by John Smolens
“I need to ask you something,” he said.
She kept moving forward, staring down into the clear water ahead of her feet. “What’s that?”
“Why didn’t you tell me that Sean had come back?”
She picked up a stone, looked at it a moment, then dropped it in the water.
“I mean, you knew he was back, didn’t you?”
She walked on, stooped over. “Guess it didn’t seem important.” They worked their way around a small point, where she found several more keepers. Finally she said, “If I had known he was going to be this way, I guess I would have said something.” She handed him a stone, gray with perfect smooth holes in it. “Sean is the past.” She moved on. After a minute, she said, “Are you mad? At me?”
“Do I seem mad?”
“I don’t know. You seem . . . different.”
“Well, maybe I am,” Martin said. “This fire at the house, it’s made me think.”
“So what have you come up with?”
“Two things.”
“Two things?”
“That house is one of them. You know, I’ve never really owned anything before, other than that old car. This house is different. I don’t know how to describe it. It’s a place that had been condemned. It’s a piece of history. It represents something—the way people live. If it’s not going to be knocked down, then it should be done right, so that people can live in it. It was a good house, and it can be again in the future. That house is the future.”
“I think so, too.” She had a stone in her hand. “What’s the other thing?”
“Don’t you know?”
Hannah leaned over and swished the stone in the water, then handed it to him. “That’s the last one,” she said.
He put the stone in the sack. She didn’t wait for him, but walked up onto the beach and sat in dry sand. He followed and sat next to her.
“My mother knows now,” she said. “I think I’ve lost sight of her in recent years—all she does is work, it seems. There’s not a lot she doesn’t know.”
“How about if I meet her?”
Hannah leaned back on her elbows and stared out at the sunset on the lake. “In a few weeks I graduate.”
“And after you graduate?”
“I don’t know.” She lay back on the sand, resting her head on one palm.
He took her other hand in his. Her fingers were rough from handling stones. “Have you ever lived anywhere but here?”
She shook her head. There was a crescent of sand on one cheek, which he brushed off with his free hand. “This is the first really hot day of the year. My mother used to tell me about how she gave birth to me during a heat wave. She came down here to the lake every day with a folding lawn chair. She told me that one day she stood up, squatted in the water, and a minute later brought me out, dripping wet. I really believed that until I was maybe in fourth grade.”
“You ever think of leaving the U.P.?”
“Not really. Look—it’s May and the days are getting longer. Why would I want to leave? Do you?”
“I keep thinking I’m going to get up one morning and find myself back in my old life. There won’t be any house to work on, there won’t be you. I’ll be building condos in Chicago. Since the fire, I think I’m really beginning to see this house. What it could be.”
“What could it be?”
“Ours.” He lay down next to her, one hand on her hip, the curve there as smooth as the stones in the sack. “How does this sound?” he said. “When we get the house to a certain point—with the roof done, and the plumbing and electricity fixed—how would it be if we moved in? There’s the kitchen and several rooms on the first floor—we could fix them up and live there while we finish the rest of the house.”
She kissed him, and her arms came up around his neck. They held each other in the growing dark.
PEARLY SOUGHT HIS OWN COOL, watery haven. He drove a couple of miles west on Route 28 toward Marquette, parked on the side of the road, and walked barefoot down a path through the woods to a creek that fed into Lake Superior. He had a six-pack of Labatt under one arm, and as he waded up the creek the silt bottom dropped away until he was waist-deep. Pearly’s spot was the third bend, where the current had built up a ledge of sand. He pulled off his shorts and T-shirt, tossed them up on the bank, and sat on the ledge. The water was up to his Adam’s apple. He cracked the first beer and put the remainder of the six-pack by his feet.
A few minutes later he heard the sound of pushed water. Someone was walking upstream. Sally came around the bend, wearing a soggy yellow print dress.
“I was coming back from Marquette when I saw your truck, so I followed you,” she said. “God, it was fun to be sneaky.” She waded closer and looked down through the water. “Well, isn’t this a pretty picture?”
Pearly felt like a boy caught doing something naughty. He slid his butt off the sand ledge and went underwater. Cold water seemed to compress his head. Through the murk he could see her legs beneath the swirl of her dress. He groped around the creek bottom, found the remaining cans of beer, yanked one off its plastic ring, and came up for air. “This might improve the picture.” He sat on the ledge again.
Sally reached both arms down into the water and with one graceful motion raised her dress up over her head. She tossed the dress up onto the bank and sat next to him on the ledge. He handed her the can of beer.
THE WHITEFISH HARBOR HERALD, referred to by locals as the Fish Wrap, was published once a week. By Wednesday night Sean knew everyone had seen the front-page story about Frank Colby arresting his own son. The incident was described in detail, with supporting quotes from Lawrence and Mildred Eichhorn. Sean had been charged with drunk and disorderly conduct and destruction of public property, and Captain Buzz Gagnon had been quoted as saying that Sean would be suspended indefinitely from duty without pay. Frank Colby, the article added, had declined to comment, while Sean’s lawyer, Owen Nault II, said that his client was confident that the matter would be handled fairly and justly by the Marquette County District Court. The newspaper had a photograph of his father in uniform, and the photograph of Sean had been taken during boot camp—his head was shaved to the nub. He looked like a clean-cut kid. He certainly didn’t look like trouble.
“Nothing’s gone right for you since you got that girl in trouble,” his mother said. She was making a meat loaf in the kitchen, and she nearly spat the words out, which was always the case when Hannah was mentioned.
Since Sunday Sean stuck pretty close to home, allowing his feet to heal, and spent a lot of time down in his room, particularly when his father was home. “I screwed up, Ma, but this isn’t like the end of the world. Mr. Nault says—”
“Never mind Mr. Nault. He’ll be costing your father plenty, believe you me.” She put both hands in the bowl, which contained a lump consisting of several pounds of ground sirloin, bread crumbs, chopped onion, A-1 Sauce, and two eggs. Dinner. As she began to mix everything together, her thin hands became glazed with raw meat and egg yolk. She kept her head bent to her task. “I haven’t seen your father this way in a long time.” Her voice was barely more than a hiss, and it seemed to emanate directly from her lungs, which years of smoking had made permanently thick with phlegm. She coughed once, and Sean almost expected something to come up and land in the bowl of meat.
“He’s been quiet,” Sean said. “Quieter than I thought—at least since Sunday night.” She glanced up and he smiled, but she was having none of it. Usually a day or two after his father blew up, Sean and his mother could make light of it. But this time she wasn’t willing to participate in their little conspiracy.
“What I want to know is when all this trouble’s going to come to an end.” She squeezed the meat so that it oozed from her fists.
Sean went to the refrigerator. “I need a beer if I’m going to watch this any longer.”
“You think this is a joke, don’t you?” she said.
“Ma, take it easy.” He grabbed a can of Stroh�
��s, shut the refrigerator door, and returned to his stool. “I don’t get why I can’t just pay for the headlight. I mean, it’s a headlight.”
“No, you just don’t get it, do you, Sean?” She lifted the entire wad of gummy meat out of the bowl and laid it in the greased baking pan. He opened the can of beer and drank down a good half of it. “Know what I think?” She began to shape the meat into a loaf, pushing down with both hands as though she were trying to resuscitate a heart attack victim. “I think—that you—actually—enjoy this.”
“Enjoy what?”
“Trouble.”
She stopped pumping. The effort seemed to have exhausted her. Turning, she rinsed her hands in the sink, then dried them with a towel.
“Come on,” he said.
She lit a cigarette. “No, Sean. It’s how you’ve been since you were small. You do something you shouldn’t and if you get caught you show no shame. None.”
“We’re talking about a headlight! I had a couple of beers!”
“You show no shame,” she repeated, inhaling her cigarette, her hand shaking noticeably. “And then—then what you do is you go and do something that makes it worse. Because you like it. That’s why, Sean. You like the attention.”
Sean got up off the stool, its legs scraping loudly on the linoleum floor. “The only reason this got any attention is because my father’s a cop. And I’m a cop—a summer part-timer, but still a cop. Any other guy—any college kid working here for the summer—and it wouldn’t mean a thing to anybody.”
“Well, you aren’t just anybody—your father isn’t just anybody.”
Sean stepped backward and knocked the stool over, which clattered on the floor. “That’s not my problem!”
She began yelling then. Her voice reached that frantic pitch that he couldn’t stand. It got right into his nervous system somehow and seemed to alter the composition of his blood. He knew what she was saying without hearing the words. And he was yelling, too. All denials, all justifications. None of it ever worked. He opened the refrigerator, cold air pressing against his face and chest. She was screaming now, so he grabbed two beer cans with one hand, then slammed the door shut. Her voice chased him down the hall, down the basement stairs, until he was in his room, where he slammed that door with everything he had—and still her voice came down through the ceiling.
10
THE SECOND SATURDAY in June Hannah graduated from high school, and the following day she and Martin moved into the first floor of his house. They did so with her mother’s blessing, which at first surprised Hannah. Her mother had met Martin, first over dinner at the Brownstone Inn out on Route 28, and then several times at her house, and saw that he was indeed unlike other boys who had taken an interest in Hannah. One night Suzanne explained her reasoning to Hannah. None of the boys Hannah’s age who could be expected to remain in Whitefish Harbor had much sense of a future. In most cases they were kids like Arnie Frick who went into their father’s business, usually a trade or the management of a shop. Some, of course, went to college. Hannah showed little inclination to do so, and Suzanne was somewhat relieved that she wouldn’t have to figure out how to pay for college for the next four or five years. Even the state universities were no great bargain. But at the bottom of her acceptance was the fear that if Hannah left the U.P., she would never return. Suzanne had been born and raised here, and her husband had abandoned her with a baby when she was still a young woman. Over the years Suzanne became self-sufficient, durable, relentlessly practical. At the hospital she worked with an increasingly aging population, and just knowing that her daughter was still in Whitefish Harbor might be all the comfort she could expect in the coming years. So with her usual muted enthusiasm—she offered furniture, blankets, kitchenware, which they piled into the Mercedes and the back of Pearly’s truck—she helped Hannah move into Martin’s house.
Often when Martin and Pearly finished work for the day, they would go out to the shaded backyard, where Hannah had arranged the set of old wrought-iron lawn furniture she had bought at a yard sale. She had spray-painted the table and chairs white and washed the seat cushions. They drank beer and talked about the progress of the house. Pearly would stay for a beer or two, then drive home or, more likely, to some place like the Portage. Hannah always asked him to stay for dinner, but he seldom did. They were new at this and he could see they wanted to spend their evenings alone together.
Gracie took to the house and its yard, which was surrounded by woods, hunting for field mice, birds, and small snakes, which she proudly displayed on the back steps or sometimes in the bathtub. Many of the walls were still unpainted Sheetrock, with broad swaths of joint compound covering the seams. Hannah often sang to a CD or the radio. Sometimes while cooking she’d break into a little tap dance. She and Martin had made love so often, in the bedroom, in the living room, standing in the kitchen, that it was as though they were determined to establish territory through intimacy.
One night Martin finished his shower, and he pulled on a pair of shorts as he went into the kitchen. He got the pitcher of ice water out of the refrigerator and a glass from the sink. Looking up, he watched Hannah through the window screen. She was leaning back in her chair, with her long bare legs up on the table, crossed at the ankles. A faint imprint from the wrought-iron seat decorated the exposed underside of her tanned thigh. The newspaper was folded on her knees. Her hair hung down, so he couldn’t see her face. She raised one hand, brushed her hair back over her shoulder, then began to gnaw on a thumbnail.
He said, “What is it?”
She looked up toward the window, startled. At first it seemed she wanted to conceal something, but she said, “I don’t know, it’s just . . . this.” She dropped the newspaper on the table.
HANNAH WENT INTO the kitchen to start dinner. Chicken, rice, and broccoli, with a salad. She was accustomed to cooking for two, but her mother had always wanted her food bland—no spices other than salt and pepper, and absolutely no garlic. Now Hannah used fresh garlic in almost everything. After the long days of working on the house, Martin ate two and three helpings. He had the metabolism of a twelve-year-old. Nothing stayed on him. From the sink she watched him sitting in the backyard. He wore only a pair of faded tan shorts; his ribs were clearly etched below his taut chest and shoulder muscles as he leaned over the new edition of the Herald. He didn’t move as he read the article.
The front-page article was entitled “Police Hiring Under Scrutiny.” The author of the article, Bettina Laakso, was the owner and editor of the newspaper, and she raised questions about Sean’s early release from the army and how he had subsequently been hired by the police department. According to official documents quoted in the article, he had received an honorable discharge. However, Laakso also quoted several sources who said that Sean was sent home from his base in Italy as a result of some scandal—the article was not very specific—which the army may have tried to cover up. One source, a captain who had been stationed with Sean, said that there was more to Sean’s early discharge than “meets the eye. Brass always protect themselves. They’re just like everybody else. It’s always, always CYA first, if you catch my drift.” Cover your ass. The captain was currently stationed in Alaska. The other source was a fellow recruit from Duluth, Minnesota, Bobby Loomis, who had been discharged along with Sean. He was reluctant to speak on record but didn’t refuse outright; it was clear he felt Sean was at least in part responsible for his own early discharge. The most specific thing he said was, “These women knew what they were getting into, and beyond that you’re going to have to talk to my lawyer.” There were also quotes from the chief of police, Buzz Gagnon, who said that Sean had been hired by the Whitefish Harbor police department based on his good military record and the fact that he had known this young man since he was a boy. Frank Colby refused to comment for the article. Sean, apparently, could not be reached at all. Charges against him of drunk and disorderly conduct and destruction of public property were pending in Marquette County District Court.<
br />
When Martin finished reading the article, he came into the kitchen. “Was Sean such a piece of work when you knew him?”
“It seems like a long time ago,” she said. “Sean was a leader-of-the-pack kind of guy. I don’t know how some kids establish that but he did. There were always other boys standing around him. I was very shy and nobody stood around me. I always felt alone in school—always. So I suppose that’s what drew me to him at first.” She turned the heat on under the pot of broccoli. “It didn’t take long, though, for me to realize that there was, I don’t know, this strange wrinkle in him. He needed others around him. What was he without them?” As an afterthought, she said almost to herself, “Not just a wrinkle, a twist. There’s this twist to him I sensed but could never figure out. It’s as though he was protecting it—you could never try to talk to him about it.” She stared at the flame licking out from beneath the pot, then turned the heat down. “When I learned I was pregnant, Sean just disappeared on me. What do you call that?”
“An invertebrate,” Martin said.
11
AFTER THE SECOND article came out in the Herald, Sean tended to go out mostly at night. During the day he stayed in his room. Because the house was on a slope, he could look out the sliding glass door at the backyard, which was hemmed in by woods. The midday sunlight was unbearable and he would draw the curtain across the door. The light and heat that came through the glass reminded him of Italy. Le Marche–Piceno U.S. Air Force Base was comprised primarily of air force personnel who maintained a fleet of fighters and bombers. Technically, the army’s role was to provide protection for the air force, which as part of Operation Joint Endeavor was making daily sorties across the Adriatic Sea to Kosovo. Sean’s days were filled with numbing routine.
