by Paul Lederer
The shaggy white dog lay among the short weeds of the storage yard, big head on her paws, staring dolefully at Don, ignoring the bowl of food inches from her muzzle.
‘Yeah, I know, old girl,’ Don said, ‘I know.’
No one had challenged him that morning when he had driven out to the old Tucker place and half-enticed, half-lifted Poppsy into the station wagon. But someone had been there, watching him through the slightly parted upstairs drapes on the window of the gray house.
It was Ellen, he guessed, but she had not come down or called out. He had been prepared to answer any challenge, telling them truthfully that Aunt Trish had told him to take the dog if he wanted it.
It wasn’t necessary to say anything; no one had emerged. The house already looked lifeless and deserted as if no one had lived in it for many years. Perhaps, he reflected, no one really had.
Don petted the old dog’s ruff and rose to his feet. He thought briefly about taking Poppsy along for a walk, but she could barely hobble and didn’t need the confusion of more displacement. He went out and closed the chain-link gate behind him.
The sky was clear, the sea calm and muted on this morning. Don started walking along the beach toward the pier. The heavy surf accompanying the previous day’s storm had stripped the beach of much sand, leaving a field of small, polished black stones. A young couple on a bright blanket lay in each other’s arms, heedless of the stones and chill northern breeze. Two lanky 6-month-old black Labrador pups played with the foamy hem of the ocean’s skirts, barking at it as it touched their feet, circling away from this unknown force only to return in awkward bounds moments later. White gulls wheeled and shrieked around the pier, hoping for bait or handouts from the people fishing there. A long green freighter, miles beyond the surfline, coasted southward. Don sat on a massive black boulder and watched the moving sea for a long time. He had nothing else to do before visiting hours at the hospital.
He had fifteen dollars in his pocket. Another rent reminder had been pinned to his door that morning. Some of the little bit of money he had left would have to go into Jake’s gas tank; it was only fair. And how long could that go on? Jake had been extremely generous, but whereas in the past he had only used the station wagon very occasionally, he now had a constant need for it with Sarah in the hospital. The situation wasn’t fair to Jake. Don’s funds were bottoming out at a terrific rate; he wasn’t even sure how long he could manage to feed Poppsy.
Maybe Edward had been right, Aunt Trish, everyone. Just what help did he imagine he could be to Sarah? But then, what was he supposed to do – desert her?
Reluctantly, he had come to recognize, as much as he hated to admit it, that he had been letting his life slide for a long time, living on hope and whimsy and tomorrow. Sarah was not a draw on his resources however, quite the reverse; she had become a reason for him to try getting himself together. Somehow.
He bought two hamburgers at the little stand on the pier and trudged back to his studio, eating one. If she wouldn’t eat her regular food, maybe Poppsy would eat a hamburger even if it wasn’t fed to her from Sarah’s hand.
He stopped at the photographic shop on Third Street on his way home and dropped off the roll of film he had shot of Sarah on the pier.
The owner of the shop, Ed Feldstein, dutifully filled out a yellow receipt with his arthritic hands. Feldstein looked older than his years. Don thought that he suffered from some long-lingering disease, cancer perhaps. He was very thin with over-bright blue eyes, had an Einsteinian shock of white hair and tobacco-yellowed teeth. He inevitably wore a bow tie and smiled in a pained way.
‘Good stuff on this roll, Don?’ he asked, as always. Feldstein had been a freelance photographer in his younger days and he seemed genuinely to wish Don success.
‘Well, we’ll see,’ Don answered. He looked around the shop. There was only one other customer, a young woman in jeans and white sweater, intently studying a Leica camera.
‘Is there any chance you could use some help in the shop, Ed?’ Don blurted out.
Caught by surprise, Feldstein was a long time answering. ‘You, Don, do you mean?’
‘Yes.’
Feldstein gave him a long, appraising look. The girl held up the Leica and asked, ‘Can I put this on layaway?’
‘Ninety days same as cash,’ Feldstein replied, and the girl nodded and got back to peering through the camera’s viewfinder.
‘I don’t know right now, Don.’ Feldstein said hesitantly. ‘My daughter’s working nights here, you know.’
‘Yes, I know.’
‘Well,’ Feldstein shrugged. ‘She’s nineteen – you know what nineteen is. Sometimes she tells me she wants to go back to college next semester. Sometimes she don’t know what she wants to do. You know what I mean. But if she does decide to go to school, you’ll be the first one I’ll let know.’
‘I can’t ask for any more than that, Ed. Thanks.’
‘Sure.’ He tapped the yellow envelope containing the roll of film. ‘I’ll have your prints for you in two days, same as always.’
Well, Don thought as he went out of the shop, that wasn’t much to hang his hopes on, but he was at least attempting to get something done.
He crossed the street at an angle, sprinting between two oncoming cars and ducked into the small yellow-brick post office on the corner.
His mail included a large manila envelope. He knew without opening it what it contained. It was from Western Traveler magazine. They were returning some sea-shots he had submitted for publication. He only glanced at the enclosed letter.
‘At this time, due to overstocking, we are not accepting any new photographic submissions at WT. This in no way reflects upon the quality of your work, and we wish you luck with another….’
Another life, Don thought bitterly, stuffing the letter back into the envelope with the 8x10s.
He returned home, checking on Poppsy in her yard. The old dog seemed not to have moved an inch while he was gone. He offered her the hamburger from his pocket, cajoled and pleaded, but Poppsy would not take it from his hand. Finally, Don gave up and placed it in her bowl atop the uneaten dog food. Maybe she would eat it when he left? She was bound to get hungry sooner or later.
When visiting hours began rolling around, Don slipped upstairs and took a quick shower, escaping again before he encountered his landlady. Then, with profuse apologies, he went to borrow Jake’s station wagon once more.
‘Listen, Don,’ Jake said, holding up a hand in interruption, ‘it’s OK. I know these are special times, right? I don’t want you feeling like you have to crawl. This is me, Jake, remember?’
‘I know, Jake, and I appreciate it. It’s just that….’
‘Listen,’ Jake said, ‘I have to ask you something. Is there any way you could figure out to buy the wagon?’
‘Because…?’
‘Because I have to sell it. Me and Pat Crawford are going to Alaska on a boat. The fishing season is coming and I have to make a living, you know. The truth is,’ he said, scratching the side of his nose as he looked out across the town, ‘I’m not sure I’ll be coming back at all. Anyway,’ he shrugged, ‘I can’t just leave the thing sitting here, paying for garage space. You know I’d make you a deal on it. Hell, it’s not worth much anyway.’
‘This is kind of sudden, Jake. I didn’t even know you were considering leaving.’
‘Yeah, well, Pat and I have been talking about it off and on for a long time,’ Jake answered. He grinned, ‘Now we’re both just about broke enough to consider Alaska. Commercial fishing has been on the decline around here for a long time. Pat knows people in Anchorage, and they wrote and offered us work.’
‘When would you be leaving, Jake?’
‘A couple of days; the end of the week.’
‘This is kind of a surprise.’
‘Yeah, well, things have to move on, Don. I’m sorry because of your situation and all, but….’
‘Don’t give that a thought, Jake,’ Don said has
tily. ‘You can’t schedule your life around my problems. If you’ve got a chance to make some good money, go for it. Sure,’ he said, looking at the old yellow and white station wagon in a new light, ‘if I can figure out a way, I’d like to have it.’
Figure what way, Don thought angrily as he drove the wagon up the highway to the hospital. His fifteen bucks was down to eleven dollars after buying the hamburgers. He glanced at the gas gauge; it showed a quarter of a tank. It would be nearly on empty by the time he got back. He rolled down the window so that a cold gale of sea air raced over him, and he turned the radio up full blast to give his mind something else to focus on.
Oh, no!
Swinging into the parking lot at Northshore Hospital, Don immediately saw an unmistakable vehicle – a blue 1954 Buick Roadmaster convertible. Rare, distinctive, menacing.
It was Raymond Tucker’s car.
That was the last thing he had expected. He had supposed that Tucker would be miles away by now. Perhaps there had been hospital papers to sign, detaining him. Then, to give the man some credit, he thought that probably even Raymond Tucker wouldn’t be so callous as to drive away without knowing Sarah’s condition.
Don parked in the far corner of the parking lot under a broken cypress tree, and sat behind the wheel, chin on his hand, watching for Raymond or Edward – perhaps both men were there. He glanced at his watch. They would have to leave sometime, but what if it wasn’t until visiting hours were over?
He sat there unhappily for endless minutes, watching people come and go. Half an hour passed, an hour and still the Buick sat there, chrome glittering coldly in the bright sunlight.
When he could wait no longer, he got out of the station wagon and walked to the hospital entrance. Down the long corridor, bristling with intent nurses and interns, he entered the psychiatric ward.
And saw Sarah.
She sat behind a Plexiglas window like a prisoner or a museum exhibit, her huge brown eyes hopefully pleasant and so confused. Her arm was heavily bandaged. Some sort of antiseptic smeared her forehead.
Raymond Tucker was seated at the window facing her, and he turned his head to squint at Don. Recognizing him, Tucker rose and whirled toward him.
‘Out! What the hell are you doing here?’
‘Back off, Tucker.’
‘Back off, your ass. Who do you think you’re talking to?’
‘A madman, I guess.’
Sarah’s eyes grew wider. She did not like conflict and did not understand this.
Raymond stepped nearer and an orderly intervened, holding out a restraining arm.
‘This is a hospital, sir.’
‘Yeah, I know,’ Raymond said. Then to Don: ‘Outside, man.’
Don only nodded. One of the crimes of man’s existence, he thought, was that in time everything must devolve into violence. While Sarah sat and dreamed and wondered in confusion.
‘This guy is not allowed in here,’ Raymond was telling the orderly. ‘Dig it? I’m her father. This guy is a part of the problem.’
The problem? Don’s disgust was too deep for reply. He turned sharply on his heel and walked from the room, Sarah’s eyes asking questions he could not answer. Don was shaking with emotion, too angry to organize his thoughts at all. Raymond Tucker, being what he was, found him in the parking lot, his hands already curled into fists.
‘Who are you?’ Raymond asked in heavy tones. ‘Why don’t you just leave us alone?’
‘Why didn’t you leave Sarah alone? Why didn’t you leave Eric alone?’
‘Smart ass. You think you know a lot, don’t you?’
‘Sir,’ Don answered, ‘with all the respect I can possibly muster, I think you are the prick of all time.’
Raymond lunged at him. With Don’s knowledge of him, it was predictable. Don had set himself mentally for it. He was facing corruption, sickness – this was the man who had mutilated Sarah. Raymond hit him first, with all of the strength of his still-powerful shoulders, but Don hardly felt it although his knees buckled and his head filled with a flurry of multi-colored lights.
‘Is that your best shot, old man?’ he taunted Raymond, recklessly. Raymond’s best shot was very good indeed; Don was not about to admit that.
‘I’m going to kill you, boy.’
‘You know what, Raymond? I don’t think I care right now.’
Raymond hit him again, very hard, his knuckles ripping across Don’s teeth, filling his mouth with mercury-tasting blood.
There was no science or skill in Don’s response. He flailed away inartistically, but with pent-up, violent force.
Raymond slipped under the barrage of blows and went down against the asphalt. He rose again quickly, eagerly. Swinging wildly, Don caught the man flush on the nose, and there was an instant flood of blood from Raymond’s nostrils. He fell again, cursing and thrashing. People were rushing toward them from across the parking lot and through the glass double doors of the hospital. Don backed away, panting, his hair in his eyes.
‘Stay down, damn you!’ he shouted at Raymond, but Raymond Tucker got to his feet once again and, swaying, tried one last futile blow. Don jerked his chin out of the way and Tucker, overbalanced, swung through, and fell like a drunk. Don hovered over his downed adversary, wanting to kick him in the face. Or hate him. Or pity him….
In the end, he just turned and walked away through the weltering hailstorm of demanding voices, thinking only of the girl with the huge, questioning brown eyes.
It was another day constructed of puzzles, Sarah thought. Everything had grown so confusing again. Daddy had come, but he hadn’t taken her away from this gray place with its gray gowns and old gray faces. The young man had come – why had her heart quickened when she saw him, beating so much faster than it had when Daddy arrived?
But … the young man had gone away without talking to her. Back to his endless, bright sea – that was where Sarah always pictured him. Why hadn’t he stayed? Why had Daddy yelled at him? She wanted to be with the young man, and she scuffled for a word, a long-forgotten word. It was very scary when she did discover it.
She was in love.
And all of it was a desperate longing with no possible resolution whatever. Sarah believed deeply that it was somehow her own fault, and she wept when the nurse touched her on the shoulder and took her back to the colorless rooms filled with sad, gray people. And Sarah had just become one of them.
She didn’t stop crying for a long while.
‘Hello?’
‘Mr Edward Tucker?’
There was a long pause as Edward tried to organize his thoughts, knowing that the voice on the telephone was one he should recognize. An almost inaudible sigh breached his lips. In the background, office machinery clicked and whispered.
‘Do you know who this is?’
‘I do now. Why are you calling me?’
‘I just had a fist-fight with your father … excuse me if my speech is a little indistinct. My mouth is sort of swollen.’
‘I don’t understand, March.’
‘Raymond and I ran into each other at the hospital.’
‘Listen, I don’t need this.’
‘Nor do I, Edward. Nor does Sarah.’
‘Why are you calling me?’ Edward asked wearily. His irritability was mounting. ‘I’m very busy right now.’
‘Yes – look, Edward, I know you’ve been through a lot lately, but so has your sister.’
‘What do you want?’
‘To be able to go and see her. Your father has told the people at Northshore that I’m not allowed in.’
‘March – I’m busy.’
‘So you said.’
‘Why don’t you just…?’
‘Back off? That’s what your father suggested. No, I won’t do that.’
‘Why?’ Exasperation flowed down the telephone line.
‘As simply as I can put it, Edward: I love her. I love Sarah. I love your sister.’
‘Don’t be stupid.’
‘It would only
be stupid to deny it. I tried that; it didn’t work. Edward, are you too old to love?’
The silence on the line this time was deep and interminable.
‘All right,’ Edward said finally, ‘what is it you want?’
‘You are her guardian, Edward. I found that out. All I want is this – on a sheet of your legal letterhead paper send a statement to the hospital that you definitely are allowing me to see Sarah. There should be a copy of your power of attorney attached.’
‘March, what good can any of this do Sarah?’
‘Mr Tucker, as of this moment I couldn’t tell you, honestly, but my worst efforts have to be better than what your family has done for her over the last twenty years.’
With utter rigidity Edward replied, ‘The letter will be in the mail, Mr March.’
And so, on a day following, Don walked from glitter-bright sunlight into the dark and secret confines of the hospital and was allowed to sit beside Sarah on a bench in the garden, while the cryptic voices of the unwell drifted around them.
Her hand seemed so small and warm, and her eyes lifted eagerly to his, bright and distant and deep with all that Sarah was and could have been, before she had been taken to live on a dread gray moonscape.
Don said, ‘I love you, Sarah. I have so many things I have to try to do, to find a way for us. But I will try. I will, girl.’
And from out of her tangled moon a wish broke free and Sarah said:
‘I will wait for you.’
Copyright
© Paul Lederer 2013
First published in Great Britain 2013
This edition 2013
ISBN 978 0 7198 1288 0 (epub)
ISBN 978 0 7198 1289 7 (mobi)
ISBN 978 0 7198 1290 3 (pdf)
ISBN 978 0 7198 1040 4 (print)
Robert Hale Limited
Clerkenwell House
Clerkenwell Green
London EC1R 0HT
www.halebooks.com
The right of Paul Lederer to be identified as author of this work has been asserted by him in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988
