She didn’t know what to say. This kind of devotion was beyond her.
Finally he realized he’d been sitting there with brimming eyes. ‘‘Well . . .’’ He pushed back his chair and got to his feet. ‘‘Been sitting here long enough. That porch isn’t going to paint itself.’’
Turning his back, he tried to hide the fact that he was swiping at his eyes with the side of his hand. She tried to remember if she had ever seen a man this close to tears, but nothing came to mind. She and Farley had started out their dinner with such blithe spirits; she had not intended to wrench his heart so. She had merely sat quietly listening, just as he had when she’d been speaking. She could tell that he was chagrined at having shown her more than he intended.
‘‘It’s all right, Mr. Farley,’’ she said kindly, rising too. ‘‘There’s no need to feel ashamed of a few tears.’’
He nodded, hanging his head while she remained on the far side of the table, throat still plugged, studying the back of his hair as it lifted from his collar in sandybrown spikes.
‘‘Well, listen . . .’’ He half-glanced over his shoulder, making sure not to show all of his face. ‘‘Thanks for the coffee.’’
‘‘Thanks for the cookies.’’
He walked out, giving her a view of nothing but his back.
Since he’d begun working at her house they’d run a gamut of emotions. Every day seemed to have its mood that bound the two of them, though she worked inside and he worked out. From blatant antipathy to moments of embarrassment, to a slow warming, beginning when he’d taught her to drive. But none had bound them as disquietingly as today’s exchange of histories. From the stories they had told, each knew beyond a doubt that the other was suffering from a past that left no room for new love. She was done with men for good. He still loved his dead wife. But every clink and chink and shuffle and ding that they heard through the walls or through the open front door reminded them that they had created a bond between them this noon, and that nothing would ever change it. Forever they would know each other’s vulnerabilities.
He heard a clatter once and stopped painting to listen. But he stood at an angle to the doorway and could not see in.
She heard the squeak of hinges once and waited a long moment before poking her head out and peeking across the living room to find he was starting to paint the exterior of the door. She just barely made him out through the square waist-high window, wielding the brush, looking up, unaware of her watching.
She pulled back, curved an index finger against her lips, shook her head and tried to put him from her mind.
By afternoon they both realized that putting each other from their thoughts was a pointless effort. They had said too much to do that. Besides, there was more to be said before the girls came home from school— ironically and in all probability all their girls.
She was pressing one of her uniforms when he called, ‘‘Mrs. Jewett?’’
How odd. The sound of his voice suddenly put a flutter beneath her ribs. She set down the iron and went to the doorway between the kitchen and living room.
‘‘Yes?’’
He was standing just inside the threshold, emptyhanded and smelling of turpentine.
‘‘I finished up out here so I’m going to call it a day. Okay if I leave the paint cans and brushes under the porch over the weekend?’’
‘‘Of course.’’
‘‘I work Saturdays down at my shop, so I won’t see you till Monday. That is, I’ll be back on Monday morning, but if you’re gone before I get here, well, you have a good first day, will you?’’
‘‘Yes, thank you. I’ll be working at the girls’ school.’’
‘‘Well, you take it easy on those kids, then.’’
She smiled guardedly.
‘‘I’ll have to be here inside your house next week, so I hope that’s okay. When you’re gone?’’
‘‘Of course. What will you do first?’’
‘‘That window upstairs. Then start on the walls.’’
‘‘Fine. Just move anything that’s in your way.’’
‘‘Ayup. I will.’’
They stood for a moment, then he shifted his weight to the opposite foot. ‘‘About earlier,’’ he said selfconsciously. ‘‘I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have told you all that.’’
‘‘It’s all right. I’m glad you did.’’
‘‘No, I got a little carried away. I could see it made you . . . well, that wasn’t . . .’’ He ran out of words and ended by clearing his throat. ‘‘Well, you know what I mean. Listen, I’ve got to go.’’ Only now did he meet her eyes. ‘‘I imagine Isobel will be showing up here with your girls, so tell her to be home by six, will you?’’
‘‘Certainly. She’ll be there.’’
He nodded once.
And stood there.
And so did she.
Each recognizing a faint reluctance to face two days without seeing the other.
‘‘Better go,’’ he said.
‘‘Have a nice weekend.’’
‘‘Ayup, you too.’’
Roberta had trouble keeping her word about getting Isobel home by six. The girls brought home another new friend named Shelby DuMoss, as well as Grace’s girls, and all of them—eight, all together—decided to head off up the mountain to look for birch bark. They came back lugging a dead tree, from which they said they were going to unroll the bark to make the shell of a canoe for their play. From Gabe’s lumber scraps they took pieces to act as a frame, and were industriously hammering and gluing when Roberta announced it was time for the girls to go home.
‘‘Oh, nooooo!’’ they all chorused. ‘‘Just a few minutes longer? Please?’’
‘‘No, I promised Isobel’s father.’’
Isobel went, but she was back the next day, and so were all the others. Roberta took them on a hike up Mount Battie, and they explored the budding hawthorns and dogwoods, the willows with their spring skirts turned scarlet. They identified birds and came upon a vernal pond in an old quarry where frogs sang. They noted the locations of blueberry bushes for raiding in late summer, and stood at the summit surveying the vista of sea, islands and sky, the little blue loop of Camden Harbor shimmering in the sun, then dulling as a thin cloud passed over it.
Later, they tramped downhill all the way to the shore and came upon some boys on the rocks cleaning flounder, and got a bucketful in exchange for free admission to their first performance of Hiawatha. It was easy to see one of the boys had eyes for Becky and wanted to please her.
Roberta fried the flounder and took them outside, where she sat with the girls on the porch floor with their legs hanging over the edge and their heels bumping the latticework.
It was there Gabriel found them, coming up on foot out of the pre-dark gloom to cross the front yard and stop at the base of the steps. He was dressed in dark clothing with his jacket buttoned against the evening chill, and once again he’d left his cap at home. Though they all saw him coming, none spoke as he approached, only thumped their heels and chewed their fish and licked their fingers.
‘‘Evening,’’ he said lazily.
‘‘Evening,’’ they all replied, and it came out in two such perfect, unison beats, like a cappella singing, that everybody got lighthearted.
‘‘Figured I’d find you here, Isobel.’’
‘‘I’ve had my supper, if that’s what you’re worried about.’’
‘‘So I see.’’
‘‘Mrs. Jewett fried us flounder.’’
He said nothing, but shifted his gaze to Roberta and let it stay.
‘‘Evening, Mr. Farley,’’ she said levelly. ‘‘Would you like some flounder?’’
‘‘No, thank you. I’ve had my supper.’’
‘‘Oh, too bad.’’ She swung her heels like the girls, and he could tell from the thumps that in the shadows they were making marks on his newly painted latticework. He counted the females. There were nine of them lined up like clothespins, each of them swinging h
er heels against his paint job.
‘‘I like Isobel home by six,’’ he told Roberta pleasantly.
‘‘It’s Saturday. I didn’t think you’d mind.’’
‘‘She’s got her hair to wash for tomorrow, and shoes to polish for church.’’
‘‘Oh, that’s right. Well then, Isobel . . . time to go, dear.’’ Roberta leaned back to see Isobel down the line.
‘‘Oh, I wish I didn’t have to.’’
‘‘Shh, Isobel,’’ she whispered, ‘‘you’ll hurt your father’s feelings. Besides, it is late, and the others will have to be going, too.’’
Isobel got up and passed behind Roberta, who lifted one arm and looked at her upside down. Isobel leaned down and they gave each other unaimed kisses. ‘‘ ’Night, dear,’’ Roberta said softly.
‘‘ ’Night. And thank you.’’
Roberta watched carefully to see if Gabe would drape an arm around his daughter’s shoulders as they turned and headed across the yard, but he didn’t. He walked separately while Isobel’s voice drifted back to the porch, telling about their trek up the mountain and how they’d acquired the fish. At the opening in the bridal wreath hedge the girl turned and called happily, ‘‘Good night, everybody.’’ Then she and Gabe walked off into the growing dark.
On Sunday afternoon she showed up again, exasperated by having had to spend the hours since church at her grandmother’s for dinner.
‘‘My dad insisted. We spend every Sunday there till three o’clock. It’s so boring!’’
‘‘But I promised your father you’d be home by six and you will, agreed?’’
‘‘Oh, all right,’’ she said.
Shortly after she arrived, so did Grace, driven by Elfred in their black touring car. She barged right into the house without knocking, as if it were her God-given right to do so, braying, ‘‘Roberta, I’ve got to talk to you! It’s about these girls and the hours you’ve got them keeping! Elizabeth DuMoss called me on the telephone to ask just what kind of a place you’re running over here, keeping them here so late last night! She demands to know just what was going on, and so do I!’’
Elfred came in, too, and hung back just far enough to give his nasty glances room to sail. He got out a cigar and pursed it in his lips, twisting it back and forth and wetting it, working it in and out like a plunger while grinning suggestively.
Grace carped on. ‘‘My girls have been brought up with manners! You had them eating fried fish with their fingers, sitting on the edge of a porch! And you took them tramping up that mountain and let them get their dresses filthy!’’
Roberta suddenly grew sick and tired of her sister, who raised her girls like hothouse pansies. ‘‘Yes, I did, Grace, and they loved every minute of it. As a matter of fact, they didn’t want to go home.’’
‘‘Oh, Roberta,’’ Grace gasped melodramatically, ‘‘how you do wound me. I’d hoped when you moved back here that we could get along better than we used to, but I can see you’re just as misguided and foolhardy as you always were. And Elfred and I had come over to let you know that we’d decided to give a small party at our house to introduce you to some of our friends, but now I don’t know. You’re attempting to undermine me with my own children.’’ Her voice broke as she fished out a hanky and applied it. ‘‘And it does hurt, Birdy, it does.’’
Roberta opened her arms and folded her sister in a hug. ‘‘Oh, Grace, I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have said that.’’
‘‘But you’ve always done that, always! Made fun of my ways and my decisions. Whatever I do, it’s not what you’d have done. Well, I haven’t done so badly!’’ Grace pulled back defensively. ‘‘I’ve got my girls and my Elfred and we have a happy home and lots of friends, so who are you to belittle me?’’
‘‘I’m sorry, Grace,’’ Roberta said, properly chastised, but keeping her eyes off Elfred, who had finally removed the cigar from his despicable mouth. If Grace wanted to convince herself that her marriage was made in heaven, who was Birdy to disabuse her of the notion? Let her live in her dreamworld. She took Grace’s free hand. ‘‘If you can forgive me, I’d love it if you’d give a party for me. Truly, I would. And I’d love to meet your friends.’’
Grace sent a martyred glance at Elfred, making sure a few tears jiggled on her eyelids. ‘‘Well, if it’s all right with Elfred . . .’’
He came up close behind her and put a hand on her waist. ‘‘It’s up to you, dear,’’ he said sweetly, making Roberta want to puke.
Grace made a big show of deciding. ‘‘Well, I guess we could go forward with the plans. Saturday night, we thought. Maybe dinner and a little music afterwards.’’
‘‘That would be just grand.’’
Then Grace spoiled it all. ‘‘We thought that if we were to come out publicly and show our support for you, let everybody see that we’re still willing to have you in the house, then others in town will overlook your being divorced and will follow suit.’’
It took all Roberta’s strained civility to keep from shoving Grace’s fat face clear to the back of her fat neck. Willing to have her in the house! As if she were some pet hamster instead of a plain brown rat!
Jumping Judas, if it weren’t so hypocritical, it might have been funny. Grace, with her philandering husband, willing to play the moral leader of the town while all of it was laughing at her behind her back. Elfred, working that cigar in his mouth like a butter churn, taking every opportunity to send salacious grins at his own wife’s sister while men and women alike scorned him from a distance. They were truly two pathetic creatures.
After Elfred and Grace left, Roberta’s anger remained. She played the piano some, but it failed to wipe out the hurt and disgust she felt. She was still agitated when she turned back her sheets and climbed into bed.
The house grew quiet. The girls settled down. Elfred, Grace. Grace, Elfred. We’re still willing to have you in the house and overlook your being divorced.
It took well over an hour before Roberta grew drowsy. Her last thought before going to sleep was that she couldn’t wait to rant about it to Gabriel Farley. He was the only one in this town who’d understand.
Nine
On Monday morning Gabe arrived before Roberta left for work. She was upstairs when the girls came bombarding her with good-byes, then clattered down the steps on the run, late as usual. She went down seconds later in her starched white uniform and peaked white cap to find Gabe in the living room, wearing leather gloves and holding a pane of glass.
‘‘Oh! I didn’t know you were here!’’ she said, startled.
‘‘Sorry. I thought the girls let you know.’’
‘‘No!’’
He stared as if he’d never seen her before. Her hair was coiled up much like his mother’s, with the cap nestled into the crevice at the back. Her crisply starched uniform nearly reached her ankles and stood out like a bell, covered by a white apron with a bib that bent over her breasts like a piece of tin.
He’d never paid much notice to her shape before, but looking at her in that uniform was like looking at the Maine shoreline from the top of Mount Battie: The curves showed up, plain and plentiful. And she looked so tidy! When she was running around here with the girls, her hair looked like something the sea had thrown up on the rocks at high tide, but this neat roll was a real surprise. Why, even her run-over shoes were gone, in their place immaculate white oxfords.
He’d been gaping for some time before he realized it and got his mouth moving. ‘‘Gonna get that window replaced today.’’
‘‘Yes, good.’’
Still he didn’t move.
After a beat, Roberta jutted her head and said, puzzled, ‘‘Mr. Farley?’’
He motioned as if wanting to point at her, pane of glass and all. ‘‘The uniform.’’
She looked down. ‘‘Is something wrong with it?’’
‘‘Um . . . no. It’s . . . ah . . . no, it’s . . .’’
She waited, hiding her amusement.
??
?‘Nice,’’ he finally finished, setting the pane of glass across his boots.
‘‘The state issues them.’’
‘‘Oh, so not only telephones, but uniforms, too.’’
‘‘Yes. I’m lucky, hm?’’
‘‘Very lucky.’’
‘‘Well, I’ve got to be going. Can’t be late on my first day.’’
‘‘Nope, ’course not.’’ He curved his gloved hands around the glass and headed for the stairs.
‘‘Oh, Mr. Farley?’’
He stopped, set the glass across his boots once more.
‘‘Will you be here all day long?’’
‘‘ ’Spect so.’’
‘‘This is a presumptuous thing to ask, I know, but the girls are going to beat me home. Would you mind keeping an eye on them till I get here? Try to keep them from eating me out of house and home?’’
‘‘Be happy to. ’Course, I’ll be busy, you understand.’’
‘‘Oh, yes, of course. I just thought, it’s a pretty sure bet Isobel will be with my three, so maybe you wouldn’t mind.’’
‘‘Don’t mind at all.’’
‘‘Well, I’ll see you then . . . sometime between five and six, I imagine.’’
‘‘Ayup.’’
He watched her cross the living room and go outside. When she reached the porch steps, he called, ‘‘Oh, Mrs. Jewett?’’ She returned to the door and looked in. ‘‘You want I should crank that flivver so you don’t get dirty?’’
‘‘No thank you, Mr. Farley, I can manage.’’
He remained in the shadows, far back from the door so she couldn’t see him watching her. She made a sight cranking that car in her starched white uniform, checking everything he’d taught her to check, getting in and out while he cataloged each adjustment she made. When the engine fired, a big smile bloomed on her face and she brushed her palms together, glancing up at the house as if to win his approval.
He smiled too, and waited till she drove off, then carried the pane upstairs, thinking it would be a much lonelier day around here today.