At Last (The Idle Point, Maine Stories)

by Bretton, Barbara

  "Probably some drunk fell into the water," Noah said then cursed himself. "You know what I mean, Gracie." He didn't mean it as a cheap shot against her father.

  She shook her head. "It's Gramma Del. I can feel it."

  "Maybe it's a car crash," he said. "They haven't repaired the streetlights yet past Bigelow's. Somebody probably rammed into the fence near Fogarty's farm and—"

  "No," she said, starting to cry. "It's Gramma Del and she's gone."

  #

  After a good meeting Ben always felt like he could whip his weight in polar bear. If you'd told him five years ago that he'd be spilling his guts in front of a bunch of other drunks almost every night he would have laughed in your face and reached for another whiskey, but damned if that wasn't exactly what he was doing.

  Too bad this hadn't been a good meeting. They had probed too deeply tonight. Or maybe he was feeling too exposed. Questions seemed to carry a sting; comments were thick with innuendo. When the group leader mentioned they were negotiating with Simon Chase's Gazette for meeting space in the basement, it was all Ben could do to keep from telling them all to fuck themselves and walking out.

  What he wanted was to get drunk.

  He'd been attending meetings over near Boothbay for almost six months now and he'd been dry for seven. One day at a time. That's what they said. One painful uneasy day at a time. Just keep stringing those days together and don't take anything for granted. There were no guarantees. Nobody could promise you that you would never take another drink. That part was up to you.

  The first time he'd walked into a meeting he'd been shocked by the familiar faces all around him. He knew Bill Minelli and Richie Cohan liked their booze but he hadn't figured it was a problem for either one of them. They were happy drunks, hail-fellow-well-met types whose presence turned good bars into great ones. Mitzi Baines and her married sister Tabitha were there too. They sat together on the far side of the room and tired hard to be invisible. Mitzi taught second grade at Idle Point Elementary while Tabitha worked as an office assistant at the Gazette. Mr. Hennessey from the bank shocked hell out of him when he walked into the room and greeted everybody like long lost friends. Hennessey? He looked like the kind of guy who slept in a suit and tie, real buttoned-down, always in control. Not a pathetic drunk like Ben himself.

  There was something about finding out that some of the best people in town had the same problems as you that made your problems seem less insurmountable. Looking at the world through clear eyes took a hell of a lot of getting used to. You needed all the help you could get. Without booze to dull the sharp edges of your mistakes, those mistakes cut into your every waking hour. His hatred of Simon Chase had always been clear and sharp to him, even through the murk of whiskey and wine. It had survived both blackouts and sobriety intact. How it must have amused the bastard to have Del working for him. His enemy brought so low that his mother had to cook for the man who destroyed his family. That's what booze did to you. Wrecked your pride, humbled your family, made you forget why you were put on the earth.

  But it was coming back to him now. Every day he regained a new piece of his past. Sometimes the memories crashed over him like waves during a nor'easter and all he could do was wait them out. He had done everything possible to blot out the memory of the early years with Mona, the good years, but they came back to him unexpectedly, in detail he'd thought lost to time. He wasn't her first choice but he had done right by her. He had loved her enough to accept whatever she could offer him and not ask for more. She had made her peace with it and they had been happy together, at least for awhile. Nobody could tell him otherwise. They were going to have a big family, sons to carry on his name, daughters to care for them in their old age. The old house by the docks would rock with love and laughter. They were going to be together for the rest of their lives.

  So many dreams.

  The years passed and the dreams of a house filled with children were put aside. They grew apart and just when it had seemed as if saying goodbye was the only thing they could do that made any sense, Mona came to him and told him she was pregnant and the world came alive again.

  He should have known happiness like that was never meant to last.

  It hurt, thinking about those years. His heart felt raw and pummeled inside his chest and he found himself longing for the solace of booze. Sweet fire that filled all the empty places in his soul. He wasn't that far from Bigelow's. One drink wouldn't hurt. He could handle just one. A little emotional anesthesia to dull the sharp fangs of regret. You couldn't be expected to go through your life just letting the world beat up on you without a little something to soften the punches.

  You're an alcoholic, friend. A drunk. You don't know the meaning of just one drink. One drink, one bottle—before you know it, you'll wake up and it'll be next week and you'll be pissing away everything you did these last seven months. You came home to put things right. Don't fuck it up now.

  Sometimes the little voices in your head were all that stood between you and oblivion.

  Still he was making progress. He was determined to stay sober, stay single, stay in Idle Point. If he could manage those three things maybe then he would be able to undo some of the damage he'd done to his mother and Gracie over the years. Especially Gracie. She deserved so much more than he'd been willing to give her. What the hell kind of man hated a child for living? That's what he had done. He had spent the last twenty years hating Gracie because she had lived and Mona had died.

  She was a good kid. Smart and bright and generous. He should be proud of her but that would imply he had had something to do with the way she'd turned out. Everybody in Idle Point knew that was about as far from the truth as you could get. His mother got all the credit for that. Gracie worked hard and she didn't ask anything from him, which had always suited him down to the ground. It wasn't fair that a child should bear the burden of anger and regret but that was what had happened.

  He thanked God as he turned off Main that there was still time to make amends, that he was still young enough to change or at least to make another attempt. He thought of the past six sober months as a gift to his mother although Del would never acknowledge them. Her disappointment in him ran too deep, almost as deep as his own. Grief had pulled him under for a very long time; it had blinded him to what remained. When had grief turned into anger? He wondered about the moment when sorrow and rage became one, when he began drinking to remember as well as to forget.

  It was all a blur. Missing days of his life. Missing weeks. Huge bloody chunks of his heart ripped from his chest and lost forever. But Del remained constant, the rock upon which his family depended. Because of Del, Gracie would make something of herself in this uncertain world. Gracie would survive because Del had taught her how.

  #

  "Gracie." Noah stood in the doorway to Gramma Del's bedroom. "They need to come in now."

  "No." Gracie hugged herself tight and closed her eyes. She was sitting on the floor next to her grandmother's bed. She had been sitting there for the last two hours. "Tell them to go away. I need more time."

  "The man from Walker's Funeral Home is here. They want to take care of your grandmother."

  Noah's bare feet scratched softly against Gramma's pine floor as he walked toward her. Don't you go tracking sand into my nice clean house, Graciela! Wash those feet before you come in here.

  "Brush off your feet," she said. "Gramma is very fussy about her floors."

  Noah crouched down next to her and put his arm around her shoulders. "Let them do what they need to do, Gracie. I'll be here with you."

  "No!" She pushed him away. "She's sleeping. She took too much of her medications. They could wake her up if they just tried harder."

  "They did try." He sounded so tired, so sad. She wanted to clap her hands over her ears to block out the sorrowful sound of his voice. "Your grandmother is gone, baby, and they need to take care of her now. You know that. It's time to let her go."

  "I can't," she said, tears stream
ing down her cheeks. "What am I going to do without her?" Noah held her as she cried. Gently he led her out into the yard so she wouldn't see or hear what was going on in Gramma's room.

  "Here," he said, taking off his shirt. "Put this on. The mosquitoes are biting."

  The cotton shirt was warm and soft and it smelled like him. "Thanks," she managed. She shivered. "It's cold out tonight."

  He led her down toward the docks as the car from Walker's backed up to the front door. She didn't want to think about what was happening. If she thought about it for even a minute, she would fall apart.

  Her father had arrived home minutes after Noah and Gracie, in time to see Gracie crying in Noah's arms, to see the grim expressions on the faces of the cops and emergency crew. Too late, always too late. She had turned to her father to comfort and to be comforted but he had looked through her as if she were made of glass. Now there would be nothing holding the family together.

  He wouldn't stay for Gracie. He never had. Years and years of promises. Next month, Gracie. You can come up here to live with us next month. Next month. Next year. Next decade. He moved from town to town, job to job, wife to wife, and never, not once in all that time, did he make room for his daughter.

  Why would he start now? Gramma Del was dead. His last tie to Idle Point was severed. He would probably sell the two tiny houses and move someplace warm and Gracie would come home from school each summer to a rented room and no family.

  The thought filled her with such dread that she could barely speak. She didn't want to become one of those people who lived alone and volunteered to work holidays so the folks with real families could be home with their loved ones.

  "Hold me," she whispered to Noah as the hearse from Walker's crunched its way toward the main road. Hold me and don't ever let me go.

  She moved against him, desperate to be held, to be made love to until she couldn't think of anything but the way his body fit with hers, couldn't feel anything but the way the heat gathered deep in the pit of her stomach every time he touched her.

  "I need you," she said, then in words shockingly blunt with need she told him how and why. She needed to know she wasn't alone.

  He couldn't help himself. He knew they were taking a chance, that making love on the dock behind her house was asking for trouble but she was so hungry, so needy, so warm and wet with desire, so beautiful to him in the moonlight that his brain shut down and desire took over. He was never sure where he stood with Gracie. No matter what she said, no matter how many times she showed him how much she loved him, he always sensed there was a part of her that remained beyond his reach.

  Tonight all of her barriers were down. She was naked in every way possible. Her long slender limbs gleamed in the moonlight. She straddled him, eyes closed, body arched like a bow and moved in ways that surprised them both. He came almost immediately but she didn't seem to notice. She continued to move against him, hungry for sensation, and he rolled her onto her back then buried himself between her thighs. She cried out when he found her with his lips and tongue, tasting her, letting her taste them. The sounds she made when she climaxed from the deepest part of her soul.

  Finally she cried. He shielded her with his body and held her as she wept. She begged him not to stop holding her and he swore he would be there until the stars fell. She was his. He believed it finally. This was more than sex, more than making love. This was communion, a sacrament of the flesh. Nothing would ever separate them now.

  #

  And that was how everyone in Idle Point found out about Noah and Gracie.

  Pete Walker, the funeral parlor owner's son, happened to be working that night as a lifter and he saw Noah and Gracie on the dock behind her Gramma's cottage. He wasn't sure but it looked like Noah was pulling on his jeans and Gracie had the look of a girl who'd had herself a good time. He was friends with Jake Horowitz whose brother Paul worked at the newsroom and gossip being what it is, the news hit Simon Chase's breakfast table along with his copy of the Gazette.

  Nothing short of Mona's death had ever hit him harder. Not even his third heart attack, the one that had almost killed him, caused the gut-deep pain this news did.

  He was, at heart, a moral man. He had lived his life by a strict moral code. He believed in the God of his parents and their parents, a just God who set standards that were meant to be upheld.

  He was known as a good man. That was what they called him. A good man. He paid his employees handsomely for their hard work. He was there to listen to their problems. When you worked for Simon Chase, you knew you had a job for life. Do your job well, keep your nose clean, and you would never need to look elsewhere for employment. He rewarded loyalty in kind.

  He was wealthy and well-respected. He had a fine wife, a beautiful home, friends to listen to his stories.

  One small slip, one tiny fall from grace and it had almost come tumbling down.

  It had taken him years to rebuild his marriage. Even now, so long after the fall, he sometimes caught Ruth when she didn't know he was looking and he saw in her eyes all that he had done.

  The saddest thing of all was that he would do it again in a heartbeat for the chance to spend his life with Mona Webb Taylor. The madness was never far from the surface, simmering in his blood despite the years, despite her death. That madness was his punishment.

  He greeted his son with icy calm that hid the emotion inside. "You're not to see her again," he said as he passed Noah the carafe of orange juice.

  Noah's skin reddened. "See who?" he mumbled through a mouthful of toasted English muffin.

  "The Taylor girl. She is off-limits to you."

  "Who said I'm seeing Gracie Taylor?"

  Too quick, my boy, thought Simon. Too defensive. If he had had any doubts about the veracity of the rumor, they were dispelled by Noah's response. The knife inside his heart twisted a little deeper. "We're not here to debate the issue, son. I am telling you that you are to stay away from Gracie Taylor. It's over."

  Noah's embarrassment turned to anger. "I love her," he said.

  Simon was impressed with his passion. It surprised him that Gracie Taylor inspired that degree of heat. She was more Mona's daughter than he had suspected. He also admired Noah's honesty. He had expected neither passion nor honesty. He most certainly hadn't expected a declaration of love but there it was, the monster in the closet.

  "There's no way in hell I'm staying away from her."

  "That isn't what I was hoping to hear."

  "Stay out of my life," Noah warned. "I'm not a kid any more. You can't control me."

  "As long as you live under my roof and accept my money, you'll do as I say."

  "You can shove your money for all I care."

  Simon spread a thin layer of margarine on his toast. "So easy to say. So difficult to do."

  "Watch me," Noah said. "You'll choke on those words."

  Perhaps, thought Simon as his son stormed from the room, but it would be a small price to pay if it got Gracie Taylor out of their lives for good. Noah would come around. Life was long and the choices were many. Very few young men fell irrevocably in love before they reached their majority. It had happened that way for Simon but he hadn't known how to handle the gift and let it slip through his fingers. By the time he realized his mistake, it was too late for them all.

  I understand more than you know, son. I know how it feels when your heart doesn't start beating each day until you see her face or hear her voice. I know how it feels when she's taken away from you and your world goes black...

  He would do anything for his son, move heaven and earth to give him only the best the world had to offer. He would sacrifice his remaining years on earth to see to it that Noah's happiness was ensured. He would even bear his son's wrath if that was what was necessary.

  But there was one thing he wouldn't do, not even for his boy.

  He would never allow Gracie Taylor to become part of his family.

  Chapter Eight

  "We're so sorry, dear." Mary
Townsend clasped Gracie to her pillowy bosoms and hugged her tight. "Cordelia was the finest churchwoman I've ever known."

  Gracie tried to pull away but Mrs. Townsend's grip was one of iron. "Thank you," she murmured over the top of the woman's helmet of dyed red hair. "Gramma appreciated all you did for her over the last few years."

  "It was the least we could do," Mrs. Townsend said, releasing Gracie from her grasp. "Cordelia was always the first one to pitch in when others needed help."

  Cordelia. The sound of her grandmother's Christian name startled Gracie. She knew Gramma Del but she would never know Cordelia. All of Gramma's secrets and stories were gone now and with them so much of Gracie's history.

  The woman took her place in the tightly-knit circle of church members standing near the doorway. Mary Townsend, Celia Grove, every female in the Daugherty family, Diane Heston and her great-granddaughters—the list was endless. Many of them were white-haired and in need of canes and walkers. They were the ones who had grown up with Gramma Del, who sat beside her in grade school, who shared joys and sorrows with her over the years. There was a sense of tribal ritual about the gathering, as if they gathered strength from the familiar stories, the old jokes.

  She wished she could take comfort in memory but right now the grief was too fresh, too new. The sight of her cottage with the lights off and the windows locked broke Gracie's heart. Without Gramma Del, it no longer seemed like home.

  Her father had taken off as soon as the EMTs told him Gramma was gone. She and Noah had walked out on the docks while the men from the funeral parlor attended to their business. By the time they returned to the house, Ben was gone and he hadn't been heard from since.

  Gracie wished she cared. She wished she could find it within herself to find him and tell him it was okay, that she would be the one now to shoulder his burdens but she couldn't do it. Something inside her had shut down with Gramma Del's death and she found herself filled with anger every time she thought about Ben. She wanted to slap his face until her hand hurt. She wanted to scream at him until her throat was raw and hoarse. She wanted to tell him that this was all wrong, this topsy-turvy family of theirs. He was the parent. He should be there to comfort her. He should be telling her that things would be alright, that he would take care of her, that she would never have to worry about keeping a roof over her head or food on the table. He should have done that when she was a little girl and the world was a dark and scary place without a mother to love her.