Brute Strength (19 page)

I'll never know exactly what part of Gabrielle's little speech sparked Eldon's outburst. Maybe it drove him wild to imagine us eating his wife's pies or planting his dwarf snapdragons. Maybe Gabrielle's positive reframing awakened bitter memories of his court-ordered therapy. For whatever reason, he suddenly started shouting at me about wanting Thunder, the dog he'd seen on our Malamute Rescue website, and he began jabbing his finger at Gabrielle and calling her a nosy loudmouth bitch. Now, besides being angry, I was alarmed, even frightened. Why hadn't I realized that what lay beneath Eldon Flood's cowardly phone calls and anonymous letter was the potential for raw violence? Why had we left the big dogs at home? Since I myself had ended up mentioning Malamute Rescue, we might as well have had the malamutes with us, and not in the car either, but at our sides. In most circumstances, the malamute attitude is:
We're equal partners, OK? I watch out for myself, and I expect you to do the same.
If, however, these dogs decide that we thickheaded, weak-bodied bipeds are imperiling ourselves by engaging in stupid, ineffective dithering, they sometimes take action. Rowdy would've calmly blocked Eldon's access to us by transforming himself into a canine barricade, and Sammy might've done the same. As for Kimi, I had no desire to imagine what she'd have done if Eldon had actually attacked. The only sure bet was that she'd have given no warning.

In taking my eyes off Eldon and Lucinda to glance around, I obviously did not expect to see my dogs. My action was pure reflex:
when scared, seek malamutes
. If I was looking for anything, it was for the malamute strength and courage that might infuse me in the absence of the dogs themselves. What actually caught my eye was neither a bold, bounding, double-coated savior nor was it a mystical, strength-infusing vision thereof; rather, it was a midnight-blue panel van parked just off the pavement, perhaps fifty feet from us. Damn it all! On the ride to Flood Farm, I'd been hoping to discover that not only had Eldon Flood made the nasty phone calls and sent me that horrid message but that he had also been the person tailing me in what Steve had identified as a Dodge Ram panel van. Arriving at the farm stand and seeing the two Flood Farm vehicles in the parking area, I'd given no further thought to the van, as if the presence of the red pickup and the white minivan made it impossible for the Floods to own a third vehicle, for example, a big panel van sometimes used by Eldon and sometimes – now, for instance – driven by an employee.

In the few seconds that it had taken me to glance quickly around and spot the van, Eldon had launched into the obscenity that I'd heard on the phone. As I moved my gaze away from the van and back to him, maybe the slight motion caught his eye, or maybe it was just my turn to become his target. Shouting filth, he lurched toward me. I took a quick step backward, and he again went after Gabrielle, first with words, then with gestures. Now, instead of jabbing a finger at her, he pounded his fist into his own palm and then into the air in front of her. I cursed myself for having let Gabrielle drive. If I'd had my car and my keys, we'd already be zooming off.

Gabrielle, however, was still trying to talk her way out. ‘Mr Flood, let's all calm—'

I put my hand on her purse and shouted to make myself heard. ‘Gabrielle, your keys! We—'

The roar of an engine interrupted me. The blue panel van, the Dodge Ram, thundered toward us and abruptly halted. By the time the passenger door flew open, I'd seen the driver and thus expected the bellow that followed.

‘You son of a bitch!' my father thundered. ‘No one treats my wife like that!'

Eldon Flood was tall, but Buck had a good four inches on him and must have outweighed Flood by forty pounds of angry, protective muscle, the force of which shot down my father's right arm, through his massive fist, and into Eldon Flood's jaw. As Flood toppled backward into the display of potted perennials, Buck lowered his voice and growled, ‘Stand up, you yellow-bellied piece of shit!'

‘Buck, stop it right now!' Gabrielle screamed. ‘Stop it!'

‘Yes, stop it!' I echoed.

Instead of joining in, Lucinda took the practical step of bending over her husband, who was clutching his face while floundering among the injured delphiniums. Incredibly, she asked, ‘Eldon, are you all right?'

‘Ice,' my father recommended.

I wanted to strangle him.

Addressing Lucinda, he said in tones of sweet reason, ‘Hey, I can't stand by and watch someone threaten my wife, who happens to be –' he paused dramatically – ‘a brave woman battling –' his voice dropped to a hoarse whisper – ‘cancer.'

TWENTY-THREE

‘
B
uck, you are an idiot!' Gabrielle told him. ‘You are a
blithering
idiot!'

‘Cancer is nothing to be ashamed of,' my father told her. ‘It's a disease that strikes—'

‘I do
not
have cancer. All I have is vanity. Vanity! Not that it's any of your business. Now, go home! I am staying with Steve and Holly until I cool down, and until I do, I do not want to see you. Go home! Get in that van you've been using to
stalk
us and
frighten
us, and go home!'

My father looked astonished. ‘I never meant—'

‘Buck,' I said, ‘at the moment, no one particularly cares what you meant. In case you've forgotten, I'm a dog trainer. I care more about behavior than I do about intentions, and no one is happy about your behavior right now. I think that you should do what Gabrielle is telling you. Return that van to wherever you got it from, and go home.'

With an appropriately hangdog air, my father nodded to everyone, got back into the Dodge Ram, and drove off. By then, Eldon was sitting on the wooden box he'd used earlier. His head hung down, and he was clutching his jaw.

‘Do you need an ambulance?' I asked.

‘He hates doctors,' Lucinda said. ‘And we don't want a fuss.'

I suddenly understood. ‘Is he on parole?' I asked.

‘Go away,' she said. ‘He's been decked before. He's used to it. Just go away.'

It would've been exactly like Gabrielle, despite what had just happened, to try to form some kind of positive connection with Lucinda and, God help us, even with Eldon Flood himself. What motivated her to seize the opportunity to leave was, I soon realized, her need to vent her anger at Buck. The second we were in her Volvo and heading out of the parking lot, she said, ‘Have you ever wanted to strangle your father?'

‘Yes,' I said. ‘More often, I've wanted to muzzle him.'

‘What was he
thinking
?'

‘He wasn't. But where on earth did he get the idea that you have cancer?'

‘Oh, I can tell you that. He followed me. The nerve! Theodora, our dog trainer, is married to a doctor. Her husband has an office at their house. We see Theodora there because I was afraid that if we went to her training facility, Buck would find out. Hah!'

‘He had no business following you. Or us.'

‘Where did he get that van? I hope he didn't buy it.'

‘You know, once he thought that you had cancer, he must have been horribly worried.'

‘As if I wouldn't tell him! I am not an independent, stoical type. I didn't tell him about training Molly because he would have taken over.'

‘Yes. He would have.'

‘And I didn't tell him about the dermatologist because I was embarrassed. And ashamed. Ashamed of being so vain.'

‘You are not vain. Is it vain to get haircuts? Or, uh, touch up the color? You just wanted to look your best. And you wanted privacy. Recognizing people's need for privacy is not one of Buck's strong points.'

‘Because of dogs!' Gabrielle exclaimed. ‘He assumes that since dogs have very little need for privacy, no one else does, either.'

‘He does have his good points.'

‘At the moment I am having trouble remembering what they are,' Gabrielle said.

My father was outstandingly loyal, faithful, devoted, affectionate, gregarious, and playful, but I paused before answering in case I made him sound like a golden retriever. Eventually, I came up with a virtue that dogs don't possess. ‘Buck,' I said truthfully, ‘is very generous.' Of course, if dogs had bank accounts, they'd be generous, and in other ways, they are generous, but they don't have bank accounts, and I was desperate. Buck's marriage to Gabrielle was a godsend. If she became disenchanted with him, what would happen? On inspiration, I said, ‘He worships you. What's behind all this is his deep fear of losing you.' I borrowed that explanation from Rita, who was always attributing people's nasty moods and rotten behavior to a profound fear of loss. ‘He suffers from a profound fear of loss,' I said. In a way, he did. After my mother died, he fell into such a deep state of grief that he became more than a little odd. Or that's my view. Rita has her own opinions. But then Rita never knew my mother. Anyway, I didn't want to dwell aloud on Buck's prolonged mourning, particularly so soon after he'd eulogized my mother at someone else's funeral.

‘I really should have told him about the dermatologist,' Gabrielle said. ‘“What a tangled web we weave!”' She sighed before adding, a second later, ‘But I'm still not telling him about training Molly.'

‘No, don't tell him. You were right about that to begin with. With the best of intentions, he'd take over. It's your project. And Molly's. And eventually we can present it to him as a lovely surprise.'

‘A surprise! Yes. Exactly. And the day isn't a total loss. We've resolved the whole matter of the phone calls and the letter, and at least we don't have to worry about a menacing stranger following us in a dark van!' To my relief, she laughed.

‘But we left without our chicken pot pies,' I said. ‘And our blueberry pie. Not to mention the dwarf snapdragons.'

‘Oh, I hate dwarf snapdragons, and the dogs would have killed them, anyway.'

‘That's true,' I said. ‘And I'm not that crazy about chicken pot pie, either.'

‘So all we're really missing out on is one blueberry pie.'

‘We'll make our own,' Gabrielle said.

And we did.

TWENTY-FOUR

A
fter Gabrielle had gone to bed that night, I reached my father on his cell phone. I had mixed feelings about making the call. On the one hand, he'd had no business following us, and I certainly didn't approve of his having punched Eldon Flood in the jaw. On the other hand, I thought that Buck deserved to know some of what was going on.

‘What Gabrielle meant by
vanity
,' I told him, ‘is that she went to a dermatologist for laser treatment. She's spent a lot of time in the sun, and she wanted to get rid of—'

‘She's beautiful!' he boomed. ‘What did she want to do that for?'

‘She had brown spots and redness that she didn't like. Buck, people do it all the time. There's nothing wrong with it. And the reason she didn't tell you is that you'd tell her not to. I'm not even supposed to be discussing this with you, so please do not mention it to her. And don't you ever follow me again! Where did you get that van, anyway?'

‘Chet Smith.'

Chet was a foul-mouthed, hard-drinking old fishing buddy of Buck's who lived in Newburyport. I barely knew him because my mother didn't want him in the house, in part because he was obnoxious and in part because he never bathed. ‘Him,' I said. ‘Did you stay with him, too?'

Sounding insulted, Buck said, ‘Of course not. I got a room at a motel on Route 2. Gateway Inn.'

‘Five minutes from here.'

‘I got the idea I wouldn't be welcome,' he said.

‘Even if the alternative was stalking us? Speaking of which, how did this whole mess get started?'

‘I was worried she was . . . Gabrielle is a straightforward person. And all of a sudden, she started sneaking off. What was I going to think?'

‘Oh, Buck, really!'

‘And then when I saw her going to this doctor in Ellsworth, I was half relieved and half worried about her, of course.'

‘And you decided that whatever she had was so serious that she needed to see a Boston doctor.'

‘Nothing wrong with Maine doctors!'

‘And if she actually had been seriously ill and had wanted to come here to one of the big teaching hospitals, that's exactly what you'd have said.'

‘It's the truth.'

‘I am not having this argument with you. In fact, I'm not arguing with you at all. I just wanted you to know what Gabrielle meant. You must have been worried sick about her, and I wanted to make sure that you knew that she is perfectly healthy.'

‘She could've told me,' he said.

I pretended to be Rita. ‘Say that to her. Say exactly that. Once she's speaking to you again.'

We then turned to the topic of Eldon Flood. If I'd told Buck about my obscene phone call and the anonymous hate mail, he'd probably have returned to Flood Farm to sock the perpetrator in the gut. Consequently, I passed off the dispute as a minor matter concerning Flood's supposedly know-it-all attitude about growing perennials. Then I diverted Buck in the way that never fails: I switched the subject to dogs.

That night, curled up between Steve and Kimi, I prepared to descend into the oblivious sleep of the deeply relieved. I'd called Betty and Katrina, and I'd posted to our little local Malamute Rescue list, so I had the satisfaction of knowing that others, too, were rid of the worries that had plagued us. My father no longer had to deal with the fear that Gabrielle had cancer. She was still angry at him, and he was hurt and insulted that she'd failed to confide in him, but I felt optimistic that they'd resolve their differences. The presence of the dark van was no longer mysterious; the explanation for its pursuit of us was ludicrous but benign. Rowdy was asleep on the floor under the air conditioner. Steve was out cold. Kimi pressed her spine to mine. I blacked out.