Here on Earth (30 page)

“Everything you have I own,” Alan Murray told Hollis when he came back from his father’s funeral.

Well, he’s fixed that, hasn’t he? Sitting in the dark, Hollis thinks about his money. He thinks about the woman, asleep in his bed. Why is it he continues to feel so poor? Why is he waiting for March to bolt out the door? He’s been worrying about Richard Cooper, who’s not giving up so easily and who has taken to calling. Hollis has been hanging up on him, but sooner or later March will answer the phone, and that won’t do. He’ll see to it the way he’s seen to the mail, so that March hasn’t received any responses from the stores that want to sell her work. A woman who has her own money can leave you when you least expect it; she can walk off anytime.

Long before anyone in the house is awake, before Hank has fed the dogs, before Gwen has written a letter to her father or March has set about making a cranberry coffee cake to bring to the Justices’ Thanksgiving dinner, Hollis has taken care of the phone lines.

“Must be some wire down,” he says, when March tries to contact Susie to ask if there’s anything else she should bring to dinner.

“Are you sure you won’t go with us?” March asks.

“Dinner with those old coots?” Hollis grins. “I don’t think so. I’ll stick to frozen food.”

Hollis has actually encouraged March to take the kids and go to dinner; their absence will give him the chance to look through her suitcase and her dresser drawers to make sure she hasn’t managed to receive any letters from Richard before Hollis could retrieve the mail.

“I want you to have fun,” Hollis tells March. “Enjoy yourself. Take Hank—he can eat the Justices out of house and home for a change.”

“Remember,” March says when they’re ready to leave, “you can always change your mind and come for dessert.”

“I’ll think about it,” Hollis tells her, even though he’d rather be tied into a straitjacket than have a meal with the Justices.

“Hollis isn’t going?” Hank asks when March comes out to the car.

Hank is in the backseat, and March hands him the coffee cake. “He hates polite society. You know that.”

“Well, I’m sure it hates him right back,” Gwen says. She’s sitting in the front seat, with Sister on her lap.

“You’re bringing the dog?” March asks.

“I’m not leaving her here.”

Hank looks over his shoulder at the house. “Maybe I should stay.”

“Oh, no you don’t,” Gwen says. “Don’t you feel sorry for him.”

“It’s not that,” Hank insists.

Gwen smiles in spite of herself; it’s exactly that.

“It’s a holiday, that’s all,” Hank says.

“Well, you’re coming with us,” March says. “Hollis wants you to. One of the reasons Louise is getting a twenty-five-pound turkey is because I’m bringing two teenagers.”

When they get to the Justices’, Gwen and Hank take Sister for a walk, since March wants the dog to stay in the car during dinner. Actually, it’s a pleasure for the two of them to be alone in the smoky air, because today everything smells like roasted chestnuts and burning wood and cinnamon wafting from the windows of the bakery, where they’re working overtime to fill holiday orders.

“I wish you wouldn’t be so concerned about Hollis,” Gwen says as they walk past front lawns and fences. They’ve let the dog run on ahead through the last of the fallen leaves, those which haven’t been blown away or turned into dust. “He still hasn’t given me the ownership papers for Tarot.”

“He will,” Hank tells her. “He keeps his word.”

“Yeah, right. I’ll bet he does.”

“He does,” Hank vows. “You’ll see.”

Hank and Gwen take a longer walk than they’d intended, but the Justices’ house is crowded even without their presence. Dr. and Mrs. Henderson are there, along with the Laughtons, Harriet and Larry—all of them so polite and stuffy that Hollis would have gone nuts in their presence. The Hendersons’ daughter Miranda is there, free as a bird since her divorce last spring. Ed Milton has of course been invited, along with his twelve-year-old daughter, Lindsay, as has Janet Travis, the new attorney in town—since a resident of ten years is still considered a recent arrival—and her husband, Mitch, who teaches social studies at the high school.

“Where were you this morning?” Susie asks, after she’s hugged March and taken the coffee cake out of her hands. She can’t help but wonder if March knows that some of the white in her hair has grown in; March looks older with her hair like this, and her face seems drawn. “I’ve been trying to call you to ask you to pick up some eggnog.” Susie lifts the foil and peers at the cake. “Cranberry,” she says. “Yum.”

“I was home.” March hangs up her coat and follows Susie into the Justices’ kitchen. “Baking that cake.”

“Well, I called and called and no one ever answered.” Susie pours them each a glass of red wine. “Do you believe how many old folks are out there?”

“Ed Milton’s not old.” March samples the sweet potato casserole cooling on the counter. “He’s cute.”

“Don’t get all excited,” Susie tells her. “It’s not serious.”

Louise Justice comes into the kitchen, catching that last bit of conversation. “That’s what Susie always says. You’d think she was a frivolous person, if you didn’t know her better.”

“Here’s a drawback,” Susie says. “His daughter hates me. If she keeps being so nasty, I’m going to be nasty right back.”

“She’s twelve,” Louise says. “In six years she’ll be off to college and you’ll see her at Christmas vacation if you’re lucky. And for now, she lives with her mother in New York. They moved to Roslyn, out on Long Island, this past summer, and Lindsay likes seventh grade a lot more than she thought she would.”

Susie and March both give Louise a look.

“I didn’t pry,” Louise swears. “Lindsay volunteered the information. Which she would with you too,” she tells Susie. “If you gave her the chance.”

Louise now sets them to work. March is to ladle corn chowder from the pot into a tureen. Susie is to remove the oyster stuffing from the cooling turkey.

“I guess Hollis decided not to show,” Susie says. “Surprise, surprise.”

“He’s opted for a frozen dinner and peace and quiet,” March says.

“At least he let you come,” Susie says.

“You wouldn’t have wanted him here, considering how you feel. Both of you.” March is looking straight at Louise.

“I told her about your theory,” Susie admits to her mother. “About Hollis and Belinda. I’m sorry.”

“I’m glad you did,” Louise says.

“You are?” Susie is surprised and rather relieved.

“I am, although I know that March will make her own choices no matter what we say. Won’t you, dear?”

“That’s right,” March agrees. “So I’d appreciate you butting out, unless you’re willing to let me take over your lives.”

“Touché,” Louise says.

Susie pours herself and March more red wine, and gets some cold Chablis from the fridge for her mother. Louise nods and takes a sip of wine. Sometimes, in the old days, the Murrays would bring Judith Dale with them when invited to the Justices’ holiday dinners. Judith would bring her special dishes: her apple brown Betty, her green beans with almonds, her onion soup with its delicious, thick crust. She worked well beside Louise in the kitchen, and Louise always told the Judge how lucky the Murrays had been to find Judith. Why, one year, before she knew anything, she sat Judith next to the Judge, and if she’d been more observant she would have noticed that neither of them spoke a word throughout that dinner, as if proximity and desire had made them mute. For all Louise knows, they may have been holding hands under the table all through dinner. She does remember how surprised and pleased she was when the Judge offered to help Judith clear the table, since he usually didn’t think to attend to household chores.

“Are you okay, Mom?” Susie asks as she slips the bowl of stuffing into the oven to keep warm.

Louise has a house full of guests and she’s standing there, doing nothing, with a glass of wine in her hand.

“Perfectly fine,” Louise says.

She goes to help March take out the soup bowls from a high cabinet. Every time March reaches for a bowl that emerald ring which used to belong to Judith shimmers, as if it were made of some mysterious liquid. Louise tells herself she’d better snap out of her reverie and stop the self-pity; a ring, after all, is not a heart, it’s not a soul or a husband beside you in bed every night. It’s a rock that’s only worth something in the first place because someone has decided to give it value.

The Judge now comes in. “There’s the turkey,” he says. His one holiday task: to carve. Louise has left out the knife he likes best and the large silver fork which belonged to her mother.

As usual, the Judge is wearing a suit and tie; he seems much too tall for the kitchen. He carves the turkey, teasing the women as they travel back and forth to the dining room, bringing out platters of food. He’s the same man who’s stood here in Louise’s kitchen every Thanksgiving, but today something is different. The Judge’s hands shake as he carves. It’s a slight tremor, so mild no one would notice, except Louise.

When the Judge is done with the turkey, he goes to wash his hands. From the window above the sink, he can look into the yard. “Well, well,” he says when he spies Gwen and Hank out there. “The reluctant guests?”

“They don’t consider adults to be human,” March jokes.

“I’ll lasso them,” the Judge says. “I’ll offer food, that should do the trick.”

As he goes out, a cold blast of air rips through the kitchen. The Judge is so tall he has to crouch to maneuver past the branches of a peach tree Louise planted in the first year of their marriage. This was the Judge’s parents’ house until the older Justices retired to Florida; Bill grew up here and Louise often thought of that when she was tempted to throw him out. She simply couldn’t imagine him living anywhere else. And anyway, it’s too late to think about such matters. What’s done is done.

“You’re sure you’re okay?” Susie now asks her.

Louise moves her hand to her face, as if smoothing something out. Susie and March both look concerned. Louise must have slipped and shown them a bit of her pain. She must have let something through.

“A touch of the virus,” Louise says. “Absolutely nothing.”

The three women stand by the back door and look out. The terrier is in a pile of leaves, chewing on a stick, while Hank and Gwen whisper to each other.

“Everybody inside,” they hear the Judge’s voice call.

The dog starts running toward the Judge as soon as it hears his voice, and has leapt into his arms before the Judge knows what hits him.

“Wow, is that dog crazy about you,” Hank says. “Look at her.”

The terrier is making yipping noises as it licks the Judge’s face.

“Stop that, Sister,” the Judge says, but he seems extremely pleased to be holding this creature to his chest, in spite of the burrs in its fur and the mud on its feet.

At the door, Louise Justice turns pale. Clearly, this was their dog—his and Judith’s—and now, in spite of the chilled wine, Louise has a mouthful of grief. Susie had begged for a dog when she was young, but the Judge had always said no. Too much hair and dirt and fuss.

“Mom,” Susie says softly. She doesn’t understand this—could it be that her mother knows about Judith Dale and the Judge? “Maybe you’d better get the dog out of here,” Susie suggests to March.

“I’m sorry,” March apologizes. She and Susie exchange a worried look. “I wasn’t thinking. I’ll put the dog in the car.”

“No,” Louise says. “Don’t.”

Outside, they can see that the Judge is crouched down; he’s scratching the terrier’s head. These girls in the kitchen, March and Susie, feel sorry for her, Louise is well aware of that. But what do they know about love? You make bargains you’d never imagine you’d agreed to, and you do it over and over again.

“I’m fine,” Louise says. “We’ll start with the chowder, before it turns to ice.”

These girls think in black and white, love or rejection, yes or no. Louise watches the Judge as he makes his way to her back door and she feels the intensity of being together for nearly fifty years. She knows him completely, and not at all. She made her choices, just as March and Susie are doing. Young people believe that regret is something you will never feel if you simply do as you please, but sometimes it’s a matter of degree. Would Louise have preferred not to have the Judge at her table? Would she have preferred to have raised Susie alone, or have some other man watching TV with her in the evenings, someone easygoing, someone whose affections she could be sure of?

“We’re sitting down to chowder,” Louise tells the Judge when he comes inside.

The Judge has muddy paw prints on his pant legs; the suit will have to be sent to the dry cleaner.

“Look at this mess,” he says. When he brushes the leaves off his jacket, there’s the tremor, in his hands.

“It’s not so bad,” Louise says, cleaning off the lapels. “It’s a miracle fabric.”

The Judge laughs. “I can always trust you to perform miracles.”

“Hardly.” Louise snorts. He was charming as a young man, so tall, so much fun in spite of his serious nature. She loved him then and she loves him still. Someone else might have left, but she stayed, and here she is, beside him.

“What’s wrong with that daughter of Ed Milton’s?” the Judge asks. “I’ve never seen a more sullen child.”

He wasn’t really there when Susie went through her worst times, at exactly the same age. Susie hated herself and everyone else, but the Judge was too busy to know. He was working, or over at Fox Hill, and maybe Louise was too quick to settle all of the daily details and problems before his car pulled into the driveway.

“The poor thing is twelve and she’s worried that Susie will be a wicked stepmother,” Louise tells the Judge. “I’m sure it will work out fine.”

Hank and Gwen come in now, embarrassed to be late, worried about the dog.