Here I Stay (14 page)

Martin had left Jim's door open. She could hear him snoring. He never snored unless he had had too much to drink. This wasn't the first time he had come home somewhat the worse for wear, but on the whole he had been relatively moderate in his drinking—or so she had believed. She'd had to work nights so often, and he had sometimes called to say he was spending the night with a friend... Of course
he got drunk. They all did. It was perfectly normal, an undesirable but unavoidable stage in growing up.

Jim sounded as if he were strangling. Andrea went to his door and looked in. Martin had left a night light on—a cracked, plastic Donald Duck that Jim had fished out of a box of old toys. Donald was campy and funny now...Or perhaps Jim now felt the need of light in his darkness.

Andrea straightened the blanket, drawing it up over Jim's bare shoulders. Martin had washed the dried blood from his chin and swabbed iodine on the worst of the raw spots. Under the marks of battle Jim's face was as peaceful as a child's. A faint frown of concentration wrinkled his forehead, as if he were working hard to produce those gargantuan snores.

"I love you so much," Andrea whispered. "Jimmie. I love you."

Jim turned onto his side. The snores subsided into soft, regular breathing.

Leaving the door open, Andrea went to her room and started to undress. It was not until she heard the crackle of paper in the pocket of her robe that she remembered the letter she had found in Jim's notebook.

She tried to resist. She fought the temptation successfully until she was actually in bed. Then she switched on the light and took the crumpled page out of the wastebasket, where she had thrown it.

It was not a letter. As she read the scrawled lines, an icy hand closed over her heart.

The map is here, before me. I traced the
lines

Heavy black ink, over the roads and rivers Showing the way I meant to go.

All useless now. Bridges fallen, roads washed out.

"Detour." Not that way. Find another route.

There are other lines. Other roads, other rivers.

They lead to pleasant places on the map.

Mountains to climb, heights I yet may reach.

Then why do I feel

Lost and worse than lost? A stranger in a strange old world.

Is there no map of the world where I belong?

Obviously Martin's work wasn't going well. Andrea felt a pang of guilt, but she was past caring. Jim came first, before anyone else in the world, and there was no one to whom she could turn for advice except Martin. She had knocked on his door
as soon as she heard him stirring that morning.

"You understand what it means, don't you?" she asked urgently. "Or am I reading too much into it?"

"What are you reading into it?"

She forced the word past her reluctant lips. "Suicide."

Maybe.

She stared at him in dismay. This was not the warm, comforting assurance she wanted: "Everything is going to be all right." She should have realized that that masterful untruth was something she would never get from Martin.

"I shouldn't have bothered you," she said, rising.

"What are friends for?" His smile warmed his face, smoothing out the lines of age and worry.

Andrea sank back in her chair. "Thank you for that. I don't think I deserve it. I haven't been friends with anyone for a long time. I'm not even sure what friendship is."

Martin struck a pose, like a bronze statue of an orator. "A friend," he intoned, "is someone who tries to pick you up when you fall down. And if he can't, he'll lie down beside you and listen."

"Who said that? Mark Twain?"

"Martin H. Greenspan. I just made it up. Andrea, I'll lie down and listen any time, but I'm out of my depth in this. I'll be damned if I want to take the responsibility."

"Just tell me what you think."

"I'm insane to commit myself," Martin muttered. "But I don't think this poem—not exactly great literature, is it?—is significant in itself. You know and I know that the suicide rate for Jim's age group is higher than that of any other; I won't deny that. But
they're a morbid little lot; they like to play around with the idea of death. This strikes me as a fairly typical outpouring. Didn't you ever write mournful verse?"

"No."

"Really? I did. I remember one effusion that began, 'O grisly specter, clattering bare white bones...' Mercifully I've forgotten the rest of it."

Andrea couldn't help smiling. "What had you been reading?"

"Lovecraft and Poe. Most of my early work was derivative."

"Much of your later work is going to die in the bud if I don't leave you alone," Andrea said. "Thanks. I feel better."

"Good." He put a casual hand on the smooth mound of Satan's back. Satan spat. After Andrea had gone, Martin looked at the cat. "You wouldn't lie down and listen, would you? Well, there are different varieties of friendship, I suppose. Satan, I don't know whether I'm playing it cool or cutting my own throat."

Satan rose, kicked a few papers onto the floor, turned his back on Martin, and went to sleep. Martin began gathering up his manuscript.

Andrea didn't need to be warned to leave Jim alone. She could remember how a full-blown hangover felt; compounded by aching bruises and a massive sense of guilt, it was something she wouldn't wish on her worst enemy. One ear cocked for sounds of life from Jim's room, she washed the breakfast dishes. Linnie had not come to work. Andrea was not surprised; Linnie had an instinct for self-preservation common to rodents and other crawling
creatures. She had been looking forward to firing Linnie.

Jim was still asleep when she finished in the kitchen and went to check the reservation book. It would be a busy week for her without help; she had a booking for midweek and a full house on Friday— and Reba coming on Thursday afternoon.

At least it had stopped raining. Sunlight streamed through the parlor windows and lay in a rainbow pool on the stairs, where the stained-glass window filtered the light. Steam rose from the lawn as the sun fought to dry out ground soaked by weeks of rain, but the air coming in the open door was fresh and crisp.

She looked up when she heard a car approaching. Almost immediately she recognized the distinctive wheezing of the engine. Jumping to her feet, she went to the door. That little bitch is in for a shock if she thinks she can stroll in two hours late and pretend nothing has happened, she thought angrily.

It was not Linnie who got out of the truck, but her father.

He appeared to be dressed for a formal call. His overalls were faded, but spanking clean, and his shirt collar was buttoned.

Prepared for battle with a whining girl, Andrea felt a qualm at the sight of what might well turn out to be an outraged father, metaphorical shotgun in hand.

At least she could count on Mr. Hochstrasser not to make a scene. He wasn't the yelling kind. In fact, he appeared to be more embarrassed than she; seeing her at the door he took off his worn cap and smiled stiffly.

"Morning, Miss Torgesen. Nice day, ain't it?"

Andrea gave the appropriate reply. "It's good to see the sun again. I hope the rain didn't ruin your crops."

"No, ma'am, I got my hay in long ago." He twisted the cap in his hands. "Could I speak with you a minute?"

"Come in." Mentally bracing herself, she held the door open.

"Maybe you wouldn't mind comin' out. I'm not dressed for your good furniture."

They sat down on the veranda, Andrea in the swing and Hochstrasser a respectful distance away, in one of the wicker chairs. He perched gingerly on the edge of the seat.

Andrea wouldn't give him the tactical advantage of speaking first, even though he was obviously having a hard time finding words. For him they were tools as difficult to handle as hammer and screwdriver had once been for her.

"This ain't easy to say," he began, after an interval of throat-clearing and coughing.

Andrea remained silent. After a further noisy interval Mr. Hochstrasser said, "I s'pose you heard about the fight."

"I saw some of the results," Andrea said, going on the offensive. "And how any man could be low enough to attack a person on crutches...I'm thinking of swearing out a warrant for assault."

"Well, now, ma'am, I wouldn't do that." An expression that might have been the beginning of a smile creased Hochstrasser's leathery cheeks. "From what I hear, Jim gave as good as he got. Maybe better."

"That has nothing to do with it."

"Well, now..." Hochstrasser's jaws moved
rhythmically as he groped for words. She felt sure he was not actually chewing tobacco; he would consider that rude in the presence of a lady. The movement was pure reflex, to help him think. "Well, now, it does, in a way. What I mean is, Jim's got respect now. The way he stood up to Gary Joe. I reckon Gary Joe would have licked him in the end, but the rest of the boys down to the Shamrock they wasn't going to stand for that. No, ma'am. Once they seen Jim was ready to fight, even though he's a cripple, they just piled in and threw Gary Joe out of there. If you was to go to law it would—that's to say, it wouldn't...What I'm getting at is—"

"I think I understand," Andrea said.

Courage was something she could understand, courage and the respect it won. Thanks to Martin's lecture she had gained some insight into the unwritten laws of the male world—an archaic society where violence was not the last resort, but a declaration of worth. Yes, she could understand it, even if she thought it was imbecilic in the extreme.

"An' if you're worried about Gary Joe, well, don't worry. He won't do nothing to Jim, not now. He lost a lot of respect."

"He's a violent young man, Mr. Hochstrasser."

"He'll end up in jail some one of these days," Hochstrasser agreed. "But I didn't come up here to talk to you about that, ma'am. It's Linnie."

Here it comes, Andrea thought, stiffening.

Hochstrasser did not expect a response. His eyes fixed on the toes of his shabby boots, he went on mournfully, "It ain't easy for a daddy to raise a girl right. The good Lord knows I done my best. Prayed over it a lot, I have. Someplace or other I must of gone wrong. She ain't bad, Linnie ain't. No, ma'am.

Get herself a nice young feller, settle down, with some babies, and she'll be jest fine."

"What young feller did you have in mind?" Andrea asked.

Hochstrasser's head jerked up. He stared at her, his eyes wide and his mouth ajar. Then he began to laugh. It was a creaking, rusty sound, as if he hadn't practiced it for a long time.

"You wasn't thinking I came to...By Jimminy, you was!" He shifted his weight and crossed one foot over the other knee. For the first time he seemed at ease; in fact, Andrea realized, he was now in control of the conversation. "No, ma'am," he went on, chuckling. "I left my shotgun at home, for sure. I wouldn't want my Linnie marrying the likes of Jim. Oh, not on account of his leg," he added hastily. "Known a lot of fellers make out fine with one leg, one arm. But he ain't Linnie's kind. They wouldn't be happy." A fresh explosion of laughter seized him. He slapped his knee. "No, ma'am, that's not what I come for. Just to tell you Linnie wouldn't be coming to work no more. I'm making her go back to school."

"That sounds like a good idea," Andrea muttered, redfaced and chagrined.

"Yes'm, I shouldn't of let her quit when she was sixteen. Girl with not enough to do is gonna get in trouble, that's sure as sunrise. Then she gets the young fellers in trouble too. Like Delilah in the Scriptures." Mr. Hochstrasser considered the fate of Samson in pensive silence. Andrea could almost hear him insisting that if Delilah's daddy had just kept her busy sweeping the temple and washing his robes she never would have got in no trouble.

"Yep, I reckon it was mostly Linnie's fault."

Hochstrasser rose. He had said what he had to say, and now he was going.

"Good day, ma'am. I hope this won't be no inconvenience to you."

"Good-bye," Andrea said.

She couldn't remember when she had last felt like such a fool. The farmer had put her firmly in her place—the place where women ought to be, too busy tending babies and husbands to get in trouble.

Her sense of humor finally fought free of the morass of chagrin that swamped her, and she began to laugh. The gulf that separated her from people like Hochstrasser was wider than she had even imagined; but he had cheered her—much more than Martin, with his windy aphorisms and cautious equivocations.

She went looking for Jim. She would tell him the story, even though the joke was on her. It would be a good way of breaking the ice, of assuring him that she was not going to condemn him for sowing a few wild oats.

He was not in his room. His trail led from the tumbled sheets of the bed to the dregs of a cup of black coffee on the kitchen table and out the back door, which stood ajar.

The sun was high overhead. The bland blue skies, spotted with whipped-cream clouds, innocently denied any memory of rain. Jim was nowhere in sight.

She knew where he had gone. How she knew she could not have explained, but she was certain of it. With the old feeling of shrinking reluctance, she walked toward the graveyard.