Anxious Hearts

by Tucker Shaw

  I step onto the porch and pull open the screen door, which creaks under my grasp. Once Da’ oiled it and it stopped creaking, but Ada and I both like it better when it’s creaky because that’s how you know someone’s there.

  “Ada?” I reach into the doorway to feel for the light switch. “Ada? Yankee is here.”

  “Don’t worry, my dear. I won’t tell.” Her voice is closer than I expected, and it startles me.

  “Tell? Tell what?”

  “I won’t tell your da’ that you’re in love.”

  I turn around and flip on the porch light. There is Ada, smiling broadly, sitting outside in the dark on her deep, slatted Shaker rocking chair, her porch-rocker she calls it, with a Pepsi-colored afghan tucked around her legs and a pillow embroidered with a tourist map of Nova Scotia on her lap. White horn-rim glasses sit over her deeply wrinkled face, holding comically thick lenses that magnify her mischievous blue eyes, giving her a permanent look of surprise. She shakes her head in a grandmotherly chuckle, forgiving and harmlessly supercilious all at once, as only an old woman can be.

  “I don’t know what you mean,” I say. “In love? Who’s in love?”

  “My dear,” Ada says. She points straight ahead from her chair to my driveway, a clear view of where Gabe just dropped me off. “With my glasses, I don’t miss anything.” She adjusts her lenses. “I know love when I see it.” She smiles confidently, as if to say, so there. She is teasing me.

  “Oh, Ada,” I say, shaking my head. “I don’t know about love. That was, I don’t know. That was just a kiss.”

  “I don’t believe that for a minute,” she says. “If it wasn’t love, you would have given up after the first try.”

  “What are you talking about?” I say, knowing exactly what she’s talking about.

  “But you gave it a second try.” Ada blinks. “And a third. That was love. I know all about love. And I know that you are in love with that boy. He is in love with you. I can see it, plain as day.”

  “It’s night, Ada,” I say.

  Ada looks down at her embroidery. “He is handsome,” she says. “He needs a haircut, but most boys do. I remember him, Eva. He used to steal honey from my tree long ago. What is his name again?”

  “Ada, stop,” I groan. I can tell Ada’s enjoying this.

  “It doesn’t matter,” Ada says. “Love doesn’t require names.”

  I look over at Ada, who is looking straight at me. “You are beautiful, Eva,” she says, still smiling.

  “I am not,” I say, eager to change the subject. “What did you have for dinner, Ada?”

  She stares at me for another moment, pausing as if to say, trust me. “Leftovers. Sardines and rice and some carrot salad.”

  “Want to go inside?” I ask. “I can poke at your fire and put on some water for tea. The new issue of Yankee magazine is here.”

  After Ada falls asleep in her wingback chair next to the fire, I head home, say good night to Da’, and go up to my room. I sit at the desk by my window and stare out into the starlit meadow beyond the barn. I don’t think, or wonder, or fret. I just relive the kiss a million more times, and wonder if Ada is right.

  Gabriel

  AS WAS THE CUSTOM, THE BRIDE-TO-BE FILLED her father’s table with a feast fit for a wedding’s eve. A rich stew of morue, cod, in a savory broth made with pork knuckles and grape wine and summer herbs, with a great round loaf of crusty-soft oat bread to soak up the soup. Early-season pumpkins, cut into slabs and roasted on a rock in the vast fireplace, drizzled with honey and bonnyclabber and sprinkled with roasted wood-nuts. Cakes of toasted millet with freshly churned goat butter that Evangeline had mashed together with ruby-red brambleberries, the last and sweetest of the summer. Cider pressed from orchard apples, warmed instead of chilled for the first time that year. Thin slices of mutton cut from the glistening shank that spun on the trammel over the flame in the fireplace, watched over by Poc, who licked the hearth whenever a stray splatter landed there. Benedict, Basil, Gabriel, and Evangeline gathered around the table.

  “The last time the ships came, do you remember, Benedict? Perhaps they did not kill us themselves, but because they were here, we lost lives. Important lives. My wife. My son. Our hearts suffered, my old friend.” Basil sighed and swirled his cup of cider. “These, too, are enemy ships. All we don’t know is precisely when, and where, they’ll attack.”

  “Even if what you say is true, Basil, what would you do? Attack them first? We would lose. Flee into the woods? Extinguish our fires again and hide, and wait?” Benedict cleared his throat. “Shall we extinguish the flames, Monsieur Lajeunesse?”

  “No,” Basil said. “Not this time. We cannot.”

  “On that we can agree,” Benedict said. “We have a wedding to attend to.”

  Evangeline walked over to the fire and reached in with her oven-hook to tend the mutton shank. Gabriel watched her go, half drunk as he was with cider and desire and the aroma of spit-roasting meat.

  There was a loud knock at the door. “Monsieur Bellefontaine?”

  Basil leaped to his feet. “Who goes?” he demanded.

  Benedict chuckled. “At ease, Basil. It is the notary Leblanc,” Benedict said to the room. “Here to sign the papers.”

  “Of course,” Basil said, sitting back down sheepishly. “The papers.”

  “I also suspect he’ll want to eat,” Benedict said to Evangeline. “He always does.”

  Evangeline smiled at her father and opened the front door. “Monsieur,” she said with a broad smile. “Welcome.”

  Leblanc gave a shallow bow. “My child,” he said. “You grow more beautiful every day.”

  Evangeline gestured graciously into the room. “Please, come in.”

  Behind the lanky, wizened notary, the oldest and sagest man in Pré-du-sel, was his youngest son, Jean-Baptiste Leblanc, his fitted silken waistcoat stiff on his shoulders, his hair pulled into a wincing queue.

  Gabriel rose to his feet slowly. He eyed Jean-Baptiste warily. What purpose could he have had in coming here?

  “Welcome, René,” said Benedict from his chair. “Please forgive this old man for not rising. The bones are simply too brittle tonight. You are both welcome. Please, take a seat near the fire to warm yourselves.” He pointed to a pair of footstools hanging from pegs behind the doorway. “Are you hungry? There is mutton yet, and cider, and we have much to celebrate.”

  The notary and Jean-Baptiste each took a footstool and settled near the hearth. Gabriel sat across the room, on the windowsill by the kitchen, pretending not to watch every one of Jean-Baptiste’s movements. Evangeline smiled at Gabriel, as if to say, “You, Gabriel, you are all I see.” She poured cider into wooden bowls for the guests.

  “How is business?” Leblanc said to Basil.

  “Forget business,” Basil said. “You have heard about the ships, have you not? I have seen them myself.” At this, he glared at Jean-Baptiste.

  “Ah, the ships,” Leblanc said. He sighed. “Yes, Basil Lajeunesse. I have seen them,” he said clearly. “We have.”

  “And,” Basil said, turning away from Jean-Baptiste and back to the bespectacled face of the notary, “what do you think we should do?”

  The notary didn’t answer. He took a long sip from his mug and closed his eyes, as if his response were to be found behind his eyelids.

  “Fight,” said Basil impatiently. “We should fight.”

  “I do not agree,” Benedict said. “What say you, Monsieur Leblanc?”

  “I do not wish to fight,” Leblanc said. “Bloodshed and sorrow will surely follow if we choose that course. Still, we must be prepared for anything.”

  Basil slammed his hand down on the table. “We do not choose to fight,” he said in his powerful deep voice. “But if God calls us to fight, we must!”

  All eyes turned to the venerated Leblanc. A silent moment later, he said softly, “However fate directs us, I choose to believe that justice will prevail. Law will rule.”

  “Aye,”
Benedict said, raising his glass. “Let us drink to that.”

  “What law?” countered Basil. “We have no law that they recognize. They obey no law.”

  The notary raised his bowl of cider to the room. He took a slow, deliberate swallow, and began to speak.

  “Once in an ancient city, whose name I no longer

  remember,

  Raised aloft on a column, a brazen statue of Justice

  Stood in the public square, upholding the scales in its

  left hand,

  And in its right a sword, as an emblem that justice

  presided

  Over the laws of the land, and the hearts and homes

  of the people.

  Even the birds had built their nests in the scales of the

  balance,

  Having no fear of the sword that flashed in the

  sunshine above them.

  But in the course of time the laws of the land were

  corrupted;

  Might took the place of right, and the weak were

  oppressed, and the mighty

  Ruled with an iron rod.”

  Leblanc’s hands threw giant, flickering shadow-dancers across the wall as he spoke, slowly, in measured rhythms and soothing tones. Gabriel held his breath as Evangeline settled down next to him at the windowsill. He smiled at her, and she raised a seductive eyebrow. Gabriel, flushed, looked down and grasped his knees with his hands, willing them not to reach out and embrace her, as he so desperately desired.

  “Then it chanced in a nobleman’s palace

  That a necklace of pearls was lost, and erelong a

  suspicion

  Fell on an orphan girl who lived as a maid in the

  household.”

  Evangeline moved closer to Gabriel. He watched, unmoving and surreptitiously, as her right hand ascended from her apron and reached out to his own. Gabriel kept his eyes on the fire.

  “She, after form of trial condemned to die on the

  scaffold,

  Patiently met her doom at the foot of the statue of

  Justice.

  As to her Father in heaven her innocent spirit

  ascended …”

  Leblanc paused, for a sip of cider, or perhaps to focus his audience, or perhaps for some reason that only another storyteller could fathom. Evangeline’s hand slipped under Gabriel’s. She stroked the palm of his hand lightly. Gabriel flushed, but—desperate to show no weakness—did not move. He steeled his body and forced his gaze on the notary.

  “Lo! o’er the city a tempest rose; and the bolts of the

  thunder

  Smote the statue of bronze, and hurled in wrath from

  its left hand

  Down on the pavement below the clattering scales of

  the balance,

  And in the hollow thereof was found the nest of a

  magpie,

  Into whose clay-built walls …”

  Evangeline locked her fingers into Gabriel’s. The notary glanced over at the betrothed, his eye pausing at their intertwined hands, and he smiled. Every eye in the room followed the notary’s, and all smiled. Except for Jean-Baptiste.

  “… the necklace of pearls …”

  Leblanc grinned widely now.

  “… was inwoven.”

  Leblanc stood up from his stool, squared his shoulders, and strode over to the windowsill where Gabriel and Evangeline sat.

  “The moral, my friends,” said Leblanc, because the notary never ended a story without a lesson. “The moral is this: Justice will always, finally, be done, no matter how imperfect its instillation. It is the way of the universe.” He reached down and grasped the intertwined hands, engulfing them with his own two long-fingered hands, hands that had blessed such occasions before.

  After all the mutton was eaten and the bone bestowed upon Poc, the notary oversaw the signing of the wedding papers. Gabriel’s heart swelled with pride and affection at the sight of the notary’s seal, willing Evangeline to Gabriel, and Gabriel to Evangeline, tomorrow.

  Tomorrow.

  Gabriel prayed that the tide would speed it here.

  eva

  I haven’t heard from Gabe since we kissed.

  I am worried at first, but I tell myself I’m being stupid and I just need to play it cool. Guys need space. Even if he got the note I left on his windshield, three days is not that many.

  Maybe I shouldn’t have left that note on his windshield. Maybe that freaked him out.

  Whatever. It’s not like I don’t have enough to do to fill a day without hearing from Gabe. Like talk to my father, which I do when I get home from school today.

  It’s more like I listen while he talks. It’s a thing we do. I pick up around the house and make meatballs for supper while he talks. Beef and bacon is Da’s favorite kind of meatball, simmered in tomato sauce with chopped-up olives. While I’m cooking, I put a few sardines out on a plate for him.

  We eat a lot of sardines at my house. It’s almost like a political statement in Franktown to eat sardines. For a long time most of the jobs around here were at the sardine fisheries and packing plants. But I guess people stopped eating sardines out in the real world, and the plants started closing down. Now only one sardine company is still in business, Papillon Fish Co., so everyone in Washington County buys Papillon sardines like crazy, as if they’ll keep the company afloat by eating more sardines. I doubt it will work, but who knows. Mrs. Sanders at Sanders’ Grocery still gives you the eye if you don’t pick up at least one can.

  Louise hates them. She says they’re dégoûtant. I guess most people my age probably agree. But Da’ likes sardines and so do I, so I put some on a plate.

  “Make certain that you see things, Eva,” Da’ says from the easy chair we moved into the kitchen last year so he can read the newspaper while I make supper. “The world, I mean. I’ve never been to New York City. I’ve never been to California. I’ve never been to Africa or China or London or Rome. I think that’s where I’d want to go most, if I could go anywhere. Rome. Do you know why, Eva?”

  I don’t answer.

  “Because it’s old,” he says. “Even older than I am.”

  “You’re not that old, Da’,” I remind him.

  “Well, not as old as Rome anyway,” he says, and the way he says it makes me wonder when he will die. The thought startles me.

  I think about calling Louise, but I don’t. I know she’d take pity on me and listen to me whine about Gabe all night if I needed to, but I also know that if Gabe called I’d ditch her in a second. So I decide that it’s better not to get into a possible ditching-your-best-friend situation in the first place, and I don’t call Louise.

  Later I have a really hard time falling asleep. I try to figure out why Gabe hasn’t called me yet. I start by listing all of the things I probably did wrong to make him not like me anymore. What really disturbs me is how many I am able to think of. Like, maybe he stopped liking me way back on the dock when he asked “down or up?” and I said up. Or maybe he thought he told me too much that day. Or maybe he didn’t like the way I kissed.

  Or maybe he never liked me in the first place.

  I’m not sure when I fall asleep, or whether I really ever do, but I’m pretty sure I hear the first stone that hits my bedroom window early the next morning. Outside, the black sky is easing into grayish blue. Only the strongest morning stars are still visible; the big, lazy stars take their time fading in and out. Another stone grazes the window pane.

  I shuffle over to the window. Another stone.

  Gabe. I push up the six-paned window and stick my head out into the icy dawn. The dew is still airborne, wetter and colder than fog but easier to see through. I see a tiny glow from the sun, pink and speckled beyond the road to the east. A figure stands at the edge of the driveway. “Gabe?” I say.

  “I need to see you,” he says.

  I can’t see his face, but he is standing directly below my window in a black sweatshirt with the hood pulled up, not looking up
at me, but looking down at the ground instead. His square, aluminum-framed backpack sits high on his shoulders. He swings his tent, bagged in nylon, in his right hand. His notebook hangs from the fingers on his other hand.

  I need to see you.

  “Are you all right?” I whisper, or shout, I’m not sure which. “Gabe?”

  “I am going.”

  “What are you talking about?”

  “Away, Evangeline,” Gabe says. “I am going. Away.”

  “What?” I say. “Where? Away? Why?” Gabe doesn’t respond, so I look for the answer myself. “Is this about Paul? Gabe?”

  Nothing.

  “Do you want to come inside?” I say. Da’ sleeps heavily in the morning hours, and I know I can easily sneak Gabe in without Da’ knowing.

  Gabe doesn’t respond. He just stands there, staring at the ground, his tent swinging back and forth. I expect him to turn around and leave, and the thought makes me panic, but he doesn’t turn around. He just stands there, silently, shadowy, alone, as if he could vanish before my eyes.

  We stay, deadlocked, me in the window and he below, for several minutes. How many minutes I don’t know, but I do know I would stay just like that forever if it would keep him from walking away.

  When the first direct ray of sun pierces the misty horizon at the end of the road, I gamble. “Wait there,” I say. “I will come with you.” I quickly pull on a pair of jeans and a sweatshirt and tiptoe downstairs, hoping to make it outside before he disappears into the mist.

  Gabriel

  “GOOD NIGHT, MONSIEUR,” BENEDICT SAID TO the notary from his chair. “Good night, Jean-Baptiste. Gabriel, my son, will you bring the horses around?”

  Gabriel glanced at Evangeline, who nodded and winked. “Just one of the family now,” she whispered.

  After Notary Leblanc and his son Jean-Baptiste rode off, Gabriel was able to breathe again. Evangeline pulled her cornflower cloak off the peg behind the door and locked her hand around Gabriel’s wrist. She led him out the front door and into the small garden in front of the house.