“I got the feeling that was the case by the way he forced that money on you.”
Ben waved a hand at her. Then, pointing his fork at the sausage on his plate, said, “This is really good. You want a bite?”
Julia considered and then nodded, so Ben speared a piece of sausage with his fork and held it out across the table. She leaned forward, her hands braced on the edge of the table, so he could feed her. He was enamored of the way her eyes narrowed when she opened her mouth to take the food.
“Ummm …” she said, chewing slowly. “That is good.” She sat back and blotted her mouth with her napkin.
They ate for a while in silence until Ben said, “The thing about Richie is, he’ll get hundreds more in interest from my old man every month.”
“Because of the boat loan?”
Julia had apparently decided not even to try to lift her sandwich. She picked up her fork and knife, and started carving a small piece off the side.
“Yeah,” Ben said, feeling a deep-bone chill inside, and — for the first time in his life — he realized that he was genuinely worried about his father. “Because of the boat loan.”
It was the last week of May, so school wasn’t out, and vacationers hadn’t started moving to town in great numbers yet, so traffic was relatively sparse on the drive up Route One back to Catawamkeag Cove. Ben knew some back roads that would avoid the worst of the backups, but today, even the bottleneck at the bridge in Wiscasset wasn’t bad. They sailed right through town.
“Red’s Eats,” she said when she noticed a small shack on the side of the road before the bridge.
“A classic,” Ben said.
“You ever eat there?”
”Can’t say as I have. Us locals avoid the tourist traps.”
As they drove, they chatted about a variety of other things, laughing at each other’s jokes and getting downright serious when Julia expressed how worried she was about how poorly her father was doing. In the back of his mind, Ben couldn’t get rid of the nagging worry that his father was in deep trouble, too. Maybe even more than he realized. No matter how bad things were, owing The Crowbar any amount of money was going to make things worse.
But no matter how much he told himself not to let that encounter ruin the time he had with Julia, it was as though a dark cloud had shifted in front of the sun even though the afternoon outside the car was warm and bright.
“So,” he said. The steering wheel played loosely in his hands as he navigated the road. “You probably have to get back home and check in on your dad, huh?”
Julia slipped her tongue out and licked her upper lip as she nodded, but Ben caught a look in her eyes — at least he thought he did — that said she would much rather spend the rest of the day with him.
That’s what he hoped, anyway.
His throat constricted and his heart felt too large for his chest when he turned the corner onto her street, and her house came into view.
“I had a good time,” Ben said as he slowed for the turn into the driveway. He stopped about halfway to the garage and slipped the car into park.
“Me, too,” Julia said. She kept her eyes downcast.
Ben wished he could know what she was thinking.
“We’ll have to do it again soon, but … what about Kathy?”
“Who?”
“Kathy Brackett. I heard you and she were an item before she married Dwight.”
“’An item?’ That’s so … quaint.”
He smiled and gave her a little jab on the arm.
“You know what I mean,” Julia said. Her tone of voice was odd — low and serious and maybe tinged with jealousy.
“You were talking with her before the launch, and it looked like —” She heaved a sigh and kept staring downward. “Let’s just say it looked like you were still more than friends.”
“She’s married, you know. And has a kid.”
Ben almost choked on that and wondered if Julia had also heard that he was the father.
“And no matter what you might have heard around town, I’m not what they call a … a ‘sport fucker,’ if you’ll pardon the expression.”
“So you’re not a Gunna?”
Ben fought back a rising surge of frustration. He wished he could find the words to say exactly what he was trying to say, but he was so confused … She confused him. His mind was blank.
“That was back in high school, ’kay?” he said. “Truth is, I’d much rather spend time with you.”
Julia raised her head and looked at him, blinking her eyes rapidly as though holding back tears. He was being drawn into the warm, brown depths of her eyes like a drowning man.
“Maybe we can go to a movie or something,” Ben said. He wished everything he said didn’t sound so damned stupid.
“Yeah … I’d like that,” Julia replied.
Ben twisted in his seat so he was facing her squarely. His heart was racing as he looked at her. It was all he could do not to lean over … hug her … and kiss her; but he held back, telling himself it wouldn’t be right.
Not yet.
Maybe with time.
“Thanks again for lunch,” Julia said, reaching for the door handle, “I really liked the restaurant … and meeting The Crowbar.”
“Word to the wise.” Ben raised his hand and pointed a cautionary finger at her. “If I was you, I wouldn’t use that name around town.”
“What, you think he’d have me whacked or something?”
“Stranger things have happened.”
The surprised expression on her face let him know that she got it.
Acting purely on impulse, Ben reached out and stroked her hair. A spark of … something jumped between them. She turned and looked at him, her expression softening as their eyes locked. A strand of hair shifted forward and hung down over one eye. All Ben could think about was how amazing it would be to wake up some morning, roll over in bed, and see her lying there next to him, her dark hair fanned out across the pillow.
“I don’t usually kiss on the first date,” Ben said, grinning crookedly.
“This was a date?”
Julia laughed, and Ben felt the tension break, but then — without warning — she leaned toward him. Narrowing her eyes, she placed her right hand on the side of his head, touching him lightly behind the jaw. Without saying a word, she applied enough pressure to draw his face close to hers. Her mouth opened, and then their lips met in a long, moist kiss. Her tongue flicked teasingly between his lips.
Surprised by the intense passion in her kiss, Ben almost drew back, but then he shifted and wrapped his left arm around her, inhaling sharply as he drew her close and crushed her against his chest. Her breasts flattened against him, and the heat of her body was intoxicating. He felt himself stiffening as her right hand shifted down to his leg and gently rubbed the meat of his upper thigh.
Ben had no idea how long the kiss lasted. Later on, while driving home, he remembered something Mr. Perry had said in science class when he was trying to explain Einstein’s theory of relativity. Placing your hand on a hot stove for even a few seconds, he said, can seem like an hour while kissing a beautiful woman for an hour can seem like mere seconds. For now, Ben was lost in the embrace as the kiss lengthened, their passion growing. Her breathing came hard as she gasped for breath. When they finally broke the kiss, and Julia pulled back, she gazed at him with a dark, smoldering look.
Ben realized he was smiling at her and must look like an idiot.
“Wow,” he said, his voice husky and constricted in his throat. It was difficult to breathe. The air didn’t go deep enough into his chest.
Julia’s smile widened, but then — without another word — she twisted around, snapped the car door open, and stepped out onto the grass. She hesitated with the car door open and leaned down, staring at him without saying a word. Their eyes met and locked. Ben licked his upper lip, tasting the salt that lingered there. His body was flushed, pulsing with excitement.
“See yah,” Julia finally
said. With that, she swung the door shut, turned on one foot, and all but ran up the walkway to the front door of the house.
“I sure hope so,” Ben called after her, but the passenger’s window was up, and he wasn’t sure she heard him.
He watched as she ducked inside with one last quick glance and a wave over her shoulder, and then the screen door whooshed shut behind her. He sat there for a long time, wishing … hoping she would come back out, but the door remained closed. There was no sign of activity inside the house.
He reached up and rubbed his mouth, still amazed that they had kissed. He shook his head, started up the car, and backed out of the driveway to the street.
He didn’t see Julia in any of the windows, but he was sure — he hoped — she was looking out, watching him drive away. He convinced himself that he could feel her gaze on the back of his neck, making his skin prickle.
As he drove home, he kept thinking, Umm, yeah … I want me some more of that!
The smell of disinfectant and human waste assailed Ben’s nostrils the instant he and Louise stepped through the front door of “Grave’s Edge.” He blew his breath out quickly like he’d taken a sip of hot soup.
Holding the door open, he watched as a young woman wearing a hospital smock with a bright floral pattern pushed an elderly woman in a wheelchair down the hall. The old woman, who couldn’t have weighed more than eighty pounds, looked up at Ben. Her eyes had a milky white film and were sinking into her head like marbles in bread dough. Her mouth drooped open on one side, and a string of drool hung from her lower lip to her emaciated chest. Ben assumed she was smiling at him, and he tried to smile back. He waited until they had wheeled past him before turning to Louise.
“Jesus, this place is depressing,” he whispered.
Louise nodded but kept staring straight ahead. He thought maybe this was her way of dealing with it — to shut it all out.
A dozen or so other residents perched in wheelchairs or scuffing along with walkers were gathered in the front foyer. Most of them were staring off at some distant horizon only they could see. One old man shot Ben a toothless grin and said, “Ahh. Comin’ in for your meds again, huh, Johnny?”
Ben looked at him, trying to place a name with the withered face. The man looked vaguely familiar, but Ben drew a blank.
“Well, well, well, if it isn’t Benjamin Brown in the flesh.”
Ben immediately recognized the voice. Agnes Appleby, an old friend of his mother’s, was seated on a stool behind the counter, reading some pages in a file folder. She closed the file, marking her place with her forefinger as she stood up.
“Mrs. A,” Ben said. “How are you?”
“I can’t complain,” Mrs. Appleby said. Her smile exposed a top row of tiny, yellowed teeth, not much more than stubs. Her hazel eyes sparkled behind the lenses of her too-thick glasses. “Howdy, Louise. Here to see your ma, are yah?”
Ben shrugged and said, “How’s she doing?”
The smile melted away from Mrs. Appleby’s face, and her shoulders slumped. Her sun-tanned face went a few shades paler as she looked away for a moment.
“As well as can be expected, I guess. But truth to tell — she’s declined quite a bit since you’ve been gone.”
Ben glanced at Louise as if to ask if she thought the staff should talk so candidly to family members, especially with other patients close by. Wouldn’t it depress them all the more to hear such negative talk? Or did they know and accept their fate? Or maybe they were so far gone it didn’t matter what anyone said. On some level, they must all know this is the end and none of them would get out of here alive.
Ben and Louise’s mother and Mrs. Appleby had been best friends since grade school. The stories his mother used to tell them about things she and “Aggie” had done together, growing up in the late forties and early fifties, could have filled a book. It struck Ben as patently unfair that his mother, who was still in her early sixties, would be stricken with early onset Alzheimer’s while someone the same age looked perfectly healthy and full of life.
Yeah, Ben thought, and who told you life is fair? His father’s words echoed in his mind as he looked around and saw the stark reality of these people at the end of their lives. He thought of how life ended in Iraq — sudden and bloody, while here it was by decay … and by inches.
“Let me walk you down to her room,” Mrs. Appleby said. She placed the file folder she had been reading onto the desk and came around the edge of the counter. Then she turned and strode purposefully down the corridor to the left of the desk, leading the way. Wending their way between more residents in wheelchairs and walkers, Ben and Louise followed a step or two behind. She moved fast.
“She should be in her room,” Mrs. Appleby said. “But — well, as you know, Louise, she’s quite the wanderer.”
Ben shot a questioning look at his sister, but Louise shifted her eyes sideways. Either she didn’t catch it or else she was ignoring him.
“I want you to be prepared, Ben,” Mrs. Appleby said. “You haven’t seen her in a while and — well … I don’t want you to be too surprised, is all.”
Ben was about to say that he was confident he could handle pretty much anything after what he’d seen in Iraq, but suddenly he wasn’t so sure. He didn’t say anything until they arrived at the door. He was surprised to see a photograph taped to the door, one of his mother that had been taken when she was much younger, probably not long after she graduated from high school. She was standing outside her family home on Main Street wearing a sleeveless shirt and laughing at the camera. Her long hair fell in waves to her shoulders. Ben had never realized how pretty his mother had been back then.
“Why the old picture?” he asked, tapping it lightly.
Mrs. Appleby hooked her forefinger and scraped back and forth beneath her nose.
“People with Alzheimer’s often don’t recognize recent photos of themselves, but they do recognize themselves when they were much younger. Their memories get stuck at certain ages, usually in the late teens or early twenties.”
“Really?” Ben said. He had never heard that before, but he guessed anything was possible.
Without knocking, Mrs. Appleby pushed the door open and walked in ahead of them. They followed behind. The medicinal smell in the room was like a solid wall. The shades were drawn, and the room was cast in gloom. It took Ben a moment to realize the bed was empty.
“See?” Mrs. Appleby said as she walked to the window and drew the shades. The sudden blast of light hurt Ben’s eyes. “She’s off somewhere.”
She shook her head as though gravely disappointed and walked past Ben and Louise and out the door. Once in the corridor, she cast a glance up and down the hallway, and then started back toward the front desk.
“Does this happen a lot?” Ben asked Louise as they followed along behind. Mrs. Appleby was moving fast, and they had to hustle to keep up.
“It’s been kind of a problem,” Louise said keeping her voice low, like she was in a library.
“Kind of? And they don’t keep tabs on her?”
Louise shook her head.
“She can’t go very far. There’s always someone at the front desk, and the other doors are locked. You’d set off an alarm if you opened them.”
“I’m not worried about me. I’m worried about Mom. It’s not safe for her to wander around like this.”
By this time, they were back in the front foyer. They followed Mrs. Appleby down another short hallway to another door. She shouldered it open and entered. Even before he went inside, Ben could hear the blare of a TV show. It sounded like a soap opera. When he entered the room, his eyes darted from side to side, and for an instant, he felt like he was on patrol and had busted into the home of an Iraqi family.
In the flickering blue wash of light from the TV, Ben saw only four people in the room. Two women were sitting side by side in wheelchairs, their faces enraptured as they stared up at the TV screen. An old man was seated on a couch. He was watching something on t
he ceiling with as much intensity as the two ladies were watching TV. The fourth person was in the far corner, her back partially turned to the door as if she was trying to hide in the corner but had nowhere to go.
“There you are, Lil,” Mrs. Appleby said in a quiet but cheerful tone. “You have visitors.”
The woman in the corner turned away so she was facing the wall. Her shoulders shivered like she was standing outside in the cold.
“Hey, Ma,” Ben said, taking a few cautious steps toward her. She reminded him of a frightened animal, and he didn’t want to spook her. He looked first at his sister and then at Mrs. Appleby as if asking for instructions. Neither one of them said or did anything, so he turned back to his mother.
Her hair was shorter than he remembered. It glowed silvery blue in the light of the TV. Short, thin wisps fanned out like wind-blown spider webs. She was hunched over, but it was obvious she had lost at least twenty pounds if not more since he’d last seen her. She raised her left arm, which was no thicker than the handle of a baseball bat, and covered her face with her hand, trying to hide behind it.
I can’t see you, so you can’t see me.
“How you doing there, Ma?” Ben asked.
He took a few steps closer, but he had a strong impulse to turn and leave. He couldn’t believe what he was seeing. How could this be his mother? It wasn’t just the physical change. If his mother had been herself, if she had been mentally there, her face would have lit up, seeing him.
“Lou and I brought some pictures from the boat launch to show yah,” Ben said. He turned to Louise, but she made no move to take her digital camera from her purse.
“Do I know you?” Lilly asked, her eyes widening as she turned around and stared at Ben. The whites were glazed with distance.
“Ma. It’s me. Benjamin.”
“Benjamin?”
She looked as though the name simply didn’t register. When she cocked her head to one side, she reminded him of a bird, looking for a worm or bug in the grass.
“Hey! You wanna keep it down?” one of the women watching TV said, glaring at them.
“Sorry,” Ben said, but just as quickly, Mrs. Appleby said, “Now Susan. You mind your manners.” Then she moved over to Lilly and placed a hand on her shoulder.
The Cove Page 8
