Spilled Coffee

by J. B. Chicoine

  Doc rushed us across the foyer to the front door. As he opened it and stepped through, he touched Mom’s shoulder. “I’ll have Penny back by the end of the day. Don’t you worry.”

  Chapter 34

  A flash of lighting snaps me out of my trance, and if it thunders in response, I don’t hear it. I’ve been procrastinating, pacing around the table for too long. Of course, I could wait until daylight, until a few minutes before ten when Oscar’s truck is due to arrive. As much as I want it over with, I’m not ready to venture downstairs. I reach for Sunshine’s card, flicking the edge before reading it again.

  … We love you and know you will rise above it all….

  Sunshine, the person who epitomized all that was good and pure in the hippie movement—a true flower child. It’s ironic that she never even experienced Woodstock, the icon of a generation.

  I sat in our kitchen, finishing off the box of Saltines. Mom had sequestered herself in her bedroom as usual. I was so exhausted, I had forgotten to check what time we left Doc’s, but I figured it was around 7:30 or 8:00.

  At 9:00, Karen’s hysterical voice echoed across the cove, and then the floatplane started and took off. I went into the bathroom and looked at my face in the mirror. This wasn’t my first black eye, but it hurt far worse than the others. I leaned closer and examined my cheek as water ran in the sink until it turned hot. As I wet a washcloth, I noticed my bruised and scraped knuckle. Loosening the dried blood on my cheek, I winced. The eyes of someone I didn’t recognize stared back. Someone older. Someone angry. Someone very tired.

  I returned to the kitchen and sat, laying my head on the table. With my eyes still open, I stared sideways at the Saltine box. Every sound amplified through the tabletop—like a soundboard, even the tick of my Timex. Crumbs and salt crystals magnified into boulders, shifting each time I breathed. If my body had ached last night and when I woke this morning, it now felt as if I were being torn, limb from limb, as if every muscle had gone through a meat grinder. In addition to the pain, I didn’t have the strength to keep my eyes open. I fell asleep.

  When I woke with a stiff neck, and crumbs and salt pressed into my cheek, my Timex read 3:33—three consecutive threes. I hated the numbers, the way they jumped out at me as if they meant something. Right then, everything that was supposed to mean something had twisted and warped until I was no longer sure what I could rely on. For the first time in a long time, I looked forward to Dad’s arrival. Even if he ignored me or called me moron or idiot and blamed everything on me, at least that would be ‘normal’ and there would be a responsible adult in the house.

  Every movement outside, or car that drove by, sent me to the kitchen window, but it was never the Falcon pulling into the dooryard. I would have liked to go for a swim just to pass the time, but I took Doc’s words not to leave Mom for one second, very seriously. I had already disappointed him. I knew that much. Somehow, I had to redeem myself. Just the thought of Doc talking to me about Amelia was enough to make the cracker mush in my stomach feel as if it would come back up.

  All that aside, since when had Mom and Doc been on first-name terms? Now, those vague memories began to solidify—an image of an occasion when Mom had pulled off the road because she’d had something in her eye. Doc had stopped—drove up beside us in his truck—to see if there was a problem.

  And Doc at our camp. In the kitchen—no, standing in the hall, outside of Mom’s bedroom, as I came up the basement steps carrying the truck I had received as an early fourth-birthday present. An embrace. Mom crying. Doc stroking her back. Mom’s eyes landing on me, yanking her hands from his. Or was that Dad? It must have been Dad, because what would Doc be doing in our cottage?

  But as another memory surfaced, it was again Doc’s face, now on our beach, farther away this time, as if I was looking down from my bedroom window. Mom, so close to him that it looked like a hug. She clung to him until Doc pushed her off him, wagging his head. Mom shoved him and then covered her face as he walked away.

  Was that the falling-out? The reason why Mom had held an inexplicable grudge against Doc? As the memory congealed and gained clarity, I recalled Doc’s face with increasing certainty. I made the connection between my parents’ arguing—the way my name always seemed to surface when they fought—and those intimate moments between Doc and my mother. That would have explained why I was never good enough. For chrissake, I was Dad’s firstborn son—why wasn’t I named Frankie? It was Doc who called me son when my own father wouldn’t.

  … No, no … I couldn’t have been remembering it correctly. I rubbed my good eye. My head was just playing tricks on me. That had been ten years ago—I was just a little kid and didn’t know what I had seen. I forced myself not to think about what it all meant.

  Three o’clock passed and my anxiety grew, but not until four did my head begin to pound. I was hungry. Going from one cabinet to the next, I found only Rice Krispies. I looked inside at the handful in the bottom of the box, and then opened the refrigerator. About a swallow of orange juice remained. I grabbed that and swished it down, right from the bottle. Again sitting at the table, I popped one Rice Krispie kernel at a time into my mouth, chewed and swallowed. At around four, I dozed off to images of Ricky—and Penny—and Doc in my kitchen holding Mom.

  I didn’t check the time when I woke to the sound of Doc’s plane coming in for a landing. I flew to my feet and rushed to Penny’s window. I had difficulty seeing and headed downstairs and out the back door in time to catch sight of three figures stepping onto the mooring—Doc, Sunshine, and then Penny.

  I ran into the house and upstairs. “Mom—Mom! Doc’s back—with Penny!”

  She came out of her bedroom, puffy-eyed and clutching her heart. “Oh, my baby! Where is she?”

  “They just landed. They’ll be here in a minute.”

  Mom didn’t wait. She ran out the front door and met them in the road as I watched from the stoop. Penny stood limp as Mom sobbed, hugging her. Doc continued to make his way toward me, leaving Sunshine at the road.

  “Let’s step inside,” he said, his voice grave. I supposed it was time for our talk. He followed me in, making sure the door closed behind us before he turned to me. He continued, “I want you to know that I called the police. Ricky is in custody and they’re holding him at least overnight until his lawyer arrives.”

  “What?”

  He took a breath. “Your sister does not want to testify against him, but yours and Amelia’s testimony are enough for the DA to press charges. You need to come down to the police station, but your father should be there for that. As soon as he gets home, we’ll all go down together. Do you understand?”

  “Ricky’s going to jail for hurting my sister?”

  “It’s hard to say what sort of bargain they’ll plea, but if I have anything to say about it, it’s going on his record.”

  “Do you think he—you know—my sister?” there was one word I could think of to describe it, but it was the most vulgar word I had ever heard and I had never used it in my entire life. “Did he—”

  “The word is rape, son—and I don’t know. What we do know is it’s at least assault and battery and that’s enough to get him locked up overnight. Maybe even longer than that, if we can get Penny to talk.”

  I nodded, although I still wasn’t clear on what all that meant.

  Mom and Penny and Sunshine came onto the porch. Doc opened the door. Penny stepped through first, her eyes glazed over. She wouldn’t look at me; she simply headed for the bathroom. Mom stepped in next, as dazed as Penny. Doc touched her arm. She looked up into his face and stepped into his embrace, whispering, “I don’t know how to thank you, Doug.”

  The image of him holding my mother outside my parents’ bedroom flashed from memory.

  She pulled away and moved over to the table and dropped like a ragdoll into her chair. Doc stepped outside, his hand on my shoulder, leading me out with him.

  “Ben, I think it’s best if you don’t say anything to your mom
about our little conversation, just yet. Let’s wait till your dad gets here.”

  “Yes, sir.”

  He stepped down and turned, his brow raised. “And you and I still need to have that talk.”

  I swallowed. “Yes, sir.”

  Sunshine next came out of the cottage, gave me a hug, and then held me at arm’s-length. She brushed the hair from my sweaty forehead and smiled sympathetically. “I love you, Ben. You are a good person. Don’t you ever forget that.”

  My eyes burned and misted over as she walked away. When I went back inside, Penny came out of the bathroom. Without a word—and without looking at me—she shut herself in her bedroom. Mom walked to her own room, closing the door behind. It was almost 6:30. Where the hell was Dad?

  Now I headed for my room—though I could have just as easily ended up in the bathroom, but I had nothing to throw up. I collapsed onto Frankie’s bed. When I finally woke in the dark, it was to the sound of stumbling in the kitchen, or was it thunder? I sat up so fast my head spun. Then Mom came out of her room and screamed. I had heard so many of her emotional outbursts that it scarcely registered. I opened my bedroom door.

  Dad hunched over the kitchen table. He glanced up at me, his face a bloody mess—way worse than what I had done to Ricky. His shirt was torn and bloodstained. His hoarse voice ordered, “Get out of the house, Ben.”

  “What?”

  “Oh my God!” Mom cried out, “First Penny and now this!”

  Dad let go of his arm he had been holding and pointed at the stairwell. “Get the hell out, Ben. Go down to the beach or something.” He didn’t shout. It was as if he hadn’t the strength.

  I shuffled past him as Mom wept at the table. I made it to the bottom step, proceeded to the door, opened and slammed it without stepping through, and then returned to the bottom step. It was hard to make out what Dad was muttering, but Mom seemed to hit all the high points, repeating them shrilly.

  The horses. The house. The car. The bookie. The mortgage. The camp. Then the single word punctuations: Everything? Nothing? Bankruptcy? And the final question—Irving who?

  It was as if someone had turned up the volume in my head and switched the station to static. Louder and louder, until the pressure in my head felt like it would pop my eardrums. I sat for a long time, until I couldn’t stand it any more. I crept upstairs, met by the scent of cigarettes, and peered around the corner at my father slumped over the table. A butt smoldered on its surface—no ashtray. The liquor bottle sat in front of him as he turned a paper cup, bottom side up, into his mouth and then refilled it. I didn’t move or make a sound. I just watched. He began to sob. Mom rushed down the hall, slamming their bedroom door behind her.

  Chapter 35

  Yes, I’ve been avoiding my parents’ bedroom. I’m still not certain why I need to go in there, except it’s where Mom spent so much time. It’s the one remaining place where she guarded her secrets—secrets from Dad, secrets from her family—from me. Perhaps even secrets from herself.

  I massage my neck and stand, arching my back. One more time, I look at my pocket watch but not to check the time. In a way, this overnight journey is as much about Doc as it is about Dad.

  Maybe I’m deluded, but I believe—that is, I’ve convinced myself—that Doc might be my biological father. Maybe it’s just wishful thinking, but if he were, that would answer so many questions. Why had Doc taken such an interest in me? Why did he bother to keep track of me through those years of silence after we had moved in with Aunt Wanda? Although my suspicions festered over the years, the notion of him being my father truly sunk in at my graduation. He hugged me for the first time.

  “I’m always here for you, son,” he said. He had tears in his eyes. “I’m so proud of you.”

  He also followed through with that letter of recommendation. I think he even pulled a few strings so I could secure that scholarship at MIT. Not to mention, paying a hefty dollar for the patent on my robotic prosthesis.

  Now that I’ll never have the chance, I wish I had come right out and asked about him and Mom. I never had the courage—the audacity—to confront him. Confessing an indiscretion would have been an affront to Doc’s character. In fact, it would be out of character—that’s why it could have been only a one-time thing. A moment of weakness.

  My last chance to ask Doc evaporated about four months ago. I attempted to contact him when Gretchen was still my fiancée, and the wedding was still on. In fact, I didn’t actually talk to him. I talked to his answering machine. I don’t recall exactly what I said, but something to the effect that I had met someone, that we were engaged and had set a date—May 30th—and I hoped he could attend.

  I didn’t hear back for a week but smiled at his number on my caller ID. When I picked up, a female voice replied, “Hello, Benjamin—This is Amelia.”

  Stunned, my breath caught in my chest. Before I responded, she continued with a sigh. “I’m so sorry to have to tell you. Doc died of a heart attack a week ago.” Her voice broke. “His funeral was today. I was just listening to his unanswered messages and—and there you were.”

  “Oh God ….” It took me the longest time to catch my breath. A pang of sadness gripped my insides, but it was Amelia’s loss that choked me; I could not begin to process my own. “I’m so sorry. How are you doing?”

  Her voice trembled. “Horrible …. Listen, I simply can’t talk right now, except to say there is something he wanted you to have, if you’d tell me where to send it.”

  Stunned, I rattled off my Denver address.

  She repeated it after me and then added, “Oh, and congratulations on your engagement.”

  “Thanks …,” I said. I thought of a hundred things I wanted to say—to ask—but before I could, she cut in.

  “Listen, I’ve got to go. It was nice talking to you. Some day, perhaps we’ll catch up.”

  “Yeah, I’d like that.”

  “Goodbye, Benjamin,” she said softly and hung up.

  Over the years, I’ve wondered if Amelia ever came to terms with that summer. Likely, her life also blew apart, setting off a sequence of events she had no more control of than I did. Doc had told me that Karen and Dick divorced a year after they married. Karen remarried twice since. I could imagine what that did to Amelia. It was no wonder she never stayed in one place for long. At least she had Doc and Sunshine—and Lenny; he and Sunshine ended up marrying and moving to California. The last time I saw Sunshine, she was waving at me as I looked out of a car window, driving away. And Amelia, I didn’t see her again. My final memory of her was in the great room at Whispering Narrows, her back to me, probably dreading her own ‘talk’ with Doc.

  I didn’t—don’t—blame her for not saying goodbye. Everything happened so fast those last few hours at camp that I didn’t say goodbye to her either. If she and I had ended up having to testify—to corroborate our testimonies against Ricky—we likely would have had occasion to see each other, perhaps even talk. But as it turned out, Ricky copped a plea. He didn’t serve time, but his father paid a heavy fine and it went on Ricky’s record and ruined his admittance to Yale. None of that brought any satisfaction, and it still doesn’t. There wasn’t, and will never be, any satisfying justice for that summer.

  A month after I talked to Amelia on the phone, a small package arrived in the mail. I opened the box as carefully as Amelia had wrapped it, and found a small velvet pouch. I slipped its contents into my hand—an antique, gold pocket watch with an inscription on the back’s inside:

  Douglas “Doc” Burns

  April 4, 1904 ~ January 20, 1987

  He was just short of his eighty-third birthday.

  Chapter 36

  Before I venture into Mom’s bedroom, I need one last reminder that in spite of everything, good things can come out of tragedy. It’s my final memento—a framed photograph. I lift it from the box and stare at it for a long moment before setting it on the table, facing my parents’ room so both Christopher and Penny can watch my bravery. As I walk
away from their wedding portrait, I glance down at my red and white socks and back at Christopher’s single, striped sock and brand new prosthetic limb.

  Now fortified, I push open the door at the end of the hall. It’s just as dark as I expected. I feel around inside for a light switch, but it’s just like the other bedrooms—no overhead light. Opposite the bed, over on Mom’s old oak dresser, just one step away, I make out the silhouette of a lamp. With the room now illuminated, I turn slowly. It’s as musty as all the other rooms—perhaps more so, or maybe it’s some lingering scent of hair spray and claustrophobia. The closet door is open and I peer inside at the floor and up on the shelf. Nothing. The room is unadorned but for the bed, dresser, and lamp.

  I sit on the bare mattress. Well, this is a bit anti-climactic. I guess my trip to the unfinished room remains the primary attraction of my overnight.

  A couple of feet away, my reflection stares back—already I have a five o’clock shadow, but I hardly recognize my own face. It’s going to take a while to get used to my chin as opposed to the whiskers. I rise and peer into the mirror. I want a better look at the man I’ve become.

  The silver oxide coating behind glass is splotchy with age and disintegrated in places. As I adjust the lamp, moving it aside a bit, the lighting changes and one of the splotches at the corner appears more rectangular than irregularly shaped, as if something behind the mirror has pulled the silver away from the glass. I’ve heard of crazy people hiding money in old picture frames and mattresses. Maybe I’m about to strike it rich! Shifting the dresser away from the wall, I peer behind it at the thin veneer of wood that backs the mirror. Brads are missing at the corner, and it’s easy to pull the thin layer of wood away enough to insert my finger. There’s definitely something shoved behind the glass. With a little encouragement, it falls into my hand.