Never Fear (49 page)

“
It’s not working?” she
asked.

“
Nope.” I fiddled with the
switches inside. Maybe it was turned off. But nothing seemed to
work.

Alex was trying to peer over my
shoulder.

“
Did you plug it in,
Dad?”

“
Yes, I plugged it
in.”

“
Did you turn it on,
Dad?”

“
Yes, I turned it
on.”

Freddy was dumping the groceries onto
the counter and separating the snacks from the fruit and
meat.

“
Why don’t we use the
outside? It’s cold enough, isn’t it?” he asked.

I looked over at my wife. Her face
seemed to melt when she looked at the kids, not the hard edges and
sarcasm that I got treated to.

“
What a smart boy,
Freddy.” She looked up at me. “We can manage a few days with an
outdoor refrigerator.”

I heaved sigh of relief. But she
wasn’t about to let me go for my stupidity.

“
Daddy should have checked
on the cabin before we made these plans. But Daddy doesn’t
think.”

I let the comment roll off my
shoulders. Disengage, I told myself.

The boys took an armload of “outside
groceries” and put them on the old cedar bench on the front porch,
lining everything neatly up on the flat surface.

“
Now what?” Freddy
asked.

“
Unpack and then you can
go exploring. But not far. You don’t know your way around here
yet.”

They flew back up the stairs and I
could hear them opening drawers and shoving suitcases under beds. I
looked over at my wife.

“
I’ll clean upstairs. And
make the beds if you want to do the downstairs.”

She grunted her consent. I grabbed a
dust cloth and some cleaner and headed upstairs to the room that I
had shared with my siblings so long ago.

It took about two hours to put the
little cabin to right, dusting, cleaning sinks, flushing the blue
winterizer down the toilets. I tried the refrigerator again but it
still failed to turn on. We would have to leave the food on the
porch for this weekend. I could get a new refrigerator brought up
in the spring.

The front door crashed open and the
boys flew back in, their cheeks rosy, their noses
dripping.

“
We saw our friend,” Alex
said. My wife peeled his jacket off and swiped a tissue under his
nose.

“
Where?”

“
By the lake. He was going
skating. Can we go too?”

I shook my head. I pictured my
brother, his fair hair trapped under a hat, pushing out from the
lake edge. I wasn’t ready. “It’s late. It’ll be dark in half an
hour. Maybe tomorrow. But I’ll have to check the ice
first.”

Freddy was vibrating with excitement.
“Tomorrow? Yay!”

My wife had collapsed onto the old
plaid couch, a paper cup of red wine in her hand.

“
Did you check to see if
the stove worked?”

I shook my head. “No, not
yet.”

“
Well, could you? Or we’ll
be eating out tonight.”

She tossed the wine back in a single
gulp and crossed her arms over her chest. She had been a beautiful
girl at one time, and she was probably a beautiful woman. But her
hard edges and sarcasm destroyed any beauty that I could see. Her
long dark hair was held back with a clip and she shook it loose.
Maybe this trip would relax her. Maybe the woman I once knew would
come back to me.

“
Can you?” She crumbled
the paper cup in her hand. Her hard edges softened only slightly.
“Check the stove, that is?”

Of course the stove didn’t work. The
pilot was probably out, but I couldn’t figure out how to start it.
We bundled back up into our coats and boots and trudged back down
the pathway to the car, the boys leading the way with flashlights.
There was one place in town that remained open during the winter
months. We piled into the car, shaking snow off our boots, and
headed down the road, past the lake, toward town.

“
There he is,” Alex said.
From the rear view mirror, I could see him pointing.

“
Where who is?” I
asked.

“
Our friend. He said he
was going skating.”

I glanced out the window, past my
wife’s stiff visage. “Where? I don’t see anyone.”

We passed through a grove of pines and
when I looked again, there was no one there.

“
Can’t see him anymore,”
Alex said. “He’s too far
that
way.”

I looked over my shoulder at Alex’s
gesture.

“
For God’s sake, Phillip,
watch the road,” my wife shrieked. I jerked the wheel to the right.
I had drifted into the oncoming lane. Luckily there was no traffic,
but the roads were slick and I ran up onto the snow pile on the
right side of the road as I overcorrected.

“
Sorry,” I said. The boys
thought it was funny the way the snow flew up over the car and they
laughed all the way into town.

McRay’s was a diner built in the 50’s
with deep burgundy booths of slick vinyl and Formica tabletops. It
was a little worse for wear but clean and the food was good. They
had old fashioned meatloaf topped by Ketchup, tuna casserole and
burgers from the grill. Breakfast was served all day long. I order
eggs and bacon and the boys chose burgers. My wife picked at the
plastic cover to the menu and tried in vain to find something
healthy.

“
Do you have salad?” she
asked the counter man who had come from behind to wait on
us.

“
No ma’am. Not this time
of year. We got stick to your ribs kind of food. How about the
special? Corn and crab soup with a side of fresh French bread. Or
our world famous meatloaf and mashed potatoes?”

She wrinkled her nose. I squirmed
uncomfortably in my seat. “This isn’t exactly Manhattan,” I
said.

“
I know,” she replied, her
voice like ice. “How about a turkey sandwich? Can you make
that?”

“
Yes ma’am. What kind of
bread would you like?”

My wife tapped her manicured fingertip
on the menu. Tap. Tap. Tap. I wanted to pull the menu from her
grasp. I didn’t.

“
Do you have a ciabatta
bread?”

The counterman visibly rolled his
eyes. “No, ma’am. We have white toast, whole wheat toast or a
hamburger bun.”

I resisted the impulse to laugh and
squeezed the top of my thigh with my hand.

“
I’ll take the whole
wheat.” She tossed the menu toward him. He scooped it, and the
remaining menus, from the table top. “I forgot how pedestrian this
place is,” she said.

The boys were unwrapping and
re-wrapping their silverware, handed to them rolled up in a napkin
with a paper band sealed around the middle.

“
This place is cool.” Alex
wrapped his silverware again and placed it propped up between his
water glass and Freddy’s, creating a little bridge.

“
Don’t.” Freddy knocked
the silverware off his glass and lifted the tumbler to his mouth.
He took a fake sip and put the glass back down.

“
Daddy, Freddy just
destroyed my bridge!”

My wife fumbled for her purse. “Let me
out, Phillip. I need a cigarette.” I slid out of the booth and let
her pass by before sitting back down. Alex was arranging the salt
and pepper shakers like bridge supports, undeterred by Freddy’s
destructive power.

“
C’mon guys, there’s an
old-fashioned juke box at the back.” I dug into my pockets for some
quarters. I found three.

“
What’s a juke box?”
Freddy held out his hand for a quarter. I placed it in the middle
of his palm and closed the fingers over it, the tiny warm fingers,
soft and baby-like still. I wanted to kiss the little guy but I
refrained. He was shying away from public displays of affection
lately and I didn’t want to embarrass him. Instead, I gave his hand
a little squeeze and we emptied the booth and headed to the rear of
the diner.

The juke box still used old .45
records that popped out of a slot and fell onto a turntable before
the needle dropped onto the appropriate track. We used our quarters
to select Elvis, Little Richard and Chuck Berry. The boys slid
around the linoleum floor, shaking their hips and twirling until
they grew dizzy. I watched them from a counter stool until I felt
the cold presence of my wife at my elbow.

“
You’re getting them all
wound up. They’ll never go to bed now.” She walked off, sliding her
butt along the booth until she was up against the wall. As if
trying to stay as far away from me as possible.

The counter man had returned with
plates of hot food traveling up to his elbows.

“
C’mon, boys. Time to
eat.” I herded them back to their side of the booth as the man put
the steaming hot burgers down in front of them. Each of them had a
burger, chips and a dill pickle speared by a tiny sword.

“
En
garde
,” Alex said, challenging his little
brother to a sword fight of miniature proportions. Freddy met his
challenge and they parried until my wife’s frigid fingers plucked
the tiny weapons from their hands.

“
Aw, Mom,” Freddy said,
but he stopped, shrinking in fear when he saw the look on her
face.

“
Get you folks anything
else?” the counter man asked.

“
Ketchup,” Alex
said.

“
On the table,” the
counter man and I replied simultaneously. He laughed.

“
Where you folks from?
Celebrating the holidays here or just passing through?”

“
I wish,” my wife said,
sarcasm dripping like dew from her lips.

“
We’re here,” I said,
ignoring her comment. “Staying at my folks’ place.” I hesitated.
Would this man know them? Or our history? “The Ellis
place.”

“
Oh.” He looked me over.
“You Phillip Ellis, by chance?”

“
Yes, sir.” I unraveled my
silverware and smoothed a napkin on my lap, waiting for the other
shoe to drop.

“
I remember you,” he
said.

I could see it in his eyes. He knew
the whole story.

The boys were not ones to
let a conversation take place without their input. Alex swished his
burger in the ketchup on his plate as if it were a French
au jus
.

“
We’re going skating
tomorrow,” he said.

“
Really? Now that sounds
like fun. Just you two?”

“
Nope. Me and Freddy and
my dad. And our friend.”

The counter man squinted at Alex.
“Friend?”

My wife purse her lips. “They met a
little boy from town. He was skating on the pond as we
left.”

So, my wife had seen the
boy.

“
Do you think it’s frozen
enough?” I smoothed my napkin again and let the ends curl up over
my pinky finger.

“
Oh, sure. It’s been cold
enough. If someone was skating this evening, you’ll be fine.” He
turned to me, his eyes meeting mine. “It’s been colder than that
winter—when you were here last.”

The chill that ran over me started at
the tips of my ears and travelled all the way to my toes. I could
feel myself shiver. Maybe it wasn’t a good idea to go skating. I’d
have to check the ice in the morning. The counterman shoved his
sleeves up his forearms and smiled.

“
Well, you just call, you
need anything else.”

I pushed my plate of food away. I
wasn’t hungry anymore.

In the morning, I awoke on the couch
with a crick in my neck and my toes sticking out of the end of an
ancient sleeping bag. My wife had taken the bed and since I had
already volunteered, banished me to the living room. I cranked up
the heat and headed to the kitchen to make coffee. There was no
coffee pot to be found. Damn, I’d forgotten something else. I dug
around the cupboard and found an ancient tin of loose tea. At least
I could heat up water, maybe have something hot to
drink.

There was no tea kettle but I found a
small pot and put the water on to boil. I traipsed out to the porch
to get the milk for my tea, shaking in the cold. It didn’t feel
quite as cold this morning but the sky was gray, threatening snow
with low clouds and a taste of ice in the air. I grabbed the milk
and the orange juice which was half frozen in its plastic
jug.

There were footprints from the side of
the porch to the railing, fresh prints actually. Small shoes. The
box of Pop Tarts was missing. One of the boys must’ve gotten up
early and sneaked past me in the living room.

I let the door slam behind me as I
entered the cabin.

“
Guys, get up.” I put the
milk and juice on the counter to thaw. From our grocery sack, I
pulled out two different cereals and placed them on the table. I
plundered the cupboards and found bowls and spoons and placed one
at each place setting. As the water started to boil, I dug around
the drawers until I found a tea strainer into which I placed a
small portion of loose tea. I hoped it still had flavor.