by Rick Hautala
“I ... it was the weirdest thing,” Bri said, stammering the words. “I was ... I’m positive someone was outside the house.”
Frank sniffed and scratched his head. “Could’ve been,” he said. “Lots o’ nights some of the fellas end up drinkin’ late down at the wharf. Could’ve been any one of them stumblin’ home in the dark.”
Bri wanted to tell him about the girl but instead bent over and started picking the crud off her nightie.
“Yeah ... well, maybe,” she said.
It bothered her that she was unable to maintain eye contact with him, but it was spooky, the way he sat there hunched up in his wheelchair, staring at her, examining her. And even weirder how he had spoken with her and then acted surprised at seeing her. She wasn’t sure, but it was almost as if he was toying with her — as if he knew something and was just waiting for her to say the right words so he would know that she knew, too.
“It’s late. Hadn’t you ought to get back up to bed?” he asked.
Bri covered her mouth with her hand and feigned a yawn as she tossed the dried leaves she’d collected into the wastebasket by the coat closet.
“I guess so,” she said, nodding, “See you in the morning.”
“G’night,” Frank said, not moving, but shifting his eyes to follow her as she went up the stairs. “Pleasant dreams.”
FOUR
First Day Jitters
I
Once John and Bri had left for the day, Julia was more at loose ends than ever. It wasn’t that there wasn’t any work to be done. Far from it. They had unpacked about a quarter of their things the day before, and most of what had been unpacked still hadn’t found a place yet in Frank’s house.
Our house now, Julia thought as she sat at the kitchen table, her hands wrapped around a cup of coffee.
For several minutes she sat there looking around, comparing this kitchen to the one she had left behind in Shelburne Falls. Granted, this one was much larger, but her kitchen back in Vermont had been sunny and yellow and warm. How many times had she sat in that kitchen, drinking coffee and talking with Sue or Ann or any number of friends who seemed always to be dropping by. There had been someone visiting just about every day, but who was there to visit with here on Glooscap? She had to resist the desire to pick up the phone and give Sue or Ann or someone a call. Maybe talking with her for a few minutes would get her out of her funk.
But the longer she looked from dingy cupboard to dusty floor, the more she wondered why she had so willingly gone into self-exile from friends and everything she cherished back in Vermont.
As if in answer, a soft thump sounded on the floor and, turning, she saw Frank maneuvering his wheelchair around the corner into the kitchen.
“Mornin’,” he said, pausing to scratch his beard-stubbled jowls.
“I hope we didn’t disturb you this morning,” Julia said, standing up and making room for him to get past her. “John and Bri had to get an early start.”
“Ahh, I’m a light sleeper anyways,” Frank grumbled. A twinkle lit his eyes when he added, “I was up late, listenin’ to the organ music.”
He reached for the coffeepot and cup Julia had left out on the counter for him, filled his cup, and twisted around in his wheelchair to place it on the table before going to the refrigerator for the milk.
Julia’s first impulse was to get it for him, but she knew he was used to doing things on his own and that he might see anything she did to help as patronizing. She slowly eased back into her chair, not sure what to say or do next. All she could think was, if Frank didn’t turn into a much better conversationalist soon, she would have plenty of motivation to get to work unpacking.
Frank came back to the table, stirred a generous amount of milk into his cup, then, took a sip and leaned back in his wheelchair, smacking his lips.
“Well, this is going to be unusual,” he said, placing his cup on the table.
“What do you mean?” Julia was afraid he was going to start in on how they would have to be much quieter in the morning.
“Havin’ coffee made for me when I get up.” Frank took another sip. “It’s kinda nice. You serve breakfast, too? Or do I have to fetch my own?”
Julia smiled and stood up.
“Scrambled or over easy?” she asked, reaching for the frying pan.
“Actually, toast and cereal will do just fine. But I reckon you got enough to do without waitin’ on me hand-and-foot. I can fetch it myself.”
Is this some kind of test? Julia wondered, looking at Frank while trying to gauge what he meant. He was smiling at her pleasantly enough, but beneath the surface, was he silently measuring her?
And, she wondered, by what standards?
“No problem,” Julia said, opening the cupboard and taking down a box of Rice Krispies. She popped two pieces of whole wheat bread into the toaster, got a jar of grape jelly from the refrigerator, a bowl and silverware from the cupboard, and placed them all on the table in front of Frank. While she drank her second cup of coffee, he ate his skimpy breakfast. She wondered how he could eat cereal without any sugar but decided it was probably doctor’s orders.
The bowl of Rice Krispies was soon gone, and Frank was halfway through his second piece of toast when he nailed her with an unexpected question.
“So, what in the hell’s John’s problem, anyways?”
His bluntness surprised her. With difficulty, she swallowed her mouthful of coffee before looking at him and saying, “Beg your pardon?”
“I asked what the hell’s John’s problem?” he repeated. “It don’t take no goddamned Sherlock Holmes to figure out somethin’s bothering him. ‘N’ since he ain’t about to open up to me, I thought maybe you could enlighten me.”
Instantly, Julia ticked off the possibilities to herself. Of course she, too, had noticed that John was acting ... well, not strangely, but a little bit differently since the arrived in Maine.
In some ways, she thought, his father knows him better than I do…What’s he driving at?
“I don’t think it’s anything serious,” she said, wringing her hands helplessly. “I mean, I don’t think it’s anything more than the stress of relocating and starting a new job and all, and —”
“And coming home,” Frank said harshly, “to live with me … to take care of me.”
He curled one hand into a fist and brought it down hard enough on the arm of the wheelchair to make it rattle.
“Kinda funny, though, when you think how much I was always the one pushin’ him to get an education so he could get the hell out of here.” He snorted and shook his head. “Can’t say he don’t resent it.”
Julia’s bottled-up resentment for Frank genuinely scared her. Of course, in the years she had known John, he had told her plenty of things about what kind of father Frank had been … what kind of childhood he’d had. When she compared John’s childhood to her own, she believed he had gotten off fairly easy. It certainly hadn’t been as tough as her life, being passed from foster home to foster home after her parents had died when she was four.
“It’s not fair to say that,” Julia said softly. “He doesn’t resent you.”
She wanted to say more, but she cut herself off and, looking out the window past Frank, groped for what to say. She was about to continue when, from the corner of her eye, something — a thin, indistinct shadow — slid across the windowsill. For an instant, the sunlight streaming in had been blocked. She tensed, looking at Frank to see if he had noticed it, too, but his back was to the window.
Forcing herself to stay calm and look casual, Julia got up and brought her half-empty cup over to the sink. She leaned forward, looking back and forth out the window, squinting into the sun as she dumped the coffee out and rinsed the cup. As far as she could tell, there was nothing unusual — no tree branches or birds or anything that could have accounted for the shadow. It had been so thin and fleeting she was half-convinced she had imagined it. But she couldn’t rid herself of the unnerving thought that something ha
d been outside there.
Probably a bird flying by, she concluded, but that didn’t dispel the sensation she had that the source of the shadow had been closer to the house.
“To be honest,” Frank went on, apparently not noticing her distraction, “I think it’s ‘cause he don’t like me … Never has. ‘Specially after his mother died. I think he blames me for what happened to her.”
“Don’t be ridiculous,” Julia said automatically. She reached out blindly and put her cup in the dish drainer but kept scanning the yard.
“Come on, Julia,” Frank said. His voice had such intensity that she turned around and faced him. “We’re both adults here, and if we don’t talk honest, your living here simply ain’t gonna work. You know it, and I know it.”
“Of course,” Julia said.
Her back was toward the window now, and she about screamed from the sensation that someone was out there watching her. Her breath caught in her throat, and she found it difficult to look directly at Frank. She wanted to maintain solid eye contact with him because she didn’t want him to read her rising fear and think it meant she was hiding something about John from him.
“Then you can tell me up front what the hell it is that’s botherin’ him,” Frank said. “Ever since you folks got here, he’s said maybe three words to me. ‘N’ if he hates me so much —”
“He doesn’t hate you,” Julia said, forcing her voice to stay mild. But then she had to clamp her jaw shut when, glancing down at her hand resting on the counter, she saw a shadow slide across the countertop. The sun warming her back suddenly went cold as though something had come between her and the sunlight.
With a low grunt, she spun around and stared out the window, fully expecting to see a person, standing out there, looking in at her. The cold spot on her back sent waves of goose bumps down her arms, and she had all she could do not to scream when she realized there was nothing … no one there.
The sun poured, unblocked, through the window.
“You all right there?” Frank asked, for the first time noticing her agitation.
Julia nodded, rubbing the bridge of her nose. “Yeah, I thought I heard something outside.”
Frank kept looking at her as though he could peel aside her exterior and peer into her deepest thoughts. Of course, she knew that John honestly hadn’t wanted to come back to Glooscap, that he would just as soon have continued their life in Vermont and let Frank fend for himself, either at home or in a nursing home. She couldn’t admit to Frank that she had insisted they come to help him.
She couldn’t — and wouldn’t — tell him that.
“Look, Frank,” she said, “if there’s a problem between you two, it’s up to you to talk to John about it. He’s your son, after all.”
She waved her hands for emphasis, barely able to repress a shiver as she wondered who or what had blocked the sunlight in the window behind her back.
Frank snorted and shook his head as though she had just delivered a joke. “Yeah ... right.”
“I’m not going to get between the two of you,” she went on. “If you can’t talk to him, then, yes, you’re right — our being here isn’t going to work.”
She heard what she was saying, and she honestly meant it, but her mind was consumed by the desire to move from where she was standing with her back to the window. She was so tense, though, she was afraid if she moved right now, she would scream and run from the room. The sensation that somewhere outside the house someone was watching her scared the bejesus out of her. Coupled with what Bri had said last night about the girl she had seen down on the beach, Julia was beginning to have grave doubts — not about living here to help Frank — but simply about living on Glooscap Island. There was something strange going on here, no doubt.
“I have a lot of work to do,” she said. She held her breath as she shifted away from the window, still feeling unseen eyes boring into her back as she came over to the table and started clearing Frank’s place. He quickly grabbed his empty cereal bowl and said, “I got it.”
Knowing it was time to back off, Julia said simply, “Fine,” and smiling a smile she didn’t feel, she went out into the living room and got to work opening boxes of books and placing them on the shelves by the fireplace. She tried to lose herself in the work, but she couldn’t shake the conviction all day that someone was watching her. And she would never forget the chilled sensation on her back when whoever or whatever it was had come between her and the sun.
II
“My first impression, if you want the truth, is that you’re walking right into the middle of a shit storm,” Barry Cummings, John’s new boss at Atkins Construction, said.
He was a tall, heavy-built black man with a warm smile John had liked immediately.
After dropping Bri off at school, John had trouble finding a parking place and had gotten to the office a few minutes late, making for a great first impression. The first thing Barry did was take him out of the office building and down the street to show him where he could be guaranteed a parking space — if he arrived before eight every morning. Then he gave John a quick tour of the office, introducing him to everyone they bumped into. After loitering around the coffeepot, making light conversation with the employees, Barry showed John his new office. The company had recently moved into a new building on Commercial Street, and from his office window, John could see the hazy purple lump of Glooscap Island in the distance across Casco Bay.
Home, sweet home, he had thought bitterly while looking out over the water.
Now, working on their second cup of coffee, he and Barry were leaning over a huge blueprint unrolled across John’s new work desk. The room was pleasant enough, clean and well lit, but perhaps a bit too small. John figured, being “low man,” he had been given the smallest space.
The blueprint they were looking at was of lot divisions and a proposed road for Surfside Ledges, a condo development being built by the Freedom Corporation, one of the biggest land developers in the Portland area. It just so happened that the project was being built on the northeast side of Glooscap Island, on the ocean side of two small hills known locally as The Brothers that overlooked Whale Cove.
“Everything looks fine to me,” John said after scanning the plan a few minutes.
Glooscap was a relatively small island, and even though he hadn’t been home in years, he knew every square foot of the place. As a boy, he and his friends had ranged far and wide over the island, playing guns, swimming, doing whatever kids do. Past Larson’s Pond, where they went skating every winter, the area around The Brothers was — at least back then — one of the last woodsy areas on the island. Huge oaks mingled with second-growth pines down to the shore. On the extreme tip of Whale Cove was Haskins’ farm, about fifteen acres of cleared land, an old farmhouse, and a tumbled-down barn. The condo development was situated so residents would have a gorgeous view of the outer islands of Casco Bay.
“Oh, the plans are fine. Nothing wrong there,” Barry said, straightening up and rubbing the small of his back. “It’s the — let’s call it the ‘local opposition.’ The folks who don’t want to see condos on their island.”
John shrugged and leaned back from the drafting table. Focusing on the blueprint, he drained his coffee cup and lobbed it into the trash can, waiting for Barry to continue.
“You realize how tough it’s getting, I suppose,” Barry said at last, a faint smile on his lips. “The local environmentalists start screaming about — I don’t know ... whatever. Saving the breeding grounds for Arctic terns is the latest I’ve heard. The environmental impact, as they’re so fond of saying.”
“But Freedom’s gotten all the necessary clearances and permits, right?”
“Oh, yeah — sure, sure.”
“So any protest is pretty much a waste of time.”
“An expensive waste of time, but that doesn’t seem to stop them. There was quite a stink awhile ago about banning any noncommercial fishing uses of — well, that was in Portland harbor. There’s a
lso been a big ruckus about some developing down around Old Orchard Beach, so it’s been putting some heat on what Freedom Corp’s doing out on Glooscap. Lot of people on the island are bitchin’ about how they want to keep out-of-state money from ruining their island.”
“That’s only natural,” John said, letting his gaze drift out across the water to the distant hump of the island. “‘Course, you don’t hear them bitching when those out-of-staters buy their lobsters, do you?”
“Never,” Barry said.
Seeing the planned construction had made John start remembering the times he and his friends had spent out there — especially the times he and one of his girlfriends would meet in the woods or go up into the hayloft of Haskins’ barn and fool around. Back in those days, copping a quick feel on the outside of your girlfriend’s blouse was a major accomplishment. Anything more and, as the guys used to say, you were an “skinner.”
“So what do you think?”
“Huh?” John was ripped out of his reverie when Barry asked him a question he hadn’t heard.
‘‘I’m not keeping you awake, am I?” Barry said, smiling.
John started to apologize, but Barry waved him to silence.
“I know. You’re not even in the office an hour, and here I am bombarding you with all the bullshit. I asked was if you felt like you were caught in the middle, seeing as how you live out there. Some of your neighbors might not take too kindly to you being involved with this project.”
“Oh, no — no,” John said, waving his hand. He wanted to look out the window over toward the island but stared down at the blueprint instead, focusing on the thin, dark blue lines that represented the reality that hovered in the pale haze on the horizon. “It’s just ... well, everything’s still kind of spinning for me. It’s going to take me a while to absorb it all.”
