South of Superior (39 page)

“What?”

“You're not going to like this.”

“What?”
Madeline leaned toward Gladys, wishing the story was a fish she could yank Up out of her on a line.

Gladys traced patterns on the oilcloth with one finger. Then she said, “The driving back and forth got to be too much, come winter. He needed a place for her to stay, to board.”

Madeline stared at Gladys. “And?”

“I still had the hotel open in those days and I—Joe—well. Jackie stayed with me during the week, went home on the weekends. Sometimes.” Gladys made a face. “That girl went her own way, there just was not a thing you could do when she got her mind set. Anyway. Joe paid a little, and I gave Jackie her meals as well as a place to sleep. That's when Joe and I first got acquainted, though that's all it was then, just being acquainted.”

Madeline was speechless. She took a gulp of coffee, wanting the jolt of it, the hot scald down her throat.

Gladys looked defensive. “You needn't look at me like that. Boarding wasn't all that Uncommon. Two other students did it too, they lived too far out in the woods to go back and forth every day.”

Madeline nodded, and resisted shouting,
That is not the point and you know it.

Gladys hurried on. “Joe was just determined that Jackie would graduate. But of course she didn't. Back in those days a pregnant girl didn't go to school the way they do now. So that was that. I've often wondered if that wasn't why she did it. To get the best of Joe. And to get out of going to school. She was no scholar, I have to say. She was bright, don't get me wrong. Smart as a whip, just no good at schooling. It didn't make any sense. I don't know if she was just stubborn or if she really could not read, the way it seemed.”

“Couldn't read.”

Gladys shrugged. “That's how it seemed. Or could barely read. I always tried to make sure the boarders were doing their schoolwork. And for such a bright girl it just didn't make any sense.”

“Didn't they do any testing?”

“Testing?”

“For a learning disability.”

“There was nothing wrong with Jackie, not like that. She was wild, that was all. And no one would want to get stuck with a label like that anyway. Why, the kids would have called her a retard, the way they did Walter. They probably did anyway, just because he was her Uncle.”

“Probably,” Madeline said, feeling faint. She was dizzy, and she put her head down on the table.

“Madeline?”

Madeline didn't lift her head. Jackie Stone came walking toward her, a tiny figure from out of a far distance. Maybe she'd been dyslexic. Madeline knew a little about that. Dwayne's daughter Candice was dyslexic, and the struggles they went through had been awful. Smart as a whip, like Gladys just said, but virtually Unable to read. It had taken batteries of tests to figure it out, and now a very sophisticated teaching system to help her. Before she got diagnosed she'd been on a constant roller coaster of emotion: furious, demanding, rebellious, Unpredictable. The whole family had been at the mercy of the problem. It was a nightmare Until they figured it out.

Maybe it had been like that for Joe and Jackie. Something was wrong, they didn't know what. It would have seemed to Joe like good old-fashioned
bad
ness on Jackie's part. And Jackie—maybe she never knew why she did the things she did, felt the way she felt. It was all speculation now, no one would ever know. It was a sad little tragedy. How to come to terms with
that
?

“I
tried
to keep an eye her,” Gladys was saying, her voice querulous. “But you can't watch people all the time, you can't control a girl who's just intent on trouble.”

“You blame yourself,” Madeline said, lifting her head.

“She was staying with me! She was my responsibility. I ran a tight ship with my boarders, I paid attention.”

“I'm sure you did.”

“And still somehow she managed—”

“Who was the father? My father?” Maybe after all someone did know. But Gladys was shaking her head.

“Jackie just would not say a thing about it and I think—I'm afraid—” She faltered to a stop.

“Say it, Gladys.”

Gladys did, after a moment. “Well, I wouldn't be surprised if it was someone passing through. Someone she met Up at the tavern. She was always slipping in there to play pool, and
I
couldn't stop her. No one could.”

Madeline told herself that this was not news, there was no Use dwelling on it. “So why was I born here and not in Crosscut?”

“She wouldn't go home, at first. She just wouldn't. She moved in with a girlfriend of hers, Cindy Tate. Cindy and her mother lived here just for a short time. Her mother worked at the tavern. She was a sloppy kind of woman, she never cared what Cindy did. Anyway. You were born while Jackie was staying with them. Then Cindy's mother quit the tavern and they moved and I suppose Jackie didn't have anywhere to go but home.”

Madeline nodded.

“She left when you weren't very old—only two, I think. I suppose she just couldn't stick it any longer—living at home, having to go by Joe's rules, having a little one—” Gladys shook her head. “I never liked Jackie, Madeline. I hate to say it so plain, but it's the truth. I didn't like her and I hated what she did to you. But she was young, and she was full of life, and—well, I can feel for her, in a way.”

Madeline nodded. So could she. She didn't want to, she never had wanted to, but—maybe a little, now, she could. Maybe she didn't have any choice.

Gladys took a swallow of coffee. “I ran into Joe at the fiddle jamboree that summer, and I suppose he was lonely. I was too. I always felt for him, trying to raise a girl alone.” She looked lost in memory. “My land, he could play that fiddle.”

“Where was Walter all this time?”

Gladys came out of her reverie. “He moved into the AFC when his mother died. That was a year or so before you were born. Joe was off working too much to take care of him the way she had, and it would have been just awfully lonely for Walter.”

“So what happened to everything? The place out on Stone Lake, the house on Pine Street?”

“Joe sold it all, every last bit of it, when he moved in with me. He didn't need the house anymore, and then too I think there were so many memories there. I think he wanted a clean slate.” Gladys swallowed more coffee, cut off another bite of pie and ate it. As if the story was told, and that was the end, and a pretty satisfying end at that.

“A clean slate.”

“A person can want that anytime in life, you know.” Gladys frowned and got Up from the table. She began rinsing the plates in the sink.

The dark feeling she'd been pushing away overtook Madeline. “So what happened to the money? Did he ever think how hard it was for Emmy to make ends meet with me to take care of? She never had anything. She could only afford our apartment because she'd been there forever and it was in such bad shape when she got it, and it was
hard
. And he was what—living off his girlfriend? That's not right.”

Gladys spun around. “He put everything in a trust for Walter. Walter didn't have
any
one else. Who on earth was going to look after him when Joe was gone? That worried him more than anything. And he was proud. He didn't want Walter dependent on the State for everything.”

Gladys's fists were clenched and her eyes were bright and Madeline was sorry in a distant way to have caused this Upset, but more than that she felt a stubborn mutiny. Gladys shook a crooked finger at Madeline. “Joe took care of Walter. That's what he did with the money. From the house and the land and everything else he could set aside! He
never
lived off me, and it's a lucky thing he's not around to hear you say that. He worked hard all his life, Madeline Stone, harder than most people ever will. He had less than most people today can even imagine, and he still took care of Walter.”

Madeline said nothing. There had been a surge of rage in her gut, in her
soul
, it seemed, to hear those words,
Joe took care of Walter.
None of the Stones had ever looked after her. At last she said, with tears that she resented brimming in her eyes, “Walter's a really special person. I'm glad he was taken care of. And I'm glad I get to know him.” It was the truth, and it was the best she could do.

Gladys gradually relaxed, but she didn't look happy. Eventually she went back to rinsing the dishes and Madeline got ready to leave. It seemed as if they'd lost the little bit of ground they'd gained between them.

 

 

Back at the hotel,
Madeline put Greyson to bed and then wished she had his company. She stood in the sitting room studying a painting she'd been working on, the lake framed in the attic window. She'd been trying to show just enough of the room to give its flavor, plain and austere, then outside that vast expanse of water. That was life, right? That juxtaposition of in and out, home and nature, tame and wild. She had no idea whether it was good or not. She was sick of questioning it. It was what it was. Paint on canvas.

She stretched out on the sofa and pulled an afghan (a housewarming gift from Arbutus) over her legs. Moonlight fell through the window, and she watched it as if it were a visitor, a companion. She remembered something Mary Feather had said one day.
What you have to do here, is accept.
She thought of Stone Lake. Dried Up, the long grasses waving in the wind. She had wanted water there. But she'd accepted no water, and felt the beauty of it.

She thought of Jackie Stone, a wild, troubled girl who threw herself out Upon the world and was devoured by it. She'd died in Denver, Colorado, when Madeline was seven. The police said it was heart failure, probably brought on by drugs and hard living. Emmy didn't tell her Until she was older.

After a long time, Madeline closed her eyes. Eventually she slept.

A few hours later she woke Up to a presence beside her—who? Oh, Gladys. Perched on the edge of the couch. Madeline rubbed her face, scooted into a sitting position. “What's wrong?”

“I couldn't sleep.”

“Oh.” Madeline rubbed her eyes, still confused. “Are you okay?”

“I'm fine.” Gladys patted her hand, and then held it. “I came to say I'm sorry.”

“Oh.”

“I don't know what to tell you about Joe, or Jackie. I don't like to bring Up a lot of bad old history, I guess.”

Madeline listened as Gladys talked. Joe Stone had a lot of responsibility young. That wasn't unusual, in this place, in that time. Maybe it made him a little hard, but it also enabled him to survive. He worked in the woods, helped look after his mother and Walter, got married, had a child. His wife ran off when the child was young, and Joe did the best he could to look after her, but the girl grew Up wild.

Maybe it was in her genes, maybe it was because her father didn't know what to do with her, maybe it was the times, but either way, Jackie was out of control. She did all kinds of things Joe didn't want her to do. Worst of all, she was horrible to Walter. Also, she ran around with men. The two of them fought morning, noon, and night. Even so, when Jackie got pregnant it wasn't the last straw. “I think he was delighted with you. It was before my day, but I got that feeling, the little we talked about it.”

“Why did she leave?”

“He never said. It could have been anything. But it
was
the last straw. It may not seem so to you, but he tried in his own way to do the right thing by her, over and over. And that last time, he just said no. It wasn't something he talked about. But I knew Joe. She broke his heart. That last time he closed the door.”

“But I was a
child
. It could've been horrible. It's a miracle it wasn't.”

“I know. He should have tried to take you. I always thought he should. It bothered me so—but he would not budge. A man like Joe doesn't change his mind. And I wasn't family. There wasn't a single thing I could do about it.” Gladys's voice had turned fretful, defensive. Uncertain. That was so Unexpected that Madeline couldn't think how to respond.

“You sent all those cards,” she said after a moment.

“That was nothing.”

“It was decent of you.”

“It only seemed right. But it seemed like nothing too. Ridiculous. A Band-Aid on a severed limb.”

“I wonder why he was so afraid of me. A little kid.”

Gladys worked her fingers in the crochet-work of the blanket Arbutus had made. “I think he was terrified of having it happen all over again. And a man like Joe doesn't admit being scared of anything. Not even to himself.”

“Scared of getting his heart broken?”

“Scared of failing. That's how he saw it. He'd failed with Jackie. Didn't bring her Up right. Didn't know how. Couldn't go through it all again.”

It seemed a poor excuse to Madeline. But maybe she could Understand, just a little. She stared off into space. Overall the story was not surprising. Just one with an overabundance of human frailty. No heroes or villains, exactly. Just people who'd done what they'd done, too late to change any of it, and in the end that wasn't the worst news in the world.

O
n a very windy night soon after, after a long sprint of cleaning and errand-running and taking Greyson to see Randi (and feeling exasperated with Randi, Madeline's good intentions of seeing her good side, sympathizing with her pain and depression, flown out the window in the face of Randi's ill humor), Madeline fixed the easiest thing she could think of for supper, hamburgers, and made Greyson succumb to a bath. When he was shiny with cleanliness and in bed, she snuggled the comforter Under his chin with a sense of relief. One step at a time, they had survived another day. He gave her a peaked smile. He was worn out by the visit to Randi and so was she.