The Lighthouse Road (32 page)

   "Well, I've much business at the boat club."

   "At six o'clock in the morning? On a Sunday?"

   "You ask as though you're suspicious of me."

   "I ain't suspicious, just curious."

   Sargent smiled. "The truth is, I was there to offer you this job. The boatyard custodian is a neighbor of mine. We met in the alleyway on Saturday night, putting the trash out. He told me about your boat, said I ought to see it. So I came to see it, and here we are."

   "Why'd he say that?"

   "You're not aware of what you've accomplished, are you? You don't see the beauty in that vessel you built."

   "I see a cockpit. A little more room for fish boxes. A heavier keel in big water."

   "A heavier keel. Precisely."

   "You're speaking in riddles, Mister Sargent."

   "There's no riddle at all, Odd. You built something worth seeing.

I thought I'd take a look. The rest of it, the fact that we've become friends, that you've ended up here —" he knocked on the wooden wall of his shop —"that's just the Lord working in strange ways."

   "Strange ways indeed," Odd said.

   "I'm just glad it worked out, son. Now, in honor of the birth of our Lord Jesus Christ, take the rest of the day off. I'm closing the shop early today." Sargent took a step toward the shop door but stopped. He turned back to Odd. "And tell Rebekah I send my congratulations, will you?"

   "I will. Thanks."

W
hat Odd found when he returned to their brownstone could have felled him. There was Rebekah, sitting on the davenport stringing popcorn, a short and misshapen Christmas tree standing in the window. He stood in the doorway, smiling, dumb, holding the packages he'd stopped to buy on the way home like some kind of working-class Saint Nick.

   After a moment Rebekah stood and crossed the small apartment. "Hello. You're home early."

   "Sargent closed shop for Christmas. What's this?" Odd said, nodding his head at the Christmas tree.

   "Mister Johnson walked down to the lot with me and carried it home. He helped me set it up. I bought the bulbs at the hardware store on the corner. Isn't it nice?"

   Odd stepped in, closed the door behind him. He kicked off his boots and walked across the parlor. He put the packages under the tree and turned and crossed the apartment again. He took Rebekah in his arms and held her for a long time.

   When finally he let her go he said, "It's perfect. And what's that smell?" He turned his nose to the small kitchen on the other side of the flat.

   Rebekah grabbed his arm and pulled him toward the tree. "That's a surprise. Here —" she forced him to sit on the davenport—"help me with these popcorn strings."

   Odd picked up a threaded needle and started stringing the popcorn. He'd never had the sensation of being awake in a dream but he did now. He said as much.

   Rebekah sighed and said, "I've been difficult."

   "Well, now."

   "One minute I'm happy, the next I'm—" She turned away, her eyes widened and then closed. She shook her head and looked back at Odd. "I'm terrified of the baby. Even more terrified that this is no life I want, much as I
do
want you. I feel like a different person every day of the week." She stopped talking as suddenly as she'd started, picked the strand of popcorn back up and began stringing it with a new kind of haste.

   Odd did not know what to say, or at least had no words to say what he wanted.

   More calmly, Rebekah continued, "It's Christmas. I at least wanted to make a nice go of it. I thought a tree would make me happy."

   "Has it made you happy?"

   "Let's finish with the popcorn."

   So they finished their strings and hung them and stood in the end of the daylight looking at the scrawny tree. Odd was thinking it the most wonderful tree, greater than any of the two-hundred-foot white pines left in the forest. But he didn't say anything, only stood there on tenterhooks, hoping Rebekah saw what he did.

"It needs candles," she said, her voice suggesting nothing.

"It looks awfully good to me."

She squeezed his hand.

"It's early for dinner, but if you're hungry, it's ready."

"The smell," Odd said.

   Now a very pleased look came over Rebekah's face. She almost blushed.

   "Rabbit stew!"

T
he kitchen table was so small the rims of their bowls touched. The table and two chairs, a davenport, a Murphy bed and armoire in the bedroom, these were the only furnishings in the apartment.

   Their bowls were steaming. Parsnips and potatoes, mushrooms, onions and garlic, tender chunks of rabbit, barley malt, all of it held together with buttery roux. It was their secret, this feast, harkening back to their first time up at Rune Evensen's farm.

   As they sat there under the cheap chandelier, he thought her face was as changeable and temperamental as a stormy sky lowering over Lake Superior. And as distant. So except to thank her for the stew, Odd had not uttered a word since they'd sat down. He reckoned even the possibility of her contentment was better than the moods likely possessing her. She stirred her bowl of stew absently, once or twice dipping a crust of bread into it and raising the bread to her lips before setting it back on the edge of the bowl uneaten.

   When Odd finished the first bowl Rebekah rose automatically and fetched the Dutch oven from the stovetop. She ladled him another helping. She also topped off his mug of apple wine.

   "It's delicious, Rebekah. A real treat." He said this without lifting his head to look at her.

"Have more."

   He finished the second bowl and wiped it out with a piece of bread and ate the bread. He sat back with his apple wine and looked at her.

   "Want your presents?" he said. "I know it ain't Christmas morning yet, but I doubt Saint Nick will mind."

   He got up and stood before her, his hand outstretched as though he were asking her for a waltz. They walked to the davenport this way. Outside, the snow had started again. It was almost dark so he turned on the electric lamp. Odd took the gifts from under the tree. He put them next to her on the davenport and sat before her on the floor.

   "I didn't get you anything," she said.

   "As if I could want more."

   She reached down and ran her hand through his hair.

   "Go on, now. Open 'em up."

   She took the smallest gift from the top of the stack and opened it. She smiled when she saw the chocolates and set them aside directly.

   Next she opened a hatbox and pulled a cloche with pink ribbon from the tissue. She put it immediately onto her head, cocked it just so, and looked down at Odd flirtatiously.

   " Looks real nice, Rebekah."

   "It's very smart," she said.

   "There's a whole department store full of them just down the road. Got about every color in the rainbow."

   She removed the hat, held it before her, inspecting the soft felt and silk ribbon.

   Odd sat up, took the hat from her, and put it on her head again. "There's one more. Go on."

   She took the big box on her lap. "I feel bad I didn't get you anything."

   "I told you I got all I want. Now, open that last one."

   She tore the big box open and pulled a dress from the tissue. It fell before her, catching the lamplight. "Oh, my!" she said. She dropped to her knees and wrapped her arms around him. "It's
so
pretty!" She stood up as quickly as she'd knelt and held the dress before her again.

   "Go put it on," Odd said.

   Her face was bright as she hurried to their bedroom.

   Odd climbed up onto the davenport, took a cigarette from his shirt pocket and lit it, and laid his head back while he smoked.
God almighty
, he thought,
let her be happy tonight.
He closed his eyes tight and pinched the bridge of his nose. After a couple of minutes he shouted, "You come on out here when you get that dress on, let me see how it looks."

   A moment later she reappeared wearing the dress. "Let's see." He took her hands as he stood, shifted her to the left and to the right, looking her up and down. "I ain't
never
seen something so pretty before. My goodness." He reached behind him, took the cloche up, and put it on her head. " There now," he said. "My goodness," he repeated.

   She seemed suddenly bashful, running her hands along the beaded chiffon, adjusting the shoulder straps and the hat, her eyes cast down, standing there in her bare feet.

   "You like it?"

   "A whole bunch," she said, smoothing the belly of the dress.

   "It's the right size?"

   She took a deep breath, stepped back. There were tears in her eyes.

   "Hey, now. What are you crying for?"

   She sat down, felt the dress tighten around her waist. "You're such a sweet boy."

   He sat down beside her. "I got to tell you, Rebekah, you're getting harder and harder to understand. One minute you're calling me baby, the next you're calling me a boy. You're cooking up our rabbit stew, then you're sitting here crying. Do you not like the dress?"

   She took another deep breath. "It won't be a month and the dress will be too small."

   "Well, let's get a different size," he said, oblivious.

   "It's the right size, Odd. It'll be too small because of the baby."

   "That's a good reason to outgrow a dress." But he knew she was lost for the night. This was how it went: Once she settled on the pregnancy— on her fear of it, on how it would change her— she drifted off into a world of sad thoughts where he wasn't welcome. "That Glass Block store is full of a hundred dresses. We'll go find some good ones."

   The apologetic smile she gave him was sincere but unmistakable. He had to look away.

   Odd sat there for a long time, staring at his hands folded on his lap, thinking it was easier to read the lake than this woman. For the first time since they'd been in Duluth he felt angry with her. His reason and sympathies were being devoured by her moodiness. For all the thought he'd given it— and he was thinking of it again now— he didn't see how being here, with him, with all that was in store for them, could be worse than being in Gunflint. He got up. He wanted a drink, started for the kitchen and his stash, but stopped at the sound of her voice.

   "I love you," she said. "I've loved you every way a girl can love a boy. Every way a woman can love a man."

   He didn't stop walking but went into the bedroom instead of the kitchen. He took the lockbox from the bottom drawer of the armoire and the key from his pocket and unlocked the box. He moved the wads of cash aside and took the small velvet bag in his hand. He put the money back in the box and stowed it again.

   He returned to the parlor. Rebekah hadn't moved. She sat on the davenport with her feet up beneath her, the cloche still on her head.

   Odd knelt, took from the velvet bag the diamond ring he'd bought from the widower Veilleux, and held it before him. "I want you to marry me," he said, his voice cracking as though he were twelve years old. "I want you to be my wife and be happy with me. We can be happy."

   "No," she said, as though he had proposed three hours ago and she'd had all that time to consider.

   He didn't move.

   She stood up, took the hat from her head, and dropped it to the floor. She reached behind her and unbuttoned the dress and let it fall and pool around her ankles. She reached behind her back and unlaced her corset, she slid her hands beneath the waist of her panties and slid her panties from her hips. They too fell in the mess of clothes on the floor.

   "No," she said again. "I don't want to get married. I can't be happy and you can't be happy with me."

   Odd was stunned, both by her nakedness and what she was saying.