The Returning (8 page)

“Listen, you told Selene, right?” he asked. “You told her you won’t be working for her anymore?”

“She’s known all along I wouldn’t be working once you got out of—” She stopped suddenly. John knew she didn’t want to say the word. She tried to smile. “You know,” she suggested, “I can drive you and Billy into town today if you want. I don’t mind.”

“You can’t leave Phoebe here alone.”

“She won’t be alone. Rebekah’s here till four, when she has to leave for work.”

John looked out the window at the two old cars parked behind the cottage. “Where’d Rebekah get that beat-up old Jetta?”

“Owen. Used to be Selene’s till they got her a better one.”

“Uh-huh. You really think anyone should be driving that thing?”

“It’s a clunker, but it runs.”

“All right.” John sighed. He looked around the kitchen, cleared his throat, watched as Andrea turned the sausages one last time. His eyes settled on her face in profile. She looked pale, tired. A dark crescent moon hung beneath that one eye, and etched about the corner of her mouth was a certain sadness. He knew it was because of him, and he felt a pang of guilt and of regret. But he was going to make things right now that he was home. He was going to make it all up to her. Somehow.

He stepped to the coffeemaker and poured some coffee into a waiting mug. He settled the carafe back onto the burner and stared into the lilting surface of the small black pool in the cup.

He’d been sipping a cup of coffee just two evenings ago when Pastor Pete came to say good-bye. The two men chatted awhile before John suddenly confessed, “
You know, Pete, I’m not sure I have the strength to go back to them, to be a husband and a father to my family
.”

“
John
,” Pete had said, holding John’s gaze, “
you won’t have to be strong. You will have to be tender
.”

Remembering that, John turned to Andrea. He took a deep breath. “The kids,” he started, “they look good. They . . .”

She didn’t seem to be listening. She was preoccupied with getting the sausage links onto a serving plate.

“I mean . . . thanks, Andrea, for keeping the family together while I was . . . away.”

She froze momentarily, and he watched a streak of color rise up her neck and fan out across her cheeks. She lifted her eyes to him slowly.

“You’re welcome, John,” she said quietly. She smiled briefly before dropping her eyes again. She settled the empty skillet on the stove and lifted her shoulders in a small shrug. “But what else could I do?”

“Well, I—” He was flustered, searching for words. “I know it hasn’t been easy, but you’ve managed really well. I mean, look at Billy. He’s become a responsible young man. You’ve done a great job with him.”

She seemed pleased even while she tried to wave off the compliment. “Billy has done well for himself. He’s always been extremely capable.”

“But I don’t think he’d have come so far if you hadn’t worked with him all these years. I mean, you’ve done so much for him—more than most people would have, I think.”

She shrugged again. “I don’t know, John. I’ve only done what any mother would do. Any decent mother anyway.”

He wanted to say more, but he was interrupted when Billy hollered from the porch, “Is breakfast ready yet, Mom? I’m starving to death.”

“Come and get it,” Andrea hollered back. “I can’t have anyone dying on me around here.”

She gave John another brief smile and then carried the plate of sausages to the porch.

C
HAPTER
E
LEVEN

John knew the story
only too well, how Donovan’s Diner had became Laughter’s Luncheonette back in 1995 when Owen Laughter bought the restaurant in downtown Conesus from Stan Donovan. The name of the place was the biggest draw, Owen said, even though everybody pronounced it wrong, including Owen himself. The family name was
Lau’-ter
, but who thought of
Lau’-ter
when the sign said Laughter? No one! Wasn’t it great? Because, as Owen pointed out, who didn’t want to laugh? Of course, Harold Laughter, Owen and Andrea’s father, was initially reluctant to accept the butchering of the family name, but he eventually came around. Whenever he and Sylvia were vacationing at the lake, they ate almost every meal at Owen’s place. Seated at the table closest to the cash register, they could see for themselves that Owen was on to something. The equation of burgers, fries, and laughter totaled up to a tidy sum.

Now, as John looked up at the neon sign above the restaurant’s door, the last thing he wanted to do was laugh. He felt something icy in the pit of his stomach, and he wished he could turn around and get right back into the car and go home. But Andrea had already pulled away from the curb, and Billy was tugging on his arm and urging him toward the door.

“Come on, Dad,” Billy said. “Don’t wait. Come inside.”

Telling himself he wouldn’t be a busboy forever, John followed Billy into the restaurant. He hoped it was only his imagination that every eye in the place landed on him when he stepped inside. Surely there wasn’t something about his presence that warned,
Ex-con approaching
.

“
Once you’ve been in
,” Roach had told him, “
you’re never out again, even when you’re out. You always got the smell of the big house on you, and people smell it a mile away
.”

He had never liked Roach when he was in prison, and he sure didn’t like him now.

A woman approached wearing an apron stuffed with drinking straws, pens, and order pads. Her dark hair was cropped short, and her colorless face was narrow and pinched, and John couldn’t help noticing that in spite of the name of the place, she wasn’t so much as smiling. He tried to smile at her anyway, but his cheeks quivered like horseflesh bothered by a fly. He offered her a taut nod instead.

“Maggie,” Billy called out, “Maggie, here’s my dad. He’s working with us!”

“Yeah.” Maggie looked from Billy to John and back again. “I know. Aren’t we lucky?”

Billy beamed proudly. “Yeah, we’re lucky!”

“Well,” Maggie went on, “I’ll show him around. Billy, you can go ahead and clock in. We have a little bit of paperwork for your dad to take care of, and then he’ll join you out front.”

“You want me to show him how to do the job?”

“Naw, don’t bother. I can tell him what’s expected of the busboys.”

John flinched at that last word. At least in prison he’d been a clerk in the infirmary, typing reports, filing charts, handing out sick passes. It was a clean job and, within the penal system, about as respectable as you could get. Now he’d be gathering dirty dishes, crumpled napkins, and who knew what else.

On the drive in Billy had told him about the occasional surprises he’d come across—the muddy sock, a hearing aid, a full set of dentures, eight artificial fingernails painted hot pink. “
It’s like a treasure hunt, Dad!
”

John shivered.

“And, Maggie, show Dad the clean dishrags and the rubber gloves, and—”

“Don’t worry, Billy,” John interrupted. “I’m sure Maggie will tell me everything I need to know.”

Billy smiled and went to the kitchen to clock in.

John followed Maggie to an office where his brother-in-law sat behind a desk, bent over a pile of papers. Owen Laughter glanced up without raising his head. “Hello, John.” He waved a pen. “Have a seat.”

John sat. He waited for Owen to stop scribbling, a pause that stretched on for a good thirty seconds. Finally Owen put down the pen and slid the pile of papers across the desk. “We just have a few things for you to sign—tax forms, things like that.”

“All right.”

While he was looking over the forms, he heard Owen say, “You get settled in all right yesterday?”

John nodded. “Sure.” He thought of the one plastic bag he’d carried home on the bus. “Not much unpacking to do.”

But Owen already knew that. He was, after all, the one who’d met John at the bus station in Rochester, met him with the new change of clothes, a candy bar, and a can of Coca-Cola Classic. John had changed into the clothes in the bus station’s men’s room, stuffing the prison issue he’d been wearing in the trash can. He ate the candy bar and drank the soda on the long drive home. He and Owen had forty-five minutes to talk on their way to Conesus, and they’d hardly said a word. Finally, and maybe just to break the silence, Owen pointed to the plastic bag at John’s feet and asked what was in it. John said it held a few personal items, like legal papers, a couple of sweaters, several pairs of socks, and the family’s letters to him from the past five years. He failed to mention the Bible at the bottom of the bag, figuring Owen’s reaction to that would not be favorable.

When John finished signing the papers, he looked up and said, “Thanks for what you’re doing for me, Owen.”

His brother-in-law’s face remained passive. “I’m not doing it for you, John. I’m doing it for Andrea and the kids.”

Owen had liked him once, way back when. They’d been friends long before John and Andrea were married. Owen, John, and Jared were drinking buddies all through those high school summers at the lake. They’d had some wild times together—talk about laughter! The three of them plus John Barleycorn—a sure combination to bust a gut.

But Owen had grown up, gotten responsible, put the adolescent drinking behind him while John and Jared went on indulging. Owen hadn’t been happy with John for getting his kid sister pregnant, but he’d accepted it. It wasn’t the shotgun wedding that did the friendship in. Ironically, the glue that held the friendship together in the first place was what finally broke it up. The liquor took John to prison, and Owen Laughter wasn’t about to forget a thing like that. Even Jared had kept his distance ever since that particular ax fell. Drink had a way of killing off relationships, especially with those people a man used to drink with.

Owen thought his sister deserved better than a drunk and a convict. John couldn’t disagree.

“I understand, Owen,” John said as he pushed the papers back across the desk.

Owen nodded toward the woman leaning against the doorframe. “Maggie can show you what to do.”

John rose. He wondered whether he should extend his hand across the desk but decided against it. Once again he followed Maggie, this time to the kitchen, where she pointed to a layout of the restaurant tacked up on the wall.

“This will be your station right here,” she said, tapping the laminated sheet. “Keep your eyes open. Soon as a party leaves a table, you go clear it. Be sure to spray it down. I’ll show you where the bottles of cleaning solution are in a minute. You’ll carry one around with you, and I’ll show you how to refill it. When the table’s clean, you carry the tub back here to the window. Follow me.”

They walked through the kitchen, where a trio of line cooks worked feverishly. One man chopped vegetables with an oversized knife, another stirred something in a pot on the stove, still another stood with a spatula over a grill that sizzled with a variety of hamburgers and thinly sliced steaks. Maggie didn’t bother to introduce John but walked on through to the window where a young man was rinsing off dirty dishes with an industrial-sized sprayer hose.

“Okay,” Maggie said, “you’ll bring your tub to this window. First thing you’ve got to do is separate out the trash and throw it in the garbage can. You don’t pass anything through this window except dishes and flatware. And make sure you don’t throw away any of the flatware; sometimes it gets lost in the napkins and whatnot. If the trash can is full, it’s your job to tie up the bag and put in a clean one. Now, a lot of people forget and leave things on the table—cell phones, sunglasses, that kind of thing. Those you take to Lost and Found in the office.”

When Maggie paused, John ventured a question. “What about dentures?” he asked. “What do I do with those?”

Maggie didn’t crack a smile. “Dentures?”

“Yeah, Billy said . . .” He thought a moment, then decided to drop it. This lady wasn’t budging an inch.

“Okay, so you can pass the whole tub off to the dishwasher,” Maggie went on, “and pick up another one here.” She pointed to a stack of tubs. “Got any questions?”

John shook his head. “I don’t guess so.”

“Think you can handle it?”

John didn’t bother to reply.

The trick, he thought, would be never to make eye contact. He’d move through the sea of patrons without stopping, zeroing in only on the empty table, the dirty dishes, the task at hand. If he kept his head down, he could be a nonperson doing a nonjob, not worth noticing. Anyway, since he himself had never lived in Conesus year-round, he didn’t expect to know or be recognized by many people, which he considered a good thing.

Maggie showed him where to find the bibbed aprons, the rubber gloves, the spray bottles and dishrags. Then she thrust a tub in his hands and told him to get to work.

John stepped hesitantly into the dining room. The place was already in the midst of the lunch-hour rush; almost all the tables were full, and the hostess was seating yet another group of patrons at a booth Billy had just cleaned. John moved to his assigned area, a cluster of tables and booths in the far corner of the room. A heavyset man and a bottle-blond woman were at that moment rising from a booth, the man tossing a couple of dollars onto the table for the waitress. He belched loudly as he hiked up his pants, and then he and the woman headed toward the cash register. John looked down at the remains of their meal. He suddenly longed for his desk in the infirmary, even with its view of the prison grounds through a window reinforced with wire mesh.