kittens," she said. "Lots and lots of kittens." She would fill up the big house with puppies and kittens and parakeets.

  "No puppies, no kittens." Gramma wiped her hands on the dishrag tucked into the waistband of her apron and turned toward Gracie. "Mr. Chase doesn't like disruption."

  "What does that mean?"

  "It means he doesn't like dogs or cats or nosy little girls who should mind their own business."

  "Is he a bad man?"

  "He's a man," Gramma said with a sour look on her face. "That's all you need to know."

  #

  Most days Mrs. Chase was there waiting at the bottom of the school steps for Gracie and Noah. She had asked Gracie to call her Aunt Ruth, but Gramma Del had said, "Not while I'm breathing," and that was that. Gracie had been afraid that Mrs. Chase would be angry but Noah's mommy never seemed to be anything but sweet and pleasant, just like all the mommies on TV. Nobody ever yelled in Noah's house. They all whispered. The air never smelled of cigarettes and beer. It seemed to Gracie that all the flowers in Idle Point found their way to Mrs. Chase and made the house smell like springtime. Gracie asked Gramma Del if they could have flowers too but Gramma made one of her faces and said she didn't have time for such nonsense. Then she bent down right in front of Gracie's nose and said, "Don't you go getting too big for your britches, missy," which puzzled Gracie for days.

  She hated it when Mrs. Chase was busy and she sent that prune-faced housekeeper instead. The housekeeper didn't even hold their hands when they crossed the big street between the school and the post office. The only good part about housekeeper days was the way Noah always reached for Gracie's hand as they stepped off the curb and held it tight until they made it safely to the other side. Other than that, he didn't pay much attention to her in school or at home. She told herself she didn't care but that was only because she would die if he knew how much she wanted to be his friend. Everybody liked Noah. They all wanted to be his best friend and sit with him at lunch and nap next to his blanket in the afternoon. Gracie wanted that too but she didn't think it was ever going to happen.

  Halloween came and went and Thanksgiving too. One snowy afternoon in early December, Noah and Gracie were walking home with Mrs. Chase when they saw Laquita standing at the corner near the hardware store. Her bare hands were clenched into fists and she looked like she'd been crying.

  "Isn't that the Adams girl?" Mrs. Chase said. Her voice sounded like a hug to Gracie and instantly she felt jealous. Nobody had ever sounded that way about her.

  She met Noah's eyes behind his mother's back and made him a silly face. He laughed, and Mrs. Chase gave him a sharp look then said, "Stay here, children. I'll see what's wrong."

  The wind off the water was high. It smelled to Gracie like salt and snow. Next to hot chocolate and puppy breath, that was her favorite smell in the whole world. She loved the way Idle Point smelled, all salty and sharp. She couldn't imagine living anywhere else in the whole entire worl
d. Sometimes she heard Gramma Del and Daddy talking about how all the youngsters were up and leaving Idle Point for the cities where all you could smell were cars and people and she wanted to say, "I won't be like that. I'll never leave here." She loved the sound the wind made on winter nights when she burrowed deeper under her blankets, the way the sea spray kissed her cheeks and nose as she walked to school, the way the waves exploded against the jagged rocks that outlined the shore. Idle Point wasn't soft and pretty like the storybook towns in picture books. To Gracie it was better: it was perfect.

  She and Noah stood close together as they watched Mrs. Chase speak with the dark-haired little girl who kept brushing at her eyes with the back of her sleeve. They both knew that Laquita never cried, not even the time Buddy Powell pushed her off the swing and she cut her knee open. Laquita was only six years old, just like Noah, but she already had four brothers and sisters trailing behind her like the tail on a kite.

  Mrs. Chase walked back toward them, holding the girl by the hand. "We're going to walk Laquita home," she said in her sweet voice. "Gracie, you take Laquita's hand. Noah, you come around this side and take my hand."

  Big ugly spears of jealousy stabbed Gracie in the chest. She was supposed to be holding Mrs. Chase's hand, not Laquita's. She didn't care if the little girl looked sad enough to cry. It just wasn't fair. Wasn't it enough that Laquita got to play Mary in the school Christmas play next week while Gracie was just a stupid shepherd? She didn't have the right to just show up there on the corner and push Gracie aside that way. And why did Mrs. Chase have to use her mommy voice anyway when everybody knew Laquita had a mommy of her own? It just wasn't fair.

  #

  It was the worst day of Laquita Adams's life, worse even than when she'd wet herself when her cousin Ellie tickled her and wouldn't stop no matter how loud Laquita yelled. She didn't want Mrs. Chase to walk her home. She didn't care that it was freezing cold outside or that her hands had turned into twin popsicles. Sooner or later Daddy or Mommy would remember to come and get her. She didn't need for Noah and Gracie to see that all the stories about her family were right, that her parents didn't know how to take care of children, that they couldn't be trusted. Her parents loved her even if they did sometimes seem to lose her in the crowd of kids. She just wished nobody else had to know about it.

  Laquita knew the way these things worked. As soon as Noah and Gracie saw the love beads and smelled the incense and met her parents with their long, long hair and soft voices and strange ways, they'd go running right back to school with stories about the hippies over by the river and how they had too many babies and too little money and maybe somebody should do something about it, help them out maybe, remind them that the world already had too many children.

  Laquita didn't know much about the world, but she was sure her parents had too many children. There were babies everywhere you looked and smelly diapers and blankets and banana squished into the rugs. And with each new baby it seemed she got more forgotten. Why couldn't they be happy with just one or two babies like everybody else? Why did they think they needed so many? She couldn't imagine Noah's mommy with a houseful of babies all crying at once. She couldn't imagine Noah's mommy even visiting a house filled with babies, but that was just what was about to happen.

  "You children stay here," Mrs. Chase said when they approached the rickety front porch and suddenly Laquita saw her house the way it must look to her. The missing step. The collapsed pumpkins left over from Halloween oozing seeds and smelling like barf. The baby shoe on its side near the door. Worst of all was the noise! Crying babies and the television and Daddy's voice sounding louder than she'd ever heard it.

  Laquita stood near the top step and rested her hand on the splintered wood. Noah and Gracie stood close together a few feet away. They all turned slightly when they heard Mrs. Chase's voice, then Daddy's. Gracie's and Noah's eyes grew wide. Laquita felt the knot of fear in her tummy begin to untie just a little bit when her Daddy pushed open the front door and stepped outside. He scooped her up in his arms and said, "We're sorry, 'Quita, but your mom went into labor around lunchtime and we've been pretty busy. We knew our grown-up little girl would find her way home somehow"

  He told Gracie and Noah that Laquita had a new baby sister and invited them all inside to meet Cheyenne Marie. Mrs. Chase said she needed a cigarette and would wait for Noah and Gracie on the porch. Laquita noticed that Mrs. Chase's hands were shaking and her mouth was set in an angry line.

  Gracie's and Noah's eyes met and Laquita almost burst into tears. Cheyenne! Why did her parents like such stupid names? Why couldn't she be Annie or Mary or Sue like the other girls in class? Why couldn't she have brothers named Jack and Bob instead of Sage and Morocco?

  Her parents never did anything normal or so it seemed to Laquita. She loved them but they always made her feel like she wanted to hide in the back of the station wagon and pretend she wasn't with them. Nobody else's parents painted hearts and flowers on their car. She hated the long black ponytail that swung between her father's shoulder blades and the way her mother would nurse one of the babies any time she felt like it, sometimes right in the middle of the candy aisle at the food store. Noah's mommy would never do something like that and she had seen the way Gracie's Gramma Del looked at her parents like they were the bad guys on a TV show. Why couldn't they just be like everybody else?

  When she grew up, she would have her own house and she would live in it all by herself. Her house would have white walls and white carpets and a white cat with blue eyes and it would smell like the beach roses that grew by the fence. Her parents and her brothers and sisters could come for visits but they would have to sleep at the motel over near Eb's Stop & Pump because there would be only one bedroom in her house and that bedroom would belong to her.

  #

  Gracie wanted to hate everything about Laquita's family but she couldn't. She loved the noise and the baby smells and the way everyone seemed to really love each other. Laquita's mommy had let Gracie snuggle right in the bed with her then placed the brand-new baby girl in her arms. Gracie had thought her heart would burst with excitement. The baby was so tiny, so perfect, and when she reached up and wrapped her tiny fist around Gracie's finger she felt like she did on Christmas morning only better. Imagine living like this all the time!

  She looked at Laquita and wished they could change places. Laquita got to hold the babies and feed them and play with them every single day of the week. There was always somebody to hug or to talk with and a mommy and daddy who really seemed to like each other and their growing family. Laquita's mommy was full and soft like a pillow and her daddy liked to make everyone laugh. The house was small, almost as small as Gramma Del's cottage, too small for the shadows and secrets that filled the house where Gracie lived. It seemed to Gracie that there was just room enough in Laquita's house for love.

  "'Quita," said the father after awhile, "why don't you take Graciela and Noah out back and show them Moses and the kittens."

  Laquita didn't say anything. She just made a face and motioned for Gracie and Noah to follow her. Gracie didn't want to leave Mrs. Adams and the new baby but the thought of kittens was more than she could resist. The only thing better than kittens was a basket of puppies.

  She climbed off the bed and hurried to catch up with Laquita and Noah. They walked through a hallway plastered with drawings Laquita had done in kindergarten, stepped over two sleeping toddlers, stopped to pat a big dog with red and white and black fur that was sprawled across the entrance to the kitchen. One day Gracie would have a dog just like that one, maybe even three of them! She'd have cats and kittens a parrot named Walter and maybe one named Groucho too. She would keep hamsters and gerbils and there would be a tank of goldfish in every room.

  Gramma Del wouldn't let her have a dog or a cat until she was old enough to take care of them. Gracie thought she was old enough now but Gramma wouldn't budge. "I have enough work, thank you very much," Gramma said the last time Gracie asked, "and I don'
t need any more." Noah didn't have pets either, not even one measly goldfish in a round bowl from Kmart. They said his father was allergic but Gracie didn't believe it. Mr. Chase probably just didn't want to be bothered.

  She was surprised to find Noah's mommy sitting at the kitchen table with two other women. They were all smoking cigarettes and a cup of coffee sat on the table in front of each of them. The two women looked a lot like Laquita's mommy with the same wide green eyes and curly hair. They even dressed like her in hand-me-downs that made Gracie think of old movies from back in the Sixties. Mrs. Chase's fancy dark blue coat had slipped off the back of her chair and fallen to the floor where one of Laquita's baby brothers had claimed it for a blanket. Gracie would have figured Mrs. Chase would hate all that baby slobber on her coat but she didn't seem to mind one bit. She even reached down to make sure the baby was covered with one of the sleeves. Gramma Del would have done something just like that.

  "We'll be leaving in five minutes," Mrs. Chase called to them as they trooped out the back door after Laquita. Then she said something low that made the other two women laugh. Noah looked started by the sound, as if he had never heard his mother laugh before.

  They followed Laquita out to the shed where a mama cat named Moses greeted them with a loud meow while her five kittens answered back from their cozy straw-lined bed in the corner. "Moses was supposed to be a boy," Laquita said, cuddling the large grey cat, "but she fooled us when she had babies."

  Noah and Gracie looked at each other then laughed when they realized Laquita thought it was funny too.

  "You're lucky," Gracie said. "Now you get to have kittens."

  "Unh-uh." Laquita shook her head. "Mommy says we have to find someone to adopt them."

  "I know what that is," Gracie said. "You go to the place where they keep the lost pets and you take one home with you and take care of it forever."