And the Dark Sacred Night (16 page)

Jasper fills a mug for her.

“Let me take off my coat.” She heads to the stockroom, fusses in back for a minute, reemerges. “And the occasion would be …?”

Jasper sits on the bench for trying on ski boots and skates. “None, darlin’. The scones are my insomnia talking.”

Leaning on the counter, Loraina eats two strawberries, puts milk and sugar in her coffee. After taking a sip, she says, “Is your insomnia talking to me in particular? I’m not sure I’d buy that.” She picks up a scone and examines it. She knows better than to even suspect it was made by Jasper.

“I do miss your coming over.”

“I think I need a real invitation to do that.”

“You never did before.”

Loraina shrugs. “Things change. As we of all people should know.”

“I see,” says Jasper. This isn’t a discussion he’d planned. Actually, he hadn’t planned anything. He knew she’d make him talk, that was all.

“Okay then, you see. Glad we’re straight about that.” She eats a few bites of the scone, staring out at the empty ski slope, a dreary swath of frostbitten grass. “Well, good news on that front,” she says, baffling Jasper completely.

“What front?”

“Didn’t your computer sing its twinkletoes ditty this morning?”

“Snow?”

“Late tonight, if the temperature drops as expected.”

“Much?” Anxious to get out of the house, he hadn’t checked the weather.

“A good start. If we pray to the right gods. Get out your knee-pads.”

Jasper rises from the bench. He is headed to the computer, to look at the satellite pictures and draw his own conclusions, when she says, “But we were talking about your insomnia. I have one guess. Daphne.”

Jasper decides to go ahead and eat a scone. Okay, half. Apple-cinnamon. Does the apple cancel out the butter?

“I take that for a yes.”

“Yes, Loraina. Eating is my form of the affirmative.”

“Kit’s bound to take you back to that time, so no surprises, right?”

“He’s not like his mother, though. I mean, he doesn’t remind me of her.”

“Of course he does.” Loraina frowns at him like a teacher at a lazy pupil.

“It’s more like I’m reminded of the responsibility I had for him. And then, weirdly, didn’t. How he gradually—not suddenly, which would’ve been the case if he’d been younger—I mean, he somehow stopped being my responsibility, a weight on my mind the way Rory and Kyle will always be. God, Kyle.” Jasper refills his mug. “So it’s like I feel guilty about all the years he hasn’t weighed on me, and now, kaboom, he does again.”

“He’s fine, though, right? He’s hardly Kyle.”

Jasper shakes his head. “He’s in a lot better shape than Kyle, surfacewise. But no job, two kids to support … Leave all that aside,
though. Loraina, he’s come to find out who his father is. Was. His ‘natural’ father, maybe you’d say.”

“Come to you? Why you?” Loraina has moved to a rack of fleece tops. She checks the tags, evens out the space between the hangers. “We need more pink in the small sizes. God, I loathe pink, but it’s predictably popular. Especially with the size-zero bottle blondes.” She aims an expectant look at Jasper. “So why you?”

“He tried Daphne. No luck.” Jasper sighs. “Don’t think I ever knew the guy’s name—what would it mean to me? He wasn’t some hood with a switchblade, but hell, we are talking about an act of adolescent foolishness at a fancy-ass summer camp, forty years ago. Forty-plus. Daphne could’ve handed the baby over to some fine upstanding childless couple from Topeka, who mighta never even told the boy he was adopted.”

“But she didn’t,” says Loraina. “And you think he shouldn’t care? Like there’s a shelf life on curiosity about your genes? Your bloodlines, or roots, whatever you want to call it? The possibility of meeting someone who solidifies your you-ness? It’s all over the airwaves, in case you have ears. Everywhere from
Oprah
to la-di-da
Fresh Air
.” While talking, she’s pulled together a dozen items on hangers. She holds them out to Jasper. “Sale rack?”

“That’s your decision. Fine by me.”

Loraina carries the items to the counter. “My point is, there’s this epidemic of reconnecting with lost links from your past, shaping and pruning your family tree. Genetic memory, ethnic character, cultural identity. Et cetera et cetera. Not that I think much of such notions, but they’re everywhere.”

“I could take it as an insult, couldn’t I? His wanting another family besides the one I gave him. Never mind the one he’s got.”

“You would, wouldn’t you,” Loraina says drily.

What Jasper won’t say is that she’s probably right on the money. He is repeatedly shamed by the way he underestimates Loraina. Maybe he really is a chauvinist throwback, an accusation fired at him by Daphne more than once on the downhill slide.

“Well,” he says, “the bottom line here is whether I owe Daphne the total silence I promised on that subject.”

Loraina laughs sharply. “Honey. Owe
her
?”

“I happen to think a promise is a promise.”

Loraina moves toward him, and he wonders if she might touch him, but not quite. She stops close, facing him, holding two empty hangers in one hand, her coffee in the other. “That’s why I do, actually, love you,” she says, though she’s careful to smile in a way that might (or might not) make it a joke.

He waits until she moves again—not, alas, toward an embrace but toward the stockroom.

“So you say I should tell him whatever I know.”

She turns in the doorway and says, “Me? That’s what I’d do. But don’t ask me to decide for you. Don’t put me there. Today, I decide what goes on sale and by what percentage. That is the scope of my authority, hon.” She points at the clock. Donning her best southern accent, she drawls, “Y’all do remember, honeypuss, that Iron Man Rod is gracing us with his presence before we open?”

Rodney, the controlling partner in the corporation that runs their side of the mountain (some junior relation to the devil from Atlanta), wants to discuss his new marketing plans. In the recession, ski slopes, even in central Vermont, have to become as territorial as tigers. Or so said Rodney at a staff meeting in August (after which they laid off another half-dozen full-timers). The one thing they’ve got going for their business is that skiing, however expensive it may be, is as much an addiction for many folks as booze or porn. And you can’t replace it with anything else. There’s no methadone for skiing, no Alpines Anonymous.

“So.” Loraina narrows her eyes at Jasper. “Are we up to speed on our Facebook tutorial, all this woofer, tweeter, blitzkrieg jazz? I’ll bet you forgot to read the stuff in that folder I gave you.” She shakes her head. “I hate it when I know you like a mom.”

“You do the talking when he shows up. Could you?”

“If y’all could treat me to dinner at the inn for my birthday. Which happens to be a week from Tuesday, bluebird.”

“You’re a very bad Scarlett O’Hara, but you have a deal,” says Jasper, relieved. Even if she hasn’t solved the biggest family problem he’s faced since Kyle last showed up shitfaced and squirreling for money.

On the way home, he picks up a meatball sub. He pulls over just before his driveway to finish it off, spreading the greasy wrapper
across his lap. Not that Jim or Kit would give him grief, but he wants to enjoy this particular sin in private. As he eats the sandwich (the whole damn thing), Jasper can hear the deafening complaint of the chain saw. He could turn on the radio, but the only station he likes is the one he thought of as Rayburn’s. Turn it on now and he’d be listening to his friend’s replacement. No thanks.

When he drives in, he can see that Jim’s almost finished off the tree. Kit stands nearby, peering up at the house, looking perplexed. The sun is sinking toward the treetops; Jasper had hoped the three of them could polish off the exterior work and the insulation while there was still light, but they will have to combine the tasks if they are to seal the house before the storm.

“Hey,” Jasper greets them. “Snow’s on the way.”

“Tomorrow. Maybe,” says Jim.

“I think your maybe’s out of date, my friend.”

Jasper goes inside to change into his fix-it clothes. On the kitchen counter, he sees a bowl of meat chunks marinating in oil and herbs. He sniffs: lamb. He feels guiltier than ever. Just lose your broom-up-the-ass sense of honor, he tells himself. “Some VIP coming to dinner?” he shouts as he heads upstairs.

Jim lays aside the chain saw so they can work together on the house. He and Kit take turns on the ladder, hoisting the heavy planks, while Jasper works mostly from the inside, making sure the thick cushions of fiberglass don’t pop out of place. It’s so different from his collaboration with Loraina, this give and take. Very few full sentences are uttered; think of language as coins and they communicate in plain old dirt-brown pennies.

There
.

Hammer
.

Gotcha
.

Tuck it
.

Lower?

That’s it
.

Left. Up
.

Bingo
.

Like surgery on a TV show.

Jasper is so absorbed in their efficiency that he doesn’t hear the car arrive, the driver approach.

“Oh man, what happened here?”

As Jasper peers through the narrowing gap in the living room wall, the visitor enters his sliver of view.

“House got a trim,” says Jasper. “Hello, Kyle.” He walks around through the kitchen, outside. It’s just dawning on Kyle who the guy on the ladder is.

“That you, Kit? Holy Moses, look at you! What brings you way the hell up here? Do I smell a midlife crisis?”

“Kyle,” scolds Jasper.

But Kit laughs. “Yeah. That’s the short version. How are you, Kyle?” They embrace, the grown-up boys, the never-quite-brothers.

“I am fine, fine,” says Kyle as they separate, quietly taking in the changes.

Jasper’s glad he told Kit about Kyle, if only to prepare him for the shock of how Kyle must look after all these years: not just older and more worn than he ought to look, but heavier by fifty, sixty pounds. There are pouches of spent flesh beneath his eyes and chin, and his hair, once thick and dark, is gray and cropped too close, the way a child’s hair gets cut for lice. It still makes Jasper wince. That and the several tattoos on his arms, each one the apparent record of an emotional urge better off forgotten. (At least in winter the tattoos are hidden.)

A shameful thing, Jasper knows, to size up a child every time you see him as to whether he might be drunk or stoned. Shameful but prudent. Kyle’s clothes and hair look clean enough, his voice and posture steady. Jasper exhales quietly into the prism of early twilight. This time of year, the collective shadow of the pines accelerates the onset of darkness.

“Inside, fellas,” says Jasper. “We are done for today. I’ll just run the dogs.”

Jim gathers up the tools, already difficult to see among the matted leaves and needles underfoot. He carries the chain saw to the shed. Kit, on his own, folds the two large tarps; Jasper is touched by his surprising deftness. (Honestly now, why does he deny the boy his talents? Sins of the mother; is it that crude?)

The dogs jump on the chain-link fence as he approaches. They haven’t had a real run in days. “Hey, rogues, let’s go,” says Jasper,
unlatching the gate. They stream past him, Trixie and Yoda first, now that Pluto’s gone. Mitchum, Kilroy, and Belle push through together, followed by the rest. Thirteen dogs take the meadow like a battlefield, stealthy as they spread out, gaining distance from one another only to charge back together again. They get their ya-yas out, shake their lush grizzled coats, then, suddenly nonchalant, cruise the perimeter to mark the trees, squat in the shadows. Trixie is the first to return to Jasper.

“One more litter for you, girl? What say to that? Still got the maternal moxie? Yes. Yes, you, dollface.” Jasper whispers as he leans over her, rubbing behind her ears, scratching her hackles. She pants, arches her back, answers him with her ice-blue gaze.

So-called dog people talk about measuring their lives in the number of animals they’ve owned, the number they’ve outlived. Over the last five decades, Jasper’s had too many, an overlapping succession, to make any such calculation. But he knows that if he breeds Trixie, the next generation will be the last he raises. The last whelping. He must be careful to consider all the work it entails, always more than you remember, especially if the litter is large.

Stars begin to pierce the hood of darkness; so much for imminent snow. Loraina’s source was overeager. Reflexively, Jasper smells the air, tries to divine just a hint of the metallic aroma that tells you a good storm’s approaching. No, but the temperature’s falling. His knees and ankles know that for sure. Let it fall just enough, not too much.

Trixie loses interest in his affection, wanders off again. The dogs crisscross the meadow, noses down as they gather the scents absorbed by its dry grasses, quilting it with their own. After watching them for a few more minutes, Jasper claps his hands, and they raise their heads, almost in unison. “Squadron, back to the fort!” He starts for the kennel; they fall in behind him. His dogs are well trained. Loraina used to pester him about taking them out for competitions. “And I’m getting that extra time from what bank?” he’d ask. “The free publicity, numbskull. Just think of it” was her reply. “Showing off’s not my thing,” he’d say. “Suit your slacker self,” Loraina said. Always let women have the last word: Rayburn’s advice.

As he walks the dogs back to feed them, he looks through the kitchen window: the three younger men mill around the table, drinking
from bottles. His heart beats a little faster, worried for Kyle. He wishes he’d bought some of that counterfeit beer to have on hand. Just in case. His slacker self hadn’t bothered.

The minute he walks in the door, his eyes shoot to Kyle. He’s peeling potatoes by the sink. Beside him is an open bottle of Mountain Dew. Again, Jasper exhales his relief. Though, Jesus, that stuff tastes like horse piss.

Jim and Kit are over in the living room, conferring quietly. Jasper assumes they are building a fire.

“Thought I’d stick around a couple days,” Kyle says. “I could help finish those repairs.” He doesn’t look up from his task.