Strange Fits of Passion

  The air was dry and light and stinging, like chilled champagne. It hadn't been the weather that had prevented Jack from going out on his boat, I knew that. I walked fast down to the edge of the point and back again. If someone had seen me walking, he would have said that I looked angry. I glanced up at the cottage, but I didn't want to go inside it yet. I veered south, walked along the shore toward town. Because I was walking fast, I went farther than I ever had been before. The tide was peeling back, leaving a firm patch of sand. The low-tide smell drifted in on a breeze from time to time and then wafted away on the fine, dry air. I walked until my legs ached and my back was sore from the weight of Caroline in the sling. But it was what I had wanted, I realized—to tire myself out.

  I walked back more slowly than I'd set out. I'd been gone almost two hours when Caroline began to cry. It was past the time when I should have fed her again, and I knew I had to get back to the cottage soon to do that. I picked up my pace.

  I rounded a bend and saw the cottage on its promontory. Outside the cottage, on the gravel drive, there was a car I hadn't seen before, an old black Buick sedan. Julia Strout was standing on the steps to the cottage, looking out over the point.

  She saw me then and waved. I waved back. I made my way up the slope.

  "Thought you might have gone for a walk," she said. "The baby's OK?"

  "She's hungry," I said. "I've got to nurse her. How are you?"

  Julia said, Fine, thank you, and held the door for me; we both entered the cottage. I took Caroline out of the sling and shook off my coat. I sat on the couch in the living room and gestured for Julia to sit down too. She did so but did not take off her coat.

  "I got a call from Jack Strout this morning," she said, looking at me carefully as she said this. I tried to keep my face composed, but almost immediately I could feel a sharp squeeze inside my chest. I took a deep breath of air. I wanted to open a window.

  "He said that the baby had been quite sick," she said. "And that you'd asked him for help morning before last and he'd taken you into Machias, to the clinic."

  I nodded.

  "Baby's all right now?" she asked.

  "Better," I said. "A lot better." I realized that I was sitting stiffly in my chair, that I was breathing shallowly. I also became aware of the fact that the milk was no longer flowing. Caroline had stopped nursing and was looking up at me. I tried to breathe evenly and deeply to relax, to let the milk flow again. Take it easy, I said to myself.

  "Anyway," she said, "he wanted me to tell you that he had meant to come by today to see if the baby was OK and if you needed anything, but his wife, Rebecca, got sick in the night herself—a bad stomach virus, he said—and he couldn't leave her. And he thought, if I was coming out this way, I could look in on you myself."

  "That was ... that was nice of him," I said feebly. "And of you," I added quickly. "You can tell him that Caroline is fine now. I'm fine. We're all fine."

  Julia looked at me oddly. My voice sounded high and tight in the small room. I was trying to figure out how to get a message back to Jack through Julia, but I couldn't think clearly.

  "Actually," she said, sitting back in her chair and unbuttoning her coat—it was warm in the cottage—"I was on my way out here, anyway. This may be nothing, and I don't want to alarm you, but I thought you ought to know. I saw Everett at the store early this morning—I go over every morning to get the milk and the paper—and he said there was a fellow from New York into the store last evening asking questions about a woman named Maureen English."

  I may have blanched then, or perhaps the shock registered some other way on my face, for Julia said quickly, "Are you all right?"

  "I'm having some trouble," I said, making a gesture that indicated the nursing.

  "You're sure?"

  "Yes," I said. "This man...?"

  "Everett thought the fellow was some kind of private detective, although the man didn't say exactly," she continued. "Everett said he knew of no one named Maureen English, and then the fellow described the woman he was looking for and said she was traveling with a baby, and Everett said he didn't know of anyone like that, either."

  I shut my eyes.

  "The man left and hasn't come back," Julia said. "Everett thinks he's gone on to another town. He told him to try Machias, but the man said he'd already been there that afternoon. He said he was trying all the towns along this part of the coast. He'd had a tip the woman he was looking for was in the area."

  I opened my eyes. I tried to breathe normally. There was no hope of any more milk now, and Caroline had begun to fuss.

  "I have to make her a bottle," I said, and got up.

  Julia followed me into the kitchen.

  "I think you'll be OK," she said. "Everett thinks the man believed him. He thinks he's moved on."

  I nodded. I wanted to believe her.

  "Does Everett know if this man spoke to anyone else in town?" I asked.

  Julia shook her head. "He doesn't know, but he doesn't think so. It's only logical that someone would try the store first. It's the only place that looks half alive in town."

  Normally, I'd have smiled at that.

  "Let me hold her while you fix the bottle," she said.

  I gave Caroline to Julia. I warmed some milk on the stove. My shirt was sticking to my back, and I realized I'd been sweating.

  "You should go to the police," Julia said. "I don't mean Everett. I mean the real police, in Machias. If you're that afraid."

  I shook my head. "I can't do that," I said. "I'm better off if he doesn't know where I am at all. If I went to the police, they might have to notify my husband and tell him where I am. I don't know how this sort of thing works, but I can't take any chances."

  I took the bottle from the stove and retrieved Caroline. We went back into the living room. Caroline resisted the bottle at first, but then settled down to it. Julia sat across from me, as before. She still had her coat on.

  "Would you like a cup of tea?" I asked.

  "No," she said. "I can't stay."

  She said that, but she did not get up to leave. She watched me giving the bottle to Caroline. I thought that she might be lingering to make sure that I was all right before she left.

  "Jack's been around?" she asked.

  I kept my face focused on Caroline. The meaning in Julia's question was unmistakable. She hadn't said, "So my cousin was helpful, was he?" or, "So you've met Jack, then." She'd said, Jack's been around?

  I didn't know how to answer. Perhaps she was only fishing.

  "Well, he helped me that one time."

  She nodded slowly.

  There was a long silence in the room.

  "I'd be glad if Jack had some happiness," she said finally after a time.

  It was, if she really didn't know anything, an extraordinary thing to say. But even as she said it, I could feel the ground begin to shift. I sensed that somehow we had entered new territory now. Where it was better not to lie. It was tempting territory. Or perhaps I only interpreted it as such, because I wanted not to lie, to tell someone the truth.

  "I think he's had some happiness," I said cautiously, looking away from her and out the window.

  She changed the subject then. "Your face looks better," she said. "A lot better."

  I nodded and tried to smile. "Well, that's good at least," I said.

  She stood up then.

  "Now I've got to go," she said, all business. "I'm on my way into Machias. Can I get you anything in town? Anything for the baby?"

  I shook my head. "No," I said. "We're fine." I stood up too. "Thanks for coming by. I mean it."

  She put on her hat and gloves and walked toward the door, and I thought she would leave then, as briskly as she'd come in. Instead she paused, looked out at the cars parked by the fish house. I sensed that she was on the verge of saying one thing more, of saying the one thing she'd really come to say, but that her reserve, her code, inhibited her.

  "I'll be by to check on you again in a day or two," s
he said. "Or Jack will."

  "I love him," I said recklessly.

  She turned. She looked stunned at first, but I knew that this was because I'd spoken, not because she didn't suspect the truth. Then she nodded slowly, as if confirming her own imaginings.

  "I thought that might be it," she said.

  She studied me then as if I were a daughter who had grown too fast for safekeeping, who was now beyond a mother's reach.

  "You be careful," she said.

  Jack did not come the next morning, either. It was the Thursday, and I thought that he would be hauling his boat on Friday. At best we had only one more morning left. I waited in the bed until the sun rose. Then I got out of bed and walked downstairs to the windows in the living room. I looked out at his boat. The white paint had taken on a salmon hue.

  In the afternoon, I went into town, to the store. I did this almost every day, from habit even more than from necessity.

  That afternoon, when I parked my car across the street, I saw, in front of the Mobil pump, a black pickup truck with a cap. I knew this truck well, knew its dents and rust marks even better than those of my own car. In the front seat, on the passenger side, there was a woman. I turned off the ignition and looked at her. Her hair was gray, pulled back severely off her face. She wore a silklike kerchief in a navy-blue print. She had high cheekbones in a face you sensed had once been beautiful but now was painfully thin and white. Her lips were narrow, pressed together tightly. She had on a navy-blue wool coat, and it seemed that her hands were folded in her lap, although I couldn't see them. She must have sensed that someone was looking at her, in that way that one does, for she turned slowly to look in my direction.

  I saw then her eyes, and looking at them I felt what it was that Jack had had to live with. Her eyes were pale, a milky blue, or perhaps I have that impression of their color because they seemed cloudy, clouded over. And yet they had a hunted look, a haunted look. They were pinched at the sides. Looking at them, you could not describe what it was these eyes were seeing, but you sensed that it was something terrible. I had the immediate impression that this was a woman who had lost her children to illness or to an accident, but I knew that wasn't true.

  I looked away—as much because I didn't want to see those eyes as because I didn't want her to know I'd been examining her. When I glanced up again, she was facing straight ahead, waiting.

  I thought then that I ought to start the car up, go home. But I knew he was inside the store. I couldn't pass up this chance to see him, even if I couldn't talk to him.

  I got out of the car and removed Caroline from the baby basket. I walked with her around the back of the black pickup and up the steps into the store. The bell tinkled overhead, announcing me.

  He was standing with his daughter at the counter. She wasn't wearing a hat, and her hair fell in curls down her back. She had on a red woolen jacket and a white scarf. She turned to see who had entered the store, and when she did this, he turned too. Everett nodded, said hello. I was looking at Jack. I didn't know if he would speak, if he would dare to acknowledge me. He looked at his daughter and then said, in as casual a voice as he could, "How's the baby?"

  "She's better," I said.

  Everett was looking at both of us.

  Jack said to his daughter, "I don't think you've met Mary Amesbury, have you? She's living in Julia's cottage over to the point."

  And to me, "This is my daughter, Emily."

  I said hello to Emily, and she said hi in a shy way, as fifteen-year-olds do.

  I saw Jack glance briefly through the window at the truck. I knew he was wondering if I'd seen Rebecca.

  "Mary's baby had a fever the other day," he said to his daughter. He turned to me. "But she's better now?" he asked.

  I nodded.

  Around me, the canned goods and the fluorescent lights began to spin. It was a reprise of that first evening in the store, only now there was Jack. In the spinning, I had locked onto his face, and I became aware that I was standing there longer than would have been natural. With an effort of will that seemed monumental, I made myself walk forward, made myself say lightly, "I need some milk and things...."

  I waited at the rear of the store until I heard the bell over the door. When I walked back to the counter, Everett said, "Julia told me the baby was sick. Looks OK now, though."

  He rang up my purchases. I had no idea what I had bought. Outside, I heard the truck start up, the familiar motor.

  "Rebecca's poorly," Everett said, nodding to the sound. "Jack's had to do for her."

  That night I was lying in the bed. I heard a motor on the lane. The room seemed darker than it ought to be, and I was thinking that he'd come earlier than usual. This would be our last morning together, and like myself he'd been impatient. Perhaps he'd told his wife that he'd be leaving early, that he had a lot to do before he could haul the boat.

  I heard his footsteps on the linoleum floor in the kitchen. He didn't come straight up the stairs as I had thought he would, but instead seemed to be getting a glass of water from the sink. Then I heard him open the door into Caroline's room. Yes, I thought, he's checking on the baby. He's been worried about her.

  Finally, I heard his footsteps on the stairs. I rose in the bed to greet him. He opened the door.

  "Jack," I said with relief in the darkness.

  A figure loomed into the room, hovered over the bed.

  It wasn't Jack.

  January 15, 1971

  Everett Shedd

  You're askin' me now did I know about Mary 'n' Jack afore that terrible business over to the point. Well, that's a hard one to answer. I know Julia 'n' me, we talked about it at length, but whether it was afore the killing or after it, I'm not sure I can say now. Memory is a funny thing. 'Specially so in this case, because I do know this, that when Julia did say somethin' to me about Mary 'n' Jack, I remember thinkin' to myself that I already had an idea about that.

  She came into the store just afore the end. And Jack was here with Emily, 'n' the two of 'em, Mary 'n' Jack, they had a little bit of conversation between 'em, and I think even at that point I might of been sayin' to myself, Those two know each other. Course I did know that he'd helped her with the baby the morning the baby got the fever. Do you know about the fever? It's important, because that's how she got found.

  As I understand it, the baby got the fever on the Monday morning, 'n' Jack come by—well, who's to say; maybe he was there already—'n' he drove her into Machias to the clinic there, 'n' Dr. Posner, he's this young fella from Massachusetts come to take over the clinic when Doc Chavenage retired, he saw the baby, 'n' somehow because of the baby bein' allergic to some kind of medication, he had to call down to New York for the baby's records, 'n' I guess he had to give his name 'n' all, 'n' the husband, he'd already alerted a nurse in the office there to Mary's disappearance, 'n' so forth. So it wasn't too long after that morning that the private detective come by askin' questions.

  He didn't waste much time, I'll tell you that, 'cause it was Tuesday evenin', 'n' I was gettin' ready to close down the store for my supper, when this fellow walked in. Actually he kinda caught my attention afore he walked in, due to the fact that he was wearin' these shiny black shoes 'n' he slipped on the steps 'n' caught himself, 'n' I heard him cuss on the steps. So he came in, 'n' he was blowin' on his hands; he didn't have any gloves—I tell you, some people don't have the sense God gave 'em—'n' he asked me if I'd seen a woman named Maureen English around. I didn't know the name, of course, but I had an idea, right off the bat, what was up, so I asked this fella to show me some identification, 'n' he did, 'n' then I told him I was the town's only officer of the law, 'n' this seemed to please him. I suppose he thought he'd come to the right place for help. And then I asked him what the woman was wanted for, and he said it was a private matter, she'd run away from home, 'n' so forth. And then he showed me a picture, 'n' if I'd a had any doubt, I wouldn't have then, but of course, I didn't have any doubt in the first place, so I told the fella I'
d never seen anyone like this, 'n' if anyone in town would know, I would know. Then I wished him well and told him he ought to try Machias.

  That's when he told me he'd already tried Machias. He'd got a tip that she'd been to the clinic there, as I told you. Dr. Posner, I got to hand it to him, he didn't let on much more'n he had to. I don't know whether she didn't give the doctor her address, or she gave it 'n' he wouldn't give it to this fella, but the fella told me the doctor told him he'd treated the baby but had no idea where she was; in fact, he'd had the idea she was just passin' through, on her way north.

  Course, none of this matters much now, does it? I mean to say, someone got on to this fella, didn't he? My guess is the fella was on his way out to his car 'n' saw some trucks down by the co-op, and thought, just for the hell of it, don't you know, he'd go down there, snoop around, ask a few questions. And someone down there must of said they'd seen her and where they'd seen her, and that was that.

  I got the call 'round five-fifteen in the mornin'. I picked up the phone, 'n' this voice said, Everett. I said, What? And the voice said, It's Jack. And I said, Jack. And he said, You better get out here. And I said, Rebecca?

  And then there was a long silence, 'n' I thought he'd gone off the phone.

  And then he said, No, Everett. It's not Rebecca.

  Mary Amesbury

  I think you aren't like me. I think you wouldn't have let this happen to you. I see you in your khaki dress, your summer suit, your eyes clear and unwavering, like your sentences, and I think you couldn't have loved Harrold. You'd have left him after the first night.