Bitter Sweet (20 page)
At the other end of the line an astonished silence hummed. After moments Katy said tightly, ‘I gotta go, Mom. I’ve got a class in ten minutes.’
“All right. Call anytime,’ Maggie ended coolly.
When she’d hung up she stood beside the phone pressing her stomach. Inside, it trembled. She could count on one hand the number of times she had put her own wishes before those of Katy, and she couldn’t remember the last time the two of them had snapped at each other. She felt a sharp disappointment. How incredibly selfish one’s children could be at times. As far as Katy was concerned Maggie might do whatever was necessary to bring happiness back into her life.., as long as it didn’t inconvenience Katy.
I was there for you your whole life, Katy. I was a good, attentive mother who made sure quality time with you was never sacrificed to my career. And now, when I need your approval to make my excitement complete you withhold it. Well, young woman, whether you like it or not, the time has come for me to please myself and not you.
Maggie’s resoluteness startled even herself. Standing in the kitchen where Katy had sat in a high chair and been spoon-fed, where years later she had left muffin crumbs for her mother to wipe up, Maggie felt like a moth emerging from a chrysalis.
My goodness, she thought, I’m forty years old and I’m still growing up. She realized something rise in that moment, something Dr Feldstein had said on numerous occasions: she had within herself the power of either creating or defeating happiness by choice. She had done it. She had gone to
She walked into the family room and stood in the centre of it, turning a slow circle, studying the room that held hundreds of memories. I’ll leave here without regrets, looking back only in fondness. You won’t mind, Phillip, I know you won’t. You would not have wanted me to keep the house as a shrine in exchange for my own happiness. Katy will come to realize this in time. She made the move to
The
Seattle
house had not sold so she left the furnishings behind and took along only what personal possessions her car would hold.
She had never been an alert long-distance driver and amazed herself again by remaining wide awake through ten-hour stretches without anyone to spell her. In the past she had been the relief driver and even as such had become mesmerized during the first hour behind the wheel. Now, knowing she had to do it on her own, she did.
Neither had she ever stayed in a motel alone. Always, Phillip had been there to lift the suitcases out of the trunk, a partner with whom to scout out a place for dinner, and afterward, a warm familiar body in a cold, strange bed. She settled the dinner issue by going through the drive-in window of a McDonald’s and eating her hamburger and fries in her motel room. Exhausted after her day of driving, she fell asleep almost before the last French fry was eaten, and slept like a newborn, scarcely missing Phillip.
St Croix River
into
Hudson
, she felt the difference. This was
Once, near Neillsville she saw a farmer-Amish, no doubt - harvesting behind a team of draught horses. And farther east, the ginseng farms with their shade frames stretched out like patchwork quilts.
She rounded Green Bay and headed north, feeling the same surge of elation as the last time she’d entered Door County, appreciating its changelessness, understanding the need to preserve it. It looked like a bit of
Approaching Fish Creek, she decided to drive past her house first. A left turn off the highway led her onto a road known as the switchback which dropped in a series of tight curves to Cottage Row and her new neighbourhood. She rolled down the window and savoured the smells - the pungent scent of cedars and the herbal perfume of poplars at certain times of year when their sap is moving. Her heart plunged as she rounded a curve and caught sight of her own row of arborvitae. She pulled off onto the tennis court beside the rickety arbour seat and looked down towards the house. Little more than its roof showed beyond the untended shrubbery, but a mere glimpse of it charged her with fresh anticipation. Beside the road a sold board had been added to the Homestead Realty sign.
Sold... to Maggie Stern, the start of her new life.
She settled temporarily - very temporarily, she promised herself- into her parents’ house and called Katy to let her know she’d arrived safely. Katy’s response was, ‘Yeah, good, Mom. Listen, I can’t talk right now, the girls are waiting to go down to the dining room.’ Hanging up, she thought, Wise up, Maggie, kids don’t worry about parents the way parents worry about kids.
Vera bore out the fact by hounding Maggie incessantly.
‘Now make sure your lawyer looks over all the fine print so you know what you’re getting into. Whatever you do, don’t hire that Hardenspeer bunch to do the remodelling. They’ll come to work half drunk and fall off a ladder and sue you for every cent you’ve got. Maggie, are you sure you’re doing the right thing? It just seems to me a woman alone could get taken twenty ways trying to remodel a house that big. I almost wish you’d stayed in
Seattle
, much as I like having you here! I don’t know what your father was thinking to encourage you!’
Maggie tolerated Vera’s needling by keeping busy. She drove to
Common sense said, wait until the county board gives you the permit before proceeding with the purchase of the house, but weather became a primary consideration: frost would be coming soon. Given the amount of plumbing that would have to be reworked, and the fact that an entire wall would have to be torn out and the furnace replaced, Maggie made a decision to go ahead with the purchase and hope for the best.
The closing took place during the last week of September, and two days later, the Lavitsky brothers- Bert and Joe- knocked a hole in the maid’s room wall big enough to drive their truck through: the refurbishing had begun.
Maggie received the call from the Door County Board of Adjustments - commonly called the planning board - that same week, instructing her to appear before them the following Tuesday night.
Which meant she must contact Eric.
She had neither seen nor talked to him since she’d been back, and felt a distinct ambivalence about dialling his number. On a chilly Friday morning with the maples outside her window tinged with frost, she stood in her noisy kitchen dressed in a thick red sweater with her hand on the phone. Inside, Bert Lavitsky was tearing the cupboards off the wall. Outside, his brother was replacing the back verandah floor. KL5-35oo. For some strange reason, she knew his number by heart but she withdrew her hand without dialling and crossed her arms tightly, frowning at the phone. Don’t be silly, Maggie, remember what Brookie said. It’s no big deal, so don’t make it one. And anyway, Anna will probably answer.
She grabbed the receiver and punched out the number before she could change her mind. The voice that greeted hers was definitely not Anna’s.
“Severson Charters.’
‘Oh... hello... Eric?’
‘Maggie?’
‘Yes’
‘Well, hello! I heard you were back and you closed the deal on the home.’
She plugged one ear. ‘Could you talk a little louder, Eric?. I’m at the house and there’s a lot of hammering going on here. ‘
‘I said, I heard you were back and that you closed the deal on the house.’
‘Sooner than might have been wise, but the snow could be flying in four weeks so I thought I’d better get the Lavitsky boys tearing into the walls without delay.’ ‘The Lavitskys, huh?’
‘That’s who’s making all the racket here. I checked around. They seem to have a good reputation,’ she said above the pounding of hammers.
‘They’re honest and they do good work. How fast they do it is another matter.’
‘Forewarned is forearmed, I’ll keep that in mind and see what I can do to light a fire under them.’ At that moment Bert slipped his hammer into a loop on his overalls and went out to sit with Joe on the verandah step and have their morning coffee.
‘Oh, what a relief,’ Maggie said as the welcome silence fell. ‘It’s break time so you can stop shouting at me.’
She heard Eric laugh.
After a pause, she added, I’ve heard from the
‘Would you still like me to come with you?’
‘If it’s not too much trouble.’
‘No. No trouble at all. I’ll be happy to.’
She released a breath slowly, forcing herself to relax.
‘Good. I really appreciate it, Eric. Well, see you there then. Seven-thirty at the courthouse.”
‘Wait a minute, Maggie. Are you driving down alone?’ I’ d planned on it.’
‘Well, there’s no sense in two of us driving. Do you want to ride with me?’
Unprepared for the suggestion, Maggie stammered.
‘Well... I... sure, I guess so.’
‘Should I pick you up at your parents’ house?’
Vera would have a fit, but what could Maggie say? ‘That’ll be fine.’
On Tuesday night she left the mousse out of her hair and chose her clothing carefully in hope of favourably impressing the board. She wanted to appear mature, tasteful and admittedly - well off enough to have the funds to restore a place the size of Harding House. Yet not too flashy. She chose a softly-pleated challis skirt in a mixture of autumn hues from rust to ruby, an ivory blouse with a tucked bodice and embroidery trim, a soft leather belt with an oversized buckle and, at her throat, an oval pin set with an amethyst crystal. Over the ensemble she wore a cropped-waisted jacket of burgundy suede.
When she came downstairs her mother gave her a cursory glance and remarked, ‘Dressing rather fancy for a town meeting, aren’t you?’
‘It’s not a town meeting, Mother, it’s an appearance before a board who’ll pass judgement on me as much as on the business I’m proposing. I wanted to hint that I’d know how to make a decrepit old house attractive again. I thought the oval pin was a nice quaint touch, wouldn’t you say?’ ‘It’s quaint, all right,’ Vera replied. ‘I don’t know what the world’s coming to when a single woman runs all over the countryside with a married man, and right under her mother’s nose.’
Maggie felt herself blushing. ‘Mother”
‘Now, Vera,’ put in
Roy
, but she ignored him.
‘Well, that’s what you’re doing, isn’t it?’
‘Eric is going to try to convince the board in my favour, nothing more!’
‘Well, you know what people will say. His wife gone more than she’s home, and him squiring a new widow around.’
‘He is not squiring me around! And I resent your implications!”
‘You might very well resent them, Margaret, but I’m your mother, and as long as you’re in this house -’
The doorbell interrupted Vera and she hurried forward to answer it before anyone else could. To Maggie’s chagrin it was Eric, standing on the porch in a blue windbreaker that said Severson’s Charts on the breast. Had he only pulled up at the kerb and honked the horn Maggie would have felt less culpable. But there he stood, smiling and congenial, much as he had in the days when he’d come to pick her up for a date. ‘Hello, Mrs Pearson. How’re you?’
‘Hello,’ Vera replied without a smile.
“Maggie’s riding down to Sturgeon with me.’
‘Yes, I know.’
Maggie picked up her purse and brushed past Vera. ‘I’m all ready, Eric. We’d better hurry or we’ll be late.’ She passed him like a streak and trotted down the porch steps at full steam. She was standing at the truck door, pulling fruitlessly on the handle when he reached around her and pushed her hand aside. “This old beater is a little spunky.
