Bitter Sweet (34 page)

Maggie closed her eyes and dropped her head back. You shouldn’t be here. She lifted her head and caught sight of Eric’s black leather gloves lying beside her. Gloves- shaped like his hands, the fingers curled, the fleece lining undoubtedly flattened from the contours of his palms.

Only a very foolish woman would have the urge to touch them, to slip them on her own hands.

A very foolish woman did. She picked them up and put them on, surrounding her hands with the worn leather that had surrounded his. Her hands felt dwarfed; she closed her fists, savouring the contact, in lieu of that which was forbidden her.

Eric came out of the jewellery store, and she put the gloves back where he’d left them. He climbed into the truck and tossed a silver foil bag on the seat. Maggie’s eyes involuntarily followed it and glimpsed inside a small box wrapped in identical foil, trimmed with a red ribbon. She looked away, at a starburst in the side window where a rock had hit it long ago. She waited for the truck to begin rolling.

When it didn’t, she glanced back at Eric. His bare hands rested on the steering wheel and he stared straight ahead.

The expression on his face resembled that of a man who’s just heard a doctor say, all we can do now is wait. For a full minute he sat, unmoving. Finally he said, ‘I got her an emerald ring. She’s crazy about emeralds.’

He turned his head and their eyes locked.

‘I didn’t ask,’ Maggie replied quietly.

“I know you didn’t.’

In the silence that followed neither of them seemed able to summon the wherewithal to look away. It was back, as strong as before. Stronger. And they were courting disaster here.

He turned to stare out the windshield again until the silence grew unbearable, then, letting the breath rush out between his teeth, he fell back into the corner of the seat. He propped an elbow on the window ledge and put the pad of his thumb against his lips, his face turned away from her.

There he sat, staring at the sidewalk with the unvoiced admission jangling between them.

She didn’t know what to say, do, think. As long as neither of them had voiced or displayed their attraction overtly, they’d been safe. But they were safe no longer, though not a definitive word had been spoken, not a touch exchanged.

Finally he sighed, centred himself behind the wheel and put the truck in gear.

‘I’d better get you home,’ he said resignedly.

Chapter 10

They drove back to Fish Creek in constrained silence. She understood clearly: his displeasure lay with himself, not with her. He was the picture of a man torn. He drove the entire twenty-five miles scarcely moving a muscle, angling a shoulder into his corner of the seat, frowning at the highway. Not until they turned onto the switchback did he finally square his shoulders and settle himself behind the wheel. He parked the truck at the top of her walk, grabbed his gloves and got out without a word. She did likewise and joined him at the rear of the truck, waiting while he dropped the tailgate.

‘Would you mind helping me carry it upstairs?’ she asked, breaking their lengthy silence. ‘It’s heavy for a woman.’

‘I can handle it.’

‘All right, but if it’s too heavy, say so.’

She would not have said so had her discs slipped, although she couldn’t have said why. A return to business between them, perhaps. Two delivery persons hauling freight, putting it in place with the impersonal demeanour of United Parcel Service employees.

They hauled up the washstand first, then the cheval dresser, marching back downstairs in dual silence - hers careful, his testy. She knew instinctively she would not see him again after today. His decision had been made in the truck in front of Bead & Ricker with an emerald ring between them. They took the bed up last, the headboard and footboard bolted together onto a pair of two-by-eights.

When they’d set it down, he said, ‘if you’ve got some tools I’ll put it together for you.’

‘That’s not necessary. I can do it myself.’

He confronted her head-on for the first time since their miserable ride back. ‘Maggie, the damned headboard weighs sixty pounds by itself’ he snapped. “If it falls over and splits you can kiss your antique value good-bye. Now get me a wrench and a screwdriver.’

She got him a wrench and a screwdriver, then stood back and watched him bend on one knee and use the tools to separate the pieces of the bed. He worked at it with singular intensity, his collar turned up, head bent, shoulders hunched within the black leather jacket.

He freed one set of bolts, moved to the other and applied the screwdriver again.

‘Here, hold this or it’ll fall,’ he ordered without a glance in her direction.

She held the pieces upright as they came free of their support block. He rose, knees cracking, slipped the screwdriver into his rear pocket and moved about the room, trying the wooden side rails in place on the hardwood floor and coming finally to relieve her of the footboard, carrying it six feet away before kneeling again to hook the pieces together.

She tried not to watch him, to dismiss the attraction of his form as he bent and knelt while performing the peculiarly masculine task.

When the frame was assembled, he stood “in the middle of it. ‘Well ... that’s it. How about the mattresses?’ He glanced briefly at her single bed at the edge of the room.

‘They’re stored in the garage. Daddy can help me with them.’

‘You’re sure?’

‘Yes. He won’t mind.’

‘Well then...’ He drew his gloves from his jacket pockets, making no second offers. ‘I guess I’d better go.’

‘Thank you, Eric. I really appreciate the use of the truck and all your help.’

‘You got a good buy,’ he stated with finality as they left the room.

‘Yes, I did.’

They descended the steps side by side, rounded the newel and headed for the rear kitchen in an awkward emotional void. He moved toward the door straightaway, and she opened it politely, saying, ‘Thanks again.’

“Yup,’ he replied, clipped, impersonal. ‘See you around.’

She closed the door firmly, and thought, well, that’s that.

The decision has been made. Have some tea, Maggie. Go up and admire your new furniture. Wipe today from your mind.

But the house seemed gloomy and she suddenly had little taste for the antiques that had been so exhilarating earlier in the day. She wandered to the kitchen sink, turned on the hot water and chucked a kettle beneath it, switched on the stove burner and put the water on to heat; got down the teapot from the top of the cupboards and desultorily stared into a canister of tea bags, caring little what flavour they were.

Outside, Eric mounted the steps at a jog, vehemently slammed the tailgate shut, strode around to the driver’s side, flung himself behind the wheel and heard the seatcover rip. He rolled to one buttock, reached behind himself and muttered, ‘Shit.’

He skewed at the waist to look. Maggie’s screwdriver had torn a three-corner rip in the vinyl.

‘Shit!’ - more exasperatedly, thumping the butts of both hands on the steering wheel. So angry. So trapped by his own emotions.

He sat for a long minute, his forearms on the wheel, gloved thumbs pressed to the corners of his eyes, admitting to himself what he was really angry about.

You’re acting like a damned heel, taking it out on her when it isn’t her fault! If you’re going to walk out of here and never come back you can at least do it gracefully.

He lifted his head. The wind had picked up. It rattled the loose blade of a windshield wiper and spun last week’s snow across the road. He scarcely noticed as he stared straight ahead, loath to go back to her door, yet spoiling for one last glimpse of her.

What do you want, Severson?

What does it matter what I want? All that matters is what I have to do.

Abruptly he started the truck engine and left it running: assurance that he’d be back up this hill in sixty seconds or less, heading home where he belonged.

At her door he knocked hard, as hard as his heart seemed to be knocking in his chest. She opened it with a tea bag in her hand and they stood like a pair of cardboard cutouts with their gazes locked.

‘This is yours,’ he said finally, handing her the screwdriver.

‘Oh...’ She took it. ‘Thank you.’

She spoke so quietly he could scarcely hear the words, then stood with her head hanging while he studied her down turned face.

‘Maggie, I’m sorry.’ His voice held a note of tenderness now.

‘It’s all right. I understand.’ She wound the tea bag string around the screwdriver, her eyes still downcast.

‘No, it’s not all right. I treated you as if you’ve done something wrong, and you haven’t. It’s me. It’s...’ At his hips his gloved fingers closed, then opened. ‘I’m going through some troubled times and I have no right to drag you into them. I just wanted you to know I won’t bother you again.’

She nodded disconsolately and dropped her hands to her sides. ‘Yes, I think that’s best.’

‘I’m going to...’ He gestured vaguely toward the truck.

‘I’m going to go home and do what you said. I’m going to concentrate on the good. What I mean to say is, I want my marriage to work.’

‘I know you do,’ she whispered.

He watched her struggle to hide her emotions, but her cheeks took on a flush. The sight of it made his throat and chest feel as they had one time when the Mary Deare had got caught in a sudden summer gale and he thought she was going down. He spread his gloved fingers wide and pressed them to his thighs to keep from touching her.

‘Well, I just wanted you to know that. I didn’t feel right, leaving the way I did.’

She nodded again and tried to hide the fact that tears were springing to her eyes.

‘Well, listen...’ He took one step back and said huskily, ‘You... you have a nice Christmas, and I hope everything works out with this place and your new business.’

She lifted her head and he saw the tears glimmering in the corners of her eyes. ‘Thanks,’ she said, forcing a timorous smile. ‘You have a wonderful Christmas, too.’

He backed to the edge of the steps and for a heart wrenching moment their gazes spoke clearly of the want and need they were feeling. Her brown eyes appeared magnified by the tears that trembled on her lashes. His blue ones showed the depth of restraint he placed upon himself to keep from taking her in his arms. He closed and opened his hands once more.

‘Good-bye.’ His lips moved, but no sound came out, then he turned and walked resolutely from her life.

During the days that followed, he avoided the post office at
noon
, bought his groceries anywhere but at the Fish Creek General Store and ate his lunches at home. Mornings, however, he continued his trips to the bakery and on his way down the hill often fantasized about walking in and finding her there, picking out a morning sweet, turning at the sound of the bell on the door and smiling when she saw him enter.

But she preferred eggs for breakfast; he knew that now.

The bay froze over completely and he rode his snowmobile out to go ice fishing every day. Often, sitting on a folding stool on the ice, staring down the hole at the deep water, he thought of Maggie, wondered if she liked fried fish and remembered her stealing a piece of the silvery herring from the wooden barrel in her father’s cooler. He thought about taking her a fresh lake trout; after all, he caught more than he could use. But that would only be an excuse to see her, he admitted, and took the trout to his mother and Barb instead.

He made a toboggan for Mike and Barb’s kids for Christmas and gave it six coats of marine varnish. When it was done and he showed it to Nancy, she pushed her glasses down her nose, gave it a far shorter perusal than she gave her finished makeup each morning, and said, ‘Mmm... nice, dear,’ before returning to her bookwork.

He cut down two spruce trees on Mike’s property, put one in a stand for Ma and hauled the other one home. When it was standing in the corner of the living room, aromatic and pungent, he stood before it with his hands in his pockets, wishing someone were there to share it with. On the weekend, when
Nancy
came home, they trimmed the tree together with clear, plain twinkle lights, clear blown glass balls and clear glass icicles - the same decorations they used every year. The year she had come home with them - purchased in some fancy store at The Plaza in Kansas City he had withheld his misgivings all the while they decorated the tree. When it was done, he’d studied it in dismay and said, ‘It’s a little colourless, isn’t it?’

‘Don’t be dtclass, darling,’
Nancy
had chided. ‘It’s elegant.’

He didn’t want an elegant tree. He wanted one like Ma’s, hung with multicoloured lights and trimmings he and his brothers and sister had made in elementary school; and some that had been on Ma’s tree when she was a little girl; and others that had been given to the family by friends over the years. Instead he had a tree that left him as cold as the teakwood fruit
Nancy
kept in the middle of the kitchen table. So, often on weekday evenings he went out to Ma’s or to Mike’s and enjoyed their trees, and ate popcorn and home-smoked fish and pulled taffy and teased the little ones and held them on his lap in their feet pyjamas and watched the tree lights turn their faces many colours and fistened to them speak with awe about Santa Claus.