Bitter Harvest (6 page)

Good
, Meg decided. There were issues they’d both been tap dancing around for months, and maybe now they would have time to explore some of them.

Seth was back in minutes, and after stamping off the snow—again—he came from the kitchen bearing two remarkably rusty but intact oil lamps that Meg dimly remembered hanging in the barn. “We’re good. You might collect any candles you have. Dorcas and Isabel said hi.”

“Are they all right?”

“They’re fine. Probably bored. Listen, you should also bring down blankets and pillows—I don’t think you’ll want to sleep upstairs.”

“Even with a bed warmer?”

“Even with.” He smiled.

She went upstairs and started collecting quilts and pillows. He was right: it was freezing upstairs, and it wasn’t even dark yet. She wondered briefly if she had a chamber pot lurking in a dark corner. Making a trip to the bathroom later wouldn’t be pleasant. Maybe a bucket?

Downstairs she dumped her trove of bedding on a chair. “So now what? What did people do in the old days?”

Seth prodded the fire carefully. “When they weren’t working, you mean? Read. Sewed, since clothes were scarce and probably needed a lot of mending. Knit. Sat around the pianoforte singing. You don’t happen to have one of those, do you?”

“Sorry, no. I’m not particularly musical anyway. And I’m not very good at knitting.”

“Well, there are games—cards, backgammon, cribbage. Poker, if you want to be more modern. You have any games or cards?”

“Maybe, although I’d have to hunt for them. I never had time for that sort of thing in Boston. Everyone I knew was always working, and even when we had time off, we’d usually just go to a bar or restaurant or watch a DVD.”

“There are plenty of games at Mom’s house.”

“Seth Chapin, don’t you dare go out in this weather just to get a cribbage board or whatever! Worst case, we can make our own playing cards.”

“Now there’s the pioneer spirit!”

“Can we leave the fire unattended? Because I was thinking of baking something.”

“As long as there’s nothing flammable nearby, I think we’ll be okay—you’ve got a good, broad slate hearth here. Can I help?”

“You can lick the bowl, if I can figure out what dessert is.”

“Sounds good. Let me go downstairs and check that window, and you go start whipping up something in the kitchen.”

“Yes, master.”

While Seth poked around in the cellar—again—Meg inventoried her supplies. What was she in the mood for? The idea of peeling all those apples, and then trying to make a piecrust, had lost its charm. She wanted something solid and sugary. Not cookies: cake. Or gingerbread. Did she have molasses? She rummaged in her cupboards and triumphantly pulled out a sticky bottle.
Yes!

Seth came in, looking perplexed, as she was melting butter in a pan.

“What?” she asked.

“I don’t know why that window came open. The wood was pretty sound, all things considered, so it would have taken some real force to pull the eyebolt out, which is what happened. A freak gust, I guess. What’re you making?”

“Gingerbread. I thought it fit the scene. You know, real Currier and Ives stuff. You know anyone with a one-horse sleigh?”

“Sure, but he’s over in Hadley, remember? I don’t think he’ll be stopping by tonight.”

They spent a companionable hour cooking, or rather, Meg cooked and Seth watched and commented.

“You know, this is pretty sexist,” Meg said, as she slid the gingerbread into the oven and set the timer. “Me doing all the housework and you sitting there and kibitzing.”

“How about I wash the dishes?”

“Deal. I hate washing dishes. Was yours a traditional household? I mean, your mother cooking, your father doing the heavy stuff?”

“Kind of, even though Mom usually had a job. Well, early on she was working for Dad, doing the billing and accounting. She trained us kids to do a lot of the housework, although we bickered about it.”

“Forward-thinking woman,” Meg said approvingly. “I don’t think I ever saw my father with a sponge in his hand. We did have a cleaner who came in once a week. I know it sounds kind of pampered, and I guess it was. It was a rude shock when I started living on my own and realized that things got dirty and stayed that way until I did something about it.”

“You poor thing! So did you hire Merry Maids cleaners?”

“I did not! I learned. Good thing, or I’d be totally lost with this place. And now I’ve acquired even more skills. You ready for minestrone?”

“Starving.”

“Good.”

She fed Max and Lolly—putting Lolly’s dish on the countertop, since she didn’t trust Max not to scarf up any food he could reach—then dished up the minestrone. “I think there’s a bottle of wine in the fridge. Should I open it?”

“Why not? I promise you I’m not driving anywhere tonight.”

Meg realized she hadn’t heard a vehicle pass for quite a while—not even a snowplow. “I don’t think anyone else is either. Who orders the plows out? The selectmen?”

“You’re looking at one, remember. The answer’s yes, but the snow-removal budget has been cut each year for a while now. And right now, if we sent out the plows—all two of them—the snow would blow right back over the roads in minutes. It’s a judgment call, but the plan is to wait until morning and see what’s what. Of course, the state is responsible for the highways, so they’ll do Route 202—when they feel like it. Don’t hold your breath.” Seth dipped into his soup. “Hey, this is great.”

After dinner Seth cleaned up the dishes as promised. Back to the front parlor, Meg found that the fire had burned down to coals. It might have been sixty degrees in the room, but after passing through the unheated dining room it felt almost balmy. She’d managed to find a deck of cards in a drawer, and when Seth arrived they quibbled for a while, trying to find a card game in which they were evenly matched.

“Look, I played hearts in college, and then bridge, but we just weren’t into poker,” Meg grumbled. “Are we going to be reduced to Go Fish? War?”

“Kind of mindless, aren’t they? You ever tried Russian Bank? Spite and Malice?”

She shook her head. “I’ve never even heard of them. Did you play a lot of cards with your family?”

“On and off. Dad was always very competitive, and not particularly patient. But Mom and the three of us kids used to play, back in the Dark Ages before video games. I guess we kind of outgrew it. I know we stopped before I went to college.”

“My folks played with some regular bridge groups, but I didn’t have sibs, so that was kind of limiting—just three people. We did jigsaw puzzles for a while—I think Mother still has all of those, in the attic.” She hesitated a moment. “You know, we could just talk.”

Was it her imagination or did he stiffen slightly? “About what?”

“Don’t go all funny on me—that’s talk with a small ‘T,’ not a capital one. It’s just that you and I have been through a lot, some of it pretty intense, and we’ve been physically intimate, but there’s a lot I don’t know about you, or you about me. That’s all. I didn’t mean to make you uncomfortable.” When Seth didn’t answer immediately, she wondered if she’d done something wrong.

Finally he said, “Let me take Max out, and you can figure out whether you want to leave Lolly in the kitchen. Oh, and check the weather forecast one last time. Is there any of that wine left?”

“I think so. I’ve probably got another bottle.” Was that an agreement to talk, or an evasion?

“Good,” he said. He stood up abruptly and Max followed, and Meg could hear him putting his boots back on and slamming the door. She followed more slowly. If Lolly was going to stay in the parlor with them, she needed to bring the litter box along. The cat’s dish was empty, so she wasn’t hungry. Meg decided they might need all the warmth they could get, so she carried the box into the front room. It was definitely warmest in front of the fire, so Meg arranged the quilts and blankets in what looked like a large, messy nest on the floor, then went back to the kitchen. She found another bottle of wine and collected a corkscrew and two glasses and made another trip to the front of the house, setting them on a low table. Then back again to the kitchen. Seth and Max came in, and Meg shivered at the cold wind they brought with them.

“Still coming down hard,” Seth said, pulling off his boots. Max shook himself, scattering snow and water in all directions. “Did you check the news?”

“No, I forgot.” She turned on the television again, and they stood silently, watching. Every time Meg had tuned in today, the snowfall estimates had increased, and now they were saying at least thirty-six inches were expected, with a lot of drifting. And it wasn’t going to stop anytime soon. She turned to Seth. “Seen enough?”

“I think so. Come on, Max.” He went to the door to the dining room and opened it, holding it while Meg scooped up a protesting Lolly and turned off lights, then he opened the door to the front parlor and let them all pass before him.

“Do we have enough wood?” Meg asked.

“It’ll do. We may need to conserve it for tomorrow.”

“What, you’re not going to go out and chop a tree down?” When Meg put Lolly down, she prowled briefly around the room, locating her litter box, then returned and curled up on a blanket near the fire. Max settled himself on the other side of the fireplace, keeping a watchful eye on Lolly.

Meg looked at Seth and quailed inwardly. She was the one who had suggested “talking,” but now that they were here, alone, she felt nervous. Was she unhappy with the status quo? Did she want to change anything? Not really. But as she’d said to Seth, she felt that while they were very close in some ways, they were still near strangers in others. And time was a rare luxury in both their lives. Meg grabbed a blanket, wrapped it around herself, and pulled one of the battered armchairs closer to the fire.

Seth watched her for a moment, then followed suit. “What is it you want to know?”

“I don’t have an agenda. This isn’t an inquisition. It’s just that I know bits and pieces about you, but there are some large gaps. Can’t I be curious?”

“Is this one of those ‘where are we going’ talks?” he asked, neutrally.

“No, that’s not what I want. Or maybe it is, indirectly. I mean, if you’re hiding something important, I’d rather know sooner than later, before we get too involved.”

“What makes you think there’s anything to know?” His gaze returned to the fire.

Meg considered how to answer that question. “Look, I know Rachel, and I’ve met your mother, and I think they’re both great people.”

“And Stephen?” he asked, his voice tight. Meg knew he avoided mentioning his black-sheep younger brother.

“I know
about
Stephen, and a little about what made him the way he is. And now you’ve met both my parents and seen them, us, together. I’ll be the first to admit that I haven’t always judged them fairly, but I’m working on it. But, I guess—Seth, you hardly ever say anything about your father. Why is that?”

Seth got up to poke at the fire, threw on another log. “He’s dead. You know that. What’s to say?”

From his tone it was clear that Seth was trying to shut down the conversation, but Meg wasn’t willing to accept that. “As far as I can see, you have great relationships with both your mother and Rachel. You look out for them. In fact, you look out for just about everybody.”
Except yourself
, Meg wanted to add, but held back.

He finally looked at her. “What do you mean? I like to help people.”

Meg struggled to find the right words. “You know, when we first met, I had trouble figuring out whether you were helpful to me because you liked
me
, or because that’s the way you were with everybody. I’m not sure I’ve decided what the mix is, even now. And, I suppose more to the point, I know you were married once—heck, I’ve met your ex, remember?—but I don’t know why that didn’t work out. I mean, you’re great husband material. And of all the people I know, you should have kids. If we’re going to have any kind of long-term relationship, whatever it is, I’d like to know what went wrong.”

In the near-dark Seth sighed and sat back in his lumpy chair. “I told you, Nancy wanted bigger things than I did. She thought I was more ambitious than I turned out to be, and she wanted a different life, one beyond Granford. Is that a problem for you? That I like my life here? That I like the people here, and I’m happy to be able to be useful in some way?”

“No, Seth, that’s not what I’m saying,” Meg protested. “I admire you for it. But I guess the question is, where are
you
in the equation? Do you have what you want? Or are you so busy being big brother to the community that you lose sight of your own wants and needs?”

“Jesus, Meg, you sound like a therapist. And before you ask, yes, I have experience with therapy—Nancy and I tried it, back when things started falling apart. It didn’t really change either one of us. It just prolonged the breakup. Do we really need to talk about this?”