I can’t believe this is it. I haven’t had a stretch of time to myself like this in a long time. What will I do with myself besides fill out my forms for the dole and look for work? I haven’t worked anywhere else, been there since I left high school, about eighteen when I started. Married two years later. I am afraid to go. I don’t want to go, he thought.
He slept for an hour or so, waking to see that the sun had moved halfway across the sky, his skin white from cold.
Angela will kill me if she knew I was swimming so late in the fall, he thought. He got dressed quickly, stood for a minute at the base of the falls, then turned around and quickly got on the path. He wiped water from his eyes and forced himself to walk forward. He didn’t look back once he’d rounded the bend.
Angela and Jack whispered good night to the babysitter, hired for the evening so they could attend Peter and Wanda’s going away party, and trudged up hill to the doctor’s place. His grand house was hidden from Main Street by a clump of birch trees — peeling white bark scabbed with black moss. Remnants of Mrs. Nelson’s garden welcomed visitors at the front walkway. Lilacs and roses, once abundant, flopped from side to side, grieving for the gentle touch of their keeper’s hands. The wilting flowers made the grandeur of the bright and charming interior a splendid surprise. Dr. Nelson’s housekeepers, a roster of intern nurses from St. John’s, kept clean the oak floors, ornate spiral banister, five bedrooms, sitting room, dining room, and a modern kitchen with dangling copper pots suspended above a marble island.
Sheila shepherded them inside. In the dining room the musicians were draped over the furniture like fruit at a banquet. Snerp, an acne-prone skinny bag of bones, the custodian in the men’s dry — responsible for mopping the floors and changing the garbage — held an ivory, silver, and charcoal-grey dented squeezebox on his lap. His long, curly hair flowed like bunches of grapes. Mooney’s round face, cheeks flushed apple red, was ablaze with joy as he plucked away on the mandolin. The neck of Gulliford’s guitar was held by a strap with a banana-yellow muff that rested across his shoulder, his chest concave as his fingers strummed softly. Doctor Nelson stood and stomped, a cracked and scratched fiddle — as old as he was — tucked underneath his jowly chin, skin flapping as he raked the bow across the taut strings.
Sheila and Angela whistled and clapped. Peter clumsily whirled Wanda around the room, and Wanda blushed, conscious of her weight. She smoothed her skirt and hoped to hide the folds of fat that had grown comfortable across her hips. Peter wheeled her into a corner and she broke free, almost tipping over on a loose beer bottle.
Gulliford’s wife started to chant, “Sing us a song,” and goaded the crowd into the same. Wanda cleared her throat, stepped forward gingerly, and began to hum the first few notes of “Tell My Ma.”
“When I get home, the boys won’t leave the girls alone,” Sheila and Angela sang, drunk and slurring and well off-key.
Jack hung about the fringes of the party, sallow-faced and morose, limbs stiff. I’ll need to get good and drunk to relax, he thought. He accepted another bottle of beer that came his way from the tray of drinks passed around by one of the nursing interns, cajoled into service by the charms of Nelson.
After the song ended, Dr. Nelson shouted, “My dear friends from Brighton, thank you for helping me give our good friends Peter and Wanda a warm sendoff. As always, Wanda sang beautifully — some things never change — and was a well-behaved drunk. Let’s just hope that never changes. It’s been a pleasure having you all here tonight. This may be some of the last few times we all have together” — his voice quivered — “but I must say, I’ve loved getting to know each and every one of you over the years in my capacity as doctor and member of this community. I know, we are on the brink of change” — he looked around the room tenderly — “but I know that wherever you go, you will stick together.”
“I’ll drink to that,” Gulliford’s wife shouted. They all raised their glasses of rum.
Together, Jack thought. How would he keep it together with so many friends gone? How would he keep it together with no work and no idea of where they were headed? He’d be lost without Peter, he knew that much. No one to joke with, no one to drink with, no one to spur him on. He took another proffered beer and shot of rum. And a few more. He’d have to hide behind the swish of alcohol tonight. Let it flush over his flesh, turn his tight mind into mush.
At the end of the evening, good and drunk, Jack chased Angela down the street toward home. He teased and grabbed her waist and buried his face in her neck.
“Stop it, savage,” she said and broke free, scurrying down the street toward home, past the yellow, blue, green, and white clapboards, all lights extinguished, every window black except for the sky salted with stars, in a town that looked merciful, homely, and safe, except for the mine site, which looked morose, complex, and industrious, a cruel father forced to make painful, solitary decisions, choked of all emotion.
She ran to the end of Pebble Drive and headed toward home on the gravel laneway. She made it to the back porch. Jack growled and nuzzled her neck then pulled the elastic that held her long black hair loose with his teeth. She struggled to get away, broke his grip with her hands, went inside, and slammed the door in his face.
The next morning the sun rose gently over Grandmother McCarthy’s house as she sat in the kitchen nook peeling potatoes. Her crinkled, pale white hands, speckled with light brown age spots, expertly carved the earthy brown potatoes. Her powder blue housedress, seams in loopy threads, spread out underneath her. Her dyed-black hair curled around her small ears. Her soft, pink mouth hung gently open.
Her husband stood by the window watching for his grandchildren. Two lines of flesh between unruly grey eyebrows formed a tent-like triangle above his square nose. Waves of crinkled flesh fanned out from the corners of his eyes. His overbite displayed front teeth marbled with barb wire-grey ribbons of rot. His bulbous, bald, shiny head dominated his features. Wild pockets of brittle black and white hair poked out of ears and sat clamped over cheeks like zebra mussel shells.
The children rushed in, followed by Jack and Angela.
“Nanny and Poppy!” they yelled in unison.
“Well, hello, my loves! Want tea and a Purity biscuit?”
Angela served while Grandmother McCarthy finished the potatoes. Mr. McCarthy’s loud voice crackled throughout the kitchen.
“Well, good morning, son. Angela,” he said and nodded in her direction.
“John,” she answered politely.
“How are you today?” he asked and slapped Jack on the back.
“There’s something I want to tell you. Girls, go play in the yard, please.”
“Watch my flowers!” John said.
His beautiful garden, packed with plump roses, lazy lilacs, and charming crocuses, always placed first in the local garden contest. He spent hours and hours in it, and it was a tranquil space that the children loved to run around in and play make-believe. Inevitably they would get rowdy and knock over a lilac stem or two, trampling a few of his prized flowers like little rabbits.
“Mom, Dad,” Jack said and settled into a chipped wooden chair, “I lost my job. I’ve got two weeks.”
Grandmother McCarthy nodded slowly.
John’s chest sank.
Angela placed the tea and biscuits on the table.
John poured a cupful for everyone and drained his tea out into his saucer. He wondered what his son would do. He knew the boy wasn’t that strong. Jack buckled under pressure. Thank God he has Angela, he thought. He let his tea cool before he picked it up to slurped it slowly.
“I’ll try to find work here,” Jack said.
“No, you won’t!” Angela said and glared at him.
John stopped drinking his tea and placed his saucer on the table. He looked at his son and daughter-in-law evenly.