The Season of Open Water

by Dawn Tripp

  The broad-faced man is extending his hand. “Arthur Russell,” he says, and smiles. “Cousin of the incumbent.”

  Henry nods, shaking his hand. “Henry Vonniker.”

  The man’s grip is strong and his hand is rough.

  “My wife, Alpha.”

  “A pleasure to meet you,” Henry says.

  The woman smiles at him. “Are you a new member?” she asks.

  “Of the Grange? No, I am afraid not.”

  “But you live in town?”

  Henry nods.

  “Might I ask where?”

  “At the beach.”

  “Oh,” she says. “You live down there year-round?”

  “Yes.”

  “I don’t recall seeing you before.”

  “I work in the city.”

  “Oh?”

  “In New Bedford, at one of the mills.”

  “I see.”

  “So will they strike or not?” Arthur Russell asks.

  “I think it is likely they will.”

  And there is silence then among the three of them, and Henry can see that they are piecing it together. They will not ask if he is one of the bosses at the mill, they have already gathered that he is. He lives down at the beach in one of the cottages. Perhaps they are remembering talk they have heard. Oh yes, they are thinking, he is that cotton broker’s son. The one who was in the war.

  Alpha smiles, a bit embarrassed at the silence, and she takes Henry’s arm and leads him over to the rest of their group. “You’ll sit with us, of course,” she says. “We’re mostly farmers here. Well no, not all of us. This is George Small. His is the blacksmith shop near Sisson’s Corner.”

  Henry lets her steer him through introductions and conversation. He follows her lead, and she smiles at him kindly from time to time. When the food is brought up from downstairs, she seats him at the table between herself and a bearded man.

  He still feels unsettled, misplaced, but he does what he can. Heaping platters of ham are set down on the table among the pine boughs, bowls of beans, potato salad, plates of brown bread, and he answers their inquiries, he smiles and nods; when their focus shifts to the town meeting and the upcoming articles on the warrant, he admits apologetically that he has not followed recent town events as closely as he should.

  He serves himself a small plate of food.

  “Take more than that,” Alpha says, prodding him gently. “You’ve next to no flesh on you.”

  He lets her lay another slab of ham down on his plate.

  They are talking about streetlights down at Horseneck, the bearded man on his right and a younger red-haired man who sits across from him. They are talking about the expense of keeping them lit through the winter. Is it really necessary? They are talking about the money needed for a gasoline shovel, and other money needed to finish laying macadam on the new Cornell Road from where they left off the year before, down to Artingstall’s Corner. But he is only half listening. He is only half there. His mind is at war. He is at war. And men are dying around him. They might not know it yet. But they are dying. So many have already died, and his body was wood then too. His hands were quick, but their insides spilled out. He could not save them. Alpha is touching his arm, asking him something. She is asking him if he knows much about farming. They’ll have to burn the asparagus beds, she says, when the snow melts. There are thorns in them this year. They have a vegetable stand in the summer, and they are going to try to grow strawberries this spring. Fresh strawberries seem to be a favorite among the summer people. Sally Ivanheld grew them last year and sold out every weekend. Does he have a taste for strawberries? she asks and he nods. He mumbles something. Alpha turns to the dark-haired woman on her left. Henry looks up, and across the room he sees Bridge.

  She has just come up the stairs, carrying a fresh plate of ham. The steam rises off the meat around her face. She looks directly at him, her eyes hook into his for a moment before she turns away and walks toward another table close to the stage at the opposite end of the room. He watches as she lays down the plate of food, and his mind is suddenly straightened, suddenly clear, his anxiety gone. He does not take his eyes off her. She crosses to a side table and picks up a china pitcher and refills the water glasses. Then with the empty pitcher she retraces her route along the edge of the room. She does not look at him again. She goes back down the stairs.

  “Are you alright then?” Alpha is asking him.

  Henry turns and looks at her. “I am in heaven,” he says slowly.

  She stares at him, concerned for a moment. The wrinkles deepen at the edges of her eyes. Then she giggles and points with the end of her knife to his plate and the food still untouched. “Eat up then. Ham’s good to bring a young man back to earth.”

  Cora sits with the rest of the help at the table near the top of the stairs. They are the last to be served. The men and boys sit down at one end, some with coal still on their hands and on the cuffs of their sleeves. Cora sits at the other end with the women. Bridge walks around the table filling the water glasses. Annie Deacon and Lucy McIleer are talking about someone.

  “He was in France, I heard,” Lucy says. “A doctor in the big war.”

  “Pass those pickles, please, will you, Annie?” Norma Jakes says.

  “Not much use after it,” Lucy goes on. “So the talk is.”

  “Was he in Paris?”

  “No, not those pickles. The sweet ones there by the butter.”

  “I don’t think it was Paris.”

  “I heard it was.”

  “No.”

  “I’m quite sure.”

  “Why don’t you ask him yourself then.”

  “I heard it was Paris.”

  Bridge sits down next to her mother. Her work is done, and she fills her plate. She picks up her knife and fork, and without a word begins to cut into a piece of ham. She seems nervous, Cora notices with some surprise, agitated, which is unlike her. Cora busies herself with her own food, then a sip of water. She finds a stain on the tablecloth. She studies its shape. Bridge eats quickly. She swabs the last of the beans off her plate with a piece of brown bread. She wipes her mouth with the edge of her napkin. Then her hand stops. Cora senses her pause. She glances up. Bridge is looking across the room, and Cora follows her gaze. It is a man she is looking at. A stranger. He is young, fair, well dressed. He is sitting beside Alpha Russell, his head bent toward her. The older woman is speaking to him, and he is listening. Then he looks up directly at Bridge, and Cora can sense something electric, something understood pass between them. Bridge’s eyes snap around. She glares at her mother.

  “What?” she says, her voice sharp.

  “Nothing,” Cora answers softly. She shakes her head and looks away. “Nothing.”

  Bridge breaks off another piece of bread. She finds her knife and cuts a slice of butter off the pound.

  He has cleared his plate. He lets Alpha fill it for him again. The food is fresh and good, and he finds that he is hungry.

  “Do you always eat so much in heaven?” she teases, dishing out another serving of beans. Her pale eyes sparkle. She has deep lines through her cheeks, and he notices how they gather when she smiles. “You remind me of my oldest boy,” she says.

  He could tell her that whatever she has seen in him tonight is not his everyday character. He could tell her that tonight, for the first time in years, he can feel something stirring in him, some old smooth river waking up.

  “Do you know what sort of poetry they’ll have later in the evening?” he asks her.

  She shakes her head. “Arthur and I only come for the food.”

  He smiles and looks away again. His eyes search the room for Bridge. She is still at the table. She has turned toward the woman seated next to her. She says something, then glances at him across the room. When she sees he is watching her, she looks away sharply. He smiles to himself. He will find her when the meal is cleared. He will go up to her and introduce himself. He will say nothing about the incident at Shorrock
’s store. He will ask if she has an interest in poetry. He will ask if he might call on her sometime. He eats a bit more of the food, and then he is full. He lays his knife and fork down on his plate. He looks up again across the room to the table where Bridge was sitting, but she is gone.

  She steps outside into the darkness. The cold is sharp. It burns her throat, and the burning soothes her. It had unnerved her, the way he was looking at her, all of it had unnerved her, him being there, watching her that way, he had no right to be there, in her world. And every time she had glanced at him—sometimes without intending to do it—but every time her eyes had strayed to his face he seemed to sense it, and he would look up and catch her watching him. She shivers and pulls her coat more tightly around her as she walks. She shovels her hands deep into the pockets of her coat. It will be a long walk home. She thinks of him often, more often than she would like, as she walks down the steep of Handy Hill toward Hix Bridge. She thinks of him less once she has crossed the river. She begins to climb the hill on the other side. Her breath is white in the moonlight. Her head aches with the cold. But when she hears the rough sound of the car engine behind her, far off, but growing nearer, she knows who it is. She does not turn around. The sound fades as the car dips over the first rise, then grows louder, approaching. Her first instinct is to disappear, behind a shed, into the trees, to let him drive by. But she keeps walking, her body suddenly flushed with heat, and she senses, without knowing for sure, that he has come looking for her. Her shoes sound loud against the oiled dirt. The headlamps play ahead of her, casting her shadow tall and long on the road. The car slows down.

  Henry Vonniker leans over and unrolls the window. “Can I give you a ride?”

  “Oh, no thanks,” she answers, but she smiles, she tries not to, but she does. She keeps walking.

  He lets the car run slowly alongside her. “It’s freezing out. Let me drive you home.”

  She stops and looks in at him through the open window. “It’s not on your way.” His face is very pale in the darkness. His eyes sink into her.

  “Please,” he says.

  She hesitates for a moment, then opens the door and climbs in. His gloves are on the seat between them.

  “Do you need them?” he asks her.

  “No, I’m fine.”

  “You have no mittens.”

  “I forgot them at the Grange.”

  He gives her the gloves. They are soft leather, flannel-lined. She slips them on. They are large on her hands. She has no feeling in the tips of her fingers from the cold. She rubs them through the gloves, bending them back and forth at the joint. “Thank you,” she says. She can feel him looking at her, and she wants to look at him, and at the same time, she is afraid. They are too close. The closeness terrifies her.

  “What is it?” she says quietly, looking down.

  “I’m sorry.” He looks away, out the front windshield.

  “Shall we go?” she says.

  “I don’t know where you live.”

  She laughs, suddenly more at ease. “No, you don’t, do you?”

  “I don’t.”

  “Take a left up ahead at the corner.”

  He puts the car into gear, and they drive. He takes the turn, and they head up Pine Hill, past the woods and the chicken farm. She notices that he does not drive quickly. He looks straight ahead at the road. Through the window the cold clear night winds past. She feels torn by the silence. She wants to ask him why he came looking for her, why he came to the Grange, if he came because of her, and at the same time, she doesn’t want to know. The feeling is coming back into her fingers. His hands are on the wheel, his skin white as bone in the dim light. They come to the end of the road. He stops.

  “Left again,” she says.

  He makes the turn. “Your name is Bridge.”

  “Yes.” She smiles. She looks down at his gloves.

  “I saw you for the first time at Asa Sisson’s funeral. Do you remember?”

  “Yes.”

  He does not say anything else, but she can feel that he wants to. She can sense the strange and fitful air between them, and she wants to touch him, his face, his hands. Every muscle in her body is tense.

  “Here,” she says quickly. “The next house on the left, but you can just pull up here on the side of the road. This is fine.” She slips off the gloves and lays them on the seat. As the car rolls to a stop, she goes to pull the door latch.

  “Wait,” he says.

  She looks up at him, her fingers on the handle, the metal is cold, like ice.

  “Could I . . .”

  She stares at him. He is looking at her intently, searching her face, and she can feel a slow and quiet trembling deep at the end of her.

  “Thank you for the ride,” she says. She pulls the handle and gets out of the car and closes the door behind her. She doesn’t look back. She crosses the road into her yard and rounds the corner of the house. She stops there and waits in the darkness, until she hears the sound of his car pull away.

  Over the next few days, she finds him sneaking around in her thoughts—a thin and solitary current that seems to have its own whim, its own restless mind. She thinks of him while she works in the shop with Noel or as she is doing chores around the house: dusting, cooking, feeding the stove. She sees his face as she sets the logs into the fire.

  Later in the week, when she stops by Abigail Dean’s hat shop to buy a few hairpins for her mother, she notices a dozen small blue bottles of perfume by the cashbox.

  “Soir de Paris,” says Abigail Dean, her voice glossy over the French words. “It’s all the rage and very expensive.”

  Bridge nods. She fingers one of the brushed silver caps.

  “Nice cap,” she says, then shrugs. Her hand drops to her side. “I can’t wear fancy perfumes myself.”

  “Why ever not? A young girl like you.”

  “They make me itch. Big red spots like the hives.”

  Abigail Dean’s nose wrinkles. “That’s quite awful.”

  “It is what it is, I suppose,” Bridge answers. “But I’d like a small bag for those hairpins, if it wouldn’t be too much trouble. I’d hate to lose one on my walk home.”

  “Oh yes, of course. I’ll dig a bag out for you. Just a moment.” Abigail steps into the back room of the shop.

  Bridge picks up one of the small blue bottles of perfume. She turns it over in her hand, then slips it into her coat pocket. She leans back against the counter, and pretends to study the colored scarves, dyed wool and silk, hanging from pegs along the opposite wall.

  Abigail Dean returns with a small paper bag. “It’s well used, but there doesn’t seem to be a hole in it.”

  “That’ll do fine,” Bridge says. “Thank you.” She puts the hairpins into the bag and folds the open edge over tightly. She walks out the door into the snow.

  At home in her bedroom, she opens the small blue bottle and puts a few drops onto her fingers. The oil is slick and cool. It smells of crushed flowers. She rubs some into her wrist, some into her neck, and she lies back on her bed. She looks toward the window. There is ice baked around the edge of it. The rough winter light sticks in the snowflakes frozen on the glass, and they glow. She closes her eyes and thinks of Henry, with the warm scent of the oil on her skin.

  She hears the door slam downstairs, the sound of her brother’s voice below in the kitchen. She sits up sharply and screws the cap back onto the bottle. She stuffs it into an old sock and buries it in one corner of a drawer.

  Part II

  Mooncussers

  Luce

  She is all bones to him. For as long as he can remember she has been—a soft bag of limbs in his arms. And it was only that fall—before the first frost set in on the leeks, before the last tomatoes had gone by, when the icehouse had been emptied nearly to the floor and he had to wade through two feet of rotted-out, soaked straw—it was only then that he noticed how her body had begun to change.

  She is still thin, still a little wild. She has alway
s been his. Trailing a slight distance behind him, the way any other young, not tame creature would. But it is only now that she has begun to put on a little flesh, only now that she has begun to grow into something more than simple bones, that it occurs to him that he could hurt her. That she could hurt him. The realization fills him with an odd sense of guilt, fear, and at the same time, a strange, complicated desire. He does not know what to do with this, but because of it, an unspoken, unspeakable line has begun to grow between them. It is not that he would cross it. He would risk losing her if he did. But the desire troubles him. He tries to duck it. He goes about his route selling ice—a quarter for a slab—a nickel for a poor-piece. After the first cold snap, he and Harry Spire walk down to check for skim ice on the ponds. And when Bridge comes to him in the early mornings through the short pitched tunnel that runs under the eaves, when she creeps into his bed, as she has done since they were little, and tucks herself like something small and warm under his arm, he tells himself that how they are together is nothing more than how they have always been.

  He knows every breath of her—the yellow spot in her right iris, the slight discolored mark on the inside of her wrist. He knows how her hair grows from the root—a swirl around the back of her scalp. He knows her the way he knows the river. He feels he owns her the way he owns that kind of knowing.

  They cut ice early that year. By mid-January the first crop is better than eight inches thick. For a week they go down to the ponds with the handsaws and the ice plow hitched up to a two-horse team. They set the horse saw, and Asa Vaughan leads them out across the ice, cutting the rafts five feet long, three feet wide. Luce and Harry Spire work behind with the double-barbed poles—they work the rafts of ice across the pond down toward the raise.

  As they walk, the cold knifes into him. The snot freezes on his lip and he can feel the tightening of the skin. He cups one hand over his mouth and breathes out warm air to thaw it, then wipes his nose. The snot leaves a pearly skid down his sleeve.

  With handsaws, they break the rafts into single cakes and haul them by pulley into the icehouse. The inside walls are sheathed with sawdust, and they stack the blocks of ice from floor to ceiling. Between each layer, they set down sawdust and hay.