Absence of Grace

by Ann Warner

  While she talked, he made notes on one of the cafe’s paper placemats. The information dovetailed with what the Jeffers told him, but now he had figures he could use to run the numbers.

  “If you get your paperwork in order, I’d be happy to start referring visitors interested in sports fishing, and later in the season you could offer Anan trips,” Doreen said.

  “I’m also interested in the viability of offering Stikine trips.”

  “Doubt that would work for you. You need a smaller, faster boat to make a go of it on the Stikine.”

  Essentially the same thing the Jeffers had told him. “Is anyone doing Stikine trips?”

  “A few tried it. Never seems to take.”

  “Do you know why?”

  “Trip takes most of a day. Means you’re always going to hit a low tide either going or coming. The boats what can get across best are too small to be comfortable for, say a party of four to six. That’s what’s needed to make a go of it.”

  He walked Doreen back to the Visitors’ Center and returned to the Joyful with the placemat of figures and an idea beginning to form.

  “Only thing worse than a Native acting like he’s good as you is a Native who’s a goddamned lawyer.” The man who spoke was standing at the bar dressed in the typical Wrangell attire of flannel shirt and jeans held up by suspenders.

  Gerrum knew the remarks were aimed at him, and they triggered a familiar spurt of adrenaline. Trying to appear calm, he turned to John Jeffers with a questioning look.

  John tipped his chin toward the man. “That’s Elmer Cantrell. Convinced there’s a conspiracy behind every bush, even if it damn well looks like a bull moose.”

  “They ain’t going to be satisfied till they get it all,” Cantrell countered, turning around and leaning back on his elbows. “That there Native Claims Settlement Act.” He hawked, the sound every bit as disgusting as the disgust it was seeking to convey. “Don’t make no difference. They want it all. And what makes them think they’re special anyway. Wasn’t I born here? Seems to me, that makes me as native as some half-assed Tlingit damn lawyer from Seattle.”

  Gerrum bit down on a reply. It never paid to engage a bigot in a debate. John tossed money on the table and motioned for Gerrum to follow him outside.

  “Are Native claims still an issue?” he asked John, as they walked away from the bar. “I thought that was settled in the seventies.”

  John shrugged. “Always seems to be a loose end or two. Enough to keep your garden-variety racist like Cantrell stirred up.”

  “Does he have company?”

  “What? You mean in Wrangell?”

  Gerrum nodded, hoping for a negative. Until the encounter with Elmer, he’d had a good feeling about Wrangell.

  “Folks around here are mostly tolerant, though they do like to gossip a bit. Hell, it’s a form of recreation. But there’s no malice in it.”

  “Except when someone like Cantrell gets hold of it.”

  “That’s a man loves the sound of his own voice. No guts to back it up, though. Only picked on you because you were with me, and he knew I wouldn’t let you clean his clock.”

  After a week in Wrangell, time Gerrum spent both writing and checking further on the information he’d been given, he left the Joyful in John and Marian’s care and took the ferry back to Bellingham to follow up on his idea. It was one he hoped would bring in a regular income while he figured out if writing was going to pan out since he knew from Jeannie’s experience, being an author was more long haul than quick moneymaker.

  In Bellingham, he commissioned the building of a boat based on a New Zealand design, and paid for it by selling his Seattle house. The boat, powered by an engine lying flush with the keel, had a draft of less than a foot, making it fast and maneuverable. He expected it to be as much fun to operate as a race car, and perfect for Stikine trips with small groups.

  And when the boat arrived the following spring, he would need a partner. After he mentioned that to John, Terry Borges ambled down the dock and introduced himself. Lanky and relaxed, Terry stepped aboard the Joyful, his open, sunny countenance a direct contrast to one particular Wrangell resident.

  His handshake was firm. “Don’t make ‘em like this no more,” he said, thumping the rail.

  As they chatted, Gerrum could see Terry was engaged in a casual but thorough perusal of the Joyful. The troller might look a bit ragged, but she was sound.

  “John told me you was looking for someone to run one of your boats. Take visitors and fishermen out and about. But I only see one boat.”

  “The other one’s being built. It will be here next spring.”

  “Another troller?”

  “No.” Gerrum invited Terry to sit in the galley and handed him a cup of coffee, then he outlined his plans. When he finished, Terry agreed to join him the following year and shook Gerrum’s hand.

  Funny how life often seemed to turn out that way—the thing you thought you were running from was what saved you.

  Something he and his sister talked about when he visited her in Seattle that winter. “You always insisted you didn’t want to depend on a boat for a living.” Jeannie picked up her knitting and bent her head over it, the needles beginning to move in a slow rhythm.

  “I know, but I think I’ll enjoy it. For sure it means less stress, more leisure than I had at Pierpont and Potter.” He stretched his legs to soak up the warmth from the wood-burning stove. It was a typical Seattle winter day, damp and overcast, but this room was like a warm, beating heart.

  Jeannie looked up with a smile. “How about Pam? Are you still glad you called it off?”

  “Good God, yes. Would have been the biggest mistake of my life.”

  “It might get lonely, though.”

  “Are you lonely, Jeannie?”

  “Sometimes.” She gave him a quick glance. “Better off lonely than with the wrong person, I suppose.”

  “Amen to that.” They sat in companionable silence, while he tried to think of something he could say to make his sister feel better about either her situation or his. “Maybe we’re better off alone, we two. Getting too old to change, maybe.”

  Jeannie snorted. “Since when is thirty-seven and forty old?”

  “You have to admit, it’s getting there.”

  For a time she knitted in silence while he let his plotline simmer.

  “I have a friend who told me when it’s the right person, you just know,” she said.

  “Reassuring.” Although it hadn’t happened that way with Pam. Which would, of course, be a case in point.

  “I’d like to feel that way about someone,” she said. “Certain. No doubts.”

  Yeah. He’d like it, too. Didn’t seem like either he or his sister had a talent for it, however.

  The needles stopped moving, but Jeannie didn’t look up. “I asked Mum once how she knew Dad was the one.”

  “What did she say?”

  “He had the prettiest boat.”

  He smiled at Jeannie, wishing he had more comfort than that to offer her.

  Jeannie set her knitting down and stood. “Guess I better do something about dinner. It surely won’t cook itself.”

  The spring of his third year in Wrangell, Gerrum attended the Kiwanis salmon bake at Marian Jeffers’ insistence. He looked for John and Marian among the people sitting at the picnic tables scattered under tarps to hold off the inevitable rain. He spotted the Jeffers and walked over to take the empty spot across from John.

  “Have you two met?” Marian gestured to the woman he’d ended up next to.

  He hadn’t met her, but he’d heard the commentary. “Hailey Connelly, isn’t it?”

  She nodded, her eyes narrowing. “You know, I don’t recall you being among the lure-the-city-girl-up-the-Stikine crowd.”

  “Not after you told Del you were so allergic to hot springs he’d better be able to do a tracheotomy if he planned to get you near one.”

  “Does Del have black, brown, or blonde hair?” Ha
iley asked with a bright smile that was so insincere it made Gerrum grin and Marian stifle a chuckle.

  “Del’s as bald as a cue ball.”

  “Well, I didn’t want to hurt his feelings.” She lowered her eyes. In an attempt to play the demure Southern girl? But that ship had already sailed.

  “Del had to ask around to find out what a tracheotomy was,” Gerrum said.

  “Don’t doubt that one bit,” John said.

  Hailey and Marian resumed their conversation, and John asked Gerrum how the jet boat was doing.

  “Last season was good, but I’m hoping to top it this year.” While Gerrum continued to talk to John, he was aware of Hailey. Her voice had a touch of a Southern lilt, and although he couldn’t examine her closely from his position next to her, he’d seen enough to be able to vouch for one part of Rog Remington’s statement: “Girl’s pretty as a movie star.” He had yet to check out the second part: “…but up close she’s too damn snippy for a man to take any joy in the view.”

  Hailey didn’t strike him as snippy so much as a woman who didn’t suffer fools without remarking on it. An unusual trait in someone as young as she appeared to be. Early to mid-twenties was his guess. Pam had also been assertive to the point of being considered snippy. Perhaps it was a trend among younger women.

  Gerrum didn’t see Hailey again until two weeks later when he treated himself to dinner at the lodge and found she was doing the same. After he greeted the locals, Gerrum walked over to Hailey and, with a lift of his eyebrows, asked permission to take the bench seat across from her.

  She shrugged, and he counted it as assent.

  “I heard you’re a writer,” she said as he sat down.

  “That’s right. My first book comes out this fall.”

  “Bet it feels good.”

  “You better believe it. Marian’s planning a big do as soon as the publisher ships us copies. If you’re around, you’ll have to come.”

  “I’d like that. How did you come up with your plot?”

  “Bits and pieces from stories I’ve heard, read. Personal experiences, observations. I watch people all the time. Listen in on their conversations.”

  “Most of which are, you know, like rainy-day dull, like, you know.”

  “Too true. But every once in a while, I pick up a gem, like your ‘rainy-day dull.’” He could see his compliment pleased her.

  The cook, a young man who’d just graduated from cooking school, carried plates of food over to the counter. Tonight’s offering was spareribs, baked potatoes, green salad, and cornmeal muffins. Gerrum picked up plates for himself and for Hailey, and while they ate, they continued to chat.

  He found her pleasant to talk to, although pleasant was not precisely the correct word for what he felt watching her cut and delicately eat her food. That same delicacy applied to stirring her coffee, her mouth curving in a smile at something he said.

  Too bad she reminded him of Pam. Although, she’d still add an interesting dimension to the season.

  Chapter Seven

  1984

  Resurrection Abbey - Stowe, Vermont

  As a visitor at Resurrection Abbey, Clen could attend services in the chapel up to seven times a day, starting with Vigils at 3:15 a.m. and ending with Compline at 7:30 p.m. It was something she chose not to do. Instead, she ate three simple meals in the visitors’ dining room and the rest of the time she slept or walked the expansive grounds, soaking up the peace, stopping to sketch.

  After she’d been at Resurrection a week, she was summoned to an interview with Mother Abbess. The nun gestured to a chair in the small interview room, then gave Clen a soul-fingering look. “I am told you’ve requested a longer stay with us.”

  Although not stated as such, it was clearly a question—one Clen struggled to answer. “I’ve changed my life. Ended my marriage. Left my career.”

  “Are you questioning those choices?”

  “No. They were the right decisions. I’m just not sure what comes next.”

  “Perhaps it would be useful for you to have a regular companion as you seek that answer. I believe Sister Mary John would be a good choice. She has a great deal of insight into difficulties such as yours.”

  Clen had arrived at Resurrection wound tight, her body brittle with the stress of her journeying, and she had no interest in Mary John’s insights. Instead, she preferred to be left alone to relax in the peace that seemed to be part of the very walls here. But if the price for remaining within those walls was to meet with this Mary John person, she would do it.

  Sister Mary John turned out to be a short, dark-browed nun with shrewd eyes. She and Clen walked in the garden each Tuesday and Thursday in the hour after breakfast. At first, they spoke only of trivial things, until Mary John’s willingness to let her set the pace led Clen to share some of her history—a history she was still guarding the most intimate parts of when the Abbess sent for her again.

  The nun inclined her head, her fingers steepled, examining Clen. “You have stayed considerably longer than most of our visitors, and yet I do not believe you have a calling to join us.”

  A certainty Clen shared. After all, becoming a nun was hardly the typical career path taken by a person furious with God. She’d kept her anger hidden, of course, although she suspected if she admitted it to Mary John, the nun would respond with a sniff and a quick reassurance: “It doesn’t matter so much how you feel about God, Clen. What’s important is that God loves you.”

  As the Abbess continued to examine her, Clen struggled to meet that serene gaze without squirming.

  “I believe it will soon be time, Clen, for you to take the next step and discover what God has waiting for you. And have no doubt, my dear, the Lord will be with you.”

  Clen bowed her head and completed the formula. “And also with you, Mother.”

  She managed to leave the interview parlor without stumbling—a minor miracle given how badly she was shaking. In her room, she sat on the edge of the narrow bed and wrapped her arms tightly around herself, in a vain attempt to still her trembling. Despite the Abbess’s reassurance, Clen wasn’t yet ready to strike off into an unknown future down a road with signposts she didn’t recognize.

  She’d already made one stab at that and ended up at Resurrection.

  In the days following the Abbess’s pronouncement, Clen spent mornings in the garden. The snow had finally melted, leaving behind a tangle of winter-bare branches, and here and there, green shoots were beginning to appear. She closed her eyes, listening to the sounds of birds singing and squirrels scampering through the crisp leaf litter. Then she opened her eyes and sketched her surroundings—a bird sitting on the bare branch of a maple tree, a squirrel drinking from a birdbath, a nun bent over a cold frame tending seedlings. As her pencil moved across the page, she tried to picture her future, but it remained a blank.

  “I’m stuck,” she finally told Mary John. “When I leave Resurrection, I have no idea where to go or what I’m going to do when I get there.”

  “Well, do you at least know where you don’t want to go?”

  “Atlanta, for sure. Probably any big city.”

  “And do you know what you don’t want to do?”

  “I don’t want to work in an office.”

  “Quickly, no filtering, no judgment. Name a place that appeals to you.”

  “Alaska.”

  “Do you know why?”

  She might just as easily have said Kathmandu, or Timbuktu, for that matter. Alaska was just another word, but then that word gifted her with a memory—deep blue chunks of glacial ice in the most improbable shapes, floating in water that reflected sky.

  “I visited there once. It’s an amazing place. I’m sure the winters are brutal, but in the summer...it’s beautiful.” She shook her head to disperse all that blue. “It isn’t the answer, though.”

  “Don’t be too quick to discount the gifts of the subconscious, my dear. Play with it a bit. Pretend you’re going there. Exactly where would you go?
Then think about a job. Do you want one? If so, what kind?”

  After that conversation, Mary John’s words kept nudging at Clen whenever she sat down to sketch. Distracting her as well from making any sense of the spiritual readings that accompanied their meals. Not that she usually paid attention to them, but still.