Here on Earth

by Alice Hoffman

  “He doesn’t mean any of that,” March says to her daughter. “Not really.”

  Gwen looks at her mother. She feels an odd tenderness, the way one might when finished with crying.

  “Mother,” she says simply, as if she were teaching sums to a six-year-old, “he certainly does.”

  21

  Susie Justice gets home in a hurry, after a whirlwind trip to Florida. In six days she has been to Palm Beach, Fort Lauderdale, and Miami, then hop-skipped over to Orlando. She’s writing a four-part series for The Bugle about vacation possibilities and retirement options, which will be chock-full of places to stay and eat and swim. She will not, however, mention in this cheery article how dreadful it is to come back to the cold once your trip is over, although she might suggest it’s best to have the person who retrieves your mail while you’re away take a look at your oil burner as well, as Susie’s seems to have died during her absence, and she comes home to a stone-cold house, with pipes that are close to bursting.

  Ken Helm is down in the basement, fixing the burner, and Susie is in her kitchen, still wearing her coat and her gloves, when Ed Milton arrives with a pizza and Susie’s dogs, who have been staying with him for the past few days and who now follow on his heels, staring at him with adoration, since he was the one to most recently measure out their kibble.

  “Wow,” Ed says when he sees how red Susie is. Florida, after all, will do that to a blonde.

  “I ran out of sunblock,” Susie explains.

  “I should have gone with you,” Ed says. “I would have made sure you paid attention to the SPF.”

  Maybe his arms around her feel so good because it’s freezing, or maybe she really missed him. “I wouldn’t have listened to you,” Susie murmurs.

  “What is going on in here?” Ed asks. “It’s freezing.”

  There is a metallic banging rising from the basement.

  “Ken Helm,” Susie explains. “Oil burner.”

  As much as she hates to admit it, she did miss Ed, and this makes her nervous. This is not the way Susie likes to run her life, mooning over somebody, thinking about making sure they get into bed as soon as Ken Helm leaves, even though she should be attending to the Florida article. She’s going to have to find a getaways-to-Florida book at the library tomorrow, since she paid more attention to trying to track down Hollis’s past than she did to restaurants and theme parks.

  “The most interesting thing about Hollis,” she tells Ed, as he opens the pizza box and they begin to eat standing up beside the counter, “is that nobody wanted to talk about him. His lawyer down there refused to see me. I went to this huge condo complex he owns in Orlando, and no one would speak to me. Not even the janitor. When I went to the racetrack he’s part owner of down in Fort Lauderdale, people clammed up so tight they wouldn’t even tell me the temperature. It’s like he doesn’t exist, in spite of everything he owns down there, which let me tell you, is plenty.”

  “So, nothing?” Ed asks. He grabs another slice of pizza and begins to eat, eyes trained on Susie.

  “I found one guy who let me take him out for a drink.” She laughs when she sees the expression on Ed’s face. “He was ancient, an old horse trainer who was still lugging around water and oats at the track. When I brought up Hollis’s name, he said, ‘Mr. Death.’ ”

  “What’s that supposed to mean?”

  “He wouldn’t say. But he did tell me that Hollis made his money by staying close to rich people, and by the time he was done, he was rich himself.”

  “Rich people with horses?” Ed asks.

  “That’s right. Do you think it was illegal gambling?”

  “Susie,” Ed says. “Don’t go down this road.”

  Susie blinks. Ed thinks she’s got something. The heat has kicked on, and the oil burner in the basement has begun to groan.

  “Don’t ever tell me to quit,” Susie says. “I mean it.”

  “Okay. Then if you want to know what I think, I’ll tell you. Insurance fraud.”

  “There you go,” Ken Helm shouts from the basement. “It’s working now.”

  “There was just a case of this over at the Olympia track. You’ve got an expensive horse that’s not performing, the cost-effective measure is an accident or death and then you can collect your insurance payment.”

  “This is great,” Susie says. “I got him.”

  Ed shakes his head. “You’ll never prove it. Hollis’s involvement in anything like that was all so long ago that by now, records will be tossed, even by the insurance companies, and everyone will have terminal memory loss.”

  “You’re telling me to forget it? After all this?”

  “Some people get away with things,” Ed Milton says sadly.

  “Well, someone should pay him back for everything he’s done,” Ken Helm says. He has come upstairs, dirty from crawling around in the cellar; the wall he’s leaning against will have a film of black dust when he’s gone. “Hey there, Chief,” he says to greet Ed. “That should hold your burner for a little while,” he tells Susie, “but you’re going to need a new one, eventually.”

  When Ken leaves, Susanna Justice walks him to the door. “You’re going to keep looking for something on him, aren’t you?” Ken asks as he’s leaving.

  “I don’t know,” Susie admits. “I might give it up.”

  She doesn’t have the heart to tell Ken that the sort of judgment he’s seeking is not necessarily hers to set forth. Maybe she should have quoted the only passage from Matthew she can remember: What I want is mercy, not sacrifice.

  That night, while Susie unpacks her suitcase, she can hear Ed running the water in her shower, and for some reason the sound gives her hope. She may decide to shock everyone in town, including herself, by marrying this guy. Marriage, after all, is a leap of confidence: We will be together, now and in the future. We are one, from this day forth. The Judge is thinking about such matters tonight as well, as he sits in his kitchen with a single light turned on. Marriage is many things to many people: a contract of convenience, a plight of truest love, an agreement made with a friend, or even with an enemy or, oftentimes, with a stranger you’re convinced that you know. Can you love two people? The Judge has mulled over this possibility for more than thirty years, and still has no answer. The answer, of course, is based on one’s interpretation of the nature of love, and the Judge considers himself to be too old and tired to expect any clarification at this point.

  Still, he is thinking of Judith Dale tonight, as he often does at this hour, a time when most sensible people are already getting ready for bed. If he loved her would he have let her live the way she did, always waiting for what scraps of time he had, never having the choice to have a child of her own? But he did love her, that’s the thing, and he continues to love her even now. When he feels this way, he often gets in his car and drives, so he can cry alone. Oh, how he wishes he could confide in Louise, who has, for all these years, been his dearest friend. The Judge gets his coat, and as he’s about to go out the back door, Louise comes into the kitchen.

  “This came this morning,” she says, handing him a thick envelope addressed to Gwen.

  “A plane ticket,” the Judge guesses.

  Louise nods. “I hope so. Why don’t you drop it off on your way to the cemetery.”

  The Judge stands there, confused. Did she just say that?

  Louise smooths the back of his coat, where it’s bunched up. She’s ready for bed, and her face is washed and clean; she looks a good deal like the girl that he married.

  “Louise,” the Judge says.

  “I’ll wait up for you,” she tells him. She hopes that after all this time, he won’t suddenly take it upon himself to apologize. She simply wants him to understand that she knows. That’s all. “I’ll fix us some tea.”

  The Judge drives out to Guardian Farm thinking that after all he’s seen, people continue to amaze him. There’s very little traffic on the road, and no moon tonight. The Judge parks and gets out, carrying the envelop
e from Richard Cooper. Now there’s a man who’s got a great deal to learn, and who doesn’t seem to yet be aware of the difference between freedom and license. He should have come here with March in the first place. If there’s one thing the Judge has learned after all these years, it’s that only a fool tempts fate.

  Gwen answers the door, wearing a heavy sweater; her hair is uncombed and her eyes are sleepy. Hollis and March are upstairs, and Gwen’s been fixing Hank some coffee; he’s finishing his paper on the Founder tonight, probably pulling an all-nighter, since his senior thesis is due in the morning.

  “I didn’t ask you to come here,” Gwen says straightaway when she sees the Judge. She steps onto the porch, pulling the door closed behind her. She’s developed a nervous habit of chewing on her lip; when it bleeds she doesn’t seem to notice. “He doesn’t like company.”

  “Your father sent a letter,” the Judge says.

  “Oh,” Gwen says, relieved. “Oh, good.” She takes the letter and opens it while Sister noses at the door and comes to sniff at the Judge’s shoes. “A plane ticket,” Gwen announces, and then, surprised, she adds, “Actually, two.”

  “He’s hoping against hope,” the Judge says.

  “I don’t understand any of it,” Gwen says.

  “Well, you’re among the majority, if you’re talking about love.”

  “That’s not what they’ve got,” Gwen says, looking up at the bedroom window.

  When the Judge heads for his car, Gwen slips the plane tickets inside the waist of her jeans, then picks up Sister and goes back inside. Hank is still at the table, papers spread out before him, but he’s stopped working.

  “What did he want?” Hank asks. Does he sound like Hollis ? Lord, he hopes not. He’s not jealous, but he is desperate. He gets this way whenever he feels he might be losing Gwen.

  They can hear the Judge’s Saab; it’s so loud when it starts up all Gwen can do is pray Hollis won’t hear.

  “Nothing,” Gwen says. “He just stopped by.”

  Hank feels a pain behind his eyes. Maybe he’s lost her already.

  “Shit,” Gwen says when she hears something upstairs.

  Hollis has slammed the bedroom door and is already coming down the stairs, cursing her. He’s calling her a bitch before he’s reached the first floor; no one’s ever taught her a lesson, but that will all change now.

  “What’s wrong?” Hank says when Hollis comes into the kitchen, but even before the words are out of his mouth, Hollis is after Gwen, as if she were a mole he’d found in his garden and he had the right to grab her and shake her by the neck.

  “Hey,” Hank says. He gets up from the table so quickly that he upsets his cup of coffee, and liquid spills over his research materials.

  “I told you I didn’t want the Judge here,” Hollis is saying to Gwen. “But you think you’re too good to listen to anybody.”

  “I don’t have to listen to you,” Gwen says right back to him. She feels as if he could snap her spine if he chose to, but she doesn’t care. How much she hates him is all she can think about at the moment.

  March has come down from the bedroom, and she stands in the doorway to the kitchen. Now she knows how people freeze; she understands how that fire burned out of control before Alan could walk through the door. There is her daughter, frightened and shouting. There is the man she loves with his hands on her throat.

  “I’m going to make you listen,” Hollis is saying to Gwen.

  “I don’t think so,” Gwen says. She can see Hank coming toward them, but that’s not what gives her courage. She truly doesn’t care if Hollis hurts her; she wants him to, because that would only serve to prove her right in her opinion of him.

  “You don’t want to do this,” Hank says, getting in between Hollis and Gwen. “Don’t do this.” He’s begging Hollis really; if he had to he would get down on his knees.

  Hollis looks at the boy coldly, and then something clicks. “You’re right.” He goes into the parlor, where Mr. Cooper’s gun is still in its case.

  “Shit,” Hank says when he sees Hollis go out the front door, the one no one uses anymore. Hank heads out the back, hoping he can cut Hollis off and talk to him. The red dogs come out of the shadows to greet Hank, but he jogs past them. He doesn’t like the way he feels inside, the way his stomach is lurching. It’s too quiet tonight; the air breaks like twigs.

  “Now do you see what he’s like?” Gwen is saying to her mother in the cold kitchen of the house. “Now do you believe me?”

  March knows that when he gets like this, he always regrets it. Tonight, when she takes him into their bed, he’ll cry. He’ll tell her that he never meant to hurt anyone, and she’ll believe him.

  “Gwennie, you don’t understand,” March begins, but then she realizes that she hopes her daughter never will understand, and after that, how can she say more?

  Gwen picks up Sister and slams out of the house. She races after Hank, and the closer she gets, the more she smells the bitter scent of hay. Already, the sound of the horses has begun to echo. When Gwen runs inside, Hollis is opening Tarot’s stall, and Tarot is in a panic at his proximity. He kicks the stall behind him, and shakes his head back and forth. Hollis has the gun under his arm as he drags open the wooden door.

  “Wait until tomorrow.” Hank is saying. “You’ll feel different then.”

  “Oh, really?” Hollis’s tone is amused, even though his mouth is set in a thin line. “And you assume I’m interested in what the fuck you think?”

  “It’s late,” Hank says now. It’s not even ten, but Hank is willing to try anything to slow this down. His voice sounds comforting, but he’s well aware that there’s no comfort here. He puts his arm out, to stop Gwen from going closer. She is about to push him away, but then she looks at Hollis, and she knows she’d better stay put.

  “Now you’re telling me what time it is?” Hollis says, and his voice is so distant it sounds as if its point of origin was a million miles away. He has spied Gwen, who is shivering as she holds Sister close to her chest. “You need to learn a lesson about what happens when things don’t belong to you. You can beg,” he tells Gwen, “but it won’t do you any good.”

  Gwen can feel the cold air in her lungs every time she breathes. She can feel Hank next to her, the way his muscles are coiled, ready to do something, but unsure as to what that action should be.

  “Come on,” Hollis says. “Beg.”

  Gwen herself feels a weird sort of sensation inside her; it’s as if something were being boiled.

  “Please,” she says.

  Hollis considers, then shakes his head. “Not good enough.”

  Nothing will ever be good enough, that’s the problem, Gwen sees that now. Some things are done rather than decided, and before she plans it out entirely, Gwen rushes for the door to Tarot’s stall and swings it wide open.

  “Go,” she screams, but that’s not necessary. Tarot moves so fast that Hollis has to jump aside, and by the time Hollis is thinking straight enough to go for his gun, his target is out in the open, running so fast the wind can’t keep up, leaving a cloud of his breath behind. Hollis goes to the barn door and fires once, but by then Tarot has jumped the first fence in the field, and is bolting over the next. Hank and Gwen can hear him running, riderless and hot, on this freezing, black night.

  When the horse arrives in the Marshes, the Coward is dreaming of snow. He opens his eyes when he hears a clatter, and sure enough, snow is falling and beside the apple tree stands Belinda’s horse, pawing at the frozen ground, searching for apples.

  The Coward has been sleeping in his coat and his boots; he goes outside and huddles near the horse and watches him eat. After a while, he gets a rope and ties the horse to the tree.

  “There you go,” the Coward tells the horse. “That’s your bed.”

  The Coward gets himself a nightcap and sits on his porch until Gwen arrives at his rickety, useless gate, her little white dog trailing behind. Gwen’s eyes look strange and feverish and s
he has a purple bruise across her face. Hollis hit her only once, as she went past him leaving the barn, but he made certain to strike hard. There are broken blood vessels beneath her skin; he’s left his mark for weeks to come.

  When the Coward sees the way she looks, he has a funny feeling in his arms and legs, as though someone had set a match to his flesh. “What did he do to you?” he asks.

  The girl looks straight ahead. Tears are falling from her eyes, but she’s not making a sound.

  “I won’t let him get to this horse, if that’s what you’re worried about,” the Coward says, suddenly much braver than he imagined he could be. He’d kill any man who came looking for this horse, or be killed himself. If he can stay sober long enough. That’s the hitch, but there’s no need to mention it to this lovely girl.

  “Really?” Gwen says, because she’s already realized she can’t take Tarot with her and she can’t stay. “You’d do that?”

  “I would,” the Coward vows.

  A little while later, Hank comes looking for Gwen. He remained at the house until Hollis calmed down; it was, he believes, the least he could do. He might have leapt to protect Gwen when Hollis reached out and slapped her, but it was so sudden Hank was caught completely by surprise, or so he tells himself. Hollis doesn’t mean to do these things; he’s like a bomb, one which, if you don’t defuse it straightaway, will go off when you least expect it. Surely, Gwen will understand this, and the reason for Hank’s delay. Of course Hank hasn’t sided with Hollis—it’s simply a question of loyalty, not unlike a pledge you make to a country about to enter a foolish, wrongheaded war.

  Gwen is sitting on the Coward’s floor when Hank arrives; she’s wrapped in a ratty wool blanket Judith Dale brought here years ago, trying her best to ignore how drunk the Coward has become.

  “It’s about time,” the Coward says to Hank when the boy pushes open the door. “God, you are slow.”