Storm Tide (43 page)

Sarah, curiously subdued, was ladling honey from a huge jar into little bowls for each section of table. Judith had only met Sarah once, when they had flown out to Phoenix—where Gordon was speaking—and visited her for an evening. Since then she had gotten divorced. Sarah had been distinctly unfriendly then and on the phone since, but not this time. She was blond and sharp-featured like her mother, Bev Caldwell, who had just arrived with her Texan husband, Buck. They had made reservations in Provincetown and announced they would leave when the tide went down, no matter what the time. Judith shrugged. Two less to bed down. She could move the teenage girls into that room.

It was the final assault on dinner for thirty-two. A turkey was in the oven at the Bechauds’ with Ben’s wife delegated to baste it. She had four chickens in her two ovens here. Another turkey and a chicken were at Jana’s. There were huge potato kugels baking that should be crisp and brown on the surface and inside, moist and oniony. She had made baba genoush and hummus yesterday, by the vat. The eight vegetarians would have plenty to eat. For fruit, pomegranates and an apple and carrot tsimmes redolent of cinnamon and nutmeg. The tsimmes had been cooked in the morning and would be reheated on the stove. All the umbrellas were lined up by the door for the use of anyone needing to cross the compound. The rain was coming in hard, at a forty-five-degree angle. It drummed on the roof.

The honey cakes had been baked the day before and were laid out under towels on top of the piano. Almost every couple had brought wine, some kosher, some not. She was sure Gordon did not care. Natasha distributed the bottles along the tables. Ben’s youngest boy laid the short ritual on every plate. Natasha and Judith had put it together on Friday and Mattie had photocopied it.

When everyone finally came to the table and was sorted out, she felt so taut she could scarcely sit. Natasha, beside her, whispered, “Relax. There’s nothing can go wrong now. The food is all cooked. The guests
are all here. Everyone’s complained about the weather. Now let’s get on with it.”

David had arrived sometime in the last twenty minutes. She had been too busy to notice. He was sitting between Natasha and Stumpy. All Gordon’s ex-wives were there except his first, who had died in an auto accident. His children were present, and his grandchildren, including those not of his blood (ex-husbands and ex-wives who had married and multiplied) but still of his mishpocheh. Only Dan and his family were missing, and they had come the weekend before. Colleagues, comrades from old battles, drinking companions. Only eight invited had failed to show, and five of those had come over Labor Day. Thus Gordon even at the end commanded loyalty and affection from those who had known him, who had put up with him, who had enjoyed him.

Judith and Natasha rose and lit the candles, blessed the wine and the challah, and almost everyone sang the Shechecheyanu, the Blessing for the New Season. She was amused to hear Stumpy’s loud uncertain baritone raised in song. He had heard it so many times over the years, he had learned it. Everyone dipped slices of apple in honey for the new year to be abundant and sweet. Then the pomegranates. The younger kids began spitting the seeds at each other and painting themselves scarlet with the juice. Outside, the storm was an audible roar. Occasionally a branch broke with a thump, or something hit the side of the house. Please, please, please don’t let the power go out, she prayed each time the lights flickered. There would be no water from the well, no functioning toilets, no way to wash dishes. Please, she begged, keep the power on until the last one of them leaves.

She stood at the midpoint on the table that was raised a little from the others and presided, as she had over so many feasts and rituals since she had come to this house. Gordon had not been observant, but had gone along with her, and then had gradually come to count on the holidays. At first there had been some resistance. Now his older children—older than she—asked her questions about preparing for their children’s bar and bat mitzvahs, about how to put on their own holidays when they did not come to hers.

“Gordon wants me to tell you tonight that I will go on living here after he is gone from among us, and that you will always be as welcome in this house and on this land as you have been before I ever came here. We both want you to know that.”

Gordon managed to nod.

“It’s hard for him to speak now, so I have to speak for both of us.”
Once she and Gordon had thought that when the time came to say goodbye to his family, David would stand beside her and they would all meet him as a family member. So they had dreamed, in their arrogant fantasies. She glanced briefly at him where he sat between Natasha and Stumpy. Several at the table were in tears. David was staring at her with his intense gray eyes in his tanned face. People helped themselves to the fish and the chicken livers, and the meal began.

Gordon was propped up in a big chair. He could speak little and simply watched and dozed off, watched and dozed off. He was skeletal by now. His head, too large for his body, lolled on his wasted neck. His skin was gray with a bluish tone. It was impossible to look at him and not think of death. Ben sat on his right side and Larry on his left. Larry looked extremely nervous. Ben was solicitous. His role of the good loyal son was one he had played with comfort for many years. She was grateful to Ben.

She and Natasha went out to the kitchen to start serving the main part of the meal. Gordon used to insist on carving every bird himself. Now Ben had been recruited. David pressed into the kitchen behind him. “I can help carve. I know how.”

“Why not?” She was arranging platters that Natasha, Jana and Ben’s wife were carrying out. The kugels would be served in their baking dishes and cut up at each table. Ben was carving one turkey as David attacked the other. Ben was faster. In the meantime, she cut up the roasted chickens and set out platters of vegetables that had been cooked with them, carrots and onions and heads of garlic, aromatic and almost caramelized. Sarah appeared, tentative, and Judith gave her the vegetarian dishes to lay out. Ben finished his turkey and went to serve it. At once, David paused in his carving and turned to her.

“Judith, I have to talk to you. You haven’t answered my calls.”

“Natasha! Take the last platter of chicken out. David, please finish carving. This is no time for talk. Let’s get the food on the tables.” She didn’t feel particularly motivated to hear his explanations. What was, was. But Gordon wanted a friendship, so she would put up with some self-justification—after the meal was over, after all was done and done well.

For the most part, the dinner went smoothly. There was a screaming match between Sarah’s daughter and her ex-husband’s wife’s son; there were wineglasses tipped over and unlikely flirtations. Ben’s sixteen-year-old daughter was doting on Larry. Incest aside, their levels of emotional maturity were a match, she thought. Everyone ate too much and seemed relatively content. Gordon lay on the sofa where Ben and Larry had carried him and smiled vaguely around him. He drank some wine
and ate a bite of turkey and of kugel. Then he lay back, exhausted. But he was still smiling.

After dinner, people sang around the piano Ben’s son was playing while Larry beat congas ineptly. Some sat reminiscing or arguing or boasting. Ben and Mark put the living room back. Breakfast would be a more informal meal, and most of the guests would be leaving throughout the day tomorrow. Judith was overseeing clean-up. David helped, but whenever she let him catch her eye, he projected an urgency she could not manage to ignore much longer.

He finally caught her as she started the dishwasher with the first load. “Judith, I need to talk to you. There’s no use saying there isn’t any ‘us.’ For me, there is.”

Ben’s wife and his son’s girlfriend were carrying in plates. “All right. Wait for me in my shack. I’ll get away when I can. I don’t know when that will be. We can talk
briefly
.”

When she had cleaned up as much as she could (she had run the dishwasher through two cycles and would do more in the morning), Judith ran to make sure Gordon was all right. Ben and Stumpy had carried him to his bed. There he lay in the sleep of the heavily drugged. Portnoy was curled around his head like a gray fur cap. The cat blinked at her, but Gordon did not wake. He was exhausted. She hoped this last goodbye had been worth the drain on him.

She came back into the kitchen intending to head for her shack. Sarah was sobbing. Natasha, who had been comforting her, began to cry. Kids were rushing through the kitchen. Jana was looking for her roaster pan. Judith found it and then coaxed Sarah and Natasha into her bedroom and shut the door.

“He’s really going to die!” Sarah moaned. “I can’t stand it.”

Judith stroked her back and held her, but she could think of little to say. For the last thirteen years, Sarah had seen her father exactly twice. She longed to disentangle from Sarah and go to Natasha, whose tears simply would not stop. Judith felt exhausted, but she had to summon the strength to comfort both women. It was her role. She did not know if she hoped David would wait for her or give up. She only wished there were someone who could hold her and comfort her as she was soothing Natasha and Sarah.

J
OHNNY

    Johnny saw her first in the drop of Ralph Petersen’s jaw, the way he strained halfway across the table to get a better look. Johnny had been dozing through the meeting, thinking of leaving, not that he had anywhere to go but home alone. With barely a quorum present, the selectmen were slogging through a utility pole hearing when discussion stopped. Crystal stood in the open door with the boy pressed to her hip, tears mixed with raindrops streaming down her cheeks. Even before he’d followed Petersen’s gaze, Johnny had caught the scent of her rose perfume, heard the clack of her boots on the gray tile floor. Crystal didn’t see him wave her over, but stared at the table of three selectmen and two empty chairs. The boy saw Johnny and tugged at her, but she wouldn’t move.

Johnny read the expression on her face. He’d caught glimpses of it in the office, when Crystal was upset, but he’d seen it in his wife every time she took ill. That’s what scared him. That inability to move, the hopeless glaze, the lips forming sentences only the speaker herself could hear. All he needed was one of his girls going batty in the Town Hall assembly room.

“Ah, you made it, dear,” Johnny said for the benefit of the curious. “You finished typing up that brief for me, then. Bless you for bringing it in a rain like this.” He took her elbow and steered her to the door.

Although the boy was properly dressed in a yellow slicker with a hood, Crystal’s denim jacket was soaked through. She hadn’t even thought to wear a hat. Her hair dripped in pale strands down her face. He whispered, “What’s going on? Do you mind telling me what you’re doing here?”

It was the boy who answered. “Looking for David. But he’s not here.”

“I couldn’t find him.” She wasn’t talking to Johnny or the boy but to herself. “He wasn’t at work or the barn or his mother’s house. He’s not here.”

“What’s the fuss, dear? You know you can’t be a millstone around a young man’s neck.”

“He’s on the island,” she said. “With her.”

“Well, if that’s true, I think there’s a good reason for it.”

“What do you mean?” she said, meeting his eyes for the first time.

The lobby was empty but voices carried in this old building. Years
ago he’d had a conversation in the men’s room that was all over Town Hall before he zipped up his fly. “Have you eaten?” Johnny asked, first Crystal, and when he got no response, the boy. “Have you had a good dinner, my friend?”

“French fries and a hamburger.”

“Well, that’s more than I’ve had. How about a little dessert? Would you and your mother be my guests?”

The boy shuffled his feet. He was unsure but sensible. Anything that might cheer up his mother. “Can we?”

“I’ve got some movie videos my grandchildren used to like. I think we can find something.” The boy seemed eager. “Why don’t you just follow me home. I’ll pick up some ice cream. What’s your favorite flavor? Let’s have a little party.”

“A party for what?” Crystal said.

“Just follow me home.” Johnny smiled, eager to share the news.

In the past few years of living alone, Johnny made little use of his recreation room, spending his time in his living room between the TV and the mini bar. He’d stopped shooting pool and never looked at the autographed photos of his favorite baseball stars, the big model of the schooner, the basketballs signed by six Celtic championship teams. The little boy followed Johnny downstairs as if entering Santa’s workshop. His eyes were wide as quarters as he turned around and around, stepping toward the trophy case and then the ship in full sail.

Johnny took him by the shoulder. “You like it, then?”

The boy nodded, shy but enthusiastic.

“How about I set you up with a bit of ice cream and a good movie while I talk to your mother upstairs?”

“What movie?” Laramie settled himself on the Naugahyde couch.

“Here’s a good one,” Johnny said. “
Star Wars
, would you like to see that?”