Once We Had a Country (29 page)

Crossing the room, she bends to retrieve the pieces. When she touches the top half, she feels its cool surface on her skin, then the rough white line of the fracture.

“Doesn’t matter,” she says. “Doesn’t mean anything.”

As she picks it up, an object dislodges from inside. It drops through the air, takes a soft bounce on the floor, and comes to rest by the statue’s feet. At first Maggie registers only sheets of paper, greenish-grey, then the rubber band that holds them together. Finally they resolve into a thick wad of bills. She takes them in hand and thumbs through them. They all seem to be hundreds.

The telephone’s ringing from the kitchen. Maggie looks from the cracked torso in one hand to the roll of money in the other. Setting the statue down again, she turns, still holding the bills, and hurries out of the room to answer.

H
er last night at Gran’s, the night before the funeral, she’s already eager to be back on the farm. The house next door calls to her dolefully, but so far she has managed to avoid it, instead only looking through the boxes carried over by the auction people and choosing a few things to take with her. She doesn’t need physical reminders of him. She isn’t like Gran, who has framed photos of him everywhere now. All week Gran has kept referring to his martyrdom, talking about it like something to celebrate, not bothering to ask Maggie a single question about her life. It makes what Gran says over dessert all the more surprising.

“That Fletcher Morgan left you, didn’t he?”

Apple crumble lodges in Maggie’s throat. Gran doesn’t wait for her reply.

“It doesn’t matter. You stick it out up there. Show him what a woman can do.”

Maggie can’t believe what she’s hearing. Out of the blue, like a blast of grace, she has finally been granted the grandmother she always wanted. In her astonishment, she blurts out her plans to purchase the farm and work the place herself. Gran shocks her again by approving.

It doesn’t last. The next morning Gran is tetchy and caustic, back to her usual self, unable to stop talking about the miracle of her son’s death.

At the cemetery, fallen leaves rustle around the headstones while an American flag twists and snaps against the sky. Maggie stands with Gran and a few dozen others near the open grave, keeping her chin tucked low so the brim of her hat obscures her face. While the elderly priest speaks and Gran dabs away tears with a handkerchief, Maggie sneaks glances at those around her. Finally she spots Fletcher near the back in his trench coat. His hair has been cropped, and he’s reaching up to tug at a moustache no longer there.

The priest makes the sign of the cross. Soon most of the mourners disperse, but a few stay behind to converse in hushed voices. Maggie doesn’t speak much, just accepts the words of others. She’s remembering how her father used to call her Opie and announce his return from work by whistling the theme song from
The Andy Griffith Show
. She remembers the two of them pretending to be Topo Gigio and Ed Sullivan, Maggie saying to
him in a high-pitched voice, “Eddie, keesa me good night!”

Fletcher waits until everyone but she and Gran has gone before he draws near. He gives Maggie a tentative hug.

“You didn’t have to come,” she tells him. “I said that on the phone, right?”

Gran glares at him, then says she’ll see Maggie at Aunt Harriet’s and starts away. Once she’s gone, they begin to walk together across the grass.

“It was a nice funeral,” says Fletcher.

“It should have been weeks ago,” she replies. “There was a lot of red tape getting him back.” She grimaces at her own words. Her father isn’t back. He’ll never be back. “The Church has been making a big deal about him, you know. Reporters keep turning up at Gran’s doorstep.”

Fletcher says he heard about it on the news. He says it must be hard for Gran.

“Oh, she’s loving every minute,” Maggie replies. “She and the bishop are thick as thieves. Today she bent over backwards to avoid introducing me to him. She doesn’t want the hippie daughter spoiling things.”

Fletcher gives her a startled look, and she realizes she doesn’t sound like herself. She doesn’t care. He can’t expect her to be the same as always.

“Gran blames me for his death,” she says. “She thinks he wouldn’t have been so reckless if I’d written him like he wanted.”

“She said that?” asks Fletcher. “Don’t listen to her. She’s projecting, probably.”

They leave the grass and start along a path of crushed stones. After a few steps, he turns and asks if she’s still
going back to Canada tonight. “Long drive on your own. Maybe wait until tomorrow?”

She shakes her head. “If I have to stay at her place one more night, I’ll go insane.”

“You’ve been through a lot,” he says, and she wonders what he’s thinking of exactly. Then he asks, “Did you tell her about the pregnancy?”

Maggie cringes and pulls up short. “Phantom pregnancy, you mean.” She doesn’t want to talk about it. “No, I didn’t tell her. Why would I? There was nothing to tell.” A part of her still worries that he thinks she tried to trick him. She didn’t read the symptoms right, that’s all. The doctor said anyone could have made the mistake. She still hasn’t fully forgiven Lenka for mishearing what the secretary told her.

Fletcher reaches to put his hand on her shoulder, but she shies at his touch. “You’re a strange one,” she says. “Two months in Boston refusing to come back, only visiting that once after I found out he was dead”—Fletcher starts to object, but she cuts him off—“and then, without me asking, you drive all the way here for this.”

He keeps his eyes on the ground and doesn’t reply.

“You know, I prayed for McGovern to lose,” she finds herself saying. “Back in October, when I still thought we might work things out. I worried that if the Democrats got in, you’d take a job in Washington. I figured if Nixon was re-elected, you’d move back to the farm.”

Fletcher stops in the middle of the path, looking dazed. “Why are you telling me this now?”

She doesn’t know. It was the first thing that came to
mind, and the part of her that censors speech seems broken. She watches a man and woman in blue rain slickers pass by hand in hand, while a little boy wearing a baseball cap skips ahead.

“George Ray’s going home in ten days,” she says. This morning she promised herself she wouldn’t mention him. “The second extension on his contract is up. He’d have come down for this, but migrant workers aren’t allowed to cross the border.”

“You’re going to miss him,” says Fletcher. There’s an insinuation in his words that she chooses to ignore.

“He’s been a big help on the farm. Most days he’s the only person I see. Sometimes there’s Father Josef and Lenka. I go to their place for dinner.” Fletcher seems surprised. “Don’t look at me like that. You think I want to hang out with priests?” Then she adds, “It’s hard having a social life when everyone’s run out on you.”

Fletcher takes on a pained expression. From her pocket she produces a pack of cigarettes and lights one.

“You still stuck on your plan to buy the farm?” he asks.

“I told you I was serious, didn’t I? As soon as the lawyer gets Dad’s finances sorted out, I’ll know where I stand.” She has other means now too, but she isn’t about to mention them.

“And more Jamaicans in the spring?” he says. “You sure this is something you want to do?” She sets her mouth, stays silent. “I mean, I’ll make sure you get a fair deal, but it’s company property, I can’t just give it to you—”

“Don’t worry,” she says. “I promise not to make you look bad in front of your old man.”

His shoulders slump. “That isn’t what I meant. Don’t you think you should wait, at least? It hasn’t even been two months. You need time to mourn—”

“Fletcher, I don’t think you’re in a place to judge what I need.”

He hangs his head, and she takes a long drag on her cigarette, then flicks it away. A mist has settled on the cemetery lawn and it’s begun to drizzle, beading on the brim of her hat.

He points toward the gate leading to the street. “Walk with me to the car? I have something for you.” They move onto a paved walkway lined by thick elms with amputated limbs. Halfway to the gate, he stops and says, “Listen, Brid came with me.”

“She’s here?” Maggie turns back toward the burial site.

“Where—”

“Coffee shop a few blocks over. At the last second she decided it would be too much. She’s a wreck. Completely broke down last month.” His voice slows along with his pace. “She took pills.”

“Oh,” says Maggie.

“She spent three weeks in a sanatorium—how do they put it?—under observation.”

Maggie moves closer and takes his hand, pulls him to a halt and hugs him. “Why did no one tell me?”

“She didn’t want you to find out. You had the news about your dad to deal with.”

Holding him isn’t what Maggie expected. She hoped its familiarity would be a relief, but his body doesn’t feel right, doesn’t fit. She draws away and resumes walking toward the gate.

“Pauline’s been at her uncle’s,” he says, “and this week Brid stayed at my place. But lately—” There’s a hitch in his step. “Well, she’s got the idea that she should spend some time on the farm.”

“What, now?”

“She thinks you need looking after. I told her you wouldn’t want visitors, but when she’s got something into her head …”

They pass through the gate and onto the street, waiting to let a man go by with three spaniels straining against their leashes, leaping together like one animal.

“She’d be a handful,” says Fletcher. “If you don’t want her, you should just tell her no.”

Maggie tries to imagine Brid back at the farm and remembers her last night there, her fury, her glassy eyes.

“Fletcher, I’d take her, but it’s really not a good time.” Surely she can’t be the answer to Brid’s problems. There must be someone else. “What about Wale? Still no word from him?”

“Not since he left the farm. Don’t mention him to Brid, okay? To be honest, I thought the sanatorium was wrong to let her out, but somehow she convinced them she was doing better.” He pulls a set of keys from his pocket. “Will you come say hi, at least?”

Maggie looks at her watch. “I’m due at Aunt Harriet’s—”

“Just five minutes. Please?”

A little way down the sidewalk, he stops beside a silver Bentley. The dented, rusting camper van sits farther down the street, where she parked it. Opening the car’s trunk, he draws out a cardboard box. As he lifts it, there’s the
clang of metal against metal.

“Here,” he says. “The camera’s in there with the reels.” But she can’t bring herself to reach for them, and he has to press the box into her hands. “You don’t want them?”

“I don’t know. For a long time I did.” She rests the box on a hip, thinking of what’s inside. “You edited out—” Solemnly he nods, and Maggie has a terrible, cruel thought. “Hey, did you show it to Cybil? She might think it’s a turn-on.”

He only stares at her with pained eyes. “I told you, Cybil and I aren’t—”

“I know,” she says. “But sometimes I think it would be easier if you were.”

In their separate vehicles, they drive half a mile before pulling into a small parking lot with a row of storefronts. Brid sits on the other side of the coffee shop window reading a book. She isn’t wearing sunglasses or makeup, and her coat is draped around her shoulders like a blanket. With a wave, she greets them from behind the glass, then frets over a run in her stocking until they enter and she stands to give Maggie a long embrace.

They begin to talk with fragile smiles, and Maggie has a sense of growing distant from herself, observing the conversation from outside. At one point Brid starts up and runs for the bathroom, leaving Fletcher and Maggie to stare at one another across the table. Finally Maggie goes off in pursuit. A few minutes later she returns with Brid on her arm and nods to him. The coffee shop door jingles as they exit. From the trunk of the Bentley he retrieves a suitcase and loads it into the camper. He and Brid hug,
exchange a few words, hug again. Then Maggie and Brid get into the van and drive off.

The farmhouse at night. No crickets, moon, or stars. In Maggie’s bedroom, all is dark but for a line of light from the hall. A shadow disturbs it and the door swings open.

“You awake?” says George Ray. “I brought company.” He has Elliot over his shoulder. When he sets him down, the cat crosses the floor with headlight eyes and jumps onto the bed, starts purring, gently pummels her with his paws. George Ray remains at the threshold.

“You shouldn’t be here,” she whispers. “We agreed you’d stay in the barracks tonight.”

“Don’t worry, I came with great stealth.” He steps into the room and closes the door behind him. “Are you all right? You want to talk?”

“Later. God, I’ve missed you. Hurry, get into bed.”

He takes off his clothes and lies down next to her. At the edge of the mattress the cat grooms itself. George Ray touches her a long time between the legs until she squirms away.

“Enough,” she says. “Inside me.” He shakes his head.

“Why not?”

“I’m shy,” he replies, and she gives an unbelieving laugh. “No, not shy, but, you know—it’s a sad time for you …”