South of Superior (40 page)

“You want me to read you a story?”

“Okay.” He sighed and she smoothed a flop of bangs away from his forehead.

“What'll it be tonight?”

“I don't care. Whatever you pick.”

Madeline read from the
Song of Hiawatha
, whose rhythms had been so entrancing to her at his age. Outside the wind had picked Up another notch and was howling around the building with an insistence that was a little alarming. Thrilling too, though. “‘
By the shore of Gitche Gumee, by the shining Big-Sea-Water
,' ” Madeline recited, the roar of the lake and the moan of the wind seeming a fitting backdrop to Longfellow's poem.

After Greyson dropped off to sleep she curled Up on the couch with a sketchbook and found herself drawing Ada's cabin. She frowned at the picture, but how unsurprising that this is what her hand would choose. In quiet moments her thoughts lit on her family, on Jackie and Joe and Walter and Ada. She thought of the little skunk in Ada's journal, so alive and mischievous. No matter what else had happened, this was something they had in common, Ada and Madeline. And Joe.

Maybe she would find one of Joe's caricatures somewhere, someday.

This Unexpected thought—startling in its arrival, its matter-of-factness, in the forgiveness it implied—brought with it a sudden, Unlooked-for sense of peace.

Maybe it would not be impossible after all to keep her word to Emmy.
Promise me you'll try and forgive the man
.

She headed downstairs after a while, thinking of cocoa, but stopped on the way at Room Five. Jackie's room, according to Gladys. It was the same as all the others. Floral wallpaper, a light dangling from a cloth cord, a bed and dresser and chair, a rope fire escape coiled on the floor beneath the window. Had Jackie ever Used it to sneak out? Probably. Madeline went and grabbed the rope—thick scratchy hemp anchored to the floor by a massive bolt, with knots tied in it every few feet—and tugged. Still solid. Every room had one. Maybe this was the only one that had ever been Used.

She could, if she squinted, see a girl flinging her books on the bureau, scrambling out of her school clothes and into something more fun. How prisonlike this room must've seemed in 1973, when Jackie was burning with energy and youth and frustration. When the world outside was happening, and nothing at all was going on in McAllaster, never had been and never would be, in the mind of a sixteen-year-old girl. Or maybe instead it had been a release from the tensions at 512 Pine Street.

Something was banging against the building. She went to the window to see if she could tell what it was, but it was too dark to be sure. Maybe a tree branch. After a moment the banging stopped, though the wind howled on. Madeline closed the door and continued toward the kitchen.

While she was putting the kettle on, the phone on the registration desk rang. “Madeline?” Gladys's voice came tetchy over the wire. “Is that you?”

“Yes.” Who else?

“Are you all right?”

“Yes, why?”

“Oh, this wind. My power's gone out.”

“Mine's on.”

Gladys grunted. “I wondered about those old apple trees in the yard. They're so close to the dining room windows.”

“I think they're okay. I didn't hear anything. You want me to go check?”

“My dad planted those.”

“I'll go take a look.”

“No, don't. You'd have heard if a limb cracked off, I'd think. And what would you do about it, anyway? No, stay inside.”

“All right.”

Gladys was quiet then. Madeline tried to figure out what it was she really wanted. Maybe she was just Unnerved by the wind and the loss of her electricity. “Do you—”

“It's just wind,” Gladys broke in, as if Madeline had been the one to call her. “A November gale. It was like this the night the
Fitzgerald
sank. I'm going to bed, goodnight.”

Do you want me to come up there?
was what Madeline had been going to ask, but Gladys had already hung Up.

 

 

In the tiny hours
of the morning, Paul stood in the street staring at a mishmash of shingles and rafters and two-by-fours and clapboard and tree limbs and branches. His pizzeria, his loved and hated pizzeria, smashed. He couldn't get his mind around it.

“You okay?” John Fitzgerald asked. His face and gear were littered with sawdust. He'd been sawing Up maple limbs and branches for the better part of two hours, ever since Paul'd called the volunteer fire department in to help him make sure the tree that had come down wasn't going to bring any other surprises, like a fire from downed wires. So far, so good, on that score. But as for Garceau's—the kitchen, anyway, where the damage was the worst—it was a disaster.

Paul nodded, although he was not okay, not at all.

“You want to come stay with the wife and me for the rest of the night?”

Paul shook his head.

John considered this, and then he said, “I think you better.”

 

 

Two days later
Paul called Jim and told him he'd be ready to start in a week. He gave his notice at the prison, put in a forwarding order for his mail, told his suppliers he'd pay them off as he could, put the Fairlane in storage, and notified the water company and the phone and electric and gas companies that Garceau's was history. He hauled truckloads of debris and ruined equipment to the landfill in Crosscut, got a couple of guys to help him patch Up the roof and wall as best he could with plywood and tarpaper and tarps, and barred the doors and windows so no one could sneak in and get hurt. He was operating in a haze, but a methodical haze.

He avoided everyone while he made his arrangements, especially Greyson and Madeline. They tracked him down a couple of times, but he pleaded busyness, something pressing he had to do, somewhere he had to be, and shuffled them away before anything of consequence could be said, or asked.

It was a lousy way to act, but necessary. He was a turtle drawing into his shell. He knew it, he knew it wasn't fair, but he had to do it. Turtles had shells for a reason. He saw himself now as a man who had been drowning gradually, sinking Under an ever-increasing weight. The mammoth old maple cracking through the kitchen roof and wall was the last stone on the pile; it put him Under.

He walked from John's to the hotel on the day he was leaving, a sunny November afternoon, Unseasonably mild. It was hard to believe that just a week ago a gale had been blowing. Hard to believe that in a few minutes he'd be headed down the highway. He switched the thought off. Madeline and Greyson were sitting in rockers on the porch.

“Hello, Mr. Garceau,” Greyson said.

“Afternoon, Mr. Hopkins.” Paul tried a smile out on Greyson, but it fell flat. He couldn't manage to make it real, and Greyson didn't even pretend he was interested in joking around.

His expression was very serious. “I'm sorry about the wind blowing the tree down and wrecking your kitchen.”

“Me too, buddy. Me too.”

“What will you do?” Madeline asked. She had a shirt that must be Greyson's in her lap, and it looked like she was trying to mend it.

“I'm going downstate. I came to say goodbye.”

“Oh,” Madeline said, looking dismayed.

Paul transferred his attention to Greyson. “I'll miss you, kid.”

Greyson nodded, biting his lip.

“I'll write to you. You write back, tell me how you're doing. I'll call, too.”

“But you aren't moving away for good, right? It's just for the winter?” Greyson looked at him anxiously, and Paul didn't know what to say. A lot of people went away for the winter, for work or warmer weather, it wasn't unusual. It'd be easier for Greyson to think that. And by the time spring came—maybe he'd have forgotten Paul, more or less. Didn't kids do that? Bounce back, adjust?

“Yeah, I might be back in the spring.”

Madeline was frowning, and he knew what she was thinking
. Don't get his hopes up if that isn't true, he's had enough disappointments. Just be honest.
That was fair, but Paul couldn't do it. Faced with leaving the boy, the lie made Paul feel better too, was the truth of it.

Greyson scrambled from his rocker. “I'm going to get you something to take with you. Wait, I'll be right back.”

Paul nodded.

“I'm sorry too,” Madeline said quietly. “Gladys told me she heard you were moving, but I guess I didn't believe it. You know how rumors are.”

“The damage is bad. You can see.”

“I know. But—don't you have insurance?”

Paul didn't want to talk about what insurance might or might not pay out, or how he might be able to rebuild. He was leaving, period. Part of him yelled
No, stop
, at every turn, but it was the only thing left to do.

“What happened?” Madeline asked when he didn't answer her first question.

“The wind brought that old maple on the west side down. It's my own fault. I should have had it taken down years ago. It was rotten at the core and I knew it. But I loved it. I loved the shade. And then there was a leak in the roof I never got around to fixing. The wall was pretty rotten, worse than I realized, and it just gave.”

Madeline grimaced in sympathy. “You were there, right?”

“Sleeping. The first crack of it breaking woke me Up.”

“Scary.”

Paul shrugged. “Yeah, well. It's my own fault.”

“It was a wind,” Madeline protested. “A wind like the wind that sank the
Fitzgerald
, is what Gladys said.”

“I knew that tree was rotten. I knew the roof was leaking. I just didn't do anything about it. I deserve whatever I get for being so stupid.”

“You can't blame yourself, it doesn't do any good,” Madeline said. She knew this from experience.

“It's a miracle it didn't happen a long time ago. This was just so damned Unnecessary.”

Madeline saw that he was not going to be talked out of his guilt and regret. She reached Up and took his hand. “I'm really sorry.”

He'd heard this so many times that he couldn't respond to it again.

“Hey,” she said, shaking his hand to get his attention. “I mean it.”

“I know,” he said, staring off across the water.

“Do you really think you'll be back in the spring?”

He looked at her then. Her eyes seemed full of sympathy, a willingness to Understand. “I don't know. The truth is, I was thinking about going anyway.”

Madeline took her hand back and poked her needle in and out of the fabric of Greyson's shirt a few times. Without looking Up she said, “Greyson's going to hate this.”

“Me too.” Paul rubbed the back of his hand against his face, then took off his glasses and scrubbed at his eyes. He thought about taking off, avoiding this. But no, he had to wait for Greyson.

“You've been so much help.”

“No big deal.” He could hardly get the words out.

“Ha. All that drywall! And the time you spend with Grey. This will be hard.”

“I know. I'm sorry. I'm going to miss him like crazy.”

“Randi was in such a bad mood the other day. I guess this is why.”

Paul looked at the top of Madeline's head, her short dark hair, the curve of her neck. He swallowed back a feeling that wanted to burst out of him, an emotion that would interfere with the course he'd laid out for himself in the last few days. “Randi got rid of me awhile back.”

Madeline's head shot Up then, and her expression was gratifyingly baffled. “What?
Why?
You have to be the best thing that's ever happened to her.”

He couldn't help but laugh, a real laugh. Something inside him felt less weighted down for an instant. “She didn't see it that way.”

“Well, then she's blind. Anyway, I'm sorry.”

“Don't be.”

“You're too old for her anyway.”

“Thanks!”

“I didn't mean—I meant she's too young for you.”

“Great.” Paul made it sound sour, but he was smiling. He was going to miss Madeline. Greyson, Madeline, the smell of the water always in the air, the outlines of this town that had become so familiar, everything. He couldn't think about it.

The door of the hotel opened and Greyson came out holding something in his hand. A kaleidoscope. He held it out to Paul. “This is like looking at the stars,” he said. “Only you can look anytime, even when it's light. It's really cool, you want me to show you how it works?”

 

 

A great quietness
descended over Madeline after Paul left.

“I'm going Upstairs,” Greyson said, sounding flattened. Madeline nodded, but pretty soon she decided this was no good. She trotted Up the stairs and banged on his door and flung it open. He was lying on his bed, staring Up at the ceiling, tossing a rubber ball in the air. “Come on, get Up.” She grabbed his ankle and shook it.

“I don't want to.”

“Too bad. There's someplace we have to go.”

“Where?” he said, without interest.

“It's a secret. Put on your shoes.”

“Don't want to.”

“Too bad,” she said again. She went to her own room to get a knapsack, and after a moment heard his feet hit the floor.

 

 

It was dark
before they got back. Madeline fixed grilled cheese sandwiches with the last of her energy, and watched Greyson nearly nod off over his plate. “Go on, get ready for bed,” she told him when he'd finished eating. “I'll be Up in a few minutes.”