The Sugar House

by Christine Flynn

  It seemed from what Emmy remembered seeing in the ledgers that her dad had several jobs in the area around the little community thirty miles away. As she’d thought more about it it seemed as if he’d stopped taking jobs there after a while, too.

  She needed to look through the ledgers again. In the meantime she needed to deal with the woman looking at her as if she’d just turned traitor and betrayed them all.

  “Why, Emmy Larkin. I never thought I’d see the day that you’d defend a Travers. And against your own father’s reputation.”

  “I’m not choosing one over the other,” she insisted, refusing to let the woman put her in such a position. “My father was a good man.” And he did his best to protect me, she thought, remembering how Jack had made sure she saw that. “So is Jack.”

  “Giving somebody back what’s theirs doesn’t make a man good. It’s what a person’s supposed to do. And don’t forget what he did to Joe,” she reminded her, clearly prepared to set her on the straight and narrow. “A good man doesn’t go getting himself into fights the way he did.”

  The sad thing about Bertie, Emmy thought, was that the woman thought she was right. But the middle-aged spinster, whose life seemed to revolve around everyone else’s, hadn’t a clue what she was talking about. Emmy knew the sort of man Jack was. She also knew that some minds were impossible to change and that Bertie Buell’s was set in concrete.

  “It was one fight,” she countered flatly. “And you might want to ask Joe just what it was that happened.” She doubted Joe would ever admit exactly what had happened in the locker room that day. She suspected he’d claim he couldn’t remember. Or wave it off as no longer of consequence. But she doubted he’d continue claiming Jack had been the bad guy.

  Bertie opened her mouth, clearly intent on recalling other transgressions. Looking as if she were sure there were more, just unable to recall them at the moment, she let out a huff.

  Temporarily thwarted, she switched victims. “What about this other woman, then?”

  Other woman? she thought, only to realize she was talking about her dad.

  For years Emmy had bitten her tongue, said nothing about how intrusive she found some people and the meddling that somehow passed for concern. But Jack had come to Maple Mountain to set things right. He’d faced hostility because of it, yet that hadn’t prevented him from coming back the day after he’d first arrived to see that he accomplished his goal. Taking a risk to right this particular wrong was exactly what she needed to do, too.

  “You know, Bertie. None of this is anyone’s business but mine.” Certainly, it was none of hers. “My father has been dead for years. Let him rest. As for Jack and his father, people have seen them as fair game for so long that folks believe anything anyone says about them…as long as it’s not something good. It’s time to let them rest, too.”

  Crossing her arms over the nerves jumping in her stomach, she added a quiet, “Please.”

  Letting it all go wasn’t going to happen. Even as the woman pursed her lips and pulled on her hat, Emmy knew speculation would run rampant about her father’s purported affair, her parent’s relationship and her defection to the side of the apparent enemy.

  With all her purposes for making the trip from town frustrated, the woman took off in the direction she’d come.

  “I know you hate talk, Emmy. But you can’t stop it.”

  She glanced to the woman who’d just reached over to pat her arm.

  “Look at it this way,” Mary suggested, her smile deepening the lines of wisdom in her face. “People will speculate, but they’re usually kinder to the dead than the living. The other thing is that while they’re talkin’ about your papa, they’re leavin’ someone else alone.”

  Emmy smiled at that last one. “Mom used to say that.”

  “You should remember it, then.”

  The smile faltered. “Mary,” Emmy began. “Did you ever hear of my father having an affair?”

  “I can’t say that I did. But that’s not the sort of thing that’s likely to get around unless someone saw him, or he or your mama talked about it to other folk who talked about it in turn.”

  “Do you think it’s possible?”

  “Wouldn’t care to speculate.” She gave her arm one last pat. “But I will tell you that if you see reason to forgive what went on between your family and the Traverses, then I’m of a mind to let go of my ill thinkin’ about ’em, too. Especially that young man helpin’ you out there,” she added, nodding toward the woods before she pushed up the sleeve of her parka to check her watch as if she should be going soon. From the basket strapped behind the snowmobile seat, it appeared she’d made supper for someone else, too. The Hanleys, Emmy would bet, since they’d be in the same straights she was in. “Charlie said this morning that he needed to help him clear the snow off his car since the road should be open in the mornin’, but I think he’s going to hate to see him go.”

  Mary’s reminder that Jack would soon leave managed to overshadow every other thought as Emmy returned to where the men worked in the lengthening afternoon shadows. Jack and Charlie had their heads together over a line they were splicing when Jack glanced toward her.

  Telling Charlie he’d be right back, he left the older man fixing a new hanger to a tree trunk and snowshoed his way to where she’d gone back to checking a line for splits and leaks.

  She must not have done a very good job of masking her disquiet. She could practically feel his frown on the top of her head.

  “What’s wrong?”

  I’m not ready for you to leave, she thought. “Agnes overheard you on the phone with your mom,” she said instead, since that had added a knot to her stomach, too.

  Swift as a slash, Jack quietly swore. “Oh, man,” he muttered a moment later. “I’m sorry, Emmy. I know I wasn’t talking that loud.”

  “Agnes was eavesdropping on another phone. But you know what?” she asked, keeping her focus on her task as she slowly moved along the line. “It doesn’t matter. Now that word is out, the damage to his reputation is done. So there’s no reason to hide the rest of it.”

  A hint of skepticism entered his voice. “What do you mean?”

  “I told Mary what you told me,” she said, feeling oddly calm. “About how that was why your dad called the loan, and how they kept that reason to themselves. And about how it seemed people didn’t give any consideration to him having a family of his own to support. I don’t think he was fair,” she qualified to him, because her dad had been cheated out of the value of the land, “but, if it all is true, your parents protected mine when they could have at least partially defended themselves. If people are going to talk, they might as well have both sides of the story.”

  “Hey, Jack! Can you give me a hand here?”

  Jack’s tall shadow remained still next to hers. It seemed there was something he wanted to say. It also seemed he figured that now wasn’t the time to say it.

  “I better go see what he needs.”

  “I think he just wants your company,” she murmured, and would have given him a smile had she not just found another leak.

  Emmy waited all afternoon for Jack to bring up his departure. As anxious as he had to be to get out of there, she knew it had to be on his mind. Yet as they worked their way through the trees, he said nothing about it. He said nothing, either, after Charlie left at dusk, or after they fired up the arch and the little generator at the sugar house for lights so they could boil what little sap there was in the tank because she hated to see it go to waste.

  It wasn’t until he said that Charlie had mentioned a neighbor’s boy who cleared driveways that she thought he might tell her he would leave as soon as the plow came through. But his only comment was that he wanted to hire him to use his snow blower on Emmy’s driveway and to dig out his car.

  “Charlie said the kid lives not far from his son’s house. He’ll go over in the morning on his way here to ask him to come out. You don’t have to pay him for it. I will,” he insisted
, because he seemed to know she was about to protest the extravagance. “It makes more sense for us to spend our time in the sugar bush. If we don’t run into any nasty surprises, we should be able to finish up that northwest quarter by tomorrow night.”

  It took a moment for what he’d just said to fully register. But she’d barely realized he didn’t intend to leave tomorrow after all, when the sudden seriousness in his eyes stalled her smile.

  “And, Emmy,” he said, sounding as tired as she felt as he watched her warm her hands in the heat radiating from beneath the huge pan. “Thank you for what you did today.”

  Beside them steam rose from the evaporator, filling the air with warm moisture and the sweet, familiar scent of the sap. Watching him look from the wisps and tendrils billowing above the pan’s metal sides, she didn’t have to ask to know what had him looking so grave. She knew. She had all but defended his father by letting it be known she held him responsible for nothing beyond selling the land.

  “I just want to set things right,” she replied, because she knew he couldn’t do it alone. “And, Jack,” she continued, much as he had when he’d said her name moments ago. “I have the feeling from what you’ve said about your father that your relationship with him was…difficult,” she allowed, truly sorry he hadn’t known the closeness she’d shared with hers. “But I’m sorry you lost him.”

  Jack suddenly seemed at a loss for words. He simply stood there, faint lines forming in his brow as his eyes searched hers—until he slowly lifted his hand to her face.

  He touched his knuckles to her cheek, something raw shifting through his eyes. “Thank you.” He murmured the words as the lines in his brow deepened, but even then his expression grew shuttered and he inched his hand from her skin.

  She couldn’t believe how disappointed she felt at that loss of contact. Hoping to mask the feeling, she gave him a small smile and moved away to unpack empty containers before the sap turned to syrup and they had to start the process of packaging it up.

  Jack watched her go, thought seriously about going after her. He just wasn’t sure what he’d do when he reached her, so he stayed where he was and asked if she wanted him to check at the store for a battery for her house generator in the morning.

  She told him that the Waters’s store didn’t stock the kind she needed. She’d have to drive to St. Johnsbury when the roads were open or order one from a catalog and the UPS man could bring it. They did a lot of shopping by catalog in Maple Mountain.

  He remembered that. And remembering it led to conversation that finally allowed the mental distance he knew he needed.

  Emmy had an absolute gift for throwing curves. Her defense of him yesterday had been surprising enough. That she had explained why his father had done what he had was something he never would have expected at all. But when she’d told him she was sorry his father had died, that had meant far more to him than he could have imagined.

  The fact that it did mean so much was what had made him pull back from her, and what made him keep his hands to himself as they went about the work of the evening. That deep and dangerous feeling was what kept him from pulling her into his arms a few hours later when they made their way into the house for the wonderful meal Charlie’s wife had brought, and later still when she looked at him with a tired smile at the foot of the stairs and told him to rest well. It helped him avoid that same temptation in the morning when she bumped the heel of her hand to her forehead as he walked into the kitchen and told him she’d been so tired last night that she’d forgotten to wash his jeans. She would do them tonight, for sure.

  “You have enough to do without taking care of my laundry,” he told her, and headed for the coffee before he could kiss the quick frown from her forehead.

  The act of not touching her soon seemed to claim every moment when she was near. He had no idea how not doing something could require so much concentration or energy, but he figured it must be something like not smoking when a person is trying to quit. A person was so conscious of what he wanted that not having it claimed front and center in his mind.

  Front and center in Emmy’s thoughts was the fact that Jack truly seemed in no hurry to leave. Even when Charlie arrived after breakfast and said he’d seen the plow about a mile down the road, which meant the road from Maple Mountain to the highway was already open, Jack’s only interest seemed to be in getting into the sugar bush.

  She was afraid to trust why he was staying. It didn’t make any sense to her at all. But she was too grateful for his help and his solid presence to question it. She was afraid to trust her growing feelings for him, too, as they set off through the snow once more.

  She’d told herself that the pull she felt toward him didn’t matter. She knew how Jack felt about his work. She knew how he felt about living in the city. She knew the stillness surrounding them as they crunched their way through the woods would eventually drive him nuts. He’d said so himself. She also knew that he’d worked hard to get where he was and that the excitement and lure of his work was as seductive to him as the need for stability was to her.

  She was a practical woman. Always had been. Always would be. Therefore, it made no sense at all to start falling in love with him, much less to start imagining what her life could be like with him in it.

  The problem was that, practical or not, she was already a little in love with him. Maybe a lot, for all she knew. She’d never really been in love before. And she already knew how good it was being with him. It seemed she could talk to him about nearly anything. She could share. And he shared back.

  She liked the way he told her as they worked that morning about the resort his company was building on Hilton Head and how animated he became describing its fountains and lounges and sweeping grounds. She liked the way he asked what she thought the most important features of a room were for guests, since she was in the business, as he put it, and that her opinions truly seemed to matter to him. Mostly she liked the concern he showed for Charlie and how hard it seemed to be on the older man and his wife living with their son and his family.

  What she didn’t care for was the void that threatened inside her when the thought of his leaving returned. Or maybe what she felt was simply overwhelmed when she reached the rise of the hill they’d worked their way up late that afternoon and saw the deep drifts of snow and broken branches on the north-facing slope on the other side.

  Dusk was already settling around them. Charlie had left a few minutes ago and somewhere down slope, Jack was splicing a new line into the main one.

  She couldn’t even see some of the lines ahead of her. The wind had driven the deep snow up the trunks, piling it over the spiles. The only way to see if lines were down would be to dig them out.

  Soon, it would only be her and Charlie, and she was looking at far more work than the two of them could reasonably handle before sugaring season was over. But she couldn’t let herself think in such terms. She had no choice but to do what she always did and keep moving forward because to stop meant she had no chance of recovering her production at all. And that meant she had no business standing there wasting time.

  Not allowing herself to think beyond that thought, hating the sense of panic finally making itself felt, she stepped into snow that buried her snowshoes, and started digging the deep and heavy stuff from the nearest tree.

  Chapter Ten

  Dusk was rapidly settling into darkness when Emmy heard Jack call her name over the rise.

  The temperature had taken a nosedive with the sunset. It didn’t help matters that the wind that had gusted off and on all afternoon had grown steadier in the past few minutes. Although she was accustomed to cold, she could feel it working its way through her clothes, stiffening her fingers, sucking heat from her muscles. Her ears were even starting to ache from the freezing air penetrating her fleece headband. Still, given a choice between heat and light right then, she’d have taken light in a heartbeat.

  She could no longer see the clear tubing against the snow. The entire
downslope was covered in deep-blue shadows.

  Here, where the sun reached for only a few hours a day, the ice hadn’t completely melted from the trees as it had where sun had bathed other exposures since the storm. As everywhere else, the snow had become heavier with the thaw and freeze of the days. It was just deeper, harder to move through, harder to clear away.

  Stepping through the crust that had frozen over it again, she started to call back to Jack, only to see his silhouette clear the rise twenty feet above her.

  Now that he knew where she was, she went right back to her task. She moved quickly, as quickly as she could considering the deepening cold and the snow bogging her down. She just wanted to get to the next tree. And maybe the one next to that.

  “Emmy,” he called again, his voice carrying on the frigid breeze. “There’s no sense starting another section now. It’s going to be dark in a couple of minutes.”

  Jack didn’t know how she could see as it was. He couldn’t even tell what she was doing as she knelt in the deep drift of snow. There was no mistaking her intention to keep doing it, though. Even with her slender shape little more than a shadow against the pearl-like brightness of the snow, it was impossible to miss her resolve.

  He stepped over a fallen icy branch and lifted another out of the way. Finally close enough to see the trench she was digging with her hands, he realized it wasn’t just her quiet, incredible stubbornness pushing her. What he saw seemed more like a desperate determination that refused to acknowledge just how impossible the task surrounding her appeared to be.

  Even in the dim and shadowy twilight, he could see branches down everywhere.

  “Hey, Emmy. Come on,” he coaxed, reaching her side. “You can’t even see out here.”

  “I don’t need to see to feel where the line is.”