She rose from his lap in full control of her emotions and stood with her back to him. ‘‘This is a very bad idea,’’ she said.
‘‘I told myself the same thing.’’
‘‘It was just that poem yesterday and all that claptrap about bows and cords.’’
‘‘Maybe. Maybe not.’’
‘‘Wouldn’t that party line burn up if anybody in this town found out what we just did?’’
‘‘Well, I’m not going to tell them.’’ He sat up straighter as if his head had finally cleared. ‘‘I’ve got more sense than that.’’
‘‘No, of course not.’’ She took several steps and found something to keep her hands busy: some greasy knives the girls had left leaning on the butter dish. ‘‘The girls will be home soon. Maybe you’d better go.’’
‘‘Sure,’’ he said, pushing up from the chair.
‘‘Are you all right now? Is the dizziness gone?’’
‘‘Fine. Sorry I was such a baby.’’
‘‘You weren’t a baby. That just happens to some people.’’
‘‘Well, thanks for the shot . . . I think.’’
At last she turned to face him. He would not have guessed he’d just kissed her from the businesslike way she dealt with him. ‘‘Did you finish everything here? I mean, your work is all done?’’
‘‘All done. Like I said, I won’t be bothering you anymore.’’
She didn’t know whether to walk him to the door or stay where she was. In the end she stayed and he left without another word.
Ten
At his house evenings were lonelier for Gabe. Isobel spent every spare minute at the Jewetts’. He was of two minds regarding her desertion: On the one hand he didn’t blame her for hanging around that place, with all its cheerful activity; on the other, he felt abandoned, for this was still her home, he was still her father, and she had responsibilities here. She cared about them less and less. The housework and any cooking was left to him. His mother—stubborn to a fault—had been as good as her word and refused to refill his cookie jar or come over to change the sheets. Naturally, she had stopped bringing leftovers, too. One night during the week following his last encounter with Roberta, he had made a kettle of oyster stew for supper and was waiting for Isobel when the telephone rang. Two shorts and a long, that was his ring.
He went to the wooden box and lifted the earpiece from the prongs. ‘‘Hello?’’
‘‘Hello, Mr. Farley? This is Susan Jewett. We just got our new telephone!’’
‘‘You did? Well now, isn’t that exciting.’’
‘‘Mother said we could each make one call, and I said I wanted to call you because I was wondering if it would be okay if Isobel stays with us for supper.’’
He thought, What are you having? Maybe I’ll come, too. He said, ‘‘Isobel’s over there an awful lot.’’
‘‘Oh, but we love having her! Don’t we, Mother?’’ In the background he could hear the piano playing and pictured Roberta at the keyboard while the girls overran the house. Susan said, ‘‘Mother says of course we do, so please, Mr. Farley? Can she stay?’’
‘‘She probably has homework.’’
‘‘But it’s Friday night and school is almost over and the teachers are hardly giving us any. Please, Mr. Farley? We’re trying to talk Mother into a clambake because pretty soon the tide will be going out and it would be so fun!’’
‘‘I’ve already made supper for Isobel and me.’’
‘‘But can’t she stay anyway? Mother, he won’t let her . . .’’ Susan’s voice got whiny and trailed away as if she’d turned from the phone. ‘‘. . . and I told him about the clambake and everything.’’
The piano ceased and a moment later Roberta’s voice came on. ‘‘Gabriel?’’
‘‘Oh! Roberta . . . hello.’’
‘‘We really do want Isobel to stay. Do you mind?’’
It’s lonely here, he wanted to say, but of course could not. ‘‘She’s there so much.’’
‘‘Because we enjoy her. The girls talked me into a shore picnic. They want to dig some clams.’’
‘‘Well, in that case, I guess it’ll be okay.’’
‘‘Good . . . well . . . thanks, Gabriel.’’
He hurried on to keep her from hanging up so soon. ‘‘I just don’t want her to wear out her welcome.’’
‘‘No, she won’t. And don’t worry about her coming home after dark. I’ll drive her this time.’’
‘‘That’s good of you, Roberta.’’
‘‘No trouble at all, since we’ll be in the motorcar anyway. Well . . .’’
Her pause brought a fresh sense of imminent desertion, and he scrabbled about for something to keep her on the line. ‘‘So, how’d everything go up in Northport this week?’’
‘‘Fine. I finished there and went on to Lincolnville.’’
‘‘Have any fainters on your hands?’’
‘‘Oh, Gabriel . . . you didn’t faint. You just got a little light-headed.’’
‘‘Well, I felt like a gol-dang fool.’’
‘‘Why? You were right. It is a big needle.’’
A lull fell and he imagined her impatient to pack a hamper and get their outing under way. He knew he should release her, but only the silent house waited, and his pathetic oyster stew, and he wanted to keep her on the line for some deeper reason that he was unwilling to recognize. ‘‘Listen, Roberta.’’ He cleared his throat and polished the edge of the oak telephone box with a thumb. ‘‘About what happened that day. I know you weren’t too pleased with me and I just wanted to say I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have pressed the issue.’’
‘‘It’s okay, Gabriel. It’s all forgotten.’’
‘‘No. No, I could tell afterwards that you were . . . well, you acted pretty distant and you couldn’t wait to get rid of me. You didn’t want to start anything in the first place and I should have let it go at that.’’
‘‘Gabriel, the reason I didn’t want to start anything is because of how this town has labeled me. I have to be more careful than most, and we both know that. So let’s just forget it because it didn’t amount to anything.’’
It didn’t? Funny, but Gabe thought it had. Her remark left him feeling faintly emasculated.
‘‘Well, I’ve been thinking about it all week, and I just wanted to clear that up.’’
‘‘Gabriel? May I ask you something?’’
‘‘ ’Course.’’
‘‘Isobel says your mother has stopped filling your cookie jar and coming over to help out with housework. Is that because of me?’’
‘‘Isobel said that?’’
‘‘Yes, she did.’’
‘‘There’s not much housework around here with just the two of us and both of us gone all day long. And now Isobel seems to stay at your place most days after school.’’
‘‘You haven’t answered my question, Gabriel.’’
He cleared his throat. ‘‘No, it’s not because of you.’’
The line went quiet for several seconds while Gabriel suspected she figured out he was lying. Then she surprised him by asking, ‘‘Well, in that case, would you be interested in continuing this conversation on the beach? If you’re all alone you might as well come and dig clams with the girls and me.’’
He forgot about rubbing the phone box with his thumb.
‘‘Well, that sounds mighty tempting, but you sure about this?’’
‘‘It’s been years since I’ve done a clambake and I could use a little help with these four rambunctious daughters of ours.’’
‘‘I’d like that, Roberta. Give me a couple of minutes to change and I’ll be right over.’’
He showed up in fifteen minutes, dressed in tan duck trousers, canvas shoes and a roomy Norfolk jacket. Crossing Roberta’s familiar front yard, his step was animated and he was whistling. He bounded up the porch steps in two giant leaps and called through the open front door, ‘‘Anybody here?’’
The
racket inside was laughable: clattering kitchenware, slamming doors, girls’ giddy voices and Roberta shouting orders.
‘‘I forgot, I don’t have a spade. Isobel, call your father and see if he’ll bring a spade! And a clam rake, too!’’
He walked right in and stopped in her kitchen doorway. ‘‘I have a spade and a clam rake and some bushel baskets in the truck, plus a box of wood scraps to build a fire. Nobody’s got to call me.’’
Roberta spun around and smiled brightly. ‘‘Oh, Gabriel, you’re here!’’ She was back to the Roberta he first knew, the nurse’s uniform gone, the hair falling from its tether, wearing her run-over black shoes and a sacklike dress of oversized blue-and-white squares with dollar-size white buttons down the front. The dress needed pressing, the shoes needed replacing and the hair needed tidying, but as he stood in the doorway observing the commotion he felt alive as he had not in days, being with her and the kids again.
‘‘’Lo, Roberta,’’ he said, low-key.
‘‘That didn’t take you long.’’
‘‘Nope.’’
‘‘Daddy, hi! I can’t believe you’re really going with us!’’
Isobel bombarded him and hugged his waist. He dropped his hands to her shoulders but Roberta saw he was out of his element with spontaneous affection.
‘‘Mrs. Jewett invited me,’’ he told Isobel. ‘‘Hope that’s okay.’’
‘‘Oh, this is going to be so much fun! She says we can all dig clams.’’
‘‘Thought you hated clams.’’
‘‘Well, I do, but . . .’’ She released him and gave a sheepish one-shouldered shrug. ‘‘Gosh, I haven’t had them since Mother was alive, and I’ve grown up a lot since then. I’ll probably just love them!’’
He glanced at Roberta, thinking this was going to be the best Friday night he’d had in years.
Roberta got busy again, putting a clam knife and salt and pepper shakers in the open hamper on the table. ‘‘Let’s see . . . butter and lemon and salt and pepper. Too early in the year for corn on the cob, but we’ve got some sweet potatoes. Rebecca, get plates; Susan, get silverware; Isobel, some glasses, please; and Lydia, will you find a blanket, dear?’’
Gabe watched as his daughter moved with the others to follow orders. She knew right where to find glasses.
He moved to Roberta’s shoulder and said under his breath, ‘‘She certainly knows her way around your house.’’
‘‘That’s the kind of house I run, Gabe. Not much formality around here.’’
When the last items were packed into the hamper, she closed the lid and he took it from her hands. ‘‘Here, I’ll carry that.’’
‘‘We need a piece of canvas,’’ she said.
‘‘I brought that.’’
‘‘And some fresh water?’’
‘‘Brought that, too.’’
‘‘Hey,’’ she teased, ‘‘you’re a good man to have around. How’d you round up all that stuff in fifteen minutes?’’
‘‘That’s the kind of house I run,’’ he said with a grin. ‘‘Everything in its place so it’s easy to find.’’
‘‘And you found time to change clothes, too?’’
‘‘Ayup.’’
She returned his grin. ‘‘Talk about a couple of opposites; we’re them, aren’t we, Gabe?’’
Opposites or not, they were both in glad moods as they herded the children outside like a regular family of six. Yes, it was a simulated family, but they felt seduced by the wholesomeness of tramping off on a simple adventure that would fill an evening with togetherness. The four girls got along extremely well, as if Isobel truly were a half sister. Roberta and Gabriel, now that the kiss was put behind them, found acceptable companionship in each other and, as before, enjoyed having another adult to talk with after years of having only the children.
The May sun was still twenty-five degrees off the horizon when they started out. Gabe cranked Roberta’s car and she drove while all four girls stacked themselves in the backseat, singing, ‘‘We sail the ocean blue, And our saucy ship’s a beauty.’’
Roberta and Gabe could barely hear each other above ‘‘H.M.S. Pinafore.’’
‘‘Where’s the best place to dig?’’ she asked.
‘‘Out at the Glen Cove flats.’’
‘‘Oh yes, I remember. Down toward Rockport.’’
‘‘You used to go there?’’
‘‘Sure, when I was in school. Did you?’’
‘‘In school and after I was married . . . with Caroline.’’
‘‘But you haven’t been back since she died?’’
He studied her briefly, then shook his head. ‘‘Not since she died.’’
‘‘So will it be difficult for you?’’
‘‘I don’t know. I’ll find out when we get there, won’t I?’’
In the backseat the girls were bellowing, ‘‘. . . when at anchor we ride, on the Portsmouth tide . . . ’’
She parked on the hill above the Glen Cove clam flats, and the girls tumbled out and went clambering over the rocks that had been nudged by a million tides to form a rugged rim around the upper scoop of the cove. Roberta and Gabriel stood beside the car and watched them bound away with bushel baskets and clam rakes while behind them the shadows of the mountains sloped down to the sea and stained the evening blue. Before them, the flats—mushroom brown and dull except where a powerless surf lazily licked the sand silver— collected the girls’ footprints. Pebbles and driftwood pocked the washed surface, too. In places the retreating tide had left flotsam in ragged windrows that created a scalloped design along the shore. Among the rocks and over the sand, crabs scuttled, searching out their supper, dipping safely into their holes when the girls pounded past.
Gabriel studied the peaceful scene and said, ‘‘She wasn’t particularly crazy about clams, but she loved to go clamming. Especially in the morning, when the sun was on the water and the islands looked ghostly out there in the sea-smoke. Sometimes she’d talk me into bringing her out early, even before sunrise, so she wouldn’t miss the spectacle.’’
Roberta turned to study his profile against the backdrop of rocky shoreline. A faint puff of wind fluttered the hair against his forehead. Twilight painted shadows beside his straight nose and somber mouth.
‘‘I envy you your happy memories. I wish I had more of them.’’
He dragged himself from his reverie to look at her. Motionless, he stood, while the girls’ voices drifted up to them—‘‘Oh, here’s one! Dig! Dig!’’—joined by the coarse chorus of some gulls whose mealtime had been interrupted, too. Roberta had the feeling Gabriel was seeing another woman, in another time, before he finally stirred himself and rejoined her in the present.
‘‘I’ll start digging the pit if you’ll gather some seaweed.’’ He stepped out onto the rocks, sending the sand crabs scuttling again.
For the next quarter hour everybody kept busy. While Gabe built the fire and Roberta collected kelp, the three youngest girls searched the flats for tiny sand spouts, where they dug. Rebecca, barefoot, knotted her skirts across her thighs and methodically plied the shallow water, dragging the clam rake while keeping an eye out for telltale mud clouds on the bottom. As the girls turned up their bounty, Roberta washed it. The sun slipped behind the mountain and left the air cooler and bluer. The distant islands lost their gold tips and seemed to settle deeper into Penobscot Bay as if snuggling in for the night.
When the fire had subsided to coals, Roberta knelt beside Gabriel and helped him layer the rocks, seaweed, foods and canvas, which they anchored at the corners with more rocks.
‘‘There,’’ Gabe said, sitting back on his heels. ‘‘In an hour we’ll have a meal fit for a king.’’
‘‘I’m starved,’’ Lydia said.
‘‘Yeah, me too,’’ Isobel added.
‘‘Why don’t you all sing something?’’ Roberta suggested. ‘‘That’ll make the time pass faster.’’
‘‘I don’t feel like sin
ging,’’ Susan put in. ‘‘Let’s go see if we can outdig some sand crabs.’’
They moved off into the growing shadows, leaving their parents behind. Gabriel stretched to his feet. ‘‘I’ll build us another fire so we’ve got something to poke at.’’
He did, and they sat on turtle-shaped rocks while the dusk and the dampness lowered upon the shore, cooling their backs while their faces grew as orange as paired sunsets in the glow of their small fire. The rocks were hard, but each of them had experienced clambakes before and would have disdained any more comfortable seat; after all, rock-sitting was part of the total experience. The fire pit seethed and sent out a soft, warm hiss that kept them company.
Roberta glanced up at the sky and recited,
‘‘Lo! comes the evening, purply soft
To lift the glowing stars aloft.’’
Gabriel glanced over.
‘‘Who wrote that?’’
‘‘I did.’’
He pondered a moment. ‘‘You Jewetts are really something when it comes to verses. You always manage to leave me in the dust.’’
‘‘Leave you in the dust?’’
‘‘You know so much that I don’t know, Roberta.’’
‘‘Perhaps I do, but I cannot build a porch.’’
Sometimes she could really put him at ease, this woman in the wrinkled dress and tumbledown hair. He’d come to prize spending time with her, and he was beginning to admit it wasn’t only because of the children. ‘‘I hadn’t thought of that,’’ he said. Now that he did, however, he felt less ignorant. ‘‘You write any more of that poem?’’
‘‘No, but I can if you want me to.’’
‘‘Just like that?’’
She shrugged as if the talent were common.
‘‘You mean you could just spout lines that rhyme, without thinking for two hours and looking in books and crossing off mistakes?’’
‘‘I always liked poetry and music and drama. That’s where my girls get it.’’
‘‘So make up some more.’’
She squinted one eye at the rising moon. Her lips moved soundlessly for a while before she caught the line . . .