Safe from the Sea (23 page)

Olaf paused, clearly reveling in the memory of it all.

“Well, I know it didn’t end there. Something must have happened between then and, what, May? April?”

“We were already shipping that year. I had two days.”

“So?”

“So the next morning I’m walking back to my apartment from the diner on the corner and I get home and your mother is sitting on the stoop outside my building. I said, ‘I thought sailors were off limits.’ ”

“What did she say?”

“Said she changed her mind. Said she’d make an exception.”

“And she did.”

“The thing is I fell in love with her like a kid. Immediately. I was stupid in love with her. Your mother? I was practically an old man when we met and your mother was no spring chicken, not by the standards of those days. She fell in love with me, ended up with me anyway, because twenty-eight-year-old women weren’t single in Duluth back then.”

“I saw enough reason to the contrary to believe that. Mom loved you. Very much.”

“Not how I loved her.” He paused. “That day, that Sunday in March, right after I met her, she invited me out for a lemonade. Right then. We walked down to Wahl’s, sat at the counter, and sipped our lemonade from paper straws. She told me everything I’d ever need to know about her. Then she put me through the wringer. Where did I grow up? Did I miss Norway? Did I wish I still lived there? Why did I work the boats? Why wasn’t I married? What about girlfriends? Did I like my job? What about my parents? Did I love them? Did I want to have my own kids someday? A goddamn deposition.

“At the end of the afternoon I walked her home. I told her I had to leave the next day. I told her I wanted to see her again. We were
standing there on the porch of her parents’ house and you know what she said? She said come in, she said her parents were in Minneapolis.” He shook his old head slowly no. “I told her I had to go, that I had too much to do before the next day. That was hard.”

“You were smitten, just like that,” Noah said.

Olaf nodded.

“You’ve never struck me as the smitten type. You’ve always been pretty tough to crack.”

“Your mother never had any trouble cracking me.”

“Just the rest of us.”

“Solveig never had any trouble, either.”

“I guess not.”

“She was waiting for me when I got back. Like a bird, sitting on the stoop again when the cab dropped me off. She came up. We listened to the radio on the couch. Rosewater all over the place. I had no chance. None.”

“And from this you decided she was only in it for the husband?”

“Ah, what the hell do I know?”

“A lot more than I thought,” Noah said.

There was enough freight in the words that passed between them to require one of his father’s old ships, but Noah let it pass by way of fond memories. He recalled mornings from his early childhood when the three of them—father, mother, son—had luxuriated in their happiness. The feeling of security in the booming laughter of his father. The way he would wrestle Noah on the living room floor, the Duluth winter outside the big bay window little more than a backdrop for the times of his life.

“Of course a lot changed,” Olaf said, as if to check the mood. The tone of his father’s voice confirmed for Noah something he’d only ever suspected: that Olaf knew about his wife’s affair with Mr. Hember,
the insurance salesman who lived across the street. Noah had always accepted her indiscretion as the solace in her long, lonely days. Whatever pain it had caused his father, if he knew about it at all, well, Noah had chalked that up as his due. But now the perverse pleasure he had for so long taken in his mother’s infidelity was replaced with the shameful recognition that there was another side of the story. The fact that this knowledge was shared passed between them as though an unspoken accord had long ago been reached. They continued talking now as though they had discussed Phil Hember many times.

Noah looked at his father. “What did you expect her to do?” he said. “You set her up for a very lonely life.”

“It’s not all your mother’s fault, what happened. Phil Hember.”

Noah got up and poured his father another glass of water. He brought it to him. “Phil came along ten years after your boat sank. What happened in between?”

“What happened,” Olaf said, pausing to take a long drink of the water, “was life. She was pregnant with you pretty damn quick. We bought the house on High Street. You were born. Solveig was born. My boat sank. I sank. Your mother and I sank. Hember took over for me while I kept the Freighter and the Tallahassee in business. That’s the story. Here I am today.”

“A little simplistic, isn’t it?”

“No,” Olaf said.

“No cause and effect? No regrets?”

“There’s nothing but regret.”

For twenty-five years Noah had been scratching his head over it, trying to see all the angles, to measure his disdain in proportion to the events that formed it. “Mom was screwing the dope across the street. You were sopping up gin drops in those rat holes. And your kids were at home trying to figure it all out. That’s as complicated as it gets?”

The old man looked at him as if in slow motion. “Are you looking for answers? For explanations?”

“I don’t know what I’m looking for,” Noah said.

“Listen, Noah. I hated myself. It’s true I hated your mother, too, and I hated what our problems were doing to you kids. But your mother did take up with Phil.”

“Mom didn’t want Phil Hember. He was your fill-in, like you said. He was the cat in the yard while you disappeared.”

“I used to think he was queer. Living alone in that nice house with the lilac bushes. Sitting on his porch sipping tea.” He shook his head. “I used to lend that son of a bitch my toolbox.” He paused and shook his head again. “Anyway, what do you know about Phil? You were a kid.”

“I grew up pretty fast.”

“And you were an expert on marital relations?”

“I didn’t need to be. I saw her sitting in the living room window watching the harbor. I watched her in the hospital, holding on for one last look at you.”

Olaf put his chin on his chest. “She still shouldn’t have done what she did. I may have checked out, your mother may have wanted more, but she shouldn’t have done it the way she did.”

Olaf leaned forward. He picked the box of ashes from the table and held them on his lap. For ten minutes, maybe longer, he stared at the box while Noah stared at his father. The silence in the room was a tribute to sadness if nothing else. Finally Olaf set the box back on the table. He looked at Noah. When he spoke his voice cracked. “I’m very glad you love your mother so much. I’m glad you loved her through it all. I loved her myself.”

Noah looked at his father. He saw the age in the lines of his face. He saw the whiteness of his long beard. He saw him as a younger
man, as the father of a young child. Of two young children. “I love you, too.”

At this Olaf smiled. “Take care of those for me, okay?” He gestured toward the ashes.

“I will. Solveig and I will.”

“Good.” Olaf stood with much evident pain. Noah helped him. “I’m going to try and sleep in my bed for a little while.”

“Sure.” Noah helped him across the room. He helped him into bed and spread the quilt. “You want me to close the blinds?”

“No. Leave the blinds open. Maybe I won’t sleep so long.”

ELEVEN

Now passed an hour of sadness beyond words. Noah stood at the kitchen window staring into the yard. The wood was split and stacked. The ground had frozen during the last two days. It sat hard as bedrock under the brown grass. It would not thaw until April. There had never been a moment better made for reckoning, still Noah could not think past his heartache.

He watched as the clouds broke. He saw noon come. The draft from the kitchen window tempered the warm room. He ate the second half of the jar of herring. He knew he should call Solveig. Had a strong inclination to call his wife. He thought the sound of her voice might quell his grief, thought, in any case, it would help him through the afternoon. But he had made a promise to his father and he would not leave him again, come what might.

It was soon after lunch that he saw the truck driving down the hill. A red piano painted on the driver’s-side door. In the heaviness of the morning’s conversation Noah had forgotten about the piano tuner. The man stepped from his truck, an ox and a slob. His shirttails hung from behind his barn coat, his haunches filled it out. His boots were untied and what hair he had appeared greasy. His black pants
were flecked with something, paint perhaps. He took from the back of his truck a toolbox the size of a suitcase and carried it to the door. Noah met him, let him into the house, said hello.

“I almost forgot you were coming,” Noah said. “Any trouble finding the place?” “None at all.” He held his hand before him. “Gordy Nelsen.”

“I’m Noah.” They shook hands.

“Nice spot here. Quiet, peaceful.”

Noah raised an eyebrow, one of his father’s gestures. “That’s one way of looking at it.” “Here’s our culprit?” Gordy pointed at the piano sitting against the wall.

“It is.”

Gordy tapped a key. He tapped another. He opened the top of the piano, took a flashlight from his toolbox, shined it into the piano. “I’ve seen worse,” he said. “Though not much.” “Can it be fixed?”

He sat at the bench, put a foot on one of the pedals. He ran his fingers across the keyboard. “I can fix it, but God’s truth is, it ain’t worth it. For what it’d cost you could nearly have a new one.” “All I want is to be able to get a sound out of it. One that won’t hurt the ears.” Gordy was up and in the piano again. He had already pulled two strings from the guts of it. “It’ll take all day. I’ll have to replace a few strings. Realistically, the whole action needs to be replaced. I think I see a crack in the soundboard.” His head disappeared into the piano. It came back out. “There’s a crack. Not the end of the world but not good, either.” He got on one knee, looked at the pedals. “Is it an heirloom?”
“Something like that.”

“I can fix it. Check the action. Repair the pedal. I do all that and you’ll be able to play it. I can’t promise it’ll hold a tune for more than a minute or two. But I can do it. Heirlooms are heirlooms.” “Do whatever you can, okay?”

“Right.” He smiled.

“Sorry about the heat. My father’s sick, he needs it warm. He’s sleeping in there.” Noah gestured toward Olaf’s bedroom.

A look of genuine concern spread across Gordy’s face. “I can come back another time,” he offered.

“Oh, no. No. Thanks, but it’s not necessary. He probably won’t even know you’re here.” Gordy took off his sweater. Already his undershirt was wet with sweat. “This his place?” “Yeah.”

“Well, maybe a little music will make him feel better.”

“That’s the idea,” Noah said.

“You have any more light?”

“Not much,” Noah said, stepping from lamp to lamp and turning them both on. “How’s that?” “That’ll help.”

Gordy unscrewed the top of the piano and removed it. His big arms reached into the instrument. “This is going to be some job.” For two hours Gordy worked, pulling busted hammers and rusty strings from the piano, looking over his shoulder with a wrinkled brow and puckered lips as if he were a customer at a restaurant pulling a long black hair from his plate of spaghetti. He hummed while he worked and talked of all manner of things. He kept returning to the topic of the weather, specifically the snow that was on the way.

He assured Noah it would start that night. At one point he warned Noah to get the truck and car up on the county road. “If you don’t, you’ll be buried down here for the next five months.” Noah thanked him, and then asked, “Isn’t it early for so much snow?” Gordy took a break from his work. “We’ve had less snow the last few years, but we can still get walloped. They’re talking about one of those El Niño winters again. Warmer but wetter. I’ll make that trade every year.” “It’s been a long time since I’ve been here in the wintertime,” Noah said.

At this Gordy plied him with questions about Boston and Boston winters. He told Noah about the vacation he and his wife were finally taking to Florida, a place he’d seen only in brochures. He set back to work, still humming.

Noah got up to check on Olaf. He sat up in bed, his arms folded across his chest, his eyes open.

“How are you?” Noah whispered.

“I could use some water.”

“I’ll get a glass.” Noah stepped back into the kitchen and got one. He ground another round of pills and stirred them into the glass. He brought it back to his father. “The guy’s here fixing the piano,” he said.

Olaf nodded as he drank the water. He wiped his bottom lip with the sleeve of his turtleneck. He was out of breath from drinking. He closed his eyes.

“Are you sure you’re okay?”

“Chrissakes, I feel like hell.”

Noah sat on the edge of the bed. “And there’s nothing I can do?” “I think I’ll sleep again. Let me know when he’s done with the piano. Maybe I can come out to the great room.”
“I’ll do that.” Noah tucked his father in again. Took the empty glass back to the kitchen, rinsed it, filled it, and returned it to his father’s bedside table.

When he came back out Gordy was refilling his own water glass. “I hope you don’t mind.” “Of course not,” Noah said.

Gordy went to the window, looked up at the sky as if to gauge its intentions. “Sixty-one is a hell of a road in a blizzard, that I can tell you. Especially spots where the highway’s exposed to the lake. You can get some pretty deep drifts.” He ambled back to the piano.

Noah watched him work. He had by now examined the action and soundboard and decided to leave well enough alone, to simply replace the hammers and strings and hope for the best. This plan he passed by Noah. Noah agreed. He told Noah he could have it done in the next couple hours.

For all of his ambling around and small talk, Gordy worked quickly and with apparent precision. He never had to correct something he’d already fixed. Except for the sweat now soaking his shirt, he appeared completely at ease.

Noah sat on the couch watching him restring the piano.

“What did your father do that he could get away living up here?” “He worked on the ore boats,” Noah said. “This was his father’s place before him. My grandpa built it.” “Ore boats, huh? What did he do on them?”