Harbor Lights

by Theodore Weesner

  When a solution came to her, it was hardly a surprise. Weeks after the shootings and on the day after her father’s death, driving to the cemetery to where her mother’s plot had yet to be marked by a headstone, the solution was obvious: She would cast her father’s ashes out to sea, where he had spent most of his life. She would not bury him next to her mother but have him cremated. She sensed at once that the decision was appropriate. Burying her father next to her mother was out of the question, for even in death he posed a threat.

  She told the funeral director she would like a brief service at St. Joseph’s, and that she wanted her father to be cremated, and would cast his ashes out to sea. So it was that she declined an urn and agreed to be in receipt, in time, of a container whose contents she might dispose of when and where she wished. They used a cardboard container with a screw-on lid, the man explained, and she would be contacted when it was ready to be picked up.

  Perhaps two dozen persons congregated in the chapel at the parish in Kittery. Marian dressed in black and wore a veil, and, with Ron at her side, they were the last to enter—the priest awaited their arrival before beginning—and, according to protocol, the first to leave. Returning home after the service, and while Ron took the rest of the day off, Marian left for the store to work into the evening. Her motive was to flush the morning’s events and, if hardly admitting it to herself, to be away from Ron.

  At the store there were ongoing demands for introducing the Thomaston line. On this day it was less worrisome to Marian to be in the store than away—fewer things threatened to escape control when she was there—and she also knew she was growing less intimidated in areas of management if she got herself involved. She telephoned Janet Derocher, telephoned her mother’s computer tutor to confirm bookkeeping entries, telephoned McInnes Business College to ask still more questions having to do with the Thomaston sequence and her mother’s plan to introduce the line before Christmas. The inmates’ handicraft had been her mother’s pet project, and Marian feared she wasn’t carrying it off on time or as her mother would have liked. A handful of weeks and a ticking clock—yet another realization of the number of tasks her mother had looked after herself.

  Marian tried every day to recall how her mother handled things. On occasions of successfully untangling not just a problem but a procedure, and imagining her mother performing the same task, tears might fill her eyes: signing where her mother had signed, transferring funds, having someone on the phone tell her she sounded just like her mother and wishing her good luck. Not rarely, sitting at her mother’s desk and aware of the child she might touch by sliding a hand over her belly, Marian let her emotions run as they might. Resting her face in her hand, resting her head on her arm, she would evoke her mother and address words to her. I’m getting there, I’m doing my best, she liked to say. I can’t believe how much I miss you, she liked to say. There are times when this place drives me crazy and I don’t know if I can deal with it, she also liked to say.

  That her mother and child could be with her in the quiet office was testimony to something more than money being her legacy. The three of them— they belonged to and had each other. The bucks were real, but next to the people with whom one might be interwoven, body and soul, the bucks were mere pieces of paper.

  * * *

  The media had not hounded her, except at a distance. Images and voices of television had surrounded everything for days and conveyed a sense of a many-lighted space station hovering overhead. At her mother’s funeral there were antennas, photographers, a loose mob of onlookers they drew with them, staring and flashing all around. They were not in her face with their cameras nor were they discreet. The details of news reports were often threatening, and she came to rarely read or watch anything through to its end. All she could think was that news wasn’t so entertaining when the people belonged to you, that it was “weird” to see the ways in which things were distorted. Television commentators seemed always in a rush to move to a commercial, and their reports sounded like parodies:

  “A story going around up in Maine …”

  “Here’s one our viewers may not have heard …”

  “In domestic abuse, silence may be the real enemy …”

  Domestic abuse was mentioned several times as the subject, and some reports had it that a jealous husband had killed his wife for refusing to meet him for lunch. Marian tried to remain unaffected, yet wished that at least one eloquent voice would say it had been a thirty-year affair and nothing about it had been domestic. A love triangle, the call to a woman of a powerful man— that had been the age-old dilemma, and also the instance of domestic abuse, if not the kind the reporters had in mind.

  One evening she heard, “ … reported to be near death in a Down East jail cell is the lobsterman who contracted cancer and, in retaliation, killed his wife and her business partner … ” and she began at once to laugh and weep, then only to weep as she made her way from the room. Cancer might be cured in time, she thought, but there would be no such luck in the ailments of love and betrayal.

  Days later there came an evening when she and Ron were cleaning up after dinner, when Ron lost his cool—again—and she heard herself say to him, “Ron, listen, I’d like you to move out of here, tonight—in a separation that will lead to divorce.”

  Just like that the words were out. His first response was to smirk—a relief to her, because she had feared he might explode. Dinner was over; she would be going to the store again to work late. Thomaston products continued to arrive, and she needed to get them inventoried … needed, against all odds, to initiate a plan for presenting the new line—and there were the words that had been playing in her mind for weeks. From smirking, Ron was gurgling as if trying to laugh, though a moment earlier intense anger had gripped his face. “You what?” he said.

  Putting in blocks of time at the store, Marian had been making telephone inquiries into legalities of separation, property settlement, child custody, and divorce. Her plan had been to present a proposal to Ron, in writing or maybe in a sit-down negotiation at the kitchen table; then, a moment ago, dropping a fork as he rose from the table, kicking it violently over the floor, he offered the opening and now the words hung between them like icicles. “You heard what I said—do I have to say it again?”

  “Yeah, right, like I’m moving out,” he said.

  “Ron, I’m not joking.”

  He kept gazing, appearing uncertain how to respond. In her eyes he had reverted months ago to being an adolescent, and so he appeared to her now: a brash high school boy confronted with a force beyond his range. “I’ve thought about this for a long time,” she said. “I don’t want to hurt you.”

  “You know, I think you’re serious,” he said as if to mock.

  “Ron, I’m serious.”

  “What brought this on?”

  “Everything.”

  “There’s someone else?”

  This time she did the smirking, though genuinely so. “I’m three months pregnant; grow up,” she said.

  He stared. “You really are serious, aren’t you?”

  “I said I was.”

  “What about the baby?” he said, as if concerned.

  “I’ll take care of the baby. I won’t be asking for child support, or alimony.”

  “As if I’d pay either one. With what?”

  However uncertain she was of the terrain before her, Marian’s impulse was to push forward and get her cards played. “I’ll be giving you a settlement—as a way of discharging claims,” she said.

  He laughed. “You got the lingo down,” he said.

  “Nothing’s ever going to work for us, that’s what we need to recognize. We were finished as a couple a long time ago.”

  He looked at her, stared as if waiting for instructions.

  “This can be congenial or not; I don’t care,” she said. “I’d like you to move out, and if you won’t, I will. I’m prepared to make a cash settlement, to cover everything. I’ll assume debts, including all child-r
earing expenses, the mortgage, everything else. You make me do the moving; you choose to make it messy—I won’t give you a thing, and I’ll fight you every step of the way. And I’ll win, believe me.”

  He stared another moment before saying, “You had all that memorized, didn’t you.”

  She gave no reply, and he said, “What kind of cash settlement?”

  “Well, fifty thousand dollars,” Marian said. “Which you can pay to a lawyer or keep for yourself.”

  He kept staring at her. “You’re too much,” he said. “How long you been planning all this?”

  Knowing she had him where she wanted him, Marian had no intention of allowing an opening. “I’ve talked to some people, and they say that amount is fair,” she said. “You have to say if you’re willing to accept the terms.”

  “Hey, doesn’t sound bad to me.” Again, he forced a grin, and she imagined him already spending the money in his mind.

  “We owe over ninety thousand on the house, there’s not much equity, and if you choose to act in a juvenile way, I’ll fight it, and you’ll pay through the nose for years. I’ve checked it out—I know what I’m talking about. I need to know if you’ll accept, or if you’re going to hire a lawyer who will say you should have accepted the terms a long time ago and will keep half the money himself.”

  Ron snickered, but then he said, “What about the baby having a father?” and a hitch in his voice sent a faint tremor through her heart.

  “I’ll take care of the baby.”

  “I meant about custody and visiting,” he said.

  Again he was trying to smirk, but she knew he was terrified and thought he was going to cry. “I’ll retain custody, and I’ll allow visits,” she said. “There won’t be any question about custody. You don’t want it anyway, so don’t say something you don’t mean. That kind of talk is over; it is for me.”

  His eyes had glossed over, if but slightly, while he appeared to be trying yet to smirk and laugh for cover. This right now is the hard part, Marian told herself, urging herself to hold firm. Whatever the hurt, whatever any desire to stop it or make it go away, she had to look to days ahead. “It’s time to grow up,” she added, nearly giving way to tears of her own.

  A moment passed. She thought Ron was holding silent in awareness of his voice breaking should he try to speak. Then he said, “How do I know that amount is fair?” and she felt relief, vindication, hope, disappointment. If he believed money was the bottom line, she was all the more certain he deserved to be cut off and left behind.

  “The store’s worth money, but I’ll have debts and a child to raise. It’s fair. You don’t want this to come down to fighting over money.” This time she did the staring, into his cornered eyes.

  “Think about it,” she said, as he remained silent. “I won’t be changing the offer, only if you refuse to cooperate. Pack your stuff and leave. Go stay with Greg. Call me at the store tomorrow, and I’ll get papers drawn up. I’ll get the money together and get it to you as soon as I can. Just think; you can buy yourself a new Transam.”

  “Screw you,” he said.

  “Whatever. Just say if you accept the offer.”

  “Hey, give me an hour, and I’m outta here.” His words were off-key, and he angled his chin as if, yet again, to grin and laugh.

  Marian did the blinking, such as it was. Closing the lapels of her coat, she said, “I’ll talk to a lawyer. Ron, I’m sorry,” she added.

  * * *

  She crossed to her car in the frosty air. From kicked fork to the end, hardly ten minutes had passed. As she settled behind the wheel, and paused, it came to her that she was into an out-of-body experience and had to return to earth. She started the engine. What to do? Only as she looked over her shoulder did tears of fear, uncertainty, heartache over hurting Ron, blur her eyes. She held there, attempted to keep her eyes open and blinked again.

  She instructed herself to see that this was the climax of the hardest part. In an hour, when he had left, when she had caught her breath, the worst would be over. Later, when she returned and the house was empty, there would be pain and doubt, but nothing like this. She had gotten the words out! That was the thing to focus on. Now she had only to stay her course and keep looking ahead until six months, nine months, a year had passed, until her baby was with her and the store was under control. As several people had remarked, her life remained before her.

  Backing out, rolling away, Marian began missing her mother. Who else to turn to in a moment like this? However corny it had been at times to admit it, her mother had been her best friend. Her pal at work, with winks, averted eyes to the ceiling when someone was jabbering and boring everyone to tears. Laughter so shared they might at times have been the same person. The one friend to whom, phone wedged to her ear and mixing bowl in hand, she might describe every detail of what she was fixing for Sunday dinner. What a godsend it would be to be able to speak to her now.

  But her mother was gone, and it was time to face up and move on, Marian thought as she came to a dark stop sign and turned left onto the secondary road that led to the highway. Strive to fill her shoes. Go ahead and be a businesswoman, and do it right, she thought. What other choice did she have?

  She drove on, and to keep her vision clear for the road, avoided wiping her filmed-over eyes. The little Miata, her graduation gift from Virgil and her mother, was five years old now, and as she traced its headlights into darkness, she saw that it was time to trade it in, to buy something new and different. Not her mother’s car—awaiting disposition in a Portsmouth garage—but something her mother would like, she thought. Something safe for her baby, and safe on nights like these when she drove to that warmth of unpacking and shelving that was becoming her refuge. Something to see her safely home when she was fulfilled with work and, as she had come to realize, would be preoccupied with ongoing ideas on the return drive into country darkness. Maybe a new Chrysler, Marian thought as she turned south onto the 1-95 ramp.

  Why not? Maybe her mother had had a point.

  * * *

  On the day of the opening Marian decided, spontaneously, to dispose of her father’s ashes. She was dressed and ready to leave the house, and the day appeared reasonable for both events. The container rested on a shelf in the entryway to the kitchen—her eyes took it in often—and it came to her that this was the perfect day. Ron, she had heard, was already running around, her ill-will toward her father had settled, the wind velocity was low this morning, and it was a step she had been wanting to put behind her. Whatever the direction of the tide, the ashes would touch upon the water and disappear. While she was receiving customers and guests coming to see the new line, the ashes would wash throughout the harbor and out to sea. In the store there would be a sense in the air, however privately, of life going on.

  The summer when she served as first mate on his boat her father had made her aware of the channel winding down the center of the harbor, and it was where she wished to dispose of his ashes. “We’re in the channel,” he liked to remark when they returned from the near expanse of ocean, and there was always a sense of entering a safe passageway, a depth of water to follow under the Route 1 bridge to the Co-op and the safety of land where the surface underfoot was no longer fluid with uncertainty. Deposited into the channel, the ashes would return her father to the world he had loved, and it was a degree of forgiveness she was ready to grant. As for death being his only option, she had come around to feeling sympathy for his frustration as a husband, but not for his actions. Down through his life, other choices had been available. He had failed to act.

  Moves planned, Marian drove to the marina on the Maine side of the bridge. From there, leaving her car, she walked through sharp, sunlit air onto the span of the old, green superstructure with its metal railings and wooden plank walkways. A lobster boat was passing beneath the bridge, going out, and against her better judgment, she took a moment to watch it recede. It was a one-man boat, its noise as steady as a single-engine plane. The lone occupant at the
wheel held her eye. All was familiar, and she knew that in letting her father go she was also letting him remain.

  Breeze and tide were outgoing, the water that had visited the harbor washing back into the ocean. Through wind blurring her eyes, she checked pilings thirty feet below and reconfirmed the tidal flow. The air, a light breeze to fishermen, remained broad and even. She took in a breath, and sensed the sea rising like a living creature to receive what she had to offer.

  About the author

  Theodore Weesner, born in Flint, Michigan, is aptly described as a ''writers' writer'' by the larger literary community. His short works have been published in the New Yorker, Esquire, the Saturday Evening Post, the Atlantic, and Best American Short Stories. His novels -- including The True Detective, Winning the City, and Harbor Lights -- have been published to great critical acclaim in the New York Times, the Washington Post, Harper's, the Boston Globe, USA Today, the Chicago Tribune, Boston magazine, and the Los Angeles Times, to name a few. He lives and works in Portsmouth, New Hampshire.

  Read on for a special preview of Theodore Weesner’s forthcoming novel

  Carrying

  Theodore Weesner (The Car Thief) launches his first new novel in fifteen years: Carrying, a gritty and realistic work that hurls the reader into the detonating heart of the first Iraqi war. (Kuwait)

  With unapologetic candor, Weesner navigates literary cherry bombs surrounding young warrior and South Boston native Jimmy Murphy, who pens a secret journal to his old English Professor, Herman Roth. Weesner’s contrapuntal narrative elegantly weaves two gripping journeys between Roth’s struggles with a waning academic career and Jimmy’s life as a soldier pulsating with rage, prejudice, and desire as he confronts personal demons to become a top gunner in one of the U.S.’s elite fighting groups.