A Peculiar Grace (40 page)

“Hewitt, when I finally had to tell him, he took himself up the hill and stayed locked in the studio for three days. I’d take meals up in a basket and hang them on the door. And I sat down here in this big empty house and cried, I’ll tell you that. On the fourth day I screwed up my courage and marched up and rattled the door until he let me in and I told him I’d leave if he wanted but there would be no back alley abortions for me. And he looked at me with those terrible eyes and told me he’d never considered I might.

“I was home a week from hospital before he’d take her in his arms. He stood the longest time holding her and then without a word passed her back to me. Half an hour later I found him in the woodshed crying. And I left him alone with it. Even if he’d wanted to I doubt he could’ve explained how he felt.

“Now be careful what you think. And recall the times. I was the mother and he was the painter. But he was a father also. He took his turns with her and spent his time and if a wee child comprehends more than we think perhaps she also comprehended the great struggle within him. It was the year she was two, near two and a half that I saw the change occur in him. It was as if he’d been holding his shoulders rigid for years. Then one afternoon we were out on a blanket.
It was a fair early spring afternoon and she was crawling about him as a child does and he began to laugh at her, her knees and hands all mud and her face daubed with it like a wild Indian. Now I’m not saying there was a sea change after that—you remember the man yourself. Ah, Hewitt, the loss of a wife and child is a terrible thing and something none of us can understand truly unless we’ve been through it.

“And as there are two sides to every story, there are two personalities involved. You’ll recall they were always at sixes and sevens. By the time she was eight or nine, she began to have a hard time. She thought he was odd, strange. She hurt him terribly several times. The quiet deadly ways a girl can hurt a father. One afternoon when she was thirteen she marched up to the sugarhouse and let herself in. She stood there with her arms across her chest and demanded to know why he couldn’t be like other fathers. He told me later it was as if he’d been slapped. He lost his temper and demanded what she meant by that. She was crying and told him she just wanted him to be normal. He asked her, ‘What would you have me do, get a job in a factory? Is that what you want girl?’ Oh he was in great distress that night after the two of you were in bed and he told me. He tried for days to make it up to her. He had no shame for his work you know. But that she did, and he reacted that way, it was a horrible thing for him. Ever afterwards there was a distance between them. And when she left for school and took her major in hotel management he was devastated. An effing waitress was what he said. ‘No matter how high she might rise in the business she’ll never be anything more than an effing waitress.’”

“I never knew that. I just thought she wanted to get away from here. I thought she wanted to make her own way.”

“Well, she has now sure. And I can’t help but think, at least with her, that we made some mistakes. We never made a big deal out of his success. Or the money that helped him arrive there. After he died and she got her share of the estate she never said a word to me about it. Of course she was beginning to do well enough on her own, but
still. As you know it was a gob of money and she never asked the questions you’d think she might. Not even if it was truly her fair share. She just took it and never spoke to me again about it until last year. When she told me right out of the blue the money had gone into a trust for Meredith. Which she doesn’t know about and won’t until her thirty-second birthday. That being the age your sister settled on. So you see my boy, it was like she never wanted it in the first place. Or could not accept when it came that her father had been deemed that worthy by the rest of the world. Oh I love Beth so dearly. However it happened, she was just born to be unhappy in this life. There are people like that, you know.”

“Mother.”

“Ah, here comes the pronouncement.”

“Don’t you think, honestly now, Beth would be better off knowing the entire story? That it might help her to understand him a bit more? Mother, she’s almost fifty.”

“She is,” Mary Margaret said. “But I don’t happen to agree with you. She’s tough as steel but poke her the right way and she’d fall apart. She’s one like that.”

“Mother.”

“I’m a modern woman, always have been. Otherwise I never would’ve considered a Protestant lump like your father.”

“You just don’t quit, do you?” Grinning at her.

“When I do you’ll know it. Dropping a tear on my casket I hope.”

“Ah, there’s the Irish coming up in you now. I’ll have you know when that day does come, I plan to throw myself into the grave atop your casket weeping.”

“Don’t be making sport of your mother.”

“Oh, I’m not,” he said. “I figure it’ll be my best hope if it turns out you’re right about God and I’m not.”

“Hewitt.”

He said, “So Meredith obviously doesn’t know about her grandfather either. The whole story, I mean.”

“No. One fine day it’ll be me that tells her. But no time soon. She’s a fine girl, considering everything, a very fine girl. But not ready for that yet. Now that’s a bit of a fib. She would find it fascinating. But, things being what they are, for the next year or two at least, she’ll have enough on her plate.”

“What’s that mean?”

“It means children will never leave an old woman in peace. It means that as soon as Meredith is settled into college, Beth intends to divorce Evan.”

“Aw, no.”

“I’m afraid so.”

Hewitt said, “Do either of them …”

“No. It’s all Beth. Beth trying once more to get control over every bit of her life.”

“You’ve talked to her? Damn it Mother, she’s not that stupid. You can’t spend twenty years of your life with someone and then try to erase it and begin again.”

Mary Margaret was calm. “I had my little say. To no avail of course. But it’s part of why I came along on this trip. It’s going to be hard on the girl, harder than her mother can imagine. But at least if Meredith is up here in a different land with different people doing different things, I can hope she takes to it enough so it eases some of the pain and shock. Because that’s what it will be.”

Hewitt said, “And then there’s Uncle Hewitt close by.”

“No. There is no such assumption. That part is up to you.”

“Of course. But Mother I’m already wild about that girl. After just a few hours. You think I’d turn my back if I even suspect there’s need there?”

“Don’t be histrionic. She may choose to see you once or twice a year. Perhaps the worst imposition would be to want to spend Christmas with you instead of going home where there is no home anymore. Just calm down.”

“I’m fine.”

“They’re off to Middlebury tomorrow. They can do without me for much of a day. So, this girl Jessica?”

He ignored this. He said, “You’re going to stay here tomorrow while Beth takes Meredith to Middlebury?”

She said, “I was asking about this girl living with you, Hewitt.”

“I know. But she’s not what you’re hoping. For Christ sake, Mother, she’s near young enough to be my daughter.”

“And so? There were ten years between your father and myself and it never made a bit of difference.”

Hewitt paused. Then he said, “I’ll tell you what Mother. Let’s not talk about Jessica tonight. Let’s leave that for tomorrow when it’s just the three of us and the others are over to Middlebury for the day.”

Mary Margaret screwed her face with interest. “Why?”

“Because it’s not a subject for tonight.”

She heard some edge in his voice and he could see she was about to press, the privilege of a mother. So he said, “I’ve been in touch with Emily.”

Oh she was good. Her eyes widened all the way out and then her lids slammed down so she was peering between slits and her whole face was disapproval of the woman who, right or wrong, had harmed her son for so many years. She might well know much or most of this harm Hewitt had generated himself through his churning engine of passion but that made no difference to his mother. It was the girl, the woman responsible. For if her son loved her, and she rejected him, what sort of woman could she be? He was put in mind of the mothers of death row men—love unconditional. Her hackles were up. And he loved her very much.

Dryly she said, “And how is she?

Hewitt told her, more or less. He left out the part about his trip to Bluffport, saying only that he’d made a condolence call and that they’d spoken a couple times since, all of which, ground down to the finest of lenses, was technically true.

A woman whose life was transformed not once but twice by tragedy, she was not inured to it but empathetic and regardless of how she might view the woman who stood like a figure at some far station well down the line, at the back of her son’s near madness and prolonged grief, when he told of the death of that woman’s husband she closed her eyes and her lips moved silently and briefly.

When he finished she sat a time silent. Then she said, “I’ll not share my thoughts because my advice is unwanted and would be unheeded.”

“I know your thoughts Mother.”

“Perhaps you do and perhaps you don’t.”

“Leave her be. That’s what you think.”

“It’s not that simple, Hewitt. You see, I know you also. Now, every adult child thinks they know themselves better than their parents do. It’s the nature of things. What I’m saying is I can see you from the outside, something hard for a person to do for themselves. You have an entrenched life. She may feel hers is less so just now but she’s not someone who just fell into you, now, the way you are. And there are the children. If they were younger, maybe. But teenagers. They would drive you insane. And mean to do it and there would be nothing you or she could do to stop that.”

He was silent. She waited, watching him and then sighed. Finally she said, “So what do you intend to do?”

“For the moment, nothing. She needs time. I have that. I’ve got work to do. And Mother, I’m well aware the odds against her coming to me.”

“But if she did …”

“I’d open the door.”

M
EREDITH
, J
ESSICA AND
Hewitt ate eggs and bacon and toast. Mary Margaret and Beth had yogurt with fruit. Then out into the yard to see mother and daughter off. Meredith was in a simple pale blue and white dress and sturdy sport sandals. Beth in dark slacks and pink blouse under a charcoal sweater, her hair with barrettes so slight wings
were over her ears. At the last minute Meredith turned to Mary Margaret. “Gram? Are you sure you don’t want to come? This is the one I’m most interested in, so far.”

Mary Margaret said, “No, honey. I want to spend the day with Hewitt. And you’ll be fine.”

“Oh, I will. It’s just you see things Mom and I seem to miss.”

“Well, Merry. Why don’t you try to see what you think I would be noticing?”

Meredith shook her head. “I can’t,” she said. “I’ll never see what you do.” And stepped down into the already running car, her mother at the wheel and they went out of the yard.

Mary Margaret said, “Of course you will girl. You just need to live long enough.”

J
ESSICA STOOD AT
the stove, pulling the coffee toward the front to warm again. The fire was dying but the stovetop gave off strong heat. Mary Margaret saw what she was doing and said, “Good. I can’t give up my coffee even if they say I should. I still need my three cups.”

Jessica said, “This’ll be just a moment.”

Mary Margaret nodded and said, “That’s fine. My bladder’s bursting. Those two held the bathroom hostage, without a thought to an old lady.”

Hewitt said, “Go on and freshen up, Mother. There’s no hurry to start the day.”

Jessica and Hewitt stood looking at each other, both listening to her tread up the stairs, a slow one foot at a time climb.

Hewitt said, “So, are you ready?”

A pause. “Hewitt, I’m not sure I see the point. What’s to be gained by telling your mother that the niece of her husband’s first wife is staying here with you? How can that possibly be a thing she’d be better off knowing? If I was her all it would do was make me wonder what it was I might be after. I don’t want her mistrusting me, Hewitt.”

He peered at her. “You holding up all right?”

“Okay. I’m a little jittery.”

Hewitt poured coffee into his mug and hers. “For me it’s simple. Mother needs to be told. For many reasons but mostly because if you and I continue to get along and you hang around here she’s going to push to learn the truth. I told her, in a vague sort of way that I’m back in touch with Emily. But she’s got radar like the government and she’s already working on theories about what’s going on.”

“What are you talking about? What’s going on?” Mary Margaret was back in the doorway, looking from one to the other.

Hewitt said, “Jesus Mother. Don’t you flush?”

“I certainly do.” She crossed the room and poured coffee, added milk from a carton in the fridge. “And haven’t you heard about conserving water? Speaking of which you need to change the gaskets in the faucets of the tub and sink upstairs. At Broad Oaks they sent around a pamphlet about the unnecessary use of water. And not just because of the drought but because there’s long-term stress on aquifers all over the U.S. and people still want green lawns in August. And the sprayers stay on all night at the golf courses. People are such damn fools. And you didn’t answer my question. What’s going on?”

Hewitt fooled with the front of his shirt, checking the buttons. Jessica turned and took the last strip of bacon and ate it. Hewitt said, “Why don’t we all go sit down?”

Mary Margaret shot her eyes back and forth between them and then said to Jessica, “Don’t you work? Don’t you need to”—she worked one tiny brown spotted fist in a circle—“get ready to go to work? I can talk to my son here. He can tell me whatever is the big secret suddenly kept from me. Or is your whole story a lie?”

Jessica looked at the old woman and said, “I work but not fulltime. And my story isn’t a bit of lie. You just haven’t heard it yet.”