“James!”
He felt his anger rise. Think. He hadn’t been out of the house twenty minutes yet. Sam glanced back, and then burst through the opening, jogging toward the playground. It was further than he remembered. He saw James clawing up the ladder to the slide.
“James Patrick!”
His eldest son smiled briefly before resuming his climb, one foot dangling a muddy sock. Sam swiveled. The street was invisible beyond the hedge.
Sam raced to the playground and positioned himself at the bottom of the aluminum slide. “Down. Now, young man.”
James leaned forward, a hand on each rail, a muddy shoe tapping the metal. He flashed a quick smile.
“Where’s David?” he asked.
“Out on the sidewalk, where I left him to chase you. Down! Now! I told you not to run out of sight! Down! Now!”
“Where’s my bike?” James asked.
“Come down here, young man, right now!” Sam could hear his mounting tone. “We’ll go get your bike, and your brother,” he relented. “Now, please!”
James started to cry. Sam reached up and grabbed James’s ankle. He pulled his son down the slide and picked him up. Resting James on his hip, Sam made his way back to the hedge cut.
“We gonna get my bike?” James sniffled.
Sam, winded from two packs of Marlboros a day, puffed.
“Yes, and your brother better be sleeping.”
Sam heard a car screeching around the corner in front of Bomberger’s, down Hyatt. Could the carriage have rolled into the street? He’d eased the front wheels off the sidewalk into the spongy spring grass. The area was flat. The carriage could not have rolled. Sam drew a deep breath, relieved.
He twisted sideways through the hedges and bent to pull his son’s shoe from the muck. The carriage stood where he’d left it. His arms were aching from carrying James, who now had his own small arms wrapped tightly around his father’s neck. In one of his last completely sane thoughts, Sam reflected that James already understood that nothing staved off anger like a child’s affection.
He chided himself for losing his temper with his son on such a peaceful morning. Blessing on blessing, not a peep from the buggy. They shuffled across the lawn, James with his muddy sock hanging from his foot.
Sam strode up to the carriage, his eyes taking in what his mind couldn’t.
It was empty.
***
When had the world shrunk to such a dark and cold place? How had something as light and magical as love become a sword that cut down good people to writhe, without the mercy of death? Deep in her head, she peeked out through her own eyes, listening but not reacting, hearing but not falling. She loved him more than she could comprehend. Lovers do what lovers must, for love.
Those seared by the insanity of passion will recover, given time. That was her new faith. Lovers regard only their beloved, else the love withers and chokes. Strong as the fiercest will to live, love fights not to die. Nothing dies in spring, least of all love. Once, she had thought she loved. Silly now, it seems. Real love is beyond thought and reason. Intractable in its insisting. In another time, in another world, it might have been different. But there is only this time, in this world, and so it is this way. She tenderly stroked the small mattress where her child had so recently lain, but would never again.
2 / Dylan
Crane Ridge, Maryland 1962
The ride back from the courthouse was quiet. From the deep back seat, Dylan Paxton stared at the stubble springing from Mr. Thompson’s head beneath the hat brim. The same color as the sky, sponged and sturdy gray.
The boy sighed and bounced his new shoes. Once, Mr. Thompson jerked at a kick against the back of his seat. Next to him, Nana turned and dropped her chin to her chest, her eyes narrowing. Dylan stilled under her gaze.
He turned to stare at the landscape out the Dodge’s window. A sign loomed and whooshed past. Now Leaving Salisbury, Maryland. Jewel of the State’s Youngest County, courtesy of the Rotary. As far as Dylan could see, hoary stumps of corn stalks stood sentry in neat rows. Flocks of geese mashed the edges of feed ponds dotting the fields. Winter wasn’t much to fuss about here. Today though, a close sky framed a landscape drizzled with a white icing of snow from last night.
Fallow late-winter fields yielded to farm spreads, silos, and clusters of one-story frame houses. Welcome to Crane Ridge. Poor sister to Salisbury, to the west on the Wicomico River. Salisbury straddled the placid waterway, while Crane Ridge hugged the southeastern bank, upriver from Salisbury five miles or so as the geese fly.
Dylan slid across the seat to gaze at the river as they drove along deserted East Ferry Street, near the War Memorial at the center of town. He was surprised the stone abutment marking the old ferry landing was deserted. Usually it would swarm with kids he knew pelting the thin river ice with rocks. Then he remembered school was still in session today. Last evening his friend Billy Bergin had been busting to skip Miss Marsden’s class and travel to the courthouse with him, but Nana just tssked and shooed him home. Dylan had been surprised his brother James wasn’t going too.
“Why is it just me going to the-” he’d struggled for the word.
“Disposition,” his grandmother said. “It’s called a disposition.”
Dylan had waited, as the front door whooshed closed in Billy’s wake. Nana busied herself over a pan of corn bread muffins.
“James,” he repeated. “Isn’t he going tomorrow too?”
Nana had turned and said abruptly, “You are eight years old. Your brother is thirteen, and can’t be made to…” her voice trailed off. She had turned the pan to slide the steaming muffins into a wicker basket. “He’s old enough to make his choice, and he chose not to go. That’s the end of that.”
Mr. Thompson eased the car onto Nash Street. Dylan listened for the dog as Mr. Thompson slowed to ease into Nana’s drive. Dylan heard Buster barking from the roof of the garage. Whenever Nana drove somewhere, Buster would bound onto the woodbox at the end of the porch, and then up to the slanted roof of the garage, pacing the peak, gaze fixed on the driveway. Nana didn’t pay any mind to the old dog, but Buster was devoted to her. Dylan was sure he could hear Buster barking a welcome long before he could see the car and Nana. The Dart crunched up the driveway and eased to a stop in front of the garage. The snow had melted on the drive, but a thin white sheen still glazed the grass.
“Here we go,” Mr. Thompson said. He shoved the shifter into first, and pulled at the parking brake. “Just let me get the door now.”
Mr. Thompson’s car lived in Nana’s garage. Nana didn’t have a car. Mr. Thompson had a car, but no garage. Sometime back before Dylan and James had come to live with Nana, a deal had been struck. On weekly trips for groceries, or on infrequent occasions Nana needed to go over to Salisbury, Mr. Thompson would drive her. In return, he garaged his car here.
Dylan and Nana climbed out and stepped onto the walk. Buster greeted Nana, head lifted as if to bay, then sweeping the grass with his huge tail, dousing Dylan’s good pants at the knees. Mr. Thompson strode to the solid garage door and bent low, his white socks gleaming from his trouser legs and his shirt cuffs telescoping from his sleeves. Dylan thought it was a funny sight, but when he giggled, Nana gave him a glance to set geese to flight.
The compact man pressed the garage door high, his arms rising like a preacher exhorting his flock. He turned, shot his cuffs back into his dusty black coat, and marched to the car. He eased the Dodge carefully into the opening, and cut the engine. Nana rested a hand on Dylan’s shoulder as their neighbor lowered the door and clap-wiped his hands. Mr. Thompson tipped his hat and limped down the driveway toward his home