Bitter Sweet (28 page)

‘Be careful,” he warned. ‘It’s slippery.’ Instead of taking her elbow he let his arm buffer hers, a touch of nothing more than insulated clothing, yet through two winter sleeves they were aware of one another as flesh and blood.

Somewhere above them Deitz slammed his truck door, started the engine and drove away. When he was gone, they moved slower, up the broad steps that climbed to the road.

The snow fell in great weightless flakes, straight down, in air so still the contact of sky with earth could be heard like the soft rick of a thousand beetles on a warm June night.

Reaching the second step, Maggie stopped. ‘Shh, listen.’

She tilted her head back.

He lifted his face to the milky sky . . . listening . . .listening . . .

‘Hear that?’ she whispered. ‘You can actually hear the snow falling.’

He closed his eyes and listened, and felt the flakes striking his eyelids and cheeks, melting there.

You go on home now, Eric Severson, and forget about standing here in the snow with Maggie Pearson. He never thought of her as Maggie Stearn.

He opened his eyes and felt momentarily dizzy watching the perpetual motion above him. A flake plopped on his upper lip. He licked it off and forced himself to move on.

She moved with him, close by his elbow.

‘What are you doing for Thanksgiving?’ he inquired, suddenly certain she’d be on his mind that day.

‘Katy is coming home. We’ll be at Mom and Dad’s. How about you?’

‘Everybody will be at Mike and Barb’s. Ma makes the stuffing though. She’s scared to death Barb might put a little store bought bread in it and kill off the whole family.’

They laughed, reaching his truck where they stopped and turned toward one another, suddenly taken by the snow between their feet.

‘It’ll be the first time Katy sees the house.’

‘She’s in for a treat.’

‘I’m not so sure. Katy and I had a difference of opinion about my selling the house in
Seattle
.’ Holding a prolonged shrug, Maggie continued as if vexed with herself. ‘Oh, damn, I may as well be honest. We argued about it, and she hasn’t exactly been cordial to me since. I’m a little uneasy about her coming. She thinks it’s a mother’s duty to keep the home fires burning, as long as the home is the one the kids grew up in. I went to Chicago a couple of weeks ago and took her out for dinner but the atmosphere was a little chilly, to say the least.’ She sighed. ‘Oh, kids...’

‘My mother always says all kids go through a selfish streak somewhere between puberty and common sense, when they think their parents are damned fools who don’t dress right, talk right or think right. I remember going through that stage myself.’

 
Maggie innocently widened her eyes. ‘Did I?’

He laughed. ‘I don’t know. Did you?’

‘I suppose. I couldn’t wait to get away from my mother.’

‘Well... there you go.’

‘Eric Severson, you’re not the least bit sympathetic!’ she scolded with mock petulance.

Again he laughed, and when it ended he turned thoughtful.

‘Count your blessings, Maggie,’ he remarked, suddenly serious. ‘You have a daughter coming home for Thanksgiving. I’d give anything to have one, too.’

His admission brought a jolt of surprise followed by a discomfited sense of having been told a confidence to which she was not altogether sure she wanted to be privy.

Something changed, knowing there was such a chink in his marriage.

‘You know, Eric, you can’t make a remark like that without leaving one obvious question in a person’s mind. I won’t ask it, though, because it’s none of my business.’

‘Is it all right I’ll answer it anyway?’ When she refrained from replying he went on. ‘
Nancy
never wanted any.’ He studied the distance as he said it.

After a moment of silence she offered quietly, ‘I’m sorry.’

He moved restlessly, shovelling snow with his feet.

‘Aww . . . well . . . I probably shouldn’t have said anything. It’s my problem and I’m sorry if I made you uncomfortable bringing it up.’

‘No... no, you didn’t.’

‘Yes, I did, and I’m sorry.’

She lifted her eyes and resisted the urge to touch his sleeve and say, I’m the one who’s sorry, I remember how you wanted children. To do so would have been unpardonable, for in spite of the rifts between Eric and his wife, the fact remained he was married. For moments only the snow spoke, ticking to earth all around them. She remembered kissing him, long ago, on a night such as this, on his snowmobile in the ravine below the bluff, tasting him and the snow and winter on his skin. He had stopped the machine and they’d sat in the sudden silence, faces lifted to the dark night sky. Then he’d turned and swung his leg over the seat and said, softly, ‘Maggie...’

‘I’d better go,’ he said now, opening the truck door.

‘I’m glad you came.’

He glanced toward the house. ‘I’d like to see it sometime when the furniture is all in.’

‘Sure,’ she said.

But they both knew the prudent course would be his never coming back here again.

‘Have a nice Thanksgiving,’ he wished, climbing into the truck.

‘Same to you. Say hello to your family.’

‘I’ll do that.’ But he realized he couldn’t pass along her message, for what reason could he give for having been here?

The truck door slammed and Maggie stepped back while the starter growled . . . and growled . . . and growled.

From inside the cab she heard a dull thump as Eric gave the vehicle a little encouragement, presumably with a fist to the dash. Then more growling and the sound of the window being rolled down.

‘This damned old whore,’ he said affectionately.

While Maggie laughed, the engine caught and roared. He worked the foot feed, turned on the wipers and shouted above the sound, ‘So long, Maggie’

‘Bye. Drive carefully!’

A moment later his tyre tracks funnelled away into the darkness. She stood a long time, studying, them, feeling sensitized and restless.

On Thanksgiving Day twenty people gathered around the Severson table, eleven of them Anna’s grandchildren. Mike and Barb were there with their five. Ruth, the baby of the family, had come from
Duluth
with her husband, Dan, and their three. Larry, the second youngest, and his wife, Fran, had come from
Milwaukee
with three more, one of them still young enough to need a high chair.

“When the carving knife was sharpened and the roast turkey sat before Mike at the head of the table, he quieted the group and said, ‘Let’s all hold hands now.’

When the ring of contact created an unbroken circuit, Mike began the prayer.

‘Dear Lord, we thank you for another year of good health and prosperity. We thank you for this food and for letting us all be around the table again to enjoy it. ‘e’re especially grateful to have Ma who has seen to it one more time that none of us suffers from eating store bought bread. And for having Ruth and Larry’s families here this year, too, though we ask you to remind little Trish when she’s had enough pumpkin pie and whipped cream, bearing in mind what happened last year after she had her third piece. And of course we thank you for this sturdy bunch of kids who are all going to pitch in after dinner and wash the dishes for their mothers. And one more thing, Lord, from both Barb and I. Sorry it’s taken us so long to be properly grateful, but we finally saw the light and we trust you’re doing the right thing when you give us one more to oversee. Next year, when we hold hands around this table again and there are twenty-one of us, let us all be as healthy and happy as we are today. Amen.’

The youngest children repeated, ‘Amen.’

Nancy
shot a glance at Eric.

The others stared at Mike and Barbara.

Nicholas finally found his tongue. ‘Another one?’

‘Yup,’ replied Mike, picking up the carving knife. ‘In May. Just in time for your graduation.’

As Mike cut into the turkey all eyes swerved to Anna. She unceremoniously helped her nearest grandchild mash a candied yam and remarked, ‘There’s something nice and round and satisfying about an even dozen grandchildren. Barbara, you gonna get those potatoes and gravy started down there or are we gonna sit here staring till the food gets cold?’

One could see the visible relaxing of tension around the table.

The day left Eric feeling quietly despondent. Being with his brothers and sister again brought’ back lush, picturesque recollections of his boyhood in a family of six - the noise, the commotion, the bandying. He had assumed his whole life long that he would re-create the same scene with his own offspring. Accepting that it would never happen took some acclimatizing; it took, too, the punch of unfettered happiness out of this year’s festivities.

Surrounded by noise and celebration, Eric lapsed often into periods of silence. Sometimes he’d stare at the TV screen without registering the touchdowns being made there. The others would cheer and rouse him from his reverie, tease him about napping. But he hadn’t been napping, only brooding. Sometimes he’d gaze out the window at the snow and remember Maggie turning to say over her shoulder, ‘Thanksgiving should have snow, don’t you think?’ He pictured her at her parents’ house having her Thanksgiving dinner and wondered if she’d settled the discord with her daughter. He recalled the hour spent in her house and realized he had been happier there than he was today, surrounded by people he loved.

He found
Nancy
studying him across the room and reminded himself of the true meaning behind today’s observation. Taking his cue from Mike, he set firmly in his mind the things for which he should be grateful: this family surrounding him, the continuing good health of them all, his livelihood, the boat, the house, a hard-working, beautiful wife.

Arriving home at
eight o’clock
that night, he made a resolution to stop thinking about Maggie Stearn and to keep away from her house. As
Nancy
opened the front closet door he caught her and from behind, doubling his arms around her ribs, buried his face in her neck. The collar of her white wool coat smelled like a spicy garden. Her neck was warm and supple as she tipped her head aside and covered his arms with her own.

“I love you,’ he murmured, meaning it.

‘I love you, too.’

‘And I’m sorry.’

‘For what?’

‘For saying no the last time you wanted to make love. For shutting you out these last couple weeks. It was wrong of me. ‘

‘Oh, Eric.’ She swung around and came hard against him, clasping her arms around his neck. ‘Please don’t let this baby thing come between us.’

It already has.

He kissed her and tried to put the realization from his mind. But it remained, and the kiss -. for Eric - became bleak. He buried his face against her, feeling bereaved and very frightened. ‘I’m so damned jealous of Mike and Barb.’

‘I know,’ she said. ‘I saw it on your face today.’ She held him, petting the back of his head. ‘Please... don’t. I’ve got four days at home. Let’s make them happy.’

He would try, he vowed. He would try. But he recognized something he carried deep inside him, something new and disturbing and destructive. That something was the first seed of bitterness.

Katy Stearn left
Chicago
after her
one o’clock
class the day before Thanksgiving. She drove alone, giving her ample time to fret and build offences against her mother.

I should be flying back to
Seattle
with Smitty. I should be meeting the gang down at The Lighthouse and checking out who’s getting fat on cafeteria cooking at college and who’s fallen in love already and who’s still a nerd. I should be showing off my Northwestern sweatshirt and my new haircut and checking out old Lenny -find out if he’s dating anybody at UCLA yet, or if I broke his heart for good. I should be driving down familiar streets and waiting for friends to call and sleeping in my old room.

She was newly eighteen and typical and considered herself not selfish, but wronged by her mother’s sudden decision to move to
Door
County
.

She had purposely avoided asking the location of Maggie’s new house and drove instead directly to her grandparents’, arriving shortly before seven.

Vera answered the door. ‘Katy, hello!’

‘Hi, Grandma.’

Vera accepted a hug while glancing at the empty porch.

‘Where’s your mother?’

‘I haven’t been there yet. I decided to stop here first.’

Pulling back she scolded, ‘Good gracious, child, where are your rubbers? You mean to tell me you drove all the way from
Chicago
without any rubbers in the car? Why, you’d catch pneumonia if you broke down and had to walk.’

‘I have a brand new car, Grandma.’

‘That’s no excuse. New cars break down, too.
Roy
, look who’s here, and without rubbers!’