Losing the Way
For the six weeks following his meeting with Becky at Christmas, Bill understood that he was on probation. Becky told him his betrayal had made her lose trust in him. She still loved him, she said, but without trust the love could go nowhere. She wanted to see him prove himself. Being in no position to argue, he submitted to her conditions and was patient, understanding and unassertive. He realized the enormity of his crime, and though Becky carefully kept her feelings under control, he knew he had hurt her dreadfully. He was to come on Wednesday nights after the boys were asleep so that they could talk, and on Saturdays he was allowed to spend the day with Johnny just as he had when he was living with Marilyn. He took his son sledding and skating or to outings to stores, and once or twice for a visit to see his grandmother. He saw signs that Johnny was less forthright with him and studied the boy’s face for any indications that he felt deserted or betrayed. He thought he saw them, which added to his burden of guilt. That Johnny was not as confused about the new arrangements as might be expected, however, was owing to Becky’s careful schooling. She told Bill that last fall she had explained to Johnny that Mommy and Daddy loved him very much and always would, but Daddy had some things to work out and wouldn’t be around all the time. The precocious Johnny had asked her if she was mad at Daddy, and she had answered, “That’s not the right word. I disagree with the way he is behaving.”
As time went on and she continued disagreeing with the way he had behaved, frustration began. Sometimes in their Wednesday talks he would have to struggle to keep his temper when nothing seemed to change despite his religiously following all her hints and wishes. Everything she said was spoken from behind a veil; she never lost her cool self-command. In one thing only, his feelings towards Marilyn, did she seem inordinately curious, but even this he perceived only indirectly. She never mentioned her rival’s name; rather she would asked generalized questions such as whether there was anything that complicated his full acceptance of being a husband to a wife. Other times she asked him if he had any regrets. To that question he answered, “Only one. Everything about the last six months.” In truth he had no regrets about Marilyn’s absence from his life whatsoever. At Christmas when he saw her fangs bared and the extraordinary egoism she displayed, he realized she had been manipulating him from the very start. He even remembered the first day he met her how she had mentioned women practically topless coming to Tony’s as a way to draw attention to her two best assets. From that little trick to her last melodramatic posturing as she got his suitcases and threw them on the floor, he saw a long chain of calculated steps designed to keep him enthralled. Now freed from her bondage, he was amazed that he had ever seen anything in her. She was shallow, selfish, a megalomaniac who wanted to control him totally. She never understood his need to see his boys because she could not understand a love that was not sexual.
He told Becky most of these conclusions, only avoiding mention of his sexual thralldom, and still she didn’t seem convinced of his sincerity. The first time he lost his temper was because of Marilyn. “Jesus Christ, Becky! What in hell do I have to do to convince you that I made a terrible mistake and that I will never do it again.”
“I hope for your sake you won’t,” she said in that maddeningly calm way of hers whereby she would refuse to get angry or lose control. It was so exasperating that he could only sputter, “I don’t know what to do.”
She was back working for Charlie Davenport three days a week while Lynn MacArthur watched the boys, but this was no real factor in her independence and self-reliance—she had always been that way. He enlisted Fiona’s and Lowell’s help, but they too were unable to budge her from her iron position, even though Fiona did offer a few helpful insights. She and Becky had unexpectedly hit it off and had many woman-to-woman conversations. It was she who told Bill that Becky’s supposed coldness was a way of protecting herself and that losing control was not mere middle-class propriety. She was hurt badly, Fiona said, and was often a half inch away from bawling like a baby.
If that was true, why didn’t she surrender to love? He was learning that without love life could be terrible; why didn’t she need love as desperately as he did? It was so inscrutable. He began doubting at first that she would ever take him back, and then—far worse—he began doubting himself. He began wondering if he was worthy of forgiveness. Knowing that he was in danger of losing the way, and remembering what Fiona had told him, he formulated a plan to get her angry enough to lose control. When the tears came she would be vulnerable and maybe they could love again. He had a late meeting at work on the Wednesday of the week he made his plan, so they rescheduled their weekly talk for Friday. This suited him since if it failed and he became very upset he wouldn’t have to go to work the next day. He arrived at eight o’clock when the boys were already in bed, and after some tenuous and directionless conversation, he asked her point-blank what he had to do to break down all the barriers she had placed between them.
“It’s not barriers; it’s you,” she said. “You have to change.”
“This is ridiculous,” he said, trying to goad her. “Tell me how I am supposed to change when I’ve done everything you’ve asked and you do not change. Tell me what I have to do to prove I love you. You are not being fair to me.”
“You weren’t fair to me, remember. You were as unfair as a husband can be.”
“I’ve admitted it. I’ve told you how sorry I am. How many times can I tell you that? How many times can I say it won’t happen again?”
“I have only your word. I have to know.”
“For Christ’s sake, Becky. This isn’t the first time in history this has happened. You have to trust me. It seems to be you’re neurotic. This thing is all one-sided. You’re irrational.”
She didn’t speak for a moment, and he studied her face to see if he should continue the attack. She certainly didn’t look her usual prim, self-possessed self. “A good human being trusts. A bad one is irrationally distrustful,” he said, then stopped, sensing how ineffectual a follow-up this was.
“All right,” she said, recovering her calm self-control, “you call it irrational. But I’m acting not just for me. I mean, I worry not just for my own sake but for the kids. I had a friend in high school who had bad parents. It led her to take drugs. She was pregnant at seventeen and didn’t finish high school. She married some other guy, a druggie who beat her and sold whatever he could find in the apartment. She had more kids. She divorced and married again, then had lovers. All the time she kept taking the drugs until finally the state took her kids away from her. She’s been in and out of jail. Her oldest kid is deeply troubled and gets into trouble with the law, so the cycle is going to continue. So you see, it’s not a casual thing with me to make sure of you.”
“Jesus, you think I don’t love Johnny and Trevor? You think I wouldn’t do anything for them? I don’t think it’s fair to call me a bad parent.”
“I didn’t say you were, though I have to ask, does a good parent set an example by betraying his wife and having an affair with a floozie?”
Johnny stirred upstairs, and she went up to comfort him. He waited a few minutes, then crept over to the bottom of the stairs to listen. He heard her say, “Not now, Johnny. Mommy and Daddy are trying to talk. Go back to sleep, sweetie, I’ll be up in a while.” Her voice was gentle and motherly, and listening to it he felt his mouth go dry. There was only one parent in the house.
When she came back into the kitchen, he said, “I could have done that.” He spoke too loudly and his voice broke. Instead of understanding, she only hushed him. The mother lion protecting her cub. “Don’t raise your voice. You’ll scare Johnny and wake Trevor.”
He stared at her. “You want to drive me away, don’t you? We’ve been talking for six weeks, and still I don’t have the foggiest idea what you expect from me. You’re cold and indifferent to me and won’t meet me halfway. You owe me an explanation.”
She seemed to recognize the justice of his reque
st. Still she hesitated. She started to speak, then stopped and thought some more. He could hear the kitchen clock tick-tocking, the sounds of their breathing, and the low hum that was the drumming of her leg. “I want to trust you, Bill. Really I do. But my mother said something to me once that turned out to be right, and now I have to be absolutely certain. You say it will never happen again. I ask, why did it happen even once?”
“What did your mother say?’
“If you must know, it was something she said when she and my father came to Waska to meet Pat.” She was referring to a visit made a few weeks before their wedding. Suddenly he became very tense.
“She didn’t tell me not to marry you—if that’s what you’re thinking. She liked you, in fact, though not your mother. But she did have her doubts.”
“And you believed her?”
“Not at first. I was angry with her for saying it, in fact. Then when this happened I remembered her words.”
“What? What did she say?” His heart was pounding. “This” was Marilyn, and the way Becky spoke she implied her mother had predicted he would cheat on her. It suggested her mother saw something in him that he didn’t recognize himself.
“She said that she could tell you had had an irregular life. She said because you were handsome, things had come to you too easily and that you had never been tested.”
“And you believed that crap?”
She raised her hand. “As I said before, not at first. You were always loving and kind and a good father. I thought you’d proved her wrong. Even when Lynn MacArthur told me about the rumors, I didn’t believe them. That you would betray me? I thought that was impossible. Then when they turned out to be true, I remembered what my mother said. Now you know why I have to know I can trust you.”
He stood and walked over to the sink. He turned and leaned against it. “You mother is full of crap. Marilyn had nothing to do with my so-called irregular life. If anything, I was vulnerable to that woman’s manipulation because you had been ignoring me, neglecting me. If you’d just been a little more concerned and noticed I was troubled, I wouldn’t have given that woman the time of day. But she was kind to me, concerned about me—or at least seemed to be—I think now she only cared for herself. But again I say your mother is full of crap. What happened had nothing, I mean nothing, to do with my past. It was you and me.”
“That I deny. I wasn’t the one who violated our marriage vows. You were.”
“It’s all my fault, is that what you think?”
She frowned and in that frown was her answer.
They talked for another half hour without getting by her thinking her mother was right and his thinking she was full of crap. He learned what held her back, but it only clarified her inertia, and instead of the breakthrough he had hoped for he saw his chances of regaining his life more hopeless than ever. He left angry and bitter and with only a cold good-bye, but once outside in the cold night air he began to feel scared. He saw how easily he could be defeated and his life ruined. With anxiety added to his fear, anger and bitterness, the prospect of his mother’s empty house and lonely television had no appeal. He needed relief, bright lights, people and forgetfulness. That meant a bar, so he drove up Route 1 to the Keltic Pub.
The tables were all filled with the usual Friday night crowd, but there was room at the bar. He took a seat and ordered a beer. A man he knew slightly in high school started talking to him from three stools down. It took awhile for him to remember the man’s name, which was Myron Hastings. Bill bought a round, and in accepting it Myron moved into the seat beside him. He was divorced and started telling Bill about his troubles. It’s the kids that make it complicated, he said. He had two, a boy and a girl, and the child support cost him so much he couldn’t afford a new car. He owned a service station in Bedford, and if it wasn’t for his mechanics keeping his car going with masking tape, glue and a prayer, he’d be walking everywhere—which last observation was followed by a harsh laugh that Bill found unpleasant. He had already decided he didn’t like a man who regarded children as an encumbrance, not beings to love. But he wondered if it was divorce that made people insensitive and self-involved—and if it was going to be his fate. The thought depressed him, which made him want another beer. Then as the beer started loosening his tongue, he began telling Myron about his own marital troubles. He said he was separated and working on a reconciliation, which he said was quite likely even while a little man somewhere inside his head grinned grimly at that lie. That double awareness was one of his last lucid thoughts, the other being vaguely aware of the time when he looked up at the clock above the bar and saw it was eleven and thinking he really should be getting home, and then, knowing that home was his mother’s house, clearing his throat and running his tongue across his lips as if he had tasted something bad. Becky’s frowning face appeared and made him feel sorry for himself. His irregular life—his mother, who had not brought him up properly, and his father, who had deserted him—was the reason he was sitting in a bar talking to a stranger and blotting his mind out so that he did not remember leaving the bar or driving home.
Nor did he remember to set the alarm. He was supposed to be at the house by nine o’clock, but when he woke at 8:45 to a banging, throbbing headache that felt as if a drum and bugle corps wearing jackboots was marching in his head, the physical agony was nothing compared to the psychic jolt he felt when he realized he was about to let his son down. He sprang up, dressed without showering, ran downstairs past his mother’s bedroom where he could hear her loud snoring, and only stopped in the kitchen long enough to take three aspirin washed down by a glass of orange juice that revolted his stomach before driving the six blocks to the house where he was paying the mortgage. The first lucid, unpanicked perception he had was the look of utter disgust in Becky’s eyes. “You’re late,” she said before a look of surprise was quickly followed by the frowning disgust. She stepped back to let him in. “You look like a derelict. I hope you don’t plan to take Johnny out in that condition.”
“Yes, I do,” he said with a stupid, male belligerence that even he found revolting. “Why shouldn’t I?”
“Why shouldn’t you?” Her lip curled and her eyes narrowed unpleasantly. “You’d want people to know you’re a father? Why don’t you show some self-respect?”
He sat down, glancing at the coffeepot. “I could use some of that. But if you must know, your friendly and wifely remarks last night drove me to drink.”
“That’s obvious,” she hissed. “Obvious and disgusting.”
Johnny’s face was peeking around the corner. “Hi, Tiger.”
“Hi, Daddy.” He spoke hesitantly, shyly, and seemed scared. He looked at his mother.
“Johnny, go back to your TV show. I have to speak to your father.”
His face disappeared, but not before Bill could see the growing fear and confusion. Becky did not know it, but she could have called him the lowest form of pond scum, and he would agree. If she thought they were going to have an argument, she needn’t bother. It was already won.
“Thanks,” he said softly as she handed him a cup of coffee. He was ashamed to look at her. “What do you propose to do?” He heard his own abject defeated voice but felt disconnected from it. He couldn’t turn into his own father. He couldn’t. He took a sip of coffee and then sighed. Self-pity came as a relief.
“Well, I don’t think you should take Johnny sledding. I think…”
She paused and he finished the thought for her. “You think I’m a loser, is that what you think?”
She folded her arms under her breasts. He could hear her foot tapping under the table. She clucked her tongue.
“Why try anymore. It’s useless. I’ll never live up to your absurd expectations.”
“Self-pity doesn’t become you. I was going to say I think you should play games in the basement.”
Which is what they did, two hours of playing tennis basketball or putting on the carpet into the cup that spat the golf ball out when one sank
a putt. He was haunted throughout by the look of confused fear he had seen in Johnny’s eyes. It was hidden now even though he still felt its presence. It reminded him of times when he was a fatherless boy and caused feelings long suppressed and half-forgotten to swim into his mind. Once when he was ten he walked over to his friend Kenny Delaney’s house to play after supper, but as he got to the stairs to their porch he stopped when he heard Mr. Delaney speaking to Kenny and Mrs. Delaney. “I’m not sure I like you playing with those Edgecomb kids. They’re dirty and undisciplined. I don’t think they’re the kind of people we want in our neighborhood. They’ll be in trouble with the law in a few years, and if we’re not careful they’ll drag Kenny along.” He backed away while feeling a cold chill go down his back and a heavy, lonely-sad weight in his stomach. At first his eyes stung and then real tears followed as he ran home. Lowell was shooting baskets in the yard when he came up the driveway and caught sight of him. He bounced the ball to him and said, “Come on, Billy. Let’s have a game of pig.” Then he saw the tears, and when Bill explained, he said, “Don’t you believe it. We’re as good as anyone else, and we’ll prove it when we grow up.”
But was he proving Lowell right or Mr. Delaney and Becky’s mother right? And was this cold horror that gripped your heart and made you feel hopeless being passed on to his son? Finally, when he couldn’t stand it anymore, he hugged Johnny, and then got down on his knees so that he was at eye level and said, “I know things aren’t right now, Johnny, but I love you just like I love Mommy and Trevor. You are the best little boy in the world.”
After coming home he still felt too awful to eat. His mother was lying on the sofa watching a science-fiction drama on TV. She must have noticed how down he was. For the first time she asked him how things were going with Becky.
“Not too good. She doesn’t trust me.”
She sat up, pulling at the armrest as she settled into a sitting position. “Billy, I wish I’d told you to avoid gals like that Marilyn when you were a little shaver. I’ve seen ’em get their way just about every time. This waitress I worked with at the Lobster Central Restaurant years ago went through just about every man that worked there and half the customers, married or not. She was a looker and made men putty in her hands. If that wife of yours had any sense, she’d understand any man who wasn’t on his guard can be plucked by that kind of filly.”
“But she doesn’t, Ma, so just drop it. It happened and can’t be changed.”
“No, I s’pose it can’t,” she agreed as she reached for a chocolate. “But I’m telling you, no sensible person who understands these things would blame you. Lowell doesn’t, does he?”
“Well, there you’re wrong. He does. I mean, he’s on my side, but he still thinks I was at fault. And you know what? I was. I’ve told Becky that a thousand times, and I’ve told her it will never happen again, but… The issue isn’t me and Marilyn. It’s me and Becky.”
He took a nap, and when he woke his mother had already left for the restaurant. One good thing about living at home again in a house filled with bad memories was that with her on the night shift six days a week he didn’t see much of her. He took a shower, and no longer feeling the effects of the hangover, had a ham sandwich and a beer. He turned the TV on and watched basketball while he ate; then feeling restless at the prospect of lonely hours at home, he called Pat Williams and suggested they go out. Pat was already planning on going to the Keltic Pub so didn’t need any persuading. He and Denny were at a rock club in Portland last night where Denny met a woman. It would be just the two of them.
He went planning to leave early and hoping to enjoy himself. They sat at the bar and watched college basketball. He had a hamburger and fries and munched peanuts. It wasn’t nirvana but he did find himself relaxing and not brooding so that when eleven o’clock came and he had another short debate with himself, the beer and companionship won out and he got drunk again. Sunday was okay. He watched more basketball and drank a few beers while Pat was out shopping on her day off. When she returned they ordered a pizza for supper.
A bad week followed. He didn’t drink and as a result didn’t sleep well. He had trouble concentrating at work because of sleepiness and worry—not the best state of mind for an accountant poring through intricate financial records. Even with a calculator and computer spreadsheets he kept having to redo his figures and correcting ridiculous mistakes. The following weekend he was out with the boys again and feeling much better. Denny’s escapade last weekend was a two-night stand, so it was a threesome just like in high school. Both Denny and Pat had already learned not to mention Becky; though after booze loosened his tongue again, he gave them an earful on her cold, calculating ways. “Marriage—put your head in the yoke,” Denny said. “It’s the real wedding ring.” Bill laughed but didn’t mean it. His head in a yoke, he would be saved. This life was no life. But he had another beer, and then another, and life was not so bad. Still he forced himself to stop at eleven and go home, setting two alarms, the radio and a clock, to make sure there was no repeat of last week. He was at his house, freshly showered and shaved, at nine o’clock. It was a cold, rainy day threatening to turn to snow, so Becky’s suggestion that he take Johnny to the basement again didn’t seem like an infringement of his rights. She was colder than usual after last week’s confrontation—they had missed their Wednesday talk not because he had a meeting but because they both realized time should go by and they should gather their thoughts before attempting another talk. When he left he surprised her by saying, “I want you to know that I still love you and always will.”
She nodded, with her face tense and the color drained from her cheeks.
Her eyes wavered as if she was on the verge of surrender, but no words followed. He closed the door behind him filled with doubt, so that night it was once again Denny and Pat and hard drinking, this time at a rock club in Portland. He got home at 2:30 in the morning, drunk, so he slept well.
Lowell and Fiona came to visit Pat on Sunday afternoon. Fiona had talked to Becky on the phone twice this week, but had nothing new to report. When Pat was in the bathroom, he told them what Becky’s mother had said about him. It made Lowell frown, but he didn’t say anything. He had been tense and uneasy all through the visit, and when he had a chance to be alone with his brother, Bill found out why.
“I hear you’ve been drinking a lot,” he said in a hurriedly whispered hiss.
“Maybe. So what?”
“For Christ’s sake, Bill. You’re the son of an alcoholic, Don’t do that to yourself.”
He felt defensive and then angry. The only thing that gave relief from the nightmared darkness, the only rest from the anxious, roller-coaster light, and Lowell was as judgmental as one of their Calvinist ancestors. He thought, Even my brother is turning against me, and got angrier. “Mind your own goddamned business,” he snarled. “You want to change someone, change Becky. It’s her fault. I’ll thank you to remember you’re my brother, not my father.”
“I don’t think you should blame Becky here,” Lowell said, speaking in a quiet, even voice. “But I’ll say no more.”
And no more was said. For the rest of the visit they were polite to each other and said good-bye as always when they left. The difference was that once alone he felt twice as lonely.
The next week the late February blizzard that dumped three and a half feet of snow on the state confined him to the house where he watched junk TV and avoided his mother as much as possible. It was the tiring physical labor of snow shoveling that allowed him to get through the days and sleep at night. On the second day the city streets were cleared enough so that he was able to go over to his house and shovel them out. He saw Johnny and Trevor but talked little with Becky.
Partying with the boys continued on the weekend. With the situation with Becky remaining stalled, and with Lowell keeping his distance after the hard words they had exchanged, his spirits continued falling. Sometimes he felt numb and indifferent to everything; other times he became anxi
ous. The result was that he started drinking a six-pack every weekday night as he watched television at home alone. He would be in bed by the time Pat returned from the restaurant at 12:30 and was always careful to put the beer cans in the trash container in the garage so that she wouldn’t see them. But on Friday night when he left the Keltic Pub at eleven to make sure he would be able to wake up for Johnny in the morning, he had a bad break. A state trooper followed his car from the parking lot and after six blocks had seen enough to pull him over. He wasn’t even drunk according to his criterion since he was lucid enough to know he would sleep poorly, but he flunked the breath-analyzer test and got cited for driving under the influence. He was able to avoid a night in jail only because he knew several of the cops, who released him under his own cognizance, but even without jail he knew he had done something that would confirm every one of Becky’s doubts. The arrest would be in the paper Monday morning. On Saturday morning he walked to his house and was glad Becky asked no questions about why he used his legs instead of a car. Probably she took it as a sign that he understood the visits were to be confined to the house. His time with Johnny in the basement had a bleak, dark finality to it that made him a poor companion. He was so nervous his hands trembled when he tried to shoot the tennis ball at the tiny basket, and his good cheer when Johnny got a shot was forced and unnatural. Johnny was old enough to notice, and several times looked at his father as if he was a stranger. It killed a little more the thing dying inside him, not just hope—for weeks hopelessness had been a familiar of the day and a bedfellow at night—but more basically faith in life. He felt numb despair every time he thought of Monday’s newspaper. He worried what would become of his sanity. He wondered if ever again he would wake up with the feeling that he had control of his destiny, if he would ever recover his self-confidence. It seemed to him the period of probation was over and he had proved Becky right. Self-loathing became another of the liquids he was drowning in. He deserved the public shame and humiliation that awaited him.
Monday at work he found no relief. Distracted and haunted by the image of the local paper going through the press, being distributed and delivered to homes in the Waska-Bedford area, and worrying about what Becky and Lowell would think of him, he couldn’t concentrate and made foolish mistakes on the Ferguson account, one of his firm’s biggest customers. He was even aware that the figures didn’t make sense, and yet he let it pass up to the executive office anyways. At the time it just didn’t seem to matter. After driving home with Darren Bolt and being very tight-lipped (in the morning he had already explained why he wouldn’t be able to take his turn driving for a while but otherwise made it plain he didn’t want to discuss it), he waited for the phone calls to come Monday night. He didn’t drink in case Becky called, but when no phone calls came he felt even worse—as if he was not even worthy of a tongue-lashing. His mother was up earlier than usual in the morning and mentioned that someone at the restaurant had asked if it was her son whose name was in the paper. “Why didn’t you tell me you’d gotten into a bit of a scrape?” “Because it was no big thing,” he lied. Darren had also seen the item, so the want of phone calls last night wasn’t because the news wasn’t abroad. Tuesday was a repeat of Monday, a day of distractions and no phones ringing at night. Momentarily he relaxed, thinking that the lie he told his mother was closer to the truth than he had thought. Maybe everyone understood that being stopped for drunk driving was something that could happen to anyone—irresponsible behavior certainly, and a bad thing for sure, but still as much a matter of being in the wrong place at the wrong time as it was of bad citizenship. He went back to his six-pack of beer that night and slept fairly well, and he had another weekend of heavy, successful drinking and sleep.
But when he came into the office on the following Monday, he was not prepared for what followed. Andrea McCullough, the receptionist, told him Mr. Buckmann wanted to see him. Andrea was a plump, motherly woman who had been with the company for over thirty-five years and was approaching retirement. Never had he seen her anything but efficient and cheerful, and yet when she delivered her message her lips were tightly set and her eyes radiated a compassionate concern. Mr. Buckmann likewise glanced at him with the same kind but stern countenance. A few weeks earlier when his boss had spoken to him about the declining quality of his work, Bill had explained that he was separated from his wife and not himself. He had promised that the minor mistakes that had been the topic of their conversation would not happen again. When he repeated this explanation again, Mr. Buckmann reminded him that Ferguson was one of the firm’s oldest clients and that all he could do for him was talk the CEO out of firing him. “Effective immediately,” he said, “you’re on a leave of absence without pay. That’s the only alternative Mr. Autiello would accept. I also had to talk him into allowing you to keep your health insurance. He was very angry. It’s likely we are going to lose the Ferguson account.”
Two bleaker, more benumbed weeks followed. Early signs of spring went unnoticed because Becky told him they had nothing to talk about and that she was ashamed of and disappointed in him. Lowell continued to keep his distance after their cold, unbrotherly words; his mother attempted to cheer him up by telling him she had been in trouble before but she had found troubles were like a belly ache that passed after a good belch. Denny and Pat helped him out by giving him gofer work at some of their jobs. He worked two days the first week and four the next. That kept him from brooding during the day, but then he would drink with them at night. The third week they had nothing for him, so he cleaned his mother’s house on Monday, a chore that took all day because his mother had let things slide. On Tuesday he looked at a photo album he had given his mother for her birthday last year. Mostly it was filled with pictures of the boys, but others, like one of him and Becky smiling and arm in arm at Reid State Park where they’d gone camping in the first year of their marriage, first brought tears to his eyes and then a fit of sobbing so long and breath-wrenching only exhaustion dried the tears. He hadn’t cried like that since he was a little boy. It scared him because he did not know what was happening to him anymore. There was nothing left when even his sanity was being taken from him. Only self-pity, which justified his drinking, brought him any relief. Then that night Lowell phoned and asked him for his help in removing some fallen trees from the lake lot on the following Friday, and in having an engagement to look forward to he was able to get through the rest of the week.
Lowell had arranged to pick him up by saying he had to come to Waska to rent a chain saw and a come-along. Bill rather suspected that was Lowell’s way of avoiding any unpleasantness about the loss of his driver’s license. When he saw that the trees that had blown down in the winter storm were in the patch of woods parallel to the access road, their unobtrusive location made him further suspect his brother was actually using them for an excuse to spend the day with him. If it was deception, however, he was glad to be deceived. He wanted to talk to Lowell as much as Lowell wanted to talk to him. But talk did not come right away. As they worked their conversation was businesslike. Lowell would cut branches off and then further saw them into firewood lengths. Occasionally the come-long was used to winch a large branch or trunk into position for cutting, and the smaller branches had to be gathered into piles. For much of the morning that was his particular chore while Lowell sawed.
At noon they went into the cottage to have lunch. It was a cool, early April day, and they warmed up some soup Lowell and Fiona had made for supper last night and had egg salad sandwiches with it. The work and the outdoor air had given him an appetite and he ate more heartily than he had in months. He mentioned that fact, and it became the entrance into the conversation they both knew was the reason he was here. “I looked into the mirror last night and hardly recognized myself,” he said. “I’m skin and bones.”
“I noticed. You’ve had a lot on your mind lately.”
He nodded grimly. “That’s an understatement. Listen, Lowell, I’m sorry I said you’re my brother, no
t my father. The statement was factually true, but it’s more true to say you were my father. I don’t think I would ever have gone to college if it wasn’t for your example. I’m sorry I’ve been letting you down.”
Lowell appeared to be deeply moved. His face twitched as he struggled to control himself. “That’s the wrong way to put it, Bill. You can’t let me down. You’re my brother and always will be. Except for Fiona there’s no one I feel as close to, and you know we went through those years together when we were young, so in that way you’re the closest person in the world to me. No,” he said emphatically, “you’re not letting me down. It’s that I’ve been worried sick about you.”
“I’m worried too. I’ve been knocked off track. Sometimes I feel like I did when I was a kid and it seemed everyone else had a head start in the race. I’ve come to see through the years that Ma was good-hearted and did love us, but I can’t forget she was not a good mother and that she’s still not a good human being. You know what Becky’s mother thought of her. I think she is the reason Becky won’t take me back. She thinks the way I acted is the way the son of Pat Edgecomb would be expected to act. And living at home now is doing me no good. Too many reminders.”
“Remember Ma did show that she was capable of great effort for us. When Grandmother Edgecomb told her she’d pay the down payment on a house if Ma would work at a steady job and keep up the mortgage payments, she did it. She worked at that factory until her mother died and she could pay off the house. I have the same feelings you do about her, but I do remember things like that. Sure, she’s a lazy, self-indulgent hippie still, but she has a loving heart.”
“Sometimes it seems so unreal to me. A year ago I was living in a good house with a wife and two wonderful boys. I had a great job. Everything was going my way. People thought I was lucky.”
“That’s true. I was one of them.”
“I know. When you told me one of the reasons you came home was because I inspired you, it freaked me out.”
Lowell frowned. He reached over and touched him on the shoulder. “Freaked you out? Why?”
“Because you had always been my inspiration. I guess I felt uncomfortable at the role reversal.”
“I’m sorry. I didn’t know. I didn’t mean to put pressure on you.”
He put up his hand. “No, no. I’m not blaming you. But there were things going on at home that, that…”
Lowell waited.
“Well, Becky was so involved with being a mother she had no time for me. I was unhappy about that. I felt neglected. So it wasn’t pressure that freaked me out. It was unreality. Because a lot of people, not just you, told me I was a lucky guy and I didn’t feel lucky, I was confused.”
“You’ll get back your life,” Lowell said with conviction. “You’ll be a lucky guy again.”
“Right now I feel like I’ve stepped off a cliff. I didn’t think a year ago that I would be where I am now. A year ago I never dreamed you’d be in Maine.”
“A little over a year ago I was still thinking about it. At first it was a crazy idea, but then it grew on me. I went to Chicago, you know—I mean Chicago was a place I was interested in because it was where my father came from. But I never found him, though Uncle Bob is a great guy.”
“My father’s in Bangor last I heard. But the last time I saw him was the last time you saw him—that morning of the day he left. He didn’t even say good-bye. We got home from school and the drunken bastard was gone.”
Lowell took a deep breath, then put his hand on his forehead. He looked deflated, sad. “We haven’t been lucky that way. But we’ve got each other. What can I do for you? How can I help? I guess that’s what I want to ask. Could you use some money? I’ve got lots of it, you know.”
He shook his head. “No, I’m okay. You know, I haven’t drunk anything all week since you called. I think it’s because of you. I felt so bad about our argument and my stupid words. Sometimes I wonder if I’ve inherited my father’s depression. Sometimes I feel just numb, like nothing matters. But one thought I had shook me out of it. I thought if I drove you away, I’d have nothing at all. I’d be lost.”
Again he saw strong emotion on his brother’s face. His eyes glistened. “You’ll never drive me away. I’ll always be here for you. If you’re ever tempted or just want to talk, think of me. If you ever need a place to crash, to collect yourself, if Ma ever gets to be too much and you need a break, come here.”
“Thanks for the offer, but I’d just be in the way.”
“No, you wouldn’t. Well, I don’t mean a stay of a month. But really, you need a week to collect yourself and get away, come up here. You are absolutely and totally welcome. Your name is on the house with mine, and I’ve talked to Fiona about the idea and she’s all for it.”
The idea of a refuge appealed to him, and to cover his own emotion he made a weak joke. “In a month I’m going to lose my license for at least a year, so if I ever came I’d be here until you drove me away.”
“Do you think they will? Take your license, I mean?”
“Yeah, I do. They’re pretty strict about that now.” The he caught his breath at the thought of Becky again being ashamed of him when the court proceedings appeared in the paper. Suddenly he needed a drink, but he didn’t dare ask his brother/father for one. Icy-cold despair gripped him, which he tried to shake off. “We’d better get back to work,” he said.